“I said I wouldn’t harm the boy. The others are expendable collateral. Really, Lucian. You always seem to hear what you want to.”
I slump against my chair. It’s hopeless. The plan we spent so much time putting together, invested so much of our sweat and hope into, has failed. No second chances. Boaz is dead. The others will follow in just a few minutes. And after I tell them what they want to know, Corin and I will be murdered too.
There’s no way out.
“Slade.” The Sergeant snaps to attention at the sound of Cassius’s address. “A team is on its way to your location to retrieve Spark for further debriefing.”
“As you wish, Prefect, Sir. I will make sure—”
But he’s already dismissed her with his eyes, focusing instead on Valerian.
“Valerian,” Cassius continues. “I need at least one person I can count on. See to it that the custody transfer goes smoothly and is not bungled.”
She salutes him. “Everything will be taken care of, Sir.”
The transmission ends. The images are snuffed out.
Slade and Valerian exchange glances.
I can tell Slade is bristling with anger at having her judgment questioned. She scowls at Valerian. “Unstrap him.”
Valerian hunches over me, using her key to unlock the manacles on my legs first. Then she reaches for the ones on my hands.
I blink as the light of her sidearm reflects in my eyes. No. It’s not over. Not until I’m dead.
Snap!
The last manacle clicks open.
In a flash, I’m ripping Valerian’s gun free. Before either she or Slade can react, I kick Valerian in the gut. She slams into Slade, throwing off the Sergeant’s shot.
BAM!
A burning hot bullet nicks my ear, and a smoking hole rips through the chair. I roll off it in a spinning arc.
BAM! BAM! BAM! The chair explodes into shrapnel. Then there’s a loud series of clicks.
Slade’s out of ammo.
Before she can reload, I’m letting loose a round of my own. The two officers dive behind an equipment cabinet, scrambling to escape the shower of sparks and chunks of plaster raining down all around them.
Click.
Damn it. The chamber’s empty. I hurl the now-useless weapon across the room, where it clatters against the wall.
I might have missed them, but at least I’ve taken out the com unit.
“You’ll never get out of here alive, Spark,” Slade sneers.
Snap. The ominous sound of another ammo clip locking into place.
I dive for the door. My body slams into the floor and continues to slide on its own momentum—three feet away, two feet, one…
Slade’s body is a blur as she leaps from her cover, her weapon blazing.
I don’t give her a chance to come to a stop before I spring, head-butting her. Then we’re rolling, grappling for the gun clutched in her hand.
Instinctively, my free hand shoots up and grips her fingers, tearing them free of my face, bending them backwards… and backwards… away from the palm…
Her face contorts in pain and rage. “Argh!”
SNAP!
The bones in her fingers give way with a piercing crunch.
A shadow eclipses the light above us. We both twist our necks to look. Valerian’s standing over us, weapon held at the ready.
Somewhere beyond the doorway and out into the hall, alarms are blaring and the clatter of boots are approaching. The rush of energy I had evaporates, replaced by a tightness all over my body.
Slade leers down at me. “Game over, Spark. I don’t care what Thorn says. You’re too much of a liability to keep alive.” She turns to Valerian. “What are you waiting for? Shoot!”
Valerian’s eyes narrow at me. “As you wish.”
I close my eyes and tense for the impact as she pulls the trigger—
BANG!
TWENTY-FIVE
I look up to see Slade’s face, a look of surprised confusion carved into it. And a smoking hole in her forehead. She releases her grip and slumps over, her body collapsing on top of me.
I shove Slade’s corpse off me and spring to my feet. Valerian stands stone-faced, aiming the gun at me. I look at the body at my feet and back to her. “What the hell?”
Instead of firing, she tosses the gun to me. In spite of my surprise, my reflexes kick in and I catch it.
She sighs. “Try not to botch this mission too, Spark.”
“What?”
But she’s already moving, snatching up a familiar looking rucksack from the corner of the room.
The one containing the weapons I stole.
And the detonator.
She lobs it to me. I catch it and look inside. Everything’s still intact. But there’s a notable addition: a charred silver disc. It’s the remaining concussion charge from my attack on the Emporiums. The one Slade was going to have analyzed by forensics, which would have exposed me. Valerian covered for me…
“I saved these for you, too.” She pulls out Digory and my ID tags from her pocket, as well as the holo recording of Digory’s transmission to Cassius. “I’ve recovered the corrupt data on the disc. You may want to take a look.
Now I’m really pissed off. “I told you to trash those. Why the hell would I want—”
“Shut up and listen for once, Spark. When you get out of this, you’ll thank me.”
Reluctantly, I shove the items into the rucksack with the weapons.
The clatter of boots comes to a halt just outside the door. Someone tries the lock but the door remains closed. Fists hammer against it.
“Sergeant Slade! Captain Valerian! What’s your status?” someone shouts on the other side.
I cross the room to Valerian. “What’s going on here? Why did you—”
She shakes her head. “There’s no time. Hit me.”
“What?”
“I need you to hit me. Hard. And make it look convincing. Not like those childish blows you traded with Slade.”
Battering against the door, rattling it from its hinges.
Valerian grips my arm. “Do it now!”
I swing at her, knuckles connecting with her face, her nose. Crunch!
Bone shatters. Blood flies. Her head whips back. She staggers against the wall. When I reach for her, she pulls back, wiping the blood, smiling. “Maybe Jeptha was right after all,” she whispers.
“Jeptha? Cage’s father?” I stare at her as I dig into the rucksack, finding the detonator. I pull it out, slip it in my pocket, and sling the bag’s strap over my shoulder.
The door bursts open.
A half dozen Imposers spill in, weapons aimed. Taking in the sight of Slade’s body, Valerian’s bloody face, and me standing there holding a gun on her.
There’s a series of clicks like the chattering of rodents as every weapon is trained on me. “Drop your weapon!” Ensign Echoes shouts.
I fling the gun to the floor.
One of the officers is communicating via his hand-held. To Styles.
“Just about ready to begin executing the prisoners,” Styles reports. I can see the flickering images of Cage, Drusilla, Tristin, Arrah, and Dahlia just beyond him.
“We’ve got Spark in custody,” Echoes responds. “Proceed with shelving immediately.”
My finger jams down on the detonator in my pocket. I can hear multiple explosions rock the complex like a massive earthquake. The room teeters, and everyone falls to the floor. The lights go out, plunging everything into total darkness.