by Faith Hunter
Above the gunfire and song, the sound of a vehicle engine alerted her. Her bad day had just gotten worse. It was Sergeant Suarez, the mocha-skinned, dark-haired man who’d stolen Alaska from the real Army base years before—she wasn’t sure how many years, but she guessed at least seven or eight. Here, they called him Colonel Suarez, though. He owned this base and everyone on it.
He was sitting in a Pre-Ap green Humvee just beyond the rappelling tower, wearing a thick green coat and a fur-lined hood. He lowered his protective green face mask and stared at her; he liked staring at her—probably because he knew she hated it. Then he smiled and winked at her. A chill ran down Alaska’s spine as her mind was flooded with images of the soldiers Suarez had slaughtered to clear his way to her. The worst was the officer who’d tried to shield her with his own body. He’d been a friend of Alaska’s mother, and had taken Alaska in when her mother died. Only to end up with his brains spattered over Alaska—a head shot, because a shot to his body might’ve gone through him and damaged Suarez’s prize.
The images were familiar, painful, and when she first came to this godforsaken camp—and for years afterwards—they brought her to uncontrollable tears. But she refused to cry anymore. She wasn’t a little child now. She was hardened. Few things brought her to tears now. She couldn’t even remember the name of the officer who died for her. He wasn’t a part of her life anymore.
She returned Suarez’s stare, crossing her arms and refusing to turn away. Defiant. If the so-called Colonel shot her, too, then so what? What did she have to lose? Dying would be better than training to fight for the asshole. Just who was he plotting to kill with an army of children, anyway?
One of the soldiers walked to the Humvee. Still maintaining eye contact with Alaska, Suarez handed the man a note—spoken conversations around the “specials” might be overheard, after all. His orders received, the soldier worked his way to the other side of the training field. Suarez didn’t immediately leave but continued looking at Alaska.
While she had him in sight, she opened her mind to his surface thoughts, something she’d only recently found she could do. She fully expected resistance against entering his mind, but his thoughts flowed freely into her. Feelings of lust and desire and need washed over her. At the forefront was an image of Alaska, naked, struggling unsuccessfully beneath him. Her face burned when she realized what he wanted from her. Her eyes grew wide, and he smiled at her. Fear suddenly struck her. Did he know Alaska was reading him?
The image flickered. Now, Suarez slung a small dark-haired girl over his shoulder. Alaska couldn’t see the girl’s face, but Suarez broadcasted satisfaction, eagerness, but strangely not lust this time. She caught a clear thought: “This will be fun to watch.” Then his mind filled with vile images of something monstrous hovering over the girl and attempting to—”
Alaska gritted her teeth, and started to advance on the animal posing as a man in the truck.
Zeke, a broad-shouldered mule in her crew, pulled her elbow, stopping her progress. “Don’t rile him, Alaska. We don’t need trouble with the Colonel. He’ll see to it that it’s taken out on everyone but you. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I know, Zeke,” she whispered, remembering the whipping Zeke, Jeremiah, and Harper had received when she’d last been “uncooperative.” It had taken the scrawny Jeremiah a week to recover, while the mules bounced back in a day. She would risk her own life and health, but not theirs.
That was her weakness. And Suarez knew it. Sometimes she longed to escape, run away to…wherever…but she knew the others would be tortured to reveal her whereabouts, even if they had no knowledge of her plans. She couldn’t do that to them.
“I know. But you don’t know what he—”
Harper, the shorter mule interrupted. “Leave us out of your personal war.”
Jeremiah appeared beside her other elbow and pulled his face mask down, his breath misting in the cold. She looked up into his thin face and at the long, puckered scar running along his left cheek, a scar he’d never explained. His returned stare was serious, and he shook his hooded head. “No, Alaska.”
“Okay, I’ll behave today. But one day, Jeremiah, I will kill him.”
“Jeremiah,” Alaska said to the lanky teen on the other side of the metal table, “I got something from Suarez’s mind earlier.”
“Shhh. Hold your voice down.” Jeremiah’s eyes furtively scanned the yellow-painted room where Suarez’s men kept watch. “Please don’t bring them over here, Ala. I’d like to eat my lunch in peace.”
“You really want to savor this?” she said, looking down at her plastic tray at something that passed for meat.
“Ala, I don’t want to have to run any punishment laps, thank you.”
“Don’t worry about them. I think Jeep can keep them busy.” Alaska looked over at the bullish, almost-black-skinned mule with the braids at the next table. The half-breed girl’s muscular upper arms were thicker than Alaska’s thighs. “Hey, Jeep,” Alaska drawled, “I hear Hog’s been eyeing you in a special way, if you know what I mean.”
The fifteen-year-old Jeep looked up at Alaska, and when the human winked at her, she nodded her understanding.
Jeep stood up suddenly and smashed her sea-green tray against the fake-wood tabletop. The clanging noise echoed through the room, silencing the few conversations. The guards turned in her direction. “Keep your stinkin’ eyes to yourself, Hog. You ain’t allowed to look at me like that!” she yelled at a boy sitting across from her, a blond mule at least a year her junior who was almost as strong, and certainly as bull-headed. “You keep those crazy eyes on your food!”
He stood, a toothy smile cracking his face. “Oh, yeah, Jeep? I like lookin’ at you. You’re damn pretty, and I’ll look at you anytime I want. Nothin’ you can do about it, girl.” He stretched out a hand and jabbed a finger at her chest.
Jeep looked down at the finger, and slowly brought her eyes back up to meet his. Her fist shot out, punching Hog square in the nose. The pain would have taken down a grown human, but Hog just squinted his eyes and let out a grunt. “You’ll pay for that, Jeep!” He bolted over the table. They crashed into the table behind them, sending food, trays, and other kids flying.
“That flirting should give us a little peace,” Alaska said, as the guards rushed to the fight.
“Damn, but you are crazy, Ala,” he said. “Fine. Tell me what you saw.”
“I saw him carrying a dark-haired girl. She was bound in rope. He was thinking very . . . unpleasant things about her.” Alaska didn’t add that he’d been thinking about her, too. “You haven’t seen a girl brought in, have you?”
“No. Besides, she’d end up in your barracks.”
“Right . . . if they took her to the barracks.”
“Maybe he was fantasizing. Maybe the girl doesn’t exist, and you’re worrying about nothing, Ala.”
“I know what I saw, Jeremiah.”
“Yeah, Ala, but have you spent enough time in the Colonel’s head to know what it means?”
“I don’t—”
“You told me yourself that you only started doin’ this a couple weeks ago. And this has got to be the first time you tried it on him, right?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“So maybe his fantasies are so strong that they feel like reality. He’s a sick man, so he has sick fantasies.”
“I guess . . . maybe you’re right.”
“And maybe you’re right, Ala. There’s just no way to be sure.”
Jeremiah started to give Alaska a hug, but suddenly snatched his hands back into his lap, beneath the table. Alaska caught a fleeting glimpse of bandages she’d mistaken for gloves before.
“What happened to your hands, Jeremiah?” Alaska asked.
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
She probed his sense-memories. She could feel a burning, searing sensation. “Seraph stones! What did they do to you?”
When he turned away from her, Alaska leaned
in and said, “Please tell me what happened.” She tried to make her words as soothing as possible to convince him it was safe to talk. She was often good at soothing others. She eased the thought into the forefront of her mind that he would talk.
“Ala, stop it. I can feel you in my head. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But we’re friends…best friends, Jeremiah. You don’t have to hide anything from me. I’m here for you. Tell me, please.”
He sighed, and then leaned forward to speak directly into her ear. “They didn’t do this to me. I did. Or the flame did, actually.”
“I’m not following you.”
“See, Ala, there’s this . . . ball of fire. It’s been visiting my cell. It’s friendly—well, most of the time. It just got a little too excited while we were playing last night. That’s when it toasted my hands. Accidentally.”
“A ball of fire? You were playing with a ball of fire?”
“Yes. It came to me one night a few weeks back. I was in my dorm room, just hating this place and wishing I could get out. I was crying to myself and I even sent up a prayer, like I remember doing in kirk. And a bit later, I see this little light appear on the ceiling, kinda like a targeting laser, but it was orange not red, and it flickered. It floated down toward me, and got bigger and bigger. I absolutely freaked! I rolled out of my cot, and hit the floor. The thing zipped around to where I was on the floor, like it was checking me over. And . . . it had bright sparks in front, like eyes on a face.”
“Eyes? A floating dot with eyes? That’s really crazy, Jeremiah.”
The table between them scraped across the tile floor, shoved by a guard as Jeep punched him in the gut. Then Jeep turned her attention to the one choking Hog with a baton. Hog struggled to get hold of the man’s arms, but the guard—a mule himself—pressed the weapon against Hog harder. Hog’s eyes were starting to bulge from his head. Jeep snapped one-two punches to the mule-guard’s face, knocking him backwards. Hog fell and began coughing. Knowing that they’d receive a share of collective punishment even if they stayed out of the fracas, the smaller mules from Mule Team 1 jumped the large mule-guard from behind, dragging him down to the floor. Might as well have some fun before the inevitable pain.
“Let’s go over there,” Alaska nodded toward the far side of the room.
When they were safely away from the brawl, Jeremiah looked into her eyes. “I know it sounds unbelievable. I do. And that’s why I didn’t bring it up before. But it really has been visiting me. And it’s like a kid. It just wants to play.”
When Alaska didn’t say anything, he continued. “I’m not crazy, Ala. I’m not. I promise you. It’s real.”
“Like the tied-up girl that’s just in my head?”
The two stared at each other. Then Jeremiah sighed. “You’ve never lied to me before, Ala.”
“And you’ve never lied to me.” Alaska paused to duck a thrown plate. “Okay, I believe you. I just don’t understand how such a thing could be. But I’ve seen some very odd things, so I’m sure it’s possible. Why would it come here, though? What is it?”
“I don’t know, Ala. Maybe I brought it here. Maybe I have a special ability.”
A sound distracted Alaska. Jeep had picked up one of the human guards, who was now fervently blowing a whistle. As easily as tossing a ball, she sent him soaring over two tables, into a serving station, and crumpling onto the ground. The cafeteria doors banged open and several other guards burst in. Guns leveled, they shouted for everyone to get on the ground.
“Looks like the party is over,” Alaska said to Jeremiah from her position on the floor, hands on the back of her head.
“Yep. Joy,” he dragged out.
Hog hadn’t dropped to the floor. Instead, he sent a different guard soaring toward the new arrivals. Reflexively, one of the newcomers fired a handful of shots. Most of the bullets flew wild, but one grazed Hog. He grunted his displeasure as a red stain bloomed on his grey shirt.
“On. The. Floor!” a different guard yelled. “Nothing bad will happen to you, if you surrender now.”
“I think the Colonel would be mighty mad if anything happened to us,” Hog said. “But I’m surrendering. See me gettin’ down on the ground with my hands behind my head? I’ll go quietly, Boss Man.”
“I knew you couldn’t take me,” Jeep said, as she lay down, facing Hog.
He winked. “Ah, sweetness, you know I like your love licks. We’ll certainly continue this another time. Maybe next time we’ll be alone.”
After the cafeteria fight, the guards put everyone in lockdown for two days without food. The guards whipped Hog and Jeep before putting them in solitary confinement. Alaska hated that her friends had suffered just to provide a distraction.
On the second evening, Alaska heard voices through the barred window in her door, an argument between one mule guard and his superior.
“Mules will be mules.” one of the sergeants said.
“Keeping them locked up will just make them want to fight more.”
“Not my call,” the sergeant replied. “Tell it to the Colonel.”
“Bet your seraph-sucked stones we want to fight!” Alaska muttered to no one, her back against the wall of her dark room, not caring that she’d cursed. The Most High paid little attention to worms like her, she’d decided long ago. If He had, then He wouldn’t’ve let these men drag kids like her away from their families.
Worse, why had God taken her mother away from her? And that officer at the Army facility who died for her? Had her parents offended God in some way? Maybe her father, Jason, had. Alaska didn’t remember him, but she recalled Aunt Cora telling her mother numerous times not to cry over Jason, that he was a user and not good enough for her and her daughter. Alaska did know that her mother and Aunt Cora were good, God-fearing people, though. She just knew it. They hadn’t deserved to die.
An image came to Alaska of her mother, her bright red hair—looking like Alaska imagined her own hair would if she were allowed to grow it long—lying on the snow, her dead blue eyes looking up at the sky, a hole ringed in red in the center of her chest. Then scenes of erupting chaos. People shouting. Guns firing. “Momma! Momma!” she’d screamed, shaking her shoulder. “Wake up, Momma!”
Then Aunt Cora came running toward them, crying out, “Cassie! Cassie! No! No! No! My Cassie!” She stopped beside her sister’s body, bent over double sobbing. Bullets flying, pandemonium around them, she somehow regained her composure, and put out her arm to Alaska. “Come to me, Alaska! Come to me!” she cried. “We can’t let them take you, Alaska, just like they took—” There was a loud crack, and Aunt Cora’s head jerked backwards. A hole appeared in her forehead and red rain fell down on Alaska. Cora fell over. Her body pushed the child into her mother’s breast. The girl huddled between the two women, protected.
She and her mother had been walking home from kirk before the horror struck. They were all happy and celebrating the Most High.
Then they were all dead.
Strange that she could still hear it. Women yelling out for their husbands, sons, daughters. High-pitched howls of despair. Alone in her room, the sound of a woman screaming grew louder and louder. Alaska couldn’t get it out of her head. So loud!
It sounded so close now. So close, as if it was coming from the hallway. And then there were grunts and muffled noises and a man’s voice.
“Mage in battle, mage—” a female voice started in a rush but was quickly cut off.
“I thought you bound her mouth, Caden! You can’t let mages have their tongues! She’ll spell us!”
“She’s biting me!”
“Tape her mouth shut, Caden, and then grab her feet.”
There were some rustling struggles, but they were quickly muted. “Ready, Gus.”
“They should have gotten the mules to bring her back.” He grunted. “She’s a fighter, this one. Best be careful, though, or she’ll break something.”
“Little Miss, you need to calm down,” said Caden, h
is voice almost gentle. “Stop thrashing, now. You’ll break an arm or leg if you don’t stop struggling with us.”
There were a few more grunts, but eventually they stopped. “Now, that’s better. Be nice, and we’ll be nice, Little Miss.”
“Drag her to that room there, Caden.”
Alaska scrambled to the window. The corridor was dark, but that wasn’t an issue for her. Her night vision had steadily improved over the last year, a gift she had kept from her instructors. She saw two guards, humans, hauling a light-skinned, dark-haired girl to the empty room across from hers. There were few girls in the complex, and they were kept away from the boys on the other side of the dorm. They’d called this one a mage. They were so rare outside of their Enclaves that Alaska had only heard rumors about them. Now Suarez’s men—no, Suarez—had one. The girl. This was the girl in his thoughts, the one he wanted to watch when—
“Get away from the door, nosey,” the skeevy guard with the stringy hair yelled at Alaska. “This pretty little thing is gonna keep a Dark one company,” he continued. “You want to join her? We can arrange that,” he cackled. “Of course, I might want to try you out first.” Gus backed into the doorway of the empty room, as his partner, Caden, she guessed, followed with the small girl’s feet. She wasn’t big enough to need two to carry. These guys were wimps.
“Mind your business, Little Miss,” Caden said to her as he passed by the window. He was several years older than Gus, and a head taller. She’d never seen either of them before. “Get back to your bed, now. Nothing for you to see here.”
She didn’t back away. Defiant. If they wanted her in bed, they’d have to come inside and tuck her in. She almost wished they’d try.