The Gender War Read online

  I looked at him, his blue eyes concerned, his mouth tight with worry. “We won’t,” I said firmly, and toggled the call on my handheld.

  “Jeff, are you still there? When did they actually leave?”

  The former valet answered promptly, as though I hadn’t just put him on hold for five minutes. “About twenty minutes ago.” I made mental calculations. We’d driven on backcountry roads in our scouting mission, but at least we were still closer to the palace than we would have been at the mansion. But they were flying, and who knew how much time that left between when they would arrive at the castle and when we would? There were too many variables…

  “Do you know what they’re planning?” I asked Jeff.

  “Violet did not choose to share her plans with me,” Jeff said, and I internally cursed the man for his damned politeness. If she hadn’t wanted to share, he wouldn’t have asked. “However, when they and Thomas left the security station, Thomas left something up on the computer… It appears to be the schematics for King Maxen’s palace. I doubt he left them up by accident.”

  “Well, at least that confirms where they’re going. Can you transfer me those files as well?” I asked.

  Jeff’s face went off-screen for a moment, presumably as he typed, and then he reappeared, shaking his head. “That file is too large for me to transfer without a physical connection. I’m sorry.”

  I paused. I’d suspected as much. A part of me, the rational part, said that we should go back and collect those plans before we went anywhere. But it was only a small part. The rest of me needed to get to Violet as soon as possible, plan or no plan, and make sure she hadn’t dug herself in too deep this time. We didn’t have time for careful approaches. “That’s fine,” I told him. “Thank you, Jeff.”

  “Good luck, Viggo,” Jeff murmured, breaking out of his rigid role for a moment to stare beseechingly at me. “Please bring her back.”

  “I will,” I said, and then terminated the call.

  I turned to the man in the passenger’s seat, tossing him the handheld. “Owen, take a look at those maps of the farmlands we’ve been using. Find us the quickest route back to the city.”

  “What are you going to do?” Owen asked.

  I looked at the speedometer, which we’d just pushed past a hundred miles per hour on a backcountry lane.

  “Drive.”

  33

  Violet

  I stared at the three-dimensional computer model Thomas had rendered on the high-tech table in the middle of the heloship, my eyes wide as I took in all the aspects of King Maxen’s palace. Thomas had been delighted to see what he called a ‘hologram projector’, and he’d worked his magic with the graphics coming out of the glowing tabletop, changing the color of certain rooms to reflect each individual’s role in our plan. The palace was set aside from the rest of Patrus city, on its own little island—Crescent River acting as a moat in front of it, the mountains looming behind it. It was designed as a group of turreted square buildings and walls interlocking around a series of outdoor courtyards, each one fitting inside the last. I was trying to memorize every last bit of it.

  I straightened up and ran my hand over my face. I felt a pang of longing for Viggo—I wanted him here, if only to reassure me that this plan was going to work. The pang quickly turned to one of regret and worry, and I was forced to push it aside, keeping my mind on the task ahead. I had chosen this. And it would work, I reminded myself.

  It had to work.

  I looked over to where King Maxen sat, still bound to one of the command area’s drop-down seats, still glaring at me. We’d tried removing his makeshift gag at the beginning of the flight, but he’d started screaming obscenities and useless commands at us as soon as we’d freed his mouth, so we’d had to tie the gag right back on again.

  Looking over to Thomas, I gave him a nod, and he shut off the holographic part of the table, causing the glowing lights on the tabletop to flicker and grow dark, reverting to a black onyx screen. Amber sat in the pilot’s seat of the heloship, although currently her back was to the wide vistas of land that drifted in front of us, far enough away that Patrus looked like a quaint quilt, not a nation being torn apart by bombs and treachery. Looking down for too long gave me vertigo, but on the whole, the flight felt too smooth for all the tension that had me wired—smooth enough that Amber had allowed the craft’s autopilot to guide us for the last ten minutes.

  “What are our chances, Tom-Tom?” she asked wearily, her forehead and eyes pressed into the palm of her hand.

  Thomas hesitated. “You don’t want to know, Amber,” he replied, disconnecting his heavily modified handheld from the console. “They’re better with me here to strategize, but worse because we’re so short-handed.”

  I ignored his accusatory gaze and looked at Amber, grateful again that she’d decided to accompany me. “We really can’t do this without you,” I said, and she pulled her hand off her face and shot me a sharp glare.

  “I wouldn’t let you do it without me,” she stated, her tone matter of fact. “I just like knowing the odds.”

  “Oh, well in that case it’s—”

  “Let’s not,” I said, interrupting Thomas. I checked my watch and sighed. It had been about half an hour since we left the compound. It had taken us too long to prepare at the mansion, but we were still ahead of schedule—a little less than thirty minutes from the palace. I remained restless, even though we were making use of our time by preparing our materials while we flew.

  The hologram projector having been turned back into a regular table, we emptied our black duffel bags onto it, spreading out the items Amber and I had swiped from Ashabee’s stash. We carefully sorted the items, setting them up in accordance with Thomas’ instructions. We worked quickly and efficiently, and the silence was loud, punctuated only by the small sounds of us working. It was too quiet, in fact, and I found my thoughts returning to Viggo—wondering whether he’d gotten my message yet. And all those stupid mushy things I’d said… Maybe they felt hollow to him now. How could he accept that I had left without him, that I wanted him to stay behind? And yet, how could I have done anything different?

  I set down the brick of explosives I’d been working with and leaned on the table, trying to even out my breathing. It was too late to turn back, I reminded myself. I exhaled slowly and straightened back up. Amber was staring at me, her gaze curious. “You miss him,” she said softly as she pulled a threaded needle through the button of one of my shirts.

  It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t bother answering. Instead, I turned the conversation to her. “How’d you learn to fly?”

  Amber grew still under my gaze. After a moment, she licked her lips and continued to work. “My father had a pilot—he operated heloships as well as helicopters. He’d been training to be a warden, one of the king’s guard, but he… he quit and ended up working for my dad. He rarely got to fly with all the restrictions, so he was always around, just waiting for an opportunity to get up there again. I used to ask him questions all the time about what it was like… He was brilliant. I could listen to him for hours.”

  She paused, letting out a soft sigh, then yanking the thread up and beginning another stitch. “Anyway, I became obsessed. I asked him to teach me, but he refused.” She smirked as she pushed the needle through the fabric again, her face reflecting some faraway triumph. “But I was persistent. You know me. Eventually he gave in and showed me around his heloship, talking me through everything, step by step. He never took me up—couldn’t without risking imprisonment, but he taught me all that he could. He even let me use his simulator.”

  She paused again, and I looked over at her, watching her use her teeth to cut the string. She held up the shirt, inspecting it closely, then turned and draped it over the back of the chair before sitting back down. I waited for her to continue, but her gaze was turned inward, the warm look of nostalgia warring with an old grief. This had mattered to her, I realized. Amber had cared a lot about this man, whoever he was.


  When it became evident that she wouldn’t continue, I couldn’t help myself. “What happened?”

  Amber gave me a maudlin look and shook her head, her face tightening. “My father found out. I was put under house arrest, and our pilot was fired, his flight privileges revoked for teaching a female something so ‘unseemly’. I… I never saw him again.” Her voice turned bitter. “If I’d known that would happen, I would have done some things differently. A… lot of things.”

  The look of regret in her eyes was stained with the anger that I’d come to associate with Amber’s dealings with her father. I wondered if I’d ever hear the full story about this person, and just how deeply it had changed Amber’s life.

  She shook herself. “Anyway, when Desmond brought me into the Liberators, she found out I had some training, and got ahold of a simulator for me to continue practicing on. Just in case.”

  I smiled at her, appreciating the irony, and then straightened up from my hunched-over position on the table, looking at the assortment of detonators I had wired to the explosives. It wasn’t pretty, but it would work.

  Reaching over, I placed my hand on Amber’s arm. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry that happened to you. But I’m glad you’re here now, helping me.”

  Amber gave me a surprised look, and then rested her hand over mine, squeezing it slightly. “I’m just sorry we didn’t stay before,” she replied. I watched the shadows fill her eyes, darkening them, and withdrew my hand after a final squeeze. I knew nothing I could say would help chase away those demons.

  “I’m going to use the bathroom,” I said. Amber nodded distractedly, and Thomas just grunted, buried in the computer, his eyes dancing over information and code.

  I pulled open the door to the bathroom and almost shrieked. Tim and Jay straightened—as much as either of them could in the tiny bathroom—and met my shocked expression with two mutinous ones of their own.

  It took me a moment to find my voice. Then I cried, “Are you insane?”

  “What’s going on?” came Amber’s voice from behind me.

  “We have stowaways,” I announced needlessly, as Tim and Jay slunk by and I closed the door behind them.

  Amber cocked her head at the boys, while Thomas blinked blankly at them. I couldn’t find the words, either—an explosion of emotions had rocked my chest the moment I saw their faces, and I didn’t know where to begin. I finally began simply, “What are you doing here?”

  Tim puffed up his chest and straightened to his full height—several inches over me. He didn’t look guilty; he looked serious. “Came to help,” he replied.

  I shook my head at him, warring between anger and terror at his actions. “But you said you would say behind!”

  Jay’s eyebrows furrowed and he took a step forward. “Quinn is my friend, and I wanted to help rescue him. Violet, we’re both sixteen. Tim’s almost seventeen. We’re not kids. We can make our own decisions.”

  I blinked at him. “Normally, I would agree. But sneaking onto a heloship that’s heading directly into danger?”

  “You, here too,” Tim growled, and I looked away, resisting the urge to snap at him—mostly because he was right.

  “That’s different, Tim. I’m here because I have to be. Tabitha ordered me to. Believe me, I wish I didn’t have to go to this meeting. But I can’t leave—”

  He interrupted. “Cad… trouble. Family… trouble.”

  “Which is why you shouldn’t even be here!” I argued. “I can’t risk you too, Tim! If Tabitha gets to them—”

  “My family too,” Tim said.

  I tightened my fists and looked at Jay.

  “No,” I said, my chest constricting in fear. “No. You guys have to stay on the heloship. You can’t come on this mission with us. There will be… There will be bombs. And soldiers.”

  “Violet,” Tim said.

  “Tabitha is there, and I can’t let—”

  “Violet!” This time he shouted, and I stopped babbling, staring up at my little brother’s grim face and realizing, again, that he wasn’t so little anymore.

  “I talk, Jay talk,” he said. “You listen.”

  I looked back and forth between the two of them, then back at Amber and Thomas, who were staring blankly at us. I suddenly wondered what this looked like to them. I saw no sign that they supported me in either of their faces.

  I looked back at the young men in front of me and took in a deep breath. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  Jay met my gaze head on, his blue eyes dark and his face grim. “We’re not kids, Violet,” he said, and Tim nodded emphatically next to him. “This is our war, too. My mom is responsible for all of these explosions and deaths. I hate it. I hate being related to her. I want to stop her. I… I have to try. I’ve been fighting this war all my life.”

  Tim chimed in. “No cages. No boys… like me. No more.”

  I stared at them, my heart heavy.

  “We’ve been pulling our weight this whole time,” Jay continued. “We do the same things as any adult. And…” His voice was shy, but his eyes burned. “We’re stronger. We can do things that nobody else can.”

  At that point another voice cut through, reedy but completely confident. Thomas. “They’re right, Violet. Their advancements give us a tactical advantage, increasing the odds of our survival by seventeen percent… In fact, my personal odds of survival are increased by thirty-three percent!”

  I gaped at him, unable to formulate a response to that cold, selfish statement. Thomas, having imparted his wisdom, simply turned back to the computer.

  “But…” I said. All my arguments were melting away, but I couldn’t shake the fear. “Tim, Jay… if you guys got hurt… I couldn’t live with myself.”

  Tim took a step closer to me, pointing to my chest, then to his. “You, me,” he said. “Same. Scared.”

  My heart gave a huge jolt as I realized what he meant. And then he continued bravely, “We fight together. Nobody… Nobody hurt. Nobody… die.”

  “We don’t want to lose you either, Violet,” Jay said abruptly, then looked away, his cheeks flushing.

  I raised my hand to my mouth and realized I had tears in my eyes. Tim and Jay were right. There wasn’t a single thing I felt for them that they didn’t feel for me, and for everybody in this group. It would be stupid to try to keep them from a fight they’d been raised in… a fight they had been fighting since long before I had even known it existed.

  Tim patted me on the back, and didn’t pull away as I grabbed him for a quick hug. Then I hugged Jay, too, trying to apologize through the gesture for initially cutting them out. At the control panel, Amber had turned away, her face stoic, and she started and flushed a little as Jay called out, “You guys too. We’re all on this team. We gotta do this together.”

  Thomas looked around at the group, frowning. “I don’t… I don’t have to hug anybody, do I?”

  Only a few minutes later (after I’d slipped back into the bathroom to relieve myself), the plan had been modified and adjusted to incorporate my brother and Jay. I had still made sure they were out of the thick of it—I’d tried to do that for everybody but me. I stood behind Amber, peering out the window as she kept us low to the ground, adjusting the digital controls with confident moves of her fingers.

  “That one?” I asked, pointing out a vehicle on the side of a small dirt road. Amber scanned it, then reoriented us with a twist of her hand that I barely felt from inside the craft.

  “It’s functional,” she confirmed, and I turned, nodding to the others. Tim and Jay quickly grabbed the repacked bags of equipment, and moved toward the cargo bay, Thomas following close behind—his eyes more on his handheld than on the path in front of him.

  I approached the king, grabbing his upper arm and hauling him up. He struggled, but since he was gagged and bound, it was easy enough to push him in front of me. I approached just as Thomas opened up the rear, the gangplank dangling out into the air.

  Instantly, the roa
r of the engines filled the bay, making me wince. I had forgotten that the inside of the heloship was soundproof. I watched the ground grow rapidly closer, until the descent slowed and we were hovering only a few feet over it. I pushed Maxen out the door in front of me, enjoying a grim satisfaction as he stumbled onto his knees. I followed him, keeping my knees soft to absorb the impact.

  Tim was close behind, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as Jay gave Thomas a little nudge before jumping too. Amber pulled away as soon as we were all on the ground, using the auto-controls to close the door to the cargo bay behind her. I watched her disappear, and then turned back to the others.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  34

  Violet

  I hit the brakes hard, causing the car to jerk violently to a stop, the seatbelt cutting into my chest as I leaned forward. My right hand gave a twinge of pain every time I twisted the wheel. “Sorry,” I said, looking in the rearview mirror, where the king, Thomas, and Jay had all been smashed forward. In all fairness, it was my first time driving a car, and even after watching Viggo and Owen, I still barely knew what I was doing. How did they make it look so easy?

  Tim reached over from the passenger seat and patted me gently on the arm, and I looked at him, still adjusting to the fact that he was sitting here next to me. It must have shown on my face, because he frowned. “Careful?” he asked.

  After puzzling through his question, I smiled at him. “Only if you promise to be too,” I responded.

  Tim’s only answer was to squeeze my arm and then pull open the door and get out. I waited as Thomas and Jay exited the back of the vehicle, Jay dragging Maxen out behind him. The king was then ushered into the front passenger seat next to me. I looked over at Thomas, who stood awkwardly at the side of the car. “Be safe,” I said, and his eyes flicked over to mine before he gave me a tight nod.