by V. K. Ludwig
Once the rotor blades turned, sharp waves of air threw up blasts of powdery snow, pushing it away from around the trailer. We all shoved some plugs deep into our ear canals, canceling out the constant thith-thith-thith of the idling helicopter.
Oriel had been practicing to control this massive machine for days, only destroying two back-up trailers, one bird and an old outhouse during the course of it. Granted, Xavier had left one of his men behind to teach him.
At take-off, the jackhammering sound of the double-rotors joined the constant hum of the engines, and Brandy lifted lazily into the air with us inside her. The cold which pushed through the gap in the side-door turned my face numb, and I rolled my turtleneck up to my nose.
It had taken us almost seven hours to bring the trailer this close to the Districts. A necessary precaution, considering we had no idea of Brandy’s actual reach.
The world rushed underneath us in nothing but small picture frames, changing from sparkling white to a variety of grays within the fraction of a millisecond. Talking was out of the question, and we each stared down and took in the land from a new perspective. Less than twenty minutes later, the first lights appeared ahead.
Adair, who sat beside me, held on to one of the worn leather straps with one hand and fanned down with the other. From up here, the wall of the Districts seemed small, vulnerable, and like nothing but a line of neatly arranged dominoes.
Ready to tip. Ready to fall.
Oriel waved his hand, signaling us that drop off was imminent. He flew Brandy in the direction where Max pointed, which was a large enclosure inside the faunatorium. He lowered Brandy as much as he could without touching down, and Adair and I used a rope to slide down, assault rifles on our backs. Just in case.
My boots hit the ground, and I untangled myself from the rope. From afar, the outline of the wind turbine stood out from the small mountain range behind it.
I took one of my gloves off and fumbled my earplugs out. “We have to hurry and bring her back here before the fireworks start. Apparently, they don’t mix with helicopters.”
“I got your back,” Adair said, moving into a jog.
We followed along the chain-link fence like Max suggested, watching the helicopter disappear in front of us. Oriel would slowly fly along the wall to distract from whatever was going on up here and then return for a quick pick up. In and out. Easy.
“Where are the animals?” Adair asked, his voice steady and unfazed by the three miles jog.
I gave a little cough. “Locked up, I guess. Max said this is the Africa part of the faunatorium. Pretty sure those animals don’t fare well in this weather.”
“What about lions? I always wanted to see one of those.”
“Yeah.” I fumbled behind my back and pulled a wire cutter from my pocket. “But I’d rather not see them today.”
I kneeled down beside the fence and cut a round opening into it, big enough to fit a guy like me. If I fit ok, everyone else should fit comfortably.
“Check your GPS,” I said.
“Already did.” He checked Max’s old holo-band and shook his head, letting a smacking sound from his lips. “Couldn’t pick anything up yet, and we’re too slow. Way too slow.”
I climbed through the opening. “Fucking quit running your mouth then.”
Once out of the enclosure, we climbed over the gate of the faunatorium and sneaked into the alley, which should have led us to the turbine tower. The streets were lonely, but I heard excited talking and hearty laughs from afar.
Adair looked up and around. “Damn. It’s like they’ve got some weird fetish with all their concrete. Everything here looks so… so… sterile.”
“That’s how they like it, isn’t it? Sterile.” I chuckled, but the moment I shut my mouth, the joke somehow wasn’t as funny anymore.
We sneaked along the smooth walls and placed our feet carefully on the snow-covered flagstones. Above us, the wind turbine hummed along, sending frigid gusts blazing through the dark alleys.
Beep.
“What was that?” I pulled the rifle from my back, a strange tick jerking my trigger finger.
“Sh…” Adair held one hand up and stared down at his wrist. “It picked up her coordinates. This Ruth has to be right across this street and around the corner.”
He pointed straight and jerked his chin in the same direction, waiting for me to lead the way. But I couldn’t.
Something heavy landed at the bottom of my stomach, anchoring me to the ground. I wasn’t sure how to look at her. Wasn’t sure what to say to her. Hell, I wasn’t sure if I should acknowledge her at all.
The alley in front of us seemed to zoom in on me, almost pulling me into its dark center. In less than fifteen feet, I needed to have my answers.
I gave Adair a nod. “You go first. I follow right behind.”
Except that I didn’t. Instead, I dragged my feet across the stones like massive boulders, leaving long lines dug deep into the snow. My mind sunk into oblivion, trying to ignore how Adair disappeared around the corner. That one, last corner. And then everything happened at once.
Screams sounded.
High-pitched ones first.
Adair’s deep rumble followed.
His arms appeared once more. They flailed around. Paddling back from the edge as if he had met an army of defenders. But defenders didn’t scream like a bunch of school girls. Or did they?
“What the fuck is this?” he asked, his words echoing from the bare walls surrounding us. “This is not what we planned for at all.”
“What is it?” I asked, my voice suddenly hoarse.
He dived his face into both his gloves and shook his head vigorously. The thick fabric muffled each word he mumbled. After a deep breath, I pulled against the heaviness in my stomach and caught up with him. I stood by the corner. Right at the edge. Not daring to peek.
A hiss hushed a whisper.
Someone wheezed.
Adair lifted his head. “Which one of you is Ruth?”
But shouldn’t he know? Ruth was whoever wasn’t Darya.
“I am Ruth.” The voice sounded shaky, but not entirely helpless. “I… I didn’t hear from William, and I had no idea if you would actually come. We are all ready to get out of here.”
“So, if you are Ruth,” Adair said, finger-pointing. “Who the hell are you?”
Fuck! Just how many people waited around that sad, dark corner? I pressed my eyes together until they cramped and stepped around. Opening them in slow-motion, I counted three pairs of tiny feet. Three pairs of legs. Three pairs of hips: two slim, one with more to hold on to. My eyes trailed up, up, up, and…
There she stood. Her face pale, either from the moonlight or perhaps from the way she had turned it away the moment my eyes reached hers. My heart pounded so hard against my throat, for a moment I feared I might throw up.
Even underneath all those layers of fabric, I could tell she was a lesser version of her former self. She had lost weight. Quite a bit from what I remembered. Her hair had lost its shine, and so did her skin. Yet she owned that depressing, little corner, making my stomach flip upward, sideways and eventually spiral down, down, down —
“We came to get one person out,” Adair said. “Not three. William said you would help us. He didn’t say you would come. And he most definitely didn’t mention a mass escape.”
“Please, don’t leave me behind.” The lady with the womanly curves took a step toward us. “I… I am Peggy, and I really want to come too. Ruth said you wouldn’t turn us down.”
“Well, Ruth isn’t the shot-caller here,” Adair said.
All eyes turned on me. Except for Darya, who continued to stare at the ground, the quivering hem of her dress giving away how much her knees trembled.
Adair pointed at my wrist. “Your holo-band.”
“What?”
“You’ve got a call, man.”
I waved my hand at it, and the hologram of Uncle Peter lit up for less than four seconds before it went dar
k again, delivering a message that made my toenails roll up. “On our way back. Bringing defenders with us. You better hurry.”
“I am not staying behind,” Ruth said.
Adair grabbed Darya’s wrist and gave a tug. “Then you better find your own way out, sweetheart. We came for her and nobody else.”
Fucking shit. This is insane! “We take them all.”
“You can’t be serious,” Adair said, stepping into gear.
The moment he gave another tug on Darya’s wrist, her knees caved in, and her eyes rolled back into her skull. I darted toward her, and her limp body plummeted into my arms.
“Great,” Adair said. “She’s unconscious. We’re fucking doomed.”
“Get the others and fucking run!” I shouted.
I flung Darya’s unresponsive body across my shoulders.
“Wait, I have to take my book with me!” Ruth protested.
“Leave the damn book.” Adair grabbed Ruth and flung her across his shoulder, then he hooked his arm with Peggy’s. “We have to move. Now!”
Together we ran through the alleys and streets, following the footprints we had left behind. From afar, the ba-ta-ba-ta of the helicopter blades grew from a faint whisper into an all-surrounding noise. Shouts grew louder.
Adair and I took turns pulling Peggy behind us, and everyone helped when it was time to get Darya’s lifeless body through the hole in the fence.
“There’s something up there,” Peggy shouted.
“It’s the helicopter,” Adair said. “It’ll get us out of here.”
Ruth pushed herself up on Adair’s shoulder and gazed skyward.
I handed Peggy, whose breath rose like hot steam into the air, to Adair once more. “Take her, I gotta make a call.”
With a shake of my wrist, I activated my holo-band and called Oriel via voice command. “Change in plans. You have to land.”
“You shitting me?” Oriel’s hologram bounced up and down with each step I took through the deep snow, each sharp breath of night-time air burning my lungs like molten lead.
“Just do it!” I yelled and hung up.
The moment I hung up, Peggy tumbled into the snow. “Aah.”
“We gotta switch,” I shouted. “I’ll take Peggy.”
Adair let Ruth slide down his sides and shouldered Darya instead. Outraged voices grew louder from behind us, sweeping over the field like a wave that could come crashing down on us at any moment now.
Adair pointed to the sky. “They’re here.”
I helped Peggy up from the snow.
“I’m too heavy for you to carry me,” she said from between fiery-red cheeks.
“Oh, honey, please.” I took a wide stance and grabbed her by her hips and arm. Up she went, and a “oh my!” escaped her heaving breath the moment she balanced across my shoulder.
Adair grabbed Ruth’s hand, and together we hasted across the snow and toward Brandy, who waited hovering above the ground less than twenty feet ahead of us.
Max and Uncle Peter waited by the side-door, confusion written all over their faces. We all ducked down, pushing against the air current coming from that beast of a machine in front of us. Max pulled Darya from Adair’s shoulder and immediately checked on her vitals. Uncle Peter helped Ruth and Peggy into the helicopter.
Defenders closed in on us from all directions, but Brandy lifted back into the sky before we could even make out the outline of their bodies.
I handed my earplugs to Peggy, embracing the ear-jarring noise of the helicopter which canceled out each one of my thoughts. All I was left behind with was my still-unconscious wife beside me, and a lump of panic forming in my throat.
Chapter 8
Darya
“Rose?”
Darkness still surrounded me, but I could tell by the crackling of the ambers and the hearty scent of aged meat that I was home. Someone stroked over my hair, and for a moment I feared it might be Rowan.
His manly scent, like sweat and freshly split wood, hung around my nose and seemed stuck inside the fibers of my hair. But that hand which caressed me was too gentle, too light to belong to him.
It wasn’t Rowan, and the realization of it turned my fear into a weird kind of disappointment. A feeling so entirely out of place, my stomach turned sick.
He had saved me. After everything I put him through.
But still, I had no right to hope.
All I had left now was Rose.
Only Rose.
“Rose?”
“Sh, sh, sh…,” the soft voice hushed. “Rose is fine, but we’re all worried about you.”
“She’s waking up?”
Another, deeper voice.
“I think so.” Chair feet dragged over the floor. “She asked for her daughter. Twice.”
“I better go tell Rowan.”
“Don’t!” the voice now had an urgent undertone, “Just… give her some time. All this will all be a lot, and I don’t want to make it worse for her than it already is.”
Bright light burned my eyes, and shapes of wooden logs, chairs, and a fireplace came into my vision. The blanket they had wrapped around me now tugged on my neck, threatening nothing short of suffocation. I kicked my feet and struggled it off me, tossing my head from side to side. Dark hair appeared right above me, along with a broad, hovering smile.
“Ayanna?”
“You lost consciousness when they came to get you,” she said. “They brought you here to our cabin, and River’s been sitting watch all morning long.”
River walked over to his small kitchen across the bed, picked up the kettle, and poured hot water into a mug. “That’s about all I’m useful for right now with this damn wrist.”
“Don’t say that,” Ayanna scolded him. “You helped to get them all out.”
“Yup, some hero I am.” He sprinkled some leaves into the mug, carried it over to the bed and placed it on the nightstand beside me. All with one hand. “I could have twisted my wrist, jumping out of a helicopter. Or dangling on a rope. But no, I fucking twisted it jacking up a car… something I’ve done hundreds of times before.”
He grabbed his coat from the chair, and one-hand struggled himself into the sleeves. “I’ll go let him know she’s awake.”
Ayanna rose from the little stool beside the bed and worked up his zipper. “Can you at least walk slow?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He placed a kiss onto her forehead. “Extra slow. And I’ll even take Monk with me.”
He gave a whistle, and his dog jumped up from the faded kitchen rug and ran behind his master.
I waited until he pulled the door shut behind him. Then I looked Ayanna straight in the face. “Where is Rose? I want to see her!”
She stood perfectly still, almost as if frozen in time, except for how she sucked in her upper lip. “She is with Rowan and has been ever since we brought her here.”
“I want to see her,” I yelled, immediately regretting my sharp tone.
Ayanna gifted me the smile only your best friend can have for you after you barked at her. But still, something heavy around her eyes framed it all a shade darker, making my heart shudder in my ears. I had to see Rose.
She reached for the mug and supported my head, and I took a sip of the tea River had prepared for me.
“You need to take things easy, Darya,” she said. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? You’re nothing but skin and bones. Let River talk to Rowan. Let him know you woke up and everything. We’ll take it from there.”
I lay back down and turned my head toward the wall in silence. You don’t exactly ask for a second helping if the food they serve has no taste at all.
“She can sit with support now. Rose, I mean. And she babbles a lot, especially in the mornings.”
Sit. Babble. Her words, no matter how kind, stabbed me in the heart, leaving me near dizzy. How old was Rose now?
Fifteen weeks? Twenty?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I grabbed her arm. “What’s the date?”
&nbs
p; “What?” She shrunk back. “Um, it’s… it’s January first.”
Four. Eight. Twelve. Sixteen. Seven — no. Twenty. No!
Tears welled down my cheeks as unexpected as they were uninvited, turning my body into a heaving and head-bobbing mess of snot.
“What is it?” Ayanna asked.
At the very next exhale it blurted out of me. “I don’t remember how old my daughter is. Everything’s… such a blur.”
“Oh, no, no.” Ayanna took me into her embrace. “Don’t blame yourself for it. They told us you spent almost three months in a deprivation cell. Being confused is normal. Give it time, and the confusion will clear up, honey.”
I sobbed into her dark, wavy hair, suddenly ashamed of how I made everything about myself again. Just like I did before I fucked everything up.
With my sleeves I dried the tears away, then I struggled a smile on my face. “I’m sorry. Here I am feeling sorry for myself, and I haven’t asked you a single question about how you’re doing. So… how are you doing?”
“I am doing great,” she said, taking my tear-soaked hands into hers. “I feel like I am finally where I always belonged, and that’s all because you were there to help me.”
“That’s not true. You did it all by yourself.”
She shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “Darya, I would never have come here if you wouldn’t have encouraged me. And I think I might never have gone to that address Svea gave me. At least not by myself.”
She stood there in silence for a while, her eyes drifting off as if her mind replayed the night she escaped the Districts. I pushed myself up and sat against the headboard. Things had changed around here, I noticed by how Ayanna’s arms hung relaxed by her sides.
Women no longer feared being raped in their own homes by clansmen while their husbands were out working. Rowan had done what I begged him to do for years: he made himself chieftain and turned it all around.
“Can I ask you something?” Ayanna shoved the little stool closer to the bed and sat once more. “Tell me it’s none of my business, but I don’t understand why —”