Ruthless Page 9

  The one task that seemed to give him purpose was protecting me from the constant onslaught of outside affection. He appointed himself my bodyguard, following me around any time I chose to leave our protected enclave. In some ways, this made things harder—even if I did manage to evade my crush of followers with some kind of disguise, Zack’s presence immediately alerted people that I must be nearby. But I liked being with him—and not just for protection. Despite everything that had led to this moment . . . I couldn’t stop myself from liking him.

  We hadn’t discussed our feelings at all since we’d had sex in the Amazon, and the tension that followed. When we arrived in Redenção, I worried that the physical and emotional intimacy we’d shared in the rainforest had been left behind there, somehow. As we settled into that apartment together, I found myself constantly tracking Zack’s movements—now he was taking a shower, now he was making himself a sandwich, now he was glancing at me and looking away when I met his eye.

  I kept waiting for him to bring up everything that had passed between us. Maybe he was waiting for me to do it—now that I was back in the public eye, I arguably had more at stake. But though I was revered at every turn in Redenção, there was still only one person in this city whose adoration I desperately wanted. And the more time passed, the more worried I became that I might not get it.

  Until, one rainy Wednesday, morning coffees in hand, Zack and I ducked through a series of alleys and found ourselves alone near the water, at the outskirts of the city. “Where are your minions?” Zack asked, looking around for the posse of Outcasts that usually followed me.

  “I think we’re alone.” We’d been alone at the apartment plenty of times before, but now saying those words out loud was a turn-on, an invitation.

  He grinned. “Hurry, before they find us.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me onto a rocky outcropping, overlooking the ocean. The water shone bright like flecks of glass, as herons circled above our heads.

  “How long do you think we have?” I asked.

  “Shhhh, don’t jinx it.” Zack put his arm around me, a bit of protection against the stiff salty breeze. His face nuzzled against my cheek, and I could feel his breath on my neck.

  “About what happened,” I started, but before I could finish, he peeled back my hair, blowing around me like a wild mane, and he kissed me. His kiss was salty, too, soft and wet, as his lips found mine over and over again.

  As we separated, his eyes were bright and giddy as he asked, “Sorry, were you asking me something?”

  “You answered it.” I grinned.

  He laughed, staring deep into my eyes. “I can’t believe there was any question. I love you. Every part of you, every little cell in your brain. And I always will.”

  For all I knew, I’d be assassinated tomorrow. So I decided to take Dawn’s advice and enjoy myself.

  I spent that night in Zack’s room. And the one after. It felt too good to be true, and in some ways I knew it was. While I knew Zack was worried about the safety of the resistance, he wasn’t close to any of them like I was. He did his best to console me when I got anxious about their safety, but still I couldn’t quite express what Jude meant to me . . . not to him.

  And then one night, we returned home from dancing to find Dawn and Dr. Marko still awake in our dining room, huddled around the long table like it was a boardroom.

  This must be it. “Did you hear anything?” I asked nervously.

  “We got a message,” Dawn said, voice shaking. “They’re still alive.”

  I didn’t even notice the tears pouring out of me until they started dripping off my cheeks. Hearing good news about Jude was like waking up from a bad dream. And I had a strange pang of guilt, knowing that my bad dream had included so many good moments with Zack. That I’d been happy and falling in love while Jude was suffering. “Where? How?”

  “They’re still underground. Their supplies are running low.”

  “Do you have a plan to get them out? Or get them some food, or pills, at least?” Dr. Marko had restarted the manufacture of uppers in a small factory near Redenção, so I knew we could provide them with a small supply.

  “I don’t know what we can do. All our resources are here,” Dawn said, shaking her head.

  “What if they weren’t?” I asked tentatively.

  The others stared at me like I was crazy. “You want to take our army to Turkey?” Zack asked. I knew it was a risk, one that might potentially alienate the only useful ally we had right now.

  But what risk wasn’t worth it, to save my best friend, and Dawn’s wife, and so many others? I insisted, “There are thousands of people in that underground city, who have knowledge and experience we desperately need. If we save them, we have a fighting chance again. It wouldn’t be just a few of us sitting around in an apartment. We’d have a real resistance.” I desperately needed Zack to know there was more to this than just saving Jude. “I can’t think of a better option, can you?

  They couldn’t. I glanced at Zack, who was simmering in the corner. Unhappy with the perilous odds we faced, or jealous of whom I was going to rescue, I wasn’t sure. But as Dawn’s face filled with a new kind of hope, the weight of it fell heavy on my shoulders. I hoped I wouldn’t let her down.

  12

  I braced myself as I walked into the military’s outpost, an old police station converted into an industrious base, efficiently crammed with personnel. A deputy escorted me in to see General Feliciano, who’d taken up residence in an old kitchenette, placing her desk next to the refrigerator. “Prophet Grace. I hope my men showed you the security precautions we’ve taken around the city. Twenty-four/seven watch, and algorithms monitoring satellite footage for any potential invasion or projectiles headed toward us.”

  “Thank you,” I said carefully. “But I’m actually here to ask you for another favor. Outside of Redenção.”

  “Another favor?” The general’s wariness set me on edge. She’d done so much for me already, despite only knowing me for a few days . . . might I stretch her goodwill too far by asking for something else?

  I tried my best to project strength, though my voice cracked with emotion. “The prophets are threatening the lives of some of my friends. They’re going to slaughter thousands of innocent people.”

  The general stood up straighter: the invocation of saving innocents seemed to win her over immediately. “Where?”

  “In Turkey.”

  “The country Turkey?” Her disbelief gave me pause. I wanted to explain the whole story, tell her the truth finally, but fear nagged at me. If she knew the truth, she had no reason to follow my orders. Might she pull out her troops and leave us with nothing? I tried to scale back my request. “We don’t need to take the whole army. If you could just get me a plane, a few soldiers . . .”

  “I will take you myself,” she said immediately.

  “I . . . thank you,” I said, surprised by her easy acquiescence.

  “Of course,” she said, fixing me with a respectful but critical gaze. “I would love to meet the friends of Prophet Grace.” The way she said that, I wondered if she’d fully made up her mind to trust me. She could always turn me in to the prophets, couldn’t she? If she handed them the most dangerous agent of the devil, her insurrection might be forgiven. I was sure the thought must have crossed her mind.

  I not only had to do the impossible and save my friends, I had to do it without outing the truth to the woman who could destroy me. I smiled, hoping she couldn’t see my fear. “Thank you.”

  We were on our way to Jude. I just hoped we’d get there in time.

  Book Three

  1

  The engines’ roar filled my ears as I boarded the plane behind General Feliciano. Dawn trailed me, expression grim; she’d insisted on coming, and I wasn’t going to say no to someone so desperate to save her wife. Zack, too, had invited himself along. Though I worried about taking more people than we needed, I appreciated his comforting arm around me as we took our seats.

 
; “Think we can convince the general to give us a layover in Paris?” Zack joked.

  I appreciated his attempts to lighten the mood. “Ooh, or Rome,” I said, playing along.

  “Yeah, forget Turkey, let’s do Rome.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I teased. It felt so warm and familiar, bantering with Zack . . . but coldness seeped in as I remembered our mission.

  As the plane took off, I glanced around at all the soldiers, solemnly buckled into their seats. None of them would make eye contact with me—afraid of being disrespectful perhaps? Or maybe just afraid of what I might ask them to do. They’d seen plenty of prophets outwardly preaching nonviolence while secretly sending soldiers to do the worst kinds of crimes. Why should they think I was any different? Was I different?

  Eyeing the general across the plane, I whispered to Dawn in hushed tones, going over our strategy, “When we land, I’ll try to broker a truce. Failing that, I’ll start the rescue op.” I hesitated, the task in front of us feeling too massive to conquer. “What if all that fails?”

  Dawn’s voice wavered only a little. “Then Guru Dawn will send in your army to pick up where you left off.”

  I eyed the wary soldiers. “And if the army won’t go?”

  “You mean, if the general loses faith in you?” Dawn rephrased, a little less gently.

  “Yeah.”

  Dawn tried her best to contain her dread. “Then we’ve lost Cappadocia and Redenção and everyone we love in one fell swoop.” My heart was heavy. We had to succeed.

  I saw fear breaking through Dawn’s mask of strength, and I squeezed her hand. “We’ll save Irene. I promise.” She squeezed back, and it was an odd feeling, being the one to reassure someone who had spent so much time supporting me. Someone who’d so recently scolded me for my own mistakes. But I’d put all of us in this position, and I knew it was my job to get us out of it.

  I noticed the general watching us and quickly broke eye contact with Dawn, staring straight ahead. I couldn’t show fear. I couldn’t let the general see through the thin façade I’d pulled over her eyes.

  Fourteen hours later, we landed in Turkey, at a tiny rural airport not far from Cappadocia, which the resistance had once used to secretly transport its members and refuel their supplies. I hoped it would be as secure now as it had been a few months ago.

  As we exited, I remembered we were alone, in enemy territory. All we had were a few dozen soldiers and a few empty planes to ferry resistance members home. How on earth were we going to defeat the rest of the prophets, with their much grander resources?

  “We take the rest of the journey on foot,” the general commanded, and the soldiers dutifully stood to follow her.

  “No,” I said quickly. “We’ll attract too much attention as a group. Let the two of us go alone.” I gestured to myself and Dawn, and the other soldiers breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t sending them to their deaths quite yet. The general nodded, glad to accede to my supposed divine wisdom.

  Zack pulled me aside. “Let me come, too,” he whispered.

  I shook my head, whispering back, “Keep an eye on our troops. Make sure they’re still here to take us home.” He shifted uncomfortably, clearly resenting being given the supporting role. But he nodded, acquiescing.

  We waved a goodbye to our entourage as we headed off, trekking over a ridge to spot a familiar sight—the strange jutting rock formations of Cappadocia. The last time I’d seen them, I was with Jude, and this city had been an oasis of safety, after all my escapades evading Prophet Joshua in New York and D.C. Now, it was compromised, and we were walking straight into the prophets’ clutches.

  “You ready for this?” Dawn asked me as we drew closer.

  I took a deep breath. I was ready to get Jude back.

  2

  When Jude had first taken me to the underground resistance stronghold, I’d been surprised to find its cavernous entrance in the midst of a seemingly empty expanse. I never would have been able to find my way back there on my own. Unfortunately, this time, that entrance was impossible to miss—it was at the center of a mass of Turkish military vehicles. Our small army was greatly outnumbered—even with the help of every soldier we had back in Redenção, it seemed impossible for us to take this place by force.

  I looked at Dawn, but her face betrayed no fear, only determination. She’d always seemed superhuman to me, strong in a way I never could be. But finally I saw the source of that strength—it wasn’t callousness, like I’d always assumed: it was love. She was going to get her wife to safety if it killed her; she couldn’t imagine a world where she failed, and therefore she was certain she wouldn’t.

  “Look over there,” Dawn whispered, pointing to a pair of Turkish infantrymen taking a break, lounging away from the main group.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, knowing exactly what she wanted me to do—isolate them away from the pack and work my usual magic, converting them. I’d done it twice before—walked into the prophets’ clutches and come right out again. Why shouldn’t she expect I could do it a third time? I tried to summon Dawn’s courage. I was going to save the people we loved, because I had to.

  As I walked up, those two soldiers immediately stood on guard, calling out in Turkish. I immediately regretted every moment over the past few months that I’d spent learning Portuguese instead of Turkish, the language that might have saved my friends. Though I didn’t understand the specific words they were saying, I knew what they meant: “Get your hands up!”

  I threw my hands in the air, indicating surrender. “I’m not here to hurt you,” I called out, hoping they understood enough English to get the gist.

  They kept their guns pointed at me but didn’t shoot, as I came close enough to see their faces—the smirks of victory. They couldn’t believe their luck, that the rogue prophet had walked right up to them. One of them turned to me and sneered, “We know who you are.”

  Upside, at least one of them spoke English. Downside, these two seemed to be strong adherents to the mainstream prophets’ faith, as expected. “I’m here to tell you the truth,” I began, ready to launch into my usual speech, the one that had worked so well so many times before.

  Before I could get any further, the second soldier grabbed my arms, pulling them behind my back and handcuffing me. My speech wasn’t going to work this time.

  But it didn’t need to. Moments after touching me, the soldier recoiled, dropping to the ground, clutching his throat. His partner looked at him with horror; without lifting a finger, I’d delivered a Punishment more swift and terrifying than either of them had ever seen.

  I knew what they didn’t—this particular Punishment was the work of Dr. Marko, not Great Spirit. Using our newfound resources in Redenção, he’d whipped me up a transdermal salve, a poison that would seep in through the skin and cause deadly Punishments. I could now use these “downers” to fell anyone who laid a hand on me.

  The soldier writhed on the ground, skin turning blue, and I averted my eyes, not wanting to watch him squeak out his final breath. Though my brain no longer contained the nanotech that would make me die of guilt, I still felt that guilt. Still felt the horrifying weight of what I was doing—killing a foe in order to save my friends. Though it was a calculation I’d made before, this felt more intentional than the guard who’d died in the hospital explosion, or Prophet Joshua, torn apart by a crowd of my followers. This was cold-blooded, premeditated murder.

  I was shocked by the simplicity of it. Anything to save Jude. This man was bad and in my way . . . and now he was gone. The decision itself had been easy, but its aftermath left me feeling disconnected from myself. Who was this dark Grace who could so callously take a life? She certainly wasn’t someone I identified with, someone I’d ever wanted to be. But she was powerful, and she was going to get her way. I stared the other soldier square in his terrified eyes. “You will do what I say now.”

  He clearly wanted to bolt, but stayed frozen in place, nodding helplessly.

&nb
sp; I continued, “Good. You’re going to help me rescue everyone who’s trapped underground.”

  He nodded again. Hold on just a little longer, Jude, I thought to myself, as though he could hear me. I’m coming for you.

  3

  The one surviving Turkish soldier led me through the circle of tanks as I threw a scarf over my head to hide my face. “Keep your eyes down,” he whispered. I was happy to acquiesce. If too many more of the prophets’ loyalists spotted me, I might not make it to my friends. I could Punish anyone who touched me, but I couldn’t stop a stray bullet.

  Staring resolutely at the feet of the soldier walking in front of me, I made my way toward the city’s entrance. The soldier made small talk in Turkish with a few men as we passed—explaining away my presence well enough to put them off, it seemed.

  As we descended those familiar stone steps, the sounds and smells were eerily different than I remembered from my first visit. The bustle of a hundred thriving, intersecting cultures had been replaced with an odd, echoey silence. There were still people inside—I could hear the heaving breaths, the creaky bones of all those bodies—but they were still. Fearful.

  The dozens of soldiers patrolling otherwise empty hallways told me why. My friends weren’t just trapped in a standoff—they were prisoners. These rock walls had become cells overnight.

  “Clear this place out,” I whispered to my terrified guide. “Get everyone to safety.”

  “How?” he asked, genuinely confused.

  Luckily, Dawn and I had already made a plan. “I’ll create a distraction,” I told him. “I’ll lure the rest of the soldiers toward the main entrance. Then everyone else will sneak out the back.” We’d learned that the Turkish army was already aware of the back entrance, a tiny rock tunnel that was meant to serve as an emergency exit for situations such as this.