I locate the river and follow it. Approaching the house, I head right for it. A wailing sound erupts in the cabin. It feels as if it stabs me. I try to turn it off, but it continues its incessant noise. Someone’s voice breaks through a speaker in the cockpit of the vehicle. “White Sestin four five two four two, abort from your current course or you will be shot down.”
I press the blinking button on the control panel. “This is Kricket! Can you hear me?”
“Kricket Ensin?” the voice asks.
“Yes! It’s me! I need your help! Please! I need to land and I don’t know how!”
“Do you want us to bring you in on auto?” the voice asks.
“You can do that?” I ask.
“Affirmative. I just have to lock on to you. Would you like me to do that?”
“Yes! Do that! Please do that!”
“I am locked on. Where would you like to touch down?” he asks.
“Close to the house. I need medical assistance. I need Fulton!”
“He will be notified. I will bring you in near Victory.”
“Thank you,” I reply. I want to fall apart now as I let go of the controls and the ship flies on its own.
Landing in an interior courtyard. I scramble out of my seat. The hatch opens when I press a button by the frame. Exiting, I find Fulton waiting for me. I run to him and fall into his arms. I hug him as if he was a beloved parent. Hot tears burn my eyes. “Kyon needs your help,” I cry against his chest.
“You brought Kyon back with you?” he asks incredulously.
I nod. Pulling away, I look up into his eyes. “Excelsior hurt him. I don’t know how badly. Will you fix him?” I know I sound childish. I can’t help it though. I grip his wrist, ready to wring his agreement out of him.
“I will help him,” Fulton assures me. He gently removes my hand and directs men to unload Kyon from the back of the trift.
They take him to a surgery that has all of the trappings of a real medical facility. Men that I’ve never met before puzzle over his injuries. Some of the wounds are healing faster than they can account for. He has suffered an intense amount of damage to some of his organs—all but his heart. It was untouched. When they finish cauterizing his wounds, they bandage him and give him sedatives. He won’t be able to wake up for a while.
I order everyone out except for Fulton. “Do you have scissors?” I ask him.
He produces them from his pocket. He’s way ahead of me. Going to the bed, he cuts Kyon’s hair again. A rush of blood flushes his cheeks. “You have to take him back to the island, Fulton.”
“We can leave within the hour. I will have everything arranged.”
“I can’t go with you,” I reply.
“What do you mean? I believe the city will be unsafe for you for the near future.”
I’m confused about what to say—what to tell him. “I’m going to be hunted, Fulton. If I go to the island with you, they’ll kill both Kyon and me. His only chance is if we split up. They’ll follow me. That will give him time to recover.”
“Who are they?”
“There are other males like Kyon who survived Excelsior. They’ll be fighting for their own supremacy soon. I will be seen as in the way of that. I will have to run.”
“We can protect you on the island—”
“Think about it, Fulton! A bunch of angry men with abilities just like Kyon’s will have an ax to grind with me. I have a sister. They follow her. I threaten her reign. It’s a fight I can’t win.”
“What will you do?” he asks.
“I plan to travel,” I say evasively.
“He’s going to be impossible to live with when he wakes and finds you gone.”
“Just as long as he wakes up,” I say.
“You love him.”
“Don’t be silly, Fulton. He’s a ruthless killer.”
“He’s your ruthless killer.”
“I’m giving him back,” I reply.
“He’ll never let you.”
“I gave him what he wanted most. Maybe he can be happy with that.”
“Which was?” he asks.
“Revenge.”
“I don’t think that was what he wanted most.” He stands. “I will take him to the island within the part. I make no promises for what he’ll do when he recovers.”
“The Tempest will be too busy for a while hunting me and establishing their government to care too much about him. But be careful. They’re dangerous.”
“You’re speaking about Kyon Ensin. I fear for these other men and for your sister.”
“Don’t. They’re really not worth your time.”
“You are, though,” he replies. “You’re worth it.”
I have to bite my bottom lip to keep it from trembling. “I have to go too, before they find me.” I stand and give him a very brief hug before I turn and run from the room.
I don’t stop running until I make it to Phlix’s room. Pounding on the door until she answers it, I fall into her arms when she opens them to me. “I thought you were dead,” she says as she rests her cheek against my head.
“Me too,” I whisper.
“I watched it all—everything. Your crowns worked!”
I ignore her and say, “We have to go now.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. Her trepidation is clearly etched on her face. “I think that all the Brothers are dead. We don’t have to run—”
“We’re in more danger now than we ever were.”
“Danger? From who?”
“I have another sister. Her name is Astrid. She wants to be empress. She has males who she saved who are our genetically enhanced brothers—they have our abilities—and they want revenge. I will explain everything later, but we have to leave right now before they arrive.”
“I am ready. Shall I get the gear?”
“Yes,” I reply.
She goes to her closet and I shed the black lab coat. I don’t feel like I have time to change. I will have to do it when we get to the trift I plan to use to take us to the basin near the Forest of Omnicron. If all goes well, we won’t need any of this gear, but I can’t rely on it. So many things can go wrong.
Phlix hands me one of the two backpacks and a flipcart. The backpacks have special straps on the outside of them that hold the flipcarts secure. When the backpacks are on, we look like snowboarders heading to the mountains.
Leaving her room, we enter the overup and take it down to the garden level. Exiting the lift, we walk toward Kyon’s study. I slow when I near the fire snapping in the grate. Someone is seated in the green chair, sipping on a fat tumbler of amber liquid. I drop my backpack, because it will slow me down when I run.
“Greetings, Kricket. Your father was proud of you. You killed Excelsior just as he always knew you would.”
“Yeah? Well, tell him I said he’s welcome. And tell him good-bye for me.”
“Good-bye? You think you’re leaving us?” he asks, setting down his drink. His golden dreadlocks shine brightly in the glow of the fire. “But I’m here to take you to see him. I just have to kill your consort first. Where have you hidden Kyon, Kricket? I’m very tired and I don’t feel like playing your games now.”
Slowly, I inch away from him. I look toward the stairs and the only thought in my mind is making it to them. I look around for Phlix, but she’s nowhere in sight. She’s hidden herself away in the shadow land. I envy her that ability.
In front of me, Giffen stands. He growls as he says, “I’ll ask you once again. Where is Kyon Ensin?”
CHAPTER 18
HALF AWAKE AND ALMOST DEAD
Giffen lifts me up off my feet telepathically and pulls me into his waiting arms. I lose my breath when I hit his chest hard. “You didn’t think we were going to just let you leave, did you? You’re too dangerous for that.”
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask.
“There’s a place in the annexed area that I have set up for you. It’s actually very beautiful. You’ll be comfortable th
ere. Your sister can visit you.”
“And you can all keep an eye on me?”
“It’s the compromise that I worked out to keep you alive. Otherwise, you’re dead.”
“So I’ll be a prisoner for the rest of my life?”
“It’s better than being dead.”
“You can let go of me now. I’m not going to run. I know it’s pointless.”
He sets me on my feet. From behind him, Phlix says, “I have another option for you, Kricket.” Electricity pulses out of the Taser-like gun that she presses into his side. He convulses and flops on the ground fish-out-of-water style. “You can come with me to Earth like we planned.”
“Phlix!” I’m almost too surprised to move.
“No one is making us their prisoners again,” she says. “I will hurt them all if they try.”
I grab Phlix’s hand. “Let’s go. That shock doesn’t last long.”
Phlix tugs back on my hand, saying, “Wait! We have to get our packs!” We put them on, and then run up the stairs to the balcony level of Foundation. We scurry through countless corridors to the tower called Kingdom. We take the tree pillar elevators down to the garden level of the creepy art gallery. “All we have to do is make it to the Hallafast in the topiary maze outside. It’s not very far,” I whisper. Clutching her hand, I lead the way to the giant doors. I open one and pause. Outside, the courtyard glows with fire. The Hallafast that we need to make our escape is a raging ball of orange light and choking black smoke. My heart crashes in my chest.
I sink to my knees on the ground. “I’m dead. I’m so dead.”
“What’s wrong?” Phlix asks. She looks past me to the aircraft. Her soft gasp is a crushing weight on me. She pulls the door closed, slamming it. She looks around us.
“We’re not giving up,” she says, squaring her shoulders. “We’re leaving.”
She tugs on my upper arm and pulls me up. We scramble back toward the pillars, and Giffen suddenly appears at the top of the gallery. He looks pissed.
“Shadow land!” I yell.
Phlix pulls us into her secret world. She grasps my hand and we back up from Giffen as he descends the pillar onto the garden level with us. “He can probably sense us, Phlix. He’s creepy like that,” I whisper.
Giffen picks up a chair telepathically and spins it around as if it’s caught in a tornado. It whirls around the room, coming so close to us that we both have to drop on the floor to avoid it. “We have to go,” Phlix whimpers, grasping my hand.
“I know!”
We both back up, coming up against the Naren Falls landscape. We turn around and stare at the dark, canvaslike opening that now has a view of the two Etharian moons visible in the night sky. “We have to try,” Phlix whispers.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“It’s worth the risk. On the count of two,” Phlix breathes. “One—”
“—two!” we say in unison. With our hands clasped, I scrunch my eyes as I jump with Phlix into the portal.
I feel the impact of the grassy lawn beneath me. My hand is torn away from Phlix’s. I roll away and I lay on the ground, looking up at Inium and Sinter in the sky. I spit out the dirt in my mouth.
“Phlix,” I call, not seeing her anywhere.
“Here,” she calls back.
“Where,” I scream, panicking. I wiggle out of my backpack getting to my feet. I don’t even see a shadow of her anywhere.
She suddenly appears a few yards away still attached to her backpack. “Sorry. You rolled out of my shadow land,” she explains.
I rush to her and hug her. “Holy shit! You did it! Your shadow saved us!” I laugh and start jumping up and down with her in my arms. She squeezes me back, jumping up and down too.
“We did it! We did it!” she squeals. I don’t know when we stop jumping and stand there crying in each other’s arms, but I eventually wipe my eyes on my sleeve and pull away from her.
“We have to go.”
“Put on the terrain outfit,” she orders. “It’s made from that same fabric as the camouflage blankets you asked me to get.” As I locate them among my gear, she adds, “You can change the setting on the clothing. See, just press these buttons and it can make different patterns.” She demonstrates the settings. “The camouflage setting is probably the best here. I packed you terrain shoes, and night-vision glasses.”
We change quickly. I braid my hair while Phlix locates the compass. With our night-vision glasses, we pore over the laminated terrain map. “We can’t waste time. We have to get as far away from here tonight as possible. They’re going to figure out where we’re going.”
Phlix goes to my backpack and pulls out a dark cap. “Here, wear this. Your hair is like a beacon,” she says. “And don’t worry so much. We have me. I can hide us.”
“You can hide us for about a part and a half,” I reply.
“That is plenty of time to lose anyone.”
Not Cavars, I think, but I don’t say it out loud.
We mount up on our flipcarts, and I lead the way through a path that takes us by incredible views of the valley below. I try not to think about the fact that New Amster is down there somewhere in the darkness. I hope for our sakes that they’re not thinking about us either.
Riding a flipcart is fairly easy under normal circumstances: flat terrain, few tree branches to slap me in the face, and the agility that comes with not having a thirty-pound backpack. Now, though, we have to make frequent stops to rest, stretch our backs, rehydrate, and check our course. Just before dawn, the two of us are so tired that we can hardly stay on our flipcarts.
“We have to find a safe place to sleep,” I say. “Keep your eyes open for a cave or something that will hide us from aircraft.”
Not long after, Phlix spots a fallen tree. It’s one of those enormous trees that a city bus could drive through easily without hitting traffic on the other side. The tree has fallen against a rock formation, forming a lean-to of sorts. “What do you think?” she asks wearily.
“I say yes. I say hang up a camouflage blanket over this branch and it is lights out.”
We place our gear against the rock and spread out a blanket. We drape our remaining blanket over a low branch before we climb inside and pull the blanket over the opening to conceal our presence. Phlix rummages in her backpack, then she tosses me a protein bar. It tastes exactly like the ones I ate before when I journeyed here with Trey, except now it doesn’t just taste like cat poop. It tastes like cat poop and freedom. I eat every bite without complaint.
“Do you want me to take the first watch?” she asks like she might die if she has to stay awake a second longer.
“No. We both sleep.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” she asks.
“We’re either caught or we’re not—dead or we’re not. We don’t have any weapons and your shadow land only works if you’re awake to use it, so . . . we don’t have to worry about it.”
“Okay.” She yawns. “You make dying in my sleep not sound so bad.”
“There are worse things, huh?”
I awake to a deep, rumbling growl close to our tree fort. It makes every hair on my body stand on end. I don’t move other than the widening of my eyes. I stare at Phlix. She heard it too, if the look of terror in her blue eyes is any indication. Something big snuffles around the base of the fallen tree only meters from us. Phlix’s hand finds mine when the beast outside howls so loud it shakes dry, dead needles from the branches above our heads. Something heavy crashes against the other side of the tree trunk. The ground shakes. Phlix squeaks, scrunching her eyes tight. Frozen, not knowing if it’s better to stay or better to leave, I wait, holding my breath.
Silence.
Phlix breathes, “Is it—”
“Shh.” I listen some more.
I sit up, leaning back against the rock. Phlix moves next to me. A darkening pool is seeping beneath the tree by my feet. I pull the blanket away from it. “What is it,” Phlix whispers.
“I don’t k
now,” I reply. On my knees, I crawl near the oozing dark patch. Touching my finger to it, it comes away red. Cringing, I rub my finger in the dirt, trying to get the blood off. I join Phlix again. “It’s blood,” I say near her ear.
“Blood” Blood from what?” she asks.
“I have no idea,” I reply. “Stay here and I’ll go look.”
“I’m coming with you,” she whispers, clutching my hand so that I don’t leave her behind.
We creep out of our tree fort. I pick up a medium-sized stone, and grip it tight, ready to throw it at anything that moves. It’s growing dark, but it’s not quite there yet. We have to walk around the tree’s massive roots in order to see what’s on the other side. With cautious steps, I lead us there. I press my back to the tree’s uprooted base. Holding my breath, I peak around the side. My heart hammers in my chest and I pull myself back, flattening against it again.
“What is it?” Phlix asks urgently.
“Hovercar-sized wolf with horrifying fangs.”
“What’s it doing?”
I peek around the tree again. It hasn’t moved. “It’s either sleeping or it’s dead.” I take a deep breath and sneak around the end of the tree. Walking slowly near the beast, I can’t see any breathing. The head comes into view. It has several recurve arrows sticking out of its face. I straighten immediately, turning around and glancing at the tree line behind me. Nothing moves, but I know we’re being watched.
Hurrying back to Phlix, I grasp her elbow and urge her back to our fort. “Cavars are watching us. They killed that thing. Let’s get our packs and move.”
“How do you know Cavars killed it?”
“They used recurves,” I growl. “No one else uses those.”
“Why would they help us?” she asks.
“Maybe they want the pleasure of tracking us and killing us.”
“Like sport?” she asks.
“I don’t think we should hang around and find out.” We grab our backpacks and consult our map quickly. Hopping on our flipcarts, we leave as soundlessly as possible. We travel without incident for the next few hours, traversing fields by surfing waves of flowers.
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