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“She swore off her Legacies.”
“Oh, so it was some other quiet Japanese girl blowing shit up last night?” Nigel asked. “She did what she had to do, when it mattered. To save lives. The world ain’t pretty like we hoped, mate, it’s not sequined leotards and capes.”
Kopano made a face. “I didn’t imagine sequins.”
“Makes one of us, eh?” Nigel smirked. “Point is, we don’t have to fight ugly with ugly. We can be the change we want to see in the world. You know that fuckin’ cliché? The Loric didn’t make us monsters and they didn’t make us heroes. They just gave us bloody Legacies and said have at it. We choose what happens next.”
Kopano nodded along for most of Nigel’s speech, but still couldn’t shake the memory of the broken bodies he’d left in the middle of the highway. “I couldn’t choose last night,” he said quietly and ran a hand over his face. “If I can be made to do that . . . maybe my mom is right. Maybe we shouldn’t have such power, maybe—”
“I been meaning to tell you,” Nigel interrupted. “Those blokes you roughed up, they were all alive when we left ’em. I should know. I was the one with the foresight to nick what they had in their pockets.”
Kopano’s eyebrows rose. “Really? I didn’t . . . ?”
“Nah, mate. Some of ’em might not be walking right for a while, but they’re all still wasting space on our unhappy planet. Even Hulked out, your heart’s still big enough to pull punches, ya bloody softie.”
Outside, a car horn honked. Kopano poked his head out of the snack aisle and spotted Isabela sitting shotgun in an enormous SUV. An Escalade. His father used to talk about buying a car like that when he struck it rich. Isabela dangled her arm out the window. She caught Kopano looking at her, wiggled her fingers and winked.
For the first time that day, Kopano smiled.
He turned back to Nigel.
“Yes,” Kopano said. “I am ready. Let’s go rescue Taylor.” He paused, then put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Thank you, Nigel.”
“Wasn’t nothing, mate.”
Kopano left the aisle, walking out to the SUV. Nigel lingered for a moment. Ran, who had been listening from the next aisle over, appeared quietly at his side.
“You lied to him,” Ran observed. “Many of those men were surely dead.”
Nigel’s frown deepened. “You want to tell the big guy that?”
Ran shook her head. “Such knowledge would do him no good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
TAYLOR COOK
HOFN, ICELAND
ALL SHE HAD TO DO WAS HEAL WHO THEY TOLD HER to. That was the deal.
“In exchange,” Einar explained, “you will be taken care of. Once you’ve proven yourself to the Foundation, they will build you a place like this. You’ll want for nothing.”
Taylor stood at the far end of the marble kitchen counter. She still held one of the stainless steel kitchen knives. It made her feel more comfortable and Einar didn’t seem to mind. He sat on a stool and picked at the plate of food he’d prepared for her. Behind them, Freyja lay on the couch, tentatively rubbing the spot on her head that had been cracked open.
The flat-screen TV, the record player and speakers, the shelves of books ranging from pretentious literary novels to pulp detective stories, the massive collection of Blu-rays. The more Taylor looked around, the more she began to see this place as an extension of Einar—a dream house for a studious young loner.
“So they built this place for you?” she asked. “Because you proved yourself?”
He nodded. “They’ve treated me well.”
“I guess they didn’t kidnap you, then?”
He raised an eyebrow. “My recruitment was not painless either.”
“But you gave in, so they hooked you up.”
Einar didn’t respond. He cut off a corner of cold pancake and swirled it around in a skinned-over pool of syrup.
“So if I play nice, they’ll build me and my dad a five-hundred-acre farm in South Dakota? Let us live out there in peace except for when I need to go off to heal someone?”
Einar set down his fork. “I’m sure a farm could be arranged. But you will have to live somewhere outside the jurisdiction of Earth Garde.”
“That’s what? Iceland, China, Russia . . . the Middle East?”
“Venezuela,” Einar offered. “Many other nations.”
“Oh, so many enticing options,” Taylor said dryly.
“Better than being a prisoner who is forced to fight shadow wars for a corrupt government agency,” Einar replied.
Taylor raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you aren’t a prisoner?”
“No. Not like you were.”
Since Taylor had gotten ahold of herself, she’d been able to better survey her surroundings. There were more cameras than the one Einar had forced her to look at. There was at least one in every room. From her current position, Taylor could see the camera hanging over Einar’s refrigerator, the one positioned beneath his television and the one tucked into the corner aimed at the front door and staircase. She suspected that the glowing gem on Freyja’s choker was a camera as well.
“They must really trust you,” she said. “To let you live all by yourself out here without supervision.”
Einar followed Taylor’s gaze to the camera. He sneered. “Please. As if you aren’t under constant surveillance at the Academy.”
Taylor’s stomach twisted into a knot. Waking up here had been so disorienting, her short confrontation with Einar so infuriating, she hadn’t paused for a moment to wonder about the fate of her friends.
“What happened . . . ?” Her fingers tightened on the knife’s handle. “What happened to the people I was with?”
Einar shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“That’s it?” Taylor asked. “That’s all you can say? They’re my friends.”
“If it helps, those Harvester fools were very poorly trained,” Einar said. “I’d wager that at least some of your friends survived.”
Taylor fought back the urge to stab him by looking in Freyja’s direction. The little girl had curled into a ball on the couch, staring off into space.
Another detail popped into Taylor’s mind. Isabela with the dart sticking out of her neck, courtesy of a girl in a hijab.
“What about your friend?” Taylor asked. “Where’s she?”
Einar’s expression darkened. She had hit a nerve.
“I don’t know,” Einar said evenly.
“Did you leave her behind?”
“She knew the mission parameters.”
A tense silence hung over him. Einar picked up his fork again, but didn’t eat anything. Taylor watched him, wondering how far she could push him. Further, she decided.
“Must get pretty lonely out here by yourself. Why don’t these Foundation people kidnap you some friends?”
“I have friends,” Einar said somewhat defensively. “There are others. We . . . occasionally socialize.”
“Until you ditch them.”
“Shut up. You were unconscious. You don’t know the situation.”
Taylor tried to make her voice as tender and understanding as possible. “You know, I was pretty weirded out by the Academy. I didn’t want to go there. There’s still some stuff about it that bothers me, like all the army-type training. But this? Getting kidnapped by some . . . charity? Corporation . . . ?”
“Group of private investors,” Einar said stiffly.
“Whatever. I mean, this is gross.” She glanced at Freyja. “The Academy never threatened any children to get me to go there.”
“They didn’t have to,” Einar replied. “They simply arrested and incarcerated you. Forced you to sign your rights away.”
“What about her rights?” Taylor waved in Freyja’s direction, realized she was still holding the knife and finally set it down. “The Academy’s never killed anyone.”
Einar chuckled. “They haven’t? What do you think all that combat training is for? Who do you think Earth
Garde fights?”
Taylor thought of Kopano—the good he talked about doing, the imagined enemies he would one day bring to justice.
“Bad guys,” she said, realizing how dumb the words sounded only once they were out of her mouth.
“That’s such a meaningless term,” Einar replied with another infuriating chuckle. “We Human Garde, we’re all still young. What do you think will happen when we’re older? Wars between countries will be fought between our kind, decided by our kind. Earth Garde hopes to get a monopoly on that.”
“And your precious Foundation doesn’t?”
Einar stood up, took the plate of food and dumped it into a tall garbage can.
“The Foundation only invests in Garde with nonviolent Legacies,” he said, his back to her. “The others are viewed as threats to the human race.”
“Invests,” Taylor repeated with a shake of her head. She waited for Einar to turn back her way so she could study him. “Seriously, you’re acting like this isn’t insane and illegal. Did they brainwash you or something?”
“No,” he replied curtly. “Feel free to make use of my home. You know what will happen if you do anything stupid. I’m going to take a nap.”
