A vehicle turns the corner, its wheels alight with electric purple waves of magic. I press myself into the alleyway, remembering the night of Black Vault, before Ren went missing in the first place. Seconds take eons as the truck crawls past. And then another truck follows. And another.
The truck beds are all enclosed by what looks like metal grates surrounding large glass boxes. They remind me of a glorified camper shell. I squint, but I can’t discern what’s being hauled. Each truck bares no insignia save for a small patch of writing above the back tires.
At this rate I’ll never find Ren. Maybe I should have stayed with Talon and Solomus. Even though Solomus was right—I could have waited, helped them with Jomeini and then come for Ren—I’m not sure I’d be able to live with myself if I had.
The last truck in the procession glides forward at the same funereal pace, and this time I make out the claw-like emblem near the writing above the tires. Arcaians.
I have no idea what these trucks are for, but one thing is certain—they’ve got to rendezvous back at their center of operations at some point in time.
I dance on the balls of my feet. Any minute now. Taking advantage of the empty street, I dart out, praying to the angels that the driver doesn’t notice the extra cargo as I gunny-hop onto the back bumper.
Except someone intercepts me from behind. One hand over my mouth, the other around my waist, he gracefully snatches me back into the shadows.
“Are you kidding me?” I hiss, rounding on Talon. “What are you doing here?”
I take in his handsome, scarred face, his ardent gaze. Talon wears the same short-sleeved shirt and vest he wore earlier. He points to the street. “You don’t want to do that. They’re moving slowly enough we can follow the procession from here. Look.”
But I don’t look. No, I debate all the ways I want to throttle him right this second. Magic burbles up from my bones; I hold it back though I’d like nothing more than to use it to adhere him to the wall so I can go on with my business.
“What are you doing here?” I ask again. “I thought you were fixed on helping Shasa?”
I wait for him to bring up the tears or the sirens again. The harp in my chest stirs at the thought. If he wants an apology from me for that, I’m not sure I can give him one.
“I never thought you’d actually leave,” he says. “But when Solomus came back and told me you were gone, I knew I had to come. You gave up everything to help me get to the tears. I’m returning the favor.”
I scoff. “So that’s all this is—a lousy favor. I’m sure Shasa just loves—”
He stops my lips with a kiss. Instantly I’m swept under as surely as a wave lapping the shore pulls at the sand. His lips hold their own kind of power, a gentle stroke wiping away my worry, my upset, flooding through clear down to my toes.
“She can handle things for now,” he says, his breath mingling with mine. “I owe you my help, Ambry. And so much more,” he adds after a brief pause.
“If you’re engaged to her, you shouldn’t be kissing me,” I say, though I want nothing more than to pull him to me again.
Talon closes his eyes. “Things are complicated with Shasa. It wasn’t a choice I made, it’s an obligation. I hardly know her, to be honest. But I owe her things as well. I can’t tell you what will happen after this. But I knew I couldn’t let you do this alone.”
He doesn’t say whether he’s still marrying her or not. What this has to do with his oath to his people, or what will happen to Jomeini without him there to help.
But he’s here.
“You didn’t have to come back,” I tell him, needing to be sure.
“Yes, I did.”
I fight the urge to take his hand in mine. “Then I’m glad you’re here.”
He glances at the slow-moving trucks and together we begin keeping pace, sticking to the shadows beneath storefronts and their awnings. It isn’t until the procession halts just outside a church with a single rising spire and circular, stained-glass windows that I finally catch a glimpse of the cargo within the glass.
People are packed inside. Their faces are blank like unmarked gravestones, though fear glazes the eyes of one woman with sallow cheeks, and her hair in a long braid down her back. The truck once again picks up its same steady pace. Unrestrained, unseated, the passengers bump along shoulder-to shoulder. Those closest to the sides steady themselves on the glass.
“Do you see this?” I ask Talon. “Who are they? And what are they doing being contained like cattle set for slaughter?”
The trucks come to a stop. I attempt to press myself into a small nook, but Talon and I stand out like stains on the wall. Heart pounding, I wait for the driver to open the door, to notice us, to add us to his load. But after several seconds, the procession begins moving again.
None of the passengers shows any indication of seeing us except for a boy around my age. His hair is dark and unkempt. He grips the hand of a small girl wearing a dirtied dress and guides her over, prodding his way through, ramming people aside. I put a finger to my lips—we can’t help any of them if he does something to give Talon and me away back here.
He bares his teeth and opens his mouth. I hear nothing but muffled bellows.
They hit a bump, and he collides with the passengers toward the truck’s front end. He props the small girl until she gains her footing once again. And with an angry sneer he pounds the glass with a fist. Several prisoners around him cover their ears as his eyes alight with malice.
“We can’t help you right now,” I mouth, flattening myself into Talon as the truck rounds a corner. There they go again, stumbling into each other, unable to help it. I wish I could talk to the boy. Ask him what they’re all doing in there, where they’re being taken. Though I guess I’ll find out for myself soon enough.
The song tangoes in my chest, taunting me. I could use it here—stop the drivers, release these people. But that won’t help my brother.
Talon and I maintain a pace several feet behind the trucks. The procession continues down street after street. I get the occasional glimpse of a destitute expression within the crate. The boy has stopped glaring at me and instead stares out despondently.
One woman places her hand against the glass. I long to place mine over hers. We’ll help you, I think to her, wishing she could hear me. However we can, we’ll help you.
The buildings thin out while debris from the recent demolition gathers, piling on the roadside and in large clumps. I never saw the city as it was before the Arcs invaded, but the sight of so much destruction gives me the urge to kick something. If they’re going to invade our capital city, the least they can do is take care of it.
The high city gates sprout into view, along with the large, cylindrical white building. A vast grassy area expands, lit with posts every hundred feet or so. We’re here. Ren, I’m here.
The captive passengers gape at soldiers collected near their tents to watch our procession. Others cheer and head in the same direction we take, toward the Station in the center. It isn't long before a crowd forms around Talon and me. No one seems to notice or care that we’re here, but that can’t last long.
“One of these tents has got to be Ren’s,” I mumble. “Can you contact your friends?”
“Better if no one knows we’re here,” he says, squinting at the sunlight. “We need to disguise ourselves somehow.” He pulls me to a stop. “Have you considered that they may have taken Ren’s magic?”
“I—what?”
“I didn’t want to say anything about it, but have you? Even if we find him, he probably has orders to take you in. He won’t be able to disobey them. If that’s the case, you won’t be able to trust him.”
The thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but it doesn’t bother me. “I don’t think that will be a problem,” I say, the song twirling beneath my sternum, tricking me to let it out.
“How can you be sure?”
I clutch the teardrop beneath my shirt. Estelle said not to tell anyone, but I ha
ve to say something to assure him. “I didn’t just give the tears to the sirens, Talon. I got something in return. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”
Confusion crosses his brow, but I duck into a tent before he gets a chance to say anything.
The tent is vacant and reeks of sweat. Four cots have been wedged inside, blankets mussed. Clothes are strewn on the one nearest the door, a watch tossed casually on another.
“Take this,” says Talon, chucking a shirt at me and slipping his own off to change. I startle at his well-defined muscles, the scars tracing along his back, the simple beauty of the shape of him, and quickly turn away to slip into mine, buttoning it over what I’m already wearing. This time I don’t mind that whoever’s shirt it is drowns me. I attempt to stuff my hair up beneath a tight-fitting hat, but my locks are too thick.
I haven’t seen Talon in the Arcaian uniform since that first day when he kicked down the door of my house and rushed me away. I have to say, the uniform-look suits him, fits his form in more ways than mere tailoring. Talon tucks the shirt into his pants and smoothes his hair down.
The next three tents are empty as well, and my heart hangs lower as I part the flaps of each one to return to the grass outside. The fifth tent we check hides a soldier changing his clothes.
“Sorry,” I say, ducking out as quickly as possible. Too late I consider asking him if he knows Ren Csille. By the way, once you get that buttoned up can you lead us to my brother? Oh, and we’re wanted citizens.
Ren has got to be out here with the others. The crowd around the Station quadruples in size by the time Talon and I hit the edge of it. The truck procession has stopped, and I watch along with the others as the captives are carted out and shoved toward the building’s wide entrance.
“What are they going to do to them?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” says Talon, glaring across the crowd.
The dark-haired boy who hounded me from within the truck struggles against the herd. He tugs the small girl along with him, fighting to escape. Arcs step forward, knocking the side of his head with a Xian claw and shoving him on. A short man grips the girl by the waist like a doll and hauls her back with the others.
“We should have let them all out,” I mumble, peering from behind countless heads at the back of this crowd. “We had the chance and instead we tagged along with them.”
“To what end?” Talon leans down to whisper. “So we could cause a scene and all get caught?” He cocks his head.
He’s right. I hate that he’s always right. Find Ren first. Then we’ll help them.
I squint, checking every Arc, every on-looker. People begin chanting one word over and over as a final truck gets unloaded of its passengers, who are then herded into the white building along with the others.
“We’ve got to get in that building,” says Talon, glancing across people’s heads.
A light emerges from within, and the captives begin filing into the large, bright chamber. They squint, stare around at the hundreds of tiny holes perforating the walls. A few of them—like that boy—beat on the glass, but most stare off in feigned boredom.
I take Talon’s hand. He glances down and then up at me in surprise.
“Don’t let go of me,” I tell him and then pierce into the crowd of soldiers, shunting through, all while trying to make sense of the word they continue chanting.
“Strike, strike, strike!”
These soldiers are clearly not complaining about their employment status. Whatever the reference, it can’t be good.
Together, we breach the crowd’s perimeter, close enough to glimpse the faces of the people on the other side of the glass. This close up, I take in the tiny holes punctured evenly all along the walls of the circular, silver interior of the room, almost like these people are in a giant colander. I can see straight into a single room branching off from the large chamber—it’s separated only by another large pane of glass. Several Arcs within the room fiddle with knobs on a control panel of some kind.
“Let’s check around back,” says Talon, guiding me down the sidewalk.
“Do you think Ren is here?”
Four Arcs round the corner. The two in front wear headsets, and Arc or not, I’d recognize that stance, despite his now-shaved head, anywhere. His handsome face bent in concentration, his straight nose and that angle of his jaw. I nearly shout when Talon drags me across the flowerbed toward the white building, though I know it won’t conceal us for long. I nearly trip on a small decorative plant in the polished landscape.
“It’s Ren, Talon—it’s Ren!” I whisper through my teeth.
“Are you sure?”
Ren’s group stops on the sidewalk just past us. Like Talon, he looks good in the uniform—and to my relief, no claw dangles from his belt. I can’t believe he’s here. We found him. We found him.
“On your command,” Ren says. He turns, one finger on the muff over his ear. There’s some type of contraption in his other hand. “As you wish, sir.”
I rush forward.
“Ambry, wait,” says Talon, not letting go of my hand.
I pry my fingers free and grip Ren’s arm, jerking my brother around at the same moment his thumb hits the round button in the center of his device.
Ren’s mouth drops the instant he sees me.
“Strike, strike, strike!” The chanting increases to deafening tones. “STRIKE! STRIKE!”
Screams from inside the glass rip my attention away. Tangible, they fill the air. I turn in time to see black-spiked darts dispel from the holes along the walls inside the glass. The darts spear toward the frightened crowd inside, striking them in the neck, arms, legs, feet, wherever they land first. People fall, tumble like dominoes.
Simultaneously, all around me hands begin to glow, vibrant and purple. Soldiers—men and women alike—cheer, hug one another. Some kiss, some dance in place, lifting their hands in awe. I watch in horror until the reality hits, tense and fast, blanking out my vision. I prop an arm against the white wall to steady myself. Never mind the degenerate faces, the defeated citizens from within writhing in pain. Never mind the blood splattering when the darts struck.
And Ren faces me, holding the device. The button he pushed that started it all.
I wheel around, but not fast enough. At least Ren’s hand isn’t glowing like so many others, but I can’t bear the thought of it touching my skin. Talon warned me, but it still doesn’t register fully. Whether they’ve taken his magic or not, I don’t understand how Ren could have been the one to push that button, to trigger the mass violation.
“You’re not my brother—let me go!” I cry.
“What are you doing here?” His eyes fill with anger and, as I watch, traces of regret.
He removes his headset and claws my elbow, steering me through the Arcs who were with him and around to the opposite side of the white building where tents stand vacant.
I should have stayed with Solomus. I should never have come here. The soldiers’ cheering deepens, interrupted by a magnified voice, but I can’t make out the words.
The sidewalk is bordered by decorative grasses and gravel flowerbeds. The fact that while the rest of the city is being destroyed, yet they took the time to manicure this building is flat out revolting.
“Vreck it, Ambry,” Ren says, smashing me against the back of the Station. “Can’t you ever stay out of things?”
I jerk out of his grasp, feet crunching the gravel. “I’m here to help you, idiot. Though it’s obvious you’re nice and cozy in your new responsibilities. How could you join with them, Ren? Please tell me you’re not an Arc now.”
Ren grimaces. “It’s not that simple,” he says. Then he arches back, veins bulging at his neck. With a grunt, he replaces the headset. What is with these guys, are they trained in Vague Response 101?
“Back home you were fighting against them—you were part of Black Vault, part of the rebellion! What is going on, Ren? What are they planning, what are you doing?”
“You never sh
ould have come here. I can’t help you, do you understand that? I told you to stay out of things. I should have known you wouldn’t listen. And now I can do nothing for you, Ambry. Nothing!”
I try to plant my heels, to twist free of his grasp again and see if Talon followed us, but he thrusts me further down the sidewalk toward a white side door.
“Ren?”
“Shh.”
He pulls a key not unlike a BVID from his pocket and scans it against a square portion of the door. Though a small red light blinks, the actions are non-magical. There’s no magical canteen within the wall. Likewise, nothing from him glimmers with the motion. How can something like this work without magic?
“Wait, Ren, I have a friend out there—we have to get him, I can’t leave him out there.”
The door beeps, chinking open and releasing a gust of cool mist.
“No, Ren, wait!” I glance around, but Talon is nowhere in sight. My brother rams me into the pristine white hallway. Maybe Talon tagged along, shoved his way through with us. He’s been known to do crazier things. But the white hallway stretches on. There’s no sign of him. Oh angels, where has he gone?
My brother guides me along as the hallway curves. “We can’t hide in here,” I tell him. “What about all those people? They’re just going to be carted from their city now that their magic has been stolen from them?”
“I said, shh.”
“What about my friend? We have to go back for him!”
“You mean Haraway?” Ren says derisively.
“How did you—?”
An uneasy feeling swirls in my gut. All the logic in the world can’t dispel it, but still I try. He’s my brother, he’s helping me. Everything is fine.
Ren drags me through a new group of confused and otherwise-stoic people being led toward the glass chamber. I gear myself, ready to jump into whatever he has planned. Except…
“Ren. Wait—Ren!”
“They took my magic, Ambry,” he snarls from behind me, jostling me forward. I dig for mine, but no swirling stream ignites, not even the vapor I once had in my bones.
Such A Secret Place (Stolen Tears Book 1) Page 26
