The Gender Fall

by Bella Forrest

  “Cad, let’s go!” I shouted, and he turned back to me, nodding. He kept himself low as he raced up the stairs toward me. I waited until he was through and then slammed the door closed. The gunfire from farther down the hall had stopped, and I found myself suddenly worried about the fate of Ms. Dale and Amber.

  I moved toward the next checkpoint, taking a moment to eject the clip and double check how many bullets were inside. Our plan was becoming a wild mess, thanks to the Matrians. The sounds of panic continued through the doors, and I exhaled sharply, angry that I had to leave them all behind, that I couldn’t stay and help them more. Angry that once again I had to be in the position of watching innocents die. But I wouldn’t think about that now. I couldn’t. My team’s lives were depending on me and my decision, and it was my responsibility to make sure we all got out alive.

  Still, a part of me feverishly hoped one of the citizens below would at least go for one of the weapons that had been dropped by the dead Matrian soldiers. Better to die fighting than running.

  As the checkpoint came into view, I felt a supreme sense of satisfaction to see Amber and Ms. Dale on their feet, waiting for us. There were several bodies on the floor around them, but it seemed their battle had left them unscathed.

  “You okay?” I asked, noticing Cruz standing off to the side, now with a rifle in his hands.

  “Peachy,” Amber answered for all of them. “Can we get the hell out of here, please?”

  I nodded, looking around for the signs guiding us to the various exits. We had come around the backside of the stadium, and the signs read that we were close to exit F. I spent an instant debating the pros and cons of staying on this level.

  “We need to get to the ground level,” Ms. Dale announced, her mind grappling with the same problem. “There’s the stairs. Let’s head down them and get lost in the crowd.”

  Opening my mouth to reply in agreement, I looked over her shoulder and froze as I saw a pair of wardens leveling their weapons at us. My right hand shot up, finger on the trigger, but a spray of fire tore across them before I could pull it, their bodies jerking as the bullets impacted.

  They fell bonelessly to the floor, and behind me, I saw Cruz lower the rifle, smoke trailing from its muzzle. He met my gaze with a shrug, and then nodded toward the exit.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he called, heading forward.

  Jeff and Cad were already moving. I let out a breath, shook my head, and then hightailed it after them, urging Ms. Dale and Amber forward. We headed toward the gap in the wall where the stairs were waiting, moving at a flat run.

  Cruz reached the stairs first and positioned himself right behind the wall at the top, covering us. I peered over my shoulder, well aware that wardens could be coming up behind us. Jeff and Cad made the stairs, and I grimaced as Cad practically leapt down to the first landing, hearing the sound of his shoes sliding on the floor as he hit. Amber and Ms. Dale were more practical as they raced down, their feet flying down the steps. I tapped Cruz, and he followed them.

  I waited, wanting to give them a few seconds to head downstairs in safety, my eyes flicking from one end of the hallway to the other. I could still hear the sound of gunfire through the doors just past me, but it was growing more sporadic, the screams inside lost in the sound of nearer screams tearing through the halls as, hopefully, people got out.

  My heart hammered in my chest as I waited for Cruz to clear the next landing. As soon as he was down, I moved. The back of my neck tingled in anticipation of a gunshot as I raced down the stairs, but none came. Clearing the landing, I saw Cad and Jeff waiting for me, waving me forward and left. I ran past them just as gunfire exploded overhead, the crack of it echoing loudly in the enclosed, concrete stairwell.

  I didn’t stop. Ms. Dale and Amber had reached the bottom floor, which opened onto a small foyer for a back exit—thankfully, we’d reached one of the main stairwells that ran all the way down to the ground floor. The two women stopped at the sight of two wardens guarding this entrance, currently facing sideways from us to pour bullets into the encroaching crowd.

  I raised my gun, but Amber and Ms. Dale were already on it, mowing them down—hopefully making room for more panicked people to escape. If there were any left, that was.

  Apparently there were. People began clamoring into the foyer from the wide doors that led to the stadium, surging toward us as we raced from the stairs to the door, our paths intersecting in a rush like an old cavalry battle. I pressed my shoulder against the wall, steadying myself in the crowd that swirled around me, and followed Ms. Dale and Amber as they raced for a small lobby door twenty feet ahead. Ms. Dale kicked it open as she reached it and pushed Amber through, pressing out behind her. The late afternoon sunlight beamed through the opening into the dim room like a ray of hope. Cruz was seconds behind them, seeming to appear from nowhere as he leapt through.

  I raced for it as well, grunting as a woman slammed into me, her face splattered with blood. She took a look at the gun in my hand and then screamed, jerking away. I reached out, trying to catch her, to steady her, but she disappeared into the crowd as it raced by. I cursed, my anger souring in my stomach, but didn’t stop moving, even as the crowd jostled me.

  We were at the doors now. “Come on,” I shouted to Jeff and Cad over my shoulder as I made it to the door, but I wasn’t sure where they were in the crowd.

  A group of civilians pushed me through it, and I snagged the doorframe, using it to swing myself around and off to the side. Jeff tumbled through a moment later, his gun flying from his hand and getting lost under the crowd’s pounding feet. I reached out and grabbed him under his arm, pulling him to his feet before the rush of fleeing people plowed him under as well.

  Cad was there seconds later, pushing us forward. I raced ahead, pulling Jeff with me for a few feet, and saw Cruz standing fifty feet away on the pavement. He was waving his arm frantically in the narrow access road that curved around the stadium, leading to the main street. Beyond him, a few exits down, I saw the ambulance. Ms. Dale and Amber were already sprinting toward it, their faces red from exertion. I poured on the speed, Jeff and Cad sprinting toward the car in my wake. When we finally made it there, Ms. Dale had yanked open the doors, and the group of us simply leapt into the back. Everyone stayed there, except for me: I pushed forward to the front.

  Thomas gunned the engine as I sat down hard in the passenger seat, sucking in air to try to calm the frantic beating of my heart. I heard the doors slam just as I was buckling up.

  “Go!” yelled Ms. Dale, and Thomas pressed his foot to the gas, the vehicle surging forward.

  We were all silent as we sped away from Starkrum Stadium, turning sharply onto the road leading out of the city. My gut twisted as my mind went to the other stadiums, and the countless more deaths that might take place within them, or had already. Deaths we had no way of preventing. Elena would have her mass of troops scrambling. We were outmanned and outgunned by a fantastic amount, without enough weaponry to supply even the people we’d managed to help escape. It was a harrowing feeling, knowing all the death that was taking place today was thanks to our plan.

  I just had to believe that we'd dealt a death blow of our own.

  That today would be the beginning of the end.

  39

  Violet

  The sun rode low on the horizon as Owen drove his vehicle, probably one from Ashabee’s stash, off the road and up a hill. I chewed my lower lip nervously, squinting against the brightness. This was our third stop today, following the last bit of Thomas’ information. The engine roared loudly as Owen pressed the gas, but the pace was painfully slow as we crept up the steep, rough-and-tumble terrain.

  At the top, he killed the engine, and I reached across my lap with my left hand to open the door and step out. “Tim!” I shouted. “Tim!”

  I sucked in a deep breath, my ears straining to hear even the faintest of responses. But the only sounds were the whispering of the trees moving in the breeze, and the eveni
ng birds singing to each other. On the other side of the car, Owen got out and unfolded the map he’d brought with us, placing it on the hood.

  Moving to the front of the vehicle, I watched as he compared the information he had received from Thomas with our current position, and drew a small ‘x’ at the corresponding location on the map.

  “Are there any houses or farms nearby?” I asked.

  Owen shook his head. “No. This place is pretty undeveloped. Looks like it’s just forest and…” He trailed off, his frown deepening.

  “What? What is it?”

  He met my gaze, running a hand over the back of his neck. “Well, we’re only three or four miles from Ashabee’s manor.”

  “Really?” I looked around, as if expecting to see the manor sitting off in the distance, but even from our vantage point, all I saw were fields, hills, and trees. I shot Owen a questioning look.

  “The backside of his compound is on the other side of these woods,” he supplied. “It runs right up against the forest.”

  I considered this, and then looked at the map. “Where is it on this map?”

  Owen leaned over it, and I pressed closer, peering over his shoulder as he carefully marked out a small area. The other two points we had already explored were farther away than our current location, but still close enough. I felt a surge of excitement.

  “You don’t think he’s at Ashabee’s, do you?”

  Leaning on an elbow, Owen gave the map a thoughtful look. “It’s possible. I mean, he didn’t know about our new location—none of us at the palace did. Ms. Dale had just discovered it.”

  “Why didn’t we think of that?!” I whispered. “Of course he would go back to the mansion.”

  Owen’s face was dubious. “Well, I don’t want to get your hopes up too high. Tim’s a smart boy: if he had come back here and found us gone, he wouldn’t stick around, would he?”

  “He would if he thought it was the best chance of finding us,” I said, thinking of the occasions I had taken Tim out in public when he was a child. I’d always told him, if we got separated, to go back to the last place he’d seen me. “Owen, we’re this close. It’s risky, but we have to check it out. It’s only four miles away.” Glancing at my watch, I tried to recall the projected schedule for Viggo’s mission in the city and smiled. “The city is going to be crazy right now—maybe any surveillance will be distracted by the chaos. The leadership will probably be trying to run damage control.”

  Owen was still frowning. “Hmm. You can’t bank on that, though. We have no idea whether the mission was even a success.”

  “I mean, the odds are against them, but between Viggo, Ms. Dale, Amber, and Thomas...” I took a deep breath. “Even if it isn’t technically a success, even if someone… gets hurt, I trust our team has been able to get the message to people through the stadium.”

  “They were already in the control room when Thomas messaged me,” Owen said cautiously. “But somebody could have shut off the video.”

  I rubbed my forehead restlessly, my anxiety spiking. “Look—what if Tim is here and we don’t check?”

  A span of silence followed my words. Owen wetted his lips, but didn’t offer any argument.

  “We can also be smart about it,” I continued, beginning to formulate a plan in my head. “If there are cameras at the mansion, we’ll be able to see them. If there are guards visible, Tim is probably either not there, or held prisoner. We probably won’t be able to rescue him with just the two of us, so in that scenario, we’ll just leave without being seen and go consult the others. How does that sound?”

  Owen turned away from me, moving a few steps off. I stood, knowing he didn’t have much reason to follow me, but hoping he might—because I definitely couldn’t do this alone.

  Finally, he turned around, his face grim but determined.

  “Okay, Violet. We’ll check there.”

  The smile that grew on my face was wide and hurt a little on one side, but no amount of pain could stop it. “Owen, you have no idea how much this means to me. Thank you so, so much.”

  The look he gave me was one of melancholy, but he seemed to push it aside, offering me a wan smile. “Of course. Let’s just get this done, okay?”

  I realized, in my hurry to thank him, my response had been an insensitive one. Of course he knows what this means to me. He’d do anything to get his brother back. My first instinct was to apologize, but that would have only rubbed in the painful subject, so I cleared my throat and nodded silently, before sliding back into the passenger’s seat.

  Owen started the car and backed us down the hill, heading toward the road. I stared out the window as we drove, trying to contain my hope and fear. We navigated the slow, small dirt roads, a car or two passing us, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of Matrian forces on patrol, raising my hopes just a little further. Then, as Owen made a turn, I saw the familiar lines of the mansion’s outer walls begin.

  He slowed as we approached the gate. It was still there, closed, with the wooden slats on one side, from where Tim and Jay had fixed it.

  “See any new cameras on the inside?” I asked Owen. I knew where the cameras were on the gate, but they couldn’t see us yet through the vehicle’s tinted windows.

  “Not yet,” he replied tersely.

  “Okay. Why don’t you pull up past that spot over there?” I indicated a place on the wall that looked familiar to me, and Owen did as I asked. Swiveling in my seat, I grabbed a gun with a silencer from the backseat and raised it with my left hand. I rolled the window down just a crack and stuck out the muzzle. Aiming carefully, I fired several times.

  “What are you doing?” Owen whispered.

  “I’m destroying the camera by the gate,” I replied, “so it won’t see you when you try to open the gate.”

  Owen exhaled. “Okay.” He pulled up to the terminal, rolling down the tinted window and quickly entering Amber’s code while I looked nervously down the drive. I checked my side, but the road was clear. No vehicles were in sight.

  The gate rattled as the unbroken half slid out of the way. It moved too loudly and too slowly for my taste, but I used the time to rummage through the car, gathering supplies we might need. As soon as there was enough space, Owen nudged the car up the drive, the two of us scanning for danger while we headed for the massive steps that led up to the house.

  “Clear here,” Owen admitted. “Still no guards.”

  “Can you pull up as close to the porch steps as possible?” I asked.

  I did the same as before, taking aim at the other camera I knew was somewhere outside, with its own microphone, waiting to capture whomever was coming in the front door. The window held my gun steady, but it still took me more rounds than I would have liked to clip the small electronic eye, damaging it and obscuring the lens with chips of stucco and dust.

  After that we waited—for what seemed like hours, but must have only been fifteen minutes. I figured if nobody came to the door to check on who had blown the camera out, either they weren’t checking the security system, they were huge cowards, or there was just nobody there at all.

  Finally, after glancing at my watch over and over again, I looked at Owen. “You still think somebody might be here?”

  “We can’t be too cautious,” was his reply. “But I’m willing to risk it. I’ll take the ground floor and the secret basement. You head upstairs.”

  “Thank you.” I grasped his right forearm and squeezed it, then began moving.

  Reaching the doors of the house, I pushed them open and stepped in. Nothing had really changed, but there were signs of our evacuation everywhere—dirty footprints, abandoned pieces of equipment. Still, the furniture was intact, everything where we had left it.

  A shiver ran down my spine as my footsteps broke through the clinging silence. “This place is kind of creepy now, huh?” I said softly, wincing at how loud my voice was in the quiet.

  “Yeah,” Owen murmured. “Let’s just get this over with.”


  “Tim?” I called cautiously, as I headed up the stairs. “Tim, are you here?”

  I pushed open the door to the bedroom Viggo and I had shared, finding it empty. C’mon, Tim, please be here. I moved through the hallways, opening doors and checking each one for any sign of my brother, but each room was empty. I moved past the damaged walls, still stained with blood from where Henrik had been shot.

  It took nearly thirty minutes to check each room, but to be honest, after ten, I had already begun to doubt. There was no sign that anyone had been here since our group had abandoned the place. Everything looked the same on these levels, some of it unchanged since I had left. Beds were unmade, and everything wore a dark layer of dust.

  After checking the last room in the servants’ quarters, I felt my heart sink even lower. Given the fact that Owen hadn’t called up to me, he hadn’t found Tim either.

  A swollen knot formed in my throat. He wasn’t here. It had been a long shot, but that didn’t change the crushing disappointment I felt as my last lead vanished. The only thing that kept me standing was the fact that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, Tim was alive. I didn’t have any evidence to support my theory, but I could feel it, deep in my bones. My instincts had served me well before, and I had to put faith in them—and in Tim.

  He was a smart boy with enhanced reflexes. If I could survive the fight at the palace, so could he.

  Bolstered by the thought, I took a breath and moved down the carpeted halls toward the stairs heading down, guessing Owen was waiting for me.

  The silence of the house seemed even more noticeable now that I wasn’t tearing open doors and calling for Tim. Was that what gave the whole manor an ominous feel? The sun was beginning to set behind the mountains, creating long shadows that cut through the house, bathing parts of it in darkness. I regretted leaving my bag in the car. My flashlight would have come in handy for some of the darker places.