The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)(3)

I sat down almost immediately in the relative silence of the fully enclosed ambulance bay as the adrenaline seemed to completely desert my body. Wiping my hand across my brow to clear off the dots of perspiration that had formed there, I looked around the bay. Everyone was sitting or leaning heavily on something, their breathing ragged, cheeks stained red from exertion.

I couldn’t help but smile as I took them all in. “Good job, everyone,” I said.

Five pairs of eyes stared back blankly, and a chuckle escaped me—they might not want to enjoy the awesomeness of still being alive right at that moment, but damn it, I was going to.





2





Violet





“Are you insane?” I whispered harshly, still finding it difficult to speak through the lump in my throat.

Owen didn’t answer my question. Instead, as I struggled to my feet, he pounded loudly back up the small set of stairs toward Ashabee’s hidden basement entrance door—which, I noticed, he’d slid closed behind him—and shouted in the voice of a man whose triumph was turning to terror, “I’ve got her! I’ve got—oh God! She’s got a—”

The moment he’d said ‘I’ve got her,’ a chill had gone down my spine, and I had almost swung my backpack around to grab for my gun—the gun Owen himself had given me. But before I could even figure out the implications of what that might mean, Owen had spun his own weapon up and shot at the ceiling, two loud blasts. At the same time, I saw his other hand pressing the button that locked the door from the inside, a glitter of lights next to the handle turning on as Ashabee’s technology secured the lock.

Silence reigned for a moment. Owen stared at the door. Then I heard the sounds of pounding feet from outside, more shouting, voices I didn’t recognize: “Hey, what happened in there? Where are they?”

“Help me get this damn thing open!”

In almost complete darkness, Owen came back down the stairs toward me, a wild kind of excitement in his voice. “I bought us some time. Violet, we can do this!"

I gaped at him.

Owen’s face was partially hidden in shadows cast by the dim ensconced lights on the wall of Ashabee’s secret armory. This basement had stronger lighting, but neither of us had stopped to flip the switch. Then again, considering that Owen had just sold me out to Desmond, nationalist psychopath and Queen Elena’s right-hand woman, neither of us had spared much thought for the lighting. Even if he had just pretended to sell me out, if I were to believe what he was saying.

I wanted to believe him. He was my best friend, and some unshakable part of me refused to believe he would truly throw me to the wolves like that. We’d been through so much together. And the hatred in his voice when he spoke of Desmond had been so clear.

My heart’s desperate urge to believe Owen would never really betray me wasn’t making things easier or less confusing. If anything, it was making this whole thing worse—and I didn’t have time to be confused. I shook my head, at a loss for words, raging that, despite everything, I couldn’t bring myself to just shoot him in the leg and leave him there to rot while trying to make my own escape.

Nothing could make up for the fact that I’d been hoping to find my brother and instead I’d found her waiting for me. Or for him dragging me out here on false pretenses and lying to my face about it. Since I couldn’t figure out how to feel about anything, my brain settled on anger. I was furious.

As I continued to not speak, Owen’s eyes bored into mine. In the soft light, I could see he was trying to look reassuring, but his desperation made the idea nonsensical. “Violet, please, we can stop her,” he whispered. “It’s going to be all right. We’ve got her now. She believes me. We can put an end to all this.”

From up the stairs came the sound of banging. Like it or not, I was stuck with Owen right now. I needed him to help me escape, and moreover, if he was trying to double-cross—double double-cross?—me once more, I needed to at least play along until I could escape him, too.

“What’s your plan?” I bit out.

Owen looked feverishly into my eyes. “Desmond is up there right now. We have a bit of a scuffle, shout at each other, and then I bring you upstairs—I’ll go for Desmond, you go for the guards… No, you can shoot her, if you—”

“Do you even hear yourself?” I recoiled, trying to keep my voice low while taking a horrified step away from him. The fear lurking in my stomach raised its ugly head again, but I pushed it down into the river of anger roaring up my insides. I felt like the whole room was spinning around me. “Killing Desmond isn’t some kind of prize that’s going to make everything better!”

Owen’s blue eyes burned even in the dim light as he held my gaze; then he looked away, pain clenching his face. He opened his mouth as if to reply.

The pounding at the door above us stopped momentarily, just long enough for me to wonder if they’d pulled back—and then a honey-sweet voice called out through the door, clearly audible, making my stomach crawl. “Do hurry up, Owen dear,” it said. “Every second you spend down there makes me doubt your intentions.”

Desmond was there at the top of the stairs right now. And she suspected. Oh, of course she suspected.

Owen shot me a glance and then turned in her direction.