The Assassin and the Soldier

by Carly Morgan

  “Lux…” was all she managed to choke out in return to the parting, before she was jerked around a corner and pulled down an empty hall.

  Callan

  The five final contestants were kayaked out to a boulder they’d always referred to as the cavern. It was at least half a mile out in the middle of the ocean, past the breaker, and the waves were rough today. The center of the rock had been hollowed over the decades by the constant lapping of the water, giving it an interesting, cave-like appearance. During low tide, the entire cavernous structure of the rock was visible, but when the water was at its highest, only the very top of the flat surface remained. With the waves lapping over it, it almost gave it an effect like it was bobbing, and once Callan had mistaken it for a giant sea turtle.

  Kaelia and Callan had watched the cavern become submerged by the tide on more than one occasion, the two of them together as they should be, her head on his shoulder, lazily enjoying the sun on the beach. Now it was their home base. Callan watched the live broadcasting on a big screen TV in an undisclosed location somewhere else on the island. They had taken all the trainers there, him against his will without letting him see Kaelia again. They said they didn’t want them interfering with the final challenge, which was taking place on the resort. Callan shouldn’t have let them take him. He should have found Kaelia, grabbed her and run, like he wanted to in the first place.

  As he rose to leave, he felt fingers on his arm, and turned to see Maddie, Lux’s trainer. “Where are you going?” she asked, her face full of consternation.

  Callan stared at her for several long moments, before he finally moved his arm away from her touch. “Well, I can’t stay here,” he said at last, as he turned and strode away.

  Chapter 22

  Kaelia

  It was hot. Kaelia licked her parched lips, surveying their new surroundings. It seemed a cruel joke that the area was covered with water, and she couldn’t drink any of it. It was mid-morning, and she’d spent the better part of last night screaming her head off. Her throat was hoarse, her eyelids heavy. The guards had locked them all in tiny rooms close together in a different part of the hotel. They wouldn’t let her see Callan, wouldn’t let her see anyone, and wouldn’t let her go anywhere either. And Kaelia knew they didn’t want anyone to run.

  They’d brought her food, coffee even, but Kaelia hadn’t eaten. Now she regretted it. Her stomach rumbled, and her muscles felt weak with fatigue. Water lapped over her flippers, the cavern of the rock slowly filling with the rising tide. They’d given them wetsuits and snorkel gear for the challenge, before deserting them on a rock in the middle of the ocean. Kaelia surveyed the shoreline. It was empty. Their playing field was the entire resort. The rule was the flags had to be left in plain sight, not hidden. The cavern was their only place of refuge from their former contestants, and they had to get back to it with a flag in order to win.

  “Well, I would rather swim now at the low tide, than when the waves get bigger.” Indigo Steele was the first to speak, testing an ankle into the deep water off the mouth of the cavern.

  “Are you sure?” Lux put an arm out to stop her, and Kaelia could hear real concern in his voice. Not because he wanted the first flag, but because he was afraid for her safety. The sentiment was jarring and touching at the same time.

  “I am fast,” Indigo seemed to be reasoning more with herself than with anyone else. “I am good at hiding, and I am good at finding. This challenge was made for me.”

  Kaelia admired her courage, stupid as it was. “Wait,” she spoke up nervously. “We should all come up with a strategy, and go out there together. Our chances will be better at not being killed that way.”

  “Not me,” said Wesley Mills, the older man, as he raised his hands in the air in surrender, his body sagging. “I’m too old for this. I’ll stay out on this rock until the waves take me. I’m not going out there, but I’m not going back to prison either.”

  Lux, Indigo, and Kaelia eyed the man with reservation, though Evan Roberts seemed to have different emotions about it. “Oh, no!” he protested. “You think I don’t see what’s going on? The three of you have been friendly since the beginning! You’re going to divvy up the flags for yourselves, and throw me to the wolves.”

  Tension fell between them. Tentatively, Indigo spoke again in her alluring accent. “That is why it is better for us to go alone. Otherwise we are fighting with each other, just as the showrunners want.”

  “You’ll be killed if you go by yourself!” Kaelia wished she could make the woman see things her way.

  “She’s right,” Lux backed her up. “Kaelia is a professional fighting machine. If we came up with a strategy for attack…”

  Evan scoffed, interrupting Lux. “Are you fucking crazy, man? The four of us, unarmed, against that lot of maniacs? Half of them could take us with muscle alone, but no, they have all kinds of crazy medieval torture devices. The burglar is right. We need to sneak in separately, steal a flag, and get back to the rock. Not attack them!”

  “You’re the crazy one!” Kaelia could feel herself getting even hotter. The heat was torturous, despite the slight shade the roof of the cavern provided. “They’re never going to just let you walk right up and take a flag. Not without taking your head off first. We’re going to have to fight them!”

  “I am not a fighter,” Indigo rationalized. “Nor am I a very good swimmer in big waves. But I am a good taker. I need to go now, so I can get back before the water gets too high.”

  Fitting her snorkel gear into place, she stepped off the ledge of the cavern before anyone could blink and started swimming towards the shore.

  “Dammit,” Kaelia sighed. She had liked Indigo. Almost considered her a friend. She knew it had been stupid to make friends in this place.

  “All right then,” Evan’s mind seemed to be changing. “You think we can go out there and attack them? Let’s hear what you got.”

  Kaelia took a deep breath, trying to think of a way to explain it without sounding ridiculous. “Well, first we locate the flags. Then I can go in, disarm some of them. Steal their weapons, and bring them back to you guys. Once armed, we’ll have a better chance fighting off the rest of them.”

  She knew she had failed. It sounded ridiculous. Evan guffawed. “You? Go out alone and steal their weapons? Why not just steal the flags?”

  “They’re not going to let me close enough to the flags to steal them,” she snapped, irritated at having to repeat herself.

  “So you’re going to go out there, one tiny girl, against fifteen armed criminals?”

  “Do the words most highly sought assassin in the world mean anything to you?” Kaelia growled at him. “I know what I’m doing. But if you have a better idea, feel free to try. But we have to go now. If we hurry, we can catch up with Indigo.”

  She looked at Lux, who nodded. The two of them hit the water with a deft splash. Kaelia cut through the surface like a fish, heading for shore. The cool water felt refreshing after the intense heat in the air, but Kaelia didn’t have the energy to enjoy it. She was still thirsty, and she could feel her body shriveling like a neglected houseplant. She needed to drink, not swim.

  They didn’t find Indigo on the shore, so it was just the three of them: Evan, Lux, and Kaelia. She sought out a coconut tree and, stripping out of her wetsuit, shimmied directly up its callous trunk, freeing several of the orbs from a bunch. When she came down again, there were four of them. Wesley had swum out as well. All three men were in nothing but their swim trunks now, the four wetsuits left to dry on the sand like strange, alien skins.

  “Thought you were fish food,” she said, appraising Wesley’s wrinkly, wizened old body.

  He smiled toothlessly at her. “Y’know, your plan sounded so convincing, I thought I’d put off dying for a while. Why not go out with a bang?”

  Kaelia couldn’t help but grin back at him. Cracking a coconut, she handed him half, taking the other for herself. She guzzled greedily, feeling the liquid nutrients r
eplenish and recharge her body.

  “Um, a little help?” Lux was still looking at his coconut uselessly; Kaelia grabbed it and split it over her knee. Evan stared at her, stunned, though drank from his portion just the same. She wished she had canteens, so they could take some of the juice with them. She tucked a spare one under her arm.

  “I’ll save this,” she said. “In case we find Indie.”

  The grounds of the resort seemed strange all of a sudden. Though they’d all spent the past several weeks of their lives training, lounging and playing there, now it was a deadly battle ground, one that might strike at any second. Kaelia surveyed it with new eyes. There were the tide pools, the rocky seawall, the sandy strip of beach, and beyond that, grassy parks dotted with palm trees, picnic tables, outdoor showers and changing areas. Closer to the hotel were the shops and restaurants, the pools, the tennis and basketball courts, the fountains and patios.

  And surrounding it all, miles of lush jungle only she and Callan had really taken the time to explore. They had to beat back the swarms of biting mosquitoes and fire ants to get to the main attraction; which had been a pretty cool waterfall, cascading off a cliff into a river, but besides that there wasn’t much to see out there really. Just a few amateur trails and several wild, exotic fruit trees, all of which Kaelia had sampled despite Callan’s warnings she might poison herself.

  “There,” Kaelia pointed in that direction now. “That’s where they hid them. That’s where they are.”

  “Are you sure?” Lux shaded his eyes with his hand.

  Kaelia shrugged. How was she so hot already? She was hardly even fully dry from her swim. “Well, that’s where I’m going to look.”

  She supposed her conviction was what made the others follow, though perhaps it was the way she had climbed up a palm tree and cracked open rock-hard coconuts with her bare hands. In reality, Kaelia had no idea what she was doing. She had a sense the former contestants might have hidden the flags in the jungle, that was it. She scanned the beach for Indigo’s footprints, wondering which way she had gone. But if the woman left any tracks, she had discreetly covered them up.

  The walk to the perimeter of the jungle wasn’t exactly short, and Kaelia could feel her skin frying under the relentlessly hot sun. She began to wish she had worn more than a bikini, and recalled one of her very first days knowing Callan, when he had insisted she wear sunscreen. She smiled to herself, despite her current circumstances. Even back then he’d been bossy. Even back then he had cared about her.

  Kaelia shook Callan from her thoughts, refusing to be distracted. Last night had been hellish enough, not knowing where he was, what had happened to him. And never getting to say goodbye to him after their fight. Kaelia felt a vice tighten around her chest. She wondered if she might never see him again. No. No, she couldn’t think that way. She pushed herself forward, despite the cruel heat. The others were lagging behind.

  “Come on,” she coaxed them. “It will be cooler in the jungle.”

  “It couldn’t be cooler in Hell!” Evan complained. “I’m sweating balls back here!”

  Kaelia looked at him. His face was red and ruddy. The others didn’t look so great either. Wesley was panting hard, practically doubled over. She knew it was common for old people to get heat stroke. Lux was also dripping sweat. At least they had drunk those coconuts.

  “The longer we stay out here, the weaker we’ll get!” she tried to sound encouraging. “There’s fruit trees in the jungle too.”

  “The hell with fruit,” Lux panted. “I don’t want foraged berries to be my last meal. I want an ice cream sundae, with whipped cream and caramel and a bunch of those little cherries, served in between the legs of a beautiful woman.”

  “Hush,” Kaelia warned him, as they approached a field separating them from the fringes of the jungle. She sensed a threat nearby, and crouched low to the ground among some dense shrubbery. The others collapsed behind her, exhausted and grateful for the break. “The three of you stay here. I’ll go first.”

  “Yeah, and get the first flag,” Evan snorted.

  Kaelia narrowed her eyes at him, and then turned nonchalantly. “You wanna come with me? Be my guest.”

  She went alone, creeping low to the grass with stealth precision her genetics were redesigned with. When she made it to the perimeter of the jungle, she was ready for them. They charged her all at once; four of them from different angles, weapons drawn and yelling like banshees. An arrow flew at her head from the trees, and a javelin came from her other side. She ducked in one direction, and then the other, causing the arrow Lauza had intended for her chest to strike Emmanuel, who’d thrown the javelin, directly through the throat. He dropped as Lauza drew another arrow.

  But the other two were coming at her, one with a sword, the other a large dagger, and Lauza lowered her arm and retreated into the jungle, unwilling to make the same mistake of taking out one of her own teammates a second time. Kaelia’s elbow collided into a skull, and her foot rammed into a gut. Both men fell, and though they were gasping for breath and badly hurt, they were still conscious. Kaelia frowned.

  “Sorry about this,” she said, and knocked both of them out with a blow a piece to the back of their heads.

  She dropped to her knees just as another arrow whizzed past her ear. Dammit. Lauza wasn’t giving up. She picked up the dagger and took off into the jungle, crouching behind trees, her eyes searching. There. On a low hanging branch a few meters away, her bow perched against her shoulder, aiming at nothing. Kaelia grabbed a nearby vine, stripping it of leaves and testing its strength between her hands. Then she charged.

  She leapt clear over the branch, catching Lauza off guard as she wrapped her arms around her and took her to the ground. The bow went flying into the air as Lauza released a scream of surprise. “Oh, be quiet,” Kaelia ordered, as if the woman was overreacting. “I don’t want to kill you. I just want to tie you up a little bit.”

  “Stupid bitch!” Lauza attempted to spit in her face, but Kaelia flipped her around, getting her wrists in her hands and tying them tightly together with the vine. Then she dragged her back the way she came, towards the two men she’d taken out. They were still down for the count. She beckoned for Wesley, Evan, and Lux, before crouching down and tying them too.

  “Why tie them?” Despite contributing very little to this whole endeavor, Evan certainly had a lot to say. “Why not just kill them?” He picked up the gleaming sword, and then winced, the metal burning his hand. It was way too fucking hot out.

  “Because I’ve killed enough already,” Kaelia begrudgingly explained as she doubled and tripled the knot. “I don’t need any more blood on my hands.”

  “What about him?” Wesley gestured to Emmanuel, clearly dead with the arrow through his throat.

  Kaelia looked pointedly at Lauza. “That wasn’t me,” she said.

  “Aww,” Lux drawled sappily, taking Emmanuel’s javelin for himself and twirling it like a baton. “Is this going to be one of those endings where the cold-blooded assassin grows a heart of gold?”

  “Shut up,” Kaelia snapped at him. She whirled and pointed her dagger at Lauza. “Are the flags in there?” She beckoned with her eyes towards the jungle.

  “You catch on quickly, don’t you sweetheart?” Lauza smiled lazily as she settled herself against a tree, barely batting an eye at the blade pointed at her voluptuous chest. “You really should kill them, you know. It would be the smart thing to do.”

  “Them?” Kaelia quizzed, crouching down and pressing the tip of the knife against Lauza’s meaty flesh. “What about you?”

  The serial killer made a face like it might not be a bad idea. “It’s up to you.”

  “Where are the flags?” Kaelia demanded, twisting the dagger along with her expression.

  “Ohh…” Lauza pretended to pout. “Are you going to kill me if I don’t tell you? Too bad. I was so very much looking forward to my future behind bars.”

  Kaelia huffed, realizing getting any inform
ation out of her three captives would be hopeless. Turning on her heels, she marched into the jungle, hiking Lauza’s bow up on one shoulder and keeping the handle of the dagger gripped in her hand. “Come on!” she ordered the others, who seemed to forget how to move without her commands. “We’ll find the flags ourselves.”

  “Hope you don’t find your friend first,” Kaelia heard Lauza call after they’d already gone several yards through the thick brush and trees. “Of course, she won’t look the same as when you last saw her. She’ll probably look a little bit dead.”

  Lauza started to cackle, and Kaelia froze in place, as if her feet had rooted to the ground. Her vision blurred, and her head swam. Lauza could have been lying, but, damn, Kaelia knew she shouldn’t have gotten close to anyone. Rushing to scrub away the hot tears that spurted from her eyes, she threw down the coconut she had saved, and continued her march. Now wasn’t the time to get sentimental.

  Chapter 23

  Kaelia

  They were all just sitting around by the river, eleven of them left, surrounded by an arsenal of weapons from crossbows to swords to spiked steel balls on chains. The flags were right there, pinned to a large, flat rock by a smaller rock. Kaelia could just barely make out all three of the triangle flaps of cloth from her perch high up in a tree. This was it. The competition was almost over. They would rush in, get the flags, and then hightail it back to the cavern. Kaelia half-slid, half-flew down the tree to tell the others.

  “We’ll split up,” she advised, the four of them forming a crude huddle. “Me and Lux will take the top of the waterfall, and you and…”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Evan interrupted her. “Just wait a minute. What makes you think you and lover boy should go off alone? Something about that doesn’t smell right to me.”