Chosen Soldiers

by R. H. Scott

  He glanced at her and she was surprised to see a playful smile crossing his face. “No, not right now they aren’t.” He laughed, nodding at the serial drive port.

  “This isn’t funny anymore,” she said, lunging at the port, trying to grab the serial drive.

  Her grabbed her hands, holding her back. “Leave it alone,” he ordered, his voice deep. She pulled away from him quickly, her broken knuckles smarting—­she wished she had been able to go to the Infirmary before leaving.

  “You’re scaring me, Elijah.”

  “This is the first time we’ve been able to speak candidly—­enjoy it.” He shrugged.

  “Speak candidly? Alright, try this on for size—­I think you’re insane.”

  He seemed unaffected. “Think what you want, soon you’ll see I’m right.”

  “Right about what?”

  He shot her a frustrated stare. “Everything. The Academy, our lives here . . . it’s all wrong.”

  Sloan was barely listening—­she had fought to keep this mad person alive? She had sacrificed her relationship with Jared for this lunacy.

  He had been right all along—­Jared had known something wasn’t right with Elijah.

  “Stop the car,” she ordered.

  He glanced at her quickly. “No.”

  Sloan grabbed the steering disc, suddenly jerking the vehicle. She didn’t know how to control it, but she didn’t care if they crashed—­she needed to get away from him. Whatever he was thinking—­whatever he was doing—­she wanted no part in it. It was one thing to challenge the Order; it was another to act the way he was suggesting.

  Treason resulted in immediate execution.

  “Stop it!” he yelled, trying to regain control of the vehicle. She fought at his hands furiously.

  “I said stop the car!”

  “Dammit, Sloan!” he yelled, quickly double tapping the disc—­abruptly cutting the engine. The vehicle screeched to a halt.

  Before he could say anything, she leaped out and began to walk back down the tarmac, heading for the gate. Elijah was quick to cut her off.

  “Get out of my way,” she growled.

  He shook his head at her. “I can’t let you go back.”

  “Let me? You don’t let me do anything—­now get the hell out of my way!” She sidestepped him, but before she could carry on, he grabbed her arm, spinning her back.

  She twisted around, violently striking him across his bruised face. “Do not touch me—­don’t ever touch me.” She turned away from him, continuing to walk down the road.

  “You know I’m right!” he yelled, his voice following her. “This place is wrong—­what happened with our Calling, what we are being trained for—­all of it. I know you know that.”

  She slowed to a stop. Some part of his words resonated inside her—­everything did seem wrong, but that hadn’t always been the case. Her life had gone wrong when he had come into it. She turned around slowly.

  “You need help, Elijah. Actual psychiatric help.”

  He nodded at her sadly. “I know what’s going through your mind. I have stood where you stand now . . . but I need you to know the truth.”

  “What truth?” she demanded, storming back up to him angrily.

  “I will explain everything—­but I need to make sure that when everything goes down, you’re somewhere safe.” His voice cracked over his words—­was he nearly crying?

  She crossed her arms over her chest, certain he had lost his mind. He shook his head at her.

  “I promise you can trust me, Sloan. I know you have spent the past fourteen years watching Jared, but I have spent them wishing you could just see me. The day Nuptia matched us . . .” He spoke softly, impassioned, as if he were all alone.

  “Well, that day, I felt like I finally had a reason for being here. It gave me purpose. You were my purpose. And then when I kissed you on Fight Night . . .” He offered her a half smile, standing a little taller. “I was walking towards my likely death, but it was the most alive I had ever felt.”

  Sloan stood there, speechless.

  “And when I was losing that fight and you cried out my name . . . it was you, Sloan. You were the reason I won. I realized I would lose you forever—­I had never felt that before. I had never felt I had anything left to lose.”

  No one had ever spoken to her like this before. Jared had been intimate, loving and passionate. But this was different. Elijah’s feelings—­which she dismissed as a crush, an obsession—­seemed to be real; he was really in love with her . . . and she didn’t know why. He had a certainty that she was meant to be with him—­he had the blind faith that she and Jared had somehow lost.

  He sighed heavily. “I can’t lose you, Sloan. I need to keep you safe.” When she began to interject, he held up his hand. “I know, I know, you don’t need anyone to keep you safe—­you’ve proven that again and again. But, once you know the truth, you’ll need someone watching your back—­and I can do that.”

  She had a million questions and a thousand different responses playing up in her mind. She could turn and walk away, go back to the Academy and tell someone that there was something wrong with Elijah. Or she could stay. She could hear a little more; she could maybe finally hear what she had been demanding for so long—­the truth.

  Finding out the truth didn’t help change Fight Night . . . But at least I knew what I was walking into when I entered the ring—­I wasn’t ambushed.

  She took a deep breath and he reached for her wrist, pulling her closer to him—­and she let him, taking a hesitant step towards him. She couldn’t tear her eyes from his. He had opened his heart to her. Something about his sincerity, his deep concern for her well-­being, overwhelmed her. She didn’t love Elijah Daniels—­hell, she didn’t like or even trust Elijah Daniels—­but she couldn’t deny that his words had a draw on her.

  Before she could think any further, he was kissing her. And she let him.

  He felt electric, like a live wire. He ran his hands up to her face, drawing her in with every movement. For the briefest moment, Sloan knew she could get lost in this—­she could acknowledge the fact that some part of her wanted him. But he wasn’t Jared, and she pulled away.

  “Please, come with me?” His words were a whisper in the wind.

  The Academy had taken everything from her—­Tandy, Kenny, Jared, her autonomy. Yet, Elijah’s words—­his offer of truth—­scared her. She glanced down at the road leading back to the Academy, and she felt with unwavering certainty that there was nothing waiting for her back there. She could hear Jared’s voice in her mind. “Get away from me . . .” She had nothing left to lose.

  Slowly, looking up into his green eyes, she nodded. She thought about his words as she got back in the vehicle and watched him warily as they began to drive on.

  “Elijah, what did you mean when you said when it all goes down?”

  He glanced to her, chewing his lip. “I’ll explain later.” Before she could complain he motioned for her patience. “I promise I will tell you everything . . . But for now, I don’t want to break your heart before it’s even mine to break.”

  All the certainty she had just felt drained away—­replaced with absolute terror. He was being serious—­there really was something left to be afraid of.

  CHAPTER 8

  The other students had often called the small wooden cabins relics, but Sloan liked their antiquated look. She found them oddly charming, even if she wouldn’t admit it aloud. Elijah grabbed their bags, his boots loudly crunching the fallen pines. She nudged an ashen stone into the grey heap—­someone’s abandoned fire pit. Elijah made a beeline for the nearest cabin, number 13. Sloan shook her head. “No, not that one,” she protested.

  They had gone the remainder of their trip in silence, speculation plaguing her. She had led him away from 13—­that was her and Jared’s cabin . . . or, at
least, it had been. Elijah followed her, too polite to argue. She halted at the steps leading up to the deck, letting Elijah go first. He pressed his thumb to a discreet scanner, entering the cabin via biometrics.

  She waited until he was inside before walking back over to 13. She ran her hand over the cedar deck. She braved a step. She closed her eyes—­ the overflying birds called to her, the light breeze played through her hair, urging her towards the cabin door—­towards her past life. She brought her hand to her neck, pulling the leather band out from under her shirt and holding the gold ring tightly against her palm.

  Her eyes flew open and she retreated from the cabin. This place holds too many memories of him.

  She spun around and took quick steps towards the new cabin. She stepped through the door and was thankful that this cabin wasn’t a replica of 13. It was a large open-­plan room, with a kitchen area, a sofa, a fireplace and one massive bed, covered in quilts. “I’ll go get the food containers,” Elijah announced, walking past her to get the food the Academy kitchen had stocked their car with.

  She was alone. She looked at the bed and sighed heavily—­she felt uncomfortable. She didn’t belong here, not with him. And though it was too late to deny the hold he had on her, she felt like everything she had thought she knew about him had been wrong. He wasn’t just a cocky pest, as she first knew him to be, nor was he a calm introvert, as she had seen him in his quiet moments. He was an eccentric lunatic who carried contraband signal jammers and suffered from paranoia. That he loved her was not in doubt, but whether she could trust that kind of love—­or anything about him—­was impossible to tell.

  He reappeared, walking past her to drop a chrome cooler box down in the kitchen. He watched her from across the room before finally speaking. “Let’s go for a walk?”

  She shrugged at the suggestion but followed him as he strode out the door anyway. He walked to the vehicle, leaning through the window, and pulled out the serial drive and a small black box she hadn’t seen before. Not with the signal jammer again . . . She sighed heavily but continued to follow him. It dawned on her that if she was willing to follow someone whom she believed to be insane then maybe she was a little crazy herself.

  For some reason, it was the first thought that had made her smile in a long time.

  She pushed her boots hard into the sloping hill, treading over the soft terrain with concentration. Elijah found a grassy mound beside the lake and took a seat. She sat across from him, running her fingers through the lush green blades, the cold dew soothing her injuries. The lake was clear as glass, framed with a perimeter of green and gold trees. She had always loved this place—­but watching as Elijah shoved the serial drive into the black box certainly took away from the joy she usually felt being out here.

  “Do I even want to know?”

  The box began to flash with a small green light. “This is their island, Sloan. They could have devices anywhere—­everywhere—­to hear every word we say. Hence, the signal jammers out here, speaking to you under the sound of the shower earlier . . .”

  “Stop. Just . . . stop.”

  He nodded at her, unaffected. “I know it’s all pretty overwhelming.”

  “That’s not a word I would use to describe this,” she explained, shaking her hand at the blinking box.

  After a long silence he drew a deep breath. “I know things . . . things you would want to know.”

  She arched her brow at his vagueness. “Well?”

  He sighed heavily. “Your family is alive. They run a hospital in a small town on the eastern coast, outside Fort Destiny.”

  She was surprised at his words—­but they didn’t really prove anything. The Order had told them all their families were fine in the last War Front Collective. The rest he could have found out somehow or was simply making up.

  Wait—­Fort Destiny. Where the attack had just happened?

  As though he could read her mind, he spoke again. “They’re alright, they weren’t hurt by what happened there.”

  She shook her head at him. “You couldn’t possibly know that.”

  “I made a point of finding out—­I knew I would need to tell you when I finally had the opportunity to show you the truth.”

  “How? Found out how?” she demanded.

  He shook his head, chewing on the side of his mouth anxiously. “The Others told me.”

  It took her a moment to react. Then she was on her feet, backing away from him. He was a traitor. “You’re a defector . . .” She turned and began to scramble back up the hill. She had been lured here by the enemy and a thousand thoughts rushed through her mind. How had they gotten to him? Were there more at the Academy? If he was right about the Order listening in then could she get far enough away from that blinking box and scream for help?

  “Sloan, come back, calm down,” he called after her.

  “Stay away from me,” she yelled over her shoulder, getting back up to the campsite.

  “Dammit, just stop for a minute and let me explain!”

  She could hear he had stopped following her and slowly she turned around to face him.

  “Why should I trust anything you say?”

  “Because if you have learned one thing about me it’s that I wouldn’t hurt you—­that I wouldn’t betray you.”

  He took a step towards her, the black box still in hand. She took a step back. He raised his hands, as if to show he wasn’t a threat.

  I’ll hear him out and then turn him in, she thought.

  He kicked at the ground, seemingly frustrated. “I didn’t want to tell you this bit so soon—­I wanted to wait till—­” he began, but she cut him off.

  “Till my heart was yours to break?” She echoed his former words. “It will never be yours to break. You have no hold on my heart, Elijah; just get that into your head!”

  She could see her words wash over him and a resolute look overtook his face. She had hurt him.

  “Fine. Then here it is—­the Others aren’t others at all. They’re us. Our families, our ­people. The Academy, Romani—­they are the real enemy from Dei Terra.”

  What? She shook her head at his cold admission. “That’s not possible . . .”

  He took a step towards her. “We weren’t volunteered by our families, Sloan. We were kidnapped, taken to be brainwashed to fight for the enemy against our own ­people.”

  Sloan started to pace back, certain she couldn’t hear any more of this. She took another step but tripped over a pine branch, falling hard to the ground. He made to move towards her, but halted as she pointed at him wildly. “Don’t touch me, Elijah!”

  He knelt down across from her. “I didn’t believe it either. When first contact was made a few years ago, I resisted. But then I spoke to my family—­I still had a family, and I learned the truth.” His words were rushed and anxious, as if he could feel the clock ticking before she fled again. She slowly pushed herself to her feet and he stood, paralleling her.

  “There are ­people on this island that you cannot trust,” he said.

  Like you, she thought, backing away from him. His green eyes held on to her, his mouth curving with each word, and she couldn’t help but think of how she had let him kiss her. She felt nauseous. And for the first time in her life, her body betrayed her. Her legs buckled; she fell and crashed to the soft earth. Her mind whirled with incoherent thoughts. She lost all sense of the world around her, but she could feel herself being lifted from the ground. She blinked—­Elijah’s face was a blur. For the first time ever, Sloan Radcliffe fainted.

  Sloan woke with a stir, disoriented. It was dark out and it took her a minute to recall where she was, and as suddenly as that recollection transpired, she remembered whom she was there with. She lurched to get off the bed, but found her hands had been bound. She wriggled over to her side and saw Elijah sitting in a chair, watching her attentively.

  �
��Untie me.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, but that is for my protection,” he said, gesturing to the ties. “I swore I wouldn’t hurt you, but I won’t let you hurt me either.”

  Sloan pushed herself upright. “Trust me, I am going to hurt you. I will kill you with my bare bound hands if you don’t untie me.”

  Elijah got to his feet, raising his hands in a gesture of peace. “Fine—­I will untie you. But only if you swear you’ll listen to me.”

  “To more of your lunacy? Why would I listen to anything you had to say? You’re one of them.”

  He crossed his arms, staring down at her. “Your anger doesn’t exactly compel me to set you free.”

  How was I so easily deceived? He had fooled everyone—­even Jared, who for all of his hatred of Elijah hadn’t known the depths of this boy’s madness.

  She glared up at him. “Do you think I need my hands to kill you?” she threatened and as the angry warning escaped her lips, she saw a glint of metal in his hand. He was holding a small knife.

  She began to look around the room—­mapping the space she would need to fight him, the space she would need to cross in order to escape.

  “Promise you will listen?” he pressed, nearing her. She nodded, seeming to acquiesce. Quickly, he pulled his hand out, revealing the knife—­she had to make her move now. She leaped off the bed, landing heavily on the floor. She kicked at his knee and fell to her side. Viciously, she kicked him in the abdomen—­aiming for his broken ribs.

  “Sloan, stop it!” he yelled.

  She lurched herself to her feet, but before she could get away he grabbed her ankle and yanked her back. She fell on her shoulder—­hard. She had been in far greater pain before and she wouldn’t let one injury stop her.

  She kicked at him furiously from the ground, screaming, “Get off me!” She tried to shimmy free, but he held her legs down, battling her as he crawled on top of her. He pinned her, the knife still in his hand. She wriggled underneath him, desperately trying to escape. She watched as he brought the knife closer, a quick slash of the blade . . .