Harvey looks wounded. “It would be easiest for me, yes. Clipper could probably handle it, but if we only get one shot at this, I think I should be the one at the wheel.”
“Of course you do,” she sneers. “Of course.”
“How do we even get back there?” Sammy cuts in.
“The same way we did last time,” Harvey explains. “It’s Gray’s face on the wanted posters now. I’ll escort him into Order custody and—”
Bree is out of her seat in a flash. She throws an elbow into Harvey’s jaw, then wrenches his arm behind his back.
“You think anyone here is going to buy that?”
“Bree!” I yell.
“I’ve dislocated your shoulder before, Harvey,” she says, adjusting her hold on his arm. “I can do it again.”
“Dammit, Bree!” I have to use so much force to pull her off, I know she’ll end up with a bruise on her bicep from my grip.
“You believe this?” she says, turning on me.
“It’s the best opportunity we have.”
“It’s the worst! There’s no guarantee they’ll bring you to Taem when they pick you up. You could end up back at the Compound or dead in a ditch. And even if you do get dragged to Taem, how convenient that Harvey is the only one who can execute this plan. Maybe the overture won’t do a damn thing. Maybe it will make the Forgeries stronger. Maybe he’ll put a bullet in you on Frank’s behalf and then march into Union Central a hero.”
Harvey wipes at the corner of his now-bleeding lip.
“He’s been helping us, Bree,” Clipper says. He looks almost annoyed that he’s forced to defend Harvey so soon after their argument. “He’s good.”
“And I’ve been alone downstairs with him,” I add. “If Harvey had it out for me, he could have slit my throat several times by now. Plus, if this does work, you realize what it means, right? Harvey will die helping us do this. He won’t survive the overture.”
Eyes narrowed, Bree wheels on September and Sammy. “What about everything Adam and Vik were planning with Ryder before we lost contact? Our conversations with Heidi and Bleak last night? We just throw it aside?”
“The way I see it, this can only improve our chances,” September says. “We do it in conjunction with the existing plans. Plus, I finally heard from Vik this morning. I was waiting to tell everyone, but Elijah reported from Crevice Valley. They were hit. Hard. Nearly everyone’s dead except for the few who made it into the underground fallout shelters. Ryder’s alive. We’re still waiting on a list of survivors, but based on what Elijah relayed, it sounds like no more than a hundred made it.”
Clipper sinks to the floor, his hand on his bracelet.
“The Rebels at Crevice Valley were supposed to be part of the organized strike,” September continues. “This blow . . . it crushes our numbers in the East. We need an edge there now more than ever.”
Bree has not stopped shaking her head. “And Vik’s okay with this plan?”
“I’ll reach out to him,” September says, “but I’m telling you now he’ll be on board. The Expats and the Rebels will act come the planned date, and this, if we pull it off, only tips the odds further in our favor.”
“It’s too much of a risk,” Bree insists.
“No one who played it safe ever accomplished anything.”
Bree turns to me. “Gray?”
She wants me to agree with her. She wants me to say it’s foolish and a long shot and dangerous. And it is. But it’s also the edge we need, just as September said, and I want to see the look on Frank’s face when he watches his Forgeries crumple. I want to be there when his last defenses no longer surround him so that I can look him in the eye and end his life for Blaine. For all of them.
Bree scowls at my silence.
“You don’t have to be a part of the team that heads east,” September says to her. “You can stay here with me, help with the fight in Bone Harbor. It will be safer along the Gulf than in Taem.”
“You think that’s what this is about? Me wanting to stay where it’s safest?” She snatches her firearm off the table and thrusts it into her waistband. “You’re all idiots.”
I grab her arm. “Bree . . .”
“I know I told you to not feel bad about disagreeing with me. But I still expected you to use your brain.”
She wrenches herself loose and storms out.
The rest of us plan late into the evening.
It’s exactly a week until Sunder Day, an AmEast holiday commemorating the anniversary of the West’s official secession and the end of the war. A Sunder Rally will be thrown in Taem. Spirits will be up. Guards will be down. This is when we will attack. It is also, I learn, the date Adam, Vik, and Ryder were always working toward.
Every day now is precious.
Harvey will start work on the virus for the alarms first thing in the morning, and a day or two before the Rally, we’ll let ourselves be spotted. Or rather, Harvey will turn me in. We won’t have the virus on us though, not when it’s likely we’ll be searched. Sammy and Clipper will take it to Taem by car as soon as possible, then wait to make a transfer drop.
“What if Vik doesn’t like our plan?” Clipper worries aloud.
“He will,” I say. “And if for some odd reason he doesn’t, we move forward anyway. Go rogue. No one’s around to stop us, and we’re doing this. I’m doing this. We’ve done enough waiting for a lifetime.”
“I’ll update Vik first thing tomorrow,” September assures Clipper. “Until then, how about we toast our new plans?”
A bottle of liquor is pulled out. Glasses are filled. I keep expecting Bree to wander into the kitchen and join us, even if only reluctantly, but when a second round is poured, it’s obvious she’s holding firm. What hits next is the paralyzing idea of carrying out these plans without her. I set my drink on the table and excuse myself.
TWENTY-SIX
BREE’S DOOR SWINGS OPEN WHEN I push on it. She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, elbows against her knees and gun clasped in her hands. It’s pointed at the far wall, but her forehead rests against the barrel.