He gripped the railing, but did not rise to that last bait. Instead, he looked down at the Malchai.
“The intruder is drawn to live bait. Raid the fridges, take your prey into the streets. The first monster who kills this pest and brings me its corpse will find a place with Alice at my side.”
“That is, of course,” Alice added, “if I don’t kill it first.”
Sloan spread his hands, the picture of munificence. “Let the hunt begin.”
The Compound changed after dark.
Kate didn’t see the sun go down, but she could feel the shift all the same, the nervous energy coalescing, the tension drawing tight around her. The stream of soldiers thinned as some retreated to off-site barracks and others went on watch or on missions, and the number of guards on each door multiplied.
The cafeteria was still full, but she sat at Twenty-Four’s table alone. Whatever invisible thread had bound the teams together during the day, it dissolved by dinner, freeing the soldiers to choose their own company. New divisions were drawn, between North and South, young and old, her exclusion yet another reminder that she didn’t belong.
A huddle of twentysomethings played cards a few rows over, and Mony was perched on a tabletop, chatting with friends, while Colin sat against a wall, telling a story. He seemed engrossed, but every time Kate so much as glanced at the door, his face gave a nervous twitch, so she decided to wait him out. Make a game of it. And at some point, outlasting Colin became outlasting every other nervous glance or whispered word, each one designed to chip away at her.
She drew the tablet from her pocket and booted it, surprised to discover someone had connected the device to the network.
Her fingers danced over the screen as she booted the server, and typed in the address for the Wardens’ chat room.
Page not found.
She tried again.
Page not found.
Frustration welled inside her and she clicked over to the message drive and started a new email. She typed in Riley’s address, and wrote a single word—alive—before hitting SEND.
It went nowhere.
The message hung suspended, a grayed-out line in a sea of black text. Flynn had been telling the truth about the internal server. There was nothing here but memos, notices transmitted to everyone in the system.
Kate tapped through the various drive folders and found mission logs, registers of targets, captures, casualties.
The files were ordered by month, and Kate was skimming the most recent one when the tablet chimed, and a new message popped up.
The subject line was AUGUST.
The sender was ILSA FLYNN.
There was no note, only a set of attachments. Kate knew exactly what they were. She’d seen her fair share of security footage in Prosperity, and a lifetime ago she’d sat in her room at Harker Hall and scoured her father’s database, watching every clip she could find of the monsters that lurked in her city.
Callum had a wealth of footage on Leo, but when but when it came to August Flynn, there’d been nothing.
Now she stared down at the footage Ilsa had sent her.
One was shot from what looked like a symphony hall. Another from a cam on top of the Seam. A third, somewhere in the street. Six months’ worth of files, every one of them titled BROTHER.
What happened to August? she’d asked his sister.
And Ilsa had sent her an answer.
Kate braced herself and hit PLAY.
August’s hand kept drifting to the six small holes in the front of his shirt.
“I should change,” he said as they walked down the hall.
“Nah,” said Harris, cuffing him around the shoulders. August tensed—he’d never gotten used to being touched. “Show them you’re a man of steel.”
Ani shook her head. “I can’t believe you let her go.”
“She was upset,” said August.
“She shot you six times!” said Harris.
“With your gun,” snapped Jackson.
“It wasn’t a crime,” said August.
Only because you can’t be killed, said Leo.
Or because I don’t count.
“Way to let your guard down, Harris,” snorted Ani.
“I didn’t expect a middle-aged lady to snatch a sidearm.”
“Sexist.”
Jackson raked a hand through his short hair. “I’m starving.”
“Me too,” chimed Ani. “Canteen?”
“Think they’ll have beef?” said Harris. “I dream of beef.”
“Keep dreaming,” said Ani.
Jackson shoved open the cafeteria doors and August was met by the din of metal and plastic, scraping chairs and rattling trays and a hundred layered voices. Between the noise, and the stuffy air, he didn’t understand why so many soldiers ate together instead of escaping to their rooms. Rez had been the one to explain it to him.
“Sometimes it’s not about the food,” she’d said. “It’s about finding normal.”
Harris was holding the door. “You coming?”
This was a well-worn path—Harris always offered, and August usually said no, but the voices in his head were too loud tonight, so he headed into the crush of bodies and noise, hoping to smother them.
And saw Kate.
She was sitting alone near the edge of the room, head bowed over a tablet, and August didn’t know if it was déjà vu from their first day at Colton, or that she was the only spot of stillness at the center of a storm, or that she was Kate Harker, and everywhere she went, she brought her own gravity with her.
Whatever the reason, he started toward her.
Harris shot him a questioning look, and Ani’s gaze followed, but it was Jackson who spoke. “She shouldn’t be here.”
“Now, now,” started Ani. “The FTF takes in—”
“No,” snapped Jackson. “I don’t care if she’s got intel—she’s still a Harker.”
“She saved my life,” said August, his voice low. His team went silent. Here it was, the chill, the spot of cold, right here. The Sunai were supposed to be invulnerable, but they weren’t. Unkillable, but they weren’t. The fact she’d saved his life meant he’d needed saving.
Jackson crossed his arms. “She’s not one of us.”
“Neither am I,” said August simply.
He heard them stomp off toward the food line as he made his way to Kate’s table. She had looked up from her screen at some point and was watching him through her veil of blond hair.
“Standing up for my honor?”
August frowned. “You heard?”
She shook her head. “Educated guess.”
“What did you do with Colin?”
“Oh, I set him free.” She nodded at the far corner. “Sheep and wolves have never been a good fit.” Her gaze flitted over the holes in his shirt. “Bad day?”
“It could have gone worse.” He sank onto the bench opposite. “How was yours?”
“I’m holding my own,” she said. “Not big in the friend department yet, but the enemies are keeping their distance.”
“Give it time, and they’ll—”
“Stop,” she cut him off. “This isn’t one of those stories.”
Silence fell between them, and August could hear the whispers under the din, the rise and fall of low voices, still all too clear to him.