Chapter Twenty-Eight

They exited Arek’s quarters and stepped out into one of Caruth’s extremely rare tepid nights. During the short intermissions between the wet and dry seasons, the weather usually vacillated between insufferably hot and dangerously cold—the perfect climate to filter out the weak from the strong. In her two years of training, Ash couldn’t remember more than a handful of days that weren’t miserable, so at least one thing was going for them. Maybe two if Arek remained reliable.

His cooperation bothered her. She kept staring at him—thinking at him—trying to decide if he’d been unlocked, but he didn’t feel like War Chancellor Hagan had before he was killed on Ephron. He didn’t feel like Toman either. He just felt… there.

“Sync comms,” Arek said.

Ash tapped on her cuff, accepted the encrypted invite.

“If this goes smoothly, it shouldn’t take long.” She hooked a voice-link, courtesy of Tahn, over her right ear.

“About the comms,” Rykus said. “Our cuffs are compromised. Don’t say anything you don’t want our enemies to hear.”

That information was met with a barely visible jaw clench, followed immediately by a mechanical nod. Arek’s gaze shifted to Ash.

“Dr. Monick is working tonight. If anything happens to her, I’ll kill you.” He turned north and strode across the commons, headed toward the barracks where, hopefully, the majority of Rohn’s anomalies slept soundly.

“Well, that was interesting,” she said when he was out of earshot. “You think he has a thing for Katie?”

Rykus scowled. “No.”

Ash fought a smile. They’d been engaged years ago. It hadn’t worked out, but Rykus still protected her like a sister.

Probably why it hadn’t worked out.

“No as in he better not?” Ash asked. “Or no, you don’t think so?”

“It’s not the right time to provoke me, Ash.”

“Oh sorry. It’s a side effect of being back here. Makes me all nostalgic.”

He put a hand on her shoulder, squeezed. “You mean it keeps you from thinking about the institute.”

Her expression soured. “It did until you brought it up.”

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s make this quick.”

They headed due east and kept to the shadows. It wasn’t unusual for people to be out after dark. The anomalies practiced nighttime drills and frequently stayed up late, cramming for the seemingly endless number of competency exams the instructors threw at them. But this was loyalty-training week. Other than medical personnel and support staff, the base was mostly quiet.

The stillness added to her unease. The chirps of insects and whistle of the wind was an exact replica of the soundtrack to the first time she’d gone through the loyalty training. When she’d finally clawed her way back to reality with the help of her fail-safe and a raging desire to preserve and protect the Coalition, she and Rykus had stepped outside for fresh air.

Really, it had been for an escape. She hated that building. They weren’t far from it now. It was a white-walled monstrosity on the outside and in, with bright white tiled floors and white doors and white medical equipment. The only thing not white in the whole damn place were the doctors and scientists in their light blue lab coats.

Neither had said a word to each other when they’d exited the building together three and a half years ago. They just sat on a bench in silence, entangled in their own thoughts and emotions. But she’d felt how much Rykus had loathed the loyalty training. It felt like he’d loathed her as well, and she’d been drowning in an irrational need to please him.

Rykus placed a hand on the small of her back. “You got this?”

Hell. She needed to get her head on straight. She had a mission to accomplish, and she was so damn close to revenge.

“I’m good,” she said.

They made their way to the loading dock on the back side of the building. The institute had security, but it was more focused on monitoring the anomalies than the comings and goings of the medical staff. They made it inside without being stopped, though they likely had only a few minutes before someone noticed them.

It smelled like fear and sterile hallways.

Focus. Breathe. Get to Rohn, then get the hell out. In ten minutes tops, she could have him in a cell next to Valt’s soon-to-be-dead body.

Someone stepped out of a room, comm-cuff in hand. Ash let Rykus take the lead.

“Doctor,” he said.

The man looked up. His jaw went slack. She and Rykus weren’t fully decked out in ready-for-war gear, but they were noticeably armed, dressed in black fatigues, with a few flash grenades and other tools hooked onto their belts and stored in pockets.

“You are…”

“Commander Rykus. You need to leave the building.” He had a hand on the doctor’s shoulder and was already guiding him toward the exit. He plucked the cuff from his hand.

“Rykus? But I’m monitoring vitals—”

“What room?”

“I need to—”

“What room is Rohn in?” he demanded.

Ash gave the doctor three seconds, then she moved. She fired her nonlethal Syra60, then dragged his unconscious body inside his office. After securing him with a quick-tie, she reemerged into the hall and caught up with Rykus as he opened the door to the stairs.

“Fourth floor,” he said.

They jogged up the steps, moving quickly but quietly in the empty stairwell.

Rykus cracked open the door. A man’s scream echoed from the corridor. Chill bumps shot down her arms. It was a sound of terror, a sound of wills breaking and synapses being rerouted, a sound that was too familiar. Every anomaly screamed during loyalty training.

Ash had to force herself to follow Rykus. Her legs felt like they were encased in breach foam.

Blue-coated doctors stood in the corridor, grouped around an observation window. Two guards stood there as well, momentarily distracted by the still-screaming anomaly.

She kept her nonlethal pointed down and slightly hidden behind her. Rykus hadn’t drawn his. They wanted to get to Rohn with as little resistance as possible.

A guard looked in their direction, immediately recognized they shouldn’t be there, and went for his weapon.

“Hands up—”

Ash fired.

He dropped hard.

She re-aimed at the second guard, but the observers had moved, blocking her shot.

“Get down!” the guard yelled. As soon as the doctors ducked, Ash pulled the trigger. The guard went limp.

“Rykus?” a female voice said.

Ash swiveled her weapon to her left.

Katie’s hands went up. She stumbled back.

Ash grabbed her shoulder and steered her toward the startled doctors. “Get them out of here.”

“We need Rohn,” Rykus said. “Is he in there?”

Katie stuttered, her mind playing catch-up. “Rohn?”

“Is he in there?” Rykus demanded.

“Yes, but…”

Ash didn’t hear the last part of her sentence. The voice-link hooked over her ear clicked on.

Arek said, “Rohn’s anomalies aren’t here.”

It took a solid heart beat to understand what that meant.

“He knows we’re h—” A phantom battering ram slammed into her head the same instant the door beside the doctors burst open.

Rykus drew his weapon, spun, but the anomaly barreled into him.

Ash focused through the pain in her mind, fired two times.

A nonlethal pulse hit the anomaly in the shoulder, singeing electrodes still stuck to his bare chest.

Ash strode toward the door. Rohn rushed out.

Her Syra60 didn’t fire when she pulled the trigger again—it needed time to recharge—but Rykus rolled and kicked.

Rohn took the hit on his shin, then swung his leg toward Rykus’s face.

Rykus blocked the blow.

The hurt in her head vanished, and all her training, all her experience and instincts, heightened her sense of time and space.

She saw the doctors scatter. Heard the stairwell door open.

She spun and fired. The damn weapon still didn’t shoot.

She drew her Berick 910 at the same time the guard at the stairwell took aim.

The bullet’s impact made her shot go wide. Lightweight armor kept her from getting a hole in the chest, but it took a second to shake out the numbness from her arm.

A second was all it took for another man to emerge from the stairwell, yank the weapon from the guard’s hand, and pull the trigger.

This time the hit knocked her down.

Rykus opened fire behind her, forcing the new anomaly to duck for cover.

“Go!” Ash jumped back to her feet and sprinted to Katie and the shell-shocked doctors. “Go!”

Katie looked at her, then the anomaly slowly pushing himself up off the ground.

Ash almost used her Berick, restrained herself at the last second, then hit him with the now-charged pulse-pistol again.

A door at the other end of the hall opened. Two men charged out. Both wore the training uniforms issued to anomalies.

“Kill them!” Rohn ordered.

They didn’t slow.

She got off another shot from her pulse-pistol but didn’t get a third.

Screw it. She aimed her Berick. Too late. The anomaly was damn fast. He darted left and was on her before she could pull the trigger.

He nailed her with a strike to the throat that nearly crippled her. She choked and fought for air.

He went for her gun. She let him have it so that she could swing her elbow into his temple.

He collapsed, his chin hitting the ground hard. He immediately pushed himself back up and reclaimed her weapon.

She kicked his wrist, snapping a carpal bone, and the Berick spun across the white tiles.

The anomaly grimaced but got to his feet and charged.

A bullet hit him square in the chest.

Beside her, Katie cursed, scurried forward, and pressed her palms over the anomaly’s wound.

Ash pulled her off. “No. It’s not safe.”

“What the hell is going on?” she demanded.

“Ambush.” She gripped Katie’s arm and maneuvered her toward the side hall the doctors had backed into. “Stay here—”

A door to another observation chamber opened. An anomaly entered the hall. He shoved a woman out of his way and stalked toward Ash.

Damn it.

She put two rounds in his chest. He stumbled, hit a knee, then got back up.

She fired a third time.

“Secure the doors,” Rykus ordered. “All of them.” Then he ran, sprinting after Rohn.

Ash cursed again, pressed her nonlethal weapon into Katie’s hand, and said, “Stay here. Shoot any anomaly who belongs to Rohn, then secure them in a locked room.”

Ash tapped her voice-link and ran. “Monick’s on level four with a Syra60, six other doctors, and two injured, possibly dead anomalies.”

“Almost there,” Arek returned. “Pursuing three of Rohn’s recruits. Mine have ripped sleeves. Don’t shoot them.”

“Affirmative. We’re descending the south stairwell. Rohn’s in the lead.” She jumped the rails, falling to the next set of stairs instead of running down them. Gunshots rang out below.

“Rohn’s outside,” Rykus yelled. “I’m taking fire.”

“I see them,” Arek reported through the voice-link. “They’re armed. I thought this was a surprise visit.”

“So did we,” Rykus said.

Ash reached his side. “He mobilized his anomalies. That took planning.”

“It took advance notice,” Rykus said. “He had to know we were coming before we reached Arek. Can he sense you that far?”

“Hell if I know.” She peeked out the door, ducked back before she got her head blown off. “Arek?”

“They’re advancing. My anomalies aren’t armed. We can’t get close.”

“Can you get to Valt?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Secure him. We’ll deal with Rohn.”

Rykus unhooked a flash grenade from his belt. “Ready?”

She nodded.

He launched it out the door.

The world flashed behind her closed eyelids, the boom hit her chest, then she was moving, exiting beside Rykus and firing on the disoriented anomalies.

She tried not to kill them. Most of them went down with one bullet. A few took two. One anomaly was too damn tough. She unloaded six bullets into his chest, then pushed the guilt into a corner of her mind to deal with later.

Her voice-link chimed, signaling an open comm channel.

“This is Commander Rhys Rykus,” her fail-safe said, running beside her. “I have seven injured anomalies on the southeast quad. They need medical care and guards.”

“General Pevy,” a voice returned. “What are you doing on my planet?”

“Rohn has been aiding the enemy, sir. We need help apprehending him. I will explain—”

“You need to stand down,” the general said. “I will have a security detail at your location in two minutes.”

Rykus ended the open transmission. Hopefully, the general would get the anomalies help.

They reached the door to the armory.

Rykus met her gaze. Nodded.

Ash swung the door open. They charged inside, weapons sweeping the room.

A shadow moved to her left. She spun and fired.

The anomaly took the hit in the gut. He stumbled into a shelving unit, then lunged forward.

Her side kick caught him in the jaw. She dove on top of him when he doubled over, then quick-tied one of his wrists.

He swung his free hand at her head.

She snapped the other end of the tie to a pipe in the wall.

He grabbed her ankle, flipped her to the ground.

Her breath whooshed from her lungs. She rolled and swung a knee into his stomach, then darted out of reach.

She should have just killed him. This cost too much time. Rykus had already left the storage room.

She rushed into the next room, an empty chamber, and spotted an open door. She reached it and shut it behind her. Its heavy, reinforced panel made a loud clang. She’d have some warning if an anomaly followed them in.

An assortment of rifles, hand guns, and other lethal and nonlethal weapons lined both walls. It was like walking through Tahn’s catalog.

Ammunition was stored elsewhere, so she bypassed the more accurate weapons and grabbed a pair of pulse-pistols from their charging unit as she passed. Another one was already missing, either swiped by Rykus or Rohn or another rogue anomaly.

She exited the next open door and entered the firing range.

Rykus had an anomaly on the ground. He quick-tied his hands. “That way!”

Ash ran where he indicated to the opposite end of the empty chamber. It led outside. A hundred-meter gap separated her from a sub-atmo flight hangar.

The door was cracked open. Rohn didn’t have time to go anywhere else.

She sprinted the distance and reached the door right before Rykus caught up. In perfect sync, she swung it open and they swiveled inside.

Rohn raced toward a CR2 maintenance shuttle.

Ash planted her feet, took aim, and fired six charges from her newly acquired weapon. Every damn one of them missed. Accuracy of pulse-pistols was shit at this range.

Rykus had kept running. He drew his weapon and called for Rohn to stop.

Rohn hit the CR2’s belly, spun to the right, and ran.

It was a bad decision. They didn’t want to kill him. He could have locked himself inside the transport, taken off, and bought some time before an air patrol brought him down. Now they would catch him.

Rykus fired a shot at the door Rohn reached for.

Ash rushed forward, closing the distance so she could hit him with the pulse-pistol.

Suddenly Rykus stopped moving. He backpedaled.

“Bomb! Bomb!” he yelled.

Ash saw the flat disk attached to the shuttle’s fuselage the second before it exploded.

Flames burned her hand and crawled up her sleeve. The material provided some protection, but she lay on her side and watched it begin to melt.

Her brain was too rattled to immediately feel the pain. It came after several long seconds. She choked back a cry and rolled, smothering the fire beneath her.

Coughs wracked her body. Her eyes stung and watered, her ears rang, and the pain was suddenly everywhere, lighting up every one of her nerve endings.

“Rykus,” she croaked out.

Push through. She had to push through this.

“Rykus!” she called again. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear her vision. Thick black smoke rolled through the destroyed hangar. Missing chunks of the roof littered the ground, and nearly unrecognizable pieces of the shuttle burned and sizzled.

Her name came out as a strained groan.

She turned. She only saw more destruction, more flames, but she stumbled that way, sensing her fail-safe was there.

She found him pinned to the wall by what looked to be a piece of the shuttle’s hull. He was trying to push it off. He didn’t have the right leverage.

Ash knocked away a burning piece of insulation, then got a grip on the debris.

“On three,” she said. “One. Two. Three.”

The sharp edge cut into her palms. She roared, funneling all her strength into lifting the slab of metal.

“I’m out,” Rykus said.

She dropped the hull piece and collapsed. Her body screamed for her to stop, to take a rest, to lie down and put life on pause.

She stayed upright and swept her gaze over Rykus.

Seeker’s God, the right side of his body from the hip down was ravaged. He wasn’t going to be able to walk. She wasn’t going to be able to—

The air shook. A rumble vibrated the destroyed hangar. Ash launched herself on top of Rykus, shielding him with her body as a huge chunk of ceiling crashed down.

Debris pelted her back. Sparks singed her neck and the left side of her face. She held on to her fail-safe, hoping she was enough to shield him from more damage.

When the world finally settled, Rykus tightened an arm around Ash’s waist.

“You have to go.” Pain laced his voice.

She climbed off him but kept a hand on his chest, assuring herself that he was still there. Still breathing. The only exit not blocked by fire or debris was a window on the upper level that rimmed the building’s wall. A beam had crashed into the stairs leading up to it, but it looked like it might still be usable.

Her spine ignited when she tried to straighten.

She cried out, fell back down.

“Hey.” Rykus gripped her shoulder. “Baby, you have to go.”

She clenched her teeth and nodded. She had to get him up. Had to get him out.

She tried to get his arm over her shoulder.

“No.” He swallowed. “I’ll slow you down. Go without me.”

“Not happening.” She pulled on his arm. He grabbed both her hands.

“I’m not going to make it. The rest of that roof is coming down. You have to go now.”

She knocked his hands away. “I’m not leaving you.”

“You are.” He sucked in a breath. His face pinched into a grimace. “It’s an order, Ashdyn. Go.”

She rose. Halfway up, she recognized the grip of the loyalty training.

“You bastard,” she whispered.

She took a step backward. Then another one. He’d caught her off guard. Her defenses hadn’t been up.

“You promised,” she said. “You swore you wouldn’t—”

“Go.”

The compulsion hooked her willpower and nearly shredded it, but no.

No! She was not going to lose him. She couldn’t.

She dropped down beside him.

He cursed. “Ash—”

“You bastard.” She kissed him, a hard, desperate capitulation to their fates. He tasted of smoke and strength and stability, of an allegiance to a future she could finally see. She would have made a thousand promises, committed a thousand treasons, to keep him at her side, but it was too late for that. All she had was this kiss and this man and this moment of surrender.

She eased back enough to meet his gaze. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Rohn and Valt—”

“Shut up,” she said. “Just shut up.”

He closed his eyes, shook his head. When he looked at her again, he drew in a long, deep breath.

“Left pocket,” he said.

She frowned but felt down his leg and slipped out a hard black case, a case that was identical to the one she carried her boosters in.

“Found it on one of the anomalies,” he said, taking it from her hand.

He opened it.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Yeah.”

It might help, and it didn’t matter that it was too soon to inject another booster or that Rohn’s anomalies shouldn’t have had access to them for at least another two weeks. She had to get Rykus up those stairs and out of there.

He flicked off the safety, then plunged the needle into his thigh.

Ash stared at it, not understanding.

Her fail-safe huffed out a breath.

He huffed out another one.

Then he pounded his fist against his leg and cursed.

“Rykus?” It didn’t make sense. She was the anomaly, not him.

Seeker’s God. Not him.

“What the fuck did you do!” She jerked the needle from his thigh.

“You wouldn’t leave without me,” he said. “So we leave together.” He pulled his good leg under him, tried to rise, but started to tilt toward the ground instead.

She caught him. “Rip—”

“Hell. This… this is a lot to handle.”

Her heart thundered in her chest, erasing every one of the loyalty training’s hooks and replacing them with panic. “I have to… You can’t—”

“Help me up.”

“You won’t survive without medical care.”

He looked into her eyes, into her. “Then we better get me to medical care.”

Something crashed behind her. A cloud of smoke and sparks billowed around them. She didn’t feel the heat or her injuries, only his fingers intertwined with hers, his presence woven into her soul.

Somehow he rose to his feet.

“Come on.” He pulled her toward the stairwell.

She didn’t know how he was moving. His leg was broken, probably his hip too, but he kept limping toward the stairs.

She moved closer, looped his arm over her shoulder, and supported him. It would hit him any minute. The booster would assault his nervous system. He’d collapse. Go into cardiac arrest.

He’d die.

The panic beat against her rib cage.

They reached the stairs. The broken railing glowed red. The steps creaked and bent beneath their boots. She carried most of his weight, but he kept moving, kept dragging his shattered leg behind him.

The metal floor tilted when they reached the top. A brace pulled loose from the wall. She did her best to remain steady, to help him limp toward the window. She was breathing harder than he was.

“Now I know why you think you’re immortal.” He leaned to look out the broken window. Ash did too. It was a long way down.

“I’ll lower you,” she said.

He grunted, then climbed out the window feet first.

Ash reached out to help, but he didn’t take her hands.

“I’ve got this,” he said.

“Rykus.”

He lowered as far as he could, then let go.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Ash jumped out after him, hit the ground, and rolled.

The maneuver didn’t make it hurt less, but she didn’t break anything that hadn’t already been cracked or fractured.

She lifted her head. Saw Rykus still curled on the ground.

“Rip?” She crawled to him and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah. I’m… I’m good.”

He didn’t sound good. He sounded like a man about to die.

“We’re almost there.” Where the hell “there” was, she didn’t know. She tried to lift him, tried to get him somewhere.

He said something unintelligible.

“You can make it,” she said. “You’re going to make it.”

She scanned the night. A line of men jogged toward the burning hangar. She recognized the leader.

“Arek!”

He looked in her direction, changed his trajectory.

“He injected a booster,” she said when he reached them.

Arek frowned. “He’s not an anomaly.”

“He needs help!”

He stared at her, then said, “Katie.” He picked Rykus up and effortlessly hoisted him onto his shoulders. “Incoming with the commander. He’s injured and injected a booster.”

He was transmitting to Katie. Ash had lost her voice-link—she couldn’t hear Katie’s response—but by the way Arek’s mouth tightened, it was loud and furious.

She struggled to keep up with Arek’s jog. They were headed back to the institute. Ash barely registered it. She barely saw the white walls, the startled doctors, the guards with their weapons drawn. She barely heard Arek tell them to back off.

“In here,” Katie called.

Ash followed Arek into a room. He laid Rykus on the bed. A red stain immediately spread across the white sheets.

Katie cleaned the back of Rykus’s hand, inserted an IV, then fastened a bio-band around his wrist. The screens on the back wall lit up.

Rykus made a sound and his head lulled to the left.

Ash stood beside him and brushed her hand across his forehead, wiping away blood and sweat and dirt.

“Move,” Katie said.

Ash shifted to the foot of the bed. She kept a hand on the ankle of his uninjured leg, needing to touch him.

She needed to talk to him. Needed him to open his eyes.

“I need that serum!” Katie yelled.

“It’s coming,” someone responded. Another doctor.

Katie reached for something on a shelf beside Ash. A pair of scissors.

“You have to move, Ash.”

She stepped back. Katie cut up the length of Rykus’s combat pants. God, his leg was a mess.

The monitors registered his vitals. A graph signaled his pulse was going way too fast.

Numbers jumped across the screen, then one red-lettered warning after another.

Ash reached for his hand. “Rip. You’re going to be okay.”

He didn’t respond. The monitors didn’t respond. Nothing was getting better. Just worse.

“Do something,” she said to Katie.

“I am.”

“You’re not. His vitals are crashing—”

“Damn it, Ash. Move! Arek, get her out of here.”

The instructor grabbed her arm.

“Let go,” Ash snarled.

He swung her away from the bed.

She threw a punch. He caught her fist, twisted her arm behind her back, and used his massive body to maneuver her into the hall.

“Stay,” he ordered.

He slammed the door in her face. But he hadn’t needed to. She didn’t move. She stood there frozen in place because she could see a monitor through the room’s observation window. A new warning flashed across the screen, blinking faster and faster until the words turned a deep, bold crimson. Beneath them, his heart rate spiked one last time, then flatlined.

If sound had a color, the roar in Ash’s ears would have been red.