Текст книги "Tearing Down the Wall"

Автор книги: Tracey Ward

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I eye him shrewdly. “Is that respect I hear in your voice?”

Vin grins. “It might have crept in there.”

“So you approve?”

“Yeah.”

“Can’t tell you what that means to me,” I mutter sarcastically, but part of me means it. There’s a weird feeling of satisfaction knowing Vin is impressed by Ryan. Ever since I met him, part of me has worried about Ryan a little. He’s not exactly soft, but… I don’t know. I think I worry he’s too nice. I see it as a weakness.

“You’re not gonna fight me about calling him ‘your boy’?” Vin teases.

I roll my eyes. “What would be the point?”

“Are you admitting it’s true?”

I feel my cheeks flush instantly hot and pink. I know he can see it. I know I have weaknesses of my own.

“Yeah,” I grumble.

“What’s with you?”

“I’m embarrassed!” I snap, feeling more annoyed than embarrassed at the moment.

Vin nods slowly, looking out over the water. “Yeah, I get that.”

“Really? Then maybe you can explain it to me ‘cause I don’t understand it at all.”

He doesn’t answer at first. I think he’s going to ignore my outburst, but then he’s talking soft and low.

“It’s because you’re worried it makes you weak. You’re afraid and that’s embarrassing enough as it is, but what you’re afraid of is even worse. You’re afraid that you care. That you have something to lose. There’s a lot of angry and a lot more ugly out there and most of it wants to destroy, steal, kill, or just plain ruin anything and everything we have the gall to give a shit about. So in a way, yeah, how you feel about him does make you weak and that’s embarrassing for fighters like you and I.”

He glances over at me, his face striking in the glowing yellow light of the fading sun. His eyes are strange to me. Maybe it’s a trick of the light or maybe it’s a trick of this life, but they’re warmer than I’ve ever seen them. More genuine.

“It’s dangerous for us to love anyone,” he says, his voice deep. Husky.

Horrifying.

My stomach drops out. I’ll go look for it later somewhere in the basement of the building beneath me, but for now I feel the hollow space where it’s supposed to be. My pure fear and anxiety must register on my face because Vin laughs, shaking his head and turning away. When he glances at me sideways with that sly grin of his, the one that’s pure hotness and sex appeal, I relax a little. He looks like himself again.

“Calm down, Kitten. I’m not in love with you.”

“I—I didn’t think—” I stutter, flustered and confused.

“Yes, you did. You definitely thought it.”

I smack him hard on the arm. “Well, the way you said it was pretty leading!”

“I meant it the way it sounded. I love you.”

I am so lost.

“What the hell is happening?” I ask weakly.

“I’m not in love with you, all right? Take it easy. I’m shockingly advanced. I can have a soft spot for a woman without have a hard one for her too, you get me?”

“Gross.”

“So, yeah, I love you, Kitten,” he says plainly. “And that’s embarrassing for me but I’m dealing with it.”

“You’re dealing with it better than I’m dealing with Ryan.”

“It’s because it’s different. The way you feel about him, it’s soft and it’s hard.”

“Quit saying it like that.”

“Quit being a prude. Sex isn’t dirty.” He winks at me. “Not unless you want it to be.”

“I will leave,” I warn him. “I will stand up right now and leave this place forever.”

“No, you won’t.”

“How do you know I won’t?”

“You won’t because you missed me. You’re happy being here.”

He’s right—I feel the most at ease I have in a long time. I feel centered. Safe. I feel like he doesn’t want anything from me that I can’t give or anything that I want to give but I’m not sure how. Being with Vin is… I don’t know. It’s good. Like being alone without being lonely.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I hate you,” I tell him, looking away.

He nudges my shoulder with his. “You love me too, Kitten.”

“Shut up.”

He slings his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in close to him. “Are you going to ask what you’re dying to ask?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll probably lie to me.”

He chuckles, the sound vibrating through his chest and into my shoulder tucked against him. “You’re tougher than that. Ask anyway.”

“If it comes down to it, who will you side with? Me or Marlow?”

He sighs with his whole body. I feel his chest expand against my shoulder. His hand squeezes me to him once, hard and brief, before going lax again.

“I don’t know.”

I nod, not surprised and not mad. I’m not even a little bit hurt because I get it. I understand being torn between two choices, none of which seem like good ones. I get trying to find loyalty inside yourself when you’ve never needed to know it before.

Vin and I, we’re a lot alike. We’re loners at heart. He may surround himself with people but he doesn’t align himself with them. For as much as he connects to them, he may as well be alone. But now the world is changing and it’s asking more from both of us. It’s forcing people into our space, into our lives. Neither of us is good at being cornered or pressured. Odds are we’ll lash out eventually.

Or run.

Chapter Ten

I leave Vin to sit on his perch on his castle, pondering its fate and his. From the roof I spotted Ryan down in the gardens so I make my way down to him. He’s wandering around, checking out what’s growing, even pulling a stray weed here and there like he knows what he’s doing. The movement gives me a weird feeling of déjà vu.

“How do you know you’re not uprooting a carrot when you do that?” I ask him.

He smiles when he turns to face me. “Carrots don’t flower.”

“Could be a tomato.”

“They grow above ground. All these years on your own and you don’t know much about gardening, do you?”

I shrug. “I was lucky. I had Crenshaw. Where did you learn?”

“Crenshaw.”

“Seriously?”

“He’s been teaching me for years. I’ve been learning about medicine too. I had to with Kevin and what he did at the Arena. The stuff I brought you for your arm, he and I brewed that together.”

“So that’s what all the ‘master’ and bowing stuff was about at his house?”

Ryan nods. “I’m his apprentice.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s weird. He never offered to teach me.”

“He didn’t offer to teach me either. I asked. But he’d never show you anyway. He said you don’t have the patience.”

“When did you two talk about me?”

Ryan tosses the weed out across the open grass. “The day you were a jerk to him.”

I tense at the memory but I don’t argue with him. I was there, I know what I did. “I left you guys alone for like two minutes. Did you spend the whole time talking ugly about me while I stood right there?”

“‘She doesn’t have your patience, Helios,’” he says in a nearly perfect Crenshaw drawl that makes me grin. “‘It is why I never bothered to instruct her.’ That’s how much we talked about you.”

“That’s it? Really? You didn’t say anything about me at all?”

He grins. “I said you had other redeeming qualities that made up for your lack of patience.”

“Like what?”

“Like strength. Intelligence. Bravery. Humor.”

“Pft,” I scoff. “I am not funny.”

“I think you are.”

“I think you’re laughing at me more often than with me.”

He shrugs. “You’re still funny. And sweet, too.”

“This is getting really far-fetched.”

“What are you doing out here?” he asks, coming to stand in front of me.

I look at the edge of the field where it meets the water. Where the wet green grass turns to brown mud in a perfect rectangle that’s just long enough.

The laughter he built inside of me slips away.

“I came to say goodbye to someone,” I say hoarsely.

“Who is it?”

“Nats.”

“I’m so sorry, Joss. Do you want company?”

“I’m not going over there.”

“Okay. What are you going to do?”

“I never got to bury my parents,” I blurt out, my eyes still on the mound. I can feel Ryan’s surprise in the air around us, but he stays silent. Waiting. “I was too young to do it alone and I didn’t go back into the house after it happened. I was hiding in my dad’s car for a long time. Days. I probably would have died in there, but eventually a family found me. It was a mom and a dad and two kids. Both boys. They took me with them. It was stupid because I was worthless. I could barely walk I was so weak and I didn’t speak a word. Not for weeks. The first time I spoke was to tell them zombies were in the building.” I swallow hard, remembering how my throat hurt as I screamed, using my voice for the first time in too long. Using it too hard. Too late. “They all died. Even the boys. I didn’t see it because I ran. I left them. I tried to warn them, but I left them. Two more groups took me in after that. Two more times I saw everyone around me die. Torn apart the way Bryan tore apart that girl in the showers. I stopped talking again. I got quieter. Faster. I started moving alone because packs will get you heard and get you killed. People are dead weight. Even me. I knew I was worthless to whoever picked me up, so I stopped letting them. I started running from people and zombies and animals. Everything. Nothing was safe. I knew I had to be smart. I had to be fast and silent. A ghost.”

You need to choose whether or not you want to survive or you want to live.

“I didn’t want to die, but I knew I couldn’t live,” I breathe brokenly.

Ryan stands beside me silently, his hand clasped around mine, somehow warm despite the cold air.

“Can I show you something I found?” he asks, tugging on my hand.

I nod mutely, reluctant to pull my eyes from the brown earth. I feel like I’m failing her. I won’t go over there, I know that, but it hurts to think I’m abandoning my friend. She’s the first person I’ve lost in years, and while we weren’t that close, it still stings. It’s still an opening of a wound that should have been closed forever a long time ago.

It’s still a strike of flint, an itch in my veins that makes me want to run.

When I realize where Ryan is taking me, I want to dig in my heels. I want to root myself like those carrots out in the garden, buried under the ground and oblivious to the burn of embarrassment that’s building in my gut and on my cheeks. But I don’t back down because he’s right—I’m brave. And stupid. I’m beginning to think the stupid is getting stronger every day. Ryan doesn’t see it that way, though. Stupid to me is what sweet is to him.

When he stops in front of the wall at the back of the building, I cringe. It’s still there. The writing in white rock that I impulsively scrawled on the rough brick. The message I wrote to him in the hopes that it would find him someday. It was a moment of plain, simple honesty that was too big to keep inside at the time. Now standing here next to him, it seems too big to hide. It’s always been too much, this thing with him. It always has been and always will be more than I can manage.

I miss your kiss.

“That’s your handwriting, isn’t it?” he asks softly.

He’s doing me a favor by not looking at me. His eyes are fixed on the wall, his shoulder pressed up against mine.

“Yeah,” I admit weakly.

“You wrote it before you got out?”

“Yep.”

“Why did you write it?”

“Because I couldn’t say it.”

“Because I wasn’t here.”

“No. Because I’m broken.”

I feel him look at me, but I stare straight ahead. My eyes are fixed hard on the ‘m’ in my message. They keep following the lazy roll of it—up and down, up and down. Like waves on the ocean.

“You’re not broken, Joss.”

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re alive.”

I shake my head in silent protest.

“Every day when I saw your writing on the wall, I knew you were still out there. You were telling me you were still alive. Do you know what this message tells me now?”

I feel my chest tighten, my fear of the words I’ve told him not to say rising in my veins so thick they might burst. “No.”

“Even in here, even in prison when they had you trapped, you didn’t give up. You don’t know how to quit. You don’t know how to die. You may have been a ghost for six years, Joss, but you’ve always been alive.”

I close my eyes, a wave of dizziness rushing over me. I’m not surprised when he kisses me softly, lighting me up inside like the sun rising over the river behind him. I’m grateful for it. His arms around me, his lips on mine—it steadies me. It pushes away that dizzy, sick feeling in my head and my heart until I’m standing straight. Firm. Solid.

Until I feel more like me as I’m wrapped up in him than I have in a very long time.

Everything is changing. Everything is different than it ever has been before. I’ve always felt like Ryan was taking something from me, stripping away the layers of shadow and shroud that I’ve covered myself in while trying to hide. To survive. And I let him. I grudgingly let him do it, and now that I’m standing in the sun beside the water with him holding me, seeing me, knowing me more than anyone has in my short, painful life, I feel less afraid and more alive than I ever thought I could.

***

We sleep for most of the day. My schedule is getting all turned around. I’m going nocturnal and I don’t know how much I like it. I prefer the daylight. I like the warmth of the sun on my skin and light in the sky. I like seeing what’s coming. Too many shady things happen in the dark for me to ever trust it completely. I read once that up in Alaska there are weeks in the summer where the sun never sets. I thought that sounded like heaven until I got to the next chapter. Turns out in the winter there are times where the sun never comes out. Hard pass on that noise. Alaska can keep their wonky hours.

Once we get up, Ryan and I join Vin in his office again to talk about where we go from here. Trent is MIA—he was gone before we woke up—but I know he’s somewhere; he wouldn’t leave Ryan on his own, and part of me is pretty convinced he wouldn’t leave me either.

“Who do you have locked up?” I ask Vin.

He eyes me shrewdly. “Who are you looking for?”

“No one. It’s just a question.”

He stares at me, unmoving.

“Fine,” I groan. “Melissa.”

“Why Melissa?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Penance? Forgiveness?”

“No.”

“Yes. She was Caroline’s closest friend. Do you have some things you want to say to her? Or more importantly, do you have some things you want to hear from her?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Stop that,” I growl.

Vin sits forward in his seat, his arms coming to rest on his desk. “Melissa won’t forgive you and even if she did it wouldn’t help. You don’t feel bad for her. You don’t even feel bad for Caroline. You feel bad for yourself.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“He’s right,” Ryan says quietly.

I stare at him, shocked. “Are you siding with him?”

“He’s right,” he repeats.

“Even your boy knows,” Vin tells me. “And I bet if we brought your buddy Trent in here, he’d agree too. That dude has definitely killed a time or two, but you don’t see him wandering around all sad-faced and begging everyone who will listen for forgiveness.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I tell him hotly.

“Not yet. But if you go in there with Melissa, you’ll start. She won’t say it’s okay, because for her it’s not. You killed her friend. You gotta learn to live with that.”

I shake my head in frustration.

“You told Hyperion here because you thought he’d make it all better, didn’t you?”

I want to leave. I want to pull my knife, take my best shot at him, and shut his mouth.

“But he couldn’t do it, could he? What’d he tell you, Kitten? That you’d never get over it?”

“ I killed a woman.”

“ You’ll never get over it.”

Stupid freaking know-it-all pimp!

“You’ve done it, haven’t you, Hyperion?”

There’s a long pause, a silence that fills the room, expands then bursts, leaving it feeling empty and cold.

“Yeah,” Ryan admits roughly.

“We all have. Anyone who really wants to live has done it.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m okay with it,” I mutter.

“No one says you should be.”

“This is pointless,” I snap, sorry I brought it up. “We need to decide where we go from here.”

“I told you, same as I told the people out there: we don’t make a move with your friends until we get our hands on the guy who killed Rebecca.”

“They’ll never hand him over,” Ryan tells him honestly.

Vin spreads his hands. “Then where we go from here is nowhere. Not with the cannibals.”

“You’re being impossible,” I growl. “You know you don’t stand a chance without their help.”

“I also know everyone here won’t work with those people, not in a million years.”

“Not even if they get Bryan,” Ryan agrees.

“Nope. It’s just not going to happen. So I don’t care that they won’t hand him over. In fact, I’m counting on that.”

“Because then it’s their choice that you don’t work together, not yours.”

“We tried to be reasonable,” Vin says in mock sadness.

I begin to the pace the room, unable to hide my frustration. “You’ve already been living on borrowed time here, using the Leaders you captured to put on a show. That can’t last forever. Eventually one of them will get sick of prison and betray you, even if it means dying. Then what will you do? The Colony will be at your door in a heartbeat and your Guard can’t hold them off.”

“I could hand it over to Marlow instead,” Vin suggests calmly. “Absorb it into The Hive.”

“The other Colonies won’t just let that go. They’ll take it back.”

“We’ll find out.”

I stop pacing, my eyes landing on his unnaturally calm face. “When?”

“Soon,” he says quietly, watching me too. “In the next half hour or so.”

“He’s on his way, isn’t he?”

“He’s been spotted. He’s bringing an army. Just like you said he would.”

I square my shoulders, standing tall and defiant. “You don’t think that I—”

“Why would I?”

“But you don’t trust anyone.”

Vin looks down at his desk where his hands are clasped together loosely. He’s absently spinning his ring on his finger the way he does when he’s thinking, only I wonder if it’s as unconscious an act as I imagine. He pauses, pulling the ring from his finger and looking it over thoughtfully.

“Today is as good a day as any to start,” he mutters.

“What’s the plan?” Ryan asks curtly. “What will you do when Marlow gets here?”

“I haven’t decided,” Vin says on a sigh, slipping the ring back on his finger. “I’ll open the doors. I’ll let him in. I’ll listen. From there, I don’t know.”

“Letting him in is pretty much letting him have this place,” I remind him.

“It’s better than letting the Colonies have it back.”

“They’ll probably take it back anyway.”

“Maybe. But they have bigger things on their mind right now.”

“Like what?”

“Like the mess you started with the Vashons.”

I scowl at him. “We didn’t start anything. Marlow sent us to them and—”

“He sent the Colonists there too,” Ryan says.

“What?”

Vin is nodding at Ryan. “I think so. The timing is too perfect. He sent you there and days later the Colonists attack an enemy they’ve left alone for at least four years? Pretty convenient.”

“But why?” I ask.

“Because he’s not strong enough to attack them himself.”

“The Colonists or the Vashons?”

“Take your pick. He hates them both. Now they’re busy fighting each other.”

“The Hive boat,” Ryan says bitterly. “He sent us sailing down the river in the dead of night in a bright white boat, straight past the Colonies, heading for Vashon Island. He probably gave it a day, and then went to the Colonies and told them he’d been to a meeting with the Vashons. A meeting they called about joining forces and overthrowing them.”

“It’s not completely a lie,” I say.

“But it was the other way around. It was him bringing the idea to the Vashons.”

“Intent is everything,” Vin agrees.

“So now Marlow has the Colonies fighting the Vashons, two of the largest forces left in the city. His two biggest rivals.”

“And one of his closest men is on the inside of an undefended Colony building,” I say, looking to Vin.

“He thinks he’s coming here to take this place,” he says quietly. “He has no idea it’s already been taken.”

“He’ll kill people,” Ryan warns.

“Not if I throw the doors open and go out to meet him.”

“That’s why you’re opening the doors to him?” I ask skeptically. “To save the lives of the people inside?”

“Well, that and I don’t want him damaging my home.”

“You still think you can hold onto it?”

He stands suddenly, his eyes hard. Determined. “Either I keep what’s mine,” he says severely, “or I’ll watch it burn.”

“And what happens to the people inside? The ones following you? Trusting you blindly?”

“We all have our own paths to follow,” he replies coldly.

I scoff at him. “You’re full of it.”

“Usually, yes.”

“You won’t leave these people to die and you won’t leave them to Marlow. You’re not that selfish.”

He raises his eyebrows at me. “Since when?”

“Since you tasted real leadership. Not control, not fear, not power. They follow you because they love you and you get off on that more than anything.”

“I wouldn’t say more than anything. I’m still a man, Kitten.”

“Then act like one.”

He grins slightly, eyeing me. “Gladly.”

“Stop.”

Vin and I both look at Ryan. He’s standing just behind me, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes locked on Vin. He’s not himself—not the warm, funny guy I’ve come to know and love.

He’s Arena Ryan, made of stone and fire.

“Stop talking to her like that,” Ryan warns Vin, “or I’ll show you what a man looks like.”

Vin’s grin doesn’t falter, but his eyes change. They’re amused. “I understand it’s meant to sound like a threat, but I feel like you’re flirting with me, Hyperion.”

“You’re not my type and she’s not yours, so back off.”

“Is that how it is? You’re finally staking your claim on her?”

“She’s not a piece of property to be claimed.”

Vin snorts. “That’s cute, but it’s a lie and you know it. Things aren’t like they used to be. Resources are scarce. She’s one of the rarest items I’ve seen in a long time and if you don’t hurry up and mark your territory, someone else will and it won’t be sweet and it sure as hell won’t be pretty.”

Ryan tenses. “It won’t happen like that. Not as long as I’m alive.”

“You’re walking around with a diamond in your hand hoping a city of thieves will let you keep it. Once Marlow marches through that door, you won’t be able to keep her any more than I can keep this Colony.” Vin’s voice lowers, softening slightly. “We’re both about to lose everything. I’m willing to destroy what’s mine to keep it from being taken. What are you going to do?”

Ryan stares back at Vin for a long time. I don’t bother speaking up. I don’t tell them I’m my own person and they don’t need to defend me, that I’m no one’s property, blah, blah, blah. They wouldn’t listen to me, so why bother? And here’s the real bitch of it: I don’t know that it’s necessarily true. I don’t know that they’re wrong.

I remember the way Marlow looked at me when I was in his Hive. I remember what it felt like to tell him I was a Benjamin, the reaction he had and the feeling it gave me in the pit of my stomach. I know what it means, I’m not an idiot. I understand what Vin can see, what Marlow wants, and what Ryan will die to protect it.

“I’ll kill Marlow.”

I close my eyes, feeling defeated.

Ryan is completely calm, completely certain, and completely out of his friggin’ mind.

“Ryan, you—” I begin tiredly, opening my eyes.

“Give me an opening and I’ll kill Marlow.”

I feel sick to my stomach, but Vin is grinning.

“Hyperion,” he says slowly, “you got yourself a deal.”

Chapter Eleven

“He’s playing you!” I shout at Ryan.

My voice echoes off the hard, gray walls of the showers. We’re waiting for the line to form outside—the line of Colonists being rounded up and sent away down the tunnels to hide from Marlow and his men. Vin has a lot of confidence in his ability to talk Marlow down from killing everyone inside, but he’s not insane. Confidence does not equal a sure thing, so the entire place—aside from the Guard—is being evacuated. Trent seems pretty sure we can find our way out without getting lost and dying in the dark. As much as I trust his wicked sharp eyes and bizarre computer brain that probably mapped every inch of tunnel we’ve seen so far, I have my doubts. About everything.

Right now as I stand in front of Ryan shouting, I know people can hear us—especially the guards just outside the door—but I don’t care. I’m angry and they can all know it. I hope they feel it, taste it. Choke on it.

To my surprise, Ryan laughs. “Of course he’s playing me.”

“Then why did you agree to it?”

“Because it needs to be done.”

“You can’t kill Marlow.”

“He’s a man. All men can be killed. Vin will find me the opening to make it happen.”

“He’ll screw you over is what he’ll do.”

“Not on this. He needs Marlow dead just as much as I do.”

“Why do you need him dead?”

“Because it’s the only way to make sure he never lays a hand on you.”

“We could leave like you were talking about.”

“You said not until this is over. It’s a long way from over.”

“I don’t care what I said! We’ll leave right now.” I grab his arm, tugging on him hard. He’s too strong. I can’t move him. “Let’s go!”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not a coward.”

“Well, I am. Let’s go!”

Ryan smiles at me as I keep yanking on his arm. “No, you’re not.”

“I’m scared and I’m ready to run. That’s a coward.”

“But you’re not scared for you. You’re scared for me.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A lot.”

I try a different tactic—one I’ve never used before. One I don’t even know how to use.

I stand in front of him, taking his face in my hands and pressing my body to his. His eyes turn wary. He knows what I’m doing, but he’s not about to stop me. He breathes in deeply before weaving his arms around my waist and holding me to him.

“Please, Ryan,” I whisper, my eyes begging his. “Please don’t try to do this. You’re not a murderer. It’s not worth it.”

He leans his head down until our foreheads are touching. “It is to me.”

“Not to me. And if you die…” I can’t finish that sentence. I can’t even finish the thought.

“If anything happens to me, Trent will get you out of the city. He’ll run with you.”

“Why don’t you run with me now?”

“Because it’s not only about you. It’s about every person in this building. It’s about everyone in The Hive. All the women in the stables, the babies being traded to the Colonies.”

“Crenshaw’s daughter,” I mumble.

“Yeah. With Marlow and the Colonies gone, things could be different.”

“They could get worse.”

“Or they could get better. We’ll never know until we try. Which is why you need to go. Now.”

He’s right, but he’s also wrong. We have to try. We have to get Marlow out of power, but what he’s wrong about is me. I’m not going anywhere. Not without him.

“All right,” I say quietly, pulling away. “I’ll go.”

He’s not buying it. I don’t have to look at him to know it; I can feel it in the way he doesn’t answer me—and just as I’m planning on double-crossing him, I get the feeling he’s going to double-cross me. It’s all for the greater good and because everybody cares about everybody, but in the end isn’t it all just lying? I don’t care what color you paint it, it’s still ugly.

I hear footsteps down the hall. People are filing into the doorway, nervous eyes scanning the room like they suspect they’re being led to the slaughter. Like they’re looking for more blood and bodies. More hungry cannibals licking their lips and gnashing their teeth.

Trent leads the way, jumping smoothly down into the drain. Ryan and the guards from outside start to lead people toward the hole, the first group being the Team Leaders that were captured and held inside the building, used to keep up communication with the other Colonies. It was Trent’s idea to bring them out. He said we might need them again when we made our move against the stadiums. They could help us walk right through the front door.

I watch as they go one by one down into the darkness, a few familiar faces (Melissa included) passing me by slowly, and I start to wonder how long this is going to take. There are a lot of people here, and even if all of them aren’t going, enough are. And they’re making a lot of noise.

I bolt from the room. I don’t bother using stealth or finesse; it doesn’t matter. Ryan has his hands halfway to the center of the world helping to lower people down. He doesn’t even see me leave.

When I’m halfway to the roof, I hear the first blast. It’s far off, but not far enough. I’d say it came from somewhere within a five-block radius and it’s not alone. It’s followed quickly by another. Then another.

I weave through the now panicking crowd up the stairs, breaking into a run wherever I can find the space. Once I reach the fire stairs heading toward the roof, I’m completely alone. Right until I find him.

He’s exactly where I expected him to be: right where he was last night as dawn was breaking and he was worrying about losing his castle. Beyond him on the horizon I can see plumes of smoke rolling into the sky. It’s something I usually only see on this scale during market days when all the gangs meet, eat, drink, barter, and make me ache with loneliness.

“What was it?” I ask Vin.

“The barricades keeping the Risen up against the outer gate. He’s blowing them. In the next twenty minutes the outside will be swarming with more zombies than it’s seen in years.”

“And Marlow will be inside.”

“That’s the plan.” He glances over his shoulder at me. “Isn’t it also the plan that you leave with everyone else?”

“That’s Ryan’s plan, not mine.”

“He wants to keep you safe.”

“And you’re using that to your advantage.”

He looks away again. “I use everything to my advantage.”

“And everyone?” I ask hotly.

He ignores me.

“I’m not going.”

“I’m not surprised. He’ll kill Marlow whether you’re here or not.”

“Not if I kill Marlow first.”

Vin shoots me a look so sharp it hurts. I feel it sting in my skin as my heart rate spikes painfully. “You will not,” he snarls.

I narrow my eyes at him. “You don’t get to tell me what to do any more than I can tell you what to do.”

“Listen to me, Joss,” he says harshly, taking my arm in his iron grip. “You will stay as far away from Marlow as possible, do you understand? If you go near him, you’ll ruin everything. You’ll not only get me killed, but your boy as well. Do you understand me?”

“No,” I growl, trying in vain to pull away. “I don’t understand your plans at all, which is why I don’t trust them and it’s why I won’t listen to you. I think you’re using Ryan. I think you’re going to let him do your dirty work for you and then you’ll betray him. You’ll get him killed.”

He lets go of my arm, nearly shoving me away as he does it. “You don’t know that.”