by Sam Ryder
Again, I thought of the picture in my pocket. “He chose that power over his own flesh and blood.”
“Flesh and blood means nothing to Atticus anymore,” Keenak said. “That feeling rotted out of him a long time ago. Once he figured out how to command attention and lead people, any notion of love and family disappeared. In its place is a thirst for power and control that will never be quenched. It’s like a drug to him, and he’s addicted.”
“How close do you think he is to using the chair?” Vega asked.
“The chair’s done,” Keenak said. “But there’s no power for it yet. That’s why he’s so focused on the Grid. The second you hear that it’s working, that’s when you’ll know the chair is ready. That will be the first thing he does with the new electricity.”
That was the most messed up thought I’d ever heard voiced. You get electricity for the first time in a decade and instead of firing up some light bulbs or literally any other technology you use it to power an electric chair?
It was stupid, but it sounded perfect for Atticus. And it was one more reason why we had to stop him before he switched the Grid on.
There was only one more thing to say: “That’s fucked up,” I said.
No one disagreed.
Chapter 36
Heating up
My lungs choked on the smoke filling the cave. I tried to open my eyelids, but the sting of the acrid smoke watered my eyes, and my vision was blurry.
A few hours earlier, we’d made camp in one of Simon’s caves. Expecting relative safety once again, I slept hard. Derig volunteered to take first watch.
An ear-piercing boom shook me awake, surrounded by smoke. Wheezing for air, I crawled along the edge of the cave, blind, trying to find a way out.
That was a bomb, another of the ‘white’ grenades. The Rising found us again.
We all bumped and shoved our way through the smoke. My hands brushed against a body. I couldn’t tell who it was, but I felt around to wake the person up. He was limp, and my fingers touched something wet. I felt for his neck, feeling for a pulse. Nothing.
A shiver ran through me, but I knew I couldn’t stop, not when I could end up the same way. I had to keep moving.
Another boom rocked the night, lighting up the cave temporarily with a bright flash I only saw behind my closed eyelids.
Finally, the cave wall gave way to nothingness as I stumbled outside, fresh air hitting my face. I coughed hard and sucked in a quick breath of oxygen. I didn’t have time to think about what was happening. The first thing I did was grab Alpha and Beta and fired at the shadows moving around the cave mouth.
I wasn’t alone. Another weapon was discharged with a bright flash.
“Who’s with me?” I shouted.
“Me!” a gruff voice replied. Keenak. I didn’t even know he had a weapon, but I wasn’t surprised. To survive in the Ends, you needed to be able to defend yourself. We moved left to right, searching for cover and firing to force the enemy to dive for the ground. I hit at least one guy and Keenak got another. At least it had temporarily stopped them from chucking grenades into the cave. It didn’t stop them from returning fire, however, bullets whining past.
Ahead of me, Keenak dove, groaning.
“You okay?” I asked, huddling over him as I continued to fire.
“Fine,” he replied. “Just a graze.” He grabbed his arm and held it as blood pumped between his fingers.
“Hang in there! Belenie can fix you up as soon as the gunfight it over.”
He nodded, gritting his teeth and still managing to discharge his weapon at a shadow as it popped from cover. A direct hit. The old man was good.
I fired as well, reloading once. One by one, the shadows fell, until nothing moved in the dark. Thankfully, no more grenades exploded, which either meant they’d run dry or we’d kept them busy enough to stop them from throwing any.
I heard a man shout, “Fall back!” which meant we hadn’t killed them all, but at least they were retreating. I continued to fire as they turned tail and ran, hitting at least one but unable to take down the other five or six as they escaped our range.
“Roll call,” I shouted, not wanting to leave Keenak’s side. “Cutter!”
One by one, everyone called out their names. Three, however, were missing.
“Derig?” I called out. “Anyone got eyes on Derig?”
“I’ve got him,” Belogon said, a twinge of sadness in his tone. “He’s gone.”
“Wait here,” I said to Keenak. Vega, who’d taken refuge behind a large boulder, went to help Keenak. I crawled inside the cave, staying low just in case. The smoke had mostly dissipated, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I spotted the Enders. Derig’s thick chest was riddled with bullet holes, covered in blood. The same blood that I now knew was on my hands.
“Dammit,” I said. “And we didn’t even hear it.”
“They tossed the grenades first. He was a sitting duck. They mowed him down as soon as the explosions went off.”
While the heat from the blasts still hung in the cave, the fires still smoldering, Simon crawled inside. He’d been one of the ones who hadn’t answered the roll call. “You all right?” I asked.
He looked at me like he knew I’d spoken but couldn’t really make out my words. He gestured to his ears and then spoke far too loudly. “Can’t hear a damn thing over the ringing in my ears.” That explained why he hadn’t responded before. At least he was alive.
But that still left one person not accounted for.
“Anybody find Belenie?” I asked. All I got was shaking heads. “Bel!” I cried, my voice echoing off the cave walls. No response.
Panic started to set in. I ran outside, glancing toward Keenak, who was sitting up, still clutching the wound in his arm. It was still bleeding profusely, but Vega was helping him tie a tourniquet. His life might very well depend on my ability to locate Belenie.
No longer worried about whether the enemy would return and gun me down, I charged through the fallen enemies, checking each of the bodies scattered on the ground. I counted eight dead men, but Belenie was not among them.
“Shit, they must have captured her somehow,” I said.
As we assessed the extent of our collective injuries, I worried about Bel. Had she gone for a walk after we were all asleep, thus allowing her to be captured before anyone even knew the enemy was upon us? If so, only Derig would know, and he wasn’t talking anymore. Other than Keenak’s gunshot wound, the rest of had managed to emerge relatively unscathed, with nothing more than a few scrapes and burns. In that sense, we were lucky. But Belenie was still gone.
Please don’t hurt her, I thought, considering what their motives might be. Maybe they took her as bait. Just to mess with us. Atticus did that once before. The bastard.
Regardless, we were down two members of our group, including our healer. Still, we’d survived against all odds once more. Vega’s tourniquet seemed to have stem the flow of blood from Keenak’s wound.
I shook my head. “It’s amazing any of us are alive considering grenades were going off around us while we slept.”
Vega said, “Like I said before, the white grenades are rather archaic. Not very powerful. A direct hit might kill you, but the rest is just smoke, noise and distraction. The goal was to get us out of the cave so they could shoot us. It worked, except they didn’t expect us to emerge guns blazing.”
“You can thank Keenak,” I said, gestured toward the man. “He’s a crack shot.”
Keenak shrugged. “I was on the force before the Blast.”
“You’re a cop?”
“Was a cop,” he clarified. It explained a lot.
We gathered at the mouth of the cave. “Nobody’s getting any more sleep tonight,” Simon said.
The group sat mostly in silence for the next several hours until the sun came up. I was tempted to charge off after the enemy to try to get Belenie back, but I knew it was the worst thing I could do for her. I’d only get myself killed and then
who would save her. I needed to be patient. I would save her, just not on Atticus’s terms. On mine.
As the light stretched over the horizon, Keenak muttered, “A hell of a way to start.” He used his fingers to stretch out the bags under his eyes.
“I’d like to say it gets easier from here...” I said, trailing off. “How’s your wound?” I asked.
“What wound?” he said, grinning.
I admired his toughness. “Sorry I can’t get it healed up like I promised. Once we get Belenie back, she’ll take good care of you.” I hoped I could make good on that promise.
“I’ll be fine,” he said stoically.
The sun rose higher in the sky, and it was time for us to get moving. There was just one thing we needed to do before we headed back to Paris to regroup.
Chapter 37
Goodbye
Sweat poured from my forehead, dripping onto the ground and soaking into the soil. My fingers ached while I scraped away more and more dirt.
That refreshing rainfall from a couple nights ago may have felt good at the time, but it turned the light, dusty soil into hard, packed earth. Digging through it without tools became extremely difficult.
But damned if I would let one of our own rot above ground to become food for the mutated creatures of the Ends. Call me old-fashioned—burning him would’ve been easier—but I felt Derig deserved a proper burial. I might not know him that well, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d stood shoulder to shoulder with me and fought our enemies.
I rolled off my knees and into a sitting position to catch my breath. Simon, Vega and Belogon continued to toil under the hot sun. Keenak had tried to help with one arm, too, but I’d insisted he rest in the shade. Vega was a revelation. In such a short time, she’d come a long way to shucking off her prejudices. Who would’ve thought a week ago that she’d be digging a grave for a dead Ender? Not me, that was for damn sure.
We spoke few words for several hours as we dug. Though Derig had been Belogon’s friend, he was stoic. He’d been through war before. He knew of tragedy and loss. Still, I could tell he was hurting, pouring the pain into his toils.
I crawled back into the hole and scraped away more dirt with my hands. The soil turned more clay-like the deeper we dug, as the moisture from the rainfall hadn’t dried up in the deep soil just yet. In most situations, this would be a welcome change of pace—the dust in the Ends was annoying as hell. But when I was trying to dig a shallow grave with my bare hands, hard-packed ground was a bit of a pain.
After a few agonizing hours, we finished digging.
We all sat on the ground, resting in the overhead sun. This wasn’t part of the plan, and it set us back quite a bit. We wouldn’t arrive back in Paris until after nightfall—assuming we didn’t get attacked again.
Still, we felt it was worth the effort.
Simon glanced over at me and nodded. I nodded back, and we stood with Belogon to lift Derig’s body and carry him to the hole. We carefully lowered the enormous Ender into the grave. His blue skin had lightened from loss of blood. Still, even in death he looked formidable. He must have weighed upwards of 300 pounds. In a world where food was scarce, Enders always carried more on their frame than the typical person. He would’ve been an awesome ally to have for the battle to come.
Together, we filled the hole, covering Derig’s lifeless body, smoothing out the dirt as best we could to hide the grave from scavengers.
We stood for a few minutes in silence, before one by one turning away.
I lingered, feeling compelled to say something. “I’m not much with words,” I said, breaking the silence. The others stopped, looking back. “But I will say this: we’re going to make Derig’s death matter. We’re going to take down the Rising, come hell or high water.”
It wasn’t much of a eulogy, but I think it made us all feel better. Once more, we turned away and headed in the direction of Paris. As we walked, we needed to restore normalcy in some fashion. We still had almost a day of travel in front of us, and I wasn’t interested in spending it mired in the muck of our dark thoughts. “We have to figure out how they knew where to find us,” I said. “It couldn’t have just been bad luck.”
“No,” Belogon agreed. “They knew where to find us. Somehow.”
“They could have followed us from Geneva,” I suggested.
“How?” Belogon asked. “We were vigilant as we traveled to the cave. The plains wouldn’t have offered them anywhere to hide.”
“Then how?” I said, frustration growing. “They got the drop on us and we don’t even know how.”
“There must be something we’re overlooking,” Belogon said. “It’ll come to us. For now, we can’t let it get into our heads. Focus on the task at hand. Right now, that means getting home safely so we can formulate a new game plan with Keenak’s help.”
He was right. We had a job to do, and I needed to focus on doing that job to the best of my ability. War was always hell, and casualties along the way were common. Rolling with the punches had become a way of life for me. I lowered my head and soldiered on.
Chapter 38
Traitor in our midst
Our wounded group stumbled into Paris in the dead of night. Nobody in town was awake, the city as silent as Derig had been in death.
We moved as quietly as possible to the city center and said a muted goodbye to Belogon, who headed for his garden house. The next morning, we could regroup again.
The rest of us headed for the Queen’s guesthouse. I bid goodnight to Simon and Vega, who also agreed to get Keenak set up in a bed of his own.
That just left me—all alone.
I stood in front of the Queen’s guesthouse staring up at the moon. I wasn’t looking forward to speaking with Hannah, Gehn and Adi in the morning and admitting that we lost Belenie. At this moment, I missed Chuck as much as ever. He’d been my faithful companion for so long, and I longed to see his wagging tail and feel his soft fur beneath my hand.
I glanced down at the ground where Chuck would faithfully sit near my feet and sighed.
There was still plenty of sleeping time left, and I was exhausted. After another glance at the endless sky, I headed inside, ascending the stairs to my room.
Inside, I sat on the edge of the bed. My feet throbbed. Every muscle in my body ached. I contemplated whether to undress or simply flop down fully clothed and dirty.
Knock-knock.
The door opened. Gehn stood in the doorway. “Hey,” she whispered.
“Hey,” I replied.
“Welcome back.”
“Thanks.”
She walked over and sat next to me. She roped an arm around me and I relished her touch, pulling her in close. “I awoke with a weird feeling, a mixture of good and bad.”
That sixth sense of hers reminded me of Belenie. “Not everyone made it back,” I said. I didn’t stop there, telling the entire tale of our journey, how Derig had died and Belenie’s disappearance.
Gehn sat silently for a few moments. If it wasn’t for the moonlight shining in through the window, I would have never guessed that she was crying. But the glow illuminated the tears on her cheeks as they rolled down.
“What will we do about Belenie?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “They want me. They are looking to distract me from my objectives.”
“Do you want company tonight?”
In almost in any other situation, I would be anxious for her company. But now… “I need to be alone tonight. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I understand. Sometimes we all just need a minute to ourselves.”
I shook my head, amazed at her perceptiveness. “Your senses told you that?”
She laughed. “Not this time. Experience told me that.”
I stood up. “Let me walk you back to your room, anyway.”
Gehn didn’t get up at first. She was motionless, her eyes gazing out the window. I didn’t know if she was thinking about Belenie or something else. But I
could make out the forlorn expression on her face. We had taken a hit, and it affected everyone in some way.
I extended my hand and she took it, pulling herself to her feet. I turned to walk, but she sunk her face into my chest and closed her eyes. She also needed a minute, so I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly.
She might have cried. It was so dark, I couldn’t tell. She sniffled a few times. Her warm breath ran across my arms, in a cadence that told me she was struggling to keep it together.
It made sense; she’d grown very close with Belenie. There would be a void somewhere inside her right now, just as there was one inside me. I let her have the moment.
After a few minutes, she pushed away from me and we made our way to her room.
When we entered, something immediately struck me as off. Gehn’s traveling pack was in the corner. Some weapons sat next to it, including her sword. Her clothes rested neatly in a pile with her boots nearby.
The right side of the room was spartan.
“Where’s all Belenie’s stuff?” I asked. Paris was our “home base.” We kept our things there, and the Queen assured us that she secured her guest house. When we split off into smaller groups for missions, we packed lightly.
“Belenie took everything with her,” Gehn said.
“That didn’t strike you as odd?” I asked.
Gehn shook her head. “She figured she’d be gone for at least four days. She didn’t have much stuff.”
I pursed my lips, thinking. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s not that weird.”
Gehn crawled into bed and pulled the blanket up to her chin. I sat next to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“If you get lonely, you’re welcome to join me,” she said, placing her hand on my leg.
I smiled at her. “I know.”
It wasn’t like me to turn down an invitation like that. Part of me definitely wanted to stick around. Gehn and I hadn’t been together for a while. When Belenie and Adi had joined our group, they’d taken a lot of my attention. Too much, perhaps.