Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) (42 page)

She buries her face into Lexa’s hair, her shoulders shaking. The little girl in her arms is too stunned to cry now. Her crystal clear eyes, just like Miranda’s, are round and scared.

“She doesn’t love you. She’s my mother, not yours.”

I mentally reassess whether it would be okay to cold-cock a five year old. If it wasn’t for the echoing footsteps fast approaching down the corridor, I might have gone for it.

“I have to go,” my brother says.

My heart spasms painfully. “Don’t!”

“Your brother knows his duty, girl,” my father wheezes. “He knows what his responsibilities are.”

“My name is
Kit
,” I hiss, “not
girl
.”

“Kit?” my brother whispers the word to himself. “Kit, I have to go. If they come in here, they will kill you.”

“Just leave with us, okay? It’ll be okay. You’ll see as soon as we get that thing off your neck.”

“Look how irrational she is, son. She’s crazed out of her mind. This is why people like you need the halos. It’s for your
―
”

Ryka slams the heel of his palm down into Lowrence’s throat. “Don’t you dare say it’s for his own good,” he growls.

Lowrence drags in a gasping breath. “You can’t win this, you moron. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase, don’t bring a knife to a gun fight?”

Ryka shoots upwards in a blindingly quick move; he wraps one of his arms around those of the guard’s, and in a second the gun is in his hand and the guard is on his knees, howling with his arm bent behind his back. Ryka shoves him face first onto the ground with his boot, looking positively murderous.

“You were saying?”

Lowrence whimpers. Actually whimpers. Now that the situation is under control, I turn to find my brother. But he’s gone.

BLOOD

“Are you sure it’s locked?” I whisper again. Ryka nods. With my father and Miranda secured in the room behind us, there’s no one to warn the technicians at the mouth of the arena floor of our approach. My brother’s match is already well under way and the Trues in the stands are making a lot of noise. He must be pitted against another favourite for them to be jeering so loudly. My stomach rolls as we creep up behind the two technicians observing the fight, their faces lit blue from the tablets they use to record every move, every strike my brother and his opponent lands or receives. Ryka nods at me once we have them in grabbing distance; we lunge forward at the same time and drag them back into the darkened corridor so no one can see us as we both utilise the same choke hold. The technicians struggle, clawing at our arms before quickly falling limp. The one Ryka incapacitated turns out to be the woman who conducted my last halo maintenance check. She never let go of her tablet the whole time she was being choked.

We edge forward so we’re still cloaked in shadows, but now I can see my brother in the middle of the white triangle painted onto the arena floor. He’s in there with that Belcoras boy, the one he must have been training with since I left. My heart kicks into overdrive. Another unfair match. They must know each other’s tells by now. I pray to the Gods my brother knows more about misdirection than he used to, because this guy looks like he knows how to fight. I shift anxiously from foot to foot.

“It’s going to be okay,” Ryka says softly, gripping onto my hand.

I hope he’s right. All my brother needs to do is win this match and then we can grab him and run. James and the others will hopefully already have Opa’s people on the move by now. It will be a simple case of catching up to them.

My palms sweat as I watch my brother lunge and dart at the Belcoras boy. He’s lightning-quick, perhaps quicker than I remember. For nine minutes he looks like he is holding his own, tumbling out of reach whenever the other boy comes at him. And nine minutes is a long time on the arena floor. I can almost feel the lactic burn in my own muscles as he dodges and twists, making sure to put in as many strikes as the other boy gives. The Trues are loving the show, cheering like mad people whenever one of them leaves it until the last second to tuck and roll. My hand fuses with Ryka’s, and his gentle mantra, “
he’s going to be fine, he’s going to be fine
,” calms the panic working its way around my body.

I begin to think he really will be fine.

I don’t see it coming, and neither does my brother. But Ryka does. His shout echoes out down the tunnel as Belcoras feints to the left, lifting his striking dagger high above his head. My brother blocks up, not registering the dagger in Belcoras’ other hand. With both hands above his head, my brother is left wide open for what happens next. The blade slices out across his stomach in a long sweeping motion, renting open his shirt so that a bright red explosion bursts out of him. I can’t hold it in; I scream so loud my eardrums feel like they’re going to burst. No one hears apart from Ryka, because everyone in the Colosseum,
everyone
, is on their feet, shouting. Looks like a lot of people had money on my brother. He sags to the floor, his hands going to his stomach. When he pulls them away and looks down, they’re covered in blood. So, so much blood. He topples sideways into the dirt and Belcoras lifts his arms into the air, celebrating his win early.

It’s commonplace in cases of stomach wounds. It takes too long for an opponent to die and so the adjudicators allow the win prematurely. I bolt out of the tunnel and race towards my brother’s limp body, saying yet another prayer and hoping Belcoras doesn’t finish him off before I can reach him. I don’t care that everyone can see me. I don’t care that hundreds of guards are within shooting distance, perfectly capable of picking me off. All I care about is reaching my brother.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ryka growls beside me. I tear across the dirt floor, pumping my arms so that I can go faster.

“Pretend we’re carrying him off,” I yell.

“What?”

“Just do it!”

Ryka follows my lead as I drop to my knees besides the crumpled body on the ground. My brother’s eyelids are fluttering like crazy. He looks up at me, his lips an unhealthy blue shade. “You shouldn’t…you shouldn’t…” he gurgles, blood foaming out of his mouth.

“Don’t talk, okay. We’re getting you out of here. Lay still.” I pretend to take his pulse for a second and then I stand. I make a show of turning my body three hundred and sixty degrees around the arena, making sure everyone can see as I hold my thumb up in the air. I don’t waste time pausing for dramatic effect before I tip my thumb down, signalling that my brother is dead. The Trues erupt into a furious clamour, screaming and shouting at one another as I take hold of my brother’s arms. I glare at Ryka. “Get his legs. We have to get him out of here.”

Belcoras is being taken care of by the adjudicator. More fanfare is spilling out of the speakers, so no one notices how openly my brother coughs up blood as we carry him off the floor. Once we’re in the tunnel, we stand him up so I can lift his shirt to take a look at his injuries.

I feel a sick twist in my gut when I realise the cut across this stomach is incredibly deep. So deep it makes my chest constrict. “Are you in pain?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “No pain.”

Of course not. The halo takes care of that. My finger nails cut deep into my palms as I thank the stars for that small blessing. With an injury like this, he could easily be dying, but at least he can’t feel it. “Let’s get you out of here,” I breathe.

“You should just go,” he rasps.

I ignore him, lifting one of his arms around my neck. “Give him here,” Ryka demands. He lifts my brother and carries him in his arms like a child. There’s no other way to do it without making his injuries worse. I suddenly feel completely and utterly useless. My hands are covered in blood and my head is pounding.

“Come on, Kit.” Ryka leans over to press his lips quickly to my forehead. “It won’t be long before they realise your father isn’t there.” He sets off running with my brother in his arms and all I can do is follow, choking on panic.

RUN

The others are gone when we get to the house. The front door is wide open at Penny’s place and light spills out over the river. Ryka doesn’t stop running, which means I don’t either.

“They’re ahead of us. You’ll have to lead, I don’t know the way,” he says. I push ahead, not looking at my brother for fear of realising that he’s losing his second fight of the evening, or worse still, that he’s already lost. We jog all the way through the Sanctuary, not bothering to hide whenever we cross someone’s path. By some miracle all the guards are up at the Colosseum. We’re at the edge of the Narrows, the ghetto at our back, when we hear the sirens. The wailing sound stretches out into the night, echoing out across the city.

“They know,” Ryka pants. He pushes out in the lead now that we’re on the path towards the refinery, towards the river. His shirt clings to his back, plastered with sweat, but not once does he slow down. I love him more than life itself for that. He just doesn’t give up.

It’s a brutal, exhausting run to the refinery, but I’m able to carry on only because I know everything will be okay once we meet with the others. Max or Callum will be able to take my brother for a while and we’ll be long gone before they catch us. Or at least that’s the plan. Until we arrive and find ourselves alone, that is.

“I thought they would have waited,” I moan, pausing to rake in a shallow breath. My arm pulses fire with every determined pump of my heart, but there’s nothing I can do beyond trying to focus past the pain. Despite his load, Ryka is faring better than I am.

“You obviously don’t know James very well. If I die, he thinks he’s got a greater chance of succeeding Jack.” He sets of running again, down the fenced-in pathway beside the river.

“What? Freetown is a republic!”

“Doesn’t seem to make much difference to James,” he says grimly.

None of that makes any sense. “If he wants you dead then why didn’t he call you to fight?”

“There’s a limited number of times you can pull that trick before people begin to distrust you, Kit,” he pants. “If he kills me the same way he killed my father
―
” he shakes his head. “The people would never back him.”

We run forever and I mull over James’ betrayal the whole time, imagining what I’m going to say to him if I ever see him again. We’re close to the aqueduct when Ryka skitters to a halt. I have to dodge him to avoid slamming into his back.

“What is it?” He puts my brother down gently on the ground and I stifle a sob, not ready to hear him tell me he’s dead.

“He’s unconscious,” Ryka says. “He’s still breathing. Pulse is thready but it’s still there.” He points off into the darkness. “There’s a body up ahead. Stay here with your brother.” I can’t see what he’s pointing out but I believe him. My head buzzes as I crouch down to stroke the hair out of my brother’s eyes. His skin is clammy with a cold sweat. “Hang in there, little brother,” I tell him. I peer up ahead and watch Ryka’s dark form shift around. He crouches low for a second and then runs back, shaking his head. There’s something in his hand: a gun.

“It’s Max,” he says, wincing, his hands shaking like crazy. “They’ve already come down this far after the others. We have to move. Now.”

A numb, cold shock thrills through my body, pooling in my stomach. “He’s dead? Max is
dead
?” Ryka slings the gun at me and I fumble it. He doesn’t answer me, just paces back and forth. The pain on his face is brutal. “I’ve never held a gun before. I don’t know how to use it! Ryka, just stop. Stop! Our friend just died!”

He freezes, staring into the blackness where Max’s body lies, a dark inanimate shadow by the waterside. Huffing out a breath, Ryka collects my brother, grunting as he does so, and gives me a tight smile. “We can grieve later, Kit. As for the gun, learn fast. I get the feeling we’re going to need it.”

I hold the thing like it’s liable to go off of its own accord. It’s heavy and cumbersome, and I have no idea whether I’ll be able to hit anything with it if it comes down to it. Hopefully it won’t. I follow after Ryka and he stops in front of Max’s body as I pass, blocking the body from view.

“I want to see him,” I say, but Ryka gives a small shake of his head.