The Fire Unseen

by Andrew C Jaxson

  I pressed flat against the wall and ground, trying to disappear into the corner where the weatherboards met the earth. Light blazed through the screen door across the paving, cutting me off from the others. I couldn’t go back, and the others couldn’t come forward. I was on my own.

  The shadow moved from the window and entered the light of the doorframe. Hackman and Rachel crawled for cover, and I backed away as fast as I could, unable to turn around for fear of being seen. The door hissed open as I turned the corner. Footsteps came my way. Keeping low, I crouched and ran, hoping Hackman and Rachel would meet me around the front.

  This side had four more windows, and the one in the middle was barred. I didn’t have long, but I had to make the most of this. I leaped up to the barred window as I ran and caught a glimpse of a figure asleep in bed. She was facing away from me, but I could tell she was older. And her hair was red.

  Mum.

  I couldn’t stop. The footsteps were not yet around the corner behind me, but they were coming fast. There was no cover on this side of the house except for a rusted truck a short sprint away. My feet slid on the driveway stones, and I ran for it, diving into the truck’s bed. I lay flat and tried to keep my breathing quiet.

  A torch switched on, lighting up the top of the trees. It was pointing away from me, so I dared to lift my head to glance over the side of the truck. A man was walking toward the pine trees with purpose. He was heading for the others.

  I found a small rock next to me in the truck bed, and threw it as hard as I could towards the entrance of the drive. The clatter got the man’s attention, and he walked away from the trees, towards the front fence. Dark blobs crept under the trees. Rachel and Hackman. I’d saved them. For now.

  The torch arced back my way, and I ducked again.

  “Hello?” the man called.

  I was caught. There was only one way out of this.

  The field of corn had looked dry. Maybe it was just dry enough. I prayed the team were already running. They would be in a moment, regardless.

  I looked through the truck’s windscreen towards the field we’d used as cover, tuning in to a stalk of corn. It was challenging—the organic matter had a howling resonance that hurt my head. I raised the tuning fast, and smoke rose from the base of the stalk. I was far away, but a small glow flickered alive. The field belonged to the next farm. Hopefully, they were insured.

  The glow caught the figure’s eye, and he ran towards it. If I stopped now, he would know the Kindred were here, and they’d evacuate the safe house. I had a few more things to do before then.

  I slipped out of the truck and cracked the door open. No one ever locked their cars around here. I took the handbrake off, put it in neutral, and pushed it in reverse as fast as I could. It hurtled down a small slope towards the silos before smashing into the base of the largest one.

  Time to complete the ruse. I grabbed a rock and hurled it through the window, yelling and laughing and swearing as loud as I could. Lights went on inside the house.

  “Did you see that?” I screamed to my imaginary gang of friends and then swore at the house. “Get out of here, damn squatters! Get your own home!”

  I ran hard, legs windmilling as I got away as fast as possible. They wouldn’t follow a gang of teens vandalising an abandoned house, and they definitely wouldn’t do it while the field was on fire. They would have to scramble to hide evidence and clean up before the fire brigade arrived. Hopefully, they wouldn’t evacuate the house altogether. I ran for the silos on the opposite side of the driveway.

  As I rounded the corner, hands grabbed me. I fought them off.

  “Stop it!” Hackman whispered. “Follow me.”

  We scrambled through the field, keeping the silos between us and the house. By the time we reached the road, I was wheezing, the air thick with smoke. Red lights flickered next to the field. The firefighters had arrived to get the blaze under control.

  The Kindred van pulled up beside us, driven by Vicki. “Get in!”

  It took me a moment to catch my breath as we sped away. “They’re in there.” I panted. “We found my family.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The ceiling had seven pipes. Three electrical, two water, and two I wasn’t sure about. The light was out, but the residual light from the hallway cast deep shadows across the rough stone surface of the ceiling. In the corner, the camera glared at me with its little red light.

  I rolled over. Since we’d returned, I hadn’t slept, too amped from adrenaline but even more so from the hope that soon my family and I would be reunited. When we’d gotten back, Hackman had gone straight to meet with someone important, probably the Mother, and we all shuffled off to our rooms to stare at the ceiling. The others might’ve been asleep, but I was far from it. I should have been exhausted, as it was nearly dawn and my body was aching. My eyes burned, but my mind was buzzing.

  I gave up on sleep and went for a walk. Fresh air felt suddenly essential. If I was quick, I could probably catch the sunrise from out on the secret ledge. Rachel was probably still sleeping, so I went by myself.

  I snuck out of my room towards the training ground. The patrols were drowsy and didn’t notice me cross the Apex, and I found the hidden entrance and made it through the passage with no trouble.

  As I neared the end, the light bouncing in was brighter than usual, a deep blue rather than the milky white of moonlight. The sun was about to rise.

  Just before the end of the tunnel, I came to a dead stop. Ahead, a black figure stood against purple sky, silhouetted in the mouth of the cave. I panicked for a moment, but the shape was human, not Shadow.

  “Hello?” It was Rachel.

  I opened my mouth to answer her, but she spoke again. She wasn’t talking to me.

  “They’ve identified the safe house, and the attack is tomorrow night, just before dawn. There’ll be three units, two on either side of the property and one through the front.” She was on some sort of phone, but it was big and bulky, not like the phones in shops. “I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you earlier. There was no opportunity.”

  A pause. My heart thumped in my ears, and I felt sick.

  “No. You can’t relocate, not yet. Get the target out by midnight; the others will have to stay and fight. They overheard Jacobs talking; they know there’s a mole. Only a handful of Kindred know about this operation, and if the place is evacuated too early, they’ll suspect me. I don’t feel like dying today. By the way, tell Jacobs to watch his mouth.”

  A longer pause.

  “Ari? She doesn’t know. I’m not sure she’s ready. If she’s as important as you say, we’ve got to get our timing right. Her family are alive, but if it’s up to the boss, they’re not going to stay that way.”

  I wanted to shove her off the cliff and be done with it. The girl I trusted, my only friend in here besides Josh, had been working behind my back from the beginning. For all I knew, she was responsible for the attack on my house. Hell, she might have killed Noah.

  How many more times would my trust be betrayed? Nathan from the hospital, Rachel, even Noah had lied. Who else would it be? The Unseen had taken the best parts of my life away, and they were taking my faith in people with them. Bile burned my throat, but I swallowed hard. As much as I now hated Rachel and everything about her, I had to play this smart. If I did something drastic now, we wouldn’t be able to use her. Hackman would know what to do.

  Her call ended, and she moved to come inside. I slipped back into the tunnels, praying I could stay far enough ahead that she wouldn’t hear me. If she caught me farther in the tunnel, I could pretend I was coming out, but this close to the entrance she would know I’d overheard. She would probably kill me to protect her secret. I had to be alive to make sure she paid for this, even if I had to kill her myself.

  I made it to the training ground and hid behind a cubicle. I watched her leave, calmly walking around the outside of the cavern as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t just sold out me and my family. As if she
wasn’t a poisonous, backstabbing bitch. She closed the door to the Apex, and I waited long enough for her to make it to her room.

  Retreating to my room to figure out my next move, I glanced in Rachel’s window before I went in. She had gone straight to sleep. She looked so peaceful that for a moment I forgot how evil she really was. It was all suddenly very hard to believe. Had I misheard her conversation? Was I missing something important? I wanted to believe so. Still, no matter how many laps I did of my room, how much I paced, how many times I ran her words over in my mind, the truth was undeniable.

  Now what? I had to act quickly, before the Unseen moved my family. A part of me was torn. Should I confront Rachel directly, give her a chance to explain herself? I desperately wanted to believe I’d heard her wrong, that there was something else going on. Of course, if I did confront her and she really was Unseen, she might kill me on the spot—burn me from the inside out and throw my body off the cliff.

  Others began to wake and move about the corridors, casting shadows across my wall. It was time to act.

  I made my way to Hackman’s door and knocked. He was bleary eyed and had obviously been asleep. “Ari, you’re shaking. Is everything all right?”

  I was shivering, rippling with adrenaline. There are moments in our lives that define us, moments that change everything. After these moments, nothing is ever quite the same. Part of me knew this was one of them, and my body was reacting.

  “Last night, when we heard about the traitor.” I stopped.

  He sat down on the edge of his bed and leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “Yes?”

  I told him what I’d overheard. When I finished, his eyes glared bullets.

  “How sure are you?”

  “I know what I heard, but I could be wrong about what it means. I thought you’d know what to do.”

  “I see. Thank you for coming to me with this. Stay here and lock the door. I’ll be back soon.” He strode out of the room, and I followed his instructions, a sick fog in my stomach. I sat down on a metal chair in the corner of the room and stared at the wall, not sure what to do or even think. My eyes were heavy, and I fell asleep in the chair.

  A knock shocked me awake, and I jumped to my feet. I creaked open the door. Hackman stood at the entrance, eyes dark.

  “We confronted Rachel, but she’s not talking despite our best interrogation. It’s clear she’s guilty, but we have nothing so far. We would like you to speak to Rachel directly. Talk to her, tell her what you heard. Once confronted with the reality that we have proof, she may be more willing to open up.”

  I followed him out of his room and across the Apex, into the west wing. We went to the end of the corridor and down another flight of stairs, descending into a basement level. This floor was horrible. Dark, cold, padded rooms crawled past as we marched steadily along. Cameras covered every corner of every room, creating enough interference to prevent just about anyone from using their abilities. One door was closed and bolted from the outside, but someone was making noise moving about in there. The windows were shuttered and locked, so I couldn’t see in.

  We entered the room at the very end of the corridor, and I felt sick. The room was dark, except for one hanging light that cast deep shadows on the walls—and over Rachel. She was slumped in a chair, cable ties cutting deep into her wrists. Red poured out of a cut over one eye, and her cheek was swollen and purple-black. Her lips were split, and her neck had dark finger marks on it. She’d been choked at some point, but she was still breathing.

  It looked like two of her fingers were broken, and her pants were covered with sticky blood, hopefully just from her eye. There was an IV drip in her arm. A bag of clear liquid trickled slowly through the drip.

  A man stood behind her, bright red spray covering his jeans, shirt, and fists. I had seen him around before. His name was Dominic.

  I looked at Hackman, horrified. He returned my gaze, steady and unflinching. “Talk to her.”

  I stepped slowly forward. She raised her head, eyes barely able to open.

  “Rachel?” I said.

  You have no idea what you’ve done,” she said, her words slurring.

  “What I’ve done? I heard you, Rachel. I heard you call them. I heard you tell them to move my family.”

  She spat, clearing the blood from her mouth. “You have no idea what you’ve done!” Her voice rose to a screech.

  “Where are they?” I yelled. “Why are you doing this?”

  She grinned, a dark smile spreading across her face, exposing teeth that swam in bloodied gums. “You’ve clearly chosen your team,” she said, her voice cold, “and I chose mine. We both have to live with that now.”

  “Answer her question!” Dominic barked, punching her hard in the back. Something cracked, and she arched her back, screaming.

  I staggered into the hallway for air, my head swimming from the violence and the sick smell of blood. What kind of hell was this war? Despite her betrayal, somehow, I still felt Rachel was my friend. It made no sense—feelings almost never do—but I still cared about her. I wanted justice, not torture. If the Kindred were the good guys, just how bad must the Unseen be?

  Hackman joined me, putting his arm around my shoulders. It was the first genuine act of compassion I’d seen from him, and it felt awkward and uncomfortable, like watching a dog walk on its hind legs. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He pulled his arm away and sat against the wall. I joined him, and he spoke softly. “This war. This fight. It’s more important than any of us.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s about the whole of history, the whole planet. So many people have fought, so many have died for our cause.”

  “I know! But I can’t be as detached and cold as you can. It’s my family we’re talking about. There’s no way you could understand what I’m going through!”

  He lowered his head, and I apologised. That was too far.

  “It’s all right,” he replied. “Losing Noah was ... Most nights I can’t sleep. It’s like a part of me has been ripped out, like something in my soul has died. Thinking that maybe it was all for a purpose, that maybe his death will serve the greater good—it’s the only way I don’t break down completely. I have to be detached, for the sake of everyone.” He put his hand on mine. “For you.”

  I shifted under his stare. He was grieving, I understood that. But it was weird seeing him so vulnerable. I wasn’t sure I liked it, and I was tense until he pulled his hand away.

  He pointed to Rachel’s cell. “That is the only way we’re going to get answers. It’s the only way to make good come from Noah’s death, and the only way to protect our cause. It’s certainly the only way we’re going to get your family back.”

  He was right, as much as I didn’t want him to be. If I was being truly honest, a tiny part of me enjoyed watching Rachel suffer for her crimes. To punctuate my thought, a scream shot out from the holding room. Then another. And a third. There was nothing for a moment, and then a sob. A battle raged in my head and heart between compassion and revenge. If I wanted her to pay, I needed to become the kind of person who was okay with the consequences. I couldn’t have one without the other.

  More screaming. Way more, animal in its intensity. The kind of scream that has broken through humanity into primal fear. It was horrifying, and it didn’t stop.

  I covered my ears but couldn’t block it out. Finally, I couldn’t take any more and got up to leave. As I stood, dead silence filled the hallway. The door creaked open, and Dominic stepped through, blood dripping off his hands. “She wants to see you,” he told me. “Alone.”

  At least that meant she was still alive. I looked at Hackman, and he nodded.

  I stepped inside, and the smell was once again overwhelming. Rachel’s head was slumped over. She looked dead, apart from her chest slowly moving up and down.

  “Rachel?”

  She nodded.

  “You wanted to see me?” I could barely hear he
r response, so I crept forward. “I can’t hear you.”

  “I said get down,” she croaked.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “In about twenty seconds, you will.”

  My eyes widened. “What have you done?”

  “My fail-safe is about to activate,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “It’s my insurance policy. If I don’t reset it every twenty-four hours, bad things happen. Judging by the time I saw on Dominic’s watch, that’s about twelve seconds from now. So. Get. Down.”

  I ran for the door as Rachel counted. “Ten.”

  I yelled at Hackman to evacuate. He jumped to his feet and gave the order.

  Turning back to Rachel, I screamed, “Turn it off!”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Five.”

  Crossing the room, I slapped her. “Turn it off now!”

  “Get down. Two.”

  I didn’t hear her reach one.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The roar was deafening, like being inside a jet engine. Heat blistered my skin. I coughed up smoke and tried to stand, but my leg was pinned under a slab of concrete. It didn’t feel broken, but the slab was too heavy to lift. Flames were building, shooting from a gas pipe dislocated by the blast. If it split any more, I was dead.

  The cameras watching Rachel were broken, or at least offline. I focused on the concrete slab and raised the resonance as high as I could, shielding my face. The slab split apart, shooting debris and dust in all directions. Time to run before anything else collapsed.

  Rachel lay crumpled and unconscious in the corner. I could leave her to die. That would be easy. But she still had answers, and for some reason, she had tried to save my life. I hobbled to her and threw her over my shoulder. Either she was light, or the adrenaline made me stronger.

  The corridors were a tornado of flames and concrete and steel. There were no bodies here, which was something. I was disoriented in the swirling smoke but made it out of the basement.