“How did you even know where we were?” I spoke directly to Micah as we tromped through a light dusting of snow on our way back to Genesis. Micah and Glen flanked me on both sides. I’d been staunchly ignoring Deacon since we’d gone upward. At the moment, he didn’t seem to mind; he was so busy extolling the virtues of Genesis to his family and friends.
“We put a tracker on Deacon.”
I shook my head. “A what?”
Micah grinned and pointed to Glen. “Ask him.”
“Okay.” I sighed. “Glen, what is a tracker?”
There was a skip to Glen’s step I hadn’t noticed before. He seemed downright giddy. “It’s a before-Armageddon technology.”
I stopped moving. “How did you get a hold of it?”
“I found it in a box. I got put in charge of cleaning up all of the mess Icahn left below.” I remembered when that had happened. He’d been late to one too many meetings, thanks to Tia’s theatrics, and Keith had thought Glen needed to do boring things to get his head back in the game.
“You found a technology and you…what? Kept it?” The idea seemed so foreign to me. There were very distinct rules about unsanctioned pre-Armageddon technologies. Of course, those were Icahn’s rules, and I didn’t think we should be following any of his dictates. Still, he had a new device, and he hadn’t turned it over to proper channels? Glen had turned out to be a real rebel.
“I just didn’t want it to disappear into the Turtle’s office or hand it to Patrick Lyons—no offense Micah—and never see it again.”
Micah shrugged. “Who knows what Dad does with that stuff? I don’t blame you.”
“I just kept it.”
“How did you even know what to do with it?”
Glen opened his mouth to answer when Micah laughed. “Didn’t you know our boy Glen here has a real brain for engineering? If he wasn’t stuck being a Warrior, he could be bringing us all back to pre-Armageddon easiness.”
I nodded as his words sunk in. What could all of us be doing if we weren’t fighting monsters?
“Don’t get on your soap box, Rachel.” Micah read my mind uncannily well. “Glen might have a higher purpose, but you and I are meant to fight in the muck.”
I shook my head. “I was going to wait to do this, but I can’t hold my tongue. How dare you do what you did to me? How dare you guys arbitrarily decide that I’m untrustworthy and make these decisions without telling me? Not to mention using me, terrifying me, and….”
Micah placed his hand on my arm. “Look, I get it. You’re pissed. I don’t blame you. Deacon and I knew we’d be taking that risk, and it’s not that I don’t care. But try to see yourself from my perspective.”
“And how exactly do see me?”
He sighed. “You’re this incredible girl. A leader. Brilliant. Funny. Our best friend. The love of my brother’s brief life.”
Damn him, for bringing up Chad.
He continued. “And then you go and fall in love with this wolf who, granted, saved my life. We all tried to rearrange our thinking, to like him, to see what you see in him….”
Well, Micah had. Deacon hadn’t made any effort to do that at all. I wasn’t going to argue the point at the moment.
“You come up with this fantastic idea. This life-altering idea. You tell the wolf about it, and he tells his father who pretty much openly despises you. Everyone could see what was happening. You had blinders on that we couldn’t make you take off. It seemed like you had to see the truth for yourself. When Andon approached Deacon….”
I jolted a step backwards. “He really did that?”
“How else could we have gotten Deacon’s family all in one place?”
“I haven’t had a lot of time to digest anything other than your betrayal.”
“Do you really see it like that?”
“Micah.” I wished I was still young enough to stomp my foot. “Deacon made me think he’d sold me out.”
“I didn’t think you’d believe him. He said all he was going to have to do was act slightly odd and you’d fall for it. Why was he right? I know why Chad hated him—he was competition for your heart—Deacon goes out of his way to drive me crazy. But he’s insanely loyal to you. Why doubt him?”
“I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed by you.” I walked a distance from him before I turned around. My doubts and fears about Deacon were my own. Maybe it was just that he was too…much…for me. He didn’t let me control things. He didn’t let me be in charge. If I let myself fall into Deacon, I might never come up for air. I turned around. “What would you have done if the ceiling hadn’t fallen?”
“Found a way to separate you two from the rest of us. We were thinking on our feet a bit. The vamps just helped us out.”
“Fabulous.” I rubbed my nose. I was getting a blister from the cold. “Do you trust me now? Since I’ve seen that Andon worked with Icahn and that Jason could never have been mine, despite what I wanted? Since I’ve learned the same lessons for the millionth time? Do I get to be on the inside again or should I keep looking over my shoulders to see if you and Deacon are plotting against me?”
“Rachel….”
“Rachel Clancy.” I whirled around at the sound of a voice I hadn’t anticipated. Patrick Lyons surrounded by Keith and the other Warriors stood in line in front of us. Patrick’s voice held a seriousness I’d not heard from him in a long time. Shivers travelled up my back at the sound.
“Dad.” Micah’s voice raised an octave in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
I scanned the line to the last member in the row. The Turtle. I swallowed. All of the Warriors had looked stern and upset. The Turtle had glee in his gaze. That couldn’t be a good sign.
“We’re here to arrest you, Rachel.”
Deacon shoved Glen out of the way to stand next to me. “For what?” His voice sounded hard and steady. All thoughts of my anger toward Deacon fled, and I only knew gratitude for his presence.
“For subversive acts against the Genesis government and the habitat as a whole. Rachel is a traitor.” The Turtle didn’t move from his space as he threatened me.
“Rachel is no traitor.” Micah finished his sentence with a flurry of curse words. “I won’t let you take her.”
“Micah.”
He didn’t take my hint and kept speaking. “We’ll stop you. Every one of us. We’ll all leave Genesis if you arrest her. Then what will you do? Are you prepared to lose every Warrior between the ages of sixteen and nineteen?”
“Micah.”
“Son.” Patrick’s voice hissed like a whip slapping at our backs. “Don’t say things you couldn’t possibly mean. How would you feed yourselves?”
“Rachel and I could make do.” Deacon wasn’t kidding. I could feel his steel resolve pulsating in the rapid pulse in his wrist. It wasn’t until that moment I realized I’d gripped him. Forcing myself to let go proved harder than I wanted.
“Rachel, please.” Hearing Keith speak for the first time in that moment brought me back into reality. I saw an emotion on Keith’s face I’d never seen from him before: disappointment. It tore at me. He’d wanted me to be the leader, not to be whoever he thought I was at this moment. Shame threatened to bring me to my knees.
“It’s okay, guys.” I stepped forward. “I’m sure this can all be resolved.”
Micah and Deacon spoke in unison. “Rachel.”
I ignored them as I stared at the Turtle. “You understand that whatever I did, I did alone. The others, they don’t hold any blame.”
“We know they’ve been misled by you. That much we understand. The rest you will have to explain.”
I nodded. If only I could.
***
I wanted a lawyer. They wouldn’t give me one. I’d asked for a drink. I still hadn’t gotten it. I knew myself to be in serious trouble if Keith, who I had loved as a teacher and respected as a Warrior, whose wife and child I had saved from death, wouldn’t bring me any water.
Not to mention, I really, really needed a shower.
I sat down on the floor. A year earlier I might have paced, but these days I was more inclined to save my energy for later battles. I knew there would be more. There always were.
When the door finally opened, I wished it had remained shut. The Turtle entered with my glass of water. He let the heavy door shut tightly behind him. It had been a little while since I’d been down in the underground habitat but I didn’t find it as warm as my memory always made it. Still, I would have sworn the temperature in the room fell two degrees when he came in.
He held out the glass in front of him, and I realized he had no intention of bringing me the drink but wanted me, instead, to come and get it from him. Maybe he was playing a power game with me. Adults sometimes did these kinds of things but mostly the intricacies were lost on me.
I stood up awkwardly. My legs were tired and didn’t feel like moving. Eventually, I stumbled my way over to him and took the liquid he extended to me. It wasn’t until I took a large gulp that it occurred to me that it could be drugged. I stopped drinking and waited. Nothing weird happened, and I decided that the water was probably safe.
“Well, Ms. Clancy. I must say I thought you’d be smarter than this.”
I wiped the last of the water off my lips with my sleeve. Not my most manner-filled move but the guy hadn’t brought me a napkin.
“Smarter than what?”
“Than getting caught. For months, I’ve been watching you, knowing you were conniving. But never in a million years could I have imagined this.”
“What do you think I did exactly?” The room was too small for me to get away from his foul stench.
“You led the others in subversive behavior. You continued to free humans after I told you the camp couldn’t sustain any newcomers, and you endangered yourself and others. No one told you to go out and play vigilante.”
“I don’t think that’s what I did. A vigilante is….”
He waved a hand to silence me. Adults don’t like to be corrected by teenagers. Turtle wasn’t even going to let me finish my thought, apparently.
“I’m not interested in semantics.” Obviously. “I want to talk about how much trouble you’re in.”
“How much trouble could I be in? My father abandoned a bunch of people, got them killed, and quit. If I’m not mistaken, you frequent his illegal bar all the time. No one has died while they’ve been with me.”
“No one except poor Chad Lyons.”
I wondered if it would always hurt to have his death thrown in my face. “Yes, he died when he was out with me, because he had to rescue me.”
I couldn’t deny it. That’s what had happened. I was responsible, one way or another, for Chad’s demise.
“You would think you would have learned your lesson about irresponsible behavior.”
“I took matters into my own hands because of Chad’s death, as a result of it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It would if you would listen to me….” I had a strong feeling that since he wouldn’t let me define vigilante for him, he wasn’t going to let me justify myself.
“I’m not judge and jury, Rachel Clancy.” I hated how he always said my name. Why did he need to utter it so much?
“Then what is it you want from me, sir?” I took two steps to the wall and put my back against it. It wasn’t much but it was distance, a mediocre amount of space between me and the strange little man staring at me as if I was a steak dinner. His eyes traced my form, starting at my feet and moving upward. Goosebumps surfaced on my arms.
“Did I ever tell you that I knew your mother?”
I shook my head. “No.” Why did he bring that up now?
“I’m a very powerful man. I wasn’t when I knew her. I was just a little inhabitant of Genesis, and she was becoming a big, tough Warrior. She had the attention of your father, who was a god back then.”
“I don’t like to think too much about the past. Seems like there’s enough to do now.”
He grinned, which was worse than his stare. “Yes, there is certainly enough to do now.”
“Sir, I’m….”
“These days I’m a powerful man. I can help you. If I want, I can go into the meeting that they’re having about you….”
“They’re having a meeting?”
“Oh yes. Micah is yelling unforgivable things to his father and Deacon has come up with some pretty incredible threats. I can make all of this go away. If I want to.”
My mouth had gone dry. “What could I possibly have that you would want?”
He reached out to touch my arm. “Can’t you imagine?”
I realized then that there were scarier things in the world than monsters. Give me a vampire to kill any day of the week.
“I’d like you to take your hand off my arm.”
The door swung open. “Everything okay in here?”
I’d never been so happy to see Patrick, who held a glass of water in his hand, in my life.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here, Trumpest.”
“I heard Rachel wanted a glass of water so I brought it up.” He let go of my arm and stepped back. “Are they ready for me upward?”
“I imagine they are.”
Turtle moved around Patrick, who stood still until he left.
“Are you okay? What was he doing?”
I shivered. “I’m not sure. I’m really not. Can I not be alone with him again?”
“You shouldn’t have been now. I’m going to speak to the guards when I leave here.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He handed me the water and I drank it down, confidant that this glass would have nothing wrong with it. My hands shook and Patrick obviously noticed. His frown deepened.
“Has he bothered you before?”
“He just creeps me out. I can’t really explain it.”
“Okay. I’m going to keep an eye on him.” He sighed. “You’re in a serious amount of trouble. You do know that, don’t you? Explosives. Secret missions. Hidden agendas.” He paced. “All of these things are specifically forbidden from Warriors. Have always been.”
“Yes, under Icahn. We follow his rules to this day and he still gets to manage us even though we’ve ousted him. Genesis has to make our own decisions. If we’d fought back, maybe Chad wouldn’t be dead. We wouldn’t have had to get in that car and go if we had been hitting the vampires where they live back then. I’m tired of only defending, of always being the victim.”
Patrick stopped pacing somewhere in the middle of my speech. “You poor child, why did you stop coming by when he died?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Hadn’t he been listening? Did anyone?
“Everything.” Patrick took my hand in his but it didn’t bother me, not like Turtle had. If anything, it felt sort of comforting in the rough calluses on the pads of his fingers. They were strong hands, capable ones that had kept Genesis safe since he’d been sixteen years old.
“I stopped coming because I killed your son. Why would you want me around? How could I look at you and Carol, see your pain, and know I caused it? Why would I force you to endure my presence?”
Damn my tears. When would they stop? When would it be enough?
“We never blamed you. How could we blame you for what was not your fault and never could be? Chad died defending you and then you took care to see that he stopped suffering when he became a vampire. You did it so I didn’t have to. I’m grateful to you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Rachel, you will believe me eventually. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about just this now. I have to tell you what is going to happen to you.”
“Okay.” I let go of him. “But listen. It’s important. No one else should be punished. It was all my own idea. They just listened and followed me. I don’t know why people do….”
“When Tia told me what was happening, I wanted not to believe her.”
“Tia?” Oh, that made this much worse. I hadn’t told her anything. How had she heard, and why had she run to her father?
Without warning my vampire alert went off in my body. I groaned and steadied myself before I fell. “Vampires.”
Patrick looked left and right like he could see them through the walls. “Where?”
“Here.”
A loud boom sounded before the walls came down. I screamed and Patrick pulled me to him. I don’t know what happened then because everything went black around me. Or maybe I just passed out. I don’t know.