by Perrin Briar
“Greer is saying you murdered Mitt,” he said.
“What?” Siren said. “I didn’t do that! Why would he lie?”
“They’re going to banish you, with no food, water or weapons,” Quinn said. “It’s a cover for what they’re really going to do with you—hand you over to the Merchant.”
“No…” Siren said. “They can’t do that. They wouldn’t…”
“I can assure you they would,” Quinn said. “They’re afraid of you, of what you might be capable of.”
“But I’m not capable of anything!” Siren said. “I’m just me.”
“Are you?” Quinn said. “What we saw you do was pretty amazing. The Raiders can be as single minded as Grayskins when they have a mind to do something. And you did something to stop them, to make them do what you wanted.”
“I’m not sure I did anything,” Siren said, still in denial.
“I’m sure many people have begged them for mercy,” Quinn said. “You made them give it to you. The others never got what they wanted. You were the first we’ve ever seen who succeeded.”
Siren balled her hands into fists.
“They want to hand me over to the Raiders?” Siren said. “I’ll die before I let that happen.”
“I’m not going to let it happen to you either,” Quinn said. “We have to get you out of here.”
He stepped aside so Siren could peer down the corridor. She was hesitant, peering first one way, then the other. Before, she had begun to trust Quinn. But she didn’t want to take risks either. She was surprised to find the corridor in either direction empty.
Perhaps she could trust him for a little while, until she didn’t need to any longer.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
QUINN led her through the western forest. They came out the other side. It was quiet and there was no one else around. The hills were shrouded in a thick white mist that stretched over the horizon, dark silhouettes of early morning birds flapping their wings and bouncing on the air.
“You could try to make a break for it now,” Quinn said. “But I’m not sure how far you’ll get or how you’ll defend yourself without the proper supplies.”
Despite Siren wanting to get out of there as fast as she could, Quinn was right. She would need supplies if she was to reach any great distance.
“How long will you take?” Siren said.
“Not long,” Quinn said. “I just need to go to town and return. Not much longer than twenty, thirty minutes tops.”
Siren ran her options through her mind and weighed them up. She came up with her decision.
“Okay,” she said. “But I won’t wait forever. If you’re not back in thirty minutes, I’m leaving.”
“Understood,” Quinn said.
He took off into the foliage.
Daylight slipped into the semi-darkness of twilight. Siren sat counting the number of daisies she could see, her eyes drifting up into the sky, mistaking the twinkling white lights for flowers.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but she got the feeling it was nearing the time when she had to call it a day and leave. She had her arms wrapped around her knees, head resting on her shoulder. She could have fallen asleep, but she was too concerned with her current predicament.
How had it come to this? She was out in the wilderness with nothing to survive on. Just a few days ago she was warm, and had food, and a job. She strengthened her resolve.
Before the month was up, she would strike at Hell’s Angel and get vengeance for her brother. Then she would leave this place and never return. She was surprised to find she was sad at the prospect.
Whitegate was the haven she and her brother Wyvern had been searching for this whole time. Now she was here, it had turned out to be everything they had hoped for, and more… But it held a secret, one she simply could not let go of until she followed it to its split end.
Twigs snapped, revealing a lumbering figure that Siren didn’t recognize at first. Then she did. Siren’s shoulders relaxed.
“Sorry I took so long,” Quinn said. “It took me a while to gather everything you’d need without getting everyone’s attention.”
Quinn handed the items over, wrapped in a worn rag cloth.
“They know you escaped,” he said. “But I told them a fake rumor about someone seeing you leaving, heading east.”
“Thank you,” Siren said.
It was nice to have someone she could actually rely on for a change. Quinn wasn’t so bad. Thinking about it, Siren supposed he and Wyvern might have gotten on well if they’d had a chance to meet.
Quinn had taken a big risk in setting her free, and then getting her the things she needed in order to survive out in the world. Siren found herself asking a question she never thought she would ever ask anyone.
“Why don’t you come with me?” she said.
Quinn blinked, surprised by the question.
“I suppose I could…” he said. “Can you believe the thought of running away had never occurred to me before? I suppose you get so used to being somewhere, to seeing something all the time, that it becomes a part of you.”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think I can go. What with the recent revelations of the Raiders and the Merchant and the effect they have on us here, I’m not sure I can leave. They need me.”
“All right,” Siren said, more than a little disappointed.
She didn’t like to admit she liked having him around. But he had made his decision. It wasn’t her place to try and change his mind.
“I brought some fresh fish caught this morning,” Quinn said. “Though it’ll take a little time to start a fire to cook it.”
He scavenged some dry sticks and began piling them up into a pyramid structure at Siren’s feet. Then he rubbed a couple of sticks together until he saw a spark. It caught and rose into a fire. He could have challenged Wyvern himself for the crown of the quickest firestarter.
“What are you going to do now?” Quinn said.
“Head out,” Siren said. “Into the wide world, where I might find another community like this one.”
The thought made her smile.
“Hopefully without the added association of the Raiders, right?” Quinn said with a smile.
“Ideally,” Siren said. “You know, you’re the first person to show me any kindness since my brother... “
She cleared her throat. Quinn nodded. No doubt he had seen enough of his share of death over the past few months to last a lifetime. There was a shorthand now in the world that everyone knew and understood. There was no need to explain. We have all suffered great loss.
“I wasn’t honest with you before,” Siren said. “About whether I traveled by myself all this time or not. The truth is, no, I didn’t travel alone. I wouldn’t have lasted any amount of time if I had. It was my brother who helped me, who led me by the nose and forced me to do everything necessary in order to survive. It’s thanks to him that I lived until now.
“The truth is, he was murdered by the Raiders. By their leader, Hell’s Angel, for nothing more than refusing to do what he said. Hell’s Angel has to die, preferably by my hand, though I’ll accept an excruciatingly painful method just so long as I can watch.
“After I lost Wyvern I wanted nothing more than to die. I tried to find Grayskins, for them to tear me apart, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t even force them to do that. I was too much of a coward. And so I continued on, to focus on trying to do something that would mean something. Eventually I came across Whitegate.
“There’s one reason above all others that I dislike the idea of me being capable of the things you all seem to think I am. It means I’m guilty of not helping my brother when I could have. It means I’m culpable for his death as much as Hell’s Angel is.”
“I don’t see how you figure that,” Quinn said. “It just means you ought to learn how to harness your power—if you have it—so these kinds of things never happen again. To anyone. Don’t you
think?”
“I suppose,” Siren said. “It’s difficult sometimes, for me to remember he’s gone. It feels like, if I turn around, I would find him there, looking at me the way he used to. But he’s not. He’s gone. I always thought he was meant for great things, and he always thought the same about me. He shouldn’t have died like that. He shouldn’t have died so soon.”
She began to cry. She was embarrassed, but unable to control herself. Siren felt the need to apologize, to say how sorry she was to cry in front of him. Instead, she leaned her head against him and bawled even louder. It was ten minutes before she began to stop.
“My mother and father were killed on the first day of the apocalypse,” Quinn said. “After that, it was just Greer, my step-father who was there to pick up the pieces.”
“At least you had him to fall back on,” Siren said.
“I guess,” Quinn said. “I know I should count my blessings, but it’s difficult when there’s so much I lost at the beginning.”
The fire was roaring. Quinn slid the fish onto long sticks, and then held them over the heat. The meat snapped, crackled and popped, sending up a small sliver of white smoke.
Quinn handed Siren a stick. Siren took it and bit into the fish’s hot flesh. It crunched between her teeth. She hissed, letting out a breath of hot air.
“Careful, it’s hot,” Quinn said.
“No shit,” Siren said.
She shared a smile and a laugh, and for a moment, one blissful moment, she thought that despite everything that had happened, all the craziness and madness alive and kicking in the world, at least there was this one same sane bubble of it left.
And then it popped.
“Well, well,” a voice behind them said. “Isn’t this cozy?”
It was Rafael, gun in hand.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THE GUN was not a regular gun, but a flare gun. Rafael aimed it at the sky and fired. There was a burst of red as a flash rose into the sky like an alien ship rising to heaven.
“Don’t worry,” Rafael said. “Our friends will be here in a minute or two.”
He turned to Quinn.
“I always thought you and your pop were holding out on me,” he said. “It’s always nice to have your thoughts and opinions vindicated.”
He shared a toothy grin.
“My father doesn’t know anything about what I’m doing here,” Quinn said.
“Of course he doesn’t,” Rafael said.
So this was it, Siren thought. Defeated by an undercover idiot. There was nothing for it now but to outwit Rafael and escape before the others got there.
And what about Quinn? a voice in the back of Siren’s head said. Every man for himself, Siren spat back. Quinn wasn’t her responsibility. She wasn’t about to risk her life for his, no matter how many supplies he brought for her to escape with. She looked Rafael over and collated all the information she knew about him into a single file that she could scan in the forefront of her mind. It took but a moment, and then she had an idea.
“It must be tough, having to play second fiddle to Greer for so long,” Siren said.
She stared at Rafael, her eyes unblinking, boring into him like a video camera. She felt the same slight fizzle of electricity flowing through her, making the hair on the back of her neck, arms, shoulders and back stand on end. She didn’t know if she was using the Skill that the others thought she had or not, but right then, she didn’t care. She just wanted to get out of there, alive and in one piece.
“Greer only thought he was in control,” Rafael said. “It was really me who watched over the community.”
“Sure,” Siren said. “That’s why he said hop, and you jumped for the past two years. You’re a lapdog, nothing more. And if you think the others in Whitegate are about to follow you, I’d wager you’re in for a big surprise.”
Rafael’s eyes narrowed.
“They will do precisely what I tell them,” he said. “That is, if they want to live.”
Siren blinked. There was something it the way Rafael had said those words, something underneath them… The threat. It was the fact that he believed he could do anything, had the power and muscle to back it up. There was only one way someone like him could have that kind of confidence.
“You’re one of Hell’s Angel’s lackeys!” Siren said. “Or else the Merchant’s. They’re one and the same at this point.”
Rafael blinked in surprise, and then smiled.
“You’re not as stupid as you look,” he said. “Which may not turn out to be all that lucky for you after all.”
“You’re working with the Raiders?” Quinn said. “How could you betray your own community like that?”
“It’s only betrayal from your point of view,” Rafael said. “To me, it’s a wise move. You would agree if you were in my shoes.”
His expression was still pained, his brow creased. He couldn’t control himself for much longer after all. Beads of sweat ran down his face and landed on the arm that held the gun, in a stiff grip, hand shaking. His eyes were bloodshot with tension.
It was then that Quinn realized what was going on. He looked from Siren to Rafael, and then back again.
“I… I can’t…” Rafael said. “I can’t pull the trigger… You… It’s true! You’re a damn witch!”
“Uh, Siren,” Quinn said.
Siren had been so focused on Rafael that she hadn’t noticed the roaring engines or the bright headlights that illuminated them from behind. If she really did have any power, she was using it fully now, trying to bring about the destruction of this vile little man before her.
“Think you can take them all on?” Quinn said out the corner of his mouth.
The Raiders got off their bikes and stood before Siren and Quinn. There were too many of them, so many that Siren’s head swam at the idea of even attempting to control this many people.
“No,” Siren said. “I don’t think I can.”
Rafael fell to his knees. The contents of his stomach spilled down the front of his clothes and onto the ground. He was doubled over, falling to his hands and knees.
“Look here everyone,” Hell’s Angel said. “Raf doesn’t have the stomach even to face a little girl!”
“I didn’t…” Rafael managed before he bent over to hurl his guts again. “I won’t…”
And he hurled again. He couldn’t have had much left in his bloated body left.
Siren reached out with what she felt were an extension of her arms. They seemed to stretch farther than she could reach, on a plane that she could neither could see nor touch. There was nothing she couldn’t reach with those arms.
She angled them toward the dozen men arranged around her and Quinn, and felt at the surface of them as best she could. She felt them, she thought, and for the first time in as long as she could recall, she began to sense what it was to have what they referred to as the ‘Skill’.
It was the electrical signals that coursed through the human body. It was that power that made the hairs on the extremities of her body rise. Was what she had always felt with these little movements of her body follicles what they were telling her now part of the Skill?
She felt something leave her then. Something pressed against her and made it clear there truly was something else in this world, something beyond what they all knew existed. There was something that united them all, that brought them together, and at the same time, it pushed them apart.
Then the sum of Siren’s efforts began to come to fruition. The Raiders’ guns began to rise, and then turned on the men holding them, so the barrels were facing them in the eye. More than one man was afraid of what was happening to him.
“Now, pull the trigger,” Siren said.
But the Raiders didn’t, fighting against what they were doing with every fiber of their being. They were shaking, sweat pouring down their faces. Only Hell’s Angel’s arm remained pinned to his side, shaking and sweating though he was. He was grinning.
“Sorry, little lady,
” he said. “Your charms won’t work on us. We may not be immune to your powers, but our very existence thrives on survival. It is in our blood, the way we choose to live. We cannot so easily be convinced to end ourselves.”
Siren noticed how much she was sweating too, how it was pouring down her face, soaking her clothes. She was exhausted, barely able to breathe.
Rafael, terrified of the events and the apparent lack of control of not just himself but the other Raiders too, rushed into the woodland, back toward Whitegate.
Siren was exhausted, and though her very survival depended on her succeeding right here and now, she couldn’t get the men to pull the triggers on their guns. She just wasn’t strong enough, their resolve too powerful. Her arms fell and she lost her grip on the power. She collapsed.
“Siren!” Quinn said.
Before he could drop to her side and aid her, the others were on him, dragging him off. One Raider put a gun to Quinn’s head.
“The Merchant wants him alive,” Hell’s Angel said.
“But we’ve got to have a little meat-” the Raider with the gun said.
Hell’s Angel brought the back of his hand around, and slapped his across the face. He needn’t say anymore.
“Strap them both to the back,” Hell’s Angel said.
Siren was placed with her head hanging over the back of the bike as the men lashed her to it with ropes. They did the same with Quinn on another bike.
“What do you want with me?” Siren said through gasping breaths.
“Me?” Hell’s Angel said. “Why, I don’t want nothing to do with you. If it were up to me, I’d put a bullet in your skull right here, right now. But it ain’t up to me, is it? It’s my boss you’ve got an appointment with.”
The Raiders took off into the night with much hooting and hawing, their motorcycles tearing up the dirt road.
Chapter Forty
DIRT kicked up by the motorcycle’s tire spat in Siren’s face, waking her up. Above her, when she could see through her squinting eyes, she could make out the glinting points of light that were stars in the night sky.