Waves of nervous energy rolled off my skin. Smoke was now spiraling from the roof above and the streets were clearly marked with colored stains. Blue for the Wraiths. Purple for the Adroits. Earthy brown for the Scavengers. And grey for the Taciturns. A personalized blood trail for them to follow.
The moon would be nearly at its peak now—the night sky miraculously clear. It was not a full moon, but the light would be enough for our marksmen to see the incoming Tribes.
For the fourth time, I raised my gun, checked the chamber—still full, just like last time—and shoved it back into the holster. We were both laden with weapons. Triven carried three handguns, six knives and had one of Baxter’s rifles strapped to his back. I was lacking a rifle of my own, but the ten throwing knives lacing my thighs, four handguns and machete from Grenald were equally impressive. I had twisted my hair back in a wild knot, effectively giving myself a few more inches of height, but also clearing it from my eyes. The slightly iridescent sheen of our synthetic suits from the Rebels completed the look. I hated the weight of the extra weaponry and though Triven had initially suggested coming unarmed as a sign of peace, the weapons were necessary. To the Tribes, lack of weapons meant lack of power. And only power commanded their respect.
Triven shifted next to me and the metal frame below us protested. We had cultivated our spot carefully. Backed up to a solid wall with two doors on either side of us. The room was filled with metal skeletons like the one we stood on. They were once machines like the transport vehicle Gage had imprisoned me in. However, they were long ago stripped bare, the rusting bones exposed, metal, plastic and rubber repurposed into armor and weapons. At some point, there must been have doors enclosing the space— their tracks rusted, but still hanging in place. Now, there were only voids, points of exposure.
My eyes darted to each. Every sound, every illusory movement drawing my attention, spiking my adrenaline. The minutes had ticked by like hours and neither of us spoke. Waiting. Listening.
Nothing.
Triven’s fingers brushed mine. I could feel the nervousness through his touch.
Now what? He was asking. What if they don’t come?
My lungs struggled as panic began to roil in the pit of my stomach. The Tribes should have been here by now. Either to kill us or to hear us out, but they should have been here. I had warned Ryker this would happen. I had told him they wouldn’t come. But before angry tears could well, Triven’s hand shot out, grabbing mine fast and hard. It sent a jolt of pain up my arm, then quickly disappeared as his hand moved for his gun. I mirrored him without thinking. Then I heard it too.
Footsteps.
Someone was coming. A lot of someones.
I leveled the barrel of my gun at the open door. This was it.
Join or die.
26. CHOICES
T HE COLORS FILTERING into the door were not what I had been expecting. No blue or maroon or purple, but brown. The faded earthy colors were quickly followed by the stench—Scavengers. And there were more than I expected.
Thirty-two filthy bodies skittered down the ramp—eyes beady, noses twitching in every direction. The fidgety group was made almost entirely of men, the hordes’ leaders clearly at the front. Lips pulled back revealing yellow teeth and rotted gums, but they had come. The group paused at the base of the ramp’s slope. None seem surprised to have guns drawn on them, but their keen eyes were on edge, the lack of the other Tribes’ presence didn’t go unnoticed.
I honestly thought they were going to bail and run. But a tittering voice echoed through another open door and the Scavengers quickly scurried tighter together.
“Damn. And here I thought we would be the first to the party.”
My second hand swung to the left, pointing another handgun in the direction of the voice.
Sedia’s wicked grin flipped into a mock pout as she appeared in the doorway marked for the Taciturns. I had an odd sense of relief. Sedia was the first down the ramp, but the crazed woman was not alone. Though their numbers were less than the Scavengers’, the Taciturns’ presence was far more intimidating. Sedia swaggered in at ease, closely followed by a pack of fifteen armor-covered Taciturns. And there—at the very center—was a man with eyes as dark as night and an even darker aura. He alone wore almost no protection. In fact, the only thing covering his bare chest was a patchwork vest.
I immediately bristled. Even at this distance, I could make out the stretched tattoos adorning the leather-like material.
Skin.
The entire vest was made of skin.
Sedia watched me, winking when I finally looked back at her.
Zed had come. She had kept her promise.
Zed’s eyes swept my body, before jeering, “So this is the unstoppable warrior you told me about.” He did not sound impressed, despite the desire burning in his eyes.
Perhaps he simply liked my skin.
Triven stiffened, undoubtedly thinking the same thing.
“Well ain’t that a proper introduction.” A deep raspy voice boomed in the open space, causing everyone but Sedia to jump.
The Taciturns stopped in their progression as hisses emanated from the Scavengers. The oversized group of rats recoiled, converging to the farthest left side of their ramp and Triven’s second gun leapt to the newcomers.
I had not heard them enter, but standing proudly on the third ramp was Archer’s mother and her best warriors.
Zed’s protective entourage suddenly made him look more like a coward than a leader. And Teya, despite her feral appearance, looked one-hundred percent a queen. Wild and dangerous, but a queen nonetheless. Like her Tribesmen, the Wraith leader was clad in matching body armor, but woven into her dark braided hair was a crown of bones. At the center sat a large bird’s skull, the bleached beak pressing a dent between her brows. Faces scarred and armed to the gills, seven Wraith warriors flanked their leader. Unlike her Taciturn counterpart, Teya did not hide behind her people, but stood proud at their forefront. A mercenary queen.
There was a shuffling as several Scavengers turned away from their Tribe and disappeared back up the ramp and into the night. Those remaining did not seem to notice or care.
Pulse roaring in my ears, I tried to swallow down the internal noise.
Three Tribes were under one roof. We had almost done it. Part of me was pleased while the other part wanted to blow up the whole damn place. In different circumstances, I might have. But not tonight. Tonight, we needed them. Enemies of fortune. Allies of circumstance.
The momentary adrenaline high singing in my veins quieted as the faces of the final missing Tribe came into view. Cloaks of purple and gold powdered skin emerged from the final opening and my heart sank. The Adroits had come, but not to help us.
Three Adroits stood at the precipice of their entryway. Removed from the group and refusing to come closer. But it wasn’t only their body language that worried me, it was their faces.
I knew them.
It was the three Watchmen. No more, no less, and no leader.
My second gun moved from the Scavengers to the Adroits. My arms were a perfect mirror of Triven’s. Four doors, a gun on each. Not that it would do any good if anyone else shot first. At least fifty various weapons pointed back at us from four sides, but I could probably squeeze out a few rounds before death took me. An eye for an eye and all.
The Adroit at the center, Legs I remembered calling him, moved with surprising speed. A small device appeared in his hand and before any of us could so much as blink, his thumb jammed down on the gadget. There was a collective flinch as it clicked, but nothing happened.
Legs spoke in the same flat emotionless voice as before. “Kill me and I let go. I let go, and this will blow up the entire room.”
I didn’t lower my gun, but nodded, accepting his terms.
“Oooooo! I like him, he’s fun!” Sedia giggled, breaking the tension.
The Taciturns ignored her, while the other Tribes drank in the woman’s insanity. Teya seemed especially
disconcerted by the small Taciturn, though she quickly shook off her distaste and turned to address me.
“Why are we here, ghost girl?” Teya’s demanding voice resounded harshly off the concrete. She would be wasting no time.
We had prepared for a hundred different ways the Tribes could react to the gathering. What we hadn’t prepared for was my reaction.
I wanted to lower my guns, to reach for the device heavy in my thigh pocket as we had planned, but I couldn’t. Everything we had fought for, everything we had risked our lives for over the past weeks had been for this moment, and I couldn’t open my stupid mouth! I tried to breathe, to lessen the pressure tightening in my chest. Now was not the time to have a panic attack. I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t stop the mounting terror. The Tribes were watching me, waiting for me and all I could think of was the cell Fandrin had thrown me in, of watching my parents dying… of Maddox. Why now? I had pushed through my fears for the better part of a week, why were they breaking me now? My heart wasn’t going to explode, this is only a panic attack my mind shouted, but reason wasn’t convincing my body. A slight tremor quivered the guns clutched white-knuckled in my hands, and I sucked in a wheezed breath. I desperately wanted to drop to the ground and press my head between my knees, but that would get us both killed for sure. My mouth was filled with sand, the useless tongue sticking to the roof.
Three long seconds had passed, feeling like an eternity. Then Triven took a slight step forward, noticing my hesitation. Could he hear my strangled breathing? Could the Tribes? I stared hard at the skull on Teya’s head, counting the seconds as I tried to suppress the storm of anxiety growing in my chest. Triven began to speak, covering for me. I missed his first few words.
Breathe. Breathe. Not now. I clung to the words. Not now.
“… We’re bringing The Wall down. We’re taking back the Sanctuary. With or without you. The terms are the same and you have all been offered the same rewards, but your reasons to fight are your own. Personally, we don’t really care why you fight, just that you do. Fight or walk away.”
“You say we. So, you are a Tribe.” A male Scavenger barked, recoiling slightly as all eyes fell on him.
“No,” Triven brandished his next words. “We are a revolution.”
“Pretty words from a pretty little boy.” Teya’s round eyes watched me, before pinning Triven. “You’re not of our world, boy.” The statement, while seemingly innocuous, was a threat. The Tribes didn’t like outsiders. They killed outsiders. I didn’t miss that her guards had flexed around her. Ready.
The Scavengers scooted closer, as if sensing a kill.
Triven, however, stood taller, not hearing her words as I had. “I may not—”
Zed’s voice scratched out from behind his wall of guards, cutting Triven off. The pitch came out too high, echoing shrilly. The Taciturn leader was quivering from head to toe and there was a manic glint in his eye. “I will never bow to another man!”
“I could make you bow to a woman.” Teya did not miss a beat, her deep voice overpowering Zed’s.
A bark of laughter boomed from the Scavengers, some tittering at Teya’s mockery, others at the idea of bowing to a woman. Both the Wraiths and Taciturns prickled instantly. Only the Adroits looked on with mild disinterest.
Teya’s cold glare turned on the lowly rat Tribe and in unison her warriors shifted, targeting the Tribes on either side of them. With a nearly imperceptible flick of her fingers, several hand-crafted machetes emerged, hungry for blood. Simultaneously, the Taciturn leader let out a strangled cry. “Shut your mouth, you fifthly RATS!” Zed slammed his body against the guards in front of him, pummeling his fists into their backs but did not cross his line of shelter. The Taciturns quickly raised their own weapons, targeting everything that moved. Even Sedia was snarling at the back of the pack.
The room vibrated with howls and hisses of outrage. Battle cries began to hum with the escalating noise. Bodies crouched, preparing for attack and as a collective the Tribes took a step forward, even the Adroits.
“Stop! Enough!” Triven yelled. The guns shook in his hands as he waved them at the raging Tribes, but his words were swallowed by the din.
The entire room tensed. Make-shift knives and battered guns emerged from beneath the Scavengers’ brown rags. One man raised a hand, knife ready, eyes on Triven. A nearby Wraith brandished a sharpened rod, the spikes on the end intended for the nearest Taciturn. The two Tribesmen moved, but so did I.
Instinct snuffed out the terror and my body surged back to life, muscles were once again under my control. My hands moved first, jamming the guns back into their holsters. In the same movement, two knives were pulled free and sent flying.
Then several things happened all at once.
Triven blinked as one blade flew inches from his nose before burying itself into the Scavenger’s hand, pinning it to his own shoulder. The knife he had been holding clattered to the ground with his howl of pain and the Wraith preparing to attack froze as my other knife embedded into the broad side of his weapon, narrowly missing the man’s skull.
“ENOUGH!!” I screamed. My own voice echoed back in the dead silence. For fifteen seconds, the room was statue-still. All eyes on me. I heaved, legs still shaky, but my lungs were my own again.
The hint of a smile pulled up at Teya’s lips, then cracked into a snarl as Zed exploded.
“I WILL NEVER FOLLOW A WOMAN!” Zed’s crazed screaming was jarring in the hush. The statement seemed less directed at me, but at the room as a whole. Spit flew from his lips as his fists pulled wildly at his hair, ripping a few chunks free as he glared at me. He waved the fistfuls of dark hair at the room around him. “KILL THEM, KILL THEM ALL!”
I braced myself for an attack, but then nearly dropped my guns in shock.
The back of the Taciturn entourage had parted for Sedia. And smooth like the fox she was, she stalked silently behind the hysterical Zed, pressed a gun to the back of her leader’s head, and pulled the trigger.
27. SPEAK
T HE GUNSHOT WAS deafening in the confined space.
There was a spray of blood and the Taciturns in the front parted, letting Zed’s faceless body crumble to the ground with a heavy wet crunch. His words still echoed off the walls, trailed by the reverberating booms of Sedia’s shot.
Zed’s body had barely hit the ground before Sedia was striding casually onto the corpse’s back, unsteadily balancing herself as the body shifted under her steps. Not a single Taciturn looked alarmed by what had just happened, those closest merely side-stepping to keep the ex-leader’s blood from soiling their shoes.
“New leader?!” Sedia yelled as she pressed her foot into what was left of Zed’s head. In perfect unison, the remaining Taciturns gave a guttural cry I could only assume meant approval. Sedia then tucked her gun—my gun, the one she had stolen—carelessly between her cleavage and gestured as if once again giving me the floor.
I blinked at her three times before coming back to myself.
Taking a shaky breath, I lowered my guns and placed them back in their side holsters. It left me feeling naked despite the small arsenal decorating my body. My fingers itched to hold a weapon.
Triven at least stayed at the ready.
What the hell had just happened? Had we just witnessed a coup?
I glared at the Tribes, refusing to look down at the body under Sedia’s feet, and gestured to Triven. “He may not be of your world but I am. I’ve watched your Tribes war for years. And for what? Better scraps?” My voice was getting stronger with each breath. “You want to keep fighting like animals for caged territory? Fine. I really don’t give a crap which of you live or die here. Me? If I’m going to die, it’s going to be for a hell of a lot more than petty Tribe shit. I’m offering you more, and if you’re too stupid to take it, that’s on you.”
“Are we’re to serve as your army then?” A huge blonde man to Teya’s left spoke, his lips pulled back in a growl. “Sacrifice our lives, for you?”
>
“Why the hell would you fight for me? That’s the stupidest thing I heard.” My face twisted into a mask of incredulity as I pulled myself up to full height—which wasn’t really that impressive. But the man looked taken aback. “Fight for yourselves.”
The man looked like he wanted to say something else, but Teya’s hand twitched, silencing him. Her stare was beginning to burn, but snapped away as a soft voice spoke.
“You are missing one Tribe.” The female Adroit spoke for the first time. She did not look around the room searching for the Ravagers, but stayed focused on me, already reading my every reaction.
“The Ravagers,” a chorus of hisses snaked out as I said their name, “chose their side years ago. And The Minister ruling in the Sanctuary, chose them. Not you.” The Adroit stared back clearly unconvinced, so I continued. “Did you really think the Ravagers were able to grow so powerful—with the best weapons, the most food—because they were smart enough to get that stuff?” I let my words linger over the room of killers. “While your Tribes fought for food, theirs was being handed it. And in return, they killed more people than any other Tribes in this room combined. Do you really want to side with them?”
The Adroit said nothing, but her silence spoke volumes. I knew what she was thinking. The word hovering on her tongue.
“Those rapists?” I spat the word, thinking of what they had done. To my mother. To Veyron. The Tribes in this room were killers and savages, but even savages have their own twisted morals. In all my years in Tartarus, the Ravagers were the only ones I had seen cross that line. They never raped their own, but they did assault other Tribes and didn’t just target the women.
The responses were subtle. Nostrils flared. Fists clenched. Cheeks flushed. I knew I had hit the right nerve. If they couldn’t unite to fight for a better life for themselves, then maybe they could unite in their hate for the one Tribe not invited.
New World Inferno: Book Three in a Young Adult Dystopian Series Page 20
