“I saw him,” he hissed. “And I saw you.”
Farl leapt up and grabbed the metallic spear off the wall. It glinted dully in the light. On the wall were other weapons, but they were too far away for me to grab one to defend myself. The other masked lycans would get me before that. It was too late now. Farl had returned and was pressing the sharp tip of the metallic spear into my lower arm.
“Deny it again, I dare you.”
The spear’s tip crackled with electricity, burning hot, horrible pain into me. Dammit—I couldn’t die here. Navan still needed me.
He twisted the spear, and my whole lower arm went numb with pain. What would it feel like if he actually… No, I couldn’t think about that. I wasn’t going to let Farl win this game. I shook my head, set my jaw. Yes, Navan had killed Farl’s brother, but it had been an act of self-defense. I had a feeling that Farl wouldn’t buy that reasoning, but I refused to implicate Navan, no matter what this psycho wolfman did.
Farl leaned in even closer, his eyes boring into mine. His voice was now deadly quiet. “You’d be dead now, you know, if I hadn’t lost track of you, that night in Alaska. I followed you to the nearby village, waiting to catch you all in a moment when your two coldblood companions had their guards down. But it seemed someone else was following you, too—on an unrelated mission. After the gunshots exploded, you took off, and I lost the chance of finding you. Still, I held out hope we’d meet again, and this time, I’d get the Fed itself to serve you justice… but instead they set you free on a mission. A mission during which you betrayed them again. Now, tell me what you did to my brother—I want to hear you say it yourself.”
I said nothing.
“Admit it!” he roared, jabbing the tip in deeper, sending explosions of pain all over my arm. “Admit that you and your master killed him.”
“I’m sorry!” I cried out. “This is all a misunderstanding. Navan—”
“What is the meaning of this?”
Hearing the familiar voice, I practically fainted with relief. It was the green-eyed lycan from before. He’d come to find me early.
“A mere questioning session, Galo,” Farl replied coolly. He lifted the metal spear off my arm, where it had left an angry purple bruise.
“In the torture chamber? In the middle of the night?” Galo asked in a voice laced with skepticism.
“There were doubts as to her story’s veracity,” Farl replied.
“And yet you weren’t questioning her story about the coldblood base,” Galo stated.
Farl sprang up, spear still in hand.
“Her coldblood companion lied to us. He killed my brother—I saw him less than a hundred yards from the scene of the crime myself!”
Galo strode forward and took my hand. “Then you should be speaking to him. This one is a human—a mere girl at that.”
Farl grabbed my other hand, although he kept his furious gaze locked on Galo.
“Humans can be swayed to commit crimes as heinous as any coldblood. We both know that.”
“That may be so, but right now you are defying a direct order from our authority, Commander Sylvan, not to interfere with the investigation,” Galo said in a forceful voice. “Stand down or face the consequences.”
Farl didn’t move.
“Careful,” Galo warned.
Farl spat on the ground, then let go of my hand.
As Galo led my trembling self over to the door, Farl called after him: “This isn’t the end of this.”
Galo paused to toss him a dark smile. “Oh, I don’t doubt it.” His gaze swept around the room, to the other motionless, masked lycans, whom I’d almost forgotten were there. “You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Farl mourned his brother. What’s your excuse?”
“We’re ready for a new legislature, one that’s harder on coldbloods and their ilk,” Farl answered for them, practically spitting.
“Thankfully, Farl, you are in the minority. This will be reported to Commander Sylvan, as I’m sure you know good and well. Farewell.”
Just before the door closed, Farl hissed, “Damned veritas.”
I had no idea what he meant by that, but as we walked along the corridor, I was too grateful to still be alive to think about it. I kept having to inhale and exhale deeply—it felt surreal, walking freely down the same place I’d been dragged through.
Galo patted my back almost gingerly, and I noticed only then that he had on a big backpack made of a thick black nylon-like material.
“Well, hello again. And I apologize for my… Hm, ‘comrades’ is too generous a word,” he said. “Some Fed agents aren’t worthy of the name. Certain lycans can be extremely territorial and vengeful, regardless of the vows they take when they join the Fed.”
All I could do was nod as we continued. My nerves were still on edge, half of me expecting Farl to come charging back for me. I’d feel safer once we’d put more distance between ourselves and that room.
“Anyway, all that did was further prove that you can’t stay here. With the commander gone, it’s not safe. I stole some invisibility suits, and now I’m taking you to your friends. We’ll rescue Navan together,” the lycan said.
I stalled and stared at him, stunned. “Wh-What?” I asked, hardly daring to believe my ears.
He sniffed, and then said simply, “I’ve decided it’s the right thing to do. Not to mention that Navan would make a valuable ally in the fight against these rebel coldbloods.”
“Wha… Okay,” was all I could respond with. I had been hoping he’d help me out, but what I hadn’t been expecting was for him to shoulder the responsibility himself. I was hardly going to interrogate him now, though. “Thanks,” I breathed.
“Come along, we’ve no time to waste.”
We continued up a stone staircase, until we emerged in a huge chamber of floor-to-ceiling white marble rippled with green. I paused to take in our impressive surroundings. The room was filled with ships that resembled the one Navan and I had used: small, compact, and made of what looked to be chrome.
“Hurry—if we take too long, they won’t let us leave at all,” Galo said.
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure that this odd lycan would even be able to fly a ship. Farl had called him a “veritas”, whatever that was. He was clearly different from the other lycans, with his thin, gangly frame, and he was visibly getting on in years.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked tentatively. As much as I was glad for his help, a part of me still felt this was too good to be true, and I wanted to be sure of our safety.
“Not now,” Galo said, his bushy brow furrowed. “I need to concentrate. We’re stealing a ship.” He said it matter-of-factly, the same way you’d say, “I brushed my teeth last night.”
He strode up to one ship, put his hand on it, then shook his head. “No, no…” he muttered. At the next ship, his face lit up. “Aha!”
He turned to me with a toothy grin. “To answer your question about whether this is a good idea, my answer would be ‘probably not.’ However, the result of us being caught and us doing nothing at all are about the same—you won’t be able to see your friends.”
He gave the ship he’d chosen two taps, and the door slid open, revealing a compact interior. We climbed in, and once we were both seated in the cushy seats and the steel door had shut behind us, I realized the obvious problem: getting the ship out of this room. There was no visible way of flying the ship out of here—the room was made up of four marble walls, as well as a marble floor and ceiling. Unless Galo planned on somehow squeezing the ship through a doorway, I wasn’t sure how we were going to lift off.
“So, uh,” I began.
“Don’t worry,” Galo said absently. “Just watch.”
With that, he pressed a small, round blue button. Seconds later, the ship was disappearing under his hands.
“Drat!” he cursed, jamming the button again, bringing the ship out of invisibility.
Next, he hit a triangular green button. Both of us held our
breath for a second, until the ceiling shuddered and a hole in the roof opened up.
“Ah, yes,” Galo said, his yellow teeth spread in a victorious smile. “Knew it.” Seeing my dubious look, he admitted, “It’s been a while. Anyway, now for up…”
He pushed a curved red lever, and next thing I knew, we were blasting upward. A countless number of levels flashed by, all at a speed too fast to really make out anything, and I only let out a breath when we broke into the sky.
Now we were hovering over a big octagonal stone pyramid, where we had presumably just been. I gazed around at the surrounding area, taking in the snow-and-pine-tree-covered mountain it was housed on with interest.
“So… this must be a pretty remote location, for the Fed to be able to escape human notice,” I said, casting a sidelong gaze at Galo.
“Yes, yes indeed,” Galo said impatiently. “Now, where was it you said we were going?”
I exhaled. It looked like I wasn’t going to get details of the Fed’s location out of the wily old lycan. But that wasn’t exactly important now anyway. We had to concentrate on getting to my friends.
“Um, so I told them to meet me in Borscht,” I said. “At least, I think that was the name of the place.” I closed my eyes and tried to remember the jumble of letters on the town sign, but only came up with an image of Navan’s smile as he danced with me under the stars and held me close in the cold.
“Borscht is a Russian stew,” Galo said after a pause, sounding less than impressed.
“Well, it was something like that,” I retorted. “Can’t you look up similar names on your iPhone or superior Fed technology?”
“Never mind,” he replied, “I’ve just found it. Borscha is what you’re looking for. I’ve set the coordinates into the ship’s location database. Now, I’d rest up if I were you.”
I hoped that Bashrik hadn’t been overconfident about Ronad’s tracking abilities, and that they’d find the right village.
I turned to Galo. “So, this whole illegal escape thing,” I said tentatively. “I’m guessing this pretty much rules out any help from the Fed?”
Galo snorted, turning his gray curled head my way. “What do you think?”
I sighed. Truthfully, I’d pretty much counted on the Fed’s help. But at least I had Galo and his ship. And besides, it wasn’t like staying at the Fed’s HQ would have been a better option, surrounded by hostile lycans. I’d had too many close calls already—there was no guarantee I’d last another day there.
I gave Galo a grateful smile. “Thank you. You know, you didn’t have to do all this, and honestly I wasn’t expecting it.”
“I know I didn’t,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. After a pause, he turned to face me. “Truth is… I once had a granddaughter like you. Not so long ago. Anyway, she’s not here anymore, but you remind me of her in some ways. And also, as I said before, it was the right thing to do.” His thoughtful gaze far off, he shot me a rueful smile. “So don’t let it go to your head or anything. You should really get some sleep.”
I nodded, feeling a strange mash of emotions surge through me. But I was just too tired to voice what I was feeling, or express my full gratitude to Galo—I could hardly make sense of what I felt myself. After everything I’d been through, as soon as I closed my eyes, it wasn’t all that hard to take Galo’s advice.
* * *
“It’s been fourteen hours, and I’ve been waiting four.” A male voice entered my consciousness from somewhere above me. Firm hands gripped my shoulders and shook me.
Groaning, I opened my eyes to see Galo frowning at me from his seat in the ship. I stretched, then sat up. Immediately, a wave of memories from the past few days washed over me.
In particular, something I had stupidly forgotten to do.
“My friends!” I said, slapping my hand to my forehead. “I never told them we were coming. Bashrik could be at the Fed Headquarters right now!”
“There, there,” Galo said, with a little wave of his hand. “We’ll be meeting them at a tavern in about forty-five minutes.”
“What? How’d you get in contact with them?” I paused. “Does it have to do with you being a ver… What was it that Farl called you?”
“I am hungry,” Galo said with a peevish wag of his head, “but I suppose I can at least sate your curiosity. No, me contacting your friends has nothing to do with me being a veritas. It means I am a ‘truth-smeller.’ There’s about one of us born for every thousand lycans, so we’re quite rare. We could be compared to your human seers, although as I said, our truth ability comes from our sense of smell. In any case, that’s why I believed you… if you were wondering. Because I knew you were telling the truth. Not due to your oratory prowess.”
“Oh… I see,” I said, the pieces falling into place. “So that’s what all that sniffing was about.”
He nodded wryly.
I smiled, shaking my head. Well, it seemed that I’d just encountered yet another mystical creature that transformed my entire perception of how the world was supposed to work.
“I have parked the ship a mile or so away from town and cloaked it with an invisibility layer,” he said, changing the subject. “So now we can go eat and meet your friends.”
“So wait, how did you get in contact with them then?” I asked Galo as we exited the now-invisible ship. If they were at a tavern, I guessed it would be the same one Navan and I had visited on our first night in Siberia. My heart fell just as it did a flip. I felt a renewed pang of guilt in thinking of him, but soon I’d be reunited with our friends—and hopefully… our rescue team.
“Your coldblood friend Bashrik has a comm device that I figured out how to connect with,” Galo said. “I messaged them, pretending to be you.”
I frowned. “Can I see what you said?”
He handed me his own comm device, and when I looked at what he had typed, I couldn’t help but smile. Ten hours ago, he’d written: “Borscha is where we’ll meet.”
Then, an hour or so ago, he’d written: “Greetings and salutations dearest friends. This is Riley. I will meet you at the tavern and I am greatly anticipating this most joyous reunion.”
“You have no idea how young human women speak, do you?” I said.
Galo sniffed. “I’d say I did a pretty good job.”
I decided not to correct him. Despite being a lycan, Galo was proving to be a pretty good ally—someone from the Fed I could finally trust. I hoped my friends would, too, because we’d need his help if we wanted any chance of saving Navan.
Chapter Four
The trip into town took a good half hour. I tried getting Galo to move faster, but he was determined to keep his consistently moderate pace.
“If we rush ourselves and it’s a trap, we’ll have no energy to flee,” he said with a determined nod of his head.
I rolled my eyes. “What kind of trap could it be? Bashrik holding us hostage to find out where his brother is, the same brother he needs our help to rescue?”
Galo shrugged. “Has it never occurred to you that those coldbloods could have tortured information out of Navan, namely concerning your friends, their appearances and whereabouts?”
I shivered. “No,” I said decidedly. “Navan would rather die than endanger his brother and friends.”
“I certainly hope so,” Galo said.
His words filled me with a cold sense of longing, and we walked the rest of the way in silence. Galo’s gloomy statement had ruined my mood. Even as I was opening the wooden tavern door, I was bracing myself for what was to come.
“RILEY!” Lauren and Angie cried.
I only had a few seconds to register their relieved, overjoyed faces, before they were throwing themselves onto me in a hug.
“You’re okay! What happened?” Angie said.
“I’ve been so worried. I haven’t slept more than two hours,” Lauren gasped. I could see the dark circles behind her purple glasses that proved her words.
“And what was with that text?” A
ngie asked. “We figured you’d been captured or something. Bashrik was prepared for an ambush.”
“Oh, that.” I grinned. “That was Galo. Anyway, I’ll get you guys up to speed soon enough.” Their gazes went over my shoulder to Galo, who had wisely chosen to wear a hood that mostly obscured his striking face.
“Oh yeah, sorry, this is Galo,” I said, gesturing to him.
He made an attempt at a smile, which looked more like a scary grimace, and when he waved, Angie and Lauren waved back tentatively.
“Bashrik’s over there,” Lauren said, stabbing her thumb behind her at a table in the corner, where he and Ronad were sitting. The difference between them was night and day. Before, Bashrik had been the one who appeared in better health. Now it was a completely different story. Ronad’s youthful face had a slight rosy tinge, and his skin looked sun-kissed, while his brown hair was glossy and neatly swept back. Bashrik’s dark hair, on the other hand, had a serious case of bedhead, and his sapphire eyes were enclosed by dark rings. His skin looked slightly gray, as if he’d been only half-heartedly taking his chameleon potion.
“He’s been a pain in the ass the whole time,” Angie said with a sigh. “We’re both ready to kill him, so don’t be surprised if he gets on your nerves, too.”
“It’s only been an hour?” I asked. “How’d you get here?”
“Let’s sit down first,” she said.
As we approached the table, Ronad waved politely, while Bashrik’s frown deepened.
“So, Angie and I told the Churnleys and our parents that we were going to spend a few days in Austin. We dipped into our savings and took a plane,” Lauren explained. “But those two… well…”
“We figured the security body scan would be a bit of an issue,” Angie said, cracking up. Everyone joined in, except for Bashrik.
“I held onto Bashrik, and he flew,” Ronad added with a rueful smile. “Although he wasn’t much of a talker during the trip.”