“I’m Golden.” Holiday grunts, lifting herself up. The chest piece has a fist-sized dent in the center. “Pixie can hit,” Holiday says, admiring the dent. “This armor is supposed to handle rail rounds.”
“Julii genetics,” Trigg mutters. He hoists Victra up on his shoulders and follows Holiday back out into the hall as she snaps at me to hurry after them. We leave Vixus belly-down in the cell. Alive, as I promised.
“We’ll find you,” he says, sitting up as I go to shut the door. “You know we will. Tell little Sevro we’re coming. One Barca down. One to go.”
“What did you say?” I ask.
I step suddenly back into the cell and his eyes light with fear. The same fear Lea must have felt those many years ago when I hid in the dark while Antonia and Vixus tortured her to lure me out. He laughed as her blood soaked into the moss. And as my friends died in the garden. He would have me spare him now so he could kill again later. Evil feeds on mercy.
My razor slithers into a slingBlade.
“Please,” he begs now, thin lips trembling so that I see the boy in him too as he realizes he made a mistake. Someone somewhere still loves him. Remembers him as a mischievous child or asleep in a crib. If only he had stayed that child. If only we all had. “Have a heart. Darrow, you’re no murderer. You’re no Titus.”
The heartbeat sound of the room deepens. White light silhouetting him.
He wants pity.
My pity was lost in the darkness.
The heroes of Red songs have mercy, honor. They let men live, as I let the Jackal live, so they can remain untarnished by sin. Let the villain be the evil one. Let him wear black and try to stab me as I turn my back, so I can wheel about and kill him, giving satisfaction without guilt. But this is no song. This is war.
“Darrow…”
“I need you to send a message to the Jackal.”
I slash open Vixus’s throat. And as he slumps to the ground pulsing out his life, I know he is afraid because nothing waits for him on the other side. He gurgles. Whimpers before he dies. And I feel nothing.
Beyond the heartbeat of the room, alarm sirens begin to wail.
“Shit,” Holiday says. “I told you we didn’t have time.”
“We’re fine,” Trigg says.
We’re together in the elevator. Victra on the floor. Trigg, helping her into his black rain gear to give her a semblance of decency. My knuckles are white. Vixus’s blood trickles over the inscribed image of children playing in the tunnels. It drips over my parents and stains Eo’s hair red before I wipe it from the blade with my prisoner jumpsuit. I forgot how easy it is to take a life.
“Live for yourself, die alone,” Trigg says quietly. “You think with all those brains, they’d have sense enough not to be such assholes.” He looks over at me, brushing hair from flinty eyes. “Sorry to be a prick, sir. Y’know, if he was a friend…”
“Friend?” I shake my head. “He had no friends.”
I bend down to brush Victra’s hair from her face. She sleeps peacefully against the wall. Cheeks carved out from hunger. Lips thin and sad. There’s a dramatic beauty to her features even now. I wonder what they did to her. The poor woman, always so strong, so brash, but always to cover the kindness inside. I wonder if any is left.
“Are you prime?” Trigg asks. I don’t respond. “Was she your girl?”
“No,” I say. I touch the beard that’s grown on my face. I hate how it scratches and stinks. I wish Danto had shaved it off as well. “I’m not prime.”
I don’t feel hope. I don’t feel love.
Not as I look at what they did to Victra, to me.
It’s the hate that rides.
Hate too for what I’ve become. I feel Trigg’s eyes. Know he’s disappointed. He wanted the Reaper. And I’m just a withered husk of a man. I run my fingers against my cage of ribs. So many slender little things. I promised these Grays too much. I promised everyone too much, especially Victra. She was true to me. What was I to her but another person who wanted to use her? Another person her mother trained her to be prepared against.
“You know what we need?” Trigg asks.
I look up at him intensely. “Justice?”
“A cold beer.”
A laugh explodes out of my mouth. Too loud. Scaring me.
“Shit,” Holiday murmurs, hands flying over the controls. “Shit. Shit. Shit…”
“What?” I ask.
We’re stuck between the 24th and 25th. She punches buttons but suddenly the lift jerks upward. “They’ve overridden the controls. We’re not going to make it to the hangar. They’re redirecting us….” She lets out a long breath as she looks up at me. “To the first level. Shit. Shit. Shit. They’ll be waiting with lurchers, maybe Obsidians…maybe Golds.” She pauses. “They know you’re in here.”
I fight back the despair that rushes up from my belly. I won’t go back. Whatever happens. I’ll kill Victra, kill myself before I let them take us.
Trigg is hunched over his sister. “Can you hack the system?”
“When the hell do you think I learned how to do that?”
“I wish Ephraim was here. He could.”
“Well, I’m not Ephraim.”
“What about climbing out?”
“If you want to be a skid mark.”
“Guess that leaves one option. Eh?” He reaches into his pocket. “Plan C.”
“I hate Plan C.”
“Yeah, well. Time to embrace the suck, babydoll. Unpack the heathen.
“What’s Plan C?” I ask quietly.
“Escalation.” Trigg activates his comlink. Codes flash over his screen as he connects to a secure frequency. “Outrider to Wrathbone, do you register? Outrider to—”
“Wrathbone registers,” a ghostly voice echoes. “Request clearance code Echo. Over.”
Trigg references his datapad. “13439283. Over.”
“Code is green.”
“We need secondary extraction in five. Got the princess plus one at stage two.”
There’s a pause on the other line, the relief in the voice palpable even through the static. “Late notice.”
“Murder ain’t exactly punctual.”
“Be there in ten. Keep him alive.” The link goes dead.
“Goddamn amateurs,” Trigg mutters.
“Ten minutes,” Holiday repeats.
“We’ve been in worse shit.”
“When?” He doesn’t answer her. “Should have just gone to the goddamn hangar.”
“What can I do?” I ask, sensing their fear. “Can I help?”
“Don’t die,” Holiday says as she slides off her backpack. “Then this is all for shit.”
“You gotta drag your friend,” Trigg says as he starts picking tech off his body except his armor. He pulls two more antique weapons from his pack—two pistols to complement the high-powered gas ambi-rifle. He hands me a pistol. My hand shakes. I haven’t held a gunpowder weapon since I was sixteen training with the Sons. They’re vastly inefficient and heavy, and their recoil makes them wildly inaccurate.
Holiday pulls a large plastic box from her pack. Her fingers pause over the latches.
She opens the plastic box to reveal a metal cylinder with a spinning ball of mercury at its center. I stare at the device. If the Society caught her carrying it, she’d never see daylight again. Vastly illegal. I eye the gravLift’s display on the wall. Ten levels to go. Holiday grips a remote control for the cylinder. Eight levels.
Will Cassius be waiting? Aja? The Jackal? No. They would be on their ship, preparing for dinner. The Jackal would be living his life. They won’t know the alarm is for me. And even when they do, they’ll be delayed. But there’s enough to fear even without one of them coming. An Obsidian could rip these two apart with his bare hands. Trigg knows. He closes his eyes, touching his chest at four points to make a cross. A wedding band glints softly in the low light. Holiday minds the gesture, but doesn’t do the same.