Secret Worlds (480 page)

“You have to be practical,” Jackson began.

Her resolve hardened. She shook her head. “I have to be practical? Like you’re practical? If he told you to leave me behind, would you do it because it’s practical?”

Jackson blanched. He turned away.

“I wouldn’t leave you behind,” Alex growled.

“And how is she different? She’s not. I’m bringing her back to be buried. I will not leave her here so they can dispose of her like garbage, like she didn’t matter. She mattered!”

Roddric pushed past Alex. The Neo-barb leaned down and gently pulled at Lydie.

Lena resisted, pulling away from him with a furious groan, nearly stumbling to wrest Lydie away.

Roddric shook his head at her, making soothing noises. “I’m going to carry her,” he told her. His voice was soft. “There’s a spot, along our way home. We lost one of ours.” He nodded to the men behind him, solemn-faced. “He was snake-bit. We’ll take her to him and put her down in the earth with him. She won’t be alone.”

Lena felt her chin quivering and sucked air in through her nose. “Do you promise?” she asked him, not caring if she sounded like a child. She knew from personal experience that a Neo-barb oath wasn’t given lightly. “Promise!”

“I promise.” He reached out and took Lydie, draping her limp body across his chest and shoulder. As he turned and moved back through his men, he stopped first in front of Alex. “And you call us barbarians? We don’t leave our dead behind. Not ever.”

Alex’s jaw tightened, but he nodded.

As one, they all turned and moved across the rocky ground to the south. Lena, standing in the midst of them, allowed herself to be swept along. Her feet moved automatically, but her mind was far away with an unknown, faceless woman in another Zone, a woman who had named a baby girl Lydie and who would never know her daughter was gone.

***

They picked up the agent from the base camp along the way, Alex darting off to the side to order him out with them. The agent’s knowledge of a series of lava tubes for them to use kept them ahead of their pursuers in spite of the extra weight of the girls. But staying ahead meant no stops. Even when Roddric set Lydie’s body down briefly to pull a blanket from his pack, tuck it around her small body, and roll her in it, the others continued trotting. He settled her back in his arms again and caught up before the others were too far ahead.

They rested by slowing to a walk, but never for very long. By the time the sun lowered behind them and to their left, Lena was exhausted. She couldn’t imagine how the girls felt, and Rose carried a double load in spite of her own condition. She admired the woman’s strength, even as she was aware of Rose watching her with hooded eyes.

At some point in the late afternoon, Lena overheard Alex tell Roddric they’d be splitting up soon. Their way home lay to the west of the canyon. Though her feet were like lead, she increased her pace to catch up to them.

“We’ll be taking the girls,” she told Roddric, her voice uncompromising. “They need to be taught, and I’m the only one who can do it.”

He looked over, tilting his head down at her. “You sure you don’t wanna come with us? We could use a woman with your talents.”

She smiled, but it felt dark.

Alex raised his head and opened his mouth to speak, but she waved him down.

“It’s an intriguing offer,” she finally told Rodddric, “but I’m…invested…in what Fort Nevada’s trying to achieve now.” She exchanged a long look with Alex.
There you go
.
Mission accomplished
. After a moment, she returned his small smile.

Roddric nodded. “I can appreciate that. You ever change your mind, you head out toward Tahoe. We’ll find you.”

Alex lost the smile he’d shared with Lena and swung his head around. He gave Roddric a long look. “Tahoe? You wouldn’t be the group we hear about causing so much trouble for Canev, would you?”

“We’re not in the business of causing trouble. We’re in the business of surviving.”

Lena waited, but Alex let the comment pass as they reached the edge of the canyon. They slid down into it, one by one.

At the bottom, Alex nodded up at the wall across from them, angling up and away. “Our way out is over there. The girls will make it fine,” he told Roddric. “Safe journey. Long life.”

Roddric nodded. “The same to you.” He turned to Lena. “If you, any of you, ever need shelter, remember us.”

“Thank you,” she said. She placed her hand on the blanket over Lydie’s back, then turned away to watch Alex lead Marissa, the smallest of the girls, from Rose.

Lena returned Rose’s gaze. “Good luck,” she told the other woman.

Rose said nothing.

Lena started up the canyon wall, helping Alex and Jackson herd the girls up the slope of the canyon. They slipped and slid, but made their way to the top.

At the top, she turned to look back. Rose and Roddric faced each other. Rose’s hands moved emphatically in the air between them as they talked. She pointed at Lena and the others. Finally, Roddric closed his eyes and nodded once. Rose hugged him tight before turning away to trudge up the slope to join Lena and the others. Roddric didn’t wait, and Rose didn’t look back. Relieved of the extra weight of the girls, they jogged down the canyon.

Rose made it to the crest of the canyon. Alex growled surprise, but she ignored him. She stopped in front of Lena. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not,” Alex said.

“I’m one of them.” She nodded her head at the younger girls. She meant she was like them. Like Lena. Her focus never left Lena, as if only she mattered. “Are you going to teach them to do what you do?”

“I’m going to try. To control it. To explore it. As best I can, yes. I’m not very good yet.” Lena admitted.

Rose laughed. “Well, then, I can’t wait to see what I can learn from you when you are very good.” Rose gave Alex a hard look. “I’m coming with you. I want to learn, just like them. I have as much right as they do. I’m like them. I was locked up like them. Treated like them.”

Alex sighed and shook his head. “I understand. But you’re also different.”

Rose lifted her chin and she sneered, “Because I’m a
barbarian
?” Dismissing him, she turned back to Lena. They all looked at Lena.

Jackson spoke up, although he was clearly reluctant, not wanting to be the one to upset Lena again. “Councilor Five will never agree to this.”

“He doesn’t have a choice.” Lena said. “She’s right. She comes. Or I stay.”

Alex closed his eyes. “This is a very bad idea.”

“I’m full of bad ideas. You should be used to it by now.”

He looked at her again. They stared at each other. Something had changed for Lena back there beside the Snake River. The men of Fort Nevada didn’t know it yet, but it had changed for them, too.

Alex seemed to sense it. The muscle in his jaw jumped. He backed away. “Let’s go, then. Before they catch up and it’s all academic anyway.”

They ran on, moving across the plain, trying to beat both the night and the men pursuing them. Before they were halfway across the plain, it was clear they wouldn’t make it. The distance to Mountain Home was further than the distance between them and the Council men pouring down into the canyon behind them. Lena looked back to see Alex and Jackson exchanging a look.

Only half the men behind them came up and out of the canyon. The other half must have followed the trail of Roddric and his men. Still, five well-trained Council guards were gaining on them, spurred on by the distance closing between them. Alex urged the girls on, passing Marissa back to Rose before pulling Lena and the agent from the camp aside as they ran.

“Why don’t they shoot at us?” she gasped out.

“The girls.” Alex answered. “They don’t want to accidentally kill the girls. They’re too valuable, too rare.”

“That’s good then, right? If we can beat them back to Mountain Home, we’ll be good.”

Alex shook his head. “We’re going back,” he told her, referring to himself and Jackson. “We’re going to take out this group while the two of you get the girls back and down to the train.”

“You’re not serious?” She almost stopped running.

Alex dragged her on.

“Let me do this. You take the girls.”

“Lena, don’t argue!” Jackson had appeared at her other shoulder. He’d never raised his voice before. She stared at him.

“I can do this better than—”

“You can keep them safe better than we can.” Alex interrupted.

“You wanted to rescue them,” Jackson added, “so rescue them. Don’t throw it all away. Let us do this.”

As soon as Lena nodded tightly, lips compressed, the two men fell back, and she ran on with the silent agent from the camp beside her. She swept forward with arms out to gather the girls together and keep them moving. She and Rose both glanced back, but the men had disappeared into the tall grass behind them, waiting for those who pursued. She looked back again, and the prison men were closer.

The next time, the men were engaged, moving together in a brutal dance. One of the Council men was down, but it was still her two against their four. Lena slowed, staring back at the battle. Blades glinted in the last light of sunset as men slashed and circled, coming together and swinging around in each other’s arms. Alex quickly disposed of one and immediately turned on another who had leaped in to take advantage of Alex’s turned back. Alex sent him to the ground, as well.

Jackson took his prison guard to the ground, sinking below the grass. She strained up, searching the gloom. Breath whooshed into her lungs when Jackson rose up again, he and Alex moving together to finish the final man.

In the half-light, Jackson’s man rose up behind them, wounded but not finished. He lifted a gun, lurching as he swung it toward the closest man—Alex. Lena gasped, a strangled cry half-caught in her throat.

She rose up on her toes and threw out her empty hands. The man froze, then slowly rose up on his own toes, gun falling to the ground as his back arched and mouth fell open, dark spittle frothing over his lips and chin.

“Is that you?” Fascination laced Rose’s question. “Are you doing that?” The girls were behind her, aware in a way none of the men of Fort Nevada had ever been.

Jackson turned. He flinched away from the man for only a second, glancing over the guard’s shoulder to the cluster of girls across the plain with Lena at their center and an agent hovering behind. Jackson shook his head, grim, and slipped across the short distance between them to finish the man himself.

He was angry. But Alex was alive to snap at him, as he was doing now.

The two men caught up with them before they’d reached the skeletons of the buildings. None of the adults mentioned what had happened out on the plain. Once they reached the scant cover of the ruined buildings, Alex stopped to crouch down.

“Okay, ladies. We’re going down to a safe place, but there’s scary stuff along the way. I need you to wear these blindfolds over your eyes, so you won’t be scared. And we’ll all hold hands as we go down. Once we’re clear, we’ll uncover you, okay?”

He reached into his pack and pulled out his blanket, flipping out a knife and cutting the blanket into strips. He called each girl to him and gently tied a strip of blanket around her eyes. When he finished with each, he set her next to the previous one and placed their small hands together until he had a chain of quiet little girls and two nervous teens sitting around him with clasped hands and blindfolds on their heads.

He took up the wide cloth and folded it double. He looked up then, his face set and uncompromising. He gestured for Rose to come closer.

She hung back, not trusting him. “I’m not a frightened little girl.”

“You want to come with us, fine. But you’re coming blind, or you’re never leaving. And I don’t mean just downstairs like the girls, either. You’ll keep it on all the way to the fort.” The tension in his voice told them he was dead serious. He cocked a finger at Rose.

Lena nodded, though she didn’t understand why he was being so hard on the Neo-Barb. She
was
a strong power, just like the rest of them. Most Council citizens had prejudices against Neo-Barbs based on fear and misunderstanding, and Lena had to imagine that the agents who’d have to be on guard against them would be no different. She’d somehow expected better of Alex, though. The suspicion left her disappointed.

“It’s okay, Rose.” The least she could do would be soothe the woman’s understandable offense and anger. It would take time they didn’t have for Lena to try to convince Alex he was being a fool. “As soon as we get to safety, an hour at the most, it’ll come off. I promise.”

Rose straightened her shoulders, her distrustful gaze moving between them.

“Rose,” Lena told her, “As soon as I saw you all, I promised you your freedom. You didn’t know it. But I did. I promise you this now. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. And in spite of how he seems, neither is Alex.”

He raised the strip. “Now or never. I’m not putting everyone else at risk for you.”

Rose leaned in and allowed him to fasten it snugly around her head. It fit over the entire top of her head, from the tip of her nose to the back of her head. He double-checked it for gaps.

Relief flowed through Lena. She took a deep breath and reached to take Rose’s hand.

Satisfied, Alex stood. He swung the blindfolded Marissa back up into his arms and took another little hand in his. The other girls held tight to each other as Alex led them along by the hand of his first small companion. “All right, soldiers. Now we march.”

It bothered Lena that Rose sat back in her seat on the train, shoulders back, lips squeezed tightly. Her white-tipped fingers compressed the armrest of her chair, despite Lena’s attempts to make her comfortable. Lena understood, though. Rose was more cooperative than Lena would have been had Alex tied a blanket around her head. Even if she was almost angry enough to rip the seat arms off.

Rose would have none of Lena’s concern, so Lena decided to minister to the younger girls, instead. She couldn’t do much for their psychological wounds. She couldn’t even fix her own, after all. But the cuts and welts? The infected blistering? Those she could heal.