I draw myself up slowly and say nothing. I know how this plays out, and there’s nothing I can say that will change what’s about to happen.
Romeo, where are you?
“Hard to believe our resident pacifist thought he could capture an enemy officer and keep her hidden in our base.” The man paces to one side and sets his lantern down on a shelf of rock. He pauses there, eyes scanning me slowly, raking over my body, dwelling on the bruised, welted flesh beneath the ropes binding me. “And I thought it was too good to be true.”
Despite his calm voice, his eyes carry a fevered hatred in them that freezes my blood. Whoever this man is, he’s not entirely sane. I’ve seen that look on other planets, in other rebellions. This is the kind of person who walks into a school and blows it up to make a point. This is what keeps me awake at night—what keeps me questioning every strange face, enforcing every new security measure. Men like this are why I’m here.
My gut tightens with dread, and I look away, fixing my eyes on the ceiling and running over my training like a litany. Don’t engage. Don’t give him what he wants.
“Perhaps you can settle an argument for me,” the man murmurs, crossing over toward me and dropping to a crouch not far away. “My wife used to say the military doesn’t open its hospitals to civilians because it’ll remove the motivation to develop our own. I always told her it’s because you’re a bunch of sadistic bastards who want to watch us die.”
We don’t let civilians into our hospitals because these “civilians” are as likely to walk in with weapons as with wounds—but it’ll do no good to explain that to him. I’m not sure he’d hear me if I did.
“Too good to talk to me, trodaire? Look at me.” The man reaches out to grab my chin, wrenching my face into the light. I clench my jaw, and his own face tightens. “You people,” he whispers, his voice shaking a little. “If you had the tiniest shred of human decency, you never would’ve turned away a six-year-old boy from the treatment that would’ve saved his life.”
My eyes dart up, meeting his before I can stop the impulse.
“Ah,” he says quietly. “There it is. You think my son would’ve compromised base security? Still think you’re better than us, condemning children to die?”
Shit. He’s lost family. That explains the look in his eyes. I don’t answer, staring through the gloom. It’s so easy to see an angry eight-year-old girl there looking back at me, like the space between us is a mirror, like the last ten years of my life never happened.
“I asked you a question.” The man lets go of my face with a jerk that sends me crashing to the ground, rope jerking at my arms and my wounded side wrenching. I let out an involuntary cry of pain, the rebel’s face swimming dizzyingly in my vision. “Do you think you’re better than us?”
I try not to choke, try to calm my breathing, but that fever’s burning openly in the man’s eyes now. His bloodlust is stirring, firing in response to my pain. “You think ignoring me will make me go away. But I’m a patient man, Captain Chase. Your people taught me that. Be patient. Beg for every scrap of food, every dose of medicine.” He leans forward, and I can feel his breath on my face when he speaks again. “I’ll teach you how to beg, trodaire.”
His hand shoots out and slams my head down to the stone, the flat of his palm hitting me in the eye. He lurches to his feet, and then his boot connects with my rib cage with a sickening thud—my vision clouds, the air groaning out of me before my mind registers the pain.
“That’s the difference between you and me,” I gasp finally, fighting for consciousness. “I don’t beg.”
This time his snarl of rage is inarticulate, wordless, as he surrenders to what he came here to do, falling on me with all his rage and pain and grief. Even through the pain, through the sound of my own bones bruising and cracking, I can see his thoughts. Because there’s no difference between this man and the grief-stricken eight-year-old girl I used to be. He’ll keep beating me, keep kicking and punching and screaming at me, until he can’t see his son’s face anymore.
Which means he won’t stop until I’m dead.
“You were thirteen last year, you think I don’t remember you? Go home, kid.”
The girl is on the street now, outside the recruitment office, watching as they shut off the lights and lock up the doors for the night. She throws the forged ident card into the gutter, swearing under her breath at the techhead who sold it to her.
“They don’t believe you’re sixteen, huh?” It’s one of the recruits she saw while she was waiting, and two of his friends. He saunters closer, eyes traveling down from her face. “I can help prove it to them.” He reaches out, but the girl jerks her arm away.
“Don’t mess with me,” she snaps, ignoring the hot tang of fear in her mouth. “Think I can’t handle you?”
One of his friends laughs and moves toward her, but before she can react, the other friend grabs his arm. “Come on, leave her alone. She’s just a kid.”
They move off, grumbling protests. The third guy glances back at her, and his face is familiar; handsome, with green eyes and a charming smile as he winks at her.
But that’s wrong too. She hasn’t met him yet.
“ANYTHING YET?” I step inside the radio booth after checking Martha’s still alone in there. I could tell she wasn’t happy about sending my message to the military base, and less happy still about doing it in secret. But she’s the best operator we’ve got, and no one else would be able to coax a clear transmission.
She jumps at the sound of my voice and starts to turn, but then catches herself. She hesitates halfway around, one hand on the dial, the other fluttering down at her side. “Flynn,” she blurts, flashing one brief, agonized look my way. Brief, but telling.
I grip the door frame. “What is it? Did they respond?”
“No.” She shakes her head, a touch too quickly. “No, no reply. I don’t even know if the transmission went through.”
“What’s going on?” She shouldn’t be this nervous. “Martha—look at me.”
She resists, keeping her eyes on the floor even when I reach out to turn her toward me by the shoulders. Ice creeps down my spine.
“Martha, who did you tell?”
She swallows hard, draws a shaky breath, and then, like every inch is torture, lifts her gaze toward me. The guilt there tells me all I need to know.
I throw myself out of the radio booth and take off across the main cavern, not caring anymore who sees. I can hear Martha’s voice calling after me, wailing, “She’s a trodaire, Flynn! She deserves to die!”
I sprint past Sean—he doesn’t know what’s going on, but he can see my panic and after another heartbeat he starts shouting for backup. I hear him break into a run, along with Mike and Turlough Doyle farther back; Turlough is cursing, Mike stumbling behind his husband, hampered by his perpetual limp. I ricochet off the stone wall of the tunnel, throwing myself around the corner toward the unused caves. The air grows thick and wet as I stumble down the corridors into the oldest part of the cave system, but I know where the steps are slippery, and I can’t afford to waste a second.
If Jubilee’s dead it’ll be my fault.
When I round the corner, I can hear the thick sounds of fists and feet on flesh; not a sound from Jubilee, only inarticulate sounds of effort and rage from McBride. My heart stops, but my feet keep going—I burst into the cavern to find McBride slamming his boot into her ribs over and over. Using sheer momentum I slam him against the wall a few meters behind her. The air goes out of him with a grunt, and I twist to look back at Jubilee—that’s my mistake. With a heft of one arm, McBride sends me flying. I crash down beside Jubilee, the world spinning as my head cracks against the floor. She doesn’t move.