Warchild: Pawn (The Warchild Series) (12 page)

I tell her I don’t, and when I offer
to find her something to eat and drink, she thanks me. Before I go, she asks me
to say a prayer with her, and I agree to do it.

This praying, it’s good.

We could all use God’s attention
right now.

CHAPTER ● FIFTEEN

On the morning of the fourth day, I
have to break up a fight between Crockett and James. More delays are the last
thing I need. Marla hasn’t returned, and I’m starting to worry about her. If
the blackcoats captured her, or have done something worse, James will never
forgive me. Rawley, Squirrel, and now maybe Marla—if anything happened to her
overnight, James and his friends are gone, no question.

I’m finishing up breakfast, nuts and
undercooked squirrel, when Finn runs over and practically trips into my lap.

“What’s the matt—”

“We’ve got trouble. James and
Crockett.”

He doesn’t need to explain. I
understand immediately. “Where?”

“Over in the middle.”

I hurriedly follow him through the
gathering crowd of onlookers, pushing past wet bodies, craning their necks to
see what’s going on, wondering what all the shouting is about. Some of them
move out of the way when they notice it’s me, and I can’t help but feel a
measure of pride that I seem important enough for them to give me space.

Citizens and Republicons alike have
backed away from Crockett and James, forming a wide hole in the crowd, giving
them room to circle each other with knives drawn and their arms held out. They’re
both crouched, sidestepping, circling, taking small jabs at the air, waiting for
the other to make the first move—or the first mistake.

I push the last man in front of me
out of the way and rush into the open space.

They don’t take their eyes off each
other when I scream for them to stop.

James says, “Get out of here,
Caroline. This is between me and her.” He lunges, jabs at Crockett’s stomach,
misses, and then bends his body at an awkward angle to avoid her counterattack.
She misses, too, and they go back to revolving around each other.

I scream again for them to stop, but
they’re not listening.

He says, “You’re going to get hurt,
now get out of here.”

“No, James, stop it. Both of you.”

They circle. Crockett slashes at the
air and misses James’s midsection by less than an inch.

“This won’t bring Rawley back and
you’re slowing us down.”

“And if I get rid of this heartless
hag, that’ll be one less mouth to feed,” James snarls.

Crockett snarls right back at him,
“Your blade’s not worthy of my blood, big man.”

The longer I stand here and try to
talk some sense into these two, the more time we’re wasting. We should’ve been
moving an hour ago, but I made the decision to let everyone rest a little
longer. They need it. I need it. And partly because I wanted to give Marla a
chance to make it back so I wouldn’t lose James. If I don’t handle this the
right way, that might happen regardless.

I don’t know why the fight started,
and I don’t care. All that matters is stopping the two people I’ve been
counting on to help me lead this hungry, tired, and frightened horde.

I plead and I beg, but they ignore
me, swiping and stabbing at each other as the crowd looks on. Some are cheering
for James; some are cheering for Crockett. Others stand silently, holding their
arms across their children’s chests, keeping them away from danger, but
allowing them to watch a fight to the death—unless I can stop it

I can’t think of anything else to
say that will convince either of them, so I say something foolish, hoping it’ll
shock them into submission, or at least distract them long enough to forget
what they’re fighting about. I step closer, but far enough away that I won’t
accidentally get stabbed or sliced by one of their blades, and plant my feet. I
point at them. “Crockett! James! I am
ordering
you to stop, right now!”

It works, for a second. They pause
and stand up from their crouches, lowering their knives to their sides as they
look over at me. Crockett laughs. James has a mixture of surprise and anger on
his face.

“Did you hear me? I’m
ordering
you.”

Crockett says, “You want us to
listen to
you
? You don’t even have enough sense to keep your feet dry,”
and then, taking advantage of my distraction, she lunges at James, arm held
tight in a straight line, the knife protruding from her hand like a spear’s
point.

Before I can blink, I’m between
them. I don’t know how it happened so quickly, but I make it in time to grab
her arm, wrench it sideways, and sling her to the ground before she can harm
James.

He reacts by driving his blade down
toward her chest, and I reach out, shoving him, sending this man with a chest
like a tree trunk flying across the open circle. He lands, rolls and sits up,
stunned.

The speed, the strength—where is it coming
from?

I take a breath and try to overlook
what just happened. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to these little moments
of superhuman abilities that show up without warning. I lower my voice and
scold them. “I said
stop
, and I meant it.”

Crockett pushes herself up and wipes
the mud from her shirtsleeves, her pants, and then pushes her filthy hair out
of her face. She tucks her knife away and stares at me. “Whatever’s in you,
little girl, you better be glad it’s there.
He
better be glad it’s
there,” she says, and then stomps off. She shouts for the crowd to move, and
they part, giving her a wide path to sulk away.

James stands as well, and, without a
word, he shoves through the crowd in the opposite direction. He’s mad. Let him
stay that way. It serves him right.

He seems like he’s always mad about
something, so what’s another thing to add to his growing list?

I’ve avoided another catastrophe,
for the time being, and, although I probably could’ve handled it better, I’m
proud of myself.

At least until I see all the faces
around me. They’re afraid, retreating slowly. They all saw what I did, somehow
covering the distance to protect James in time, hurling Crockett to the ground,
shoving a man three times my size twenty feet away.

I don’t want them to be afraid. I
want to be a good, kind leader.

But I can’t blame them. I’d be
worried about what I saw, too.

Then I realize, I’m also slightly
afraid of what’s happening.

Grandfather told me once that a
great president—who was in charge long before the world ended and had died way
too young—had said, “There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.” I understand
what it means, like we should stay strong and only be afraid of
being
afraid, as if fear was a real thing, but what happens if
you’re
the fear
you should be afraid of?

I wish I knew what’s happening to
me, where this change in my body is coming from.

She gave it to you for a reason.

Grandfather’s words. My dream last
night, drinking blood from Ellery’s finger, what she said.
I have given you
the greatest gift. On the morning of your fifteenth year, you will become…

I will become…what?

The next thought that crosses my
mind is so ridiculous that I begin to laugh out loud, and I must be a sight to
the citizens and Republicons who are backing away from me, warily, wondering
what they’d just witnessed. My laughter causes them to shuffle faster and,
eventually, I’m left alone, standing in the rain.

Laughing, laughing.

The morning of my fifteenth year. My
birthday is only a few days away. Grandfather and I were going to celebrate
with a spoonful of sugar apiece. Elder Wickam brought it home from his trip after
he’d visited his kinfolk way, way down south and had shared it with the rest of
our encampment. I left the sugar behind, and if the DAV soldiers haven’t burned
our hovels to the ground, it’s sitting in a small box on the shelves by the
door. In a way, I hope they torched our shack and didn’t get to enjoy the treat
we were going to share.

The speed, the strength. I was given
something. I saw into the past.

It’s almost as if I’m becoming a
Kinder.

I refuse to believe it. How? By
drinking Ellery’s blood? Is that even possible? I don’t know enough about them
and their history to know whether it is or it isn’t.

Why me?

A Kinder?

I
refuse
to believe it, and I
can’t
believe it.

The things that I’ve done—slinging
the soldier, throwing Crockett and James, moving so fast that I was between
them before I even knew it—they have to be some sort of fluke. Good leverage,
catching them off balance…something like that.

I laugh so hard that I have to wipe
the tears from my cheeks, and when I see Finn cautiously approaching, I yell,
“Boo!” just to watch him jump. He does, and it makes me laugh even harder.

He reaches for me, and I let him
touch my arm. “Okay,” he says, “once was weird—with Crockett back in the
woods—but twice, that’s too much to ignore. How’d you do that?”

“Do what?” I ask, playing coy.

“You moved so fast, you were almost
a blur, and then you threw James like he was no bigger than Squirrel. It was—it
was amazing, Caroline. Can you teach me?”

I finally get my laughter under
control. “No,” I say, “whatever this is, I don’t think it’s something I can
teach.”

I don’t want to tell him what I
suspect because I don’t believe it myself. If I tell him I think I’m becoming a
Kinder, that Ellery
made
me a Kinder, he wouldn’t believe me. He’d think
I was crazy, and he’d tell everyone else that I was crazy. I could see it in
their eyes—they’re already afraid of me, and now, if they think I’m crazy, too,
I’ll completely lose what little control I have, if I ever had it to start with.

Taking that chance isn’t worth being
able to share my secret, no matter how badly I’d like to tell him. At least not
until I figure out whether it’s the truth.

How would I even be able to tell? There’s
no badge, no official acknowledgement from the government, nothing and no one
to say, “Hey, Caroline, congratulations! You’re now part of a super race that
we created a hundred years ago!”

I’m already changing, and I haven’t
made it to my fifteenth birthday yet.

Will I feel different? If—and it’s a
very big if—I’m becoming a Kinder, will I somehow just know? Will I wake up
that morning and simply think, “Oh, wonderful, I’m a Kinder now,” or will I
look different if I ever happen to see myself in another mirror?

Again, I have to wonder,
why me
?
Grandfather said she gave it to me for a reason. What’s the reason? If my dream
was really a vision into my past, Mother and Father were there, they saw what
Ellery had done.

And, is that the reason they left?

So many questions, and the only
people capable of giving me the answers are either gone or dead.

Finn smiles. “It was amazing,
whatever it was.”

“Amazing. Yeah.” And scary.

“Want some good news?”

“Please.”

“Marla’s back.”

Oddly enough, I get excited and
relaxed at the same time. “Did she see them?”

“I didn’t have a chance to ask. She’s
exhausted and went to find some water.”

“Where is she?”

“Back there,” Finn says, pointing. “Over
by those two maples.”

“Good. Are you coming?”

“Why don’t you just throw me over
there and save me the walk?”

I grin and pat him on the back. “Don’t
tempt me.”

Marla’s exhausted. She’s lying on
her back, underneath the canopy of a maple tree, holding a water pouch up to
her mouth and sucking down heaping gulps.

“Marla?”

“Hey, boss,” she says, sitting up.

“Where are they? Did you see any of
the runners?”

“Yeah, but there are fewer now. I
got close enough to hear them talking about all the people they’d sent back
already.”

“How many and how far?”

“I’d say they’re down to about fifteen,
but they look winded. Worse than me. We probably have a good day’s lead on them.”

“That’s it?”

“I hate to say it, boss, but we’ll
never make it back to your capitol before they catch up. Not with all these
slow people. It wouldn’t surprise me if they caught up tomorrow.”

“We’ll speed up and try to make it.”

“What if we don’t?” Finn asks. He
looks worried.

“Then we’ll fight.”

CHAPTER ● SIXTEEN

Marla was right. We had a day’s lead
on the DAV runners.

They catch us midway through the
fifth day of our retreat. Our horde is too big, too slow, and moves at the pace
of a pregnant sow in deep mud. We’ve been bumbling and meandering along, and no
matter how much I shout and coax and encourage, my group of frightened citizens
has turned into a gaggle of fatigued laggards, too physically wasted to care
about saving themselves.

I’m near the back, urging a young
family up a steep incline, when I hear the first scream, followed by the echo
of a gunshot arriving from a great distance. I turn and notice a man named
Elbert lying on the ground, clutching the back of his thigh. His daughter,
Lala, is crouching at his side, screaming, “Daddy, no!” and desperately ripping
her shirt. She gets a strip loose and tries to tie it around his thigh. As her
fingers work furiously, she’s thrown to the side and a half-second later,
another report echoes through the woods.

It has to be a DAV sniper among their
runners because Lala pitches and falls before I hear the shot.

“Down! Down!” I scream. “Get behind
a tree! Find cover!”

Across the herd, I see James and
Marla ordering the people on their side to do the same, and amidst the shouts
of terror, I can make out Finn’s voice somewhere near the front, telling everyone
to hide.

I’ve lost the ability to think
clearly. I should be hiding as well. Who knows how far away the sniper is, or
how clean his line of sight may be. He can pick me off as easily as a deer
running through an open field, but I don’t care. Two of my people are wounded. They
need my help.

I run. I launch myself over fallen
logs and stumps, hurdling bushes like they’re no higher than a pair of boots on
the ground. It feels effortless. I move like wind through the trees. Branches
and limbs rustle in my wake, and I’m upon Lala and Elbert before I realize I’m
there. I nearly dart past them before I notice how much distance I’ve covered.

I drop to the bed of damp forest
leaves just as an oak trunk splinters next to my head, which is then followed
by the shot echoing throughout the valley. That was too close, and I can only
assume he’s lining up to correct his aim. How much time do I have? Ten seconds?
Less?

I pray that the rain affects his
vision, and the wind is making it difficult to judge the proper angle and
flight path of the bullet.

Glancing down, I see that there will
be no saving Lala. There’s a hole in her throat. The skin is slick with blood
and she’s gagging, choking on her own life force as the last of her heartbeat
rapidly pumps it through her veins. I hear the whistling of another bullet
skipping off a rock at my feet. It misses me by inches, and I’m almost certain
that the next one won’t.

Elbert screams, “Lala! No!” He rolls
and tries to stand, wailing, crying, and his mouth twists in agony as he lunges
for her using one leg.

I sense something coming. Time
slows. Elbert is dropping, dropping, reaching for her as if he’s swimming
through pinesap. I push myself up from the ground in what
feels
like
real time as he continues. I move to the side, taking one step over Lala’s
body. That overpowering sensation of an impending arrival hisses in my ear, and
I understand now that it’s another bullet speeding through the air.

I snap my hand forward and close my
fingers around something hot as if I’ve grabbed a piece of fiery coal from mid-air.

Normal time resumes. Elbert falls at
Lala’s side, sobbing, stroking her hair.

I open my palm, feeling the heat on
my skin as I stare at the bullet that I’ve snatched from its course. Next comes
the gunshot’s echo. The speed, the agility, the fact that this small hunk of
metal didn’t rip through my flesh and bones…it’s maddening. It’s
incomprehensible. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to this.

“She’s gone, Elbert. It’s too late.”
I bend to grab his shoulder, intending to pull him to safety.

“Get away from me,” he says through
clenched teeth. “This is my daught—”

A dull
thunk
emanates from
his chest and he flails backwards. Red seeps into his gray shirt, spreading
around the hole in his sternum.

I scream at the sky and turn toward
the north, where the sniper and the rest of his DAV crew must be hiding. To my
sides, my people are hidden as well as they can be, behind trees, behind
boulders, out of sight among clustered rhododendrons, and some have even
climbed into the thick branches of the pines.

“Stay where you are,” I shout at
them. “James! Crockett! Finn! Keep them safe.”

A bullet smashes into the tree trunk
near my head. I’m standing, my arms wide open, with everything exposed. I know
the sniper could’ve taken me down with that shot. He’s toying with me. I
imagine him sitting in his nest, comfortably situated among the limbs, giggling
to himself as he slides the rifle bolt back and reloads another shell.

James is closer than I expected. From
behind a nearby birch tree, he whistles to catch my attention then says,
“What’re you doing?”

“Saving us.” I step over the fallen
bodies of father and daughter, heading into the oncoming fire. I hear the zing
of another bullet off a boulder to my right.

James says, “Are you insane? Get
back here. They’ll kill you.”

I turn to face him. A cool breeze
pushes my hair into my face, along with droplets of rain against my cheeks. “Hold
this for me.” I toss him the bullet.

He catches it, examines it in his
hand, and then shakes his head. “Go. Hurry.”

I nod. He’s beginning to understand.

The brown, orange, and red leaves at
my feet zip past in a mottled blur of color. I don’t know how any of this
works—these abilities—but it’s strange how they manifest. One moment I’m
practically stopping time and another, I’m bounding through the forest like a
white-tailed deer. I have no control over any of it. It happens without
warning. I glide between the trees, effortlessly, and then when I’m roughly a
half-mile away from where I left the horde hidden, I spot a massive pine tree
that will provide excellent cover. I duck to the right, drop behind the trunk,
and pause to catch my breath. It’s such a natural reaction after running that
I’m surprised when my lungs feel normal.

Nice.

I spin around and crouch, making
myself as small of a target as possible. If I can catch the sniper’s bullet in
mid-flight, will one harm me if I take a direct hit? I’d rather not find out.

Standing up, I flatten my body
against the trunk, belly first. The limbs block most of my view but I can
listen well from here. The gunshots have quieted the natural sounds of the
forest. The birds are silent. No squirrels scamper from treetop to treetop. It
seems as if even the wind has stopped blowing. Everything in the woods cowers
in fear of the invading entities.

I cock an ear. Listening. Holding my
breath, trying to pick up on the hushed noises, any sound that will betray his
position. Also, I’m focusing intently on making these…powers…come to life. If I
can do any of this stuff at will, I need it to be now. I need to hear him.

I pause, inhale, and hold my breath,
counting to five, slowly. I exhale on a count of five, then repeat the process
again to calm myself. I remember something I heard once, a story that
Grandfather had told around the campfires long ago, about how Kinders could
become one with the world. Back then, I thought it meant nothing, just some
mystical nonsense that he had made up to entertain the children. What did that
even mean,
become one with the world
?

I close my eyes. In my mind, I can
see him saying it, telling us the tale as Ellery sits on the opposite side of
the flames. She’s nodding, almost imperceptibly, but the motion is there.

Become one with the world.

Still with no idea what this might
mean, I place my ear against the pine’s massive trunk, feeling the rough bark
digging into my skin. For a moment, I think I can hear its pulse thumping in
rhythm to my own, then I realize it’s
my
heart. My palms go against the
tree as well and I embrace the moment. I try to feel what the pine tree is feeling.

Then it happens. Something happens
around me that I can only describe as a swirling clamor, like a breeze whipping
dead leaves into miniature circles, yet I don’t actually hear it, I
feel
it. I open my eyes and everything in my vision shimmers like ripples in a lake-surface
reflection.

I’m warm.

I am everything.

One hundred yards to the northwest,
I make out the subtle whistle of air through nostrils. It’s a concentrated push
and pull sound, like whomever it belongs to is attempting to carefully control
it. I don’t know how I know this, but I do, and by now I accept it.

I’m moving before I can convince
myself otherwise. No plan of attack, no careful consideration of the terrain,
no fear of a sniper’s aim settling on my beating heart.

I traverse the hillside, loping from
one tree to the next, moving briskly and staying covered, unafraid, but smart. My
ridiculous speed is gone, but my jumps are easy and fluid, moving me ten feet
in any direction I want to go as if I’m casually hopping over a stream on my
way home from a day of successful scouting. I wish I could control all of this
at once. Maybe, like Ellery said, on the morning of my fifteenth birthday, it
will all come together, and all will be explained. Maybe it’ll be written in
the stars, and I can read them like words on a page.

Maybe.

Maybe.

I’m close enough to the sniper that
when the rifle’s report sounds again, the dogwood tree to my right splinters at
the exact same instant. I stop, drop to my knees, and risk a peek, zeroing in
on the direction from which it came. Thirty yards ahead, due north in a
straight line, and halfway up an oak tree, I see a hunting nest built into the
branches. My vision is sharper than normal, and I can see that it’s a rough
structure, covered in limbs and leaves, held together by caked mud and twine.

Most likely, whichever band of
Republicons controls this area had used it as a hunting blind in the past. Up
the hill I spot a game trail. It would’ve been the perfect place to wait on a
herd of whitetail to come by. Now the sniper is hunting my people and me. Another
shot rings out, and I make myself smaller. I look backwards, over my shoulder,
and have a clear line of sight all the way back to where everyone is hiding.

I’m not as high as the sniper, and
my vantage point isn’t as open as his, but I can see that I should’ve been more
careful about where I led them. The path we took was too open, too exposed, and
I should’ve known better. We had been scrambling along the edge of a clearing,
and I’d been so intent on getting them all moving faster that our vulnerability
hadn’t registered.

It’s too late for regrets. I have to
do something while I’m here.

The sniper fires again. We’re over a
half a mile away from the clan, yet with my new abilities, I can make out the
distant screams of pain as he scores a hit on his target. He fires again, and
again. More screams in the distance. I look up at the blind. Has he given up on
me? What’s going on back there with James and the others?

When I hear multiple weapons firing,
back with the crowd of citizens, I understand what’s happening.