Wings (A Black City Novel) (22 page)

Ulrika opens her arms to Kieran. “Well, I guess this is good-bye, cousin.”

“You won’t come with us?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “This is my h—”

Her words suddenly cut off. The lines in her forehead deepen with confusion. She opens her lips to speak, and a bubble of blood pools out of a small bullet hole in her throat. There’s a matching hole in the windowpane that Acelot was standing in front of moments before. Ulrika crashes to the floor.

“GET DOWN!” I yell just as the back windows shatter in a rain of bullets. They thump into the wooden walls, tear up books, smash glasses.

Elijah shoves his mom to the ground just as a book explodes above her head, sending a confetti of words into the air. Everybody hits the floor. Kieran lands beside me. Part of his face is missing.

“Kieran!” Lucinda’s wail pierces my eardrums. “Kieran, KIERAN!”

Natalie is a foot away, lying facedown, her hands clasped over her head. I grip the back of her jacket and drag her toward me, and shield her with my body. Her pulse is racing. A shadow blocks out the dim light from the front window, and there’s a loud hum of engines. Another burst of bullets punctuate the room as Beetle crawls across the floor toward the front door. He inches it open and checks outside.

“Destiny’s landing the Transporter! We can make it if we run,” he says.

There’s another round of gunfire, and Natalie flinches. Day leaps to her feet and helps Martha up. They hurry out the door, followed by Beetle, Elijah, Acelot and then Yolanda. Lucinda is under the table, frozen with fear, her eyes fixed on Kieran’s destroyed face.

I look down at Natalie. “Go.”

“Not without you!” she says.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

Natalie quickly kisses me, then scrambles to her feet and darts out the front door, her blond curls fanning behind her. A bullet slams into the wooden doorframe, missing her by an inch. My heart clenches. There’s no time to panic. I turn toward my aunt.

“Lucinda, we need to go,” I say, stretching out a hand toward her.

Something else in the room shatters and Lucinda cowers.

“Take my hand!” I demand.

She blinks, coming back to her senses, and takes my hand. We clamber out from under the table. I grab the glass jar containing Theora’s heart—we came all this way, and I’m not leaving without it—and we dash outside.

The aircraft is about fifty feet away, the engines roaring, making the trees sway and their leaves stir. Beetle is by the hatch, his gun raised toward the trees. “Hurry up, mate!” he says. The others are already inside.

Above the tree line, I hear the telltale hum of more Transporters approaching.

“Over there!” a voice shouts from the trees to my left.

A Sentry guard emerges from the gloom, his gun poised. I steer my aunt to the right just as he pulls the trigger. The bullet grazes my arm and I grunt with pain. There’s a
pop-pop-pop
of retaliatory gunfire from the Transporter as Beetle unloads his weapon, giving us a few vital seconds of cover. I force myself to run faster, my lungs burning with the effort. Lucinda barely manages to keep pace, her feet stumbling on a fallen log. I drag her upright as another bullet whizzes by us. We reach the Transporter just as more Sentry guards race around the cabin and start shooting. Beetle grips Lucinda’s hand and helps her on board. I leap onto the aircraft, landing heavily on the metal floor, and nearly drop Theora’s heart.

“Go!” I shout to Destiny as Natalie rushes over to me, helping me to my feet.

Destiny yanks on the control stick and the Transporter lurches up.

The hatch begins to close, but it’s not fast enough. A Sentry guard aims his gun at the aircraft and pulls the trigger. Two bullets hit the metal frame, but one makes it through. The Transporter suddenly dips wildly. Natalie lets out a cry of panic as she stumbles against me, and we slam into the right wall.

In the cockpit, Destiny is grimacing with pain as she attempts to keep control of the aircraft, blood seeping out of the wound in her shoulder. Acelot, Beetle and Day race over to the cockpit. Acelot takes over the controls, stabilizing the aircraft, while Beetle lifts the Sentry woman out of the pilot’s seat and lays her down on the empty bench. Day slides into the copilot’s seat. A stream of curse words spill out of Destiny’s lips as she clutches her bleeding shoulder.

The aircraft levels and Acelot boosts the engines. The Transporter rushes upward, the sound of the tree branches like rats scratching at the metal walls. We break through the tree line, and immediately the aircraft is flooded with brilliant white light. There’s a
rat-a-tat-tat
of machine-gun fire, and bullets thud into the armored walls and crack the windscreen.

“We have company!” Acelot says.

Out the splintered windscreen I notice three Transporters. They’re heading straight at us.

“Hit the green button!” Destiny says through gritted teeth.

“Which green button?” Day replies, panicked. There are several on the dashboard.

“The one next to the orange switch,” Destiny grunts. “The missiles automatically lock on the closest target, unless you aim them elsewhere.”

“I see it!” Day says, slamming her hand on the green button.

A missile flashes across the sky, and a second later the nearest Transporter explodes into a ball of fire, sending metal and debris raining down on the forest. Day punches the switch again. The second missile hits its target and the aircraft’s wing rips off. The vehicle spirals down to the ground. There’s a terrible explosion, followed by shock waves that buffet our ship, making everyone jerk in their seats. The third Transporter veers off, knowing it’s vastly outgunned, the guards wisely trying to escape before they’re shot out of the sky too. We zoom over the detention camp, flying over Primus-Two, then One. Several new trainloads of prisoners are being led up to the registration office. The Boundary Wall looms up ahead. An idea hits me.

“You got any more missiles?” I say.

She checks the monitor. “There’s three left.”

“See that wall?” I say, pointing toward the concrete structure. “Aim them all at that.”

Day grins. “Yes, sir.”

She aims the controls and punches the green button, once, twice, three times. The missiles all hit their targets. Dust and debris fly up into the air as the wall is blasted apart, leaving a hole about a mile wide across it. The startled guards aren’t quick enough to react as the prisoners swarm to it, spilling through the gap toward freedom.
One down.

Acelot and Day fly us away from the Tenth, and soon Mount Alba becomes little more than a pockmark on the landscape. I return to the main cabin. Beetle and Natalie are tending to Destiny’s wounds, while Elijah rests his head on his mom’s lap. I quickly check the wound on my arm—it’s just a graze—then take a seat beside Lucinda on the metal bench, the glass jar in my hands. It weighs so little. It’s hard to believe this small object was the catalyst that started Edmund Rose’s campaign of terror against the Darklings. Now it’s time to end it.

NATALIE

T
HE SUN HAS STARTED TO SET
over the city by the time we reach the Sentry rebel stronghold in Gallium, so the bronze-fronted buildings glow like candlelight. It’s only been a little over a day since we left here, but it feels like a lifetime, so much has happened. Through the windscreen, I watch the city swoosh past us in a blur of copper. Transporters zoom across the sepia skies, carrying cargo to and from the munitions factories. I don’t think we were followed out of the Tenth—I haven’t seen any aircraft. Acelot’s an incredibly skilled pilot, expertly weaving the Transporter between the skyscrapers and industrial buildings. Day is chatting happily to him, enjoying her impromptu flying lesson.

Ash sits silently beside me, his jaw clenched. He hasn’t said a word since we left the Tenth, and I haven’t pushed it. He’s trying so hard to keep it together. His hair stirs gently, sensing the blood around us. We all have cuts and scrapes from the shoot-out, and Destiny’s shirt is stained with dry blood. Her wound has finally stopped bleeding; Beetle did a great job on the bandage. He patched up Ash’s arm too. Beetle’s now asleep on the bench between me and Destiny.

She glances at the glass jar on Ash’s lap. “I can’t believe we did all that for a
heart.
” She sighs. “Well, it wasn’t a total bust. At least we got Ash.”

I smile, my hand tightening around his. Getting him back was my priority, so I’m not too disappointed the Ora didn’t turn out to be yellowpox, although it’s going to be hard explaining to my father why we risked our lives to retrieve a thirty-year-old Lupine heart.

I check my jacket pocket, remembering the vial of silvery-white liquid I stole from the laboratory in the Tenth. I take the vial out of my syringe case. Thankfully it hasn’t broken. There’s a small label on the glass tube with
F-09 WINGS
written on it.

“That looks suspiciously like a Haze blend,” Ash says, glancing at the vial.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.” I’ve had enough experience with the Golden Haze—a mix of milky-white Haze, which has a distinctively gluey consistency, and glimmering gold Bastet venom—to recognize a blend when I see one. The mix is just milky-silver instead of milky-gold. “It’s the silver stuff the Haze has been combined with that I’m curious about. Maybe it’s Night Whisper?” I muse, recalling the butterflies we saw on the laboratory. Their wings are silvery in color. But why would Purian Rose add them to the Haze?

I lift it up to the overhead light. The liquid glints, drawing Yolanda’s attention.

“What’s this?” she asks, taking it from me.

“A drug called Wings. It was in the Sentry lab back at the Tenth, along with this disc,” I say, retrieving a blue disc out of my pocket with
PAT
IENT TRIALS
scrawled on it. “I want Dr. Craven to run some tests on the drug, to see what’s in it.”

“I’d like to help with that,” Yolanda replies, passing the vial back.

I tuck it into my pocket and go up to the cockpit.

“Which way?” Acelot asks me. The cheetahlike markings down the sides of his handsome face are more pronounced in the gold light of sunset.

I point toward a smelting works on the west side of the city, which conceals the tunnel leading into the Sentry rebels’ stronghold. From an onlooker’s perspective, it just looks like we’re flying into the factory’s warehouse, which won’t rouse suspicion—it’s common to see Transporters flying in and out of factories around here as they transfer cargo. Acelot steers the vehicle through the open factory roof, and Day punches a button on the control panel. The warehouse’s false floor opens, revealing the tunnel entrance, and we fly down into the rebel compound. I return to my seat and buckle up as we land inside the aircraft hangar.

“Home sweet home,” Elijah says, giving me a tired smile. He seems exhausted but happy. Then again, why shouldn’t he be? He’s got his mother back.

The hatch door lets out a hydraulic hiss as it opens. Waiting for us on the other side is my mother, father, Garrick and Sasha. They all look furious.
Uh-oh.

“What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?” my mother shouts.

I glance sheepishly at my father, who looks angrier than I’ve ever seen him before, his scarred face twisted into a fierce scowl.

“You’ve got a
lot
of explaining to do, Natalie,” he says through clenched teeth.

Ash grabs his blue duffel bag from under the bench, which Destiny had been storing for him while we were in the Tenth, and takes my hand. My mother’s icy blue eyes narrow with disapproval, but I ignore her. I don’t care what my parents think of Ash, it’s not going to change my feelings for him.

Garrick and Sasha help Destiny off the Transporter, while the others assist Martha, Lucinda and Yolanda. They’re able to walk, but they’re all shaky on their feet. Mother gives Martha an awkward hug, which surprises the old Darkling woman as much as it does me.

We head to the elevator, my mother muttering angry words at me the whole way. I chew on the inside of my cheek, accepting the barrage of abuse. She has every right to be mad at me. Occasionally I flick a look at my father, but he refuses to meet my eye.

“I’m sorry I worried you,” I say, unable to stand his silence any longer. “But I’m not sorry for what I did. Ash needed my help, and I couldn’t wait around for you to ask the Commander if we could send a rescue mission, only for him to say no anyway.”

Father’s scarred lips tighten, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows I’m right.

The elevator doors slide open and we enter the compound. Ash’s eyes widen as he takes it all in: the zooming subway trains, the bustling sidewalks, the metal buildings—it’s a lot to digest. He whistles through his teeth.

“You weren’t exaggerating,” he murmurs.

We head straight for the hospital, where Dr. Craven is waiting for us to tend to our wounds. Sigur is lying in one of the hospital beds, still recovering from his own ordeal. He struggles into an upright position when he sees us. A muscle in Ash’s jaw tightens as he looks at his Blood Father. Sigur’s long ice-white hair has been pulled back, revealing the full extent of the wounds on his muscular torso. There are lacerations and UV burns on his alabaster skin, plus a patchwork of bruises where the guards have kicked him. On his back are two pink nubbins where his wings used to be, before Sebastian cut them off.

“Son,” Sigur says, opening his pale arms wide.

Ash places his bag and Theora’s heart on the sideboard, then sinks down on Sigur’s bed and allows himself to be folded into his Blood Father’s embrace.

“I’m sorry I left you,” Ash whispers, his voice pained. “I should never have let them hurt you. I should have saved you, I’m sorry, oh God, oh God, I’m so sorry . . .”

Sigur catches my eye.

“Harold’s dead,” I say quietly.

Grief flickers across Sigur’s features and he tightens his hold on Ash, realizing the apology isn’t aimed just at him. Lucinda sits beside them and gently strokes Ash’s hair.

Across the room, Elijah, Acelot and Yolanda are in their own huddle, their arms around one another as they cry for their lost family. If this war ever ends, I want to go back to Gray Wolf and retrieve Marcel’s body, so he can be buried with the rest of his family in Viridis, where he belongs, rather than underneath a pile of stones in some abandoned warehouse, with nothing but a few trinkets and dandelion seeds to mark his grave.

I turn to my own father and wrap my arms around him. He doesn’t say anything, just holds me close. My mother lightly places her hand on my back. I’m so lucky to have them. I briefly gaze up, noticing Martha lingering nearby. Father stretches a hand out to her. She takes it, and joins the group hug. My family is finally back together again . . . almost. My insides ache at the thought of Polly, missing her desperately. I think about the knife back in my bedroom—the one I stole from the Ultraviolet Greenhouse—with her name etched into the handle. I haven’t forgotten about my promise to my sister. I’m going to kill Purian Rose.

I eventually pull away from them, dabbing my eyes. Garrick and Sasha have brought Destiny in. She’s being tended to by Dr. Craven and a few of the nurses farther down the ward. They’ve taken off her jacket so that she’s wearing just her bloodstained vest, which shows off her toned arms and enviable figure. Dr. Craven rubs some numbing gel on her skin, then sews up the wound.

I glance up at my father. “What are you going to do to Destiny?”

“We’ll discuss her punishment later,” Father replies.

“Please don’t be too harsh with her,” I say. “She was just being a good friend. And she’s a great pilot; you’ll need her if you’re planning an attack on Cen—” I cut myself off, realizing I’ve put my foot in it. I’m not supposed to know about the planned assault on the capital city. Father gives me a hard look and I grimace. “Don’t be mad at Destiny. I accidentally walked in on her when she was looking at the attack plans in command central.”

Father’s brow creases. “When was this?”

“A few days ago,” I say. “Why?”

“No reason,” he says, glancing at Destiny.

Dr. Craven finishes suturing her wound and comes over to us.

“Hello, pumpkin,” he says, giving me a warm smile, although his eyes scan the faces of everyone in the room. I wonder if he’s searching to see if Sebastian, his son, is with us.

“Sebastian’s alive. He murdered Acelot’s brother and stole their Miniport; he’s probably in Centrum by now.” That’s the most likely place Seb would’ve gone.

The doctor takes off his glasses and rubs his tired eyes. “I just don’t understand that boy anymore,” he says quietly. “My son was never perfect, but he was a good boy until he got caught up in that Purity nonsense. It breaks my heart he’s turned out this way. I’m just glad I never told him about this place.”

That makes two of us.

“I have something for you.” I pass Dr. Craven the vial of Wings, briefly explaining how I got it. “I’m pretty certain the milky stuff is Haze, given its gooey consistency, but I’d like to know for certain what it’s been mixed with. It’s possible it’s Night Whisper.”

“I’ll run some tests,” he says, taking it to his laboratory at the end of the ward.

Ash gets up from Sigur’s bed and collects his duffel bag and Theora’s heart. He looks exhausted, his cheeks gaunt, his dark eyes shimmering behind his long black bangs.

“There’s a spare bunker three doors down from ours,” Father says. “Ash can stay there.”

“Thanks. I’ll collect my stuff from our room,” I reply. Mother flashes a worried look at Father, and I sigh. “Mom, Ash and I are
engaged.
I’m staying with him.”

“I’m not sure how comfortable I am with that,” Mother replies.

I kiss her cool cheek. “I love you, Mom. But this isn’t up for debate.”

Mother frowns. “But—”

“Siobhan, let them go,” Father says gently, silencing my mother. I smile at him and he hugs me. “When did you get all grown up, huh? I’m not sure I like it,” he whispers in my ear, then releases me. He stretches out a hand to Ash. “You treat my girl right. She’s the most precious thing in the world to me.”

“That’s how I feel about her too, sir,” Ash replies, shaking his hand.

Father nods curtly and lets go of Ash’s hand. We head to our bunker, stopping off at my old room along the way to collect my belongings, including the yellow-handled knife. Ash notices the writing on the handle.

“‘Polly?’” he says. “As in your sister?”

I tuck the blade into my pocket.

“What are you planning to do with it?” he says, eyes narrowing.

“You know what I’m going to do,” I say. “The day I found Polly’s body, I told you that I was going to kill Purian Rose. Nothing’s changed.”

A muscle twitches in Ash’s jaw but he doesn’t push the matter, not wanting to start an argument. I take his hand and lead him to our new bunk.

Our room is smaller than the one I shared with my parents, with a double bed, two nightstands, a small desk and a cupboard built into the white, glossy wall. Ash places the glass jar on the desk and quietly shuts the door. We’re alone at last.

He crosses the room in two strides and pulls me into his arms, his lips crushing against mine. The kiss is both urgent and tender; he’s wanting to savor the moment but barely able to hold himself back. Yearning aches through me, and I press my body against his, my fingers tangling through his hair. I suddenly taste salt on my lips and immediately break the kiss.

“Ash?”

He fixes his eyes on a point on the floor, his jaw clenched tight, as tears snake down his cheeks. I take his hand and we lie down on the bed, both fully clothed. I softly kiss him, opening a channel between us, known as Soul Sharing—something that only Blood Mates are able to do with each other—allowing his emotions to flow into me. My heart swallows his grief, his guilt, his pain, trying to take away some of his suffering. Tears spill down my face. His sorrow is almost too much to bear, but I hold on to him until eventually he severs the connection. He gently wipes the tears off my face with his thumbs.

“I love you, blondie,” he whispers.

“I love you too,” I say, wrapping my arms around him.