Adrenaline courses through me as I feel a moment of panic. It’s short-lived, however, because in the next moment, the sprinklers overhead turn on and douse the sitting area with a high-powered spray of water. It doesn’t take more than a few moments for the fire to go out and for me to be completely soaked.
“Dammit!” I mutter. The smoke cycles out of the small room through an air-filtration system. Cleaner-bots emerge from small slots in a wall. A robot trundles around, sucking up the puddles of water on the floor. Another one hovers over the furniture, sucking the water from the upholstery. A third bot strips away the burned material from the elegant frame of the chair and laboriously begins the task of reupholstering it. “You have got to be kidding me!” I fume in disgust at the efficiency of the place. I look up at the ceiling, but it’s not thatched on the inside—it’s solid wood.
I strip off my wet shirt and wrap skirt, balling them up, intending to shove them in the trash in anger until I look at how pretty they are. Instead, I shake them both out and lay each of them on a chair by the commissary to dry. In my black, two-piece bathing suit, I walk out of that room in frustration and move into the bedroom. I find a closet and look inside. It has a couple of wetsuits and some male beach attire—a few shirts. I choose a sky-blue shirt that was definitely made for Kyon, because when I put it on, it looks like a dress on me. I don’t care, though. It’s soft and perfect at the moment.
Closing the closet, I go to the huge bed. It has a white silk coverlet. I climb onto the bed and wrap the blanket around me. I pull one of the fluffy pillows into my arms and hug it for comfort. I close my eyes. I’m exhausted, but I can’t let myself sleep now. I need to plan my escape—our escape—Trey’s and mine. Squandering this time alone would be stupid. I try to concentrate on the future. I just need to go a few minutes ahead of now, but it’s not just “the when” that I need to control, it’s also “the where” and “the what” I want to see that’s important. I need to control the randomness of my gift. Getting lost in time is not going to help me, so I focus on “the who.” Trey.
My body temperature drops, bringing with it an icy exhale of breath. I lie still on the bed and the conscious part of me lifts out of my body.
Instead of resisting the force being exerted on me, I obey the sky as it pulls me up into it. Flashing forward over a blur of terrain, I’m not at all surprised when Amster materializes before me. I’m outside of the governor’s mansion once more. The massive statues of brawny warriors tower above me. Matchstick men are converging here—something major is happening for them to amass this many soldiers in Amster.
I ghost-move up the stairs to their headquarters. The entire first floor is packed with men. They crowd around in one of the cavernous rooms. The Gothic architecture is at odds with the sophisticated graphics and imaging set up to display a small section of a city—one that I’ve never been to before.
It’s extremely quiet in the room, except for the deep voice of a tall soldier with short, auburn hair and brown eyes. He addresses the crowd of soldiers, pointing out buildings in an unfamiliar three-dimensional cityscape grid. “The optimal positioning is to place the charges here . . . here . . . and here.” He uses his laser pointer to indicate the places he’s discussing on the holographic model. My attention wanes from him—I’m not interested in what they’re planning. I’m only interested in finding Trey. I pass through the bodies of soldiers who are packed close together.
Someone asks, “How do you propose we get the packages to those positions? Their security is impossible to breach. We’ve been studying it for a few specks and we haven’t found a way in.” A low murmur of discussion passes through the crowd.
A voice I recognize responds, “You don’t need a way in. In fact, you don’t have to be there at all before it happens.”
I feel like I might melt into the floor. Trey’s voice has the same effect on me as playing my favorite song: I want to turn it up, get closer, and feel the vibration of it.
“Who said that?” the redheaded soldier asks as he scans the crowd. The crowd parts and if I had a real heart, it would stop beating.
Trey comes into view. He doesn’t look good—I mean, he’s still incredibly handsome, but he looks as if he might fall down at any moment. Dark circles haunt his eyes. He still has deep bruises on his left temple and jaw.
“Trey Allairis,” Trey introduces himself.
“Rossi Latener,” the redhead replies. “You’re Rafian.”
“I am,” Trey replies.
“Welcome. You were saying?”
“You can deliver the packages with drones.”
The room erupts in laughter. Wayra pushes soldiers aside to stand next to Trey. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a few days, either. His expression is murderous as his violet-colored eyes glare at the laughing faces of the Amster soldiers. “You hear something funny?” he fumes. The soldiers closest to him stop laughing. It’s probably because he’s huge and menacing, towering over them like an avenging angel. The dark warrior tattoo on his neck makes him look scarier than he really is, or maybe he is scary and I just forgot that because we’re friends.
Rossi tries to be somewhat diplomatic as he says, “We were just discussing Kalafin’s heightened security. We haven’t been able to get our men past their interlocking matrix here or here”—he points to places on the three-dimensional hologram with a laser pointer—“let alone our drones.”
“I’m not suggesting you get your men or your drones past their security matrix. I’m saying you won’t need to because we’ll use their drones.”
Jax comes to stand on the other side of Trey. “Gennet Trey has been hacking into Alameeda drones and taking control of them since the war started. He can infiltrate any mother ship and get you as many of her baby drones as you require.”
Wayra gets nose to nose with the Amster soldier next to him as he sneers, “Are we funny now?” As the soldier backs away from him, the room explodes with a rumble of voices.
Trey waits for them to quiet a little before he raises his voice and says, “We’re talking about fully armed drones.” The room falls silent. “The kind of arms that can erase a city from Ethar.”
Rossi glances to his right. I look in that direction too, and see a dark-haired soldier leaning against the ledge of the console that houses a hologram. He’s so familiar, and yet I can’t remember where I might have met him until he asks, “How soon can you get us those drones?”
The resonance of his voice cleaves me in two. My whole world shifts on its axis. Right is left and left is wrong. Trey recognizes him too. “You’re Pan Hollowell.”
“Yes, I am,” my father says. He’s the tallest person in the room. He doesn’t have a single gray hair—he looks as young as Trey does. In fact, they’re strikingly similar. Short dark hair, violet-colored eyes, a military bearing. Although the tattoos on their throats are different shapes, Trey’s are interlocking swirls and Pan’s resemble concentric triangles; they’re both inky-black and intimidating. Pan looks amazingly well for someone who has been dead since I was five.
Trey straightens to his full height, ignoring the obvious ache it causes to do so. “I can get you the drones as soon as you provide us with a ship and some weapons so we can get your daughter back.”