Page 263 of Entangled

“Where’s Aaron?” I ask, and get a few blank looks in return.

Jennifer shrugs one shoulder. “I think Dom shuffled him into Beau’s team?”

Dom is my new favorite. Beau can take him—he could probably use Aaron’shelpful advicemore than I could, anyway. Buoyed by the thought, I look over my team. I have Jasper, Jennifer, and seventeen people from Red Zone. I don’t usually like missions where the team doesn’t know or trust each other, so we need to bond. Fast.

How better to bond than over some good old-fashioned hazing?

“You!” I point at the new guy Dom just moved into my team, who jumps. “Do you have what it takes to face death and danger? To be on the front lines of adversity? To be at the very forefront of humankind itself in its battle for freedom and justice?”

Jasper mutters something and then walks away to pick up his pack.

The man looks like he’s in his mid-twenties, but he twitches like an electrified beetle. Considering he’s holding a wickedly sharp morning star, I’m hoping he gets that under control.

“Y-yes?” he asks, glancing at the Red Zone woman beside him who rolls her eyes. “I think I do. Yes.”

Poor guy. He has glasses and that academic, bookish look that reminds me of Eden. He’s perfect.

I grin. “Great, then. You can carry the danger pack. What’s your name again?”

“Julian,” he mutters, eyeing the pack uncertainly where it’s sitting innocent and unobtrusive in the middle of our team. It has a cute smiley face keychain dangling from one of the zippers.

But everyone whoknowsis giving the bag a wide berth.

Julian scratches nervously at his patchy brown beard. “What’s in the pack?”

Over his shoulder, Jasper gives me a reproving look—the one that tells me tobehave.

I ignore it.

I sling on my own pack and casually double check my weapons. “Oh, rope, plastic... some other things.”Technicallytrue. I wave at him to hurry. “Chop, chop. Time’s wasting.”

Julian steps cautiously toward it. “Then why is it called the danger pac?—?”

“Just a bit of flavor. Nothing to worry about.”

I take his morning star from him and lay it on the ground—he can leave that one at home. Spinning him around, I lift the pack very gingerly up and over Julian’s back and wince as it lands heavily on his shoulders. Turning him again, I secure the buckle around his waist and over his chest. He’s starting to shake, so I pat his shoulder reassuringly.

“Just do me a favor and walk a good twenty feet away from everyone at all times.” I frown, looking up at him. “You’re not a smoker, are you? Nothing... flammable... on your person?”

Julian grows more and more gray by the word. “N-no.”

“Thank God.” I laugh.

Several members of the team start edging away from Julian, and his eyes get wider and wider. Better go before he bolts.

I give him two thumbs up as I back toward the door. “You’re an inspiration, Julian.”

At my gesture, we all file out onto the street, and as soon as we hit the wall of sooty black buildings and mortar-ravaged pavement, the darkness chokes my amusement.

The air is heavy out here. Whatever sanctuary Bentley made of Red Zone’s base, Cyanide presses its weight against it on all sides in a silent siege.

I used to love cities. Every single one had its own personality, whether I was in Europe or the Middle East, Australia or here at home, and my friendships with those cities—with their flavors and music and people and histories—were some of my most valued.

This feels like walking over a friend’s grave.

There are clothing stores that will forever advertise their last sale and strata of dust coating the bars of pubs. Some stores—like the pharmacies and supermarkets and liquor stores—are ravaged and torn apart. Toy stores sit like unhallowed memorials to all the children who won’t ever get to play with their wares.

My mood isn’t the only one affected. As I glance over my team of twenty, I see a mass of funereal faces, all of them scanning the surroundings closely.

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