“Guys!” I whispered, hoping there were no guards close enough to hear me. “Guys, I can’t jump anymore!”
Deryt’s head appeared over the side of the roof. He beckoned for me to follow.
I shook my head and pointed to my lifeless crystal inside my locket. There was nothing I could do.
He dropped to the ground beside me. “You really have no magic left?” he said with a frown. “I thought Tika said something like you were using your own power now.”
“Not unless you want me passing out again,” I snapped at him. “Besides, I’m not sure what things I can do on my own, with my life energy or whatever, but super strength isn’t one of those things. Didn’t you guys bring something like a rope for climbing?”
Deryt sighed. “No time for that, just hold on.”
Before I could protest, he picked me up and jumped again. We landed on the roof and he set me down, but it surprised me enough that I still stumbled for a moment. Janera caught my arm and steadied me.
I scowled, even though it was too dark for anyone to see my facial expression. I didn’t like being pushed around by the others. “Why don’t you guys go on ahead without me? If I’m the only one who doesn’t have any magic, I’m just going to slow you all down. I could be, like, the lookout or something.”
“I’m usually the lookout,” Deryt muttered.
“You didn’t warn me last time, and I got caught,” Amena countered.
Kyra leaned closer. “Is it really a good idea to leave her alone if she doesn’t have any magic?”
Tika and Uqra took up positions on the edge of the rooftop. “You’ve got two good lookouts right here, especially since I have better night vision,” Tika said. “If Riwenne had any power from Quilla, she could probably see in the dark, too. But that’s not something we can rely on. It’s better if you go with them.” She bobbed her head at me.
I sighed. I’d thought about avoiding any real involvement in the actual robbery, but they would not let me off that easy.
Amena led us in a line across the roofs of the warehouses. At each building, she stopped and leaned over the edge to check the door. But then she shook her head and moved on.
“What are we looking for?” I whispered, trying to peer down at the door underneath us.
Amena glanced back at me. “Most of these warehouses are empty. I need to find one with something valuable inside.”
I squinted across the way to the next warehouse, trying to see in the window. “Wouldn’t it be easier to look inside?”
Amena shook her head and turned away without explaining.
Kyra sighed and elbowed me in the ribs. “Can you see inside those windows? No, dummy, because there aren’t any lights. Use your head.”
I shrank back from the insult. “But what can you tell from looking at the door?”
Deryt held up his hand for silence and waited as a guard passed by on the ground below us.Then he leaned closer and said in a low voice, “They don’t bother locking the empty warehouses. If we find a door with a lock on it, then there’s probably something inside.”
Amena had already moved on to the next building and now she was waving us over. When we crossed over to her, she said, “There’s a padlock on this one. Come down and wait in the shadows while I get it open.”
She jumped down first into the dark alley between the two warehouses and the rest of us followed. I let Janera help me down this time. Not because Deryt wasn’t gentle with me, I just liked her better.
We stayed in the shadows like she told us, but I peeked around the corner while Amena walked up the door and knelt in front of the padlock. Magic could have popped the lock open in seconds, but I guess she was preserving her energy. She pulled two small, pointy things out of her pocket and went to work. I’d read about lock picks in books before, but I’d never seen them in action. If only I could have been close enough to see what she was doing.
A minute or two later, Amena removed the padlock and opened the door a crack. She looked inside, then turned and beckoned us over. We checked to be sure the coast is clear, then hurried to follow her inside.
Deryt came in last and closed the door behind us, plunging us into total darkness. The warehouse looked big on the outside, but once we were inside, it felt as if the walls were closing in. I held down my feeling of panic by focusing on my breathing.
Amena struck a flint and lit a candle, holding it up high. The little flame illuminated our faces, leaving the rest of the warehouse full of dark shadows. She lit more candles and passed them around until everyone had their own source of light.
I cupped the flame in my hand so it wouldn’t shine out the windows and knelt in front of a crate to read the label. “This one says… potatoes!” I said, excitement creeping back into my voice. So there was food here. Well, at least I’d found something useful. I lifted the lid and pulled out the smallest sack I could find so it wouldn’t weigh down my pack too much.
The others found more food in the other crates and filled up their bags. Amena warned that we should save some space for other supplies.
After the food warehouse, we went to another building where Amena found more candles, rope, and other useful tools. I focused on getting what we needed to survive instead of the people who would suffer for losing these supplies. While the guilt never quite went away, the knot in my stomach loosened.
It seemed like we must have found everything we could use, and my pack was growing heavy with our stolen goods. But Amena scanned the yard with narrowed eyes as if she could sense something else she was looking for. Well, maybe she was using her magic a little, but I couldn’t fault her for that. I probably wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation if I still had some power left, no matter how small. But what else did she want?
She beckoned us over to another building. Guards were posted in front of the door, leaning up against the wall and looking bored, but there was no way to get around them. Amena took us to the window on the side and pulled out a strange-shaped blade I hadn’t seen before.
“Glass cutter,” Deryt whispered to us as he lifted Amena up to the window. She traced along one pane with the blade, then pushed against it.
The glass fell inside, and this time I felt her magic flare as she masked the sound. Kyra gasped in awe. Okay, I admit it was a neat trick, but that was a lot of work. Whatever was inside this building must be a lot more valuable than the food and tools we’d already taken, but what could that be?
Deryt boosted Amena through the window, then turned and offered a hand to the rest of us. “I’ll wait out here to help you back out when you’re finished.”
I waited as he lifted Kyra, then Janera got in with just a quick hand from Deryt. I was last, and I had the hardest time. The window was really high for me, and it seemed like I had no upper body strength left—as if when I’d lost my magic, I’d also lost all the muscles I’d built up in training over the past month and a half. He pushed me up enough that I could wriggle my hips through the hole, and Janera pulled on me at the other side, helping me down to the floor.
Amena was already bent over a crate, fiddling with a lock. I frowned, my suspicion growing. None of the other crates had been locked.
She pushed back the lid and revealed polished metal that gleamed in the candlelight. My eyes widened at the unmistakable shape. These were guns—heavy rifles, lined up in neat rows.
I rushed forward and put my hand out to stop Amena before she could reach for them. “What are you doing? Those are dangerous!”
She looked at me, her eyes dark and unreadable in the low light. “We need to defend ourselves, and we can’t rely on our magic anymore.” She pushed past me and lifted a rifle, sighting down the barrel like she knew what she was doing.
I stepped back in horror and crossed my arms over my chest. “No way! This has gone too far. Would you shoot someone?”
Amena glanced back at me, her eyes narrowed. “Yes, if it meant saving one of us.”
I shuddered, thinking of th
e moment Rennu shot Nexita. I couldn’t bear the thought of touching a gun—a real one—myself, ever again. Since I’d used a different magical weapon for each fight before, I’d tried out a gun once, but it had felt wrong in my hand. It was so easy to squeeze a trigger and cause so much destruction. That was only against mechanical beasts, but we wouldn’t be fighting mere machines anymore. We were fighting against living, breathing humans.
Kyra shook her head. “They’ll be shooting at us, you know. Your own sister didn’t hesitate to shoot grenades at our ship. We don’t stand a chance against the enemy if we don’t arm ourselves.”
“So we have to stoop to their level?” I turned away, unable to look at that horrible weapon any longer. “No. I won’t turn into a monster like them.”
Amena handed me one of her bags of food. “Fine, carry something else. We don’t have time to argue.” She passed out guns to the others, then opened another crate and pulled out cases of bullets.
I know Amena was our leader now, but I couldn’t believe she was just making these decisions without even listening to what the rest of us had to say. I went back to the window and climbed up on the crates. Hopefully, this was our last stop and we could leave. I was already dreading the long walk back.
Deryt gave me a hand through the opening. I don’t know if he’d heard our argument inside. We’d been trying to keep our voices down around the guards. He didn’t look at me or say anything. Great, everyone could judge me however they wanted. I was so done with them.
But as the others started climbing back out with their deadly weapons, a guard came around the corner and saw us. “You there! Halt!”
Deryt, who was in the middle of helping Kyra, turned toward me with wide eyes. “Run!”
I hoisted my heavy bags with all of my remaining strength and ran in the opposite direction.
Behind me, I could hear the others scrambling to get out and bolt before the guard could catch them. But his shouts had raised the alarm and there were more guards running toward us from all over the yard. More bright lights flared on, shining into every corridor and space between the buildings.
I dodged left, then right, weaving among the warehouses as I looked for an opening to escape the guards. I couldn’t remember the way we’d come. All the buildings looked the same. I looked back, hoping the others knew which way to go.
I was alone.
A gunshot rang out, echoing in the maze of warehouses. I froze in my tracks. Who had fired—the guards, or my friends? I wasn’t sure which option was worse.
“There’s one of them!” a guard shouted.
Oh, shoot, they’d spotted me again. There was no time to worry about the others.
I turned down another blind alley and kept running, but I was on the last of my energy. It forced me to drop my bags of stolen supplies just to keep going. Amena could yell at me for that later.
One more turn and I faced the wall. At least I’d found the edge of this place. I stopped short and looked up… and up. There was no gate here, nothing for me to climb—no way out without magic.
“Put your hands in the air!” a guard commanded, coming up behind me. He didn’t sound at all winded after chasing me, while I was panting with exhaustion.
I put my hands up and turned around. He had a gun pointed straight at me. I couldn’t hold back my frustration any longer. Tears spilled out of my eyes, and I collapsed to my knees.
“I surrender,” I moaned, bowing my head. “Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll give myself up.”
Wherever my friends were, they couldn’t help me now. The guards had me surrounded and cuffed, and I couldn’t stop crying. But part of me was relieved. I wouldn’t have to run anymore.
7
Caught!
The warehouse guards took me to their security office in handcuffs. The sergeant on duty was kind, offering me a seat and a mug of hot tea while we waited for the constables. She asked me if I knew where the others had gone, but I could honestly say I had no idea. They must have escaped in the confusion, and I didn’t know if I could remember the exact location of Amena’s hidden village even if I wanted to.
When I was calm, I thought things could’ve worked out. My friends would be better off without me to slow them, and I wouldn’t have to argue with them about the methods we used. Once, we’d had a mission, but it seemed to be falling apart now. Maybe I could give up.
The constables loaded me into the back of a wagon and drove me to the station. The wagon was pulled by horses, which I’d never seen in person before, but I didn’t have the chance to look at the animals or the low-tech vehicle.
Being stuck inside a jail cell didn’t sound like fun. I mulled over my options during the ride. I could play up the sympathy angle, say that the others had forced me into stealing. It was sort of the truth, but then they’d want me to give more information about how to find the others.
I had one other option, and my stomach knotted up just thinking about it. Minister Rennu, who claimed he was my father, had asked me to join him. If I could get the local constables to contact him, he might come get me now. Not that I wanted to join his horrible experiments to steal energy from innocent civilians. But Nexita was still with him. At least I’d be able to see her again.
The wagon lurched to a stop. Another constable, an older man with a bristly mustache, took me by the arm and escorted me inside. The station was just as rustic as everything else I’d seen since coming to the mainland. There was a single sunstone lamp in the middle of the ceiling, but it wasn’t bright enough to illuminate all the work spaces. Each desk had a gas lamp, and there were only gaslights outside. The rough wooden furniture looked like it had been made by hand. Much of the paperwork I saw was handwritten. Why wouldn’t the imperial government give their own constable force the money for better facilities?
The constable, who introduced himself as Sergeant Marauket, led me to a desk. He let me sit down in the chair, even took off my handcuffs. Then he leaned against the desk. “It’s late, so I’ll just ask you a few standard questions tonight,” he said, pulling out a pad of paper.
I rubbed my wrists and looked at the floor. “Um, I’ll try to answer as best I can. I’m sorry, I’ve never been arrested before. I don’t know everything that I’m supposed to do.”
“That’s fine, darlin’. You just go on cooperating and we’ll get along all right.” He cleared his throat. “Let’s start with your name.”
I took a deep breath. “Riwenne Chysaja.”
His pencil scratched along the paper. “That sounds like a city name.”
I nodded. “Lyndamon. I grew up there.”
“That’s quite a way from here,” he said with a frown. It wasn’t often that children from the cities got sent to apprentice down in the mainland, or vice versa. He must wonder why I was over the border from the Central Province. “You look young, too. Did you just move here? I’ve heard you city folk have trouble adjusting to life down on the ground, but that don’t excuse stealin’ things that ain’t yours.”
I shrank down, bowing my head lower. “I—I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to take anything, but we—I was desperate.” I forced myself to look up at him. “Honestly, I’m not supposed to be here. They gave me an apprenticeship in Lyndamon, but I… ran away. And I regret that. I’d like to go back.”
The sergeant’s frown deepened. “Hm. That’s not so easy since we’ve caught you breaking the law.” He made another note on his pad. “First step is verifying your identity. Where did you say they posted you?”
I shifted in my seat. “I was a novice in Damon Temple.” I was ashamed to admit that I’d given up my dream of becoming a priestess, and I knew he’d judge me for running away from that sacred job. There was no way I could explain a goddess told me to do it. I sat up taller. “But for me, you should, um, contact Minister Rennu at Research & Development. He… offered me a position there. Tell him I’m willing to work for him.”
Sergeant Marauket’s eyebrows shot up. “You were s’posed to
be a priestess, but now you want to be an engineer? And I’ll just radio the head of R&D to vouch for you?” He folded his arms and looked down at me. “This all sounds a little far-fetched. And what about your thievin’ friends? Do they want to go back, too?”
I shook my head. “No, I mean, I don’t know. We were arguing before we got separated. They would probably say no.” I looked down at my hands, picking at dry skin along my fingernails. The past few days had been rough. “I don’t agree with what they’re trying to do, so that’s why I’m giving myself up.”
“Uh huh.” His tone implied that he still didn’t believe what I was saying. “And what are they doing?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know anymore. We tried to join the rebels, but they didn’t want us.” I sighed. “Look, I can’t tell you anything else useful. I already told the security guard that I can’t help you find them. They’re long gone by now, more than happy to abandon me. So lock me up.” I looked at him pleadingly. “But if there is any way that you could contact R&D in the city, or even the head priestess at my temple, I bet they’d want to hear from me. I at least owe them an apology.”
The sergeant hesitated with his pencil over his paper, his face softening. Maybe sympathy would have worked on him from the start.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said at last, scribbling more notes. “Your information could be more useful than you realize, so we’ll go over all the details together, but that can wait until tomorrow. You’ll have a long night in a cell to think about what you’ve done.”
I held up my hands again, but he didn’t bring out the handcuffs, didn’t even touch me this time. I guess he trusted me enough not to try anything. Not that I could have done much without magic—he was twice my size and there was a pistol on his belt, plus the other armed officers in the station.
Sergeant Marauket led me to the back. There were only two small cells, both of them empty. He locked me in one of them and said good night.
Riwenne & the Bionic Witches Page 5
