No, it wasn’t the stab wound, and it wasn’t Nina. Knox couldn’t sleep because Tobias Richter was winning.
Mace was a perfectly honed weapon aimed at Knox’s most vulnerable spots. He didn’t even have to stab Knox to make him bleed. All he had to do was hurt, and he was doing plenty of that.
Knox flexed his fingers. Most days, he forgot they were flesh over alloy and polymer. But he’d shattered his own bones trying to claw his way to Mace’s side as the medic lay dying. Knox’s dedication to his team was well-known, but after that performance, he’d given Richter a road map to his heart.
Mace was in pain again. There wasn’t even a wall between them this time, but Knox still couldn’t fix it.
And he couldn’t end it. Richter had known that, too. Mace could stick a dozen knives in him, and Knox would still hesitate to act.
He’d already watched Mace die once. He’d die himself before killing him.
Nina stirred, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Knox lifted a hand to stroke her hair. “Am I keeping you awake?”
“No.” She propped herself up on her elbow and leaned over him. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
She wasn’t asking about his shoulder. Nina knew him too well. “This is what Richter counted on. Whether Mace escaped or was released doesn’t matter. This was the whole point—to turn him into a threat I can’t bring myself to neutralize.”
“Well, then.” Nina hummed softly and placed her hand on his cheek. “It’s a good thing we have experience with those.”
He turned his face into her palm and closed his eyes. “Am I doing the right thing?” he asked softly. “Mace is our family. We can take the risk. But you, and Dani, and Maya. If he hurt Maya—”
“We’re practicing risk mitigation, Garrett. So far, he’s stayed far away from Luna, Ivonne, and Rainbow. Maya is never alone with him, and the rest of us are on our guard.” She brushed her lips over his forehead. “He’s your family, which makes him mine, too.”
Knox slipped his fingers through her hair and tugged her down for a lingering kiss. “Thank you,” he whispered against her lips. “Thank you for saving us.”
“You were worth it,” she said simply. “So is Mace.”
To her, it would always be that simple. Nina believed in giving people a chance to be their best selves, even if they stumbled along the way. She was everything the TechCorps wasn’t. Open, generous, compassionate. Strong enough to give people a chance to disappoint her.
All the instincts Richter had counted on when he’d unleashed an assassin on them. “How?” he asked, settling her against his side once more. “How do we fight someone who weaponizes all of our best impulses against us?”
She was silent for a moment, then sighed. “You just answered your own question—you fight them. Literally.”
“Can we? They control most of the food, the electricity, the fresh water. They have the tech. The weapons. Between the Protectorate and Executive Security, that’s two private armies, and God only knows how many classified experiments.” Knox closed his eyes. “How do you fight something like that?”
“We don’t have the manpower or resources for a frontal assault, no. It would have to be a guerrilla campaign—quick, dirty strikes at carefully chosen targets. With the proper strategy and enough time, we could wear them down.”
He let himself consider it. Not even the practicality of it, but the tactical possibilities. For all their shiny public relations, the TechCorps was hardly a happy family. Internal political wrangling for status and power could be brutal. More than one Protectorate squad had been swept up in those power struggles, only to be sacrificed in the name of someone’s next promotion.
Knox’s skills as a captain had insulated the Silver Devils from the worst of it. But he’d seen the fractures. The Board sat so far above the daily grind of the rest of humanity that they’d practically evolved into a new species, incapable of comprehending the needs and desires of the rabble. The executive-level staff fought one another bitterly to ascend to that final pinnacle. And every person beneath them was just waiting for an opening.
It seemed rife for exploitation, but that only went so far. Because as much as they craved power, as much as they laid traps and scrabbled for status or stabbed each other in the back, they all had one thing in common.
They were terrified of the vice president of Security.
“Richter’s the key,” Knox said finally. “If you could take him out, it would leave them vulnerable on at least a dozen fronts. But he’s the one person I can’t imagine getting to. You’d have to lure him off the Hill somehow.”
“Don’t even think it,” she whispered. “You will not use yourself as bait. That’s one chance I’m not willing to take.”
He stroked her hair soothingly again but didn’t deny the accusation. She did know him too well. “Even if I were tempted, I wouldn’t. We have too many people to protect. I can’t do that if I’m dead.”
Nina sat up again, the scant light limning the bare curve of her back. “Ava would throw in with us, but it wouldn’t be enough. If we had more help—locals, people motivated to fight the TechCorps. Savitri, maybe, and Jaden Montgomery. That’s resources and manpower, right there. But we’d still need one more person.”
She didn’t want to say it. He didn’t, either. But one of them had to. “Maya.”
“I can’t ask her to do it, Garrett.” Nina’s voice held a rare note of pleading. “It’d be like you locking Mace away. I can’t, and I won’t.”
“Hey.” Knox sat up and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his embrace. “I would never risk Maya. Never. She’s my family, too, now. Right?”
“Right.” She shuddered and pressed closer. “We’ll bide our time. Make our plans and wait for our moment.”
“There’s plenty we can do in the meantime,” he reminded her. “Get the clinic open. Prepare the shelters for winter. The TechCorps only win if people are hopeless, right? We can take that from them.”
She tipped her face up to his. “It’s a start.”
May 21st, 2078
I thought limiting her would protect her and my hope for this revolution. What if I was wrong all along? What if she is the hope for this revolution, and I’ve stripped her of the tools she would need to win?
The Recovered Journal of Birgitte Skovgaard
SIXTEEN
This time, Maya was ready for the blindfold.
Still, she waited while Gray went through his recitation again—if it bothered her, if she started to freak out, it would all stop. Every single thing, immediately.
Maya loved him a little for it.
She held her breath as Gray gently tied the black silk in place. Pleasure tingled over her scalp as his hands smoothed her braids back over her shoulders, and she didn’t fight it this time. So few things felt good in this world. This? This she wanted to keep.
She tucked it safely into her memory, along with the protective warmth of him at her back and the kiss of his breath against her temple. Next to the memory of his thumb grazing her lower lip and how safe she felt when he wrapped his arms around her and promised to protect her heart.