34

 

Frost Moon himself grabs me while Les and another guard take Keegan. Keegan doesn’t protest, but his lips turn white as they twist his wounded arm behind his back.

“Did you think I had forgotten about you?” Frost Moon sneers. “I may have been temporarily distracted, but I never forget. If your mother were alive, I’m sure she could vouch for that fact. She learned her lesson the hard way.”

I twist and jerk, but there’s no breaking his death hold on my arm. “It’s too late. We have too many, and there’s no way you can kill off all of us.” I toss a scowl at Les. “Traitor.”

He grins a wicked grin. “Surprised to see me?”

“Why would I be surprised?” I bite out. I should have suspected it all along, the rat. I’m sure Guard Rok doesn’t know.

Frost Moon shoots Les a look then turns back to me. “You don’t think we can kill all of you? I thought you had seen our flying fighters. You don’t think they could take out your little party?”

My gaze moves to Keegan. It’s something I have worried over, but Keegan gives me a small head shake.

He’s not worried, I’m not worried.

It’s then I realize what he said a moment ago. Mom learned her lesson the hard way. What did she do that he didn’t forget?

“You let my mother die.” I shoot the words with all the venom I can muster.

I get the reaction I hoped for—the prideful, full of himself Great Supreme. The one who is always willing to open up.

He grins wickedly, true joy lighting up his face. “I did, didn’t I? Yes, well, she was going back on her end of our bargain. She was to be allowed to step down from her position as my top consultant in deference to you, her protégé. Except she turned you against me. Instead of focusing your training on bettering the nation, she focused your attentions toward actually helping the Lessers. It made things quite difficult on me, but I still got the information I needed from you. Now you can die knowing you helped the Greaters soar to new heights.”

“I can die knowing I caused you much grief.” I kick him as hard as I can manage. He bowls over, gasping and pointing, and his guards glance at each other.

“Are you going to let him continue his hierarchy?” Keegan baits the guards. “You heard what he said. He doesn’t care about any of us.”

Frost Moon regains his composure enough to bark out, “Grab the girl, you fools!”

The moment one guard lets go of Keegan, Keegan swings around and knocks Les off his feet. I dart for the skyscraper, but the one uninjured guard catches me by the hair and I fly backwards. Pain shoots through my brain and down my scalp.

Frost Moon stomps toward me, his nostrils flared and hatred in his eyes. He pulls a gun from his belt. “It is time to end this.”

His sentence fades away as a deafening roar erupts in the sky.

I’ve heard the sound before, and so has Keegan. Everyone freezes as the huge, flying fighter makes its way toward Middle City 1.

“The mother country has found us!” Frost Moon gasps. “Radio control!”

The guards yell into the comps on their wrists as Frost Moon gapes at the enormous flyer.

Keegan and I need no further opportunity to get away. We’ve seen what the flyers can do up close, and I fight panic as I run to stay out of the line of fire.

The flyer moves closer, its metal siding painted with some sort of emblem. The wind force coming from the bottom blows air in every direction. It hovers closer to our broken down hideout, and I push harder.

“What are they doing?” I have to shout over the noise of the huge machine.

“They think this is part of the city. How would they know differently?”

Keegan runs after me, but I can tell he’s lagging behind. His wound isn’t fully healed, and the pain must be wearing him down.

I grab his hand and hold on tight just as we reach the outskirts of the ruins.

“What are we going to do?” I shout.

“Guard Rok has a plan for this. We just didn’t know we would be using it on the mother country.” His words come in short bursts.

A plan? How do you defend against an enormous flying death machine?

We round the corner and I gasp. The old cannons! Dozens of men in our camp pull the three cannons out and aim them at the sky. “What are they going to shoot?”

“They’ve been making ammunition for days. Where have you been?” He gives me a lopsided grin.

My mind has been preoccupied with the raging emotions over fighting the mother country, not to mention the battle in my heart between Keegan and Fischer. Stupid emotions, the fight has come right to my front door.

We slow and watch as the men load round, metal balls into the ends of the barrels. “They designed the ammunition to explode on contact,” Keegan says. He points at the flyer. “With three of them? I think it’s going to go down.”

“But it’s over top of the city! Keegan, it will kill everyone.”

He frowns and glances around. “I hope they’ve thought of that.”

There isn’t time to find out. Any moment now the flyer could fire on our camp, just like Frost Moon’s flyer fired on Keegan and me. “We have to warn the people.”

Keegan shakes his head. “There’s no way they haven’t heard that thing. Look.” He nods toward the back of the skyscraper where a steady line of people runs from the back stairwell. At least they finally listened to me and used those stairs. The only problem is they’re running straight for Frost Moon.

“Should we go with them?”

Keegan watches them with concern all over his face. Finally, he shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“I can’t just sit here.” I leave him behind as I make my way to the back of the skyscraper. I spend the next several minutes pulling people from the building and helping them rush along a little faster. After a few minutes I spot Keegan limping toward the growing crowd in the fields behind the skyscraper. I glance back toward the front of the skyscraper, where the flyer hovers, but it’s not directly over the city anymore. It’s almost as if it’s backing up. Like the pilots saw the cannons, and are unsure about an attack.

A commotion comes from Middle City 1, and everyone turns to look. Gates open, and guards and trucks pour out. They don’t wait to fire, and everyone in our camp screams and runs for cover.

The flyer responds in kind, opening fire on the guards and anyone in their path.

Gunfire echoes through the air as bullets ricochet from buildings, fences, and trees.

The war has officially found us.

I spot Guard Nev and Guard Rok moving through the crowd toward the front of the skyscraper. The look on their faces is determination.

They are making a beeline for the cannons.

“Run!” I shout, trying to be heard over the gunfire. Everyone in my area hears me and rushes deeper into the field. The masses panic, and the people in the field stampede like a herd of elephants. Frost Moon and his two guards are nowhere to be seen. For all I know they have been lost in the crowd, or maybe they crawled back into the manhole Keegan and I came from.

I’ve just found Keegan and latched onto him when an enormous boom rocks the ground. Another follows it, and then a third.

“The cannons!” Keegan shouts.

The flyer erupts in flames and wobbles in midair. It begins to turn, but it doesn’t go far before it crashes to the ground. The explosion knocks us all off our feet.

At first, I can’t see anything. Smoke and debris linger in the air.

I can’t hear anything. People’s faces are full of anguish and fear, and I can tell they’re crying and screaming. It’s only after a few moments their sounds of sorrow filter inside my ears. The entire field weeps.

I stumble to my feet and begin pushing through the people. Keegan isn’t at my side, so we must have been blown apart. He’s here somewhere. I find him sitting near two children, speaking to them even though I can’t tell what he says. The children are alone, but they’re comfortable around Keegan. He’s helping them.

His safety is good enough for me. No matter how angry his relationship with Lilith makes me, how it hurts me, I am glad he is safe.

The flyer didn’t crash directly over the skyscraper or the surrounding area. Guard Nev and the others working the cannons should be safe, but seeing for myself is the only thing that will satisfy me.

Wading through the sea of people, I make my way back to the skyscraper. I pause and gag when I turn the corner to make it onto the street. The guards who were shot down by the flyer lie dead in the streets, most mutilated beyond any human condition I have ever seen.

Tears choke me, and I stumble toward the front of the building and the cannons. A few men and women limp around, some bloody, others not bloody but clearly hurt. Two buildings have collapsed, whether from the crash of the flyer or the boom of the cannon, I can’t tell. One thing I do know is there were people in every single building.

How many are lost?

I spot Guard Nev right away. He’s helping to pull rubble off someone in the street. The color red stands out in the massive gray debris lining everything else.

Red. The color of blood.

Something moves from under a pile of rubble. It pulls me closer slowly, like a mosquito to light. And then I run.

“Isabel!”

“She was helping get people out,” Guard Rok says. He follows me to the heap.

I fall to the ground beside Isabel, doing my best to pull the huge chunks of concrete from her body. “Isabel!”

Guard Nev puts his hand on my shoulder. “Hana.”

“We have to get her out!” Tears run down both cheeks, and I can barely see straight. “We have to help her.”

“Hana, it’s too late. We have to move!”

I don’t listen to him. I have to help her. Get her out. Make sure she’s not—

Someone screams a blood-chilling scream, then there is another explosion. Pain erupts in every bone in my body, and soon I know nothing.