Valiant

by Merrie Destefano

  I do. Gladly.

  34

  There’s a point in a war where things get so out of control, bodies are left behind like garbage. Nobody has time to cart them away. They just pile up. There’s an army of walking wounded left behind, too, all of them trying desperately to survive.

  Most of them won’t live. They’re too broken. There aren’t enough people left with the skills to fix them.

  That’s what the military clinic looks like when we get there.

  My gut churns with dread when I see how many cars have crashed into one another outside the entrance; all the people were in such a hurry to get inside they didn’t bother parking. The crush of cars flows out into the street, for blocks in every direction. Some people must not have been strong enough to get out—they lean back inside their coffins of glass and metal, unblinking eyes staring into rain-soaked skies.

  My hands begin to tremble. “We have to find a way to get Natalie in there and get her treated immediately,” I say. “But if we have to wait in line—”

  I avoid saying the words no one wants to hear. My best friend might die.

  “I have your rifle. Justin has Natalie’s gun,” Billy says. “People listen to guns.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Carla says. “The people inside have guns, too. There’s going to be a military presence here. National Guard or something. We should be careful about letting anyone see our weapons. But just so you know, I have this.” She flashes us her gun, then tucks it away in her jacket.

  I focus my attention back on what’s important. “Natalie, stay awake,” I murmur. I smile as her eyelids slide open lazily. She’s lost a lot of blood, too much.

  “I’ll get us in to see a doctor,” Carla continues, not taking a breath. “No need to wait in line.”

  Justin strides toward the entrance, carrying Natalie. She looks like a doll in his arms, fragile and lifeless. My heart skips a beat, and I slog in the rain behind him. It’s still coming down in sheets, the sky above us darkening to a deeper shade of gray. I’ve lost track of time. Is it evening already? It can’t be.

  We enter the clinic single file, stepping over people lying on the emergency room floor. I think a couple of them may already be dead.

  Carla leads the way, Justin a half step behind her. Billy walks in front of me, so we’ve got our artillery positioned in the front. The boys have their weapons hidden beneath bulky jackets, fingers on the trigger, just in case. I have no idea what might happen here. Right now, my only plan is Natalie getting in to see a doctor and being able to walk out of here.

  We pass people slumped in chairs and on the floor. Most of them have physical injuries—broken legs, head wounds, skin burns.

  Then I see something I never expected.

  Several people my age are scattered around the room, all of them wearing white T-shirts with orange Vs painted on the front. They must have watched the videos Natalie and I made. A few of them lift their heads to gaze at us.

  I nod and flash them the V sign with one hand.

  They do the same back to me.

  Our single-file line stops at the admissions desk. Carla breaks rank, pushes her way to the front, and pulls something out of her backpack—a card with a military insignia on it. At first the nurse on duty ignores her, but Carla raises her voice, uses phrases like “state of emergency” and “office of the governor” and “national security,” followed by “blood loss” and “barely breathing.” Then she leans closer to the nurse and lowers her voice.

  I don’t know what she says, but the nurse snaps to attention.

  “Get that girl on a gurney!” the nurse shouts, pointing at Natalie, who’s still draped in Justin’s arms. “And put a couple of IVs in her. Now! Call a trauma surgeon in here!”

  Within seconds, two nurses appear out of nowhere and Natalie’s on a gurney, her jacket and blouse cut off. A pair of IV bags hangs above her, tubes snaking down and inserted in her arms. One of the nurses draws blood. A doctor wearing pale-green scrubs, hands already covered in latex gloves, jogs down the corridor toward Natalie, and at first I’m relieved.

  Natalie’s going to get the medical attention she needs.

  But I don’t have time to process that thought any further because the doctor slides to a halt beside the gurney and for a second she doesn’t move. Time seems to stop and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

  She’s not looking at Natalie.

  She’s looking at me.

  The doctor’s eyes go wide, then she mouths my name.

  I take an instinctive step backward, crashing into Billy. He braces one hand on my shoulder, while his other hand reaches for the rifle beneath his coat.

  Justin’s head snaps from the doctor to me to Billy and back again.

  She’s a Xua, and the three of us know it.

  I’m about to jerk out of Billy’s grasp, to run over there and push the doctor away from Natalie, but Justin grabs me and pulls me back.

  “Let me go!” I snarl.

  “No,” he whispers.

  “But she’s Xua,” I say. “Why would a Xua want to possess an emergency room doctor?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s something else going on here.”

  Meanwhile, the doctor turns back to the gurney and quickly examines Natalie. The whole time I keep her in my line of sight, making sure she doesn’t jump. But she wouldn’t, would she? Xua don’t jump into humans who might die; that’s not their MO. If they’re inside a human when it dies, the Xua dies, too.

  “Get her sedated,” the doctor says. “She’s having trouble breathing, so we need to do a rapid sequence intubation.”

  A few seconds pass, surely not enough time for Natalie to be fully sedated. Sweat pours down my forehead and my hands are clammy. Is the doctor going to work on her out here, right in the ER admitting room? Everything happens so fast I can barely see what’s going on, but then there’s a tube in Natalie’s trachea.

  “Her pressure is too low,” the doctor snaps, like it’s the attending nurse’s fault. “You need to dump more fluids in her with pressure bags. Hurry! We have to get her into the OR and stop the bleeding.”

  The nurses jog away, one on each side of the cart, rushing off with Natalie.

  The doctor turns and looks directly at me. “I’ll do everything I can to save her.” The expression on her face looks like genuine concern. It’s confusing.

  “You better,” I say.

  “Trust me,” the doctor says with a slight nod of her head. “You and I have a mutual friend, but I dare not say his name now.”

  Mutual friend?

  Does she mean Aerithin?

  Does that mean he’s still alive?

  35

  The doctor hurries away before I can ask any questions, following the gurney through a pair of double doors and down a long hallway.

  We pull away from the rest of the people in the room, find a corner with three empty seats, and take it over. Justin makes me sit down. All I can think about is Natalie in that operating room, with that doctor who’s obviously got a skin-jumping alien inside her.

  The only friend we could possibly have in common is Aerithin. How does she know him? Is this Xua one of his rebels?

  Was that cop Justin and I saw earlier a rebel, too? If so, that would explain why he let us live.

  I sink back into my chair, but I can’t relax and I can’t think straight. “She said we have a mutual friend. It has to be Aerithin. Why would she say that if he was dead?”

  “She wouldn’t,” Justin says. “I mean, unless she’s lying. But why bother? She could have jumped or attacked us on the spot.”

  “If he’s alive, why didn’t he come back? Why would he let Gabe get captured? We need to have a private conversation with that doctor,” I say, “as soon as Natalie comes out of surgery.”

  I’m going to get
answers one way or another. Winning this war depends on it.

  …

  Another hour passes. I’m on the verge of storming back into the operating room when five people aggressively push their way inside the ER, all of them intent on finding someone and none of them looking injured. All five of them pause, lift their heads in the air, and sniff. One of them, a woman, calls out in a loud, clear voice, “Gabe? Are you in here? Gabe?”

  My skin bristles, and my heart thumps so loud and fast I think everyone can hear it.

  Xua.

  Wait. Why are they looking for my brother? I know these aliens have some sort of advanced tech communication system with one another. Whatever one of them sees or does gets communicated to the rest of them. So, by now, they have to know that a pair of Xua already caught Gabe back on the freeway hours ago. They pulled him through the Corridor of Time.

  Then that Xua-possessed woman—a Leader, I’m sure of it seeing how the four Hunters stay a step behind her—turns and runs a gaze over me.

  A thought hits me right in my stomach, and it takes my breath away.

  Gabe must have escaped.

  He must have gotten away from the Xua, and he must be alive. That’s why they’re looking for him again. Maybe he slipped back out through another door. Or he’s in a different time period…

  Whatever happened, he’s safe. He has to be.

  “Gabe, I know you’re in here, honey,” the Leader calls. She sounds like a frantic mother searching for a lost child. One of the nurses—a tall, slender guy who looks like he’s worked three shifts in a row—walks toward her, probably hoping to calm her down.

  It backfires.

  The Leader slams her fist in his face, harder than you’d think she could, and he falls backward. One of the Hunters kicks the nurse in the gut.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” the woman at the admissions desk shouts. She leans forward and yells into an intercom system. “Security, get to the ER now! We have a code red in progress!”

  “Sara? Sara, I know you’re here,” the Leader calls now.

  Both Justin and Billy stand in front of me—Justin’s got his gun out, but it’s still hidden behind his back. It’s all I can see, that gun, his finger on the trigger. Carla sits beside me, but I can tell she’s ready to fight, too, if she has to.

  “We can smell you,” the woman says.

  If she’s trying to scare me, the joke’s on her. She just gave me a shred of hope I never dreamed I’d get.

  My brother might be alive.

  I pull out my switchblade and flick it open.

  Three security guards charge into the room.

  All five of the Xua at the front door jump at the same time, and spiraling dark clouds spew from their mouths, gargoyle heads grinning.

  I have so much adrenaline in my system I think I might be able take them all down myself. I jump to my feet. “Everybody close your mouths and keep your heads down. Now!”

  Billy and Justin already have their switchblades open and powering up, red beams of light flashing.

  Three of the smoky Xua shoot toward us. Carla grabs her switchblade, but she’s a moment too late. I stand in front of her, then I tempt fate.

  I open my mouth in a battle cry, knowing it will lure at least one of them toward me.

  Justin and Billy do the same thing.

  Fear tingles along the base of my throat as my body remembers what happened the last time I got this close to a jumping Xua. I keep my switchblade hidden behind my back, waiting, heart thundering as a plume of black smoke lunges closer, gruesome head watching me, honing in on me like my mouth is a target.

  Then something horrible happens.

  Billy accidentally crashes into Justin and knocks his switchblade out of his hand. It falls to the ground and slides across the room.

  No.

  But Justin’s already in fight mode, and there’s no way to turn off that switch. And the only weapon he has left is a gun.

  You can’t kill one of these smoky demons with a gun.

  So, I take a step forward, moving in front of Justin, pushing him behind me. I jam him in the gut twice with my elbow—something he doesn’t expect—and he crumples slightly.

  “Come on!” I scream, mouth open wide, hoping I can get two of them to fight over me. “Let’s see if you can take down a teenage girl!”

  All around me, people are yelling and running and trying to hide. Even people who looked like they were ready to die. Everybody’s got what it takes to get out of the way when a Xua is jumping. By now, nearly everyone in Orange County has seen this scenario before.

  Few of them have seen what I’m about to do, however.

  Watch and learn if you want to survive.

  “Stay back!” I yell at Justin, who’s trying to push his way to the front again. “That’s an order.”

  Hopefully he’ll do what I said. I don’t have the strength to take him down and fight two Xua at the same time. I glance at Billy from the corner of my eye, hoping he’s focused by now and ready to fight. His blade remains hidden, just like mine. We can’t let these beasts know we’re armed.

  Not yet.

  The black column of smoke shoots across the room, so fast I almost can’t tell where it is. It zigzags, maybe some battle tactic the Leaders back home came up with when they realized how many of their kind we’d been killing. No matter. I can still take it down. All it needs to do is get close enough. At that point, its flight trajectory will have to straighten out.

  I paste a fake expression of fear on my face.

  Then I realize the expression isn’t fake.

  Gargoyle Head laughs—I didn’t know they could make noise while in their smoky state. Warbly, skin-chilling sounds come from its mouth, almost enough to make me turn and run. Everyone in the room—all the humans, that is—have either collapsed on the floor or they’ve gone running down the hallways.

  The smoky Xua screams at me, and I scream back.

  “Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!”

  The Xua surges forward, giving a burst of speed I didn’t expect. I swing my arm up, catching it right where the head joins a snakelike body, its face so close to mine I can smell its strong metallic odor.

  My glowing blade slices through the flying Xua in a death stroke. Its thick column of smoke turns bloodred and the expression on its face changes.

  I laugh. It’s terrified.

  Then its smoky body dissolves and pours onto the floor like a pile of dust.

  Beside me, Billy’s calling down the wrath of a large gray Xua, and it zips toward him, fast as the wind. It could plunge into his open mouth in an instant—although I know the whole process takes longer than that. I turn, swing my arm down, and catch the beast from the side, slicing it through before it even touches Billy’s lips.

  Meanwhile, someone flails behind me, strong arms thrashing, legs kicking.

  One of the beasts has attacked Justin, and it’s already halfway down his throat.

  A thin panic surges in my chest as my fears come to life—don’t take Justin, no!—but I have to push my emotions away if I want to fight.

  Carla, Billy, and I all jump into position, but Justin jerks, his left arm crashing against mine, almost knocking the switchblade out of my hand. I stumble, then right myself. Billy lunges closer. He pins back one of Justin’s arms, and Carla has the other.

  Damn, this guy’s strong. It’s taking all three of us to hold onto him. But we have to save Justin—we have to.

  Fear buckles down my back as I spring toward him. I jump up and latch onto Justin, almost like that kid did to me in the coffee shop yesterday. I wrap one arm around Justin’s neck and both legs around his waist. The Xua is right next to my face, gritty smoke pressing against my cheek, tail wagging as it tries to get inside him faster.

  Justin lurches forward and almost knocks me off, but all three o
f us manage to hang on.

  My right hand swings down, severing the beast’s tail. I only snip off the last three inches, but that’s enough. The Xua crumbles into an ashy heap, dust that sifts to the floor.

  “Get him on the ground,” I say as I jump down.

  They lower Justin, but not gently. It’s more like everyone just lets go and he falls, face-first on the floor. I wince, then pound him in the back, still working on pure adrenaline. My fist hits square between his shoulder blades and he coughs, puffs of red dust wafting away.

  I kneel beside him, hoping that he’ll open his eyes and look at me, that he’ll remember me. I can bear anything but losing him.

  “Justin, are you okay?” I ask.

  His eyes flicker open and he turns so he can see me. He smiles as his hand finds mine.

  “Hey.” His voice sounds rough. “This trumps those two girls you beat up in middle school.”

  I let out a soft laugh and run my fingers through his hair. I want to stay here with him, glad because he’s okay and Gabe might be safe and Aerithin might be alive.

  We have hope. We really do.

  My team is alive and, for an instant, that’s all I care about.

  Then someone cries out across the room, there’s a crash like a body falling to the floor, and I remember the other two Xua who turned into smoke. Three came after us, but where did the other two go?

  I stand up and see that group of security guards. There were originally three of them. Now, one guard sprawls on the ground, his head twisted unnaturally to the side. He must be dead. The other two guards stare at me, muscles tensing, both of them reaching for their weapons. A dangerous chill creeps into the room and I take a step backward.

  There’s something sinister about them, a cruel expression in their eyes.

  They draw their weapons, and then, with a low growl, they both say my name in unison.

  “Sara.”

  36

  The emergency room takes on a deadly quiet, so still I can hear every breath I take, and each one sounds dangerously final. My instinct is to run, but I can’t leave Justin or Natalie behind. Justin’s moving slower than normal—it could be a while before he’s ready to fight. Billy has his laser switchblade and Carla reaches for her gun.