by Terina Adams
Alithia’s eyes widened.
“There’s every possibility he relayed the information to the senate before we could stop him. With the missing sweeper in the fringe, and what happened on our way back to central, it’s likely they will connect the dots.”
She nodded. “Which means severe reprisals for those in the fringe. But this will spread farther. It will start in the fringe and spread to the inner regions of Califax, perhaps maybe into the provinces until the senate finds what they are looking for.”
Me.
She didn’t need to say my name, but it was there. Everything was on me. Guilt would not take hold; destruction would not allow it. I launched to my feet, needing the anchor of movement to help keep the deadly flow within, where it needed to stay. The feel of it slithering inside made my skin prickle, a combination of repulsion and anger. Destruction started this mess. Destruction was the problem.
The mention of the provinces made me pace. Mum and Ajay were out there somewhere in the provinces. If the senate sent out sweepers to check the villages for an alien, they would stumble on two. And what would they make of Mum, an innocent? I rubbed at my temples. How were her and Ajay coping with all this?
“I’m leaving for the provinces. I have to find my mum and brother. But I had to warn you first. You needed to know that what is coming may be worse than what you’ve normally faced.”
Alithia’s face was a blank slate. She and Jax were much the same in that regard, maybe in many regards, but there was no doubt what she would be thinking. “You want me to hand myself in.”
She stayed quiet long enough for me to know what I said was true. “There would be no point in that. You’d sacrifice yourself for nothing. The senate would continue to raze the fringe until they found the culprit. There is no way you could’ve come to this world without help.” She blinked, looked away. When she turned back to me, she said, “You hardly know us. Why do you care so much?”
Jax has already lost too much. I couldn’t say it, so I said the next true thing. “I don’t want you to die because of me.”
“As long as the senate remains, our struggles will be eternal. This has nothing to do with you.”
I shook my head. “Maybe not everything, but what is about to happen has everything to do with me.” Azrael banged around in the kitchen. “Azrael should have the chance to be with her father.”
The shock on Alithia’s face made me want to claw the words back in. I hadn’t meant to reveal that I knew.
“Why did you say that?” There was a quiver in her voice as her eyes filled with tears. She covered her mouth as she looked away.
Her reaction didn’t make sense. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
“Azrael will never know her father again.”
“Maybe when the senate are overthrown and—”
“I told you, her father is dead.”
“But….” What was she saying? Did I have it all wrong?
Azrael appeared, carrying a tray with three mugs in the center. Like the proper host, she settled the tray down on the low table. “This is yours.” She handed me a deep-green earthenware mug.
I sat down, barely acknowledging her with a word of thanks as I stared at the contents in the mug. The steam winding its way up into my face brought with it the smell of something bitter and spicy, but I couldn’t open my mouth to take a sip. I was filled with a knot of twisted emotions I couldn’t pry apart. Was it wrong that in this desperate moment, the strongest emotion was elation? Jax was not the father.
“How about something to eat with our warm drink?” Alithia looked at her daughter.
“Okay.” She put down her mug and trudged back into the kitchen.
I stared at her retreating back and knew the truth. I settled my mug in my lap. “Jax is Azrael’s brother?” I asked.
“You did not know?”
I shook my head.
“When he found out, Jax came to see me full of rage, accusing me of destroying his family, for hurting his mother. I could not argue for myself, but it was not true. I loved Renus, and he loved me, and he loved Azrael as much as he loved his other children. I did not break Jax’s family up, because Renus had stopped loving Lireea, and she had stopped loving him. Jax knew that. But he could not give up hope they would work through their differences and love each other again. Children will never give up hope.
“Renus and Lireea stayed together, because they were both employees at the Dome. If they separated, it would’ve caused friction at work, something the senate would not put up with. One of them would have been forced to leave, and of course no one leaves employment at the Dome—at least not alive or with their faculties intact.”
Was she saying this to excuse her behavior? Or maybe Renus had lied about how he felt toward his wife to win her over. Guys did that sort of stuff, or so I heard through gossip.
“Renus and I would dream about what it would be like when the senate was no more and everyone was free. We could be together without hiding.” She looked into her drink. “It was Jax who told me Renus had been murdered.”
Guilt buried my eyes in my mug. Destruction riled against it. I stared into my mug, stared and stared, my fingers pressing hard against the sides until the mug suddenly broke, the warm, bitter drink soaking my pants. “Jesus, I’m sorry.” I fell to my knees, scraping the pieces together.
“Leave it,” she said around Azrael’s gasp.
I looked up to see Azrael standing in the doorway, Alithia’s lips pressed into a disapproving line. “It’s only been a few months since I discovered my factional nature. I don’t have good control.”
Azrael was on her knees beside me, collecting the pieces herself. “We don’t care.”
The innocence of a child. I bit my inner cheek at the tightness in my throat.
Alithia waited for Azrael to clear the pieces. “Can you take them to the kitchen and perhaps get Sable another drink?”
I would’ve protested, but it wasn’t the drink Alithia wanted to give me, just the truth.
“Jax always came. He snuck away from Carter, your world, to come here as often as he could.”
“How did Jax find out about the two of you?”
“He was suspicious of his father’s behavior. He followed him, saw us together.”
“But did his mother know?”
“Absolutely not. She would’ve exposed us.”
“And Jax never told her?”
She shook her head. “He knew what would’ve happened had our relationship been known. He loved his father, so he couldn’t bring himself to hate him. But he needed someone to be the receiver of his anger. He hated me, but he would never expose me.”
“He no longer hates you. It’s obvious.”
“He loves Azrael. She’s all he has left of his family. We made a truce between us. He protects us now and supplies us with gifts and goods that we couldn’t otherwise afford.”
“He hated me in the beginning.”
“I know.”
“He wanted to see me fail in Dominus.” Why was I saying this? Perhaps because I didn’t want her to think Jax had betrayed his father by readily making friends with the enemy.
“I know. But I also knew he would never have gone through with it. It is not the sort of man he is.”
Azrael trudged back in with a brown earthenware pot tucked under her arm and another mug in her hand. She handed me my drink then fished her hand into the container and pulled out what looked like a brown biscuit. “This one’s for you.”
Before I could take it, someone knocked on the door. Azrael dumped the container on the couch, with biscuits spewing from the top, about to run for the door, but Alithia snagged her around her waist.
“Don’t you dare, young lady.”
I took Azrael’s hand the moment her mum let her go, which was hard to do as I placed my mug on the low table. “How about you keep me company?”
“No, go wait for me in the safe room,” her mum corrected.
Azrael’s eyes
widened as my pulse climbed through normal. I inched to my feet. It was only once Azrael slipped her hand from mine did I realize I’d been squeezing it.
“Go.” Alithia barked the command before heading for the passage and the front door. I tried to pull Azrael with me, but she was like a mouse, agile and quick, chasing after her mum.
“Azrael, no.”
But the little girl beat me to her mum’s side. As I approached, I heard a young boy’s hastened words. “Tell her she must come now. I’ve got to go.”
It sounded like Nada. Having said what he came to say, he scurried away, leaving the echo of his running feet.
Alithia turned to me, her expression filled with the sort of stoicism that lived within all who suffered without end. Before she could say anything, Azrael darted out the open door.
Alithia screeched and made a grasp for her daughter, but Azrael was determined to escape the dreaded safe room or maybe for once find the courage to say something to the boy she secretly followed.
I grabbed Alithia’s arm as she was about to chase her daughter. “No, you stay. I’ll get her.”
“The boy came to say senate utility are heading this way. Six of them.”
“Go to the safe room. I’ll get Azrael.”
“You don’t know where to go.”
I lifted her hand, wrist facing upward so the tattoo over her graft was obvious. “You can’t defeat the sweepers?”
Alithia opened her mouth, about to protest, but nothing came out.
“Please, trust me.”
And then I was off, running through the alley like I could fly.
Chapter 20
They came without noise, passing overhead as I rounded the corner and broke out into a market space. Exposed and vulnerable, I stumbled backward toward the closest wall and stepped on the corner of something solid and round. It rolled out from under my foot, swiping my left leg from beneath me and sending me crashing into an overturned cart. My left wrist smacked into the edge of the cart and sent stars into my vision from the pain.
I huddled against the side of the cart, which offered no protection from above, and nursed my left hand as the skycraft maneuvered itself degree by degree overhead as if the pilot was looking for a place to land or spotted a victim to grab.
Destruction prowled, tail lashing in time to the beat of my heart like a caged tiger. Back pressed against the cart, I tried to soothe my wild side, the powerful part of me that itched to pull the skycraft apart in a fantastic display of fireworks. I could do it. Too easy, the darker side of me purred. Put an end to this assault. Save the people of the fringe. In doing so, I would condemn us all to war.
I rose an inch to peer over the cart, catching the bulky metallic ass end of the vehicle as it slowly disappeared from sight. Once it was gone, I slid down the wood of the cart and rested my head back. Yesterday, the sweepers arrived in small, narrow, zippy-looking vehicles, something easily maneuvered into tight spaces and small enough to hold a max of two maybe three sweepers. Today, they arrived in something else. Bigger, bulkier machines able to carry a high load. I knew these vehicles. I’d flown in one, or at least a virtual fabrication of one. STU utilities. The sweepers arrived for a fight and would not leave until they achieved what they wanted. The senate was on the hunt, and they’d sent a small army to make sure the job got done.
Time to move. Azrael hid somewhere in these alleys. I needed to find her. Although a fringe child, knowing her way through this maze and enough people to hide her, she lacked one vital weapon that I possessed—her factional nature.
My wrist hurt, but it was unlikely broken. I ignored the pain when I placed my weight on it to push to my feet. A noise to my right jacked my adrenaline, zinging it throughout my body as I spun. Destruction whipped out in an arc as if it followed my spin, impacting with an overturned barrel, sending it skyrocketing into a mess of splinters, which rained down in deadly forks, pelting the already strewn debris on the ground.
A whimper close by had me on my knees. I peered under another overturned cart, one that had turtled onto its back over a log, leaving enough space for someone to crawl into.
“Azrael,” I cried.
I crawled closer, then sat back on my knees when a man’s face came into view as he pushed himself out from underneath. His eyes were on the scattered remains of the barrel before shifting to me. “You’re—”
“What are you doing here? Go home, you’re not safe.” A fringe dweller, as if he wouldn’t know that.
“My home is too far away. I won’t reach it in time.”
“Find a place nearby. Knock on some doors.”
“No, it’s too late.”
“The STU utilities are too large. They will never find a suitable place to land, at least not in a hurry.”
He shook his head, eyes wide. “You’re ungrafted. You’re Persal.” He crawled toward me, reaching out for me.
“I can’t stay here. I have to find someone.” I stood before he grabbed me. “You know how to hide. Do it before it’s too late.”
“It already is.” He pointed behind me.
I followed his outstretched hand, stared down the alley to see a STU utility hovering toward the mouth at the other end. The sides of the utility open and thick black cable unraveled to the ground. Soon after, black bodies abseiled like dozens of ants spewing from their nest.
“Hide yourself,” I yelled as I set off at a sprint.
I headed down the opposite alley. Where am I going, where am I going? I ran blind, like the maze on the Adolphy Tower, driven by this hopeless need to save Azrael. A fringe child, she would be smarter than me, likely already in hiding. Maybe she’d caught up with Nada and he’d taken her to Islia’s place. Please let it be true. I couldn’t go back to Alithia. I didn’t know which way to go, for starters, but I would never hide while there was no guarantee Azrael was safe.
The alley narrowed to shoulder width. I slowed my pace, forced to turn sideways to fit through. How many utilities had arrived? How many had descended? I’d been too distracted in Dominus to remember now how many seats those skycraft carried. God, where are they now?
At the end of this alley? I squeezed to a stop, the walls of the building on either side hugging me close as I listened for footsteps in the dirt, voices, even just whispers. The only sound that came back to me was the sawing of my breath, the thrashing of my blood through my ears. Where are you Azrael, Nada?
One… two….
I peeked around the corner of my hiding spot to two deserted alleys, forking in differing directions. Each way was the same, a dirty narrow path leading into another dirty narrow path. I glanced behind. Which way do I go? Never had choosing my direction meant more. And staying put made destruction press against its barricade.
I chose left for no other reason than it took me farther from the utility emptying its dangerous cargo. But perhaps this way led to another utility. Maybe the other fork would lead to yet one more. Suddenly, the alleys felt narrow, the fringe small, every turn a spiral in a web we were all caught within.
Each sprinting stride I made was a drumbeat until I slowed to a crawl, now slinking down the alley like a mouse. Was I still searching for Azrael, or was I moving to save myself with cautious steps in case sweepers waited at the mouth? Now reduced to heel-toe steps, I moved like a thief.
Destruction grew restless. It hated this self-preservation. But at the moment, the other side of me won. I managed to keep rational rather than rash. The saner side of my mind, which begged caution overruled the action destruction wanted to take.
At the end of another alley, I waited, pressed against the brickwork, holding my breath so I could hear clearer. There was nothing but a gentle breeze. About to slide my head around to take a peek, a hand smothered my mouth, another pulling me backward.
“Sable,” came the whisper at the start of destruction’s release. I slammed down hard on the escape as I stared into Nada’s dark eyes, but already chunks of brick broke from the wall behind us rained lumps on
to our heads and shoulders, spraying a fine power over us as well. I reeled both Nada and Azrael close, protecting them as best as I could from the crumbling wall.
“Go,” I said, pushing them backward, out from under the painful shower.
Seconds after we left the spot, a thunderous thump followed the landing of a large chunk of crumbled wall, which left a hole in the side of the building. The three of us remained still and silent, gaping at the spot where we’d been, now hidden under the sizable chunk.
I spun on them. “Never creep up on an ungrafted Persal, especially one that is struggling to control her factional nature.” With the realization of what nearly happened, I cradled my head in one hand. “Jesus.”
“Cool,” Nada said.
“Not cool. What are you two doing out here?” I swept Azrael into a suffocating hug, the sort I would give Ajay if he were here. Nada stood close, so he suffered the same fate.
Nada struggled away, no surprise, but violently shook his head as Azrael pulled hard on my left wrist. I bit back a groan from the pain, somewhat lessened, so the injury from the fall wasn’t too bad. Come with us, their actions said. I allowed them to tug me back the way I’d come.
Was that footsteps? Coming fast. As I was about to whisper-shout at the kids to pick up their pace, Nada turned our jog into a sprint. Adrenaline, hot and burning, gave me the speed I needed. Lungs bursting, feet slamming hard on the dirt, my mind took it all in, moving ahead of my body, slamming into the blank void of the yet to be lived moment, careening through the choices I couldn’t make.
Nada disappeared left followed by Azrael as the first shout came from behind. It was because of destruction, the noise of the fracturing wall likely heard from miles away. How fast could they run? Trained soldiers? Faster than me.
I skipped around the corner in pursuit of the other two and saw Azrael disappear inside an open door then stop to wave me forward.
I reached the door. “We can’t just disappear. They will know we’re here somewhere and search every building.” The fear almost turned my tone to a high-pitched shriek. My body wanted freedom to run, not be confined within walls. The solemnity within Azrael’s eyes stalled my wild panic, lashed destruction in place.