The Starborn Saga (Books 1, 2, & 3) (27 page)

“Heinrich,” he snaps to attention at the sound of my voice. “Get everyone in the colony ready to fight whether they want to or not. If they don’t have a gun, tell them to use a knife, a shovel, a stick, whatever can stab or bash the brains out of a greyskin. We don’t have the power to fight them off by ourselves. We need everyone to fight.” He nods at me and instantly turns to leave. I look at Evelyn and my head swims. I reach out to Aaron to steady myself so I don’t fall back onto the ground. “The Starborns have to give everything we’ve got to fight off the rest of the greyskins.”

“We’re ready for that,” Danny shouts out. 

I try to smile, but my head swims again and this time my vision blacks out for a brief second. Did I wield so much energy that it’s sucking my life away? Will I gain my strength back?

“I’ve got to get into that tower,” I nod to where Krindle and I held our meeting just the day before yesterday. It’s also where he’s hiding under a desk like a coward, fully aware that we are all meant to die here. Fully aware that he has the power to let the greyskins in at any moment. With my strength gone, my presence in the fight will be useless. I’ll only get in the way or get killed. I can at least try to stop Krindle from blowing the entrance.

“What’s in the tower?” Aaron asks. 

My eyes dart from him to Evelyn and she instantly recognizes that I’ve seen something. 

“She’s going to see if there’s anything we can use against the greyskins,” Evelyn says. “It’s a good idea. You need to take all the time you can to gather your strength, dear.” 

My eyes thank her for the support. 

“Let me go with you,” Aaron says. 

“No,” I tell him sharply. “If the greyskins break through, the others will need you.”

I can tell that he wants to protest, but my argument is sound. He simply nods and places a strong hand on my shoulder. 

“Be safe,” he says. 

His eyes look deeply into mine. It’s a look he would give me if we were both about to reach in for a kiss, but for some reason, I know that we aren’t about to do that. It’s as if his eyes are telling me something deeper, that he means more than what a kiss could tell me. It’s a look that says to me that he truly cares for me and will do anything to protect me. It’s a look that says he loves me. 

I reach for his head and bring it to my cheek and rest it there for a moment. I wish I could just sit in his embrace all day. I wish there was no such thing as a greyskin or the everyday fear of death. I wish there was hope for a future of peace. A future without the need for Starborns. 

I lightly kiss his palm and turn from the group to make my way toward the tower. I look back over my shoulder and call out. “Stay away from the wall. You never know when it might come crashing down.”

Or blow up.

The door at the bottom of the tower is locked. With deep concentration I’m able to break the tiny lock, but even this small gesture is enough to send my head swimming again. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used my powers so recklessly. Maybe then I would be more of an asset right now. Or maybe the others and I would be dead. There’s no way to know. 

I open the door and walk into the room with the stairwells leading up to four different floors. I close my eyes to search for Krindle again, but I think twice about it. Should I try? Would it use too much of my strength? This would be a really bad place to pass out again. Rob might find me and kill me. Or worse. I might wake up with a greyskin chewing on my legs. I decide to go up blindly, but I’m not sure which option is safer.

I know both of them carry guns. I know Krindle is weak, but probably trigger-happy too. Rob is a trained soldier. With Krindle having a hold on the detonator, it makes the two of them equally dangerous. 

Either of them could take me out with a single shot. Krindle could let loose the greyskins with a push of a button. I’m sure that’s what the detonator is for. I don’t know what else it could be. 

I do my best to be as quiet as possible as I take the dark stairway upwards. The entire tower is eerily quiet, but based on what I saw earlier in the morning, Rob might very well be standing guard in front of Krindle’s office door. 

I reach down to my thigh and pull out my knife. The blade catches a glint of light as I look at it. Rarely have I had to use the weapon, and even then it was only on greyskins. The thought of killing a human sickens me, but I also know that this is a very real possibility in the coming seconds. I also know that in my weakened state, I might not survive a scuffle with Rob or Krindle, but this is the best I can do right now. 

At the third flight of stairs, I slow my pace as I try to remain as silent as possible. Krindle’s office is at the top and down the hall maybe twenty feet. The silence in the building means Rob will be able to hear me if he is where I think he is. 

I take a deep breath as my soft steps move up slowly. I wish I didn’t feel so drained of energy. My confidence soared earlier when I knew that I could use my gifts to keep me alive. But here in this dark tower, climbing the steps to what could be my last few moments of life, I am humbled. I know a stray bullet can end me in a moment. 

I freeze at the sound of a voice that blares out through the intercom. At first I think it might be Rob shouting at me to stop what I’m doing. Maybe he sees me on some sort of hidden camera, but my mind is eased when I recognize the voice as Heinrich’s. 

“
Attention! Attention all colonists! This is your elected leader, Heinrich.
” He takes a deep breath over the intercom, almost as if he’s unsure of what to say next. “
It has been my pleasure to serve as your leader for the time we have shared. I have rarely asked anything of you over the years, but now I am asking all of you one very important thing. I’m asking you to fight.
”

This is my chance to move if I’m going to try and sneak up to Krindle’s door. The sound of Heinrich’s voice is deafening inside the tower with its speaker system, and that’s perfect. My reluctant feet take more steps upward to the very top. 
 

“A large herd of greyskins is waiting outside the colony walls. The few of us that have begun to fight now need your help if we are to survive.”

At the top of the stairs, I’m able to sneak a look at Krindle’s door without being noticed. Just as predicted, Rob stands with a rifle in his hands. Th hireyskankfully though, he is looking out through one of the small windows in the hallway to get a good look at the commotion outside. I’m not entirely sure of what his view is, but I’m betting he probably saw me use my abilities to keep the greyskins outside. Then again, maybe he didn’t. If he had, wouldn’t he have told Krindle? Wouldn’t Krindle have blown the gate away already?

But if Rob doesn’t have a good view of what is happening outside, then perhaps he hasn’t known to tell Krindle yet. Krindle is probably still cowering away under his desk. I wish I had the strength to check without passing out again. 

“We need all of you. Man, woman, and child. If you can carry a weapon, you need to fight. Use anything you can. If you have a gun, bring it. Use anything you can to keep a stick’s length between you and a greyskin.”

If I can stay quiet, Rob might not even notice me until I’m right up on him. But I can’t just sneak up behind him and kill him can I? I can’t just murder the man. 

“
And remember, go for its head.
”

Rob turns toward the door and knocks loudly. Krindle yells out some sort of muffled answer and Rob opens the door. 

“It’s time!” he says. 

I move down the hallway and am now standing at the door. The first thing I see is Krindle coming out from under his desk with his gun and button device. Rob has his back to me and isn’t ready for the slam to his temple from my knife’s handle. He falls to the ground, motionless. 

I turn my head to Krindle and he’s staring at me with wide, fearful eyes. He points his shotgun at me, his finger resting too firmly on the trigger. 

“Jeremiah doesn’t want me to kill you,” he says. “But I will if you don’t drop the knife.”

“You think I need a knife?” I say, knowing he doesn’t see me as a Starborn completely drained of any supernatural ability. He sees me as a dangerous enemy that would have no problem turning his own gun on him with my mind. 

“What do you want?” he asks me, continuously looking from Rob to my knife, to my eyes, back and forth. 

“I want you to give me the detonator,” I say, holding out my left hand. 

His eyes narrow at me, and he suddenly seems calmer, angrier. 

“How do you know about that?”

“It doesn’t matter, I just do. Give it to me.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“What’s your plan, Krindle? You want to blow up that wall? Let in a giant herd of greyskins to devour the whole colony including yourself?”

“It’s what I’ve been ordered to do,” he says.

I know the only reason he hasn’t tried to fight me yet is because he thinks I’m ready to send the knife sailing through his skull. He knows that he is mostly powerless against me. But I know that I’m just a normal girl with a knife against a scared man with a gun. The scared man has the advantage and doesn’t even know it. 

“You know you won’t survive, right?”

An eyebrow rises. 

“You’re going to blow that wall and you won’t have a way out.”

“Jeremiah will come after me. All I have to do is stay here.”

This actually makes me laugh out loud. “Then you’re as stupid as I was just a couple of days ago. Jeremiah doesn’t care about you. If he had all of your men killed, why would he save you? He sent the greyskins here to destroy all of us.”

A slight crack forms at the side of Krindle’s mouth. “He didn’t,” he says. “You did.”

se2em">“What?”

“All the Starborns did.”

He’s no longer pointing the shotgun at me. It now hangs loosely in his left hand as his right clasps tightly around the detonator. 

“You and Aaron came in here in the middle of the night and killed the Screven guards. You opened the gate and left it open while your other Starborn friends, whoever they are, led the greyskins here.”

“That’s not what happened,” I say. Now I’m starting to feel panicked. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “That’s the story.”

“No one will believe you. We have no reason to do such a thing. We’re here to protect people.”

“Which is exactly what you want people to think,” he says. “That is why you brought in the greyskins. You wanted to show the people that you are protecting them, even though it will cost lives. You brought this colony death so you could rise as the new protectors. In turn, you destroyed lives. Now you are all wanted criminals. There will be a huge price on your head. Jeremiah will have you one way or another.”

So this is it. It’s a set up. I look down at Rob on the floor and back to Krindle, wondering how they could be so callous as to murder their own guards. They were the ones who brought the greyskins here. This is Jeremiah’s Code Red. He’s making us reveal ourselves. 

“This is my fault,” I whisper to myself. I now see that I should have gone along with Jeremiah, even if it didn’t feel right. Because I denied him on the stage, because I lied and said that I had no special abilities, because I turned my back on him, he sent in the greyskins. 

He’s going to destroy us. 

I leap for Krindle and our bodies crash into each other. We both slam into the floor and his gun and detonator fly to the ground. I raise my knife to stab it into his throat, knowing that if I kill him, the greyskins will remain outside the colony. 

He reaches up and grabs my wrist. 

“Where’s your power, Starborn?” he says to me, but I ignore him. I’m trying to use all the strength within me to kill him, but his arms are too strong for me. 

He throws me off of him to his left, and he begins his scramble to the detonator. 

“No!” On my hands and knees, I raise my knife up and stab it deep into his calf and through his shin. 

Krindle screams out in horror at the blade protruding through the front of his leg. Blood spills all over the floor as he reaches for the painful wound. 

I stand from my position on the floor and make my way to the detonator. I’m reaching down for the small-buttoned device when I’m blindsided by some kind of crazed lunatic, screaming words I can’t make out. When I’m able to open my eyes, Rob is sitting on top of me, his knees on either side of my ribs, holding my arms to the floor. 

“Why don’t you throw me off you?” he taunts. Blood runs down the side of his head from my earlier attack.

I would give anything to have my ability back because out of the corner of my eye, I see Krindle crawling to the detonator until he reaches it. 

The last thing I see before the deafening explosion is Krindle’s stupid smile as he pushes the button. 

Suddenly there is no one on top of me. I can see and hear nothing, but I feel exposed to the elements. I feel an intense heat all around me along with the strongest windstorm I’ve ever experienced. 

I don’t know why I can’t see. I’m trying to open my eyes, and that’s when I realize that I must have been bst ver explown unconscious. 

My head rests against the cold, dirty floor and my eyes finally open. I still can’t hear a thing, not even a ringing. From my position on the floor I can see that the explosion has torn through the outer wall of Krindle’s office, something he probably hadn’t expected to happen. 

I’m able to lift my head. I see Krindle on the floor. He’s breathing but his eyes are closed. Behind me, Rob lies on the floor, not breathing. A pool of blood rests next to his head and I know that it has nothing to do with what I did to him. A closer look reveals a sharp piece of wood protruding from his skull. 

Somehow I find the strength to crawl to the edge of the room where I can see the commotion below me. My ears are beginning to ring now. This is a good sign. 

As I pull myself closer to the edge, what I see makes me want to vomit. Thousands of greyskins pile into the colony through the newly destroyed barricade that had momentarily protected the people of Salem. Now we have no chance.