Uprising (31 page)

As I crept back through the trees, I thought of what Luther said.
Maybe it’ll put you right where you need to be.
Maybe Lilia was here, or Adrianna. Maybe this was the way I got them all back, even if it meant saving the humans and the others, but being captured myself. Maybe that would get me close enough to the ones who had the answers. It was a slim chance, but I had no other plan to get to William, and if I couldn’t get William back, I wanted to be dead anyway. I tried to push that thought from my head. Tried to pretend I didn’t think it, not with a baby on the way. I was supposed to love her. I did love her, didn’t I? Somewhere in me, I knew I did. But right now I couldn’t feel it, and I was afraid it wouldn’t be enough when she was here.

Back at the meeting spot, Luther was nowhere to be seen. I stayed guarded. Loaded a dart. Looked around carefully for any sign of a threat.

I felt a gun to my back, a hand to my mouth, and I stiffened.

“Yer dead,” but the voice belonged to Luther. I swung around with a scowl.

“Keep them eyes and ears open,” he said as he tucked the gun into his pants. “You got to be smart ’round here.”

I nodded as he walked past me and crouched down to get another look at the building.

“Did ya kill ’im?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, but his eyes stayed locked ahead of him. “The two on the right is next. You get the one closest to us an’ I’ll do the one combin’ the outside.”

Again, I crept up from behind. I got close enough that I knew I’d make the shot. My target, a short muscular woman, paced back and forth. She was spinning a knife in the air over her open palm as she walked from one end of the building to the other. My eyes were the only part of me that moved. They followed her as I planned the shot. How far in front of her I’d have to aim, the slope of the hill I was on, what part of the body to target. I’d aim for her back. She’d be out before she had time to turn and throw her knife.

I filled the hollow, loaded the gun, and inhaled, waiting for the man watching the opposite side of the building to be out of sight. The dart flew through the air soundlessly and hit her in the left shoulder. I moved right, slinking low and hiding amidst the sagebrush. After she fell, I knew I had to get her body out of there. My heart raced as I ran toward her on impulse. I pulled her by her hands, straining every muscle I had to drag her into the brush. I knew I shouldn’t, but I looked down into her still open eyes. Dull brown, dead, gone. My shoulders started to shake, and my throat ached with regret. But a man walked around the corner, and I didn’t have time to fall apart.

I recognized him as he leaned against the warehouse wall. I thought he was dead, but apparently William hadn’t killed him that day. He was smoking a cigarette, looking bored, but I knew it was a ruse. He threw fire, and the burning ember was all the spark he needed to burn me like he had before.

Even on this cold night I was sweating. I wiped my damp forehead with my palm. This guy should be easy. I had a reason to kill him, but the sight of him had me flustered. The memory of my scorched back was still fresh. I was shaky and couldn’t hold the dart gun steady. If I missed, it would give me away.

He pushed off from the building and gave me his back. The perfect shot, but I couldn’t do it. Fear held me in my place
. Be someone else
, I thought.
Be Kara.
I didn’t know what made me act, but I crept toward him, leaving the woman in the bushes. My steps were silent, and I didn’t stop until I was close enough to touch him. I gripped a blood-soaked hammer dart and stabbed it into his back, through the heart. My hands still shook, but I had made the kill. My stomach lurched as he fell forward to his knees, but when he looked back into my eyes as he died, I remembered how many people he’d murdered. Innocent Descendants and who knows how many humans. I wasn’t sorry.

“Nice one,” Luther said from behind me. He grabbed the man by the arm and pulled us both into a dark corner, shadowed by an adjoining wall of the building.

“They’re gonna start noticing’ things ain’t right. We gotta make our move.”

I nodded in agreement, even though everything in me knew we’d get caught. There were too many of them. If we went in, there wouldn’t be any getting out.

“I’m gonna go in the main entrance. I’ll take out as many as I can, cause a diversion.” As he talked he went through the pockets of the dead man, pulling out a set of keys. “You sneak in here.” He nodded to the door behind me on my right.

He handed me the keys and started to turn away, as if I’d see him in a few minutes. I knew I wouldn’t. This was it.

“Wait,” I said, catching his arm. “How am I supposed to get the humans out without you?”

“Prob’ly won’t save most, but at least you’ll save some.”

“What if you get caught? They’ll let you go, right? You’re one of them.”

His eyes looked out at nothing in the distance. “Don’t worry ’bout me.”

“Thank you,” I said when he looked back.

He nodded and disappeared into the tall brush without a word.

The shakes came in waves, making the keys jingle as I fumbled with them. I had to find the right one. With each wrong key I felt a sense of urgency. What if I couldn’t find it? What if I couldn’t get in? Then the lock turned, and I slipped behind the door, praying I wouldn’t be seen. When I closed it behind me, I clicked the lock and pressed my back against the cool surface. My chest worked hard, pumping up and down rapidly. Once I saw what was in front of me, I couldn’t move.

Blood. It was everywhere. Not in a messy scene-of-a-crime kind of way, but neatly organized in large vials as tall as the ceiling. The white walls glowed pink, bathing the room with it. Tubes were connected to bodies outstretched on sterile silver tables, rows and rows of them. I covered my mouth with my hand, and walked down the line of unconscious people being milked. Their blood was being siphoned and collected. For what, I didn’t know.

Slowly I began to recognize some of them, Descendants who’d been with us but never returned from missions. Guilt throbbed in my chest. As I walked down the line of tables, I stumbled over my feet at the sight of a familiar face—Dr. Nickel. I made myself move closer, ignoring the sick feeling in my stomach and the knot in my throat. A few tables away there were other faces amongst the bodies—Sam, Paul, and Nics. A sound escaped my lips, but I stopped it before it became a sob.

I stood still and listened. The room was quiet, so I stepped closer to my friends. Nics and Sam were next to each other, their bare legs and arms sticking out of hospital gowns. My feet were heavy as I walked across the white tile floor. All I could do was stare.

The sound of screams snapped me out of it. Voices and clatter echoed from somewhere distant. The diversion. As I reached forward to rip the first tube from Nics’s arm, my surroundings blurred and stretched. Not now, I thought, trying to resist it, but the room pulled away from me. No matter how deeply I breathed, how wide I kept my eyes, I couldn’t stop it. I was carried off to some other place.

In the vision I stared back at Christoph. I couldn’t make out what was behind him or around us. The moment was brief, a dark empty blur.

“I’m here to surrender,” I said, and at those words everything shifted.

First blackness that seemed to stretch on forever, solitude, loneliness, fear. Then I stared into new eyes, familiar, loving eyes. William’s eyes.

I woke up on the cold tile, dripping with sweat. How long had it been? A few seconds? A minute? An hour?

Nothing had changed. Their bodies lay unmoving on the tables, but it was quiet. Luther, the fighting and clatter, gone.

I scrambled to my feet, frantically ripping the tubes from their bodies as fast as I could. I shifted my bracelet to the right wrist and punched the buttons. I opened Nics’s mouth first, letting the drops flow over her tongue, then moved from one to the other doing the same.

I waited. Every second I expected someone to burst through the door and shoot me, leaving the four of them to be bled dry, but all was still.

Nics was the first to move. Her head turned to look at

Sam, but she didn’t sit up.

“Nics, it’s me,” I whispered. I held my finger to my lips. “It’s okay.”

She blinked her eyes and swallowed, and I knew I didn’t have much time before the others woke up. Until the vision, I assumed I’d leave with them. That Dr. Nickel would mimic Alex’s ability and take us home. But I had other plans now.

I removed my dart gun, my bracelet, and my satchel of darts. “Here,” I said as I handed them to her. “I’m not going with you.”

“What?” her voice was hardly audible. She was still dazed. I squeezed her hand and eyed the door on the other side of the room. I was hoping it would lead me to the humans. “Don’t try and follow me. Just leave.”

Through the door there was more blood, more bodies, but these weren’t the neat kind. I’d found the warehouse, the humans, but all of them were dead. My boots tracked blood across the floor as I searched for movement. A rising chest, a blinking eye, but they were all lifeless.

Not a single soul had survived. I thought of the clatter. The screaming I had heard. I was too late. What was it he’d said? “Prob’ly won’t save most, but at least you’ll save some.” Had he tried to save them without me?

The industrial hanging fluorescents flickered dim, ghostly light that reflected up from the floor. I could hear my heart in my ears, the breath move in and out of my lungs, my footsteps as I made my way across the room.

My stomach felt hollow, and just as I thought I couldn’t take anymore of it, I found a familiar face. Luther. I knelt down beside him, taking his hard hand in mine. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, closing his eyelids with my fingertips.

With the hopelessness dragging me down, there was only one thing left to do—give up. It felt wrong, but if my vision was right, giving up would lead me to William. He was all I cared about now.

“I’m here, Christoph,” my voice echoed against the tall factory ceiling. “You win.”

The cement floor made the place cold, and I rubbed my arms as the chilled air bit my skin. I listened in the emptiness, waiting for him to show. I knew he would.

I felt the air change, and sensed he was behind me. I could feel him, like a sixth sense that tells you when someone’s eyes are on you.

“Hello, Elyse,” he said.

It didn’t startle me as I was sure he intended. I only turned to face him. Another man stood at his side, a messenger, but my eyes never veered from Christoph’s. Being so close to him made my hands shake. Whether out of fear or anger wasn’t clear, but I tried to keep them still.
Be strong.

“Here to make a trade?” he laughed.

“No. I’m here to surrender.”

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I don’t believe you.”

“Innocent humans shouldn’t have to pay the price for our conflicts.”

“I tend to disagree. After all, they’re the
reason
for our conflicts.”

My nails bit into my palms as I looked around at the loss of life, the brutal end these people had to face. “Why did you kill all of them? Obviously Luther didn’t set them free. Why slaughter them?” My chest ached. I’d failed.

His empty eyes moved to a body splayed beside him, and he nudged a boy’s arm with his foot. “They were . . . defective.” His voice was indifferent, as if he’d simply bought the wrong brand of human. “Don’t worry, though. They would have been eliminated regardless of Luther’s attempt. No need to carry the guilt.”

I didn’t see it that way. I should have saved them.

“If it’s me you want. You can have me.” I swallowed down the knot in my throat. “Just don’t kill anymore. Please. All I want is peace.”

“Peace always comes at a price, Elyse.”

27.

AT MY LOWEST POINT, all I had were the oracle’s words to keep me from breaking.
Listen to her
. I’d given up everything based on that advice, and put all of my hope into the idea that she was right. But as I lay in the dark alone, in a basement prison with no windows or light, what hope was there?

In the beginning I was strong. I memorized the room with my hands. There were stairs leading up to the ground floor, but the door was locked with no keyhole to pick. A thin lumpy mattress lay against the back wall, along with an empty plastic bucket with no handles. To the right I found an air vent in the floor. I tried prying it loose, but even if it had worked, the grate was no bigger than a shoebox with holes that fit my fingers just barely. At first I was confident that I’d plot my way out, but no matter how many times I circled the room, nothing worked, and soon the darkness closed in on me.

Solitude is a special kind of torture. It uses your thoughts against you, until your own mind is the one thing you’re most afraid of. After more time passed than I could keep track of, I drifted in and out of madness, reliving my regrets over and over until I was trapped inside myself.

One thing pulled me out of it—her.

If my belly hadn’t grown with the weeks, I would have nearly forgotten about her. Since I’d been here, the baby had gone quiet. She didn’t share her visions anymore. The demon in my mind wondered if she was even alive.

I was crouched against the stone wall the first time I felt her move inside of me. It woke me from my thoughts and stopped my trembling. I straightened up, waiting for it to come again. It was a very subtle sensation, like the flutter of butterfly wings, but I had nothing else to concentrate on. It was that feeling that saved me from myself. After that I knew I needed to stay sane and steady. Whenever darkness threatened to take me over, I forced it out. She was my only reason for not giving up. I had to be strong—for her.

“Hello,” I whispered to her. I lay on the lumpy mattress, staring at a ceiling I couldn’t see. My voice sounded strange in the empty room, but it was worth a try. “How are you in there?”

I lifted my shirt to place my hands on my bare belly and was met with a gentle flutter from inside that made me smile. I’d never talked to her directly. A pang of guilt tightened in my chest. This was the first time I had truly acknowledged her. I was in denial before, like if I didn’t think