My protests died on my lips when I saw his face. He looked grim and weary. “Come with me,” he said shortly. “The others want to talk to you.”“Nina?” I managed, heart pounding.
Wesley paused in the doorway, looking back at me. “She’s alive,” he said finally, making relief sing through me. “But she won’t wake up. Her body’s okay, but it’s like she’s just not in there.”My relief soured, stomach roiling. “What do the healers say?”
“They don’t know.” Wesley stepped aside, making room for me to slip past him into the hall. “They’ve never seen anything quite like it. Their best guess is that she’s in some sort of coma. There could be damage to her brain because she stopped breathing for a while.”
I swallowed as Wesley shut the door again behind me. My feet felt like lead. “Parker and Marco, they’re okay?”
He nodded but didn’t say anything else, turning to lead the way toward the War Room. He didn’t speak again until we were just outside the doors. I could feel Renewables in there— I thought I detected the particular signatures of Parker and Marco, but I was still tired and not completely sure.
“Lark,” said Wesley in a low voice, “it’s time for you to tell the truth now. I can’t lie for you, not when there are witnesses. And if we’re being completely honest, I’m not sure I want to lie for you now.”
“Were you close to Nina?” I whispered.
His expression flickered briefly, but I couldn’t identify the emotion that passed through it. “We’re all close to each other here. This is our family. But that’s not why. You’re dangerous, and it was irresponsible of me to keep that danger from the others. No matter how valuable that power of yours might be.”
I kept my eyes on the door, fighting back when my sight started to blur. I wasn’t going to cry, even faced with losing one of my only allies. This was, after all, what I deserved. Like Oren, I was a monster hiding in plain sight. But unlike him, I never stopped being myself, even when I killed.
“For what it’s worth,” Wesley added, softer still, “I think you may have made the right choice. From what I’ve put together from Parker and Marco, and the leader of the group that you rescued, you’d all have died if you hadn’t gotten that door open.”
He reached for the handle of the door, but paused before opening it. “And I think they’ll probably still want to use you, because even more now, you’re the best weapon we’ve got. I’m just not sure they’re ever going to trust you.”
Wesley left me swallowing the lump in my throat and pushed the doors open, leading the way into the War Room. I recognized Dorian and a couple of other Renewables from the Iron Wood there, clustered in a group. Parker and Marco were there too, and both of them snapped their heads up when I entered, their gazes dark and unreadable as they fell on me. The others were no different, watching me with wary suspicion.
As if it could smell their fear, the shadow inside me stirred sluggishly. I could feel it flickering as though scenting the air, tasting each golden beacon of power in the gathered Renewables. I shoved it back down with a shudder, drawing my shoulders back and lifting my chin.
Good, then. If they were afraid, well, they
“And what are you?” That was Parker, who hadn’t moved from the back of the room. His shoulder blades pressed back against the wall, as if he half-wished he could retreat further.
“I don’t know,” I replied simply.
I told them about the experiments the architects had run at the Institute and how my brother and I were the only ones to survive the process. How they’d turned us into something that looked, on the surface, like a Renewable, so that we’d be able to survive beyond the Wall. How my brother had made it this far, only to get captured once Prometheus started rounding up Renewables. I told them about the Iron Wood and how it was only when I’d used the last of the power the Institute gave me that I discovered the emptiness inside me and the way it could absorb the power in others.
I didn’t tell them about Oren, though. If I was going to be branded a monster, it made no sense for us to both be outcast. As long as Oren stayed below ground, he was safe, and he’d never become a shadow again. He might as well be able to live free.
“I never wanted to hurt Nina, or anyone else.” My voice was growing hoarse, and I had to clear my throat several times before I could go on. “If you want me to leave, I’ll go. Take the route we found up to the surface and never come back. But not before I find a way into Central Processing to save my friend, and avenge my brother— and get rid of Prometheus. I’ve been tortured the way he tortures Renewables. I’m not letting it happen to anybody else. I’ll go by myself if I have to.”
I fell silent. Under the weight of all their stares, I could feel myself starting to sweat in the warm damp that pervaded Lethe. My muscles were still stiff and sore, and my arm arched. I longed to sit in one of the empty chairs at the edge of the table closest to me, but I knew I couldn’t.
I’d go alone into Central Processing if I had to, but if I wanted any chance of reaching Prometheus before the Eagles overwhelmed me, I was going to need help. I thought of Oren and the way he always stood when hissing orders at me in the wilderness—strong, tall, sure. Competent. I willed the Renewables in the room to see that in me. My plan was a good one, and that I was something new and different didn’t change that. If anything, it gave us the edge we’d need to win.
“Do you have anything else to add?” asked Parker. He sounded tired too. One of his hands was bandaged, but he seemed otherwise unhurt—on the outside, anyway. He was gazing at the table in front of me and not meeting my eyes.
I swallowed. “No.”
“Then Marco will escort you back to your quarters, where you will stay until we’ve made a decision about what to do with you.”
I expected Marco to complain, to show his distaste at being given this task—it was his way, the show of petulance that kept him aloof. Instead he went silently, his expression stony, his muscles tense. I could sense power gathered all around him, at the ready, and I was reminded abruptly of what Wesley said—that he was the strongest Renewable they had. They were using their best to keep watch on me.
He walked me back to my room in silence. I strained to listen as we walked away, but I could hear nothing from the War Room. Marco had mistrusted me—or at least doubted my abilities—from the very beginning, but I wasn’t reading any smug satisfaction at having been proven right. He walked just ahead of me, jaw clenched.
When we reached my room, he waited outside as I took the last few steps into the tiny space. I expected him to slam the door in my face, but instead he stood there silently for a long moment, his hand on the doorframe, white-knuckled.
Finally, he said shortly, “I volunteered for that mission, you know.”
I nodded. Wesley had told me.
“Do you know why?”
“No,” I whispered. “Why?”
He sucked in a lungful of air through his nose, bracing. “Because I wanted to believe you. I wanted you to be right, even though most of me was sure you weren’t.” His voice was tight and strained. “You were the girl in the journal. You were supposed to—you were supposed to be our salvation.” I couldn’t speak, the force of his emotion and his disappointment cutting me like a blade.
He struggled with himself for a long moment and then said, quietly, “At least with Prometheus, we know who our enemy is.” He grasped the door handle, stepping back. “I don’t know
CHAPTER 20
For hours, there was nothing. No word from Wesley or anyone else from the War Room, no food brought. I still hadn’t seen Oren or Olivia since coming back from the mission, and even Marco failed to return. I examined
