“Will we really question everyone now?” Eli fell in step beside Ava, leaving me in the middle with Zion at my front.
My eyelids twitched at the protective bubble they’d formed, no doubt at Zion’s request.
I could stand my ground. The endless hours I’d spent in the training rings, in rain, in snow, in freezing cold temperatures, in one-on-one combat lessons and in group formations, had all paid off.
Sure, my skills weren’t on the same level as theirs, but I could deal a blow or two. Ava had drilled a simple rule into me: the inability to overpower your opponentphysicallydidn’t mean the end of a fight. All you had to do was engage your mind to spot their weaknesses, and you’d increase your chances of victory tenfold.
“We have no choice,” Ava stated. You had to leave it to her to refuse to be questioned. “The traitor has to be someone from our inner circle, and going by the idea that these two,” she waved at me and Zion, “are off the list of suspects—unless you think they’d ask the city to send soldiers after themselves—that leaves Ezra, Ryder, Sadira, Eislyn, Jayla, Amari, and Tarri.”
“Eislyn isnotthe rat,” Eli growled. The man had grown protective of my friend.
We had ruled him and Ava out from the list of suspects, gambling on the fact that they both had been born outside the cities’ walls and raised for war, like all the residents in the compounds.
“You’d say that, wouldn’t you, lover boy?” Ava’s snickering drowned in the crunching of twigs under our boots. “How’s life in your new bedroom? Has she roped you into the positions from her books yet?”
I snorted. “He’d run before he’d agree to try them out.” I was more than happy for them living together, but Eli had no clue what awaited him.
Ava caught up with me. “Speaking from experience?” She nudged my side, her eyebrows shooting upward in quick succession.
I halted at the memory of Gedeon manipulating my body. Bending my will to his. Burrowing so deep into my soul, I’d lose myself.
Cold palms cupped my face. “Kali?” Zion’s gaze bore into me, concern etched into his expression.
I covered his hands with my own. “I’m okay. I just…remembered.” How he and Gedeon had done things to me that would make the heroines in Eislyn’s books blush.
“I’m sorry.” Ava’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t mean to…” she trailed off at Zion’s scowl.
If you met him for the first time, you’d think nothing of it, just a simple frown, but if you knew him, you were also aware of what usually followed.
Damp walls.
A cement floor with a drain.
Blood dripping off a blade.
Heat pouring out of his plaything’s groin after their femoral artery had been severed.
“It’s fine.” I squeezed Zion’s wrists before bringing them down and tugging him to walk beside me, at a safe distance from Ava. Not that I’d feared he’d do anything to her—he valued her too much—but his intense gaze alone could send shivers down your spine. You could sense the visuals of how he’dplaywith you spinning in his mind.
Leaving it to Eli to free Ava from her internal chewing, I trekked forward with Zion, cursing at him for positioning himself to cover me. The trees had thinned out, exposing us to the midday sunshine filtering through the gaps between leafless boughs.
Ilasall had upped its security, scheduling more guards to march atop the wall and sending crews of soldiers to linger in the areas surrounding the city.
The changes had halted our efforts to restore our depleted reserves. You couldn’t resupply food, firearms, or meds if you couldn’t cross the gates undetected, even with a microchip implanted in your purlicue.
At least the winter had been merciful enough for us to pull through without rationing our meals. And with the spring finally here, new harvests were soon to be on our heels.
Never had I thought I’d be involved in the discussions of whether to sow more barley or wheat. I wasn’t qualified to make the decisions by far. Thank the gods nobody had left me in charge alone. Whatever the responsible persons recommended, I agreed with it, nodding along with as-clueless-as-me Zion.
“This is it.” Eli gestured to a round block of concrete set in the forest floor. Mold crawled all over the stone-like mass, the metal handle so rusted I wondered how it hadn’t fully disintegrated yet. Snapped branches lay scattered on top of what resembled a sewer hole, but on a much larger scale.
The entrance to the tunnel.
Once nature bloomed, the vegetation would camouflage it, but now the access point looked out of place—the man-made object soiled the beauty of the wild.
“It looks abandoned,” Zion remarked. Squatting, he removed the fragments of withered greenery off the heavy lid. “I’m guessing it hasn’t been used for years from how the hinges are cracked. I’m not sure they’ll hold.”
Eli joined Zion in his inspection. “This doesn’t look even remotely safe.”
