Firestorm

by Alex Mara

  Darcy, I thought as I clawed. As I kicked off the ground, grabbed fur between my canines.

  Darcy, I thought as I shook the life out of a silver, dropped him to the forest floor.

  Darcy, I thought as two caught me at once, and I hit the leaves with a crunch. Instead of their snapping jaws, I heard the sound of her shoes tapping across the facility’s floor to care for the infiltrator who had fallen. I heard her coming to me for that kiss before she put me in cryostasis.

  I heard her. And that was all I needed.

  We fought under the trees, and when they finally overwhelmed me, I shifted back to my true form and lay with my arms spread and the moon and stars above.

  I laughed or cried, or both, because I knew I’d loved her. And that was all I needed.

  "Hold," came a whisper.

  Except that wasn't a human's whisper. It was a silver's.

  With a snarl, two red eyes appeared above me, hovering. A silver face, the nostrils taking a long inhale. I didn't know why it hadn't ripped my throat out yet—I was human now, after all—but something was staying this one.

  My gaze shifted left, right, and I realized I was surrounded. Something was staying them all.

  "This one," came another whisper from the silver above me. This one was another pack leader, stronger and bigger than the one I'd fought earlier in the day. "Meat isn't meat."

  It leaned closer, its hot breath right up against the join of my neck and chin, and took another deep inhale. The head jerked back, the red eyes surveying me. "Draconis," it whispered. This time it sounded more urgent. Fearful. "Do not touch him."

  And all at once, the other silvers around me seemed to be thinking or speaking, their paws crunching over the leaves as they backed some feet to create a larger radius.

  Except for the leader. He remained where he was. "You interfere, draconis," he whispered. He was referring to me—I was this draconis.

  "Interfere with what?" I rasped. I didn't even have the strength to lift my head from the ground.

  "With the natural order. Humans aren't meant to survive in this world."

  "Says who?"

  "It is the way of things. Of strength and weakness."

  Right now, I was weak—prone on my back, my belly exposed—and they were strong. So why hadn't they killed me? "What is draconis?" I whispered.

  "The killer. The flame," came the leader's hissing reply. "You seethe with it."

  I pushed myself to my elbows, and they jerked back as one. Even now, as much as they wanted to attack me, fear held them at bay. This "draconis" sparked such terror in them, they would no longer even try it. I had, after all, killed a number of their particular pack.

  Which meant they believed I could defeat them, even now. Bloody and beat-up as I was, I could leverage that.

  "Stay away from the humans," I said to them, my eyes meeting each of theirs in turn. "Or I will interfere again. And again until it's done."

  The leader's red eyes narrowed at me, and his lips curled into a snarl. Only he among them stepped closer. "A challenge. For thirty-five years we've lacked such a thing. The weakest among us grow weaker. I welcome it, draconis."

  And he came close, whispered a message into my ear. His breath stunk, and I screwed up my mouth as I listened.

  After he had finished his hissing, he raised his massive head, sent up a garbled howl into the night. The others joined in on the choking, gruesome noise, and it reverberated through the forest—a natural place—in an unnatural way.

  If I had the strength, I would have clapped my hands to my ears. As it was, I struggled to remain on my elbows. Every part of me felt hewn and battered.

  When the howl died away, the silvers left the forest, returning the way they had come. And I dropped back down, lay alone on my back, still staring up at the canopy in the silence of night.

  The message rang in my ear: One week. Humans had one week.

  I had to return to Beacon.

  Seventeen

  Sunday, May 11, 2053

  12:01 a.m.

  Darcy

  A footstep. Someone was inside my cell.

  My eyes opened as a bolt's head dissected the mattress above me, the deadly tip emerging with a puff of feathers. I lay on the cold floor beneath the cot, still breathing.

  I hadn't been shot, though the bolt's head had stopped only an inch or two above my right lung after plowing through the mattress.

  Turns out hiding under the mattress wasn't such a bad idea after all, I thought to my child-self.

  I touched the left side of my head; the earpiece was still in.

  “Come on out, Dr. West,” came the Scarlet’s purr. The crossbow creaked as she slotted in another bolt. “That’s a cute trick, but you know we’re smarter than that.”

  I shimmied out from beneath the cot and found her standing over me, her face framed in the dim light from the ceiling. She held a loaded crossbow, the bolt’s head pointed straight at my face.

  Here, in the dark solitude of night, the Ruby of earlier had finally fallen away completely. She was only Scarlet now.

  “I won’t be playing any games with this next shot,” she said. “So just get up off the floor and sit on top of that cot like an obedient girl."

  I did as she told me to do, sitting next to the bolt still sticking straight up into the air, its head still buried in the mattress. “How did you get in?”

  She tsked, shook her head. The crossbow was still pointed at me. “You trained us never to reveal our secrets. Our infiltration should seem like magic…isn't that right?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I knew I had underestimated their capabilities. She might have gotten in by the door, or the window, though I couldn’t tell that either had been touched. Just like magic. "You're 8024's Scarlet."

  "Well perceived, Doctor. How could you tell?"

  "It's in the way you talk. Like a stone-cold witch."

  She laughed, a breathless sound. "You'll be happy to know the facility ground any anger out of me. Otherwise I might have retaliated for that. And seeing as how you're empty-handed, it wouldn't have gone well for you."

  I shivered. The woman who stared back at me truly didn't bear any anger. Only hard, methodical intent.

  “Why haven’t you killed me?” I asked.

  “That wasn’t my mission,” she said. “It was to bring you back. Though I do have leeway in terms of the amount of coercion I’m permitted.”

  "And by 'coercion,' you mean how much you're allowed to hurt me to get me back to the facility."

  Her full lips curled. "Put starkly, yes."

  I didn't move from my seat, though a second shiver, this one like ice water, hit my spine. "Did Luther Ides approve this?"

  "What doesn't he approve?" the Scarlet asked. "One of his best geneticists has escaped, and I'm the go-to gal for bringing you back."

  I narrowed my eyes at her. "The 'go-to gal?' You've never left the facility."

  A slow smile grew across her face, though her lips never parted until she spoke. "Oh, Doctor," she said. "You are so painfully naive."

  "That's all we need, Darcy," came Aiden's crackling whisper through my earpiece. "We're coming in."

  The transmitter in my left ear crackled again with his movement, and the Scarlet and I both heard the footsteps outside. I straightened on the cot. "Wait!" I whispered, cupping a hand over my ear.

  But it was too late. The Scarlet pulled the crossbow up, set her finger in the trigger guard. She dropped back to the wall, swiveling her aim toward the door.

  The cell door flew open, and a pair of arrows darted through the opening toward her. One took the Scarlet in the shoulder, and the other clacked into the stone wall behind her.

  She still managed to fire off the crossbow as she hit the wall with a grunt. Her bolt blitzed through the opening, hit the stone wall in the passageway with a clatter.

  I leapt up as Aiden and two guardians ran into the room. As I had instructed, they fell bodily atop the Scarlet, who had just ripped the arro
w's head from her shoulder.

  She snarled like a feral creature as the four of them scrabbled, her good hand swinging and stabbing with the arrow. She kicked at their shins, and she managed to land the arrowhead in one guardian's forearm as she kicked another in the knee.

  The two men she'd injured let groans and curses, but they kept fighting to restrain her. All of them had heard my conversation with the Scarlet, and all knew how dangerous she really was.

  Within five seconds, Aiden had her pinned, and the three of them managed to roll her onto her stomach, clamp her hands behind her. She let a snarl, jerking her head up and into one of the guardian's. When she made contact with his nose, she let a sick laugh.

  But she was caught. It was done, except that there was much more I needed to ask her.

  I came forward, kneeling by her. "Scarlet, what did you mean? Have I left the facility before?"

  Aiden lifted her to her knees, and she stared at me with brutal intent. Her lips screwed up as he raised her to her feet, and as she passed me by, she gave me her answer.

  She spat in my eye.

  I stepped back, covering my face as they led her out. She started a strange laughter that echoed as she passed into the hallway, and Aiden reappeared at my side. "Are you okay?"

  I lifted my shirt, wiped at my eye. "I'm fine. Just make sure those two have got her properly restrained." I could still hear them scuffling with her, dragging her toward one of the far cells.

  She hadn't stopped with that laughter, and my head jerked up. That was the laughter of a woman who had nothing left to lose.

  Aiden was still staring at me. "What is it?"

  I grabbed Aiden, and we darted into the hallway.

  At that moment, she detonated.

  Aiden pushed me behind him, but the blast was contained—just enough to blow a hole in her chest. I'd heard many times in theory about what would happen if a chip detonated, but never actually seen the real thing.

  And the real thing was horrific. She dropped to the floor between the two guards, her red hair pooling around her like blood. Her body jerked as it died.

  The chip hadn't been planted in the usual spot. That was why we'd missed it. Damn you, Ides, I thought, dashing toward her. I knew it was useless, but I was a doctor; saving people had been ground into me until it became instinct.

  And she was the only person who possessed the answers to the questions I had.

  I pushed her hair aside, set my hand to her neck, but she was already gone. Another human corrupted, sent above ground, and her life lost because of that facility. And with her, all the answers. All the secrets I wouldn't know the answers to.

  And her blood was all over my hands.

  12:25 a.m.

  Outside, an insistent and clattering rain had started to fall. Water pelted the windowpane in the corridor as I stood in the tiny guardians’ bathroom, wiping the Scarlet’s blood from my hands with a wash towel.

  Aiden stood behind me, concern etched between his eyebrows. “Are you sure you're okay?”

  I ran the cloth over my face, straightened. We met eyes in the mirror. “I’m fine."

  But I wasn’t fine at all, and the Scarlet’s blood and spit were the least of it. My sister was gone, Blaze was gone, and Luther Ides had hit the detonate button on the Scarlet. If he'd seen fit to destroy her, that meant he had been surveilling her closely.

  He knew I was in Beacon. And if I was a betting woman, I'd guess he had a bone to pick with the doctor who had drugged him and escaped with one of his clones. He was far from done with me, and that put everyone around me in danger.

  Plus, something the Scarlet had said had shaken me. The “go-to gal,” she’d called herself. Like she’d been on these missions before. Like she knew things about me and the facility that I didn’t.

  At this point, I was the furthest thing from fine. I was confused, and afraid, and needed time to think.

  “You’re sure she didn’t hurt you?” Aiden said. “When she shot that crossbow through your mattress, I about ran in right then.”

  I turned toward him, flicking the fingers of my good arm up and down my body. He was standing too close, almost blocking my way out of the bathroom. “See for yourself. Not a scratch.”

  His eyes raked my body, and I regretted saying that. "We'll know her face now. None of them will get in again," he said.

  "None of the Scarlets," I whispered. "But there are others. Different models, different faces. She's just one of many, and this outpost needs to know the truth about it all."

  "Well, you can take it up with the council. Elder Lucian informed me he wants you brought in front of them tomorrow."

  "Good," I said. The thought of going before the council struck childish fear into me—how many times when I was a girl had those put on trial gone to the hanging tree? Too many times—but I knew it was the right thing. "Now that the cat's out of the bag about who I am, they'll try me, won't they?"

  He looked pained as he nodded. "There will be a trial, Darcy. You got the Scarlet, but every guardian with an earpiece heard your conversation. Who you are—what you've been doing—is a big deal."

  A trial. That might mean I'd end up hanged myself for the things I'd done. Or banished, which was itself a death. Civilians didn't survive long in the dead zone.

  "It was worth it," I said. "I couldn't let that Scarlet run loose in the outpost. No matter what happens to me after that trial, Beacon will know about the infiltrators. You'll be able to protect yourselves."

  Something lit in his eyes, and he stared at me with a kind of intensity that made me avert my eyes to the ground. “That was brave of you,” he murmured. “You might be the bravest woman I know.”

  “I think my sister takes that honor,” I said, trying to press past him. But he didn’t move out of the doorway. Instead, his hands went out to the frame, boxing me in.

  “Darcy,” he said, “look up at me.”

  I sighed, raised my eyes. I didn’t like his physical strength games one bit. “Move, Aiden.”

  And then he leaned down and kissed me. Hard.

  My first thought was: What an asshole. And my second was: I’d always wondered what this would be like.

  Because the truth was, Aiden and I had never kissed. We’d been betrothed to marry, but he’d always been to shy to go for it.

  And maybe he had sensed my reluctance, my unwillingness. I had never experienced lust for him beyond that faint, girlish curiosity, and he was the best and only candidate.

  Now my question was finally answered: kissing Aiden felt wet. It felt nothing like when I’d kissed Blaze. That had been desire, fire, want. This felt like lips on lips, like moisture and pressure.

  Plus, he had forced himself on me. From this point onward, I’d never be able to respect him in the same way, because he didn’t respect my wishes. He wanted, and he took, Darcy’s objections be damned.

  I tried to pull away, but his hands came around my body. And though I squirmed, it took pushing him away with all my force to separate us. When we came apart, I backed to the sink, set both hands on the porcelain. “How dare you.”

  He breathed hard. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not sorry,” I spat. “You just want me to be less upset. If you cared about me or respected me, you wouldn’t have held me still when I tried to pull away.”

  His blue eyes widened with hurt. “I do care about you. I respect you. It’s just…it’s been five years. We were betrothed.”

  “That was a ritual, Aiden. We were just kids when they paired us off. It wasn’t real.”

  His large form seemed to wilt. “It was real to me.”

  I wanted to feel sorry for him, but I was still seething mad. “I have someone."

  “The clone,” he said—it wasn’t a question.

  “Blaze,” I corrected. “He’s got a name.”

  He shook his head. “And you prefer him? Some…petri dish concoction?”

  I couldn’t help a small, sharp exhale; his understanding of Blaze�
�and humanity—was almost comically childlike. “That petri dish concoction didn’t force himself on me. He respected my choices, despite what he wanted. He treated me like an equal, and now he’s potentially sacrificed himself to save my sister, whom he hardly knows. I love him.”

  I breathed as though I needed to catch my breath; my heart was a drumbeat in my chest, my blood rushing in my ears.

  Aiden’s mouth screwed up, and he redirected his gaze out the guard tower window. “I love you, Darcy. I always have.”

  I pressed away from the sink, stepped toward him. “Then show me you love me by moving aside,” I said, “and never forcing yourself on me again.”

  To his credit, he finally did. I was three steps past him when the alarm sounded, blaring long and loud outside.

  I turned toward Aiden, exhaustion pressing my shoulders to the ground. Not again.

  “Another silver attack?” I asked.

  He straightened up like a bolt of lightning had just struck him. “It can’t be. They never attack during a rainstorm like this.”

  The two of us stared at each other a half-second before we both swept down the corridor and down the stairs, emerging outside the guard tower in the pouring rain.

  When we came through the door, I heard it clearly: this was the alarm for a silver attack. And yet something was different. As Aiden had said, they never attacked during a storm.

  Outside, the guardians were massing on the scaffolding. I heard shouts, and Aiden had set a finger to his earpiece. He nodded, and I shielded my face with my hand as I watched him.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Two humans outside the walls,” he murmured, starting toward the scaffolding. “One's an unconscious blonde woman."

  Eighteen

  Sunday, May 11, 2053

  12:48 a.m.

  Darcy

  Aiden and I climbed the scaffolding over the gates in the rain. Two stories, three stories, up and up we went.

  The whole time I felt like a live wire, my mind pronouncing the same nine words: A silver and a human. An unconscious blonde woman.