by Everly Frost
As we hit the ground, energy exploded through my palms into its brain center.
The intruder disintegrated in my hands, falling over me in a rain of a thousand bugs that skittered and rolled like marbles, some of them over the cliff, some into the trees.
I didn’t stop to see what happened to the rest of them. I rolled to my feet and willed the mech to run along the path, but speed wasn’t its strength. I’d be faster without it. It was time to run with my own legs.
Thank you, I thought to it. You can let me go now. But if the ocean coughs up any more of those soldiers, throw them back.
The bugs pulled away from my body as I moved faster, leaving a stream of green behind me as I leaped out of the suit and raced up the path.
Michael waited for me at the corner of the tower, his facemask pulled up so I could see who he was. My own was still in my pocket.
He grinned. “Rift said you stayed behind. I wasn’t sure if you needed help, but obviously not.”
I paused only long enough to grab his hand. “C’mon.”
On the path in front of the tower and around the twisted statue, my brothers were fighting the intruders. I’d thrown many of the Bashers back over the cliff face, but there were twenty or so of them in the large clearing. The Bashers still wore anchor point bugs, and I guessed that the rest of the bugs that made up their suits had scuttled back to the mossy cliff to hide. Magnolias floated to the ground as they fought.
Michael joined Rift, whose shadows appeared real in the moonlight—the soldiers wouldn’t know he was in three places at once.
Other than that, it looked as if my brothers hadn’t revealed their abilities yet, choosing instead to fight like ordinary people. Smart. That way, none of the attackers would go back with astounding stories of powers like magic.
Except…
At first glance, my brothers’ movements seemed scattered, as though they were dealing with each threat as it presented itself, but then I realized their strategy. While the others kept the Bashers busy, Snowboy was darting among them, quietly removing their tranquilizer guns right out of their holsters. One of the Bashers who managed to raise his gun found himself suddenly slammed by one of Rift’s shadows. In the second it took the guy to recover, Snowboy grabbed the gun and twisted the barrel so it was useless. There was a growing pile of damaged weapons next to the tower entrance.
At the same time, my brothers were manipulating the attackers’ positions, funneling them along the path around the statue to where Quake knocked them out one by one, ripped off their anchor point bugs, and threw them bodily back over the edge of the cliff—all before they recovered. I couldn’t see Pip or sense him, but I guessed he was on the other side of the tower ready to raise the alarm if more soldiers climbed up.
My brothers’ strategy was slow and systematic, but the number of Bashers fighting in the clearing was reducing.
I prepared myself to enter the fight, judging where I was needed most, but movement to my right drew my attention.
The tree!
Chapter Twenty-Six
A WOMAN stood beside the tree, a large, handheld saw in her hands, preparing to cut off the end of the branch.
The Basher’s attack suddenly made sense. They were here for the nectar. They wanted the same thing the Starsgardians did. But unlike the Council, Olander thought he could take it by force.
Scorpions swarmed around the woman, stinging her. She jumped back, slapping at her arms. The scorpions had never stung me, but I could only imagine the searing pain.
The saw trembled where it remained stuck in the branch. Its blade was made of metal and it had wooden handles.
The pain didn’t stop her. She gritted her teeth as she took hold of it again, closing her eyes against the agony and sawing as fast as she could.
Already the magnolia flowers around the tree were bruised and broken and I couldn’t see whether the new flower had met the same fate. If she’d brought an electric saw, she would have finished the job already. I was grateful for the threat of an EMP. It was the only reason the branch was still intact.
I sprinted toward the tree, covering the distance within seconds. “Stop!” I hissed, yanking the saw out of her hands.
The woman yelped, backing away, looking me up and down.
“You’re alive!” She pulled off her facemask and hood, her breath steaming in the chill air as her blond hair blew behind her in the breeze. “Do you remember me?”
“Of course I remember you. My former best friend.” I’d found out Hannah was a Basher when I escaped from the Terminal.
Hannah flinched. “They said you died.”
“People say a lot of things.”
Her blue eyes flashed from the branch to me. Her pulse began to race, pounding loudly in my enhanced hearing. “I just want the branch.”
“You’ll tell Olander that I’m alive.” I desperately regretted the facemask in my pocket then, but I’d never expected to see someone from my past.
“Not if you let me take the branch.” The words rolled off her tongue, but her heartbeat was erratic.
I glared at the implement in my hands. “I think I broke the saw.”
As I spoke, my hands sparked and the wooden handles burst into flames as I held them.
“No!” Hannah rushed at me, trying to wrench it from me. “No, don’t!”
But the molten blade dripped through my fingertips, scorching the earth at our feet.
“No … I needed that…” Hannah dropped to her knees and scrabbled at the ground, trying to push the now-liquid blade together again, burning her hands as she did so. Her skin healed within moments but her heart raced at a million miles an hour. “I can’t … I have to…”
The blade was gone. Bits of grass and flower petals clung to her fingers. She screamed for the first time and her distress echoed in my sensitive ears. She launched herself at me. “Why did you do that? It’s just a stupid branch!”
I caught her hands and pushed her away. She tumbled backward, landing hard on her backside. She gasped, rubbing her ribs where I’d pushed her. I knew I’d broken a couple of them, but she was a fast healer like all Bashers and she regained her breath within moments.
“I can’t believe it.” Her hair waved around her startled face as she shook her head. “He said you were a weapon. I didn’t believe him. I never believed him.”
“Who?”
“Alexander.”
I frowned, reaching into my memory for the reason why I knew that name. Then I remembered Josh’s message. He’d something about the former leader of the Bashers standing aside for Olander. Michael’s mom, too, had spoken about a man named Alexander who used to lead the Bashers. She’d said that he would try to find Michael because of Michael’s fast healing.
Hannah’s hands crept behind her back, but I wasn’t alarmed when she drew out a gun. She said, “I’m supposed to shoot you with this if I see you, but all I want is the branch. Let me have it and I’ll leave you alone.”
I studied the weapon with a frown. It didn’t have the yellow and brown markings of a mortality weapon, nor was it an ordinary tranquilizer gun. I could tell by the absence of the telltale silver studs on its surface.
“I won’t let you.” My voice disappeared into the breeze as one of my shadows split from my body, dashing to her in a blink, plucking the weapon right out of her hands.
She screamed again, backing away from the sight in front of her. “Ava, please! You have no idea what’s going on in Evereach right now.”
I snarled my disgust. “I know the Bashers have been pardoned.”
“And now they operate in the light. Now they operate with the blessing of the law. Their word is the law! Do you know what that means?”
I took a moment to push through my own anger and assess her body language. Her eyes kept flicking from the branch to the goopy remains of the saw intermingled with debris on the ground; her hands twisted in front of her body; tears ran down her cheeks. I wasn’t sure when she’d started crying
, but it shocked me to realize she’d never done that in front of me. She’d always been the one who was sure of herself, always in control, always confident.
“Nobody’s safe,” she cried.
“Why should that bother you when you’re one of them?”
“Olander has my parents.” With the admission, her empty hands dropped to her sides. “I have one more chance. If I fail this time, he has mortality bullets for them. He keeps a count, you know. He knows how many bullets there are and he’s assigned them where they’re needed.”
“So he sent you to take the branch.”
“Just part of it. That’s all he wants.”
“Why?” I suddenly realized that was really the question. When I’d seen her trying to cut the branch, my first thought was that Evereach needed nectar for the same reason Starsgard did—as an antidote to the mortality weapon. But… “Olander can make his own nectar whenever he wants. He has Mr. Bradley’s research, doesn’t he? He can create as much synthetic nectar as he likes.”
“He needs raw nectar.”
I frowned at her. Synthetic nectar could heal people the same as raw nectar. The nectar ampule they’d given my brother had kept him alive for years. But if Olander wanted raw nectar, then he wanted it for something more, something extra. I already knew the effect it had on me—so much more than the manufactured stuff. It was raw nectar that allowed me to see someone’s heart glow. It gave me the power to kill.
I shuddered. Olander couldn’t know that … could he?
“Why?” I demanded. “Why does he want it raw?”
“I don’t know any more than I’ve told you!”
“And this?” I held up the gun as my shadow passed it to me. It had an elongated barrel, like some kind of dart gun. I opened it to examine the dart inside, but there was very little to see and I decided against pulling the gun apart. If she’d been told to shoot me with it, then I had to treat it with caution.
“I honestly don’t know. Everyone who knew you was given one. We’re supposed to shoot you on sight. I don’t want to do any of it anymore. I just want my parents to be safe.”
She wasn’t lying. I could tell because her pulse was erratic from fear and it spiked whenever she talked about her parents. I contemplated her, trying to reconcile the broken girl in front of me with the confident person she’d once been. I bent the barrel of the gun so it couldn’t be fired and left it beside the tree. “My brother was your friend. He must have seen something good in you.”
“Anything good in me died when Josh did. His death changed everything for a lot of people. If I don’t return with this branch tonight, my parents will die by morning.”
The cut where the saw had gouged the branch oozed black liquid. I ran my hand over it, wishing I could heal it the same way it healed me.
“I can’t give you the branch,” I said quietly.
She began to sob, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Please, Ava. I’ll do anything. I don’t want to lose my parents.”
She hadn’t thought about mine. They slept under Tower Seventeen because of people like her. But I pushed the angry thoughts far, far down and buried them. I swallowed the retort. No matter what other people chose to do, my actions were my own, and I knew I couldn’t let her parents die.
I said, “But I will help you. Did you bring something to transport the branch?”
She wiped at her eyes. Tears continued to flow down her cheeks as she reached for a pack that had been thrown to the side. She pulled a container from it that was shaped like a very large, white egg. “I have a cocoon.”
“That will do. I’m going to cut an ordinary branch from the trees over there and smother it in nectar.”
“It won’t be enough,” she cried. “He’ll know.”
“He might. But that’s why I’m also giving you this.” I gestured to the flower that had grown. “If he knows anything about this tree, he’ll know what a rare treasure this is. Show it to him first. He won’t see anything else. When he lets your parents go, you must run and do it quickly. It won’t take him long to discover the branch isn’t what it appears to be.”
She wiped at her eyes again, gnawing at her lip. Finally she said, “Okay.”
Not wanting to leave her on her own, I pulled her along the path and used my strength to break the thin branch of a nearby tree at the edge of the clearing. The broken piece was no longer than my forearm, just short enough to fit in the cocoon. As I moved to return to the magnolia tree, Hannah nudged me into the shadows.
Nearby, Blaze was fighting one of the remaining Bashers and her gaze darted to the intruder. I could tell Blaze was toying with him, trying to get him mad. I’d seen Blaze and Snowboy practicing their opposing skills on each other many times—Blaze could remain cold until the last moment when he exploded into fiery wrath. He was begging his opponent to give him an excuse.
The way Hannah drew me to the side told me that Blaze’s opponent wasn’t just anybody. I caught sight of a lock of red hair from beneath his head mask.
“Is that Aaron?” The last time I’d seen Josh’s best friend, he was dragging Hannah away down my street after she bombed Michael’s car and almost killed me.
“Don’t go near him, Ava. He’s messed up since his brother died.”
The memory of Aaron’s brother, Officer Douglas Reid, threatened to overwhelm me. He’d hurt Michael and me, and when I rescued Michael, Reid had tried to kill me. I’d struck back in self-defense.
When I didn’t respond, Hannah peered at me curiously. “I just told you that someone died and you didn’t ask how.”
I killed him. He’d bashed my head against the floor and I’d reached for the only thing I could—what I thought was a knife—what turned out to be a mortality ampule, the one Reid had used to hurt Michael. I’d turned Officer Reid mortal and then…
But the way Hannah looked at me told me she didn’t know that. She wasn’t full of accusation and she’d expected me to be surprised by the news.
I watched her carefully as I asked, “How did he die?”
“Michael’s dad killed him. He admitted it. He said he was so angry when Reid allowed you to escape that he shot him dead with a mortality gun.”
Shockwaves raged through me. Mr. Bradley had taken the blame for Officer Reid’s death. He hadn’t told anyone it was me. But … why? I refused to believe it was because he was protecting me. There had to be another reason, some other game afoot.
“You escaped and his brother died.” Hannah inclined her head toward Aaron. “I won’t tell him you’re here. He’s … totally messed up in the head and Olander’s got him so twisted…”
I was glad now that Michael was fighting with a facemask on. Otherwise Aaron would have recognized him. As for me…
I stared at Hannah as I pulled my own facemask out of my pocket and tucked my hair away. She’d kept me out of Aaron’s line of sight. I would never be able to trust her, but I sensed she was trying to help in her own way.
“I’m sorry about what happened, Ava,” she said. “I’m sorry about what I did to you. I’m sorry about Josh.” Her voice cracked on his name. “When I joined the Bashers, I was just a kid playing games and now … now it’s real.”
She reached for the branch and headed back to where the cocoon waited. I helped her smear the branch with nectar dripping from the tree and then I carefully plucked the flower and laid it on top of the false branch. Hannah sealed the cocoon and returned it to her backpack, securing it over her shoulders.
“There’s something else,” she said. “Olander’s not going to wait until midwinter. Only a few people know this, but he plans to attack tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, but—”
She didn’t let me finish. “You’re going to have to make it look real.”
“What?” I was still trying to process the imminent attack.
“You need to try to stop me or the others will ask questions. Luckily, those guys over there have kept my comrades busy all this time.” Something of her former co
nfidence returned to her stance, but her eyes were still red and wet. “I don’t think I’ll see you again after this. I hope you live, Ava.”
Her demeanor changed. She took on a fighting stance and scooted backward as though she was defending herself. She stuck her fingers into her mouth and whistled long and loud. The Bashers still fighting in the clearing immediately ran toward her, creating a barrier behind Hannah as she darted away down the path. Then they followed her, all of them racing away, leaping over the edge as bugs swarmed to meet their suits midair.
“Stop her!” I shouted, pretending to run while quietly murmuring. “Let her go. Trust me. I’ll explain.”
Luckily, my brothers feigned a slower pace and Snowboy grabbed Michael before he could give a proper chase. After checking that the intruders were all gone, my brothers gathered around me at the front of the tower, along with Pip, who emerged from the other side.
“Ava, I trust you. I really do. But what was that?” Blaze asked.
I explained about Hannah and the branch. Before I could tell them about the attack, Michael interrupted me.
“They came for the tree? But … why? If Olander has all of my dad’s research, then he knows how to make synthetic nectar. The Council needs it because they’re trying to scrounge a supply from the plants in the south, but why does Olander want it?”
“I asked her that. She said he needs the raw stuff, but she doesn’t know why.” I tried to clear my head. “It’s worse. She said he’s not waiting until midwinter. He’s attacking tomorrow.”
My brothers’ alarm was palpable and suddenly they were all talking at once. All except Michael, who remained in a worried silence. Like me, he must have been thinking through Olander’s motives. The only difference we knew between raw and synthetic nectar was its effect on me. Hannah had called me a weapon. It was possible that Olander not only wanted to make mortality weapons, but also wanted to use me as a weapon.