The Gender End (The Gender Game #7)

I looked out past her, toward the bubble, and saw the beam of light streaking across it, right in our path. Vox shouted something—it was hard to hear amid the chaos—Amber screamed in reply, and then we were dropping again. Violet and I slammed to the floor in a tangle of limbs as the angle on the deck slid toward ninety once again, but this time we both managed to make it to the seats and strap ourselves in.

“To hell with this,” Amber roared, and she pushed one control forward, holding the other one back. We began to spin in the air, the sky, earth, and water pin-wheeling through the bubble at dizzying rates as we dropped lower down, the earth growing larger. Just when I thought we were about to hit, Amber gave an angry shout and hauled back on both of the controls, forcing the nose back up, away from the impending earth.

She stabilized the ship low to the ground, and then began flipping switches. “Find them,” she said hurriedly, sweat beading on her forehead. “If it starts charging again, then we fire.”

Logan began cycling through images on the screen in front of her, until they found one of the tower, rapidly disappearing behind us. She watched it for a full minute, her violet eyes searching for any sign that they were firing again, and then sighed, sinking into the pilot’s seat.

“We’re clear,” she announced, flipping a switch and killing the image.

I let out a long breath, and then looked down and realized that I had been holding Violet’s hand tightly in my own, squeezing it with a death grip. She and I looked at each other, and I lifted her hand to my lips, kissing the back of it.

“Thank you,” I said softly, and she smiled.

“I think we’d better thank Amber,” she panted, and I realized she was trembling slightly. I undid our buckles and pulled her into a hug, and she let out a shuddering breath, clutching my arms. “Can we never do that again?”

“I only wish I could promise that, my love. But we’re okay. And you’re right—that was some spectacular flying, Amber.”

Amber swiveled around in her seat to look at us both. “I take thanks in the form of chocolate and strawberries, preferably where the strawberry is covered with the chocolate.” Even through her teasing, it was hard not to note her uneven breathing and the pallor of her cheeks.

I chuckled—it was hard not to—and then couldn’t resist the urge to tease her a smidge. “Should I also thank the man who taught you?”

“Ha!” Amber scoffed at the same time that Vox said, “Well, obviously. Anybody who could pull off such an impressive move probably had a genius teacher.”

I snorted as Amber whipped around to give him a hot glare. “Why don’t you go run an internal scan to see how bad the damage was? I think we only caught the very edge of the beam, but…” Her anger seemed to burn out in the face of shock at what we’d just witnessed. “God… can you believe that! How did they even do that?”

“It has something to do with the sunlight, that much is for sure,” I said, my eyes going up toward the ceiling. The red-hot metal had turned dull again, but the grated ceiling was no longer lying flat. In fact, it had warped inward, in a track as wide as the palm of my hand. “Extraordinary.”

Whether they were channeling the sun, or had somehow managed to replicate its heat in order to create a weapon, the implications were mindboggling. If all the panels on the tower could be controlled like that, it made for a pretty formidable defense. Just watching the other ship get destroyed… the ease with which the beam of light had done it… Terrifying. Yet fascinating. Especially now that we were—hopefully—out of range.

“Solomon!” Violet gasped, and she immediately jumped for the cargo bay, pulling away from my embrace. Her knees were shaky. If there was one thing I knew about my girl, it was that she didn’t particularly enjoy flying, not since that one time she had accidentally crashed a flying motorcycle into The Green. But of course she didn’t let it stop her.

I moved behind her and found Solomon where we had left him on one of the benches in the back, a blanket draped over him, with three thick red strips wrapped around his chest and looped through an exposed support on the bulkhead below, fixing him in place.

“Logan and I strapped him down, just in case,” Amber called from the cockpit over the noise. “Is he okay?”

Violet quickly checked his pulse, and then nodded, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose and exhale. “He’s fine,” she shouted into the cockpit, clearly relieved.

“And you?” I asked, taking a step closer. Her silver eyes dragged up to me, and I saw sadness there.

“Kathryn and Belinda are dead,” she said. “I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to feel about it, but I feel… I feel…”

I cupped her cheeks between my hands. “Baby, it’s okay. Feel however you want. I’m sure whatever happened on that ship between the three of you wasn’t easy, but I know you, and you would never wish death on anyone who didn’t really deserve it.”

“We helped save each other’s lives,” she murmured. “And now they’re gone. If they had only come with us, we could’ve…”

“Violet. If they had come with us, there would’ve only been one ship for them to target, and we would’ve all been dead before we even knew to run.”

She nodded, but I could tell that answer didn’t satisfy her. It didn’t satisfy me, either. It just seemed so wasteful, what the residents of the tower had done. If they were doing it to send a message… it was a cruel one. A shudder ran through me as I realized this was the same thing KC Alexander had said before they’d seen us off—“a waste of resources.” Had this been what he was talking about? He’d been angry they’d healed us, only to decide to kill us off at the last minute? Anger rose in my gut, but there was really nothing to be done about it, so I let it go.

“Belinda’s sister might have been at one of the guard posts,” Violet said. “Last name Carver. When we get close enough, can you have Henrik look into it? I… I owe Belinda that.”

I nodded, and she seemed to ease up a little bit. Looking her over, I took in the bags under her eyes and the glazed look in them. “Why don’t you lie down and close your eyes for a bit? You look like you could use a few minutes’ rest.”

“You could too,” she argued, her words barely distinguishable from the yawn that seemed to catch her unawares. “You’ve been up just as long as me.”

“True, but I got some sleep on the heloship.”

“No you didn’t,” she said, and I shook my head at how well she knew me, but she allowed me to guide her over to one of the benches and sit her down. I quickly pulled out a few blankets and made a makeshift bed for her, complete with a pillow made out of a folded blanket. I helped her take off her boots, and had her lie down on her side, spooning up behind her, knowing she needed to feel some human comfort right then.

It was a tight fit with the two of us on the little bench, but we made do, and within minutes, Violet was fast asleep, her breathing deep and heavy. I lay with her for a few long minutes, absorbing her warmth, and then, before I could fall asleep too, carefully pulled away, moving to the cockpit.