Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
No one knows where the monsters came from. One day they were just there. They say it took seven days for our world to be overrun by the denizens. Humanity fought back but none of our weapons could kill them. When we believed all hope was lost, our saviors arrived.
Celestials.
Yeah, no one really believed in angels back then. They were creatures of myth, bound in an old religion that many had forgotten. But when the night was the darkest, they came, shining their glorious light and wielding swords of fire to cut down the monsters.
They say the war between the monsters and the celestials waged for a year and a day, and during that time, these beings of light helped humanity to build secure settlements. Bases where we could live safely. Where we could survive. Twenty-two bases, to be precise. Ours was base fifteen.
They asked for nothing in return and even provided us with weapons to cut down the monsters and the knowledge on how to best them.
The golden city rose out of the ashes of our capital, seemingly overnight, and the celestials withdrew from the fight.
They’d done what they could. It was up to us to maintain the status quo and stay alive.
But every year a lucky few from each base were permitted entry into the golden city, the safest domain on earth.
This was the history my generation had grown up on.
This was our truth.
“Rue, we’re here,” Bee said.
I focused on the sound of metal on metal, distinctive and familiar. We were passing through the gates into base fifteen.
The van came to a halt. Doors slammed and a few seconds later the back doors were flung open, admitting the gray light of predawn.
Jamie appeared in the doorway, his baby blues dark with fatigue, dark hair mussed.
“I’ve radioed Keller. He said he’ll see you now for debrief.
” He stepped aside while his three crewmembers climbed out, waiting until they were gone before focusing on me again.
“I can come with you if you want, Rue.” His tone was softer now.
The tone he used when we were alone. But we weren’t alone. Not now.
I gave him a reassuring smile and stepped back. “I got this.”
He nodded curtly, recovering himself. “You know where to find me if you need me.” He strode away.
I felt Bee’s gaze on my face. “Um…Rue, what was that?”
Shit. “What was what?” I gave her an innocent look.
She sighed. “Nothing.”
Jamie and I…Well, it was complicated, because fucking your dad’s best friend was frowned upon.
It didn’t matter that at thirty-three Jamie was barely ten years my senior.
But it was more than that—it was how I felt about Jamie.
Things just weren’t that serious, and I didn’t want them to be.
We were friends with benefits, and that wasn’t enough to jeopardize his reputation.
I’d thought about telling Bee, but the last thing I needed was a lecture on the beauty of falling in love.
I’d tried that one time and yeah…it hadn’t ended well.
I stared up at the mammoth wall that ran around the whole base, all that stood between us and the monsters. Not any ordinary wall, but one that sang with a vibration that was almost melodious. Vibrations created by runes etched into the stone.
The monsters didn’t like it. It kept them away and kept us safe.
The base was quiet this time of morning.
Only the sweepers should have been awake, coming back from patrol.
Scouts usually went out during daylight hours, but the tracker teams had reported a steady migration of type 3 monsters heading toward the hospital in Sector 4 late yesterday afternoon.
We’d been asked to take an emergency trip to pick up any supplies we could before it became a hot zone.
We shouldn’t have gone out.
If I’d said no, then Jarrod and Pip would be alive right now.
Was the pack of meds worth it? I wasn’t even sure anymore.
I let Bee lead the way past the barracks-style buildings and toward the control tower where the senior military operatives worked and slept.
Beyond the tower were more gates opening out into the residential part of the base where civilians lived side by side.
There was a shared canteen, a bath house, and even a recreational building housing books, games, and a cinema room.
The schoolhouse would be closing soon and the children looked forward to Christmas.
The bite in the air warned me that the weather would turn soon, bringing snow.
A guard let us into the tower. “Keller’s waiting in meeting room B.” I passed, but the guard put his arm out to halt Bee. “Not you.”
Bee glared at him. “I need to be there for the debrief.”
“Alpha leader Hansom will see you in meeting room C.” He jerked his head toward the corridor to our left.
Bee threw me a confused look. Debriefings were usually taken by the same officer, so even if my father refused to see us together, he should still be seeing Bee at some point if only to corroborate my account of events.
Unless this was about more than what had happened.
“Rue?” Bee looked concerned.
I shot her a quick smile. “It’s fine. I’ll meet you back at home.”
I climbed the steps to the third floor and pushed through the double doors into my father’s domain. As an alpha leader, he oversaw all the sweeper teams and their activities. But he was also on the council, which meant he liaised with the other bases and the golden city celestial emissaries.
My father was important. People relied on him. He ran this base, and I was proud of him. I just wished he was proud of me too.
I was pretty sure he loved me in an awkward-pat-on-the-back way.
Had it been different before my mother died?
My memories of him were fuzzy to say the least, but my mother…
Ah, she was a bright star in my mind. If I closed my eyes and cast my mind back, I could almost feel her arms around me and hear her gentle voice as she told me a story.
Her favorite was about the night I was born.
The stars fell for you, Rue, and it stayed that way for seven days.
Yeah, she’d made it sound so beautiful and romantic, but the reality had been anything but. The stars had brought the monsters with them. They’d taken my mother from me, and as a result, my father too.
The monsters changed our world, and now my father and I were strangers who shared the same DNA.
Joining the guard had been my way of getting closer to him, but when he’d blocked my application to become a sweeper it had been the final blow, telling me all I needed to know.
He didn’t think I was good enough.
Not as a daughter and not as an officer in his army.
Unfortunately for him, I’m a stubborn bitch. I couldn’t be a sweeper so I’d opted to become a scout.
I entered the meeting room to find him standing with his back to me, looking out the window. I wasn’t sure what he got from a view of the wall, but I’d seen him in the same pose so many times that I figured he got some comfort out of staring at the mammoth rock face that kept us safe.
The door closed behind me with a soft snick that drew his attention. He turned to face me, raking me over with an assessor’s regard, before crossing the room and pulling me into a hug.
I tensed. What the fuck? I couldn’t recall the last time we’d hugged, but it felt…nice. Increment by increment I allowed my body to relax, and just as I was about to hug him back, he released me and stepped away, putting a couple feet of distance between us.
“I’m glad to see you unharmed,” he said. “Jamie told me what happened. I have someone looking into the protocol failure.”
It took a moment for me to swallow the lump of unexpected emotion. “We lost two people today.” I wasn’t sure why I told him that, he probably already knew, but this was a debrief so the details had to come from me.
“I’m sorry, Rue. I know how hard it is to lose good men and women, but I assure you the person or persons responsible for failing the vehicle checks and replacing the backup vehicle will be reprimanded.”
A reprimand meant discharge from the guard, which meant fewer rations and privileges. It was too small a price to pay for negligence that had cost two lives, and from the look on my father’s face he recognized this too.
It gave me the gall to push further. “We shouldn’t have been asked to go out that late.”
My father’s jaw tensed. “From what I hear, you brought back plenty of medication.”
“We did, but—”
“Those medications save lives, Rue. The objective was met.”
“Agreed. But we should have had a sweeper with us. Better yet, there should be a sweeper on every scout team.”
He frowned, and hell if he wasn’t considering it.
“I’m trained. If you just let me take the test, I can—”
“No!”
I flinched at the snap in his tone. I was a grown-ass woman, but that tone never failed to act as a smackdown.
I tucked in my chin, gathering my composure because this was too important an issue to back down.
“I know you think I’m not strong enough, but I was the top of my combat class. If I had a celestial blade, I could protect my team.”
He was silent for a long beat, studying me with a look of confused revelation. “You think I doubt your skill?”
Was he serious right now? “You blocked my application for sweeper. What else was I supposed to think?”
He took a shuddering breath and looked away. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Why?” I’d never asked this question, too afraid to hear my suspicions and doubts confirmed. But it was time for him to look me in the eye and admit it. “Why did you block me? Not just from that year, but from every year.”
He looked away, rolling his bottom lip into his mouth as if mulling something over.
My scalp pricked. “What the hell is going on? What aren’t you telling me?”
He strode around his desk and pulled a sheet of paper from a drawer. “Read and sign that.”
I plucked the document from his fingers and scanned it. “A non-disclosure agreement?”
He passed me a pen. “You want to know the truth, then sign it.”
Curiosity was my Achilles’ heel. I scrawled my signature over the paper, then handed it back to him.
He put the paper back into his desk drawer. “This information does not leave this room, Rue, or I will act on the terms of this agreement and remove you from this base. Am I clear?”
His gaze was direct and unflinching. I believed him. “I won’t breach it.”
He took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “The people who don’t come back from testing haven’t been selected for the golden city like everyone is told.”
O-kay… “Then where do they go?”
“They don’t go anywhere, Rue. They’re dead.”