Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
I’m so preoccupied by thoughts of Cain that I almost forget about the protestors until the MRF comes into sight. A sizable crowd is gathered around the gate, barely kept at bay by a mixture of MRF security and local police. Beyond the crowd, the desert sands are still stained red by the blood rain.
I slow my car. The mob’s shouts are muffled by my windows, unintelligible words blending into a rhythm that matches my pounding headache. I wouldn’t have drunk so much last night if I had known what I’d be facing today.
Signs are thrust into the air on either side of the vehicle as I approach.
We deserve the truth.
Stop the MRF.
Save Ash Valley.
Free the aliens, one says, but I can’t even muster a smile at that.
I honk my horn and press forward. Cardboard signs batter the sides of my car as I force my way through. One presses against my window, familiar red letters registering out of the corner of my eye:
And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke…
My head whips to the side, but the sign has already been swallowed by the crowd. I think about that homeless man who has haunted me since I came to town. The Children of the Red Sun. Was he one of them all along? Watching me? Searching for Cain?
But try as I might, I can’t find either the man’s face or the sign I recognized. Maybe I imagined it. I feel unmoored, delirious. I’ve barely been sleeping.
I make it through the gate after a tense standoff with the mob.
Director Wright meets me in the parking lot with a brisk handshake and a rundown of the situation.
The building is mostly empty. The staff are gone for the day except for the security team.
The truck is waiting out back. I’m meant to sedate X-16 and escort him from his cell to the truck, where I’ll stay with him until we reach his new containment center in the mountains. I’ll be alone with him in the truck.
I nod mechanically, forcing myself to register each detail and suppress my own emotional responses. The mood is tense, the other security guards grim-faced where they gather nearby. There is no space here for feelings. I have a job, and I intend to complete it.
But the security uniform, once familiar, feels odd against my skin. My gun weighs heavily at my hip.
Inside, the MRF is eerily empty. It feels silent and abandoned in the way it usually did on night shifts, which is somehow even more disconcerting in broad daylight.
I head straight to Cain’s cell. When I open the door, he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, looking toward the door.
Gagged, as I requested. His wings have grown back fully, and his torso is bare; he wears only a pair of loose trousers.
There’s no surprise on his face when he sees me; they must have briefed him already.
I hold up the syringe without comment. He tilts his head to the side, exposing his neck.
I hesitate for a brief moment. But the silence lingers, thickening, so I only press the needle into his skin and push the syringe, flooding his system with the sedative.
It must be an even stronger dose than last time.
His eyes—all of them—roll back, and I catch his limp body before he crumples forward to the floor.
I drag him to the waiting wheelchair. He’s more difficult to move than I expected.
He’s grown again; his trousers are too short, revealing feather-covered black ankles above his bare feet.
I arrange him as carefully as I can in the wheelchair, smoothing down his feathers, ensuring his wings won’t get caught in the wheels or drag on the floor.
A moment’s pause, and then I carefully, carefully brush dark hair off his forehead.
I give myself one moment to study his face, peaceful in his sleep.
Then I slap the metal cuffs onto his wrists and ankles and pull them tight.
I wheel him out the door, down the hallway, and out the back exit of the building.
The truck is waiting, back doors open to reveal the benches within.
The holding compartment is entirely cut off from the front; the window between is taped over to prevent any contact with Cain.
I push him in his wheelchair up the ramp and then shift him from the chair onto the waiting bench and strap him in.
I wave off the other security guards when they step forward to help me.
This is my job. My duty. The last thing I can do for Cain before I say goodbye.
The first hour of the drive is quiet. I sit on the bench across from Cain. Already watching him sleep, I see the moment he stirs. His eyes shift behind closed lids, twitching restlessly. His clawed fingers curl.
“Sixteen?” I ask quietly, but he doesn’t wake. Still, he shifts in his sleep, groaning under his breath. The light above us flickers.
I unclip myself from my seat and move to the bench on his side, strapping into the seat beside him. My hand hovers over him for a moment before I let my fingers glide through his hair. “Shh,” I murmur. “Calm.”
He stills under my hand. Tension easing, breath slowing, like he recognizes me even in his sleep. But then he leans ever so slightly into my touch, and I wonder if he’s actually asleep at all. I continue to stroke his hair, fingers scraping lightly at his scalp.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”
If he is awake, he gives no sign of it.
I remember his words. His pleas. The way that fate has brought us together, again and again.
If it’s a choice between my death and the end of the world, Willow, we both know what you have to do.
This might be the last time I see him. My last chance. One hand still holding his head, the other drifts to rest on the butt of the gun at my hip.
Then the truck shudders violently.
I throw one arm across Cain’s chest and grab on to an overhead bar with the other. The truck speeds up, force dragging us both against the wall as we round a curve at a dangerous momentum.
I’m about to unstrap myself from the bench and ask what’s going on when the truck shakes again. Harder this time, as if struck by something. Then, all of a sudden, we’re tumbling end over end.
I’m thrown violently against the wall, and then yanked forward, held in place only by my restraints. My stomach lurches and my vision blurs. Metal crunches as the truck slams to a stop.
When the world finally stops spinning, it takes me a moment to reorient. I’m hanging upside down, dangling from the straps of my seatbelt. I cough, fumble for the latch. “Sixteen?” I ask. No response. “Cain?”
I undo the buckle and fall to the ceiling—floor—whatever hard surface is beneath me. I crawl across it toward where Cain still hangs upside down, unmoving.
“Fuck. Hey.” I shake him gently, and then not so gently. “Cain, wake up. Say something.”
He stirs. Groans. His eyes flutter and he tries to speak, but he’s unintelligible through the gag.
“I’m going to get you down.”
He nods woozily, his eyes half shut.
Outside, I hear the muffled sounds of shouting. Gunfire. Oh, God. This wasn’t an accident, it was something far worse. And it can’t be a coincidence that Cain was here when the attack occurred. He’s in danger.
I try not to panic as I struggle to undo his seatbelt. It’s all twisted up, and I can’t seem to get it free.
“I’m going to cut through this,” I say. “Stay still.” I grab my utility knife from my belt and carefully saw through the straps twisted around him. Finally, Cain falls free. I half catch him on my lap, preventing him from hitting the floor and further injuring himself.
“Are you okay?” I ask, looking him over.
He blinks, struggling to sit up, leaning into me. I grab his chin and study his face. He might be concussed; it’s hard to tell in the dark truck, and I don’t have time to properly assess him. We need to move.
Especially because the gunfire and shouting have stopped. It’s oddly silent outside the truck.
I gesture for him to be quiet and reach into my pocket to get the keys. “I’m going to uncuff you,” I say quietly, moving to work on his ankles first. “And then we’ll—”
Before I can finish, the back doors of the truck burst open.
My gun is in my hand in an instant, but I don’t know where to aim.
A faceless crowd of gold masks and red robes swarms into the truck.
Too many of them. Bodies litter the ground beyond the crowd—mostly cultists, but there are so many of them, it doesn’t matter.
I don’t see any of the MRF security that was escorting us.
I fire a warning shot into the air, but the cultists don’t even hesitate to lunge forward. I shoot one in the head, and then a second, but then a dozen hands are on us. They yank Cain and I apart, force the gun from my hands.
I shout, but it’s muffled as one of them shoves a rough sack over my head and pulls it tight. Something smashes into my head, and darkness closes in on me.