The Starborn Saga (Books 1, 2, & 3) (34 page)

I close my eyes again. Danny is checking a tear in his shirt. He’s panicking because he thinks he might have been scratched. I feel for the cylinder that I still carry in my pocket.
Green you’re clean. Red you’re dead.
 

I feel sick. If any of them are bitten or scratched, I don’t know how I would be able to hide it from Aaron. Then he would know. 

“I think I’m good,” Danny says. “Looks like it just got my shirt.”

Heather is checking him over, lifting up his shirt, forcing him to move in every direction. After a moment she sighs and sets her head against the back of his seat. 

“You’re one brave, man,” she says. “Stupid, but brave.”

Danny smiles and Heather rubs his shoulder for a moment. 

Connor barely hears them as his eyes go from the rearview mirror to the road and back again. He drives as if he can’t put enough distance between them and the greyskins. 

One never can. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A couple of hours have passed since Connor and the others got away from the greyskins. I frequently close my eyes to check on them to see that they are still driving, looking for the best place to stop near Garden’s Peak. 

I also try to find Christopher. I know he has to be in Salem somewhere, but all I ever see is a dark space as though he is hiding from everyone. One of the times, it looks like he’s in a closet eating something, but that’s all I’m able to see. 

Aaron slows the truck down when he feels we are as close as we can get to Salem without being spotted. He looks at me and sighs. “You ready?” he asks, grabbing a shotgun from behind the seat. 

My back and legs are sore from riding so long, but I nod to him. “Are we going in through the side? Your secret passage?”

“The very one,” he says. “First thing’s first, we’ve got to find Heinrich. There’s no telling what kind of condition Salem is in. The people will be angry, but Jeremiah might have already sent guards back to take control again.”

I don’t doubt this. SalemeatfoNTY was an important colony for Jeremiah to hold on to. I’m sure he would do anything it took to keep it within his grasp. Springhill, on the other hand, only holds importance because of me. We don’t have much to offer Jeremiah, but he wants me dead. That, or he wants me in his custody so he can try to convince me to help him. I’m not sure what he is planning. He is certainly one individual that I wish I could have had some physical contact with. I would be able to see everything he is doing. I could monitor his conversation. I would know his plans. But that contact never took place. So, as far as he is concerned, I’ve got to play this out like a normal person. 

Aaron and I abandon the vehicle on the side of the road. No one will see it at night, and Aaron said it’s rare that anyone would come here by day. Normally I would fear walking long distances at night with the threat of the greyskins, but now I know that they wouldn’t stand a chance. 

I think of Connor and the others and can’t help but wonder what help I would have been in their predicament. I could have moved the vehicle. I could have thrown greyskins in every direction while Danny moved the vehicle. I’m not the perfect warrior, but I know that my gift is truly powerful. 

We walk toward Salem as silently as possible. From where we are, I can see the front gates, or what’s left of them. Bits and pieces of wood and metal lie in every direction; a direct result of Krindle’s explosion that let in all the greyskins. It’s hard to see, but I can smell the remnants of the black smoke that must have taken the bodies of the victims. After an incident like this, there are almost always two piles for burning. One for the greyskins, and one for the victims. Both piles smell the same. Both are horrible. 

As we make our way around the colony to the other side, we keep a close watch on the walls. There are no lights to speak of, but the moon allows us to see the reflection of a few Screven vehicles. These aren’t the same ones that had been left behind. These are new. A few times we see some guards from Screven patrolling the area. Jeremiah must have sent them as soon as he set the greyskins on us. I wish I could figure out how that worked. 

It takes us thirty minutes or more to finally make it to the secret tunnel under the wall that leads into Salem. As quietly as possible, Aaron pulls up on the door in the ground. Dirt falls to the sides as he motions for me to go first. I climb down the steps and he follows, letting the door shut us into complete blackness. 

“Sure hope nothing’s down here,” I say. 

Aaron lets out a short laugh. “Nobody knows about it, I assure you.”

I feel him brush against me as he walks to the other side and to the other door. I walk behind him slowly, careful not to trip over the backs of his feet. We climb up the stairs and he gently pushes on the door. Again the moonlight shines through and I can see the dark silhouette of Aaron’s head. He looks in every direction before finally opening it all the way. 

“It’s clear, let’s go,” he whispers to me. 

I quickly move up the steps and into the colony of Salem. Looking around, I start to wonder whether it really was a good idea to come here. The guards wouldn’t hesitate to try and kill us. I know that I have the power to take any of them on, but that doesn’t mean a sniper from a distance couldn’t take me out by surprise. I’m not invincible. 

Aaron covers the door with dirt and bushes and starts a crouched run to the nearest shack. I follow him in the same motion. I can’t help but let my eyes dart from one place to the next. Every now and then I can see a guard patrolling through the streets.  same mp>

Aaron turns his head toward me. “We’re going to Heinrich’s house,” he says. “Just stay close to me and we won’t get caught.”

I nod and follow as he ducks into the street at a quick pace. We stop a few times to make sure there isn’t anyone near us. When Aaron is satisfied, we move again until we are finally at the large house at the end of the colony. It feels weird coming back here. The last time I was in this house, I was actually spying on Aaron and Heinrich in a meeting. It was Evelyn’s idea, though I’m not entirely sure Aaron didn’t already know I would be there. Evelyn wanted me to see how badly people wanted to get out from under Jeremiah’s thumb. 

Instead of going in through the side of the house and into the basement like I did last time, Aaron takes me to the back of the house to one of the doors. He pulls out a set of keys from his pocket and unlocks the door, walking through quietly. 

I close it behind us and watch as Aaron creeps into the back of the kitchen. “Heinrich?” Aaron calls out. “It’s Aaron and Mora, are you here?”

No answer.

Aaron calls out again and starts his search throughout the rest of the house, but I get the feeling that Heinrich isn’t here at all. Walking past the kitchen and into the living room it looks like someone was either forced out of here or left in a hurry. Books are thrown about the floor, tables and chairs are turned over. It doesn’t look good. 

Aaron comes down the stairs in a hurry. “He’s gone.” He pulls out his keys again and makes his way to a door on the other side of the living room. Opening it, I recognize it as the office Aaron and Heinrich had met in a couple of weeks ago. Aaron walks over to the desk and unlocks the bottom drawer. 

He seems to hold his breath for a minute as he reaches down and picks up a piece of paper. A note. 

Aaron looks up at me, then back down at the paper. “They are going to take me,” Aaron reads. “Jeremiah suspects that I’ve helped with your insurrection. Either way I’m a dead man. I imagine they will take me to Screven. Question me. Then that will be it. The Starborns are all that can stop this monster. He will not give up. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to leave with you. You must carry on without me. Heinrich.” 

“I’m sorry, Aaron,” I say.

He shakes his head. “I can’t believe they think he’s part of it. I guess we weren’t secretive enough.”

“Even if he wasn’t part of it, don’t you think Jeremiah would have taken him out for letting all this happen anyway?”

“Maybe,” Aaron says. He lets out a curse under his breath and walks past me and through the door. I follow him until he reaches another door and opens it. The steps lead down into the basement. 

I walk into the familiar area, watching Aaron as he goes to the other side. I know his mind is preoccupied, but I still don’t know what his plans are. I know mine, but he doesn’t. Somehow I’ve got to break away from him for a moment to be able to seek out Christopher the healer. But maybe I should just tell Aaron. Now that we’re here I can’t really imagine him feeling comfortable with us splitting up without a good reason.

Aaron opens a closet that I haven’t previously noticed and starts rummaging through items. He pushes a few things aside and pulls out a cart full of cables, screens, and electronic boxes. 

“What’s all this?” I ask. 

“The main reason I needed to come here,” he says. “This is the stuff that will help us use the satellite. It’s the monitoring system. If Connor and the others can get the receiver, and if we can get this stuff, then s s “This iSpringhill will be set.”

“You know how to set all that up?” I ask. 

Aaron nods. “Heinrich knows it even better than I do. He’s the one that got all this stuff in the first place. That’s part of the reason I wanted to meet with him.”

“Didn’t any of you write instructions?”

“No. Heinrich didn’t need to, and never really expected to be taken away I’m sure.” He looks at me with furrowed eyebrows. “Don’t worry, I’m very sure I can figure it out.”

“Very sure? You mean not one hundred percent?”

“Very sure,” Aaron repeats. He lets out a deep breath and leans against the cart full of stuff. “I need to make all this mobile enough for us to get it to the vehicle. That might take a little while. First I think we should rest. We’ll work on getting this thing ready tomorrow morning.”

“You want to leave during the day?” I ask.

He nods. “Trying to move all this at night will be too slow. During the day we’d be able to dress as farmers. People are always out and about moving stuff this size. If we keep our heads down, we’d just blend in.”

“Until you want to move it out to the truck,” I say. “What do you think they’ll do when they see us outside of the colony?”

“I never said this would be easy. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

“I love how much you’ve planned this out.”

I can see him getting frustrated. “Sorry, but I expected that Heinrich would be able to give me some support. But he’s gone.”

I guess I didn’t realize how important Heinrich was going to be in getting us out of here. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Aaron shakes his head. “There are some cots down here,” he says quietly, almost as if I’ve somehow hurt his pride. “Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll figure all this out tonight. Don’t worry.”

I don’t say anything as I set out one of the cots. I lay there without covers as Aaron organizes the cart. I try to sleep, but all I can think about is Christopher. Is there even a point in trying to figure out where he is right now? It seems that he never leaves the darkness of wherever he is staying. Closing my eyes, I feign sleep by seeking him out, but I have no luck. I sense him. I even see him a little, but he is sleeping in a dark area. My consciousness cannot move far from him so it’s impossible to see where he might be from the outside. His surroundings give me no indication of where he is, nor have they over the past couple of days. He’s hiding. 

I can tell Aaron is trying to be quiet as he organizes the cart on the other side of the basement. My thoughts move to Connor and the others. They are in a small clearing only a few feet away from their vehicle. All of them are staring out at what must be the military base at Garden’s Peak.

“Not too many people make it out this far without some kind of contact with greyskins,” Connor says. 

“Yeah, like Aaron,” Heather answers. “I knew I should have been the one to go here in the first place.”

“You would have done no better,” Connor comes back. “You’re fast, but that doesn’t matter when there’s that many.” He nods his head in the direction of the base. The entire place looks like a giant community of greyskins. All of them walk in civilian clothes. There are plenty of old, rotted corpses dressed in military camouflage with weapons lying at their sides. These were soldiers who had been infected at the beginning. Sixty or so years would have rotted them to the point of complete immobilization and ultimately a final rest. These other moving greyskins are from all around. It’s almost like this is a greyskin meeting point; a death trap for the living.
 

There are partially destroyed buildings all around, remnants of conflict from many years ago. Fences and gates have long been torn to pieces and do little to keep anything in or out. 

“Why are there so many?” Danny asks. 

Connor takes a deep breath and motions the others to step back with him a little. “Garden’s Peak is a survivalist’s gold mine,” he says as they settle low in the dirt. “Weapons, defense technology, food rations…anything you could want. Aaron and I discovered it a long time ago, but we aren’t the only ones.”

“So that’s just a bunch of people who tried to get in there and take over all the supplies?” Heather asks, pointing at the greyskins. Her voice tone doesn’t hide any skepticism. 

“Not necessarily,” he answers. “That’s part of it, I suppose, but the noise that all the skirmishes cause surely draws a lot of them here.”

“So, we’re just going to run in there just like everyone else that tries and dies?” Heather asks. 

“Looks that way,” Conner says with a smile. “I doubt too many
Starborns
have tried it though. That gives us an advantage.”

“Us, not you,” Danny says. “All you’ve got is your aim. We can take care of us. You sure you want to go in there?”

“Of course I don’t want to go in there, but we have to,” Connor says, looking away.

“I’m beginning to wonder if all this is worth it,” Danny says. “Springhill isn’t even our village. They’re not even our people Do they really need surveillance equipment?”