“Take him to the holdin’ cell,” Titus says. “Give him five, then put him back with the others.”
“Wait!” I shout. “You have to listen to me. You have to—”
But Bruno and Kaz are already dragging me from the room. I lose track of where we are going because I’m struggling so much. We take a sharp turn and stop before a solid, ominous-looking door. One of them opens it as the other unties my hands. Then I’m shoved inside, bolted in with the darkness. There is a lone candle on the floor. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust, but when they do, I realize Titus has kept his word about one thing.
He’s let me see Bree.
She’s lying facedown on the hard floor, head resting against her forearm. A small bowl of water, practically empty, sits nearby.
I crawl to Bree’s side, put my ear near her face. A warm exhale hits my cheek.
I roll her over and cringe. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in worse shape. Her lip is split in two places, and her nose, like Sammy’s, is far larger than it should be. A gash on her forehead from Titus’s metal-laced punching has left her hair traced with blood. There’s an even nastier gash above her left eye. It needs stitches. Badly.
“Bree?” I shake her shoulder gently.
She moans, forces her eyes open. They go wide when she sees me, and my name is laced with pain when it falls from her lips.
I rip a section of cloth from my shirt and dip it in the water bowl so I can attempt to clean some of the blood from her face.
“I’m gonna kill him for this. He thinks this proves something—beating someone whose hands are held.”
“Don’t waste . . . your energy,” she says between sharp inhales.
I raise an eyebrow.
“I’ll kill him myself,” she clarifies. “I don’t need anyone fighting”—she winces as I press the cloth to the gash above her eye—“my battles.”
I grin at her stubbornness. “It’s good to know he didn’t break your spirit.”
“And that surprises you? You thought I’d break from a few punches?”
“No. Definitely not. I just—”
I suddenly want to touch her with my hands and not the damp cloth. I want to feel her skin and pull her into my chest and tell her it’s okay to let her guard down. Just once, she doesn’t have to be so tough. I understand, and I won’t judge. She could even cry for all I care, because it won’t change how strong she is. Not to me.
“What is it?” she asks.
Her eyes are searching mine, clear and blue and hopeful, but I don’t know how to answer her. There are not enough words in the world to even begin to explain how I feel. Without thinking, I put a palm to her cheek.
She goes rigid. “Gray?”
I reach for her, and suddenly her face is cupped in my hands and I’m staring right at her, dumbstruck by the simple fact that I want to kiss her. Softly, so as not to cause her more pain. Passionately, because the pain will be worth it.
But then she says, “Don’t do it unless you mean it,” and I realize my life is one impulsive reaction after another. That what I want in this moment might not be what I want tomorrow, or the day after; and that kissing her now could turn out to be as good as stomping on her heart, just like she warned that night with the loons.
So I say, “Do what? I’m resetting your nose.”
Even when I reposition my thumbs, I can tell she doesn’t believe me. I push her bones back in place and she yelps.
The door is yanked open behind us.
“Time’s up,” Bruno barks, and then he is dragging me from the room. This time, I don’t struggle as he leads me. I count steps and turns and stairwells. I memorize the way back to Bree.
“I saw her,” I tell the team after Bruno reties me to my pole and wishes us sweet dreams with a ruthless smile. “She’s alive.”
“And?” Sammy asks through the dark. “What’d she say? Any ideas for getting out of this?”
It’s not until he says this that I realize I squandered my time with Bree. Instead of trying to devise a plan, I spent those five precious minutes focusing on all the wrong things. This is why I will never be half the leader my father was. I am selfish and careless and irresponsible. I am in over my head.
I roll onto my side without answering Sammy.
“Sure, take your time, Gray. It’s not like we’re being held against our will or anything.”
Moments later he’s snoring, as though a hostile argument is the best recipe for a good night’s sleep. And maybe for him, it is; he spoke his piece. But I dream up an unsettling sort of nightmare.
The sky is black with crows, their wings beating against the clouds, blotting out the sun. A red-tailed hawk tries to pass through, but he is no match for their numbers. Ebony beaks descend, and then there is blood. Everywhere. The sky ripples and suddenly it is the surface of a lake, dark beneath a sliver of moon, a single loon on its center. He’s bleeding, too. And crying. A sorrowful, lonely song.
He calls again and again and again.
The night passes.
And he remains alone.
TWENTY-THREE
WE ARE UNTIED AND LED to a shared washroom by Bruno and Kaz many hours later. I assume it’s morning, but it’s impossible to tell in Burg’s windowless tunnels.
The men leave us with two lit candles before they step into the hall, bolting the door behind them. There is little water, just a bucket for the four of us, and we wash as well as we can. I clean the dried blood from my face and chest. I have a black eye from Titus, but I look phenomenal compared to Sammy. Bruises surround both his eyes, and his broken nose looks worse than ever.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like hell.” He turns toward a sliver of mirror on the wall and examines his nose.
“You want me to reset it?”
Sammy ignores me; just takes a deep breath, positions his fingers accordingly, and presses the bones back into place. His eyes are streaming by the time he’s finished.
“That seem straight to you?”
I nod, and he gives me a cocky grin.
“So what are we going to do?” Clipper asks. His eyes are heavy, like he didn’t get more than an hour or two of sleep, which could very well be true. I fill them in on the horrific slaughter of Group A’s people years ago and how Titus believes we are with the Order, or, as he likes to refer to them, the Reapers.
“I think the only way to move forward is if Titus truly believes we are on his side,” I say. “We have to earn their trust.”
Sammy sighs dramatically. “This means I can’t break his nose and even the score, then, huh?”
I shoot him a look. “Definitely not.”
“What about Bo and the others?” Clipper asks. “They’ll come for us, right?”
“I don’t think so. The plan was for them to give us a few days to warm up any survivors. Get them on our side. Find out how to restore power. Until you saw to the cameras and got the feeds looped, Bo and Xavier were going to stand watch.”
“But you radioed them,” Clipper says. “You only managed to say Xavier’s name before Titus smashed the thing, but if he heard it, he’d know how panicked you sounded. They’ll suspect something is wrong. Try to break us out.”
“They’re smarter than that,” Jackson says. I’m surprised not only to hear him chime in, but to have him share my point of view.
“Exactly,” I say. “They won’t come barging into Group A blindly. Not when they don’t know what they’re up against. We need to be patient. Make Titus see that we really do want to help his people, that we’re not here to ruin them the way the Order did years ago.”