by Emily Colin
“Which way?” he pants. “The gate?”
I have no idea, but no matter which way we go, it has to be better than staying here. I take off to the left, through the cleared land that runs parallel to the fence as far as I can see, and he follows. We run, and the howls get louder, and I am terrified I have made the wrong choice—that after all this, we’ll die because I made a wrong turn.
We race along the fence, the rain pelting us. Any moment, I expect to feel the bite of a blade sinking deep into muscle, or the inexorable pressure of the beasts’ teeth on my neck. But just when I’m beginning to despair, I see it—a massive sliding metal gate. And next to it, a keypad, mounted on a separate pole next to a speaker. There is no handprint pad; no reason to bother with the extra layer of security out here, where someone would have to brave the threat of the Bastarour if they wanted to escape.
“By the Architect,” Ari says, doubling over, hands on his knees.
I dash for the keypad and shove the dripping mass of my hair out of my eyes just as Efraím’s voice rises from the woods less than a hundred yards away. “Bellator Marteinn. Exile Westergaard. This is a useless game. We have darts that will tranquilize the beasts; they’re no threat to us. You have no such protection. If they don’t kill you, we will. Surrender and you’ll be dealt with humanely.”
“Hurry!” Ari hisses at me, as if I’m not. I won’t let us die here in the woods, torn limb from limb by animals, murdered by our brethren, no matter what the odds. It’s just another code to break. Just like one of the puzzles in the comp lab. Except the punishment for failing to solve one of those was never death.
I stab my fingers at the keypad, remembering the day the Executor came to the gen lab. I’d committed his password to memory, thinking such information could prove useful—though how, I couldn’t imagine. Well, now I know...maybe.
I try the password. Nothing. The howls grow closer, and my heart pounds so hard I can taste my pulse in my mouth.
And then inspiration strikes. I type the password backward. And by the Virtues, it works.
The light goes green under my fingers, but I don’t open the gate. Instead I let it fade to red again, then motion to Ari. He comes, backing toward me, trusting me to guard his blind side.
“Do you have it?” he hisses.
“I do.”
“Then open the gate, for the Architect’s sake!”
“No,” I tell him, eyes on the treeline. “Not yet.”
“Are you crazy? What are you waiting for?”
“They’re coming,” I say, watching the shift of shadows in the trees, the changing patterns of leaves outlined by the scrim of moon. The storm rages on, bending limbs to its will, pelting us with water. I can smell the scorch of ozone as lightning streaks down on not-so-distant mountains.
“Really? I had no idea.” His eyes are fixed on a Bastarour that has come to crouch at the treeline thirty feet away, its head lowered and its pale eyes focused on both of us. The beast tilts back its head and howls, doubtless summoning its companions. It is even larger than I’d imagined, its body a solid block of black muscle. This close, I can see the cross-breeding clearly, based on images in textbooks from before the Fall—it has the sleek dark body and gleaming green eyes of a panther, the striped face and massive shoulders of a tiger, the upright, pointed ears and long muzzle of a wolf. Its tail curves upward, bushy and bristling. The thing must weigh three hundred pounds.
It is horrifying—but I feel a kind of odd kinship with it, all the same. If what the Executor told me was true, doubtless the same technology was used to create us both.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
Ari gives a low, dissatisfied growl. “Do I have a choice?”
The Bastarour howls again. I can hear its fellow beasts coming closer, hear the difference between their padding footsteps and the quick, light echoes of the Bellatorum, moving on two legs rather than four. Thank the Architect for my ability to distinguish between the fury of the storm and these smaller, subtle sounds. Tonight, this may mean the difference between life and death.
“You always have a choice,” I say softly, eyes roving the shadowy woods. There are three of the identical beasts crouched at the treeline, regarding us. They are growling steadily, but make no effort to advance, not yet. I clutch a knife in each hand, facing them, and wonder what holds them in abeyance. A signal from their leader? The arrival of the Bellatorum?
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Ari mutters, gaze flicking to the locked gate.
One of the creatures turns toward me, paws scuffling impatiently in the dirt. I glare at it, and it ducks its head, breaking our staring contest in a peculiar gesture of submission. Its behavior puzzles me. We are alone here, isolated. We are prey. Why doesn’t it attack?
Maybe because it recognizes its own kind. A dull pain throbs in my chest.
“Eva,” Ari hisses, “you’d better have a plan.”
I want to roll my eyes at him, but I don’t dare glance away. “Whatever you do, don’t take your eyes off them. Don’t look down.”
“Oh, thank you so much,” he says acidly. “That would never have occurred to me. Any other brilliant tips you feel the need to impart, before we’re devoured or stabbed? Since you refuse to open the virtueless gate, and all?”
“Yes,” I say. “Since you ask. Duck.” And throw my body on top of his, knocking us both to the saturated ground, as the first knife flies out of the shadows.
39
Ari
“Are you all right?” Eva says, scrambling off me.
“I thought,” I manage, spitting dirt out of my mouth, “that you said not to look down.”
She’s on her feet now, as am I, weapons gripped in our hands. “Yes, well,” she says, scanning the shadows beneath the swaying trees as the first of the Bellatorum burst into the clearing, “sometimes plans change.”
What remains of the Thirty are lining up at the edge of the woods, Efraím out in front. Behind him is Kilían, who looks through me as if my demise holds no more interest to him than a sparring match between two ill-prepared recruits. I hope I don’t have to kill him tonight. That would be unfortunate.
The Bastarour’s heads move in unison between the Bellatorum and the two of us. Efraím moves a step closer, and they growl louder. One bares its teeth in menace, and he freezes where he stands.
I grip my sverd tightly, trying to figure out what to do. Attack Efraím, and every one of the Bellatorum will return the favor. Do nothing, and they’ll kill us anyhow. Provoke the Bastarour, and they will probably lunge at us en masse.
The nearest beast makes the decision for me and charges. I crouch low, swinging my blade in a wide arc. My knife punches hard through the thick hide and slides into the flesh beneath, ricocheting off the bone. The animal bellows and shakes its head, blood spraying everywhere. And then it charges me again.
Efraím and his henchmen haven’t moved. They are conserving their energy, waiting to see if the Bastarour is going to finish me off so they won’t have to. And perhaps it will, because when the infuriated beast comes after me this time, it knocks me flat on my back in the mud, snarling and snapping.
The creature’s matted, wet fur is in my mouth, its hot breath on my face. Drool pours onto my arms as I raise them to protect my head, slashing at the thing with my blade. Pain flares as the beast sinks its claws into my arm. Even over the racket of the fight, I hear the unmistakable sound of Efraím’s mocking laughter.
Then something slams into the beast and it shudders all over, shaking its head violently as if to rid itself of an infestation of horseflies. Its body jerks, then jerks again. Blood pours from it, drenching me. And then it goes limp, crushing me under its weight.
Disgusted, I push the creature to the side and crawl out from underneath it. When I blink the blood and rain out of my eyes, I see Eva standing above the beast, her sverd gripped in both hands, breathing hard. There is a gaping wound on its back and its head lolls at an unnatural angle: Eva has
nearly severed its spine. “Are you all right?” she says, her eyes roving over me in search of damage. “Is any of that yours?”
On my hands and knees, I shake my head. “All...the beast’s,” I manage. The pain in my arm is nothing—I can ignore it long enough to fight.
Satisfied, Eva’s eyes flick away from me to the other two Bastarour, who have stopped prowling and are staring at us with an assessing expression. I am willing to bet they have never seen someone slaughter one of their kind before. They sink to their haunches in front of Eva and make a strange chuffing sound. I get to my feet and they settle back into that threatening growl—but they don’t come any closer, which is good enough for me. I spit blood out of my mouth, wipe my blade on my dirt-splattered pants, and face the men who used to be my brothers.
“Let us go, Efraím,” I say.
“Or...what? We’ll be next?” He laughs again, as if the prospect amuses him. “That was an impressive bit of butchery. But butchery was all it was. You’ll find we’re not nearly as easily disposed of as that poor hunk of meat.”
“Really?” Eva says. “Tell that to Jakob and Daníel Eleazar. I think they might have a different opinion, don’t you?”
“You bitch.” The rain has plastered Efraím’s hair to his face and his clothes to his skin, but he glares at Eva as if they’re alone in the training room and he’s about to teach her a lesson of the most painful kind. “By the time I’m done with you, you’ll wish you never swore an oath to me.”
Eva opens her mouth to answer, just as thunder booms overhead and the wind shifts so the rain strikes my face dead-on, carving a path through the blood. The intensity of the storm unsettles the two remaining creatures, which shift uneasily on their haunches and then rise again, pacing the clearing. This is not a good sign. Spooked animals are unpredictable, and the two Bastarour were already unpredictable enough.
In my opinion, it is high time to get the hell out of here. Eva, on the other hand, remains unperturbed. “Remember the ice tank, Bellator Stinar? I think you’ll find I am capable of much more than you realize.”
Her face is serene in the moonlight, her expression empty. If she is bluffing, she is doing a stellar job. Even I cannot tell the truth.
“Capable or not,” Efraím sneers, “there are two of you and twenty-seven of us. Westergaard will die here tonight, and I’ll drag you back to your cell to pay the price of your insolence. You’ll pay over and over again, Eva Marteinn, until you are broken and at my mercy. And then you’ll pay some more.”
At this, Eva gives a savage smile, ruthless and wintry. “Ah, Bellator Stinar,” she says, “I told you before. You will not break me.”
Still smiling, she takes a step forward and throws her dagur high. It flies end over end, silhouetted against the grim face of the moon. As it reaches its apex, lightning strikes, streaking down toward the earth. Eva lunges for the keypad, punching in the code to open the gate. It slides to the left slowly—too slowly.
“Gate opening,” an automated voice announces, emanating from a speaker affixed to the post by the keypad. “Step through. Stand clear.”
The Bastarour sense freedom. They abandon their pacing and charge for the gate, just as Eva does the same. She wraps her fingers around my hand, tugging me with her, pulling me through the narrow opening. Linked like we are, we squeeze past, but barely. I feel the metal skim my skin, sending a faint shock through me: Eva has managed to open the gate without disarming it. Given the right conditions, it’ll become a formidable weapon.
The dagur falls, tumbling end over end, until it thunks into the ground. Throwing it was a distraction, but a good one: It diverted the bellators’ attention long enough for us to make it through the gate. The Bastarour charge after us, deprived of their prey and desperate for freedom, and Efraím charges after them.
“Bellator Stinar!” I hear Kilían yell, but Efraím isn’t listening. His eyes are slitted with rage, his attention all for us, so he fails to realize what is happening until it is too late.
Cut off the snake’s head, he’d always told us in training, and the rest of the beast will fall. Well, here’s Eva, implementing a textbook illustration of how bellators are meant to prevail when the odds don’t favor victory.
She’s taken his lessons to heart.
Lightning streaks from the sky, striking the fence as Efraím and one of the remaining Bastarour collide midway through the gate, the space hardly large enough to accommodate both of them. They struggle, entwined, as the creature gets hold of Efraím’s arm and shakes its head viciously, seeking to sever the bone. He fights, trying to get free, but the beast has him pinned.
The fence sparks wildly, bright blue against the backdrop of the night, and I hear it crackle as electricity pours through the conducting strands, amplified to what is likely a fatal level. The two of them—beast and man—aren’t touching the gate, not yet. But if they should, I can’t imagine either one of them will survive.
Eva lunges for the keypad mounted on our side of the fence. I scream her name and grab for her, but she slips through my grasp. Inches from the blazing fence, she presses a sequence of buttons and darts backward, taking her place at my side once more.
“Gate closing,” the automated voice says. “Ten seconds until lockdown. Please stand clear.”
On the other side of the fence, all is chaos. The bellators are screaming, the remaining beast is howling, and the fence has caught fire, blazing up into the night. I hear Kilían give the order to use the tranquilizer darts and hurl myself flat, pulling Eva down with me. But the storm is raging too furiously to account for the trajectory of the wind. The darts go wide, missing again and again.
“Eight seconds until lockdown,” says the implacable voice. “Stand clear.”
I turn my head and blink the rain from my eyes. Efraím and the Bastarour are caught, helpless in the maw of the heavy gate as it inches shut, their limbs enmeshed, neither of them able to break free from the other. Intent on killing its prey, the creature is either unaware or indifferent to the danger of the closing gate. Efraím, on the other hand, is under no such illusion. I see his eyes flick toward the gate, and then he fights even harder to get loose.
The Bastarour snaps its teeth, shredding the fabric of his sleeve, sinking deep into flesh. His blood sizzles as it hits the fence, bubbling up and dripping toward the ground. Efraím slashes at the beast with his dagur, bellowing curses. His blade sinks home, but the creature howls as its jaws close on the hand that holds the knife, in brutal retaliation. The two of them are wedded together, caught in a vicious dance, stabbing and snapping at each other with no hope of release.
“Five seconds until lockdown. All personnel, step away and stand clear.”
From the other side of the gate I watch, stunned into immobility, Eva silent beside me. And then Efraím’s rolling eyes find my face.
“Ari,” he cries. “Help me!”
I know what he’s asking of me. Not to save his life—it is too late for that—but to offer him the departure he deserves. To die in battle, rather than crushed to death by a few thousand pounds of electrified metal, entwined with a genetically modified beast.
“Lockdown commencing. In three...two...one…”
There is a fraction of a second where I could have cut the throat of the Bastarour, or dragged them both free, to settle the matter on the ground at my feet. But in the end I stand there, motionless. The rain blurs my vision, but not so much that I cannot see the beast sink its great teeth into Efraím’s neck, offering him the merciful end I could not—just as his knife jabs deep into its throat, sending arterial spray across his face. It is a warrior’s death.
“The Commonwealth grieves for you, Bellator Stinar,” I say, my voice a whisper. “As will I.”
“Ari,” he mouths one last time, his eyes fixed on mine. Then the gate slams home, the world goes up in blood and fire, and we run.
40
Eva
We hike through the night, barely speaking except for the bri
ef answers I give Ari about what happened while I was imprisoned. The further we get from the Commonwealth, the more a tremendous sense of relief and an abiding guilt consumes me. I have to tell Ari what I know. How can I, though? Once I tell him the truth, it’ll be over between us. He won’t want to be with someone whose DNA was spliced with that of four other animals, who is on the verge of transforming into a beast. And if the Executor told the truth about him serving as my anchor, I have to let him go before I break him to my will. But I can’t bear to lose him yet.
Surely we can work it out. This can’t be the end of us. Not like this, after everything.
I’ll see him to the Brotherhood, see him safe. I can’t think beyond that. No matter what else happens, he has to survive.
Close to sunset on the next afternoon, while Ari is crouched on the ground, studying the pattern of crushed leaves and branches, the wind shifts, bringing with it the scent of people. I nudge him with my foot, and he straightens up, eyebrows raised.
“That way,” I tell him, pointing in the direction of a grove of spruce trees. “If it’s not them, it’s someone.”
He nods, and we start off again, more slowly this time. “How far off?” he asks over his shoulder. “Can you tell?”
I breathe in again, sampling the air. “Half a mile?” I say, uncertain. “Not far.”
“If it’s them, Eva, I’ll go in first. Explain to Ronan what happened. You follow when I say.”
“And if it’s not?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “We run. Or we fight. Does it matter?”
I hear what he’s left unsaid—that from now on, our lives are going to be comprised of one or the other, or maybe both at once. What I did to Efraím has bought us time, but the Executor and the other bellators are looking for us, that much is for sure. They won’t let a traitorous act of this magnitude go unavenged—and the Executor will be furious that his prize experiment has escaped. “I guess not,” I tell him, trying to keep the hopelessness from my voice, and we keep walking.