“The name’s Tayshaun.” He offered her his hand and smiled. “Tayshaun Wilkins.”
Sibylla hesitated, as she held him in her gaze. She didn’t trust the military on principle and made it a rule to never shake hands with a stranger. But she was in a different world now, the world of soldiers and honor. And if she were going to survive, she’d need to change her behavior and soon. “Sibylla,” she said, taking his hand and nodding. His grip was strong, but there was a gentleness to his touch, a controlled power that instantly put her at ease.
He gestured to the female recruit sitting next to him. “This here’s Yumiko. We call her Yumi for short.”
Sibylla saw an attractive Asian woman with short bleached hair and tenacious eyes. Reclined against her seat, she sat with her legs spread apart and her head tilted to the side, giving the appearance that she was relaxed to the point of bored. Nodding at Sibylla, she asked, “So, what’d you do?”
Confused, Sibylla followed her gaze to the red welts on her wrists where they’d been manacled, a sure sign that she’d been arrested. Embarrassed, she crossed her arms and hid them under her armpits.
“It’s okay,” Tayshaun assured. “We’re all God’s children here, right?”
Sibylla eyed him carefully. “Are you serious?”
Yumiko laughed. “Unfortunately, he’s not. We call him, Preacher. If you’re not careful, he’ll try to convert you.”
“As long as I’m on this earth,” Tayshaun said. “I’m going to do everything I can to save my fellow man.”
Yumiko snorted. “The only thing I need saving from is my ex-girlfriend.”
Tayshaun chuckled, then shook his head in weary judgement. “You and your wicked ways…but don’t worry, we’ll set you on the right path soon enough.”
Yumiko shot him the bird. “No thanks. I like my life just the way it is.”
Sibylla watched the pair, strangely put at ease by their banter. She’d hung out with her father’s friends enough times to know the type of back and forth that went on between soldiers. It was annoying, but familiar.
“But seriously,” Yumiko continued, her gaze lowering shamelessly over Sibylla’s body. “What’s a young girl like you doing on their way to a place like the Nest?”
“Yeah,” Tayshaun said. “What are you, eighteen?”
“Seventeen,” she corrected them.
Tayshaun and Yumiko exchanged a glance.
“Damn,” Yumiko said. “You must’ve done something pretty bad to end up with the Eagles. What’d you do? Kill your boyfriend or something?” Yumiko and Tayshaun snickered, as they exchanged a glance.
But Sibylla was frozen with fear. She didn’t know what to say. All this time, she’d been so consumed with missing Dillon, that she’d barely had a moment to concoct a cover story. Being a peace protestor wasn’t the safest thing to be amongst soldiers and criminals. But what could she say?
Struggling for an answer, she noticed that the tattooed criminal was still staring at her from the side. He pinched the end of his tongue with his metal teeth, reminding her of a hungry snake watching a mouse. If I’m going to survive this place, she thought, I’m going to have earn some respect. Might as well start now. Clearing her throat, she lowered her voice and said, “Yeah, I killed him. And I killed his brother also.”
The criminal’s brows shot up in surprise, as he saw the conviction in her stare, and he quickly turned to one of the windows, seeming more interested in the weather than Sibylla.
“Wow,” Yumiko said. “You’re kind of crazy, huh?”
“I have my moments.” She winced inwardly. I have my moments? What was that?
“Yeah, I bet you do.”
Sibylla hung her head in shame, as she noticed the other recruits shooting her mistrusting stares. It was as if they were afraid of her, as if they were worried that she might jump out of her seat at any moment and start swinging like a lunatic. She wasn’t used to it.
The transport dipped as it hit a pocket of turbulence, and Sibylla felt the tug of her straps dig into her skin. After a while, the plane steadied once more, and she sat straight.
“You okay?” Tayshaun asked.
Sibylla nodded. “Just caught me off guard, that’s all.”
“You think this is bad,” Yumiko said. “Try being stuck at sea for a month. Took me a week before I could get see straight.”
“You were in the Navy?” Sibylla asked.
“Marines,” Tayshaun answered. “Enlisted two years back.”
“Damn straight,” Yumiko said. They slapped each other’s hands, then bumped their fists, clearly proud of their service together.
“Then what are you doing here?” Sibylla asked.
“Thought we’d give the Eagles a try,” Tayshaun said.
Yumiko nodded in agreement. “Already conquered the land and sea. Why not give space a try?”
Laughter erupted from Sibylla’s left and she saw a young woman with candy-apple red hair sitting across the aisle from her.
“Just my luck,” she said, “A long trip with two Marines.”
Yumiko’s chin lifted as she studied the young woman. “And you are?”
“Anais,” the redhead said coolly. “Anais Vega.” With a bold nose and high cheekbones, the redhead had an elegant face, an extension of the svelte figure lying beneath her thin black bodysuit. But there was a sharpness to her delicacy as if there was something more to her charm. Sibylla’s eyes narrowed in curiosity.
“Let me guess,” Tayshaun said. “Army?”
“Nah, too fragile for infantry,” Yumiko said. “Maybe Navy. I could see her scrubbing a toilet.”
Anais laughed. “Two Marines; no brain cells. What a surprise?”
“Ah shit,” Yumiko said. “She’s a pilot.”
Anais confirmed the observation with a proud grin.
“Should’ve guessed it by her ego,” Tayshaun said. “Pilots always think they’re smarter than the rest of us grunts.”
“It’s because we are, Handsome.”
Tayshaun’s gaze tightened on the young woman, his chest rising slower and slower as he took in her beauty.
“So, Air Force, what do you think the initiations going to be like?” Yumiko asked.
Sibylla frowned. “Initiation? What are you guys talking about?” In all the times she’d listened to her father’s stories about the Nest, she’d never once heard him mention anything about an initiation.
“She doesn’t know,” Yumiko said.
Tayshaun cringed at the revelation. “Yikes.”
“Every branch has one,” Anais explained. “It’s compulsory.”
“Why?” Sibylla asked.
“To see whether you’ve got what it takes or not,” a female recruit with a shaved head sitting close by answered.
Sibylla felt her stomach turn. She wasn’t expecting something like this.
“I heard they sear you with an iron,” a male recruit said, his scalp scarred from where he’d nicked himself shaving. “If you cry, they send you home.”
“Lame,” Yumiko said.
“Nah,” someone else said. “I heard they inject you with a psychotropic drug that makes you think you’re a roach, then toss you into a room with violent holograms for forty-eight hours. If you can still remember your name afterward, you’re in.”
“Been there, done that,” Yumiko said.
The recruits stayed huddled in their minds as each of them, including Sibylla, swam in the pool of possible nightmares. Even the air seemed to stale around them. Sibylla fought to breathe.
“You’re all wrong,” a voice said from the back.
Sibylla turned to find a burly man with acne scarred cheeks and black unkempt hair sitting in the corner. At least thirty pounds over weight with an oily beard, it was obvious that he was a criminal. “I heard they lock you up in a wooden shack, then light it up to simulate the flaming heat of reentry. If you can’t get out in time, you end up with third-degree burns.”
Yumiko turned around in astonishment, her eyes nar
rowed in disbelief. “Now that’s the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard of.”
The man grinned proudly, clearly pleased with himself.
Sibylla took a nervous swallow. The only thing she hated worse than flying was burning. Actually, she wasn’t sure which was worse.
“Don’t worry,” Anais assured, seeming to pick up on her distress. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you think it is.”
Suddenly, the clank of heavy boots lifted from the rear of the ship, and Sibylla saw a pack of large men donned in exo-suits stomping their way up the aisle. At the front of them was a giant soldier with a scar across his face.
“Alright, you pussies!” he yelled out. He zeroed in on one of the criminals, a burly man with a shaved head, and leaned into his face. “You ready to start the drop?”
“What drop?” the man asked, frightened.
“The drop that’ll get you the fuck off my transport!” The soldier kicked the lock to the hatch, and a rush of wind flooded the ship, drowning the rows of recruits in what felt like a freezing river.
Sibylla shut her eyes as her hair flailed across her face, and she felt the sudden snap of her safety harness release from her chest. The straps lifted with a quick zip, rolling to the ceiling where they flapped wildly against the wind. What was happening?
Turning around, she gasped as she saw more soldiers in exo-suits appearing from the back of the plane. They stomped through the aisle with heated faces, yanking the surrounding recruits from their seats and shoving them toward the open hatch, where the scarred soldier was waiting.
“Hurry the fuck up!” he yelled. He’d secured himself by the belt to one of the metal railings with a steel cord, keeping him safely anchored to the ship. “We ain’t got all day!”
The first recruit was the young woman with a shaved head, her eyes as innocent as they were afraid. She gripped the sides of the hatch as she was shoved from behind, bracing herself against the opened frame like a cat clinging to the sides of a bathtub. Straining for her life, she fought to stay inside.
“But I don’t have a parachute!” she yelled, her voice lost in the tearing wind.
“Then I guess you’d better sprout some fucking wings!” The soldier slammed his boot into the small of her back, and she quickly disappeared into a group of clouds, her screams fading into the distance as her body was swept away.
“Oh my God,” Sibylla whispered in terror. She jumped to her feet and staggered back, trying to shoulder her way to the rear of the plane. But it was like pushing against a moving wall.
One-by-one, the candidates were tossed out of the opened hatch, their bodies carried away in the raging wind. Sibylla’s heart was pounding. Her legs were shaking. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
Glancing at the cabin, she stared at the other recruits. They were just as scared as she was. Behind her, a tall man with bulging arms fainted to the floor, while a woman half his size dropped to her knees, vomiting yellow phlegm as she was overwhelmed by her fear.
Sibylla tried to help her up. But the surge of troops before her pushed her back, and she fell to the floor, forced to cover her face as boots stampeded over her body.
“I got her!”
Sibylla opened her eyes as she felt a large hand wrap around her wrist. Tayshaun was pulling her up, dragging her to where he and Yumiko were anchored to one of the metal frames of the ship.
“Here!” Yumiko said. “I got her.” She tugged Sibylla in closer. But even their combined strength wasn’t enough to save her from the clutches of the soldiers wearing exo-skeletons.
They yanked her away and passed her down the aisle, merciless as they kicked and shoved her from behind. When it was Sibylla’s turn to finally jump, she dug her boots into the metal flooring, determined to stay alive.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” the scarred soldier yelled as he gripped her by the wrist and leaned into her face. “Isn’t this what you signed up for?”
Sibylla wrenched free of his grip. “Let me go!” But as she did, her elbow clipped his jaw, and he stumbled back, stunned.
Wind swirled around her as she staggered back away from him, stunned by the fact that she’d just struck someone in the face for the first time in her life.
Noticing the silence, she glanced at the recruits behind her and saw that they were all staring at her in amazement. Even the exo-framed soldiers who’d been ripping recruits from their seats had stopped, gawking at her in astonishment.
The scarred soldier touched his lip, then looked at the blood on his fingers, glaring as if he’d never seen the color of his own blood before.
Oh shit, Sibylla thought. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
His steps were deliberate. He caught her by the throat, lifted her off the ground, then swung her over the edge of the hatch, where he dangled her in the air like a caught fish.
Her fingers clawed desperately at the frame of his exo-suit, as she tried to hold onto anything she could grasp. The wind tore at her back. Her hair flailed around her face. She glanced over her shoulder at the mountains below and felt her heart pounding in her chest.
“Please!” she screamed. “You don’t have to do this.” She was slipping from his hand, inching away from his grip.
“You know,” he shouted above the roaring wind. “I’ll never understand why some mother fuckers always have to make shit harder than it has to be.” Sibylla’s eyes widened as he reached for the Piercer handgun at his waist and aimed it at her leg. “And that’s why some mother fuckers always die. Now say hello to the drop, bitch!”
Sibylla blinked as the pistol fired, and she felt the blunt pain of metal tearing through her thigh. It was so quick, so instant. Her mind swirled from the shock of it, and she felt the soldier’s grip loosen around her neck, letting her fall into the nothingness that she’d always feared.
7
A Wind from the Forest
The plane shrunk away as Sibylla tumbled through the air, joining the swirling storm of bodies plummeting toward the earth. All around her, voices undulated in strange waves; rising and falling, drifting and twisting. They were all going to die. And they knew it.
Sibylla blinked against the frigid wind as she struggled to take in her surroundings. She saw frosted peaks, dark forests, a clear lake. She rushed through her mind for a plan. But the panic was strangling.
Why? Why would they do this to them? Why throw them from the ship only to let them fall to their deaths?
Sunlight beamed in the sky. Clouds drifted overhead. Far below, a pair of eagles soared in unison, gliding with outstretched wings. They were flying.
Was that it? Is that what the Eagles had expected the recruits to do? Fly?
Closing her eyes, she reached beneath her arms, searching for some type of clue. There, she realized, feeling a noticeable bump beneath the carbon fibers of her bodysuit. Something was there. But how to activate it? Gritting her teeth, she gave herself up to hope and shot out her arms.
The reaction was instant.
Black cloth shot out from her armpits, and her body jerked back with a snap, sailing her into a controlled glide.
The Eagles had hidden wings within the inseam of their suits, thick cloth that could capture the wind like baskets. Sibylla gasped, as she began to soar like an eagle, enjoying the relief that eased through her body.
But the sensation was short lived.
She was still bleeding from her wound, and the other recruits were still tumbling to their deaths. As fast as she could, she swerved into the chaotic mess of bodies and screamed for them to spread out their arms.
One after the other, they followed her example, sprouting their wings against the blue sky and sailing along with her.
In the distance, she could see the other recruits who’d been too far away to hear her commands. They tumbled wildly over the horizon, their screams tapering off as they fell to their deaths.
Sibylla spotted a thick forest to the right. A leafless patch of t
rees. Their crowns were thick with snow-laden branches; thin pieces of wood that could bend against the weight of a falling body. Angling her wings, she headed in its direction.
The forest grew larger by the second. One moment, it looked like a group of bushes, the next actual trees of hardwood. Bending at the waist, she shot out her feet and closed her eyes.
“Oh shit!”
Branches belted her in the face. Snow punched her in the mouth. An empty nest of twigs exploded under her chin. She was plunging down the tree’s throat, breaking every branch in the process. Finally, her body buckled as she slammed into a bottom branch and her body spun around, sinking into the bed of snow beneath her.
For a while, she lay motionless, listening to the muted silence of her icy tomb. Had she survived? Was she okay? A number of questions flashed through her mind as she slowly came to the realization that she’d actually survived.
Lifting herself from the snow, she let out a low groan as the wound in her leg twisted in pain. It was bleeding, and she was growing colder by the second. Rubbing her shoulders against the frigid air, she stared at the empty forest in confusion.
Pale trees with black spots rose at a slant, lifting above the thick snow that drowned them at the bases. While off in the distance, she could hear the quack of ducks as they waddled along some stream or lake she couldn’t see. Aside from this, there was only empty silence.
“Oh shit!” screamed a voice from above.
Sibylla looked up to find another recruit falling through the air. They dove feet-first into an adjacent tree, their body tearing through the branches like a meteorite. In an instant, the body sunk into the snow below, and Sibylla was left standing speechless.
Sibylla waited for movement, for sound. But there was nothing. Finally, a woman’s head burst from the snow, like a zombie tearing itself from the grave, and Sibylla saw a mane of candy-apple red hair appear.
“Mother fucker,” Anais cursed as she rose to her feet. She wiped the snow from her sleeves, then patted it from her butt, shaking it off like a rabbit would from its tail.
“Are you okay?” Sibylla called out.
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