Page 184 of Silver Elite

Jim. Tana. Griff. Even Betima, the only person on this base I could have conceivably revealed myself to, is gone.

I am all out of allies.

I am all alone.

Chapter 41

I’ve barely heard from Tana in two months. It breaks my heart. I want to know how she’s doing. I want to tell her I love her. I can’t even imagine how she’s processing what Anson did to her. Alone. With nobody to talk to about it.

I’ve checked in. She links every now and then, just to tell me she’s okay, but I sense she’s not.

As Elite, I have clearance now, and I’ve checked in with the guards at the salt camp. I can access the camp’s daily logs. I can see when Tana scans into the mine, and when she scans out. They work twelve-hour days out there. I’ve seen photos of the women’s quarters. They look comfortable. Everyone gets leisure time. The food seems decent.

But a gilded cage is still a cage.

And I put her there.

She should never forgive me.

“We need those coordinates, Wren.”

Adrienne’s voice is in my head. After Tana and Griff were detained, she usurped Declan as my silent contact. I suspect they don’t trust me. They shouldn’t. I’m the one who warned Tana that Silver Block was running ops in Hamlett. I’m the reason they tried to escape, and the reason they got caught.

All I can do now is focus on fulfilling my role here. Because if I don’t get the Uprising the information they require, if I don’t sabotage and sneak around and do whatever the hell they ask me to, then this was all for nothing.

I have to make it worth it.

But I miss my best friend. I miss Jim. Even Wolf is out of touch. It’s not unusual—sometimes months elapse before we speak. Still, his silence is equally oppressive, only compounding the demoralizing sense that I’m completely alone.

Except I’m not alone.

I have Kaine. Lyddie.

Cross.

Yes, I definitely have Cross. Almost every night. He’s an addiction I can’t conquer, and these days, I don’t want to conquer it. When I’m in bed with Cross, it’s the only time I’m able to shut off my brain and just…feel.

I don’t have to think about how I’m surrounded by Primes all day, every day.

I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to maintain my cover.

I don’t have to do anything but lose myself in sensation. And the fact that Cross has wisely learned not to make things more serious than they are is just a bonus. He doesn’t try to offer me comfort anymore. He knows I won’t accept it if he does.

Today I’ve been tasked with securing the coordinates for a black cache in the west. The infamous Silver Block black caches that my fake captors tried to real-beat out of me during the Program. I know those captors now. Mr. Muscles is Theo, who’s serious and soft-spoken when he’s not slapping people around. The bearded one is Ezra, a lieutenant who tells the most groan-inducing jokes.

One of the perks of being part of an elite unit is that we don’t follow a set schedule. No sentry post or regular assignment where I must wake at a certain time, perform my duties, and return to my quarters.

I can sleep when I want. Go to the mess hall when I want.

Stroll into the war room when I want.

It’s not locked. It never is. It’s not as if they expect any of us to be actively plotting against each other.

The dim glow of the holoscreens illuminates the otherwise darkened room, casting ghostly shadows across the large table. Doing this in the dark would pretty much be advertising my clandestine motives, so I switch on the overhead lights, then approach one of the holos.

I can’t be too obvious about it. Can’t actively type in specific coordinates, or the search will be logged. What I can do is pull up a map of all active black caches and project it to Adrienne using my mind.

“Incoming,”I tell her.

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