Without comment, the Overseer turned and typed out something on the big control panel next to him. I stopped breathing when the elevator doors shut, trapping us at the top of the starbase. There was only one other area up here—the family living quarters. Except, this monster had no family.
The Overseer turned back to us with a Grayhawk in his hand. He leveled the gun on me, his cold brown eyes screaming triumph down the barrel. “Quintessa won’t talk, and I don’t need her anymore. So, you won’t mind if I—”
I dove on instinct, popping open my cuffs to break my fall. The shot hit the goon behind me. I twisted, grabbed his gun as he dropped, and swung it on the Overseer.
“Your turn.” I aimed and fired.
The Overseer took a step back, a flash of surprise animating his features. I spun to my knees and hammered off another shot right at his black heart. I’d never aimed to kill before. I didn’t regret it for a second. I’d destroy this bastard twice if I could.
His guards took aim at us but didn’t return fire without his order. And he just stood there, metal glinting from his chest. No blood seeped out. He smiled again, and this time it wasn’t the village he was going to burn, it was the whole damn universe.
Fear contaminated my wrath. I fired again, the deafening bang of useless shots echoing back to me as violently as the recoil pounding up my arm. Like the walls on Starway 8, the Overseer’s dark-brown uniform was impenetrable and absorbed the impact.
I stopped shooting but kept my gun up.
“You stupid girl,” he sneered. “People try to kill me every day. Do you really think I wouldn’t make myself bulletproof?”
My hostile gaze dipped up and down his body. I adjusted and aimed for his head.
His mouth flattened in acknowledgment of a strategy that might work—until he turned his gun on Jax instead. “Throw the gun away from you.Now.”
Scowling, I set down the gun and sent it spiraling off. With my other hand, I swiped a flash blast from the dead goon’s belt and folded the small weapon into my grip as I stood. Whatever happened next, I wouldn’t be on my knees for it. If I was going to die, I’d die on my feet and do some damage before I left.
I lifted my chin in afuck-youthat I hoped slapped the Overseer right across the face.
His eyes narrowed. Jax, Merrick, and Ahern still appeared to be in cuffs. Was he questioning that?
Sanaa distracted him from his scrutiny by prodding Merrick with her knife. “Knock it off,” she growled when Merrick twitched. She shoved him closer to Shade, which forced Shiori farther back.
The Overseer focused on his long-favored general again. “Nathaniel, I suggest you get control of your niece and prove your loyalty, which I’ve been questioning of late.”
Shade’s jaw hardened beneath the mask. He modulated his voice, dropping it to a low, clipped tone to try to emulate Bridgebane’s. “You have no reason to question my loyalty. I’m with you—as always.”
The Overseer pursed his lips. “You didn’t kill her when she was eight. You let her go just a few weeks ago. You brought me a paltry amount of her blood as some kind of stall tactic. You disappear for days on end. And now this?”
As his voice rose in fury, something occurred to me: the Overseer had only one friend, one person he trusted. Bridgebane wasit. And while Bridgebane’s capacity for lying and subterfuge was impressive, the Overseer hadn’twantedto see what was becoming plain enough.
That faith and trust were crumbling now. I could see it in the Overseer’s expression, like rocks tumbling down the side of a cliff, breaking apart as they crashed together, the raw insides exposed to the harsh light. Because of me, in a short amount of time, Bridgebane had taken one too many risks. Now, doubt glared from the darkening flush spreading across the Overseer’s face.
“You got the blood you wanted from the early GIN subjects,” Shade said briskly.
“And then Ilostthem.” The Overseer pounded a fist on the edge of his console. The skin whitened around his mouth. The look he turned on Shade was like cocking a gun—primed and ready to go off. “Do you know anything about that?” Accusation flicked a spark toward the gunpowder in his voice.
Shade stiffened his shoulders. “I attempted to get them back.DW 12fired shots on those rebel bandits.”
“Useless shots!” the despot spat.
A warning voice in my head grew louder than the speed-of-light pulse in my ears. I needed to distract the Overseer away from our fake Bridgebane. Shade had already slipped a few times with his voice. What was next? The Overseer was bound to hear something that didn’t make sense.
“What do you even want? Whatmorecould you want?” I asked the man who used to be my father in name only. The Overseer loved to hear himself talk—and to give me lessons in how stupid and useless I was while trying to convince me of his own perceived virtue. It had been an endless cycle when I was a kid. He reveled in the sound of his own voice, and right now, he had a literal captive audience. There was no way he could resist.
He focused on me again, his ire sucking at my soul like a black hole that wanted to inhale everyone’s happiness and crush it into a dark mass. “What do I want?”
Soundlessly, I breathed in and out. More than air fed my body. I’d seen Shiori again. Jax was with me. Shade and I had said what we needed to. I’d even found my father. Now, I would draw the Overseer’s fire. I hadn’t been able to save my mother or Miko, but I’d be damned if I’d let him murder anyone else I loved.
“You control the entire galaxy.” I nodded out the clear panel toward the Dark beyond, my home planet still taking up half the panoramic view from the upper deck of the starbase. “Why do you need to hurt people, too?”
“It’s not about hurting people.” He actually looked shocked—almost believably so. “I’ve protected them for years.”
