Kali snorted, rushing to cover her mouth and stifle the noise. But the move made her two stumps collide with her cheek, and she winced, her face contorting with pain, her hand trembling.
“They should have some pain meds here.” Ryder headed straight for the shelves brimming with med supplies. “Sorry for the delay, by the way. Zion forced me to make him look…nice. Said something about needing to be apretty boy.” He waved at the gauze wrapped around Zion’s face, the cotton concealing the gash in his cheek, the ends of the fabric tied in a small bow atop his head.
In all his glory, Zion twirled around, showing off. Hundreds of lacerations distorted the smooth planes of his back, crimson cascading from his shoulders down to his hips and seeping into his pants.
Kali blanched. “Your back.”
I leaped at Zion to pull him closer?—
And stopped with my hands an inch from him. If I touched him anywhere, it would only hurt him more. Ants crawled under my skin as I studied the damage done to his flesh.
I pushed through clenched teeth, “You need medical attention.”
“Eh, I’ll be fine.” He shrugged, and then flinched. The movement had disturbed his tenderized arm. “But they took my favorite knife from me.” As he rested his forehead against mine, his exhales rained moisture on my lips. “Ryder caught me up on things. Is she…” He glanced at Kali. “I saw how they tortured her for information about us.” A shudder rocked him. “She told them nothing. It was the only reason they left her alone and came to me.”
“Them?” I cupped his nape. Finding no injuries there, I stroked up to his hairline, savoring how he loosened. “Who hurt you, Zion?”
He graced me with a lopsided smile. “A woman. I think she might’ve been pregnant. But she never introduced herself.”
“So Kali said.” My nails abraded his scalp, and I drowned in Zion’s contented hum. “But she didn’t work alone, did she?”
“There was another one. Tall, slender, also dressed like a doctor.” His good hand came to rest on my lower back. “Lenus.”
My nostrils flared. Withdrawing, I dipped my chin in acknowledgment. I didn’t trust myself not to tighten my hold on him due to my spiking adrenaline levels.
“Damia.” Grabbing the handgun she had given me off the floor, I caught her attention. “I trust you to take care of them.”
As she nodded, Ryder dropped a box full of meds on the examination table. “What do you plan to do?” he asked, wiping off the grime concealing the freckles around his nose.
I disengaged the safety. “Find Lenus.”
84
KALI
Icouldn’t believe this was it.
We had won.
Ilasall had fallen, and at our hands.
My breath fogged up the glass as I stared out the window of a ten-story dwelling, a cluster of them located right in Ardaton’s center, the dozen buildings belonging to the green-banded citizens.
Well, the accommodation used to belong to them.
We’d claimed the entire twelve for the time being so Damia’s people would have a temporary place to crash. Sleeping in cramped quarters would do for now. No one protested the arrangements as long as they got a bed, a shower, and a meal. You couldn’t expect the days in the aftermath to be easy.
Where the glass had become matte from the moisture in my exhales, I drew a line, and another, and another, creating a rough sketch of a yellow oleander.
The flower that had changed everything. In search of it, I’d illegally sneaked out of Ilasall and roamed the surrounding forests. The plant was the reason Gedeon and Zion had discovered me in a clearing last summer.
Huddled in the top floor of the residential dwelling, I surveyed the nest of flat, gray roofs sprawled before me. The majority of buildings were now all assigned to black- and green-banded alike, in spite of grumblings or fits of rage many rich folks had succumbed to.
It would take a while for the cities’ propaganda and brainwashing to ebb. Free thinking was not something citizens were allowed to do before.
Including me. For almost three decades, I’d acted like a dutiful servant of Ilasall. But now, I was free.
Truly free.
