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“And the only way you can stop this threat is to destroy everything you built here?”
Cormac grabs my wrist so forcefully that it feels as though my bones will snap. “I have this under control.”
“Are you sure?” My question is soft.
“Never presume that I’m not in control.” His words are firm but his eyes tell a different story. He can’t hide the fierce panic blazing in them.
“There are a lot of innocent people in this sector,” I reason with him. “Are you going to desert them?”
His voice lowers to a whisper. This point is meant only for me. “Tell me, Adelice, how do you know when someone is innocent? Because two years ago I was called to a retrieval gone bad, and I walked in ready to face a traitor. And do you know what I found? A scrap of a girl who couldn’t run fast enough to get away.” Cormac trails a finger down my throat, and my hands curl into fists. “You looked innocent, and what a fool you made of all of us.”
“You’re wrong,” I say in a quiet voice.
“You were innocent?” he asks.
“No, about me not seeing the big picture. It’s not that I don’t see it. It’s that I see a different one than you.” I pause, waiting for him to interrupt, but for once he’s listening to me. “You’re looking at the past, Cormac. Your world is falling apart while you squint and pretend the big picture isn’t deteriorating rather than face the truth.”
“And I suppose you’re going to enlighten me?” he asks with a scoff.
“I can’t do that, which is why you need me. You’re holding on so tightly that you’re strangling Arras. Call off the protocol and we’ll figure something out together.”
Cormac hesitates, his black eyes fixed on mine, flickering like he’s trying to read a secret code. He won’t find anything hidden there, because I believe every word I’ve said to him. “This sector isn’t beyond saving,” I continue. “Nothing in this world or the one below us is beyond saving. The fact that you brought me here proves you know that. You gave me another chance, Cormac. You can give those girls one as well.”
Cormac’s gaze falls to the floor and he straightens up, unable to meet my eyes. It’s the first time he’s backed down from me. It’s the first time I’ve won.
I try to bite back the triumphant smile tugging at my lips as he cocks his head. “Hannox,” he calls.
I think of Hanna’s judgmental eyes. She scorned my methods, but I have gotten results through diplomacy. Cormac might be a twisted man, but he always does the best thing to advance his career. Abandoning the Eastern Sector wasn’t going to earn him popularity points.
“Hold the protocol,” he says. “Wait for my orders.”
As soon as he ends his conversation, his eyes fall wearily over me.
My heart takes flight like a freed bird as we pass outside the central part of Cypress, past tall buildings and shops out to the cookie-cutter streets that comprise the neighborhoods. It’s evening and the streets are empty, lights flicker in windows, but curfew is imminent. Posted signs warn us to turn back—that we’re entering a restricted area. When we finally stop, Hannox helps me out of the back of the motocarriage. We’re on a bluff much like the one Cormac brought me to during a goodwill tour we took together. The men speak in furious whispers until Hannox climbs back inside the motocarriage, leaving Cormac and me alone.
“Are you here to tempt me?” I ask him as he appears by my side. He’d offered me Arras once as we looked over a cliff.
“No, we’re here to witness.”
“Witness what?” I ask, suspicion seeping into my voice.
He taps his wristwatch. “Soon. I thought it was time I showed you the big picture.”
I stare out past the edge of the bluff. A metro stretches, sparkling, at the foot of it. The night is still, not a trace of wind in the air, but as my gaze moves upward there are no stars. No moon.
“Why are we here? I thought we were going to the Northern Ministry,” I ask, not wanting to understand why he’s brought me here, because I think I already know the answer.
“We are standing at the boundary between the Northern Sector and the Eastern Sector,” Cormac explains.
This information sends a chill running through my veins, but I don’t repeat my earlier question. The lights below are merely the candles and emergency flashes the population is using while the sector is in blackout. Instead I wait, dreading the answer that I know is coming.
I’m here to witness Protocol Two.
The black sky flashes rainbow. Colors streak across, lighting it in brilliant ruby and sapphire, each shade fading into another. Until it ceases to be. It’s no longer empty air. It’s more. It’s become a gaping void. The space-time around us vibrates, filling the abyss overhead with the low hum of absence. Under it the metro tremors and fades, stripped before my eyes. My mind fills the silence with screams. But would they scream? Would the people of the Eastern Sector even know what was happening to them? Did they feel their removal from Arras?
Did they know they had been cast off from life? Through the lost cries echoing in my head only one thought is clear: Sebrina is in the Eastern Sector. I’ve failed Jost again.
I step closer to the edge, and when the air stings my tears, I realize I’m crying. “What have you done?”
