Page 91 of Storm of Stars
Then her wild eyes found me, and I knew what she was going to do before she did. She charged, hands grasping the rifle slung across my chest.
I didn’t resist. I let her take it.
She yanked it free and spun on her heel, raising it with unsteady hands. The muzzle jumped from Zaffir to the guards and back again, her breath coming in short, furious bursts.
“Stop right now or I’ll shoot!” she barked. But her voice lacked the weight it once carried. It wasn’t power. It was fear.
Zaffir didn’t stop. Step by step, he crossed the floor toward the terminal. The guards around the room raised their rifles, ready to take their shot.
I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips. A quiet, knowing thing.
“I said stop!” she shouted again, voice ragged, trembling. “I swear, I’ll?—”
She didn’t get to finish.
Zaffir reached the terminal. Slowly, he raised the camera and brought it toward the port. Her finger squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
No shot. No bullet. Just silence.
Because after all, Ezra was right. An empty riflecouldbuy us some time.
I turned to him where he sat propped up nearby, and he met my gaze with that familiar, cocky smirk.
The screens in the room flickered, then glowed to life. One by one, monitors and walls lit up, casting a cold white light across the chamber. And then the image appeared.
Veritas. A vicious wild smirk as she spoke.
“People like you,”her voice echoed, smooth and deliberate,“believe the system is broken. That it just needs to be fixed. But you're wrong. It isn't broken…”
Her whisper was barely audible in the room, but the playback had captured it perfectly. A secret no longer.
“...It's working exactly the way it was designed.”
“No…” she whispered again, her gaze locking on the screen as if sheer will could undo what had already begun. The blood drained from her face. Her arms dropped, rifle hanging useless in her hands.
“Turn it off!” she screamed, whirling toward the guards. They didn’t budge.
She spun in place, unraveling. “The Reclamation Run was never about distributing resources,” her recorded voice played again, dripping like poisoned honey.“It’s about control. About ensuring the Collectives stay just weak enough to never rise.”
“If you don’t stop that feed right now, I swear, I will have you all executed!” she snapped, but her voice held no power anymore, just desperation.
The guards closed in. Not threatening. Just final.
Her own words continued playing. The carefully curated lies of the regime, shattered by the truth she’d hidden for decades. Then mine. The names. The people who’d been used as pawns of Praxis. They echoed through the room, drowning out her outraged and wild cries.
Zaffir stepped back from the terminal, limping toward me. He reached out, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and pressing a kiss to my temple.
“You did it,” I whispered, overcome.
“No, Brexlyn,” he murmured back. “Youdid.”
Ezra reached us next. He folded us both into his arms, pressing a kiss to my lips, then to Zaffir’s forehead. A breath of warmth in the coldest room we’d ever stood in.
Behind us, Veritas thrashed in vain.
