Frozen (27 page)

Clipper is conscious again, clutching Sammy’s hand beside me. He keeps making these horrible noises, gasps of pain so unbearable I wish a bomb could go off and temporarily deafen me again. The boy’s face looks hopeless. Like he just wants it to be over.

I press my head against the window and will the pain to pass. The pain in my leg, my chest, my mind. I start drifting in and out of consciousness, reality and dreams blending.

I see the Forged version of Emma in the clouds, her jacket dripping with blood.
You have to wonder
about that day you found Emma with Craw,
she says.
Was it really her? Or was it me? Is your Emma even alive?
She giggles lightly, and carries on in a singsong manner.
I won’t tell. Never. Not ever.

But I already know. I don’t want to admit it, but I know it was my Emma, the
real
Emma, that day in Taem. I was disguised as Blaine, and yet she touched my face and knew it was me. She was crying, full of emotion. And I screwed everything up by not taking her with me right then. I bet Frank even saw that reunion—his cameras are everywhere. By the time I returned for Emma, he knew the truth: that I was Gray, not Blaine. That I’d take Emma back to Crevice Valley with me. That he could plant a spy right into my eager, outstretched hands.

So clever,
Emma sings among the clouds
. Only it’s too late. Far, far too late.

Bree’s voice in the distance: “Keep your eyes open, Gray.”

But Emma is morphing into the girl from Burg’s tunnels.
My children ain’t old ’nuff to die,
she says.
Nobody here asked fer this and ya brought the Reapers right to our door
.

I blink and she’s Xavier, a hole clear through his skull.
You pushed Emma too hard
.
You didn’t think she’d do it, and now look. Look!

But I can’t, and when I don’t, there’s Jackson, a line of ragged red across his neck—
Some ally you are
—and Bo—
I was finally out, finally free. It wasn’t supposed to end like this
.

The world shrinks, narrowing like I’ve set foot in a tunnel. Bree’s hand is in mine. I feel her fingers, miles away, but squeezing. No words, just a reassuring grip. My vision steadies slightly as the helicopter greets land.

I’m off the vehicle somehow, an arm wrapped behind Bree’s neck. We’re moving, but she’s doing most of the work. There’s a squat white building ahead. And a woman with auburn curls, running to meet us.

The ground shifts beneath me. It happens slowly, like I’m suspended in time. I turn to Bree because I want to warn her of what’s coming, but I manage to say only her name before collapsing in the snow.

I wake in a foreign bed, feeling thirsty and downright exhausted. Bree is asleep in a chair beside me, one hand resting on the mattress near mine, almost as if our fingers were laced together before she drifted off.

By the look of the place, we’re in an average home. The bedroom’s walls are a dusty peach, the windows dressed with curtains so thin the first light of dawn filters through them. There is a nightstand beside the bed, a glass of water sitting on its worn surface. I grab the drink and down it in several gulps. The liquid sloshes in my stomach, which has been empty for too long.

Gritting my teeth, I sit and push back the sheets. The leg of my pants has been cut off high around my injured thigh, the wound seen to and bandaged. I climb out of bed. Putting weight on my leg is unpleasant, but I manage.

It’s not until I’m standing, bracing against the steady ebb of pain, that I notice how small and vulnerable Bree looks. I haven’t seen her sleeping before, not in such clarity, and now the morning light is basking over her and all I can see is this calm, peaceful girl, so different from the one I usually face. Her forehead is smooth because she’s not scowling it full of wrinkles. Her eyebrows arch elegantly; her lips part with grace. Everything about her is softer when she dreams. I feel like I’m witnessing some great secret, seeing this gentle side she never shows the world.

She flinches; makes a small, tiny sigh. She’s going to wake with a horrible pain in her neck if she stays in the chair, so I lift her and transfer her onto the bed.

“Gray?” she murmurs. She’s still dreaming and my name comes out tinged with panic, like she might be having a nightmare. She’s even scowling now.

“I’m here,” I tell her. “I’m here and we’re fine.”

Her lips twitch into a smile and her face goes still, like the dream has steadied.

And in that moment I forget everything she said to me below Burg, because this is what I want: to make her fears melt away. To calm her and steady her and to simply be there when she needs me. Always.

I watch a few strands of blond hair flutter in rhythm with Bree’s exhales. I know I should go find the team, but all I want to do is climb into the bed. I want to fall asleep with Bree’s back against my chest and my arm around her waist, because if we’re together we’ll be okay. I’ve known her barely five months, but it feels years longer. When I wasn’t looking, she became my second half, and now the thought of braving the storm raging around us seems impossible if I have to do it alone. Truthfully, the thought of braving anything without her seems utterly absurd.

She was right. About us. About the fact that I was fighting it. Why does she always have to be right?

I put a hand on her shoulder, but I don’t wake her. I don’t know how to even begin to apologize.
I was wrong about everything . . . I do need you, us, the fire, to be scared and challenged and pushed . . . I was wrong and I’m sorry.

None of it seems like enough.

So I kiss her forehead, tuck the blanket beneath her chin, and leave to find the others.

THIRTY-SIX

THE AMWEST WOMAN IS WAITING
when I step into the hall. She introduces herself as Heidi and tells me Clipper’s injuries have been seen to and that he and the rest of the team are sleeping. I ask to see them, and she insists Adam needs to talk to me first. When I press the issue she tosses around words like
urgent
and
imperative
, so I reluctantly follow her.

We head through a sitting room littered with books and plush couches, a kitchen that smells of warm bread and soup, and down a flight of stairs before finally entering a large, windowless room. It’s packed with computers and displays and other devices I’m sure Clipper would know how to use blindfolded. Adam is standing in the center with his back to us, talking to the woman I remember rushing to greet the helicopter before I passed out last night. Her curls are pulled back and her freckle-covered cheeks are flushed.

“Sylvia,” Heidi says to the woman. It’s a dismissal of sorts, because Sylvia leaves, followed by Heidi, and then it’s just me and Adam.

He sits in a chair, drinks from a glass on the table, and then leans back, arms hooked behind his head.

“How’s the leg, Gray?”

“How’d you know my—”

“Bree told us. Then proceeded to order us around like she owned this place, made sure you and Clipper were seen to, requested food and drink for your team.” His eyebrows flick skyward. “Quite a girl.”

I smile, feeling proud—of Bree,
for
Bree.

“I never thanked you for helping us,” I say. “Earlier, with the Order. And here. Wherever here is.”

“I owe you thanks for sending that call as much as you owe me one for answering it. What happened in Burg benefited us both. As for the state of your team, that was all Sylvia and her husband. They man this refuge.”

I eye the displays on the wall behind him.
Refuge
. A home filled with a bit of everything—medics, computers, extra beds for the Expat in need.

“How’d things turn out in Burg?”

Adam’s face hardens. “I’d told my pilots to eliminate the Order at all costs, and the results weren’t pretty. I didn’t know there were civilians fighting on the ground, or living beneath all those buildings. We only managed to save about half of them.”

I’m not quick enough to keep the horror from showing on my face.

“But the Order was annihilated, and we cleared out before additional forces arrived,” Adam says. “Plus, the remaining Burg survivors were ushered west to Expat safe houses. That’s success in my book.”

“But all those other people. Dead. Because I called you. Because we—”

“A person can go crazy thinking like that, and sacrifices must be made in battles like this. Besides, do you think all the Order members my men killed in the process of saving yours deserved to die? Could it be possible that some of them are blinded by Frank? Think they are doing good? Willing to change if they were shown the error of their ways? Perhaps, but I gave orders to eliminate them, no questions asked.”

I pull up a chair and join Adam because the thought that Burg is destroyed, and so many people dead, has made my feet weary.

“Humans are complex creatures,” Adam adds. “We are not all good or all bad. We are shades. Many, many shades. Surely you understand this, Gray, with a name like yours.”

I do. Practically everyone I’ve met these last few weeks has been fueled by complex motives: Jackson, Titus, Bleak. Not to mention the fact that I’m the biggest contradiction of all. I killed a version of my own brother in order to save what I thought was Emma. I took advantage of a relationship with Bree in the hopes of repairing a childhood one. I treated Jackson as less than human because I assumed him a threat, and I left so many people in Burg to die. I tossed aside hundreds of lives to save the handful I knew.

“More sacrifices will likely be made in the process, but setting things right, removing Frank from power—
that
is an act that needs to happen,” Adam says. “So how about you put me in touch with your leader back east?”

Even with all the gear filling the room, I know only one way of reaching Crevice Valley.

“I can’t do it. But Clipper probably can.”

“I thought that might be the case.”

Just then, Heidi appears with Clipper in tow. His bad arm is in a sling, his shoulder heavily bandaged. He takes the room in slowly, gazing over the equipment before finally making eye contact with me.

“What’s going on?”

“You’re getting us in touch with Ryder,” I say.

He grins, pulls a chair up to one of the computers, and is in his element.

Seeing Ryder’s face come up on the display, knowing that Crevice Valley still stands, is an immense relief.

I give Ryder a quick rundown of the team’s current status. Despite Emma’s betrayal, Ryder explains that Order activity in the forest has been no better or worse than usual. Much of Crevice Valley’s electronic equipment would have produced magnetic fields interfering with Emma’s tracking device, and Ryder claims Harvey had even set up some gear to scramble signals at a distance—near the interrogation center and beyond—as additional precautions. I smile, recalling something Bree said to me once about the Rebels having defenses even if they couldn’t be seen.

“I want to talk with Adam,” Ryder says. “Alone.”

I can tell arguing will be futile, so I head into the hallway.

“What are they going on about?” Clipper asks.

I slide to the floor, back against the wall opposite him. “I wish I knew. How’s your arm?”

He shrugs. “Sylvia said some of the metal will be in me for life, but I’ll be fine.”

I want to tell him that he did well and I’m proud of him, but it all sounds so lame in my head.

“I’ve been thinking about that Forgery of Emma,” he says. “She took care of Aiden so genuinely. Rusty never seemed to suspect her the way he did Jackson and Blaine. She even feared the two of them initially, just like us, and when she
did
spot them for what they were, she stayed quiet. She sold them out only when it benefited her most. It’s like she was on another level. Like she was one of those newer models—like your Forgery.”

“She
was
. She told me so right before she shot Xavier.” I pause for a moment, staring at my feet. “It scares me how convincing these newer ones are. And how they can’t be reasoned with. This changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Clipper says. “And no. We just stay vigilant. Trust our instincts. Work together. That’s what Harvey would do.”

“How old are you again?”

He breaks into a wide smile and it’s when his teeth show—unruly and proud—that he actually looks his age. In a flash, the smile is gone, replaced with a look of horror.

“Harvey tested everyone who walked into Crevice Valley, but Emma was the first to arrive after his death and I only clipped her,” he says. “In a way, this is all my fault.”

“You can’t think like that. It’s no
one
person’s fault. I brought her back, after all.”

He eyes the stairwell, looking unconvinced. “Yell for me if they need anything else, okay? I’m tired.”

I nod and he’s gone, taking his guilt with him. Muffled voices still converse from behind the door. And I’m just sitting here. Waiting. Clueless.

How can Ryder kick me out of a meeting like this? Be so focused on business and alliances? He didn’t even flinch when I listed my father, Bo, and Xavier as deceased. I wonder, suddenly, if Ryder is numb with shock. He was best friends with Bo—practically brothers.

And then my chest flares because I realize if Adam is talking to Ryder, back in Crevice Valley, I can talk to Blaine. Everything else becomes unimportant. I jump to my feet. The door is pulled open before I get to it and Adam steps into the hall.

“He wants to talk to you again.”

I slip past him. Ryder is still on the display, rubbing his eyes like he desperately needs sleep. I don’t bother with greetings.

“Is Blaine there? Can I talk to him?”

Ryder looks up and sighs. “That’s not what’s most important right now.”

“Not important?” I erupt.

“Gray—”

“No. Don’t you dare tell me what’s important when I hiked across this damn country only to lose half the people I love. My father is dead, Ryder. He’s dead! Bo and Xavier, too. Oh, and Emma? I don’t even know if she’s alive, and that’s almost worse than the alternative. So excuse me for wanting to talk to my brother. I’m so sorry I’m not focused on the right things after this stupid,
wasted
mission!”