by Kody Boye
Daniel’s hands latch around my nightgown and pull me back before I can fall.
“Thank God,” I breathe.
He pushes me before I can thank him.
“Get to the twelfth floor!” he calls. “We’re gonna have to risk the elevator!”
“Why?”
“It’s getting too dangerous to be in here!”
“Are you sure?” I call back.
“I’m sure!” he replies.
The twelfth floor, I think. Why is that—
I swallow.
Ceyonne.
Wu.
I haven’t seen either of them for so long.
If they’re still here, and if they haven’t been evacuated, then that could only mean—
I sprint the rest of the way to the twelfth floor and slam my hand down on the bar that holds the hidden door in place.
I burst into the hallway.
I look out at the city.
I gasp.
Fires can be seen in the streets. Gunfire erupts in the distance.
“Kelendra!” a voice calls.
I turn to find Ceyonne standing nearby, Wu at her side.
“We need to run!” I cry as Daniel bursts in after me. “Where are the SADs?”
“I don’t know!” Ceyonne says. “We weren’t sure what to do, so we—”
“Come with us!” Daniel says, turning toward the elevator.
“It’s not safe!” Wu calls after him.
“The building might fall before we get a chance to make it down the stairwell!”
I reach for Ceyonne’s hand, then latch onto it before dragging her and Wu down the hall.
The elevator doors part for us.
We enter.
Daniel slams his fist on a button that says EMERGENCY.
Then we begin to descend.
“Oh, Great God,” I hear Wu say behind us, “please, lend me your ear. Keep us safe. Keep us safe. Keep us safe.”
“The elevator’s going too slow!” I cry. “We’ll never make it!”
“Stay calm,” Daniel says. “We’ll be fine.”
“How do you—”
Ceyonne tightens her grip on my right hand, while Daniel takes hold of my left.
Beneath Wu’s prayers, I feel completely and utterly small.
Around us, the building continues to shake, trembling violently under the assault of whatever is happening only a few floors below.
Please, God, I think. Forgive me for all my wrongs. Let me live. Let me help these girls and my husband survive.
We reach the second to the bottom floor.
I close my eyes and hold my breath.
A few short seconds later, the door opens—
—and carnage ensues.
Over the roar of the raging flames and the spit of gunfire, I can hear little more than screams. Of people dying, of soldiers barking orders, of the enemy taunting the SADs—they lash the night as if they are whips barbed and painful and cause each of us to remain there, rooted in fear.
The first person to speak is Wu, who says, “What do we do?”
Daniel is the next to reply with, “Get out of here.”
“But where?” Ceyonne asks.
“The back entrance.”
“But if they’re out there—” Wu starts.
But Daniel shakes his head. “No. We have to risk it, otherwise we’re going to be trapped here until they swarm us or the building collapses.”
“But—”
“But nothing!” Daniel starts out into the lobby. “Come on! Let’s go!”
I am the first to follow.
Ceyonne comes next.
Wu, however, remains fixed there—eyes wide with terror, lips open in horror.
I dash back into the elevator and drag her out by her shirt before rounding the corner and starting for the Spire’s tinted back entrance.
A gunshot whips by my head, narrowly missing both of us.
Ceyonne cries out.
Daniel pushes her to her knees.
A splash of blood hits my face, and for a moment, I’m afraid Wu has been shot.
But it wasn’t Wu who was struck by the bullet.
No.
It was Daniel.
Stumbling forward, right hand braced along his left arm, he shakes his head as I look on in horror and watch as he gestures to the doorway. Go, he mouths.
“You go first,” I say. “You’re the one who’s hurt.”
“And you three are the ones they’ll kidnap,” Daniel replies. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”
Ceyonne pushes the door open.
Wu and I dart into the night.
I turn to face Daniel just in time to see him push Ceyonne out of the building.
“Hey!” Ceyonne cries as she spins to face Daniel. “What’re you—”
We all hear the sound of the door lock into place.
“Daniel?” I ask, stepping toward the glass doorway. “What’re you doing?”
“Saving you and your friends,” he replies. “Go, Kel. Run as far away as you can from here.”
“No! I’m not leaving you!”
“You have to,” Daniel says. “You—”
A bullet impacts with the glass directly beside his head.
Daniel ducks.
I scream.
He presses his free, bloodied hand to the door and smiles at me before saying, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you.”
“I won’t leave you!” I cry, tears coursing down my face. “We’re in this together!”
“Which is why you have to run,” he says, gritting his teeth as another bullet slams into the glass over his head. “This door isn’t going to hold for long. You have to go—now.”
Two pairs of hands grab my arms.
I struggle to break free.
With their combined strengths, Wu and Ceyonne pull me down the stairs as Daniel mouths, I love you.
One second later, a bullet strikes him in the head.
I scream louder than I’ve ever screamed before.
Ceyonne and Wu drag me away from the Spire and the capitol building that lies in the near distance.
Tears burn my skin as they run down my face.
“I’m sorry,” Wu says, her voice trembling, her body shaking, “but we can’t let his sacrifice be in vain.”
“She’s right,” Ceyonne says. “We have to go, Kel.”
“But where?”
Ceyonne shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. We just have to leave. Now.”
I take a moment to retrieve the breath I have lost from screaming, then nod and burst into a sprint.
There is no way for me to determine where I will lead us. Having not been allowed free reign of my surroundings, the most I can do is put distance between us and the enemies who wish us harm. I turn left, then right, sprint across streets and down alleys, dodging cars as they slam on breaks or go skidding around us. I hear an explosion—loud and mighty—and grimace as I imagine what must have happened, but find that I am concentrating only on one thing: our survival.
Behind me, Ceyonne and Wu struggle to keep pace. None of us have shoes on, and the faster we run, the more abrasions our feet suffer.
“We have to stop,” Wu pants. “I don’t think I can go any further.”
“We can’t stop!” I cry as we dart into an alley. “We have to keep going before we—”
A figure steps out in front of us.
I scramble to come to a halt.
Ceyonne and Wu crash into me, sending the three of us to the asphalt below.
I am just about to rise and face whomever has confronted us only to find the barrel of a rifle being shoved in my face.
My first and only instinct is to freeze.
My second is to say, “Please, don’t hurt us.”
The man lowers the rifle and says, “You’re her.”
“Her?” I ask.
“The Beautiful One. Kelendra Cross.”
“Yes. I’m her,” I say, struggling to piece toget
her coherent sentences. “Please, just let them go. I promise I’ll do whatever you want. Just please let us—”
“Do you stand with us?” the man asks.
“What?”
“I said: do you stand with us?”
A series of thoughts bombard me.
The press conference—
My fortune cookie—
The Maid—
I lift my eyes to face the man—who can’t be more than a person in plainclothes—and say, “Yes. Yes! I stand with you! Just help us! Please.”
“Get up,” the man says, jerking his rifle so it faces the end of the alley. “I said get up!”
Wu and Ceyonne scramble to their feet, and we retreat behind the man as he continues to point the gun down the alley.
A figure appears opposite us.
The man fires.
The enemy goes down.
“Who are they?” Ceyonne manages through chattering teeth.
“The North,” the man replies.
“And who are you?” Wu asks.
“That doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is that we get the three of you to safety.”
“But where—” I start to say, but am cut off by the man shaking his head.
The man whose purpose I do not know reaches back behind him and opens a doorway that leads to a descending flight of stairs. “Go,” he says. “There’ll be more of them waiting.”
“Who?” I ask. “Who’s waiting for us?”
“You’ll find out soon. Just go! Go!”
I push Ceyonne and Wu down the stairs and into the darkness just in time for gunfire to erupt outside.
“What’s going on?” Wu whispers as we descend. “Why is this man helping us?”
“I don’t know,” I reply.
“Does it really matter?” Ceyonne asks.
“It does if it’s a trap!” Wu snaps.
“Don’t fight,” I say. “Just keep going.”
We reach the bottom of the landing only to find that the light streaming down the passage does not reach this far.
“What do we do now?” Wu asks. “We can’t go anywhere if we can’t see?”
“I know,” I say. “We just have to wait until—”
A second door opens somewhere nearby. Shortly thereafter, a spark of light is summoned from an old-fashioned lighter, and a woman’s face is revealed in the darkness. “Come,” she says, gesturing us forward. “It’s not safe here.”
“Who are you?” Wu asks. “Tell us. Now. We won’t go any further until you do.”
“But the gunfire—” the woman says.
Wu shakes her head.
The woman lowers her lighter until it comes to hover above an intricate badge on her shoulder.
At first, I cannot process what it says, for I am too shocked to even believe what I am seeing.
Slowly, however, the letters come to form in my mind.
T.S.S.
“T.S.S.,” I whisper.
“Yes,” the woman replies. “We are The Southern Saints, leaders of the resistance against the Great South’s unjust government.”
“You’re the Fanatical?” Ceyonne asks.
“No,” the woman says. “We’re not.” Her eyes dart toward the doorway at the top of the stairwell. “I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to,” the woman says, “but if you don’t come now, you’re going to end up dead.”
“But—” I say.
The woman shakes her head.
I turn to regard Wu and Ceyonne, both of whom are trembling in fear, then return my eyes to the woman.
There have been few times in my life when I have been so sure of anything. But here, and now, in this moment, I can honestly say that I am about to make the right decision.
After taking one last deep breath, I step toward the threshold—and hope, to the Great God above, that I am making the right decision.
The story concludes in
The Battle Within
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About the Author
Though he was born and raised in Southeastern Idaho, Kody Boye has lived in the state of Texas since 2010. His first short story, [A] Prom Queen's Revenge,was published at the age of fourteen. He has since gone on to publish numerous works of fiction, including the young-adult novels When They Came, The Beautiful Ones, The Midnight Spell and ALT CONTROL ENTER, as well as fiction for adults. He currently lives and writes in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.
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www.kodyboye.com
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Other YA Novels by Kody boye
Kody Boye has multiple young-adult books and series across many genres available for purchase! If you like young people who fight against monstrous creatures, corrupt governments, alien beings, and more, consider checking out some of his other works. Simply click or tap on the banners below!
In the world of The Beautiful Ones, beauty is a currency, and to have it means you can be granted freedom from poverty, at the cost of your free will. For Kelendra Byron, she will soon find that her beauty holds a price—one she may not be willing to pay.
In Dagana: The Last Mermaid, one young woman’s life in inexplicably changed as her parents are viciously murdered by something at sea.
In Kingsman Online, a young woman by the name of Sophia Garza longs to save her terminally-ill mother. To do that, she enters a gaming competition with a prize of a lifetime, only to become trapped in the very game she loves to play.
In The Plague Bloom, follow a young woman as she and her people journey to a promised land atop the backs of their massive Guardians—not only to escape the monstrous Fallen that lurk in the lands below, but to forge a new future.
In The Red Wolf trilogy, a young woman must come to terms with a young man’s strange past, and his even stranger abilities, as the wolves of East Texas return to the small town of Red Wolf.
Scarlet Jane had it all. Until her mother was murdered by a monster. Now, she must either learn to hunt the renegade supernaturals that haunt her world, or forget everything forever.
For best friends Christy and Adam—a witch and a gay young man—life hasn’t been easy. To remedy this, Christy casts a love spell to try and bring Adam’s true love. But has she brought Adam’s first boyfriend to Trinity Springs, or a monster?
When They Came, humanity thought They were their salvation. But six years later, aliens still rule the planet Earth—and one young woman is about to change history.