The woman waited as the horde screamed and a few fools scattered.
Elliot made it twenty feet before she shot him in the neck. He crumpled to the ground. I didn’t know if she’d used a lethal dart or if he’d only been tranqed.
The rest of the group drew back together, huddling into a tight knot like they were all eager to use the people around them as living shields.
“No one wants to hurt you.” Gideon shifted to stand between the woman and the rest of our pack. “We only came here to make sure that what Dr. Kain proposed doesn’t happen to anyone.”
“You’re too late.” The woman moved closer to us, clutching the black box to her side.
“What do you mean too late?” I stepped up to stand next to Gideon. I couldn’t leave him alone. I wanted to run, or hide behind the pack, but I couldn’t bring myself to abandon him.
“The River Domes.” The woman’s voice shook, like she could barely say the words. “They’d lost so many people to the violence in their city. They sent our guards there to stop the vampires. That’s what they said. To stop the vampires and make the River Domes safe.”
“But they didn’t come home,” Gideon said. “All the Outer Guard we sent were killed.”
“It’s so much worse than that!” She aimed her gun at Gideon’s chest. “They took my husband. They sent him away to protect, to defend. He knew what he was getting into. He knew he could die. But the River Domes didn’t have enough children. They needed more children. And our guards were there.”
A horrible cold filtered into my chest. “They made the guards breed.”
“He was my husband.” She pointed her gun at me. “He was my husband, and they said he couldn’t come home unless he had sex with that woman. He had to get her pregnant if he wanted to come back to me. The Council hadn’t even cleared us to have a baby. They made him get her pregnant before I ever even got a chance.”
“And then he died,” I said.
“The guards should have come back sooner. They should have made it home. But the Incorporation was using them like disposable whores. Abusing them. Defiling their bodies.” Tears slid down the woman’s cheeks. I hadn’t realized how young she was until that moment. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-three. “Because of Dr. Kain, I don’t have a husband anymore.”
“I’m so sorry.” Gideon stepped sideways, planting himself between the gun and me. “What the Incorporation allowed to happen―”
“What they forced to happen!”
“What they forced to happen,” Gideon said. “We’re trying to make sure it never happens again. We want to be sure no one else ever faces the abuse your husband suffered. That no one feels pain like yours ever again. That’s what you want, right? To make sure this stops?”
The woman laughed, choking on her tears.
“That’s not it.” I stepped around Gideon, needing to watch the woman’s grip on her gun. “You don’t want to stop it from ever happening again. You want to make sure the people who hurt him pay for what they did to you.”
“You’re smarter than I thought you’d be,” the woman said.
“We’re not the ones who hurt him,” I said. “None of us had anything to do with what happened to you.”
“We all understand that what the Incorporation did to your husband was wrong,” Gideon said.
“You don’t,” she said. “Your father let it happen. He was their captain. He should have protected them. If I kill you, he’ll find out what it feels like to lose someone he loves.”
“Don’t!” I planted myself in front of Gideon. “You don’t want to go down this path. You’ll never make it out of this atrium.”
“Move.” She inched closer to me.
“If you start running now, you could still have a chance,” I said. “You’re a Dome Guard. You must know some way you can sneak out.”
“Get out of my way. I don’t want to hurt you.” She aimed her gun for my neck. “You’re the only person here I can’t blame. I wanted to. I wanted to hate you. I wanted to destroy you. You shouldn’t have run into that fire. It was my revenge, not your chance to be a hero.”
“She was only trying to―”
“I’m not a hero,” I cut across Gideon, desperate to keep the woman focused on me.
“I dove so deep into your life, looking for the perfect way to make you suffer, but there’s nothing. I couldn’t believe it. You don’t belong here. How did you do it? Your records are perfect. Everything so well done, I thought I’d lost my mind.”
The cold in my stomach sharpened into fear.
“I even went into your room, trying to figure it out,” she said. “Not a trace from before. Where did you come from? Who are―”
I leapt forward, ramming my forearm against her wrist, knocking the gun from her hand.
I barely heard the pop of the gun going off as it fell to the ground. I punched hard, aiming for her throat. She stumbled back. The black box slipped from her grip.
Everything seemed to slow down as the box fell.
Someone grabbed my arm, yanking me back. Weight landed on top of me, crushing the air from my lungs as a bang shook the atrium.
I felt the heat of the explosion and heard the screams of the people around me. But I didn’t feel any pain.
I lay still for a moment, waiting for agony to sear through my torn limbs.
A cough rattled in my ear. Blood dripped onto my face.
I twisted sideways, trying to push away the weight that held me down.
The person on top of me gave a groan that turned into another blood-dripping cough.
I slid my forearm under my chest, using all the leverage I could manage to roll the person on top of me off my body.
He screamed.
“Gideon.” I scrambled to my knees.
He had blood around his mouth. He coughed, and more blood came out.
“We need a doctor,” I shouted. I didn’t know who I was talking to. “We need a doctor!”
A watery gurgle came from Gideon’s throat, like he was drowning in his own blood.
“Okay, we need to stop the bleeding.” I took Gideon’s hand. “I think I need to roll you back onto your stomach. I think that’s right. Should I put you on your stomach?”
He blinked at me. His eyes started to close.
“Gideon. Gideon!” I looked around, searching for someone in a white jacket who could tell me what to do.
The woman was…gone. They’d have to run her DNA if they wanted to prove who she’d been.
Some of the others were on the ground, bleeding, even though they’d been farther away from the explosion than I had.
“You protected me.” I squeezed Gideon’s hand. He didn’t move. “I’m going to roll you over. I have to see what’s wrong. I’m sorry.”
I took Gideon’s shoulder, rolling him onto his stomach.
Blood covered his back and the backs of his legs. There were too many small wounds to count. I didn’t know which of them was making him cough blood.
“We need help!” I screamed. “Somebody has to call for help!”
I ripped away the torn remains of Gideon’s shirt and caught a glint of metal sticking out of his skin.
“I can’t take it out. If I take it out, it’ll make it worse.”
Heat streamed down my face. I pressed the back of my hand to my cheek, trying to find where I’d been wounded. I found tears instead.
“Shit. We’re going to need more medical aid in the atrium.” Captain Tate ran toward me, speaking into the band on her wrist. “We have at least three critically wounded. If Pace is mobile, get him up here. His son looks bad.”
“He needs help.” I got to my feet, staggering as the trees around me tipped. “Gideon needs help.”
Dome Guard streamed toward us.
Two doctors in white coats followed behind.
“Over here,” Tate called to one of the doctors.
I stepped away from Gideon, giving a doctor room as she shouted orders to the guards.
“What happened?”
They loaded Gideon onto a long stretcher. The doctor spoke into the band on her wrist.
“Miss Roberts, what happened?” Tate stepped in front of me, blocking my view of Gideon. “Who did this?”
I pointed to the bits of the woman the blast had left behind. “She had a gun and a bomb. I got the gun away from her. Her husband was sent―”
Tate walked away, moving onto the next crisis now that her domes were free from danger.
They carried Gideon away.
It looked like he was still breathing. I couldn’t really tell.
I searched the ground, trying to find someone to help, but the Dome Guard were already seeing to everyone who’d been injured.
“Are you bleeding?” a woman with dark eyes like my mom’s asked.
“I don’t think so.” I reached up to touch my cheek. My hand was covered in blood.
The guard circled me. “There’s blood on the back of your leg.”
I looked down. Some metal had found its way into my calf.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “My sister can dig it out for me.”
“We need to stop the bleeding and get you down to the medical corridor,” the guard said.
“It’s a scratch.” I headed toward the stairs. A flare of pain sliced into my leg.
“You need medical attention.” The guard gripped my shoulders like she thought I might tip over.
“I’m fine.” I shrugged away from her. “My sister is in Tate’s office. I’ll go straight to medical from there.”
“You’re bleeding,” the guard said.
“Not that badly. Help someone else.”
The guard didn’t follow me to the stairs.
I could feel pain in my leg, but it didn’t seem bad enough to make it so hard to get down the steps. It was like my ankle couldn’t figure out how to work anymore.
“Clear a path!” someone shouted from above.
I pressed my back against the wall.
Two guards carried a stretcher past. It was Tricia. She wasn’t moving.
Gideon had been so determined to make sure everyone knew about Kain’s work. If all of them died, it would have been for nothing.
Corpses can’t reshape the future.
By the time I reached the second flight of stairs, I could feel my blood in my shoe. Other people’s blood had marred the corridor, too.
It had to be from the atrium. The Outer Guard wouldn’t have been on these stairs.
Alec had gone out into the city. Outer Guard had been hurt. I didn’t know if he was okay.
Gideon had been hurt. I didn’t know if he’d survive.
I walked with one hand on the wall as I went down the last set of stairs to the bay and medical level, heading straight for Tate’s office. The injured had spilled out of the medical corridor.
Gurneys had been set out in the hall just beyond Tate’s office. Guards and doctors moved between patients.
I couldn’t see Gideon.
They’re helping him. They just didn’t make him wait in the hall.
I didn’t let myself consider that he might already be dead.
I needed to get to Mari. I had the ability to protect her. There wasn’t anything I could do to help Gideon.
I hugged the wall, staying out of the way of the stream of patients coming down from the atrium. When I reached Tate’s office, I tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Mari.” I banged on the door. “Mari!”
“Lanni!” Mari shouted from inside the office. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mar.” Tears burned in my eyes.
“They got mad when you left, so they locked us in,” Mari said. “We’re okay, though.”
“Good.” I sank to the ground. “That’s all that matters.”
“What happened?”
I pictured Mari with her cheek pressed against the door.
“Don’t worry about it right now.” I ripped the sleeve from my shirt and tied it around the wound on my calf. “You’re safe. We can worry about everything else later.”
I scooted into the doorway, out of the path of the guards, and propped my bloody leg up against the doorjamb.
“Have there been injuries?” Walsh asked.
“Yeah.” I shut my eyes, focusing on the growing throbbing in my leg.
“Gideon?” Walsh asked.
“Yeah.”