Snow
Sunlight tickled her nose and Snow stretched, reaching across the bed for Hunter, but she only found his side cold and empty. Her eyes shot open and she surveyed the whole room. He wasn’t there.
A cold trickle of doubt welled up in her mind, making its way down her spine and into her heart.
He left her? After all this?
Then, an even worse thought occurred to her. She rummaged through the drawers, overturning almost everything in the room, but her worst suspicions were confirmed. He took the device with him.
She cursed herself. She cursed him. She cursed herself again for ever trusting him. No doubt he was taking that device straight to the Queen. Would people still be willing to revolt if they knew the Queen held the means of their survival in her hands? As long as those chips were functioning, Snow wasn’t sure they’d have the courage. The Queen could retaliate, track them down, their loved ones, shut down bank accounts and ruin their lives from afar.
Even if they managed to take down the Queen, Snow was sure there were sympathizers who would use working chips against the populace.
Did this new development ruin everything? How could Hunter do this to her? She thought…
She swallowed, blinking back tears when she heard a knock on the door next door. The door to the room she’d been assigned.
She peered out into the hallway and saw Tanna there with a tray of food, piping hot. “Oh, there you are! Hope it’s not too early, thought you could use a good meal for a big day like today.”
Snow said nothing, nodding and letting Tanna into the room where she set the tray on the dresser, frowning at the mess Snow had made.
“I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up. I thought I lost something,” she said quickly, feeling sheepish for turning the place upside down.
Tanna was already picking things up and putting them in their rightful place. “Nonsense, don’t you worry about it,” she said, humming to herself while she cleaned at breakneck speed.
“Is this what you were looking for?” she asked, holding out a scrap of paper.
Snow frowned and took the paper from her, unfurling it to find only a single word scrawled on it: Trust.
You jerk, she thought, scowling at the slip of paper. What made him abandon their plan? And why hadn’t he told her about it the night before? What was he thinking, just going on without her? Where was his trust?
She folded the paper carefully and slipped it into her pocket, finding her mother’s ring there. She’d almost forgotten about it, but now she slipped it on and sank back on the bed.
“Can I make calls from here?”
Tanna nodded. “Of course, but if you want a secure line, you’ll have to come with me downstairs.”
Snow nodded and followed Tanna out, still cursing Hunter under her breath. How did he expect this to work? The moment he showed up without her, the Queen would know he’d defected.
But if she’d shown up without him, or they came together, there would be no doubt that he’d be dead in an instant.
That was the problem then. He didn’t see a way that he could make it out alive. So he’d gone for the noble sacrifice, the ass. As much as she wanted to chase after him and stop him, he knew as well as she did that she couldn’t. She had to be there to lead the charge. She had to make sure everything was in place.
Tanna led her down the creaky stairs and through an ‘employees only’ door that emptied into the kitchen. In the kitchen, Tanna went towards the large walk-in freezer and pried open a hatch on the floor that opened to another staircase.
Snow shivered, greeted by the icy blast of air, hugging herself as Tanna worked on the hatch.
“Right down there,” she said.
Snow nodded again, trying to appear grateful while calling Hunter every name she could think of in her head. If — no, when — she saw him again, he was going to get an earful.
The room under the freezer wasn’t much warmer than the freezer itself. The walls were bare, the floor made of dirt, and Snow could touch the closest and furthest wall without even extending her arms all the way. There was one bent metal chair set before what was obviously a homemade communicator. It was cobbled together with tape and exposed wires, but she was sure it would work as she placed the call. She’d dealt with worse.
“I’ve been waiting to hear from you!” Beaver said as the call connected.
She nodded. “Everything in place?”
“Ready as we’ll ever be.”
Just ask him. She pressed her lips together and folded her hands, straightening her shoulders for courage.
“How many men do you have inside the palace?”
Beaver thought about it, pushing his spectacles up his nose. “About a dozen or so within the Guard.”
She took a deep breath. “I need one more favor. An extraction. Can your men manage that?”
He nodded, weighing it in his mind before saying, “Yes, I think so. There should be enough commotion otherwise to pull it off.”
“Perfect,” said Snow. Maybe they had a chance after all.