Outlier: Rebellion (47 page)

“Too soon, indeed,” he agrees.

That’s not what I meant.
She doesn’t show a bit of her irritation with the ever-smart-mouthed—and alluring—Dran.
He will say and do anything,
she reminds herself.
He is a slum rat, and slum rats would bite through their own ankles if it freed them from a chain.

“Maybe I ought to remind you,” she says, calm as ever, daring herself to say goodbye to his enticing, cruel eyes forever, “that while you take residence here, your life is not your own. At any moment, judgment can change, and the last thing you hear may be my grandfather’s scream.”

He only smiles. “And if I’m lucky, the last thing I hear will be yours … while I’m fucking you.”

Ruena turns, fist-balled, and makes her way down the long hall before daring to show that slum rat her anger.
He’ll see it soon enough.
She finds the trembling guard right where she’d left him. He asks her if she’s alright and she slaps him so hard, a spray of sparks fly from his cheek. The elevator makes a gentle hum as the doors close behind them.

00
48
Athan

When they pass through the darkened stockroom of the armory, Athan has another one of his urges. The armor. What about the armor?
We won’t make it to the subterranean with Tide glowing like that.
They need a brilliant disguise. Athan finds himself running hands along the smooth chests of platemail. The idea is slow to form, but when it does, it sets his eyes on fire. “Tide!”

Wick and Tide turn at Athan’s outburst. Victra and Rone pay no mind, having stopped at the other end of the room to discuss their next move for phasing.

“Here.” Athan tugs on the platemail. “Put this on.”

Tide scoffs, making a sneer of his face. “You dumb? That’s not hiding my glow.”

“Exactly. Why cover the glow? Embrace it.”

It takes a bit more convincing, but with Rone and his lady bickering and Wick tiredly watching, Athan coaxes Tide into a chest of shiny plate armor, as most of the glow is on his torso. The mail shimmers even in the pale light coming from the horizontal slits of windows at the top of the walls. Tide’s movement is now noisy and his footfalls as subtle as a brick to the head, granted, but what the suit of armor does to his glow is nothing short of genius. Athan is certain his idea will work.

“How’s it fit?” he asks.

“Like a fucking bra.” He pulls on it, squirming and grunting, but the plate holds firm. The glow on his upper and lower back seem to become a part of the armor, a blend of light and sheen. “It’s uncomfortable.”

“Fuck your comfort,” says Wick, giving the bottom of the chest piece a tug. “He’ll need plate for his bottom half. They got him in the ass, too.”

“What??” Tide twists in a sad attempt to look for himself, but he’s too big and there’s no mirror. He makes an attempt on the shiny surface of another hanging bit of armor. “What the—?? Huh? Where??”

“It really works.” Athan grins. He’s found the perfect solution for Tide. They can advance in a better peace now … provided that Guardian isn’t keen enough to recognize Athan Broadmore of Broadmore Manor, even with his hair changed blue. “You look strong in it. Proud and strong.” Athan turns to Wick, feeling proud and strong himself. “Doesn’t he?”

Tide’s eyes narrow. “I know how I look. Armor doesn’t suit me.” He gives his chest another tug and a grunt. “Take it off. Unbuckle it.”

“It doesn’t buckle,” Athan corrects him. “It’s tied, like your name. Tide. Hah. Hey, you don’t need to wear those extra clothes now. That ought to give you more comfort.”

“Trying to get my clothes off me?” Tide gives a snort, turns his dark eyes on Wick. “You heard it. Your man’s trying to get me out of my clothes.”

Wick breaks a smile, shakes his head. “Big, whiny, and mean isn’t Athan’s type of guy, I should hope I know.”

Athan beams, looking on Wick’s face, studying his lips as he speaks.
I just can’t control myself,
he decides, imagining how good it’d feel to shut out everything that’s going on, tear off their clothes, and throw themselves into the piles of plate and metal and reintroduce their tongues to one another, as if for the first time.
Whenever we pull apart, I’m always seconds later forgetting how you taste and wanting a hundred more reminders.
Just with the thought, he feels himself stiffening in his pants. Wick seems to notice the attention because suddenly they’re looking at each other, and the tiniest of a smile tickles their faces.

But an armory is not the best place for climbing one another’s bodies, especially with present company considered. The desire makes the urgency of getting back to the Rain headquarters all the more pressing. A mission for Wick’s lips, that’s what this becomes.

Tide returns to his makeshift reflective surface, the smooth backplate of another armor, and fusses with his own while Athan looks for more mail to cover the length of Tide’s giant thighs. Athan makes a laugh, returning to fix the mail to the big, whiny, mean boy, when he notices Wick sitting on the floor opposite him, his eyes strained and tired. The look in Wick’s eyes puts an end to Athan’s laughter, and he’s reminded once more that this is not a fun-filled adventure meant to entertain him. This isn’t the Lifted City. Consequences here are not a stern look from mother, or laughter at a party; it is imminent death.

As he stares at Wick, he remembers a conversation they had before leaving the last location. “What do you expect to come of us?” his slum boy had asked him. “If we are being honest, when you are finally found, what’s going to happen to us?” Athan couldn’t stand to hear another second of it—instantly, his heart was choked by thoughts of his ice queen mother, of his droopy-eyed sister, of his stone-jawed father—and he gripped his slum boy by both shoulders and responded, “I hope I’m never found.” He pushed his face into Wick’s, their mouths opening on each other. The warmth rushed up his body, met him at his mouth and his throat and his eyes. Tears in them, he let go to say, “I’ll be lost here with you. Please, I beg it. Lost down here for the rest of my life.” Their faces crashed together again at that point, and Athan considered that, in truth, his heart had been lost already to the slums for years, even from his Lifted City home.
I’d dreamed this and now I am that dream.

Thinking of himself as a dream draws him back into the moment when he came into the building Tide and Wick were held up in, Victra leading the way with her sight—namely, Tide staring dumbfounded at Wick—and Rone phasing them through walls. When they saw Wick on that high-up floor, sleeping, Athan found his chest locked up with so many emotions all at once, he could not breathe. Perhaps that was the others’ reactions too, because it felt like all the breath in the room was held. Rone was convinced that Wick was dead, but Tide pointed out his breathing. Nothing seemed to stir him, and that’s when Victra plunged into his eyes for a clue. Athan only stood there, choked up and scared.

He’s a dreamer,
he thought later when Wick was finally made awake again.
He’s the
real
sort of dreamer.
Not the kind who stare out bathroom windows in the Lifted City, contemplating the purpose of life and the nature of contentment. Not the kind who hang over the balconies of Lifted City Gardens, dropping coin into the slums below …
I thought I knew plenty of dreams and of dreaming and of escaping my life.
He never realized how so very little he knew, staring at Wick and his closed eyes. He never looked so strange …

He never looked so beautiful.

When Rone and Victra rejoin the three of them, Rone looks Tide up and down. “Now that’s an idea. I didn’t know you had it in you, wind-pusher.”

Wick slaps a hand on Athan’s shoulder. “Sanctum boy’s idea, actually.” Athan feels a rush of pride. He loves the contact of hand, even to his shoulder. He dares his arm around Wick’s waist, pulls him in with a broad smile, flashing his teeth. “The armor’s a bit purple now. But it could be mirror-mail. Or fit with electrodes.”

“Yeah, okay.” Tide grunts, giving his legs a lift one at a time. “I can deal with that. Fuck it. Let Guardian mess with me. If they so much as touch my shoulder plate, my wind will choke them.” Just at that word, the air in the room seems to shift for a second.

“We have an opening, turns out. But it’ll require a quickness.” Rone gives them each a lift of his brow. “Better we get ourselves down the back alleys and on the way now. The subterranean isn’t far off and home not much more.”

Tide moves ahead, complaining how heavy the leg plates are, while Wick moves on to taunt him, Rone phasing them through the wall one at a time. When only Victra and Athan remain, she turns back to him and destroys his smile by saying, “Have all your fun with little Wicky now, because in the end, what you are is what you are, and that is
not
one of us.”

Athan frowns. “But … what do you mean? I
am
one of you. I’ve cooperated. I’ve
contributed
. I’ve even—”

“You’re a Lifted. You’re a Privileged. You’re a rich boy, a spoiled boy, smeared with means and riches and happiness beyond any of our wildest dreams.” Rone’s hand reaches through the wall, searching for hers. “You might fool little Wicky, but you don’t fool me. I trust nothing from the sky, not since my sister, not since Rone’s dad, not since the hundreds of atrocities you people commit that go unpunished.” The hand reaches and reaches, beckoning. “I am, have been, and will always watch you with more than just my other vision. If you dare do anything to compromise the safety of my friends, horny boy-driven Wicky included, I will end your little Lifted life. I promise you that. And I have to this day kept every one of my promises.” Her eyes quiver something deadly. “Have we an understanding?”

Athan nods.

Victra takes hold of the hand, her body shimmering transparently, and then she’s through the wall like a mist, gone. Only Athan remains in the dark of the storeroom, her last words sitting heavy in his chest.
I don’t belong,
he tells himself. He already knew it. He’s always known it.
I don’t belong here. These people don’t love me.
Except for Wick, maybe, but perhaps it is because Wick doesn’t know better. He is an innocent party. In much the same way that Athan so innocently loved and reached for and longed for the slums … When at last he’s become a part of it, he realized instantly it was a mistake. The slums bore little love for him, trying at every turn to send him back. Even on his first day, he knew it.
They don’t love me.

Rone’s long bronze hand comes through the wall once more. Athan considers for one wild second not taking it.
I could go upstairs, let myself out of this storeroom and find the manager of this armory. I could turn myself in, send myself home right now.
It is so easy. It could be so, so easy. But can he really do that to Wick?
I might be doing him more harm by staying. Victra said it.
And for as cruel as she can sometimes seem, it doesn’t make her any less right.
Still …

Athan grips the hand.

00
49
Cintha

She shouldn’t be down here, but she is. The cellar is cold as a walk-in fridge and the only sound is a gentle hum from the water heater, or the breaker boxes, or some beast living in the walls.

Cintha turns her eyes to the thick, ugly metal door.

He’s not a beast,
she thinks, so afraid she can’t stop shaking. Or shivering, it’s all the same.
He’s only a boy, just like my brother. Just like Wick or Athan. And they are not scary. He’s only a boy with a Legacy.

He’s only an Outlier.

With a bowl in one hand, she reaches for the door. The handle is too cold to touch without wincing in pain. She yanks the heavy thing open anyway, giving a little grunt.

Her eyes find him instantly, as though he were the only thing in the room. His oily forever-eyes, emotionless, harsh, dead. His skin so pale it’s not there. She pretends there is no cage holding him. Neither is there a door to that cage. Nor the thickest chains she’s ever seen binding his hands to his chest and his neck to the wall and his legs to the floor, chains thick enough to hold down a beast ten times his size.
He’s not a beast.

She balances the bowl in her hand—the bowl she’d brought down from the kitchens—and coaxes herself into the room.
Thank the Sisters for this bowl, it’s the only warm thing down here.
Letting the door stay open, she steps toward the cage. He watches her with every step. She dares to let herself into the cage, ignoring the mist that hovers in front of her face, the mist of her own lung’s breath.

He still watches her. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t blink. It’s possible he doesn’t even breathe.

“I’m Cintha,” she says. “But maybe you already know that.”

For a moment, she feels really stupid. She feels like she should be letting the others feed him. It’s been Juston most of the time, or so she thinks. She saw him down here once, but maybe they take it in shifts. Yes, perhaps that’s it. And this is her shift. That’s all this is. It’s just her turn to feed the … Weapon.

“You have a name,” she says, suddenly upset about the fact that everyone calls him Weapon
,
including herself. No one should be a
thing
. No one should be a
tool
, whether for Sanctum or Rain.
He’s a human being first.
“Please tell me your name.”