“Exactly,” I say. “How? How did a double agent weasel his way into the House? Who was responsible for checking his background? Someone knew this was going to happen and did nothing to prevent it. If Cain hasn’t figured that out by now, he’s been unforgivably stupid. I’m not giving him any more information until I know he’s not inadvertently feeding it to a mole. Until we get Orion back, we only trust ourselves and each other. That’s a command from your superior.”

  Aiden mutters, “You’re not my superior.”

  If he were anyone else, I’d interpret his comment as childish rebellion. But in this case, I think he’s just stating the truth. It’s his habit to correct without thinking. So, I adjust my reasoning for his sake. “I’m not your superior, but I have seniority. You’re expected to take my council on matters like this.”

  He nods, but in the rear-view mirror, I see his throat work as he swallows his grief. Ying Yue’s head is in his lap. He pushes his fingers through her short hair as though she’s only sleeping. He doesn’t show it the way other people do, but I know this is hitting him hard. Ying Yue was an early teacher for Aiden, one of the few who never let his demeanor get to her. She treated him the same way she treated every one of her trainees, and I got the impression that meant more to him than he let on.

  He glances up and notices my eyes in the mirror, watching him. “Eden?” he says.

  “Yeah?”

  “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Kill people so easily. How do you do it and not let it change you?”

  His question shocks me, and I see Sarah’s brow knit. Both of us have watched him grow and mature over the years, but no matter what he went through, he never really seemed to change. Now, I think that was just an illusion. He must carry the same scars we all do. He just hides it better than most.

  Sarah finally answers the question for me. “None of us gets out unscathed, but we do what we do because it’s the right thing.”

  Aiden cocks his head. “We just killed a bunch of hostages, and we’re on our way to do it again like it didn’t even matter.”

  “This time, we’ll be more careful,” she says. “This time, we take orders from no one but ourselves. Don’t forget we’re fighting to save someone’s life.”

  “But that’s one life to thirteen, and even more if you count the soldiers. It’s just not adding up. How are we a net good?” he asks.

  This gives Sarah pause. When she answers, her voice is as humble as I’ve ever heard it. “I don’t think we’re a net good. We can’t be. But we fight for those we love. We fight to protect the people who are important to us. That’s all we can do.”

  As true as her answer is, I don’t think it’s what Aiden wanted to hear. He knows we’re often in the wrong. He’s not looking for justification. What he wants is technique, a way to deal with the knowledge. Finally, I answer his original question. “I see flowers. That’s how I keep killing. I don’t see the death I’ve caused. Instead, I see a bouquet I’ve gathered. I change reality into what I want it to be.”

  By the way Sarah looks at me, I can tell this was not a detail she thought I’d share.

  “But how?” Aiden asks.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “It happens automatically. People disappear and are replaced with flowers before they die. Or they were anyway. It doesn’t seem to be working anymore.”

  “Eden?” Sarah says, confusion in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, all I see is death. There’s no beauty in it at all. It makes me sick. Whatever happens from now on, don’t expect me to come out of it the same. I’ll be ground into dust before this is over.”

  Aiden continues to stroke Ying Yue’s hair. It kills me to see him grieve like this. He glances down at her and mutters, “I should’ve been quicker. I hesitated too much. I won’t let it happen again.” His eyes flick to Sarah, and I know he means to protect the only mother he’s ever known. I want to comfort him, but I don’t know how. He’s right. We were so shaken when we found out we’d killed the hostages that we hesitated. If we’re going to protect each other at the expense of everyone else in the world, we have to be willing to make unthinkable sacrifices.

  “We’re getting Orion back,” I say, “no matter what it costs.”

  * * *

  We hide our G-Wagon in the brush some distance from the vineyard where Mary Denau claims Orion is being held. Our initial approach is quiet. The darkness is in our favor. We drove most of the night and arrived in the early hours of the morning. We’re about to find out whether Mary warned Whiteface we were coming. We’re about to find out whether this is just another sadistic trap.

  We crouch behind bushes, and Sarah breaks out her infrared binoculars. “No one’s guarding the outside,” she murmurs. “I don’t think they expect us.”

  “There’ll be men inside,” I say. “Whiteface never travels alone.”

  She tucks her binoculars away. “It’s possible they’re asleep, but we should act as though they aren’t. God, I wish Drew were here. He could cover us from a distance.”

  “We don’t know who the mole is,” I remind her. “It’s better to have the element of surprise than another man on our team.”

  Aiden lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “We are enough.” I know he means it in more ways than one. “I’ll head the offensive. You come in behind me. Sarah can cover us at the door.”

  I nod and ask, “Do you think we can avoid killing them?” Aiden looks at me like I’ve finally lost it, so I clarify. “In case they’re also hostages.”

  “We can try,” Sarah says. “I can shoot to disable rather than kill, and you two can work on disarming the men I hit. But you know some will die regardless. We have to be ready for that.” She casts a sidelong glance at me. “Eden, can you handle it?”

  I want to be offended, but she’s right. My only coping mechanism has crumbled. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I? It’s either handle it or die. Giving up on Orion is not an option.”

  She nods once and stands. “Let’s go then. No point in putting it off.”

  Through our night-vision goggles, the back of the house looks like a glowing, green beast on the horizon. Our footsteps are nearly silent, our breath shallow. No one guards the doors or windows. Has Whiteface really become so complacent?

  At the door, Sarah counts to three. Then she kicks it open, and we storm into the house.

  She takes the first few shots before Aiden begins his assault. Through my goggles, I see the white shapes of downed men writhing on the ground.

  While our enemies are busy looking for a gunman in the dark, Aiden takes the stage. His double-headed spear is a blur in the night, swiping through bodies that cross his path. I swing True Winter at the stalks he leaves behind. Then I search the fallen for weapons.

  Eventually, someone manages to find a light switch. We push up our goggles and continue our bloody work. It’s strange to see so many Seditio members without masks. They must have been sleeping. Now I can see the fear in their faces. I can see that they’re people fighting for their lives. They won’t become flowers for me, but I don’t need to kill them. I just need to incapacitate them.

  One downed man pulls out a pistol and aims it at Sarah. I dive for it, grapple with him, and manage to yank it away just as he pulls the trigger. The bullet lodges harmlessly into the wall above her head. I easily slash through his stomach after that. It seems I can still kill when someone aims to hurt my family.

  We’re making progress. More than half their men are down, but the ones who are still armed are shooting too carefully. That’s when I realize. “They’re aiming for our heads!” I shout. I see a bullet graze Aiden’s cheek. It only confirms what I already know to be true. “They know how to kill us!”

  Sarah stiffens, reloads her weapon, and begins to shoot. This time, she’s shooting to kill. I hate it. I hate it so much, but I know why she’s doing it. Any enemy who knows our weakness has to die. That’s the unfortunate reality. These men just sealed their fates. One of them shouts into his radio, “They’ve breached the house! Retreat!”

  With Sarah taking excellent care of the men in the main room, Aiden and I make our way to the kitchen. He kicks over a table and leaps behind it, pulling his gun from its holster. He shoots the first three men who follow us through the door. To our right is a back staircase, and Aiden starts for it. “Cover me,” he says, his voice even more robotic than usual. “I’m heading upstairs.”

  I nod and begin to eliminate every man who walks through the door. It’s easier now that I’ve let go of the hope that we might save some of them. They all have to die. It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. I become a machine, like Aiden, like Sarah. I become a reaper, slashing first one way and then the other, cutting men’s legs off at the knee. When the last straggler is down, I shout, “Check in!”

  Sarah’s voice comes back, “We’re clear in the main room!”

  A scream from upstairs is suddenly silenced. Then Aiden shouts, “All clear up here!”

  I blink down at the carnage I’ve created and shudder. My boots are covered in gore. I close my eyes and hold back the nausea that threatens to disable and, worse, humiliate me.

  Aiden and Sarah join me in the kitchen.

  “Orion’s not upstairs,” Aiden says.

  “No one’s left on the first floor either,” Sarah adds. “Were we lied to again?”

  “I don’t think so.” I feel like I’m going to throw up. I groan, grab my knees, and try to collect myself. “They would’ve been ready for us if this was a trap. None of them looked like hostages to me. There’s got to be another room in this house somewhere. Maybe a hidden passage or door. These old houses are famous for them.”

  In the silence that follows, a distant, muffled scream emanates from the floor like a ghost. Sarah and I hold our breath to listen as Aiden tiptoes around the bodies. Following the sounds of footsteps, muted speech, and the occasional scream, he finally ends at the pantry under the stairs. He opens the door and examines the shelves inside. Then we hear a click. Hinges whine as Aiden pushes open the shelves, and I make my way toward him. It’s a hidden door, just as I suspected. Wooden stairs descend into darkness, flanked on either side by concrete walls.

  “You and Sarah should go,” Aiden says. “I’ll keep watch up here.”

  It’s possible he has a tactical reason for suggesting Sarah be the one who accompanies me. It’s possible he thinks it would be good to have a shooter along with a close-range fighter, but I doubt it. I think he wants Sarah to accompany me because he knows what we might find. And while he may be a fantastic partner in a fight, Aiden is not terribly good at grief.

  “Ready?” Sarah says as she flicks on a switch at the top of the stairs. Overhead, florescent lights flicker to life, illuminating the base of the stairs. Hanging from the walls like garden tools are various instruments of torture. They’re breadcrumbs that lead to a heavy, metal door just a few feet from the last step. I can’t fight the image of Whiteface gliding down the stairs, casually choosing a saw on his way to torture my brother.

  “Seditio planned for this.” My voice cracks. “Look at their setup. This was never about any new artifact. All along, they only wanted Orion. But why? They know we took the Chains of Peter from his family. The Bachmans don’t have anything of value anymore, unless…”

  “Unless Orion himself is valuable to them for some reason,” Sarah concludes.

  A pained grunt travels to us from behind the metal door at the base of the stairs. I can’t imagine what’s happening on the other side. Is it Orion crying out behind the door? Or is he dead already? Breaking in will not be easy, but I’m not giving up until all hope is lost.

  I grip my scythe and take a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter how valuable he is to them. We just have to show them how much more valuable he is to us.”

  10: you’re obligated

  Orion

  I wake to the sound of someone humming and the click-click of something mechanical. After all my weapons training, I know what it is, but for some reason, I can’t open my eyes to see it. In addition to my eyelids, my right leg is immobile. I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to feel it again.

  The smell of blood permeates everything. It’s an acrid, metallic scent. I try to replace it with sweet honeydew in my mind, and, for a few blissful minutes, it works. Suddenly, it’s five years ago, and I’m sitting in my own backyard, cross-legged on a picnic blanket Mom has laid out for Grandpa’s birthday. He never wants to do anything fancy for the occasion. “In my day, we didn’t need all the frills,” he boasts. “We knew how to have a good time with next to nothing.” It’s funny because I don’t think Grandpa was ever poor in his life. He just likes to act like he was. I laugh under my breath at the memory.

  Then the sound of Whiteface playing with his gun pulls me back to the hellish present. “What do you think, Orion?” he says. I wonder how he knows I’m awake. Maybe he doesn’t. “Shall we finish your friend off? It’s cruel to let him carry on, don’t you think? I’m sure he’s had enough of our little game.”

  “Jacob,” I rasp, though I doubt he can hear me. “Please…” In my periphery, I see his body twitch. My god, he’s still alive. I don’t know whether to be happy or horrified. He’s so misshapen and swollen. Every visible patch of his skin is dark with bruising.

  My throat lets out an involuntary whimper, and Whiteface takes it as an answer. “That’s what I thought you’d say,” he murmurs down at his pistol. “Do you know how dangerous it is to shoot a gun indoors? Bullets ricochet and hit unintended victims. A lot of people don’t realize that. But they say if you use a small enough caliber, like say a .22, the bullet will stay in your victim. That’s a plus—a penetrating wound, they call it. I’ve been wanting to test the theory. I was going to use a pig’s head from a local butcher, but you know what? This one will work just as well.”

  He stands from his metal folding chair and ambles up to Jacob. Despite the futility of it, I find myself begging. “Please, don’t kill him. Please…”

  With one foot, Whiteface rolls Jacob onto his back. Then he bends over and slaps Jacob’s face hard. “Wake up!” he says, and he turns back to me. “He’s going to bleed out. You sure you don’t want me to put him out of his misery?”

  “Please…” I can barely speak through my pain. I can barely think. How can I advocate for letting Jacob live when I’m not even sure it’s the right choice? All I know is he’s my friend, and after losing Remy, I can’t stand thinking I’ll lose Jacob too. And there it is. I’ve been reduced to pure selfishness. I wonder if this was part of Whiteface’s plan.

  There’s nothing left to do but pray. I pray to the god I was raised to believe in. I pray to any god who might be listening. I don’t know what’s true anymore, but I’ll give myself over to any deity who saves Jacob’s life.

  It takes Whiteface less than a second to destroy my faith completely. He stands over Jacob, takes aim, and shoots him in the head. And my world comes crashing down around me. There is no god, and if there is, he’s not worthy of worship. My father was wrong. I try to speak, but no words form. What escapes my mouth, instead, is a pathetic prolonged whine.

  “Sorry, were you trying to say something?” Whiteface holsters his gun and approaches me. “I hadn’t planned to kill your friend, but you know what they say—Death is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

  I groan out the word, “Life,” to correct him, but I doubt he’s heard me. It doesn’t matter anyway. I may as well be dead too. Maybe it would be better for everyone in the end.

  “Anyway, I think we have our answer. The bullet went in, but it didn’t come out, so we’ve got a good caliber for indoor executions. How lucky are we?” He laughs, but it’s a fake, theatrical laugh. I doubt he’s even trying anymore. Then he brings his face so close to my ear I can smell whatever it was he ate for lunch. “Broken yet, Mr. Bachman?” he whispers. “Get ready for your final exam.”

  There’s a prick in my arm, and in minutes, I start to fade. My vision darkens, and the world mercifully disappears.

  * * *

  Time is meaningless in a room with no windows. Morality is meaningless in a world with no hope. For some reason, I’ve been condemned to hell, but I can’t figure out what I did to deserve it. It must have been something, right? God doesn’t condemn people to hell for no reason. Then I cough out a laugh as I remember. There is no god.

  I want to cry, but I’ve been wrung dry. I’m just a husk of the person I used to be, and the man who broke me is sitting in a folding chair just a few feet away with his ankle crossed over his knee. He smokes a cigarette like he’s taking ten from a tedious job. His hands, face, and the cigarette itself are smeared with blood he doesn’t seem to notice. He looks like a baker covered in flour at the end of a long day. I narrow my eyes and frown. This is just a job to him. I’m more than sure of it now.

  Still, he’s the only one who has any answers in my dark, new world. I wheeze, “Why… why me?

  “Why, you say?” His voice is quiet, almost tired. All his energy, his false enthusiasm, has drained away. I guess when he’s on his break, he doesn’t bother to keep up the act. “It’s simple if you really want to know, but I doubt you’ll accept the answer.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  He takes a long drag off his cigarette and holds the smoke in his lungs. When he finally answers, his words come out in curling tendrils. “You believe you’re innocent. That belief is what makes you so easy to break. It’s a lie, you know. No one’s innocent in this world. Look at you,—born rich, loving every minute of your life while people suffer below you. You never even see them, do you? Because when you turn your eyes to heaven, believing yourself to be some kind of saint, it’s impossible to notice the people you’re standing on. We don’t even exist to you, despite the fact you’d be nothing without us. But those of us born below you don’t have the privilege of ignoring your weight on our shoulders.”