“Yes,” I agree, offering nothing further.
“It doesn’t sound familiar.” Her eyes shift away, as if she’s afraid to look at me.
“Oh. Well, I’ll notify you if by chance I can get those parts sooner than you can.”
Kinjin nods without glancing my way. “You have a pleasant evening.”
“And you, as well.” The door closes behind the Star, leaving me to wonder why she lied.
Once Kinjin is gone, I panic. That was a supremely stupid risk to have taken for a negotiating tool I’m not even sure would be useful. I just blurted out Ransom Winterstrom’s name, as if a name like that couldn’t get me killed! As if a connection to Reykin Winterstrom and the Gates of Dawn isn’t the most dangerous aspect of my life. Everything is a mess. My hands tremble. I close them into fists.
Suddenly, this apartment is too small. I need to escape it. Going to the bureau drawer where I stashed the lead pieces, I yank it open. I could leave. I could cloak my moniker with the lead parts and just run away, but where would I go? Not back to Swords—not without speaking to Gabriel first. The moment I cross back into my Fate, I’ll be cut down—unless it’s in secret, and for that I’d need a plan.
My forehead dampens with sweat—my breathing hitches erratically, my heart drumming out of control. Even though I don’t want to admit to myself that I’m suffering from a severe form of panic, I know the symptoms, which are common among Swords before and during the trauma of combat—and even long after they’re away from any fighting. I drop the lead back into the drawer and close it.
Moving to a holographic screen in the drawing room, I explain my symptoms in gasping breaths to the Atom-Fated physician on duty. As I wait for a chet to arrive, I pace between the large white-linen sofa and the glass doors that lead to the balcony. The view of the sea beneath the cliff in the distance is gorgeous, but it does nothing to calm my anxiety. Nor does the formal rose garden directly below my balcony.
The musical bleep from the front door sets me further on edge. The automated voice announces the medical drone’s arrival. Phoenix trundles toward it, but I easily pass the mechadome and answer the door myself. A silver, bullet-shaped medical drone awaits me in the corridor. It scans my moniker. A compartment in its side opens and dispenses the thin paper square. Wordlessly, I take it. The drone flies away. I put the chet on my tongue and allow it to melt. Closing the door, I lean against it and immediately begin to relax. The panic subsides to a faraway feeling of mild angst, but the chet makes me feel sluggish and drowsy.
Walking back to the drawing room, I sit on the soft sofa. My shoulders round forward. The room spins a little. Slowly, I lie down, rest my head on a velvety throw pillow, and pull my feet up. Closing my eyes, I try not to think of anything. Not the Gates of Dawn. Not the war. Not my insane family. Not the brat named Grisholm. And especially not the one person I worry may already be dead. Hawthorne.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang—Phoenix’s rapidly shifting steps bang on the floor directly in front of me. I open my eyes to see its glowing red ones just inches from my face. It’s night. Only one small lamp on the side table lights the apartment. I must have fallen asleep. I rub my eyes and raise my head from the pillow. Suddenly, fingernails dig into my scalp, yanking me up by my hair. A meaty arm around my neck chokes me in a brutal stranglehold. The arm moves. A dagger at my throat cuts into my skin.
Phoenix’s vacuum arm whines to life. The mechadome points its cannon-barrel-shaped limb at whomever is behind me. My hair whirls and rips toward it. The vacuum arm grows longer. The man’s hand yanks free from my neck, the powerful suction from Phoenix pulling it away. Grunts of pain and frustration come from behind me. The assailant lets go of his knife, which disappears inside Phoenix’s arm. A hatch blows the weapon out of a round chamber in the robot’s upper back, and the knife sticks into the wall.
Phoenix’s extended vacuum arm locks on to my attacker’s wrist and sucks the large man’s forearm to the round metal opening. Phoenix’s vacuum retracts, jerking the man forward. He lets go of me, wrenched by his arm, falling to his knees and sliding toward Phoenix’s feet as the vacuum shaft continues to shorten. The crunching of bones is barely discernable over Phoenix’s loud whirring.
The man struggles, but it’s no use. In one grotesque motion, his forearm folds in half and disappears inside the vacuum. Harrowing screams bleat from behind the man’s dark mask. The powerful suction dislocates the assassin’s arm as he feebly punches his free hand against Phoenix’s metal limb and bellows in agony.
A shadow crosses my peripheral vision, and I lurch off the cushion just in time to avoid a fusionmag pulse to the head. The pulse strikes the man on the floor, exploding his brains all over Phoenix’s iron fasteners. Most of the blood vaporizes in the heat.
I land on the floor beside Phoenix and brace for the next fusionmag shot, but Phoenix reverses his arm-cannon, spewing out pieces of the dismembered limb at the second assailant, knocking the fusionmag from his hand.
While the second assassin scrambles to pick up his weapon, I dive to the wall and force the knife blade from it. Twisting, I hurl the weapon just as the second assailant rises to aim the fusionmag at me. The knife sticks in his Adam’s apple, and he reels backward. His gun bounces toward me as he hits the rug. I tumble to it near the side of the sofa. He twitches on the floor, blood spurting from his throat as he dies.
On my knees, I reach for the fallen weapon. Another pulse flashes before my eyes, and I flinch, expecting to feel it burn them right out of my head, but Phoenix’s stout body lurches in front of me. The pulse connects with the mechadome, making a sizzling sound that quickly dies out, probably because Phoenix is lined with lead, the worst conductor of fusion energy in this room. The little robot stomps from foot to foot, its infrared eyes glaring at a third intruder standing by the balcony door.
My hand closes around the grip of the fallen fusionmag. Lifting the weapon, I fire a shot. The glowing pulse strikes the third man in the shoulder where I intended it. I want him alive. He pitches to the side. Wounded, the man spins and escapes over the balcony railing.
I’m on my feet, sprinting to the balustrade. Reaching it, I peek over the edge. One floor below me, the third assassin stumbles away, holding what’s left of his shoulder, disappearing behind a hedgerow of the rose garden.
I grip the line, secured to the railing of the balcony, that he used to leave. Clutching the fusionmag in one hand, I wrap the line around my forearm and step over the barrier. The line stretches like elastic, setting me down on the ground with minimal impact. Disengaging from it, I run in the direction of the escaping man.
Salt air and the sound of crashing waves greet me at the end of the formal garden. The ocean is ahead, at the bottom of a perilous cliff. The stairway to the beach is in another direction. This is a dead end. I push on, seeing movement in the darkness. The assassin runs toward the edge of the cliff. I contemplate killing him from here, but then I won’t be able to question him, so I run as fast as I can, expecting him to slow down. Instead, he reaches the cliff’s edge and jumps.
“Roselle!” a harsh voice snarls behind me. A strong arm captures my legs. I fall forward, hitting the grassy terrain hard. We slide almost to the brink of the cliff. The man above me flips me over, glaring at me in the moonlight, and I stare up at the Star-Fated soldier who invades my dreams almost every night.
“Reykin,” I whisper, stunned. “What are you doing here?”
Chapter 3
Star at Midnight
Reykin lets go of me, shoving himself up to his feet.