“Oh, shut up. Didn’t you found the Howlers? Don’t you have any say over how they treat us?” She
nudges me off the bench to take my spot, laying her spine on the padded surface and pushing her arms up to grip the barbell. I take a few weights off. But she glares at me and I put them back on as she fixes her grip.
“Technically, no,” I say.
“Oh. But seriously: what’s a girl got to do to get a wolfcloak?” Her powerful arms thrust the bar up off from its rack, moving it up and down as she talks. Nearly three hundred kilos. “I shot a Legate in the head two missions ago. A Legate! I’ve seen your Howlers. Aside from…Ragnar, they’re tiny.
They need…more heavies if they want to…take on Adrius’s Boneriders or the Sovereign’s…
Praetorians.” She grits her teeth as she finishes her last repetition, racking the bar without my help, and standing to point to herself in the mirror. Hers is a powerful, laconic form. Shoulders broad and swaying with a haughty walk. “I’m a perfect physical specimen, on and off my feet. Not using me is an indictment on Sevro’s intelligence.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s probably your lack of self-confidence he’s worried about.”
She throws a towel at me. “You’re as annoying as he is. Swear to Jove if he says one more thing
about my ‘nascent poverty’ I’m going to cut his head off with a gorydamn spoon.” I watch her for a moment, trying not to laugh. “What, you have something to say as well?”
“Not a thing, my goodlady,” I say, holding up my hands. Her eyes linger on them instinctively.
“Squats next?”
The ramshackle gymnasium has been our second home since Mickey Carved us. It was weeks of recovery in his ward as her nerves remembered how to walk and both of us tried to put on weight again under the supervision of Dr. Virany. A gaggle of Reds and a Green watch us from the corner of the gym. Even after two months, the novelty hasn’t worn off seeing how much two chemically and genetically enhanced Peerless Scarred can lift.
Ragnar came in to embarrass us a couple weeks back. Brute didn’t even say a word. Just started piling weights onto a barbell till no more would fit, power-cleaned it, and then gestured for us to do the same. Victra couldn’t even get the weight off the ground. I got as far as my knees. Then we had to listen to the hundred idiots who flocked after him chant his name for an hour. Found out afterward
Uncle Narol had been overseeing bets on how much more Ragnar could lift than I. Even my own uncle bet against me. But it’s a good sign, even if the others don’t think of it this way. Gold can’t win everything.
It was with Mickey and Dr. Virany’s help that Victra and I regained control of our bodies. But regaining our sense in the field has taken just as long. We started with baby steps. Our first mission out together was a supply run with Holiday and a dozen bodyguards, not for the supply run itself, but for me. We didn’t do it with the Howlers. “Gotta work your way up to the A squad, Reap. Make sure
you can keep up,” Sevro said, patting my face. “And Julii has to prove herself.” She slapped his hand when he tried petting her.
Ten supply runs, two sabotage missions, and three assassinations later Sevro was finally convinced that Holiday, Victra, and I were ready to run with the B squad: the Pitvipers, led by my own Uncle Narol—who has become a bit of a cult hero to the Reds here. Ragnar ’s a godlike creature. But my uncle is just a rough old man who drinks too much, smokes too much, and is uncommonly good at
war. His Pitvipers are a motley collection of hardasses specializing in sabotage and thievery, about half are ex Helldivers, the rest are a spattering of other useful lowColors. We’ve completed three missions with them, destroying a barracks and several Legion communications installations, but I can’t shake the feeling we’re a snake eating our own tail. Every bombing is twisted by the Society media. Every pinprick of damage we do seems only to bring more Legions from Agea to the mines
or the smaller cities of Mars.
I feel hunted.
Worse, I feel like a terrorist. I’ve only ever felt this way once before, and that was with a bomb on my chest walking into the gala on Luna.
Dancer and Theodora have been pressing Sevro to reach out to more allies. Trying to bridge the
gap between the Sons and other factions. Reluctantly, Sevro agreed. So earlier this week, the Pitvipers and I were dispatched from the tunnels to the northern continent of Arabia Terra, where the Red Legion had carved themselves a stronghold in the port city of Ismenia. It was Dancer ’s hope I could bring them into the fold in a way Sevro hadn’t been able to, maybe pull them away from Harmony’s