“So then you decided, what, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?”
“No.” Gabriel starts walking again, and since there’s no point just standing around some temporarily deserted, slapped-together piles of wood, metal, and worn toys, I follow him. “Once the rebels became a formidable force, I was worried. I came to see what Sara had built and to try to get her to stop this before it was too late—but then I saw all the children.” He sighs. “As it turned out, the rebels weren’t just a fighting force but a place for homeless gifted children to take shelter.”
He stops again, in a slightly more populated area. A few kids about as tall as my knees chase one another around a burning firepit. A teenager sitting by the fire keeps a close eye on them, occasionally moving to stop the kids from getting too close to the flames.
“I was still against the rebels,” Gabriel says. “But Sara wouldn’t back down. And I knew if the military found or beat the rebels, they’d treat everyone here as a traitor. Even those too young to fight. Since I couldn’t find what I was looking for in the sector anyway, I decided to stay here to help protect the kids.” His eyes lock with mine. They send a chill down my arms. “And to keep trying to convince Sara to stop all this.”
“And she’s okay with that?” I ask. “She doesn’t really strike me as the type to keep around someone who’s constantly questioning her decisions.”
“Like I said, we go back much further than the rebels’ time,” Gabriel says. His eyes drop to the ground. “She wasn’t always like this. But grief over a close friend’s death changed her and brought about her desire for revenge against the sector. I suspect she doesn’t get angry with me because of our history.” He almost smiles, but the expression looks painful. “Or maybe my gift is just so useful that she’ll put up with me if it means she can use it for the rebels’ sake.”
I almost ask about the friend’s death and Ellis’s revenge, but I don’t. It’s obvious Gabriel’s upset, and while I don’t normally care that much about others’ feelings if they’re in the way of me finding out something important, I meant it when I said Gabriel’s a friend. Maybe not a super-close one, especially since I’ve only known him for a couple of weeks, especially since I’m betraying him and everything he cares about here, but I like him. He’s sincere and honestly cares about others. And he doesn’t want war with the Etioles.
“I don’t think Ellis is the kind of person who would keep someone around just because their gift is useful,” I say. There’s a weird sort of pressure when Gabriel looks up at me. Is he hoping I’ll say something that’ll set him at ease? My pulse beats in my ears. Don’t mess this up. “She definitely wouldn’t make you one of her top leaders if she didn’t trust you or want you around. Yeah, you keep questioning her. But maybe she wants that. Maybe she thinks it’s better to have someone who won’t just agree with everything she says. Maybe there’s even a part of her that hopes you will convince her to stop all this.” I hope so, at least. That would make everything so much easier. But it all sounds nice anyway, and it has enough of a ring of truth that it could be possible.
Gabriel cracks the smallest lopsided smile in the world. “Maybe you’re right. Even if you aren’t, it doesn’t change what I have to do.”
Not the most optimistic response, but I’ll take it.
“Come on,” I say. “We should get to the meeting about that upcoming raid. We’ll be late if we don’t head there soon.”
“Yeah.” Gabriel’s expression returns to its normal unreadable preset, but it feels like there’s something different now. Or maybe the difference isn’t in how he looks. My pulse still beats too loudly in my ears. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Other than digging around about my past—and finding out that no one knows about my time pre-rebels and quickly getting frustrated with that—my time here has involved a lot of meetings. I still don’t know how the rebels get in and out of the home base, and I haven’t asked in case it gets anyone wondering if there’s a reason I want to leave. There isn’t, other than wanting to see the sun again and taste the slightly fresher air of the Outside—but I don’t need any unfounded suspicions when there are so many possible founded ones lying around. So I’ve been stuck underground. Which means attending planning meetings, scouting meetings, supply meetings, and every other type of meeting there could possibly be. Ellis asks me to come to all of them, and since there could be useful intel for Lai and the Order, I always accept. It’s not like I have anything else to do, anyway. I’m starting to go stir-crazy down here.
We always convene in Ellis’s office for these meetings. The rebel leader herself sits at her desk with a map in front of her. Ellis—who keeps insisting I call her Sara every time I see her—is probably my second-best bet for learning about my past, but I only go near her when I have to, so I haven’t seen her much other than meetings. She gives me the creeps.
Cal waves as soon as I open the door and gestures for me to sit beside him on the dusty couch. Devin slumps against the wall behind Ellis’s chair. He doesn’t acknowledge my existence. We haven’t talked since I returned. Joan stands straight as a beam in front of Ellis’s desk, hands clasped behind her back. Her eyes flick to me and she nods in greeting. She’s been distant and cold, but never outright mean. She’ll answer just about any question I ask, but never in detail and always while giving me the feeling she really doesn’t want to talk about it. Gabriel moves to the armchair across from the couch, and then we’re all in our usual positions.
“Since everyone’s here, let’s get started,” Ellis says. Unusually brusque for her. Her eyes don’t leave the map. Her fingers trace a line drawn over it in thick black marker.
She goes over the plan to attack an armored supply truck on its route to another sector. Most of us have heard it three or four times by now, but she’s changed a few details since last time, like which exact point we’re going to strike based on the scouts’ report on the terrain, and exactly how the team Joan is leading will make a coordinated attack with their gifts. I make mental notes to relay to Lai tonight.
“It should be relatively straightforward,” Ellis says. “We haven’t attacked this route since it changed course, so they shouldn’t have any reason to expect we know the new course or that we’ll be coming.” Her eyes flick to Joan. “I’ll be counting on you.”
“I won’t let you down,” Joan says. The way she says it, there’s no way I’d believe she could fail. That is, if not for the fact that I know the Order is going to launch their first counterstrike against the rebels during this raid.
“There’s one last thing.” Ellis’s eyes move to me, and for a second, I’m terrified she heard my thoughts just now. “Erik. I want you to go with them.”
“What?” It takes a moment to sink in through my paranoia. “Me? Why?”
“You must be going crazy stuck down here, right?” Ellis asks. She smiles at my expression, whatever it is, and knows she’s right. “You came back to us. You should be allowed to fight with us. You want your chance for revenge against the sector that so ruthlessly discarded you, right?”