“Kira Vass, E-2012. Designation: Afflicted Containment Unit,” one of the captured enforcers said with her eyes closed, her shaven head rested against the wall of her cell. She’d repeated the phrase over and over for the last hour. Her resolve was equally annoying as it was impressive to Evan. “Kira Vass, E-2012. Designation: Afflicted Containment Unit,” she said yet again.

  “Shut up and answer me already,” Vihn said.

  “Which one is it?” She replied.

  “Huh?”

  Though her eyes remained closed, she raised an eyebrow as if punctuating her question. “Shut up, or answer you?”

  “Just shut up.” Vihn muted the screen. “Hopeless.”

  It disappointed Evan that Vihn was so easily tilted by her resistance. Evan had no illusions about his own ability interrogating a trained soldier, but he understood enough about people to know that Vihn shouldn’t be showing his frustration. Of course, Evan also had no illusions about his own ability to control his emotions either.

  Their two enforcer captives had been moved into adjacent holding cells within Alpha Base. These rooms were concrete coves with drab green iron doors. Vihn talked to them by means of a monitor window built into the face of each cell, like a digital one-way mirror.

  The rest of the team had gone off to assist the refugees and wounded, except for Cranston. The old southerner had worked as an enforcer for over three decades and claimed to know how to deal with them, and Evan hoped that he could figure out where Ken was being held.

  “Try the other enforcer,” Cranston suggested.

  The other prisoner sat against the wall of her cell as well. She was the one that Evan had saved from the wolf. Unlike the other one, she’d been silent since. She held her head between her knees and draped her arms across them. Her short black hair was disheveled and oily; just long enough to block out her face.

  Vihn flicked a switch on the cell control panel and said over the microphone, “Do you fear pain?”

  Evan and Cranston grimaced at this.

  She gave no response.

  “Bahhh.” Vihn muted the screen and walked up a flight of metal stairs that led back to the terraces of Alpha Base. “Let them stew. One of them will break eventually. Or we’ll kill them.”

  Cranston sighed. “Come on kid, let’s get something to eat.”

  Evan refused to give up already. “Maybe later.”

  “Whatever floats your boat. Oh. There’s a camera watching and listening to the happenings in this hallway, so don’t worry none about anything going wrong. We’ll know.”

  Evan couldn’t tell if Cranston had meant that as a warning about the prisoners, or so he wouldn’t try anything stupid. Maybe both. He nodded and waited for Cranston to leave. Evan respected Cranston, but making stupid choices until something worked was the only plan he ever had. He unmuted Kira’s screen.

  “E-2012, designation Afflicted–”

  “Where do you take Afflicted after you arrest them?”

  She scrunched her face, “How old are you?”

  “That’s not–”

  “Kira Vass, E–”

  Evan muted that channel. Maybe he should try talking with the other soldier, the one he had saved.

  He asked her the same question.

  She didn’t respond.

  He huffed.

  “My name’s Evan,” he said. “What’s yours?”

  She looked up at the ceiling and stated, “Luna Nguyen, E-0451. Designation… designation…” She wiped her face with her hands.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She looked at a speaker in the corner of her room, where Evan’s voice came from. “Just kill us already.”

  “I’m not going to kill you.”

  “No? Someone else then? Torturing me won’t help you. I’m dead either way.”

  Evan wanted to promise her that she was safe, that the rebels would never kill a prisoner, that they would keep her safe… except Vihn had proven that would be a lie.

  He ground his teeth, hoping to chisel into his head some way of getting her to talk. “I just want to know where my friend is, I’m not going to torture you,” he said.

  She slid her face behind her arms again.

  Evan continued. “Look, he was taken about a week ago from Nero Caine Academy. All I care about is finding and rescuing him.”

  Luna popped her head up. “Your friend was taken from the Academy? You said your name’s Evan…”

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  Crap.

  “The GK…”

  How’d she piece that together?

  She said, “That must be it, huh? Some of us didn’t buy into the vids. I thought those who said you’d ran off with the Blood Red Army were just buying into a conspiracy. This is their base, isn’t it? Do you know how many people died trying to find this place?”

  Oh my God. There was no way they could let her go now, knowing all of this. But what did that mean? Evan freaking saved her just for her to die anyway?

  Luna stood, “Fine. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Huh?”

  “I kind of recognize your voice from last night... You saved me… Woah, it makes sense now.”

  “What makes sense?”

  She walked up to the door and pressed her ear against it. Was she listening for Evan? He held his breath. Not sure why it mattered if she knew where he was standing it, but her deductive ability freaked him out.

  “Back home,” she said, “they show us videos of you every week. You’re always talking about being in the North, but you’re actually here.”

  “You’re quick to believe that I’m the GK. It was dark too. I could just happen to be named Evan.”

  She asked, “What was your friend’s name?”

  Would it be safe to tell her? What was she trying to figure out? This is my chance to figure out where he is…

  “Ken,” he said.

  Luna’s eyes widened. “Let me out of here.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  She said, “Because, I’ll help you save your friend. Kenneth Doleson, right?”

  A shock ran up Evan’s arms. He knew it could easily be a trick, but he pressed on, giving into hope more than his caution.

  “Tell me where he is, and I’ll try to get you out of there,” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “No. You don’t understand. I want out. That other woman I came with? She… She’s a killer. She mutilates the people we capture. Not me, I won’t do it… not anymore.”

  He wanted to believe her. She was promising everything he wanted, but it couldn’t be this easy. “How do I know you’re not just telling me what I want to hear?”

  “How do I know you won’t kill me as soon as I tell you the truth?”

  Evan wished he could say that he’d never kill someone… but that wasn’t true. Still, he had saved her.

  “I could have let you die when those wolves moved in on you. But I didn’t. I refused.”

  She scowled. “So, I could be interrogated? Doesn’t make you any less of a killer. You work with terrorists, every person they kill, you kill.”

  “Just like how your partner being a killer makes you one too?” Evan said.

  The soldier appeared nonplussed.

  “Look,” Evan continued, “I’m no rebel. I hate the killing, from any of our sides. They offered me a gun and I refused to take it. All I want is to save my friend, then I’m leaving these people and going home. If you help me, I will help you.”

  Luna looked between two spots in front of her, as if seeing her options before her. “Your voice could be fake, I could be mind-controlled, drugged, anything. How do I know I can trust you?”

  “I guess you can’t.”

  She sat on the edge of her bed, shaking her head. “I can’t betray everyone I know for a kid I don’t know. You let me out first, then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  Evan watched as the light faded away. So many ideas flooded his brain. He could try and convince Cranston to talk to her, or Andrea to use her empathic abilities, or Vihn to torture her. But this was his chance to decide for himself, to stop passing his burdens to others. Each of those three might have their own plan for how to deal with these soldiers, and there was no telling if their decisions would help Evan in the end. Would Cranston sympathize with them, and maybe turn back to his Federation allegiance? Would Andrea seek to hide any information she discovered as some carrot to dangle in front of Evan so that he’d do what she wanted him to do? Would Vihn turn blind for vengeance, seeking to revel in the suffering of the Feds without ever finding out the truth? Daniel had warned him that the rebels all had their own agendas, and now he could see those consequences before him. There was only one person who cared about saving Ken, and it was Evan.

  This is stupid, the dumbest thing you could do. But why stop doing dumb things now, right?

  He placed his hand on the wall to Luna’s cell. It crumbled like sand, a storm of electricity crackling within it. The enforcer backed away as the wall was reduced to rubble before her.

  Evan’s head ached. He steadied himself against a sliver of concrete that was left. No going back now. “Come on,” he said.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to get you out of here, and then you’re going to lead me to my friend.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. Then she nodded.

  “Good. Come on!” Evan hopped into a run as she chased after him. Cranston had warned him about the cameras, so they didn’t have much time.

  Evan and Luna sprinted past Kira’s cell, who was banging on her door and shouting something unintelligible.

  They ran out onto the mid-terrace. The city moved with the wave of thousands of bodies recovering from the recent battle. The lifts to the outside hadn’t stopped moving since the attack, carrying supplies and bodies.

  “We need to get up there.” Evan led Luna toward a ramp that descended to the bottom terrace.

  “Evan!”

  He looked back to see Vihn and Cranston leaning over the rails of the third terrace above. They turned away in a flurry of speed.

  “Stop!” Two rebel guards came up the ramp ahead of them, their guns raised. Evan threw his hands out, melting the concrete under their feet. They slipped over the wet sludge of gray that had suddenly appeared there and tumbled into each other.

  Stars whirled around Evan’s vision, his tongue went dry, and it felt as though his very soul was being whooshed away. Luna caught him before he could fall, snapping him from the trance. They sidestepped the prone guards and continued down the ramp into the marketplace. It was easy to slip into the crowd there.

  Luna grabbed a sheet from a clothing wire and covered her head and body with it. Evan did the same. They weaved through the crowd around the marketplace’s curved layout. They slammed into a duo who were carrying a stretcher, spilling the man lying in it to the ground.

  Evan turned to help but Luna grabbed his arms and pulled him away, leaving the three cursing them.

  Rounding the edge of the river, Evan saw the lift straight ahead as it lowered. A handful of rebels waited at the bottom, guns in their hands.

  “Stop,” Evan said as he slowed to a walk.

  Luna followed his lead. “How do we get past them?”

  “Let’s… just ask?”

  She blew a deep breath.

  Evan approached the group as casually as he could, though the more he tried, the more he was certain he looked as stiff a toy soldier.

  One of the guards watched Evan as he approached, it was the guard that had recognized him the last time he’d taken the lift.

  “Can we help you?” The guard asked.

  Evan stuttered. “No, uh… We’re just going to help topside.”

  The rebel narrowed his eyes. He made a slight nod to the other guards, who circled in response.

  “You’re under arrest,” the guy said.

  The lift doors popped open to a platform filled with crates.

  Evan launched into the rebel, shoving him against a crate in the lift. Luna leapt in behind them. The guard’s brick of a fist cracked against Evan’s face.

  Evan stumbled into a grated wall, noting that the fist was covered in solid ice.

  Luna kicked the brute in his gut. His face only got redder. He threw a jab at her, the ice forming into a rigged spike, but she ducked beneath the swing and the iced weapon exploded against a panel, which started the lift’s ascension.

  Evan grabbed a lose pipe from one of the crates and swung as hard as he could into the rebel’s back. He roared, grabbing at the struck surface. Luna sent another kick into his side, sending him out of the lift down to the loading platform that was now a few feet below. His face smacked against the corner of a metal container, spurting ice and blood across the ground.

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