It’s then that Sparrow’s head pops up.
She blinks through the blood dripping down her one good eye, and she looks like she’s just killed a person. “Don’t ever say that word to me again,” she whispers. “You and I are not family.”
“We were once,” Orion says.
She shakes away from Rhone and me, then stomps down one of the darkened tunnels and disappears.
Orion comes back an hour later.
Rhone and Dex and I are sitting by the fire, with Sparrow beside us.
I tense, as Orion approaches.
“If you attack again, we’ll leave,” I say, but she holds up a hand.
“Stop. It was my mistake.” She glares at Sparrow, then sits down across from us. “This ChumHead here . . . She was one of us, once. I mean, after she left the Leeches’ side.”
I spin to look at Sparrow. “You were in the Resistance?”
She pulls down on her shirt collar. Three stars are tattooed low on her collarbone, morphed from her scars. The Orion’s belt. She shrugs. “You didn’t ask, so I didn’t say.”
“That’s how she’s always been,” Orion groans. “Doesn’t give the details, and even when you ask, she gives half the whole truth.” She sighs, picks a strand of fabric from her pants. “Just like the night she went on a kamikaze mission to shut down the Motherboard herself.”
Dex giggles. “That’s awesome.”
Sparrow went to shut down the Motherboard?
“You died in there,” Orion says. “You had to have died in there. We waited, and we searched, and there was never any trace. Why didn’t you come back to us?”
“Because I didn’t want to be found,” Sparrow says.
“We were . . .” Orion swallows her words. “It doesn’t matter why you didn’t come back. What matters is that you’re here now. And I swear to the stars, if you don’t explain why, Sparrow, I’ll make you wish you really were dead.”
They glare at each other. Two of the most messed up women in the Shallows. It makes all the sense in the world that they’d be friends. Dex watches with wide eyes, like she’s enjoying the show.
“I tried to shut it down,” Sparrow says. “But my precious sister never told me about the Motherboard’s Protector.”
“Who is it?” Orion asks.
No.
No, no, no.
“Sparrow, stop,” I say suddenly. I beg her with my eyes. “Please.”
She gapes at me, and for one second, I think she’s going to keep the secret. I shake my head. She nods.
I shake my head again. “Don’t.”
Everyone looks back and forth between our silent battle.
Finally, Sparrow makes the choice. “I couldn’t march into town and slaughter my own niece. I’d be just as bad a person as Lark was. So I simply put her name into the system. Allowed fate to take control and the Lottery to choose her. It’s not my fault Patient Zero became the one programmed to kill her. It’s also not my fault that he failed to do so.”
Orion stares, mouth open.
“You . . . your niece is the Protector?”
Sparrow nods.
“Meadow Woodson is the Protector?” Orion’s eyes turn to slits, and Rhone gasps, and every head turns to look at me.
“Well, hell,” I groan. I put my head in my hands.
Sparrow shrugs. “They deserve to know the truth. They deserve to make a choice. To kill Lark, or to kill Meadow.”
“No one is killing Meadow,” I hiss. My hands ball into fists. The fire is suddenly too hot, and too close. “She didn’t want this life.”
“No one does, Zero, but we’re all in hell anyways,” Orion says. “We should kill the girl.”
I’m on my feet before I realize it. “You will not touch Meadow. If you lay a finger on her, I’ll kill you myself.”
Orion throws back her head and laughs at me. “And why should I listen to you, Zero? What have you proven to me?”
I take a step forward. The fire is hot on my ankles, but I don’t care.
“I brought Sparrow to you. And she agrees with me on the solution to our problems. We want to kill the system, but we also want to get free.”
“And?” Orion asks.
“And the best way to do that is get revenge on the woman who put us all in this mess in the first place. We’re going to kill Lark Woodson. And you’re going to help us do it.”
Orion laughs. “You’re funny, Zero. The woman can’t be found. You know it, and I know it, so her daughter is the next best thing. We all heard the announcements. She’s out in the Shallows, free. We can find her. Kill her quick and painless.”
“Orion.” Rhone speaks up for the first time. “Listen to what Zephyr has to say.”
She stares at him.
Annoyance flashes through her eyes. Then the calmness of respect.
I speak before anyone else can. “If we kill Lark, there’s a fail-safe. She’ll die, and as soon as she does, every Patient in the Shallows will react.”
Sparrow nods, joins in. “The moment Lark’s heart stops beating, the Patients will follow her revenge order. And you’ll love this, Orion, I know you will. Their Target is the Initiative. The Patients will take out the very people that have controlled them for years.”
Orion’s eyes light up.
“That’s all good and well, Zero,” she says, ignoring Sparrow, “but you can’t find Lark Woodson. I’ve already told you that.”