***
Miranda and I glance at each other nervously, then I raise my hand and knock. Even as the door opens, footsteps rush up behind us. Two large, armed men, inside the door, level guns at us. From behind, two more press the barrels of their guns into our backs. They shove us inside and shut Matt's door behind us.
"Boss," one of them calls, keeping his gun trained on my face, "it's Miranda, and Eden."
"Kill them," says Matt's voice from the other room.
Miranda's eyes roll in her head. She might pass out. I might pass out. The one with the gun aimed at my face steps closer.
"Wait," I say. "Matt! We came to help you! Please—"
His footsteps sound slowly across the wood floor and he appears in the doorway. He's somber, leveling his gaze at me flatly. Behind him, I can see some of his men. "Help," he says, emotionlessly. His eyes are red-rimmed. I'm not sure if he's exhausted, or maybe drunk. "Grey has an army that's twice as large as the Outpost, itself. We're holding the wall, but it's not going to last. We have maybe until dark. Maybe a bit longer. Then Grey is going to come in here and take over everything. Everything. Trust me, you don't want to be around for that. It's better this way." He looks from me, to the man with the gun. His voice lowers. "Make it quick." He's already turning away.
"I am about to give you everything you ever wanted," I protest, sidestepping, though the gun follows me. My eyes stay on Matt, refusing to look at the weapon.
He stops with his back still to me. When he turns around, he wears a grin of wry amusement. A grin that dares me to imagine everything he ever wanted. It falls away quickly as he steps toward me, closing the distance across the room. I back against the wall, but he doesn't stop until there are mere inches between our faces.
Matt is always intense, but there is a blackness about him now that scares me. "It's too late," he says. "You think switching sides will help you? It won't. Everything is done. Don't you understand? It doesn't matter what you do. You could give me Jonas on a platter. You'd buy us a few hours, maybe. What's the point?"
I find my voice while he takes a breath, and jump in before he can go on. "We can control the Sentries."
Matt does not move, does not blink. Disbelief washes over his face, but he narrows his eyes, glances at Miranda.
"We can control them," I continue breathlessly, "but we need your help. Some things you have."
Matt's hand is suddenly around my throat. Lightly. Not choking me. But it could. I swallow, and try to breathe calmly. He raises one very serious eyebrow at me.
"I pulled a crystal from that Sentry," I explain quickly. "Miranda can reprogram it. She's already written the code."
Now he eyes Miranda. When he turns back to me, I say the rest, before I can lose my courage.
"Promise you won't retaliate. You won't hurt us in any way. Me, Miranda. Jonas. Apollon. Neveah. That's all you have to do, and I'll give you everything."
His fingers press ever-so-slightly against my jugular. He smiles as he leans in. "Why would I do that? Now that I have you, I can make you do anything I want."
Fear washes through me, all the way from my brain straight into my toes. But I meet his gaze, lean into his hand, and say, "You could. If you had time. But you don't, now do you?"
His hand drops. He takes a small step back. He stares at me, mouth parted, his cheek muscles lifting slightly, like he's pleased. A heartbeat later, he breaks into a grin and a laugh. His hand goes to my neck— to the back of it. He pulls me toward him, hooking his arm over my shoulders like I'm his oldest friend. "I guess you're running this show, then," he says, and with a wave of his hand all the guns have disappeared. He leads me into the room with the fireplace, where all his higher-ups are gathered in what appears to be a last-minute strategy session.
Miranda sinks into one of the chairs without asking permission, looking like she may throw up.
I reach into my jacket, pull out the crystal, and hand it to Matt.
"Seriously," he says, eyeing me.
I shrug. "You couldn't do anything without our cooperation. You need Miranda's code. And my plan."
He just shakes his head. Then he's focused on the task at hand. He splits his men between me and Miranda, telling them to do whatever we ask. Still, there are a few nervous glances when Miranda instructs her group to go pull Matt's big gun from the wall. Even so, they head out together, Miranda snapping commands.
I explain to my group how we'll take the Sentries down simultaneously, telling them in detail how to access and remove each crystal they will need to bring back for Miranda. "Remember," I say, wrapping it up, "you'll need good quality blades in order to get into the panel. Thin and strong. The best ones that Coyote Dan makes."
"Coyote Dan," Matt muses, looking me over.
"Coyote Dan," I say.
He shrugs. "Has a ring to it." Then he claps his hands. "Let's get going."
The men are up and out the door. I'm hard on their heels. Matt's hand catches my elbow by the front entrance. "They do the dirty work," he says. "Not us. We get to sit and watch."
We step out onto the front porch and look on as his crew disappears down the street.
He turns to me and touches my face. "Besides," he says softly, "right now, you get to tell me exactly what Jonas is doing, and where to find him."
Chapter 29: Perfect World
I SPUTTER, BLINKING moving my face away. "No," I whisper, then clear my throat. "No," I say louder. "Let me go to him. I can talk him down. It will be better. No fighting."
He laughs through his nose. Then his face goes suddenly serious. "Let's just be clear about this," he says. "What has happened before is the past. I won't retaliate. I won't hold all those things against you. But whatever happens from now on, that's different." He takes a lock of my hair and rubs it between his fingers, gazing down at me through half-lidded eyes. "Don't ever cross me again. You're out of chances."
I nod once, meeting his gaze. Next time I cross Matt, I'll make damned sure I can get away with it. "I'll remember that," I say. "But this isn't a betrayal, or a trick. I don't want my friends to get hurt. I can get them to stop. Jonas will listen to me."
Annoyance flickers over Matt's face. He looks away, thinking. After a moment, he looks at me again. "OK," he says. "Just—"
The boom erases the rest of it. Black smoke billows into the air from the direction of the main gate. Subsequent explosions echo along the wall line, ejecting debris into the air. Ash swirls above us on looping currents. We gaze upward, mouths open. Shivers run through me. Either Grey has gotten through, or Jonas is attacking the wall already. Either of these is a bad turn of events. Matt glances at me, and is about to ask. My glance back at him already gives him the answer. He growls.
A spatter of gunfire sounds far down the street. Out of a cloud of black smoke, there is a screeching noise, and the sound of hooves beating the pavement. That necklace-wearing pig comes squealing at top speed down the street, its hindquarters wet with blood. We watch wordlessly as it runs past us.
Matt turns and goes inside.
I hurry after him. "Where are you going?"
"To get a bigger gun," he says, marching straight through the parlor into a dining room. He opens what could have been a china cabinet, revealing a slew of weapons.
"I thought we didn't do the dirty work," I protest.
"In a perfect world, no," he says, scanning over the weapons. His hand closes on the barrel of something sleek and black and probably automatic. "In a world where people shoot my pig..." he looks at me as he slings the rifle over his shoulder, "sometimes I shoot back."
He's marching out the door. I hastily grab a rifle for myself, and run after him.
We stride into the billows of smoke, moving toward the wall. The grey cloud closes around us like a fist. Like a box. I try to breathe, but the air itself chokes me. I cough into my sleeve for a few s
teps, then take shallower breaths the rest of the way. "I am not shooting anyone from the Outpost, just to be clear," I say. "Only Grey's men."
Matt levels his gaze at me as we walk. "Just to be clear," he says, "anyone who is not one of my men is one of Grey's men."
I scowl at him, and he scowls right back at me.
What we find at the wall takes our minds off our differences for at least a moment. The concrete is in piles, bodies strewn haphazardly atop the rubble. Gunfire is going in every direction. Some sections are flaming, some just smoldering. It's hard to see very far past the smoke, but beyond the wall there's enough movement to suggest a large force assembled in the small stretch before the barrier.
"Why didn't the Sentries take care of Grey's army?" I ask, running after Matt. "I know you've been firing remotely, but what about them?"
He glances back at me. "There's no law against destroying property," he says. "They've mostly been targeting the wall until now."
We scramble toward a jagged chunk of concrete that's still in place and take cover behind it. It will only stop bullets from one direction, and probably won't do much of anything against an explosion. My heart is crawling into my throat, struggling upward inch by inch. Far behind us, in between explosions, we hear the unmistakable sound of metal in motion, and screams to go with it. Someone caught fighting, or one of ours?
"Do you know how to use it?" Matt says, glancing at the rifle in my hands.
I hesitate. He reaches toward the safety and flicks it, moves his hand toward the barrel to take it from me. I recoil. "I got it," I say. I chamber a round and raise my eyebrows at him. Maybe I don't exactly know what I'm doing, but my hands seem to. The rifle feels right in my grip. Familiar.
"Suit yourself," he says. He readies his own gun and peeks over his shoulder past the side of the concrete. Bullets spray our barrier from the other side, making it rattle, sending up dust and tiny grey shards.
I close my eyes and count down silently, trying to steady myself. Trying to prepare. I've made it from one hundred down to seventy-two, and I think I'm probably just going to keep counting, looping back to a hundred once I get to zero. Sixty-nine. Sixty-eight. Calm descends on me, sudden, and soothing. I can still feel my heart protesting in my chest, but in my head, everything is clear. Everything is in slow motion. As the bursts hitting the other side pause, I whip my rifle into place and start firing. On my left, Matt's gun rumbles like the purr of a gargantuan tiger. We pop back behind our cover as the return fire ricochets off the other side, then do it all again when we have a chance. We play this game of hide-and-seek for an eternity as explosions boom around us. The sky, already thick with smoke, grows darker, leaking poisonous tendrils of black air all around us. We're sheltering with our backs against the concrete, catching our breath, coughing, when I glance at Matt and see his grimace.
"We have to move," he says, catching my eye. "Who knows what's in this stuff. Chemicals, maybe."
I glance along the wall line, where black leads to black, but Matt is already up and running. I run after him, keeping my head down, hoping like hell not to get hit. A string of gunfire chases after us, but it's too slow. We make it behind another pile of debris, then pick our way along the line. There's not so much open fire from beyond the wall here, but there is haphazard fighting within. I recognize one of Jonas' people just as Matt takes him down with a quick burst. He keeps moving, and I keep following, but I'm not shooting anyone here. Not inside. I will be soon, though, because it won't be long until Grey's men pour into the Outpost.
Eventually, we do find a place where the air is a little clearer. The wall is still standing. We press ourselves against it, taking a moment to breathe and check our weapons.
Matt eyes me as I cough into my sleeve. "OK?"
I nod.
He scans the scene before us, taking stock. "This plan of yours," he says. "We might be too late."
I don't want to think like that, but as I look past him at the mess we are all making, I have to concede that he may be right. "What then?" I ask breathlessly.
His face hardens. "We take out as many of them as we can. And when it comes to it... Well...."
I'm staring at him, frozen. I swallow, feeling ice replace the hot rush in my veins. I shiver. But I nod. There's no living for us, if Grey conquers the Outpost. It takes me just a moment. I accept it, then I'm OK. Ironically, coming to terms with my impending doom offers me a sweet taste of freedom. I'm going to die makes I might die far less potent.
We move away from our cover and make our way along the wall. The occasional bullet exploding against the concrete beside my head is not nearly so unnerving, now. We make the curve around a building, and there, sprawled on the ground, is the remains of one of the Sentries.
"Well," Matt says, nudging it with one toe, "at least we know part of the plan is working."
I'm grinning, despite myself. Hope is a drug that is hard to get off. "We just have to hold them off long enough," I say. I'm still smiling down at the metal corpse. Matt doesn't reply. When I look up, he's sighting his gun on something in the distance. I follow his gaze down the barrel and see Jonas. He's running, chasing after someone, firing a pistol off to the side where we can't see. He doesn't even notice us.
"No!" I throw myself in front of Matt's gun just as his finger moves to the trigger.
He glares at me, frozen. "Get out of the way," he growls.
"No."
He swings his gun down and tries to step around me.
I move into his way.
"He's trying to help Grey get through," Matt says, evenly. "That equals you and me, dead. Now get the hell out of my way."
I move toward him, instead, into the space he needs for his gun. I set my hands on his arms. "You promised."
Matt glares at me, and glances beyond me.
I follow his gaze. Jonas is still running, completely exposed to us.
We face off against each other.
"I swear to god, Eden," Matt grumbles, "this had better be one hell of a victory." He moves away from me, slinging his gun on his shoulder.
I turn and look for Jonas. He's gone. I run after Matt, wondering if that's the only reason he gave in— because his target had already disappeared.
Not far down the wall, we join up with a group of Matt's men. Jacob and Taylor are with them. Matt asks them if they've heard from either of the teams we sent out, but they know nothing. Quickly, he fills them in on our plan. They look at him wide-eyed, and nod. I have the feeling they don't believe him— not that any of them would ever say it. We backtrack and they see the Sentry lying there. Tentative grins flit around under their shadowed eyes.
"We don't know where the others are," Matt says to them, "but let's at least set up a perimeter around this one. Give our guys a clear shot to get back here and finish their work."
They nod, and move off to do as he says, but before any kind of perimeter can be established, a roar sounds from down the wall to our left. Bursts of gunfire quickly follow. Through the smoke, enemies rush toward us.
We return fire, but there's not much cover here. Only a moment passes before we're forced to retreat. They push us back and back. We lose men right and left, splatters of blood erupting from their chests, necks, arms, legs. Only a handful of us are left. Matt, sheltering behind a wall a few spans away, runs toward me, hunkers down beside me against the trash bin that is my cover. His eyes say everything. We look at each other without speaking.
We're still trying to find the courage to acknowledge our defeat when an explosion sounds in the direction we're now facing. We peer through the smoke. I can feel the intensity of my own hope reflected in Matt. We gaze off, not breathing, waiting to see what emerges from the airborne debris.
Everything happens in a blur that is over before it began. Men appear out of the black cloud, running toward us. Silence, then shouting. From the other side of our shelte
r, standing over us, guns aim at our heads. Soot-smeared men disarm us, round us up with the other survivors, and shove us into a little group against the wall. A few shots are fired in the distance, then everything is silent for the first time in days. It's over.
A moment later, a group of men strides down the wall toward us, their certain steps carrying the air of command. I know the one in the middle right away, though I've never seen him. I know him from the icy chill that moves through me at the sight of him. From the inhuman glare. From the evil that seems to pour off of him. Grey.
They assemble in front of us, summing us up, while the others keep their weapons aimed at our chests.
"Eden." It's a strangled whisper. I didn't even notice Jonas, until he said my name.