The Hallowed Cure, page 11
“Please listen,” Caitlyn said, in her own voice. “You can trust us.
You can trust my dad.”
So Caitlyn could make her own pitch while translating for Skye.
That was good. I wasn’t in this negotiation alone. Skye shook her head and clicked away.
“It won’t be easy to convince them,” Caitlyn translated. “Some of them may flat out refuse. I don’t control them. I lead them, and they only follow me because they’re desperate for hope.”
“Speaking of,” Hahna said. “If you are who you say you are, how did you survive? You flatlined long before we even got you on the Cloudhopper. You were dead for quite some time.”
Skye grimaced before Caitlyn translated. “So much of it remains hazy, I’m not even sure myself. I remember pushing Grant away from the acid, and then burning. And then waking up in that tube.”
Holy shit. So Skye’s transition from her death on my first mission to waking up, choking, in Jack Griffyn’s tube had been that quick?
No wonder Skye had been so shocked when we woke her up. She’d skipped two years. We were simply lucky she woke up to see two people she recognized.
As Skye clicked away, Caitlyn continued translating. “Yet I don’t see what choice we have if we want to avoid a direct confrontation with Cloud Nine. If you can keep my people safe, I can convince them to go to this lab, or try.” Skye turned to Hahna. “Provided Hahna agrees not to kill everyone.”
Hahna frowned. “Despite your assurances, I remain on the fence.”
I sighed and frowned at her. “Goddammit, Hahna—”
“But I will follow the orders of my commander,” Hahna finished smoothly, with the barest of nods my way. “Until either of you gives me a reason not to.”
Finally. I turned back to Skye. “All right. We’ve got a plan. Now we just need to figure out how to get you, your people, and that massive Class One to Presea without—”
An all but deafening emergency klaxon interrupted me.
[ 12 ]
DO YOU REALLY HA E SO LITTLE FAITH IN ME?
Hahna unsheathed Dismay at the same time Skye’s mutant arms all tensed. Yet Skye turned her back on Hahna—on certain death—and typed on the keyboards instead, clicking away to herself.
I slammed a hand down on Hahna’s shoulder. “No.”
“That’s the citywide warning system,” Caitlyn translated, then blinked and stepped forward. “Why would anyone be activating that now?” she added in her own voice.
Skye clicked several keys with her human fingers. The single large screen above us, previously black, flickered to life. Lindsay Griffyn’s head and shoulders appeared, with what looked to be an open Presea field behind her. No doubt a green screen. She’d never leave herself that exposed.
“Attention, citizens of Dios,” Lindsay said calmly. “As of this moment, Cloud Nine is instituting a shelter-in-place order for all sectors. The rumors you’ve no doubt heard are true. A large group of Mutes, including a sizable Class One, have emerged in Hatten. They now shelter beneath Hatten Towers. We will deal with them, but for now, everyone must remain in their homes.”
“It’s a little late to warn them now,” Hahna mused.
Lindsay continued. “Furthermore, I have a message for the Torrent terrorist calling herself Skye Taylor.” Lindsay’s eyes narrowed. “Or rather … a message from two people she may know.”
Lindsay faded. Two people I didn’t know, a man with graying hair and a woman with a brown ponytail over her shoulder, appeared side
by side. Skye stiffened as my blood ran cold.
Who were those people? Why had Skye stiffened like someone had just electrocuted her? As I remembered the Griffyn family’s skill with using those you loved against you, I knew exactly how Lindsay had planned to make Skye command Mutes for her.
The woman spoke first, her face tense and worried. “Please, honey. If that is you … if you’re somehow still alive … stop whatever you’re doing and come back to us. Cloud Nine isn’t your enemy.
They can treat you, and can make you better. Just … come home.”
Skye’s father spoke as well. “We’re both safe. We’re with Cloud Nine, and they’re not going to let anything happen to us.” I easily detected an undercurrent of fear in his tone. “We don’t want to see anyone else hurt. Just abandon those terrorists and come home before it’s too late.”
The image faded. Lindsay’s image and the fake Presea field returned.
“Skye Taylor, you have twelve hours to turn yourself in. We want to help you get better. Listen to your parents. Don’t make this any more painful than it has to be.” Lindsay smiled like the predator she was. “That would be a shame.”
Her image faded as well. It was all too obvious, to us, exactly what Lindsay Griffyn would do to Skye’s parents if Skye didn’t surrender in twelve hours. And worse, it was obvious to Skye.
As she turned to us, Hahna again drew Despair. She was unbelievable. Once again, I turned to Hahna and gestured angrily.
“We’re not killing anyone!”
“We can’t let Cloud Nine have Skye back,” Hahna said calmly.
“We won’t!” I said, and spun back to Skye, hands raised. “Wait.”
Skye clicked angrily.
“Why stop me?” Caitlyn translated. “You don’t need me to save the others.”
“We actually do,” I said evenly, keeping myself between her and Hahna. “We can’t save them without you to lead them. So we’ll just find Lindsay and … rescue your parents.”
Skye threw out her arms and clicked angrily.
Caitlyn translated. “How?”
“Well, give me a moment to figure that one out!”
“Riven, step aside and let me do my job,” Hahna said.
Skye spread all six arms and clicked angrily.
“I can’t let you kill me,” Caitlyn said, louder than she had before.
“They’ll murder my parents because they’ll think I stayed away. So you step aside, Hahna, and let me save my family.”
“Just listen!” I shouted. “We already know Lindsay’s hiding out on a submarine beneath Dios. Your parents are likely with her on that sub. We already have people searching for the submarine, and you have twelve hours before you need to turn yourself in anyway. So just … give me ten hours!”
Caitlyn gripped Skye’s human arm, completely oblivious to the four Mute arms that could easily rip her apart. “Listen to him!” Caitlyn said urgently. “My dad has maintenance subs scouring the sea beneath the city even now. We can find Lindsay. We can rescue your parents before the deadline.”
Skye clicked again. Caitlyn didn’t translate. Instead, she spoke in her own voice.
“Just give us ten hours,” Caitlyn said calmly. “That’s enough time to get your people to my dad’s secret lab in Presea, and Saul Bishop already has people in Torrent clearing the way. Why not take the time we’ve been given to save your people and give us a chance to find Lindsay’s sub?”
Skye looked like she was going to blow right past us for a moment, but finally, she lowered all four arms. I turned on Hahna, who still had her hand on Despair’s hilt. “See? Now put that sword away.”
“And I’ll stay as your hostage,” Caitlyn continued.
I spun back to her again. “Wait, what? ”
Caitlyn stared at me, back straight and face calm. “We’re asking Skye to trust us with her parents. Her only remaining family. It’s only fair to give her something in return. I will stay here, with Skye and her Mutes, to act as translator as we make our way to my dad’s lab.”
“Fair enough,” Hahna agreed. “I’m staying too.”
“Oh c’mon!” I shouted, and turned on her again. “You’re just going to try and kill Skye the first time she turns her back!”
“Do you really have so little faith in me?” Hahna looked awfully amused.
“To be fair, Hahna, you have tried to kill Skye an awful lot.”
“Fine,” Hahna said, and pulled her sheath off her back. She offered her sword to me, still sheathed, with its strap hanging below.
“Shall I give you Despair?”
I blinked. “What?”
Hahna continued holding our her sword. “If you do discover Lindsay’s whereabouts, you’ll likely need to sneak onto her sub.
Creating a soft lock and then cutting the hull open to get inside is the quietest way to do so. No other weapon can cut through a submarine save my sword.”
“She’s right,” Caitlyn said from behind me. “We won’t need Despair if our only goal is to covertly reach my dad’s lab in Presea. It is the best way to get into a submarine.”
Staring in what I hoped wasn’t slack-jawed awe, I carefully took the blade Captain Hahna Sato had used to slice through hundreds of Mutes and even a couple of buildings. I’d never held it before. It was lighter than I expected, and even through its leather hilt, it tingled in my hands.
“I’ll want her back, of course,” Hahna said calmly. “If you lose her, I’ll be annoyed.”
I smiled despite myself. “You just called your sword ‘her.’”
“You say that like it’s unusual.”
Cautiously, I reverently strapped Despair’s scabbard across my back. I still missed Dismay, but he was the reason I was dying from panacea poisoning. I still absolutely sucked with a sword … but it wasn’t like I’d need a lot of skill to slice a hole in a submarine. Any asshole could do that.
Skye clicked anxiously.
“We’re agreed,” Caitlyn translated. “Ten hours, long enough to get the rest of my people to safety in Caitlyn’s father’s lab. After that, if you haven’t rescued my parents, I’m turning myself in.”
We wouldn’t allow Skye to turn herself in, but it wasn’t like I was going to tell Skye that right now. Hahna and I exchanged a glance, and she offered a subtle nod. We couldn’t let Lindsay have Skye
back even if she did kill Skye’s parents … though thinking that made me feel like an absolute asshole.
Yet the tacit approval I saw in Hahna’s eyes almost made me doubt my instincts more.
After that, it was just a matter of assuring the others that Skye hadn’t killed us, letting Skye explain the situation to her new Mute horde, listening to a good thirty minutes of furious and deafening clicking from both sides (I had no idea how they actually understood each other) and then, shockingly enough, watching as the Mutes, one by one, seemed to acquiesce to Skye’s request that they make another long trek to hide in another Cloud Nine lab.
All the while Caitlyn stood beside Skye, her face scrunched up in as much worry as I felt. Visible sweat glistened on her face and neck, which told me just how worried she must be about whether Skye could actually convince her horde to do as she suggested. Yet the horde listened, and Skye persevered, and Caitlyn, finally, relaxed as the last of them seemed to come around ... or enough, anyway.
Somehow, we’d convinced them. Somehow, we’d kept Cloud Nine from killing these new and peaceful Mutes and kept these new and peaceful Mutes from killing any citizens of Dios. It all felt very unreal to me, like I’d stumbled into a dream where everything worked out (for once), but Mia’s hand firmly gripping mine assured me I was still awake.
Now, of course, all we had to do was find out where Lindsay’s sub was beneath the city before ten hours expired and Skye tried to turn herself in. If Skye tried to do that, of course, we’d kill her, thus betraying the woman who’d saved my life and enraging the Mute horde who’d trusted her, and us, to keep them safe. So we’d likely have to kill all the Mutes as well.
After the few hours it took to transit everyone underground, that thought waited foremost in my brain for almost eight hours. Everyone got settled and all of us waited in Cloud Nine’s secret base, with full access to Miguel Perez’s personal submarine, for one of the many maintenance subs prowling the waters beneath Dios to hit paydirt.
I doubted it would happen. I prepared myself mentally for the coming fight with Skye as she likely prepared herself to let Cloud
Nine stick her in a tube and torture her. Everyone looked on edge save Hahna and Caitlyn, with the former resolved to upcoming battle and the latter far more confident things would work out than anyone should be in this situation.
And then, just over two hours before the deadline for Skye to turn herself in, Caitlyn got a ping from her father. Who’d gotten a ping from her submarines. One of which now had eyes on a large Cloud Nine submarine patrolling deep beneath Dios, one that shouldn’t be there.
We’d found Lindsay. With luck, we’d found Skye’s parents as well. And now, all I had to do was lead a mission into the murky underwater depths beneath Dios and not get us all drowned.
Also, thanks to Saul’s foresight and Riley’s skills, we got a nice parting gift for Lindsay Griffyn.
[ 13 ]
SHOULD I NO ?
One hour later, I was off to get myself killed again, yet this time bothered me as much as my first mission to clear Mutes from a building two years ago. Because this time, I was going out to die inside a submarine.
I hadn’t liked these claustrophobic death traps when Chief Dixon tricked me into entering one near the end of the Hallowed War, and I liked it even less now that I was crammed into it with Mia, Despair, and one remarkably taciturn submarine pilot—Saul Bishop.
Apparently, in addition to being a Special Tactics commando, an expert at gang leadership, a seasoned Mute killer, and a devoted participant in musical theater, Saul could also pilot a goddamn submarine.
I mean, I assumed you called the person driving a submarine a
“pilot.” Saul was at the controls of the damn thing. I didn’t know what you actually called someone who drove a submarine, but I wasn’t going to call him a driver. I’d sound like an asshole.
The thought of being enveloped in this much inky black liquid still scared the hell out of me, but I put on a brave face for Mia’s sake. If the submarine did explode and we somehow survived, it’d be a toss up as to whether we froze to death or suffocated first. Given we were Hallowed, both would take some time.
“En route to target,” Saul said as calmly as he’d relayed the prior few updates. “They haven’t changed course and don’t look to have
spotted us, which means we likely remain safe from active sonar. I’ll stay in their wake until we’re close and then match their speed.”
“Right,” I said quietly, because I had no idea what Saul was talking about or why he bothered telling me. “Just do what you have to do to get us there in one piece.”
Our particular stealth submarine actually belonged to Perez himself, and had been intended as his own personal escape capsule from Dios if shit really hit the fan during the Hallowed War. This sub had enough room for Perez, Caitlyn, Reese, and maybe one or two other people, which meant it would have just enough room for us to bring back Skye’s parents, if they really were on Lindsay’s sub.
It made sense for Lindsay to keep Skye’s parents with her. To keep them close. Yet if Skye’s parents weren’t on the sub, we could sink her to the bottom of the ocean and solve our problem that way.
Thanks to Riley’s feverish work over the eight hours we waited for Perez’s submarines to find Lindsay, we had a big fuck-off bomb taking up the spot reserved for two people in our sub. Carrying a giant bomb in our tiny sub was another reason I was so nervous.
Mia and I sat in the cramped area behind the pilot’s seat, facing each other. There were no windows in the sub—it was entirely smooth outside, part of what was supposed to make it less than detectable on sonar—so there was no one to look at but Mia, who remained neck-snappingly gorgeous, and nothing to talk about except whatever we planned to do about our relationship. A question that made the silence just a bit awkward.
Finally, she spoke, despite the fact that we were about to risk our lives—or perhaps because of it.
“You know I don’t care, right?” Mia said. “About how much time we have together?”
I simply shrugged. I didn’t have any better ideas.
“So why are you being so bloody difficult about this?” she added.
“I’ve made my feelings about you quite clear, and given how much time we’ve lost and how much time we have left, I’d really like an answer on the subject.”
I shrugged and looked to Saul. “Don’t want to talk about this right now.” I really didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Saul
Bishop, or maybe I didn’t want to have it at all.
“And I do want to talk about it, because if we don’t talk now, we may never get the chance after we implode in a tiny submarine,” Mia added tartly, with a real hint of hurt. “Isn’t the fact that I want to be with you enough? Yes, you’re dying. So?”
I made myself look at her, because I really needed to drive this next point home. “You’d be wasting your time with me. We don’t have a future together.”
“It’s my time to waste,” she said, her sky-blue eyes narrowed.
“And besides, we may die today on this mission, or tomorrow, or next week. Who says either of us even live ten years? Let’s make the best of the time we have until we can’t.”
“Matching speed,” Saul said calmly, as if he wasn’t listening to the melodrama going on the back of his submarine. I hoped he was at least entertained.
“It’s seven years now,” I said softly. “Or less. And it goes down each time I fire Dismay.”
“Who isn’t here now,” Mia pointed out. “And whom you need never fire again. Killing Lindsay may finally solve things. You act like we’ve got a whole war ahead of us, but this is the endgame. Jack’s dead, and Lindsay will be soon. Caitlyn and Perez will take over Cloud Nine. We’re done fighting.”
I sighed. “Mia...”
“You tried to talk me into stopping a year ago, after I lost my limbs,” Mia said calmly. “I didn’t listen, and maybe I should have.
Maybe if I had listened instead of brushing you off, you wouldn’t have tried to kill Jack Griffyn yourself, then spent a year pretending to work for an asshole.”
