Numbers Ignite (33 page)

Treena let out a sob when we broke apart. I turned slowly toward the man. A cold barrel was shoved in my face, just inches away from my eyes. Mills was determined not to miss.

“That’s why you took Rutner out,” I said. “He wouldn’t have allowed the Chinese to take over. You’ve betrayed everyone.”

“In aligning with the ECA, I’ve only saved their blasted lives,” Mills snapped. “They wanted to kill us all. I talked them into letting us be a part of what they’re doing. You’ve done nothing but get in the way.” He shoved the pistol even closer to my nose.

My father was no fool. He’d taught me defensive techniques when I was five years old. Mills’s paranoid fear had brought his weapon close enough for me to reach, even with my wrists locked.

I brought my hands up on either side of the pistol, flicking the weapon to the side just as it discharged. The shot was deafening, and for a moment I thought the bullet had slammed into me after all, but it went wide behind me as the weapon flew from his hand and clattered to the dirt. My would-be executioner growled again and stepped to retrieve it.

I leaped at Mills and threw him to the ground, wishing my arms were free to pummel him like I’d wanted to do for weeks. Instead, I tightened my hands around his throat. He grabbed at my arms and bucked me to the side, forcing me to pull my hands away to catch my fall.

A dark shadow fell across the crowd, and the audience began screaming and shoving past each other. I looked up to see two dozen shiny choppers descending overhead. I knew exactly what those choppers were. I’d spent endless hours inside them, looking down up on the world below. Still, it was an ominous sight.

NORA had arrived.

The choppers came down like a cloud of reflective metal, one after the other. I lost count at twenty-three. It must have been every chopper NORA owned, and I was willing to bet they’d packed them full of soldiers.

“Come on,” Vance said as he pulled me toward the edge of the platform and eased himself down. I leaped after him, scanning the clearing for some kind of shelter. Nothing. We were completely exposed, and NORA probably knew it.

Some of the Chinese soldiers aimed their weapons upward and began to shoot. The metal choppers hummed and crackled with electricity, but they didn’t stop descending. In seconds the doors opened and soldiers in silver NORA uniforms streamed out, jumping with parachutes, shooting as they floated to the ground. Their weapons made no sound, but the Asian soldiers began to fall. Ju-Long yelled a command, and then every weapon in the crowd was turned toward the oncoming soldiers.

The first line of NORA soldiers went down in seconds, some even before they landed, and began thrashing on the ground. With the Asian soldiers’ attention drawn elsewhere, the crowd’s frenzy rose to another level as people screamed and ran. Some of the settlers got caught in the crossfire. They jerked and then fell. Some thrashed before they died; others simply stopped moving.

“Vance!” a voice called out.

I focused on a woman fighting her way to the front. Vance opened his arms to her, and they embraced. She had the same strong jaw and coloring he did, but her eyes were hard. She pulled away and turned to his cuffs, swiping something over the lock. The cuffs fell away. Vance immediately rubbed his wrists.

“The Chinese will call in reinforcements,” she said. “We have to close the tunnel quickly.”

“Tell me where it is.”

She nodded. “I’ll take you there.”

“No, Mom. It’ll be dangerous.”

His mother looked him right in the eye. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

Vance looked as if he wanted to argue, but instead he clamped his mouth shut. He bent down and retrieved a rifle from a downed settler’s hand and then turned to face me. “Will you be all right, Treena?”

“I’ll come and help.”

“I’m not sure why NORA’s here,” Vance said, “but I’d guess it has something to do with you. Maybe you can stop them from hurting the settlers. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Be careful,” I said.

He pulled me in close and kissed me. “You too.” Then he walked away with his mother.

“Is she the one you went back for a few weeks ago?” she asked him as they left.

I strained but couldn’t hear his answer. I turned back to the horrible scene before me, wondering what Vance expected me to do. Asians and NORA soldiers alike aimed and shot at each other as the lines clashed, then began grappling. There were far more NORA soldiers on the ground than Asians, and far too many settlers. Definitely not a good start to this battle.

I headed toward a downed NORA soldier, intending to take her stunner. But the moment I stepped around the platform, I stumbled over someone’s leg. Mills sat there, huddled over his pistol, putting in a new cartridge.

He glared at me. “Should’ve put a bullet in you first.”

“That’s almost exactly what the empress said,” I replied and kicked at his hand. The cartridge flew across the ground and skidded under the platform.

Mills leaped to his feet, threw the pistol aside, and came at me, hands extended like he wanted to strangle me. The kindness of that first conversation with him, when he’d asked me to help lead the resistance, was completely gone now.

I ducked out his way and threw a punch to his solar plexus. Unable to dodge it, he doubled over with a groan. His hate-filled eyes bored into me. I backed away, fists up.

“Jasper said you have a questionable past,” I said, wondering what had become of my biological father. If only I’d thought to ask about Mills when I had the chance. “If you’ve been out here all this time, how does Jasper even know you?”

He straightened, holding his stomach. “After NORA integrated me, I worked for the empress as an assassin. Took down her competitors one by one with poisoned pills. I failed to cover my tracks one time, just one, and a few people found out. Jasper was one of them. Instead of admitting her part in it, Vallorah tossed me outside the wall, just like that. No supplies, nothing. I couldn’t go back to my people after so long, not after all the things I’d done. So I came here and challenged the governor.”

“You couldn’t face the fact that you were a murderer, so you tried to murder more people instead?” I snickered. “Yeah, that makes total sense.”

He growled and lunged at me. I stepped aside easily and met him with an elbow to the temple. As he recoiled, I put him in a headlock. He thrashed, trying to get free, and I tightened my arms around his throat. He froze.

“Well, congratulations,” I told him. “You’ve officially failed to protect your own people.”

“I’d let go if I were you,” Ju-Long said from above us on the platform. He held one of their stunners, a long, slender plastic device. I released Mills’s arm and took a step back, arms up.

But instead of shooting me, Ju-Long aimed it at Mills. “Our location has been compromised. It seems all this was a waste of time and resources. Consider our agreement invalidated.”

Mills’s eyes widened, and he started to speak, but it was too late. There was no blast, just a faint buzz, and Mills began to flail around on the ground, his body spasming uncontrollably. A few seconds later the buzzing stopped, and he lay on his back, one arm bent unnaturally underneath him, facing the sky full of NORA choppers. He let out a long, silent breath and then was still.

The weapon turned on me.

I took off running, ducking behind NORA soldiers and settlers. Ju-Long cursed, but if he shot at me, I didn’t feel anything. I pushed through the thinning crowd and hid behind a building, then peered out. Ju-Long turned toward the side of the mountain and looked upward, studying it for a moment. Then he strode up the trail in the direction Vance and his mother had gone.

Fates. There was no way to warn Vance and his mother Ju-Long was on his way, and I had no weapon. Maybe if I followed him quietly enough…

A woman passed him on the trail, headed downward, and then hesitated when she saw the fighting. A man pulled up behind her, and then several other people, some holding children.

The underground settlers had arrived—and they were walking right into a bloodbath.

I caught a glimpse of Mandie through the crowd, still carrying her violin case. She stared in horror at the scene, then tripped and fell, rolling several feet toward the action. Her violin case slid even farther.

I sprinted toward her. “Mandie!”

The settlers saw me and stared in surprise but didn’t notice the girl at their feet. When I reached her, she looked dazed. I pulled her aside and set her back onto her feet. “Mandie,” I gasped. “Are you okay?”

“What’s going on?” she asked, her face white. A woman stiffened just behind her and crumpled to the ground. It sent the settlers into a panic. They began running back up the trail, yelling and screaming.

“We have to get you away from the fighting,” I told Mandie over the noise. She scrambled to grab her violin case. I grabbed her elbow and began dragging her back up the trail.

“What’s going on?” one of the underground settlers demanded. It was the elder who had thrown me out days before. “Those are NORA helicopters!”

“This isn’t your fight,” I told him. “They don’t even know you’re here. Duck into buildings and hide wherever you can. If you see any stunners on the way, grab them. You’ll need weapons if we’re going to get your group out of here.”

The settlers had quieted a bit, but now they just looked at each other.

“What?” I asked.

Coltrane pushed his way to the front, his face grim. “We won’t be stealing weapons, Amy. We refuse to compromise the pact. But don’t assume that being without weapons means we’re defenseless.” He locked eyes with a few of the men, and they nodded.

“You take our families up,” the elder man said to me. “We’ll cover your backs.”

I felt sick. “Fair enough. Those with defenses can stay. The rest of you—we’ll move as a group, the children on the inside.” I paused and looked around. “Where’s Ruby?”

“She’s sick,” Mandie said beside me, still clutching her violin case. “Ruby is still at the landing pad near the rim, resting. Maxim and my mom stayed with her until we could come back with a stretcher. But then all those helicopters came down.”

“Fine.” There was no time to get her now, but she was probably safer up there anyway. “Hurry, Mandie. Can you run?”

She nodded, then took a quick look behind us as we rounded the first switchback. The inventors below had already leaped into action, pulling out their projects and setting them up. Coltrane knelt on the ground, rummaging through his pack. There were only a few dozen defenders, unarmed yet determined to keep the soldiers from following us. I hoped it wasn’t necessary.

The trip up the trail seemed to last days. I strode quickly, scanning the buildings above for the most protection. Looking at the families panting behind me, I couldn’t help but remember that awful night in NORA. I had led people then, too, and it hadn’t ended well. They had trusted me to make their lives better. Instead they’d lost their lives altogether. And then I’d left their families and friends to pick up the pieces alone.

These settlers had no homes, no weapons, and no future. They had blindly followed me here for the promise of a better life, and this was their reward. If they hadn’t hated me before this, they definitely had cause to hate me now.

But, no. That wasn’t true. Coltrane and his comrades had delivered their families to me, trusting that I could protect them. I steeled my resolve. The best thing—the
only
thing—I could do for them was take care of their loved ones. If I was all that stood between them and NORA, so be it.