The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)

“Violet?” Amber’s voice cut in softly. “I’m not sure if this is the best time to tell you this, but your drone is dead. It slammed into the wall of a building.”


“What?” I raced down the stairs again, my eyes finding the heavy briefcase-like remote control a few feet from the table, propped up on its side. I rolled it over and lifted the heavy lid a few more inches, revealing spider web cracks in the screen, cutting black lines across the screen that was supposed to display the feed, which was now showing only red static. I exhaled slowly and closed the lid. “Crap.”

“Use the roofs, Amber,” Ms. Dale said over the radio, her voice sternly practical. “You’re in a pretty dense part of town, structurally speaking, and it’ll give you the advantage of elevation.” It was a good suggestion, and now more than ever we needed the groups to get to their rendezvous points on time.

I sifted through the debris lining the floor and found a few paperclips. Straightening the rounded edges, I climbed back up the stairs and knelt in front of the door, slipping one into the keyhole on the doorknob. I started to unfold the second one, when I realized that I couldn’t pick the lock with a cast on my hand. Of course I couldn’t. And even with all the training I’d been doing, I didn’t think my left hand was going to be up to the job.

I waved Owen over and let him take my spot in front of the door. Picking a lock was difficult in the tensest of times, and doing it with a paperclip wasn’t easy. Minutes ticked by as he fiddled with it. Henrik stayed below, giving orders over the radio as he sifted through the papers, mechanically trying to organize them.

The doorknob rattled and I looked up, barely hearing Amber’s voice in my ear. Owen pulled his gun and stood, motioning for me to move past him down the steps. I did so just as the rattle stopped, and then there was a distinct jingle of keys. The lock clicked, and the door swung open, revealing Morgan, one hand cupped over her eyes. “You guys okay?”

“Morgan,” I said, taking a step closer. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Morgan looked away and then slowly lowered her hand, revealing the quickly purpling flesh under her brow, the mark wrapping around her orbital socket. “Cody blindsided me. One minute I thought he was sleeping, the next thing I knew, pow. Violet… as soon as my head stopped spinning, I took off after them down the road in the car. I got there just as she was pulling away. I would’ve kept chasing them, but I needed to see if you guys were wounded. I couldn’t handle it if one of you bled out while I chased down Desmond.”

I took in a deep breath through my teeth. “Did you see Lacey while you were there?”

Morgan’s face went from weary to appalled, and she shook her head wildly. “Oh no, I didn’t even think about it. I’m so sorry—I hope she’s okay.”

“It’s all right,” I said, though we both knew that if it wasn’t, there wasn’t much we could do about it now. Morgan bit her lip and nodded as though trying to convince herself.

“Violet,” she said, “one more thing. Desmond was driving the truck. With Solomon in it.”

I was unprepared for the flash of dizzying anger that coursed through me and left me feeling burning white and hot. “What?”

“They took the truck—” Morgan began, wrongly interpreting my question.

“I know, I know,” I snapped, unable to stop the current of flame that was eating up my insides. “She’ll use him if she has to. She’ll turn him on anyone who gets in her way.” I turned and leveled a look at Henrik. “I want to go after her.”

Henrik looked unsurprised. “Guys, Violet wants to go after Desmond. We have just learned she took Solomon in her escape.”

There was a pause on the line. “Do you think Desmond will try to jeopardize the mission?” Viggo kept his voice calm and even, but I knew he didn’t want me going into the city without having a really good reason.

“I do. I’ll bet she gleaned that we were going to target the water treatment plant, and if there’s something going on, she’ll head there to warn them—and because she has a vehicle, there’s a chance she could get there before our people.”

“If she even goes there, but Violet, if she doesn’t…” Amber trailed off. She had unwittingly helped me to understand another angle to this argument: if Desmond didn’t go for it, then it meant nothing was happening at the plant to begin with, and we could call off the attack and focus on freeing the city completely.

“We have to go, regardless of where she goes. By the time she gets to the city, she will know our location, or something close enough to it to make life bad for us. And we have to get Cody and Solomon back from her before she can put them on the Benuxupane and use them for her plans again.”

“No offense, but Cody made his choice,” Amber said, and I couldn’t help but snap.

“We have no idea what Desmond said to him in that room, but we do know that he is a traumatized little boy, suffering from abuse and neglect. Desmond has a drug that he feels he needs in order to… stop feeling the way he does about all of the horrible stuff that happened to him. And you want to blame him for that? Blame her, for making him take it in the first place, and then convincing him it was a good thing he was doing. You can give up on him if you want, but I’m not ready to.”

I didn’t mean to become so passionate, but the whole situation made me quake with anger. Desmond escaping was a dash to our hopes—but it was almost expected, almost a relief to be rid of the burden of her unwanted presence and the threat that what she’d said about the boys was true. But to force Cody and Solomon back into their lives of being used as tools? I couldn’t let that happen. I hadn’t wanted to go into the city in this condition. It very likely could kill me. But if there was a chance of stopping Desmond from interfering with our plans, I had to take it. Everyone else was busy with the mission. It had to be me.

The other people on the line seemed to take my shout as all the convincing they needed.

“Owen’s going with you, obviously,” said Viggo softly. “But you need more people if you’re going after her. Who’s left?”

“Morgan,” I said, and I turned to where she still stood on the landing, looking up at her. She hesitated, her eyes flicking over to Owen, and then Henrik, before nodding.

“Lynne will want to go too,” she said softly.

“—and Lynne as well,” I transmitted. “We’ve still got one of Ashabee’s special cars. We’ll gas it up and track her. But we’ve got to go now—we’ve already wasted too much time.”

Henrik met my gaze and nodded. “Go,” he said. “I can give you my mobile comm set, with the glove, and use the headset you were using with the drone. I’ll send someone out to check on Lacey.”

“Thanks.” I nodded to Owen. “Get whatever you need and meet in the car. Morgan—”

“I’ll go get Lynne,” she said, turning and leaving the room at a run. I raced after her, my mind compiling a rapid list of what I needed. We hadn’t had much time to begin with... and now we had even less.