Kheris Burning (Thieves' Guild Origins: LC Book One): A Fast Paced Scifi Action Adventure Novel

by C. G. Hatton

  She shushed me again when I tried to argue and said again that we had to go. I let her lead me across the roof, feeling her fingernails digging into my skin as she gripped my arm.

  I had to bite my lip to divert the pain from my knee, pins of red heat stabbing into it with each faltering step. She caught me when I stumbled and took me right to the edge. “Can you climb down?” she whispered.

  I shook my head. “Need to jump from here.” I wanted to unstrap the brace from my knee, but I knew it wouldn’t hold without it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t move with this on.”

  I bent to undo the catch.

  She caught hold of my hand to stop me. “No. You can.”

  They could have appeared at any minute but it felt like we had all the time in the world and, standing there with her on that rooftop, it felt like the whole world was ours and we were the only people in it. She stood there, holding my arm and looking right into my soul. I took hold of her and held her tight, holding the back of her neck, kissing her and not caring if she was going to kiss me back or not. She did. There was no hesitation.

  We stayed like that, together for what felt like forever then I pulled away and whispered in her ear, “You go first. I might need you to catch me.”

  She laughed, staring me in the eye before turning and running for the edge.

  I watched her land and roll to her feet on the other side. I sucked in a breath, got my balance and ran.

  Have you ever experienced pain so bad that all you can do is parcel it up and move away from it? Laugh at it like it’s not yours so you can float above it and ignore it.

  Every step was agonising. I jumped off my right leg, pushed off and knew straight away it wasn’t enough. It was a jump I’d made loads of times, no big deal, and I blew it.

  I fell.

  It was astonishingly quiet. I twisted and reached out, bumping my hand against anything it could reach. I hit a ledge and tumbled, trying to grab something, scraping my hand across a railing before I managed to hold on. My arm locked, I hit the wall and I bounced back, hanging there, full weight on one tenuous grip, three straining fingers between me and a fifty foot fall to the ground.

  I had to swing to get my other hand up there before I could climb and scramble my way up onto the balcony, hauling myself up and crawling past broken plant pots to sprawl on my back, laughing or crying, it could have been either.

  Maisie dropped down beside me and thumped me in the arm. “You shit,” she hissed. “You did that on purpose.”

  I curled up, fending her off with a grumble. “I think I broke my arm.”

  She looked horrified, concerned and outraged in fast succession as I couldn’t help laughing. She thumped me again and pulled me up.

  “Hey,” I muttered as she took off, dragging me after her, “I can’t walk that fast.”

  “Suck it up, Luka,” she muttered back at me. “There’s three more jumps you’re gonna have to make.”

  Chapter 17

  We made it past Dayton’s guys before she let me stop. I was leaning heavier and heavier on her, couldn’t bear to put even the tiniest amount of weight on my knee. We staggered into one of the abandoned stores and she let me sink down in a corner.

  “We can’t stay here,” she said, pulling a pack off her back and rummaging. I thought she might have food but she just got out a bottle of water and a popper sheet of pills. She handed them over. “Take some of these.”

  I didn’t ask what they were. Anything was welcome. I downed a couple and sat back. “There’s a place on Seventh I could go. You need to get back.”

  She looked at me like I was insane. “I’m not going back and you can’t stay anywhere. I’m taking you to Charlie. He said he’d get you out of here. He said that, didn’t he?”

  I kept quiet. He had said that but they were on high alert. They had the resistance kicking off and UM on their doorstep. The security status must have gone through the roof. Charlie wouldn’t have time to worry about a stray kid who’d been stupid enough to get himself kicked out of his little gang, who was stupid enough not to stay put when told to.

  Anyway, I wouldn’t go anywhere without Latia.

  I didn’t say anything but Maisie was smart enough to figure out what I was thinking.

  I scuffed my right foot through the dust, left leg stretched out, the knee throbbing and swollen. The rest of me was just tired. I didn’t know how I was going to move again.

  “We need to get the kids away from Calum,” I said instead.

  “I know. If not Charlie, then where?”

  “Seventh. I used to go to this place there when I was bunking out of that shit school. No one uses it.”

  She didn’t look happy but she leaned in, gave me a kiss on the cheek and dragged me to my feet.

  “We’ll get out of here,” she said. “All of us.”

  The sky was starting to brighten by the time we got there. It was an old bar that had been hit by a stray shell eight years ago. Like most of this part of the city, no one had been interested in repairing it and it had been abandoned.

  She left me there. Just a hug that time. I watched her go from the doorway.

  I didn’t feel safe enough to sleep but I could hardly keep my eyes open. I made it up to the top floor where the roof had caved in and sat in amongst the rubble, watching the school across the street and the outpost guarding the junction at the end of the road. There was a guard on duty up there but no one else around. Dayton’s crowd wouldn’t come anywhere near this part of town. Not openly. Some of them lived out in the city, drank in the bars, met in the cafes and bakeries. I’d heard them talking about their lives. As if the tunnels and the resistance was just a job they went to afterhours. But they wouldn’t come after me out here in force. Not in daylight.

  I sat there watching as the sun rose and the city woke up and hurried about its business. Life goes on, even in a war zone. The place I was in wasn’t that bad. I reckoned if Dayton did try to get to me there, I could make a break for the outpost. They might take me in. Or even the school.

  I had no idea what Maisie was planning to get the kids away from Calum. Just the little ones, we’d agreed. Only the ones we knew for sure wouldn’t side with him. The ones he could use against me like he had Freddie.

  It was tough waiting. I should have been down there with them but she was right, I was no good to anyone if I was dead.

  I started planning how I could get Latia out, working out scenarios and what ifs, then I got the cards out and practised shuffling the deck, messing about. Once it got to midday, I started to get worried and worked my way back down to ground level to stand just inside the doorway, watching. I reckoned something was up when the troops at the outpost came out and started to patrol, warning people off the streets. It wasn’t often they threw out curfew orders in the middle of the day but it wasn’t unheard of. The school hadn’t even opened. I’d lost track of what day it was so I had no idea if it was even supposed to. It had crossed my mind that there would be food in there, but I didn’t want to disappear in case I missed Maisie. I kept thinking she’d turn up any minute.

  When she did, she was running. She had a bunch of the little ones with her, one of them balanced on her hip, my crutches in her other hand. A fairly stiff wind was blowing in from the desert and the kids were struggling in the heat and dust. I couldn’t see any of Dayton’s guys behind them, a couple of city folk scurrying up the road but no one with guns out, no one obviously chasing them. I limped out to meet her, let one of the youngsters clamber up onto my back and struggled along beside her, taking the crutches as she held them out to me.

  “What’s going on?”

  She was herding the kids as fast as they’d go. “Dayton’s attacking the mine. I’m going back for Latia. You need to get everyone inside.” She handed me the one she was carrying.

  With the crutches, I could hardly handle one, never mind two. They clung on, their little hands around my neck. I slowed. “Wait. Let
me come with you.”

  “You can’t,” she said. “Calum’s out looking for you. He’ll…”

  She was cut off as the ground shook with the force of a massive explosion. Another, even bigger, followed. The kids starting screaming. I looked around. A dust cloud was billowing up into the sky, way out in the desert, opposite direction to the crashed ship, but the shockwave had rippled through the ground under our feet.

  Maisie glanced round at me.

  “Oh shit,” I said.

  She looked horrified. “The processing plant?”

  “It must have been.”

  We stood there out on the street, wide open, soldiers from the outpost starting to turn and look at us.

  “We should get inside,” I muttered.

  We’d taken two steps then the warning siren started to wail. My stomach turned to ice. It felt like time stood still. Maisie looked at me. We’d both heard that siren before.

  We started to move.

  “Where do we go?” she yelled. “The school?”

  I was trying to keep up, not going fast enough. The last time the gas warning had sounded, we’d been with Latia and she’d taken us all to the shelter on her block, calmly telling us it had happened before and it would happen again, and it was nothing to be afraid of, they used such dangerous chemicals to process our ores, why else did we think they’d build such lovely shelters? I’d always thought they were for the air raids. We’d huddled there in the dark, listening to her stories and eating the candy from ration packs while we waited for the all clear.

  “It’s closed,” I shouted back between breathless gasps.

  “So where? Where’s the nearest shelter?”

  “The outpost.”

  It looked way off.

  I glanced behind us. The dust cloud was blowing into the city.

  I yelled, “Go. Get to the outpost.”

  I couldn’t move any faster. Maisie was trying to drag the others into a run. They were all crying. People behind us were shouting. The soldiers up ahead were shouting. And the whole time, the siren was wailing. We couldn’t move fast enough. The last time, when we’d come up out of the airtight shelter, the streets had been littered with dead bugs and dead birds. The wind was blowing it right at us and we couldn’t move fast enough. I knew it, from the distance and the wind speed. I almost pulled up and stopped trying to run but one of the kids had hold of my arm and was pulling me along.

  I looked behind us again. At the far end of the street, people who’d been taken by surprise, caught in the open, were starting to drop, bodies falling to the road. Maisie was screaming at me. More of the soldiers were appearing, shouting, a couple of them breaking away and running towards us.

  My eyes were watering, each breath getting harder.

  I didn’t recognise Charlie until he was right there beside me, taking the little ones I was carrying and shouting to one of the others to get that kid inside. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I tried to see where Maisie was but someone grabbed me and lifted me off my feet. I started yelling but they just ran, threw me over their shoulder and ran. My head was spinning, grey closing in, each pounding footstep driving hammers into my skull.

  It got dark, cool. I felt myself falling, dumped on the ground. I rolled and tried to get to my feet. I thought I was going to throw up. Someone reached a hand to my shoulder but I shrugged them off. There was shouting ahead of me. I blinked through the tears, trying to see, stumbling forward. People were at the door, shouting. I could hear Maisie screaming. There was an automated voice counting down, warning us to stand clear.

  Charlie was still out there.

  I could see him running, carrying two of the kids, pulling another behind him. He was shouting.

  Maisie was in the doorway, fighting to get free from the soldier who was holding her there, Spacey with them, just standing screaming.

  I pushed my way through. Everyone was shouting, willing them to get in.

  In a heartbeat, the countdown stopped. Someone yanked me backwards.

  And the door slammed shut.

  Chapter 18

  My heart was in my throat. One of the other soldiers began hammering at the override, swearing at the damned AI to open up.

  I struggled free and threw myself at the door. Charlie and the others were four steps away. I could see them through the window.

  “Get it open,” I yelled. I spun round. “They’re right here. Get it open.”

  The guy was thumping at the override.

  Three steps.

  “Toxicity levels high,” the AI was saying over the comm unit. “Facility secure.”

  We were all screaming at it to open the door.

  Two steps.

  The dust cloud was right behind them. It swirled.

  I yelled again. The soldier next to me was swearing, ripping the panel off the wall to get to the controls.

  Charlie stumbled to one knee, trying to shelter the kids, drawing them close and falling as the dust enveloped them. It crashed against the door, turning the window orange.

  I stood, staring, numb.

  It was deathly quiet in there.

  The AI said again in its clipped voice, “Toxicity levels high. Facility secure.”

  I couldn’t move.

  I’ve never trusted an AI since.

  Someone took me by the shoulder and led me away. They gave us oxygen. Maisie sat opposite me. She had Spacey on her knee, hugging her tight. I stared at them over the top of the mask, still struggling to breathe, eyes still watering.

  No one talked to us. Someone gave us meds, to counter the effects of any gas we might have been exposed to, I overheard someone say.

  I felt sick. People were moving all around us. It blurred into slow motion. My vision closed in and my reality flashed back to that dark night and the pouring rain. The screams, the explosions. The cold and paralysing fear. I started to shiver and I couldn’t stop.

  I was so lost, it felt like I would never find my way back but a gentle insistent whisper filtered through somehow and enticed me back to the outpost. Maisie had her arm around me. Someone had thrown a blanket over our shoulders. I leaned in to her and cried.

  The outpost was kept under lockdown for about sixteen hours. We weren’t the only civilians in there. There was a woman I recognised as one of the schoolteachers from across the road and two people I hadn’t seen before. We sat in a corner and they stared at us. Spacey kept asking where the others were like she’d forgotten what had happened already. She was four or five and I couldn’t look at her without thinking that was how small I’d been back then.

  Even when the all clear was given, they didn’t let us go. I could hear the schoolteacher talking to the soldiers about us. Maisie and Spacey were asleep, curled up on a bench.

  I stared into nothing.

  After a while, one of the soldiers walked up. He was wearing battle armour, sergeant’s stripes, and for a second I thought it was Charlie and it was as if nothing had happened. But he took his helmet off and he had dark hair. Not Charlie. Charlie was dead.

  I knew I wasn’t looking terribly welcoming but I couldn’t shift up a gear. It was like I’d zoned out and I didn’t want to go back.

  He looked at me, awkward, and crouched beside us.

  “Hey,” he said, like Charlie always had.

  I didn’t say anything.

  He put a ration pack down on the bench. He looked uncomfortable, like he wasn’t used to talking to kids.

  I said, “Thank you,” to be polite.

  “You’re the kid that does the numbers?”

  I shrugged.

  “I…” He rooted about in his pocket and I thought he was going to pull out a chocolate bar but he just pulled out his hand, clenched, and opened it, palm up, offering it to me.

  It was a chain with tags.

  I almost cried again but he was staring me in the eye so I sucked it up and stared back.

  “Charlie didn’t have any family,” he said, controlled as if he was s
ucking it up too. “We’re sure he would’ve wanted you to have these.”

  I took the tags and wrapped the chain around my hand.

  “There’s these as well,” he said, digging out some other stuff.

  It was the black band Charlie had always worn around his wrist and a pocket knife.

  I took them.

  The guy glanced down at Maisie and Spacey then looked back at me. “We know Charlie was trying to get you out of here. We’re seeing what we can do. Okay, bud?”

  I was biting my lip so bad I could taste blood. I nodded solemnly, the tags cold in my hand.

  “Don’t leave here. You understand?”

  I nodded again.

  He stood and backed off, looking at us as if he was going to say something and deciding against it.

  The schoolteacher was still looking at us as he walked away.

  I sat there, clutching Charlie’s stuff, my heart thumping. I had his deck of cards in my pocket. It felt like I had custody of his life and I didn’t know if I was big enough to do him justice.

  I put everything in my pocket and stood. Maisie would kill me but I couldn’t just sit there any more. Not without Latia. And it somehow felt like if Maisie was there and she had Spacey to look after, she wouldn’t be able to run out after me and she’d be safe. I just needed to go get Latia. And Peanut. And Benjie. And anyone else I could find.

  The schoolteacher stood and tried to intercept me. I mumbled something about needing the bathroom and she let me go, giving me that look I’d seen before, somewhere between wanting to look after me and worrying I was going to steal something from her.

  I didn’t take anything from her but I did sideswipe a couple of data boards that were lying there, without anyone seeing.

  There was no one else in the restroom. I locked the door and ran the tap for a bit in case anyone was listening. There was a small window in there that someone had pushed open already. I could hardly put any weight on my knee but I refastened the brace tighter, hoisted myself up and climbed out.