Lucas clenches his stomach. He’d give anything to have her back. “She’s not responsible for this. We are. The alphas. We fucked this world up.”
“At my worst, I can ensure your safety through the Iron Eye,” Aiden says. “At my best, I can help you find her. You can have your moment.”
Lucas takes a deep breath and looks at the path ahead. He’d never be able to handle it alone. A rover is the best option. He just doesn’t want to admit it.
Aiden’s face appears all too comfortable. Lucas is cornered, and he knows it.
Aiden puts out his hand and waits to confirm their loyalty.
Not exactly a binding contract, but it will do.
“Fine. You can take me to the Iron Eye. I want no part in the other plans. We get past the Eye first,” Lucas says. “Then we find her. After that, we part ways.”
“Fine by me,” Aiden says, takin
g his hand firmly.
They shake on the deed, but Aiden looks far too satisfied with the arrangement. Killian and Vash were never easy negotiators. Neither was Aiden. They always settled deals on disagreements.
But those days are over now. With the last detonation, a world of possibility has opened up for everyone. Everyone wants a new piece of the pie. Some will want the whole thing.
He just wants her back. The whole thing.
If Rae truly is alive, this is the only way he will get her back home.
So he takes the bargain and steps onto the rover.
Rae
He prays. Every day at the same time.
He falls into deep, eye-opening trances. With an unusual silence, he stares at the gold ouroboros statue. And when he’s finished, he drains enough blood to sink him to the floor.
He paints the walls with his blood, revelatory images. “They paint a picture of what’s coming,” he says.
Since her birth, there have been three detonations. She brought the first. She brought the second and fell the reconstruction of a new world.
And she’ll be the third, too. Her.
She’s the secret weapon. That’s what he tells her.
It’s too dark to see that much, but she hears the fragile devil in the night, howling. Shivering from fever.
She can hear him screaming in his sleep.
Tears run down the fragile devil’s eyes. The streams never stop running, and his expression is that of a man who has just encountered God. “It’s like nothing you could ever imagine,” he says with direct honesty.
She hears this kind of thing every day from the fragile devil, but it always frightens her.
Her memory comes and goes. Sometimes, she can see her alphas. Other times, she can’t recognize her own voice. Without understanding, she is defenseless against a keeper who has lost touch with all reality.
Rae backs against the smooth clay wall, heart thumping against all sides of her ribcage. She calms and asks what she always asks. “Who are you? Why do you live like this?”
She doesn’t expect an answer. Her keeper is unlike anyone she has ever encountered. He does not hurt her like the others. He barely even looks at her, but the threat always lingers.
Today is different. Today, he is more… outspoken.
He wipes the tears away from his face. “After the first detonation, the fallout buried our entire village. A sinkhole formed in the earth and swallowed us whole. Even with no escape, we couldn’t pass on survival. Over time, we constructed a city underneath the earth,” he says. “A place where we could overcome disaster.”