Chapter Eighteen

“I need to send some messages,” Rykus said.

Ash caught his arm. He took her hand between his, squeezed, then he released her and went inside.

Ash stared after him, not knowing if she should follow. This was unfamiliar territory. She was stepping into it without a plan or intel. She knew how to strategize in war, how to change tactics when plans went to hell, and how to triage a soldier until help arrived, but she couldn’t wrap this injury in bandages and med-gel. She didn’t know how to do this, how to comfort someone who’d had his home world invaded.

“Who is he?” Mel asked. The woman didn’t sound curious; she sounded like a dreg plotting her next scheme.

Ash’s nostrils flared, but she turned her glare on Chace, not Mel. Fury leaked through her pores, through her blood. She’d let Chace live, and beneath his hard expression, he was gloating, dancing jigs through the pain of another man.

“Javery is a flush planet,” Chace said. “It has resources and respect, and it’s not even part of the Coalition. But every politician on Meryk bows to whatever it wants while turning their backs on everything we need. You shouldn’t give one shit about it.”

“He doesn’t want me to kill you,” Ash said, her voice cold. “That’s the only reason you’re alive.”

The idiot stepped into her personal space, looked down. “You’re brainwashed, Ash. That’s the only reason you follow orders.”

The fight exploded out of her, a release of anger and frustration she took out on him. He hit the ground hard, rolled just in time to avoid her knee to his crotch.

Her knee hit his ribs instead, and she let him get his hands underneath himself to push up. It was a dumb move on his part, allowing her all the time in the world to take his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arm around his neck.

He stumbled to his feet, carrying her with him while he tried to pry her arm away. When that failed, he slammed her into the wall.

She ignored the ricochet of pain that exploded from one injury to the next.

Chace tried a different tactic, swinging his head back to hit hers, but she was too close. She kept her face pressed against his skull, dug her arm even farther beneath his chin.

Mel watched, entertainment dancing in her eyes. Ash kept her gaze on the woman, kept it there even after Chace’s hand fell and his body went limp. Mel’s smile lasted a few more seconds.

“Ash.” The woman straightened. “Hey, let him go!”

Another second passed. Then Mel sprang forward. Ash shoved Chace’s body away, rose to a crouch to intercept Mel, but Mel went straight to Chace and put her hand on his chest. She actually looked pale. Worried. That was interesting. Mel didn’t care about anyone but herself. What scheme was she running here?

Mel looked up. Rage flickered in her eyes. “Do you have any fucking idea what he’s done for you?”

Ash rose to a knee, then to her feet. “He’s done what I’ve paid him to do.”

“He’s armed Scius’s enemies,” Mel spat out. “He’s expanded your allies with food and medicine and protection. Your allies.”

“He benefited.” Ash kept her voice cold, her expression unaffected. “He’s the head of the network. Dregs are following his orders. He’s practically a boss.”

Mel let out a sharp laugh and shook her head. “He doesn’t want to be a boss. He wants to resurrect you. You united Bedlam once. You went up against Scius. You gave people something to hope for.”

“I did nothing.” That constriction in her chest—the one that felt like she was going against the loyalty training—it came out of nowhere, and it didn’t belong. Compulsion wasn’t involved in this conversation. It was her guilt, her conscience, that cinched around her chest.

“Your actions made it clear what you were after,” Mel said. “And he’s kept it going. For you. For all of us.”

Chace’s body jerked. He drew in an ugly sounding breath and coughed.

“Guess it’s good I didn’t kill him then.” She still itched to do it. It was something that was in her control, Chace’s life. Everything else had quickly spiraled into chaos.

Chace rolled to his side, still wheezing. His gaze locked on hers. Surprisingly, he didn’t look like he wanted to put a bullet in her brain.

Mel offered a hand to help him up.

“Chace,” someone called. A blue-robed Seeker with a long, neatly trimmed beard strode toward them.

“It was a misunderstanding, Gram,” Chace said, weaving slightly as he stood. “It won’t happen again.”

The guilt squeezed tighter. Barely conscious, and Chace was still trying to cover for her. Trying to keep her from being kicked out of the House.

The Seeker glanced at Ash. Distaste rolled off him before he returned his focus to Chace. “You need to see something.”

Chace found his balance. “What is it?”

Gram jerked his head toward Ash. “She should come too.” He turned without answering the question.

Chace looked at her and rubbed his throat. He didn’t ask for an apology though. This wasn’t the first time they’d fought. Wasn’t the first time Ash had won either.

She turned to Mel. “You can leave.”

“I could also stick around,” Mel said smoothly. “See who you try to kill next.”

“Go,” Chace said. “I’ll message when we need you.”

Mel stared at Ash, then shook her head in a motion that said she knew she was making a bad choice. Or that she had made a bad one. Was she really working with Chace? Ash watched her walk across the quad and tried to reconcile this version of Mel with the one she’d been five years ago.

“You coming?” Chace asked.

Ash clenched her jaw, then fell into step beside him. Loose gravel crunching under their feet, they followed the Seeker to an entrance closer to the House’s center. Gram led them through a deserted rec room and past the entrance to the empty dining hall. A right turn, and they stepped into the foyer.

Two grim-faced Seekers, a man and a woman, stood by the open front door. They stared down at the body that had fallen across the threshold.

No. Not fallen. No way had this person walked there. Shin bones protruded through bloodied pants on both legs. He—Ash was pretty sure it was a he—had been tossed there after getting the life beaten out of him.

Her feet wanted to root themselves to the ground, but she forced herself to approach. The air turned sticky. Apprehension clung to the salt water that had dried on her skin and stiffened her clothes. Chace knelt next to the body and reached toward the hood that half covered the corpse’s broken face.

Pushing the cloth away revealed more damage, a swollen shut eye and thick, congealed blood. Something was in the man’s mouth, shoved in so hard only a few teeth still hung from the man’s gums.

Chace wiped his fingers across a semiclean portion of the corpse’s longcoat, smearing blood that should have been on Ash’s hands because she knew who this was. She’d done this. She’d sent Denn off to find Hauch.

Chace straightened. “I’ll take care of it.”

“We can attend to the body,” Gram said, “but Bian will want you to leave. Scius knows you’re here. He’ll throw more than one body at us next time.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Chace said again, firmer this time.

Ash stepped forward, staring hard at Denn’s broken face and the thing shoved into his mouth. It looked like a comm-cuff. She crouched to pry it out, almost certain she knew who it belonged to.

More teeth came loose when she pulled the device free. It wasn’t a Glory-made cuff. It was durable, fast, and well encrypted, exactly like the one wrapped around her wrist.

She didn’t want to swipe her thumb across the blood-covered screen, didn’t want to read the message Scius had left for her or see the ID etched along the back, but she was unable to stop herself. Unable to stop the dread pooling in the pit of her stomach. Unable to stop the truth that strangled her like a telepathic hand on her throat.

Scius had Hauch.

She clenched the blood-covered cuff in her hand, wanting to break it, to break Scius and the Sariceans and every individual who screwed with her universe. She was cracking. She felt the fissures in her self-control, the scream she wanted to let loose, the violence she needed to unleash.

Her hand shook. She squeezed the cuff tighter and tried to breathe through the turbulence. Rykus’s home world was under attack, his family’s status unknown, and he was keeping it together. She hadn’t lost Hauch yet, and she wouldn’t. No more soldiers would die because of her.

A hand gripped her shoulder.

“You can’t meet Scius on his turf,” Chace said. “You can’t meet him on his schedule.”

She shoved his hand away. “Hauch is better than this planet. I won’t let him die here.”

“Scius won’t kill him. Not yet. You have time to think about this.”

“I don’t need to think,” she said. “I have something he wants.”

Chace grimaced. Of course he did because this wasn’t what he’d planned to trade for the causeway. He wanted Ash to use the code she’d planted to shut it down, to show her power and recruit dregs to her side.

“It won’t work,” Chace said. “Scius will kill him. Then he’ll come here and kill Seekers until you turn it over. Lives mean nothing to him. If you barter for Hauch, he’ll know you care.”

She’d have to work around that somehow. She’d find a way. She couldn’t leave Hauch there. Scius would torture him, hurt him because of Ash.

Pressure built in her chest: pain, rage, frustration.

She stood, raised her hands to the back of her neck, and paced. All this shit was because of her.

Distantly, she heard Chace tell Gram and the other Seekers to go. He said something else to her, but she didn’t hear him. She was trying to hold her thoughts together, trying to keep a level head. It didn’t work.

She roared in frustration and kicked the door. It slammed all the way open, then bounced back for her to kick again. A hinge broke. A third kick made the wood crack down the center.

She turned her attention to Chace. She’d almost killed him a few minutes ago, but he stood there unmoved. Calm.

Calm. She had to find that emotion. Had to wrap it around her before she encountered Rykus again because he couldn’t know about this. He had his planet to worry about. His family. His home. This was her shit to take care of.

She shoved Hauch’s cuff into her pocket. “I need you to get Rykus and Mira to the capsule.”

“No. You’re not running off to Scius’s compound on your own. If he—”

“That’s what I need from you, Chace. You said yourself, Rykus is a weakness. He’ll come with me, and Scius will threaten him. I’ll be distracted. Do you understand? I won’t be able to function like I’ll need to. And Mira needs to leave. Promise me, Chace.”

She held his gaze and watched him put the threads together. She saw the moment he realized just how big a vulnerability Rykus really was. His jaw clenched, and the muscle under his left eye twitched. Finally he said, “What do I get out of it? You’re not staying.”

“I’ll kill Scius.”

“It’s not enough.”

“I’ll gut his organization. There will be a power vacuum. You’re in a good position to step into it.”

Something flashed through his eyes. It should have been greed or victory or satisfaction that his scheme had played out exactly like he’d planned. It wasn’t though. She couldn’t quite pinpoint the emotion.

“You would back me?” he asked, his tone oddly hollow.

“People will know we’re associated,” she said. “I won’t have to say a word.”

He studied her. This time all his thoughts and emotions were closed off. She didn’t understand. He wanted Scius destroyed, wanted a shift in the power structure. She would make it happen. Did he not believe that?

“You know what I am, Chace. I’m more than I was before. I won’t fail.”

A long moment passed before he said, “I know.”

Something in Ash’s chest twisted hard. She didn’t deserve Chace’s loyalty, but she had it. He’d do what needed to be done.

So would she.

Ash’s plan solidified while she showered, while she tended to her wounds and gathered a few supplies. When she had the final piece in place, she made her way to the garage north of the quad and found Emmit. He was working on one of the Seeker’s transports and looked thoroughly exhausted.

He smiled when he saw her though, but that smile disappeared when she began to explain her plan and what she needed from him. When she finished, she held out her comm-cuff.

He stared at it as if it was a flash grenade.

“If you don’t hear from me before the capsule leaves,” she said, “give this to your father.”

“What is it?” he asked, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

“Just give it to him.”

“If he knows it’s from you—”

“Don’t tell him.”

Emmit sighed and accepted the cuff. “Okay.” He slipped it into his pocket. “But I fully expect to hear from you.”

Ash plastered a smile onto her face.