Darkness (26 page)

“Nothing,” I said.

Samuel nodded. He looked at me a moment longer before turning his attention back to Makara.

“Let’s go,” Anna said.

I followed her out of the medical bay and into the outside corridor. I wasn’t sure where she was leading me. We made our way to the bridge. In the past few days, the deck had been cleaned by Community members. Every vestige of Elias was gone from this place.

Anna sighed as she sat in the pilot’s seat. I took up a jump seat not too far away. She stared out the windshield that had once been covered with Elias’s slime. Now that it was clean, it revealed the dark hangar outside. Several New Angels walked past below, staring into the bridge.

“I just wanted us to be alone for a moment.”

Even though we’d had three days of down time, Anna and I had not seen much of each other. This was our first time to talk since we got everyone settled in here.

She reached for my hand, intertwining her fingers in mine. I drew the hand toward my chest. Anna followed my pull by standing and sharing her seat with me. Her head settled into my shoulder, her hair caressing my cheek.

“I just want to stay here for a while,” she said.

I held Anna close, as if to protect her from everything we had gone through. Her moments of vulnerability were rare, so all I could do was cherish them when they came.

“You doing better?”

She nodded into my chest. “Yeah. I don’t know why my nerves got to me up there. I think it was the flying more than anything else. I’m used to copiloting, but piloting is much different.”

“How so?”

“How to explain,” she said. “For one,
you
are in control. Anything that goes wrong is your fault. You control the steering, and in a tough situation, you have to make a snap decision. And it has to be right.”

“Sounds like a lot of pressure.

“It is. I’m not sure that kind of pressure is for me. I’m happy just to stab a Howler or two.”

I felt the same way. Though I had led the team in Bunker 84, it didn’t exactly go well. Everyone had come out in one piece at least.

I’d played the scenario over and over in my head and I didn’t see how I could have done anything better. If I had pulled everyone out of the Bunker, as Makara had wanted, then we wouldn’t have gained Bunker 84 in the first place and the Community would still be down there with their ship. Maybe Askala would have forced them to come out and they would have actually nuked Los Angeles.

There was no telling. No one died, which was the most I could hope for.

“What are we going to do, when the time comes?” Anna asked.

I didn’t have to ask what she meant: the coming fight with Askala and my part in it. It was something we had talked about before.

“The Wanderer told me,” Anna said. “That I would lose the one I loved.” She looked at me with a mixture of pain and longing. I was held by her gaze, those beautiful eyes that had captured me time and again. I hated to see them looking at me like that.

I touched her face, stroking her left cheek with my thumb. “You need to smile.”

She did, but the sadness still lingered. The sadness I could never take away, no matter what I tried. Because, like it or not, the Wanderer’s words held true. I
would
have to sacrifice myself. Whether he meant death, or something else, Anna was going to lose me. I was going to lose her. It was the price that had to be paid. If everyone else in the world could be saved, what was our love in comparison to that? Our love was
our
world, but it wasn’t theirs. Our sacrifice would be worth it if thousands or even millions would go on to love because we had sacrificed ours upon the altar.

Even if this thought made sense logically, every part of me screamed against it. I didn’t want to be with Anna merely now – I wanted to be with her forever. When all of this was over, I wanted to settle down with her. Marry her. Have kids...

Unbidden, tears came to my eyes. These thoughts were cruel and I didn’t dare mention them aloud. Anna only held me. She kissed me on the cheek, twice, her mouth trailing down my neck. I relaxed into the chair.

“Sorry,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t...”

I pulled her close, silencing her with kisses. She responded in kind – but we couldn’t go on. We couldn’t take this any further because it would only make it more painful, in the end.

At last, she desisted and rested her head on my shoulder. We sat there for a while, enjoying each other’s warmth in a cold world. It was as sweet as it was painful.

“I love you,” I said. “I needed to tell you that.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

Anna didn’t answer.

“Don’t say
don’t,”
I said. “It’s what I wanted to say, even back in the arena.”

She didn’t say anything for a long while. Even if she didn’t return the words, I could rest content, knowing that I’d told her.

“I know you love me,” she said, finally. “I see it every day in your eyes. And I’m sorry.”

“I...thought you felt the same way.”

“Of course I do. It’s just...don’t be sorry. About anything. And don’t feel pressured to...I don’t know. Haven’t you thought that it might be better not to love?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But isn’t the cat already out of the bag?”

“I already told you I loved you, Alex. But I guess you weren’t listening.”

“When did you say that?”

“The Wanderer,” Anna said. “Don’t you remember? He told me I would lose the one I loved. That the one I loved would...”

She sighed, and never finished. She gripped my back, nestling even closer to me.

“I just wish it were different,” she said. “I feel like every day that gets closer...”

“Just don’t think about it,” I said. “Just...enjoy the moment. What’s simpler than that?”

Anna said nothing. I felt troubled the longer the silence went on. After a while, I looked down at her, seeing that her eyes were closed. Soon, her breathing was even. She had fallen asleep right on top of me, arms wrapped around my torso as if she never wanted to let go.

Since I wasn’t going anywhere, I closed my own eyes and also fell asleep.

***

Anna woke me sometime later. We had probably dozed for fifteen minutes or so.

“Come on,” she said.

She led me to her cabin aboard
Gilgamesh.
She led me to her bed, where we lay down together.

“I want you to be near me,” she said.

We crowded onto the tiny bed and covered ourselves in the blanket. Anna cuddled against me.

“This is better,” she said.

I wrapped my arms around her, kissing the top of her head. I’d never felt about any girl the way I felt about Anna.

“When the time comes...” Anna said.

“Don’t talk about it.”

Anna was quiet for a moment.

“When the time comes,” she began again, turning to face me. “I will save you. I will find a way. I promise.”

I knew she meant it, and that was what pained me the most. There was nothing I could say to dissuade her from that. So I said nothing.

She kissed me on the lips.

“We’ll find a way,” she said. “The Wanderer doesn’t know everything, does he?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

Anna’s eyes showed her hurt. “Don’t
tell
me to not to worry about it, Alex. Because it’s all I can do. I have nightmares about losing you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t used to
anyone
feeling that way about me, so it felt...wrong. I didn’t know how to explain it. It made me more afraid than I’d ever been in my life.

“Just accept everything for what it’s worth.”

I looked into Anna’s face, realizing just how very young she was. How young we
both
were. We were both technically kids, and yet the world had turned us into something different, something in between. Right now, I saw her fear, her vulnerability. All of the things she had been hiding from the others, and I loved her all the more for it.

“Whatever happens, it’ll be alright,” I said.

“No, it won’t,” Anna said. “You won’t leave me alone in the world.”

“And leave the world to die?”

Anna didn’t respond to that. She knew I couldn’t just abandon my mission. But I couldn’t abandon her, either. It was a dilemma I was not prepared to face. I couldn’t see how
anyone
could face it.

“I will find a way.” She smiled. “Don’t make me repeat it again or I’ll bonk you in the head.”

I kissed her forehead. “Let’s just not think about it. Let’s just...be.”

Anna sighed, pulling me close and settling her head against my chest. I wanted nothing more than to protect her. And yet, the only thing I couldn’t protect her from was myself and what I had to do.

Then, a thought struck me. There was
one
thing I could do. It was a small chance, but perhaps it was possible.

“What are you thinking?” Anna asked.

I didn’t answer for a moment.
Would
it work?

“I need to see Askal.”

Anna pulled back, looking up at me. “Askal?”

“I haven’t seen him since Bunker 108. Does he know where we are?”

“Yeah,” Anna said. “I think he followed us here. You were asleep pretty much the whole way, so...”

I nodded. “Where is he, then?”

“He might have returned to the Great Blight by now,” Anna said. “There isn’t much fungus up here to eat.”

I guessed that much was true. What was I planning on doing, anyway? Riding the dragon all the way in the bitter cold to the Great Blight so I could speak to the Wanderer and see if there was another way?

Then again, maybe there
was
a way to communicate to the Wanderer across distance. Elias, after all, had communicated with Askala. The Wanderer had appeared to me in a vision when I’d been knocked out by the sleeping spores released by the Xenolith. Maybe it had only been an effect of the spores, but maybe I could
try
to talk to him again. I didn’t know how I’d go about doing that – but I did it in a way that I had not done in a long, long time.

I began to pray.

I have no idea if you’re listening. But I need to talk to you.

I tried to make my thoughts go across the distance, not knowing if it would help or not.

Something’s changed,
I continued.
I don’t know if I can go through with this. Please. Talk to me. Tell me there is another way.

I listened for a moment, almost expecting an immediate response. I heard nothing. It had reminded me of the many times I had tried to pray as a kid.
Bring my mom back. Bring my sister back.
The bring-back prayers always seemed to hit an invisible wall, because when God took something, he didn’t mean to give it back.

Anna’s breaths were even. She had fallen asleep. Perhaps it would be best if I did the same.

Chapter 22

The dark sky swirled with hellish red clouds. I stood on a ridge. Instantly, I knew where I was.

Ragnarok Crater.

I looked down. My vision, at first blurry, cleared to the point where I could see every detail of the Crater, even in the dim light. The entire ridge stretched around in a haphazard circle, softened only by a thick layer of pink and orange fungus. An iridescent glow covered the land, let off by the fungus, from which sprung spindly trees and twisted limbs, interconnected in a webby labyrinth of alien growth. Strange chortles and shrieks sounded from a xenoforest that reminded me very much of a jungle.

And then, there was the Crater itself, where the vegetation was so thick that I could hardly see into it. In the very center was a molten glow out of which lava churned. Ragnarok had to have cut deeply into the crust of the Earth for the magma to bleed out like blood. That wound would take centuries to heal. The ridge marched all the way around, almost like a wall. There looked to be no discernable way to get down from the outside. The only way was to come in by air – and somehow not be killed by all of the monsters living in the pink trees and vegetation, or to die from the lava spewing from the cracks in the surface. If someone had taken me here and told me it was Hell, I would have believed them.

A veil of white smoke overhung the Crater, slightly obscuring it from view. I looked around, hoping that the Wanderer would be here. But he wasn’t. I knew this to be a vision, though it was as real as life. I could feel the cold, dry air. I could feel my boots on my feet, the tufts of fungus beneath my soles, the clothes on my back. I even felt the familiar weight of my Beretta on my right side and my knife sitting opposite.

Was
this real?

Unsure, I took a few steps forward, as if testing it out. It certainly
felt
real enough. Had I really fallen asleep on
Gilgamesh
only to wake up here?

Suddenly, three xenodragons flew out from the Crater from one of the cracks in the Earth, one after the other, shrieking as they streaked into the sky like missiles. Their wings unfolded as their bodies angled upward – it was as if they had been
shot
out. As their momentum slowed, their wings unfurled fully, and they took to the wind with deadly grace, allowing warm updrafts to carry them further and further upward. More dragons shot from the Earth, going after the first ones. There were a dozen or so, followed by still more...

I just watched for the next few minutes as more dragons vacated the Crater. I stopped counting after fifty.

“Los Angeles is the least of your concerns now,” a voice said.

I turned around to find the Wanderer standing behind me. He had just disembarked from his completely white dragon. I hadn’t heard him land. His eyes glowed white within his hood, his cloak thick and brown about him, its tail whipped by the wind. He wore leather boots and carried his trademark walking stick.

“Is this really happening?” I asked. “Am I really here?”

The Wanderer did not answer, merely staring up at the red sky. The dragons were now turning west.

West, toward us.

“Who are they attacking?”

“The time is coming,” the Wanderer said. “The final battle is about to start. Askala has already sent her legions to the outskirts of the Great Blight.”