Chapter 68
I’m shoved left and right as the Guards close in. The room swirls with panic, shutting off the path between the Extinguishers and me.
I snap out of stasis. I have to run.
I search around me, but every familiar face is gone. I hop up and down, looking for Rook, Domino, my parents, but I can’t find anyone in the surrounding crush. It doesn’t matter. I need to get away.
I spot the general walking toward me, while Chancellors Marks and Orsen are enclosed by their Guards, no doubt headed for their personal fireproof shelters. Everyone will be running for cover inside one of the city’s many communal sanctuaries.
I consider my options. They know what I am, and they’ll be hunting for me now. More than ever, I need to expose the truth and prove I’m not what they think.
Stick to the plan, I decide, hoping Edward and Rook do the same.
With any luck, everyone will be too busy with the storm to worry about me right now.
I pick up my long skirt and pound down the stairs, shoving among the crowd flowing out of the room as red lights flash through the windows and sirens wail, nearly shattering my eardrums.
I grunt and push, dragged by the tide of bodies until we spill outside before everyone scatters. The sky is on fire, red clouds bleeding across the horizon, flashing with crimson points of light.
Blood Storm cloud bursts don’t explode with galvanic energy.
It’s much, much worse.
They hurtle balls of fire toward the earth, burning down huge sections of the city and killing everything in their path.
A shiver runs along my spine. I’ve only ever seen one in my lifetime, when I was a little girl. I remember the screams tearing through the night sky as the city erupted with fiery explosions.
I spot dozens of Patrols in their dark uniforms already flooding the plaza, trying to snuff out flames and protect the Citadel.
Thankfully, it seems that I’ve been forgotten in the chaos, and I make my way to the back, where I planned to meet up with Rook and Edward.
When I arrive, I find Edward already pacing with a large pack strapped to his back. He stops when he sees me. His gaze is searching as he scans me from head to toe, probably wondering about a lot of things I could never tell him.
“Is it true?” he asks. “Is this why you need to break in? You’re a . . . Keeper?”
I nod, panic swelling up my throat. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. I—”
He shakes his head. “Poet, it’s fine. I think I understand, but . . . I hate to ask this. Am I safe with you?”
“Yes,” I gasp in a rush. “I’m fine. I promise.”
“Okay,” he replies, zero judgment in his eyes. “How could Trinity do that to you?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
“Skies,” he says. “She’s never been the person I thought she was, has she?”
Edward presses his mouth together as a cloud explodes overhead. A blazing comet hurtles toward the plaza, sending up a shower of fiery stones and debris. A blast of heat burning my cheeks, Edward and I step back, seeking shelter in the recess of the door’s alcove.
“Where’s Rook?” I ask, checking my phone, hoping that he’s messaged me. Nothing. Did he get caught in the crowd? I try calling, but there’s no answer.
“Poet, if we’re doing this, we have to do it now,” Edward says. “We look even more suspicious loitering out here.”
“You’re still with me?”
“Yes, let’s do this.”
“We have to wait for Rook.” I peer across the plaza, hoping he’ll appear.
“You can’t stand out here any longer. They’ll be looking for you.”
Reluctantly, I follow Edward into the lobby and approach the gates leading to The Shield’s security wing. I pull out my father’s stolen key card and hold it against the magnetic panel with my breath held. It beeps, then the lock clicks.
Edward shoves the gates open as I stand paralyzed with indecision.
“Come on!” he says. “We can’t wait for him.”
A planter sits next to the gates, and I shove the key into the soil, ensuring it’s covered with a thin layer of dirt.
“What kind of plant is this?” I ask.
“What?” Edward asks, practically bouncing on his feet.
“What is this?” I ask again.
“Fuck, I don’t know! A ficus?”
“Okay,” I say and text the word “ficus” to Rook, hoping he understands my cryptic clue.
“Poet,” Edward hisses, and I follow him inside. We enter a small area with a bank of elevators blessedly free of Guards or personnel.
At least this part of my plan worked.
“Let’s go,” Edward says, punching the button. An elevator to the far left immediately slides open with a soft ding that sounds more like a cannon shot.
Inside, he presses another button for the thirty-second floor to access Mr. Robins’s office. While we make the ascent, I explain everything to Edward about what I’m looking for. To his credit, he doesn’t freak out. Just takes it all in stride.
After he taps our second stolen key card on the panel, we enter a spacious room with hardwood floors overlaid with rugs, two love seats, and a sofa arranged in the center.
Everything glows with red shadows reflected through massive floor-to-ceiling windows.
I watch the tumbling storm clouds bleeding across the sky as fiery scarlet orbs plunge toward the earth.
I’ve never witnessed a Blood Storm up close, and there’s something mesmerizing about its casual, violent destruction.
Edward wastes no time, crossing the room and passing through a set of double doors that reveals a large U-shaped desk topped with a bank of computers. Behind that, a wall of screens reveals various parts of the building.
Edward studies the screens for a moment, and I check my phone, praying Rook has replied. I send him another message with the word “office.”
Edward has pulled up to the desk and settled into Mr. Robins’s big leather chair, already typing a million miles a minute on one of the numerous backlit keyboards. The room is completely silent but for the distant, muffled wails of the Blood Storm sirens and the rapid click of his fingers.
I can’t sit still, so I pace back and forth, checking my phone every few seconds for a reply from Rook.
“Can you stop?” Edward asks. “You’re making me anxious.”
“Sorry,” I mumble and return to the sitting area, giving him space to work.
Another wall of monitors covers one side of the room, and I walk over to ensure we’ve gone undetected. A screen reveals the immediate hallway outside, perfect for keeping an eye out for any unwanted visitors.
I study each monitor, noting a few Guards stationed at various points, but almost everyone has left to deal with the storm.
A figure catches my attention, moving down a hallway, opening and closing doors. I can’t be sure at first, and my eyes must be deceiving me, because I’d swear it was Rook. I move in closer, but there’s no mistaking it now. I’d recognize that easy gait and that flop of hair anywhere.
What is he doing? The number in the corner of the screen tells me he isn’t anywhere near the thirty-second floor. In fact, he’s somewhere lower, in something called Sub Basement B.
He’s holding something in his hand that looks like a key card, but not the same bright red one I left for him inside the flowerpot. I search the bank of screens and find the door where Edward and I entered, noting the pile of soil now lying at the foot of the planter.
Quickly, I search for Rook, a pit of dread solidifying in my stomach.
I tap out another message.
I text the word “in,” suggesting Edward has accessed the computers.
For a second, I think it’s nothing—just a hitch in his stride, the way people pause when they remember something small and unimportant.
Then he pulls his phone from his pocket.
My breath stutters. I lean closer to the screen, as if distance is the problem, as if I could somehow make him feel me watching.
He looks at the screen. His thumb stills.
I know that look. I’ve seen it a hundred times—the faint narrowing of his eyes, the way his mouth becomes unreadable when he’s thinking. When he’s deciding.
My chest tightens, sharp and sudden, like something inside me has been grabbed and twisted.
He doesn’t type.
He locks the screen and slips the phone back into his pocket.
Just like that.
My hand flutters up, pressing flat against my chest. I welcome it. Anything to anchor me here, in this moment, where I’m watching the man I trusted choose something else.
Rook turns back to his search, checking doors and locks. Focused. Intent.
Whatever he’s looking for matters more than I do.
The thought lands softly, almost gently. Maybe that’s what makes it so unbearable.
I swallow, but my throat feels sealed shut. My ribs ache, like they’re being pulled inward, like my body is trying to protect something that’s already broken.
I realize, distantly, that I don’t actually know anything about Rook Athira. Not really.
I know the version of him that arrived from the Wastes with a cocky smile and a confidence sharp enough to cut through my defenses. I know the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention. The way he kisses like he means it.
But standing here, watching him ignore me, I understand how little of that was ever mine.
Rook Athira.
I don’t even know if that’s his name.
He came from nowhere. No past. No history.
And apparently, a future I’m not part of.
As he continues searching rooms, descending another floor, it’s obvious he’s on a mission. One he had planned all along.
Slowly, I watch his progress. I search the screens, wondering if I can see what’s inside the rooms, but they reveal nothing, only the hallways. I consider sending him another message, but I don’t know if I can stomach watching him ignore it again.
He knows where I am, so what is he doing? What is Rook planning?
Are Edward and I in danger?
“Poet!” Edward hisses from the other room. “Come see this.”
I stare at the screen for another moment before I stumble toward Edward. “Any luck?”
“I’m still working on accessing the research files, but I found this.”
My gaze pings to where he sits typing on a keyboard, his cheeks contoured by the white glow of the screen on one side and the swirling crimson clouds on the other.
He then points to the TV screens at my back.
The wall lights up with a low-res black-and-white video playing a scene, multiplied a dozen times. I tiptoe over and peer at the closest.
It takes only a moment to understand it’s a video feed from one of the Storm Towers that surround the city. My mouth parts when I spot Raine fighting hand-to-hand with a Solitude.
There are dozens more. Breakers and Solitudes are all locked in a violent skirmish. But I can’t take my eyes off my brother. I reach out to touch him, wincing when a shock of static snaps at my fingertip.
Despite his obvious distress, I can’t help but cherish this glimpse. I miss him so much.
More Solitudes swarm into the scene, carrying makeshift weapons, outnumbering the Guards.
And then I see him.
Rook.
A few years younger. Slimmer. Less muscle. His hair a bit shorter, but I have no doubt it’s him. He’s busy fighting with a Breaker, and now I understand why he was already so good on the sparring mat. Why he beat us all in the cadet examination with ease.
Rook Athira was never who he claimed.
I can’t decide where to look.
My gaze pings between Rook and my brother. He was there that night. He was there the night Raine died.
The sky flashes in grayscale cloud bursts as the fighting continues.
I move closer, my nose almost pressed to the curved glass, my chest heaving with the fiery residue of Rook’s lies.
Spark explodes from the heavens, forming several plasma arcs, blitzing half the scene. There’s no sound in the recording, but I imagine their screams. More people enter and exit from the sides. I can barely discern what’s happening through a flowing rush of bodies.
Then Raine is hit.
A bolt of Spark strikes as he’s knocked off his feet by a Solitude.
But they both come out of the plasma arc unscathed. Another Keeper. Raine goes flying, landing on the ground, sparks dancing across his hair and clothing.
It takes me a moment to realize the Solitudes have fled, leaving only a circle of Breakers behind. I watch a Guard stand up and walk over to Raine, where he stares down at my brother’s limp body still glittering with Spark.
They know what he is.
The Guard looks up and starts shouting something.
I wish I could reach into the screen and put myself in this moment.
What happens next?
Raine’s chest rises and falls as the wind tosses his hair.
Nothing happens for several minutes as the Guard stands over Raine with a stun gun pointed at my brother’s head. I slowly piece together what must be happening.
They’ve called for the Extinguishers to collect Raine.
My stomach churns, fear curdling in my gut.
A moment later, the Guard straightens, his posture erect as he salutes someone off camera.
A person enters the frame, but it’s not who I expect.
General Sol approaches on sure steps, standing over Raine’s body.
She toes his boot as he shifts, his eyelids fluttering.
Not dead, just passed out.
“Raine,” I whisper, touching the screen.
The general gestures to someone, and then two of her Circle Guards appear. One approaches the Guard who was standing watch over Raine and blasts him in the stomach, killing him instantly. I gasp and cover my mouth as the general reaches down and snuffs out the sparks clinging to my brother’s body.
When she’s finished, she nods, and her Guards take him by the wrists and ankles before they carry him away. The general stares at the spot where he was lying and then looks at the sky and the rolling clouds flashing with light.
A moment later, she also walks away.
The feed cuts off, and I stare at the blank screen, trying to comprehend everything I just witnessed.
My head is spinning, a wave of dizziness making me stumble into the wall. I lean one hand against it, letting it hold me up as my legs threaten to give out. My brother wasn’t dead. The Solitudes didn’t take his body.
The general knew what he was, and she took him. Why didn’t she call the Extinguishers?
It was never the Solitudes.
And Rook . . .
Rook, who lied about his intentions tonight, was there the night my brother was taken.
That’s when the office door bursts open and a Circle Guard enters, pointing his stunner at us.
“Get your hands up!” he shouts.