The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2) (28 page)

The distant crashing sounds of monsters punching the walls continued, but Ezra’s attention was fixed on one thing.

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At the end of the track, friendly soldiers opened a trapdoor above the tunnels that led straight to the facility’s backways. At first, everything went as expected in Vivian’s arrival back in Zenith.

But then, it didn’t.

Chapter 14

As Far As It Goes

The pain
in his nose wouldn’t leave him for days—of that much he was sure. Farren had tugged at the ring hard enough to extend the piercing and now it hung more loosely from his nose; it was a miracle it didn’t tear through the skin. He wouldn’t care about any of that, however; the journey had left him bald, broken, burned, and scarred. Suddenly the vanity he had been fighting was gone, or at least hidden away to make room for a new and better trait: determination.

And right now, that determination led him to only want one thing: Farren to pay. His ego, selfishness, and pride, had caused Elena’s—and her family’s— suffering. It boiled his blood.

“I understand you need to talk to him,” Erin had said when they reached Malachi’s home to find her waiting at the entrance. “But when you’re done with this circus, you and I are going to have a talk. Garros just told me about what happened.”

Ezra didn’t speak again until Malachi closed the door and they had anything close to privacy. “What you did—you have no idea what you did, Ezra, what it could mean for your future in the city. Not only yours, your whole team’s.”

“What? He did worse,” said Ezra, wiping his nose with a cloth.

“He’s a high officer, and you struck him. If it happened to any other guard,
he’d
be the one to carry out a sentence. I know you’re not from here, and you don’t intend to stay—”

“I don’t care. He’s not going to do anything because, yeah, I’m not from here, and I don’t need the city’s protection. I don’t expect you to believe me right now, but you’ll stop defending him soon enough,” Ezra said, and licked his lips; they tasted of blood. “Maybe you should sit down.”

Malachi frowned and sat on one of the long benches made out of thick artificial wood and lined with a comfortable and feathery mat. “What . . . Ezra, what exactly did you see in the Asili? What happened?”

“No, it’s not about that,” he replied. “It’s about what you told me last night, at the wedding.”

“About Jena?”

“No, about your sister,” he said. “There’s something you should know about her.”

“Ah. I knew I shouldn’t have opened my mouth,” he replied, shaking his head, rubbing his temples with gloved hands. “It’s not something I ever talk about, and please don’t let my father hear you say her name.”

“She’s alive,” Ezra said.

Malachi looked up at him, frowned. “What?”

“She’s not gone. I saw her, she’s living in a cave right outside of Clairvert, hiding. I saw her first in Kerek, and then—”

“Is this a joke? Are you trying to hurt me?” Malachi got up and approached Ezra with every intention of finishing what his captain had started. “What is your problem with us—with the city? I thought you were here to help us.”

“Man, please calm down—I would never lie about something like this,” he said. “She’s been living out there. I’m not sure how she’s managed to survive and remain unseen, but she’s been able to sneak around Clairvert and the outside. I know it’s hard to believe, but she’s actually safe. I would never lie about something like this because I know how you feel—I have sisters myself.”

“Don’t you dare tell me you know how I feel unless you ever lost one,” Malachi said and looked away from him, at a cupboard next to the door. There was a stuffed bear sitting there between rows of old books. The man grabbed the bear, squeezed its round belly with both thumbs. “Ezra—she wasn’t just my sister; she was my best friend, she took care of me and my father when he came down with his . . . problem.”

“And she’s not lost. I swear I’m not making this up; I’d never do something like that. I was with her earlier today, we talked. She told me everything about you, and the Caduceus, and her exile, she told me about—” Ezra stopped talking when he saw Malachi wipe his tears away.

Maybe he didn’t need to know about what Farren did yet. Maybe he should hear it from Elena’s own lips.

“Malachi?”

“You’re not lying?”

“Of course not.”

“Is she here? Can I see her?” he asked, and when Ezra nodded, still holding the cloth to his bleeding nose, Malachi spoke again. “I want you to understand how important she was to me, and how hard it’s been without her for me and my father. I’m going to give you another chance to take back what you’re saying, if you think you should. Please don’t hurt me; it’s not something I’ll be able to recover from, and something I would never forgive.”

Ezra didn’t say anything, and Malachi’s eyes suddenly glimmered with what could have been hope—a feeling with which neither of them was very familiar.

“All right. If you’re serious, if you’re not lying, then please take me to her.”

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It was the silence that frightened her.

Not the desolation, or even the smell of death that still lingered, but the silence. Every footstep echoed across the empty halls and corridors, and every echo felt like possible danger, like it could be heard by someone hiding behind the corners—someone who wanted them to fail.

The soldiers had stayed in their post, which they would leave in less than an hour for their rotation; they only had that much time to make their way to the docking bay and board their Creuxen.

“We need to be quick,” said Dr. Mustang, whispering, sharing Vivian’s fear of some unexpected danger. “The capsules should be already in your Creuxen, but we need to boot them and program them through the consoles in the docking chambers; it won’t take long, but we need to get started.”

“I’ll go in first,” said Jed when they reached the compatibility labs. It was strange to hear their footsteps in this large room, as Vivian had always associated it with the loud rumble of machinery and computers. It was alien to her; she recognized Zenith, but it was like a phantom version of Zenith, one stripped of everything she had once loved about it. “I’ll check on Rose Xibalba on the way.”

Hearing her name again was exciting. It had been too long since she had last communed with Rose.

“All right,” said Dr. Mustang and opened the door to the docking chambers—it had been left open, probably by Dr. Mizrahi herself; surely none of their ID cards would work now, even if they had them.

Jed opened an emergency door next to the elevator which they would normally take to the docking bay. It was a dark and narrow shaft with a solid-looking ladder that would lead him, and then her, down.

Before taking it, Jed grabbed Dr. Mustang by the shoulders and gave him a strong hug goodbye. “Dr. Mustang—Lance. Thank you for doing this. Whatever happens now, you’ve played your part like you wanted. You’re one of the good guys, no matter what anyone tells you. You’re not a monster. Got it, brother?”

“Of course,” Dr. Mustang said, stammering awkwardly. Vivian would have to ask Jed for an explanation; clearly there was something in Dr. Mustang’s story that was yet to be shared with her, and this was not a moment to pry.

“Please make it home safe, and please take care of Lara,” he said. “I might not come back.”

“I will, Townsend. I will, my friend. Just do what you have to do out there. We don’t have a lot of time here.”

Jed smiled and then looked at Vivian. He tipped her a wink before taking the ladder down with great confidence. Jed disappeared into the darkness, as though swallowed by it.

When Dr. Mustang opened the door to the docking chambers, it was as dark and desolate as she had left it. It was almost as though Tessa and Felix hadn’t gone through it at all, and they had just left no more than half an hour before.

On the way to Nebula 09’s chamber, found almost all the way down the hallway where everything had to be reconstructed after Absolute Omega’s explosion, she walked past the labeled doors; they were all open, exposing how empty they were, how the Creux’s eyes were not waiting at the other side of the glass. Quantum Ares. Jade Arjuna. Milos Ravana.

She stopped at chamber 12, which once housed Erin’s Phoenix Atlas. There was something different in this chamber that she immediately identified: a glowing red light coming from one of the consoles.

“Dr. Mustang?” she said, but the man working several doors down couldn’t hear her.

Vivian approached the red light that was deliberately conspicuous to draw attention and create a sense of urgency. She hadn’t learned much about the operation of the docking systems—all she’d learned she learned from Rebecca; the only pilot who really knew how to program them was Tessa.

Next to the glowing red light, there was a button labeled
IN-COMM
. She pressed it. One of the screens came alive with the waveform of sound playback, and a cracked hiss poured through the speakers.

“This is First Lieutenant Erin Perry, Creux Defense Squad Leader. . .”

Though her voice was distorted by static and what Vivian could identify as exhaustion, she could tell it was Erin speaking, and it was strangely refreshing to hear her voice.

“I can’t give my exact location, but it’s been ten days since we left Zenith, and Kerek is not far. Garros Parks, Jena Crescent, Ezra Blanchard, and myself—we are all reasonably well. There have been some signs of hormesis, especially in Garros and Ezra, but it might not be anything to worry about yet. Director Blanchard asked us not to make contact with Zenith unless it was an emergency and, well, I’m not sure this beacon qualifies at all, but one of the team thinks it’s really important. When we left the facility, he claims to have witnessed the betrayal of one of the pilots.”

Vivian froze in the middle of taking a breath, her mouth left open to dry.

“Vivian!” he heard Dr. Mustang scream. She wanted to call him, invite him to hear what Erin had to say, but couldn’t move.

“You understand why this is hard to say but, if possible, we ask you to . . . just . . . keep an eye on Tessa Mason. We’re aware of how awful it is to even say it, and his suspicions are probably only the result of Creux Hormesis, but the risk of him being right is a bit too alarming to consider, and so is how convinced he really is of what she saw. It’s bloodcurdling . . .”

“
Vivian
!”

She took a step back from the computer and had to lean against the console to catch her breath, which returned dry and cold.

Tessa Mason. Murdered. Betrayal.

Erin still spoke her soliloquy through the speakers, and then was suddenly silenced. Vivian could only hear her own unsteady breathing, and then Dr. Mustang’s heavy footsteps.

She had said
Tessa
. Tessa, and not Kat. Had it really been Tessa who betrayed them, killing both Kat and Barnes before shooting herself to sell the lie? If so, Ezra had seen it happen; it hadn’t happened after he left, and Kat was buried a traitor, while Tessa had been celebrated like a hero.

What about Rebecca?

“
No
,” she whispered to herself.

Ezra had seen it happen and had to live with what he saw for two weeks without being able to let them know.

“Vivian!
Where are you
?”

Dr. Mustang appeared at the door, sweating and panting, as though he had also come to the same realization Vivian had.

“Come on! Now!”

Vivian found her balance and followed Dr. Mustang. Even from where they stood, she could hear Jed’s desperate, painful screams.

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Ezra was lucky he hadn’t run past Farren on the way through Clairvert, towards the wasteland. He didn’t want Farren to see and follow them. He didn’t want Farren to know that Elena was still alive, could still talk, and would tell the whole city everything that had happened. She hadn’t been in love, didn’t want to marry.

She had never fallen to the Asili, and didn’t deserve to be exiled.

He had never been good at such situations, and this one in particular was fragile and required greater care. Despite having grown close to Elena in the short time he had known her, he had already gone too deep in her family’s business, so Ezra intended to lead Malachi to her and then give them privacy. Malachi would know how to handle the situation, how to present it to William Heath, and how to deal with Farren.

The idea of Elena having fled before Ezra led anyone to her hadn’t even crossed his mind, but when it did, the possibility became large and terrifying. What would happen if he led Malachi there, excited and expectant, only to find an empty cave, and no trace of his missing sister?

He’d immediately think that Ezra had lied to him, toyed with him. Ezra’s stomach boiled with anxiety, and he had to stop for a moment in the middle of a mostly empty street.

“What’s wrong?” Malachi asked, and could read the unease in Ezra’s eyes; it became contagious. “Ezra, why did you stop?”

He was too deep into the situation now, and bore all of Malachi’s trust. All he could do was hope that his fear was unfounded, and that Elena wouldn’t know his intentions to reunite her with his brother.