Let him feel fear too.

9

RED

I head into the forests and land as soon as I can, trying to keep a distance away from our makeshift Striker campsite. No need to lead General Caitoman straight to us. There, I crouch in a high, dark nook of a tree and wait.

I don’t know what for. We’ve lost already.

The accusing voice, the other me talking to myself, fills my head like a maelstrom.

You’re back to running, it hisses. Always running. And for a while, you don’t know where to go. You were supposed to have destroyed the new train tracks they are building into Newage. The prisoners they were supposed to be transporting would instead be freed, ready to join us in our growing fight.

Instead, the others have died or vanished or been captured.

You’d left them there to fend for themselves. Had anyone else escaped? Would they head back to the campsite, or is it too dangerous? Would you even be able to return to the remaining stragglers like this, alone, a useless former Skyhunter with a broken wing that they’d somehow thought would give them a fighting chance? What will they think if they see you coming back empty-handed? Would you just be leading the enemy right to them?

And Talin.

I shut my eyes in an attempt to keep the image of her out—the new metal of her wings, the black armor that encases her, the hollow tragedy in her eyes. I try to kill the other voice. I had faced her and she had faced me. She’d looked straight at me, recognized me, knew what she was being forced to do, and told me to run.

Her body has been transformed, ripped apart and put together in the way that mine is. The difference is that I’d escaped, while she remains trapped.

The Premier of the Federation has her at his beck and call and I can’t free her. I couldn’t take her with me. My teeth clench until I think I might break my jaw. My fists tighten until the edges of my nails slice through the skin of my palms.

You couldn’t help her.

I stay frozen where I am, the shame in my heart pulling me in every direction, the voice repeating over and over in my mind. It always sounds the loudest when I’m alone, trapped and helpless, as if I’m back in that glass cage. Meeting Talin had quieted it for a time. Losing her has brought it back in force.

Then I shake my head. The voice’s advice changes.

No use dwelling on your failings now. Soldiers will still be on your trail. They saw the path you took in the sky to escape. They will be out, searching. You can’t afford to sit here, waiting for your mind to fall apart.

Talin took a risk, warning you to escape while you could. You don’t know the depth to which Constantine can control her, but she clearly still has a mind of her own. It means there’s still time.