“Tio, how long were you there before the dragons turned on you?”
“Weeks, a month? It was time.”
“So we should be alright for a while?”
“No. No, I don’t know, but don’t expect that. They had a planet before us. Must have been better than us.”
“What do you mean they had a planet?”
Tio shifted and moved to the window. She was tense, and obviously didn’t want to be at the window for long.
“That one.”
“That what? The asteroid?” asked Salem.
“Not an asteroid. It was a planet. A small one. They consumed it. It’s dead now. That is what they do. They eat energy. They are full now, but I don’t know for how long.”
I could tell she was getting agitated. Salem sensed it too, and she moved near Tio and wrapped her arms around her shoulder. The air relaxed a bit around the girl, and her breath caught in her chest less. Salem had that affect on people, which is why she made such a good thief. Their footsteps moved away from the window, and they returned to sit on the floor next to me.
“Tio, tell me about yourself. Did you always know you were a psyche?”
She breathed out loudly.
“No. Well, I thought I might be. I knew little things that were going to happen. I knew when a boy was about to kiss me in school or when it was going to rain. I hid it so I could join the service. I wanted to be an officer like my mother. It wasn’t like this though… not until the…”
Tio tensed again.
“Can you tell me something about me?” asked Salem innocently.
She was trying to change the subject. Tio needed a break from discussing the dragons, and she knew it. You didn’t have to be a psyche to see that.
“You… you want me to read your future?”
“I’ve never had a reading from a real psyche before. The closest we had back home was a hooker who was good at reading faces. She was good at guessing things, so she had clients that bought her readings, but she was no psyche. I’d love a reading.”
The mood lightened, and the girls shifted to sit facing each other.
“May I touch your face?”
“Sure.”
I heard her lean forward. The women each seemed to relax into position.
“I see you. You are on a planet of dust.”
“Pretty?”
“Not really, but you are relieved. You are safe and warm.”
“Well, at least that’s reassuring.”
“You are following a man into the desert.”
“On purpose or because he is making me?”
“On purpose. You want to follow him. He wants you to follow him.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” she said abruptly. “I can’t see his face.”
“How far in the future is this?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see your face either.”
Tio moved back into a seated position, releasing Salem’s face.
“How did you know it was me then?”
“I saw your tattoo.”
There was a little silence while everyone thought about what Tio had said. She stood without me noticing. That woman was quieter than anyone I had ever known. Not one sound of a footstep or rustle of fabric gave away the fact she was no longer sitting there across from Salem. I didn’t know she was close until I felt her touch my face. I started at the unwelcomed contact and grabbed her wrist quickly.
“What are you doing?”
“You! You have a blood oath. You’re a killer!”
Tio sounded terrified. Salem got to her feet in a hurry as I flung Tio to the ground. I stood and loomed over her.
“You have no right. I didn’t ask to be read.”
“You didn’t say not to,” she squeaked.
“It’s not fitting, you reading me like that.”
Salem came up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“She didn’t mean anything by it, Shadow Man. She doesn’t know the way of these things yet.”
“I know… I just don’t want to be read.”
“A blood oath,” Tio sputtered again. “You called a blood oath for the man who took your eyes. He was rich, a man of means. He hired your order to guard his compound. He wanted to—”
“Enough, Tio! That’s enough.”
My voice sounded angry and hers trembled like a child’s. Salem put her other hand on my back, and I could feel the warmth of it through my shirt. It calmed me, and I realized what I was doing. It took a deep breath and exhaled out my indignity. Tio was so young to this new skill. Yelling at her and scaring her wasn’t the way.
“I’m sorry. I’m better.”
I sat down again, and Salem stood next to me, her hands in my hair. She rubbed my scalp gently, and I allowed myself to be soothed.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but you have to tell her, Rabbit. You have to tell us about the blood oath. We are going to make an escape together, you have to tell us.”
“Salem, do you want to know?”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
“I owe you that much. Tio’s right.”
The girls drew closer to me. Salem sat close and held my hand. Nothing like a caring woman to pull the things out of you that you wish had stayed buried forever. Jesus, I didn’t want to do this.
“I was in the Shadow Class on Artemis. My order was hired by a rich merchant outside of Anson Batai. His name was Decklin Crane, and he ran a large importing and exporting compound on the harbor next to Bisquait Bay. He was practically a lord for all of the money he had. He paid the fee up front, so we obliged him.
“I knew there was something wrong as soon as I arrived. I was the first of my order to appear, and I could see something troubling in the eyes of his standard guards. There was something they were hiding or something that scared them. I should have left then. The instinct inside me told me to flee. However, my youthful pride told me to stay. I knew none of them were a match for me one on one. I was correct there. But twelve on one was another story.
“They took me in the night. I struggled, and I fought them off at first, but it wasn’t long before their numbers overtook me. I killed one and injured four others, but they had me. They took me to a prison cell. That’s where they took my eyes. The head man apologized to me. He said they didn’t want to do this. It was their orders. The guards held me down while one of them gauged out my eyes with a hot fire stick.”
The women were so silent I barely knew they were still there. Salem noiselessly reached a hand out and touched my arm.
“It was the merchant, you see. He had an affliction. The man only enjoyed being with people who were physically powerful, and he only wanted men. He liked to dominate them, to be in control. The rub was, he insisted they be blinded first. The merchant didn’t want to look in the eyes of the ones he took, and he killed them afterwards.”
Salem squeezed my arm.
“Decklin Crane had never tried to take on anyone from the Shadow Class. It was a challenge to him to try to take on an order. He planned to do it one at a time starting with me. The guards were paid to prepare his victims and look the other way. Money and fear drove them, and I didn’t try to talk them out of it. I’m sure it had never worked before.”
“So, they took me to a room in his mansion, blind, bound, and naked. That is where they left me for the merchant to come have his fun.”
“He raped you?”
“He tried, but he didn’t succeed. I heard the man’s footsteps as he entered the room. He walked slowly around me, circling me like an animal. I remember his voice was slithery like a snake as he taunted me. I said nothing. As soon as he touched me, I knew where he was. I attacked him before he knew anything happened. Within seconds I had strangled him with my own chains. Like I said, he had never tried this with one of my class before. The man was dead.
“That night was my first in darkness. I dressed with what I could find in the house, and hid in the shadows until the rest
of my order came in the morning. All it took was one look at my face for them to slaughter every guard in the compound. I took an oath that day, a blood oath. I would not speak my name again until I had killed all of the family of the Lord Crane.”
Salem’s arm was still now from the anticipation and drama of the story. Aside from her slight breaths, I could barely tell Tio was still in the room with us.
“His wife had passed years before, so I was thankful I didn’t have to be her demise. I never liked killing women. Word had it the night I had killed Decklin, his son had been spirited away by one of the guards. I never knew the child’s name, and no one would talk of him.
“I am not partial to killing children, so I decided to leave the child be until he was a little older. It isn’t my way to kill the defenseless. I left the order, unable to be an assassin in the Shadow Order any longer with my handicap. The rigs of the desert and the life of the roughnecks became my home as I waited for a sign. I waited seven years to hear what I needed to so I might continue my journey and find that boy that was surely a man now. One day, news of the dragons came my way. They could tell you what you needed to know. They gave you knowledge you needed. That was my sign.”
“Dear God, Shadow Man, I had no idea.”
She sounded so small and out of breath, like the wind had been pressed out of her.
“I’m so sorry, Rabbit.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Oh God. Oh God, no. Tio, what’s happening?”
The energy had changed, and the air that had just been warm and quiet was now chilled with alarm and fear. I tensed and rose to my feet, bringing a rigid Salem up with me. I heard Tio spin around and face the window.
“Not again. No, no, no, no! Not again.”
“One of you needs to tell me what’s happening right now.”
“The dragons, they’re flashing. The colors are changing.”
“Changing? Changing into what?”
Tio’s words from earlier entered my mind, something about running from the red ones. The blues and greens were fine, but the reds were not. No one answered me. Salem’s hand in mine went slack. She seemed to slip away.
“No!” screamed Tio. “Don’t look. Don’t look, don’t look, Salem!”
Tio grabbed her face and jerked it away from the window. Salem took in a deep breath of realization and snapped to attention.
“W-what happened?”
“Don’t look. Don’t look at them when they flash. They are turning red. They are hungry. Run, Rabbit! We have to go!”
We made for the door and the women peered outside.
“The guards are watching the dragons. Time to go,” Tio said as she grabbed my other hand and began pulling us out.
“Tio, they will hear us,” hissed Salem.
“No they won’t. They won’t even notice. Come on!”
Sure enough, the three of ran out of the med lab without a peep from the guards crowded around the window. We ran through the halls quickly, never letting go of one another. The entire ship seemed to be silent and unassuming. Very few people were in the corridors. Most were crowded around windows, staring intently at the dragons changing outside. The only people we had run into were those who hadn’t looked out of the windows yet.
“Tio, what’s going on? What is happening to them?”
“They can’t look away. They don’t want to. Hypnotized. Dragons are turning red, but they flash first. Makes you stop, makes you stare. Makes you not want to fight back.”
We kept running. I counted the corridors to remember where we were. The three of us had taken three lefts and two rights since we left the med lab. This could all get jumbled if I let it, so I counted. We were close. The escape pod was only one right and a left away.
I knew we had reached it when our feet made the distinct sound of landing on metal grates instead of the solid feel of the corridor. Tio immediately jumped into action at the control panel. I heard her flip the protective casing up and slam her fist down on the emergency release. This unlocked the pod from the Goliath and gave control to the actual pod. It also sounded an extraordinarily loud alarm.
“Hurry! Get in the pod. Once I get her started up, you throw that switch on the inner door. It will release us and shut the inner air lock door. After that, the only way to stop us will be to manually disable the outer air lock before it is finished decompressing. If they do that, we are dead. If not, the pod will be sent through the tunnel and the outer air lock door will open and let us escape.”
Tio ran through the pod to the flight controls and started flipping switches and powering on the pod. Salem followed her but not before she instinctively placed my hand on the inner door air lock switch. I waited as the pod hummed and slowly came to life. The terrible wail of emergency sirens was extremely distracting. In fact, it was so distracting I almost missed the unmistakable sound of Metal Head boots reverberating through the corridors. Whether they had not seen the scene out of the windows or they were snapped to attention by the sirens, I did not know. What I did know was they were close. Too close.
“How long will they have to disable the outer air lock door?”
“Two minutes. It takes two minutes to decompress after the switch is thrown.”
They were closer than that.
I stepped out of the pod and back onto the landing, my hand still on the switch.
“What are you doing?” asked Salem, a tremble of fear in her throat.
“Salem, they’re coming. I hear them. There’s a platoon of Metal Heads heading right for us. They will be here before the two minutes is up. We are all dead if I go with you now. Someone has to stay and keep them from disabling that door.”
“No! No, we are not leaving without you!”
She made her way toward me and I jumped back into the pod and grabbed her shoulders to stop her.
“We don’t have time to argue. Stay in this pod. I will hold them off.”
“No! We will not leave you here. We can take our chances, but you are coming with us.”
Her voice trembled under the mask of a stern tone.
“Damn it, Salem, don’t argue with me or we will all die. Get back in the pod!”
“Not without you, you asshole!”
I heard them. They were almost upon us now. We only had seconds left before it would be too late. I had to do something. They had to survive. The only way to save her was to get her to stay in that pod and leave me here to fight off the guards I could hear coming around the corner. All I needed to buy them was two minutes. If I survived that, I’d have to try to find a survival suit in the med lab. No other way around it.
But first, I had to get Salem in the damn pod without me.
I grabbed her face and pressed my lips to hers. If I was going to die, I would go out with the memory of her on my skin. We kissed and grabbed at each other hungrily, her trying to pull me in the pod, and I trying to leave. At last, I pulled away and removed the sash that bound my eyes. I tried to remember what if felt like to look into another person’s eyes. There was a way about it. The way you look into the eyes of someone you care about to tell them how you felt. I tried to remember and look at her that way now. I felt her gasp a little under my hands.
Everything seemed to slow suddenly, as if time was going to work for us to turn our moment together into something longer. I pulled her closer and put my mouth next to her ear. She didn’t try to resist me, only pressed her cheek against mine.
“My name,” I whispered into her ear. “My name is Jeremy.”
I felt the shock overtake her body. She was suddenly a limp ragdoll in my hands, pliable and small. At the sound of the Metal Heads reaching the docking bay, I pushed her to the ground, jumped back out of the pod, and flipped the switch to close the inner air lock door. It was done before she raised her head up from where she had fallen.
I spun around and unsheathed my barrook to the sound of four, possibly five Metal Heads stomping into the room with me. The door was safely shut behind me. Now, I
just had to buy them two minutes.
“Freeze! Drop your weapon and put your hands in the air!”
I slowly reached up and replaced the sash over my eyes. I heard the sound of five military issued guns activating. So, there were five of them.
“I will not repeat myself again. Drop your weapon.”
I bowed my head and moved my foot a little to listen to the vibrations. The room was not large, maybe twenty paces by fifteen, and it was round. I slowly lowered my barrook to the floor, and raised my hands above my head. The men lowered their guns and swarmed me. They were clumsy and heavy footed. However, the room being the size that it was, they couldn’t all surround me. Only three could get close enough at once, and that was their biggest mistake.
The first went down hard and easily. When I made like I was going to allow them to bind my hands behind my back, I reached for his gun and shot him in his throat. The other two closest to me went for me, but I ducked to the floor, retrieved my weapon, and swiped their feet off underneath them. They fell to the floor and joined their dead comrade, screaming and grabbing at their legs.
The last two rushed me from opposite sides. I stood quickly and stabbed my barrook deep into the first man’s chest. The other guard began to fire at me, but not before I had spun the man at the end of my blade around to act as my shield. His bullets riddled his friend instead of me. I shoved the guard off the barrook with such force he was flung onto his comrade, causing him to fall backwards. I could hear his gun clatter to the floor. He made so much noise it took me only a matter of seconds to find and decapitate him under the bulk of dead friend.
The alarm sounded and buzzed at me. The outer air lock had opened, and I could hear the whoosh of the pod surging through the tunnel and safely out to space. They were okay. She was okay. That’s all that mattered.
Chapter Twenty
I slammed into my third wall before I knew I was turned around. My breathing was labored and I felt my heart quiver with the anxiety of the moment. I was beginning to panic. No one ever saw me slam into a wall, blind or not. I made sure all uncertainties were hidden. Tuning into the air and the sounds around me protected me from moments like these.
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