Chapter 7
Gray is gone the rest of the day on transport flights to this mysterious valley everybody keeps talking about, and since I don’t feel confident enough to explore the Dagger on my own, I retreat to my quarters.
I’ve been given a room three doors down from his apartment, where I find a silver comm on the night table, a neat pile of clothes on the bed, and some toiletries in the small private bath.
I take a quick shower and change into a fresh pair of leggings and a T-shirt that both smell like laundry detergent.
Then I stretch out on the single bed and set up my new comm while Adrienne’s question continues to gnaw at me.
Am I willing to fight this war with her?
I suppose I’ve already agreed to it by virtue of being here, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to shoot down every single Prime who crosses my path.
My parents had no qualms about collateral damage.
They didn’t care how many civilians were caught in the crossfire so long as they exacted the Company’s agenda.
They decided they could live with that cost, but…
I don’t know if I can. The lines blurred for me when I was in the Command.
I started to view some of the people there as friends.
It screwed with my head, and as much as I want to fight alongside Adrienne and the Uprising, I’m afraid I won’t have the stomach to go to their lengths.
I’m afraid they’ll find out about my parents, and I’ll never get the chance to prove myself.
I’m afraid for Cross, alone in the city without any real allies.
I’m just…afraid. And I fucking hate feeling this way.
The device in my hand buzzes to indicate it’s finished uploading, rescuing me from my turbulent thoughts. My thumbprint is required to restart it, and a moment later I have a working comm with a cheerful greeting message:
WELCOME, WREN DARLINGTON.
I scroll through the device, finding a message center, digital library, and practical applications like a camera, torch, compass, and navigation screens.
I notice there’s no access to Nexus, the Continent’s online network, which isn’t a surprise, but I do find the Uprising’s version of it, an application labeled Spider that seems to operate via satellite signal.
I’m scrolling through the digital library for something to read when Kallister pokes my mind.
“We’ll start your training tomorrow,” he tells me. “I’ll come find you after breakfast.”
Training. I wonder what that’s going to entail. Incitement, I assume, which makes me uneasy because that’s the one ability I’ve never been able to get a good grasp on, and the one that scares me the most. The idea of robbing someone of their free will never fails to wind my stomach into knots.
I think about Travis’s broadcast again, the fear tactics he’d employed to scare the Primes into believing every Mod is cackling with evil intent, eager to corrupt their minds. Meanwhile, I’d give anything not to be able to incite.
I roll onto my side and reach out to Cross, because the sound of his voice always soothes me.
“You good, Dove?”
Sure enough, an immediate sense of peace settles over me. “I’m good. Just needed to hear your voice.” I hesitate. “I wish you’d given me a heads-up about your brother’s big speech.”
“His speech?”
“The melodramatic morning broadcast? All his nonsense about being on the right side of history and destroying the Uprising one silverblood at a time? Scaring the shit out of everyone over what happened to your father?”
“Right. Sorry. My mind is elsewhere right now.”
“Were you at the Capitol with him?”
“No. I’m on the base.”
“I don’t like that you’re there without backup,” I say miserably. “I wish Xavier stayed behind. What if Travis figures out you’re a Mod?”
“I went my whole life without anybody in my family figuring it out,” he reminds me. “If I had silver veins, who knows, maybe my father would’ve put a bullet in my head. But luckily, I don’t. Nobody has ever even suspected me.”
“You’re not safe there,” I insist.
“I’m safe. I promise.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he curses, and there’s something raw and tortured about it. Something very unlike Cross.
“I wish you were here. I think about you every second of the fucking day.” His voice is thick with longing. “Helps me pass the time.”
I frown, even though he can’t see it. “I thought your brother was keeping you busy.”
There’s another pause. “He is. Just wish you were with me, that’s all.”
“And what would you do if I were there?”
It’s not intended as a tease, but the moment the question slips out, I realize how suggestive it sounds.
A heavy groan echoes in my mind, making me shiver. “I’d kiss you until your lips were bruised. Fuck you until your legs were weak.”
I bite my lip, a bolt of arousal going right to my core. “Sounds dangerous.”
Cross groans again, the husky sound edged with the same desire burning in my blood. “Goddamn it, Daisy, I’ve never craved anyone the way I crave you.”
I know exactly how he feels.
“I wish I were there, too,” I say softly.
He doesn’t answer.
“Wolf?” I say, fighting a twinge of panic.
“I have to go. Roe’s here.”
“Reach out again when you’re—”
He’s already gone.
I can’t fall asleep that night. My brain refuses to stop working, replaying my conversations with Adrienne, with Cross, with Gray and his friends.
I resist the urge to reach out to Cross again, because it’s late and he barely sleeps as it is.
When we were kids, just two young strangers secretly chatting in our heads, he told me about his recurring nightmare of drowning in an underwater cave, a nightmare that left him paralyzed with fear each time it came.
If he’s managed to fall into a peaceful slumber tonight, the last thing I want to do is deprive him of it.
I shift beneath the blanket, unable to find a restful position, and I find myself thinking about my mother, wishing I had memories of her. Good ones, bad ones, just…anything. But I can’t even picture her face. When I try, it’s nothing but a blurry shape, a fuzzy recollection.
As I lie there, staring at the ceiling, my mind suddenly flashes to the Blacklands.
To a cool spring afternoon when I was six years old.
Uncle Jim often left me alone in our little clearing while he hunted or went to get us water, but that day, when he returned from the creek, I immediately noticed that his demeanor was subdued, his eyes rimmed with red.
“You look weird,” I accused, in that frank way children communicate. “And your eyes are puffy.”
He’d shrugged and said he’d just washed his face in the creek.
At the time, I hadn’t realized what a dumb response that was. As a six-year-old, I didn’t question it. It wasn’t until years later that I connected the red eyes to the fact that he’d been crying.
A few days after that, he came to sit next to me on the grass, his expression somber.
“I need to tell you something, little bird,” he began, his voice gruff. “I received some news about your mother.”
“Mama?” My face lit up. “I miss Mama. Is she coming to see us?”
“I miss her, too. But no, we won’t be seeing your mother again.”
“But I wanna see her. Why can’t I see her?”
“Because she died.”
I blinked in confusion. I understood the concept of death, because my father had died the previous year, but the notion that my mother was also dead…it wouldn’t penetrate. Nobody had two dead parents. For some reason, that was inconceivable to my child brain.
“Your mother died,” Uncle Jim repeated. “Do you understand what I’m saying? You can’t see her again because she’s dead.”
I remember sitting there in silence, I don’t know for how long. I didn’t cry. I didn’t get hysterical. I sat quietly, until finally, I stood up and went to help Uncle Jim tend to the fire.
Now I curse myself for not asking more questions that day. Years later, Jim would reveal that my mother was executed by the Command—while conveniently omitting she’d been loyal to the Company and not the Uprising.
Your mother’s name is Marina Serrano.
Yeah, thanks, Jim.
He couldn’t have provided a few more details? A morsel of insight?
Who was she, this Marina Serrano? This woman I thought was one of the good guys.
And who the hell are the good guys? Because I sat with Adrienne today and listened to her describe pulling and severing threads in people’s minds until they were brain-dead.
How is that supposed to reassure me that I’m fighting for the right side?
Who fucking decides what’s right and wrong, anyway?
Groaning into my pillow, I roll over for the hundredth time. I wish I had someone to talk to about this. Someone to help me make sense of the chaos in my head. Usually, that person would be Wolf. And if not him, then Tana.
An ache settles in my chest at the thought of my best friend. Tana and I used to speak every day. Now we go days, often weeks, without contact. I suspect that if I didn’t make the effort to connect with her, she’d be content with never speaking to me again.
Tana blames me for what happened to her and Griff. I know she does. But I don’t regret striking that deal with Cross, convincing him to send them to labor camps instead of the firing squad. She can hate me all she wants, but I wasn’t going to let my best friend die.
Still, her continued silence has left a gaping hole in my life. We’ve been friends since we were eight years old. I feel her absence in a soul-crushing, visceral way that makes me want to cry whenever I dwell on it.
Before I can stop myself, I open a path and nudge at her mind. It’s usually hit or miss whether she responds, but tonight she surprises me by linking.
“Hey. I know it’s late, but I just wanted to check in.” I hear the awkwardness in my voice. I’m sure she does, too. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” The response is terse.
Fine. I’m so tired of that word. Each time I reach out to her, she tells me she’s fine, but we both know that’s bullshit. Usually I play along, so eager to connect with her that I’m willing to pretend she’s not slowly dying inside, but right now I’m too exhausted to pretend.
“Tana,” I say, cringing at the desperate note in my voice. The silent plea for us to go back to the way we used to be. “How do I fix this?”
She doesn’t answer.
I swallow the panic in my throat. “I know you’re angry with me for letting them send you to a camp.”
She still doesn’t answer.
Guilt and regret war inside me, but both eventually dissolve, leaving a hollow emptiness in my chest. “I didn’t have any other choice, Tan.”
Finally, I get a response.
“Yes, you did. You could have let them execute me.”
I grit my teeth, my fingers tightening over the edge of my blanket. “No. I couldn’t.”
“What would you rather, Wren?” she says dully. “Being dead or being this?”
A flash of pain goes off behind my eyelids as she projects an image into my mind without warning.
I see brown skin. A thin black band. And a red one.
It takes a second to register that I’m looking at her wrists.
Bile sizzles up my throat, burning my windpipe. They marked her.
After General Redden’s Coup against President Severn, he tattooed black bands on the wrists of every known Mod on the Continent.
The ones who pledged their loyalty to him received only the black band, but those who resisted were marked with a second tattoo, a red one to indicate their prisoner status.
I feel sick, my stomach eddying, twisting. Although the projection fades, I can’t erase the image of those tattoos from my mind, and I’m suddenly struck with a flash of clarity that burns away all the uncertainty I’ve been harboring about the idea of war.
How do I know I’m fighting for the right side? This. Tana, trapped in a work camp against her will. What the Company does to us is wrong. It’s fucking wrong, and I’m not going to stand by and let people I care about live as slaves.
“I’m going to get you out of there,” I say firmly. “I promise you that.”
“Don’t make bullshit promises you can’t keep, Wren.”
The blunt reply is like a punch to the gut. “Tana—”
She abruptly severs our link, leaving me in the darkness of my new, unfamiliar bedroom, fighting back tears.