Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(87)

It tried to right itself.

“You shall burn . . . ,” the red-eyed Metal said.

“She shall not,” the guard hissed, wrapping his arm around its neck, then prying his fingers underneath its chin and ripping its head off. Wires sparked and hissed.

She’d seen that move before.

The Metal did not stir again.

She stared, wide-eyed, at the guard. His uniform hat had toppled off, revealing red hair and dark eyes. It was the boy from the ballroom. Rasovant’s Metal.

Goddess, she really was going to die here.

He looked pained, like he could hear something that was terribly off, but she couldn’t hear a thing. “We must leave.”

She snapped to her senses, backing away.

“He is more monstrous than we are,” said her brothers’ voices in unison from the console.

And that was the last she could take.

“I said shut up!” she roared, grabbing the metal stool from under the counter and raising it over her head. She memorized what her brothers looked like—the curve of their cheeks, the curl of their hair, the depth of their eyes, committing them to a memory she wished she already had.

And then she slammed the stool into the computer. Again and again. And again. How dare this malware use her brothers. How dare it taunt her with ghosts. She already had enough of them living in her head.

This was for her brothers. For Wick. For Barger.

For Di.

When she went to raise the stool again, the guard stayed her hand. “It is broken,” he said.

She reeled away from him, raising her makeshift weapon against him instead. “Don’t you come any closer.”

“I am not here to harm you.”

“Bullshit,” she hissed, her arms shaking from the weight of the stool. “You’re Rasovant’s Metal. The one from the ship—”

“I am not Rasovant’s,” he interrupted. “I am my own. I am me.”

“And who is me?”

He met her glare and his eyes sparkled to life—bright, fluorescent. Like moonlight. “You once promised you would always come back for me,” he said hesitantly, “but it was I who should have promised to come back for you.”

She dropped the stool, and it clattered to the floor.





Robb


Hiding a tool kit he’d swiped from the Royal Guard station under his suit, he waved at the Valerio guard standing outside his mother’s door. “Good evening,” he greeted. The guard put a hand up to stop him.

“I’m sorry, sir, but this is your mother’s room.”

“Oh, is she not in?”

“She is not, sir.”

“Not a problem, I can just wait inside. . . .” But the guard put up his hand again, not letting Robb pass. Robb set his lips into a thin line, annoyed.

The guard stood stalwart. “I’m sorry, sir—”

He slammed his fist into the unsuspecting man’s face. The guard slumped against the wall, unconscious. Robb shook his hand, hissing through his teeth. Goddess, that smarted. When he’d shaken the pain off, he wiggled the guard’s lightsword out from his belt—he’d rather try to escape the palace slightly armed than not armed at all—and went inside.

To his relief, Jax sat on the fainting couch, staring at the carpet. He didn’t even look up when Robb came in. “We’re getting that voxcollar off tonight,” he said, tossing the lightsword onto the bed.

But the Solani didn’t move.

“Jax?”

Finally, the Solani glanced up with bloodshot eyes. Had he been crying? Jax blinked, wiping the tears away with the back of his gloved hand.

“Are . . . are you okay?”

“Leave,” Jax mouthed. His voxcollar sparked in warning, making him wince in pain.

“I can’t do that. I promised to get you out of here, and tonight’s the best chance for you to escape. Don’t you want to?”

The Solani looked uncomfortable, tugging at his obsidian collar.

“Then you’re here for a reason,” Robb realized. “But . . . why?” When Jax didn’t reply, he knelt down in front of the silver-haired boy. “Jax, Di is in the palace—”

Jax gave him a dumbfounded look.

“You know that Metal we found on the Tsarina? Well, I tried uploading D09 into it—and it worked. And he’s here, trying to rescue Ana, because the malware from the ship is in the palace and she isn’t safe. None of us are. So please, you have to leave. Or at least let me take this voxcollar off you so you can tell me why you can’t.”

For a moment it didn’t seem like the words registered, until Jax tilted his head to the side, flourishing a hand at his neck.

Robb sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

Taking the tool kit out of his coat, he found the omnitool and situated himself beside Jax, as close as he dared without touching him. Even having been in the palace, Jax still smelled of fresh lavender, like he had on the Dossier.

That felt like lifetimes ago.

Robb slowly lowered his omnitool against the voxcollar. Sweat prickled the back of his neck. “So, to be honest, I can’t remember anyone ever successfully picking themselves out of a voxcollar. It just doesn’t happen, you know? My grandfather was a genius with circuitry—”