The Gender War (The Gender Game #4) by Bella Forrest (read novel full TXT) 📗

small, cozy bedroom had been anticlimactic—in that Viggo, ever the gentleman, had insisted that my injury meant I needed the single bed to myself, then stuffed me with painkillers, tucked me in, and spent the night dozing in the armchair by the fire. He had wanted to check my wound, but I felt too worn down to cope with the trauma of unraveling it before I’d gotten some sleep. The rest of the group had simply sprawled anywhere they could find in the small cabin. When I awoke, it was to the sight of my brother curled up in a tight ball, snoring lightly, in the space between Viggo’s bed and the window.

Everybody else was already up—they’d let me sleep in. As the smell of cooking food suffused the house from the kitchen—the most eclectic food was left over in Viggo’s cabin after he’d been gone for months, but somehow, he and Henrik had made do—I’d stumbled into the bathroom and washed myself as best I could. I’d started to undo the electrical tape binding the piece of Viggo’s shirt to my hand, then stopped as a wave of nausea sent me reeling back against the sink. I would find a first aid kit and deal with it later, I promised myself.

During breakfast, Owen had updated us on what he knew. He’d gotten ahold of Thomas last night on the secure handheld, managed to convey our spiraling situation, and been on the receiving end of a frantic rant about the bombings. Thomas had confirmed that Desmond had sent out multiple teams yesterday after he’d told us about Amber’s team’s mission, and that she’d instructed all of them to leave him out of the loop—it was highly likely that she suspected he’d followed Owen in defecting. Owen had, with infinite patience, instructed him to start looking at evacuation routes to get himself and Solomon out of his hideout in the sewers. Thomas had been sure that there was less than a twenty-one percent chance of success if he included Solomon in the escape, but to my relief, Owen had firmly insisted, and now we were waiting for Thomas to call back as soon as he came up with a plan.

On the drive next to the yard where the boys played with Samuel, Ms. Dale and Henrik stood by the battered truck, carefully checking and rechecking our mostly stolen stockpiles of weapons and ammunition. I watched as Henrik pushed a lock of hair out of Ms. Dale’s eyes and behind her ear, and caught a glimpse of her surprised expression—noting the way her cheeks started to redden again, visible even through the window. It was definitely a bit odd to see my old teacher flirting.

Not that I was going to judge—this just gave me some wiggle room the next time Ms. Dale decided to mouth off at Viggo and me again. Yet it was also kind of sweet, to see two people who should’ve been enemies becoming so close so quickly. A smile grew on my lips when I realized that it was our story—Viggo’s and mine—being repeated by our older counterparts.

It was corny, but it made me feel that Viggo and I would have been destined for each other no matter when we met.

“You hit me,” the king practically shouted, startling me from the charming thought. His hand slapped down against the table in aplomb. “You kidnapped me. And now you want to hold me hostage until I agree to sign a pardon for you, your Matrian… girlfriend, and the very degenerates who were sent to assassinate me?” He gave a scoffing laugh, and I turned in time to see him lean back on his chair, pushing it back onto its two rear legs and rocking back and forth, his expression one of bemused incredulity.

“Yes,” replied Viggo, cool and collected. “I do.”

King Maxen’s face reddened in ire. “I will do no such thing!” he bellowed. “I will not be subject to this… to this…”

“Blackmail,” Viggo supplied as he slid a blank piece of paper across the table toward the king. I suppressed a smile.

Maxen stared mutinously at the piece of paper. “Exactly,” he said, his tone dropping into deadly calm.

I turned back to the news ticker I’d been perusing, scouring the thin piece of paper for anything regarding, well… anything. But all it reported was that King Maxen had messaged Matrus expressing his condolences about the attempted bombing in the temple, and expressing again that he’d had nothing to do with it.

The ticker was a form of technology that didn’t rely on being hooked up to electricity, and was now outdated. But many citizens still had them in their homes—even reclusive Viggo, who, based on what he’d told me during my former stay in Patrus, wasn’t much interested in the news. I wasn’t clear on the science, but there used to be a law regarding radio interference which stated that radio frequencies could not be used past a certain quota. I vaguely remembered an explanation that said the heat sinks on the antennas weren’t a suitable material, or… something technical like that.

Getting news to all their people had always been a priority for both nations, which was why every home came equipped with a ticker. I’d always been told they were hardwired, impossible for anybody outside of the government-controlled media outlets to hack, and could be overridden directly by the government in case of emergencies.

Normally, news would be given every hour, on the hour. However, the little strip of paper I was looking at had been the most recent in the pile of old ticker reports that had been accumulating in Viggo’s cabin since he’d left to bring me back to Patrus. The ticker machine hadn’t budged once since we had arrived. That was not a promising sign—it meant that the media centers and government offices responsible for overriding it had been compromised somehow… Or there was such chaos that nobody was even going to work anymore.

With bright morning sunlight streaming