Sentinel

by Emerald Dodge

  Reuben opened his eyes and caught my hand in his. “Allies…drove us. Near here.”

  Ember stood at the head of the slab. “Reuben, I’m going to look into your mind and search for details. I’ll guide you into a dream first, though. Is that okay?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  Ember rested her fingertips on his face. He sighed in obvious pleasure.

  Ember’s lips twitched. “Yes… I’m Gabriela. You’re at your house. I’m cooking dinner and wearing that white dress you like.”

  Ember was leading Reuben into a trance-like state to relax his mind so she could sift through his thoughts. She’d once described it as “picking through leaves in fall,” and that the trance stopped the wind from blowing the leaves around.

  “Oh my, you’re in a good mood tonight.” Her smile became playful. “Take my hand and take me to our bedroom. Now, close… the door…”

  Reuben’s breathing slowed and evened out. Ember closed her eyes and exhaled in a long breath. “He’s dreaming. I can see his memories now. There’s a cluster of houses immediately outside the east wall, near the charity truck entrance. Some of the allies live there. They can drive us back.”

  “Do you see anything else that might be useful?” I asked.

  Ember opened her eyes. “I think we have some friends in Baltimore.”

  I sheathed my knife. “Then what are we waiting for?”

  Reid made another floating disk and guided us above the forest canopy. The metal wall that bordered my childhood home came closer, and then we were over and past it.

  I was tempted to take one last look at the place I’d called home for twenty years, but instead I gazed down at Reuben, who was still dreaming of his wife’s tender embrace.

  I closed my hand around his and stared straight ahead until we landed in the middle of the tiny neighborhood where the non-powered people who served the superheroes, our allies, lived their lives.

  15

  I rang the doorbell of the nearest house. It was probably between nineteen and twenty hundred, so the occupants would still be awake.

  Behind the door, I heard the shuffling of feet, and then it opened to reveal a teenaged girl in frilly green pajamas and slippers.

  “You a camp ally?” I was unconcerned with pleasantries. The way I saw it, she worked for me, or had until ten minutes ago. She didn’t need to know that we’d defected.

  She bit her lip. “Uh, yeah, I guess. My parents are. I’m sixteen, but I can help. You’re a superhero, right?”

  I pushed my way into the house.

  She squeaked but stepped aside to let the five of us inside. The door opened into the living room, which was sparsely furnished, reminding me of the decrepit convent my team and I had lived in until we’d built our new headquarters.

  I’d never considered the quality of life the allies had, but if the décor was any indication, it wasn’t far up the ladder from the camps.

  I looked at her. “Get a first aid kit. Where are your parents?”

  “They’re out for the night.” Her eyes darted toward the door.

  I blocked her way. “You’re not going anywhere. Get the first aid kit and a computer, if you have one.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Now!”

  She scurried off down the hall.

  Reid had lifted Reuben off the floating piece of earth before entering the house, and he’d laid him face-down on the couch with exquisite care.

  When the girl rushed back with the things I'd asked for, I grabbed the first aid kit and opened it. “Get a pair of scissors.”

  She produced a pair of scissors from a drawer and handed them to me.

  “Thank you. Get my team some dinner.”

  I knew I was being abominably rude, but I didn’t care. I had no tenderness left in me, and in such times, I’d found that hard orders were more effective than polite requests.

  While she bustled in the kitchen, my team hovered around Reuben and me, watching me attend to him.

  Ember pulled the back of Reuben’s shirt taut, allowing me to snip through the fabric with the dull scissors. Reid inhaled sharply upon seeing his brother’s mutilated back, which had only recently stopped bleeding.

  Wounds similar to my own scars covered poor Reuben. His scars would be at least as large as mine, if not bigger. He’d received forty lashes for his unsanctioned romance.

  “I found some leftovers,” the girl said as she exited the kitchen while holding bowls of rice and meat. She placed them on the table and backed away, trembling and not taking her eyes off Reuben’s injuries.

  “What’s your name?” I asked while dabbing at Reuben with antiseptic. My team began to eat.

  “Ariel. Ariel Johnson.”

  I glanced up at her, really taking her in for the first time. She was of only average height, and fair where I was swarthy. But all allies were ultimately from the camps. I was looking at a distant cousin of mine.

  “Hello, Ariel Johnson. I’m Jillian Johnson. This is my team. I think we’re related.”

  She bit at her thumbnail. “My dad says his great-grandpa was a superhero.”

  “And that great-grandpa had a kid with no powers, right?”

  “Yeah. We’ve lived here for a while.”

  That lined up with what I’d heard. As I understood it, the camp allies were just the unfortunate children of camp people who’d been born without any recognizable power. They were shipped off to ally neighborhoods such as these, and raised by others like them.

  “Do you know a boy named Ryan?” Reid asked suddenly.

  Ariel shook her head. “Sorry, no. Should I?”

  “My youngest brother,” Reid murmured. “He was taken to an ally camp when he was four, but I never learned where. He’d be thirteen now.”

  I unwound a length of bandage and began to wrap it around Reuben’s torso, working it under his stomach and back over his injuries several times. Blood seeped through the white gauze, but we’d have to wait until Baltimore to change the bandage.

  I shut the first aid kit and flipped open the laptop, and then pulled up the directions between our approximate location and Baltimore, Maryland. It was just under six hundred and fifty miles, about a ten-hour drive.

  I turned the laptop toward Ariel. “We need to get to Baltimore. You’re going to take us.”

  Ariel bit her lip. “I can’t drive. I only have a learner’s permit, and I’ve never driven that far before.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “When will your parents be home?”

  “Tomorrow. Tonight’s their anniversary.”

  I swore. “Is there anyone around here who can take us?”

  Ariel nodded quickly. “Yeah, sort of. My dad buys plane tickets for the camps. He showed me how once.”

  An airplane? I hadn’t even considered flying to Baltimore. I’d never set foot at an airport, much less on an airplane. And didn’t airports have tons of security that required IDs, metal detectors, and things like that? We couldn’t go to an airport.

  “There’s too much security at airports. Think of something else.”

  Ariel typed on the keyboard. “No, no, you don’t have to do that. We go to a special government website.” She put the laptop down and hurried into an adjacent room.

  Though the open door, I could see the blank blue background from the videos the elders sent us. A lectern stood in the corner.

  Ariel rushed out with a small notebook in hand. “Just put in some information, and you get these special tickets. You don’t have to go through security or anything. They’ll kick people off the plane if there aren’t enough seats.” She navigated to the site. The screen showed an official-looking website with the seal of the Department of Justice.

  She entered in a long line of numbers and letters, then paused and glanced up at us. “You guys aren’t flagged, right? You’re allowed to travel?”

  “I doubt we’re flagged yet, Ariel, but every second we waste here is a second that we could be en route to Baltimore.”
>
  She took the hint and went back to entering information. “So what happened to the guy on the couch? Animal attack?”

  “He pissed off the wrong people, and those people are going to come after us. If anyone asks you why you bought us tickets, say we threatened your life. We’re already in trouble.”

  “I’m shocked,” she muttered, squinting at the screen. “There’s a flight that goes from Atlanta to Baltimore. It takes off in three hours. I…” She bit her lip again. “I can drive you to Atlanta. It’s only ninety minutes from here.”

  “Get your keys.” For the first time since meeting her I gave Ariel a smile, and she returned it.

  I spent the entirety of my first flight clutching the arm rests, more sensitive to the changes in altitude and air pressure than anyone else on the plane.

  But the speed—the speed was unreal. I wanted to feel that acceleration again, but on the ground.

  We’d received endless stares from the other passengers as they walked past us in first class to their coach seats, but none dared to speak to us. The pilots poked their heads out of the cockpit before takeoff, no doubt to confirm that they were transporting such important passengers.

  At one point during the flight, two of the flight attendants huddled in the galley and debated whether they should offer us free alcoholic beverages. When they correctly guessed that we wouldn’t accept them, the discussion turned to what had happened to “that poor man.”

  As much as I enjoyed the near-supernatural experience of flying, I was relieved when we touched down at Baltimore-Washington International Airport a little before midnight.

  Reid helped Reuben through the airport, which was mostly empty because of the late hour. We had no luggage, so we made our way to the entrance.

  Ember gleaned Gabriela’s phone number from Reuben’s mind and dialed it on her phone. “Yes, Mrs. Fischer? Hi. My name is Ember Harris. I work with your brother-in-law Reid.” She stopped talking for several seconds. “We’re at the airport. Okay, thank you. Hurry.” Ember ended the call. “Gabriela’s on her way.”

  While we waited for our ride, I allowed myself a moment’s rest on a hard bench. I scanned the airport for threats—armed men, possible supervillains, other superheroes—but found nothing but a janitor and other red-eye travelers.

  My mind relaxed a little, so I gazed around the airport, which was my first introduction to the state of Maryland. A large sign on the wall near a baggage cart kiosk displayed a beautiful bird with black and orange plumage, which, the sign explained, was a Baltimore oriole.

  I read about the state bird for a few minutes until Reuben moaned in pain and I joined Reid in trying to comfort him. As always, my immediate thought was to call for Benjamin.

  Pain gripped my heart. Where was he? What had the elders done?

  16

  It took half an hour for Gabriela to arrive at the airport, and another half hour to travel back to the Fischer residence, an old brownstone townhouse in a crumbling neighborhood.

  Gabriela insisted on helping Reuben inside. Though she’d been quiet through most of the ride, once the door was shut behind us, she gave in to her emotions.

  The four of us watched as she laid him on their sagging couch and sobbed over her husband’s still form. She touched his lips, his chest, his arms, his hands, pressing kisses into his skin as if she were trying to heal him with the force of her love.

  Reuben didn’t respond.

  Suddenly, she whipped around and glared at us, her bloodshot eyes making her look ghoulish when combined with her ire. “I hate you all.”

  “I didn’t do this to my brother,” Reid said, his voice dangerously soft.

  Gabriela stood up, her entire body taut. “You watched it happen, didn’t you, though?”

  I held up a hand to my teammates. “Mrs. Fischer, I understand why you’re angry, I really do. But we’re not your enemies. The people who did that to your husband are the ones you should hate. We left that world behind when we took Reuben with us.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Where’s Peter? I can’t see that douchebag just letting you take Reuben back here. My husband warned me that he’d probably never be allowed to come back.” Her eyes filled with tears, but her glare was icy.

  I shrugged. “I nearly drowned him, then I’m pretty sure I broke some of his ribs. I would’ve killed him, but we needed to go.”

  Gabriela stared at me, cocking her head to the side. Her face relaxed a little. “Any enemy of Peter St. James is a friend of mine. I’m Gabriela Mendez. Who are you guys?”

  “Battlecry, leader of the Saint Catherine, Georgia team. Call me Jillian.”

  “Firelight, but call me Ember. I’m courting your brother-in-law.”

  “Marco. Helios.”

  “And you’re Reid,” Gabriela finished for Reid.

  His curt nod told me that he was still angry that she’d blamed him for Reuben’s injuries. I’d devise some way to make peace between them later. Right now I needed to look after my team.

  Marco tried and failed to stifle a huge yawn.

  “Is there a place where my team can sleep?” I asked. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know as soon as that’s out of the way.”

  “You need sleep, too,” Reid said. “You’ve had a horrible day.”

  “I’ll sleep after filling in Gabriela.”

  “And looking up information on the Westerners, and attending to Reuben, and cleaning your knife, and pacing back and forth like a caged animal for an hour. I know you, Jill.”

  Aggravation rose in his tone. He was right, though. This was why he was my second-in-command; his common sense provided a necessary counterpoint to my more gung-ho tendencies. “Fine. I’ll go to bed right after talking to Gabriela.”

  “Reid, help me get Reuben up into our room,” Gabriela instructed. “Marco, Ember, there’s a guest room upstairs on the right. Reid, you can sleep on the couch in the office. Nobody is bunking up with their girlfriend in my house.”

  Ember and Reid turned bright red.

  Gabriela gave me a disgusted little look. “Jillian, you’re the leader, right? You can sleep on the floor. Sorry, but I don’t have any blankets or pillows for you.”

  Her tone told me that she didn’t hold superhero leaders in high regard. I didn’t blame her.

  Reid lifted Reuben into his arms and carried him up the stairs. Gabriela rushed to put down old towels on their mattress to soak up the blood. When Reid was satisfied that Reuben was as comfortable as he was going to be, he said his good night and took the blanket and pillow Gabriela offered him.

  Gabriela and I were left in her room with Reuben. Gabriela sat next to him on the edge of the bed and held his hand, lifting it and kissing his knuckles every few minutes.

  My aching worry for Benjamin crashed down on me and I leaned against the wall and hid my face in my hands. Where was he? Had he been harmed? Would I ever see him again? The uncertainty of his situation gnawed at me.

  “Reuben’s going to be in agony when he wakes up,” Gabriela said. I looked up at her and saw that she was stroking his face. “Do you have any painkillers? Powerful ones?”

  “No, but I know people who would.” Ember had said we had “friends” in Baltimore. I took that to mean we could trust Reuben’s teammates.

  She glared at me. “If you mean the allies, there’s no way I’m calling them for help. The way I see it, they’re part of the system that’s responsible for this.”

  “I meant his teammates. I can call them and never reveal why I need the meds.” I pulled out my phone.

  She faltered. “He speaks highly of Berenice, and he always said that if I were in trouble and Berenice couldn’t help me, I could go to Lark and Topher. I know there’s someone named Tiger, too, but he never talks about her.”

  I didn’t know anything about Tiger, either, but I knew and liked Lark, who called herself Valkyrie. She could teleport short distances. “Topher” might’ve been Christopher Cannostraci, whose codename was Argentine.
Reid had once told me that he could touch any metal and temporarily retain its properties, but still live and move.

  But Berenice, my old rival? The pugnacious she-weasel who’d stolen the codename Artemis from me? Either she’d had a personality transplant, or Reuben had seriously bad judgment in friends.

  As I ruminated, Reuben moaned in his sleep.

  I handed Gabriela my phone. “Call Berenice.”

  My dislike of Berenice Grantham was not greater than my concern for Reuben’s wellbeing.

  Gabriela hesitated and dialed a number. I couldn’t help but listen in.

  “Hi, um, Artemis? This is Gabriela Fischer. Reuben needs help. No! I’m fine, don’t worry. But he needs first aid, a lot of it. Painkillers, too. No, Peter isn’t with me… I don’t know where he is.”

  Berenice asked her whether or not Gabriela was alone.

  Gabriela looked at me, and I shook my head. “No, Battlecry and her team are here. They brought him from the camp.”

  “Where’s their medic?” Berenice demanded. “Why hasn’t he helped him?”

  Gabriela’s eyebrows shot up and she put her hand over the receiver. “You have a medic?” she asked, accusatory.

  I massaged my eyelids. “He’s not here.”

  I was too taken aback by Berenice’s question to be annoyed by Gabriela’s tone. How did Berenice know about Benjamin? My team knew that Benjamin’s presence on our team was best left as a quiet fact, lest other superheroes dig too deeply into his past.

  However, we all had presence on social media, so her knowledge of Benjamin wasn’t exactly suspicious, but it was unexpected. How would a superhero like Berenice, who was still in the camp lifestyle and probably not allowed to follow the news or social media, know that a team more than six hundred miles to the south of Baltimore had recently gained a medic?

  Gabriela uncovered the phone. “He’s not here.”

  “Give us ten minutes.” She hung up.

  Gabriela stood. “I’m going to go wait for them by the door. You watch Reuben.” She hurried out of the room and down the stairs.