Deception

Chapter Six RACHEL

The Commander glares at me with palpable hatred.

My pulse thunders against my ears as I glare right back.

A slew of Baalboden guards dressed in crisp blue military jackets with shining silver buttons step out of the Wasteland and form ranks behind their leader.

We aren’t facing one army, we’re facing two.

Whose army is the Commander borrowing? I rack my brain, running through what I know of the southeastern city-states. All allied with the Commander. All places my father refused to bring me for fear one of the Commander’s many spies would mention the presence of Jared Adams’s daughter when I was supposed to be meekly learning domestic arts at home in Baalboden.

Red-and-gold uniforms. Horses. Carrington? Schoensville? I can’t remember which of them uses red uniforms—a tremendously stupid color to wear while traveling through the Wasteland since it offers zero camouflage—and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Commander is coming closer, and I’m still pinned.

I need to be free of this soldier before the Commander reaches me, or I’m dead. I’m not about to die without taking the Commander with me.

“You took something of mine,” he says, his dark eyes burning while the thick scar that bisects his face pulls at his mouth.

The dull ache of missing Oliver and Dad throbs beneath my breastbone, and then slowly sinks into the icy silence that bloomed inside of me while I was lying on my father’s grave.

The Commander can’t hurt me if I refuse to feel it.

I let the memory of Dad and Oliver dissolve my terror and straighten my spine. Raising my chin, I tighten my grip on my knife while I say, “You took something of mine, too.”

His laugh is a bitter poison spilling from his lips. “I suppose you think we’re even now, you foolish girl.”

Soldiers step aside as the horse comes closer. I have forty yards before he reaches me. Maybe less. My knife is a reassuring weight in my left hand. I lower my arm, and the soldier holding me tightens his grip. I flip my knife blade around and aim for what I hope is the artery in his thigh.

I’m only going to get one chance at this.

Meeting the Commander’s eyes, I raise my voice and speak as clearly as possible. “We won’t be even until you lie dead at my feet.”

A faint thwing disturbs the air, and an arrow flies past me to bury itself in the Commander’s chest. I don’t know whether to celebrate that someone—most likely Willow—had such excellent aim or to be sorry that I didn’t get to destroy him myself.

I don’t get the chance to decide because the Commander sneers, reaches for the arrow, and yanks it free. I stare at his chest, waiting for the blood to come. Willing it to come, but it doesn’t.

He’s wearing armor. Only one city-state equips its soldiers with armor, which means the soldiers in red must be Carrington, and any blows we aim at their chests will be useless. No wonder Willow’s arrows had such little effect on the attackers.

“Aim at his head!” I scream.

The Commander throws the arrow onto the ground and spurs his horse forward. Willow doesn’t fire again. Either she’s out, or she has her hands full defending the survivors inside the Wall from the soldiers who overran the gate. Either way, I’ve got seconds before the Commander reaches me. Seconds to get free of the soldier who pins me, release the blade at the end of my Switch, and prepare to kill the Commander or die trying.

I jab the knife into the soft meat of the soldier’s leg, and he stiffens, his grip on my Switch arm loosening slightly. Before he can recover, I snap my head back, smashing my skull into his nose. Bright lights dance at the edge of my vision as I crush his instep with my boot and whirl around, my Switch already swinging for his head.

He lunges forward, blocking the Switch with his sword while blood pours from his nose, and then balls up his fist to punch me in the face. I whip my knife arm up to block him, but someone hurtles through the air and knocks the soldier to the ground.

Quinn sits astride him, his dark hair flying in the wind as he wrenches the man’s sword arm into an impossible angle. The soldier screams in agony as the sickening crack of a bone ripping apart from its tendons fills the air. I jump over them, grip my Switch, and face the Commander. I’ll have to unseat him from his horse. A slice across the back of his knee followed by a blow to his chest should do it. Once he’s on the ground, I’ll attack quickly and without mercy. Just the way he taught me.

“Rachel, get inside the city!” Quinn snaps at me, but I can barely hear him past the pounding of my pulse.

Fifteen yards. Fifteen yards and the Commander is mine. His dark eyes mock me as he reaches for his sword. He thinks he can crush me beneath the hooves of his horse like I’m nothing.

Like the ones he took from me were nothing.

Hatred is steel running through my blood, and it feels like courage. I lift my Switch and keep my knife pressed close to my body, ready to slash the back of his knee at the last moment.

Ten yards. I call up the memory of my father’s face and hold it steady.

Eight yards.

Strong hands wrap around my waist from behind and lift me off of the ground.

“No!” I wrench myself to the left, trying to break free, but the hands just clamp down harder. “Let me go!”

Seven yards.

“You aren’t sacrificing yourself today,” Quinn says, and hauls me toward the pile of rubble that covers the entrance to Baalboden.

“That’s not your choice.” I elbow him, but he won’t relent, and I don’t want to fight hard enough to hurt him. “Quinn, that’s not your choice.”

Six yards.

Quinn’s hands loosen. “Then I’ll fight with you.”

For a moment, I remain resolute, facing the Commander. I can end it now. One way or the other. I can find peace.

But what good is peace if it comes at the expense of someone who doesn’t deserve to die? Quinn is an exceptionally good fighter, but he can’t hold off an army by himself. If I take down the Commander, the army will finish us both.

I have enough blood on my hands. I won’t add Quinn’s.

Swearing viciously, I grab Quinn’s hand and pull him toward the gate. He moves quickly, and together we scramble over the slabs of wreckage, trying desperately to reach the top before anyone can stop us.

Hoofbeats thunder toward us as the Commander screams at his soldiers to capture me and kill Quinn. Soldiers swarm onto the rubble behind us as we climb the ruins, skid down the other side, and then run away from the gate.

Thom yells, “All clear!” and strikes a pitch-coated match. Soldiers reach the top of the gate’s wreckage and begin sliding down the other side as Thom lights the fuse and then runs with us toward the relative safety of Lower Market. We’ve put twenty yards between us and the gate when the giant shards of stone and steel explode with enough force to drive all of us to our knees.

Thom hits the ground beside me like a load of bricks and lies still. I reach for him as a second explosion splits the stone skin of the Wall beside the gate and sends several tons of debris crashing into the gap, burying the soldiers who were climbing into the city. The Wall is sealed off once again, though it won’t take long for Carrington to come up with a new plan of attack.

Thom stirs beneath my hands and coughs sharply. Frankie sinks to the ground beside him and gently brushes his fingers against the lump rising out of Thom’s skull. I cough, too, and swipe tears from my watering eyes as I scan my surroundings.

Dust, ash, and the sharp tang of hot metal lie heavy on the air. Some men outside the Wall scream in pain. Others yell for medical aid and grappling hooks. Men cry out in front of us, too, as Willow yanks arrows out of dead soldiers and sends them flying into the neck, forehead, or eye sockets of the Carrington soldiers still alive inside the Wall. The last two soldiers flee toward the ruins of Lower Market. Holding a handful of arrows, Willow takes several running leaps forward, drops to her knees, and takes them both down in less than ten seconds.

I look away before I can see the blood that pours out of their wounds and spreads across the soot-stained cobblestones beneath them.

The sudden stillness feels just as loud as the explosion. I look over the group again, searching for injuries. Quinn kneels beside Willow, checking to see that his sister is okay. Ian wipes at a cut on his forehead but otherwise seems unharmed. Drake rubs his left thigh and winces as he stands. Frankie wraps an arm around Thom’s shoulders and helps him to his feet. Thom sees me watching and smiles a little.

It takes everything in me to force myself to smile back.

Logan reaches my side and crouches down. “Are you okay?” His hands are stained with the blood of the soldiers he killed, and I push myself to my knees before he decides to touch me.

“Rachel, are you okay?” he asks again, and a hard little shudder works its way down my spine.

The man who brutally murdered Oliver and set in motion the chain of events that killed my father is just outside the Wall with an army of soldiers who are apparently willing to die for him. We’ve blown up the gate and are trapped inside our ruined city like sheep led to slaughter until the tunnel is at least one thousand yards long. And I gave up my chance to destroy the Commander because I couldn’t bear to let Quinn be caught in the crossfire.

But Logan doesn’t need to hear that. He has a terrified group of survivors to protect from a danger that is suddenly all too real. He has decisions to make, arguments to win, and problems to solve. The least I can do is give him one less thing to worry about.

Ignoring the voice inside my head that whispers I’m only protecting Logan so that I can protect myself from talking about things I don’t want to face, I smile reassuringly and say, “I’m fine.”

The lie leaves a bitter taste in my mouth as we get to our feet and check to see that the rest of our group survived the blast. I cast one more glance over my shoulder at the pile of metal and stone that seals off the entrance to Baalboden. Just outside the Wall, the object of my hatred is still breathing. Still living. Still waiting for the vengeance I promised my father when I lay on his grave.

The icy silence within me presses close as I imagine the Commander slowly bleeding to death at my feet. Holding that thought, I turn my back on the Wall and walk away, ignoring the way Quinn’s eyes follow me as I go.