Forged

“In Taem. Outside my room. After Craw . . .” She trails off.

 

From my belt, I grab the flashlight I no longer go anywhere without. With a click it’s on and aimed at her eyes. She blinks rapidly, tries to shake me off. I keep her pinned there until I see what I need. Her pupils shrink under direct light, then expand when I move the beam away. Drastically. It’s her. I let go, and she pushes me off, rubs her sore arm.

 

“What is the matter with you? You weren’t supposed to follow me! Didn’t you see me shaking my head?”

 

“Gray?” Blaine’s voice echoes through the building, and a moment later he stumbles upon the two of us. His expression is nothing but shock—that Emma really is here, that I wasn’t imagining things.

 

“You have to go,” she says. “Before they come. They’re using me to get to you and you need to leave. Both of you. Right now.”

 

“You heard her,” Blaine says.

 

But I’m still staring at Emma, confused, bewildered. “Why did you even show yourself if . . . I don’t . . .”

 

“They’ve had me in town for a few days, hoping I’d make contact with you. I thought they were crazy—why would you be in some random AmWest town?—but they were holding my mother’s life over my head, so I played along. And then there you were, today, out of nowhere, just standing along the Gulf.” She pauses for a moment to really look at me. Tears pool in her eyes. “Please go. You can’t be here.”

 

“Gray,” Blaine urges, tugging my arm.

 

“I’m not leaving you again,” I say to Emma. “Come with us. We’ve got people that can keep you safe.”

 

She shakes her head. “They’re watching me. You have to leave.” The tears are streaming freely now, down her face, her neck.

 

“Dammit, Gray!” Blaine actually hauls me backward. I turn and shove him as hard as I can. He stumbles, and when he catches his balance, he is furious. “Will you separate your heart and your head for one minute? Use your brain! This isn’t right. We need to get out of here. Finish the trade and head back to the bookshop.”

 

“Screw the damn trade, Blaine! Screw the trade, and screw you.”

 

I turn back to Emma, but she is no longer alone. There’s a man restraining her, his grip tight on her wrist. I don’t know where he came from. I didn’t hear anyone else enter the building, but then again, I was yelling like a madman.

 

A second man steps between two looms. Like always, a smoke is pinched between his lips. He exhales in my general direction, then smiles.

 

“Gage?” I don’t mean for it to come out as a question, to sound so obviously stunned.

 

Emma is screaming for us to run, but there are two more men already bearing down on Blaine. I wish I had a knife, or a gun, or anything other than a worthless flashlight. All that’s left is my fists, and I don’t even have a chance to use them. When I pivot to face Gage, his arm is already swinging, a club barreling at my head.

 

The world snuffs out like a candle.

 

 

 

 

 

EIGHT

 

 

I THINK WE’RE ON WATER. It feels like the floor beneath my feet is moving separately from me. My hands are bound in my lap, but I’m able to reach back and check where I was clubbed. I find a massive welt and wince.

 

I’m lucky it’s not worse. I’m lucky I’m not dead.

 

“How are you feeling?”

 

Gage.

 

We’re in a cramped bedroom with an extremely low ceiling. I’m on one bed, and he’s on another, both feet planted on the skinny patch of floor that separates us. No longer in the dimly lit factory, I can see he has a black eye and wonder if Bree managed to clock him last night. The thought almost makes me smile. Then I hear the unmistakable sound of waves against a hull. We must be on water after all. Going who knows where.

 

“You’re a snake, ratting us out like that.”

 

“You act like it was easy,” he says, “but you’ve seen how Nick operates. He had me deliver your lodging instructions in code, for God’s sake! It took months of eavesdropping before I even caught wind of his vague plans to infiltrate some Order facility, how the infamous Gray Weathersby and a few Expats might play a part. So I passed along what I heard, and that pretty brunette got planted in town as a lure.”

 

Gage draws a smoke from his jacket pocket and lights it.

 

“But then,” he continues, “this is the best part: I was sent to meet your team! No one was very forthcoming with information—Nick’s got everyone worked into a paranoid frenzy—and the chopper had exactly zero useful information stashed onboard, but I wasn’t concerned. The team was finally in town. I knew you’d be moving soon, so I had the lure transferred closer to the docks. And when that blond fireball showed up at the Wheelhouse last night, I figured she’d spill everything if I buttered her up enough, showed her a good time. But she turned out to be quite the bitch. Called me a pig and everything.”

 

“I’m sure you deserved what she dished out and then some.”

 

He leans closer, blows a cloud of smoke directly into my face. “Let’s remember who’s tied up and who’s calling the shots. Show a little respect.”

 

“Right, because you’re clearly so deserving of it.”

 

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