The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)(112)



I had to lie down, the pain was that bad. I slowly lowered myself as Mags leaned over me, her face fluttering in concern. “Viggo? I’m so sorry, did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” I wheezed hoarsely, trying not to breathe too deeply.

I was lying and we both knew it, but she ignored it, looking around at the bodies on the floor and the otherwise deserted room. “Did we do it?” she asked. “Did we win?”

I looked over to where Harry lay, Gregory just a few feet away from him. “I think so,” I said tiredly, the statement not fully expressing every feeling coursing through me in that moment. “We purged the plant,” I said to Mags. “The contaminated water is gone. There might be a little still in Patrus, but not enough to destroy the entire city.”

Mags’ eyes glittered with tears, but whether they were of happiness or sadness, I didn’t think even she knew. “We did it,” she said hoarsely. “We stopped ‘em.”

“Yes,” I said, although the triumph tasted weird in my mouth. “And now we need Dr. Tierney here. We got a lot of wounded.”

Mags nodded and began transmitting as I somehow managed to flop over onto my back, thinking of Violet. We’d made it through this; we’d survived the first hurdle. Desmond hadn’t appeared and stopped our attack on the plant—I hoped to God Violet had stopped her. I pushed all those thoughts away, imagining how much I was going to enjoy just… holding her tightly and going to sleep by her side. Soon. As soon as all this was cleaned up.

Once Mags was finished on the radio, she leaned heavily to one side, resting her weight on the wall behind her. “I wish we could say this was it,” she said. “But there is so much more to do. The city is in shambles; people are still killing each other… We may have saved them, but that doesn’t mean we can re-establish order.”

I groaned, and slowly worked myself into a sitting position, the fantasy of holding Violet popped by Mags’ cold dash of reality. “We need to reorganize and get our people medical attention, food, and rest first,” I said. “After that, we’ll start with the city. One block at a time if we have to. The biggest thing that will calm people down is restoring power, but some of the seedier elements will have to be dealt with. Luckily, I think having Maxen will be useful.”

Mags shot me a hard look. “Our agreement was—”

“The people can’t agree to kick him out right now. They aren’t even talking to each other. It would be chaos. Restore order—be one of the groups the people start to look up to—then decide who is going to lead. Baby steps.”

“And in the meantime, Elena is coming up with something else.” Mags glowered angrily, and I sighed. We had fires on all fronts, and they were raging. But I knew we couldn’t worry about the fire on the other side of the river at the moment. The people came first.

“We’ll deal with it,” I said, easing up against the wall a few inches, pushing past the agony that made up one side of my ribs. “You haven’t known us long enough yet, but we always do. And this time, we’ll end it.”

I hoped.

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