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The backs of my eyeballs stung and my chest tightened painfully. This was crazy. I wasn’t ready for this. I’d spent the last several years in survival mode. Trying to do whatever it took to keep the children alive and curry favor with the vampires and the traitors to buy us some time. But now I realized I’d been buying time for this. Buying time for something—or someone—to come along and give us a reason to hope again.
I placed a hand on little Finn’s head and smiled at him even though emotion was making my lips tremble. “We’re done here.”
Whether we were leaving the camp for the outside world or leaving our mortal bodies, I didn’t know. I just finally understood that taking this risk was better than extending the dead-end lives we’d all been living.
I looked at Meridian Six, whose own eyes were red, as if she’d been dealing with a sting of
her own. “All right,” I said. “What’s the plan?”
Eighteen
Zed
The sun was too low. After we’d convinced Matri and the others to help, we’d wasted too much time trying to adjust the original plan. It had been a necessary step, but every minute that passed took us closer and closer to the hour of doom, when the monsters crawled out of their bunkers.
After we’d made the plan, Six told me to work with Tuck on getting enough dynamite and slipped out the door. My decision to ignore her order took about two seconds. I chased her outside and stopped her before she could march off.
“I told you to talk to Tuck.” She jerked her arm out of my hand.
“Where are you going?”
“I have my own mission.” Her posture was stiff, as if she was bracing for a physical fight instead of just an argument.
“You’re going after Dr. Death?”
She met my eyes but didn’t speak.
“You can’t go alone.”
“Wrong. I have to go alone.”
“No you don’t. You don’t have to kill him at all. Let’s get the train loaded up and get the hell out of here before the vamps wake up.”
She placed a hand on my cheek. Her palm was calloused, but I found myself pressing into her touch because it had been so long since anyone had touched me with any sort of comfort. “You save your kids. Don’t worry about me.”
I jerked my head away from her touch. The patronizing edge to her tone pissed me off. “If you want to commit suicide, it’s your choice, but don’t act like you’re some sort of martyr here.”
She had the nerve to look wounded. “I-I’m not a martyr.”
“Bullshit. You know that’s exactly what Saga and Icarus want, don’t you? A glorious memory they can hold up to all the rebels to inspire them. Poor Meridian Six who died for the cause just like her mother.”
Pain exploded across my cheek before I realized she’d slapped me. The throbbing eased just as she spun and marched off toward the center of camp. “Six!” I repeated her name two more times. On the second try, she threw her middle finger up over her head and picked up speed.
I sighed and rubbed at my hot cheek. What the hell was I supposed to do now? My legs itched like maybe I should chase her, but my pride reminded me that if I chased her it would be like admitting I was wrong. I was not wrong. She knew that, which was why she’d hit me.
Bravo was in charge of rounding up the children, and I needed to go help Tuck with the explosives. Instead, I stood in the dusty air and watched Six’s retreat. Something deep in my center—not my heart, but my gut—told me that if I let her walk away I’d never see her again.
“Damn it.” I hissed the words aloud, almost as if to give myself a chance to change my mind. But I didn’t. I took off in a jog that quickly turned in to a run. Tuck could get the dynamite without my help, but I wasn’t about to let Six murder that vampire alone.
* * *
When I caught up with her, she’d reached a part of the camp I hadn’t yet seen. It was a central square of sorts. If it had been the center of a town back before the war, it would have had a courthouse with a small diner across the street. But this was a prison camp, so the center of the dusty square was dominated by a flagpole bearing the Troika’s black flag and red lightning symbol. On each of the four sides, a different building stood. One was obviously the barracks for the guards, which looked like a luxury condo block compared to the shacks the prisoners were forced to live in. Another building was most likely the mess hall and another was a laundry used specifically for the vampires. I’d seen the meager prisoner washhouse, which was made up of little more than tin wash bins with cakes of lye soap. This place, however, looked like it held a variety of modern industrial washers and dryers, along with pressing machines to ensure the guards had knife-pleats in their pants while they beat the prisoners.
I reached Six when she was almost at the flagpole. Before she saw me, she’d already paused and was staring off in the fourth direction, which I had yet to observe in my rush to reach her. I paused beside her. She didn’t look at me, but I felt sure she knew I was there. I didn’t want to speak first, so I followed her gaze.
The fourth edge of the square held a large cinderblock palace. The Troika’s symbol was on display at the top of the building, like a marquee, but that wasn’t what had captured her attention.
A massive banner hung over the building’s door. On it, Meridian Six looked up toward the sky, as if looking to the future. Her hair was tied back into a bun and she wore the gray uniform of a high-ranking human slave—the kind that was trained in the special “education” centers in Nachtstadt. The slogan underneath the image said, Freedom through blood. Life through labor.
