“Him, too,” I said as I pushed the cell door back, nodding at Arthur.
Rio glanced at Arthur, then back at me. “He could be theirs by now.”
“She never talked to him,” I said quickly. “Only—only me. Rio, he’s coming with us.”
If he had hesitated, I would have started breaking Arthur out myself, but one thing I loved about Rio was that he never wasted time arguing or wavering. Less than five seconds later, Arthur was out as well, and we hurried after Rio down the cellblock. I paused briefly as we stepped over the fallen guards to relieve one of his M4 and sidearm; Arthur did the same with the other body. They were dead, I noticed. Definitely dead.
Rearmed, we followed Rio into the corridor at a quick trot. “Security system?” I asked.
“Compromised,” he said. “We should be clear until after we’re out.”
“Subtle of you,” I observed, a little surprised—“subtle” didn’t usually describe him.
“This was a trap, Cas,” Rio explained without turning back to me. “The Lord’s wrath has patience.”
Oh, hell. How could I have been so stupid?
Dawna had already told me this was all about Rio. Interring us here had nothing to do with me or Arthur or recruiting us to Pithica—we were only bait to catch their bigger fish. Which meant, fuck, Rio had played right into their hands by coming after me…
…which, apparently, he knew, and he had figured out a way to get in and out without them realizing the time had come to spring the ambush. I imagined the hammer of Rio’s vengeance would fall on this place once we were well away.
Rio unlocked the door to a dim stairway and gestured us down ahead of him, farther into the sub-basement. “You have a way out?” asked Arthur nervously. Rio didn’t deign to answer him.
We descended two more levels and were heading down another featureless corridor when Rio raised a fist to stop us. “They know I’m here.” He had pulled a small device about the size of a cell phone out of a pocket and was examining it. “They have pinpointed us. Three groups closing in.” He looked at me. “Are you up for this?”
I hefted the M4, puzzled he had to ask. “Of course.”
“Stay here. You’ll get in our way,” Rio instructed Arthur, tossing me a pouch of grenades.
Arthur tried to sputter something in response, but Rio and I were already charging.
It wasn’t even a contest.
There is something beautiful about the high-speed math of a gunfight. I’ve heard other people opine that gunfights are confusing and disorienting, but to me, they always happen with perfect clarity: every bullet impact leads back to its source, every barrel sweeping through with its own exact trajectory. A firearm can only shoot in one possible direction at a time, after all. I could always see exactly where they aimed as if the predicted flights of the rounds were visible laser beams, and I could always move fast enough to step easily out of the way.
The M4 pulsed in one hand, Rio’s grenades becoming fragmenting islands of destruction as thrown from the other. I fired as I ran, every muscle in my body coordinating in a precision dash to send my projected path leaping between the ever-changing, ever-crossing lines of danger. One shot, one kill.
I had thirty rounds in the M4. I didn’t need them all.
Less than a minute later we were striding through the carnage on our way toward another stairwell; I slung the bag with the remaining grenades over my shoulder and redrew my sidearm from where I’d stashed it in my belt, reaching down as we hurried through to snag some spare magazines for the M4 off the bodies.
Arthur picked his way through after us, looking vaguely sick. He stumbled to a halt. “Hey,” he called in a hoarse voice. “Hey. We need to stop.”
I turned back. “Tresting, what the hell—”
His words came out strangled. “She’s going to obliterate the whole building.”
I looked at him blankly. Looked, and noticed he had a cellular phone in his hand.
A phone. When had Arthur gotten a phone? I hadn’t seen him pull one from any of the guards…
He held it out to Rio. “She wants to talk to you.”
Rio’s face was unreadable. “Ah,” he said. “I see.”
“I’m sorry,” Arthur whispered to me. The hand holding the phone was shaking. “So sorry.”
Horror shorted out my brain. “No,” I said. “No.”
“Cas—” tried Rio.
“You’ve been working for them this whole time?” I cried.
“No—it ain’t like that—”
“You betrayed us!” My M4 swung to point at Arthur. “You—!”
Rio placed a cautious hand on my weapon, shifting it off line. “Cas, it isn’t his fault. Dawna Polk did talk to you, didn’t she?” he said to Arthur.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, wretchedly. “I’m sorry, Russell.”
I had to restrain myself from hitting him.
“Give me the phone,” said Rio. He hit a button and held the phone out in front of us, raising his voice slightly. “Go ahead.”
I recognized Dawna Polk’s mellifluous voice on the speaker immediately. “I must say I’m impressed.”
Rio was silent.
“You evaded extensive security measures. We only knew you were here thanks to our friendship with Mr. Tresting.”
I wanted to scream.
“I hope you know that is a vast compliment, Mr. Sonrio. We were extremely prepared for your visit, and you still slipped in undetected. Mr. Tresting’s involvement was a contingency we never thought we would have to use. May I ask how you infiltrated us so effectively?”
“I’m certain you shall figure it out eventually,” said Rio evenly.
“As it seems you are also more effective than even we expected at evading capture by our people—”
I snorted.
“—we have been forced into our endgame rather abruptly.”
“Annihilation of your own base,” confirmed Rio. “Quite cold of you, Miss Saio.”
There was a short silence on the other end. “I’m sure you understand,” Dawna said after a beat. “You have been causing us a great deal of trouble. We would strongly prefer to talk you out of it, but failing that, we must cut our losses. I would regret the collateral damage, but it would be a fair trade for putting an end to the difficulties you insist on giving us.”
“You flatter me,” said Rio.
“Modesty does not become you, Mr. Sonrio,” she responded, a hint of a smile in her voice.
“Let Cas go.” I looked up at him in surprise. So did Arthur. Rio’s expression was as blank and flat as ever. “Let Cas go, and I shall enter your custody willingly.”
“I apologize if you were under the impression that this was a negotiation,” answered Dawna. “Please disarm yourselves and exit the building. All three of you. If not…well. I admit I do not know the technical details, but my advisers assure me nothing will survive the blast, not in a wide radius. I recommend you don’t take too long to decide.” She hung up.
“She could be bluffing,” I suggested weakly, not believing it myself.
“She could be,” said Rio, “but I would not doubt Pithica has the resources for such a move, however extreme. I suggest we operate under the assumption that she can and will carry out her threat.”
“What now, then?”
“She has outmaneuvered us. I believe we do as she asks.”
“You can’t turn yourself over to her!” I cried.
“Cas,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Trust in God’s plan.”
Nausea rolled through me. If God had planned this, He shouldn’t have been put in charge of anything, ever.
They separated Rio from us almost immediately and stuck Arthur and me together in one cell this time, back on our old cellblock. I refused to look at him.