Bound to Ashes (The Altered Sequence Book 1) (24 page)

“Stop,” Ashton says, listening. He steels himself and rests his eyes on the torn-open door. “There’s another one.”

Everyone turns.

And there’s Vinder, standing on the scaffolding, holding the rifle in a shaky grip.

“Vin!” Peregrine yells, running for him.

He only grips the rifle harder. “I got this one!” He’s scared. It’s not hard to tell. Trying to prove yourself, make yourself useful to help everyone....

In front of Vinder a Sentinel slowly inches forward along the scaffolding. But this one’s different. Instead of blue accents, this one’s red, and a closer to the ground. It moves with delicate steps unlike the brutish strength of the others.

“Vinder get the hell out of there,” Peregrine shouts in one breath.

But he doesn’t. He sets his legs apart and fires several times into the Sentinel’s face. The machine steps forward again.

“Something’s not right,” Ashton says, slipping the shoulder strap of his rifle off and sprinting forward. His feet leave rusty colored smears from the cuts across his feet.

“Ash, wait—”

The Sentinel stands up straighter and its face folds open. Hinges that I didn’t see before and seams that were perfectly hidden expand like a flower and reveal a horrible array of mechanical innards. A shape emerges, long and flat, smoothly folding open.

Ashton’s legs carry him quickly. But he skids to a halt— he notices something Vinder hasn’t— and without missing a beat he flings his rifle low so it skitters across the scaffolding right towards Vinder’s feet. What could he—

The mechanical apparatus shines to life in a red light. Its flat scanning light illuminates the scaffolding and tracks up to down with mechanical accuracy.

The rifle hits Vinder’s ankles and he drops. Ashton darts to the cover of the wall behind the door. The light passes between the rest of us, we jump out of the way instinctively.

Vinder screams.

The rifle he was holding clatters to the ground, useless. His scream is thick with disbelief and horror. And after the red light scans to the bottom and flickers out, after the Sentinel’s face folds back up, I can see why.

His arm is gone.

He grabs at the scaffolding railing, quavering voice unsure whether to scream again, eyes glued to the stump where his arm used to be. Past the shreds of his sleeve, the flesh is charred. There’s no blood. The acrid scent of burnt flesh assaults my nose and I fight the urge to vomit.

Peregrine’s screams do nothing to help.

As Vinder scrambles backwards into the room, she’s right by his side restraining him. He claws at her with his only hand wildly, voice keening in panic, pushing her away and pushing away from the stump, like he can escape it.

The Sentinel is still. As if it has to recharge after its attack, whatever the hell it was... that light touched the gun, and the floor, and the scaffolding, but it only burnt away the flesh and the fabric.... Where the light passed over the floor, Ashton’s bloody footprints are gone.

Before any of us can move a muscle, Ashton’s on the scaffolding with it. It’s small, shorter than he is, and he only has to duck under it and push it over the edge. It falls soundlessly into the blackness.

Vinder’s cries don’t stop.

“Stop, stop, Vinder, please—” Peregrine pleads, trying to pin him, to keep him from writhing. He kicks, pushes against the floor, twists and flings himself against her. “Somebody get me something to wrap it up!” Peregrine cries, voice almost as desperate as Vinder’s.

James throws his jacket off in an instant and tosses it to her. Even his usually stoic face is pale and his lips slightly parted.

She ties the jacket sleeves around Vinder’s stump and throws her arms around him, pinning his arm to his side. He throws his head to bury his face in her shoulder, every exhale a new wave of agony. Peregrine, panicked, at a loss, strokes his short black hair, saying, “Shh, shh, Vin, hey... calm down....” But maybe those words are for her, as well, judging by her green eyes staring into the floor.

Alessandra has her mouth clamped over her mouth, she can’t stop staring at Vinder, unblinking.

Ashton approaches, giving Peregrine and Vinder a wide berth, and takes a deep breath. “Aless.”

She looks at him after a moment and fear gleams in her mismatched eyes.

“What was that thing?”

She takes her trembling hand away and shakes her head. “I don’t... I don’t know.”

Vinder finally quiets down, but his breathing is deep and fast. Peregrine gently rocks him back and forth. Her brows knit in concentration, her hands refuse to let go of him. I can feel my pulse pound in my neck.

“Let’s move,” James says. He doesn’t mention it, but we all know it: there might be more of those things.

Jules rushes over to the scaffolding to retrieve the gun Vinder dropped. As she rejoins us, she shakes off a fine dust clinging to it. The gun wasn’t that dusty when I gave it to him.

A pang of nausea.

We’ve been breathing that dust since we got here. The virus was here, but the bodies.... That red Sentinel is just a janitor.

Jules looks at me quizzically and says, “What’s the matter?”

I force myself to breathe, even though the human dust fills my lungs. “N-nothing.”

This ‘hiding place’ is going to be hard to leave.

“Pass me that Everclear,” Peregrine says. James hucks the heavy bottle at her and she snatches it out of the air, opening it and dousing a gnarly scrape across her forearm. She doesn’t even wince this time. We’re already down four bottles of hard alcohol from the cabinet across the room.

Vinder lies in the corner of the restaurant-style sitting booth, head laid back on the seat, eyes shut but probably not because of sleep. His face is tilted away from the bandaged stump of his left arm.

The ‘hiding place’ looks more like a luxurious office. All the chairs are padded leather and the rugs are deep crimson. Alessandra sits in the boss’s chair, leaning back on it with her boots scuffing up the mahogany desk. The candles we found earlier melt in steady streams at the front of the desk.

“Why spiders?” Ashton asks. His arms fold behind his head and, stretched out, he takes up almost a whole wall of seats.

Alessandra glances at him and says, “Well... We
saw
why. Able to cling to vertical surfaces, very maneuverable....”

“And fear,” James adds as he uses a rag to wipe blood off his hands. “Everyone’s scared of spiders.”

Alessandra laughs quietly and says, “Yup.”

“I bet they scared the shit outta’ the Northern Alliance,” James says. He snaps the pin on his rifle open and scrapes at the inside with his fingernail, scowling.

Alessandra glances at him as if she’s afraid to say what’s on her mind. “They never left our soil,” she says. “Every Sentinel ever made is here. There aren’t even any left in the Midwest facility. They’re either deactivated, in storage, or on patrol. I bet dad only reactivated them to protect his work. But... I guess he also thought
he’d
be here, too.”

“Selfish jerk,” Peregrine says with venom, adding, “No offense.”

“None taken,” Alessandra mutters with deliberate emphasis on every syllable.

Jules, sitting next to me at the other end of the room, nudges me and says, “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“You got any food?”

I check my pack. Three cans left. I toss her one. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

She makes me stop for a moment. She had a perfectly ample opportunity to use one of her nicknames for me, but didn’t. And since when does Jules ever say thanks? She opens the can with little gusto. “What’s the matter...?”

She stops and her shoulders fall as she exhales through her nose. “Remember when I told you I thought that my own memories were getting replaced by the ones I accidentally pilfered from people...?”

“Yeah.”

She gently sets the can on the nearest table and grips her hands into fists, fighting back something. For once, Jules seems lost for words. I wait, because you can’t rush things like this. If anyone knows, it’s me.

“Do you remember how we met?”

“Wh—” I can hardly form words. “You
don’t
?”

She doesn’t even look at me. Jules does that when she’s upset. All her courage and in-your-face attitudes melt away and leave the jagged interior exposed. “No,” she says.

“But you haven’t used your abilities on a person in—”

“It’s not like that,” she says. “It’s not plus one, minus one... it’s like plus one, minus ten. And then minus a few more a few days later, for no reason. It’s like it....” she puts her hand on her head and digs her nails into her dark hair. “It’s like acid. It eats away at my memories. And I think it gets worse every time I use my ability.”

“So don’t use it anymore.”

“I don’t think it’ll be that simple. If we’re going to be living with the humans, helping them rebuild society and whatever, do you think they’re going to forget about my powers and how useful they can be? You wouldn’t have to waste ammo slaughtering an animal for meat, I can put someone under for surgery or relieve pain. Hell, I could probably be a living lie detector if I practiced enough.” She smiles weakly and absently fidgets with her long braid. “I couldn’t just say, ‘No, it’s inconvenient, so I’m not doing it anymore.’”

“But if you explain, they’ll understand, it’s your memories. It’s... who you are. You can’t just... give away something like that.”

She stares at the floor and says, “Yeah. Probably.”

All at once a heavy guilt settles on me. Here I am worried about my own ability, worried that the fire will eat me from the inside, while Jules’s mind is falling apart before her own eyes. What kind of jerk am I do think I’m the only one? And Ashton... I’ve seen him hold back in front of the humans. Around us, he’s aloof and even comfortable, but around the humans his movements are staggered and short, like he’s afraid of acting to his full extent, of making a spectacle of himself, because of what he is.

I’ve lost my appetite all over again. Jules slowly picks her can back up and makes herself eat. She stirs the can of slop around with a bent fork and says, “You wanna refresh my memory?”

“How we met?”

She nods, not looking up from her food.

“Well. It was after the virus, we started to explore more into the outskirts of the city—”

“Who’s we?”

“Me and Ashton and Cain.”

She nods and waves me on.

“We were looking for food, like usual, and we saw something in the distance. Cain was really close to shooting you, actually.”

She laughs a little and says, “Typical.”

“But,” I smile, “when we finally got to you, we figured we’d save the ammo for someone more... threatening, I guess.”

“What! I’m totally threatening,” she says, grinning.

“Yeah... well... you weren’t that time,” I say, and she scoffs. “You were pretty skinny and ragged looking, like we were. I don’t think we had the energy to want to kill you, anyway. We did think you were a human, though. I thought it was strange that you weren’t running off.” A memory hits me and I can’t help but smile. “And, if it makes you feel better, Ashton said he was scared of you.”

Jules covers her mouth to keep the food in from her burst of laughter.

“He told me later on that you were intimidating. You just walked right up to us and introduced yourself.”

Jules glances over at Ashton, sleeping stretched all the way across the restaurant style booth across from us. She shakes her head at him. “Coward.”

Jules and I exchange equal glances of humor. Reminiscing is the best way to pull your mind out of the real world.

Most everyone’s asleep by now. The wave of exhaustion we’ve been outrunning finally catches up with everyone, except me. And James. He sits in the corner and slouches against the cushioned booth seats. One foot rests on his knee and his shoulders apathetically slouch. He reaches with lazy fingers into his chest pocket and pulls out a metal tin. He clicks it open and his eyebrows furrow, his mouth scrunches in a frown.

He glances up and sees me and hesitates—maybe thinking of some snide thing to say—but instead he says, “Only got two left.”

He flips the tin around and inside are two cigarettes.

“Now’s a good as time as any, I guess,” he says, standing up, snapping the tin shut, and rolling his shoulders. His gaze lingers on me for a heavy moment and he says, “Want one?”

I can’t turn it down, not that kind of generosity, what kind of ungrateful person would I be? So I stand up and follow him at a distance outside the padded room.

He approaches the railing as if to lean on it, glances behind him, and shuffles a few inches inward. He hands me one of the cigarettes as soon as I’m out the door. “Here.”

This is weird. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’ve been saving them for a special occasion,” he says with a sneer, “but I guess this is as special as it’s gonna get.”

Fair enough. The cigarette is delicate in my hands, too easily crushed. He handles it like it’s a sturdy tool. There’s an awkward pause and we’re both just standing there, with the unlit cigarettes, waiting for one another to talk, when he says, “Guess you don’t wanna—”