Chapter Five
He didn’t want to let her go. Halfway through the night, she’d screamed in her sleep, and he’d wrapped her in his arms. She fit so perfectly.
He didn’t even care that the arm beneath her had long since gone numb.
If he woke her, he’d be forced to face the truth: He might not hold her again for a long time. Maybe not ever.
Christian squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t think like that. She was strong in both mind and spirit. Rami said her implant was failing, yet Gemma’s “powers” hadn’t manifested in the slightest even once. She would find a cure and beat it. Of that, he was sure.
Gemma stirred in his arms. He tightened his grip.
“What time is it?” she mumbled.
“Too early,” he said into her hair.
“The ultralights are almost fully lit.”
“Exactly. Almost.”
The white ultralights framing the floor of their flat mimicked the rise and fall of the sun, a Systems design meant to enforce natural sleep rhythms. But he didn’t care what time it was. Not right now.
Gemma stroked his forearm with her small, soft, unbandaged hand.
“How’s your other hand?” he asked.
Carefully, she unwrapped the gauze from around her palm and fingers. The site was still red, but healing. Whoever invented nanobots needed to be awarded a fucking medal.
“Better,” she said, flexing her fingers with a small wince. She brushed his arm again. “You need to let me get up. I have to pee.”
Christian groaned and buried his forehead against the back of her scalp but loosened his hold. She slipped from the bed. He sat up slowly, raking a hand through his hair. Time apart from the only good thing in his life was going to be brutal.
They didn’t talk much as they got ready, showering separately and dressing in silence. Pulling his backsack from the armoire, Christian packed it with only the barest of essentials. He’d be staying at Gallowood House. It wasn’t like he was going off world with nothing but the clothes on his back.
Gemma’s eyes were glassy when she hugged him at the door. “It’s not goodbye,” she whispered. “Just ‘see you later.’ ”
His chest pinched. “I will definitely see you later.” Loosening his hold on her, he cupped her cheek in his hand and kissed her tenderly. “Call or message me whenever you want.”
“I will.”
He lingered. One more kiss. Then he exited their flat, backsack in tow, and prayed to Illari for the first time in over a decade.
“How’d Gemma take it?” Hawk asked, falling into step beside Christian as they descended the stairs.
He frowned. “She’s strong. She’ll be all right.”
The stairwell grew precarious near the third floor. It had been half-destroyed during the battle with the Dissent at Zion. Steep and uneven revarium steel slabs had temporarily replaced the old steps. They slowed their pace to keep sure footing.
Near the first floor, Imara clung to the remnants of a wall, testing each step with calculated pressure. Her prosthetic leg clicked, recalibrating as she shifted weight. Hawk rushed to her side, throwing an arm around her waist to steady her.
“I don’t need your help,” she snapped.
“I’ll let you tumble down the stairs, then. It will be hilarious.”
Imara growled but looped an arm around him and let him take most of her weight. “Oh, just shut up and keep going.”
At last, they reached the main level of Zion, and Imara wiggled out of Hawk’s hold. The three of them stepped through the large hold that used to be a doorway.
And froze.
It was a graveyard. The corpses had been removed from the wreckage days after the fighting had ended, but the walls were still scorched with plasma burns and riddled with bullet holes. The floor was stained with blood. Shattered glass and empty bullet casings lined the floors.
“Come on.” Hawk gently nudged Imara forward.
Christian followed closely behind, avoiding eye contact with the spot where Gemma had collapsed. The spot where he’d thought he was going to lose her.
A tight pain wrenched his chest.
Their paces slowed when they neared the corner where Imara and Hawk had been found. It was there that she’d lost half of her right leg, and Hawk had lost his left eye. Their dried blood still stained the wall.
Imara silently stared at it as Hawk’s jaw flexed. Christian hadn’t yet asked either of them what had happened during the battle; he wasn’t sure if he ever would.
At last, they exited through a jagged hole in the exterior wall. The rest of the Systems Anti-Rebellion Task Force huddled just outside the still-destroyed entrance, all dressed in regular clothes.
“It’s about fucking time,” one of the SARTF soldiers said. He stood like a boulder, taller even than Hawk, with a nose crooked from too many breaks—Broadman, solar shift’s team leader. “Two skimmers. Make it work. Sit on each other’s laps if you need to.”
Christian looked to his right where the vehicles hovered just above the surface. Their black bodies stood out starkly against the red dirt of Reva’s surface. At night, though, they were impossible to spot. They had a low, streamlined frame and were incredibly fast.
He would know. The leader of the Falaichte had one.
Christian squeezed into a skimmer with Hawk, Imara, and three other SARTF soldiers. Christian expected a retort from Imara—especially when she was forced to sit on Hawk’s lap—but she simply stared at the broken innards of Zion.
Christian frowned. Though they were all alive, none of them had made it unscathed.
As they drove the eleven kilometers from Zion to Perileos, the SARTF soldiers in their skimmer re-introduced themselves.
One was Claude. Another was his husband, Yosef.
And the third was Ahna, the grave shift team leader and the woman who would lead Christian, Imara, and Hawk into the field along with Claude and Yosef.
Ahna had dark skin and short black hair braided tightly against her scalp.
And she was built like she’d grown up in a gymnasium.
She was definitely not someone to mess with.
Apparently, Claude, Yosef, and Ahna had been on the SARTF the longest—after Broadman—and they advised Christian, Hawk, and Imara to sleep whenever they could, drink whenever they could, and fuck as often as they could in order to “not blow your brains out.”
None of them replied, not even Imara.
“We’ll get them to loosen up eventually,” Ahna said.
“I give them three days,” Claude replied.
“Two,” Yosef said.
“You’re on.”
Many minutes passed before they reached the entrance to Perileos, and Christian’s stomach sank to his knees. He’d never, ever wanted to see this place again.
“Governor Gallowood left ahead of us this morning to keep our arrival quiet,” Broadman began once they’d regrouped.
“Those watching the entrance are people we know we can trust, but once we’re inside this city, if the Dissent catches wind that we’re here, it could lead to open season.
So, keep your mouths shut and act normal. We meet at Gallowood House.”
The man tapped on his comm a few times, then Christian’s biochip signaled an incoming message: coordinates to Gallowood House.
“Any questions?” Broadman asked.
“No, sir,” the SARTF soldiers spoke in chorus.
“Good. Move out.”
Ahna turned to Christian, Hawk, and Imara and passed out sheathed daggers. “Keep at least one of these hidden on you at all times. We’ve seen some of these Dissenters fight, and they’re brutal. Don’t get caught by one of them without having an advantage.”
A memory of Colton facing off with Hawk in the boxing ring popped into Christian’s mind. To have beaten Hawk—who’d grown up “fighting” in a simulator—meant Colton had had serious training. Christian should’ve known then that something was off about the bastard.
Broadman’s team went into Perileos first. The clanging of the reinforced revarium steel door as it opened shot a shiver down Christian’s spine. Every time he’d left the city for a “hunt,” that noise had reminded him how dark his soul was becoming. Even now, the sound haunted his dreams.
Ahna, Claude, and Yosef continued to parry playful insults at one another while they awaited the signal to enter. Several minutes later, a guard waved them forward.
“Let’s go, fam!” Ahna announced, leading them inside.
The pungent smell of the underground city smacked into Christian’s face within seconds.
Rank, chemical, and metallic. His nose scrunched, and he fought the urge to cover his face and gag.
The door slammed closed behind them, sealing them inside, and a deep sense of dread shot his stomach to his knees.
Stars, I hate this fucking place. The faster they found Nadine and dismantled the Dissent, the better.
Rust dripped from the network of beams and pipes crisscrossing the red stone corridor that led to the city.
And the further below the surface they went, the more condensation coated the walls.
Then several meters later, they stepped through a metal opening, and the monstrosity that was Perileos unfolded before Christian’s eyes once again.
From where he stood on the very edge of the city, high up on a ledge, it looked like a maze of revarium steel.
Walls, roofs, floors—everything was metal, reinforced to keep the planet’s shifting stone from swallowing the city whole.
Panels of white ultralights covered the city’s ceiling, imitating sunlight.
Below them were forty-three zones and one hundred eighty-two sectors of strife and poverty.
“Well, this ought to be interesting,” Claude quipped.
“That’s an understatement,” Imara mumbled, speaking for the first time since they’d left Zion. Hawk squeezed her shoulder as Ahna led the six of them down the switchbacks to street level.
Given it was daylight hours, Christian wasn’t surprised to see the majority of the housing sectors empty.
Work shifts lasted twelve hours, and if someone didn’t work, they didn’t eat.
Even when he hadn’t been in the boxing ring or “training” with the Falaichte, he’d been in the mines.
Just like everybody else in this starsforsaken place.
The few people they did pass gave their small group little attention. A pile of blackened garbage bags sat slumped in the corner of a stained wall, and a child darted past them, barefoot, disappearing into the dim corridors between flats.
Christian ground his teeth. He hated it here. Too many terrible memories.
“Okay, question,” Claude said. “If you could lose any of your senses, which would it be?”
“Hearing, so I wouldn’t have to listen to you two bangin’ every night,” Ahna replied without an ounce of hesitation.
The corner of Christian’s mouth rose in a smile. Hawk laughed, and Imara visibly relaxed, a massive grin on her face.
“You’re just jealous,” Claude said, winking at his team leader, who snorted in response.
The playful bickering continued as they maneuvered through the cramped alleys of the housing districts.
Imara and Hawk began to gibe each other as well and join in the communal fun.
To anyone else, their group appeared as nothing more than friends walking down the streets.
But Ahna’s, Claude’s, and Yosef’s eyes never stopped roaming, years of soldiering reflected in their gazes.
Christian could rest assured they’d never be caught unaware.
At last, they reached a tram stop to hop a ride to Sector 1. Gallowood House was located along the edge, just outside the city district. The tram shuddered as it started, its metal grinding like it resented moving at all. Christian gripped the overhead rail, his knuckles white in the dim light.
Sectors blurred past the grimy windows, and the deeper the tram drove toward the city’s belly, the more the walls brightened just enough to show the shift: less grime, more revarium steel. It was cleaner here, maybe. But not kinder. Nothing in Perileos was.
The tram hissed to a halt, and the moment Christian stepped out of the car, his jaw locked.
It hadn’t been long since he’d last stepped foot in this part of Perileos.
Yet its cultivated perfection still sent a chill down his spine.
If only its inhabitants knew what really happened while they were asleep in their flats.
Christian fell into step with his team, their boots loud against the revarium steel floor as they maneuvered through housing blocks.
The walls here were a lighter alloy and reinforced.
The flats were more spaced apart and not stacked on top of each other.
Some even had false window screens that played slow-moving sky simulations.
Everything was exactly as he’d left it, except . . .
Where were the robots that policed the streets? As far back as he could remember, their looming presence had been a constant pain in the ass. They made people stand a little straighter and speak a little softer. And now, there was nothing. Just stale air and too much silence.
They rounded a bend, and Gallowood House came into view behind a black iron gate. It was tall and stately, three stories of shiny revarium steel and tinted windows.
This was where Hawk grew up? Christian had to give him credit. Hawk never acted like he came from this level of wealth.
Christian had passed this place many times with his sister, Lysa, and they’d mocked whoever lived inside.
Christian had gathered so many horrific memories just to provide for his family.
These people never wanted for anything. Except, now Christian knew better.
Hawk may have had every material thing, but he’d grown up completely alone.
No family. Probably no friends. Christian suspected that, for Hawk, this hadn’t been a home but a prison.
Guards at the gate opened the door for Ahna and her team, and they marched up polished stairs to a striking, bright red door.
Ahna held the white fibroglass ring she wore around her middle finger—the ring that marked her as a Systems civilian and granted her access and privileges—against the lock pad, and the door opened.