Uprising (17 page)

As I slept, I dreamt I was alone in the camp, walking in between patches of scattered sagebrush and picking off the tops of tall weeds that reached for my fingertips. The sun warmed my shoulders and the wind carried the spicy smell of pine trees with it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone, but every time I turned to look, no one was there. Sweat collected on my palms with each glimpse of a man just out of sight. I didn’t need to see him. I knew who it was.
Don’t be scared
, I told myself.
This is just a dream
. My heart ignored the thought. It was too real. It kicked at my chest, and I heard it in my ears as I waited for him to come from a direction I did not expect.

My eyes were alert, snapping back and forth from tree to tree. They caught sight of something in front of me, just beyond a distant trunk—Christoph.

I knew I should run, but he just stood there, staring. “Whether it’s the humans or me. One of us is going to get to you. There’s no way out,” he said, his voice ringing with sick amusement as his lips curled.

He looked at me, snapped his fingers, and flames shot up the trees. Everything was burning.

I woke to the feeling of fire all around me.

14.

THE MOMENT MY EYES OPENED, I felt the heat. My lungs, eager for air, sucked in nothing but black smoke. I couldn’t breathe. I cupped my hands over my mouth and nose, but it didn’t help. Orange flames whipped around me, reaching for my bare skin and searing my clothes.

“William,” I choked. His face was beaded with sweat. “William!” I shook him, and he woke up gasping and coughing.

Without saying a word he jumped off the bed and wrapped a blanket around us. I shoved my bare feet into my boots and grabbed my dart gun and bag of darts from the bedside table, clutching them to my chest. Flames were shooting through the window, so we headed for the bedroom door.

“Let’s get out of here,” Alex yelled from across the burning living room. He and Kara were next to us in seconds.

“Anna!” I screamed. I pulled away from William, leaving the blanket and heading for my old room. I coughed and hacked as I inhaled the smoke, but I ignored my body.

Kara caught my arm. “Elyse, they’re not here,” she said over the crackling and popping of the fire. “Come on.”

“Wait!” I cried. I panicked as the remnants of my family home went up in flames around me. I needed one thing.
The Art of War
. I couldn’t leave without it.

No
, Kara told me.
It’s gone. Let it go. We’re going to die in here.

My eyes were watering, or maybe I was crying. I was angry, irrational, crazy. William threw the blanket around me again and dragged me toward Alex. Then, all I saw was white, and we were gone.

When we landed I didn’t recognize where we were. Everything around me was burning. People were running, screaming, fighting for their lives. We were being attacked. I strapped my dart gun holster to my leg and hit the buttons on my bracelet without thinking. William looked at me with worry, and I stared back, both of us pleading for the other to be safe. Without a word we took off toward the fight.

I recognized most of the faces around me, but no Anna or Chloe. Gunshots punched loud holes in the air. A woman fell, and I shot my first blood soaked dart into the back of a tall man with a gun. The dart was a hollow. He fell. He was as good as dead.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kara wrestle a thick girl to the ground. She slit her throat with one fluid motion, and for a second I couldn’t look away. The screaming was carried through the wind—incessant.

To my left, a young boy began to sink into the ground like it was quicksand. I sent another dart into the chest of the older woman who was trying to bury him alive. I shot a second one into her neck just because the idea of burying someone alive made me sick.

My throat stung as I searched for Anna and Chloe. What sort of horror would they face? How would they defend themselves? I felt nauseated, but I couldn’t lose it now. I didn’t know if they were dead. They could be safe. Please let everyone be safe.

People ran, fought, shot weapons, scattered. Fire curled around the house and the trees. Smoke billowed into the sky turning it black. From the left a man charged at me with a knife, and I couldn’t get my dart ready fast enough. My heart beat wildly. I turned to run. Then I heard him fall and saw the arrow in his back. I didn’t know where he’d gotten the bow, but William stood behind him. He stared at me, warning me to be quicker.

“Be careful,” he yelled. We both turned and shot a pair of gunmen in the distance. “You need to get out of here.”

I shook my head and charged after the man causing the fire. It shot from his hands as he burned the world around him, the flames consuming trees, the house, people.

Heat waves blurred my vision and sweat rolled down the sides of my face as I closed in on him. I punched the buttons on my wrist again. Blood soaked the dart and dripped from my fingers. I aimed at the man with fire, but he spotted me and dodged the shot. I loaded again, but he was closer, aiming the flames at me. The heat, the smoke, everything began to swarm in. I grabbed a knife sticking up from the chest of an unfamiliar body and threw it in his direction. It spun fast, but he was quick, trained. The knife grazed his cheek, and that only made him angry.

I loaded another dart, but it was too late. I turned as he threw fire at me. The flames caught my back, and no matter how fast I tried to run, the heat kept up. I inhaled from the shock of pain, unable to breathe or scream. Then William was there. His arrow flew past me, and I prayed it hit the man, that it would extinguish the fire. I heard him cry out behind me and knew the flames must have stopped, but the burning continued.

I fell forward in agony, and rolled along the ground, but the fire ate away at my flesh. I saw William’s tortured face as he ran toward me. Then the familiar euphoria spread. His ability held me even when I was in pain. I no longer cared about pain. All I cared about was him. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t care that I was burning. When his knees slid in next to me, I heard him whisper into my ear.

“Sleep,” he said, and I obeyed.

***

I awoke submerged in water. My first instinct was to breathe, and it was wrong. Water filled my lungs, and my body convulsed, desperate to escape. Someone pulled me to the surface. I coughed and choked on air.

“You’re okay,” William said, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He picked me up, and my legs looped around the front of his body as he carried me to the shore. I was shaking. It felt like my back was still on fire, but I tried to stay calm and still.

“Take us back,” I insisted when I saw Alex. I didn’t know how I’d move, but I knew I had to try. “We have to go back. What about Anna, Chloe, Mac, everyone—”

“
We
aren’t going anywhere.” Alex looked at me like I was crazy and disappeared.

William set me on my feet, and I cried out. Even the smallest movements set me on fire again. The air against my skin felt like flames.

“Try and lie on your belly,” he said to me. My breath was shallow and quick, but I made my way to the ground wincing as each muscle in my back flexed. I let out a full breath when the front of my body relaxed against the dirt. William knelt down next to me, his ability flooding me with euphoria once again, until I no longer cared about the pain.

He took the knife from my boot, and I felt his fingers examining the burns on my back. His touch was thrilling, even though it stung. The knife cut my shirt in places that hadn’t been burned through so my whole back was exposed.

It felt good to get the fabric off, but the wind still licked my wounds with its fiery tongue. I was thankful the euphoria at least muted the pain.

“You’re okay,” he said softly. “It’ll be gone soon.”

I turned my head toward him and watched as he slid the knife across his palm. He didn’t flinch anymore, and I loved him so much for being here, for helping me.

As the drops trickled across my skin, I sighed with relief. “Thank you,” I said, feeling his blood heal my burns. He kissed my head, and I closed my eyes as he used his unwounded hand to spread it.

When he was done, he released his hold on me. I waited for the pain to return as I stood, trying not to move my back, but I didn’t need to. It didn’t hurt anymore. I held the remnants of my shirt to my chest, realizing it was the only shirt I had left. Everything was gone. I silently hoped my friends and family were still alive.

“Better?” William asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. Thank you.” I moved my bracelet to my right wrist, hit the buttons to draw blood, and unclasped it. “Here.”

His familiar grip wrapped around my new wounds, and we healed each other. It still amazed me. I looked at my newly healed flesh and re-clasped the bracelet.

With the pain gone, I was finally coming back to myself. William’s face was splotched with soot, his clothes singed and black. Despite the fact that we were safe, I couldn’t relax. The fight was still taking place.

“Alaximandrios,” I said, waiting for Alex to reappear and take us back. “Alaximandrios.” I tapped my toes against the ground impatiently. “Why isn’t he coming?”

“It was intense back there. You can’t expect him to drop everything and come back for you.” The muscles in William’s jaw pulsed, and I could tell it was hard for him to be away, too.

I brushed my wet hair back and started pacing. “I don’t understand how this happened.”

“Christoph found us,” he said like it was obvious.

“But how?” I moved to sit against a nearby tree and William sat next to me. “The safe haven . . . I just.”

“Someone must be playing both sides. Either that or he has someone with the ability to find people, but I really doubt it. I don’t think it exists.”

“So you think there’s a mole?”

He picked at the dry grass between us. “Something like that.”

I started to remember flashes of what we left behind. People screaming, running, dying. How could anyone want that?

“This is my fault, William,” I said. “I’m supposed to lead. I’m supposed to protect everyone. They trusted me—”

“Hey,” he said, interrupting my rising voice. He looked at me, his eyes steady and serious. “This is how it’s going to be now. You can’t keep blaming yourself for things, and you can’t cave every time there’s bloodshed. It’s a war, Elyse.”

It wasn’t what I expected from him. I expected sympathy, comfort. I wanted him to tell me everything was all right even though I knew it wasn’t. “I know. It’s just . . . I didn’t think it would actually happen.”

“Well, it has, and they’re counting on you to be strong.” His words weren’t mean. They were honest.

“But I’m not strong. I’m not a leader,” I said, still floundering.

“You are. When you want something, when you have something to fight for, you don’t let anything or anyone stop you. Just like you didn’t let anything get in the way of saving Anna’s life. You just have to remember what you’re fighting for.”

“I don’t know,” I confessed.

“You do know,” he said, moving to face me. He took my hands in his, and the warmth of his palms gave me confidence. “You’re fighting for those you love. For Anna and Chloe. For Kara. For us. So we can live in a world free of oppression.”

“But what if I’m wrong? What if human integration isn’t the right choice?”

“You can’t dwell on what ifs. You do what you believe is right.”

I nodded, trying to convince myself that what I believed in was worth the lives of those who had already died. William pulled me closer, and I lay against his chest looking out at the lake in front of us. Ripples broke the smooth plane of the calm water, and pine trees crowded the edges of the clay beach. I realized where we were and felt safe.

“If anything ever happens and we get separated, meet me here, okay?”

His warm fingertips stroked the bare skin of my back. “I don’t even know where we are.”

“It’s called Frenchman’s Lake,” I said, remembering my feet sinking into the muddy bottom when I was a kid. “I used to come here with my mother and father in the summer. This was our favorite spot. Crystal Point.”

“Sure,” he said, “but I won’t ever let that happen.”

When Alex reappeared, I stood immediately. “Where have you been?” I demanded.

His face was too serious, and he only looked at me before reappearing in the branches of a nearby tree. “Mac told me to keep you away.” He reached for the blue shirt hanging in his back pocket and threw it at me. “You’re welcome.”

“Is it over?” William asked.

“Yeah,” he answered. “But it’s bad. Your dad’s taking care of things.”

“What about Anna and Chloe?” I added after I had the shirt over my head. “What about everyone else?”

“They’re fine. Most people got out.”

“Most?” William repeated.

I stared hard at Alex, trying to muster as much authority in my voice as I could. “I need to be there.”

“I agree,” he said, “you shouldn’t be kept in the dark. Even if he is trying to protect you.” In less than a second Alex was next to me, and William’s hand was in mine.

The sky was shadowed with smoke when my eyes opened, and the land was scorched black. The three of us stayed alert as we headed toward the house, still smoldering and collapsing in the center. Voices came from the front, orders being shouted. My feet quickened, crunching the burned grass with each step.

Something stopped me in my tracks when I reached the back of the house—bodies. The dead were lined up in a neat row along the ground. A wave of nausea hit me, and I broke into a cold sweat. I turned back, catching sight of William and Alex behind me. “So many.” The thought triggered panic. Who had he murdered? My heart picked up speed.

“Elyse!” The sound of Anna’s voice made me whip my head around, and there she was, her face smeared with soot and dirt like everyone else.

“Chloe?” I ask, my voice hurried.

“She’s fine. We’re okay.” I hugged her tightly, grateful she was alive. “Luckily I know the place. We hid in the abandoned truck by the road.”

We stared at each other, speaking mostly with our eyes. I didn’t know what I would have done if something had happened to them.