Into the Still Blue (17 page)

Cinder groaned. “Yes.”

“Excellent.” Sable’s eyes glinted with intensity. “Then I’ll ask once again: As you regain your strength, will you do
exactly
as I tell you? Can I trust you to obey me, Cinder? Will you submit your power to me?”

21

N
o!
”

Cinder’s answer was a battle cry. A sound of raw defiance.

The echo of his voice hung in the air as his veins lit with Aether, which covered his face and arms and spread over his bare scalp.

The lights in the room shuddered. Gasps rose up from the Guardians and Horn soldiers. Guns flew from their holsters, all of them pointing at Cinder.

“Stop!” Hess yelled. “Put away your weapons! He can’t harm you!”

Aria turned to Roar, whose face flashed with the strobing lights, thinking
now
.

Roar pushed back from the table. He grabbed his chair between his bound hands, hurling it at the wall of windows.

It struck with a crack, bouncing off. The glass splintered, spiderwebs splaying across its surface, but it didn’t shatter.

Aria dropped and rolled beneath the table.

She came up on her knees by the door leading to Perry and Cinder’s chamber. Behind her she heard yells, footsteps scattering in panic. She jabbed at the security panel. A red flashing message told her what she’d already known. Only a special access code would get her inside.

“Soren!” she yelled, having no idea if he’d help or if he was in league with Hess now.

The rattle of gunfire exploded around her. She covered her ears, tucking into a ball. Gunshots pocked the door in front of her, and the smell of hot metal seeped into her nose. She braced for the same slap she’d felt in her arm when she’d been shot in Reverie. It didn’t come.

“Stop! Don’t hurt the boy! He cannot be harmed!” Hess shouted over the noise. Aria peered behind her to see him shove a Guardian, who dropped the pistol in his hand. One of the Horns had Roar by the arms, and Soren was belly crawling toward her from the opposite side of the room.

She didn’t see Sable.

“Out! Everyone out!” Hess yelled.

Abruptly, the gunfire ceased and men rushed for the door. Guardians and Horns jammed at the exit, pushing, shoving in their hurry to flee. In the kick and trample, the fallen pistol skittered across the polished floor, stopping a few feet from Aria.

She snatched it up, aiming at the man who was dragging Roar outside. “Let him go!”

The Horn soldier released Roar without a fight, plunging into the corridor. The door slid closed behind him.

Sable and Hess. Guardians and Horns. Everyone had cleared out.

Roar rushed to her side, Soren a second after. A high-pitched alarm exploded through the room’s speakers.

“We have to get out of here,” Soren yelled. “They’re going to gas the chamber.”

Aria looked up, tuning her ears, listening between the siren’s blares. A faint hiss came through the air vents. It was already happening.

“Find something to cut me loose, Soren,” Roar said.

Aria faced the glassed room. The only thought in her mind was reaching Perry. She adjusted her grip, finding the trigger with her left index finger, and fired at the glass at an angle. The weapon bucked in her hand five, six times, before the window peeled apart and fell in a heavy sheet.

She vaulted through the window frame into the room, rushing to Perry’s side. She set the gun down and began unbuckling the heavy straps. She felt slow and clumsy with her bad hand, but she forced calm into her movements. Panicking wouldn’t help.

She glanced at Perry’s face and found his green eyes fixed on her. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

He looked tired, his skin washed of color. Cinder was almost unconscious. The brief use of his power had bled him dry.

Perry gave her a small, strained smile. “Too angry to feel pain.”

Roar unfastened Cinder’s bindings. Soren came over and undid the ones on Perry’s feet. Aria saw Soren’s hands pause for a moment as he swayed, balance unsteady. The gas was affecting him.

She felt it too. The alarm sounded further away and deeper in tone, like it was disappearing into a dark tunnel.

As soon as she’d freed Perry’s hands, she shot to the door and found it locked.

“Aria . . .,” Soren said behind her. “It’s too late. I don’t have time to hack it. . . . The gas isss . . . ,” he slurred.

“It’s
not
too late!” She backed away from the door and aimed at the locking mechanism. Her head was spinning. The room was spinning. She couldn’t keep her aim steady. A bitter taste like rancid limes slid over her tongue, and her eyes began to burn.

Roar’s hand closed over hers. He took the pistol. She noticed he was breathing raggedly. “It’ll ricochet. . . . Soren’s right.”

Disappointment washed over her. Crushing her with the feeling that they’d just made their situation worse.

Aria turned. Perry leaned against the bed, his wide shoulders hunched. “Aria,” he said simply.

Soren sat heavily against the wall. Then he slumped onto his side, eyes fluttering closed. The lime taste seared down Aria’s throat and the walls flapped, undulating like sails in the wind. She couldn’t move.

Perry’s head tipped to the side, heavy and resigned. Not the playful tilt she knew. “Come here.”

His voice drew her forward. She went to him, walking across the tilting floor. Her face smacked into Perry’s chest. He caught her by the arms. She’d only vaguely registered that her bicep didn’t hurt at all when she found herself on the floor, with no memory of sitting down.

Perry pulled her against his side, putting his arm around her. Soren had passed out. Cinder lay still on his bed. Roar sat against the door, glaring into space.

He seemed so far. The room seemed to stretch out and go on forever.

“S’good at least that—” Perry turned to face her, and his knee knocked into her thigh. “Sorry.”

“Didn’t feel it,” she managed to say through a numb mouth. “What’s good at least?”

“We’re together.” She saw the flash of a grin just before his eyes slammed shut. He fell forward, his forehead thudding onto her collarbone.

Aria wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as they drifted away.

22

T
hat’s good. Come on back. There you are,” Sable said.

Perry opened his eyes, blinking at the brightness. His first thought was of Aria. Then Roar and Cinder.

He was going to demand to see them. To know how they were—
where
they were. But then he saw the table next to his bed.

A set of tools rested on a tray. A wrench and a hammer. A mallet with a black rubber head. Clamps and knives of all sizes. Finer tools with needle-thin points. Dweller tools that shone like icicles.

He had no doubt in his mind what was about to happen to him. But he was prepared for this. He’d known the instant he’d met Sable that this was possible.

The dark-haired man with the silver horns stood by the door. Kirra and a few Guardians as well.

Hess stood closer, next to Sable, his weight shifting from side to side.

“Do I have to stay?” Kirra asked. Her head was bowed, her red hair shielding part of her face.

“Yes, Kirra,” Sable said. “Until I say you can leave.”

Sable fixed his blue eyes on Perry, blinking a few times, staring quietly. Scenting Perry’s temper. “You know why we’re here, don’t you? I warned Cinder. I told him what I wanted. He refused me. Unfortunately, the price of that transgression falls on your shoulders.”

Perry looked to the ceiling, keeping his breath steady. He wanted, more than anything, to endure what would come next without begging. Even when his father beat him as a boy, he’d never begged. He wasn’t going to start now.

“I can’t hurt Cinder physically,” Sable said. “That would be counterproductive. But I can make him understand that until he concedes, he’ll suffer—through you.”

He turned his attention to the table; his hand hovered over pliers before he picked up the mallet. He tested the weight of the tool in his hand.

Perry could tell it was substantial.

“I’m thinking bruises. They’re showy. Not very messy, and—”

“Get on with it,” Perry snapped.

Sable slammed the mallet down on his arm. It struck Perry’s bicep, over his Markings. Bursts of red exploded before his eyes. A sound slipped out of him, like he was lifting a huge weight. He held on, waiting as the pain began to fade.

“There has to be an alternative to this,” Hess said.

“He’s our leverage, Hess, as you said. Our only means of breaking down the boy. And the alternative is that we die. How does that sound to you?”

Hess glanced at the door behind him and fell silent.

“Relax,” said Sable. “I hit him harder than I intended.” He looked back at Perry. “You know I’m being merciful, don’t you? I could find the girl he likes—what’s her name?” he asked Kirra.

“Willow.”

“I could have Willow on this table instead. You wouldn’t choose that, would you?”

Perry shook his head. His throat had gone dry, and his arm had its own heartbeat. “There is one thing you should know,” he said.

Sable’s eyes narrowed. “And what is that?”

“I don’t bruise easily.”

It was a stupid thing to say, but it gave him some small feeling of control over the situation. And the look on Sable’s face, surprised, incensed, was worth it.

“Let’s find out,” he said, tightly. And the mallet came down again.

This one was easier to endure than the first strike. Every one that followed became easier still as Perry retreated into his mind. His father had prepared him for this, and he felt a strange sense of gratitude. A euphoric closeness to times past, which had been terrible, but which had included Vale and Liv. They’d made him good at finding quiet, even peacefulness, in the face of pain.

When Sable came to Perry’s hands, tears pricked at his eyes. They hurt the worst, maybe because they had been smashed so many times before.

Hess turned green and left first. Kirra followed soon after with the dark-haired guard.

Only the men posted at the door stayed, too afraid of Sable to leave.

23