The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)(24)

Silence reigned for several heartbeats, and I looked around the table at each person here, trying to gain some evidence, some inkling of proof that I was getting through to them.

A woman with a short brown pixie cut leaned forward, resting her hands on the table, her green eyes studying me. “That’s a very pretty speech, Mr. Croft, but frankly, why should we even bother to get involved? It seems more like a death wish than anything else.”

“Erin!” Meera gasped, her brows drawing together. “How can you say that? Your son is out there.”

Erin speared Meera with a reproachful look, shaking her head. “I will never give up on my son,” she said. “Malcolm is my world. But if you think for one minute that means I’ll blindly agree to consign the rest of our people to a war against Desmond, you are mistaken.”

“Erin has a point,” announced Lynne, one of the few Liberators I knew by name, from across the table. I glanced at her, and she gave me an apologetic shrug. I guessed her flirting days were done, though I didn’t consider that a loss when she’d never stood a chance against Violet. I wondered if she’d gotten in trouble for the stunt we’d pulled borrowing the harness to spy on Desmond in the Facility, but pushed the thought aside.

“We would be going up against trained wardens, controlled by Desmond,” Lynne continued. “She knows where our base is, and she’ll notice if something is up.”

“Exactly. Our position here, in The Green, was given to us by her. We would have to move everything to enter a battlefield that, frankly, we have little reason to be involved with in the first place.” Erin shook her head, her lips a thin, flat line. “No, I’m sorry, but we need a better reason than that.”

“So you’re saying you’d rather stick with Desmond?” I asked, my heart sinking.

The look Erin gave me was shrewd. “Not even remotely. But going to war isn’t a solution to our problem. Finding our boys is.”

“We’d have a better chance finding them with Mr. Croft,” said a woman I didn’t recognize. Her hair was blond and braided around the top of her head in a long, thick rope. “My brother was taken twelve years ago, and, from what I’ve been able to piece together, Mr. Croft and his team have done more to try and help our boys in the past three months than I have been able to do for all that time. I remember his training program for the boys… back in the Facility… I finally thought we were going to get them back…” Her voice trailed off in emotion, and the woman next to her patted her on the shoulder, while around the room I could hear noises of acknowledgement. And anger.

Thomas had been right—these people had recently lost their boys again. Finally, the blond woman continued, “That was the first time I saw some progress with our boys. And I think that, while our goals aren’t exactly identical to Mr. Croft’s, they do run along similar lines. Mr. Croft’s fight extends to all citizens, while we are only invested in our families. Perhaps we need to re-examine that.”

Erin gave the other woman a considering look and then sighed, shaking her head.

I couldn’t help but jump in at that point, circling back to what she’d first said. “So the Matrians… they really have control of the boys again?” I didn’t bother to hide the frustration that coursed through me at the thought. It sounded like a nightmare. I knew everyone in the room was on the same page about that.

Grimacing, Erin looked at Lynne, who met my gaze and sighed, the expression on her face mirroring what I guessed my own must be. “Shortly after Desmond threw you and everyone out of the airlock, we had to exercise an emergency evacuation.” She spat the words out distastefully. “Desmond radioed to tell us she’d just found out the Matrian wardens were closing in. There was no time to free all the boys, so… she ordered us to leave them behind, promising that if we had found them once, we would find them again.”

“I argued against it,” retorted Meera, folding her arms across her chest. “I wanted to stay and fight for them. We all did, but Desmond… she was just as reasonable and practical as ever, telling us we needed to maintain our Liberator anonymity. She told us we would get caught if we tried to move the boys and care for them in the evacuation—that even their absence would be noted.” She met my gaze and shook her head. “It all makes so much sense now. We played right into her hands, didn’t we?” Her voice was bitter, seething.

I wasn’t going repeat a fact she already knew and hated. “Do you think they are still at the Facility?” I asked instead.

“Perhaps,” responded Lynne, leaning back in her chair. “But to be honest, it’s unlikely. If she had time to clear them out, she would’ve… And destroyed the facility for good measure, no doubt. Just in case any of us were tempted to go back in a desperate attempt to see our boys.”

“That’s Desmond for you,” Amber chimed in, dropping into an unoccupied chair. “When she carries out a plan, she follows it through.” She paused and squared her shoulders. “Look, when Violet and Viggo first told me about what was happening, I was honestly like ‘so what?’ To me, as a Patrian-born female, the only thing I could think of was that this war hadn’t come soon enough. Most of you know my story… You know what my father did. I had every reason to hate him and any other Patrian male. But, after everything, after working with Viggo and Violet, I realized not everyone is like that. They genuinely care, and what’s more, they taught me working together makes us stronger than being apart. I urge you to consider this proposal. They care about the boys too, and it’s one of our highest priorities to get them free.”