Arden began to reassemble her phaser, not needing to watch her hands work the movements they’d been long trained to do blindfolded. The conversation would stall if Mariah wasn’t going to speak, because Arden certainly didn’t know what to say.
She stared off, her attention snagged by her brother. Niall was practically a moving corpse. He watched the other gangs with bloodshot, glassy eyes. Bones protruded from his paper-thin skin, leached of color, with heavy dark circles lining his eyes. His lank, greasy hair had been messily tied. She could see the telltale faint red bruising under his nose.
He was going to get himself killed today, either by the fight or a rival gang. He was too weak to lead. Everyone knew it.
Coming to terms with the realization that she’d lose yet another family member to death cut her to the quick. Stole what remained of her sanity. Pain and guilt once again assaulted her. Hot like flash fire, appearing all of a sudden, burning up her chest and lungs. She swallowed, desperate to stop it. Seeking that cool blank space that would let her breathe.
Kimber stood close to Niall, practically glued to his side. Her sketchiness had only grown in the last few weeks. It made Arden suspicious. Kimber would sneak looks at the other gang members, giving them covert signals that spoke volumes. She was planning something.
And Niall was too high to see it.
Not her problem, Arden reminded herself. None of this would matter in a few hours.
“Okay, I get it, you’re upset with me,” Mariah said, breaking into Arden’s rolling thoughts.
Arden startled, her hands falling still, and she pulled herself back to the conversation. She knew she sounded surprised when she asked, “What are you talking about?”
Mariah licked her lips, hesitating.
“You can’t say something like that and then not back it up.” Arden put the phaser on the bench next to her, and then turned to face Mariah. “Explain to me why I’m angry with you.”
Mariah gave a half shrug. “I know you spent a lot of time trying to find me.” She paused. “And that I’m expendable. Not like Colin.”
“Colin’s death has nothing to do with you.” Her words brought her even more pain. She hadn’t suppressed any of her pain over Dade yet, and now Colin was in the forefront of her mind. The last thing Arden wanted to do was dwell on the fact that he wasn’t beside her, as he should be.
“Right,” Mariah agreed much too quickly. “I mean, I know that you have other things on your mind.”
“I do,” Arden said. She wanted Mariah to get to the point and then to be gone. Her presence reminded her of everything she’d lost, rubbing salt into the wound. She wanted to stay numb. It was impossible to do that when someone asked questions that pricked her brain and emotions. “What is it you want?”
“Thank you for rescuing me,” Mariah said quietly. She looked down into her lap, twisting her hands together.
“It was a group effort.” Arden didn’t need credit. Didn’t want it. Credit came with heaps of self-recrimination. And she had enough of that to fuel her through the day.
“But you traded in favors. That has to mean something.”
That made her think of Dade, and damn it, she didn’t want to. Arden picked up a soft cloth and the phaser once more, starting the cleaning process all over again. She focused on each vigorous swipe of the rag.
Mariah nibbled her bottom lip. “Why are you here?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know this is a suicide mission. You’ve been vocal about it. We’re not going to survive this.”
Arden snorted and kept polishing her phaser. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Mariah swallowed. “I owe the gang.”
“No, you don’t,” Arden said. She stopped to give Mariah her full attention. “It wasn’t the gang who saved you. If you don’t want to be here, you shouldn’t.”
Maybe Arden could save one person, save Mariah. Hadn’t she tried that before, though?
“I can’t leave.” Mariah looked over to where Uri worked, cleaning and assembling his own weapons. Then she looked back at Arden. “You know how it is, you risk everything because someone else is more important to you than your own life.”
Before, Arden would have agreed automatically, even though she didn’t really know, had never really understood. Now she did. And the knife in her chest twisted. A little panting sob, which she immediately coughed over, broke through. Sacrifice was toxic.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The explosion knocked Arden on her ass. She couldn’t see anything beyond the debris littering the air. The once-pristine silver-and-white-walled refinery was now stained with smoke from the bombs they’d planted, light from the phase-fire cutting through the murkiness. She got off the ground, shooting as she ran through a hollowed-out area into the next room and hiding behind a now-mangled machine.
She coughed behind the body mask covering her face. Grit stung her eyes, making them water. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear them.
Mariah slid up next to her from the opposite direction. Her back also pressed against the broken machine. Mariah had ditched her mask at some point, her face stained with ash. Finger widths of soot had been rubbed clean, pushed from around her eyes, where she’d dug out the grime to see. “We can’t go back that way. There’re too many of them.”
Arden nodded, looking back the way she’d come. Knowing that direction was cut off. They could only move forward, which was what the mercenaries they were fighting wanted. They’d blocked them in, goading them onto a predetermined path to face whatever waited for them at the end.
Blackout had been screwed since the beginning. Which was exactly as Arden had foreseen. Lasair had expected resistance, not a trained private army. The rival fighters knew what they were doing. Their plan and implementation were shaping up to be far superior to Lasair’s.
“Did you get the charges set?” Mariah asked.
“Almost. This is the last batch I have for Level Seven.” Arden dug into her bag to extract a bundle of explosives. “How about you?”
Mariah nodded. “South corner is done.”
“Cover me.”
Mariah nodded, switching positions with Arden. She leaned over the bulk of the machine to shoot at the closest group of mercenaries.
Arden swung her phaser onto her back so she could concentrate on attaching the trip wires to the explosives. Her hands shook, and her movements were slow and awkward because of her still-healing shoulder. She wasn’t wearing a bandage, only a thin layer of quick-seal. It pulled when she moved, tingeing everything she did with pain.
The constant ache reminded her of Dade and Colin. Focused her on the reasons she was doing this. Kept her moving forward even though they were greatly outnumbered.