Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(18)

The FTF was divided—not only the Council but the troops themselves. Tens of thousands of soldiers, and only a fraction of them willing to cross to the North.

“We need to protect our own.”

“We need to protect everyone.”

“We’re buying time with lives.”

“Have we gained any ground?”

“August. What do you think?”

He blinked, coming back to himself. What did he think? He thought he would rather be reading, rather be fighting, rather be doing anything than standing here listening to men and women talk about human lives as if they were nothing but numbers, odds, watching them reduce flesh and blood to marks on paper, X’s on a map.

He fought the urge to say exactly that, searching instead for other truths.

“Monsters,” he said slowly, “all want the same thing: to feed. They are united by that common goal, while you are all divided by your morals and your pride. What do I think? I think that if you cannot come together, you cannot win.”

Silence fell across the room.

Spoken like a leader, said Leo.

A tired smile tugged at Henry’s mouth. “Thank you, August.” There was a warmth in his face, a warmth August had spent years learning to imitate, and even now his features tugged automatically into that shape, before he stopped himself, forced his face smooth.

Shortly after, Henry gave his marching orders and the room disbanded. Finally free, August slipped out.

Across the hall was the surveillance room where Ilsa stood before a bank of monitors, her strawberry hair haloed by the screens as light and shadow played across her skin, causing the stars on her shoulders to wink in and out.

August slipped past her, and then past the comm center with Phillip at the board. His left arm rested on the table in a way that might have passed for natural if August hadn’t seen the damage himself—held Phillip’s thrashing body down on the medical counter as Henry tried to suture the shredded skin and muscle where the Corsai’s claws had raked down to bone.

Phillip had learned to shoot with his other hand, was one of the too-few FTFs willing to fight across the Seam, but Harris wouldn’t let his old partner back onto his squad until he could take his friend in a fight. Today a bruise colored the hollow of his cheek, but he was getting close.

August was nearly to the elevator when he heard Henry’s long stride catching up.

“August,” said the man, falling in step beside him. “Take a walk with me.”

The elevator doors opened and they both stepped in. When Henry punched the button for the second floor, August tensed. It was easy to forget that the Compound had once been an ordinary high-rise. The second floor housed the fitness facilities and ballrooms, all of which had been converted into training spaces for the new recruits.

The doors opened onto a broad hall.

Newly minted FTFs jogged past in rows of two, and August forced himself to straighten under their gaze.

Through a door on his right, a huddle of children sat on the floor while an FTF captain spoke in a calm, even voice. There, in the middle of the group, was the little girl from the symphony hall, her face scrubbed clean, her eyes wide and sad and lost.

“This way,” said Henry, holding open the ballroom door.

The massive space beyond had been quartered into training areas, each one crowded with recruits. Some were being taught self-defense, while others knelt over disassembled weapons, and Henry’s wife, Emily, led a group of older conscripts through a hand-to-hand combat sequence. Em matched her husband in height, but where he was fair and thin, she had dark skin and a fighter’s build. Her voice rang out, crisp and clean, as she called formations.

August followed Henry onto the track that ringed the training space. They kept to the outer edge, but he still felt like he was being put on display.

All around the hall, heads were turning, and he wanted to believe they were looking at Henry Flynn, the legendary head of the FTF, but even if their eyes were drawn first to Henry, it was August they lingered on.

“Why are we doing this?” asked August.

Henry smiled. It was one of those smiles August couldn’t parse, neither happy, exactly, nor sad. Neither guarded nor entirely open. One of those smiles that didn’t mean one thing, and usually meant a bit of everything. No matter how many hours August practiced, he would never be able to convey so much with only the curve of his lips.

“I take it you mean this as in taking a lap, and not this as in the battle for North City.” Henry walked with his hands in his pockets, staring at his shoes. “I used to run,” he said, almost to himself. August could see it—Henry had the long, lean build that made motion seem natural. “I’d go out at dawn, burn off all that restless energy. Always felt better on my feet—”

His chest hitched and he trailed off, coughing against the back of his hand.

A single cough, but the sound was like a gunshot in August’s skull. For four years, he had lived with the static of distant gunfire in his head, an echo of his catalyst, a staccato noise filling every silence. But this single sound was worse. He slowed his step and held his breath, waiting to see if it would come again, counting, the way you counted seconds between lightning and thunder.

Henry slowed and coughed a second time, softly, but deeper, as if something had come loose inside him, and as they reached a bench, he sank onto it, hands clasped between his knees. The two of them sat in silence, pretending it was natural, instead of an excuse for Henry to catch his breath.