Roman seized Candle by the neck and pressed his pistol against the Adrenalite’s forehead. “Explain. Now.”
“She didn’t take me to wind farms. She doesn’t take any of us there.”
“Of course she does. Where else would—”
Roman froze. He suddenly knew. Reformation Square. There must be a reason Juliette keeps the ministries so well guarded, all the time. It’s not to protect her from attacks. It’s because that’s where she’s holding the rogues. But if that were true…
“Then who’s running the wind farms?” he demanded.
“Nobody.” Candle laughed bitterly. “Why would anyone be there? It’s just a bunch of big fucking turbines.”
“You’re lying. Where else would the electricity come from?”
“Why don’t you go and ask Juliette?”
“I’ll ask her, right before I kill her. If you want to live to see that, tell me everything.” Roman cocked back the hammer of his pistol. “Right. Fucking. Now.”
36
They reached Reformation Square.
Sparks twisted his neck to look up at the Security Ministry. The sunlight caught on the huge steel beams that supported it, blinding him. He imagined ripping those beams down and watching the whole damn tower collapse.
Patience, he told himself. Got to find a way to escape first.
He felt dizzy and nauseous. Whether it was from blood loss or being held upside down, he wasn’t sure. Probably both. It made it hard to think clearly. For the last couple of hours he had been trying to slip out of his bonds. So far, the only thing he had achieved was chafing his wrists raw. He kept trying anyway.
During the trip, Sparks had been swapped between different militia like a sack of grain. None of them had spoken, even to each other. At one point Sparks thought he saw a man crying, although he had been trying to hide it. Sparks wondered why, but then he looked around and saw how few militia were left compared to how many had set out. The man was mourning his friends. Sparks grinned. Served the bastards right.
He had counted six other captured Adrenalites. One of them — a young girl — began to thrash wildly as they approached the Security Ministry. A militia struck her in the back of the head with the flat of his axe. She went still. Sparks understood her terror all too well. I can’t go back there. No way. He redoubled his efforts to escape his bonds. A thin trail of blood ran down his arm as he wore through his skin, but the rope still refused to release him.
Raw fear flooded Sparks as the militia carrying him — a tall, beefy brute with a long machete — entered the Security Ministry. What were they going to do with him? Would they torture him as punishment for joining Candle? Maybe they would maim him before sending him to the wind farms.
Inside the ministry, the desks had been overturned and piled together to form barricades. Loose papers lay scattered over the floor. Behind the makeshift blockades, a dozen women armed with crossbows watched the militia enter. Sparks wondered what would have happened if he had chosen to come here instead of following the militia to the power station. If this was all the defence they had, he would have taken over the tower easily.
But without Sparks, Caleb would have been killed.
Maybe he had been anyway.
The militia carrying Adrenalites all moved to a pair of steel doors on the left side of the hall. The elevator. Sparks remembered it from his last visit, how wrong it had felt as it had risen. The doors opened with a metallic rattle and Sparks was carried inside.
The doors shut. The elevator began to move.
Downwards.
We’re going underground. Why? Sparks kept struggling to twist out of his bonds. More blood dripped from his wrists. That was good. The blood would act as lubricant.
The elevator’s doors opened to reveal a bare, dimly lit corridor. Sparks’ breath came in terrified gasps, muffled by his gag. There was something sinister about this place. Sparks’ caught the eye of another Adrenalite, a boy who looked a couple years older than him, and saw his own fear reflected back at him.
The hallway felt like it went on forever, then they turned left and followed another. It ended in a set of stairs.
A dull rumbling resonated up the stairwell.
For a moment Sparks stopped fighting his bonds, frozen by fear, then he doubled his efforts with newfound determination. Whatever was going on down there, he did not want to find out. He thought he felt the knot around his wrists loosen, just a little.
The rumbling grew louder as they descended. It was so deep Sparks felt it more than he heard it.
Then screaming. A woman. Echoing from below.
Sparks screamed into his gag as he forced his hands apart. Finally, his right hand slipped free.
The militia carrying Sparks halted. “Stop fucking moving you little—”
Sparks twisted his body around and grabbed the militia by the neck, digging into his fingers into the bastard’s windpipe. Gurgling curses, the militia dropped Sparks — and his machete —as his hands whipped to his throat.
Sparks fell, landing hard on his shoulder. He grabbed the fallen machete and cut the rope around his ankles. He leapt to his feet, darted between two militia reaching for him, and fled up the staircase.
His legs were stiff, but he threw himself up the stairs four at a time with reckless abandon. He had to get to the elevator.
A hand grabbed him by the shoulder. Sparks spun and swung the machete down between the militia’s neck and shoulder. The machete wedged itself into flesh and tore out of Sparks’ grip as the militia tumbled down the stairs, screaming. Sparks took off again.
Footsteps behind him. Quickly gaining. He reached the top of the stairs and sprinted down the hallway. Get to the elevator. Take it back up to the ground floor. Run past the militia and get outside. Hide. Never come back here. He turned the corner and saw the elevator doors ahead.
They opened. Three militia stepped out.
Fuck.
A door to Sparks’ right. He threw himself at it. It didn’t budge, and the handle refused to turn. The militia from the elevator charged forward. Cursing through his gag, Sparks moved onto the next door. He threw his shoulder against it and it burst open. He ducked under a lunge from the militia behind him and darted inside.
Now he was trapped. Sparks frantically looked around the room. A steel table stood in the centre, but it was bare. He turned to the shelves — they were covered in tiny knives. Sparks grabbed a small serrated blade.
A club smashed him in the back of the head.
He fell to the ground, vision going dark, knife falling from limp fingers. A boot kicked him in the gut, again, then to his face.
He couldn’t see. His skull felt full of shards of glass. It took all his effort just to raise his arm, then something heavy pinned it down and he couldn’t move at all. Stay conscious, he told himself. Don’t give up. They’ll have to kill me before I let them win.
His head spun. Everything was chaos. He was vaguely aware of being picked up, and someone shouting. Hot bile clawed up his throat. He heard a deep rumbling that gradually became a roar. A girl was screaming. Something was caught in his throat: a tooth. His tooth.
Everything faded to black.
Black. And silence. That was all Sparks knew for what felt like forever.
And then, suddenly, a pounding in his chest, wild and overpowering. His second heart, snapping him back to full consciousness.