by Unknown
I also need to stop them from fighting. But how?
From just outside, I hear footsteps clanking on the floor, so I duck and rush over to the Bridge door, standing just to the side, out of view. It slides open with a hiss, and a woman steps through, weapon drawn. “General?”
I have an instant to react, and I take it by lunging forward and knocking the woman down onto the ground. We tumble together and she fumbles her gun just as we come to a stop. It is too far for her to reach. The Maker must be on my side.
I press the barrel of my gun against her head and put my other hand over her mouth. “Don’t make a noise, or I will shoot you right here and now.” I don’t know if this will work, but I have killed before, and if I have to kill again, I will in order to save the City. To save my friends. To save Gabe.
Thankfully, she abides by my order. Her gaze stops on my violet eyes, and I see in her features the sudden realization of who she is dealing with. Maybe she knows that I am supposed to be dead. From here, she can’t see Kadijah’s lifeless body, or the pile of other soldiers who were Caught in the process. She can’t see the blank faces and lifeless eyes.
“This is what you’re going to do. You are going to get on the radio, and you are going to order the fighter ships to fall back. Then, you are going to land this thing.” I remind her of the tenuous position she is in by pressing the cool metal against her temple. “And if you do anything other than that, I will put a bullet in your head. You got it?”
She nods her head before I take my hand away. “Get up and do it.” I stand and pull her up with me. Putting the gun to the back of her head, I push her forward toward the controls. “Hurry up.”
This woman is obviously more familiar with the panels of technology that goes way over my head. She deftly moves her fingers over the controls and pushes a button that opens the line for her to speak. “This is Lieutenant Khan ordering all ships to fall back and stop fighting. I repeat, all ships are hereby ordered to fall back and stop fighting.”
Before she can do anything else, I jerk her away from the other controls for safety’s sake and jab the gun into the base of her spine. It is now that she notices the all-too-still forms of Kadijah, Echo, Jorgen, and the others. Her mouth opens and she looks back at me in horror. “You … you killed them.”
“Not exactly, but they are dead none-the-less. Your leader and my husband.” I speak softly like one would speak around a sleeping child. If only Echo were sleeping though.
“How could you?” the lieutenant whispers, trembling.
“How could I? How could I?” It is a simple enough question, but enough to push me over the edge and I start to shout, “Do you see him? Do you see him? Look what she did. Look!” With a shove, I send the woman tumbling to the ground, and she lands in the pile of dead bodies with a thud. She scrambles, horrified, trying to get up, but before she can, I take a few strides to where she is freaking out and I push her head down near Echo’s where she can see the blood crusting on his lips, the bruises around his swollen eyes, the many cuts that pepper his face. I want her to see it all.
“Let me go!” Khan screams, struggling against the grip of my fingers through her hair. “Let me go!”
“Why? You tell me why I should let you go!” Just when I cannot take seeing Echo’s corpse any longer, I fling Khan to the side. She scrambles away from me, but I keep the gun sight on her the whole time. “If you can give me a good reason, I’ll let you go. But if not, I will end you like your people are ending mine.”
The young lieutenant backs into a wall with nowhere else to go. I close in on her, watching her pathetic little self cower in fear and wait for her answer.
Khan says her words very deliberately, but as carefully as one can with a gun pointed at them. “Because, if you don’t let me go, you are no better than any of us. You will be the monster that everyone thinks the Keeper is.”
I remember my mother, and the callous, cold way that she executed Paradigm. I remember the way she looked at me, Gabe, and Echo and never hesitated to try and kill us all. I close my palms around the grip of the gun, fingers trembling. It would be so easy to end this woman. Maybe it will even make losing Echo feel a little less painful.
But it won’t, and I know it won’t. Khan is right. I would be no better than my mother. I would be the Keeper they have all heard that I am—a Keeper that is nothing like me. I lower the gun just slightly.
“Do you know how to land the ship?” I ask, trying not to betray the grief that is eating away inside.
Khan seems to breathe a little easier and answers in an exhale. “Yes.”
“Then land it, and once we have touched down, you are going to escort me safely back to the ground. And then you are going to turn this ship around and go away. Far, far away … and don’t come back.” I glance out the front window and watch as the few Dreamcatcher ships regroup, both of us hovering at a standoff. I don’t know how long they will wait there, trying to figure out their next step, so I have to move fast.
Lieutenant Khan nods her agreement. I keep my gun trained on her as she calmly walks back across the Bridge. She stops behind the Captain’s helm and activates a screen to the right of a yoke. The ship rumbles as her fingers dance across the screen, and I watch the horizon rise as we begin our descent.
“Open the hatch,” I order, sidestepping over to a large circular door on the ground, just beyond where Echo’s body lies. I am so close to being free.
I kneel down and with my free hand, grab the collar of Echo’s jumpsuit. “I’m not leaving you behind,” I tell him, as if he can hear me.
The circular door starts to retract, sliding into the hull, disappearing a little bit at a time to reveal the arid ground a few feet beneath us. Dirt and dust is kicked up the closer the craft gets to the ground, and I lift my other arm up over my eyes to shield them from the debris. Almost there. Almost there.
I prepare to jump, but a loud, soul-piercing alarm sounds. The ship lurches, and I fall backward onto my butt, sending the gun across the ground.
“SELF DESTRUCTION MODE ACTIVATED. SELF DESTRUCTION WILL OCCUR IN THIRTY SECONDS,” the computerized voice announces as the alarm screeches over and over again.
Khan scoops up the gun and fires at me. “Your people must be eliminated for the good of the human race!”
“You little bitch!” I yell back and flinch as the bullets hit the metal floor around me. I am lucky she’s not a good shot, but if I stay here any longer, she might just land one of them. I hook my fingers back around Echo’s collar and shuffle to the door, which is now closing shut.
Another shot is fired, and this one rips past my arm, tearing what is left of my battered robe, slicing my skin. My sight goes red in pain. Instinctively, I let go of Echo and grab my arm, covering the bleeding wound.
“SELF DESTRUCTION IN TWENTY SECONDS.”
The ship lurches. Khan fires again.
I lose balance and tumble out the door, falling for what seems like forever before I hit the ground. Some part of me crunches, but I don’t know what or where is hurt anymore.
I lost him. I lost him again. “Echo … ” Rolling over on my back, I watch as the ship speeds forward toward the city, knocking a couple of Dreamcatcher ships out of the way in their wake. I turn onto my side, clawing at the ground. “No … no … ”
But it is too late. The ship explodes, and as the bright white light engulfs everything around me, I duck my head and close my eyes.
An unnerving warmth washes over me, and for just a moment, I’ve forgotten that most of the City is gone, that Gabe is gone … that everyone I’ve known is gone, and I succumb to the strange, warm comfort.
Chapter 27
“Beatrice?”
The sound of my name sounds so far away, but each time it is said, I am lured closer and closer to consciousness. I don’t know who is calling me, but my heart wants it to be Echo, and my brain reminds me that I’ll never hear Echo speak my name again.
“Beatrice? Beatrice?
I don’t want to wake up. I didn’t even think it was possible until now. My body is willing me to open my eyes, to face the fact that my world, as I knew it, has been destroyed. But when I open my eyes, what will I be opening them to? Where am I? Who am I?
“She is waking up!” another male voice exclaims, and he sounds excited.
My eyelashes flutter, and I squint against the bright lights that are everywhere. My first instinct is to cover my eyes with my arms, but as soon as I move them, I regret it. The pain is unbearable, and I pitifully cry out. The suffering is enough to jolt me back into the “fight” mode of “fight or flight.” I focus my eyes on the ceiling, the metal beams that run lengthwise across the room. It looks familiar.
The infirmary. I’m in the infirmary.
Brandon’s face comes into view, and he grins down at me with that big, goofy smile of his. “Hey, Bea.”
“Brandon? You’re alive?” I ask, my voice raspy as I try and contain the pain.
Brandon opens his mouth to respond, but Elan’s voice delivers the answer. “We should be asking the same of you. You look dead enough.” He comes to my side, next to Brandon, and smiles as well. “It’s good to see you awake. The doctors weren’t sure you were going to make it.”
Brandon nudges Elan. “You shouldn’t tell her that. She’s been through a lot, you know.”
“We all have, Brandon. A little bit of truth never hurt anyone.” Elan crosses his arms over his chest and surveys me with … Are his eyes blue?
I squint again, trying to make them out. Maybe I am just not thinking clearly enough yet. Maybe I am seeing things. But when I look at Brandon, I notice the very same thing, and I know I can’t be that out of it.
“Your eyes … ” I whisper to them.
“Yeah, about that … ” Elan starts, but he is cut off by someone else who is suddenly shouting through the infirmary.
“Beatrice!”
Gabe!
I didn’t lose him!
I struggle in an attempt to lift my head. I want to see him. I want to know that he is real and this all isn’t some cruel trick. So, I call to him, but each time his name leaves my mouth, I feel panicked and scared, as if someone will find him and kill him too. “Gabe? Gabe? Gabe!”
He pushes aside a privacy curtain and practically crashes into me, and even if it hurts like hell, I would hurt ten times more if it meant I could be in Gabe’s arms. He wraps himself around me, enveloping me, surrounding me with himself, and as soon as I feel safe, all of the misery and grief pours from me in uncontrollable sobbing.
“Echo is dead,” I whisper into Gabe’s neck. My fingers press into his back as I pull myself closer to him. “He is dead.”
Gabe nods his head, brushing his hand down my hair in a calming motion. “I’m sorry, Beatrice.” And he is. I can hear the sorrow in his voice, perhaps because he knows it hurts me, or perhaps because Echo saved his life twice, and Gabe didn’t have the chance to return the favor.
“I tried to save his body, but she was shooting at me, and the ship—” But Gabe doesn’t let me finish the line of excuses. He lifts my chin, tilting my head up so that I look into his now blue eyes.
“You tried your best. We all did. No more excuses.” Gabe leans in and brushes his lips against mine. In a whisper, he adds, “I was terrified that you didn’t make it out of that ship in time, Bea. I kept thinking about being here without you … ” His words taper off.
“We were all scared, Beatrice. But now you are here! And it will be better,” Brandon interjects into our moment. I smile, because I can’t not smile. Brandon always has a way to turn a dire situation into something that just isn’t so bad.
I pull back to look into Gabe’s eyes again, because I can’t stop staring at their intense, blue hue. They are gorgeous, captivating, but unsettling. “Why are your eyes blue?”
“The Light did it” Elan says from over where he sits on a windowsill, off to the side and away from all the emotional, lovey-dovey stuff. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he swings one of his legs over and over again.
“Did what?” I look between the three of them, confused.
Brandon points to his eyes with a grin. “Well, it made me see again.” But then his grin fades and he looks to Gabe and Elan to fill in whatever he can’t seem to say.
“But it took all of our Sight.” Gabe brushes my hair back behind one of my ears, his gaze sad.
“All of you?” I question, afraid of the answer.
“All of the Seers.” Elan jumps off the ledge, his booted feet thudding on the floor. He cracks his knuckles, and turns to stare out the window. He gaze is far away and disconnected like he is looking at everything and nothing at all. It is, in one word, heartbreaking.
I rake my fingers back through my knotted hair, hoping to find some sense in what they are telling me. Seers without Sight? “How? I … I don’t understand.”
Gabe gently and calmly pulls one of my hands away from my head and holds it. “When the ship exploded, the light that it released … well, it took away everyone’s Vision. We couldn’t look away in time. It happened so suddenly, so quickly, and the light was everywhere. And now, we are just Citizens. The Institution serves no more purpose … the City … ” Gabe’s words trail off as tears catch in his throat.
Things can change so much in just a day. I have lost Echo, my friends and people have lost their Sight, and nothing is the same. Kadijah got her way, even in death. She has levelled everyone.
Everyone but me.
“The City, Gabe, is still the City. It is broken now, but it is still ours.” I squeeze my hands around his and gaze up into his eyes. “And you are still you, and Elan is still Elan, and Brandon is still Brandon, and I—”
I hear him, then. Echo echoing. You are the Dreamcatcher Queen. You are the Keeper. You are the Dreamcatcher Queen. You are the Keeper …
In a whisper, I repeat the words aloud. “I am the Dreamcatcher Queen. I am the Keeper.” I say it again and again, until the words make me smile. It is like he is still alive somewhere. Somewhere inside of me. Mine. “I am the Keeper.”
Gabe smiles back at my words and hugs me close to him. “You are.”
As I let go of Gabe, Elan wanders back to my side, and Brandon gathers around as well. They all look to me, as a leader, as their friend, and I stare up at each one of them and their lost gazes.
Elan asks, “So now what?”
Through the nearby window, the smoke rises into the air, some of it black, some of it brown, and some of it white—all different stages of burning. Outside, the City is in shambles, the people no doubt trying to reorient themselves, find the living from the dead, and put their lives back together. They are probably waiting for me to come to them, to tell them it will be okay, to explain what has just happened. They still need me, just like the Seers still need me. We all need each other.
I stand up, wincing in pain from my fall, and I limp over to the window to view the destruction outside. I don’t need to look for long; I know that it is bad. I know that we are all hurting the same as the other Seers and Citizens and however many Dreamcatchers have survived.
“Now we rebuild. We will put this City back together the best we can. We will offer the Dreamcatcher refugees a place to live beside us, along with the Citizens.” My fingers brush over the singed and tattered edges of my red robe, and then I close them into a fist, determined. “We will be exactly how it was supposed to be all of this time, long ago, before the Institution became something it wasn’t ever supposed to be.”
“And how do we start that?” Brandon questions.
I stare through the glass, looking at the violet-eyed reflection that glances back at me. “The only way we can, Brandon,” I reply, putting a palm to the cool glass. “Brick-by-brick.”
Chapter 28
I brush my hair in front of the mirror, dragging the bristles down in a slow, measured motion. There are dark bags under my eyes, cuts across my face, and bruises all over my body. I don’t look
pretty or righteous or in any way as graceful as the Keeper should be. Instead, I look like something just chewed me up and spit me out. At least, though, I don’t look broken. I can be bruised, but I can’t be broken. I can’t be defeated.
A woman peeks her head in and clears her throat. “My Keeper? We will be ready to air in just a few moments. Is everything okay?”
I look over my shoulder at her as she hangs in the doorway of the green room. She’s young, maybe not too much older than me, and filled with energy. She practically bounces on her toes as she waits for my reply. What is even more impressive, though, is that I have no idea if she’s a Seer, a Dreamcatcher, or a Citizen. She is just … her. A person. Shouldn’t we all be “just people?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I was just thinking.” I smile back at her. “I’m ready.”
“Great!” the woman chirps. “I am going to check on just one thing, and then we’ll get you mic’d up and ready to go!” Before she exits, she folds her hands in front of her waist and bounces on her toes. “I just want to let you know, off the record, that I think all these changes you are going to do are … well … they are exactly what we need.”
“You do?”
“Yes, My Keeper. The Citizens, we’ve all wanted this for a long time. Just to coexist. To help. We want the City to be as much ours as it is yours.” She smiles shyly.
Her words mean so much to me now, after all that has happened, all that we fought for, and all that we’ve lost. I was doubting doing this, a televised address to the City, informing them that everything we were doing is going to change, and that everyone will coexist as equals now that the Seers have lost their Vision. The people here haven’t lived life like this for decades; it will be a huge change, a difficult change, but sometimes the changes that are needed are the ones that are the hardest to make.
“And now the City will be all ours, as it was always supposed to be.” I smile as the woman’s shyness melts away into pure, confident exuberance.