Burning Skies

by Kyla Stone

  He’d never heard Jericho string so many words together at once in the months they’d been living together, day in and day out. He was tough as a mountain, stern and demanding, unafraid, unflinching. He’d never voiced his own doubts. Until this moment, Micah had been sure he didn’t have any. But like everything, most people were more than they seemed.

  Jericho fell silent for a long moment. “I let Silas down. I taught him how to kill. Maybe … maybe the better lesson is how not to.”

  Micah smiled. “Be careful. I think you’re in danger of growing a conscience.”

  Jericho shook his head ruefully. “You know what they say. An old dog can learn new tricks.”

  “I don’t think that’s how the saying goes.”

  “No? Well, I never understood American slang anyway.” Jericho ran his hand over his head. “You’ll be a good leader, someday, Micah.”

  “What do you mean? We have you.” But still, he flushed, deeply flattered. Jericho was a man who commanded respect. To have that respect returned, even a little, was an honor.

  Jericho clapped him on the back. Micah almost stumbled from the strength of the blow. “You’ve got too much dirt in your ears. I said someday.”

  They made their way back down the twenty-five flights of stairs. A racoon startled them in the stairwell, hissing, its eyes shining in their light beams. But it wasn’t infected, and they carried on without further incident.

  They’d barely returned when Willow signaled from her post at the front doors. “They’re back!”

  “Gabriel?” Micah asked, his pulse quickening. Was his brother safe? Was he okay? Then Willow’s words sank in. What did she mean, they?

  Micah hurried after Jericho to the lobby, where Willow, Amelia, Horne, and Finn were already gathered.

  Micah’s mouth fell open, dumbstruck.

  Gabriel had returned. But he wasn’t alone.

  20

  Gabriel

  Gabriel wrapped his arm around the girl, steadying her as they stumbled through the entrance. Her clothes were bloodied and disheveled. Her face was smudged with dirt and ash, her coppery curls a matted, frizzy mess. Blood dripped down her leg, smeared boot-prints streaking the floor behind them.

  Celeste was alive.

  Willow leapt to her feet, gaping. “We thought you were dead!”

  Celeste trembled from blood loss and exhaustion, but her eyes were clear. “I’m not.”

  He placed his hand on her back to keep her from falling. He was exhausted himself, his eyes gritty, his body almost numb from the hours in the freezing cold and snow. He’d given Celeste his coat. She’d needed it more.

  Gabriel blinked, his eyes adjusting to the dimness. The sky was darkening outside the windows. The lobby was filled with shadows. Only the light of the moon reflected off the snow provided a soft glow.

  Jericho’s gaze sharpened in suspicion as he turned to Horne. “You told us she was dead.”

  Horne’s face drained of color. His features contorted in a barely disguised grimace. “Celeste, I was sure you—I never would’ve—it must be a miracle—”

  “Do not speak!” Celeste straightened, all six feet of her. Gabriel grabbed her arm to hold her up. Her eyes blazed with fury. “You did this!”

  Horne took a step back, then another. He lifted his hands, palms out in a placating gesture. “We must celebrate this joyous occasion. You came back from the dead and—”

  “I didn’t come back from the dead,” Celeste forced between gritted teeth. “You left me for dead.”

  The room fell silent. No one spoke. No one breathed.

  Micah looked from Celeste to Horne and back again. His gaze flicked to Gabriel, questioning, searching for confirmation. Gabriel gave a small shake of his head, barely restraining his own rage. This was Celeste’s story to tell. He wouldn’t do or say anything until she’d said her piece.

  “What do you mean?” Micah asked finally. “Horne left you behind?”

  “Worse.” Celeste leaned down to her bloody leg and unwound the makeshift bandage Gabriel had managed to make out of torn strips of a linen tablecloth.

  Micah gasped. Amelia made a wounded animal sound in the back of her throat. Willow looked even more furious.

  A deep, ugly gash marred Celeste’s leg from the underside of her kneecap to her thigh. Blood welled in the cut as Gabriel carefully rewound the bandage. It wouldn’t stop the blood loss for long.

  Celeste pointed a shaking finger at Horne. “That man tried to murder me to save his own worthless skin.”

  Horne shook his head frantically, his perfectly styled blonde hair falling into his panicked eyes. Shadows flitted across his face. “No! No, I would never…there’s been a mistake. A misunderstanding—”

  “Does that look like a misunderstanding to you?” Silas snarled, pointing at Celeste’s leg. A small puddle of blood formed on the floor beneath her, almost black in the dim light.

  Micah turned to Benjie. “Go get the bandages and the antiseptic spray in my pack.”

  Benjie stared wide-eyed at Celeste. “But—”

  “Go!” Willow said, her voice deadly calm.

  He scooted off his stool and dashed for the stairs, the beam of his small flashlight bouncing off the walls. A minute later, he was back. Micah and Amelia cleaned and bound Celeste’s wound as best they could.

  Gabriel forced his gaze from her leg. Anger ran through him like an electrical current. He caught Silas’s eye and dipped his chin, angling his head at Horne.

  Silas knew what he wanted. He drew his gun, thumbed off the safety, and stepped silently behind Horne. Just in case.

  Once she’d swallowed several aspirin, Jericho spoke in a low, cold voice, his eyes hard as obsidian. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  Celeste squared her shoulders. Gone was the whiny, manipulative sweetness. Gone was the helpless, pampered elite. She was fierce, her entire body vibrating with rage. “We were running in the rain. We got lost, unsure how to get back at night. We decided to hole up until morning. We tried a pizza place that wasn’t boarded up, but it was infested with rats.”

  She paused, sucking in a harsh breath at the memory. “We tried to go out the back—there was an alley—but there were too many of those filthy rats. Horne tripped, and I stopped to help him. I risked my life to help him. I reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him to his feet. When I tried to let go, he gripped me harder, pulled out his knife, and slashed my leg. I twisted away at the last second, so it wasn’t as deep as he’d intended. But it was enough.

  “The rats smelled my blood and came after me instead of him. He escaped through the alley and left me for dead.”

  “I always knew you were a worthless bastard.” Silas jammed the muzzle of his gun against Horne’s head. “Shall I pull the trigger?”

  “Now wait just a minute!” Horne cried. He glanced at Jericho imploringly. “That’s not how it happened—”

  Willow looked ready to punch Horne in the face. “Shut up for once!”

  Jericho held up his hand. “How did you escape?”

  “The rats were chasing me, biting at my ankles, swarming up my shins.” She shot Willow a grateful look. “My thick boots protected me. But those suckers’ teeth are sharp. They half-chewed through them in a matter of seconds.”

  Everyone’s gaze drifted to Celeste’s torn and tattered boots, the leather gouged with dozens of tiny bites. Gabriel’s stomach dropped, though he’d already seen them. They were more than half-chewed through. Celeste was lucky. Very, very lucky.

  “I was bleeding everywhere, but I hardly felt it. Not then. I climbed on the counter and stabbed a few of the hairy bastards with a kitchen knife. There was a tall, heavy-duty metal shelf next to the fridge. I noticed the ceiling had drop-tiles, so I climbed up the shelf, pushed aside one of the tiles, and climbed into the ceiling. I huddled there all night, just trying not to faint. All I could think about was that I couldn’t die after what Horne did to me. I refused.”

  Her eyes glittere
d in the dim light, her teeth bared. “Sometime during the night, a pack of dogs came sniffing around the dumpsters. The back door was open and the rats, they—they attacked the dogs, swarming over them like…it was awful. The dogs could’ve gotten away if they’d just run, but they stayed to fight…after that, the rats scurried off to find more interesting prey, I guess. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to come down and brave it outside, hobbling on a wounded, bleeding leg.

  “I wouldn’t make it. I knew that. But I wasn’t going to just die there, either. I’d just worked myself up to making an attempt anyway, rats and Pyros be damned. Then I heard a noise. I thought it was one of the crazy assholes who’d attacked us.” She glanced at Gabriel in chagrin.

  Gabriel grimaced at the memory. “She dropped out of the ceiling, shrieking like some kamikaze warrior. She about eviscerated me with her knife.”

  Horne had told as much of the truth as possible, as all skilled liars do. Gabriel had searched the city for the pizza place Horne had described, careful to stay in the shadows, to travel from building to building where he could to avoid leaving tracks, switching and doubling back on himself when he had to go outside, doing whatever he could to move silently and invisibly.

  He’d observed two more groups of Pyros piling and burning bodies and tagging buildings with that ominous X encased in a circle. Some buildings they left alone other than the graffiti, others they set ablaze. They rode in armored trucks through narrow paths they’d made in the side streets, shouting and laughing, every one of them carrying high-powered pulse guns.

  He’d stayed as far away from them as he could. He’d taken out dozens of rats, but no hordes. In small numbers, he made short work of them with the pulse rod. He’d fended off three stray dogs, two infected, one not.

  The uninfected stray was starving, its ribs showing through its matted brown fur. Gabriel opened several tins of prefab beef and scattered the meat on the snowy ground. The dog pounced on the food, devouring it within seconds.

  He’d left that one alive, feeling a strange affinity with this fellow creature struggling to survive out here in the savage city, alone and hunted by enemies, but not defeated.

  He’d found the carcasses of four more dogs by the dumpster in the alley as dusk fell, a bone-chilling cold descending with it. His breath steamed from the edges of his face mask. Blood was on the ground, blood in splatters and streaks and hundreds of tiny claw-prints.

  He’d moved into the restaurant’s heavily shadowed industrial kitchen, dread seizing his gut, his jaw clenched, gripping the pulse rod in his fist.

  He was so startled when Celeste pounced on him, dropping from the ceiling like some crazed, demon-creature of the night, he’d nearly killed her. He left that part out of the story.

  She was trembling, terrified, and half out of her mind, but she’d been willing to fight to keep herself alive. Gabriel found himself revising his opinion of her during the hours they’d stumbled through the city in the darkness, trudging through the snow, shaking from the cold and pain, desperate to stay hidden from the deadly things hunting them.

  “You’re both lucky to be alive,” Jericho said.

  “Celeste survived, no thanks to Horne,” Gabriel growled, his fury returning in full force. “The only question now is what to do with him.”

  Willow fisted her hands on her hips. “Didn’t he want Silas banished, turned out into the freezing cold to fend for himself?”

  “It was an accident, I assure you,” Horne squeaked. His face was pale as bone, his expression stricken. “If you will just—”

  “Shut the hell up!” Gabriel lost his temper. He strode forward and seized Horne by his scrawny neck, lifting him clear off the floor. Horne flailed, punching at him desperately. The whites of his eyes glimmered in the shadows.

  Gabriel didn’t even feel the blows. Righteous anger pulsed through him. “You should die for this!”

  “Gabriel!” Micah shouted. He jerked at his arms, pulling him back.

  Something moved out of the corner of his eye. A streak of light in the darkness outside.

  Glass shattered. Something exploded. Smoke filled the air.

  Gabriel spun, dropping Horne like a sack of potatoes. He yanked out his gun, searching frantically for the threat.

  But it was too late.

  The first bullet whizzed by his ear. The second found its mark.

  Gabriel watched in horror as Finn lurched. His huge body fell in jerky slow motion, tumbling to the floor with a crash.

  21

  Willow

  Willow couldn’t see a thing. She could barely breathe. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm against her ribcage. Her wrists burned from the electric shackles roughly binding her hands. The fabric of the black hood covering her face sucked against her nostrils and opened mouth with every gasping breath.

  She stumbled awkwardly, prodded forward like an animal with something sharp against her back. She didn’t know where she was or where she was going. She had only a dim awareness of open space, then claustrophobia as she was crammed into a cramped space. The sensation of movement jolted through her, her body jostling against the others. They were in the back of some kind of van or truck.

  Her attempts at whispered communication were cut short after a few sharp blows against her shoulders. Based on the moans she heard, the others received the same treatment.

  Someone’s shoulder bumped against hers. On her other side, she felt knees, someone’s thigh pressed against her own. But she didn’t know who it was. Benjie whimpered, but she couldn’t go to him, couldn’t comfort him or tell him to be strong.

  She could barely comfort herself. Where was Finn? Was he with them? Was he alive? Was he okay? The smoke had obscured their vision, something like tear gas burning their eyes and lungs, incapacitating them. Seconds after Finn crashed to the floor like a felled tree, a dozen armed men had swarmed them, binding their wrists and shoving hoods over their faces.

  The Pyros must have tracked Gabriel and Celeste through the snow. Everyone had been so focused on Celeste, they’d let their guard down, noticing nothing as the Pyros closed in like hyenas to a kill.

  “This is all a terrible misunderstanding!” Horne shouted. “You can’t do this to me—”

  “Shut the hell up,” a deep voice snarled.

  She was jerked out of the vehicle. She staggered over uneven ground as someone pushed and shoved her through a large, echoing space. She stumbled up several sets of stairs. She fell once, bruising her knees and nearly pitching face-first to the floor, but she managed to regain her balance.

  Panic galloped through her. Fear and dread clawed up her throat, but also a low, buzzing anger. They’d come too far to die like this, captured and killed by common street thugs. She yanked against her shackles. The electric cuffs sent a painful shock shooting up her arms.

  “On your knees!” Someone shouted, shoving her down.

  The black hood was lifted from her face.

  She blinked rapidly, sucking in deep breaths. Everything snapped into focus.

  She craned her neck, searching frantically for Benjie and Finn. They were all kneeling in a line. Everyone was there. Micah on one side of her, Benjie next to him. Amelia knelt stiffly on Willow’s other side. Then Jericho, then Finn.

  His huge shoulders were slumped, his brown skin ashen. Over his right chest and arm, blood stained his shirt. How badly was he hurt? She couldn’t tell. But he was upright. His eyes were open. He was alive. She could have cried in relief.

  The others were battered and bruised—Benjie had a large yellowish lump on his forehead, making her want to punch someone’s teeth out—but they were otherwise unhurt. For the time being.

  Her gaze swept the room, or rather, the theater. They were kneeling on a large stage in an enormous auditorium. There had to be close to five thousand seats ringing the stage on several levels.

  The auditorium was magnificent, a sumptuous re-imagining of a Middle Eastern mosque blended with an ancient castle. She craned he
r neck to stare up at the soaring turreted ceiling, painted a stunning cobalt blue and shimmering with thousands of twinkling holo stars. Sweeping archways were ornamented with ornate, gold leaf carvings. Elaborate lanterns like elongated globes hung from the ceiling, spilling circles of soft, golden light.

  She blinked against the glare of a bank of spotlight directed onto the stage. The Pyros had electricity. They weren’t afraid to use it, didn’t care who might see it. And why would they? They ruled the city. Who did they have to fear?

  A large, furred shape loomed out of the corner of her vision. She gasped, startled.

  A lion leapt from the orchestra pit and paced the perimeter of the stage. He was enormous, with a tawny mane and amber eyes that gazed at her from a great, regal head. A second lion lay beside one of the guards, long tail twitching.

  They were mods. It was in their eyes—they watched her blankly, with little interest and zero hunger. Yet they both wore shock collars around their shaggy necks. A mod shouldn’t need a shock collar.

  But she didn’t have time to worry about modded lions. Someone cleared his throat.

  A half-dozen people stood in front of her. They were dressed in tactical gear and armed to the teeth with guns and knives. They all had the flaming skull tattoos on their necks. Four more guards watched them from a metal catwalk high above the stage.

  “Well, well, well. Look what we have here.” The familiar lilting, sing-song voice sent a shiver of dread through every cell in her body. Sykes, the man with the black trench coat, stood glaring at them, his arms crossed, his right hand wrapped in bandages, a wicked-looking pulse gun gripped in his left. “We caught the little piggies after all. Every. Single. One.”

  “That’s enough, Sykes.” Another man stepped forward, flanked by two enforcers. He was as tall as Finn but scarily gaunt, his cheeks hollowed like a skull, his lips thin and bloodless, his black eyes dark wells that sucked in all the available light.