Page 112 of Till Death Do Us Part

“You can’t do that anymore, Vera,” I whispered, clutching her tighter into me. “You can’t just… die and leave me like that.”

“I’m sorry.” She held me tighter. “I just never thought…”

“There’s a lot of things happening that we never thought would happen.”

She let out a long breath, nodding against me. She didn’t say anything. The moment didn’t need words. We didn’t need words.

The site was shut down with a whole army full of people, dressed up like construction workers, but I could tell from their expressions there was more to it than that. When we got to the gravel lot that was full of cars, a pair of people giving fast orders on radios parted to let someone through, an old man with dark skin and a gray moustache, with a neat burgundy suit and an expensive, detailed mahogany cane.

“Vera Farkas, throwing herself into danger,” he said, his voice deep and raspy at the edges. “What do you know?”

“Rail,” Vera said. “I… I owe you one.”

“Call it even. Only just did the same for me.” He turned to me, eyes glinting. “You must be Elaine. I’ve heard all about you.”

I swallowed. “Thank you… for your help.”

“Hm.” He sized me up, elevator eyes looking me down and up, and he nodded. “You have steel in your eyes. Stronger than you look. No wonder.”

“No wonder… what?” I said quietly.

“It takes the strongest people to form a clan in this city. Penumbra is in good hands with you at the head.”

“I’m…” I swallowed hard. I wanted to protest I wasn’t the leader, but… Vera wouldn’t have let me. Maybe I should have argued Penumbra wasn’t a clan like the others, but… at this point, weren’t we? “I’ve only been able to do it together with my family,” I said in the end.

“Hm.” He nodded. “We have the extraction point ready. Let’s move.”

The extraction point was an old, abandoned factory, where powerful machines lay dormant, like a beast waiting to be awakened. We gathered in the offices on the top floor, where Jenna was waiting for us in a small but well-equipped medical wing, and she attended to Vera’s shoulder injury while the rest of us gathered, cleaned off the blood, and collected ourselves.

It was almost no time at all before we were all together again in a meeting room with dramatic windows that overlooked the factory floor—once an observation point, now a defensible location.

Vera, with her shirt and jacket changed for a loose tank over top of her bandages, sat forward in her chair with fire in her eyes.

“We need to destroy the archives,” she said. “Tonight.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” Rail said, sinking into his seat at the window, a high-backed chair like a throne where he presided with his cane on his lap. “Quayle got away unscathed, the bastard. And we don’t have any idea what their plans are now.”

“I know,” I said quietly, and the whole room stopped to look at me. I swallowed past the anxious feeling, sitting up taller. “I was talking to them… pretending I was open to the idea of working with them. I overheard a lot of discussion. They’re planning to attack the Whitecliff safehouse we stopped in.”

Yulia, leaning back in her chair with her arms folded, narrowed her eyes. “They won’t be at that for long once they find out we’ve all left there.”

“So there’s no time to waste,” Vera said. “We stage an immediate offensive.”

Rail frowned. “Against the Blackbirds’ stronghold, in the last minute…”

“We have a plan,” Vera said. “And we have the best opening we’re ever going to get.”

Petra thumped a fist on her chest. “I’m on board. It’s now or never. Let’s deal with these bastards and shut Horizon down for good.”

Yulia nodded. “The Whitecliffs can’t risk being further exposed to danger by dragging this out longer. I’m in.”

An armed guard opened the door at the side of the room, and my heart surged when I saw Caitlyn coming in the room, rolling her chair towards me with her eyes shining. I jumped up from my seat.

“Elaine!” she gasped. “Thank God, you’re alive!”

“Oh, Cait.” I knelt down to her level and threw myself on her in a hug. “I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry. To you, to everyone. Thank you. I’m so glad to see you again.”

“What happened with Mom?” she said quietly. I squeezed my eyes shut.