by Posey, Jay
For a time Cass just stood, scanning the broken horizon, waiting for the flood of emotion to hit her. The weight of the loss and the isolation. But it didn’t come. Whether she was too juiced up from the fighting or too exhausted by the same, she simply acknowledged the situation and accepted it for the moment. If she survived till dawn, maybe she’d have her break down then. But not now. For now, there was only what next. She dropped down into a crouch by the window and took inventory. It didn’t take long. There wasn’t much.
Cass dropped the magazine from the rifle and combined the ammunition with what was left of her other unspent magazine. That left her about half a mag. Her go-bag still had a few rations, a couple of water canisters, some extra clothes, a light.
What was the best thing to do now? She’d done all she could for the team. Maybe they’d been able to escape, or maybe they were all lying slaughtered somewhere out there. There was still the tunnel. If she could find her way back to it. She could probably catch up with Chapel and Wren, if not before sunrise certainly before they reached the end of that long darkness.
But no. Even as she pictured it in her mind, she knew she couldn’t rejoin them. Not now. Maybe not ever. Asher may have spent his wrath on Morningside, but Cass knew with cold certainty he wouldn’t stop there. He might let Wren go, now that he’d inflicted whatever cruelty it was that had left Wren unconscious. Might, if perhaps he could reclaim Cass. Tormenting Wren had mostly been Asher’s way of controlling her, after all. His threats a way of keeping her in line. Exploiting her greatest vulnerability.
And what of it now? If Wren was beyond his reach... no, whatever Asher had become, Cass very much doubted anyone was truly beyond his reach now. But maybe if she were closer at hand...
Before the idea had fully formed in her conscious mind, her heart had understood and committed. She knew what she had to do. She would make herself both bait and trap. Not much different than what she had just attempted with the Weir. A greater degree, perhaps. Perhaps a far greater degree. She would tease Asher with her presence; taunt him by dangling herself just beyond his grasp. How she would manage it, Cass would have to figure out later. She was too tired, too mind-numb to do any serious planning. She would keep east of the Strand. Haunt the ruins of Morningside, maybe, and its surroundings. Make it up as she went along.
For the moment, though, she needed to make it through the night. The howls of the Weir were still out there, but they were few and far between. The throng had broken up, or wandered off together. She stood and gazed out of the window again. The building where she’d left Able and Wick was dark now, inside and out, black silhouette against a midnight sky. And though she didn’t want to admit it, Cass was loathe to leave the relative safety of her current location. It felt good to have elevation, and sturdy walls around her. From here, she could put her back to the corner and have the drop on anything that came up the stairs. And anything that wanted to get her was going to have to come up those stairs.
After a minute, Cass decided she’d take a little time to rest before she headed back out. That’d give the Weir time to scatter further, and might help her head get clearer. She settled down to the floor, back against the wall under the window. After she loaded her weapon with the half-magazine, she drank some water, and forced herself to eat a little, even though she wasn’t remotely hungry. Her eyes were dry and felt too big for their sockets. It was quiet. And she was so weary. Twenty minutes she’d give herself. Twenty minutes, and then she’d go back out into the night. Cass lay Wick’s rifle across her lap with her hand on the grip, and let her eyes fall closed.
* * *
It was a feeling that woke her more than anything else. The sense that something had changed. Cass checked the time and saw she’d slept for over an hour. She clenched her jaw. Nothing she could do about it now. And she felt certain she had a bigger problem to deal with anyway. She strained to hear over the sound of her own heartbeat, and after a moment, she heard it. A faint, gritty rustle; a concrete whisper. A footstep, its weight carefully, painstakingly shifted to avoid making any sound, betrayed only by the grime on the steps. There was something moving on the stairs below.
Cass clutched the rifle, drew it up slowly from her lap. Sighted in on the lowest stair she could see.
“Sssssst,” a hiss came from below, soft but shocking to her senses. Cass forced herself to relax her grip on the rifle and held as still as possible. The stairs took on a reddish hue, as if lit by dying coals.
“Sssst,” it came again, quiet but insistent, a breath barely exhaled through clenched teeth.
And then, a shadow of a voice.
“Cass. You up there?”
Cass exhaled, not even having realized she’d been holding her breath.
“Cass, it’s Sky. You hear me?”
“Yeah,” Cass whispered back, hardly able to believe it, hardly able to get her voice to speak the words. “Sky. Sky, I’m here. Up here.”
She lowered her weapon and leaned forward towards the rusted mesh around the stairs. The red light spread further up the stairs and a few moments later the top of Sky’s head appeared. His rifle was up at the ready, with its mounted low-intensity red-filtered light switched on. From what Gamble’s team had told her, Cass knew the red light didn’t spoil their night-adjusted vision, nor did it pose as much risk from the Weir as brighter white light did. Sky was still creeping up the stairs, sweeping the rifle slowly back and forth as he came.
“Here, Sky,” she whispered again.
His head flicked around in her direction, and she stood so he could see her over the mesh.
“We clear?” he whispered.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Cass answered.
“You hurt?” Sky asked.
“No, I’m all right. Sky, what happened out there? Where’s the team?”
He held up his hand, and angled his head back down the stairs. Listening. After a moment, he climbed the rest of the steps and joined Cass in her corner.
“We broke out,” he said. “Thanks to you.”
“You all made it out?”
“Most of us,” he said. And then his jaw went tight and even in the gloom Cass saw the unmistakable look on his face.
“Sky...” Cass said, but that was all she could manage.
“I don’t want to hang around here long,” Sky said. He glanced out the window, and then back at her. “You all right to move?”
“Yeah, I’m good to go.”
“It’s breaking up pretty good out there. If we’re careful and don’t take it too fast, we should be able to slip out.” He pointed to Wick’s rifle hanging by her side. “How’s your ammo?”
“About half a mag, I’d guess. That going to be a problem?” Cass asked.
He shook his head. “Hope we won’t need any.” After a moment he shrugged a shoulder and gave half a smile. “If we do need any, we’ll probably need a whole lot more than two of us could carry anyhow.” He glanced back out the window again, studied it for a few seconds, and then turned back to her.
“Set?”
“Set.”
Sky gave a curt nod, shouldered his weapon, and moved back around to the top of the stairs. He paused there until Cass moved around behind him and then wordlessly the pair flowed down the steps together. They made their way back down to the ground floor and to the front room, where Sky paused once more at the entrance. He took his time scanning the street to make sure it was clear, and then led the way out.
They set out at a controlled, steady pace. Cass had never traveled with Sky before, not just the two of them with him in the lead. He had a smooth, low-key rhythm to his movement. At first its seeming listlessness kept her on edge, his apparent lack of urgency made her feel unsafe. And in the rare moments he stopped to scan for threats, he never stopped for long. There was an almost carelessness to it all. After a few minutes, however, Cass recognized that it wasn’t carelessness at all. Instead, the pace Sky kept enabled him to constantly keep watch, evaluating on the move. She saw how e
ffortless was his awareness, how attentive his gaze was to every potential danger, and she understood why it was that out of all of Gamble’s team, he was the one that so often did his work separated and alone. She settled into a matching stride, keeping her share of the watch with no more question of his skill.
They traveled this way for three-quarters of an hour or so, and though they occasionally heard distant cries from the Weir, they never saw any of the creatures. At first, Cass was unsure whether this was because so few remained in the area or because Sky was expertly avoiding them. But during one point when they’d stopped, she couldn’t resist asking. She leaned in close, close enough that her mouth was nearly touching Sky’s ear.
“Where are all the Weir?” she whispered.
He turned his head so they were a hair’s breadth from being cheek to cheek.
“Bunch of ’em went looking for you,” he answered. “Bunch of ’em ate a lot of rounds.”
He drew back and gave her a little friendly nod and smile. Then they resumed their prowl through the cold and empty streets. They kept to street-level, twisting and turning through streets and alleys, though Sky seemed to prefer moving through wider spaces than Cass was comfortable with. She understood it; less chance of coming around a blind corner and into something nasty that way. Still, she was used to doing that kind of work up close. Sky’s proficiency was the other direction; for him, the farther out the better.
It struck her how different everyone’s sense of security could be. Perspective was a funny thing. Walls could be a fortress or a prison; open spaces, freedom or exposure. Cass had always prized mobility above all else. She was quick to react, and fast on her feet. Pursuit didn’t frighten her, as long as she had room to run. Seemed like she’d been doing a lot of that lately. Too much, maybe.
Sky held up a hand in a fist, signaling a halt. He dropped into a crouch, and Cass followed suit, sidling in close behind him and turning ninety-degrees to provide security. By that time, she guessed it’d been almost two hours since Sky had found her. Now, scanning their surroundings, Cass began to feel a vague familiarity with the area. A few moments later, she realized she was seeing buildings they had passed before, but from the rear. They’d doubled back. Or, more correctly, circled around.
Ahead of her, Sky motioned again and led her forward towards a gutted building. It was a mostly concrete affair, long ago stripped of anything useful and much that wasn’t. There weren’t even any markings left that identified what it might once have been. The structure had three entrances, wide enough for double doors had there been any doors at all. They ascended a flight of cracked but stable stairs and then up a second, much steeper set of metal steps that led to a narrow hatch. Sky eased it open, scanned for trouble. Satisfied, he swung the hatch open the rest of the way and climbed through out onto the flat roof of the building. Once Cass was through, he closed the hatch again and then moved over to the front, where a low wall marked the edge. They crouched together there, a few feet between them, taking in the surroundings from their new vantage. The buildings were more spread out here, with wide avenues running throughout. And now Sky had his two greatest allies: distance and height.
Cass heard him whispering, but after glancing over at him she saw that he wasn’t talking to her. Calling in to his team, no doubt. Cass settled back and waited. Sky spoke in quiet bursts for a minute or so, though his whispers mingled too fully with the wind for her to listen in. After a few moments of silence, he turned to her and nodded and then, to Cass’s surprise, he turned fully around and sat down, slouching back against the low wall. He drew his knees up slightly and propped his rifle atop them. Cass edged over towards him.
“Now what?” Cass whispered.
“I guess we hang out,” he said.
“For how long?”
“Till my girl gets here.”
“Oh. OK,” Cass said. There was some measure of relief in that, knowing Gamble was still all right. “What do you want me to do until then?”
“Well,” Sky said. “You could get some sleep, if you want. Or if you really want something to do, you could hope nothing bad comes up that hatch.” He lifted the back end of his rifle, raising the stock almost to his shoulder and Cass saw with that simple motion, his weapon was right on target, pointing back the way they’d come. He was using his legs like a bipod. If anything came up that hatch that Sky didn’t like, it wasn’t going to be happy.
Cass sat down next to him and laid Wick’s weapon across her lap. She leaned her head back against the cold concrete wall. There didn’t seem to be much else for her to do but, as tired as she was, the idea of sleeping while Sky kept watch didn’t sit well. She’d already gotten an hour or so of sleep, and she was certain this was the first chance Sky had had to sit down since... now that she thought about it, the man must have been on the move for almost twenty-four hours now. Maybe more.
“You go on and rest, Sky,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
He glanced over and gave her a kind smile, but shook his head.
“Thanks, Cass, but if Ace found out I’d made you stand watch while I took a snooze, she’d chew me out non-stop for a month. I’d rather gut it out now and save my ears, if it’s all the same by you.”
Cass smiled at that. “Fine by me.”
“You should catch some sleep though, if you can,” he said as he returned his gaze back to the hatch. “I’ll wake you if I need you.”
“I think I’m good for now. I dozed off for a bit before you found me.”
“Good,” he said.
“Hey,” said Cass, and he looked back at her. “Thank you, Sky. Thanks for coming to get me.”
Sky shook his head and made a face like he was mildly insulted she’d said it.
“Come on now. If not for you, we’d have all been killed back there. If anybody owes anyone anything, it’s us to you, not the other way around.”
“Still. It means a lot.”
“You’re one of us, Cass. And we don’t leave ours behind. Not ever.”
Cass wanted to say something more, but couldn’t come up with anything appropriate, so she just nodded. They sat in silence again for a minute or so.
“How’d you find me anyway?” Cass asked.
Sky pointed to the weapon laying across her lap. “Wick keeps an eye on her at all times. He sent her signal to me, before he went down.”
Those last four words made Cass’s chest go tight and her heart cold.
“Wick’s gone?”
“Dunno yet. He and Able had to go dark, and Wick didn’t want you getting lost out here on your own.”
“What happened to them?”
“I’m not sure, Cass. Everything happened pretty fast. They were in some trouble, but you know... we all were. Once you started your run, we had to scramble. But we’ll find ’em. Finn and Mouse are out looking for ’em right now.”
“I’m sorry, Sky.”
“We’ll find ’em,” he repeated.
They lapsed into silence again for a time, Sky lost in his own thoughts and Cass keeping a quiet respectfulness. Somewhere in the distance the cry of a Weir sounded, echoed. An answer followed so faintly that Cass couldn’t be sure she hadn’t just imagined it.
Some time later, Sky held up a finger and his eyes got that unfocused look; he was getting an internal message. He answered his caller, “Yeah, check, up top. You want us to come down?... All right, check.” Then he looked back to Cass, talking to her again. “We’ll see.”
He got to his feet and walked over to the hatch. There he knelt, eased the hatch open, and waited in a crouch. A few moments later, Cass saw him smile, broad and genuine, and soon after, Gamble emerged into his waiting embrace. They held each other for a long while, long enough that Cass decided to avert her eyes to avoid intruding on their reunion. At the sound of approaching footsteps, she glanced back towards them and got to her feet. Gamble looked angry.
“What are you doing here, Cass?” she said, her voice low but with a hint of a growl
.
“Waiting for you, Gamble.”
Gamble didn’t slow her approach and didn’t hesitate. Before Cass knew it, Gamble had her arms around her in a bear hug.
“That was a supremely stupid thing you did,” Gamble said in her ear.
“I know.” Cass hugged her back.
When they separated, Gamble’s eyes were wet. Nothing else about her expression betrayed any great emotion, but those almost-tears told Cass everything she needed to know.
“I’m not going to say I’m sorry,” Cass said.
Gamble grunted; maybe in acknowledgment, maybe in disapproval. Both, probably. Sky walked over and joined them.
“Where’d you stash your boy?” Gamble asked.
“I sent him with Chapel. On to Greenstone.”
“All right,” Gamble said, nodding, and already Cass could see Gamble factoring that into the plan she was undoubtedly forming. “OK. I don’t think we can get you back to the tunnel tonight. But once the sun’s up, we’ll see what we can do.”
Cass shook her head, but Gamble was already looking at Sky. Maybe now wasn’t the time for that conversation.
“I want to hold here ten or fifteen,” Gamble said to Sky. “Make sure I didn’t pick up any tag-alongs.”
“You hear from Finn yet?” Sky asked.
“Yeah, just,” Gamble answered. “Able’s back up. They’re moving to him now.”
“Wick?” said Sky.
“Breathing, for the moment. But...” Gamble shook her head. “Probably be about forty minutes before they can get to him and Mouse can check him out.”
“How’s Finn?” Cass asked.
“Keeping it together. Which is pretty heroic, all things considered.”
There was a pause in the conversation as the weight of the moment settled on them. Then, before anyone had a chance to say anything more, Gamble switched back to go-mode.
“Sky get that hatch buttoned back up, then get eyes front. I came in south-southeast, so if I picked up stragglers they’ll probably be that way.”