Chapter 42 #4
There, at the scrapyard’s edge, sits a small van. Canvas stretched across a metal frame for the back, but the fabric hangs in tatters. Rust eats holes through the body panels. One headlight dangles by wires.
“Is that thing drivable?” Maria asks.
“Let’s hope so,” Marco replies.
“But you can’t drive.”
“But you can.”
“I haven’t driven in over a decade!”
“It’s like riding a bike!”
“How would you know?!”
Marco yanks open the driver’s door. The hinges shriek in protest. He fumbles around the pedals, then holds up a key triumphantly.
“You three get in the back,” Maria snaps. “And leave me to concentrate.”
We scramble into the torn canvas cave. Maria almost stalls pulling away, then saves it with a grinding lurch.
The dirt road punishes every bolt in this dying machine. But we’re moving. Away from Victora. Away from death.
Relief floods through me—giddy, delirious. I am alive. I am out of Victora. I keep touching Esme and Marco to check they’re real. That they’re really with me. That we’re really doing this.
“Marco.” I fist my hand in his vest, dragging him close.
The kiss is fierce, claiming. Hard enough to bruise. It tastes of blood, and dust and impossible choices. It tastes like us. When I pull back, I keep him close enough to feel his breath.
“You brave, beautiful thing. I love you. I’d burn the whole world down for you too.”
Then I hear the engine noise behind us.
I twist around in the cramped space, peering through the torn canvas.
A quad bike bounces across the wasteland, kicking up dust clouds. Two figures hunched low over the handlebars—one driving, one riding pillion with a rifle gripped in his hands.
They’re gaining fast.
“Drive faster!” Marco shouts at Maria.
The van lurches forward, Maria’s foot slamming the accelerator. The engine screams in protest, but we barely pick up speed. This piece of shit was never built for racing.
Marco presses his lips together, chambering a round. He positions himself at the torn canvas opening. “Only six rounds. I’d better make them count.”
The quad bike bounces closer, our assailant’s faces coming into focus. The driver has a scar running down his left cheek, puckered white tissue. I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen him before.
“That scar! It’s him! He’s the one who took Atrea!” I choke out.
Marco nods. “Kane Bishop. Emperor’s high commander.”
“Marco, that’s the man who did it. He gave the order.”
When Marco’s eyes turn black, I know he understands. Bishop spilled the blood of his entire family with one careless wave of his hand.
The passenger behind Bishop raises his weapon—some kind of assault rifle that makes our single-shot look like a toy.
Muzzle flashes bloom in the distance. Bullets whine past the van, one punching through the canvas inches from Esme’s head.
Maria swerves wildly, throwing us against the sides of the cargo area. Esme crashes into me, her elbow driving into my ribs.
Marco braces himself, trying to line up a shot as the van bucks and weaves. The sight jumps all over the place. He squeezes the trigger.
The shot goes wide, kicking up dirt twenty yards to their left.
“Fuck!” Marco works the bolt, chambering another round.
More gunfire. More holes in our canvas.
He raises the rifle again. Bishop’s scarred face twists with concentration as he steers the quad bike closer.
The rifle kicks against Marco’s shoulder. Another miss.
Four rounds left.
The quad bike weaves left, then right, closing the distance. Forty yards now. Thirty.
Marco fires again. Too high. Then again—wide right. The van’s movement makes it impossible. His inexperience makes it worse.
Two rounds left.
Then only one.
I watch the tension coil through Marco’s shoulders, see his jaw clench with each failed shot. The weight of it—Kane Bishop right there, the bastard who slit his family’s throats, and Marco can’t land a hit.
The quad bike is moments away from reaching us. They’re close enough that I can see Kane Bishop’s cold eyes. See the barrel of their gun pointed right at us.
Marco’s hands shake as he chambers the final round.
“You’ve got this,” I say quietly, my hand finding his shoulder. “I know you’ve got this.”
His expression softens. The shaking stops.
Marco takes a deep breath. Leads the target. Accounts for our movement and theirs.
He squeezes the trigger.
The bullet punches through Bishop’s sternum. Blood blooms across his shirt, a spreading crimson stain. His hands fly from the handlebars, body jerking backward.
He flies off the quad bike, tumbling through the air.
The bike careens wildly, front wheel hitting a rock. It flips, metal and rubber cartwheeling through the dust.
Kane Bishop hits the ground and doesn’t move. Blood pools beneath him, dark against pale dirt. The shooter falls headfirst with a sickening, fatal crack.
Esme and I cheer, our voices lost in the van’s engine noise as we pull away from the wreckage.
Marco lowers the rifle slowly, staring at the dust cloud behind us. His chest heaves. His hands shake again—but different now. Not from fear or pressure.
From release.
“Told you,” I say, pulling him away from the opening.
He drops the rifle, his knees buckling. I catch him and suddenly we’re kissing—messy, breathless, both of us shaking with relief.
“And I told you, birdie,” he says against my lips.
“Told me what?”
“That we’d all go home to Atrea together.”
“We’re not there yet,” I grumble, but in my heart, we are.
We’re walking on that sand, the three of us, Marco and I holding hands while Esme collects shells and sea glass beside us.
We’re waking up every morning in a tangle of limbs—Marco’s arm thrown over my chest, his breath warm against my neck, sunlight streaming through windows that don’t have bars.
We’re teaching Esme how to fish from the rocks where Marco used to play with Lucas, her laughter carrying on the salt breeze while Marco and I steal kisses behind the tidal pools.
“Let’s go home,” I say, grabbing my sister’s hand in one, Marco’s in the other.
Of course, we might find nothing left. An island completely destroyed, every last building, crop, tree burned to the ground.
But Marco and me? We’re survivors. And whatever’s waiting for us on Atrea—whether it’s paradise or ashes—we’ll build something new from it.
Something all ours.