She'd lowered the gun and crossed her arms. "That's why you finally left. You couldn't stand it anymore?"

"No." Now that I'd admitted so much, I decided it wouldn't hurt to offer one last confession before I met the maker. "I left because after enduring their tortures, they found the one invasion I could not endure."

She frowned.

I laughed, but the sound felt flat to my own ears. "You haven't put it together yet?" I didn't wait for her to confirm what I already knew to be true. "Several months ago, the Prime came to me with good news. I was going to be given a great honor. The Troika officials loved my sweet blood so much that they were going to make me the first brood mare in their blood stables."

Dare gasped softly but I was beyond offering consolation.

"According to him, I was going to be put in a special dormitory and given my choice of men of high blood with whom to mate. If any of the children I created turned out to be AB-, they would be raised in the most favorable conditions and be given the honor of becoming concubines to the top Troika officials."

"And if they weren't high blooded?"

I looked her in the eye and ignored the phantom pain in my stomach. "Aborted."

The silence in the room was complete. Unlike the last time, it wasn't a silent gulf that kept two foes separated. Instead, those quiet moments were filled with shared knowledge of duty and loss and the longing for a tiny heartbeat against the skin.

“The night I left?” My hand went to my belly. “They just had informed me that I was to be impregnated again. I couldn’t go through that again—the loss.” I looked up again and saw empathy in her yellow gaze. “But more than that, I was terrified it would work this time and they wouldn’t abort it. How could I doom a child to my life?”

She watched me silently for a few moments. Tension zinged through the space between us like lightning. Finally, she sucked in a long, slow breath. "How can you say you want to run? They took your mother. They took your life." She stepped forward and pointed at my stomach. "They took your child. They took your choices away. How can you just run when you have every cause to turn around and fight back?"

I blinked to stall the tears. "Because I want a chance to live for whatever time I have left."

She snorted. "Running isn't the same as living."

"Unbelievable." I shook my head at her. "You walked in here ready to kill me, but now you're angry that I'm not trying hard enough to live."

She made a disgusted sound and shoved the gun into her rear waistband. "I wasn't going to kill you. He just told me to scare you a little until you agreed to help us."

I crossed my arms. "That's what I don't get. Why would you want the Troika's whore to help you?"

She licked her lips and glanced sideways. "Look I-- I'm sorry about that. But see it from my perspective. You showed up all glowing and healthy and with your reputation preceding you. How could I not be suspicious of you?"

I laughed bitterly and lifted my shirt. Her eyes widened when she saw the patterns of bruises and scars covering my abdomen and torso. "They made sure the skin that showed was clean for the camera, but the rest was open season. And as for my reputation, well, I gave you credit for being too smart to believe their propaganda."

She grimaced at the dig. "Look, can we start over? We both came in with our own prejudices. Hard not to when we've both been burned, right?"

I nodded slowly. "Suppose so."

"As for why we need your help, well, it's obvious--or should be. You have inside knowledge of the Troika. You're the only one who's met the key players and knows their habits and perhaps their weaknesses. I know you want to run far from here, but where will you go? The Troika control the entire country. There's no place to hide, there's no normal life to return to. If you're going to survive, your only choice is to pick a side, dig in and fight. It's not a safe or a comfortable sort of life, but it's the best any of us can hope for right now. And maybe someday, if we keep fighting, we'll finally have a chance at safety and comfort again."

I sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. Her words exposed my half-baked plan for the child's quest it had been. Children trusted wishes. Adults trusted facts. And the fact was I wouldn't last a week on my own. But I also might not survive three days if I stayed on to help.

"Look," she continued, "I understand the urge to lay down and just wait for death to take you." She unbuttoned her jacket. Peeking above the fabric of yellowed tank top she'd tattooed two red hearts. "But the way I look at it, if I'm going to die anyway, I might as well try to send as many of those bastards to hell as I can before I go. It won't bring them back." She placed a palm over the hearts. "But I'd rather die trying to destroy the Troika than to let death catch up to me because I couldn't run fast enough."

Her passion and anger reminded me of another strong female. One who took up arms against the Troika and inspired others to join her in the fight. One who would hold me in her lap while she made impassioned speeches to disheartened people about the importance of never losing hope. My eyes sought out the twin hearts on Dare's chest.

Red means life.

My mother had been talking about the red light of the Sisters of Crimson. But now I realized there were many meanings. Right then, it meant that the only path to freedom--to a real life-- lay in spilling the Troika's blood.

"Well?" Dare said, her voice full of challenge. "What's it going to be?"

I sucked in a deep breath and held it, hoping the oxygen could dispel some of the fear. It didn't work, but at least my heart slowed a bit. Like it or not, I'd started this the moment I decided to run. In my hubris, I assumed I'd be able to outsmart my captors and manipulate the rebels to help me without having to get involved in the war. But once I'd seen the world outside the Troika's walls and saw the truth without Castor's propaganda-colored glasses, I knew I'd been a fool. The Chatelaine had been right--no one survived in this world without choosing a side. And since I could never choose the Troika, the process of elimination left the rebels.

I blew out the kind of deep breath one lets out just before they dive off a cliff. "Okay. I'm in."

Mom would have been so proud.

#

Two hours later, we all stood over Saga's map again. Icarus and Saga seemed to accept my change of heart like they'd expected it all along. Only Icarus seemed confused about the newfound respect between Dare and me. I could see in the looks he kept shooting at her that he wanted to know how she’d changed my mind. The blank stares she shot at him and the secret smile she tossed my way told me she'd keep my secrets safe. Whether out of feminine honor or just because she was mad at Icarus for electing her my executioner if I'd refused to help, I didn't know.

After the initial awkwardness when Dare and I had emerged, we got down to business. Rabbit sat nearby reading a book while the adults debated the plan.

"First we need to know who is most likely to be there," Dare said.

"Astyanax will be there," Saga said. "As head of the army and the Prime's personal guard, they'll want him there to oversee security."

The scent of brimstone and blood filled my nostrils as the scent memory of my last meeting with General Astyanax bullied its way in my brain. I shut down the memory of those weeks in the infirmary and focused on the mission.

"You can bet Castor will be there, too."

"But he's head of propaganda," Dare said. "Wouldn't they want to keep this quiet?"

I nodded. "Yes, but The Factory was his idea. He won't miss his moment of glory for anything."

"They need to know it was us," Icarus said suddenly. "Let Astyanax and Castor know that the rebels mean business."

I shook my head. "Absolutely not. You have to make it look like a mistake so they'll take it as a bad omen."

"Explain," Saga demanded.

"Castor is incredibly superstitious. You don't have to destroy the Factory. You just have to stage a convincing enough accident that Castor believes it's a bad sign. At a minimum, it will delay the project while he tries to figure out how to reverse the bad energy."

Icarus frowned. "There's no way we'll be able to get close enough to stage an accident with the General and his forces there."

Dare forced a derisive snort. "And if we get caught, the Troika will scramble to kill the camp prisoners faster in retaliation."

"Astyanax isn't as much of a threat as Castor," Saga said, almost to himself. "She's right, if we scare Castor we'll gain the advantage."

Dare and Icarus frowned at his dismissal of their concerns. "How can you say that, old man? Astyanax is the fiercest vampire alive."

Saga waved a hand to indicate the millions of books bearing witness to this dangerous meeting. "Because he who controls the information, rules the world. No weapon possessed by the Prime’s army is more destructive than a single word from Castor's lying mouth."

"You'll never get to him, either," Dare said, turning away.

"It won't be easy," I said. "But it is possible. Castor is smart, but he's also got weaknesses."

"Like?" Saga asked, leaning forward.

"His ego, for one. He believes himself to be invincible. But he's also incredibly superstitious. I know for a fact that he's terrified of crossing the Sisters of Crimson."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea, but he goes to church every Friday."

Dare looked up quickly. "Really?"

I nodded. Our eyes met for a brief moment. "There's a special chapel for upper-level Troika in the city. Its location isn't made public for security reasons, but I've been there."

"Why would they take you there if it's so secret?" Icarus sneered.