Stop, Elizabeth,” Denver ordered.
The needle puncture I expected never came. The point hollowed my skin for an instant before it skipped away.
Leon looked at Denver, surprise lighting his features.
“What? What is it?”
Denver glanced at me. “We’re not going anywhere, and you’re not going to die.”
Leon bounded over and covered me with his body, gripping me fiercely.
Cutler whipped his head to Denver. “They are going to die. All of them!”
“Not this time, Boss.” He discharged his weapon once. It hit at a precise nerve point in Cutler’s shoulder, making him drop his Glock as his fingers twitched lifelessly.
“Denver?” Confusion scuttled across the CEO’s face. He pulled a red palm away from his wet wound.
“The name’s Deyama.”
A vengeful Denver appeared from the cold depths of calm encasing him. This one was furious and fiery. He strode to Cutler and grabbed his hair. His fist primed, he slammed it into the befuddled face. “It’s time for a new fate, Cutler-sama.”
During the chaos that ensued, troopers shouted orders at one another:
Stand down.
Let’s move out!
Stay. We fight to the end.
Denver yelled for Leon, who looked up in time to catch a blade flying end over end at him.
Deftly holding the handle, he cut me free of the gurney before springing across the room. Sliding under the circle of our friends, he came to his feet amid the wiry web holding them together. He sliced them free faster than I could blink.
The sound of glass shattering pushed me into action. I hoped like crazy it wasn’t the serum…or the virus…
I swung to my feet and sped to the table of goods, the one getting knocked around by the jostle of bodies. I protected the vials while Nathaniel and Cannon barred Cutler’s escape. Denver was immobilizing him with the same systematic motions he’d used on us. The rest of my people kept wary eyes and raised weapons on the soldiers huddling like cattle before a butcher.
Cutler wasn’t getting out of this. At least not alive.
“I want that fucking antidote in Darke now!” Denver bellowed.
“I’m good. The needle didn’t break skin.”
“Close enough. We’re taking no chances. You get the antidote first.” He tossed his head toward Dr. Valary. “Elizabeth?”
She started toward me. At the same time, the troops opened up with a wild spray of fire. Hit somewhere in the middle, she landed on the hard floor. A bloody stain bloomed from her stomach, spreading across the torn blouse she wore.
Leon hurried to me. He lifted a needle to prep it, but I closed a hand over his wrist. “I’ll do it. See to the doctor.”
Leon handed me my gun and the syringe before dropping down to tend to Val. I quickly administered the serum with one eye on the action across the room, the other on Leon.
The others surrounded the trigger-happy troopers.
Denver held his weapon in Cutler’s face as the CEO kneeled on the floor.
Farrow’s dark pants stained with blood leaking from her thigh down.
Leon lifted Val to the gurney and bandaged her wound with strips from his shirt. He glanced at me, and my heart stumbled a few beats before returning to its normal rhythm.
Liz wiped her eyes when she looked back at us before she faced forward to say, “Fuck the Reformed Corps. They’re not invited.”
With her decision, bullets rang out. Soldiers in midnight blue dropped like floppy puppets to the floor but not before another of ours was hit in the crossfire. Denver spun off his feet and then went down flat on his back. Sebastian ran to him, searching his body, slapping his face and calling him every curse word in the book.
A husky voice broke through tight lips on the cadaver-still body. “Vest.”
“What?” Sebastian moved his ear to Denver’s mouth.
“I’m wearing a vest.” Denver groaned.
“Holy fuck.” Linc pulled a trembling hand over his face. “He pulled a Liz move.”
“Not as dramatic as me, though.” Liz marched over, prodding the man with her boot.
“Did you leave it close enough to the wire, tomodachi?” Inspecting Denver’s bared and wound-free chest, Linc rocked back on his heels.
“No other choice. Cutler can smell a rat from ten klicks. I had to make sure the serum was on the premises and get it into Leon in time.” Lifting his head from the floor, Denver peered at me. “Nice work, by the way, offering yourself up. I wasn’t sure how this was going to play out.”
“Reassuring, as always,” I muttered. “There’s still one rat on the loose.”
We watched Cutler crawling across the floor. Cannon kicked him over to his back, stomped his boot on the CEO’s sternum, and then pulled the gasping man to his feet.
InterNations CEO Lysander Cutler pitted his glare at us. “I still own this regime.”
“But you set me up as your second. I am fully capable of installing a new, more humane government, Father,” Linc delivered in an even voice.
“And I’ll be right beside him. Wasn’t that the Cutler vision?” Nathaniel placed himself shoulder to shoulder with his brother.
“You’re really going to murder your own father?” Actual real terror was trapped in his voice for the first time as he watched his Freelander son.
“No. I am,” Linc said.
“No way.” Liz marched forward. “No one should kill their own father, no matter how heinous his crimes.”
“Roger that. I won’t let you do this, live with this, Nathaniel. It’s bad enough you’ll see it.” Cannon joined Liz.
Nathaniel whispered into Cannon’s short hair, his arms looping around his body.
I heard Cannon whisper back, “I will do everything to keep you whole, my love.”
As Nathaniel and Linc retreated, I strode into place beside the commander and the lieutenant. Liz, Cannon, and I filled in the space the brothers vacated.
“We’ll do it,” Cannon announced.
Denver approached the CEO—the political genius, the genesis of this entire Revolution, the Plague, the virus, and all the hate against free love. Ripping through the wires at his wrists, Denver allowed him some semblance of an honorable death I didn’t think he deserved. A shot in the back was too good for this coldhearted cunt.
“I’ll be happy to.” My voice sounded hoarse, and I was shaky with relief, but I was certain I could hold my Smith steady enough to shoot this bastard dead once and for all.
We took aim.
The only last words were ours.
“Head.” I called out my target.
“Heart.” Cannon tilted his barrel down.
“Spleen.” Liz spat the word out.
Fear flitted across Cutler’s eyes one final time. I took enjoyment from his last moment on earth. We fired as one, plugging him with three neat holes. He dropped instantly, a lifeless bag of bones who would never fucking hurt us again.