“You started believing your own play, Garrett. Everybody loves you now, everybody thinks you’re the amazing Garrett Cole, you’re gonna save the day—but that’s not who you are. That’s an act. I mean, you’re literally up on a stage, wearing a sparkly tuxedo, this isn’t even a metaphor any—”
“It was my life. And you took it.”
“Because you owed me one! You were going to let me rot. Well, I wasn’t going to let you leave me behind so easy. You’re not allowed to forget me.”
“Fine,” he said, voice lowering again. When Garrett Cole lowered his voice, it had the same effect as someone else raising it. It caught attention, made people listen. Every word he spoke did that, but when he put so much careful consideration into every syllable like this… “Go ahead. Kill me. Then you’ll never find out what Turret wanted.”
Hans held very still. Finally his black lips slid back over his new sharp teeth, hiding them from view. His snarl faded, but the agitated lash of his tail said it could return at any moment. “You’re stalling.”
“Of course I am. But I’m also telling you the truth. I know what it was all for.”
“No you don’t,” Hans gave his new, furry head a shake, just to see how the human gesture worked. It didn’t really translate, so he stopped. “Nobody knows why Turret chose me, or why he made my life a living Hell. I don’t even know. I didn’t know what he wanted, and I didn’t know how to make him stop, or—or I would have done it, instead of spend ten years….” he couldn’t continue. He wondered for a few seconds what the high-pitched whining noise was, before recognizing it as a wolf’s pained cries. Hans turned it into a growl instead and looked away.
“Ten years of pain.” Garrett spoke quietly, in the same intense, captivating, nearly-hypnotic voice, almost as enthralling as Evelyn Calliope’s song. “I’m sorry, Hans. I really did try to save you. Turret doesn’t let anyone go, you know that.”
“You got away. They did. Chimera—Regan, whatever—Zilch, and Danae, and Rose, and… and Gabriel. You all escaped. Why didn’t I? Why’d you leave me behind?”
Garrett was quiet for a long time. “Escape with me now.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because you’ve got the teeth.” He smiled at Hans. “And I’ve got the plan. Do you still want to know why he chose you, and why you suffered? Do you want to help me do something about it?”
“Of course I want to know!” When Hans’s anger flared now, his borrowed, triangular ears lay flat against his metal skull and the thick ruff of fur around his neck bristled and stood on end. There would be a lot to get used to, but not this desire for revenge.
“Then come with me. It’s a long way to the middle of the Tartarus Zone, but that’s where we’ll find him.”
“Tartarus…” Hans turned the word over in his mind. He could only recall vague foreboding, pain, delirium and a sense of dread. “What’s he doing all the way out there?
“You think you’re the only ghost in town?” Garrett started to walk, steps slow and smooth and sure. “Not anymore. Turret thinks he’s got a brand new toy, but he’s playing with fire, he just doesn’t know it yet.”
“We’ll stop him. Whatever he’s up to, I’ll stop him.”
“There, you see?” He grinned down into the wolf’s bright blue eyes. “We were heading in the same direction after all.”
“You say one wrong word and I’m still tearing your head off, old man.” Hans turned his metal head to look directly up at him. “And no, I’m really, really not kidding.”
“You’re welcome to try.” Now Garrett didn’t hide his chuckle. His voice reverberated through the shattered streets and broken buildings, and even Hans paid attention, new eyes and ears taking quick and very serious notice. “Now. Let’s go for a walk.”
Together, they made their way through the smoke and ash toward the edge of Parole, and the world beyond. The wall around the city didn’t slow either of them down, and neither did the barrier. Nobody saw them leave, not even a single Eye in the Sky. Some things were meant to be shared—like lifesaving resources, shelter, safety and protection.
Some things were meant to remain secret. At least for now.
Garrett Cole exited, pursued by a wolf.
❈
Regan entered the new world, lifted his eyes, and saw for miles.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find on the outside. Maybe verdant forests. Maybe the world had flooded, and they’d come out to find ocean as far as the eye could see. (Oh, dare to dream.) Even an arctic wasteland; nothing would have surprised him anymore.
It was the same reddish California earth he remembered, the far-off jagged shapes of towering rock formations jutting up against the sky. He vaguely remembered this stretch of highway, though it was cracked and overgrown from disuse—he and Gabriel must have emerged in a very remote location. There had been… something here once, a gas station, a fast food place, something. There wasn’t one now. The area had been cleared. Parole really was alone.
But that wasn’t the emptiness he was struck by. The one he saw was beautiful.
“Look,” he whispered. He didn’t have to speak; Gabriel would hear him if he just thought the word.
“It’s blue…” Gabriel spoke softly, gradually appearing to stand beside Regan, staring up at the eternal sky. He usually hovered in the back of Regan’s mind, present but not overpowering—vastly unlike other, much more aggressive ‘ghosts’ he could name. This one’s mental imprint was like half-listening to far-off music or being vaguely aware of a faint dream when Gabriel wasn’t consciously projecting himself. It felt like he was sleeping and maybe he was. If anybody deserved to rest after ten traumatic years, it was Gabriel. “I almost forgot about blue.”
“Me too. I kind of forgot about… sky.” Regan nodded slowly, transfixed by the color and its expanse, infinite and dizzying after ten years of claustrophobic enclosure. He almost felt weightless, like nothing attached his feet to the ground. He might just slip right off and fall forever, right up into space. This world was cloudless and never-ending, and stretched so far the only ‘barrier’ left in was the horizon. He’d forgotten about birds. Free little feathered things that flitted by on wings instead of helicopter blades. Alive. Singing. The sky was open.
And he’d forgotten air could smell like this. Heavy and heady with the freshness of fallen rain instead of oily smoke, the cool petrichor floating up from moist soil. He breathed deep and his head spun. Not from poison. From the first lungful of clean oxygen he’d had in a decade. The second was even sweeter.
“Regan?”
“Hm? Yeah.” He shook his head, then swiped away the stinging tears that also had nothing to do with smoke.
“I’m glad we’re here.” Gabriel gave him a tiny smile that faded fast; maybe he wasn’t any more used to it than Regan was. He remained partly translucent, much more ghostly than even Hans, who usually at least appeared solid unless he was deliberately trying to intimidate someone.
“Yeah, me too.” Regan nodded several times, folding his arms tightly across his thin chest and looking down at the ground—at the green grass between his shoes. He tried not to think about how perfectly the color of new shoots of baby-green grass matched his brightest scales, and Zilch suggesting ways to dull down the shine so they didn’t reflect light as much on nights he needed some extra stealth. “It’s, uh. Really, really great.”
“But we can’t stay here.” The voice that called him back to reality was soft but insistent.
Regan looked up, slow concern dawning. “Yeah, I know… There’s something big happening out here, and if Turret’s involved, that’s bad right there. So first step’s finding out what.” A small, grim smile crossed his face as he glanced back at the barrier rising up behind them. He’d never seen it from this side before. It looked very much the same, and yet felt so different. “And getting everybody from back in there—out here.”
“We’ll save your friends,” Gabriel promised, young face as
calm as ever; Regan wondered if it was serenity or exhaustion. “But first we need to find some of mine.”
“Your friends? You know people… outside?”
“Mm…” Definitely exhaustion. The boy’s image was already starting to fade like a picture left out too long in the sun. Projection apparently took more effort than it appeared. “They’ll help us.”
“Okay, sure,” Regan nodded, though this raised several more questions than it answered. He wasn’t sure how a teenager recently freed from a decade’s imprisonment in an inferno under a quarantined city had a more active social life than he did, though considering his own circle, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. “You go ahead and take a nap, I’ll find us… you’re gone already.”
He was alone. Regan took another breath, enjoying the rush of oxygen—and noticed for the first time how incredibly quiet it was. There was no roar of fire, no helicopters, no engines, no sirens, no screams. The barrier must be soundproof. He shook his head, letting out a mirthless laugh as he turned back to face it.
“No wonder nobody came to help us. They probably don’t even know we’re—”
Regan froze. He wasn’t alone after all.
The cat with the metallic ears and bright green eyes—green like the new grass, like his scales when they were bright and clean—stared at him through the undulating energetic field. Her mouth opened in a silent meow, and one paw raised to bat at the air in his direction. Clearly she knew better than to actually touch the barrier, but the cat-impulse remained.
This time Regan didn’t run away. He didn’t fade. He raised one hand, reaching out toward the barrier and felt the intense heat radiating from its vast, curving surface. If he’d had any hair, it would have stood on end from the crackling energy, lethal to so many thousands desperate for escape. He did not touch it; just stood, arm extended and flat of his palm facing its surface several inches away, and locked eyes with the cat. Inside, she did the same. His eyes filled with tears, and this time he didn’t wipe them away either.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. If he couldn’t hear the cat’s meow through the soundproof dome, she couldn’t hear his words. But she could see him, and her cybernetic eyes would transmit his image to someone who wouldn’t have a hard time reading his lips, or his face. “CyborJ… Zilch… Evelyn… everyone. But I’m gonna fix—I’m gonna make—everyth…” he stopped. Slowly let his hand drop to his side and shook his head. “I’ll come back for you. Promise.”
The cat tilted her head, as if asking if that was all. When he didn’t continue, she turned around and trotted off into the smoky darkness to deliver the message, fluffy tail held high.
Slowly, deliberately, Regan turned around and stood with his back to the barrier and everything inside. He stood with his eyes wide open, and saw no horrors—but he was still afraid.
He shouldn’t have been afraid, but he’d never been more terrified, maybe more than he’d ever been in Parole. Now he faced an outside world, just as strange, just as terrifying, but for a different reason. It was unknown, when at last, he knew the world behind him, and had fought so hard to know it. Know them. He’d fought so hard to regain not only his memories, but his sense of identity and equilibrium, his place in the world, and the people who made it up. His entire life.
It wasn’t just fire that lay behind him. It was his hard-won self. Once regained… how could he give it up? Give them up?
Once, all he’d hoped for was escape. Once, he’d thought Parole was where hope went to die. Now he knew that couldn’t be further from the truth. That place behind him was filled with more rebellious hope, more powerful love, and more triumphant beauty than anywhere he knew, because of the people who made their lives there, and their refusal to submit to despair.
It wouldn’t be so different out here, Regan thought, feeling Gabriel’s subtle presence like a sleeping kitten, curled in a soft ball on the edges of his consciousness. He would keep his promise; the people he loved wouldn’t be confined in a fiery prison for long. And he wouldn’t be alone. He carried them within him, through open air and endless sky.
Regan took another deep, sweet breath.
Then he took a step.
“Hello everyone… I don’t know if you can hear me anymore. I hope you can. I’m going to say it anyway, just in case.
“This is your Radio Angel. I told you I’d always be there for you and I meant it. Even if I had to run, I’m there in spirit, and I’m listening, I promise I’m still listening. I’m so, so sorry for leaving you for a while there, but things got real nasty and I had to get the heck out of Dodge. Or in this case, Parole. I’m okay, I’m with some friends who got me out safe, but obviously I can’t tell you where. I will say that I can see the smoke from here, and I’m hoping and praying you’re okay and that a lot of you made it out safe too and… and like I said, that you can even hear me at all. ‘Scuse me, something in my eye.
“But don’t worry. I’m not leaving you. I’m never leaving you.
“Anyway. In the coming weeks, you’re going to hear a lot of scary things. You’re going to hear that this is pretty much World War III, and that everyone on Earth is pointing a finger at Parole and everybody who lives here. That’s… that’s if the world even knows about us at all. I hope they do. I hope they find out about us, and everything that’s happened here. Somebody needs to know. I’m going to do my best to make sure they know.
“But even if they do, they’re going to hate us, and say terrible things. You’re going to hear that you were born wrong, or you made the wrong choice, or that you’re sick and disgusting and evil and need to be wiped off the face of the earth.
“But listen to me. You’re beautiful. I really mean that, I mean it from the bottom of my squishy, fuzzy heart, every single one of you listening to this is beautiful, and worth it, and you need to survive. We need you to survive.
“People will try to hurt you. People will try to shut you up and bring you down and even kill you, and they’ll do whatever they can to convince you that you’re alone, and nobody cares, and that’s how they’ll win. They’ll use guns and they’ll use words, and the worst part of all is that you might listen when they say you’re a freak or a monster, and you might start to believe it.
But they are lying. Don’t believe them for a minute. Just keep singing. Sing for the ones you love, sing for the people who are fighting, and for everybody who didn’t make it. Maybe even sing a little bit for me. But mostly, sing for you.
“And they can’t silence us. My signal is still going strong, and so is yours. Listen to my voice, and use your own and never, ever stop. Your voice is your power, and nothing and nobody can take it away from you. Love yourself, love the people around you, and never give up. If you need help, reach out. If you’re drowning, make some noise. There are people who love you, who will throw you a life preserver. That’s what it all comes down to, love. That’s how we’re gonna get through this. And we are gonna get through this.
“Now I’m gonna play you some music, starting with my favorite lady, Miss Evelyn Calliope. Let her take you someplace safe and warm. Dream sweet, and remember that I’ll be with you when the music’s over. Sing with her, and I’ll be singing along too.
“Just remember that you are not alone. You are never alone, no matter how much it hurts. I promise.
“Now sing it out.”
Stay tuned for Book 2 of the Chameleon Moon series,
coming soon from RoAnna Sylver!
Thank you so much for reading!
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The reports of Parole casualties kept coming in, and Evelyn had a headache. It pounded at her temples the way the gunfire rang outside. Her elbows rested on Garrett Cole’s desk—no, her desk. The plan was always to fall back to the Emerald Bar in a crisis. It was sturdy and defensible, easily protected by Danae’s technology and energetic barriers, and everybody kn
ew its name. So they’d set up their fortress here: Evelyn, Danae, Zilch, Finn, and everybody else they’d been able to scrape together to form a functional team, powered and otherwise.
That Evelyn would lead them hadn’t even been in question. Everyone already looked to her for answers and protection and courage; now it was just a little more direct and official. And every leader needed an office. Fortunately, the Emerald Bar had one. So it was only natural that she ended up in Garrett’s room.
Where he had died.
Evelyn very clearly remembered coming here with Regan—her stomach jerked remembering him too—and seeing the yellow police tape around the Bar’s entrance. Jenny Strings saying Garrett had left a message for her. Listening to that recording, right here. She tried to avoid this room as long as she could, and never stay too long. But she couldn’t stay away forever.
And now she stared down at his desk—no, her desk, she kept reminding herself—and the papers that covered it. Updates. Reports. Since the power went out so often in Parole, they had to go low-tech. Just write down what you see and hand it in. And so often now, the papers she got had the names of the missing and the dead on them. So many papers all over Garrett’s—her—desk. So many names.
They blurred in front of her eyes, blended together like the hours.
“Trick or tree-eat!”
Evelyn nearly jumped out of her skin at the singsong voice, looking up to see a teenage boy sauntering into the room, hands in his pockets and wearing a wide grin. His head hung at a funny angle, and a smear of dried blood was just visible under his black bangs. The side of his head looked…wrong. Flattened.
“Hello, Hans,” she said through gritted teeth, looking back down at her own clenched fists on the desks and its many papers.
“Like my costume?”
“That’s not funny!” she snapped. “Have some respect for the dead!”
“Sorry,” the boy shrugged, not looking sorry at all. “Just having a little fun. Something I haven’t had in about ten years. Gotta make up for lost time.”
Chameleon Moon Page 38
