by Caryn Lix
At last Gideon nodded thoughtfully and departed without a word of reassurance, slamming us into total darkness. He did free our hands before he left, the sole concession he made as he ignored my frantic questions and stormed out of the room. The only sounds were our breaths: mine harsh in my chest, Mia’s ragged with pain and, probably, anger.
“Mia,” I said at last, forcing the words through a constricted throat, “I’m sorry. I …”
Mia sighed. “Let’s stop apologizing to each other, all right? I don’t know what the right call was here, and that’s rare for me. My instinct says we should have kept our mouths shut. But then I think of Cage and Matt in the other room, and Lex, and …” Her voice trailed off. “Well, whatever the right thing was, this is what happened. We’ll have to deal with it, and hope the others are smart enough to spot an ambush.”
I sagged in relief. I’d been terrified of being trapped with a furious Mia determined to stoke the fires of my guilt. But she’d changed in the last few weeks too, I realized. She was still Mia: unpredictable and temperamental and violent. But she’d gentled a bit, relaxed into herself since we left Sanctuary. Alexei had mentioned she was mildly claustrophobic, that prison had been extra hard on her, and …
Claustrophobic. Oh God. “Are you okay in here?” I asked, trying to keep my voice mild.
Mia sighed. She didn’t even pretend not to know what I meant. “If I can handle climbing through the vents in Obsidian, I can handle a storeroom. The bigger problem is my foot.”
“Can I …” I choked off a laugh. “I was going to say take a look at it. I don’t know. Prod at it?”
“Why not? It can’t hurt much more than it already does.” There was a clatter as she let herself finally sag to the floor along the shelves, and I groped my way to her side, crouching at her feet. I reached out hesitantly until I found her leg and loosened the buckles on her boot, prying it off her foot. Mia sucked in a gasp of air but made no other protest.
“Tell me if I’m hurting you,” I cautioned. Because Mia wouldn’t. And the last thing I needed was to make her injury worse.
“That Gideon,” she remarked, almost conversationally. “He’s a piece of work, huh?”
I shuddered involuntarily. “And I thought Legion was bad.”
“Legion is a bunch of smug arrogant bastards. I think Gideon is actually out of his mind. Maybe he wasn’t before, but situations can break people, you know?”
Did I ever.
Was that what happened to my parents, I wondered? Once upon a time, would they have laid down their lives for me, for each other? Turned their backs on Omnistellar? Had passing years and a constant war of attrition decimated their spirits until only the Omnistellar soldier remained? And if it hadn’t been for Cage and the prison break, would the same thing have happened to me?
I ground my teeth. It wouldn’t happen, though, not to me, and not to my friends. No matter how many times we fell, I’d pull us to our feet.
And on that note … I ran my hands lightly over Mia’s flesh. She sucked in her breath when I reached the wound, and blood spilled over my hands. “Sorry,” I whispered. And then my questing fingers bumped something protruding from her flesh and she didn’t gasp, she screamed.
But I didn’t move because hope had surged inside me. This felt like some sort of projectile. Not a bullet, then, which meant … “I think I can remove this,” I said.
“Should you?” Somehow, Mia was not only conscious, but coherent. “Actually, never mind. I don’t care. I want it out.”
I nodded. We needed Mia as mobile as possible, which precluded weird darts in her feet. Besides, if we ever got our hands on some light, I wanted to see this thing. I prayed it was only a projectile and not something injecting toxins into her system.
“Hang on.” Mia rummaged around and then pressed something into my hands—the scarf she’d been wearing around her neck. “For the blood,” she sighed, sounding more resigned than scared.
Which was good, because I was plenty scared for both of us. I hated blood. If I was going to do something like this, I was very happy to be doing it in the dark.
A sudden memory intruded, and a totally inappropriate giggle escaped my lips. “Sorry.” I hastened to explain. “It’s just … this is the second time I’ve had to pull something out of you.”
“Don’t remind me,” Mia muttered. On Sanctuary, she’d been the first to encounter the alien creatures, and one of them broke a claw off in her side. Cage and I had worked together to remove it, even though I’d been on the verge of unconsciousness the whole time. I really wished I had him here now.
I drew a deep breath. No point delaying. Without warning her, because what good would it do, I grabbed the object and jerked with all my strength.
Mia cried out as it came free. I carefully set it aside and pressed the scarf against her foot, hoping it was doing a good job of stanching the blood. I kept the pressure steady as I wrapped the scarf around her and tied it as tightly as I dared.
“Let me see that thing,” she gasped.
I lifted the projectile and ran my fingers over it. It was sticky with Mia’s blood, but otherwise small, and I didn’t think it was a dart after all. “It almost feels like a tack,” I said dubiously. It had a long, wickedly sharp tip and a rounded blunt end.
Mia took it and must have examined it herself. “It’s like a projectile knife,” she remarked.
It actually was like a dart, I reflected, just like one you’d use to play games. Not a tranquilizer or anything. Or at least I didn’t think so. Who knew? “This place is so much like Earth, but we don’t have any weapons like this.” I’d gotten used to seeing the similarities. I wasn’t accustomed to the differences.
If Rune was right, if we’d somehow connected with this race, would that allow for these differences? Or did this point to another explanation? But what? We obviously weren’t on just any alien planet. The similarities couldn’t be ignored. But neither could the differences. I needed to get out of here, to talk to Rune, to … “Where are we?” I said out loud, wishing Rune were here to answer.
“You brought us here,” Mia pointed out, although she didn’t seem particularly angry.
I sighed and slumped beside her, close enough for our arms to touch. I wasn’t sure how she’d react, but in the darkness I craved any human contact, even hers. And she must have felt the same, because she didn’t recoil.
We sat together in the black, Mia breathing a little too steadily, like she was trying to control her pain and claustrophobia, me fighting a thousand different fears and imaginations. The darkness was too much like the alien ship, overwhelming me with horrifying memories, and with nothing to distract me, I was thinking about my parents again. My mom and dad, Omnistellar loyalists, gone now forever. I bit hard on my lip to keep my emotions under control. I’d lost so many people along the way. I wished I could do something, anything, to bring them back. But they were gone, and I only had one choice left: to keep my remaining friends safe and alive and strong.
“What were your parents like?” Mia said suddenly, as if she’d been reading my thoughts. “Before all this. I’ve always wondered what it must have been like growing up in a totalitarian corporate dictatorship.”
I snorted. “That actually describes Omnistellar pretty well … but not my family. The thing is, until you took me hostage, Omnistellar was simply part of our lives, and we didn’t think about the rules much. Things were … easy. Structured.”
“Did they love you?”
That caught me off guard. “I think so,” I said at last, the words dragging out of me like they were weighted, caught in my throat. “My dad, for sure. He was more cheerful. More friendly. My mom … she mostly seemed proud of me when I succeeded at the company. But she sometimes had this smile she …” My throat swelled, and I turned a sob into a cough. “I don’t know, Mia,” I said at last. “My dad might have been misguided, but he tried to save me. My mom didn’t even do that much. And it’s not like I can ask them about it.
”
I thought she nodded. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No. I don’t mind talking about them. It’s just … it’s hard, you know?”
“Tell me about it. At least you had parents. My dad is God knows where, and my mom hasn’t said a word to me since I was arrested. Even before, it was mostly drunken yelling.” She laughed sharply. “I assume she blames me for my sister’s death. Which is ironic, since she was the one unconscious on the couch when those thugs dragged Shannon out of the apartment.”
Mia’s life had been the exact opposite of mine, a life of poverty and theft and manipulation. “We all blame ourselves for the things that have happened,” I said at last, slowly, exploring the words as I spoke them. “Me for letting Omnistellar dupe me. For shooting Matt. For not convincing my dad to listen. You for your sister. For shooting my … my dad.”
“For a lot of things, Kenzie. You have no idea.”
“I don’t have to,” I said, the words gaining strength as they spilled out of me. I felt the rightness of them somehow. “Because I know you. I know who you are now, and I’ve seen you at your best and your worst. You’re better than you think, Mia. You’re my friend, whatever you think of me.”
“Oh, Kenzie, shut up,” she said in disgust. “Of course you’re my friend too.”
She could have slapped me and provoked less shock. There was no of course about it. Until recently, I’d been pretty sure Mia hated me. I had to resist the urge to hug her again. “Well,” I said wryly, “now that’s settled, so … what do you say we work on escaping?”
Mia chuckled, stronger, more like herself. “Now that sounds like a plan.”
FOURTEEN
“IF YOU HAVE AN IDEA, I’m all ears,” I said, sitting up a little straighter.
“My idea is named Eden. I think she knows Gideon’s lost it. Did you see the way she reacted to him? And she helped me on the way down here. If we can get her alone for even a second, we might be able to talk her around.”
I frowned, considering the idea. “I don’t know,” I said at last. “It’s one thing not to like the man’s tactics. It’s another to betray him for a bunch of strangers. And we still don’t really know anything about this place. They obviously have other people here.”
“Well, that’s plan B, anyway. Plan A is to search this damn room. Help me up.”
“Are you kidding?” I gaped at her in disbelief, even though I couldn’t see her and she couldn’t see me. “Mia, you’re hurt. You need to stay still, to rest, to—”
“What I need to do is get the hell out of here. Get me on my feet. Or do I have to do it myself?”
I shook my head. There was no point in arguing. Mia was used to getting her own way, and she would have it now, too. I stood and reached down, clasping her elbows and heaving her to her feet. Aside from a quick intake of breath, she made no complaint. “Where’s that dart thing?” I asked.
“In my pocket. I might be able to use it as a lockpick if we can find an exit.”
“All right. I’ll go left and you go right. Let’s start with the perimeter before we stumble around the middle of the room.”
As I inched to my left, feeling along the cold brick walls, searching for a window or an exit or who knew what, a wave of déjà vu assaulted me. I’d done the same thing on Omnistellar’s ship, searching the infirmary for a flashlight. Except then I’d been alone …
No. Not alone.
There’d been aliens in the room with me. Waiting. Breathing. Hunting.
At once I became convinced something was behind me, a presence, a darkness, a shadow. I spun, pressing my back to the wall, my heart hammering so loudly it threatened to overwhelm my senses. Get a grip, I snarled at myself furiously. There is nothing and no one in this room with you. No one but Mia. “I haven’t found anything yet,” I managed to say out loud. God, I needed to hear Mia’s voice, to know I wasn’t alone.
“Me either. Keep searching.”
My heart rate slowed. Just those four words. Mia was with me. I wasn’t alone.
I groped along the walls and found nothing but more cement. Soon Mia and I met up again, our hands brushing against the metal door. “This thing’s padlocked from the outside,” she said, rattling the handle. “I can’t pick a lock I can’t get my hands on.”
“That means we have to check the rest of the room, huh?” I shook my head. “What do you think we’re going to find?”
“I don’t know, but …” Her voice trailed off. I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, but then I heard it too: footsteps in the distance. “Hurry,” she whispered, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. We settled against the wall again, Mia grunting in pain as she put too much pressure on her foot.
There were a rattle and a clack, and then the door opened. Hardly any light spilled in, but it seemed like the force of the sun after total darkness, and I winced, throwing my arms up to protect my eyes.
After a moment I adjusted to the dimness and was able to properly observe the situation. It was Eden, carrying a lantern in one hand, a bag in another. There was someone else behind her with a gun drawn. “I’ll just be a minute,” she told him, entering the room and closing the door behind her.
We examined each other with mutual interest. Mia’s words kept echoing in my head. Could we work on Eden? Convince her to help us? “I brought you some food and water,” she said, tossing the bag in our direction. I noticed she was careful not to get too close. “There’s some first aid stuff in there too, and a lantern. I figured you might need it.”
“Thanks,” I said. Mia said nothing. She was letting me take the lead, presumably aware that diplomacy was not her strong suit. I wished Cage were here. He’d talk circles around Eden, probably have her cheerfully agreeing to defect in a matter of minutes. “What about our friends? Cage and Matt?”
“I took them some food and water too. They’re okay.”
I inspected her. Was she telling the truth? Could Gideon have hurt Cage? Could she be lying to gain my cooperation?
Or … was there a way I could tell?
Swallowing hard, while Mia and Eden talked in the background, I closed my eyes and reached for power.
I brushed past Eden, her floating ability soft swirls of pink and gray, past someone else in the corridor, a guard whose power I couldn’t know. Did I dare grab an unknown ability? No, I realized: Gideon knew what I could do, and he wasn’t stupid enough to leave someone guarding me if I could make use of their powers.
But Gideon himself … where was he?
I stretched further, not even sure what I was looking for, and then suddenly I had it: something solid and red and brown shot through with shimmers of white. I wrapped myself in it and my eyes flew open as I repeated my question, cutting off whatever Mia had been saying: “I want to hear you say it again, Eden. Cage and Matt. Are they okay?”
She quirked an eyebrow at me. Did she know what I was up to? But whether she did or not, she replied: “I told you, they’re fine. No one’s touched them.”
Her answer settled my stomach, gentle and reassuring. Truth.
“And …” I swallowed. “What about our other friends?”
“No sign of them yet.” She hesitated, then said, almost unwillingly, “Gideon’s thinking of taking the fight to them if they don’t show up soon.”
I examined her face in the shadows. She didn’t look much like Rita, but they really did have a similar accent, the same lilt to their voices. It made it easier to talk to her, somehow. And it didn’t hurt that I could tell she wasn’t lying, Gideon’s power hovering on the edges of my consciousness. I got the sense he was just in my range and I might lose his power any second. “We’re trying to survive, same as you.”
“We all prioritize our own survival.” She sighed. “And it’s not just my own. We have people here. Families. Children. There’s a whole little society, three or four dozen of us. And we’re running out of supplies. So I’m sorry if it seems like we were pillaging your take, but I wasn’t about to
watch a five-year-old girl starve.”
True. I thought of Anya, the child we’d left on Mars. Was she okay? Had the aliens attacked the planet? A wave of guilt washed over me. I’d barely even considered her since Obsidian. “I understand,” I said, and I did. “But we don’t have to do this. We can work together. We aren’t your enemies, Eden.”
“I can’t know that.”
“But you can.” I stared at her. Did she seriously not get this? “Gideon. He can ask us and he’d know if we lied, right?”
“Yes,” she said, but slowly, and Gideon’s power sent a tingle of warning down my spine. There was something more to it. Abruptly her eyes cut to Mia. “How are you? Doing okay?”
“Fantastic,” drawled Mia acerbically. “I guess I’m lucky your pal only shot me in the foot.”
“The thing is, you are.” Eden fiddled with the edge of her braid. “Gideon, he’s … he’s a good man.”
I waited for the answering buzz from Gideon’s power, but nothing came. I cursed inwardly. Gideon must have moved out of range, and he couldn’t have picked a worse time.
Of course, neither could Mia. “He’s insane,” she said bluntly.
Eden shot straight up, and I knew Mia had said the wrong thing. “He’s been through more than you can possibly imagine. He’s the only reason we’re all still alive, the only one who’s kept us going these last eight horrible years. Without him we’d all be dead.”
“I get it,” I said quickly, struggling to fix Mia’s mistake. “You owe him. I’ve been there. But he’s not the same now, is he? Things have changed.”
She hesitated again, but I got the sense she’d been wanting to say these things for a while. That maybe Mia and I seemed safe, since we were outsiders … or since we’d be dead soon, if she knew something we didn’t. “He’s been through a lot,” she repeated softly. “But you’re right. He’s changed. The old Gideon might have listened. This one … he’s …” She swallowed. “He’s lost his nerve. He thinks if he can keep everything controlled, keep us caged like animals in a zoo, we’ll be safe. He doesn’t understand that we’re going to run out of supplies sooner rather than later. If he has his way, we’ll all sit here in safety until we starve to death.”
