The Gender War (The Gender Game #4)(98)

Owen checked the clip on the gun he was holding. “What do we do if we find something we can’t get over?” he asked, and I could tell he was trying not to yell again.

“We’ll just have to figure it out,” I told him, revving the engine as debris crackled and crunched under our wheels, making the steering slip. I saw the end of the second tunnel—it seemed clear of major obstructions at this end—and pushed the car into it, slowing down some in order to squeeze us in. This tunnel was normally one you would walk through. Inside, smoke and dust thickly clogged the air, making it difficult to see anything. I turned on the headlights and slowed to a crawl. The tires went over something large and solid, and both of us flinched, but I still didn’t stop—I couldn’t.

The smoke choking the atmosphere thinned, and I saw light filtering through it, almost as if a breeze from outside was clearing our path. I pressed the car forward and winced as a harsh scraping noise grated from beneath us. “What the hell is that?” I shouted, and Owen, staring over the dash, shouted, “It’s… a part of a tree?” I groaned and ground on the accelerator—no turning back now—and then we were over it, emerging from the tunnel into billows of dust and chaos.

I raked the area with my gaze, squinting through the smoke and becoming aware of three things almost simultaneously. One, this courtyard was even worse than the previous one, with the area to our right an impassable pile of rubble and crushed vegetation; two, the sound of gunfire blasted through the air; and three, a heloship with two men dangling from the bottom was in the process of lifting off the ground. Gritting my teeth, I pulled forward, navigating around two large chunks of rock, when Owen slapped me on the forearm. “It’s her!”

I turned and followed his pointed finger toward a small, feminine figure racing through the door to the palace directly opposite us. My eyes caught a glint of silver against her chest as the light hit her for a moment—and a flash of red. Then she was gone. My heart jumped in my chest.

Violet. And she is in trouble. Because coming into view, between that door and us, was another figure in the whirling dust. One whose name I’d recently seen far too often in the Patrian news … a hulking woman streaked with blood, whom I would have known out of a crowd instantly. Known and hated.

Princess Tabitha tore after Violet, and rage and terror flooded through me, red overtaking my vision. I gunned the engine just as Owen turned to me, his eyes dark. “We have to—!”

“I know.” The car jumped out into the courtyard, and bullets began to seek us out as their new target. They continued to ping harmlessly off us, but if there was another warden with a grenade launcher, then we were far too exposed.

So I floored it again, driving right over the obstacles in our path and whipping the vehicle around pile after pile of debris too big to drive over—narrowly missing the cracked remains of a fountain now gushing water over the pavement. One of Owen’s hands was clenched in the handle over the door, the other fisted around the seat. It took too long to drive across the short space of that courtyard, and when I finally got a clear space, I angled the vehicle through the door Violet had just disappeared through, not slowing, noticing Owen visibly flinch when he noticed where we were going.

“STAIRS!” he shouted as I barreled toward them, too late for me to stop, even if I’d wanted to.

“I KNOW!”

The tires hit the stairs, and both of us jounced in our seats, my foot never leaving the gas until we were rolling up them, over them, and through the doorway that had swallowed Violet and Tabitha. I knew from experience these corridors were wide, maybe even wide enough to drive in… Still, it was a shock when we burst into the well-lit, opulently decorated palace interior, the tires squealing on the slick tile floors, stray men diving into nearby rooms to avoid being hit. I came to a T-shaped intersection and came to a screeching halt, our traction giving out and slamming the back of the car into the wall as I hit the brakes hard.

I killed the engine and reached into the backseat, aware that there could be wardens in the palace heading toward us right now. I pulled out my rifle and my pistol, while Owen snatched up other weapons we’d brought.

I pushed open the door, grimacing when it was cut short by the wall, and wormed my way through the crack. I heard Owen’s door slam, and I stopped near the hood of the vehicle, rifle pressed to my chest, keeping the corridor to my back and the car between me and any attackers. As I scanned the corridor, the men who had narrowly avoided being hit by my crazed driving emerged from their rooms and raced back toward the inner courtyard, barely looking back—servants and officials, desk job and administrator types, clearly too panicked to worry about the man with the gun.

Owen slid in next to me, and I shot him a look.

“Which way?” he asked, and, once again, I shrugged.

Owen pinned me with a frustrated glance, but before he could complain, gunfire came from the entryway, pinging over my head and into the walls around us. Owen and I ducked down, and I leaned my rifle on the hood of the car, taking an extra moment to sight the shot before pulling the trigger. The Matrian warden, a hundred feet away, dropped.

I had just exhaled and looked back to Owen when a thicker round of gunfire sounded, echoing in the palace’s halls. I flinched, scanning the empty corridors around us, then realized it must be coming from somewhere else. The somewhere else I needed to be. Because if there was shooting happening in here, it must be either at or from Violet. That woman…