Forged(20)

They sweep the town and find the dropped crate of water. At Mercy’s, they learn Blaine and I never arrived. When they get back to the bookshop they put an armed watch at the door and start weighing their options, discussing what might have happened, devising a plan.

These are the things I tell myself to dull the twisting sensation in my stomach, to ignore the bile scratching at my throat.

Their executioner is coming, but they’ll be prepared. They have to be. I repeat it, over and over, not sure if I’m lying to myself.

We’re moving again. I crouch on the deck to shield my face from the frigid air. Nearby, someone laughs, shrill and in tune with the clawing wind.

Far too soon the engine slows, then dies out completely. I’m lugged to my feet, off the boat, toward whatever—and whoever—is waiting.





NINE


I CAN’T SEE A THING, but the rhythmic lull of the water and the soft thump of our boat against an unseen structure tells me we are in some kind of port. The strain of pulleys and the clank of cargo suggests a large one. Surrounded, somehow, given the echo. By mountains? Rock? Someone shoves me between the shoulder blades, forcing me forward. The ground beneath my feet is sturdy. Not dirt or mud like the streets of Bone Harbor or Pine Ridge, but man-made. Even and level. Slick with a sheen from the ocean.

“No, that one’s going to Lode,” I hear someone shout. “To Lode, you idiot! Dock 3B.”

“What about the Haven shipment?”

“It went out yesterday, with the other cargo for Taem and Radix.”

Radix. Another domed city? I tuck the name away and breathe deep. It smells different here than the other gulfside ports I’ve been in. There’s the normal salty air and the lingering stench of diesel engines, but there’s also something cool and sharp about the place. I’m tugged along by an escort I can’t see, and I start to feel like we’re walking into the belly of a cave. A cave with damp, bloody walls, if the metallic tinge to the air tells me anything.

The swoosh of a door sliding open reminds me of Union Central, Frank’s base of operations in Taem. The commotion and smells are cut off as the door closes behind us and the lighting—even from beneath my blindfold—changes. It is bright here.

I try to keep track of my path, but there are too many turns, plus a few levels. My escort pushes me—hard—and I fall to my knees. A door slams. It’s pitch-black now. Even after I use my still-bound arms to pull the blindfold off I can’t see much. I feel my way around the room. Maybe two wingspans by another two. Windowless. One door, locked.

Not a room. A cell.

I shout for a while, but no one comes. I wait, and that does no good either. I sit with nothing but my thoughts and the welt on the back of my skull.

I should have listened to Blaine’s warning, should have known Emma being in Pine Ridge could mean nothing good. But I couldn’t walk away. That was the beauty of her as a lure. Frank—the Order—knew this. After seeing Emma, I couldn’t not investigate.

I rest my head against the wall. I wonder if Gage has made it back to the bookshop yet. I wonder if the team is ready for him.

My throat clenches.

The worst part is not that I am alone and terrified, but that I am helpless. I understand why Bree broke down when she was isolated in Burg’s tunnels. Helplessness weighs on a person, and in tight quarters, it’s downright suffocating.


I fall asleep leaning against the wall, and the unadorned room is lit when I wake, pale on three sides, a mirrored wall opposite me. I look far less tired than I feel.

“Morning, Gray,” my reflection says.

I flinch, knocking my head against the wall. There’s no mirror, just something—someone—far worse.

Forged Me stands.

“Where are the others?”

“They’re safe,” he says. “And they’ll remain that way so long as you cooperate.”

My insides curl. Blaine. The last thing I said to him. The way we spent the past few days fighting.

Forged Me plucks at a fraying thread along the cuff of his uniform. An Order uniform, which means we’re likely in an Order facility.

The Compound.

I wasn’t on either boat for long, certainly not long enough to travel across the whole of the Gulf or get to any domed city. The place we docked, the way the noises echoed and boats were loaded—that must have been the shipping center, the channel of water cutting inland and slipping beneath the Compound itself. I feel foolish for not putting it together sooner.

I assume I slept through the night, that it is now Wednesday, two days prior to the first Friday of March, the day of our planned inspection. If Gage didn’t get to the team, could they be on their way to me right now?

“Now I want you to listen to me very carefully,” Forged Me says. “Gage gave us some disturbing news. He said Badger was planning to infiltrate an Order establishment and that you would be involved. He believed the strike would happen this week. Do you know anything about that?”

He looks so much like me. Identical. Down to the shape of his nose and the shade of his hair and the way his colorless eyes are veiled in shadow from being so deep set. The last time I saw this Forgery, our team was fleeing from Burg. He slit Jackson’s throat and then went crazy when our team slipped free. The image of him screaming as our car tore away from Burg’s wall—back arched and arms outstretched—is seared into my memory. There is nothing I can do to sway his beliefs. Unlike Jackson, he is a newer model, an F-Gen5 like the Forged version of Emma we encountered. Forever loyal to Frank, a slave to his orders.