by Galaxy Craze
“You let me down,” I told Tanner. “Mary should have been your priority.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was worried for you.”
Then, still patting Caligula’s nose, I turned to him. “We will come back for her. I hold you to that promise.”
Tanner’s face relaxed to an expression of understanding. I hadn’t said that I trusted him, but I would leave with him.
“Should we ride?” I asked, patting Caligula’s saddle.
Tanner pulled a set of keys out of his pants pocket. “Actually, I’ve got a Jeep ready for us,” he said. “Gasoline and all. I think someone will notice if you try to leave the gates on one of those huge warhorses.”
“Gasoline?” I stepped away from the horses and Caligula whinnied. “How?”
“I siphoned it from Demkoe’s tanker.”
I hadn’t ridden in a vehicle with gasoline for a year, since before Hollister’s revolt. There hadn’t been any left in England, not anymore. The Rykers must have brought it with them on the tanker.
“Good-bye, girl,” I said, giving Caligula one last hug. “I’ll be back for you.”
“Eliza,” Tanner said, and I heard the worry in his voice. “We need to go. Now.”
“Okay. I’m ready.” I gave one last pat to Caligula and followed Tanner to our escape route.
* * *
The Jeep was army green, with a freshly painted Ryker guard symbol on its hood—Demkoe’s silhouette, painted in red. Its engine roared as Tanner turned the ignition key. I ducked under the glove compartment as we passed through the gates, the guard on duty waving Tanner through with barely a second glance. Then we were off, moving through the streets of London toward the heart of the city.
“Now what?” I asked, sitting back up and turning to him.
The wind blew gusts of road dirt into my eyes, and I had to hold my cap down to keep from losing it. Tanner was driving fast, too fast, but it felt exhilarating, like freedom.
“Now we find a safe place to sleep for the night,” he said, checking the rearview mirror for the hundredth time. But no one was tailing us. There were no other vehicles visible for miles.
I watched the palace grow smaller as we drove farther away into the dark night.
The city looked rougher, more ruined than I remembered from just a few weeks ago. Windows were broken in, areas that had been rebuilt boarded up once more. There was a layer of ash covering almost everything. I couldn’t believe how quickly all the progress Mary had achieved had been undone.
I was quiet for a few minutes, then glanced over at Tanner. His eyes were set on the road ahead of us, but when he caught me watching him he offered me one of his half-smiles.
“How could you smile at a time like this?” I demanded.
This only made his grin widen to full length. “I don’t know. I guess because I’m more sure than ever that we’re going to win. We got out, Eliza. And we’re going to get Mary out next.”
“You didn’t have to wait to bring us with you,” I blurted out. “To escape, I mean. You could have hopped into this Jeep any time and gotten out all by yourself.”
He returned to watching the long road in front of us. “True.”
“So why did you?”
“Because,” he said.
I made no reply, and after a few minutes of quiet he added, “Because I would never have been able to forgive myself if I lost you.”
I wouldn’t look at him. I wouldn’t take his hand, though I knew it was right there for the taking. I focused on the broken road, the burned-out buildings, the still-burning fires that could be signs of life—or death.
Where were we headed? This American boy and I, in our Ryker army uniforms, in the middle of a bruised and broken city. What could we do, just the two of us, against the power of the Rykers?
“Everyone’s in the heart of the city,” Tanner said, as if he’d read my mind. “There’ll be civilians there, but also troops. Demkoe’s got it occupied with his soldiers.”
I looked down at the red lettering on my blue uniform. “Then we should blend right in,” I said.
“That’s the plan,” Tanner said. “I promise, we’ll figure this out.” And then he did something that surprised me—he reached for my hand, squeezing it warmly in his own, in a silent gesture of support.
I pulled my hand quickly back into my own lap and knotted my fingers together.
“Why don’t you let yourself rest for a few minutes?” Tanner said, pretending not to notice. “I’ve got the driving under control.”
He’d slowed down enough so that we were no longer bouncing up and down in our seats.
“I’m not tired,” I said, though I didn’t even have the energy to protest further. Before I knew it I was closing my eyes, lulled by the steady hum of our Jeep’s dusty engine. Soon I was fast asleep.
20
When I woke up just a few minutes later, it was to a changed landscape. The heart of the city appeared in muted shades of gray and black, and the drab blue of stiff cotton uniforms, as if all of its color, its true lifeblood, had been drained and discarded. Most frightening of all was the fact that there were Rykers everywhere—patrolling the streets, lurking in alleys, perched in windows to wave us past. Some carried machine guns, others had two or three weapons holstered to different parts of their bodies. If not for our uniforms and official vehicle, we never would have made it.
“You said there were civilians,” I whispered to Tanner.
“Demkoe’s imposed a strict curfew,” he answered. “No civilians would be in sight at this hour.”
Looking around at the wreckage of the city, I could tell that many people had lost their homes, and probably many loved ones. Piles of rubble now stood where so many shops and cafés used to reside. Entire apartment buildings had been burned to the ground. What remained sickened me—overturned carriages, their horses shot dead to the ground. Bodies lying heaped in burned-out doorways. Some people had clearly opposed the occupation, and those who remained, subdued, were as good as prisoners within their homes. All of them had lost.
I had to squeeze my eyes shut from taking in any more. It was more than I could bear at the moment.
Finally, when we hadn’t seen any patrolling Rykers for several minutes, Tanner parked the Jeep securely in an out-of-the-way alley, and we both set out in search of a safe place to spend the night. We walked north until we came across a Victorian-style tenement house. It had probably once been beautiful, but now it appeared abandoned. It leaned oddly to the left, and all of its windows had been blown out and boarded up with planks.
“It isn’t pretty, but I don’t think it’s likely to collapse overnight,” Tanner said, eyeing it critically.
“Good enough for me,” I replied.
Tanner and I scoped the perimeter for a way in. It wasn’t difficult. The back screen door swung freely, opening and closing in the wind.
We carefully stepped inside, securing the loose door behind us. In a few seconds our eyes adjusted to the dark. I could tell right away that people had been here recently—squatters, from the look of them. Old blankets and newspapers lay heaped on the floor, and empty bottles of water and crushed food containers littered a table. At the sight of us, a rat scurried diagonally across the floor, causing both of us to startle and jump back. It was good for a brief, stifled laugh.
The whole room smelled of dampened smoke and ash. The air in here was no warmer than it was outside, but at least it seemed a safe enough place to rest.
“The stairs haven’t caved in,” Tanner said. His hand hovered over his concealed gun. “I’ll go check it out up there, make sure there’s no one else.”
I’d already dropped down onto one of the blankets lining the floor. Suddenly, I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone in this place. I reached my hand up to stop him. “It’s okay,” I protested. “If anyone’s up there they’re obviously asleep. It’s probably squatters just like us. Let’s not worry.”
“You’re right,” Tanner sa
id, kneeling down to join me on the floor. By the dark circles beneath his eyes, I could tell he needed the rest as much as I did.
We gathered all the driest blankets around us and lay close together for warmth. I shivered, holding my arms close to my chest, and my breath made tiny puffs in the cold night air. I felt a rustling behind me and then Tanner’s arms were around me, over my own.
“You’re freezing,” he whispered, holding me to his chest. I was too cold to protest. And part of me didn’t want to.
Smoke blew from our mouths and noses as we breathed. As I drifted off, my mind started to play tricks on me, telling me that the arms around me were Wesley’s. I snuggled deeper into Tanner’s chest, not sure whether I cared right now about the fact that I was half-dreaming. In sleep you couldn’t be held responsible for the direction your mind wandered. If I allowed myself to think about it too much, the guilt would be too much to bear, the idea of sleeping next to a boy who wasn’t Wesley.
And then, finally, I was fully and deeply asleep, dreaming of our cabin. In the warm soft glow of my dream state Wesley was stroking my hair, holding my face in his hands. He’d just leaned in to kiss me when I woke up.
Someone was leaning over me. A cold hand was covering my mouth, stifling my scream.
21
“Who are you?” the woman demanded, her voice sharp with anger. She was kneeling, leaning over me, and I couldn’t tell whether she was armed. “Sit up, slowly,” she instructed. “No weapons. Now tell us who you are and why you’re here.”
There was a man leaning over Tanner—her husband, I guessed. They watched as we both sat up carefully, holding our empty palms up to show that we meant no harm. After a moment, the woman released her grip just enough to allow me to form words. “We’re not going to hurt you,” I said.
“You’re one of them,” the man snapped back at me. “All you do is hurt people. What do you want from us?”
It was then that I realized they mistook us for a pair of Demkoe’s soldiers.
“We’re refugees from the palace,” I said, giving them as much of the truth as I could. “We stole these uniforms to escape.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. He looked to be about forty years old, with just-graying brown hair.
“I swear to you,” I said. “We just barely made it out. We thought this was a safe place to sleep.”
The man reluctantly released Tanner and frisked him. Beneath his clothes he found the pistol and keys to the Jeep. “These are military-issued,” he said.
Tanner looked at the man squarely in the eyes. “Sometimes it requires the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house,” he said.
The man laughed and shot a glance to his wife. “All right,” he said. “I suppose you could have shot us in our sleep if you’d wanted to.”
He stuck the gun into his own belt loop and gestured to the staircase. “Come sit,” he said, “and join us for a drink. I’d like to hear how things are in the palace.”
The upstairs was in better shape than the ground floor. It was as clean as possible under the circumstances—the ash had been swept from the walls and the dust from the floor. They’d taken great care to make this broken tenement a home for themselves. The entire second floor composed one narrow room, but the couple had done their best to separate the space into sections—a living room, bedroom, and even a small kitchen area.
“Warm brandy gets us through the night,” the man said, joining us on the rectangular shag carpet that marked the living room area. “We don’t have much, but it’s enough to share.”
I was surprised to see the liquor, wondering where they’d found it, or if someone in town was making it homemade. He poured a small amount of the golden-brown liquid from a metal flask into three juice glasses, then methodically warmed each glass from the bottom with a single candle.
“Thank you,” I murmured, taking the glass he held out for me. When I sipped the warm liquid, it heated my whole body from the inside out. The effect was heavenly.
By the light of the same candle, the man and woman—whose names were Thomas and Libby—told us what it had been like living under Demkoe’s rule.
“The city’s been under complete lockdown for weeks,” Thomas said. “Everyone lives in fear. Nobody knows who they can trust.”
“Do you know anything of Scotland?” I asked, thinking of Jamie and Polly, and the boys.
“Far as I know Demkoe hasn’t expanded quite so far yet,” Thomas replied. “But no one from London’s getting to Scotland any time soon, nor the other way around.”
That meant there was still hope Polly’s house was still standing and they were all safe inside.
Libby ran her fingers back and forth over the shaggy carpet we sat upon. “It’s taken so long for London to be rebuilt. And now, just as things were beginning to improve, we’ve taken such a huge step backward. People are afraid, food is scarce again, crime is everywhere. And these soldiers … they’ll shoot you for looking at them wrong.”
My heart ached, hearing the conditions in London. It was like the aftermath of the Seventeen Days all over again.
“But tell us about the palace,” Thomas said. “What’s it like in there? Are Queen Mary and Princess Eliza okay?” He looked at me curiously, as if seeing me for the first time. “And what did you say your name was, again?”
“Polly McGregor,” I said quickly, adopting Polly’s name just as I had when I was trying to enter Hollister’s New Guard last year. “I was a maid in the palace, and when the Rykers arrived, they forced me to stay, to keep working for him.” I didn’t have to fake the hatred for Demkoe that touched my voice. “The queen and the princess are alive, though they are still his prisoners.”
“What about you?” Thomas asked, turning to Tanner accusingly. “I hear your accent.”
Tanner shrugged. “I was on vacation with my family here when the Seventeen Days hit. I’m good with horses, so I was able to work in the palace stables. Demkoe doesn’t know anything about them, coming from the ocean, so they forced me to stay. I’ve been working on the escape plan for weeks.”
“You were lucky to get out,” Libby said, sounding like a concerned mother.
“Is it true he’s a Viking?” Thomas asked. “Is he really seven feet tall like they say, with fingernails like claws, and a harem of women at his beck and call?”
Tanner gulped down the remaining brandy at the bottom of his glass much too quickly. Then, consciously or not, he slammed the glass down.
Libby and Thomas were startled.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Demkoe isn’t our favorite subject. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course.” Both Libby and Thomas averted their eyes, suddenly sensitive to the fact that Tanner and I may have been tortured or abused as Ryker captives in the palace.
“Suffice it to say that Demkoe is as bad as you’ve heard he is,” I said. “Probably worse.”
“We lost our home,” Thomas said. “And our child, our three-year-old boy.”
Now Tanner and I were the ones averting our eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, knowing as I said it that the words were useless and empty. No apology would bring back their son.
“We’d be extremely grateful if we could sleep on your floor this evening,” Tanner said, changing the subject.
“Of course.” Thomas poured another finger’s worth of brandy into Tanner’s glass.
But Libby was more reluctant. “It’s too late to send you back out into the cold now,” she said. “But we must insist that you leave in the morning.”
“We’ll leave at first light,” Tanner replied, without hesitation.
“It’s just that we don’t want any trouble,” Libby explained defensively. “If we’re caught harboring …”
“No need to explain,” I said. “We understand.”
The fact of the matter was, if they’d known they were harboring the escaped princess and a traitor Ryker officer, they wouldn’t have agreed to let us sleep on their fl
oor for even one night.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Thomas said, repeating his wife’s words. “But if you’re looking for people who are, you can find them at the London Victoria station, down in the tube.”
His words were followed by a heavy silence.
“What do you mean by trouble?” Tanner asked. His eyes sharpened.
“Rebels,” Thomas said. “There’s a big group of them who’ve made their camp in the London Underground. They want to overthrow Demkoe. Lord only knows how they plan to do it.”
“They have to hide underground,” Libby added. “If anyone from the Ryker army catches them, they’re under orders to shoot them on the spot.”
“They must be a serious threat then,” I said, “for Demkoe to go to such great lengths to stifle them. Their rebellion must have real potential.”
“We wouldn’t know,” Libby replied. “Like I said, we’re not looking to rock the boat. We just want to be left alone.”
Tanner and I exchanged a look. We knew our next stop.
22
I woke to the sweet smell of steeping black tea. We were still on Thomas and Libby’s carpet, and Tanner was lying with his arms wrapped protectively around my torso. For a split second I leaned into his warmth, comforted by it, and feeling guilty for that.
Finally, I pulled away, and picked my head up to find Libby preparing us a modest breakfast of bread and butter. A ray of sunlight shined through a slit in the wooden board blocking out the window. I stood up and followed its dusty glimmer to its source, squinting through the wood to get a view of the outside.
London’s streets looked no better this morning. If anything, they appeared worse, their devastation made clearer and more detailed by the unforgiving light of day.
Tanner woke when he felt me missing from his side. He stood up, stretched his arms over his head, and then joined Thomas at the set of milk crates that served as a kitchen table. The four of us made small talk between delicate bites and sips of tea—until Tanner finally got to the question we both knew one of us had to ask: “Can you direct us to the London Victoria station?” He cleared his throat. “We want to seek out those rebels you spoke of.”
