“I know. Your mother had a garden planted just for you when you were six.”
I turned around slowly and smiled up at him. “How did you know?”
He touched the bud to my nose and then handed me the beautiful white rose with tips that held a soft-pink blush, reminding me of the woman who’d given me life and then sacrificed her own so I could continue living. I swallowed and took it, holding my gaze. “It’s still up north, at the winter palace,” he said.
“The revolt didn’t touch it?”
“Oh, it touched it, but the garden grew up from the ashes, a survivor—like the woman it was planted for.”
Heat flooded my cheeks at the compliment. “I can’t believe it’s still there.” That garden was all I had left of my mother, and suddenly I wanted to see it. “Can I see it someday?”
“You’re seeing it now. That rose you’re holding is from one of the bushes. I knew when I read about the garden in your mother’s journal, I needed to bring some of the plants here.”
“My mother had a journal?”
“She did. I’ve read it many times, falling in love with you deeper every page I turned. She believed you would bring the people of Aeropia a better life, despite what your father did.”
I shook my head, and a single tear escaped, trickling down my cheek. “I’m sorry she was wrong.”
“She wasn’t wrong.” Marcus reached up and brushed it away with his thumb. “Don’t be sad.”
“Nobody has done anything so thoughtful for me.”
“It’s obvious your mother loved you. She did many things for you.”
“No, I meant you. You brought some of the roses here. It’s like you brought a piece of her here. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
He leaned in and grazed my lips with his softly. Barely a whisper of a kiss, but the most powerful I’d ever received. “I’m only getting started, Olivia. I will win your heart or die trying. Be with me. Seal our contract. Let me show you how you deserve to be loved.”
Shaking my head, I backed away from him. “I’m no good for you. You deserve someone better than me.” The words were a coward’s way out. Everyone who’d ever loved me had left me one way or another, and I didn’t think I could bear the loss again. Not of this man, who’d been nothing but kind to me.
“Let me in, Olivia. Give me a chance.”
“I can’t.” I spun on my heel and ran for my room, terrified I might say yes if I lingered a moment longer.
* * *
Two weeks passed, and the sky overhead became overcast with ugly black clouds. They held so much moisture wet garments wouldn’t hang dry and a chill lingered on every surface in beads of water. With those clouds came the knowledge the cities would flood and we’d need to leave.
Even as I stood at the window and surveyed the metropolis, the citizens were fully engaged in an evacuation. The streets were crowded, and the people hustled for the ports with hovers full of belongings. Some moved on foot with packs on their backs. The conservatories had been picked clean, every scrap of edible matter harvested and packed for a trip to the north, where the winters held the residents in an icy prison.
The cities didn’t have the room for us, but we couldn’t stay here. Soon the streets would be full of water and there would be nowhere to go. I knew I could stop the flooding, go underground and unlock the valves that would drain the city as the rains came and the rivers rose, but this was the rebels’ last chance to buy the time to find the supplies to finish their ships for the trip into the wastelands of the old American West to see if time had made it habitable, and perhaps across the ocean, and I would not take that from them.
The combustion engines fired on fossil fuel that hadn’t been used in over one hundred years. The ships scavenged from boneyards had been nearly restored and needed but a few parts that could be recovered from hovers and other craft around the city. Once they left the range of the towers, Marcus’s ships couldn’t follow.
Our scientists said they should make it. A part of me wanted them not to work. Losing Axel hurt. I knew, once he flew off, I’d never see him again. It would be better for all concerned. Aeropia would not forgive and forget as easily as Marcus had, and life here would not be easy. I returned my attention to the scene below and shivered, pulling closed the blanket I’d draped over my shoulders.
Along with the foreboding weather came a temper. Angry shouts echoed through the streets from men and women who’d long since lost patience. Marcus was out there, somewhere, directing the organized chaos.
“Good morning, sis.” I spun around with a gasp to see Pilot by the door. He shut it and turned the lock, seating the bolt.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Marcus let me out. I came to visit. As promised.”
“Leave.”
“I don’t think so. Marcus isn’t here to protect you this time. I’m going to do something that should have been done long ago.” He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and snapped it open with a flick of his wrist, swiping it along the stone blocks that made up the wall behind him. Sparks danced off the blade. Pilot grinned and winked. “I like to keep a sharp blade. Makes it easier to dismember a body.”
“Stay back.” Pilot earned his title honestly. Marcus could never have been the Butcher, and I’d been a fool to once believe that. Only one person could be responsible for the gruesome killings and mutilated bodies we’d found in the past. As I eyed the knife, I was certain it had been used to kill the men at the levees, and he’d developed a proficiency with it. I raised my hands. “Marcus will have you executed if you touch me.”
“How will he know you didn’t run away? And that’s the story he’s going to hear. I’m not the only one who wants you gone.” His smile disappeared. Pilot pushed off the door and stalked toward me. I eyed the closed exit and glanced back at the window. There was at least a hundred foot drop to the ground, and Pilot was between me and the only other escape route, closing in quickly. “Don’t try to run. You won’t make it.”
“Why are you doing this? I’ve done nothing to you.”
“You’ve done plenty. Even your existence offends me.”
I swallowed and looked around for a weapon, anything I could hold him off with. Nothing sat within arm’s reach. He’d be on me before I could grab anything. I turned toward the window again.
“Jump.”
I whipped around. “What?” My heart thumped hard.
“Jump or I gut you.” He lifted a brow and gave me a crooked smile. “Tick tock. What’s it gonna be, Olivia? Granted, it won’t be as much fun as gutting you, but I’ll let you choose. After all, what are big brothers for?”
I turned around, leaned out the window. A balcony hung off the side of the building, ten feet down and about fifteen feet to the left. If I jumped off to the side, I might be able to catch the rail and not plummet to my death. I was fairly certain Pilot would make good on his threat if I stuck around.
I’d take my chances with the fall. I nodded, climbed onto the sill, and ducked under the window pane.
“Now.”
“Give me a second.”
I shuffled along the ledge, closer to my target.
“Jump or I push you.”
He was right behind me. I dropped down into a squat and took a leap of faith. Time seemed to freeze. I hung suspended in that moment for what seemed liked forever and heard him say, “I didn’t think you’d do it. You got guts, I’ll give you that.”
Seconds later, I caught the rail and dislocated one of my shoulders. If not for the crook of my elbow getting lodged between a couple finials and stopping me, I’d surely have gone splat a hundred feet below. I bit back the scream threatening to rip from my throat, and glanced back to see Pilot glaring down at me. He gave me a salute and shut the window.
Shit. I had a minute, maybe two. Pushing the pain to the back of my mind, I began to swing, trying to catch the rail with my foot. After several failed attempts, I at last hooked it and pulled my body ov
er. I staggered onto the balcony, freed my arm, and shoved the doors open, stumbling inside Marcus’s office, my father’s old study. I eyed the fireplace. Having lived in this building nearly every summer of my youth gave me an advantage. There was a secret passage in the back of the fireplace. Blocks formed a false back, invisible to all but those who cleaned it out or knew about it. I ran into the massive opening, tall enough for me to walk inside, and turned sideways to slip behind the mock wall, scraping years’ worth of creosote off on my shirt. My shoulder caught, and I gasped. Darkness washed across my vision. It took all my control not to cry out, and it was a good thing I hadn’t. Moments later, the door was thrown open and someone walked inside.
“Fuck!” Items were knocked off the desk and what sounded like a chair crashed against the wall. Pilot stormed out. “Find her. She’s in the palace somewhere.”
Never had I been so thankful for family secrets. I sank to sit on my heels, doing my best to catch my breath before I started down the stairs that would take me to a boat launch and underground river that surfaced outside the city walls. This ancient fortress had been around for thousands of years, built by Mayans who had secrets of their own.
I could not stay, no matter how badly I wanted to. If I did, Pilot would eventually kill me. I wondered what I’d done to piss him off. Then again, the man was a psychopath. He didn’t need a reason to be angry.
10
If I moved, I could be out of the underground and away from the city before Marcus realized I’d gone. Pilot surely wouldn’t alert him to my disappearance, and I was certain the bastard didn’t know about the nanites or he wouldn’t have the staff searching the residence for me. He would’ve gone straight to tracking.
It would be tricky once I slipped into the subterranean city. I could encounter all kinds of danger. There were wild animals, snakes, crocodiles, poisonous spiders, and possibly bigger predators that had migrated from the north during the nuclear winter. A lot of things had moved closer to the equator to stay warm and grown much bigger because of it.
The Southern Region boasted a population of bears and large cats that weren’t native to the area before the bombs dropped, some, having evolved to the climate in the last hundred years, having shed their thick coats for hairless hide like a pig. They often lurked in dark places or traveled at night. They were still big and nasty, but now could add ugly to their list of traits. Nothing I’d want to run into in the passages below. I’d never navigated the underground alone before. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have a choice.
I started down the stairs into the dark, feeling along the wall. The sensor-activated lights my father had installed popped to life, illuminating the passage ten feet before me. Each step I took lit another sector ahead and shut off the one to my rear. I would be able to see ten feet in either direction, no farther. The real danger would happen once I moved through the gates my father installed and entered the old city where a large sinkhole had swallowed most of the ancient metropolis. It didn’t ease my fears. The gates didn’t stop a lot of smaller things that took refuge in these tunnels.
I ducked under a sheet of dusty cobwebs hanging from the ceiling like a curtain. Some of the sticky strands caught in my hair, and I raked them away, flicking them off my hand. I’d read somewhere that a man in Madagascar used to weave nearly indestructible fabric from the golden orb spider’s silk. It was elastic and had a tensile strength compared to Kevlar and steel, and still retained all the beauty of silk made from caterpillars. Didn’t stop it from being nasty, when stuck in your hair and possibly crawling with spiders. I didn’t have time to stop and remove them, but the thought of them in my hair made my skin crawl.
I needed to get out of the tunnels and above ground as soon as possible. Marcus could discover my absence and activate the tracking mechanism in the nanites and the underground city would no longer be a secret, a trump card I didn’t want to surrender yet. If he found me in the tunnels, the rebels were screwed. They’d find the valves and drain the water from the city. I took a big risk using this escape route, but I’d had no choice.
All along the walls were stone carvings of feathered serpents, warriors, kings, queens, and jaguars, with an occasional centipede or arachnids crawling over the surface. The pictographs had remained a mystery until the late twenty-first century, when the tales were interpreted. They told stories long forgotten, left behind by an all but extinct, once-mighty race, a people whose lust for power destroyed them as it would us.
The walls, the history, reminded me of Aeropia. We’d had so much, but our thirst for more brought war and destruction. If we continued on our current path, we, too, would cease to exist. Our enemies waited as we destroyed ourselves from the inside, and then they would devour us.
I walked for what seemed like hours, until I could hear the rush of water ahead. The boat landing wouldn’t be far, and then I could take the river directly into the rainforest and away from the city. I hadn’t a clue where I would go from there. Reaching the boat launch, I stopped to rest and looked back as the tunnel went black. The chamber, an ancient cistern that had long since been reclaimed by the earth, could only be described as massive. Roots laced the painted stone blocks that arched up to form a giant dome, an unbelievable feat performed by ancient architects. Giant holes at least four feet across ringed the ceiling. These were drains, built by the Mayans, and modified for my father’s purposes.
Decades ago, my father had installed technology to bring the channels into the twenty-third century, using clone labor only. Ninety-nine percent of the population above were unaware of the modernized, ancient world below. A separate control room sat under the water of the cistern. The only way to access it was to wait for the water to drain and use the hidden tunnel that led to a room with the control panel. Or, if you were really brave, you could risk the predators in the pool and swim through the tunnel to it. We, the rebels, had disabled the valves when it was dry. No one in his right mind would risk swimming into the chamber when flooded to fix them.
Carved stone warriors with fierce faces, feathered headdresses, rings in their noses, and spears in hand, stood back to back in the water, totaling six pairs. The giants were at least fifty feet tall and held the weight of the city off the pool. Watermarks on their bodies told the stories of past floods and droughts.
My father had called them the guardians of the underworld. I’d been terrified of them as a child, and later fascinated as I’d grown older, often sneaking off to examine them as they stood sentinel over the massive underground cistern.
The air was warm here, but the closer I got to the exit, the cooler it would get. Already, the water had risen five feet and the cistern threatened to spill into the tunnels I’d just navigated. I climbed into one of three boats my father had maintained for the family to make an escape should it be necessary, and untied the rope holding it docked to the stone deck where water lapped my ankles. In another day, the tunnels would’ve been impassible. It was a good thing I’d escaped sooner than later or I might not have had a place to run. I certainly didn’t relish swimming in the alligator and crocodile-infested waters.
I used the pole to push off the base of the cistern and into the current that would take me to freedom. I glanced back one last time.
I’d miss him.
The water rushed me toward safety. I used the pole to stay off the walls, avoiding a collision that could sink my boat. Once the tunnels opened up into a larger cavern, I could view the tips of buildings, stone domes and debris islands of the underground city, the place where an earthquake had opened the ground and swallowed several blocks of a Mayan civilization thousands of years before. Only upon refurbishing some of the older buildings built on the ruins had it been discovered.
For the most part, the sunken world remained untouched, with the exception of a few structures my father had utilized to hide weapons and family treasure. For as long as I could remember, the city had been partially under water. I often dreamt of what golden treasures might lie under the
surface. My father had talked of excavating it one day but didn’t for fear of giving up his secrets.
I slipped along a roofline, hopped out, and tied off my boat to a metal ring in a stone woman’s nose. I was certain that was not the creator’s intent, but it served my purposes nicely. The main exit from the underground would be too risky to utilize during the day. I’d rest inside the building for a few hours and I could be certain the sun had set.
My father had never brought me to this particular structure, but I knew it was one of his rooms, a place he stockpiled weapons and things he hadn’t wanted anyone to know about. I knew because of the electronic keypad outside the entrance—or what I assumed was the entrance.
I had not been to the underground since his death but often wondered what he’d left here for his posterity. I punched a code into the keypad, the same one I’d changed and given to Eva years before. The stone door groaned and slid open. I hadn’t expected the same satellite to operate the lock on the door but was pleasantly surprised when it did.
Looking both ways, I slipped through the opening in a carved pattern embellished with turquoise and copper. Two steps in and I froze as the lights snapped on. A small urn and memorial plaque sat on a pedestal a few feet before me. It was the name etched upon the surface that stopped me from going any farther.
I blinked, hardly able to believe my eyes. All the air whooshed from my lungs, and I clutched my chest. I had not known he’d kept a secret this bad from me. “Daddy’s deep dark secret.” Pilot’s words rushed back to me. Could he know a truth I hadn’t been aware of myself?
Olivia Braun, sweet baby daughter of Herod and Analise Braun. Taken too soon. There was a date, but I couldn’t read it through my tears. If this was the body of baby Olivia, who was I? I looked around at the children’s furniture and toys, things that had never been used. Had this been the reason for my parents’ falling out?
The Book of Olivia Page 12
