Shadows of Divinity

by Luke Mitchell

  The effect was instant. She gasped and nearly collapsed onto me, eyes wide, panting with the exhaustion she hadn’t shown a moment earlier. “Hal, I—”

  “Gun,” I snapped, pointing to the weapon at her feet, sure now that I knew what had landed on the roof. Or who.

  “What?” She looked around, clearly disoriented.

  Mind-snatching had that effect.

  “Gun!” I shouted this time, sensing the incoming threat.

  Something clicked in Elise’s eyes. Then the rear window shattered, and Smirks swung in from the tram roof. He landed roughly in the pile of glass.

  Elise reached for the gun, but Smirks raised a hand, and the weapon sprang into the air toward him instead. Elise lashed out, lightning fast, and smacked the weapon down with her staff, then she lunged at Smirks, spinning into another strike.

  He thrust both hands in her direction and plowed her over with an invisible wave of force.

  The son of a bitch.

  I rolled to my feet, fear and rage and pain all swirling into something dangerous in my chest. Smirks slammed into my mental defenses, but I held firm. He yanked telepathically at the gun that had fallen under the seats to the left, but I caught it with telekinesis and fought him for it.

  Smirks wasn’t smirking now.

  For a long moment, we struggled on the two mental planes. Then I dropped my hold on the gun and lunged forward.

  He caught the gun. I caught his wrist, pushed the weapon aside, and drove a hard kick into his stomach. He doubled over with a grunt. I ripped the gun from his hand. Smacked him across the head with it. Kicked him again.

  He hit the rear wall of the tram, hands raised in pitiful defense, nearly toppling through the broken window. I pulled every last scrap of energy I could and helped the son of a bitch through. Or that’s what I meant to do, at least. Instead of flinging Smirks neatly through the open window, though, I plowed him straight through the tram’s rear door.

  He sailed from the tram with a strangled yell, promptly swallowed by darkness, the tram door flapping in the rushing wind as if in pleasant farewell.

  Then I hit the deck, exhaustion nearly robbing me of consciousness. Maybe it did for a moment. The next thing I knew, I was staring up into Elise’s beautiful blue eyes, trying to place why they were so wide, so frightened—why she was crouched over me, hands clasped nervously to her chest like she didn’t trust them.

  The tram was quiet but for the rush of air at the open rear. I raised my head and watched the dark tunnel behind us, replaying those last hectic moments in my mind.

  Had I just killed a man?

  I didn’t know. Somehow, I doubted Smirks would go down so easily. Maybe the more important question was whether I’d meant to kill him. Because when he’d attacked Elise…

  I pushed painstakingly into a sitting position and met her apprehensive gaze. She hovered there, teetering on the edge, then finally plunged forward and wrapped me in a desperate hug, burying her face in the crook of my neck. I wrapped my good arm around her, holding her tight, lost for words. She was trembling.

  “I couldn’t stop, Hal,” she whispered.

  I squeezed her tighter with my good arm. “It’s not your fault, Elise. It was Smirks. He… You’re okay now. We’re okay.”

  She shook her head lightly against my neck. “But the others…”

  I swallowed, unable to find the words. Unable to do much anything other than cling to her as reality set in and cold dread filled my insides. Because as much as I wanted to believe they’d found a way to fight their way out of Franco’s back there, what were the chances, really? Even Carlisle had his limits.

  For all I knew, our friends were all dead or captured. Which left us alone and on the run. Two teenagers. No resources. The Legion might already be tracking this tram line—might already be waiting for us at the end. And if they weren’t, Kublich would see to it we were hunted day and night. He’d find us. Just like the others. Just like my father. Find us and—

  Elise shifted against me, startling me from my thoughts, and pulled back just far enough to meet my gaze. I saw my fears reflected in her blue eyes. But there was something more underneath it. Determination. The resolve to make this right.

  She touched my cheek. My head wasn’t spinning anymore.

  “We’re okay, Lise,” I whispered, pulling her close again.

  She didn’t resist. Didn’t argue. Just settled to the tram deck with me, both of us staring out into the rushing darkness behind, searching for some inkling of reassurance as the lev tram hummed on, carrying us toward Alpha knew what manner of fate.

  But we were alive. We had each other.

  It would have to be enough.

  30

  Refugees

  Alpha bless Franco was the theme of the day, I decided, as I settled on the darkening woodland clearing below and began guiding the old but serviceable skimmer down for a landing. Alpha bless Franco once for being paranoid enough to keep a working escape tram beneath his home. Twice for leaving this old skimmer waiting in the dusty old underway station the tram had brought us to. And probably more than thrice for having the foresight to load said skimmer’s trunk with a neatly-packed kit of water, rations, and several other useful items for two young outlaws on the run.

  A few feet into the descent, I glanced over at Elise’s sleeping form, thought better of my manual control, and tapped on the autopilot’s landing sequence. Despite my hours of sim practice, I hadn’t exactly mastered the soft touch of skimmer flight, and the last thing I wanted to do right now was yank Elise out of sleep and right back to obsessing over the fate of the others.

  After a long day spent mostly in tense silence, waiting for the Legion to come crashing down around us any moment, we still had zero idea what had become of our people. It wasn’t like we could check the reels, or message them and ask. Falsified or not, the Legion would be closing in on tracking our palmlight IDs by now—assuming they hadn’t already scanned them back at Franco’s. Powering down our devices had been the first move we’d made once we’d gathered our senses back on the tram.

  From there, the path had been less clear. Franco kept another safe house in Divinity, according to Elise, but we’d both agreed that, once the Legion started digging, even Franco’s extensive precautions in hiding the place wouldn’t hold up indefinitely. It had felt like too much of a risk. So I’d proposed we head for Carlisle’s temple hideout to the south of Divinity—after taking the better part of the day to bury our tracks, so to speak.

  An enormous eastward detour along the Red River later, we’d skirted through the historic city of Humility—a place notoriously light in its Legion presence—then doubled back, crossing over the river to the dense forest wilds that dominated that side of the Red River for hundreds of miles. I’d hoped to make the old temple by nightfall, but, between avoiding the autonav and sticking to the cover of the wilds whenever possible, the going had been slow.

  Now, it was too dark to continue without lights or a night lens display, which this skimmer was too old to be equipped with. The distant lights of Divinity were still a good thirty or so miles northwest. Maybe we could’ve risked the skimmer lights. Maybe it’d been paranoid of me to disable the autonav back in Humility. But I’d seen one too many criminals hauled in by the enforcers for their tiny mistakes.

  Tonight, we’d camp in the skimmer. Tomorrow, we’d find the temple and, Alpha willing, our people too. I held my breath as the skimmer descended the last few feet to the grassy clearing, suddenly terrified that the landing would wake Elise. I couldn’t even say why. Maybe I just didn’t want to admit out loud that we were still every bit as blind and on the run as we had been that morning.

  The skimmer touched down, and Elise roused with a startled breath, glancing dazedly around at the thickening woodland darkness. “We’re there?”

  “Uh, not quite,” I said softly. “Close, though. Just didn’t wanna flip on the lights and make it easy for someone to spot us looking around for a secret
hideout over here.”

  “Ah. Wait, looking? As in, you don’t know where it is?”

  “I know the landmarks. I’ll be able to find it in the daylight. I think.”

  She looked less than convinced.

  I tried to smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve totally got this.”

  She softly laid forehead to palm. “I’m suddenly understanding where all those jokes about men and directions come from.”

  The day had left my mind short of witty replies, so I just went with, “Yeah, well, we should probably eat and get some rest. Some of us have been busy flying all afternoon.”

  In truth, I’d been more than happy to let her rest, especially after she’d spent the entire morning flying us. But after everything else today, the teasing was the only thing that seemed to feel normal—the only thing that had let either of us crack a smile since the tram.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled, apparently too tired for witty replies herself. She reached for the door latch. “Well, some of us need to empty our tiny lady bladders first, if the big strong man doesn’t protest.”

  She climbed out of the skimmer and shambled off into the darkness. I couldn’t help but smile a little, cheeks warming, as I thought about the big strong man comment.

  It had started at the end of our tram ride that morning, when I’d hopped straight into the driver’s seat of the waiting skimmer and palmed the starter panel to no avail. Again and again, I’d tried, until Elise had rapped on the window—nearly startlingly me out of my seat—and made a perfectly polite get out signal with her hooked thumb. I’d obliged, she’d taken my place, and the skimmer had groaned obediently to life moments later.

  Biometric access, I’d realized. Elise just insisted she had the magic touch. Which, in hindsight, had only made it that much more patronizing when I’d asked if she knew how to fly the thing.

  “I do,” she’d said, nodding very seriously. “The big strong men taught me how.”

  Amidst the stammering stream of apologetic clarifications that’d followed, she’d tapped the console and, holding my gaze while the skimmer lifted off, added that the skimmer had a full autopilot suite, and that she thought we might just be okay if only her big strong man could get the door for her, please.

  Despite everything, we’d both been smiling by the time we pulled out.

  It hadn’t lasted long, and we’d barely talked since then—about the others, or anything else. Tonight, I expected, we might. But today, we’d just needed to survive.

  It was maddening, not knowing whether the others were hurt, captured, or worse. The thought of losing Carlisle with my parents so fresh off the pyre was simply too much for me to stomach for more than a few seconds at a time. I could only imagine how Elise was feeling. I glanced at our deactivated palmlights for the millionth time that day, itching to power mine up and check the reels for news. But it was too dangerous.

  Instead, I climbed out of the skimmer and went to take my turn in the woods. Afterwards, shyly using the skimmer as a partition, we attempted to wash some of the day’s grime off with a bit of water and swapped what dirty clothes we could for the clean spares from the trunk.

  “Leave the tunic,” she said quietly, coming around the skimmer with alcohol and fresh bandages for my wounds.

  I let her work without complaint, glad for her touch, for her scent—the scent that reminded me of the way her lips had felt against mine, even as we’d prepared to face death together. Glad again for the cover of night as she looked up to meet my eyes and the heat in my cheeks intensified.

  Supper was more water and dried rations, leaned up together against the open trunk in the deepening darkness. It was a moonless night, with barely a star to see. Nothing but the mechanical act of swallowing the food I barely tasted, and the simple reassurance of Elise’s shoulder pressed to mine.

  Finally, we pulled the blankets from the trunk, blessing Franco once again for his uncanny provision, and went to make camp for the night in the skimmer.

  Goodfellow that I am, I insisted Elise take the back seat of the skimmer, which was much more conducive to stretching out. Astute observer that she was, she noted that I was in far worse shape than she, and that she wasn’t so sure my man bits—chivalrous and gargantuan as they so clearly must be—would even fit up front anyway.

  She dropped into the front passenger seat before I could protest.

  Grateful and warm of cheek, I crawled into the back and spent a few minutes shifting around until I found a reasonably comfortable arrangement. Then, for a while, I simply enjoyed the pleasure of not moving. I found myself wishing for a little starlight. As far-removed from the city as we were, the darkness was disconcertingly complete. I practically couldn’t see the hand I held a few inches from my face.

  Rivaling the darkness was the silence. Even at the temple, there’d been the low thrum of the electronics, the cycler, the occasional firing of the generator. Outside, in the clearing, there was little but the occasional hoot or rustle of the woodland nightlife. Inside the skimmer, it was almost dead silent. Silent enough that I became uncomfortably conscious of my every movement, of every breath that hung between us.

  I could feel Elise there in the darkness, in a way I was pretty sure had nothing to do with my extended senses. Just the two of us, I couldn’t help point out to myself, as if I could somehow forget. Just the two of us, together alone in the dark night.

  When I’d climbed into the skimmer to lie down, I’d expected a long, sleepless night of worrying about our friends and what we should do next. Now, though, I couldn’t seem to think about anything but how close she was lying.

  I should have been thinking about Carlisle, planning for tomorrow, troubleshooting every possible contingency I could think of. But there was nothing for it. All I knew was that Elise and I were separated by only a few feet of darkness and that, for some reason, it was important I keep the sound of my breathing inaudible, as if the simple need for oxygen had somehow become embarrassing in our quiet closeness.

  It was the hardest I’ve ever thought about breathing in my life.

  Elise was equally quiet, and though I couldn’t see her, the tension in the air somehow told me she was as restless as I was. Slowly, as if scared my shifting mind might rustle and give me away, I reached my senses out to feel for her. She broke the silence just before I made it.

  “Hal?”

  Her voice was soft, uncertain, and there was something in it that made my heart pick up.

  “I’m here,” I said, just as quietly.

  Another silence. Then there was rustling in the front, and my seat sank as she propped a hand by my chest. More scrambling, more rustling, and then she slid onto the back seat alongside me, not quite touching. I could feel her there, balanced on her side, hesitating, recalculating.

  My heart was hammering, though I couldn’t say exactly why. I wanted to say something, to reach out and pull her in, but I couldn’t seem to move. Something was different in the silence between us. Something foreign to me.

  Just when I was sure she’d abandon whatever flight of fancy had brought her back here, I felt her shift. Then my heart leapt as I felt her peeling away my blanket. Swinging her leg over mine. Straddling me. I couldn’t breathe. Then her reaching hand found my tender right shoulder in the darkness, and I hissed in pain.

  “Sorry!” she whispered. “Sorry. I, uh…” I felt her hovering over me, afraid to set her weight down. She was about to leave. I’m not sure how I knew it, I just did.

  I didn’t know what to do. I reached blindly for her cheek in the dark, not understanding what this moment was, or why it was happening. I just didn’t want it to end. Instead of the smooth cheek I’d been expecting, though, my hand encountered the soft roundness of her right breast. My cheeks caught fire. I pulled my hand back, an apology forming on my lips. Elise’s hand found mine in the dark and pushed it back against the swell of her chest. Then I gasped as she settled her weight down, straddled on top of me.

  “Elise,” I whisp
ered.

  “Hal,” she whispered back, close enough now that the warmth of her breath tickled at my cheek. “I…”

  Beneath the soft heaven of her breast, I felt her heart beating against my palm and realized with a shock that it was racing every bit as fast as mine. Then she kissed me, and I thought of little else.

  Her hands cradled the back of my head, pulling me hungrily in. I wrapped my good arm around the small of her back, pulling her tight against me, guided by some raw urgency I’d never known, awakening deep in my veins now. Her hips moved against mine, and my entire body roared for me to take control, to do something. She broke from our kiss to plant a trail of smaller ones across my jaw, to my ear, to my neck.

  I could barely breathe.

  This girl. To feel her against me… For a second, all I could think of was the first day we’d met beside that painting. The first night we’d snuck to her room and talked until the early morning hours. I’d wanted to kiss her then. Wanted her more than anything now. More than I knew what to do with.

  I kissed her. Grasped without knowing what I was grasping for. Pulled her desperately to me, breathing her in. She didn’t smell like flowers and perfume. Her scent was real, and tinged with pain. I wanted to take it away. Wanted nothing but the two of us alone in the world.

  My hips were moving against hers on their own now. Before I knew it, her shirt had come off, and it was her smooth skin beneath my fingertips, and then we were scrambling to tear off what clothes remained. I cursed my blue sling as it got in the way, ignoring the pain, terrified my awkward struggle was ruining the moment. But Elise helped me, planting one soft kiss after another across my body as we fumbled the tunic off in the darkness.

  It was only when the bare skin of my body was pressed to the intimate warmth of hers that we grew still and seemed to remember who we were and what we were doing. I held my breath, heart hanging in my throat. Was this really happening?