Read Sparks Rise for Free Online

when she turned those determined dark eyes on me.
    Seven years I’ve been coaching myself for a moment exactly like this. I knew that I would find Mia in a place like this, and I’d need to be able to keep a lid on my anger until I figured out how to get us out. Laying on my cot at our facility, I imagined her shivering, pale, starving. I imagined them hitting her for one of her signature comebacks. I practiced the mask of apathy that came to the others so easily, killed my heart just enough to play the game.
    It was pointless. I should have known my weak-ass heart better than that. Right now, I feel like I’m about to detonate. The heat under my skin is hot enough to melt my bones. My left arm gives a sharp jerk, and the humiliation of losing control over my body’s horrible tic only makes the burn worse. I can’t make it seem like I’m helping her, I can’t lose this chance to find Mia and be sent back to the facility. But he can’t do this to Sammy.
    He called for assistance, I think, mind scrambling to put together the logic. I hear the camp controllers’ voices chirping in my ear, asking for a status. And even though I can hear one of the PSFs, a woman, reply, no one up in the rafters is moving to give the man any sort of assistance. The command hangs in the air, waiting for someone to accept it. The Trainers told us our primary purpose here was to keep the other kids from acting out. Save fire, we were allowed to use force when necessary to meet that goal.
    Good enough.
    My body lurches forward. I jump over the tables between us, sending the girls working there flying back like a startled flock of pigeons. By the time I reach her, the PSF has the baton in the air, swinging down toward her, and the others are finally moving, taking aim. I slam into her from behind, too hard to really brace herself from the impact of hitting the ground, but I try to maneuver one of my arms beneath her. The PSF’s baton catches the side of my skull and pain explodes behind my eyes.
    Sam’s body goes limp with shock and then, even after everything, she starts to fight again. It’s the last gasp of energy from an animal that knows it’s pointless, but still won’t surrender. Not easily, not willingly. I admire the hell out of her for it.
    “Restrain her!” I hear one of the PSFs shout.
    Glad to, asshole. She’s trying to buck me off, and the movement is enough to hide how bad my hands are shaking. I manage to get her arms behind her and reach for one of the zip ties in the pouch of my belt. Even the rain outside disappears under the PSF’s hollering to the others, his wild gesturing, as the woman I saw before, her stance and face rigid, listens with one hand on his shoulder. The girls, the poor kids, are braced on the ground with their hands over their ears, like they’re waiting for a bomb to drop. If they weren’t scared of the Reds invading their hellhole, they are now.
    I know it’s a risk, but I have to try—if she keeps thrashing and struggling to knock me off of her, someone will take my place. And that someone won’t care whether she walks out of this building in one piece.
    I lean down, pressing a hand harder against her bound wrists. When did Sammy get to be so much smaller than me? Her wrists are like flower stems. I feel how easy it would be to break them.
    Damn. I don’t know if God still listens to me when I try talking to him. I don’t know if he really knows the thoughts inside our heads or hears silent prayers. But please—please let this work. Let me get Sam out of here.
    “Sammy.” It’s one word, spoken so quickly, so quietly near her ear, I don’t know that you could count it as a whisper.
    But she hears me. Her long body relaxes under where I’ve straddled her, and I pull back just as the woman PSF comes forward. Psi Special Forces Officer Olsen. Her dark skin is taut against the bones of her face as she cuts off Tildon’s path toward us and looks between my carefully arranged face and