Valiant

by Merrie Destefano

  Justin seems to read my emotions, and I don’t think he likes it.

  “Let’s grab our stuff and move into the alley,” he says.

  We jog inside the shelter of the store and start gathering up all our backpacks. We’re just about to slip out the front door when a man heads out of the building across the street. His shirt is stained with blood, and his left pant leg is ripped, but his movements are smooth as he surveys the street.

  My blood runs cold.

  Holy crap, it’s a Hunter.

  The man’s head snaps up as if he can hear my heartbeat speeding up. His eyes narrow on the coffee shop.

  Justin grabs me. “Drop the bags,” he whispers as he pulls me away from the door.

  My knapsack slips from my fingers, and I sink to a crouching position. Together we make our way deeper inside the store, threading around tables and chairs and kiosks until finally we crawl behind the counter, below some espresso machines. A ripped bag of coffee crunches beneath my feet as I scoot farther into the darkness. Justin hunches in front of me, shielding me. I can see out the door, but my line of sight is limited. I lean forward and put one hand on his shoulder.

  “We need to kill him,” I whisper.

  Justin gestures for me to be quiet.

  The man levels his gaze on the coffee shop, crosses the street, and heads straight for us. He stops in front of the store, and I’m positive about what he is now. His body is tense, and his eyes are focused as he scans the room. Like he’s searching for something.

  Hunters don’t go into tracking mode until they’re looking for their true target.

  Is it me?

  My hands are sweating, and I want to fight, but I want to run away at the same time. I wish I knew where the back door of the coffee shop was. I think it’s down the hallway, past the restrooms, but I’m not sure. And even if I could find it, it might be locked. I wish we had checked that out sooner.

  The man steps inside the shop, then kicks out part of the plate-glass window with a loud crash. He obviously isn’t trying to sneak up on us.

  “Sara?” he says in a calm voice. “Are you in here?”

  Holy effing crap. Natalie was right. They are after me.

  WTF is going on?

  Justin takes my hand and squeezes it. I realize he’s got the scissors Natalie used earlier in his other hand. I wish he had that bat instead.

  I wish I had that bat. I’d like to crush some alien skull.

  The man takes a step closer, shoes crunching on glass. “Sara?”

  Sweat trickles down the back of my neck, and I worry that he can smell it.

  “You’re in here, aren’t you? I heard this is where you like to hang out.” He laughs, but it doesn’t sound human. It’s more of a warble, like a song played on the wrong speed with lots of distortion. “You know you’re not going to win. You may as well come out. My friends will be here soon.”

  I look at Justin. He motions for me to be still.

  “Sara left about twenty minutes ago,” Justin says.

  I can tell he’s getting ready to stand up, and I shake my head. He could get hurt.

  I can’t lose Justin.

  “What if he’s got a gun?” I whisper.

  The man laughs again. “I knew you were here, Sara.”

  Justin gets to his feet and steps out from our hiding place. I peek over the counter. The man isn’t alone. Two of his friends have joined him, and they’re blocking both exits. One of them is in a woman’s body, and the other one is inside a young boy around ten years old.

  I’m not about to let Justin fight this battle alone.

  I warily come out from behind the counter. Justin begins to swing the scissors, slashing a wide arc, making all of them keep their distance from us.

  “Watch out for the boy,” I warn Justin as I pull out my switchblade. “He’s the Leader.”

  As I’ve learned the hard way countless times over, they always put their high command inside an unsuspecting host, the one you’d be least likely to hurt. In this case, they probably think I won’t fight a little boy, because I love my brother so much.

  They’re wrong.

  The boy crouches in the shadows, watching me, waiting. He’s not trying to hide what he really is anymore. His eyes glow in the dark, and he makes a strange sound, some sort of command in his native tongue, a language I’ve never been able to learn. I glance away from him, trying to gauge how far away the man and the woman are. She’s a hazy silhouette in front of the window, but I can tell she’s both older and heavier than me, and she’s leaning at an awkward angle. A Jumper. I’m hoping her out-of-shape body and the Jumper’s lack of control will make her slow. The man’s the complete opposite, however. He’s built like a gymnast, short with broad shoulders and a strong body.

  Are more of his Xua friends on their way here? If so, we’re up a creek.

  We have to get out of here.

  Justin tries to keep them all at a distance, giving us both enough room to edge our way toward the front door. I’ve moved behind him, but the boy is still at my back, guarding the rear entrance.

  I take another step away from the counter, and I’m temporarily exposed. I’m just about to swing around and put my back to Justin’s, when the boy snarls and leaps toward me. He latches onto me like a monkey, then wraps his arms and legs around me. The impact of his leap knocks me down, and we tumble to the floor. My instinct is to cry out, but I manage to keep my lips clamped shut.

  I gut-punch the kid with my elbow, three times, hard and fast, knocking the wind out of him. His grip loosens, and I almost shake him off when the woman springs to life, charging toward me on lurching limbs, fast and determined.

  Justin slashes her on the leg when she gets closer, slicing her across the femoral artery. She starts losing blood but not quickly enough. She lunges even closer, and it looks like she accidentally tips over a nearby table. But nothing Xua do is accidental. The table falls, and a tray of bottles and mugs crashes to the floor. Glass sprays up, and I cover my eyes with my left hand.

  At that same moment, the kid bites me on the arm, sinking his teeth so deep I think he hits bone. This time I can’t help it.

  I scream.

  The Xua inside the woman jumps, splitting her open in an instant, and then the smoky alien sails the short distance between us, and everything happens so fast it feels like I’m in slow motion. The Hunter grabs one of the espresso machines and launches it at Justin. He dodges to the side and, at the same time, the world around us growls, a deep, deafening roar.

  The Hunter leaps toward me, jams something between my lips to keep my mouth from closing. The vaporous Jumper flies closer, and I can see its head, like a gargoyle made out of smoke, grinning, sneering.

  It pushes inside my mouth, a taste like oil and ashes and death, flowing down my throat. I try to cough, try to shake the kid off my back, try to cry out for help, but I can’t. I can’t even breathe.

  The roaring sound grows even louder, and there’s a glistening fountain of glass and noise as two motorbikes sail through the broken front window. One of them crashes into the Hunter and knocks him aside. Justin yells. I think it’s Justin, although nothing seems familiar anymore.

  Not this world.

  Not these people.

  The boy on my back speaks to me, inhale deep and flow deeper, he says, and for the first time I understand the beautiful Xua language. Take her body; flow so deep no one can separate you…

  I relax, let the Xua in, open all the doors, let it take over my body.

  A dark-haired human boy looms over us. He looks familiar, but I’m not sure. He’s smashing his boot into the face of the Hunter—but I don’t care about either of them.

  Flow deeper, into all the hidden places…

  Now the dark-haired human boy pulls the Leader off my back. I want to howl—I don’t want to be s
eparated from my Leader, not now, not when I’m in the process of inviting a Xua inside this body. The dark-haired human boy slugs a fist into my Leader’s jaw, and my Leader falls slack to the ground. Unconscious.

  No! My Leader needs my help.

  I stand and swing at a human girl who lunges at me, a glowing weapon in her hand.

  “Hold still, Sara,” she says.

  The tail of my true body is almost inside, another second or two and everything will be as it should be. If I can only keep this human girl away from me for that long, then—

  Strong arms pin me in place, and the human girl swings her weapon.

  No!

  I try to inhale, to suck my beautiful Xua body inside. I lift my chin and expand my chest.

  Someone pounds me in the back.

  “Get it out. Kill it. Now!” the dark-haired human boy who holds me cries. “Natalie, hurry!”

  Another human boy, this one with blond hair, grabs my chin and holds me still.

  The human girl swings with deadly precision, slicing through my tail. I growl and moan as pain surges through me, mixing with images of my homeland, memories of the battle that rages in the future, anger at my failure. Every fiber of me catches fire, I’m burning and ripping and all my memories are fading away until only one remains.

  Hatred.

  And then, I hear the call of death as this planet pulls me onward, toward ashes and fire and a roaring wind that will never stop blowing.

  I part my lips, and centuries of death pour out.

  An entire civilization is dying in this moment.

  28

  Fire burns through me, raging in my organs, my chest, my mind. I can’t survive this.

  I panic.

  My face is in a pile of red ash, and it feels like I’m going to choke to death.

  I cough, and my throat convulses and my chest heaves.

  I’m either going to die or I’m going to live, and I don’t know which is worse. Voices are arguing around me, but I don’t recognize the faces. I want to run; I need to get away from here.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Didn’t you get the Xua out? Maybe it took you too long—maybe it’s not really Sara anymore,” the blond boy says.

  “I killed it! You saw the red ash pour out of her mouth. The Xua is dead!” the dark-haired girl says.

  I push myself to a sitting position, then scoot away from them.

  A beautiful dark-haired boy keeps watching me, a guilty expression on his face like he’s responsible for all this. “I’m sorry,” he says, moving closer. “It’s my fault, but you’re okay now. Tell me you’re okay. Sara, please.”

  I scoot away and hold up one hand. “Don’t touch me.”

  “I’m Natalie,” a dark-haired girl tells me. “Say it.”

  “Natalie. You’re Natalie. Let me go!”

  She has taken hold of my arm.

  “No,” she says. “You’ll run off, and we can’t let you do that. Sorry.” Her voice cracks a little. “I can’t lose you, Sara. You just need a little time. You’ll remember. I think.”

  She looks at the dark-haired boy, and I think, He’s going to cry and it’s going to break my heart. I have to get out of here.

  “Do they remember?” Natalie asks, a thread of panic in her voice. “How long does it take? She never told me. Why didn’t she tell me?”

  But she still won’t let me go, and I’m too weak to fight her.

  The girl named Natalie argues with the others. She tells them they need to do whatever’s necessary to make me remember.

  The beautiful dark-haired boy crouches on the ground a few feet away from me. “I’m Justin,” he says, his voice low and soft. It’s a deep, soothing rumble in my chest, and it takes away some of the pain. I sigh. He smiles, but I see sadness in his eyes. “I won’t give up on you, Sara. No matter what. You wouldn’t give up on me. We’re going to do whatever we can to help you remember, okay?”

  I shake my head.

  I don’t want to remember.

  My muscles tense, my pulse speeds up, my breathing gets short and fast.

  “I’ll take her home,” Natalie says at last, as if she’s tired of discussing this. “Maybe that will help.” She hangs onto me as she heads toward a motorcycle, and then gestures for me to get on the vehicle behind her.

  I shake my head.

  “Sara, you have to do this. You need to know who the monsters are. You’ve always been the one to explain it all to me. Now it’s my turn.”

  Her words are an arrow through my chest. I don’t remember her, but she’s right.

  We all need to know who the monsters are.

  I reluctantly climb on the back of her bike, my legs straddling the great machine.

  “It’s not safe,” the boy with the blond hair argues. “What if the aliens are watching us?”

  “Then I’ll just have to kill them.” She shrugs as she kicks her bike into gear. “Like I killed this one.”

  “We shouldn’t split up,” Justin says.

  She stares at him silently for a long time. I think she might be mad at him for some reason, but there’s something about this boy named Justin.

  I can’t imagine anyone being angry with him for very long.

  “Fine, then follow us,” she says.

  I’m glad she said that. I’m glad Justin will be with us.

  And then we’re roaring down the street, wind rushing over us, the boys behind us and darkness ahead.

  29

  The sun has disappeared and, to the left, clouds of smoke and fire rise from the freeway. The motorcycle thrums beneath us as we zip down alleys and back streets. Natalie’s trying to keep us hidden from sight, and I can feel the tension flowing from her to me.

  She’s worried about me.

  I still don’t remember who she is. She’s just a name, a tattoo of letters.

  But she did cut a Xua out of me. Only a true friend would do that. Most people would run if they got that close to a Jumper.

  The ground beneath us loosens as we spin through a patch of gravel. We lean into the spin, barely manage to keep the bike upright, feet touching pavement. She swears, a quick succession of words that I don’t understand, and we slow to a stop in front of a large building. Brick against mottled sky. The tang of garbage and rain fills my nostrils. Is it raining?

  The ground is wet with it, but the clouds must have passed.

  Natalie points toward the nearest tall building, a block of windows and stone.

  “That’s where you live,” she says. She climbs off the bike, so I do the same. Together we push the bike into a cluster of bushes until it’s completely hidden. I rest my hands on my hips, wishing something looked familiar. A moment later, another bike roars up alongside us. Justin and the blond-haired boy climb off.

  “One of you needs to stand guard,” Natalie says. “You.” She points at the blond boy. “You said it wasn’t safe. Seems like you should be the one.”

  “Come on, Natalie. You said we shouldn’t split up,” he says.

  “I changed my mind.”

  The blond boy sighs and crosses his arms. But he stays behind, just like she said.

  Natalie leads the way toward the front of the building, where the three of us do our best to keep to the shadows. Up the stairs and in the front door. She stares at me in the blackened hallway, then hands me something. I fumble with it, fingers sliding over a switch until a beam of light shoots from my palm. The troubled expression on her face fades as if she’s trying to hide her concern. She gets out another flashlight and shines it on the stairs, gesturing for Justin and me to follow her. We go up several flights, during which time I realize how exhausted I am. I feel like I’ve been running for hours, my left arm hurts, and my knuckles look like mincemeat. When we finally come to a stop on the fourth floor, I rub th
e bite on my arm.

  Natalie sees me, and her brow knits together again.

  “Are you hurt?” she asks.

  I don’t say anything. I’ve been injured worse. It’s the way of battle. Survive or die.

  Together we all stand before a door. She tries running my palm over a scanner, but the power is out. Nothing happens. She curses, then looks at Justin.

  I think he’s going to try to break in, maybe slam the door with his shoulder or his foot, but he doesn’t. He just curls his right hand in a fist and thumps the door, right where the locks are. They snap, the door flies open, and one of the hinges breaks.

  “Show-off,” Natalie says to him, but she gives him a smile when she walks through the door.

  I stare at Justin, surprised by his strength. He looks like he could be a Genetic. I hadn’t noticed before. He’s watching me, studying my expression. Like he’s worried that I’m afraid of him. But I’m not.

  “Impressive,” I say.

  He gives me a slow smile.

  We shine our lights inside the door, sweeping the first room—a kitchen. Natalie drops her backpack on the table and opens the refrigerator, pulls out a couple of bottles, then hands one to me. I press it to my cheek, welcoming the fact that it’s still cool. Then I twist off the cap and drink, not caring what’s inside, not bothering to taste it. I feel like I haven’t had anything to drink for years.

  “You have any candles or any—” Natalie stops, probably realizing I won’t know the answer to her question. She begins rooting around through cabinets and drawers, says, “Aha,” and pulls out a handful of candles, followed by a lighter. A moment later, we have one small candle pooling light on the kitchen table, another in a bedroom that must belong to me. Then we carry a third candle as we walk down the hallway.

  I shake my head. I don’t want to see what’s back there. My heart starts to beat faster, and a wave of panic surges over me.

  “No,” I whisper.

  She opens the door at the far end of the hallway, and I hold my breath. I don’t want to go in there; I don’t want to see it. But I don’t even have to, because a smell wafts out. The scent of spray paint and tennis shoes and leather baseball gloves, and something else that I don’t smell but I remember.