Earth

2027

Seeing Jace's body drop and convulse the same way as the day Rory had been ripped away from Lumiea threw her body back into that nightmare. It shredded her heart.

"Jace!" Rory slid her hands over his slickened back, desperate to put an end to it. "Stop it! I'm the one who did it."

Vehru watched her, unmoved while Jace still writhed on the ground, the muscles in his back contracting against her hand.

Theo bounded from around the bar and forced his way in front of Rory with his hands raised. "It's not her fault. That woman wasn't going to stop pushing her until–"

Rory shifted to drag Theo down but couldn't move nearly as fast as Vehru. The commander flicked her wrist at Theo and sent him flying against the wall with some invisible force that ruffled Rory's hair like there was a breeze.

Theo collapsed in a heap on the ground.

"Stop," Rory screamed, her hand mods burning as she jumped to her feet.

Jace's body finally went still. Neither of the men were moving.

Vehru stalked closer to Rory. "You thought I'd hurt you. You thought it was worth whatever pain I'd cause. How do you not realize how much you have to lose?"

"Go…" Jace dragged his hand beneath himself and pushed onto his forearm in a weak movement. "Now."

Rory ignored him. Vehru would not let anyone leave. If Jace thought he could hold her off, then he was delusional. It would take time for him to recover from what she'd done to him.

"You stabbed Trin." Vehru's expression looked like it had been carved into stone as she glared at Rory and then shifted it to Jace. "And you." Her nostrils flared. "You planted a chip on an unconscious scientist that explains how to prepare Lumiean emergency field medicine."

Oh no.

"You thought I wouldn't figure it out?"

With his arms trembling, Jace forced his way to his knees, swaying slightly, sounding out of breath. "For years… you've talked about mitigating loss of life…" He glowered at Vehru. "You aren't mad I did it. You're mad you don't get to take credit for it. All hail the merciful Vehru. She'll steal your planet, but she'll make sure you have food and medicine to keep you alive to suffer through it."

Rory knew what he was doing. Jace was goading Vehru into putting her attention onto him, practically daring her to do something about his insolence.

"Shut up," Rory whispered, noticing that Theo was pushing himself up, gasping for air. Panic froze her in place for a moment. They couldn't let this escalate, but they couldn't simply surrender and not fight back either.

Vehru took a step forward and was on Jace in a flash, too fast for Rory to even track. Her hand wrapped around his throat and she lifted him slowly into the air, rising up to hover so his toes didn't even graze the floor.

"I can no longer coddle you," Vehru said. "All these games you two play have to end. There's too much at stake."

Rory ripped at Vehru's arms with her hand mods engaged to enhance her strength. But she knew it wasn't enough. Angry, desperate tears sprang into her eyes as she struggled to free Jace. "Let him go. He's hurt." Fresh blood smeared along Jace's chest, mixing with the sweat. "You're hurting him."

"Aeryn–" Jace grunted.

"He prefers that I hurt him, and not you." She tilted her head. "Don't you? That's why you smarted off to me."

"You need me," Rory said. "If you want my cooperation, then stop hurting the people I love."

"Enough." Vehru's voice boomed. She clutched Rory's arm and a sparking feel traveled over her skin.

Quickly, the sharpest pain she'd ever felt in her life stabbed into every pore of her arm, spreading in a wave over her entire body. The pain consumed her and blotted out the world around her. It was all she felt. All she was.

Individual daggers of pain sliced open every inch of her body, while her muscles spasmed so hard it felt like she crushed her own bones. She didn't remember hitting the ground or curling in on herself. When she managed to just barely catch hold of the world around her, before she even had the strength to open her eyes, she was already collapsed on the hard floor beneath her.

The sound came next. Loud, crashing noises. And then the hands, grabbing at her arms. Rory tried so hard to come to completely, but she felt like she was sinking to the bottom of a pool, unable to try to swim to the top.

No.

No passing out. Rory had to wake up.

Her eyes shot open, the edges of her vision fuzzy. Theo held Rory in his arms and grunted as he struggled to his feet, clearly hurt. The crashing sounds...

"Jace…" she mumbled, bleary eyes searching for him. She made out the sound of him grunting. Cursing.

Theo rushed toward the stairs, going the wrong direction. They couldn't leave Jace behind. Twisting, she managed to clear her vision in time to see Vehru rip Jace's hand mods completely free. The sudden dysregulation froze him and doubled him over. Vehru fired a blast of energy from her core that hurled his body through the bar and halfway into the wall. Splintered wood hung down from what remained of the counter.

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Rory lifted her own hand mod over Theo's shoulder, aiming at Vehru, as her husband carried her up the stairs. But the commander dragged them backward through the air as if she had them on an invisible chain. They went airborne and slid to a stop on the ground.

Jace vaulted over the bar and ran at Vehru without his mods. Rory pushed off Theo, aiming again. Only before she could fire, Vehru punched Jace in the stomach so hard he immediately collapsed.

"All of you stop." Vehru turned and pointed at each. "Right now. Calm down before someone gets hurt very badly." She scowled. "You can't escape and you can't fight me. Stay still."

Jace coughed, forehead touching the floor as he held his stomach. He started to try sitting up but it looked like the strength had been sapped from his body.

"Tonight is the only warning I'll give you. It doesn't matter where you are, I can use the Neuroweb to hurt you." Vehru stared down at Rory now. "It's in your son too. Continue to fuck with me, and I will do it to him."

Rory shook her head, still suffering aftershocks of pain that gripped her muscles and sizzled her nerves. This could never happen to Levi. Never. Desperation bowed her body forward. No matter what, Rory always ended up back here, her war as hopeless as the rebellion back on Lumiea.

But the cameras... If they could get this recording out to the world before Vehru's Replica caught it and removed it from the internet, they could show who Vehru really was.

Jace managed to sit up on his knees. Quiet and still now, the look on his face somehow appeared more dangerous than when he'd actually gone after Vehru.

"Do you really need more?" Vehru asked him, sounding incredulous. "You want me to do it to her again?"

He breathed heavily, his body covered in sweat and his chest smeared with blood. The veins in his arms popped as he gripped his hands into fists that were clutched so tightly it made his arms tremble. "Do not ever hurt my wife ever again."

Vehru kicked him onto his back and smashed her boot against his throat. "I told you before." The calmness of her voice sent a chill down Rory's spine. "Be good and I won't need to. Get her under fucking control. You know better than to fight me. She still needs to learn."

Another second and Rory would not have been able to hold herself back. Vehru stepped away from Jace, though.

"Morfrain is coming." The commander cast a disgusted look at Jace on the ground and then at Rory. "I shouldn't have let you all take advantage of my pity for you. I've been too soft on you. It will only hurt you in the end. My partner enjoys the excuse to make the weak suffer. I strongly suggest that you think about your behavior." Now she looked at Theo. "Including you."

Rory gripped Theo's forearm.

"You can't save Earth. If you care about this planet, you'll help the transition to be more peaceful. When you fight, you get hurt. You get other people hurt. There's a lot of people in this world. A lot of children. It would serve them well for the adults to be sensible."

Had Rory been a fool to entertain this rebellion? If it truly was hopeless, wasn't she causing more suffering? She closed her eyes, dizzy from what Vehru had done to her. The old woman Rory had met when she was hardly more than a girl came back to her. She'd told her the war could finally end if only the rebels would stop fighting.

"Exactly."

Never had Rory understood that better than she did now. But at what cost did their rebellion come?

"You could share your technology with us," Theo said. "Help us clean up the Earth and improve the climate. Work with our governments on learning a better way. Why do you have to wage war? Is it simply because your leaders insist on it?"

"The powerful are never willing to share that power. Not your powerful on Earth and not mine in the Federation. There can only be one head." Vehru walked back toward the stairs and then paused. "I would prefer to see the three of you survive this war. Be smarter in the future."

None of them spoke or moved as Vehru left. Rory didn't want to do anything that might tempt the Commander to turn back around. Once she was certain that they were alone, she whispered to Theo. "Is it bad?"

"No." He clasped his shoulder, as if testing it. "I don't think so."

She turned to crawl for Jace, only to find he had already risen to his feet, and moved to retrieve his hand mods.

"You need to sit." Rory felt faint and like she still was on the verge of passing out. Jace needed to stay still. When she started to stand, he lifted a hand to her.

"Don't. Please. You haven't built any tolerance to it. Carry her to bed, Theo. She needs a few hours of sleep to recover."

Panic struck her heart. "You've built a tolerance? How often has this happened to you?"

He blinked and shook his head. "Not much."

"Fucking liar."

Jace groaned and sank onto the ground by the table that had been knocked over. "I'm not. It's your first time. That's all I meant."

"Come on, honey." Theo put his arm around her.

"I can walk. You're hurt too," Rory said. "I need to use the paste on his wounds." Rory felt like throwing up thinking about the agony she'd suffered and imagining how many times Jace may have gone through that while he was alone, without her. And now Theo, who had lived a life of peace and never hurt anyone in his life, had gotten hurt as well.

"I got it." Jace poured the alcohol over the bullet holes and then blotted them with a towel.

Theo picked up the tube of medical paste and the applicator. "Rory told me about this. Fascinating." He offered his hand to Jace, keeping his left arm tucked against himself. "Come on. You need sleep too."

Jace stared for a moment. Then he clasped the other man's forearm and accepted the help to his feet.

It was unbelievable how weak Rory felt from what Vehru had done to her. They moved for a bed and she collapsed onto it, almost immediately falling asleep. But first, she needed to help Jace.

He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the medical paste.

"Lay down," Rory said, not wanting to go through the work of sitting up. She took the supplies from Theo instead of letting Jace take them.

At first, Jace looked like he'd protest, but soon melted onto the bed. It didn't take long for Rory to apply the paste, even as she did so while reclining. Despite this, and surely despite Jace's intentions, he drifted off halfway through.

"Rest, Theo," she said after handing everything to him so he could set it on the nightstand. Rory settled onto her back and reached her hand for him.

Theo smiled wryly, looking from Jace to her. "All three of us? That's not weird at all."

"Everything is weird now…I want to see you and know you're safe…" Her heavy eyelids slid closed. Words slurred. "Can you move your arm?"

"Yeah. I'm just sore."

"It could be worse than you think."

"I'm fine." His weight shifted the bed as he climbed onto the edge. Rory reached for him.

Her heart still hadn't stopped pounding. Seeing Vehru throw Theo across the room and then choke Jace in the air had terrified her.

She wanted to stay awake and make sure Vehru didn't return.

But it wasn't long before she fell into a deep sleep.