Vinyl: Book One of the Vinyl Trilogy

by Sophia Elaine Hanson

Sing my friend

  Into the deep

  Sing my friend

  Into the black

  Sing my friend

  There and back

  There was a soft click. Ronja allowed her eyelids to flutter open. She did not realize she had closed them. The mechanical needle scooted away from the record, which had ceased its revolutions. The vinyl glimmered dully in the firelight.

  “Is it over?” Ronja asked, unable to mask her regret.

  She felt clean, raw, exhumed. Her emotions were more powerful than ever. Not long ago this would have terrified her, but these were somehow manageable. As if she were in total control, had some sort of weapon at her fingertips.

  “There are two more songs on the other side, but we should get moving,” Roark said, taking the disk from its axis and flipping it thrice between his palms. “It helps, doesn’t it?”

  Ronja bobbed her head, her eyes still locked onto the now static record player.

  “Why did The Conductor call it The Music?” she asked, brushing the edge of the leather case with the rough pad of her finger. “Real music, it’s nothing like His.”

  Evie, Iris, Henry, and Roark shared a knowing look.

  “I was hoping you would understand that,” Roark said, gently moving her finger from the player and shutting the lid with a hollow click.

  “It was a trick of sorts,” Evie explained, getting to her feet and stretching toward the ceiling with a groan. “Bullon and the original Westervelt thought people would be more susceptible to their manipulation if it went by a familiar name.”

  “That’s awful,” Ronja burst out, surprising herself.

  “Looks like we have an audiophile on our hands,” Evie said with a chuckle, moving to collect her rifle.

  Ronja looked around for answers.

  “A lover of music,” Henry explained.

  “Well,” Roark said, climbing to his feet, the record player swinging from his hand by its grip. “According to Anthemite tradition, we’re now prepared to kick some ass. Shall we?”

  38: Responsibilities

  Once Roark had stowed the record player, Henry insisted on performing an inventory on their supplies in his coffee-stained notebook. It was a nervous habit he had developed as a child, but it made him feel in control.

  Roark rolled his eyes melodramatically at the proposal, but emptied his knapsack and pockets onto the carpet without further complaint.

  He had brought along his gold-embossed pistol, two black radios with extendable antennas, his twin stingers, another pistol, a drawstring bag that clanked with bullets, and a roll of documents tied with a cord.

  Iris had packed a different kind of arsenal. Her bag was busting with surgical tools, bandages, and enough pills to last a lifetime.

  “She has two cousins, darling, not twenty,” Evie reminded her, eyebrows high on her forehead.

  “You never know,” Iris replied stoutly, plunking down several amber canisters of pills. “What if I need to remove their Singers on site? What if they’re sick? What if—?”

  Roark clapped a hand to her shoulder and flicked his gaze toward Ronja, who was staring into the low fire with glassy eyes.

  Iris was silent after that.

  Evie had packed only Lux, a pair of plain stingers, a spyglass, and a knife with a wicked, serrated edge. Henry quickly scribbled down a list of her belongings, then she was free to do as she wished. As the inventory continued, she sat cross-legged on the hearth, scrubbing the barrel of her gun with a long, thin brush.

  Ronja was embarrassed to admit that she carried almost nothing of value. It was unanimously decided that she would leave her pathetically small pocketknife behind, along with her knapsack, and would be outfitted with one of Evie’s stingers in addition to her newly-programmed stingring.

  Henry had not brought much in the way of weapons or medical supplies. Instead, his bag was stuffed full of several dozen rolls of paper. Ronja drew out one such scroll and laid it out on the lush rug.

  “Blueprints of the compound,” he said, eyeing the detailed map over the lip of his notepad. “I don’t know how old they are.”

  “The ink looks old,” Roark commented, kneeling next to Ronja to appraise the documents. “Are you sure they’re accurate?”

  “If you prefer we could just flip a coin at every intersection,” Henry replied blandly.

  Ronja ignored them both and bent closer to the blueprints. Even on paper the prison was a maze. It put knots in her stomach.

  “Don’t worry,” Roark reassured her, sensing her apprehension. He gave her a lopsided smile, which did little to unlace the hitches in her gut. “I was inside a few times as a child. I have a pretty good memory.”

  He tapped his skull with a long finger. Ronja nodded and changed the subject quickly. “How the hell are we going to get this stuff inside?” she asked, lifting one of his elegant stingers and examining it by the dying light of the fire.

  “Under our coats. But the truth is, we could walk in guns blazing and no one would say a word. No one would dare question a Westervelt,” he replied.

  “You sure about that?” Henry growled.

  Ronja looked over at her oldest friend. He stood near the hearth, his notepad open in his hand, his pen tucked behind his ear. His dark eyes roved across the spread of weapons and medical supplies uncertainly.

  “Quite,” Roark said with undeniable finality. “You satisfied, H?”

  “Quite,” Henry replied, his tone dripping with vexation.

  Iris and Roark repacked their belongings in silence. Evie continued to scrub the barrel of her gun, a fresh cigarette dangling from her lips. Henry closed his notebook and stared blankly into the failing embers. There was something off about him, something other than the obvious strain of the situation. If she did not know better, she might say Henry was . . .

  “All right, are we set?” Roark broke her musings.

  He got to his feet and shouldered his pack, peering around the room expectantly.

  Iris and Ronja stood as one. Evie gave no indication that she would be moving any time soon, and Henry continued to mull over his fresh notes.

  The two girls followed Roark from the cottage and into the night. The air was brimming with sound, though it was not jarring the way it was in the city. The crickets, the rustle of the grass, all melded into a single, ceaseless rhythm. It was a bit like a song itself, Ronja thought, as she threw her head back to view the winking constellations. She had never seen them so clearly. There were more stars than she could have imagined.

  It was somehow comforting to know they had always been there beyond the sheet of smog and light pollution.

  Ronja hoped she could show them to Georgie and Cosmin.

  Iris and Roark dropped their burdens to the gravel as the boy fished for the keys in his coat pocket. Ronja stood by, watching with solemn eyes.

  “Hang on, I forgot something,” Iris exclaimed abruptly.

  She took off back toward the cottage, her red curls bouncing in the moonlight.

  Roark popped the trunk, and Ronja reached down to retrieve the surgeon’s duffle. A hand, dark and strong, intercepted her own.

  “Ronja,” Roark began in her ear.

  “Please don’t,” she breathed, gazing blindly at their crossed fingers. “I know they’re probably gone, but I have to try. What if it was Henry, or Evie, or Iris?”

  “I was just going to say, I would have helped you even if it wasn’t my responsibility to do so,” Roark replied. “And that I’m sorry you can’t stay. We would have been lucky to have you in our family.”

  “Oh.”

  In an instant his arms were around her, and she was transported back to her room in the Belly, where he had lifted her from the floor. Back then he had held her as if she might break at the slightest touch. Now, he crushed her to his chest with such ferocity she thought she might snap in two.

  Ronja breathed in his scent. Fresh rain, gasoline, cigarette smoke.

  Not a day ago she had beaten him wit
hin an inch of his life. She did not regret the bruises she had left him with, but she found she wanted to touch him in a different way. She wanted to leave a different sort of mark on his face.

  Ronja pulled her head away from his chest, looking up at him with her heart in her throat. Roark looked down at her as if he were looking up at the night sky.

  He leaned down toward her, lips parted. She rose on her tiptoes.

  “Are we ready, then?” a gruff voice inquired.

  Ronja sprang away from Roark, touching her lips where his had almost brushed.

  Henry was standing not two yards from them, his thick arms crossed, his expression thunderous. Ronja had not even heard him approach.

  “Yeah,” Roark said easily. “All set.”

  “Yeah,” Ronja reiterated sharply.

  Henry’s interruption infuriated her. Before she was freed of her Singer, she had believed it to be sacrilegious for a mutt to be romantically involved with anyone other than one of their own. She was not a mutt anymore. Perhaps she never was. Should she not be able to kiss who she liked without someone breathing down the back of her neck?

  I can’t do this now, she realized, unbraiding herself internally.

  “Let’s go,” she said, stalking away from the two boys with her shoulders set and footsteps sure.

  39: Dead Lights

  The drive was predominantly silent save for the rush of the wind and the guttural hum of the engine. Roark drove this time, as he was the only one who knew the route to Red Bay. Ronja sat in the passenger seat again, and the rest crowded into the back.

  Ronja did not know if it was her fear or the motion that made her so nauseated, but either way she was miserable. At least the sting of her wound was muted by a fresh dose of pain-killers.

  She stared up at the wandering night sky as they drove onward. She would have found it beautiful were she not so terrified. The stars were nearly as dense as the swirling prairie grasses whizzing past their wheels. They glinted fiercely, as though they were desperate to be alive.

  “You know they’re all dead?”

  Ronja twisted around. It was Henry who had spoken. He too was looking up with dull eyes.

  “The stars?” she prompted.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed, switching his gaze to her face. “They’ve been dead for millions of years. Their light is just reaching us now.”

  Ronja mulled this over for a time, then spoke. “At least they left a mark.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Roark crack a half smile.

  No one uttered another word until they crested a mammoth hilltop. Roark slowed the auto, then cut the ignition and the headlights. They rolled to a silent stop at the summit. Ronja half rose from her seat, straining against her safety belt.

  In the distance, the lights of Red Bay flickered.

  It was far more vast than Ronja had hoped, dwarfed only by the black bay to its left. The bay filtered into the ocean, she supposed, but she could not see where it ended or began.

  The compound itself crouched low between two great hills and spread like a plague across the grassland. It was stark white, but glowed reddish orange beneath an army of floodlights. It was enveloped in three layers of wire fences. The outermost barrier was dotted with gargantuan watchtowers, almost as high as those that encased Revinia.

  Ronja felt the blood drain from her face.

  Roark clicked his safety belt and spun around to view their companions. Ronja followed suit, scrambling to master her expression.

  “Evie. You’re going to set up at the edge of the tree line between those two towers,” Roark pointed at the twin towers on the south side of the prison. “Stay in the woods when you travel. The lights sweep the land every thirty seconds.”

  “Shouldn’t we be anywhere but the top of a hill, then?” Henry hissed.

  “Blind spot,” Roark replied shortly. He turned his attention back to Evie. She was clutching her rifle between her legs. When she sat, it rose far above her head. “Are you ready?”

  Evie grinned. “Skitz yeah!”

  Roark smiled broadly, but quickly whisked it away. “Get out there then, and take this.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew one of the black radios. A pinprick of red light on its face indicated that it was live. “Don’t call unless you have to, they might intercept it.”

  Evie took the device with a nod of gratitude. She kissed Iris on the cheek smartly, patted Henry on the shoulder, and hopped out of the car.

  “See you in a few hours,” she said, slinging her weapon over her shoulder and starting toward the trees.

  “Evie,” Ronja called softly.

  The black-haired girl spun around, gravel hissing under the heel of her boot.

  “Thank you.”

  “Any time, mate,” Evie replied, offering her a sloppy, one fingered salute. “May your song guide you home.”

  “May your song guide you home,” Ronja replied in the customary format. The words felt undeniably right on her tongue.

  Evie turned back around with an easy smile and was swallowed by the dense mob of evergreens.

  Iris released an unsteady breath. Henry began to rub her back briskly. Ronja started to apologize, but Roark spoke.

  “No more talking,” he ordered.

  Roark gunned the engine and started down the hill toward Red Bay. Although the compound was deep in the valley, Ronja felt as though it loomed far, far above.

  40: Berik

  They ditched the auto in a blind spot between two towers about a hundred yards from the outermost wall, then veiled it in a tarp cross-stitched with green, brown, and black threads.

  “Berik said he would leave us a master key at the outer gate,” Roark said as they crouched behind the vehicle, Iris hefting her long skirts to keep them from brushing the damp grass. Ronja wobbled in her heels and steadied herself against Henry. “He told the guards a surprise inspection crew would be coming in through the side door, but he was not to give my name. We shouldn’t have any trouble getting in.”

  “Shouldn’t? Iris hissed, hiking her train higher still, revealing the three syringes of sedative strapped to her thigh. The rest of her equipment, which combined weighed almost as much as she, remained stowed in the trunk.

  Roark shrugged. “Never say never.”

  “We should go,” Henry interjected, squinting at his watch in the pale moonlight. “We have 7 minutes.”

  “Walk fast and casual,” Roark commanded them, getting to his feet.

  Iris and Henry rose and began to stride toward the first gate. Ronja was about to follow them when Roark caught her arm and pulled her back.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “You should know,” he said. “I may have told Berik you were . . . ”

  Ronja raised her brows, rolled her wrist, prompting him to go on.

  Roark cleared his throat, shifted uncomfortably. “Pregnant.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It made the most sense,” he said throwing his hands up defensively. “It fits my reputation and explains our need for secrecy.”

  “That’s the best you could do?” Ronja groaned, slapping her forehead.

  “I told him we want to end the pregnancy,” he went on with a sheepish air that did not suit him.

  “Okay, okay,” Ronja exhaled deeply, tugging her hand down her face. “Fine.”

  Roark grinned fleetingly and offered her his elbow. “Shall we, love?”

  Ronja shook her head, a faint smile dusting her lips.

  “If we get out of this . . . ” She trailed off, not daring to consider the future.

  “Yes?”

  “Never mind.”

  Henry and Iris were waiting for them with their backs pressed to the chain link fence. Iris was gnawing on her fingernail. Henry might have looked at ease if not for his hand, which rested on the pistol in the waistband of his trousers.

  “Berik told me the key would be around here somewhere,” Roark said, disentangling his elbow from Ronja’s and crouching aga
in in the cool grass. “I just hope . . . ah!”

  The boy grinned triumphantly and brandished a silver key as long as one of his slim fingers. He stood, brushing off his silk-covered knees. He tossed the key into the air, caught it, then inserted it into the lock with a flourish. With a screech that drew a wince from Ronja, Roark pushed open the gate on Red Bay.

  The quartet stood rigid for a moment, peering into the mouth of the enemy.

  A fine gravel path led up to the compound. It was surrounded by a pristinely-manicured lawn, so different from the wild prairie just beyond the barrier. Searchlights roamed the expanse like specters. No alarms blared when the lights passed over them, but still they flinched each time their skin blazed abruptly white.

  They crossed the threshold in pairs, first Iris and Henry, then Ronja and Roark. It seemed as if the music of the night faded away, though the forest was only a few paces behind. Only the sound of their crunching footsteps and thudding pulses could be heard in the unnaturally still air.

  Halfway across the first enclosure, Iris reached out and took Henry by the hand. Ronja had to hide her own inside her cloak to keep from doing the same to Roark.

  Despite the chill, they were all steeped in sweat by the time they reached the second gate. Roark fumbled with the key and dropped it into the shadows.

  “Pitcher,” Henry whispered.

  Roark cast his friend a scathing look as he bent to retrieve the key. Iris was fidgeting with her dress. Ronja heard the soft clink of glass when the syringes tapped together beneath the cascading lace.

  Roark scooped up the key and jammed it into the lock with trembling fingers, for a split second breaking his tranquil facade. The gate opened at his touch, and they bolted though as quickly as they dared.

  Time moved sluggishly as they approached the final obstacle between them and the compound. Up close, Red Bay was more massive than Ronja had realized. It was so still, so quiet, so without expression, it reminded her of a gravestone. There were no windows, no doors that she could see.