I held May’s hand as we walked behind Sherry and rcury toward Sinn. The plain felt vast and empty under the night sky, the stars sharp and cold overhead, the ground still radiating the day’s heat through my boots.
May let go of my hand when we reached him, giving a quick squeeze before following Sherry toward the second car. I stayed with rcury. Sinn stood in front of us in the plain dark, his scarred face half-lit by the soft amber glow of the vehicles’ low lights. The air between us felt thick, heavy with everything unsaid.
Nobody spoke for a full minute. The only sound was the faint ticking of cooling engines and the distant wind moving across the sand.
"Why?" rcury finally asked. The restraint in her voice cost her sothing visible, her shoulders tight, jaw clenched.
Sinn looked at her for a long mont, his expression heavy.
"I have a number of answers to that question," he said quietly. "But I don’t want to give any of them, because none of them is justifiable. Not even in my own head."
rcury stepped forward. He opened his arms and she moved into him. He wrapped them around her back and held her tightly, his broad fra almost swallowing her. For a few seconds they just stood there in the dark, two silhouettes against the night.
"I can’t take back the decision," he said, voice low and rough. "But I promise it won’t happen again. I’m not leaving anyone behind. Not ever again."
They stepped apart. rcury wiped at her eyes once, quickly, like she was annoyed at herself for it.
"Are you hungry?" Sinn asked, shifting the mont.
The apology wasn’t enough. I knew that, and I suspected Sinn knew it too. But if rcury was choosing to accept it right now, I wasn’t going to take that away from her.
"You have food?" I asked.
"Cereals and drinks. We picked up a man and a girl on the way, their car had broken down. They had supplies." He turned toward the lead vehicle. "He’s actually in this one."
I looked at rcury. She looked at .
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
"Is he a hairy man?" she asked, already walking toward the car.
"Yeah," Sinn said, reaching for the boot.
rcury yanked open the back door.
The sound of a punch landed imdiately.
"Please," Richard’s voice ca out high and panicked. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry."
I ca around to look.
Jenn was pressed against the far door, wide-eyed. Richard was squeezed against her, trapped by rcury, who was on top of him, working on his face with complete, furious commitnt. His thick glasses were already sowhere on the floor, probably in pieces.
Code sat in the front passenger seat, staring straight ahead with the blank expression of soone who had decided this wasn’t his business. The driver’s seat was empty, Sinn had been behind the wheel.
Sinn had opened the boot and was deliberately not paying attention to the chaos happening in the back seat.
rcury hit Richard a few more tis, then stopped. She straightened up, breathing hard, and sat down next to him. The only sound for a mont was her breathing. Richard touched his swelling face carefully, testing the damage.
My eyes found Jenn’s across the car. She looked at for a long second, then looked away. There was sothing heavy in that look, sothing I was going to have to co back to when there was ti.
Sinn handed a bag of groundnuts as we passed each other.
I walked to the second car.
Owen was driving. May sat in the front. Harmione and Sherry were in the back. Harmione still looked exactly as she had when we left School Central, composed, almost untouched, which was either an ability I hadn’t catalogued yet or sothing specific about her the mission couldn’t touch.
"Hey," she said when I settled in.
"Hey."
Owen was smiling at the wheel. The sa mild, empty smile he’d been wearing since the Guardian door, the navigation system, and Oddo going down in the open ground. The smile of soone keeping score privately.
I ate groundnuts and said nothing, watching the back of his head.
"How did you get ahead of us?" Harmione asked.
"We had a car," I said.
"We would’ve reached the city this morning, but Sinn wanted to go in at night," she replied.
The Fallen City was clear through the windshield now. The lead car parked just outside the boundary and we pulled in behind them. Everyone got out except Richard and Jenn, who stayed in the car without being told, the first sensible decision Richard had made since we found him.
We gathered around Sinn.
The city was open, no gates, just the wide mouth of ruined streets. Infected stood throughout in their motionless way, the specific stillness of level ones and twos waiting for any reason to move. Moonlight painted their pale skin in sickly silver.
"On foot from here," Sinn said. Then he scanned the group until he found . "What do you say?"
"It’s the only safe way," I said. "We move slowly and we don’t wake them."
Sinn pulled out the recovered detector screen. Its faint blue glow lit his face from below, making the scars stand out like white lightning.
"Two high-level infected in this city. Both motionless. Third floor of that building." He pointed at a half-collapsed tower visible at the edge of the city, exposed floors like broken ribs under the moonlight. "We go in, tranquilize one, carry it out. Code has the equipnt."
Code nodded without looking up.
"General," I said. "I missed the briefing. Talk through the tranquilizer."
"We inject it while it’s still," he said. "It sedates without triggering a response. Then we carry it down and into the vehicle before it wakes."
"So all we’re doing is getting there quietly, one injection, and carrying it out," I said.
"Yes."
I looked at the city. Then at the group.
"Leave the girls in the cars," I said. "The four of us can manage the carry. Less noise. Less risk."
Sinn looked at and nodded. "Girls. Back to the vehicles."
Nobody argued. They went.
, Sinn, Code, and Owen walked into the Fallen City.
Four of us, I thought, watching Owen move ahead into the dark. One of whom has been quietly taking apart this mission from the inside since it started.
Three floors up. One injection. One specin.
And then I find out what Owen does when the job is done and there’s no one left to bla it on.
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