The Calling

by Rachelle Dekker

  He could almost see it if he focused on it long enough. Through the cracks of uncertainty in his brain, the endless spiral of thoughts that filled him with doubt, if he pushed past all the broken clutter, he could almost imagine a time where such a thing was possible.

  Something rustled to his right and re-heightened his senses. He stopped and listened, the rest of the group oblivious. Maybe it was nothing. It wouldn’t be the first time he had thought there was danger when there wasn’t. He strained to hear another sound, his eyes sweeping the area around them, but nothing came and all he saw were the trees standing firm in the ground as they were supposed to.

  Remko lingered in this place of near-panic for another moment before letting it pass and continuing forward. It was hard to believe that the universe itself wasn’t against him when it seemed that at every available moment another threat crashed into the small amount of peace he managed to gather, like a wild storm that appeared out of thin air. That’s why he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel for long. That’s why he knew that security and freedom from fear were as much an illusion as the dream of finding a place where he and his family could finally plant roots and be safe.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a shadow move and he stopped again. He looked at Sam and held his hand up, signaling him to pause. Sam held his tongue as his face turned from playful storyteller to alert warrior; Rayna slid off his back. Kate and Wire turned at the absence of Sam’s voice and also paused, waiting for Remko’s order.

  The group stood like frozen deer, listening and waiting, poised to run like the wind if needed. Nothing came. Remko wondered if he might actually be losing his mind. Could his concern for their safety be causing him to hallucinate?

  He released the breath he was holding and shook his head. But before he could motion for the group to move, he saw them.

  Two CityWatch guards, their weapons raised, moved out from behind the trees only a couple feet from them. The others saw them too. Selena gasped, yanking Lucy behind her. Kate stepped forward to attack and one of the guards moved his weapon to point directly at her forehead.

  “Everyone freeze,” he said. Kate stopped in her tracks but kept her glare fixed on the guard’s face. The second guard carefully moved toward the group, weapon at the ready. He looked at Selena curiously and stole a quick glance at his partner. His red hair caught the sun’s light, making it look bronze. The other one was taller, dark-skinned, with large bright eyes. Remko noticed that they were both breathing hard and looked slightly rattled. They were young, hardly over the minimum age requirement to join the CityWatch. New recruits, he guessed, probably out on a simple patrol run when they stumbled across Remko and the group. Remko made a mental note of the fact that the CityWatch was changing patrol routes again.

  “Mrs. Carson, are you harmed?” the redhead asked. Remko noticed the slight shake in his hands.

  Selena shook her head and pulled Rayna close to her.

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Carson. We are going to get you and your girls back safe,” the guard said. Rayna started to cry softly at her mother’s side, and the guard looked uncomfortable.

  “That’s how she feels about leaving with you two,” Kate said under her breath.

  The taller guard stepped forward. “Keep your mouth shut, rebel. All of you move away from the Authority family.” He motioned slightly with the tip of his gun.

  No one moved.

  “Now!” he yelled. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Remko and Sam moved slowly with Wire and Kate away from Selena and her girls, hands raised. Remko could see the worry and panic that was taking over Selena’s face as she clutched her daughters tightly. There was a ten-foot gap between them now, Remko and his team on one side and the Carson women on the other.

  “Get down on your knees, hands raised over your heads,” the larger guard said. Remko knelt and the others followed. They outnumbered the guards two-to-one, but rushing them was too dangerous with Selena and her girls so close by.

  The redhead moved to Selena carefully, lowering his gun as he went. Rayna was still whimpering at her mother’s side and the smaller guard tried to flash her a comforting smile. “Don’t cry. Everything’s going to be all right now.”

  “No it’s not,” Lucy said.

  Selena gripped her daughter and sent her a warning look.

  “We need to call this in,” the dark one said. He kept his eyes on Remko, Sam, Wire, and Kate. Especially Kate. From the way sweat was collecting on his forehead, Remko knew that this guard recognized the danger in Kate’s face. She was small but not to be underestimated.

  The redhead pulled up his arm receiver and spoke. “Patrick, you there?”

  A voice loud enough for everyone in the clearing to hear crackled through the redhead’s earpiece. “Yep, Seever. What is it?”

  “Tate and I have a situation in quadrant sixteen, three miles outside the northeast wall near the far east side.”

  “What kinda situation?”

  “A Delta-67 kind of situation.”

  There was a long pause. Silence filled the air around all of them as they waited.

  “Follow procedure and don’t move. Backup is on the way,” the earpiece buzzed.

  “Copy that.” The redhead nodded to his partner, who nodded in return.

  “Help me secure them,” Tate said.

  The redhead looked toward Selena. “More help is on the way. I need you to stay right there while we get these rebels secure, okay?”

  Remko could see the urge to run in Selena’s posture. He drilled her with a stare until she shifted her eyes toward him for just a moment and he shook his head slightly. She mustn’t run—that would only make things worse. He wanted to promise her that she and her girls would make it to the Seer camp; he wanted to reassure her that everything was going to be okay, that she had not made a mistake entrusting her life and the lives of her daughters to him. He and his team would find a way. But even as Remko looked around and tried to formulate a plan, he saw nothing. Backup couldn’t be far; even if they could take out these two guards, how could they get away fast enough to avoid being apprehended by the wave coming? What if they were followed to camp? That would put everyone else’s life in danger.

  Selena held his gaze, then turned back to Seever and nodded. He was eyeing her and Remko curiously but moved to help his partner as he was asked. Remko watched as Tate handcuffed Sam first. Seever had pulled his weapon from its holster and kept it pointed toward the group. Remko was next. He felt Tate viciously yank his raised hands behind his back one at a time and pin them together.

  Remko fought to maintain clarity through the growing fear inside his head. Was Aaron’s way of freedom worth the lives of the innocent children in front of him? What about the others? It seemed with each new life they brought into camp, his ability to see the purpose of it all dimmed.

  The rough plastic from the generic wrist clamps that all CityWatch personnel were required to carry cut against Remko’s skin. The clamps were pulled tight, and he knew there was no way anyone was getting out of these. He could almost hear the thoughts of his team, each one trying to come up with a solution to this problem. Remko thought maybe they could overpower the two guards even now if they moved as a group. They were still four to two, but the guards had guns, and Remko didn’t even have the use of his hands.

  A sense of finality was thundering toward them. All four were now restrained, and Tate was yanking Kate to her feet. “All of you, get up,” he said.

  Kate pulled against his hold and before he could step away, she threw her head back and connected with his skull. Tate cursed and stumbled back a step, but he didn’t lose his grip on Kate. He yanked her around to face him and thrust the back of his hand hard across her face. The blow knocked Kate sideways, and without her hands to help keep her balanced, she fell to the ground.

  Sam was moving then, like a bull charging a matador. He rammed his body into Tate, slamming him backward into a large oak. The l
eaves shook with the pressure of their combined weight, and the sound of cracking bark echoed through the clearing.

  Tate recovered from the attack quickly; with Sam’s hands still secure at his back, Tate had the advantage. He shoved Sam off, creating enough space to fire several hard punches into Sam’s gut. Sam buckled at the waist, and Tate took the opportunity to grab both of Sam’s shoulders and force him upright. He then slammed his fist across Sam’s face. Once, twice, a third time, until Sam’s head fell forward and he dropped to his knees.

  Before Sam could recover, Seever was behind him, the muzzle of his weapon grazing the back of Sam’s head. He cocked his weapon and the sound halted the entire scene. Sam froze, taking short breaths, his jaw trembling with fury.

  “Enough. Nobody move,” Seever said. He looked at Tate to make sure he was okay, and Tate nodded. His breath was coming in hard snaps, but that didn’t stop him from moving to where Kate lay on the ground and dragging her back to her feet.

  Remko saw a thin line of blood trickling down the side of her face from a small gash above her right eye. Kate struggled against Tate’s hold but not with as much ferocity as before. Tate followed Seever’s lead and pulled his weapon from its place, placing it inches from Kate’s temple. She eyed the gun and stilled, but the fire in her eyes only increased.

  “You’re quite feisty,” Tate said to Kate.

  She bit her lip, and Remko knew she was struggling to keep her words under control. Her eyes locked on the gun pointed at her brother’s back. She wouldn’t risk saying anything that might get him shot.

  “Nothing to say now?” Tate teased.

  “Tate, enough,” Seever said.

  Tate huffed. “Please, Seever—you think anyone will care how these traitors are treated? They’re as good as dead anyway,” he said and pressed the end of his weapon against Kate’s left temple. “Maybe we should start eliminating them now.”

  “We were instructed to wait for backup,” Seever said.

  Tate cocked his weapon, and Remko saw Kate’s body shiver. He had to grind his own heels into the dirt to keep from rushing forward. Seever still had his gun cocked and aimed at Sam.

  “But she tried to run, Seever, and we couldn’t let her get away. We had no choice.” The left end of Tate’s mouth pulled up into a half grin and Remko could feel the blood under his skin boiling. Sam’s body instinctively moved a couple of inches toward his sister, but Seever grabbed Sam’s shirt and yanked him backward.

  “I said no one move!” Seever yelled.

  Selena’s girls both whimpered and Remko could feel his resolve to stay still wavering when something zipped through the air over his head. A long, thin object, quick and nearly silent.

  Tate cried out in pain and Remko saw an arrow nestled deep in the side of his arm. Tate released his hold on Kate, and before anyone could take another breath, a second arrow flew from the sky and landed in the back of Seever’s calf.

  Seever buckled and dropped his weapon. Remko moved then, straight for the biggest target. He momentarily worried about more arrows flying out of nowhere, but before he could let himself address the new threat, he needed to attack the first one.

  He bent slightly and used his head to ram Tate. The action happened so fast that Tate didn’t have time to react. He fell backward onto the ground with a heavy thud and knocked the back of his skull against the dirt. The arrow in his arm caught the side of a tree and snapped in half, sending him into a screaming frenzy.

  A shot fired, and Remko turned to see that Seever had fired his weapon in the direction the arrows had come from.

  “Lucy, stop!” Selena yelled.

  Remko turned again to see Lucy running off into the cover of trees, Selena and Rayna on her heels. A thousand scenarios crashed against the inside of Remko’s skull and he felt overwhelmed with uncertainty, but he needed to move.

  With Seever’s gun no longer pointed at the back of Sam’s head, Sam jumped up from his knees with power and turned to attack the CityWatch guard. The boy was small so it didn’t take much for Sam to have him on the ground, his weapon now lying far from his reach, fear overwhelming his body. He cried for mercy, shaking like a leaf.

  Remko looked back just as Kate was slamming her foot against the side of Tate’s face, splitting his lip and knocking him out cold. She squatted, turning her body so that she could use her hands, and found the knife secured in a side pouch at Tate’s waist. Quickly she sliced through the restraints holding her wrists and then moved to free Remko.

  “Go,” she said, cutting him free, “We’ve got this.”

  Remko quickly took in the scene. Sam had knocked Seever unconscious and Kate was already moving to free Wire and Sam, Tate’s gun tucked into the front of her pants. “Get out of here now,” Remko called.

  She nodded, and Remko ran after Selena.

  He pushed the worry for his team aside and set his mind on finding Selena. They all knew to rendezvous back at their vehicle.

  Something shifted in the trees above and Remko slid behind a tree to take cover. He stopped, held his breath, listened, waited. After a minute, he glanced around the trunk back to where he had come from. He could barely make out the CityWatch guards still lying on the ground, but otherwise the area was clear. His team was out.

  The world around him had grown still. The wind blew, and it made the leaves rustle slightly, but otherwise the only sound he heard was his own blood pounding in his temples. He searched ahead with his eyes, trying to pick up any movement that might be Selena and her girls, but all he saw were trees.

  He took a deep breath and continued moving. They couldn’t have gotten too far.

  After a couple more minutes of running, Remko paused again to listen and search. He heard a twig snap to his left and turned, waiting for more movement. He saw it then—a small figure rounded the side of a tree too late to avoid being seen.

  Remko moved, reaching the tree quickly, and found a small rock overhang big enough to conceal a large person—or three small ones. He approached the structure slowly and knelt down to gaze inside.

  Selena’s face faded from terror to relief the moment she recognized Remko. Both of the girls were curled beside her, crying, their faces stained with dirt lines, both of them trembling.

  Remko reached his hand in for Lucy and she studied his face as if deciding whether she could really trust him. He could only imagine how hard it must be to be old enough to understand what was happening but not old enough to understand why. He nodded toward her and she took his hand. She moved out from the covering with her mother and sister close behind. He took a single moment to make sure they were all right before surveying the land, trying to map out where they were and how they could get to the rendezvous point.

  Before he could determine the best course, someone moved out from behind a large nearby tree. A boy, dressed in dark clothes with a hood pulled up over his head, raised a bow and aimed it at Remko.

  The girls gasped beside him, and Remko moved to block them from the stranger. Remko raised his hands slowly.

  Several things played through Remko’s mind all at once. First, the boy couldn’t be any older than Wire. He was small, but his face was hard; he wasn’t a stranger to trouble. Second, it only made sense that this was the archer who had kept them from all being killed back in the clearing—what were the chances that there were two people out wandering the woods with a bow and arrows—and if that were true, then this stranger had saved them, so why would he hurt them now? And finally, all Remko had was a single knife tucked deep inside his boot, but he’d have to get close to use it effectively. Given the boy’s accuracy with his bow, Remko knew getting close would be difficult.

  The boy held Remko’s stare; he didn’t blink, didn’t waver. He just stood, bow tight, stance firm, breathing calmly.

  And then he spoke. “You can’t go back the way you came. There are at least fifteen CityWatch guards there now.”

  Remko had wondered whether the backup Seever had called for had shown yet.
Getting clear was going to be a struggle with that many guards around.

  “I heard them call for more, too, so you don’t have much time before this place is swarming with them,” the archer said.

  “Who are you?” Remko asked.

  “Does it matter?” the boy replied. He slowly lowered his bow and dropped his hood. He was young, maybe sixteen, with buzzed hair that was dark on his olive skin. Light-brown eyes, strong jaw. He looked much less intimidating without his hood. “I can get you out of here,” he said.

  Remko studied his face and the boy didn’t shy away from Remko’s prying eyes. He glanced at Selena, who looked nervous, but he couldn’t think of another way out of their predicament. Remko knew these woods, but only certain paths, and from the sound of it they would soon all be trampled with guards. He didn’t know if he could trust the archer, but he knew he needed to get Selena and her girls to safety.

  “Why would you help us?” Remko asked.

  “Because you need it, and because I hate the CityWatch.”

  Trial Entry 109 | Patient Group bc:X

  Age: Various / Gender: Various / Status: Various

  Time in observation: 116 days

  Physician’s log

  Entry made by attending: Dr. Mark Harold

  —Medical team has encountered another glitch in the current strain of the injection solution. Patient group bc:X has exhibited only portions of the expected neural change. It seems that eradicating certain memory trains is proving more difficult than originally anticipated. The problem lies within the frontal lobe and the steadfast myelin that anchors deep-set memory reactions.