Chapter Twelve
Gemma answered within seconds of his outgoing call. The “hey” she delivered sounded exhausted.
“Hi, love,” he replied. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Same. How are things down there?”
He pursed his lips. Should he tell her now about the Falaichte or wait until they were face-to-face?
She had enough to worry about right now. He’d tell her later. Besides, doing it over the phone just didn’t seem right.
“They’re moving pretty slow,” he answered. “But we may have caught a break, so we’ll see how it works out.”
“That’s good. That’s really . . . really good.”
He frowned. She sounded like she meant it, but her voice was sad and thin.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m . . .” She sighed. “No, not really.”
Christian sat back down on the bed in his assigned room at Gallowood House, the mattress creaking under his weight. His chest wrenched. He should be there. Not hundreds of kilometers away in a city he’d tried so fucking hard to get away from.
“Talk to me,” he said, wishing for a way to see her face.
There was a pause, just long enough for him to imagine her biting her lip. Or fiddling with the loose end of her braid, as she always did when her thoughts were racing.
“I don’t think I’m dying anymore,” she said quietly.
His heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“I mean, Doctor Manae doesn’t think I am,” she rushed to clarify.
“Well, that’s a good thing, right?” A spark of hope blossomed in his chest.
“Not necessarily. This stuff I can do, the way my DNA and blood are mutating . . . it could be that something is just starting. I think I’m . . . changing.”
The bloom of hope died.
Christian sat forward, his full attention sharpened. “I’m confused. What are you saying?”
Gemma sighed. “I don’t know for sure, but Gunner, the lore specialist—who’s the Kaizen’s brother, by the way—has been going over the carvings in the temple.
He’s been cross-referencing symbols with Revarian root languages, trying to decode the orb’s purpose.
And today he showed me this section of script on that alien statue in the middle of the temple. You remember the statue?”
“I do.”
“Well, when I got close to it, the script on it lit up like it recognized me. So”—she paused—“what if the orb wasn’t a virus? What if it was designed to evolve whoever touched it? Like, maybe it was never meant for humans, so now it’s rewriting me to match.”
Silence fell.
Christian’s head swam. He’d seen her eyes flicker violet.
He’d watched the way her “powers” seemed to overtake her like a wave of sand.
He’d seen her tremble after her nightmares, sweating and gasping like she was clawing her way back from something ancient.
But he’d always thought it was killing her.
He hadn’t even thought to consider something else.
Until now.
“So, you’re not being consumed,” he said, more to himself than her. “You’re being changed.”
“Maybe,” she whispered. “But we don’t know into what. And that’s what terrifies me.”
He closed his eyes, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead.
On one hand, he may not lose her, which lit him up like a meteor catching fire in atmosphere.
But on the other, if she became someone—something—else, what would happen to the woman he knew?
The last time the alien inside her had taken over, she’d slaughtered so many people.
And she’d giggled while doing so. Would she lose herself and become the very thing that terrified her while she slept?
“Christian?” she whispered.
“I’m here.”
“Say something. Please.”
He ran his hand down his face. What could he possibly say that would make sense or be helpful? How could he admit to the woman he loved that he was terrified of what she might become, but also thankful she would live?
No, it wasn’t that he was terrified of what she’d become. It didn’t matter what she was. He’d love her anyway. He was terrified of what it meant for her. If she became the very thing that haunted her dreams . . .
He shook his head, swallowing the fear that she’d do anything to keep herself from becoming that. Even at the expense of her life. So, he said the one thing he knew to be absolutely, one-hundred-percent true.
“I will love you, Gemma, no matter what happens. Even if you start glowing or levitating or growing a third arm, I don’t care. I loved you before any of it, and I’ll still love you after.”
A soft whimper crackled through the comm. She was crying. Stars, what he wouldn’t give to have her in his arms right now.
“I don’t know why,” she whispered, her voice watery. “You deserve better than all of this. You deserve easy.”
“Easy does not mean better, Gem.”
“But—”
“No. I love you, and nothing you could ever do or become will change that. There are a lot of questions and maybes, but not that. Never that. You’re stuck with me, Proctor.” He tried to make it sound light, but there was nothing light about the hollowness clawing through his chest.
A quiet cry. A sniffle. “Thank you.”
“No need to thank me. It’s by far the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make.” He cleared his throat, forcing the weight aside. “So, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”
Another sniffle. “Gunner wants to try something. He found a chamber with some sort of sealed mechanism no one’s been able to open. But he thinks I might be able to.”
Christian let out a sharp breath. “You sure that’s safe?”
“Of course not. But if this thing is changing me, then maybe it left behind a way to understand what and how to stop it.”
He ran a hand through his hair, frustration and fear twining like wires behind his ribs. “Promise me you’ll call me right after. I don’t care what time it is.”
“I promise.”
A beat of silence passed between them, heavy but full of something unspoken.
“I need to go,” Gemma said, and a string in his heart snapped.
“I love you,” he said, pouring everything he had into those three small words.
“I love you too,” she replied, quiet but steady. Unbreakable.
The line disconnected, but Christian didn’t move. Not for a long time. Because now, the fear gnawing at him wasn’t that he might lose her.
It was that she might become so powerful, so other, that even his love couldn’t reach her.
A knock rattled his door. “Cho’s agreed to help,” Ahna said from the other side. “I need you up and ready in twenty.”
“Understood,” Christian replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. Worrying about Gemma would need to wait. Finding Nadine was the priority right now and arresting her meant he could get back to the woman he loved. He needed to stay focused.
Cho, Governor Gallowood, and the entirety of the SARTF team gathered in what used to be the dining room. It had since been repurposed as the war room. Nearly every chair was occupied by someone on solar or grave shift. Christian snagged a seat toward the end, opposite Cho.
Ahna opened the meeting. “As you all know by now, we were fortunate enough to find a member of the Falaichte, which runs a black-market sort of business beneath Perileos. This is Cho, and she’s agreed to help connect us with the Dissent.”
“How so?” Broadman—the solar shift lead—asked.
Cho’s tone was cool and sharp as she spoke. “I don’t know for sure if the Falaichte and Dissent are working together, but I know someone who might.”
“Are they reliable?” Claude asked.
Cho snorted. “Of course not. They’re smugglers and info brokers.”
“But we suspect the Falaichte and the Dissent are in bed together somehow,” Ahna interrupted. “That battle at Zion? Who do you think provided the Dissent their weapons?”
Christian frowned. The two organizations could definitely be working together, even under their own members’ noses. Both operated in the Underground. They might not know the inner workings of the other’s business, but it made sense that they would be intimate.
“We have fixers,” Cho continued. “You have a need, you go to one of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the fixers sets up meetings with Dissent leadership.”
The fixers also were the ones who set up the matches in the ring and handled the bets for both the hunts and the ring fights.
Blast, Cho was right. If anyone would be trusted with securing alliances with the Dissent, it would be them.
“All right,” someone on solar shift began, “so then how can we get a meeting with one of these fixers?”
“Well, for starters, I need to go back. Though by now, one of them would’ve realized I’ve been here, so I’ll need some sort of proof that you won’t come after the Falaichte, or I get shot. Or worse.”
Governor Gallowood sighed. “I can provide that.”
“We can give you a comm too,” Ahna began to say.
Cho shook her head adamantly. “No. Paulo will see it and know something’s up. There’s gotta be a place I can leave you the info. A drop point or something.”
Imara raised her hand. “I may have run several cons and used a stash box to . . . procure items for clients.”
“Do any of you people not have a criminal history?” Broadman drawled.
“Not really,” Christian replied.
“I don’t,” Hawk interjected.
“Well, bless your heart,” Imara snarked.
“I’m just saying—”
Governor Gallowood held up his hands. “Please, Miss Joshi, continue.”
She shot Hawk a glare. “Anyway, I also may have an additional stash locker that no one knows about.”
“That’s actually very helpful,” Claude said. “We could set a beacon to emit a signal to an unregistered frequency. Whenever someone opens the panel, it would alert us.”
“Not bad,” Ahna said. “That could work. Cho could go back to the Falaichte, find out which fixer works with the Dissent, and then set a meeting. When they give you a time and place, jot the information down on a piece of paper or a strip of cloth—whatever—and place it in Imara’s stash locker.
Once you open it, we’ll get the signal and then retrieve it. ”
“Very well.” Philip pointed at the map of Perileos spread across the table. “Miss Joshi, work with Claude and share exactly where your stash locker is and how to open it. Solar shift, you are free to go to bed. Grave shift, see Ahna for your assignments. Cho, with me.”
The room morphed into action as SARTF teams followed the governor’s orders.
“See you later, Christy,” Cho said as she shoulder-checked him on her way out of the room.
He grabbed her wrist. “I am sorry, Cho, for what happened after I left.”
She met his gaze, and for half of a second, Christian thought she’d forgive him, but then she scoffed and tore her arm out of his hold. He ran a hand down his face as she marched from the room.
Whatever. He didn’t need her forgiveness. Leaving the Falaichte was the best fucking decision he’d ever made. Apart from choosing to act on his feelings for Gemma, of course. Besides, he doubted he’d ever see Cho again anyway.
He shook off the shame. He still had a job to do and a woman to rescue. Gemma didn’t have much time, and every day he spent down here was one more she had to face alone.
At least now, SARTF had a thread. It was time to follow it.