31
“SO THE SECT JUST HAS a death weapon lying around?” I yelled so loudly the agent driving squirmed a little in his seat. I didn’t care. My fingernails were practically ripping the leather of his headrest, but I didn’t even notice.
“Apparently,” Uncle Nathan said. “According to the file I read, the Sect built it a decade ago, a last resort in case of a cataclysmic phantom attack. But it was never used. Only certain members of the Council know about its existence. If Director Prince is using it, then either he knew about it all along or one of those Council members told him the big company secret and gave him the controls. Either way, looks like we’re about to see Phase III.”
“Phase III is to nuke a city?” I pounded the headrest with a fist. It was too much to believe. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Sibyl said. “I don’t know whether Director Prince is aware of Project X19. But if he does this, it’s only going to make things worse. Even if he succeeds in taking Saul out, he will sacrifice lives. And he will start something I’m not sure any of us will be able to finish. You have to stop him, Maia. Even if that means killing him.”
Chae Rin’s and Lake’s expressions said it all. We were battered, starved, and exhausted. I didn’t know how much any of us had left. And I didn’t know if I could stomach taking another parent away from Rhys. . . .
Rhys.
“Rhys is in Oslo!” I sat back against the seat, my hands shaking. “He was deployed there . . . by his father.”
Chae Rin looked horrified. “God, that’s messed up. Either he sent him there knowing from the beginning, or he’s willing to sacrifice his own son.”
“He couldn’t. He wouldn’t!” I turned to Belle, waiting for some kind of affirmation. But she was lying against the side of the door, staring at nothing through lidded eyes. “Belle!” I shook her. “Are you okay?”
She jerked her arm away at my touch and dragged herself up. “I’m fine,” she said, a little sluggishly. “I’m okay. Just leave me alone.”
“But, Belle—”
“Stop,” she snapped, and laid her head in her hands. “My body’s . . . healing.”
But was her mind? This was the wrong time for Belle to be incapacitated, though I couldn’t even imagine what she’d just been through. I could still see the scars along her neck, the burn marks scorching her left temple, searing off a bit of the hair there. She caught me staring and let her hair out of its binds to cover it.
“He told me something strange.” Belle’s eyes lost focus again.
I leaned over as she wiped her face. “What?”
“He said something strange. About me. That I would always be alone.”
She looked at me. Whatever the Surgeon had done to her . . . had said to her . . . it wasn’t just physical. It had emptied her out. Hollowed her. She looked at me as if she didn’t know me. As if she never had. “But that isn’t true, is it? Maia . . . you’re on my side, aren’t you? You’re on Natalya’s side.”
I pulled back from her.
From the backseat, Chae Rin gave her a rough shove. “Snap out of it. We’ve got more important things to deal with.” But behind her gruffness, even she looked worried.
“More important,” Belle repeated as if trying to feel the words in her mouth. She lowered her head, her hands shaking. “Like Vasily said . . . no one cares anymore . . . about Natalya. . . .”
“Great.” Chae Rin shook her head. “Just fucking great.”
We were nearing the south building, which housed the Communications department, but we weren’t alone. Three rows of agents were waiting for us right in front of the entrance, the bottom two rows kneeling and crouching so we could see the barrels of each one of their guns pointed at us as they fired. The driver swerved, trying to avoid the bullets, but one punctured the windshield, narrowly grazing Lake’s head.
“Press the gas!” Chae Rin yelled.
The driver didn’t need telling twice. I could hear the screams of the agents diving out of our way as we crashed into the building. We hopped out of the car and started running. Belle shrugged off my hand when I tried to help her. Her feet carried her through the halls just fine. We didn’t have much of a plan when we kicked open the doors to the main communications center.
I expected the guns pointed at us, though not all the agents at their terminals and computer screens had their weapons in hand and aimed. What I didn’t expect was to see Saul on the main video screen at the front of the room. He stood in front of a magnificent white building surrounded by his gang of criminals with Sect-grade weapons. NOBELS FREDSSENTER, it read on a strip above the high, arched windows. And next to those words, the English translation: NOBEL PEACE CENTER.
Saul certainly had a sense of irony. Probably Alice’s. Yet I couldn’t discount that Nick could be so twisted, for as he told me in Morocco, the differences between them didn’t matter much these days. They were both dangerous.
I could see phantoms flying off in the distance, slithering in the air, weaving through funnels of smoke and patches of fire tearing through the city. Several dead men and women in Sect uniforms were strewn about the cobbled pavement. Only three were left alive. All had been forced onto their knees, their backs to us, their heads lifted as they stared down the barrel of rifles.
Saul told someone to adjust the camera, and the image shook.
“He’s livestreaming this,” Lake whispered. That much was clear from the progress bar at the bottom of the screen. Maybe he was just streaming this to us.
Or maybe to the whole world.
“What is this?” In front of the computer terminals, Director Prince’s eyes bulged as he ripped his stern gaze from the screen and saw us standing there. “What are you doing here?”
“Yeah, we’re not gonna let your dumb ass nuke a city, asshole,” Chae Rin eloquently explained. “Look at that screen! You’ve still got people alive in there!”
But Director Prince wasn’t listening. “What are you all doing? Capture them and take them back to the Hole!”
“No!” Brendan strode out from behind him, his hands raised. “Hold your fire!”
Prince was furious. “Brendan—”
“No, Dad! This has to stop! They’re right. People are going to die!”
“They’re evacuating the city. It’ll be minimal loss of life. We have to stop Saul now.”
“Even if it means killing your own son?”
Slowly, I looked back at the screen, at the three agents kneeling on the ground. Two were women. The other was a young man, his dark hair noticeable even under the veil of night. And when Vasily stepped into the frame, his frightening grin wide as he grabbed the young man’s hair and yanked his head up, I didn’t have to see his face to know who he was. Vasily’s malicious glee told me everything.
“You can’t . . .” I took several shaky steps forward, barely flinching even when many of the agents by the terminal cocked their guns. “You can’t do this. He’s your son. Please . . . please don’t kill him. . . .”
It wasn’t that Prince had no feelings toward his son. It was obvious he was fighting with himself from the way he screwed up his face and leaned over slightly, as if trying and failing to hide the physical pain the decision caused him.
Finally: “Open negotiations,” he told someone sitting in the front row of terminals.
After a few swift clicks of a keyboard from the Communication techs, Prince stood up straight, visually assuming the mantle of the head of the Sect even if he couldn’t be seen by his enemy.
“Saul,” he said. “We’re sending reinforcements to the city. Surrender now before this goes any further.”
“Oh, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.” Saul wagged a finger from his metal hand at the screen, like a child playing a wicked game. So Alice was in charge this time. That much I knew. “How many times do I have to say that we’re on the same side? I’m doing this for you—for the Sect.”
“Stop trying to confuse the people! The Sect has nothing to do with you,” Prince spat. His anger was convincing. Too convincing. In fact, he very well may have believed it. “Let your prisoners go!”
“My prisoners?” Saul grabbed a rifle from one of his thugs and shot a female agent in the head without missing a beat. She was on the ground dead in seconds. “Two to go.”
Terror swept through me as he swung his gun toward Rhys. I could hear Jessie laughing behind the camera, not surprisingly finding a kindred spirit in Alice, another young girl as twisted as she. Saul took his time cocking the gun, lifting it, pointing it at Rhys’s head. . . .
“Stop!” Brendan cried.
“Stop,” Prince said at the same time—it was defeat that carried the sound from his lips. “Don’t . . . kill my son.”
“Oh, right, this is your son. I almost forgot.”
He nodded to Vasily, who kicked Rhys in the face so hard, his body twisted around and hit the ground on his side. But Vasily only let Rhys writhe in pain for so long before grabbing his hair again and twisting his head forward so we could all see his bruised, bloody features. Rhys . . .
“But then,” Saul continued, “I wonder. Maybe he does deserve to die. Maybe you shouldn’t save him. After all, he isn’t innocent.” Saul walked across the cobbled pavement and knelt next to Rhys. “He’s a murderer. Killed when he was a child. Killed as an agent. Who was the last person, Vasily?”
My lips parted in a silent cry, my hand rising as if there were something I could do from inside this room to stop the next words out of Vasily’s mouth.
“Natalya,” Vasily said simply with a shrug. “Natalya Filipova.”
My hand fell back to my side.
The room went still as a grave. No one moved. No one breathed.
“Did you hear that?” Saul shook his head, his smug smile facing the screen. “I hope the whole world heard that correctly, but I’ll repeat it for those not listening. Aidan Rhys, second son of the Sect’s North American Division’s director, murdered the legendary, heroic Natalya Filipova. And she didn’t even see it coming.” He looked at Rhys. “Do you deny it?”
When Rhys struggled to speak, Vasily responded by letting go of his hair and slapping him in the face. His forehead hit the pavement so hard I could hear the thud, but he was still conscious. Vasily grabbed his sleeve and dragged him up to his knees.
“Do you deny it?” Saul repeated patiently.
“N-no.” The word was almost indiscernible, but I’d heard it.
Saul leaned in, cocking his head toward him. “What was that?”
“No,” Rhys said more strongly despite the blood dripping from his mouth. “I don’t. I don’t deny it. I killed Natalya.”
The few agents who still had their guns pointed at us lowered them as they shifted back to the screen and stared in awe. In this room filled with dozens of people, you could hear nothing but gasps. Brendan stumbled back until he bumped into a terminal, his eyes glistening with tears. Director Prince continued to stand stoically, though his hands curled into fists that twitched against his thighs.
And behind me, someone finally stirred.
Belle.
I twisted around to meet her . . . her eyes. They were on me. Still hollow. Still empty. But with a flash of something else I couldn’t name. A chasm had opened in them, her face like crumbling stone, as she stared at me, through me, without blinking. Her pupils darted to the right and left, trying and failing to grab hold of anything. She was undone.
“A suicide turns to murder in a matter of seconds. Games played by the Sect.” Saul turned his back. “And he’s not the only guilty party.”
The crowd of armed criminals made room for the young woman making her way to the front. She kept her head low, her thick, curly chestnut hair flowing down over her sandy skin. Immediately, I felt a pain in my chest, sudden, unexplainable. Something wasn’t right. Something deep inside me was screaming it.
“Don’t think that the Effigies are your friends,” Saul said.
The girl lifted her head to show her face.
My face.
I fell to my knees. Everyone was looking at me, but I was looking at me too. At the girl who looked exactly like me from the shape of her forehead to the stub of her nose to the point of her chin. The girl who wasn’t me stared blankly at the cameras as Saul passed her a gun. And she didn’t seem to feel anything when she raised it and shot the second agent in the head, killing the woman instantly.
“See?” Saul used the one hand he had left to grip her shoulder, giving it an almost loving squeeze. “You never know what someone is capable of. Right, Maia?”
But that wasn’t “Maia.”
In that moment, I heard Saul’s words echoing in the back of my mind. The words he’d spoken to me that day in Morocco, an evil promise whispering unknown horrors to come.
This is a world of shadows, Maia. And the secrets hide themselves there in the dark. You’ll understand that soon enough. I’ll give you a sign.
You won’t miss it.
“It can’t be.” I leaned over, propping myself up against the floor with my hands as I whispered her name. “June?”