I yank on my backpack, shaking my head. ‘I’m coming with you. We don’t know how much they know, or what Dax told them. It’s better if we act like we have nothing to hide.’
He frowns, considering. ‘OK, but stay behind me, and get ready to run into the jeep if I tell you to.’
‘So you can what? Blow them up?’
He pulls a shirt on, wincing. ‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Yeah, well, the last time you didn’t share your plans with me, you ended up getting shot.’
He snatches up his gun as the Comox’s blades grow louder. ‘I know, Cat. I screwed this up. You don’t need to remind me.’
I grab a fistful of his shirt as he reaches for the door. ‘No, Cole, this isn’t over. Even if Cartaxus takes us, there might still be a way to release the vaccine, but we need to work together, now more than ever. Please don’t do anything reckless.’
He turns back to me, his eyes unreadable, then throws open the rear doors and launches himself outside. The thumping of the Comox’s blades rises into a roar as I slide from the back of the jeep, one hand over my eyes.
Cole stands like a statue in the middle of the road, staring up at the sky, where a hulking black quadcopter is dropping towards us. It lands with a thud in the middle of the empty, potholed highway, sending up billowing clouds of dust.
I turn my face away, squinting as the side door opens and a metal ramp extends down to the road. I brace for a rush of soldiers, a unit armed to the teeth like the one that stormed the cabin during the outbreak, but the doorway stays empty. The rotors slow, and through the clouds of dust, a single figure jogs down to the ground.
He has sparkling green eyes. Freckled skin and red hair.
‘Hey, Princess,’ Dax says. ‘It’s been a while.’
CHAPTER 17
The world tilts and spins. My backpack slides from my shoulders.
‘Dax,’ I choke out, running to him.
He catches me in his arms and lifts me. His body is trembling, his breathing coming fast and shallow. ‘You’re really here,’ he whispers. ‘You don’t know how happy I am to see you.’
I pull back, half laughing, half crying, wiping my eyes. ‘Dax, look at you! You’re like a different person.’
The man before me isn’t the Dax I remember from our days in the cabin. His ponytail is gone, along with the white streak in his red hair. He now wears it combed back in a sophisticated cut. The soft lines of his face have grown sharp and refined, graced with a single leyline snaking up his neck, terminating at his temple. His body isn’t jacked up like Cole’s. He’s leaner and taller, with the same subtle elegance in his movements that I remember. He wears a black metal cuff over his forearm, covering his panel. It looks like my father’s crypto cuff but has a row of blinking scarlet lights along the side.
‘Catarina, look at you,’ he says, stepping back to look me up and down. ‘You’re all grown up, and you’re positively stunning. Lachlan would be so proud if he could see you now.’
A lump forms in my throat. Hearing Dax say my father’s name hits me harder than I thought it would. It sounds so different from the way Cole says it. So intimate, so raw. Dax loved my father like I did. I have to fight to keep my face straight.
‘Oh, Princess,’ Dax breathes, pulling me back to him. ‘I’m so sorry. You must be devastated.’
‘No, I’m fine.’ I step away, scrubbing at my eyes. ‘I just … I can’t think about it right now.’
‘Of course.’ Dax nods, taking my hand in his. ‘We have a lot of work to do.’
Cole clears his throat conspicuously. His expression is stony, but it breaks into a grin when another figure appears in the quadcopter’s door. It’s a soldier with the same smooth, purposeful movements as Cole, the same leylines traced across his arms and the sides of his face. His silhouette is exactly like Cole’s – ridiculous shoulders, close-cropped hair, even the same tank top and cargo pants – but the details couldn’t be more different. This soldier wears a playful smirk, and his eyes are underlined with a sweep of cobalt shadow. Tattoos of eagles and wolves cover the dark skin of his arms, and his hair is bleached or hacked to a startling white blond.
‘Leoben!’ Cole shouts, laughing. The two men run to each other and hug fiercely. There’s no awkwardness in their movements, no hesitation. Their embrace is deep and real, and a single word springs into my mind as I watch them: brothers.
Cole pulls away, still clutching Leoben’s shoulders. ‘Lee, it’s true. Jun Bei is alive.’
The words burst from Cole with an excitement I haven’t heard from him before. His face is lit up, his eyes shining. The reverence in his voice when he says Jun Bei’s name makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle.
It’s love.
Pure, euphoric, unbridled. The emotion is so clear on Cole’s face that it makes me look away. My chest tightens with something that almost feels like jealousy.
But that would be insane.
‘What?’ Leoben steps back, his eyes growing wide. He balls his hands in fists and lets out a whoop. ‘What did I tell you? She’s invincible, man!’
‘Yeah, I guess she is.’ Cole grins, still shaking with excitement. ‘What the hell are you guys doing here?’
Leoben glances at Dax. ‘We intercepted your beacon and came to save your ugly ass. I’m Dax’s official bodyguard, effective yesterday. He fed them some bullshit about needing to leave, and they sent me out with him.’
I turn to Dax. ‘Cartaxus knows you’re here?’
Dax sweeps the hair back from his forehead. ‘Yes and no. They think I’m here to pick up Lachlan’s notes in case there’s something in there to help with the vaccine.’
‘And they just let you go?’ I thought Dax was a prisoner, that he and my father were being locked up and tortured. But Dax looks healthy and confident, like he’s been living in comfort.
It’s been two years. I haven’t heard anything from him. If Dax could leave whenever he wanted, why didn’t he visit me?
‘Princess,’ Dax says, taking my hands, ‘there’s a lot we need to talk about. You must have a lot of questions, and I do too, but right now we need to focus on unlocking the vaccine. We need your father’s notes – anything he left behind that might be related to decryption.’
I rub my forehead, trying to focus. ‘Yeah, I know. We have all his notes in the jeep, and there was a message in Cole’s panel.’
‘Mine too, and Leoben’s. Your father liked to cover his bases. I take it you were on your way to the lab in Canada?’
I nod, still trying to stop my head from spinning. Dax flew here. He took a Comox. He’s healthy; he looks happy. I spent two years surviving on my own because my father told me it would be safer – that Cartaxus was evil, that they’d hurt me to get to him.
But after seeing the research my father carried out on Cole, I don’t know what to believe any more.
‘We still need a clonebox,’ Cole says. ‘Did you bring one?’
‘Not exactly,’ Dax says. He and Leoben exchange another glance.
Cole stares at them for a second, then steps back, shaking his head. ‘No, absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.’
Leoben grins. ‘But you’ve thought about it.’