Monarch Falls (The Four Quarters of Imagination Book 1)

by Lumen Reese

  *

  Painful pressure on my chest. The distan t feeling of my lungs screaming. Then all at once I was awake and starved for my next breath and gasping and and crying out because part of me was sure that I was still falling. But the ground was there when I whipped around and coughed up a splash of water onto the muddy ground. I had knocked Corso aside to retch up the lake’s water, and he put a hand on my back. He, too, was gasping and dripping.

  “Stella!?” Henry looked over his shoulder and almost lost his grip on the cliff’s side as he climbed down, sounding frantic. He saw me, must be, because he looked ahead and focused on finding his footing.

  Corso reached out once I had sat up. “You alright, Honey?” His hands on my face were gentle and cold, making me realize my own fingers were aching. I flexed them, mesmerized.

  “Okay.”

  “What the hell were you thinking?” He let go of my face and wrapped my hands in his, rubbing them.

  “It worked.”

  “It did,” he admitted. “But if Henry’s coming, that must mean the cave is empty. You should’ve just let me shoot it.”

  “Damn. Sorry.”

  “-‘S okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  “-‘S okay,” he said, with a little grin.

  I was feeling a bit strange, or the world was, the way it does after something frantic happens. “You always find excuses to kiss me.”

  “You always enjoy it,” he accused, and stole a look at Henry, who was nearing the bottom of the cliff’s face. Then he reached out with one hand and cupped the side of my face again, leaned in and pressed his cold lips to mine for a quick kiss before climbing to his feet and offering his hand. “Come on.”

  He pulled me up. I gasped. My leg was stabbing with needles, but I could stand. When I bent down and looked at the spot, there were teeth marks which were bleeding but my calf was all still there. Henry ran up and was reaching out for me before he had even reached me.

  “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine. We have to get to the train.”

  “Take my coat,” he said, already stripping it off.

  “Okay, but let’s go.”

  *

  The way up out of the valley was much longer than the way down. It was a steep trail and the rocks were icy. It had begun to snow and my hair froze solid. Even with Henry’s huge coat on I felt chilled to the bone, and so I knew Corso had to be even colder. Hatley had managed to climb back up to the top on her own, and waited for us there. As soon as she saw us, she looked between Corso and I.

  “Take my coat. Give that one to him-.”

  “-I’m fine, let’s go,” Corso said, but she snapped at him.

  “Take the coat, you idiot! I mean it. You’re both going to catch hypothermia by the time we’re out of this.” She had a wool hat on, too, and gave it to me, letting her curls fall out.

  We hurried on, half an hour, and I watched as Henry picked out small details in the forest that I had missed. A broken branch, places where the fresh snow had not yet covered up trudged trails in the ground, and every few minutes we would see a scratch in the bark of a tree along the way. We crossed the bridge over the ravine.

  The snow fell thicker. I was cold from head to toe, my face was numb. Finally after what felt like hours, we began to approach a humming sound that was faint in the distance. It was the train. We moved faster, probably looking ridiculous loping through the snow at a half-jog, exhausted and injured in over our heads. Lights became visible over the last hill, through the trees, where the treeline ended abruptly. There was the two-walled station, and beyond it the train was lit up in every car. We could see female heads lining the seats in the three passenger cars, and the figures of hulking men patrolling up and down them with automatic weapons slung off of their shoulders. There were two in each car.

  The conductor’s car was more enclosed, and had only small windows in the emergency doors on the side.

  I looked at Corso.

  He said, “Alright. We’ll secure it one car at a time. Go in on either side, in pairs. Stella, with me. We’ll start at the back. You two take the end, we’ll stay low and get to the front of the car. Wait for us. I’ll go in first. Shoot to kill. Come on.”

  He led the way, moving along the treeline so that we would come out at the very back of the train. The tracks curved into the woods behind it, we ran up to the back, and Corso climbed first up onto the railing that wrapped around the cars, and I followed. We crouched low and moved fast around the side, staying under the windows until we reached the area between the two train cars. The door was grey.

  Corso had his gun in hand, and took a moment to look at me. Inhaled, turned the knob and flung the door open, whipping both arms up. I was right behind him with my gun raised around his side. Henry and Hatley had come in on the other side and Corso’s shout, “Put it down!” covered the screams from a few terrified women. One of the men had been sitting in the back corner by Henry, and Hatley held him still in her cross hairs.

  The three of us all took aim on the second man, who stood near the center with both hands off of his gun. He had whipped around to face us but his hands had gone up. Corso stepped closer.

  “Everybody stay calm. Keep your hands up. Henry.”

  Henry stepped forward and pressed his gun to the man’s back, slid the strap of his gun off of his shoulder and took it.

  “Get down on the floor,” Corso said. “Someone tie them. Use your belt if you have to.”

  I was looking at the girls and women cowering away, holding each other, some just staring at us, wide-eyed. One, a black girl, about twenty, stood and held out her hands. “Give me that. You go on.”

  She triggered a wave of response from the others.

  “Are you police?”

  “Thank you!”

  “Please, my sister is in the next car!”

  Another woman took the gun from the man in the back. One woman took keys off of the man and started undoing handcuffs for the others. The first two pairs to be taken off of girls were clamped tightly on the wrists of those men.

  Corso stripped off Henry’s orange coat and wrapped it around a little girl who was shaking. I did the same.

  Girls were hugging me, I was rambling, “It’s okay. It’s alright. Stay put, we’re going to take you home. You’re safe, now.”

  “Thank you.” A girl of about ten kissed me on the cheek. My eyes welled up and I blinked fast, forcing the emotion back down, turning away and hurrying to join Corso again on the platform outside the car.

  It was a long step across to the next car. Corso and I went around, and again he braced himself outside of the door. He nodded to distinct beats and I understood. One, two, three.

  He flung the door open and whipped his gun up, and it went off in the same instant when one of the men inside whirled around with his gun on his shoulder. He dropped it as he fell. Henry burst in on the other side. The second man had already fired a shot in our direction when Henry’s gun popped and blood sprayed from the man’s thigh and took him down to one knee. Corso fired again and the second man was knocked back.

  It all happened in a matter of seconds, and people screamed but this time no one moved as we stood over the men. Henry found the keys and leaned in to offer them to the nearest woman, but she flinched from him.

  “It’s okay,” he said, though he looked stricken.

  Hatley took the keys from him and began to free victims.

  My eyes locked on a sobbing, pregnant woman. She was tan, big nosed, curly haired. A pale girl next to her rubbed her back. Most of the victims were still, watching us. I saw -and it shocked me so much that I looked again-two boys sitting together in a cushioned seat. They had to be brothers, dark haired and big eyed and skinny. The younger was maybe ten, the older maybe sixteen and they were holding each other.

  With both of the wounded men handcuffed on the ground, and only one passenger car and the conductor’s car left, we caught our breath. Then, a little rush of air expelled
from within the train, and it gave a jolt, starting to roll.

  Corso took the lead once more. He ducked low and started to move and I hurried to follow, my heart had slowed from racing to a painful, persistent throbbing. I was a few steps behind him. We made the other side and the trees began to blend together, and a chain under the train jingled as the track rushed by below us. We paused outside the door, and a gunshot shattered the glass of the window a few inches from Corso’s face. He hardly flinched but I stumbled. His arm shot out and he grabbed at me. I had slipped one foot off the platform.

  “Alright?”

  I nodded. My heart was pounding again.

  He threw himself against the door and busted it open, pointed and shot in a second. Both armed men were backed into corners, and had a female hostage in front of them, pinned to them, using them as shields. Corso’s first shot hit the man in the right corner in the head and left the victim screaming, wailing, prying herself free from a stiff body, dead on his feet.

  He had led and I had followed, and turning around the doorway to get inside made me an easier target. Henry and Hatley had crashed in but the second man was already lifting his assault rifle high on his shoulder. Corso turned his body. He snapped back and stumbled into me with the force of the bullet hitting the left side of his chest.

  I was left knowing I had yelled only from its echo in the room and the rawness of my throat as I grabbed onto him and my knees went out and we went down.

  The armed man in the corner whipped his gun around to the other side and Henry and Hatley jumped back as another shot went off and embedded in the wall. The man flung the blonde girl he held at them and dashed the way we had come.

  The gun still in my hand rose up on its own and I fired.

  The man flopped in the center aisle of the second car.

  Corso gripped at the seeping wound in his chest. He was wincing in pain and that sent a shock through me as I laid him flat and hung over him. My hands shook as I brought them up, hesitated, then pushed them down onto the warm moist of his wound. He cried out.

  “I’m sorry!” But I kept pressure on it. My throat was tight my eyes were prickling. “Why did you do that!?” I demanded.

  “Joey’d kill me…”

  He looked paler than usual, stunned and staring up at me. He lifted his head up and set it back down, hard.

  There were people all around, watching, I realized. Henry and Hatley had gone to secure the man I had shot, but the car was full of victims. The blood creeping up over my fingers was bright red.

  “I’m sorry, Honey-.”

  “-No,” I said.

  “-We did it, though.”

  He had one hand below mine, and brought the other up to place on top of them.

  “We’re not done yet.” My whole head was swimming with it, I might just pass out from the pain splitting me open.

  He pinched his eyes shut and I gave him a little shake that made him hiss in pain.

  “Sorry. Keep your eyes open.”

  He smiled a little, and shut his eyes, so I gave him another shake.

  “Corso! Miles!”

  His chest rumbled below me as he chuckled.

  “You’re sweet, Honey. But I think-,” he winced and lifted himself until he was sitting up with a final gasp and looking at me with droopy eyes. “-I’m gonna be okay.”

  I gawked at him. “You asshole!”

  “Alright, I’m sorry. This really does hurt, though, help me up, let’s finish this.”

  I grabbed him below both arms and helped pull him to his feet. He swayed on his feet, still holding his left shoulder with his right hand , his wound was higher and further out than I had realized. Hatley and Henry came from the second car.

  “One room left,” Henry said.

  Corso said, “You wanna take the lead on this one, Sheriff?”

  Henry moved toward the front of the car, and I followed, then Corso and Hatley. Corso held his gun in his left hand, and leaned on one side of the door to the conductor’s car .

  Henry kicked it open.

  Jericho was front and center standing by the train’s control panels. There was an arm around his neck and a gun pressed to his temple. Henry took stock of it and whirled to the left where two men were advancing from behind the door. He fired first and a second shot came from behind us, from Corso. One shot went off from one of their automatic weapons as they went down, and Henry poun c ed on the first man who only went to his knees.

  A man had lunged from the right and I took aim for him but he caught my arm and yanked me off my feet. Hatley was right beside me and got off a shot that hit him somewhere on the side and made him gasp, but he still got an arm around my neck and jerked me around, backing up to the wall, to the emergency door which he pulled the latch on and it flung open.

  “Get back!”

  There was a cold gun barrel on the side of my head. Guns were pointed all around but the room had fallen still.

  “Put your guns down.” The man holding Jericho hostage was Dr. Foster, a few inches shorter than him and barely peeking out an inch from around the side of the younger man’s head. I couldn’t see his face really but his voice was recognizable.

  I was only a foot from the wind and blur of trees rushing by on the landscape outside of the open door. The man who held me in a headlock was strong, and it would take only a quick heave to send me out the door and splattered on the ground. My knees were almost going out. He pointed the gun at Hatley and inched us closer to the open door.

  Nobody put their guns down. All three were trained on us.

  Corso was no longer leaning in the doorway, he held his gun in both hands, and at the ready, letting his shoulder drip, the bloody ring on his shirt expanding by the minute. He was a fearsome sight, and Henry’s face was equally hard.

  “Let her go,” Henry hissed.

  “Listen to me,” Dr. Foster said, “Jericho has Isaac on the phone, we’ve got a clear shot to the coast and we’re intending to make it there.”

  Hatley spoke fast, “Your men are all captured or dead, you put down your weapons, before any more people die.”

  “Let her go!”

  Dr. Foster said, and he was still ducking low and hugging close to Jericho, but began to sort of point with his gun as he spoke, “Unless you want a dead girl, a dead Head Designer and a shootout to follow, you-.”

  Corso fired. He was so fast we all jumped in the second after the shot went off and Jericho gasped in a moment of silence that fell. Dr. Foster’s eye was gone. He collapsed without firing a shot.

  The man holding me backed up even further toward the door. He turned his gun to the side of my head again. “Stay back. Try to shoot, I’ll take her down with me.” My stomach hurt from the fear. My eyes flooded over with tears that were warm against the cold wind rushing in beside us.

  He reeked of sweat. Corso had lowered his gun and he waved a hand for the others do to the same. Hatley did first, then, grimacing, jaw tight, Henry did the same.

  “You’re right,” Corso said. His voice was scratchy, he was exhausted and his face was turned down, he was looking up from under his brow. His gun twitched at his side. “I’m not going to shoot you. That would be too quick. You hurt her, you’d be lucky to die that fast. Even if you throw yourself out with her, only maybe do you die as soon as you hit the ground. If you didn’t I’d find you. I’ve never enjoyed pain before but you do this, you make a sadist out of me. I’ll hurt you so slowly and completely you will wish you were dead. Or, you let her go and the sheriff places you under arrest. I promise you, prison is the only place you will be safe from me.”

  “Listen to him,” Henry said. “There’s no way out for you.”

  The man holding me spoke at a panicked pitch through clenched teeth. “No death penalty. Say it.”

  Jericho had his hand around his neck, absently rubbing where it hurt. “No death penalty.”

  The arm around my neck eased up. I slipped out from under him and stumbled forward, going to Hatley wh
o caught me and propped me up. The armed man lowered his gun, set it on the ground and held up his hands. Henry stalked over and wrenched his hands around, holding them behind his back.

  “Keep him away from me,” he said.

  He had nodded to Corso, who slumped against the wall, tucked his gun in the back of his jeans and went back to holding his shoulder.

  Henry sat the last man down in one of the two chairs at the helm of the train, and cuffed his arms around one of its arms.

  Jericho said, “You’re cool under pressure.”

  I was shocked for a moment, still wiping tears off of my face, but then I realized he was looking past me.

  Corso muttered, “Lucky I don’t particularly like you; the pressure wasn’t so bad.”

  Henry said, “We need to stop the train, head back the other way.”

  “I’ve got it,” Jericho said, and faced the control panels. He pulled back on a silver handle and the train whirred, and began to slow down. “I’ll call Kayla. Have her meet us at the station with Mr. Nathanson. And Clark. We’ll stop to get them and then head on to New York to get everyone to the hospital. Someone should go and tell them it’s over. And we should move the other men up into this car; the girls have been through enough.”

  “There are a few boys, too,” I mumbled.

  “I didn’t realize.”

  “How many are there, do you think?” I looked between Hatley and Henry.

  “Maybe eighty, total,” she said. Her arms were still around me.

  Corso was gone when I looked back. I hurried back through the third car, and saw him there through the window in the door of the second, moving toward the back of the train. I let him go, staying with Hatley and Henry for the heavy lifting of moving wounded, dead, and bound men to the conductor’s car.