The Devil’s Bargain

The Devil’s Bargain
Chapter 60 – The Devil’s Bargain

News of the second lab’s fall spread faster than fire.

Ameena hadn’t meant for it to leak—not yet. But the revolution wasn’t hers to contain anymore. It belonged to the people, and people couldn’t keep quiet when monsters bled.

Within forty-eight hours, the ruins had become a pilgrimage site. Survivors arrived in waves—silent, fractured women with numbers branded into their wrists. Some remembered their real names. Others did not. All of them carried the same hollow look that never quite faded.

“They’re waking up,” Daniel whispered one night as they documented each arrival. “From decades of silence.”

But with light came shadow.

Trevor returned from a supply run with intel that stopped Ameena cold.

“There’s a counteroffensive forming.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Below the old Capitol Court. That’s where they’ve been hiding the last of the Regime Loyalists. The ones with clearance. Scientists. Officers. Commanders.”

Maris leaned in, arms crossed. “How many?”

“Hundreds. Maybe more. They’ve struck a bargain with the Exile Barons.”

Ameena stiffened. “No. Not them.”

The Exile Barons were a coalition of former ruling elites—men who had been stripped of their titles and forced into the Badlands after the first purge. Brutal, clever, and starving for power, they had spent the past ten years amassing private militias and waiting for chaos.

Now, they had a reason to return.

“They’re offering the Barons everything the Regime promised and failed to deliver,” Trevor said. “Complete dominion. With one caveat.”

Ameena didn’t want to ask.

But she did.

“What’s the price?”

Trevor’s jaw tightened. “You.”

She stared out over the balcony of the rebel safehouse that night, watching the city lights flicker below. So much had changed. Skyscrapers once used to house only male CEOs now flew black-and-silver rebel banners. Streets once patrolled by faceless enforcers were filled with music and food stalls again.

But peace was never permanent. Not in a world that had been taught to fear women’s power.

Maris joined her quietly.

“They want you because you’re the symbol.”

Ameena nodded. “If they break me, they break the illusion that we’re winning.”

Maris sipped her drink. “What’s the plan?”

“We go in first.”

“To the Capitol?”

“No,” Ameena said. “To the Badlands. We intercept the Barons before they reach the city. Cut off the head before it strikes.”

Maris grinned, feral. “Now that sounds like the woman I followed into fire.”

The journey to the Badlands was longer than expected.

The terrain itself seemed to resist them—twisted highways, charred forests, the skeletons of towns that had been erased from maps for daring to rebel too early.

They rode in silence, save for the hum of the electric bikes.

Luma and Ember insisted on joining.

“They’re coming after us too,” Luma said. “This isn’t just your war anymore.”

Ameena didn’t argue. Both girls had begun to change—not just heal, but transform. Luma had taken to battle training like a ghost reclaiming her bones. Ember read through strategy documents like she was decoding prophecy.

They were survivors. But more than that, they were seeds.

And Ameena would see them grow.

They reached the outer wall of the Barons’ compound under moonlight.

The place was an abomination—castles built from ruins, luxury cars abandoned in the dirt, golden statues erected in mockery of justice. It reeked of excess and cruelty.

Daniel hacked the gate grid. Maris set the charges. Trevor and Luma flanked north and east, cutting escape paths.

Ameena stood at the front gate with Ember beside her.

“You ready for this?” she asked.

Ember nodded, gaze unshaking. “I want to see what they’re so afraid of.”

Inside, the Barons were hosting a feast.

Boars roasted over spits. Music blared. Girls danced—some willingly, most not.

Ameena stepped through the archway like death incarnate.

“I’m here for your heads,” she said.

Silence fell like an axe.

One of the Barons—fat, jeweled, wearing a crown of synthetic thorns—stood up and sneered.

“You’re brave, girl. But not smart.”

Trevor’s shot rang out from the rafters. The Baron’s head exploded.

Panic.

Luma led a charge through the western wing. Maris detonated the south wall. Ember hurled a bottle of magnesium powder into the wine casks, setting the banquet table ablaze.

Ameena ducked as bullets flew, weaving through chaos like a storm.

She reached the high tower—where the old Regime scientists had hidden.

There, she found him.

Dr. Kavanagh.

The architect of Obedience.

He looked exactly like she remembered from the files—white lab coat, steel-grey hair, eyes like glass.

“I wondered how long it would take,” he said softly.

Ameena leveled her weapon. “It’s over.”

He smiled.

“You still think this is about ending something. It’s always about what begins next.”

He lunged, but she shot him clean through the heart.

By dawn, the compound burned.

The Barons were dead.

The Regime’s scientists were arrested and marched before rebel cameras.

And Ember found a locked vault containing files—names, ages, and locations of over three hundred more girls lost to the program.

Luma pressed a hand to the data slate.

“We save them all,” she whispered.

Ameena stood beside her, exhausted but unyielding.

“No,” she said. “We save who we can. But more than that—we build a world where they never have to be saved again.”