Chapter 21 #2
We pass through southern cities and the light pollution dilutes the brilliance of the night sky.
I don’t sleep, but instead wait for nightfall in the rural farmlands so the heavens can open up fully.
Stars pour out and spill across the sky.
A finger pressed against the plexiglass, I trace the familiar constellations.
Stargazing was an easy hobby for us as children; it cost nothing and had practical uses.
The three of us would climb on the roof of the cafeteria longhouse, because Hunter made us do dangerous stuff for no reason, and we’d lie back to watch the stars.
Hunter explained to Mason and me the myths behind the constellations, and how to use them during different seasons to orient yourself.
Mason fell asleep a lot, but she had a rapt audience in me.
I hung on her every word as if it were divine scripture.
The trip takes less than a full day, and by daybreak the next morning, we are close to our destination.
Perhaps a dozen or so miles away. That drop-off point, according to our brief, is another ten miles from the first point of skirmishes between rebels and UR troops.
They are camped there, awaiting my arrival and leadership.
From the intelligence Theia provided, the rebels are guerrilla-fighting weak spots in the UR’s holdings.
Towns and cities not yet totally fortified are snuck inside in darkness and bombed or set ablaze.
It’s an echo of our methods back when the Order was getting on its feet.
Small takeovers, but tactically efficient ones.
With the exception being, of course, that we never intentionally hurt civilians.
“We’re pretty close,” Cassie informs. I reach over and shake Mason awake as Cassie turns to me. “Are you ready?”
“Are you?” I wave the plans at her. “This border dispute is a suicide mission.”
Cassie shrugs. “Worse ways to go than fighting beside your hero. Besides, I don’t think you’re going to let us die. That’s not who you are.”
“The probability of success is very low.”
“Since when has that stopped you?” Cassie gives me a knowing look, and I smirk and tuck the paperwork into my bag. “I don’t understand why you still care. After what happened with Theia and Lucy, I don’t know why you’d agree to this.”
“A choice was not given. It was asked of me, so I will do it.”
Cassie shakes her head. “Can I be frank?”
“Who else would you be?” I ask, and she laughs and rolls her eyes. “But yes, of course.”
“I never could’ve withstood what you did. I’m pretty sure if I went through that, I’d have killed myself the moment an opportunity presented itself.”
“Never discount the enormity of your strength,” I reply. “We cannot possibly know what we can withstand until we come through the other side of it.”
Cassie frowns. “But what’s on the other side of that heartache?”
“I do not know. I am still withstanding it.”
In the darkest times of my captivity, when I considered ways to end my life, Lucy would appear, bright like the morning sun.
I had no choice but to continue living so I could see her in my mind’s eye.
I remember when she spoke about her mother, about how her memory lived only within she and Leader Piccolo.
Without them, Katherine Piccolo is truly gone.
But while I live, Lucy lives. So, I must live.
If this world is capable of creating someone as extraordinary as she was, it is perhaps capable of other magic I’ve yet to experience.
Cassie excuses herself to talk to the conductor as we near our drop-off. Mason watches Cassie leave before turning his attention to me. “We can’t let this dumbass mission kill her. She’s just a kid.”
“We won’t,” I tell him. Not much in my life to be confident about these days, but I know I can protect Private Frank. At least while I’m still alive.
“Better not, hero.” In an instant, my throat constricts and heat builds behind my eyes. The way Lucy’s mouth moved when she called me that—from a sneer to an endearment—is burned in my mind.
Mason’s head tilts at the change in my demeanor, but we both smell it before it happens.
Recognition flashes in his eyes. Nitroglycerin.
I can’t even look up before the train rocks with an explosion and careens off the tracks.
I’m knocked clear into another row of seats and my back smashes against the window.
No time to worry about that, as another explosion blows the door off the train car.
It gets hot quickly. Smoke fills the car faster than floodwaters.
My ears pick up a whooshing noise, like being underwater.
Disoriented, I try to stand. The explosion has shaken my senses out, but not my fear. It cripples me as my hands vise the seat, eyes screwed shut as the memories consume me.
Mason shakes my shoulders. “Taylor! Let’s go!” I open my eyes. Mason is bleeding from his head but looks otherwise unharmed. He’s got our bags around his shoulder and shoves a rifle at me. “We gotta find Cassie.”
That snaps me out of it.
Rifle in hand, I burst through the flames in the doorway.
The barely healing wounds on my back protest every movement, and they burn twice as hot in the flames licking at my clothes and skin.
Mason and I stumble out of the train car, and from a couple yards away I assess the damage.
The train lies in a field, part of it turned over like downed prey.
Fire engulfs the cars and spews out the open windows.
“Private Frank!” I’m shouting at the top of my voice but it’s not loud enough over the fire. Fright pounds through me and my legs give out. The noise in my brain is deafening and forces me to my knees. I will let it pass through me. The little death. And only I will remain. Whatever the saying is.
Do something, Taylor.
Mason shouts as well and drops our bags to the ground.
He takes off his shirt—it was on fire—and stomps on it while we continue to call for her between bouts of coughing.
She has to be here. She can’t die. I can’t let this stupid fucking war take more people from me.
I see Faith, her deep brown eyes staring at me in panic when she realizes she’s dying. She holds me. I hold her. I let her go.
I will not do that again. Pushing myself to my feet, I remain vigilant for potential enemies. Whoever bombed this train may still be around to retrieve any supplies not consumed in flame.
“Private Frank!” I stumble closer to the train and the heat soaks through me. “Cassie!”
“Taylor.”
It’s faint, but I hear her. “I’m coming, hold on.”
She keeps calling me, and I sprint past two cars before I find her. Steel debris pins her to the ground, her back against what was the roof of a car. I drop to my knees in front of her. “Cassie, it’s me.”
Her pupils are wide and unfocused. Blond hair blows around her, burned and messy. The shoulder of her uniform has been seared off and the skin underneath is raw. “This thing fell on me.” Her voice barely reaches me over the sounds of explosions and crackling fire. “It’s really hot.”
The metal is burning her. “Okay, let me get this off you.”
“It’s too hot to touch,” she says. “I tried. Maybe we can wait until it cools.”
She doesn’t believe what she’s saying, but she does believe she doesn’t want me to hurt myself. I shake my head. “I am going to move it.”
Mason finally catches up to me and together, he and I grasp the burning hot metal.
I nearly adhere to it on contact, but we cannot back down.
With our combined strength, we wrench the metal up and off her body.
Mason is able to toss it fully away from us, and the effort to do so nearly spins him around.
Whatever hit him in the head might have concussed him.
“Mason, go sit down. I can get us help.”
He attempts to shake it off. “No, I got you. I’m good.”
“You’re not,” I snap at him. “Go sit down, that’s an order.”
Too disoriented to object again, Mason lumbers away from the train and the fire. Cassie’s not faring much better, drifting in and out of consciousness. The metal burned through her clothes and singed her right thigh. She looks like undercooked pork and I have to hold in vomit.
“Can you walk?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Like a good soldier, she struggles to get to her feet. With a bloodcurdling scream, she drops to the ground. “On second thought, maybe not.”
“Okay. Hold on.” Looping my arms under hers, I drag her bodily across the grass toward Mason.
We’re not too far from a patch of trees she can rest in.
Whatever supplies were on the train may continue to explode and we need to get out of here.
I unbutton my top shirt and shuck it off.
The heat of summer coupled with the raging fire is ratcheting up the temperature.
“I’ll get us help.”
As I flip my watch open, I hear voices from within the trees. It’s second nature to me, readying my rifle and peering around for enemies. An instinct as easy as brushing my teeth. I don’t move to track the noise; it may be a ploy to bring me away from my wounded compatriots.
“Come out with your hands in the air.” I shout my order into the trees, and the noise ceases. “I am armed and I will shoot.”
To my right, Cassie has valiantly managed to ready her pistol but has passed out in pain.
To my left, Mason lies sprawled out in the grass, also unconscious.
A tall figure emerges from the trees. It’s a woman.
She casually steps out from the shadows with her hands in the air.
She’s wearing a bulletproof vest over just a bra, as well as combat pants with armor in the knees. Not one of our soldiers.
I point my rifle at her. “Who are you?”
“I blew up your train,” she replies. “Gonna shoot me for it, Greenie?”
Quick to mockery, so that is rude. It’s a tactic to rile me, and it does not work. “I asked a question. You do not want me to ask again.”