Alive (25 page)

My fingers claw, my feet kick. “Let me go!
I’ll kill you!
”

I hear something burst through the thicket. I see the flash of my spear. The cold hands drop away. I scramble to my feet, ready to fight.

I find myself standing face-to-face with Aramovsky.

He holds the spear. The blade drips red-gray. At first I think he will also stab me, but he is wide-eyed and terrified. His chest heaves. The weapon trembles in his hands.

I turn and look at my attackers.

There are two of them, creatures barely visible in this dark place beyond the thicket. Swirling red eyes stare out. The bigger of the two is bent over, clutching its leg. Red-gray squirts through skeletal black fingers, drips down to a metal floor. There is something familiar about that monster, but I can’t place what.

The other one presses its gnarled left hand hard against its wrinkled right shoulder. Red-gray oozes down its chest and arm.

This monster is only a tiny bit shorter than me.

Just one look, and I know who it is.

I am staring at Matilda Savage.

I
t’s so dim in here I wonder if their red eyes can see what I can’t. Why would creatures of the shadows need light? The one holding its leg, it seems to stare at us. Black hands slide free of the still-bleeding wound, and it stands.

So
tall
.

No, it isn’t staring at
us
—it stares at Aramovsky.

The swirling red eyes change somehow, they soften.

The creature reaches a gnarled, blood-coated hand toward him, not in aggression this time, not to grab, but with fingers outstretched.

It reaches out like it wants to touch.

“Finally,”
it says in a dry voice that sounds much like cracking thicket branches. “I have waited for so long.”

Aramovsky lowers the spear tip.

His jaw hangs slack. He blinks slowly. His shirt is no longer neat and clean—it is torn, the white stained by spreading lines of red. He must have forced himself through the thicket, ignoring the pain.

He fought his way in to save me.

And now he has eyes only for the monster, the first living thing we’ve seen in this place that is taller than he is.

“You,” Aramovsky says. “I am…am I
you
?”

In that whispering question is the same tone of shocked recognition I heard in my own voice when I spoke with Matilda. Aramovsky is asking, but he already knows the answer.

The mouthless nightmare nods. “Come with me. The gods say it must be so.”

Aramovsky drops the spear. It clatters against the hard floor.

“My creator,” he says, and steps forward.

Is he crazy? Are they doing something to him to make him act like this? I grab Aramovsky’s wrist and try to pull him back.

The tall monster waves his fingers inward—a kind, inviting gesture.

“Come,” it says. “It is right for you to join me.”

Aramovsky acts like he doesn’t even know I’m pulling on his arm. He steps toward the creature, dragging me along.

Off to my right, I see a flash of movement…Matilda, reaching for my fallen spear.

I let go of Aramovsky and launch myself at her, punching and kicking. My fist hits something soft, something that squishes from the blow. I hear my creator’s cry of pain and she falls away. I snatch up my spear: its familiar solidity instantly comforts me.

I point the tip at Matilda, hold it so close to her chest that we both know the message—if she moves, I strike. Her hands press to her right eye. Darkness and gnarled fingers don’t completely hide the damage. Her eye used to bulge out; now it sags like broken fruit. A thick, yellowish-gray fluid seeps down her face, glistens in the dim light, gathering on the disgusting vertical folds that cover her mouth.

I look back to Aramovsky. He stands in front of the tall monster. They embrace: bloody, white-shirted arms wrap around wrinkled coal-black skin, wrinkled coal-black arms wrap around the bloody white shirt.

Aramovsky rests his cheek on the monster’s black chest.

The thicket behind me suddenly rattles and shakes like it was hit by a storm. Something big and strong and heavy tears through it. A flash of gray and red, of muscle and scattering leaves. A thighbone cuts through the air, a blur of white that passes right over Aramovsky’s head and smashes into the monster’s face.

The thighbone cracks in two, one piece spinning into the darkness, the other still held in Bishop’s hands.

The tall monster’s legs go slack. It sags back, sliding out of Aramovsky’s arms. It turns as it falls, landing facedown.

Bishop steps forward. He holds the broken bone in one hand. The jagged tip points down like the blade of a misshapen knife.

Aramovsky looks dazed. He sees his creator flat on the floor, trying to crawl away.

Bishop raises his bone-dagger high.

Aramovsky’s hands shoot out to block the blow, but he is too late.

The broken thighbone punches deep into the black monster’s back.

Everything stops.

Bishop’s panting breath is the only sound.

He is bleeding from the shoulder, from the forehead. His red blood runs thick trails through the dark dust that covers his skin.

He stands there, staring down, chest heaving, then grabs the bone and yanks it free.

The tall monster trembles. With painful effort, it slowly rolls to its back. It ignores Bishop, stretches a shaking hand toward Aramovsky.

“So…close,” it says.

The hand drops to the floor, limp.

Aramovsky’s monster is dead. I turn to face mine.

Matilda hasn’t moved. Neither has my spear.

If she dies, I am forever free.

I press the spear tip forward. Hands still covering her eye, she backs up until she bumps into a metal wall and can retreat no more. Her face isn’t human, but I recognize her fear.

Matilda is terrified. Like with Aramovsky standing at Latu’s grave, her fear excites me, it
feeds
me. I feel it tingling across my skin and fluttering in my belly.

This vile thing created me just so she could destroy me, but I will destroy her.

My hands tighten on the spear. All it will take is one strong thrust….

She shudders. She is so afraid. She
bleeds
.

My joy at her fear, it fades, it drains.

She is me.

No…she is
not
me. I am not
her
.

A hand on my shoulder. I glance and see O’Malley. His knife, knife hand and sleeve are soaked in red-gray. Red blood—
his
blood—spills down from a gash on his cheek to stain the collar of his white shirt.

“Em, don’t,” he says quietly. “We need her.”

It takes me another second to realize he’s really there, not a product of my imagination. I keep the spear tip pressed against Matilda’s chest. My eyes have adjusted; I can see more now. My people are in here with us. Bishop and his dust-faced warriors, El-Saffani, Spingate and Gaston, Coyotl and Okereke, Cabral and Borjigin,
all
of them. Farther back, Smith and Beckett, and all around them a countless cluster of terrified children.

I’m almost afraid to believe what I see. “We made it?”

O’Malley nods. “The monsters attacked. They didn’t have bracelet weapons. I don’t know why. They tried to grab us. Because we were in groups of four, everyone was able to fight them off. We killed some of them—it was bad, Em.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “
We
were bad.”

When he opens his eyes, I see something in his face, an expression I haven’t seen before. Whatever he experienced out there in the Garden, whatever he did, he’s trying to push it away.

“The monsters ran,” he says. “We went back and got the kids. Your plan, Em…your plan worked.”

My people are alive.

“Did we lose anyone?”

He nods. “Harris, a circle. He’s dead.”

Harris. All I knew of that boy was that he didn’t seem to trust me. I don’t think I even had a chance to talk to him. And now he’s gone.

I notice Bishop watching me. He’s still panting. Is that from exertion, or the emotions of killing yet again?

I face Matilda.

“You’ve lost,” I tell her. “You will take us to Bello, then to the shuttle.”

Her one eye glares out. She’s trembling, clearly in great pain, but she stands up straight like a leader should. She refuses to back down.

“I will not take you anywhere. And your friend Bello is dead. You are too late.”

She says it mockingly, accusingly, as if it’s my fault Bello is gone. Bello didn’t hurt anyone, didn’t even argue with anyone. A boulder of anger tumbles through me, rolling and unstoppable…this can’t be, it
can’t
.

I lean in so close I smell Matilda’s rotten stink. I move the spear tip up to where her throat should be. I press the point into the disgusting folds of skin.

“Liar,”
I whisper. “You tell me where Bello is, then you take us to the shuttle, or I will end you.”

My creator slowly shakes her head.

“You are me, and I am you,” she says. “You know I am telling the truth.”

Tears well up in my eyes even as my fury grows. I’m almost sure Matilda is telling the truth…
almost
. I could keep asking her, I could torture her, but if Bello really is dead, then every minute I spend here is a minute the rest of my people are in danger. The
Xolotl
is massive; we know nothing about it, while our enemy knows every inch. My people will not be safe until they are on Omeyocan.

I know I will hate myself for this decision, but there is no choice. For the second time, I choose the safety of the group over the life of just one person.

“The shuttle,” I say. “Take us to it.”

Bishop runs to my side. “Em, no, we have to find Bello first. This thing is lying
.
Bello can’t be dead, she can’t—”

“Be quiet,”
I say in a voice not so different from Matilda’s.

Bishop’s face grows hard, icy. He stands too close, this angry man, painted dark red-gray and streaked with blood. His fists clench. I see his pulse dancing in his temples.

I am aware that the others are watching. O’Malley, Spingate, Gaston and Aramovsky, Bawden and Coyotl and all the rest. I’m aware of that, I sense it, but my world has narrowed to a single point of focus: Bishop.

I stare straight into his dark yellow eyes.

“Step
back,
” I say. “The decision is made.”

Maybe he will hate me. Maybe the others will, too, but the group’s safety matters more than Bello’s life. And, our survival is infinitely more important than what the group thinks of me.

Bishop’s nose flares. His lip curls.

He steps back.

I focus my attention where it belongs: on my creator.

Matilda’s one good eye sparkles.

“Very good, little one,” she says. “You project such authority, as I did when I was your—”

I push the spear tip a tiny bit farther. The point pokes into her diseased flesh, cutting off her worthless words.

“The shuttle,” I say again. “Take us there, or die.”

Matilda stays so very still.

“No, little one,” she says. “I know who I was at your age. I know you better than you could ever know yourself. You
can’t
murder me.”

I told myself that when I saw her, I would kill her. I want to push the blade into her throat, I want to feel her terror again, maybe hear her
beg
—but my arms refuse to obey.

She’s right: I can’t do it.

But I have to get my people to safety. The monsters could be regrouping. They will come at us again, and this time, they might use those bracelets.

“If you don’t show me where the shuttle is, then you pay for what you have done to us,” I say. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I can’t kill you. Good thing for me that I don’t have to. Bishop, take care of this.”

In the dim light, Bishop smiles. He is angry and frustrated. The chance to unleash his rage on a target—any target—seems to satisfy him in a deeply wicked way.

Bloody bone-dagger clutched in his right hand, he steps closer.

Matilda looks at Bishop, then at me, then at him again.

He raises the bone.

Matilda lifts both hands up, palms out, as if that will stop the blow. The ruin of her eye gleams wetly.

“I’ll take you! I’ll take you to the shuttle!”

I put a hand on Bishop’s chest. His skin is hot to the touch.

He looks at me. His face slowly returns to normal. He lowers the weapon.

Matilda trembles uncontrollably. She is alone and at our mercy.

“Bishop,” I say, “give this
thing
one chance. If she doesn’t take us to the shuttle, or if you think she’s tricking us, kill her.”

He nods.

I face my creator. “You will
never
have my body, so either take us to the shuttle, or die in the body you have.”

Her shoulders droop and her head hangs down. I do not know
how
I know, but this monster’s will has finally broken.

We have won.

B
ishop carries Matilda cradled in his arms, as if she weighs nothing at all.

She’s led us into unknown areas. We run across a flat surface, which means we’re moving down the length of the cylinder instead of up or down the curve. Everything is dark. Thin lines of glowing colors stretch across the floor—it’s enough light to keep me from panicking, but barely.

El-Saffani is once again out in front. Bishop, O’Malley and I are a few steps behind them. The rest follow, including the three lines of kids. Some of them are crying, whining for mothers and fathers that don’t exist, but they stay in their ranks and they keep pace. That’s all we can ask for. Bawden and Visca bring up the rear, my ash-covered warriors making sure no one attacks us from behind.

All of this is catching up with me. The march to the Garden, the fighting, the fact that I have been going for so long, making all the hard decisions…I am so tired. Every muscle screams at me to lie down, to give up, but we can’t stop now: we must escape before it’s too late.

“Keep moving,” I call to the others. “Keep moving.”

We are all close to quitting. The fighting in the Garden must have been bad. We leave a trail of blood behind us. There isn’t time to fix our wounds. I should have had us grab fruit to eat as we run, but I didn’t think of it and now it is too late to go back.

Matilda has us following a blue line. The ceiling is somewhere high above, the walls are hidden by shadows. The echoes of our footsteps tell me this area is big…bigger than the Garden, bigger than anything we have ever known. We don’t have time to explore, and even if we did I wouldn’t want to know what the darkness holds.

“Monster,” I say to my creator, “how much farther?”

“We are the same person,” she says. “You should call me by our name.”

“How much farther?”

She sighs, seems to wince at the same time. The fight was bad for her, too. She’d been waiting at the hidden opening she used to attack Bello and me. She knew we would come: she is me, after all, and attacking the Garden is exactly what she would have done in the same situation. She laid a trap for us, but she hadn’t planned on our ability to organize and work together, or on our ferocity. Maybe in her mind, we are still kids—it should have been easy for her kind to overwhelm us.

Things did not go how she expected.

When I poked my spear through the thicket wall, the blade pierced her shoulder. An accident, but at least we finally had some luck go our way. Matilda has lost a lot of blood. And then there is her ruined eye. She’s in great pain, doing her best to not show it.

“The shuttle is close,” she says. “Can’t you see your people are exhausted, little leader? We have time to stop and rest.”

I sense she’s lying about time, but telling the truth that the shuttle is near. I think she’s trying to stall. It doesn’t take the brilliance of Gaston or Spingate to know why—her friends are preparing to come after us…or are already on the way.

Up ahead, the dim blue line on the floor splits in two. Part of it keeps going straight, part of it angles off to the left. El-Saffani stops there, looks back at us.

A dried-up black hand reaches out, points a thin finger to the left.

“That way,” Matilda says.

In the darkness, El-Saffani’s cracking red-gray paste makes the twins look identical, neither boy nor girl but some combination of both. I point down the path to the left, and they go rushing on ahead.

We all follow them.

It’s still too dim to see, but the echoes of our footsteps change: we have entered a smaller room.

Lights come on.

Too bright, so bright it burns. I shield my eyes, blink as something starts to take shape.

Something…
long
.

Unlike everything else on board the
Xolotl,
there are no runes or carvings.

It is not made of stone.

It is smooth, sleek, gleaming metal. It is big enough to hold all of us a dozen times over.

The shuttle.

If we can figure out how it works, Omeyocan is ours.