by Allie Burton
“I did. That’s why I asked.” The egotistical grin on his face made me want to kick him.
“This isn’t a game. And this isn’t a time for joking.”
“Killing someone isn’t easy.” His knowing voice spoke volumes. He’d killed before and it had affected him. “I might be only eighteen, but I’ve witnessed more death than you can imagine.”
I put a hand on his arm. I might not have killed anyone before, but I understood death.
“I don’t need your sympathy.” He pushed my hand off. “Just stay behind me, princess.”
My jaw locked. I wanted to shoot him with the weapon. He thought I was a spoiled princess when I’d been slaving every day of my life. I’d show him I was tough.
Gripping the weapon tighter, I prowled forward staying a little behind him. He led the way because if the other guards saw him in uniform, they wouldn’t immediately realize this was an ambush. Hokima and Keltie hugged the wall on the far side. Tos was slightly hidden by the group. Her gun pointed straight ahead ready for action.
A dozen guards marched this way in their menacing caps and stomping boots. They talked and joked even though they must know the majiks in custody were headed toward their demise. The one in the front waved to Stone.
No. Blood throbbed through my veins. He wouldn’t betray us now. He wouldn’t arm us with weapons if he was going to turn us in.
Moving ahead, he lifted his arm in what appeared to be a wave. His arm swung out and he clobbered the head guy. He made it appear effortless.
The guard collapsed to the ground.
The other guards froze. Questions and confusion stamped on their expressions. They glanced at one another as if they didn’t know how to respond. Stone must’ve taken out their leader. Those few seconds gave us an advantage.
Stone pushed me back and signaled for the others to take a position and start shooting.
Zap. Zap. Zap.
A couple of guards went down. The ones standing took cover, ducking and lowering their bodies to the ground in defensive positions. They grabbed their weapons and answered our attack.
Tos let off round after round hitting the guards solidly in the chest. She had great aim. Hokima and Keltie worked together on the opposite side of the hall. Bim fiddled with something in his hand—it wasn’t a gun. Their will to fight must’ve returned. Good to know the Compliance Taser didn’t do permanent damage.
“Now, Bim!” Stone shouted. “I’ll cover.”
The fairy scrambled forward dodging bullets and strays of light. A bullet whizzed past Bim’s head and hit his wing. He stumbled to the floor. Time sharpened to a point, slowing to a crawl.
What the heck was he doing? He wasn’t firing back, just running forward.
I let off a volley of shouts and started to move toward him. “Bim!”
Stone yanked me back and I fell. Dazed, I sat for a second. I’d been trying to help the other fairy in his foolish charge. He’d been kind to me when the others were mad. We had a special fairy bond.
Chaos reigned through the lens of the floaty sensation in my head. Action seemed to slow. Stone, Keltie, Hokima, and Tos continued the battle, firing shot after shot after shot. The guards returned fire. The bullets and lasers zoomed in both directions of the hallway, more spectacular than the fireworks I’d conjured.
A large hand reached out. The close-up view of dark skin with greenish veins and thick fingers with trim nails snapped me out of my stupor. The hand was real. The bullets were real. The fighting was real.
I grabbed the hand and let Stone pull me back on my feet. Time sped up faster. Getting my head back in the non-game, I focused on the battle. I needed to do a better job protecting myself and my friends.
Bim crawled forward. Stone volleyed around the fairy with his weapon, trying to protect. The other majiks held off the guards. I joined in the fray, shooting recklessly.
It was like watching an inch worm as Bim dragged himself toward the main group of guards holding a defensive position. A loud shot rang out. The fairy collapsed, and blood spurted from his wound.
He’d been shot.
Horror bulleted inside me as if I’d been shot. The emotional pain blasted, and I wavered. A sudden coldness hit my core.
With jerky movements, Bim reached for the wound on his chest. But instead of pressing against the gaping hole trying to stop the flow of blood, his hand slipped into his pocket. He pulled out a round, shiny disc and tossed it into the middle of the guards’ formation.
An explosion rocked the hallway.
A high-pitched wailing screamed through my ears. Torment coursed through my veins and raced toward my heart, revving the beat. I pushed my feet into the floor trying to stay standing.
The remaining guards fell. Shouts of agony rent the hallway. I couldn’t tell who was screaming. The deafening blast had decimated the guards. Not one of them moved. They were all dead.
Stone tugged me against him. The evergreen scent of him calmed, made me feel safe. Through his clothes I felt his galloping heart. It beat as fast as mine. What kind of weapon had Bim set off?
Bim.
My pulse came to a screeching halt, and then picked up its pace. I struggled against Stone’s grip to free myself and stumbled toward the fairy. Dropping to my knees, I placed a hand on Bim’s wound. “Are you okay?”
His pale skin appeared paler than possible. His breathing labored. The acidic scent of fairy blood filled the air. “It was an honor…”
I glanced at Stone and the others who stood around in a vigil. Hokima’s normally globby eyes watered. Keltie’s face was stoic. Tos showed her emotion openly, tears dripping down her cheeks. And Stone, his eyes closed, sending up a message or a prayer.
“Pppp….” Bim stuttered.
“Don’t talk.” I pressed my hand against the wound. “You’re going to be okay.”
Even as I said the words, I sensed they weren’t true. There was too much blood. His skin was sickly. His eyes half-mast. If I could get the blood to stop, we could find help and save him.
“You’re going to be a great leader.”
He must be delirious.
With the way I fought, I wouldn’t be leading anyone anywhere. Stone had saved me more than once in this tiny skirmish. I was a terrible fighter.
Bim shuddered and took his last breath.
My own breath shattered, watching him die.
Chapter Seventeen
A breath shivered through me, making my limbs go frigid. Pain squeezed my lungs tight. Bim was gone. Part of my team. A friend. A warrior. A fellow fairy. The shivers morphed into ice. He’d volunteered to come with me, to help me in my search.
Tos used her tiny fingers to close the fairy’s eyes. Hokima knelt out of respect. Keltie hung her head. We were weary from battle and the loss we’d sustained. What had Bim been thinking running into the thick of the shooting guards? Where had he gotten the strange device that killed the guards?
And why hadn’t it killed any of us?
My gaze swung to Stone. The sadness on his face told me the death had taken a toll and a tiny bit of sympathy squirmed through my veins. Except, he was the one who’d whispered to Bim and then the fairy had gotten himself killed.
“What did you say to him?” Jumping to my feet, I attacked him with my questions. “Why would Bim dive into the middle of the action? Where did he get the strange bomb?”
“I gave it to him.” Stone’s expression didn’t change. His grass-colored eyes wavered—the only display of emotion.
I fisted my hands, pressing the nails so hard the skin on my palm ripped. Anguish twisted through my body, tangling and knotting my common sense, scattering the shreds of civility. I lashed with my tongue. “It’s your fault. Your fault Bim died.”
Stone reached out, gathering me close in a comforting and containing hug. I stiffened. “I’m sorry. So sorry,” he whispered in my ear. “I needed someone who could get close. We never would’ve gotten past the guards.”
“You should’ve let me do it.” I
sniffed against his chest. I was small and fast, and this had been my mission.
“You’re half human. I couldn’t take the risk.” His tone hardened, and his heart boomed beneath my fingers.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I pushed against his chest.
He talked in riddles and kept secrets.
He dropped his arms from around me. “We need to get going before we’re discovered. I’d hate for Bim’s sacrifice to be in vain.”
My emotions wrung dry as if someone was twisting my insides in a tight bunch. “We can’t leave him.”
“We don’t have a choice.” Keltie’s normally strong voice quivered. “With the commotion we made they’ll come to investigate.”
“We need to change the route.” Stone scanned the long hallway. Corners and intersections were lit up ahead. Signs gave directions to places. Nothing resembling the confusion we’d encountered underground. “The way to the safe room will be crawling with guards.”
Safe room? I shook my head trying to piece him together. Why would a guard need a safe room? “Do you have another route?”
“No. We’ll figure it out as we go.” His response didn’t soothe.
“Are you familiar with the palace?” Keltie raised her questioning brow. The one that spoke volumes.
“Enough.” He jerked his head in a move along motion.
“How long have you been a guard here?” Doubt seeped under my skin, stirring my already roiling nerves. We followed this secretive guy blindly. “Why do you have a safe room?”
He glared but I wouldn’t budge without answers. “I’m undercover. Pretending to be a guard in the palace while working for someone else.”
“But—”
“Nothing more right now. We need to go.”
Tos snagged another weapon from one of the dead guards, loading her tiny body with weaponry. We each took one or two guns and continued. Stone leading a more somber group than before.
I couldn’t get the image of Bim taking his last breath out of my head, of him talking to me as if I was important. I wasn’t important. I’d gotten him into this mess. A sob clogged my chest, but I refused to let it out. I needed to pretend to be strong. For some reason, he believed in me and I wasn’t going to let him down.
Not like I’d let Arbor down.
“Do you know where they keep the recently arrested majiks? The ones awaiting trial?” I didn’t have a hope she’d get a trial. From all I’d learned tonight, majiks were treated the same as animals.
“Yes.” He cringed. “Let us get out of one situation before we try and land ourselves in another.”
Us?
The word reminded me of Rye. He’d indicated we were an us, and then he’d gone in one direction and I in the other. Not that I’d had a choice. Stone used the same word linking us together. How could we be when he was working for some secret organization? Thinking I was cute wasn’t a good enough reason to break me and my friends out of the holding cell or to murder other guards.
“What was the device Bim used?” It had killed the guards, and yet not me or my friends. Although when it detonated the pain was so intense, I thought I might die.
“Natural Acoustic Discord. Or NAD for short.” Stone marched on. His response short, clipped, and unhelpful.
My blood pressure spiked. “How did the NAD do what it did?” Keeping pace, I watched his expression instead of his backside. As nice as it was.
“The sound is the opposite of natural white noise exemplified to the highest possible pitch.”
“The sound is intense enough to kill?”
“Humans, yes.”
I gulped down a breath and choked. The noise had been intense. My body had reacted strongly, however the NAD hadn’t killed me because I was half-human. I opened my mouth to ask another question.
He put a finger to his lips. “There might be guards close by.”
Not the most promising statement. Blowing out, I tried to calm myself. Forget the death of Bim, forget my tiredness and hunger, forget the fact we were lost in enemy territory.
Yeah, right.
“This is the plan.” At least Stone was informing us of his idea. “Try to hide your weapons beneath your clothes or behind your backs. Those you can’t hide, we’ll leave here.” He indicated the side of the narrow hallway. “I’m going to pretend you’re my prisoners and march you right through this maintenance area. Hokima, you’ll go first followed by Tos who can hide behind your bulk. Keltie will be next. And then Elle.”
No Bim.
The absence of his name struck a harsh chord. Don’t think of it. Don’t think of it. Don’t think of it.
“Do you know what we’re walking into?” I stared at the hinged door as if it held the answers to my questions.
“Cyborg maintenance operations.” Stone pointed to the sign above the door which I’d missed.
I hung my head. How would I ever be a leader if I didn’t observe? “Where do we go after we make it through the maintenance facility?”
Stone nodded, and his lips turned up slightly. “Yes, you guys should know where to go in case I need to stay behind to fight.”
My pulse palpitated. I couldn’t lose Stone. Another couldn’t die on my watch. “Don’t say that.”
He ignored me. “If someone questions us, all of you keep going toward the single door on the opposite side of the room. There’s one other exit. I’ll distract them. And if I need to, unplug a few.”
As if it was that easy to stop a cyborg.
“The safe room is through maintenance, past the podship garage, and through the supply closet.”
We moved into position and left a few of our weapons. I mourned the loss although I didn’t relish carrying guns.
Hokima pushed a button and the podship garage door slid open. His gun slung around his shoulder with the weapon pressed against his back. Tos had slipped a small gun under her tunic leaving the larger weapons behind. Keltie had strapped a weapon under her shirt and hid another at her side. Because of my outfit, strapless top and barely-there skirt, I had nowhere to hide a weapon. And even though I’d only been carrying a weapon for less than a day, starting with the dagger, I felt naked without one.
The loud buzzing in the room captured my attention. Large machinery working non-stop. Conveyor belts similar to the kitchen transferred the unfinished cyborgs from one stop to another. Metal torsos on one. Heads with wires sticking out on another. A stash of arms and legs lay on a counter. Docking stations where the completed cyborgs charged lined the walls. Fumes of grease and short-circuiting wires filled the air.
Cyborgs rolled around the room operating the equipment. They diagnosed and fixed their own problems. Humans weren’t even needed in the process. Which for us was a good thing. No guards in the warehouse.
The commotion stopped.
All the cyborgs twisted to watch us. Even the ones without bodies, swiveled from their necks to glare. The red lights of their eyes flashed scanning, trying to determine our presence. I held my breath thinking if they didn’t see me breathe, they couldn’t detect us.
“Majik life forms detected,” a robot with bright orange strings of lighted hair said.
Stone cocked his weapon. “I’m a guard taking these prisoners to new cells.”
Another robot came forward on silent wheels. “Majiks are not allowed.”
I huffed, remembering the kitchen cyborg who’d told me majiks belong in the garbage. “How can a cyborg with no real brain be prejudiced?”
“Programming.” Stone’s quick response told me he’d pondered the same question. “Ignore them. Keep heading toward the exit on the left.”
We moved in unison, keeping a steady pace, not wanting to risk an attack or the cyborgs sending out a warning to the guards.
The robot with the orange hair swiveled its head around in a complete circle. “Security for the Collection of Unique Magic headed this way.”
Air squeezed out of my lungs. How did the cyborgs know this? Built in radar
? Or had they squealed?
“Thanks for the warning.” Stone’s irony was lost on the robot. He picked up his pace. “Go.”
We jogged the way he directed. A cyborg jumped in front of Hokima and he almost crashed into the metal man. Veering left, another cyborg got in our way. I went in the other direction. Another cyborg. And another.
Surrounded.
My pulse raced, and my muscles tightened with tension. I wasn’t ready for another fight.
“Weapons out.” Stone raised his gun and pointed.
The others revealed their hidden weapons. I wished I’d kept one. Stealth had been more important at the time.
“Security Collectors of Unique Magic,” the cyborg even used the long proper name instead of the more appropriate acronym, “will come through the door in fifteen seconds.” His orange head spun around. “Completed and deliverable cyborg servants go this way.”
The cyborgs surrounded us like choreographed dancers. A space opened, and their metallic arms pointed in a different direction. Toward the conveyor belt where a small door opened and emptied into blackness. Completed cyborgs lay flat on the belt, their midsections straight and arms to the side.
“Only repaired and deliverable cyborgs. No guards,” the orange-haired robot said in his monotone voice.
I looked at Stone. He regarded me and then the rest of our group.
“We should do what the cyborgs say.” I edged toward the conveyor belt. They’d helped me in the kitchen and promised no guards would be this way.
The orange-haired cyborg beeped. “Security Collectors of Unique Magic will arrive in ten seconds.”
“I don’t know where we’ll end up.” Stone actually sounded unsure. I’d never heard uncertainty from him.
That made my decision easier. This was my mission, so it was my decision.
“Nine seconds.” The monotone voice sent a chill down my spine.
“They’re helping us.” I pushed a cyborg off the belt and its metal parts clattered to the ground.
Keltie pushed up next to me. “How do you know?”
“Eight seconds.”
My lungs smothered with my own lack of conviction. What choice did we have? Walk out the door and into the arms, or guns, of the guards or take a different option. A different chance. “I trust them.”