Chapter 13
Garden Full of Human Juice
I was surrounded.
I was going to die.
“I will fight for you. You need only to be still.”
The small voice came not from my head this time, but somewhere closer to my chest.
Please do that then.
As soon as the thought was out, something shoved me from behind, and I stumbled forward, tripping over my feet to fall on my hands and knees.
I looked up just in time to see the Extermin’s arm fire.
A gust of burning air rushed over me, and I rolled to my right, having somehow just survived the impossible because Extermins never missed.
Never. They were walking, not-so-much-talking, homing beacons that the Administration constructed from recycled body parts.
As I rolled, miraculously still alive, I caught sight of the edge of a corner in the wall that I hadn’t seen before. Maybe the angle had obscured the fact that the concrete wall on my right was not as solid as it had first appeared—an optical illusion. Or perhaps the Creator heard my cry for mercy.
No time for pondering. My life still hung in the balance between probable death by Mods and imminent death by Extermin.
Hoping to live a bit longer, I grasped at the only straw available, putting all my cards on it not being the short one.
I scrambled, crawling that morphed into a sprint.
It wasn’t as graceful as it might sound because I scraped my hands and knees against the pavement in the process, further tearing skin that had already been damaged from whatever dared to save my life by pushing me over instead of—I don’t know—teleporting me to safety or…
exploding all my enemies to smithereens.
If it was the Creator, couldn’t he have at least been a bit more thorough?
I somehow had the nerve to smile at the thought of exploding Mods as I ducked around that mystery corner into an alley so tight I had to turn sideways to get through. The sequins on my graduation dress tore against the bricks, and I picked up a few more scrapes.
Sorry about the dress, Astrid.
Fortunately, it was a short alley, and I was in a slightly larger lane turning right and then left and then a few other directions with no aim at this point but to escape with the possibility that the Mods who had been behind me couldn’t fit through that crack of the alleyway I’d escaped through because I was no longer running but now more of hobble-hurrying.
The final corner that I turned ended up in a road too large and too busy, so I panicked and used every last ounce of energy I had to find a break in the wall again and duck into another alley.
A part of me wanted it to be a small, shadowy dead end so that I could live there for the rest of my life and never have to run away from another Extermin/Mod ambush ever again.
I was just a hair shy of the safety of the alley’s shadows when a gloved hand clamped over my mouth and an armored limb wrapped around my abdomen to yank me flush against a Moderator’s metallic body.
Goodbye, cruel world.
Signed, Drama Queen and Failed Savior of the World, Eliana Glory Kai Xin Chapman-Chen.
Who am I trying to kid?
I’m not one to hide in the shadows for the rest of my life anyway, not while Azazel is still in need of a good assassinating.
But my screams against submission were muffled, and my kicks of refusal were useless as the Mod dragged me into the same alley I had been running towards.
“Hush, Belles!”
Zade’s voice rumbled low in my ear through the filter in his helmet. He pressed me back against a brick wall, and his hand slipped from my mouth. Then he flipped the top half of the face guard up, and I could see the half-smile in his eyes. “I’m ordered to bring you in.”
My vision blurred again, with tears of pure terror morphing into those of absolute elation. My bottom lip tucked between my teeth, and I bit down hard. I wrapped my arms around him and hated that I couldn’t bury my face in his shoulder because it was covered in hard metal.
“If I see you wrap those tiny arms around him again, I’ll kill him.”
I dropped my arms immediately and leaned back against the wall, trying to catch my breath.
“You scared me to death,” I whisper-shout-cried and punched his shoulder. That was a mistake. “Ow! Flipping…stupid…I hate you.” It probably didn’t sound as mean as I wanted it to, considering the tears streaming down my face and the snot dripping from my trembling chin.
Now he had more than half of a smile. His eyes lit up in a grin, and he took a step back.
“Where have you been?” Zade asked.
“I was on my way home from graduation when the power went off.”
“I was waiting for you at the MagFlux station by your dorm.”
“I got off the train in the blackout after I saw the news articles.” I tried to push him off me a bit, but he didn’t budge.
If anything, he moved in closer. I let my head rest against the wall and tilted my chin up to try to breathe something other than hot air.
“Everyone knew who I was. My Citizenship has been revoked. I’m screwed, Zade. ”
“I know.”
Zade was whispering now. He moved only to make sure that his body was more at an angle to block me from exiting the alley, as if he knew my instinct was to run again.
He was wrong this time, though, because my chest still pinched from the lack of oxygen, and my knees throbbed with the burn of mauled flesh.
“I went to Hearth Haven Inn,” I confessed in the shadows.
An incredulous breath fanned across my face, followed by a grunt.
“So, you are one of those terrorists now,” Zade accused with deliberation weaving through each syllable.
“Do you know what they believe? They think Earth still exists.” His laugh was dry as he ran a hand through his hair before placing it back on the wall to keep me pinned.
“They think The Tower is run by some evil monster trying to suck the life force out of us all, and that he has millions of people trapped in here like a garden full of human juice when we could be out living freely on planet Earth. They are fucking nuts, Belles.”
I screwed my eyes shut and pushed my chest muscles out to force more air into my lungs.
“They think I’m—” I groaned. I had no idea what they thought I was. I mean, I knew what the Daughters of the Scepter were, but I still didn’t understand it. “They want to help me kill Azazel.”
Another growl accompanied Zade slamming his hand against the wall by my left ear.
“I want to help you, Eliana,” he grit out between clenched teeth. “They want to take advantage of you. And where are they now?” He raked his thick, gloved fingers down his face. “Look, you want to be crazy? That’s on you. But I’m not letting you get yourself killed.”
I squeezed an arm up between us so I could wipe the snot and tears with the back of my hand.
“I almost did just now,” I whispered with a laugh.
“I’m serious!” His hushed anger bordered on not hushed. “You will be worse than dead soon if you don’t listen to me. Every Mod in The Tower is looking for you. And Citizens, too. You have a price on your head for fifty million credits if they bring you to the Founder alive.”
“Fifty…mill—what? Why?” I shook my head at him.
He had to have gotten that number wrong.
Zade tapped his wrist, and a holographic screen emerged with an image of me at Nian’s serving ice cream to Veda and Soren.
It wasn’t the security camera footage this time.
It was eye-level and framed by the familiar outline of someone’s Pulse account with Astrid’s icon in the lower left corner next to the caption:
My bff flirting with the hottest guy alive. Bet they’re get…
I inhaled sharply, and my fingers started twisting themselves into the ends of my hair.
“I’m gonna kill Astrid,” I said flatly.
“Killing Astrid and Azazel will both have to wait because I’m not letting you end up in that cesspool up top.”
Zade put a gloved finger against my lips to stop my retort.
“I saw her head this way,” came a shout from around the corner.
Footsteps.
Then Zade’s face was millimeters from mine.
He’d used his body and head to block me from the view of anyone passing by the end of the alley. His breath smelled like coffee with vanilla creamer. Leather fingers rested against the right side of my neck, one lightly tapping just under my ear. He just kept staring straight at me.
Soren’s face zipped through my thoughts in a blink.
“Commander?” a muffled voice asked from the end of the alley.
Zade craned his neck to face his subordinate while making sure to block me from view still.
“Little privacy, please, Birkan,” Zade said too sharply.
When Zade looked back at me, he was no longer millimeters away. Instead, he was on me. His lips were that is. Warm and soft, they barely even touched mine, only for a moment, until Birkan replied.
“Sorry, dude.”
Zade pulled back, and this time the heaving of my chest and the heat crawling up my neck, as well as that knot in my stomach—they had nothing to do with the chase.
It wasn’t right, though. That heat was not the lava that seeped through my pores when Soren had touched my face, but instead it was an acidic poison cutting under my skin.
Sure, there was a hint of lust, but it was drowning in betrayal.
Zade had just kissed me. It was something he had promised never to do again, not after that one time.
His furrowed brow and following words had nothing to do with the fact that he had just broken his promise. Did he even care about what he’d just done?
“The whole force is on your ass,” he scolded. “You have to hide. Go back in the sewers for a couple of hours. I’ll come back and get you out later tonight. You can hide at my place. No one will come for you there.”
Screw you, Zade!
I licked my lips and regretted it immediately because it felt like I had just licked where he’d kissed me, and that was another lash against my cold, dark heart.
“I can go to the inn,” I said and pushed against him again. This time, he gave me a couple of inches. “They can keep me safe.”
His armored hand slapped against the wall again, and I jerked away out of reflex.
“You’ve lost it, Elle! You have to stay away from those nut jobs. They are the reason you’re in this mess.”
“I can take care of myself,” I lied, attempting to push him back.
“Stop trying to get away from me. I’m not letting you get yourself killed despite how badly you keep trying to make that happen.” He paused long enough to hike his top lip up and narrow one eye at me. “Did they brainwash you?”
I slumped back against the wall again and searched his eyes for some understanding, some inkling of the ability to trust what I was going to say to him because he had known more of me than anyone else in my entire life. And he of all people should know that I’m not that kind of crazy.
“It’s the mark, Zade.” I dipped my chin to nod toward my chest.
A commotion out on the larger road drew his attention first, though. Then his finger was back on my lips again as he shook his head.
“Wait here.”
I think he mumbled something as he walked to the end of the alley, but I couldn’t hear him because he had pulled his helmet back down over his face. He reached the end and looked to his left.
I looked to my left as well. There was a ladder at the back of the alley and a black door about halfway between. I could try the door on my way to the ladder. Then I could—
What the hell am I doing?
Every gun in The Tower was pointed at me, and Zade was my best bet at protection. I’d found him. So, why was I planning an escape?
I turned to my right and watched him take a step further out. Light from a street lamp washed his back as he was no longer safely tucked in the shadows with me. His armor kept him hidden enough.
I bit my bottom lip and turned with the full intention of scrambling up that ladder. My stomach twisted all sorts of nasty as I eyed how high the ladder was.
Maybe that door will work.
My right foot lifted off the ground.
Then it happened again.
This time, the arm that snaked around my stomach wasn’t quite as large as Zade’s, and it certainly wasn’t as armored. But it was nearly as hard. It was 99% muscle that yanked me backward against a looming body.
I fought back, and the attacker shifted so that I could see Zade take another step away from me.
“Zade!” I screamed, but the sound was caught in the palm of a large, cold hand over my mouth. An eerie, muffled cry for the man I had planned to run from was snuffed out.
The arm jerked me backward at an impossible speed, further into the dead-end alley than should have been possible until darkness closed in around me. There were noises of things opening and closing behind me. Then I would see a door, and another, and another.
Swirls of light and air pummeled past me. My head swam, and my stomach threatened to spew as nausea began to pool in my abdominal cavity and then rise through my chest, into my throat.
The sudden cessation of momentum forced every muscle in my body to quake.
I hadn’t realized until then that whoever had kidnapped me had somehow picked me up while tearing through the space-time continuum.
My fingers gripped onto fabric, and my head drooped against the kidnapper’s body.
Then I lurched up and forward, as my body convulsed once, and then twice.
I was lowered to the ground just in time.
My feet found concrete, and then my knees. I ended up on all fours before vomit spewed out onto dust-coated concrete. The acidic taste and sour smell hit me hard enough to bring another gag, but the realization that I might still be in a whole lot of trouble stifled another heave.
I flipped over to look up at who had dragged me here, expecting to see a Moderator or maybe even an Extermin with guns at the ready.
Instead, it was exactly who I had hoped it’d be.