Phoenix

by Elizabeth Richards

  When I’m done, I rush back toward Ash and Elijah, tripping on a railway strut in my haste. I crash to the ground, cutting my hand and arm on a broken wooden tie. Wincing, I sit up and check my wound. A large splinter is sticking out of my arm. I bite my lip as I pull out the splinter of wood. Blood oozes out of the wound, and I gingerly get to my feet, keeping my arm elevated.

  “Ash? Elijah?” I call out, unable to see them. “I’ve hurt myself. I—”

  There’s a terrifying growl, which echoes down the tunnel, chilling me down to my marrow. Something lunges toward me in the dark, hitting me with such force that all the wind is knocked out of my lungs. I can’t even scream as the creature yanks my head to one side, exposing my throat. All I think is Wrath Hound. But then I notice the cotton of a shirt, the scent of bonfires and musk, the warmth of Ash’s breath spilling over my skin. My heart clenches with fear, for me, for him.

  “Don’t!” I scream as his fangs prick my skin.

  Suddenly his weight lifts off me. There’s a loud crunch of bones hitting stone as Elijah flings Ash against the tunnel wall. Blood pumps out of the wound in my arm. Ash snarls and pounces at me again, but Elijah swiftly hooks an arm around Ash’s throat, holding him back. Ash’s boots kick at the dirt as he struggles against Elijah, but the Bastet is too strong. Eventually, Ash’s thrashing slows down, until finally he stops, subdued, his bloodlust gone. Even so, Elijah doesn’t let go.

  I check my neck, relieved to find Ash didn’t puncture my skin.

  “Are you okay?” Elijah asks me.

  “Yes,” I say, although the crack in my voice gives me away. Ash attacked me. How can I possibly be okay? I know Darklings drink human blood, but it’s the first time he’s ever tried to feed on me like I was prey.

  “He’s hungry, and the smell of your blood made him crazy,” Elijah says quietly as I edge toward him. “He didn’t know what he was doing. You might want to bandage that arm, though.”

  I go back to our recess and find Ash’s black headscarf in his bag. I rip a length of material from the headscarf and wrap it around my arm in an attempt to bandage it. It’s not perfect, but it stems the flow of blood and seems to calm Ash down a little. I sit on the pile of coats, still shaken.

  “I’m sorry,” Ash manages to say.

  “I know. It’s okay,” I reply, and then look at Elijah. “We need to get him some food. I heard some bats earlier. Maybe we can catch one of those . . . ?”

  Elijah shakes his head. “Even if we could catch one, it wouldn’t be enough to feed him.”

  Tears sting my eyes, and I wipe them away, hating the fact that I can’t help the boy I love. The Wrath isn’t just killing me; it’s killing him. Without saying another word, Elijah bites his wrist, causing blood to spill out of the puncture wounds, and holds his bleeding arm up to Ash.

  “I’d rather die,” Ash spits out.

  “You will die if you don’t eat,” Elijah replies.

  “Won’t your blood kill him?” I say.

  “No. Only Bastet venom is toxic to Darklings. Our blood can sustain them,” he says.

  I turn to Ash, keeping my voice soft, pleading. “Please drink, Ash. For me?”

  Ash briefly shuts his eyes and then reluctantly takes Elijah’s arm. He places his lips over the puncture wounds and begins to feed, tentatively at first, then with more fervor. A groan forms in his throat, and he draws Elijah’s arm closer, drinking greedily. Elijah sways slightly, but he doesn’t pull away. Blood spills over Ash’s lips, dripping onto the earth. He twists his fingers through Elijah’s hair and yanks his head to one side, sinking his fangs into Elijah’s neck. A sigh escapes Elijah’s lips as the Haze floods his bloodstream. He droops against Ash, his breathing labored.

  “That’s enough,” I say after a minute, when I know Elijah can’t take any more.

  “No,” Ash snarls, his lips berry red. “More.”

  “Let him go,” I say firmly.

  He releases Elijah, who falls back against the wall, drugged and drained. Ash’s thirst is still evident, his eyes wild and predatory. Just like the eyes of the Wrath that murdered my father. He sees the fear on my face, and it’s like a switch is flicked off inside him, the animal tamed. Ash wipes his mouth and somehow manages to get to his feet. He mutters something about needing to go to the restroom and heads farther up the tunnel, although I know he’s just trying to get away from me.

  When Ash is gone, I tend to Elijah, checking his pulse. It’s slow but steady.

  “Are you all right?” I ask him, ripping another strip off the black headscarf and wrapping it around his bloodied arm.

  “Everything’s sparkling,” he says dreamily.

  “That’s the Haze. It makes you feel funny,” I reply. That’s an understatement. I remember the time Ash accidentally gave me a hit of Haze—the euphoria and visions were intense. I’m actually a bit jealous of Elijah right now. I could do with a little happiness, even if it is chemically induced. The pain of my sister’s death and the grief over my own illness aches through me, weighing me down.

  I unbutton his shirt so I can wipe the congealing blood off his neck and chest. Elijah softly purrs, enjoying my touch as I dab the rag over his toned muscles. I try to ignore him, knowing he’s under the influence right now and can’t help himself. Still, it feels illicit, wiping his bare chest when my fiancé is nearby.

  “Thanks for helping Ash,” I say quietly when I’m done patching him up.

  “Anything for you, pretty girl.” Elijah raises a hand and strokes my cheek. “I love you.”

  I flinch away from him, struck by his words. It’s the Haze, I remind myself. It makes people think they’re in love with you when they’re not. Elijah falls asleep, a smile on his sensuous lips, and I know he’ll have good dreams. I doubt I’ll sleep a wink.

  There’s movement behind me, and I turn. Ash silently walks out of the shadows, his eyes glittering. Grief is written all over his face. He doesn’t look at me, just sits down on the ground and leans back against the wall, shutting his eyes.

  “Will he be all right?” Ash says after a moment.

  “He’ll have a killer headache when he wakes up, but he’ll be fine.”

  Ash gives a faint nod, then turns his face from me, but not before I see the tear slide down his cheek.

  23.

  ASH

  THE LIGHT of the digital screen dims slightly as the battery starts to run out of juice. I’ve been watching the news all night, trying to keep my mind busy, but it hasn’t worked. All I can think about is how Elijah declared his love to Natalie, confirming my fears that she’s cheating on me with him. I turn off the digital screen to conserve the last of its energy.

  Natalie’s head is on my lap. I gently brush her blond hair away from her face, grief aching through me. Despite my pain, anger and humiliation, I still love her. I can’t blame Elijah for being so infatuated with her—she’s incredible. Does she feel the same about him? Natalie seemed startled when he said he loved her, so maybe she doesn’t feel as strongly for him as he does for her. That gives me hope that maybe I haven’t lost her yet.

  Elijah stirs, waking up. He sits up and groans, cradling his head. Haze Headaches are a common side effect when you’ve been injected with Darkling venom. The puncture wounds on his arm and neck are still raw, making my thirst return with a vengeance. I try not to think about how good he tasted. Bastet blood isn’t like anything I’ve ever had before. It’s such a rush. I want more.

  “Don’t get any ideas, Darkling,” he says, reading my mind.

  “I can say the same thing about you.” I must look pretty appetizing to a hungry Bastet right about now.

  He rolls his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not my taste at all.”

  “No, blondes are more your thing, aren’t they?” I reply.

  He looks at Natalie, then back up at me, a furrow between his
brows.

  “I’m not interested in Natalie,” he says.

  “Don’t lie to me. I saw you with her in the laboratory. She made you promise not to tell me something that would hurt me. So if you’re not trying to sleep with her, what is it?” I demand.

  Elijah glances at Natalie again, clearly torn about something.

  “Well?” I say, my anger rising. Why won’t he just admit it? “Last night, you said you loved her.”

  He seems genuinely surprised by this. “I did? That was just the Haze talking.”

  “Bullcrap.” A horrible thought strikes me. “How long has it been going on between you two?”

  Natalie released Elijah from the laboratory months ago. Have they been secretly keeping in touch ever since, while I’ve been busy working with Roach and Sigur? The thought, the betrayal, is too much to comprehend.

  Natalie’s roused by my raised voice, and her eyes sleepily blink open.

  “Everything okay?” she says.

  I stand up, my body shaking with rage. “Everything’s fine. We need to go.”

  I’m halfway down the tunnel by the time they catch up with me. Natalie tries to take my hand, but I just can’t hold it, not yet. The pain is too raw. We walk down the railway tunnel in complete silence. Anger and humiliation surge through me, poisoning my mind. It’s one thing to think Natalie and Elijah hooked up over the past few days because they shared an intense physical attraction—that I can just about handle. But it’s altogether a different matter if they’ve been sleeping together for months. That would mean they have genuine feelings for each other, that they’re in a relationship. That, I could never forgive.

  What I don’t understand is why she agreed to marry me if her heart doesn’t belong to me anymore. Was it out of a sense of duty? Fragg, does she feel sorry for me? I picture the burns on my arms and shoulders, the night terrors that plague my dreams, and realize she must pity me. Elijah does seem like an attractive prospect by comparison.

  The tunnel exit can’t come soon enough, and I’m relieved when we reach it within the hour. We pull back one of the wooden planks boarding up the exit, allowing us to slip outside. Despite the blistering heat prickling my skin, the daylight is a blessing. Anything is better than being trapped underground with Natalie, Elijah and my thoughts.

  I spoke too soon.

  We surface on the rim of a bustling rail and truck depot. There must be fifteen train tracks feeding in from all directions, plus scores of cargo trucks hauling long metal containers. On the roofs of the depot buildings, digital screens show the latest news from SBN. Sentry guards busily unload the cargo from the trains onto the trucks, ready to be transported to their final destination. A lot of the cargo seems to be weapons, medical supplies and food.

  Hovering above the depot is a familiar-looking Destroyer Ship. My stomach plummets. We’ve walked straight into the lions’ den.

  We slink back into the tunnel, out of sight. When Natalie said the Sentry guards used the tunnel as a rail link to the camp, I hadn’t realized that the depot on the other end of it would still be in use. But of course it would be—it was stupid of me not to figure this out earlier. Still, we weren’t faced with many options at the time.

  “Should we head back to the camp?” Natalie whispers. “If the Destroyer Ship’s here, they’re probably waiting for us to show up.”

  I shake my head. “If they were waiting for us, there would be a hundred guards patrolling the tunnel at this end. They don’t know we’re here—they must think we escaped back into the desert.”

  “So why are they here?” Elijah asks.

  “Refueling?” I suggest.

  “We should go back to the camp,” Elijah says.

  “And go where after that?” I reply. “We still have no means of transport, we’re miles from anywhere, and I can’t survive in this heat for long. No, we stay here. We just have to find a way to get on one of those trucks undetected.”

  “How do you propose we do that?” Elijah says.

  “Throw you out as bait?” I suggest.

  Elijah scowls and Natalie gives me a stern look.

  I scan the depot from our vantage point within the railway tunnel, although my view is partially blocked by crates and upturned carts abandoned in front of the exit. I watch as groups of Sentry guards load crates onto rows of trucks, parked side by side, with just a few feet between them. The wooden boxes all have different locations printed on them: Centrum, Athena, Gallium, Leopolis, Thrace—yes! Some luck at last.

  “There,” I say, pointing to the green truck where the crates marked for Thrace are heading. “We’ll escape on that.”

  “We don’t have any disguises,” Natalie says. “They’ll recognize us.”

  “Then we just have to do this the old-fashioned way and stay out of sight,” I say.

  We cover ourselves in sandy dirt from the cave floor, darkening our skin and clothes, in hopes that this will serve as some sort of camouflage. I flinch slightly at the sight of the black cloth around Natalie’s forearm, remembering what I did. She rolls down her shirt sleeve, covering it.

  “We ready?” I say.

  “No,” Elijah mutters.

  Natalie nods.

  I cautiously approach the tunnel exit. About twenty feet away, three Sentry guards are loading cargo onto a red truck destined for Gallium. That’s our best shot at cover. The trucks are parked close together, so we can easily run from one to another, hiding under them until the coast is clear. I’ll need to distract the guards, though. Scanning the area, I spot a pile of smaller crates to the right of the truck, each with a green cross and the word FRAGILE printed on it. Medical supplies. Perfect. I grab a stone from the ground, weighing it in my hand. I’ve got only one shot at this. Taking a deep breath, I lob the rock at the pile of crates. It smashes into the middle box, and the medical supplies crash to the earth.

  The guards all run to assess to the damage, shouting at each other. We’ve got mere seconds to get across the dusty path.

  “Go,” I say.

  We sprint out of the tunnel, bursting into the blazing sunlight. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, and my mind is thinking just one thing: RUN! We keep our heads low, darting between the crates and upturned mine carts for cover. The Sentry guards are still fighting over who stacked the medical supplies, blaming each other.

  Just as one of the guards finds the stone, we reach the truck.

  The guard inspects the stone in his hand, his brow creased.

  I usher Natalie under the vehicle. Elijah’s next.

  The guard starts to turn.

  Fragg!

  I dive, rolling under the truck just as the guard looks in our direction. My heart crashes against my chest as the guard walks over to the vehicle. Did he see me? A pair of brown leather boots stops directly in front of us. I hold my breath. There’s a long pause. Eventually: “Come on, you lot, we haven’t got all day,” he calls over to his two colleagues.

  I exhale.

  There are loud clangs above our heads as they continue to load the heavy crates into the truck.

  “I can’t believe we’ve been lumbered with shipping this fragging crap to Gallium, given all the trouble there,” Brown Boots moans to one of his colleagues.

  “What’s going on in Gallium?” his colleague asks.

  Elijah impatiently taps my shoulder and motions for us to leave, but I shake my head. I want to hear what the guard says.

  “Fragg, Spinner, don’t you ever watch the news? The Darklings broke out of the ghetto. It was a bloodbath,” he says. “Why do you think they need all these weapons and medical supplies?”

  When did this happen?

  “I didn’t really think about it,” Spinner says.

  “You don’t think, period,” Brown Boots says.

  “I heard rumors that Phoenix was there,” the third guard chimes
in. “Apparently he single-handedly killed fifty guards.”

  “I heard it was a hundred,” Brown Boots says. “Ripped their throats out and drained all their blood.”

  “No kidding?” Spinner says nervously.

  My mind reels with this news. The Darklings have staged a rebellion in Gallium, the capital of the Copper State? This is huge. The Copper State is where all the munitions factories are located. With the rebels causing havoc in the state and Emissary Vincent executed, the place will be in chaos. This is . . . this is brilliant!

  I wonder who spread the rumor that I was involved in the uprising. Probably Roach. It’s a good plan. Not only does it keep the Sentry off my tail as I search for the Ora, but it’s made the guards scared of me. Sometimes the myth of a person is more powerful than the real thing. Little do they know that the real Phoenix is hiding under their truck, covered in dirt and frightened as hell.

  “Did you hear what Pearson’s got in his cargo hold?” Spinner says.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Brown Boots replies. “He’s always making up crap. One time he said he shot a Lupine, and it turned out to just be some guy’s dog.”

  The third guard laughs. “Yeah, and what about that time he claimed he took on a whole nest of Wraths?”

  “No, this is real this time. He said he caught it two days ago in Fire Rapids,” Spinner says a little defensively.

  Fire Rapids? Why does that name ring a bell?

  “If it’s true, why hasn’t he shown it to anyone?” Brown Boots challenges.

  “He was worried someone would try and steal it.”

  “He’s lying,” the third guard says.

  “If he’s lying, why would he have called Sebastian Eden down here?” Spinner says.

  “Because Pearson’s as stupid as you are,” Brown Boots replies.

  Brown Boots and the third guard chuckle heartily while Spinner mutters curses under his breath. Natalie gives me a questioning look. That explains why the Destroyer Ship is overhead. It’s a relief knowing for certain they’re not here waiting for us, but whatever is in that cargo hold must be pretty important if Sebastian’s paused his search for us to check it out.