by Amy Braun
That’s what I was without Claire– an empty husk. Nothing and no one worth remembering.
“I’m not sure,” Claire admitted. “Working nonstop with help, it could take at least three days. I’ll have to get started right away, and if we’re on the move–”
“No. We’re taking the Palisade out of the Dauntless. You can work on it in Westraven. The Breach must be somewhere close to it. You can show us. We’re going through it to get Claire.”
Deanna opened her mouth to protest. “You can’t go alone.”
“We’re not. I’m going to leave a handful of Sky Guard and some of the weaker recruits with you. The rest are coming with me.”
Nash and Gemma looked at each other nervously. Hope started to gleam in Deanna’s eyes. She was willing to sacrifice her daughter to save the rest of us– a decision that she obviously knew the consequences of, since the guilt would follow her to the grave, along with Abby’s hate– but she wanted to do anything she could to avoid that option. From the look on her face, I knew she wouldn’t fight my decision.
She gave me a steady nod.
“We’re going to need something to protect our lungs from the air,” Beck said.
“I’ll make sure everyone has masks,” Deanna promised. She looked me in the eye. “With some help, I’ll have enough ultraviolet guns for everyone you want to take with you. I know how to change the voltage output on the Palisade so it won’t destroy the Clearer, but it will take me some time to get the Clearer out of the way once it’s absorbed the electrical energy in the Breach’s tunnel. I’ll have to adjust most of the settings on the Palisade.”
I understood the meaning behind her words. She was giving me time. Allowing me to search for her daughter, hopefully even bring her back before the Palisade was fixed so she and Claire could work on it together. Between the two of them, it would take no time at all.
But I also understood that she wouldn’t wait. Once the Palisade was finished its reconstruction and modification, Deanna would activate it. She would assume we were dead or captured, and never returning. She would have no ship to use to confirm it, and risking her life by coming with us into Hellnore would paint a target on her heart, one that the Vesper wouldn’t be able to resist.
Deanna was our last resort. Our last chance of survival.
Now I understood her completely, even though I didn’t agree with her.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I don’t think this mission will last long.”
Either because we would find Claire and use the Volt to eliminate any Hellion that plagued Hellnore, or because we would die before we got anywhere close to her.
The end was in sight. I just had to hope that it would end in our favor.
Chapter 16
Claire
Sawyer taught me a few tricks to driving a skiff. He seemed to think that I needed to know, in case we became engaged in combat and he had to give up flying for fighting. The entire concept terrified me, though I was glad that I learned.
Though I was nowhere near as good as he was. I didn’t have the finesse for quick, dodging turns. I couldn’t do the fancy tricks he always did with a smirk. I was barely able to lift the skiff over rocky terrain to avoid dashing myself against the mountainside.
The land around me was sharp and unforgiving, the unrelenting wind slapping at my body and making me squint even through the goggles. I couldn’t see clearly, the flaky ash-rain smearing across the glass shielding my eyes. My breathing was sharp and raspy through the respirator. Adrenaline thudded through my veins, making my heart hurt.
I had no idea where I was going. My plan was to find a place to hide until I could sneak back within the transmitter’s range and activate the Volt. A cave or ridge where I could hide in so my pursuers would have difficulty seeing me.
I glanced over my shoulder. Two skiffs were heading toward the Breach, and one was flying in my direction. My throat closed. They were still far away from me, but closing in fast. I didn’t know if Davin or Riley were on one of those skiffs, but I told myself they were. Even if it wasn’t true, it gave me motivation to push the skiff faster.
The only light came from the vomiting volcano on my left and the lighting rolling in the clouds over my head. Every time I saw a flash of light, I expected a bolt of lightning to smash into the ground in front of me– or directly on me. It would be just my luck. I was terrible at escaping.
But I didn’t stop the skiff. I kept going, turning the vessel hard to the right, swerving sharply to keep from smashing into the mountainside. I turned again, veering against the rock wall and following it. Now that I was so close, the ridges of the lower mountain should hide me.
Hopefully. Maybe.
Unlikely.
Think, Claire, think!
There had to be a way to escape the skiffs trailing me. There had to be some place where…
Up ahead, tucked in a crevice between two of the mountain ridges, was a plume of smoke. But this wasn’t like the filthy fog surging from the volcano. It was more like the sickening smoke that came from the exhaust ports of the Behemoth, or the very skiff I was on, though this one was larger...
Because it was coming from two stacks, which were attached to an oil black building.
A factory.
Why was a factory out here, so far from the Spire? Was that where they made their hideous ships? Or was it for an even more sinister purpose?
I shuddered. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to turn away from it, but I couldn’t cut across the plane where the volcano was erupting, and I couldn’t turn around. Forward was the only way.
I pushed the helm down, dropping the skiff and pitching my stomach up to my chest. I gritted my teeth and accelerated. The skiff resisted me, but I didn’t give it an ounce of control.
My eyes traced my surroundings, struggling for clarity through the smudge on my goggles.
There’s nothing, they’re going to see me, I’m trapped–
There!
Up ahead, in the middle of a ridge was a black hole, growing wider the closer I got to it.
A cave. It had to be.
Maybe it was desperation tricking me, but I didn’t have another option. Once I lost my pursuers, maybe I could find a new place to hide. For now, the cave would have to do.
I pushed the skiff as hard and fast as I could. I chanced another look over my shoulder. The pursuing skiff was coming around the corner, moving higher than before. Maybe the Hellions wouldn’t see me yet.
I turned my attention to the cave ahead of me. It was a yawning blackness thicker than anything else I saw out here. I prayed I wasn’t making a mistake– that it was actually a cave mouth open for me and not a shadow covering a stretch of rock that would obliterate me when I struck it.
Then again, it would be a quicker death than whatever the Hellions planned for me.
The shadow-cave loomed ahead. Then I was upon it.
Then I went through it.
I couldn’t begin to express my joy when I realized I wasn’t going to crash. I was so relieved, I almost forgot that I couldn’t see anything, including the actual stone wall I was probably about to smash into.
Fumbling desperately, I found the switches and buttons for the helm. The skiff coughed and jerked to a sharp stop that nearly threw me from onto the deck.
I regained my footing and leaped off the ship. The respirator blocked out the taste of the smoke settling in the cave, but it couldn’t stop the acrid smell. I grimaced and stumbled in the blackness, looking for the wall.
Rough rock skidded under my fingers. I rested my palm against it. I shuffled forward, nudging my shoulder to the wall. I pressed my back to it, glancing at the cave mouth.
When I saw the skiff hovering in clear view outside of it, my heart stopped.
No no no!
They must have seen me enter the cave.
My brain scrambled for a plan of attack. All I had were flashbangs. They worked as distractions, but not as actual weapons. And I only had four left. Ma
ybe I could make something if I stripped parts from the skiff I’d used, but I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I didn’t even know how the skiffs were put together. Sawyer’s had never needed to be repaired.
While I was thinking of solutions, I noticed something else.
The skiff outside hadn’t moved.
I didn’t understand. This close, the Hellions must have been able to see inside. They would see the skiff, if not me.
So why weren’t they coming inside? Why were they just sitting there?
They were waiting for me to come out. That had to be it. They knew I was trapped and couldn’t stay in here. I could use a torch, but they would see the light.
Fear clenched like a fist in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. What am I going to do–
The skiff outside suddenly pitched to the right and disappeared.
I stood, frozen in place, for what must have been an eternity. Then I waited some more.
Had I been wrong? Had the Hellions not seen where I’d gone? Was I safe to leave? Or were they waiting outside, knowing I would crack and run into the open sooner or later?
I needed to see if I was in a cave, or a tunnel. Sliding my back along the coarse wall, I reached for a torch. I pulled the ends of the tube apart, letting it illuminate. The walls glistened as if wet when the yellow light touched them. I looked back, but still didn’t see the skiff.
Which wasn’t great news when I found out the cave was shallower than I imagined. The only way out was the way I came in.
The fist tightened under my ribcage. I peeked out of the cave mouth.
Still no sign of the skiff.
I pushed the torch closed, tucked it back into my bag, and forced myself to come to grips with the truth.
I would have to make a run for it.
Oh, I would be faster on the skiff, but I needed it to stay hidden while I saw where the other Hellion vessels were. I needed to make sure the planes of Hellnore were empty before I made my way back to the Dark Spire, set off the Volt, and made my final escape through the Breach.
I gathered my courage, and stepped out of the cave.
I wasn’t cut down. I couldn’t see any of the skiffs. No Hellion was lurking above or around me. The ships had simply disappeared.
I would have thought myself lucky, if I wasn’t still in critical danger.
I stepped farther out onto the ridge, glancing at the vast, jagged terrain of Hellnore, still looking for the skiff. Still finding nothing. I turned around. My gaze went up, my heart skipping another beat.
The factory loomed over my head about a hundred feet away, its smokestack chugging out huge gouts of black smoke. I’d been so fixed on escaping my pursuers that I didn’t realize how close I’d gotten to it.
Now I wanted to get on the skiff and fly anywhere else.
The factory wasn’t made of any metal that I could see. Like the Dark Spire, it was constructed from sheared obsidian. The corners of the building were sharp and pointed, and there were no windows that I could see. The only way in appeared to be a set of double doors with a crisscross design that looked like giant animal claws. There were no other signs that explained what this place was. No hangar doors or abandoned skiffs that I could see.
A small, wicked idea coming to my mind.
If this factory had an explosive accident, the Hellions would have no choice but to investigate in full force. It would be the perfect time for me to escape.
Glancing back one last time, I left the ridge and jogged toward the factory. I stopped in front of the massive door, breathing heavily through my mask. The door didn’t have any handles I could see. I was hesitant to touch it, the marks looked so violent. Knowing I had no choice, I held out my hand–
“You don’t want to go in there.”
I jumped and whirled around, my scream sounding hoarse through the respirator.
He stood directly behind me, blue eyes circled with black bruises, ash coating his blond hair and the shoulders of his tunic. He wasn’t wearing a mask.
“Especially when you don’t have a weapon,” Riley finished.
Chapter 17
Sawyer
Deanna remembered exactly where the Breach was when we returned to Westraven with all of her survivors, engineers, and soldiers. I doubted she could forget, even if she wanted to. The Breach was near the drafter district, close to the farms where we’d been looking before. It had been right under my nose the whole damn time.
But I wasn’t ready before. Now I was.
By the time we left, we had around a hundred of Deanna’s Forest Brigade, along with buckets of ultraviolet bullets, goggles, and masks to protect our faces from the harsh Hellnore weather. She and her best engineers were on a skiff about a hundred feet away from us, the Clearer and the Palisade set on the deck and connected by thick cords. Her ship was a flurry of motion, men and women moving back and forth to follow her commands and prepare the machines.
The Clearer was placed on the bow, closest to the Breach. The machine had a wide gearbox constructed of patched scrap metal. A central column stood up from the gearbox and connected to a steadily whumping generator. Surrounding the column were six bowed rotors that would spin rapidly to collect and disperse the energy created by the storm-maker.
I didn’t spare much of a glance at the Palisade. Too many bad memories came with it.
Instead, I was staring at a twenty mile slash of darkness. The rip in the sky that spat out monsters of death. The tear in the clouds between me and the girl I loved. The gash that helped cause the death of the brother I wouldn’t stop missing.
I had never seen the Breach before. I didn’t expect it to look the way it did. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen something so terrifying.
The Breach was a wound, wrenched open as if it were cut with a blade, surrounded by clouds that seemed to get darker and darker. Infected by the creeping smoke edging out of the Breach. Tiny flashes of purplish light burst from inside the swirling darkness, as if a battle had already begun inside the giant mouth.
Caused by the storm-maker Claire talked about. A machine to create storms and darkness, easing the Hellion’s transition into the world they would destroy with their own Palisade.
A monster’s dream that I was determined to crush.
I stood at the helm with my friends and allies, looking at each of them in turn. Gemma and Nash were closest to me, their hands intertwined and locked together, hard resolution on their faces. They knew what was up ahead. That this expedition could cost them their lives. If they faced the end, they would face it together. If one of them died here today, I knew the other wouldn’t return with me.
The anxiety in my chest tightened at the thought of losing two people who had been with me for so long. Who helped me through so much. Who had become more of a family to me than anyone since Micah.
I looked away from them, but seeing Beck wasn’t any better.
It hadn’t been my intention, but I saw him with Deanna just before we left. His love for her was obvious, and it seemed that somewhere along the course of ten long years, that love had been reciprocated.
They had been holding each other, Beck smoothing down Deanna’s hair and closing his eyes. She looked distraught, her whispered words echoing the ache in her heart.