“What-would-Johnny-do boy is okay,” Skunk said, nudging him in the ribs.
For a second Krem’s expression darkened. He gave an embarrassed smile and shook his head. “I think I’m done with that.”
His eyes were full of such sorrow that Sarah swore he was going to cry right then and there. He let his head sag and sniffled.
“They slaughtered them,” he said almost inaudibly, his cries muffling the words.
Skunk sank beside him. “As soon as the machine-gun fire went off, the Anunnaki turned the street into a shooting gallery. We got in a few good shots, but with their armor and everything…”
The defeat in his face was beyond anything Sarah had ever seen before. At a hand on her shoulder, she caught Hamiad gesture for her to follow.
They walked into the next room over.
“Sometimes we all need our space,” he said.
But they’d looked so miserable.
“How can you say that?” she asked quietly. “They were heartbroken. They needed…”
“They’ll be fine,” Hamiad said. “Trust me. They just need a minute.”
She didn’t see how he could just leave them there. She would trust him, though. He’d gotten them this far. Besides, this probably wasn’t the first time they’d cried around each other. Watcher recruit training could get pretty tough.
“And you, what about you?”
He didn’t exactly look bulletproof right now. Still, she couldn’t shake the pity cropping up in her, Krem, and Skunk.
“I just got my first real taste of revenge on an Anunnaki,” Hamiad said, playing up the bravado in his voice. “Never felt better.”
He was trying to bring some light to the situation. The notion annoyed her, but they could use it. So she offered a faint smile.
They were in a bedroom with a desk and dresser. Hamiad pulled out the chair at the desk, giving her the bed. Not that she desired to lie down. Waves of exhaustion and energy battled within her. But her body didn’t want to sit. Like she could only feel comfortable running for her life.
Screams issued from the streets. The frantic shouting of older men and also the recruits. Her former classmates. Now the Anunnaki’s targets for fun. A flash of the bloodied bodies she’d seen earlier closed a cold dread around her.
“What’s the plan from here?” she said, eager to fill her ears with another sound.
Hamiad had angled the chair so he faced the wall. A single painting of a bowl of fruit hung there. She thought of her mother. Of Krem crying. Maybe deep down wishing to see her. Because she sure was.
“I’m trying to map out where we are in the town,” Hamiad said, the back of his head coated with dust. “Once I do, I guess we can make our way back to Ibdan.”
He leaned forward and set his rifle on the floor.
“We can’t be all that far,” she said, without really thinking about it. “I was at the hotel…”
She trailed off, watching him hang there, his upper body crumpled over his legs like he was frozen in the position. He wasn’t thinking about their location. How could he with all the icy, horrific moans and cries out there? If it didn’t sap his courage, it surely weighed on his heart. The room was small, but she felt a million miles from him. Farther than that from Krem and Skunk. As if space and time had bent, warping them all to a different spot in the universe, even if they were all within the same house.
In a way she was glad she didn’t know the other recruits so well. At least it spared her the same pain that seemed to leech at the three of them.
She wondered if they’d ever really had a hope of scaring the Anunnaki off or if they were doomed all along.
She bit her lip. Hamiad had somehow taken them out of danger’s immediate path. He deserved so much more than to hear his friends dying out there.
Something tugged from her pocket. She found Johnny’s medals still there. That was a miracle in and of itself, given all her running and moving around.
She inhaled deeply and pulled them out. Light from the other room glimmered in the Recruit of the Year engravings.
“Hamiad.”
He jumped up as if suddenly self-aware. But she was still looking at the back of his head.
“Johnny gave these to me before you two ran the obstacle course. To hang on to until it was over. He said you deserved them.”
She held them out in front of him.
“That’s why you came to see me afterward?” he asked, rubbing his neck.
“Yeah.”
The whole thing was a blatant lie, but it couldn’t hurt now, could it? If anything, she hoped the gesture might reinvigorate him.
Hamiad said nothing for a few seconds, and she feared he might fall back into his depressed state.
Then he grunted and uttered a single word with grim satisfaction.
“Johnny.”
She didn’t know if it was the right response or the wrong response until he turned to her, looking more determined than she’d ever seen him. Alive and fierce, he gave her the medals.
“You hang on to them for now. Until we see him again.” With a cocky grin that only seemed fitting on him, he added, “If Johnny thinks he can get out of giving me my due credit, he’s out of his mind.”
“What?” Sarah asked, baffled. She fought back a half-nervous, half-genuine laugh.
Hamiad grabbed his rifle and rose up. “Firestorm or not, he’s going to hand these to me himself. This time he’ll be the one to earn second place.”
So much for his sense of honor. This was straight-out pride. But right now, she wouldn’t complain. They could use Hamiad’s spirit.
“You really think he’s out there?” she said. Most thoughts of ever seeing him again had more than slipped away by now.
For all the hyperbole he’d committed, Hamiad looked at her like she was drugged. “He’s the Keeper. I’m sure they got him out of New Bagram real fast.”
He had a point.
“Come on. Let’s go help Ibdan.” Hamiad was already on his way.
Back in the main room, Skunk and Krem were red-eyed, but not sobbing. They sat in the center of the room with their rifles in their arms.
“Everyone ready?” Hamiad whispered, standing tall.
His confidence proved infectious as Skunk and Krem got to their feet, sucked in breaths, and nodded.
Right at that moment, something large moved right outside the window. She whirled around and saw a giant metal panel sweep past.
“Shields,” Skunk said, glaring at another through the window.
Johnny told her about these. The Anunnaki didn’t have force fields or energy shields, but they did use dense, lightweight metal for protective purposes.
Hamiad cursed. “Their surveillance.”
In their stupor, they’d overlooked this threat. The Anunnaki hadn’t just been standing there, they’d probably been interfacing with their drones and replaying footage of where the four of them had disappeared to. The drones would’ve observed them entering the building. For the Anunnaki, it was only a matter of deciding how to enter safely and waiting for shields to arrive.
The sliver of light in the crack between the door and the wall darkened, and with a heavy quake, the whole thing trembled.
“We have to run,” Hamiad whispered. They were in one of the nicer houses of Utbashi, so there had to be a back door.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Sarah asked.
He was moving before she’d finished asking the question. They disappeared down the hall as the door and parts of the wall splintered open.
Over the whines of pulse surges and the haze of gunfire and explosions, navigation seemed impossible. The constant cracks and blasts from the direction of Utbashi’s mayor’s residency suggested the Anunnaki didn’t have the Conifer yet. But until they actually checked the temple, Sarah couldn’t be sure. At least it sounded like the other recruits were still resisting.
Together, the four ran to the next building so quickly, Sarah didn’t even have a chance to
see. But as they welded themselves against the house, the familiar whiny tremors sounded—three or four Anunnaki, based on the shooting.
They got as far as a wooden cart before the huge shield of an Anunnaki crossed their path. All at once, they squeezed behind the cart as the soldier barreled at them. It was going to tear right through them. Krem stared back at her, all the color drained from his face.
A staccato of gunfire reset her fear of imminent death. Instead of a violent crash, the Anunnaki and shield met the cart with a wobble. They hopped up and saw it face down on the shield, four red bullet wounds in its shoulder and back.
“Over here. Hurry up,” a voice called.
Their eyes turned to a straw shack on the right. A bare-chested cadet waved from beneath the wool cloth doorway.
Everyone rose to a stand. Sarah’s elbows and knees were sore from crawling around, and her head dizzied, verging on chaos. Shelter couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Howdy,” a blond, grime-stained cadet said. Levi.
They all thanked him.
“Wouldn’t be right of me not to help,” Levi said, resting on a stool. Sarah sank onto a rug by Hamiad. That’s when she saw a dark-skinned cadet lying on a bedroll in the corner, a bloodied bandage patched over his bare stomach. He heaved breaths every few seconds.
Levi frowned, pressed a hand to his hair, and smoothed it back.
“Don’t worry. We’ve got a few surprises for them if they find us,” Levi said, holding up a grenade. “You guys look like you could use one.”
He tossed it to Hamiad.
“We better go,” Hamiad said.
Krem fell in step with Sarah as they made for the doorway. “You know that thing you and I talked about in the infirmary?”
She grasped a slip of her shirt between her index finger and thumb. He could only be referring to seeing their mom again. Their talk about that.
“Yeah,” she said, feeling the urgency weighing on her.
“I’ve thought it through. I’ve gotten my payback. I want to see her.” Through the fatigue and weariness weighing on his words, she caught a hint of hope. Hearing them made her want to melt and scream and hug him at the same time. She pictured the three of them together, a family. Warmth built in her, casting off the pain and misery of Utbashi. For a few seconds, she could’ve been soaking in the warm tub in the hotel, tucked away in her bed in New Bagram, painting with her mom. Anywhere but this place.
They rushed out, and the cloud of optimism got pushed to the back of her mind. Her legs cramped as they reached the next road over.
She couldn’t help feeling this constant running was all pointless on some level. The Anunnaki were monitoring the entire town, weren’t they? Maybe they didn’t particularly care about the whereabouts of four teenagers, but if they wanted to kill them, they wouldn’t have a problem finding them.
Which made her wonder, if the Anunnaki had used surveillance to plan out their entering the crop-field house back there, why did they leave the back door exit unchecked? It would’ve been easy to send a few soldiers to catch them as they ran out. It was almost like the Naga didn’t mind letting them escape.
As they passed under the awning of a shabby shop, tapping from above stopped them in their tracks. Sarah’s ears perked up, and she pointed to the awning. Everyone looked. Small holes in the metal sheet revealed massive figures. Anunnaki soldiers must’ve perched themselves on the awning.
Sarah held her breath. If they could see the soldiers through the holes, could they see them too? Words in Nebirian cleared the matter.
Still no word on the traitor, huh?
Sarah realized they meant Zatra.
No. But the Ascendi should have the Conifer soon. And we can finally get out of here.
Skunk tugged on her sleeve and mouthed, What?
Sarah swallowed as all eyes fixed on her. They could see she was alarmed by what they were saying. She couldn’t pretend otherwise. Because she knew now. The Anunnaki’s kill zone loomed ahead at the temple. No way that Ibdan or the recruits still held a semblance of resistance there if the Anunnaki were on the verge of obtaining the Conifer. And with that, she became aware of a missing sound among the constant roar of gunfire.
This was the moment to seek shelter, not plunge headfirst into a lost cause.
She pointed to a porch a few houses down. She would explain once they moved beyond the Anunnaki soldiers’ hearing. At the porch, Hamiad peered at her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“What did you hear?”
A muscle in her leg throbbed from fatigue.
“We’re heading to the temple?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Listen. I can’t hear Ibdan’s machine gun, can you? He had plenty of ammo.”
The words sounded especially menacing coming from her. She’d as much as announced his death. She wished she’d said it more tenderly.
Hamiad grimaced.
“Ibdan ordered us to handle the machine gun if he couldn’t…” Skunk trailed off. “This doesn’t change anything.”
It changes everything, she wanted to say. If the Naga had stopped Ibdan, then what reason did they have to take his place? She couldn’t let them get dragged into a hopeless firefight. The Anunnaki must’ve found a way past the wailer at the temple, and that had been their only real chance of keeping the Conifer safe. Their best option now was to seek shelter at the hotel. To live. Or be captured by Anunnaki and end up as their servants like Tobias had always warned her. She swallowed and selected her next words carefully.
She began to shake her head. “The Anunnaki used their word for retreating. I think the machine gun at the temple worked. Ibdan beat them.”
“They don’t have the Conifer?” Hamiad said uneasily. It probably sounded too good to be true.
To Sarah’s surprise, the gunfire and whines of pulse surges grew less frequent.
She smiled. “No. I don’t think so.”
“I guess…” The idea stumped Hamiad. His arms quivered, hair slick and darkened with sweat. He was still too amped up to fight to consider anything else.
“We head to the hotel?” Sarah finished the thought.
Chapter 15
The next few minutes passed like a slide show as they hopped from doorway to doorway, alley to alley, darting along the streets and sliding against buildings. The debris in her hair and the dirt coating her fingernails nagged at her endlessly. The smoke from gunpowder and dust and dirt, combined with the ringing in her ears, gave Sarah the feel of being in a dreary, half-awake state.
But soon they’d be safe and sound in the hotel. And once they boarded the train, it wouldn’t matter that the Ascendi had obtained the Conifer. Zatra’s designator could ruin his plans. Not that it mattered, anyway. It wasn’t her duty to stop the Ascendi.
Once they boarded the train, they could chart a path to seeing their mom again. That would present its own challenges. Nothing compared to this, though. If she convinced a few more recruits to accompany them, they wouldn’t have to worry about protection.
Her instinct warned her that this wouldn’t work out—that she should stop hoping for the best. Another part of her said, no, her hopes held weight. It was her stepdad’s paranoia that was crazy. And his idea that the Anunnaki would inevitably conquer the Earth one day soon.
Only a tight alleyway separated them from the hotel grounds. As they darted underneath clothes strung out to dry, the alley seemed to stretch, the moment intensifying with Sarah’s fears of an Anunnaki appearing or a building exploding. Then the alleyway ended, and elation shot through her.
The hotel looked relatively untouched. The windows were intact, even though a few of the thin trees surrounding it were splintered, leaves shredded. They jogged over the grass to the stairs, where guards waved them in.
Locals crowded the lobby. Women and their children huddled next to bundles of rugs and oil drums. Some were draped in blankets or thin clothes. The doctor and nurse attended to others with abrasions or lace
rations. Men in their short button-up shirts muttered stories in Hindi to each other, guards watching over all of them.
A figure rose and approached them.
“I’m glad to see you all made it,” Ibdan said. Patches of dried blood streaked across his forehead.
“Sir, what about keeping the machine gun mounted?” Krem asked.
He frowned. “I had to save these recruits. Besides, not much I could do to the Anunnaki with my machine gun running dry.”
One blond-haired, red-faced cadet was unconscious. The other two, both darker-skinned and heavily built, lay with their eyes wavering as their chests quivered.
“What about your explosives?” Hamiad asked.
Ibdan shook his head. “All used up.”
Sarah thought about the grenade in Hamiad’s pocket. That could’ve hurt the Anunnaki at the temple if they’d been there.
Ibdan looked them over tensely. “Are all of you all right?”
“More or less,” Hamiad said.
“Good. Then get ready.” He motioned to four recruits, who stood up.
“Ready for what?” Sarah asked.
Ibdan’s gaze stretched past them to the lobby’s main entrance. The opening and the windows offered a full view of the Anunnaki gathering on the grass. The guards outside shouted, and that was the end of the peace inside the lobby. Heads snapped up, and screams filled the room. Everyone broke off in a dozen chaotic waves for the hall or the stairs as Anunnaki soldiers stormed into the hotel. The guards leveled their rifles only to be blasted down in seconds.
Ibdan got off a single gunshot before a strong ringing drowned him out. A hot needle drilling its way through her head—a wailer meant for human ears. Sarah’s knees buckled, and her vision blurred. The ringing was doing this. Only she couldn’t get away. Her body was coming apart.
Her head grew foggy, and someone fell beside her. Hamiad, still clutching the grenade from Levi. An image of her mom flashed in her head. This time it conjured a fiery anger in her. Without thinking about it, without the least bit of trembling or hesitation, she tore the grenade out of Hamiad’s hand. With the last of her consciousness fading, she ripped out the pin and launched it outside, directly at the crowd of Anunnaki.
The Deadliest Earthling Page 34