“We’ll go get Darke,” I said, “and meet up with everyone at Twelve when this is over.”
No one questioned my directions. Raine flew away with Saffediene, and I turned my attention to the guards nearest me. “Stop this,” I said, employing my most powerful voice. “Go home.” They flew away without a second thought. Thane smiled grimly at me, but I felt no satisfaction.
“Vi,” I said. “Do what you need to do.” I didn’t look at her. “Zenn, keep her safe.”
I watched Vi and Zenn zoom away, desperately hoping that wasn’t my final good-bye with the girl I loved.
Thane and I flew into the fray, and I used my voice at every opportunity. Thane did too. We’d managed to ground a dozen enemies in just a few minutes. Someone above me dropped his taser, and it discharged against my board. Waves of techtricity streamed through me and my board, causing my back to arch and my board to stall.
Again I saw Laurel falling through empty space, but this time my face replaced hers.
I clenched my teeth against the pain but could do nothing as my board fell. I landed on something hard. Someone kicked away my useless board. When I opened my eyes, I was looking straight at Thane Myers.
He’d saved me. Again.
“Thank you,” I breathed out, my heart still pounding hard with the fear of free-falling. “Can we fly double on this thing?” I eyed his standard-issue board.
“We have no choice,” he replied. “I’ll navigate. You order people around.”
Thane was a good flier. He maneuvered us through streams of guards, and I commanded hoverboards to quit, leaving Darke’s clones stranded in the air.
The Citizens of Freedom then tased, bound, and took the prisoners to the camps Irvine had set up near the orchards.
I told people to go to sleep. I told them to go home. I told them to join our side. I said whatever felt right at the moment.
It seemed like Thane flew forever, from one end of the city to the other, again and again. And still there were guards and clones to command.
On the third trip north, Thane brought his board to a full stop. Darke stood in front of us, his hoverboard humming with energy. He folded his arms and regarded the two of us.
I stood in front of Thane, anger burning through my body. Thane put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Patience.”
I didn’t have much of that. Thane had been fighting from the inside for twenty years. He had untold stores of patience.
“Leave,” I said. “Leave now, and we won’t kill you.”
Darke threw his head back and laughed. I fingered the tech along my belt, wondering if any of it would kill him. I fought against the urge to throw everything I had at him.
With the last of his laughter hanging in the air, I plucked a tech grenade from my belt and launched it toward him. He raised both hands and shoved them toward me.
The tech grenade reversed direction and landed between me and Thane on our hoverboard. Thane kicked it away, and it exploded in the air. The surge of energy forced us upward, and I dropped to a crouched position so I wouldn’t fall again.
“That was not patience,” Thane said. “Let him make the first move.”
We hovered above Darke in the sky now. “Nice try,” he said, ascending to our level. “Did you really think I’d let you overthrow my Association with a few tech grenades?” He drew closer and closer. “Did you really think I’d return unassisted?”
“Your clone-guards are almost defeated,” I said, gesturing to the almost-quiet sky. “We’ve nearly got them contained now.”
Malice glinted in his dark eyes. “All of them?”
Sudden fear struck me, struck me hard. Darke touched his temple. “One thought, and I’ll have another five thousand clones here in under five minutes.”
I didn’t detect any deceit. He really had more clones.
Before I could respond, a cheer rose up from the crowd. It sounded wild and free, and I knew my Resistance had won.
“I’ve instructed them to regroup at Rise Twelve,” Thane murmured in my ear.
I nodded slightly, glad one of us had a cache to keep in contact with the group. Rise Twelve would be the best place for our troops if Darke was rallying for another attack.
No one seemed to want to make the first move. I exercised my patience, and waited for Darke to act. With his personal tech security systems on, my voice wouldn’t do much. My tech gadgets could be used against me. So I waited,
waited,
waited.
The pressure in my chest pinched tighter and tighter with every second. I opened my mouth and screamed in an attempt to release the pressure inside.
The hoverboard under my feet lurched. I stepped back to regain my balance, expecting to bump into Thane.
But he wasn’t there.
He was flying through the air, straight toward Darke, his hands outstretched. Thane hit Darke full force, clenching his hands around Darke’s throat. Together, they landed on Darke’s hoverboard, which shimmied and started to tip sideways.
My fingers fumbled along my belt, desperate to find something that would incapacitate Darke, but leave Thane unharmed.
The two tangled together, wrestling against one another. “Jag!” Thane yelled. “Jag, now!”
I struggled for a solution, but I seemed frozen. Everything happened so fast, and their hoverboard tilted and tipped, yet they stayed on.
“Jag!” Thane screamed.
Jag, Jag, Jag, Jagjagjag! My name sliced through the night.
My fingers closed around a spherical object. Darke threw a punch. Thane’s head snapped back, and he slid from the hoverboard as I launched the grenade.
The resulting explosion filled the sky with bright yellow light that illuminated Thane’s slack face as he fell into the depths of the night.
Zenn
56.
“Tell me about my dad,” I demanded as soon as we flew away from Jag. “Vi, tell me.”
She looked me straight in the face. “He died in Rancho Port—helping Jag to escape.”
The air left my lungs. Dead. My father was dead. Part of me died with her words. “When?” Though it didn’t really matter, I needed to know.
“A few days before they brought Jag to Freedom,” she said. “About six weeks ago.”
Just over a month. One month. Shame filled me. I should’ve looked for him. I’d had the resources in Freedom. I’d had the leeway. But I didn’t. I was afraid of finding him, afraid of that familiar pride I’d find in his eyes for the things I’d done, afraid of telling him about the mistakes I’d made.
I flew as if in a fog. I spoke without thought. The battle raged around us, despite my voice-controlling clone after clone to descend to the ground and freeze. Despite Vi’s mind control and the line of guards she sent to the camps, where they’d be detained.
“Zenn, it’s not enough,” Vi said, and her voice shook with frustration. “I have to do something different.”
She stepped from her board to mine, lacing her arms around my waist. I instantly snapped out of the my-father-is-dead haze. I looked down at her, and found the fear in her eyes so unsettling.
She’d looked at me this way before. When we’d snuck to the Abandoned Area. When Ty had disappeared. When I’d told her I was leaving for the Special Forces. We’d been there for each other for years, through fear and loss and heartache.
“I love you,” I said before I could stop myself.
“I love you too,” she said. “Please stay with me. Don’t drop me.”
I didn’t understand what she meant until her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped against me. The guard flying toward us suddenly jerked, climbing above us on his hoverboard. He smiled coldly at me before he started firing on the three officers that were flying with him.