Firestorm

by Alex Mara

  Blaze and Zara.

  But why hadn't he brought her right to the gates? Why were they hanging around out there?

  We couldn't see anything beyond the wall, but higher up I could see a half-dozen guardians with crossbows aimed, their bodies tense and ready for battle. "Aiden," I said as we climbed, "tell them to hold off. Tell them not to shoot."

  "They won't shoot unless they get close enough," he said. "Right now they're out of range."

  "How were they spotted?" I asked.

  "The silver has been darting in and out of the edges of the light. It's pretty atypical silver behavior."

  Because it isn't a typical silver, I thought, my heart pounding faster. He's protecting her. He has to stay in silver form until she gets through the gates.

  We surmounted the wall, finally reaching the netting. I ran past guardians toward one of the lookout platform over the gates, staring into the darkness. I couldn't see anything.

  Aiden stepped up beside me, and we waited in the rain. The alarm continued in the night, but the outpost was otherwise silent. "Move the western spotlight farther out," Aiden said to the guardian commandeering the massive lamp next to us.

  When he did so, the cone of light jutted out across the ground, revealing nothing but dirt. We searched for a minute, and nothing appeared until—

  A man—not a silver, but a man—stepped into the light with a body in his arms, the head resting against his chest. Blaze.

  And that girl in his arms. The blonde hair. The brown leather of a guardian’s uniform. It was Zara.

  "There!" one of the guardians shouted, lifting his crossbow high.

  "Hold," Aiden said, lifting his arm. As we watched, Blaze lowered Zara to the ground within the radius of Beacon's lamplight. Then he stepped back into shadow.

  Aiden leaned toward me. "I assume you know what that's about, Darcy?"

  "It's him," I said. "It's Blaze. He brought her back."

  "Why didn't he come straight to the gates?" Aiden whispered to me.

  "There must be a threat. He has to stay in silver form to be vigilant," I whispered back, still observing the prone form of my sister in the dirt; she looked to be in a bad way. "You have to go get her right now. She's unconscious."

  "It's against protocol. Right now it's too risky to send anyone out before light, with the silvers massing out there," Aiden breathed.

  I pressed the closest guardian's crossbow down toward the wooden planks. "Then send me out there."

  "Darcy, that's insane," Aiden said, shifting his gaze onto me. "I'll go."

  I turned toward Aiden. "Everything that's happened in the past few days is on my shoulders, and I'm not letting you go out there for me. I'll keep to the light. If there's a silver threat, they'll try to attack me and you'll have a perfect sight on them. If it's just Blaze and Zara, then he won't attack me, and you'll get your deputy captain of the guard back. It's a win-win."

  Aiden shook his head. "No."

  I stepped closer to him. "You took an oath to protect humans at all costs. There's a human out there, and I'm giving you the best solution you're going to get."

  The rain pelted around us, and he took a deep, silent breath before he signaled to the rest of the guardians on the platform. "Take her down to the gates. We're going to send her outside."

  The guardians around us didn't move.

  Aiden turned toward them. “Now.”

  A shiver ran through my body, and I pulled my arms close around myself as the guardians started into action, escorting me down the scaffolding toward the gates. I had chosen this, but I was still terrified of being wrong.

  I followed my across the center of Beacon, under the hanging tree, and toward the gates, which loomed large and gray in the shadows cast by all the lights. As we came to them, I stared up the line that demarcated the center of the two massive doors.

  Had they always been this tall? Or had I never been this close?

  Aiden came around from behind me, handed me a crossbow to me, and I took it hesitantly in my good hand. The thing weighed a ton.

  “I don’t need this,” I said. “I can’t even use both my arms right now.”

  “Fair point,” Aiden said, receiving the crossbow back from me. “Then how about this?” He yanked a mini-bow from its sheath on his left thigh, set it atop the uniform.

  I glanced up at him. “I’m not a very good shot.”

  “If you turn out to be wrong about the silver threat, wouldn’t you rather have it and be a terrible shot than not have it?”

  I managed a faint smile, and I nodded. Despite what had happened between us in the guardians’ tower, I still felt glad for his care and consideration in other things. I felt grateful to have someone in Beacon looking out for me.

  “Good. We’ll get the inner gates open for you. Be ready in two minutes.”

  “Two minutes,” I repeated, and then Aiden crossed toward the gate patrol and I remained a moment standing in the rain with the mini-crossbow in my hand.

  1:01 a.m.

  I stood in the holding pen, staring up the length of the wall. This would be the second time in my life I’d seen the gates from the outside—the first time had occurred yesterday—and now I was going to corral an infiltrator and my sister.

  Or be killed by silvers. The jury was still out, but if there was any chance that I could bring Zara and Blaze in to safety, I would take it.

  A jolt ran through me as the outer gates clanked, and then the heavy chains began running as they prepared to lift the immense wall of metal.

  I breathed fast, squinting as the gate lifted and the brown expanse of the dead zone came slowly into view. I spotted a blue flicker in the space between the metal and the ground, heard a faint humming that was distinct from all the lights.

  I hung a moment as the gate rose, staring up at the scaffolding where Aiden stood. He’d told me to wait until his call for the space around the gate to be de-electrified—the last safeguard. He was watching, watching, his hand slowly lifting.

  And then his hand went up. “Move!” he said, and I ran through the gate. Here the light covered the ground for fifty yards out, creating a halo around Beacon that turned the dead zone luminous and yellow.

  I stared, my eyes never staying in one spot, but I saw nothing and no one until my gaze fell on her.

  Zara, near the light's edge. She hadn't moved since Blaze had deposited her there, and I didn't see anything or anyone else.

  I heard the gears reverse, and it rolled shut behind me. The ground vibrated with its thud as I tore straight out into the dirt, my eyes on the blonde hair some fifty yards ahead.

  Adrenaline and fear made my legs shake as I ran, the rain dropping into my eyes so often I had to keep wiping them. But I kept moving.

  I ventured a glance back at Beacon, was nearly blinded by all the light. So this was what it was like to be on the other side, to be a silver. It was like looking into the heart of a star.

  When I came within ten yards, I slowed to a stop. She was still there, that body under the rain. I listened, heard nothing and saw no one else. “Blaze!” I yelled, cupping my good hand around my mouth.

  Only the rain. The rain and the faint alarm from inside the outpost, far-off and distant now with the barrier between me and the outpost. I called again, and this time my voice went ragged with fear and urgency.

  Nothing.

  I started forward, jogging toward her form in the night. My sister's delicate, slender limbs splayed on the earth, her face turned aside beneath her hair. A guardian’s leather jacket sat atop her, the back of it ripped into by five massive claws.

  I came to her in the light, and as I neared, her blonde hair lit into gold. I knelt by her and pushed her hair aside. “Zara,” I breathed.

  But she wasn’t conscious. She breathed, but she wasn’t aware of my presence, or anyone’s. I knew this physical state well from my time as a geneticist in the facility: it was silver infection. She’d been clawed by a silver, and she was well on her way to deat
h or turning.

  I grabbed her arms, began pulling her back toward the gates. She was too heavy, the ground too wet. I slipped, fell in the mud and let a yell of frustration.

  I half-turned toward the lights of Beacon. “It’s Zara!” I shouted. “Help me get your deputy captain inside.”

  “I can help with that,” came a voice from the darkness.

  I raised the mini-crossbow, my shaking finger sliding into the trigger guard. "Show yourself."

  And into the light stepped Blaze, soaking in the rain. “Hello again, Darcy West.”

  1:35 a.m.

  The inner gates began their slow and creaking slide, and Blaze, Zara, and I were greeted by a legion of guardians with their crossbows aimed.

  The rain pelted us all, turning their heads silver under the lamplight.

  My hands went up. “Do not shoot this man. He saved your deputy captain of the guard. I need to get her to the hospital immediately.”

  Well, he’d brought her back, at least. Now Zara hung in his arms like a wet doll, and every minute we weren’t putting Blaze’s blood in her was a minute closer to her death.

  Aiden pressed to the fore of the group. “Step inside, both of you.”

  We did as he instructed, our feet squelching in the mud. When Aiden came forward, he tilted Zara’s face toward him, pressing the mass of her hair aside. “It’s her,” he said. “And she’s badly infected.”

  “We can save her,” I said. “I just need to get her and this man to the hospital and Dr. Sorin.”

  “Tell me how that man survived the dead of night,” came a sonorous voice, “and I will consider allowing it.”

  I swallowed, shifting my eyes past Aiden. I knew that voice so well it still straightened my spine right out when I heard it.

  “Elder Lucian,” I said, lowering my face as he came close. “He’s not like other men. I’ll tell you everything, but we must get them both to the hospital. It’s urgent.”

  A swell of interest emanated from Elder Lucian’s throat, and the towering man set a hand to Zara’s cheek. Then his eyes lifted, and his hand touched Blaze’s bare chest.

  “Claw marks,” he said, tracing the scars. “Freshly scabbed.”

  Blaze observed him with a firm jaw; he hadn’t averted his eyes like I had. “Like the doctor said: we don’t have time to analyze my body, Elder.”

  I sensed the elder’s attention on me again. “Darcy West,” he said, and my stomach dropped. He had remembered who I was. “After five years, I have little reason to trust any of what I see occurring here."

  I swallowed. Once Elder Lucian had set his mind to something, he was never swayed. I remembered his judgments well from my childhood, all the men and women he'd sent to the hanging tree. He was the hard fist of justice in Beacon.

  “They’re citizens, Elder. At least, these two are,” Aiden said, gesturing to me and Zara. “As such, I’ve woken the doctor. He’s ready.”

  I shot Aiden my most grateful look, but Elder Lucian only set one hand to his chin. I hated it when he set his hand to his chin, and it took every bit of self-control I’d developed over the years not to push him out of the way.

  But that would only get us all jailed.

  So we stood in the rain for an agonizingly long time while Elder Lucian contemplated his decision, as was his way.

  I breathed hard through my nostrils to calm myself, my eyes straying again and again to Zara’s limp hands and unconscious face.

  Just then a head of curly white hair floated in from the darkness, and an elderly woman's voice. "Darcy?"

  I stood frozen. "Teacher?"

  She came forward, and her warm hands gripped me. "It is you, Darcy West."

  "Elder Leila," Aiden said to her, "Zara needs silver treatment immediately, and Darcy and this man believe they can provide it."

  So my schoolteacher had become an elder. I squeezed her hands in affirmation; this outpost needed her empathy.

  "We don't know who 'this man' is," Elder Lucian said.

  Leila surveyed the scene at once, and her gaze fell on Zara last. "Guardian Aiden seemed to think you three ought to be let in, and I value his judgment. If a decision has to be made at once, then I permit it."

  All eyes shifted to Elder Lucian, whose face had shifted to pure displeasure. “Go then,” he said. “But I want a continent of guardians on the man and Zara at all times. He should be held as soon as this hospital treatment is complete.”

  I nearly sobbed, setting a hand to Leila's cheek before I urged Blaze into motion. We started at a jog toward the hospital, and a group of the guardians broke off to escort us.

  I took up Zara’s hand as we ran, squeezing her cold fingers. “Hold on, my love,” I whispered.

  1:48 a.m.

  We burst through the hospital doors, and Dr. Sorin nearly jumped out of the cot he’d been dozing in. He blinked hard at the three of us, soaking in the doorway. “Oh, what is it now? More strange women? Young men who need operations?”

  “Doctor,” I said, “I need you to perform a blood transfusion right away. My sister is infected.”

  “A blood transfusion? Darcy, that won’t—”

  I set a hand on Blaze’s shoulder. “He’s immune. His blood has antibodies.”

  The tenor in the room shifted as the guards processed this information. Everyone seemed to be staring at Blaze, who stood still with Zara in his arms. I did notice a muscle in his jaw twitch.

  That was a first. Normally he was able to keep his emotions completely under wraps unless he was around me.

  Dr. Sorin’s eyes widened on Blaze, and he let a slow whistle before shifting his eyes back to me. “I’m not asking. Bring the two of them over to the cots.”

  “Thanks,” I said, urging Blaze forward. He delivered Zara onto one of the cots, sat down on the adjacent one with his elbows on his knees.

  He looked beat up and exhausted, but he hadn’t for a moment slowed down, hadn’t expressed it at all. I wondered where he’d been, how far he’d gone, and what he’d seen out there in the dead zone.

  I wondered what had beat him up so badly.

  Dr. Sorin and I washed up at the sink. “Just like old times,” he murmured.

  A wan smile touched my face. “Except I won’t be such a know-it-all.”

  One white eyebrow rose at me. “No? I wouldn’t have brought you on if you weren’t so determined about fulfilling your own potential. And we’ll need it, Darcy. This outpost will need you, and this man. He could mean a change for us.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  “But first,” he said, flicking his wet hands and turning toward Blaze and Zara, “there’s tonight.”

  First there’s tonight, I thought. We approached Blaze, and both of us went straight into action. Across the room, the guard contingent—including Aiden—just watched, completely out of their depth.

  “Sanitize and tourniquet him,” Dr. Sorin said, preparing a syringe attached to a blood bag.

  I did as he asked, grabbing the alcohol and swabbing it over the crook of Blaze’s arm before I tied a strap around the bicep. He squeezed his fist, and the vein rose so clearly I knew he was probably every doctor’s dream.

  He was mine, at least.

  The memory of our union in this hospital flashed into my mind as Dr. Sorin pressed me aside, lowered the IV to the bulging vein in his hand.

  But the thought fled just as quickly as I dropped to Zara’s side, grabbed up a pair of scissors to cut her shirt away.

  Blaze's blood was already running from his body and into the bag, filling quickly.

  “Get an IV in her,” Sorin said, and I followed his commands in the way I had as a young intern, moving from spot to spot around the room.

  When I sat next to Zara on the cot, I took a breath before I lifted her arm and turned it over to set the IV. It had been some time since I'd done this, and it was crucial I found a vein at once.

  "You can do this," Blaze said from the cot. I glanced up first at his hand, which had folded to
a fist to keep the blood running, and then to his face. His expression was one of absolute trust.

  I turned back to Zara. "I've got you, sis," I murmured, pressing the IV into the crook of her arm. "I've got you, honey."

  But I didn't know whether that was the truth, or just pretty words we said when we wanted to believe we were in control.

  Nineteen

  Sunday, May 11, 2053

  2:53 a.m.

  Darcy

  Afterward, the lot of us stood over Zara, who still lay unconscious, but now with Blaze’s blood dripping into her.

  “What now?” Aiden asked Dr. Sorin.

  “We wait,” he and I said in unison. If the infection was past the point of return, then the transfusion would be a useless exercise. But if she could be saved, we wouldn’t know until the morning.

  “Sir,” one of the guardians said to Aiden, “we should keep this man”—he indicated Blaze—“in the guard tower until we can verify who he is, and whether he’s a threat.”

  I turned to Aiden and the guardian. “He’s just brought your deputy captain back, for God’s sake. Just let him sleep here until the morning.”

  Aiden’s eyes flicked to an unmoving Blaze, who still sat on the cot, and then to me. Something like pain flashed across his face, and I remembered for an instant what had transpired between us earlier in the night.

  The unwanted kiss. The rejection.

  He was feeling jealous.

  But to his credit, he only said, “Let him sleep on one of the cots, but with one hand restrained to the frame. We’ll post a guardian outside.”

  “Thank you,” I mouthed.

  He gave me a curt, official nod, and as the guardians all cleared out and Blaze accepted his cuff, Dr. Sorin and I stood together, observing Zara.

  “You did good,” he said.

  “You did better.”

  “Well, I am the elder. And a damned good doctor.”

  I laughed softly, and Dr. Sorin stepped closer to me to whisper in my ear, “Darcy, that isn’t the same man you brought in here yesterday.”