Midnight City: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series)

by J. Barton Mitchell

  Holt grabbed his pack and opened it. He dug through one of the side pockets until he found what he was looking for; then he stood up, held out a hand toward Zoey. “Come here,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

  Zoey’s smile was huge as she stood up and took Holt’s hand.

  “Put your feet on top of my feet,” he instructed.

  “Won’t it hurt you?” she asked.

  Mira laughed behind them, leaning back on her elbows to watch.

  Zoey put her right foot on top of Holt’s left boot, then her left on top of his right. Holt handed her one of the things he had pulled from his pack. It was a simple black stone that had been buffed and polished until it was worn smooth and shiny. It fit neatly in Zoey’s small hand. Holt held on to another stone that was exactly the same.

  “The important thing is to remember which side is your right side,” he continued. “Because you always move right to start, and it can get hard to remember when you’re thinking about your feet. So if you hold something in your right hand and grip it really tight, you won’t forget. Make sense?”

  Zoey nodded, put the stone in her right palm and squeezed it.

  “Okay, then.” Holt took her hands. “Here we go.”

  He waited a few beats … then moved to the right.

  “One-two-three, one-two-three,” Holt said as he waltzed around the campsite in movements of three, carrying Zoey with him on his feet. Zoey laughed as they moved and turned, circling around the flickering campfire while the music poured from the hissing radio.

  As they spun, Holt continued to catch Mira’s gaze, watching him. In the dark of the dying fire, he couldn’t see the black fingers of the Tone in her eyes, could see only the clear emerald green.

  Maybe she was pretty, after all, he thought. This time, his rational side made no attempt to discount the notion.

  Holt and Zoey danced to the music for several more rotations around the fire. Then the little girl looked up at him excitedly with her blue eyes.

  “Dance with Mira now, Holt!” she exclaimed.

  Mira laughed from the other side of the camp. “Holt wouldn’t want that. I’d break his toes.”

  Holt looked down at Mira, still perched on her elbows, her red hair trailing gently down her shoulders. He saw the smallest question in her green eyes … and he knew he was asking himself the same thing: Did he really want to go there? Doing so was crossing a line, to be sure, a dangerous line for both of them. It would only complicate things. And his life was all about simplicity, keeping things in perspective.

  But over the past few days, Holt had found his resolve slipping when it came to her. He was listening less and less to the voice of survival in his head. And right then, as he imagined pulling her close, having her eyes stare into his from just inches away … he stopped listening to it altogether.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked quietly, keeping his stare on her. “Can’t keep up?”

  The smile on Mira’s face gradually sobered, like she was slowly reaching her own decision. Then she stood up and walked toward Holt.

  Holt let Zoey off his feet and took the black stone from her. She moved to where Max was chewing on one of the straps of Holt’s pack, grabbed the dog’s ears, and twisted them gently like motorcycle controls. “Vroom, vroom…,” she mimicked. The dog didn’t seem to mind.

  Mira reached Holt. They stood before each other. He took her right hand, opened it, placed the polished black stone in her palm. Her fingers were soft and cool, like stretched silk.

  “What makes you think I need that?” she asked, looking up at him.

  “I’ve seen you run,” Holt replied. “Trust me. You need it.”

  Mira smiled back at him.

  Holt took her hands, slowly raised one up to the level of his shoulder, and placed the other one behind his back. He drew Mira close, and felt her press against his chest. She was an impossible combination of soft and firm all at the same time. They looked into each other as their bodies met.

  Zoey chuckled from the fire, staring at them.

  “What are you laughing at, kid?” Holt asked without taking his eyes off Mira. Zoey chuckled louder.

  And then Holt and Mira started to move, spinning slowly with the waltz and static that floated out from the radio’s tiny speakers. The music swelled around them, building toward its finale. But for Holt, the music became irrelevant. Just an audible guideline for when to move his feet and in what direction. His real focus was on the girl in front of him, her soft hands, the smell of her hair, the way the fire sparkled in her eyes.

  Holt and Mira waltzed around the camp, their eyes locked on one another. Everything seemed to recede into the distance around them. The starlight, the flickering flames, the breeze that whispered in the leaves—it all faded slowly to black as they spun, faded until there was nothing but them, dancing in slow motion, the thoughts of Assembly walkers and Forsaken and bounties and death marks and plutonium and Fallout Swarms and everything else that had to do with reality vanished, faded until there was the staticky waltz and them and—

  The music ended. And when it did, everything stopped.

  Holt and Mira’s movement slowed, then ceased altogether. When they were still, they stayed in their positions: close, staring into each other’s eyes. A lock of her red hair hung loose on Mira’s forehead, and Holt gently pushed it back and tucked it behind her ear. They could feel each other’s hearts beating.

  Then, from the distance, a sound yanked them both back to reality. Far off, the percussive booming of plasma cannon fire. The muted thumps of the after-explosions. Max, near Zoey, lifted his head up in alarm. The sounds ricocheted quietly off the thin trees, echoing eerily around them all … then faded.

  Holt looked down at the girl in his arms and once again remembered all that she represented. A reward. His ticket to escaping the Menagerie for good. The ability to go where he wanted without always having to look over his shoulder. A chance for true freedom.

  Holt could see similar thoughts playing behind Mira’s green eyes.

  They were back where they had been: She was his prisoner. He was her captor.

  But their hands were slow to leave one another, their eyes lingering. Regardless of what the other wanted to believe, for better or worse, something had changed.

  They pulled away from each other as a new orchestral piece began to play. Mira moved back to her sleeping bag while Holt reached down and turned off the radio.

  “Let’s rest up, we’re moving at first light,” he said. “We haven’t had any sleep in almost a day and a half.”

  Zoey’s face formed a disappointed frown, and she left Max and moved to Mira’s sleeping bag. Mira said nothing as the little girl climbed inside, just pulled her close.

  Holt climbed into his own bag, heard Max lie down next to him.

  The fire was dying, the burning wood had reduced to coals now, glittering orange and red and providing only the dimmest light.

  Holt, for his part, was glad for the dark. No one would see him there, his eyes open long after the fire finally died, staring sleeplessly at the stars that filtered in through the treetops above.

  24. CUPCAKES

  HOLT, MIRA, ZOEY, AND MAX STOOD at the top of a gently sloping hill that rolled down to the river valley below. At the bottom, where the river twisted and sparkled through the grass, something stretched from one side of the water to the other: a floating trading post made of all kinds of boats, rafts, barges, and other river craft that had been tied together into a single structure, and Mira saw a hundred or more kids swarming all over it, moving back and forth, trading supplies and necessities.

  Floating trading posts like this one had the advantage of being mobile. They could set up shop in a different location every few days so as to avoid Assembly patrols. The permanent depots (like Faust or Midnight City) couldn’t relocate if the aliens came calling, so their only choice was to defend themselves. Fortunately, they rarely had need to.

  The four had once again left the
trees behind them, and now only the occasional elm and spruce jutted up from the green hills. Holt and Mira stood in the shade of one, leaning against opposite sides of the trunk, while Zoey and Max played together in the tall grass nearby.

  Mira stared down at the trading post with a tightness in her chest she hadn’t expected. But why shouldn’t she? After all, the place represented an end to the group dynamic that had formed ever since the strangers were forced to traverse the Drowning Plains together. A dynamic that, in spite of her better judgment, she had grown to like. It was similar to the sense of belonging she had felt in Midnight City. The coming loss of it bothered her far more than she was comfortable with.

  Here, Holt would hand off Zoey to one of the congregations or boats below, and the mysteries surrounding her would be left for someone else to solve. Mira would be bound again, and led around like a trophy. Holt would trade for the supplies he needed for the inevitable march north to Midnight City, where she would be returned to her old faction and slated for execution.

  In spite of the facts, her thoughts were divided between the trading post on the river … and the waltz from last night. What each represented were polar opposites.

  Mira shook the images from her mind. She never should have let that dance happen. But watching Holt put Zoey on his feet and spin her around the fire had all been too much. The feelings that had been building inside her, feelings she had adamantly denied, were stoked to life.

  Was she insane? There was absolutely no way she was falling for her captor. For the bounty hunter who planned to turn her in for a reward, who’d kept her tied up for almost a week. And then there were her … other responsibilities. Her other relationships. Had she forgotten them, too?

  Mira sighed. Why did it have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t Holt have been completely appalling like most everyone else? Why did he have to have that subtle sense of kindness, those annoying heroic impulses? Why did he have to have such strong hands, such a crooked smile?

  From nowhere, the Tone swelled up from her subconscious and pushed to the forefront. The whispering, the voices, the static—they all began to press in on her. Mira groaned, gripped the tree for support, fought against the sounds, trying to push them back.

  “Are you okay?” Mira barely heard Holt’s voice as the incessant, swirling whispers overpowered her. “Mira?”

  The static hiss in her mind slowly dissolved, and she managed to push it down to the edge of her awareness, keeping it at bay. She took a long, deep breath, steadying herself. It was over. For now.

  “Mira?” Holt asked more firmly. She felt his hand on her arm. When she looked up at him, there was genuine concern in his eyes. But something else, too. Fear, it almost seemed like. An old fear. She wondered, yet again, just whom he had lost.…

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Think I’m getting better at fighting it, like you said. How often will it do that?”

  “It’s different for everyone,” he answered. “But it’s usually when you’re the weakest, when you’re hurt or … worried or frightened or sick. Times like that are when it can get the upper hand. It’s always looking for the upper hand.”

  He was still looking at her with worry, and she almost smiled, felt the initial tinglings of warmth beginning to spread through her.

  Then she saw the rope in his hands, and reality came flooding back.

  Mira’s stomach knotted. She quickly looked back down to the trading post on the river. She couldn’t believe he was really going to do it. But here they were, back where they’d started. She felt his silent, uncomfortable gaze.

  “My dad told me once how you could tell which things in life were real,” Mira said. Without looking at him, she put her hands behind her, so that he could tie them. She felt Holt step close.

  “And how’s that?” Holt asked.

  “When you stop believing in them … they don’t go away. I wonder which one last night was?”

  She kept waiting for the soft rope to circle her hands. Instead, Holt gently pried open one of her palms and set something in it. Mira couldn’t identify it at first. It was dusty, wrapped in some kind of thin plastic wrap, and spongy.

  There was a slight smile in his voice. “Don’t squeeze, you’ll crush it.”

  He didn’t try to stop her as she brought the mystery slowly around from behind her. In her hand were two black cupcakes resting inside clear plastic packaging. Each was topped with black frosting and a zigzag of white trailed down their centers.

  A smile grew on Mira’s face. She couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t just that he had actually found them … it was also that he had remembered.

  Hostess CupCakes. Just as she’d described.

  Mira turned slowly around and looked at Holt. He stared back. She didn’t know what this gesture meant, but all the same, there was no rope on her hands yet.

  “Where did you find them?” she asked.

  “Back in the Drowning Plains, before the Forsaken tried to kill us. I got more at first, but that was all I could save.”

  Mira looked at the package in her hands. It had been so long since she’d seen one, they looked like something out of a fairy tale now. “So … what is this?” Mira looked back up at Holt, searching for a sign of his intentions. “Final meal for the accused?”

  “Is that the tradition?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  “If it was, it would be pretty pathetic, wouldn’t it?” Holt gazed at her with his clear brown eyes, made no move to use the rope. He studied Mira, weighing his thoughts, like he was trying to put words to some foreign concept he’d never expressed before.

  “I think,” he began, “I held on as long as I could to the way things were, you know? Telling myself the same answers to the same questions. I held on until … I don’t know, about an hour ago, I guess, when we got here, and I knew we’d made it and things could go back to how they were.”

  Mira’s heart beat loudly in her chest. She was sure even Holt could hear it.

  “I realized I just … didn’t want things to go back to how they were,” he said, looking down, embarrassed almost. “Not now. You’re … a friend. You saved my life, even. And you’re not worth sacrificing just to solve my own stupid problems. I’ll figure out some other way to deal with them.”

  At the words, Mira felt hope welling up inside her. “Are you saying … you’re letting me go?”

  Holt was silent a moment, then he just nodded.

  When he did, a tidal wave of different emotions washed over Mira. This was more than she ever hoped. It was strange, like waking from a dream to be disappointed it wasn’t real. Only in this case, it was the opposite. She was waking from a nightmare to find the reality was far better. Her throat tightened; she felt her eyes glisten. Before Holt could see her cry, she grabbed his neck and pulled him close.

  Holt went stiff as she hugged him. She could feel his discomfort, his uncertainty, but she didn’t care. She had no idea how much tension and worry she’d been carrying around with her until it was gone.

  “Thank you, Holt,” she whispered, trying to hold it together. “Thank you.”

  She felt his arms slowly encircle her, pull her even closer. One on her waist, the other resting on the back of her neck. His fingers stroked her red hair.

  “Sorry, I … I haven’t hugged anyone in a while,” he said with a hint of nervousness.

  “You’re a natural,” she said. And it was true. She very much liked being held by Holt; she seemed to fit perfectly in his arms. She let the moment last a little longer, and then pulled away and wiped her eyes quickly.

  When she was done, she looked up at him. “I … don’t know what to say.”

  “Well,” he said, his voice even more nervous now. As he talked, he rushed the words, like he was trying to get all his thoughts out before the moment passed them by. “I was thinking you could come with me. You know, if you wanted, of course. It makes sense, in a way, right? I mean, people are after you, people are after me. I think I’m going sou
theast, toward the Low Marshes, see if I can’t find someplace where no one knows who I am. Maybe that place is there for you, too.”

  A mass of feelings rose up in her, most of them very pleasant. “That sounds amazing…,” she automatically said, without thinking. And it did. But it took the time for a smile to form on Holt’s face before she realized what she had almost done. “But … I can’t do that, Holt.”

  God, she’d almost said yes! Almost threw away everything she’d worked for. Had she lost her mind? Mira watched the newly formed smile on Holt’s face dissolve, and instantly hated herself for giving in to her gut reaction. Holt had just made an incredible gesture, and she’d thrown it right back at him.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to,” she continued quickly. “I’d … love to. It’s just I have things to fix in Midnight City.”

  Holt looked puzzled. “But Midnight City is where you’re wanted. You’re going back there?”

  “On my own terms, yes. I still have things to make right. And I left someone there, someone important, and I have to help him.”

  Holt shuffled on his feet. “Him?”

  Mira shut her eyes a moment. Why had she said that? Did she have to divulge every little piece of information? Did she have to keep on ruining the moment? Then again … wasn’t it the truth? Didn’t Holt deserve to know, after everything he was giving up for her?

  “His name is Ben,” Mira said. “He was framed for the same thing I was, and when I had the chance to escape, it meant leaving him. They’ll kill him in my place unless I go back.”

  “And the plutonium,” Holt said. “It’s for what? Trading for his life?”

  Mira nodded. “More or less.”

  “I see,” Holt said, remaining quiet. “Well, it’s probably best, anyway. It’s … harder for two people to survive than one. Besides, who knows, maybe we’ll see each other again.”

  In that statement, Mira saw some of the walls Holt had knocked down over the last few days suddenly rebuild themselves. It hurt her. But what else could she do?