I was alive.
It hurt to breathe. Heat and a chemical tang soured each breath, burning my nostrils. I coughed, trying to inhale through my mouth.
Slowly my body came back to me, not in soft movements, but in stabbing pains. My legs and arms felt as though they had been shot through, and my spine screamed, sending shockwaves out to my fingers and toes. But none of it compared to my head. The left side of my face was on fire. Pain shot from my jaw to my temple like lightning. Each beat of my heart like another strike.
It took me a minute to remember where I was. Who I was.
We had been thrown, torn apart…
Slowly, painfully I raised my head.
I stared blankly, trying to put the pieces together. The ringing was so loud. For a second I thought I was back in Tartarus.
The street was obliterated. Buildings were missing entire sides. The ground had buckled, throwing bodies like rag dolls. The power had gone out again, the only light cast was from a series of small fires. A few took on human shapes and I stopped looking.
Something moved in my arms.
I squeezed tighter until a soft groan purred against my chest.
Mouse was still with me. Alive! I tried to whisper her name, but nothing came out. So I squeezed again. A small hand pressed into my stomach. The fist opened slowly, forming a symbol.
Okay.
I hugged her again, relieved. Mouse was alright.
Then she was wiggling away. I tried to hold her, but my arms barely moved. There was a fuzzy memory. Someone had grabbed me before, but they were gone now, ripped away by the force of the explosions. As Mouse pried herself free, I groaned and rolled over trying to get my bearings. Instead of a city street, I found a body. Two dead eyes stared back at me. I shot bolt upright. Blood covered the face and though I knew it well, mercifully, it wasn’t Triven’s.
Veyron’s eyes gaped blankly. A small boy lay in her limp arms. Neither one moved. I scrambled away searching desperately for Mouse who had disappeared, for Triven, for anyone. Bodies littered the street. Many moving, writhing, but most were motionless. A figure farther down began to move and I recognized Fiona’s short hair in the firelight. I wanted to move to her, to help, but my feet were rooted. Her body flopped sideways strangely and I realized then it wasn’t her moving, but the person buried beneath her.
Ryker sat up in a cloud of dust and then froze. He was staring down at something. I didn’t remember blinking, but suddenly Archer was there, yelling at him. He didn’t look at her. Using her good hand and her teeth she was securing something around Ryker’s thigh. He didn’t scream, or move much. He just stared down toward his legs. There were others now, moving through the debris, searching. I didn’t hear him calling my name, but Triven’s face unexpectedly loomed over mine. I watched his lips, trying to focus on the words forming there. But there was so much blood on his face running down his neck. I reached up to touch the space where his ear used to be, but he swatted me away then shook my shoulders.
I heard him this time. He was inspecting my face, my body.
“Can you walk?”
I nodded dumbly.
“We have to get the survivors out of here. Prea, I need you to focus.” His eyes were wide with fear. “We need to move them. Can you help do that?”
I bobbed my head again.
He kissed me briefly, tasting of blood and then disappeared. I watched him check two dead bodies before turning away.
Though my brain was still struggling to function, my body began to move. Twice I had to remind myself what we were looking for. Twice I vomited as I pulled rubble away from limbs, finding little else. Then I saw them. Two girls were at the edge of the firelight distanced from the rest of the group, barely visible in the darkness.
People were racing around, shouting to each other, pulling those screaming from the wreckage. As the world around them scurried in chaos, the girls were motionless.
Mouse’s hair clung to her face, concealing her expression. But she was looking down. Staring at the body at her feet. A cascade of curly blonde hair spilled out like golden ribbons on the broken ground.
I blundered forward, staggering over chunks of cement and shattered buildings. Desperate to reach them. Maribel was alive, she had to be alive. I had promised her she would be safe with us. That I would protect her. My toe caught on something, sending me sprawling as I reached the girls. Fingers stretching out, they wound in the silken curls. My hand came away sticky and the pulse in my cheek escalated.
Blood stained the perfect ringlets, dying them a copper.
Dragging my legs under me, I crawled over to the girl. Large chunks of debris covered Maribel, pinning her legs and smothering her torso. Her face alone remained untouched. The porcelain skin shown under a thin layer of dust. With her eyes shut, it looked as though she was merely sleeping.
“Maribel?” I whispered as if gently trying to wake her. I pressed my hands to her face patting it lightly. Then harder. “Maribel?!”
Her skin was warm, but I couldn’t find a pulse. The child’s head lolled when I let go and panic began to rip a hole in my chest. “Mouse, help me. We have to get her out.” I bumped into Mouse, desperately shoving the large pieces of debris off her friend, but she didn’t move to help. She only stared.
A huge piece of concrete pinned the child’s chest. Screaming with the effort, I pried the slab off, my hands already moving onto other hunks as the large piece clattered away. Rubble cut my hands as they flew over Maribel and as the last piece of brick was cleared, a new heat began to stream down my cheeks.
She looked nearly perfect. Tiny purple smudges swelled on the girl’s pale skin, but nothing looked broken. She was fine. I grabbed wildly at her face, shaking it harder this time. “Maribel?”
She wasn’t breathing. She was… She was…
A voice crackled in my ear. Words popped in and out of the static.
“Deployed… coming… ten minutes out… Gage…” It cut out.
My mind snapped back to reality with painful clarity.
Gage was coming. For us.
For Mouse.
Twisting, I grabbed for Mouse, but for the first time since coming into my life, the girl withdrew from me. Surging back to life, Mouse threw herself down over Maribel’s body. Her small hands latched over her friend, refusing to let go. The harder I pulled, the harder she held on. An inhuman noise filled the air and it wasn’t until her tearstained face twisted sideways that I realized it was coming from Mouse. I yanked harder and this time Mouse lashed out, her bony elbow slamming into my temple. White spots popped into my vision as she continued to thrash. I could barely keep a grip on her. I didn’t realize I had started screaming Triven’s name, but suddenly he was there. Stumbling over bricks and snatching Mouse from my arms. I sat back stunned, no longer recognizing the girl in Triven’s arms. Her little fists beat against his chest as he picked her up, but he ignored them. When her attack didn’t work, she flipped in his arms, reaching back for her friend.
“Not dead!” Mouse screamed, her voice cracking. “Not dead! NOT DEAD!”
I could see the panic swelling in Triven’s expression, as he tried to murmur soothing words to her. It wouldn’t work. Mouse would never let her go. So, with the little strength I had left, I scooped up Maribel’s body in my arms and rose. Mouse quieted, her hand still outstretched. I stood just out of reach.
Tears were flowing down Triven’s face as he held tighter to our little girl. I could barely choke out the word, “Go.” But he did, carrying Mouse who watched us over his shoulder. Maribel was gone, her body limp against mine. But it only made me hold her tighter. I was vaguely aware of arms offering to help me. Of people saying things, people who weren’t with us before. They had come to help maybe? The world was too fuzzy. Filled with static. I refused their offers help and clung to the girl. For six miles, I carried her body back to our hideout, cradled to my chest. It was another hour before I would let anyone take Maribel away from me. Away from Mouse. We sat in
the middle of a crowded room while other people rushed around us. Maribel’s head lay in my lap, my fingers absently stroking her hair as Mouse held her hand and wept.
I had failed her.
I had failed them both.
THE NEXT FEW hours passed in a blur. I remembered someone prodding at my slashed face. Someone finally taking Maribel from my arms. It was like watching the world through a series of flipping book pages. Seeing the snippets, but not retaining the information. Children screaming. Mothers crying. And the Wraiths helping us. None of it made sense. So much blood. At some point my brain shut off and I passed out or maybe fell asleep. But that short lived.
Someone shook my shoulder. Lightly at first, then more aggressively when I did not rouse. I started grabbing for the knives that were usually on my thigh only to find smooth scaly fabric. My weapons had been removed, probably with good reason. A voice was hissing at me, trying not to disturb the others sleeping around us. We were in the large warehouse again, cots were staggered amid crates, both being used as makeshift beds.
A familiar face floated over mine, a rebel I knew. “Zeek?”
“Prea. We found them.” His lips split into a triumphant smile. I stared at him through the haze of sleep, then jolted awake as his words crept in.
Triven stirred next to me. Then seeing Zeek, he shot up too, bleary eyed but suddenly alert. There was a sizable bandage covering his ear, but he still managed to hear Zeek’s words.
“The beacon?!” Triven asked, kissing me quickly on the good cheek first, he was already rolling off the cot, careful not to step on Mouse asleep below.
“We found them.” Zeek’s smile widened.
Triven scrambled through the crowd toward the surveillance room. Many were still tending to the wounded. I paused to check Mouse. She was fast asleep, though clearly it was not restful. Her forehead pursed, pink lips twitching. I wanted to follow Triven, to help bring the others back, but how could I leave her again?
A large hand reached out, patting my arm.
“They gave her a sleeping pill. She’ll be fine. Go. We’ll watch her.” Grenald sat on the ground next to our cot. Tears left a steady trail down the man’s face, but he smiled comfortingly through them. I lowered my gaze to his lap. Otto’s head rested in the crook of Grenald’s knee. A bloodied bandage covered the left side of his face. He looked horribly pale, but Otto was breathing.
“Grenald…” I placed a hand over his.
“Go.” Grenald said again.
Thanking him, I took off after Triven and Zeek.
My head felt heavy, but the pulsing in my cheek had stopped. They must have used something on me. Healed me when I was sleeping. My fingers searched, finding the skin raised and hot beneath a freshly healing scab. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t bleeding any longer either.
Rounding the corner to the room filled with screens, I nearly collided with a mass of bodies coming toward me. Hands shot up, catching me as I came to a screeching halt. I stared at the startled face, utterly lost for words. Then Arden was pulling me into a hug.
The rebels hadn’t just found our other half, they already brought them back to us. People were swarming now, pushing past to greet their friends. Many were crying with a mixture of grief and relief. So many had been taken from us in the past twenty-four hours, but now others were being returned.
“How? When?” I pushed back from Arden, studying him in shock. “The beacon?”
He pulled the small device from his pocket, examining it. “Never worked. We tried to turn it on, but nothing.”
I frowned as he pushed the button a few times. “So how did they find you?”
Arden looked equally perplexed as Baxter stepped out of the group, laying a hand on Arden’s shoulder. I started counting heads as I listened. “Mae found them almost an hour ago on the feed. Thadd covered them immediately and we went out to get them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me. Why didn’t you wake us? We would have gone!” I glared at the serious amount of weaponry Baxter was carrying, he had clearly been part of the recon mission.
“Exactly for that reason. You’ve been through enough in the last twenty-four hours. We all have.” Baxter looked away. “We agreed it was better not to get our hopes up, not after…” He trailed off.
Not after Gage killed fifteen of our men, women and children.
This should have been a victory, a happy reunion. But a celebration felt wrong, not in the wake of losing so many innocents.
I felt raw. Salt still burned my eyes, but I couldn’t cry any more. It was as if I had run dry. Baxter and Mae had been right. If this mission had failed like ours, it would have been devastating. I stared at Arden, unable to speak. We still had to tell them. My mouth gaped as I searched for the words I didn’t want to speak.
They were all dead…
Arden spared me. “We know. They told us on the way back, and Phoenix—”
I could guess what Arden’s next words were going to be based on what happened next. A woman shoved the two men speaking to me aside and in that instant she reeled back, I caught a glimpse of Triven’s horrified face as he chased after his mother. But he was too late. With enough intensity to knock me sideways, Arstid slapped me across the face.
36. ABSOLUTION
I STARED AT the closed door I was too cowardly to open.
The screaming on the other side had been minimal today, but I could feel him seething behind the thick metal. It had been three weeks since the night we came over The Wall. Since the night Maribel died. Since the night Arstid slapped me.
I traced a finger over the jagged scar running from my eyebrow to jaw. Yet another souvenir from Gage. His generosity with scars knew no bounds.
Only sixteen of us survived Gage’s attack. And not one of us was unscathed. Most of the wounds were gruesome at best. Not even the newly returned Doc could have fixed them with his best serum, which he was eagerly working with his brother Thadd. The two were inseparable since their reunion.
Otto lost his left eye, leaving him to sport a wrap of sorts that concealed most of his face. Grenald said it made him look more ruggedly handsome, but both men laughed a little too hard for it to be true. Even after some healing, Triven was missing the majority of his right ear. It gave him a strange unbalanced look, but changed nothing about the way I saw him. Even battered, he was still the boy who read to me in the darkness. Though he said it wasn’t bad, I could hear him whimpering in his sleep if he rolled to that side. His hands would search in his dreams, pulling at the damaged flesh, only calming when I took his fingers in mine.
Dearest Mouse had taken to picking her nails until they bled. At nights, she was sleeping underneath our bed again. And though she never went far from me, Mouse also hardly said a word. At first I thought maybe the blasts had damaged the device Thadd had given her for a new voice, but then she stopped signing too. On the surface, it seemed she had reverted into a frighten silent child. But I knew her. I read more in her round eyes than anyone else. There was something darker in her now. Angrier. Her brother had taken so many things from her already, and now her best friend. Mouse knew what war was, had seen many terrible things in her young life. But watching your best friend die, seeing the gruesome destruction of war—no one is ever ready for that. At any age.
Worst was Ryker. Fiona had leapt to shield him, sacrificing her life for his. But Gage’s bombs had still managed to take Ryker’s right leg from just above the knee. It was clear in the following days that it took so much more. The bombs in the food district had blown wide open the underlying fissures I had seen in Ryker.
I had once told him I was no longer the girl he remembered, that she had died long ago. It seemed now, he would understand what that meant. The few times I could meet his eyes since the bombing, gone was the boy I had known. Gone was our once playful banter. He had become darker, introverted. The once confident and arrogant leader did little else in meetings than fume in the back of the room staring at his missing limb. And that was if we cou
ld get him to come at all.
We had moved from two safe houses since our arrival. Each time Ryker had to be carried or hauled, unable to walk on his own. He was both infuriated and humiliated by the process. After each move, his outbursts became more frequent, more violent. He would scream at anyone trying to help him and throw whatever was in reach. I tried to be encouraging at first, then screamed back at him, but nothing seemed to work. We needed him. With Fiona gone, he was the rebel’s most skilled leader now. But he didn’t seem to care. He only flipped between catatonic and livid. Occasionally, tears would mix with his yells.
I toed the ground uncomfortably just thinking about it.
Grown men crying did strange things to me. My chest would ache. My eyes burned and I was always quick to turn away.
For the first time, I truly appreciated what Triven had gone through when I came back broken. He had pulled me through. Saved me. But Triven had been my rock before the damage was done. We were connected. He was my person.
Ryker didn’t have that, and I couldn’t be that person for him. I wasn’t that person. Fiona might have been at one time, but she was dead.
It was Ryker’s door I stared at as I slumped against the hallway. I had given up on him, or I wanted to. But here I sat. Again. Too cowardly to go inside. Too guilty to leave. I jumped as a crash emitted from inside the room, followed by slew of screamed curses. Ryker was awake. Mae was in there with him, trying to get him to eat. From the sounds, it wasn’t going well. I rested my head on my knees and stared at the floor.
Everything seemed to be falling apart.
The attack took something more than just our loved ones. It was the first domino in a series and the chain of events triggered was inevitable. The bombs had intended to kill us, but they had also wreaked irreparable damage even Gage had probably not foreseen.
The explosives took out half of our people—yes, but they had also taken out most of the Sanctuary’s food district. The inhabitants that made it to the bunkers would have enough food to last them a while, but all the citizens left topside would be running out in a week. If the rebellion persisted much longer, Tartarus wouldn’t be the only city starving. The moment we got back, Mae had begun running the numbers, portioning the food, underfeeding us. With Tartarus’ numbers added to the mix, she estimated we had maybe six weeks of supplies left—that was three weeks ago.
New World Inferno: Book Three in a Young Adult Dystopian Series Page 27