“What else can we do?” I demanded. “Look what they’re doing to the Bend. Look what they’ve done to you! We can’t let them take over everything.”
Roy opened his mouth and closed it again before answering. “I’m not sure we have a lot of choice.”
I set my hands on my hips, summoning all the determination I had in me. “We always have a choice. This is my home, and I’m not letting some psycho chase me out of it. Kervos, you said we could call on you if we needed you. Is that still true?”
Roy and Kervos exchanged a glance. Maybe they were thinking I was insane. Things had gotten a lot worse since Kervos had made that offer. But the thought of running away and abandoning the place where I’d grown up made my chest ache.
People like Mr. Phillips didn’t have the skills or the resources to fight back, but we did. If we didn’t stand up to Xavier and the Storm, who the hell would?
“I have a plan,” Gideon said abruptly into the silence that followed. “We can do it on our own, but it’d be easier with a little help. It will be dangerous, though. I’m not going to let that stop me.”
Kervos shook his head in disbelief. “You could be talking about a suicide mission.”
“Hey,” Wylder said. “If Gideon says something should work, it’ll work.”
I looked at both of the men who’d once served my father. “This is your home too. We could take it back. Put the fear into them instead of living with it ourselves. If I go down, I’m going to go down fighting. I obviously can’t force you, but it’d mean a lot to have your help.”
Roy sprang to his feet. “You know what? You’re right. Those fuckers killed our friends, they’re destroying the Bend. If you’ve got a way to take them down, I want in.” Anxiety still glinted in the whites of his eyes, but I saw the same courage radiating from him that had brought him to warn us the night of Colt’s ambush.
Kervos sighed. “Well, I can’t let this kid show me up. Let’s at least hear the plan.”
A slightly manic smile curled Gideon’s lips. “Xavier thinks he’s terrified everyone in the Bend now, right? He’ll never expect us to target him right in the heart of his operations the very next day. I’ve figured out exactly where the Storm’s headquarters in the Bend are located.” He raised his chin. “It’s time to invade.”