by Y A Marks
Jonas leaned forward his hands on his knees. His body rose and fell as he caught his breath.
I had never seen anyone move like that. Even military style training wasn’t that advanced. He was part ninja and the other part super spy.
Jonas raised his body to his full height and turned toward me. “Let’s go. We’ve lost too much time.”
CHAPTER 19
I groaned as I forced my body to stand. Jonas wasted no time and left me to find the others.
“You okay?” Ares asked.
“Yeah, having the time of my life,” I said.
He found his bundle of weapons just as two of the others from his group joined us. We traced our steps back toward Shannon and Pyra. When we arrived, there were at least twelve men skewered in various places. From their various locations, a few enemies moaned. They weren’t dead but had arrows through body parts.
Jonas lifted Pyra onto his back as we arrived.
“I thought you said only the Rattlers wanted me dead,” I mumbled.
Jonas spun around toward me. “I don’t think the Originals wanted anything. I think they are just here for the normal Death Days. It’s lucky we made it when we did.”
I tucked my lips into my mouth and tasted my blood. I wasn’t in bad shape. I had a few more cuts, a busted lip, and a massive headache.
Ares stole a few, deep breaths. His eyes pierced the night air with a twinge of dread.
I patted him on the shoulder. “You’re pretty handy. I’m glad that you’re on my team, I’d hate to be on the other end of those knives.”
He shrugged.
“We’ll get through this. I’ve been through—” I paused and released a light giggle. “Well, actually this is the worst I’ve ever been through.” I held his gaze and intensified mine. “We’ll make it.”
His expression brightened. “That’s what my wife always says.”
“She sounds like a pretty smart lady.”
“She’s something to put up with me.” A sly grin angled on his lips.
I gave my best smile. “When I’m in trouble, I think the people I love give me an extra boost—strength, I think. I don’t know how it happens, but it’s like they keep me alive.”
There was no point in arguing about the fact that love was in my heart. Yes, I pushed it away. Yes, I was afraid of it, but it gave me something that I couldn’t understand. It drove me to fight for the right reasons.
At this point, we had to be all in. The Razorbacks Township was destroyed. We had lost a few, key people on our side and several more people were injured. I wanted to make sure Ares and maybe a few others still had a bit of hope left.
My quick speech sounded pretty corny. I was sure that Jonas would have said it much more eloquently, but Ares nodded. A second later, his shoulders squared. Dread ebbed away into the night. Even Pyra had a more readied look.
Maybe, I could be this better person. I just had to give my one-hundred percent and remember the parts of me that I liked the best: my compassion, my love, my eighty percent accuracy with a gun, and my dry sense of humor—like the Sahara Desert dry.
I took a step toward Shannon. “You ready?”
“Sure little Jonas, I’m ready,” she said.
I caught a laugh in my throat with her reference. I was nothing like Jonas, but for some reason, I was excited to hear those words.
Ares climbed to the top of one of the few buildings that weren’t burned and checked the activity north. After his okay, the rest of us jogged south over the thick grasses toward Circle One. Shannon did her best to keep up, but Pyra had to jump on Jonas’s back because her injuries were too severe.
Within minutes, the sky turned a crisp blue. The sun slid under the horizon taking with it the last of the red-orange rays. The arch drop over Circle One and Norwood’s office appeared in the distance. The landscape was quiet. The breeze was calm but still biting, with a mild, dewy scent.
Pyra groaned a little as we strolled along. With her tightened face and clenched teeth, I could only imagine the pain she was going through. I had been lucky so far to end up with a few scratches. Shannon whispered something to Pyra before hobbling over to join me.
“How is she?” I asked.
“She’s… Well, she’s alive and ready to fight.”
“How about you? You okay?” I asked. I hoped that she felt the sincerity in my words. I really liked Shannon and wanted her to know I would be there for her.
Her face lit up, and she arched her back. “My worst Death Days are behind me. I’m in the presence of the great Jonas and the girl who could. We’re on our way to break free of this place. I’m more than okay.”
“Are you planning to see your mother when we get out?”
She nodded with a flat smile on her face. Her body rose and fell with expanded lungs. “Yep, I can’t wait to see her again. I know she misses me. She sent me some cookies a few months back. I’ll probably have to meet her in secret, but that’s okay. I just want to be in her arms again and to be a little girl for a few minutes.”
I brightened my expression, but an agonizing pinch cut into my heart. I would never have what Shannon had. My mother was dead. I focused my eyes forward. I wasn’t going to break down again.
“You okay?” Shannon asked.
Before I could say anything, she wrapped her arm around me. Somehow, she knew I needed to be held. Maybe, she understood that I needed to be held in someone’s arms, someone who cared about me without judgment. I quickstepped forward, moving away from her embrace.
I didn’t want to lean on Shannon. I couldn’t be the one who was always taking. I had to give and be stronger.
“Thanks,” I said. “But, I’m okay.”
“It’s okay. We all have our demons. I’m just hoping once we get out of here I can trade mine in for something better.”
I nodded. She was right. I did have my demons. I hadn’t truly gotten over the death of my mother or Dhyla. It was evident from my anger with Trivet. I hadn’t recognized how important parents were to me until I lost the last glimmer of one.
A faint, high-pitched tone echoed into the air. It was just enough to make me open my eyelids to their widest.
Ares turned around and gasped in the loudest whisper I had ever heard in my life, “Get down!”
I hit the ground, forcing Shannon down with me. I don’t think she was ready, and I wasn’t. She released a soft scream as we hit the hard, Georgia clay. I put my hand over her mouth to quiet her, but I saw the anguish in her face from the sudden blow. Her leg had to be burning, and I hoped that we didn’t rip out one of the stitches.
Ten, brown blurs warped through the air above us with such speed that I couldn’t tell what they were. However, one of the six people from Trivet’s group let us know that whatever they were, they were lethal. A young guy about my age screamed as at least two of the objects tore into his body. I released Shannon and shuffled around with my heart pounding in my chest. My arms windmilled forward as I tried to get a better view of what had happened.
“What was that?” Shannon asked.
“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out,” I said.
The wailing guy fell over, blood spurting from his left arm. Everything below his bicep was missing. His right arm grasped his neck as blood spewed from an unseen wound.
Whatever that was, it wasn’t a gun. It was something else, quieter with a wider attack radius. If it could cut his arm off in one blow, then it may be a bit more dangerous than a simple bullet. A second passed, and I could faintly hear a rolling thump in the far distance. A second glance, and I knew exactly what it was—a catapult.
Yeah, a cat-a-pult.
It wasn’t enough that I had to be dropped into the stone ages, but these prisoners had figured out a way to make a stupid catapult. It was a perfect match to the mace I had battled earlier. At that point if I had seen a fire-breathing dragon, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all. In fact, I kind of wanted to meet a few warlocks or elves.
The mo
re I thought about it, the more I recognized that fashioning a catapult in the primitive setting of the prison would be relatively easy, especially with the information from the Internet at the builder’s disposal. Whether I was wrong or right in my assumption didn’t remove any of the danger. Catapults killed people hundreds of years ago. I was pretty sure they would have no problems today.
My body trembled as I turned back around and tugged on Shannon. Her face was red and her skin was dry. I probably looked the same. We both were tired and trying to stay calm enough to survive.
Everyone, including Jonas and Ares, stayed on our stomachs, crawling forward for a few dozen yards. A few more whistling objects shot overhead. I couldn’t tell if the aim was starting to worsen or not, but I had a feeling it would only be a matter of time before someone thought to aim into the grass.
I didn’t like being out in the open. Even with my gun and twelve bullets, I didn’t feel any more comfortable than if I was in a house made of tissue paper.
“We’ll have to make a run for it,” Jonas said.
“Those things are coming too fast,” someone said, I’m not sure exactly who.
“They’ll cut us to shreds if we stay here.”
A deep exhale came from up ahead. I didn’t like the way the exhale was forced into the air. I pressed my fingers against the cold ground and glanced over the top of the grass. Ares swung a piece of wood through the air a few feet from where he was. There was a loud snap and a huge, metal object bounced into the air before falling back into the grass.
Ares turned around. His normal, olive color was gone from his face. “Traps, lots of traps up ahead.”
“Jesus,” I said.
I wasn’t a true believer, “lukewarm” about religion as Ms. Cooper called me, but right then any heavenly help would have been great. With giant, wood spikes catapulting over us and what could only be bear traps on the ground, I was seriously starting to think my one-in-a-million odds were overly optimistic.
CHAPTER 20
“We have to run. That’s our only option,” Jonas said.
“But where?” Ares said.
As my adrenaline increased and death knocked, I fell into the depths of anger. My emotions, including love and sympathy, switched off in favor of a more self-serving rationale. I didn’t like the fact that I had considered using Shannon as bait before. The thought haunted me as the tension over us thickened. I wanted to be the new hopeful Paeton, the one who wanted a better life and was willing to fight for it.
Shannon and I exchanged glances. She grabbed my wrist as though she could see the same vacancy inside of me that I knew was there. She knew my heart was abandoning her, Jonas, and everyone else. Her head slightly moved left to right as though she was warning me to stay with her, on this side. I took a deep breath to calm down. I had to find a way to get my emotions in check, or I might just end up letting her die just to save myself. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t let Clarisse win.
“I’m not going to leave. We’re going to get out of this together,” I said. My words pressed against my heart. I had said them for me and not for Shannon.
“Sure, you’re the lucky one,” she said.
I glanced through the thick weeds and then cut my eyes back across an opening in the concrete structures about two hundred yards to my left.
“Ares, you think they put those traps everywhere?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” he said. “They can’t have many of them, though, unless they just got them dropped in.”
“Good, then I think maybe the backdoor might work. What do you think?” I nodded toward the far left.
I watched his head pop up and check the area. He craned his head back toward me. We both surveyed the others. Everyone looked nervous but ready to make a move and get out of impending danger.
Ares was quiet for a moment. “Worth a shot. We move on three?”
I nodded.
“One… two… three.”
I yanked on Shannon’s arm, lifting her and me in one movement. We flew from our positions and landed in the high grass, just as several more, whistling blurs shot across the field.
“Run!” I yelled.
My hand fumbled to keep contact with Shannon.
If I dropped her arm, we both could run faster, but I refused. She even seemed to be yanking her arm away, but I held on tighter as though Shannon was the last link to my humanity.
All of us dashed to the left. I spotted the traps sitting on the ground, many just a few yards apart. They looked large enough to snap my leg off.
A loud whistle tapped my eardrums. A large blur barreled toward us. I pushed Shannon in the shoulder and fell down over her. The blur shot over our heads, and the grass swayed in the wake of it.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Still with you.”
I exchanged glances with Shannon, exhaled, and jumped back to my feet, yanking her up with me. The whizzing spray of blurs continued for two hundred yards until we neared our destination. A few yelps came from the others, but everyone was still running when Ares finally made a turn for the gap in the buildings.
Jonas followed him with Pyra on his back. At least two other people were faster than me and Shannon, so we made up the final four.
We came to rest at the staging area near Circle One. When I had first arrived at the prison, the Originals stood in this area, covered by the barn-like structure. There were five structures in all, which created a semi-circle around Circle One. Luckily for us, there were a few thousand pounds of metal and concrete between us and the catapult.
Ares took out some kind of make-shift spyglass. As he surveyed the area, I glanced over our meager troop. Two of the Razorbacks were tending to large gashes on their arms. Nothing appeared to stop the use of any of their limbs.
“We were lucky,” one of them said.
“Well, let’s just hope our luck keeps up,” Jonas replied. He gazed at Pyra, who appeared as though she was half asleep. “You okay?” he asked her.
She nodded, but her breaths were heavy and long.
With glossy eyes, Shannon moved toward Pyra and rubbed Pyra’s arm. “This ain’t nuthin’. Jonas has got you.”
Pyra forced a smile. Shannon ran her hands through Pyra’s hair, but Shannon’s quaking fingers were easily seen from ten-feet away.
Something pinched my heart. I had taken for granted that Pyra was Shannon’s friend. I just saw her as a whiny girl, but Shannon had shared a year of life with her. They had probably been good girlfriends. I was the odd one. I was no closer to Jonas, Shannon, and Pyra than Ares and his crew was to me. It was evident that Shannon loved Pyra as much as I loved Sun Hi or even Mari and Miko.
I could only imagine the anguish within her right now, seeing her friend’s life ebbing away.
Ares’ voice cut through my mental concerns. “There’s no one near Circle One.”
“Then, it’s a trap.” Jonas crawled forward and opened his hand to receive the telescope from Ares.
“Yeah.” Ares’ eyes wiggled in the sockets as he glanced over the group. “Thomas, Delphi, you two will come with me. We’ll either draw their fire or find out how we can stop whatever that shooting thing was.”
“You sure?” Jonas asked.
Ares’s face became hard as he looked at Jonas. “Dude, you guys are the package. We’re just the delivery. But don’t count me out. I’ve got a son who I want to see again.”
Without a reply, the two guys Ares appointed moved over to him. Ares pointed to one of the metal beams that shot up into the roof of the barn-like structure. Without a goodbye or look back, all three of them started climbing the metal beam.
Jonas turned back toward me. “We’ll give them three minutes, then dart across to the area right under Circle One. That’s where the generator is.”
“On the other side of the concrete wall?” Shannon asked.
“Yes. We have three explosives. We need to set one, get the wall open. Toss another at the generator to destroy it, and fina
lly, make it back over to Norwood’s tower.” Jonas pointed from across the open area to the tower, which was about a hundred yards from Circle One.
The tower was a beige concrete and had to be at least four stories off the ground.
“Um, how do we get inside?” I asked.
“We climb.”
My stomach dropped right out of my body. I wasn’t afraid to fall, but it seemed impossible.
“So, if we do somehow survive the first two tasks, we have to climb up that thing?” Shannon asked.
“The tower has an indented, brick-like surface. It should be easy to grab hold and scale. The third explosive is to put a hole near the top. After the hole is there, we can climb into Norwood’s office. Any more questions?” Jonas looked annoyed.
I shook my head and turned to watch Shannon do the same.
“Good.” He stood and slid Pyra down onto the ground. “Pyra, you and Shannon will stay here. If any head pops up looking like it’s going to shoot us, kill it.”
Both of them nodded. I rubbed Shannon’s upper arm. She had shot her first death blow just a few hours earlier.
“The second time is easier,” I whispered.
She didn’t turn to face me, but she nodded her head in acknowledgment.
“I need one of you to stay here,” Jonas told the Razorback guys. “The other one can come with me. Don’t you get my girls killed.” His face studied the other two guys. Once he was satisfied, he glanced at me. “It’s time to put that thing to use.”
Both of our gazes slid down to the gun holstered on my hip. It didn’t feel like the right time to remind Jonas that my aim wasn’t all that great when I was moving. My only consolation was that no one else knew that either. As far as any enemy was concerned, I could be a perfect shot. The sound of a gun can strike fear even without a bullet. I knew that from years on the street. Anytime I heard anything that sounded like a gunshot, even if it was just a car backfiring, I always looked for cover.
“Alright, it’s been enough time for our friend Ares. Let’s get moving.”
Jonas stood, keeping his shoulders bent and glanced around. After a few seconds, he took a deep breath, exchanged glances with me and the taller of the two, last Razorbacks, and started jogging toward Circle One. I followed him, gun extended with both hands.
