by Casey Hays
“Well, look who decided to stop pouting and join us,” Rob snaps. “And you don’t get a voice.”
Kyle purses his lips and turns away. Rob looks at me.
“That was impressive, kid. But the subject is closed. You are not ready for a fight.”
A fierce anger boils inside me. I bend, tugging my arrow out of the stick and sliding it into my quiver before facing him. “I killed five of those men. With my bare hands. I’m already in this fight.”
Jeb’s mouth drops open at my words. I know what he’s thinking. I’ve crossed the line of innocence; I’m not the kid I was a just a few weeks ago when we met up at the gate. I ignore his eyes and gesture toward my friends.
“We’re all in this fight, whether you like it or not.”
Rob’s response is to turn his back on me. I study the planes as they come back into view, vying their time, planning something. They criss-cross past each other, turning in mirrored arcs, their plumes trailing like a tango in the sky, and I think of the eagle. How man was ever able to mimic the flight of a bird is pretty astounding. It would be beautiful on any other given day, but today my heartbeat kicks into overdrive. The planes level off, come even with each other, and move across the clouds toward the horizon and away from us. I look at Justin, he lifts a curious brow.
“They’re leaving?” Jesse drops the launcher from his shoulder and lifts the bill of his cap to watch. “Chickens!”
“No.” Evan stands, letting the butt of his rifle tap the ground as it slides through his fingers. “They’re regrouping. They’ll be back.”
“Where’s their landing strip?” A Rover named Paul Adams chimes in from his position a few trees down. “Is it near Eden?”
“Nope.” It’s Max’s soft, deep voice that answers. “There’s no place to land near Eden. Jesse and I got close enough a couple times. We would have noticed. No planes parked there.”
Everyone waits for Rob’s reaction. He rubs at his chin.
“Those planes are our biggest threat,” Evan concedes. A twig hangs from his lips, bobbing up and down when he speaks. “If we find their base and take out their pilots . . .”
His voice trails as the distant hum of a plane’s engine grows louder on its next approach.
“I’m listening,” Rob says, but Evan ignores him as his eyes settle across the field.
“We’ve got trouble,” he exclaims.
One by one the Rovers rise to their feet to stare. I turn . . . and I see it.
The plane roars across the field, but all along the horizon are hundreds of human silhouettes. Marching.
Vortex soldiers.
But there’s something else. Rolling in behind the foot soldiers are three vehicles, all different shapes and sizes. Something inside me trembles. I exchange a quick glance with Justin, see the uneasiness cross his face. Rob’s jaw drops in complete astonishment.
“Now that’s something we’ve never encountered,” Evan admits. He reaches up and pulls the twig from his lips.
One of the vehicles is a truck, the bed loaded with more men. It’s shocking—and kind of amazing—to see the machine alive and moving, but mostly, my heart races with a new terror.
The Serum suddenly clicks through my blood, driving a deep heat through my body. I look around me, see the flickering of a fight in Jesse’s eyes, see Max shift his shoulders, his grip tightening on his knife. Justin’s dark eyes are full of a sudden intense heat. The Serum stirs through all of us.
“You four!” Rob shoves into me, pushing me further under cover of the trees. “Get back and stay hidden.”
“We can help,” I argue, but Rob only shoves harder. I stumble backwards.
“Get back!”
I can’t take it anymore. I’m scared, but I need this. I need to fight. I need to protect my family. That old restlessness boils low in my blood tempting me. Telling me that I need to be doing something. Not the Rovers and not my friends. Me.
I jut out my chest, ready to confront Rob one final time, but Justin grabs my arm, a warning in his eyes that unsettles me, and I pause.
“Save it,” he whispers. “It’s not the time.”
Already Rob has forgotten about us, racing down the line, giving orders to the men. Reluctantly, I nod and plunge into the trees after Justin. It doesn’t matter. I know what’s coming, and I know that my body intends to explode into some rash action without thinking. It’s what I do—what I’ve always done. The difference? What I always do could get me killed for good this time.
We move under cover. I take a deep breath, and drop into a crouch behind a tree, and then I turn and press my back against it.
Justin squats next to me, peering around the trunk. His jaw clenches, but his eyes are foreign. Max drops to his knees in front of me, and I see it in him, too. I squeeze my eyes closed, listen to the clicking as it vibrates through me.
Rob is right; we’re not ready.
But that poses our biggest problem. Ready or not, this war isn’t going to wait for us to grow up.
I bang the back of my head against the trunk. This could very well be the day we die. Me and my friends, breathing our last breath together. Kind of heroic really. My heart catches. I’ll never see Kate again, and she’ll be left wondering what finally took me out for good. I swallow back my tears, my eyes clenched tight.
“Help me,” I whisper. “God, please help me to be brave to the end.”
The quiet answer to my prayer floods my heart like a sleepy afternoon—shocking me with more peace than I’ve ever felt. My eyes pop open, but everything around me fades into a dull gray. A clicking inside my head grows louder. The guys’ movements become sluggish in my brain—heavy and labored. I blink, focusing.
Jesse whips around, slow and deliberate and slides his back down the trunk of the tree, our shoulders touching. I hardly notice. The clicking mingles in with the floaty feeling of intense peace that consumes every inch of my insides. I concentrate on it, focusing on where it stops, what it clings to, the pinch of a repair, the weight of it as it pumps through the chambers of my heart and reenters my veins. Serum. And the clicking? It’s not clicking at all. It’s . . . music. A patterned combination of noise that transforms into a symphony of sound that belongs uniquely to me. It traces every breath, every beat of my heart, every raised hair on my arms as adrenaline surges through me and joins the flow. I take in a breath, ease it out, and relax. The Serum responds to my moves, adjusts to each action, reacts to the involuntary movements of my organs like my nervous system. And it’s beautiful. It’s a journey, weaving me through the mystery of how intricately I am made.
I’ve never heard it like this before, and I know this is coming from God. I can’t help what Eden did to me, but I can help how I let it affect me. The whispering in my heart grows louder, showing me the way, and suddenly . . . the distant sound of an anvil resonates in my memory.
In one quick motion, I pull my pocketknife from my belt and slice open my palm.
“Dude.” Jesse’s eyes clear. He hangs over my shoulder. “Save that action for the enemy.” He glances at Justin. “He’s losing it.”
“No,” I say. “I can feel them.”
I lift my hand, slow and deliberate, and I feel the tug as several tiny components of the Serum break free from the rest and flood toward the wound. My nerves ripple under a tickling buzz as they go to work rebuilding the cells, closing the skin. And just before they make the final repairs, I focus again, using every bit of my adrenaline to push the Serum back, away from the wound. It fights me, but I push harder. The buzzing eases and comes to a full stop, and blood oozes in a thin line, running over my palm and down my wrist.
“What happened?” Jesse leans closer. “Why aren’t you healing?”
“He stopped it,” Max whispers. He scratches his head and looks me in the eye.
“What?” Jesse grabs my wrist, smearing blood out of the way to see the open wound. I wince as his thumb brushes the fresh cut, sending a sharp sting across my palm. After a few secon
ds, I shift the balance of adrenaline, and the Serum charges back in to finish the job. Jesse releases my hand.
“No way, man. There’s no way you just did that.”
I can feel the tiny machines settling back, joining in with the rest of the Serum as it travels through my bloodstream.
“When did you learn how to do that?” Justin asks.
I wipe the leftover blood across my thigh, staining my jeans with a rusty streak.
“Just now.” My eyes skim over their dubious faces. “Some things have changed for me in the past few days. Things that make me understand the Serum better. And myself, too. My heart . . . and my soul.” I pause, focus all of my attention on Justin. “When I was out of it, and you cut that liquid out of me? That’s when it started making sense. But just now, for the first time, I controlled the Serum instead of letting it take over. Because something bigger lives in me now.”
Justin swallows, blinks once. “You’re talking about the Spirit, aren’t you?”
An explosion drowns out the last of his sentence and ends the conversation. We all cringe. I peer over my shoulder around the trunk. The Rovers have formed a tight formation just inside the outer tree line, but the soldiers move forward, their cadence growing louder. There are too many of them.
“Get ready.” I toss my eyes around the small circle of my closest friends. “No matter what Rob says, we’re going to end up fighting. We all know this.” I pause. “Just . . . don’t get shot.”
I sweep my eyes over the faces of my three closest friends. We may not be ready, but we’re here. And if we have to fight, we’ll fight.
Chapter 34
T
he vehicles rumble across the ground in a slow creep, the sound of their engines growing louder. But the soldiers are still a couple hundred yards out when I race through the trees and slide up next to Rob where he kneels just inside the cover of the tree line.
He fumes.
“Ian Roberts, what did I tell you? You need to stay back!”
“You can’t protect us, and you know it.” I face him, my bow firm in my grip. He doesn’t look at me, his eyes focused on the impending danger. “We don’t want to hide in the trees and watch your men get butchered.”
He shakes his head, his eyes piercing me. “We aren’t going to get butchered.” A long sigh eases out of him. “Look, it became my responsibility to protect you the minute we met. It’s my sworn duty as a soldier of Eden. Now you and the boys need to clear out.”
“And go where? Running home to our parents? Not an option.”
Rob comes to his feet. “I don’t care where!” Spittle slaps me in the face. “Anywhere but here! Go to Gaza with the others.”
“Gaza.” I shake my head, meeting him toe to toe. “Our place is here. With our own people. With you.”
He opens his mouth, but I stop him with a raise of my hand before he can say more.
“I didn’t convince Max and Jesse to find you so you could send us away.” My words spill out in a mad rush, anxious to get everything off my chest before it’s too late. “We’d be fighting these guys on our own if you hadn’t shown up. We don’t have training, that’s true. But we have the Serum pumping through our veins just like you. So why don’t you stop fighting us so we can fight the enemy together?”
Just then, one of the planes swoops in from behind, battering the ground with bullets. It rises up, and circles back around, readying itself for another attempt.
“What are we doing?” Evan growls from his position a few yards away. Kyle squats next to him. He lifts his eyes to study Evan. “We’re from Eden, and we’re fighting these guys like common villagers.”
Rob shifts his weight, a fierce scowl planting itself across his face. “What was that?”
Evan stands, dropping his rifle at his feet.
“We have brute strength and speed on our side, and we’re hunkering down behind a bunch of trees like scared rabbits. Man, we’re shooting push pins into a concrete wall. It’s not working.”
“Stand down, soldier.”
“Rob.” He shakes his head. “Hiding is fine when you’re spying. But we’ve been called up. We’re Eden’s only chance. Let’s finish this our way.”
Several other Rovers are on their feet listening. A couple of them cautiously nod in agreement as they weigh Rob’s authority against Evan’s reason. I shift my eyes toward the oncoming Vortex soldiers, still just a black line on the horizon but getting closer by the minute.
“We can’t stand up against their weapons, and you know it,” Rob says.
“No, I don’t know it. Because somebody hasn’t given me the chance to find out.”
Evan sweeps his eyes toward the guys warily before he steps in and lowers his voice.
“Look Rob, I’ve conceded to your authority up to now because we need someone to be in charge. You’ve got a couple more years’ experience on me as an expedition leader, and I respect that. But you’ve always had a problem stepping outside the lines when necessary.” He tosses his head toward Max and Jesse where they stand behind me. “Look how many weapons those boys swiped in sneak attacks. It would be wise to take a lesson.”
“I think he’s right, Rob,” Kyle interjects. He swings his rifle up to rest against his shoulder, his other hand on his hip above the butt of his pistol. “It’s about time we stir things up Eden style.”
Rob narrows his eyes. “You don’t get a say, Rookie. How many times do I have to remind you of that?”
Kyle shuts his mouth, but he keeps his eyes trained on Rob. A group of Rovers gathers in behind him, anxious and straining to hear the conversation.
A plane roars overhead, breaking up the argument, and the Rovers’ guns shift upward like a metal bouquet as another shower of bullets hammers the ground. They fire in return, not that it does any good. One of the men a few yards over gets pinged in the thigh and goes down. I wince, knowing the white liquid will move through his body like a wild fire. He rolls onto the ground, grasping his leg in pain.
Evan takes this in, and with a sudden burst of fury, he bends and tugs a boulder from the dirt.
“What in the hell are you doing, Evan?” Rob demands.
Evan ignores him. Gauging his strength against the distance, he takes a couple of running steps and hurls the stone toward the plane just as it makes another turn toward the trees. The stone whizzes through the air on a smooth, curved arc, as if he’s merely thrown a pebble, but the thunk of rock hitting metal is deafening. The plane severely dips sideways on impact and struggles to regain its course. Its guns go silent. The boulder falls, cracking to bits on the hard ground, and the Rovers’ shouts rise together in one excited voice. Jesse rushes up to stand next to me, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” he exclaims, clasping my shoulder and squeezing.
Evan lugs up another boulder, races forward, and flings it. Several other Rovers take their cue from him, and soon rocks are flying in mass at the plane, a few meeting the target with battering strength. The plane dips and wobbles as the pilots attempt to make a wide turn away from the attack.
One boulder hits an engine, and the plane, clearly injured, begins to smoke, its nose dangerously tipping downward. But it doesn’t lose too much speed as a secondary engine takes over and lures it upright. It circles away from us, and rides off toward the horizon over the heads of the marching soldiers. Only they aren’t marching any longer, and even the vehicles come to a dead stop as the men stare up at the plane limping away. The other plane, flies in, levels off and follows the first. I cast my eyes toward Evan as he jogs back toward the line of Rovers. They’ve turned their attention away from the planes and toward the ensuing army, and they line up, shoulder to shoulder, boulders ready. Evan lifts his chin at me.
“Are you as fast as they say?”
“Is he as fast as they say . . .” Jesse answers. “What are you asking? There’s no one faster than this guy.”
Evan glances at Rob, raises a bro
w. Rob closes his eyes with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Go,” he says. His eyes find mine. “Find their air base.”
I take in an anxious breath, sling my bow over my head with a nod, and I’m gone.
It takes no time at all for me to reach the limit of my speed. I feel the familiar tension as my cheeks tighten against the force, and my legs surge with beautifully aching heat. But this time, I’m completely in tune with the Serum—the constant clicking riding through my blood, breaking off to take hold of the muscle and joints, to massage them toward greater speeds. I see my abilities, and I understand them. I’m not the product of the strength; I’m the vessel. I hold the strength like a jar holds water. And it’s not going anywhere I don’t want it to as long as I don’t tip over.
I fly straight up the middle of the Vortex line, whipping out an arrow and shooting it through the calf of one soldier. He curses and goes to his knees, his fingers tightening around the shaft. He doesn’t see me as I race past, taking out both front tires of the two nearest vehicles and sending them reeling off course. The flattened wheels spin out of control, the shafts of my arrows protruding from each tire at odd angles like a rotating piece of artwork. I pin three more soldiers through a leg or an arm, throwing a section of the line into confusion. They begin shooting haphazardly, a couple of them pinging each other with bullets. This sends a panic racing down the rows that spread out across the plains, and soon everyone is shooting.
From across the field, the Rovers return fire, toss a few boulders that land with fierce thuds, and I race around in a wide circle and watch the chaos for a minute. A Vortex soldier falls down dead on the spot, then another. I dodge the bullets without a scratch this time. I make another circular dash before I break through their lines, chunking one guy hard against his head with my fist. He’s slumps to the ground. Lights out.
