“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, soother, 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.”
