The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)(81)

“Violet?” Amber’s voice made me start in alarm.

“Amber, are you safe?” I asked.

“Yes, but the—”

“Hold position and keep the line clear. Something’s happened.” I was sure my words were going to worry her, but there was nothing to do about it now. I couldn’t report anything when I knew nothing. “Henrik? Owen?”

“I’m here.” Henrik’s voice came from the left of me, and I moved around the table, blinking in the dimness, to find the older man leaning back on the floor with his hand on his side. I knelt down next to him.

“Are you okay?” I asked, moving his hand away.

“I’m fine,” he rasped, although he let me pull up his shirt to check on his wound. The bright white bandage taped just left of his bellybutton was stained with blood, and I carefully peeled back the tape, revealing the stitches underneath.

From what I could see in the dim light, one of his stitches had popped out, but the wound was far enough healed that we could fix it with some butterfly tape. I pressed the bandage back down, leaning into the tape to make it stick a little bit longer, and nodded. “It’s an easy fix,” I said. “Can you get up?”

“It’s a gut wound, girl,” he grumped, but he let me help him up.

“Violet?” Owen’s voice was a rasp in the darkness, and I turned my head toward the stairs leading up to the door, studying them in the orange light creeping in through the door’s seams. Something opposite of the stairs moved, and I saw Owen’s shadow emerge from the darkness in the corner, lumbering toward the table. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I whispered. “Are you?”

“Got the wind knocked out of me. Something just slammed into my chest.”

“It must have been Cody,” I breathed.

Owen leaned on the table with one hand, his other wrapped around his stomach, cradling it. “I know,” he replied, his tone resigned. “I’m sorry.”

“Desmond’s the one who’s going to be sorry,” I muttered as I moved over to the stairs, picking my way across the debris-ridden floor. I climbed to the top of the stairs, and then felt around the stone for the light switch, clicking it on.

Much to my relief, the bulb immediately switched on, and I glanced down the stairs toward the chaos of the room—papers and equipment everywhere, a length of pipe lying on the ground next to the desk, the drone controls knocked over, and various pieces of the unfinished basement room having been strewn about randomly. Turning back to the door, I twisted the handle, but it refused to turn.

“Who’s got the keys?” I asked.

“They were on the table a minute ago,” said Henrik, sinking to one knee and beginning to sift through the papers that had been scattered there.

“Were those the ones that also had the keys to Desmond’s chains?” Owen asked suddenly.

I felt a splash of fear and immediately hit the transmit button, cutting to the channel that connected us to our other houses. “Lacey?” I called for the guard who’d been stationed at Desmond’s prison.

Henrik and Owen looked up at me and then exchanged looks. “How would Cody know where we stashed her?” Henrik asked. “I don’t think we talked about it in front of him…”

“Children always have a knack for hearing information they shouldn’t be hearing,” I said, thinking about Tim when he was young. “We shouldn’t have let him wander around, even with his guard… Oh God.” I pressed my fingers together again. “Lacey?”

Silence and the occasional pop of static filled the line. “Everyone, change frequency to Delta nine,” Henrik announced on the command channel.

“Does anyone have a lock-picking tool?” I asked, although I knew they didn’t.

“No,” said Henrik, heaving back on to his feet.

“Damn it!” exploded Owen. “Right now, he’s probably getting her free, and then she is going to go tell the Matrians about our base, ruin our plans for the water treatment plant, and continue this horrible game she’s playing! Why couldn’t you just have executed her?!”

“Because she threatened the boys, Owen! And if there was even a remote chance she wasn’t lying, we couldn’t risk it!”

Silence met my statement, and a glance at Owen nodding angrily revealed that he had already known this—he just hated the feeling of impotence it brought. I could understand that. I didn’t envy the turmoil that was running even hotter inside him than it was inside me, but I didn’t have time to entertain it. We had to get out of this room. I had to check on Morgan and stop Desmond. If she’d escaped, she now knew the location of one of our newly found bases. And as much as he would hate it, I had to get Cody back from her.

“Violet?”

Viggo’s voice in my ear made my thoughts tumble apart, and I turned, expecting and wanting him to be right behind me, even though I knew he wasn’t.

“Viggo? Are you okay? Did you make it through the Porteque territory?”

“We’re almost there. We’ve got a few more issues to clear up, but so far, everyone is fine.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all night.” The little reminder that the men I loved most in the world were still all right made things feel a little less grim. I was going to ignore the strain in Viggo’s voice, until I had a chance to extract the whole story from him. If I did. Right now, I was just glad, so glad, he and everyone were safe.