by Amy Braun
I didn’t hear any screams. No gunfire or clashing swords. The entire town seemed to have been emptied of life. I hope that was the case. I couldn’t stand to watch Davin and his inhuman friends rape and pillage the survivors struggling here.
And I could tell they were struggling after taking one look at the village.
Six months ago, I was living underground with my sister, caught in the stranglehold of an Electrician named Garnet. The colony was a cluster of lean-tos made of scrap metal and patched fabric situated in a junction in the tunnels. It was a crammed space with horrible air, horrible food, and an even more horrible ruler. I didn’t miss it, but this little town reminded me of it.
Bunches of shanties made from wooden planks held up sheet metal roofs. Moth-eaten fabric covered the uneven windows. Tiny shrubs struggled to grow vegetables in wild gardens beside the houses. Stone cauldrons hung over fire pits. A blacksmith shop was set up in the heart of the town, piles of half-finished swords and dusty flintlocks resting against one of its three wooden walls. I hadn’t been able to make sense of any buildings– unlike Westraven where I could generally tell what each business or office used to do before it fell into ruin– and neither could Davin.
It must have really frustrated him, because he quickly set one of the buildings on fire.
Or maybe he was just bored and hungry. I didn’t spend too long trying to decipher the look on his face.
As if sensing me watching him nervously, he turned in my direction. The blaze behind him grew with each passing second, flames licking out of the windows like demonic tongues. Smoke chugged into the sky, smothering the roof from my vision. Davin’s helmet was still covering his head, but I imagined that if it were off, I would see him grinning.
“That should draw them out, don’t you think?” he asked. Reflections of the fire danced on the glass mirrors shielding his eyes.
I shifted on my feet and looked at the ground. “Maybe there’s no one here,” I muttered.
Thanks to Davin’s supernatural Hellion hearing, he knew what I said. He laughed at it.
“Oh, there are people here, darling. I can smell them. Just not sure where they went. But my scouts will find them.” He turned to the Hellions as they kicked open doors and climbed through windows. “And they’re not going to kill anyone until I say so!” He barked the order again in the sharp tongue that the Hellions spoke, then gave me a malicious grin. “Hurting is optional.”
I grimaced, drawing breath to tell him he was a monster. Then I sighed. Telling Davin what he already knew and relished was a waste
of time.
I turned again, pretending to look for materials when I was actually looking for a way to escape. Much as it rankled me, I was inclined to agree with Davin. There was something about this place that spoke of habitation. A presence in the air, the feel of eyes on my back. Shaking my head and rubbing the back of my neck didn’t dispel the paranoia, especially with Riley watching me like a hawk.
I’ll find a way to save myself, I thought hopefully.
Because that’s worked out so well in the past, the rational part of me argued.
I shut myself off from the internal debate and started walking again. I reached the middle of the blacksmith’s shop, feeling the heat of the burning shanty at my back. The smell of smoke was everywhere, the sound of Hellions ransacking homes becoming muffled behind the wooden walls. I didn’t hear a single scream. Wherever these people were hidden, they were hidden well.
I glanced at the weapons lying unused on the ground, wondering if I could steal one without Davin or Riley noticing. I crept inside the forge and looked around the tables, picking up random tongs and hammers, testing their weight. Riley’s eyes crawled up my spine.
“What are you looking for?” he asked. I shivered at how close he was.
“The basics,” I lied. A pile of gears and cogs caught my attention. I swept them across the table. I glanced at Riley over my shoulder.
“Can you get me a bag or a box to put these in?”
He stared at me for a long, uncomfortable time– I wasn’t supposed to be giving him orders, after all– then turned and started hunting for what I asked. I turned back to the table, then subtly glanced over my shoulder again.
Riley was dumping the contents of a toolbox onto the table. I spun around and grabbed a hammer from the left side of the table, quickly tucking it into the front pocket of the grey coveralls I was wearing. It weighed down the front of the jumpsuit, but not enough that it was noticeable. I went back to aimlessly picking at things until Riley dropped the toolbox next to the pile of gears.
“Thanks–”
He grabbed my shoulder and whirled me around. I gasped sharply as the base of my spine struck the edge of the table. Riley’s fierce blue eyes bored into mine as he plucked the hammer out of my pocket. He tossed it on the table. It landed so close to my hand that I had to withdraw it. Riley didn’t move.
“Do you really think I can be played so easily, Claire?”
I matched his glare, though my heart was rapidly beating with panic. “I needed that.”
“So much that you chose to hide it from me?”
I narrowed my eyes further. “Am I supposed to take an inventory every time I find something useful?” I spat.
“Yes.”
I blinked. He was serious. “Well, I hope you made a checklist. I seem to have forgotten mine at home.”
Riley’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Do not play games with me, Claire.”
“Games are the last thing on my mind right now. Trust me.”
We stared at each other for a time that seemed to have no end. I couldn’t help but feel sad about it all. There was a time where I would have wanted Riley to be this close to me. That time was long passed, and I would never get it back unless I could help him break the Vesper’s hold. His words still haunted me, a chance that the person I knew was still in there. That our friendship hadn’t been a lie.
“What are you searching for?” he asked me.
Your soul, I almost blurted. I pressed my lips together, knowing that was the last answer he wanted to hear. My hand was still dangerously close to the hammer, and I wouldn’t put this puppet past smashing a few fingers to get the answers he wanted. As Davin and the Vesper would argue, I would still have one hand to work with if the other was damaged.
“I told you, I need supplies–”
“What kind?”
“I won’t know until I find them–”
“Claire.” He spoke my name lethally. “This is your last warning.”
Tension wound my body tight. One more veiled threat and I would probably end up shaking. All traces of the Riley I was hoping to see were gone, replaced by the blank faced marionette. I could almost see the Vesper behind his eyes, an invisible shadow looming behind Riley and bearing down on me.
“I need power couplings, connectors, and battery holders. The Palisade needs a lot of juice and I don’t have the parts to keep it charged without a generator.”
“You will find none of those here.”
He grabbed my upper arm and pulled me out of the forge. I barely had time to grab the toolbox before we were back in the middle of the shantytown. Davin was standing at the center with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face. All seventeen Hellions crouched behind him, heaving like animals with barely strained adrenaline. Two more houses burned behind them, creating a wall of rancid black smoke.
“No one wants to come out and play,” he said in the same voice a bully would use when he didn’t get to punch someone. “Either they’re dead, or they’re scavenging.”
Or you’re wrong and no one was ever here, I wanted to say. I held my tongue instead.
“You brought us to a useless location,” Riley accused. “The Vesper put too much faith in you.”
Davin growled like he wanted to rip Riley’s throat out, but he didn’t move. I dropped my head and hid a wicked smile. I wished Sawyer were here to see this. He would have laughed in his brother�
�s face. I could only imagine what he would have said.
“I didn’t make a poor choice, you little shit,” Davin snarled through his mask. He stabbed his hand to the left. “There’s some more buildings over that ridge that we haven’t checked.” He whipped his head back to Riley. “Or did you not see them because the Vesper’s fucked you blind?”
I winced at Davin’s crudeness, but Riley didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink.
“I’ll let you have that insult, Kendric,” he said in a cold voice. “The next one will cost your own eyes.”
Davin hesitated, not wanting Riley to win the war of words but not wanting to push him either. I couldn’t even muster the strength to sneer at the man-made-monster. Never in my whole life had I heard anyone speak the way Riley did. It frightened me.
“We will check the buildings,” commanded the puppet. “If they prove to be useless, we will return to Hellnore, and you can discuss the reasons behind your motives to the Vesper himself.”
Riley turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving us all to stare at his retreating form. I was stunned at that raw power I heard behind his voice. Stunned, and terrified. How was I going to get Riley out of this?
Not wanting to be left behind as an outlet for Davin’s temper, I jogged after Riley. He didn’t slow down or acknowledge me at his side. I guess I shouldn’t have expected him to, but since our hushed conversation on the skiff, I was looking for Riley anywhere I could find him. I was desperate to hope that he was just under the surface, a layer away from me.
Now I was starting to lose certainty.
We stalked through the crooked, narrow alleys between the houses. Dead grass crunched under our feet. Wind behind us swept smoke against our backs.
At the edge of the village, I noticed the building Davin boasted about.
It wasn’t much to speak of. I barely acknowledged it as we were setting down. At first glance, it seemed like a larger version of the lean-tos in the village. Triple the length and a few feet taller, it didn’t seem special.
Until we walked into it.
Riley pulled open the wide double doors with a loud screech and stepped into the darkness. I followed him uneasily. Though Riley was the only other human with me, I was willing to bet that his vision was far better than mine. He was under the Vesper’s control and could use some of his abilities. Thick shadows were crystal clear to Hellions, even with the masks obscuring their faces.
Something clicked and flared to life behind me. I turned around and saw Davin standing with a condensed flare. It was a stick about seven inches long with a hard glass shell around it. When the button on the bottom was pushed, a spark would ignite at the flint in the top, creating a bright fire that would act as a light or a signal. Not as sturdy or easy to conceal as my own torch, but I wasn’t allowed to bring anything but my person on this expedition. Davin would have been all too happy to frisk me.
I watched the flames writhing behind the glass. That was probably what Davin used to start the fires in those poor people’s homes. I wondered how many he had.
Seeming to sense my thoughts, Davin turned in my direction. “Sorry, darling. I’ve only got one left. Looks like you’ll have to stay close to me.”
I grimaced and showed him my back. If I had to stumble around like a fool or stand beside him, I would make myself a fool.
Riley brushed past me and plucked the flare from Davin’s hand. It happened so quickly that Davin probably didn’t know his hand was empty until he looked at it.
By then, Riley was already next to me, one hand gripping the flare while the other held my arm. He led me through the shadows, illuminating the walls so I could see where I was. I quickly learned that Riley was borrowing the Vesper’s eyesight as well as the flare. He moved through the building as if it were his home.
I soon discovered the building was a warehouse of sorts. Shelves were bolted to the walls to hold up wide boxes scrawled with almost illegible handwriting.
But something about it was familiar…
Not asking permission, I reached out blindly and grabbed the flare from Riley’s hands. If he anticipated my movement, he didn’t stop me. I heard his unhappy growl, but didn’t pay it any mind. Davin snickered.
“If she sets the building on fire, it’s on you, puppet-boy.”
More growls came from behind me, morphing into background as I approached the worktable below the shelving units. I stared up at the crates, wondering what was in them. They were too tall for me, but the table was littered with supplies that I could use.
On closer inspection, I noticed that “littered” was the wrong word. The table was covered in tools, coiled wires, nuts, bolts, couplings, boxes, and blueprints, but it was all organized. Every wrench was lined from smallest to largest. Cogs and larger gears were filed in a wooden box. Nuts and bolts were separated next to it. Every strand of electric wire was wound in a perfect circle and hooked on the back wall next to electric gloves and thick goggles. Blueprints were marked with label tabs dictating what they were for. The workstation itself was clear of dust. It was pristine, exactly what an engineer’s table should look like.
Exactly the way my mother kept her table at home.
My heart was in my throat. I could almost picture her here, working diligently, strands of long blonde hair sliding out from the loose tie at the back of her neck, the intense look in her green eyes as she created her device carefully. The respect she had for her work. The total devotion to it that would only be halted when I crept to her side and peeked over the table, standing on the tips of my toes to see what she was doing.
She would always laugh and stroke my hair, then explain how to help her.
The memory was so vivid that it brought tears to my eyes. I missed her so much, but I had so many questions. Why did she leave me with the key to the Meridian’s engineering bay? Why did she think I could do anything about it?
You need to survive, Claire. You can save us. Not just your sister, but everyone.
I never forgot the words she said before she sacrificed her life for Abby and me. But what could I do? I was a damn good engineer, but I wasn’t Deanna Abernathy. I never would be.
My soul ached for her to be alive just so she could tell me what to do. But more than that, it ached because I wanted to see her again.
I blinked away the tears forming in my eyes, fiddling with things on the table so my silence wouldn’t draw the attention of Davin and Riley’s continued argument. I pocketed a couple cogs, some wires, a few small wrenches, small things that would do little to advance the Palisade. I found some starters and couplings and a thick glass tube, thinking I could make a flashbang if I got the chance.
The back of my hand brushed along the blueprints, knocking against something hard. I paused, glancing down at the stack of paper. Tentatively lowering the flare, I noticed the slight raise of the papers. There was something beneath them.
With my free hand, I lifted the corner of the papers. A worn black journal was beneath them. My heart skipped a beat, remembering the journal I found with Sawyer in my family home. The one that explained what really happened ten years ago during the Discovery.
I slid the journal free and flipped it open to a random page. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, yet nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
The only thing I read was the date, scrawled in the same messy scribble as on the crates over my head.
The exact scribble my mother used to use.
The date of this entry was from a week ago.
My chest tightened. My fingers shook on the page.