Authors: Alianne Donnelly
It happened too fast; a row of dominoes tumbling in rapid
succession. The cavern disappeared in a plume of dust that engulfed them, and Sinna
stumbled, choking, eyes stinging with it. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.
She faltered.
The boy pulled her along, trilling in alarm, but she barely
heard him over the roar of crumbling rock as the tunnel collapsed on their
heels. Sharp stones and pebbles flew past with the force of speeding bullets.
They tore at her clothes, particles embedding into her skin. She lost sight of
the torch and plunged into darkness, with the boy’s hand her only guide. Sinna
clutched him tighter. The second he let go, she was done for.
The tunnel sloped up as they raced the collapsing earth.
Sinna pumped her legs harder, ignored the burn in her lungs, blinked back tears
trying to wash out the dust. Fear propelled her.
Run. Keep going. Don’t look
back!
The boy turned sharp right, and the going got tougher,
steeper in a raw, jagged crevasse torn across the landscape, covered over with
centuries of earthquakes. She climbed more than ran, but the avalanche slowed
its progress here, the walls too strong to give in without a fight.
Then, all at once, there was light. Just a few short yards
ahead, blessed golden light of day speared through the plume of dust from a
hole in the ground so high she couldn’t reach it. Sinna jumped, fingers barely
skimming the top edge. Not enough! The boy scrabbled up the side wall to show
her how it was done, urging her on. But Sinna was hopeless. Her hands slipped,
and she couldn’t find a foothold.
And the landslide was gaining.
The boy whined and jumped down. He turned her toward the far
wall, then crouched, taking hold of her ankle. With more strength than she’d
expected, he tossed her into the air, and Sinna caught the lip of the opening.
Arms burning with strain, she pulled herself up while he pushed from below.
Elbows over. Crawling out—halfway there! She swung a leg up
over the edge and dragged herself out into the light of day.
But she wasn’t finished. Turning around, she leaned back
into the hole, and reached down to help the boy. It was instinct.
His eyes glittered, his mouth smiled, and he reached one
scrawny arm up to her.
A massive rock pried loose and dropped onto his shoulder,
knocking him to the ground.
“No!” she shouted. “Come on! Move!” Sinna slid forward,
reached deeper, but the soft earth crumbled around the hole’s edges, nearly
sending her back down after him. She gasped and scrambled back, but reached
down all the same. “Hurry, give me your hand!”
Dazed by the blow, the boy was slow to rouse, slower to get
to his feet.
“Get up! Get up!” she yelled at him.
He looked around, disoriented, then tilted his head up to
meet her gaze. There was a gash on his head, leaking far too much blood; he was
smeared with it, eyes unfocused.
“Give me your hand!”
The boy cawed—a small, lost sound. He blinked, and started
to climb the wall.
Too slow!
His foot slipped. He tried again, looking
up at her in the same way she’d looked up at that green light in the darkness,
twelve stories above the Chernobyl den. Just a child. Scared, pinning all of
his hopes on reaching the top alive. He wanted it so much, and he was so scared
it made him slow, clumsy.
The earth cracked over the top of the tunnel.
“Hurry up!”
He reached, faltered, lost his grip, and dropped back down.
He was still reaching for her, when the earth buckled and
rained down on top of him.
Sinna cried out, and scrambled back from the hole, crawling
on her belly to a safe distance. She was shaking all over, shock setting in
with a vengeance. Silent tears ran down her cheeks, but she couldn’t bring
herself to truly cry.
The rumble beneath the earth was slowly ebbing. Sinna was
now out in the open, blue sky above her. She lay there for long moments to
catch her breath, soaking up the warmth of the sun, the heat of the ground.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sinna was aware she’d
emerged on the eastern side of Haven, somewhere between the bridge and Haven’s
front gates. Converts shrieked and roared as their hive crumbled. They were
close enough to smell, which meant they could smell her, too.
She tried to howl, but her voice was reedy, barely a wheeze.
Even if Bryce was looking for her, he’d never hear.
Was
he around? Was he still alive? And what about
Helena and the others?
North side, she remembered. They’d come from the north, from
the direction of their Montana den. That’s where they’d made their stand. They
wouldn’t circle around; they had no reason to. The converts brought the fight
to them. She was on her own.
Can’t just lie here forever. Get your ass up. Get up! Or
it was all for nothing.
Sinna dragged herself to sit, rubbed dirt and tears from her
eyes to squint around her. She sat with her back to a twin tree stump, hidden
from view on two sides. Daring a quick peek around, she took in the lay of the
land closest to her. The horde had thinned out, but it was still there.
Converts stumbled around, disoriented, screeching and lashing out at each other
as though they didn’t know what else to do. Fights broke out everywhere,
convert against convert, but as soon as one went down, unmoving, the victor
ambled off, screaming as if in regret.
They were scattering.
Sinna pulled her feet underneath her, strained to hear a
familiar sound. They had to be there, somewhere, and if she could get to the
north side, she could find them. The road toward Haven lay just a few feet
away. It’d be the fastest path, but also the most exposed. It wasn’t far, two
miles at most, and she’d be able to touch Haven’s outer wall.
But she had no weapons, nothing around that would hold off
an angry predator. Walking out, or even standing up from her hidey-hole, was
tantamount to offering herself up as a mid-afternoon snack.
She was stuck.
Now what?
There are always casualties in war. Collateral damage.
You expect it, you prepare yourself for the inevitable moment when you look up
and someone you’ve known all your life lies dead on the ground. You know your
heart will break, so you toughen it up, tell yourself life will go on; that
they won’t have died for nothing.
You train yourself to withstand the loss of something
dear, but it never happens the way you think it will.
There’s something much worse than death in this world:
dying while you’re still alive.
I watch the tunnel collapse.
I look at Bryce.
And I know he is gone.
He’s sitting in the dirt right next to me, shoulder to
shoulder. His heart’s pumping, his chest rises and falls with breath, his eyes
blink against the dust, but he’s gone.
That cave-in might as well have buried him. It would have
been kinder.
~
An ungodly ruckus outside of Haven followed on the heels of
the cave-in; converts answered the loss of their hive in a chilling symphony,
like the mournful notes of wolf howls in the night. Only more freaky. Aiden
itched to get out of here. The horde had been holding back, but now that they had
nothing to protect, they could flip out. No way could the dogs hold it together
under the onslaught; they’d be butchered out there. He needed to sound the
retreat.
But as much as he wanted to get up and go, he couldn’t leave
Bryce. His brother hadn’t moved an inch since the dust settled, staring at the
dungeon’s remains and not seeing them at all.
“Don’t go catatonic on me now, man. I need you with me.”
No response.
“Damn it, Bryce! Your pack is out there. Can’t you hear the
converts? They’ll slaughter every last one of them. We need to move!”
He didn’t.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Aiden said past the lump in his throat.
“I fucked up, I know I did.” They never should have split up in the first
place. He’d promised Sinna they’d all get out of there, and then he’d had to go
and play the hero. Pack first, always. There was a reason for that. They were
stronger together, as a team. He’d broken that strength, not once, but multiple
times. Hotshot Alpha, acting like it was just him and Bryce on the roads. Only
it hadn’t been.
And now…
Sinna—gone.
Helena—buried.
The dogs out there—holding the line like he’d ordered them
to, because they trusted him to know what he was doing. They’d die out there,
too, if he didn’t sound the retreat.
And Bryce refused to move.
“Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out. Get mad, Bryce!” Aiden
shoved at him. “Yell at me, hit me! Fucking shoot me in the head! I got your
mate killed. Don’t you want to get even?”
Bryce turned his head. Face slack, he looked at Aiden,
looked
through
him, and said, “You’re my brother.”
And that was it.
Christ, he’d have preferred the bullet to the head.
Chest tight and throat all but closed off, Aiden swallowed
hard and pushed to his feet. “I need to get out there,” he said, voice
breaking. He coughed to clear the frog out of his throat but it was lodged in
there pretty good. “I need to tell the others to retreat. I need…”
Didn’t matter. Bryce wasn’t listening anymore.
Aiden’s feet weighed a ton when he walked away from him,
shuffling, kicking debris around.
A smudge of bright yellow on the ground caught his eye, and
he bent over to pick up the hula doll he’d had stashed in the mule’s side
compartment. It was warped, the spring mechanism that allowed her hips to sway
completely melted. Her big eyes mocked him; her smile was cruel. She stared at
him and taunted,
Where’s your Zen now, smart guy?
Aiden let the doll drop back into the dust.
He dragged his feet through the wide-open inner gate. To
either side, the concrete wall stretched its arms around Haven; a cold embrace
that had smothered everyone inside. It was still stained with Wolfen blood. The
females were long gone, but their chains were there. Silver. Gleaming in the
sunlight. When this was all over, he’d come back and collect a link from each
to wear around his neck.
The outer gate mechanism was supposed to be operated by
three men on each side, with chains and wheels that moved the heavy portal open
and shut. They were designed to work together. Aiden couldn’t budge it on his
own. But he didn’t have to. The metal framework reached all the way to the top.
He could climb it easily.
Hand on the bar, lift up. Foot right there, push to the next
level. He scaled the haphazard pipes and bars, not caring if they held or gave
out under his weight.
Too many dead today, and all of their souls crushed him,
pushing him back toward the ground. If he gave in, they’d bury him right here
alongside them. Some leader he was, falling apart in his first real fight.
From the top of the gate, he had a clear view of the battlefield,
which had thinned out considerably, a lot of the horde scattering to the winds.
Bodies littered the ground, thick in all directions. Uneaten. Left to rot. But
even though they weren’t eating their dead, converts were at least fighting
each other again, finally acting normal. Or as normal as they could be.
They’d also turned hard on the dogs, having cornered the
small group, who were fighting like hell but quickly losing ground. Aiden
whistled as loudly as he could, waved his arms to get their attention. A howl
answered him—low, distressed…and not from the dogs.
Aiden frowned, sweeping his gaze over the landscape. The
dogs had orders not to separate. If some kamikaze idiot went off on his own,
Aiden would have his hide. Movement close to the road. How did they get way out
there? He squinted, making out a shape squirming on the ground behind some
cover. Still alive, small.
He cupped his hands to his mouth, and howled back an
inquiry.
That same reedy voice answered, weak, but a little louder.
The gate’s framework shook and rattled, almost knocking him
off of the wall. Bryce was climbing up after him—fast and hard. “What the
hell…?” He held out his hand, and Bryce grabbed on, hauling himself up and
scanning the field with wild eyes. “Survivor,” Aiden said, somewhat baffled by
Bryce’s sudden spring to life. “Over that—”
Bryce dropped over the edge of the wall.
“—way.”
As soon as he landed, Bryce was on his feet and sprinting
furiously down the road, straight line, one-track thought process, right
through the thickest cluster of converts. Bryce didn’t seem to give a shit, and
Aiden turned his gaze farther, wondering. Daring to hope.
The shape in hiding slithered out into the open, close to
the ground, crawling toward Haven.
Bryce roared.
The survivor howled back, stronger, more determined.
And Aiden’s heart beat double time. He knew that voice. He
sagged in relief. “Back from the dead a second time. Should have known not to
underestimate you, little bit.” He smiled. Shoot her, claw her, snatch her—she just
kept getting right back up again. And Aiden was proud as hell. Bryce must have
heard her. Look at him down there! Reaping a bloody path like there was no
tomorrow. “You got this, bro. Go get your girl.” Aiden had himself some
converts to slay.
But before he dropped down into the fight, he whistled three
sharp trills.
The signal to rally.
Sun, and earth, and dust, and monsters. I crawl through
it, heart racing so fast, it’s a hum in my chest. I keep my eye on the top of Haven’s
wall, that tall figure standing proud over the battlefield. He’s my guiding
light.
He’s not Bryce. No, I can hear my savage coming for me,
and his roar heartens me. The sound of converts dying fills me with hope. He’s
coming. He’s coming.
And then he’s here, brutal and terrifying, sliding to the
ground, and his arms are around me. I’m smothered by his weight, the crush of
his embrace. I don’t care. He’s shaking as badly as I am, but he’s my
lodestone, taking me, dragging me, carrying me north.
He hauls us up to our feet and sets me apart; no time for
teary-eyed reunions, we have to fight. A broken machete in my hand. He takes
point, clearing the path. I watch his back, take out the overflow, the ones he
doesn’t see coming. We move slow, but we move, and converts fall left and
right. We leave them in our wake. Dead or slightly alive, it doesn’t matter
anymore.
A chorus of howls sounds our safe haven. The others on
the north side, holding the line, waiting and fighting to bring us home. I look
back up to the wall, but Aiden’s gone, down in the thick of it, and his voice
is stronger than the rest. I hear the joy in it, the vitality and will to live,
to fight.
Bryce hears it, too, and answers the same.
We meet somewhere in the middle, and Aiden grabs the back
of my head, bumps his forehead to mine, then he sets me loose and I’m
sandwiched between them. Not a single convert comes close enough to feel the
edge of my blade.
Wolfen fight as a pack, they fight to protect, and I now
know they never,
ever
give up.
I am one of them.
I am theirs, Bryce’s and Aiden’s.
And I belong.
~
There weren’t nearly as many converts, but the remaining
ones were twice as vicious. Sinna couldn’t see much of anything around the
brothers; they kept her moving north, always north. The press of bodies grew
thicker as more of the gray sons of bitches crowded close. But they were
mindless with rage, throwing themselves right into Aiden’s blade and Bryce’s
claws.
And then suddenly, the three of them crossed some invisible
line of demarcation, and the path was clear. People ran ahead, fast like the
wind, never looking back. The tree line loomed, and then they were inside,
converts in hot pursuit.
Sinna gaped at the mules standing ready, polished to a
shine—just like the brothers’ had been before the wreck—big guns on top, ready
to lay down cover fire. The front-runners were already on them, one at the
wheel, one behind the gun, waiting to bring the others to safety.
Sinna didn’t know any of them, but she could have kissed
them all. A shout rose up behind them.
“Go,” Aiden snapped, and Bryce turned back, shoving her into
Aiden’s arms. She was picked up, tossed into a back seat, and the driver revved
the engine.
Bryce and two others fought off the pursuing horde. Not
enough to hold them all back, but then, the mules’ weapons started to fire, and
the three Wolfen dropped to the ground, rushed back, each to a different car.
Sinna’s mule took off north at full speed, Bryce racing to
catch up. The top gun person, a small, thin woman with skin like chocolate and
dozens of braids tipped with sharp metal hooks, leaned down to reach for him.
He took her hand, and she hauled him onto the truck bed.
“What’s the damage?” Aiden asked.
Sinna didn’t take her eyes off of Bryce who was breathing
hard and pressing his hands to the glass from the other side. She heard the
steering wheel squeak under some terrible force.
“Lost a few,” the driver said. From her glimpse of him
earlier, Sinna remembered he only had one eye. “Dash is gone. Remmy and Trey…
We lost Tessa. I had to knock Spencer out, or he would have followed her.”
“Christ,” Aiden whispered, and the awful weight of grief in
his voice made Sinna shudder.
~
They drove hard for miles, leaving Haven and all of its
converts in the dust, and didn’t stop until long after nightfall. Bryce jumped
down at once and ran off somewhere. Sinna wasn’t worried; he’d be back. She was
exhausted, half asleep already, but she shook it off and got out of the truck
to help the others. The sky was bright with billions of stars and a big,
shining full moon. To her tired eyes, it pulsed with light as the ground swayed
underneath her. She pitched backwards, but Aiden steadied her.
“You okay, little bit?” He sounded as worn out as she felt,
and when she turned to look at him, his eyes were bleak. No more smiles, no
jokes, or dirty limericks.
Sinna nodded and put her arms around him.
Aiden briefly hugged her, but there was too much to do, and
he set her away too soon. “Report, Kiera,” he said to the woman removing weapons
from the back of their truck.
She didn’t look at him when she said, “Didn’t see anything
following us for miles. We should be in the clear. But I’d still send someone
back to make sure.” A heavy gun slipped from her grasp, and she slammed her
hands onto the truck angrily, pressed her lips together, but her chin still
wobbled. “He pulled that thing off me, and it turned on him.” Tears spilled
down her cheeks. “I c-couldn’t… I was too slow—”
Aiden swore, and hauled her into his arms, held her while she
cried.
“Trey,” Morgan said. He’d driven them this far, steady and
focused the whole time, but now, seeing Kiera and watching the others drag
their feet, he swallowed hard. “Boy chased after that girl for months, and she
kept putting him off.” He shook his head with a sigh. “Lost a lot of good
people back there today. I hope to Christ it made a difference.”
Aiden had said they’d come fifty strong. Looking around,
Sinna counted twenty-seven left, each face hard-set with sorrow. Helena wasn’t
among them.
Three trucks down, a male who could only be Spencer, sat up,
and five people immediately dropped what they were doing to go to him. He
peered around, disoriented, said something Sinna couldn’t hear, then watched
the gathered faces as the group spoke to him. Sinna saw the exact moment his
heart shattered; his face pinched, eyes squeezed shut, then he tossed his head
back and wailed his grief, his entire body shaking from the sheer force of it.
Tears stung Sinna’s eyes. She didn’t know what to do. The
pack grieved for their loved ones the way she had Gerry and no one else since.
People had come and gone from her life, but she hadn’t let herself get too
close to any of them. It only hurt that much more when they were gone.
But Kiera, and Morgan, and Spencer, and all of them… The
Wolfen who’d died in Haven had been their family. Whether they said it or not,
whether they shed tears or kept them locked up, Sinna felt their grief, each
and every one. And it was too much, too heavy. She couldn’t bear it all.
“Sinna.”
She spun around and threw herself into Bryce’s arms,
grateful and relieved when they closed around her. He squeezed her so tightly,
her bones ached, but she didn’t care. Too many lost today. She needed to feel
his strength, to know he was still there; that they hadn’t lost each other, at
least.
It was a quiet, somber group that sat down by the fires to
share a meal. Bryce wouldn’t let Sinna out of arm’s reach, and she sat nestled
against him, with Aiden right beside them. For a while, it felt good to have
them together again.
But now that the battle was over, everyone wanted answers.
They didn’t ask questions, just sat, watching the three of them, waiting for
them to speak.
Sinna spoke first. “I’m sorry,” she said, “for everything
you’ve suffered and for everyone you’ve lost. But I’m grateful to all of you,
and to them. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”
Bryce nuzzled her cheek. “Tell us what happened.”
She did. Everything she remembered, from the moment she’d
gotten ambushed, to the moment Bryce had found her again.
And every last one of them listened. As much as she told
them, Sinna saw on their faces they heard even more, connecting dots she didn’t
even know about.
When she finished, Aiden took over, telling his own story,
filling in Sinna’s blanks. He described the noise she’d heard and where it had
come from, told them about Helena and what she’d done. It was only a side note
in the bigger story of how advanced Haven’s converts had become. Aiden wanted
his people to understand why they’d fought, and how important their victory had
been—the speech of a leader, a strategist, and not what Sinna wanted to hear.
Bryce noticed. In hushed words meant just for her, he told
her how they’d seen the mule crash, how they’d found Sinna missing and went looking
for her. He described the underground labyrinth, and Helena’s stupid heavy
rocket launcher.
He told her how Helena had split off to buy them time, and
Sinna’s eyes welled with tears. “She didn’t want us to leave you behind,” he
said. Then he told her how hard they’d looked for her, and how they’d emerged
into Haven itself. “I lost you so many times today, and each time it felt like
death. When the hive blew, I thought that was it. That she’d killed you, too.”
His hand sought hers, and he intertwined their fingers. “Don’t leave me again,”
he pleaded with a shudder. “I won’t survive it.”
Sinna turned in his arms and hugged him tightly, hiding her
sobs and tears in the crook of his neck. Bryce held her while she cried herself
out, made rumbling purrs in his chest to soothe her breaking heart. When she
finally ran out of tears, weak and bone-weary, she looked back at the fire and
whispered her last words to a fallen hero. “Good bye, Helena Koch, the
Hellraiser. My friend.”