The Warrior

by Rebecca Royce

  Now the fact that he currently wanted to end my life made me mad as hell, however I had a feeling that discretion was what was called on here, not pure fury. I might be quiet but I could kick up hell on occasion. This, however, was not the time.

  I needed to finish what I wanted to say before they took away my right to say it. “I understand my father was responsible for the death of your daughter.”

  The silence that filled the room pushed at me so hard I feared I might fall over. I tried as hard as I could to keep my back straight, I smiled. “May I ask what her name was?”

  He cleared his throat while his two sons who sat to his left shifted in their seats and looked at each other. “Her name was Tate. She was my only child with my second wife. The boys’ mother perished on the day the monsters came. I met Tate’s mother years later in the habitat.”

  “I’m very sorry Tate died because of my father’s negligence. I’m hoping you’ll let me serve as she did.”

  I stepped back. There was nothing more to say. All I could do was wait and find out what they were going to do. This was, after all, the story of my life. From the moment I was born, I’d been waiting to be sent Upwards. Now I had to wait to find out what level of hell they’d be sending me to. Either way, I’d stumbled into contentment, not expecting to ever find it.

  As far as lives went, it was far from perfect, but it was mine.

  Patrick moved forward so his torso leaned over the table, closing the space. “You should know, Rachel,”—he held my gaze, refusing to let my eyes go—”That we’ve been discussing for some time now what to do about your first day.” He leaned slightly to his left and extended his arm. “The Icahns seem to feel a person with your lineage—due to the outstanding work your father once did—should be sent up on her own.” He stared straight ahead and spoke through obviously gritted teeth. “Some of us still think that due to the fact that you are, in fact, a teenager, you shouldn’t be expected to handle more than anyone else your own age.”

  I swallowed. Patrick was acting like I didn’t know all of this already. I wouldn’t betray him by telling everyone that I did. “And?”

  Tia’s father leaned back in his chair. “Does anyone want to change their vote now that they’ve met and heard from Rachel?’

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. Why would they want to alter how they voted or thought based on meeting me? I was just a regular person, nothing particularly special about me.

  Dr. Icahn sat passively, without betraying his thoughts. He leaned back in his chair. “I’ll call for the vote. The two options are the same as they were earlier. Ms. Clancy goes up with the Ones and Twos or she goes on a scouting mission to the Hudson Outpost.”

  I think I might have stopped breathing for a second. “That’s real?”

  Dr. Icahn looked at me like I had two heads. “Of course it’s real, child, how on Earth do you think we keep in contact with one location to another? Every time we make a new linkage, the Vampires or the Wolves decode it and we’re back to square one. The only surefire, albeit dangerous, solution is person-to-person contact from the habitat to the Outpost. Then the Outpost sends a message to the next Outpost and so on until it reaches the last habitat.”

  I was so out of my depth here. Once again, I wished I’d either had a father who discussed these kinds of things with me or that I’d spent more time eavesdropping on what the people around me spoke about.

  “I didn’t realize we had moved back to that method.”

  All they ever told us was how much we were progressing, how humanity was moving forward below ground, how we were no longer dependant on the ways we used to live to survive down here. Now I was hearing that we were basically back to the Stone Age.

  “Yes, well, before today you weren’t meant to know.”

  That was the problem with being a teenager. You were too young to know things and yet they expected you to behave like an adult, or in my case, to potentially die like an adult fighting monsters.

  Tia’s dad voted first. “I vote for her going up with the Ones.”

  John was next. “Me, too.”

  Liam Icahn. “The Outpost.”

  Dr. Icahn. “I second the Outpost.”

  Really? He did. I tried, and failed, not to be disappointed he hadn’t cared that I’d reached out to him on a human level. I guess I’d been deluding myself. You really couldn’t make someone give up a lifetime of plotting revenge in a single moment of conversation.

  Raj spoke next. “I think it’s crazy that we’re even having this discussion. I vote in favor of the Ones.”

  Everyone looked at Mia as she stared at me, her face an unreadable mask of severe lines and darkness.

  Patrick kicked the table. “I would remind you, Mia, her mother was a patriot. You liked her very much.”

  Now we were talking about my mother? My father gets people killed, my mother was a patriot. What the heck was going on here? Why was no one talking about me? I was the one standing in the room.

  “I liked Sandra a great deal.” She nodded. “She’s been dead for a long time.”

  “She has,” I responded, feeling like an idiot. What was I supposed to say to that?

  “Can you read a map?”

  I knew right then how she was going to vote, and I hoped I could keep my voice steady when I answered her. “I can. Keith makes sure we can all read a map. I’ve memorized the quadrants. I’ll know my way around when I get Upwards.”

  “That’s good, because the Vampires have hacked our GPS systems.”

  Tia’s father slammed his fist onto the table, causing everyone to jump. “Does this mean you’re sending her out on her own to the Outpost?”

  “I am, but not because I have some sort of vendetta interest or because I think she should have to pay for the crimes of her father. No.” She shook her head as she stood up and walked to me. “Keith Endover is given an incredible amount of leeway here to teach the students as he sees fit. I’m not convinced he’s doing a good job. We’ll call you a test subject. If you make it there and back again, then his methods work. If you don’t…then I guess we’ll have our answer.”

  She smiled at me like she was my best friend as she walked from the room, leaving me in her wake.

  “Did that seriously just happen?” My voice sounded funny, strained, but not destroyed, which I was glad about.

  Dr. Icahn nodded. “Sometimes life is what it is.”

  I still knew I was standing in front of a legend, but the problem was that I suddenly didn’t care. “You might ask yourself if Tate was still alive today, a Warrior fighting for all of us, if she’d want you to behave like this.”

  “That’s the thing about death.” Dr. Icahn cleared his throat, and he didn’t look old and regal to me, just evil. “People don’t come back to tell us what they want.” He stood up. “They do sometimes come back as Vampires. You might want to be careful not to become one yourself.”

  Had Tate been made a Vampire? If I lived through this, I was going to have a serious conversation with the adults in my life about what details they told me and which ones they did not.

  “Rachel.” Liam handed me a piece of paper. The man acted like he hadn’t just plotted to end my life. Who were these people? Was this how the adults lived? Was this acceptable behavior?

  “Guard this with your life. The coordinates for the Outpost are on the back. This is the communication the Outpost needs to send on to Freedom.”

  “What?”

  Liam smiled. The man had the nerve to smile at me. “I’m sure Patrick will get you all straightened up before you have to go Upwards. Good luck. You might not believe this, and I don’t know why I’m telling you, but I really hope you live through this to prove us all wrong. Then we’ll really know you’re special.”

  “That’s enough, Liam.” Patrick stood next to me, his face a mixture of anger and concern.

  “Just giving her a few last moments of advice, Lyons. She is, after all, practically family to you.”

  L
iam turned on his heel and left us. Patrick sighed. “Okay. Listen up. I’ve sent Raj to tell Keith to get your stuff ready to go Upwards. There are some things they’re not telling you.”

  “More things?”

  He laughed, a cold hard sound. “So many things they could fill a book. But here’s what you need to know. No one has heard from the Outpost in a month. It’s possible they’re gone. If you get there and they’re dead or no one is there, you turn around and you run—don’t walk—back here. There is a positive side to this. You might not see any monsters at all. You’re walking to one place, delivering a note, spending the day with the Outpost, and coming back.”

  “Okay.”

  That actually sounded do-able. I hoped. I might not die. Maybe I could do this. My hands tingled, and I felt like I could run a mile in under five minutes. Clearly, I had too much adrenaline inside of me now. I needed to calm down. There would be no time to crash.

  Patrick pulled me into a tight embrace. He whispered in my ear, “You’re not almost family. You are family. Carol told Tia what’s been going on. She’s a wreck, her mother can’t get her out of her room, and the boys are so angry I won’t be surprised if one of them doesn’t come after you tonight.”

  My eyes clouded up. God, I couldn’t stand the thought of Tia being upset because of me. “Tell her I’ll be fine, and tell the guys to stay away. It’s not their assignment. I won’t have anyone getting in trouble or—” I gulped, barely able to say the words aloud, “Hurt because of me.”

  He let me go and I smiled, suddenly feeling five years old. “Anything else?”

  “Stay close to the water. If you follow the map, you’ll hit it in two miles. It’s mostly uphill until you reach the cliffs. The Vamps don’t like the water. It doesn’t hurt them. They just don’t like it.”

  “They never told us that in class.”

  His eyes were somber. “I know. You should have learned that tonight. With the Ones.”

  “Were there other things I won’t learn?” My heart fell into my stomach, and I was so nauseous I thought I might vomit on his shoes.

  He touched my arm. “Vamps make you cold. Your senses will scream at you that you’re freezing. Wolves make the skin on your arms tingle. Vamps are cold, Wolves are goose bumps.”

  “All right.”

  He took my arm as he led me toward the elevator. Keith stood next to it. I’d avoided thinking of this moment since I was old enough to understand what was going on. Here it was.

  The other kids always had their families to see them off, adult Warriors who had done this themselves. I had Keith and Patrick, and I knew Carol would have been there if she could have been. It was something. I wasn’t alone.

  Not yet.

  I put on a brave face and smiled at all of them. They’d tried to do so much for me, it was the least I could do for them.

  Keith handed me a brown leather satchel. I looked down in confusion. This wasn’t the bag I’d packed three months ago in preparation.

  He shrugged, but his eyes were moist. Ah…no…he couldn’t cry. I wouldn’t survive it.

  “It’s still your stuff. It’s my old bag. I added some stuff to it. Open it and strap the weapons to you.” I nodded, doing as he said.

  I pulled out my stakes, and I went through the practiced motions of attaching the wooden objects with rope to my body. Next came the wolf-fighting tools. I had to take off their heads. My father’s machete, which I had pulled out of the back of the linen closet in my house, was a good tool, or so everyone told me. That I wore on my back like a backpack. I reached once more in the bag, expecting to find my protein bars and water. Instead a strong wooden object nearly cut my hand. I pulled it out and gasped.

  It was Keith’s stake. “You’re giving this to me?” Now I couldn’t keep the emotion out of my voice and I didn’t care.

  “It’s lucky and now I’m giving it to you.” His eyes huge, he smiled as the elevator opened. “We’ll see you tomorrow. Tonight you walk, tomorrow night you come back.”

  Or I didn’t.

  But I wasn’t going to say that to them. Instead, I walked into the elevator—alone—without my fellow Warriors. I braced myself for the onslaught of the ride like I’d seen so many others do before me. Finally, I looked up to give them all one last smile.

  “Rachel!” My head shot up as the elevator’s door closed in front of me.

  I sunk to the floor, not letting the bar out of my hand. My Dad had shown up, and it had been too late to utter a word to him.

  Chapter Five

  I couldn’t deal with the fact that my father had just shown up. There were too many questions. What had he wanted? When had he remembered I was leaving? Would he have said anything to me that might make a difference with what I was about to do?

  Tears threatened to spill from my eyes, and I pushed them away. There was too much at stake right now for me to get weepy. Instead, I made myself focus on what was happening in the now, what was taking place at that very moment.

  The elevator made a groaning noise, and I hung on for dear life as it rushed Upwards. No one had told me these things were in such bad shape. Sheesh. I’d never ridden in one before, and I expected a certain amount of excitement at the experience. Instead, I felt like my stomach was in my feet, and my ears wouldn’t stop popping.

  The elevator came to a screeching halt and then silence. I stood up, barely breathing, and hoped as hard as I could that the rickety contraption wasn’t about to plummet back to the center of the earth with me trapped inside.

  Instead, the doors creaked open. I took a deep breath and forced myself to rush through them.

  A burst of cold wind hit me in the face and I gasped, finding the sensation all consuming. I’d never been outside of the maintained weather environment of the habitats, which were kept at a constant eighty degrees, the coolest they could make it considering how far down we were in the earth.

  I fell to my knees, closing my eyes. Okay, I told myself over and over. I could deal with this. Not one Warrior had ever perished from a cold breeze…that I knew of. For a minute, I could do nothing but feel the thin, frigid air hit me square in the face even as I huddled on the ground. I opened my eyes, hoping the wind had died down a little bit and saw in front of me a pair of very large legs obstructing my view. I jumped up as I forgot about the wind and grabbed the stake from my leg holster on my way up.

  The person didn’t feel like Vampire, but what the heck did I know at this point?

  “Hold on there, Rachel, it’s me, Frank.”

  I took a step back and a deep breath to go with it. “Frank?” I blinked to clear my eyes. I was used to darkness in the habitat. At least once a day, we lost power. But, the elevator had been so bright. I was disoriented and didn’t trust myself to either think or speak clearly.

  Frank was one of the Warriors who came and went a lot. I was relieved to see it really was him. He was six-foot-five, broad shouldered, and built like he could knock down buildings with only his strength.

  “What are you doing here alone?” Frank spoke in a monotone voice, as he turned on his lantern so we could see each other. The only indication that his statement was a question was the way he arched one eyebrow at me as he spoke.

  I rubbed my nose. “I’ve been sent on a mission by myself.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s complicated.” I stood, covering my face with my hands to block the cold wind hitting me square in the eyes. “What are you doing?”

  He’d been one of our teachers for a while in combat. I’d heard he hadn’t liked teaching and missed the adventure so he’d only lasted a few months. My hands burned, and I looked down at them. Wow, I really wasn’t prepared for the cold. I tucked them under my jacket. We couldn’t wear gloves, not if we wanted to properly grip the stakes.

  “I’m on sentry duty.”

  I sniffed as the cold hurt my nose, suppressing a little shiver. “What is that?”

  “I’m one of the five Warriors watching the entrance to
night.” With that he turned off his lantern casting us back into the night.

  I looked left and right. I couldn’t see a thing except Frank, and I could only see him because we were so close and the stars were so bright. I gasped at my own thought and took two steps backwards.

  Stars. I’d dreamed of seeing them, and now they were here. The Moon, too. It was huge. Almost full, which meant the Werewolves could shift if they wanted to, but didn’t have to like they did during a full Moon. Bright and beautiful, they made me feel small and unimportant. People had been looking at these things night after night for generations, before the world ended and everything we’d believed in had been undone.

  They were still here. Goosebumps traveled all over my body. There had been a time when humans journeyed Upwards. I’d read about it in the history books. Now we only got to travel down, underground, hidden, and sometimes safe.

  “It’s really something, isn’t it?”

  I looked up to find Frank staring at me the way adults sometimes do when they find younger people enjoying something they once did themselves. The best words for it would be, I think, casual indulgence. My cheeks heated up.

  “It’s my first time up here.”

  “Happy Birthday.”

  I sighed. “Thank you.”

  “Well, good luck wherever you’re going.”

  I appreciated Frank not asking for details as to my destination. Maybe he’d been doing this long enough to know most missions couldn’t be spoken about. “Thanks. I wasn’t prepared for the cold.”

  He reached into his pocket and passed me an item. I took it in my hand and felt the soft, cloth material. “What is it?”

  “A face mask.”

  “Oh.” I smiled, feeling much better. I liked that I could cover my rapidly freezing skin, and I knew it would go a long way to improving my mood. “Thank you so much.”

  “Don’t mention it. The wife makes me three a week. She’ll be glad it could help you.”