Page 59

FORTY-EIGHT

“ W hat the hell is going on?” Kel barked.

Bryna lifted her arms in a seemingly peaceful gesture, though she held a sancter rifle in one hand.

“Who’s this?” Coup asked, frowning. “And why does she have a sancter rifle ?”

“I met this one”—Bryna pointed to Kel—“during her jaunt in Vohre Forest. I made her a proposition, and I’m so pleased that someone else on her team was smart enough to take me up on it.”

Confusion barreled through Kel. How did Rahn know Bryna? Behind Bryna, figures stirred in the shadows. People were patrolling the hall, dressed in black leathers that were almost identical to Cristo uniforms.

“She’s a leader in the Fume. She almost killed me,” Kel sneered.

Bryna tsk ed and waggled a finger. “I did no such thing. I just offered you the chance to prove your intentions, and your friend here has done just that.”

Bryna looked to Rahn, who was fidgeting, her face white.

“We only have three more aviaries to secure. Cristo’s other guards are tied up out of sight.

The keys you gave us let us into the security offices.

We waited until their scheduled breaks and overpowered them easily enough. Just like you said.”

Rahn nodded. “Someone will discover the breach by the next change-of-shift in half an hour. If you have a way to communicate that to your team, make sure they know. Though hopefully we’ll be out of here by then.”

Kel threw her hands up. “What the hell , Rahn?”

Rahn swallowed, the confidence draining from her face.

“I-I’d never heard of Bryna before. I didn’t know there was a group of them hiding in Vohre Forest. But I knew enough about the Fume to convince them to get here.

Because of my mom—they’ve been trying to convince me to spy on Canen for them for years. ”

The venom in Rahn’s voice was so alien. Even Dira’s eyes widened in shock.

Rahn turned to Kel. “The leather bracelet I gave you for the last race didn’t just record your location—it recorded all audio.

The signal was weak and the data didn’t come through for a few days, but…

I listened to everything that happened in the forest. So I snuck out to retrieve the device. And have a word with the Fume.”

The Howlers gaped at her.

“I knew they’d listen to me if I gave them my surname,” Rahn continued. “So, I took one of Cristo’s fastest armored bikes and found some of the Fume near where Kel dropped the bracelet.”

She said the words so simply, as if venturing into Vohre Forest, alone, was as simple as a stroll through the city.

After a pause, Rahn added, “I went to speak with Estra in the hospital this morning. But… she’s unconscious. She’s alive—but I couldn’t wake her. I—I think it’s too late for her. So I did the only other thing I could.”

Guilt fluttered in Kel’s stomach. None of them had time to waste on indecision—but Rahn’s entire world had been forced upside down. Even Dira’s eyes softened.

Coup, on the other hand, folded his arms. “You’ve got to be kidding. You invited a Fume leader into Cristo Industries?”

Bryna tsk ed again. “Not just a Fume leader, boy. As much of the Fume as I could gather at such short notice.”

“It still might not be enough. He’ll have an army protecting the race hall and plenty more sancter rifles than I could steal for you. But this was the only way I could get us backup in time,” Rahn said, glancing down at her watch again. “We’re out of options.”

Bryna sighed. “I don’t trust you and you don’t trust me, but for now, the enemy of my enemy is better than trust. We’re here to take down Cristo Industries. Whatever comes next—well, we’ll figure that out once these phoenixes are safe.”

Reluctantly, Kel nodded. On that, at least, they could agree.

Bryna paused. Then, in one jerky motion, she extended her sancter to Kel. “You look as if you’re about to collapse. You need this more than I do.”

Adrenaline sparked as Kel wrapped her hand around the cold grip of the sancter. She could feel a gentle crackle of electricity beneath the metal.

Bryna nodded, then glanced back. “The aviaries are open, but Cristo has his phoenixes well trained. If we want a distraction, we’re going to have to force them from their cages.”

“Get a water bottle and spray them a couple times,” Kel said, pointing the sancter to the ground in as loose a grip as possible. “They’ll flee their cages faster than if you’d shown them a rare steak.”

“I’ll grab us some water guns and divide up the aviaries with Bryna,” Rahn cut in. She turned to Kel. “You need to get to Sav.”

Kel’s pulse quickened. “Where are you going to find water guns?”

Rahn eyed her carefully. “The top floor, with the pool. We used them a month ago, when we went for a midnight swim. With Estra.”

Kel’s response lodged in her throat.

As Bryna fled down an empty hall, the Howlers divided into two groups. Kel forced Dira to accompany Rahn to the remaining aviaries. Whatever tension was brewing in Dira, the winger and technician still worked the best together.

Bekn, Coup and Kel started toward the diamond hall imprisoning Sav. They snuck through shadows and huddled in dark corners when guards strode past. Other figures in black leathers loped down nearby halls, and Kel hated the confidence with which the Fume moved, as if relishing the growing chaos.

It became clear when Dira and Rahn had succeeded in their own mission. The screeching of freed phoenixes began thundering across the building. Kel heard wood splintering and metal crashing, sending vibrations through the floor.

A smile curved her lips—and quickly vanished, as they tiptoed around the corner to the hospital wing.

They were heading toward the eastern end of Cristo’s buildings. She should have known they’d pass the hospital. There was no receptionist in sight; the room was empty of all but the distant cries of phoenixes stalking the halls.

Bekn stopped. When Kel and Coup looked back, his eyes darted to the hospital doors, behind the receptionist’s desk.

“You could wait in there,” Bekn whispered, pleading. He turned to Kel. “You could help us by staying safe.”

Coup reached for Kel’s hand and shook his head. “She can’t—not here. Estra’s in there. Kel’s spent the last week in the same infirmary as another AB patient. It’s probably why her symptoms are so obvious.”

Though Coup’s tone was gentle, his words ground at her like sandpaper. No one had known Kel had AB, and so they hadn’t questioned placing her in the same infirmary as Estra.

Despite the number of heartbeats she had left, despite her desperation to free Savita, Kel couldn’t stop her feet. She glided toward the hospital doors in a trance. Neither Bekn nor Coup stopped her as she pushed open the doors and took in the empty rows of beds.

Empty—except one.

At the far end of the hall, shrouded by shadows and machinery, lay the girl Kel had passed the last time she’d been here, with black hair and an aura of familiarity as palpable as the sweat coating her skin.

The green, hand-stitched blanket still swathed her, with the same flowery initials Kel had seen sewn into Bekn’s apron: E. C.

Though her eyes were closed, Kel knew that if she opened them, her irises would be near-black and speckled with brown. The same ones—so like Cristo’s—that had haunted her dreams.

“Estra,” Kel whispered.

The girl— Estra —was little more than a thin layer of skin stretched over jutting bones. Her breathing was a low rasp, her fingers twitching against her blanket. From the inner corner of her right eye, a drop of dark blood trailed down her cheek.

Kel leaned forward. Gently, she reached down and wiped away the blood. The scent of lilies flooded her nostrils.

Memories flashed through Kel’s mind. The dark-haired girl who had eaten with them their first day here.

The extra plate Bekn had laid out for pancakes.

The movies she’d seen scattered across their couch—for a movie night .

The child’s drawing in Cristo’s office. Rahn calling Cristo a dorky dad.

The figure she hadn’t recognized during their first day training in Cristo’s compound.

The girl Cristo had been chatting with at the race with sprites.

This was Cristo’s daughter. But she still had no memories of Estra’s face, no threads she could tug on to reveal the missing fragments of her memories.

There was nothing. Just the knowledge that her friends had diagnosed her correctly.

Estra and Kel both had AB, and both would die.

“Do you recognize her?” Coup asked, moving forward to squeeze her hand.

Kel swallowed. Her breathing slowed to match the slow beep, beep of the machine monitoring Estra’s pulse.

“No.”

Another inhuman shriek echoed across the walls, rattling Estra’s bed.

Before Coup could respond, Bekn urged, “If you’re not staying, then we need to move.”

Slowly, Kel turned back to her friends and nodded. “Let’s go.”

Kel lingered, letting Coup and Bekn move ahead as they left the hospital. She wiped more blood from her nose.

A moment later, an alarm screamed.

The world flashed red, stealing the shadows they clung to.

Kel tried not to wince at the jarring noise as they sprinted toward the diamond hall.

Squawks and distant screams smothered her short breath.

Kel struggled to keep pace with Coup and Bekn, gritting her teeth through pain and panting directions.

The lead in her bones had returned, anchored to something below the ground.

Her body begged to lie down against the cool floor.

It was only the thought of Savita—flames shrouding her as she neared death—that kept her moving.

The alarm began battling other echoes: phoenix screeches, shattering glass, stampeding feet—likely Cristo’s guards investigating the noise.

Kel’s knees almost buckled with every near-encounter, relieved she didn’t have to attempt to aim the sancter.

She tried to focus on that relief—on anything but the brittle fear making her flinch with every new sound.