The Dark Sky Collection: The Dark Sky Collection

by Amy Braun

  That time I almost did throw up. I coughed and gasped, but couldn’t breathe.

  “That’s because I didn’t get a shot in before, bitch.”

  The guard stalked off, leaving me whimpering and groaning on the cold concrete.

  I thought about staying where I was. Consciousness flickered on and off in my head. If I didn’t think I’d be trampled or robbed, I wouldn’t have moved. But I had to get back to Abby. It wasn’t past Garnet to hurt my sister while I was battered, just to prove he could.

  Every motion hurt, but I finally turned onto my knees and pushed myself up. Sharp pain cut through my stomach as I straightened, making me collapse. I caught myself with one hand and wrapped the other around my middle. I stood up again, staggered once, but kept my footing this time. I shuffled toward my lean-to, trying to remember where it was.

  No one helped me. Hardly anyone even looked at me. I didn’t have many friends in the colony. Almost all of them blamed me for my parents being unable to lock the Hellions in their world beyond the Breach, and the others were too afraid to be my friend lest they become victims of Garnet’s wrath. It made living here hard, and walking to my little shelter next to impossible.

  Somehow I managed. My insides were raw and bruised, but nothing felt broken. I almost laughed at the thought. Of course Garnet wouldn’t permanently damage me when he needed my skills. But I would be in constant pain until he decided I screwed up some other way and he could hurt me again.

  As soon as I slipped under the curtain, I saw my only friend. The only person I cared about.

  A little girl with curly blonde hair and bright green eyes stared up at me from her cot. Dirt was smeared across her face, and the tattered clothes she wore hung over her too thin frame. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she wasn’t hurt. I would have sighed with relief if I didn’t feel like it would hurt me even more.

  “Hey, Abby,” I mumbled out.

  My eight year old sister choked out a sob and launched herself at me. I nearly fell again when I caught her and winced when she wrapped her arms around me, but I let her do it. I closed my eyes and smelled the sugary scent of her hair.

  Abby had never known a world that was safe, where monsters didn’t exist and above and below ground. I couldn’t hold onto the hope that she ever would. The Hellions controlled the skies, and Garnet made living a torture. I didn’t imagine either animal would give up their superiority any time soon.

  “I need to lie down, Abby,” I told her, stroking her oily blonde curls.

  My sister pulled her head back from my chest and looked at me with luminous eyes. I wondered how she saw me, ten years older than her with straight, lifeless blonde hair and tired green eyes, battered and bruised, wearing a stained black blouse, scuffed boots, and grey work pants with a brown utility belt stuffed with tools. I probably looked as strong as I felt.

  Abby peeled off of me and stepped back, hurrying to make my cot as comfortable as she could, pushing off my spare tools and fluffing the pile of shirts I used for a pillow. Tiny sparkles of white sugar dusted the cot as she moved. I smiled. Abby had gotten into one of the sugar bags again. I should have known by the smell in her hair.

  I sat down on the creaking cot and rolled onto my back, groaning as I stretched out. The top of my head and entirety of my feet dangled off the edges of the cot, but at least I could sleep like this.

  While I was shifting and getting as close to comfortable as I could, Abby was scurrying around the lean-to, bundling foods and blankets and water into her little arms. She hurried back to me, kicking over a crate since there was too much in her hands. She set the food on the crate and unfolded the blanket that was bigger than her. She tossed it over my body, most of it landing on me. Then Abby took out a strip of meat and reached into a small burlap sack. She opened the sack and sprinkled it with miniscule crystals. She grabbed a flask of filtered water and handed it to me with a strip of dried rat meat. I took both from her gratefully, draining the flask and chewing the meat that tasted like tree bark. The crystal seasoning she placed on it wasn’t salt. It was sugar. It didn’t enhance the flavor of the meat at all, but I was so hungry I didn’t even care.

  Besides, my sister put sugar on everything.

  Abby watched me, wringing her hands nervously. “How much do you hurt?” she asked shakily.

  I closed my eyes. “I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I just need to rest.”

  “You can’t keep doing this, Claire. You’ll get killed.”

  There was no point in denying that. If the Hellions didn’t slaughter me for food, Garnet would let his thugs beat me to death. Neither option was appealing, but I couldn’t take care of Abby on the surface. After our father died and our mother left us, we had nowhere to run. Any friends who might have taken in a ten year old girl and a baby were dead or missing. Going underground was the only way I knew she would live, and where I could use my skills to keep her that way.

  I didn’t think my parent’s mistakes would follow me into the earth.

  “I’ll get us out of here, Abigail,” I said. “I promise. Nothing will happen to you.”

  I meant the last part with every cell in my aching body. But the first half of the promise wasn’t one I could see an end to. I would run if I knew we could get past the Westraven barricades. I’d offer my engineering skills to someone else if I knew they wouldn’t treat us worse than Garnet. I would kill every Hellion I could if I thought for one second I would have a chance.

  Instead, I trapped myself in a deal that was sure to end in my death and leave Abby in a worse position than she was now.

  “Get some sleep, Abby,” I told her.

  She was already shaking her head. “I’m going to find something to make you better.”

  I sighed. There were pain remedies available from the nurses, but there was no telling what was actually in them. On the other hand, the colonists tended to like Abby more than they liked me. Probably because she was an adorable little girl without an ounce of darkness in her soul, and she had no interest in engineering.

  “Get something from Moira,” I murmured. “No one else. Don’t let Garnet’s guards see you.”

  Abby nodded, planted a gentle kiss on my bruised cheek, then raced out of the lean-to. When she was gone, I reached under the collar of my shirt and tugged out the hidden necklace hanging against my chest.

  The chain was thin, tightly woven silver. Dangling off the end of the chain was a black steel skeleton key with four blocky teeth. I turned the key over in my hands, but there were no markings to hint at what it was for.

  But like Abby, I knew I had to keep it hidden and safe. That had been my mother’s final wish…

  She closed the door with a harsh bang, making me jump and Abby wail in my arms. I looked at my baby sister, barely a month old, far too young to understand the loud noises surrounding her. Mom pulled down more furniture, blocking the door as best as she could. The Hellions pounded against it. The wood began to fracture.

  She turned to us, pulling a silver chain from around her neck. She looped it over my head and tucked it under my shirt. I opened my mouth to ask what it was, but she spoke before I did.

  “Take your sister and find somewhere to hide. Don’t let anyone see the key, do you understand?”

  I jumped when a piece of the wooden door cracked and rained splinters onto the floor. The Hellions shrieks drowned out Abby’s cries.

  “But you’re coming too?” I asked.

  Mom shook her head sadly. Her long blonde hair was tangled and messy, and her green eyes were as sad as they were when Dad was killed.

  “I can buy you time.” She looked at the ground. “I have to buy us all time,” she muttered.

  I tried to ask what she meant, but another sharp crack made me jump and back away. The Hellions could hear Abby screaming, and it was turning them ravenous.

  Mom grabbed my arms and pushed me toward the cellar door. She sent me through, then looked at me from the doorway.

  “You need to
survive, Claire. You can save us. Not just your sister, but everyone.”

  Tears choked me. “What about you?”

  My mother smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. There was pain in them, and a look of regret.

  A last look. I choked again, trying to breathe and hold my sister close to me.

  “Mommy…”

  She knelt down touched my shoulder. The door was disintegrating behind her. The Hellions would be on us.

  “You’re a strong, smart, brave girl, Claire. You have mine and your father’s talents. One day you’ll use that key, and you’ll save us all.”

  I didn’t understand. Why was she wasting time telling me this? Why wasn’t she coming?

  Mom pressed a kiss onto the top of my head, then bent and did the same to Abby. My baby sister’s cries lessened for a moment as her mother caressed the top of her head. As if she knew it would be for the last time.

  Then without a final word, she slammed the door in our faces. I stood in the dark, staring in horror, listening to wood shatter and the rasping screeches of the Hellions while my mother began to scream…

  Chapter 2

  Despite the full night’s sleep and painkillers Abby had given me, I wasn’t feeling up to an entire day of scavenging. Not that Garnet would take any excuse, even though he was the one that caused most of my pain.

  The throbbing agony in my stomach and ribs and soreness in my legs was replaced with stiffness every time I moved. I ate as much as we could spare, repacked my belt with tools, flashbangs and torches, and walked into the main intersection.

  Garnet’s head scavenger, a tall, gangly man named Ben, shouted out the same orders he did every time we needed to scavenge.

  The guards would take the fifteen healthiest, fittest people to a designated area of Westraven and have them pick it clean of supplies. Food, water, weapons, clothes, machines, tools, even damaged items were to be picked up, since engineers and Electricians could repair them. Anyone who strayed out of bounds would be left behind. Anyone who tried to run would be shot in the leg, and brought back to Garnet for proper punishment.

  Garnet allowed children to scavenge because they were small and could fit into places adults couldn’t, which meant that Abby was allowed to come with me. My sister might not be an engineer, but she always found the little screws and bolts and gears I needed to put my inventions together.

  The guards split up the groups and took them to different entrances aboveground. The Behemoth was a constantly hovering threat, and it was impossible to tell when the Hellions would launch a raid. Scavenging Day never went on for longer than a few hours, and stopped completely if even a single skiff dropped out of the Behemoth’s belly.

  When Abby and I rose from the manhole cover, the first thing I did was take a deep breath of clean air. It tasted a little bit like dry dust in some areas, but I would take it over the stale humidity in the colony any day. My brain was a little fuzzy from the painkillers Abby got for me, but I could still see clearly when I opened my eyes and looked at the broken city.

  We were downtown today, near the old market, which had received the worst of the bombings during The Storm. There were virtually no free standing shops or apartment buildings. Old, dark red stains filled the cracks in the shattered concrete. Most of the family homes were demolished, burned husks of white stone. Distant factories were imploded, their tall smoke stacks now collapsed inward and looking like a pile of broken sticks.

  But no matter where I looked, I couldn’t see any bodies. There were rumors that the Hellions often took the bodies of the dead back to the Behemoth, but no one knew what for. No one really wanted to know.

  On the far left of the horizon, I could see the Westraven port, the space controlled by the Westraven Trade Board for buying and selling. Before The Storm, Westraven was the central hub for air traffic and trade throughout Aon. The port was the only place in the world that the marauders couldn’t claim. The Sky Guard protected it, as they were the most elite soldiers in the Westraven Forces. While all the traders had their own individual landing spots by the dome-shaped airport, a separate landing pad and hangar/barracks was constructed for Sky Guard airships, right next to a freestanding tower.

  Nobody dared go near the port. Those who tried to hide when the bombings began were hunted and slaughtered. It was said to be the most cursed part of Westraven. Even Garnet didn’t risk sending us there on Scavenging Days.

  Looking away from the tower, I forced my attention onto the lone airship hovering in the sky. The scourge that destroyed us, and remained a staple in our sky.

  Hanging in the stormy grey sky was the black monstrosity we called the Behemoth. It lived up to its name.

  The atrocity looked like two ships stacked on top of each other. The top half was enormous, a black man-o’-war covered with thick iron plates. Four rows of gun-ports carrying heavy cannons on the sides pointed an ominous warning down on us few survivors. Three tall masts with black sails shivered like ghosts in the wind. The bow and the stern curved upward like two horns, rows of spikes jutting out from their middles. Just above the rudder was an exhaust port, which coughed out dark smoke that poisoned the clouds. Massive gears half the size of a house rotated on its side like a spinning saw, ripples of red electricity zipping through the spokes, creating a current that powered the gears and kept the beastly ship afloat.

  No one knew how that bloody electricity was created, or how powerful it truly was. Perhaps we didn’t want to know. It was Hellion technology, which meant it was all but cursed to us.

  Chained under the Behemoth was a smaller portion that was nearly its replica, except for the small slots where the skiffs rested.

  The skiffs backed out of their docks when they went on raiding missions. They were charred metal rowboats with pointed masts and inky black sails. Heavy, gushing smoke spewed from the stern when they steered. The figureheads were pointed, conical spears, used to impale an unlucky victim and hoist them to a fate worse than death. I’d never been on one, but I’d seen them close enough to know how crudely effective they were.

  In the decade since it destroyed most of Westraven, the Behemoth had never moved from its place in the sky. I wondered if that was because it was damaged somehow, or if the Hellions on board simply chose not to let it move.

  Does it really matter, Claire? The Hellions will kill you faster than Garnet will.

  I pushed the thought away by tearing my eyes from the Behemoth. Most of our scavenging party was already working on finding the meager supplies in the dilapidated shops, broken concrete, and snapped piles of rebar. Only Abby and I were standing in place. My little sister was close to my side, her big green eyes fixed on the Behemoth. It terrified her more than anything else in the world. When the Hellions raided, they often stole children. No one knew why. No one wanted to.

  I reached down and took Abby’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. She turned her gaze from the Behemoth to me, and I smiled at her. She held my hand tightly and smiled back, but it was weaker than mine. My heart sank a little. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Abby’s real smile, let alone heard her laugh. I missed them a little more every day.

  Before the other guards could bark at us to get moving, Abby and I walked to one of the collapsed buildings. It looked like it had imploded on itself, so I had no idea what it used to be. I barely recognized the streets anymore. Still, with the amount of rebar and metal sticking out of it, there was probably something hidden in the crevices that we could find and take back to the colony.

  “We’ll start from the top,” I told Abby. That way the building wouldn’t collapse in on us. I crawled up first, still holding Abby’s hand so she wouldn’t slip. My stiff leg muscles and aching stomach protested with every movement, but the painkillers continued to dull the worst of it. At least by moving slowly, I could make it seem like I was pausing to look for supplies instead of crawling up a small mountain in pain.