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

by Jason D. Morrow

  “The only way I know, yes,” she says.

  I shake my head again. “Then I don’t know what to tell you. We can be as careful as possible and I will do my best to figure out a way to change it, but I can’t promise anything.”

  Amber nods, staring at the water below us still seemingly shocked. She blinks and shakes away her thoughts when she looks up at me. “Past the bars is a small creek. We’re going to have to swim through it. If we swim a few hundred yards we will swim past a parking lot with a bunch of vehicles. The plan is to sneak into one of the search and rescue trucks, because that’s what they will use to start looking for us once they realize we’re no longer in the compound. Then, we just ride out with them. Once we’re safely away from Anchorage, we take out the guards driving the truck and go far away from here.” She looks away from me and down the tunnel where we should be running, but she stands still. “Now I’m not so sure about my plan.”

  I can’t imagine being in her situation. Knowing that I’m going to be shot if I move forward would make me stall too.

  “Is there no other way out that you can think of?” I ask.

  “We could explore going that way,” Amber says, nodding in the direction behind me. “But I don’t know where that leads.”

  I bite my lip, not knowing what to suggest. I can’t help but feel that any decision made would result in the same outcome. If we decide to go the opposite direction, wouldn’t that mean that she will be shot there? I don’t know where she is supposed to be shot. I’ve never seen the area before. There will be no way to know if the intended future can be altered until we are in the moment. Change can only come in a moment of clarity.

  “I’m following you,” I say. “When the time comes, you have my word that I will do everything I can to change what I saw. I just don’t know how to do it yet.”

  Amber nods, though I know my words are not enough to make her feel confident. I’m not even confident.

  We stand just a moment longer when we hear a sound that is both completely new, yet very familiar to both of us. Behind me, I can hear the sound of chomping teeth and sloshing water. Into the red glowing light step in five greyskins. They’ve sensed us.

  “Come on!” Amber says, moving now.

  I follow closely behind her, doing my best to keep my footing. The greyskins have picked up the pace as well. Amber has the club in her hands, though it doesn’t seem she has any intention of using it.

  There are twists and turns along the tunnel, and I find myself falling to my knees more often than not. The greyskins are gaining on us. I can hear them grunting at us, groaning for us, but we somehow keep a small distance from them. With each passing moment, their cries grow more faint, and soon I don’t hear them at all. I know we’ve made it to the end of the tunnel when I hear the sound of rushing water and I feel the air getting colder. Eventually I can see the moonlight shining through the metal bars of a large grate at the end.

  Amber slows as we approach. I know we are about to come to the point where she will be shot, possibly killed. And now she knows it too. But with the greyskins coming up on us from the back, there is no other way to go out.

  “We might not be able to fit through the bars,” she says nervously. Her voice echoes throughout the tunnel.

  I shake my head at her. “We can,” I say.

  She reaches her hand out to one of the bars, her fingers trembling. When we look out into the night, we can hear guards shuffling around, some shouting orders, others obeying them. Amber looks back at me.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say. “I don’t know how to change it.” It’s the truth, and she knows it. With the greyskins coming at us, we don’t have the option of turning back and going in a different direction.

  Amber looks away and takes a deep breath. “Good luck out there,” she says.

  Before I can say anything, she slips through the bars with almost no effort and drops down into the pool of water below. I look behind me one last time and I hear the sound of the greyskins catching back up.

  Turning sideways, I’m able to slip through the bars, and I begin my free fall into the cold water below. When I splash through, it’s as if the cacophony around me vanishes. I don’t try to open my eyes—the murkiness and the night won’t let me see anyway. I float for a moment, partly in shock from the cold water, partly out of fear to go back to the surface. I don’t want to see what awaits me. Amber will be shot, but what happens to me is a mystery. Part of me holds out hope that the two of us might have changed something in the past few minutes without even realizing it. If what I see is the intended future as Peter once said it was, then perhaps just telling Amber about it was enough to change the outcome.

  My limbs finally find the strength to move and I begin my ascent to the surface of the water. My head breaches and the cold air is even harsher than the water that soaks me. I can hear the screams of guards above me, shouting orders.

  “There she is! Kill her! Kill her! Shoot her! Shoot her!”

  The words push me forward. I don’t see the source of the orders, but they seem to surround me. Then, the gunshots blare out. Yellow flashes of rifle fire spit out above me in all directions, though none of the bullets come near me. When I turn my head to the right, all I see are shrubs and more water. When I turn my head to the left, I see a head bobbing up and down in the water. Splashes of mucky water shoot into the air all around Amber until her head goes back under the surface, never to to come back up.

  I try to keep as still as possible as I huddle up next to the shrubs. It would seem that none of the guards actually saw me fall into the water and had been focused solely on Amber. For a second, I think to myself that she might not be dead. The bullets might have just passed her. I could have seen the whole vision wrong. But deep down I know it’s just wishful thinking. There was no way so many soldiers could have missed so many times.

  I try to listen to the guards on the bank above me.

  “There’s another one somewhere,” one of them shouts.

  “She could still be in the tunnel,” another says.

  “We’ll have to flush her out.”

  When my eyes find the grate I see greyskins trying to get through the bars. Maybe the guards will just think that I got caught up in a group of them and was devoured completely.

  The wind starts blowing and it’s everything I can do to keep my teeth from chattering. It’s too late in the fall to be in the water. It’s almost winter. If greyskins and guards won’t be the death of me, the weather is certainly a possibility. But I have to stay. The more I move, the likelier it is a guard will spot me. So, I wait.

  Five minutes go by. Ten minutes. Some of the guards decide to blow off the grate with an explosive so they can gain easier access. Eventually, I can hear no commotion above me. The guards are looking everywhere but here. It’s time to move.

  I start swimming slowly next to the bank, my eyes constantly scanning every direction for movement. I finally pull myself through the mud and onto dry ground. My legs and arms are numb. I’m afraid of things that happen to people in these situations. What about hypothermia? Is it cold enough outside to freeze to death?

  I think about what Amber told me about the search and rescue vehicles. I can see where they are parked from here. I just have to get to one. Apparently the guards can’t imagine that I’ve gotten this far because there is no one around.

  I get to the parking lot full of empty vehicles. Most of them are unmarked, but some are labeled. I find one that says search and rescue on it, having no idea if this particular truck will be used to look for me. The bed has a metal cover on it. I look all around me to see if anyone is watching, and from what I can tell I’m safe. I pull down the tailgate and slip in, cold and wet. When I’m inside, I lift the back window and pull up on the tailgate to shut it as quietly as possible. I have no way of knowing if someone will try to look in the back before they load up. I don’t even know if this is a good plan at all. It was good enough for Amber, but right now tha
t’s not very reassuring. The plan failed her long before she would have gotten to a search and rescue truck.

  I lay in the back and shiver, waiting to see if Amber’s plan will work for me.

  Chapter 8 - Remi

  Derek ran into a nail sticking out of a fencepost. That’s the story that everyone knows, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s all anyone needs to know. It’s breakfast, and Ray and Nancy are none the wiser about my actions last night, though Gabe knows something is up. By the end of the interrogation, I was able to persuade Derek and Scott to keep our interaction to ourselves. At first, I didn’t think they would listen to me, but the fact that I knew Jeremiah meant something to them.

  “I was with him,” I said to Derek as I lowered my gun. “You and I are on the same side.”

  “You sure have a funny way of showing it,” he said.

  I shook my head at him. “There were others. Mitch. Ashley. They brought us weapons to defend ourselves. But we were getting overrun by Shadowface’s soldiers.” I took a deep breath. “How do I know I can trust you two?”

  “Why don’t you talk to Jeremiah yourself?” Scott said, nodding at the radio on the floor.

  I walked over two it and snatched it up. I brought it to Scott and told him to call out.

  “Boss, this is Scott.”

  “What happened?” the voice said.

  “We ran into a problem here,” Scott said. “We have a very inquisitive girl who took it upon herself to interrogate us. She’s here and wants to speak with you.”

  “Put her on,” he said.

  I stepped away from Scott, turning my back to them. I pressed the button on the side. “Is this Jeremiah?” I asked.

  There was a long but of silence from the other end. “You aren’t supposed to use his name,” Derek said to me.

  I pressed the button again. “Jeremiah, this is Remi. I was with you at Elkhorn. These two have some interesting things to say about you.”

  “You don’t know who could be monitoring that signal,” Scott called out. “He’s not going to answer you.”

  But just as Scott said the words, Jeremiah’s voice came out clear over the radio. “It’s good to hear that you’re alive,” he said. “I was afraid Paxton might have tried to kill you.”

  “A warning you failed to mention,” I said.

  “A possibility you should have thought of beforehand,” he came back. “Elkhorn is in shambles. Most of the people died.”

  His words stung me as he said them.

  “But retribution is coming. It would be wonderful to have you on my team. If you could, put Scott back on the radio.”

  I walked over to Scott and pressed the button. “Go ahead,” Scott said.

  “Bring the girl to the meeting place if she is willing,” he said. “Tell her the truth.”

  “Understood,” Scott said, glaring at me.

  I brought the radio up to my mouth. “I suppose I will see you soon then.” I could feel a lump in my throat beginning to form. Jeremiah said almost everyone had died. Did that mean Waverly too? “Jeremiah,” I said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Is Waverly with you?”

  There was a long silence from the other end. But finally he came back on. “She is not here. But we haven’t found her body, either. She could still be alive.”

  “Ten-four,” I said, swallowing hard. I looked down at Derek and Scott. “Start talking.”

  I sat and listened for the next few minutes as they told me about Elkhorn. The truth, apparently, was that Elkhorn had not been completely destroyed, and that there were a lot of survivors left. When I tried to ask them about Waverly, neither Scott nor Derek had heard of her. Of course, they hadn’t been there that day.

  Derek told me that they had been working for Jeremiah for some time. They knew about Mitch, Ashley, and the other team members that had been killed previously, but they had never worked with them. Jeremiah had always been sure that the two parties never had contact with each other. But after the confrontation at Elkhorn, the only team member left was Mitch, though Jeremiah had seen nothing of him since then.

  After the attack, Jeremiah called in all his resources and set up a base at Elkhorn, using survivors and people like Derek and Scott to form his small army. This was a good opportunity for me. It would give me a chance to try and find my sister, and Elkhorn was the best place to start.

  I eventually broke the ties that bound Derek and Scott, and I found an old first aid kit for Derek to bandage his wounded leg. I trusted them not to come after me because now their boss wanted to see me. I didn’t exactly know why Jeremiah would want me there. Perhaps it was to talk about Paxton, or maybe even to use me to get to Waverly. Her ability could prove very useful for a person looking to start a war. In any case, Derek and Scott had no choice but to treat me as if I didn’t actually interrogate them and threaten their lives.

  I feel awkward sitting at the breakfast table. Ray is talking loudly about noises he heard in the night, though he says he didn’t know if he was dreaming or if it was real. This doesn’t help to quell Gabe’s suspicion that I snuck out in the night. I can tell by the looks he gives me. But it’s not like I’m trying to keep it from him. I just can’t really say anything until we are away from Ray and Nancy.

  Scott and Derek both sit at the table, each with dark circles under their eyes. Derek’s leg is set straight out, thick with bandages.

  “I just can’t believe you were up so early without me hearing it,” Ray says with a laugh. “I must be getting tired.”

  “Yeah, why were you up so early, Derek?” Gabe asks.

  I try to nudge Gabe, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he just ignores me.

  Derek shakes his head. “When you’ve been out on the road as long as Scott and I have, it’s hard to trust people. I was out checking to make sure no one was messing with our truck. I wanted to see if our supplies were still there.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about the people here in Orick!” Ray belts out. “We have all the supplies we could want. In fact, I’m sure we will load you up when you’re ready to move on.”

  “Yeah, about that,” I say.

  Nancy comes into the room with a steaming pot of soup. She sets the pot in the center of the table and when she lifts the top, it looks like chicken and dumplings. We’ve had this for breakfast before, so I already know what to expect. Dough balls surrounded by undercooked chicken in a sour broth. It fills the stomach, but I nearly have to pinch my nose to eat it.

  “About what, dear?” Nancy asks as she takes a seat on the other side.

  “Leaving,” I say. “I haven’t talked with Gabe about this, but I think I’m ready to move on. Scott and Derek have agreed to help me look for my sister in Elkhorn.”

  “Oh really?” Ray shouts. “That’s great.”

  “Oh, I hope you find her,” Nancy says.

  “What?” Gabe looks at me. His face is turning red and I can tell that I’ve done something stupid. I should have talked to him first.

  “I’m doing much better now,” I say. “I can barely even tell that I was shot. Just a little discomfort every now and then.”

  Gabe shakes his head. “You didn’t want to talk to me about it first before you announced it at the table?”

  I roll my eyes at him and take a spoonful of broth and dough. I don’t have to get Gabe’s permission about everything I want to do. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.”

  When breakfast is over, I walk out onto the porch with Gabe close behind me. He doesn’t say anything at first, but finally he lets out a deep, warm breath that sends vapor a foot out in front of him.

  “You and I are supposed to be working together, Remi,” he says. “If I came across upset, it’s because I figured we would both talk about it before we decided to move out of here.”

  “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about last night,” I say. “I meant to, but I needed to make the announcement at breakfast, because we need to get out
of here.”

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  I tell him about last night. Everything from following Scott and Derek to the mechanic shop, to stabbing through Derek’s leg, to the radio conversation with Jeremiah. Throughout the entire explanation, Gabe’s expression never changes.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask.

  He simply shrugs. “We’ve obviously got to go if it means finding Waverly.”

  “It’s no good that Scott and Derek have never heard of her,” I say. “That means no one has been looking for her. She could be anywhere.”

  “Jeremiah might have some of those answers,” Gabe says.

  “Except he said he hasn’t seen her either,” I say.

  Gabe nods, thoughtfully. Then he looks up. “So, Scott and Derek are here to tell people about how great Shadowface is?”

  “That’s what they said, though Jeremiah wants them to come back now. I kind of threw a monkey wrench into their plans for here. There’s no telling how many places they’ve hit over the past month.”

  “I hope Jeremiah knows what he’s doing,” Gabe says.

  “Me too.”

  Nancy starts to cry and Ray holds her close as Gabe and I set our bags in the back of the truck. I can’t lie. It’s actually hard for me to hold back tears too. The two of them have been so good to Gabe and me that it’s difficult just to pack up and leave. For a small time, this place has been a good home for us. But I’ve always known that I wouldn’t be able to stay here forever.

  Nancy hugs me tightly. “It’s so dangerous out there,” she says. “You two know that better than anyone. Won’t you stay a little longer?”

  “I wish I could,” I say. “But my sister is still out there somewhere. I’ve got to make sure she’s okay.”

  “When you find her, you should bring her here,” Ray says. “We’ll all have a fine meal together. Well, at least a meal, anyway.”

  Nancy ignores him as she squeezes me tight again. “We will see you again, Remi. You just have to take care of yourself.” She wipes away another tear and looks up at Gabe. “And you too young man! You know where to go if something bad happens again.”