The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)(82)

“Glad to hear you’re okay,” said Henrik, echoing my thoughts, and I looked over at where he was leaning against the table, his hand still pressed to his side. “We’ve got problems here. Cody came in and wrecked a bunch of stuff, and we’re currently locked in the basement. He’s got the keys, and we think he went for Desmond.”

Silence met Henrik’s statement.

“Cody got her out?” Viggo said, his voice coarse with disbelief. “How? We’ve been sedating him.”

“We don’t have all the details,” I said. “All we know is it was Cody, and he was using his enhancement. The place is a mess.”

“Violet?” Amber’s voice cut in softly. “I’m not sure if this is the best time to tell you this, but your drone is dead. It slammed into the wall of a building.”

“What?” I raced down the stairs again, my eyes finding the heavy briefcase-like remote control a few feet from the table, propped up on its side. I rolled it over and lifted the heavy lid a few more inches, revealing spider web cracks in the screen, cutting black lines across the screen that was supposed to display the feed, which was now showing only red static. I exhaled slowly and closed the lid. “Crap.”

“Use the roofs, Amber,” Ms. Dale said over the radio, her voice sternly practical. “You’re in a pretty dense part of town, structurally speaking, and it’ll give you the advantage of elevation.” It was a good suggestion, and now more than ever we needed the groups to get to their rendezvous points on time.

I sifted through the debris lining the floor and found a few paperclips. Straightening the rounded edges, I climbed back up the stairs and knelt in front of the door, slipping one into the keyhole on the doorknob. I started to unfold the second one, when I realized that I couldn’t pick the lock with a cast on my hand. Of course I couldn’t. And even with all the training I’d been doing, I didn’t think my left hand was going to be up to the job.

I waved Owen over and let him take my spot in front of the door. Picking a lock was difficult in the tensest of times, and doing it with a paperclip wasn’t easy. Minutes ticked by as he fiddled with it. Henrik stayed below, giving orders over the radio as he sifted through the papers, mechanically trying to organize them.

The doorknob rattled and I looked up, barely hearing Amber’s voice in my ear. Owen pulled his gun and stood, motioning for me to move past him down the steps. I did so just as the rattle stopped, and then there was a distinct jingle of keys. The lock clicked, and the door swung open, revealing Morgan, one hand cupped over her eyes. “You guys okay?”

“Morgan,” I said, taking a step closer. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Morgan looked away and then slowly lowered her hand, revealing the quickly purpling flesh under her brow, the mark wrapping around her orbital socket. “Cody blindsided me. One minute I thought he was sleeping, the next thing I knew, pow. Violet… as soon as my head stopped spinning, I took off after them down the road in the car. I got there just as she was pulling away. I would’ve kept chasing them, but I needed to see if you guys were wounded. I couldn’t handle it if one of you bled out while I chased down Desmond.”

I took in a deep breath through my teeth. “Did you see Lacey while you were there?”

Morgan’s face went from weary to appalled, and she shook her head wildly. “Oh no, I didn’t even think about it. I’m so sorry—I hope she’s okay.”

“It’s all right,” I said, though we both knew that if it wasn’t, there wasn’t much we could do about it now. Morgan bit her lip and nodded as though trying to convince herself.

“Violet,” she said, “one more thing. Desmond was driving the truck. With Solomon in it.”

I was unprepared for the flash of dizzying anger that coursed through me and left me feeling burning white and hot. “What?”

“They took the truck—” Morgan began, wrongly interpreting my question.

“I know, I know,” I snapped, unable to stop the current of flame that was eating up my insides. “She’ll use him if she has to. She’ll turn him on anyone who gets in her way.” I turned and leveled a look at Henrik. “I want to go after her.”

Henrik looked unsurprised. “Guys, Violet wants to go after Desmond. We have just learned she took Solomon in her escape.”

There was a pause on the line. “Do you think Desmond will try to jeopardize the mission?” Viggo kept his voice calm and even, but I knew he didn’t want me going into the city without having a really good reason.

“I do. I’ll bet she gleaned that we were going to target the water treatment plant, and if there’s something going on, she’ll head there to warn them—and because she has a vehicle, there’s a chance she could get there before our people.”

“If she even goes there, but Violet, if she doesn’t…” Amber trailed off. She had unwittingly helped me to understand another angle to this argument: if Desmond didn’t go for it, then it meant nothing was happening at the plant to begin with, and we could call off the attack and focus on freeing the city completely.

“We have to go, regardless of where she goes. By the time she gets to the city, she will know our location, or something close enough to it to make life bad for us. And we have to get Cody and Solomon back from her before she can put them on the Benuxupane and use them for her plans again.”