Bound to Ashes (The Altered Sequence Book 1)
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Authors: Maranda Cromwell
Bound to Ashes
Maranda Cromwell
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright © 2015 Maranda Cromwell
All rights reserved.
To mom.
CONTENTS
1
• Another day in paradise
[Dev]
Sometimes, I think, it would be nice to be able to go outside without getting shot at.
I’ve got a can of string beans in my left hand and a couple packets of something called ‘Souper Ramen’ in my right. Which one takes up the least amount of room... provides the most energy... Aw, hell. They’re both barely even food. I cram all of it in my duffel bag.
“Hurry up,” Cain yells at us. He’s kneeling at a window at the front of the crumbling store. He reloads the rifle clenched in his grip and the bullet casing goes flying. Sun filtering through the broken window gives us just enough light to search by. Not that it helps much— this trip’s getting cut short. They already found us.
A cutting voice bites through the air— “Shut up, Scruffy.” It’s Jules, slipping a roll of duct tape around her wrist. She flips a fallen shelf over to reveal another pile of junk to rifle through. “You’ve got no rank!” She kneels and paws through the empty boxes and shelled-out garbage with quick fingers, eyes darting back and forth.
Cain snarls but sets the gun on the boarded-up, glass-less window so that the barrel peeks out between the boards. He’ll buy us time if he sees a human round the corner.
Jules appears next to me, a stack of small boxes tucked under her arms. Maybe some kind of pasta. She settles her back against the side of the empty shelves and says, “Where’d Dogfeet get off to?”
It’s pointless to roll my eyes at her. “I don’t know.” I peer around the aisle. Cain still has his eyes trained on the street and holds perfectly still. For a second, I can almost hear the dust settling. Right about now, I bet the humans are hiding and regrouping, planning a route to the side of our building. They probably saw the shots Cain was pulling off and had to stop. But we better not press our luck.
So I step into the open center of the store and head for the back wall. It’s easy to see Ashton towering over the aisles. He’s looking at books, of course. Of all the things.
“How did
this
get to be a bestseller...?” he says to himself, turning the book over and reading the back, probably for the third time. His dark hair hangs in his face and swishes aside when he looks at me.
“You’re kidding, right?”
He pockets the small book, says, “Sorry,” and smiles. I smile back even though he’s wasting time.
“I checked the back already,” Ashton says. I get the feeling he offers the information to make up for his wasting time. “Not much we can use.”
“That’s what we get for picking a ground-level place,” Jules says as she joins us. “They’re worthless.” She plants a fist on her hip even with a load of supplies tucked under arm.
“Well they’re here,” Cain yells, adjusting the rifle and firing. The gunshot sends vibrations through the air and makes my skin crawl.
“Then let’s go,” Ashton says, shouldering his backpack. “There’s a back door.” He glances sourly at Cain, who fires again.
“I’ll clean up. Meet you outside,” Cain says without looking at us.
Ashton lets his eyes linger on Cain longer, as if searching for a comeback, but just grumbles instead.
The back door Ashton described is a broken-in wall, crumbled in heaps of drywall and mortar. The rubble crunches under our feet.
The darkening city stands like canyon walls around us. More gunshots and yelling echo down the empty streets. Jules and Ashton hesitate, but I say, “Cain can handle it, let’s go.”
Ashton follows me with no hesitation, but Jules waits for a moment. She glances back at the store, then at us, furrows her brow, and breaks into a jog to catch up.
It’s amazing how fast it gets dark. Even after eight years being out of the labs, it still seems wrong that the sun sets this fast.
“You think they came from only one side?” Ashton asks, looking around anxiously. “Seems unlike them.”
He’s right. “Just keep an eye out.”
“Oh, easy for you to say, Dev,” Jules snaps. “You and your cat eyes. I can barely see a
thing
—”
“Jules, now’s not the ti—”
“Stop,” Ashton says, holding up a hand to quiet us. He stands tall and focuses on something in the distance, listening. “Hold on.” He jumps onto a trashed double-decker bus and freezes. He closes his eyes. Jules looks around and shrugs at me as if to say, ‘What’s there to listen for?’ but I just watch him. Ashton’s hearing beats out mine and Jules’ both, he’s our best early-warning system. His long dog-like legs, ending in clawed toes, stretch to their tallest. His tail idly swishes back and forth. Then his eyes shoot open and he steps backwards for a moment. Like something struck him. He jumps off the bus and says, “They’re coming from the west, too.”
Sooner or later, these close calls are going to wear me down like sandpaper. Eventually, they’ll be expected. One day I’ll wake up and prepare to be ambushed, prepare to be shot at. I’ll be an expert at making my peace with the world before a human guns me down.
I don’t want that day to ever come, but at this rate, it could be tomorrow. Or today.
Jules and I sprint after Ashton, like it’ll do any good. He’s way too fast, taking corners on a dime, disappearing behind burnt-out storefronts and cars. Running is his element. He never stands still and moves like lightning— wish he’d ease up.
“Slow down,” Jules says. We’re running full speed and he still outpaces us like it’s nothing.
He stops, but shuffles his feet anxiously. “Sorry,” he says, not even winded, “they’re on skimmers.”
What?! “You’re joking.”
But his look tells me he isn’t.
“But those things run on corn-based fuel,” Jules cries, “Where the hell are they getting the
corn
?!”
Ashton throws his arms in the air and says, “
That’s
what you’re worried about?!”
We can outrun a human on foot, but not on skimmers. I have to get us out. Now. “We need to get higher.” They’ll be on us in seconds. I pull out a tight coil of rope from the bag. “Ash, can you get to that ledge?” The face of the high-rise in front of us has a gaping, blackened mouth high up, maybe from the bombing. The sight of it makes my skin crawl; my body almost refuses to move. But Jules and Ashton are depending on me.
Ashton looks up, takes a moment to mentally judge it, and nods. I toss him the rope and zip up the bag. I don’t have to say anything else, he knows the plan.
He slips the rope over his shoulder and fixes his focus on the ledge. It doesn’t take long. He uses the nearest car as a springboard and sails onto the ledge easily. The car rocks back and forth from the impact. He wastes no time in tossing the rope down.
We rappel off the building as fast as possible with Ashton bracing against the remains of the walls, hauling us up. We scramble into the building and slide behind the rubble. It’s ashy, and dirty, and the air still smells burnt, but we should be invisible to the humans. Jules and Ashton breathe quietly next to me.
The hum of skimmers breaks the silence. I can see them through gaps in the rubble: The black vehicles hovering over the ground have curved sides, perfect for navigating rocky terrain. There are only two, but two is enough. As the skimmers quiet down, they settle on the pavement on thin stilts, like plotting insects. The humans step out, the machine bounces slightly, and the headlights dim.
That was
way
too close. If we had acted a second later, we’d be full of lead.
My hands tighten into fists. One of the humans is Heydrich. He can hide behind that helmet and visor all he wants. He paces the street in front of his skimmer and looks back and forth almost casually. The other human steps out of the skimmer and Heydrich turns on him, yelling and gesturing. The other cowers, then points to the skimmer and shrugs. It’s a miracle Heydrich hasn’t killed him yet. He turns around and faces the road again— I hate his cocky stride, hands in his pockets, elbows out, leaning back. Like he knows where we are and is just messing with us. Like he’s waiting for the rats to come out of the grain stores so his cat can kill them.
My muscles complain from this cramped space. I wish it was easier to breathe in here. The air is close and claustrophobic. My heart jumps when I brush against something beside me. No, not now....
My teeth grit and my eyes press closed— but we hid in the buildings in the camps, behind the beds, crushed against each other and breathing— hot with no air and the soldiers will come and gun us down like they said they would, like they said they would, like they said—
“Dev?” Ashton’s whisper is far away.
My heart’s beating fast, and the hearts next to me. Wedged between furniture, pressed against hard floors, sweating, bleeding....
“Dev?! Come on, snap out of it,” Jules says, shaking my shoulder. She’s prying my hand away from my face and saying my name over and over. I can’t see an inch in front of me, but I blink and I can see again. I look over at Jules and Ashton. Their tilted eyebrows and dirty faces, I can’t stand it. I probably gave away our position.
The keening, thrumming sound of a skimmer snaps my attention back to the street. They’re leaving? Heydrich gets back on his skimmer. He jabs the air at his companion, who ducks his head submissively and moves off. Soon the skimmers are far out of view down the cracked street. They’re so silent and clean, it’s like they were never even here to begin with.
“Are you... recovered?” Ashton says.
“Yeah, I’m fine, let’s go. There’s got to be a way out the back,” I say, standing up, dirt crumbling around me. I ignore Jules’s small sigh.
We push through the ruins of the building— might’ve been offices once— and past the stairwell we find a broken window.
“Anything?”
Ashton pauses enough to listen, then says, “We’re all clear.”
I step onto the windowsill and glance sideways down the long street. A fallen building down the street blocks the whole road. No way are they coming from that way. The other street ends in a confusing twist of broken highway entrances. It’s as safe as it’ll ever be.
Despite our best efforts, even if we make sure to check the perimeter, clear the area, scout for spies, there’s always
something
. If I had been an earlier model of Altered I could’ve had more combat training, more tactical things. I could have been more useful to the others.
The drop to the ground is a few stories. The windowsill is lined with broken glass. I arrange my hands between the shards and jump out, the reassuring thumps of Jules and Ashton hitting the ground behind me help me feel more at ease. A little.
“So, we kind of abandoned Cain,” Jules mentions as we coast into a brisk pace.
“He’ll be fine,” Ashton says, barely jogging beside us but keeping pace. He adds in a mockery of Cain’s voice, “
He always is
, after all.”
It’s hard to ignore the detached feeling of being down a member. Splitting up is usually the last thing we want to do. Especially after what happened to Spec. “He told us to go ahead.”
Jules gives an unconvinced, “Hmm,” and flattens her mouth into a thin line.
We crest the highest part of the highway ramp when the night is darkest. I can
just
make out the silhouettes of my friends. They’re probably following me by sound alone. The moon isn’t out, but even if it were, it’d be choked out by the reddish grey clouds.
I’m starting to doubt they’re even clouds, they’re probably just smoky residue from the war. Stubborn and clinging to the Earth. Pointless. It hasn’t rained in a month. Before we left for the city, the creek bed was running mud, not water. It’s probably dry by now. Even the mountains far away are brown, not capped with white like in postcards.
We eventually slow to a stop and Ashton says, “We should be far enough out.”
“Too dark to go Altered-hunting,” Jules says snidely.
Thanks Jules, what would we do without your tact? “There’s a semi up there, we can probably bunk there tonight.”
Jules looks in my general direction and says, “What, no time for a fire?”
“No. Those humans probably need to break for camp, too. A fire will draw their attention.”
