Chapter Fifteen
Yun
I stretched my legs out, leaning back against Kaidan, content to just rest for a moment. Something about him always made me feel as though I didn’t have to watch myself, didn’t have to worry.
He was a friend—hell, maybe closer to family. I hadn’t had much of that, not since everything had happened, not since the world had taken my parents, my home, my freedom, my future.
Except… I thought to the men and wondered if perhaps I’d found something else?
No, that was foolish and far too romantic for a person like me. I knew better than to let myself fall into such notions.
“I can’t believe you’re still here,” I said. “I don’t think you’ve stayed in one place this long since I’ve known you.”
“What can I say? I’m a wandering soul. I prefer going where the wind takes me. It’s more adventurous.” He shrugged, a book in his hand that I didn’t think he’d actually spent any time reading since we’d snuggled up in his trailer.
Which was one of the things that I adored about Kaidan. Other people would ask what I was doing if I showed up out of nowhere, if I crawled into their bed and used them as my own personal body pillow, but Kaidan didn’t. He’d just spread his arms like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Of course, it was for us. It was normal, and it was the only physical contact I’d allowed in the years since I’d returned from that dungeon.
Kaidan was a guide, not an esper, and we had zero sexual chemistry between us.
It made this safe, a way to get something I knew I needed in the only way I knew how.
At least, it had been the only way until recently…
My cheeks heated as I thought about all the contact I’d gotten in the past few weeks.
It seemed that once I’d moved that do not cross tape, the men had been only too happy to take advantage.
Not that I hadn’t enjoyed it. Where I’d never understood the obsession with sex before, I got the appeal far more, now.
“No horny thoughts when we’re cuddling,” Kaidan said, false censure in his voice.
I elbowed him in the side but didn’t move away. “Any new estimates on when The Pitt will open?”
“Nothing substantial. There are far more small portals opening in the area, so they’ve got a more narrowed idea of where it’ll appear, but that’s it.”
I knew about the smaller portals, as Carter and Ingram especially would disappear to take care of them.
They didn’t always seem to be assigned, but that didn’t stop the men from going.
A few times I’d heard stories the next day about how a dungeon no one had even noticed had been cleared, but no one knew by who.
The scent of monster blood in the middle of the night usually clued me in, however.
What would anyone think to know that Reject Squad, the laughing stock of the entire Guild, was out dealing with such dangers on their own, without back up, and without being asked to?
It again made me wonder about the story I’d heard, the idea that they’d left people to die in a dungeon. It didn’t seem possible. I’d thought that when I’d heard about it, but the more time I spent with them, the less it made any sense.
“What really happened the last time, in The Pitt?”
“So you’re curious now, huh?” Kaidan let out a soft chuckle, though it didn’t hold much humor. “You sure you want to know? Because it isn’t all that flattering to them.”
Them. We both knew exactly who we were talking about.
“I need to know.”
Kaidan sighed, then told me the story of the last time the dungeon had opened, or at least the parts I didn’t know. The fear? The terror? Those things I had experienced myself, but I’d gone through it as a kid, as a teenage civilian stuck in chaos I had never known about before.
Kaidan and the others, though? They’d approached it as professionals doing a job, and as it turned out, that made it a very different story.
* * * *
Kaidan
Ten years ago
People talked about the scent of monster blood, but no one ever mentioned that the portal itself had a smell.
It was acidic, sharp, tart like black cherries. Something that should have been sweet but wasn’t, somehow.
It was my second time here, at this dungeon, but this time was different. Ten years ago, when I’d been only twelve, staring up at the massive portal, I’d been in training. I’d been there primarily to observe, though I’d guided as well.
This time I was a full-fledged and blooded guide, someone others listened to, someone who made decisions that mattered. I’d chosen to work the portal, to take on espers who had to be evacuated and needed immediate guiding to save their lives.
It was one of the most dangerous places for a guide, putting them in the crosshairs of any monsters who happened to break free of the lines meant to contain them.
Even without that risk, this was the place where espers could become corrupted.
Few guides wanted to work here, preferring the safety of the trailers set further back.
Not me, though. What was the point of being so far away from the action?
A familiar group walked up, dressed in black, covered in weapons, with the same ‘I’m about to kick ass’ attitude that most espers wore like armor.
Squad S412.
I’d gotten a few requests to consider joining their squad. They had a guide, but there didn’t seem a bond between them. The Guild thought I might fit that position well, though judging from the men I saw there, I had a feeling our tastes might not align.
I didn’t mind casual guiding, but anything longer-term just wasn’t in the cards for me.
Carter, their combat specialist and de facto leader, paused just to my left. “How many injuries?”
I shrugged. “No serious extractions yet, but we’ve only had two squads enter so far.”
“Civilians?”
The Pitt had opened in the center of San Diego, a heavily populated area. The last time it had been near Johnson Valley in the Californian desert, with few inhabitants around. That had driven down the amount of civilian casualties.
This time we would not be so lucky.
The Guild had called in squads from the entire West Coast, but it would take time for them to arrive.
During that time, those civilians inside were on their own.
Some would try to make it to the portal, but the dungeon would shift, making travel difficult, and with the monsters that prowled the entrance?
Few would make it through without help.
“No survivors yet.”
We didn’t count civilians at this point as casualties, didn’t list injuries, because we both knew there would be too many to count. Instead, I could only say none had made it thus far.
Carter nodded, tightening a pair of gloves at the wrist, the leather faded as though he’d had them for years. I knew the rest of the squad as well, all of them like rock stars to the esper world.
Kenyon, the healer. Rumor was that he was the golden retriever of the group—quick to help but perhaps not quick at much else. His healing was second to none, though.
With his hair pushed back and the edge of tattoos showing at his throat, Ingram was their stealth specialist. He had the look of a man I wouldn’t want to run into elsewhere, but his connection to the shadows was a thing that researchers would no doubt debate and discuss for years to come.
Shear never seemed to speak, but something about his blue eyes—too bright to be natural—made it feel as though he crawled through my brain if we ever made eye contact. For that reason, I avoided it.
And lastly? Corsa Ray, a mentalist who had joined the squad a few months earlier. He was the only addition since they’d formed as teenagers, and rumor was that they hadn’t taken him on all that willingly.
Corsa’s father was a high-ranking military officer, and he’d all but dropped the mentalist in their laps.
Nepotism was alive and well everywhere, it seemed.
Whether it was supposed to be for training or something more long term, well, only people with a higher pay grade than mine would have any idea about that.
He seemed comfortable enough with the others, as though there wasn’t bad blood between them, but he certainly wasn’t accepted as one of them.
He offered me a smile and a wink, the sort of flirting new espers tended to do with guides, as though they thought they could win them over that easily. It might work with civilians, but guides were much harder to crack—especially ones who had been at it a long time like me.
I responded with a wink of my own, to which Ingram leaned in and whispered something to Corsa’s ear. After a moment, his eyes widened and he stared at me with a sort of horror.
Guess he’d just learned exactly how I preferred things, and he didn’t seem all that interested.
No shock there.
The group offered a polite nod my way before heading in, no doubt with strict orders of their own. That was how it all worked, though. We all had things we were supposed to do, and for squads like that, they had all the eyes on them.
Another squad arrived, and I took a deep breath. With more espers going in, things were about to get far more complicated.
Sure enough, within ten minutes, we had as many espers exiting as we did entering, though they looked nothing alike. Those who left the dungeon were covered in blood—both red and purple—and often screaming in pain. It took me back to the previous incident, to the damage it had done to the espers.
There were fewer civilian casualties that time, but the damage to our own had still been terrible.
I fell into the familiar motions, doing my job. I rushed from esper to esper, along with healers. I tried to keep them from turning corrupted, from rampaging, from losing them to the same energy that fueled them. The healers and I fought our own battles, and it seemed we lost as often as we won.
One squad wearing all black was stationed at the edge of the portal, their faces covered in masks. They had one job—to end an esper who was too far gone, one who lost the fight to corruption, before they could become a bigger problem. I’d never spoken to them and never wanted to.
They were needed, perhaps, but they were also just an example of my failure, brought in when I couldn’t do the job I’d been assigned.
My body hurt before I knew it. I just moved from one esper to the next, not even looking at their faces, going by instinct alone.
How many hours passed? How many espers passed? I had no idea. It got to the point where I stumbled rather than walked.
Others had tried to get me to leave the area, to rest. Guides couldn’t turn corrupted, but if they over-exerted themselves, it could still kill them. The strain could prove too much and their hearts could give out.
I refused to leave, though. Inside The Pitt, Espers still fought, and civilians suffered, trapped and alone. The least I could do was give everything I had to hang on as long as possible.
“They’re ignoring their orders.” The voice felt distant, coming from the radio of a soldier to my left. He’d come over to help me when my legs wouldn’t work anymore, to get me around to where I needed to go. “Squad S412 has gone rogue.”
Rogue? Did that mean they’d become corrupted? I shook my head. No, that wouldn’t make sense. An entire squad wouldn’t turn all at once, and they’d said rogue. That meant they were no longer following orders.
“They’re going to die if S412 doesn’t do their fucking job!” someone shouted.
“They’re not responding to their mentalist communication and are headed in the opposite direction.”
“What about Corsa?”
“Unclear. It seems they left him.”
The words slipped through my mind, and I collapsed forward, everything going black. I’d wanted to hang on until the end, but my body had other ideas.
When my eyes opened again, I found more sunlight than before, implying some time had passed, but I was still there, before the portal. It seemed no one had thought it prudent to move me anywhere.
I rolled, my eyes blurry, staring toward the shimmering portal. It had started to break, streaks where the purple disappeared saying that the dungeon had almost closed.
Then others came through the portal—S412.
No, wait…not all of them. Carter, Kenyon, Ingram and Shear walked out, covered in purple, their eyes dulled in a way they hadn’t been before. The portal blinked and closed behind them, as though it had waited to spit them out before severing the connection.
The words from before echoed in my head, the conversation from the radio.
Corsa.
They’d left him to die and saved their own skin…
* * * *
Yun
The story that Kaidan told me made my heart race, the ending obvious no matter how little I understood it.
“That can’t be what happened,” I said, shaking my head. None of it made sense.
“I was there, Yun. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“I know you’re not lying, but maybe you don’t know all the details. There’s no way that they would have just left people to die to save their own skin. They aren’t like that.”
Kaidan laughed, though the sound was hollow.
“You’d be shocked at how people act when their life is on the line.
I’ve seen it over and over again. You want to trust people, Yun.
It’s one of the things I adore about you, that you might be feisty and temperamental, but at your core, you’re a good person.
The problem is that the world you live in doesn’t have a lot of good people. ”
“But they’re not like that, not with me.”
“You give them something they want. They have a reason to act that way toward you. I’m not even saying they’re different than anyone else—most people will save their own skin when it comes right down to it.
It’s just important to remember that four people walked out of that dungeon.
They made their choice in there, they decided who it was that mattered and who was worth sacrificing.
I’m not trying to say you should turn your back on them, but you need to always know where you stand.
When push comes to shove with that squad, they pick their own.
You should never make the mistake of thinking you’re in that group, because I saw what happened the last time someone made that mistake.
The gravestone that says Corsa Ray tells you exactly where anyone other than the four of them stands.
Careful, or you might be the next gravestone. ”