WHEN WE GET DOWN BELOW, Sole is waiting for me, her face like death under her mask as she walks straight past Aya and her friends going into quarantine.
“I don’t have time for you to be angry, Sole.” I keep one arm linked under Xuan’s shoulder, Peishan on his other side, whispering for him to keep walking. “I’ve got a lead and no time. And Xuan might die just out of spite if I don’t get him some painkillers. You can check the supplies we brought. Xuan says they’ll be useful.”
The deathly glimmer to Sole’s eyes doesn’t disappear, but she calls for people to take our packs and pulls out a stretcher for Xuan herself to wheel him into an SS testing booth. I follow close behind her, pausing only long enough to be sure everyone else from our party goes through. The Menghu on duty keep their hands on their guns every moment. Aya and the Menghu take booths as far away from each other as possible, Peishan looking helplessly between them as she takes one in the middle.
I stay by Xuan’s side while Sole moves him into the large tube, scanners humming as they wait to scan him. Once he’s inside, Sole keeps her eyes flicking across the screen as it analyzes his brain. “You going on this mission was incredibly irresponsible, Sev.”
“Actually, it wasn’t at all. You’ve got all the information you need to make a cure.”
Sole’s eyes narrow, her voice so tight it could strangle. “You might be pinning all your hopes on finding a box under your old floorboards, but the rest of us can’t take that chance. If you die, our last chance of surviving will be gone, and all of us will die.” She turns from the machine, her face aggressively close to mine, her skeleton fingers digging into my shoulders. “We made a deal. You have the rest of your allotted two weeks, but not if it puts you at risk. Do you understand me?”
I push her hands off me. “I thought you weren’t going to force me into anything, Sole.”
Sole takes a step back. “Only because I know I don’t have to.” She turns to the screen, watching as the scan lights up green.
“We’re out of time. They’re going to kill Howl up in the City in four days.” I close my eyes, clenching them shut. “Wait, what time is it? Maybe it’s three now.”
Sole looks up from maneuvering the bed out of the tube. “Who told you? I gave strict orders that no one share that piece of information with you.”
“Three days?” I ask.
She narrows her eyes. Nods.
I pull the stretcher over and help transfer Xuan back onto it. He feels so much heavier and so much less annoying now that he’s asleep. “The Chairman told me, Sole,” I say. “You were going to leave me in the dark?”
“Of course I wasn’t going to tell you. Dr. Yang is broadcasting about Howl on every radio frequency because he knows you’ll come running.”
“You know about the bombings, then. Some heli that’s gone rogue? They moved everyone up into the City.”
“I knew there were going to be bombings. Howl’s the one who brought that thing here.” Sole looks disgusted. “It’s some leftover from Before that Port Northians got hold of.”
“He brought them here so he could help me. To get the cure.”
Sole bites her lip. “It’s not what I would have done.”
My face hardens. “Stop pretending you’re morally superior to him. You would have done anything to get me out of that bunker. You just didn’t have a bomber to work with.”
Sole flinches, but I don’t have time to care about her feelings anymore.
When we get to Xuan’s room, I help move him onto the bed. He groans with pain, his eyes flicking open. He groans again when he sees me and scrunches them shut. “Go away,” he slurs. “You’re the worst.”
I stifle a smile and step back from his bed, waiting until Sole looks at me. “I’m not going to let you lock me in a room while they execute Howl. This just makes things easier. Howl and the cure are in the same place, and I’m going after them.”
Sole’s brow furrows, and she busies herself reconnecting Xuan’s IV. “After all this, you’re still folding Howl into this ridiculous fairy tale you’re telling yourself. Get the cure, everyone stops fighting, your head stays in one piece, and you get to live happily ever after with the love of your life?” She fixes me with an ugly stare, her hands knotted around the IV, and I’m glad Xuan seems to have fallen back asleep, because I wouldn’t want him to hurt even more than he already does. “Dr. Yang wants you to go to the City. He wants your head in his lab, and he’s going to get it if you go.” She shakes her head, turning toward the door.
I grab her arm, pulling her to face me, and I’m surprised to find tears in her eyes. “I’m going to save him, Sole.” She won’t look at me, but I get close, forcing her to meet my gaze. “Howl has done horrible things, but so have you. So have I. And we are all worthy of a second chance to make things right. I’ve thought about what you said before, and I’m… ready to talk through our options.” Because what does the end look like? Unless leadership changes, the world will stay the same. My next words come out slowly because I don’t like them. But they’re the best I have. “Think about it: Dr. Yang, the Chairman, the General—they’ll all be there at the execution.”
Sole’s eyes narrow. But then she nods slowly. “Yes. They will.”
We both know there’s only one way to end this war. Out loud, I can’t even make myself say it. But there’s no room to argue, no room to think things through again. I only have four days to plan a cure extraction, a rescue mission, and…
And a three-headed assassination. “Now tell me: How do I get to BW12—sector thirteen?”