Children of Ash: A Meridian Six Novella Read Online Free PDF Page A

does this have to do with Zed’s friends?”
    He was quiet for a moment, as if hoping I’d figure it out on my own. But I was tired from our journey and frustrated with the old man’s insistence on drama. When I stayed stubbornly quiet, he finally relented. “Imagine how devastated the Troika would be if the creator of synthetic blood were killed before he’d perfected the product.”
    I frowned. “How would we manage that?”
    “By killing him and blowing up his lab to destroy all his research.”
    “I’m out.”
    His expression went slack, as if I’d finally managed to shock him. “What? But I haven’t even told you how.”
    “I don’t care how,” I said. “No matter how you spin this, it’s a suicide mission. I didn’t escape the Troika only to put myself right back in their clutches—in a labor camp, no less. Have you heard what they do to regular people there? Imagine what they’d do to me.”
    Me, the daughter of Alexis Sargosa, leader of the human resistance in the Blood Wars. Me, Meridian Six, who’d been raised by the Troika to be a propaganda piece and blood slave to the top echelon of the vampire directive. Me, the woman who’d escaped the Troika and joined the rebels, even if it was against my will. I wouldn’t just be punished, I’d be publicly humiliated and tortured as an example to any other humans who might have thought to rise up against our vampire oppressors. Not to mention that the target was someone called Dr. Death, who had proven he had no qualms about torturing people.
    I didn’t need to remind them of all of that. They knew all too well who I was and what I’d come to stand for, because they were the reason the rumors had started. It had been Saga and Icarus who decided to use my name to rally the rebels. In the months since they used intel I’d provided to find and blow up a secret factory, Saga had spread the story of Meridian Six, former Troika blood whore who’d struck the first major blow against the vampires. According to him, throughout the winter, other rebel groups had pulled off minor skirmishes and rebellions under the rallying cry, “Red means life!”
    Those had been my mother’s final words to me. At the time, she’d been telling me to run and find shelter among the Sisters of Crimson, a group of vampire nuns who provided aid to the rebels. But now those words had been twisted to mean something else. As Saga explained it, he was telling all the rebels that the only way to buy their freedom was to make the Troika bleed. He was fond of telling them that “Freedom is a luxury paid for in blood.”
    And now he was asking me to shed my own blood—to sacrifice my own life—for a cause I didn’t believe in in the first place. When the Sisters of Crimson turned me over to the rebels, I had been given a choice—fight or die. So I’d fought, hoping it would buy me my freedom. But as the cause grew, their demands grew more dangerous and freedom slipped further from my grasp.
    “Carmina—” Saga began.
    I interrupted him. “Stop it.” He only called me by the name my mother had given me when he needed to manipulate me. “I said no. I will not walk willingly into a Troika labor camp. Not for you, not for anyone.”
    Saga drew a breath in through his nose. “You’re tired. Perhaps some warm food and a good night’s sleep—”
    “Will convince me to commit suicide?” I laughed. “Not too fucking likely, Saga.”
    His left eyelid twitched at my use of profanity, but he managed a paternal expression. “Regardless, we should hold off on this discussion until you’re less…brittle. I just ask that tomorrow you give me a chance to lay out the plan before you reject it outright.” He stepped toward me and placed a warm hand on my shoulder. “Can you at least do that for me? Just listen?”
    The words, the tone, and the expression were crafted in such a way as to subtly remind me of all he’d done for me since I’d escaped. Woven through those words was