Arclight (2 page)

“Where are they?” someone on the other end of the tangle whispers.

“What’s going on?”

There are plenty of questions, but no answers. This can’t be all I get.

My time’s been spent adjusting to my wounded leg and figuring out how much medicine it takes to kill the pain without killing me. Weeks and weeks of fielding questions about my life before the Arclight, shrugging my shoulders when I get tired of saying “I don’t know what happened.”

I just got my life back; it’s too soon to lose it.

I know I’m
supposed
to be dead, and I know the others would be better off without me, but allowing the Fade to kill me won’t bring back the ones who died for me.

“Tobin, get under,” Mr. Pace orders, checking to see if we’re in position.

Tobin doesn’t say a word, but his posture screams defiance while the rest of us cower beneath our useless shelter.

No one survives the Fade
.

I hear those words every night, but my survival tells me there’s a chance. Why should we accept defeat? Why not fight back? Why not live?

I rise to a crouch, with my weight on my good toe, ready to spring when the time comes, and try to fill in the blanks of my memory. All I need is a jolt to start me in the right direction.

Gunfire ignites in the hall outside our door, though I’m not sure anyone else recognizes the clustered pops for what they are. Practice hasn’t prepared my classmates for the terror of live ammo flying overhead; they don’t know the hot sting of a bullet ripping flesh and muscle, nearly breaking bone. To them, it’s a lesson—one I hope they’ve learned.

I tip forward until the weight of my body burns my fingertips, tilting my head to catch the sounds beyond our room and breathing deep to center my nerves. Gunfire’s a good thing, I tell myself—only humans use weapons, so there are still humans left.

“Tobin!” Mr. Pace tries again, but he doesn’t abandon his post. “We’re running out of—”

Everything goes pitch-black.

Time
. We’re running out of time.

There’s a scream, just one, but it comes from everyone and everywhere at the same time. This is the worst part, even in practice. Humans can’t see in the dark, but the Fade can.

At least I can still hear. Our elders tell us the Dark is dead silent, and that my time there made my senses sharper. When I first came here, my eyes weren’t much better than a Fade’s for taking light, but they’ve adjusted. So far my hearing hasn’t, and I don’t want it to.

“Shades!”

Mr. Pace shouts over our panic, and the training sequences take over. We reach into our pockets for the tinted glasses kept there, so we’ll be prepared when the lights turn back on.

If the lights . . .

“Gloves!”

Mr. Pace turns this into a drill. Compliance is automatic.

“Hands!”

Everyone stands and we sort ourselves out in the dark. Jonah emerges from the jumble first, pulling himself hand to hand along the crowd until he’s at the door and calling out his name to say he’s in place. We’ve done this so often, I know how he fidgets, and the way he hunches to look smaller.

Another hand grabs mine as the next of us moves into place.

“Anne-Marie,” she yells back. If she’s keeping up, she’ll be sliding her right hand onto Jonah’s shoulder so she can follow him blind, and the routine continues. The only pause comes when Tobin doesn’t take his place.

“Marina!” I shout in turn, claiming my spot at the end of the line.

Silver’s tall enough that I have to stretch my arm up to grasp the loop on her uniform. There’s an expected twitch of her shoulders rolling under my hand as she ties her hair up so it won’t hit me in the face when we run.

“Tobin!”

The feel of his hand on my shoulder makes me jump, but I force a scream down. No one’s supposed to go behind me. And yet his hands are on my shoulders and his fingers are tugging at my jacket.

“Step,” Mr. Pace orders.

Everyone takes one measured step forward, closing the gaps between us.

“Can you march?”

Tobin’s voice comes as a breath beside my ear, his face pulled low and close. We’re not supposed to talk in step, so I don’t answer.

Those who speak become prey.

“Can you?” Another warm puff tickles the inside of my ear. “With your leg?”

I nod; we’re close enough that he should feel it.

There’s comfort in having warmth behind me, an illusion of protection I’ve never had with my back exposed. My skin pimples up as an odd electric shock races down my arms, and I can almost convince myself he’s concerned about me rather than the likelihood I’ll trip and bring the whole line down.

“I’ll be f—”

Something huge and solid slams the window from outside, shaking the room. Another scream goes up as a horrible truth sets in—they didn’t come in from the front. The Fade always come in from the front during our drills, but this one came straight to me.

Mr. Pace spins, the toe of his boot sliding against the tile so he’s facing the window before the echo has a chance to die. Claws scrabble against a surface with no traction, trying to dig through, but the shutters hold behind a half-foot of bullet-proof glass set into concrete.

This is really happening
.

“I’ve got you,” Tobin says against my hair. His hand drops around my waist. He pulls me tight until I feel his chest at my back, shuffling forward so I won’t lose my grip on Silver. The surprise of unexpected contact sends my heart beating through my back so hard I’m sure he can count my pulse.

Pressure’s building at the back of my skull, creating sparks behind my eyes. This is too much like my snatches of before, all screams and terror and confusion. I grab for the disk on the chain around my neck and suck in, counting down the pattern for a dose, and welcoming the familiar queasiness that settles in my stomach from the medication.

“Hold!” Mr. Pace must have heard us move, and I think surely the thing outside did, too.

Any hope that the Fade believes our room is empty dies when the creature slams against the window again, and again, until I realize it isn’t just one of them out there. There are at least a dozen, each with its own tone and pitch when it strikes.

The room goes still, folded into another held breath until a new nightmare emerges with the sound of cracking glass that says they’re breaking through.

The Arclight’s falling.

“Stay with me, guys,” Mr. Pace pleads over a surge of muffled whimpers. “Just a little longer.”

As we wait for the signal that will release our door, I feel suddenly lighter, and this time it isn’t the inhaler putting a fog in my brain. Half my weight rises off my feet, so I barely feel the muscles burning in my leg.

“Just step with me,” Tobin says. “I’ve got you.”

And I have no idea what to say to that. Normally, when Tobin speaks, it’s a grunted one-syllable yes or no. But he hardly ever speaks, and never to me. For me, it’s a glare like ice dropped down my back.
His
father led the rescue party into the Grey.
His
father made the choice to save me over the others.
His
father didn’t return. Why should Tobin be kind?

There’s a knock from the hall, a set of very human knuckles rapping out a prearranged rhythm before Mr. Pace unlatches the door with his bracelet.

“Go,” he orders, touching each shoulder to count us as we pass.

“If we have to run, go limp,” Tobin says. “I can carry you faster than you can move on your own.”

Before I can protest that I don’t need to be carried, Tobin gasps, lurching forward as though someone’s shoved him. The force cascades through our chain of hands. Elbows and knees hit hard on the ground, and the yelps that come after are followed by frantic shushing.

“They’re through!” Mr. Pace shouts behind us.

At first I think he’s saying everyone’s out of the room, but when he empties a cartridge into thin air, I realize he isn’t speaking to us at all. The Fade have broken in.

We’re dead
.

“Move! Move! Move!” Lt. Sykes’s high and nasal voice shouts somewhere in the blackout.

Everything goes to pieces. We’ve only ever marched in silence with no real sense of urgency or danger. Now we’re a hive mind with a massive case of brain freeze. All our drills mean nothing, especially for the youngest children who spill out of the rooms on either side of ours, calling for their parents and crying “Fade!” when they run into us because they can’t see to know we aren’t the enemy.

Their voices are swallowed up by louder sounds as the corridor erupts with gunfire and something that is in no way human. I ball up on the floor with my hands over my ears.

“That’s not what I meant by limp, Marina!”

Tobin pulls me up by one arm, and then he’s racing toward the shelter beyond the maze of hallways, dragging me along the glowing line that’s been painted on the floor to guide us there. I try to keep up, but my leg can’t take it.

Good to his promise, Tobin lifts me off my feet, and over his shoulder I watch Mr. Pace and Lt. Sykes appear and disappear with every ammunition flash. Three others I can’t name shoot at shadows in the dark, their bodies twisting from the impact of the rifles against their shoulders.

“Don’t hold so tight, you’ll pull us down,” Tobin gasps. At some point I clenched my arms around his neck and didn’t even notice.

“Sorry.”

“I won’t drop you,” he promises, tightening his grip as I loosen mine.

Pairs of our elders line the hallway, guarding our retreat as they spur us forward. A flare illuminates the face of Honoria Whit with the odd bald V scarred into her hairline.

Easily the oldest surviving citizen of the Arclight, Honoria grew up defending her home, and she’s not going to stop now. While the rest of us scatter, she stands sentry, repelling the enemy with the force of her determination, shouting orders I can’t hear over the gunfire.

Behind Honoria, through the door of our classroom, I finally match an image to the idea of the monsters from my past as the Fade appear. They’re ghosts made of shadows, with their faces covered in decaying grey cloth. Silvered eyes glitter under monochrome hoods, visible only in the barrel flashes from our elders’ weapons. A haze of dark robes flies in all directions, making it impossible to see where one ends and his brother begins. Bullets cut through cloth and air, emerging on the other side to embed in our own walls.

This is pointless—bullets won’t stop the Fade. How do you kill pure evil?

“Bring it down,” Honoria orders, closer now, as she and the others join our retreat. “Collapse the corridor!”

Chunks of ceiling break loose and crash to the ground, creating a new obstacle for the Fade to cross.

“Get away from the walls!”

“It’s coming,” I say, and straighten Tobin’s shades, unsure if he’s paying as much attention to Honoria as he is to the destruction. He pushes off the wall, prepared for another sprint.

The passageway begins to vibrate, growing hotter as the redirected power collecting behind the walls reaches capacity. Generators snap on with a hum, flooding the complex with lights as intense as a second sun. In their wake come the screams and howls missing from the battle, and I know we’ve finally hurt them.

Panels that blinked red only minutes earlier burn hot enough to turn my alarm into a branding iron when it knocks against the wall as we flee.

Our shades protect us, but the Fade recoil, burned by light their pale eyes can’t handle. Some crumple like they’ve hit a solid barrier, but Honoria stays put, ready for the next wave.

The people who are close enough pick up the smallest children and run with them. I focus on the sound of boots and voices because it’s easier to make out than the obscure outlines my shades provide, but the noise leaves me dizzy, disoriented by fractured memories dredged up with the sounds of screaming Fade. I tuck my head into Tobin’s shoulder as he sprints to the only refuge we have left. I don’t even realize we’ve reached the bunker until the door slams behind us. My feet find their way back to the floor as I slip my shades back into their pocket.

I turn to say thank you, but Tobin wanders off to a corner by himself.

He’s the ghost again, and it’s with a pang I’m reminded he has more reason to hate me than most. So why is he the one who saved me?

I’
VE
lived a short life, most of which I can’t remember, and it doesn’t take long for the rest to flash through my mind while I wonder if it’s already over.

The wait reminds me of stories we’ve read in class. Our teachers claim things like art and literature are as important to survival as food and water, and they’ve preserved all they could of things written in the world before the Fade, including those of a place called Purgatory. There’s no sense of time, and no beginning or end, only the torment of an uncertain outcome over which you have no control. I didn’t believe it was real, but now I know we’re there.

I try counting off seconds in my head, but lose track around six thousand, at the point people thaw out enough to risk talking. Everyone’s in motion; nerves make settling down impossible.

“We should just give her to them.”

Hearing Jove make the suggestion isn’t as surprising as having him wait nearly two hours to do it.

“Shh!” Anne-Marie, feeling guilty for choosing a seat with the crowd, no doubt. She shouldn’t. Safety in numbers is the first rule of self-defense. “You’re scaring the babies.”

Jove has the sense to look ashamed when he realizes that several pairs of very small ears are listening, but it only lasts until his attention strays back to me.

“We were doing fine until she got here.”

His argument’s always the same. It was my scent the Fade caught when I ran through the Dark, and it was me they followed through the Grey to the Arclight’s boundary, so the attacks are my fault. I can’t even say he’s wrong. There hadn’t been a Red-Wall for years before I came.

“Shove it, Jove,” Anne-Marie snaps. The last time he went off on this tangent, she dunked him in the ice bin from the Common Hall.
Twice
.

She reaches for a terrified bundle of curls and tears, and totes the girl to a quieter part of the room. A small troop of others follows her.