by Ann Denton
The President stood straighter and held out his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said. “I’m Stahl.”
Shit. Lowe forced his face to remain placid as he shook the man’s hand. Maybe it’s a warning. Is he telling me to shut up? He wants to keep on this damned mission? “Lowe,” he said, and added slowly, “Youngest Recruiter in Senebal.”
Stahl nodded formally. “Are you suggesting the Center has a leak?” His voice carried.
Tier and Fell stopped arguing nearby. They both hurried to the President’s side, their faces drawn—Fell’s with curiosity, Tier’s with worry.
“What’s this about a leak?” Fell asked quietly.
“Lowe here just expressed his concern to me that there may be a mole within the Center, feeding information to one of Troe. Or to one of his picture girls—Chiaras.”
Tier glared at Lowe and cleared his throat. “Our security is airtight, and everybody in this building has ten reasons to personally hate Erlenders. Nobody is giving anybody information. We would know.”
“Any reason you think this, Lowe?” Stahl cocked his head.
“Um,” Lowe stalled, scrambling. The President had to know he was talking about Stelle. Why is he doing this? Shit! To put me in my place? To kick me down for bringing up a secret mission.
Lowe struggled to explain himself in front of Fell. “The Erlenders … have never been this organized before. They’ve never managed four simultaneous attacks. Two, maybe. But four? It’s too much to be a coincidence. And we change routes and plans here often enough that it would be hard for them to pull off. Without …” he trailed off.
Stahl gave a thoughtful nod. “Fell?”
Fell scowled and took a long drink of water. “We’ve already seen a moral one-eighty in Blut.” She shrugged. “I’d say it’s possible. Though I don’t know where they’d be getting their information. Only a handful of people even knew that flour mill existed, let alone where it was.”
“People will already be in a panic about the attacks,” Tier argued, “inside the Center and out. Do we really want to put the notion of a leak in their heads?”
“If there is one? Yes,” Fell replied.
President Stahl gave them both cursory nods then turned his attention back to Lowe. His expression hewn from stone. “And what does our young Recruiter think we should do?”
Is he asking about the mission? “Plug the leak,” Lowe said. “Stop the source. It isn’t …” worth it, he finished silently, realizing almost too late how that would sound. “worth it to keep it quiet. Not if these are the consequences.”
The President nodded. “And what would you do about the children and the stolen lumber, flour, boats? And the public outcry, once everyone knows sick children were murdered in their beds?”
The ice in Stahl’s voice sent a chill through Lowe, a wintry cold snapped at his bones. “Assassination.” Stelle, he thought. Damnit. Is he trying to say we have to move forward? “Kill Troe.”
“Assassination?” Stahl raised an eyebrow. “Would you consider that a measured response?”
“Five civilians and three Kreis are dead at the first three sites, sir,” said Lowe. “And a massacre at the hospital.”
“Indeed,” said the President. “Assassination,” he repeated, tasting the word as if it were a fine liquor on his tongue. He nodded. “Yes.”
“Tier,” Stahl turned to the Ancient. “I want five separate methods of assassinating Troe on my desk by Monday. No, not Monday—tomorrow.” He grinned around at the three of them. “Desperation breeds creativity, or so I’m told.” With that, President Stahl left the meeting room.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“What the mucking hell was that?” Tier slammed the door to his quarters so hard the walls shook.
Lowe stood facing the main desk, waiting patiently for Tier to take his seat.
Instead of sitting, Tier stood, leaning over the desk. His eyes were glazed with fury. “Were you trying to muck everything up?”
“No sir.”
He waited out Tier’s spew of profanity over his incompetence, his idiocy.
When the Ancient finally looked ready to listen, Lowe began: “I tried to find you earlier, sir. I think we should terminate the mission with Stelle.”
The Ancient stared at him a moment in disbelief. “Really? Why is that?”
“She actually believes she can see the future.”
“Who mucking cares what she believes?”
“She’s not right in the head.”
“Sludge. Who cares?”
“She’s a liability.”
“No, you’re a liability—trying to buddy up to the President and announce our plans to the Deadwater-damned universe!” Tier slammed a fist onto the desk.
“She’s—”
“She’s in with his mucking cousin. She’s just made two predictions come true an hour ago. If you don’t think that will catch his eye, you’re a damned fool. She’s this mucking close!” Tier pinched two fingers together.
“But she believes.”
“So do half the idiots in the damn kitchen. Ever seen the amulets they glue to the underside of the tables? I don’t care what she believes; I care what she does. She wants to kill Troe. We want to kill Troe. Ergo, we work together.”
“But how can you be sure that’s what she wants?”
Tier clenched his fists. Lowe was pretty sure he was one question away from being punched in the face.
“Your job is to trust me. My job is to strategize. My job is to figure out whom to trust and when to trust them, how much to trust them.” Tier closed his eyes and fought for calm. When he opened them, he stared right at Lowe. “Right now, the person I’m having trouble trusting is you.”
Lowe bit his lip. He glanced down.
“Did I make a mistake trusting you, Lowe?”
“No, sir.”
“This mission moves forward.”
“Yes.”
There was a long, drawn-out pause. “Dismissed.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The stars winked at one another, flirting and flitting across the sky; they were unaware of or indifferent to the countless dead Senebals below.
Lowe lay on the floating walkway outside his hut, watching the stars, thinking, and trying desperately not to.
There was a splash to his left, and Mala pulled herself out of the water onto the platform. She wrung out her hand with her hands and smiled at him, but she looked troubled.
“Hey you,” she threw her wet hair over her shoulder. The water on her skin gleamed in the dying light.
“You’re gonna get sick. That water is an ice slurry.”
Mala shrugged. “Then I won’t have to go to combat practice.”
Lowe opened his mouth to protest. But Verrukter was going to retire. So would he really care? Lowe gave a shrug. “Go get my cloak on, anyway.”
Mala ducked into his hut. She emerged a minute later wearing Lowe’s cloak and his spare wetsuit. It bulged around her middle. He laughed, sitting up and poking at it.
“This looks good on you.”
She swatted his hand. Then held it. She sat down next to him. “You look like hell.”
Lowe chuckled. “I feel like hell.”
“I heard there was an attack.”
Lowe nodded slowly. The four attacks were technically classified, but damn near everyone in the Center knew the gist of what had happened. “Yeah. There was.”
“And the President was here?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t happy.”
“I can imagine.” She pulled one knee to her chest and rested her chin on it. “How bad was it?”
“Bad. Really bad.” He took a deep breath through his nose. “Any new bruises?” he asked, desperate for a change in subject. He reached out and touched her hair, pushing it back behind her ear.
“A few.” Mala pulled down the suit to reveal a dark purple splotch on her shoulder. Lowe winced.
“Ouch,” he said.
“Yo
u should see the other guy,” Mala joked, dropping her hand.
“Verrukter?”
“Ein, actually” she replied bitterly.
“What’d he do now?” Lowe tried to make the question a joke, but it came out accusing and angry.
“Kissed me again in training,” Mala shuddered.
Lowe swallowed the envy prickling in his throat. Don’t be stupid, he thought. “Can you control your melts yet? On your own, I mean.”
Mala shook her head. “No. Not even close.” She sighed. “I wish it was you, Lowe. Not Ein. You know that, right?”
Lowe grimaced. That was a dangerous wish. It was one he shared, and he knew it was going to get them into trouble at some point. His feelings for Mala had already caused conflicts of interest.
“Mala … connecting to any one person is dangerous. Even Ein.” Even me, he thought, or he tried to think, but he was caught up in color of her hair. For a moment, the only thing he could think about was how she smelled, and how badly he wanted to be closer to her. He forced himself to stay put.
“You included?” Mala asked, reading his thoughts. “Are you warning me away from you or something?”
“That’s exactly what I should be doing,” he sighed. “You’re Kreis. Your emotions are dangerous, more volatile than you realize. Getting attached to me would be … unwise.”
She raised an eyebrow. Then, defiantly, she planted herself in his lap.
He laughed. He wrapped his arms around her waist and gave a squeeze. “What happened to hating me, misanthrope?”
She shrugged and leaned forward until their foreheads touched. “I guess you’ve grown on me.”
He soaked up the moment. But he couldn’t hold back his advice.
“You need to get control, though,” he reiterated. “Push yourself and your emotions as far as you can go. Push yourself until you’re on the verge of breaking, until you’re ready to explode.”
“I’m trying,” she huffed.
“I know,” he leaned closer to her. “But you can’t drag Ein with you on a mission. He’s a liability.”
For you. For us. He didn’t voice those thoughts.
They didn’t move—neither of them wanted to melt—but they lingered, a hair’s breadth apart.
Finally, Mala pulled back. “I found something you need to see.” She uncurled her fingers and pushed something into his hand, something small and gold.
“It’s a marker necklace. Blut had one on him when he died.”
Lowe held up the necklace, squinting at it. Small, square, with X’s stamped around its edges.
He searched his memory.
“It was a dare,” Blut said, scoffing when Lowe suggested he remove the necklace. “Klaren said wearing this made me a target. It’s how Erlenders used to mark people out.” Blut had chuckled and kissed the little charm. “Now it’s my lucky charm.”
Blut had then walloped him on the mats, proving that a little necklace did not impair his hand-to-hand combat abilities.
When Lowe had pounded the mat in submission, Blut had leaned over him, offering his first piece of wisdom. “Dare death. Look him square in the eye and tell him to go muck himself. Nothing will make you feel more alive.”
“I think Blut was searching for someone on the island,” continued Mala. “Sari was wearing one of these.”
“She may have just found it,” Lowe suggested, turning the necklace over in his hand. “Erlenders haven’t used anything like this in decades.”
“But Blut went after her,” Mala said. “Lowe, he kissed her. He cut her. And kissed her.”
Lowe looked at her in horror.
“He was testing her to see if she was Kreis.”
“To see …” Lowe trailed off. His heart stilled. “Mala,” he said slowly. “If that’s true …”
Mala nodded. “He went to Bara’s guard looking for Kreis. Like you. I think he was recruiting.”
Lowe shook his head, closing his fist around the marker. “But the next day, he came after me at Sonne Pointe. If he was hunting for his own Kreis, what did he want with me?”
Mala didn’t skip a beat. Apparently, she’d been thinking long and hard about this. “Either to stop you from recruiting, or because he saw me melt. He could have been after me, not you.”
Lowe’s brow furrowed. “Why would he be recruiting?”
Mala shrugged. “Maybe he told the Erlenders about Kreis and they want some secret agents of their own.”
Lowe stared into the black water, thinking. Six missing Kreis, Tier had said. Missing, not dead. But the hospital. The massacre … His brain pulled up image after image again, working faster than his conscious mind could. Most Kreis were recruited in adolescence. But how would they know without a test?
Lowe looked at the marker in his hand, the burnished gold made dark green by starlight. And he knew what he had to do.
“Thank you,” he said softly, covering Mala’s eyes with one hand. He kissed her once, gently. But his pent-up passion and envy and desire and frustration spilled out into the kiss. She responded, leaning into him, returning the passion and heat. He ran his hands down her side and pulled her close against him.
Lowe broke the kiss and kept his eyes closed to avoid a meltdown. He pulled Mala to her feet. Then he turned and walked off into the dark without another word, fingers tracing the golden charm in his hand.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Lowe entered the Communications Department, walking with a purpose. The halls of the Center were mostly deserted, and his footsteps echoed behind him. Silence swam around his fear, magnifying it.
He felt sick to his stomach. He hoped Mala was wrong. He hoped he was wrong, but if he wasn’t—if the Erlenders had found some way to identify Kreis, this war was about to take an ugly turn. Today’s quadruple attack was only the beginning.
Father mucking hell.
The radio room in the Communications Department was a large rectangular room filled with all the old tech that had survived the bomb. Computers, headsets, children’s walkie talkies, even baby monitors had been conscripted.
A table marked “to be repaired” was piled high with the fractions of broken machines that could be salvaged. Half a hodgepodge radio was sitting there idly its insides whirring and glinting in the yellow florescent light.
Dez was half asleep when he burst into her cubicle. She jumped at the noise.
“Mucking hell, man, don’t scare me like … Lowe?” she yelped, her irritation morphing into concern when she saw his expression. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Lowe forced his face to relax. “I need you to look something up for me.”
Dez sat up straight. “Sure. What do you need?”
“What comms are in about the attack on the hospital?” he asked.
Dez nodded and pulled a bin up next to her monitor. “Someone dropped off the security footage tapes an hour ago. Haven’t had time to inventory ‘em yet.”
“Is anyone on site?” Lowe asked.
She nodded. “Boat took Verrukter out a few hours ago. He should be there now.”
Lowe nodded, mostly to himself.
“Here.” Dez grabbed a cd and stuck it into a player. The screen flickered to life, showing a video feed of the main entrance to the hospital. The front doors were propped open with boulders. Erlenders herded children slowly out the door. Some kids stumbled and were dragged back to their feet. Kids who couldn’t walk were put in wheelchairs, other kids forced to push them forward.
“Sludge,” Dez said, shaking her head. “Those poor kids. Got no idea what they’re in for.”
“Follow them outside,” said Lowe, trying not to linger too long on any one face.
Dez clicked, and the scene changed, shifting to a camera view of the outside of the building. The line of children stretched out beyond the ancient parking lot to a cliff overlooking a corrupted lake.
Dez frowned. “They’re not … going to the river. Where the muck are they going?”
Lowe’s stomach d
ropped. “Is there a camera closer to the cliff?”
“I think so. Hang on … here.”
The view changed again, and now they were looking out over the heads of a crowd of frightened children facing the lake. The Erlenders edged them forward in a mass of tears, elbows, and snotty noses. One child clung to the battered remains of a small teddy bear, silent tears streaming down his face when he tripped, and the bear was trampled.
A single tree stood on the edge of the cliff, a tattered orange flag tied around its trunk, fluttering meekly in the breeze.
“What the mucking …” Dez leaned closer to the monitor.
A tall Erlender stepped forward out of the blue-nosed crowd, a man with a thick neck and unforgiving eyes. He glowered at the children, beating the butt of his spear against the ground as he walked, making the children flinch and cry out. He grabbed the child who’d held the teddy bear. He held a knife toward the little boy. He slowly drew the knife across the boy’s cheek.
Dez gasped. Lowe just stared harder at the screen, his heart pounding. That’s part one …
The tall Erlender turned toward the camera—a General, he had the line of dots under his right eye; he muttered something, gesturing at the cliff. Lowe couldn’t read his lips, he was turned too far from the camera, but the little boy seemed to understand. His eyes went wide.
The General poked his chest with a spear. The boy stumbled but caught himself. He looked at the General, held up his bloody hands … and nodded.
He turned and jumped off the cliff.
“What?” Dez shrieked. “Lowe, did you see that?”
“Yeah.” Where’s the kiss? Why? Why do that?
“Why would they …? I don’t get it, if they’re going to kill them, why take them out here?”
“I don’t know,” Lowe whispered.
The video trudged forward. One by one, the hospital children were herded to the edge of the cliff and told to jump or die. Most jumped. Those that didn’t were impaled on long Erlender spears and thrown aside like sour fish.
“What the mucking sludge?” Dez wrinkled her face in disgust.
