The Starborn Saga (Books 1, 2, & 3) (56 page)

Ten minutes go by and the helicopters keep circling the greyskins. Villagers of Springhill get into their vehicles, trying to distract the greyskins into different directions, then they silence them. Within twenty minutes of the helicopters showing up, the gunfire ceases, the moaning of the undead stops.

I don’t even realize that I’m on my knees until Aaron puts his hand on my shoulder and kneels beside me.

“Are you okay?” he asks. 

I nod, thinking only of what Green had said to me. That, and the sharp pain in my side. The rain still falls and the blood of the dead trickles down in tiny rivers throughout the village.

Aaron just sits with me as the helicopters land and colonists start to file out. 

“Looks like we’ve got some explaining to do,” Aaron says. He rubs my shoulder and kisses the side of my head as he stands and then tells me he’s going to the Tower to make sure we are all clear on the Satellite. I smile at him, but stay where I am, staring at the newcomers. 

Though I don’t move, I’m shocked to see a man that I have only seen in my dreams. It’s Jeffery, the teleporter though twenty or so years older. Evelyn runs to him and throws her arms around him. It just goes to show how little I really know. I didn’t think Jeffrey would have been a part of Sudyka. That’s where his Sarah died. But there’s no telling what I’m clueless about. Evelyn might have only shown me things from her side of the story. Who knows what else there may be.

I stand when I see Grandma and Jake coming in from the tree houses with Linda holding Sadie’s hand and Christopher and Bill carrying Austin on a makeshift stretcher. I fear that Austin’s wound is fatal. Why else wouldn’t Christopher have tried to heal him? Christopher would have to give up his own life to save the man. Austin wouldn’t have him do it. Christopher understands his limitations. 

A ringing over the loudspeakers sounds out through the village and Aaron’s voice calls out. “
All Starborns report to the Tower. You’re going to want to hear this.
”

I glance at the others who seem as confused as I do. I’m the first one to reach the top. Danny and Heather come in next. Evelyn walks in with Jeffrey behind her, and Christopher behind him. Even Sadie comes up.

“I came up here to turn on the satellite and I heard someone on the radio,” Aaron says. “We’ve got someone wanting to talk.” He pauses for a moment. “It’s Jeremiah.”

Every person in the room stiffens at the sound of his name. Aaron turns to the radio and presses down the button. “Go ahead.”

A gruff voice sounds through the static and I recognize it all too well. “
I assume your battle has just ended and you are the victors
?” He pauses for a moment as if waiting for an answer but no one says a thing. 

I look at Evelyn who catches my eye. She swallows and cracks her neck nervously. 

“
The time has come for us to settle our differences
,” he continues. “
I’ve received an informant from your side. I know everything there is to know about all of you
.” It sounds like his head turns away from the microphone as he calls someone over to him. 

I step back to the corner of the room and close my eyes. I know he’s talking about Connor. 

I suddenly see the entire room where Connor is standing. Jeremiah sits at a desk. A blindfolded man sits in a chair next to him and Connor stands next to Jeremiah. Two guards have their guns fixed on Connor’s head, ready to kill him if he makes a wrong move.

“Tell them who you are,” Jeremiah says to Connor. 

Connor beˀem">Connnds down and puts his mouth near the microphone. “Connor.”

“And why are you here Connor?”

“Because I believe in what you do,” he says. “I believe you are the one that can protect the colonies from the greyskins.” 

Something is happening to me. I’m watching Connor and I can see things as usual, but I seem to have feelings that are not my own. I feel the desperation of one fearing for his life. Are these Connor’s emotions?

Jeremiah turns back to the microphone. “Now I’m taking on Connor as an ally, but in order for me to trust him, he’s got to earn it. In my right hand, I hold a pistol. Simple as they come. It’s fully loaded. To my left, I’ve got a prisoner. I think you all may know him. His name is Heinrich.”

Shock seizes my spine as Jeremiah says this. In the back of my mind, I can hear gasps. Aaron is cursing in anger. 

“Say hello, Heinrich.”

Jeremiah grabs Heinrich by the hair and pulls his head to the microphone, but he says nothing. 

“Say hello, Heinrich,” Jeremiah repeats. This time, his left hand starts to glow and Heinrich’s hair begins to melt at the back of his head. Connor looks on in horror as the flesh begins to burn and Heinrich cries out.

Everything within Connor wants to reach out and break Jeremiah’s face. If only it wouldn’t jeopardize the mission. 

“Yes! Yes! I am Heinrich. It’s me!”

“Very good,” Jeremiah says, letting go of his head. The blindfold falls off of Heinrich’s face since the back had been burned so badly. Jeremiah calls Connor over to the other side of the table. “Now, I’m going to give Connor the gun.” 

He does so and Connor takes it in his hand reluctantly. 

“I’m waving for my guards to leave the room.” 

To my surprise, none of this is a lie. The guards walk out quietly and shut the door behind them. But Connor knows it doesn’t matter. He knows that if he kills Jeremiah, the guards will rush in and shoot him down anyway. He knows that the only way he can follow through with his mission is to do whatever Jeremiah tells him no matter what.

“Now it’s just me, Heinrich, and Connor. Connor has the gun. Now Connor, your instructions are to kill one of us.”

Connor freezes.

I can’t do this
, he thinks to himself. 

My eyes open for a brief moment and I see all the others staring at the radio, waiting. I can’t help but breathe heavily. I look at Sadie and wonder if I’ve somehow absorbed her gift. But I don’t hear the thoughts of those in the room with me. This is different. Closing my eyes again, I’m back in the room with Connor. 

 Jeremiah sits with a smug grin on his face. I wish I were there. I wish I could kill Jeremiah where he sat. I know if it were me, I’d shoot Jeremiah in the face, regardless of the outcome afterward. But this is a tough situation for anyone to be in. I dare not try to talk to Connor and tell him what to do. This is up to him completely. Whatever he decides, I will support him. I will try to help him as best I can, though I’m sure the guards will kill him if Jeremiah dies. 

“Go on,” Jeremiah says, “we haven’t got all day.”

Connor walks to stand in front of Heinrich. The man stares up at Connor with his jaws clenched. “We’re both dead anyway,” Heinrich says. “Just shoot him and we’ll fight our way out of here or die trying.”

Connor shakes his head. He feels like he will throw up. He’s not even sure if he can live with himself if he does such a thing. He almost feels like he should kiˀ he shoull Jeremiah and then turn the gun on himself. But no. This could be a trick. A true test. What if Jeremiah has some ability to avoid gunfire or something? 

With a determined look on his face, Connor holds the gun up between Heinrich’s eyes. Heinrich takes in a deep breath and can barely keep himself from shaking. 

“I’m sorry, Heinrich,” Connor says. He pulls the trigger, but the only sound is a loud
click
. The gun isn’t loaded. At first he feels relief, but then jumps when he hears Jeremiah burst out in laughter. 

“There you have it,” Jeremiah says. “Loyalty. It’s what I demand!” He pulls out a gun from his boot, points it at the side of Heinrich’s head and pulls the trigger. This time it’s loaded. 

Connor falls backward onto the floor as blood sprays all over the front of him. He is petrified from shock with no words to say. The sick feeling in his stomach is worse than he has ever felt. He feels anger, and hatred, but he must maintain his composure.

“Connor knows a lot about each of you,” Jeremiah continues. “He knows your strengths, your weaknesses. And that means I do to.” He takes in a deep breath and moves closer to the microphone. “I know what you’re trying to do Evelyn. I know this is your attempt to bring me down. It hasn’t worked before. It won’t work this time either. It’s time for you to give up. Mark is never coming back to you. He never will. Deal with it.”

I open my eyes and look around the room. Everyone looks as sick as a greyskin.

“I’m going to kill Connor,” Aaron says almost to himself.  

The radio feed cuts out and the others just stand there. We all feel defeated. Broken. As the others start to leave the Tower, Evelyn walks up to me. 

“Did everything happen just as it sounded?” she asks. 

I don’t have it in me to say yes. I wish it had all been faked. I wish Connor and Heinrich didn’t have to go through Jeremiah’s psychological horrors. I wish Heinrich didn’t have to die. I wish I could tell the others that Connor isn’t really a traitor. I want them to know that he’s doing this to help us. He’s allowing me to see Jeremiah’s movements. 

I nod to her, confirming the truth. She stares off past me, and I walk away from her. Aaron calls out my name, but I ignore him. Pain shoots around my side, and it hits me that all of this may not matter to me soon anyway. 

I walk away from the Tower and past the crowds of people. At first, I think about going to my house, but I don’t want to be there right now. I make my way to the tree houses. I pass the first few and I follow the path until I reach the one I had been in six years ago when my father had told me to stay with my family. I didn’t listen to him then. I wonder what would be different today if I had. 

I climb up the ladder and set myself up against the back wall of the tree house. I close my eyes for a moment, thinking of Connor again. Tears fill my eyes as I see him in a room alone. He sits with his back against a single bed in the corner. He feels despair, but he’s not thinking about Jeremiah or the battles we have to take on. As tears stream down his face, I can hear his thoughts as plain as if he were speaking. 

Mora. I know you’re watching me right now. I hope you didn’t have to see any of that. I miss you. I’m doing this because I believe in you. If there’s anyone that can fight this monster, it’s you.
His thoughts pause for a moment as he looks up and wipes away one of his tears. 

“I love you,” he says out loud. 

His words wrench my insides as the tears comeˀhe tears to my eyes more freely. “I love you,” I say. “I’m scared for you.”

I know he can sense me. He can feel what I’m saying to him because a smile spreads across his face and he lets out
a tear-filled laugh. I laugh too, but it only reminds me of the pain in my side.

My shirt is stuck
to my skin and I can’t help but wince when I pull it up to look at the wound. What I see makes me breathe out hard. The gash is fairly deep, and it doesn’t look good. 

I reach into my back pocket and feel for the small, metal cylinder until two of my fingers are able to slip it out. I unscrew the top and pull out the syringe. I screw the soft top onto the cylinder just as I saw the doctor do in the Vault at Salem. I take a deep breath as I finally stick the needle into my arm and draw out as much blood as the vial will hold. With shaky hands, I stick the needle into the soft top of the cylinder and fill it with my blood. 

Now I wait.
Green, you’re clean. Red, you’re dead.

This is the feeling that I’ve feared so much. It’s a mix of despair and hopefulness, as if the two are battling each other in my mind. I can’t help but think about the man in Salem who watched his cylinder turn red. How life was stripped of him in a matter of seconds. 

I’ve got so much left to do. There is so much left to accomplish. It’s never a surprise when someone is killed in this world. It’s the reality we’ve all grown accustomed to. I don’t fear death itself. My only fear is not finishing what I set out to do before death takes me away.

But death doesn’t wait for our approval. Death takes when it is ready. 

My mind drifts to Jake and Grandma. All of this started because I wanted them to be protected. They are still alive. The wall here is almost finished and they are surrounded by Starborns who can help take care of them. Perhaps Evelyn will find her way to take down Jeremiah. Maybe when all of this is finished, they can begin building a normal life like the one my grandma had when she was a child. Maybe Jake will be able to grow up through his teenage years without having to fear greyskins.

The thought makes me smile. 

My smile fades quickly, however, as the light on the cylinder flashes bright.

Red. I’m dead.

Part Three

Even In Death

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I wish I could find my pistol so I could put a bullet in my brain. Rubble and debris are scattered all around me from the remains of the Center in Screven. Fire threatens to burn me, but I don’t care. In the distance I can see several people running toward me. Are they allies? Enemies? At this point, it doesn’t matter.

My pistol must have been flung from my belt in the explosions. I need it. Death will take me any second now and I can’t wake up as a greyskin. I can’t imagine myself as a greyskin. What kind of monster would I be?

My stomach wrenches and I dry-heave, trying to throw up onto the road in front of me. I haven’t seen a mirror since yesterday, but I imagine my eyes have darkened. I remember they had been bloodshot. Mucus drips down the front of my face and I know what comes next is death and a desire to eat flesh.

The people running toward me look like they are a mile away, though it’s probably only a hundred yards or so. I rʀn> 

The past twenty-four hours have been nothing but a blur. As I lay on my back, echoes of my last day whiz by. It’s like when a person sees her life flash before her eyes before she has a close call or is in a terrible accident. That’s kind of what this feels like; my brain is trying to reflect on how I came to be lying in the middle of the street in Screven with destruction all around me. My brain takes me to the moment I saw the blinking red light. The sinking feeling of defeat was like none I had ever felt.