What is happening?
A gunshot rang out from behind me, but the bullet ricocheted off the snake’s armor of scales.
The massive creature turned its attention to Kale who had the small electronic device in his hand again, also noticing Codie and me standing nearby.
I took my eyes off our attacker for a moment and found Gabriel and Anabelle climbing out of the hole. But the loose gravel surrounding it only complicated their climb. Anabelle struggled with every movement—each one seeming to be more counterproductive. With great effort, Gabriel made some progress and pulled Anabelle along with him.
Kale took another shot, this one bouncing off the creature’s face. The bullets seemed to be doing absolutely no damage—only keeping the creature’s attention.
Then the snake made a strike for Kale, forcing him to dive out of the way to avoid a vicious impact. When the snake’s head struck the ground, it didn’t stop but continued to burrow underground. The moving earth around us shook, throwing Codie and me to the dirt.
Gabriel and Anabelle were now out of the hole and running toward us, giving the sinking tail a wide berth.
“What was that thing?” I yelled as I scrambled to my feet.
“Now’s not the time to discuss this!” Kale shouted back. He had also rebounded to his feet and we were all on the move again—with quite a bit more urgency than before.
The ground continued to shift. I felt a spray of dirt and pebbles on my back and knew the snake creature had reemerged, but I wasn’t about to stop running. Gabriel and Anabelle were in line with me, Kale and Codie ahead of us.
We were running into a wide-open wasteland. I could see no safe haven ahead that my racing mind could latch on to. There was simply desert and darkness.
“Just a little further,” Kale yelled from up ahead.
My heart was pounding so hard, I could barely hear him. I could barely hear my own thoughts. My legs ached, so I hoped he was telling us the truth—even though I didn’t know how that was possible. I would have given anything to be riding Misty right now, though I would have feared for her safety from the treacherous terrain. I knew I couldn’t stop, but didn’t know how much longer I could keep going.
I glanced over at Gabriel and found him now running with Anabelle in his arms. Codie was steadily losing speed and I grabbed his hand so he wouldn’t fall behind me.
“We need to keep going,” I insisted, but Codie looked like he was about to collapse.
After only a few more minutes of running, Kale slowed to a brisk walk. “We’re okay,” he said as everyone slowed beside him.
Gabriel placed Anabelle back on the ground and she groaned with having to continue the trek under her own power.
After walking for a short while, I noticed the ground felt different. It wasn’t shifting anymore. It actually felt solid and steady under my feet.
“What was that?” I finally asked, hoping now was a good time to get some answers.
“A Westeria sand worm,” Kale replied. “They guard the entire stretch of fence—our full border.”
“They?” I asked, horrified. “There are more?”
“I have no idea how many, but yeah, there are more. I’ve encountered three at a time once. If you want to talk about freaking out, having three of them on you will definitely do the trick.” Kale slowed even more so we could continue side by side. “I can’t believe you’d never heard of them before.”
I shrugged. “And we’re safe now?”
“From the sand worms, but not from the tribes and nomads,” Kale said. “Gabriel, what do you have guarding your borders back home?”
“We guard our own borders,” Gabriel said. “We don’t rely on machines to do the work.”
“That was a machine?” I asked.
“Manufactured in the 1st Ward,” Kale said and took out the small electronic device from his pocket. “This rerouted the fence posts’ camera feeds. But what we also got it to do is reroute the cameras the sand worms have for eyes.
“So, it couldn’t see us?” I asked.
“It could sense we were there, but yeah, it was seeing through the eyes of another sand worm—probably underground—so our attacker was essentially blind.”
We continued to walk through the night. There were foothills in the distance and I hoped we would not be walking that far. The land before us seemed flat, but the flashlight Kale had given me revealed a drop of about twenty feet that was barely noticeable until we nearly reached the cliff’s edge.
Kale led the way down. Gabriel and I helped the kids descend the steep terrain, though they seemed nimbler and more able to maneuver the drop than we were.
Once at the bottom, Kale said, “Be on the lookout.”
He seemed to be talking to Gabriel, who reached the bottom a few moments later.
Kale dropped to his hands and knees and scanned the ground near a vertical portion of the rock wall. He pushed aside rocks and dirt until I noticed a piece of metal embedded in the earth. In the center of it was a hole—what looked like a keyhole. Kale confirmed it when he retrieved a set of keys from his pocket and entered one into the hole.
The vertical face of the rock wall closest to him rumbled and slowly rolled to the side, disappearing into the adjacent part of the wall.
“Are we here?” Codie asked, his voice weary.
“The hard part’s over,” Kale said, shining the flashlight into the cave, revealing another jeep. This one was smaller than the one we’d ridden in earlier and had no side doors. It looked more like a skeleton of a jeep, with only metal bars on the sides and overhead. “The rest should be smooth sailing.”
Just as Kale was hopping into the driver’s seat, a gunshot sliced through the quiet night air. I spun around from the mouth of the cave and saw Gabriel with his handgun out, pointing it into the darkness. Wisps of smoke still rose from the end of the barrel.
“A Mekka wolf,’ Gabriel said, walking into the darkness.
“Only one?” Kale asked, rushing out to join him. Kale had the small electronic device in his left hand and his pistol in his right.
“As far as I can tell,” Gabriel said.
I told the kids to wait by the jeep and followed the two men along the edge of the rock wall. We all stopped and encircled the body of the dead wolf.
“Do you think he saw anything?” Kale asked.
“I don’t think so,” Gabriel answered. “I took him down as soon as I saw him.”
“Why are we killing wolves now?” I asked.
“Mekka wolf,” Kale clarified.
“That means nothing to—”
“They’re robotic too. Westeria scouts of the Outlands. Again, my device can reroute its feed, but if it saw us and we can be identified by a tech, then he can easily determine our location.”
I gazed down at the still animal bleeding onto the rocks. It was hard to believe it wasn’t real.
“Gabriel, you take the hind legs,” Kale said as he reached down and grabbed the dead animal’s front legs. “The system will put out a notification that this wolf’s offline and it won’t take too long for a tech to notice. The advantage we have is that the night crew’s minimally staffed and historically less meticulous.”
Kale and Gabriel carried the limp creature toward the cave—back to our jeep.
“What are you doing with it?” I asked.
“If I can help it, I don’t want someone tracking it to this location. So, he’s coming along for the ride.”
I wanted to ask more questions but bit my tongue. I was directed to sit in the front passenger seat. The wolf was thrown in the back bed of the jeep, and Gabriel joined the kids in the back seat.
Kale started the jeep, revved the engine a few times, and shifted it into gear. We sped into the night without the aid of headlights. Kale could see well enough with his night vision goggles. I found the drive through utter darkness terribly unsettling. I could barely see more than a few feet ahead.
Then, over the roar of the engine, I heard the
piercing howl of a wolf. Everyone but Kale turned in their seats. A lone wolf sitting at the top of the cliff shone in the moonlight, his head angled to the sky as he continued to alert anyone nearby of our presence. But it seemed the cavalry had already been alerted. A pack of at least ten wolves was racing toward us. Their glowing red eyes resembled those of demons in the darkness.
“We’ve got company!” Gabriel shouted.
“Dammit! I knew it!” Kale yelled, slapping his palms against the steering wheel. “We can kiss that storage shed goodbye.”
“Can we outrun them?” I asked.
“Yeah. They won’t catch us,” Kale said. “I’ll lose them before we drive into the camp. But we’ve probably been identified. They may even find our way through the fence. I don’t know. It might be tricky trying to get back in.” Kale turned his head to yell over his shoulder. “Go ahead and dump it.”
Gabriel stood up on the back seat, grabbed the metal bars for support, and climbed into the rear bed of the jeep. He unlatched the back gate, which dropped flat with a crash. Then Gabriel kicked the wolf out of the open back of the jeep. The body tumbled and rolled into a menacing cloud of dirt, headed straight for the approaching wolf pack. They didn’t lose a single second, instead gracefully dodging the obstacle and continuing the chase.
Gabriel climbed back to his seat and patted Kale on the shoulder.
“Hold on,” Kale instructed and pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor.
I returned to facing forward, starting to feel nauseous from watching the wolves running behind. I closed my eyes and took in a few deep breaths. I didn’t know how much farther away Kale’s camp was, and frankly, was getting sick of all these unknowns.
“We’re going to be okay,” Kale said and squeezed my knee.
I nodded without reopening my eyes. I wanted to believe him. But it wasn’t just the events of the night that I needed to overcome.
I kept my eyes closed for a long time, hoping I’d eventually fall asleep—and when I awoke, we’d all be safe. But I was never granted that serenity. The darkness and the hum of the engine were not enough to coax me into slumber. I finally gave up and opened my eyes to the same swallowing darkness.
Kale looked like a machine himself, sitting diligently behind the wheel wearing his night vision goggles. I glanced back and found Codie and Annabelle both fast asleep against Gabriel, whose own goggles were now hanging around his neck. As my eyes lifted, I saw nothing but darkness and dust in our wake. If the wolf pack was still following, it had fallen too far behind for me to see any movement. I couldn’t even make out their glowing red eyes.
“Did you lose them?” I asked Kale as I turned back in my seat.
“Yes,” Kale said. “I think about an hour ago.”
It didn’t seem like I’d had my eyes closed for that long. “What time is it?”
“A little past midnight. We’ve been driving for three hours. We’re close.”
I didn’t see a clock on the dashboard of the jeep, so didn’t know where he was getting his time from, but I was thankful to hear we were nearly there. Though the surroundings didn’t look much different than a few hours ago. I gazed up and found the waning moon higher in the sky than I remembered. Time had definitely passed.
I sunk into the not-so-comfortable seat and relaxed for the first time since before the Choosing Ceremony. For a moment, I felt safe.
A few minutes later, the headlights of the jeep burst to life. I looked over at Kale and saw he had the night vision goggles around his neck. I noticed a dim light ahead of us. As we drew closer, the one light split into several, then into many. We were approaching some type of settlement and I assumed—hoped—it was Kale’s.
Kale glanced over at me and smiled. “This is it.”
“We made it,” I said, watching the settlement grow before my eyes.
Once we reached the edge of the community, we were met by two armed guards but were quickly waved through at the sight of Kale behind the wheel.
Kale drove slowly between parked trailers, tents, and larger aluminum homes built atop cinder blocks. There were lamps hanging from poles and on top of trailers—casting just enough light to walk between the structures without a flashlight.
Kale pulled into an empty space next to one of the larger structures with a large awning and wooded picnic table by the front door.
“I could use a few hours of sleep after the past few days,” Kale said.
“I agree,” I said.
“Everything else can wait until tomorrow.”
“Are we here?” Codie asked from the back seat, his voice groggy.
“We sure are, kiddo,” Kale replied and turned off the jeep. “Let’s all go inside and get some sleep.”
I helped Codie jump down and Gabriel stepped down, carrying a still sleeping Anabelle. She finally awoke on our way to the front door.
But before Kale reached the door, it opened and I saw the most beautiful face peek out from around the edge.
“Mina!” I squealed.
“Victoria?” Her eyes were only partly open, but once she recognized it was me, she burst through the door and down the steps.
Tears were already in my eyes when we threw our arms around each other.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Mina said.
“I’m here now,” I said, holding her tight.
10
Byron
I spent the night in Bethany’s room. Neither of us got much sleep. She was petrified and I couldn’t blame her. I was as anxious and terrified to find out what was underneath the bandaged faces of Piper and Constance as she was.
The bandaged girls were in a catatonic state. They lay side by side and didn’t move the entire night. Their breathing was so shallow it seemed it could stop at any moment.
Bethany never wanted me to leave her side, but I finally convinced her to attempt to get some rest. We agreed to stay awake in shifts. And when it was my turn to crash on the couch, I don’t think I ever fully managed to drift off.
Indira brought breakfast to us the next morning, and I asked her to remain with Bethany while I stepped out to find Queen Dorothea. I knew she was the one behind this and I hated being left in the dark, but I also knew I had to be careful with how I approached the situation.
On arriving downstairs, I noticed Mackenzie in the sitting room off the foyer. He held an open copy of The First Ward Tribune and a half-drained porcelain mug sat on the coffee table before him.
I had no intention of interrupting him, but he looked up from his paper as I tried to sneak past the quiet room.
“That was a nice little stunt you pulled,” he said, folding the paper in his lap. “I’m assuming you did it because I didn’t allow you to tag along.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Sure, you do.” Mackenzie’s smile was wide and predatory. “The Queen knows you did it.”
“I suppose you—”
“I didn’t have to do anything,” Mackenzie snapped. “I said nothing to the Queen. She talked about it with me and wanted me to go after your traitor of a guard. But I convinced her otherwise. I told her he was your responsibility and you should be the one to go after him, bring him back, and bestow the justice he deserves. That way, you’ll also be reconfirming your loyalty, which is very much in question as of late.”
“The Queen knows where my loyalties lie,” I said, stepping into the room and stopping on the far side of the coffee table.
“If you say so,” Mackenzie said with a shrug. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
I stared at him, not really knowing how to take his accusations. “And where do your loyalties lie?”
“I’m offended you even had to ask. With the Queen, of course.” The Duke leaned forward to grab his mug and took a sip without ever lowering his eyes. I saw the hunter behind their glare.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I’m simply drinking my coffee and reading the morning pap
er,” Mackenzie said, leaning back into the plush cushions. “I didn’t realize I had to check in with you, so I’ll be sure to do that in the future.”
“No; why are you at the palace?”
“The Queen enjoys my company. Should I tell her you don’t approve?”
I distinctly got the feeling he was here for me—that he was keeping tabs on me, tracking my whereabouts. He watched me closely like he was gathering information. For the Queen? For himself? Perhaps even for someone else. I wish I knew what Queen Dorothea was up to and I needed to find her.
“Of course, she enjoys your company. Who wouldn’t?” I said, trying to manage a smile that matched his, but sure it didn’t come off as convincing. “I’ll leave you to your paper.”
Without responding, Mackenzie shook out his newspaper and went back to reading. I turned my back on the hunter, which was always a dangerous move, and continued my search for the Queen.
Before I even made it down the hall, my phone rang.
“Yes?” I answered.
“Your Highness, you said to call you if she was spotted,” the familiar voice said on the other end of the line. It was Christine, one of my associates who’d infiltrated the Queen’s Westeria surveillance unit—and more specifically, the border team. “I didn’t want to wake you, but last night, I spotted Victoria a mile outside of the 24th Ward. A Mekka scout was destroyed, but not before sending an image back of her and a few others. Then a nearby pack followed them a few clicks into the Outlands.”
“Does anyone else know about this?” I asked, looking around to make sure no one was listening in to my conversation. I started for the nearest door to the gardens, not wanting to chance any bugs picking up my conversation.
“No. I intercepted the data before anyone else had a chance to see it and erased the log. I dispersed the pack but had one scout remain on the trail. I encrypted the data as it came in to keep it from the other techs and have located the Outland camp.”
“Good work,” I said. “Email the info to me then wipe it from the servers.”
Royal Replicas 2: Royal Captives Page 6