Then Tan jumped in, still fucking breathing, followed by a continuously swearing Navin - the guy certainly came alive when the shit hit the fan - and we were off, tyres squealing, rubber smoking, the back doors banging as Wang Jie tried to close them but kept failing. Tan finally helped him just as a corner approached and they both fell with the momentum into the far wall of the car.

  Silence.

  I glanced down at Lena’s pale face nestled in my lap as the sound of sPol sirens started to wail.

  “Need a route, Si,” Alan was saying. “A distraction would be good, too.”

  “Lena?” I whispered, noise escalating around me as Tan started issuing directions and Alan started biting back curt answers and Si tried valiantly to guide them through less obvious roadways devoid of drones.

  She didn’t reply. But her chest rose and fell and her brow furrowed, lips thinning in a fine line. I reached up and smoothed the skin on her forehead, then leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. She stopped frowning and let out a sigh that speared right through my heart.

  Don’t leave me. The thought came from out of nowhere. Completely unexpected. And uncalled for. She was alive. I’d damn well keep her that way.

  “Lena, baby,” I urged as the van rolled around a corner on two wheels. I had to bite my tongue to stop yelling out. Alan was doing the best he could.

  “Take your next left, then cut down Remoh Ehrah Road,” Si instructed over the radio. “You’re aiming for Little D'awa.”

  Ironic, as we were running from the King of Park Road.

  “Lena,” I whispered, sweeping my hand through her long head of hair; a brown that seemed too ordinary for my Elite. “Wake up, baby,” I murmured, stroking fingers down her neck, over her pulse which seemed to have settled. “Come back to me.”

  “Drone trucks up ahead, veer right,” Si shouted and Alan obeyed.

  We weren’t going to make it. There were too many. There was nowhere left in Wánměi to hide.

  I pulled Lena closer, hugging her to me as though my body alone could help her avoid this fate.

  “Is the target still Little D'awa?” Alan shouted and then promptly swore as he slammed on the brakes.

  We all tumbled off our seats, bones crunching, skin scraping, flesh bruising. I rolled under Lena’s body, the empty space in the back of the van allowing me the move, protecting her as best as I could. But still she came down hard on her left elbow. I sucked in air about to let everyone have it when she moaned. I shouldn’t have been so fucking happy to hear her in pain.

  But she’d moaned. She’d made a noise.

  “Lena?” I said, slipping out from beneath her, placing some jackets under her head as a makeshift pillow, and moving over her body to look in her face.

  “Little D'awa or not?” Alan yelled, presumably at Si because there was no way I knew where the fuck we currently were.

  “Baby?” I pushed, pressing my hand to her cheek where a bruise had formed. I narrowed my eyes, gripped her chin and tilted her face to the light to better see. A fucking recent bruise, and at a guess, Lena had been punched with a closed fist to cause it.

  Anger boiled up unrestrained and full of razor tipped claws inside. A growl started up from the back of my throat, even as I gently stroked across the injury willing it not to swell. Her eyes flicked open, dazed, pale blue staring straight at me and simply evaporating all of my rage.

  “Baby?” I encouraged. Talk to me.

  “Well?” Alan said, still yelling. “Little D'awa or not, Si? Because if I head there now I could make it.”

  “Is it safe?” Wang Jie asked.

  “It’s a death trap,” Tan supplied.

  “We’re all gonna die!’ Navin wailed.

  “I don’t know,” came Si’s unusually stressed voice down the line. “Everywhere else is blocked.”

  “Make a choice,” Alan barked. “You’re our eyes. Without you, we’re blind.”

  Lena blinked a few times; clarity returning, suffusing the pale blue with the sparkle of a stunning morning sky. I couldn’t help it. The world was crumbling around our ears and all I could do was smile.

  “Did you just call me baby?” she asked, her voice way too fucking weak.

  I nodded.

  “Damn it, Si. What’s it going to be?” Alan growled.

  My eyes searched Lena’s face, checking her focus, her pupillary reaction. Checking to make sure she was still there.

  She smiled. My breath caught in my chest.

  And then she declared, “Little D'awa, Alan. Make for Park Road.”

  I’d follow this woman anywhere. Even into a viper’s nest. Even into Harjeet Kandiyar’s former realm.

  I leaned down, my lips an inch from hers, and whispered, “You’d better have a plan… baby.”

  Then kissed her before she could protest. Kissed her before I went out of my fucking mind with the need.

  Kissed her because she was alive and with me and the most extraordinary woman I had ever seen.

  I kissed her and she kissed me.

  Chapter 29

  Time For A Colour Change

  Lena

  He’d called me baby. And I’d surprisingly liked it. He’d called me that when we’d been making love as well, but hearing it now seemed more real. In a moment when sex wasn’t guiding his tongue.

  I made a pained sound as I shifted on the pallet of old bedding Trent had placed me on, our new hiding place across the street from Harjeet’s abandoned stall. My body ached in more ways than I cared to catalogue. My head felt like it might explode.

  “Drink this,” Trent said as he crouched down and placed a water bottle in my hands. The expression on his face said everything: I must have looked a mess.

  His hand reached out and soft fingers tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His eyes stared at it for a long while. I got the impression he missed the white and black, but I was sure he wouldn’t admit it.

  “Why here?” he finally said.

  “It’s the last place he’ll think to look for us.”

  Trent’s lips lifted on the edge in a semi smile. “Hiding in plain sight?” he asked.

  I nodded; it could hardly be called a movement, but it still hurt.

  Trent’s eyes darkened, but I was saved from whatever reprimand was on his lips by Alan.

  “Si reports no drones in Little D'awa. Lena’s right. They don’t expect us to come here.”

  “See?” I said, the taunt reminding me of Harjeet. “He’s quite mad,” I added, all three men in the room lifted their eyes to mine.

  Navin had gone to source supplies for us and Wang Jie was standing guard at the base of the stairs, watching the street. The two identities not yet associated with the rebels, so able to move freely. It was just Trent, Tan and Alan who were now watching me.

  “What makes you say that?” Tan asked from his lean against a wall across the small room we were in. “Other than the obvious, of course,” he added.

  I tried to smile, but lacked the energy; my body just wanting to shut down.

  “He believes he controls Shiloh,” I said softly. “Believes he can provide what the Citizens of Wánměi want. Better than the Overseers did.”

  “So, we’ve exchanged one controlling, megalomaniac ruler for another,” Trent said on a huff of disgruntled air.

  “There’s no ‘we’ about it,” Tan offered. “Once again the powers that be move of their own accord.”

  “He’s not in power,” I countered. “He just thinks he is.”

  “Shiloh,” they all said at once.

  “She wasn’t there,” I added, meaning her mainframe. They all understood.

  “We can’t be sure,” Trent hedged. “We only saw a small portion of the factory.”

  I shook my head, regretted it, and covered the consequent grimace with a swallow from the water bottle. I don’t think it fooled any of them.

  I fished the make-up case out of my pocket. Trent reached out and took it from my outstretched hand, fingers sliding tantalisingly against mine longer than was strictly necessary. My eyes flicked to his face, deep blue so expressive it stole my breath stared back.

  This man was connected to me in a way I didn’t understand, and yet I couldn’t wait to unravel it, to discover more. To find out where that promise led that I could see in his heavy gaze.

  He opened the compact and pressed a button on the side that replayed the recording. It could have displayed photos, should I have managed to take any, but instead Harjeet’s voice emitted from the tiny speakers; sounding hollow and unnatural, making the words seem that much more surreal.

  “The Merrikans require an updated manifest of our last shipment. Please see to that. As for the container ship to Urip, it is proving rather difficult, but needs to be re-floated and sent within the next week.”

  I let his words wash over me as I watched Trent’s face. First surprise, then intelligent assessment, followed swiftly by understanding and a quietly boiling rage.

  “Shiloh’s not there,” Alan offered in way of agreement to my earlier words. A statement that seemed superfluous having just heard the recording, but necessary, all-the-same, to be said.

  “What does he mean, ‘I wonder if she has any idea of what she gave me?’” Tan queried.

  “The flash-drive,” I said, feeling my eyelids get heavier and heavier even though I was desperately trying to stay awake for this.

  “Drink,” Trent urged gently. A command laced with concern. I took a sip, then another, letting the water invigorate me again.

  “The flash-drive,” Tan started, once my eyes weren’t drooping anymore. “What was on it? Did Si manage to crack it at all?”

  “No,” Trent replied. “It’s seriously protected. He’s afraid it’ll blow up on us if he pushes too hard.”

  Memories of another drive he’d hacked came to mind, my thoughts mirrored by the pain I could see in Alan and Trent’s eyes. So many had died because of it. Si would not want to go there again anytime soon.

  “So what was on it?” Tan asked.

  “Something to do with Shiloh,” Alan supplied. “We’re guessing codes that allowed him some form of access to her mainframe.”

  “Then we need to crack it,” Tan pressed. “Get us back on even ground.” A good idea in theory. No doubt a lethal one in all reality.

  “A last resort,” Trent said, the words clipped.

  “We may be nearing last resort status already,” Tan argued, but his tone was not challenging.

  “‘Sweeten the pot with more wiped,’” Alan offered, steering the conversation away from potentially dangerous ground. “These Merrikans and Urip he speaks of want our Citizens?”

  “What does that make them?” Trent commented. “But the ‘Soon we’ll not only control Wánměi, but so much more’ statement is troubling. He has grand plans.”

  “I’m not sure his plans align with Shiloh’s,” I murmured. “She humours him, allows him a modicum of safety in his beliefs, but when necessary she is still capable of overriding his commands. Whatever he has over her is not foolproof.”

  I told them about the drone coming back to life, without having been interfered with by Harjeet. His surprise alone at the time was enough to know he’d not seen that happen before. But Trent and I had. In Wáikěiton, right outside my old home. After we’d effectively - for all intents and purposes - disabled a Shiloh controlled drone. A spike through its interface should have done it.

  Just like Harjeet thought his voice command would have as well.

  Trent’s eyes met mine. “The flash-drive is irrelevant. It won’t help us now.”

  “I beg to differ,” Tan argued. “This is all conjecture on your part. There may be more pertinent information on the drive that Harjeet has used. Such as the location of Shiloh’s mainframe.”

  “The risk is not worth it,” Trent declared, standing up from his crouch beside me and starting to pace. “We need to find Shiloh another way.”

  “How?” Tan pushed.

  Trent ran a hand through his hair and stopped pacing beside the window. His shoulders looked heavy as he stared out into the night time scene of Park Road.

  “Simon needs to work on that vid-screen,” I said, my eyes closing, no longer able to keep them open even though everything in me wanted to track the movements in the room. An old failsafe to ensure I was indeed still safe.

  But these were my friends. Trent had proved he’d die for me. He almost had. I let my body relax further, even as my stomach flipped at how close he’d come to death.

  Then felt hands on my shoulders helping me lie down on the makeshift bed as Trent whispered, “Go to sleep, Lena. Get some rest.”

  I mumbled something incoherent and immediately started to drift.

  “Has she got a concussion?” Tan’s concerned voice said through a haze of distortion.

  “I don’t think so,” Trent replied softly from right by my side. “Pupillary reaction is good. She shows no sign of confusion. But just to be safe, we’ll wake her every hour.”

  “She’s gonna love you for that,” Alan’s dry voice offered from further away.

  “I’ll take her anger over her dead any day,” Trent murmured and the room sank deeper into a murky abyss.

  Sometime later, or maybe only a few seconds, I heard Trent quietly say, “Tell me about her father.”

  I wanted to keep listening, I wanted to rise up from the shadowy depths of sleep. But exhaustion and injury kept me immobile, stuck fast in the gloomy twilight of my dreams. I heard Tan reply, but what he said I couldn’t decipher, and then sleep finally caught me and tenderly wrapped me up in its arms; a soft caress through my hair, a gentle breeze of hot breath against my skin, the warmth of an embrace curving around my body.

  Despite where we were and where we’d just come from. Despite the impossibility that faced us and the drastic consequences of failure. Despite the topic of conversation hanging tantalisingly just out of my reach. I had never felt as safe and as comfortable as I did on that pallet of old bedding, curled up in Trent’s arms.

  And when I woke, I was sure I’d never feel that way again.

  “Lena,” someone whispered at my ear. “Lena, baby, wake up.”

  “How many?” I heard Alan ask.

  “I can see twenty from here,” came Tan’s terse reply.

  “More approaching on Grafton Road,” Navin offered.

  “Lena, baby. You’ve got to wake up.”

  “If I were you, I’d get going now,” came Si’s slightly distorted voice. “It’s like a full blown military operation,” he added, the distortion finally registering as coming from the shortwave radio speakers. “Someone has tipped them off to where you are. This is not a reconnaissance mission. This is a search and destroy campaign based on intelligence that makes it worth their while to mobilise an entire platoon.”

  “Fuck!” Tan swore and my eyes finally flickered open. Darkness met my groggy gaze.

  “That’s it, baby. Wake up. We’ve got visitors.”

  “How long have I…?” I managed and licked my lips. The water bottle was gently pressed against my mouth. I swallowed greedily.

  “Forty minutes,” Trent replied. “I promise you can sleep once we get back to the bunker.”

  “We’ve got to move. Now!” Alan urged. “Carry her.”

  “Where to?” Navin demanded.

  “The roof,” Alan and Trent said at once.

  “Lena won’t make the roof,” Tan argued.

  I pushed up from the floor, blinked repeatedly to still the vertigo that ensued, and then attempted to get to my feet.

  “Easy, Zebra,” Trent murmured, wrapping an arm around my waist and helping me up.

  That’s what I loved about Trent; he let me push my limits. When I failed he only then stepped in and swept me off my feet.

  Trent let me try to be the person I wanted to be. He didn’t stop me. He encouraged me. All the while watching my back and being there when I inevitably fell.

  “I’m OK,” I said, feeling anything but. There was no way I was being carried over my rooftops. The rooftops of Wánměi that I’d long ago claimed as my own.

  “How the hell did they find us?” Alan was muttering from his position beside the window, peering through the gap in a curtain to the street below. “They shouldn’t have found us this quickly,” he added, anger fuelling each word.

  “Sooner or later they would have thought to check here,” Tan offered.

  “With a platoon?” Alan hissed under his breath. “A scout, yes. And we would have seen him. Not a whole fucking platoon. Si is right; they had intelligence.”

  Silence met Alan’s ominous words.

  “Now’s not the time,” Trent finally said. “I’m getting Lena to the roof. The rest of you follow. Stealth is our only chance of evasion. Not a sound,” he instructed and led me out of the room towards stairs at the back of the building.

  My foot stumbled against the first tread; a not particularly promising start.

  “Can you do this?” he asked softly at my side. Words low and quiet so as not to be overheard. He was giving me a chance to capitulate to my injuries and then he’d sweep in.

  I wasn’t sure I could do this, but balancing on a rooftop while carrying a dead weight in your arms was treacherous. I had to try.

  “If I stumble you won’t let me fall,” I whispered and heard the sharp intake of his surprised breath of air.

  The sound seemed to bolster me. I sucked in my own breath for fortification and started up the stairs. With each step it got better, easier. My eyesight sharpening to near normal. My body responding to my mental commands. We made the rooftop without further incident. But the dark expanse of uneven tiles was a beckoning stretch of doom.

  Of what she has doomed all of humanity to. Harjeet’s words echoed through my mind as I led the way across Little D'awa’s roofs, a path that I knew by heart, could almost follow in my sleep. I hated that I might have an inclination of what Harjeet was referring to. I hated more what that inclination was.

  Shiloh had to be stopped. But so did Harjeet.

  Red lights flashed spasmodically from down at street level. Roof after roof after roof was coated in the intermittent hue of what looked, to my mind, like dripping blood. The echoing thud-thud-thud of drone boots on tar-seal sounded out from down below, reaching up into the night sky and bouncing back to earth from low lying clouds. The tiles we slowly moved across were slick from earlier rain, but at least the heavens, although heavy with promise, had not opened, repeating their earlier downfall.