You are not his…
Taking a breath, I yanked at the other device in my temple. It ripped from my skin, the wires sizzling as incredible agony shot along my cheek and down my neck. I doubled over, screaming. Please, help me…
Unfathomable pain rushed through my mind as my psyche burst open and a thousand buried memories flooded out. I gasped, reeling back the torrent of days I thought were lost to me.
The cold of new metal on my skin. The haze of surgery. Sparring with Ashton, the weight of the baton in my palm. His lips on mine blazing heat through me. Blood, sticky and warm on my fingers as I stood amid my foes. Flaming buildings under the domes and ships sinking beneath my feet. Years of fear and pain and battles and loss tore through me, and I held my hands to my head, screaming.
My father, Sadie, Telsa, Mara...I had lost everyone and everything and there was one reason why. The Order. Arecibo.
With the dead swarming around me. My mind and body pushed beyond what I thought possible, I rose to my feet, heart racing in my chest. I knew who I was. I knew what I had done. All of it. Taking my baton, I held it in my hand and welcomed the surge of power.
I was Charlotte Blackburn. I was not a debutante or even a daughter anymore. I was destruction fashioned by their own hands, and I was coming to end them.
42
Running down the corridor, I passed people and Tremblers with tremendous speed. Pushing through the throng of rotting bodies and jumping over burning piles of furniture, I spied the doorway and skidded along the polished floor toward it. The ground shook, and I bolted through the doors.
Trembler Knights flanked by stomping walkers razed the street, their guns whirring as they fired at buildings and people alike. From the shore to the middle of town, the metal behemoths raged through the city.
Vapor furled in rivulets. I pulled my goggles down over my burning eyes and scanned the crowd.
Riley and the governors ran for the shore just ahead of the stomping claws of a walker. Arecibo.
He chased them down, the large feet of the vessel pounding. The Trembler Knights surrounded them, flanking the group, herding them in front of the walker.
Ashton caught up to them, slashing with his blade, fighting to get to the governors and Riley.
I closed the distance, the mechanica firing up the muscles, spine screaming with fire as I ran. “Watch out!” I screamed, heart stuttering, as the metal vessel swiveled, its guns spinning. The bullets scattered out, chunking into the governors, spitting up the ground as Arecibo fired into the group.
Riley spun, hit by a round, going to his knees.
Ashton dove, his shield out, tackling a few of the governors. Rounds slammed into him, his blood suspended mid spray as I ran, screaming. He fell to the ground, still.
“Ashton!” Sailing through the air, I swung with my baton, shearing off the barrel and landing in a roll.
The Trembler Knights fell onto the men.
Arm swinging up, a flash of silvery energy burst from my hands. It threw them backward and reached out with my mind, pulling the Tremblers from all over. Ripping into them with my mind, I commanded their movements.
The throng turned as one, moving in a wave of staggering bodies for the knights, grabbing them with ripped arms and shaking them. Some of them reached for Riley and I lashed out, my mind sharp and painful. They staggered back, holding their heads.
“Arecibo,” I shouted as the walker moved, turning.
The hatch swung open and Arecibo leaned out, aiming a tracer rifle at me. He fired, the purple lash snaking across the air.
I deflected the burst with my baton, scooped up the severed barrel and launched it at him.
He ducked and fired again.
The lash hit me in my chest and I flew backward, writhing with pain.
“You failed, Charlotte,” Arecibo shouted, firing again. “You cannot save them. You never could!”
Fighting to keep my muscles from spasming, my mouth opened in a silent scream.
The door to the walker opened and Arecibo and the woman ran out, grabbed four of the standing governors and pulled them inside. The hatch slammed shut and the walker pivoted, stomping for the shore.
“Charlotte,” Riley’s voice sounded next to me. I gritted my teeth, wincing as I struggled to my hands and knees. Riley’s face was splattered with blood from his shoulder wound. He pressed down on Ashton’s side, his fingers covered in crimson. “He’s bad.” Riley looked around at the Tremblers.
I waved and they fell back. “They won’t hurt us,” I panted.
Ashton cringed, but opened his eyes. “Charlie?”
I wiped blood from his cheek, my gaze going to the three holes in his side and chest. I shook my head, a sob erupting from my throat. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “So sorry.”
“No time for crying, love,” Ashton rasped. He reached up and caressed my cheek. “You go get them. W-we need Blackburn’s Daughter to save the c-country.” His eyes fluttered shut, and his arm flopped down.
I took in a shaking breath, watching his chest and flooding with relief at its continued rise and fall. My gaze snapping to Riley, I grabbed his sleeve. “C-can you get him safe?” I panted. “I…I have to...”
He nodded, hefting Ashton up, dragging him. “Go and get ‘em,” he said, winking. “Show them who they’re messing with.”
I locked on Arecibo’s retreating vessel. It trudged across the sands splashing into the surf. The spy scope extended and the propeller engaged. The submersible sliced the water, heading out into the dark sea.
“Like nothing they’ve seen.” I ran.
43
Knights and the fallen passed in a blur. I sprinted across the sand, making it to the waves as the submersible propeller picked up speed. It pulled forward, but I leapt, using the harnessed power of my affliction to launch at the vessel. I landed next to its fin and grasped for it, slipping and sliding off the slick metal before finding a foothold.
The hatch opened and Arecibo leaned out, trying to fire at me, but the waves tossed the submersible and he missed, electrifying the water a moment after I pulled myself up.
“You’ve lost, girl,” he yelled, aiming again. “Know when you’ve been beaten.”
“Oh, I am just starting to fight back,” I screamed. Scrambling onto the fin, I held on with both hands and kicked the tracer weapon from his hands. It tumbled into the ocean. Clasping my hands around the hose at the opening, I fired the mechanica in my fingers, crushing the tubing. The hatchway hinges squealed to a stop, locking open.
“What are you doing?” the woman in the vessel screamed. She lashed out with a dagger, burying it in my shoulder. “Do you know who I am? The might of this entire invasion is under my command. How dare you—”
I screamed, grabbed her by the throat, and yanked her out into the ocean. I tossed her aside as if she were nothing. She tumbled into the waves, screaming.
“Christina,” Arecibo shouted, but I was already moving. Swinging with both legs, I slammed my boots into his chest and we both toppled into the submersible. I fell onto him, rose up, and straddled his form. He writhed, gasping for the wind I knocked out of him.
Christina’s screams sounded from outside, and his gaze snapped to the hatch.
“You take mine. I take yours,” I snarled, pulling the dagger from my flesh and burying it to the hilt in his side.
He gasped, his eyes going wide. The submersible’s engines whined, black smoke roiling up the corridor to the helm.
I rolled off of him and shouted for the governors. “Get off this ship,” I snapped, motioning for them to come forward. “Now! We’ll sink with this open hatch!”
First one, and then the other three stumbled for the opening. I nodded, helping the frailer ones to the lip of the hatch.
“Go, go, go,” I shouted, my gaze going to Arecibo.
He staggered to his feet, blood at the corners of his grimace. “The colonies are mine!” He shouted, lunging for the final man.
I pushed t
he governor out, blocking the doorway with my body.
“Nothing is yours,” I shouted back. “I’ve taken everything.”
A gutteral growl tore from his lips, and he leapt for me.
I dove to the side, running forward to the helm.
He spun, fighting the roll of the vessel to me.
We hit a jagged upcropping, sliding down its surface with a screech of metal.
“After I kill you,” he said and spat blood. “I will find all those whom you love. Wells, Riley, anyone you ever knew, and I will make them one of my mechanical slaves. Then,” he panted, spit dribbling from his chin. “I will take this wretched country and no one can stop me.” He lunged for the doorway, knocking me down.
I pulled him by his cloak, and we grappled on the floor, tangling as the ship tossed.
“You will never rule,” I spat and pushed him away, crawling for the door. I glared at him over my shoulder as I reached the hatch. “I will make sure of that.”
“Want to know something about your devices?” he shouted.
I turned to him, confused.
He leaned on the yoke, angling the vessel in a sharp dive. “They sink!”
The submersible dove, the nose arcing down. Water bubbled over the lip of the hatch, flooding the floor, racing toward us. I somersaulted back toward the helm, crashing against the control panel. I reached for the wheel, but he twisted it, tearing it from the shaft. Sea water poured into the vessel in a vast wave, filling every corridor, throwing us against each other and the walls of the ship.
“Water, water, everywhere,” he screamed maniacally, gurgling on the seawater as it rose to our necks. He flailed, his lips pulling back in a snarl. “Familiar, Charlotte? Feel it closing in on you?”
I shook as the seawater sucked the warmth from my body. Chattering, I struggled against the current trying to make it to the hatch.
Arecibo grabbed onto my boots, keeping me back.
I took a breath before the water rose over the top. My head came up in the air pocket at the ceiling. I trembled, shaking with cold and fear, the dark of the Atlantic closing in on me. I twitched, unable to think as the submersible rolled, spiraling as the water filled it. I banged against the walls, my breath coming in bubbles. We crashed into the upcropping again, stopping our descent. I sank, struggling, searching frantically for which way was up. A sob pushed out of me, I followed the air bubbles. They fled upward and I climbed the interior of the submersible after them. I surfaced in an air pocket.
Arecibo was there and lashed out at me, trying to dunk me under. “Heavy, aren’t they?” He snarled. “The metal in your body, fused to the bone will never let you float. I, on the otherhand, can swim. You are going to drown out here in the dark cold.”
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
He had never left me. Had given me strength when I was undone. And I knew all at once, how I had made it through that terror. Words familiar on my lips trailed from me. A shield in this abyss of fear. I was made to survive this. Despite what Arecibo said.
All the terrors of my affliction wrought flashed in my mind. The clockwork cavern, crawling with Tremblers that never touched me. Their anguish that filled my head, allowed me to hear them, saving the lives of those I cared about. And the cold. The frigid blood that ran through my veins. I pushed his hands away, my mind snapping to focus.
“Swim?” I snapped back. “You cannot even feel your arms anymore, can you?”
A flash of panic flared in Arecibo’s eyes. His lips were blue, his body no longer even shaking. He hadn’t counted on succumbing so fast.
“I was made to survive this,” I growled. “You weren’t.”
The submersible shifted, skidding along the barrier. The water shifted and the air pocket flowed upward, disappearing out of the hatch. I held onto the side of the wall with an iron grip, Arecibo’s form blurring in the stinging sea. The mechanica sparked and I moved, grasping a handhold, and then pulling myself upward.
He floated, his eyes wide, arms flailing ineffectively in the frozen water. The last image I had of him were his cries rising in silent bubbles, chasing after me.
I pushed through the hatch, climbing along the craggy upcroppings. My leaded limbs firing of their own volition. The Solenium flared bright, lighting the way as I rose, the water lightening as the sun pierced the surface. My head broke through the waves and I gasped, choking, my face turned up to the sky. I had made it from the depths.
Thrumming engines in the distance pulled my gaze. A small air ship barreled toward me.
Ashton leaned on Riley and peered over the railing, his face a mask of disbelief. “Charlie,” he shouted. “Charlie, you’re alive!”
Epilogue
I dismounted the power cycle, swinging my cloak as I ratcheted out the sections of the baton with a flick of my wrist. Power crackled along the shaft, and I breathed in the surge of strength as it spread along my limbs.
Ashton, next to me in the armor of the New Order, strode with me toward the dark facility. We skirted around the fence, listening and hearing the voices of the guards.
He turned to me, eyebrows rising.
“Are you ready, Lady Blackburn?”
I reached into the folds of my matching cloak and wrapped my fingers around the papers in my pocket. Names of the missing scrawled by a loyal friend, a gifted tinkerer, a real hero to those lost to the The Order’s old ways.
“I am ready,” I said. My mechanica flared, and I kicked the gate open. “Let’s bring them home.”
_______________________________________
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