The Gender End by Bella Forrest (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

them. It had sounded like an absurd plea that she’d made when we’d kidnapped her, just to force us not to execute her—but with Desmond and Elena, we could never really be certain.

“I have a trajectory mapped out,” Thomas reported after a few long moments, snapping my attention back to the task at hand. “According to my calculations, if the ship was still flying on the heading Morgan pointed out, and using Desmond’s body as a reference… as long as the trajectory hasn’t changed, it would cross over a small part of the city in Matrus, and then… just keep going. Into The Outlands.”

The pit of my stomach dropped. I fought the urge to collapse. I couldn’t afford to—there was still time, either to stop Violet from getting out there… or just to follow her into it. There was still hope, too: Desmond’s body confirmed that Solomon had gotten on board, or at least that there had been struggle enough for someone on our side to get rid of her once and for all. The fact that nobody had reported a ship going down, and Owen hadn’t seen it either, meant they could still be flying. And even if we would have no way of knowing what was happening with the ship once they were past Matrus City, I had to go after her.

“Great,” I said. “Now what do we do about our gas problem?”

“Well, I have an idea,” said Henrik through the comm, and something in his tone hooked me immediately. His voice practically exuded the level of confidence I needed for this mission to succeed.

“I’m all ears, Henrik,” I replied, trying to keep the impatience from my voice.

“We can get it from the Matrians.”

“That’s brilliant, Henrik,” transmitted Ms. Dale. “The airfield is just over the river, so it should be within range of the fuel we have left, near the border between the city and The Green. It’s also more isolated, so it’s perfect.”

I paused, and then felt the corners of my mouth pull up, even as Vox came back on the line. “You’re insane!” he said. “That’s a suicide mission.”

“Not if it’s done right,” replied Amber calmly over the line. “Actually, I think it’s genius. Elena certainly wouldn’t see it coming, not so soon after we stopped her again. She’d be expecting us to try and put out fires here—”

“Something we should be doing,” added Drew, one of the other rebel leaders, into the comms. I looked over and saw him leaning against a truck sixty feet away, his arms crossed over his barrel of a chest.

“And we will be doing that,” said Henrik without worry. “We only need a small force of pilots to double as our assault force. Think about it, Logan. While we’re at it, we could steal some of their heloships and cripple the rest. That’ll keep Elena out of our hair for a little bit, and get us a bigger advantage for the next engagement.”

“My pilots are ready for this,” said Amber. “And I can get us to their airfield on the fuel we have left.”

“Like hell I’m going to let some amateur pilot who thinks she knows best assume command over this thing,” thundered Vox.

“Considering you taught me everything you know, I think you better just sit down and shut up right now, Logan,” Amber snapped waspishly back, and I blinked. Was Logan Vox the heloship pilot who had taught Amber how to fly, ultimately setting off the chain of events that had caused her father to decide to marry her off to repay his gambling debts? If so, that was… a remarkable coincidence. And also odd. After all, Logan was an heir to the Deepvox legacy, or he would’ve been, had things not gone to hell in a handbasket. Why wouldn’t Amber’s father have just tried to pressure Logan himself into marrying her to help cover his debts?

There was a stretch of silence, followed by, “Amberlynn?”

Amber really hated that name, so I doubted very much that she would respond to it. But this time I was wrong—which meant something. Like she’d had more of a relationship with this guy than I’d imagined.

“Oh, have you finally realized it’s me, you thick-skulled moron?”

There was another pause on the line. Then Vox’s voice came back. “Of course I knew it was you. But it didn’t seem like the kind of thing to discuss over the comms during the mission, thank you very much. I didn’t think you’d remember me, anyway.”

“As if.” Amber’s voice was deeply scornful, making it clear to all that the memories she was discussing weren’t pleasant. “Whatever. I have bigger fish to fry than dealing with your spoiled butt. Viggo, I’m rounding up my pilots and heading to Jeff’s location. Meet me there.”

“Dammit, fine! My men will be there too,” declared Vox, his irritation evident.

I exhaled. Any other moment I would have been floored by the amount of hidden drama between these two, but right now, I couldn’t keep my mind on anything but getting to Violet. I pressed my fingers together. “Henrik, Ms. Dale? Can you—”

“Keep things together until you get back?” asked Ms. Dale dryly. “Do you even have to ask? Go get our girl and get her home. And give Elena a black eye for me while you’re at it. I’m going to be restructuring command anyway, taking those still willing to fight and hitting the posts leading out of the city. We’ve already got groups heading out to check the known contaminated water sources. And some people who drank the tainted water to catch up to as well. We’re going to try and round them all up to keep them from hurting anyone, maybe even stop them from hurting themselves, if we can. That’ll take some time, but those heloships will make it faster, so hurry up and get out of here, boy. Us old-timers have got this.”

“And I’ve got their backs while you’re gone,” added Owen.

I found the thought of all of them handling it