Son of Sun, page 18
“We don’t know what caused the explosion yesterday,” Desmond said.
“Probably Raina,” Kieran said.
“If things are as bad as they seem, we can’t afford to keep waiting,” Desmond said. “It’s only a matter of time before Salinger unleashes some fresh hell.”
“What do you propose?” Emanuel leaned forward in his chair.
“We send a scouting party to the river,” Desmond said. “See if we can find a way across. Find a shelter on the other side ourselves. Then we take a small team and we fight.”
“A small team won’t make it back,” Emanuel said. “If we go in undermanned, no one will get out.”
“Then we don’t get out,” Desmond said. “There are some things worth dying for, Emanuel.”
Nola slipped her hand into Jeremy’s.
“I agree with the sentiment,” Julian said, “but how would those left behind know if the task had been completed? If we send people out and they don’t come back, those left behind will be less protected and still not know if they are, in fact, safe.”
“I wish we had coms.” Jeremy shook his head. “I never thought about it when I was an Outer Guard. But not being able to check in or give orders in real time, it makes everything harder.”
“I can’t risk losing you, Desmond,” Emanuel said. “Not with Raina gone.”
“But we have to do something,” Jude said.
And the circle begins again.
Nola shifted her weight to lean against Jeremy’s side.
I should be doing something. Helping somehow.
There’s nothing to do but wait.
“We have to be sure the humans of Nightland are cared for,” Emanuel said. “Their safety has to be our first priority.”
Bang, bang, bang.
The pounding on the library door jolted Nola, sending her heart racing.
“Emanuel!” A boy’s voice came from the corridor.
Emanuel was up in an instant, wrenching the door open.
Nola reached for the knife on her belt, forgetting she wore no weapons within the halls of Nightland.
A teenaged boy stood in the corridor, his eyes wide as Emanuel stepped toward him.
“Message from the tunnels,” the boy said. “There’s someone outside looking for you.”
“Who?” Emanuel took off down the hall.
“I don’t know.” The boy chased after him, the rest of the group from the library close on his heels. “I didn’t see them. Stell sent word.”
“Raina wouldn’t wait outside,” Jeremy said.
“It’s got to be someone from the Woodlands.” Jude cut around to run right behind Emanuel. “That means Stokes and Al made it. Rebecca got them back to the woods.”
Not everyone gets to survive.
The cacophony in the sparring room stopped as Emanuel burst through the door. The fighters cleared a path, and two men pushed open the door to the outer tunnel before Emanuel made it across the room.
Nola faltered before stepping into the tunnel. It wasn’t her place to see if allies or enemies had come.
I went north. I saw Nallot work. I should see this, too.
She tightened her grip on Jeremy’s hand as they sprinted down the tunnel.
“Jude, stick to the shadows!” Julian shouted as they neared the first window.
Emanuel turned sideways, skirting the deadly rays of the sun.
Jude slowed, turning to face the interior wall and hunching his shoulders as he sidled by the square of sunlight.
Nola pulled Jeremy through the patch of sun, catching up to Emanuel.
The line of guards came into view up ahead.
“Emanuel,” Stell spoke in a hushed tone, “there’s someone down there.”
“Did you speak to them?” Emanuel asked.
“No, they called up that they wanted to see Emanuel, so we sent for you,” Stell said. “They’ve moved out of view from the shadows. I was told to watch for a stranger, and I’m guessing this is them.”
“I’ll go see,” Jeremy said. “If it’s one of Rebecca’s people, I might be able to recognize them.”
“We don’t have weapons,” Nola said.
Emanuel looked to Stell, whose pale eyebrows pinched together as she handed her knife to Jeremy.
“I need a knife, too,” Nola said.
“You don’t—”
Nola silenced Jeremy with a glare.
Stell pulled another knife from her boot and handed it to Nola. “Don’t lose my knife.”
“I’ll do my best.” Nola gave a sarcastic smile.
“If it’s not who we’re expecting, get back in the tunnels,” Emanuel said.
Jeremy nodded and stepped out into the sunshine.
The heat of the rays tingled Nola’s face. The world seemed to have forgotten how cold it had been only a couple of days before.
Jeremy moved silently out to the edge of the ledge. Nola stepped up by his side to look below.
A woman with a long black braid down her back sat on the ground, staring up at them. Her dark skin had no hint of sores or damage from the sun. She wore Northern brown, and a bow and quiver full of arrows lay by her side.
“Who are you?” Nola asked.
“I’m here to see Emanuel,” the woman said.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Nola said.
“Rebecca sent me,” the woman said. “That should be good enough for you.”
“She made it back to the Woodlands?” Jeremy said.
The woman stared at Jeremy.
“What made your people create the gap?” Nola asked.
The woman looked to the struggling trees that surrounded her. “Blight. Took months to get rid of the patch, but we kept it from spreading.”
“She’s from the north,” Jeremy said.
“Bring her up.” Emanuel’s voice came from the shadows.
Jeremy stepped off the ledge and landed by the woman’s feet. If the woman was shocked, she gave no sign as she stood, carefully dusting off her clothes before slinging her bow and quiver over her shoulder.
“If I may.” Jeremy reached for the woman’s waist. When she didn’t protest, he lifted her into the air.
Nola reached down and grabbed the woman’s hands. A familiar sense of trepidation tickled Nola’s stomach as sense told her pain would come from hoisting the woman’s weight. She widened her stance and lifted, feeling nothing but the shift in her balance as she brought the woman up to the edge of the ledge, setting her down on her knees.
“You should build a ladder for guests.” The woman stood, peering into the shadows over Nola’s shoulder.
“We don’t generally allow guests,” Emanuel said.
“I suppose I should be grateful you made an exception,” the woman said.
“I do not wish for your gratitude,” Emanuel said. “Though I do hope you came with information.”
“I did,” the woman said. “Rebecca wouldn’t have sent me otherwise.”
“Then please follow us,” Emanuel said. “We have food and drink for you.”
“I’m not going into your mountain.” The woman reached into her pocket.
Jeremy jumped up onto the ledge behind her, gripping Stell’s knife.
The woman looked over her shoulder, staring blandly at Jeremy as she pulled a leather scroll from her pocket. She passed the scroll, not to Emanuel in the shadows, but to Nola.
“I’ve been sent with a map,” the woman said. “Be at the blue in two night’s time. Get there with enough time to cross the water and get to the black before sunrise. You’ll shelter there for the day, and we’ll attack at nightfall. Rebecca will bring twenty-three of our people. The black can protect thirty of yours.”
“Only thirty?” Jude asked.
The woman looked to him. “Huh. You really aren’t dead.”
“Nightland has more fighters to offer,” Emanuel said.
“We don’t have more dark,” the woman said. “Bring any more than thirty, and their deaths are your responsibility when the sun takes them. Do you have any messages for Rebecca?”
“Only my thanks for her offering shelter to my fighters and a path across the river,” Emanuel said.
The woman nodded and turned back to the ledge.
“That’s all?” Nola said. “You came all the way here and you’re already leaving?”
“I trust Rebecca,” the woman said, “but I don’t trust nightwalkers enough to stroll into a mountain filled with blood drinkers. You have the information I have. Our people will bring arrows and knives and fight to the death. Bring what you will to help stop the spider. My people have chosen their sacrifice. Bring yours to the blue.”
The woman stepped around Jeremy to sit on the ledge. Grabbing the rock, she twisted, lowering herself before dropping to the ground so softly unchanged ears wouldn’t have noticed the sound.
Trying to ignore the feeling of a hundred eyes watching her, Nola stepped into the shadows, handing the scroll to Emanuel. “I’d like to see the map.”
Emanuel untied the thin cord that held the scroll shut.
Jeremy leaned over Nola’s shoulder as Emanuel unrolled the map.
Their mountain marked the southwest corner. A red line laid out a path that wound east of the rancid swamp marked in gray paint. The Nallot wasteland had been marked in yellow. The red path led them west of the damage to a blue triangle on the bank of the river.
“What is that?” Nola pointed to a black square on the far side of the river across the hills from the domes.
“I have no idea,” Emanuel said. “But I hope it will provide enough shelter.”
Nola leaned closer to the map, studying the series of circles that made up the domes.
Home.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“It’s not right,” T said.
“What’s not right?” Nola peered into the box of apples T had been counting through. The fruit was ripe and undamaged, though none of the produce in Nightland would live up to Lenora Kent’s expectation of perfection.
T glanced to Bea’s door in the back of the pantry and to Kieran working by the barrels along the wall. “This whole project is pointless,” T whispered.
Kieran’s neck stiffened.
“We’re spending all this time preparing food packages, and for what?” T said.
“Emanuel is being careful,” Nola said. “He wants to make sure everyone is protected.”
“Protected?” T pulled a bundle of empty sacks from under the table. “He wants to lead an attack on the domes. Fine, I get it. But pretending that, if things go badly, sending the human survivors scattering into the wild with a bag of food will somehow magically keep them alive is nothing more than a fairytale he’s feeding the children.”
We don’t leave for the north until tomorrow night and people are already scared.
“If people have supplies—” Nola began.
“You don’t get it,” T said. “You’ve never been hungry. You’ve never wondered where you were supposed to sleep, or if there would be any water safe enough to drink. We’re budgeting out food for people to carry, but if there isn’t a way to get more, everyone who takes one of these sacks will die.”
“We’re giving everyone enough for a week,” Kieran said. “That’s as much as most will be able to carry. And we’re going to put a couple of seeds in each package.”
“We’ll all be long dead by the time any seeds can grow.” T banged her hands on the table. “We don’t need pretty promises of safety, or packages of food so it will take us longer to die. This was supposed to be a place where we could survive and it’s all just shit!” Hands trembling, T stormed out of the pantry, slamming the door behind her.
Nola stared at the door, her mind warring with her feet’s urge to run after T.
There’s no truth I can give her that will make this better.
“Well,” Kieran said as the sound of T’s heavy footsteps faded, “I don’t suppose you going after her before she upsets any of the others would help.”
“She’s scared,” Nola said. “Everyone is. T’s due soon, and now she’s packing food in case she has to deliver her baby on the side of a mountain.”
The tang of fear had filled the tunnels of Nightland for the last day, ever since Emanuel had ordered Nightland to begin preparations for battle and evacuation.
“My dad will look after her,” Kieran said. “In Nightland or in the wild. He’s got his medical bag packed. He’ll stick with T and do everything he can to help her.”
Nola picked up a sack, shaking it out and starting a neat stack. Hundreds of food sacks had to be packed and distributed.
In case.
We’re abandoning them to wait in the dark. Leaving them without any way to know what happened if we don’t come back.
“I hate it,” Nola said. “I should be staying with T. I’m abandoning her just like Charles did.”
Nola shook another sack, sending dust flying into the air.
“Do you want to stay here?” Kieran moved the pile of sacks out of Nola’s reach.
“I can’t.” Nola pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t send Jeremy without me, without anyone else who can go into the sun unprotected. Emanuel can only bring thirty vampires, adding Jeremy and me makes the number thirty-two. And I don’t think I can live with myself if I let Emanuel go after the domes without me.”
“Because you’d be ashamed not to fight or because you’re afraid of what he’ll do?”
Nola looked into Kieran’s black eyes. Eyes she’d caught a glimpse of as he fled from the domes, leaving blood and pain behind him.
“I know what the domes did to you and your dad is unforgiveable. What they did to me on that bridge is unforgiveable. Using fire packs in the city is unforgiveable. Spraying Nallot is unforgiveable. Making us even consider leaving Nightland to attack them is unforgiveable.” The table cracked beneath Nola’s grasp. She stared down at the ruined wood. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize for being angry, or for being right.” Kieran took her hands in his.
“Nikki died, Kieran.” Nola blinked the haze of tears from her eyes. “She was shallow and couldn’t remember which dome classes were supposed to be held in, but she never hurt anyone. She lived in the domes, but she never understood the harm they were doing.”
“None of us did.”
“How many more Nikkis are there going to be when Nightland attacks?”
“Emanuel will do everything he can to make sure people who aren’t fighting aren’t hurt.”
“But we get rid of Salinger and then what?” Nola pulled her hands from Kieran’s grasp as the need to run seized her lungs. She paced by the table, wishing the pantry were large enough for her to sprint in circles. “We can’t just ask him to leave nicely. We’re going to have to kill him or force him out. Either way, we’ll have to damage the domes.”
“You’re right.” Kieran leaned against the table, his gaze tracking Nola’s movement.
“So we shatter the glass and decimate the Outer Guard,” Nola said. “Then what?”
“We come back to Nightland.”
“But what about the Nikkis we leave behind?” Nola said. “You’ve heard Julian. The domes are a delicate ecosystem. If we shatter the glass, how will they fix it?”
“We live without glass.”
“But what if they can’t? Do the pregnant women Salinger will leave behind deserve to die? Because they could. And justified or not, it will be our fault.”
“So you think we shouldn’t attack?” Kieran leaned on the table, a line creasing his forehead.
Nola recognized that look. The reasoning Kieran. Sorting through a problem that would give their classmates trouble. Sorting through his father’s jumbled thoughts to find the spark of genius.
“We have to.” Nola leaned against the other side of the table, focusing on Kieran’s face.
Get rid of the wrinkle in his brow. Solve that problem first.
“If we don’t attack, the domes won’t stop until all of us are dead,” Nola said.
“But if we destroy the domes, we kill innocent people.”
“I don’t know if any of us are innocent,” Nola said. “But people who have never tried to hurt anyone will die. Even if Emanuel could keep his fighters from killing anyone but the guards, the domes survivors won’t be able to keep everything running with the glass shattered.”
“Break the glass, and you can’t keep the domes functioning,” Kieran said. “The entire system relies on technology.”
“If the survivors leave the domes, they’ll die.” Nola dug her knuckles into her eyes. “When the domes kicked you and your father out, your lungs couldn’t handle the outside world. You didn’t have the immunities you needed. It would be the same for them. And, even if Emanuel would agree to it, we couldn’t even take in the domes’ children.”
“We’re doing fine on food, but not well enough to support a few hundred extra food eaters.”
“I just can’t accept it.” Nola dug her fingers into her curls, relishing the pain it brought. “To save people, we have to kill people. I want to survive. I want T and her baby to survive, but I don’t want blood on my hands.”
“Then we find another way.”
“What other way? We can’t just hide in these caves and wait to be slaughtered.”
The crease disappeared from Kieran’s brow as the crinkle of a smile appeared at the corners of his eyes.
“What?” Nola leaned farther across the table. “What?”
“Make it impossible to justify the cost of the fight.” Kieran grinned.
“What do you mean?” Nola asked.
“We don’t have to win,” Kieran said. “We just have to make it impossible for them to.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nola gripped the edge of the bed as her gaze darted from Jeremy to Kieran.
“It makes sense,” Jeremy said. “I’m not an expert on how the dome computers work—”
“But the domes have their own experts.” Kieran leaned against the door to the hall as though trying to sink through the stone and back out into the corridor. “It’s not our responsibility to fix it. We’re just trying to leave them with something salvageable.”
“Probably Raina,” Kieran said.
“If things are as bad as they seem, we can’t afford to keep waiting,” Desmond said. “It’s only a matter of time before Salinger unleashes some fresh hell.”
“What do you propose?” Emanuel leaned forward in his chair.
“We send a scouting party to the river,” Desmond said. “See if we can find a way across. Find a shelter on the other side ourselves. Then we take a small team and we fight.”
“A small team won’t make it back,” Emanuel said. “If we go in undermanned, no one will get out.”
“Then we don’t get out,” Desmond said. “There are some things worth dying for, Emanuel.”
Nola slipped her hand into Jeremy’s.
“I agree with the sentiment,” Julian said, “but how would those left behind know if the task had been completed? If we send people out and they don’t come back, those left behind will be less protected and still not know if they are, in fact, safe.”
“I wish we had coms.” Jeremy shook his head. “I never thought about it when I was an Outer Guard. But not being able to check in or give orders in real time, it makes everything harder.”
“I can’t risk losing you, Desmond,” Emanuel said. “Not with Raina gone.”
“But we have to do something,” Jude said.
And the circle begins again.
Nola shifted her weight to lean against Jeremy’s side.
I should be doing something. Helping somehow.
There’s nothing to do but wait.
“We have to be sure the humans of Nightland are cared for,” Emanuel said. “Their safety has to be our first priority.”
Bang, bang, bang.
The pounding on the library door jolted Nola, sending her heart racing.
“Emanuel!” A boy’s voice came from the corridor.
Emanuel was up in an instant, wrenching the door open.
Nola reached for the knife on her belt, forgetting she wore no weapons within the halls of Nightland.
A teenaged boy stood in the corridor, his eyes wide as Emanuel stepped toward him.
“Message from the tunnels,” the boy said. “There’s someone outside looking for you.”
“Who?” Emanuel took off down the hall.
“I don’t know.” The boy chased after him, the rest of the group from the library close on his heels. “I didn’t see them. Stell sent word.”
“Raina wouldn’t wait outside,” Jeremy said.
“It’s got to be someone from the Woodlands.” Jude cut around to run right behind Emanuel. “That means Stokes and Al made it. Rebecca got them back to the woods.”
Not everyone gets to survive.
The cacophony in the sparring room stopped as Emanuel burst through the door. The fighters cleared a path, and two men pushed open the door to the outer tunnel before Emanuel made it across the room.
Nola faltered before stepping into the tunnel. It wasn’t her place to see if allies or enemies had come.
I went north. I saw Nallot work. I should see this, too.
She tightened her grip on Jeremy’s hand as they sprinted down the tunnel.
“Jude, stick to the shadows!” Julian shouted as they neared the first window.
Emanuel turned sideways, skirting the deadly rays of the sun.
Jude slowed, turning to face the interior wall and hunching his shoulders as he sidled by the square of sunlight.
Nola pulled Jeremy through the patch of sun, catching up to Emanuel.
The line of guards came into view up ahead.
“Emanuel,” Stell spoke in a hushed tone, “there’s someone down there.”
“Did you speak to them?” Emanuel asked.
“No, they called up that they wanted to see Emanuel, so we sent for you,” Stell said. “They’ve moved out of view from the shadows. I was told to watch for a stranger, and I’m guessing this is them.”
“I’ll go see,” Jeremy said. “If it’s one of Rebecca’s people, I might be able to recognize them.”
“We don’t have weapons,” Nola said.
Emanuel looked to Stell, whose pale eyebrows pinched together as she handed her knife to Jeremy.
“I need a knife, too,” Nola said.
“You don’t—”
Nola silenced Jeremy with a glare.
Stell pulled another knife from her boot and handed it to Nola. “Don’t lose my knife.”
“I’ll do my best.” Nola gave a sarcastic smile.
“If it’s not who we’re expecting, get back in the tunnels,” Emanuel said.
Jeremy nodded and stepped out into the sunshine.
The heat of the rays tingled Nola’s face. The world seemed to have forgotten how cold it had been only a couple of days before.
Jeremy moved silently out to the edge of the ledge. Nola stepped up by his side to look below.
A woman with a long black braid down her back sat on the ground, staring up at them. Her dark skin had no hint of sores or damage from the sun. She wore Northern brown, and a bow and quiver full of arrows lay by her side.
“Who are you?” Nola asked.
“I’m here to see Emanuel,” the woman said.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Nola said.
“Rebecca sent me,” the woman said. “That should be good enough for you.”
“She made it back to the Woodlands?” Jeremy said.
The woman stared at Jeremy.
“What made your people create the gap?” Nola asked.
The woman looked to the struggling trees that surrounded her. “Blight. Took months to get rid of the patch, but we kept it from spreading.”
“She’s from the north,” Jeremy said.
“Bring her up.” Emanuel’s voice came from the shadows.
Jeremy stepped off the ledge and landed by the woman’s feet. If the woman was shocked, she gave no sign as she stood, carefully dusting off her clothes before slinging her bow and quiver over her shoulder.
“If I may.” Jeremy reached for the woman’s waist. When she didn’t protest, he lifted her into the air.
Nola reached down and grabbed the woman’s hands. A familiar sense of trepidation tickled Nola’s stomach as sense told her pain would come from hoisting the woman’s weight. She widened her stance and lifted, feeling nothing but the shift in her balance as she brought the woman up to the edge of the ledge, setting her down on her knees.
“You should build a ladder for guests.” The woman stood, peering into the shadows over Nola’s shoulder.
“We don’t generally allow guests,” Emanuel said.
“I suppose I should be grateful you made an exception,” the woman said.
“I do not wish for your gratitude,” Emanuel said. “Though I do hope you came with information.”
“I did,” the woman said. “Rebecca wouldn’t have sent me otherwise.”
“Then please follow us,” Emanuel said. “We have food and drink for you.”
“I’m not going into your mountain.” The woman reached into her pocket.
Jeremy jumped up onto the ledge behind her, gripping Stell’s knife.
The woman looked over her shoulder, staring blandly at Jeremy as she pulled a leather scroll from her pocket. She passed the scroll, not to Emanuel in the shadows, but to Nola.
“I’ve been sent with a map,” the woman said. “Be at the blue in two night’s time. Get there with enough time to cross the water and get to the black before sunrise. You’ll shelter there for the day, and we’ll attack at nightfall. Rebecca will bring twenty-three of our people. The black can protect thirty of yours.”
“Only thirty?” Jude asked.
The woman looked to him. “Huh. You really aren’t dead.”
“Nightland has more fighters to offer,” Emanuel said.
“We don’t have more dark,” the woman said. “Bring any more than thirty, and their deaths are your responsibility when the sun takes them. Do you have any messages for Rebecca?”
“Only my thanks for her offering shelter to my fighters and a path across the river,” Emanuel said.
The woman nodded and turned back to the ledge.
“That’s all?” Nola said. “You came all the way here and you’re already leaving?”
“I trust Rebecca,” the woman said, “but I don’t trust nightwalkers enough to stroll into a mountain filled with blood drinkers. You have the information I have. Our people will bring arrows and knives and fight to the death. Bring what you will to help stop the spider. My people have chosen their sacrifice. Bring yours to the blue.”
The woman stepped around Jeremy to sit on the ledge. Grabbing the rock, she twisted, lowering herself before dropping to the ground so softly unchanged ears wouldn’t have noticed the sound.
Trying to ignore the feeling of a hundred eyes watching her, Nola stepped into the shadows, handing the scroll to Emanuel. “I’d like to see the map.”
Emanuel untied the thin cord that held the scroll shut.
Jeremy leaned over Nola’s shoulder as Emanuel unrolled the map.
Their mountain marked the southwest corner. A red line laid out a path that wound east of the rancid swamp marked in gray paint. The Nallot wasteland had been marked in yellow. The red path led them west of the damage to a blue triangle on the bank of the river.
“What is that?” Nola pointed to a black square on the far side of the river across the hills from the domes.
“I have no idea,” Emanuel said. “But I hope it will provide enough shelter.”
Nola leaned closer to the map, studying the series of circles that made up the domes.
Home.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“It’s not right,” T said.
“What’s not right?” Nola peered into the box of apples T had been counting through. The fruit was ripe and undamaged, though none of the produce in Nightland would live up to Lenora Kent’s expectation of perfection.
T glanced to Bea’s door in the back of the pantry and to Kieran working by the barrels along the wall. “This whole project is pointless,” T whispered.
Kieran’s neck stiffened.
“We’re spending all this time preparing food packages, and for what?” T said.
“Emanuel is being careful,” Nola said. “He wants to make sure everyone is protected.”
“Protected?” T pulled a bundle of empty sacks from under the table. “He wants to lead an attack on the domes. Fine, I get it. But pretending that, if things go badly, sending the human survivors scattering into the wild with a bag of food will somehow magically keep them alive is nothing more than a fairytale he’s feeding the children.”
We don’t leave for the north until tomorrow night and people are already scared.
“If people have supplies—” Nola began.
“You don’t get it,” T said. “You’ve never been hungry. You’ve never wondered where you were supposed to sleep, or if there would be any water safe enough to drink. We’re budgeting out food for people to carry, but if there isn’t a way to get more, everyone who takes one of these sacks will die.”
“We’re giving everyone enough for a week,” Kieran said. “That’s as much as most will be able to carry. And we’re going to put a couple of seeds in each package.”
“We’ll all be long dead by the time any seeds can grow.” T banged her hands on the table. “We don’t need pretty promises of safety, or packages of food so it will take us longer to die. This was supposed to be a place where we could survive and it’s all just shit!” Hands trembling, T stormed out of the pantry, slamming the door behind her.
Nola stared at the door, her mind warring with her feet’s urge to run after T.
There’s no truth I can give her that will make this better.
“Well,” Kieran said as the sound of T’s heavy footsteps faded, “I don’t suppose you going after her before she upsets any of the others would help.”
“She’s scared,” Nola said. “Everyone is. T’s due soon, and now she’s packing food in case she has to deliver her baby on the side of a mountain.”
The tang of fear had filled the tunnels of Nightland for the last day, ever since Emanuel had ordered Nightland to begin preparations for battle and evacuation.
“My dad will look after her,” Kieran said. “In Nightland or in the wild. He’s got his medical bag packed. He’ll stick with T and do everything he can to help her.”
Nola picked up a sack, shaking it out and starting a neat stack. Hundreds of food sacks had to be packed and distributed.
In case.
We’re abandoning them to wait in the dark. Leaving them without any way to know what happened if we don’t come back.
“I hate it,” Nola said. “I should be staying with T. I’m abandoning her just like Charles did.”
Nola shook another sack, sending dust flying into the air.
“Do you want to stay here?” Kieran moved the pile of sacks out of Nola’s reach.
“I can’t.” Nola pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t send Jeremy without me, without anyone else who can go into the sun unprotected. Emanuel can only bring thirty vampires, adding Jeremy and me makes the number thirty-two. And I don’t think I can live with myself if I let Emanuel go after the domes without me.”
“Because you’d be ashamed not to fight or because you’re afraid of what he’ll do?”
Nola looked into Kieran’s black eyes. Eyes she’d caught a glimpse of as he fled from the domes, leaving blood and pain behind him.
“I know what the domes did to you and your dad is unforgiveable. What they did to me on that bridge is unforgiveable. Using fire packs in the city is unforgiveable. Spraying Nallot is unforgiveable. Making us even consider leaving Nightland to attack them is unforgiveable.” The table cracked beneath Nola’s grasp. She stared down at the ruined wood. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize for being angry, or for being right.” Kieran took her hands in his.
“Nikki died, Kieran.” Nola blinked the haze of tears from her eyes. “She was shallow and couldn’t remember which dome classes were supposed to be held in, but she never hurt anyone. She lived in the domes, but she never understood the harm they were doing.”
“None of us did.”
“How many more Nikkis are there going to be when Nightland attacks?”
“Emanuel will do everything he can to make sure people who aren’t fighting aren’t hurt.”
“But we get rid of Salinger and then what?” Nola pulled her hands from Kieran’s grasp as the need to run seized her lungs. She paced by the table, wishing the pantry were large enough for her to sprint in circles. “We can’t just ask him to leave nicely. We’re going to have to kill him or force him out. Either way, we’ll have to damage the domes.”
“You’re right.” Kieran leaned against the table, his gaze tracking Nola’s movement.
“So we shatter the glass and decimate the Outer Guard,” Nola said. “Then what?”
“We come back to Nightland.”
“But what about the Nikkis we leave behind?” Nola said. “You’ve heard Julian. The domes are a delicate ecosystem. If we shatter the glass, how will they fix it?”
“We live without glass.”
“But what if they can’t? Do the pregnant women Salinger will leave behind deserve to die? Because they could. And justified or not, it will be our fault.”
“So you think we shouldn’t attack?” Kieran leaned on the table, a line creasing his forehead.
Nola recognized that look. The reasoning Kieran. Sorting through a problem that would give their classmates trouble. Sorting through his father’s jumbled thoughts to find the spark of genius.
“We have to.” Nola leaned against the other side of the table, focusing on Kieran’s face.
Get rid of the wrinkle in his brow. Solve that problem first.
“If we don’t attack, the domes won’t stop until all of us are dead,” Nola said.
“But if we destroy the domes, we kill innocent people.”
“I don’t know if any of us are innocent,” Nola said. “But people who have never tried to hurt anyone will die. Even if Emanuel could keep his fighters from killing anyone but the guards, the domes survivors won’t be able to keep everything running with the glass shattered.”
“Break the glass, and you can’t keep the domes functioning,” Kieran said. “The entire system relies on technology.”
“If the survivors leave the domes, they’ll die.” Nola dug her knuckles into her eyes. “When the domes kicked you and your father out, your lungs couldn’t handle the outside world. You didn’t have the immunities you needed. It would be the same for them. And, even if Emanuel would agree to it, we couldn’t even take in the domes’ children.”
“We’re doing fine on food, but not well enough to support a few hundred extra food eaters.”
“I just can’t accept it.” Nola dug her fingers into her curls, relishing the pain it brought. “To save people, we have to kill people. I want to survive. I want T and her baby to survive, but I don’t want blood on my hands.”
“Then we find another way.”
“What other way? We can’t just hide in these caves and wait to be slaughtered.”
The crease disappeared from Kieran’s brow as the crinkle of a smile appeared at the corners of his eyes.
“What?” Nola leaned farther across the table. “What?”
“Make it impossible to justify the cost of the fight.” Kieran grinned.
“What do you mean?” Nola asked.
“We don’t have to win,” Kieran said. “We just have to make it impossible for them to.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nola gripped the edge of the bed as her gaze darted from Jeremy to Kieran.
“It makes sense,” Jeremy said. “I’m not an expert on how the dome computers work—”
“But the domes have their own experts.” Kieran leaned against the door to the hall as though trying to sink through the stone and back out into the corridor. “It’s not our responsibility to fix it. We’re just trying to leave them with something salvageable.”
