“Here, take it.” Kali pressed it into Carys’s hands but didn’t release it. “Do you want to come with us?” she blurted out.
“I… I can’t.” Carys tugged on the lapels of her wool coat. “If I go missing, my partner…he will search for me.” She swallowed. “He’s a higher-up. He won’t let me go so easily.”
My attention spiked. “Who is he?” I rubbed my already swelling jaw. The cut on my upper arm pulsed, and a wave of fresh warmth soaked my shirt.
Eislyn was going to purposely stab the syringe into me as painfully as she could for having to stitch me up again. And then would justify it by reminding me we still didn’t have any pain meds we could waste in our reserves. Our inability to restock due to Ilasall’s increased security meant wounds got treated in the old-fashioned way—biting down on something while you screamed.
Carys toyed with the strap of her bag, the map crinkling in her grasp. “He’s the Head of Military.”
Kali cursed, and a chill crawled up my spine. Rolling out the tension in my shoulders, I voiced the future awaiting him. “He’s a dead man.”
Carys’s laugh tinkled in the damp space. “Oh, I don’t doubt it.” She cleared her throat. “Now hurry. I’m sure your friends are waiting for you.”
I nodded in appreciation. “Thank you.”
“No worries. Just promise me you’ll make him beg for death before granting it.”
“I’ll do you one better,” I proposed. “I’ll give you the choice of his punishment.”
The imperceptible dip of her chin settled in my chest like an egg waiting to hatch, longing for the first intake of fresh air. Its weight kept the gloom at bay as Kali and I slunk toward the end of the tunnel, where the shaft awaited. More than sixty ladder bars later, I popped out of the hole in the ground.
Night shrouded the forest, eerie and foreboding. Moonlight filtering through the boughs washed Eli’s scar, a jagged streak running from his lips to his jaw, the end splitting into two.
“What took you so long?” He pushed off the maple tree he was leaning against. “I’m about to freeze my balls off here.”
“Unexpected detour,” I deflected, helping Kali to clamber out of the shaft. “This stays open.” I gestured to the round block of concrete—the lid covering the access point to the catacombs.
Though questions surely spun in Eli’s mind, a subtle shake of my head was enough to shut him up for now.
I was far from ready to talk.
Once huddled in the car, Eli taking the passenger seat, with Ava at the wheel, we flew down the desolate roads, weaving through the forest. I brought Kali’s palm into my lap to knead the pressure points, to feel her pulse.
She shifted in her seat, her knee bumping into my own. “Did you know?”
Her quiet question caved in my chest. Because the answer she demanded, it wasn’t black and white, yes or no.
“I…” Tousling my hair, I yanked the ends until pricks of pain rained across my scalp. “It’s not…”
“I can’t believe you,” she said so calmly her resignation knocked me down, lanced through me like arrows dipped in poison.
A pair of headlights hit our back window—another vehicle had leaped out of a side road.
“Godsdamnit.” Ava slammed the wheel. “Who is that?”
Kali’s fist curled in my lap. “Someone I’m going to kill for good this time.”
13
GEDEON
3 MONTHS AGO
“Iwill go to war,” I said, but a spark blooming in my abdomen slowed my agreement.
“No.” Kali’s gasp barely penetrated the roar of heavy rain. The torrent had flooded the clearing in the forest surrounding our compound in an instant. The early morning had succumbed to nature's force, the sky somber and drab.
Zion stared at my stomach. “Gedeon.” His shock drowned in the sky’s wrath.
