by Aaron Hodges
“Doing…my best…” Jasmine coughed. A flicker of pain passed across her face as Maria spun the wheel again. She was going far too fast for the suburban streets, but it wouldn’t take long for their enemies to realize someone had escaped. They needed to get as far away as possible, before the soldiers could close a net around them.
Fortunately, the broad oak trees lining the streets in this part of the city provided shelter from eyes above. Liz searched for the lights of a chopper, but there was nothing yet. They had to get off the streets before backup was called in.
But none of that mattered if Jasmine bled out in the back seat of the car. Twin Peaks Hospital was close. Going there would mean giving Jasmine over to the authorities, but Liz couldn’t face watching another friend die. It had taken a few dire threats, but Maria was heading there now. They would have to leave Jasmine with the first doctor they saw, but it was better than the alternative.
As if reading her mind, Jasmine’s eyes flickered open. “Where are we…going…Liz?”
Liz stroked the hair from her friend’s eyes. “It’s okay, we’re taking you to a hospital. You’ll be alr—”
“No.” Jasmine’s hand shot out and caught Liz by the wrist. Despite her injuries, she was still shockingly strong.
“Jasmine…” Liz began.
“No,” Jasmine repeated, her eyes wide. “I’m not going…back…Liz. No hospital.”
Tears shimmered in Liz’s eyes, but there was no give in Jasmine’s voice. “Maria,” she croaked finally.
“I heard her,” Maria replied softly. “There’s a park nearby. We’ll hide out there for the night.”
Liz’s stomach tied itself in knots as the old woman did a U-turn. Jasmine was worse than Ashley had been after being shot out of the sky. Only Doctor Halt and the resources at the facility had saved Ashley from death then. What chance did Jasmine have of even surviving the night?
It took them another ten minutes to reach the park. By then Maria had slowed down to avoid unwanted attention, though just being outside so late meant they were breaking curfew. The sign at the entrance named the place Lake Merced Park.
They parked the car beneath a grove of peppermint willow trees to hide it from circling helicopters and bailed out. A toilet block hid the vehicle from the road. Liz hoped that would be enough to conceal it from any search parties. Otherwise, it wouldn’t take long for the soldiers to realize that the back seat was stained with blood. Then the whole weight of the government would come crashing down on them.
Lifting Jasmine into her arms, Liz carried her through the park after Maria. They walked for ten minutes before coming to a grove of pine trees. Ducking beneath the low hanging branches, they entered the shelter of the trees.
Dry pine needles crunched as Mira set about making a bed, and then Liz carefully lowered Jasmine down. Her emerald wings fell limply against the ground as Liz released her. The bleeding seemed to have slowed, but the bullet had left a gaping inch-wide hole in Jasmine’s chest.
A harsh cough tore from Jasmine. Blood bubbled between her lips, and it was several minutes before she recovered. Maria offered a pocket handkerchief as Jasmine’s breathing turned to a strained wheeze. Liz used it to wipe the blood from her friend’s face, feeling an awful helplessness in the pit of her stomach. Jasmine’s eyes were closed now, though her body was still taut, her fingers clenched in claws. The harsh lines of a scowl marked her forehead.
We should have taken her to the hospital.
It was too late for second thoughts now. Liz doubted Jasmine would survive another wild ride in the car. Sweat beaded Jasmine’s forehead and goosebumps stood up on her skin. Liz used the other side of the handkerchief to wipe her friend’s face, then stretched her wings to cover Jasmine like a blanket.
“I don’t want to die, Liz,” Jasmine whispered in the darkness.
Her eyes were open again. A tear ran down her cheek. Seeing her friend’s terror, Liz entwined a gloved hand around Jasmine’s fingers.
“Not going to happen,” Liz said with as much conviction as she could muster. “You’re going to be fine, Jas. You’re strong. A little bullet won’t stop you.”
Jasmine smiled, but the movement triggered another fit of coughing, and it was several minutes before she had the strength to speak again.
“It hurts so much,” she said at last, breathless. “Do you think it hurt…for him…at the end?”
Liz shivered. She didn’t need to ask who Jasmine was talking about. Richard’s last stand played itself out in her mind, and she saw again the dozen bullets strike his body. “I don’t know.”
“I guess…no one does,” Jasmine said, her voice barely a whisper, “at the end...”
“Jasmine…”
“Promise me,” Jasmine said, cutting her off. Liz blinked, not understanding, until Jasmine’s head turned and her eyes found Liz’s. “Don’t…lose yourself…Liz. We need…your heart.”
A smile touched Liz’s lips. “I won’t,” she insisted, “but you’re not going anywhere, Jas. Just…save your strength.”
Nodding, Jasmine closed her eyes. Her breath softened, and for a while Liz thought she slept. She sat in the darkness, Jasmine’s hand wrapped in her own, watching the slow rise and fall of her friend’s chest. The bleeding had stopped now—at least outwardly—but her usually tanned skin had lost all its color.
“I didn’t hesitate…you know.” Liz jumped as Jasmine spoke again.
She glanced down, but Jasmine’s eyes were still closed. Before she could ask what Jasmine meant, her friend went on.
“It was me…or Chelsea. She was my friend…but I didn’t even hesitate.”
“We all chose ourselves, Jas,” Liz said softly. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Not…Richard.” She sighed then, a long, harsh exhalation that seemed to go on and on.
Liz couldn’t find the words to argue. What more could she say? Tears burned her eyes and she squeezed Jasmine’s hand. But something had changed in their little grove. A heavy silence hung over the trees. She looked around, searching for the difference.
Heart pounding, she turned back to Jasmine.
“Jas?” She leaned closer, waiting for a response. Only then did Liz realize why it was so quiet.
“Jasmine!” she shrieked.
Liz grasped Jasmine by the shoulders and shook her. Jasmine’s head lolled to the side, but her eyes remained closed. A thin trail of blood ran from her mouth. Her chest was still, her breath silent.
“Jasmine!” Liz screamed again.
But Jasmine did not reply.
She was already gone.
15
Sam sat and held his hands out to the tiny flame burning on the concrete floor. It was all they could manage in the abandoned basement, and soon even that would be gone. The little collection of old magazines and newspapers they’d found in the corner wouldn’t last long.
Looking at Jocelyn and her children, he cursed under his breath. He shouldn’t blame her, but there was no helping it. It was her husband’s fault. If he hadn’t met with her, the government would never have found him, never been able to follow him back to the safe house. But he had already suffered for his stupidity. Yet here Jocelyn sat, the one thing the man had cared about, while Sam’s friends were dead, their hopes of striking back at the government in ruins.
At least the children were safe. He could not hold the crimes of their father against them. How exactly the government agents had tracked the doctor—despite Harry’s precautions—he might never know. Unlike their fledgling resistance, the Director was not limited to twentieth century technology. Satellites or street cameras or GPS tracking; any one of them could have done it. All Sam knew was, they’d been found.
He’d arrived at the safe house well before the van. Lights and vehicles had been everywhere. From his vantage point high in the sky, Sam had taken in the destruction wrought on the house. The walls looked more like a cheese grater than solid wood. He hadn’t lingered; there’d been no point.
Turning in the air, Sam had returned to the van and diverted them away from the house. They’d found an abandoned building nearby and hidden the van around back. It was the best they’d been able to do by that point. They wouldn’t have gotten far with the soldiers crawling over the neighborhood.
Now morning was fast approaching, and Sam was no closer to knowing what had happened. He could hear the choppers circling outside and hoped that meant at least someone had gotten away. There was another safe house they could have retreated to—though only those not involved with the next attack knew its location. Sam cursed as he realized none of the rebels with him knew where it was.
“It’s all over,” Leo was saying, his voice low, though the children would have no problem hearing him. “They’ve won.”
“Looks that way,” another of the men replied.
“Maybe the girl was right,” Leo muttered, looking at the family, “maybe the doctor betrayed us.”
“Not deliberately.” Sam’s feathers bristled as he spoke over their muttering,
“How do you know?” Leo snapped.
“Because we’re alive. If it’d been a setup, we would have all been dead the moment we stepped into the apartment,” Sam growled. He nodded at the doctor’s wife. “They were watching her, waiting for her husband to show up. They probably listened to their conversation about the Madwomen and followed him. Whatever precautions you took bringing him to the safe house weren’t enough—he led them straight to us.”
Leo snorted. “So what now?”
“Any of you know the location of the next safehouse?” Sam asked.
None of them answered. “Thought so. We have to—”
“We don’t have to do anything,” Leo said, standing. “You may not see it, but I do. We’ve already lost. There’s nowhere left to run. May as well give ourselves up now.”
“Rubbish,” Sam hissed.
He stood and stared at the man until Leo looked away. Grabbing the last stack of newspaper, Sam tore it to pieces and slowly fed them to the flames.
“They’re on the defensive,” Sam mused. “Can’t you see that? Refugees filling the streets, protesters at their doors. Dissent is spreading. We can’t let them quash it now, not when it’s just beginning.”
“Why does it have to be us?” Leo asked miserably.
Looking at the man, Sam realized for the first time Leo wasn’t much older than his own eighteen years. Sam had grown so used to the constant danger, he’d forgotten it hadn’t been the same for others. Leo was little more than a boy, and Sam felt a moment of empathy for him.
“Because we’re here, Leo,” he said. “Because no one else will. Because we’re the ones fate chose to make a stand. It doesn’t matter why—just that we do it. This is important, this fight. You all know that, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. We have to stop them, now, while they can still be stopped.”
“But they’ve already won,” another man whispered.
“No,” Sam replied firmly, “they can’t win, not while we’re still here, not so long as someone continues fighting.”
“Do you truly believe that?”
They all looked around at Jocelyn’s voice. She sat with her back against the concrete wall, her legs stretched out towards the flames, a boy asleep under each arm. Her eyes pierced the shadows of the basement, watching them by the light of the fire.
“I do,” Sam replied
Jocelyn nodded, her lips tight. “Maybe if more of us believed the same, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Her eyes drifted to her children. She ran a hand through the youngest’s mop of hair. “It’s so easy to ignore the suffering of others, when it means protecting the ones you love. My husband never spoke much about his work, but I know it changed him. Even from the little I learned in the last few years, I knew something wasn’t right, that something was rotten.”
Sam didn’t respond. He’d heard the same story over and over, of people trapped by fear, disturbed by what they’d heard, what they’d seen, but too afraid to act. Without an independent media, without an open internet, there was little people could do to organize themselves. Every five years they could vote, but even that was a farce. Each state chose an Elector from two candidates, but it didn’t matter which one you chose. Both inevitably elected the same President.
Now though, the Madwomen’s protest in Independence Square had provided a rallying point. And bit by bit, a resistance was growing around them. So long as this setback hadn’t destroyed the emerging movement.
“He tried to quit once, you know.” Jocelyn gave a little laugh, though it held no humor. “Only once, mind you. I’m sure the thugs would have done worse to me if he’d tried again. Not that they ever admitted who’d sent them.” There was steel in her eyes as she looked up. “But maybe now’s the time we do something.”
“That was our plan,” Sam murmured. “Your husband…he told us the Director runs the new facility he was working at. He wouldn’t tell us where it was though, not until you were safe.”
A wry smile twisted Jocelyn’s lips. “Some job you’re doing,” she said. “He told me where it was…his lab…when we met. Just in case.”
Sam’s jaw dropped. “Where?”
Jocelyn was staring down at her boys, her eyes sad. “Whatever crimes my husband has committed, whatever crimes I’ve been a party to, they’re innocent.” She looked up at Sam, eyes wide. “Will you still protect them, even now?”
Sam pursed his lips. He could offer Jocelyn the world, but what position was he in to fulfill those promises? Who knew if the resistance even existed still, after last night’s attack?
“I honestly don’t know, Jocelyn. We might be all that’s left now. If the worst has happened and our friends are dead, I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to protect you…”
“I’ll do it,” Leo said from his place in the corner.
Sam raised an eyebrow. Leo smiled back as the other men nodded.
“You will?” Jocelyn whispered.
“You have my word, ma’am,” Leo replied. “They’re just kids, after all. If we’re not fighting for them, what’s the point?”
“Thank you,” Jocelyn said, choking on the words.
Sam could hardly breathe. “Then you’ll tell us where he worked?”
Jocelyn nodded. “I will, but you’re not going to like it.”
16
Liz sat high in the treetops and watched as the sun slowly climbed into the sky. Its light stained the horizon red, so that it seemed San Francisco’s towering skyscrapers wore a coat of blood. Shivering, Liz looked at her hands. Dried blood stained her gloves and clothing. She fought back her tears.
For half the night she had sat by Jasmine’s side, talking into the darkness. She had begged her friend to come back, to not leave her alone, but her cries had fallen on deaf ears. Her friend was gone, her soul had fled. All that remained was an empty shell, a lifeless husk. Jasmine’s fight was finally over.
Now, as Liz watched the sun rising, she wondered about the promise she’d made to Jasmine.
Don’t lose yourself.
Liz swallowed her grief and stood. The branch swayed beneath her as she watched the helicopter buzzing in the distance. Fire flickered in her chest. Liz longed to tear it from the sky, but she had made a promise.
Stepping from the branch, Liz’s wings caught the air, and she drifted lightly to the ground. She stumbled slightly as she alighted on the dewy grass, but recovered in a few steps. When she looked around, she found her two comrades standing in the shelter of the trees.
Mira walked forward, her grey wings trailing behind her. As she approached, tears spilled from her multicolored eyes. Liz opened her arms and the girl threw herself into the waiting embrace.
“Liz,” she sobbed.
Liz held her tight against her chest. “I know, Mira. I know.”
She could feel the tremors running through the girl, the silent sobs of her grief. Gently, Liz stroked Mira’s silver-grey hair, whispering soft consolations
, even as her own grief spilled. She could feel the dampness of Mira’s tears on her shirt but made no effort to pull away. The two of them stood like that for a long time, united in their loss.
Finally, Mira released her with a sniff. “Where’s Sam?”
Liz bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she replied, looking at Maria. “Will they go to the next safe house?”
“They don’t know where it is,” Maria said. She gestured towards the trees. “Come into the shelter. There are still helicopters out looking for us.”
Staring at the dark shadows beneath of the grove, Liz hesitated. Somewhere beyond the leafy branches, Jasmine’s lifeless body waited. Ice wrapped around her throat and she squeezed her eyes shut, barely able to breathe.
A new set of arms gripped Liz—gentle, but firm—then she was burying her face in Maria’s cardigan, and all her grief and pain and fear came pouring out. It had been so long since she’d been held, since she’d allowed anyone to comfort her. Even with the long sleeves and gloves, she was terrified of the harm she might cause. Yet she needed the comfort now, more than she could have ever imagined.
First it was Richard, then Ashley and Chris, now Jasmine. Maybe even Sam. She couldn’t take it, couldn’t bear the thought she might be all alone in the world. That she and Mira might be the only survivors left—from the hundreds who’d once graced the corridors of Doctor Halt’s facility.
When they finally separated, Liz took a deep breath. Maria gripped her by the shoulder, a smile wrinkling the skin around her eyes.
“You’re not alone, Liz,” she whispered, as though she’d read Liz’s thoughts. Taking Liz’s hand, she gestured to the trees once more. “Come on, she’s waiting for you.”
Liz shook her head but didn’t resist the old woman’s gentle tug. Breath held, she allowed herself to be led meekly back into the grove.
Jasmine lay where Liz had left her, eyes closed, black hair merging with the shadows. She seemed to have shrunk in the past few hours, as though that last memory of life had left her body. Her skin had turned a pallid grey, and the sheen had gone from her emerald feathers.