Traitor Born (Secondborn #2)(89)
A monster lurches up onto the platform. Then several others. I punch and kick the first one that comes at me, but it’s as if he doesn’t feel pain. Another throws his arms around me, snorting as he presses his nose to my throat, sniffing my neck like a maginot. His claws retract.
“Reykin!” I scream, struggling as I’m hauled to the edge.
“Roselle!” Reykin shouts, swinging the sword as more horrifying creatures stumble onto the platform.
“Find me!” I shout, just as the monster leaps from the platform with me in his arms.
We plummet, but then I’m jolted, caught by upraised hands and cushioned like a fragile egg. I’m moved along atop the bodies, clutched and passed from one to the next, surfing over a sea of Zeros. Above me, the hovering platform accelerates above the fray of bodies until they can no longer reach it.
I’m carried by the wave to the Sword balcony and thrown at the feet of the celebrating Census agents. Agent Crow breaks away from the revelry and approaches me.
“Ah, Roselle.” He beams. “Right on time. The party is getting rather dull, and I’m ready to leave now.”
“You’re a monster, Crow.”
He tsks me. “Is that any way to treat your host?” He lifts his hand and places a small black disc to his temple. It adheres to his head, and a glowing blue dot lights up in its center. The horde of monsters surrounding me take a step back in unison. A familiar face emerges from the back of the balcony.
It’s Hawthorne, but it isn’t. His eyes glow with silver light.
My breath catches. “Hawthorne!” I sob.
Agent Crow chuckles. “It’s no use talking to him when he’s in Black-O mode. He’ll never understand you. They don’t speak our language, or so the technicians tell me. Collectively, they stopped using it a long time ago. It’s barely above gibberish to them. He’s a new conversion, but he has all their technology embedded in his brain now. And, of course, I can use that technology to make him do whatever I want.”
Hawthorne stalks toward me. His eyes don’t show an inkling of recognition. I thrust out my hands to stop him, but he winds back and punches me in the stomach.
“Hawthorne,” I gasp in utter despair.
And now I know I was right. Agent Crow won’t kill me, even if I beg him to.
He reaches out and lifts my chin so that I meet his eyes. “Welcome to the future, Roselle.”
Sneak Peek: Rebel Born
THE POISON OF OUR AGE
My wrists are bound with steel cuffs.
Hawthorne viciously prods me forward. I stumble behind Agent Crow, through the blue banners and out of the Sword balcony. I glance over my shoulder, but it’s not the ache of betrayal that wrenches my heart. It’s fear that whatever has happened to Hawthorne is irreversible. His eyes glow with a distinctive silver light. I might have caught a glimpse of it the last time we were together, but I can’t be sure. I can hardly process what’s happening now.
Shrill screams of terror echo throughout the Silver Halo’s corridors. I am surrounded by no less than a dozen Zeros. None of the others approach us. Instead, the monsters busily butcher everything with a pulse. Unafflicted firstborns and the secondborn competitors attempt to escape from the floating colosseum, but hordes of killers intercept them.
My pulse races. I can’t help anyone!
Another shove compels me forward. We pass by a gondola station. Blood and carnage litter the platforms. Some firstborns jump to their deaths from the floating colosseum rather than be caught by the Zeros. The hairs on my scalp stand on end.
“Why are you killing firstborns?” I growl at Agent Crow.
“Why not?” he replies in a blasé tone, reaching to brush wisps of my hair from my face as we walk. I recoil from his touch. “They won’t do well in our new society, Roselle. We’re doing them a favor.” His mouth curves up at the thought, exposing the steel teeth that stand in stark contrast to his supple lips. The black disc adhered to his temple blinks with eerie blue light. It must be how he manipulates the silver-eyed cyborgs. Their obedience to him seems absolute. He doesn’t have to say a word. He somehow just thinks, and they respond.
I shudder. He’s depraved. The inky tattoos around his eyes and on his throat are deceptive. Although there are hundreds of the so-called kill tallies visibly etched into his skin, they only represent a fraction of the deaths he’s caused. He would have to be covered from head to toe to represent all the people whose slaughter he has brought about tonight.
Agent Crow guides us to a staging area where a nondescript medical supply airship awaits with its ramp down. No cargo is on board. The Census agent enters the front of the ship, and I’m shoved up the open ramp by the demonic-sounding killers behind me. Inside the tail, I find that the airship doesn’t have seats. I’m flung to the metal floor by the monster that was Hawthorne. Sitting up, I push myself to the wall, lean back against it, draw my knees up to my chest, and rest my forearms on them.
I’m not sure how smart these things are when they’re in Black-O mode. The silver-eyed woman who latched the cuffs on me made the mistake of securing my arms in front of me. If I can reach a sword, it will be no problem to cut them off. But there aren’t any swords. No weapons of any kind here in the cargo hold. It’s just me and the Zeros.