by Amy Braun
That took me aback. “What?”
Sawyer slowly dragged his foot back against the floorboards again. I watched the heel of his boot catch and jump over an uneven crevice between them. I let go of my knees and crawled over to his foot, pushing it aside and using my torch to look at the boards. The slit was no larger than the width of my index finger, but I knew for certain it hadn’t been in the house when I was growing up. My parents would never leave something so obvious for me to trip on.
Sawyer shifted so I could reach for my belt. I had left my messenger bag back on the Dauntless, figuring all I needed for this expedition were a belt with some screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, and my own personally designed flashbangs and torches. I took a screwdriver from my belt, slid it into the crevice, and pushed up.
The board screeched, but lifted. Sawyer curled his fingers under it and helped me pry the board loose. He set it aside and peered with me into the open space. The dull glow of the torch’s light revealed a simple, leather satchel layered with dust in the hollow crevice. My pulse began to race. I shoved the torch into Sawyer’s hands and grabbed the leather bag. I propped it on the floor and unlatched its tarnished gold clasps.
It was filled with papers, notebooks, and charts.
Heart pounding, I grabbed a small, red leather notebook from inside the satchel and flipped it open. The pages were delicate and yellowed, but I recognized my mother’s cursive handwriting. I skimmed the book, stopping when I came across the sketch of a machine. It didn’t look much different from the tubes Garnet used to contain the electricity he stole. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d seen this design and stole it from my parents. Only, in this sketch, there were two of them in this single design. Each tube stood erect on a dais, an arch of electricity connecting them. Above the bolt was a long, jagged tear like a shredded wound, a harshly drawn patch or blackness that looked like it had been sketched with aggression. Or fear.
It took me a moment to discover what it was. When I did, the air seemed to escape my lungs.
“The Breach,” I whispered.
Sawyer shuffled closer, illuminating the pages with the torch so he could look with me. “Are you sure?”
“It has to be.” I nodded automatically, still transfixed by the sketch.
“Then what does that thing do?” He pointed to the machine drawn underneath the sketch. “Do you think it’s supposed to be their machine for closing the Breach?” He sounded just as breathless as I did.
“Possibly, but I’m not sure,” I admitted. There were no notes on this particular page. “It looks like a conductor, and a massive electric charge trying to force the Breach to close.” I looked away from the journal, thinking for a moment. “That could be the same kind of force that opened it in the first place.”
“What do you mean?”
I looked at him. “The whole point of the exploration was to find new territory in Aon and help with overpopulation. What if the explorers and scientists knew there was another dimension that was closed to us? What if the explorers found a weak part connecting our worlds, and took the Discovery team to force it open? That would explain why they wanted so many engineers and Electricians on the crew.”
His brow furrowed in concentration. “I remember they were supposed to be traveling with a heavy Sky Guard unit.” He seemed to come across a dark thought, and looked at me with wider eyes. “You think the Discovery invaded the Hellion world? Hellnore, or whatever Riley called it?”
“It’s possible,” I concurred. “I won’t know until I read more.” I flipped through the notebook while Sawyer rifled through the satchel.
“Found their passbooks,” he announced, holding up two small booklets. As he flipped through them, I caught glimpses of stamps and work visas. When my parents were recruited for larger jobs, it usually involved traveling on airships to other parts of Aon.
“Is this them?”
Sawyer tilted the passbooks in my direction. Faces in faded photographs stared back at me. Their expressions were serious, but there was laughter in my parent’s eyes. It had been so long since I’d seen their faces. Even my last memories of them seemed to be missing that spark. The first eight years of my life were blurry, but looking at these faces brought back flashes of days that seemed like fantasies now. My mother showing me how an engine operated. My father letting me ride on his shoulders when he took me to market for candy. The way my mother cradled me to her chest during the fiercest thunderstorms. The proud look on my father’s face when I constructed my first engine alone.
I nodded, swallowing the sob that built in my throat, and blinking away tears as I looked into the eyes of the people I loved.
Sawyer must have noticed the pain on my face, but he didn’t comment on it. He looked at the ink stamps again. “Visas granted for work on the Capital Meridian,” he read softly. “That must be their ship’s name.”
I nodded again, excitement pumping through my veins. “It is. I remember it now.”
He glanced at the photos again, then held the passbooks out to me. “Abby will be happy to see these,” he said.
My heart fluttered. I couldn’t think straight. This would mean the world to my sister, who had never met our parents. What I remembered were snippets of memories that would disappear over time. Abby had nothing to hang onto. This would help her, bring a little more light into her darkening life. Something to make her hold on a little bit longer. A new lump formed in my throat.
Sawyer’s hand curled around my shoulder. I raised my head, watching the small smile grow across his face. I was hyperaware of the way his thumb drifted over the curve of my shoulder and grazed the skin of my neck.
Tawny eyes caressed my face, gliding over it like sunlight skimming along water. I searched for breath, words, anything to offer him. To extend this moment into what I wanted. When my eyes dropped to his lips, I heard his quiet intake of breath. I leaned closer, but his thumb left my skin. He drew back, withdrawing his hand and fumbling through the satchel again.
My heart slumped. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He always drew me close before wavering and drifting away again. I sighed, wishing the pressure in my chest would ease.
Sawyer silently picked through the satchel, stopping when he took out a square piece of drafting paper. He unfolded it and spread it on the floor. He held his breath, silencing everything but the aggressive wind outside.
“Look at this,” he whispered. I tore my eyes from him and looked at the paper. My frustration and disappointment retreated to the back of my mind.
It was a full-fledged design sketch of the machine in my father’s scrawl. I would know that blocky scribble anywhere. Notes, measured dimensions, and arrows were written around the hollow looking design. Proof that the concept my parents had imagined was becoming a reality.
I pressed my hands against the sketch, scanning it as quickly as I could. There was some kind of loud argument or commotion starting downstairs, but I ignored it. I was too busy looking at the plans for the machine, which my father had named the Palisade.
“This is perfect!” I exclaimed. “It’s just what we need…”
When I looked up at Sawyer, he was no longer kneeling beside me. He was standing by the doorway with tense shoulders and tightly clenched fists. That was when I heard the shouts, and the fear laced in them.
“What’s going on?” I heard Riley’s voice down the hall.
“Don’t know,” answered Sawyer. “But I think we need to leave.”
“Now?” Riley came out of the master bedroom, where he must have been looking. “I haven’t found anything, and the storm hasn’t let up.”
A small smile tugged at my lips. “We might not be able to do anything about the storm, but we won’t come away empty-handed,” I countered, folding the design plans and stuffing them back into the satchel. I tucked the journal and passbooks into my jacket and stood up holding the leather case triumphantly. “We have the plans for the machine.”
Riley looked at the satchel and grinned.
His joy was short-lived when a loud crash sounded from the foyer. Sawyer shouldered past him and started down the hall for the stairs. I hurried after him, clutching the leather folio to my chest. Riley followed me, both of us coming to a halt when we saw Gemma storming up the stairs with Nash behind her.
“Hellions,” Nash announced worriedly.
“Damn it,” growled Sawyer.
“A couple skiffs landing nearby. They saw us in the living room before we could hide. They’re trying to break in, but I don’t know how many there are. They’re probably surrounding the whole house.”
I shivered. The snow wasn’t going to bother a Hellion’s sight, and they didn’t feel the cold. Like true predators, they had no problem waiting for their prey to come to them.
Sawyer turned to me. “Is there a place we can hide?”
Before he could even finish the question, the front door burst open. Two Hellions raced through like black lightning.
Familiar terror rushed through me when I saw their faces, stripped of their needle-tipped masks thanks to the abysmal weather. Waxy black hair draped their pasty white faces. The claws on each hand were short, jagged meat hooks. The whites of their eyes were replaced with blood, looking as though every blood vessel in their eyes had burst. Two rows of saw-like teeth hung in their gaping, hungry mouths. Their screams were like broken glass in my ears, sharp and piercing.
Even in their heavy black jumpsuits, long ago stolen from dead Sky Guards, they moved at a nearly blurring speed, racing toward the living room where the other survivors were. One of the terrified men was driven into the ground with a scream and a spray of blood bursting from his chest. A gunshot cracked through the house, drowning out the dying man’s cry. The bullet ripped out of the second Hellion’s back, but didn’t slow it down. It didn’t even acknowledge the pain when it pounced on another survivor.
Its fangs latched onto the woman as they both collapsed. She howled in agony as blood erupted out of her neck. The Hellion shook its head ravenously, tearing the woman’s throat to bloody shreds. Beside it, the uninjured Hellion had already drained its victim and was looking for its next meal. The survivors backed into the living room, drawing their guns and firing random shots in desperation. The bullet that entered the Hellions’ torsos didn’t even slightly deter them.
Sawyer had drawn his flintlock the moment the monsters broke through the door. He aimed his pistol and fired at them. The bullet struck the right Hellion in the head. It pitched to the left and collapsed onto the floor.
The second one snapped its head over to us, shrieking and charging for the stairs. Our height from the stairs proved to be our advantage. Nash pushed Gemma behind him and kicked the Hellion in the chest to force it back down the stairs. Gemma shouldered past him and drew her gun, firing a bullet into the skull of the Hellion. Thick blood erupted from the creature’s skull before it too crumpled into a heap.
Two Hellions were dead. I should have felt elated, confident.
Then the wooden boards on the windows snapped and crunched. Wind roared into the house, rising in pitch to match the terrified cries of the trapped survivors.
Sawyer, Gemma, and Nash bolted down the stairs to help. I followed them, ignoring Riley’s warning shouts.
I made it to the foyer and watched four Hellions crawl through the splintered wooden boards before three more Hellions shoved through the door and blocked us.
Riley came out of nowhere, pulled the knives from his belt, and slashed at two of them. The monsters leaned away and swung their fists at him. He ducked the blow aimed for his head, but not the one that collided with his stomach. The Hellions had him pinned on two fronts, and were going to slice him to ribbons if he couldn’t defend himself in time.
My hand was already out and unfolding my pocketknife. If I survived this, I was going to demand that Sawyer give me something more intimidating. For now, I would make do.
I darted forward and shoved the knife into the throat of the closest Hellion. It stiffened and wrenched its neck in my direction, oblivious to the gash it tore in its throat. It stared at me with burning eyes, fangs glistening with saliva between its dagger-teeth. I pulled the blade back and took another step, trying to think through the wave of panic, but the Hellion was quicker than me.
It screeched and lunged, throwing out its arms to capture me. I stopped trying to think, and simply reacted.
I ducked under its arms and weaved around to its side. Staying low, I drove the pocketknife into its ribs. It jerked and shrieked again, swinging the back of its hand to glance a blow along my stomach. The strike was about as strong as a slap, but if I had been any closer, the claws would have gutted me.
The Hellion advanced again, raising its hand to cleave off my face. I raised my arm, but wasn’t going to be fast enough to stop it–
An arm went around the Hellion’s throat, a knife into its heart. The Hellion screamed again and forgot about me, turning to face Riley, who faced it with a snarl and raging eyes.
I glanced past him, trying to see where the others were fighting. The Hellions were sweeping through the foyer, blood spraying left and right. Sawyer and Gemma fought with their blades while Nash used the end of his pistol as a bludgeon. The Hellions moved too quickly for proper aim, and the survivors couldn’t risk friendly fire. I couldn’t see if anyone was hurt with so much chaos. Four more Hellions filled the room. I had to do something to help them–
Fingers twisted tightly in my hair and pulled back. I screamed from the sudden, abrupt pain. The satchel, which I had forgotten was in my left hand, was yanked from my grip. I thrashed and struggled, trying to get away from my attacker. He chuckled and drew me closer, and my blood went colder than the wind outside the door.
“Gotcha,” Davin Kendric whispered.
Chapter 5
He pulled me out of my home and threw me down the porch steps into the snow. I grimaced at its swift cold bite. The flurry from the storm stung my eyes and snapped against my face. Davin towered over me, clutching the satchel in one hand and making a fist with the other.
The Hellion commander seemed even bigger than I remembered him, looming above me with wide shoulders and massive arms barely contained in his black jumpsuit. A broad cutlass hung on the belt looped around his waist. Davin’s pale face was nearly lost in the snow. Thin strands of black hair swayed across his temples from the wind. He smiled, showing razor sharp teeth and matching the cruelty I saw in his blood red eyes.
“Missed me, darling?” He took his time walking toward me. “Because I missed you. But I’ve been biding my time. Watching you cozy up with my brother. What a love story you two have; the arrogant young pirate, and the irritating engineer.”
I pushed to my feet, raising my hands, only to learn too late that I was missing my pocketknife.
Davin’s grin widened. “Let me give you some advice, darling. Don’t fight.” He raised the satchel. “I got most of what I need. You’re the last piece. I’m not supposed to bring you back in pieces, but…” he shrugged, “other accidents can happen.”
He lunged for me, and I reacted by swinging my fist at his face. His move was a feint, and I fell right into his hands.
My strike went too wide. All Davin had to do was tilt his head back. He was close enough to throw a punch into the side of my head. Pain exploded through my skull and the world blinked into darkness. The feel of cold snow melting on my face and in my mouth woke me up. I shook my head, trying to clear the painful blur inside it.
Davin’s arm slid under my stomach, and he easily scooped me up onto his shoulder. I kicked and pounded on his back. I didn’t think I was really hurting him, but he wasn’t pleased with my reactions. Frustrated, he grabbed my waist with both hands and threw me again.
Instead of landing in the snow, I slammed onto a hard wooden surface. A painful shock went through my elbow, but I ignored it and tried to push to my feet. My hands slid along the deck of a skiff twice the size of Sawyer’s, and came away red. I lifted my head and cringed when I st
ared into the terrified, glazed eyes of a dead woman with a shredded throat leaning against the mast. Her blood was cool under my hands, but she couldn’t have been dead more than a few minutes.
