by Everly Frost
Hannah hefted the gun and took aim at Michael fighting the other man. Her arm was straight, her sight narrow. She was going to kill him.
I arched around her knee and kicked my foot toward my back, connecting with her arm. It didn’t have the momentum to hurt her, but the shot went wild. She screamed frustration, her shriek dampened by the wooden walls. I took advantage of her upset balance to kick her again, twisting at the same time, rolling out from under her knee and scrambling to a crouch.
Michael zigzagged across the floor, almost upon us. Behind me, Hannah shouted into her communicator and raised the gun again, but I leaped at her, grabbing her arm and wrestling her back to the wall. Michael crashed into both of us and the gun went off, splintering the ceiling.
I didn’t have time to think before soldiers ran inside the room from the far door, ten of them, all dressed in black. Michael didn’t seem to notice, pinning Hannah and lifting her up with one hand around her neck, smashing her gun arm with the other. The weapon thudded to the tatami, and I snatched it up, wondering how many bullets were left.
The soldiers raced toward us across the vast room, all of them holding mortality guns.
Their guns were aimed at Michael and Hannah. Jeremiah had disappeared or perhaps he’d been shot, I didn’t know.
I screamed at Michael to look out and he whirled, dropping Hannah in a crumple. Without waiting, I threw him the mortality gun and he caught it in one hand, but his eyes went wide when he saw what it was.
He couldn’t use it; I saw it on his face. He wasn’t a killer and I loved him for it. I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to tell him that.
I shrank against the wall, trying to think as the men sped toward us, twenty feet and closing, training their guns on Michael. He sought my eyes and touched my hand, folding my fingers into his, and I forgot about the men as the beautiful tingle of energy that rippled through me made me safe, quiet, and free, just for a moment.
He pulled me close. “We’re getting out of here. Don’t fight, Ava.” He gathered me up in the face of the oncoming chaos and held me tight for a moment. His eyes met mine for what felt like the last time. “Don’t fight. Dance.”
He spun me out, away from him, and released me into the group of oncoming soldiers. I spiraled across the tatami matting. The group of men split in two and, as they did so, Michael opened fire from behind me.
A man to my right clutched his leg, but it was his scream that broke the silence. A wretched sound, his face clouded dark like a shadow passed over him. He wasn’t dead, but he was … mortal. If he was wounded now, he could die, and he knew it.
In the next instant, a second man plunged, his arm hit, yowling like the reaper had come for him. Someone lurched at me from the right, clutching arms and ruddy face, and I danced into him, spinning like a whirlwind. I flipped and twisted and kicked and jumped my way across the floor. There was a thud, followed by another as Michael shot them, one after the other.
The remaining six soldiers shouted and sought cover behind the wooden pillars. I wondered why they didn’t use their weapons until I realized they were afraid of shooting each other by accident.
They were afraid to die.
We had precious seconds before they regrouped, got behind cover, and had a clear shot.
My head whipped around as a soldier broke from the group and blasted toward me, trying to grab me, but he plummeted with what must have been the last of Michael’s bullets.
They wanted me out of the way before they fired at Michael. They weren’t allowed to hurt me, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
I dropped back so Michael caught up to me. He shouted, “Go, Ava!”
“You first! They won’t shoot me.”
But he shook his head. “No.” And I had no choice but to run as fast as I could, praying he wouldn’t get shot behind me.
The door was twenty feet away and Michael kept pace on my heels. I didn’t have to turn to know he was there. I was as certain as my heart pounded, as certain as if he touched me.
I slammed into the door. Michael planted himself between the soldiers and me. We’d be an easy target now that we were standing still. Panic rose up and threatened to swallow me as I shoved at the etching of a cherry blossom in the middle of the door. The image compressed and the door released.
At the same time, there was a single gunshot, followed by silence.
“Michael!” The room spiraled as I spun back to him.
He doubled up at my feet, trying to stand, the gun at his side. He rose upward, grabbing at something in his chest. Stepping back to cover me completely, he flung one hand back to brace against the wall next to the door.
Another bullet whipped past us and kicked tatami up off the floor. Something nicked my arm. Michael’s hand slipped, and I grabbed him around his torso and drew him close to me, plastering his body up against mine. With our body weight, I heaved against the door.
Fresh air rushed in as we fell backward through it. With everything I had, I pushed us back and down, out of the way, crashing to the floor just in time before bullets peppered the wall behind us.
Shouts and blasts and drumming boots muffled and stopped as the door swung closed in front of us. I took deep breaths of air, wondering how much further we’d get. We only had a few seconds before they reached the door and came out after us.
We were sprawled on the floor, his body half over my hips and legs, one of my arms hugging his chest, keeping him close, his head cradled against my chest. He was heavy, a still blanket over me, always a shield. I waited for him to respond, tried to see his eyes, to see if they opened, looked at me. There was blood on his sleeve and a rip in his shirt. I snatched at it, trying to see it better, to see whether it was over his heart.
Please don’t let it be his heart. Not with this bullet…
“Michael!” Desperation filled every nerve. He couldn’t be dead, I wouldn’t let him. I wanted him to hold my hand and run with me as long as we could.
“Ava?” His whisper reached through my despair and I breathed it in, gasping air at the gentle sound of his voice.
He stirred and twisted, drawing upward, raising his face to mine. His eyes were soft, his lips close to my skin. “I think I almost died.”
I put my head into my hands, bending over him with tears rushing down my cheeks, my chest heaving with them. “I’ve had enough of this nightmare.”
He stroked my arm. “Time to leave, huh?”
“Please?”
He struggled to his feet, unclenched his fist and dropped a single glittering teardrop onto the floor. I put my hand over his heart, dropped my head there for a second, reassuring myself that it was still beating, and left tears behind when I looked up again.
Yet another corridor stretched out before us, this one lined with sparkling mirrors, the kind of reflections that would puff up victorious fighters ready to enter the Dojo. We’d have to trace their steps backward and I doubted that we’d make it all the way to the entrance. As we paced away from the door, Michael swept my hand into his, amazing me by tugging me into a sprint. “Run, Ava.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. My legs pounded a drumbeat down the hallway. We hit the door at the end of the corridor and this one had a panel at the side.
“Let me,” Michael said. “I know these codes.” He tapped the panel, the door clicked open, and we ran through into the next corridor.
Michael grabbed my attention. “I know where we are now. This way will get us out of here.” He steered me to the left and another door and, as we pushed through, the silence was strange after the chaos we’d left behind.
A hundred steps along, a door at the side opened.
Michael’s dad stepped into the corridor, his expression grim. His slim frame blocked the door at the end, his jaw clenched beneath his beard. He held a gun with the same markings as the one Michael held.
Mr. Bradley leveled the mortality weapon at us, but Michael said, “Keep going.” He urged me forward, his hand wa
rm and prickling on my arm. “Behind that door is the service area at the side of the Terminal. We can get out that way.”
“But it’s your dad.”
“Just stay behind me.”
He walked straight for his dad, getting ahead of me until we were only ten feet away from him. Without taking his eyes from his father, Michael lifted his weapon and sighted down it. I rested my hand on the small of his back, to let him know I was there, that I would do anything to get us both out of there.
His dad said, “You’re out of bullets, son.”
“Nope. I saved one. Just for you.”
Mr. Bradley lifted his own weapon and held it steady, aimed at Michael. “I won’t miss.”
“Neither will I, Dad. You taught me well.”
Taking a deep breath, Mr. Bradley said, “I’m not what you think I am, Michael. I just want a cure for your brother. We’re so close with the nectar now. We could help so many people, all the slow healers who are too ashamed or too scared to come forward. Cheyne, your brother. And the mortality weapon can bring the Bashers down. I want your brother to be safe, so your mom can come home and we can be a family again.”
I looked between them, father and son, and felt all their anger as if it was strangling me. There had been enough death today. Reid had died—no, I’d killed him. I didn’t know about Cheyne. I guessed he was okay, but I didn’t know for sure. My hand slipped across Michael’s back, absorbing his tense skin and the angry lines of his shoulders. His eyes widened as I stepped out in front of him.
His dad tried to realign his sight, moving his weapon around me, but it was my turn to be the shield.
I walked toward him, sensing every touch of my feet on the cold floor, every movement of air, the way the light reflected off the walls, the absence of cameras. A mere foot away from Mr. Bradley, I stopped, observing the gray in his hair, the tremble in his hands, the beads of sweat on his forehead. “You won’t hurt me. You need me.”
When he didn’t answer, I reached out and took hold of the gun, wrapped my fingers around the barrel, and pushed it down. “I know you didn’t intend to kill that kid. You had nectar ready to bring him back.”
I remembered how he’d spoken to Josh on the footage, how gentle his voice had been. I wondered how much he knew about what Reid did to me and to Michael, how much of it he sanctioned and how much they didn’t tell him. I remembered Cheyne saying that Michael’s dad didn’t like keeping people against their will, that it was a weakness. But even if he didn’t know, he should have. Even if he didn’t protect me, he should have protected Michael and put a stop to it.
He studied me, caution painted across his features. “I needed to see if the mortality weapon would work, but I need to know if nectar will counteract it. Every weapon needs a counter-weapon. We can’t create something that takes life without knowing how to bring it back. I’m sorry, Ava. I’m sorry it has to be you.”
My voice became a whisper. “But I don’t want to be anybody’s weapon.”
He reached for me. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but your mortality can save lives, not take them. Seversand has stopped threatening us for the first time in years. We can finally put a stop to the Bashers. How you react to nectar can help me figure out a cure for my son. You’re the answer to everything. I need you to stay.”
“And what about nectar? Where is that from?”
He shook his head, his expression closing off. “You can’t go out there, Ava. The people don’t understand what you are. They don’t understand that you can help them. We can keep you safe here. And you can help us … like your brother did.”
“No,” I said. “You won’t catch me again.”
There was shouting, commotion behind us, and the soldiers had caught up. Feet pounded, and in the next moment, Michael snatched me up as he ran past, bullets pelting around us, hitting the wall behind Michael’s dad, striking a dotted line around him like some kind of cut-out character. He ducked, crouched, and tried to stand, screaming orders for the men to stop shooting. I couldn’t tell if they were shooting mortality bullets or normal ones.
Michael smashed through the broken wall, pulling me with him, dropping his father at the same time. Debris flew across the floor, but Michael kept going and didn’t look back. I touched ground, jumping over the crumpled man on the floor. Mr. Bradley struggled to his knees, surrounded by carnage with his back to us, hunched over his weapon, one hand raised to stop the soldiers.
The thundering weapons faded behind us.
Around the corner, the corridor opened into an arena filled with trucks and machinery, and on the far right was a massive door.
Michael slowed enough to let me catch up. I knew he didn’t want to talk about what just happened with his dad and I wasn’t going to make him. I pointed at the trucks as we sped past. “Can we take one of these?”
He shook his head. “They’re fitted with tracking systems. We have to go on foot. Wait.” He veered to the right, to a desk with items sprawled over it and somebody’s satchel, tipping out the contents. There was a wallet, and money disappeared into Michael’s pocket.
“Whose is that?”
He shrugged and dropped the empty wallet back on the table. “C’mon.” He sprinted over to the roller door and thumped on the emergency release. Alarms went off everywhere, but no soldiers appeared.
We waited for the door to rise. It was the first time we’d stopped running since the Dojo. The silence hurt my ears, stillness buzzed like mad inside my head. I looked around the hanger, wondering aloud. “Have they given up?”
Michael shook his head, a deep sadness filling his eyes. “Dad let us go.”
He didn’t waste another second. He snatched my arm and propelled me through the door and out into the night where fresh air rushed us and our footsteps battered the pavement. We paused at the top of the hill with the Terminal Precinct sparkling below us and the river snaking around it in the distance.
Michael pointed to the far-off boats bobbing like specks of paper at the shoreline. “The river,” he said. “We can follow it to Starsgard.”
I hardly heard his words as a chasm opened up at my feet. “We’re the same now. You and I.”
A shadow passed over his face—the memory of Josh, the memory of Reid.
He reached across the black pit of my soul and took hold of my hand, pulling me close and brushing a kiss across my forehead, the lightest touch easing the weight of what I’d done.
He tugged me forward and we ran down the slope.
Chapter Twenty-Four
DRONES HAD been following us for days. Michael kept telling me they wouldn’t hurt me, but he sounded less sure each time.
“They could shoot me right now if they wanted to.” I studied the bleak clouds where the drones would be hovering, obscured, as the waves around the ferry slapped the side of the moving boat.
“They won’t kill you.”
“Would they rather lose me? Once I’m over the border, they won’t get me back.”
Michael shook his head, and I continued. “Or tranq me and pick me up. They could do that.”
“On the boat? In the middle of the river?”
“They’re bound to have people on this ferry.” I eyed the other passengers, about fifteen of them, some sitting, some standing at the railing, watching the coastline pass. We’d ferry-hopped our way a hundred miles upriver and, so far, nobody had recognized us. My hair had grown a lot because of the nectar I’d taken—both when I lost my legs and again at the Terminal. It was past my shoulder blades, making me look twice my age, and we’d lifted sunglasses and black hair dye. The temperature cooled the further north we traveled, so Michael procured a coat for me. The buttons were mostly broken, but it held together with an old brass brooch. I felt bad about stealing, but my life depended on it. The drones would follow us anywhere, always high and just out of sight—we wouldn’t escape them until we reached Starsgard—but it was the ordinary people we were really worried about.
A newspaper
rested in my lap and the headline asked in big lettering: Are we safe? There was a picture beneath it showing a crowd of people holding placards.
One of them read: Mortals will kill us all.
The sooner we made it across the border, the better.
Michael nudged me. “What about that old lady?”
I smiled at the woman approaching with the bottle of water. “Maybe not.”
Our disguises weren’t bad, but it was the rolled-up blanket under my shirt that really kept us safe.
The older lady’s long gray plait beat the back of her thighs as she handed me the water and I swallowed it with a grateful look. “Thank you,” I said. “I feel much better.”
She glided into the seat next to me, disapproval etched in every line on her face. Her glare was for Michael, who shifted in his seat next to me. “You should take better care of her.” It was my bare ring finger that she glared at now. “Not everyone’s as lucky as you. I couldn’t have children.”
Michael turned bright red. It was his idea to begin with. They’ll see the tummy and not you, he’d said. I smiled at him, but my smile slipped as I remembered him being shot, his palm on the wall of the Terminal the only thing keeping him standing, shielding me until the last. “He already does,” I said, twining my fingers in his.
The boat turned the final bend in the river and in the distance the mountains of Starsgard shot into the air, looming less than twenty miles away, casting a shadow over the forest beneath them. Cloud cover obscured the tops of the towers built on each mountain peak, extending into the sky higher than the eye could see. I counted at least seven towers, but I was sure there were more.
The river grew visibly narrower to the north and the boats wouldn’t travel past the final port. As it approached, the older woman squeezed my shoulder and rose to her feet. “Take care of yourself, dear.”
I nodded a good-bye, and we waited for the other passengers to leave. We wandered off last as though we had nothing much to do, all the time assessing our new surroundings and the people making their way up the pier, the bus ready to take them to the nearest town, none of them even glancing toward Starsgard. They were not welcome there.