Valiant

by Merrie Destefano

  Just then, a 1960 Chevy pulls out of the garage.

  It screeches to a rugged halt, Natalie behind the wheel. Good job, she found something vintage that can’t be remote controlled by anyone else. It’s just what we need, although there’s only one person in our group who can really drive this thing.

  Billy.

  His eyes widen; his jaw drops open.

  Nobody but Natalie and me knew that we would be stealing a car at Station One.

  “Hurry up, everyone. Get in the car. Billy, you’re driving.” I sprint into the garage as I talk. I’m looking for our stash of supplies, hoping those Hunters didn’t touch the overflowing trash Justin set up earlier. I’m looking for smelly black trash bags, but instead I stumble over something. “We have to get out of here before the Xua crash another jet nearby or more Hunters show up—”

  I look down and see that I tripped over a dead body. No. Holy crap, I think there might be two dead bodies half-hidden in the shadows.

  There’s so much blood and carnage that I’m fighting a gag reflex.

  Justin grabs me by the arm. “Don’t look,” he says. “I’ll get the bags. Ella, you too, come on, get inside the car.”

  It sounds like he’s coaxing a baby deer out of the woods, and that’s how she looks when she walks haltingly toward the Chevy, stepping carefully over the bodies on the way. Two men, I think, although I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell from what’s left over. Ripped open from throat to gut, skin and bones shredded from the inside out, these two were definitely possessed by Xua.

  I can almost feel the claw marks, like I’m the one who got shredded.

  Every time I see what these creatures can do to us, it hurts more.

  “Come on!” Natalie calls to me. She scoots over to the passenger seat, Ella beside her. Billy settles into the driver’s seat. “They’re dead. I got all of them, even the Xua that were inside the humans.”

  “Did they send out a warning before they died?” I ask, hoping that more aren’t on the way here. Ours didn’t have a chance, but I wasn’t here when Natalie took down these two. I push Gabe in the backseat with me and start digging through the black plastic bag that Justin tossed in a second ago.

  “Nope. Here.” Natalie hands me a zippered pouch. “Found this in my backpack.”

  I open it and see a tube of skin glue and some antibiotic cream. But that will have to wait. I have to do something else first. I push the plastic bag toward my brother. “Grab something else to wear,” I tell him. “Strip down to skin and change your clothes—”

  “Are you kidding me? This stuff smells like piss!” he says.

  “That’s the idea. Take a left and drive past Station Three,” I tell Billy. “But don’t let anyone there see us.”

  …

  With a wild scream of burning tires and roaring engine, the Chevy almost flies down the street, weaving past human and Xua obstacles, and all the while, Billy grins. It’s like he’s been waiting his entire life for this moment, when he could drive a vintage car through an apocalyptic landscape—one with no stoplights or stop signs or police cars with blaring sirens.

  If there are any cops out and about tonight, we’re the last ones they’ll be chasing.

  Ella starts to whimper and shake. “Can I go home?”

  “Maybe later,” Natalie tells her. “You’re safer with us right now.”

  I’m not sure if that’s true, but we definitely don’t have time to swing by her house and tuck her in. If anything, we’d lead the monsters right to her doorstep. As soon as we left her at home, there’d be a slaughter, one that would wipe out her entire family.

  We’re not the safe port in a storm.

  We are the storm.

  Justin’s playing the role of enforcer, making sure Gabe strips down, and when each article of clothing comes off, it gets tossed out the window. Getting my brother to take off his clothes was hard enough, but now it’s taking both Justin and me to dress Gabe in the clothes I got from the garbage. I’m pretty sure some homeless guy was using that dumpster as a toilet. But it’s what we need to survive.

  Up ahead is the proof.

  Every station was taken care of in a different manner, with precise instructions.

  The supplies stashed at Station Three were very specific. Justin took some of Gabe’s dirty clothes—his soccer jersey and shoes and socks—and hid them inside Taco Mesa, a local restaurant. I’ve been trying to figure out how Hunters always find my little brother. If we drive past and the restaurant is deserted, the Hunters aren’t tracking him by smell and I’ll need to adjust my strategy.

  Then Taco Mesa comes into view, one wall painted with a bright combination of graffiti and street art, and I can’t breathe. I don’t know if I wanted to be right or wrong, but I never expected to see this horror movie come to life.

  The entire restaurant has been ravaged, windows cracked, trash cans overturned, chairs broken, and over it all, there’s a haze of black smoke. But it’s not from a fire. It’s a frigging cloud of Xua, looking for bodies to inhabit. They’re in a frenzy.

  Holy, holy, holy crap.

  “Turn, quick, get us the eff out of here now!” I say, and I push my brother down so no one outside the car can see him. Justin clamps a hand over Gabe’s mouth, just in case he was going to yelp a complaint. Natalie does a similar floor dive with Ella.

  The Chevy swerves and turns left fast, Billy slams his foot on the gas pedal, and I hope we look like a car being driven by normal humans—normal humans who are terrified of the Xua.

  I close my eyes and grit my teeth and pray.

  Don’t let them know that the one person they really want to kill is inside this car, please, please, please… Don’t let them catch the scent of my brother’s skin, let his disguise work, let us escape this part of the invasion…

  And then when we are five blocks away from Station Three, aka Taco Mesa, eight blocks away from Station Four, we ditch the car. Because maybe they figured it out, maybe they smelled my brother, maybe they smelled me. Maybe they can hear and recognize the beat of his heart. Maybe it’s his voice or his aura or his brain waves—

  Whatever maybe is true doesn’t matter.

  We’re running and hiding, while people all around us are getting slaughtered. We try not to look when people are being possessed or killed. We can’t, not now. We head for the Santa Ana River, which is really just a concrete flood-control channel, and it’s a place where smart people my age never, ever go.

  13

  Every city has a horrible secret, a place so dark that cops won’t go there and news reporters refuse to cover what happens there. In most cities, it’s either the tumbledown ghettos or the historic, falling-apart inner city. Here in Southern California, it’s the man-made system of rivers, built to help channel runoff during winter rains, a Hail Mary effort to prevent floods. Tent cities first formed along the edges of the Santa Ana River back before 2020, but since our drought, the cities have spread down into the belly of the river. It wasn’t long before every form of corruption followed.

  Today, the flood-control system is a river of evil.

  And it’s called Snake City.

  It’s both a meeting place and a home for drug dealers, gang members, skin dealers, metal shops, Genetics for hire, back-alley surgeons, the homeless, and the mentally ill. It’s secretly run by local politicians and policed by thugs enhanced with metal implants.

  There’s a pain in my chest as I remember the first time I stumbled across a man with fists lined with metal spikes. I was walking through downtown Santa Ana with Justin, and it was one of those times when I thought, He’s totally going to kiss me tonight. It was back before I began traveling through time, before I found out just how dark the world could be. We were laughing and heading toward a frozen yogurt shop, and he slid his arm around my waist.

  It might have been the first time I though
t, This guy is it; he’s the one I could fall for. I knew he was a Genetic and that nobody wanted us to be together. But I didn’t care. He was sunshine on a dark night. He was heat when the cold winds blew.

  I put my head on his shoulder.

  It was only natural.

  It was exactly right.

  Then I saw the metal man, his brow furrowed as if his heart held all the anger in the world. He was chaos and destruction and he was walking toward us, eyes like fire, like he wanted to kill us both.

  Maybe he was looking at Justin. Metal men hate Genetics, because in a real battle, Genetics win. It doesn’t matter how much metal you’ve grafted onto your skin or bones—it might make you stronger, but you’re slower, too. Nobody can match the speed and natural strength of a Genetic. So this guy might have been looking at Justin and challenging him, but it felt like I was going to be collateral damage.

  One swing of his spike-covered fist and I’d be dead.

  But I didn’t have to worry about it for long, because Justin pushed me behind him. I couldn’t see his face, but I could see the metal man. Doubt flickered in his eyes; he paused and glanced to the side. He was probably looking for a way out.

  Justin took a step forward, his hands curled in fists. When he spoke, his voice came out like thunder, a loud, low growl that rumbled through my spine.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Justin said. “Take one more step and I’ll rip out your metal implants, one by one. They hurt going in, so you better believe it’ll be a mother when I pull them out.”

  He paused to laugh, but I’d never heard him laugh like that before. It was chilling, like he was a different person. He continued to warn the metal man. “Especially when I twist those implants sideways and the roots tear off chunks of your flesh.”

  The metal man narrowed his eyes, and there was a split second when I thought he was going to tackle Justin.

  Maybe he would have.

  But he didn’t get a chance. It was like Justin knew the metal man’s plan, like it was an open football playbook. Justin rushed him, grabbed the guy around the waist, and slammed him against the brick wall of a local tattoo parlor. It took the wind out of the metal man’s lungs, and he was temporarily stunned. Justin could have slugged him; he could have broken the guy’s arms; he could have killed him.

  All he did was lean close enough to whisper in the guy’s ear.

  Then Justin stepped back and let the thug slide to the sidewalk in a heap. The metal man caught his breath, his eyes flickered, and he glanced up at us. Then he floundered to his hands and knees and crawled away as fast as he could. By the time he got to his feet, we were surrounded by a Friday-night club crowd, most of them drunk and all of them laughing at the metal man as he ran away.

  Justin didn’t even hit the guy.

  Sometimes you can win by intimidation alone.

  So, do I melt every time I see this boy, who was willing to fight to protect me?

  You better believe it.

  Unfortunately, this time, he’s got more than just me to protect as we head closer and closer to the nightmarish pulse of Santa Ana. He’s got a team of six, all of us wary as we approach the guardians of this Snake City.

  Right in the middle of us is my brother, Gabe. If he dies, this alien apocalypse will turn into hell on Earth.

  None of us will get out of it alive.

  And I really doubt that intimidation is going to save us this time.

  …

  “Are you sure?” Billy whispers.

  We’re standing on an overpass, looking down into Snake City, where occasional lights flicker and the air is filled with laughter and screams. The Xua haven’t made it here yet, so the screams are just an everyday occurrence.

  I swallow, running my fingers over my laser switchblade. It’s perfect for fighting the Xua. But metal men, Genetic mercenaries, and gang members? Not so much.

  “What weapons do we have?” I ask. I need to know what our arsenal is, all of it. “Besides your laser switchblades.”

  “Nightstick, brass knuckles—”

  “Bowie knife—”

  “Regular switchblade and a gun—”

  I didn’t expect Justin or Ella to have a weapon, and they don’t. But my brother having a bowie knife and Natalie having a gun were both surprises.

  “I—um— Okay. Well, I wouldn’t want to mess with us,” I say, giving them a weak smile. “Let’s head down. Gabe and Ella, you guys stay in the center of us as we walk. And let me do the talking. If there is any talking.”

  Another plane nosedives in the distance, somewhere in Irvine, and I close my eyes when it thunders and splinters into a bank of high-rise condos. Natalie takes my hand, and I hear the jingle of that gold and jade bracelet on her wrist. Her last gift from her father who may or may not still be alive.

  We don’t talk about the things that break our hearts.

  But it doesn’t mean our hearts aren’t broken.

  I open my eyes, catch a glimpse of the distant skyline on fire, hear the catcalls and shouts from down below as if all of this is a fireworks display for their enjoyment. The darkest souls of the city are below, their tents and booths and beds covering the river bottom, as far as the eye can see.

  It’s the place we shouldn’t go.

  It’s the place we have to go.

  So we begin our long descent.

  14

  We only have to make it until morning. No one we know would ever think to look for us here. It’s possible that even the Xua are terrified of the people in Snake City.

  Aerithin never would have approached me if he didn’t think I could do this.

  I tell myself all of this and more as I run down the overpass stairs, and then begin weaving my way through the tents that stand up at the top of the river embankment, Justin at my side. The rest of my team is a step or two behind us. I could turn around and grab my little brother if I had to; I could take his hand and we could run; I could tackle him and shield him if someone attacked us…

  I’ll do whatever I have to, even go through the gates of Snake City and come back out alive. I can do this. I can.

  And then we hear the screeching of tires and metal as cars crash into one another back up on the overpass, where we stood only a few moments ago. I glance over my shoulder and see a haze of smoke above the cars. The Xua must be here.

  My heart skips a beat.

  Maybe soaking Gabe’s clothes in piss wasn’t enough. Maybe they can still smell him.

  Ella lets out a terrified cry, but Billy clamps a hand over her mouth.

  “Quiet,” he says. “We can’t look afraid. Not now.”

  “Hurry, guys,” Natalie says. “Don’t look behind us. I’ll take care of anything that comes from that direction.”

  We’re running even faster now, through the tents and the growing crowds of people who’ve crawled to the uppermost edge of the river. They’re all craning their necks to watch the aftermath of the car crash, laughing and taking bets on what will happen next.

  “A fiver on the guy in the SUV.”

  “Two fivers on the woman in the Fiat. If she survives, we should invite her to join us!”

  I don’t know what their currency is here, but I know I’ve got something they’ll want. Six bags of Syn-Op that I stole from my parents’ stash. It’s not even on the street yet. So far, my crew has slipped past, unnoticed by the adults who are thriving on the chaos caused by the invasion.

  That’s when we meet our match.

  A rugged gang of people about my age has spotted us, and they’re headed our way, climbing up the sides of the river toward us.

  This group looks even scarier than the adults, all of them wearing black-and-gray camouflage, their faces painted to match, and their hair black and spiked. Some are Genetics like Justin, which surprises me at first. I’ve never seen this many
together in one place, but really, where else do they have to go? The Genetics almost fit in here, with their metal spikes and their skin covered in tats. I note that these are juvie tats, which are just as bad as prison tats.

  It’s easy to tell which one is the leader. She’s a Genetic with metal enhancements, and her black hair has light-blond roots.

  She sizes Justin up as she approaches. “Traitor,” she says to him with a sneer.

  He pulls his shoulders back. She’s not as tall as he is, nor as broad, and with her metal I bet she’s slower than he is. But she’s got a bigger, badder crew than he does.

  She shoves Justin on the shoulder, almost pushing him backward. But he stands his ground. And thankfully, he doesn’t take the challenge.

  “Why didn’t you come when we sent out the call?” she asks him.

  He glances at me before answering. “I’m not for hire.”

  “Sure looks like you are. Is this your girl or is she your master?”

  “We’re partners,” I say, taking a step forward. I’ll be mincemeat if she swings a punch at me, but it’s a risk I have to take. We need to get down into the belly of that river, into the midst of the booths and tents and mayhem that make up Snake City.

  The girl nods at me. “Well, your partner is welcome to join us. The rest of you better be on your way or you’ll regret coming here.”

  “Maybe we should leave,” Gabe says from behind me.

  I don’t want to do this, but I have to prove I’m in charge.

  “Shut up!” I yell, and I turn around and backhand him across the face, hard. He flinches and stumbles backward, a look of betrayal in his eyes. I want to cry and apologize, but I don’t dare. Instead, I turn around and glare at the Genetic girl, my brother’s blood on my hand. I narrow my eyes. “All of us or none of us. One night only. Down there, not up here on the embankment.” I point toward the concrete river.

  She crosses her arms, while the gang behind her murmurs threats at us. I try to count how many there are, but it’s almost impossible in the darkness. They’re like an army of shadows.

  “What do you have to trade? And don’t offer me any of your weapons. The junk you guys are carrying isn’t worth my time.”