She sat up on her cot. The room around her seemed to be made entirely out of metal, and it wobbled slightly when she moved. There was a peephole with bars across it in her door again, and despite the threats from her body of passing out again she stood to try looking out. Almost immediately she heard a voice from the other side even though she couldn’t see anyone.
“Time for your execution,” a high-pitched but stern voice said.
Jessie had to blink and try clearing her head. “Leech?” she asked. “Is that you?”
“No, wait,” another voice said. This one was male, and she was positive as to who owned this one. “Not her!” Corin said. “She was with me.”
There was a pause before the childish voice spoke again. “Oh. I’m sorry. My mistake. This one is actually supposed to be let free.”
There was a click as the door was unlocked, and the door opened to reveal a girl of maybe twelve with a clipboard. She was wearing a strange gray uniform, and it wasn’t until Jessie looked at the patch sewn onto the breast pocket, a stylized dragon, that she realized the girl had to be one of the steam dragon pilots, small and light just like Corin had said.
Corin stood behind her with a wide grin on his face. Before the girl could even move all the way out of his path Corin rushed into the room and hugged her tight.
“Ow, ow, ow!” Jessie said.
“Sorry.” He let her go and looked her in the eyes. He looked like he was about to cry. “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”
Jessie couldn’t think of any way to respond to that. She hadn’t been so sure herself. Instead she asked, “Where am I?”
“A mobile jail. The military brought it out here after the crash to hold the survivors.”
“Out here?” Jessie said. “You mean we’re still…”
“The Twister is right outside,” he said. Jessie started to push past him, and he tried to stop her. “Oh no. Uh-uh. You still need to rest. You look positively mangled.”
“I have to see it,” Jessie said. “Just let me see it.” Corin sighed, then stepped aside. The girl, satisfied that she really wasn’t going to have to execute Jessie, walked away. Jessie took a deep breath, then hobbled outside her cell.
The cell was one of several on a long cart attached to a steam carriage, and it wasn’t the only cart. There were five of them, all lined up one after the other. Next to them eleven steam dragons sat resting on their legs, the hatches in their bellies where the pilots sat open to reveal the controls and workings within. They didn’t look as big in the daylight, nor as menacing. But they still looked terribly impressive, and she couldn’t help but notice as Corin looked over at them with pride.
However, Jessie didn’t care much about any of that at the moment. Instead she turned to stare straight out in front of her. The Twister, that magnificent city in the sky, was nothing more than an enormous scrap pile spread out over almost half a mile of scarred land. If she really used her imagination she thought she could still see where the bazaar might have been, and there was a large patch of twisted metal that might have once been the captain’s tower. In the distance Jessie thought she could see the town from last night still smoldering.
“We found you over there,” Corin said as he pointed in the direction of a distant, less-scorched patch of earth. “Some of the pilots knew who I am, and I made sure they knew that you helped me escape. Otherwise the survivors are locked away for a later trial, but if they find Captain Vestra she’s to be executed on site.”
“I don’t think they’ll find her,” Jessie said.
“I don’t either.”
Jessie looked around at the other cells. Few of them appeared to be occupied.
“How many survivors?” Jessie asked.
“Three that they’ve found so far.”
Jessie felt a lump growing in her throat. “Were any of them by chance a little girl? Or maybe a woman with a lot of tattoos?”
The look in Corin’s eyes told her all she needed to know before he even spoke. “I haven’t heard anything about a woman with tattoos, but… well…”
He took her around to the other side of the mobile cells. Any bodies that had been found were being piled up for burning, but one had been set aside and had a blanket placed over it. The size of the form under the blanket told Jessie who it was even before she pulled it aside and saw that dirty little cherub face.
“I made sure they kept her separate,” Corin said. “I figured you might want her at least to have a proper funeral.”
Jessie nodded before hiding her face in Corin’s chest and breaking out in tears. He held her tight but not tight enough to hurt her anymore.
The military kept them at the crash site for another day before letting them go. There were a lot of reports that needed to be filled out, a lot of questions they needed to answer. The military officials thought they could use whatever information Jessie and Corin gave to catch the last airship. Jessie helped all she could, but she highly doubted they would ever find the Hurricane.
The military offered them a ride wherever they wanted to go, and as the sun was setting that night Jessie sat out in the grass, staring at the wreckage and mulling over her thoughts. Corin sat next to her, gently rubbing her various wounds with balm and replacing their bandages.
“Where are you going to go?” Jessie asked.
“I’ve actually been told I can come back to work on the steam dragons,” he said. “There’s a few design flaws they think I could fix.”
“I see,” Jessie said. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t keep her voice from sounding disappointed.
“But I actually don’t think I want to,” Corin said. “I’ve seen my vision in action, and I think that’s enough for me. Instead, I was sort of hoping you would let me go wherever you go,” he said.
Jessie smiled. “I think I would like that.”
“So I guess the question then is where are you going to go? Are you going back to Sun River?”
“A life of bartending almost looks good at this point, doesn’t it? But no. I’m not going back. I’ve had too much of a taste of other things.”
“So what then?”
Although it hurt her she leaned back in the grass and stared up. The stars were starting to come out, and the sky stretched out above her forever. The sky would always be there, always welcoming her. Someday she would go back. Just not anytime soon.
“I’ll think of something.”
The Twister Sisters Page 9