16

The dream came to me in flashes, like the flickering images of a zoetrope picture wheel. Jerking, frantic movements I knew I’d lived before. A man ran out in front of me on a flaming rooftop, his laboratory cloak streaming behind him as he glanced over his shoulder with terror on his face. Aero ship engines thrummed overhead.

Get him, Blackburn. Bring him to me.

The words snapped like a sharp pain across my mind surging fury through my chest. It drove me after the fleeing man. He moved as if in slow motion. His limping stride slowed him. White hair on his head shifted in the rising heat from the fire, and a flurry of embers swirled in the sky like racing stars. Fallen guards and rubble flitted by as I sprinted across the searing roof, gaining on him with ease.

He fired over his shoulder wildly. I barely registered the lash of energy singeing my cheek. My baton flashed in the firelight as redoubled strength threaded through my veins. Vibrations of the crumbling floors below my feet pushed me to move faster.

The top of the roof collapsed right in front of him in a furrow of seething flames and smoke. Rounding on me, he aimed, but I was faster, the disc already flying from my fingers. Spinning blades struck his outstretched hand, toppling his weapon to the roof in a spray of crimson. He screamed and held the valise in front of his chest like a shield. Panting, soot-covered, and bleeding from his nose, he winced with pain as he spoke. “Please, do not do this,” his voice fell away, eyes going wide as his gaze met my own black one. “You…you’re one of them.”

“The case.” A buffeting wind blew across the roof whipping a flurry of glowing cinders between us. He backed up further, treading closer to the chasm in the tiles. The timber sagged under his weight.

I took a step forward, my gaze on the case.

“W-why would you do this?” His gaze went to the baton in my hand and the mechanica embedded in my skin. “W-what are you?”

“The information,” I demanded with startling calm, despite the growing heat of the roof beneath my boots. It would collapse at any moment.

“You can’t do this. You’ll sentence all of us to—” The roof gave beneath his feet in a torrent of flames and black smoke.

I gasped, reached out, and then the world stopped, ticking by in frozen black and white images. The terror in his eyes, my hand closing over his, the flutter of his lab coat. Fighting to keep from sliding with him into the chasm, I twisted and flailed with my other arm for a hold. The mechanica in my hand fired jolts locking my fingers around a piece of pipe. I screamed for help, my gaze heavenward as an airship circled overhead.

“Please don’t let go,” he gasped, his lip trembling.

Just out of my reach, the valise teetered on the edge of the roof nearly toppling into the flames.

Pain. Incredible, blinding pain, erupted in my mind, and I could focus on only one thing. The information. I had get the information at all costs. His grip slipped to my fingers and he flailed frantically. The edge of the case dipped further into the chasm, the leather at the corners blackening as the heat seared it.

“Please!” he screamed. “Pull me up.”

A series of crashes shook the roof behind me, men with swords and armor landing in a crouch as they leapt from the airship above. They rose, stalking toward me.

Then the noise started—a tempest that filled my head, blocking out everything else. I gritted my teeth, stifling a moan as the world narrowed to nothing but pain and light. My arm jerked. The scientist fell, his screams echoing as the billowing black smoke swallowed him. I lunged, catching the handle of the case, my heart in my throat. No. Gathering myself, forcing the emotion from my face, I fought to breathe. Rising, I faced the approaching knights. The lead one slowed, his hand to the hilt of his sword, gaze wary. I tossed the case to him and he relaxed. “He was the last of them,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Fall back.”

The knight shivered as he nodded to me, rattling in his armor, a moan escaping his ragged blue lips. A Trembler Knight. One of Arecibo’s monsters. One of my men.

The roof shifted, sending my heart racing as it collapsed in a torrent of flying sparks and smoke. As I ran from the widening rift, I caught sight of the deep scratches on my wrist from the scientist’s grip. I had not felt them.

Following the others, I leapt for a lowered rope dangling from the vessel. We banked away, and I stared at the fire and smoke engulfing what was left of the building. Through the numb of my body and the fury of my mind, despite the piercing wave of pain that muffled my thoughts, the darkness of panic squeezed my heart.

What had I done?

I had to fix it. I had to stop it. I struggled to leap back onto the roof. Tangled somehow in the rope, I could not move. Then his face was in front of mine. The tight skin of his malicious grin turned my stomach. Arecibo loomed over me, pinning me to the deck, his cold stare boring into me.

“Stop it. What are you doing?”

The grip on my arms was so tight, I couldn’t break free. He held me to the ground and I howled, desperate to get to the scientist. If there was a chance he had survived… “You did this!” I screamed with fury. Lashing out I struck Arecibo, bloodying his lip.

“Charlie, please.” Arecibo’s voice changed, lowered as it vibrated in my chest. “Wake up!”

The familiarity made me freeze and I blinked, unable to understand, and then the face that struck dread in my heart transformed into Ashton’s before my eyes. My gaze locked onto the smear of crimson at the corner of his mouth, and all the fight and hate flooded out of me in a single breath. “Ash?” I croaked. The train cabin of the Stygian melted into view, and the stench of smoke faded.

“Charlie?” He sat astride my body, pinning me with his hands at my wrists. Wind howled in through the open door of the Stygian whipping through the cabin. His hair flared around his head, papers flew, and the cracked windows shuddered in their frames. “Are you back?” Slowly, cautiously, he released his grip and sat back on his heels, looking down at me.

“Back?” Palms to my cheeks, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to quiet the thrum of pain at my temples.

“It was a night terror, I believe. A waking dream.” Ashton moved, helping me to my feet and closing the door of the train car. He locked it, leaning against it as he wiped at the split in his lip. He regarded me with quiet stillness, his gaze filled with worry. “You tried to jump out.”

“I-I wanted to save him.” Even as I said this, I knew it was not what I had done in the moment.

“A nightmare, Charlie. After what you endured. It is no wonder—” Ashton reached for me, tried to pull me close, but I stepped away, the heaviness in my soul weighing me down.

“Not a nightmare.” Rubbing my wrists, I shook my head and paced the small space near the doorway. Fine ridges on my skin caught my gaze, and I pulled up the sleeve of my blouse. There on my wrist, faint scars trailed down toward my hand. “A memory.”

Ashton took my hand in his, and the tremor that moved through me was not lost on him. He kissed my wrist and soothed the skin with his fingertips. His lips were warm, soft, and I wanted so desperately to sink into him. To let his words melt away the images still clinging to the ragged edges of my mind, but I knew I could not escape the things that I had done.

“They are coming back. That is good.”

A well of dread flooded over me. “No…It is not good at all.”

“What…” Ashton caught the look on my face, and his reassuring expression fell. “What is it?”

“I think I may have done something terrible, Ash,” I said and bit back the tremor of my lower lip.

~*~

Ashton flew the Stygian low over the dark waves, nearly skimming the frenetic waters in his attempt to keep us out of sight of Arecibo’s aero ships. I sat silently next to him at the helm nursing a cup of warm tea and nibbling on a scone. The gentle sway of the large craft soothed my frayed mind, and I watched Ashton’s jaw work as he adjusted the controls. Long, elegant fingers on a brass lever, he shook his head.

“It was likely only a dream, Charlie.”

“It was real,” I assured him as I flexed my stiffening fingers. Another round of shivers warbled along my legs, and the tea in my hand sloshed in the delicate cup. “What I did was real.”

“You cannot know that.”

I held his gaze as I showed him the scars marring my wrist. “You know that I can.”

Letting out a breath, Ashton turned, glaring out of the large windows of the train car. The Stygian, fashioned from an old luxury liner passenger compartment, creaked as it dangled below the giant balloon ballasts holding us aloft. Twin rotors, fore and aft, spun evenly underneath the carriage. Dawn emerged at the horizon as a faint light amid the dark mist covering the sea like a shroud. Hopefully, the cloying vapor that swirled above the waters hid us as well.

“The attack, yes, perhaps it happened, but if you have no recollection of what came afterwards, then you cannot know for sure what was in that case.”

“But I am sure it was a memory of importance—”

“How can you be sure of anything?” Ashton snapped. “Please, just…rest for now.” His jaw worked, and he whipped the curtain of hair from his eyes in an irritated gesture.

Scooting the scone around the dish with my finger, I watched him. “You are angry,” I said quietly.

Ashton’s body stiffened, his expression hardening. “I am.”

“At me?”

“Yes.” He hit a lever with his palm, and the gears beneath the counter of the helm ground in protest. Ashton’s tongue darted out near his injured lip, but he said nothing.

“I am sorry that I hit you.” I reached for Ashton, but he pulled away.

He turned, incredulity on his face. “Do you really think that’s why I’m mad?”

“I guess…not?” I blinked, at a loss.

Lips pressed thin, he drummed his long fingers on the console, his gaze dark. “Do you honestly not know?” Ashton asked, his low voice vibrating between us.

“Apparently, I do not,” I answered. Heat rose in my neck and cheeks at his scolding tone.

“How can you be so reckless?”

“Which time?” I frowned. “Trusting you? Following you amid gunfire? Agreeing to leap off the city into the abyss?” I ticked the moments off on my fingers. “You will have to clarify, Ash.”

“You promised to go about searching for those who are missing with caution. With strategy. And instead, not five minutes after you gave me your word to do so, you agree to a trade with Arecibo for the sole purpose of exacting revenge.”

“Revenge?” I stared at him, shocked. “I was thinking of all those possibly hurting people.” I threw my hands up, feigning surrender. “How dare I.”

He shook his head, his hair falling into his dark eyes. “No, you weren’t. Not in that moment. The best course of action for anyone Arecibo may or may not have is a properly planned and executed extraction. You know that. What you want is to cut a swath through his facility.”

“And what of it?” I leapt to my feet, heart ramming. “He deserves my wrath. He took…” my voice cracked as sobs threatened to heave out. “So much from me.”

“That is not how you get it back!” He took my shoulders in his hands, making me face him. “That is not how you get yourself back. Not by allowing rage to tear away what is left of who you are.”

“I have every right to be furious.” I pulled away from him. “How could I not be?”

“Fury is how Arecibo controls you. All the pain and the confusion feeds into it until all you know is to hunt…to battle.”

A flash of that night on the roof hit me. The pain drowned everything out. Took all choice away until all I wanted was to obey to relieve it. My hands went to my eyes, trying to block out the memory. I’d let him fall. The scientist. I’d let him die.

“That darkness,” Ashton’s voice went eerily calm, his gaze beseeching. “It is what nearly swallowed you whole before we got you away from him. You cannot go back to that. To Arecibo, without figuring out how to break his grip on you. It is too dangerous for you, and…” he swallowed hard before finishing. “And for us.”

“For…” my gaze went to Ashton’s chest. And then, I understood. “Because I have turned on you before.” Stunned, I sat back down, defeat and shame flooding through me. “Oh.”

Ashton leaned against the helm’s counter and rubbed his face with both hands. When he looked back at me it was with a reassuring smile, but the tinge of desperation edged his tired expression.

I realized then, that Ashton would know what it was to be used by the Order. As an orphan, he was raised from a young age to serve them, to do their bidding without question. He had escaped their grip. He would know the way out of this dark confusion that left me untethered to who I once was and who I should be. But to follow Ashton meant to trust him. Something I did not know if I could do after all the secrets and omissions that had nearly driven us apart. I loved him, yes, but I also half expected him to break my heart again. As for Ashton’s risk in trusting me…well, he had the scars to prove it was perilous.

“This place you helped Hunley find,” I said, eyeing the churning waters through the front windows. A geyser of lava spurted in the distance, going black as it hissed back into the sea. I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. “Under the waves? How is that possible?”

“When Arecibo first took you, I used the All-Key to try to find you. It was the only thing able to get me into the secure records of The Order, but I had no luck. Knowing how tangled The Order is with The Peaceful Union I began to seek out and search their secret files…what was left of them, anyway, in the aftermath of the Reaper invasion. I came across information about a defunct research and mining facility in the North. Most of the details were lost. The file was one of hundreds burned in a fire, but what I could make out detailed a facility abandoned after the subterranean levels kept flooding.”

“Under the water,” I said, understanding. Rubbing my temples, I hissed at the faint tone from my dream still echoing in the back of my head “He used some sort of sound. It was painful…overwhelming.”

Ashton nodded. “Yes. He implemented that just a few days before White Cliff. I am not sure how Arecibo does it. Hunley thinks it has to do with the noise. She believes it is a tone emitted at a certain frequency. However, I got her out of his grasp before she could find out more.”

My hand went to the glass and metal on my skin. “And she is who we hope to find?” An insidious thread of hope wound its way into my heart. I did not think I could survive it if it snapped. “Is she a doctor?”

“An engineer, actually,” Ashton said. “But she has dedicated herself to studying The Trembling Sickness. That is why she needed a facility after I freed her. It is my hope she can help, yes.”

“Do you think she will know what is wrong with me?”

“I-I do not know.” Ashton’s Adams apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, his voice uncertain. “But she is our best chance without exposing you or giving away your location.” He adjusted the dials and gripped the helm’s wheel, taking us down further. He turned, trying for a reassuring smile, but it did not reach his eyes. His gaze was worried. “For now, until we ascertain the reason for your weakness, you must conserve yourself. The Solenium disperses when needed for flight or battle, but from what I understood, recirculates. It is not supposed to…deplete. If we are cautious, you should be fine until we discover the problem.”

“Where had you planned on taking me before?”

Ashton nodded to the map on the wall of the cabin. “I meant for us to journey to a safe house in the Texiana Dome, but now…”

He had not anticipated traveling with someone who was falling apart, quite literally, it seemed. Although I knew from experience, Ashton thrived in the twists and turns of a mission. A true knight of The Order, mystery and danger throbbed in every fiber of his being. I endeavored to put my trust in his training. His instincts. Even if I was not sure if I could trust him with my heart again.

As the dream or memory of that rooftop faded, I struggled with the desire to know what I had been doing for Arecibo and the fear that I was not ready to face it. So low were my spirits that definitive proof of my dark deeds might prove too much for me to bear. Especially, I reasoned as I rubbed my shaking legs, in this weakened state. Deep down I knew I was giving myself an excuse I did not deserve, but for now…for now I would not think about it.

“So tell me what has happened to our Peaceful Union. Do the governors still rule the city-states? Are there still city-states left?” I tapped the map, wondering how much of the geography I had memorized as a child no longer meant anything. “The Texas-Lousiana dome withstood the Reaper invasion?”

So much occurred in my country after I was taken that I did not know about. I had heard some domes fell while others remained. Some were overtaken by the invading Reaper clan and others were infested with the Tremblers attracted to the fires the massive battle had caused. My country, The Peaceful Union, seemed to be falling apart at the seams once again. Chaos and death, much like we’d suffered after the quakes of The Great Calamity, only this time from our own hands.

“No, Texiana fought off the invasion,” Ashton said. “Its well-armed citizens did not take kindly to the attack. It is one of the few domes that still operates as before. Unfortunately, the governor has declared it a sovereign state. They no longer want to be part of the Union.”

“Hence, the safe house there.” I nodded, understanding. With the Peaceful Union government fighting with Europe’s Coalition of Khent over keeping refugees in the city-states, no wonder they closed ranks. Outer City was considered a wild frontier territory separate from the governor-ruled city-states under the domes, which likely mattered little to Europe. All they knew for sure was that people from North America afflicted with the Trembling Sickness were arriving on their shores.

The sudden drop of the airship sent my stomach tumbling. Something was off with the way we flew.

“Should we try to get a signal to this Hunley?” I glanced at the aethergraph mounted on the wall. “Can she receive messages where she is? What do you mean by under the waves? Is she in some sort of cave?”

“Actually, it would be better if she does not know we are coming.” Ashton’s gaze slid from mine, and he busied himself with the controls.

“Why, Ash?” I asked as I stood to face him. “What are you not telling me?”

“She may have pledged murderous intent if she ever set eyes on you again.”

“What?” A trill of alarm shot through me, and I stood, tugging on his sleeve to make him face me. “What did I do?”

“You broke her leg.” Ashton said, wincing.

“Oh, well, that’s not too—”

“And then threw her from an airship.”

“Onto a soft patch of grass?” I asked hopefully.

“Well, she hit the ground.”

Hands to the sides of my face, I stared at him horrified. “Why…why would I do that?”

“The Dark Wrath,” Ashton said quietly. “That’s what they called you. Arecibo’s hand of destruction to anyone who got in his way.”

“That’s what they call me?” My whole chest ached with the thought of what I had been. What I was capable of. Did I even deserve a second chance? I swallowed against the tightness of my aching throat, trying to hide the sorrow in my voice. “And now, this woman whom I’ve hurt and wronged. You think she will help me?”

“I am not sure what she will do.” Ashton intoned, his brows furrowed. “But we have no other choice.”