Smoke Sky

by Amy Braun

  Rivulets of water sluiced down the dents of their rusted armor and soaked the thin tunics beneath. Their dreadlocks were plastered to the sides of their face, matching the wildness of their eyes. Each face was twisted in a hate-filled scowl, revealing chipped, yellow teeth. Even through the hammering rain, the sour reek of their unwashed bodies and rotting breath gagged me,

  In the distance, shrouded by shadows and veiled by rain, were two more figures creeping out from behind the wall of an abandoned warehouse. Dark as it was, I could still see the pinprick red of their eyes as they closed in.

  I twisted my upper body, struggling to slip free of the Junker holding me. A solid punch to my stomach stopped my fight. Another hit landed in my ribs before I had a chance to breathe. Two more strikes rammed into my torso, filling it with pain. A hand fisted my hair and jerked my head up. This time, I saw a knife.

  I widened my eyes, but was still looking over the Junker’s shoulder.

  The thugs had no idea what was behind them. Not until dagger-like claws stabbed into the knife-wielding Junker’s shoulders. He tilted his head back and screamed, making it all too easy for the Hellion to sink its teeth into his throat.

  His scream became a choking gurgle, stark red blood gushing out from the gaping holes in his neck. The two other Junkers started yelling and leaping away. The man trapping my arms let me go. I dropped to my knees, hearing a sharp cry and a thick, ripping sound, like something tearing skin away from bone. I grabbed my knife from where it fell and watched a body drop in front of me.

  The Junker who’d been about to cut me now lay bleeding out in the rain, a huge chunk of flesh missing from the left side of his throat. Wide, dead eyes stared at me with surprise and horror. I raised my head and watched another Hellion trap a second Junker on the ground. Its claws were plunged deep in the shrieking man’s back, pinning him in place as it clamped its mouth on the back of his neck. He wailed in agony as the Hellion pulled, lifting the flesh from the dying man’s spine.

  A sharp, raspy growl came from behind me. I pitched to my feet and swung the knife back. I was doing it to keep the Hellion away from me.

  I wasn’t expecting to cut open its face.

  The cold steel sliced open a gaping wound on its cheek. Its head barely turned, blood-red eyes fixing on me. I raised the knife and aimed another stab.

  The Hellion tilted its head and let the blade fly harmlessly into the empty space over its shoulder. It barked harshly and snapped its pointed teeth at my upper arm. I yelped in surprise and jumped back, getting the distance I desperately needed. I kicked the beast in the stomach before it could recover, buying myself a chance to escape. The dread set in when I turned and bolted into the rain.

  I didn’t know how long I had until those dagger claws plunged into my back. There was no way I could outrun one of the creatures, let alone two. All I could hope for was Nash and Sawyer escaping––

  The Hellion chasing me let out a sudden squawk. Another one screamed with rage. I pushed myself faster. I didn’t want to know what was going on. Not unless I was at least a hundred feet away and hidden on a roof.

  A man’s sharp grunt of pain stopped me.

  I whirled around, petrified as Nash attacked the final Hellion. Sawyer was recovering, the severed head of the Hellion lying at his feet behind me.

  This Hellion had a mouth full of blood streaming down its chin. More drizzled from its fingertips like red lightning. The first Hellion might have been caught unaware, but this one wouldn’t be.

  Sawyer lunged with his cutlass, aiming to run the Hellion through. It turned away, but not far enough. The blade sliced into its body right below the ribs.

  The Hellion didn’t seem to notice. It hissed and grabbed the sharp, naked steel, and pulled itself forward. The cutlass went straight through its body. The Hellion slashed its claws at Sawyer when he was too stunned to move. He came back into himself and stepped back, but wasn’t going to get far enough––

  Nash cracked his fist into the side of the Hellion’s head. The brass knuckles circling his fingers glistened under the rain. The monster roared and turned its attention on the large marauder. The back of its fist crashed against Sawyer’s cheek, pushing him away from the fight. At the same time, the monster sped toward Nash, hissing and spitting, and moving too fast for the marauder to do anything but raise his arms––

  I didn’t remember moving. One second I was standing back, watching the fight, the next I was right beside the Hellion, watching its head turn, and sweeping my arm down with every ounce of strength I had left. The blade punched through the Hellion’s soft eyeball. Dark gore spewed out of the ruined eye and onto my hand. The Hellion’s shriek pierced my ears mercilessly. I grimaced and twisted the blade as it swung its claws at me. The Hellion’s cry ended abruptly, its arms flopping down and banging harmlessly into my sides. I yanked my knife from the monster’s face. Watched it slump onto the ground.

  I stood over the monster’s body, stared at it, waiting for it to get up.

  It didn’t. Sawyer made sure. He stalked over to the monster and hacked the cutlass onto its neck. Two more swipes, two more meaty crunch sounds, and the beast’s head was removed from its body. I continued to stare at it.

  “I killed it,” I finally whispered. “I killed a Hellion.”

  I didn’t know I was shaking until Nash put his hand on my shoulder. A bruise swelled over his temple, and his shirt was a mess of sliced fabric that concealed the paper-thin cuts on his chest. He smiled grimly when I looked at him. “You did.”

  My breath caught in my throat. Killing a Hellion shouldn’t have bothered me. They were murderous creatures with no thought or care for the torture and suffering they put humans through. They would have eaten me without hesitation––while I was still alive––and gone on to Nash and Sawyer for dessert.

  But I had never killed anything before.

  Nash squeezed my shoulder. That was when I realized I was shaking.

  I shrugged away from his touch and stepped back. My bruises throbbed under the cold rain, reminding me of the beatings I’d taken, both old and new. Sawyer appeared on my right. He seemed to be in the same state as Nash––bruised and lightly cut. If the slices on his legs were bothering him, he didn’t let it show.

  “That should be the last of them,” he said, “but I don’t feel like staying here and waiting for reinforcements from either side. We have what we need for now, but we can come back later.”

  I gaped at him. “You’re coming back?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “As far as I know, this was the only Junker gang in the industrial district. Most people go to the Southside Junkers for supplies. More variety.” He glanced at the bodies of the three Junkers who’d followed and attacked me. “Besides, it’s not like these guys will give us trouble any more.”

  I would have berated him for his callousness, if I didn’t hear the tinge of sadness to his voice. Sawyer was masking his pain. I knew all about masks.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “When dead men start haggling you for trade, you know you’re in serious shit.”

  Gallows humor. The only kind that survivors had left.

  It worked. Sawyer smiled, and even Nash managed a dry chuckle behind me. Right then, I knew three truths:

  Sawyer might be wary of me, but he was beginning to trust me. Nash probably talked his partner into helping me because he cared about me.

  And finally, the gut punch to it all.

  I would never forgive myself when I betrayed them.

  Chapter 7

  The trudge back to the Dauntless was free of Hellions, but now we were on the lookout for thieves. We were lucky that none of them accosted us as we carried our collected scrap metal, bolts, and malformed boxes with wires dangling from them like tentacles. Our successful anti-mugging stretch was largely because I told Sawyer where to maneuver. He seemed to know the streets as well as I did, but I was a professional thief when I wasn’t spying on my new friends. Sawyer liked the streets b
ecause of the hiding spots they could provide, but right now we needed speed.

  So I suggested the roofs, and was amazed again when he listened to me.

  As we bounded from one rooftop to the other, shifting the bundles and flattened metal so we could cross, I cast glances into the streets. Since no other raiding skiffs seemed to have come down in the past couple hours and the sky lightened to a morbid slate grey––the sign of dawn in Westraven––the streets were alive with survivors.

  Fast-handed exchanges and sharp-tongued deals took place in isolated alleys. Boarded windows were pried open, slim men and women slipping back and forth with their belongings. Rubble was tossed aside as hunters dug for hidden treasure––theirs, or someone else’s.

  It was like this all over Westraven when the heavy rains hit. Stragglers and survivors of all kinds––Junkers, marauders, indentured slaves, colonists, independents––risked the freezing rains to hunt for whatever supplies they could find. Scavenging Days took place all the time, but citywide hunts like this only happened in the rainy season when the Hellions were less likely to attack. It still happened, though not as often.

  That didn’t make the streets safe.

  Everyone had something that somebody else wanted. Street fights, muggings, looting, and murder were more common in these few months than any other time of the year. Sometimes they were means of getting a resource or supply. I lost track of how many times I’d seen someone stabbed over a bag of rice. Other times, the reason was a lot simpler, and so much worse.

  Release.

  Being trapped under the Hellions oppressive and literal claw made us weak. Vulnerable. Insane. The only way we could regain a trace of the power we used was to strip it from someone else. Someone who may deserve it, someone who didn’t. To killers, the victim didn’t matter as much as the need for control did.

  Most of the time, it was marauders who used this season to kill. Eight years ago, they had power, fear, and respect. The Hellions took all of that away from them, and they would never get it back. I didn’t think for a second that I hadn’t just been lucky with my kill. If there were less Junkers to feed on, if Nash and Sawyer hadn’t distracted the Hellion from me, I would never have survived. I’d have been lying there on the ground, a piece of hollow meat with a ravaged throat, all my lifeblood filling the belly of a starved monster, leaving behind a “family” that would only sigh and say “Well, there goes that plan…”

  “Gemma?”

  I blinked and turned my head, meeting Nash’s warm, dark eyes. His face was tight with concern and fixed on me. His work shirt was plastered to his muscled body and I knew he was cold––I was freezing––but he wasn’t trying to hustle me along. He just looked worried.

  “I’m okay,” I told him.

  “Good,” Sawyer quipped. “So we can keep moving? Not sure about you, but being wet and cold is my least favorite past time.”

  I shot him a look as icy as I felt, but I didn’t have the strength for a witty comeback. I was sore, cold, hungry, and tired, all before I factored in my emotional splintering.

  I stormed across the roof, shouldering past Sawyer and trying not to feel Nash’s watchful eyes on my back.

  ***

  I split off from the men as soon as we crawled back into the Dauntless and dropped off the scrap metal. Sawyer gathered a change of clothes, some food, and a fresh lamp. He even bade me goodnight before taking the stairs to his cabin. Nash did the same, though I was sadder to see him go.

  Which was why I was so pleased to hear him return a couple hours later.

  Nash’s steps were heavier than Sawyer’s, and the reason I could tell it was him. I was wearing another dry set of his clothes, had eaten some rations, and was folding myself into the blanket he gave me. He was the most generous man I’d ever met, so I had no idea what else he could offer me.

  Another thing I learned quickly about Nash––he was always trying to give.

  The small glow from the kerosene lamps shone against his striking face. It paled in comparison to the smile he gave me.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d still be awake.”

  I shrugged in the blanket. “I didn’t intend to be.”

  Nash’s smile faltered. Smart move, Gemma, I thought. Say the one thing that will let him see you’re breaking.

  Telling myself to shut up, I sat up and curled tighter into the blanket. “Is there something you need, Nash?”

  Astounding eloquence. Why don’t you start throwing rocks at him while you’re at it?

  Nash descended the last steps into the engine room and walked toward me. “I came to check on you. Tonight was rough, and you seemed a little out of it by the end.”

  That was an understatement if I ever heard one.

  I should have pushed Nash away when he sat down next to me. But I didn’t.

  “Well, I’m still breathing,” I reminded. “So it could have been worse. What would you have done if I was sleeping?”

  Nash considered this for a moment. Then he looked right into my eyes, right into my soul, and said, “Something to take away your nightmares.”

  He almost broke me. My whole life, I had wanted someone to say something like that to me. To make me feel cared for. Even loved. Why did I have to hear it from the man I knew I was going to hurt?

  “Well,” I said, my voice more ragged than I would have liked, “don’t think that will be an issue. I doubt I’ll be sleeping a lot tonight.”

  Nash studied me for a moment. “It was your first kill.” It wasn’t a question.

  I tried to smile. It felt bitter and wrong on my face. “That obvious, is it?”

  His grin was weak, barely seen from the corner of my eye. I tightened my arms around my knees and all but crushed them to my chest. Nash sat with me, giving me casual glances every minute or two, but never saying anything. He was waiting for me to open up.

  It happened sooner than I expected.

  “Have you ever…?”

  He looked at me. “Killed a Hellion? Or killed a person?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes to the first. I was just as stunned as you when it happened. I mean, we see them as these un-killable monsters. Turns out they’re flesh and bone just like the rest of us.”

  He paused.

  “As for the second, no… But I came close.”

  My head turned. Nash seemed to find his feet much more interesting at the moment.

  “A couple times in the Crater. Most of the time we used fists, but sometimes Ryland would want to up the stakes. So he’d toss down a knife.”

  Nash’s jaw was set so hard I thought it would break from the tension. He pulled down the left collar of his shirt to reveal an inch long scar at the base of his neck, right where it met his shoulder. It was puckered and thick, stark against his dark skin. I had a sudden, strange urge to touch it and wish I could take it away.

  “Soon as I got this slice, I just saw red,” he pulled his collar up and hid the scar again. He couldn’t do the same for the pain in his eyes. “I lost it. Knocked the knife out of his hand and went at him with everything I had. By the time Ryland stopped me, I’d broken both his arms, one of his legs, and most of his ribs.”

  I winced. Nash didn’t seem to notice. “How old were you?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Sixteen.”

  My chest felt tight. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t horrified by what he’d done––how could anyone not be?––but he had no choice. Someone was trying to kill him. From what he told me about the Crater, it happened more often than not. How else was he supposed to react?

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure why. There was nothing I could do to change his past. Or his future.

  “Don’t be,” he replied. “I’m not. I tried to be. Every single time they put me in that hole, I hated it. But when the actual fighting happened, I didn’t really think about it. I just concentrated on surviving. Being stronger than my opponent, taking them down with everything I had, because I wanted
to live.”

  Nash met my gaze again. “That’s what you did tonight, Gemma. You killed that Hellion and saved Sawyer’s life. You saved me.” His smile was gentle and kind, and it tore at my heart.

  “Don’t thank me,” I warned. It took almost physical effort to keep the shiver out of my voice.

  “Why not?”

  Because I’m using you. Because I’m going to hand you over to Fletcher and you’ll never forgive me. “Because I don’t deserve it. I’m not a good person.”

  He tilted his head. “What makes you say that?”

  The truth pushed against my lips, my heart aching to get it out in the open while I still had a chance, and counteract Fletcher’s plan. But Sawyer would go back to not trusting me, and Nash would do the same. Fletcher would find out, and bring the whole wrath of his operation down on us. There would be no escape for anyone. Especially not me.

  “I’m a thief,” I blurted.

  I reached for the pendant around my neck and held it up, snapping it open and showing him the locks hidden in the kit. He smirked, impressed at the little device.

  “Aren’t we all?” he teased.

  “I don’t always take from people who deserve it,” I tried, closing the kit and letting it rest under my clavicle. I was willing to tell him anything to make him walk away, so I didn’t have to.

  He read my eyes curiously. “Do you work for someone?”

  I hesitated, the last thing I should have done.

  “This person you steal for, are you running from them?”

  I nodded, not adding that it was his thugs who attacked me the night I meet Nash and Sawyer.

  “Gemma, if you need help––”

  “I don’t.” I snapped.

  Nash’s frown said he disagreed, but he backed off. “All right.” He took a breath as if he wanted to restart his argument, then decided against it. “How are your wounds?”

  “They’re not wounds. Just bruises. Nothing I haven’t gotten before.”