Word and Breath (Wordless Chronicles)

by Susannah Noel

  She was watching his face. And saw not just a flicker of response. His face twisted in visible pain.

  Despite everything, Riana experienced a sharp stab of pity for him, as she wondered who it was he loved.

  “The ironic thing is,” she said, her voice strained and hoarse, “if you’d come to me, explained the whole situation and your need to translate this book despite Union indifference, I would have helped you voluntarily.”

  There wasn’t time to process the expression on Largan’s face. It went blank almost immediately, after Mikel reached out and opened enough of a connection to knock him out. Largan slumped to the floor.

  Things happened quickly, after that.

  Mikel made it to the first guard and knocked him out too before the man could react. But the second guard was at the end of the hall, and he started shooting.

  A bullet hit Mikel in the shoulder.

  Riana, helping Jannie off the cot, whimpered as she saw Mikel jerk back slightly. It reminded her so much of Jenson before he’d died.

  Mikel didn’t go down, though. He grabbed the gun from the unconscious guard and used it to fire back. The second guard fell, wounded but not dead.

  Without speaking, Mikel swung Jannie up with his uninjured arm. They hurried down the hall and out into the basement.

  The construction workers were back again, working just in front of the hidden door. They had a small dumpster on wheels between them to hold the debris from their work.

  “Let’s move,” Mikel said, propping Jannie up against the dumpster, obviously strained at having to carry her.

  Tava and Donn grinned back at them from beneath their construction caps. “Who’s first?” Donn asked, gesturing toward the dumpster.

  They lifted Jannie in first, while Riana stifled her slight nausea to check out Mikel’s shoulder. “Are you all right?” she asked. He looked paler than normal, and his face was covered with a sheen of sweat. His shirtfront was stained with blood, and Riana helped him put on his jacket again to cover to wound temporarily.

  He gave her a bracing smile. “Just fine. You can coddle me later.” He gave her a brief, hard kiss as he helped her into the dumpster with Jannie.

  “I’ll go first,” he said, as Donn and Tava started to cover Jannie and Riana with construction debris. “To make sure the way is clear. You all keep moving, no matter what.”

  In the dark now, unable to see, Riana shifted until she found Jannie’s hand. She squeezed it in anxiety and excitement.

  Maybe this would actually work.

  ***

  While Mikel was being a hero and Riana was putting her life in danger, Connor had to wait in the van near the rear exit of the building.

  It was enough to drive him insane.

  Posen, through his position in administrative services, had arranged to get Tava and Donn into the building today under the guise of the ubiquitous construction workers. They’d been working in the basement all day, pulling up the flooring. They were probably exhausted from the manual labor, but they had to be in place to sneak Riana and Jannie out of the building when they had cleared the bunker.

  Connor strummed his fingers on the steering wheel and looked at the clock for the thirtieth time in the last thirty minutes.

  He was telling himself not to panic when he saw the rear door of the building burst open.

  Tava and Donn appeared, running while pushing the dumpster in front of them. They opened the back doors of the van and climbed in after pulling Riana and—to Connor’s vast relief—Jannie out of the dumpster. All of them looked healthy, if rather frightened.

  “They discovered us on our way out. Largan woke up prematurely and sounded the alarm,” Tava explained breathlessly.

  “Mikel,” Riana mumbled, leaning out the back of the van to look.

  “He was giving us cover to get out,” Donn said. “Good man in a fight. Wounded or not, he’s a force to be reckoned with.”

  Connor was just about to fear for Mikel’s safety when he saw the Soul-Breather race out the back door of the building, jumping into the van just as guards exited with drawn weapons.

  Connor didn’t wait for an explanation. Even before they’d gotten the door shut, he started off, his tires screeching as he hit the accelerator.

  The guards from the building fired but—once the doors were closed—the bullets couldn’t penetrate the van’s bullet-proof exterior. The Front had used this carefully modified vehicle, frequently changing its color and license plate, for more than one project in the past.

  They hadn’t made it halfway down the alley when Connor saw that the approaching intersection was barricaded with several of cars and trucks.

  He slammed on the brakes. They wouldn’t be able to get through.

  “Who is that?” Tava gasped, leaning up into the front seat to stare at the armed men at the barricade.

  Mikel, pale and drawn, joined her in peering through the windshield. “Looks like our old friends the Zealots. Largan really needs to work on that mole in his office. The news must have gotten out that Riana had been brought in.”

  Connor started backing up in the narrow alley. “I guess they decided this was the best time to get rid of the threat they think she poses. Were they really going to attack Union headquarters to get to her? I’ve never seen Zealots so organized and aggressive.”

  It was frightening. Made him wonder what else they might try to do.

  He braked again as he saw more guards pouring out of the building, blocking passage in the alley from his van.

  “Keep going,” Mikel muttered. “They’ll move.”

  Connor considered it for a couple of seconds but stopped when he saw a military-style vehicle turn into the alley behind the guards. There was always one stationed in the underground parking deck of the Office of Public Safety, and the guards must have gotten to it more quickly than he’d hoped.

  He pulled the van to a complete stop, his eyes scouring the pavement for what he knew would be there.

  “Oh no!” Tava breathed, her eyes wide and panicked. “They trapped us.”

  They were trapped. Very nicely. Between murderous Zealots and angry Union guards. Neither a particularly good option.

  Mikel had opened a compartment in the back of the van and was handing out a variety of guns. Even Riana took a small pistol, although she looked very uncomfortable holding it.

  “What now?” she asked, her gray eyes pleading with Connor.

  “Surrender now, and no one will get hurt!” It was a Union guard on a megaphone. Normal practice in a hostile situation like this.

  The Union always gave people a chance to surrender before they openly attacked. Except, of course, in the case of Riana’s parents.

  The Zealots had different practices. They never negotiated or gave warnings. Their purpose here was to kill, so they started firing at the van. They had automatic weapons, and the din was horrible. The van shook from the impact of so many bullets. Even protected as it was, they wouldn’t last long in the face of such an attack.

  “Should we surrender to the Union?” Riana asked, a protective arm around Jannie.

  The Union guards started firing back. Regulation required them to shoot to protect themselves.

  So their van was trapped in the middle of a shootout.

  It would have been funny had they not been such sitting ducks.

  Then Connor finally found what he was looking for. He jerked the van forward, steering it to the right. One of the van’s tires was blown out, but the van lurched forward enough to get it where he needed it to be.

  Mikel looked like he was readying himself for his final showdown. He was impressive—Connor had to admit—pale and wounded but utterly resolved in the face of death.

  “Connor?” Riana gasped, her eyes panicked as she took in Mikel’s face and preparations.

  “No need for heroics.” Connor crawled out of the driver’s seat and into the back with the others. “And you always complain about all my planning,” he murmured, with a wry
smile at Riana.

  He pulled up a hatch in the bottom of the van and was relieved that the manhole in the street was accessible. He hadn’t lined it up perfectly, but it was close enough.

  He bent down to pull up the manhole cover.

  A murmur of relief rippled through the van’s occupants, leaving Connor feeling absurdly proud of his careful preparations regarding escape routes. He’d had six of them, having tried to predict every potential eventuality.

  “Shall we?” Connor asked, gesturing with exaggerated courtesy down at the manhole.

  They all crawled down, with difficulty and not much grace. The sewers were disgusting and foul-smelling, but nobody complained.

  Connor knew where he was going. He’d used the sewers before. So he started to lead the small group through the maze of the damp tunnels.

  “You’re brilliant!” Riana breathed, giving his arm a squeeze.

  Had it been a more opportune time, Connor would have preened.

  Mikel was getting paler, and he stumbled a little as he walked. Riana ran over and put an arm around him for support.

  Knowing it wouldn’t take their pursuers long to figure out where they’d gone, Connor kept them underground as briefly as possibly. He led them to an outlet in an alley less than a mile away—but one where they could easily get to another truck he’d placed strategically in case they needed it.

  As they crawled back up into daylight, Connor saw Donn was faltering as he carried Jannie. He took the girl in his arms himself. He almost felt sorry for Mikel. The poor guy looked terrible. He’d lost a lot of blood, and he was now as white as his hair.

  They needed to get him to medical attention immediately.

  When they turned the corner to the street on which the truck was parked, they ran into a small group of police. The Union guards must have called for backup in the search for them.

  So close to reaching their goal, they didn’t hesitate in defending themselves. Tava, Donn, and Mikel each took on one of the policemen—the Breathers knocking them unconscious with their connections and Donn using his fist.

  When the last police officer went for Connor, who was hampered by Jannie, Riana made a guttural sound of resistance. Something odd flickered across her face at the threat to her sister and Connor.

  She had the gun Mikel had given her, but Connor knew she wasn’t comfortable using it.

  He was trying to reach his own gun in an automatic instinct to help her when Riana slammed the butt of her gun into the policeman’s skull. “Don’t you dare touch them!” she said as the man collapsed to the pavement.

  “What?” she demanded, when he just stared at her for long moment. He’d seen a purpose in her face—a clear sense of mission—that he hadn’t seen there before.

  It was encouraging.

  “Nothing.” Connor smiled with a fondness he couldn’t possibly hide. “Thank you.”

  Riana glanced around to assure herself that everything else was under control before she turned back to Connor. “I mostly didn’t want him to get Jannie,” she said, a teasing glint in her eyes. “You just happened to be there too.”

  He laughed, telling himself yet again that—no matter how perfectly they were matched—she just wasn’t his to love. “Well, I don’t mind being your afterthought.”

  The truth was, afterthought or not, he wanted to be in her life however he was allowed.

  Seventeen

  Less than an hour later, the battered, bedraggled group of rescuers stumbled into Tava’s apartment.

  She would probably have to move after this week. Too much suspicious activity had taken place here in the last several days. Someone would notice.

  Mikel felt like an idiot. He was weak and unsteady on his feet, even as the tension in his chest from the danger of the last hours finally relaxed. He didn’t mind the way Riana kept her arm around him and the way her anxious eyes kept peering at his face. He hated feeling so helpless, though.

  He was pathetic and dead white. He knew he’d lost a lot of blood. The pain in his shoulder had dulled to a throbbing ache, but he was having more and more trouble focusing enough to put one foot in front of the other. Plus, his hands shook embarrassingly.

  It was a relief when Riana helped him over to lie on a couch in the living room after Tava had spread out a thick blanket to protect the upholstery from blood. He just wished he wasn’t moving so clumsily and that he hadn’t groaned when he accidentally jarred his shoulder.

  He hated being like this. Hated being weak.

  And he didn’t want anyone—particularly Riana—to see him in such pitiful shape.

  “I’m fine,” Mikel muttered when Connor, looking depressingly fit and energetic, came over to examine the wound.

  Riana had gone over to hug Jannie, who was sitting on a chair looking baffled and thrilled at once.

  Riana’s sister seemed to be a nice, brave, and sensible. She hadn’t had hysterics or asked a bunch of annoying questions while they’d been escaping. In fact, she’d stayed perfectly quiet, which was the smartest thing she could have done. She wasn’t as beautiful as Riana, and she lacked that distinct something that made Riana so special—the deep, spicy, untouched taste of her. But Mikel was glad they’d been able to get her out alive.

  If only he hadn’t been sloppy enough to get injured.

  Connor was in his element. He called up someone with medical training and ordered him to come right over. Then he made some more calls, preparing to get Riana and Jannie temporarily out of the city until the worst of the danger had blown over.

  Tava raided her first aid kit and started to pull Mikel’s torn, bloodied shirt off. He shifted in instinctive resistance.

  It was irrational, perhaps, but he was very uncomfortable being tended like this.

  Without a word, Riana came over and took over where Tava left off. She was paler than she should be, and her hands trembled as she gently pulled the fabric of his shirt away from the wound. She obviously didn’t enjoy the sight of Mikel so injured.

  Her reaction was oddly reassuring. She was worried about him. She cared for him. Wanted to take care of him.

  So he let her remove the remnants of his shirt and start mopping up the blood. Thanks to his self-done crisis-treatment earlier, the bleeding had slowed considerably, but he knew he’d lost too much blood. He was staying conscious mainly on adrenalin.

  Connor was still on the phone, and Mikel tried to listen to the one sided conversation, needing something to focus on.

  Connor was asking someone about the state of affairs in Public Security—about Largan’s status and what efforts had been mobilized to find them. Connor was confident and capable. He had an impressive mind, invariably asking the right questions and making things happen with efficiency and clarity.

  It was interesting. He acted like he was always in charge.

  Something stirred in the back of Mikel’s mind. Something his pained consciousness was too blurry to capture.

  When Riana brushed his cheek and murmured, “Mikel? Are you awake?” he realized he’d faded out for a bit.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I guess it’s not the best time for a nap.”

  Riana gave a choked little giggle, and her eyes were soft and fond.

  Mikel had never imagined that anyone would look at him like that.

  “The doctor’s here.”

  Despite himself, Mikel was relieved. He knew he needed the help of a medical professional, no matter how self-sufficient he preferred to be. So he braced himself for the doctor.

  It wasn’t a good half-hour.

  The others left the room, except for Tava, who evidently had some nursing background and stayed to help the doctor work.

  Mikel was glad no one else was present to witness the procedure. They didn’t have the equipment to anesthetize him even mildly, so the removal of the bullet was painful to the point of agony. He managed not to scream—although he came embarrassingly close a few times. He forcefully suppressed the urge, knowing Riana was in the next room.
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  “Okay,” the doctor said after he’d bandaged Mikel up and Tava had helped him into an old t-shirt. “You should recover fine. It wasn’t a messy wound. We’ll just need to watch out for infection.” The man pulled a bottle of pills out of his bag. “And I’ll leave you these pain killers. You’ll probably need them.”

  The doctor walked back to the other room with Tava, and soon Riana hurried in, looking strained and still pale.

  She came over to Mikel and lowered herself to sit on the floor next to the couch. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. No problem.”