Dominant Predator (4 page)

The President paused, surveying each reaction. He stepped to the front of the room and faced everyone. His features were twisted in rage—lips pursed, jaw grinding, his eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown. His practiced, resonant voice sounded deathly calm when he spoke. “We had one victory today. One of many to come. The Premiere has been eliminated. But, as you can see, there is no time to rest on that success. Your fellow citizens are out there fighting and dying right now, while we stand here protected. Safe.” His nostrils flared and his voice picked up, betraying the depth of his fury in a rare show of unchecked emotion. “Don’t worry. You all will have your chance to fight. For now we have jobs to do to prepare us all for that moment. Do you have anything new, Chen?”

She didn’t bother to hide an irritated stare as she raised her head. “You’ll know when I do.”

Next to me, Armise blew out a breath that I recognised as a restrained chuckle. That there was anyone in the world who would dare to talk to the President with such forwardness, let alone complete dismissal of his deadly reputation, had been shocking to me at first as well.

But if Chen’s brusque manner had ever affected the President then he didn’t show it outwardly. The President waved at Neveed. “I want an aircomm with each continental general in twenty minutes. Full status updates. Approximate casualty counts. Weapons reports. How well the munitions are holding. And status on our shield capabilities.”

“Shields?” Armise asked, the first time he’d spoken out loud to anyone besides me or Jegs.

The President didn’t hesitate to answer him. “The Opposition is still using sonicrifles, pistols and reverbs. As long as we can keep our shields up and operational we’ll be able to protect our forces better than they will theirs. So we expect them to adapt and attack the shield generators and battery stores next.”

“Where do the Nationalists stand in this?” Simion asked. But I knew he wasn’t asking for his benefit. Jegs stiffened almost imperceptibly. It was a question she had a personal stake in but wouldn’t dare voice, no matter how much she wanted the answer.

“Grimshaw has notified us they’re going to stand back and let us fight this out. They’re neutral,” the President said with all seriousness. Neveed and I might have been the only people in the room who could read the underlying disdain in his answer.

I crossed my arms. “Are we going to engage them?” This was a decision that needed immediate and definitive resolution as it would impact every tactic from here on out.

“Not yet,” the President answered, then waved in my direction, addressing the entire room again. “For those of you who’ve only seen that face on screen or in operational reports, this is Merq Grayson. Next to him, Armise Darcan. They are—” The President hesitated, the lift of his eyebrow making my throat clench for a moment as I waited to hear how he was going to finish that sentence.

What were we?

Armise wasn’t a Dark Ops officer for Singapore anymore. He would be considered a traitor in his country—which was primarily Opposition territory.

My mission was over. I hadn’t been in active combat as a Peacemaker in ten years now.

Our current roles were undefined until the President decided to set me, or us, on another mission. I had to consider the possibility that whatever target I would be unleashed on next, I would have Armise at my side instead of my usual crew of Simion or Jegs.

The realisation was jarring. I didn’t know where Armise stood on this, but for me it solidified the reality that Armise had inexplicably become my only true ally. We were alone in this together. And that was not a comforting consideration.

The President continued, “Merq and Armise are the reason the Revolution has been able to take this monumental step. Don’t bother getting to know them well, though. Despite the prevalent coverage of that shot”—he turned towards us with that all-knowing smile I most associated with him—“you won’t be seeing much of them.”

Armise and I looked at each other. Armise lifted an eyebrow and I shrugged. I had no idea what the President was talking about. Armise grumbled quietly, the muscles in his jaw working.

“Now let’s get back to work,” the President instructed, the noise level kicking back up and masking the sound of the battles being waged above ground.

Neveed motioned for me from the front of the room, then waved Armise off, gesturing towards the President. The President pulled Armise to the side as I continued forward.

I watched warily over my shoulder as the President put an arm on Armise’s biceps and Armise leant down to listen. Then the President slipped something into Armise’s hand.

“Going to have to fight to keep your attention from now on?” Neveed said matter-of-factly, drawing my attention back to him.

I eyed him. We might have been on more civil terms now that we were no longer working together, but the damage done by years of mistrust and hidden agendas wouldn’t be wiped away in a day. Possibly not ever. No matter how much truth he purported to feed to me, I didn’t believe that Neveed was capable of setting aside his personal feelings for me from the needs of the cause. Shit, or his own grandiose need for the power to hold the unknown over me. I didn’t doubt for a second that he would use me for his purposes—personal or military—without thought to what I wanted.

If Neveed could sense my annoyance, he ignored it. “We’ll have more targets for you.” He tipped his head in Armise’s direction. “For both of you. But not yet.”

“Next you find your parents,” the President said as he appeared at my side with Armise.

I hesitated. Ahriman had attempted to buy my compliance by kidnapping my parents, but his desired outcome had been the opposite. Now they were being held by the Opposition but I couldn’t believe that was where my skills were most needed.

I addressed the President and not Neveed. “Respectfully, sir, I think my talents are better utilised in something else besides recovering my parents. If they are even alive.”

“They are alive. And recovering them is not a suggestion, it’s an order—if I can be so blunt. But we’re not ready to move on their location yet. Eat something. Get cleaned up. Sleep for a couple hours. You did your job. Let us do ours.”

His tone was more fatherly than authoritarian, but that made it even clearer that his plan wasn’t up for discussion.

“We have quarters set up for you in my wing. Dinner in the galley.” The President smiled at Armise. “Coffee, too.”

Armise gave a clipped nod, but I could see the set of his shoulders relax.

I’d never seen him look more human.

Chapter Two

“Rest? Is he fucking kidding?” I said under my breath as soon as Armise and I exited the control room.

Armise walked shoulder to shoulder with me as one of the President’s guards led us through the tunnels.

“He’s right, Merq. Even you have to sleep and eat.”

I pointed to the ceiling and gripped his arm, dragging him to a stop. “Do you hear that? Do you? Those are bombs. Gunfire. The Revolution is happening now. Right the fuck now. And he’s ordering me to rest?”

The guard stopped with us, keeping a respectful distance.

Armise extracted his arm from my hold. “This won’t be resolved tonight whether we fight or not. That, up there, is the initial wave of battle. You know that. You take to your bed when you can. You get food when you can. You appreciate shelter, and blankets, and a warm, filling meal. Because you never know when any of those options will become scarce. Or worse, you’ll be dead.”

I wanted to argue with him, but I held my tongue. Armise made too much sense. I grumbled but motioned to the guard to continue.

He led us through a series of concrete corridors with closed-off doors and people speaking in hushed tones as they passed us. We got questioning glances and a series of wary eyes studying us but never acknowledging our presence with any friendly overtures. Which was more than acceptable to me. At one time my size had been enough to turn heads, and combined with the even more massive frame of Armise next to me, and our unmistakable faces, I knew people were going to be more curious than not.

I was going to have to learn how to fucking deal with this level of public recognition.

Maybe the President’s doctor would be up for some impromptu facial scrambling during my forced downtime.

I was used to being covert, underground in all senses of the word, known to my enemies but to very few of my allies. All that had started changing in the public spectacle in preparation for the Olympics. With my shot and the expansive media attention there would be no escaping recognition anymore.

The guard stopped at a door and held it open for us. Armise crossed the threshold first and a burst of warm air and the scent of fresh food greeted us as we entered the galley.

The door slammed shut behind us and Armise crossed to a table, settling into a seat with the same grace he always exhibited despite his size. I huffed into a chair across from him. My stomach rumbled and Armise gave a gruff laugh.

Then a heaped plate was being placed in front of me, and one in Armise’s waiting hands.

“Didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” a voice came from behind me.

I shifted and looked warily over my shoulder, unsure of whom to expect. I was greeted with the lopsided, easy grin of a thin young man with bushy, wild hair plaited into braids that nearly reached his waist.

I pointed to the plate. “Crimean sauce, Exley? You should know better.”

Exley swiped the plate away with a grin. “The hero of the Revolution shall have whatever he wishes,” he answered snidely.

Armise already had half his food downed. “A friend of yours?”

“No,” Exley answered as he set a fresh plate—without the offensive faux meat sauce this time—with a clatter in front of me. “Merq doesn’t have friends.”

“No friends who try to feed me swill,” I retorted.

Exley rolled his eyes. “Still don’t understand how you keep that body so buff without ingesting one piece of meat.”

I pointed a fork at Armise’s plate. “
That
is not meat. I remember what real animals taste like, son.”

Exley gave a rolling laugh, a slap on my back, and retreated behind a door that had to be the kitchen.

“I don’t eat that chemically processed shit,” I explained to Armise.

Armise shrugged, shovelled more food in as I grimaced.

“Everything is genetmod,” he mumbled around a full mouth.

I started, then waited to see if he would continue.

I’d always suspected Armise himself was genetmod, but it wasn’t like we’d ever sat down and had a heart-to-heart, let alone a conversation about the genetically manipulated advantages that made us uniquely superior to unmodified citizens.

I studied Armise, searching for any hint to the meaning behind his words. But he kept eating as if he made no connection between the food in front of him and his own body. Maybe he didn’t.

I didn’t bother to reply.

I was suspicious about how genetmod the man across from me was, but that wasn’t a topic I had interest in exploring at the moment. This was definitely not a conversation for now. Maybe not ever. Especially if the choice was between talking and clearing everything off the plate in front of me. My mouth watered and my stomach rumbled again. I couldn’t remember the last meal I’d eaten while seated at a table. And a hot one at that.

Exley could cook. But I’d never tell him that.

While Exley might have been the best cook I’d encountered in my years as a Peacemaker, it wasn’t often I had the chance to eat any of his food. And not just because I was out on missions more than I was in the States. Exley was a citizen of the tent camps and not a Revolution soldier or in any way officially tied to the President’s agenda, even though he’d been working in States’ facilities since I was a teenager.

I remembered him as a child—dark skin free from the dust and grime of the camps because he was obsessive about cleanliness. His impressive braids had started as oiled locks pulled back into plaits against his scalp, keeping the curling, stray hairs from blowing loose as he manoeuvred around the kitchen and dining areas of the Peacemaker headquarters.

His deeper involvement with the Revolution had started because Simion and I were bored, as only teenagers in the midst of a war could be. We’d bribed Exley with a military-issue knife we knew he would be able to trade on the black market for him to show us how to sneak out of the barracks and into the city.

Exley knew the capital better than anyone I’d met. He could roam the tunnels and alleys without a map. He knew the layout of buildings as if he’d traversed their hallways for years. He knew people, and everyone seemed to know him. Yet, when he wanted to, Exley could pass through a crowd without ever being noticed.

It was those skills—discovered by Simion and I on the multiple jaunts through the city Exley led us on—that had made me approach Neveed about the possibility of bringing Exley fully into Revolution dealings.

Exley was correct in his assessment that I wouldn’t have called him a friend, but that didn’t mean I didn’t respect him. I just knew Exley would give me shit if I ever complimented him on anything. Our relationship was one that had never quite moved out of the contentious but companionable sarcasm and one-upmanship of teenagers discovering their roles in the world.

Regardless of how close we had been at one time, over the years Exley and I had spent less and less time together. His last assignment had kept him on the move—trading messages between the President and the safehouse where my parents were located.

Had been
located, I corrected myself.

They were never supposed to have left the shelter of that house on the outskirts of the capital. But for some reason they had chosen to abandon the one place they couldn’t be harmed and put themselves directly in the path of Ahriman and the Opposition—making it my job to get them back.

My frustration didn’t wane even as my belly filled. Armise and I sat silently at the table, the sounds of warfare crackling above us. We avoided eye contact, avoided speaking to each other. It was the first time we’d been relatively alone since the tunnels under the stadium where Armise had confessed his involvement with the Revolution and that he had done it all to protect me.