Flight (17 page)

Chapter Fifteen

When I fly back to camp I grab all my weapons, except for the 50 cal – it's just gonna have to stay unless someone else wants to huck it around – and strap them on me one at a time, fill my pockets with ammo and plasma cartridges, and stuff some shitty fucking avian rations down my shirt and in my boots. When I'm done I stand apart from camp, apart from Tier's team, looking over a cliff that has a long vertical drop. I see a pair of eaglets venture to the side of the mountain and flap their half-feathered wings a little as they wait for the next meal to appear. "Ya better stay a little longer, boys. It's a fucking bitch out there."

I hear a grunt behind me and turn to find Arel.

"Hey."

I smile but say nothing.

"So, Junco. I thought you might like to know that I corrupted your HOUSE once."

I squint in confusion and stare up at his dark eyes. "Yeah, Ash mentioned that."

He laughs. "Just listen for a second, OK? I realize this is strange timing, but I noticed she was in shutdown mode when we showed up for that battle in your driveway."

"Aren, well, that bad Aren, corrupted her and I had to put her to sleep that night."

"Which means she reverted to the last backup, correct?"

I nod as a shiver of hope runs through my body.

"So, where do you keep the backups? Do you know?"

I know.

My eyes fill with tears before I can stop them and he moves in and squeezes my arm. "Thank you, Arel. You have no idea how much this helps."

"You're welcome, Junco. You look like you need a friend, so maybe there'll be time later?" He shrugs. "At least you know where she is and she's not dead."

I nod and look past him. The whole team is waiting on us. I nod to Moju and he takes off. I follow and then behind me comes the thunder of wings.

We fly northwest until the sun is high overhead in the south. My wings ache like fuck with every thrust, and I find myself praying for a tailwind, but more often than not the headwind blows in my face, chapping it as the infamous low-pressure systems that come out of the Pacific Utopia create havoc on the currents. If Moju hadn't headed down to the ground when he did, I might have fallen out of the sky from exhaustion.

We land just past the tree line in an open area littered with marmot dens. The air is frigid as I pick my way around the golden little rodents and pray the mountain lions are less aggressive than the ones we have on the prairie. It's an irrational fear when you're strapped down with more weapons than you have limbs and there's no sane reason for a lion to be above the tree line in the first place, but that fear goes deep in me for various reasons.

Moju finally directs us to a small hole in the side of the hill. Everyone except Moj is huffing from the low oxygen and my vision is spinning wildly as my voice echoes in my head. "I'm sick, Moj." I look at him and he weaves back and forth. No, wait. I'm weaving back and forth.

Sucks to have altitude sickness. I've lived above eight thousand feet my entire life. But it only takes a few weeks away from high altitude to wipe away every compensation my body ever made for it. I've been gone a lot longer than a few weeks and this is a lot higher than eight thousand fucking feet. It feels more like fourteen to me.

"We're here, Juncs. Just breathe in and focus, OK? We're going down now, all right?"

I nod and take a deep breath. I know from experience that it does go away on the descent. The cog that used to wind up and down the side of Peaks got you back down quick enough to make the sickness go away in minutes, but I've gotta walk down. And I'm getting worried that walking will be out of the question pretty soon.

I slip inside the hole behind Moju and slide down the steep interior hillside, sending rocks tumbling down on his head. If he's upset, he doesn't show it. He just stands at the bottom and drags me up to my feet.

"You OK?"

I hear him, but the words come in fuzzy and I weave a little. "I think so."

The rest of the guys come up behind me and I catch Tier and Isten looking at me funny. I ignore them and let Moju keep my hand as we walk along in the cave. We're not going down, we're walking horizontal. "Moju, I need to stop."

He doesn't even turn. "No, Juncs. You don't get better by stopping."

He's dragging me now, and then we come to a door. A door of all things, in the side of this mountain.

He peers into the biometric retinal scan and I hear a loud click. It opens to a large cargo elevator and we all file in. Moju peers into the interior biometrics and the door closes. He thumbs his print and the box begins a quick descent.

I breathe a sigh of relief as my head clears within seconds and hang onto Moju's arm. "Thanks for the help." He smiles at me and leans down to kiss my head. I smile, then lock it down. No more trusting anyone, not even Moju, until I figure out what the fuck is going on. Isten's words come back to haunt me,
You can't give that shit away like that, because the minute you do, they own you
.

He shoots me a look from across the elevator and I meet it head-on. "You're such an asshole, Isten. Omission of facts is the same thing as lying. But you know what, you were absolutely right about that. I won't give it away from now on, don't you fucking worry about it again."

I get funny looks all around, but Isten doesn't say anything.

"Just let it go, Juncs." Moju shakes his head at me. "Can't turn back time. Besides, you have to trust someone."

The car stops and Moju scans his retinas one more time to make the doors open. We step out into a hallway.

There's another door but this time it's guarded by one of those sentry bots from the tunnels under Ramah. Moju scans, then pushes me up to it. "Everyone has to scan in." I blink at the biometric pad and it flashes and chirps at me to move away. The team scans in after me and then Moju palms a final biometric pad on the side of the wall and the large doors click open.

We walk into a bustling underground city filled with aisles upon aisles of people selling goods.

A market.

Under a mountain.

We walk out into the grid of open-air stalls and all eyes turn to face us. Within seconds this part of the cavern is deathly silent. I look around uneasy, not sure if these are my people or not. Not sure if I'm avian or human or neither. Not sure about much of anything.

"Junco!"

Selia is running towards me with a giant smile. She stops short when she sees my face. "What's wrong?"

I can use a friend right now. So bad. This thought sparks the tears and I cry, I can't help it.

Selia pulls me in and gives me a hug. "It's OK, Junco. Really."

"Get me out of here, please – just get me out of here, Selia. Please."

I can feel her look up at my team but there is silence behind me. Selia turns me around, pushes on my shoulders, and we walk. My head is down and I can't bring myself to look at anyone. When we stop I have no idea where we are or how we got here. None of the guys are behind me, it's just us.

She reaches out for my weapons and I push her back, growling, "Don't even fucking think about it." I am instantly ashamed. "I'm sorry, Selia. I'm sorry."

"Junco, you can't possibly work them all at once, put one or two down and relax."

"I just need them right now, OK?"

Her eyes squint in confusion. "Were they— mean to you, Junco? Those avians?"

"Mean to me?" What do I say? No? I had to fight and kill almost a hundred people in Fledge. Yes? That doesn't feel quite right either. I stay silent. That question is not even answerable at the moment.

"Come on, sit down and relax. You look a little wrung-out, Junco."

Her hand gestures towards a long fluffy couch and I flop against the pillows and tip my head back to study this girl who I'd be hard-pressed to pin a label on, if forced.

"Selia, my whole world is a lie."

I watch her face drop with a frown and she nods. "Yeah, lots of people are coming to the same conclusion about everything they believed to be true as well, Junco. I've heard a lot of stories over the past few months, so while I may not be able to relate exactly, I certainly understand."

"I don't know where I belong. Hell, I don't even know what I am."

"You can belong here if you want. We know who you are, Junco. You're one of us."

Us? Really. "How can you be so sure, Selia? I'm not even human and the avians say I'm not really avian either."

"You're Junco. And that's enough." She sighs and smiles a little. "Why don't you just lie back and rest for a while, huh? It must have been quite a trip getting here and it's late evening if you're on standard time, so you're probably tired anyway."

I nod slightly but stay quiet.

"You want some clothes to sleep in?"

I choke back a sob as I bring my booted feet up on the couch. Yeah, I want to say. Throw me a tank top that doesn't require me to seal up the sides to accommodate the wings because I don't want them anymore.

But I don't. I just stay silent and keep my wish to be normal to myself. Selia chats to me for a little longer but when I turn out to be about as much fun as a bag of hammers she goes to bed. Eventually my eyelids become too heavy to resist the pull of sleep and I sink away into the darkness.

Chapter Sixteen

I can hear them and it bothers me. Their happiness and excitement at being free on a Friday night. My fingers go to the keys of the piano and I absently pluck out a few bars of the song I've been practicing with Mrs. Strauss. I recognize the heavy thud of bootsteps approaching in the long hallway that leads to the music auditorium and I stand at ease and wait.

I smile when he enters the room and I feel a little wave of sadness as I realize I've missed him.

He pulls me in and squeezes me. "How have you been, Junco?"

"Good, Dad. Really good. I already made Cadet Captain."

"I know, they called me." He pushes me to sit on the piano bench and I do. "Which is why I'm here. Maybe you didn't understand what I said on the way home from Hawaii? You don't have to make rank here, Junco. There's time for that later. This is just—" He drops off, trying to think of the words maybe. "It's just wasting time for you, a way to make you legitimate so you can move on as an officer after graduation. There is nothing for you to learn here except how to relax. Just do your homework, do what Mrs. Strauss and Michael tell you to for piano and sports, and forget the rest. You don't have to work so hard."

I shrug and look up at him. "I want to."

"No," he says, shaking his head, "you don't. You just don't want to leave your comfort zone and do the things all the other cadets are doing. And I think you should. What are your plans for tonight?"

I swallow. "Mrs. Strauss wants me to practice the new—"

"No, Junco. Not on a Friday night she doesn't. I gave her orders. You are free to do whatever you want until 0900 tomorrow. So, go. Go out and do something. These kids are always going out, but I hear you always stay in. Why? What's the problem?"

I let out the frown I've been hiding since he left me here two months ago. "I thought it would be so fun, but it's not really. I don't get it."

"Don't get what, Junco?" His voice is soft and his eyes attentive.

"How they can be so concerned with things that don't really matter. Like hair or clothes or boys. I'm only interested in classes and—" He waits for a few seconds but I don't fill in the missing words. Even I know this is not normal.

"Interested in what, Junco?"

I look up and shake my head. "Weapons and training. All the stuff I never wanted to do growing up but can't seem to get enough of now. And Gideon. He's back, isn't he? I can feel him and I want to see him, Dad. I really want to see him. Please let me."

He gets a pained look on his face and turns his head before he speaks. "You can't see him yet, Junco. He's not ready. But I promise you, if you try a little harder to make friends, I'll let you see him at Easter Break. Deal?"

This is not a deal.

That's almost six months away. What did they do to him that it takes six months to be ready to see me again? My brow furrows so deep into my forehead I almost give myself a headache. My voice comes out low and mean and this growl of anger runs so deep it almost surprises me. "If they've hurt him I will kill someone." I look up to see what he will do with this new information. But he just nods.

"He's OK. I promise."

"That's not what I said and you know it. If they've hurt him. That's what I said."

He puts a hand on my shoulder and pulls me close and begins to speak gently to me. "Junco, go find a friend and if you do that for me then Gideon can come to the house for all of Easter Break. I promise."

I hold my breath for a few seconds. "Come to the house?"

"Yes."

This is new. Gideon has never been to the house before. I've only ever seen him at camp. "One friend?"