Valiant

by Merrie Destefano

  This is one of those times when I hate being the leader. I don’t know what to do and everyone’s counting on me to come up with something brilliant. I wish Natalie were here—I know she’d have an idea. I’m trying my hardest to figure out What Would Natalie Do. My fingers run over those gold beads in my pocket, and those armed thugs grin like they just won the World Cup without breaking a sweat.

  A shadow moves in a corridor on the far side of the room, and one of the security guards suddenly falls to the ground like a sack of meat. Wha-thump. I don’t even have time to blink before I see Natalie’s doctor standing behind them, a nurse at her side.

  They both have some kind of immunization guns, but I’d bet my weight in chocolate they’re not pumping these guys full of flu shots.

  The second Xua-possessed guard already has his gun aimed. But this time, neither the nurse nor the doctor will be quick enough to take him down. That is, unless somebody distracts him.

  “Hey, somebody’s hurt over here. We need help!” I yell.

  I gesture for my team to fall to the ground. We’re all in the midst of floor-diving when the possessed guard shoots his gun. Maybe it’s hard to hit a moving target. I don’t know. I’ve never fired a gun. All my battles have been fought up close and personal. But there’s this nanosecond where he tries to figure out which one of us to take out first.

  Both immunization guns fire at the same time. In fact, I think they fire about four or five times.

  Then everything’s in slow motion, like the world’s made out of Jell-O. The security guard’s arms are spinning, pinwheels of death, gun firing wildly, bullets thunking into nearby walls, whining past and shattering windows. People are shouting and the guard is falling, yet his hand is still wrapped around that blasted gun.

  Drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun.

  That’s my mantra as I slump to the ground, hands over my head.

  People yell, but nobody moves. We all crouch on the floor, wishing we had superhero skin that could deflect bullets.

  Blam. Blam. Blam.

  How many bullets does that monster have?

  Blam, whiz, rip, and sting.

  Intense pain jolts through my arm, blood sprays the wall, and I spew curse words I’ve never said before. I clutch my arm, a trickle of blood dripping through my fingers.

  I’ve been shot.

  “Sara!” Justin’s at my side, apparently recovering from his possession a heck of a lot quicker than I did. He doesn’t seem worried about whether that Xua-possessed guard is still shooting or not. He tries to look at my arm, but I won’t let him.

  “Stay down!” I tell him. “That guy might have more bullets!”

  “We need a doctor over here, now!” Carla yells.

  The bullets have stopped. I think. Billy springs to his feet, rifle drawn.

  “Anybody else think about firing a weapon and you’re dead!” he yells, eyes scanning the room.

  I expect everyone to be terrified and remain where they are, cowering. A lot of people do just that, especially the adults. But the kids wearing shirts painted with an orange V jump to their feet with a loud cheer.

  They hold their hands in what our parents used to call the peace symbol. But long before that, Winston Churchill used this same symbol during World War II to represent victory. It gave courage to countries being invaded by Nazis, and as a result, underground movements rose up and people painted Vs on Nazi tanks. Those who lived in occupied territories refused to give up; they rallied together, rebellious and hopeful.

  That’s why I picked these symbols. They’ve helped us win before.

  And now, the rebellion against the Xua is growing.

  Probably in small groups, like these kids.

  “Victory!” they shout.

  “You’ll never defeat us!”

  The shirts, the V hand gesture, the cheer and declaration that we will not be defeated—it’s all stuff from our vids. Before I know what I’m doing, I scramble to my feet, cheering along with them.

  “Victory!” I cry, my fist raised above me.

  The adults cautiously climb to their feet. Half of them look at the doctor and nurse who shot down the cops and the guards, and the other half look at me. For a minute, I forget I’ve been shot.

  The doctor stares at all the people, a grin on her face, that immunization gun hanging limp in one hand. I still don’t know why she’s helping us, but I’m glad she is. Without her, we wouldn’t have made it.

  I shout again. This time, we all do, even the adults, and our cries echo throughout the hospital and out the broken doors. The sound pours into the parking lot and bounces off buildings, and it circles the earth. It sparks off mountains and cliffs and shoots off into space.

  And it aims right at Titan.

  One way or another, we’re going to win this war.

  37

  “Where’s Natalie?” I ask the doctor as she tends to my bullet wound. “How did her surgery go?”

  “She is fine. Needs rest and fluids,” she says.

  Everything says this doctor is human, from her delicate bone structure to her blue-gray eyes to the fact that her nose is slightly crooked. She even looks a little bit like the woman who used to live next door to me and who used to sneak leftovers to Gabe and me because she worried we were too skinny. But this woman, whose name tag says she’s Doctor Hathaway, is anything but human. In my mind, I’m calling her Doctor Xua.

  She speaks with a slight, unfamiliar accent when she says, “You have a minor flesh wound. Not serious.”

  This minor flesh wound makes my arm feel like it’s on fire.

  “Change the dressing twice a day. Take these.” She hands me a vial of antibiotics.

  My friends and I are all in a long hallway, sectioned off with makeshift curtains. People still cheer and shout back in the admissions area. I know I should care about those guards who were possessed by Xua—that mob is probably going to kill them—but in reality, they were already dead.

  I stare at that vial of pills, shutting everything out except what’s right in front of me. “Who are you and why are you helping us?” I ask the doctor.

  “I’m a friend of Aerithin’s.” A half grin slides across her face. She’s beautiful in an unusual way. It’s not her eyes or her smile or her hair. I can’t pin it down. I wonder if the Xua inside her is what makes her seem attractive. “You and I are both rebels, are we not?”

  My skin tingles, almost like she gave me an electric shock.

  I stare at her for a long moment. “So, you’re part of the Xua resistance?”

  She nods.

  Light fills my chest. “Is Aerithin still alive?”

  She frowns. “I do not know. I thought he would be here, somewhere. He doesn’t answer my com calls.”

  “But my brother, Gabe, you must know something about him. He got away, didn’t he? He’s alive and safe?”

  “I do not know.”

  I frown. “Can you at least tell me why the Xua want my brother?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

  Frustrated, I sigh. I have a feeling she knows a lot more than she’s telling me. How could she not know what her own resistance is fighting for?

  “Here.” Doctor Xua hands me a card, something preprinted with the clinic’s logo on it. I scan it quickly. It has directions for what to do and where to go during an emergency. But the printed address has been crossed out and another address has been handwritten in.

  I read the handwritten address twice, mentally imagine that part of town. “There’s nothing in this area except abandoned buildings.”

  Justin peers over my shoulder. All of us act skittish around this woman, as if we’re waiting for her to change into a human-killing machine. So far, she’s been nicer than my regular physician. Although that’s not saying much.

  “There are
emergency centers set up all over Orange County. Food, medical supplies, beds, water, electricity. I recommend this one. They have a trauma surgeon who will know how to care for your friend.” The doctor pauses. “All of these centers have a few of my people stationed there.”

  Billy nods. “If it’s got a doctor who can take care of Natalie, then I say we go there.”

  Maybe those Xua will give me answers.

  “There is one last thing I should do before you all leave,” the doctor says as she gestures toward a silver scalpel. “The others will be tracking you, Sara. We should remove your skin sites.” She looks to Justin and Billy. “The rest of you who want to stay off the grid should do the same.”

  I nod, remembering what Natalie said back at the school. The Xua could be listening to all of us. We definitely need to take out our skin sites, as soon as possible.

  The doctor gives me a quick local anesthetic for the pain, then the slender knife probes the tissue behind my ear, digging. Blood drips down my neck and I hold my breath, eager to get out of here as soon as possible.

  38

  The ambulance leaves the military clinic, then drives in silence through war-ravaged streets, where whole city blocks blaze with fire. Bodies are everywhere; cars are overturned, store windows broken. The Xua frenzy that was looking for us must have rolled through here. People shout in the distance, their sporadic cries adding another surreal element to the landscape.

  Carla’s sitting across from me, staring out the window. Her shirt’s ripped, there’s a stream of dried blood pooled on her shoulder, her hair’s a tangled mess, and she’s got a bruise on her cheekbone.

  “Why were you looking for me?” I ask her. I’ve wanted to know ever since Billy and Natalie told me that the military showed up at Century Unified. “And why did you ask if I knew a guy named Noah back when we were in Snake City?”

  Carla’s lip quivers before she speaks. “It’s complicated. I’ll explain it later, I promise.”

  Then I remember what she said earlier. Everyone else I know is already dead.

  That means her father, the general, must be dead.

  It feels like there’s a dark cloud hanging over all of us.

  I turn and focus on Natalie, laid out in the middle of the ambulance on a stretcher. She’s awake. Kind of. Nothing she’s said so far has been coherent. Mostly she’s been talking about some dog she had when she was a kid—she keeps asking where it is. I just keep holding her hand and telling her the dog is fine.

  I’d rather be telling her how much she scared the crap out of me and she better not ever do that again. I’ve already lost my brother and my parents. I almost lost Justin.

  If I lose her, too…

  I stare out the window, forcing myself to stop thinking about something that isn’t going to happen. Justin senses my mood and draws me closer, his arm around my shoulder.

  We’ve been driving slowly, our lights off, trying not to draw attention to ourselves. Every building we pass is dark. The fires and the chaos are behind us, and this part of Santa Ana feels like a ghost town.

  A small building appears up ahead, flaming with light, windows glowing, worship coming from inside. Streams of people line the streets, too many to fit inside, all of them holding hands or with arms around one another, some of them holding candles, others brandishing flashlights. They don’t act afraid. Don’t they know they’re easy targets for the Xua? I want to yell at them out the window.

  Then I realize it’s a church.

  I suddenly remember what my life was like once, a long time ago. How my grandma used to take Gabe and me to Mass every Sunday, how the priest spoke in a combination of Spanish and English. And after church, my grandma, my mom, and I would make lunch together. Later in the afternoon, Dad would take Gabe and me to the park, and we’d all play soccer together.

  Everything was different then. We really were a family.

  Back before my grandma passed away. Before I started traveling through time.

  My throat tightens as I recognize the song they’re singing inside that little church. “Amazing Grace.” I’ve heard it so many times I can sing it in almost any language, Spanish, English, Latin. I quietly begin to sing along with the people on the street and, in a moment, everyone in the ambulance is singing, too, even Natalie. More than anything, I want to stop the ambulance, get out, and join that crowd. Part of me craves the faith and hope I know is inside that tiny building.

  My heart aches for it. But I know this isn’t the time or the place.

  Not if I want to make a difference in this war.

  …

  This part of town is even darker than the rest. Silence and broken cars and empty streets. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This is where drug dealers used to lurk, where prostitutes hung out on corners. Nobody with any sense ever came here.

  Trash cans overturned, potholed streets, broken windows, graffiti painted on walls. One low abandoned building after another line this long street that spools farther and farther from the world of light. I keep thinking we’re going in the wrong direction, the address has to be wrong, we need to turn around and go back.

  Then a long building looms up ahead, all the windows painted black. A trickle of light spills out of a pair of doors on the side—an old loading dock. The driver pulls the ambulance to a halt in the parking lot, getting as close as he can to the loading dock. My eyes meet Justin’s.

  “Does this place look safe?” I ask him.

  He does a quick survey of the surroundings. “Yup.”

  I’m not sure. Nowhere looks safe to me right now. I stand with my hands on my hips. Justin starts to grab one end of Natalie’s stretcher.

  “It’s okay. I can walk,” she mumbles.

  The driver nods, then speaks in a gruff tone. “Just hold her IV bag above her head and have them hook it up when you get inside.”

  Ahead of us, the doors widen and more light pours out. It’s hard to tell what this building was once, but I think it might have been a factory. Three people jog down the stairs to help us, all of them wearing pale-green scrubs. The closer I get to the loading dock, the more I can see inside.

  Hallways lined with supplies, gun-carrying guards—many of them no older than me. Eyes that have gone hollow and fingers that clutch weapons. A handful of adults are serving food and tending to injured people. Meanwhile, a small army of teenagers and young children is eating dinner inside, each of them careful to guard whatever weapon they’ve found along the journey that led them here.

  Baseball bats. Crowbars. Fireplace pokers. Kitchen knives. Hammers.

  Half their weapons are already bloodstained.

  Billy, Justin, Carla, Natalie, and I weave through the hallways, trying not to trip over anyone in the dim light, catching glimpses of other people who went through hell to get here, many of them wearing bloodstained pajamas because their fight for survival began at home.

  Where they should have been safe.

  This place reminds me of a village in a war-ravaged country, the kind Gov-Net features whenever they’re trying to convince us we’re not so bad off. Look at this—these people are really suffering.

  I shudder and try to stay focused as a trauma surgeon approaches us.

  Is he one of Aerithin’s people, too?

  The surgeon exams Natalie, then says that she should be up and walking in a day, which surprises me. He gives me a grin. “Doctor Hathaway at the clinic is a friend of mine. She used cutting-edge tech, which is why your friend is still alive.”

  This guy’s definitely a Xua. And cutting-edge tech? I wonder if he means Xua tech and if it’s safe for humans.

  He hurries off before I can ask him about Aerithin and Gabe. I make a mental note to find him later.

  Carla stays at my side, while Billy and Justin stop to talk to someone who works here. I hear snippets of their conversation
, although none of it reassures me. Apparently there have been more attacks on U.S. cities, so many that dead bodies are piled in the streets. Several kids here—techno geeks like Natalie—charmed the internet into showing suppressed videos, recordings that Gov-Net must have tried to keep us from seeing.

  As a result, there’s a room set up where people can watch things that are happening around the world. I can hear them describe bombs exploding against night skies, an eruption of billowing bright crimson that devoured an entire city. There were also close-up pictures of Xua, dumpsters filled with aliens that had been slaughtered like cattle. Some people are beginning to fight back against the aliens, but their efforts are too small to make a difference.

  I sink to my knees as I listen, not wanting to hear more. Carla places a hand on my shoulder, gentle at first, until her fingertips begin to dig into my flesh. I wince, knowing she means to provide comfort but unfortunately has none to give.

  My attention shifts as a familiar face peeks at me through night shadows.

  Ella.

  Relief washes over me. She’s alive. Safe.

  Like a skittish woodland animal, she creeps closer, glancing around, red hair spilling in matted tangles over her shoulders, a four-inch gash carved across one cheekbone. She looks first at me, large eyes full of surprise, then with her mouth open, she scans the others around me. Her gaze darts from me to Carla, then it sweeps over Billy and Justin.

  I nod at her, hoping she’ll come closer. She does, one timid step at a time. I know what she’s going to say before she reaches us, even though this particular scenario has never played out before.

  “Where—where’s Gabe? Is he with you?” Her voice comes out raspy and thin, like someone who hasn’t had anything to drink for a long time.

  Like a knife, her question forces its way between my ribs, searching for my heart and finding it. It takes me longer than I expect to answer and, during that time, Carla is watching me, too. She probably doesn’t know what happened to Gabe, either.