Gray grabbed his gun and held it tightly. When Phoenix was finished sending the comms, Gray held out a handgun.
I didn’t miss the awkwardness radiating from Phoenix but hoped the guards would.
The train ground to a stop just inside the Vesuvian gate. I could see one of the tallest vertical wires cresting the postern. The red, blinking light kept perfect rhythm.
Gray opened the door and jumped down. I could hear him speaking to the guards. “Here are my work orders. I’m transporting five to the Lesser Villages.”
What I didn’t expect was for Julia to jump down with him. Gray was steady. His words didn’t falter at all.
“We’re under orders to lock the city down.”
Gray countered. “These orders just came through. When were yours given?”
“Err... recently,” the guard answered.
Julia interrupted. “Check my clearance, please. These are servants for the Lesser Councilmen. It’s important that they be delivered to their locations today... Or it will be your neck and mine.”
The guard was silent for a beat. I could hear him pushing buttons, no doubt verifying what Julia and Gray were saying was true. “Anything else on the train?”
Gray answered, “Just supplies.”
There was a long silence. I was going to have a heart attack. Vivian must have noticed because she whispered. “Calm, Abby.”
I laughed under my breath. “You called me Abby.”
She smiled. “Yes. I’m a fast learner.”
If that’s fast, so is molasses in winter, lady.
“We’ll have to check each car and with the engineer. Something feels off about this.”
I jolted when Gray slammed his rifle on the metal floor of the car, and hefted himself up, offering Julia an arm next. Two guards, faceless behind the visors that covered them, climbed in after her. I let my hair curtain my face.
But, Marian sat beside me, stoic, and didn’t bother to hide hers at all.
“Abigail Kelley? I’ve seen you on broadcast. Why are you on this train?”
Gray crouched down at the door of the car and said something to Phoenix. He smiled and took off toward the front of the train.
The curious guard extended a hand to Marian, who accepted it and stood. Her crimson dress pooled around her feet. I didn’t dare look up. I was too much of a coward. The last thing we needed was for him to see me, too.
When the train jerked forward, both Marian and the nosy guard stumbled. He dropped his gun to steady her, and then Gray happened. He struck faster than a threatened rattler. Gripping the guard’s helmet, Gray used it as leverage to twist the man’s body, throwing him from the train.
There was no way I could jump up quickly, so as the others rose, I used the wall of the car to steady myself.
Vivian was ghostly white. No doubt, she understood the gravity of what had happened. I didn’t see it, but I heard the man hit several of his buddies outside on his way to the dirt.
The train was gaining speed, but too slowly. Couldn’t Phoenix hit the gas?
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
“Get down!” Gray shouted. The train picked up speed, and the pings increased. “They’re shooting!” He ran to me and covered me with his body, draping himself over me.
Daylight streamed through several tiny new holes in the rusted metal. I curled into a ball and shielded little bean, ignoring the fact that my arms and Gray’s body would do little to actually stop a bullet. I was anything but bulletproof, and those things didn’t ricochet. They tore through anything in their paths.
Ping.
Ping.
The gunshots were becoming fewer and the shouting was growing faint. The train was really gaining speed. I wondered how Phoenix had persuaded the engineer to take off. He definitely was a master of all things technological. But the presence of the guards beside the train should’ve been a deterrent. Kaia, Julia, and Vivian peeked up from their huddle.
I nudged Gray, and he slightly loosened his grip.
Marian was staring at all of us with wide eyes, her mouth in an O.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, shoving Gray to the side and crawling across the car to her.
“I... I think I have been shot.” She held up shaking fingers, coated in blood, and then pressed them back to her right side. “They shot me.”
Her face drained of color. It was all running out the hole in her flesh.
Gray swallowed and cursed. “Vivian, can you help her?”
Vivian shook her head, her eyes wide in horror. “I don’t have the supplies. She needs to have emergency surgery.”
She needed to go to the medical facility in Vesuvius. It was her only chance. “What if we send a message that she’s surrendering, ask them not to shoot, that she’s injured?”
Kaia nodded, but her eyes searched Gray’s, communicating some intrigue I wasn’t privy to. It was he who spoke. “No, she can’t be taken back into the city. They’ll shoot her for dissention. They’d kill her on the spot, both of them. We’ll drop her at the closest village.” He looked at Vivian. “Can you keep her comfortable until we arrive there?”
She swallowed, holding pressure on Marian’s abdomen. “I’ll do my best.”
Gray asked Julia to send a comm to Phoenix to speed up and stop at the nearest Lesser village. The clicking sound the keys made mixed with Marian’s frantic breathing and the clacking of the tracks beneath us.
Gray and Kaia followed Vivian’s orders, but despite their efforts, Marian became weak and pale. I wanted to scream. Why was nothing simple? Had she returned to Vesuvius, the healers could’ve helped her. It was a mystery why they wouldn’t let her go back.
Fifteen minutes later, Marian had slipped into unconsciousness. Vivian tried everything she could think of. Gray held towels to the wound, changing them when they soaked through. Kaia patted Marian’s face and kept speaking to her.
When Julia’s comm rang out, she read the message. “The next village is coming up. It’s labeled as Cotton, number six.
“Six?” I asked.
Kaia explained, “There’s more than one cotton-producing village. There are fifteen, I believe. As there are eleven apple-producing villages. All are named Orchard; each is assigned a number by the Greaters.”
I wondered what number our Orchard Village was. Seeming to read my mind, Kaia said, “Seven.”
Vivian shook her head. “I don’t know that she can be helped now.”
Gray changed the blood-soaked cloth at Marian’s side. “She still has a pulse. It’s worth a try.”
“It’s so weak,” Vivian muttered.
The train began to slow. Kaia held up her comm again. “Phoenix messaged the village. The healer is waiting.”
Vivian took Gray’s place, asking him to open door. He hefted hopper’s steel slider open, and we watched as the Cotton number six depot came into view. A small group of people was waiting on the platform.
Gray picked Marian’s limp body up from the floor of the cold car and headed toward the door. When the train stopped, he sat down and then guided her body to waiting hands. Vivian also sat down and then eased herself out of the train car.
“They can take care of her, Vivian.” Kaia protested.
“No! I won’t leave her. And I refuse to go any farther with you!”
Kaia pressed her lips tightly but let her friend go. “Thank you, Vivian.”
“I hope you make it. And I really hope all this was worth it.” With those words, Vivian disappeared out the door.
A few minutes later, Gray stood up and walked back into the car. His red clothes were streaked and blotched a deeper crimson, painted with Marian’s blood.
Phoenix told us he’d be driving the train from that point forward and would allow the engineer to leave along with Marian and Vivian. I hoped he knew what he was doing. Driving a train seemed infinitely harder than driving a truck.
A few sober minutes later, we were heading toward Orchard number seven
.
The silence that stretched between us all made me uneasy. Gray’s hand held mine, but his eyes kept shifting. He wouldn’t hold my gaze.
“Gray? Why do you think the Harvest happened? Why would Cole not take eggs from the Lesser women that were already in Olympus?”
Gray smiled. “You ever hear the old saying, ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’?”
I laughed lightly. “Yeah. Lulu said that often.”
“If he’d taken girls from families in the Lesser sections, someone would’ve noticed, and there would’ve been unrest. The Greaters in the cities rely on Lessers in the Villages for raw materials and food, but they rely on the Lesser workers in their own walls most of all. No one in the city would know if they took village girls. No one would care. And the villages are too far away for their residents to stage a revolt. They couldn’t fight back if they wanted to... or so he thought.” His lip tipped up proudly.
“Makes sense. I just... I wonder what would’ve happened if the Harvest had never taken place. You know?”
He smiled. “Yeah. I know. But if it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have met you.” He poked my bump and whispered, “Or you.”
My heart melted a little. I thought it had frozen in all that mess.
Most of it was still encased in a thick block of ice. I was worried about escaping, about Marian and Vivian, and mostly about Kyan and Adam. And I’d be lying if I said my growing bump didn’t have me scared to death. Childbirth didn’t sound like a party. At all. And what did I know about being someone’s mama?
Marian’s face haunted me. The scene kept replaying in my mind, from the sound of the bullets piercing the train to the color of crimson on her pale fingers.
“Do you think Marian will be okay?”
Gray exhaled loudly, stretching his back a little. “I honestly don’t know.”
The words Marian had spoken to me when I first encountered her in the hallway at the Palace kept running through my mind: In their eyes, I am expendable, as is this baby.
I looked at Gray, really looked at him. Something was different. Something had changed. His sunset eyes met mine. They searched. Had I changed? Did he see the same thing? Was I different?
The Greater healers... if she could only have gotten to them. They could do things I couldn’t even wrap my head around. They’d helped my back, made it better than before I’d been lashed. There was no imperfection left.
Part of me wished we could’ve let the Greaters rule peacefully. The other half of me wished we’d gotten our hands on some of those bombs—the kind the Vesuvians had unleashed on Olympus. We could’ve flattened the city, made sure none of them could come after us again, that none of them could threaten us or our children.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the metal. The Vesuvian gates kept flashing in my mind. We were free. But with Adam and Kyan still in the city, it sure didn’t feel that way. Most people built walls and fences to keep outsiders from coming in, to keep the people inside safe from threats. I wondered if the Greater walls had been erected to prevent evil from seeping out like a plague over the land.
MY COMM BUZZED IN MY pocket. I was trying to lie low. Someone had emptied an entire ocean of Greater guards into the city. They were flowing up and down streets and sidewalks, entering and exiting businesses and buildings. They were searching.
And I was hiding.
No doubt, they knew what was going on, and I didn’t exactly belong there. I had no paperwork, nothing but my comm, and it was registered to Orchard Depot. It wouldn’t take much for a guard to figure out who I was and what I was doing in the city.
Sliding my comm out, I saw a message from Adam.
ALL SAFE. HEAD EAST TOWARD RIVER. I WILL FIND YOU.
The words disappeared.
He was supposed to be on the train with them. At least the virus wouldn’t affect him. Eventually, I’d make my way east, but there was no way I could move then and avoid being seen.
I sunk down to the dirty wooden floor. I was hiding out in the bottom of a small outbuilding in the Lesser section, in someone’s back yard. Not that they really had yards there. The grass was fried, and the land was cracked it was so thirsty. My chin fell to my chest. Tired didn’t even cover it. We’d stopped the clock, though. Queen Psycho of Vesuvius could shove her threats where the sun didn’t shine for all I cared.
Dark. I’d move in the dark. It would be better that way. I’d just rest my eyes for a few minutes.
I’m in the square. Execution day. Maneuvering through the crowd to get a better look. Preston’s eyes widen when he catches a glimpse of me, so I flip him off. Dirty bastard. Then, his face contorts, from annoyance to terror, in the blink of an eye. I turn around. The soldiers—a line of them—approach. I’m standing between them and their targets, becoming one myself.
As they raise their rifles, taking aim, I lift my arm and launch the tiny vial at them. It strikes one in the helmet and shatters, part of the contents splattering, and the other part running down his visor in deadly rivers.
The four men convulse, blood gurgling up and spewing out of their mouths in overflowing rivers that never seem to run out of a source. Soon the other Greaters, the entire crowd around us, begin to spew blood. I back slowly away until my back hits the podium where Zander and the others are tied behind me.
His grin says it all. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Marks.”
I woke with a jolt. Smoke. Something very close was on fire. I coughed, choking on the thick cloud swirling around me. Crap!
Hopping up, I realized my mistake. Stay low, Kyan.
Smoke swirled around the inside of the shed. At the back of the building, there was a small crack between the wooden planks. Peering out, I couldn’t see a thing. No help at all.
It would suck, but I needed to get out of there. And I needed to see what was going on, find out what was burning.
The shed’s door gave way with a loud squeak, and I paused with it open just a few inches. I couldn’t see anything but darkness. The smoke swirled through the air, black and white and every shade in between. It wasn’t wood fires or something simple. It was billowy, angry clouds of a well-fed inferno. Easing the door open about a foot, I stuck my face out. No one was around that I could see. But the house in front of my shack was aflame.
No one was bothering to put it out, either. I was scared the smoke and flames would draw attention. Surely, someone would come and try to salvage what they could.
That meant very bad things for me. I eased my head out and looked both directions. No one. Nothing.
A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach said that wasn’t a good thing. I eased out, stepping onto the earth, my boot crunching bits of rock and chipped, dry dirt. It was good to get a breath of fresh air, so I breathed deeply.
Sticking to the dark shadows, I eased around the shed to the side cloaked in a darker shadow. The front had been illuminated by the flames.
It was a nice house. Nicer than our cabins, so I didn’t get why no one was throwing buckets of water on the blazes. It could’ve been stopped early. Repairs could’ve been made. But watching the flames lick their way out of busted windows, the melting of the delicate lace curtains inside, just seemed like a waste. The fire consumed everything but the brick. The entire inside of the home was engulfed in minutes.
The sounds of groaning and popping could be heard for miles, I was sure. It was such a still night. The cloud of smoke reached toward the center of the city like a bony finger. Creepy.
There were a few other houses nearby. None were close enough to catch. I sighed, stretching my calves. They’d gotten tight in the small amount of time I’d rested, if you could call it that.
It was time to make my way to the river. It was easy to get disoriented in a city where everything looked the same. So I looked to the stars. They were constant, dependable. And, they sucked. They said that east was on the other side of the city center. Lesserville was in the west. I’d have to make my way throug
h the belly of the beast.
Better get started. The more tracks I made in the dark the better. I hoped Adam was safely there already.
There was a small alleyway behind me, so I took it, trying to keep to the small, dry tufts of grass. Otherwise, the gravel crunched loudly underfoot. Wooden fences and metal fences—all makeshift—lined the alley. I’d made pretty good time and was on the outskirts of the Lesser section when I heard several sets of footsteps approaching from behind me.
I ducked behind a fence. Through the wooden slats, I could see their red get-ups. But they weren’t equipped with guns. There were three of them. They opened the gate, almost hitting me with it, and stepped into the yard. A loud whoosh sounded at the same time flames and fire shot out of the strange devices they were holding.
I’d seen those things in the supply listings before. Flame throwers.
They were torching Lesser houses.
A man and woman ran out of the home, clutching one another.
“Please! We don’t know anything!” the man screamed, pleading with the soldiers.
“Someone knows something. We’ll torch every house if we have to, but we’ll find Abigail Kelley. Someone’s harboring her.”
“It isn’t us!” The man pushed the woman behind him and stepped forward, palms out in surrender. “Please, search the house. We know nothing. Just let us put the flames out. That’s our home!”
The soldiers chuckled. “Not anymore.” One taunted.
Another piped up. “It was only yours because the Greaters provided it. We’re not feeling charitable anymore, Lesser.”
The woman’s shaking voice filled the hot night air. “Please, just let us go with the others.”
What others?
“Too late. You were given orders to leave, and you defied them. Now you forfeit your home and your lives.”
“How... How did you know we were here?” the woman asked.
“You were unaccounted for.”
“Trackers,” the Lesser man said.
The soldiers laughed, taunting the couple. They didn’t toy with them long, but turned their fiery weapons on the pair. Their screams... The smell of their melting, burning flesh would haunt me for the rest of my days. I pressed my eyes closed and tried to make my back melt into the fence behind me.
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