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Dad gave me a quizzical look. “I thought you’d be all for the attacks, being with the Coalition.”
I shook my head. “Of course not. The guards don’t know what’s really going on, and if the Camaraderie sends Special Forces here, the rebels will die.”
“I see your point. Wait here,” Dad told us as he hurried out the door. Mom and I exchanged glances, and then I scrambled from my chair and followed Dad through a maze of broken subway cars and tattered sidewalks, Mom behind me. Angry voices mingled in the distance.
Pops appeared from an alley between two cars, his eyebrows furrowed with worry. His cane tapped the broken tile. “What’s going on?”
“They plan to riot,” Dad said, only a few paces ahead of me thanks to my enhanced speed power.
Wrinkles formed at the corners of Pops’ eyes. “They’ll be killed. If not by guards, then by Special Forces. If the riot succeeds, the Camaraderie will bomb this entire area.”
My chest constricted. If the Camaraderie decided to wipe out this suburb, how far would the blast go? The nearest city, St. Petersburg, had a lot more than the two-thousand people who died when the Camaraderie attacked the town where Pops used to work.
Dad gritted his teeth. “That’s not going to happen here.”
“It will if these people succeed in their attack.”
Dad spun around and jabbed his finger into Pops’ chest. “What do you want them to do? Surrender? They have no place to go! They could’ve kept hiding, but now that trackers are involved, they’ll have to relocate.”
“Those bounty hunters were after you,” Pops said calmly. “Although they won’t be a problem now.”
“Let me guess, you recruited them?”
A smile tugged on Pops’ lips. “Yes.”
More potential spies. Joy. But now wasn’t the time to worry about them. “Dad, you’ve been here for a while. Can you convince these people to hold off their attack?”
Dad shook his head. “They won’t listen to me.”
My vines curled around my arms. “We have to try.”
“Jenna, I—” Dad sighed. “This way.” He led us to a crowded congregation. The rebels brandished weapons and jeered in Russian—an affront to the Community’s choice to use English. The low light made it hard to see their faces, but I could make out Abram standing on a raised platform.
Lance already stood at the edge of the crowd. “Their leader is doing a pretty good job riling them up.” His eyes sparkled with anticipation and a shiver ran down my spine. Ready for a fight, as always. But couldn’t he see this was a terrible idea?
“Don’t get too excited,” I warned. “They might take out the guards, but Special Forces will slaughter them.”
Lance shook his head, smirking. “Not if these guys overrun them.”
“You’re being unrealistic.”
“The theophrenic plague has been gone for years!” Abram shouted. “They keep our children docile with daily pills, promising to protect them, and yet they still fail the scans! And when our children fail, they send them away, saying only that they are a threat to the Community.”
A loud, angry roar rose above the jeers, followed by singular cries of “Where’s our children?” My heart skipped a beat, panic rising in my throat. The stamping of feet and cries of anger changed to screams for help. Flesh merging with metal—
I forced my hands to my side, trying to concentrate. As long as I remained outside the crowd, the Legion Spore’s terrible screams stayed at bay. If I let myself get surrounded—
I’d have to deal with it. A numb coldness settled in my shoulders. The Coalition’s team had nearly been murdered by Special Forces, but we had some measure of training. These people wouldn’t stand a chance.
Dad pushed his way to the front of the crowd, shoving aside anyone who refused to budge. A few stumbled, dizzy, before glancing at him in confusion.
I tugged Pops’ sleeve. “Will the Camaraderie bring beasts?”
“No. There haven’t been beasts in the Community since...” His voice drifted. “They’ll send helicopters with snipers and assault rifles. They’ll have body armor, vests, and helmets. The rebels here might put up a fight, but they will not win. If they do, the Camaraderie has accidents waiting to happen. Put it this way: Special Forces will not fail.” He looked down at me, his dark eyes icy.
More people chanted, “Death to the guards! Give us back our children! Where’s our security?” rising in crescendo. I pressed my lips together, purposely forcing away the gruesome images playing through my mind.
“It doesn’t look good,” I said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Pops agreed. “Stay here; I’ll see if my powers can be of use.” He disappeared into the crowd, leaving me with Lance and Mom. She rubbed her elbows, shifting nervously on her feet. Part of her usual blond bun had come loose.
“The Community is safe, right?” she whispered. “Surely they’ll be safe.”
“I don’t think so.” I wished it wasn’t true. “You saw what security did when Dad went looking for me. You know Pops’ story.”
Mom squeezed her arms tight.
I sighed. Pops and Dad couldn’t do this alone. “I’ll be right back.” I took a deep breath and plunged into the crowd. The people shuffled, twisting and shouting, roaring their anger. They called for the downfall of the guards, an answer to the arrests—
The Legion Spore shifted around me, transforming human bodies into grotesque beasts, warping the cavern into guts and flesh. Sweat beaded on my neck, the crowd’s breathing hot and pressing. I swung my arm, knocking someone out of my way, and then shoved past two hulking beasties wielding clubs. My head swam. “This isn’t real,” I whispered, breathless. I needed to focus. I heard the thud, thud, thud of my heart in my ears, the pulsing beat of many hearts beating as one giant monstrosity—
I broke through the center of the crowd and clambered onto a makeshift platform. Firm, thick hands grabbed my upper arms and lifted me, steadying me on the uneven deck. A toughness beastie stared back. I gasped, turning away and staring at the crowd until the beasties pounding their fists in the air gave way to human rebels. The roaring chants grew distant, and it was my dad who had helped me, not some monster.
“Thanks,” I whispered, but he’d already turned his back. The flower charm pressed against my skin, hot and jagged. I wanted to yank it off, yank away the reminder of Lady Winters, but if I lost it in the crowd, I’d never find it again.
“The riot would be more efficient if you had larger numbers,” Dad told Abram. “The guards aren’t going to let you pass.”
“Twenty-one security guards out of forty across the town are dead,” Abram said coolly, his smile never faltering.
Twenty-one? I gaped at him, horrified. “Those guards were innocent!”
Abram ignored me. “We tracked them, and when these guys showed up” —he gestured to me and Pops— “we sent out our people. They never knew we were coming.”
The world spun. I clenched my fists, trying to balance myself. “Twenty-one innocent guards were just doing their job, with no idea of what the Health Scan means,” I snapped, my voice rising in anger. “They might have lost family to the scans and you... you murdered them?”
He scowled at me. “No different than what you do.”
“I don’t go tracking them to their homes to assassinate them!”
Pops gently pulled me back and turned to Abram. “You might get rid of the guards, but Special Forces agents are merciless combatants. They shoot to kill, and they do not ask questions. If you are a threat, you will be ruthlessly eliminated.”
“We’re ruthless, too!” Abram shouted, thrusting his rifle into the air. The crowd cheered and the noise grew to a deafening din. The voices around me turned to cries of pain, to beasties and humans wired together—
“You should wait,” I gasped. The only way to stop these guys was to get them to put off their attacks. Logic... if I could appeal to their sense of logic... “Wait,” I repeated, my fingers going to the lump of my coat where the flower charm rested. “Plan carefully. You need to get your men in and out as fast as possible. That way you might evade Special Forces.” I raised my chin, struggling to find cool air in the seething crowd.
“The three of them are right,” Private Eye’s voice quipped. She smacked away a person’s hand trying to drag her back into the crowd before hopping onto the platform. “Special Forces are better trained than Community guards. Way better trained.”
Abram examined me, his eyes stopping on my vines, and his lips shifted into a dark grimace. “We’ll evaluate that once we’ve taken out the guards. We are perfectly capable.” He turned to Dad. “Will you help us? Your ability to incapacitate people would be useful.”
Dad shook his head. “No. Jenna’s right. The guards are innocent in this matter.”
“Your loss.” Abram raised his hands in the air, earning another cheer. “Are we ready?” The call echoed through the cavern, followed by thundering applause.
Special Forces was going to find them from the noise alone.
Private Eye shook her head. “While I admire their spirit, they have the lifespan of a fly in a swamp full of frogs.”
My shoulders slumped. “Interesting way of putting it.”
She shrugged. “It’s true.”
“The city is ours!” Abram shouted. “Tonight, we avenge our families!” He leapt off the platform and the mob parted, cheering and flailing their weapons as they followed him to the tunnel that led to the entrance. Dad pulled me away from the platform’s shaky edge.
Maybe I could stop them. The flower charm. If I knew how to use the charm’s telepathy, I could incapacitate these rebels with the same memories that terrified me. I could keep them from going out there and getting themselves slaughtered, keep them from killing innocents.
Private Eye sighed. “They’re not coming back,” she said, one hand on her hip, the other fingering her pistol. Too bad for them. They won’t even get what they want this way. They’ll have sacrificed themselves for nothing.
I dropped the flower charm like a hot rock. I didn’t remember pulling the necklace out from my coat, but I could have sworn I’d heard Private Eye’s thoughts. I shoved it back under the fabric. The charm was to serve as a reminder—only a reminder.
I wasn’t going to use the cursed thing.
Mom climbed onto the platform, aided by Lance. Quin stood behind them, his face blank. Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jenna.”
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to use the charm’s telepathy, but maybe there were other options. “Maybe we can distract the guards.”
“What kind of distraction?” Pops ground the butt of his cane into the platform, leaving an indentation in the soft wood.
“I don’t know—use our powers?”
Private Eye rolled her eyes. “You tried that. That’s how we got here. There’s nothing else we can do, except leave before Special Forces find us, too.”
I clenched my fists. “Maybe we need to try to stop these people again. We can’t let them die.”
Pops stepped between us and straightened his back. “In that case, who do we help? The rioters? If they win, the guards die and Special Forces will come.”
“And countless innocent people will die,” I whispered.
He nodded. “If we side with the guards, we go against our own cause.”
My heart sank. “There’s no good option, is there?”
Gunfire rattled somewhere overhead. Lance placed a hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed it, as if he knew I’d already lost this battle. If the rebels won, the whole city would be destroyed. If the guards won, the Community would be safe, but the rebels would die.
Why should innocent people pay for the Camaraderie’s evil?
I closed my eyes, exhaustion settling on my shoulders. By attacking the guards, the rioters were no longer innocent. “Let’s see what we can do to separate the fighting,” I said, resigned. “Maybe at least a few people will live, even if they lose.”
Lance gave a curt nod and hopped off the platform. He ran to the tunnel, followed by Dad and Pops. Mom touched my shoulder, turning me to face her. “You’re going back out there? It’s not safe.”
I met her gaze, my heart feeling like it was being torn to shreds. “No place is safe.”
She twisted her lips, but remained on the platform while I took off after the others.
