“We compared our data with data we stole from the Beta’s Path. The small pockets of communities out there are gone. They did a massivesweep to get everyone here. There’s no one left out there in the world, Keres. All those communities, they’re dead.”
“This can’t be true.” I think of all the places I’ve visited, the people who have helped me, the families living out in the middle of nowhere just existing. “No, how could they have done that?”
“It is true. It’s been systematic,” Mordecai says sadly.
I turn away from them, moving to the open window, staring out at the dark.
“Okay, so it’s over, then.”
“No!” Mordecai says loudly. “It’s not.”
“How can it not be, you just said—”
“I said if we fail here.”
“You’re going up against the Path? Here?” I let out a bitter laugh. “Then we’ll all die.”
Mordecai scowls at me. “You of all people—”
“Me of all people should what?” I snap, whirling back around and advancing on the alpha. “Should want to fight them? Should want to risk putting myself in a position where I’m back in that pain again, locked in chains, branded, burned, raped, beaten, starved? I should willingly throw myself into that?”
“You should want to see them fall,” Mordecai says softly.
“Do you have anything to lose, Mordecai? Like truly lose? Someone you love more than life itself?”
He hesitates. That hurts, but I don’t look too deeply at why; I just shove itaside.
“Then you don’t understand how you could willingly walk into the citadel and give yourself into their hands. I was there for six months.”
His cheek twitches.
“Do not ever say to me that I, of all people.”
“They will die if you don’t fight, that is certain; at least if you fight, there’s a chance, though a slim one.”
I shake my head, backing away from him, but he grabs my wrist and holds me still.
“Just listen. Please.”
Everything in me wants to get as far away from these lunatics as I can, but extinct?
“The problem is that there are less and less alphas and omegas being born, and those that are, are killed quickly,” Legion says. “We’ve devised a plan, and we’re not here to bring about the Path’s downfall,” he says, snagging my attention.
“You’re not?”
“No, that’s not the primary objective. Our first goal is to save the alphas and omegas and get them out.”
I stare at him, and all I can see is honesty, but can I trust him and my instincts?
“How?”
“There’s an exit; we have a mysterious clue; we just need to find it,” Legion says. “We’re all in. You noticed, but we brought all our warriors, fighters, and intelligence here to get these people out.”
I stare at them. “This is a rescue mission?”
“Yes.”
Did that change things for me? Yes, of course, it did. Going up against the Beta’s Path would be foolhardy. But rescuing all these people out of this death trap, saving people and extending the timeline for the extinction rate?
