by Reese Hogan
“No, no, no,” she muttered under her breath. “Andrew is not my enemy. My anger. My anger is the enemy.” Her vision flashed red. She shook her head violently, biting down on her lip. I’m not angry. I’m not! She fought to slow her agitated breathing.
Andrew bolted for the stairs. She half-raised an arm to stop him, but Holland burst through the door right at that moment and rushed down the steps. Andrew pulled up short just before crashing into him.
“CSO!” Holland bent over his knees, catching his breath. “I’m sorry…”
“Where have you been?” Blackwood snapped.
“There was a… Belzene squad a few streets over… I caught up to ask if they knew…”
“And?”
“Dhavnaks in the city. Broke in at the southeastern corner. They’ve taken Fort Grenard Base. We’re holding ’em off at Lemain… for now…” Holland paused to let out a winded cough. His voice was hoarse, as if he’d run himself ragged getting back. “But they’re heavily shelling the whole northern half of the city,” he finally got out. “Our aerial forces have taken devastating losses, and unless we can get backup from, I don’t know, Marldox or… or Criesuce? Do you think–?”
“Nothing about the Federal Combat Base?” said Blackwood. “The labs?”
“N- No, ma’am. As far as I know, anyway.”
So if they were planning on coming through the dekatite mines, they hadn’t yet. That was something. She put her left hand to her arm; the tingling had subsided to a mild buzzing. She let out a slow sigh, turning back to Andrew. Her brother was looking back and forth between the two of them, his breath uneven.
“What’s going on down here?” said Holland, noticing their postures for the first time.
“We have a situation,” Blackwood said. “I have to get to the base. As soon as possible.”
“What situation?”
Blackwood started to answer, but at that moment, a boom that drowned out any of the previous ones enveloped them, so loud and overwhelming that Blackwood’s ears barely registered it. The next thing she knew, a heavy weight slammed into her shoulders. Pain shot across her back, and then into the side of her head as she fell and hit a shelf. She screamed as something else crashed onto her legs. The ceiling was coming down. The blast still throbbed in her ears, even though she couldn’t hear it as an actual sound – more of a crushing pressure around her head. She tried to shove herself forward, found she couldn’t move, opened her mouth to yell… and then spun into darkness as something struck her across the head.
Chapter 13
ANDREW’S ESCAPE
The first sound Andrew became aware of was his own coughing. The pain in his ribs told him he’d been doing it a while. The second thing he noticed was the dust surrounding him on every side, hanging too thick to see through. He remembered every second of the devastating wash of noise and the feeling of the whole world caving in around him. He remembered falling to his knees, pressing himself against the wall and covering his head. Then his senses blurred, leaving him barely aware of anything at all for several terrifying seconds.
His constant hacking wasn’t allowing him the air to breathe. He forced himself to stop and take in a deep breath instead. The air was stale and left dirt in his teeth, but it was something. He used the foundation to pull himself up, blinking particles of grit from under his stinging eyelids.
The wall had been his saving grace. The rest of the shelter had collapsed. Wooden boards and metal siding jutted from the underground space. A gap just over him was open to the sky, but all he could really see was dust, smoke, and the occasional orange flash as another bomb hit the city, sending the echoing concussion through his ringing ears. The Early Sun was up somewhere to the east, giving everything a grainy pall that was more irritating on the eyes than pure blackness. It was barely enough to paint the idea of shapes around him.
He knelt, knowing Mila hadn’t been far from him. He found her an arm’s span to his right, sprawled on her stomach beneath a large beam. She had a lump near the top of her head, but her breathing was steady. Andrew ran his hands over her body, making sure there were no gaping wounds or puddles of blood. He thought she’d be OK, as long as that beam hadn’t snapped her spine. Would she be breathing so well if it had? He picked up one end of the beam and slanted it off to the side. He ran his fingers down her backbone. It all felt whole, as near as he could tell.
He left her, and started shifting through the detritus on his way toward the stairs. Holland was crumpled at the bottom of the steps. She was breathing too, though not quite as solidly as Mila. She was kind of whimpering beneath her breath, as if in the throes of a bad dream. There was a gash on her head; blood matted her shorn hair where her skull had connected with the bottom step’s corner.
Andrew squatted at her side and brought his mouth to her ear. “Holland!” he whispered, giving her a shake.
He got no reaction – not so much as a break in her mumbles. He looked up the stairs, then back toward the other end of the cellar, his eyes straining in the dark. Before he could move, though, a low groan came from the other side of the room. Andrew froze. For just a moment he pictured going over there, helping Mila up… but she’d still be bent on reaching that base of hers, she’d still see him as a burden, she still wouldn’t believe the things she didn’t want to hear. The one time I try to tell her something… He hadn’t thought Mila would believe him about the Dhavnak gods, necessarily, but he’d at least thought she’d be there for him, to tell him their parents still–
It didn’t matter now. They had been stupid thoughts. Secrets were secrets for a reason; they weren’t meant to be shared. Never again. His fingers twitched. If he tried to grab the bag of notes back now, he wouldn’t make it out before she saw him. Digging his teeth into his lip, he turned the other way. As quietly as possible, he crept up the stairs, squeezing around the fallen debris.
The early morning haze, coupled with distant salvos and explosions, disoriented Andrew completely upon reaching ground level. He’d gone two blocks before he realized where he was. The feeling of nausea under the wide-open sky returned, but a thousand times worse; in the dark and the smoke, he felt like guns were pointed at him from every direction. His recent discussion with Holland left him feeling unmoored – equally likely to be picked off by either Belzene or Dhavnak, and rightly so. The sense of isolation was familiar, and not entirely unwelcome, but the feeling of naked exposure left him sick and unsettled.
He turned back toward his house, the complete opposite direction from the one he’d been going. Before he knew it, he was running, his hands over his ears, single-mindedly focused on the need to be back in his haven. Nothing else mattered.
The door had been left unlocked. He shoved his weight against it and spilled into the entryway, then scrambled in and kicked it shut behind him. He started coughing again, tasting particles of dust coming up from his throat. He had a compulsive need to get to his bed and crawl beneath the covers, and proceed to block out everything – the war, the loss of the notes, the bomb that had almost killed him, the things he’d told Mila…
“Andy! By the gods, you’re alive!”
Andrew tried to answer, but couldn’t catch his breath. He was only vaguely aware of Cu Zanthus running to the kitchen and returning moments later with a glass of water. Andrew accepted it gratefully, as much for the chance to collect himself as for the badly needed moisture. As he drank mouthful after mouthful, he kept a close eye on Cu Zanthus. The man was more disheveled than usual. He stared anxiously at Andrew, deep concern in his eyes. Real? If it wasn’t…
What do I have left? I could stay quiet and pretend not to know, but I’d never be sure. Not like I was yesterday.
Andrew lowered the empty glass and leaned back against the wall, filling his lungs with air blessedly free of dust and smoke.
“Where did you go?” Cu Zanthus said. “And what under the gods happened to your face?”
Andrew put a hand to his left cheekbone. He felt the strips of medi
cal tape there that had half-fallen off, and the crusted blood beneath it. Would her knuckles have done that? Why can’t I remember?
“Mila was here,” he said.
Cu Zanthus’s face went still. “My stuff. Dumped out on the couch.” Andrew thinned his lips and nodded.
“What did she say? Anything? Did she know it was me?”
“She figured it out.”
Anger flashed across Cu Zanthus’s face. “And tried to kill you, by the look of it!”
“We need to talk,” Andrew said. “But we can’t stay. She might come back. She’s still looking for me.” By the moons, how he wished he could stay. Just crawl into bed…
Cu Zanthus nodded, his jaw tight. “The house two doors down. They’ve been gone for days.”
Andrew struggled to his feet. His head spun. “Good. Let’s go.”
After running back home, Andrew’s foot was hurting again, but he limped as quickly as he could bear. He kept his eyes on the ground this time, not willing to reintroduce the nausea that had plagued him on the way back. The sounds of distant gunfire and explosions were too loud and he jumped at every one. They reached the top of the steps after what felt like years. Cu Zanthus busted the lock, then led them in.
“When’s the last time you ate?” Cu Zanthus said.
The dried apple the day before, the coffee that morning and the Coinavini… Wearily, Andrew just shook his head.
“Here.” Cu Zanthus pulled a round tin from his pocket and handed it to him. The image on the front depicted a double-winged airplane swooping through a cloudless sky. A Belzene plane, Andrew thought, but he couldn’t say for sure. He pried it open, and found a medley of dried meats, fruits, and nuts inside. He took a handful of the mix and chewed it as Cu Zanthus shut the door and slid a chair over to secure it. The meat was kaullix, tough and bland, with no spice to speak of – flavorless Dhavnak food – but chewing it helped steady him a little.
He drifted into the kitchen. A jewelry box lay in the sink, lid open and jewels gone. Dirty dishes crowded the counters, mouse droppings scattered the floor. It smelled of mold and dirt. Andrew walked across the room to peer out the sandpane. In the Early Sun’s light, he could barely make out a broken playset in the rock and dirt yard.
“Andy? Tell me where she went.”
Andrew turned around, swallowing the last bit of food in his mouth. Cu Zanthus stood in the doorway to the kitchen, blocking any possible way out. His face was deadly serious, like he’d go out and find Mila that second if Andrew asked him to. Andrew wanted to believe it.
But only if it was real.
He locked eyes with Cu Zanthus as he snapped the lid back on the tin and slid it into his jacket pocket. “Holland told me everything,” he said.
Cu Zanthus opened his mouth, but no sound came out for several moments. “Holland?” he finally said. “The same Holland…”
“That you were in touch with? Yes. That one.”
“How did you–”
“Mila’s partner,” said Andrew.
Cu Zanthus crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowed. “What, exactly, do you mean by ‘told you everything’?”
“I know why you’re here,” said Andrew. “What the two of you are doing for… for Dhavnakir.”
“You’re calling me a spy?”
Andrew gave a slight nod.
“Did you just hear the same name and jump to conclusions?” Cu Zanthus’s voice was soft, his eyes drilling into Andrew’s. Almost as if he were offering him a way out.
But Andrew shook his head. “No. I recognized the… the voice.” Not her voice, he reminded himself just in time. Holland didn’t wear a disguise in order to fool Belzenes. “So I asked him, when we had a moment alone.”
“And he just…?” Cu Zanthus spread his hands.
Andrew shrugged.
“I’m going to kill him,” Cu Zanthus said after a long pause. “I’m going to snap every bone in his body, ending with his neck.”
Andrew’s eyes widened. “No. No, no. It wasn’t like that.” I threatened to expose her as a woman? She had no choice? “It’s OK. We… we bonded. Mila attacked me, but Holland–”
“So she did hurt you,” Cu Zanthus interrupted sharply.
“When she realized you’d been staying,” Andrew said, nodding.
“Does she know?”
“No, she doesn’t know. She… suspects. But only because she’s naturally suspicious.”
Cu Zanthus’s hands balled into fists. “This is a Vo Hina-cursed nightmare. I can’t believe I just saw Holland, he looked me right in the face…” He ended with a growl so feral, it made Andrew shiver.
Holland never said anything to Cu Zanthus about me, he realized. What did it mean? That she’d never gotten the chance? That she’d never had any intention of getting him away from Mila? Or that she feared what Cu Zanthus would do if she told him – to either Andrew or her?
He took a deep breath. “Well, if you were staying for the notes, they’re gone. Mila took them.”
Cu Zanthus’s eyes snapped up. “What?”
“It wasn’t because of you,” Andrew said quickly. “She needs them for her job. I don’t know.”
“I wasn’t done with those! I hadn’t finished copying the subjects’ profiles, the list of samples, the gods-forsaken map…” He made a fist and ground it into his palm, glaring at the opposite wall. He made no move to open an exit for Andrew.
I’m afraid you won’t believe me, Mila had said. You’ll run back to him and bring it up, and he’ll kill you. Andrew tried to picture how it would happen. A knife? A gun? Would he just hold him down and choke him to death? But none of the thoughts managed to scare him. All he felt was gratitude that he wasn’t down in that cellar with Mila anymore. The way she’d grabbed him and shoved him into the wall… Never again.
“How many soldiers did you tell about me on your way back?” said Cu Zanthus abruptly. Andrew’s heart fluttered with the first hint of fear. Cu Zanthus’s thoughts had likely been going down the same tracks as his own.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he said.
“You’re telling me you figured this out and just accepted it?”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“No. I’m not. It hadn’t crossed my mind.”
Andrew almost laughed. “Of course it did.”
“Andy…” Cu Zanthus walked over to the scarred kitchen table and sat in one of the rickety chairs. The brief flash of anger had faded from his face. “Half the time, it’s hard to get more than a few words at a time out of you. The other half, you get so agitated, you come off as paranoid or self-destructive. And this isn’t just with your sister. It’s with everyone. Not only does it make you difficult to talk to, but it makes you appear… unreliable. Unbalanced. To put it bluntly, you’re not a risk.”
He held up a finger when Andrew opened his mouth. “However, you’re crazy smart. And that’s where I slipped up. People underestimate you. To them, you’re just a seventeen cycle-old kid who hates the world. And that dichotomy? That’s what allows folks like Holland to slip in under people’s noses and use their assumptions against them. I would never throw away someone like that. I’d never throw away someone like you.”
“What game are you playing at, to tell me this?” Andrew said uneasily.
“No game. I’m just laying it out. If I have to do something, I will. But killing you was never part of it.”
So Holland had been right about him. He would have found another way. Especially when it came to you.
“If you have to do something,” Andrew repeated.
“Like I said, you’re smart. You wouldn’t have come back here and told me unless you had a good reason. Not unless you’re suicidal.” He leaned forward, frowning. “That’s not what this is, is it?”
It was undoubtedly the strangest conversation Andrew had ever had. Much stranger than the one with Holland. Threatening to kill him, he understood. But this? Cu Zanthus was opening it to discussion, considering his
options, checking Andrew’s opinion. Treating him like a person.
Slowly, Andrew walked forward and sat in the other chair. “Mila is on her way to the Federal Combat Base. She read something about dekatite, and mentioned the labs to Holland. She thinks Dhavnak forces will come through there.”
Cu Zanthus blinked, his mouth opening slightly. “Did you just…”
“I did.”
Cu Zanthus closed his mouth, staring at Andrew as if he’d never seen him before.
“I can’t go on like this,” said Andrew. “Not when there are other options.”
“I thought – I had hoped – that you wouldn’t report me. But to actually…” Cu Zanthus shook his head, his eyes never leaving Andrew’s. “Have you thought this through?”
“You and Holland… you’re the only two people who’ve ever listened to me. Mila, she – she attacks me, she ties me up, she won’t even…” Andrew took a deep breath. His hands were shaking. Anger. Fear. Anticipation. “Yes. I want to help.”
Cu Zanthus reached a hand onto the table and wrapped it around Andrew’s. He ran his thumb over the inside of Andrew’s wrist, and the touch was so intimate that it sent a tingle through Andrew’s entire body. Cu Zanthus smiled at him – a heartbreakingly relieved smile – that dissolved any trace of doubt Andrew still held. Outside, the bombs fell, and Mila raged, and people died; but in here, he was safe and he mattered.
“We knew about the dekatite mines in the city,” said Cu Zanthus. “But we had no idea they were under the Federal Combat Base.”
“My parents mentioned some sort of realm in their notes,” said Andrew. “Are you saying the… the Belzenes have been using it to–”
“Travel to Dhavnakir. Yes,” said Cu Zanthus. “Acts of sabotage and underbelly assaults. And not just attacks on the troops, Andy. Countryside towns. Civilians. Children, even. And that’s not all.” His face tightened in anger. “About a cycle ago, they broke into the Synivistic Sacrarium and took some of our most sacred religious artifacts, like a piece of fulgurized land from Shon Aha and Vo Hina’s battle, and the map Galene Marduc made of the Aphotic Fields. What use could any of that have to Belzenes? I mean, who does that?”