Through the Ever Night (31 page)

Talon was all he had now. He was the only family Perry had left. He glanced at Aria’s arms, wrapped tight around him. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he had more.

As they neared Reverie, a sharp scent carried on a warm gust, rustling through the trees. It brought a chemical taste to his tongue that he remembered from the night he’d broken into the Pod in the fall. Though he couldn’t see Reverie yet, he knew it was burning.

Soon after, the horse locked beneath him as they crested a hill, rearing up, nickering in terror. The broad valley that spread before him was a sight unlike anything Perry had ever seen. They’d ridden for hours—it was sometime in the middle of the night—but Aether lit up the flat expanse. Hundreds of funnels lashed down from the sky, leaving bright red trails across the desert. Perry tightened his grip on the reins as the horse stamped and tossed its head. No amount of training would quiet its instincts now.

Terror speared through him as the rounded form of the Pod came into focus. It sat directly beneath the thick of the storm, spewing clouds of smoke as black as coal. Much of it was concealed, but he remembered its shape from other times he’d been there. An enormous central dome like a hill, surrounded by smaller domes that branched off like the rays of the sun. Somewhere in there, he’d find Talon.

The horse wouldn’t settle. Perry turned in the saddle. “We can’t ride any farther.”

Aria jumped to the ground, no hesitation. “Come on!”

Perry grabbed his bow and ran after her, legs heavy from hours in the saddle. As they tore across the desert, he tried not to think of their odds, running miles through an Aether storm, with no shelter, no place to take cover.

Funnels struck down, each one louder, closer, sending searing waves across his skin. A sudden shriek exploded in his ears; then a flash of light blinded him. Forty paces away, a funnel of Aether twisted down, ripping across the earth. Every muscle in his body clenched, pain shuddering through him. Unable to soften his fall, he thudded onto the ground, the wind driven out of his lungs.

Aria crouched a few paces away, tucked in a ball, her hands jammed over her ears. She was screaming. The sound of her pain carried above the Aether, cutting through him. He couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t move to her. How could he have brought her here?

The brightness receded suddenly as the funnel spooled back up. Quiet roared in his ears. He fought to bring his feet beneath him and stumbled toward her. Aria shot toward him at the same time. They collided, slamming together, grasping for each other as they found their balance. Their eyes locked, and Perry saw his own terror mirrored on her face.

An hour passed in a heartbeat. Perry didn’t feel his weight. Didn’t hear his steps as he ran. Brilliant slashes of light surrounded them, and the deafening roar of the storm was constant.

They closed in on the Pod’s massive form, stopping half a mile away. Smoke billowed around them. Perry’s eyes and lungs burned. He couldn’t scent anything anymore. From where he stood, he could see that much of Ag 6, the dome he’d broken into months ago, had collapsed. Flames spewed a hundred feet in the air. He’d hoped to enter Reverie through it again. Now he saw they had no chance.

“Perry, look!”

The smoke shifted with the wind, drawing back like a veil. He saw another dome shimmering with blue light and spotted a vast opening. As he watched, two Hovercrafts streamed out of it, looking small as sparrows against the dome’s massive scale. They cut a seam through the desert, their lights fading into the smoky, flashing darkness.

“That has to be Hess,” Aria said. “He’s abandoning it.”

“That’s our way in,” he said.

They ran closer, huddling together at the side of the opening, which soared hundreds of feet tall. Inside, he saw Dweller ships lined in rows. He recognized the smaller craft from when they’d taken Talon. Bodies shaped like teardrops, sleek and shimmery as abalone shells. Beyond them loomed a ship that dwarfed the others, its form segmented like an earth crawler. Armed soldiers moved in controlled chaos, loading supply crates, directing the flight of one Hover after another in a rush to leave the Pod.

As he watched, a craft nearby sparked to life. Wings spread from its underbelly, a set of four like a dragonfly. Lights shot down their length, and then the air thrummed as the craft lifted off the ground. He flinched as it shot past with a deafening, buzzing sound.

Aria met his eyes. “The airlock into Reverie is at the other end.”

Perry saw it. The entrance was hundreds of yards away. He honed in on a group of men close by, his gaze finding the compact pistols at their belts.

“We can sneak past them,” Aria said. “They’re focused on leaving, not on defending the Pod.”

He nodded. It was their only shot. He pointed to a cluster of supply crates on palettes halfway down the hangar. There was a gap between them and the wall. “When the next Hover powers up, run for those crates. We can take cover behind them.”

Aria shot forward as soon as the Hover lifted off the ground. Perry sprinted, staying with her. They were almost to the crates when a cluster of soldiers saw them. Bullets struck the wall behind him, the sound quiet compared to the buzz of the Hovers. He reached the crates and pulled his bow off his back.

“We need to keep going!” he yelled. They couldn’t give the soldiers a chance to get organized. Aria drew her knife as they sprinted along the narrow corridor.

When they came through the other side, he saw a group of soldiers standing between them and the entrance. Three men. Two had drawn their weapons; the other one looked around in confusion. The only way he’d reach Talon was by getting past them.

Perry fired as they ran. His arrow struck the first man in the chest, sending him flying to the ground. Slashes of red cut past him as the Guardians shot back. The steel crates behind him clanged loudly. He fired at the second man, but it wasn’t enough. Aria surged ahead. She threw her knife at the third man, hitting him in the stomach. The man reeled back, firing his pistol.

“Aria!”

Perry’s heart seized as he watched her fall to the ground. He put an arrow clean through the man who’d shot her. Then he dashed to her, grabbing her by the waist and scooping her off the ground. She held her arm as they ran, blood running through her fingers. Perry pulled her with him, stooping to the floor to grab a pistol that had fallen by one of the downed soldiers. Across the hangar, people shouted in confusion as an alarm sounded.

More soldiers opened fire at them, but Perry noticed that most barely paused in their evacuation efforts. Perry’s finger found the trigger. He fired again and again, a distant part of his mind amazed at the ease and speed of the weapon.

With each step she took, Aria leaned more of her weight on him. They tore up a ramp and into the airlock chamber as people yelled behind him, their voices fading in and out of the alarms. He jammed at the door’s controls. It slid open, revealing stunned soldiers on the other side.

Perry pushed past them into a wide, curving corridor, the sounds of the alarm receding behind him. He didn’t know where he was going. Knew only that he needed to find safety. Take care of her. Find Talon.

Aria stopped suddenly. “Here!” She pressed her fingers into the control pad of a door, opening it, and they darted inside.

A
ria fell back against the wall. Dizziness rolled over her in waves. She needed to catch her breath. Her heart was beating too fast. She needed it to slow down.

Perry stood by the door, listening to the sounds in the hall. She had the fleeting thought that he looked comfortable with the gun in his hand, like he’d been using one for years instead of minutes. The shouts of Guardians grew louder.

“Forget it!” Aria heard outside. “They’re gone.” Then their footsteps faded.

Perry lowered the gun. He looked at her, his eyebrows drawn with worry. “Stay right there.”

She closed her eyes. The pain in her arm was immense, but her head was clear, unlike when she’d been poisoned. Oddly, the feeling of blood rolling down her arm and dribbling from her fingertips bothered her the most. She could function with pain, but losing blood would make her weak and slow her down.

The room was a supply repository for emergency evacuations. She’d learned of storerooms like this from Pod safety drills. Metal lockers ran in rows down the length. In them she saw hazard suits. Oxygen masks. Fire extinguishers. First-aid supplies. Perry ran to the nearest one, bringing back a metal case. He knelt and popped it open.

“There should be a blue tube,” she said through gasps, “for stopping bleeding.”

He rifled through it, coming up with the tube and a bandage. “Look at me,” he said, straightening. “Right at my eyes.”

He drew her hand away from the wound.

Aria sucked in a breath at the burst of pain that shot down her arm. She’d been hit on her bicep, but strangely, the worst pain was in her fingertips. The muscles in her legs began to shake.

“Easy,” Perry said. “Just keep breathing, nice and slow.”

“Is my arm still there?” she asked.

“Still there.” His lips pulled into a quick smile, but she saw the worry behind it. “When it heals, it’s going to match my hand perfectly.”

With firm, efficient movements, he applied the coagulant and then wrapped the bandage tightly around her arm. Aria kept her gaze on his face. On the blond stubble across his jaw, and the bend in his nose. She could look at him forever. She could spend her life watching him just blink and breathe that near to her.

Her eyes blurred, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or from the relief of being with him again. He brought a sense of rightness. She felt it every moment she spent with him. Even the wrong ones. Even the painful ones, like now.

Perry’s hands stilled. He looked up, and his gaze told her everything. He felt it too.

A tremor thrummed through the soles of her boots, and then the lockers rattled. The rumbling sound built. It kept going, growing louder and louder. The lights shut off. Aria searched the darkness, panic rising inside of her. A red emergency light above the door pulsed a few times and turned on, holding steady. Slowly, the noise faded.

“This place is coming down,” Perry said, tying off the bandage.

She nodded. “The corridor circles the Panop. If we stay on it, we should find an access door.” She pushed herself off the wall. The bleeding had slowed, but she still felt light-headed.

Perry peered through the door. The corridor had fallen into darkness, lit only by emergency lights every twenty paces. “Stay close to me.”

They ran along the curving corridor together, the wail of fire alarms echoing off the cement walls and filling her ears. Aria smelled smoke, and the temperature had spiked. The fires had moved inside the Pod. Her strength was draining rapidly, just as she’d feared. She felt like she was running underwater.

“Here,” she said, stopping at wide double doors marked
PANOPTICON
. “This is where Hess locked them in.” She pressed at the control board next to it.
NO ACCESS
flashed up on the screen. She tried again, stabbing at the panel in anger. They couldn’t be this close and not get inside.

She didn’t hear the Reverie soldiers rounding the bend toward them. The alarms had swallowed the sounds of their approach. But Perry saw them. A staccato of bright bursts exploded beside her as he fired. Down the corridor, the Guardians fell. Perry broke into a run, covering the distance to the soldiers with a shocking surge of speed. He wrenched one of the Guardians off the ground by the collar and returned with the struggling man, who’d been shot in the leg.

“Open the door,” he commanded, holding the Guardian in front of the panel.

“No!” The man twisted his body to break loose. In a flash, Aria saw her mother’s face. Lifeless, as she’d last seen her. She couldn’t fail again. Talon was in there. Thousands of people would die if they couldn’t get in.

With her good arm, she drew her knife and slashed it across the Guardian’s face. She caught him across the chin, the steel blade scraping against bone. “Get us in there!”

The man screamed and jerked back. Then he pressed desperately at the panel, entering an access code as he begged to be let go.

The doors slid open, revealing a long hallway.

She ran, her feet pounding on the slick floor, and froze as she came through the other side, into the Panop. Into her home.

She absorbed it instantaneously, feeling like a stranger. Rising up in a perfect spiraling corkscrew around the central atrium were the forty levels where she’d slept, eaten, attended school, and fractioned to the Realms.

It looked bigger, bleaker than she remembered. The gray color, which had once seemed almost invisible to her, now struck her as lifeless, suffocating in its coldness. How had she ever been happy here?

Then her eyes moved past the familiar and latched onto everything that was wrong. The smoke tumbling from the higher levels. Pieces of concrete crumbling, falling to where she and Perry stood. Flashes of people running—or chasing one another. The hair-raising screams of terror, fading in and out with the blare of the fire alarms. Hardest to believe were the groups of people sitting in the atrium lounges socializing normally, like nothing unusual was happening.

Aria spotted Pixie’s short black hair and sprinted over.