Siege of Shadows (Effigies #2)(7)

Her foot hit the steps swiftly and silently, maneuvering down each rung until she disappeared into the darkness.

We waited. Chae Rin watched the dark open hole grimly, ready to react to any sign of trouble. Lake’s legs fidgeted, but not too much to shift the sand beneath her feet. Still nothing. I rubbed the sweat and dirt off my face and sucked in a quiet breath.

A blast shook the ground beneath us. My head snapped up. That was as good a signal as any. Each of us lifted up our goggles.

“Let’s go.” Chae Rin leapt down the hatch. After a slight hesitation, Lake climbed in next.

It was now or never.

I descended through the hatch last. The metal bars were greasy and dirty—easy to slip on. I made sure I didn’t. The moment I hopped down onto solid ground, I felt the chill. And when I turned, I found a forest of ice blooming in the small bunker. Frost sparkled under the dim lights, speckling the hot, humid air of the dingy room—a room empty but for a single cot covered in dirty white sheets. Belle’s ice crawled up to the ceiling, covering the black shadows on the wall.

Black shadows. Shadows of people. They were drawn in black spray paint against the red brick. Long and short, they lined the walls, their limbs thick and crudely sketched as if by a child.

And maybe Saul was the one who’d painted them. His form was distorted behind Belle’s cocoon of ice as he stood suspended inside. In a navy-blue armored bodysuit and black boots, he almost looked like a soldier. But his face was obscured inside a pure white metal helmet. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before.

“He looks like a cyborg,” Lake said.

I could see that too. The wide, dark slits where his eyes would have been looked like they would suddenly light up bloodred at the slightest computerized command.

“Has he said anything?” Chae Rin paused. “I mean, did he say anything? You know, before you literally iced him?”

“No.” Belle put a hand on the ice gently with her fingers, just over Saul’s face. “It was strange. He didn’t say a word. But he made a move toward me.”

Lake clutched her chest. “He attacked you?”

But Belle shook her head. “No. He just . . . moved toward me. At first I thought it was an attack, but there was something about his demeanor. As if—”

I stepped closer to her. “As if what?”

Belle paused. “As if he’d already been defeated.”

With a tap of her hand, she melted the ice just enough to create a hole through which he could fall into her arms. His limbs dangled limply, but I could tell from the way his head twitched that he was still alive. And his left hand was clutching something desperately.

“How do you take this off?” Placing his body on the ground, Belle began struggling with the helmet covering his face. “Help me.”

Lake and I looked for a lever, a groove, a latch, anything.

“Wait. There’s a switch here,” I said.

It was more like a tiny button tucked away by his ear. One click and the helmet shuddered and shifted open, steaming at the sides.

But the face inside was not Saul’s.

“Who the hell is this?” Chae Rin loomed behind us for a better look.

The young man was barely out of his teens, blond hair matted against his pale forehead, scars riddling his thick, angled face.

“What’s going on?” I studied his face. “I thought Communications said that they tracked Saul’s frequency here.”

Belle was quiet for too long. All the while the timer was counting down. Seven minutes and forty-five seconds. Seven minutes and forty-four seconds . . .

“Well?” I urged Belle.

“The Sect tracked the cylithium frequency of an Effigy here,” she said finally.

The bunker was silent. That is, until the boy’s lips parted in a cough.

“It’s okay,” I told him, surprising myself. What if he was an enemy? But there was something about his feeble moaning and the way his eyes fluttered helplessly that made me wonder otherwise.

Kneeling by his side, Chae Rin grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Hey! Who the hell are you?” After a pause of silence, she shook him again. “We don’t have all day.”

“Chae Rin, be careful!” Lake scowled at her. “He looks half-dead already.”

But if Lake was looking for sympathy, she wouldn’t find it. “The APD field’s about to go out,” Chae Rin snapped. “We don’t exactly have all the time in the world.”

“Sir. Who are you?” Belle asked, more quietly.

The young man sputtered. I could just hear the beginnings of words carving themselves out from the sounds he made.

“What?” Belle leaned in as the young man’s lips moved.

“Are you . . . Sect?”

“We’re the Effigies,” I answered quickly, tentatively touching his arm when it started to tremble uncontrollably. He looked relieved with my answer. “Who . . .” I paused, maybe because I didn’t want to know the answer. “What are you?”

“I ran here . . . I ran from them . . . I hid . . . I wanted you to find me.” He coughed, breathing heavily. “They were going to force me to . . . I couldn’t . . . stop myself. . . . I waited until it stopped working . . . and then when I was free, I ran. . . . I needed you to find me. . . .”