by Kyla Stone
Micah glanced back and forth between them. This was a power play, one his brother was losing. There was a tension battling just beneath the surface that he didn’t completely understand.
“Yes,” Gabriel said heavily.
Cleo’s smile was triumphant.
A seed of doubt sprouted in his gut. Would Gabriel really sacrifice himself? Or did he have another agenda in mind? Why would he willingly choose to stay behind with the New Patriots? They’d managed to find their way past the distrust, the lies, and the betrayals, but suddenly Micah wasn’t so sure.
No. He trusted his brother. He wouldn’t doubt him now. It was Cleo who deserved his suspicion.
“And how are we supposed to trust you?” Micah asked before he could stop himself. “We watched you torture our own people. You burned Willow.”
“It wasn’t personal. It was a job.” She paused, a wicked smile curving her lips.“Though there’s a lot to be said for enjoying your work.”
“You take pleasure in hurting people?”
Her smile froze on her face. “Sometimes a sheep has to wear the wolf’s clothing.”
Gabriel shot him a warning glance. Be careful, his look said.
“How long have you been here?” Micah asked to change the subject to less hostile territory.
Cleo pulled a cigar and a lighter out of her pants’ pocket and lit the cigar. “General Reaver made Fort Cohutta her chapter headquarters six years ago, two years after the state abandoned the place due to resource shortages—aka nationwide drought and famine—and budget cuts. It’s served as an emergency base ever since. Every chapter captain knew of its existence, though only a hundred or so lived here permanently before the world ended.
“Those of us who could brought our own families. We’ve also attempted to rescue people rejected by the Sanctuary where it was feasible. Many were members of the gangs the Pyros wiped out in Atlanta. We took them in over a month ago. The Earth Liberation Army, Right Hand of God, Latin Brotherhood, the Cobras.”
“Thugs and killers?” Micah’s gut tightened. He recalled his conversation with Jericho before he died. He who fights with monsters…
“Survivors.” Cleo’s eyes flashed. “They’re people willing to do what needs to be done.”
The look in her eyes chilled Micah to the bone. He longed to flee with every ounce of his being. There was danger here. It was dangerous for Gabriel, for all of them. But if they left, they were risking Elise’s life. They were risking their own.
Where would they go? It was winter. They were in the middle of the wilderness. Outside of this place, there was no power, no heat. And they’d made deadly enemies of both the Headhunters and the Pyros.
Their options were limited. And without Jericho, they were leaderless.
Later that night, he found Amelia outside their barracks. He’d been wanting to talk to her since they’d arrived. She understood him in a way no one else did, not even Gabriel.
The cold air was sharp in his lungs. The stars were glittering shards of ice sprinkled across the black bowl of the sky. The world was hushed with an almost reverent silence.
“Maybe we should leave,” he said, speaking the misgivings he was hesitant to share with his brother. “I don’t have a good feeling about this, about these people.”
“We need them,” she whispered back, her expression determined in the pale moonlight. “How can we take on the Headhunters by ourselves? Especially without Jericho. We don’t know where they meet with the Sanctuary. We don’t know what road they’ll come in on. We don’t know the territory or the possible traps. We need help.”
Micah’s stomach twisted uneasily. “We’ll figure something out. We always have.”
She rubbed her charm bracelet, which she wore outside her sweater now, but still bound to the leather cord he’d given her all those weeks ago. It suited her. She met his gaze, the set of her jaw firm and uncompromising. “Maybe not. But if the Sanctuary is what they say it is, then we need their help to get inside, too. We can’t be stupid, Micah. We’ve lost too many people already.”
Micah sighed in frustration. He hated it, but she was right.
“I know this isn’t easy,” She said gently. “You’re always talking about being good, about choosing a better way.”
“I killed Sykes,” he blurted suddenly.
She cocked her head, studying him. “He would have killed you if you hadn’t.”
He tried to articulate the ugly tangle of emotions inside him. “I feel guilty because I killed him, even though I know I needed to. And I feel even more guilty because I didn’t kill him fast enough. If I hadn’t hesitated, Horne would be alive.”
She clucked her tongue. “You feel that way because you’re a good person. That’s the burden of a leader.”
“I don’t feel like a leader,” he said quietly. He felt weak, afraid, and full of doubts. “What if I’m wrong? What if I make a mistake? We trusted Horne. We almost died for it. Jericho did die for it.”
“You offered mercy to Gabriel and Silas when neither of them deserved it. And they turned around and saved our lives. Horne made his own choice to betray us.” Her expression softened. “Don’t let people like him change who you are, Micah. You taught me that.”
“You’re right.” He smiled at her, but it was stiff. Tension still twisted like a screw inside him.
“You’re worried this is the Grand Voyager all over again.”
For a moment, he didn’t answer. Then, he nodded.
“It won’t be.” She reached out and squeezed his arm. Her touch was gentle and light, like the brush of a butterfly wing. She was so close, her eyes so bright. “Because this time, we aren’t victims.”
She looked like a warrior queen from some distant time and place, with her white-blonde hair a shimmering corona around her face, her delicate features carved in ivory, her eyes blazing with a fierce conviction. Moonlight spilled all around them, like diamonds reflecting off the snow.
“This time,” she said, “we decide our fate.”
She squeezed his arm, sending him both strength and comfort, reminding him who he was. He felt her touch like sparks shooting through his veins. He licked his lips, heat flushing his face. A tiny thing was loosed inside him, set free, like his heart had sprouted feathers and winged away.
He could have kissed her.
But he didn’t. She wasn’t his, and never would be. But he loved her all the same.
36
Amelia
Christmas Eve dawned cold and gray.
Amelia and the others found a plot of unfrozen Georgia clay in a small clearing beneath a hundred-year-old oak tree, so tall its branches seemed to rake the sky. Half a mile beyond the compound, the dense and wild forest pressed in all around them.
Gabriel dug the grave. The ground was tough and hard, but he managed. The snow on the ground had mostly melted. The sky was a muffled gray, thick with charcoal clouds. Flurries of heavy, wet snowflakes dusted their heads and shoulders.
Micah found some scrap wood and cobbled together a small wooden cross.
Micah said a prayer for Jericho’s soul and recited Dylan Thomas’s famous poem from memory. “Do not go gentle into that good night,” he finished quietly, “but rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Though they had no body and no coffin, they each wrote notes—memories, regrets, hopes—on old-fashioned scraps of paper and tossed them into the earth.
Silas stood stiffly beside her, his hands balled into fists at his sides, his face a rigid mask. Only his eyes betrayed a lost and wretched anguish. But he was here. He didn’t run. He didn’t scowl or sneer or scream or hit anything. He stayed present and a part of their grief.
She reached out and grabbed his hand. She pressed all her tenderness, love, and comfort through her fingers, offering solace in the only way he would take it. He tensed, but he did not pull away.
They stood around the grave in silence. All of them that were left, all of them that had been through hell together and come out
the other side. They were family now. She, Silas, Micah, Benjie, Willow, Finn, Celeste. Gabriel.
After it was over, Amelia and Willow drifted back toward the compound, walking side by side along a snow-trampled path. Out beyond the fence, the ground was steep, the woods wild and untamed. They stepped over gnarled roots hidden beneath the snow as they trudged past brittle tangles of underbrush.
“We’ve lost too many people,” Willow said quietly.
“I know,” Amelia said.
“We can’t lose any more.”
Her stomach twisted. “We won’t.”
They walked in silence for awhile. The air here was clean and crisp, nothing like the fetid, smoke-choked air of Atlanta. The falling snow formed little drifts and ridges beneath the trees, covering the battle-scarred earth in a blanket of white.
Everything looked brand new. Like the world could start over if it really wanted to. Like they all could. She turned to Willow. “I wanted to thank you, for what you did.”
Willow looked at her sharply. “For what?”
“Back in the mall, with the fire and the rats. When I—when I had the seizure. You could have kept going. You had every right to. But you didn’t.”
Willow kicked at a rock in the path. “Micah did all the heavy lifting. He’s the one who carried you, who wouldn’t leave your side. You should have seen him.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way he held you, the look on his face, like he was watching you die right there, like it was the worst thing that ever happened to him.”
Amelia’s blush deepened. “What are you saying?”
Willow stopped and turned to look up at her. She fisted her hands on her hips. “He loves you.”
She shook her head. “He feels pity for me. Because of my illness.”
“No. I may not be all that experienced in the boyfriend department, but I sure as hell know love when I see it.”
Amelia’s hand strayed to the charm bracelet beneath her shirt. She tugged it out, but instead of rubbing the charms, she ran her fingers along the leather thong, remembering how Micah had given it to her, his expression so boyishly eager.
It was Micah who sat beside her hour after hour as the Hydra virus burned through her. Micah—who refused to leave her side, holding her hand through the awful seizure, never judging or shaming her for her weakness. Micah—who never pushed for more than she wanted to give. Who looked at her like a person; not a prize to be won, an asset to be manipulated, or a challenge to be conquered.
Was it true? Didn’t some part of her already know it? “Love is a big word.”
Willow shrugged. “Call it what you want. I just thought you should know. He’s a good guy. He deserves to be happy. I don’t know if he’ll ever tell you himself.”
“Because of Gabriel.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Gah, you people make everything so difficult. I do not want to know about this weird love-triangle thing you’ve got going on.”
“There’s no love tri—” Amelia sputtered.
“Hey, I’m not judging. All’s fair in love and the apocalypse.”
“No, seriously. I just feel—”
“Please don’t talk to me about your feelings. Finn says I’m not emotionally mature enough to handle it.”
She needed a clever comeback to divert attention from her flushing cheeks. “What about you and Finn, then?”
Willow made a choking noise deep in her throat.
“Are you alright?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Yeah, of course. I just—we’re not anything. I mean, we’re friends.”
“If you’re sure,” she teased gently.
Willow jerked her chin, her hair falling like a curtain over her face. Hiding her own face. “Of course, I’m sure. I just said that, didn’t I?”
They reached the fence line and walked alongside it toward the back gate, which was closest to the rec yard. On their right, the forest hugged the jagged hillside. Icicles dripped from the branches in frozen, glittering streaks. She blinked thick snowflakes out of her eyes.
As they got closer to the rec yard, the happy sounds of laughter and children playing filled the air, along with a delicious aroma that made her stomach cramp with hunger. The cook staff was busy roasting venison for Christmas dinner tonight.
Willow fingered the turquoise scarf wrapped around her neck. She turned to Amelia and cleared her throat. “Benjie really likes you, you know. You took care of him and kept him from feeling scared and alone during that whole quarantine thing…” She hesitated, as if struggling to find the right words. “I can’t mess up. I have to do right by him.”
“You will. And you are.”
“Lo Lo!” Benjie called to Willow from across the fence. “Wanna play soccer? Mister Finn says we’re gonna beat you so badly you won’t know which way is down!”
Willow’s lips twitched. The shadows cleared from her face. “I’d do anything for him.”
Amelia thought of Silas. The damaged boy with the gaping wound beneath his hard, bristling shell. The brother she hadn’t loved well enough. But she could change that now. She had another chance. As long as they were alive and breathing, they could change. “I know.”
Willow watched her brother frolicking in the snow, laughing and shouting as he and Finn kicked around a half-deflated soccer ball. “We can’t just fight against the bad. We have to fight for the good.”
“That’s profound, Willow.”
Willow blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Yeah, well, don’t expect more where that came from.”
“Lo Lo!” Benjie shrieked, giggling as Finn stuffed a handful of snow down the back of his coat with his good arm.
“He’s not supposed to be moving!” Willow muttered. “I’m gonna kill him.” She glanced at Amelia, her jaw working. She licked her lips, pausing like she was trying to figure out the best—and fastest—way to get out what she needed to say. “You know we’re here, all of us. Whatever we need to do. We’re together in this.”
Amelia nodded, a lump in her throat. That meant a lot coming from Willow. Before she could respond, Willow turned and dashed back through the gate to join her family.
Amelia blew an icy breath into her cupped hands. Her gaze shifted to the edge of the yard, where Gabriel and Micah sat side by side on one of the picnic tables. They had reconciled.
She was happy for them, but it also made her feel more alone. They could figure it out. Why couldn’t she?
Micah hunched over an old paperback book, that wayward lock of hair falling across his forehead, his handsome, boyish features knit in concentration. Gabriel was polishing one of his guns, his every movement sure and steady and strong. Memories flashed through her mind—the passion and fire in his kiss, the fierce intensity in his gaze, undoing her piece by piece.
Her stomach gave a small flip, the hairs on her arms rising. Her skin tingled where his fingers had brushed her arm last night after dinner. A spark like an electrical current passed between them. His eyes had bored into hers, deep and searching. She’d strode away, unsure of her own treacherous feelings.
Now she found herself focusing on his face: his smooth bronze skin, the scruff of his goatee darkening his jaw, his full, sensuous lips. A memory of his mouth, hard and searching, and her own wanting in return, flushed through her. Her cheeks reddened in embarrassment, even standing out here behind the fence, alone.
It was disconcerting and infuriating how her body could still respond to him even after everything, the lies and the heartbreak and the anger. Like her heart was betraying her all over again. It was unfair.
Would she feel this way forever? She used to be able to control her emotions, to tamp down every dangerous, unruly feeling and bury it deep. But things were different now. She had changed.
Before the Grand Voyager, she lived in a gilded cage, numb and half-alive. Now she was fully alive. Now she felt everything. And it hurt like hell.
Micah glanced up suddenly, adjusting his glasses and smilin
g at her, so much warmth in his brown eyes. He was everything safe and good and kind.
Gabriel felt like falling—intense, exhilarating, terrifying.
Micah felt like home.
But she couldn’t think about all that now. Not yet. They weren’t safe. Far from it. The Sanctuary waited. What would they find? Allies or enemies? Salvation or betrayal?
Tomorrow, they embarked on a dangerous mission to get her mother back. She still couldn’t remember her mother’s face. But it would all come back once they saved her. Amelia had to believe that. She clung to that hope, that she could still salvage some of what was lost.
It was all right there, just beyond her grasp. A new beginning. A new world. They just had to find it.
The End
I hope you enjoyed
Burning Skies: The Last Sanctuary Book Three!
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Also by Kyla Stone
Beneath the Skin
Before You Break
Real Solutions for Adult Acne
Rising Storm
Falling Stars
Burning Skies
Breaking World