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Zed tightened his grip.
“Two.” I bent my knees.
He looked up into my eyes, his own hard with determination, and nodded.
“Three!” I flew backward.
Something slammed into my front. Cushion of bodies braced us from behind.
The terrible scream of metal on metal. Bodies flung around. Gravity reversing and then doubling. Pain everywhere.
But then, a miracle. Despite the pain and the echoes of screaming, the train continued to move forward.
I peeled open my eyes to see through the open rear door. The gates, now bent and twisted, grew smaller in the distance. Something solid moved underneath me. I looked down to see Zed’s face, his expression dazed and filled with pain.
“Are we dead?” he groaned.
I lifted a trembling hand to point to the rectangle of light. “Look.”
I rolled off him and we crawled together to look.
He took my hand as we watched the prison’s walls grow smaller behind us. Unfortunately, we also saw vampires crawling over the rubble of the ruined gates to give chase.
“They won’t stop coming,” he said. “Tuck’s dynamite didn’t wor—”
A tidal wave of heat and sound launched us backward. By the time we recovered and pulled ourselves upright, the entire camp had erupted into a series of fireballs.
A cheer rose up in the crowded car.
Zed and I exchanged astonished looks. My entire body felt like a wound, but I’d never felt better in my life. We’d done it.
I don’t know who moved first, but next thing I knew we’d fallen into each other. We sort of just collapsed together, holding up each other’s weight, as we’d held each other up throughout the entire rescue.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my ear.
I shook my head against his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But killing him was your ticket, right?”
I pulled back to look at him in shock. “How’d you know?”
He looked sheepish. “I told you, I eavesdropped that night.”
“It doesn’t really matter. I was a fool to think Saga would honor any agreement. Now that we’ve managed this victory he’ll only double his efforts to use me as the poster girl for the rebellion.”
“Of course it matters. I saw those posters. You’ve never not been used by someone. First it was the Prime and now it’s Saga and Icarus, right?”
My eyes stung, but it had nothing to do with pain or the smoke from the explosions. “Saga would be a fool not to use me—us, actually—as symbols to encourage other humans to rise up. I get it. I really do. I just wish—Well, what I wish doesn’t matter much, does it? As long as the Troika is in power none of us will ever really be free.”
Zed looked back over all of the people in the car. They were hugging and crying openly. His gaze lingered on Bravo and the kid we’d gone to save.
“We could run away.”
I frowned at him. “What about your youngs?”
“Bravo will look after them. And Matri.” He nodded toward Matri and Bravo, who were hugging. I’d noticed tension between the women when I first met them, but I guess all of that got sorted out sometime between then and almost dying. I glanced at Zed. Funny how almost losing everything realigned one’s priorities.
“We can help dig Tuck and the others out of the mines and then sneak off to make our own way.”
