Haven 6

Haven 6 Page 22

by Aubrie Dionne

“Yeah, and with you, I’ll fi­nally un­lock the code. I’ll learn how to con­trol it.”

  “Then what? You’ll push in every­one from the Her­it­age?”

  He gave her a sour glare. “I’m not about to give away my whole plan to you.”

  Which clearly meant he had no fur­ther plan at all. Eri wiggled around, try­ing to find a weak­ness in her bind­ings. The ropes cut into her skin, rub­bing it raw. She couldn’t feel any­thing in her right thumb, and her left foot had pins and needles prick­ling all over.

  Cy­ber freak­ing hell.

  And she had been so close to telling Striver the truth. After the in­tim­acy they’d shared in that dance, she knew she could trust him. If only they’d had more time alone. Even now she could taste the salt­i­ness of his lips on hers. She licked her bot­tom lip, feel­ing cracked skin. De­hyd­ra­tion, along with the other ef­fects of the coma dart, would con­tinue all day if her last epis­ode were any in­dic­a­tion. Even if she tried to run, she’d pass out and fall flat on her face.

  “Striver won’t let you get away with this. He’ll come after us.”

  “Let him. We’re go­ing straight into the Law­less ter­rit­ory. He’d be a lun­atic to fol­low us.”

  Weaver whipped out a knife and ad­ren­aline coursed through Eri’s body. She bit her tongue to keep a tough look on her face.

  Weaver bent over her and cut the bind­ings on her legs. “Now you can walk. I was get­ting tired of car­ry­ing you all the way. You’re not as light as you look.”

  Eri moved her feet, feel­ing blood rush to her toes. The thought of him touch­ing her sent a feel­ing like spiders crawl­ing all over her back. She couldn’t ima­gine be­ing nice to him ever again, even if he was Striver’s brother.

  “You’re not as bright as you look.”

  “I’ll con­sider that a com­pli­ment.” Weaver kicked over the re­mains of his camp­fire. “Time to meet your new fam­ily.” He hois­ted her up and her head spun. It took all of her con­cen­tra­tion not to vomit again as she stead­ied her­self and stood without his help. She didn’t want to give him the sat­is­fac­tion of see­ing her help­less.

  He scanned the woods be­hind them. “We’ll be near the patrols soon. Let me do the talk­ing and don’t say any­thing.”

  He pulled her ahead, and she fought to keep her bal­ance with her hands tied be­hind her back. Us­ing the tip of her fin­ger, she clicked on her locater, mut­ing the sound. Now it would trans­mit the co­ordin­ates of her loc­a­tion to Litus and Mars back in the vil­lage. Thank good­ness the device had been em­bed­ded in her arm since birth. Weaver would have to cut through her skin and muscle to pry it out, and she doubted he’d go that far. Un­less he sees me us­ing it.

  Eri paused. Did she really want them com­ing after her? If Weaver was right, Jolt wouldn’t lay a hand on her, and she could get in­form­a­tion they or the Her­it­age might need. All she wanted to do was ask Striver to save her, to see him again, hold him again. Eri stopped her heart from gush­ing; she needed to be brave. Sig­nal­ing him would only put him and his vil­lage in more danger. Now she needed to be the hero.

  Eri typed slowly, feel­ing the but­tons and count­ing the right num­ber to reach each let­ter be­hind her back. I ok. I spy.

  Weaver yanked on the rope tied to her waist. He gave her a sus­pi­cious glare and she pre­ten­ded she was ad­just­ing her boot with her knee.

  “No wast­ing time.”

  Bit­ing her tongue to avoid spew­ing out a mean re­sponse, Eri raised her nose up in the air and fol­lowed him. She hadn’t wasted a second.

  …

  Striver fell to his knees in front of a hole in the wall that was twice his height. Not only had Weaver taken the one per­son who meant everything to him, he’d also des­troyed the only obstacle hold­ing the Law­less back.

  Event ho­ri­zon. The point of no re­turn.

  This time his brother had gone too far. For the first time in his life, Striver didn’t think he knew him any­more. He’d failed him—they all had. Sad­ness rose up in dual amounts with the an­ger edging its way in.

  “How did he do it?” Mars walked ahead and ran her hands along the crum­bling edge.

  “He used Eri’s laser.” Litus spoke up be­hind them. “If you set it to the right fre­quency, it can blast through any­thing.”

  Litus’s arm beeped and he held up his loc­ator. “Hold on. Eri’s try­ing to send me some­thing.”

  Striver rose and stood be­side him, look­ing over his shoulder. Any­thing con­nect­ing him to Eri was in­valu­able. Num­bers flashed by along with some sort of code.

  It was his turn to look to Litus for help. “What does it mean?”

  “It’s her co­ordin­ates!” Litus’s face lit up then darkened. “They’re on the move.”

  “Where are they?” Striver stared at the screen. “Where are they go­ing?”

  Litus brought up a mini map of the area and poin­ted. “Here. Bear­ing due west.”

  Damn Refuge and all its leaves. “They’re head­ing dir­ectly into the Law­less city, not to the cave. He’s too smart. He knows we’ll fol­low him there.”

  “What’s he plan­ning to do? Kill them both?” Mars stomped over like she could pull Weaver right out of Litus’s loc­ator and eat him on the spot.

  “Re­venge?” Striver ran a hand over his hair. “I’m not sure.”

  “No, it’s got to be more than that.” Litus stared at the screen, nar­row­ing his eyes. “Eri has some­thing that he needs.”

  “Her laser?” Mars thought aloud. “No, they already have a bunch of those, and he could have just taken it from her and left her here.”

  “It’s my fault.” Striver gripped his bow against his chest, pain rip­pling through him. “I shouldn’t have trus­ted him.”

  “Hey, now.” Litus put a hand on his arm. “We do the same on the Her­it­age. We tend to our own no mat­ter what un­desir­able symp­toms they ex­hibit. Every life is pre­cious. Every one of us holds the his­tory and the fu­ture of man­kind in our DNA.”

  “Enough with the lec­ture, Lieu­ten­ant.” Mars peered through the hole. “We need a plan.”

  “We can’t just storm in there.” Striver tried to calm his frus­tra­tion. Every second, Eri slipped farther away from them. “They out­num­ber us. Even if we brought our en­tire vil­lage, and they were all ex­per­i­enced war­ri­ors—which they aren’t—we couldn’t win. We can’t sneak in; Weaver knows all our faces.”

  Litus’s loc­ator beeped again. “Wait. There’s more.”

  This time the locater dis­played a simple mes­sage. Striver read what she’d sent and a ker­nel of pride formed in­side him. Eri was fight­ing back.

  “I say we wait it out. Let time take its course.” Al­though Litus stood tall and still, a storm brewed in his eyes.

  “What do you mean?” Striver put his face right up to Litus, stand­ing on tip­toes. Phoenix’s ob­ser­va­tions from the coun­cil room rushed back to him. “What are you not telling me?”

  Litus sighed and rubbed the sides of his head as if weigh­ing whether or not to speak. “The Her­it­age will at­tack the Law­less lands. With their fire power and tech­no­logy, coupled with my own tac­tical ad­vice, there’s no way a less-ad­vanced civil­iz­a­tion, no mat­ter how sav­age and brave, can with­stand such an on­slaught.”

  Mars shook her head. “And Eri’s go­ing to be right in the middle of it? I don’t think so. What if they tor­ture her for in­form­a­tion?”

  “If they wanted in­form­a­tion, they would have tar­geted me. I was alone and un­guarded all night.”

  “What could that weasel pos­sibly want with her?” Mars’s braid had fallen in her face and she blew it back.

  “It’s got to have some­thing to do with what she does.” Litus ran his fin­ger over the screen. “No of­fense to Eri, but why would any­one want a lin­guist?”

  “The sym­bols,” Mars growled. “T
he stu­pid etch­ings around the golden li­quid. I heard Weaver talk­ing to one of them. He’s sup­posed to crack the code.”

  “Can she do it?” Striver’s heart sped. If she failed, they’d kill her.

  “If any­one can, she can.” Litus’s faith in Eri showed right in the hard edges of his chin. “The ques­tion is: Do you want them to know?”

  “Who cares about the li­quid?” Mars shrugged. “I just want Eri to be safe.”

  “Crack­ing the code of a lan­guage takes time. If they want her to de­cipher the sym­bols, she’ll go back to the cave. None of the fight­ing will hap­pen there.” Litus put a hand on his heart. “You know this is hard for me as well; she’s my sis­ter-in-law. All I want to do is rush to her aid. But real­ist­ic­ally, those Law­less lands are go­ing to be a war­zone, and Eri’s smart enough to use any at­tack to her ad­vant­age. Be­sides, once the forces are on Refuge, they an­swer to me. I can give a team her co­ordin­ates and send them right to her.”

  Striver’s in­sides twis­ted as he stood in in­ac­tion. He was the leader of his people, and he had to weigh that against his own per­sonal agenda. When he took the po­s­i­tion, he never thought those two re­spons­ib­il­it­ies would col­lide, and that’s all they’d ever done. “How soon is this at­tack go­ing to hap­pen?”

  Litus raised his eye­brows. “Soon.”

  “So we do noth­ing, even after she saved us?” Mars kicked a stone, and it bounced off the wall.

  “She wouldn’t want us rush­ing to our deaths.” Litus crossed his arms.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t sit by while Weaver takes her into the most dan­ger­ous place on Refuge.” Striver felt like jump­ing right out of his skin, be­com­ing a Guard­ian and fly­ing him­self over those woods to find her. If only he had the free­dom of choice.

  Litus turned to Striver. “I’ve thought a long time about this, and I think you should gather your own people to­gether with any weapons you might have. No mat­ter what hap­pens, who­ever wins this war will come after us next.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Swimming with Leechers

  Weaver tugged on the rope tied around Eri’s waist, lead­ing her across the Law­less lands to their sprawl­ing met­ro­polis west of the wall. Guilt weighed him down more than her flounder­ing steps.

  I’m not go­ing to kill her. Just use her to identify the sym­bols.

  So why did he feel like the worst crim­inal to ever steal on Refuge? He glanced back as she stumbled over a tree root and caught her­self on the next trunk, leaves fall­ing in her hair. She looked like a fairy-tale char­ac­ter stuck in the wrong story. Like Pearl Berry Jam­boree thrown into Isaac the Swamp Mon­ster’s fester pot.

  Isaac the Swamp Mon­ster. He hadn’t thought of him in years. It was his fa­vor­ite fairy tale grow­ing up. Isaac was a cast­away. No one liked him, and the other an­im­als called him names. Weaver pleaded with his mother to re­cite the story every night, mak­ing the squish squish noises as Isaac stomped through his swamp.

  What are you do­ing re­min­is­cing? Weaver shook his head. It was that cursed golden li­quid, mak­ing him re­mem­ber things he’d rather keep bur­ied and mak­ing his heart soft as swamp sludge. Bot­tom line was he needed Eri, and her people in­vaded Refuge, so he shouldn’t feel a shred of guilt for mak­ing her de­cipher those sym­bols.

  But Striver cares for her. Tak­ing his brother’s girl­friend made him feel like the slime on the un­der­side of Jolt’s boots. Striver was still mak­ing him look bad after all these years. Weaver’s re­sent­ment swelled, pre­dict­able as the tide.

  Striver should have let me be that day in the river. He would have died. Think of all the suf­fer­ing he wouldn’t have had to en­dure.

  “Are we al­most there?” Eri whined be­hind him like he was drag­ging her to the har­vest fair. “My feet hurt.”

  “We’re close.” Weaver turned just as Eri tumbled for­ward. He caught her in his arms, his face inches from hers. Dark circles ringed her eyes, her fore­head was creased in worry, and her face was eer­ily pale.

  I did this to her.

  Re­morse panged in his gut. He squeezed her shoulders and helped her up. “You okay?”

  She pushed him away, dis­gust curl­ing her beau­ti­ful lips into a frown. “Get away from me.” The thought of tak­ing her back to the vil­lage and giv­ing her back to Striver crossed his mind, just as an ar­row cut through the leaves and dug into the earth in front of them.

  Weaver’s heart sped. Too late for re­demp­tion. He straightened, stiff as a statue, and spoke without turn­ing to her. “Don’t move a muscle.”

  Hold­ing up both hands, Weaver waited. People con­cealed by he­ad­dresses of leaves emerged from the forest and sur­roun­ded them in a semi­circle. Crusty led them, and Weaver fo­cused on his at­ten­tion. The old man seemed to have a soft spot for Weaver, and maybe he could use that to his ad­vant­age.

  “Come back for more, eh?” Crusty chuckled as the oth­ers poin­ted sharp spears at Weaver’s gut. Crusty clapped his shoulder. “Thought you were dead, weasel.”

  “That’s Weaver.”

  He chewed on some to­bacco root and spit into the forest. “What happened to Snipe?”

  Weaver shook his head. “Didn’t make it. He fell in the golden li­quid.”

  “Poor bas­tard.” A glint of ex­cite­ment traveled across Crusty’s eyes. Since Snipe hadn’t made it, Jolt would pro­mote him. “Gimme that shiny laser of yours, and we’ll call it even.”

  Weaver handed over the laser. “I’ve come to speak dir­ectly to Jolt.”

  Eri seethed.

  Crusty shook his head, oily gray hair fall­ing around his face. “Jolt’s been look­ing for ya like a mother boar over a young­lin’. You’d bet­ter have some­thing good for him.”

  “This is real good. But it’s real secret as well.”

  Crusty put up his hand and the people with spears backed away, giv­ing them pri­vacy.

  Weaver leaned for­ward, sup­press­ing the urge to gag as he smelled the man’s sour breath. “Not only can I give him the codes to the guns, but I have a lin­guist.”

  Crusty rubbed the gray stubble on his chin. “A what?”

  Weaver waved his hand in the air. He’d al­ways thought Crusty was a bit slow. Al­though, no one in the Law­less lands lived to that ripe old age without some amount of cun­ning. “Never mind. A girl from the ship who can de­cipher those sym­bols he wanted me to learn.”

  The old man blinked in sur­prise. “You sure ’bout that? ’Cause Jolt’ll rip that sweet little thing to shreds if he feels like it.”

  An un­der­cur­rent of anxi­ety lined with guilt shot through him. Weaver took a deep breath. “I’m sure.”

  “May fate work its will.” Crusty signaled the oth­ers and they walked to­ward camp in a rag tag parade, Weaver lead­ing Eri like a new pet. Law­less leered at them as they passed, some mak­ing snide re­marks about a curly red head. Al­though Weaver had been through this be­fore, he couldn’t help un­eas­i­ness from creep­ing un­der his skin. Pro­tect­ing him­self was one thing, but babysit­ting a young wo­man, his brother’s po­ten­tial love in­terest, was an­other. This time he was in over his head in wa­ters filled with hungry leech­ers.

  …

  Eri tried to ig­nore the lewd com­ments that could only refer to things she’d never heard of in her sheltered life aboard the Her­it­age. Men dressed in rough leather breeches with sticks through their nose, ghoul­ishly painted faces, and muddy dread­locks lined the streets, look­ing like a ragtag bunch of sav­ages. As she passed ram­shackle huts and muddy path­ways filled with garbage and an­imal ex­cre­ment, she wondered, for a mo­ment, if it ac­tu­ally might be best for her people to take these guys out.

  No, I’m not go­ing there. Every­one de­served a life, and what they did with it was their choice. Too long had she lived on a ship where everything had been de­cided for her, pre­destined. Now
that she had a taste of free will, she didn’t want to let it go. Even if her awaken­ing meant stum­bling through a vil­lage of chaos and poverty.

  Eri covered her nose with the side of her arm, block­ing the dank smell of mold mingled with sweat. Com­pared to Striver’s vil­lage, this place looked like hell. People ar­gued in the streets, call­ing out pro­fan­it­ies, and chil­dren cried from the dark­ness of muddy, moss-covered huts. They walked to the back of the set­tle­ment where the husk of an old space ship pro­truded from the earth like a broken toy.

  Holy Refuge, it must have come from the ori­ginal space pir­ates.

  She hadn’t be­lieved it when Striver had told her there were other ships on Refuge, and the one they pro­tec­ted was the only one that could still fly.

  Half bur­ied in the ground, with moss draped over its wing, the ship looked like a for­got­ten dream, a rem­nant of a lost civil­iz­a­tion. Maybe it was. As a man slapped a small boar on a rope, and a little boy stole a broken pot from a win­dowsill, she wondered if these Law­less people were civ­il­ized at all.

  A guard stood on each side of the en­trance to the ruined space­craft. The one on the right whispered to Crusty. The guard jogged up the ramp.

  Eri had a crazy hope that Jolt wouldn’t want to see them.

  A minute later, the guard sprin­ted down the ramp, faster than he’d gone up. He nod­ded to Crusty and turned to Eri and Weaver.

  “Jolt will see you now.”

  A shiver tickled her spine. She re­membered Jolt’s un­for­giv­ing, dead eyes from the swamp where she’d hid­den with Striver in the tree.

  If only I could go back to that mo­ment and warn him about Delta Slip, tell him that I’m with him and not the people storm­ing Refuge from above.

  Weaver pulled the rope tied around her waist and she jerked for­ward, feel­ing un­pre­pared for what lay in­side.

  Hu­mid air reek­ing of smoke and mold bathed Eri as she stepped in. Her tired re­flec­tion stared back at her on wall­screens long dead. The tech­no­logy was cen­tur­ies old and out­dated, with thick, clumsy wires lead­ing into the ceil­ing and run­ning along the floor.

 

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