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CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

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“Tim?” My voice was hoarse, but I didn’t remember screaming. Not in real life. “Thank you.”

He nodded once, then lifted me to my feet. The door creaked behind us. Lance and Jack limped in, and Lance froze when he saw Tim in front of me.

The floor wobbled beneath me and my face felt sticky from tears. Tim squeezed my hand and pushed a tablet from Lady Winters’ robes into my palms, then gently closed my fingers around it. He turned to the security camera at the ceiling’s corner. The camera swiveled, a red light flickered on, and the camera returned to its original position.

“You killed Lady Winters,” Tim said.

“But I—”

“The Community is safe.”

Confusion flooded through me. “Tim—”

He returned to Lady Winters’ body and took the pendant from around her neck, careful not to drop it in the blood. “It is my duty.” He fastened the pendant around his neck, and all I could do was stand there. A door on the opposite wall beeped and slid open. Tim walked through, still holding Crush’s gun. He stared at us, his expression unreadable.

But he had the pendant. If he stayed here—

“Traitor!” Lance snapped. He charged at the door.

“Lance, no!” I cried, but my voice choked in my throat.

Tim flicked his hand and the door slammed shut. Lance cursed, but his eyes widened when he saw me swaying on my feet. He grabbed my arms. “Jen—”

“Tim chose to stay,” I whispered. “Why?”

Lance clenched his jaw. “Apparently, because he’s a traitor.”

I scowled. That didn’t explain why he left. But, of course, Lance didn’t know any more than I did.

“Come on, Inese.” Jack shook her shoulder, felt her forehead, then wiped the icy slush off the back of her armor. Inese moaned and rolled over.

“Crush...”

“He’s gone,” Jack said.

Inese stared at Jack, her shoulders slumped. She forced herself to her feet. Jack hung back, his eyes trained on the floor as Inese lifted Crush into her lap and cradled his body in her arms. “Crush,” she whispered, but the rest of her words were too soft to hear.

A tablet beeped.

“They’re about to give the all clear,” Inese whispered, cradling her partner.

Jack nodded. “Time to go. Lance and I found the car.”

“I know.” Inese nudged Crush’s body onto her shoulder. Lance offered to give Inese a hand, but she jerked Crush’s body away from him. For a moment I saw myself in her place, and I shook my head of the thought. It reminded me too much of Lady Winters’ illusions, and besides, Lance would be carrying me, not the other way around.

Jack led us through the corridors to the real hangar bay. It wasn’t far, and the only beast we saw fled.

The sight of the hangar brought memories of fighting beasties and watching Crush die. I squeezed my hands tight, digging my nails into the palm of my hands and checking to make sure I still had Tim’s tablet.

It was like Chill dying all over again, but worse.

Lance glanced at me, worried, and I nodded weakly.

We would get through this. We had to.

A warm breeze swamped the hall. Outside, the mid-morning sky was accompanied by chirruping birds and the smell of freshly cut grass.

Lance breathed a sigh of relief. I propped myself against his good shoulder to keep myself steady. Our car was the only car among the transport ships. One of the airships looked particularly elegant in its design: slender, made for comfort and security. The Lady of the Cog was painted on its side, with “COE” painted underneath.

Commander Rick’s airship. The one we’d seen before the Health Scan.

“A grenade would be nice,” Jack muttered.

Inese’s eyes flashed and her grip tightened around our dead teammate. She checked the sky with her pistol, and I half expected flying beasties to spring out and yell “surprise!”

None did.

As for the car, it didn’t appear damaged, other than the lingering odor of Val’s horrible perfume. It reminded me that Tim had chosen to stay, and I didn’t understand why. Lady Winters was dead. She couldn’t have been manipulating him now.

But I could almost hear the telepath’s laughter echoing across some old, forgotten corridor. A chill ran down my spine. I glanced back at the facility, unnerved.

Inese started the car, and as we rose above the compound, Commander Rick rushed outside, his pistol aimed to the sky. Several beasties loped out behind him. They looked like the tame counterparts of the average beastie; their hair and fur were groomed and they wore simple, regal clothing that gave them an air of sophistication.

Commander Rick fired his pistol and a shot dinged the bumper, rocking us, but then we were invisible. He scowled. His beasties turned to watch a lone flight beast with curiosity, like guard dogs instead of how the other beasties I’d seen reminded me of wild cats.

The jungle rushed away. Behind us, a small section of the huge, white base exploded and caught fire. Flames enveloped the roof and turned the sky orange, but a huge, four-story section at the center of the complex—where the Camaraderie’s secret project was housed—jutted out unharmed.

I leaned back in my seat, trying to watch the trees and not wonder which of Lady Winters’ attacks were real.

I rested my head in Lance’s lap and stared at the bright blue sky with its pale white clouds. Lance stroked the short strands of my hair, but I was too distracted to complain.

Tim was gone. He’d saved me, but taken the pendant.

I remembered his face, the determined grimace I’d never seen on him before today.

Lady Winters must’ve tortured him.

I took a deep breath, trying to hold back tears, and failed miserably.

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We joined the airship halfway to South Africa. Our flight seemed rockier than usual, but no one mentioned that to Inese. She took Crush’s body to the deep freeze in the storage room, the only place we could store it on the ship during transport, then disappeared into her quarters.

I paced in my room, noting the overgrown vines that climbed the walls and blocked the light. I didn’t trust sleep. Shortly after stepping into a cold shower, I’d found myself in a beastie tank, bubbles rising around me. I couldn’t relax. The images from Lady Winters’ memories were too strong.

Jim’s history book offered me some measure of distraction, but soon after I started reading, the words blurred together and formed the names of the Camaraderie’s leadership, then shifted into images of jeweled pendants and shapeless monsters.

They’d called it a Legion Spore.

I could hardly remember the blast of energy that created it, but the awareness of what those pendants could do burned into my memory like the horrible screams of the woebegone creatures in the Legion Spore’s formation.

I grabbed Tim’s tablet. Maybe there was something in here about the beasts. I searched for any hint of beastie creation or why he’d left. One folder was marked “Legion Spore.”

My mind flashed to the creatures in my memory, the feeling of becoming part of a legion...

The Legion Spore is an experimental project requiring beasts and power users to be merged with a computer AI to form a single entity of enormous capability and power.

I stared at those words for a long time. The memory was real. The Camaraderie had created this monster.

I took the tablet to Pops.

“It has information from Tim,” I said, handing him the tablet. “About their project.”

Pops took the tablet and began the file transfer to a backup drive, but he didn’t put the information on the mainframe for security reasons.

“Jack told me what happened. How are you doing?” he asked.

“I’ve been better.”

Pops pressed his lips together and his beard twitched. He seemed so much older now. “I’m sorry.” He handed back the tablet. “I can look at the information later.”

I nodded. I wasn’t giving that tablet up. Not yet.

“I had hoped to keep you out of our missions, but they may be much worse for you soon,” he said.

“How much worse can this get? Tim just left us and Crush is dead.”

I didn’t tell him what Lady Winters had done. Something about the memories seemed too private, too uncomfortable to share. I rubbed her charm between my fingers, using it to distract myself.

I could get rid of the charm now that Lady Winters was dead. But I wanted to keep it as a reminder of what had transpired so that I wouldn’t forget the evil she had created.

“The Camaraderie escaped, and the Cuban Resistance failed,” Pops said softly.

“That’s not much different than before,” I said.

Pops glanced at the picture hanging on his wall. Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes. Same as Lady Winters’ memory.

My face flushed with heat, and Lady Winters’ identity charm pricked my fingers as I wrapped my hand around it.

Pops sighed. “You aren’t the only one in your family to ask questions. Your father was worried about you. I’m afraid he asked too many questions of his own.”

My attention snapped to him. “Are they—” I couldn’t bring myself to ask if they were dead.

“Your father has been marked as a rebel. He’s in hiding.”

“What about Mom?”

“As far as I can tell, she’s with him. He knows not to leave her alone in this.” Pops returned his focus to the computer console. My heart skipped a beat and my voice caught in my throat.

“Will they—are they safe?”

Pops shook his head. “There is a considerable bounty on their heads. We’re holding Crush’s funeral tonight so we can find your parents as soon as possible. We should be there in two days.”

I clutched the tablet in my hands, my knuckles white. “Thank you,” I whispered, and I rushed out the door.

First Crush, then Tim... What if the Camaraderie took Mom and Dad, too?

I barged into Lance’s room, grabbing him around the waist and squeezing as hard as I could. I needed someone I knew. An old friend. Someone who reminded me of home.

I woke up a half an hour later, clinging to him. I vaguely remembered him sitting me on the bed so he could get comfortable.

“You okay, Jen?” he asked.

I explained what Pops’ told me while Lance tried to comfort me. He squeezed my shoulders reassuringly, but my ragged shoulder still hurt.

“Hey, at least your parents care enough to ask,” he said.

“At least your grandfather didn’t decide who got turned into beasties,” I retorted.

“No, but my parents enforced it.”

I shivered and snuggled against Lance, wanting to be as close to a familiar human being as possible, then tucked my legs beneath me. “Sorry,” I whispered.

He patted my good shoulder. “I know.”

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I forced myself to pore through files of autographed photographs on Tim’s tablet, including the one of Lady Black posed like the Lady of the Cog, and was rewarded with an encrypted document listed under Tim’s transcription folder as “Catonian Relics.”

I’d heard that name from the man on the boat.

The document listed five places:

Guatemala. Egypt. Japan. India. Peru. Beware the shifting guardian; the bearer of these five stones shall travel time on the solstice at the stone circle.

“The time stones,” I whispered.

Lance looked over my shoulder at the tablet.

“Tim figured out where the last three time stones are,” I said, bouncing on the bed.

He frowned. “It’s probably a trap to get us captured.”

“Tim could’ve captured us earlier. Why else would he give us a tablet that had the locations of the stones? What if they work?”

Lance just shook his head.

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Too soon afterward, the airship landed in South Africa and Pops took us to the cemetery for Crush’s funeral. The ceremony was candlelit. Small, rounded white tombstones lined the field as far as the eye could see. The closest ones were marked with the letters “COF,” and far across the hill, hundreds of the same marble tombstones extended into the horizon. All white, all engraved with names, all engraved with “COF.”

The Coalition’s cemetery.

I hugged my arms to my chest. I hadn’t noticed this when we were at Chill and Alec’s funeral; I’d been too new.

Instead of a list of achievements, like in the Community, friends told stories, regrets, and moments of happiness. The service ended sooner than I expected, when a squad of South African soldiers fired a military salute in honor of Crush’s memory. The soldiers left us to wander a room filled with memorial artifacts and stories about Crush’s life: little video clips that showed him as who he’d been.

Looking at those, I realized that I’d barely known him.

Lance stood beside me, looking over the same clips and saying nothing. As I moved away from the table, he grabbed my hand. “Together,” he whispered, “we’ll stop this.” He squeezed my hand and let it fall, then returned to the tables.

He’d changed so much.

He carried two swords at his side now, not just for show, but he was still the guy I had to wake in the morning. He might not have his career in security, but he wouldn’t have been security.

He’d have been Special Forces, or a beast.

Jim stood by the door, aided by his walker. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he said as I neared him. I closed my fingers around Tim’s tablet. Though the phrase sounded like a common saying, I couldn’t say I’d heard it before. He gave me a sad smile. “Are you all right?”

“None of the Community funerals are this depressing. They’re based on efficiency, not emotion. Does the sadness ever go away?”

Jim shook his head. “No; it gets worse.” He telekinetically hovered off the ground with his silver walker and floated through the door, ambling over the dirt until he stopped under a large Adansonia tree, what one of the soldiers called a baobab. The sky was dark, and the leaves rustled and blocked the stars overhead. The flickering made it seem like the leaves were mocking us, but little pinpoints of light shone through.

Down the hill, a shadowy figure knelt by a fresh grave.

I glanced away. Crush was gone, just like Chill. Just like Alec.

Jim pointed into the distance, away from where Inese was mourning. “The sadness remains, but you live, and you fight, and you hope that there is a better tomorrow just over the horizon. I have been hoping for a long time.”

I twisted Lady Winters’ charm between my fingers, watching the rosy light catch in the jewels’ reflections. There needed to be a change in leadership. Or a change in history, if that was possible.

A cool breeze fluttered around us and large clouds obscured the distant horizon. “Soon, then,” I told him. “Soon we’ll have a better tomorrow.”

I’d find a way to make the Community safe on my own terms. No more beasties. No more Lady Winters. No more stupid pills and Health Scans. I’d find a way to oust the Camaraderie, and once I’d found it, there would be no more need for secrets.

The Community would be safe.

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