Rebel (Legend, #4)(93)

He stumbles backward. I twist around in his arms before he can stab at me with the knife, then force his wrist to one side. Behind him, Daniel shoots out a leg and trips the man. He goes down, taking me with him.

But he’s back on his feet in an instant. Another dagger appears in his other hand. He strikes at my brother. Daniel arcs backward—but one of the blades catches him on his shirt and slices clean through. Daniel winces. A touch of red stains the fabric.

Everything around me fades at the sight. My teeth clench. The muscles in my arms tense.

“You asked me if I thought this was the solution for everything gone wrong in my life,” Hann calls out. He strikes at me and I jump backward. The guards are making their way up the stairs behind me—they’ll be here any moment now. “Nothing can fix the past, Eden. Don’t you know that by now? Where is your mother? Your brother?”

I lunge at him again. This time, in my rage, I kick out at his hand and manage to knock one of the knives from his grasp. It clatters to the walkway floor. He’s starting to tire. Beads of sweat line his brow.

“This isn’t about fixing the past!” I shout back. “It’s about repairing the future! And all you’re doing is—”

“—making it better!” Hann finishes, striking at me again. His knife slashes through my sleeve. I feel the bite of the blade as I duck low, seeking the knife he’d dropped. Daniel, still clutching his chest, whirls around to face the first guard that reaches the end of the walkway. He dodges a blow from the man and kicks him hard against the railing.

Hann is breathing heavily now. I can hear the rasp of his lungs. “Do you think the city is going to change what they’re doing? Now that you’ve erased our chances of fixing things—do you think the city will do what’s right? That they’ll listen to you?” He nods down toward the exit. “Think your young friend will get to do anything other than go back to suffering in the Undercity?”

Even now, even here, his words have a way of seeping into me. I remember the way he shot Pressa, that he would have put a bullet through her head if I hadn’t stepped in. “The city wasn’t the one who tried to kill her,” I snap, and throw another punch at him. “Or who killed her father.”

He dodges my blow and hits back, hard. His fist catches me on my jaw. Stars burst in my vision. I collapse onto the walkway. Somewhere in the distance comes a shout from Daniel. And—am I hearing it right? A shout from outside the building, through a megaphone. A searingly bright light shines into the warehouse through the glass windows. The AIS has arrived.

Then a boot kicks me hard in the stomach. Pain lances through me. I gasp, curling into a ball.

“You think she’s better off living?” Hann’s voice is hoarse with anger now, as if he’s no longer talking about Pressa, but about someone else. “So that she can struggle to get by, day after day, on her rigged Level? You think you’ll keep in touch with her after your elite internship? You’ll return to your life in the Sky Floors while she gets to crumple a little more with each passing year.” He seizes me by my collar and drags me up. My face is so close to him that I can see the film of tears against his eyes. “I see all this because I’ve seen it before. Call me whatever you want. I’m not the villain you seek.”

“You’re right,” I spit back in his face. And I’m telling the truth. He’s not. “But you’ve got your eyes set on the wrong villain too.” I lunge up with my boots and kick him as hard as I can. He releases me. “If you have to sell your soul in your quest to make things better,” I say through gritted teeth, “then you’ll never succeed.”

He slams me back against the railing. Behind him, I glimpse Daniel leaping over the side of the banister and swinging out of the grasp of one of the guards. There are more and more of them now.

Hann stares me dead in the eyes. “Be their puppet, then,” he snarls. “Let them animate your broken limbs.” Then he grabs me and shoves me over the side of the balcony.

Daniel shrieks my name. As I fall, I grapple for a handhold and barely manage to cling to the side of the railing, trying not to tumble down three floors.

Below, the exit finally bursts open. A swarm of shouts suddenly echoes through the space. The troops. The agents. Their guns are held up, pointing at us.

I struggle to hang on. Above me, Hann gets ready to dislodge my grip and send me falling.

I stare up at him with a look not of anger but of grim determination. “This isn’t what they would’ve wanted,” I say to him.

Then I twist up. Daniel’s lesson comes to me in a flash. I swing to one side, grasp the banister with my other hand, and then use my momentum to kick high enough for my boot to grip the railing where my hands are. I shimmy up with a final burst of strength.

I don’t know if what I said made Hann hesitate for an instant. Maybe the faces of his lost family appeared to him. Maybe what froze him for that fraction of a second was the thought of those he’d once loved.

Whatever the reason, Hann doesn’t get a chance to strike me down before I swing over the railing’s edge.

My boots connect directly with his chest. The force of the impact sends him careening backward. He stumbles, hits the railing, and flips over it. For an instant, it looks like he might catch himself. But then he tumbles over.

I have a sudden instinct to catch him and pull him back. A surge of panic rushes through me. But it’s too late now. For a moment, he looks like he’s frozen in a state of falling. Then he hits the shelves below and crumples to the floor.