Airplanes. I can’t see them yet, but I know that’s what they are now.
My heart sinks until my chest feels like a black hole.
The words of our president echo in my mind: “We may need to go through a few more dark days before we begin to see the light again—”
He was telling us the end was near. That a lot of people would die before there was any hope of winning this war.
The trembling in the ground intensifies just as a formation of planes appears in the distance. I lose my balance, tumble, and hit my knee on pavement. The universe has shifted, mirrors surround us, higher than mountains, wider than oceans, what is and what will be, hope and destruction and every beginning and ending opens up in front of us. I see the beginning of the earth, the first man and woman, babies without number dissolving into unmarked graves, we live, we die, we are dust. I turn, and behind me the Xua have already left their hosts; a cloud of black dust is transforming into a crowd of slender silver bodies, every one of them braced and ready to run as soon as the doors to the future open.
They leave a pile of human carcasses behind, and I can’t bear to look at the bodies.
But the mirror doors haven’t opened yet.
It’s hunting season.
We start shooting the aliens, weapons firing and striking silver flesh, glowing blood pouring out, Xua bodies slumping to the ground. We have only so many bullets, and they’re gone too soon. Before long, both Carla and Natalie are pulling triggers that echo with a hollow click.
Across from me, just a few feet away, the dead bodies of our parents, sisters, brothers, and friends litter the ground—
And overhead the planes fly, close enough to see.
A big black X is painted on the side of each and every one. The mark of a plane carrying white bombs.
Billy bolts toward his father’s body. He uses the butt of his rifle to sweep an opening in the path of salt and then runs across bare earth. Likewise, Justin rushes to his mother’s side, and I can totally understand why he’s doing this. We might all be dying in a few minutes, and he wants to see her one last time. He lifts her into his arms, shakes her gently, as if trying to wake her up, as if he can’t believe she’s really dead. Some of the bodies do look as if they’re merely sleeping. Maybe the Xua have another way to leave without ripping us apart. Maybe they only do that when they’re in a panic.
Justin’s mother opens her lips, and I gasp.
Maybe she wasn’t possessed; maybe she’s still alive!
But then a black-headed Xua pours out of her mouth.
I stumble forward.
No.
No!
“Justin!” I scream as it pushes its way inside Justin’s mouth, and I take off at a dead run. “Billy! Kill it!”
It’s no use. Justin falls to his back, and the last of the Xua slips inside.
I skid to a stop just inside the salt line and choke back a wail. I’ve never seen a possession happen so fast. There’s no way I could’ve gotten there in time, and Billy froze in place, but it doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t have been fast enough to stop it even if he’d been standing right beside Justin with his switchblade open.
But one of the things I’ve learned from my time travels is this: Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they usually do. They get a lot worse.
Billy whirls around and aims his rifle at me.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“You never understood how dangerous your brother is,” he answers.
A chill floods through me. “What?”
But I already know, don’t I?
He swept the salt away with the rifle.
He didn’t try to save Justin.
He’s a frigging Xua.
Now I know why they’ve been a step ahead of us the whole time.
Planes of death are heading our way, Justin is still flailing and choking as the Xua takes full possession of him, and Billy is a traitor.
All I can do is whisper, “Justin.”
Worse. And then even worse.
The mirror doors open. The Xua who are still alive race toward them.
Billy tosses us a cavalier grin, then he pulls Justin to his feet.
I know Justin has a Xua inside him and that makes him my enemy now, but all I can see is the boy who was always there for me, more than anyone else.
Justin turns and looks at me, his eyes dark, a troubled expression on his face.
I’ve never seen him look so lost.
Then he runs through a mirror door, disappearing from sight, Billy a step behind him.
“When I find your little brother, I’ll tell him you said hi,” Billy says to me, the mirrors embracing him, distorting his features. “Right before I kill him.”
“Bastard!” I scream.
But both of them are already gone, and my curse just circles the parking lot and the street without purpose.
The mirrors disappear and, at that same moment, the heavens overhead darken. The formation of planes is right above us, all of them white against indigo sky, flying so close together they’re like an interlocking puzzle of positive and negative shapes.
The building windows rattle from the noise of the engines. Can the pilots see the expressions on our faces? Do they know they’re killing a bunch of helpless kids?
My mouth is filled with dust, and I can’t speak, I can’t move.
Beside me, Natalie is speechless, something that doesn’t happen very often. She just slips her hand in mine. Ella takes my other hand and presses her trembling lips into a thin line. Carla slides one arm around my waist. Still as stone, we watch the pattern of white and blue that moves and shifts and drones, the hatches that swing open, and the glistening white cylinders that slide into view.
We gasp.
I want to close my eyes, but I can’t.
The cylinders, the bombs, all release at the same precise moment, and they plummet faster than I expect, growing larger and larger as we watch, the air filling with a whine that changes pitch.
Natalie leans her head on my shoulder, and I wonder what would have happened if we’d never been best friends. Maybe she’d be free somewhere right now, or maybe she’d be in some part of the city where the bombs aren’t falling, or maybe she could have gone to Seoul one more time to see her father.
If I hadn’t fallen in love with Justin, maybe the Xua wouldn’t have chased him for countless lives; they wouldn’t have possessed him and pulled him into the future. He and Billy wouldn’t be hunting for my little brother right now, hoping to kill him.
If I had never cared about anyone, maybe they would have found a way to be free. There has to be a place in the universe where it’s still safe, where children can be just children, where they don’t have to learn to fire weapons or swing hammers at their parents to survive.
Up above, the bombs explode and Agent-X begins to spray out, a mist that glistens and catches the sunlight in a glittering rainbow. Horrible and beautiful.
At this moment, I am anything but valiant.
I am weak and pitiful and ashamed and broken and defeated.
I wrap my arms around Ella and Natalie and Carla, trying my best to offer a few inches of protection for them, my head lowered.
The whine overhead has turned into a hiss, like the sound of sprinklers on a lawn. Agent-X is drifting down, filling the world with silence, wrapping us in a bubble that both traps us and blocks out everything else. The sunlight dims, and everything around me is white.
I’m blinded.
Even if I wanted to run, I wouldn’t know which way to go.
I think I hear something, almost like music, like metallic chimes, hollow tubes sliding against one another in the wind, the rhythm erratic, the sound growing louder, then softer, a clanging and banging of metal against glass—
The light arou
nd me grows brighter, then dims. Almost like sunlight when it reflects off a mirror, casting beams of light that move closer.
Heat so strong I can barely breathe wafts over me, and I whimper, waiting for the end to come, for my skin to start melting like wax.
“Sara—”
“Sara, hurry! This way!”
Voices, soft and indistinct—I can barely hear them over the chimes, over the silence, over the movement of mirrored doors.
A thousand mirrored doors are sliding open, only this time it’s not for a Xua army. It’s for us.
Hands are latching onto us, pulling us up.
“Climb up, all of you, take hold of his fur. Hurry!”
Arms are reaching down and grabbing onto us. I realize that I recognize one of the voices—
It’s Gabe! My brother is here.
He’s riding a fire-beast.
Another person is with my brother, but I don’t know him. He smells like a forest, earth, moss, leaves.
“Noah, hurry!” my brother yells at him.
It’s the boy Aerithin told me I would meet one day. The unavoidable cascading event in my future was him saving my life.
Noah.
He grabs hold of Natalie and yanks her up onto the fire-beast, then reaches back down for Carla and Ella. The beast radiates heat and, as soon as I touch it, a vibrating purr runs through me.
My brother wraps one arm around me, pulls me up onto the beast in front of him, and holds me safe. His other hand latches onto a fistful of burning fur. The sound of Agent-X is like rain now, the planes above, one last echo of thunder and the descending mist, a hissing wet curtain.
“Now, fly!” Gabe yells from behind me. He must be directing the fire-beast, just like Aerithin used to do. “Faster than you ever have before! Take us back, now!”
Agent-X is so close I can feel the skin on my shoulders sting, and we’re all howling in pain as my brother leads us in a charge, back through the mirrored doors, all of us temporarily blinded by the falling white bombs.
47
2137 A.D.
Within moments, we’ve gone from a field of blinding white through the Corridor of Time to the edge of a forest. The gray sky overhead is even darker here, and birds sing in the nearby trees, warning one another of our presence.
A city that I think is Los Angeles looms in the distance, but everything looks so different that I’m not sure. I can see the remnants of a freeway to the right, but it looks more like a green river with vegetation growing up the sides. Trees sprout up on overpasses and rusted metal pokes through. A shopping center stands on the far side of the freeway, but it only vaguely resembles a building. Trees cover the roof and vines creep up the walls.
Is this where my brother has been all along?
Another boy, a bit older than me, stands at the edge of a forest, watching me. His pants are torn and dirty, and his long blond hair is braided and woven with feathers.
Noah.
He hasn’t spoken to me since we got here.
Except for Natalie, Ella, Carla, and me, there are no other girls here. I haven’t been able to count exactly how many boys there are. They keep darting in and out of the woods, stopping to talk to Noah, who nods from time to time. He must be in charge.
Just like me.
Aerithin’s fire-beast sits away from us and, even at this distance, the creature’s light and fire warms us. Its long liquid strands of fur shift with each breath of wind, and occasionally sparks fly off into the darkness.
Maybe our rescue from the white bombs was something that had to happen; maybe it was part of us changing destiny.
I just wish Aerithin would have told me about it.
He should have told me what would happen to Justin. I struggle to breathe every time I think about it, that look on his face that broke my heart.
Billy’s betrayal was another sucker punch to all of us. Natalie hasn’t been able to look me in the eye since we got here, as if she should have known. But how could she? Hunters are impossible to detect.
So are Leaders.
I have no idea when Billy got possessed or what his real endgame was. It really seemed like he was part of our team—right up until he pulled a gun on me.
Aerithin probably knows how it happened. He might even know which Xua possessed Justin and Billy.
Aerithin stands at the edge of the field, separated from our group. He looks injured, one arm held tight against his chest, and he limps when he walks.
I try to imagine his life, always traveling through a land of mirrors and corridors, where destiny is a game played for all of eternity. I can’t understand it—the way time spirals and changes, how the universe shifts whenever someone travels through time, the fact that Aerithin can slice through the fabric of reality.
And the fact that he’s so different from the other Xua.
There’s an almost majestic quality to him, something about the way he holds his head and the expression on his face. I’ve always wondered if there was royalty in his blood. There must be a reason why he leads a band of rebels.
But it’s all a mystery and I may never know. He may never tell me the answers I want to hear.
Gabe walks up to Noah, a scowl on his face. You’d think my brother would be happy that I’m safe or that his girlfriend, Ella, is here, but he’s not. He’s angry.
“Why did we get there so late?” Gabe demands. He pitches a stone into the distance, striking a nearby hillside with a whumpf. “They almost died! We were already traveling through time—couldn’t you have chosen an earlier doorway? Look at them—they’re burned. My sister’s neck is covered with blisters, and have you seen Natalie’s back? I think her first layer of skin must have peeled off.” He shakes his head firmly. “We should have gotten there sooner; we could have saved Justin—”
Noah stills him by raising a hand.
“The Xua think your sister is dead,” he says.
Gabe and I look at each other, then I glance at Natalie, who is obviously listening. I don’t think any of us thought of that.
“I’m sorry,” Noah says, and his gaze shifts away from me.
A minute earlier and Justin could have been rescued with us. They exchanged his life for letting the Xua think I’m dead. In what world is that worth it?
A surge of panic thunders in my chest as the memory of Justin rushes through me—how he smells, the sound of his voice, the way his smile lifts my spirits—and I struggle to my feet. My heart feels like it’s being ripped in half. That Xua poured down Justin’s throat so fast, I couldn’t have stopped it.
No. Letting him die was definitely not worth it. Nothing will ever be the same now.
I need to be alone.
I push my way through the long grass, down a slope, and into the forest, away from everyone else. Here, amid a covering of black oaks and willows, I fall to my knees, mourning everything I’ve lost. My parents, all the people in the abandoned building, Earth as we knew it.
And Justin.
I’m so in love with him. I always will be.
He’s here, somewhere. I know it.
And he and Billy are both hunting for Gabe.
I shudder as I think about what Justin is now, a flesh-and-blood disguise for the Xua inside him.
The next time we see each other, he won’t be the boy I fell in love with. He’ll be my enemy.
Maybe it’s his destiny to kill me.
No. I refuse to accept that it’s over, that there’s no hope.
There must be a way to bring Justin back. If I were possessed by a Xua, he’d do whatever he could to save me.
“I’ll always love you,” I whisper, hoping that some part of him knows I’m still alive and that I’ll be looking for him.
I stay in the woods for a long time. A cool wind blows through the trees, stirring leaves and branches. I stand,
planning to rejoin the others, but a shadow has crept into the forest behind me and has been waiting.
My brother.
He looks older now, like he’s been here a year instead of a few days. He’s got a V tattoo on his chest, his hair has grown long and wild, and he’s as dirty as the other boys. He’s thinner and taller, and his lip trembles as I draw near.
“I thought I would lose you,” he confesses, his words soft. “I thought the Xua would get you. And then, I saw the white bombs dropping and I thought we were too late—”
Tears trace paths down his cheeks. Down mine, too.
“If we hadn’t gotten there in time, I would have turned that fire-beast around and gone back to another doorway,” he says with a sniff, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “I don’t care what Noah or any of the others say. I would have gone back for you.”
I slide my arms around his waist and rest my head on his chest. “I would have done the same for you,” I whisper.
For a long time, I listen to his heartbeat, the soft drum that says, He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive, over and over again. His heartbeat gives me hope that somehow we’ll all survive. Even Justin.
But, as much as I want it to be enough, it isn’t.
I need answers and I need them now.
Gabe and I find Aerithin sitting beside his fire-beast, as if he’s waiting for us, as if he’s known all along that it would come down to this moment when I would confront him. Up until now, we’ve only had brief, frantic moments together, when he saved me from certain death and then transported me back in time.
This time, I’m not going anywhere and neither is he.
“I thought you were dead,” I ask Aerithin. “What happened?”
He breathes slowly and deeply, his gaze fixed upon the distant horizon of broken buildings. “Exactly what should have happened.”
I bristle. I’m tired of his circular logic and his cascading events. “If this was how it was supposed to happen, why didn’t you save Gabe yourself in the first place? I obviously couldn’t. I failed every single time!”
“You did not fail. You succeeded.” He looks at me, his eyes flickering and dimming for a moment. “You did exactly what I told you to do. You kept your brother alive until morning.”
Valiant Page 23
