I’m activated. How?
He felt the thick chains across his chest, waists, and legs, holding him to the table he lay on. He craned his neck, blue light blinding him.
Sparks screamed.
His chest was open. Cut open. Three black wires protruded from the wound, winding down his body and off the edge of the table. He wasn’t bleeding — at least he didn’t think so, his light made it almost impossible to see.
Another stab of pain ripped through his chest. Sparks thrashed wildly, howling, but the chains held him tight.
The pain lessened for a moment and he was able to think again. He was in a large room. The only light was his own and it wasn’t enough to illuminate the walls, so the only thing Sparks could see was… what the hell was that?
At the foot of his table, standing over a dozen feet tall and covered in wires, was a machine, the likes of which Sparks had never seen before. An unsettling, metallic buzzing emanated from it. Was that where the wires in his chest were going? What was—
The pain struck again. Blinding, crushing, total pain. Sparks screamed until his throat was raw.
Then he kept screaming.
37
Candle pointed at the scar running down his chest. “Electricity comes from us. Adrenalites.”
“Bullshit.”
“It hurts like a motherfucker, believe me.”
“It’s impossible.”
Candle scowled at Roman. “Are you an idiot? The power station we just came from, the one that supposedly connects the city to the wind farms, did it look like it was functioning? Just look at the state of it. Now that’s impossible.”
“That’s just…” Roman trailed off. Candle was right, there was no way that station was anything but a scrap yard of rusted metal. He realized the answer to why there hadn’t been any signs of a fight from Candle first taking over the station. “You’ve been living there ever since you escaped, haven’t you? It has always been abandoned.”
“It was the perfect hiding spot. Civilians never go there because they think the militia are guarding it, and the militia don’t bother with it since it’s nothing but a pile of junk.”
Roman ground his teeth, conflicted. “How can power come from you?” he asked, letting go of Candle and putting his gun away.
Candle shrugged. “I don’t understand it. Ashton was the one who maintained the machine.”
“Machine?”
“We all called it the metal bitch. Ashton had a bunch of different technical names for it; he always used that science jargon shit.”
“He built it?”
“Hell no. He understood it better than anyone, but even he could barely keep it running.”
“And it’s at the Security Ministry?”
Candle nodded. “Beneath it.”
“There’s nothing under—”
Shit. Of course there’s something down there. Roman had been beneath the ministry, just yesterday morning, and he had mocked the militia down there for guarding empty hallways. Except they weren’t empty. If I had just gone further… Well, he would have stopped me. Or tried to.
“No.” Roman shook his head, reminding himself how insane this was. “Why should I believe you?”
“Go see for yourself.”
“If Spencer didn’t build the machine, who did?”
Candle shrugged again. “Spencer wasn’t sure. I don’t think even Juliette knows.”
“It can’t have been there forever.”
“Spencer guessed it was made just after the Days of Fire, by the last generation of the Ancients, after the first Adrenalites appeared. He also said it could have been built before.”
“Adrenalites didn’t exist before the Days of Fire.”
“He had a theory that mankind destroyed the world because of the Adrenalites. That scientists experimented with radiation mutation and created the first Adrenalites.”
Roman frowned, thinking back over every history book he had read. Information about the days of fire was virtually impossible to find – not surprising, everyone died before they could document it. “There’s no way to be sure, is there?”
“All I know is that the machine exists and that being attached to it is fucking hell.”
“And that’s why you were destroying the fuse boxes at every place you attacked?”
Candle grinned. “A little message for Juliette. A reminder that when I come for her, I’m taking away her power. Literally. That machine needs to be destroyed, and this entire city will go back to using candlelight.”
Roman stood and turned to Ruby. She looked as confused as he felt. “When you were a militia, you didn’t know about this?” he asked.
She shook her head. “We were never told anything about the wind farms, or anything. We just assumed that everything was fine. But…” she paused, thinking. “Gavin had a strange theory. He talked about people disappearing at the Ministry, after they got close to Juliette.”
“They would be people who weren’t okay with what she’s doing,” Roman said, fitting the pieces together as he talked. “When she showed them, and they disagreed with her, she—”
“Most likely killed them,” Caleb growled through clenched teeth. “If she’s going to use Sparks for this… machine, then we’ve got to do something.”
“I know.” Roman turned back to Candle. “I’ve got two options for you: I can shoot you now, or you can help us kill Juliette.”
“Why would you want that? You work for her.”
“Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“She killed my friend.”
“Did you expect anything different from a woman like her?”
“Are you in or not?”
“Maybe.” Candle cocked his head sideways, looking up at Caleb. “You want to rescue the boy — what was his name, Sparks?”
Caleb nodded.
“And what are you going to do with the rest of the Adrenalites?”
“We’re not freeing them, if that’s what you wanted,” Roman said bluntly.
“Not all of them, just—”
“No way.” Roman shook his head. I’ve gone insane, but not that insane. “They’re rogues. They’ve each killed—”
“Of course they went rogue.” Candle snarled at Roman. “You bastards take us as kids, mark our skin, buy and sell us, then make us fight each other for your own shitty amusement. Then we fight back and you call us the monsters. You fucking hypocrite.”
Roman’s hand returned to his pistol. “Don’t play the victim. I’ve seen what you’ve done. There’s a reason why Adrenalites are—”
Candle leapt to his feet. “What I’ve done? You don’t know shit about me.”
Roman pointed the pistol at Candle’s chest, itching to shoot. “I know what your kind has done. How many people did you kill when you went rogue?”
“Only one. And he deserved it.”
“What did he do? Didn’t let you fight enough? I know that’s all you care—”
“No. He beat me. Every day.”
Roman opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. He closed it.
“Every single fucking day, for ten years,” Candle continued. “He said it was to make me tough. Well, it just made me hate the ugly fucker. So yeah, I’d say he deserved what he got.”
“I—” Roman suddenly felt ashamed. He could see the truth in Candle’s expression. He lowered his pistol. “I’m sorry.”
I’m apologizing to him?
“I don’t deny that most of the rogues locked up there are right bastards,” Candle said. “By now, they’re more animals than humans. But not all of them. There are five that I promised I would come back for.”