by Melissa West
“We aren’t going to make it,” he says. “I need to land.” Just then, the craft juts about, sputtering like it’s trying to gasp a breath in a world without oxygen. “Everyone prepare for an emergency landing. We’re going down.”
For a moment all I can think about is the irony. We’ve spent the last several days planning for a war, training people to fight, healing humans so they stand a chance, only to die in a hovercraft crash? Is that some universal sign that our efforts were a waste? Just futile attempts at changing a fate that’s already been decided? Maybe humans aren’t meant to continue. Like the dinosaurs, maybe their clock has run out.
“Ari. Sit, now.” Dad’s gaze shifts to me and then forward, and I realize in my psychobabble I’m still standing while everyone else has frantically returned to their seats, fastened their seat belts, and is now awaiting the crash.
Jackson’s strong arms wrap around my waist, and he has me strapped in a seat before I can breathe a sound of complaint. I peer over at him and reach for his hand. “I love you,” I mouth, and he does the same. I wish I could see Gretchen and Vill, just to make sure they’re okay, but then we’re free-falling through the air, the plane rushing down, down, down, the sound like a missile piercing my ears. I clench Jackson’s hand, and for a moment, I feel a flood of happy thoughts hit my mind. The first time we met. The moment I opened my eyes during the Taking and saw him floating above me. The moment I knew he meant more to me than anyone ever had before.
The first time we touched.
Our first kiss.
The shower…
And then the hovercraft slams into the earth, thrusting our bodies forward and then tossing them back against the seats as though we are nothing more than rag dolls. I feel something hard connect with my head, and I scream out as the pain ripples through me. Blood pours in my mouth from either biting my tongue or a worse injury that I haven’t yet uncovered. I reach up to check my head, and my hand comes away coated in blood. Immediately, xylem starts healing my wounds, when I realize that I don’t hear anyone else. No talking. No screaming. No crying. Nothing.
I fumble for my seat belt at the same time that Jackson does beside me, and I’m so relieved to see him moving that I almost launch myself into his arms. My eyes burn, and I release a breath. “You okay?”
He smirks. “Never better.”
But then we walk into the aisle of the hovercraft and our smiles drop away. Vill and Naomi are on the floor, surrounding someone I can’t see. I start forward, and it’s as though everything has slowed down. Like I’m watching myself on the T-screen, watching my face morph into horror. Watching as tears pool into my eyes.
I know even before I’ve gotten there that Gretchen is hurt. Badly. I drop to my knees beside her, taking in the blood pouring out from her center onto the composite steel. “Gretch? Are you okay? Are you—” But my words cut short. Her eyes are open, but she isn’t looking at me, she isn’t blinking. Why wouldn’t she be blinking?
I lift her shirt to find the injury, telling her again and again that it’s going to be okay, that xylem will heal her.
“Ari…” Vill starts.
“No, the xylem. We just have to wait for it to heal her,” I say, my voice shaking. I swallow hard, fighting the urge to break down. We just have to wait. Any second now the xylem in her body will— Oh, no. “No, no, no,” I say, shaking my head rapidly.
Vill reaches out for me. “Ari, she’s gone.”
“No, she’s not gone. I can still heal her. I can still save her.” I call my own xylem to my palms, pressing it into her, but it’s as though it refuses to go, as though it knows there’s nothing that can be done. It remains trapped in my palms, circling around, awaiting something to do, and I scream out over and over, ordering it to heal her. To save her. How could this happen? How could we heal every person we’ve encountered that wanted any part in this fight except Gretchen?
“Ari, I’m sorry, but once her heart stops, there’s nothing we can do. She’s gone.”
“But, why? Why didn’t we heal her?”
Vill’s gaze rests on mine, and I know the answer without him having to say it. She didn’t want to be healed, didn’t want to be an Ancient, and now…
I tear myself away and rush out of the craft, getting as far as a patch of weeds before retching over and over, unable to catch a breath. Jackson is beside me in a second, holding back my hair, and then he helps me sit back. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. There’s nothing to say. No number of I’m sorrys will take away this pain. Immediately, my hurt turns to anger, and I jump up, pacing around, desperate to find a way back to the person who did this, the person that betrayed her—us—the most. I don’t realize that I’m saying all this out loud, until Jackson grips my shoulders and pulls me to him, burying my head in his chest. “Killing Law won’t bring her back. You know that.”
“He deserves to die.”
“Maybe. But there’s going to be enough death in this war. Besides, if the time comes, if you’re faced against Law, I’ll do it. I don’t want you carrying that guilt.”
I jerk back, prepared to yell that there isn’t a shred of anything left in me for Lawrence Cartier, when Jackson shakes his head.
“You will.”
“But…Gretchen, she’s…” I stare into his perfect blue-green eyes, my own beginning to well, and then I collapse against him, all the fight in me gone.
My best friend is now dead, and the war hasn’t even begun. How many will I lose before the fighting ends?
Chapter Twenty-One
By the time Jackson and I pull away from each other and peer around, my sadness has been replaced by fear. There is nothing around us, only trees and overgrown land. I wonder where we are, when I hear the sound of wild animals in the distance and then something else, not sounds but a feeling. Someone else is out there. Suddenly, I’m aware that there are other dangers than just Ancients in our world.
“Ari, get over here!” Mitch yells from the hovercraft.
Jackson and I exchange a look before darting toward the plane. Mitch motions to his T-screen and we peer down to see a satellite reading of the area. A tiny box blinks showing our location, and then he zooms out and points. There, several inches away on the screen, a mile perhaps on land—or even less—is the layout of a village. Tiny triangles show what have to be the roofs of houses or huts. My eyes scan over the village, counting one, two, ten, twenty, thirty huts. Thirty. That could mean—
Simultaneously, Jackson and I spin around. Footsteps They’re soft, too soft for the others to hear, but they’re out there, creeping in.
I lean toward Jackson and whisper as low as possible, “Threatening or curious?” I focus on the footsteps, trying to find something in the person’s aura that hints at his or her motive, but the distance is too great, or maybe I’m not experienced enough to decipher. I start to speak again, when Jackson holds out his hand to stop me, his head cocked, listening.
“There’s more,” he says into my ear, then he points to the east and west of where we’re standing. “I’d guess ten in all.”
Ten. There are only six of us, but we’re half Ancient. And we have weapons, but maybe they do as well. My pulse speeds up, my stomach twisting into knots. This is the last thing we need right now. “What do you want to do?”
Dad walks over with Vill, Naomi, and Myers.
“Everyone get strapped,” Jackson whispers to each of them. “At least two guns per person, understand? But try not to use them. We don’t want to alert their village. Let’s try talking to them first.”
“And if talking doesn’t work?” Naomi asks.
“Then we fight,” I answer. “But we fight as half-breeds.”
Everyone starts to move at once. Everyone except me. Dad stops just inside the hovercraft. “Ari, you need a weapon.”
I pat my leg. “I’ve got three on me already. I think I’m covered.”
He smiles, and then the smile drops away. “About Gretchen…I’m so sorry. Ar
e you okay?”
I bite my lip to keep it steady and then say, “I have to be.”
Dad nods slowly and then goes on to grab his weapons, leaving me alone to think through all that’s happened and all that’s yet to come. I tell myself that I’ll have time to process Gretchen’s death later, that I’ll have time to grieve, but I know that time will never come. So instead, I close my eyes and allow the pain to consume me for a moment, allow myself to grieve, and then I reopen my eyes and put her death out of my mind. Gretchen is gone, and no amount of crying can bring her back.
I wipe my eyes with the heel of my hand and blink a few times to clear my vision.
Jackson is back beside me when I look over, his face expressionless. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“Listen.”
And that’s what I hear what he had already heard. They’re here.
I push away from the hovercraft, and Jackson and I start for the clearing just in front of the craft. I’m torn between wanting to be out in the open to show that we’re harmless and hiding to see them before they see us. I decide from their aura to go for open, but only for Jackson and me. I wave the others back, so we’re covered if needed, and keep my gaze fixed on the thick patch of trees ahead of us. Briefly, I wonder how the trees have survived, how this land seems so untouched by the harshness of the rest of the world, when two men and a woman step out of the clearing. They’re dressed in pieced-together clothing, all mismatched and all covered in dirt. Their faces are etched with harsh lines, and their stance tells me they’ve seen enough to know that we’re from Sydia. And they aren’t friends of anyone from Sydia.
“Introduce yourselves,” the man in the center calls, his voice raspy and older than he looks.
I cock my head. “You first.”
At that, I hear the thoughts of each of them. They never planned to come here in peace. They’re prepared to fight us. To kill us. As they’ve killed so many who’ve crossed their land before us. I see the killings in their minds—some as simple as a snapped neck, others more brutal. Flashes of bloodied bodies, left for the scavengers that still live on this land. Instantly, I wish there were more light. The sun disappeared behind the mountains a half hour ago, desperate to go to sleep for the night. If they could see us, maybe they would see that we’re Ancient and would run. Instead, they view us as easily defeated, which is a shame. I don’t want to kill these people. But I will.
The man takes a small step toward me. “I’ll ask you one more time. Introduce yourselves.”
I mentally curse myself for not asking Vill to join us. Together, we could hold them at bay without moving an inch, but I’m not sure I can hold them all on my own, and Vill is not an RES, which means he can’t hear my thoughts, so there’s no telling him without calling out the others’ location.
I draw a breath and open my mouth to tell Mr. I’ll Ask You One More Time what he can do with his threat, when Dad steps around me, his tone every bit that of the commander.
“Hello, I’m Commander Alexander, and I’m afraid our hovercraft has gone down on our way back to Sydia.”
The man peers behind us at the craft, and I do the same to see the others must be hiding. Good. With Dad out in the open like us, we’re even more vulnerable.
“You’ve crashed in the lower Appalachians. These are our mountains.”
Dad nods. “I can see that, but rest assured, we have no desire to stay. We are simply out of fuel, so we hoped to hike the remaining thirty miles or so on foot.”
The man takes another step forward. “I’m sorry, but we can’t allow you to do that. Ay-he!” he screams, and my eyes dart around as five more men and women appear from the trees on our right and left. “You see, we have lived here for many years now without anyone knowing. We can’t have you leaving only to return with more men to take over our land.”
“But we have no intention of returning here,” I say.
“Sorry, we’re not willing to take the chance. You’ll have to come with us, and if we determine you’re safe, we’ll take you to Sydia ourselves.”
“By what means?”
The man laughs. “I see. You assume because we’re not raised in your city with fineries such as you that we don’t have transportation and weapons? We do. You’d be wise to stand down. Now.”
I feel the xylem in my blood coming alive at his words, as though it needs to prove the man wrong. “Sir, it’s you who needs to step down. You don’t realize who you’re dealing with.”
“Ay-he!” the man calls again, and I have only a second to hear a woman to my right reach down for her gun, before I’ve turned on her, freezing her midmotion. I keep my mind on her as she screams out, and then weapons are drawn all around us. Naomi, Vill, and Myers appear and fall in line with us, their weapons ready, but my eyes are on the man in the center. Their leader. “I am giving you five seconds to call their weapons down before I break her neck,” I say, cocking my head at the woman. “One…”
The man takes a step. “You haven’t even moved. How could you—”
“Ahhh!” the woman yells as I snap her back straight and jerk her head to the right.
“Aven, listen to her,” another woman screams.
“Two…”
“Ahhh!”
I twist her neck just a little more. “Three…” I say, and then add, “I can do the same to you when I’m done with her. Four…”
“All right! All right! Stand down,” the man says, and I release the woman, but then I see his eyes dart to the left and hear his tongue cluck, giving another command, and then I’m in motion, pulling two guns out at once and spinning, one aimed at the leader, one at the one prepared to shoot me.
“Well, I guess trusting you is out of the question,” I say.
“How did you move that fast?” the man says, his voice full of awe.
Jackson lifts his weapons. “Easy. We’re Ancient.” And then he fires, shooting both easily dead.
Everything happens all at once. Shots ring out from us, from them. I have only a moment to register that either Mitch or Myers has been shot when a roar yells down from the sky, louder than anything I’ve ever heard before. All firing ceases for a moment as we all crane our necks up to see what created the noise, and then another thunderous roar booms out from above and my mouth drops in horror as lightning covers the sky, threading out in a zigzag pattern like electricity running through wires. Another rumbling hits, and then the lightning stretches out its fingers farther and farther, the sky cracking in on itself. The spaceship arrives out of the cracked lightning, bursting through our atmosphere.
“Jackson…”
“They’re here.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It takes all my effort to rip my eyes away from the lightning-carved sky, and when I glance back to where the humans had been before, they’re gone. They must have run the moment the sky split.
“Anyone hurt? Myers? Mitch?” I ask. I peer around, and then once satisfied that no one is hurt, xylem healing the bullet that pierced Mitch’s arm, I start back for the hovercraft. “We need to get to Sydia as fast as possible.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I thought we could steal one of their vehicles. They’re probably in a state of chaos right now. If we can locate where they keep them, it should be easy enough to take one. Vill and I can hold off anyone on guard from a distance while the rest of you grab it.”
“But won’t that take longer? We’re thirty miles out,” Cybil says. “We could try to find fuel for the craft at their village.”
I glance back up at the sky. “Something tells me we’re safer on the ground than in the air.”
…
It takes us ten minutes to gather what we need and another ten to get to the village, even with our speed. As expected, it’s in a complete state of panic. Some people are outside their hut-like homes, staring up at the electric sky, trying to make sense of what feels so incomprehensible. Others are racing around, gathering things
as though there’s anything in the world they could do. I almost want to shout at them to just relax, that at this point they’re likely all dead, so why not enjoy their last few hours in peace, but I don’t have time to comfort these people. Not now.
My eyes scan the perimeter as my mind zeroes in on conversations, searching for any hint of where any vehicles might be housed. Finally, I see a large barn away from the rest of the huts and a pair of men making their way over. They’re talking about fuel and whether they need to search out more for their trucks.
“Did you hear that? They have trucks,” I say to Vill, who’s beside me. “And that’s where they keep them.” I turn around and motion for Jackson to look. He peeks through the trees and then back at me before filling the others in on what we see.
They start around the other side of the trees, staying just inside the protection of the forest edge. Once I can see them across from us, close to the barn, I nudge Vill and then the men freeze mere steps from the barn’s doors. They shout and I try to silence mine’s voice, but I can’t control them in that way. Fear slices through me as their screams bring on new attention, and then Jackson and Myers are leaping from the trees, attacking in one, two, three hits. Dad, Naomi, and Cybil disappear into the barn, and I hear the definitive sound of a truck engine coming to life. Jackson and Myers spin around, their stances wide, readying for an attack.
Five more men and women start over, calling out to them and each other, but I can’t stop all of them at once. Vill focuses on one, me another, and then the truck bursts through the barn’s doors, sending wood pieces in all directions. Jackson and Myers latch onto the back of the truck as it starts to speed off.
“Let’s go!” I yell at Vill.
“You’re not going anywhere,” a voice says from behind us, and then I hear the sound of a gun cocking.
I draw a breath, evaluating what’s around me, if I feel any other bodies, and then coming up clear, I flip around and jab, hoping I make contact. My hand connects with a firm chest, tossing the man back, and then Vill is over him. He points his gun at the man’s head, and tears course down the old man’s face. He’s afraid, but he’s too proud to beg. I grab Vill’s arm and pull away the gun and then focus back on the man. “We’re leaving here. We don’t mean you any harm, but we have to go. We have to go find our friends. Okay?”