by S. C. Green
Arnold sneered. “She can see through walls? That’s it? That’s the great power that’s going to save the world from the wraith?”
“She can do a lot more than that,” Raine said. “Tell them, Sydney. Tell them what you are.”
“I don’t know what I am, and neither do you.” I jabbed a finger at her but spoke to Arnold. “Raine doesn’t speak for me. This whole thing is her fault. After we killed off the wraith, I was just going to find a way to get me and Alain and … and our friend out of the dome. We were tired of being trapped. We would’ve stayed under the radar, kept out of trouble. But she came along with her pet wraith, and she convinced us to go after this chemical—”
“What chemical?” he asked
“Immortium,” Alain said. “That one the Sunn Corporation used to make the wraith. We know all about it.”
I shook my head slightly at him. That was not the angle we should be playing here. We needed to feign ignorance, throw this all on Raine since the rest of us hadn’t fucking done anything.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Arnold slowed his drumming on his laptop as if thinking each movement through carefully. “But by all means, please continue.”
“The immortium—” Alain began.
“One of our team, a woman from inside the dome, betrayed us.” Raine shot Alain a look I couldn’t read. She didn’t think we should be talking about the chemical, either. I wondered why.
“Harriet did not betray us,” I hissed. “You did. You were using us to find the chemical. Harriet stole it away so you couldn’t get your hands on it, so you sent your wraith after her. All along, you were the one pulling the strings here, trying to get us and the wraith to come out of the dome.”
“That’s not true!” Raine snapped back. “I would never do that to Alain and May—”
“Shut up!” Alain growled at her.
Grey Shirt leaned forward. “Who is May?”
“My daughter,” Raine said through gritted teeth. “Arnold knows all about her. Don’t you Arnold?”
“And a fine mother you turned out to be!” I snarled. “Your daughter is probably dead, and you got us all trapped in here with these lunatics.”
“Ladies.” Arnold threw up his hands. “ As far as I’m concerned, you’re all equally to blame for the breaking of our quarantine and the release of the cloud.”
“That’s just it. There’s no need for a quarantine any longer,” I yelled. “The wraith inside are gone. The only surviving wraith are in that cloud, which is outside the dome walls. That’s what you should be dealing with!”
“Our people are on it. The cloud is not your concern,” Arnold said calmly.
“What’s going to happen to us?” Raine asked, her lower lip wobbling.
Arnold smiled. It was the kind of smile I would see in my nightmares for years to come.
Raine let out a sob. I was about to tell her to grow a pair when the light above our heads flickered. Outside the window, the lights in the opposite building went out one by one. The light in our room flickered again. The street of restaurants below had gone dark. All across the city, lights shut off like dying stars.
My stomach clenched. It was coming.
Alain came to stand beside me, his nose almost pressed against the glass. His hand sought mine, his warm fingers lacing between my own, holding me steady by the strength of his presence. Across the gloom of the black city, a faint light flickered on the horizon.
The telephone on the table rang like a warning alarm. Arnold picked it up, and as he listened, his face changed. His smile froze. A vein on the corner of his temple throbbed.
He bent his head lower to the telephone. “Say that again?”
“Look!” Alain said, his voice choked.
A ball of orange light dropped from the sky, hitting the street below, exploding into a wave of fire that swept through the restaurants and bars. Even from behind the thick, bulletproof glass, screams echoed. The roar of those flames consumed the bodies of frantic diners as they searched in vain for a place to hide. The fire gobbled them all up like a hungry caterpillar.
The fire ran like a molten river through the streets, devouring whole vehicles, sweeping up crowds of people in its great orange waves. Buildings groaned under the onslaught of heat. Windows blew in. Alarms rang out in a cacophony of panic.
This is it. This is the cloud’s attack. I have to do something.
I fished around in my head for something, anything, that I could grab onto in order to call up that power I’d used to destroy the wraith before. I groped around in the dust and muck back there, hunting for the brilliant light I’d fallen into, or the sticky black threads of the wraith I’d yanked and snipped. But there was nothing, nothing save my own terror.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t save the city. I didn’t know what to do, where to begin. I cast a panicked look to Lorcon. He seemed to understand instantly and took a step toward me, but the guard blocked his way.
Above our heads, a siren blared.
Raine stood. “It’s her!”
“What do you mean, it’s her?” Arnold demanded
Raine rushed to Jack’s side and tried to help him to his feet.“Harriet. The girl who betrayed us! She’s the one controlling the cloud. We have to get out of here.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Arnold nodded to the guards, who stepped forward and dragged Raine from Jack. She screamed and kicked, but they held her tight. “You’ll be held in custody until we can transport you to a more secure facility.”
“I’m not going back there!” Raine screamed. Feathers popped from her skin, floating harmlessly through the air and scattering across the floor.
“You’ll go where we tell you to go,” Arnold said, picking up one of her feathers and snapping it in his hands.
At his nod, the boardroom erupted with action. The guards dragged Jack across the carpet. The remaining guards moved in on Alain, who swung his massive fists through the air. It took three of them to tackle him to the ground. Without his hand in mine, my fingers felt cold, lifeless without his touch. Our eyes met, and he mouthed two words to me while the guards subdued him. I’m sorry.
I’m sorry, too, Alain. I’m sorry we couldn’t save May. I’m sorry I didn’t kill Raine when I first laid eyes on her. I’m sorry I don’t know how to use my power to destroy the cloud.
When they reached for me, I didn’t bother to struggle. There didn’t seem much point.
As they walked me toward the door, Arnold moved to the window, watching the river of fire scour away the city. “Why fire?” he whispered, his eyes showing the first flicker of fear.
My throat closed up. I had to choke out my next words. “The cloud needs the energy from those bodies to grow, and the only way to get it is the same way the cloud was made. She’s burning the city. She’s cremating them all.”
19
Raine
Sirens rang through the whole building as the guards rushed us downstairs. The shrill noise pummelled my mind. I wished they would turn it off.
When Sydney said Harriet was cremating the city, Arnold’s face turned white. He looked completely, utterly lost. I’d never seen him look that way before. If this wasn’t such a horrible situation, I might’ve found it amusing.
Arnold’s indecision only lasted a few moments. Then he was on the phone, barking instructions to his men to seal the lower floors, flood the sub-basement with nerve gas to prevent anyone’s ability to go down there and free the wraith still trapped in the labs, and get every fire truck in the city over here.
“I think they’ll be a little busy,” Sydney said. She remained beside the window, her face passive, as fire rained from the sky and rolled through the streets.
Again, I felt that wave of terrifying rage toward her. Sydney could save these people, but she didn’t even seem to be trying. What use was a valeda if she wouldn’t use her power? Everything I’d done so far had been a massive failure, but at least I’d been trying to do something.
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You still have to try, for May.
“Let me go,” I begged Arnold. I pointed to Alain. “We can still reap them. If we send the cloud to the underworld, it might give them enough time to put out the fires, to prevent anyone else’s bodies from becoming part of the cloud.”
“It’s too late for that,” Alain argued. “From what we saw in the cemetery, that cloud is already made of several wraith, and with all this cremating, it’s growing in size by the minute. You’d need a whole army of Reapers to disperse it, and where are you going to find them out here?”
Are we just going to stand here and do nothing? I opened my mouth to protest, but the guards shoved us into the stairwell.
“Start walking up to the roof,” one of them ordered. “Don’t try anything.”
A shrieking woman stumbled past us from above, her pencil skirt ripped along her thigh as she scrambled down the stairs. She was followed shortly afterward by two men in business suits, large sweat circles under their arms as they puffed down the staircase.
I turned to Arnold. “Where are we going?”
“To a secure facility.”
“You mean, a prison?”
“I mean a facility that is secure. There are cells there, yes.”
I shuddered. I didn’t want to think about that. “Everyone in this facility is going there?”
“It would seem a sensible option, at this point.”
“If you want to save the city, you need to set the Reapers free.”
He shook his head. “That’s not possible, Raine. You know that.”
“Why not? There’s the holding facility just down the road, and if I know you, it’s still bursting at the seams with detained Reapers waiting to be sent out to the work camps. All it would take is a single phone call. Those cell doors open, and the Reapers can sweep up that cloud. It will buy you some time.” And maybe if the cloud was inside the underworld, Sydney might be able to do her thing. Maybe.
A shadow passed over Arnold’s face. “That’s not possible, I’m afraid.”
“Why not?”
“After you broke out, the president ordered all the held Reapers executed. He was worried that you would set an example to other Reapers, start a rebellion. He wanted to send a message that treason would not be tolerated.”
Executed.
I sank to my knees, the wind shoved out of me. I struggled for air. The stairwell spun around me, a haze of peering eyes and distorted faces. Rough hands grabbed me and dragged me upright, but I’d lost all ability to move my limbs. I slumped against the nearest hard surface, overcome with the enormity of what I’d just heard.
Executed. All of them.
I’d been in that prison. There were hundreds of Reapers inside – men and women and children. Reapers had been born there, were living out their lives there, waiting to be sent on to the work camps. They couldn’t all just be gone. They couldn’t just all be dead.
This is my doing. They killed those Reapers because of me. Because I broke the rules and went after May.
My heart tore in two, the physical pain of it making me wince. From somewhere behind me, Alain yelled, but I couldn’t understand his words. Those rough hands dragged me up, knocking my head against the steel balustrade as they pulled at my arms.
I didn’t care. The pain was irrelevant. Everyone I came into contact with died. I was no better than a wraith.
Somewhere along that bumpy trip up the staircase, where I registered nothing but the ringing in my ears and the pain in my heart, I made the decision. I would remain alive as long as it took to figure out how to make everything right.
And then, I would go quietly. It would be better for everyone. For Alain, who would no longer be dredging up memories of me when he was trying to create new ones with Sydney and their baby. For May, who needed a mother who would be there for her, who would help her find her place in the world. And for the Reapers, who didn’t need me making things worse for them.
I was the stain. I was the broken cog of the machine. I was the scourge of my own people, the harbinger of death and destruction. I wasn’t really a person any longer, just a shell housing a lifetime of guilt and regret. The only way I could attempt to redeem myself was to remove myself entirely from the picture.
The decision filled me with a kind of fuzzy confidence. I knew I was making the right choice.
My head knocked against a hard wooden surface. I opened my eyes, barely realising they had been closed. A cool wind whipped my coat around my legs. The burly guard lifted my body out through a thick wooden door onto the roof of the Institute.
Groggily, I surveyed the scene. Groups of people huddled around the roof, their coats and collars pulled up against the chill. The air smelled acrid, and it stuck in my throat. I coughed once, twice. Others were coughing, too, as they breathed in the charred remains of the city.
On the far corner, a helicopter sat on a pad, several people crowded inside, more clamouring around it, begging for a seat. After a few minutes, it took off, the blades cutting through the air above, sending a fresh cloud of smoke into the waiting crowd. I began to cough frantically.
“Be careful,” Alain said from behind me. “She’s pregnant.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him inch his way toward Sydney and gather her in his arms while their guards hung back to give them room, obviously fearing that word ‘pregnant.’ Her hand fell against her stomach, instinctively checking it was still there. I remembered doing the same thing when I was pregnant, suddenly remembering I was holding a little person inside.
A second helicopter passed the first in the sky. It came closer, circling overhead, the engine spitting as it began its descent. People scrambled to clear to the edges of the second heli-pad as the driver signalled from his door.
“This is ours.” Arnold nodded to the helicopter as its skids touched the ground.
The driver kept the engine running, and he gestured for Arnold to hurry up. Arnold jogged over and had a shouted conversation with the driver I couldn’t hear over the engine.
The guard set me down, jabbing me in the back with his rifle. “Get in,” he yelled over the din.
I wondered if he’d actually shoot me if I disobeyed. That might be a nice way to go – a bullet to the back. At least it would be quick.
Not until I know if May is alive or dead.
I got in. Alain squeezed in next to me. Sydney sat opposite him, and Lorcon opposite me, with a guard on either side. Jack dragged himself on board, too, his face gleaming with sweat. Arnold climbed up front with the driver and slammed the door shut behind him. People banged on the doors, yelling at the driver to come back for them.
I hoped he would. These people deserved to live, unlike me.
Up we flew, zooming over the city at lightning speed. From here, the flames tearing apart the streets seemed distant, like a thing that was happening on a television. People leaped from windows of a nearby skyscraper as flames engulfed the lower floors. Each one of them had a family, friends, a job, hopes, and dreams. Not anymore. Tears rivered down my face while despair for them cracked through my chest.
In the distance, a great boom sounded. The whole Earth shook, and dust and debris cascaded off several skyscrapers, crashing into the street below.
“The Tellman building has just fallen,” Arnold announced, his ear glued to the radio.
Shit. That building was eighty-five storeys high.
We swung away from the city, heading back into the desert, until the great cremation fire was but a dull orange glow on the horizon, a dying star burning up beside the brilliant sun that rose like a beacon, calling me to my righteous death.
20
Sydney
The helicopter hummed around us, a comforting noise, reminding me that we were high above the flames. For a few minutes, at least, I was safe from anything horrific happening.
Behind us, the city burned. Fire rained from the sky, the grey cloud swirling just above the tops of the highest skyscrapers, growing l
arger and fiercer with every fresh soul.
From my view from the middle seat, I wasn’t able to see it in full-color detail, for which I was grateful. The whole thing was too terrible to contemplate. So many dead so quickly. So little I could do to prevent it.
I’d been trying to force the energy out of me, to find a way to channel the ‘seeing’ power that lurked like a third eye in my palms. I wanted so badly to save them. But it was like trying to move an object with my mind – it just didn’t feel possible.
Raine had gone quiet since Arnold had revealed the execution of the Reapers. She stared straight ahead with dried tears streaking her face, her eyes unfocused. I waved my cuffed hands in front of her, and she didn’t even blink.
Lorcon sat opposite her, his eyes burning into mine. “You’ve been trying to get to the Seidr.”
“Yes. But it's not working.”
“I may be able to help.” He placed his hands on my trembling knees and instructed Alain to do the same. The guard beside Alain frowned at us, but he didn’t make us stop. Lorcon described a short chant designed to clear my head and open my mind. “Close your eyes and visualise yourself at the top of a slide, all the fear and rage and terror inside of you like objects shoved in your backpack.”
I did as he instructed, picturing the cascading waterslide at a water park my friend Katy’s parents once took me to (I’d told my parents we were going to a piano recital). I was wearing my pink school bag. Inside of it were all the bad thoughts crowding my mind.
I laced my fingers through Alain’s on my knee. This had to work, or we were all doomed.
“Now, unzip the bag and step onto the slide,” Lorcon said, that deep, throaty voice of his shimmering through my vision like a film narrator. “Feel the water rushing against your ankles, and all those fears clattering around inside your backpack. Now, lie down in the water, and let yourself go as you speak the chant.”
I did. I zoomed down the slide, leaning my head back so I’d go faster. Cold water and warm air rushed over my body. I felt light, free, joyful at the loss of control as I zipped down the curling slide.