The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “What gets interesting?”

Melissa rolled her eyes and smacked her brother on the arm. “He’s being a jerk. Just ignore him. Basically, the toxic stuff you dump back into the river has done something to the environment and surrounding atmosphere, and has kind of created its own ecological system.”

“I…” I looked over at Leo, who shook his head, and Maddox, who shrugged, looking as bewildered as I felt. No, I was beyond bewildered. I was downright deflated. All I knew was that the very thing that was keeping us alive was also keeping us trapped inside. “Thank you for telling me that,” I told them.

Thomas nodded solemnly, and for several long seconds the group fell into silence. I didn’t mind; I was still trying to process the bombshell they had just dropped on me. Then he started speaking again, this time with a note in his voice that signaled a change of topic.

“You know, in situations like these, I am permitted to offer people from an oppressed culture refuge in Patrus. We obviously wouldn’t be able to handle the entire Tower’s population, but from what you’ve said, you don’t have many people on your side helping to fight against these legacy cats that are messing everything up.”

“Cats?” Maddox echoed, cocking her head.

In my opinion, she was focusing on the wrong damn thing. He had just told us he could give us an escape. Freedom from the Tower’s insane laws and broken systems. From the nets in our skulls and Scipio’s watchful and polluted gaze. We could be free, breathe fresh air, see the world without the glass of the Tower warping our view of it!

“It means people,” Melissa said dismissively. “Anyway, my brother is right, but there’s a catch. We couldn’t take you all now. One of you must come with us to lodge a formal petition with the government and request permission. That person would need to give our people information on how many you intended to bring into our country, and what sort of skills they would be contributing to Patrian society. Then our people will have to deliberate and decide, but we could push them for a decision within a week, given the precariousness of your situation. No matter what they decide, I promise that when you next see is, it won’t be without the representative you send.”

“You’re in luck that we need males in the population,” Thomas added with a wry smile.

I frowned and gave him a look, uncertain how to interpret that remark. Was he saying that women wouldn’t get in? I wasn’t sure of the numbers offhand, but if they were offering refugee status to our people, the top of my list of applicants consisted of the Paragon-takers we had been supporting. But I didn’t know how many males there were versus females. I narrowed my eyes at him, about to ask.

His sister smacked him again before I could even open my mouth, this time with a slap loud enough that his gasp of pain was believable. “Ouch,” he said, rubbing a spot on his shoulder. “Brat.”

Melissa ignored him. “My brother didn’t mean that as it sounded,” she told us. “All people are welcome. We just have to screen them for any potential threats, and then give cross-cultural training classes to prepare them for Patrian society.” She paused and gave us a small smile. “If you’re interested, of course.”

I considered her offer and didn’t hate it. Our Paragon supply was already waning, having been diluted in our attempt to manufacture more for the people we were supporting, and now that my brother had been added to the list of people who needed it, we would be out sooner rather than later. Jasper had taken a pill to run a chemical analysis on it, to help us get the formula, but he wasn’t awake, and we had no idea when he would be—or if he even still had any analysis he might have run.

Not to mention, I had been wanting to do something to help those people for a long time, and this was an opportunity to actually free them from this life. I had once considered asking them to join in the fight against the legacies, because I needed people I could trust to help us (and dependency bred a form of trust, I supposed), but this solution was far better. And it helped get that particular loose end off my plate, so I could have more worrying time for the other problems.

Maybe it was a little callous of me, but I really could use a break. This seemed like a good one, but it also wasn’t only on me. “Can we have a few minutes to talk about this, please? Alone?” Thomas and Melissa nodded and stood up. I watched them go for a second, and then on impulse asked, “Can you send in my other people while you’re at it? They need to be included in the conversation as well.”

“I can tell you’re used to being in charge,” Thomas said laughingly. “But yes, Your Championess, I will summon your people for you.” He executed a courtly bow while I flushed bright red with embarrassment. I could’ve gotten up and retrieved Quess and my twin myself, but it was habit to ask someone leaving the room to do things for me.

The privilege of power, I supposed. Had to be careful of that in the future if I was going to be dealing with a sovereign ally.

I kind of liked the sound of that, and found myself wondering what the future would hold if I could manage to pull off saving the Tower and eradicating the legacies. There were so many things that I wasn’t certain of, but one thing I did know: the intrusion of Thomas and Melissa had brought a sliver of hope into our lives. We hadn’t had that in a long time… and the future was starting to look brighter by the second.





21





“Hey, so Amberlynn Sassabee is going to be okay,” Quess announced as he entered.

I smiled at his mispronunciation of her name, and automatically corrected him with a soft “Ashabee” directed at him.

“Whatever, her name is a mouthful,” he said, dropping into the chair Thomas had been sitting in just a few moments ago. “So tell me about these aliens. I kept trying to get Helena to talk, but that girl is prickly.” He drew out the last syllable significantly, and I shot him a look.

“I hope you were nice. That was her mother you were working on,” Maddox chided, giving him a significant look. “Also, you’re one to talk, Quessian Brown.”

The look that Quess gave her was two parts smug, one part loving adoration. “Of course I was. My mama raised me right. And hey, ‘Quessian’ is exotic and cool, and brown is the best color in the world. My name rules.”

I rolled my eyes at their antics, but inside I was amused. We were all caught up in the excitement of our secret visitors, and after a long day, it was nice to be able to relax and talk about something that wasn’t legacy-related. Still, I was ever cognizant of the time. Eric was still injured, and now that Amber was stabilized, our new friends needed to leave before anyone inside the Tower took notice of them.

Which meant we had to quickly come to a decision about what to do.

“All right, guys, here’s the deal,” I told them, pausing when I saw that my brother hadn’t sat down yet. In fact, he hadn’t moved from where he had stopped when he first entered the room. “Alex?”

He looked up from the flooring of the cockpit and blinked his eyes at me a few times, as if trying to remember where he was. I shifted in my seat, preparing to get up and go to him, but he shook his head and made a halfhearted attempt to smile. An attempt that was heart-wrenching.

“Sorry,” he said, shuffling over to the other vacant seat and sitting down. “What’s going on?”

“Wait a second,” I said. “I’ve got to get Zoe in on this call.” Zoe knew the Paragon users best. She would be an invaluable source of insight for this conversation.

Leo frowned and shook his head. “That would mean removing your scrambler,” he said.