Flight (25 page)

My alarm goes off and I jump up and start crying.

Matthew comes in and grabs me. "Make it stop! Now, you stupid brat!"

Gideon gets off the bed and I swear I can hear his heart thumping in his chest, but when he puts his hand on my shoulder he sends me nothing but calm.

I watch him breathe and match my own breaths to him as Matthew's grip on my shirt shakes me.

My dad appears in the room and he punches Matthew in the face without saying a word. Matthew goes down on the floor as I lose all my self-control. My dad leans down. "Make it stop, Junco. Gideon, help her."

I follow Gideon's breathing again but my eyes lose track and watch as Matthew gets to his feet and he and my father begin fighting again. They slam against the wall and Gid ushers me out of the way and into the hallway, then I'm in his room, breathing hard and trying to ignore the adrenal alarm going off in my health tracker.

Gid's face is down in mine. "Breathe, Junco, or you will die."

I snap out of it and breathe until the alarm goes away.

We sit there and wait for the violence in the hallway to degenerate back to yelling. I look up at Gideon. "I hate Matthew."

He smiles at me, then looks over at the door, listening to the shouts of the two men out in the hallway for a few more seconds. "One day, Junco. We'll kill that motherfucker. So whenever he's mean to you, you add it to a list in your head of all the reasons why you should take his life when I tell you it's safe. OK?"

"He's big, Gideon."

"But he's not a lion, Junco. You are."

I smile this time. "And he's not a wolf, either."

Gideon lets out a deep breath. "No, he's nothing but a man. And men are very easy to kill."

I still have my SEAR knife because Dad and I haven't even made it home yet after our trip. I slip it out of my dock and power it up. The yellow loop of plasma is dialed up to a small dagger length and the light it emits flashes against Gideon's skin and makes his eyes dance.

Gideon slips his out and powers it on, then dials it down to a small blue loop and touches my knife to his. They sputter for a second and he removes it.

"Why can't we just go cut everyone right now, Gideon? It would be so easy."

"Our SEARs are coded for them, Junco. I told you this. They won't work on them, just like they won't work on us. We just have to wait because no one is coming to help us."

"We're the only ones, right?"

He smiles at me. "The only ones
left
, Junco. They killed the rest. But if we're smart, they won't kill us. We'll kill them."

"And we're smart?"

"Very smart, Snowbird. That's why you learn everything they show you, the very first time, right?"

I nod.

"You learn it, everything. Even if you think it's dumb. You put it in your head and never get rid of it. And never tell anyone that you do this. Right?"

"Right."

"Because we're the only ones left. The only Sevens left."

I power down my SEAR and put it back, my thoughts momentarily drifting back to the woman's neck I cut with it yesterday. "Why do they make Sevens if they just want to kill them?"

"They need us. They need Sevens. But Sevens are too smart so they kill them and try again. But we're more than smart, Junco. We're brilliant. We know they want to kill us, and we pretend to do what they say. Sun Tzu, remember him?"

"War means you have to lie."

He laughs. "Yeah, good enough. War means you have to lie."

We listen to the men outside Gid's door and he takes a deep breath and points to me.

I take one as well and when the biometrics flash and my dad walks in, I am calm.

He smiles at us. "Thank you, Gideon. I won't forget your help. Come on, Junco, we're going home now."

I lean into Gideon and choke back a sob. He pats me on the back and squeezes. "See you soon, OK? It's almost time for winter camp."

I nod. "OK."

"And thank you very much for the wonderful shirt, Junco. I know God loves me, but it's nice to be reminded once in a while."

I beam up at him.

"And congratulations on your second-place trophy at the competition. We all watched you on the screens in the big room. Everyone clapped for you."

My whole body feels warm as he reminds me of my forgotten mounted acrobatics contest. Second place is good. A red ribbon and a trophy. Plus I got free ice cream at the concession stand when I showed them my prizes and even though I couldn't eat it, I gave it away to some kid and made her happy. "I love you, Gideon."

"Ditto, Snowbird."

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tier is addressing the makeshift Subjack team in the tunnels and the 039 is standing in crescent formation, watching as he lays into the two dozen men who have been pushed on us. Absent are Aren and Selia – and that surprises me.

"– have no fucking idea why you'd want to come with us on this mission, we could give a fuck about any of ya. So, if yer thinking yer gonna make an impression on me, or my team, think again. We don't want ya here, we were forced ta take ya–"

They are, without a doubt, throwaways. Just like the kids in Fledge with me. They have no armor, just plain field clothes. Their weapons are shit, some don't even have weapons, no helmets, no internal life support, no nothing. I take a deep breath and thank God for my alien provisions as I stand there.

I woke up early to think about what I should do with all this new information. I'll complete this mission as part of the 039, but beyond that, I'm not making any decisions yet. I don't care if I am pregnant with Tier's child, and I'm not convinced of that to be honest. But I'm not gonna travel a hundred million miles away from Earth without some serious consideration of the consequences.

Tier stops in front of me, reaching in his pocket to pick out his com, and Ashur continues where he left off without even missing a heartbeat. He pushes the com in my direction and I take it automatically. "It's for you, Junco." He joins Ashur as they continue to spew threats towards the unwanted.

I take the buzzing tech and walk over towards my stocked grav bike. Gideon is slumped down over the handlebars of his bike, resting his head in his hands, not even trying to pay attention to Tier or Ashur. I guess he's not included in whatever we have going on here.

He gets interested in me real fast as I walk past him and push the answer tab on the com. "This is Junco."

I hear a breath of exhaled air on the other end. "Junco. Are you all right?"

"I told him not to call you, Lucan. I'm fine."

"I should have told you everything, I–"

"Yes, you really should've. I'm so tired of this, Lucan. I believe in you, in all of you. But then you lie to me and it's starting to make the things my parents tell me that much more real."

"Junco, you will come home."

"I'll go wherever I want. You can't stop me and I don't want to talk about it right now. We're getting ready to leave."

"So you saw your father?"

"Yes, but my memories are all fucked up. I don't understand it. In my head, that isn't what my father looks like."

"They took large spans of memories from you, Junco. Isten found the spaces when you were twined. We should have told you–"

"Just never mind. I said I don't want to talk about it."

"That's what worries me, Junco. You are indecisive and you blind yourself from the truth on purpose. Do you realize these are serious character flaws?"

"That's not fair and you know it. You've been lying to me this whole time. I can't make good decisions with incorrect or missing information. So, yeah. I've got faults, but so do you. You're not perfect either, ya know."

He sighs. "I will be on the ship, so if you need me–"

"Don't stick around on my account. I don't need you."

"You
will
need me, Junco. And I owe you, so I will be here. This is not about the Seven. I will not leave you here."

"You owe me. I forgot. Fine then, this is your payback. Then you won't owe me."

He sighs long and deep and when he talks his voice is barely a whisper. "If you want to stay on Earth, then stay. But you will provide me with a resignation. Face to face. I don't care if your explanation is
Fuck off, Lucan. I would rather die than see you again
. You will tell me this in person. If I don't get that conversation from you and you go missing, Junco? I will react like you're still my warrior. Tell me you understand this."

I nod at his forcefulness even though he can't see me. "Did you see something?" I look around and see Gideon's eyes burning down into me, not even trying to hide it, and I turn back quickly.

"No, I cannot see you. But I see the others. There's something off, something is wrong."

"Well, what should we do?" I feel Gideon walk up behind me and I walk a little farther away to make him take a hint.

"Either we move forward or I pull you all home. It won't work without you, so I cannot take you and let Tier continue."

"No, I need to put an end to this Sibling shit. I can't move on until that's done. It's literally just a few hours up the mountain so we might have them by tonight." I feel a hand on my shoulder and push it off as I turn, angry at Gideon for interfering.

But it's not Gideon. It's Tier.

"Tier is here, do you want to talk to him?"

"Yes. Please be careful."

I hand the com over to Tier and he walks off without looking back at me. Gideon walks over as Tier leaves. "Problems?"

My head shakes out a lie. "No, none at all."

"Was that the infamous Lucan?"

"Yeah, that was him."

"Is he mad at you?"

I make a face at Gideon. "I don't think Lucan has ever been mad at me. Well, that one time when he smacked me for threatening him, I guess he was mad that day."

"Sounds like a real charmer."

I walk over to my bike and climb into the shoot seat. My 50 cal is mounted so I can cover from behind as Isten navigates. I imagine that even with the muzzle brake it will throw off the trajectory of the grav bike pretty significantly, so I doubt it'll be real accurate, but fuck it. Better than nothing, I guess.

Gideon follows me over and continues. "So, what did he say?"

"Gideon, it's none of your business. It's team stuff."

"You're a liar, Junco. That was personal stuff. Now what the fuck did he say?"

"He said to be careful, that's all."

"That's all?"

"He said something's wrong, but he couldn't place it. He said–"

"That's enough, Junco." Tier's voice from behind makes me jump. "Gideon, I don't care if ya come and look after Junco, but beyond saving her ass in a pinch, she's none of yer business. So stay the fuck out of what we're doing."

Gid straightens up, he's a little taller than Tier but Tier doesn't take the hint. "I don't take orders from you, Tier. I'm not on your team and I'm not a Sub soldier you can bully around. My job is simple, keep Junco alive. And if that demon told her something that will affect how I do that, then I wanna fucking know about it right fucking now."

Tier's eye begin to exude green light with the challenge. He pushes him in the chest and Gideon swings, his fist crashing against Tier's jaw. Tier grabs his leg and pulls, making Gid fall to the ground. And this is where it really gets interesting: the Tier I've seen fight is a slasher, a kill-'em-quick-and-get-it-over-with kind of fighter. But he's grappling, like Ashur and me, and he's fucking good at it, too.

His feet and hands slide in and out as they wrestle. Gideon's hands and feet are just as fast and the two of them complete more positions, holds, and locks than I can count in just a few seconds. They both scramble to their feet and circle, rage spilling out of Tier's green eyes, and even Gideon's eyes are glowing. They're red. His secret, if it even was a secret from the rest of my team, is out now.

Gideon spits on the ground and he's growling when he speaks. "You might have that monster behind you, and all the illegal gifts he gave you. But I'm no stranger to gifts, Raubtier. I've trained for this my whole life as well."

Tier continues to circle but Ash steps in between them and pushes him away while Isten claps Gideon on the back and diverts his attention with words I cannot hear.

Tier walks away and barks orders out to the Subs as Aren and Selia enter the tunnels with their own set of grav bikes. He takes his temper over to Aren and physically prevents Selia from even entering the tunnels. I watch as Aren swats Tier's hand off Selia's shoulder and they argue. Good luck with that, Aren. I am just about to turn away when another figure appears in the entrance.

Subjack.

His presence stops the argument and Tier pushes Selia out and then directs his attention to my father. They talk back and forth for a few minutes, then Tier turns to find me. Meets my eyes, and motions for me to come over to him.