30. CHAPTER 30
Kira
The Capital
Kallum, Ciondo
After Luke left, Kira remained in her room, not willing to risk bringing a child into this dangerous situation or to say anything he found threatening.
Only once she knew the little girl had left did Kira venture out to the living room. The time with her granddaughter brought fresh life into Adelle, but Zayne renewed his determination not to look at Kira with incredible vigor.
The unspoken boiled between them.
He told Kira he ordered Dr. Cooper to torture her when, in reality, he literally broke the man's collarbone for hurting her.
“Zayne.” Kira barely kept her voice level.
No response, of course. Arms crossed, he looked out his favorite window to avoid her.
“Is it true?” she asked.
His silence reignited the anger at his cruel lie and the abandonment of being left there alone, thinking she might still die. Kira flew across the room and pushed him as hard as she could.
Zayne lowered his arms and pivoted to see her, mouth opening in surprise. Another push. It only jostled him, and that made her even madder. Never in her life had Kira ever pushed or hit anyone, and she expected it to feel more satisfying than this.
This time when she lunged, he side-stepped, and she fell forward, careening out of control. He caught her sleeve.
“You need to calm down,” he said.
“Tell me one time in the history of humanity that saying you need to calm down has ever calmed anyone down.”
With a sigh, Zayne lowered to the leather couch that was as stiff and unwelcoming as he was. “Yes, it's true. I told him that if he did anything without my approval, I would break his collarbone. He put you in the tank while I was gone. So, I kept my word.”
“How much time passed between you breaking his bones and telling me you told him to hurt me?”
His gaze flicked to her for a fraction of a second. “Irrelevant.”
Kira ran her hands over her face, so exacerbated by him. “It's not irrelevant. I cannot believe you broke Dr. Cooper's collarbone. That could have gotten you hurt.”
“Of all the things I've done, why does this upset you the most?”
The past two weeks throbbed inside her. “Because you broke someone's bones for me.” She looked at him, not caring if he avoided her. “You care about what happens to me, but you left me alone, thinking you hate me.”
“You already knew that.”
“It's the first time I actually felt it.” Tears threatened. “You make me crazy.”
He looked stunned when she stormed out.
Luke told Kira what Zayne did to bind her to him and trick her into falling into his hands. No matter how much it melted her heart to know, her fury didn't relent.
She understood him less today than she did the first time they met. Her anger defied reason. It just existed, throbbing inside her every time she thought about him.
He really did make her crazy.
This feeling wasn't new, though. It dug too deep and hurt too much. Zayne's secrets and lies, the way he cared for her and abandoned her, connected with an older pain.
It reminded her of the stranger looking after her for years while refusing to see her.
Maybe she pushed Zayne because she couldn't push the man who refused to live when she wanted so badly for him to stop punishing himself and find an ounce of joy. The man she only knew for one night.
Zayne accidentally tapped into a wound that never healed, because it didn't matter that she understood or forgave her stranger when she sat here alone, not knowing if he was even alive.
So, Kira poured herself into her work and refused to give up even though Zayne came home. For weeks, she'd allowed herself to get lost in his mind.
Tonight, she made herself forget him and encoded her last message. One for Mom.
“I love you. Give them nothing.”
Thousands more words died to escape her heart. Saying so little after waiting so long to speak to Mom again lodged a knot in her throat, one that blocked the air from reaching her lungs.
Kira needed to say as little as possible in case the wrong people intercepted this drone.
She hid the message for her mom and the request to deliver it to her in the code, hoping it might look like corrupted data to anyone who didn't know how she operated.
She left instructions for Pixi Dust in the same way but inserted a decoy to lead soldiers astray if they intercepted it.
By including recording equipment, Kira disguised the true nature of this drone.
Her drones made it to their destinations, but she still felt terrified. She'd never had the Rivens watching her every move. Cold understanding washed through her body. Not just them. The Phaedra.
What if this brought about more damage than anything good?
That night Kira awoke to the tank door slamming shut in her face, the icy water rushing into her mouth and nose.
She ripped her eyes wide open, hand clawing at her mouth, scratching into gloved fingers that covered her face.
Wild hope and longing collided into one in her chest, choking her more than the water or hand. But just like last time, she realized it wasn't her stranger.
That hope didn't abate, though.
She stared in wonder at the man dressed in the black special ops uniform. “You're the friend,” she whispered. “The one who came last time.”
He nodded. “Hurry.”
“Where is he?”
“Away.”
Always away. Always looking out for her no matter the distance.
When the friend offered a hand, Kira took it and followed closely alongside him, abandoning everything in her room.
She only slowed to slip on a pair of shoes and wrap herself in her coat.
How did he evade security to make it into her room?
Darkness draped the familiar Riven household in shadows, cloaking decorations that masked secrets.
The man walked softly, so Kira did her best to quiet her steps. This all happened so suddenly she hadn't processed the implications of escaping.
Until she looked at the stairs leading up to Adelle's room and realized she couldn't say goodbye. Her steps hesitated, and the friend drew her along by her hand.
Adelle would know Kira appreciated everything she'd done for her. Would understand why she couldn't say anything.
They picked through the house, slipped silently into the night, and rushed for the woods, her mind racing with possibilities.
She saw her mother's face when they'd been hiding beneath the floorboards, and she dared once again to hope to see her.
She thought of a long life free in the territories with the one she had grown up missing.
And she imagined endless torture in the prison and the threat to her friends.
The hope and terror of escape clashed in her chest with every heartbeat.
“Thank you.” For all her conflicting emotions, her gratitude for this masked man would last until the day she died, no matter what happened. He risked his life to help her.
The further they ran, the more she thought of Zayne and that she'd never see him again.
It shouldn't have hurt after he vowed to follow the Phaedra's orders no matter what it meant for her.
But her body remembered his warmth when he pulled her from the tank, and the way he burst into the interrogation room to interrupt when she needed it most. It haunted her that she'd never peeled away that mask of his. That she never would.
Would Zayne be relieved she got away?
What if they got caught?
She'd lose the beautiful house with that tender mother and any semblance of safety.
No matter. Escaping meant saving all those Followers whose lives were in danger and no longer worrying about her friends. They could live free and unharmed.
Unless the Phaedra lashed out by attacking the ones she loved in her stead.
He could imprison them as he'd done to Kira and hold them over her head from afar. Was she planting a target on them by leaving?
The doubt slowed her steps enough for her to chastise herself. This man put his life in peril to help her. She couldn't second-guess this decision when it may cost him his life.
Her lungs burned from the journey when they finally slowed down. Leaves clattered together in the wind and shifted the shadows into dancing lines. Leaning against the trunk of the tree, she happily took the time to rest while the masked stranger walked forward slowly.
“Did everything go according to plan?” he asked the darkness.
Quiet met him, but he didn't turn away from the path ahead. After several seconds, a single soldier stepped out in front of him, wearing a black uniform.
“Yes. We confirmed her identity.” The accent was foreign. Kira's exposure to the territories was limited, so she couldn't place the country, but she recognized that he came from the east. While he wore a mask, it didn't change his voice. “Ms. Stiles, we're here to take you home to your mother.”
She bit back her cry, afraid to utter a sound. As she walked forward, she stopped beside this friend whose name she didn't know, but who she trusted. “It's safe?” she asked.
“Yes,” the masked friend said. “I'll stay with you until you're with your mother.”
Long before the Phaedra took her captive, the invisible walls of this empire and city trapped her in place, refusing to let go.
That first step toward the foreign soldier sent zaps of electricity through her body.
A lifetime of coercion fought to hold her in place.
The power of the Phaedra's tower wrapped around her, seizing every cell in her body. It ran so deep.
HE LIES
She walked forward through the terror and every thought screaming of hopelessness. Helplessness.
No more.
With every step, that voice in her head cried loud.
No more. No more. No more.
No more bloodshed and terror.
Kira was allowed to say it. She was allowed to leave. The Phaedra and his people did not own her soul.
The soldier from the east reached his arm out to her, and she walked forward to join his side. The friend kept up with her, not leaving her just like he'd promised.