Page 102 of Retrograde

But I must get away from him. Because the only thing more painful than never seeing him again is seeing him every day, knowing how he played me, knowing that he made me fall in love with him precisely because he hates me and always will.

“Thanks, Corrado.” I get up, rummage for my clothes, and start getting dressed. “We’ll have to go our separate ways. There’s a bounty on my head.”

I explain briefly and watch his face fall.

“I don’t even know where I can go right now,” I finish unhappily. “Nowhere is safe.”

“We’re going to have to try and find a way to get off this continent. I’ll reach out to some of my old contacts back home. I’m not leaving you, Wolfie.” Seeing that I’m about to protest, he talks over me, gesticulating wildly, “I was the one who roped you into all of this! I was the one who established contact with Synechord’s resistance. I trusted Phoenix, whoever they are. But, Wolfie, Aron said it was no coincidence that Retrogrades caught us that day. He said that Phoenix gave him our location.”

Nausea rises up my throat, my vision burning at the edges, searing hot anger making my blood boil. Aron would be so pleased. Because now, finally, I know exactly what it feels like to be betrayed.

“You’re all I have left, the only person that I care about,” Corrado rambles on. “And I’m the reason that this monster got his hands on you...”

“Oh, Corrado,” I sigh. “You’re not the reason. It’s the other way around. I got you into this.”

“What do you mean?” His eyes widen.

“I think I know who Phoenix is.” I yank my trousers on.

“What?” Corrado’s face turns chalk white.

“She was awful to me in the beginning. She didn’t like that her father kept bringing me everywhere.”

“She? Her father? Wolfie, you can’t mean⁠—”

“I think she thought I was his mistress,” I plough on. “But then we started talking, and I told her the truth. Well, some of it. And we became ... friends. Sort of. Or so I thought.” I tug at my belt, fastening it. “When she first told me she suspected the Consuls helped orchestrate Rift Day, we were at some stupid official party together, hiding in a toilet cubicle with a bottle of champagne.”

“Wolfie, you said it was the cleanup crews that first made you suspect⁠—”

“They made me believe it. But she tipped me off about them.”

Prisoners masquerading as scavengers, sent into the Rift exclusion zone in secret and with the promise of a pardon for a good enough find. None of them ever survive. But not because of the radiation. And the guards that accompany them? Paid well enough to be some of the richest men in the Continuum.

“I was so stupid. So obsessed. If proof still existed, I had to be the one to find it and document it. I wanted that photo more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my damn life. There were warning signs I refused to see, a feeling in my gut I ignored. Before that day ...” I trail off, pinching the bridge of my nose to quell the fresh tears welling in my eyes. “One of the crews was supposed to go deeper in than before. Apparently, she let two of the guards fuck her at the same time for promising to drop the proof of the Continuum’s involvement exactly where we found it.”

“What—”

“She knew where we’d be that day. She was the only one who knew.” At last, I look Corrado in the eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got us into this. And I’m so sorry I kept you out of the loop. I thought she was just a spoiled, rich girl who hated her dad. I could relate. I never thought for one second that she was in any way involved with the resistance. To protect her, I swore to keep her identity secret. But I shouldn’t have. Not from you.”

Shame burns right through me like acid.

“You don’t have to explain, Wolfie. You’re a good friend. I get it. But I need you to say her name now. Who is Phoenix?”

“A snake,” I reply simply. “Also known as Daria Volker.”

After some more back and forth, we make our escape under the canopy of dark, low-hanging clouds, riding away on the bike that Corrado inherited from Attila, with a plan no more solid than to get to the coast.

My heart is still racing, my thoughts a tangle of thorns—I bleed on the inside each time I try to untangle them.

The ride is taking ages. Corrado has no experience and is going as slow as he can without us toppling to the side. It takes forever for the first shimmer of the sea to appear on the horizon. This area is heavily under surveillance, and Corrado’s body is tense with stress. It stiffens further when a military patrol car appears on the sloping valley road ahead, snaking between overgrown oleanders. Its warning lights flash blue and the siren wails. Corrado slows down to a crawl as he makes a U-turn between the potholes, then tears away from the spot, going much faster than before. But we don’t make it half a mile before two military trucks emerge from beyond a bend and cut us off. Corrado squeezes the brakes, coming to a halt.

I can almost hear his breathless, hopeless “no”. Of course, I cannot physically hear it—not over the roar of motors hanging in the air. Definitely not over the lone, deafening bang of a gunshot that pierces my eardrums even through the cushioning of my helmet.

But I can hear it in my memory, reaching for it in the catalogue of Corrado’s reactions I have accumulated over the years of working with him. So familiar am I with him that I can hear his voice even as the face shield of his helmet splinters with a single, well-aimed bullet, even as he falls off the bike and I topple after him, just barely avoiding the falling vehicle.

“It’s alright, Wolfie. It’s alright. Maybe it’s all just a bad dream.”

39