by Chele Cooke
“Your friend is still quarantined.”
“My girlfriend, yeah. Great lot of good you coming here has done.”
Georgianna let go of the handle and shifted away from the door. She had the feeling that Taye might not be as forgiving of her breaking the rules and sneaking through the shield if Nyah was quarantined with the other Veniche. They’d all risked so much to get Nyah away from Maarqyn, and now she’d been taken from him again, all thanks to Georgianna helping contact the Cahlven.
She snuck through the house, searching each room for some escape. She came across a boarded-up window: perfect. But getting the boards off would be noisy.
“Let’s check within these houses,” the Cahlven said. “The shield passes them.”
“You’re the boss.”
There was nothing for it. Georgianna grabbed the bottom board and tugged. It creaked, and every little groan of wood sounded like a siren. The nails squealed against the frame, and she was sure it was as good as an alarm to Taye and the Cahlven. But nobody came. They must have been searching one of the adjacent houses, or she was just being paranoid about how much noise the wood was making. She stood frozen for almost a minute, wooden plank in her hands, waiting.
The second plank came away easier, but with a gunshot crack of wood. This time, Georgianna didn’t wait to find out if they’d heard her. She thrust the plank as hard as she could against the dirty glass. It bounced off with barely a dent. She hit the glass twice more until a web of cracks appeared in the centre. One more hit, and the glass shattered: just as the door into the house opened behind her. She swung the bag from her back, and used it to knock out the glass from the bottom of the window. She pushed the bag through the gap and let it fall with a crunch of snow on the other side. Georgianna scrambled through the window, gritting her teeth as the points of remaining glass dragged through her clothes and into her flesh.
Taye shouted out. “Hey! Hey, in here!”
Georgianna landed in the snow and glass outside the window, and when she looked back, Taye’s eyes widened. His mouth opened and closed a few times, and then turned, sprinting back for the door.
“It’s her! She went out the window.”
Any words Georgianna might have saved for Taye, had they been alone, were lost as he ran for the door, eager to see her caught and locked away as the Cahlven were. She grabbed her bag from the wet snow and was already running as she tried to sling it over her shoulder.
The bag bounced against her back as she ran, sharp corners digging in with every jolt. It would be better to stay out of sight, but she couldn’t pass through the shield again. Instead, she turned sharply and ran out across the road Taye and the Cahlven soldier had been walking along. She heard a shout as she whipped in between two more houses, and the crunch of snow under boots behind her. She didn’t turn back.
The snow made it difficult to run, and she had to yank each foot up higher to clear the drifts, with each step slippery and treacherous. The frozen air burned in her throat and lungs, and yet she still didn’t dare look behind. She prayed that Taye, at least, would hesitate before shooting her in the back.
The weak sun threw long shadows between the houses; nothing deep enough or dark enough to hide in. Her body screamed in protest, but she ran as hard as she could, zigzagging between the houses in the evasive pattern of a startled animal, just the way Alec had told her.
But Georgianna knew the risks only grew the further she got from the shield. She was running into Adveni controlled areas, where the enemy would be on all sides. Still, she ran, trying to hear the shouts and footfalls of the Cahlven over the pounding of blood in her ears.
The houses of the camps gave way to the taller, more robust buildings of the Oprust district. As she slipped into the thinner, darker alleyways, she finally slowed to catch her breath. She reoriented herself, pulling in gulps of freezing air. It wasn’t far to the tunnels now, and she couldn’t hear any following footsteps. She had lost them, or they’d given up on the chase. Georgianna steeled herself and crept to the end of the alleyway, checking both ways before darting across the road and into a street that would lead her to a tunnel entrance.
One thing was for certain now: there would be no way to use that path through the shield again, and if she couldn’t find another, she was cut off from Keiran for good.
By the time Georgianna reached their little camp in the tunnels, her heart had finally stopped beating at a mile a minute. She paused, just before the curve leading to their home, and took a minute to steady her breathing and rub her hands over her face. She hoped that would be enough to convince the others that she was fine, that her thoughts and fears weren’t racing as fast as her heart had been. After a few more seconds of calming herself, she rounded the curve, holding her hands up at the familiar sight of weapons emerging from the train car.
She walked to the side of the car, paused and gave a relieved smile as she looked up to find Dhiren looking at her, reaching down to take her hand and help her up. She took it, and once up inside the car, grasped his arm, squeezing once. She hoped Dhiren would understand how happy she was to see him safe.
“So,” Dhiren said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “How did Keiran take the news?”
“The news?”
He stared at her for a full ten seconds, his gaze scrutinising. “Your diversion plan?”
Georgianna’s mouth opened in realisation. With everything she had learned—running from Taye and the Cahlven, and her loss of their connection to Keiran—she had forgotten why she’d originally gone under the shield.
She shook her head. “It’s not going to work.”
“What? Why not?” Alec asked.
She couldn’t be entirely sure, but Georgianna thought she saw satisfaction in Dhiren’s expression. She took a deep breath. Where to begin? ”The shield is tagged. A kind of message goes out when someone passes through. It tells them where the breach is. I only just got away.”
Georgianna turned her foot and showed them the long slash through her trousers, the edges crusted with blood.
“Shit.” Alec slumped forwards onto his knees, rubbing his hands over his mouth and cheeks. “It makes it difficult, but not impossible. If enough people move at the same time…”
“Hiding one person after an alarm is difficult,” Dhiren said, indicating to Georgianna’s leg. “But thousands? It’ll be a slaughter.”
Alec waved a hand. “We don’t know that they’d really kill them.”
Georgianna cringed and took a seat on the side of the bed. ”Actually, we do.”
“Okay, so we don’t like the Cahlven and we think the worst—”
“No, Alec.” She cut him off. “I know. Keiran was able to find out where the listening device was and remove it long enough for us to talk.”
Dhiren leaned in. “Well, what did he say?”
“The Cahlven have a device like the cinystalq, but it’s implanted in the body. Every Ven under the shield has one.”
Alec was on his feet: hands curled into fists, face reddening.
“The device doesn’t shock anyone, as far as Keiran knows. But it does track them. We can’t get anyone away without removing them, and we don’t know if we need a technician to do that safely.”
Alec threw up his hands. “So we leave them there? No better than the dreta wearing collars?”
Georgianna grimaced. “That’s not all.”
“What else?” Dhiren said. Alec seemed too angry to speak any more. He paced in the small space, turning more than walking.
“There are people getting sick. Keiran said… He thinks that they’re testing.”
“Testing?”
“Medical testing. Making them sick. I’m not entirely sure about the specifics, but that’s what he said. All his access to civilians has been cut off, and I overheard that most of them are quarantined unless they joined the Cahlven army. From the sounds of it, they’re calling it some kind of virus outbreak. They’re keeping the ones who joined separately to stop t
hem catching whatever it is.”
Dhiren scowled. “Where did you hear that?”
Georgianna cringed. She should have told them that piece of news as if it had come from Keiran. But she wasn’t sure how she felt about Taye being the one to chase her down alongside the Cahlven. He must truly hate her now, to treat her like a criminal. He’d been angry before, but she’d assumed it would pass. She was wrong; but it didn’t mean she wanted Dhiren and Alec to hate him.
“The Cahlven soldier had a Ven with them when they came to inspect the breach at the shield,” she said. “They were talking.”
“Well, that solves one thing, at least,” Dhiren said, slumping down onto the bed. “No diversion and grand escape.”
Alec whipped around. “Why does it mean that? We find out they’re in an even worse situation than we thought, so we’re just going to abandon them and run off to wait it out?”
Georgianna shook her head. “Nobody said that.”
“No, but he meant it.” Alec jabbed a hand in Dhiren’s direction.
Dhiren stared back at him, a quiet challenge in his eyes.
“Well, I’m telling you it doesn’t mean that,” Georgianna said. “The diversion won’t work. Even if we could get them out past the shield, and get the trackers removed, they are sick and I don’t know if I have the medicine to make them better. We can’t travel if most of us are sick, Alec. You must see that.”
Alec’s lips twitched as he grumbled to himself. “Of course I do. But I’m not leaving them there.”
“You gonna camp them all out here in the tunnels?” Dhiren said. “Sneak ‘em out one by one like the Belsa with drysta? How much good did that do anyone? Freeze ain’t gonna stop from freezing these people to death, or starving them out.”
If looks could kill, Alec’s glare would have put Dhiren on his death bed. “No, it’ll just abandon them for its own selfish survival.”
Dhiren leaned back against the shell of the train car and watched Alec for a few seconds, sizing him up. Once again, Georgianna could only think of the name they had given him within the compound: Coyote. He moved slowly, so sure of himself, and arched an eyebrow.
“My death will not help those people,” he said. “It may seem noble to the two of you to die trying to help them, but it will do nothing except drive them further down.” Alec scoffed. Dhiren ignored him. “We got out. We lived, despite everything the Adveni and the Cahlven threw at us. If we die, we are telling them there is nothing they can do.”
Alec rolled his eyes. “That’s such crap. If you want to run, at least be honest about it. Don’t dress it up. You’re a coward, Dhiren. Admit it. You want to run and save your hide.”
Dhiren shifted forwards on the bed, lips twisting into a vicious snarl. Even Georgianna could see that he was considering the best attack, the smartest move. She leapt up between them, flinging her arms out to ensure they stayed apart.
“Stop it, both of you!” She looked between them. They still seemed ready to pounce at any moment. “You’re both acting like children.”
Dhiren shrugged. “You can talk.”
Georgianna glared at him. “Maybe I can. I never claimed to be a soldier, or even to know what I was doing half the time. I still don’t. But, Dhiren, I can’t leave my friends to suffer and die. Surely you understand that. No matter how impossible it may seem, I have to try to help them.” She turned to Alec; he was wearing a smug, self-satisfied grin. Georgianna wanted to smack it from his face. “And, you. Berating everyone who holds a slightly different opinion than your own… If we’d listened to your plans, Keiran would be dead and labelled a grutt, and none of this would have happened. We’d be under the Adveni for another hundred freezes, so don’t act so fucking superior.”
Alec stared open-mouthed at Georgianna, then cringed back like a scolded child.
For a blissful moment, both men were shocked into silence. Georgianna huffed and sat back down on the bed, hunched over her knees. She stared at the floor and took a couple of deep breaths. The glass cut in her leg was throbbing, and her panic was getting the better of her. She gripped her hands tight together.
“We only just found out about all this. As far as we know, people aren’t dying yet. We don’t need to decide this second. We need to think and come up with something we can all agree with.” She looked up. Dhiren stared out of the train car, but at least he wasn’t disagreeing. Alec nodded when she glanced at him. Georgianna nodded in return and got to her feet. “I’m going to get Lacie to look at my leg.”
Neither of them answered her, and despite the injury, neither helped her climb down out of the train. She left them alone to their silence; she couldn’t take any more fighting.
Georgianna lingered far longer than necessary with Lacie and Jacob. Lacie had wrapped her leg, the healing process sped along by a herbal concoction of Jacob’s own devising. The young man was coming along in leaps and bounds, his confidence growing daily. Lacie was also gaining in character, no longer looking to Georgianna for instructions. She had just the right temperament for it: taking charge but in a kind and reassuring manner. She would make a great medic. It was wonderful to see but, once again, Georgianna was filled with regret for having brought them to this. Although staying under the Cahlven shield was hardly an alternative.
Georgianna returned to the train car she shared with Alec and Dhiren. She peered inside before climbing up. Alec had left Dhiren alone, and the lamp they used for their watches overnight had gone with him. She wondered whether Alec had decided to go down earlier than usual, just to put some distance between himself and the other man. She knew they respected each other’s skills, but like Alec and Keiran, some rivalries were never truly left in the past, and she doubted Alec would have forgotten how easily Dhiren took him down in the forest after he’d bad-mouthed Edtroka.
Dhiren didn’t look up as Georgianna climbed up into the car. He sat in the corner of his bed, wrapped in one of the Cahlven blankets they’d managed to take out from under the shield. The veins through it glowed amber, and Dhiren only wore a shirt and trousers beneath, instead of their usual bulky layers.
She went past him and took a tentative seat on the edge of her bed. The last of the stew sat in bowls on an upturned crate, and Georgianna took one, prodding at the food with a spoon.
It was difficult, summoning the words into her mouth. She knew she had to say them, especially after what they’d learned, but more because it was the right thing to do. She had been wrong, and cruel to him. He didn’t deserve that, just because she was scared of being without him.
More than anything, she wished Edtroka was there with them. He would have known what to do. He’d have been able to give them insights into the Adveni movements, or how they operated. She knew he hadn’t been involved in any wars with the Cahlven before, but he knew the stories and, despite embellishments, there were usually grains of truth in there, elements they could have learned from and used.
But Edtroka wasn’t there. He wasn’t there because he had saved her instead of himself, instead of Dhiren. Maybe she would never forgive herself for that, but it certainly wasn’t something she could put on Dhiren. He’d lost everything because of her, and it wasn’t surprising he wanted to leave.
“Dhiren.” She kept her voice low. “About what I said before.”
He still didn’t look up.
Georgianna groaned and put the bowl aside. She’d thought it would keep her steady, having something to hold onto. Instead, all she did was fidget with her spoon. “I never should have assumed I know what Edtroka would have thought about all of this, or of your decisions.” Dhiren inclined his head; the movement was almost too subtle to notice. He kept staring blankly ahead. “Edtroka knew you and he loved you. He was willing to run for you, and I believe that he would have left with you, if you’d asked him.”
Dhiren sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Thank you.”
“He wanted you safe. That was all he ever wanted. Maybe he went about it in the wrong wa
y, keeping you in the compound. But I know his intentions were good.”
“Bastard.”
Georgianna chuckled and nodded.
Finally, Dhiren met her gaze. “Don’t get me wrong, George. I know why you need to stay.”
Here it was: the part she wasn’t ready to say. Apologising had been easier, knowing she was wrong and that she’d taken her fear out on Dhiren in the worst of ways. But this was scary. It was the right thing to do, she knew that now, but it didn’t make it any easier.
“I do,” she said. “But I don’t think you should.”
Dhiren frowned. “What?”
Georgianna sniffed. She grabbed her own blanket and wrapped it around herself, burying her fingers in the material and clinging on. “I think you should go. And you should take Lacie and Jacob with you.”
He leaned forwards and stared at her, placing his feet on the floor and hunching over his knees. “Why?”
“Because it was what Edtroka wanted. You being safe.”
“He wanted that for you, too. Remember?”
She shook her head. “Not in the same way, and I can’t leave Keiran.”
“Lacie and Jacob?”
It would take a lot of convincing, she knew that. Lacie wouldn’t want to leave Beck, and Jacob had made clear his desire to help ever since he’d started to learn how to shoot. Since Wrench’s death, he’d been working harder than ever; Georgianna had even found Dhiren teaching the younger man how to fight with a knife, the same way he had taught her in the forest.
She winced. “They’ve been through so much already. I can’t risk them getting hurt.”
“We’ve all been through a lot, George.”
“I know we have. But I guess I feel responsible for them. They left the shield because of me and if I die here, I want to know they got out.”
He stared down at the floor. “You said we’d be a tribe.” He laughed: sad, self-deprecating. “You promised me.”
Georgianna sniffed and nodded. “I know, and I intend to make good on that. I’ll go to this meeting, and you should use the distraction to get out of the city. When this is all done, I’ll catch up to you.”
