The Destined

by E. J. Mellow

  “Molly?” he croaked out, a fissure of desperation erupting inside him. His paralysis seemed to lift, and instantly he reached for her. But she remained just beyond his grasp, forcing him to move forward, to follow her vision of dark hair and freckled cheeks that he had painfully yearned to see since the moment she vanished on the wind.

  She smiled, a sweet expression, and though she said nothing, he could hear her calling to him. I need you…come to me.

  “I will,” he said. “Please, just wait for me. Stay where you are.”

  But she didn’t seem to hear him, just kept floating farther down the path, away from him.

  “No!” He quickened his pace but then came up short when her face distorted, as if something was trying to push through her skin. His stomach turned over as bits of her flesh fell away, slowly being consumed by the black tar her form stood in front of—the entrance to the Metus den. His mind became his own again, and dread washed over him as he realized the manipulation game—he had been fooled once more, and all too easily. He stepped back as a multitude of forms took shape out of the murkiness, pulsing and pushing at the thin barrier, bits of burning orange turning on behind the veil.

  The Metus…were waking up.

  Tendrils of nightmarish energy reached for him again, trying to regain their hold, but in a burst Dev shut his mind, threw the Cell into the mass, and turned to clamber up the slope. A howl made up of a thousand screams vibrated from behind him, and his gloved fingers dug into the mucus-laden walls as he propelled himself forward, an orange glow now growing brighter at his back. They were on him, and with a quick glance over his shoulder, he saw the creatures emerge in a condensed sludge to fill the entirety of the twelve-foot-tall tunnel. Claws and fire reached out, aware of the treat in front of them, desperate to consume it, consume him. Dev cursed as he ran, knowing he was too close to activate the Cell that he hoped was now deep within their den.

  With panted breaths he crested the top of the hill and kept going, not daring to look back again. Their smell infiltrated his lungs, and it took every effort not to vomit into his mask. The concentrated number in such a small space had rendered his gear useless. The sound of their liquid cresting movements echoed in loud gushes down the tunnel, making it nearly impossible to know how close they actually were, and their high-pitched shrieks grated along every one of his nerve endings.

  With a burst of determination, Dev picked up his pace.

  He needed as much distance as possible to order what he would next.

  “Aveline!” Dev switched on his radio.

  “Dev?” Her voice came through panicked. “In all of Terra, why did you—”

  “Start detonating the pins!” he instructed as he slammed into a wall at the end of his path and turned right, the blue glow from his and Minka’s pins guiding the way out of the darkened tunnel.

  “Dev, what’s happening? We can’t set them off with you still inside!”

  “You have to! Start from the farthest out. I’ll beat them to the exit.” She made another attempt to say no, but Dev quieted her. “Aveline, I will die if you don’t, and so will all of you! Detonate, NOW!”

  After a second of silence, a rumble erupted from behind him. Rocks and dirt fell from above and kept falling as a patterned burst began to ignite.

  The pins had been set.

  With his head down, Dev raced them forward, his footing knocked unsteady every few explosions, but he righted himself and kept going, lightning in a bottle.

  The sound of the monsters’ pained screams filled the tunnel, the walls crushing them in their collapse. But Dev hardly registered it as his own loud breaths filled his head along with his frantic thoughts. He was still too close to trigger the Cell, but it was his only chance—their hive needed to be destroyed before most of them made it out. His only sense of relief came when he finally entered into the atrium of a large cavern. A dozen other tunnel entrances peppered the circumference of the space, all previously searched to find the hive that now chased him.

  “Dev? Where are you?” Aveline’s frenzied voice echoed in his ears. But he had no time to respond. Running toward the small seam of light that filtered through a hole in the ceiling, he skidded to a stop on the rocky floor and hooked himself into the waiting rope. The orange glow now grew brighter from three shafts that led to the cave—the Metus number had split up, which meant there would only be more of them.

  Without stopping, he pressed a button on his harness and began zooming toward the exit above, his feet dangling in the air as he took out the Cell’s detonator. If he triggered it now, he might fall back in, collapsing with everything around him, but if he waited, their hive would be empty, and some would surely get free. It was hardly a choice.

  With a deceptively quiet beep, he activated the bomb.

  There was a moment of nothing as Dev flew up, mere yards away from the view of the star-streaked night, but with a sudden rumble, the walls around him cracked and fissured. Large chunks of dirt and rocks fell from the cave’s ceiling to crash loudly against the floor, and Dev gripped his harness more firmly as he shielded his head. This whole underground world was about to be wiped out, and he prayed to all the elders that he wouldn’t be included. Like an internal gasp, waves of blue-orange lava erupted out of every tunnel—Metus mixed with the hot flame of the devouring Navitas set off from the Cell.

  He covered his ears as a second explosion knocked against every atom in the space, and a burst of fire and energy kicked him from behind. Like a geyser gushing from the ground, it sent him flying the last few feet forward, through the exit of the skylight and out into the night. Dev soared as coils of smoke and flames surrounded him, a current of heat that eventually sent him smacking into the ground.

  There was an audible shatter as something over his face broke apart. Acute slices of pain ripped across his cheek, and a pop sounded at his shoulder, followed by mind-numbing agony. His ears rang, his mind tumbled, and the smell of flesh burning swam around him. Pain was everywhere, everything.

  And then, for the first time in Dev’s life, his mind went black.

  — 4 —

  I’ve never been particularly jealous of the Vigil,

  until now.

  —Part of a letter from Dev to Molly

  The café is quiet for a Friday morning, a few tables filled with New Yorkers who have the luxury of working off site, and the tapping of their fingers against their keyboards mixes with the soft music playing in the background. Becca sits in front of me, her curly red hair in a fashionable disarray across one shoulder while she shakes a sugar packet, waiting for my response. I’ve been a bad companion this morning, zoning in and out of our conversation, trying to sort my emotions from last night’s meeting with Sonja. Could I really be close to returning to Terra? Will the transfer work? Is it even safe? I’m hesitant to allow a full sense of relief to flood me.

  I know better than that now.

  But still…being even an inch closer to seeing Dev again, his arms around me—

  An impatient clearing of someone’s throat brings me back to the present, and I look up, finding Becca’s green eyes pinned to me.

  “Well?” she asks.

  “I don’t know when I’ll start looking for a new job.” I tear off a piece of my muffin. “I’m not really worried about it.”

  “Why in the world not?” She sits up straighter. “What are you going to do for money?”

  “I have some saved.”

  This, of course, is a half-truth. The part I’m failing to mention is the Dreamer fund set up for occasions such as these. Well, Rae says it’s more for health emergencies or travel expenses, but I’d easily categorize my current mental state as a health emergency.

  “Since when?” Becca asks.

  Something in her tone pushes away my patience. “Is this really what you want to talk about? My finances?”

  “Easy, tiger.” She lifts a delicate brow. “I’m just concerned. It’s not like you to be so…blasé about your future, is al
l.”

  I stare out the café window, watching as an older woman walks her small dog, her jacket buttoned up to her neck to keep out the strange chill that’s infiltrating our summer.

  “I don’t see the point in planning things anymore. Life has a way of messing it all up anyway.”

  Becca stays quiet for a moment, a sympathetic expression marring her brow. “I know getting fired was rough, and I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but I mean…you did just disappear, Mols. What did you expect work was going to do?”

  I pop the piece of my muffin into my mouth. “I don’t care about getting fired.”

  “Then what do you care about?” She slumps back into her seat. “For Christ’s sake, you’re like a walking corpse these days. I hardly see you anymore, and when I do, you show up looking like this.”

  I frown. “What’s wrong with how I look?”

  Becca gives me a speaking glance. “Are you even aware that you’re wearing that shirt inside out? I mean, I’m all for fashionable boldness, but not when it comes with pizza stains.”

  I cross my arms over my chest, hoping to cover said pizza stains. “Well, we can’t all be as put together as you.”

  “True,” she agrees. “But seriously, Molly. Do we need to see Dr. Marshall again? Maybe this attitude change is because of the accident. PTSD or something.”

  The mention of Aaron’s human pseudonym stabs me right in the gut, and my arms clench around me.

  “I’m fine, really,” I say and attempt a smile, but I have a feeling it only makes me look like I have gas.

  “I don’t believe for a second you’re ‘fine’”—she air quotes—“but if you need me to pretend a little longer, I can do that. I swear though—if I don’t see a shadow of my best friend by next week, I’m calling an intervention.”

  A genuine laugh escapes me.

  “There she is!” Becca grins. “That gives me some hope.”

  Hope.

  “When do you need to get back to work?” I ask, taking a sip of my coffee.

  “In an hour,” Becca says after she glances at her watch. “The office is always empty on summer Fridays. What are you going to do for the rest of the day?”

  “Not sure. Probably call my grandpa, see how he’s doing. Maybe go for a run.”

  “Yuck. Since when do you do that?”

  “Since I heard it can be healthy for you.”

  “Yeah, so is yoga, and you don’t come out looking like a drenched monkey. Well, unless it’s hot yoga, but still. Why don’t you go to my class with me tomorrow?”

  I shrug. “Okay.”

  Becca blinks. “Okay?” She peers around the room. “Did Molly Spero really just agree to a work-out class?”

  I roll my eyes. “All right, no need to be dramatic.”

  “But it’s so much more fun that way.” She beams a grin.

  Just then the screen to my phone flashes between us, and we both look down.

  “Why is Rae calling you?” Becca’s brows crease.

  I internally curse while declining his call. “He’s probably trying to reach you or something.”

  “Then why didn’t you answer?” She fishes into her purse for her own phone, but frowns when she finds it. “He hasn’t called or texted me.”

  “Hunh, weird.” I drop my cell into my bag.

  “Yeah, weird.” She watches me closely.

  Crap. What possible excuse can I give to explain why my best friend’s boyfriend is calling me? Besides the truth—that we’ve been going behind her back for months to travel to another dimension and then hang out, usually late at night or early morning, to train for combat and go on secret rendezvous to science labs. Yeah, that’ll go over really smoothly.

  “He probably wants to know what your favorite color is or something,” I say. “Sometimes he calls when he’s preparing some surprise for you.” Becca stays silent, so I keep going. “If he ends up taking you somewhere this weekend, just act like you had no idea, okay? I’m sure he’ll be upset if he found out that you knew I’ve been helping.”

  Her shoulders relax slightly. “He has been acting a little weird lately, which does happen when he’s planning something.”

  “Yeah, like how he gave away your weekend trip to the Catskills by asking over and over if you liked the woods.”

  Becca smiles. “That was ridiculous.”

  “Exactly. That’s Rae—ridiculous. If he calls again, I’ll advise him to keep his cool better this time.”

  She nods, taking a sip of her coffee, and though she seems mollified, something in the way Becca’s features stay calculating as she glances toward my bag tells me she doesn’t entirely believe me.

  — 5 —

  Sometimes I wake up thinking

  I finally dreamt of you,

  but then I realize

  my heart remains still.

  —Part of a letter from Molly to Dev

  Aveline’s voice was way too loud, as if she decided he wasn’t in enough pain and it was her duty to rectify the situation. Dev closed his eyes and gingerly leaned his shoulder into the padded chair he sat in. If I could only be knocked unconscious again, he thought.

  “And then you had to order us to detonate with you still in there. I mean, of all the moronic, suicidal—”

  “You’ve already used those adjectives,” Dev interjected, “which means you’ve exhausted your limited vocabulary for the day, so there’s really no need for you to keep talking.”

  Aveline snapped her mouth shut at that but continued to fume silently beside him, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Dev was in the recovery wing of a hospital specifically made for Nocturna soldiers. Rows of beds and chairs filled the pristine tiled space, each separated by a thin white partition allowing for some semblance of privacy. Dev was merely one among many wounded, all in various stages of healing, which, thankfully, happened a lot quicker than human standards due to the advancement of Terra’s sciences. Repart Sleeves hovered around patients’ arms or legs, repairing broken bones while nurses stood in front of men and women, running Stitch Scanners over open gashes and bruises. Wherever its blue light touched, minor cuts rapidly fused together, and darkened skin returned to its natural hue.

  Dev had woken earlier in the ER to find a team of doctors surrounding him, the buzz of conversations and other soldiers being treated and moved into surgery filled the backdrop. They debriefed him on his injuries—a dislocated shoulder, multiple lacerations across his face, bruised ribs, and part of his back had suffered minor burns. If he ended up waking up at all, Dev had certainly thought he’d be way worse for wear. But because of the doctors’ medical advancements, they fixed everything fairly rapidly, except the burns to his back, for which he had to stick around to receive a few more treatments.

  He had just finished his last one and was being shown into the recovery wing when Aveline ambushed him. So while he might have survived the blast, he had yet to decide if he’d survive her fury.

  “If you’d like to be helpful,” Dev said, changing the subject, “you can tell me the status of the tunnels.” He shifted in the chair where he sat shirtless. Strips of ointment covered his back, and he resisted the urge to scratch at the newly grown skin. It felt like a thousand ants crawling across his body.

  “The status—” Aveline spluttered. “Who cares about that? You almost died tonight, Dev!” She threw her hands up. “I think you can take a break for one second.”

  “Almost means I didn’t. I’m still as alive as you. Maybe not as animated, but still alive. So please, Aveline, the status.”

  With a frustrated huff, she shook her head. “All the tunnels leading to the city have been successfully collapsed. Ours was the last to be called in.”

  Dev nodded, his focus fixed to the tiled floor as some of the tension went out of his shoulders. “We’ll need to deal with the ones on the outskirts next. See if we can recruit new teams, double our efforts. They’ll certainly be a greater number of Metus out there, since they haven’t
been as easily maintained or monitored.”

  Aveline’s mouth was gaped open when he glanced at her, and her left eye twitched before she snapped up his medical chart that rested beside him, flipping through his records.

  “What are you doing?” He tried to grab the tablet from her, but she blocked his reach.

  “Seeing if there’s something in here about your brain damage, because you have to be suffering from something to be talking like you are. Seriously,” she bit out, “what’s wrong with you?”

  “Well, currently I’m starting to acquire a headache from this terribly annoying sound that’s coming from in front of me.”

  A vein in Aveline’s forehead strained to the surface. “Dev,” she hissed while throwing the tablet at him, which he easily caught. “You almost didn’t make it out last night. Do you understand? You almost got buried, crushed, pulverized, taken out right alongside our enemies.” She brushed a trembling hand through her hair. “I get that you need distractions. I get that you need to let out your rage for what happened to Molly, and that you miss her, but you’re becoming reckless.” Her eyes stayed locked to his. “This is exactly what I was afraid would happen. You’re losing it. What good would your death be to her, huh? It would only make things one hundred times worse. And you know what? It’s not just Molly you’d be hurting. What about me, Dev?” She stabbed a finger at her chest. “Did you ever stop to think what this is doing to me? I can’t…” She swallowed her words, her voice shaking. “You can’t be this selfish. I won’t allow it. So until you get your head screwed on straight, you can count me out of your missions. I might have done it in the past, but I can’t silently stand by you again and watch you act suicidal.” And before Dev could respond, Aveline turned and stormed out of the recovery wing, her slim black form disappearing through the far door.