Dawnbreaker

by Posey, Jay

  “This is something I have to do on my own,” she continued. And then added, “Something I want to do on my own.”

  For the first time in long years, maybe for the first time ever, she saw a moment of decision with utter clarity. Would she continue to allow circumstances and those around her to dictate her choices? Or did she have the courage to stop hiding behind others and to test herself against the world? To accept Swoop’s help was to reject her... what? She couldn’t bring herself to think of it as destiny. It wasn’t. There was no path laid out before her, no unseen hand guiding her to some purpose. Potential, maybe. The decision was clearly hers to make. And she decided to face her fear. More. To face herself.

  And with that decision, she felt liberated. The same power that enabled her to free Swoop from his bondage had revealed to Cass just how little she actually knew herself. Her own potential, her own capability. Not as a mother, not as a lover. Not as an object of someone else’s affection or lust or worship. As her own being, complete, whole, powerful. The dread she’d been feeling about facing the others melted away, as if their arguments could no longer touch her.

  Whether it was her words alone, or if Swoop could sense the change that had come over her, he didn’t try to argue. He nodded again. “You’ll wait till Gamble shows, though.” He made it a statement, though it was actually a question.

  Cass nodded. “Of course.”

  “All right then,” he said. He looked at her for a bit longer, then nodded to himself and headed back up the ladder, leaving her alone in the wayhouse.

  Cass moved her pack over to the wall by the ladder, and then went and sat down on the bunk where Sky had spent the night. She thought about trying to sleep a little, knowing she’d wake up when she heard the welcome Gamble would surely receive on her return. Lying down was no use, though. The momentum was building; she was anxious to get underway.

  It was almost an hour later that she heard the cries and cheers of the team outside. Gamble’s return. Cass bolted up, grabbed her pack, and climbed out into the open as fast as she could. By the time she reached the top, Gamble and Sky were in the middle of the courtyard, having already been intercepted by the rest of the team. Swoop caught Cass’s eye as she approached; he was hanging back slightly, allowing the others to have their moment. Worried, maybe, about how Gamble would react. He needn’t have been. As soon as the crowd parted enough for her to see him, she walked over and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  He hugged her back for a few seconds and then let go, but she held on anyway. After about thirty seconds he started squirming.

  “All right,” he said. “All right now, G.” He said it gently, though, not forcing her away; consoling in his own way. When Gamble did finally back off, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, sniffed once, and then punched Swoop right in the chest.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again,” she said, and then she laughed and hugged him once more.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Swoop answered.

  Cass was next in line when Gamble separated from Swoop. Cass set her pack down and Gamble gave her a strong embrace. A heavy, sickly-sweet stench hung on her.

  “Thank you,” Gamble said. “Thank you for getting my boys home.”

  “Wish I could take credit,” Cass said.

  “You did your part,” Gamble said. “And Swoop... I don’t know how. But thank you.”

  Cass guessed Sky must have filled Gamble in on the way back. Either that, or Gamble was taking everything in her stride surprisingly well. They withdrew from one another.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were still in there?” Cass asked. “Let us know you were still alive?”

  “I thought I was dead,” Gamble said with a shrug. “Didn’t want you hanging around and getting caught for nothing. And, by the way, you were right about that vent.”

  “How’s that?” Cass said.

  “Straight down,” Gamble said, with a chuckle. She gave them all a brief recount of her narrowly death-defying escape; between the sunlight in the room, the anti-personnel mines, and Sky’s covering fire, she’d managed to make it to the vent in the corner of the room. “Connected to the floor below, I guess. That’s where I fell through the ceiling, anyway. Most of the Weir must’ve been upstairs. Just made a run for the front door then.”

  “Wow,” Wick said. “You were not kidding about smelling terrible. Ugh, what is that?”

  “Well,” Gamble said, looking at him. “I just spent twelve hours buried in a pile of corpses, Wick. Think I’m doing all right, all things considered.”

  That was all the explanation Cass needed. Gamble had broken contact with the Weir long enough to make it to the front of the compound. She must have hidden herself in that mountain of the dead, spent the night in their midst.

  Gamble gave Cass a once over, looked back down at the pack by her feet. “Going somewhere?”

  Cass took a deep breath. This was the moment. One final argument to get through, and then she could go.

  “I’ll bring you up to speed, boss,” Swoop said, before Cass began.

  Gamble looked at Swoop, and then back at Cass. “Leaving?”

  Cass nodded.

  “Still think Asher’s looking for you?” Gamble asked.

  “Certain of it, now.”

  Gamble stood there looking at her for a few moments and then shook her head. “I’d fight harder to convince you to stay if I weren’t so smoked,” she said.

  Cass smiled. “We’ll pretend you tried.” She looked around at the others. They were all concerned, maybe sad. But no one was surprised. Cass realized then that Swoop must have already broken the news, paved the way for her. No one seemed to want her to go, but no one offered any more argument. “What about you guys?” Cass asked.

  “Well,” Gamble said. “I’m going to take a shower. After that, sounds like we got a lot to talk about. Your boy know we’re alive yet?”

  “One of them does,” Cass said. “But not the right one. Much as I want to, I think it’s too dangerous even to pim Wren.”

  “Even coming from one of us?” Gamble asked.

  Cass nodded.

  “I agree,” Finn said. “After that thing with Swoop, I think we need to run it as low profile as possible.”

  Cass was struck by the familiarity of the moment. Standing around with the team, talking about her striking out on her own, and the team going to Greenstone to guard Wren. Hadn’t they just done this? And yet, as similar as the circumstances were, the other version felt alien; from a different world, rather than a different day. It was strange to stand in the same place as a completely different person.

  “You’ll still go to Greenstone, though?” she asked. “To find Wren?”

  Gamble nodded. “We’ll give it a couple of days. Rest up, heal up, make sure we’re not taking the heat along with us. If we’re cool, we’ll go see about your son.”

  “Will you explain?”

  “We’ll do our best, Cass. What about you?”

  Cass looked away out of the courtyard. How could she find a thing if she wasn’t sure what she was looking for? She shook her head.

  “If I get safe, I’ll come find you.”

  “See that you do,” Gamble said. “So no goodbye, then. Let’s call it a see-you-around.”

  “I’d like that.” Cass held out the jittergun, offering the weapon back to its owner. Gamble glanced down at it, and then shook her head.

  “Keep it,” she said. “You can give it back to me later.”

  Cass smiled.

  And that was how the moment arrived. No heated debate, no emotional pleas. It just seemed like there was nothing else to say. Cass made the rounds, said a few words to each person in turn; some mix of thank yous, and take cares, and be safes. Finn made her take one of their concussion/pulse grenades, even though she had no idea what she’d do with it.

  “Just in case,” he said. She clipped it to her belt and gave him a hug.

  Mouse embraced her, kissed her on the cheek, but didn
’t say anything to her. Kit cried, but didn’t beg her not to go.

  Sky was the one that surprised her the most.

  “You remember now,” Sky said. “Family doesn’t always mean blood.”

  It took her a second to understand what he meant; when she did, it made her heart strangely warm. She might not ever be a fully integrated part of the team when it came to tactics. But Sky was letting her know that she was part of something even better, with bonds even stronger. Not the team. The family.

  With tears in her eyes, Cass hefted her pack, slid her arms through the straps, and cinched it down tight. She guessed she still had a good seven hours or so of daylight, and she fully intended to put as much distance between them as she could. Crossing the courtyard was the hardest part. Once she got out into the open, her steps felt freer, her mind clearer, and sharper. Even though she didn’t have a plan completely worked out yet, even that didn’t bother her. She was on her own, now. Responsible only for herself, and only to herself. And that fact was liberating in a way she’d never imagined. Maybe had never allowed herself to imagine. Exhilarating.

  Cass spent the rest of the day headed north by northwest at a good pace with few breaks.

  It wasn’t until dusk was coming on and she’d begun to search for a place to lay low for the night that she realized she was being followed.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Wren awoke in a panic, startled by the fact that he’d been asleep for so long. He didn’t know exactly what time it was, but he could tell he’d slept for long hours; far more than he’d slept all at once over the past week. Possibly more than he’d slept all week, hours combined. Haiku hadn’t come to wake him. Was he supposed to have awoken himself at the proper time? Was this a test he’d failed?

  He scrambled out of bed and dressed hastily, fearing what displeasure he might face but knowing that any longer delay only made it worse. When Wren reached the parlor, though, Haiku was sitting in a chair by the window, enjoying a leisurely cup of tea. The shutters were open, and the sun was already high in the sky; late morning, drawing close to noon.

  “Morning,” Haiku said.

  “Hi,” Wren said. He stood at the door feeling awkward.

  “Sleep well?”

  “Yes, thanks,” Wren answered. After a moment, he added, “Was I supposed to sleep that long?”

  “You’re supposed to sleep as long as you need to today,” Haiku said. He got up from his chair and moved over towards the kitchenette. “Hungry?” Wren nodded. “Have a seat, I’ll get something for you.” There was already a pot on the cooking surface.

  “Thank you,” Wren said, and he took a seat at the table. “So I didn’t oversleep? I didn’t miss any training?”

  Haiku chuckled. “Do you think Father would let you miss any training?”

  Wren shook his head.

  “I’m sorry no one told you,” Haiku said, as he carried a bowl over to Wren and set it in front of him. “But this is the schedule you can expect while you’re here. Six days of training, one day of rest. Father may have some lessons for you on rest days, but they will be easy.”

  Six days. Had it been six days already? Had it only been six days? For the most part, time had ceased to have any meaning to Wren. If Haiku had told him it’d been a month or a day, he probably would’ve believed it. Wren looked down at the bowl in front of him, expecting the usual soup he’d had for breakfast every day since his arrival but found instead a brothy noodle dish. Haiku brought water for Wren to drink and then retrieved his own teacup and sat down next to him.

  “So,” Haiku said, and he produced his yellow ball with the smiley face on it. He set it on the table. “Yesterday?”

  Wren took a taste of the broth; it was light, flavorful and slightly spicy.

  “In the Waiting Room, under the catwalk towards the back, left side,” he answered after he’d swallowed. “And then when we were eating in the evening, it was behind the vase.”

  “That was all?” Haiku asked.

  Wren thought back through the day. He was pretty sure those were the only two times he’d seen Haiku’s little friend. Had he missed one? Or was Haiku just testing him? Haiku waited expectantly.

  “That was it,” Wren said. “Just two places yesterday.”

  Haiku smiled. “I think we might have to start making this more of a challenge,” he said. “At this rate, you’ll be hiding him for me in a few weeks.”

  Wren took another spoonful, slurped some of the wide, chewy noodles up. One of them slapped his chin as it went by and left a dribble of broth on his shirt. Haiku handed him a napkin, which he gratefully accepted. Haiku’s statement sparked a question Wren had been wondering about, but hadn’t found the opportunity to ask yet. This seemed like as good an opening as any.

  “Haiku, how long do you think I’ll be here?” Wren asked.

  Haiku shook his head. “That will be up to Father,” he said. “And to you. How long do you think you’ll be here?”

  It was an odd question. As if Wren had any control over that.

  “Until I learn everything I need to?” he answered.

  “Then that would be a long time indeed,” Haiku said with a smile. “I left many years ago, and I’m still learning.”

  “I mean, to deal with Asher,” Wren said. “It’s already been a week and I haven’t done anything yet that’s going to help me against him.”

  “Oh?” Haiku said. “What have you been doing with your time then?”

  “All the exercises. The Waiting Room, that thing with the petals. The only things we’ve done with connections is all stuff I already knew.”

  “I see,” Haiku said, and he smiled again.

  “What?” Wren asked.

  “So this week has been a waste of time?”

  “It seems like it.”

  Haiku nodded. “Seems is a good choice of words.”

  Wren shrugged. “I’m doing my best to do what Foe tells me. I just don’t see why we spend so much time on things that don’t matter.”

  “And which things are those?”

  Wren didn’t want to seem ungrateful or dismissive, but now that the conversation had started he wanted to be honest. Truth, after all, was supposed to be his foundation.

  “Well,” he said. “Like the stuff you’ve been teaching me. Fighting with my hands and stuff. I appreciate it, I really do. But that’s not going to help when I face Asher.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because it doesn’t work like that,” Wren said. “He doesn’t really even have a body.”

  Haiku took a sip of his tea. “When we first began, how often could you escape my attacks?”

  “Never,” Wren said. “Unless you let me.”

  “And now?”

  “Sometimes, I guess.”

  “More than sometimes,” Haiku said. “You’ve improved a great deal, and very quickly. You’re learning much faster than I ever did. You’re perceiving threats sooner, your reaction times are faster.”

  “I guess,” Wren said. He took a drink of water and shrugged. “But Asher... he just thinks, and he does it that fast. I can’t ever be that fast.”

  Wren set his cup back down and just as he was taking his hand away, Haiku leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, bumped the cup, tipped it. In reflex, Wren’s hand shot out and steadied it before it could spill. He looked over at Haiku, who was usually anything but clumsy.

  “When you have trained your body,” Haiku said. “You can move without thinking.”

  Not an accident. An object lesson.

  “You are learning more than you realize,” Haiku continued. “That is very much by design, and the point of Father’s methods. It is often better to discover than to be told.”

  “Telling isn’t teaching,” Wren said, repeating Foe’s words from many lessons ago. And then a thought occurred to him. “But, he told me that, and I learned it.”

  “You heard it,” Haiku said. “But would you have understood what he meant by it, if not for his ot
her lessons? Do you not understand it more today than you did a week ago?”

  Wren considered. It was a fair point. Foe’s statement hadn’t been a lesson in and of itself; it had merely revealed a truth borne out in experience.

  “And now you’re just being argumentative,” Haiku said, smiling again. “Word games can be fun, as long as everyone agrees you’re playing them.”

  Wren went back to his meal, pondering Haiku’s claim. Much of what Wren had learned had been through doing, discoveries he felt he’d made on his own through the forced, repeated practice. Foe had corrected and guided him more by questions and implications than by any direct statement. He’d told Wren what to accomplish, but rarely, if ever, had he told Wren how to do so.

  “Father has trained hundreds, Wren,” Haiku said. “And he is harder on himself than he is on any of his pupils. He has refined his techniques to be as efficient and effective as he can make them. It may seem like you are simply repeating the same things over and over again, but even that is part of the training.”

  “I guess I just don’t see the point of mastering how to catch petals,” Wren said.

  “Don’t confuse the method of practice for the skill that practice is developing,” Haiku replied. “Practice develops habit. Habit forms character.”

  Wren still didn’t quite know what Haiku meant by that, but he got the message well enough. As bizarre and unnecessary as they seemed, Foe’s lessons weren’t wasted. Maybe Wren hadn’t been able to recognize their value yet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t accomplishing their intent. Still, it was hard for Wren to consciously accept the idea that he was learning when his mind couldn’t grab onto what it was he had learned. Maybe that too was its own lesson. To trust. Haiku obviously trusted Foe’s methods. He’d been through them himself. Had apparently seen their effect on hundreds of others.

  Hundreds of others. The number hadn’t really struck Wren when Haiku had said it, but now it stuck out to him. Hundreds. Wren looked down at the web of his left hand, at the thin, pale line of the wound he’d inflicted on himself when he took his oath. The slash was nearly healed already, and though it had not been deep or jagged, it was clearly going to leave a scar. Had been intended to leave one. He moved his thumb back towards his hand, watched the injury vanish into the fold of skin. Unless someone were looking for it, it’d be impossible to notice. A reminder of his oath, for him and him alone.