Terra (12 page)

“This is crazy,” I say, running the flashlight back and forth across the giant room.

“What is?” Adam asks.

“Being here. Seeing this. We’re probably the first people to set foot in here in hundreds of years. It’s a little…” I trail off, searching for the right word in the stillness, while the dust cloud settles at my feet.

“Creepy,” I say finally.

“Sad,” Adam says at the same time.

“Looks like we can get up this way,” he says, pushing my hand so that the flashlight shines on a doorway off to the side where I find myself staring up at a rickety, winding stairway. The stairs are too steep to see how far up they go.

“More stairs?” I groan.

“You can handle it.”

“This doesn’t seem like such a solid idea. What if the floor collapses?”

“I’ve caught you every other time, haven’t I?” Adam places his palm against the small of my back and ushers me forward. His fingers brush against the bottom of the backpack, my contraband still inside. I walk faster so he’s forced to pull his hand back.

We climb. My thighs begin to burn under the strain of the day, and I lose count of the number of small landings we pass, each one indicating a new level, another floor. The stairs become increasingly unstable as we ascend and, eventually, we can’t go any further. We return to the previous landing and exit the stairwell into a long hallway lined with doors on either side.

“Pick a side,” Adam suggests.

I walk up to the first door on the left. The handle turns, but the door doesn’t open. I turn back to Adam, who winces as I accidentally flash the light into his eyes.

“It’s locked.”

“Honestly,” he says, rolling his eyes. He steps back and lunges at the door shoulder-first. It gives immediately; the latch falls to the floor as the door flies open.

“Why didn’t you use your, um…” I can’t bring myself to say the word again, so I flick my wrist in a poor imitation of the motion I now associate with Adam’s telekinesis.

A wrinkle appears in his forehead. “It doesn’t always come that easily,” he says after a moment. “Little stuff is simple, but…” He trails off.

I think back to how he looked after preventing the branch from hitting me—his breathing heavy, hands at his ribs. I am suddenly curious as to how exactly he got that giant bruise.

Adam clears his throat, and I turn my attention to the now-open room. Inside there are two neatly made beds, a chair, and several pieces of dark wooden furniture. There is a gaping hole in the middle of the floor, mirrored by a hole in the ceiling that looks into the room above. Lengths of threadbare fabric hang above the open windows.

“Yep. Creepy,” I confirm.

“You go ahead and get your bearings. There’s something I want to try.” He sounds excited as he turns back into the open doorway.

“Where are you going? We only have one flashlight,” I say. “Just wait a sec, I won’t be long. You won’t be able to feel your way back down in the dark.”

“I’ll manage. I’ll meet you back out front.” Adam looks at the opening in the floor before adding, “And try not to fall.”

“What are you—” I start, but he’s out of sight before I can finish my sentence. “Um, okay, bye then.”

I walk over to the edge of the room, treading lightly over the unsound floor, and peer out the window. I’m just above the skyline, and over the surrounding buildings I see the Dead Woods in the distance. From up here, it doesn’t look that far away, but I know better. I lean out the window to get a better look, and a gust of wind blows what remains of the curtains into my face, making me yelp in surprise. I grab the windowsill to steady myself.

Glad that Adam wasn’t there to witness that, I quickly scan the sky and reel myself back into the room. I am alarmed at how low the sun is. The sky is already changing and the impending sunset paints the horizon with vibrant shades of orange and pink. I’ve lost so much time. I suspect Adam may have downplayed how long I was unconscious.

If I make it to the next Collection with this second machine,
I think as I head back downstairs,
I am definitely buying a watch.

My legs aching, I reach the end of the stairwell and make my way back through the lobby. When I step back out onto the street, Adam is nowhere to be found.

“Adam?” I call out in a loud whisper. A minute passes. I pull my hair over one shoulder and twist it nervously between my fingers.

I call Adam’s name again, louder this time, as I move away from the building and toward the nearest cross-street.

Did he ditch me?
My eyes flit nervously down the expanse of road. It might be for the best if he did, but then why would he have made such a fuss about coming with me?

“Terra!”

I hear Adam’s voice calling to me faintly. Beyond my name, I can’t make out most of what he’s saying; a mechanical rumbling drowns out his words. I don’t understand the sputtering sound, which is growing louder, until Adam turns a corner and barrels into my line of sight.

He sits astride a motorized bike-style transport vehicle, with one wheel in front and two in the back. How the hell he got its centuries-old motor to run is beyond me. What remains of the paint tells me that the bike was originally black, though the shell that would customarily cover the engine is missing. At least that explains why it’s so loud. Adam is yelling over the buzz of the bike, but I can barely hear him. He races toward me with no signs of slowing down.

“Move!”

I lunge to the side as he rushes past me, nearly mowing me down. My shoulder hits the side of an abandoned vehicle that’s been pushed up onto the sidewalk, and I scrape my elbow as I fall onto the broken pavement. Outraged, I wrap my fingers around a chunk of rubble that has landed next to my arm. I am about to hurl the rubble in Adam’s direction when I hear the second transport round the corner.

Before I even have time to react, the raiders’ transport has begun to slow down, only yards away from me. The truck’s wagon is empty; two of the raiders sit inside the vehicle’s cab. Convinced that they’ve spotted me, I crawl around the vehicle I fell against, my heart pounding as it anticipates another chase. A few moments pass, and I can hear that the truck is still moving. I risk a glance back through the vehicle’s broken windows and realize I’m not the reason the raiders have slowed down.

At the end of the street, trapped between the raiders’ truck and a barricade of abandoned vehicles, is Adam. He faces away from the raiders, who angle their truck to block the street; only a sliver of sidewalk remains open, but I doubt it’s wide enough for the motorbike to fit through. Does he not realize how close they are? With his back to them, he is a sitting duck.

I curse under my breath, turning my head toward the open road behind me. It would be so easy to run. I have the machine. The raiders haven’t seen me, and they’re obviously preoccupied. Now that I know which way to go, I could outrun them. I could go home.

I hear the raiders’ boots crunch on the gravelly road as they exit their truck and step onto the street. They’re maybe thirty feet from Adam, and they’re laughing. I can’t help wondering if the raiders who killed Lee laughed beforehand too.

“Dammit,” I say quietly. Crouching low, I move down the sidewalk towards the still-running truck. The raiders have left the doors open and the engine continues to churn noisily. My palm begins to pulse around the heavy chunk of rubble I’m still clutching.

“Hey, pretty boy,” one of the raiders says. “Didya really think you were gonna get away on that thing?”

Adam continues to face the blockade of broken-down vehicles, his head cocked to the side. The raiders grow visibly irritated by his lack of reaction and they hurry towards him just as I reach the driver’s side door. I peer in cautiously, and take a second to assess the interior of the truck. In the foot bed sits a pair of matching pedals, just inches beneath the sloped underside of the dashboard that houses the steering wheel. I bite my lip as I try to remember which pedal is the accelerator, and which is the brake. I only have one shot.

I take a deep breath and jam the chunk of rubble onto the pedal on the right, wedging it between the pedal and the dashboard’s undercarriage. I yank my arm back as the truck jolts forward, hitting the side of the door with my hand as I withdraw it. I barely notice the pain as I watch the raiders’ black truck careen into the side of a building. Both the raiders and Adam turn just in time to see the transport smash into the wall with an earsplitting crash.

I dust my pants off casually as I stand back up. “Sorry, did you need that?”

Adam gapes at me. One of the raiders growls and immediately breaks into a sprint. I pivot on the spot and take off running; if I can get there fast enough, I can lose him amongst the maze of upstairs rooms in the building I just left.

But the raider is much faster than I anticipated and closes the gap between us before I have a chance to get away. As quickly as I feel his hands grab hold of my upper arms, though, I am released. I whip around to see the raider flying backward. Half a second later, he slams into the side of the truck and slinks to the ground. Adam stands to the side of him, arm outstretched and panting, the other raider collapsed at his feet.

“What were you thinking?” Adam shouts, anger flooding his voice as he stomps over to me.

“Um, you’re welcome?”

“I told you to run.”

“Oh, is that what you were saying? I had a little bit of trouble hearing you as you were trying to run me over.”

“This isn’t a joke, Terra.” Adam places his hand over his forehead, his middle finger on one temple and his thumb on the other, shielding his eyes.

“I just saved you!”

“Well, you shouldn’t have! You’d think after all the trouble I’ve gone through saving your life today, you’d maybe want to stop risking it so often.”

“I… you… I mean… You could’ve been hurt too, you know!”

“I had everything under control.”

“It sure as hell didn’t look like it from where I was.”

“That was the point. You think I couldn’t take them out? I was keeping them distracted so you had time to get away.”

I open and close my mouth, searching for another retort. Despite my best efforts, he’s still the one who ended up saving me. I stare at the ground. “I couldn’t just leave you,” I say finally, anger lingering in my voice as my face flushes.

My embarrassment seems to soften Adam’s rage. Breathing heavily, he retrieves the motorbike, giving the unconscious raiders a wide berth.

“Need a ride?” He beeps a comical-sounding horn as he mounts the vehicle. “We probably don’t want to stick around here too much longer.”

I eye the bike and contemplate asking him how in the world he found a working transport in this dead city, but humiliation stays my tongue.

“Hop on.” He scoots forward and pats the bench behind him with his palm.

I throw one leg over the bike and before I can say another word, Adam floors it. The sudden burst of speed blasts me backward, and I immediately wrap my arms around his waist to hang on. He winces, and I remember his bruise. I awkwardly move my hands to his shoulders instead and he relaxes.

It is not a smooth ride. The ancient transport, paired with the destroyed city streets, makes for dips and bumps that cause the lump on my head to throb. My hair flies up around my head in all directions, whipping me in the face. I press my cheek into the slim pack on Adam’s back to shield my face.

I clench my thighs tightly around the seat as Adam weaves in and out of the streets, using my arms to direct him toward the Dead Woods. Unlike the raiders’ truck, which had been forced to go around the more crowded streets, Adam maneuvers the bike nimbly between obstacles. We clear the District in no time.

The bike deals with the unpaved stretches outside the ruins surprisingly well. With fewer bumps comes a more relaxed ride, so I unhook one of my arms from Adam’s shoulder and use it to hold my hair to one side.

“Go left!” I yell into Adam’s ear as we near the woods. Despite its dexterous steering, there is no way the transport will fit through the trees. He yells something back, but the wind eats his words.

I guide us on a broad arc around the Dead Woods and am surprised when I see the glint of black dystridium in the distance. Having never actually driven a transport, and not having ridden in one since I was a child, I never had a chance to appreciate how fast they are. We’ve made it back to Sixteen before the sun has touched the horizon.

I can’t help the smile that flits across my wind-whipped face as we approach the settlement. I know I’ll have some serious explaining to do, but for now, I’m just happy to be so close to home. Happy, but exhausted.

As we approach the southern wall, I realize that Adam isn’t slowing down.

“Stop just up ahead,” I yell at him. He shakes his head; I’m not sure if he is disagreeing with me or if he can’t hear me. He follows the curve of the wall around the settlement, circling it fully before we finally come to a stop less than a foot from where I’d originally indicated.

“Sorry,” he says, cutting the engine. “I just wanted to get a full view. Why did you want to stop here? There’s a gate on the other side.”

“It’ll be hard enough to come up with an explanation that accounts for you, let alone this thing,” I say, gesturing to the bike.

“You worry too much,” Adam responds. He flicks his hand at something in front of him, and the bike pops back to life.

“Whoa, what are you doing?” I yell, scrambling to get off the bike. I’m not fast enough, and it lurches forward while I’m still half-seated. I grab at Adam for balance, wrapping my arms around his torso. His back tenses, adjusting to the pressure on his bruise, but I don’t move my hands this time.

Serves him right.

We zoom back around to the North Gate, slowing as we enter. I try my best not to meet the gaze of the guardsmen at the door, but I can already see their faces are alight with curiosity. As we ride through town, I notice more than a few disapproving looks from North Quadrant residents on the street. I suspect it has more to do with the noise of the bike than anything else. Up in this part of town, owning transports isn’t so rare. I think of Councilman Loxley’s matching roadsters, one red, one black. Even as dinged up as they are, the lower quadrants couldn’t stop talking about them for weeks.