Myka and Rommel ran as fast as they could through the East Woods. The dark night made it difficult to see, even with the hand light Arco had given them. Myka didn’t know what exactly she was looking for. The weapons had to be somewhere in this section of the woods where they used to play.
“My father used to walk out from these trees all the time when I was a girl,” she said, pointing to her left.
“But the property ends over there,” Rommel said, pointing up at the thirty-foot stone wall ahead of them.
“I know, but that has to be where they are.” Myka shone the light ahead of her, looking for anything that seemed out of place or familiar, but everything looked like normal trees. Panic rose inside of her. Any minute now, Stoddard would come looking for them.
Think, Myka. Think.
She tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear and walked forward, moving the light slowly in front of her. Things would have been easier if it was daytime, but nobody ever escaped in the middle of the day. Everything dramatic happened at night.
Her light flashed across a wall of vines that lined the perimeter of the Tolsten House wall. On the other side was nothing but thick forest. She stilled her light, shining it across the dead vines, and suddenly a long-lost memory floated to the front of her mind. Her parents had been shouting at each other as Myka played in the trees.
Her mother had pointed to the vines. “This is illegal!” she had shouted. “And you won’t get away with it!” Her mother had turned to go, but her father had caught her by the arm.
“Who’s going to stop me?” he had asked, getting in her mother’s face.
“I am! I’m going to tell the Council everything!”
Then her father had slapped her.
Myka flinched like she was somehow back in that moment, like the sound of the slap was still fresh in her ears.
“Rommel! Over here!” Myka called as she rushed forward, not knowing what she was going to find.
Her hands went to the wall of vines, frantically digging between them. Thorns scratched her fingers, drawing blood, but Myka kept searching. She reached into the darkness behind the vines, expecting to hit a wall or something but there was nothing there. Her heart sank. Maybe she didn’t know where the weapons were. Maybe her father had never told her. She thought back to the memory of her parents, trying to put herself back in that moment.
Myka closed her eyes.
“You’re a fool for hiding them so close to Tolsten House,” her mother had said. “Someone will find them.”
“No one will think to look here,” her father had laughed. “It’s too easy.”
“I hope they do, and I hope they stop you,” her mother had said.
She opened her eyes.
They have to be here somewhere.
She pulled branch after branch back, snapping them in half, feeling around in the darkness until her fingers brushed up against something hard and cold.
“It’s here,” she breathed out.
They worked together, pulling back the thick layers of dead branches until they had uncovered a door that looked like what Drake had shown her back at the camp.
“It’s a pre-Desolation bomb shelter,” she said.
Rommel looked at her. “Sounds like the perfect place to hide illegal weapons.” He reached for the door, but it was locked. Probably her father was the only one with the key. Myka pulled out Arco’s gun from the waist of her pants. “Step back,” she said. She fired the weapon at the lock four times until the handle was blown to pieces.
They dove forward, pushing the door open. The beam of the hand light scanned across the inside of the shelter, illuminating weapons of every size.
Myka gasped.
“He has more than even I expected,” Rommel said.
“Are they nuclear?” Myka asked.
Rommel shone the light over them, shaking his head. “No. It doesn’t look like it.”
Her breath escaped with relief.
“Can you detonate them?”
Rommel nodded. “I can detonate the ones that I made. Once they go off, the rest of them will eventually go off as well.”
Myka sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. How can I help?”
Rommel grabbed her by the shoulders. “You’ve done your part. I’ll do the rest.”
“No,” Myka shook her head. “Let me finish this.”
“Myka, you’ve done what you needed to do. You found the weapons. Go back to Tolsten House and finish your work there.”
She shook her head as her eyes filled up with tears. “I don’t have anything else there. I’m all alone.”
“You’ll find your way,” Rommel said.
A loose tear trickled down her cheek. “What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said with a smile. “I’m going to join my sweetheart tonight and right the wrongs of my past.”
Myka shook her head. “No.”
“Yes,” he said, hugging her quickly, then he pushed her out the door. “You must go now. We don’t have that much time. Once I detonate the ones I created, we’ll only have a few minutes before they go off.”
“Can’t you leave too?” she said, as he pushed her farther away.
“I’ll try.”
Myka nodded then handed him the hand light. “I love you, Rommel.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know. I love you, too. You’ve made Joett and me so happy over the years, and we are both so proud of you. Don’t ever forget that.” He waved at her, and Myka would never forget the way he looked in that moment, with Joett’s blood smeared across his clothes and courage beaming from his eyes. “Now run, and don’t look back.”
What else could she do? She turned and began running toward Tolsten House.
32
Myka
With each step forward, Myka’s heart pounded louder and louder in her chest. Adrenaline took over, pushing her to go harder and faster. Shouts and screams assaulted her as she neared Tolsten House, but the trees were still too thick for her to see what was happening. She broke out of the dense woods to crowds of servants and guards in their gray pajamas yelling as they piled out of the double doors of Tolsten House. Arco stood in front of them, pointing to the West Woods, shouting for them to move faster. Myka ran harder. There wasn’t much time left.
“Go! Go!” Arco yelled.
She ran up to him, grabbing him by the arm. “Is everyone out?”
He looked at her with wide eyes, not understanding how she had made it back.
“Rommel’s going to do it,” she said through her heavy breaths.
Arco nodded. “I think this is the last of them,” he said.
“Where’s Stoddard?” she asked.
“I couldn’t get everyone out and take him down.”
Myka looked around. The commander had to be around there somewhere. She walked toward the side garage where the transporters were held, and just as she had predicted, Stoddard was thirty feet away, opening the door to the driver’s side of one of the transporters. Doctor Von and the nurse from the basement held a woman’s body in between them, clumsily trying to fit her into the back of the transporter. The woman’s limbs were limp, and tubes ran from her arms to the IV pole behind them. She wore a gray medical gown, and her long black hair covered her face, making it difficult for Myka to get a good look at her, but something about the woman’s jet-black hair felt familiar. The color and the soft way it hung almost reminded her of her mother.
“Doctor Von, stop!” she yelled in desperation.
The doctor startled and looked up with big eyes.
“Let’s go,” Stoddard shouted, ducking into the vehicle and slamming the door. The transporter turned on as the doctor and the nurse scrambled inside the back seat. Myka ran after them, but Arco grabbed her by the waist.
“Myka, we have to go!” he said, pulling her back.
She kicked out her legs, trying to break out of his grasp before Stoddard got away. “No! We have to go after them!”
“We’
re out of time!”
“He’s getting away!”
The transporter accelerated out of the garage, speeding down the drive of Tolsten House.
“No!” she shouted, turning to Arco, pounding on his chest with her fists. “He has my mother!” she cried. “He has my mother.”
Arco hugged her close. “That wasn’t your mother, Myka.”
She pulled back, pointing to the back of the transporter. “They have her! I saw her!”
“Myka!” Arco shook her shoulders. “That’s impossible. Your mother is dead.”
She shook her head. “What if she’s not?”
“She is.” He patted her hair. “She is.”
Myka’s fists slid across his chest.
It was as if she had lost her mother all over again, like when she was eight years old, and the wind was blowing her mother farther and farther away.
Tears streamed down her face, and Arco’s words turned gentle. “We need to go.”
She nodded, stumbling toward the West Woods like everyone else.
Stoddard was gone. There was nothing she could do now but run to safety.
33
Drake
The operatives were almost to the city of Denton. It would be nice if they could go straight to Tolsten House, but without Arco’s help, they didn’t have a way to get inside. Instead, they needed to travel to the inn in Denton and send a message to Arco through their contact. It was late, and most people at the inn would probably be asleep. The message might have to wait until the morning.
Lights beamed behind them, and they turned over their shoulders, looking directly into the headlights of a transporter.
“Look out!” Drake said as he veered his PT off the dirt road. A black transporter charged toward them, and dust flew in the air as the transporter sped past.
“What kind of lunatic would drive that fast at this hour?” Grady asked.
A loud boom lit up the sky, and a whooshing sound blew past the men, tipping them and their machines to the side. An orange fireball exploded into the air above Tolsten House, then flared into a thick cloud of black smoke. Drake shook his head, trying to get the ringing sound out of his ears, when another explosion went off, then another. Heavy smoke filled his eyes and nostrils as he looked back at the blazing scene a mile away.
Myka!
A wave of nausea churned in his stomach. Drake wasn’t sure what had happened, but he knew one thing, Myka and the weapons were involved. His head shot back to the fading lights of the transporter speeding away. Only guilty people sped away from an explosion like that. Was Myka guilty? He had spent the entire ride to Denton thinking she was innocent. Now he didn’t know.
“The weapons!” Portlend yelled, pointing to Tolsten House. “We need to go help!”
Drake lifted his machine upright, pushing it toward the direction of the transporter. “I’m following after the transporter. You can go to Tolsten House.”
“Do you think that was the princess getting away?” Kase asked.
Drake hoped it was, because if she was back at Tolsten House, she probably hadn’t survived.
“Who else could it be?” he said, trying to convince himself. “She’s the only one who knew where the weapons were.” Or was she? Drake didn’t know what to think.
Grady looked back at Tolsten House like he was unsure what to do, then he nodded. “I’ll go with you,” he said, moving his machine forward, too. The rest of the men turned their machines toward the fire.
The vehicle had a head start and was traveling at a speed that would make it hard for them to catch up, but Drake vowed not to let them out of his sight.
He looked down at his power light. The machine only had two bars left, and Drake hoped it would be enough.
His mind raced with every possible scenario until it settled on the story that Myka had returned back to Tolsten House, set off the weapons, then run away to safety. He hoped that was the story. It meant she had left her people to fend for themselves, but it also meant she was still alive.
His eyes moved to the mirror and the heavy black cloud that filled the sky behind him. Adler’s weapons had been found and used. Drake hoped that explosion hadn’t killed every servant and guard at Tolsten House. That would be the biggest death and destruction outside of war time. And there was a big part of him that hoped it hadn’t killed Myka.
He would know as soon as he caught up to the transporter. He pushed the lever forward, closing his hands around the handlebars so tightly, his fingers ached.
“We’re gaining on them,” Grady yelled.
Drake nodded, feeling the cutting wind against his face. The transporter was less than a hundred yards in front of them. “I’ll take the driver’s side,” he gestured to the left. The transporter swerved, peeling off of the dirt path. Drake and Grady followed, making up some ground on the turn. The front window of the transporter rolled down, and an arm reached out.
“Gun!” Grady yelled as the first round of shots fired back at them.
Drake skidded to the side, dodging the bullets. The transporter strayed from its path as the driver messed with his gun again, sending off another round of shots. Drake used the driver’s distraction to close the gap between the PT and the vehicle. He turned his head, looking at the driver of the transporter. Drake half expected Myka to be behind the wheel, but instead, a man in his mid-forties with a bald head and small stature stared back at him. Drake moved his eyes back out in front of him, trying to keep his own PT steady. He reached for his gun. The metal transporters were indestructible, and so were their tires. Drake’s best hope was to fire into the open window at the driver. He glanced inside, craning his neck to see the back seat, but it was dark. There was a man who looked familiar, but Drake couldn’t place him. Next to the man was a woman.
“Myka!” he yelled. “Myka!” The woman didn’t move, making Drake panic. Was Myka in trouble?
The driver reached his arm out, shooting at him. Drake swerved, and the bullet hit the PTs headlight, shattering it and dimming everything in front of him. He shot back, hitting the man holding the gun in the shoulder. The shock of his wound made the driver drop his gun into the dirt below. Drake raised his arm, getting ready to fire at him again when the man veered the transporter into his PT. The sudden direction change forced Drake to turn his PT into a large boulder. The crash of the machine sent Drake flying into the air. His last thoughts were of Myka before everything went black.
34
Myka
Three Weeks Later
Myka stared out the window from the west wing of Tolsten House, looking at acres of charred grass and trees. The fire had taken the east wing and most of the main house, but they had been able to save the west wing. Some of the rooms were sealed off due to smoke damage, but overall, the structure was usable, and today was the first day Myka had been allowed back inside.
Everything felt familiar but different. She was back in her home. Her old bedroom remained the same. Her closet was full of the same unworn dresses, but nothing really was the same. Down the hall, the king’s suite where she had last seen her father was empty. The halls and the grand rooms were just as empty. In a way, she felt like a prisoner again, trapped in this new version of her life that she didn’t understand. What was her purpose? What was her role?
Since the explosion three weeks ago, everyone had turned to Myka for leadership, as if she somehow knew all the answers to this mess.
But she didn’t know the answers.
She didn’t know anything.
The five High Rulers of Tolsten sat behind her around a rectangular marble table, discussing how Tolsten would move forward. There needed to be a rebuild of the castle, a new commander appointed, an official statement and apology made to the Council of Essentials, and, of course, an election. In the meantime, the five High Rulers were in charge of the government. She’d expected that, but what she hadn’t expected was how much the High Rulers had wanted to include her in their decisions, like her act with the bombs ha
d exalted her to a higher position among the ruling class.
After the explosion, Myka had kept her distance, not knowing if the people of Tolsten would be mad at her for what had happened. She’d walked the few miles to Rommel and Joett’s house. She hadn’t cried. She had been too shocked to cry. It wasn’t until she had lain down on their bed that the tears had carried her away. They were gone—both of them. They had died for Tolsten and for her.
Days passed in a blur of heartache until Arco had finally come for her.
“It’s time to put Tolsten back together,” Arco had said.
Myka had gone with him, had left Rommel and Joett’s comfortable home because she wanted that, too—she wanted Tolsten back together. Now she stood in Tolsten House, meeting with the High Rulers. She wasn’t sure of her place in the government, but she was willing to help with whatever they needed.
“We traced Commander Stoddard all the way to the Cristole border, and then we lost him,” High Ruler Moore said. “Captain Nyler is working with the Cristole army to find out where he might be hiding.”
“Good,” High Ruler Hatch said. “At this point, Stoddard is the biggest threat to Tolsten. We need to find him as soon as possible. Keep us informed on any news that comes in.”
She glanced out the window at a team of men hauling debris out of the east side of Tolsten House. She only half-listened to the High Rulers talking behind her. It felt like it was her fault that Stoddard had gotten away. Myka had gone through the events of that night a hundred times, thinking about what she should have done differently—how she should have stopped Stoddard. It felt like she had failed. She also thought back to her last moments with Drake. There were a thousand things she wished she had done differently. She was embarrassed to admit that she still thought about him. What a foolish girl she was, pining after the one man she tried to convince herself she hated. She really didn’t hate him. She loved him. Despite everything.
The Stolen Princess: A YA Dystopian Romance (Desolation Book 3) Page 28