Between Burning Worlds

by Jessica Brody

  “Roche!” she screamed, charging forward.

  “Watch where you’re going, Nov,” a giant man barked at her as she screamed past, accidentally stomping on his foot.

  Reaching the railing, Chatine glanced up to see Roche hoisting himself up onto the next floor, his legs dangling just above her eyeline. “What the fric are you doing?” she yelled up at him. “Are you out of your Sol-damn mind?”

  “The roof!” he called back. “We have to get to the roof.”

  “What?” Chatine asked, certain now that he was out of his Sol-damn mind. But he also was not stopping.

  Roche’s small boots disappeared above her head, and Chatine felt a rush of annoyance and then determination as she grabbed for the railing and launched herself upward. Her muscles must have weakened during her short time on Bastille, because her climbing skills weren’t what they used to be. By the time she pulled herself up to the next floor, her arms ached and she was panting from the effort.

  The twelfth-floor cell block was mostly deserted. Everyone had already made their way to the stairwell and the droids had inevitably followed. Chatine and Roche were the only sots trying to get up instead of down. And she still had no idea why.

  She heard a small grunting sound and stumbled in the darkness until she found Roche kneeling down on the ground, struggling to open an air vent in the wall. The vents were normally secured to keep prisoners from trying to escape, but the power outage must have disabled the locking mechanism, because a moment later, the rusty metal grate swung open and Roche dove inside.

  With a groan, Chatine followed after him. The duct was narrow. She could barely wedge her shoulders through, and she had to slither on her belly to keep from knocking her head. “Roche,” she said in a harsh whisper. “Are you insane? What the fric are you—”

  “Don’t you see what’s happening?” Roche called back to her, maneuvering deftly on his elbows like he’d climbed through a thousand air ducts before. And he probably had. He was a Fret rat, after all. Just like her. “Don’t you think it’s strange that the power just happened to go out on the very same night that the Vangarde started that fight in the dispatch bunker?”

  The Vangarde.

  Chatine’s crawling slowed. She had nearly forgotten about the man she’d recognized as one of Mabelle’s operatives, slipping that that strange vial into the pocket of the long-haired inmate.

  “Wait, you knew they were Vangarde? How did you—” But the answer came to Chatine a second later. “Clovis,” she murmured, remembering the same precisely rolled shirt sleeve on Roche’s unofficial bodyguard.

  “Did you forget I also used to run messages for them in the Frets?”

  Chatine felt a simmer of guilt. Of course she hadn’t forgotten that. She could never forget that. Those messages were one of the two reasons Roche was here on Bastille. Chatine was the other.

  Roche reached a right angle where the air duct bent straight up, and he crept forward until he could stand. Then, using his hands and feet for leverage, he began to shimmy up the narrow shaft.

  Chatine followed behind him, her sore muscles aching from the effort, until Roche popped open another vent and they crawled out into a dingy room engulfed in shadows. But it wasn’t the darkness that made Chatine falter. It was the smell. A smell worse than anything she had ever experienced in the Frets. This wasn’t the unpleasant stink of old vegetables, or unwashed bodies, or rusting PermaSteel. This was death and rot and decay all mixed up into one stomach-curdling stench.

  They were inside the Bastille morgue.

  “Roche,” she barked out, coughing from the stink. “What are we doing in here?”

  There was no reply. Through the darkness, Chatine could hear the thump of footsteps and the creak and scrape of something being shoved across the floor. Burying her nose in the crook of her elbow, she shone her Skin around the pitch-black room. Then immediately wished she hadn’t. The slim beam of light revealed a row of gurneys stacked with wrecked, beaten bodies. Arms dangled by tendons from shoulders. Feet bent downward at odd, terrible angles. Great gashes gnawed their way across dust-splattered skin. And from the faces that were still intact, dead eyes stared up into the darkness and mouths gaped open like they were still gasping for a last drop of clean air.

  At the far end of the room, she could see some kind of huge metallic box glinting in the glow from her Skin. But before she could fully make it out, she heard another scraping noise and redirected her light toward Roche, who was pushing through a pile-up of gurneys, clearly looking for something.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered, darting over to him.

  “I kept overhearing Clovis talk about the morgue,” Roche explained hurriedly as he ran his hand along the surface of one of the walls. “ ‘The morgue is the only way off this moon,’ he kept saying. The whole time, I just thought he was being morbid. You know, death is the only escape? But now I realize”—he paused and peered curiously up at the ceiling—“he wasn’t.”

  “Wait a minute,” Chatine said, trying to follow his whacked line of reasoning. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “I’m saying they’re breaking her out. Right now. They somehow got her up to the roof from this very room, and we need to figure out how.”

  Something inside of Chatine started to stir. A memory shoved its way through the fog. Unlike every other memory held captive in her brain, this one was somehow crisp and vivid and sharp.

  “This will certainly not be the Vangarde’s last attempt to free Citizen Rousseau. They will try again.”

  Chatine shut her eyes and could suddenly see it all again. As though she were living it now. As though she were right there, sitting in the general’s combatteur, soaring over the dark Laterrian landscape on the way back to Vallonay. The general had been talking to Marcellus on his TéléCom, telling him about the Vangarde’s attempt to break Citizen Rousseau out of Bastille.

  “They will try again.”

  Chatine felt her heart start to pound. This was ridiculous. This was insane. Citizen Rousseau was locked in solitary confinement deep underground. How on Laterre would the Vangarde even get her into the morgue, let alone up to the roof?

  “Roche! Are you saying the Vangarde are—”

  “Halt!”

  A set of metallic footsteps clanged from behind. Chatine spun to find a lone droid coming toward them, clobbering through the crowded morgue. Its glowing orange eyes sliced through the darkness, and its weaponized arm was aimed straight at Roche’s chest.

  “Get down!” she screamed.

  They dropped to their knees, scrabbling under the gurneys. Rayonette pulses whizzed above their heads. The basher barreled after them, shoving aside gurneys as it went. Dead bodies rolled off and dropped to the floor with the most sickening of sounds.

  They kept crawling. But the farther they went, the clearer it became that the droid was chasing them straight toward a dead end. Eventually they would reach the far end of the morgue, and then there was nothing over there but that strange metallic box.…

  Chatine slowed as the realization began to seep into her bones. Her mind flashed to every single long, labored walk back from the exploits with the chain around her neck and the prison complex looming in the distance. She thought of that glimmering silver chimney shooting up into the sky from the roof of the Trésor tower.

  The roof.

  “This way!” she bellowed to Roche, scrambling ahead of him.

  “Halt!” More rayonette pulses exploded into the dead bodies around them as the droid charged through the morgue.

  “The disintegrateur?” Roche cried out as they drew closer to the large hulking machine. “Are you—” But he must have suddenly come to the same conclusion as Chatine, because he started crawling faster. “Yes,” he whispered eagerly.

  Roche was ahead of her now, and he immediately clambered up on a conveyor belt that led into the big, metallic chamber. He had to shuffle on his elbows to pass through the small opening and into the belly of the mac
hine. Chatine had seen a disintegrateur back on Vallonay. It had given her the creeps there, and it certainly wasn’t any more comforting here.

  But now it was their only way out.

  Chatine scrabbled up on the conveyor belt and was about to climb inside after Roche when the bouncing glow of her Skin suddenly snagged on something. Somebody. And a tiny cry crawled out from the back of her throat.

  A few mètres away, on a rickety, rusting gurney, with a skull half caved in like a mutilated monster, was Anaïs.

  The dark room spun. Chatine swore she was going to pass out. She felt the air around her head twist and bend.

  “Chatine!”

  A voice shot out from the opening of the disintegrateur and yanked her out of her stupor. She felt the air around her twist again as another pulse from the droid’s rayonette missed her face by a centimètre. Glancing back, she saw the basher was right behind her, reaching for her. She shrieked and clambered up the conveyer belt just as its metal claws grasped at her ankle. She gave a forceful kick and broke free before launching herself through the small opening of the machine.

  Inside, the chamber was dark and cramped, and Chatine could barely lift her head.

  “Roche?” she called out, trying to maneuver the light of her Skin.

  She could see him just up ahead, furiously patting, slamming, and kicking at the walls around him. “Where’s the fric-ing chimney?”

  Just then, the whole chamber began to shudder around them with the force of a mighty storm. Chatine peered over her shoulder and her stomach heaved at the sight of a single beam of orange light slicing through the darkness.

  “The basher!” she cried. “It’s trying to get in.”

  “There’s no way it can fit,” Roche said.

  But it soon became apparent that it wouldn’t have to. Because a second later, the deafening sound of ripping metal exploded in Chatine’s ears. The floor rumbled beneath them like the whole moon was breaking apart.

  “We have to get out of here!” Chatine patted desperately at the walls and ceiling of the chamber.

  “I know! But I can’t find the opening for the chimney. It must be sealed off.”

  Chatine’s stomach heaved again. This time in defeat. Had she been wrong? Had the Vangarde gotten to the roof another way? They were trapped. The droid would tear this metal tomb apart to get to them. There was nothing else to do.

  Chatine reached into the pocket of her uniform, drawing out Marcellus’s ring, remembering the first time she’d ever seen it. It was in a place much like this. And much like now, it seemed to serve as the only ray of light in the darkness.

  The chamber continued to shriek and judder as the droid ripped through the metal.

  Please, she whispered to the Sols, sliding the ring onto her finger. Please help us.

  Back on Laterre, Chatine had never been the praying type. But then again, she’d never tried to escape a prison on the moon before.

  People change.

  “Look!”

  Chatine opened her eyes to see Roche staring upward, shining the light of his Skin at a narrow panel above their heads. With a loud scrape, he pushed it aside, and that’s when Chatine saw it.

  A single rope dangling down from the chimney.

  Amazed, she peered at the ring on her finger, and then back up at the rope.

  At salvation.

  With one final, earsplitting screech, the disintegrateur split apart. Orange light flooded the chamber. Roche grabbed onto the rope and began to climb, quickly disappearing into the darkness of the chute. The droid heaved away a giant piece of the machine and aimed its rayonette inside. Chatine shimmied forward, latched onto the end of the rope, and heaved herself up. Three pulses were fired off, each one grazing the fabric of her prison uniform.

  She continued to climb until she could just make out the first few pinpricks of stars in the sky above her head. Almost there. With each hasty pull of the rope, she felt Marcellus’s ring digging into her finger. Once again, the touch of the cool metal seemed to bring her strength. Courage. Luck. And, as she continued to scrabble upward toward the roof of the Trésor tower, she also couldn’t help but feel hope. That maybe, just maybe, Marcellus’s stolen ring might actually find its way back to him.

  - CHAPTER 16 - CHATINE

  IT WAS THE STRANGEST SHIP Chatine had ever seen. With its stubby wings, discolored paneling, and glowing bulbous cockpit, it looked like a giant fly perched hungrily over a plate of food.

  This was no sleek Ministère ship shimmering in the starlight.

  This was something else.

  And it was about to take off.

  Lights along the underbelly glowed, and Chatine squinted through the darkness to see several figures darting around an open hatch on the side of the ship. Three of them looked like prisoners—dressed in Bastille blue with long hair—while the others wore all black, their faces concealed beneath dark hats. They were carrying what appeared to be a stretcher up the loading ramp toward the open hatch.

  “Come on!” Roche cried, already on the run. “We have to get on that ship!”

  Chatine raced after him. Her heart was pounding. But not from the running. Chatine couldn’t shake the sensation that something was very wrong. Apart from the hovering ship, this rooftop was empty. Too empty. She thought back to Marcellus’s message, sent to her through the droid. He had told her to leave the Trésor tower. He had said her life was in danger.

  But why?

  They were halfway across the roof when the air started to shift. The wind picked up and shimmering moon dust swirled violently around them, like a sudden storm come to life. The breath caught in Chatine’s throat. She remembered that storm. She remembered that wind. The way it whipped and battered her like an invisible assailant.

  She looked up at Roche just in time to see him disappear into a cloud of amber-colored dust.

  “Ro—” she tried to cry out to him, but the word was swallowed up by a sound that Chatine swore she would remember for the rest of her life.

  BOOOOOMMM!

  The ground shook. Her vision exploded in a tempest of blazing light. All around her, the world was on fire. She glanced up into the dark Bastille sky just in time to see them soaring amid the stars. Ships she knew all too well. Wielding a destructive power that would forever haunt her memories.

  Combatteurs.

  And suddenly, everything about Marcellus’s warning message made sense. The Ministère was here. They knew about the breakout. And they were retaliating.

  “ROCHE!” she screamed again, barreling forward, tripping over her own desperate feet. The ringing in her ears was so loud, she could barely hear her own voice shouting, “FASTER!”

  But a second explosion drowned out the word.

  BOOOOOMMM!

  The explosif hit the far side of the tower, and up ahead, Chatine saw the lights from the strange ship shudder and flicker.

  Oh Sols, no. Please don’t let it be hit.

  The third explosif came not a second later. The ground shook and Chatine was thrown forward. She heard a long guttural scream, and every molecule of air in her body felt like it was being sucked out of her.

  Roche?!

  She searched the surrounding area, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. The smoke and dust were too thick. Her eyes burned. She tried to push herself back to her feet, but that’s when she heard the scream again. It was coming from her. A pain so fierce and hot was ripping through her leg with the force of a thousand paralyzeur pulses.

  “Chatine!” Roche’s voice broke through the smoke and the ringing in her ears. Suddenly he was there, next to her, helping her back to her feet. The shirt of his uniform was ripped almost clean off. His face was covered in ash. But he was alive.

  The ground, however, was crumbling beneath them.

  Roche grabbed Chatine by the hand and they surged forward. Chatine’s left leg screamed in agony, but she didn’t dare look down for fear of what she might find there. With every thundering step of their feet, the r
ooftop seemed to dissolve further into nothing.

  Coughing and fighting to see through the nearly impenetrable wall of smoke and debris, Chatine could just make out the black-clad figures loading the stretcher into the open door of the ship.

  “Cargo aboard!” a voice called out. “Close the hatch. Prepare for liftoff.”

  “Watch out!” someone else shouted.

  BOOOOOMMM!

  Another explosif hit the roof. The ship juddered. Debris erupted like upside down rain. A huge object came flying toward Chatine. She ducked as it disappeared into the thick smoke.

  Then, to her horror, the ship’s loading ramp began to retract.

  “It’s leaving!” Roche screamed, and they sprinted faster toward the ship. But a few seconds later, Chatine’s foot caught on something and she went down again, landing painfully on her injured knee. She bit back a horrendous scream that bubbled up in her throat. But then, as she looked down to see what she had tripped over, she suddenly understood what she had ducked only moments ago. And the scream finally broke free.

  It was a body.

  A very dead body.

  And there was something familiar about her face.…

  Another streak of fire tore across the sky, and the world around her exploded in a dizzying blaze of light.

  “Chatine!” Roche cried again from somewhere in the chaos. Chatine scrambled back to her feet. Her outstretched hand found Roche’s, and they raced toward the hatch of the ship, which was now just a shrinking patch of light in the smoke.

  And it was slowly rising.

  The door was closing, and the ship was taking off.

  They charged forward and pulled to a halt directly below the rising craft. Thinking fast, Chatine positioned herself behind Roche and locked her grip into a makeshift step. “I’m going to hoist you up!” she shouted over the noise, the whipping wind and blazing fires. “Once you’re on, you can reach down and pull me in.”