The Gender War Read online

  I couldn’t say how many rooms I checked before I found her. The time I’d been prowling around this level of the palace was starting to feel unreal. What finally alerted me was the stone-faced warden standing guard outside a door along an otherwise very typical suite of what looked like studies. Why guard the door to a library…?

  I had no time to be subtle. When the coast was clear, I stepped clearly into the hallway with my gun pointed at the woman’s head.

  “Out of the way,” I told her, in the voice I’d used to command criminals to stand down as a Patrian warden. Her eyes flicked to the radio at her belt, and I continued, moving steadily closer. “Don’t even think about it.” Slowly, she put her hands up in the air, and as soon as she did, I lunged, the butt of my handgun connecting with the top of her head.

  The woman went down quickly and hard, and I burst through the door—and saw Violet.

  I was relieved to find her alive. I’d been worried about discovering a body. But my relief soured when I took in her condition. I turned the lock on the handle of the door behind us and stepped farther into the room.

  She had been strapped to a table, secured by her wrists and ankles. Her eyes were closed, and it seemed like she was trying to meditate or control her breathing. I could see that she had been crying—tear trails cut down her cheeks. As my gaze dragged over to the massive, inch-wide blade pinning the palm of her hand to the table, pure, animal rage seared my insides. Blood flowed thickly from the wound, streaking down her arm in ribbons and dripping into a small puddle on the stone floor.

  Shoving my gun into the waistband of my pants, I rushed over to her.

  “Violet?” I whispered, trying hard to keep my voice gentle, and she opened her eyes, looking at me. Her gaze was glazed and distracted, and it took her a minute to focus on me. When she did, she squinted, as if she thought her eyes were lying to her.

  Licking her lips, she swallowed. “Took you long enough,” she rasped. I could hear the pain in her voice, in spite of her weak attempt at humor.

  “Too long,” I agreed. I studied the knife still lodged in her hand. “Violet… baby… this is going to hurt.”

  She gave me a long look, her expression flat. “Do it,” she breathed.

  I didn’t waste any time, just reached out and yanked the knife free as quickly as possible. Violet bit back her scream, but her back arched against the restraints, her legs and arms shaking. I did my best to soothe her, but I knew my voice would be lost amidst the pain she was in.

  I tore through the drawers in the room and finally found a roll of electrical tape. Her blood was flowing more freely from the open wound, coating her hand like a single, crimson, elbow-length glove. Cursing, I tore off a piece of my shirt and wound it around her hand several times, using the tape to secure the makeshift bandage to the palm of her hand.

  Violet took it like a champ. The only sounds she made were soft and barely discernible, but I knew it had to hurt like hell.

  When it was done, she slumped against the restraints, soaked with sweat and tears of pain. I carefully removed her bindings, feet first, and helped ease her down from the table. She panted and wiped her forehead with the back of her left hand, clearing her face as she clung to my shoulders, barely able to support her own weight through the pain.

  “Well,” she said after a moment, “that was horrible.”

  I smoothed back her hair and nodded. “I don’t think we’re going to count this rescue, okay?”

  Violet gave a half-chuckle, her eyes drifting closed for a second. “I was thinking to give it to you for free,” she panted. “Viggo—Elena… and Desmond…”

  “They’re working together,” I interjected. She gave me a surprised look, and I nodded. “Yeah… I, uh… I ran into Owen. Apparently, he’s now working with Ms. Dale to get us all out of here. If we can believe him.”

  Her eyebrows drew together into a frown. “Is he okay?” she asked, not questioning Owen’s role reversal at all, and I had to tamp down the surge of irrational jealousy that roared up in me. Violet liked Owen as a friend. They had been through the thick of things together. It was the only reason I had given him a pass. Well, that and the fact that he had been part of the team that had gotten the surgical equipment needed to save my life, so I owed him one. Well, two, if I counted the bomb he and Violet had defused at the facility.

  I gritted my teeth together as I realized I was more indebted to Owen then I cared to admit. I was sure he was a nice enough guy, but I just didn’t like him.

  “He’s fine,” I muttered. “And he seems to be willing to help us. I got him to try to get a message to Alejandro, so hopefully they are moving the boat farther upriver.”

  Violet nodded and slowly steadied herself on her feet. “We need to move, Viggo,” she said, her voice still tremulous.

  “Are you going to be okay?” I asked.

  She straightened up, looking at her bandaged hand. “It’s my dominant hand, but it doesn’t matter. We just need to get out of here before we get caught. Let’s worry about my hand afterward.”

  “Agreed,” I said, pulling the guard’s gun back out of my pants. We approached the door, and Violet reached out with her left hand and slowly cracked it open. I checked one side of the door as it opened, then stepped around the threshold to check the other side of the hallway. “Clear,” I announced, and Violet stepped out, closing the door behind us.

  The guard I’d left crumpled in the hallway was still there, which was a good sign, but not guaranteed to keep any more of them from running down here and spotting us. I dragged her prone body inside the horrible interrogation room and tied her hands to the table, then looked for the nearest stairwell. All the way down, Owen had said. And we were pretty far up.

  Violet had lost a lot of blood, given the pallor of her skin, but she didn’t complain as we walked down the halls. Still, I suddenly wished I’d found a first aid kit on this level—if only to get her a blood patch.

  “Where are we going?” she whispered.

  “Garage at the bottom of the palace—that’s where we’re all meeting up.”

  She nodded and we kept looking for the stairs, but as we passed through the halls, I could see dark shadows haunting her eyes. My concern mounting, I couldn’t help but ask, “What is it?”

  “This is where Lee killed Queen Rina and Mr. Jenks,” she whispered, as if the memory pained her more than her hand. I was about to say something sympathetic, but then she pointed. “Looks like stairs.”

  We’d found our way down. At my nod, Violet slowly swung the doorway open, and I quickly swept the stairwell landing, grateful to find it empty. I started down the stairs, taking care to keep my footsteps light.

  Down. All we had to do was go all the way down.

  4

  Violet

  The sounds of our footsteps echoed down the empty stairwell. My hand throbbed in tempo with our steps, keeping the rhythm of my heartbeat. Everything felt wobbly.

  A stray thought caught my mind as we went down, and I smiled. “‘Baby’?” I murmured to Viggo. “Since when do you call me ‘baby’?”

  He turned back to stare at me for a pointed moment, then a smile, just the ghost of one, passed over his face. “Let’s keep on going, baby,” he said, as though he had to coax me. “We’re getting closer.”

  I wasn’t sure why I was teasing Viggo about calling me baby. Or why I was even teasing him at all. Nothing about this situation was humorous. If we survived, I didn’t know how long it would be before I could use my dominant hand again.

  And yet, it comforted me to tease him. It allowed me to cope with the situation around us, let me believe that we were getting out of it. I had to believe we would, because the alternative was too grim to think about.

  “What’s the plan, exactly?” I asked, keeping my voice low as we crept down the stairs.

  “From the garage? I’m not entirely sure,” Viggo replied. I felt a sudden surge of anxiety at his frankness, but I kept it to myself—now wasn’t the
time or the place for a freak-out. “I figure we get a vehicle and head upriver to meet up with Alejandro and the others. Owen was trying to contact them, but I don’t know if he succeeded. From there… I don’t know. I suppose we need to get to Patrus and warn the king.”

  I nodded. It made sense—King Maxen needed to know what was coming. The irony of it all, that it was just the same plan we’d originally had for Matrus, struck me, and my head throbbed. I wasn’t sure what Elena’s timeframe was, or even what her plan was. I knew that she was trying to manufacture a war with Patrus; maybe she was trying to make Patrus look like the aggressor.

  The situation between Patrus and Matrus had always been tense, but we had lived in relative peace since the inception of our countries. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and I only hoped we could find a way to stop it before too many people were hurt.

  Or killed.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Viggo. I realized I had stopped in the middle of the steps.

  “Nothing,” I muttered, pressing forward. “I guess… I guess I’m just worried about what’s going to happen to us. And to… to everyone. It seems like the harder we try, the more this problem just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

  Viggo gave me a soft look, stopped, and pulled me into his arms, dropping a kiss on my forehead. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re together, and we’re going to figure it out, okay?”

  His words did comfort me, at least a little. We headed downstairs in silence, with as much focus as I could muster. And then we had reached it—the bottom landing. We could go no farther down this particular stairwell. As we reached the floor, we could hear the heavy sound of booted feet on stone through the door. Viggo and I quickly pressed our backs into the wall behind the door and waited.

  The boots never slowed as they passed, marching on without breaking rhythm.

  I released a breath and then reached for the doorknob with my left hand. Viggo moved to the other side of the door and gave me a nod. I slowly drew it open. He checked the hall again, and then looked back at me with a frown.

  “What is it?” I asked, my pulse starting to spike again.

  “It’s clear. I just thought we were done with these damn hallways.”

  I followed him out and realized he was right: we hadn’t reached the garage yet. It was yet another mildly colored wall, tiled floor, and hallway lined with velvet-curtained alcoves. “Which way?” Viggo whispered.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been on this floor before.”

  “All right, we’ll just keep checking all our options. It can’t be far.”

  We were barely halfway down the length of the hall when all hell broke loose. The floor beneath our feet shuddered, and the sound of some distant chaos came to our ears. Viggo and I looked at each other, and that was when the alarm started: a sharp and shrill bell that repeated over and over again. As if timed with the alarm, two sets of footsteps rang out from behind us, moving fast.

  With a hissed curse, Viggo hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me down the hall a few feet, pushing us both into one of the curved alcoves behind a heavy curtain. I had barely gotten a glimpse at what looked like a window seat without the window when, in one solid motion, Viggo pushed me against the wall and tucked himself into the nook behind me, his arms curving around my waist, his warm body pressed against mine.

  The alarm blared on, covering the sounds of our breathing. The boots moved past us, retreating into the hallway… but I was beginning to suspect it wouldn’t be long before they turned around and headed back. Even through the pain I was in, the sudden proximity of Viggo’s body to mine was distracting. His breath went in and out right next to my ear.

  As the sound of the boots quietened, I squirmed in his arms, turning to see his rugged, tired face, shadowed with the scruff of a neglected beard. “They’ll be back,” I breathed, my voice barely audible in spite of the intimacy of the tiny alcove.

  “The cameras must be back on,” Viggo replied, looking down into my eyes, and we held our position. I could feel his heart beating fast against my shoulder.

  The alarm was interminable, and the distant thudding sounds continued. We heard the pairs of boots return, this time at a run, and as they neared us, Viggo suddenly let me go and stepped out of the alcove.

  There was no sound of struggle or gunfire—he’d caught them unawares. I peeked out to see that Viggo held them at gunpoint. Both their hands hovered in the air over their weapons. I stepped out beside him. “Don’t,” I warned, and, slowly, both of them raised their hands.

  I quickly disarmed them and then held one of the pilfered guns awkwardly with my left hand, stuffing the other one into the back of my pants with the safety on. The weight felt wrong—too heavy and unbalanced—but I managed to hold it as steadily as my fatigued body would allow. That would have to be enough, because if these women tried something, I doubted I would be able to hit either one of them, even from this tight range.

  “In the room,” Viggo said, using his gun to point to the one he meant. One of the guards gave him a steely glare, her lips pursed, but she moved, pushing open the door and stepping in. Her partner followed her. I followed too, closing the door behind us. Over us, the alarm wailed on.

  “On your knees,” Viggo ordered, and the guards shakily sank to the ground. I could see that they were afraid now, although they were doing an admirable job concealing it.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

  “That’s right, ladies. We just need to ask you a question,” Viggo said, and I could hear his warden voice surfacing. “Where’s the garage?”

  “How do we know you’ll let us go?” shot back one of the guards, her voice alarmingly loud.

  “Viggo doesn’t kill unarmed women,” I said, pointing my gun at her, hoping she couldn’t see my weird posture behind a barrel to her face. “But I do. So it’s either him or me—your choice.”

  My voice was conversational, but cold, and by the look in their eyes, I had them convinced. The other guard spoke up sullenly.

  “Two… two more floors down. Take the access stairs from the door on the left at the end of this hall.”

  Viggo nodded.

  “Now let us go,” the louder guard said tightly.

  “Of course,” Viggo said. “We just need some insurance.” And without warning, he lunged forward and hammered the woman on the head with the butt of his gun.

  She crumpled to the ground. The second guard made as if to scramble away, and Viggo tackled her, wrapping his arm around her neck in a chokehold. When her hands came up and began beating at his head, I shoved the barrel of my gun into her chest, and she stilled, then succumbed to unconsciousness. My left hand shook from the weight, and I yanked the dangerous thing away from her as soon as her body relaxed.

  The corridors outside were empty—too empty. We followed the guard’s instructions and reached still more stairs. There were only two more flights down before we would be at the hallway that led to the garage. The stairs were also clear. The alarm was fainter inside the stairwell, but the crashes and thumps we’d been hearing were louder. Much louder.

  We cautiously made our way down the stairs, where I pulled open yet another door for Viggo, letting him check this hallway. He gave me a little nod and stepped through, and I followed.

  A rapid burst of gunfire filled the hall, and I reflexively leapt right, into a doorway, pressing my back into it to make myself as small a target as possible. Shards of stone and mortar flew everywhere as bullets pounded the walls.

  I looked over and saw Viggo pressed into a doorframe farther down. “Dammit, she was hiding around the corner!” he swore. Bullets impacted around him as the unknown shooter unloaded her clip. Anger flooding through my veins, I grabbed my pistol from the waist of my pants, gripping it tightly in my left hand.

  Taking a deep breath, I called a warning to Viggo before sticking my arm out and firing down the hall at the shooter. I wasn’t trying to a
im, which was good, because I wasn’t sure I was capable of hitting anything with this hand—but I did hear a yelp of surprise, and the gunfire stopped for a moment.

  My eardrums were throbbing from the thunderous cracks of bullets being fired, and my wrist stung from the recoil of the gun, but I ignored the pain. Taking a step into the hallway, I dropped to one knee and raised my gun, using my other wrist as a brace since my hand couldn’t have taken the pressure.

  I aimed for a spot to the left, and waited. Sure enough, the guard swung back into view, her body in a half crouch, and I squeezed the trigger repeatedly, a yell escaping my throat, watching all my shots go wide.

  My pistol fired a final time and then clicked. The woman raised her rifle again, but something caught her in the shoulder—Viggo’s shot. She gave a small cry and dropped her gun, her hand going up to cover the spurting wound. Viggo pushed past me, colliding with the woman and slamming her head against the ground.

  The faint wailing of the alarm and the sound we’d been hearing continued even louder—a series of sharp bursts—gunfire.

  Viggo rolled the unconscious guard over and I raced toward him to see him peering at a door just around the corner. “She was guarding this door—I think it’s the garage door.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” I said, and he yanked it open for me, reversing our familiar pattern. I crouched on the other side of the door and looked out as the sound of guns firing and bullets ricocheting burst from the room beyond.

  Outside, I saw why the corridors had been so empty. I looked out at a low catwalk lining a giant garage. It was the size of a warehouse, with rows and rows of vehicles lined up in pristine condition—well, they probably had been before the battle. A huge box of a vehicle, with massive tires and blacked-out rear windows, was pulled halfway out of one of the rows. An overturned four-wheeler lay between it and the rows of palace guards who lined the catwalk on the wall perpendicular to this one, resting their automatic weapons on the railing and firing without a break. The bullets seemed to ping off harmlessly—the SUV must be armored. Every so often an answering shot rang out from the people concealed behind its tinted windows. I caught sight of a few metal steps between us and the guards which led from the catwalk down to the garage floor.