Phoenix

by Elizabeth Richards

  Silence from Sebastian. Then, “Let me see those prisoners. Take off their hoods.”

  No, no, no, no, no!

  “There’s really no need for that,” Harold says quickly.

  The guard rips off Stuart’s hood. He looks fearfully from the guard to Harold. I’m so relieved Amy did some of her makeup magic and added fake bruises and cuts to our faces, to help disguise us. Good thinking, Amy.

  “Been beating them up, eh?” the silver-haired guard jokingly says to Harold, assuming this is the reason he doesn’t want the hoods taken off.

  “Yes, well, I had to restrain them somehow,” he says.

  The silver-haired guard reaches out a hand and starts lifting my hood up. A million escape plans run through my mind as the material inches up my face.

  “Don’t! She’ll bite your hand off, that one,” Harold says in a rush.

  The hood is getting higher and higher. It’s reached my chin, lips, soon Sebastian will recognize me—

  “Give me my fragging Evacuation Pass!” the man from earlier yells, running back toward us, the two Sentry guards racing after him.

  The hood drops back over my head.

  The silver-haired guard and Sebastian subdue the man while one of the other guards leads the three of us onto the Transporter, leaving Harold behind to watch us go. My heart is still racing. It’s as hot as an oven in the crowded aircraft, and sweat instantly rolls down my back as I sit on the metal bench. Our ankles are shackled to prevent us from trying to escape. The guard walks away.

  “That was close,” Elijah’s muffled voice says beside me.

  “Too close,” I mumble through my hood.

  The little girls I saw earlier are sitting opposite me, and the younger one is crying again. Her sister attempts to console her, and my heart aches as I think about Polly and how she would comfort me when I was upset. I vow to free those girls if I can.

  A moment later, the aircraft’s hatch is shut and the engines turn on. People start crying and wailing; some even pray as the Transporter lifts off. This will be the last time they see Black City. Their next destination will be their final resting place.

  Two seats away, a skinny woman with strings of blond hair and the black veins of a Hazer is having a full-on hysteria attack, her screams filling the cabin.

  “I’m not meant to be here! You’ve made a mistake!” she wails, even though the pilot isn’t listening.

  The bumpy journey to the Destroyer Ship takes only a few minutes, but it’s enough to cause most of the passengers to throw up. The stench is unreal, and I only just manage to rip my hood off in time to puke all over Elijah’s feet. He tears off his hood.

  “I’m sorry,” I say in a rush. As the Bastet Consul’s son, he’d be more used to girls throwing rose petals at his feet, not vomit.

  He lightly takes my hands in his, startling me. His hands are so hot, the way mine feel after I’ve been warming them over a fire. The gold bands around his wrists glimmer, and I focus on them, finding it soothing.

  “The air’s thinner up here. It makes everyone feel sick.” He inspects the mess splashed all over his feet. “Did you have carrots for breakfast?”

  I laugh. It’s a bit of a hysterical sound, just like the crazy lady two seats down from me, but it’s just what I need to calm my growing nerves. I’m starting to think Elijah’s exactly the sort of person I need around me during a crisis.

  We undo each other’s binds, then help Stuart with his, removing his hood in the process. Stuart and I take off our robes to reveal the Sentry guard uniforms hidden underneath, which Roach and Beetle managed to obtain for us last night. The two little girls stare at us with bug-eyed wonder. We wipe the makeup off our faces, and I pull back my hair so I look older and more serious. I shove the robes and spare hoods under the bench, tucking one hood in my pocket to use as a disguise for Polly.

  “Elijah, if you’d do the honors,” I say, lifting up the chain shackling my feet to the ground.

  He bites down on the chain with his saber teeth. It takes a few attempts before the links break and my feet are freed. He does the same with Stuart. Many of the prisoners are staring at us now. A boy around eighteen years old, with shaggy brown hair, alabaster skin and startling green eyes, leans toward me and shows me the Cinder Rose tattoo on his wrist. I show him mine.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  “Rescue mission,” I reply.

  “Are you going to save us?” he says.

  I nod, unable to say the lie out loud.

  The sliver of light from the cockpit disappears as we enter the Destroyer Ship, plunging the cabin into total darkness. Now everyone begins to scream, yanking at their shackles. The Transporter judders as it docks in the Destroyer Ship. There’s a blast of cold air, and light floods the cabin as the hatch is opened.

  We’re inside a cargo bay in the main envelope of the airship. I knew Destroyer Ships were big, but now that we’re inside one, I’m overwhelmed by its size. How are we ever going to find Polly in here?

  A young male guard with slicked-back hair enters the cabin and stops when he sees me and Stuart. The name tag on his chest reads VICTOR. Blood pounds in my ears. The prisoners around us watch silently, but no one says anything to give us away.

  “What are you doing here? This isn’t normal protocol,” Victor asks.

  “We’re escorting this creature,” I say, pointing to Elijah. “It attacked one of the guards, so they told us to bring it up with the others.”

  Elijah dramatically roars and snaps his saber teeth at Stuart.

  “Get down,” Stuart bellows, slapping Elijah across the face.

  Elijah’s golden eyes flash with genuine anger, but he sits down, playing along.

  “Sebastian didn’t radio this up to me,” Victor says.

  “He’s a busy man,” I reply. “I guess he forgot.”

  Victor considers this. “Who did the cat bite? Please tell me it was Holden.”

  I laugh, like I’m in on the joke. “No, it was some newbie called Wadsworth.”

  Victor looks disappointed, but he seems to have bought our story. He starts to unshackle the prisoners. When he reaches the hysterical woman, she starts babbling at him.

  “You’ve made a mistake—I love Purian Rose! I voted in favor of segregation,” she says. “Please, let me go. I’m not like these other race traitors!”

  “That’s what they’ve all been saying,” Victor replies, removing the chains.

  The hysterical woman springs to her feet, startling Victor long enough to push past him and run out of the hatch. She makes it twenty feet before he shoots her between the shoulder blades. She collapses to the ground midstride, her blood splashing across the floor. Victor strolls over to her and kicks her onto her back. She’s still alive, although blood gurgles out of her mouth as she silently pleads for her life. He drags her toward the hatch in the cargo bay. I watch, transfixed, as he opens up the air lock and tosses her out into the sky.

  He returns to the prison Transporter.

  “Anyone else thinking of running away? If so, you know where the door is.” He waits a moment, but no one stirs. “Get up,” he orders.

  The prisoners all stand, subdued by the horror of what they just saw, and obediently shuffle out of the aircraft. There are scores of armed guards patrolling the cargo bay, monitoring the traffic. Transporters come and go in a steady stream, dropping prisoners off. All the ships are named Roselyn, like ours, but have different numbers. I notice Roselyn 403 seems to be loading prisoners back on it. Strangely, all of them are pretty girls and boys. Victor catches me looking.

  “They’re special orders for Centrum,” he says, winking at me.

  My stomach churns when I realize what he means. The guards must have a nice little sideline selling those kids to the highest bidder.

  We’re ushered out of the cargo
bay and down a long corridor leading to the prison deck.

  “I’ve not seen you around here before,” Victor says as we walk down the passageway. He eyes me up and down. “I would’ve remembered someone as pretty as you.”

  I smile, but inside I’m cringing. “I just transferred here.”

  “Well, if you need anyone to show you around, I’ll be happy to do it,” Victor says. “Maybe we can get a drink sometime?”

  “Maybe,” I mutter.

  Victor smiles. “Let’s chat later.”

  “Can’t wait,” I say as he goes to the front of the group.

  I hang back with Elijah and Stuart. I notice a steady drop-off in security as we near the prison deck. It seems most of the guards are posted around the cargo bay—this ship’s only exit. It’s good in one way: it’ll be easier to move around as we search for Polly. Not so great when we need to make our escape.

  “When we reach the prison deck, we need to head to the bow of the ship,” Stuart whispers to me. “That’s where we located the signal.”

  We head down a flight of stairs and enter the prison deck. This part of the aircraft is dank and dark, lit only by a few amber lights hanging overhead.

  We wait for our opportunity to escape. It comes a few moments later, when Victor turns down a corridor to our left, momentarily losing sight of us.

  “Now,” I say.

  We peel off down another corridor, leading toward the bow of the ship, and immediately come face-to-face with a group of Sentry guards leaning against the silver walls, on their coffee break. Panic flares inside me. Act normal. I nod at them as we pass, praying they don’t notice how badly my hands are shaking. They carry on talking, ignoring us. I let out a relieved breath.

  “The signal was coming from around here somewhere,” Stuart says, pushing open a heavy steel door.

  We enter a small control room, crammed with digital screens, a com-desk, a key rack and various filing cabinets. On one of the screens is an image of Polly tied to a chair.

  “Which cell is she in?” I ask.

  Stuart hurries over to the com-desk. His fingers fly over the keys, pulling up files, searching through the data, while Elijah waits by the doorway, looking out for Sentry guards.

  “Do you see anything?” I ask, my nerves building.

  He scans through another file.

  “Yes! Here!” he says, jabbing a finger at the com-desk. “She’s in cell two-ten. It’s just down the corridor.”

  I spin on my heel, ready to run. Elijah grabs my arm.

  “Wait! We need to make a recording of the live feed first,” Elijah says.

  “Yes . . . yes, of course. Sorry,” I say.

  Stuart needs to record sixty seconds of the live feed, which he’ll loop and broadcast so no one knows Polly is missing when they do the next hourly broadcast, which is due in—I check my antique watch—five minutes!

  “Hurry up,” I say.

  I tap my foot, ball my hands into fists, do anything I can to force myself not to run down the corridor to Polly.

  Stuart stops pressing the keys on the com-desk and looks up at me, his face ashen.

  “What is it?” I say.

  “Can’t you break into the feed?” Elijah asks.

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll just grab her and go,” I say.

  Stuart shakes his head. “It’s not that. I broke into the feed . . .”

  “Then what is it?” I say, fear rising.

  “The footage of Polly . . .” He licks his lips. “It already is a recording.”

  The ground seems to slip from under my feet as it sinks in, what he means. I snatch the cell key from the rack on the wall and rush out of the room, my heart racing, not wanting to believe.

  “Natalie, wait!” Elijah says.

  I find cell 210 and unlock the door.

  Red.

  The floor, the ceiling, the walls.

  Red as the rose painted on a burning wall.

  And curled up in the middle of it all is a small ball of white, frozen in death.

  I fall to my knees.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realize my sister has been dead for at least a day.

  13.

  NATALIE

  I BARELY REGISTER the others entering the cell. I gently lift Polly’s body and cradle her in my arms. Cold leaches from her skin, seeping through my veins, turning them to ice. Her usually glossy black hair is stiff with blood, and I carefully untangle it with my fingers, knowing she’d hate looking such a mess.

  Something is clutched in her pale hand, and I carefully pry her fingers open. A small, rose-shaped silver medal falls to the floor. I only know one person in Black City with a medal like that. Sebastian. I glance at her bruised thighs, and bile rises up in my throat, realizing what he did. He tried doing it to me once. I wince as if a knife had cut deep within me, making my insides bleed, pour out. The pain is unbearable.

  Stuart stands by the doorway, his eyes fixed on his feet, while Elijah sits beside me. His hand finds mine. Its warmth slowly melts the ice in my veins, bringing me back to cruel reality.

  “We need to go,” he says.

  The thought of leaving Polly here makes my throat constrict.

  “We have to take her,” I whisper.

  “We can’t carry her. She’ll draw too much attention,” he replies softly.

  He’s right of course.

  “But she’ll be all alone,” I say.

  “She’s not really here, not anymore,” he says.

  I don’t know if I believe in a heaven, but the thought of her surrounded by our lost loved ones makes it easier to let her go somehow. I lay her down and carefully arrange her hair around the remains of her face. I whisper a promise in my sister’s ear.

  “Are you ready?” Elijah asks.

  I try to stand, but the weight of my grief crushes down on my shoulders. Elijah places a strong arm around my waist and takes some of the burden off me, lifting me to my feet. We go into the corridor and shut the cell door, closing the lid on my sister’s coffin.

  “What do we do now?” Stuart asks.

  “We’re going to free those kids we saw on the Transporter,” I say.

  I stride down the corridor, not waiting to hear their protests. I’m a raging inferno, fueled by anger, and nothing is going to stop me now. Purian Rose killed my sister, and now I’m going to make him pay for it, one act of rebellion at a time, until Centrum is nothing but burning rubble around his feet. That’s the promise I made to Polly.

  We reach the corridor Victor turned down.

  “Hang back here, out of sight. I’ll return in a minute,” I say.

  I round the corner. The communal cell is packed with prisoners, their arms stretching out of the bars, begging for water. There’s no air-conditioning on the prison deck, so the heat is overwhelming, and many of the prisoners are swaying, ready to collapse. On one side of the cell is a stack of dead bodies, mostly elderly people who died from heat exhaustion.

  I purposefully walk up to one of the armed guards by the cell doors. He’s a beefy man with a goatee. I don’t feel afraid. There’s no room inside me for any emotion other than blind fury.

  “I have special orders from Centrum,” I say to him.

  He grins and unlocks the cell door, escorting me inside.

  “What are you looking for?” he says. “How about a pretty redhead?”

  A teenage girl around fourteen years old stares up at me with luminous blue eyes.

  “Yes, she’ll be good,” I say, scanning the room for the two little girls who were on my Transporter. I find them huddled together, being looked after by the teenage boy with the shaggy brown hair and green eyes. “Those three.”

  “Really? Fragg, those Centrum types like them young, don’t they?” the guard says, looking at the younger of the two gi
rls. “She can’t be more than seven years old.”

  “It’s not my concern, as long as they pay us, right?” I say.

  He nods, idly scratching his goatee. “You tell Patrick that he still owes us for those Darkling twins. It’s not my fault one of them died.”

  “Sure,” I reply. Patrick? He must be the man sorting out all the deals in Centrum. I make a mental note to hunt him down and make him pay for this.

  I search for more children. There are so many. How can I choose who gets to live and who dies? Impulsively, I decide to pick the children who don’t have their parents with them, because they’re the most vulnerable. I end up with five more girls and three boys. I want to take more, but that will start raising suspicion.

  “That’s my quota,” I say to the guard, and he escorts us out of the cell.

  The green-eyed boy with shaggy brown hair flashes me a thankful look.

  I turn to the guard. “Give those people some water, will you? These kids are practically dead—we’ll be lucky to get them to Centrum. Patrick’s not paying for corpses, you know.”

  “Yeah, all right,” the goateed guard says.

  It’s not much, but it’s something, at least. I escort the children around the corner and meet up with Elijah and Stuart.

  “There’re so many of them,” Stuart says.

  “I wasn’t going to leave them,” I reply. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

  Stuart takes the back of the pack while I take the lead, holding Elijah’s upper arm as if I’m escorting a prisoner. The green-eyed boy, who tells me his name is Nick, talks soothingly to the little girls, Bree and Bianca, trying to keep them calm.

  “We’re playing a game,” he says to them.

  “What game?” Bree, says.

  “It’s called Prisoner. We’re all pretending to be convicts, and these are our friends, helping us to get out of here,” he says. “The aim of the game is to sneak onto an aircraft without getting caught. Can you do that?”

  Bree looks at her older sister, then nods. “I’m very good at games.”

  “That’s good,” Nick replies.

  Bianca keeps petting Elijah’s tail, not that he seems to mind. He’s more concerned with looking at me. I wish he’d stop. I don’t want his sympathy, because I don’t want to be reminded why my insides are being torn apart.