Sentinel

by Emerald Dodge

  Charles and Adam herded us toward the shipping container’s wooden door. Once we were inside, Adam turned on a small lantern, and then a space heater that was plugged into a power strip. “We’ll get you all some food and bedding in a minute. You’re going to stay in here for the night.” Charles and Adam left us.

  We sat by the space heater, the lantern casting our faces into strange shadows. Adam returned a few minutes later with blankets and thin pillows, while Charles passed out four military-issue MREs. We accepted the items with murmured words of thanks and blessings, and then they shut the door.

  A deadbolt locked into place, then another. Finally, I heard a strange whooshing, cracking sound travel around the edge of the doorway.

  We’d been sealed in with ice.

  “What the hell is going on, Ember?” Marco asked, tearing open his MRE and dumping the little packets on the floor. “Are these the Westerners or a militia or what?”

  “I don’t know,” Ember said, her hands shaking so hard that she couldn’t open her MRE. “I… I can’t hear anything anymore.” She dropped the package and clutched her head. “It’s so quiet. God, it’s so quiet. Is this what it’s like to be you guys?”

  Reid pulled her close and stroked her short hair. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. They probably have someone who can telepathically block people.”

  “They’re going to separate us,” Ember said. “I got that much while we were walking here. I have no idea why, but it can’t be anything good.”

  “I didn’t see Benjamin or Isabel,” Marco said. “We found the Westerners, but not the right ones.”

  Now that I was finally warm and eating food, my brain was able to work through the events at near-normal speed. “I agree. These aren’t the people we want. Tomorrow morning, before dawn, we’re going to break out of here. We’ll come back at a different time and capture Boone, who’s obviously the leader. We’ll work out the details about the capture later, though. Right now we’ll work on getting out. Marco, do you think you can melt the side of the container?”

  “Yeah,” he said, running his hand over the thin metal wall. “No problem.”

  “Then Reid will cause an earthquake. Everyone will fall down, and we’ll take advantage of their confusion to get out of here. Once we’re clear, we’ll fly out.”

  Reid flexed his fingers. “Can do.”

  Ember squeezed her head in her hands, grimacing. “There’s something here. It’s so much worse than Mason’s influence on the ants. So much more powerful. If my powers are a fire, then it’s a wet blanket. My powers are smothered.”

  I pushed a pillow toward her. “Let’s eat and go to sleep. We’re exhausted and not in the best condition to fight. I bet a night’s sleep will help you deal with whatever is happening to your telepathy.”

  We finished our MREs and arranged ourselves around the space heater, pulling the blankets around ourselves. Though the air was warm, the floor was hard and cold as rock, and once again I struggled to sleep. Outside the shipping container, men with unknown plans plotted against us. Benjamin and Isabel were still missing, and for all I knew, we were no closer to finding them.

  I listened to my watch beep the passing of each hour.

  At zero four, I sat up, listening for noises beyond the walls. I couldn’t hear anything except faint snoring and the sounds of the forest.

  I shook my team awake. “Get ready,” I whispered. “Get your things.”

  Before Marco could summon his remaining heat reserves, a low rumbling outside the container made us pause. It wasn’t Reid’s power shifting the earth, but…

  “Horses?” I whispered.

  The ground shook from the pounding of hundreds, even thousands of hooves, trampling the ground with such ferocity that the container shook. Whinnies and snorts announced the presence of an enormous herd in the camp.

  I turned to my teammates. “What the f—”

  A bullet tore through the metal, inches from Reid’s head.

  “Get down!”

  We dove to the floor and threw our arms over our heads.

  Gunfire lit up the space outside, and then men began to scream for help.

  Bullets punched holes in the metal and rained down on us. Shouts of the injured and dying blended together with gunfire, the deafening sound of horses, and crashing trees.

  As quickly as they had started, the sounds stopped. I closed my eyes and strained to identify the muffled noises outside.

  A man’s agonized groan. A gunshot—and no more groaning.

  A terrified “No!” before another gunshot silenced the speaker.

  Five or six pairs of boots approaching the container, followed by the distinct sound of magazines being loaded into weapons.

  A man whispered to the others to leave no survivors.

  My muscles coiled, preparing for battle. “Get ready to run. Do not stop for anything. That’s an order. Get as far away from here as possible. Marco, I need a flash.”

  The door crashed open.

  A team of armed men flooded in, their weapons drawn.

  Marco’s light flooded the container and I threw myself at the men. I grabbed the leader’s weapon and used it to shove them all to the ground. He grabbed my arm, and we all collapsed into a confused pile.

  “Go!” I shouted, still tangled in the mess of limbs and guns. One of the men reached for my hair. I punched him.

  My team sprinted out.

  Within moments, I’d extricated myself and ran after them. The few seconds I’d spent on the ground with the men meant that I was the last to get to the edge of the camp and into the safety of the trees.

  “Get her!” one of the men yelled. I didn’t pause to see if anyone was aiming for me.

  In my haste, I forgot to lift up my overlong skirts while I ran.

  My foot caught one of the hems, and I flew forward into the gravel with a yell, just ten feet from the tree line. I could hear approaching heavy footfalls of a lone shooter, who’d just loaded a magazine into a handgun.

  I plunged a hand into the slit in my skirt and grabbed my knife. In a fraction of a second I gauged the distance and direction from the sound alone, then spun around to throw my knife into his neck.

  A single gunshot pierced the twilight.

  I screamed as my right hand exploded in agony and my knife fell to the ground. He’d shot the knife out of my hand, leaving a gushing, gory hole through my palm.

  I cradled my hand to my chest and bowed my head in faux resignation, waiting for him to get close enough for me to attack. I wasn’t already dead from a second gunshot, so I expected him to gloat before killing me.

  That would prove to be a mistake.

  As I expected, the man walked up to me, his boots crunching the gravel. “Any last words, garbage?” His menacing voice was youthful, yet deep.

  I glanced up at him to finalize how I’d attack.

  His black eyes, visible above his neck gaiter, widened.

  I slammed my arm into the side of his knee. He fell with a yell, his gun flying out of his hand with a clatter. I jumped on him and squeezed his windpipe with my left hand, the pain in my right hand all but forgotten.

  “Any last words, garbage?” I growled.

  Nearby, by the shipping container, five men pulled out their handguns and trained them on me.

  Instead of fighting me off, he pulled down his neck gaiter. I let go of his neck with a gasp.

  It was Gregory.

  20

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

  My brother twisted around and held his hands up to the others. They didn’t move.

  I fell backwards and landed on my injured hand, fiery tendrils racing up my arm. Warm gooeyness seeped from underneath my fingers. I examined my hand and couldn’t see through the other side because of the cascade of blood, which poured out of the hole and down my arm, dripping off my sodden clothes onto the gravel.

  The stench of horses and gore lingered everywhere. Dead bodies littered the ground, twisted
and oozing.

  “Get on the ground!” one of the men yelled. All weapons were still trained on me. “Put your hands on your head!”

  I looked away from my hand and stared at my brother. “You’re dead.”

  “Get on the ground!”

  “Don’t shoot! She’s my sister!” Gregory tore off his neck gaiter and sloppily wrapped it around the injury. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “It’s Jillian!”

  The world narrowed to just my brother and me. I hardly felt the pain of my injury as I reached out with my good hand and brushed his stubbly face with the tips of my fingers.

  Gregory was alive. Gregory, happy and carefree and sweet, was alive. I didn’t care how. I didn’t care why. I was with my brother again, and everything was going to be okay.

  “Gregory…” My bleeding hand fell into my lap. “Where have you been?”

  “Long story.” He stood up and pulled me to my feet. “Guys! For God’s sake, lower your weapons! This is my sister!”

  I finally focused on the armed men, who slowly lowered their weapons. The pain in my hand flared, causing me to hiss.

  Gregory gave me a fearful look and beckoned to one of the men. “Zander, can you cauterize her hand?”

  “Where’s my team?” I looked back and forth for any sign of the other three, but in the darkened forest, only branches and leaves were visible.

  Around us, the rest of the men dispersed and began to collect bodies. One of them, a black-haired man with eyes so light they were visible in the twilight, watched us from a distance.

  Zander hurried over to us, his scowl evident above his neck gaiter. “I’m not helping one of them.”

  I scowled. “I’m not a Westerner.”

  Zander lowered his neck gaiter, and I saw that he wasn’t much older than me. “Chick, I’d be more likely to help a Westerner than a—”

  Gregory shoved Zander backwards. “I said she’s my sister. You’ll cauterize her hand or I’m going to—”

  “Or what, Johnson?”

  “Or you’ll have to explain to me why you let Jillian bleed to death.” The man who’d been watching us strode toward us. He pulled down his neck gaiter, revealing the handsome face of a man in his mid-twenties. His bottom lip was pierced with two close-set rings that I’d recently learned were called ‘spider bites’—an odd fashion choice for a warrior.

  His icy eyes narrowed at Zander. “Stop the bleeding.”

  “But she’s—”

  “That wasn’t a request.”

  Zander glared at me. “Give me your hand. I’d tell you to bite on something, but not showing pain is one of your principles, right?” He sneered when he said “principles.”

  I held my hand to my chest. “Screw you.” I turned to the light-eyed man. “You’re the leader of this… this… outfit, aren’t you?”

  He extended his hand. “Dean Monroe. I really think you should let Zander cauterize your hand.”

  Instead of shaking his hand, I wrapped the neck gaiter tighter around my wound. “And I think you should learn basic tactics, dumbass. What kind of idiot runs into a building without knowing who’s in there?”

  Dean raised an eyebrow.

  “And you know what, Monroe? I’m in the middle of looking for my own medic, and your team’s interference has just made that process even more difficult than it already is. So take your faux concern and shove it.” I turned back to Zander. “My medic, by the way, is a former supervillain who tried to kill superheroes, and he’s a better person than you are. Go to hell.”

  “You’ll bleed out before you find your medic,” Dean said. “Do you have a way to stop the bleeding?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” Marco could direct a thin beam of heat into my hand, effectively cauterizing the severed veins. It would be agonizing, but I wouldn’t die. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to find my team.” I’d get them, circle back for Gregory, and then get away from Dean Monroe and his soldiers.

  Resisting a powerful urge to flip him off, I stomped away toward the tree line, stopping only to grab my backpack. Beneath my ire, a steady drumbeat pounded: Gregory is alive, Gregory is alive, Gregory is alive, Gregory is alive. The thought should’ve comforted me, inspired me, thrilled me…something.

  However, the shock had already worn off, and only dull aggravation remained. Benjamin and Isabel’s deaths had been faked; it followed that Gregory’s had been, too. What about all the other people who I’d long thought deceased?

  “Jillian! Wait up!”

  Dean’s voice already irked me. I shoved a tree branch aside and kept walking. “Go back to your gang, or whatever you call yourselves.” I paused and scanned the trees for any sign of my team.

  He caught up with me. “I need to talk to you.”

  I faced him, hoping he’d shrivel up and die under the intensity of my death glare. “I’m getting my team and leaving. And I’m taking my brother with me.”

  “You’re going to pass out from blood loss before you find them, and Gregory won’t go with you.” He was slightly breathy from chasing me. “Stay with us and we’ll take you back to our medic. Our real medic,” he said when I began to argue. “We have a doctor who can help your hand. Zander’s heat ray is just for emergencies.”

  I wrenched open my backpack so hard the zipper broke. “You know what? I’d rather bleed out then go anywhere with you.” I grabbed a little pink pouch and pulled out a tampon, then pushed out the cotton. “I can handle a damn bullet wound.” I plugged the bullet hole and rewrapped it. “Say something. I dare you.”

  Dean held up his hands and backed away. “Not saying a thing. But I have to say that Gregory won’t go with you. He’s one of us.”

  I crossed my arms. “And what, exactly, are you? Guerrilla fighters? Rogue soldiers? Idiots running around in the woods and almost murdering innocent people? Yeah, it’s definitely the third one, because I heard you tell your men to leave no survivors. You were going to murder us.”

  Dean took a deep breath. “We’re the Sentinels. Well, some of them. I’ll explain everything later when we’re back at our camp. Everything, I promise. We received bad information about the occupants of the shipping container, and I swear I’ll figure out what went wrong. If you come back with us, we’ll get everything sorted out and you can talk to Gregory, see our doc, all that.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “My team should’ve doubled back to look for me by now. Where are they?”

  Dean rubbed the back of his head. “They’re probably with the other half of my team. They ran off in that direction.”

  My chest constricted. “I’ll go back to your camp if my team is alive. If your men killed them, I will scalp you and make your team watch. That’s a promise. I tortured and fought my way out of Chattahoochee, and right now I’m in the mood to do it again. Try me, Monroe.”

  He gave me a dashing grin. “Gregory wasn’t lying about you. I’ve wanted to meet you for a while.”

  “I… What?” I scrambled for a response. “Why?”

  “Because you’re Battlecry, the woman who pissed off everyone. We’ve heard about what you did in Saint Catherine.”

  “You mean how I beat my leader nearly to death?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Dean! We’re done!” Another man’s voice called from the clearing.

  Dean inclined his head toward them. “We need to bury the corpses, and then we can go.”

  “Take me to my team first.”

  Dean sighed, called for his men to wait, and then beckoned for me to follow him. We walked farther into the woods.

  After a few minutes, the sound of horses reached my ears, and then male and female voices. One of them was achingly familiar.

  I broke into a run. “Ember!”

  “Jill?”

  I shoved two people aside and halted at the edge of a small clearing edged with horses.

  Reid kneeled with his hands on his head. Two men stood behind him with M-16s trained at the back of his skull.
r />   Ember was sitting next to an unconscious Marco, whose head was bleeding. She dabbed at his wound with her sleeve. Behind her, another man stood with an M-16. His bored expression communicated just how much of a threat he thought she was.

  “Lower your weapons!” Dean called from behind me.

  The men obeyed, and I ran to Reid to offer him a hand as he stood up. He glared at the men who’d been guarding him.

  I fell to my knees next to Marco. “Are you guys okay?” His even breaths were comforting, though I didn’t like the look of the gash on his scalp. He’d need stitches.

  Ember shot an icy look at the men behind Reid. “I couldn’t hear the group. We were in the woods and then they were on top of us. Marco got into a tussle with that guy,” she said, jabbing her thumb at one of the guards, “and he cold-cocked him. We were given the choice of surrender or a bullet to the head. We’d just surrendered when we heard the gunshot back at the clearing. When you didn’t join us, we thought they’d shot you.”

  I showed her my hand. “They did. Actually, my brother did. That was a pleasant surprise.”

  Ember frowned. “Mason?”

  “Gregory.”

  Ember took a step back. “How much blood did you lose?”

  I sighed. “Benjamin and Isabel are alive. Gregory’s alive. From this moment on, let’s assume that every damned person supposedly killed by the Westerners is alive.”

  “Except all the people killed at my camp,” Reid said, his voice hard.

  Before I could respond, Dean wandered over, having finished speaking with other men. “Jillian, we need to get you and your teammate to our medical tent.” He nodded toward a beautiful chestnut-brown horse. “Have you ever ridden one?”

  My team and I exchanged confused glances. “No. Don’t you have trucks or something?”

  “Horses are faster and can go to the places Westerners tend to hide.” He beckoned two men over. “John Carl and Bobby will put your teammate on a stretcher, though, and take him to the truck nearby. He’s going to be fine. But if you won’t let Zander cauterize your hand, we need to get you back to camp as quickly as possible.”