Read Relinquish: Book II of the Rising Trilogy for Free Online Page A

do that often?”
    I look away, afraid if I meet his gaze I will betray myself. “I can take care of myself.”
    Bastien’s chuckle sends ripples of warmth along my body, stealing away the creeping cold that has gripped the lower half of my body. I feel stiff, wrong. “Not really proving that point too well right now. What were you thinking to take on that man by yourself?”
    I wince. “I had no choice. Vikesh tried to kill Eamon…” I cut off the instant I speak his name, but the damage is already done.
    An emotion crosses Bastien’s face, fleeting but pained nonetheless. A veil falls over his eyes as I turn to look at him. All emotion is wiped clean by the time Carleon returns with a branch in his hand. “I got it.”
    The branch is hardly more than a stick. One end is badly charred, as if Carleon snatched it out of the fire and beat the flames away. “Good,” Bastien says. “Now I need you to hold her shoulders. She will buck when the pain starts.”
    “No, I won’t.”
    Bastien’s gaze flickers toward me for a split second before looking away. He rises onto his knees, getting into position. His biceps flex as he grips the metal, showing no hint that the heat still clinging to it bothers him. He looks down at me one more time. “Yes. You will.”
    With a tug that feels as if Bastien has removed all of my intestines, I feel pain as I have never known before. I hear a distant shriek of agony and then darkness floods in as a wave of pain sucks me under.

 
    Three
     
    I reach for the hand resting beside me. It is warm and strong, gripping back tightly as my eyelids slowly flutter open. “Bastien?”
    The texture of the hand feels wrong against my fingers, the palm soft instead of roughened by callouses. “Sorry to disappoint. It’s just me.”
    I jerk upright and the room tilts on its axis. “Easy,” Eamon whispers, firmly pushing against my shoulders until I am lying prone on the bed once more. I don’t put up much of a fight.
    “Where am I?” I draw my hand away from my forehead and squint against the brilliant fluorescent light overhead. I never have liked false lighting. After we took control of the City, Kyan moved our entire camp into the heart of the brick-and-mortar prison. Some people were thrilled by the change, but I was not.
    It held too many new things: electricity, toilets that gushed water that wove through pipes in the walls, vents in the ceilings that pumped out heat that dried my skin into a flaky mess. I miss the cool damp of the cave, the flickering of flames as we sang around the campfire. I miss the waterfall and the delicious privacy that I could always be sure to find in one of the blacked-out tunnels.
    I can’t be alone here. Thousands of people live within the city perimeter now. Entire streets are lit up like blinding stars. Sometimes I go to the rooftop and sit alone, staring beyond the borders of the City to the dark and familiar heights of the mountains.
    Repairs are still underway in the far reaches of town, but even now, with my hands pressed against the soft mattress, I can barely make out the rumbling of the subway cars passing beneath the surface.
    A name was voted on for this place not long after we began to settle in: Thalar. It means peace in Caldonian. An ill-fitting name in my opinion since we have seen little peace since we began our rebellion.
    If only Bastien were here to see the changes. He would love to see the subway in action , I think, remembering how he had spent months living within the lifeless hull of a subway car, in the dark and alone.
    “We’re home?” I ask, suppressing those memories.
    I should have known from the first instant I caught the scent of smoke that seeps in through the open window beside my bed. It puffs in black clouds from the spider drones’ exhaust as they roam the streets, ever alert for attack. They make it nearly impossible to keep a window clean.
    “Yes. Kyan thought it best for us to return after—”
    “How?” I cut