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A short line of corpses was laid out on the floor inside a one-room maintenance building, each covered by a sheet. Ayanna was already there, talking to another woman, right next to two uncovered bodies near the end—probably the guys I was there to see. When I walked over, she ended the conversation, and the lady left.

“Hey,” Ayanna said to me, sounding uneasy but not hostile. “You’re up early.”

“I live on a farm,” I said with a shrug. “It’s hardwired.”

That made her smile weakly, with a touch of awkwardness. “So…”

“What are we looking at here?” I asked, nodding at the two dead guys. “Were they yours after all?”

She sighed. “No. Whoever they are, they’re not ours. My money is on them being Order members posing as us, which is its own problem.”

“Damn.” I hadn’t been expecting that. “Why would they do that?”

“Why, indeed,” Ayanna mused. “My best guess is that it’s because the Sire doesn’t really see us as a real threat, unlike the Order. Posing as us puts less of an immediate target on their backs, because the Sire knows we don’t target civilians. The Order wants to kill everyone, occasionally including themselves.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I think they proved that yesterday.”

An awkward silence fell between us. Ayanna fidgeted a bit, obviously uncomfortable.

“Look, I know emotions have been running high the last day or so, but—”

I took Kimmy’s advice and waved her off. “It’s fine. I’ll still do what you asked of me. On one condition.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”

“Help me find a way to meet Claire. Even just for an hour or so. I promise to pass on anything useful I learn.”

She pursed her lips. “I can’t say that isn’t fair, given the circumstances…which is why I already asked Gizzi about figuring out a way to bypass their surveillance on the Mayor’s house, where Claire’s staying.”

My heart leapt. “Really?”

Ayanna nodded. “She’s able to hack into the live feed on their surveillance cameras. Only for short bursts, though—a few minutes at a time, before the system kicks her out. There’s only one camera in the garden, which is overlooked by the master suite. The suite itself is the only place in the house unmonitored by cameras. You’d have to be fast getting in and out during Gizzi’s blackout times, but…it might be doable.”

“How?” I asked, excitement flooding my system.

She gave me a wry smile. “How do you feel about climbing?”

Chapter 16

Claire

The bright lights in the hospital hurt my eyes, even when I squeezed them shut. When I’d left the White Rose camp, I’d insisted on waiting for Julis to give the order to back off before I let them tend to me. After the artillery guns rolled away, the military called an ambulance, and despite my protests that I was mostly fine, I was rushed to the hospital. After an invasive physical exam to determine my condition, they wheeled me down a long, white hallway that disturbed me with its similarity to the White Room. We rolled into the open operating theatre.

Julius hadn’t been outside the White Rose camp. We’d heard his voice via a loudspeaker that they placed outside. It seemed just like him to be elsewhere, ordering around his soldiers and handing out death sentences from the safety of the Pyramid.

“I really am fine,” I protested to the nurse, who shook his head at me as he inserted an IV into my arm.

“Your eardrum burst,” he said. “The surgeon’s going to repair it. We’re just waiting for her to arrive. Try to relax.”

The nurse examined my injured feet critically before he retrieved a small laser from a nearby tray. I’d seen Neil use that tool before. A second later, there was an unpleasant, tingling heat across the bottoms of my feet as the nurse lasered the wounds closed. As the rest of staff began readying the room for surgery, Major Hamilton burst through the door.

“Ainsley,” he said hurriedly, approaching my bedside. “I’m so glad you’re alive. I’m really sorry I lost track of you at the library. I—”

“It’s fine,” I cut in. “Things were chaotic. It was a hard day for everyone.” In more ways than he knew. I frowned as something dawned on me. “How did you get here so fast?”

He averted his eyes. “I, uh, was already here. For my own reasons.”

“Oh,” I replied, bewildered by his abrupt change in demeanour. If he’d been injured too, why wouldn’t he just say as much? “What—”