“Then we’re going to have to fight,” Danny said.
“We don’t have to jump to that first thing,” Evelyn said.
“We could just walk out there like we’re supposed to be there,” Christopher chimed in. “Maybe they won’t even stop us. They are at a bar, you know. Many of them might not even take notice.” He looked at Aaron. “Are all of them in uniform?”
Aaron turned toward the door and cracked it open again. He let it close softly before speaking. “Some of them aren’t. But they’re all soldiers. Same haircuts and everything.”
“I think we should go Christopher’s way,” I said. “Going out with guns blazing will certainly call attention to us. At least his way there is a possibility of getting out without having to fight.”
Evelyn nodded. “Okay then. Let’s do that.” She looked sharply at Danny and Heather. “Remember, do〜Remembe not use your abilities.”
“We got it, Your Highness” Heather said.
Evelyn ignored the sarcasm as she climbed the stairs. Aaron led the way while Christopher and I joined the middle of the group. When he opened the door, the smell of alcohol and smoke filled my nostrils. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience. The seven of us walked through the bar just as Christopher suggested – like we were supposed to be there.
For the first few seconds, we only got a couple of looks our way, but as we got closer to the exit, the talking and laughing started to quiet down until the only thing we could hear was our feet tapping against the wood floor. It only took about five seconds for one of the soldiers to take initiative and stand between us and the door.
The guard was obviously drunk, probably having come straight to the bar after a long night shift. Two of his friends stood next to him, squinting their eyes as if to get a better look of the group.
“What do we have here?” he asked with a devious grin.
Aaron stood his ground at the front of the group. “Let us pass through. We just want to get out of here.”
“You don’t look like you’re a soldier,” he said as his glazed eyes scanned each of us. “None of you do. Except maybe him.” He pointed at Danny. “What’s your name and rank?”
“I’m not looking for a fight,” Aaron said. “Just let us through.”
The man shook his head. “I’m not gonna do that,” he said. “This bar is reserved for Screven soldiers, not the common folk. You all aren’t those Resistance rats are you? I usually just shoot them.” He spat on the ground.
“We just came through here by accident,” Aaron answered.
“You give me a name and rank, and I’ll let you go by. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you.” The man pulled out his pistol and pointed it at Aaron’s head.
I had to play it smooth. I had to be delicate. I was able to concentrate on the bullet in his gun. There was no way it would be leaving and entering anyone’s head. But I also didn’t want to just slap the gun out of the man’s hand either. That would be a very Starborn thing to do. I wished there was a way that I could tell Aaron that the bullet was secure.
Danny moved to the front of the group and stood next to Aaron. “Let us pass,” he said, clenching his fist.
The man pulled back the hammer on his pistol and shook his head. “Nope.”
He was dropped to the floor before he could even think about pulling the trigger. Danny’s punch had landed so hard that everyone in the room could hear the man’s jaw break. He had used his Starborn gift, but Danny was so big it didn’t look any different to anyone else.
I thought that such a display of power and tenacity would have scared anyone off, but this was not the case at all. In fact, Danny’s punch inspired just about all of the people in the room to jump us.
Chairs flew and glasses shattered as soldiers charged at us. Christopher and I ducked low to the ground as Danny, Aaron, and Jeffrey landed punches. Heather pulled out two knives and cut the throat of a man who was coming after her.
The bartender pulled a rifle out from behind the counter and pointed it at Aaron, but Evelyn had seen it coming and snatched the gun from his hands. She turned it around on him and fired into his chest.
Within seconds the place was trashed. Sharp debris mixed with blood covered the entire floor and I knew it was time to get out of there. I grabbed Christopher’s arm and pulled him up to run for the door. Before I could get there, a man jumped a man juin our way. He was holding a knife and was ready to stab someone with it. The grin on his face made him look as though he had been waiting to do this for a long time. Everything within me wanted to use his head to smash open the door, but instead I pulled the pistol from my belt and shot him in the stomach. He fell to his knees, spitting up blood as I ran passed him.
Christopher and I tore out of the bar and into the street. Thankfully, no one was there to meet us. Aaron was the next person to charge out of the bar. and into the street. When we looked back at him, he waved for us to keep going as he ran to catch up with us.
“What about the others?” Christopher asked, going as fast as his legs could carry him.
“They’re coming!” Aaron yelled.
We cut through an ally between two large buildings. We then made a left, a right, and another left. Finally, when we felt there was no sign of our pursuers, we stopped. I leaned against a brick wall, trying my best to catch my breath. Aaron brought his wristband up to his mouth, trying to ask the others if they made it out. He didn’t get an answer at first.
Christopher leaned over to me. He was also breathing hard. “Are you alright?” he asked. I looked up at him and nodded, finally getting the air I needed.
“They aren’t answering,” Aaron said, still looking at his wristband.
I briefly closed my eyes, looking for Evelyn. She and Jeffrey were also hiding next to a pile of rubble and there didn’t seem to be anyone near them in pursuit. When I thought about Danny, I could see him sprinting as Screven soldiers came at him with everything they had. He had to duck low and run in a zigzag motion to avoid getting shot. Pieces of wall shattered next to his head as he rounded a corner. That’s when Heather came out of nowhere with her insane speed and cut down the soldiers. When Danny realized no one else was coming after him, he slowed to a stop.
I opened my eyes to find Aaron still trying to talk to the others over the wristband. “Are any of you out there?”
“Jeffrey and I made it out,” Evelyn said. “Not sure about Danny and Heather.”
“Yeah, we made it out too,” Heather said over the radio. “No idea where you guys are right now. We didn’t even see you leave, much less see what direction you took.”
Aaron was about to answer when an alarm across the entire city sounded out. It cut through the air in a shrill, high-pitched noise that made me want to cover my ears. This is exactly what Christopher was doing.
“Is this because of us?” I asked absently.
Aaron shook his head and shrugged. He started walking toward the main road away from the alley and motioned for Christopher and me to follow him. At the sound of the alarms, citizens in the streets clambered to get back into their homes. It made me think that the alarms weren’t about us at all because this seemed like a routine drill for most of them.
Across the street and to my right, I saw a little boy, maybe five years old, crying his eyes out. He seemed to be looking for his parents, but had somehow lost them and didn’t know what to do. I started to run out there to him, but Aaron gripped my arm firmly and shook his head.
“It’s too dangerous to go out there,” he said. “We can’t risk being discovered.”
I pulled my arm from his grip and started to ignore him, but that’s when I saw the trucks. These weren’t normal trucks. They were huge. They barreled down the street with armed Screven guards hanging off the sides. The first five trucks carried what looked like huge water tanks The nr tanks ext five trucks were covered with large cloth tarps.
I couldn’t help but watch the little boy as the trucks came nearer. There was a feeling inside of me th
at told me something really bad was about to happen. All ten of the trucks drove by, but in the distance I could see one more. This one was smaller and full of Screven soldiers. They scanned the areas as though they were looking for something. Then, one of them spotted the crying little boy. The truck came to a stop. Three of the guards jumped out of the back and started walking toward him.
“Where are you located?” Came the voice of Evelyn over the wristbands.
Each of us jumped to turn down the volume and Aaron answered by whispering for her to wait a second.
“Aaron, we can’t let them hurt that boy,” I said.
“I know,” he answered, not taking his eyes off the truck full of guards.
As the guards moved nearer to the boy, a man ran out of one of the buildings with his arms in the air, screaming.
“Leave him alone! He’s just lost. Please, don’t hurt him.”
The guards pointed their guns at the man and he slipped to the ground onto his knees.
“You know the law,” the lead guard said. “When the alarms sound, citizens must stay inside or they will be shot on sight.”
“Please,” the man said. “I’m just here for the boy. He’s just a child!”
A shot blasted and the sound echoed off the walls surrounding the street. The man was on the ground in a puddle of blood. The soldiers then turned toward the little boy.
“Well, this just isn’t going to happen,” Aaron said as he jumped from behind the corner and ran toward the truck. “Hey!”
I followed behind him as the guards turned their attention toward the yelling. They started to point their guns at him, but he drew electricity from the truck and fried whoever was left inside the vehicle. The guards on the outside were stunned for just a moment, but it was enough time for me to reach out my hand and make them smack to the ground with a thought. With the guards in the truck dead, Aaron used whatever energy there was left and sent the bolts into the three guards on the outside of the truck. The three of them writhed in pain until they stopped moving altogether.
It was about this time that the alarms stopped. I ran up to the little boy and held him in my arms. He wrapped his legs around my waist and held tight to my neck like I was his mother. I simply hugged him, trying to get him away from the sight of death all around him. But who was I kidding? If this is was what Screven citizens have been going through for the past few days, this boy may have seen a lot worse than that.
It all seemed so strange to me that this was happening in the glorious city of Screven. When I had come here before, I remembered seeing people in the streets that looked happy. They all had looked so well fed, too. I knew that I had only seen a small part of Screven and even that was at night. But it still didn’t change how unexpected this was. This little boy didn’t seem particularly well-fed. The man who had been shot was skin and bones. It made me wonder where all the food from the colonies had gone. Who was using all of the products that had been sent in as tax?
People started filing out of the buildings and into the streets since the alarms shut off. I still held tight to the little boy and I could feel his tears drip down the back of my neck. It broke my heart.
“We can’t take him with us,” Aaron said to me. “We’ve got to get out of here fast.”
I nodded to him. I knew we couldn’t take the boy, but there was no way I was no was just going to leave him in the street. I didn’t know if that man that had been shot had been his father or if it was just someone who wanted to help.
I was relieved when a woman walked up to me. “Starborn?” she asked. It almost seemed like she was afraid, but then the biggest smile spread across her face when I nodded. She walked up to me and grabbed my hand, shaking it vigorously. “We know you aren’t the murderers that Jeremiah has made you out to be.”
“How?” I asked, but she didn’t answer me.
“I’ll take him,” she said, reaching out her arms for the boy. “I know where his mother is.”
I told the boy that he was going to see his mom, and he easily switched over to this woman who at some point had gained faith in the Starborns. Was she part of the Screven Resistance? Or was she just an ordinary citizen that believed Jeremiah was evil and he needed to be taken down as quickly as possible? I noticed no one hurried to clean the Screven soldiers’ bodies from the street.
Aaron grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. “We’ve got to go,” he said. He motioned for Christopher to follow as he led us into another back alley. When we were away from the crowds, Aaron squatted to the ground and tried to contact Evelyn.
“You need to head north,” Evelyn said over the wristband. “You will see a large square with a statue of Jeremiah in the middle. We will meet there.”
“Are you already there?” Aaron asked.
“Not yet. We will see you there.”
“We’re on our way.” It was Heather’s voice that time.
Aaron moved forward and we followed close behind him. “You know where we’re headed?” I asked.
“North,” Aaron said with a smirk. “I think I’m going north.”
He didn’t sound too sure, but we followed anyway. The side streets were dirty and there was rubble all throughout. It seemed that this part of the city had seen several skirmishes over the past few days.
As we ran through one of the deserted streets, my foot caught something and I fell hard on my side. The other two stopped abruptly to help pull me up, but I didn’t want them to. For some reason, my vision had a moment of blurriness. It was the strangest feeling. As they ran up beside me, I started feeling dizzy and my stomach felt like I might throw up.
Aaron pulled me up to a sitting position, but the dizziness didn’t leave for another few seconds.
“Are you alright?” Aaron asked.
I couldn’t help but look at Christopher. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just got dizzy is all.”
“Can you walk?” he asked.
Christopher held out a hand to me – an invitation to heal my current symptom, but I shook my head. I didn’t want Aaron to figure anything out. Besides, when I stood, the dizziness went away, though I was sure it wouldn’t be the last time I felt that. And I was sure I would feel much worse later.
The thought then occurred to me that I should probably be more careful about who I touch - the boy that I had picked up - taking Aaron’s hand when he offered to help me. I know the virus only passes through the bloodstream, but it would be easy to have open wounds and not know it in this environment. I made a mental note then and there that I needed to be more mindful of what I was doing.
“We need to walk,” I said to Aaron, starting to feel more and more tired as we ran. I had never felt this drained of energy from so little movement before. In this life, if a person couldn’t run, there was a good chance he or she wouldn’t make it very long. But I knew right now ww right e weren’t being chased by greyskins or Screven soldiers, so I needed to conserve my strength for later.
Aaron nodded at me with understanding. I could tell he was concerned for me, but he felt a greater urgency to get to the square. He led us by about ten paces, but I wasn’t going to start jogging again. Christopher stood right by my side.
“Symptoms are getting severe quickly?” he asked with a whisper.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was just dizzy. Lost my footing. I feel very tired, but that’s all. I don’t feel like I’m going to die yet.”
“It’s still morning,” he said. “You have a long time to go.”
I think he meant to be encouraging by what he said, but it wasn’t at all. All I heard was that there was a lot of pain and suffering to look forward to. But I wasn’t a fool. I knew that already. I decided to take it as the encouragement he intended.
“So, you’ve been here before?” Christopher asked.
“Yes, but just for a night. It wasn’t anything like this.”
“I see.”
“I don’t think when Jeremiah has visitors that he likes to show them around the city,” I sa
id. “Not sure people would be too impressed.”
“Well, I’m sure not impressed,” Christopher said with a grin.
“Me neither.”
“I think we’re coming up on the square,” Aaron announced. He shuffled to the side of one of the buildings and we all hunkered low as he looked to see if Evelyn and the others were already there.
The square was very large, and at the center was a giant statue of Jeremiah. The statue was carved so that he appeared handsome without the sagging eyes, sunglasses or head-to-toe clothing. In fact, the statue resembled Professor Adams, as I had seen him in the first dream that Evelyn had given me. I couldn’t guess when the statue was made, but I imagined it was formed years after his good looks had faded.
But the statue wasn’t what held our attention the most. It was the countless number of Screven guards that were all packed into the square. Each of them had their guns in hand as if they were readying for battle.
Aaron brought his wristband up to his mouth. “Hey, can you all hear me?”
“Yeah, we see it,” Heather’s voice came through.
“We are on the east side,” Evelyn said.
“What are we supposed to do?” Aaron asked.
“I wasn’t quite expecting this,” Evelyn said. “Jeffrey says we are very near the Screven Resistance hideaway. I sure hope they haven’t been discovered.”
“Sure looks that way,” Christopher said, just over my shoulder.
“How many do you think there are?” I asked.
Aaron shook his head. “Maybe seventy-five. A hundred.”
“Think we could take them?”
“Not without blowing our cover. If you don’t want Jeremiah to know we’re here, we can’t fight.”
“Yeah, but we’re looking at two problems here,” Christopher said. “If we don’t fight, they might take out the very people we’re trying to get to. Thus, making this trip pointless. If we do fight, at least we will still be able to meet with this Allison.”
Aaron nodded, thinking to himself. He repeated to Evelyn what Christopher said and we all waited for a response.
“I think we could take them,” Heather said.
The Starborn Saga (Books 1, 2, & 3) Page 48