We ride for about an hour in uncomfortable, awkward silence before it occurs to Taylor to introduce me. “Miss Piccolo.” She’s squished in next to me, her thigh flush against mine, and she nudges me with her knee. I open my eyes. “That is Sergeant Javier Perez. He is our lead researcher, developing technology for the Order.” She gestures to the woman next to him. “Master Sergeant Alisa Perez. Master Sergeant Perez is also a doctor. The pilot is Specialist Peter Hollis. He’s…a pilot.” A cheery man gives me a short wave from the driver’s seat. “Soldiers, this is Miss?—”
“Lucy, please.” This guise of formality is grating on my nerves.
“Nice to meet you, Lucy,” the woman says. “You can call us Alisa and Javier. No need for ranks.”
“Thanks, I would feel left out otherwise.” Alisa chuckles politely, but Javier’s cold stare remains wary of me. “What do the ranks mean?”
“They’re loosely based off old US army ranks,” Javier says. He looks like someone carved him out of brittle wood, and if he smiled it might crack his face into pieces. “The Order simplified them years back. I’m a sergeant, my wife’s a master sergeant.”
“I outrank him.” Alisa grins with obvious glee.
Javier smirks. “Yes. We all outrank Petey up there.”
“Yet I hold your lives in my hands,” Peter says through the mic. “And Eos outranks everyone.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
Javier shifts in his seat. “That’s why none of us questioned why Piccolo’s daughter is in this copter with us.”
“Oh, pipe down, Javier.” Alisa slaps his knee in admonishment. “Eos knows what she’s doing.”
He rolls his tired, gray eyes. “Bet you Theia isn’t okay with it. Her leverage strolling back into her city? She ain’t gonna want that.”
I shrug. “Who knows? Maybe she had a change of heart and wants to let me go home.”
Javier snickers. “Right. Over her dead body.”
“What makes you think you know what Theia wants?” Taylor sits up primly. “Miss Piccolo is not leverage. She is to be treated as one of us.”
While I appreciate Taylor taking up my side—even if it’s solely to prove a point—I don’t like being spoken for. “Lady Leather said I had to be under this one’s constant watch.” I jerk a thumb toward Taylor. “And we must do as she says, lest she haul out a riding crop.”
Alisa’s eyes light up as Taylor jabs me in the side. “Lady Leather? Are you talking about Theia?” I nod my head andAlisa bursts into high, lilting laughter. “That’s an appropriate nickname, don’t you think, Jav?”
The cantankerous man snorts. “Don’t let her catch you calling her that.”
“Why not?”
“Though she does wear a startling amount of leather, I imagine it unwise to ridicule her appearance,” Alisa says.
Javier grumbles. “She ought to lighten up.”
“You should understand, Perez. You don’t like it when we point out your rapidly receding hairline,” Taylor says.
“Sure, now that we got company, the stoic finally makes a joke.” With everyone laughing at his expense, Javier joins in and chuckles. “I’m gonna tell on you,” he singsongs.
“Not if I drop you out of the copter first,” Taylor replies. “Peter won’t tell on me, will you, Peter?”
Peter turns and beams at us. “Never, Eos. Sorry, Jav, she’s the boss.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Alisa pats Javier on the knee and he gives her a warm smile. “All of them are.”
The next hour and a half are less awkward than the first. The Order members chat amongst themselves about the Lightbringers, sharing intelligence about the automatons. The concept of these deadly machines doesn’t faze them. They are committed to Taylor, Lightbringers or not. It’s a show of loyalty mundane to them, but extraordinary to me. I can’t see anyone doing the same for Papa. Or for me.
Gazing out of the window, city lights blink their white eyes at us and my gut constricts. Somewhere down there is my home. My family. My room.
Not long after we pass over the West Side Levees, our helicopter lands in an abandoned park, way uptown near the Katherine Piccolo Bridge. One by one, we hop out of the copter and scamper away from its ascent.
“Five hours,” Alisa says. “The helicopter will return to this exact location. It will rest for three minutes before leaving, with or without us.”
