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“Well, well, well,” Ludwig said slowly, grinning from ear to ear. “Does someone have a crush on someone’s sister?”

“What? No,” Roman denied instantly.

“Don’t lie to me. I can see it written all over your face.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roman held, pushing past him. “I’ll go get Lottey and we’ll meet you in your rooms in five.” Ludwig’s laughter followed him down the hall.

“Better make sure she doesn’t read your mind,” Ludwig yelled. Roman ignored him.

Dinah pulled on her boots with a sigh. Just as she had lay down on her bed for the night, Roman appeared at her door insisting she join them for a meeting. Who meets at two in the morning? She needed sleep. Trying to push into a bunch of heavily guarded minds had wiped her out. If she didn’t get rest soon, she really was going to have a migraine.

She closed and locked her door, heading down the hall, her steps muted by the plush carpet. There were other soldiers milling about, but most of them ignored her. All except one, who sped up to fall into step with her. Dinah looked over questioningly.

“Hey, Dinah,” he said easily.

She knew this one. What was his name again? She stared at him, trying to remember. Bobby? Christian? Jacob?

“Xavier,” he offered.

Way off. “I know that,” she lied. “What’s up, Xavier?”

“Just wondered if you wanted to join me and some of the other guys tomorrow night? We’re going to celebrate Ludwig’s birthday.”

Shit. It was Ludwig’s birthday tomorrow. Also now a national holiday. There was no end to that man’s vanity. She stopped abruptly, Xavier tripping to follow suit. “You’re asking me to go out with you and a group of people?” she asked, clarifying.

“Yeah,” he nodded.

How strange, she thought. This was the first time any of the men had invited her along. She literally had no idea what to say. They stared at each other awkwardly, until he cleared his throat, offering her a weak smile.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said. “Just know the invitation is out there.” She nodded. He turned and headed back the way they had come. Dinah looked at the red carpet beneath her feet, realizing how remarkably strange her life really was. Someone asks her to hang out one night and she’s shocked into silence. When she was younger she was always going out with her friends. Now she did absolutely nothing. It was sad really, if she let herself dwell on it, but she didn’t. Shaking off those thoughts, she started walking again, deciding there was no way she was going out with Bobby and his friends.

“Come in,” Ludwig called out after she knocked. Dinah stepped into the room to find him and Roman sitting before a blazing fire. She had no idea what this building was used for before the war, but whatever it was, she found this room very strange. She didn’t think Ludwig had changed it at all. The walls were a dark burgundy with white paneled trim. Massive windows looked down on the street, draped in curtains of forest green. The floors were a deep brown hardwood, as were the floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining one wall. Everything was dark and manly, right down to the large, wingback leather chairs they sat in. Through the door to her right was his bedroom, but she had never been in there and didn’t ever plan to.

“Sit down, dearest.” Ludwig motioned to a seat across from him.

“Did Roman tell you?” she asked as she took the seat.

“Not yet, he was waiting for you. What happened tonight?”

“I was blocked out,” she told him.

“Blocked out? By all of them?” he said, disbelievingly.

She nodded. “I don’t know how, but I couldn’t get in. One let a name slip, the General, but that’s about it.”

Ludwig sat back, looking at her closely. “How?” was all he said, but she knew what he meant. How could a group of people manage to guard themselves against her abilities? She really didn’t have an answer for him, unfortunately.

“We’ll need to look into it,” Roman said. “They knew she wouldn’t be able to break their walls. Someone must be teaching them how to do it.”

Ludwig looked thoughtful. “This ‘General’, perhaps?”

Roman shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“We’ll need to find out more. But how?” He stared into the fire pensively. “There’s one more thing,” he said without looking at either of them. “It’s why I wanted to meet with you. One of our arms trucks was hijacked on the way to the city tonight.”

Roman sat forward. “Hijacked how?”

“The driver was found dead on the side of the road, so we couldn’t exactly ask. The truck is gone.”

Roman cursed, standing up to pace behind the chair he had just been seated in. “What do we do now?”

“We figure out what these rebels are up to, and then we make an example of them. Somehow they’ve figured out our delivery schedules, and successfully stole what is mine. This happens again, and there will be a lot of trouble for the people in this city.”

“It’s not like we’re short on weapons,” Dinah said dryly. They both looked to her.

“These are our enemies, hiding in our midst. Any advantage to them is a disadvantage to us. It’s unacceptable.”

“I know.” She hated when he lectured her like she was a child. Like she didn’t know they were in deep shit if the rebels had more weapons in their hands. She wasn’t an idiot.

“This needs to be stopped,” Ludwig said. He rubbed his chin. “What if you spent more time with them?”

She and Roman exchanged confused looks.

“Spent more time with whom?” Roman asked.

“Not you, her,” he pointed at Dinah. “What if you spent time with these lowers? Do you think you could slowly break down their walls after increased exposure?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

“What are you going to do, just arrest them all and keep them here until she can find her way in? They’ll never break that way,” Roman argued.

“Not exactly,” Ludwig said. “I’m talking about spending time in a familiar environment, not here.”

“Wait,” Dinah sat up straighter. “You want me to go hang out in the ghettos, so I can be exposed to them longer?”

Ludwig smiled at her like she was a child who finally got the right answer. “Make friends, Di,” he said. “Surely you can manage that. Go down there and pretend you’re just one of them. Sit amongst them, laugh, talk, do whatever it is they do. All the while, work away at their walls.”

“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” Roman said with a shake of his head.

“Of course it is,” Ludwig maintained. “We need to know what they’re up to and how they got a hold of the information about my trucks. I’m hesitant to get another one here until we know how they managed to hijack the last. I won’t keep losing product to those scavengers. Di is our best bet. No one will know who she is.”

“No one?” Roman asked, looking at him pointedly.

“You will watch over her from the shadows,” he answered.

Dinah didn’t know what Roman was suggesting with that question, but her thoughts immediately flew to the guy from the pub. He’d know who she was the second she walked in. Crap. Should she say something? But if she did, that would mean his immediate death, and for some reason that didn’t sit well with her. Would he know? Could she play it off like she was there on her own terms, and not as some spy? Either way he’d never let his guard down around her. Unless she tried to avoid him, but that wasn’t really possible since she had a gut feeling he knew more than any of the others. His walls were the strongest. Someone who needed to protect their mind that strongly was likely a source of very valuable information.

“She’ll be fine,” Ludwig said, holding Roman’s eyes for a second. There was some sort of silent conversation happening between them. Dinah had no idea what, but she knew for sure Roman wasn’t supporting this new plan.

“Fine,” she agreed. “I’ll do it.”

“That’s my girl,” Ludwig smiled.

She got up and stretched before heading to the door. “I’ll start tomorrow,” she said over her shoulder.

“Just make sure you play nice now, X,” Ludwig called teasingly. “We need you to be charming.”

She flipped him off as she walked out. “I’m always charming.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Bridgette hurried through the dark, empty streets. Sebastian was somewhere behind her, but she wasn’t slowing down for him. Most people thought the resistance was a good thing. She understood the desire for change. Their world had become a shadow of its former self, and people were not living prosperous lives. Heck, she was struggling herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t get it. It was that she didn’t agree with the idea that the end justified the means. It was easy for people to think that way when it wasn’t their family being torn apart.

Sebastian didn’t seem to understand that. He might think or says he does, but Bridgette didn’t think he truly did. Charlotte had only been sixteen.
Sixteen.
That is a fraction of a lifespan, and it was cut off so quickly. Bridgette would never be able to get over it.

As she turned the corner, St. Anne’s Cathedral stood in the distance. The towers of the church rose into the sky, reaching up to whatever heavens were above them. Bridgette often wondered if there even was such a thing as heaven. She knew there was hell; she was living it. But heaven? She wasn’t so sure. The street the church was on looked to be completely deserted. She wasn’t fooled by the outward appearance of the empty, destroyed buildings, and litter blowing across the streets. She knew the rebels made their home in this area, which was exactly why she avoided it. McKay’s place was around here somewhere. She’d been there only once. The silence in this area freaked her out and she hadn’t been back since.

The buildings were destroyed from the bombings. The once beautiful, historic facades now nothing but crumbling brick and stone. It was such a shame. Bridgette couldn’t even remember what New Berlin had looked like when it was called London. A name no one used anymore. A group of men stood in front of the church. Bridgette could see the bright red of their cigarettes lighting up in the dark whenever they inhaled. Even though she couldn’t see them clearly, she knew which one was McKay. He had a certain cockiness to the way he stood that made him easy to spot.

She picked up speed. As she neared, she saw one of the others nod in her direction and then McKay was turning to face her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, cupping his face so she could turn it from side to side. He rolled his eyes, standing still while she checked him over. The guy had no mother, so sometimes she took it upon herself to be a little maternal.

“I’m fine,” he said, shrugging her off. “Nothing happened.”

“Sebastian said Roman Adamson and that Weapon X guy showed up,” she argued.

“They did,” he shrugged like it was no big deal. It was
definitely
a big deal.

“Pete!” she yelled, slapping his arm. “Stop acting like this was nothing. What happened?”

“Would you calm down,” he said, rubbing his arm. “They came in, took a look around, and then left.”

She crossed her arms, lifting her eyebrows, unconvinced. “They just left?”

He splayed his hands in front of him. “I’m still here, aren’t I? They didn’t find anything, Bridge. We’re all okay.”

“Yeah, Bridge,” Seamus called out. “We’re
all
fine. Thanks for asking.”

Bridgette looked over McKay’s shoulder at his best friend. Seamus Flanagan was one of those good looking guys who didn’t seem to know it. That was probably why most of her friends were always in love with him growing up. McKay was hot, and he knew it. He walked around, head held high like he was the king of the world. Always had. If he wasn’t so nice she would have hated him, but despite the way he presented himself, McKay was one of the most thoughtful, trustworthy people she knew.

Seamus on the other hand was hot, but he had absolutely no idea. He didn’t seem to notice when girls threw themselves at him. It was one of the things Bridgette liked most about him. He was that guy who was always happy and made sure everyone was having a good time, and
not
solely looking for his next lay. He was also the only other person Bridgette could count on to watch over McKay when she wasn’t around.

“I know
you’re
okay,” she said to him, “because you probably weren’t the one opening your big mouth around two of the most dangerous people in the city.” She turned her gaze to McKay. “
You,
on the other hand...”

McKay smiled smugly. “Guilty as charged,” he said.

Bridgette growled. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

He swung his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. “Come on, Bridge. Let’s get you inside where it’s warm.”

“I have a feeling that, no matter what happens tonight, the last thing I’m going to be feeling is warm.”

He gave her shoulder a squeeze, but didn’t respond as he ushered her inside the cathedral.

The interior of the church was just as creepy as the exterior. Shadows hid most of the outer circle, only a few moonlit streams lighting isolated spots amongst the pews. Candles were lit up by the alter. No one was there except them. Their breathing and footsteps echoed off the stone walls. Goose bumps rose on her arms as McKay steered her around the west side of the building. Two confessionals stood against the wall. They stopped just before them.