Burn (TimeBend Book 2)

by Ann Denton

  Verrukter’s eyes widened. “From the hospital?”

  “Correction. A couple of the kids are here. Beza’s back there with three others.” He swallowed. “They’re all that’s left.”

  Verrukter paled. “You don’t think—”

  “I’m not thinking,” said Lowe, “I’m moving. Beza said they’ve been taking kids one at a time down here.” And they don’t come back. The thought sent a hollow note singing through his chest, like the twang of a saw. “Where does it go?”

  “It goes outside. Manhole cover entrance.”

  “Beza said they brought another one down here five minutes ago. Did you run into anyone?”

  Verrukter shook his head. “No. But I didn’t leave too long ago. Didn’t know what it was like in here. Didn’t want to get caught up with Alba. Need to find out who her contact is before I move in.”

  “You have somewhere you need to be?”

  “No.”

  “I could use your help.”

  “Say the word,” Verrukter nodded.

  “Get Beza and those kids out. I’ve gotta go after this one. Stahl will have our necks if we muck this up. He wants those kids back in Senebal territory. We have to get some of them out.”

  “You got it.”

  They parted ways, Lowe handing Verrukter his candle and giving him a brief rundown of the kids’ location.

  Then Lowe stumbled down the rest of the tunnel in the dark.

  The tunnel ended in a metal ladder that climbed to a sewer cover. Lowe reached the cover just in time to hear a pair of boots rattle the lid. He held his breath.

  “’Nother one?” The boots paused, their owner turning to someone nearby.

  “’More ‘n more,” came the reply. Lowe peeked through the holes in the manhole cover. A large, gangly Erlender held a brown-haired girl with a cast on her arm. Tears streamed down her pink cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound. Anek.

  “Not many left, I’ll betcha,” Boots said. Lowe got a partial view of the Erlender’s face as the man peered down at Anek. He had more neck than chin and scruff blended the two together. His nose, noticeably, only bore five blue lines. “Can’t be more ‘n three, four?”

  “Three,” said the gangly guard. “Stop yer squirmin’!” he tightened his grip on the girl. “Nearly done with this damn thing. Can’t we jus’ take ‘em all at once …”

  “You wanna try? Transportin’s easier than the babysittin’ I got. Yer welcome to it.” Boots grabbed Anek and gestured with a grin.

  They walked off, leaving Lowe panting beneath the manhole cover, finally daring to breathe. He waited until silence surrounded him. Then he pushed the cover to the side. Slowly, knife in one hand, he raised himself to peer out. He stared at the rubble mountain behind him.

  The tunnel had bypassed the main entrance to Troe’s compound. He was in the outskirts. But no Erlender villagers plied their trade here; the street was empty. The only figures Lowe saw were Boots and his friend dragging Anek around a corner at the end of the street.

  Lowe hopped out of the sewer and followed.

  Immediately, his gut signaled that something was off. Still, he followed. He tried to pinpoint what was bothering him.

  Until his foot scuffed a rock and he jerked his head to make sure no one burst out of the woodwork at the sound. Sound—that was it. There was no sound this side of the compound.

  There were no people. The rubble mountain might have blocked the wind, but still. No animals chattered. No leaves rustled. If people didn’t live on this side of town, the wildlife would have moved in.

  Lowe stopped. At his feet was a small blue-grey body; a fat, dead bird stared out at nothing. He narrowed his eyes. There was no blood. There were no obvious wounds, its neck hadn’t been snapped. What killed it? Cold?

  His eyes trailed to some brambles farther ahead. His feet carried him forward. He saw a squirrel, lying on its side, tightly locked in rigor mortis.

  A chill crept up Lowe’s spine. He stopped walking. His eyes searched the tree trunks that grew through the buildings.

  There, twenty meters off, was an orange flag, fluttering like a friendly little flame. And Boots and the gangly Erlender were dragging Anek straight toward it.

  Lowe’s legs tensed to rush forward. To stop them. But they were too far ahead. So close already.

  “Hey!” Gangly shouted. “You said I getta do it.” He grabbed Anek and took a step.

  “You idiot! I was jus’ jokin—” But Boots was too late.

  Gangly solidified his grip and pulled Anek. He took one last step.

  His last.

  His back arched. His body froze. He fell backward like a statue, head slamming onto the dirt.

  Anek screamed. Boots grabbed her, cursing. “Don’ freak out now. Hush’n girl.” He scooped Anek up in one arm. He kicked his friend’s body aside, too preoccupied to notice Lowe creeping closer.

  Boots spat. “Fool gotta lotta arrogance, thinkin’ he ken jus’ do what I do.” He pulled out a knife. He slit his hand. He struggled with Anek. “Girl, you gonna lissen to me. Or I can slit yer throat, ‘steada yer hand.”

  Anek gave her trembling hand to Boots. He pricked her finger. “There now, princess. Not so bad, eh?”

  Boots muttered something Lowe couldn’t hear. Then, just as Gangly had, Boots stepped forward. Only he and Anek didn’t freeze. They vanished.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Lowe took a deep breath, trying to steady his rattled nerves. The priestess wasn’t a hallucination. His mind drifted to the bloody clock hand buried in his boot. But she did a spell. Did he do a spell? What am I thinking? What’s going on here?

  He ran a hand over his head, stopping short when he realized he didn’t have any hair. Start again. Logically. Troe’s men are what? Leading the kids … what, into the radiation? And it just … vaporized them? It didn’t make sense. And radiation caused nausea, fatigue, bleeding—not spontaneous combustion. Why would that priestess want to be vaporized? Why would that soldier?

  Lowe’s feet carried him closer to Gangly. The man looked set in rigor mortis. But that wasn’t possible. It was too soon. How come some people vaporized and Gangly didn’t?

  “I don’t get it,” he muttered to himself. “So they stole Kreis, and they stole children who are Kreis, and they’re taking them out here to … what? It seems like a lot of trouble to kill them anyway.”

  If it’s not vaporization, then what? He said babysitting. That other guy said babysitting. So is he watching the kids? Are they going somewhere? Is this a doorway? Lowe tossed a rock at the space where Anek had disappeared. The rock fell harmlessly to the ground. “Not a force field. Deadwater take me. Am I seriously considering a force field?” Some kind of tech Senebals don’t have? Something Erlenders brought over on their jets? When they first came?

  But he had to consider something. Boots hadn’t been scared. Neither had the priestess. They both cut themselves. Both spoke. Was it a passcode? Some kind of voice-activated lock-thing? Plus some kind of blood scan? He pulled at his hair and growled. He wished Ein weren’t out of it. He’d know. Have some idea what this was. Lowe racked his brain. He’d heard of eye scans, before the bomb. Finger scans. But blood? Was there tech for that?

  He didn’t know. And without an answer, he’d end up just as dead as Gangly. He walked away from the corpse, back toward Troe’s compound, mind in overdrive.

  The border’s closing in. Some people can get through the border. Some people can’t. The Erlenders figured out how to do it. Those kids can. They tested those kids. Kreis. Kreis can make it through the border. Kreis blood? Is that the key? Why, though? Why would you want to go into a radiation-infested wasteland?

  His thoughts drifted back to Stelle. She’d drawn Neid. Somehow. Someone had to have given her info on our plans. Alba? Neid was supposed to go to the dungeons as a slave. Check things out there. And Stelle had turned a drawing of Neid over to the enemy. The girl who would have discovered Troe was siphoning off kids one by one. Who
would have told Lowe so he could call foul on the trade Stahl wanted to make: Mala for the kids.

  His hand clenched into a fist. She’s helping them. Stelle is helping them. He shook in fury. His vision tunneled. What he didn’t know was why.

  And why was the key. Key to the border. Key to Stelle.

  He passed through the hidden shaft to the dungeon, walked through the boiler room past the prisoners, his mind a jumbled mess. He returned to the supply closet with the air vent he’d climbed down in. He closed the door once he was inside. He leaned back against it. He needed a moment. Things were spiraling out of control too quickly. And he had answers. But not enough. Not the right answers.

  The morning’s cautious suspicion gave way to a tsunami of self-doubt, of fear. He wasn’t sure what they were walking into anymore. But it wasn’t a trade.

  We have to abort. And they had to do it quietly so Stelle wouldn’t hear about it.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Verrukter’s voice came out of the shadows. Lowe jumped.

  “You all there, man?”

  Lowe pushed away from the door. “The kids?”

  Verrukter nodded at the air vent. “Just loaded them in the air shaft. Made it up a floor. Told them to all curl up and hang out. Figured I’d come back and see if you needed a hand.”

  Lowe bit his lip and swallowed. He’d wanted someone to confide in. And fate had basically dropped Verrukter in his lap. But the warnings of Fell and Tier rumbled through his head. Years of training. Years of protocol.

  “Verrukter, do you have a two-way?”

  Verrukter fished a tiny walkie-talkie out of his boot.

  “Can I check in with the Center?”

  “Go for it,” Verrukter gave a curt nod.

  Lowe took the walkie and hesitated.

  “Is this your subtle way of giving me the boot?” Verrukter joked.

  “No. Stay.” He couldn’t disclose the mission. Not without a green light. But he could tell Verrukter about his suspicions. “I have a contact here. Part of the mission was to meet up with her. But, it looks like … before we got here, she warned the Erlenders we were coming. She burned us. She gave them a drawing of Neid.”

  Verrukter gasped. “How do you know?”

  “Mala told me. She saw the drawing.”

  “Do you know it was your contact?”

  “I can’t think who else …”

  “Don’t do this to me, Lowe. Do you have confirmation it was her? Have you seen this drawing? Have you confronted her? Read her for lies?”

  “No.”

  “Then get out of my face and find out.”

  “I think our mission’s compromised. I think we’re all in danger.”

  “Then you’d better find out fast. Because from what I heard the big boys sent you here. If you want them to nix this mission, you’d better give them proof.”

  Lowe gave a brief nod. “Can I keep this?” He held up the radio.

  “Yup. You figure it out. I’ll find Alba. Keep any more leaks from happening.”

  Lowe made his way to the open-air vent. Verrukter’s arm stopped him.

  “If you find out you’re right … your contact is mine.”

  Their eyes met and for a moment Lowe was blinded by the grief and rage in his friend’s eyes. It was so visceral, so visible. It arced out like flame, hot and sparking. He was surprised Verrukter didn’t meltdown.

  Lowe gave a single nod. Then he stripped and melted into a six-year-old. He pulled on his shredded sweatpants and climbed up to the vent. It was time to find things out. For better or worse.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  One floor up, in a tiny intersection of air shafts, Lowe met the four kids. They’d each taken a branch of the decrepit HVAC and were laying with their heads at the intersection, so they could whisper to one another. Lowe joined them, jostling one so he could lay shoulder-to-shoulder next to him.

  “Beza,” Lowe whispered.

  Beza’s blond head whipped toward him.

  “Did you find her?”

  “Yeah. But I need your help.” He took a deep steadying breath. He had to brace himself for what he was about to ask.

  “I need you to do something.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “No. Listen. Hear me out and then decide. Carefully. They’ve been taking the kids to the border. And disappearing through it.”

  The boys all gasped. One asked, “Wait like, disappear-disappear?” one kid asked.

  “Yeah. Literally. I think they might be using some kind of voice-activated tech. Going through a door.”

  “There’s a door on the border?”

  “Yes. No. I’m not really sure. You can’t see it. They cut themselves, mutter a passcode, walk forward, and disappear.”

  “Like there’s a hologram or something?” Beza asked.

  “I didn’t study old tech.”

  “Okay, so what do you need?” Beza tilted his head.

  Lowe scanned the faces of each of the boys left. They all gazed back steadily at him. “If it is a door, then all those kids are back there. Behind it. If we want to get through … find them … we need to know the passcode.”

  “How do we do that?” one asked.

  Lowe stared hard at Beza. His eyes glazed. I just got you back. But Beza gazed steadily back at him.

  “You need us to go back to the dungeon,” Beza whispered. “You need one of us to be taken.”

  Lowe nodded.

  One of the boys whisper-shrieked. “How will that mucking help? No one comes back.”

  “You don’t even know this is really a door!” another growled.

  Beza glared at the rest. “I’ll do it. Babies.”

  “We’re not—”

  Beza interjected. “If you idiots aren’t really chained up, you can follow me. Listen to what the guard says when he pulls me through. And come back here and wait for Lowe.” Beza’s alpha tone almost made Lowe swell with pride. But the circumstances made him shudder.

  “You don’t have—” Lowe started.

  “We owe it to those kids to at least try to get them out,” Beza cut him off.

  “I know, but it doesn’t have to be you—”

  Again, Beza interrupted. “It does.”

  Lowe’s voice was gruff with emotion when he asked, “Why?”

  “Because I trust you to come get me.”

  Lowe’s journey back to the upper floors was the hardest he’d ever made. Ten times, he’d nearly turned back around to grab Beza. But he’d talked himself out of it. Everyone needed to know what was on the other side. And in order to stop whatever Troe had hiding there, Lowe had to be able to get to it.

  Lowe paced the cubicles, waiting for Mala to return from playing guard for Troe. Every second grated on his nerves. It was another second he wasn’t confronting Stelle. Another second he wasn’t whisking Mala away. Another second he wasn’t on his way back to get Beza. But he wanted to know if she’d learned anything. He needed all the information he could get before he went to confront his oldest friend.

  His gut twisted at the thought. Stelle. He still didn’t know why. But as he paced, he tried to put himself in her shoes. A decade of slavery. A decade. She’d survived being a slave longer than most. How did she survive? What’d she have to do? Who’d she have to become? Verrat flashed through his mind. She’d been planted in Bara’s guard for years. A soldier. Not a slave. And Keptiker had been about to execute her for lying to him. Lowe wasn’t sure how long she’d been a plant. But it couldn’t have been a decade. As a slave, it would have been worse for Stelle. She’d hinted as much. A part of him ached for her. The day she’d been captured flashed again. If we hadn’t split up … If I hadn’t run a different direction … but what-ifs were worthless. There was no changing what she’d been through. But she’d chosen the wrong side. She’d chosen to use him. To betray him.

  He heard footsteps, the clumsy thundering of Mala’s Keptiker, and he stepped out into the hall.

  Mala nearly mowe
d him over. She stumbled back in order to avoid crushing his toes.

  “Well?” He needed something. Anything. If she had proof it would help. He could radio the Center and call this off.

  “The Chiara showed up,” The words sounded curt even in Keptiker’s guttural voice. “Nothing important happened.”

  And then Lowe saw. The look in her eyes, the ire, the seething magma: she knew. She’d recognized Stelle.

  He felt like he’d been punched in the gut, like he had fallen into a molten pit. And he felt like he deserved it. I should have told her. At least warned her who the Chiara was. That I knew her. Muck. I mucking mucked this up. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. His head screamed one thing, but his mouth opened and out came, “Really? Nothing?”

  He wanted to take the words back immediately. But they were gone.

  “How many times have you gotten intel the first day into a mission?” Mala snapped.

  Lowe wanted to apologize. He wanted to break down and tell her. His head railed at him to do it. Tell her! Tell her everything, and tell her now! The chance was fading fast. Part of him wanted to explain himself, to spill every gory detail about the classified mission he and Stelle had been on, tell her about Tier and the President, about the kids and the border and everything. The rest of him just wanted to hold her and beg her for forgiveness.

  He opened his mouth, unsure what to say first, but words were better than the silence stretching before them. Wide and vast as a desert—and just as arid, just as airless.

  “Look, I need to check on Ein,” Mala growled.

  His chance was gone.

  “Of course,” he murmured, hating himself as he stood there, immobile. “Ein.”

  “His sister just died,” Mala spat back at him, and she disappeared around the corner.

  Lowe’s self-pity evaporated. Neid was dead because Stelle gave the Erlenders a drawing of her. And she would probably give them more before the day was out.

  I have to find proof. I have to get us out of here. Then I’ll explain. They needed to abort yesterday, but Tier wouldn’t take a gut feeling, secondhand knowledge of a picture, and four stray kids as confirmation. The drawing might have been an accident, the kids might have been overlooked and left behind when the others were staged for a trade. He needed something more substantial—though short of another drawing, he didn’t know what he hoped to find. And a repeat offense could mean Mala’s life, or Ein’s, or his own.