What was in that white building, so close to where those children played . . . was nothing less than a monster.
And these adults served it willingly.
A squad of armed soldiers came after me, but I was no longer unarmed, thanks to the gun I had taken from the dead Earth Warden. I dropped two men with shots; the others with a burst of power that crippled them, at least temporarily. I had no interest in killing them, but I didn’t particularly care if that was the outcome.
“Ibby!” I screamed, turning in a circle. “Isabel Rocha!”
I ran on, crying out her name, searching for her individual whisper in all this chaos.
Behind me.
The park.
I reversed course, avoiding the hail of bullets by dodging behind a truck. To get to the park, I would have to go around the bone house, that terrible white place that housed the heart of the monster.
The ones hunting me had grown organized in their attacks, and there was little cover left. Even the confused civilians had withdrawn.
I took in a deep breath and dove for the ground. It parted for me like thick water, and I used my body like a dolphin’s, pushing against the resistance in sinuous curves.
The bone house extended down, into the ground. I sensed its vibration and swam away from it, careful not to touch it.
My breath grew hot in my lungs, rancid and used, and I kicked against the dirt and swam up, tearing my way through the roots of grasses to the surface.
The children were being rounded up in the park. Unlike the rejects I had seen in the forest, dirty and ragged, ill-fed, these were glossy, lovely children in impeccable clothing, all of stainless white.
There were perhaps twenty of them, and they were all under the age of ten.
“Ibby!” I screamed, and one small face came into focus, kindling like a star.
“Cassie!” she shrieked, and threw herself forward, racing toward me.
She was intercepted by one of the adult caregivers, who closed ranks between me and the children. The woman who restrained Isabel was wearing a medallion similar to the one in my pocket, the one that held a silver key.
Ibby stretched out her arms to me, tears streaming down her face, and I aimed the gun at the woman blocking her. “Put her down,” I said. There were more soldiers coming now. The tower guards also realized something was wrong, and of a surety, at least two of them could reach me where I stood. I was an easy target.
But I wasn’t leaving without the child.
“Put her down,” I repeated, “or I’ll kill you all.”
The woman, wide-eyed, shook her head and held on to the struggling child.
“Your choice,” I said, as cold as I had ever been in Djinn form.
I shot her. Isabel shrieked and fell, rolling on the grass. Another adult scooped her up and ran away with her, toward the pearl white building. I saw her chubby arms still reaching out for me, her tear-streaked face desperate, and in that instant I felt the anguish inside me coalesce into true hatred.
No. You will not take the child.
I couldn’t stop the instincts she triggered, the feverish need to protect her at all costs. I’d kill them all to save her, if I had to, and never look back.
She’smy child,the Voice whispered in my ears. She will never be yours. I will make her one of my warriors, and you and your kind will be wiped from existence, thrown into the darkness where not even memories remain. She will destroy you.
Isabel disappeared into the door of the white house, which sealed itself against me.
I had to abandon her. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, to turn away, to run with the sick taste of rage and defeat in my mouth.
I darted around buildings, running with as much speed as I could manage. I had no goal now, nothing but the blind desire to live, escape, find another way to get to Isabel. Bullets spanged and cracked around me, and sometimes found their mark. I couldn’t heal myself from the wounds, but I could close it off and ignore it for a time, and I did.
It burst upon me, with a blinding jolt, that there wasstill a goal.
I turned toward the prison.
When I reached it, moving so fast I was a blur, there were guards at the door. I barely slowed enough to disable both in screaming agony, then melted the metal outer door.
And then the vault door of the first cell.
Luis Rocha was slumped in a corner, pale and unshaven, barely conscious. His head lolled when I tried to raise him to his feet, and although I could sense the power inside of him, he was blocked from the source by the blanket of drugs circulating in him.
I couldn’t heal myself as easily, but I could clear his bloodstream. It was an investment of power, not a cost; as soon as he was cleared, his power began to flow back to me, through our touch.
His hands wrapped around my wrists, and our gazes locked.
“Cassiel,” he whispered. “Oh, Christ, what have you done?”
I must have looked very different to him.
“Whatever was necessary,” I said. I was leaking blood on the floor from wounds I didn’t feel. “Stand. We have little time.”
He scrambled up. They had also outfitted him in the flimsy yellow jumpsuit and prisoner shoes. I glared at it but decided our power would be better spent toward gaining our escape from this place, before—
The entire building rumbled. Dust sifted from overhead, and the lights flickered.
“Was that you?” Luis asked me. I shook my head. “Me, neither—”
Tree roots exploded up from the floor, cracking concrete. Sharp, jagged roots like daggers, then swords. It happened fast, too fast for us to counter it immediately, and one of the roots erupted under Luis’s feet, stabbing through his foot and into his leg.
He screamed and tried to pull free. As I was helping him, another root ripped through the stone floor, thick and strong as a telephone pole, and almost skewered me from below. I stumbled aside. It continued to rise, slamming into the ceiling above and shattering the impact-resistant plastic cover of the lights.
“Go!” Luis screamed at me. I shook my head and pulled his leg free of the root that impaled it, picked him up in my arms, and began to run.
It was only nine steps, I told myself. Nine steps from the back of the room to the door.
I jumped the last three, praying I had guessed right, as a whole forest of roots erupted from the floor and sliced in all directions.
We hit one of the thick, pale structures and bounced—but we bounced out, not in. I didn’t pause. I hit the ground with both feet and kept running, because the roots followed us, trying to outpace and outflank me. But it was a doomed effort—too much open space, and once we had gained the outside air, too many of their own people in the way to continue an indiscriminate attack.
There was a jeep—possibly the same one that had brought me to this prison in the first place—parked next to the prison building, with the keys dangling in the ignition. I dumped Luis in the seat, climbed behind the wheel, and in seconds we were rocketing for the gate.
I didn’t particularly care if adults got out of my way. I hardly slowed as the bumpers sent them flying from the path.
I knew by this time that they would try to use the children to stop me, so it was not a surprise to see those ragged young bodies lined up in front of the gate, only a grim confirmation.
I couldn’t stop. Not this time.
“Luis!” I yelled. “Can you open a gap somewhere else?”
He nodded. I pointed.
Where I pointed, the inner wall exploded in a shower of bricks. The children were in the wrong place. One of them tried to scramble in front of us—C. T. Styles.
I slowed just enough to grab the boy by the scruff of his neck and sling him into the jeep on the passenger’s side, into Luis’s surprised embrace. “Put him out!” I ordered, and then I was testing the jeep’s ability to scale a shifting mess of broken wall. The tires slipped; the vehicle tilted—then held and climbed.