The Girl Who Dared to Stand

by Bella Forrest

  They were also highly aggressive. And venomous.

  Their wings buzzed violently as they swooped down from above, three-toed talons clacking together, trying to get a grip on something—anything. The talons were attached to a venom source at the ankle, the thick venom sacs jutting off the scaly legs like some sort of tumor.

  One scratch and a human would die. I had to get my friends out of here. Quickly.

  The closest one was to my left, pushing against Grey’s forearm, its talons clicking together as it tried to inject its venom into his chest. I crossed over to it quickly, and grabbed the creature from midair at the base of one of its wings.

  It flailed as I hauled it back, the segmented body whipping around and trying to get an angle on me. The leathery wings beat against my hands and knuckles in an attempt to break free of my grip, but I wasn’t having it. I slammed the rust hawk’s body into the wall, hard, and then dropped it to the floor and crushed its head with a hard stomp.

  Grey moved in next to me to add a stomp of his own, then darted off. I followed his motion and saw him heading for Zoe and Eric. Quess was in the process of spearing a rust hawk with a metal bar, so I ignored him for now and focused on Maddox and Tian.

  Maddox was in the same position in which I’d found Grey, her arm up and holding back the vicious creature. Its mouth flaps were wide open, however, and it was attempting to bite the dark-haired young woman, the ring of muscle that controlled its mouth puckering open and closed as it grabbed at her. She grunted and flinched her head back, trying to get it off of her before it managed to bite or scrape her.

  Tian was behind her, the younger girl shielded by the older girl’s body. Her blue eyes were wide and filled with fear, yet as I approached, she reached around with one hand and quickly jammed something small and silver into the creature’s side.

  The rust hawk gave a shrieking gasp, the lethal talons snapping at her as she withdrew her hand, leaving a tiny knife embedded in its side. Yellow fluid seeped from the wound onto the floor… but the creature was far from dead.

  I got there just as it drew back a few feet, preparing for another attack, and leapt up and spun, my foot extending. I hit it hard, with a crunch, and heard it impact the wall as I landed, my eyes immediately seeking it out. It was lying on the floor a few feet away, the wings still … but already starting to flicker and move again.

  Tian darted out, a fresh knife in her hand, but I stopped her before she got too close to the stunned creature, knowing full well how dangerous rust hawks could be. Even stunned, their talons worked reflexively, and the only way to survive a scratch from them was through amputation of the limb. But if it hit the face or chest… death was guaranteed. I passed Tian back over to Maddox and then moved over to the rust hawk, quickly bringing my foot up and down to smash the thing.

  The resulting squish was gross, but satisfying, and a fresh survey of the room showed me that the other two were down as well, Grey, Eric, and Quess in the process of boot-stomping the final one.

  I exhaled, relieved to see everyone relatively uninjured. But it was better to be safe than sorry, and I needed details. “Did they scratch anyone?” I asked, my eyes immediately going to Tian’s arms and hands.

  I was unsurprised to see Maddox already inspecting the young girl. The two were practically siblings, having been raised together by Cali. Everyone in their group fussed over Tian something fierce, and I could understand why: she was perhaps one of the sweetest creatures to have ever existed, even if she was a bit odd.

  “I think we’re good,” Quess said, tossing the rod he had been wielding onto the ground with a metallic clang. “These things must’ve moved here in the last month or so. That was the last time any of us was here.”

  His voice came out hollow, devoid of any life, and as I looked around the room, all I could see were tired and defeated faces, fear radiating from them like heat from a furnace. Zoe looked like she was barely keeping herself from crying by clinging to Eric, while Eric himself seemed more subdued than usual, his eyes sliding over the eight on his wrist. I looked down at my indicator to see the nine still holding strong, but that only made it clear that we weren’t protected by the walls of Sanctum anymore. If we had been, the shielding paint would’ve blocked any signal from coming through, and I would have seen only a green dash. We were exposed without that paint on the walls.

  “Quess, did you bring the paint stuff that blocks Scipio’s signal?”

  The young man looked up at me from the insect carcass on the floor, his eyes empty. He stared quizzically for a few more seconds and then said, “I’m sorry, what did you say?” His cheeks colored with embarrassment.

  “The paint,” I repeated patiently. We were all on edge or in shock. “The one you created? The one that can protect us from Scipio?”

  “What’s the point?” Maddox asked angrily. “My mother is gone. She’s dead, and it’s only a matter of time before Devon finds us again and kills us all.”

  Tian bit back a cry, and Maddox seemed to realize what she was saying. She wrapped her arm around the small girl and pulled her close. I watched the two rock back and forth, and knew Maddox hadn’t meant it that way. She was angry, and hurting, and needed our sympathy and empathy more than anything.

  “Liana’s right,” Quess said tiredly. “We have to get that paint up as soon as possible.” “Oh, Liana’s right?” Maddox said, stopping whatever she was saying to Tian to look up at Quess, her eyes flat and hard. “Liana’s the reason we’re down here! She’s the reason my mother isn’t here. Why Roark isn’t here. Why are you even listening to her, Quess?”

  Quess raised his hand, his eyes and face placating. “Doxy… Liana didn’t mean it. She didn’t even know that Devon had tricks like that. We can’t hold her responsible!”

  “We can!” she snarled, rising to her feet. “We should throw her skinny butt out of here—her and her friends. We’re better off without them.”

  Guilt ate at me the more Maddox spoke. She was right. They were better off without me.

  “I’ll go,” I said abruptly, looking up. “Maddox is right—I screwed all of this up for you. If I leave now, I can draw some of the Knights away. Give you time to make this place secure. Just… let everyone else stay here, okay?”

  “That’s preposterous!” Quess said, his eyes growing large. “Maddox doesn’t speak for me!”

  The statuesque woman shot him an angry look, and he gave her a little shrug. “I’m sorry, but you don’t. Liana did a good thing for her friends, and it turned out badly. And I’m sorry, Maddox, but you were ready to forgive her right then and there because, and I quote, you ‘finally had a girl like you to hang out with!’ The only thing that’s changed between then and now is Devon, and what Devon did to your mother. That is not Liana’s fault. She even stayed behind to help.”

  Surprise fluttered through me, and I looked at Maddox. I had always thought she hated me—she’d never once given any indication to the contrary. She was hostile, aggressive, and terrifying, but…

  “Yeah, well, maybe if I had stayed behind, my mother would still be alive!” the young woman shouted bitterly, and then her face cracked and she began sobbing, raw, ragged sobs that brought her to her knees, as if her heart were being ripped from her chest. I realized then that Maddox wasn’t really angry with me (although she had every right to be), but with herself—for choosing to run, instead of staying behind.

  We all stood around, watching her cry, uncertain of what to do.

  3

  Zoe moved to her and knelt to wrap her arms around the statuesque girl, resting her head on Maddox’s shoulder and soothing her. I was immediately grateful that Zoe was there; she always seemed to know the right thing to do in uncomfortable and emotional situations.

  Quess followed Zoe’s move a heartbeat later, kneeling on the other side of Maddox’s sobbing form. He looked up at me, one hand stroking her hair.

  “The paint is behind that panel,” he said softly, nodding at a section of wall tuck
ed into a corner. Grey turned and moved over to it, slipping his fingers into the grated walling and pulling. It came out easily, revealing a stack of crates and boxes, with several sealed paint cans lining the floor in front of them.

  Grey immediately started to pull them out, and Eric moved in next to him so that they formed a little chain as they pulled the supplies out. “We need to start painting immediately,” Grey announced, just loud enough to be heard over Maddox’s cries.

  They were dwindling now, and it seemed that whatever Zoe was whispering to her was helping. I wanted to help too, especially considering I knew that her father had killed her mother, but I couldn’t—not with danger still lurking.

  “Why?” Eric asked, and I answered.

  “It won’t be long before they start pinging our”—I pointed at Eric, Zoe, Grey, and myself—“nets to try to get a read on where we are. We need to make sure they can’t find us.”

  “We don’t know that he knows about Eric or myself,” Zoe said softly, and I looked over at her, surprised to see she was paying attention while calming Maddox down.

  “Devon had to have seen you both,” I pointed out. “I… I’m sorry, Zo. But, whether it was before, at the Medica, or even at the Sanctum, there was no way he missed you. Even then, when you show up missing, he’ll put it together. He’s going to start pinging your nets as well as mine and Grey’s.”

  “Yes, but it will take some time for them to get the order to all the department heads to comply,” Grey pointed out.

  I realized he was right. The scanners in the common area and within the Core were controlled by IT, but the scanners within the other departments ran on their own independent systems, to prevent giving any one department too much power within the Tower itself. While all the scanners were set to sweep for any ones that showed up, it took time and communication to ping individual nets. We had some time—but not a lot.

  “Yes, but you can bet he’ll start with the greeneries, specifically this one, seeing as this is where he last saw us. We need to start painting.”

  “Agreed,” Grey said, handing the last of the paint buckets to Eric. “Quess, what’s the rest of this stuff?”

  “Cali and I stocked this place a year ago—we have hydroponic pods, a water source, and several gallons of paint, ready to go.” I looked over to see him helping Maddox to stand.

  Maddox had regained a significant amount of composure, but her eyes were bloodshot, her nose a raw, red color. “Tian and I can paint,” she said softly, earning an encouraging nod from Zoe. Tian uncurled her legs from where she was hugging them to her chest, and used a lash to lift herself to her feet.

  “Should keep busy,” she mumbled, disconnecting the line and dropping heavily to the floor. She slipped a hand into Maddox’s and nodded, her gaze on the floor ahead of her. “It helps to keep busy.”

  It occurred to me then that this wasn’t the first time Tian had lost someone; she’d watched her parents succumb to Whispers, a virulent bacterial infection that was extremely communicable, and colonized the brain, eating away at it until nothing remained. It had even affected her somewhat, but she had managed to survive.

  And even now… Her eyes were still wet with tears, but they couldn’t hide the spark of determination behind them—which was more than I had hoped for. I was bolstered, seeing it. Knowing that she could still find reason, even hope, to keep pushing forward.

  I had to do everything in my power to do the same.

  “I’ll help,” Zoe said.

  “After you and Eric get the rust hawks out of here,” I said, flashing her an apologetic look. “Be careful—their muscles tend to twitch even after death, and I don’t want anyone coming into contact with their venom.”

  Even as I spoke, one of the rust hawks spasmed violently on the floor, the talons coming together with a sharp click, and Tian gave a startled shriek. Eric quickly crossed the room and planted another boot on it, stilling the frenetic motions.

  “We got it,” he spat. “We’ll drag them back through the vents to the hatch and dump them into the river.”

  “Make sure it’s clear before you drop them,” Grey said, and I looked over to where he was already prying open his second can of paint. “We’re more exposed here at the end of the greenery, without the mist from the hydro-turbines to obscure movement. Anyone on a catwalk nearby might miss one, or even two… but four rust hawks that are each the size of a toddler?”

  Eric and Zoe both nodded, and I was grateful Grey was here. I wouldn’t have thought about that.

  “You okay with that?” I asked, looking at Zoe, and she gave me a crooked smile.

  “Says the girl who used to make me dissect her frogs in our biology class,” she said teasingly.

  I smiled, and after a moment, pulled her into my arms, desperately needing a hug. She wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me tightly.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she breathed, soft enough for my ears only, and I held her tighter.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I admitted. “And I feel like an awful friend for saying that.”

  She tsked and pulled me tighter. “You’re not awful,” she said. “And I’m not sorry I’m here, although I am sorry for what it cost you. But we’ll worry about that later—you’re right to get us moving. Now… let me get moving.”

  I chuckled and let go of her, albeit reluctantly. She gave me a genuine smile before walking over to Eric. Maddox and Tian had already moved, and were beginning to paint the walls.

  Quess stepped up to me. “Should I help paint?” he asked, but I shook my head.

  “Not yet. I need you and Grey. We need to map out the ventilation system, figure out what other rooms we can use. That is…” I glanced at Quess and Maddox, giving them a quizzical look. “Unless you guys already mapped it out?”

  I was hedging my excuse on the hope that they hadn’t, and when both of them shook their heads, I permitted myself a small moment of relief. I had already been in the process of coming up with a back-up excuse, just in case, but was glad I didn’t have to push any further. The truth was, I wanted to get Quess’s opinion on Scipio to confirm that he was what he said: isolated from the Core. I wanted Grey’s opinion as well. But I didn’t want to alarm anyone else until I had to.

  Grey had stood up while I was talking, and was watching me closely. “Shouldn’t we be worrying about getting this done first?”

  I hesitated. He was right, of course, but… the Scipio secret was burning in the back of my mind. I believed him when he said he wasn’t a threat—but believing wasn’t the same as knowing, and I needed to make sure that we were safe from him. I had already been the cause of so much ill fortune. I couldn’t allow any potential threat—no matter how small—to jeopardize us.

  “It’s important,” I said, trying to figure out how to proceed. “But there are other matters we should also discuss.”

  “We?” Grey asked, his brows drawing together. “We don’t represent everyone here.”

  I inhaled and exhaled. I saw his point, and could understand what he was getting at, but his need for equality was really getting in the way of things. “I know that. But I could use a sounding board for a few things.”

  “Like?”

  “Like…” I fumbled, looking for any plausible thing that wouldn’t lead to me blurting out as loudly as possible that there was a damned AI in a hidden office. “Our next move, for one thing.”

  “Our next move?” Quess asked, looking slightly incredulous. “Liana, Cali and Roark are… gone. We made off with some of Roark’s Paragon, and if we have his notes, we might be able to continue making it, but to what end?”

  “We don’t have his notes,” Grey added, his eyes hooded. “He was grabbing them off the table when the Champion…” He paused and swallowed hard, and I instinctively reached out and placed a hand on one of the arms folded over his chest. His eyes met mine, and in spite of the fact that there was a deep sorrow in them, there was also a gratitude that made me uncomfortable in its app
raisal. I wasn’t certain I was worthy of such a look, and took my hand back before I could think twice about it. “The only formula was in his notebooks,” he continued. “He dropped them when Devon… when Devon jumped in. Then Cali shattered the glass with that thing…”

  “Sonic charge,” Quess said quietly, wrapping his arms around himself. “I made it as an emergency escape tool—in case you were ever trapped outside the shell or needed to make a fast getaway. It works on everything, but glass is the easiest for it to break. It reacts better to the frequency the tool emits.”

  “We still have the pills,” I said. “Which is a good starting place. But that’s neither here nor there—and we can talk about it in the ventilation shaft.”

  Besides, I was hoping that Jasper, the computer program I had befriended in the Medica, might be able to give us the formula for Paragon, considering we had given him one of our pills to run tests on. I hoped he was okay—he’d helped us out while we were escaping, and I really hoped nothing had happened to him as a result. Once I had time, I would make sure to find out, but for now… there were more important things to attend to. Unfortunately.

  “Yes, but why even bother?” Quess reiterated. “Leaving here was Roark’s plan. Roark’s and Mercury’s. Even with his stockpile, there are twenty-nine other people relying on us providing for them! We can’t supply them all forever! And certainly not for as long as it would take to create some mode of transportation that would get us safely across the Wastes! So what is the point?!”

  Quess’s questions were beginning to prey on my own doubts. I hadn’t considered any of this until just now, and now that he was forcing me to think about it, a pressure came with it. It weighed on me, making me feel inadequate and ill equipped to come up with any sort of answer, but with a silent demand to deliver one anyway.

  “I don’t know what the plan is yet, Quess,” I said bitterly. “I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do. Which is why I want to talk about it with you and Grey—because you two are the most collected right now. I also think we need to check out these vents sooner rather than later, because there could be more rust hawks lurking in any of these rooms. I want to know how many different doors there are, and where we might have to worry about unexpected company! And yes, while we do that, I was hoping to get a little chat in about any ideas for how we should proceed.”