by Megan Curd
“So right now we’ll have breakfast with all the students,” Sari informed us as we walked. “Then we’ll have a bit of free time to spend reading, meditating, or whatever strikes your fancy.”
“What if I want to parachute off the academy? Is there a place to sign up for that?” I said, attempting a joke.
“Why in the world would you want to do that?”
“Because she’s a nutter,” called a voice I’d recognize anywhere, much to my chagrin.
“Jaxon,” I said stiffly.
Sari laughed. “You call him Jaxon? Weird. We all call him Jax.”
“Like I said, she’s a nutter.” He waved his had as though I’d proven his point.
I shook my head and kept following Sari.
Jaxon fell in step. “Looking forward to some real food?”
Alice squeaked with excitement but cut it off after I shot her a withering look. The last thing he needed was encouragement.
“Oh, come on Pike, admit it. You like having me around.”
“I like having you around about as much as sitting in a tub full of rusty scissors.”
He winked. “Sticks and stones, love. Don’t you remember how it was in the schoolyard when you were young? The girl that claims boys have cooties always ends up being the one that gives it up first.”
“If you mean gives up on diplomacy and hauls off and clocks the boy in question, then yes, you’d be correct.”
He rolled his eyes and opened his mouth for what promised to be another retort when an ear-splitting alarm sounded.
A booming voice echoed off the atrium walls—Mr. Riggs. “A noncitizen of Dome Seven has been sighted outside. I repeat, a noncitizen was sighted outside. Please return to your rooms until the threat has been eliminated.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Jaxon lamented, “today was French toast day.”
I glanced between him and Sari, who both looked suspiciously excited. “I take it we’re not going to breakfast?”
“Nope, we’re doing something more fun.”
“Which is?”
He acted as though I’d asked the dumbest question ever. “Sneaking out the academy and finding the noncitizen, of course.”
Oh, of course. That made perfect sense. Go get ourselves killed after avoiding imprisonment in our own dome. Sounded like a great plan.
JAXON GRABBED MY hand and held tight. An unfamiliar zing of electricity surged through me at his touch. I liked it. I glanced at him for a split second to find him looking at me with a curious expression.
Does he like it, too?
As quickly as the thought surfaced, he squashed it by releasing his hold. I felt an inexplicable pang of loss. That moment we touched…it had been unlike any touch I’d experienced before. I locked the feeling far in the back of my mind. It was Jaxon. Nothing about him was nice. Well, besides his looks and the lilt of his voice. Get a grip, Avery. The academy is on lockdown, and you’re panting after a guy you don’t even know.
He pointed at Sari. “Take Alice with you. I’ll take Avery. We’ll flank each side of the building.”
Sari pulled her gloves higher, put a hand on the small of Alice’s back, and whispered in her ear. Alice looked like she was going to throw up.
“What are we flanking?” I asked, holding my gaze on Alice, whose knees were now shaking.
“The intruder, of course,” Jaxon said.
My mind immediately raced back to two nights ago when the Polatzi rained down on us. Panic settled in my stomach. “That’s not what Mr. Riggs said to do.”
“Heavens, no,” Sari chirped. “We’re supposed to go sit in our rooms until he gives us the all clear, but…”
“But where’s the fun in that?” Jaxon finished. His angelic smile was almost believable. Almost.
And then I remembered that even Lucifer had been a beautiful angel once, which explained a lot, when I thought about it. I swallowed. My throat felt like sandpaper. “Have you done this before?”
“Oh yeah, loads of times.”
“And it turns out okay?”
“Usually. Sari broke her arm once, and I needed seventeen stitches another, but our medical wing is top-notch. No worries.”
Suddenly, Alice threw up on Sari’s shoes.
Sari shook her left foot rigorously. She didn’t seem to be the least bit grossed out, merely annoyed. She wrapped one of Alice’s arms around her neck to help her walk. “Well, we know who the newbie is. I’ll take her back to the room and meet you outside.”
Jaxon pulled me toward the grand staircase. “Can’t I go with her?”
“Nope.”
“And why not?”
“Because I believe you’re made of a higher caliber than your Traditional friend.”
“Wait a second.” I jerked him to a stop. “Alice is one of the bravest people I know.”
“And yet she just yacked all over Sari’s shoes. What company you keep.”
He gripped my hand and tried to pull me forward, but I slapped it away. “I’m serious. She’s scared, and you’re blowing it off. How would you feel if you were somewhere new and all this started happening?”
Jaxon seemed surprised that anyone would ever consider arguing with him. He walked back to me, his eyes full of sincerity when he spoke this time. “Avery, if I thought Sari was incapable of taking care of your friend, I would not take you on this little adventure. Alice is in good hands, I assure you.”
“She’s more than a Traditional.”
“And I apologize for minimalizing her that way.”
The alarm overhead continued to screech, and in the flashing red lights, I wondered if I should trust him. He held out his hand once more. I took it.
This guy is making me do stupid things.
He led me past the fountain and straight toward the stairs. As we walked, he rummaged through the bag he’d been wearing on his back.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“These.” He pulled an oxygen mask out far enough that I could see what it was, then slipped it back into the bag.
“I didn’t think we needed those here.”
“Better safe than sorry when you’re doing things you’ll probably end up sorry for doing…follow me?” His voice was playful and he didn’t seem the least bit worried about our half-cocked plan, which did nothing for my confidence in my decision to follow him.
When we reached the stairs, he began to press the silver stars embedded in the granite, his fingers dancing deftly across the monolith. He stepped back, and the stars glowed a cyanotic blue. The outline of a door emerged, and the stone slid away.
He pulled me through the opening. “Hurry up.”
“What did you just do?”
“A magic trick. Follow me.”
We ran up the slippery cement steps. The derelict walls were blanketed in green and yellow mold; its fuzzy growth even overtook the railing. Old rusted cogs revealed the academy’s underbelly. They struggled to turn under the weight of the kudzu that grew between the teeth of the gears, and turquoise oxidation had overtaken most of the copper. I ran my hand along a lever, and Jaxon hissed under his breath. “For the love of God, don’t touch anything down here. It’s the only safe place in the Academy. If you start poking, prodding, and leaving a trail, cameras will go up here too.”
I pulled my hand away and heard the squelch of watery muck under my palm. Enough light shone from the intermittent gas lamps to reveal that my hand was now a breeding ground for God knew what. I moved to wipe it off, only to be barked at again in the low light.
“Don’t wipe that on your pants. It’ll never stop growing. Wipe it on the wall.” He took two steps at a time, apparently undeterred by the perilous grime on the stairs. I did as he said and grimaced when the mold attached itself to the wall.
I wheezed, struggling to keep up. A blast sounding like cannon fire overhead shook the passageway. Dust and small debris fell from the ceiling as the floor rumbled. An over-patched pipe that ran the length of the ground beg
an to groan, and a bolt sprang loose. Steam hissed and exploded from the hole. Every neuron in my body was on fire with a mixture of adrenaline and fright, but it was a reaction I could understand. This was more like home. I cocked my ear toward the top of the stairs after another blast thundered. “What in the world was that?”
“The warning shot. Next one will be to kill. We’ve got to find the insurgent before Riggs does.”
The blood in my veins ran cold. Insurgent? What kind of place is this? I thought we were here of our own free will.
Then it hit me.
Jaxon had taken Alice and me. Taken us. We didn’t have a choice. It had been the Polatzi or Jaxon. Part of me wondered if other students came from similar situations.
Another boom sounded overhead, freezing me in my tracks. Try as I might, panic seeped in. Why are we doing this? Who are we trying to save? Who, what, where, why? Questions rampaged through me. What had I gotten myself into? I longed for the time I could simply sneak out and hide from the wandering eye of the Polatzi.
Jaxon was there instantly, hands on my upper arms.
“Pull it together,” he urged, his eyes full of concern I’d never seen there before. “We’re this guy’s only hope.” He started back up the stairs, now running.
I heard the echo of a doorknob turning, and then sunlight streamed down the passageway. Almost to the top. My muscles ached from speeding up the stairs, but I was desperate to find whomever Mr. Riggs was shooting before they were killed.
Jaxon grabbed my hand and pushed me through the door into the light. He was right behind me, not wasting a second. “The shot came from this direction,” he said, taking on the air of a dog in the middle of a hunt. “Riggs’s defenses can’t shoot more than forty yards out. The guy will be close. Come on.”
The holograms were barely visible. Only vestiges of tall willowy grass remained. The destruction from the war prevailed. We ran between abandoned cars and remained in shadows. Jaxon’s eyes constantly darted upward, always watching. Twice, he held his arm out to his side, stopping me in my tracks to point out cameras. We were never alone.
We rounded the corner of a massive white stone citadel. Jaxon whirled to face me. “Stay here,” he said before disappearing around the corner.
I pressed myself against the stone wall. It had been warmed by the sun and would have been comforting had I not been breaking more rules than I could count and trying to find a shooting victim with a guy I barely knew. I sucked in a deep breath to steady myself and drown my fears. How I had managed to have a crappy situation in Dome Four turn into an even crappier one here in Dome Seven I’d never know. Not one person left alive could have worse mojo than I.
“Hey, you okay?” whispered a voice to my right.
I bit my tongue in surprise and tasted blood. Sari jumped back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Have you found them yet?”
Jaxon called from around the corner before I could reply. “Avery, get over here. Help me.”
After another steadying breath, I peered around the corner.
He had a teenage boy over his shoulder, and blood stained his thermal Henley. His hoodie covered most of the boy’s torso. He beckoned me again. “Sari, Avery, come on! I can’t carry him all the way by myself.”
I willed my legs to move. Muscles contracted but stiffened in refusal. Sari pushed me gently from behind. Step by dizzying step, I made my way to Jaxon.
The boy looked to be about Alice’s age. Dark scarlet stains blossomed on the shoulder of Jaxon’s hoodie, and the sleeve covered most of the boy’s face. The overwhelming scent of rust and metal filled my nostrils.
Blood.
There was no way we could save him. There was too much blood. My face must have told Jaxon as much, because his features hardened. “I don’t care what you think. We can fix this.”
I glanced down once more at the still body slung over his shoulder, but then he jerked the boy away from my gaze.
“Time to make an exit.” He headed in the opposite direction from which we’d come.
Where’s he going? “Jaxon, the passageway is–”
“I know where the passageway is; I made it,” he called back. The poor boy bounced limply on his shoulder with each stride. “But we’ve got more company than I’d planned on!”
I looked over my shoulder. I knew those uniforms. Forty or fifty Polatzi were materializing from between cars and out of alleyways. No time to think.
Time to run.
I sprinted to keep up with Jaxon’s loping strides and Sari’s head start. An eardrum-bursting boom exploded not ten feet from us. A massive iron ball crumpled the side of a long-abandoned tank as if it were a soda can. Polatzi bodies flew backward, and screams of agony shattered the air around us. I fell to the ground in fright.
Sari grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet, my sweaty palm slipping against her leather glove. She reached into her pants pocket and somehow produced my oxygen mask.
“Put it on now,” she ordered as she looked skyward. “You’re going to need it.”
She placed another oxygen mask over the injured boy’s face. His chest heaved as he struggled to breathe.
Jaxon led us into an abandoned store. The desks still stood with computers and gadgets, as though consumers might return one day. I ran my hands over the banned electronics. I’d never seen a computer before. He pushed my hand off the device gently. “Don’t touch anything.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll know.”
He didn’t tell me who they were, but his words fueled my fear enough for me to drop my hand.
He ducked down below the front windows of the store and gingerly sat the boy against the wall. Blood poured from his stump of an elbow. Sari checked for a pulse. By the thin line of her lips, I worried we were too late.
“There’s a heartbeat, Jax, but barely,” she whispered.
Jaxon pulled off his shirt to reveal his chiseled chest and stomach. He ripped the arms from the stitching at the shoulders and tied the strip of fabric above the wound, placing the remainder over the stump. He used the other strip to knot the makeshift tourniquet in place. He worked quickly and expertly. “We need to get him back before the carbon dioxide eats at the wound.”
He signaled Sari, who seeming to read his mind, grabbed a large chunk of plaster from the ground, aimed it at the back right corner of the room, and flung it with precision. The metal camera crashed down from its mounting, bolts flying on impact. Wires dangled and sparked from above as the last surges of electricity pulsed through the now ruined contraption. I wouldn’t have even known it was there.
I took another deep breath, then thought about the masks. “I thought this dome had clean air.”
“It does,” Jaxon answered, disgust tinged in his words. “When Riggs wants it to.”
I heard hissing from beyond our hiding place. Sari took a running leap from the back of the store and slid to us on her knees, her arms covering her head as chunks of plaster rained down. Outside I saw a Polatzi running toward us, clutching his throat as blood turned his already red lips even brighter. I skittered backward and screamed.
“It’s fine, he won’t make it here,” Jaxon said.
As if on cue, the Polatzi coughed and spewed blood all over the front of his tan shirt. It then ran from his nose and ears before he crumpled to the ground, dead. Dead as could be.
Dead like my parents might be. Like I could be soon.
“That one was quick,” Jaxon muttered. “He probably didn’t feel much.”
I crawled on my hands and knees to him and the boy, holding my mask tighter against my face. “What happened to him?”
It was Sari who answered. The gas mask covering her mouth made her sound hollow and robotic. Maybe it was a tone of despair. “The oxygen purifiers were cut off.”
I closed my eyes as I tried to imagine dying by suffocation. It wasn’t a pretty image.
“Pike. Long time no see.”
No one called me Pike. No one b
ut…
I squeaked in shock. “Legs?”
“The one and only.” He coughed behind his mask, then lifted it momentarily to spit out blood. “Did you miss me?”
Excitement and shock coursed through me. It’s Legs! Alice and I aren’t alone! “What the hell, Legs? How’d you end up here? Where’s your sister?” Another shot resonated in my bones before he could respond. It was from farther away, but it still shook merchandise off the walls.
Jaxon cursed under his breath. He hiked Legs back on his shoulder and took off toward the back of the store. “No time for reunions. Come on, before any cannon fire finds us by accident, or worse, on purpose.”
He led us through dirty alleyways and between cramped, towering buildings. Cannons sounded in the distance behind us. Cries of pain reverberated off the buildings. I’d never been part of the war, but this must have been what it felt like.
We continued our steady run, our feet pounding against the broken concrete for what felt like miles. Shock and fear coursed through my body. This was not like home. As downtrodden as our dome might be, no one was murdered or feared attack. My ears rang from the shots and cries of people I’d never met. What had they done to deserve this? I didn’t even realize it when we reached the white stone tower.
Sari ran her hands along the stone. “I can’t find the stupid latch, Jaxon. We need to get inside before anyone notices we’re gone.”
“Avery, listen to me,” he whispered. “Take him for a second. I need to open the door.”
Legs coughed as he leaned against me, and I tried to manage his weight. “You were always there to keep me out of trouble,” his garbled voice said through the mask. “I shoulda known you’d save me, and not the other way around.”
“Yeah, well you saved my ass enough to make up for it.”
Legs laughed weakly. “I always liked your ass.”
Jaxon stepped in and slung Legs over his shoulder before heading into the tunnel. “Come on, he’s becoming delusional.”
“There’s nothing delusional about liking Avery’s ass,” he argued, sounding more out of it by the minute. “Come on, man, don’t tell me you haven’t checked it out.”
