by S. J. West
“Hi,” Kale said, staring at Teegan like she was the fifth wonder of the world.
“Oh my god,” Zoe said, grabbing Kale’s hand and Teegan’s hand and firmly placing them one on top of the other. “Go dance with the girl, you goof.”
Kale’s eyes widened like a trapped animal.
“But …” he started to say before being cut off by Zoe.
“Listen, you like her, and she likes you. I’m tired of being your go-between. Now shoo.” Zoe waved her hands like she was chasing away two children. “Go have fun. You can thank me later.”
Kale turned to Teegan. A slow grin spread his lips before he tugged Teegan onto the dance floor and twirled her into his arms.
“I guess you’re my date now,” Zoe said, lacing an arm around one of Kirk’s.
“That was very impressive, Ms. Zoe,” Kirk complimented. “You may have the makings of a matchmaker.”
Zoe shrugged like it was no big deal. “Come on, let’s dance!”
Before I knew it, Ash and I were alone again, just in time for the first slow song of the night.
Ash pulled me in tight against him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head on his chest as we swayed to the music. The warmth emanating from his body lulled mine to relax for the first time that night. The gentle play of his hands trailing down my back to rest on my hips felt so natural I didn’t feel the need to move his hands to a less intimate spot.
“Skye …”
Reluctantly, I lifted my head from Ash’s warmth to meet his pained gaze.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Come with me,” he said in a hoarse voice, taking one of my hands to lead me away from the others around us.
Underneath one of the twinkling trees in the park, Ash ducked behind it and leaned his back against its trunk, using it as a brace before pulling me in close to his body. In the secluded oasis, I felt his hands travel up and down my back as he looked into my eyes with so much tenderness I wondered what he would say next.
“I know I never showed how much I cared about you when we were in the Eastern Kingdom, but I never felt like it was the right time to tell you,” he began. “That’s why I kept bringing us back to the barrier. I kept praying we would find a way to make it through. I knew if I could only take you somewhere we didn’t have to struggle so hard to survive, I could show you how I really felt about you and maybe we could start a real life together. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Skye. I want for us to have a chance at a real life without having to worry about the Harvesters taking our children away. And now, we have that. We have a chance to be happy if you’ll just let go of the outside world and give me a chance to make that happen. I love you more than anything or anyone. I just couldn’t allow myself to admit it to you before now. I don’t want to lose you to someone else without you knowing how I feel.”
My heart yearned to accept Ash’s offer of happily ever after. How many cold, sleepless nights in the Eastern Kingdom had I wanted him to offer me his love? For more than five years, I silently pined for Ash—my heart aching for him to love me the way I loved him. It was a love I thought could never be broken. Then I met Jace, and everything changed for me. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be possible to love two people at the same time, but I couldn’t deny my love for Jace anymore than I could deny I loved Ash. And I couldn’t lie to Ash. He deserved to know the whole truth.
“Ash, I …”
A loud boom from the direction of the dance cut my words off. Ash and I looked around the tree back toward the dance floor. A fire now blazed in the middle of the stage where the band had been playing. People were screaming and trying to get as far away from the blaze as possible. A man with long, messy hair, dressed in a ratty looking green coat was silhouetted by the flames behind him. He grabbed the microphone off the floor where the singer must have dropped it and spoke.
“You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” he yelled, crazed with anger. “Prancing around here like you ain’t got a care in the world! Well, let me tell you good citizens of the south, y’all are just as bad if not worse than the Harvesters! At least they ain’t pretending to be your friends by offerin’ food and clothes. At least you know where you stand with those bastards. No, it’s the ones offerin’ you help you can’t turn your backs on!”
A group of ten guards made a mad dash toward the stage from every direction.
“Do you know what your government is doin’?” he demanded, realizing he didn’t have much time left before he would be taken away.
“They’re rounding up those of us left on the surface on this side of the barrier and tradin’ us in to the Queen, just so you people can have your cushy little lives down in this hole. I hope y’all go to hell like you deserve for lettin’ it happen right under your damn noses!”
The man didn’t get a chance to say anything else. He was tackled by two guards, causing the mic to fly out of his hands into the flames behind him. For a moment, I thought the guards were going to push him into the fire too, but instead they tasered him, quickly rendering him unconscious.
The dance was quickly dispersed by the guards. We were ordered to return home immediately and not venture out onto the streets anymore until further notice. Ash and I went back to the dance floor and found our friends before we left.
“Did you see that?” Kirk said excitedly. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”
“Dude looked off his rocker to me,” Kale said with a shrug, almost nonplussed by the accusations made by the man.
“We should get the girls home before something else happens.” Ash took my hand into his and quickly led the way back to our apartment complex.
When we reached the door to our apartment, Zoe said, “I’ll go let your dad know what happened.”
After Zoe was gone, Ash brought me in close to his body to plant a chaste kiss on my lips.
“Promise me you’ll think about what I said tonight,” he whispered.
“I will,” I replied, instantly feeling like a coward for not saying anything about my feelings for Jace.
“I’m not in any rush, Skye. I’ll wait as long as I need to have all of you. Half of your heart isn’t enough for me.”
But what if that was all I was able to give him? I thought to myself. Before I could voice the question, Ash turned from me and went into his apartment.
CHAPTER FOUR
The apartment was quiet when I walked in. Zoe was nowhere to be seen. I presumed she was in her room changing into her favorite pair of pink sweats to sleep in. Blue was lying in front of my father’s study door. He raised his head and padded his way to me as I entered.
“Dad’s in his office, Blue?” I asked, not really expecting a response back from my Weimaraner, but people who love their pets tend to do that. We talk to them like they actually understand everything we’re saying.
I knocked softly on the study door. I didn’t get an answer, so I pushed the door open to double check and found the room empty of my father’s presence. I was just about to close the door when I heard muffled voices. Stepping farther inside, I went to stand in the center of the room until I heard the voices again. They were faint but definitely coming from the right of me. Against that wall was a tall bookshelf. I walked over to the shelf and could hear the voices more clearly. My father’s voice was unmistakable, and from his tone, he was extremely angry about something.
I stood frozen not sure what to do. If I looked for the way into what I had to presume was a secret room, would he be angry with me for finding it and invading his privacy? But why did he have a secret room in the first place? Who was he arguing with so vehemently on the other side of the wall? Before I had a chance to decide my next move, the bookshelf swung inward and my father walked out.
He looked startled when he saw me and stood completely still, like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have.
He didn’t say a word to me, just continued to walk behind his desk.
“What’s in there?” I asked,
sure he wouldn’t volunteer any information without being asked directly.
“Every person on the council has one,” he said, like that should be answer enough.
I stared at him, waiting for him to say more, but he didn’t.
“Who were you arguing with in there?”
I half-expected someone else to come walking out of my father’s secret lair, but they never did.
“I don’t have to explain everything I do to you. You’re my daughter, not my keeper.” My father’s sharp words cut me to the quick. It was the first time he’d ever used such a dismissive tone with me.
“Dad, what’s wrong? Does it have to do with the man at the dance?”
My father’s eyes narrowed on me. “Drop it, Skye. There are things happening that you simply don’t need to worry about. They don’t concern you.”
He may have been my father but that didn’t stop my temper from flaring up.
“The council is trading humans on this side of the barrier to Lucena, so the people living down here don’t have to worry about being invaded by the Harvesters. How can you stand there and tell me we shouldn’t discuss what’s happening?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” My father’s temper was quickly matching my own. Now I knew where I got it from. “Let the matter drop.”
“No,” I said, not wanting to go against my dad but feeling the need to make him admit the truth of what he knew to me.
“I am your father. And what I say goes underneath this roof, young lady.”
Under any other circumstances, I would have laughed at such a cliché statement, but my father sounded completely serious. I had never seen him look so mad before. Why was he so scared to tell me the truth?
“When Lucena sent you here, was that part of the message you were made to give to the council? Was that part of the bargain to keep her from coming through the barrier?”
My father turned away from me and looked out the window behind his desk. I could see his reflection in the glass against the dark cityscape outside.
“Things aren’t always so cut and dry, Skye. Sometimes you have to dance with the devil to keep him, or her in this case, away.”
A low-pitched whine of a blaring siren broke through our conversation. It was a civil defense siren, which was a common sound to be heard during the war between the Harvesters and humans. It usually meant wherever you were living was either being invaded or a nuclear bomb was on the way.
A prerecorded woman’s voice resounded over the blare of the siren.
“You have … fifteen minutes … to evacuate before detonation of self-destruct.”
My father whirled around to face me.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as waves of bad memories almost overwhelmed me with the familiar rise and fall of the siren.
“I don’t know.” My father reached for the phone on his desk and punched a red button located on the keypad.
“Jon Blackwell,” he said to whomever came on the other line. He paused, listening to the person on the phone. My father nodded his head. “All right.” He hung up the receiver and looked up at me. “There are trip wires around the perimeter of the city in case of an invasion. All fifteen of them have been activated, which automatically sets off the self-destruct. Go to your room and grab whatever you can carry in a small bag. We have to leave now.”
He walked from behind the desk and dashed back into his secret room.
Zoe was stepping out of her bedroom when I walked back into the living room.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Hurry up and grab a bag of stuff from your room,” I told her. “We have to leave the city.”
“You have … fourteen minutes … to evacuate before detonation of self-destruct.”
Zoe and I spent two minutes, at least according to the automated voice’s rather annoyingly calm countdown, changing into warm clothing and packing up what we could grab quickly. I searched under my pillow and pulled out the one thing I was not going to leave the city without: the small heart-shaped rock Jace had given me. I slipped it in the front pocket of my jeans for safekeeping. When Zoe and I met my father in the living room, I noticed he was only carrying a small black bag, not big enough for anything substantial.
My father banged on the door of Ash and Kale’s apartment when we left ours.
They both came to the door with backpacks over their shoulders.
“Come on boys,” my father said. “We don’t have much time.”
By the time we all walked out of the apartment building, there was a mad crash of people in the street running for escape. Gunfire could be heard in the distance, but I couldn’t see who was firing at whom.
“Where are we going?” I yelled to my father over the noise of the crowd and siren.
My father grabbed one of my hands.
“Don’t let go,” he ordered. “Doc Riley should be waiting for us in the park with a transporter.”
I grabbed Zoe’s hand, and she tugged on Blue’s leash to pull him in closer to us to make sure he didn’t get trampled by the throng surrounding us. Ash and Kale followed close behind.
The scared crowd of people around us made walking difficult. The sound of gunfire seemed to get closer and closer the farther down the street we went.
“Damn fools,” my father said only loud enough for me to hear.
“Are the guards shooting people?” I asked, having only seen the guards of the Southern Kingdom be allowed to carry guns.
My father looked down at me. “No.”
But he didn’t have time to elaborate.
“You have … seven minutes …to evacuate before detonation of self-destruct.”
Finally, we broke through the crush of people and entered Central Park. The park area was almost deserted, only a scattering of people were running through it.
“Where are we going?” I asked my father, running along beside him, doing my best to keep up.
“The pond.”
I didn’t have enough breath to ask why Doc Riley was meeting us at the pond. Two minutes later, I had my answer.
Doc Riley and Ian were standing on the end of the pier, which reached out to the middle of the pond. Behind them, floating along the side of the dock, was a black armored vehicle I had never seen before. It looked like the spurious child of a tank and a boat.
“You have … five minutes … to evacuate before detonation of self-destruct.”
“Glad to see you made it,” Doc Riley said, giving me a brief hug. “Climb in children and buckle up.”
The interior of the vehicle was larger than I expected. There were ten bucket seats built into each side wall and a driver seat and passenger seat up front near the glowing blue control panel. Ash helped me buckle Blue into one of the seats while everyone else grabbed a seat of their own. Doc Riley took the driver’s chair, and my father sat up front with her.
“You have … four minutes … to evacuate before detonation of self-destruct.”
Ash made to help me into my chair, but I pushed him toward the empty seat across from me.
“I can take care of myself, Ash, just get in your seat.”
I felt Ash put his hands on my shoulders. Before I knew it, I was turned around and facing him.
In a blur of motion, he put his hands behind my head and pulled me toward him. His lips crushed mine in a desperate kiss. His mouth opened to deepen the kiss, causing my already racing heart to pump even harder inside my chest. The warm feel of his lips and tongue almost made me forget we were on the verge of being blown up.
“You have … three minutes … to evacuate before detonation of self-destruct.”
“Dude!” Kale said, breaking the moment. “There’s time for that later!”
Ash reluctantly pulled his lips away from mine. When I looked into his eyes, they seemed almost glazed over, like he was intoxicated.
“Just in case,” he said to me.
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I knew what he meant: j
ust in case we didn’t make it.
CHAPTER FIVE
I dropped into my seat and quickly buckled the safety harness. When I looked over at Ash, he was staring at me like he might not ever see me again.
“You have … two minutes … to evacuate before detonation of self-destruct.”
“Hold on, children,” Doc Riley yelled from the front. “The first drop is a doozy!”
Doc Riley was never one for overexaggeration. Whatever she did up front instantly caused an almost free-fall effect. I involuntarily grabbed the harness crisscrossing my chest as the light from the Southern Kingdom was lost, plunging us into a darkness so thick I thought it might suffocate me. The force of the fall made me feel like my stomach had suddenly been lodged inside my throat. Our landing must have been cushioned by water, but it was still jarring.
“Everyone all right?” my father yelled through the pitch black.
Everyone acknowledged they were fine in mumbled yeahs and yeses.
“Dude, where’s the light?” Kale asked.
“This is only the first step of our journey,” Doc Riley called back. “We’re in an aqueduct underneath the mountain. It will take us to a neighboring lake. I have to use night vision goggles to see where I’m going, so we can’t have any lights on. Sorry for any bumps along the way, children, but it can be a bit tricky driving through a hole as narrow as this one. Just make sure your harnesses are secure.”
I tugged on my belt to make sure it was still buckled. As Doc Riley weaved us back and forth through the tunnel, the motion of the vehicle made me feel like a bobblehead doll. I could only presume she was doing her best not to run us into the rock walls of the tunnel but still get us as far away from the blast zone as quickly as she could.
Suddenly, we all felt the vehicle vibrate and zoom forward by an unseen force. It had to be an aftershock from the bomb going off in the Southern Kingdom. I prayed Kirk and Teegan made it out in time. I couldn’t afford to lose any of my friends. They kept me sane in a world that was anything but.
I felt Zoe grope in the darkness, trying to find my hand but finding a leg instead. I placed my hand on top of hers and squeezed it reassuringly. To say I felt protective of Zoe was an understatement. Since she had entered my life, I felt like she was my responsibility to keep safe and out of harm’s way. She may have looked older, but I knew the frightened seven year old I first met was still inside her. We held hands in the dark, allowing our human contact to reassure us everything would turn out all right, even if it was an illusion.
