J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Mira ran a hand through the girl’s hair, straightening it. “An artifact that would slow down the Tone.” She felt Holt’s stare refocus on her. “And after a few dozen tries, I thought I had it, too. But I was wrong.”

“It didn’t work?” Holt asked.

“No, it worked,” she answered. “Just not the way I intended. I did something wrong—I still don’t know what, I never got to analyze it. But the artifact didn’t slow down the Tone. It did the opposite. It accelerated it, made it spread faster.

Holt shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “How much faster?” he asked.

“Less than a minute of exposure, and you’d Succumb, no matter how young you were,” Mira said, looking back up at him. “Even if you were Heedless.”

“Wait a second…” Holt was trying to put the pieces together, and it wasn’t easy. “How could you know that’s what this thing would do?”

“Because I tested it,” Mira replied. “I tested it on myself.”

“Mira…” Holt’s voice dropped low.

“It was my creation, it was my responsibility, who else would I test it on?” she said before he could finish. “I probably lost six months to the Tone in the few seconds I used it. It was… awful. Like how the Tone is now, only worse, much worse. It felt like… things crawling around in my head…” Mira trailed off, not wanting to remember.

She could see the horror in Holt’s eyes. “God, anyone who had that could…” He paused as he processed the realization.

“Quietly get rid of anyone they wanted, for starters,” Mira said. “And if you were good enough, you could use that combination as the essence in a new one, extend and focus the ability, make it into a weapon you could project at dozens of people at the same time.”

“That has to be destroyed,” Holt said. Mira could hear the tightness in his voice, and it was a tightness reserved for people who had experienced the true horror of the Tone, who had watched the minds of people they knew be replaced with… nothing at all. Mira knew about his sister now, and she didn’t blame him.

“I tried to destroy it,” Mira said. “But the Interfusion had already sealed it. Which meant it could only be destroyed in the Strange Lands. Ben and I were going to take it back, make sure it was dismantled, but Lenore somehow found out about it.”

“Who’s Lenore?” Holt asked, but Mira could tell Lenore wasn’t the one he wanted to ask about.

“The leader of the Gray Devils,” Mira said. “Which means she has the most Points of any single individual in Midnight City. She is a very, very powerful person here, and she’s Heedless, like you. I still don’t know how she found out about it, but when she did, she came with all her guards to stop us from leaving. I did the only thing I could think of. I hid the artifact so Lenore couldn’t have it. For a Heedless, the power to wield the Tone like a weapon would be a horrible thing. She hasn’t faced the realities like you have, and she doesn’t care to.”

“This is the leader of the faction you belonged to?” Holt asked in surprise.

“Lenore and I had a… complicated relationship,” Mira said. “In lots of ways, she was like a sister. A mentor, even. But the pressure to hold on to the Prime Movership is intense. It would probably change anyone for the worse. Eventually, when you start to run out of conventional ways to stay on top, you start looking for other alternatives. Any alternatives.”

“But she never found the artifact? You’re sure?” Holt asked.

“They never found it and they never will, not without me,” she said. “It’s the only reason I’m not dead. But before I escaped, Lenore came up with a new way to pressure me.”

“Ben,” Holt guessed, and Mira nodded. “Who is he?”

Mira felt a twinge of nervousness. Ben was the one thing she didn’t want to discuss with Holt, but the way she saw it, he deserved the basics at least. “Ben was… is a friend. A close one, a Freebooter in the Gray Devils. Lenore had him accused and found guilty of Point Fabrication, just like me. It’s the most severe crime you can commit here, and it carries a death sentence. She said if I told her where the artifact was, she would let us go. We wouldn’t have our Points anymore, we were Unmentionable, but we could live. As long as she got the artifact.”

“And you said no,” Holt said.

“I said no… and then I escaped,” Mira answered, feeling the sting of the decision all over again. “There was no way to get Ben. I… I left him here. With Lenore. I gambled she would keep him alive for leverage, but for all I know, he’s already dead. And if he is, it’s my fault.” The anguish in her voice was palpable, and Mira felt Zoey’s hand on hers.

“You know that’s not true,” Holt said softly. “You couldn’t let Lenore have that thing. If you did, you’d be responsible for a lot more than just Ben’s death. You did the only thing you could—you did the brave thing.”

“Yeah?” Mira asked. “Well, it sure doesn’t feel that way.”

Holt was silent, thinking, and she felt his eyes on her. “You’ve come all the way back here,” he said. “Risked everything to do it. But why, Mira? What do you want to do?”

Mira looked back at Holt. There was something about him that was different from everyone else in her life. She knew what it was. He’d sacrificed his own interests for hers. He was here for her when it would be much better for him to be somewhere else. Those were unheard of gestures in the world as it was now, and from what she knew of Holt, they were just as unheard of for him. Yet, here he was….

Mira smiled at him, gently stroked his face with her hand. Then her stare hardened as she contemplated what they had to do, and she knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

“There’s someone we have to go see,” Mira said.

Holt looked back at her with more than a little trepidation. To be honest, Mira felt the same way, but she laid out her plans all the same, talking as they finished the rest of their tea.

WHEN HOLT AND THE OTHERS REACHED the main gate, they were instantly stopped by Los Lobos compound guards: two big, older kids wearing auburn red, the color of their faction, the black of the Tone creeping through their eyes.

“No visitors today, we don’t want Pledges,” one of the guards said. “You can turn around and head back.”

“We’re definitely not here to Pledge,” Mira said as she lowered the hood from her head. “Tell Cesar that Mira Toombs wants to see him.”

The guards stared at Mira like she was a ghost. Zoey chuckled at the looks on their faces.

“Wait here,” one of them mumbled before running into the compound on the other side of the gate. A few minutes later, he reemerged with four other Lobos, two more boys and two girls. “The Cesar will see you. But the dog stays outside—there’s no animals in the compound.”

“I’ll stay with the Max,” Zoey said, kneeling down and wrapping her hands around the dog protectively. Holt looked up to Mira questioningly.

“She’ll be fine,” Mira said. “We’re guests under the faction’s protection. For the moment, anyway.”

Holt didn’t see that they had much choice, and he looked back at Zoey. “We’ll be back in a minute, kiddo,” Holt said, and Zoey smiled up at him. She didn’t seem worried at all.

Holt envied her.

He was in as uncharted a territory as he’d ever been, and he was following someone else’s lead on top of it. He didn’t like not being the one making the decisions. He just hoped Mira knew what she was doing.

They walked through the main gate into the compound, flanked on all sides by guards, and while they were definitely being “protected,” it didn’t do much to put Holt’s mind at ease.