Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(103)

“For now,” Flannigan Five adds. “The Crows keep remaking us, hoping one of us will love them. It’ll never happen.”

“They’re pure evil,” Flannigan Nine states with a shudder. “We have to stop them.”

“We should send the drones,” Flannigan Five suggests.

“No,” I reply quickly. “My friends might be out there.”

“The stingers are only programmed to seek and destroy Crow.”

“Okay,” I relent. “At least it’s a plan. I’ll open the door, and you send out the stingers.” I meet their stares to make sure they understand and agree. They nod. “Ready? On three. One. Two. Three!”

We all lean away from the door. Using telekinesis, I slide open the heavy metal barrier. It squeaks and rumbles. The hum of the army of drones above us amps up. In a diamond formation, they whoosh past us, rocketing out of the Tree with pulsating bursts of ammunition.

In seconds, the humming falls silent. Then, with a sound like heavy metal raindrops, they strike the pavement.

And then, silence.

I move forward and peek through the open doorway. Before me, thousands upon thousands of snarling, blond-headed, blue-eyed beasts await. Between them and me stand Reykin, Clifton, and the soldiers we brought with us last night. They’re on their knees, bound and gagged. Reykin struggles when he sees me, trying to get to his feet. Welts and bruises mar his handsome face.

Slowly, I walk forward. Stingers litter the ground in front of me in a jumble of useless metal.

Flannigan Five reaches out and grasps my elbow. “What are you doing?”

“I have to face them,” I reply.

“You can’t win!” Flannigan Nine warns.

“No, I can’t lose,” I reply. Because if I do, it’s over. I shrug off her hand. “Stay here. Don’t come with me.”

“We’d rather die than go back to them,” Flannigan Nine replies.

“They’re sadistic,” Flannigan Five adds.

“I can’t protect you!” I hiss. “Stay. Here.”

I move forward alone, into the dawning light of a beautiful, clear morning. Seagulls squawk above us, mocking my pain with their shrill laughter. Looking for the spokesman, I scan the Crow clones. The cult of personality reveals itself to be the Crow standing just behind Reykin. He steps forward. The rest remain still, evenly spaced.

“That was some display, Roselle,” he says. “You’re more and more resilient by the day. Those jumps you do through space . . . impressive. You must teach it to us.”

“Let my friends go, and I promise I will.”

A devious smile broadens Crow’s lips and lightens his eyes. “We plan to let them go. It’s only you we want. They can remain here and die with the rest of the trash. We were going to ambush you inside Spectrum, Roselle, but we thought this way would be more fun. You get to say good-bye to them—and we get to watch.”

“I think this would’ve been more fun in Spectrum,” I reply. “The rules are different there—more flexible. You were afraid to follow me there, weren’t you? Afraid I might dominate you in your hellish paradise.”

He snickers. “I don’t expect that this will be very fun for you, here or there.”

“You’d be surprised by what amuses me these days.”

“Do you find this funny?” He grips the handle of his fusionmag and withdraws it from his holster. He aims it at Clifton’s head.

I stumble forward, screaming, “Wait!”

Crow fires. I raise my hand and send out a pulse, deflecting the shot. It veers toward one of Crow’s clones and strikes the creature in the chest, dropping him to the tarmac.

Crow lets out an uncertain, hawkish laugh. “My, Roselle, you’ve certainly evolved since I last killed you.”

“You have no idea.”

“Why are you protecting this supposed god?” Crow taunts. “You know my shot wouldn’t have killed him. He would’ve grown another head, wouldn’t he have? Like he did before. And anyway, you don’t love him.”

“You don’t know who I love.”

“I know you. You could never let yourself love Clifton . . . Oh, I’m sorry,” he tsks, “his real name is Cassius, isn’t it? No, you could never love Cassius after he left you to die at the Silver Halo and flew away unscathed, like a coward. He’s the God of Ruin all right. He’ll always ruin everything. You can forgive him for that, but you could never trust him again. And what’s love without trust, eh? Love is a wasted emotion.”

“I thought you had a thing for Flannigan?”

“I thought I did, too, but Flan poisoned us with cyanide one night, so I had to let her go.”

“You let her go?”

“Off the rooftop of the Halo Palace’s Upper Halo.” He chuckles. “As it turns out, the only thing we truly love is hurting you, Roselle. And it’s so easy, too, because you love foolishly, deeply, and with your whole being.”

“What made you like this?” I ask, trying to understand why he has fixated on destruction, and on me. Was it because he could never break me?

“You know what made me this way! It started when I was treated like a worthless piece of garbage by my own family. They hated me. I was secondborn—disposable. But I planned to discover true power. It happened when I was killing Sabah. As I tugged my sister beneath the water, something spoke to me. It was dark, and I could see it clearly. It knew my name. It knew everything about me. It knew I was secondborn, and what that meant. It told me it was from another world, and that if I let it inside me, it would help us transform into gods. I believed it. We finished killing Sabah, together, and then, piece by piece, we began to claim everything that belonged to us.”