Lost Angel

by Kyle West

  “. . . AND THAT’S HOW it happened.”

  Makara had just got done explaining events in the exact way Ohlan had ordered. Makara’s only hope was that Raine would pick up on the way she said it and realize something was off. It was hard to give hints with Ohlan standing right next to her.

  The entire mall had been in an uproar looking for her, and when the news of Makara’s abduction reached Raine’s ears, he was about to head out into the city himself after she hadn’t been found after a few hours.

  That was when he’d learned that Ohlan was gone, too. His mind had thought the worst. But Ohlan had come back, together with his men, thinking quickly to track her down while everyone else was panicking. They picked up the trail of Reapers and caught them in the open, saving Makara in the process.

  After all the hugs and tears, Raine wanted to hear a full report from both.

  Raine looked from one of them, to the other, until his eyes finally settled on Makara.

  “Maybe a bit of it is my fault,” he said. “I haven’t really been around much. I know that, Makara. I’m sure you’re probably wanting some more time with me. Things have been hectic, but that’s no excuse.” His expression became more severe. “That still doesn’t excuse what you did. You know you’re not supposed to go outside. And you went out of sight of the mall, too.” He shook his head. “You would be a Reaper slave right now if not for Ohlan.”

  Raine noticed a bit of stiffness in her posture. The girl was as stubborn as she was wild. In the end, though, she lowered her eyes. “I know, Raine. I’m sorry.”

  The words seemed to be choked out of her. Ohlan looked at her sideways, his light blue eyes amused.

  “I thought the worst when you were gone too, Ohlan,” Raine said. “I apologize for that. You’ve proven yourself beyond all doubt to me, now.”

  Ohlan nodded graciously. “I know you don’t always agree with my methods. One thing I can guarantee, though, is that I’m always effective.” Ohlan considered a moment. “I’ve proved that tonight to you, I hope.”

  “You did,” Raine said. “I’m glad that conversation we had seemed to take.”

  “It grated on me a bit then, but I can see the sense of what you said. Open and honest will be my modus operandi.”

  “I hope so, Ohlan.”

  Makara felt as if she wanted to barf. Ohlan had ordered her to keep her cool, but it was hard. Raine looked at her a moment, and then back at his brother.

  “Leave Makara and me for a minute, Ohlan,” Raine said.

  “Of course.” Ohlan looked at Raine. “Stay out of trouble now Mak, you hear?”

  Makara made a fist. Only friends and family called her that. “Whatever.”

  Ohlan smirked before leaving Raine’s office.

  Raine watched Makara for a long moment, either waiting for her to cool off, or to ensure Ohlan had gained enough distance from the door not to overhear.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Makara?”

  Makara did her best to keep her face neutral. If she told Raine the truth, she had no doubt that Ohlan would make good on his word. Maybe he wouldn’t outright kill Samuel, as he’d threatened, but he’d do something almost as bad.

  “That’s everything. I’m sorry, Raine. I was being stupid. I won’t go outside anymore.”

  Raine steepled his fingers, and seemed to think things over a bit. “I wouldn’t say anymore. You’re getting older, Makara. You’ll be twelve, soon. Too young by far to be going out on patrols, at least without me as an escort. Samuel will be starting to do that soon enough. In fact, it’s past time he did.”

  “I thought sixteen was the cutoff age,” Makara said. “I won’t be there for years yet.”

  “Things can change,” Raine said. He cleared his throat. “Now, how are you doing? Okay? Do you want to go see Darlene? Kevin?”

  Unbidden, hot tears sprung to her eyes. Raine stood, and helped her sit in the chair. All Makara could manage was to shake her head.

  “We dodged a bullet,” Raine said, handing her a tissue. “If they’d gotten you, there’s a good chance you’d never have seen daylight again.”

  “It was horrible,” Makara said. “Horrible.”

  There was a knock at the door. Raine, annoyed, looked up at it. Before he could ask who, Samuel’s voice resonated form the other side.

  “It’s me.”

  Makara shook her head. As much as Makara wanted Samuel’s comfort, she didn’t want to put him at risk.

  “Wait just a minute, Samuel,” Raine said. He turned his attention back to Makara, gesturing for her to continue.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Raine.”

  He nodded. “I understand. I want you to head to the infirmary, all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Makara said. “Just a few scratches.”

  “I insist,” Raine said. He looked at her in an appraising way. “I guess we’re lucky Ohlan was in the right place at the right time.”

  Makara’s face twitched, but for the most part, she thought she did well in keeping her face neutral.

  Raine stood. “Come on. I’ll walk you there.”

  “It’s okay,” Makara said, rising from her chair. “I know the way.”

  “Makara . . .”

  “I said I know the way, Raine.”

  His brown eyes became hurt. It was strange to see Raine like that – it made the hulked-out, battle-scarred veteran look as fierce as a giant teddy bear.

  “Okay, Makara,” he said. “Just take it easy the next few days. Take off from school. I’ll try to cut back here where I can.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Sam’s waiting for me.”

  “All right. See you soon?”

  Makara nodded, and left his office.

  Samuel was leaning against the wall outside. He rushed forward and held Makara close. She wanted to cry, but all she felt was numb.

  “He walked out of here like nothing happened,” Samuel said. “He abducted you, didn’t he? Why didn’t he sell you out?”

  Samuel had already guessed almost everything.

  “Don’t talk about that,” Makara said. “Not here.”

  Samuel’s eyes widened. “Yeah, okay. Sorry.”

  “And don’t tell Raine what I was doing. Keep your mouth shut. Please, Samuel.”

  “But . . .”

  “No buts. Do it for me.”

  And for you, too. But Makara didn’t want to tell him about Ohlan’s threat.

  Samuel swallowed. She could tell from his eyes that he didn’t understand. He could never understand. Ohlan had won. Raine had said it himself. Ohlan had proven himself beyond all doubt.

  There was nothing left to be done on that front, and even Makara now had to recognize that her own doubts about Ohlan had been misplaced. Ohlan was ultimately a cruel, manipulative, and recklessly calculating man. He wasn’t afraid to gamble big, and doing so had won him something big. Makara didn’t know what that was, nor did she care, but it was clear Cyrus had given him something, and Cyrus was now actually dead. Apparently, whatever Ohlan had gotten from him had been worth burning his bridges with the Reapers forever.

  Didn’t that prove he was with the Angels through and through? Makara just didn’t know anymore.

  She was just tired. She’d had enough of this cloak and dagger stuff.

  She wasn’t cut out for it.

  WEEKS PASSED, AND THEN months, with little deviation. Makara tried her best to put Ohlan’s betrayal behind her, but that was difficult when she was having nightmares about the abduction. She’d wake up, gasping for breath, her heart pounding so fast that it felt it would leap out of her chest.

  She kept it all to herself, though. It was horrible having no one to confide in. Well, there was Samuel, but she left out the worst bits. Being blinded, gagged, kicked, powerless. At least in Bunker One she could run, at least she’d had her dad to protect her.

  She had no one to protect her. And worse, the one who had betrayed her was being lauded as the hero who had saved
her.

  Ohlan seemed to forget about her, at least. She no longer bothered to keep track of his movements. In the back of her mind, she wondered whether if this would be the best time to watch him, when there was no suspicion on him at all.

  One thing she kept wondering; how had Ohlan known she was in his room? She kept thinking about what Samuel said about a camera. As far as she could tell, Ohlan never returned to his room once he left it. The fact that he did return this time meant it was very likely he was keeping track of her. She hadn’t been in there fifteen minutes when he’d come barging in.

  Makara didn’t want to think about it. She’d been outplayed. She was foolish for thinking she could go toe to toe with the Ghost.

  She went about her day, hiding her true feelings and struggles in plain sight. Not even Raine knew something was bothering her. He at least started spending more time with her and Samuel, and she was good at pretending everything was okay. It hurt to pretend around them. Every time she thought about telling Raine the truth, her thoughts returned to Samuel. If she told Raine, he would never be able to treat Ohlan the same way. That was something Ohlan would pick up on.

  There was no winning.

  Makara’s birthday passed. She turned twelve, but she felt twice as old. Whatever joy and happiness she had seemed to be completely gone, now. Even the truce between the Reapers and Angels didn’t do much to help her spirits.

  The weeks went by in a blur. All the main entrances to the mall were closed, more farmland was cleared, and even water was restored to the mall, though it wasn’t potable. That had been Raine’s biggest accomplishment since the move. He was focusing on building up the mall, trying to restore it the best he knew how, even as the Reapers expanded their reach in the north. The Hills Alliance lost their war, at long last, and all too soon, Carin Black had no more easy targets to bolster his army of slaves.

  It would only be a matter of time until war broke out again. Skirmishes between south and north resumed on the eve of Makara’s thirteenth birthday. Samuel was seventeen, now, almost a man, while she was going through her own changes.

  By now, though, she was good at bottling up her emotions. She had learned to channel her latent anger and aggression into becoming an expert shot at a variety of armaments, while being a fierce fighter without any weapon but her hands and feet. Raine had noticed, and even started letting her go on patrols early. When the war with the Reapers finally kicked into high gear, they’d need every able person on the front lines.

  And that next war would be the last one, the one to decide who would control L.A. — the Reapers and their vision of slavery, or the Angels and their vision of freedom.

  Chapter 35

  ONE DAY, MAKARA WOKE up to some news she wasn’t quite sure how to process, that had the entire mall in an uproar.

  Ohlan was gone.

  One day passed, and then a few more. The entire surrounding city was scoured for a trace of him, along with the twenty men who had decided to go with him.

  I was right all along, Makara thought.

  On the fourth day of his absence, she was pulled into Raine’s office and asked if she knew anything about his whereabouts.

  She told him then, everything Ohlan had said not to tell, feeling as if a weight was being lifted. At the same time, though, she hated seeing the look of hurt in Raine eyes.

  “Why are you just now telling me this, Makara?”

  She lowered her head. “I was ashamed. I did wrong, and I was afraid of what he might do to Samuel. If he’s gone, though — really gone — then he can’t hurt any of us.”

  Raine leaned back in his chair. He was quiet for a long time, seeming to mull things over. “We don’t know what’s happened to him, Makara. He could back any day, now. You were right about one thing, though. If you’d told me that, I couldn’t have treated my brother the same, and he would have known.” He looked at her seriously. “You have no way of knowing this, but I had a conversation with him, after the first Cyrus incident. I told him he had one more chance.”

  Makara felt as if she had been punched in the gut. For all these months, she’d kept the secret for nothing. He could’ve been gone this whole time.

  “I’m sorry,” Makara said. “I should have been honest. I was stupid.”

  “You were scared,” Raine said. “I knew something was wrong.”

  Makara nodded, lowering her face. “There was. It’s not your fault, though. I just couldn’t tell you.”

  “Well, whether Ohlan comes back or not, he’s gone from the Angels for good.”

  “Where do you think he went?” Makara asked.

  Raine heaved a sigh. “Beats the hell out of me. It makes a little more sense, now, after what you told me. Cyrus was never actually dead that first time. If he killed him more recently, that means he was still talking to the Reapers the entire time. He let me to believe the trickle of information had slowed because of the whole Cyrus incident.”

  “Do you think he’s working with the Reapers now?”

  Raine considered. It would be the ultimate betrayal and spitting on the graves of his dead wife and daughter.

  “There was something he told me, after the fight at Angel Command. It’s probably nothing, but . . .”

  Raine trailed off, and Makara watched him with interest. “But what? It could be the key, Raine.”

  “He sort of . . . implied that I’d made a huge mess of things, and that it might be better to pack up and head out past the mountains. You know, to that place raiders call the Wasteland.” He paused, recalling the conversation as clearly as he could. “He thought L.A. was a lost cause. I told him no. He respected my decision. Or, at least he gave the impression he did.”

  “Why leave now, though?” Makara asked.

  Raine was sharing more of his innermost thoughts than he ever had. Though she was all of thirteen years old, barely even a teenager, he was treating her as if she sat on his council. Maybe one day, Makara realized, she would.

  “I don’t know,” Raine said. “Maybe that thing you talked about Cyrus giving him. Maybe that was what he needed to make his move. A few more months of preparation, and the rest is history.”

  Raine was quiet, and so was Makara as she thought it through. There had been no sign of Ohlan in the city, as Raine had said, and no news of Ohlan on the Reapers’ side of the highway.

  The longer things went without news of Ohlan, the more likely it was that he wasn’t in L.A. at all, or dead.

  “Thank you for being honest with me, Makara. You can return to your duties now.”

  She waited a moment before nodding her understanding and leaving Raine alone in his office.

  RAINE WAITED A FEW minutes for Dan Green to arrive for his scheduled appointment. Dan had just returned from a multi-day recon that had taken he and his men over most of the southside, and as far west as the ruins of San Bernardino.

  “Make your report, Dan,” Raine began.

  Dan shook his head. “No sign of him, boss. We followed the tracks the Recons made, but we lost them after being forced to turn south. The last direction the Recons went was east.” Dan frowned. “There isn’t anything east, Raine. There’s Last Town and then a whole lot of nothing till Raider Bluff.”

  Raine was now surer of his theory. “Ohlan told me something after the fall of Angel Command that I didn’t put much stock in. Not till now.” Dan waited for Raine to collect his thoughts. “If it’s true, it means we’re probably never seeing Ohlan again.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Something about my incompetence as a leader, and how it would be better to pick up again out in the Mojave. He said L.A. was all but lost to the Reaps.”

  Dan’s frown deepened. “He’d always talked more about eastward expansion, but we never really had the water sources to make it feasible.”

  “All the same, looks like he’s figured out a way to make it work. And it seems like he no longer wants to do what I say, even in name.”

  “Should we go after him?
If you’re right, Raine, we might be able to catch him and put an end to his schemes.”

  Raine waved his dismissal. “If he’s talking about setting up east of the mountains, then he won’t be bothering us much.”

  Both men were quiet for a while, each of them trying to puzzle it out.

  “Well, good riddance is what I say,” Dan said.

  “He was useful, Dan. His information always came when we needed it. It was the key to holding on as long as we have.”

  “We can manage without him,” Dan said. “Who knows? We might be wrong about him leaving. Another one of his projects. For all we know, he could be showing up tomorrow.”

  “If that happens, I won’t take him back. I can’t go back on what I told him.”

  Raine then told him about what Makara had said, and Dan listened attentively.

  “It makes a lot more sense, now,” Dan said, finally. “The question is, what will we do about it?”

  “The better question is what can we do about it? And even if we could do something, would it be worth it?”

  “It’s a slap in the face,” Dan said. “If we take no action . . .”

  “Whatever action we take will require time, men, and resources. That’s less we have to defend against the Reapers. As soon as Black catches wind of this, he’ll see it as an opportunity to pounce.”

  “He might know already,” Dan said glumly.

  Both men were quiet, considering the ramifications. If Ohlan’s own reports were to be believed, the Lost Angels were outnumbered and outgunned by a factor of two. Even the few men Ohlan took would make a dent, and those numbers included Terrance Shaw and Adam Miles, two members of the council.

  “We need alliances,” Raine said.

  “There aren’t many independent gangs anymore,” Dan said. “We’ll have to go out east, get everyone from Fullerton to Last Town on board. Maybe then we’ll be a match for numbers.”

  “I see no other way, Dan,” Raine said, finally. “This is Ohlan’s arena. The only way we can survive is by taking the fight to the Reapers, hitting some of their biggest settlements before they can reinforce them.”