The Slave Series

by Laura Frances

  They will not die for nothing.

  We travel in large groups, pushing through the alleys and streets, a force of water meant to rinse away the filth. A constant pain stabs at my knee. Each step rattles the injured bones in my face and the swell of my head, and fatigue falls like a heavy covering. I don't remember the last time I slept.

  Soon. Soon we rest.

  I recognize landmarks we pass, remembering them from the rainy night I ran south.

  Run! Don’t stop!

  Edan's commands mean something else now. Our steps thunder on the street, and I lose myself in the sound. The scrawny rebels are stronger today...the Watchers less shadowed and cruel.

  There is more to a person than what you can see, Hannah. Sometimes all it takes is one act of courage, and an entire world can change.

  Norma spoke those words to me when I was a child; she battled the bitterness inside of me with fierce love. Can she hear the fall of our boots now as we run toward the end? Is the mountain trembling under this act of defiance? She gave her late night hours to fighting away the darkness so that I could run with these soldiers today. My parents spent energy they did not have on infusing my heart with dreams.

  I glare, willing my body to finish this race. I have to see it for my father. I will watch the end, and I will think of my mother. They would be proud of me. I know they would.

  We run until we can't, then drop it to a jog. No stopping.

  My chest burns; every breath brings searing pain. But I chose to run with them, to enter this last battle as equals. In the harsh, cold winds, I distract myself remembering images of the South: a bright, colorful sky over a vast body of water. Wide fields of grass, bright green and shimmering in golden sunlight. Flowers of every color, their petals damp with morning dew. I think of these things, and new energy explodes through my limbs.

  That is where I'm heading. Those pictures...that will be our life soon.

  It pushes me farther, another step. Another.

  We split into smaller groups, some continuing through the streets, others sweeping through buildings, flushing the enemy out. I walk with Cash and seven others, our weapons raised, but we encounter no one for the first hour.

  The air is still dirty this far in. Our boots kick up the layers of dust and ash, making it hard to see farther than a couple dozen yards. We climb through piles of bricks and steel, working our way past fallen towers. The sun dips low, and in a few hours, the light will be gone.

  Hunger gnaws at my stomach, eating away at the emptiness.

  Soon. Soon we’ll be fed.

  We've been pushing forward for ninety minutes when the firing starts. Bullets fly past our heads, and Cash swings his arm, pushing me back and against a wall. His body hides me, and he shouts into the wide-open street.

  “You don't have to die here,” he calls to the enemy. “Get back to the compound! You're surrounded.”

  But they're acting on orders, and they've not deserted the Council this far. They won't disobey now. The firing continues, and as our group advances, I move from behind Cash and take aim, trying not to kill anyone. I'm shooting to injure soldiers who would kill me if they had the shot. But I wasn't cut out for war, and by the time this day ends, I will leave this chaos behind and never miss it.

  The Council's troops retreat farther in, and we take off, following from twenty yards back. Some of our men shout insults, accusing them of cowardice, of willfully choosing evil. I run in silence, wishing they would stop. There was a time, not long ago, when most Watchers were either under the Council's spell, or too afraid of the consequences deserting would bring.

  A gunshot cracks the air, and one of our men falls. His body hits hard, and dust plumes around him, coating him in white.

  Another bullet flies, and a second of our men falls, smacking the earth. Dead.

  Adrenaline ignites in my blood, and we race for cover, inching forward behind toppled vehicles and debris. Voices reach us, outcries of unapologetic rage.

  “Your rebellion has killed us all!”

  “Crawl back in your hole!”

  “You worthless trash!”

  Cash stops our men when they respond.

  “They've lost,” he says. “Your insults only add to their suffering.”

  A man at my right growls. “They understand the choice they've made.”

  “As do you,” Cash shoots back. “Let your choice make you wiser, not ruin your character.”

  “So we should have mercy as we're gunning them down.”

  Cash's features harden. “Yes. Whatever mercy we can offer.”

  A scoff. “And the Council? What mercy do they get?”

  Cash rises, moving forward. “None.”

  Takeshi's group emerges from a side alley. Their numbers blend with ours, and together we gain ground, pushing the Council's men harder, unrelenting. The barrage of fire overtakes them, and soon they're running, fleeing toward the compound that looms just a few blocks ahead.

  I hate it. I hate watching them run toward the Council, like the four leaders that remain care about their safety. They don't. There is no relief in loyalty to wicked men. There is no shelter that will bring them peace. I watch their backs disappear around the corner, and I pity them.

  We run the final blocks and find the majority of our forces have already arrived. The valley is swept clean, and those who remain fire at us from behind the concrete walls topped with barbed wiring.

  I follow Cash, Takeshi, and a few others into a one-level building across the street from a main entrance, and we set up at the large windows. My ears tune to the skies, waiting anxious to hear the roar of aircraft arriving. But the only sounds are the pops of guns and sporadic explosions. The building quakes, sending powder from aged walls raining down on our heads. Takeshi paces.

  “They're not done,” one of the Watchers says, his rifle propped through a broken pane. “I don't know what they're planning, but from what I saw—”

  My gaze jerks his direction. “What did you see?”

  “Remember the helicopters flying in? More than four dozen a few days ago—”

  “Yes.”

  “Extra troops?” Takeshi asks. The Watcher peers through his scope.

  “Not even half those birds had men on them. They were carrying weapons. Big ones. Looked incendiary to me.”

  Fear pulses under my skin. “Maybe what they used on the mountains.”

  Another head shake. “Don't think so. Whatever blew the mountains was already buried. Could be what took down the towers.”

  Another rebel, southern, disagrees. “The towers were too skillful, like a demolition. Whatever they did there was planted a long time ago too.”

  A shiver crawls up my neck. I lived on one of those towers for nearly twenty years. Were there explosives planted all that time? How often did they entertain the idea of burying us?

  Takeshi's gaze drops to the floor, thinking.

  “What's their next target?” he murmurs.

  “The southern edge,” someone whispers.

  23

  We’ve left the Southern edge with only a small number of guards. What could they do against weapons like what I’m imagining? But the longer I consider it, the less it makes sense.

  “It has to be something else.”

  “I agree,” a soldier says. “They’ve focused resources on that factory already a number of times. If they were going to use something bigger, they would have done so already.”

  “You’re suggesting there’s reason to their actions,” Cash says. “You can’t predict what they will or will not do based on anything.”

  I lower, propping on my toes, chewing my mouth. What target is left that matters? The towers are gone. The factories destroyed. What else is there?

  “They’ve lost their aircraft,” I say. “Whatever they had planned…maybe it won’t work now. They’re trapped inside the walls.”

  Takeshi moves to a window and rests an arm high on the frame, eyes on the wall separating our men from th
eirs. “Right. There's no way.”

  But for some reason, no relief loosens my body. No sigh releases the tension coiled tight. For a full minute, no one speaks, but our gazes connect, one set of eyes to the next. Smoke blows in on cold wind, and my nose burns.

  Cash fixes on the compound, and I'm stuck staring at his profile. His skin is dirty, cheeks raw from the cold. Breath clouds from his lips. We sit with racing hearts, no idea what the coming seconds will bring. But I can bear it, because all the things I believed about him in the beginning were wrong. All the assumptions never once proved true. This fear is a relentless thing, crawling through my skin, but one look at him, and I'm reminded of all the good that still beats with life.

  A Watcher slowly stands, staring at the front entrance of the compound. “Something's happening.”

  My legs ache when I unfold from sitting, the muscles lacking nourishment and rest. At the window, I stand with half my body hidden by the frame, my heartbeat thumping against the wood.

  For thirty seconds, we're staring at the compound, eyes searching.

  A full thirty seconds of nothing. Silence, after endless gunfire.

  My heart is loud. Can they hear it?

  “What's going on?” Takeshi murmurs under his breath.

  A metallic squeal cuts the air. Following it is a deep rumbling, the sound shuddering through the building. The massive door to the compound slowly slides right, disappearing into the wall.

  Four lone figures stand in a line. They wear red, hoods shading their masked faces, hands folded behind their backs. I move from the wall, leaning to get a better view. Is this surrender? Takeshi and I share a glance.

  The speakers crackle.

  “We are your Council,” a smooth, male voice says. I remember it, slithering and cool when I stood before them at the cells. The figures stand motionless; I can’t tell which one speaks.

  “We offer this one chance, before your time runs out. Return to us,” he says. “Finish on the right side of this conflict.”

  His tone trivializes our entire effort. Every word spoken tries to plant shame in our ranks. But we are solid; they will not win any of us over. Carefully, slowly, Cash perfects his aim on their position. The monologue continues.

  “You are highly valued, and we have cared for you well. Do not be fooled by promises of aid. They are not coming.”

  I stiffen. The air in the room thickens with worry. It emanates from every figure sharing this space. Were they defeated?

  “You have been left alone! Abandoned. Why waste your energy on a goal you cannot hope to achieve?”

  “Someone shut him up,” a Watcher mutters.

  “Can I shoot him?” another whispers.

  Several eyes turn to Cash. He glares at the figures through the scope of his rifle, and in the silence hanging between the Councilman’s words, his finger slowly presses at the trigger.

  “Wait!”

  The finger loosens, and his eyes meet mine. My head shakes, but I don’t know why I said it. It is just a feeling, instinct telling me this isn’t the moment. Something is off.

  “We offer mercy,” says the man with the mask. “Forgiveness for wrongdoings, and a new life. We can reshape this system. Create a new, fair order in which you will prosper under our leadership.”

  “They’re right there,” hisses a rebel. “Either we take the shot, or we lose men to their words.”

  “No one believes them,” I say. They couldn’t. Not after everything.

  As if to prove my statement, shots fire from several locations, all aimed at the four figures in red. They fall, bodies jerking with the impact of bullets, and my whole world turns in on itself. My heart rages in my ears, all my body pulsing. All my fingers and toes flexed, stiff.

  They’re dead.

  I saw them die.

  Cash stands, fixated on the thing I can’t believe.

  Rebels from nearby buildings inch forward, walking cautious, their weapons trained.

  “Get out of there,” Cash says, but the words come out quiet, like an instruction he meant for himself…a voiced thought.

  “Get out of there!” he shouts, scrambling through the window and running.

  I lurch forward, but Takeshi stops me. I fight him, but his arms are stronger than all of me.

  “Hannah, you can’t,” he says. “You can’t go out there yet.”

  There is a rational side to me that knows he’s right. But he doesn’t understand. How could he? He did not grow up a slave child. He doesn’t know that love should not happen between a Watcher and me, and I will do anything to protect it.

  Cash races toward the bodies and the rebels, and my eyes are wide, panic like fire and cold like ice. I stop fighting, but Takeshi doesn’t let me go. He is right to hold me in place. I will run the second his arms set me free.

  Cash reaches the bodies just inside the doorway to the compound, and in a swift movement, rips away a mask. Two more rebels remove the other masks.

  They’re all backing away.

  Heads shake.

  Guns raise.

  Something is wrong.

  I bite my mouth to keep from calling out to him. He’s returning, only twenty yards. Ten.

  He’s through a door and safe, dragging smoky air into his lungs. Takeshi releases me.

  We stare, and I’m shaking, trying to control it.

  “Not them,” Cash says, and I find I hate being right.

  “Who was it?”

  Cash crosses to me. “Rebels,” he says, eyes hard. “I recognized one.”

  Understanding buries itself deep in my flesh, the unrelenting horror of it.

  The rebels killed their own, and Cash’s finger almost initiated the firing.

  “You have chosen your end,” the Councilman’s voice shouts from the speakers. “This valley will burn, and only the loyal will remain.”

  I run to a window just as the massive door begins to close. Rebels of all backgrounds run toward the opening, and my first thought is it’s an attack. They’re running through the entrance to gain control.

  But then one rebel soldier tackles another, trying to stop him from running forward. The two wrestle until a gun goes off. The running soldier continues into the compound, and the wounded one drags himself back to shelter.

  This happens again and again, rebels calling out to one another as loyalties change…freed men returning to their masters. Friends shout at each other to get back. Don’t do this! They’re lying!

  We climb through the windows, running toward the chaos, waving our arms, shouting at them to not give in. They can’t give up now.

  Cash and Takeshi follow me out. Fear has come alive, and these soldiers are dying, breaking under the pressure. We try to stop those racing into the compound, try to grab their arms and shout sense into them. Dozens of rebels join us, and we're trying to save the ones in panic. Fists fly, beating away help. Only a few listen. The door shudders, closing, and bodies slip through at the last second.

  We stand in the freezing wind, staring up at the door. Waiting. Prepared to die in a rage of fire before we’d ever give our lives willingly to the Council again.

  Death is better. I am not a slave, and I will never be again.

  A rebel lunges forward, palms to the door, and screams a name: Stevens!

  His ear presses to the metal, face red. He pounds his fist again and again, and that's when I hear it.

  A returning sound. A pounding. Begging. Regret.

  They're banging from the other side, screaming to be let free. More rebels on our side join the outcry, beating at the metal. Cash takes my arm, pulling me away. With his other hand he grabs Takeshi’s coat.

  We run, and behind us, the compound explodes.

  24

  It's burning, exploding from the inside. Shouts rise from the interior, and we run back, yanking at doors, trying to break them free. Maybe they are the enemy—maybe they would leave us to die. But doing nothing in this moment would make us no different than them.

 
No different than the Council. My stomach twists.

  Rebels work at the entrances, desperately trying to pry open the doors. The heat spreads, reaching its tongue to sear our skin.

  I step back, making room for stronger men, and watch tense as they kick and throw their shoulders, working to break the latch of a small exit.

  I don’t understand. Why would they kill their own men…destroy their own compound? A memory springs forward, words Cash said in the forest.

  They’re operating well beyond the desire for redemption.

  A roar shoots across the sky, and my gaze jerks up. When I heard that sound before, the result was destruction. Death. But Takeshi waves his arms, crowing, shouting, “That's ours!”

  The jet circles back, and on the next pass, releases a long line of bright orange smoke.

  The southern soldiers cry out, fists beating the air.

  I'm caught in confusion, thrown by the horror and beauty competing to be felt. I have dreamed of the moment the South would arrive, but I never imagined it would look like this. A large number of rebels raise their voices, fully embracing the victory. But several more face the compound, knees to the ground, hands covering their faces. They sob, because at the last second their friends chose wrong, and there was nothing they could do to stop them.

  I don't know where to look, what to feel. Cash stares at the inferno, flames reflecting in his eyes. I see the droop of his shoulders, and I know which feeling he has chosen.

  I rest a hand on his back. His arm slides behind me, and we stand together, silently tallying the cost of our freedom.

  Large aircraft appear over the mountains, black silhouettes against the evening sky, hovering creatures descending to take us home.

  “We leave together,” Cash murmurs, the words brushing my ear. His hand slides into mine.

  I can only look at him. I'm too full of feelings, and one word is enough to let them loose. His forehead touches mine. The wind kicks up, a wild storm when the aircraft land up and down the wide street.