True Born

by L. E. Sterling

  My stomach sinks with recognition. Her.

  I glance over my shoulder at our bedroom windows, Margot’s and mine. And yes, there is my sister, framed in the window. Her lovely hair curls around her face in wisps as she puts her hands on the glass. As though we can reach each other through the glass and a two-story drop.

  No. No. No. No nonono. “Margot,” I whisper, whipping my head around. “Jared?” is all the warning I get to mutter before all hell breaks loose.

  The wind howls through the streets like a hungry animal even as a weird chanting fills in the air behind them. The Lasters move forward like a well-trained army. The gates buckle as they press into the thin metal bars.

  Behind a raft of people a figure pulls up to the gates on something like a makeshift stage. It’s an awkward wooden thing—salvaged wood from the look of it—on two large wheels, like a wheelbarrow. As the awkward contraption sidles forward I see Father Wes astride the cart like the demented preacher man he is. With one hand he holds on to a post driven up the center of the cart, and with the other, he shouts into a megaphone. “Salvation is at hand,” he hisses, “salvation is ours for the taking.”

  Jared and the blond woman step around a shiny black car. “Get back, Lucy. Get the hell out of here,” he growls.

  I ignore him. “You’re the witch.”

  Shaking her head, the woman regards me sadly with her sightless eyes. “No.”

  “But you have to be.” I reckon I’m whining because she looks at me piteously.

  “I think you mean my mother. She’s missing…has been for years now.”

  “But your eyes.” I trail off. I know I’m being rude, but I can’t seem to help myself, and we’re running out of time. Hands reach through the bars of the gate and are battered down by the butt of a gun. Blood arches in a delicate spray across the pavement. Some of it lands on the woman’s hair and face. She doesn’t blink, her unseeing eyes trained on me like she’s seeing under my skin. She traces a finger around my body in the air, following the tracks of my veins.

  “Get back, Serena!” Jared yells as he tries to pull the mysterious woman back.

  But she ignores him, too. “Your blood,” she says, clearly fascinated by something. “I’ve never seen it before… Like his, only different.” Already pale, her eyes turn the dead white of winter.

  “His?” I say, but I don’t need to ask. I know who. Nolan Storm. “It’s my blood, isn’t it? And my sister’s.”

  “Yes”—she nods quickly, and the words are a whisper as she points at me—“special blood.”

  In a flash of recognition, I blurt out, “You’re a Salvager, aren’t you? I thought those were just stories.”

  Salvagers. The kids at school snicker over the comic book versions of them, the Allan Quartermains of our new world order. Salvagers aren’t respectable types of True Borns. No fins or tails or gills. A Salvager has only one gift: the ability to sniff out True Borns like a tracker dog. Lowest of the low.

  “This storm isn’t normal,” she breaks the train of my thoughts. “It’s been hatched. We need to find shelter before it does.” I blink in confusion. Clouds, thick as blankets, roil around in shades of dark bilious green and black. Lightning cracks through, singeing the tip of a distant building as the clouds begin to knit themselves into a funnel the length of several city blocks. “It’s coming,” she warns again.

  A ferocious crack sounds as the wind picks up into a gale. Dust and debris whip us in the face, blinding us. The Lasters don’t seem to mind as they press the gate, dirty, desperate faces reaching for us as though their lives depend on it.

  I need to know for sure. I’ve got to hear what these men and women and children would die for.

  I need to know what we are.

  I grab the woman’s forearm. “What’s our blood for? What kind of True Born are we?”

  Her head tilts back as she gazes at me, sad and troubled. Her thin hand comes over my hand but she doesn’t move. “What binds the people?”

  What desire binds together the people of Dominion? Not money. Not love. Nor family or power. Not anymore. Not since the Plague came riding through town and ate through everything, everyone. No—the one thing people want is something they have no control over. Their bodies. Their lives. The ticking time bombs built into their genetic design.

  Life and death.

  “The Plague,” I breathe.

  I used to dream of someone who’d swoop in like the heroes of the OldenTime books and halt the Plague in its ravenous feeding frenzy. Never in a million years could I imagine that an answer lay hidden in our blood, the blueprint stamped in our nearly identical genes. I think back to what happened to Margot at the Clinic. Those men who lured Margot, trapped Margot. Stole from her.

  And if they knew, how many others?

  The woman says nothing more, but glides her unseeing eyes over the crowd. “Wrong people are behind that door.” She nods toward the house.

  Wrong people?

  I don’t have a chance to ask. Guards I don’t recognize stand sentinel on the upper balcony of the house. They point their guns at the crowd at the gate, and the air fills with the sound of gunshot, screaming, instant death.

  I scream, too, and cover my ears. “What are you doing?”

  Someone tugs at my arms and all but drags me toward the house. My eyes are shut tight against the horror so it takes me a moment to realize that it’s Jared.

  He grabs my face between his hands. “Lucy.” He’s not yelling so I know it’s serious. “Get into the house. Grab your stuff, and we’ll get out of here, just like Storm said.”

  I shake my head and try to pull away. “I can’t just leave, Jared. I can’t leave Margot. My family.” My hands twist against Jared’s chest.

  Jared’s eyes narrow. He swallows hard and blinks at the sky. A long, ragged sigh drags from his lungs. I am nothing if not a pain in the ass for Jared True Born Price.

  But when he finally sweeps his eyes over me again his face is a mask of anguish. Splotches of red run up the skin of his neck, the bones of his nose pinched, as though he’s about to change. “You can’t stay here, Lucy.” The words are low, soft. “You can’t stay here with them.”

  My heart rips. I know what it means if I let them take us: the end of our world as we know it. And a very uncertain life of duty. But this is what we were born to. This life of privilege and wealth—it was always just on loan to us. This was the price we were always meant to pay for being Lukas and Antonia Fox’s daughters.

  I curl my fingers around Jared’s hands, which still gently cup my cheeks. “Jared,” my voice cracks as I plead for him to understand. Out of everyone, I need him to understand. “Jared, they’re our parents. I don’t know what he has on them but I can help.” I may not have had a messy childhood, or a silly one, or even a particularly fun one, but I was safe, I had always been safe. In their own way, my parents did all they could to protect me. I can’t now turn my back on helping them, can I? I may be angry, but in the end, there is only family.

  “Listen to yourself.” Jared’s words become urgent as he brings my face in close to his, inhaling me. “Lu, they want to take you and Margot away, and you’ll never come back. Never have a life of your own.” Resting his forehead against mine, Jared breathes me in. His lips are so close to mine. So close. “You deserve a life of your own,” he murmurs. And then, so silently it is almost lost in the storm, he adds, “With me.”

  Closing my eyes, I tremble against his hands. It hurts to want something so badly yet know I can’t allow myself to have it. Reminding myself of everyone that I’m protecting, I pull myself from his arms. “I—I have to go now.”

  Jared curses, loudly and with color. I open my eyes just in time to see Richardson stride out from the wide double doors of our home. With a snarl, Richardson bounds down the front stairs and kicks Jared in the face, sending Jared sprawling back. I fall to my knees as someone grabs my arms from behind. I can’t see my attacker but I can tell they are strong. The wind howl
s and pulls at my dress and hair as my arms are stretched back. I’m forced to my feet and dragged up the front stairs backward.

  From this position I can see the carnage at the gate. Horror twists through my guts, leaving me sick and empty. Lasters are mowed down by gunmen. More take their place, the dead and injured bodies pulled back behind the crowd. How will our father paper over this? I’m shoved roughly once again and almost tumble off the steps. I stumble down two or three, hands splayed out to catch me, and turn back to see Storm grappling with one of the unknown merc guards at the door. It’s not a fair contest. The guard swings the butt of his semi at Storm, who ducks and punches, just one blow, to the gut. The guard heaves, reaching for the ground with one hand. With his other, he reaches for the trigger of his weapon. Storm gets there first. A vicious kick to the hand and the gun flies over the guard’s shoulder, his body crumpling around broken, flayed fingers.

  Storm snarls and the earth trembles. His antlers burn bright blue-white, eyes misty pools. He paws the ground with one foot, tossing his antlers angrily. The howling wind breaks into lightning. It flashes down, connecting with the branches of Storm’s antlers. His eyes blaze as he stomps and holds the storm within him.

  This is what a True Born god looks like, I muse. Distracted, I’m caught up and swung over a thick shoulder. I kick and scream until a pushed-past-annoyance Jared grunts and yells, “Cut it out, Princess. I’m not above spanking you.”

  “Jared, no,” I shout at his back as he marches me toward the guard’s entrance. “Put me down. I need to get to Margot.”

  “Too risky,” he yells.

  “Jared, please. I will never forgive you!”

  He pauses, and for a moment I think he might put me down. But he bounces me a little higher on his shoulder, grabbing my legs tightly, and starts moving quickly toward the gate. “I can live with that risk,” he yells up at me through the chaos. I am about to unleash holy hell when something arcs across the sky, doing it for me.

  I don’t see the bomb lobbed over the gate at the house, but I hear it. It makes a deafening sound as it impacts, a shrill scream just before the air bursts into violet pink hues. Jared and I are knocked down. My wrist crumples beneath me as we hit the ground.

  He scrambles on top of me, stretching himself flat around my body and curling my head under his arms and torso. I am surrounded by him, but I don’t feel him. For once, I am not aware of Jared Price. I can’t see, can’t breathe. I’m not even sure I’d want to as the air transforms into a pink and white dragon.

  It doesn’t smell like any fire I’ve ever been close to. I struggle beneath Jared, who curses but eventually lets me poke my head up. A streak of dirt mars his beautiful face. A deep cut next to his eye bleeds freely. I reach up as if to touch it, but he grabs my hand and tries to stand us both up.

  “No,” I scream, looking at the house. There is a hole in the front of the house. It slashes across the second floor. From here I can see the mess of matchsticks my bed has been made into, debris littering the room. Where is my sister? Someone from outside the gate is shouting about retreat, something about screwing up. It doesn’t sink in until I see the guests streaming out from the double doors leading out from the ballroom on the other side of the house. Women with shocked faces, grim men in their evening wear.

  Jared pulls me back up in his firemen’s pose before I can protest but quickly comes to a dead stop. From under Jared’s arm, I spy an upside-down Richardson. His hair is mussed, his face battered and swollen and filled with murder.

  “Put her down,” Richardson snarls. Feathery hands grab me from the side and haul me off Jared’s shoulder none too gently.

  Jared’s face elongates, the bones in his cheeks becoming more pronounced. His eyes transform, indigo to emerald, his nails lengthen, as he turns into the stuff of nightmares. His hair-singeing battle cry rises up over the sound of the wind before he pounces. They tussle across the grass of the front lawn, rolling end over end until Jared is on top and beating the ever-loving tar out of Richardson. Talons break through the skin of my upper arm. I stare into the inhumanly round, yellow eyes of the falcon man and realize I’ve had enough. I bow my head, going slack, until he’s forced to relax his grip. Then I knee him in the groin, hard enough to make him double over. He doesn’t let go but his grip isn’t as strong as it was. I slap my palm as hard as I can with the awkward angle against the bridge of his nose. A sickening crunch sounds and the wide eyes blink closed, giving me an opportunity to break free and run for shelter.

  Lasters rattle the gate until it sways like a sapling. I run for the row of shiny OldenTimes cars lining the driveway, out of sight from the guards at the house—who are busy with the chaos set off from whatever the Lasters threw at our house—and hopefully out of sight of the falcon man, the Lasters, and the Preacher man.

  A blur of dark feathers blends in among the panicking guests. Not sure I’m safe, I crouch behind a car and search for signs of Jared and Richardson. A body flies through the air, and Jared pounces after it like a cat chasing a chew toy. I stand up to get a better look, but the car I’m leaning on suddenly ignites, burning me with its exhaust pipe. The car backs up as I glide out from behind, just in time to hear the smack! as it slams into the car behind, then floors it into a U-turn toward the still-locked gate.

  Tires squeal. More cars pull out from the parked line. The first car speeds up as it hits the gate, crunching against steel and bodies. Screaming. So much screaming. The car is dented as it backs up about fifty feet and rams the gate again, this time shattering the locking mechanism and leaving a trail of bodies on either side as it forces the gate open, inch by squealing inch.

  The Preacher’s rabble pour through the gate, shouting bloody blue murder. I stand there, a deer in the headlights, unsure where to turn. Behind me, the house is ruined. The smoke has died to a curl. But where is Margot? And then I feel it, that tenuous bond, bright and thin between us, growing thicker.

  Margot appears at the front door, her upper arm held by Resnikov. Falcon man stands behind them, feathers ruffled and a thick trail of blood coating the down around his face. And a second later, my parents appear, harried and mussed but safe. I want to sag in relief.

  My attention fastens on Margot. She’s pale. A tiny streak of blood smears her temple and there are tiny red spatters on her dress, but otherwise she seems fine. I would have felt it if she wasn’t. She scans the chaos with a blank expression of horror. Margot, I tug at her, but of course she can’t hear me. I start toward her when I’m knocked off my feet again.

  A dirty hand covers my mouth. I gaze into the crazed eyes of a skin-and-bones man. His shirt is torn and bloody, his dark pants a soiled mess. He shouts at me, his shaggy hair falling into a blotchy red face, but I can’t understand what he’s saying. A hand snakes out. I don’t realize what’s happening until the punch lands in my face and the world shuts off like a light.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It’s the Flux storm that rouses me. Water falls in trickles down my neck. Pain overwhelms me as I open my eyes at the ground swaying beneath me. The Laster has me hooked around his neck where I dangle like a carcass.

  I hear a boom, so loud it’s as though the heavens have opened. Another. Then another. The Laster holding me pauses, shouts something unintelligible to his comrades. He turns just long enough toward the gate that I catch a glimpse of the house. Margot and my parents are still on the steps, held there by a few dozen Lasters and the chaos all around them. It’s not too late, then. And suddenly the earth stops.

  Storm pounds down the steps of the house. Lightning dances across his antlers like he’s connected to the heavens by strings. On his face is a look of pure rage, which he proves as he grabs an unsuspecting Laster stupid enough to rush him. A neat twist of his hands and he breaks the man’s neck. The Laster falls to the side. Storm walks on like he’s riding the rain. Bombs of rain now fall, soaking the grass, the cars, bodies awash with blood and dirt running into the ground.

  Stor
m turns. I catch my breath as he takes in the scene of chaos and charges the Lasters. The smart ones stop in their tracks and back up as the rain begins to fall harder, obscuring the green-gray sky.

  Another jolt and I’m on the ground again, covered in mud. I roll a few feet away and watch as Jared bites the cheek off the Laster who was holding me seconds before. The panicked man tries to dig his fingers into Jared’s face. I hear a terrible crunch as Jared bites first one, then the other hand. Bones crack and break as Jared shakes and tosses his head, splitting the man’s skin. Casually he spits pieces of bone into the grass. His chin drips blood on the screaming man as I try to right myself. I don’t want the man to die, even if he has hit me. Crawling over to Jared I put my hand on his arm. Feral eyes, filled with bloodlust, greet mine. I’ve miscalculated. He takes in my swelling cheek and eye and those eyes tighten a little more. He looks down coldly at the captive trapped between his thighs. He straightens his fingers so they are stiff knives before he drives them through the Laster’s temples. A final death cry sounds from the head, which explodes like a ripe melon. Jared rubs his hands clean on the Laster’s filthy shirt and stands up. I look away, not sure how to be gracious with this violent love poem.

  I glance over at the door. Margot and Resnikov look like a bizarre parody of the newly married, surrounded by the uninvited. I have just seconds to get to them if I’m to go. They’ll not wait for me in this chaos.

  “You have a bad habit of attracting the wrong men, Princess.” Jared stares at me a long minute in the rain before putting out a hand, as though we’re about to waltz around the ballroom. A strange, charged silence stretches between us. “I’ll help you,” he tells me. His eyelashes flutter. But he makes no further move to touch me. “I’ll help you, I swear. I can help you get her back. But for God’s sake, do it from a safe distance. Do it smart. Do it with me.”