“I could have been a soldier in Ares’s army if not for this one eye.”
“I know, I know. But then I wouldn’t have you as my best collector.”
He let go of her wrist and tugged his hat down over the melted side of his face. “At least let me take down the one who did this … ” He stroked his scarred cheek and winced.
“In good time, you shall. We’ll find him. I promise.” She put a pale hand to his red face.
“If you make good on your promises, Kat.”
“I always do.”
The Child Collector grunted, then moved in closer to Hekate and whispered something I couldn’t hear. She mouthed back one word: Tomorrow. He smiled grimly, then seized his cloak on either side and strode out the door.
The boy in line next to me started to cry. Nudging him didn’t work. He only cried louder. Hekate stopped before him with her hands on her hips, so close that her thick scent of roses wafted over me.
“There is no escape,” she said to the crying boy. “There is no return to Earth and your mommies and daddies. You are mine until you turn eighteen and head to the adult work camp.” She burst out a shrill laugh, and I stood up straighter. The boy behind me continued to cry. Stop, kid!
“Silence, ignorant Barbaros!” Hekate snapped her fingers as if she could command this entire world. A guard came forward, his vape spear pointed at the boy. Poisonous goo dripped from its fangs, poised to strike. All the kids in the power mill stopped moving forward in their break line and turned to watch us as if they knew what headed our way. The guards watched as well.
“I don’t want to vaporize you.” She waved the guard back. “You haven’t worked off your cost yet. I need to sell the energy you’ll make.” She flung her long fingers out at the boy. Blue sparks shot out of them, and I stumbled back. She could make fire from her fingers!
“Out of sorrow, plays delight. Tears no more for your plight,” she sang. “Make music galore. Tonight!”
I ducked, hoping it would save me from her sparks. The boy cried louder and then stopped. He stood with his mouth open as sad music floated out. His crying had become the melody from a tiny harp. It rolled around the power mill, echoing back.
“Aha! How wonderful.” Hekate laughed again. “Your crying is now music to my ears. Cry on!”
The harp hypnotized me, tipping me into a dreamy state. I closed my eyes and floated away on it when a hand grabbed my arm, snapping me back to reality before I fell. Charlie gripped me. I blinked the tired waves away, drained of all hope that I’d ever find Finn and get us home.
Hekate clapped her hands again, making me jump. “Don’t be frightened, my little Reekers. You’ll be stronger in no time.” Our owner then swept off through the power mill by another set of doors. Relief curled deep in the pit of my stomach that she and her fire-blaster fingers were gone.
Two guards stepped in to flank Sam as he motioned for us to move forward. He recorded each boy’s name and stamped something on his arm. Thank god, not a brand of fire, just a mark. The harp music dwindled away as the kid next to me wore himself out.
I trudged forward behind Charlie, waiting for my brand. And my machine.
No longer did I belong to just me.
And in the silence that once held the chooga-chooga, I found myself chanting, I’m Joshua. I’m Joshua.
Chapter Seven
As I got to Sam, the break ended and the monster hamster wheels started up again. Hundreds of kids pumped their legs, heating up the power mill, and the scent of sour sweat and mildew snaked up my nose. Sam’s pale skin and white hair reflected the yellow in the overhead lights. Up close, his shirt and pants fell baggy on him like hand-me-downs he’d never fit into, and his skinny arms poked out awkwardly from puffy sleeves that were too big. His face was round but had tiny features, as if he weren’t all the way grown.
“Name?” He didn’t look up from his clipboard.
“Joshua Cooper.” He shook his head as if he didn’t hear me, so I said my name again, louder. This kid had told me back at the auction pit that everything would be okay. Would he help me now?
I whispered in his ear, flicking a thumb at Charlie close by. “Help me and Charlie here get back home?”
A guard stepped forward with a scowl, leaning his vape into my face. I took a step back.
“Give me your arm,” Sam said. He tilted his head toward me as if he wanted to say something, but instead he stamped my arm with the silver-dollar sized shape of a sun—only not a fiery one, a black one—and pushed me aside. “Next!”
All of us kids had the same brand and, looking closer, it appeared the circle that enclosed the sun included these words: A noble cause you bear. Your fleeting sun lives on, cast in darkness. We breathe fire from your body, destined to lie in ashes.
“Charlie, this is all my fault,” I whispered to him as we both stared down at our brands that connected us now even more.
“What is?”
“Getting us here.”
He looked at me with shiny eyes. “You said somewhere else could have a way out.”
“Or someone,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.
“I thought I was going to die in that pit until you showed up,” Charlie said.
We’re probably going to die here, I wanted to say.
Once we were all stamped, Sam led us past rows of hundreds of kids back at work. We climbed a set of stairs to the third floor, the wide-open grates making me dizzy. I slid my hand along the cool wood railing to steady my steps, afraid I would fall through, bounce off kids and wooden wheels like a giant pinball machine, and zoom toward the floor. Splat.
At every turn, guards with vapes watched over us. One grunted as I passed, punching the air with his spear in warning. Noise vibrated upward through the grates and flowed into me. Electrifying.
Chooga-chooga. Legs swung all around me. Back and forth. On and on. We marched by kid after kid who ran on rickety hamster wheels, gazing ahead. The harp music followed along behind me. That kid was crying again. Chooga-chooga. The balloon above swelled and deflated.
We soon reached an empty section of the third floor. Sam led us each to a machine. Mine happened to be a wheel right under the balloon. The tubes from all the wheels rose up through the grates, like the paths of worker bees feeding the Queen Mother, and hot tar fumes filled my nose like the smell of my driveway back home in summer.
Next to me, Charlie stared at the balloon. Did he imagine it like me growing bigger and bigger then bang? I flicked my eyes around the power mill for an escape: a door, a window without bars on it, stairs to the roof. There must be a way out! A guard jabbed me in the stomach with the blunt end of his vape and yelled at me to stop looking around. My eyes welled with tears as I clutched my burning stomach and stared at Sam. His eyes flitted over me, but then he begun instructing us on what to do when a guard yelled “Stop, Reeker!”
A boy ran past us screaming. Sparks shot up from around his feet as the guard’s vape fired over and over. The grates below my feet shook as the boy streaked by, scrambled up on his wheel, and began working furiously next to me. His thick hair bounced up and down with his efforts. It took all I had to remain still as stone.
The guard strolled over and said to Sam, “That one doesn’t get his break until his shift is over.”
Sam nodded. He moved toward the boy, who pumped his legs faster and faster. Sam bent down and pulled up a chain from the floor next to the wheel. At the end of it dangled a handcuff.
“No!” The boy jerked his hand away. In a second the guard was there with his vape inches from the boy’s face, the snake’s tongue flicking in and out. Charlie inched next to me, his hot breath beating down the back of my neck.
Sam grabbed the boy’s hand and held it down, snapping the cuff on the boy’s wrist. In that click, my own fate was locked.
“Please, Sam, don’t,” the boy whispered.
“You know the rules. Anyone late back from their break must p
ay the consequences.”
“P-p-please. Hekate doesn’t have to know.”
“Silence!” The guard ordered the boy.
Zap. Zap.
Fire streaked through the air, curling my eyelashes and seizing me with terror. The boy screamed, and every muscle in me quivered. I held my breath and closed my eyes tight. When all was quiet I opened them, fearing the boy had exploded into dust. He still stood there, but his hair had been burned away. Smoke encircled his head. The guard laughed and laughed.
“One more word and I’ll zap all of you, Reeker, not just that curly top of yours.”
Sam turned toward us, a frown on his face. “Once a day in here you get food and five minutes every hour for water and a bathroom break. Five minutes. It’s all Hekate allows.” He sounded sorry about it, as if he wanted us to know he had nothing to do with that rule. “Everyone get on your wheel.”
We all stood for a moment unmoving. The same guard menacingly strode toward us. “Now, you filthy Barbaros!”
The guard thrust his spear at us, his vape’s tongue spitting sparks. Imagining myself vanishing into a million pieces of dust, I rushed up on my wheel. In front of me, metal mitts dangled from tubes that threaded through the open wheel slats, and Sam instructed us to put them on. We had no choice as the guard glared at us. The mitts’ rough metal scratched and tugged at my fingers. These tubes weren’t giving food to us. They were taking from us.
“Begin!” Sam raised his hands as a gong boomed.
I hurried to work my legs. Faster and faster I turned my wheel. It looped under me again and again, making me dizzy. Charlie ran like crazy on his wheel, barreling toward the same place as me: nowhere. Before long, blood beat in my ears, sweat trickled down my back, and my shirt clung to me. I was desperate for water, and my head throbbed with heat. My fingers felt like tiny bugs were crawling all over them, nibbling as little jolts stung me. The gloves sucked at my fingertips, pulling energy out of me and sending it to that giant balloon.
“Sorry,” I mouthed to Charlie when he glanced at me. He puckered his lips as he nodded and wiped the sweat trickling from his neck.
They can. We can.
I grew more and more tired, gasping from the hot air burning into my lungs. My legs ached with their work, but going faster was not an option—it felt like moving through sand. My hands drooped with their heavy duty, but the tug of the mitts held no escape, clinging to me like a second skin. Sam stared at me. His shoulders curled in, and the light painted shadows under his eyes and hollows in his cheeks. My thoughts grew fuzzy as my legs moved back and forth, and my eyes glazed over as I focused on the tubes rising up from my hands in front of me.
Then music floated in the air. A harp. Faint at first, but it grew louder and louder. A melody of a soul crying, and suddenly I couldn’t remember why I was here. Or who I was.
The Lost Realm had sucked it out of me.
Chapter Eight
My shift ended, but my legs still felt like they were moving back and forth on the wheel. I hit the floor and stumbled after Sam as he led the way to the bunkhouse. We followed him down dark paths lit by lanterns on poles, sandwiched between guards. Only Charlie’s tall figure in front of me gave me the smallest feeling of safety. It had grown darker since I entered the power mill for my shift. The mist now clung to the forest floor leaving the night sky a clear deep plum dotted with stars.
Shadows and fog obscured my way, and I banged into Charlie as we were halted in front of a long, low building. This time I clung to his T-shirt, not wanting to be separated from my one friend here. Guards were posted by the entrance, and around the building’s perimeter paced giant, snickering foxes. My eyes were so bleary I couldn’t read the words over the door as we were marched into a chilly room. A solitary torch lit the wall, and it spewed smoke, stinging the inside of my nose.
The guards led us through a shower room where we were hosed down with freezing water then dried off in a giant wind tunnel. This rough treatment revived me, and I rocked in place to get warm, but in the huddle of shivering kids I’d lost sight of Charlie until I spotted his head. He was led away with another group. No! My insides shook as I was marched away with my own group.
In a large hall we were given bowls of brown glop to eat and ordered to sit at sticky tables on cracked wooden benches. I peered into the soup, expecting to find something nasty like fingernails or mouse turds. I held my breath and slugged down the food. It was greasy and slid down my throat in bitter chunks.
The guard standing at our table glared at me. “Nasty Reekers. Hurry up and eat your gurgle soup. Off you go!”
Back in the bunk room, Sam assigned bed numbers and, after finding my bunk in the near dark, I spread across a bottom bed that smelled like pee. The mattress was just a wool sack stuffed with straw that poked into my back. A worn blanket with ratty holes was crumpled at the bottom of the bed, and I pulled it over my cold legs, squeezing them together for warmth.
I slipped my fingers around the crystal in my pocket and held it tight. In the dark it was hard to make out heads or feet on the other bunks. Where was Charlie? Kids whispered around me, some crying. The comfort of my moonlit room back home called to me, where bullfrogs bellowed goodnight and Bo Chez still turned out my light with his dumb baby rhyme. Nightey nodz and toodley todz, don’t let the bedbugs sneak up your snoz. He’d never mentioned vapes. Or beasts. Bugs I could deal with.
My body craved sleep, but it wouldn’t give in yet. Fear kept shaking me awake. Falling asleep on this world might mean never waking up.
“Charlie?” It came out a whisper, desperate for a friendly reply. None came. In all my twelve years I’d never felt so alone, and I tugged the blanket up to my neck.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness. Only one light at the entrance lit this bunkhouse that held hundreds. Guess they didn’t want to waste the light on us—the very light we generated. Hurry up, sleep! Dreaming was my one form of escape.
“Hey,” a voice startled me with a tap on my headboard, and a boy poked his head down. “When’d you get here?”
“Just today, I think.”
“I’ve been here for weeks now.” The boy climbed down and plopped on my bed. His chubby body squished next to mine. He looked like a little Bo Chez. A Lo Chez. He even smelled like cheese gone bad.
I sat up. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“There’s a bunch of us planning the same thing.”
“I don’t belong here.”
“Oh, and what, the rest of us do?” He leaned in and poked me in the chest, blowing out a big, stinky cheese breath.
“Sorry, didn’t mean that. Are you from here or kidnapped, too?”
“Kidnapped.” He sat back and fisted my blanket, frowning at me. “We all were.”
The boy whistled long and low. Shapes moved toward us in the dark and kids crowded on my bunk bed.
“This is a new kid,” Lo Chez said. “So, newbie, we’re figuring out a plan to take Hekate down and escape.”
“How?”
“We sneak attack the guards when they do their early morning check, grab their vapes, and kill ‘em. Hekate will follow behind them, but we’ll vape her, too.”
“How will we get home?”
“Her brother, the Child Collector, comes in the morning for his special breakfast the chefs make. We’ll kidnap him, threaten to zap him too, and make him send us all home.”
The kids nodded at their leader, Lo Chez. Sounded risky to me.
“So are you in or what, new kid?”
“We could die,” I said. They just stared at me as if that was obvious. “I’ve got to get back home to my grandfather.”
“We’ve all got someone to get back home to.”
The kid next to Lo Chez started to cry. “My mom’s real sick. She’s in the hospital and I don’t think I’ll get to see her again, even if I do get home.”
Lo Chez draped his arm on the kid’s shoulder. “You’ll see her. Righ
t, guys?”
One by one each kid spoke, their dirt and tear-streaked faces floating in the dim light.
“My dad is going overseas in the Army. I wanted to say goodbye.”
“My family’s going to England to visit my cousins. Don’t guess I’m going now.”
“We’re moving this month. I won’t know where to find my family even if I do escape.”
The crying kid wiped his nose. “We’ve all got to get out of here.”
I smiled at the kid with fake confidence. “We will.”
“Back to your bunks,” Lo Chez said. “Wait for the sign.”
The kids slunk away, except Lo Chez who darted his eyes around, then focused on me. My fingers slipped to the crystal in my pocket. Share it or not? My heart thudded, trying to decide. I would wait. Besides, could it even help us?
“Are you in?” He thumped my bed.
“Okay.” What choice was there? Maybe Charlie was here somewhere too and we could escape together.
“Get some sleep. You’ll need it to be ready to go.” Lo Chez climbed back on top of his bunk.
He never told me his name, or the others. I don’t guess it mattered. We were all the same here, just a brand and a resource for the world of Nostos. And we were lost in this Lost Realm.
I stretched out on my bunk and gave in to the dark. And, finally, in the cramped warmth of my dark prison, sleep dragged me away.
Chapter Nine
Shouts rang out. I jolted up and hit my head on the bunk with a painful whack.
Lo Chez hauled me out. “They’re on to us!”
Joshua and the Lightning Road Page 4