There was a movement at the edge of the clearing as another soldier lunged toward the light, but the figure was stilled by a sharp look from Cleo.
“What the scientists failed to consider,” Marcus continued as though Ames was not thrashing at gunpoint like a dying fish on a hook, “is that traits like cannibalism must be reinforced by social norms. Tinkering with DNA can’t change the person someone has spent a lifetime becoming. As soon as the scientists’ guinea pigs were back home, where we were fed and cared for by our own communities, any willingness to eat human flesh vanished.” Marcus’s words echoed in Gabi’s ears as oblivion beckoned. It all made terrible sense.
“Ha!” Ames crowed, twisting his neck to challenge Marcus eyeball to eyeball so that the soldier’s gun pressed between his eyebrows. “If you think you’re going to sway anyone with your fairy tales about evolution, you are badly mistaken. A Witness would never question that men are made in God’s image, and every one of them would die to defend his Word.”
“Not if the Word is a lie,” Cleo hissed, pressing the knife deeper into Gabi’s flesh until the skin broke and a trickle of warm blood inched down her neck. Why was Cleo suffocating her? The knifepoint had begun to feel oddly delicious as it dug in behind her ear. Gabi’s knees buckled so that it was only the pressure of Cleo’s arm across her chest that kept her upright. A shrill chorus of protest from Marnie, Jordan, and Mathew erupted as she sagged toward the ground.
“Let her go!” Mathew shouted, lurching toward Cleo, but two of Cleo’s soldiers stepped forward to flank him, warning hands on their holsters.
“You’ve already realized the truth, haven’t you, Burtie?” Cleo snapped. “Or you wouldn’t be willing to endanger yourself to get the council’s secret weapon back. You know that when people see what she really is, Unitas will lose its power and fall apart.”
“Cleo,” Gabi wheezed. Her head lolled onto the woman’s chest and her vision faded. “I can’t….”
“Yes, you can,” Cleo whispered, clamping a hand over Gabi’s mouth and pinching her nostrils closed. “You have to.”
Then, everything happened at once. Gabi felt the blade slice through the skin behind her ear, once then twice, before Cleo yanked Gabi’s chin the other way and did the same on the other side. Searing pain swelled as blood gushed down Gabi’s neck.
Not my friend, she thought, as she hung helplessly in Cleo’s arms. My enemy.
Shots rang out, punctuated by shouting and the muffled crunch of fists colliding with flesh and bone. The clearing shook with the impact of bodies hitting the ground. Someone was calling her name, but Gabi’s vision had gone black as she was drawn toward a warm, welcoming void. She could smell Gram’s lavender spice scent close by and wanted to go toward it, but Cleo was shaking her, shouting in her ear.
“Breathe!” Cleo yelled. “Do it, goddammit!” Gabi would have laughed if she could have. Cleo’s hand was still sealing off her mouth and pinching her nose so hard it hurt. It wouldn’t be long now, but the void was changing even as Gabi reached toward Gram’s scent. In a quicksilver shift, the blackness wasn’t welcoming Gabi in but pushing her out. Things were rushing toward her, colors and the smell of blood and the music of the silvery stream nearby that had tried to take her away. The blurry blob of Cleo’s head resolved into its regal shape. Gabi’s legs prickled back to life, kicking out for the ground.
The pressure that had built in her skull under Cleo’s relentless grip drained down Gabi’s spine and crackled along her nerve endings, painful at first, but then, oh then… ecstasy. Cleo’s face was close to hers.
“Feel that,” Cleo said as Gabi tried unsuccessfully to free her face of the woman’s hand. It wasn’t a question. It was a command. And suddenly, Gabi did feel something. No. She felt everything. Breath. Oxygen, beating through her like a stormy surf, all the way down to the shriveled depths of her lower lungs as it resurrected the starved tissue. For the very first time, air blasted through the brick wall midway down Gabi’s lungs and she was fully, finally breathing.
“DAD?” GABI whispered. Sam looked wretched. They were feeding him, and he had access to the exercise yard as well as a daily shower and shave, but he looked spectral. The orange jumpsuit, a relic of the old penal system, hung on him like a discarded wrapper, his cheeks lined and sunken. Gabi’s first sight of him nearly undid her, despite her new, heady strength.
“Gabriela?” Gratitude, joy, and guilt played across Sam’s features, though Gabi couldn’t see his eyes clearly behind the clouded panes of his glasses. Mathew had refused to come, preferring to join Cleo Walker’s task force in organizing the Liberation gathering later that day. He wasn’t yet ready to face his fallen hero. The guard assigned to watch Sam told Gabi he had no interaction with the other detainees, even at mealtimes or in the exercise yard. His fellow executive councilmembers and the advance teams awaiting trial didn’t trust him and blamed him for their downfall. Even facing life sentences, many of them remained loyal to Nystrom and the few other councilmembers who’d managed to escape Alder before the FCC troops moved in. Over a quarter of the Unitas population had followed the fugitives to a stronghold in the Southwest, disbelieving all evidence of the council’s corruption. To their loyal followers, Nystrom and his cronies were holy men, mustering for a holy war.
Gabi knew a day would soon come when she and everyone on the continent would have to face this threat. Attacks had already begun as sleeper cells managed to infiltrate FCC-held areas and turn themselves into human bombs. But for today, it was enough for Gabi to know
