Wings (A Black City Novel) Read Free Page A

touch, and then—
    She’s gone.

2.
    NATALIE
    “ I DON’T SEE ANY OTHER OPTION. I’m going to steal a Transporter and find Ash myself,” I say to Elijah, or more accurately, to his backside. He’s currently knelt in the dirt in front of me, pulling up carrots from the vegetable patch. His catlike tail sways happily as he works.
    We’re in the UG—an enormous subterranean greenhouse lit by ultraviolet strip-lights, thus its imaginatively titled name, Ultraviolet Greenhouse, or UG for short. It’s unlike any hothouse I’ve been in before—equal parts farm, fruit orchard and garden, complete with outbuildings and a water tower. We’re gathering supplies for lunch. Well, Elijah is. I’m “supervising” from my spot on the rockery beside him. Colorful primroses jut between the stones, sweetening the recycled air with their perfume.
    The UG is definitely my favorite place in the Sentry rebel stronghold—a secret military base that runs under the city of Gallium, the capital of the Copper State—but its beauty is lost on me right now. It’s been nine days since Rafe Garrick and his Lupine pack brought us to the compound, and my patience is wearing thin. Ash is somewhere out there, and I’m stuck down here just waiting for any news of him. A radio crackles in my pocket as if to remind me of this point. I have it constantly tuned to Firebird, a pirate radio station run by Humans for Unity, listening for any mention of Ash—thankfully we’re able to get a signal down here because of the complex’s booster system—but so far there’s been no word on Phoenix, the name by which he’s commonly known these days.
    “That’s a great idea, pretty girl,” Elijah says, tossing a bunch of carrots into the basket by my feet. “Except for the bit about you flying a Transporter, of course.”
    I frown. He has a point. I have no pilot training.
    “Okay, I’ll kidnap Garrick and force him to fly it,” I say.
    Elijah quirks an eyebrow at me.
    “All right, bad idea.” I pick up a garden knife lying on the dirt and twirl it between my fingers. “Why did my parents leave Ash behind? If they’d just brought him with us, none of this would be an issue.”
    “You know why,” Elijah says patiently. “They thought you’d be better off without him.”
    I let out an angry sigh, still mad at my parents. I sort of understand their reasoning—they wanted to bring me and my sister, Polly, to the compound so we could be a family again, but there was no place for Ash in their plan. When I pushed them for an explanation, my mother threw up her hands and finally admitted the truth.
“That boy is a bad influence, Natalie. A drug dealer and a wanted criminal, and he’s caused you nothing but trouble since you’ve been together. He’s torn this family apart! I don’t like the hold he has over you,”
she’d said.
“It’s not healthy. My God, you’re just seventeen and you’re already talking marriage.”
    I turned to my father for support, but he just shook his head slightly.
“We only have your best interests at heart, Talie,”
he said.
    My grip tightens around the knife in my hand, frustrated with them. It’s always been this way with my parents. They controlled my life as a child and they’re still doing it now. I stab the blade into a patch of primroses, beheading a few of the flowers. One of the female gardeners—a pretty brunette named Josie, who always has a smudge of dirt on her nose—gives me a frosty look. I blush. Unlike Elijah, I haven’t exactly made a good impression around here, after the “incident” in the Mess Hall.
    Shortly after I arrived at the compound, I set fire to the canteen when my father refused my umpteenth request to retrieve Ash. It worked. He sent Beta Squad to Viridis, but by the time they arrived, Ash and two of Elijah’s half brothers—Acelot and Marcel—had vanished and Purian Rose’s troops were swarming all over the place. Beta Squad barely made it back alive. After that