Into the Real

by Z Brewer

  “She and I went to a lot of work to get Caleb here in Brume, and after all that, it seemed like you weren’t going to kill him. Who were we supposed to pin his death on, if not the Resistance? With him dead, murdered while in the Resistance’s custody, by one of yours, according to Lia’s eyewitness account, I can run the Allegiance with Lia at my side, with no questions from my followers about my involvement in Caleb’s demise. The perfect life. Once we dispose of you and your pitiful militia, of course.”

  I wanted to ask him how long they’d been together, if my relationship with her had just been part of the con. But wanting to ask something and desiring an answer are two very different things. Any answers he gave wouldn’t change the facts or lessen the pain I felt.

  He wore a smug smile that reminded me of Caleb. “Oh, one piece of advice? You should be more careful who you trust. At last count, the Allegiance had six spies within your ranks here in Brume. And they are very loyal. Fast too, considering how quickly Lia was returned to me after killing Caleb.”

  It had all been a setup. Lia had urged me again and again to kill Caleb, and when I didn’t, she took matters into her own hands. All so she and Kai could run the Allegiance untethered.

  I said, “The talk of peace before? It was bullshit, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but it got you here. In a place where you’re surrounded by hundreds of armed soldiers at my beck and call, and no one to help you, but the sad excuse of a first officer who accompanied you here.” A chuckle escaped him. “Besides, I wanted to see the look on your face when I revealed the truth. And it is delightful, little brother.”

  Kai could never be a brother to me in this reality. He chose over and over again not to be.

  Carefully, so he knew I wasn’t drawing my weapon, I removed the watch from my wrist and handed it to him without a word.

  A look of genuine surprise washed over his features. “Grandfather’s watch.”

  He strapped the watch to his wrist and examined its face. “I thought you’d never let me have it.”

  “That’s the difference between you and me, Kai. I can change.” He was so wrapped up in getting what he wanted that he didn’t bother asking why I’d given it to him now. Typical. “Are we done here?”

  He didn’t respond, too focused on his newest possession. My jaw tightened. I turned back toward the door through which we’d entered the room. I was about to step outside, suspecting that his guards would be waiting for Lloyd and me with their rifles at the ready. But an uneasy feeling crawled up my spine, slowing my steps before I could open the door.

  A loud bang rang through the empty room, dragging time to a crawl. In a matter of seconds that felt like ages, I turned back to face Kai. His right arm was outstretched. He gripped a pistol in his hand. A small line of smoke curled from its muzzle. His finger was on the trigger, and his hand was steady with intent. Lloyd tumbled to the floor in that slow-motion moment, his chest covered in blood. It took the span of a breath for me to comprehend what had happened. Kai had taken a shot at my back, intending to kill me in a coward’s fashion. Lloyd had seen what he was about to do and dived forward, taking the bullet in my stead.

  Without another thought, I brought my arm across my body and pulled the 9 mm from the holster under my arm. Time inched forward, still moving as if it had forgotten how. I ran at Kai, my feet moving soundlessly across the floor. When I squeezed the trigger of my gun, the shot sounded as if it was coming from some far-off place—another world, maybe. Kai shifted before the bullet reached him, and it grazed his arm, ripping through the fabric of his jacket. The second shot blew through his shoulder.

  Damn.

  Kai aimed his gun at me, and I watched, expecting to die, as he pulled the trigger.

  But I didn’t die.

  Kai’s face dropped. He pounded the side of the barrel with the heel of his hand. His gun must have jammed. After another solid hit, his action seemed to knock loose whatever had been slowing time. A symphony of chaos filled my ears. Lloyd’s shallow breathing. The echoes from our gunfire. Raised voices outside. At once, I was on Kai, pointing my empty gun at my brother’s forehead, my finger on the trigger.

  Kai pressed his head against the muzzle, his eyes aflame with anger, hatred, venom—everything but fear. Briefly, the image of Coe doing the same thing flashed through my mind. He growled, “Do it. Do it, you fucking coward.”

  Whoever this man was, he was no brother of mine. He was a murderer. He was a monster.

  A familiar feeling slipped over the edges of my being. One I’d had upon killing Lloyd in that other life. That I was a monster.

  Shaking it away, I drew my arm back and brought it forward, pistol-whipping him. He hit the ground, a look of pain in his eyes. Pain, but not surprise. It troubled me that nothing I did seemed to surprise Kai.

  I snatched the walkie clipped to his belt and pressed the button on the side. “All clear. Repeat. All clear.”

  Time slowed again as I waited for a response. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. If they doubted the all clear I’d given, this room would fill up with well-trained, well-armed soldiers faster than I could blink.

  A crackling sound came over the walkie, followed by “Roger that.”

  Hurrying back to Lloyd, I knelt at his side and watched his chest rise and fall. He was still alive. I pressed my fingers to his neck. His pulse was weak, but steady. If I could just get him back to base, he might have a chance.

  Kai chuckled as he moved to stand once again. A thin line of blood trailed from his hairline to his left eyebrow. He had no weapon, but that didn’t weaken his resolve. “You really think you’re leaving, don’t you? You actually believe I had any intention of letting you live. So naive, Quinn, and so wrong.”

  Outside, chaos had erupted at the sound of gunfire. I weighed my options. The easiest choice—one that I discounted the moment it occurred to me—was to abandon Lloyd and run. A second possibility was to locate a med kit containing a shot of adrenaline and get Lloyd on his feet well enough that he could run with me, but that would require running into the heart of HQ first. The only idea that actually seemed viable was the third. I could carry Lloyd on one shoulder and get the hell out the front door. It was the shortest point between us and freedom, a straight line. And if I managed to pull it off, whispers of my escape would spiderweb their way through the Allegiance, inspiring fear and awe.

  Whatever I was going to do, I had to act fast. If everything went according to plan, I had less than five minutes to get us both to cover.

  Lloyd’s eyes were closed, but moving slightly beneath his eyelids, as if he were dreaming deep. I hoped it was a good one.

  “You’ll die whimpering, little brother. You’ll die begging for your life to be spared. You’ll die yearning for the life I have, the girl I love, and our parents’ unending respect and affection.” The corner of his mouth twitched. To my surprise, he didn’t take a single step toward me. He also didn’t call for help. Maybe he was confident that we’d never get out of HQ alive. Maybe his arrogance had convinced him the Allegiance was unbeatable. “I almost feel sorry for you.”

  As I pulled air into my lungs and released it, I found my center—that place of calm where I wasn’t a slave to my fear. As I took in another breath, I slipped the knife from my boot and threw it hard at Kai. He tried to dodge it, but the blade plunged deep into his stomach. Not enough of a wound to kill him outright. Just enough to keep him occupied.

  I wondered if he felt like someone had just punched him. I wondered if his vision had begun to fade.

  With the sound of Kai stumbling, then falling to his knees behind me, I pushed the door open a crack and spied the guard standing just outside. Swinging around the door, I cracked him at the base of his skull with my gun. He crumpled to the ground, unconscious. I exchanged my weapon for the loaded pistol from his holster, and then I kept my steps as fast and as light as I could as I moved back inside. I didn’t want to use the damn thing, but I would if I had to.

  It took som
e effort to hoist Lloyd’s unconscious body up over one shoulder. Lucky for me, he was all lean muscle, no bulk. But that didn’t mean that his deadweight was easy to bear. After one last look at the man who’d been my brother at one point in time—was still my brother in another existence—I checked the time, said a silent goodbye to Kai, and stepped out the door.

  My boots sank into the earth as I rounded the corner of the building and kept close to the wall. The courtyard was occupied by about twenty soldiers policing the base and fifteen civilians. When we’d approached HQ initially, there had been a large platoon outside the gate, guarding the entrance. I hadn’t thought I’d be leaving. Just Lloyd, if we were lucky. But plans change.

  Lloyd was heavy on my shoulder, so I shifted his weight and kept an eye on my six as best as I could. So far, so good. Just another fifty yards and we were home free.

  “Stop! Halt!”

  Damn.

  I looked over my shoulder to see an older man raising his rifle to aim. The gun dropped out of his hands when my bullet ripped through his shoulder. He’d live, but he might never shoot again.

  Soldiers turned their heads toward me, aiming their weapons. I was going to die. After all this, I was going to die anyway. I bolted for the tree line, the only sound my heart thundering in my ears.

  Then the air clapped hard with a thunderous explosion, nearly knocking the wind from my lungs. I stumbled, and Lloyd and I both fell to the grass. Bits of debris fell all around the courtyard, the ground sprinkled with ash that was falling like snow. The smell of burning building filled the air. I watched in sad triumph as the fire spread from the main building we’d just left to the smaller one next to it. The soldiers had forgotten about me for the time being—their focus was on the mayhem. People were running. Panicking. But I had done what I’d come here to do.

  Maybe part of me actually thought I might be able to reason with Kai. But if that were true, I wouldn’t have pressed the timed trigger on the side as I’d handed the watch over to him, starting a countdown to the dangerous explosive material that had been carefully placed inside the watch. Randall, one of our munitions experts, had said that the new incendiary he and his team had been working on was both terrifying and effective, and he’d delivered on that statement. Allegiance headquarters was burning to the ground.

  “Come on, Lloyd. Let’s get you home.” I wished I felt like, though I was leaving a brother behind, I was rescuing the one in my arms, but that would have been a lie. The truth was, care for Lloyd as I did, I was saving him out of a sense of obligation. The Resistance didn’t leave anyone behind—not if they could help it. But I wasn’t driven by the bond of friendship. Not anymore. Not since he’d shown me that he could never accept my truth. Between his response to my hint at queerness and learning of Lia’s betrayal, I was feeling more alone than I ever had before. Unless I thought of the other Quinn that I was, in the other Brume where Rippers were the norm. We were both lonely. Maybe we were doomed to be lonely forever.

  After what felt like hours, I sat in the front hall of the school, on a chair not ten feet from the room in which Lloyd was being operated on. My face was in my hands, covered with Lloyd’s blood and my tears. Both of which dripped to the tile floor below. My head felt too heavy to lift. He had to live. They had to save him. In spite of everything, I couldn’t lose—

  A loud tone rang through the halls. My heart didn’t just sink—it chewed its way deep inside of me.

  Lloyd had just flatlined.

  7

  I sat up, but I refused to wipe my tear-streaked face dry. On the floor of the cave across from me lay Caleb, fast asleep. His head rested on his folded arms. His legs were drawn up close to him, as if he were cold . . . or frightened. As the war-torn Brume fell away from me, memories from this one came flooding back. I’d killed Lloyd, and then we’d run. We’d hidden in the cave in the park because it was close.

  Lloyd . . .

  My clothes were covered in blood. Was it the blood of Lloyd my enemy, or Lloyd my friend? Against my will, I pictured the hammer jutting out of Lloyd’s neck—the wild, confused look on his face. His blood as it poured forth, bubbling out of his jugular like a low-pressure fountain of horror.

  It was only then that I realized I was still clutching the hammer in my hand.

  My stomach lurched with a dry heave, drawing me to my feet. I gagged as I moved away from where Caleb slept, convinced I was going to vomit, but only acidic-tasting saliva filled my mouth. Resting my free hand on the wall of the cave, I spat on the floor and took a few calming breaths.

  “Are you okay?” Caleb sat up, rubbing his eyes into wakefulness.

  “I’ve been better.” My voice sounded hoarse. I wanted to let go of the hammer, or to throw it as far away from me as I could, but something within me insisted on keeping it in my hand. By the look of the light on the cave walls, the sun was up. “We’ve gotta find Lia.”

  He stood, brushing dirt from his pants, which struck me as strange, considering how filthy his shirt was. “I think we should take a little time. Don’t you?”

  “No.” My voice was deadpan.

  Caleb looked like he was debating something, but whatever it was, he laid it aside and said, “Any ideas on where to start?”

  My lungs were burning. It almost felt like I’d been smoking. “Lloyd said he put her in the only place I couldn’t get to.”

  “Maybe he meant the other side of the wall of fog. If there is another side. Or maybe in the fog.”

  “No. For all his bravado, Lloyd is . . .” I trailed off, swallowing the lump that had formed in my throat. It went down hard. My grip tightened on the hammer. I couldn’t let go of it. In a strange, sick way, it felt like releasing it from my grip would somehow defend my actions. “. . . was . . . a real coward when it came to that wall. Most people are. He wouldn’t put her there. He’d put her somewhere I had no chance of reaching her.”

  “Maybe a well?”

  “Or a cellar.” Realization hit me like a slap across the face. “Caleb, I think I know where Lia is.”

  “Where?”

  I thought of the last time I’d seen the wine cellar. The POP sounds that had chased me down the street, ripping Lloyd’s followers to bits. The cloud of blood that had reached out for me. “Right where Lloyd said—somewhere I can’t get to. Not without three or four people to help lift a hunk of marble.”

  Caleb said, “Why lift it?”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “Marble’s surprisingly easy to break apart with the right tool,” he explained. “All we need is a sledge . . . or a hammer.” Caleb’s face paled. His eyes flitted to the thing in my hand and back. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? He wasn’t my friend.” A hollowness filled me as I watched Lloyd in my mind’s eye take a bullet in the chest—one that my brother had meant for me. A ringing sound filled my ears. No. Not ringing. A high-pitched tone. One that told me Lloyd was dead.

  Here too, I thought.

  Caleb took a cautious step toward me. “Quinn, you’ve just experienced something really fucking traumatic. It’s okay to not be okay.”

  I picked up my bat and looked toward the cave entrance—anywhere but at Caleb’s face. I didn’t think I could bear seeing empathy in his expression. Monsters like me didn’t deserve empathy. “We’d better hurry. We don’t know how long she’s been down there, Caleb—if she’s down there at all. We don’t know how much food she has, if any. We don’t know if he gave her a lantern to keep the darkness at bay. We don’t know if she’s still alive. So let’s go.”

  Our walk back to the house with the wine cellar was stoic. The streets were empty and the sun was brighter than usual. As we wove our way through the streets, I listened for telltale sounds of Screamers, but heard nothing. But for the sound of our feet moving across the pavement, Brume was silent.

  The house came into view down the street to our right, with its loose shutters and sagging porch. I stopped and turned my head to the left. Toward the house where
Lloyd’s dead body now lay. Because of me.

  Lloyd. The boy who’d made me smile at Camp Redemption.

  Lloyd. The man who’d saved me from Caleb’s wrath at the rendezvous point.

  Not just the violent gang leader who’d threatened my life, my friends’ lives.

  But Lloyd.

  The hammer’s surface had become tacky from Lloyd’s blood dried, as had my palm and fingers. His blood was on my hands in every sense.

  “There’s nothing you can do, you know.” Caleb stuck to my side, his gaze following mine. “His death is on him. You were defending yourself. He was going to kill you, Quinn.”

  He was right. I knew he was right. But that couldn’t wash away the murderous grime that had darkened my soul the moment I brought that hammer down, piercing Lloyd’s flesh. I wondered if anything could.

  Caleb put a hand on my shoulder, his words gentle and coaxing. “Come on, Quinn. Let’s go get Lia.”

  In silence, we turned right and headed to the large house where Lloyd’s wine cellar was located. No gang members that we could see were in the yard or on the streets, and the house was empty—small blessings. I led Caleb through the living room and into the kitchen, where the marble slab blocked the entrance to the cellar. As we examined it, Caleb said, “What do we do if she’s not in there?”

  “We keep looking for her. We don’t stop until we find her.”

  A muffled voice came from below. “Help! Is someone there? Please help me!”

  Lia.

  I raised the hammer, and as I slammed it down on the marble, I saw myself swing hard, the claw end of it biting deep into Lloyd’s neck. It was bad enough to relive that moment once, but it repeated with every hit on the marble. BOOM. Lia was almost free. BOOM. Lloyd was almost dead. BOOM. I couldn’t run from the monster. The monster was me.

  “Please hurry!” Lia cried out. “The lantern is dying!”

  Chunks of marble flew. Several small bits hit my cheeks, my forehead. I could feel beads of blood well up on my face, but I kept pounding. Had to keep going. So that Lia would be free.