Blood erupts from Sevro’s chest. Spraying my face. He stumbles. Drops his razor. Collapses to his knees, gasping in shock. I rush to him under the muzzle of Cassius’s smoking weapon. Sevro’s grasping at his chest, confused. Blood dribbles from his mouth. Bubbling out through his vest, staining my hands. He coughs it onto me. He’s desperate to rise. To laugh it off. But nothing’s working. His arms tremble. His breath ragged. Eyes huge, fear wild and deep and primal in him as Antonia cackles in delight from her cell.
“Don’t die,” I say frantically. “Don’t die. Sevro.” He shivers in my arms. “Sevro. Please. Please. Stay alive. Please. Sevro…” Without a final word, without a plea or a flicker of personality, he goes still, leaking red. Pulse fading away as tears stream down my face and Antonia howls in mockery.
I cry out in horror.
At the bleak evil I feel in the world.
Rocking there on the floor with my best friend.
Overwhelmed by this darkness and the hate and the helplessness.
Cassius stares pitilessly down at me.
“Reap what you sow,” he says.
I rise with a horrible sob. He strikes me in the side of the head with the scorcher. I don’t go down. I take the blow and pull my razor. But he hits me twice more and I fall. He takes my razor from me, holding it to Mustang’s throat as she tries to rise. He points the gun at my forehead as I look up at him and is about to pull the trigger.
“The Sovereign will want him alive!” Mustang says.
“Yes.” Cassius replies quietly, overcoming his anger. “Yes you’re right. So she can peel him apart till you tell us your battle plans.”
“Cassius, get me out of this damn cell,” Antonia hisses.
Cassius moves Sevro’s body over with his foot and pulls out the passcard to open her door. When Antonia exits her cell, she does so like a queen. Prisoner slippers making little tracks in Sevro’s fresh blood. She knees Mustang in the face. Mustang goes down. My own vision wavers in and out. Nausea in my gut from a concussion. Warmth from Sevro’s blood leaking through my shirt along the belly. Antonia sighs above me. “Ugh. The Goblin’s still leaking everywhere.”
“Guard them and get their datapads,” Cassius orders. “We need a map.”
“Where are you going?”
“Getting manacles.” He tosses her the scorcher.
As he disappears around the corner, Antonia crouches over me, considering. She pushes the gun against my lips. “Open.” She punches my testicles. “Open.” Eyes rolling in pain, I open my mouth. She shoves the scorcher barrel inside. The alien metal presses against the back of my throat. Teeth scrape along the black steel. I gag. Feel bile coming up. She stares me hatefully in the eyes, crouched over my head, the barrel down my throat as my body convulses, only pulling it out as I vomit on the ground. “Worm.”
She spits on me and takes our datapads and razors, tossing Sevro’s to Cassius when he returns from the guard station. They fit me in a prisoner harness, a metallic muzzle-and-vest combination that interlocks the arms and pins them to my chest so that my fingers are touching the opposite shoulder, and dump me into the container we brought for him, forcing my knees to bend so I fit. I am unable to arrest my fall with my hands, and my head slams on the plastic at the bottom. Then they pile Sevro and Mustang in atop me like garbage and slam shut the crate. Sevro’s blood drips down my face. My own leaks from the gash on the side of my head. Too dazed to weep or move.
“Darrow…” Mustang murmurs. “Are you all right?”
I don’t answer her.
“You find a map?” I hear Cassius ask Antonia through the crate.
“And a jammer for cameras,” she says. “I’ll push. You range, if you can manage.”
“I can manage. Let’s go.”
The jammer pops and the gravRig moves, taking us along with them. If Sevro and Mustang were not atop me, I could crouch and put my back into the lid, but their weight pins me down in the small container. It’s hot. Smells like sweat. Hard to breathe. I’m helpless in here. Unable to stop them as they use the path I cleared for Cassius. Unable to stop them as they push us across the deserted hangar, up the ramp into the ship and begin preflight checks. “Shuttle S-129, you are clear for departure, stand by for pulseShield deactivation,” the flight officer says over the com from the distant bridge as the engines prime. “You are go for launch.”
Out from the belly of the war ship, my enemies smuggle me away from the comfort of my friends, the safety of my people, and the might of my army as it prepares for war. I hold my breath, expecting Orion’s voice to come over the com. To ground the ship. For ripWings to shoot her engines out. None do. Somewhere, my mother will be making tea, wondering where I am, if I am safe. I pray she cannot feel this pain across the void, this fear that consumes me despite all my vaunted strength and foolish bluster. I’m afraid, despite what I know. Not just for myself, but for Mustang.
I hear Antonia and Cassius speaking beyond the crate. Cassius has broadcast an emergency signal from the craft. A few moments later, a cold voice crackles over the com.
“ Sarpedon shuttle, this is the LDC assault-runner Kronos; you have transmitted an Olympic distress signal. Please identify yourself.”
“ Kronos, this is the Morning Knight. Clearance code 7-8-7-Echo-Alpha-9-1-2-2-7. I have escaped from imprisonment aboard the enemy’s flagship and am requesting escort and docking clearance. Antonia au Severus-Julii is with me. We have valuable cargo. The enemy is in pursuit.”
There’s a pause.
“Register, code accepted. Hold on the com. The next voice you hear will be the Protean Knight’s.” A moment later Aja’s voice rumbles through the ship, filling me with dread. So she did survive the waste to find her way back home.
“Cassius? You’re alive.”
“For now.”
“What is your cargo?”
“The Reaper, Virginia, and the body of Ares,” Antonia says excitedly.
“The body…I want to see them.”
Boots thud toward my container. The top opens and Cassius hauls Mustang out. Then he hauls me out and tosses me to the ground before the hologram. Small and dark in the holographic projector, Aja watches us with otherworldly calm. Antonia keeps Sevro’s gun trained on my head as Cassius pulls up Sevro’s head by his Mohawk to show his face.
“Goryhell, Bellona.” Aja says, excitement entering her voice. “Goryhell. You’ve done it. The Sovereign will want to see you in the citadel.”
“Before I do, I need you to assure me that no harm will come to Virginia.”
“What are you talking about?” Antonia asks, wary how close Cassius stands near her with his razor. “She’s a traitor.”
“And she’ll be imprisoned,” Cassius says. “Not executed. Not tortured. I need your word, Aja. Or I turn this ship around. Darrow killed your sister. Do you want vengeance or not?”
“You have my word,” Aja says. “No harm will befall her. I am sure Octavia will agree. We need her to settle things with the Rim. We’re sending squadrons to intercept your pursuit. Re-direct to vector 41’13’25, circle the moon and await contact from the Lion of Mars for docking instructions. We can’t clear your ship to land moonside. But ArchGovernor Augustus will be joining the Sovereign in the Citadel within the hour. I don’t think he’ll mind offering you a ride down.”
“The ArchGovernor is here?” Cassius asks, “I don’t see his ships.”
“Of course he’s here,” Aja replies. “He knew Darrow was never going to Mars. His entire fleet is on the far side of Luna, waiting for them to attack my father’s. This is his trap.”