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—”
Trigg references his datapad. “13439283. Over.”
“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.
“Murder ain’t exactly punctual.”
“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.
“This is our profession,” she says quietly to me. “So swallow your pride. Stay behind us and let Trigg and I work.”
Trigg cracks his neck and kisses his gloved left ring finger. “Stay close. Nut to butt, sir. Don’t be shy.”
Three levels to go.
Holiday readies a gas rifle in her right hand and chews intensely on her gum, left thumb on the remote control. One level to go. We’re slowing. Watching the double doors. I loop Victra’s legs in my armpits.
“Love you, kiddo,” Holiday says.
“Love you too, babydoll,” Trigg murmurs back, voice tight and mechanical now.
I feel more afraid than I did when I lay encased in a starShell in the chamber of a spitTube before my rain. Not just afraid for me, but for Victra, for these two siblings. I want them to live. I want to know about South Pacifica. I want to know what pranks they pulled on their mother. If they had a dog, a home in the city, the country…
The gravLift wheezes to a halt.
