IT WAS LIKE HE’D BREATHED IN the first whiff of fresh air after years of being buried. Max had never been surer of anything in his life.
“I don’t know how long it’ll take for Jinn to wake up or what condition he’ll be in once he does. If he does,” Max corrected himself. “But whether he’s sleeping or not, someone’s gotta drag the bloke to Ourika Valley, and that someone is gonna be me.”
“No!” Berta yelled. “If you’re with him, Iris will come straight for you too. You’re putting yourself in danger!”
“Yep!” Max shrugged with a cheerful grin.
No matter how many times Berta cursed, no matter what she threw at the wall, his mind wasn’t changing.
If they were going to do this, they were going to do it his way.
This was the way. It was simple in theory when Uma explained it.
Her apartment was some kind of safe haven from Iris. Why? Because it carried so much of Iris’s own body—the white crystals. The anima of those crystals masked their own. The crystals surrounding Jinn, keeping him clinging to life after the surgery.
It was what Max had put him through. Jinn… I’m sorry, mate. I’ll make it up to you.
Hawkins hadn’t known, but it had been a boon for Max to recover here after Iris had tried to take his life.
This was the plan:
“Max, once we’ve evacuated the area, Hawkins will teleport you and Jinn to the valley. Iris will come for Jinn,” Jacob said to the group. He seemed calm. Like he’d already acquiesced to Max’s cockamamie scheme. Well, there wasn’t much choice. “Max and Hawkins will stay with Jinn and wait for Iris in the valley. The rest of us will remain at a safe distance—on the other side of the mountains. Once Iris arrives, Hawkins will let us know, and we’ll start operations on the Titans—that is, once Uma tells us how to operate them.”
Something about the Titans didn’t even feel real. Despite all the impossibilities they’d witnessed with their own eyes, Max didn’t think anyone truly felt they existed just yet. Ancient mechanical wonders, scientific death machines from a previous civilization, hiding in the mountains all these thousands of years. Max needed to see them. He needed real proof.
Soon that proof would come.
Max wasn’t sure how they’d managed it. He was ordered to stay inside the safe zone of Uma’s lab. All the while, the others worked. Bargaining. Begging. And days passed. Hawkins, with his teleportation, was able to move between areas across the northern African region. Uma sent out Bosch’s men, loyal as much to her as to him, to move as many people as they could out of the region. The Ourika Valley would be a testing ground for his weapons, she’d told him. And while they worked to evacuate the villagers, Max paced day after day, running his hands through his hair, reminding himself that this was the right choice. That his plan would work.
His plan. Not theirs.
“You really should have gone with them,” he told Berta one day, because the girl steadfastly remained at his side. She sat in a chair with her legs crossed, cleaning a shotgun—her favorite type of gun. Max felt a little proud he knew that.
“I’m not gonna let anything go wrong,” she said without looking at him. “Not again.”
“Love your big brother, don’t you?” Max smirked. “You wouldn’t if you really knew me. I haven’t exactly made the best choices.”
“Oh, stop with the self-loathing already.” Berta groaned, rolling her eyes, and let her gun rest on her lap. “You think I haven’t killed a few people? Neither of us are angels. Some of it wasn’t our fault, but some of it was. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Just gotta keep on living on our terms. Maybe find a way to make it up. Maybe not. I’m tired of worrying about what’s right or wrong. Sometimes surviving’s enough. And if the devil snatches us up, then so be it. It’s a rough life, so you gotta be rough too.”
Max noticed how her gaze lingered along the shining wood of her shotgun. “And who taught you to be so tough?”
Berta scoffed, gripping her cloth and rubbing it back down the gun’s shaft. “There was a woman who took me to Nevada from Europe. She taught me a bunch, like how to shoot. Then she went on the run.”
“Ran away with a lover?”
“Nah, she shot that cheating bastard.”
Max cleared his throat. “Bloody hell. Right, then.”
“She always said Nevada was never meant to be her final stop. She took me on a whim, but she always planned on going back to Europe. Singing a little opera. Then maybe traveling down to China, because apparently on top of being a gambling brothel owner and a former opera singer, she was friends with an imperial prince of the Qing Dynasty.” Berta laughed. “Never could trust that idiot and her crazy lies. She saved me, then dumped me. That’s when I knew I had to do shit on my own.”
Berta’s hand froze, the dirty cloth still in it. Slowly she narrowed her eyes and lowered her gun.
“Wait a second…,” she whispered, and suddenly her eyebrows were knitted tight, her brown eyes widening. “That voice…”
Max tilted his head. “What?”
Berta jumped out of her seat. “That voice. That lady’s voice—”
Nothing. Max waited. Berta looked as if she could burn a hole in the wall with her wild glare alone. But finally she shook her head and sat down.
“Nah, can’t be her. I’m going nuts. Forget it!” And she went back to cleaning her rifle.
Max laughed. Not a bright or strong sound, but the feeling filled him with a sense of relief he hadn’t felt in a long time. “I’ll say one thing, you’ve become quite the interesting girl. I definitely look forward to getting to know you better one day. When this is all over, I mean.”
When it was all over. Assuming they both survived. Max stopped laughing.
“I didn’t vote to kill her, by the way,” Berta whispered, brushing a brown curl out of her face. “I voted ‘no.’ Just so you know. Doesn’t matter now, I guess.”
“I see.” Max considered her words as he rubbed his hands along the couch’s seat. The red upholstery gave his palms a slight tickle. After a careful inhale, he gazed at her.
“If this all goes right, there will be a ‘one day,’ Berta,” he told her. “You’re right. We just gotta live how we can. And from now on, I’m not living without you. I hope you trust me.”
Berta didn’t look at him. But she did smile.
One day.
Seeing his sister smile, Max wanted to see that “one day.”