Coiled Snake (The Windstorm Series Book 2) (20 page)

“This girl was buried in the rubble,” I pant when I catch her attention. “Her leg was crushed, and I think there are probably worse injuries—”

“She’s dead,” Tova says, turning away from me to look at a severely burned man supported by two volunteers in gas masks.

“What?” I say. “No, that can’t be right. I spoke to her. She was alive just a few minutes ago.”

Tova impatiently turns around and grabs the girl’s wrist. She waits for a second then says, “No pulse. See for yourself.”

I lay the girl down on one of the tables and press my shaking fingers behind her ears.
No!
Angrily, I start pumping on her chest. But her body is soft, and as I push down on her ribcage, blood leaks out of her mouth.

I back quickly away from her.
No, no, no!

In a daze, I stare down at the girl’s lifeless body. I want to cry, but I can’t. It’s as if the deadness has spread to me too, paralyzing my entire being. I don’t feel anything. I can only stand here and look at her and think that she looked like my sister.

“Oy, girl.” I turn around slowly to face Tova. “Can you tie a tourniquet?” she asks.

I think I nod.

“Come here, then.”

“There are wounded people in the tunnel above us,” I hear myself say.

“There are wounded people everywhere,” Tova interrupts. “We’re doing what we can.”

“I promised I would go back—”

“You’ll be of more use here. Are you hurt?” She gestures at the bandage on my leg.

“No, that was from before,” I say, shamed by how grossly trivial my cut is compared to the damage others have sustained.

“Go with Joshua then.” She points to a boy who looks about fourteen. “If anyone comes in with massive bleeding, tie ’em off and send for me. Otherwise, give them what they need and send them out.”

I open my mouth to ask what she means, but she’s already turned away, hurrying toward another group of injured people.

Joshua waves me over, and I suppose I walk toward him because somehow I end up at his side.

“We need to get them ready for evac,” he says, gesturing to some patients lying on the tables. “Wash their wounds, dress the burns. A team will be back soon to cart them out of the mountain.”

“Why are they leaving?”

He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Well, we can’t bloody well stay here, can we?”

“No,” I mumble as I reach for a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
No, we can’t stay here.

The hours go by in a haze of bandages and IVs and blood and screams. Even though he’s my junior, I follow Joshua’s orders without question, numbly handing him what he asks for or doing as he instructs. When we run out of gauze, I tear up bedding. When a woman comes in peppered with shrapnel, I hold the tray that collects the extracted rocks and metal. When a boy’s shin is sticking out of his skin, I hold him down while his leg is set.

People come in, and people go out. Sometimes they’re dead when they arrive; often they’re dead when they leave. Maybe one out of every three is still breathing when they hobble—or are carried out—the door. And with every passing minute, with every silenced child or disfigured grandparent, the deadness in my chest spreads until I can’t remember what it is to feel.

I have no idea how much time has elapsed when the instructions are given to pack up the supplies and join the evacuation. No more wounded are coming.

I gather together the equipment with perfunctory movements, my mind as cold as the bodies I treated. Then I follow Joshua, Tova, and the others into the tunnels.

When a man grabs my arm and says my name, it takes me several seconds to remember who I am.

“Mokai?” I finally respond.

“Kava, Kit!” he breathes, pulling me in for a hug. “Thank the gods. I thought maybe you’d lost your hearing.”

I lean into his chest, yearning to feel warmth, knowing I should feel grateful he’s alive but not quite able to remember what gratitude feels like. Instead, all I can think about is how many people did lose their hearing.

“Are you all right?” Mokai asks as he releases me. “You look all right. I mean, you’re not injured, are you?”

“I’m fine.” I try to smile but fail. “Are you?”

“Yeah. Me and the other
kapa
were getting the newbies outfitted down in
Poro K
, otherwise I wouldn’t be.”

“How do you know?”

“One of the explosives went off in
Poro E
.” For the first time, I see the deadness in his eyes too. Most of his friends are probably gone.

“Stephen?” I find the strength to ask.

“Alive. He was with us in
K.
”

I exhale slowly. “Where else did they go off?”

“
Poro A
.”

I jerk my head up. “Kai, that’s where Miri was assigned!”

“I know. And it’s where the
Riki
was.”

“Have they found … has anyone gotten up there?”

He shakes his head. “A team was sent up right away, but the tunnels collapsed on them. We’ve been trying to get in from the outside, but so far, nothing.”

I stare at the ground. It seems that the walls are collapsing in on me just like the tunnels, the earth opening slowly to swallow me whole.

“I can understand
A
and
E
,” Mokai is saying angrily. “Those were tactical targets. What I don’t get is
Poro J
. It’s the biggest dormitory we have. They must have known there would be families there.”

Suddenly, I see the young man who bumped into me asking for directions to
Poro J
.

Bloody pueha!
It was him. It had to be. I hadn’t put it together before—when I was searching through the tunnels, when I found the girl, I hadn’t thought about where I was. But now I see it perfectly. He walked right by me. Talked to me. I could have stopped it.

“They just walked in,” I croak. “Acted like they were one of us.”

Kai frowns at me. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw one of them,” I whisper, telling him about the man.

His brow darkens. “Bastards! They couldn’t even attack us in a fair fight.” He releases a string of curses, but I’m no longer listening. Because now I know for sure who did this.

“It was the Yakone,” I say, cutting him off.

“Are you certain?” he asks.

I nod. It was what the man said when we parted that tells me for sure: “Watch your back.” Only the Yakone say that. They must have done this to get back at the Rangi for planting explosives in their mountain. Explosives I removed.

“They’re going to pay for this,” Mokai growls, smashing the butt of his spear into the rocky wall.

I want to feel the anger he does—I want to feel
anything
—but the deadness is still there, and it’s all I can do to keep walking out of the mountain.

It’s twilight as we exit the tunnels. Down below, I see boats emerge from the underground river, carrying away the wounded. Those who can still walk are slowly moving through the forest, carving out trails through the trees.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“We can’t stay here,” Mokai explains. “We’re vulnerable to human eyes—and to attack. I don’t know why the Yakone haven’t already tried to finish us off. Doesn’t make sense.”

I offer no theories; I’m too exhausted to think.

“We’ll rendezvous at the safety location,” Kai says.

“Where’s that?”

“Porirua, just outside Wellington. Buses will be waiting for us on the motorway. The severely wounded will get there by sea.”

“What will happen to the
Wakemaunga
?” I ask.

“We’ll seal off the tunnels, disguise it, until we get the chance to rebuild.”

“Seal the tunnels?” I stare at him. “What if there are other survivors?”

“If there are, they won’t survive long,” Mokai says grimly. “The air quality is too poor.”

“But Miri … ”

“She’s gone, Kit.” When I don’t respond, he says, more gently, “We need to get going.”

I still don’t say anything, but I let him lead me down the path.

The sun is completely gone now, leaving a hollowness in the sky that mirrors the hollowness in my heart. A black shroud hides the stars.

But just as I’m about to disappear into the trees, the sudden flickering of lights on the leaves catches my attention. I turn around and look up to find that the heavens are washed in a swelling green.

“What is that?” I choke, pointing at the pale waves swirling above the ocean.

“Southern Lights,” Mokai says.

Suddenly my vision darkens, and I sink onto the dirt path, unable to go any further. Kai crouches next to me, but I push him away. All I’ve experienced in the last few months is crashing down on me in a single moment. I’ve lost everyone, everything. Even a rare memory of happiness. The translucent sky clashes with the blood on my shirt—a permanent testimony against the person who first introduced me to the beauty above.

How could the Yakone do this?
After what I did for them? Was Rye involved? Everything I witnessed today gnaws away at my soul, leaving ever more emptiness.

“C’mon, Kit,” Mokai says, pulling me to my feet. “You can’t stay here.”

It takes us several hours to reach the highway, sometimes windwalking, sometimes hiking. I move in a stupor. Only the steady pressure of Kai’s hand on my arm keeps me going.

When we reach the pick-up point, sometime around midnight, there are three school buses parked on the side of the road. I follow Kai onto the first bus, and we sit in the back. We wait for maybe thirty minutes for others to arrive and board; their groans and wails wash over me, but I’m not sure I really hear them. When the bus is filled to capacity, the driver pulls onto the road, and we begin the journey north.

Despite my exhaustion, I stay awake for a long time, my bloodshot eyes tracing the cracks on the plastic seat covers in front of me. When I do drift off, I’m plagued with nightmares of the worst kind. Over and over, I chase the Yakone with the bomb-carrying bag, but always the bomb explodes before I can reach it. Over and over, I try to get to
Poro A
to find Miri, but always the tunnels collapse on me. Over and over, I carry the girl through an endless sea of corpses, but always I fail to save her. And as I set her body down, I discover I’m carrying my dead sister.

When I wake sometime in the gray hours of the morning, the tears finally come. And they don’t stop. The grief in my chest is suffocating and endless, despair drowning me from the inside.

Why do I have to feel this way again?
It’s not enough that I lost my parents. Now I have to lose my grandmother, when I only just found her.

I think about Miri. The way she added whiskey to her coffee to numb her pain. The way a gun would fly into her hand at the first sign of trouble. The way she sized you up with her quick eyes and made you feel like she knew all your secrets. The way you felt safe just having her near.

And now she’s dead. And it’s my fault.

If I hadn’t saved the Yakone in the first place … if I had just realized there was something suspicious about that man … If I had gone to Poro A
first …

Now I’m going to lose the twins too. Even if I succeed in being made a warrior, how long will it take for the tribe to regroup? Weeks? Months? Jack and Maisy will be dead by then. Dead in a prison camp, with no idea why they’re there, no hope of being rescued.

Why are they there?
I wonder for the thousandth time.

It suddenly occurs to me that the Yakone might be responsible for the twins’ abduction. The Kaana are their allies; they could be acting on their behalf.
I told them about the twins
, I realize.
Told them I was from Minnesota.
But there’s only one way they could have known where we lived: if they were the ones who killed my parents.
It’s the only explanation.

For the first time, I truly accept that the Yakone are responsible for my parents’ deaths. For the first time, I see them for what they are.

I look over at Mokai, asleep next to me. His lips are twitching angrily as he mutters curses in his dreams.
I need to be like him.
I need to channel my grief toward a purpose, or it will consume me.

The Rangi may not be blameless, but it was the Yakone who provoked them by destroying a Rangi village. It was their greed that killed my parents and started this war. Their monstrosity that murdered Miri and thousands of innocents. Their depravation that kidnapped two helpless children.

A fire begins to surge in my blood.

I used to think the Yakone were my friends. But what did I really know about Jeremy or Charity? I thought Lila was my friend, but she abandoned me to die. And Rye? He killed his fair share of Rangi, lied to me about so many things, was even willing to let his own father slice off my head—his father who most likely planned the attack on my people.