Trey comes to a halt in front of a cell. I peer into it and find Jax sitting on his cot looking forlorn. When he sees us, he jolts to his feet. He shouts something, but we can’t hear him at all through the barrier. As a bewildered smile forms on Jax’s haggard face, Trey immediately moves to the console near his cell, working the slipshield to free him.
I move around Trey to the cell next to Jax’s and find Wayra. He’s doing push-ups in the middle of the floor. His powerful back is covered in bruises and burn marks. I wince as my stomach twists. The assault against him is clear—they think he’s a traitor, because he insisted upon protecting me.
Going to the panel on the side of the cell, I square my shoulders. He’d hate any show of sympathy or remorse, so I activate the intercom and ask, “Are you done with your set? Can we go now?”
Wayra pauses in midpush; his face lifts to see me at the mouth of his cell. One eye is swollen and he has bruising around his jaw. He gets to his feet, wiping at sweat rolling down his face with his forearm as he walks unhurriedly to the clear barrier between us. “Poison, Kricket?” He shakes his head like he disapproves. “You’re not a very good assassin. This is the second time you’ve failed to kill the target. It’s becoming a pattern with you. We’re going to have to work on it.”
The Brigadets must have told him what I did—maybe while they were interrogating him? I shrug as I swipe my wrist beneath the console’s scanner. The barrier between us disappears, freeing him. “The poison was more of a warning.”
“In that case, it was a strong message,” he remarks with approval.
“I really meant it,” I admit as I crane my neck back so that I can see his face as he steps in front of me.
He picks me up and hugs me to him. I expect him to crush me because he’s so big, but he surprises me by treating me like I’m fragile. “I thought they drowned you,” he says.
I rest my cheek against his shoulder. “I think they almost did. I need to learn how to swim soon.”
“We’ll make it a priority,” he replies, setting me back on my feet.
Trey hasn’t paused in his mission to free the other Cavars. In short order, Hollis, Drex, Dylan, Gibon, and Fenton emerge from their cells. They’re all disheveled messes, each having endured some form of abuse.
Jax grasps my chin gently, turning my face so that he can scan it. His frown makes me wary. “What?” I ask.
“You’ve been beaten.” It’s not a question. “Are you in pain?”
I’ve been beaten? I gently pull my chin from his grasp. “No,” I answer. “I was when I woke up, but I’m not now. Why do you—why do you think I was beaten?”
“Kricket, you’re bruised and battered,” Jax replies with the kind of gentleness that I’ve never found in anyone else.
The urgency in Wayra’s voice, as he walks to Trey, distracts me from Jax. “There’s a guard pod at the end of this catwalk,” Wayra says, pointing his chin in that direction. “They have emergency evacuation protocols. If we can get in, we can infiltrate the system and open all of these cells. If we let everyone out, we’ll have a better chance of getting out of here—safety in numbers.” He looks around, his eyes rising to the hundreds of stacked cells surrounding us.
“Will they shoot us if they find us escaping?”
“On sight,” Wayra replies.
Trey hands Wayra one of the guns he’d confiscated from the Alameeda Striker on the overup. “Take this. They’ll have a stockpile of weapons there. We’ll need them to gain our release. Is everyone up for the mission?” Trey asks each of them.
In unison, they each respond, “Sir.”
Trey nods toward me. “Kricket and I will remain here with the transport and map an escape route out,” he says, indicating the silver orb that brought us here. He hands Jax his other gun. Jax takes it, running his hand over the Alameeda weapon and checking its load. “Signal me with that if you need an extraction. Otherwise, meet back here upon completion.”
“Baw-da-baw,” Wayra says with a roguish smile.
The unit of Cavars goes in the direction Wayra indicated earlier. Trey walks to my side. Gently he takes my arm, leading me over the catwalk back to the shiny silver transport pod. He stops near the opening of the transport and hands me into it. I lean against the entranceway next to him, nervously looking around for Brigadets. There aren’t any. This section is desolate. They isolated us from the general population for a reason. Now, with the Brigadets all on the surface fighting the Alameeda, the place is a tomb.