Chapter 31 Kali
KALI
The knife turned over in the air, catching the last bit of the evening’s sunshine, and a barely audible thump marked its fall on the moss instead of my hand.
Damn it. Missed it again.
“I promise I’ll teach you some stuff later. We need to focus for now.” Zion picked up my instrument and hid it in my black leather backpack that matched my kick-ass boots.
I loved my knife. Having a cold weapon that could take a life—and had done so—made me feel powerful. Invincible. But I wasn’t an idiot. I’d been flinging it up into the clouds, flipped closed, so my limbs remained intact and not sliced off.
But I had to admit to myself that his point made sense. Me doing random shit could be distracting to them as their trio studied the open field leading to Ilasall’s towering wall, our group hidden in the tree line, the thick foliage masking our presence.
Arms crossed over her chest, Ava said, “This is stupid.”
Nobody responded.
Gedeon, Zion, and Ava stared each other down for a minute—or perhaps a century.
Annoyance whirled within me at their disagreement. I wanted to run and feel the wind watering my eyes and tousling my hair, savor the rush of freedom as we passed the gates of Ilasall to deliver our packages with the knowledge that I could exit the city later with nothing holding me back.
And no abhorrent guard I’d have to repay.
“I’m not moving from this spot until you explain to me how this is supposed to make sense,” Ava said, leaning back against an oak. “It’s my job to plan the outings in an as-safe-as-possible manner, and this is the opposite. Tell me again why you think this is a good idea.”
I shuffled on my feet, snapping a tiny twig in half, and settled on the blanket of moss damp from the evening’s dew.
“It’s not. But there was no chance you and Zion were going alone.
The soldier came after me too, and I was not going to stay at the compound while you all go out.
I’m not the type of person who sits and waits. ”
Gedeon had tried to back out of his bargain to bring me here, poking me to tell him what the two wristbands left on my pillow by the soldier meant as it was clear the blood on Zion’s sheets showcased the upcoming and painful end of his life, but I refused to give my nightmare up.
Yet Gedeon’s relentless bugging had snapped my patience, and I’d agreed to a deal: I’d follow his orders during our time in Ilasall in exchange for him quitting his assault of questions.
Which was shredding my sanity. My intestines knotted each time he barked at me to do something and I had no choice but to go through with it. I couldn’t wipe his smirk off, no matter how much I wished it.
“You coming, I understand. I would do the same in your place,” Ava told me, and then to Gedeon, “But you, I have no words. You’re the one who is supposed to stay alive. There is a reason Zion and I take care of operations by ourselves.”
“Your backpack is leaking.” I pointed to the mottled brown leather backpack Zion had borrowed from Jayla. Red drops were slowly forming in the left corner and dripping down to where moss soaked them up and turned reddish brown.
Using the hem of his long-sleeved shirt, he wiped at the backpack.
“That’s not suspicious at all.” Sarcasm coated my tone.
He tucked the affected corner into his black pants to hide the crimson stain and spun around, his arms spread as wide as his smile was. “How do I look?”
“Like a pretty boy.” The moss under the soles of my boots felt like a compressed spring about to launch me toward him so I could trace the contours of his grin.
It was cute.
“Your pretty boy.” He bowed mockingly, earning a snort from Ava.
My stomach flipped. No one had ever declared themselves as mine.
“We need to hurry.” Gedeon ignored our theatrics, scanning the open space we had to cross to reach the wall, his brain surely whirring in calculations of the probability of success. “His shift ends in an hour.”
“I haven’t heard the explanation yet.” Ava yawned exaggeratedly, a demonstration of having all the time in the world.
I side-eyed Gedeon. “He thinks I can’t defend myself.” Energy buzzed beneath my skin, and I rocked on my heels, unable to contain my eagerness to get moving.
“You can’t,” he stated.
“That’s why I have Zion and Ava. You didn’t have to come.”
Wordlessly, Gedeon crossed the few steps between us, grabbed my waist, twisted me around, and slammed my back into his front. Air ceased its circulation in my lungs.
With his forearm locked around my neck, he put me in a chokehold without actually strangling me, and his left arm wrapped under my breasts, trapping me pressed against him. “Get out.” His breath tickled my temple.
Instinctively, I gripped his elbow, forcing my head upward. “What?” For only the gods-knew-why reason, his actions stirred no fear and no sense of danger or menace in my gut. A precarious position this was to be in, yes, but…safe.
He tightened his hold on me. “Escape me.”
Wriggling, I pushed and kicked, channeling all my frustration into my moves.
My foot flew toward his balls but collided with his thigh, blocking my hit instead.
I twisted my elbow out of his grip and sent it to strike his side, right as he moved us to the left and I lost my footing, choking myself on his arm that clasped my neck.
“Fine. I’m not as advanced”—I imbued the word with as much displeasure and mockery as I could muster—“as you in a fight.”
I had to start training.
I just hated exercising so freaking much. Going through one position to another, and to a third, and the twentieth, all while your muscles burned and you sweated your ass off—a session after a session of personal torture with no end in sight.
“Exactly.” He released me, but his fingers lingered on my hip. “Ava and Zion can take care of themselves and each other, but someone has to watch your back. And your front.”
“So you’re here because you don’t trust us to keep her safe?
Seriously?” Ava moved away from the oak and flinched as a few strands of her hair stuck to cracked tree bark.
She tucked the sun-kissed brown strands in the crooks of the braid framing her head like a crown.
She’d said this way no one could use her hair against her in a fight.
That was why I had my hair tied up too. Only in a messy high bun, because my patience had lasted a total of two minutes before I admitted defeat in trying to wrangle my hair into the braid she’d shown me.
Gedeon pulled down the right sleeve of his black shirt to conceal his tattoo. “I’m here because Zion will not pay attention to himself while Kali is here. Both your job and mine is to protect these two. I do not need anyone getting captured or shot.”
“It’s still a stupid reason, but I’ll take it.
You should have simply given the packages to me, and this would already be over.
” Ava took out a pair of binoculars from her tiny bag, unpeeled the rubber lens protectors, and peeked from the tree line to inspect the field and the guards patrolling the top of the wall.
“Not happening without me. The three boxes were my idea, so I’m coming whether he wants me to or not.
” I approached her side and scanned the fifty-foot concrete wall with electrical wiring on top—the demarcation line between oppression for the survival of the human species and freedom to live as you wished.
“Nice. You’ve got guts.” Ava nodded approvingly. “Now, let’s go. The access point is not far from here and the guards are moving away.” She stuffed the binoculars back into her pink cross-body bag.
Inconspicuousness is important, she’d said.
And that bright pink bag embellished with even brighter pink beads totally reflected her advice.
I glanced at my wrist as the weight of a green band recalled my past. Ava might’ve been right.
Rich people wore weird things, including pink bags.
Colors were dedicated to the green-banded, as the rest, the commoners, the rubble, blended together dressed in gray, black, and the shades of in-between.
The sunset provided us with the camouflage of heavy shadows falling from the solid concrete wall as we bolted across the field of high grasses, our group half-invisible to the guards marching along the top of the wall.
Ava knocked once, a pause, then twice, a pause, once again, and a screech grated at my ears as the narrow metal door creaked open.
A lanky man in a guard’s uniform appeared in the doorway.
He seethed, a wrinkle between his fuzzy eyebrows deepening.
“I said I could take two people. There are four of you. This will raise alarms.”
Ava placed a hand on the door, as if he was about to slam it in her face. “The passage is wide enough for a crew of soldiers, so don’t give me shit. If you can guide two through the wall, you can do it with four.”
“If I get caught—”
“Then don’t,” Ava interrupted him. “The minutes you spend here arguing with me and not returning to your post, now those will definitely ring the alarm bells.”
“I don’t remember you being so bossy,” he groused, studying the field behind us.
“Is that your way of saying you missed me?” Ava grinned at his sigh, and explained to me, “He used to help us get through the gates before the security update.”
Satisfied with what he discovered, the man reluctantly ushered us inside. The lack of light stole my vision. Ava had mentioned he’d assist us, but I didn’t expect it would mean we’d be walking inside the wall.
“Follow me,” he whispered.
Ahm, where to? my tongue itched to ask. Right, left, up, down, everything was alike. Dark. Chilly. Damp. Similar to our underground.
“What are you planning to do?” our guide asked in a hushed voice as Gedeon pushed me forward, Zion at my front. They had sandwiched me between them. What did they think would happen to me? I’d been sneaking out of the city for months without them.
Ava drawled, “You know, the usual. Steal some women, go sightseeing, maybe trash some rich bastards’ apartments, if we have the time before our dinner reservation. Can’t miss it; I heard they’re serving an array of flavorless nutritional bars today.”
“Now sarcasm I remember,” he said with a hint of laughter, as Zion and I snickered. “Either way, the less I know, the better. If I meet you in the city, I’ll act like I’ve never seen you in my life.”
“You wound me, Arlo,” Ava said theatrically, and if not for the utter darkness clouding my sight, I’d bet she’d placed a hand on her chest, exactly like Jayla liked to do.
He snorted. “My shift ends in less than an hour. If you’re not back here by then, I won’t be able to help you get out. You’ll be on your own. But try the northern gates. I can’t confirm, but I heard they are malfunctioning there, so it may give you a chance to slip through.”
“Understood.” Ava spoke from right beside me, and I jumped. I hadn’t heard her creep up to my side. “Anything else we should be aware of?”
Gedeon caught my waist. “Are you okay?” His voice echoed in the damp space.
“Yes,” I whispered to where I guessed his head was supposed to be. His grasp made my feet twine as my steps lost their rhythm in the darkness. “Now pay attention.”
He grunted in response.
“She’s distracting you, not me,” Zion muttered, and chuckled at Gedeon’s exasperated sigh.
Guiding us along the passageway, Ava’s contact warned, “They have introduced a curfew. Nine o’clock. Spend the night somewhere if you get stuck. They’ll have patrols walking along the streets with orders to detain anyone they catch outside.”
“That gives us about forty minutes,” Gedeon said, his chest close to my back, and a craving to lean into him weakened my legs. I stumbled, catching myself on Zion’s back. His muscles rippled under my palms.
Zion’s voice pierced the dark enveloping us. “It’ll be enough. It’s just a few blocks from here.”
A grating of metal hinges signaled the end of our path, and a strip of evening light flooded the floor and our feet. The slender man hurried us out of the wall, and the door shut behind our backs with a click.