Livvy couldn’t be sure how many days had passed. The Knowing sickness dragged her into an endless twilight where it made no difference where the sun was. Her life was just hour after hour of pain with no beginning and no end.
Derek and Chance visited occasionally, asking her questions about the Preor. Where were they vulnerable when in dragon form? If they fought them hand to hand, would they always reach for their dragon to win unfairly?
Livvy was pretty sure that one Preor with one arm could beat any five humans without using his dragon or asking for help, but she didn’t think sharing that opinion would help her situation.
Janine never came back and for this, Livvy was grateful. Janine’s motives were a mystery to her and she was pretty sure Derek and Janine had no interest in each other except for a tactical advantage.
I hope you’re both very happy in your twisted hate and bed of lies, she thought. Only a few weeks ago she would have argued passionately that what she was experiencing was brainwashing and delusion and that she really would be better off dying if she couldn’t beat it. It was either that or bear dragonlets and she had been absolutely sure there was no worse fate.
But now… Now the Knowing eased through her, seeming to sigh against her skin. When she fell into delusion, she saw pink clouds hanging low in a vibrant blue sky. The clouds drifted down, full of rain, wreathing the high spires of red rock that made up the main aerie. She could feel the rock against her hands and feet and the lush, satin feel of the skirt against her legs. She waved and jumped up and down as she saw a dragon—her dragon—in the distance.
The longer this went on the more she realized she really was slipping in and out of ancestral memory. It was a frequency of some kind, and the mechanism for awakening it had always been within her. Radoo had activated it and now her brain was capable of picking up waves… Were they sound? Vibration? Something else?
The Preor are so advanced, she thought. They have incredible tech, yet they live so simply in my dreams. Is this mental connection outside of them, or something developed over time?
She hoped she would have a chance to find out. Every time she slipped out of her dreams into reality, she was wrung with pain and tortured by hunger and thirst. She couldn’t even hold down water and she was cold from her bones to her skin.
She was drifting through rainbow clouds when a sudden tug on her shoulder woke her. She was being dragged out of the cabin by a couple of big guys. She struggled a little, but she was just wasting her strength. She let them drag her over to the van and prepare to throw her in.
It was dark around the camp and very still. Livvy thought it might be early in the morning, and they must be moving her now so the others did not see.
They know they’ve fucked up, she thought. They might be filthy criminals, but the others here are not! They would never agree to killing other people! Some of them wouldn’t even approve of killing the Preor!
She wondered how the guys had recruited everyone. With lies upon lies, obviously, but it meant that Derek and Chance were incredible con men. They more than likely assessed their mark and then told an appropriate story.
They certainly fooled me.
She crashed into the floor of the van with a loud clang, hitting her head on something hard and curling into a ball. The cold metal underneath her felt like blades slowly cutting through her and she started to shiver.
She had not seen Hazel for a long time either. The resistance might split if Hazel had her way and she sounded far more dangerous than Derek and Chance. They were thugs who enjoyed violence and deception. It made them feel powerful.
Hazel didn’t care about power. She just wanted to get rid of the Preor and she was going at it with intelligence rather than a fist. She would be a real problem in the future.
If I live through this, Livvy thought.
The van moved, rolling underneath her. The light snapped on at the same time and she saw Chance looming over her. She breathed a deep sigh of relief. Chance grinned at her.
“Don’t relax too much, babe. Derek’s up front with Janine. I can switch with him at any time.”
“You’re both fucking scumbags. As if it matters.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have a sick sexual fascination with you like he does. Sure, you’ve got great tits. But those hips belong on an elephant. You’re far too muscular. Like, your butt flexes when you walk. It’s not feminine. It’s just disgusting.”
“I’ll be sure to take your opinion into account next time I’m on an obstacle course,” she said, flatly. “I can bench press double what you can, you fucking twig!”
He slapped her across the face.
“That all you got? Shit. Felt like getting tickled by a kitten.”
This time he punched her, and she blacked out for a second. When she came to, he was holding her up on her knees, glaring into her face.
“Look around, chunky. What’s in here?”
She looked around as far as she could see. The space in the van was cramped, and they stood in the only empty place. The rest was filled with metal crates and she knew they were full of weapons. Lined up against the door were missiles, grenades, and rocket launchers.
“You see?”
“I see,” she said. This was a nightmare.
“You’re going to show me how to use this stuff, Livvy. It’s the only thing that’s going to keep you alive.”
“You’re going to kill me anyway.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m going to make sure you teach me all about these weapons before you die. If you cooperate, I might make it quick and painless.”
“Fuck you.”
He smiled and ran his hand across the top of a crate. The van must be going very slowly because neither of them were jolted around too much. Livvy was desperately hoping they might hit a bump and send Chance crashing into the floor, but it looked like there was no happy accident coming to save her.
Just Radoo.
Of that, she had no doubt. She just didn’t know how.
“I’m going to be honest with you, Livvy,” Chance sounded like he was at the head of a financial planning meeting. “We don’t really know how to use this stuff. I mean, it’s idiot proof. Point it the right way, push button, go boom. Yeah?”
She glared at him, thinking about how satisfying it would be to see him get blown to bits.
“But we need a bit more information. Just on how to use the weapons effectively. That’s where you come in.”
“No fucking way. If you blow yourself up, that’s what I consider justice.”
“How about innocent people? You like seeing them get killed?”
“What?”
“The event we’re heading to is a massive Choosing—one of those disgusting cattle calls. Hundreds of people will be there. We’re planning to hit the Preor, but if we don’t know how to target properly… Well. Look around. We could blow up a whole town with this shit.”
She knew they could. They could blow upon a town with half of this shit.
“Where did you get it all?” she asked softly. He shook his head.
“No, no. That’s not your concern. You just need to show us how it all works. Otherwise we’ll just randomly fire in the general direction of the Preor.” He shrugged. “Let’s see if they can withstand a rocket. Huh? This is kind of experimental in a way. I mean, we still don’t know how to hurt them.”
This comment gave her a lot of hope. There was every chance that a Preor could live through a rocket. Even though it cut her soul to do it, she agreed to help him with the weapons.
She didn’t believe his lies for one second, but she still had to help. If there was any chance of saving even a single life, she had to take it.