I can’t speak around the sickness rising up the back of my throat. The metallic tang of blood swamps my senses. I hold my breath, but that just forces me to swallow blood-tainted air until I feel like screaming.

He smiles. Reaching out, he fingers a long strand of my hair. The spit dries in my mouth, and I feel foolish clutching my knife beneath my cloak as if it could possibly save me.

The Commander looks at Logan, letting my hair slide slowly through his fingers. “I was going to threaten her life to gain your complete cooperation, but I’ve changed my mind. It would be a shame to extinguish such spirit before one has had the opportunity to tame it, don’t you think?”

Something desperate and dark awakens within me, biting through my stomach like bile. I want to slap his hand away from me, but with the sword still at my throat and Logan restrained by guards, I can’t move.

Logan looks like he’s going to be sick, but beneath his pallor I see something I never knew he was capable of: rage. If the Commander notices, he doesn’t react. He’s too busy looking at me like I’m his next meal. I shudder at the predatory gleam in his eye. I can’t decide if he wants to kill me or Claim me as his own.

“Sir—” Logan begins.

“Instead, I’ve decided the terms of your service to me will be thus: Give me your word you’ll return what belongs to me, and I’ll let you live. Otherwise, the girl will need to be assigned another Protector while she retrieves my package for me.” He reaches out and brushes a stray drop of blood from my cheek, and I shiver. “I’m sure I can find a man willing to take her on.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Logan’s voice shakes.

“Your word?”

“You have it.”

“You may take a few days to gather your supplies and plan your trip. Notify me when you’re ready to depart. I’ll be sending guards to accompany you.” Abruptly, the Commander turns from me, wipes his blade on the cloak of the dead man beside us, and strides toward the doorway. “Toss that mess into the Wasteland,” he says to the remaining turret guard, and then he and his Brute Squad disappear into the night.

CHAPTER TWELVE

LOGAN

I can’t speak past the anger flooding me as we leave the Wall behind and walk through the deserted streets of Lower Market. The image of the Commander eyeing Rachel in her skintight pants while rubbing the back of his hand against her bloodstained cheek fills my head, and I plow my fist into the wall of the wooden stall beside me.

Rachel jumps and gives me a sidelong look. She’s only seen the man I made myself into after Oliver took an interest in me. She has no idea the kind of things I’m capable of when backed into a corner.

But I know, and punching a wall is the best option available to me unless I plan to do something far more destructive with my anger. Like draw my sword against the Commander.

“Feel better?” Rachel asks, and I punch the wall again just to keep from letting my anger loose on her. Not that she doesn’t deserve some of it.

I shake out my hand and take hold of her arm as we leave Lower Market behind. I have to calm down. Think. The Commander now knows for certain Jared received a package he didn’t deliver. And he understands he’s found a useful tool in Rachel’s fervent belief that she can save her father.

And none of it would’ve happened if she hadn’t tried to sneak over the Wall.

“You’re hurting me,” she says as she matches my pace through the torch-lit streets.

“You’re lucky,” I say.

“That you’re hurting my arm?” Her voice is full of its usual sass, but I hear the unsteadiness beneath it.

“You’re lucky I’m not wringing your neck.”

She remains quiet, and I soften my grip.

We move past the ridiculous wealth of Center Square, where multistoried homes gleam beneath the warmth of lanterns hung at their doorways, and no one inside knows what it’s like to go hungry. When I was a boy, lonely and wild, I used to walk Center Square at night, imagining the perfect lives of the families who lived inside such beauty and wishing I belonged with one of them. That was before Oliver and Jared reached out to me, and I learned that true family is found in those who choose you. Wealth has nothing to do with it.

Leaving Center Square behind, we move south. The houses grow smaller. With the street torches further apart, the alleys darken, and I scan the streets constantly, cataloging potential threats, discarding those I know we can handle with our eyes shut, and planning our escape route from those we might not be able to avoid.

“What were you thinking?” I ask her as we round the corner into South Edge. Here the street torches disappear, and the only visible light hovers timidly behind windows boarded shut. I finally let go of her arm and reach for my sword even as she slides her knife free. Only a fool walks through South Edge unarmed.

“I was thinking Dad needs to be rescued,” she says, her tone sharp.

Something moves in an alley to our left, and I pivot around her back and resume walking, putting my body and my sword between her and the yawning darkness of the alley’s mouth.

“Let me get this straight.” I bite off each word to keep from spitting them at her. “You want to rescue your dad, so you decide to sneak over the Wall alone? Do you have a death wish?”

“Don’t be an idiot.” She sounds like she’s gritting her teeth. “I didn’t know the Commander had his guards following us.”