Dani used less caution than before when moving through the city. She bolted across sunlit streets to move deeper into C Block. She stumbled for no obvious reason and crashed to the asphalt. While sprawled on her belly, the ground trembled, making bits of dirt and broken asphalt dance between her fingers. The Wardens were announcing their presence with earthquake grenades. She scrambled back to her feet, wobbling, the earth still shifting beneath her boots.
The building where she’d looked out the windows and left the starving man crumbled into a plume of dust. Her body trembled—not from the weapon’s earthquake but from fear. She flinched when images of structures collapsing, including the children’s hospital in Boston, flashed through her mind. Jace said she lost her memories when she reset back to ten years old, but apparently she’d retained pieces of her past, even if they were as small as the pebbles vibrating around her boots.
The tremor subsided and the shooting started. Dani couldn’t see the Wardens yet, but she heard the unmistakable whine as their quake rifles powered up for a second before blasting their targets. An earthquake rifle’s violent blast would stop a human’s or Echo’s heart even if he or she was shot in a limb. The Echoes would heal, and the Wardens took them. Several shots from a quake rifle could crumble a wooden house, and Warden quake grenades took down entire buildings made of concrete and steel.
Dani forced her feet in the direction of the raid. She had a better chance of escaping MPs than she did the Wardens. Brigands continued to scatter as she moved toward the raid’s chaos. They shouted at her to turn around, but she ignored their warnings. A few laughed at her when she told them of the Wardens’ arrival. A Warden attack on the remnants of Portland sounded absurd, even as her own words reached her ears, but she’d seen their helos landing by the river with her own eyes.
She skidded to a stop upon reaching an abandoned house—small in comparison to the others she’d passed, and farther away from the bulk of the other structures in the city. She hoped the Wardens wouldn’t bother with such a small building.
She moved along the side of the building to the rear. The back door was open, and she paused to listen for any movement inside. She moved up the steps into the three-story home, creeping and praying the boards wouldn’t groan or break beneath her boots.
She wanted to reach the top floor, get the best view of the area. She crept through the house to the second level and stopped when she caught a slight movement in the hall in front of her. She pulled her knife from her belt, her heart racing.
A man with a knife sprang from behind a closet door in the hallway, and Dani backed up, playing it safe but ready to engage the Brigand.
A woman’s voice halted the man’s attack. “Stop! She’s a Brigand.”
Dani peeked beyond the man’s form. The woman who had called her out of the sun earlier was crouched on the floor behind the closet door. Dani took a deep breath to ease the side effects of the adrenaline coursing through her body. She sheathed her knife and waited for the man to lower his. “Found your brothers?”
“The MPs caught my other one,” the woman said.
“I’m sorry.” Dani hoped Miles wasn’t the one who had broken up this woman’s family. “Wardens landed north of the river and are moving through C Block.”
“Wardens?” the man asked. “You led them here?”
“They didn’t see me, or I’d already be caught.”
“Caught?” the woman said. “Wardens only capture Echoes. Are you one of them?”
Dani tightened her jaw, annoyed by the slip. “Dead. Captured. Does it matter? I’m going up to have a look at the area. Find a better place to hide than a closet.” She walked away without waiting for a response.
She arrived at the top floor and found a window overlooking the front of the house. Though she recognized the street by the other rows of rotting homes, her mind refused to focus. She’d practically confessed that she was an Echo. At least she hadn’t told them she shared her bed with an MP who was part of the raid that had taken their brother.
She passed her hand through her hair and pinched her eyes closed. “Pull it together, girl,” she said with a whisper. She took another deep breath and opened her eyes in time to see a Warden, plasma pistol drawn, approaching the front door. Shit.
She didn’t have many options for hiding inside the house, and she’d make too much noise trying to find loose floorboards to crawl beneath. The stairs down to reach the back door would take her through the front of the house. Dani moved through the rooms and found the window she needed. She eased the window up, wincing when it creaked with the movement. A tree next to the house waited for her. She slid one leg through the window and almost had her second leg through when the Warden fired his plasma pistol inside the house. Brigand men shouted as they charged the enemy, but their attack ended the instant the Warden fired more rounds.
Glass shattered as a Brigand dove out a window on the first floor and tumbled to the ground. Before the young woman could stand, the Warden shot her from inside the house. Dani flinched at the sight and almost lost her grip; she scrambled to cling to the window frame. If she fell, assuming she survived the fall, the Warden would shoot her.
She needed a better plan. Her mind shuffled through scenarios, and her thoughts stopped when the woman from the closet screamed. Dani heard her voice float up from the lower floor.
“We’re Echoes,” she said. “I swear.”
“Let’s see if you’re telling the truth,” the Warden said. His weapon fired, and the woman cried out.
Dani assumed the Warden had shot the brother, since the woman continued to sob. She glanced back at the tree, still waiting for her attempted leap. With a curse, she pulled her body back into the house. She soundlessly moved through the third level of the house and tiptoed down the stairs. She planned to continue down and slip out while the Warden was busy with the other woman.
Sneaking past the Warden wasn’t going to be possible. He stood between Dani and her exit, but at least his back was turned toward her. A bluish light glowed from the body of the man on the floor in the hall. His sister knelt beside him. Dani picked up a length of wood from the broken stair railing, considering her options.
“He’s an Echo, and a young regen at that. He’ll make a fine reconditioning candidate. What about you?” The Warden aimed his weapon at the woman.
She glanced past him to Dani, who was now approaching him from behind, and the Warden turned.
Dani swung the piece of half-rotted wood, splintering it across the side of the Warden’s head. He stumbled back, and she smashed what was left of the rail across his wrist, dislodging the plasma pistol. She hit him in the head again on the upswing. The Warden crumpled to the floor.
Dani groaned and cradled her burned, throbbing hand as she released the piece of wood.
“Thank you! Thank you,” the woman said, sobbing with relief. She remained kneeling by her unconscious brother, now a boy no older than fifteen in oversized clothing.
Dani tried to ignore the pain in her hand. She reached for the Warden’s plasma pistol and left her hand suspended an inch above it. Jace’s words about her dying with a pistol in her hand made her stop. She pushed the weapon along the floor to the woman. “Take that,” she said, already pawing through the Warden’s gear. She noticed the name on his uniform.
Blood matted his dark hair from her first strike and swelling formed on his cheek from her second swing. Dani stole his knife, food, and water before taking the communication device from his jacket. She considered killing him. She and every other Brigand would be safer with one less Warden. But she wasn’t a murderer.
The woman picked up the weapon and stared at it. “I don’t know how to use this thing.”
“It’s not for you to shoot. Use it to trade with an MP in exchange for safe passage through their lines. Here.” Dani shoved the food and water into the woman’s pockets.
The boy’s body shivered, a common result after an Echo reset to a younger age. Dani removed her jacket and wrapped him in it. She pulled his upper body upright, and his eyes fluttered open.
“Take him and go. Your other brother is likely still alive if he’s with the MPs. It’s the best you’re going to get out of this shitty day.”
Dani shifted to leave, and the woman grabbed her arm. “What’s your name?”
“Dani.”
“Thank you, Dani. I’m Rebecca. We won’t forget this.”
If I die, I will, Dani thought, but all she said was, “Good luck.” She stood and, raising her voice, said, “Any other Brigands in this house, leave now while the Warden is out. When he wakes up, he’s gonna be pissed.”
She was amazed by the volume of scuffling sounds. Three Brigands scurried down the stairs from the third level and two more crawled from beneath floorboards on the second level to leave the house. The woman lifted her young brother to his feet, and Dani led the way out. Once outside, they parted ways. The woman’s chances of getting her barely walking brother out of C Block safely were slim, but with that plasma gun, they at least had a chance.
Before leaving the house, Dani threw the Warden’s comm into the tree she’d almost jumped into just a few minutes earlier. It bounced among the branches a few times before becoming lodged in a thick batch of leaves high in the tree. As she was fastening the Warden’s knife to her belt, a quake grenade exploded, leveling half of the larger, abandoned houses up the street. Dani sprinted away from the destruction and toward the raid.