Their Fractured Light (Starbound #3)(41)

I stay standing with a monumental effort, rooting my feet to the floor. Take it one step at a time, I tell myself. “How long do we have?” I ask Mae, trying to keep recrimination out of my voice. It’s done, no amount of guilt can change it now.

“I don’t know. They must’ve tracked your message back here—or they know I’m a known associate of—”

“Mae,” Gideon interrupts. “Do you know where your kids are being held?”

She shakes her head, then leans heavily against the doorframe before sinking slowly to the ground. “God, I can’t believe this is happening. This can’t be happening.”

Gideon stands there, clearly torn, body language showing his desire to go to Mae’s side warring with the desire to run.

“Gideon,” I say quietly. “We’ve got to go. Mae, toss some things around, make it look like you fought.”

She gulps a breath but stoops without hesitation, overturning the coffee table, sending the vase atop it smashing to the ground.

Gideon takes a step, then pauses. “We’re going to figure this out,” he tells Mae, his voice tight with urgency. “Tell them you did all you could, that they only just missed us. Tell them…” He hesitates, and when I glance his way, I see his indecision written clearly across his features.

For a brief moment I can almost feel his thoughts like they’re my own. The more Mae gives LRI on Gideon, the more she’ll be seen as cooperating, and the better chance she’ll have of getting her kids back. But every bit of information she gives them strips away a layer of Gideon’s anonymity, leaves him that much more open and vulnerable. I can understand that.

His hesitation lasts only the briefest of moments. “Tell them everything you know about me.”

Mae’s face is already white, but her eyes widen just a fraction more. “Everything? You mean—”

Gideon cuts her off mid-sentence with a slice of his hand. “Yes, I mean. Either we’re going to beat LaRoux or we’re not, and either way…” He swallows. “Either way I won’t need the—my online identity anymore.” His voice softens. “Cooperate with them, Mae, and they’ll let the kids go.”

He doesn’t want me to know what his online identity is, and while part of me resents the fact that this woman gets to know more about him than I do, I can’t blame him for keeping his secrets. I’ve kept mine, after all.

Mae’s crying, tossing aside a throw pillow from the couch as she creates the aftermath of a struggle, her hand bloodied by one of the shards of the vase, but she nods. Gideon hefts his pack, then glances at me. I take his cue and head for the door. “They know who I am. They’ve got both our faces on multiple security feeds by now. All my secrecy’s worthless, except as currency to prove you’re cooperating, and to get your kids back. Just tell them whatever they want to know.”

Mae nods silently, and Gideon turns to join me, touching my elbow as I palm the keypad by the door to send it whooshing open. But then I hear her choke, then clear her throat, and we both pause. “Gideon—Alice—” She’s watching us. “I’m sorry.”

Gideon’s hand on my elbow tightens. “So am I.” Then he’s ushering me through the door, and as the laugh track on the movie echoes in the background, the door shuts behind us again.

He doesn’t move, and I stand there, feeling his fingers hot against my elbow, wishing I knew what to say.

To hell with it. I can figure out a safe distance again later.

I step forward so I can turn and wrap my arms around his waist, pulling myself in close. “I’m sorry.”

Gideon lets out a little sound, then ducks so his forehead touches my shoulder, arms going around me. I’m still in the same clothes I was wearing when I was taken from my apartment, and I must smell terrible, but his arms just tighten. His voice is a mumble against my shoulder when he speaks. “I just—Mae—”

I take a slow breath. “She’s family,” I reply. “And LaRoux’s taken her too.”

I can feel Gideon’s fingers curling against my back, tightening into fists around the fabric of my sweater.

I turn my head, so that my voice will carry through his chest. “Let’s not let him take anything else.”

A test, then.

We will watch them. We will follow them, through the thin spots and through the images and words that stream through our world and in the brief moments we can escape the confines of the blue-eyed man’s cages.

If we are to decide whether to become individuals ourselves, we must understand what it is to be human. We must know them, every atom of them, every spark of what makes them who they are. We must narrow our focus, find a chosen few whose lives contain pain and joy together. A chosen few who could become anything—who could fall into darkness and hatred and vengeance, or who could use that pain to become something greater.

We will start with the little peach-haired girl whose eyes are so like those of our keeper. She laughed once, and showed us love.

MY HEART’S TRYING TO FORCE its way up through my throat as we run together down the street. My legs feel like they’re weighted down, and I’m half stumbling as my breath turns ragged. There’s no point in trying for stealth—we’re in the family-friendly suburbs, and there’s no crowd to hide us, no alleyway to slip down. We’re exposed, in every possible way. I always told Mae that made it dangerous up here. She laughed, and told me it suited the kids.