Defiant: Quantic Dreams Book 2 by Elizabeth McLaughlin (reading list txt) 📗

was still a chess game, albeit a large and complex one. The key was to take the emotion out of it and think tactically. Moves, and countermoves. Gabriel wasn’t the all-knowing demigod he made himself out to be. Find the opening in his defense and I wouldn’t just get everyone out of the shelter. I’d defeat Gabriel in a way that he couldn’t possibly recover from. It occurred to me that might not turn out very well for me, but it was time to accept that we were well beyond just my life mattering anymore.

Chapter Sixteen

To offer myself a reprieve from the hell I faced every day, I adopted my father’s old habit of wandering the corridors at night. Tonight’s stroll brought me to the shelter’s entrance and I sat down to rest my forehead against the cool steel of the door. Big breath in, slow breath out. The area was so silent my heartbeat was the only sound that met my ears. It made sense why Dad liked to sit out here. I pressed my hands against the concrete flooring and rubbed my thumbs back and forth, feeling the pitting and scratches under the fleshy pads. It was an exercise in grounding. I felt as if I were physically connecting myself with the shelter and each soul in it. The heartbeats of hundreds flowed through this place and though I couldn’t feel them, that knowledge that they were there was reassuring.

My ears perked up at the sound of breathing behind me but I didn’t turn. I didn’t need to see the person behind me to know who it was.

“Come to kill me at last? Pity you’re choosing to do it in the middle of the night. Nobody around to watch the show.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Jacob. That would be too easy. No. You’re going to go on a trip.”

Pushing myself off the ground, I looked at him from the corner of my eye. Gabriel stood well back from me. In his hands were a couple of large duffel bags that he dropped to the ground. I heard the clanking of metal inside one of them. It didn’t take long to figure out what was in the other one.

“You’re still killing me. But it won’t be your hand holding the knife.”

“You got it, Jakey boy.” He sneered the last word with a crooked grin. The smile of a little boy who had outsmarted his father at long last. “What a horrible tragedy it will be, Fiona discovering her father chose to commit suicide rather than take control of the horrible epidemic. A coward’s end. Just what you deserve.” Gabriel bent down and unzipped the bags. He spread them open as if showcasing their contents as he spoke. “There’s three days of supplies in here. Water, food rations, a basic shelter, the works. There’s a first aid kit as well. I’ve also been so kind as to provide you with a couple hours’ worth of extra oxygen. Everything a human needs to stay alive...for a while.”

“Because you’re kind like that.” I looked down at my body, clad only in the light sleeping garments issued to every shelter resident. “I don’t suppose you brought shoes and a jacket for me, did you?” I eyed the corridor behind him in a vain hope that someone had heard us talking and stuck their head out to investigate. Barring that, running might be an option.

“'Fraid not. I guess you’ll have to make do with bare tootsies. Plus, no one would believe the story if I sent you out with absolutely nothing.” He giggled, his voice pitching ever higher. “Oh, and I wouldn’t try to do whatever it is you’re thinking of doing. In this body I can snap your neck as easily as ripping a piece of cloth.” Another twisted laugh. Deep down somewhere, I knew I should have felt afraid, but I felt a kind of perverse joy. However badly the odds were stacked against me, I had the advantage in this situation. Gabriel had never experienced the outside world. I had. Gabriel was impulsive. I wasn’t. Given luck, I might be able to hack it outside until I could reach someone inside. There was no way that Fiona, Eliza, and Marcus were going to believe a story about how I chose to leave the safety of the shelter. Or would they? I thought back to when Marcus had confronted me in this very spot. He wouldn’t have kept that to himself. I raised my head to meet Gabriel’s eyes.

“Great. You win. Give me my supplies.” Thank god my voice didn’t quaver as I feared it would.

Gabriel frowned and passed the duffel bags over. Clearly he was expecting a different reaction. Perhaps he hoped that I’d throw myself on his mercy and beg for my life. Maybe he expected me to pick a fistfight with his hulking host. Who knows. The thing that mattered was I could kill him with confidence.

“Thanks. Let’s get this over with, then.” Gabriel said nothing and brushed by me to crank open the inner door. I kept my face neutral. No doubt the slowness with which he unlocked the door was meant to make me shake in my—well, lack of—boots. When the door was open, he swept up one of the duffel bags and tossed it over his shoulder. “You’re coming with me?” I quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Only to the second door. After all, it would be too easy if I didn’t follow through and make sure you actually left. You’d pound on the door until someone heard you.”

Oops. I hadn’t even thought of that, but now that he mentioned it that would have been a good plan. I stepped from the threshold into the patch of dirt that separated the staircase from the inner door and gasped. The soil felt so alien under my feet. It was freezing cold. That made sense, given that no sun had touched this patch of earth in over