A gunshot followed by a heavy thud rang out in the tiny room, momentarily distracting Gray from Richter’s struggles. If Maya took out the guards—
Two more shots, and the other guard went down, slumping to the floor to land on Gray’s legs. He kicked free of the corpse and bore his weight down on Richter’s neck. His struggles were weakening …
But so was Gray. The lack of pain didn’t feel so magical now. It only felt like spiraling down into a numb void.
Maya called out to him. “Gray?”
“Go!” It was an order. “Get out of here, Maya. Now.”
Shield.
“No,” she shot back. “I won’t leave you.”
Protect.
She didn’t have to. He would be leaving her, and no amount of anger or struggling could change that.
Love.
End of the line. All he could do now was make sure he took Richter with him.
NINA
By the time the last Executive Security guard fell, Nina felt like she’d been fighting for days.
It had been a long time since she’d been in a battle this vicious, with waves and waves of indefatigable enemies that kept coming, no matter what. It reminded her too much of the failed mission years before that had taken Zoey’s life and torn her and Ava apart.
She glanced at Ava. Their eyes locked, and she knew her sister felt it, too, that heavy drag of memory. Then Ava broke the contact, bending down to gather more ammunition from the fallen bodies.
Nina locked it down, too. There would be time later to process. First, they had to get everyone home alive.
She activated her comms. “Rafe? Did Mace and Dani make it?”
“We’re here,” Dani answered with a tiny but telltale hitch in her voice. “They’re working on Conall.”
Across the room, Knox swiped at one bloodstained cheek with his arm and only managed to leave even more blood behind.
He raised one eyebrow, and Nina nodded. “Did Rafe say where he and Gray were separated?”
“That long hallway on the first floor, but it’s sealed off. You’ll have to figure out a way in.”
Nina started for the stairs, Knox and Ava hard on her heels. “Suggestions?”
“Windows would my first choice,” Knox replied.
Ava frowned. “We could go through the floor on the second level.”
Nina considered both options as they pounded down the stairs, but she knew they didn’t have time for either. Going through the floor required tools they didn’t have. And without knowing the layout of the building, it would take a tedious process of trial and error to find the correct set of windows to attempt entry.
The only people who had a chance in hell of quickly pulling up the blueprints were either missing or bleeding out.
Nina clenched her jaw as they hit the first-floor landing—and almost ran face-first into the heavy blast door. There was literally no way around it. She and Knox would have to physically force it, and they’d be sitting ducks for any potential firepower on the other side of it.
She pushed up her sleeves and gripped one handle near the edge anyway. “Ava?”
Her sister nodded and drew two pistols. “I’ll cover you.”
Knox grabbed on to the door as well, worry creasing his brow.
“We can do this,” Nina reassured him. “We will do this. On three.”
She counted it off, and they pushed at the door with a strength born more out of desperation than physical alteration. Two people they loved, two members of their family, were probably on the other side of this fucking door.
Failure was not an option.
At first, nothing. They pushed harder. Knox grunted with the effort, and Nina opened her mouth, ready to scream her frustration—
The door creaked, groaned, and began to move.
Once they got it going, it went fast. Neither of them had time to check their force, so they stumbled and landed in a heap on the floor. Ava planted her expensive boots in the newly opened doorway, raised her pistols, and fired down the hallway.
By the time Nina and Knox made it back to their feet, she’d killed the four guards waiting for them.
Nina didn’t wait to clear the area. Nothing could have stopped her from dashing down the hallway, calling Maya’s name, not even an ambush. If anyone tried to jump out at her, she’d bear them down by sheer force of will alone.
Instead of an answer, she heard weeping. She pushed open the door closest to where the guards had fallen, and light flooded into a dark room.
It illuminated Tobias Richter’s dead-eyed corpse lying on the floor. Next to him, Maya wept bitterly, cradling Gray’s motionless head in her lap.
“Help me,” she sobbed, her fingers buried in Gray’s hair. “He’s dying.”
Nina knelt at her side. “It’s okay,” she whispered, tugging at Maya’s hands. “We’re here. Everything’s going to be okay.”
She could only hope it wasn’t a lie.
December 15th, 2079
I told myself I could never be her mother. I told myself she was a soldier in this war. I thought I understood the monster that I am. I accepted it. What I did was monstrous.
When she was eight years old, I made this terrible choice, knowing it might lead to both our deaths.
Now that she’s seventeen, I find myself unable to tolerate the idea of sacrificing her.
I didn’t anticipate this weakness. I suppose this terrible feeling is love.
It’s very inconvenient.
The Recovered Journal of Birgitte Skovgaard
TWENTY-SIX
Maya couldn’t remember how she got outside.
It was an odd feeling—not remembering. Her entire life was defined by knowing, knowing facts and statistics, languages and history, knowing precisely what had happened, and when, and how.
It wasn’t really a natural state for humans. After Birgitte had warned her that her genetic modifications carried debilitating side effects, Maya had grown obsessed with researching the science of memory. Most people remembered the world through a constantly evolving filter, with everything they thought they knew growing increasingly blurry around the edges, shaped by their emotions and experience. The very act of recalling a memory could change it—and that was if they’d even remembered an event correctly to begin with. The human brain had an unfathomable ability to protect itself with gentle lies.
Maya had never had the comfort of self-protective deception. Her memories were crystal clear and sharp enough to cut, with every foolish mistake she’d ever made wrapped in perfectly preserved agony and humiliation. Sometimes she thought that was what really happened to data couriers. Who wouldn’t eventually snap under the pressure of remembering a lifetime of mortifying fuckups and interpersonal conflicts and other people’s dark, terrible secrets?
But Maya couldn’t remember how she got outside.
She couldn’t hear, either. She knelt at Gray’s side and stared at Mace. His mouth moved as he checked Gray’s vitals, but all Maya heard was a hollow ringing. She watched Mace’s lips as they formed shapes she’d never learned to convert to meaning.
Why would she need to read lips? She’d always heard everything.
Pain twisted Mace’s features. He rested a hand on Gray’s forehead for a second, then shoved himself to his feet as if every movement hurt. Maya watched him move to Conall’s side in slow motion as the ringing sound vibrated down an endless tunnel.