The Starborn Ascension: Books 1, 2, and 3 (The Starborn Saga)

by Jason D. Morrow

  Mitch turns back to Waverly with large tears streaking down his face. His jaws clench tightly as he grits his teeth. He rears back and hits Waverly another time, and a flash of light brings me back to reality.

  I barely remember that I’m being choked by Mitch. His strong grip around my neck is getting tighter and for a moment, I think he might try to kill me. But he doesn’t know what I know. He doesn’t know that the love of his life was about to kill him.

  “St— Plea—…” I can’t get the words out. His grip is too firm. I think he’s about to end me, but I know that can’t happen. I’ve seen the future.

  As water forms in his eyes, he holds me tighter. “What? You have something to say? Why did you shoot Ashley?” He is screaming at me. “Why?”

  He quickly lets go of my throat and I fall to the ground, my windpipe was so closed off that it’s almost too difficult to cough. I’m gagging—dry-heaving. It’s everything I can do just to get a little bit of air back into my lungs.

  When I look up, I watch Mitch pull a knife from his belt. Is he about to stab me? Before he can bring his arm up, a figure from behind Mitch tackles him to the ground.

  Ethan.

  I rush up to my knees and try to reach for Mitch’s knife, but the scuffle is happening so quickly. Ethan rolls himself on top of Mitch and slams the butt of a rifle against his face three times before Mitch lets go of the knife.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Ethan yells out.

  Blood trickles down the side of Mitch’s face, but only sobs escape his lips. Ethan pulls himself from the ground and comes to me to help me up as I reach out and grab my pistol. When he gets close, I lift my hands in the air, to tell Ethan that I don’t want him to touch me. He recoils quickly and stands between me and Mitch.

  “Can you walk?” Ethan says to me, still watching Mitch for any sudden movements.

  “Yes,” I say, but the words are barely above a whisper. I feel like someone has just dropped a cinderblock on my throat.

  Ethan points the rifle at Mitch, but the bloodied man just stares up at him, wordless. “Don’t try to follow us,” Ethan says. “Or I will shoot you.”

  Ethan and I move away slowly, not daring to turn our backs to Mitch until we’ve reached the exit a few feet away. I push the door open with my back, while Mitch’s eyes glare at us. When we turn around, the cold, outside air hits us.

  My head and throat feel like they’ve been run over by a truck. But now my stomach hurts as I see about twenty greyskins charging after us.

  Their jaws snap and teeth chatter at the sight of new meat. Infectious slime drools from their eyes and the corners of their mouths.

  Ethan and I look at each other, unsure of the number of bullets we have left. We have no blades, but I’m sure they wouldn’t do us any good with this many. Ethan lets off the first shot, sending rotted skull and brains flying through the air. I lift up my pistol and take aim at the nearest greyskin. Its black eyes are set on me and it reaches out as though I’m only inches from it. I pull the trigger and miss its brain, hitting it at its teeth. Its deadened nerves don’t allow it to feel the pain of split teeth and an exit wound out the back of its neck, but another shot through its forehead prevents any further movement.

  This goes on for at least another minute, and a minute in a fight for survival can feel like an hour. My last shot is pronounced by the clank of the chamber emptying. Ethan announces that he only has one round left after sending another greyskin to the ground. An almost neat pile of bodies sit a few feet away from us though there are plenty more coming toward us.

  An explosion from a grenade or a rocket booms in the distance to our left sending debris and shrapnel in every direction. Ethan and I duck as quickly as we can but not before a cloud of dust and pieces of wall engulf us. I try not to breathe in the dusty air, but it’s impossible to hold my breath when I wasn’t expecting the need to. I’m trying to wipe the dirt from my eyes when I feel a hand grab my arm. At first, I’m terrified that it’s a greyskin about to sink its nasty teeth into my shoulder, but it is not a death grip. Ethan pulls me up from the ground and yells for me to follow him. With all the dust in the air, I can’t see how he can navigate through the city street without running into a greyskin. I can only see a couple of feet in front of me.

  Before I know it, the two of us are running down a long alleyway. Our clothes are covered in dust, but the air is cleaner this way. The greyskins are far behind, too distracted by the noises of gunfire and explosions to come chasing after us. I follow Ethan to the door of a building I’ve never been in before. When we walk in, it’s dark and (hopefully) empty. I start to brush the dust off my clothes and small clouds fall all around us and onto the floor.

  “Let me take a look at your face,” Ethan says.

  I turn both cheeks, letting the light from the window shine on my face. I can tell the bruises must be pretty bad considering the look in Ethan’s eyes.

  “I should have shot him,” Ethan says. “I should have just ended him then and there.”

  “But I killed his girlfriend,” I say, my voice sounding like I’ve been sick for a few days. My words come out in squeaks and wheezes that only seem to make Ethan even angrier.

  “You stopped her from killing the rest of us,” he says.

  “Not you, necessarily. I still don’t know what happens to you. I don’t know if you die now or if you get away.”

  Ethan doesn’t say anything to this, but he tells me to follow him up a flight of steps. “I’ve got one bullet, so let’s hope if there’s anything in here it’s just one,” he says with a grin. But the grin is quickly wiped away as he starts up the steps. From the looks of it, we are in another office building. We finally make it to a large room with cubicles scattered throughout the entire floor. Each step is more cautious than the one before it as we scan the room, looking for enemy soldiers or lost greyskins, but the more we look, the emptier it seems.

  We finally reach the other end of the room which is a wall full of windows overlooking a city square. This particular building seems to have been untouched by Shadowface’s soldiers so far, but that doesn’t mean it won’t soon be discovered as a place for them to rest tonight. With walls away from the greyskins, a few kitchens, and even chairs to sit in, it wouldn’t be a terrible place for soldiers to spend the night.

  I press my head against the window, staring down at the war torn streets. How could Shadowface’s men have done all this in such a short amount of time? And there is no way to know how the others are doing. Is Remi still alive? I’ve seen a vision of her future, but I can’t be sure that it will still hold true now. What decisions have I made that could have affected that outcome? For all I know, she is dead along with everybody else.

  “Hey, do you see that?” Ethan asks, pointing toward the setting sun.

  “What?” I ask in a hoarse whisper.

  “Shadowface has been stopped. Or at least stalled.”

  I’m not sure what he means.

  “Look,” he says, still pointing. “Shadowface’s trucks are all lined up to the middle of the city. It looks like Jeremiah’s weapons might have been enough to at least hold Shadowface’s men back for a little while. The soldiers haven’t made it past the second barricade.”

  Ethan is right. I can barely see it, but the siege seems to have come to a standstill. Echoes of gunfire and rockets still go off occasionally, but it looks like Shadowface has encountered more of a fight than he anticipated.

  “We’re on the wrong side of the barricades,” I say.

  “At least we’re almost behind Shadowface for now,” he says.

  “More to the side, actually,” I say. “Let’s just hope they don’t decide this will be a nice building to camp in.”

  “You okay with trying to stay here for the night?” he asks.

  I nod. It will have to do, though I’m not sure my nerves will allow me to sleep.

  “It might be cold,” Ethan says, “but I think the rooftop might be the best place t
o stay.”

  My heart leaps when he suggests this. Is he proposing to fulfill the vision I saw of us earlier? Surely not. I don’t see how it can be that way. I don’t love Ethan. I mean, I know I don’t have to love him to kiss him, but still. It just doesn’t make sense right now.

  It’s too soon.

  “It will give us a good vantage point,” he says. “We’ll be able to monitor Shadowface’s movements. We might be able to see if his men are coming our way and then we’ll know to leave.” He shrugs. “Maybe we’ll have enough of a head start to slip out unnoticed.” He looks at me. “What do you think?”

  “Sounds good.”

  We get up to the top floor and Ethan is forced to break a lock so we can get access to the roof. But he’s right. The view from eight stories up does give us a great vantage point, and escaping would be our only option because we’ve only got one bullet between us.

  We only go to the waist-high railing for a brief moment to take a good look at the carnage below us. It looks like a demolition company was hired to take down about twenty-or-so buildings, only they did a very sloppy job. Numerous vehicles and a few buildings are on fire. Large gaping craters are set deep into some buildings. I can’t help but wonder how many people have died because of this stupid conflict.

  We sit and stare at the fading sun for an hour, not saying a word. My throat is starting to feel a little better but my head still pounds. When I finally decide to talk again, my voice is not nearly as crackly.

  “It makes me angry,” I say.

  “What’s that?”

  “All this,” I say, nodding toward the battle. “Why are we fighting each other when there are greyskins out there?”

  “Because there are people like Shadowface,” Ethan answers. “People who want to take advantage of survivors.”

  I look at him and he shakes his head, clenching his teeth. “No matter what kind of world we live in, there will be people grabbing for power. Bad people. It’s up to the good people to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “But we didn’t even have a chance,” I say. “We weren’t even given a choice. Just because I had that vial of blood…” I lean my head down into my chest. “People died. People are dying. People will die.”

  “Waverly, it’s not your fault.”

  “I know,” I say. “It’s just not easy to live like this.”

  “Tell me about it,” Ethan says. “It’s frustrating to lose everything to selfish, power-hungry people. It would be one thing to lose everything to the greyskins, but at the hand of someone who’s still human…that’s even harder.”

  I sense a sadness in his tone…anger. “Is that what happened to you?” I ask.

  He stares out into the red and orange sky for a few seconds and finally nods. “Yes.” He sets his rifle on the roof floor next to his feet and crosses his arms as he leans against a large, metal vent that probably hasn’t been in use for years. “About two years ago. My entire family was surprisingly fortunate to have survived the initial outbreak. I had my mom, dad, my two little brothers, and my older sister. All of us were together and living any way we knew how. Where some saw nothing but a bleak, desolate farmhouse, no doubt ravaged for goods long ago, my mom and dad saw opportunity. Though places like that were ransacked for canned goods and fuel, many left behind things like seeds and rich fertilizer. As a family, we found a way to grow a garden and live off the land.

  “Part of our day, everyday was set aside for making sure our perimeters were secure—that our defenses would hold out any greyskins. The rest of the day would be tending to the gardens or canning and preparing for the winter when there would be no garden. Occasionally we would see a greyskin or even a small herd come through, but we either killed them silently, or let them pass by without them noticing us.”

  “Sounds like you were doing better than most,” I say.

  “We were,” Ethan agrees. “But it only took one group of raiders to undo everything we created. We built the small farm in a very remote location, hoping we would stay out of anybody’s view forever, but it was a thought that was too good to be true.”

  Tears start to form in his eyes, and it’s everything I can do to hold back my own.

  “They stumbled on to our site at about dusk,” Ethan continues. He nods toward the sky. “The evening looked about like this one, only I was happy—glad to be where I was, because I knew there were so many people out there that had it harder than me. Well, it only took one truck to plough through our fence. They all had guns and were ready to take us over. My mom and dad rushed out first, weapons ready. But they were dead the second they stepped out the door.

  “I was on the other side of the little farm working on a piece of equipment when I heard the first gunshot. By the time I made it to the cabin, the raiders had my brothers and sister tied up and on their knees. I always carried a gun on me, and when I saw one of the raiders kiss my sister on the cheek, I put him in my sights and shot him through the side of his head. The raiders weren’t too happy about that. With guns pointed at my brothers and sister, I was forced to throw my gun to the ground. My parents were dead and so were we. But the raiders were mad that I killed one of theirs. They decided I should be punished.”

  My stomach turns in knots. I can’t imagine what he’s about to tell me, but I know it won’t be good. It hurts me on the inside to hear what Ethan has had to go through. I had no idea his family had survived the outbreak. Someone’s past is just one of those things people forget to ask about each other. It’s one of those things people want to forget to ask about each other.

  “They tied me up to a post,” Ethan says, his voice thick. “Their leader announced that my punishment would have to fit the crime. They all had to see one of theirs die. Now I had to watch as they killed my family.”

  “No.” The word passes by my lips involuntarily.

  “My two little brothers were twins,” Ethan says, looking up to my eyes. A brief smile forms on his face as he recalls them. “They were both seven. My sister was a year older than me.” The smile fades as he continues. “Like sacrificial lambs, each of them had their throats cut and were made to bleed out in front of me. When the raiders were finished, they set my parents and siblings at my feet so they would rot next to me. Then they left.”

  “How could someone ever do that to another person?”

  “I’ve asked myself that question a lot,” Ethan says.

  “I can’t believe you had to go through such a terrible, horrible thing. Those raiders deserve nothing but death.”

  “They died,” Ethan says. “The whole time they were pronouncing my sentence and killing my family, I was straining and screaming so hard that they never noticed that I was ripping away at the knot they had tied around my wrists. They had barely driven off the farm before the rope snapped free. I didn’t care about being safe. I grabbed a rifle, got in our truck and took off after them. I found them a few miles away, stopped on the side of the road, going through all the food they stole from us. They never saw me before I sniped each of them. I made sure just to shoot the leader in the leg so I could have a word with him before I killed him.” Ethan takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “I’m not proud of what I did.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I say. “But just know, I think that man deserved anything you could have done to him.”

  “I guess,” Ethan says. “I would have just shot him now, I think. Torture wasn’t the way to go about it. I found out how easy it was to become one of them. I felt like a savage.” Another deep breath. “I tied him up by the wrists and dragged him behind my truck until he died.”

  The words hit me hard, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t have wanted to do the same thing. The man had done something unthinkable.

  He looks up at me again. “It took over an hour,” he says. “Every couple of minutes I would get out to see if he was dead yet.” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe I did such a thing.” Tears roll down his cheeks and his chin begins to tremble. “When
I see someone like you, I see innocence and beauty. I feel a need to protect you. I feel like I failed my family, but I’ve been given another chance to save someone else.” He bites his lower lip. “I just…I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  I want to reach out to him. I want to comfort him, but I don’t want to see his future. I just want to be able to touch him without my Starborn power going haywire.

  “Though the man deserved to die,” Ethan says, “I can’t help but wonder what kind of monster I’ve become.”

  “You are anything but a monster,” I say. “No one can judge you for what you’ve done. None of us have been through that kind of scenario.” I sigh. “I imagine if a few more people dragged raiders behind their trucks, punishing them for their atrocities, there would be a lot fewer raiders out there. It took guts to go after them. There’s no doubt that you stopped them from doing the same thing to somebody else.”

  Ethan swallows and looks back toward the sunset. He pulls himself off the vent and leans against the railing. “I wish there was a way to stop all of it,” he says. “We need a leader. Someone who can unite people together and run the raiders out of our settlements. Not someone that uses raiders for his gain.”

  I walk over to the railing and stand next to Ethan. “Maybe you can be that person,” I say.

  He shakes his head at me. “I’m not a leader. I don’t have the ear of anyone.”

  “I would follow you,” I say.

  He takes a deep breath, looking into my eyes. “I want to touch you,” he says.

  “I don’t want to see your future,” I say.

  “I know.” He looks away from me.

  I want to touch him too. The memory of the vision I had seemed strange at the time, but right now it would feel so right. How comforting would it be to be able to hold someone—to tell each other that everything will be all right? I want to feel his strong arms wrapped around me. I need the feeling of protection—of trust. I don’t want to be alone.

  “But I want to hold you, too,” I say.