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“What happened?”
“We caught one of them. We got a rebel.”
Shards. Neil hadn’t made it out. Not that she’d had much hope after they’d abandoned him.
“Has he said anything?”
“Not yet, but—“ The man stopped talking as he walked further into the room and laid eyes on her. Altair turned to see what he was looking at and saw her for the first time. Their eyes met, and his were full of anger, though not directed at her.
He walked toward her. “Go back to bed.”
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“There’s been an emergency I need to deal with. Go back to bed.” He grabbed her arm and gently pushed her back inside her room. She went slowly, closing the door behind her but leaving it slightly ajar. She sat with her back against the wall and her ear pressed against the door’s opening.
“We have to send word to Mudden,” the man said, his voice quavering.
“I’ll do it,” Altair offered, though he didn’t sound much happier about it. “You can go. I’ll get dressed and come see him.”
The front door shut, and she heard Altair’s footsteps coming her way. She stood but didn’t bother pretending she’d gone to bed. Altair opened the door without knocking.
“I have to go,” he said. “I probably won’t be back until evening.”
Nova nodded. She wanted to ask more, but at this point, she knew more than he did.
She couldn’t go to sleep.
She wanted to talk to the others, but this early in the morning it would have looked suspicious. She waited rather impatiently for the time to pass until she could finally go to work.
She was halfway done with her deliveries when she had to pass by the main square to pick up some food for an elderly woman. The square was packed with people, but it wasn’t market day. They were looking at the street where a line of people dressed in black were parading by.
Nova rushed forward to a spot with a better view. The people in black were all men, and they all held laser weapons in their hands.
“Who are they?” she asked an older woman standing next to her, gawking.
“Mudden military,” she answered. Then she looked Nova up and down. “Are you Meghan?”
Nova nodded. She was used to people recognizing her by now. Though most of the time, it was the dress people recognized more than her face.
“These are your husband’s people.” She almost spit the word “husband” and visibly moved away from Nova as if she’d done something wrong.
“What are they doing here? And why do they have guns?”
“They always have guns,” someone else answered. “And if they’re here, it’s to arrest someone.”
“For what?”
He harrumphed. “They arrest anyone who disagrees with them. They just call him a rebel and that gives them the right to hang him.”
Was this what Altair had meant when he said he’d contact Mudden? Blood rushed to her head and pounded in her ears as she watched the men marching by. She hadn’t truly considered the danger to her life before, but as her eyes fixed on those laser guns, she realized that if she were caught, they would show no mercy. The words “hang him” repeated in her head, and she swallowed the lump in her throat.
The men disappeared down the street in the direction of the council building, though some of them remained behind and walked around the square, stopping people and asking them questions. Nova walked briskly out of the square trying to look in a hurry, but not like she was running away.
“Stop!”
Nova froze. Her heart beat so hard it threatened to come out of her chest. She turned around.
The military man wasn’t talking to her. He grabbed the arm of an older man.
