Haven 6

by Aubrie Dionne

  “He’s right.” Litus stepped for­ward. “I heard them talk­ing. He is com­ing.”

  “Why don’t we wait here and take him out now?” Mars punched her fist into her palm.

  “Be­cause he’ll bring more men with him. He’ll block the en­trance once he knows you’re here and send for backup.” The man on the floor stared at Mars, look­ing al­most amused by their pre­dic­a­ment.

  “We’ll be trapped like a weasel worm in a hole un­til they dig us out.” Ri­ley tightened the strap on his ar­row bag. “And these two need to rest. They can’t keep fight­ing without food or med­ical at­ten­tion. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I agree.” Litus looked at Mars as if she’d stay be­hind by her­self just to get at re­venge. “That’s an or­der.”

  “Then it’s settled.” Ri­ley walked to­ward the tun­nel. Litus fol­lowed along with Mars, mut­ter­ing curses.

  Striver didn’t move. Eri tugged on his arm, but he stared at his brother. “Weaver, come with us,” he pleaded.

  “Are you crazy?” Ri­ley shouted from across the cav­ern. “You can’t trust him.”

  Striver ig­nored Ri­ley, fo­cus­ing on Weaver. “Jolt will kill you once he sees you let us get away.”

  Weaver shook his head. “You’d bet­ter leave now.” There was a hint of con­cern in his eyes and Eri wondered how much he cared for his brother. He could have kept his mouth shut and let them be found.

  “I can’t leave you here like this. Come on, Weave.” Striver bent down to touch him and Weaver whipped his head away. Red blotches of an­ger covered his face. His lips trembled with rage.

  “Get away from me. You’ve done enough as it is,” he shouted, spittle fly­ing from his lips.

  Eri stepped back. She couldn’t ima­gine the pain Striver was go­ing through. What if Aquaria joined the en­emy?

  “Come on, Striver, we have to go,” Ri­ley shouted. “Eri, I need your laser light to guide the way.”

  Eri checked her locater. They’d been in the cave for forty minutes and it would take them an­other twenty to get out. “Striver…”

  Des­per­a­tion shone in his gaze. “I can’t leave him.”

  Time pulled on Eri un­til she felt ripped in two dir­ec­tions. Litus and Mars needed her. They prob­ably hadn’t had food or wa­ter for days, and an­other fight might be too much. But she owed her life—and theirs—to Striver. She couldn’t bear see­ing him in pain.

  She dropped her laser to the floor and slid it over to Ri­ley. “You lead them out. The light’s the but­ton on the right side. I un­locked it, so be care­ful.”

  Ri­ley picked up her laser and nod­ded. Litus shouted after her, “Eri, what are you go­ing to do?”

  “We’ll be right be­hind you.” Eri turned to Striver. There was no way Ri­ley would help him, and Mars and Litus were too weak. If she wanted Striver to move, she needed to take ini­ti­at­ive. Eri put a hand on his shoulder and whispered, “I’ll get his feet. You get his shoulders. We’ll drag him out.”

  Striver’s eyes re­flec­ted hope and fear. “You know he’ll slow our es­cape.”

  Eri squeezed his shoulder. “You helped me res­cue my team. I’m go­ing to help you re­cue your brother.”

  Striver nod­ded and breathed out in re­lief. He ripped off pieces of his shirt and gagged Weaver be­fore he could re­act. Eri avoided the blind hatred in Weaver’s gaze as she tied his feet with an­other strip of fab­ric.

  “You sure you can lift him?” Striver asked.

  Eri wasn’t sure of any­thing ex­cept that she wanted to help Striver more than any­thing in the world. “We’ll see.”

  They hef­ted Weaver up, Striver bear­ing most of the weight, and car­ried him to the mouth of the tun­nel. Eri yanked at Weaver’s feet to catch up to the oth­ers, but Striver turned back. “What is it?”

  “The golden li­quid from Soren’s tale.” Striver’s face paled. “The le­gend is true.”

  Eri res­isted the urge to yell. Yes, it was pretty neat, and she’d love to stay and de­cipher the sym­bols, but Jolt would be here any minute, and they needed to get Mars and Litus to safety. She spoke in a care­ful, calm voice, with an un­der­side of au­thor­ity. “Striver, we can’t stay.”

  “I know, I know.” He tore his gaze away, blink­ing as if the light were too bright.

  Weaver struggled at first, but he gave up as they entered the dark­ness. Eri wondered if he real­ized he could do noth­ing to stop them, or if he had craf­ted an­other plan of es­cape for later on.

  It didn’t mat­ter. Car­ry­ing him was the only way to get Striver out of that cave.

  The oth­ers were so far ahead they couldn’t see their light. Eri stifled a cur­rent of worry and pressed the keypad on her loc­ator. Her arm lit up with the dim neon glow. “That’s all I have.”

  “It’s plenty.” Striver soun­ded so thank­ful, it warmed her heart. He’d helped her for so long, it grat­i­fied her to help him in re­turn.

  Striver entered the tun­nel first, stum­bling ahead us­ing her dim light source.

  Car­ry­ing a full-grown man through the tun­nel was more dif­fi­cult than she thought. Sweat dripped down her fore­head as she fol­lowed Striver, grip­ping Weaver’s feet. Every step was a hurdle, try­ing to bal­ance Weaver’s weight, step around jagged rocks, and stomp away the spi­derm­ites. She kept glan­cing at her loc­ator, still set on Litus’s life signs, to see how much longer they had to go.

  When the sig­nal stopped mov­ing and blinked in the same place, she knew they waited for her out­side the cave. Huff­ing, she whispered to Striver, “We’re al­most there.”

  Re­lief trickled through her when she spot­ted the slim crack of sil­very moon­light. They emerged from the cave into the night, and the hu­mid air of Haven 6 had never smelled so fresh.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Escape

  “Over here.” Ri­ley’s whis­per car­ried through the dark­ness like a beacon of light. Striver whipped around in the dir­ec­tion of his voice, his tired muscles tight­en­ing as he hauled Weaver down the slope and into the night. He didn’t want Eri car­ry­ing the brunt of the weight. He already felt guilty ac­cept­ing her help, but he couldn’t have left his only brother in that cave to die.

  Eri fol­lowed him, heft­ing Weaver’s feet. Her ac­tions back in the cave and her per­sever­ance car­ry­ing Weaver to safety knocked his boots off. This was not the work of someone try­ing to steal his home.

  In the dark of night, Striver real­ized he trus­ted Eri even more.

  “They’re over there, be­hind that thicket,” Eri whispered. “I can see Litus’s loc­ator blink­ing.”

  “He should turn it off.”

  “He kept it on for us.”

  They reached the thicket, push­ing through the ferns to re­l­at­ive safety. Ri­ley pounced on them. “You brought that scum with you?”

  “What did you think we were do­ing back there? Fish­ing?” Striver glanced at all the faces wait­ing for them to emerge from the cave and guilt spread through him like poison. “They’d kill him if we left him be­hind.”

  Ri­ley jabbed a fin­ger in Striver’s chest. “That’s a choice he made when he left us. What are we go­ing to do, throw him in some vil­lage jail? Watch him every minute un­til he jumps the fence again?”

  “Enough!” Mars pushed her­self between him and Ri­ley. “Which way to safety?”

  Ri­ley sighed as if they’d already been caught. “This way. We’ll sneak back through the swamp and skirt their sen­tinels.”

  Eri peered through the ferns. “They’ll chase us un­til we reach the fence.”

  “Then we’ll move fast and hide in the thick­est trees.” Ri­ley ges­tured to­ward Eri. “Let me take the weight.” He soun­ded weary, resigned to the in­ev­it­able.

  Eri glanced at Striver with a ques­tion­ing look.

  “It’s fine, thank you, Eri.” Striver nod­ded over to what was left of her tea
m. “You’ve done more than enough. See to your friends. Take them to the jungle, and we’ll catch up.”

  She nod­ded, heft­ing Weaver’s feet into Ri­ley’s arms. “Care­ful. He kicks.”

  Dis­gust soured Ri­ley’s face. “I wouldn’t be sur­prised.”

  “Lower him.” Striver ges­tured to­ward a patch of moss a half meter away.

  Ri­ley waddled over with Striver and crouched down just enough to throw Weaver’s feet on the ground. He landed with a thump. “What? Now you’re go­ing to leave him?”

  “Look for two branches.” Striver pulled a blanket out of his back­pack. “We’re mak­ing a stretcher.”

  “Great idea, doc­tor.” Ri­ley’s voice dripped with sar­casm, but he found one long branch and cracked it in half. “Wouldn’t it be easier if we for­got he even ex­is­ted?”

  “Leav­ing him is not an op­tion.” Striver tied the ends of the blanket to the branches. “You can either help me or wait while I fin­ish.”

  Ri­ley har­rumphed as he bent to help. When the blanket was se­cure, they hef­ted Weaver on and hois­ted up the stretcher. The weight was more evenly dis­trib­uted, and Striver could walk much easier. “See, now let’s catch up to the oth­ers.”

  …

  Eri chat­ted with the other mem­bers of her team as they led the way across the plains to the jungle.

  Striver hoped to learn more about her by study­ing her in­ter­ac­tions with her team. She seemed happy to see them. Mars kept her dis­tance, but Litus hugged her close to him, send­ing a cur­rent of jeal­ousy through Striver’s chest. Who was this man she’d risked so much to save? As Striver and Ri­ley caught up, snip­pets of their con­ver­sa­tion rode the air.

  “I knew you’d save us. I just didn’t think you’d come your­self. Look at you! You’ve turned into quite the war­rior.” Litus soun­ded so proud, it made Striver won­der what Eri had been like on the ship.

  “I had to. Com­mander Grier re­fused to send help.” Eri couldn’t hide the bit­ter­ness in her voice. Striver knew she didn’t like the com­mander, but he thought he was the only one that she con­fided in.

  “Why?” Litus’s voice fell to a whis­per and Striver had to shuffle for­ward faster to hear him over the mat­ing calls of swil­low wisps pen­et­rat­ing the night.

  Eri glanced back at Striver and Ri­ley, al­most as if she was check­ing to see if they listened in on their con­ver­sa­tion. Striver gazed down at Weaver, pre­tend­ing to tighten his brother’s gag.

  “She’s afraid more of our people will get hurt or killed.”

  “I’ll hail her and re­port in when we get to safety.” Litus tripped and Eri caught him. The im­pris­on­ment must have weakened him. Damn the Law­less for driv­ing a wedge in their re­la­tions with the new­comers.

  Eri opened her mouth to say more and snapped it closed. She nod­ded. “We’ll speak of this later.”

  Their con­ver­sa­tion cast a storm cloud over the whole res­cue. Striver had gone from de­vel­op­ing feel­ings for her, trust­ing her, and now to this. There was so much about Eri and her life aboard the Her­it­age he didn’t know. As a leader he couldn’t al­low his feel­ings for Eri to af­fect his de­cision mak­ing. Already, it had made him swoon like a fool.

  They reached the jungle by dawn, the en­tire party lag­ging. Muscles aching, Striver stopped and called out, “We need to rest.”

  Eri, Litus, and Mars turned around, wait­ing for them to catch up.

  “What if the Law­less are right on our tails?” Ri­ley whispered as they pushed through waist-high ferns, ap­proach­ing the rest of the party.

  “I’ll go back and scout the area. Watch over the oth­ers and make sure they eat and get some rest.”

  “What about you?”

  Striver shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to take turns.”

  They caught up with the rest of the party be­fore Ri­ley could dis­agree. They placed Weaver down on a mossy slope. “Watch over him, and don’t un­tie him, no mat­ter what he says.” Striver gave his brother a steely eye.

  “Where are you go­ing?” Eri stepped for­ward, her fore­head wrinkled in con­cern.

  “Someone’s got to make sure they’re not on our heels.”

  Litus nod­ded in agree­ment and Mars plopped down by Weaver, giv­ing him a wary look.

  Eri stepped to­ward Striver. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No, you need to rest with the oth­ers. Be­sides, two people will make more com­mo­tion than one.” He turned, fa­cing the long path they’d taken into the jungle. The thought of more walk­ing made his legs scream in protest, but someone had to make sure the Law­less weren’t purs­ing them.

  “Striver.” Eri grabbed his arm and tugged so hard he turned back around. “It’s dan­ger­ous. Are you sure?”

  Her cheeks were flushed from ex­er­tion and her lips pouted, slightly open. For a linger­ing second he wanted to bend down and kiss her good-bye. His lo­gical mind kicked in just in time and he settled for pla­cing his hand on hers with a small squeeze. Her fin­gers were so cold he wanted to blow warm air on them and hold them close to his chest to warm them. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t worry about Striver; he’s si­lent as the dead and swift as the wind,” Ri­ley muttered.

  Striver wondered if all this com­mu­nic­a­tion with Eri was giv­ing his feel­ings away. He pulled back and straightened his ar­row bag against his back. “If they come, don’t wait for me.”

  …

  Eri’s chest ached as Striver dis­ap­peared into the jungle. He hadn’t had any food or rest since the pre­vi­ous morn­ing, and he sac­ri­ficed his own safety for the rest of them. No won­der his vil­lage had elec­ted him as ruler. She’d only known him a few days, and in her eyes he was a hero.

  A little too heroic, hand­some, and charm­ing.

  “Boar’s meat, any­one?” Ri­ley an­nounced, open­ing his back­pack.

  “I’m starving.” Mars pulled off her boot and rubbed the sole of her foot.

  “Me, too.” Litus breathed heav­ily and Eri wondered if he’d caught a sick­ness while im­prisoned. Hope­fully Striver’s tribe had been able to save her team’s med­ical equip­ment, so she could check him when they re­turned to the vil­lage.

  Ri­ley pulled a piece from his stash and threw them the rest. “Help yourselves. I’m go­ing to keep watch.” Chew­ing on the meat, he climbed the nearest tree.

  After watch­ing Striver leave, Eri wasn’t hungry, but she knew she needed to eat to keep up her stam­ina. Find­ing a seat on a rot­ting log, she dug in her back­pack and pulled out the massive pack­age Striver had packed for her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Weaver watch­ing her. Maybe he was hungry? “What about Weaver?”

  “I guess, but one of us will have to feed him, ’cause I’m not go­ing to undo his bind­ings.” Bal­an­cing on a wide branch, Ri­ley popped an­other piece of boar’s meat in his mouth.

  “I will.” Eri vo­lun­teered on Striver’s be­half. This was his brother, and Striver loved him enough to carry him through hun­dreds of meters of swamp even after he deser­ted the vil­lage.

  “Go ahead.” Ri­ley flicked his fin­gers like toss­ing trash on the wind. “I only hope he doesn’t spit at you when you take off his gag. He’s known to back­stab.”

  “Or give away our loc­a­tion,” Mars growled.

  “If he ut­ters any­thing above a whis­per, I’ll shoot an ar­row in his neck from where I sit.” Ri­ley un­packed his bow and hung it on a nearby branch.

  “Why do we have to take him with us, any­way?” Mars chewed on a piece of meat. “You said he’s a traitor.”

  “Be­cause Striver doesn’t give up on any­thing or any­one.” Ri­ley chewed and swal­lowed hard, as if he had trouble swal­low­ing the whole idea of Weaver even be­ing with them.

  Mars shrugged. “Should have killed him when you had the chance.”

  Ri­ley shook his head like someone beaten in a
game. “I couldn’t. It would have killed Striver as well.”

  Litus swal­lowed and waved his hand at Mars. “It’s like our people on the Her­it­age. We value each life and the pre­cious DNA held within it. Our mis­sion is to fur­ther our spe­cies. When someone does some­thing wrong, they aren’t killed, but con­di­tioned and taught un­til they un­der­stand their place in our so­ci­ety.”

  “Sounds like tyranny to me.” Ri­ley sat back, spread­ing his legs out on the branch in front of him.

  “Yes, but we don’t have reneg­ades out there to tie us up and kill us,” Mars shot back with a mean half smile.

  Eri stuffed an­other piece in her mouth, the cold, salted ver­sion not as tasty as freshly roas­ted. She kneeled in front of Weaver. He stared at her with in­tens­ity in his eyes, look­ing like he’d curse her, bite her, or worse. He didn’t have the same dis­tinc­tion in his fea­tures as his brother, but he could be con­sidered hand­some if he wasn’t so mean.

  She reached be­hind his head and un­did the knot, pulling the gag out of his mouth.

  He took in a breath and she sup­pressed the urge to cringe, ex­pect­ing him to swear or spit at her. “Are you hungry?”

  Weaver chuckled. “Striver gets all the lovely ladies, doesn’t he?”

  Eri blinked. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “Don’t listen to him; he’s just try­ing to get un­der your skin,” Ri­ley called out be­hind her.

  “Don’t give him any­thing.” Mars spat into the mucky wa­ter. “He doesn’t de­serve it.”

  Eri’s cheeks heated with the same shame­ful em­bar­rass­ment she’d ex­per­i­enced when Mars teased her in the train­ing ses­sion. She felt ri­dicu­lous al­low­ing some young sav­age to rip away her com­pos­ure. How could he know how she felt about Striver? Did Striver have other girl­friends back in the vil­lage? Riptide’s cat­like eyes and lus­cious hair came to mind.

  The best thing to do is to not let it show.

  She pulled out a piece of meat and held it in front of his mouth, feel­ing like she’d rather chuck it in the swamp wa­ter. “Well, do you want some or not?”