by Amy Braun
“Get them to the docking bay and onto the ground,” I said.
He understood my intention immediately. “You’re not staying here.”
“No, Claire, you can’t!” Abby cried.
I handed my sister to Riley, looking at her. “I’m coming back, Abby. I swear it. But I have to finish this.”
I had to destroy the Behemoth. I had to save the marauders from their sacrifice.
Tears welled in Abby’s eyes, but she didn’t stop me. I glanced at Riley, who moved from the doorway and was letting the survivors run down the stairs in a dense cluster. He set his jaw angrily but nodded once.
“Run down the starboard side of the ship in the direction the explosions are coming from. On your right will be a spiraling metal staircase. Go up it and open the hatch. That’s where the cockpit is.”
I squinted. “How do you know that?”
He grimaced. “They brought me up there when they needed to check the helm. Sometimes the whole crew would be hungry.”
Riley turned and disappeared down the stairs with my sister, leaving me shocked, sick, and scared.
Turning my back to avoid temptation, I looked at the battle and the chaos that reined.
Relief filled me when I saw all of the marauders were alive, but only barely. Gemma and Nash lay on the ground, crawling to each other while trying to regain their footing. The latest explosion tore through the Behemoth’s side, which was now pockmarked with ragged holes that filtered grey light into the ship’s belly. Each speck of light grew larger and blasted away the shadows to bring daylight into the airship. The unmasked Hellions realized the danger they were in and raced for the shadows, forgetting about us and struggling to cover their bodies as the explosions rattled them off balance.
Turning my head from Gemma and Nash, who grimaced as they got to their feet, I looked at Sawyer as he tried to scramble away from Davin. His Hellion brother scowled at the light that separated them, trying to find his mask so he could save himself from it. I ran toward them, taking a flashbang from my belt. I had to buy time to keep the ship from crashing so I could I set up the Volt, and I couldn’t do that if the marauders were stuck fighting for their lives.
I twisted the caps of the flashbang and hurled it at Davin, watching the light intensify as it flipped end over end. Davin hissed and turned his head away, covering his face with his arm. While the flashbang flew and the Hellions scattered, I reached Sawyer and grabbed his arm. He jerked away from me, but got to his feet and nodded grimly.
“This way!” I shouted over the cacophony, hoping that Nash and Gemma would hear me. Without waiting for a reply, I spun on my heel and followed Riley’s directions to the cockpit. White light exploded behind me and the Hellions screeched.
Running down the starboard side turned out to be exceptionally dangerous. Pieces of sharp, warped metal lay on the ground, daring us to trip. Fierce wind screamed through the burst holes in the hull, whipping strands of blonde hair into my eyes. Over it all, I heard Davin shouting at the Hellions to follow us. I stayed as close to the light spots as I could. It would make them hesitate for a little bit, and that was all I needed.
My heart sang with relief when I saw that Riley hadn’t lied. I spotted the tall, spiraling metal staircase on the right side of the wall, directly behind the furnace room. I pitched to the side and raced for it, hearing someone curse behind me. I was grateful the marauders chose to follow me, even though I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep them alive.
My feet slammed against the hard metal steps, the echoes lost in the chaos below me. I swung around the curves of the stairs, praying that my footing wouldn’t catch. These stairs weren’t as steep as the ones connecting the Behemoth to the docking bay, but they were close. By the time I reached the top, my legs and lungs were burning. The door was airtight and locked with a hand wheel, and even with the adrenaline charging through my veins, I wasn’t strong enough to move it.
Sawyer and Nash didn’t hesitate. They shouldered past me and used their muscles to crank the hand wheel. Both men were bruised and bloody, but Sawyer looked worse than Nash did. His coat was all but tatters, blots of blood on his shirt showing me where Davin had clawed him. Welts grew on his cheeks and temples, his lower lip was split, and there was a growing bruise on his throat.
But it was his eyes that disturbed me the most. The grim determination and unleashed fury were rampant, barely hiding the deep sadness he thought we wouldn’t be able to see. Even though I knew deep down that I was enraged for his lies and deception, at the moment I couldn’t feel anything but pity for him. He thought his brother was dead, only to learn that he was very much alive, a monster worse than he could ever imagine, and now he was hunting all of us.
As Sawyer and Nash continued to turn the wheel, I gripped the railing and looked over. Davin had rallied the Hellions he could find. He was wearing his mask, but the other Hellions were mask-less. They dodged the spots of light as best as they could, but their caution was making them slower.
A chunk of the hull burst off of the ship, clashing loudly against the iron floor. Two Hellions were trapped in the light, both of them dropping to their knees and screaming in agony. I watched their skin blacken and peel, bloody muscles singeing and catching fire. In seconds, I saw the Hellions turn into humanoid flames, then crumble to a pile of black dust.
While I wasn’t grieving their demise, I also knew that was the last of the explosions. Now the Behemoth was simply going to crash.
“Claire!”
I jumped at the sound of my name, looking over my shoulder to see the door was now open. I pushed away from the railing and ran into the open door, letting Nash and Sawyer close it behind me. I skidded to a stop, looking around the Behemoth’s cockpit.
The shutter windows were drawn down and locked shut, too heavy to be pushed up. Control consoles with dark screens and blinking lights were set up on either side of the cockpit. A narrow, sharp edged table with maps strewn across it took up the middle of the long room. At the head of the table, resting on a platform with its back facing us was a high-backed chair that reminded me of a dark throne. Beyond that was another wide control panel which had to connect to the helm.
I felt uneasy in this place and wasn’t sure how I could work with such limited light, but I was going have to find a way. The door that the marauders had just closed and locked wouldn’t stay that way for long.
“You were supposed to use the remote to blow the ship!” Sawyer shouted.
“Kind of hard to do when you’re ambushed!” Gemma countered. “I wasn’t thinking about damn remotes when I was trying to keep my head on my shoulders!”
Running past the table and the throne, I found the steering wheel of the helm standing alone on its own circular platform. I glanced at both once before charging past to the main control console. I looked at them, trying to find a switch or lever that would open the windows. I needed to know how much time we had before the Behemoth collided with the ruins of Westraven.
Sawyer realized the same thing, shouting at Gemma and Nash to find the buttons. Past his commands, I heard a fierce pounding on the door. Davin was just outside, and he was desperate to get in.
“We can’t see anything!” Gemma yelled at Sawyer. “All these buttons look the same!”
“Then punch all of them!” he roared back.
Instead of helping the marauders, I bent under the central console and fumbled around for some kind of circuit breaker box to hook the Volt to. I was immensely grateful when my assumption turned out to be right– the Behemoth did require electricity to function. The closer it was to an electrical charge, the more damage my weapon would do.
It didn’t take long to find a suitable box. I didn’t know exactly what it connected to, but it had wires sticking out of its sides, and that was all I needed.
Just as I pulled my head out from under the console, metal began to scream in agony. Dreary light filled the room. I stood up and looked through the thick windows at the nose of the s
hip.
The white stones of Westraven’s collapsed buildings were in clear view, and far too close. It would be minutes before we crashed.
I whirled around, trying to hold back my panic as I looked at Sawyer. He stood at the helm, pulling at the wheel.
“You need to get us back in the air,” I pleaded.
“I can’t,” he growled, trying to jerk the heavy black wheel to the left. It jolted to a stop, not moving more than half an inch.
“Just for a couple seconds,” I tried. “I know where to put the Volt, but–”
“I can’t, Claire!” snapped Sawyer, silencing me. The door squealed as something began to push it open.
“The steering wheel is locked, and there’s no autopilot. That’s probably why the Behemoth has been hovering for years. It can’t fly unless the lock is overridden, which means I can’t control it.”
A flash of panic went through his eyes, and I knew he was scared. After everything he’d been through, surviving as long as he had, carrying burdens and responsibilities, he didn’t want to die.
And I wasn’t going to let him.
I took a step closer to the helm, never breaking eye contact with Sawyer, even as the door was steadily wrenched open. Hellions screamed against the light, and Nash and Gemma were shouting right back.
“Will an electrical charge fix it?” I asked Sawyer.
He hesitated, then nodded. “Maybe. Most of the locks are run by power, so short circuiting it could give me back control. If I had that, I might be able to land us.” He grinned crookedly, a half-hearted gesture that didn’t meet his eyes or make me smile. “Not very well, but we may not crash as hard.”
I nodded, looking at the control panel bolted at the base of the helm.
“Do you have anything that can short-circuit the lock?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered gravely. I dropped to my knees in front of the panel, took out my screwdriver and began to remove the bolts as fast as I could.
“You have something other than the Volt?”
I pausing the unscrewing, watching my hands tremble. Icy fear pinched my heart and made it hard to breathe. I forced my hands to move again.
“No.”
“Then what… Wait, you’re going to use the Volt for this?!”
“Sawyer!” Nash screamed. “They’re getting in!”
The young captain swung down from the helm and knelt in front of me. He gripped my arms and jerked me upright.
“You can’t!” he shouted at me. His hold was so tight it hurt. “It’ll kill you!”
There was pain and urgency in his voice. I had told him that the Volt would burn a person to cinders if it were touched while open and charged. I put my hands on Sawyer’s chest and pushed him away, balling my fists to hold onto my fear.
“Not if I let out a small charge,” I argued, though I was probably lying. The Volt was my last resort in every sense of the world. It carried the largest form of electricity that I could create. Even a small amount could kill me if I held it too long.
“I’ll keep it in place and release just enough energy to short circuit the fuses,” I said, terrified of what that would do to me. “The Volt will still have enough power to dismantle the Behemoth.”
“I don’t care about that!” Sawyer shouted back.
I stood in place, speechless and nearly oblivious to the chaos around me. Sawyer looked wretched, heartbroken even. In this moment, I knew it was for me.
Hellions shrieked again. I swore I heard Davin’s cruel shout. Gemma and Nash screamed for help. The clouds blurred outside of the windows as we continued to fall.
I grabbed Sawyer by the lapels of his coat and shoved him in the direction of his crewmates. “Buy me some time!”
He stumbled out of my reach, torn about leaving me. I didn’t spare him a second glance. I dropped back to the panel and started on the last of the screws, hardly able to see through the tears in my eyes. I ignored everything around me– the shouts and screams from the battle, the changing pressure in the air, the forward tilting of the Behemoth. I pulled away the front panel and took a quick look inside. Neatly organized wires surrounded unmoving gears, proving that the lock was in place. Once I set the Volt against it and gave it a surge of electricity, they would start moving again. It was a basic lesson Garnet had taught me once upon a time.
But he also said that doing it with too much power could kill me.
I took the Volt out of its pouch and looked at it. I had made this device with care and dedication, knowing that one day it would get me out of a truly dire situation.
I just didn’t consider that the same situation would likely cause my death.
Pressing my thumb onto the top button and listening to the Volt whir as it began to open, I thought about my sister. How I might never see her again. I had to tell myself that Riley had gotten her and the others to safety, and out of range of the crash.
Shoving my hand into the control panel to find the mechanical base of the helm and feeling the electricity snap against my wrist, I thought about the marauders. How they’d become my unlikely, confusing friends. I had to believe that Sawyer would be able to take control of the Behemoth and land it safely enough for them to survive. They’d kept their promise to me about Abby and were fighting for their lives. They had to come out of this intact and breathing. They would find another way to destroy the Behemoth when it reached the ground.
I had little hope for me, but if I was going to sacrifice my life, it had to mean something.
I closed my eyes, placed the Volt against the inside of the helm, and pressed the button.
Chapter 15
In a flash of white light and searing pain, I understood what the Behemoth’s hull had gone through. Every explosion shattered and tore through its frame, drawing in torrents of ferocious, screeching winds that pummeled everything inside it. The air became a flood that battered anything it touched, searching for destruction and causing catastrophic pain. Just when the Behemoth thought it was safe, that the pain was over, another explosion ripped through it, adding to the agony, making it an inescapable nightmare.
There were no thoughts other than pain. I tasted torture in the air, felt agony along my skin, heard suffering ring through my ears. The world was timeless, excruciating torment.
Something hard jerked against my fingertips, tearing another blood curdling scream from my throat. My hand released the Volt and I collapsed onto my back. I didn’t remember where I was, couldn’t see past the stars in my vision, wasn’t able to hear anything but the aggressive buzzing in my ears. I felt raw and exposed, like a nerve being prodded by a knife. Something wet slipped from the corners of my eyes, either tears or blood. My back slid along the floor. The ship was still tilting. We were still going to crash.
I don’t care, I thought. If it stops the pain, I don’t care.
“Get her!” someone shouted. He sounded familiar, terrified. I couldn’t place his voice. My brain was scrambled and messy, broken from the torture I’d put it through.
Hands grabbed my legs and held me in place. I screamed from the sudden touch, my body still tender from the Volt’s electrocution. I whimpered and cried as I was pulled against someone, held in small arms while long hair brushed over my face.
“Take cover!” the voice shouted again. He sounded more controlled.
“What about you?!” another, deeper voice called. “You won’t get clear in time!”
“Just do it, Nash!”
The voice left no room for argument. Arms tightened around me. The airship pitched forward and sent us sprawling.
Footsteps stomped toward us. A heavy person dropped to their knees. Larger arms pushed us against a crevice of metal. Plastic wires danced over my head. The larger arms wrapped around me. I felt the airship pick up speed.
There were other noises I couldn’t identify. Angry, terrified screams. The smell of dust and burned flesh was replaced by two warm and trembling bodies.
I had lost my sense of time, but the
crash seemed to happen a split second later. Everyone screamed as the Behemoth slammed into the ground. I heard glass shattering as I was jolted from the cocoon of arms. Our bodies bounced around their hiding place, banging against the wall and the floor, swamping me with fresh bruises.
The world shuddered like it was breaking apart, metal groaning thunderously against rock as the ship smashed onto the ground. Glass continued to shatter as we tumbled against the metal walls. I didn’t think it would stop. I’d thrown myself into chaos the moment I stepped onto this damned ship, and now I was going to die from it.
But I didn’t.
No sooner had the vile thought passed through my mind, the shaking stopped. My body continued to throb from the bruises and tenderized nerves, but I was alive. I was breathing. I was back on the ground.