Untamed

Chapter 24

chapter

twenty-four

Haven

I’m going on my first mission tonight.

The energy underground is electric as we gear up. I slide on my gloves and strap my gun to my hip, tucking a second one in my black boots. I’m the last person in the armory. Until Ender enters.

He’s wearing a fitted black t-shirt and a bulletproof vest. The fabric squeezes around his biceps, strangling his flesh and revealing the ink on his skin. He looks annoyingly good.

I have the urge to ruffle his hair to ruin his immaculate appearance, but I’m afraid that will only make him look more sexy.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Ready.” I hold up two thumbs.

“This isn’t a school trip,” he says gruffly. “Put your damn hands down.”

My smile drops, and I glare at him. What is his problem? He seems more grumpy than usual.

“Where’s your vest?” Ender asks.

“None of these fit,” I say.

Ender picks one from the row of vests and tosses it to me. The weight of it almost makes my knees buckle.

It’s still bigger than me, but it’s the smallest one in the collection.

“I’ll have one ordered for you,” Ender says. “This will do until then.”

I reluctantly put on the vest. It’s a good thing we’ve been training to run with backpacks full of weights, or this would have seriously slowed my pace. The straps are thick and hard to work closed.

Ender lets out a frustrated sound and crosses the small room when my fingers fumble for a second time. He swats my hand away and begins to close them himself.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” I say.

“If I waited for that, we’d be here all night,” he says evenly.

He yanks the tie hard enough to make me stumble forward. My fingers fall flat on his waist, and my heart stammers.

“Easy,” I say breathlessly. “This isn’t a damn corset.”

Ender yanks the second strap. Harder. My fingers sink deeper into his flesh.

“You were saying?” he asks innocently.

“Asshole.”

I shove him away, and he walks to the door with a pep in his step.

He is the worst person alive.

It’s midnight, and we’re crouched behind some barrels in what looks to be an abandoned factory.

Rusted machinery juts out like jagged teeth from the ground, and the air smells of oil and dirt.

It took four hours to reach the destination.

We’re in a different borough, and I’m not quite sure exactly what it is we’re looking for. We weren’t briefed in advance.

Everyone is huddled with their squad leader except for me. I’m the only one who is next to Ender.

“Rebels were spotted east of the industrial sector,” Ender says, voice low, eyes scanning the darkened skyline for any movement on the roof. “We move fast. Capture if you can, kill if necessary. But make no mistakes, or you’ll have to answer to me.”

Adrenaline thrums through me. Either this is Prue and her team or another faction of the Resistance. I don’t know how I’ll protect them under Ender’s watchful eyes, but I’ll have to try.

I can’t let them get hurt.

We move in silence. Ender walks ahead, shoulders rigid, senses on high alert. I follow closely. My ears strain to capture the faintest signs of motion.

Ender grabs my arm. “Stay by me. You are at a disadvantage with no powers. Understood?”

I nod in his direction.

“I’m serious, Warrick, if you disobey one order, you’re done,” he warns. “You can back-talk me all you want outside of this place, but on missions, I am your leader.”

“Yes, sir,” I say to appease him.

I have no intention of getting myself benched from future missions.

“Wait, I can back-talk you outside of assignments?” I ask.

Ender resumes his pace.

“It’s not like I can stop you,” he mumbles.

I smile in the dark. I’m glad he knows better.

We walk in a straight line towards the big red double doors. A small creak sounds when Knox and Orion draw it open.

We’ve barely taken a step inside when the hallway erupts in sudden movement.

Rebels burst out from the shadows, converging on us like magnets.

Smoke bombs are thrown in the space between us, clouding our vision. We slip on our masks, prepared for any noxious fumes. Grunts sound as the fight begins.

Spider is the first to dive into the throng. I just know he’s grinning under his mask.

One of the rebels, a wiry girl with gray eyes that shine like stardust, swings her arms, and the stagnant water that puddles on the floor coils unnaturally around her fingers.

It twists, snakes through the air, and lashes at Ender like a living whip.

She’s probably an Elementalist with an affinity for water.

Ender pivots, narrowly avoiding the strike. He waves his hand, mimicking her own maneuver against her, except that his is an illusion. The girl doesn’t know that, and she evades his power.

Another rebel—a broad-shouldered boy with tattoos crawling up his neck—pounds the concrete, and the floor cracks beneath us. Like Grayson, he has Strength, but unlike Grayson, he isn’t my friend.

He uses the distraction of the unstable floor to charge at me. I move away from his meaty fists. One strike and he’ll shatter my bones to dust.

“Stop,” I hiss. “I don’t want to hurt you. I am—”

The boy doesn’t care to listen; he’s too busy trying to kill me. Someone appears beside him. It’s the brown-skinned woman with the braids who transported Prue away from the battle.

“Not her,” she whispers, locking eyes with me. “The others.”

She disappears with him to the other side of the room.

I glance to my left and see Aric shooting me a suspicious look.

An Elementalist throws a ball of fire at his shoulder, drawing a ragged scream from his throat. Whoever that was deserves a big kiss for taking his attention away from me.

Ender is toying with his opponents. There are five versions of him, circling the rebel, and she is stuck in the center, fighting each one, not knowing which one is the real Ender.

A knife slices through the air towards him. Ender reaches out and catches it mid-flight. His shoulder snaps back, lightning-fast, and the blade catapults forward, sinking into the eye of his attacker.

Terror strikes through me. I’ve never seen Ender Vale on the field. And everything they’ve said about him is true.

He is unstoppable.

He is a menace.

He is the most powerful Gifted I’ve ever seen.

Blood trickles down his mouth, and he licks it clean and smiles, revealing his crimson teeth.

He is more beast than man now.

Even the rebels hesitate for a second, exchanging confused looks.

Ender raises his hand, and the floor shakes. It cracks beneath our feet, breaking in half. He drags his elbows down, and rubble shoots up to the sky.

We are prepared for this. The reason Ender constantly changes the environment when we train is to teach us to outsmart his illusions so we are not distracted during battle.

The rebels fall in a heap, losing their footing while we remain upright. He drags his hands down, and the roof collapses, beams flying down to crush us. I almost flinch at how realistic it is.

Ender is using their fear as a distraction; he holds two guns and shoots in rapid succession. Bodies collapse around him, falling limp where they stand.

Ender flings his guns aside when he runs out of bullets and drags out two long blades from his back and rushes into the swarm. He moves like water, graceful and lethal. I’m riveted by his fighting style, not that there is much for me to do. Nobody is attacking me, and I refuse to hurt anyone.

“We need your help,” a woman says into my ear, appearing behind me. “I need the leader.”

It’s the Transporter. The pretty one.

“Ender?” I ask.

“Capturing him will change everything,” she says, excitement flashing in her eyes. “It will tip the scales in our favor.”

I hesitate.

“It’s too soon,” I say. “I’m getting closer to him. He’s of more use to us at the Forge.”

She contemplates my words.

“Fine,” she says. “Check your pocket when you return. Prue has a message.”

A shot rings and blood splatters my face.

Ender puts a bullet in her shoulder, and the rebel collapses beside me, her eyes wide with fear. Ender’s footsteps echo menacingly around us. His enemies lay dead at his feet.

I bend down, placing a hand on her shoulder and raising my fist, as if I intend to knock her out. Except I use our contact to stop time.

“Can you transport out of here?” I ask.

She’s looking around the room in wonder. Everyone is frozen, locked in motion.

“You could kill them all,” she says in awe. “Put a bullet in everyone’s head. Even the powerful Commandant.”

I pursue my mouth, uneasy at the thought.

It is inhumane to kill people when they can’t fight back.

It reminds me too much of the executions at the square.

Every few months, someone would be killed for defying the laws.

Especially those from the poorer boroughs.

They were always used as an example to convey the regime’s strength and its intolerance for subversion.

Even speaking poorly of Malric Vale could result in one’s death.

“Can you move?” I ask, ignoring her words. “I can only stop time for a few minutes. You have to hurry.”

She nods. “I’ll send another Transporter in my place.”

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Serenity,” she says.

“Good-bye, Serenity.”

It takes a few seconds before she vanishes, face tight in a grimace, hand pressed to her wound. I take a deep breath and swing my fist in the direction of where she just lay, as time resumes.

“Where the hell did she go?” Ender barks.

“She’s gone.”

The words hang between us.

Ender’s eyes flick to the blood on my palm, where I helped contain her wound, then to the space where the Transporter should be. His face tightens as he studies me.

“Gone how?” he asks.

Another explosion rocks the far end of the hall. Smoke pours from a ruptured pipe, lighting a fuse. Someone approaches him, but he puts up an illusion of a wall behind him, keeping them out so we can speak.

“She transported out,” I say.

Ender studies me for a beat too long. Then he turns, barking orders. “Contain the east side and lock down the exits.”

The recruits move immediately, following their squad leaders.

True to her word, Serenity sent another Transporter to collect her allies.

The rebels are all gone. Except for one who passed out from the fight and was missed by the Transporter.

The second he stirs, cuffs are snapped around his wrist, and he is injected with a drug.

The emergency lights start blaring as the fire catches on.

Ender calls for back-up and medics while we step outside, getting as far from the burning factory as we can.

Ender steps close to me, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body and sense his tightly leashed fury.

“You froze when she went down,” he says. His calculating eyes are studying me. “You hesitated, and she got away.”

My pulse spikes. “I reacted as soon as she fell. I was going to knock her out so we could question her, but she vanished.”

“Hm.”

That is all he says, and his lack of words unnerves me. My heart beats like a drum in my chest.

I hunt for a new topic to distract him.

“You’re hurt,” I whisper, fingers grazing the small cut beneath his cheek. Compared to the injuries the others suffered, it is nothing. Flint’s arm looks broken, and Rigel is being dragged away on a stretcher.

I fret over Ender like he sustained a life-altering wound, all in the hopes of distracting him from his line of questioning.

“We have to get you checked,” I say. “Where are the medics?”

“Stop that.” He swats away my hand. His words are a rough bark when he next speaks. “Don’t coddle me in public.”

“In private, then?” I ask.

I’m not sure what I’m doing by flirting with him. All I know is that he needs to forget what he thinks he saw. Ender grunts, brushing past me, not dignifying my comment with a response.

His eyes glide back to me. “You’re with me.”

I nod, falling into step beside him as we move to the truck. The engine roars, and I lean my head on the window. Every few seconds, I feel his eyes land on me. It makes my stomach toss, and I resist the urge to look at him.

My hand curls into my pocket, seeking warmth, until a scrap of paper crinkles beneath my fingertips.

Prue’s letter.

Once I’m alone, I’ll see what she wants.