by Kyla Stone
They were all exhausted. Willow’s thighs ached. Her eyes were red and gritty.
Last night, she’d barely slept. Between watch shifts, with the eerily disconcerting forest noises and Finn’s giant body nearly squeezing her out of the too-small tent, sleeping was pretty much a lost cause.
She had stayed awake, staring into the living darkness of the woods, wishing the yellow eyes of Raven’s wolf would appear, and thinking of Silas, of their last conversation before they’d parted ways.
They had been sparring outside near the compound’s training center. Willow had managed to land a particularly nasty punch. Silas stumbled back, clutching his nose. Blood gushed between his fingers. “Damn, princess.”
“Are you okay? Let me see.” She went to him, gripped by guilt, and tried to pry his fingers away. He flinched from her touch like she’d burned him.
Irritated, she spoke without thinking. “You can have friends, you know. It’s not a weakness.”
He spat blood on the ground. “To my father, everything was a weakness.”
She hid her surprise at his response. It was real—with feeling behind it. He’d never brought up his father before. “He’s not here anymore. You are. Believe it or not, there are people who actually care about you.”
He wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his shirtsleeve and half-turned toward the tree line, staring off into nothing, his whole body tensed like he was ready to run, to flee.
The conversation had suddenly gotten too serious. She had no idea how to handle it, so she just shrugged in mock indifference. “Not me, of course. Other people. Someone. Somewhere.”
He was silent for so long she wondered if she’d said something wrong, if her sarcasm had been a mistake. She was terrible at this sort of thing. Where was Amelia or Micah when you needed them? They were both the sensitive sort.
“I didn’t mean that,” she muttered. “It was a joke. You know, a lame attempt at…something.”
He smirked. But it seemed like an automatic reaction, not something he really meant. He scrubbed more blood from his face. Only a trickle dripped from his nose. He stared down at his bloody hands as he flexed his fingers, popping his knuckles one by one. “I’m aware of the definition of a joke.”
“I just—” She scrambled for words that would mean something to him. “You’re a good teacher.”
The corner of his lip twitched. “I know.”
“Humble, too.”
“Not to mention extremely good-looking.”
Willow laughed.
The tension leaked from Silas’s shoulders. He gave her a lazy half-smile.
“You aren’t alone,” she said. “You don’t have to keep pretending that you are.”
She expected him to go all sullen and sarcastic, spit out some nasty barb, but he didn’t. He clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. But there was something thawing inside him, a softness in his eyes she didn’t remember seeing before. “I’ll try to remember that.”
“In the Sanctuary…don’t get yourself killed, okay?”
“You either.” He touched his nose gingerly. “I know a particularly fine sucker punch I’m looking forward to flattening you with. You’ll be in a world of hurt.”
“It’s a date.”
They had grinned at each other. Real smiles. Like real friends.
She missed his smirks and snark already. She missed deflecting knife thrusts and eye gouging, breaking choke-holds, and practicing the fine art of throat-punching. She didn’t have Silas to spar with, and she didn’t want to accidentally hurt Finn’s arm, but she still needed to train. She couldn’t let herself go soft, not even for a moment.
Out here in the wilderness, she was responsible for both Benjie and Finn. She was Ate. She couldn’t let anything happen to either of them.
That night, after they made camp and enjoyed a self-heating dinner of spaghetti and faux-meatballs that tasted vaguely of sawdust, she found a small clearing between a grouping of trees and practiced.
She slid into her fighting stance. Legs slightly bent at the knees, left fist up and back to protect her face, right fist up and leading, elbows tucked in. Springy on her feet, muscles tensed. Strike. Block. Punch. Feint. Spin, drop into a lunge. Kick. Repeat.
She punched and kicked and lunged, again and again, knife out, stabbing invisible enemies until her heart was pounding, her muscles warm and loose, and her breath coming in ragged, steaming puffs.
“Nice ninja moves,” Finn said when she returned to the campfire. She felt his eyes tracking her.
She tossed more sticks on the fire, then leaned against a nearby tree, half-facing the darkness that swirled and thickened just outside their ring of flickering light.
He still wanted to say something to her. She felt it in the way he studied her, his jaw working, hesitant and unsure in a way he normally never was. He had started a conversation back at the compound on Christmas Eve, when he’d stolen the box of brownie mix and made her an unbaked cake. But she hadn’t been ready for it.
Deep down, she was terrified of things changing between them. He was Finn, her best friend. Her family, her person. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.
In some ways, she was still a coward.
20
Amelia
Amelia leapt out of her seat, shoving back her chair and nearly spilling her goblet of wine. General Daugherty watched her impassively. Senator Steelman gave a tiny frown of disapproval. Selma Perez didn’t bother to look up from her holopad.
Amelia straightened, smoothed her gown, and pasted a brittle smile on her face. She forced herself to turn around. “Father.”
Her father’s presence was just as regal and commanding as she remembered, if not more so. He drew all the energy in the room. He was tall and broad-shouldered, finely dressed in a dark wool peacoat, a black designer suit, and diamond cuff-links. His brown hair and spade-shaped beard were threaded with silver. But it was his eyes, iron-gray and hard as stone, eyes both cunning and cruel, that undid her.
A tsunami of emotions flooded her, too much for one soul to bear. Declan Black was her father in everything but genetics, the man she had been raised to both fear and adore.
He had forced her to live in shame and fear. He’d hurt and humiliated her mother and brother. He’d intentionally designed the Hydra virus as a bioweapon, intending to murder over one hundred thousand people to further his own agenda and clinch his bid for power.
And yet—some childish part of her she could not deny still loved him. He was her savior. She both loathed his cruelty and craved his approval, felt both terror and elation, joy and grief, hatred and hope, all knotted in a mess she had no chance of untangling.
Her lungs constricted. “Father,” she whispered again.
Declan Black grasped her shoulders and crushed her to his chest. He released her, standing back, a broad smile on his handsome, dignified face. “You’re my daughter. A survivor. I knew you were still alive.”
“So is Mother. And Silas,” she said before she could stop herself. Maybe that was a mistake. She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything, standing there staring at her father, his eyes glowing with pride and admiration, looking at her the way she had longed for her entire childhood—like he finally approved of her, like she’d finally done something worthy of earning his love.
“We’ll get them and bring them here where they belong. But first, you and I have work to do.” His smile broadened. “I knew it would be you.”
She started to ask him how he could possibly know such a thing, but the words died in her throat.
His gaze flicked to her hair. His smile faltered. “We can do something about this?” he asked President Sloane, though it sounded more like a demand than a question.
“Of course,” President Sloane said pleasantly, gesturing to the service bot to clear the table. “I’ll send my personal stylist to her quarters.”
Amelia licked her dry lips. She felt the eyes of everyone in the room on her. “
I don’t think this is the time to worry about my hair—”
“Nonsense,” Declan boomed. “I demand only the best for my daughter.”
Some part of her cowered before her father’s overpowering presence. A stronger part of her hated herself for such weakness. She straightened her shoulders. “I like my hair.”
Declan’s gaze flicked to President Sloane, then to General Daugherty and Senator Steelman, before returning to Amelia. His gaze lowered to her throat, to the leather thong she wore instead of the benitoite necklace. His eyes sharpened, though the broad smile never left his face. For a moment, she thought he would criticize her, point out her disobedience, her every flaw and shortcoming.
But he didn’t. He waved a hand dismissively. “Months in the wild must have muddled your sensibilities, daughter. But no mind, we’ll get you up to par in no time.”
Vera Longoria-Castillo cleared her throat. She stepped forward, looking up from her Smartflex. She smoothed her cranberry-red wool skirt. Every hair was tamed and yanked back into a tight bun at the base of her neck again. “President Sloane, a call for you. It’s urgent.”
“Of course. Please excuse me.” President Sloane rose and shook Amelia’s hand. “It is a great pleasure to meet you, Amelia. You are a tremendous asset to the Sanctuary. The people are going to love you.”
“Thank you,” Amelia said demurely, dipping her chin.
The other Coalition members also rose. They shook Declan’s and Amelia’s hands as they filed out of the room.
“You have a lovely daughter,” President Sloane’s chief-of-staff said to Declan before hurrying out of the room after the president. President Sloane’s head of security, Angelo Bale, followed them silently, his movements surprisingly fluid for such a huge man. After a moment, they were alone in the room but for the remaining security agents.
Declan grasped Amelia’s arm.
Unease jolted through her. Was he still upset about her hair? The necklace? He’d always saved his most lethal criticisms for when he had her alone. What was she thinking? She should have just worn it. She should apologize—
No. Those were the thoughts of the anxious, fearful girl she used to be. Not who she was now.
She nearly jerked her arm back, but she restrained herself. “What is it, Father?”
“I knew you would need this.” He thrust something hard and round into her hand. A plain white pill bottle. “I formulated some of your medication here in the lab.”
She looked down at it, stunned. Her pills. Her father had brought her pills. Her mind couldn’t even process it. The hope that had niggled at the back of her mind since she’d learned he was still alive—it was real.
“I ran out. I had a seizure. A bad one. I was—” She stopped herself. “Thank you.”
Her father smiled gently, his eyes softening. “You’re welcome.”
She could have wept in relief. After all this time, the weeks and months spent coming to terms with the fact that her epilepsy was going to kill her, going to tear her brain apart, piece by broken piece—and suddenly, out of nowhere, her father had placed hope into her open palms.
Once again, her father had saved her.
“Get your rest, daughter,” her father said. “Tomorrow, we save the world.”
21
Willow
Willow, Finn, and Benjie spent their third day hiking along a creek bed, fording it in a shallow area, leaping from slippery rock to slippery rock. They climbed one steep ridge after another, Finn keeping a firm grip on Benjie with his good hand. Willow slipped more than once, sending tiny avalanches of loose pebbles and scree down the incline. Once, Finn stumbled, ramming his right shoulder against the trunk of an elm tree.
Willow did her best to help him back up, but he was simply too heavy. “How’s your arm?”
He clambered to his feet with a heavy sigh. “Fine. I didn’t really feel it.”
She looked at him in alarm. “It’s still numb? You can’t feel anything yet?”
He shrugged. “It’s still useless. I think this is it. I don’t think it’s coming back.”
“Are you okay with that?”
He managed a half-grin, but she could see the strain in it, how hard he was working to make it seem okay. “It is what it is, right? At least I’m alive.” He swatted the crumbling stump of an oak as they skirted its fallen trunk. “How exactly are we going to find Raven?” He asked to change the subject.
“We aren’t.” A tangle of thorns tugged at her pant legs. She kicked herself free and shoved aside a thick pine branch, the scent of sap thick in her nostrils. “We couldn’t.”
Finn whacked the trunk of a maple tree with the walking stick he’d whittled yesterday with the knife on his multi-tool. He was extremely proud of it. “Then what?”
“She needs to find us.”
Finn just stared at her, aghast. “That’s your genius plan?”
“In fact, it is.” Willow smiled. Her lips were chapped and split from the cold, so the smile hurt. She pointed at the carved wooden bird Raven had given Benjie, which Benjie was now zooming around like a toy airplane as he clambered over tree roots buried in the snow. “We need to leave signs so she knows it’s us. We have no hope of tracking her and Shadow. We wouldn’t even know where to start. But Raven’s a tracker, a hunter. We need to make it so she can find us.”
“Like Hansel and Gretel left crumbs in the woods to find their way home?” Benjie chimed in.
“Kind of like that, only without birds eating our crumbs. I was thinking we should carve little birds in the tree trunks every so often while we make our way in the general direction of this settlement. We know it’s somewhere around Jasper and Elijay. That’s not too far from I-575, where she told us she’d wait for us. Though I doubt she’s waiting anymore.”
Benjie’s eyes lit up. “And you think she’ll know it’s us because she gave me this bird and her name’s Raven?”
“Exactly.”
Benjie scrunched up his nose, just like Zia used to do, and parroted a high-pitched voice. “That’s a ridiculous idea!”
“You’re ridiculous,” she snapped back, a pang in her chest flaring brightly for a moment. Her grief over Zia wasn’t as constant as it used to be, but it was always there, a hidden blade ready to cut at any moment.
“Now who’s being mature?” Finn gave her his lopsided grin, the one she could never get mad at.
She huffed her bangs out of her eyes and wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck. The scabbing welt from Cleo’s cigar burned. She winced. “Sorry, Benjie.”
“I think it’s a great idea!” Benjie said. “Can I carve the first bird?”
“Okay, but no running with a knife,” Willow warned as Finn handed Benjie the multi-tool and flipped up the small blade. She was lucky Benjie was so good-natured and obedient. Like Zia was, she thought with another pang.
He seldom whined. He was always willing to help with chores. And he knew how important it was to obey her and Finn at all times in this dangerous world. Her mother would be so proud of how Benjie was turning out.
That thought brought more pain, a bruising ache beneath her ribs.
“Um, Mister Finn, what kind of footprint is that?” Benjie asked, pulling Willow out of her morose thoughts. He pointed down at a print in the snow beside a broken-topped pine tree.
Finn squatted down next to him. “Well, Sir Benjie, that’s some big animal, isn’t it?”
“Do you think it’s Shadow?” Benjie asked.
Willow peered over Benjie’s shoulder, hopeful until she saw the massive size of the thing. Large pad bigger than her head. Five distinct toes. Claw prints. It had left a deep impression, whatever it was.
“Shadow is big, but not that big. This was something else.” She suppressed a shudder, not wanting Benjie to see the trepidation flushing through her. Hopefully, it was a harmless mod.
Modded animals had been engineered by scientists, first created to replace endangered species in zoos as their wild counterpa
rts went extinct. Scientists modified the animals, even the apex predators, to be as docile as sheep. Demand rose on the black market, of course, for the elites enjoyed parading their pet cheetahs and leopards around their marble mansions.
After the collapse, many mods were released from zoos, wildlife sanctuaries, and personal homes. They weren’t dangerous. But a few of the remaining real wild animals had been released as well—tigers, leopards, wolves, bears.
“Let’s go,” she said brightly, tugging Finn back to his feet.
They trudged on.
“Do you think it was a bear?” Willow asked in a low voice so Benjie couldn’t hear.
Finn whacked another tree. “I don’t know.”
Willow scanned the dense trees on either side of them. The forest seemed suddenly darker, though it was only mid-afternoon. A large shape moved deep in the shadows. Or was it only a tree branch? She squinted, but could see nothing more.
Finn nudged Willow’s shoulder and pointed. Ten yards through the trees to her right, a large elm looked different than all the rest. The trunk had been clawed. Great scrapes raked the bark from at least ten feet up all the way to the roots. Clumps of brown hair clung to the bark in several places.
Willow swallowed. She never wanted to meet whatever had done that.
The freezing wind whipped across her bare cheeks. She inhaled an icy breath and shivered. “How many grizzly bears do you think are in this woods?”
“None,” Finn said.
Willow sighed, more relieved than she wanted to admit.
“I’ve seen two tigers, though.”
“Damn it, Finn!” She whirled on him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
But Finn was doubled over, his face contorted with silent laughter. Benjie giggled right along with him, even though he had no idea what was going on.
She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You just made that up.”
“I confess,” Finn wheezed, wiping tears from his eyes with his good arm. “But the look on your face was priceless. It was totally worth it.”
