Defiance (27 page)

Tossing the handgrips into my pack, I don a new tunic and pants and hastily chew on some mutton jerky to replenish my flagging strength. The leather of my cloak chafes the burn on my neck, so I take a minute to snatch salve and gauze from my first aid kit and secure a bandage in place. Then I strap on a sword, slide a sheathed dagger into my boot, wrap my cloak around myself again, and pick up my travel pack, ignoring the way my rib aches against the weight.

The distance between the building and the Wall is relatively short, but it takes me nearly twenty minutes because I’m constantly checking for guards. I aim for the curve of the Wall nearly at the halfway point between the two closest turrets. When another scan of my surroundings shows no glowing NightSeer masks, I drop to my knees at the base of the Wall, open my pack, slide on a mask to protect my eyes and filter the air I breathe, tug on a pair of heavy leather gloves, and remove a machine that looks like a metal crossbow with a thick spiral-shaped steel drill jutting out the front. Fastening my pack to my back securely, I slide my arms into the straps for the device, secure another strap around my waist, and flip the switch on the battery pack I built beneath the spiral drill. It comes to life with a muted whine.

Bending forward, I apply the spinning metal drill to the ground at the base of the Wall and it chews through the dirt, flinging debris to the sides. The vibrations send sharp jabs of agony into my ribcage, and I have to constantly remind myself to breathe through the pain. When the hole is large enough to accommodate me, I slide forward and switch my goggles to NightSeer, trusting the green glow to illuminate my path even as I quickly calculate angles, trajectory, and all the possibilities for failure.

Except that failure isn’t a possibility.

Not when so many depend on me.

The drill eats through the ground, and I aim deep. Deep enough to bypass the Wall’s foundations. Deep enough to avoid causing any trembles through the tons of stone and steel resting above me. Deep enough that calling the Cursed One is a real possibility.

My mask lights the dirt around me a few measly feet at a time, and the air feels damp and cloying as it brushes against my skin. Every breath ignites a fierce agony around my broken rib as if I never took any pain medicine. The need for space crushes me, whispering that I’ll go crazy if I don’t get back into the open
now
.

I ignore it. Mind over matter. I have plenty of other things to think about. There are math equations to solve. Minute adjustments to make. And beneath it all, a terrible grief for Oliver mixes with a desperate worry for Rachel until I can hardly tell the difference between the two.

I will not be too late.

I will
not
.

When I calculate that I’ve traveled well beyond the width of the Wall, I begin slowly tunneling my way back to the surface, making sure to continue my trajectory until I’m beyond the circumference of Baalboden’s perimeter. I break the surface with caution, instantly shutting off the machine so I can listen for threats.

I’ve come up between two ancient pin oaks. Keeping my NightSeer mask on, I scan the area. I’m far enough into the Wasteland that Baalboden is a distant, looming bulk on the eastern horizon. The western Wall appears quiet.

Best Case Scenario: No one discovers my true escape point until daylight.

Worst Case Scenario: The Commander realizes my flight north was a false trail and orders a search of the entire Wall.

The answer to both is the same: Run.

I close the machine, slip off the mask because I’d rather let my eyes adjust to the dark than announce my presence to others with the mask’s glow, and pack them both away. Then I slide a copper cuff from my bag, the gears on it lined with the same blue wire I used for Rachel’s, and pull it over my arm.

The wires glow faintly, but they’ll light up like a torch the closer I get to her. By my best guess, she should still have a week’s worth of travel before she hits Jared’s Rowansmark safe house. I take a moment to mentally review the map Jared once had me commit to memory for the day when the Commander would allow me to leave Baalboden on my first courier mission. If I push myself, using dangerous shortcuts Jared would never have used while on a journey with Rachel, I can cut the distance between us in half in just four days. Three if I don’t sleep much.

I have to hope Melkin didn’t want to risk bringing Rachel through highwaymen-infested trails either. If Rachel was spotted, she and Melkin would be viciously attacked within hours. Melkin would never make it out alive, and Rachel would wish she’d died too.

Shoving that thought aside before it takes root, I settle my pack between my shoulders and brace my arm against my aching side. Then I turn my face to the south and disappear into the Wasteland.

W
e’ve barely slept in the five days since we left the first safe house. The maples have turned back into oaks, and huge gnarled roots rip their way through the moss-covered ground. Traveling by day and catching naps at night while one of us remains alert for the presence of the Rowansmark tracker, we run ourselves ragged.

Melkin feels it more than I do. Lines of strain take up permanent residence on his face, digging bitter furrows across his brow. I think he worries someone will destroy his plan to return the package and ransom his wife. I can’t be sure because he’ll barely speak to me. The closer we come to the second safe house, the more he shuts down.

It doesn’t matter. The wires on my arm cuff are glowing brighter with each passing day. Soon, it will be over. Soon, I’ll find Dad, and we’ll go rescue Logan.

We’re less than a full day’s journey from the safe house when I sense we’re no longer alone. Melkin is ahead of me, using his staff to brush aside the moss that drapes across the branches around us like ribbon. I slow as if examining a mark on the ground, and whirl around, expecting to see a Rowansmark tracker.

An olive-skinned face stares at me from a branch in a tree I passed not thirty seconds ago. We lock eyes, blink, and in a flash of black hair and graceful limbs, she’s gone.

It was a girl. I’m sure of it. Which means she isn’t a tracker, a guard, or a member of a highwaymen gang. She must be Tree People.

I’m not threatened by her presence—it’s natural for Tree People to be curious about the outsiders wandering through their area of the Wasteland—but there aren’t any Tree People villages in these parts except for the one near the second safe house, and that’s still hours away. It’s unusual to see a Tree Girl so far from home. I file it away for further thought if necessary, and forget about her until we stop for lunch two hours later and I see her again.

This time, she doesn’t pull back when I catch a glimpse of her peering out at me from the branches of a tree several yards back from where we sit. Instead, we stare at each other as I let my cloak hood drop, and she leans out of her tree enough for me to see we’re about the same age. A quiver of arrows is slung over one shoulder, and she holds the bow in one hand. A long black feather dangles from an intricately swirled silver ear cuff wrapped around her left ear. Her dark eyes are full of aloof confidence.

I can’t explain her, and I don’t like what I can’t explain. She shouldn’t still be following us. I’m about to draw Melkin’s attention to her when she pulls back into the tree and disappears.

I watch for her as I finish a cold lunch of turkey leftovers and the potted plums I took with us from the first safe house. Watch for her as Melkin barks at me to keep up. And watch for her as the shadows slowly lengthen into pools of darkness beneath the dying sun.

She never reappears.

Instead, the blue wires glow brightly, and I forget to be concerned about the insignificant wanderings of a Tree Girl. It will hurt to tell Dad about Oliver. It will also hurt to tell him I had to leave Logan behind, but Dad will know how to fix it.

I still haven’t told Melkin we’re about to find Dad. Five days ago, I would have. Five days ago, he seemed approachable, concerned only with saving his wife, and determined to protect me.

Now, he’s a cold, silent ghost of the man I thought I knew. The closer we come to the package, the more he turns inward, until I catch myself shivering a little when he turns the miserable darkness of his eyes toward me.

Maybe he’s finally realizing the Commander isn’t a man of his word. Maybe he’s beginning to understand that if we give our only leverage over to him, those we love are dead.

Maybe he’s bracing himself for the worst.

We emerge from the forest, and I recognize the line of ancient oaks, their trunks as thick as one of the steel beams supporting Baalboden’s Wall, their branches arching over a moss-covered path as if offering protection.

We’re almost there.

I push ahead of Melkin, who offers no protest. The column of trees seems to go on forever as I hurry forward.

Almost there.

The cuff against my arm glows like the noonday sun.

Almost there.

At the end of the row of trees, a graying one-story farmhouse with once-red shutters faded to pink will be standing, and he’ll be waiting. His big arms will open wide, his gray eyes will glow with pride, and I’ll be home at last.

I skid on the moss as I reach the last tree, and grab on to the trunk for balance. And then I hang on to the trunk for one long desperate second, fighting vertigo as my eyes take in the impossible.

The farmhouse is gone.

Nothing remains but a sweeping patch of scorched dirt and a gaping hole where the Cursed One slid back to his lair.

I look around wildly, searching. My cuff is lit up like a torch. He’s here.

He’s
here
.

But he isn’t. I can’t see him. All I see is destruction.

“Oh,” Melkin says behind me as he takes in the sight.

That tiny little word makes me want to hurt him, so I leave the shelter of the trees and walk toward the debris on shaking legs.

My cuff still glows. I scan the treetops. He could be there. Waiting for me. Staying hidden from trackers.

The soil beneath me turns to ash. Cold black flakes that cling to my boots as if trying to hold me back.

Where is he?

Something moves in the trees across from me, and the Tree Girl steps out, followed by a boy who looks about Logan’s age. Both of them have dusky skin and straight black hair. The girl wears hers in a long braid. The boy lets his fall loose to his shoulders. He moves, and my eyes are drawn to a white paper-wrapped package the size of a raisin loaf in his hands.

“Who are they?” Melkin whispers.

“Rachel Adams?” The boy’s dark brown eyes lock onto mine, making my stomach clench. There’s sympathy in his gaze. I don’t want sympathy.

I just want Dad.

“Yes.” My voice is nothing but a wisp. The breeze snatches it and whisks it away. I try again. “Yes.”

The girl beckons me, her slim hand waving me toward her.

Maybe Dad is with them. Hiding in their village. Staying off the usual path of trackers and couriers. Maybe that’s why she followed us earlier. Maybe he sent her to watch for me, knowing one day I’d come.

My boots grind the sooty embers beneath me to dust as I cross the scorched ground. The foundation of the house is still there, buried beneath the ash, a jumbled mound of broken concrete I have to climb up and over. My feet skid as I reach the top, sending me sliding down the other side. When I reach the bottom, I look up at the Tree People, but stop when I catch sight of something else.

Just beyond the edge of the destruction, where the ash bleeds gently into soil again, a soft swell in the ground is marked by a small wooden cross painted white.

I can’t breathe. My ears roar, and someone says something, but I can’t understand the words because I’m walking toward the grave and the wires on my cuff are glowing like brilliant blue stars.

The boy steps to the side of the grave, and holds out his hand to me. I take it without thinking, but I can’t feel him. I can’t even feel myself, and I don’t want to. Let this be some other girl standing here, holding a stranger’s hand while the rest of her world comes crumbling down.

Please.

“He died a hero, Rachel. The Cursed One would’ve killed my sister and me, but he led it away from us. He saved our lives.” His voice catches as if he’s struggling with tears. “I’m sorry.”

I pull my hand free. The cross is beautifully carved and someone has painted the words
Jared Adams
in the center.

Grief is a yawning pit of darkness blooming at my core. I can hardly stand beneath its weight. The sharp edges of Oliver’s death collide with the unthinkable sight before me, and something inside me shatters as I fall to my knees.

I can’t bear this. I can’t.

The hope that blazed within me floats like ash into the darkness.

He’s here, but not here.

I want to die too. Just stop breathing and hope I find him on the other side.

He’s not here.

I sink down to lie on top of the dirt.

He’s nowhere.

I’m bleeding inside where no one will see. Where no one will ever know to look.

He’s gone.

He’s
gone
.

I
reach the first safe house in just over three days.

I’m cutting through known highwaymen territory, running on adrenalin rather than sleep. My entire body feels battered, and my rib throbs incessantly no matter how tightly I wrap it. Every few miles, I have to stop, drag in some much needed deep breaths, and focus on getting the pain under control so I can continue. Twice, I’ve slept for a handful of hours, only to wake on the heels of terrifying dreams with a sense of dread churning through my system.

The pain refuses to relinquish its hold on me even during sleep, but I can’t afford to give in to it. Guards will be on my trail. Maybe trackers as well, if any of them have returned to Baalboden since I left. The Commander won’t sit idly by and wait for Melkin to succeed. He’ll have an insurance policy in the works.