>"Six!” she snarled. “The door."
I lunged at the wall and punched the button. The door slid open. Air wooshed in like a cyclone, whipping my hair around and pulling my body toward the opening. I grabbed a seatbelt from a nearby bench and held on.
Dare shoved Castor with every ounce of strength she had. The male vampire stumbled back toward the door. He fell back against the benches along that wall. He was up again in a blink. Knowing Dare was the stronger foe, he lunged for me this time. But just as his clawed hands snagged my shirt, the necklace the Chatelaine gave me sprang from the neckline. One of his hands brushed against the red disk. He hissed and pulled away as if he’d been burned.
“Where did you get that?”
Confusion held me frozen. Before I could answer, Dare ran and flew at his midsection with a kick.
Castor's eyes went wide. His hands wind-milled wildly and then the air current took hold of his body and sucked him through the door. His screams were swallowed by the wind.
Before any thoughts of celebrating the death of Castor could sink in, Dare's body flew toward the opening. I grabbed her arm just before her body was vacuumed into the night, as well. With one hand holding on to the seat belt and the other wrapped around her wrist, I struggled with every ounce of strength in my body to reel her back inside. But my hands were sweaty and my strength was gone. She was starting to slip away.
I screamed from exertion and frustration. Her eyes were wide and she scrambled to hold on. I was losing her.
A warm arm wrapped around my waist and a hand appeared to grab Dare's wrist next to mine. I looked up to see Icarus's grim face as he pulled both of us out of harm's way. I fell back onto the bench. Sure that Icarus had Dare safely inside, I slapped a palm on the button to slam the door shut.
The silence that followed was punctuated with gasps and curses. I looked at Dare's wild hair and her trembling body, and at Icarus's dirt-streaked and scarred face. "The rover?" I asked.
"Auto-pilot. We'll land in the Badlands and ditch it. We can't go back to Book Mountain, but maybe Jeremiah and his squad will take us in."
"They'll have us," Dare said. "We have Meridian Six on our team."
I frowned at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Don't you get it?" Icarus said. "The daughter of Alexis Sargosa is finally on the rebel's side and she’s declared war against the Troika."
My mouth fell open. "That’s not what happened—"
Icarus laughed humorlessly. “Doesn’t matter. They’ll believe what we tell them,” he said, sounding too much like the vampire we’d just killed for my comfort. “We’ll have to start calling you Carmina, though. Meridian Six has too many bad associations.” He narrowed his eyes at me. I didn’t like the speculative glint I saw there. “Carmina Sargosa,” he tested the words on his tongue. “Yes. It’s got a noble air to it. The kind of name people rally around. A leader.”
I looked over toward Rabbit, who lay watching us. His skin was pale and his eyes were feverish, but he was alive. I moved toward him and cradled his small body, careful not to hurt his wounds too much. I pretended I was trying to comfort him, but I needed it, too. Icarus’s words had left me feeling both hollow and dirty, used. He didn’t want me to be a leader. He wanted me to be his puppet.
How could I have been so naïve to think I could start a new life on my own terms? Hadn’t I already learned that the world was made up of two types: The Users and The Used. I’d tried to use the rebels to earn my freedom, but I’d ended up being a pawn. Again.
Sure, I wanted the Troika to pay for everything it had taken from me, everything it had withheld. In that sense I guess I was on the rebels’ side. But listening to Icarus speak, an icy hand skittered up my spine. I’d let myself get carried away kicking the hornets’ nest and I was pretty sure before this was all over, I’d be the one to feel the Troika’s sting. "What have I done?" I whispered, mostly to myself.
Icarus smiled that smile that transformed his ravaged face. Only this time it scared me. “You just gave us the weapon we need to defeat the Troika.”
I frowned at him. “What kind of weapon?”
“The same one that’s been at the center of every good revolution.” He tilted his head. “A good story to inspire the troops.”
With that, he rose to check on the cockpit again. Dare nudged me out of the way to get to the kid. I dropped onto a bench across the way.
Through the side window, the stars were laid out like a blanket of diamonds. At that altitude it was easy to forget all the destruction and violence, the hopelessness so common on the ground. Up there it was easy to imagine a future where Rabbit could grow up healthy and happy. One where I was able to live on my own terms without someone wanting to use me for their cause.
I looked down at the red lotus totem Sister Agrippa had given me. The one that was a symbol of her faith. Faith that terrified Castor so much it cost him his life. I squeezed my hand around the red disk until it bit into the palm. Maybe it was time for me to have a little faith, too.
Through the rover’s cockpit and toward the horizon, I saw another sign of hope. While behind us The Factory still burned like Hephaestus’s forge, up ahead another fire glowed, one far more dangerous to the Troika than any man-made inferno. Dawn streaked across the lavender sky in a fury of orange, yellow and red, announcing the sun’s imminent arrival.
The sun was the enemy of every vampire—a fire demon. But I was a human, and to my kind the sun was an angel of life. It nourished our crops and our livestock. It warmed our skin and helped us see. It provided us with energy and a reason to rise every morning.
I closed my eyes and imagined absorbing its heat into my pores and filling up my chest cavity with its awesome power.
My name was Carmina Sargosa, daughter of Alexis Sargosa. And like the sun, I would rise above the Troika and finish the work my mother began. I would burn every last vampire to the ground.
Red means life.