Aria shot forward as soon as the Hover lifted off the ground. Perry sprinted, staying with her. They were almost to the crates when a cluster of soldiers saw them. Bullets struck the wall behind him, the sound quiet compared to the buzz of the Hovers. He reached the crates and pulled his bow off his back.
“We need to keep going!” he yelled. They couldn’t give the soldiers a chance to get organized. Aria drew her knife as they sprinted along the narrow corridor.
When they came through the other side, he saw a group of soldiers standing between them and the entrance. Three men. Two had drawn their weapons; the other one looked around in confusion. The only way he’d reach Talon was by getting past them.
Perry fired as they ran. His arrow struck the first man in the chest, sending him flying to the ground. Slashes of red cut past him as the Guardians shot back. The steel crates behind him clanged loudly. He fired at the second man, but it wasn’t enough. Aria surged ahead. She threw her knife at the third man, hitting him in the stomach. The man reeled back, firing his pistol.
“Aria!”
Perry’s heart seized as he watched her fall to the ground. He put an arrow clean through the man who’d shot her. Then he dashed to her, grabbing her by the waist and scooping her off the ground. She held her arm as they ran, blood running through her fingers. Perry pulled her with him, stooping to the floor to grab a pistol that had fallen by one of the downed soldiers. Across the hangar, people shouted in confusion as an alarm sounded.
More soldiers opened fire at them, but Perry noticed that most barely paused in their evacuation efforts. Perry’s finger found the trigger. He fired again and again, a distant part of his mind amazed at the ease and speed of the weapon.
With each step she took, Aria leaned more of her weight on him. They tore up a ramp and into the airlock chamber as people yelled behind him, their voices fading in and out of the alarms. He jammed at the door’s controls. It slid open, revealing stunned soldiers on the other side.
Perry pushed past them into a wide, curving corridor, the sounds of the alarm receding behind him. He didn’t know where he was going. Knew only that he needed to find safety. Take care of her. Find Talon.
Aria stopped suddenly. “Here!” She pressed her fingers into the control pad of a door, opening it, and they darted inside.
40
ARIA
Aria fell back against the wall. Dizziness rolled over her in waves. She needed to catch her breath. Her heart was beating too fast. She needed it to slow down.
Perry stood by the door, listening to the sounds in the hall. She had the fleeting thought that he looked comfortable with the gun in his hand, like he’d been using one for years instead of minutes. The shouts of Guardians grew louder.
“Forget it!” Aria heard outside. “They’re gone.” Then their footsteps faded.
Perry lowered the gun. He looked at her, his eyebrows drawn with worry. “Stay right there.”
She closed her eyes. The pain in her arm was immense, but her head was clear, unlike when she’d been poisoned. Oddly, the feeling of blood rolling down her arm and dribbling from her fingertips bothered her the most. She could function with pain, but losing blood would make her weak and slow her down.
The room was a supply repository for emergency evacuations. She’d learned of storerooms like this from Pod safety drills. Metal lockers ran in rows down the length. In them she saw hazard suits. Oxygen masks. Fire extinguishers. First-aid supplies. Perry ran to the nearest one, bringing back a metal case. He knelt and popped it open.
“There should be a blue tube,” she said through gasps, “for stopping bleeding.”
He rifled through it, coming up with the tube and a bandage. “Look at me,” he said, straightening. “Right at my eyes.”
He drew her hand away from the wound.
Aria sucked in a breath at the burst of pain that shot down her arm. She’d been hit on her bicep, but strangely, the worst pain was in her fingertips. The muscles in her legs began to shake.
“Easy,” Perry said. “Just keep breathing, nice and slow.”
“Is my arm still there?” she asked.
“Still there.” His lips pulled into a quick smile, but she saw the worry behind it. “When it heals, it’s going to match my hand perfectly.”
With firm, efficient movements, he applied the coagulant and then wrapped the bandage tightly around her arm. Aria kept her gaze on his face. On the blond stubble across his jaw, and the bend in his nose. She could look at him forever. She could spend her life watching him just blink and breathe that near to her.
Her eyes blurred, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or from the relief of being with him again. He brought a sense of rightness. She felt it every moment she spent with him. Even the wrong ones. Even the painful ones, like now.
Perry’s hands stilled. He looked up, and his gaze told her everything. He felt it too.
A tremor thrummed through the soles of her boots, and then the lockers rattled. The rumbling sound built. It kept going, growing louder and louder. The lights shut off. Aria searched the darkness, panic rising inside of her. A red emergency light above the door pulsed a few times and turned on, holding steady. Slowly, the noise faded.
“This place is coming down,” Perry said, tying off the bandage.
She nodded. “The corridor circles the Panop. If we stay on it, we should find an access door.” She pushed herself off the wall. The bleeding had slowed, but she still felt light-headed.
Perry peered through the door. The corridor had fallen into darkness, lit only by emergency lights every twenty paces. “Stay close to me.”
They ran along the curving corridor together, the wail of fire alarms echoing off the cement walls and filling her ears. Aria smelled smoke, and the temperature had spiked. The fires had moved inside the Pod. Her strength was draining rapidly, just as she’d feared. She felt like she was running underwater.
“Here,” she said, stopping at wide double doors marked PANOPTICON. “This is where Hess locked them in.” She pressed at the control board next to it. NO ACCESS flashed up on the screen. She tried again, stabbing at the panel in anger. They couldn’t be this close and not get inside.
She didn’t hear the Reverie soldiers rounding the bend toward them. The alarms had swallowed the sounds of their approach. But Perry saw them. A staccato of bright bursts exploded beside her as he fired. Down the corridor, the Guardians fell. Perry broke into a run, covering the distance to the soldiers with a shocking surge of speed. He wrenched one of the Guardians off the ground by the collar and returned with the struggling man, who’d been shot in the leg.
“Open the door,” he commanded, holding the Guardian in front of the panel.
“No!” The man twisted his body to break loose. In a flash, Aria saw her mother’s face. Lifeless, as she’d last seen her. She couldn’t fail again. Talon was in there. Thousands of people would die if they couldn’t get in.
With her good arm, she drew her knife and slashed it across the Guardian’s face. She caught him across the chin, the steel blade scraping against bone. “Get us in there!”
The man screamed and jerked back. Then he pressed desperately at the panel, entering an access code as he begged to be let go.
The doors slid open, revealing a long hallway.
She ran, her feet pounding on the slick floor, and froze as she came through the other side, into the Panop. Into her home.
She absorbed it instantaneously, feeling like a stranger. Rising up in a perfect spiraling corkscrew around the central atrium were the forty levels where she’d slept, eaten, attended school, and fractioned to the Realms.
It looked bigger, bleaker than she remembered. The gray color, which had once seemed almost invisible to her, now struck her as lifeless, suffocating in its coldness. How had she ever been happy here?
Then her eyes moved past the familiar and latched onto everything that was wrong. The smoke tumbling from the higher levels. Pieces of concrete crumbl
ing, falling to where she and Perry stood. Flashes of people running—or chasing one another. The hair-raising screams of terror, fading in and out with the blare of the fire alarms. Hardest to believe were the groups of people sitting in the atrium lounges socializing normally, like nothing unusual was happening.
Aria spotted Pixie’s short black hair and sprinted over.
Pixie startled when she ran up, blinking in confusion. “Aria?” A smile spread over her face. “It’s so good to see you! Soren told us you were alive, but I thought he was just acting strange again.”
“Reverie is breaking! You need to get out of here, Pixie. You have to leave!”
“Leave to where?”
“To the outside!”
Pixie shook her head, fear flashing across her features. “Oh, no … I’m not going there. Hess told us to stay here and enjoy the Realms. He’s fixing everything.” She smiled. “Sit down, Aria. Have you seen the Atlantis Realm? The kelp gardens are champ this time of year.”
“We’re running out of time, Aria,” Perry said beside her.
Pixie seemed to notice him for the first time. “Who’s he?”
“We need to find Soren,” Aria said quickly. “Can you message him for me?”
“Sure, I’ll do that right now. But he’s not far. He’s just in the southern lounge.”
Aria turned to Perry. “This way!” As she ran to the other end of the atrium, an explosion shook the air and sent her staggering. Pieces of concrete fell around them, disintegrating as they struck the smooth floors. She covered her head, fear pushing her on. The only solution—their only hope of surviving—was to get out of there.
Up ahead, she saw a group running toward her. She spotted a familiar face, and then several others. She wanted to cry at the sight of them. Caleb was there, his eyes wide and disbelieving. Rune and Jupiter, running together. She saw Soren at the center of the pack, and then the boy beside him.
Perry broke away from her side. He covered the distance in long, powerful strides and swept Talon into his arms. Over Perry’s shoulder, she caught a glimpse of Talon’s smile before he buried his face in Perry’s neck.
She’d waited for months to see that sight. She wanted to savor it, if only for an instant, but Soren barreled up, his gaze boring into her.
“Took you long enough,” he said. “I kept my part of the bargain. Now you keep yours.”
41
PEREGRINE
I’m all right. Really, I’m all right,” Talon said. Perry held him as tight as he could without hurting him. “Uncle Perry, we have to go.”
Perry set him down and grasped his small hand. He took in his nephew’s face. Talon was healthy. And here.
Brooke’s younger sister, Clara, ran up and hugged his leg. Her face was red, and she was crying. Perry knelt. “It’s all right, Clara. I’m going to get you both home. I need you and Talon to hold hands. Don’t let go of each other, and keep close. Right next to me.”
Clara ran a sleeve over her face, wiping away tears, and nodded. Perry straightened. Aria stood with Soren, the Dweller who he’d fought months ago. Dozens of people had run up with him. They were alert and terrified, unlike the dazed people he had seen moments ago. He noticed they weren’t wearing Smarteyes.
“You brought the Savage?” Soren said.
Across the atrium, a sudden burst of flames spewed from a corridor. A second later, the wave of heat hit him. “We need to move, Aria. Now!”
“The transport hangar,” she said. “This way!”
They raced back to the Panop door, Soren and his group following. Aria called out as she ran, yelling to anyone who would listen to leave Reverie, but the peal of fire alarms and the thunder of smashing concrete swallowed even her voice. The people sitting in groupings on the ground floor didn’t move. They stayed blank-faced, oblivious to the chaos around them. Aria stopped in front of the girl she’d spoken to before and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Pixie, you have to get out of here now!” she yelled. This time the girl didn’t respond at all. She stared ahead, unresponsive. Aria turned to Soren. “What’s wrong with them? Is it DLS?”
“It’s that. It’s leaving her for the outside. It’s everything,” Soren answered.
“Can’t you shut off their Smarteyes?” she asked desperately.
“I’ve tried!” Soren said. “They have to do it themselves. There’s no getting through to them. They’re scared. This is all they’ve ever known. I did everything I could.”
An explosive boom filled Perry’s ears. “Aria, we have to leave.”
She shook her head, tears spilling from her eyes. “I can’t do this. I can’t leave them.”
Perry stepped toward her, taking her face in his hands. “You have to. I’m not leaving here without you.”
He felt the truth of his words settle like cold over him. He’d do anything to change it. Give anything. But no matter what they did, they couldn’t save everyone.
“Come with me,” he said. “Please, Aria. It’s time to go.”
She looked up, her gaze moving slowly across the crumbling Pod. “I’m sorry … I’m sorry,” she said. He put his arm around her, his heart breaking for her. For all the innocent people who deserved to live, but wouldn’t. Together they ran for the exit, leaving the Panop behind.
They raced back into the outer corridors, leading the pack of Dwellers. Black smoke poured from air ducts, and the red emergency lights pulsed slowly, stuttering on for a second, off for a few more. Perry kept track of Talon and Clara, but Aria worried him more. She held her arm close and was struggling to keep up.
They reached the transport hangar and darted inside. It looked abandoned, nothing like the teeming hub Perry had seen earlier. He didn’t see any soldiers, and only a handful of Hovers remained.
“Can you pilot any of these?” Aria asked Soren. The color had drained from her face.
“I can in the Realms,” Soren said. “These are real.”
People streamed in around them. Through the vast opening at the other end, the desert still flashed with the full power of the storm.
“Do it,” Perry said. He and Aria had barely survived the journey there. He saw no way of leading dozens of scared people—Dwellers who’d never set foot outside—into the wrath of an Aether storm.
Soren wheeled on him. “I don’t take orders from you!”
“Then take them from me!” Aria yelled. “Move, Soren! There’s no time!”
“There’s no way this works,” Soren said, but he ran to one of the Hovers.
The ship was immense up close, the material of the body seamless and pale blue, with the shimmer of a pearl. Perry grabbed Talon’s and Clara’s hands, pulling them up the ramp.
The cabin inside was a wide, windowless tube. To one side, through a small doorway, he saw the cockpit. The other end was packed with metal crates. A supply craft, he realized, though one that had only been partially loaded. The middle of the hold where he stood was empty, but quickly filling with people.
“Move all the way back and sit down,” Aria instructed them. “Hold on to something, if you can.”
He noticed the Dwellers wore the same gray clothes Aria had when he’d first seen her that night in Ag 6. They were fair-skinned and wide-eyed, and though he couldn’t scent their tempers through the smoke, their reactions to him were blatant, plain on their stunned faces.
He looked down at himself. He had blood and soot covering his battered clothes, and a gun in his hand. Besides that, he knew he’d look hard and feral in their eyes, just as they looked soft and terrified to him.
He wasn’t helping anything by being there.
“In here,” he told Talon and Clara, ushering them into the cockpit.
He bumped his head on the door as he entered and flashed on Roar, who would’ve made a wisecrack. Who should be there. Who Perry had treated awfully earlier. He couldn’t believe he’d questioned Roar’s loyalty. Suddenly, he remembered Liv. The air rushed from his lungs and his stomach twisted.
At some point he’d think about his sister and end up on his knees, but not now. He couldn’t now.
The cockpit was small and dim, no bigger than Vale’s room, with a rounded window that curved along the front. Perry saw the exit at the far end of the hangar. Outside, thick black smoke flashed with Aether, concealing the desert.
Soren sat in one of the two pilot seats, cursing as he swiped at a smooth bank of controls. He must have sensed Perry’s attention, because he glanced back, hatred in his eyes. “I haven’t forgotten, Savage.”
Perry’s gaze went to the scar on Soren’s chin. “Then you remember the outcome.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
A small voice spoke up beside Perry. “Soren, he’s my uncle.”
Soren looked at Talon, his expression softening. Then he turned back to the controls.
Perry glanced at his nephew, surprised at the influence he had over Soren. How had that happened? He stashed the gun on a shelf beside a handful of other weapons, and had Talon and Clara sit against the back wall. Then he crouched, studying his nephew’s face. “You all right?”
Talon nodded, smiling tiredly. Perry saw traces of Vale in his deep green eyes, and noticed his front teeth had grown in. Suddenly he felt all the months they’d lost, and the full weight of his responsibility. Talon was his now.
He straightened as the engines buzzed to life. The panel in front of Soren lit up, the rest of the cabin falling into darkness.
“Hold on!” Soren yelled.
A murmur of alarm came from the people in the main cabin. Aria slipped through the door beside Perry, stepping into the cockpit just as the Hover rose with a lurch. He grabbed her by the waist, catching her as she stumbled. The craft surged forward, pushing Aria’s back against his chest. He locked his arms around her, holding tight as the walls of the hangar blurred past, the Hover gaining speed by the second. They shot outside and plunged into the smoke. Perry couldn’t see anything through the window but noticed that Soren navigated by the screen on the console in front of him.
Under the Never Sky: The Complete Series Collection Page 56