Their Fractured Light: A Starbound Novel (17 page)

“You feeling okay,
Alice
?” he says, and though his voice is a tease, I see his hand start to creep toward me.

“Keep your voice down and try to look normal,” I say quietly—not a whisper, because the sibilants in a whisper carry further than a low speaking voice—but a murmur, as though we’re relaxing together. “Something’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Gideon glances at the palm pad, as though the answer to his question might be there.

“It’s Mae. Something’s going on with her—her body language has completely changed.”

“What are you talking about?” Gideon leans back, but it’s impossible to see the kitchen from where we are now, even in the mirror. “Sofia, you have to relax sometime. We’ve done what we needed to do, the police will take it from here. And I’ve known Mae for four years. She could’ve sold out the—my identity online dozens of times over, and never did. We’re safe here.”

“It’s precisely that you know her so well that makes it impossible for you to see.” I’m not above using our closeness to get his attention, and reach over to lay my hand on his arm. “I don’t know her at all, no bias whatsoever, and I’m telling you, whatever that phone call was, something’s going on. She’s turned us in, or she’s thinking about it, or something I can’t even predict—but something’s wrong. You have to listen to me.”

Gideon hesitates, then pulls his arm away abruptly, brows furrowing. “What are you trying to play me for now? Turning me against my friend? What does that get you?”

I glance at the archway to the kitchen, making sure frustration doesn’t cause my voice to rise. “Nothing! God, Gideon, you don’t think I’d give anything to just sit here and watch a movie and be safe, for once, for
once
?” To my horror, I can feel my eyes starting to sting, and not because I’m trying to cry. Tears now would just make Gideon even more certain I’m trying to play him. Yet there they are, threatening to spill out, making me blink hard to keep them back.

Because even as I’m saying the words, I’m realizing that they’re true. For the first time since my father’s death, the desire to be here, safe, on a couch with this boy I barely know, feels more real than the need to make LaRoux pay. And that scares me more than anything.

“I trust Mae,” he says, voice low and tight. Just now, I can see the toll the loss of his den has taken on him. He’s not ready to lose this last safe haven on top of it. “I trust her a hell of a lot more than I trust you.”

I take a slow breath, trying not to acknowledge how much that cut actually burns. But I can’t really blame him—he
shouldn’t
trust me. “Anyone can be bought,” I reply softly. “Everyone has a weakness. Does her loyalty to you outweigh her value of her own life? Her kids’ lives?”

In spite of himself, Gideon’s gaze flicks over to the mantel shelf over the HV screen, where pictures of the twins adorn every empty space.

I press my advantage, as hard as I dare. “Tell her we’re going to go check on a lead, meet a contact, anything. Make some excuse for us to leave, and if she tries to get us to stay, then you’ll know she’s stalling us here for a reason.”

Gideon just shakes his head, mute now, staring hard at the HV screen as a scene plays out aboard a space station to the strains of a recent pop hit. When Mae comes back in, bearing a large bowl of popcorn, he looks up at her with a smile, his anger melting away. My heart sinks.

“Here you go,” she says, handing us the bowl. “None of that synthetic stuff—this is real corn. Made the mistake of getting it once, now my kids won’t touch the other stuff.” She clears her throat and turns away to go back to the kitchen.

“You’re not going to watch with us?” Gideon asks, resting the bowl on his lap.

“Oh, no, got some things to do.” Mae doesn’t turn around.

Gideon pauses, looking down into the bowl, jaw clenching visibly. Then, slowly, he says, “Well, we can’t really stay long either. I’ve got a ping on one of my contacts, and we need to go to the drop point before the hit goes cold.”

For a wild moment, I want nothing more than to reach out and wrap my hand around his, but I bury the impulse. Even if he’s testing my theory, it doesn’t mean he wants my comfort.

Mae’s standing still in the archway. It takes just a fraction of a second too long for her to turn around, and then the too-casual way she leans against the doorframe must be obvious, even to Gideon. “Don’t worry about that,” she says, smiling. “You both look exhausted. Just send a text, tell your contact you’ll swing by tonight, or tomorrow. You need rest more than you need one more bit of info.”

Gideon leans forward, placing the bowl on the coffee table and rising. “I wish we could, Mae, really. But this might give us some proof of what LaRoux’s up to, which we’ll need even if the police stop what’s going down on the
Daedalus
.”

Mae straightens a little, eyes darting to the side—where the time display was in the kitchen—and then back. “I’ll wave XFactor or one of the undercity admins, they can go to the drop for you.”

Gideon’s casual air melts away, his shoulders dropping. “Mae,” he whispers. “What did you do?”

A ripple runs through Mae’s features, and as her smile crumples, my heart constricts. I was right. I wish I could feel vindicated—instead my lungs ache. Betrayal is the hardest wound to recover from.

“They’ve got my kids,” she replies, voice tight with withheld tears. “I had no choice.”

Gideon’s voice bursts out with a curse, and he starts shoving things back into his pack. “What do they know? How’d they know to take the kids?”

Mae shakes her head. “I don’t know, but it was Mattie on the phone.” Her voice is shaking. “They took them from school. He told me I had to keep you guys here until—”

“Shit, shit,
shit
.” Gideon shoves his lapscreen into the pack, then looks up, eyes meeting mine. There’s something like apology there, amidst all the other emotions tangling in his features.

“LRI must have people within the police force.” My thoughts are spinning, weariness making it hard to understand what’s happening. “People who intercepted the threat before…but how could they have traced it back here?”

Gideon shakes his head, eyes wild. “I don’t
know.
They shouldn’t have been able to. I must have made a mistake, slipped up somewhere.” He’s only had a few hours sleep since before he left to rescue me from LRI—suddenly, I don’t know how we didn’t see a stumble like this coming. His jaw’s clenched, and I know he’s panicking as much for Mae’s children as for our own safety.

I want to cry, to throw myself down on the floor and give up. Mae’s house is just the latest in a slew of safe havens that LaRoux’s been ripping away from us. If his people intercepted our threat, then we haven’t stopped him at all—haven’t even slowed him down. He’ll still bring the rift to the
Daedalus
, and the Council delegations will still fall to his whispers’ mind-altering abilities, and our universe will still become something unrecognizable—they’ll do whatever he wants, and there’ll be no way to stop them. Every ounce of the tension I’d been carrying up until we sent that bomb threat comes crashing back down on me, a weight made all the more impossible to bear by the fact that I’d actually begun to believe we were free.

I stay standing with a monumental effort, rooting my feet to the floor.
Take it one step at a time,
I tell myself. “How long do we have?” I ask Mae, trying to keep recrimination out of my voice. It’s done, no amount of guilt can change it now.

“I don’t know. They must’ve tracked your message back here—or they know I’m a known associate of—”

“Mae,” Gideon interrupts. “Do you know where your kids are being held?”

She shakes her head, then leans heavily against the doorframe before sinking slowly to the ground. “God, I can’t believe this is happening. This can’t be happening.”

Gideon stands there, clearly torn, body language showing his desire to go to Mae’s side warring with the desire to run.

“Gideon,” I say quietly. “We’ve got to go. Mae, toss some things around, make it look like you fought.”

She gulps a breath but stoops without hesitation, overturning the coffee table, sending the vase atop it smashing to the ground.

Gideon takes a step, then pauses. “We’re going to figure this out,” he tells Mae, his voice tight with urgency. “Tell them you did all you could, that they only just missed us. Tell them…” He hesitates, and when I glance his way, I see his indecision written clearly across his features.

For a brief moment I can almost feel his thoughts like they’re my own. The more Mae gives LRI on Gideon, the more she’ll be seen as cooperating, and the better chance she’ll have of getting her kids back. But every bit of information she gives them strips away a layer of Gideon’s anonymity, leaves him that much more open and vulnerable. I can understand that.

His hesitation lasts only the briefest of moments. “Tell them everything you know about me.”

Mae’s face is already white, but her eyes widen just a fraction more. “Everything? You mean—”

Gideon cuts her off mid-sentence with a slice of his hand. “Yes, I mean. Either we’re going to beat LaRoux or we’re not, and either way…” He swallows. “Either way I won’t need the—my online identity anymore.” His voice softens. “Cooperate with them, Mae, and they’ll let the kids go.”

He doesn’t want me to know what his online identity is, and while part of me resents the fact that this woman gets to know more about him than I do, I can’t blame him for keeping his secrets. I’ve kept mine, after all.

Mae’s crying, tossing aside a throw pillow from the couch as she creates the aftermath of a struggle, her hand bloodied by one of the shards of the vase, but she nods. Gideon hefts his pack, then glances at me. I take his cue and head for the door. “They know who I am. They’ve got both our faces on multiple security feeds by now. All my secrecy’s worthless, except as currency to prove you’re cooperating, and to get your kids back. Just tell them whatever they want to know.”

Mae nods silently, and Gideon turns to join me, touching my elbow as I palm the keypad by the door to send it whooshing open. But then I hear her choke, then clear her throat, and we both pause. “Gideon—Alice—” She’s watching us. “I’m sorry.”

Gideon’s hand on my elbow tightens. “So am I.” Then he’s ushering me through the door, and as the laugh track on the movie echoes in the background, the door shuts behind us again.

He doesn’t move, and I stand there, feeling his fingers hot against my elbow, wishing I knew what to say.

To hell with it. I can figure out a safe distance again later.

I step forward so I can turn and wrap my arms around his waist, pulling myself in close. “I’m sorry.”

Gideon lets out a little sound, then ducks so his forehead touches my shoulder, arms going around me. I’m still in the same clothes I was wearing when I was taken from my apartment, and I must smell terrible, but his arms just tighten. His voice is a mumble against my shoulder when he speaks. “I just—Mae—”

I take a slow breath. “She’s family,” I reply. “And LaRoux’s taken her too.”

I can feel Gideon’s fingers curling against my back, tightening into fists around the fabric of my sweater.

I turn my head, so that my voice will carry through his chest. “Let’s not let him take anything else.”

A test, then.

We will watch them. We will follow them, through the thin spots and through the images and words that stream through our world and in the brief moments we can escape the confines of the blue-eyed man’s cages.

If we are to decide whether to become individuals ourselves, we must understand what it is to be human. We must know them, every atom of them, every spark of what makes them who they are. We must narrow our focus, find a chosen few whose lives contain pain and joy together. A chosen few who could become anything—who could fall into darkness and hatred and vengeance, or who could use that pain to become something greater.

We will start with the little peach-haired girl whose eyes are so like those of our keeper. She laughed once, and showed us love.

MY HEART’S TRYING TO FORCE
its way up through my throat as we run together down the street. My legs feel like they’re weighted down, and I’m half stumbling as my breath turns ragged. There’s no point in trying for stealth—we’re in the family-friendly suburbs, and there’s no crowd to hide us, no alleyway to slip down. We’re exposed, in every possible way. I always told Mae that made it dangerous up here. She laughed, and told me it suited the kids.

The kids.

My mind spirals down after that thought as my feet hit the pavement, distress turning to rage, seizing on something easier than the hurt. Who holds
children
hostage? If it was just me, I’d have traded myself for them, but Sofia and I are all that stand between LaRoux and the horrors that rift could bring about. The thought of Mae standing there behind us, utterly alone, sends a jagged bolt of pain through me, and my breath turns strained, like someone’s got a grip around my throat.

Sofia yanks on my hand as we hit an intersection with a larger street, and finally there are a few people, a few hovercars, a chance at blending in. Our fingers are twined together, and though I know I should let her go, I can’t find it in me to give a damn. She’s all I’ve got now.