Killian stays with Ruby. She watches him enter the gates. He will find nothing, she thinks. But a part of her understands the need to connect to his history. It’s the one thing he can understand.
Vash stops at a plot she cannot see. He kneels and lets out an angered howl. Standing with soil falling from his palms, he shouts, “It’s gone. Someone took the grave.”
“What did you expect to find? The dead offer no clarity,” Killian says. “We’d be wise to keep moving.”
Vash drops the soil. “You’re right.”
“So let’s go,” Ruby says.
Vash turns his attention to her. He looks like he has just given up his hope. “I came here because of you,” he says. “What did you need to get here?”
Ruby bears the weight of their disdain. “This,” she says, throwing a keycard on the ground.
Vash bends to grab it. It’s blank. “What is it?” he asks.
“It’s our ticket to the Iron Eye, so we can find my sister and end this once and for all,” she says.
Vash scoffs. “So we’re doing exactly what Lucas said to do.”
“I thought you said the Iron Eye is a myth,” Killian mutters.
Ruby nods. “I lied. But I only did it because I had to find a way in first, and now I’ve figured it out,” she says. “And before you both go on about not trusting me, I want you to get one thing straight. I put my life on the line to for this. I agreed to marry that alpha so you could have your moment with her.”
“Moment,” Holger growls. “Is that all we get?”
Vash holds the keycard. “Where does this get us inside?”
She points toward a section of military warehouses on the peripheral. A watchtower rises near the center. “A facility,” she says.
“It’ll be full of guards,” Killian says.
“Then don’t be clumsy,” she says, running over to a fence.
“Dammit,”
Vash curses and hops the fence with her.
They lie low and hurry toward a large hanger. Ruby takes a deep breath and smiles, exhilarated. She presses the keycard to the door, and the green light gives the go-ahead.
Quiet, they slip inside the hanger. No one else is inside. Ruby runs over to a cabinet and searches, throwing open every drawer she can find.
“Nothing,” she whispers.
She walks to the back. There’s a large battery-like device in a glass case. “There,” she says.
“What is it?” Holger asks.
“A neut,” she says.
“A what?”
“Energy neutralizer. They use it in combat all the time. The problem is they take forever to run,” she says, analyzing how best to carry it. “We’ll bring it to the Iron Eye and wait for it to destabilize the particle accelerator.”
“So that’s what the Iron Eye is? A particle accelerator?” Killian asks.
“That and more,” she says.
As she removes the battery from the glass, she feels a sudden weakness flow through her like wind. Inhaling, she remains poised, but on the inside, she knows something is wrong. Her leg is numb.