Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(87)

“Why would you let him?” added Emily, her attention still on August.

Why had he?

Because Henry Flynn was in charge of the FTF?

Because he believed in something greater than himself?

Because August believed he had a plan?

“Because he’s dying.”

August heard the words come out of his mouth. The room went quiet. Emily’s face darkened.

Henry had never said the words, not to August, and August had never asked. He hadn’t needed to, hadn’t wanted to, not in the months of watching Henry grow thin, of listening to his cough, and not in the moments after they crossed the Seam. There was a strange place, between knowing and not knowing. A place where things could live in the back of your head without weighing down your heart.

“That doesn’t explain—” started Paris.

“Doesn’t it?” challenged Kate. “Maybe he wanted his death to mean something.”

“You have no right to talk,” said Marcon.

“If you hadn’t gone,” added Shia, “Henry wouldn’t—”

“If I hadn’t gone,” said Kate, “Henry Flynn would have found another excuse to get himself killed.”

The air grew brittle, and August felt Ilsa and Soro stiffen.

“We don’t know that he’s dead,” said Emily tightly.

“What do we tell the task force?” asked Marcon.

“We can’t tell them,” argued Shia.

“You have to,” said Kate and Bennett at the same time.

Emily straightened. “Henry would want them to know.”

Ilsa tapped on the doorframe. August and Soro glanced toward her—no one else seemed to hear. He watched as his sister produced a tablet, fingers dancing on the screen.

“The last thing we need,” said Marcon, “is an uprising.”

“Actually,” said Paris. “I think that’s exactly what we need.”

Ilsa’s fingers gave a flourish and every screen in the room burst to life, showing feeds, not of the city outside, but of the Compound itself, the training-hall-turned-barracks, the lobby, the canteen—room after room filled with people, all of them talking. Sound spilled into the room, a cacophony of voices as cadets and captains, soldiers and night squads, spoke up and over and around one another.

“They’ve got Commander Flynn.”

“We can’t just sit here.”

“We should be out there.”

“What are we waiting for?”

“Well,” said Kate, “it looks like they already know.”

August remembered Henry’s last words. “He’s a man, not a movement,” he said echoing his father. “But if a movement is what it takes to end this war . . .”

Emily met his gaze across the table. “If Henry is alive,” she said slowly, “then we will fight to get him back.”

Marcon crossed his arms. “And what if he’s not?”

Sloan pried the shards of metal from his skin with a pair of tweezers, dropping the slivers into the dish one by one, each coated in viscous black blood.

His suit was ruined, his shirt cast aside, his bare chest a mess of torn flesh. The shards were silver, and his skin sizzled as he dug them out, but the sensation was shallow and fleeting, and it was not so very different from pleasure. He told himself to relish it, though his hand trembled as he worked.

The two engineers lay slumped against the table, their throats torn open.

He hadn’t had time to savor the kills, but the meal had helped with the wound, helped rinse away the rancid taste of Kate’s blood in his mouth.

Across the room, Flynn’s head lolled forward, a thin ribbon of blood tracing a line from the man’s temple to his chin before dripping to the floor. Sloan had always imagined Henry Flynn as the flip side of a coin, Callum Harker’s equal but opposite force.

He was wrong.

Up close, Flynn was nothing but a too-thin human with graying temples and sallow skin. He smelled—sickly. So disappointing. Still, Sloan couldn’t help but marvel at the fortune of it, having the head of the FTF dropped in his lap. He’d lost Katherine and gained an idol—even it was a false one.

Sloan straightened, wiping the last of the blood from his shoulder.

“Why isn’t he dead?” asked Alice, storming in. “And what happened to you?” Her gaze flicked to the engineers. “You didn’t save me any.”

Sloan slid on a fresh black shirt. “You’re supposed to be watching our pet.”

“Where is Kate?” she demanded. “You promised—”

“Katherine will return to us,” said Sloan. “And when she does,” he added, “you can have her.” Alice beamed at that.

“Did you evacuate the Malchai?” asked Sloan.

“Most of them,” she said, hopping onto the counter. She looked down at the bowl of shrapnel and crinkled her nose. “There’s a few in the lobby, but they were sound asleep. I didn’t want to wake them.” Her attention flicked to Flynn. “Speaking of . . .”

Sloan turned in time to see Flynn’s eyelids flutter open. He tried to move, but Sloan had bound him to the chair with wire, and he watched as Flynn struggled, winced, and then went still, realizing where he was.