by Kresley Cole
Aric, where are you?
No answer to my telepathic call. No Arcana voices at all.
Baggers snapped their teeth at me as I passed. For each one I could see, how many were concealed? Would I step on one? Like a Bagmine?
Focus. In this situation, Jack would keep his cool and work out logistics. Everything depended on me reaching Tess as quickly as possible.
When Aric had abducted me from the Hierophant’s mine, I’d believed Jack had died, and I’d decided to live for vengeance. But this time, I would simply refuse to believe he was gone.
I swung my head left and right, searching for any clue about my location. As I trudged, supplies floated past me—food, bottles of water. I never would’ve passed by these treasures when I was on the road with Jack, but I didn’t have my bug-out bag, nothing to stow them in.
I’d lost it when I’d lost my arm.
Jack’s training still resonated within me; I needed survival gear. To save him, I had to survive long enough to find Tess. So I snagged a floating tackle box and found a utility knife inside. A good start. I shoved it into my jacket pocket.
Something was already stuffed inside?
I gave a cry. The red ribbon! The ribbon he’d taken from me a lifetime ago, the night before the Flash. The one he’d saved and carried for more than a year. I was supposed to give it back to him when I chose him above all others, when I was ready to make my life with him.
I’d intended to.
Jack was . . . dead.
Not forever.
Something else was in my pocket . . . His letter! I snatched it out. The drenched paper disintegrated in my trembling hand, and I could only watch it. He’d left me this letter, urging me to go with Aric, to live in a place with sunlamps and food and safety.
Because I love you, Jack had written. This might be the most noble thing I’ve ever done. Noble, for the record, cuts like a blade to the heart.
Why had I never told him I loved him? In all the months I’d known him, I’d never said those three words.
I didn’t grieve the letter, because I was going to go back in time. It would never have been lost. I shoved the ribbon back into my pocket. One day, I swore to God, I would give it to him. I pushed on with even more determination.
Finally I reached a cluster of brick buildings—the only things left standing here after the firestorm of the Flash. I limped toward the middle of them. In what must have been the town square stood a monument: a man on a horse with trash wrapped around him. Wasn’t it always a freaking man on a freaking horse?
By the light of my glyphs, I read the plaque: GREEN HILLS, INDIANA
My heart stopped. My glyphs sputtered. Indiana???
A completely different state from the fort’s location. Reaching Tess might take a week—if I had transportation, fuel, and directions.
I sagged against the monument, and tears welled.
Crying is a waste of time, Evie!
Tick. Goddamn. Tock.
I wiped my wet sleeve over my face and raised my chin. My plan was still sound. I’d find Tess, and then I wouldn’t rest until she could reverse time—by months. By years! Hell, I’d go back to before the Flash and save my mom and Mel!
Step one was getting a vehicle for the journey. Step two: fuel. Step three: directions.
I had a mission. I would be like Lark, with her single-minded focus. I would have strength and fortitude. I imagined myself as a horse with blinders on, seeing only the road before me. Nothing else mattered. I would bury my grief and destroy anything that got in the way of my mission.
Vehicle.
Fuel.
Directions.
Any vehicle near this town would be sunk, stuck, or swept away. I needed to get out of the path of that flood. I needed highlands. I turned toward the foothills.
I ran.
Holding my injured side, I fought the resistance of the water, moving my legs through sheer will.
I ran until I splashed out of the edge of the receding flood. I headed upland toward the line of rocky hills. A road snaked through them. I followed it.
My deadened legs tripped. I lurched forward; only one hand to catch me. I face-planted onto a shelf of stone.
Tick-tock. I scrambled back up. Spat blood. Blinders on.
I ran.
3
Day 389 A.F.?
“Who let the dogs out? WHO? WHO? WHO?”
Even over the freezing winds and drizzle, I heard a song blaring from over the next rise.
Maybe I’d gone crazy and was having—what had the mental-ward docs called it?—an auditory hallucination. Likely. I hadn’t slept in days. Hadn’t stopped running.
Get to Tess. Get to Tess. Get to Tess.
Though I was filled with purpose, my glyphs had dimmed, my abilities on the fritz. Regeneration was agonizingly slow—my arm had regrown just a couple inches, and the wound in my side still gaped. My broken bones weren’t knitting. Exhaustion threatened to consume me.
But my mind was all-powerful. My mind told my body not to stop, and it obeyed. The ribbon was a talisman that kept me moving.
Aric had said I possessed untapped potential. I drew on anything—everything—I had. I reminded myself that Demeter had scoured the earth looking for her daughter, never resting. My search for Tess would be just as relentless.
I ran toward the music. Music meant people. People meant victims I could rob.
Over the last several days, I’d become one of the bad guys, a black hat, threatening the few survivors I’d encountered (even though all I could manage was the merest show of a vine).
Do you have a map? I would steal it from you.
Food? Hand it over.
I like your backpack. It’s mine now.
To keep myself alive for Jack, for Aric—and for Richter—I’d become the monster lurking in the shadows.
As a black hat, I understood so much better how Baggers, cannibals, and militias worked. Always seek out people; they’ll have something you want.
I had no qualms that I was stranding or starving others. As I told them, “Tick-tock. On a clock. None of this will ever have happened.” Because I was going to reverse time.
Thanks to my thievery, I now wore a hooded poncho over my jacket and one of a pair of fingerless gloves. On my back was a bug-out pack with gear: MREs for another couple of days, a knife, glow sticks, and salt for Baggers. . . .
I trudged up that hill, digging with one hand into the muck, fighting against streams of water. Between breaths, I said, “You there, Circe?”
The more I thought about that epic clash, the more I realized the flood had been the unintended aftermath of her attack on the Emperor.
While her tidal wave had vibrated with her presence and hostility, the flood had been violent but . . . lifeless.
Controlling a wave like that couldn’t have been easy for her. Hell, I’d nearly poisoned Jack with my powers. Tess had almost died from hers.
Deciding that Circe hadn’t been trying to murder me, I’d hailed her in puddles. She could see and hear from any body of water. She would know where Aric was.
She’d never answered. No one did. I hadn’t heard a single telepathic Arcana call. Unless I’d been running in circles—possible—I should have covered a lot of ground. Had I not neared any Arcana?
Damn it, we were supposed to converge!
I tried again: Aric? Tess? Gabriel? Joules?
Nothing. I was tempted to hail Matthew—but he had allowed the massacre.
Yet he’d also taught me about Tess’s time traveling: “Sometimes the World spins in reverse. Sometimes battles do too. The word carousel means little battle.”
Maybe all this was an exercise to enhance Tess’s unimaginable power? He might have known all along that I would bring Jack back! Matthew always did things like this.
I called for him. Again, nothing.
As I ran, fears threatened my single-minded focus. Even Aric—the king of the airwaves—hadn’t responded to me. What if he’d bee
n injured? What if the Emperor had been able to side-step Circe and advance? Surely I would sense if other Arcana had died.
Focus, Evie. Every second counted. On a clock.
I topped the rise and narrowed my gritty eyes. In the valley below me, fog made a blanket. Some distance away, lights dimly shone beneath it. The music came from that direction.
I skidded down the mucky slope to the bottom. At the base, the air felt warmer, almost sultry. I ran.
Deeper into the valley, I made out more details. A mall-size parking lot was situated off a highway, filled with scorched cars. Baggers must be roaming that foggy vehicle maze; wails carried in the night.
I charged into the lot. The mist thickened around me, right when I needed to see. Shit! I should be terrified—in a murky maze, surrounded by Bagmen—but I didn’t have time. I put the blinders on.
A structure came into view at last. Bowls of oil fires lit a soaring wall. The music thumped from just beyond.
A coliseum? The Flash-charred arena had withstood the apocalypse! A new song—“Welcome to the Jungle”—boomed from inside, the lyrics clear: “I wanna watch you bleed. . . .”
Real? Unreal? Was I dreaming?
Then I sensed something that made my thorn claws tingle. Can’t be right. Going crazy. With a hard shake of my head, I ignored it. Focus, Eves.
Vehicle.
Fuel.
Directions.
This place was a genius location for a settlement, with a built-in defense—lurking Bagmen. The lot reminded me of the minefield fronting Fort Arcana. Jack’s brilliant idea. Blinders.
So who lived here?
I slowed. Damn it, I couldn’t deny my senses any longer. Somewhere nearby . . . plants grew. A lot of them.
How? Even if the earth hadn’t gone fallow, we’d had no sunlight.
I jogged around the coliseum, trying to home in on the plants. This unseen collection must dwarf even Aric’s extensive nursery.
Their nearness fueled me, exciting the red witch, that dark, murderous part of me. When my body vine budded from my neck, I yanked back my poncho hood. The vine divided behind me until it flared like an aura.
Or a cobra’s head.
A wail came from behind me—the Baggers had caught my scent, trailing me. One was on my heels. As the music blared, I straightened and stiffened a vine—then jabbed the creature through the head.
“. . . feel my, my, my serpentine. I wanna hear you scream. . . .”
Another Bagger lunged; I struck again. Putrid slime coated the vine. I let it fall off, growing a new one.
I could see a brighter glow just around the curve of the coliseum; following it, I came upon a line of military trucks. Perfect! I needed the keys to one and as much fuel as I could transport. Which meant I needed the guy in charge of this place trapped in my vines—with my poisonous claws at his throat.
Voices sounded. Ducking between the trucks, I sidled around one and spied two shirtless men guarding an entrance. They carried machine guns and didn’t seem at all concerned about the nearby Bagmen roving the fog.
In my weakened condition, a direct attack wasn’t wise, but if I “surrendered” . . .
The good thing about being a female A.F.—no one wanted to shoot me unless forced to.
Logistics: I could only raise one hand, so they might think I was reaching for a weapon and fire. A gunshot wouldn’t kill me, but it’d draw more guards and Baggers.
I commanded the vines of my cobra’s flare to slip down and twine into my empty poncho sleeve, puffing it out. I moved my green arm; looked like the real thing. Perfect.
In past battles, I’d tried to limit the body count. Now I cared only about what actions would be quickest. Once I completed my mission, none of this would have happened.
I limped into view, working the damsel-in-distress angle. “P-please help!” I cried, both arms raised—the green one emitting poisonous spores. “Can you help me?”
The two guards swiveled and gawked at me. One said, “A female!” and ran to apprehend me. The other reached for his radio.
Neither completed his action before he dropped.
Pulling my poncho hood back up, I strode past their bodies and approached the entrance. I peeked inside; no one right there, so I slipped in.
Lining a dark corridor were cells filled with what must be two hundred men. Past the cells at the far end of the curving hallway was an open doorway. Light, heat, and music spilled through it.
I could tell I neared those plants! My claws budded and sharpened, and I felt the first real tingle of regeneration.
No one had seen me back here in the dark. All eyes were trained in the other direction on two more shirtless men guarding that doorway.
Whimpers and murmurs rippled from the cells: “What happens now?” “Has anyone escaped?” “What will they do to us?”
Nothing good, I wanted to answer.
Since the Flash, I’d been caged by a militia, shoved into a serial killer’s laboratory, dragged down into a cannibal’s subterranean pantry, and forced into a house-of-horrors torture chamber.
These prisoners weren’t headed for a pleasant destination. Would they be slaughtered like cattle? Or used as target practice as some faction mowed them down?
I sidled closer to the cages. In one, a boy of about nine was crying while an older guy—looked like his granddad—tried to comfort him. But the grandfather was clearly just as wigged out. The kid called him Pops.
I eased over to them, keeping a low profile until I got more intel. “What state are we in?” I asked Pops.
He jolted, maybe because he’d just heard the voice of a rare female; or because I was strolling around outside the cages. “Indiana.”
Still? Damn it! “Who runs this place?”
Overhearing our hushed exchange, a burly guy with a bandana over his head turned toward me and said, “Solomón, the leader of the Skins.”
“Skins?”
Pops said, “Those are Sol’s fanatical followers.”
Bandana added, “They consider us the Shirts.” Shirts and Skins. As in football? Who makes up this shit? “Sol’s been rounding up survivors all over the state.”
“Why? Why put you in cages?”
“Because Sol likes games,” Bandana said. “For entertainment. You’ll see soon enough.”
A guy sitting beside Bandana asked me, “Don’t suppose you know how to hotwire electronic cell locks?”
No, but I could slip a tree between two bars, growing it till the metal bent. Maybe I should free these prisoners.
Then I remembered the lesson I’d learned from Jack and Aric: shackled person did not mean good person.
Besides, these men roaming free presented too many new variables and would slow my mission. In an altered future, I never would have been here anyway.
How to get to Sol most quickly? If I turned myself in, those guards might not hand me over to their leader right away, might even mutiny to keep a female for themselves.
An electronic whirring sounded, and all the cell doors opened. No one was brave enough to be the first to step out, to try an escape.
The two shirtless guards—Skins—started down the corridor, guns at the ready. One of them called, “You men are about to make history!”
In Sol’s games? If these prisoners were part of his entertainment, then my best hope of access to him might be to join them. I slipped into Pops’s cell, blending with the others before the guards passed. The pair ambled to the other end of the corridor.
“Everybody out and start walking,” the second guard called. “Any of you still in a cage when we roll through gets shot. Better hightail it out before then.” They were driving us toward that entrance?
Men hurried to exit, and I joined them. Playing along—for now—seemed quickest. Still, impatience had me by the throat.
Bandana edged closer to me. “I could look out for you, little girl,” he said. “If we live through this.”
I frowned at my new suitor. “You’re o
ptimistic. And I don’t need you to look out for me.”
Bandana’s friend smirked. “You say that now, but wait till the blood starts flowing.”
That was my problem; I couldn’t wait. The red witch bayed for it.
Pops murmured, “You should announce you’re a female. You’ll be spared whatever’s about to happen to us.”
I could feel that we were approaching those plants; I had to stifle the urge to run ahead of all these men. “I’ll be just fine.”
Bandana met his buddy’s gaze and twirled his forefinger at his temple. He thought I was crazy? That’s fair.
“You don’t seem scared,” Pops said. “Do you know something we don’t?”
His grandson stared at me with owl eyes; I winked at him.
Bandana asked, “You packing something under that poncho?”
I had a sleeve filled with vines. If I weren’t so impatient—could these guys be slower?—I might’ve laughed. “You could say that.”
As we passed more cells, injured men crawled toward the exits. Others desperately dragged the unconscious. From the stadium, Queen’s “We Will Rock You” pounded, seeming to mock these prisoners.
Behind us, those two Skins swept up the corridor, making good on their promise. Gunshots boomed in the echoing space; all the Shirts seemed to duck at once.
“. . . you got mud on your face. Big disgrace. . . .”
Another shot, and another. Those guards murdered the unconscious, the injured, the slow.
I shuffled along with the herd of prisoners until we emerged onto what had once been a football field. Now a pasture. With real grass.
I swept my astonished gaze around the interior of the coliseum. Crops covered the bleachers on three sides, pots filling the rows like terraced gardens. How??? I craned my head up, expecting to see priceless sunlamps, but I spied none. Maybe this settlement kept the lamps under lock and key, only bringing them out when needed.
I’d figure it out later. Once I went back in time, we could sic Jack’s Azey army on this place. They’d raid the crops, free any caged white hats, and relieve Sol of his sunlamps.
For now, I had a ready-made arsenal to use against my new adversary.