Belle turned over the sleek drive in her hand. “My attack wasn’t . . . It wasn’t forceful enough to kill.”
“But you attacked him anyway when he was clearly no danger to anyone. You basically admitted that yourself,” Chae Rin pressed. “Look at this place.” She motioned around the hideout. “It’s a freaking winter wonderland. You panicked. Just admit it.”
Belle’s attack did scream overkill. It wasn’t like her to jump the gun.
Wasn’t like her.
A phrase I’d been thinking a lot these past few weeks. Since France.
Since the consciousness of her dead mentor had found life again through my body, even if just for a moment.
And then I remembered the dull fear that had seized me that day as she’d turned her curious gaze from Saul’s ring to me. As she’d mulled a dangerous thought over and over in her head. The flicker of decisiveness that shattered almost as quickly as it’d appeared, dissipating into tears.
Weeks later, she was still struggling against something. I could tell by the way Belle wavered despite keeping a brave face, swallowing and tightening her jaw.
Belle didn’t have an answer for Chae Rin. Instead, sucking in a deep, silent breath, she looked at the young man lifeless in her arms. “This man . . . He said no one could heal him. . . .”
“He also asked us to find Alex.” I remembered the soft glow in his eyes, soon to be dimmed forever. “Alex . . . Is that what he meant by family?”
Frowning, Belle leaned over sideways, her sharp eyes trained on the young man’s neck.
“What are you looking at?” I asked, afraid to step closer.
Gingerly, Belle shifted the body onto its right side so that she could inspect the white flesh more carefully. “What is this mark?”
Guess I didn’t have a choice. Steeling myself, I inched close enough to lean over Belle’s shoulders. The body had many scars, but the one I found at the back of his neck looked almost deliberate. A deep red, circular bruise, the size of a penny, right at the base. The jagged slashes across it told me he’d scratched at it more than once. Secrets etched bloodred into his flesh.
Short staccato warning signals came from each of our goggles. I pulled mine down over my eyes. “Five minutes,” I said, then pulled them back up. “We don’t have much time here.”
“This place must be phantom-proof. Maybe EMA.” Chae Rin looked around until she nodded and pointed at the corner of the room. “There it is.”
She pointed at the small gray metal half circle drilled just below the ceiling like a CCTV camera, except without the camera inside. From behind the glass, I could see the wires and machinery sparking a light blue charge.
“Traffickers usually use some crude technology out here in Dead Zones,” Chae Rin continued. “This might be a base that a group of them once used. That guy said he ran here. . . . Maybe he knew about it too. Was Saul ever even here?”
“Traffickers usually take their tech with them, don’t they?” I’d learned a little about it during my training.
“They obviously meant to come back. Otherwise they wouldn’t have left that there.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I peered around the room. “They’re nomadic. They’d have to take certain technology with them to travel in, out, and around Dead Zones.”
“She’s right,” Belle said quietly. “They take their equipment with them wherever they go.”
I nodded. “But this guy said he ran here, probably by himself.”
“So?” prodded Chae Rin.
“So, how did he get here on his own? Do you see any antiphantom tech on him?”
No. Nothing but his uniform and helmet.
“He had to have had help getting here.” I paused. “Right?”
“No idea, kid.” Sighing, Chae Rin traced her hands along the brick wall. “Wait.” She inched closer to the wall. “What is this?” She was peering at something tucked in the corner of the room by the hatch.
“What do you mean?” I went over to take a look.
It was hard to see since the dim lights above didn’t seem to reach the dark corner, but I could still make out the pattern: a swirling circle, spiraling into itself. It had been carved into the brick with something sharp but inexact, like a rock. The edges around the circle were harsh and jagged, but even still, as my eyes traced the line curving up into a point, the image forming in my mind took shape, growing stronger the longer I stared at it.
“A flame?” I whispered. “It looks like a flame.”
Without thinking, I turned to the painted shadows on the wall. “What . . . what is this?”
“Take a picture of it.” Belle began pulling up the dead body. “Take a picture of everything. Use the function in the visors. And Lake—Lake, get up.”
With a whimper, Lake wiped her face and turned around with red eyes.
“Search the room. We’ll do a quick sweep before leaving.” She stood, hoisting the corpse over her shoulder as if it were half its weight. The young man’s helmet dangled from the fingers of her free hand. “We don’t have much time. Work quickly.”
With a crisp, derisive chuckle, Chae Rin pulled her goggles down over her eyes. “Okeydoke,” she said, giving a humorless smirk. “Let’s make this quick.”
? ? ?
Maia . . .
Maia . . .
Are you listening . . . ?
Not for the first time, I heard her voice, softly, dangerously whispering in the recesses of my head. It’d been happening like this for weeks. It was how I knew I’d fallen asleep. It was how I knew I had to wake up.
The slow, deliberate notes of a secret melody drifted out from the dark. Humming. I couldn’t see her—I couldn’t see anything—but if I calmed my breath, I could hear her calling.
Maia . . . ?
Then I saw it emerge from the dark—the image of an arm going limp over a couch, of a glass cup slipping from the grasp of Natalya’s long fingers.
No, not again. I tried to tear my gaze away, but it was as if I’d been petrified. That’s when I saw him slipping out of the shadows, his hands shaking as the woman tumbled out of her living room chair, his head lowered as he stared at the body on the floor.
“I’m so sorry.” Tears stung Rhys’s eyes as he whispered it.
Maia. Don’t be afraid, Natalya told me. Come to me. . . .
“No!”
My eyes snapped open as a stream of short, violent breath escaped from my lips, erratic, uneven. Bending over in my car seat, I placed my head in my hands.
Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about any of it. I repeated it until the image of his sweet face, his strong jaw, and his soft lips disappeared completely from my mind’s eye. Once it did, I could breathe again.
“Hey! You okay?” said Lake from the seat next to me, shaking me by the shoulder. “Breathe, girl, breathe.”
“Yeah.” My mouth was dried-up and tasted bitter. I swallowed whatever saliva was there and gave her a reassuring nod. “Just a nightmare.” One I’d been having far too often lately. One I wanted to never have again. “It’s okay. I’m good.”
“Had me scared for a second there.” Lake tilted her head before leaning in to inspect my face. “Um, you’ve got a little . . .”