Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(97)

I watched her eyes. Watched her serene, calm face as the beeps slowed. Then stopped. There was no atline sound from the mobile.

Just silence that carried a weight of meaning. Nothingness laden with data.

“This …,” I said, blinking tears.

“I mean, I carried her all the way here, Tia.…”

“I’m sorry,” Tia said. She raised a hand to her face, leaving a bloody mark on her forehead. Then she sighed and leaned back against the wall, looking exhausted.

“Do something,” I said. Not an order. A plea.

“I’ve done what I can,” Tia said.

“She’s gone, David.”

Silence.

“Those wounds were bad,” Tia continued. “You did everything you could. It’s not your fault. To be honest, even if you’d been able to get her here immediately, I don’t know if she’d have made it.”

“I …” I couldn’t think.

Cloth rustled. I glanced to the side. Prof stood in the doorway to his room. He’d dusted o his clothing, and he looked clean and digni ed, a sharp contrast to the rest of us. His eyes ickered to Megan. “She’s gone?” he asked. His voice had softened a little from before, though he still didn’t sound like I felt he should.

Tia nodded.

“Gather what you can,” Prof said, slinging a pack over his shoulder. “We’re abandoning this position. It’s been compromised.”

Tia and Abraham nodded, as if they’d been expecting this order.

Abraham did pause to lay a hand on Megan’s shoulder and bow his head, and then he moved his hand to the pendant at his neck. He hurried off to gather his tools.

I took a blanket from Megan’s bedroll—it didn’t have sheets—and brought it back to lay over her.

Prof looked at me, and he seemed about to object to the frivolous action, but he held his tongue. I tucked the blanket around Megan’s shoulders but left her head exposed.

I don’t know why people cover the face after someone dies. The face is the only thing left that is still right.

I brushed it with my ngers. The skin was still warm.

This isn’t happening, I thought numbly. The Reckoners don’t fail like this.

Unfortunately, facts—my own facts— ooded my mind. The Reckoners did fail; members of the Reckoners did die. I’d researched this. I’d studied this. It happened.

It just shouldn’t have happened to Megan.

I need to see her body cared for, I thought, bending down to pick her up.“Leave the corpse,” Prof said.

I ignored him, then felt him gripping my shoulder. I looked up through bleary eyes and found his expression harsh, eyes wide and angry. They softened as I looked at him.

“What’s done is done,” Prof said.

“We’ll burn out this hole, and that will be a tting burial for her.

Regardless, trying to bring the body would just slow us down, maybe get us killed. The soldiers are probably still watching the front position. We can’t know how long it will take them to nd the new hole I cut in here.” He hesitated. “She’s gone, son.”

“I should have run faster,” I whispered, in direct contrast to what Tia had said. “I should have been able to save her.”

“Are you angry?” Prof asked.

“I …”

“Abandon the guilt,” Prof said.

“Abandon the denial. Steelheart did this to her. He’s our goal. That has to be your focus. We don’t have time for grief; we only have time for vengeance.”

I found myself nodding. Many would have called those the wrong words, but they worked for me.

Prof was right. If I moped and grieved, I’d die. I needed something to replace those emotions, something strong.

Anger at Steelheart. That would do it. He’d taken my father from me, and now he’d taken Megan too. I had a lurking understanding that so long as he lived, he’d take everything I loved from me.

Hate Steelheart. Use that to keep me going. Yes … I could do that. I nodded.

“Gather your notes,” Prof said, “and then pack up the imager.

We’re leaving in ten minutes, and we’ll destroy anything we leave behind.”

I looked back down the new tunnel Prof had cut into the hideout.

Harsh red light glowed at its end, a funeral pyre for Megan. The blast Abraham had rigged was hot enough to melt steel; I could feel the heat from here, far away.

If Enforcement managed to cut into the hideout, all they’d nd would be slag and dust. We had carried out what we could, and Tia had stashed a little more in a hidden pocket she’d had Abraham cut into a nearby corridor. For the second time in a month, I watched a home I’d known burn.

This one took something very dear with it. I wanted to say goodbye, to whisper it or at least think it. I couldn’t get the word to form. I just … I guess I just wasn’t ready.

I turned and followed the others, hiking away into the darkness.

An hour later I was still walking through the dark corridor, head down, pack slung on my back. I was so tired I could barely think.

It was odd, though—as strong as my hatred had been for a short time, now it was just lukewarm.

Replacing Megan with hatred seemed a poor trade.

There was motion ahead and Tia fell back. She’d changed quickly from her bloodstained clothing.