To my surprise, it was the soldier who answered.
“No,” he said quietly. Mist blinked at him in shock. “Not without Ember,” he went on as I kicked myself for not thinking of her sooner. “I’m not leaving her here. You want our help,” he said, glancing at me, “you get her out, too.”
“That might be impossible,” Mist replied, sounding annoyed. “She was taken to the private lab early this morning. I have no idea what they’re going to do to her, but only a few scientists and a handful of guards are allowed past those doors. Trying to rescue one more person could put us, and the mission, in jeopardy. Freeing the two of you is going to be difficult enough. We can’t risk it.”
“Sorry, Mist.” I crossed my arms. “But I’m going to agree with my soldier friend. Ember comes, too, or no deal.”
Her lips thinned, as if our insistence on rescuing Ember was throwing a wrench into her plans. “You would throw away your one chance of escaping Talon?” she asked. “They’re planning to kill you both tomorrow, you know. If you stay here, you’re going to die.”
“And you’ll never get what you need,” I told her, and the soldier nodded. I was playing hardball, but neither of us was bluffing. I would not leave Ember behind. I would rather stay and let Talon kill me than have Ember think I abandoned her. I knew St. George felt the same. “You get her out,” I said, “and we’ll help you in return. If not, we all die and you fail your mission. But we’re not leaving without her.”
The girl closed her eyes. Apparently, she had not expected this. “Very well,” she said. “She’ll be on the last floor. Once we get the information I need, I’ll take you down to the lab, and we can try to rescue her, as well. That’s the best I can offer.”
“Ah, sorry.” I shook my head. “We get Ember out first, then we’ll help you get what you need.”
She raised a brow. “You are awfully demanding for being on the wrong side of the bars,” she mused. “And what do we do with her once we find her? Waltz back through the building with the most recognizable dragon in Talon? What if she’s drugged or incapacitated in some way? How are we going to get to the information while dragging her along?”
“I’m sure you can find a way,” I said, but Mist’s eyes hardened.
“No.” She shook her head, crossing her arms. “I’m not going to risk it. I need whatever is on that computer, and getting to it will be dangerous enough without trying to sneak Ember Hill through the building. Once we rescue her, we’ll have a limited amount of time to get out before Talon’s entire security force comes after us. There’ll be no time for anything else.”
“What if we split up?” St. George suggested. “I can go after Ember while you and Riley go after the file.”
“You’d need a key card and a code to access the elevators,” Mist replied. “And there will be numerous guards and security cameras along the way. If you’re with me, I can get you to the lab with minimal problems. If you’re by yourself, the second anyone sees you, our plan falls apart.” She set her jaw, her voice nonnegotiable. “Information first, then the girl. I am not budging on this.”
“Really?” I gave a dangerous smile. “So we help you out and then you’ll do the same, huh? And what’s to stop you from stabbing us in the back as soon as you get what you need?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Mist said, holding my gaze. “But you’re going to trust me, Cobalt. Because this is your only way out, and you know it. Because if you die here, your underground is as good as gone. Talon will wipe them off the map, and now they have both the numbers and the resources to do it. They’re planning something huge, something that will change both our worlds forever, and you need to know what it is just as much as I do.”
Dammit. She was right, and she knew she was right. “All right,” I growled. If the choice was either die in a Talon cell or die trying to get us all out of Talon, I’d go for the one that gave us a chance, miniscule as it was. “This is getting us nowhere. We can either stand around threatening each other, or we can just get on with it. So, how were you planning to get us out of here?” I asked Mist. “We can’t exactly open the door and stroll down the hall in plain sight.”
Mist gave that faint, mysterious smile. “Actually,” she said, holding up a key, “that is precisely what we’re going to do.”
EMBER
“She’s nearly ready.”
The voice echoed around me, hollow and cold. I spun, peering at my surroundings in confusion. I stood in the center of a vast, rocky plain that stretched on until it met the sky. Behind me, a chain-link fence encircled a cluster of familiar gray and white buildings. Seeing them made my stomach flip-flop with nerves. My old school, in the middle of the Great Basin. But...why was I here now?
“Excellent,” said another voice, seeming to echo out of the sky. “Then prepare the procedure. The drug will bring her most vivid memories to the surface first so they can be removed. Once they are gone, we’ll have to dig deeper, but this is a good place to start.”
I frowned, gazing around for the people the voices belonged to, but other than the silhouette of a buzzard soaring overhead, I was alone. A moment later, I couldn’t remember what had been said. A warm breeze ruffled the scrub around me as I gazed through the fence at the buildings that were as familiar to me as the back of my hand. I had spent so much time here, very nearly my whole life. But that didn’t explain why I had come back.
“Ember,” said another voice, closer than the last and much younger. It sounded alarmed. I looked up and saw two small figures a few yards away. They were about six or seven, with the same bright red hair and green eyes. I gasped as I realized where I was, recognizing this moment in time.
“Ember!” young Dante said again, louder this time. A lump rose to my throat as I watched him, solemn even at six years old. His red hair was shaggy and hung in his eyes as he stepped forward. “Come on, sis. Don’t poke it, you’ll make it mad. Let’s go back.”
The little girl with the red ponytail ignored him. Crouched on the balls of her feet, her attention was riveted on what lay before her. A fat brown snake with vivid diamond markings down its back sat tightly coiled in the sand, head pulled into an S while its tail rattled threateningly.
My stomach tightened. Curious and unafraid, tiny Ember ignored her brother’s repeated warnings and prodded the serpent with a twig. The snake reared back, its warning rattle growing louder, faster, but the girl didn’t back off.