SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel)

by Choate, Heather

  That wasn’t good news. “Then we have to hurry.”

  Iva nodded. “Yes, but there’s something more you need to know. It isn’t just Fuchsia’s scarb that are coming. Fuchsia herself will be at the colony before nightfall.”

  My mouth fell open. Great. Nothing like a trapped queen bee and her pissed-off sister to deal with. My thoughts raced. “So even if we kill Emerald, we’ll still have to deal with Fuchsia?”

  Iva gave a grim smile. “Yes, unless we prove fast enough.”

  “Then let’s pray we’re fast.”

  “Agreed.”

  With that, Iva turned and called her division forward. As the scarb started moving through the doors, Iva said back to me, “Cat, you won’t like what you see up here. I wish I could take you through one of the side passageways, but the middle is the most direct route. I’m afraid we don’t have any other choice.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Let’s just say Emerald has a penchant for experimentation,” was all she offered before running up to the front line.

  I stayed with Iva’s division this time, eager to be at the head and to reach Emerald quickly. As ever, Derrick and the others jogged along at my side. Derrick constantly scanned to the right and left of me for any danger.

  “What do you think that means?” I asked him as we passed through the double doors and came to the curving stairway. We would have to go up a flight, then down a hall on the first level to reach the next set of stairs, which were tucked away behind a large mural on the right. Then, up three more flights to reach the tight stairway that led to Emerald. It was a good thing Iva knew her way around this maze.

  “I don’t think I want to know,” Derrick replied, trying to sound brave, but his face had gone a little pale. “Just think about Nate and don’t get distracted.”

  Those were the words I needed to hear, but they did little to help. When we got to the first level, I barely saw the soldiers stationed there to stop us. My eyes were fixed on the glass containers that stretched from the floor to the ceiling and lined the entire corridor on both sides. Mutilated bodies of both humans and scarb floated in clear liquid inside them. The first was a young male human who had thousands of needles poked into his skin, making him look more like a pin-cushion than a human. His brown eyes were open wide and stared blankly at me. My stomach churned. I was going to vomit. But the bile never came because Derrick pushed me roughly to the left so that I bumped into Gray and nearly fell down.

  A massive scarb I hadn’t even seen dove down, slamming into Derrick instead of me. The flier was on top of Derrick and smashed his fists into Derrick’s face. Gray launched himself into the air and onto the flier’s back. He grabbed the flier’s wings and gave them a sickly tear. The flier screamed and threw Gray off sending his body soaring into the chaos-filled corridor. I turned back to Derrick, who had his arms around the flier’s waist, holding him down. The flier’s left wing hung limply from his shoulder blade. I threw my upper body back and smashed the pointy barbs on my skull into the flier’s nose and cheeks. His blood dripped into my hair as he fell down, dead.

  There wasn’t time to even inhale before another impossibly large flier came at me. This one had five long, silver tendrils protruding from her heels. They whipped and spun through the air like helicopter blades. I ducked to the left, but one caught my shoulder and ripped at the flesh. A scream slashed out of throat. The wound was deep but not terrible, and the pain sent adrenaline through my body. The muscles and tendons connecting my plated chitin hardened. My breath quickened.

  I grabbed at my shoulder with the opposite hand. Drops of blood fell from the wound and hit the ground with a hiss. This made me take my eye off my opponent. Slim streams of smoke rose from the ground where my blood landed. The drops were actually eroding the concrete. Amazingly, the acid didn’t burn me. But my distraction was a mistake.

  One of the flier’s thick tendrils wrapped around my neck, yanking me off my feet into the air like a rag doll. My oxygen was instantly cut off. Panic filled me. I couldn’t breathe. My neck burned from the tight hold on it. I thrashed my legs and arms. I tried to grab at the flier to free myself, but another tendril caught my arm and held it back.

  My vision started to get spotty. I knew I had to hold on, but there was no air. Odd guttural sounds came from my throat, but I couldn’t even scream. Frantic, I pulled at my arm to free it, but the flier held on too tight. She looked down at me, a look of pure satisfaction on her ugly face.

  Just then, my arm was released. The tendril holding it was gone. I looked down to see Derrick biting it. The flier flapped her large wings to pull me higher. Derrick held fast to the one tendril, but the other was still around my neck. My arm was free, but I knew that if I tried to grab the tendril around my neck, the flier would just pin my arm with another of her tendrils. The world started going black.

  “Use your acid,” Derrick’s voice came into my mind.

  Without thinking, I made a final effort. I flexed the knuckle barbs on my hand and brought them up to the wound on my shoulder. In a flash, I slashed the barbs down into the wound, cutting it deeper. Blood squirted out like a fountain splashing onto the tendril that held me. The blood instantly burned away the flesh.

  The flier screamed and released me. I fell and hit the ground, hard. Everything went black for a moment.

  When I regained consciousness, the first thing I saw was the floating head of an eighty-year-old woman. Her wispy white hair floated through orange-tinted liquid, and her gray eyes were only half-closed. I wanted to scream, but my throat was too hoarse.

  Pushing my hands underneath me, I got to my feet. Scarb swirled around me like a carousel, but I couldn’t focus on them. My head throbbed horribly, and I must’ve fallen on some water because the entire right side of my body was sticky and wet. When I touched the wetness with my left hand, the fingers came back wet and clear. Blood.

  “Whoa, now. Sit down, Cat,” Derrick said. His steady arm was around my waist, and he helped me sit with my back against the glass tank with the floating head. Though scarb were fighting all around us, I felt safe with his big body shielding me. No one seemed to notice us there in the corner, anyway. He clicked his teeth as he took a look at me. “We’ll have to do something about that arm.”

  There was a hissing sound. The cement underneath me was hot and smoking from contact with my blood. The blood was on Derrick’s hands too, but it didn’t seem to affect him. “Why doesn’t it burn you?” I asked him.

  He looked at the blood and shrugged. “That was some trick you did to that flier,” he said, but it was risky. We need to stop this blood.”

  He took the bottom hem of his shirt and ripped off a long strip. He tied it around the gash on my shoulder. The blood slowed but didn’t stop entirely.

  A body flew through the air and slammed into the glass tank behind us. The glass splintered and orange liquid started spraying from it, wetting our clothes and skin. Derrick hoisted me up with his arm under my good shoulder and moved us further down the corridor. Iva was at the end of it, her hair wet with sweat and blood, but I was glad to see her alive. She and her fliers had killed many of the guards in the room, but more were coming in from the adjacent hallways. Too many. We’d lost a lot of scarb already. Their bodies were piling up on the floor. The guards Emerald employed to protect her private chambers weren’t just any scarb. They were skilled and hardened warriors and I couldn’t sway them. A large group of them rushed down the passageway behind the mural at the end of the hall.

  Seeing the passageway reminded me just how close Nate was. “We’ve got to get up there,” I told Derrick, and he started helping me down the corridor. I wasn’t sure how I was going to face Emerald, wounded like I was, but I knew that staying in the corridor wasn’t going to help any. I had to get to my brother.

  “Watch out,” Iva cried, just as an orange-spotted scalvion hit the left side of my body with the horns on his skull. The breath w
as instantly knocked out of me as I slammed into Derrick. One of his scalvion’s three horns drove into the week tissue between my rib cage and hips, piercing me to the core. My mouth hung open in shock.

  Derrick tried to yank me back to free me from the horn, but it was pinched in tight under my ribs. The scalvion didn’t pull back, either. Instead, he thrashed his head violently, slashing the horn through my internal organs. He jabbed in deeper with a final thrust still before finally pulling back.

  “No!” I heard Iva scream as she dove down and tackled the scalvion to the ground. But the damage had already been done.

  The first thing I noticed was air. Air touching places inside of me that air was never meant to touch. And there was liquid, too. Far too much liquid gushing out of me, like a bursting geyser. As it left my body, so did my strength. I looked down. The left side of my abdomen was completely open. I stood another second, but then my legs gave out and I fell to the ground. Derrick clutched me under my shoulder, and he softened my fall, lowering me gently.

  I was going to die. The rational part of my brain knew that. I’d seen too many wounds in combat to know when one is impossible to recover from. I have only a few minutes. But the emotional part of me couldn’t accept it. But I have to save Nathan! All of this was for nothing if I can’t save him! I wished I could talk with him. He was so close, but Emerald still kept him from me with her block. I couldn’t even say goodbye. I can’t die now. Dying is giving up, letting her win. I have to live! But no matter how much I willed myself to survive, the life was leaving my body. I was helpless to stop it. I felt the change of death coming over me, the way the blood moved too quickly out of my veins only to disappear from them, how my breath came in shallow gasps. I wanted to take in more air, like if I kept breathing I could somehow escape the end. The pain didn’t come at first, obscured beneath the shock, but then it hit me, pain so sharp and wordless that unconsciousness would have been welcome.

  Scarb moved around me, but all I saw, all I clung to, was Derrick’s face. His blue eyes looked down at me, dark with fear, bright with agony. He had one hand behind my head, the other still under my shoulder.

  I heard Iva pounding her fists over and over into the scallion. Surely he was dead by now, but she continued to beat him.

  Then there came a voice and a presence into the room that made every single scarb still.

  “My warriors have proven yet again an indispensable resource,” Emerald said as she moved, tall and proud, down the corridor, stepping over bodies like they were no more than children’s scattered toys. Iva jumped to her feet, her fists clenched and her wings beating furiously. “Take her,” Emerald said with a sweep of her hand. Three fliers immediately jumped out from behind her long gown and grabbed Iva. She writhed against their hold, but couldn’t free herself. Her green eyes cast a look at me that spoke only of sorrow.

  I knew in that moment it was truly over. Defeat washed over me. We’d lost. We were all going to die. My limbs started shuddering uncontrollably as the nerves started to give out.

  “Oh, isn’t this a precious sight,” Emerald scoffed and towered over Derrick and me on the ground. “The lovebird croons over his rare little dove.”Emerald bent down so her face was close enough to me I could smell her lavender perfume. She stroked my cheek with one of her unnaturally long nails. Derrick growled, but Emerald ignored him. “You are so rare. You had so much potential. It’s such a shame to see it all end like this. You could’ve been great for me and my colony.”Her upper lip flinched in disgust, and she straightened. “Now you will die, Scarb Who Is Called Cat, so that all will see what happens to those who go against my will.”

  She turned her back and took several steps away from us. “Too bad you won’t get to witness for yourself just how much I will make your brother, your friend,” she spat at Iva, “and your lover suffer.”

  My eyes stayed on the back of her green gown another moment. She was so proud. Victory was hers. She’d stomped out the insignificant threat I’d proven to be. Disgusted, I turned away from her. I refused to let her consume my last moments. I looked back into Derrick’s eyes. I wished there was something I could do to comfort him. Instead, he stroked the back of my head with his fingers.

  “I’m so sorry,” I told him. My body was shaking violently now. Then the shuddering suddenly stopped. My limbs stilled. My heart stuttered. One beat. Pause. Cool liquid chilling my skin. Another beat. Heavy. Too slow. Darkness closing in around Derrick’s face. Another beat. All I could see were his eyes now, tears falling from them like stars.

  Then nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Long Enough

  Derrick’s tears dripped onto my cheek. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel their coolness like drops of rain. I was going to death through the cleanness of water. Maybe I could emerge on the other side, new and reborn.

  My breath gave out. Derrick lifted me to him, pressing my chest against his, his face in my hair. His sobbing shook my body, and his tears ran from my face, down my neck and chest, and off the sides of my stomach. But they didn’t fall to the ground or run off in small streams. They collected inside me, pooling like magnetic drops in the opening in my ribs. It must have been some final hallucination, the last imaginings of my brain before it shut off forever. But I could feel the drops like cool silver inside me. They spread out, weaving and threading through me. They stitched and wrapped, pulled and webbed, bringing the fibers of my body back together. The organs went back to where they were meant to be. The muscles pulled them taut. Finally, the skin wrapped over and sealed my body back into place.

  A sharp inhale filled my lungs. My eyes shot open, lids fluttering like fleeing butterflies. Derrick lowered me in my arms so my face was no longer against his shoulder. His eyes with their four irises of darkening blue were wide as he gazed down at me. His lips were slightly apart, and his breath fell upon my cheeks like a cool breeze.

  “Cat?” he asked timidly in my mind. “You’re—”

  I just smiled. My body was whole. The pain was gone. I was stronger now than ever before. Because of him.

  “How?” he started to ask. But we both understood. Something had happened with us. Something that couldn’t be defined with words or reason. Like at the dance when my skin lit us up from the inside out. Somehow, he had healed me. His tears had saved me from death.

  He pulled me close again, more tears streaming from his eyes.

  I could have stayed like that forever, whole and warm in his arms, but the moment couldn’t last, not with my mortal enemy in that room. I inhaled the smell of Derrick’s hair and skin, breathing in the scent of warm summer days. The air invigorated my body, sending little shock waves down my spine, my arms, my legs. Derrick released me and brought both of us to standing.

  Scarb still filled the room. I had almost forgotten just how many were around us. The moment had seemed so private, like it was just Derrick and me in the crowded sea of violence. I gave Derrick one last look, letting him feel my gratitude, then I turned to face the queen. She had her back to us and was ranting at Iva, who was still bound by guards. Iva’s cheeks had an angry red hand print on the left side, and her hair hung in long red sheets over her drooped head.

  The queen raised her hand to strike Iva again.

  “Emerald,” I said simply, standing directly behind her. “You’re time is over.” Though my words were quiet they seemed to pierce her. Slowly and with wide eyes, she turned. Fire filled her pupils as she took me in.

  “You!” she snarled, and her raised hand turned into a gnarled fist. “I should’ve known you were too stubborn to die.” She clicked her teeth. “Well, I’ll just have to get rid of you myself.” She stepped toward me, so close that I could feel her breath as she hissed in my face. “When I do something, I don’t make mistakes.”

  I didn’t balk or even flinch at her closeness. “Your time is over Emerald. Give my brother back, and leave in peace.”

  “You will not take my c
olony from me!” she screamed in my ear, stomping her feet like an angry toddler. “Kill them!” she shouted to her soldiers. “Kill them all!” The room erupted again into chaotic battle at her command. She whipped her head back at me. “And now I’ll kill you.”

  Her pride ruled her. In that moment, I didn’t fear her. I pitied her.

  “You think you’re so much better than me.” She spat in my face. “You’re a swab!” she laughed wildly as she circled around me. I turned to keep her facing my front. My legs and arms tensed and readied for the moment she would make a move. “You’ll soon see that we can die, too, just like every other pathetic scarb who ever crawled on the dirt. You’re wrong, Cat. My time isn’t over. Yours is.”

  With that, she sprang back onto her heels and launched herself at my throat, fingers splayed. Dodging to the left, I threw her arms back with an upper block. She stumbled past but quickly regained composure. She threw her upper body back, catching herself with her arms and kicked at me with the long rows of black spikes on her calves. She swung her legs through the air fiercely, as if each spike was a dagger. I liked to fight like a human, not like some wild beetle on the floor. But one of her knees hit my lower back, and I flew several feet forward onto the ground. I jumped back up. Her right leg zinged past me through the air, the black barbs just inches from the tip of my nose. The barbs hit the ground instead, cracking the concrete floor.

  She snarled and flipped herself onto all fours, crouching like a leopard. She gnashed her teeth like she would like to take a bite out of me. She sprang through the air and made contact with my chest. She wrapped her arms around my torso as I held her by the hair to keep away from her chomping mouth. White spit frothed at her mouth. Tiny drops of it splattered my chin.

  I brought my knee up sharply to her stomach. Her body curled forward, and she released me.

  She panted, but was quickly back to standing. “You think you can defeat me?” she snarled. “I’ve been queen longer than any other in North America. That kind of strength comes from a ruthlessness and hunger you will never have. Your mercy is your weakness. It’ll lead to your destruction. There’s no such softness in me. I’ll make sure my kingdom continues on. I’ll kill you.”