The Gender Plan Read online

  The Gender Game 6: The Gender Plan

  Bella Forrest

  Nightlight

  Contents

  Map

  1. Viggo

  2. Violet

  3. Violet

  4. Viggo

  5. Viggo

  6. Violet

  7. Violet

  8. Viggo

  9. Violet

  10. Viggo

  11. Viggo

  12. Violet

  13. Viggo

  14. Violet

  15. Viggo

  16. Violet

  17. Violet

  18. Viggo

  19. Violet

  20. Viggo

  21. Viggo

  22. Viggo

  23. Viggo

  24. Viggo

  25. Violet

  26. Viggo

  27. Viggo

  28. Violet

  29. Viggo

  30. Violet

  31. Viggo

  32. Violet

  33. Viggo

  34. Violet

  35. Viggo

  36. Violet

  37. Violet

  38. Viggo

  Read More by Bella Forrest

  Copyright © 2017 by Bella Forrest

  Nightlight Press

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Map

  1

  Viggo

  The road was dark, barely illuminated by the headlights of the emergency vehicle we barreled along in. Clouds blocked the light of the moon—the darkness was almost oppressive. Thomas swerved, the tires squealing slightly under the strain of moving too fast at a strange angle, and I grabbed the dashboard, steadying myself. I gave him a quizzical look, but he simply shrugged, his dark eyes unwavering from the road ahead.

  The rattle of gunfire behind us broke the silence of the night, cutting through it instantly. I gritted my teeth together and turned to peer into the back of the ambulance, looking at where Amber stood, her face peeking out the small window.

  “They’re still behind us, Thomas!” she shouted, turning slightly and ducking farther down. I checked the mirror on the passenger side door—the larger military vehicle was so close that if Thomas tapped the brakes even slightly, their front end would be forever entangled with our rear.

  “I don’t exactly have the proper skillset for this, Amberlynn!” Thomas grated, swerving again to miss yet another pothole on the ridiculously rutted and bumpy backroad he had retreated down.

  “DON’T USE THAT NAME!” Amber shouted back, her violet eyes seething and her face turning a dark red that rivaled the curls on her head.

  “No fighting,” Ms. Dale ordered sternly. Amber scowled, then returned her attention to the back window, muttering under her breath. Ms. Dale shook her head, her braid bouncing against her neck, and reached up to steady herself with a hand against the ceiling as the back of the bay rattled and weaved wildly under Thomas’ erratic driving.

  Once again, we were going to be lucky if we made it out of this alive.

  “We have to lose them soon,” Ms. Dale said. “Or else we’re going to have to miss the rendezvous back at the farmhouse we burned. We can’t bring these people down on the rest of our base.”

  I knew no other way to respond except for leaning out of the passenger-side window, using my knee as a brace against the door. The sharp night wind whipped at my face as I looked back at our pursuers in their grimy Matrian combat vehicle. They would be unable to see any faces through the ambulance’s rear windshield due to the glare of their lights—which was probably for the better, all things considered. I sighted down the barrel of the gun in my hand and exhaled, squeezing the trigger three times.

  It didn’t help much. The bullets ricocheted off the heavily armored vehicle, the noise of their impact swallowed by the rattle of the wheels on the dirt road and the coughing roar of engines. The driver of the other vehicle swerved away, though not before one of their headlights shattered.

  It was barely a victory, considering the bullets I’d lost, but it was the most damage we had done to their vehicle thus far.

  Pulling back in, I fell back down onto the seat and ejected the magazine of my gun. “I’m out,” I shouted, irritation churning my stomach. “Anyone got anything?”

  “I’ve got three left, one in the chamber,” Amber announced.

  “I’m so sorry, I’ve got nothing,” added Jeff, his thick mustache twitching in displeasure.

  “I’m out too.” Cad made an effort to eject his magazine, as if he could manifest more bullets in doing so, and I couldn’t blame him. Even I wanted to double check the clip, just in case I had gone completely blind in the last thirty seconds.

  “Sorry, my friend,” Cruz said cheerfully. “But I used all the bullets in that rifle on the last vehicle.”

  That had been the first of our pursuers, evidence of our messy exit from the city. We’d made it to the checkpoint at one of the larger arteries to and from the city, pulling slowly through the barrier just as the order had come down to stop any vehicles attempting to leave the city. In fact, as luck would have it, we had been right next to the warden in charge as she’d received the order. All it had taken was a look from me to Thomas, and he had gunned the ambulance’s engine, getting us out of there before they could stop us.

  The vehicle Cruz was referring to, the first of three to come after us, had caught up with us almost immediately and opened fire. We had returned the gesture, and ultimately, it was Ms. Dale who had saved us by managing to take out the tires. Then all it had taken was for Thomas to swerve around a sharp dip in the road—we’d gone left, and they’d gone up and over the side, into the steep irrigation ditch that ran alongside the road.

  “I’ve got two left in this clip,” Ms. Dale said, shaking her head. She looked at me, her eyes flat and hard. “We have five bullets between us. Any thoughts?”

  The roar of the engine in the truck behind us grew louder, and I strained over to see the thing hurtling up on Thomas’ side. I recognized the maneuver. Whoever their driver was, it was clear she was both skilled and confident. She was attempting to hook the rear corner of our vehicle with her own, probably just trying to nudge it slightly. But a nudge at this speed…

  I shuddered, suddenly longing for my motorcycle—in this case, it would be far safer and way more nimble than the hulking box of a vehicle we had ‘borrowed’ from the emergency response team earlier that day.

  “Thomas,” I said, tension making my voice tight. “They’re—”

  “I know,” he snapped, twisting the wheel to the left and cutting them off. The back of the vehicle swayed under the sudden shift in the truck’s gravity, and I heard somebody in the back, probably Jeff, give a grunt as they were thrown into something. Equipment in the back rattled and clanked angrily. I looked at the small man driving, noting the pallid color of his skin and the sweat trickling down his forehead to stain the collar of his shirt. “At this rate, it won’t even matter!” he sputtered. “No doubt a heloship is incoming.”

  “I don’t think that’s likely!” Ms. Dale said, her voice carrying over the whipping wind flowing through my open window and the two bullet holes in the center of the window between Thomas and myself. “Elena’s going to need every soldier she can get her hands on in order to try and find anyone who saw that video!”

  She had a point: the video we had uploaded and played in all the stadiums throughout Patrus was the counterpropaganda tool we had needed to expose the lies and deceptions Elena had used to gain control over the city. Obviously she had recognized i
ts dangers—within minutes of its showing, she had ordered her soldiers to fire into crowds of helpless civilians, trying to keep the message from getting out. We’d done what we could to help on our way out of Starkrum Stadium, but the message had been broadcast all over the city. Who knew how many of the viewers in the other stadiums had made it out alive?

  There was a pause, punctuated by more gunshots being fired at us as we sped ahead. “You’re absolutely right, of course,” Thomas announced in answer to Ms. Dale’s question, seemingly oblivious to the gunshots filling the air. “I forgot to factor in that part of the equation. Actually, it shifts the equation enormously, to a whopping—”

  “Another time, Thomas!” I yelled.

  I nearly bounced out of my seat as Thomas hit a pothole hard, the entire vehicle going airborne for a moment afterward. As I landed hard enough to make me run a tongue across my teeth, making sure they were still in place, the equipment clattered around in the cabinets and drawers installed in panels along the back sides of the vehicle. There was a heavy metallic clink, just behind me, and I focused on it, my mind working furiously.

  It took the span of four heartbeats to remember what was positioned right behind my seat. When I did, I snapped into motion, climbing over the hump into the narrow passage that led into the already overcrowded bay. I motioned Jeff out of my way, and the older man squinted at me in confusion before standing aside, moving into the short, narrow passage I had just vacated.

  I unhooked the red top strap that secured a large silver canister of oxygen to the wall. “Cad! Get ready to open the doors,” I shouted, grabbing the canister by the nozzle and lifting it out. It was surprisingly heavy for a tank that basically contained air. Anello Cruz was there within moments, helping take some of the strain off of me as we lifted it straight out. I had to bite my tongue to keep from insisting he let me handle it. After all, not long ago, he had been our kidnapping victim. But he seemed to have had a change of heart after witnessing the video… We hadn’t had trouble from him yet. Maybe he’d changed his mind about what we were doing for Patrus—he certainly seemed eager to join in on the action against the Matrians. Right now, I wasn’t going to question having another pair of hands. Later, though, I would definitely be doing a more thorough background check.

  “I’m ready for you,” said Ms. Dale from her position behind Thomas. She had dropped to one knee, her gun out, her eyes trained on the doors, and I could see from the sharp light in her eyes that she understood my plan. Cad had his hand on the door handle on my side, Amber on the other. Cruz helped me adjust the canister in my arms and then stepped away.

  “Ready! Count me down!”

  More gunfire sounded behind us, and I heard the metallic thunks as the bullets impacted on the doors. Amber closed her eyes, and as soon as the fire paused, hopefully due to the owner needing to change out the magazines, her eyes snapped open and she began to count.

  “Three! Two! ONE!”

  Amber and Cad twisted their handles and pushed, dropping low to avoid catching a bullet. I staggered forward and heaved, tossing the oxygen into the air toward the vehicle maybe five feet behind our bumper. The silver canister twisted oddly in the air.

  Ms. Dale squeezed the trigger twice, the sounds of her shots nearly deafening in the confines of the bay. The first bullet hit the side and ricocheted—but it opened up a small hole in the process. When the second bullet hit the container, it created a spark too small to notice as the canister exploded against the hood of the enemy truck, lighting up the night with orange for just a moment. Tires squealed and glass shattered. The truck swerved violently to the left, one wheel slipping off the side of the road onto the slope of the irrigation ditch on the shoulder. And then the whole thing flipped off the road, rolling out of my eyesight. It all happened so fast that I could still feel the jolting force of the explosion, and I was almost thrown off my feet as the rear end of the ambulance shook erratically around us, the back doors clanking in their frames.

  Amber gave a small cry, thrown off balance, and I saw her pitching forward, toward the open doors—but Cad reached out and hooked her around the arm, pulling her back and over to his side. I pushed to the edge, using the metal frame as a handgrip as I leaned out and began pulling the left door closed. Ms. Dale was on the right side already, doing the same thing. Between the two of us, we slammed the doors closed, cutting off the sight of the dark road behind us.

  I sat down almost immediately in the relative silence of the fully enclosed ambulance bay as the adrenaline seemed to completely desert my body. Wiping my hand across my brow to clear off the dots of perspiration that had formed there, I looked around the bay. Everyone was sitting or leaning heavily on something, their breathing ragged, cheeks stained red from exertion.

  I couldn’t help but smile as I took them all in. “Good job, everyone,” I said.

  Five pairs of eyes stared back blankly, and a chuckle escaped me—they might not want to enjoy the awesomeness of still being alive right at that moment, but damn it, I was going to.

  2

  Violet

  “Are you insane?” I whispered harshly, still finding it difficult to speak through the lump in my throat.

  Owen didn’t answer my question. Instead, as I struggled to my feet, he pounded loudly back up the small set of stairs toward Ashabee’s hidden basement entrance door—which, I noticed, he’d slid closed behind him—and shouted in the voice of a man whose triumph was turning to terror, “I’ve got her! I’ve got—oh God! She’s got a—”

  The moment he’d said ‘I’ve got her,’ a chill had gone down my spine, and I had almost swung my backpack around to grab for my gun—the gun Owen himself had given me. But before I could even figure out the implications of what that might mean, Owen had spun his own weapon up and shot at the ceiling, two loud blasts. At the same time, I saw his other hand pressing the button that locked the door from the inside, a glitter of lights next to the handle turning on as Ashabee’s technology secured the lock.

  Silence reigned for a moment. Owen stared at the door. Then I heard the sounds of pounding feet from outside, more shouting, voices I didn’t recognize: “Hey, what happened in there? Where are they?”

  “Help me get this damn thing open!”

  In almost complete darkness, Owen came back down the stairs toward me, a wild kind of excitement in his voice. “I bought us some time. Violet, we can do this!"

  I gaped at him.

  Owen’s face was partially hidden in shadows cast by the dim ensconced lights on the wall of Ashabee’s secret armory. This basement had stronger lighting, but neither of us had stopped to flip the switch. Then again, considering that Owen had just sold me out to Desmond, nationalist psychopath and Queen Elena’s right-hand woman, neither of us had spared much thought for the lighting. Even if he had just pretended to sell me out, if I were to believe what he was saying.

  I wanted to believe him. He was my best friend, and some unshakable part of me refused to believe he would truly throw me to the wolves like that. We’d been through so much together. And the hatred in his voice when he spoke of Desmond had been so clear.

  My heart’s desperate urge to believe Owen would never really betray me wasn’t making things easier or less confusing. If anything, it was making this whole thing worse—and I didn’t have time to be confused. I shook my head, at a loss for words, raging that, despite everything, I couldn’t bring myself to just shoot him in the leg and leave him there to rot while trying to make my own escape.

  Nothing could make up for the fact that I’d been hoping to find my brother and instead I’d found her waiting for me. Or for him dragging me out here on false pretenses and lying to my face about it. Since I couldn’t figure out how to feel about anything, my brain settled on anger. I was furious.

  As I continued to not speak, Owen’s eyes bored into mine. In the soft light, I could see he was trying to look reassuring, but his desperation made the idea nonsensical. “Violet, please, we can stop her,” he whispe
red. “It’s going to be all right. We’ve got her now. She believes me. We can put an end to all this.”

  From up the stairs came the sound of banging. Like it or not, I was stuck with Owen right now. I needed him to help me escape, and moreover, if he was trying to double-cross—double double-cross?—me once more, I needed to at least play along until I could escape him, too.

  “What’s your plan?” I bit out.

  Owen looked feverishly into my eyes. “Desmond is up there right now. We have a bit of a scuffle, shout at each other, and then I bring you upstairs—I’ll go for Desmond, you go for the guards… No, you can shoot her, if you—”

  “Do you even hear yourself?” I recoiled, trying to keep my voice low while taking a horrified step away from him. The fear lurking in my stomach raised its ugly head again, but I pushed it down into the river of anger roaring up my insides. I felt like the whole room was spinning around me. “Killing Desmond isn’t some kind of prize that’s going to make everything better!”

  Owen’s blue eyes burned even in the dim light as he held my gaze; then he looked away, pain clenching his face. He opened his mouth as if to reply.

  The pounding at the door above us stopped momentarily, just long enough for me to wonder if they’d pulled back—and then a honey-sweet voice called out through the door, clearly audible, making my stomach crawl. “Do hurry up, Owen dear,” it said. “Every second you spend down there makes me doubt your intentions.”

  Desmond was there at the top of the stairs right now. And she suspected. Oh, of course she suspected.

  Owen shot me a glance and then turned in her direction.

  “Say something!” I hissed at him. “Fix this!”

  “No! I was pretending you shot me, remember?” he whispered back. My eyes narrowed at the back of his head, suddenly wishing I had free use of both hands so I could slap this stupid idea out of his head. I had use of my left, but the slap that this level of delirious stupidity deserved was one I wasn’t currently capable of delivering. “Then how are you supposed to open the door without blowing your cover? Do you want me to really shoot you as a cover?”