by Amy Braun
Westraven relied on electricity, and while most of it needed to be charged from the entire substation, flickers of electricity were still transferred underground as reserves. Garnet took control of those reserves when he came back from the failed Discovery and began building his empire. He took any workers he could find and showed them how to transfer the power. With the help of other engineers, he was able to fix the broken transformers and set up even more generators to push the power into the earth. As decent as the power could be, it wasn’t reliable, so newer engineers like me were often sent out to modify and repair any damage or faulty wires.
But I wouldn’t find what I needed for the power core out here.
“It’s called an electron-cell,” I told the marauders as we crossed the fence into the substation grounds. “Garnet keeps them in the control house,” I pointed to the small, brick building. “I only need one.”
“How come no one’s guarding this place?” Gemma asked. She was walking beside me with Nash and Sawyer on her right side. All of them had drawn their preferred weapons– Gemma with her flintlock, Nash with his brass knuckles, and Sawyer with his cutlass. I was the only one who remained unarmed.
Gemma’s question began to bury itself in my brain. She made an excellent point. For all his faults, Garnet was rigid about security when it came to his substation. He always had guards patrolling the fence and posted one or two at the front of the control house during the day. At night, he drew them back inside but kept them on the grounds. That could be where they were, but right now, in the middle of the day, I couldn’t see anyone.
“Maybe the Hellions finally made it into the underground,” I offered, though I didn’t believe that myself.
“I don’t trust maybes,” Sawyer grumbled.
I peered around Gemma and Nash to see him stride forward, his cutlass held securely in this grip. Sawyer walked directly to the control house’s front door and turned to press his ear to the door. He shook his head and beckoned Nash and Gemma over. The two marauders hurried to their captain. Nash knelt in front of the doorknob and Gemma stood behind him, aiming her flintlock at the crevice of the door. I hung back, not wanting to get in the way of any violence that might ensue. I could have probably picked the lock, but it would take time and alert Garnet’s guards if they were inside the control house.
And I have to admit, Gemma shooting the lock out so Nash could kick the door in was much more exciting. Sawyer rushed into the open door with his cutlass, ready to take on any threats hiding in the shadows. I moved closer when I heard nothing, hoping that he hadn’t gotten captured or injured. I crowded the door with Nash and Gemma when Sawyer turned back into the entrance, frowning.
“Nobody’s here,” he announced.
“You couldn’t hear anyone downstairs?” I asked. The control house was an entrance that led into a basement where the electron-cells were kept and charged.
Sawyer shook his head, and a knot of anxiety built in my stomach. Garnet never left his electron-cells unguarded. They were the keys to his kingdom. Could the Hellions really have found a way into the underground? Had they hunted and killed everyone in the colony? I could care less if Garnet and his bullies were killed, but I didn’t want the other survivors to suffer and die. They already lived in hell under Garnet. Meager and pathetic as it was, they had carved out a life for themselves. It shouldn’t be taken from them after everything they’d been through.
“Claire?”
Sawyer saying my name brought me out of my thoughts. He tossed his head in the direction of the stairs. “Mind taking the lead from here?”
This was the first time Sawyer had talked or even looked at me since last night. Professionally and impersonally, but I would take what I could get.
“Giving me control now, are you?” I tried with a mischievous smile.
Sawyer didn’t smile, but some of the tension in his eyes seemed to disappear. “Only because I don’t know what I’m looking for. Better get a move on, Firecracker.”
I exaggerated my frown, but it made Sawyer grin. Just this once, I could cut him some slack.
I entered the substation and crossed the ten foot gap to the stairs. Sawyer instructed Nash and Gemma to stay behind and guard the entrance before following me. The pale blue glow coming from the basement increased as I descended the concrete steps. I reached the bottom and turned to the right, looking at the source of Garnet’s power.
Along the far wall were four glass tubes, each one with a narrow shelf and a circuit breaker between them. The heavy cords from the transformers outside ran straight across the roof and connected to the tops of each tube, filling them with uncontrolled electricity.
White bolts of energy tinged, danced, and rippled on the two forked connectors on the top and bottom of the tubes. The dull whirrs of the generators behind me and the steady thumps of power filled the room, making the air seem too heavy.
There was a thud and an angry curse behind me. I looked back and found Sawyer glaring at the floor.
“What’s this?” he asked tersely.
I followed his line of sight. A lone patch of metal sat in the floor with a large iron ring, the ring that Sawyer likely tripped over.
“Oh, that,” I said. “I always forget it’s here. It’s an entrance to the underground. It’s usually how Garnet sends us up here. We try to take it as often as possible when we work aboveground, but sometimes the Hellions make that difficult, and we don’t want them to know it exists.”
Sawyer scowled at the hatch.
“If Garnet was going to send someone up here through the escape hatch, he would have done it already,” I told him.
He stared at me, still suspicious. “What if that’s what he’s doing? He could be sending someone through the underground route right now for a check-up.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Then we’ll just have to be faster than them, won’t we?”
Deciding not to wait for Sawyer’s reaction, I turned and looked between the tubes. My eyes fixated on the electron-cell boxes used to contain and transport the electricity. It was a heavy box that almost resembled a battery. I hurried toward the shelves and grabbed one, bringing it back to the front of the center column.
At the iron base of the tube were positive and negative terminals that would connect to the ports on top of the electron-cell. After the electron-cell clicked into place, I flicked the small switch on the control panel on my right. A steady buzz filled the air as the dancing electricity suddenly turned violent and stormy. Jagged bolts snapped out from the tall electrical prongs and shot up the glass walls. It was a lot of power to be contained in such a fragile case, and it was a little scary to watch. I looked at the control panel on the left side of the electron-cell, watching the power bar rise as it filled with electricity.
“Maybe you should back up,” Sawyer said, drawing my attention to him as he stood close to my shoulder. He watched the electricity nervously.
“We’ll be fine,” I assured him. “Garnet is a bastard, but he knows how to be smart around this kind of power. He knows how to contain it safely, and I know how to operate it.” I hope. I smiled weakly. “I won’t let it fry you, I promise.”
Sawyer narrowed his eyes. “You really need to work on your sense of humor, Firecracker.”
I scowled. “Maybe I would if you stopped calling me that.”
Sawyer’s frown remained, but his eyes smiled. “Looks like it won’t be improving for a while, then.”
I scoffed and turned my back on him, trying to ignore the warmth I felt in my chest when he looked at me that way. There was a beep and a flashing green light indicating the electron-cell was full. I flipped the switch down, shutting off the connection to the electricity and the cell. After waiting a few seconds to make sure it was safe to touch, I pried the electron-cell from the terminals and turned to face Sawyer. He eyed the electron-cell apprehensively, like he expected it to bite him at any moment.
“It can’t hurt you like this,” I told him. “It has to be connecte
d to something.”
“Right,” he muttered.
I smirked at his unease, proudly carrying my prize up the stairs.
“Sure you only want to take one?”
I glanced back at him. Sawyer shrugged one of his shoulders. “If you ever want to get back at Garnet, now’s your chance.”
The offer was tempting. Very, very tempting. But I thought about the sad, scared faces of the people in the community. How they needed Garnet’s electricity. Turning the fat warlord’s world upside down would be amusing, but I wouldn’t forgive myself for causing everyone else grief.
“Maybe another time. When it’s actually a challenge.”
Sawyer smiled at that. I couldn’t help but stare at him for a moment. I couldn’t see any trace of the heartbroken, desperate young man from last night. I wondered if he was thinking about it at all, or if he pushed his pain down where it could never be found again. I took a breath to ask him, then watched Sawyer’s face change.
He was no longer smirking. The tension was back in his shoulders, defensiveness in his eyes. His entire body became a warning that I couldn’t ignore. I grinned awkwardly, then started up the stairs before he could see my blush.
Nash and Gemma were still vigilantly standing outside the substation doors when we came back out. Gemma whirled on us, an angry look crossing her pretty face.
“What the hell took you so long?” she demanded.
I stared at her, completely confused. Sawyer brushed past me before I could remind her that I was getting the key element to fixing her ship.
“What’s wrong?” Sawyer asked.
“We’re being watched,” grumbled Nash. “Felt eyes on us when you went inside, but I can’t see anyone.”
“Hellions?”
Nash shook his head, his dark eyes moving back and forth along the substation grounds. “No. Whoever’s out there, they’re human.”
My heart began pounding. Garnet. “We have to get out of here,” I told them, already pushing past the marauders. Garnet’s daily routine always involved hurting someone, but it was usually done to appease his boredom. It was rare he punished someone out of pure anger, though when he did, he was ferocious.
If Garnet found out that we were stealing the direct source of his power, his wrath would be as swift and as bloody as a Hellion raid.
I was practically sprinting from the control house, desperate to get away from the substation. Sawyer was calling after me, but I wasn’t listening. I figured that running for my life would indicate that he and his crew should run for theirs.
I didn’t get nearly as far as I wanted.
The first of Garnet’s thickset brutes came around a broken pillar of stone. I stopped dead in my tracks as recognition hit, and my stomach filled with fear. Malik squinted for a moment to confirm he was seeing me, then grinned.
“Claire. Didn’t expect you here. We were so worried about you.” From his twisted smile, I knew he was anything but concerned for my well being.
I scampered back, looking for another exit, because I knew I couldn’t run past the ruthless guard. For his size, Malik was quick. I could hear him stomping after me, and knew his twin wasn’t far behind. As I ran, I saw more of the thugs running out from the sides of the substation. There were eight of them coming into view. They must have seen Gemma and Nash, then spread out to attack us at once. Unlike the Junkers, these men weren’t skinny or malnourished. Garnet never made anyone his guard unless they were big, tough bruisers that knew how to break bones.
While Nash and Gemma spread out on either side of the substation, Sawyer was running toward me as though his life depended on it. I was about to tell him not to, that running to the control house was our best bet to escape them, but Malik was faster. He grabbed the ends of my hair as I ran and pulled, getting a scream from me as he yanked me back. His heavy arm crushed around my waist and trapped me even further. I kicked and screamed as angry shouts and swords began to clash.
“Garnet wondered when you’d come crawling back for power,” Malik hissed in my ear. “Lucky for us we had to do a regular check on the substation. He’s gotta take his anger out on someone.”
I screamed again, but not because I was scared. I was furious, and refused to go back to Garnet without a fight. I threw my head back, my skull colliding with his nose. Malik shouted as his nose bent awkwardly to the side. The pain dazed him enough to loosen his hold on me. The back of my head hurt from the impact, but I didn’t think about it. I just ran.
Gemma was fighting one thug with an old Sky Guard broadsword, using only her knife to protect herself. She leaned away from the sword before it could cut her. As he recovered, Gemma lunged in for a killing strike. The thug moved away, trying to bring his elbow down across her head. Gemma avoided it by twirling around, but another thug was running for her back.
Nash was already fighting two thugs. He stayed on both of them, kicking and punching, using his full weight and the brass knuckles to cripple them as much as possible. The thugs didn’t have any blades out and Nash was keeping them at bay, but Nash couldn’t avoid every strike. He took a shot to the right ribs followed by one to the left temple. The big marauder roared and lunged at the thugs, forcing his body to move faster. Nash was formidable, but he couldn’t hold them off much longer.
Sawyer was also battling two thugs, and one of them was Tyson. The second thug had a knife that crossed with Sawyer’s blade. The marauder pushed the knife out of his grip but his head was turned, and Tyson used the perfect chance to tackle Sawyer onto the ground. Sawyer rolled on top to avoid being pinned, but Tyson punched him in the cheek and threw him off. Sawyer tried to reach for his sword and nearly had his fingers crushed by the second thug. Forced into hand-to-hand combat, Sawyer launched a kick into the second thug’s side and turned to block a punch from Tyson. He held the large thug’s arm over his head and used his free hand to punch Tyson in the ribs repeatedly.
But his victory was short lived. The second thug came around Sawyer and hooked his arm, stopping the marauder’s next shot at Tyson. The thug punched Sawyer in the jaw. Tyson broke free and started hammering on him.
It seemed to take forever, but I finally made it to Tyson. I’d drawn my pocketknife from my belt and flipped it open, barely thinking what I was doing and not caring about the consequences. I jumped onto Tyson’s back and stabbed the knife into his shoulder.
My attack didn’t kill Tyson, but it did cause him to forget about Sawyer. The large man stepped back and whirled around, yanking my grip from the knife. I backed up, not sure what to do, and was totally unprepared for Tyson’s backhand.
Pain exploded across my face, sending me spinning onto my stomach. I blinked, hoping the world would stop twisting. I heard more shouts of pain from Gemma and Nash.
Not again, please not again–
“Get them in the control house!” shouted one Tyson, who was still in front of me.
Fingers knotted in my hair and dragged me to my feet. A fist reached around to pound my stomach I doubled over and gasped for breath. I looked up when someone shouted my name.
“Claire!”
I watched helplessly as Sawyer, Nash, and Gemma were dragged into the control house. Each one of them was battered, bruised, and weaponless. Sawyer’s eyes were wide and desperate. He was pushing and shoving Garnet’s thugs, trying to get past them. Trying to get to me. But they overwhelmed him, punching and pushing him roughly into the control house with his friends. As they were shoved inside, I saw Tyson bring out a small, circular device. My eyes widened at the sight of it. Malik chuckled behind me. Tyson smiled coldly.
“A little parting gift made by you,” he sneered.
Tyson pulled out the top pin and threw the grenade into the control house. He slammed the door shut and darted away from it.
“No!” I screamed.
Malik twisted my hair and punched me again. I nearly collapsed to my knees, but Garnet’s thug held me upright.
I groaned and lifted my head, just in time to h
ear the explosion, smothered by the concrete walls of the control house but unmistakable.
Tremors rattled my bones. My breathing was more of a wheeze. Tears pricked my eyes.
No, I told myself. They aren’t dead. They can’t be. The escape hatch… But there was no way they could have made it in time. The time before detonation was ten seconds. It would have been too close a call with their injuries.
Maybe it was a dud. Garnet would never risk his electricity.
Tyson stopped in front of me, that cruel grin still strong on his face.