“The town’s celebrating, and you look like hell,” Mary said. She placed a mug in front of Dani and sat in the chair across from her.
Dani rubbed her hands over her face and groaned. She leaned back in her chair, careful not to bump her sore ribs. “I’m thrilled we have a treaty with the Commonwealth, but Gavin’s training hasn’t let up. He’s a fucking machine. He never stops. I took my beating this morning and have one more to go this evening. I don’t know how he does it. I swear he’s not human.”
“Because he’s not human,” Mary said.
“I mean, I know, but I’m an Echo too, and I still can’t go like him. He never gets tired. I’m exhausted.” Dani sipped at her ale, glad her mug lacked any other surprise ingredients.
“We are still talking about your combat training, right?” Mary asked with a sly grin.
Dani laughed, but her face flushed red.
Mary leaned forward. “What are you hiding?”
Dani kept her eyes on her ale. “Nothing.”
“You suck at lying. Are you sleeping with him?”
“No. We … like each other. But we agreed to put things on hold until after we sort out Portland.”
“That’s the stupidest decision ever.”
“I thought you were in favor of us taking Portland back.”
“God, you’re so dense. I mean, you’re ridiculously intelligent, but there are some things you just don’t have a goddamn clue about, Dani. Why put your life with him on hold for anything other than, I don’t know, the world exploding and taking everyone with it? As a human, I understand how finite my life is; I only get one shot. And you’re not much different, since your mind reboots back to zero.” Mary’s attention diverted for a moment to another area of the crowded room. She stood to leave. “Aunt Hattie wants me for something. Rethink your plans with Gavin. Better yet, forget him altogether and spend an evening with me.” She squeezed Dani’s shoulder as she walked out.
Dani smiled and resumed drinking her ale. She sat alone for a while, wondering where her friends were. The room was packed with Brigands and CNA troops eating and drinking together, but she didn’t see Miles, Gavin, or Jace among them. Oliver had taken Brody for a walk, and they hadn’t returned yet.
She stood, her side still aching from Gavin’s punch that morning. It didn’t matter how many times she did guard her ribs, he still exploited the one time she didn’t.
“Hey,” Jace said.
Dani flinched at his unexpected arrival at her side; as usual, she hadn’t heard him coming. Before she could greet him, he picked up her mug and pressed it into her hand. He then took her arm and led her from the crowded room. He didn’t say anything until he brought her to the private dining area where she’d barged in on his evening with Hattie.
He closed the door behind them. “I need to talk to you.”
“I figured as much,” Dani said.
“I noticed you’re avoiding Miles.”
“That must thrill you.”
“Normally, yes, it would make me quite happy, but things have changed. Stop avoiding him.”
“He shoved a knife into a Brigand’s heart, Jace. He was cleared by the military brass, but the other day I asked him what really happened with Xan, and his answers were evasive. I don’t think I want to be around him.”
“You may want to sit, Dani.”
She refused.
“Miles didn’t kill Xander; I did.”
Dani stared at her brother.
“I killed Xander,” he repeated.
She placed her mug on the table so she wouldn’t drop it, then leaned her palms against the wooden tabletop. “Why?” she asked without looking at Jace.
“I went after Al to kill him for attacking you, and Miles stopped me when Xander showed up. We overheard their conversation, and when Al threatened to expose Xander for working with the Wardens, Xander killed him. Miles tried to arrest Xander, and that went horribly wrong. He was about to beat Miles to death with a stone; I stabbed him in the heart.”
“If you kill to protect yourself or someone else, it’s not murder.”
“I killed him because I wanted him dead. Saving Miles was just a side effect.”
Dani remained silent.
“Miles insisted on taking the blame to keep me out of jail. The MPs would’ve executed me for killing one of their own.”
Dani turned to face her brother. She suddenly doubted everything about his character. He was nothing like the person she’d believed him to be. “He offered to take the blame, and you let him?”
“He put his prints on my knife and gave me his blade.”
“Why did he put himself at risk to keep you safe?” Dani asked.
“He should probably explain that part to you.”
“Who else knows?”
“Outside of Hattie, Miles, and me, you’re it.”
“Oliver?”
Jace shook his head.
“Shit, Jace, you and Miles cannot have that kid believing his father killed a man when he didn’t.”
“That’s for Miles to decide. I wanted you to know the truth because, well, things are changing. I didn’t kill Xander out of any love for Miles, but now I’m glad I didn’t let him bash in his skull. Miles is a decent fellow.”
Dani’s eyes widened. “Wait, what? You’re saying you like Miles now?”
Jace snorted. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I don’t hate him.” He rose and put her mug back in her hand. “Keep this information to yourself, and process it all later.” He ushered her out a different door than the one they’d come in through. They emerged into an unfamiliar hallway.
Dani pulled her arm from his grasp and stopped. “What the fuck is going on?”
“There’s something I need to show you.”
“Why?”
“I realize you’ve just learned your brother is a killer, and I understand if you hate me. But I need you to come with me. Please.”
Dani sighed and relented.
They made a turn, passed through a small door, and went down a set of narrow, poorly lit stairs. They walked through another room, lined with barrels of ale, and came to a stop before a wall. Jace passed his hand along the flat surface, and the wall slid aside.
Dani’s mouth opened but no sound emerged. He took her arm and guided her into the next room, where Miles, Gavin, Hattie, and Mary waited. The size of the underground vault would have impressed her on its own, but it was the stash of neatly organized weapons, tech, and radio equipment filling the room that left her speechless. She recognized the battery unit hooked to the radio as the one she’d traded to Hattie following the Standpipe incident.
Dani stared at the racks of several dozen older-model plasma rifles, with a few more modern quake rifles mixed in. Plasma pistols had their own racks. Antique rifles and pistols with boxes of ammunition took up another space in the room. She walked past a row of several tables laid end to end. They held boxes and piles of various pieces and parts of Warden and Commonwealth tech. She picked up one device that had a corner of its housing broken off.
“Took that off a downed Warden helo near Montreal,” Mary said.
Dani tried to speak, but her mouth had gone dry. She took several sips from her mug and tried again. “It’s part of the rear rotor.”
Mary nodded. “The motor still works, but I haven’t had a chance to fool around with it to see what I can build.”
“You and Hattie never needed me to assemble the solar panel. You could’ve done it.”
“Yeah. We needed to give you a few test runs to see if you could build as well as Jace said you could.”
Dani tossed the part back into the heap and set her mug aside. She used her fingertips to rub her forehead. The radio crackled with static, and she lowered her hands.
“How long has this been going on?” Dani asked.
“Since the start of the war,” Hattie said. “Bangor is sitting on the largest stash of weapons in the northeast. We have six more bunkers, all larger than this one. They’re also all connected by the tunnels under the city used during Prohibition in the 1920s and ’30s. We don’t have the newest gadgets, but these will still put holes in the Wardens. The only thing we’ve lacked for the last five, almost six decades is a reason to pull them out and use them. We always knew we’d have an easy time uniting the Brigands in this area, but we also knew we could never take on the Wardens alone. Seems we just needed someone insane enough to put a Brigand–Commonwealth partnership in motion.”
“Holy shit,” Dani muttered.
Hattie shrugged. “I’m not sure how holy it is, but the shit has certainly gotten way more interesting the last few days. I brought Houston down here today but didn’t tell her about our other sites. Still feeling her out for how much we can trust her, you know? Anyway, that panel you built for me wasn’t for a silly lamp. My old panel broke, so our communication with other locations had been cut off for a while.”
“What other locations?” Dani asked.
“We have people in Saco, Gorham, and Freeport keeping an eye on Portland. We have other sites, but those three have been the most important lately.”
Dani turned to Gavin. “This is how you’ve been getting your information fed back to you so quickly?”
He nodded.
“The beauty is the radio tech is so old, the Wardens don’t pick up the transmissions,” Hattie said. “They could if they wanted, but they’re too busy monitoring the CNA traffic to worry about us. The CNA has the ability to intercept Warden signals between Portland and Boston, but they can’t always unscramble them.”
“Do the Wardens oscillate their frequencies?” Dani asked Gavin.
He nodded. “Can you build something to handle the variance?”
“Maybe. Their comms are always so far ahead of the Commonwealth’s tech.”
“Which is how the Wardens planned and coordinated their attack fifty-nine years ago without anyone knowing until it was too late,” Hattie said. “We must have a way to know what they’re up to, Dani.”
“I’ll need one of their devices to figure it out,” she said.
“We have one, but it’s damaged. See what you can do with it once Miles gets it from Houston.”
Dani shook her head. “I still can’t believe this.”
“We were going to tell you sooner, but other things kept coming up,” Jace said.
Dani’s frustration released in a wave of fury. “I’ve lived here for fifteen years, and Houston still found out before me!”
“Pout, punch something, cry, I don’t give a shit, Dani,” Hattie snapped. “Get over yourself real quick, honey, because we have a hell of a lot of work to do now. The treaty is signed. The attack on Portland will happen. Gavin, I need Dani to help fix the tech my people couldn’t. Stop beating the crap out of her every day.”
“She can tinker in your dungeon between sessions,” Gavin said. “I still have a lot to teach her. I have a personal interest in her being able to protect herself.”
Miles scowled at Gavin. “That personal interest includes inflicting pain on her for fun.”
“Jace didn’t come to you to teach her how to fight,” Gavin said.
“Exactly where is your line between abuse and training?” Miles asked.
“Both of you, shut up,” Hattie said.
“I don’t get a say in any of this?” Dani asked.
“Nope. Mary, let’s go. There’s a business to run upstairs.” Hattie and Mary left, and Dani followed Jace, Miles, and Gavin out. She stopped and leaned her hand against one of the barrels while Jace closed the fake wall.
“Careful with that,” Gavin said. “It’s not full of ale.”
Dani jerked her hand back as if burned. She eyed the barrel with suspicion. “What is it full of?”
“Explosives.”
With that, he walked away. Jace went with him, leaving Dani in the dank cellar with Miles.
“How long have you been in on this?” Dani asked him.
“About twenty minutes before you arrived. I think. Like you, I couldn’t breathe or speak for a while upon first coming down here. It may have been only five minutes, for all I know.”
Dani half laughed at his remark. She drained her mug and found a barrel with a spout. “This one doesn’t have explosives in it, I assume.”
Miles chuckled. “Let’s hope.”
Dani refilled the mug and passed it to him. She wondered how many of the barrels contained ale versus something that could blow a crater in Bangor.
Miles drank deeply from the mug before filling it again and passing it back to her. She drank half of the contents in one go.
“Jace told me what really happened in Hell.”
Miles nodded.
“Tell Oliver. Nothing sucks more than family keeping the truth from you,” she said. She handed the mug back to him and left.