Firestarter

by Tara Sim

  Colton stared at the bodies. “You … You killed them.”

  “They killed Dae.” Edmund nodded to Liddy and took off running, Astrid and Meena just behind.

  Colton looked after them as if he’d never seen them before.

  “Remember what they’ve done to our own,” Liddy reminded him, her voice surprisingly soft.

  Colton closed his eyes. “There have already been too many deaths.”

  “As much as we all want to hold hands and sing hymns, that’s just not in the cards.” She flashed a meaningful glance at Danny. “The hatch is just ahead.”

  Daphne and Liddy checked around each corner before ushering Danny and Colton forward. Colton supported a now-flagging Danny, though with the spirit’s new strength, it was more like dragging him. With each step, Danny’s chest and back flared with pain, his shoulder throbbing angrily.

  Liddy turned the next corner and froze. “Oh, damn.”

  In a square-shaped hub, six Builders stood guard before the hatch. They opened fire and she scrambled back behind the wall.

  “Now what?” Daphne yelled over the noise.

  Colton leaned Danny against the wall, then disappeared. Danny heard more shots, some grunts, and a garbled yell. Liddy wasted no time rushing back around the corner to join the fray, while Daphne and Danny crept toward the hub, anxious to see what was happening.

  Colton had knocked out three of the guards, and Liddy had shot another in the arm. The man went down with a shout and a spray of blood, but his partner grabbed Liddy from behind. Colton stopped circling his next target and appeared suddenly behind the Builder, yanking her off of Liddy and throwing her over his head to slam her into the floor. The Builder coughed and wheezed, too stunned to move.

  But as Liddy recovered and Colton hesitated over the Builder he’d thrown—Danny could see the remorse on his face even from where he stood—another man aimed his gun at Colton’s head.

  Danny was barely aware of lifting his hands. He’d nearly forgotten about the foreign weight he held, the unfamiliar grooves of a pistol. It didn’t matter in that mindless moment as he acted only on impulse and pulled the trigger.

  He wanted to misfire, to scare, maybe to injure.

  The bullet crashed through the Builder’s head.

  They all watched, even the last Builder standing, as the man tottered on his feet. The gun he held clattered to the floor, slowly followed by the thud of his body. His head squished as it hit the hard ground, a dark pillow of blood oozing beneath him.

  “Jaime!”

  The cry came from the last Builder. He stared at Danny with wide, wet eyes. Mouth twisted into a grimace, he yelled and came at him with only his bare fists.

  Danny didn’t move. He almost welcomed the man with open arms.

  Then Colton was between them, catching the man by his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said before he twisted and knocked the Builder’s head against the wall. The man slid down to the floor, unconscious.

  Colton turned to face Danny. He expected to see disgust. Shock. Fury. What he didn’t expect was guilt.

  Danny dropped the gun. Daphne retrieved it and put a hand on his arm.

  Liddy was already climbing the ladder toward the hatch above. “More will be coming,” she said, grunting as she turned the hatch door open by its wheel. “Come on!”

  Daphne gently tugged Danny forward. His eyes landed on the ruined mess of the Builder’s head, and something deep inside his stomach lurched.

  “Don’t look,” she whispered. “Eyes up, Danny.”

  She climbed up before him, Colton supporting his weight from behind. Danny’s left arm was difficult to move, but he bit his cheek and forced himself to climb hand over hand until coppery blood spilled in his mouth. Colton made a slight sound of pain below.

  Daphne and Liddy half-pulled him into a storm of blustery wind. They were standing on the very top of the Builders’ airship. His open shirt flapped madly, his eyes stinging at the force of the wind.

  “Akash!”

  Danny squinted through the light refracting off the clouds. The Silver Hawk had attached itself to the airship like a barnacle on a whale’s back using odd tubular suckers. Not four feet away from the ship, Akash and Anish were fighting a pair of Builders.

  Anish had his Builder in a headlock, but Akash was having more trouble. Someone had given him a gun, but he must have run out of bullets, because he was using the butt to try and knock the Builder on the head. As he turned, the Builder hooked his leg, taking him down.

  Daphne ran forward. Liddy trained her own gun on the man and cursed.

  “I can’t get a clear shot!” she yelled above the wind.

  The Builder descended on Akash, drawing a knife from up his sleeve. Daphne reached them just as the Builder’s head snapped up, giving her the perfect angle to smack it with the butt of the gun she’d taken from Danny.

  A shadow appeared in the corner of Danny’s eye. The Prometheus lurked just above them, off the starboard side. Something sprang from the side of the airship, careening toward the Builders’ ship: a metallic grappling rope.

  The grapnel tore into the hull. The ship lurched and they all scrambled to keep their footing. The Builder Daphne had hit clawed at the smooth metal under him as he listed to the side. She and Akash threw out their arms, but the Builder slid off with a scream.

  Anish had grabbed hold of the Silver Hawk’s wing. The Builder he’d been fighting, now passed out, rolled off the side to join his partner. The ship righted itself, connected now to the Prometheus by an umbilical-like cord.

  “That rope’s for the others!” Liddy yelled. “They must not’ve been able to get to the hatch. Come on, we have to go!”

  She ushered them to the plane as the ship’s hatch banged open behind them. Akash pushed Daphne before him into the Silver Hawk. Colton helped Danny up, followed by Anish, then Liddy, who managed to fire off two bullets at the approaching Builders before falling inside and slamming the door shut.

  “Go!”

  “Where’s Meena?” Akash demanded even as he flipped through his controls.

  “She’s coming with the others, now GO!”

  They separated from the Builders’ ship with a loud pop. The plane teetered as it took to the air, small pings in the hull alerting them that the Builders were still firing.

  Danny wanted to look out the window. He had to know that they were free, that they were going to be all right.

  He also needed to be sick.

  But none of that compared to his urgent, overwhelming need to pass out. He tried to warn Colton, but even as he grabbed a fistful of the spirit’s shirt, he found himself giving in to the roar of darkness that rose up to claim him.

  He thought he heard screams. Someone saying his name over and over. Guns. Yelling. He smelled blood, thick and metallic, and tasted it on his tongue.

  When Danny opened his eyes, he was greeted by a slate gray ceiling. The one in his room on the Prometheus.

  Turning his head, like a compass arrow pointing north, he saw Colton sitting on the edge of his bed. Colton smiled, but it didn’t touch his amber eyes. He reached out and smoothed back Danny’s hair.

  They stayed in silence a while, needing no words to understand that they were both too tired to process what had happened. Too, too tired.

  Eventually, Colton met his eyes again. Are you all right?

  Danny struggled to swallow. I’ll be fine. I think. And you? He couldn’t shake the image of Colton wrapped in his furious power, seizing Archer by the throat.

  I’ve been better. And I’ve been worse.

  They sat in mutual weariness for a moment, then tensed. Their gazes locked.

  “What?” Danny asked, his voice strangled.

  “Did we just—?”

  “You spoke to me. In—” Danny tried to lift his hand, but found it was too heavy. “In my mind. You spoke to me in my mind.”

  “I heard you, too.” Colton put a hand to his forehead. “I thought … I thought it was ju
st me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “While you were unconscious, I kept hearing things—words and broken sentences … My name. It was all in your voice.” Colton moved his hand to Danny’s forehead, fingertips tracing the arch of one eyebrow. “And I can feel something here. An ache.”

  Danny looked at Colton’s arm. “It’s the blood. It has to be.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “What else could it be?” Can you really hear me?

  Yes.

  Danny shuddered and wondered if he was dreaming. “My blood is linking us, like how you were able to connect to Lalita.”

  Colton stared at Danny’s chest. “I can feel your heart beating. It’s distant, but I can hear it. And your blood. It’s … soothing.”

  It all came rushing back. Blood. The Builder’s head. The bullet.

  He choked.

  Colton shot to his feet, grabbing the rubbish bin just in time for Danny to retch over it.

  All that came up was bile, and it seared his throat. When he was done, Colton handed him a cup of water. “Danny,” he said, settling beside him, “it wasn’t your fault. You were trying to protect me.”

  Danny downed the water and tossed the cup away. Resting his head in his right hand—his left shoulder hurt too much to move it—he pressed his pounding forehead against his clammy palm. Colton moved the rubbish bin away, then rubbed circles over Danny’s bare back.

  “I killed a person,” Danny whispered. “Doesn’t matter if it was an accident. His heart stopped beating because of me.” He couldn’t shake the image of that other Builder, the horror and hatred and tears in his eyes.

  “Danny—”

  “How can I go home like this? How can I ever face my parents? How can you even stand to be near me right now?”

  Colton gently moved Danny’s hand away. “I know how guilty you feel. I know it’s twisting you apart. But it wasn’t your fault.” He leaned forward until their foreheads were resting together. “Remember what they did to you. What they threatened to do to you. If the situation were reversed, I’d have done the same. Besides, we escaped. Try not to think about it anymore.”

  That’s easy for you to say, Danny thought, before recalling that even his mind was no longer private. “I can’t just forget about it.”

  “We have more pressing things to think about.”

  He leaned back. “Like what?”

  “Well …” Colton looked down at his hands, picking at his fingernails. “I told Zavier what Archer said. Everything she said.”

  Danny stiffened, the hairs on his arms standing on end. “You did what?”

  “He wanted to know what they did to us. After he realized that our blood holds power, I didn’t see any reason to keep the whole truth from him any longer. I told him Archer’s plan, too, and how she’s trying to build stronger towers by using more clock mechanic blood. I think—and he thinks—that Archer could have been right about one thing, which is that this might be a way to save my tower.”

  Danny took a deep breath. He was shaky and nauseated, his mind spinning too fast to grasp onto a single thought. “What else?”

  “I think he wanted to know more, but he’s been … distracted.” Colton hesitated, biting his lower lip. “They didn’t find Sally.”

  Scenarios flashed through Danny’s mind. Archer torturing Sally. The Builders dumping her body once they were through with it. Archer using her to lure Zavier into a trap so she could recapture them.

  Other images crept in, unfamiliar. He saw himself on the floor, writhing under the needle device. That was what Colton remembered, what could end up being in their futures. What could be happening to Sally at that moment.

  Archer would be furious that he and Colton had escaped. What else was the woman capable of?

  “The others?” he whispered.

  Colton shook his head. “Edmund and Astrid were able to get back to the ship. Meena …” His voice faltered. “She was reaching for the rope when the Builders grabbed her. She’s still on Archer’s ship.”

  Danny wanted to see Daphne and Akash, but Colton insisted he eat something first.

  “I can eat later.”

  “You haven’t had anything in three days and you’re weak as a newborn kitten. Besides, I can feel how hungry you are, and it’s driving me mad.” Colton shoved a small tray of toast and eggs at him. “Eat. And not too fast.”

  He grudgingly gnawed at a piece of toast, washing it down with water. Placated, Colton fetched him his clothes. Rising from the bed proved to be a challenge; the world went tilting in all directions. Danny hung his head and fought off vertigo, clutching at the edge of the pallet.

  “Danny, are you sure …?”

  In answer, Danny tugged on his clothes, wincing whenever he moved his shoulder. His chest was dark and mottled with bruises, and his lower back felt like someone had strangled his tailbone.

  The announcement system crackled before Zavier’s voice, cold and rough, filled the halls.

  “Everyone to the B-side hangar. Now.”

  Danny frowned at Colton. “What’s that about?”

  Colton seemed just as troubled. “I don’t know.”

  He turned to move to the door, but Colton stopped him, holding out a cane. “Charlotte said it might be good to use if you get dizzy again.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  You’re being stubborn. Danny felt the wave of Colton’s irritation like heat escaping a just-opened oven door. He wondered if he would ever get used to this new connection.

  Then he wondered if that had been Colton’s thought or his own.

  “I’ll be fine,” Danny said, heading for the door again. Colton pressed the cane against his chest.

  “If you just—”

  Danny grabbed the cane and threw it against the wall with a loud bang. He turned back to Colton, who stood watching him, expressionless. But the irritation deepened, linked to something else—worry and sadness.

  Opening the door, Danny started down the hall. Soon enough, though, he realized he’d overestimated his strength. Each step cost him a little more until the corridor swam before him. He stumbled a couple of times, pressing a hand against the wall to steady himself. Perhaps he should have taken the cane after all.

  When he stumbled a third time, Colton caught his arm. Danny yanked it away.

  “Don’t help me!”

  He hadn’t meant to yell, but the words came from a pit in his chest that was steadily devouring him from the inside out. Colton must have felt it, too, that empty helplessness. He only met Danny’s eyes with that same sad look.

  Colton didn’t try to help him again as they made their way through the ship with painstaking slowness. Danny stopped frequently to catch his breath, and Colton remained his silent shadow.

  When they reached the hangar, Danny saw most of the crew there, but Daphne and Akash were absent. There was no landing plane in this hangar—it must have been the one the Builders stole—and the large, metal room was cold and barren, minus the cluster of nervous people at its center.

  Danny limped up to Prema. “What’s going on?”

  She turned to him, her eyes pinched. Astrid, beside her, was stone-faced.

  “Punishment,” Astrid said.

  That’s when Danny noticed Ivor on his knees before the hangar door. His hands were tied behind his back, and there was a large bruise at his eye and temple, his lower lip split. His hair was lank and unwashed, his skin sallow, as if he’d been living in the cells the past few days. He very likely had.

  Zavier paced before him, holding the controller for the hangar door in his metal hand, connected by a long cable. His face bore an intensity that made his eyes crackle, trembling with the sheer force of his rage. Jo stood by the wall, hugging herself as she watched her nephew pace. Her eyes were red, her body swaying as if drunk.

  Finally Zavier paused before Ivor, who refused to look up at him.

  “You were a part of them all this time,” the young man said, his
voice hollow despite the anger tightening his shoulders. “Working for her. Working against me.”

  Ivor looked up then. Although his face was stoic, Danny saw a glimmer of fear in his eyes.

  “You were workin’ against what I wanted,” the man answered.

  “And what is that?”

  “Archer promised to make me Lead Mechanic of the Scottish Union,” Ivor said. “With complete autonomy. I couldna very well pass that up, aye? Not when the English insist on stickin’ their noses into every matter. As if they have the right, after the thousands they slaughtered.”

  “There will be no Scottish Union when I succeed,” Zavier said. “There will be no English Union, either. Your treachery was for nothing.”

  Instead of being cowed, Ivor grinned. “Ah, but ye haven’t succeeded yet, have ye?”

  Zavier’s nostrils flared as he pressed the button for the hangar door. The lower section opened with a blast of air that made the crewmembers scramble to grab purchase. Colton held onto Danny as a patch of white light grew behind Ivor, whose hair whipped in a frenzy.

  “You betrayed me and you betrayed my aunt!” Zavier yelled above the sound of the wind. “Dae is dead because of you! They have my sister because of you! They could kill her because of you!”

  Ivor’s gaze slid to Jo, who huddled now in the corner. Danny saw his flinch, the genuine regret that passed over his face.

  “I—”

  Zavier placed his boot on Ivor’s chest and kicked him out the hangar. They only heard the first sharp note of his exclamation before it was eaten by the wind.

  Jo slid to the floor, weeping silently as Zavier closed the hangar door. He threw the controller to the ground and stormed out, yanking his arm away from Prema as she reached out to comfort him. Charlotte crouched by Jo, murmuring softly to her.

  Danny leaned against Colton, shaken. He knew he shouldn’t feel bad for Ivor’s fate—he was the reason he and Colton had suffered, the reason why Meena and Sally were probably suffering right now—but he did anyway. Another death. Another senseless loss of life.

  Because of Archer.

  “Let’s go,” Colton whispered.

  When Daphne opened her door, her eyes were red, her long blond hair free of its usual braid. Her tattoo stood out starkly against the rest of her pale face.