Page 186 of Storm Caller

“Nothing,” she says, offering me a firm look. “Nothing at all. But we keep trying. We never stop.” Her head drops, and I notice her whispering to herself before she inhales deeply and turns around. “Where is the data drive?”

Justin holds up the tiny rectangle. It seems impossible that so much power could be contained in something so physically insignificant. “How do we know it worked?” he asks.

Edward reaches for it. “I’ll know in a minute.”

Justin hesitates. I can tell a part of him doesn’t want to give it up. The city still represents everything they’ve worked against for so many years.

New Manhattan held this knowledge at their fingertips, and they abused it.

Justin exchanges a glance with Rook, who dips his chin. But Justin is exactly like his brother. He would never try to keep this to himself. As Justin hands the drive to Edward, I feel a collective release of tension around the room.

Trust still needs to be earned despite everything we did together tonight.

Maybe we need more time, or maybe some wounds are too deep to heal.

Rook turns to Ada. “After we take this information back to the Veil, we’ll use it to develop the antidote and share it with as many people as we can.”

“I understand,” she says.

“We won’t keep your secret,” he adds. “The Tiera Frais deserves to know what The Shield has been doing.”

“Tell whoever you want. It isn’t my secret,” Ada says, and Rook offers her a somber nod.

“This is still your home, and I cannot predict how everyone will react once they learn the truth.”

“What do you think they might do?” Henry asks.

Rook shrugs. “I can’t say for sure, but the code of the Tiera Frais would never tolerate such a blatant disregard for human life.”

“We understand,” Ada says. “We wouldn’t ask you to keep this to yourselves.”

“And what about New Manhattan?” I ask, holding up my phone. “They deserve to see everything. Once they learn the truth, this has to open their eyes.”

“Let me see that,” Edward says. I hand over my phone before he plugs in a cable and calls up the footage I filmed. I turn away, unable to stomach it again.

I hate that this is the last image I’ll ever see of Raine’s face.

“Poet,” Ada says. “I have an idea, and I need your help.”

“Yes?”

“I want to show everyone what you saw tonight, and I think it would be more powerful if it comes from someone who was there, who escaped New Manhattan and saw the truth with her own eyes. We don’t need them to just hear all this; we need them to believe it.”

“How?” I ask, nerves swirling in my stomach.

“Edward and I have been working on this for a while. We knew we’d need a way to share The Shield’s secrets on a mass scale. He’s tapped into the feed that accesses every screen in New Manhattan.”

“Can Edward do all that?” Rook asks. “Without any power?”

“It does throw a wrinkle into things,” Edward says, spinning around in his chair. He has that light in his eyes. That same one I saw when he agreed to help me break into the Citadel months ago. “We can’t hit every screen, but I can access people’s phones as long as they still have battery life, plus many of the public screens work on stored electricity as well.”

“What do you want me to say?” I ask.

Ada clasps her hands around my shoulders. “I want you to remind everyone that there is another way,” she says. “That we don’t have to accept the path that’s been set for us. The Fog isn’t the first group that has tried to make a difference over the years. We’re just one in a long line of people who believed. They were stopped. Beaten. Broken. But every smothered act of defiance was a tiny spark feeding a flame. Never dead . . . just dormant.”

A shiver rolls down my back as I absorb her words. The room is so quiet that I can hear fighting in the distance, even muffled through the windows.

I open my mouth and then close it. “Me? Really?”