Phoenix (14 page)

He smirks.

The door at the end of the carriage opens, and my heart leaps; it could be a Sentry
guard. I relax when the black-haired girl appears, carrying a tray with some stale
bread, two rotting apples and a bottle of milk on it. The other kids look at the food
hungrily. She catches my eye as she sits down. I’m looking forward to getting off
this train and away from that carriage of Sentry guards. There’s a hiss of steam as
the train rapidly decelerates, the sudden shift in speed knocking me into Elijah.
I push myself away from him, flustered.

“Your hat,” Elijah says through his teeth.

I touch my head and realize my hat has fallen off, revealing my hair. I hurriedly
replace it, stuffing my curls back under the rim, but not before the black-haired
girl has spotted me. I give her a quick smile. She stares at me for a moment, then
smiles back. I relax.

I go over to the window, curious to know why we’ve stopped. We’re at a train station—well,
it’s more of a wooden platform with a single ticket office. There’s a bunch of crates
on the platform; each has
CENTRUM
and something that looks like a red butterfly stamped on the side.

Several of the guards, including Neil, get off the train, and while they’re loading
up the boxes, one of the men loses his grip and drops a crate. The lid bursts open,
and a dozen bottles of a resin-colored liquid crash to the ground, sending glass everywhere.
I recognize that liquid—it’s acacia solution. They doused Ash’s cross with it before
his execution. This must be where they make it, since acacia wood is prevalent in
the Barren Lands.

Once they’re done loading the crates, the train slowly begins to chug away from the
platform, passing a tall, hand-painted sign that reads
DUSTY HOLLOW
. Hanging from it are several decaying Wrath corpses to ward off any others of their
kind. I shudder.

During the war, thousands of Darklings were held captive in the nearby concentration
camp, where my father used to work. They were experimented on, and deliberately infected
with the deadly C18-Virus to test its effects. When the war ended, having become Wraths,
they were set loose to fend for themselves. It’s a miracle they’ve survived so long—the
disease is very aggressive. But maybe they were given a different strain of the virus
than the one used to infect the Darklings in Black City? It’s the only reason I can
think of for why they’ve lived this long.

The carriage door opens again, and this time Ash appears, carrying a tray. There’s
something bumpy under his jacket. Children ravenously look at the tray of food as
Ash walks down the aisle. He hands one particularly skinny boy some bread, and it
strikes me how much the boy looks like the twin-blood Sebastian murdered in front
of us a few months ago. I guess that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Ash either.

Ash sits down and passes me a piece of stale bread and an apple. Elijah holds out
his hand and gets handed a bottle of milk.

“Where’s the food?” he says.

“That’s all they had left. I saw some mice in the other carriage. You could always
eat those,” Ash replies.

Elijah glances over at the boy, who is greedily eating the bread Ash gave him. His
saber teeth extend, and I quickly tear my bread in two and pass the larger half to
Elijah. His saber teeth retract.

“No need to say thank you,” I mutter.

“Thanks,” he replies through a mouthful of bread.

“Aren’t you hungry?” I ask Ash.

He shuts his eyes. “They don’t serve what I need.”

It’s going to be days before we get to Thrace. Ash will be starving by then without
any blood.

“You can drink from me,” I whisper.

“No. I don’t want to drug you with Haze,” he replies.

“I could try siphoning some off—”

“With what?” he says.

He has a point; it’s not like we have any equipment to safely drain my blood.

“Don’t worry. If I get hungry, I can always eat Elijah,” Ash teases.

Elijah hisses at him.

I lean against Ash, and my head bumps against something solid under his jacket.

“Oww,” I say, rubbing my head. “What’s that?”

He pulls out a portable digital screen from under his coat. “I swiped it from the
guards’ carriage. No one will miss it. They’ve got loads of them in there,” he says.
“I want to know what’s going on with the rebellion.”

The three of us huddle around the screen as he turns it on, keeping the volume low.
The picture is a little pixelated, but I can still make out February Fields’s glossy
blond hair and bright pink lips.

“—twenty guards confirmed dead, and many others wounded in the worst terrorist attack
this country has seen since the war. Many more would have perished if it hadn’t been
for the Sentry government’s quick action.”

The image cuts to a montage of families being loaded onto the trains with the help
of smiling Sentry guards. The vehicles are sparkling and new, and all have the Sentry
crest painted on their sides. Ash lets out an annoyed grunt. The footage is totally
fake! Purian Rose has re-created the evacuation to show his guards in a more favorable
light. I guess he doesn’t want people to know what really happened—that families were
being torn apart and people were getting shot. I wince, thinking about Weevil.

“Purian Rose has put out arrest warrants for those responsible for this atrocity,
which was masterminded by the traitor known as Phoenix,” February continues. “Rewards
will be given to anyone who has information on their whereabouts.”

Photos flash up on the screen: Ash, me, Sigur, Roach, Beetle, Juno—

The broadcast is suddenly interrupted, and cuts to the footage Stuart shot in Black
City, when the Destroyer Ships invaded. People are crying and screaming as they’re
gunned down by the Sentry guards or mauled by packs of Lupines. The camera whips up
to get a shot of the sky, where the Destroyer Ships hang over the city, then pans
down toward one of the giant digital screens, zooming in on the image of Polly tied
to the chair. Seeing my sister again, so unexpectedly, knocks all the wind out of
my lungs.

“Your government is lying to you,” Juno’s voice says over the footage.

The promo ends with a shot of Ash, dressed as Phoenix, with the words
NO FEAR, NO POWER.

I turn off the digital screen, not wanting to see my sister’s image anymore, every
part of me aching with grief.

“Sorry,” Ash says, tucking the portable digital screen inside his duffel bag.

I eat my bread, then rest my head against Ash’s shoulder. My eyelids droop as the
train gently rocks, and I’m soon asleep, my dreams filled with red rooms, roses, and
cities burning down.

When I wake up, I’m drenched in sweat from my feverish nightmares. I blink the sleep
out of my eyes, and check my watch. Nine o’clock! I’ve slept through most of the evening.
I notice the black-haired girl isn’t in her seat. She must’ve gone to forage for more
food, although didn’t Ash say they’d run out? Maybe she just wanted to exercise her
muscles; I know mine are aching.

“Hey, sleepy,” Ash says, kissing my burning cheek. He frowns. “You feeling all right?”

I nod.

A shadow flies past the window, catching my eye. “What was that?”

“Probably a condor,” Ash answers.

“What?” Elijah says, alarmed.

“Are you okay?” I ask him.

“Uh-huh,” Elijah says, his eyes fixed on the window. “I just don’t like birds. It
won’t get inside here, will it?”

Both Ash and I laugh.

“It’s not funny!” he says. “Some people hate spiders, I hate birds. Get over it.”

“Sorry,” I say, still laughing. “It’s just . . . you’re a
cat
 . . .”

He glowers at us.

I force myself to stop giggling. “No, it won’t get in here, unless the bird somehow
learns to open up the escape hatch.”

Elijah looks up at the hatch in the roof.

The carriage door opens and the black-haired girl walks down the aisle, empty handed,
and takes her seat. I snuggle against Ash’s chest, not worrying so much about keeping
up the pretense I’m a boy, since the black-haired girl beside us already knows the
truth.

I keep an eye on the window, not entirely convinced that what I saw was a condor—it
seemed much too big—but I don’t see anything except a blur of stars. At first they’re
just white smudges against the night sky, but they slowly begin to take form, their
shimmering outlines becoming crisper. It could only mean one thing.

“The train’s slowing down again,” I say, confused.

“Are we in Georgiana already?” Elijah asks.

I shake my head. “We’re over a day away.”

“Maybe we’re stopping for more supplies?” Ash suggests.

Another shadow passes the window, but I barely have time to register it before the
carriage door bursts open and five Sentry guards enter, led by Neil—the shaved-headed
guard I recognized earlier. The girl with the curly black hair stands up.

“They’re over here,” she says, pointing at us.

So that’s what she was doing earlier? Ratting us out to the Sentry guards!

Neil draws his sword. “Halt! You are under arrest!”

There’s a faint
thud
on the roof of the train.

Ash pulls off his false veneers, revealing his fangs. Elijah bares his saber teeth.

Neil takes a step toward us. “There’s nowhere to run. You’re completely—”

The escape hatch above us is torn off its hinges.

We all begin to scream.

NATALIE

THE WRATH GLARES DOWN
at me with menacing yellow eyes, its fangs dripping with venom. Ash pulls me behind
him just as the creature folds its wings and drops into the carriage, followed by
two females. The male’s hands are covered in welts from the acacia wood, but he doesn’t
seem to notice. The Wraths let out a terrifying howl.

All the children around us stampede into the aisle, tripping over each other in their
haste to escape, but the only door out of here is blocked by the Sentry guards who
came to arrest us.

The first Wrath—a gigantic creature over seven feet tall with strings of sticky white
hair—grabs the black-haired girl and rips her head off in one gruesome movement, spraying
hot blood over the carriage. Screams fill the air. The Sentry guards draw their swords
and push past the children, knocking them out of the way as they approach the two
female Wraths. The animals screech, baring their jagged fangs, and leap at the Sentry
guards. Four of the men are felled within seconds, their bodies torn apart like tissue
paper, so only Neil is left.

“We have to get the kids out of here!” I say to Ash as the larger male Wrath drops
the body of the headless girl and turns his focus on the group of children huddled
by the door.

Ash lunges for him while Elijah attacks one of the female Wraths, plunging his saber
teeth into her jugular vein. She howls in pain before crumpling to the floor, dead.
The other female whips her head around and fixes her yellow eyes on Elijah. She knocks
over the skinny Sentry guard, Neil, with one sweep of her hand, making him drop his
sword, and jumps at Elijah.

There’s no time to think. I grab Neil’s discarded sword and thrust it into the female
Wrath’s heart. Sticky, hot blood spills over my hands, covering them in red.

“Thanks, I owe you one,” Elijah says breathlessly, but I barely register him as I
stare down at my bloodstained hands. A memory of Gregory Thompson flashes into my
mind.
I killed him just like this, with a sword through his chest—

“Natalie!”

Ash’s gargled voice rouses me out of my stupor. The male Wrath has Ash by the throat.
Reflexively, I swing the sword, slashing the Wrath’s arm. It lets Ash go, and he falls
to the floor. I drop the blade and rush over to him while Elijah finishes the beast
with a bite to the neck.

The carriage falls silent.

Neil shakily gets to his feet and surveys the carnage. His gaunt face and shaved head
are splattered with blood. All his men are dead, but thankfully, only one of the children—the
black-haired girl—was killed. He picks up one of his men’s swords just as running
footsteps approach the door.

Neil turns to me and holds up his sword. “Sebastian’s here to get you.”

So that’s why the train stopped?
I didn’t hear the telltale hum of the Destroyer Ship through the train’s armored
walls.

“Please let us go,” I say.

His eyes flicker to the dead Wraths on the floor.

“You know me, Neil. I’m not a bad person,” I continue. “We could’ve let them kill
you all while we escaped, but we didn’t.”

Doubt crosses Neil’s face.

“Please,”
I say.

He lowers his sword.

“Thank you.”

Ash gives Elijah a boost through the escape hatch, then lifts himself through before
stretching out a hand toward me.

“Wait, your bag!” I say, knowing his mom’s keepsake box is in there.

When I turn to grab his duffel bag, my eyes snag on the lifeless Wrath near my feet.
My heart slams against my chest as I stare down at its dead, yellow eyes.

Yellow, just like mine.

Suddenly I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but listen to the blood pounding
in my ears. I can’t have the Wrath.
Can I?

“Natalie!”

Ash’s voice penetrates through my terror, dragging me back to reality. I pick up the
duffel bag, then take his hand. There’s a moment of weightlessness as he lifts me
through the hatch, and not a moment too soon: below, the carriage door bursts open
and the guards spill into the cabin.

Icy cold air instantly hits my skin as I step onto the train roof, chilling the sweat
soaking my body and clothes. My father once told me how deathly cold it gets in the
Barren Lands at night, but I didn’t truly understand what he meant until now. High
above us in the moonlit sky is the Destroyer Ship, its engines omitting that low,
ominous hum. I hope it’s too dark for them to see us without its searchlights on.
Parked across the railway tracks is a Transporter, blocking the train’s path.

“Where are they?” Sebastian says, inside the train carriage.

“Escaped during the Wrath attack,” Neil replies.

There’s a disgruntled growl.
Garrick.

I hand Ash his bag, which he slings over his shoulder, while Elijah gracefully leaps
off the train, landing silently on arid earth. Ash carefully passes me down to Elijah,
whose warm hands accidentally slip underneath my jacket as he takes hold of me. His
calloused fingers slide over my stomach, making every part of me suddenly hot. The
instant my feet touch the ground, he lets me go, and I hastily readjust my jacket,
embarrassed. He looks away. There’s a soft
thud
as Ash’s boots hit the sand. His fingers entwine with mine, then we’re running, running,
running, as fast as our feet can carry us, trying to get as much space between us
and the train as possible before they come after us.

It’s so dark, I’ve never known blackness like it, and I’m running blind, trusting
Ash to keep me safe as he steers us past jagged boulders and thorny desert plants
that threaten to trip us up.

“Over there!” Ash says, pointing toward something I can’t see—it’s just black on black—but
I know what he means: the canyon I saw out of the train window.

“We can’t jump off a cliff!” I exclaim.

“I wasn’t suggesting that,” Ash replies. “There’s a horse trail over there. We can
follow it down the ravine to the riverbed.”

“Are you mad? It’s too dangerous,” Elijah says.

Behind us, the Lupines cry out. They’ve caught our scent.

“We don’t have any choice,” I reply.

Adrenaline’s the only thing keeping me going as my shinbones splinter with every footfall,
pushing my body to its limit as we approach the cliff edge.

“They went this way,” Garrick calls out.

The canyon is getting closer, closer. We’re running too fast to stop.

“Ash, are you sure there’s a path?” I say, panicked.

“Trust me.” Ash turns sharply to the left, bringing us with him.

I see it! The trail entrance is just visible between the prickly brush and rocks—there’s
no way you’d notice it unless you knew it was there or had great night vision like
Ash. The track is steep and narrow—probably only a yard or so wide, with the jagged
cliff face on our left side and a sheer drop on our right. We take it fast, too fast,
and the gravel shifts under my feet. I fall. My heels frantically dig into the loose
dirt as I slide down the trail, rushing toward a sharp bend in the path. I cry out
in fear, knowing there will be nothing but air to greet me, followed by certain, horrible
death.

A hand grabs my collar and drags me back just before I fall over. Elijah smirks at
me, his dark hair falling around his boyish face.

“We’re making it a habit tonight of saving each other’s lives,” he says, helping me
to my feet.

“Thanks,” I reply.

Ash pulls me into his arms, holding me tight. “Fragg, fragg, fragg, I thought I’d
lost you.”

A bloodcurdling scream suddenly pierces the air, and we all look up to see the shadow
of a Lupine tumbling over the edge of the cliff and into the abyss below. A moment
later, there’s a bone-shattering crunch as his body hits the rocks. The other Lupines
manage to skid to a halt before they follow him over the edge, kicking sand and grit
into the ravine. I spot Garrick at the top of the cliff, silhouetted against the iridescent
moonlight. He sniffs the air, then walks in our direction. He’s spotted the path,
but thankfully not us yet. We shrink into the shadows.

The female Lupine with pink hair joins him.

“They’ve gone this way,” Garrick says.

“Well, let’s go after them,” she replies.

Garrick flashes a look over his shoulder at the Lupine in a red leather frock coat—I
recall Garrick referring to him as Jared at the train station. There’s a pause, and
I hold my breath. Then:

“No, it’s too dangerous. We’ll track them at first light,” Garrick says.

“But—”

“That’s an order, Sasha,” he says.

“The boss won’t be pleased,” Sasha says as they trudge away from the cliff edge.

I exhale. Thank heavens it’s dark; otherwise, they certainly would’ve come after us.

Ash leads the way as we cautiously head down the path, which thankfully gets wider
after the first mile. Large rocks and boulders from an old landslide litter the trail.
This slows down our progress but, on the plus side, offers us some much-needed cover.
The air gets colder the deeper into the ravine we go, and my teeth soon begin to chatter.
I’m just glad I’m wearing these woolen clothes, although I’m sure I won’t be so thankful
for them tomorrow when we’re out in the blistering heat. I rub my arms, trying to
get some warmth into them. A moment later, something slides over my shoulders. Elijah’s
coat. I peer over my shoulder at him.

“You’ll freeze,” I say.

He shrugs. “Don’t worry about me, pretty girl.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“No problem. If it gets too cold, I’ll just ask for it back,” he adds.

I roll my eyes.

Above us, the Destroyer Ship circles the canyon, its searchlights scanning the deep
ravine for us. We duck every time the light swoops near us and try to blend in with
the surrounding rocks and desert shrubs. I’m hopeful they won’t be able to spot us
since they’re so high up and we’re all dressed in dark clothing, although Ash’s blond
wig might draw some attention to us.

“Ash, your wig,” I say. He yanks off the hairpiece and tosses it over the edge of
the trail, raking his fingers through his rippling black hair before quickly removing
his blue contacts. The transformation from Human-Ash to Darkling-Ash is instant, and
I much prefer this version: dark, deadly and breathtakingly beautiful. Elijah takes
this opportunity to remove his own disguise—a cap and glasses—and tucks them into
his pocket.

We hike all night. Progress is slow going for the first few hours, as we have to time
our movements between the sweeps of the searchlight, but as the night draws on, the
Destroyer Ship moves away, looking for us farther up the canyon. Halfway down the
trail, we stumble across the Lupine’s body. My stomach churns at the sight of his
broken, contorted limbs. I catch Ash holding his breath, struggling with his hunger.

“Maybe you should take some of his blood,” I say quietly.

Elijah curls his lip, and I shoot him a warning look.

Ash hesitates, but his hunger wins out. He kneels down and dips his fingers in the
pool of blood, bringing it to his pale lips. He tentatively tastes it, then gags,
wiping his hand on his pant leg.

“Sour,” he says.

We leave the dead man and carry on down the path. By the time we reach the river at
the base of the canyon, the pink hues of dawn have begun to rise over the valley.
I yawn. I’ve never felt so exhausted, both physically and mentally, as my thoughts
keep wandering back to the same topic: the Wrath.

Have I really got the virus? I think about the Darkling bite on my leg.
It can’t cross species.
I don’t know that for a fact, though, and I have been feeling sick lately. But if
I
am
infected, why has it taken so long for the first symptoms to appear? The Darklings
in Black City who contracted the Wrath began showing symptoms within a week of infection,
so why is it different for me? Is it because I’m human? Will I get any sicker?

Am I going to die?

The thought hits me so hard, I stop walking, and Elijah bumps into my back.

“Oww,” he says, rubbing his nose.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

Ash turns around to see what the commotion is about. Worry must be etched all over
my face, because a crease forms between his brows.

“You okay?” he says.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I say, not wanting to worry him. I don’t even know if I
am
infected. It’s just a hunch. Now more than ever, I wish my mother were here. She
may be a little blunt and clinical when it comes to emotional matters, but that’s
what I need right now—someone with a clear head who can tell me everything is going
to be okay.
Where are you, Mom?

“So what’s the plan?” Elijah says.

“Keep walking until it gets too hot, and then find somewhere shaded to hide,” Ash
says. “As soon as night falls, we’ll climb out of the ravine and hike into the nearest
town.”

“Maybe we should go back to Dusty Hollow,” I say. “At least we know where that is.”