The Starborn Saga (Books 1, 2, & 3) (61 page)

It all seemed so strange to me that this was happening in the glorious city of Screven. When I had come here before, I remembered seeing people in the streets that looked happy. They all had looked so well fed, too. I knew that I had only seen a small part of Screven and even that was at night. But it still didn’t change how unexpected this was. This little boy didn’t seem particularly well-fed. The man who had been shot was skin and bones. It made me wonder where all the food from the colonies had gone. Who was using all of the products that had been sent in as tax?

People started filing out of the buildings and into the streets since the alarms shut off. I still held tight to the little boy and I could feel his tears drip down the back of my neck. It broke my heart. 

“We can’t take him with us,” Aaron said to me. “We’ve got to get out of here fast.”

I nodded to him. I knew we couldn’t take the boy, but there was no way I was no was just going to leave him in the street. I didn’t know if that man that had been shot had been his father or if it was just someone who wanted to help. 

I was relieved when a woman walked up to me. “Starborn?” she asked. It almost seemed like she was afraid, but then the biggest smile spread across her face when I nodded. She walked up to me and grabbed my hand, shaking it vigorously. “We know you aren’t the murderers that Jeremiah has made you out to be.”

“How?” I asked, but she didn’t answer me. 

“I’ll take him,” she said, reaching out her arms for the boy. “I know where his mother is.”

I told the boy that he was going to see his mom, and he easily switched over to this woman who at some point had gained faith in the Starborns. Was she part of the Screven Resistance? Or was she just an ordinary citizen that believed Jeremiah was evil and he needed to be taken down as quickly as possible? I noticed no one hurried to clean the Screven soldiers’ bodies from the street. 

Aaron grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. “We’ve got to go,” he said. He motioned for Christopher to follow as he led us into another back alley. When we were away from the crowds, Aaron squatted to the ground and tried to contact Evelyn. 

“
You need to head north
,” Evelyn said over the wristband. “
You will see a large square with a statue of Jeremiah in the middle. We will meet there.
”

“Are you already there?” Aaron asked.

“
Not yet. We will see you there.
”

“
We’re on our way
.” It was Heather’s voice that time.

Aaron moved forward and we followed close behind him. “You know where we’re headed?” I asked. 

“North,” Aaron said with a smirk. “I think I’m going north.”

He didn’t sound too sure, but we followed anyway. The side streets were dirty and there was rubble all throughout. It seemed that this part of the city had seen several skirmishes over the past few days.

As we ran through one of the deserted streets, my foot caught something and I fell hard on my side. The other two stopped abruptly to help pull me up, but I didn’t want them to. For some reason, my vision had a moment of blurriness. It was the strangest feeling. As they ran up beside me, I started feeling dizzy and my stomach felt like I might throw up.

Aaron pulled me up to a sitting position, but the dizziness didn’t leave for another few seconds. 

“Are you alright?” Aaron asked. 

I couldn’t help but look at Christopher. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just got dizzy is all.”

“Can you walk?” he asked. 

Christopher held out a hand to me – an invitation to heal my current symptom, but I shook my head. I didn’t want Aaron to figure anything out. Besides, when I stood, the dizziness went away, though I was sure it wouldn’t be the last time I felt that. And I was sure I would feel much worse later.

The thought then occurred to me that I should probably be more careful about who I touch - the boy that I had picked up - taking Aaron’s hand when he offered to help me. I know the virus only passes through the bloodstream, but it would be easy to have open wounds and not know it in this environment. I made a mental note then and there that I needed to be more mindful of what I was doing. 

“We need to walk,” I said to Aaron, starting to feel more and more tired as we ran. I had never felt this drained of energy from so little movement before. In this life, if a person couldn’t run, there was a good chance he or she wouldn’t make it very long. But I knew right now ww right e weren’t being chased by greyskins or Screven soldiers, so I needed to conserve my strength for later. 

Aaron nodded at me with understanding. I could tell he was concerned for me, but he felt a greater urgency to get to the square. He led us by about ten paces, but I wasn’t going to start jogging again. Christopher stood right by my side. 

“Symptoms are getting severe quickly?” he asked with a whisper. 

“I don’t know,” I said. “I was just dizzy. Lost my footing. I feel very tired, but that’s all. I don’t feel like I’m going to die yet.”

“It’s still morning,” he said. “You have a long time to go.”

I think he meant to be encouraging by what he said, but it wasn’t at all. All I heard was that there was a lot of pain and suffering to look forward to. But I wasn’t a fool. I knew that already. I decided to take it as the encouragement he intended. 

“So, you’ve been here before?” Christopher asked. 

“Yes, but just for a night. It wasn’t anything like this.”

“I see.”

“I don’t think when Jeremiah has visitors that he likes to show them around the city,” I said. “Not sure people would be too impressed.”

“Well, I’m sure not impressed,” Christopher said with a grin. 

“Me neither.”

“I think we’re coming up on the square,” Aaron announced. He shuffled to the side of one of the buildings and we all hunkered low as he looked to see if Evelyn and the others were already there.

The square was very large, and at the center was a giant statue of Jeremiah. The statue was carved so that he appeared handsome without the sagging eyes, sunglasses or head-to-toe clothing. In fact, the statue resembled Professor Adams, as I had seen him in the first dream that Evelyn had given me. I couldn’t guess when the statue was made, but I imagined it was formed years after his good looks had faded.

But the statue wasn’t what held our attention the most. It was the countless number of Screven guards that were all packed into the square. Each of them had their guns in hand as if they were readying for battle. 

Aaron brought his wristband up to his mouth. “Hey, can you all hear me?”

“
Yeah, we see it
,” Heather’s voice came through. 

“
We are on the east side
,” Evelyn said. 

“What are we supposed to do?” Aaron asked. 

“
I wasn’t quite expecting this
,” Evelyn said. “
Jeffrey says we are very near the Screven Resistance hideaway. I sure hope they haven’t been discovered.
”

“Sure looks that way,” Christopher said, just over my shoulder. 

“How many do you think there are?” I asked. 

Aaron shook his head. “Maybe seventy-five. A hundred.”

“Think we could take them?”

“Not without blowing our cover. If you don’t want Jeremiah to know we’re here, we can’t fight.”

“Yeah, but we’re looking at two problems here,” Christopher said. “If we don’t fight, they might take out the very people we’re trying to get to. Thus, making this trip pointless. If we do fight, at least we will still be able to meet with this Allison.”

Aaron nodded, thinking to himself. He repeated to Evelyn what Christopher said and we all waited for a response. 

“
I think we could take them
,” Heather said. 

“
It really comes down to four of you
,” Evelyn said. “
Christopher, Jeffreopher, Jy, and I can shoot from a distance, but it would be the rest of you who would need to get in there and create a mess. Are you ready for Jeremiah to know we’re here?
”

I looked at Aaron and shook my head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Aaron sighed at me and held the wristband up to his mouth. “Jeremiah’s going to learn about it soon enough either way. He might even already know. I say we take them out.”

I look away from him, not pleased to see him disregard me so offhandedly. Though my plan hadn’t been fleshed out, I had intended on Jeremiah being surprised to see me. I didn’t want him to be ready. 

“
Then we need to kill them quickly and efficiently
,” Evelyn said. 

“Alright, on my count,” Aaron said. He looked at me for a moment with his eyebrows forward. “What?”

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

Aaron held up his wristband and started the countdown. I don’t know what it was, but something within me just thought it was a terrible idea to go charging in there. I knew the number of soldiers would make it much harder that Aaron realized. When he was about to give the go ahead, I reached out and grabbed his arm. 

“Aaron don’t!”

He stopped for a moment to stare at me with confused eyes. I wanted to explain. I wanted to say something, but no words would come. No explanation appeared. It was just a feeling. Then, as if they were there to answer my jumbled thoughts, gunshots fired out into the square. 

None of us knew where the shots came from until we saw what looked to be ordinary citizens walking out of various alleys and peering over ledges in the buildings. From every direction, machine guns went off and Screven soldiers fell to the ground. Some tried firing back, but in the surprise, it was difficult to see their enemies that had seemingly come out of nowhere. 

Part of me wanted to go out there and help, but the attack was so decisive it seemed to have been planned out. One-by-one, Screven soldiers fell to the ground until finally, they were all dead. The citizens came out into the streets, cheering at scoring a new victory against the Screven guards. This had to be the Screven Resistance. 

We saw Evelyn go out into the square first. Some of the citizens pointed their guns at her, not knowing who she was. Then came Jeffrey, and most of the guns went down in recognition. Then it was our turn to walk out into the square. Again, some guns went up as they shouted out for us to identify ourselves. 

“We’re on your side,” Aaron yelled out. “We’re with her.” He pointed across the way at Evelyn.

On the other side of the square, we saw Heather and Danny walking out too. All of us kept walking until we made it next to the statue. The people with the guns only stared at us for about a minute before a woman came out of the crowd of them. She was probably only a few years older than me. She had a rifle slung across her back. Her long, brown hair had been pulled into a ponytail, and even though she looked pretty, she didn’t seem to have slept in days.

“Jeffrey,” she said. “It’s good to see you. It’s a surprise, but it’s good.”

Jeffrey held out a hand. “Everyone, this is Allison. She’s the Screven Resistance leader.” He then went through then introduced everyone, but when he got to me, her eyes widened.

“You’re the one that started all this?” she asked. 

“Not intentionally,” I said, but she hadn’t meant it as a bad thing. 

“I had no idea I would ever get to meet you,” she said. “It is an honor.”

I didn’t know what to saow what y to this.
An honor
? That seemed strange to me.

Allison looked around at the bodies on the ground. “Screven Soldiers have been closing in on us. They’ve been searching for our hiding spot since day one. We drew them in here, but they won’t fall for it next time, I fear.” She looked over her shoulder and called out to a man named Thomas. “Is everyone ready to get back?”

Thomas nodded. “Yes we are. And we need to make it quick too.”

“Walk with us,” Allison said to the group. “When the fight in Salem broke out, we knew it was our time to shine.” She said this as we walked and it seemed directed at me as if I was leading this little group from Salem. I looked at Evelyn, but she only smiled at me. “We started with a bomb at the Center. It did little more than make Jeremiah angry. We’ve lost a lot of Resistance soldiers. Most of the fights have just been shootouts in the streets. We’ve had to shoot down the occasional helicopter, but for the most part, we just hide away when they come. Too dangerous.” She looks me up and down. “Maybe not anymore, though.”

“What about Jeremiah?” I asked. 

“What about him?” she answered. “He’s locked away in his little tower. We don’t have the manpower to take down the Center. That’s why we’ve been working on ways to get there creatively.”

“What have you come up with?” Evelyn asked. 

Allison shook her head. “Nothing solid. We are losing and we’re losing badly. That’s why I’m happy to see all of you here. We could use a few Starborns in our ranks.”

“There are no Starborns here?” Danny asked. 

“Nope,” said Allison. “Jeremiah has a couple though. Calls them his hunters.”

“Is one of them called Commander Green?” I asked. 

“Never heard of him,” Allison answered. “We only know the names Trace and Anthony. Real nasty guys. But I haven’t been able to figure out what their powers are though. Not sure I want to know.”

Couldn’t be as bad as invisibility
, I thought. 

Allison told us she would catch us up on what needed to be done when we got back to the hideaway. But first, she wanted us to get some food if we needed it, and then some rest. When she told us this, I looked at Christopher and nodded. I needed a few moments of rest. And I needed him to take on some of the symptoms. The dizziness was starting to return. 

She led us to what looked to be an old abandoned building. Windows were gone, some of the doors were ripped off the hinges. One could easily see into the building without having to go in. It looked like it just needed a good demolishing. But the entrance to the hideout was in a closet on the far end of the building. It was a metal door that had been drilled into the ground. It looked much like a manhole cover. One of the Resistance soldiers helped lift it up and all of us were instructed to take the ladder down to the basement level. Finally, after leading us through a maze of hallways and into the hideout, Allison made good on her promise of lunch and rest, though I didn’t eat.