by Kyle West
“Raine said to stay here,” Miss Robles said, in response to Samuel’s earlier suggestion. “This is the back of the building. It’s safer.”
Makara tried to discount the fact that Miss Robles had said it was “safer” and not “safe.” The teacher had always been a source of steadiness in her life. She taught her, along with the other kids, almost every single day in the school room on HQ’s first floor. She had a tough job – the sons and daughters of Angel members were not an easy bunch to teach. She managed, somehow, and despite her young features, was tough as nails and respected by the children.
It was then that an explosion rocked Makara from her thoughts. The sound was deafening, to the point where it felt as if her head would split open. Samuel grabbed her, pulling her away from the blast, even as Miss Robles fell amidst the sound of gunfire.
“Miss Robles!” Makara screamed, not hearing her own voice due to the blast.
Isabel fell backward next to Makara, her face staring lifelessly at the ceiling. The first thing Makara saw was the blood dribbling out of her mouth, and only second the piece of twisted rebar, about two inches long, sticking out of the center of her forehead.
She never even screamed, Makara thought. Why is that?
All she knew was that her teacher was dead, and even as she knew it, she couldn’t believe it. Even the vacant green eyes staring blankly at her didn’t make it entirely real. And, Makara realized, if Miss Robles hadn’t been sitting exactly where she was, she’d have been the one with a piece of metal in her skull.
Hot tears stung from her eyes, intermixed with the dust-poisoned air. Makara was aware of the sound of Samuel urging her back, and only now did she hear the tromping of boots and the screams of men and women down the corridor, where the explosion had taken place. A few gunshots rang out, and some bullets even whizzed overhead.
Samuel pulled her to the floor and threw his body on top of hers. Makara was blind and deaf to it all. Though she had seen death before, for some reason this one hit her just as hard as any of the others. Miss Robles had been her friend.
“We have to get away, Makara!” Samuel said. “This place is going down!”
Makara nodded. All it took was for Samuel’s hand to pull her. They crawled on their bellies across the rubble, going in the opposite direction of the gunfire. Makara turned to look, her dead teacher already lost to darkness. The troop of Reapers was somewhere down the corridor, but they seemed to be going the other direction.
Makara allowed herself to follow her brother. Samuel pinched her shoulder, pointing to a staircase leading down into darkness.
“No,” she said. “Not the basement.”
She had always been afraid of the basement. Sometimes, if she walked the halls at night, she could hear screams emanating from below, so soft she could hardly know whether they were real. The other kids said it was haunted, or that they had seen people go down there in the dead of night, never to come back up.
Makara had always felt too afraid to ask Raine about it. They didn’t have to tell people not to go down there, but all the same, there was almost always a guard posted.
Right now, though, there was no guard. Of course, Samuel didn’t know about the basement, but Makara knew it was either that or the Reapers.
It got very cold as they went down below; nonsensically cold. It must have been seventy degrees in the building itself, but down here, it was at least sixty. When Samuel pushed open the door at the very bottom, it yowled like a dying cat, echoing in the cavernous space that was revealed. It was a large, single room, supported by a dozen or so square columns and lined with rows of boxes, shelves, scrap metal, tools, and disused machinery. After the echo dissipated, they were left in silence, broken only by the sounds of gunshots emanating from above.
“Let’s find a place to hide,” Samuel whispered.
Makara was led by the hand, afraid that if she let go, Samuel would lose her in the darkness. She was paralyzed with fear, and that fear culminated in a scream as a tangle of spider web stretched across her face, a scream that only became sharper as a large spider crawled through her hair.
“Get it off me!” she shrieked, punching more than brushing it off her black hair.
“Quiet!” Samuel hissed.
A door from the other side of the room slammed open. “Who’s in here? Show yourself!”
Samuel pulled Makara toward a row of boxes, kneeling behind them.
They could do nothing but be as quiet as the dead that were said to haunt this place.
MAKARA HELD HER BREATH as more footsteps entered the basement. She couldn’t count how many there were because they just kept coming. After half a minute or so, the noise ceased, and she could hear the labored breathing of what most likely ten or so men.
She wasn’t brave enough, or stupid enough, to raise her head above the boxes to get a more accurate count.
“Search it,” a man said.
At once, the thuds of boots spread in every direction. They would reach Makara and Samuel’s position soon.
“We’ve got to move,” Samuel whispered.
He pulled her hand, and they retreated to the deeper darkness of the basement. They followed narrow lanes, and Makara nearly knocked over a high stack of boxes as they took a sharp turn. She bit her tongue as they walked through yet more spider webs. For as long she had been alive, she hated spiders.
She chanced a look behind to see several shadows searching several rows down. Two beams of light cut through the shadowy labyrinth; Samuel pulled her to the ground just in time to miss the crisscrossing flashlight beams.
They reached the far corner of the basement, Makara fighting the urge to sneeze at the thick smell of must.
“Up there,” Samuel said.
He was pointing to a line of shelves on their right, all of which were filled with miscellaneous items; tools, motors, plastic containers, metal boxes, tarps, lamps, piles of musty clothes, along with various knickknacks such as figurines, clocks, cords, and old computer towers. The Angels collected any sort of junk they could find if it was in good condition. There was no telling what could be pieced together. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the sorting, or more accurately, lack of sorting, which usually meant these items had been down here for years, untouched, evidenced by the thick dust coating them.
Samuel boosted her up to the first shelf, and he followed soon after. The thudding of boots was getting close. Makara reached up, barely able to touch the next shelf with her fingertips. Samuel boosted her up to that one as well.
By the time they made it to the third shelf, about fifteen feet off the ground, two men rounded the corner, one bearing a flashlight. Instantly, it found Samuel, who pushed Makara forward on the shelf to hide her from view. Makara almost cried out in the following cacophony of junk that rained down from the shelf above, even as Samuel turned to the men and raised his hands.
“Over here!” the man shouted. “Found him!”
The men in the basement all converged on the source of the voice. Samuel did not look at Makara, who was now hidden, not wanting to do anything to give her away.
Tears came to Makara’s eyes. “Samuel . . .”
Samuel’s face tensed, a clear indication that he wanted Makara to be quiet.
“It’s just a kid, Raine,” the man with the flashlight said.
Makara felt her heart jolt at that voice.
A moment later, Raine’s voice called out. “Samuel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m here!” Makara crawled toward the shelf’s precipice, and together, the siblings scrambled down.
RAINE RAN FORWARD, helping Makara down first, and then Samuel.
“Where’s Isabel?” he asked, once they were on the ground. “I thought she was supposed to be keeping an eye on you.”
Makara held tightly to Raine, reaching her arms around his thick neck. “She died, Raine. They busted in and got her.”
Raine was quiet for a moment. “You saw that?”
“Yes,” Makara s
aid. “I’m sorry, Raine.”
“Not your fault,” he said, his voice thick. “It’s all mine.”
“We had to hide down here. I hope we didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Good thing I found you both,” he said, finally. “I was worried. We should go.”
Makara and Samuel followed him upstairs silence. It took a minute for Makara to muster the courage to break that quiet.
“Raine?”
Silence for a moment. “What Mak?”
“What’s going to happen now?”
Raine reached down and held her hand. “We’ve almost got the building back. There’s just a few left inside.”
“What happens after?” Makara asked.
Raine ignored her. Maybe there were things that even he didn’t know.
“Stay with her,” he said, facing Samuel. “The basement needs to stay secured.”
“Where are you going?” Makara asked.
“Upstairs. I need to make sure everything’s mopped up. Stay here with these men.” He paused, then added, “And be good.”
Raine ran upstairs, back into the ruin of Angel Command.
Chapter 18
AT LONG LAST, THERE were no more gunshots, but the following quiet was not peaceful.
Raine walked through the corridors of Angel Command, surveying the damage and helping anyone he could find, and barking orders to anyone who didn’t look like they weren’t being useful enough. That was most people. The bodies of the injured and the dead were just as numerous as those still alive.
By all appearances, they had held back the invasion, but Raine knew they were crippled. Hopelessly crippled. Only one look at the state of Angel Command and the dead bodies was enough to know that. With all those molotovs and the Reapers’ numbers, only Dan’s explosives had saved the base.
If this could even be called “saved.”
Raine stood at the breach the Reapers had made in the back of HQ, the one that come so close to killing Makara and Samuel. Raine wanted to curse at himself for not putting enough men to defend the back, but he had too few men as it was, and there was no way he could have known. Despite Raine putting the bulk of the men out front, the Reapers had still managed to break through there. Only a combination of luck and sheer tenacity had kept the base alive long enough for Dan’s explosives to force the retreat.
It was impossible to tell just how many were dead. Perhaps as many as a hundred. Likely more. Even if the Angels had inflicted many times the casualties, they were losses Carin Black could afford.
Raine turned his head at the sound of boots crunching over rubble. He knew who it was just by the gait, and his suspicion was confirmed when a short and swarthy man, pale of skin, with shrewd blue eyes and a bald head, stood next to him. Raine didn’t bother looking at him. He knew he couldn’t read those inscrutable eyes, just as one can’t see beneath the ice of a frozen lake.
In all his years being alive, Raine had never seen anything warm enough to thaw his brother’s eyes.
They had shared the same father, from whom Ohlan inherited his ghostly paleness. Raine, by contrast, had inherited his mother’s darkness. He didn’t remember much of his mother; it had been their father who had raised them both. If “raised” was even the right word. Usually, it was his girlfriend of the week who was doing the raising, or their grandma, who’d had her own issues.
Ohlan stood beside him, and together, the two brothers stared out at the smoke and desolation beyond the walls. Several low fires still crackled, while the bodies of dead Reapers and their thralls littered the ground. Those wouldn’t be gotten to until the Angels had taken care of their own dead.
“Remember what I told you, brother,” Ohlan said, solemnly. “I’d warned you this would happen. And it did, two years later. The bill came due.”
Raine didn’t have the energy to argue. The slaves again. The damn slaves.
“You’re trying to play games at a time like this?” Raine asked.
“I’m not playing games. I’ve never been more serious in my life.” He could feel his brother’s blue eyes on him. “Look at me, Raine.”
Raine stared resolutely ahead.
“Look at me!”
When Raine looked at him, he saw something wild and more than a bit unhinged in his brother’s eyes. They were no longer ice, but blue fire.
“Say it. Say I was right.”
“Tch. Is that all you care about? Being right?”
“Say it!”
“You were right that this would happen,” Raine said.
Ohlan blinked, the answer clearly surprising him.
“I don’t think your way would have been better,” Raine clarified. “We united the southern gangs, and without that, we might have never survived this.”
“Maybe,” Ohlan conceded. Raine had thrown him a bone, so he decided to throw one back.
“We don’t have the men to hold here anymore,” Raine said. “That much is clear. Give me men, and I can make this city ours.”
Ohlan spat, not out of disrespect, but habit. He’d always spat like that. Raine found the habit revolting but had long since stopped trying to correct it. They were raised by their father, and what mannerism’s Raine earned had come from Valerie, his late wife. Ohlan had never had a woman take to him. Not for long, anyway.
“It’s hard to find new men when everyone’s dead, or afraid of Black,” Ohlan said. “Jesus, Raine. Over half of their men had to be slaves. You think you did a good thing with that explosion. You kept that secret from me, your own brother.” Ohlan gave a bitter smile. “No need to defend yourself. I know we haven’t gotten on all that well. Dan is your real brother, right? The brother of your choosing.”
“I can’t choose my own brother,” Raine said, irritated that Ohlan was picking this fight now, of all times.
Ohlan stared at Raine dangerously. “Most of those men you killed? Not Reapers. Just slaves. They’ll find more, and they’ll be back, mark my words.”
“I know that,” Raine said quietly. “You’re not saying anything I don’t already know.”
“What’s your plan? Yeah, we bury the dead. We rebuild the walls.” He paused. “Or do we?”
Raine looked at Ohlan, feeling disgust. “What do you mean, do we? You came with me when we left the Reapers. You said you wanted revenge, like me. You swore it. We will do whatever it takes to win this.”
Ohlan gave a chuckle tinged with bitterness. “I have my own secret, Raine. The question is, do I tell you?”
Raine crossed his arms. “If you intended on that, you’d have kept quiet. Out with it now. Or keep your peace.”
The following quiet was icy, and neither brother seemed to want to break it.
“Father was not a good man,” Ohlan said, finally. “I could have forgiven that. I don’t think either of our mothers loved him much, either.”
“You still loved him, though.”
Ohlan smiled. “Yeah. I loved him. Even as he hated me.”
Raine said nothing. He said nothing, because he knew it was true.
“Daddy’s favorite,” Ohlan said. “You’ve always had a good and kind nature, Raine. A heroic nature.” He chuckled again. “Whatever was good about our father, which wasn’t much, he seemed to give it all to you. By the time I was born, I guess there was nothing left.”
“Goodness isn’t innate,” Raine said. “Goodness is choosing the right thing, even when it’s tough.”
“That’s what everyone born good says,” Ohlan said. “If it’s so easy to be good, everyone can do it, right?”
Raine felt tenderness for the first time. He was cautious of that tenderness; many times, Ohlan had taken advantage of it. But searching Ohlan’s face, this didn’t seem to be one of those times.
“You’re not a bad man, Ohlan,” Raine said. “You chose to come with me rather than stay and help Black, after what he did. Valerie wasn’t even your wife, nor Adrienne your daughter. You saw my hurt and chose to help me over him. You stuck with family. You’ve hel
ped me run the Angels, even when you don’t agree with things. You’re loyal. You’ve done nothing to prove otherwise.”
“Green would beg to differ,” Ohlan said.
“Green is fooled by appearances,” Raine said. “Actions matter more. You like to jibe and test me, and you’re ornery as a porcupine, but you’re still my brother. Always will be.”
“As any good brother should say,” Ohlan said. He gave a long sigh. “Enough of this talk. It’s idle and does nothing. Maybe we shouldn’t speak of our father again.”
Raine was all too happy to agree. He never much cared for the man. “What would you do now, Ohlan? What’s your read on all this?”
Ohlan stared out at the devastation. He seemed to weigh his words carefully.
“They’ll be back,” he finally said. “They kicked us in the dirt tonight, and they kicked us good. When they’ve regrouped, they’ll drive in the knife. They’ve surely got reinforcements. If not tomorrow, then next week, or next month.”
“We need more time to prepare,” Raine said. “New people arrive by the day. They want freedom, Ohlan. And they’ll fight for that freedom harder than any slaves that Carin sends at us. We killed five times as many as they did. At least.”
“Maybe so,” Ohlan said. “Except none of that matters when the numbers are ten to one. Quantity beats quality most times. That’s why Stalin beat Hitler, why Rome fell to the Goths.” He paused. “And that’s why Raine will lose to Carin.”
“Why are you giving me a history lesson, Ohlan? What good is this, right now?”
“You need to wake up, Raine,” Ohlan said, his icy blue eyes becoming intense. “Wake up and see where you’ve gotten us.”
“Every man must make a choice,” Raine said. “I made mine and stand by it.” Then, after a moment: “It was the right thing to do.”
“That’s where we disagree, brother. Most men can’t make the right choice. They don’t know enough. They need a strong hand to make the big decisions so that they can be safe, eat food, and pop out babies.” He laughed bitterly. “The circle of life. You say new slaves will come in, wanting freedom. Well, not fast enough to replace all the ones we just lost.”