Flame

by Jim Heskett

  Rosia dipped her head down to meet his eyes. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “There was no way you could have known. I didn’t see it, either.”

  “Still, I’m sorry anyway.”

  “I’m not going to let them take me,” Tenney said, his voice strained. “No matter what happens, I’ll never become anyone’s serf again. If this is my last day on this planet, then so be it.”

  Yorick nodded at him, and while he admired Tenney’s conviction, he knew it was a fruitless gesture. The three of them no longer had any control over their fate. They were on their way to a midway facility, a place to process slaves moving into or coming out of the First City of Denver. They had no weapons and no leverage. All of their possessions were in bags in a secure storage at the back of the van.

  But, even though he knew it was hopeless, the wheels in Yorick’s brain still turned over and over.

  He figured their best chance at escape was during the move from the truck to the facility. Of course, a lot depended on the situation around that. Would they park outside somewhere and then be escorted indoors? Or did this transfer facility have a garage for them to park in? Would his parents knock them out somehow during transport, or rely on their restraints to keep them in line? Yorick might have to make quick decisions, and his brain was still foggy from the sedatives in the soup he’d eaten only a short time ago.

  He flashed back to the last few moments before the rebellion had started at the plantación. Awaiting the day’s battle round to begin, the king's soldados and Wybert’s guards looking on. A nervous rumbling had been thrashing about inside his stomach, sending his most recent meal in circles. The fear converted into adrenaline as the course became clear. The knowledge that serfs would die, and he had a hand in it. Such responsibility tormented him.

  But also, there was hope in that nervous energy.

  Yorick looked inside himself and questioned if any hope still lived there. If he had any capacity to feel anything above and beyond the despair pulling him down into the seat of the van.

  It would have to come from within.

  He looked up front. His parents were less than two meters away, so he had to count on the noise of the road to mask his conversation. He leaned forward, as far as his chains would allow. “Hey,” he loud-whispered. “You two come closer.”

  “What’s going on back there?” Olivia asked, turning in her chair to look. “I know you hate us. But, this is bigger than you. Bigger than all of us.”

  Yorick sat back and glared at her.

  Olivia offered a pitying grin. “I would expect you to never give up. You’re a lot like your brother in that way.”

  Yorick’s eyebrows rose. “My… brother? I have a brother?”

  He glanced at Rosia, and she seemed as surprised as he. Neither of them had any words. For all he knew, Yorick had an entire family somewhere. Brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles. After everything these people had done to him, though, he wouldn’t automatically accept anything they said as true.

  “The transfer facility is technically closed today,” Laertes said, “but thankfully, we have keys. We mostly need to get the forms and de-louse you and do the whole prep business. It all has to be documented. We won’t be there more than a day, though, and you’ll be on your way.”

  Yorick turned away because he couldn’t handle watching the wry smile on his father’s face as he alternated between studying them and the road.

  Yorick’s eyes landed on the window, and he watched the dead grass of the plains west of Harmony pass by. They were in a flat valley, with rocky mountains spiking up on either side.

  But then, something strange appeared. Well, not appeared, but Yorick noticed it for the first time. A few hundred meters up ahead, someone had parked a car on the side of the road. Nothing else around for a kilometer in any direction. And a person was sitting on the hood of that car, facing their oncoming van.

  His mouth dropped open when he recognized her. The woman who had been following him for more than a week. Valentine. An open case sat nearby in the dirt, with a collection of guns arranged on the hood of the car next to her.

  And, she was holding a rocket launcher.

  Valentine jerked, and the long tube in her hands lit up. An RPG sped from the end of the weapon in her hands, headed straight for the van.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  With a roaring screech unlike anything Yorick had ever heard, his world jerked sideways. The van, skittering and twisting across the road, turned at a ninety-degree angle. Yorick, Tenney, and Rosia all went flying. The wall became the floor, and the floor became the wall. Anything not bolted down immediately took flight inside the space.

  The RPG blast had hit the van while it traveled at full speed. Or, it hit the ground somewhere near the van. Given that the vehicle did not immediately explode into a million pieces, Yorick assumed it had not been a direct hit.

  He hurtled toward the side of the van and cracked his head against the inside of the window. He narrowly avoided impaling himself on a metal bar that had broken off a rack and swung in his direction. Instead, he shifted, slamming his back against the wall on purpose to avoid contact.

  As the van skidded sideways, Yorick blinked and came to his senses. On that broken rack was a metal hook. A way out. He wrapped the chains on his wrist around the metal hook and pulled, giving everything he had in him to the effort. His restraints bent and then snapped, and he was free in a matter of seconds.

  The van slowed and ground to a halt. The final blast of inertia flipped him onto his back again. Yorick tried to look in the front to see if his parents were still alive, and he could see them up there, but he couldn't tell anything about their status.

  Ears ringing, vision cloudy, head throbbing.

  But he had his wits about him enough to know that escape was the top priority. There were precious few seconds to take action. He opened the back door of the van and grabbed Rosia, who was lying on the floor, eyes bleary.

  "We have to go."

  Tenney stood, rubbing his restrained hands against his neck. Otherwise, he looked reasonably uninjured.

  Yorick pointed toward the open back door of the van. They all three jumped out in sequence. Tenney and Rosia didn’t seem fully aware, but it was good enough. Yorick could lead them.

  As they took one step away from the van, another RPG blast rocked the vehicle. This blast actually righted it, and it groaned as it slammed down onto the ground.

  Tenney cried out from behind them.

  Yorick and Rosia spun to see Tenney’s foot trapped underneath one of the van’s massive tires. The big guy jerked his leg, but it wouldn't move. The force of the blast had smushed the vehicle into the soft dirt, and Tenney's foot along with it.

  Tenney looked down at his predicament and then at Yorick and Rosia. Beyond Yorick and Rosia stood open grassland, with foothills a ten-minute sprint beyond that. Freedom. Or, the possibility of freedom.

  "Go," Tenney said. "Just go."

  Yorick met Rosia’s gaze. For a brief second, Yorick considered Tenney’s command. By now, Olivia and Laertes had stumbled out of the front of the van, haggard but not seriously injured. They raced toward Valentine. They had opted to address the immediate threat rather than secure their hostages.

  Valentine had left her cover and pushed toward a collision course with them. Bullets flew. They weren’t close enough to hit each other at that range, but they would narrow the distance in only a few seconds.

  Everyone was distracted. Yorick and Rosia could escape. Or, at least, give themselves a chance. But doing so would doom Tenney to one of several terrible fates.

  “Go,” Tenney said, growling against the pain of his trapped foot.

  Yorick shook his head. They would not leave Tenney behind. He pointed to Tenney’s left side, and Rosia moved without even a moment’s hesitation. She appeared to know exactly his intention.

  They stood on either side of the big man. Yorick dropped to one knee and put his hands underneath the tire, pushi
ng with all his might. Rosia wrapped her hands around Tenney’s waist and yanked upward. Tenney howled as his leg strained and the van refused to let him go.

  As he pushed against the massive weight of the vehicle, Yorick turned his attention toward Valentine and his parents. In the open fields, none of the three of them had anywhere to hide. They were sprinting at each other, weapons firing free. Bullets like shooting stars zipping across the valley.

  Yorick watched his father drop to a knee and spray a blast of automatic weapons fire. They had the same rifles as the tunnel guards, with the LED readouts on the side. Many of the bullets sank into the grass and dirt, sending little explosions into the air like splashes of water in a pond.

  But a few of Laertes’ bullets hit Valentine in the chest.

  First, the woman slowed, then she dropped her rifle. She looked directly at Yorick, and he took in the disappointment on her face. The complete devastation of knowing she’d been beaten. This adversary of Yorick’s over the last week, someone he’d only met face-to-face a single time, in the streets while fleeing from the chaos at the brothel. For a brief moment, he almost felt bad for her. Clearly, she hadn’t intended to die today.

  Now, Olivia took aim. Yorick's mother shot this younger woman a half dozen times in the torso and legs before she finally dropped into the dirt and then fell face forward.

  The echoes of bullets ceased across the open space when the shooting stopped.

  "Now!" Yorick shouted. "It has to be now."

  With one final heave, Yorick pushed up on the van’s frame with all of his might. Tenney grunted, and Rosia screamed as they pulled his foot free.

  And, as they turned toward the open field to make their escape, Olivia appeared around the edge of the van. She held up a small device, like a black box of Fours cards. A beam of electricity spread out from the tip.

  Yorick felt the jolt enter his body and all of his muscles seize up and refuse to cooperate. Then, blackness.

  Chapter Forty

  Before Yorick opened his eyes, he felt the cold surface pressing against his hips and shoulder blades. He whipped up, sucking in a breath. His eyes fluttered a few times and then opened fully. The world faded in like the morning sun rising over mountains, but there were no mountains here. No natural light. He was not staring out the window of his dorm room at Lord Wybert’s plantación. No, those days were gone. Reality looked much different now.

  Yorick was in a cell, two meters by two meters, with a bank of fluorescent lights overhead. They hummed and flickered and cast his skin in a sickly olive glow. A raised bench made of hard concrete for a bed jutted from one wall. A door in front of him with a glass cutout for a window. The only thing on the walls was a rusted grate made of threaded metal. Aside from that and the bed, the room was bare. Not even a toilet.

  These weren’t long-term prison cells. Only for temporary holding. The reality of his current situation sat in front of him like puzzle pieces on a table.

  Memories of the last few moments of the battle in the plains solidified in his mind. Valentine attacking the van. Their attempt at an escape. Tenney’s foot trapped under the van, and their decision to save him rather than leave him behind so they could get away. His parents pumping Valentine full of bullets.

  Yorick had never even had the chance to find out why she’d followed him across Wyoming. I’ve been looking forward to this, she had said when they’d met in the street. Looking forward to what? Killing him? Why? It couldn’t have been because of the three car companions she’d abandoned, had it?

  Could it have been the control chips she’d been after?

  Those little things had been more trouble than they’d been worth, from the moment Yorick and Rosia had decided to take them from the plantación. He wished they’d never bothered.

  “You there?” Rosia’s voice, faint and distant, leaked into his cell via the grate.

  Yorick stood on his tiptoes and put his mouth to the grate. “I’m here.”

  She let out a sigh of relief. “I hoped that was you I heard stirring over there. Tenney’s on the other side of me.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He says his foot is sore, but he can walk. He doesn’t think anything is broken.”

  The momentary joy of hearing Rosia’s familiar voice faded, and the impending doom set in. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t see a way out of this cell.”

  “Wait,” she said. “The window in your door. Does it have screws?”

  He crossed the room and studied the heavy door. The glass panel was ringed by a metal plate, with small screws every few centimeters around it. He tried to dig a fingernail into one of the screws to turn it, but it did no good. It was in too tight.

  “Yes, it does.”

  Rosia let out another whoosh of air. “Good, good. Mine is glued, but I can see the spaces for screws.”

  “I don’t have anything to turn them with. The screws are in too tight, and they’re too little.”

  “Can you break the grate?” she asked. “If you can pull apart the grate, I think you can use a piece of the metal threads to turn the screws. It’s the best chance.”

  Yorick pulled on the grate, but it too was solid. Teeth gritted, face strained, he tried to dig his fingers between the metal threads, but he couldn’t gain enough leverage to make a difference.

  Panic set in. Whatever he did, he had to act fast. Sooner or later, Olivia and Laertes would return from whatever they were doing.

  He breathed and stepped back, looking around the room. It was so bare, he couldn’t think of anything to wedge into the grate to break it apart.

  Yorick’s heart rate ticked up and up. His parents were going to sell them into slavery again. After a couple weeks of freedom, they were going right back into the life. No answers, no hope, no means to work their way out of the situation.

  Nothing in this room could help him break the grate. There were no objects aside from the bed in here.

  The bed.

  “There we go,” he whispered to himself.

  Yorick knelt next to the concrete slab making up the slab bed and noticed the corner of it was crumbling. Paint had flecked off one edge, and he could see hairline cracks in the slab.

  “I know what to do,” he said. “I’ll need a minute. If you hear someone coming, shout.”

  Then, he raised his leg and slammed his boot down on the edge of the concrete slab, as hard as he could. It cracked but didn’t break. It probably hurt his foot more than the concrete, but he couldn’t care about that right now.

  He did it again. And again.

  “Yorick?” came Rosia’s voice through the grate.

  “Hold on,” he said. “I’m almost there.”

  Stomp. Stomp. His foot had now gone numb from the repeated blows. But, after a few more tries, a chunk of the concrete splintered off, like a jagged finger.

  Yorick snatched it and jabbed the hunk of concrete against the grate. Holding it like a knife, he stabbed again and again at the metal grid. Flakes of concrete broke off and trickled down his arms. Some landed in his hair, his eyes, his mouth. He didn’t care. He attacked it with all the gusto he could manage, as fast as he could.

  “How’s it going over there?” Rosia asked, her voice quick and strained.

  “Working on it,” Yorick grunted. “Not the best tool.”

  He gave it one more stab, with all his energy. And it tore with a crunching sound. His makeshift knife crumbled in his hand as he finally broke through.

  “I’ve got it!” he said, then he pulled back on the metal. It cried and squealed, then a thin piece broke off in his hands. He was holding a strip of metal, about ten centimeters long. The end was pointed. It might work.

  He raced across the tiny room and inserted the edge of the metal into the screw. It fit like a glove. He bent the strip and then turned it and turned it, and the screw slowly started to move. In a few more revolutions, it popped out. The glass over that corner of the window raised a fraction of a centimeter. It was workin
g.

  “I’m almost there!”

  Yorick made quick work of the other screws holding the window in place. After two total minutes of effort, all the screws had popped out, and he yanked the glass off and dropped it on the floor.

  His hand snaked out into the open space outside the cell, and he thrust his arm in all the way to his shoulder. Couldn’t go any further. Grunting against the pain of forcing his limb through the tight space, he pivoted his arm down.

  His fingers touched the tip of the door handle. It was a simple bar, and he needed to press it down to open the door. He pushed his shoulder forward again, and he could almost loop his finger underneath it, but it was barely out of his reach.

  It was too far. A few millimeters too far.

  That sense of dread crept back in, almost powerful enough to overwhelm the adrenaline fueling him. The dread told him to give up. Told him that even if he could get his fingers around the knob, they wouldn’t be free. There were still other doors. Other locked doors and more difficult barriers between them and freedom.

  They would be caught. Sold as slaves.

  Yorick blinked and bared his teeth as he breathed. No. He wouldn’t let that happen.

  With a rage-fueled roar, he slammed his shoulder forward and arm down, and his fingers wrapped around the bar. He pressed it down.

  The door swung open.

  Yorick traveled with it, and his feet landed outside the cell. He ripped his arm back, blood trickling down from a large tear in his shirt. He’d cut himself in at least a dozen places on his arm.

  But it didn’t matter. They were one step closer to freedom.

  Yorick caught his breath and then ripped open Tenney’s door, and then Rosia’s. She was there, hands clasped to her chest.

  “You did it,” she said, her eyes unbelieving.

  He pulled her close and kissed her, their lips dry and harsh. But Yorick didn’t care about the lack of romance in the kiss. Nothing in the world mattered at that moment other than being able to feel her flesh on his flesh.