Shadowmark (The Shadowmark Trilogy Book 1) (29 page)

Mina felt for the safety and switched it off. “He’s on his way back up.”
 

“Maybe I’ll sit with you and wait on him, then.”
 

Her heart pounding, Mina held up her gun and pointed it at him.
 

Williams raised his hands in surrender and laughed. “All I want to do is see Doyle. We can wait for him together.”

“Don’t come any closer!” Mina was proud of herself for keeping her voice even, but her shaking hands refused to keep the gun level.

“Put that away. We both know you won’t shoot me. And I won’t hurt you.” He walked forward again.

She should pull the trigger, but something inside her resisted. Williams wasn’t running at her or shrinking back. He genuinely believed she wouldn’t shoot.
Just do it!
He was five feet away.
Stop him!
Three feet.
 

Williams grabbed for the gun. Mina twisted, trying to get out of the way. But he knocked the gun out of her hand and grabbed her arm. She dove for the weapon and he jerked her upright. Mina summoned all her strength and punched him in the nose, her knuckles smarting instantly. Undeterred, Williams raised his hand to strike.

Something knocked both of them to the ground. Mina landed hard on her elbow and cried out. She turned—Doyle had pinned Williams on the ground next to her. She scooted away as quickly as she could. Doyle grabbed Williams by the throat and dragged him down the slope. But Williams was strong, and somehow flipped up to kick Doyle in the face. Doyle released him, but instead of reeling back, Doyle lunged at Williams, catching him off guard. They toppled down the steep slope, sliding through the wet underbrush and bouncing off a rock before Williams slammed into a large tree. Doyle slid a few more feet before recovering his balance and running up to where Williams lay groaning at the base of the tree.

Mina hurried down as Williams struggled to get to his feet. Doyle pulled out his gun.

Williams’s voice trembled. “I wasn’t going to hurt her. See? She’s alright.”
 

Doyle fixed Williams with a stare so cold Mina started to shake again. He put the gun to Williams’s forehead.
 

“Wait! You’re in the same boat as me, Doyle.” He spat the name. “We can help each other!”

Before Mina reached them, Doyle pulled the trigger, and a resounding crack filled the air. Williams’s body crumpled, blood spattering the nearby tree. Mina halted in her tracks. Doyle immediately began searching Williams’s pockets.
 

Anger and disappointment and fear all vied for attention as Mina ran at Doyle, full of rage. He stood and grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the body. Mina jerked out of reach, away from his touch.

“You should have shot him as soon as you saw him!” Doyle said fiercely. “That’s why I gave you a gun in the first place!”

“I couldn’t! He wasn’t armed. I had the gun out, but . . .” The fact that he blamed her was infuriating. “You stopped him! The situation was under control!”

“What if I hadn’t shown up? What would have happened to you then?” He was shouting now.
 

“But you did show up. You had no reason to shoot him!”

“Always waiting on me to save you! Have you learned nothing? It’s like you want to die.”

“Maybe I just have a problem with killing people in cold blood!”

“It wasn’t cold blood, Mina. He attacked you.” Doyle’s voice was quieter now.

“We could have walked away. But now this is one more thing to add to the pile. One more regret.”

“It’s not your regret. You didn’t pull the trigger.”
 

Mina couldn’t tell if he meant to relieve her of her guilt or add to it. She tried to calm herself by breathing deeply, but hot tears spilled down her cheeks anyway, and this time she didn’t care if Doyle saw them. In an effort to clear her head, she asked, “What did he mean by
you’re in the same boat as me
?”
 

“I don’t know.”

“No?”
 

Doyle shook his head. “He had a gun to his head. He would have said anything to keep me from shooting.”

“And you shot him anyway!”

“They are all going to die if the Glyphs find them! And with the noise going on down there, it won’t be long.”

“A lot of these men would already be out of the valley if they had known the invaders were close! But no, you insisted we wait while you decided what you wanted to do!”

“Yes, and it didn’t help you out at all, either, Mina, did it? Looking for your brother? It’s easy to say we should have warned them about the Glyphs now that you know he isn’t here. But if we had warned them and he left before you found him? What then?”

“He would be alive, and that’s all I care about.” Mina’s voice broke. “We shouldn’t be fighting each other. We should be surviving, and getting as far away from the Glyphs as we can before they hunt us down!”

Doyle kicked Williams’s foot. “Tell that to these guys. If what you saw down below leaves you with any faith in humanity, then you are a fool. People will clamber over one another and kill until no one is left standing, all in the name of survival. The Glyphs don’t need to hunt us down—we’ll do the work for them.”

“All the same, we shouldn’t just hand each other over to the Glyphs,” said Mina, looking at the body. She looked up at Doyle for some sign of remorse, of reason, and shuddered at his blank expression. She had already made up her mind. “I’m leaving.”

Doyle looked at her. “Fine.”

Mina retrieved her backpack, furious that was all he had to say. She left the second rifle propped against a tree and her pistol on the ground. As if in answer to her rage, another rumble of thunder shook the mountain.
 

“Mina.”

She turned, shaking. Of course he would try to stop her.

Doyle walked over and picked up the pistol. “Take it. Please.” He held it out to her.

“So I can become like you?” she hissed.

“Please.” Doyle’s taut face and cold eyes contrasted with the warmth in his voice.

Mina took it and put it in its usual place on her belt. Anything to put some distance between them. She could always toss the gun later.
 
She looked at Doyle one last time. When he did not say anything else, she turned and hiked up to the ridge as quickly as she could.

That night Mina sheltered under an overhang on the other side of the ridge, tired, hungry, and cold. She had wandered aimlessly, looking for the easiest way down this difficult side of the mountain. Mina lit a fire from the dry brush she found beneath the overhang, but its feeble flame did little to warm her. She crawled into her tent only to fume some more. She felt betrayed somehow. Any way she looked at it, this day did not add up. Doyle had made careful, calculated decisions. He was not rash, and he was not vengeful—at least the Doyle she knew. He claimed mercy led him to kill the burned man. Why had he killed a healthy man in cold blood? And why had Jones attacked him?

Exhausted but too preoccupied to sleep, Mina lay awake for a long time and watched the clouds clear away through the open flap of her tent. Stars shone crisply in the dark sky. She wished she could rewind to a week ago, when they were living in the cabin. For a few brief days, life had seemed simple.

Just before dawn, a rumbling woke Mina. The fire had burned itself out, but the stars still shone brightly in the still night. No birds sang in the trees. Even the wind barely made a sound. The mountain rumbled again. Vibrations shook the overhang, causing small stones to fall down onto her tent. Mina sat, crying softly as explosions rocked the other side of the mountain. Even though she could not see anything over the ridge, she imagined great plumes of fire and smoke rising up out of the valley.
 

Calla rushed through the trees, sliding over wet pine needles as another explosion rocked the dark valley. Shame coursed through her. They would escape her now. Where did he go? Smoke drifted over, momentarily obscuring her view of the trees ahead. Still she pressed on, feeling her way to the ridge where she had last sensed him. She would catch one of them, at least. A shadow stumbled toward her, choking in the smoky air. Calla let it pass.

The sounds of gunfire and arguing below had ceased, replaced by screams and shouts of panic. Another explosion created a fireball down the slope from Calla, and she felt the heat from it as the ground shook beneath her. There. A body lay at the foot of a tree. She ran to it and turned it over. Williams. He had been shot in the head, execution-style. His pockets had been turned out, too, and his weapons were gone. Calla forced down the anger rising in her. She had needed him alive.
 

Three sets of footprints dotted the area, along with the remains of a campfire. One set of prints definitely belonged to Williams. Calla studied the others. Another set matched Williams’s tread exactly, but it was bigger and lighter. The other, smaller set belonged to a common hiking shoe. Eventually, the larger and the smaller parted ways, with the smaller tread heading up the mountain. Calla ignored those and followed the larger prints along the ridge line, away from the explosions, until they disappeared an hour later on a rocky outcropping. Calla’s three rejoined her as she searched for the lost trail.
 

She stopped momentarily to look at them. Only three, no one else. She clenched her fist as she anticipated their excuses, but asked anyway.

“Where’s Halston?”

One shook his head. “Ran off during the fighting. Must’ve got wind of the Condarri.”

“And the other?” She slid her hand along her knife handle.

“We never found another.”

“Thompson.”

“The man they were voting on? How do you know?”

“Dar Ceylin.”

“You got false information. Thompson is just a regular guy.”

Calla pulled her knife and rushed him, intending to kill them all for their insolence and incompetence. But the male did not flinch. “It is the Condarri who have failed, not us.”

Calla stopped with her knife inches from his neck. “It is treason to say so.”

“Yes, but killing us will not change your orders, only make them more difficult to carry out.”

“I can summon others.”

“Will they be as loyal? We have returned to you,” he said spitefully, “despite the possibility of death. Too many are turning their backs on the Condarri. Whom will you trust?”

“I trust no one. They will answer for their treasons.”

“Yes. And we will help you with that,” he said simply. “Not many others will.”

Calla did not want to be seen wavering, but his words rang true. They were loyal. She sheathed her knife and said, “Williams was already dead when I found him. Did you kill him?”

“I did not.” The other two shook their heads.

“We must find Halston.”

“Yes,” said the male, adding, “I don’t trust Dar Ceylin.”

“He is worth more than all three of you. And he is loyal. We need him.”

DAY 80

M
INA
WANDERED
FOR
SEVERAL
DAYS
after leaving Doyle. She half-heartedly thought of going back over the ridge to check the damage, but couldn’t stomach the thought of what she might find there. So she crossed to the next valley and headed south.
 

Her next move was to try to find Atlanta, or at least the area surrounding it. Lincoln might be long gone already, but after months of distractions, Mina would at least have a place to begin her search. Without a map or even a sense of her current location, the old idea of following the mountains south seemed smartest.
 

She dared not light another fire. At least once a day, a huge black ship flew silently over the area, the only sign of its approach a looming shadow that blocked out the daylight. Mina racked her brain for the reason for these daily flyovers. The ship must be searching for survivors. The smaller ship she had seen the night she met Doyle would have been better able to maneuver in the tight valleys, but what did she know about alien logic? But after three more weeks, the ship still combed the area, and the daily duck and cover left Mina weary and fearful.
 

Summer had finally settled in the mountains after the last cold snap, and she enjoyed the warm days and pleasantly cool nights. The rain, no longer chilling, turned the valley’s forests into humid pockets of dense undergrowth.
   

Traveling by herself was different from traveling with Doyle, and Mina realized quickly how much she had come to depend on him. Now she had to make all the decisions—where to sleep, how far to travel, where to rest, where to search for food. She also appreciated how well Doyle had avoided other people. Far more refugees were hiding in the mountains than she had guessed, and it seemed like she saw more every day. The first time she spotted a campfire, Mina ran in the opposite direction, thinking of the daily patrols. She no longer worried about warning others—anyone could see the great black ship in the sky. But after her first two hasty retreats, Mina realized she was wasting a valuable resource—communication. At his towering height, her brother attracted attention with his very presence. Anyone who had seen him would likely remember.
 

But still, she wasn’t too keen on running into another Reed or Williams, and so she carefully observed the other refugees before choosing to make contact and kept her pistol under her shirt. If they carried too many weapons or woefully outnumbered her, she retreated. So far, she had seen mostly ragtag, unarmed sorts who backtracked quickly. To encourage conversation, Mina always shared her food, and helped them find more in exchange for information. But so far, no one remembered Lincoln or had seen anyone fitting his description. No one had any outside news, either—nothing to tie her to the world beyond the mountains.
 

Despite her anger, Mina often wondered about Doyle. She had met more people in the past two weeks than in the two months she had spent with Doyle, but Mina missed his quiet companionship. He didn’t fear her, didn’t shrink away as the other refugees did. Her mistakes angered him, but he also accepted her frustration in return. Doyle respected her, it seemed, or he would not have helped her. During many sleepless nights, Mina reevaluated her decision to leave, but she always reached the same two conclusions—she didn’t want to be associated with a murderer, and Doyle didn’t want her company or he would have stopped her from walking away.