Rebel (Legend, #4)(82)
“Luckily for you both,” he says, “the AIS and your brother did indeed try to make a deal with us an hour ago. They announced it in the central city, then set up their people to trap me.” He holds out his hands. “As you can see, I’m still here, and they failed. But it looks like your information was good.”
So the false trap had already been triggered. I let out my breath, hoping my relief looks like it’s directed at being right about what I told Hann.
He extends a gloved hand in my direction. “You’re not in the clear yet, Eden,” he says. “I’ll be watching you very carefully, as well as your friend here. But if you do as you say, then I’ll agree to shift my tactics. I’ll hold you to it.” He gives me a tight smile. There’s something there that resembles trust. Something sincere. And even now, I feel like I want to believe it.
I nod and shake his hand. Pressa does the same. But the look in his eyes makes me afraid even as I feel a twinge of sympathy for him. My words had sounded so real and true to him because a part of me had believed what I was saying. Because I’m still convinced, even a little bit, that Hann’s mission is a good one.
What does that mean? When the time comes for us to move against him, will I be able to do it? And what will happen when he figures out that we’ve betrayed him?
I tremble at the thought as Hann turns away and motions for us to follow him.
If he figures us out, he’ll kill us.
DANIEL
My vision blurs. I can’t even feel my hands. A shout bursts from my chest. Before I can even register what I’m doing, I’m running, heading toward the stairwell and down to the street toward where the explosion had gone off.
June. She had been there. Right there, right where the explosion happened.
A thousand images, each more horrible than the last, flash through my thoughts. I readjust the mike on my ear and keep calling into it, even as police dart around me in a chaotic scene.
“June! June? Can you hear me? What happened down there?”
No answer. I spit out a swear and reach the stairwell. I don’t even bother taking any of the steps—with one leap, I’m on the railing and hopping from one turn of the stairwell down to the next, grabbing hold with my hands and swinging down to each lower floor until I land lightly on my feet at the bottom floor of the building. I race out into the street.
Rubble and white dust obscure the air. I squint as I race through it. Already, a patrol of soldiers is down here and directing others from June’s squad back to the main building. None of them look injured yet, but their faces look bewildered and coated in ash.
“June!” I call out again as I stop before the pile of broken concrete that used to be the building where she was supposed to be staked out. It’s a twisted mess of broken stone and metal now. A wave of light-headedness sweeps through me, and I sway. She must be in there somewhere, trapped underneath all the debris, she must be injured, dead—
A hand suddenly materializes out of the white dust and seizes my wrist. My head jerks to one side.
It’s her.
June has a grim smile on her face. “You don’t think that could take me out, did you?” she says.
Every bone in my body turns weak at the sight of June. Her hair’s rumpled and dirty, and ash smears her cheeks, but otherwise, she looks unharmed.
“You’re the goddy worst,” I snap at her. “What the hell happened? I saw you there, and then I saw the explosion—”
She’s already pulling away and tugging me along with her back toward the tower where I came from. Her eyes are dark and serious. “You thought you saw me there,” she corrects me. “I had a decoy team stationed instead, fully aware of the risk of a potential attack from Hann.” She squeezes my hand in apology. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wanted Hann to think that he’d succeeded, and he would if he noticed your shocked reaction.”
I’m so relieved to see her safe that I have no strength to be angry. “You play some dangerous games,” I say instead, shaking my head.
June holds out the device from earlier, then brings up a transmission that looks like it came from somewhere underground. “Obviously, he heard this transmission,” she says. “And with that display, he’s going to think he struck a blow against us. It should also make Eden look trustworthy enough to him, that he came to warn him about a plan that actually happened, that clearly you didn’t want to happen.”
We walk in silence for a moment before we return to the command center. There, the other transmissions are being analyzed. None of them had seen a similar explosion go off.
I point to an area underneath the eastern border of the city. It’s near the outskirts, where the biodome ends and the Antarctican tundra begins. “This general area,” I muse. “It’s likely all his people are stationed near there—otherwise we might have seen more reactions to the other transmissions.”
“And it looks like Eden’s successfully made contact with him,” June adds.
Eden. My heart seizes again at the thought of my brother back under Hann’s control. I look to where June points at the footage of the explosion looping on one of the screens in the room. “It was what Eden said he would suggest Hann do, as a reaction to our offer.”
“Any word from him yet?”