The Last City Read online

  However, as I did the light that had penetrated my eyelids faded along with the warm breeze. Too easily, he picked me up and threw me against a wall. Hard stone scraped against my face, my chest, and my stomach, as my arms were stretched above my head, tightly bound in cold steel.

  I chanced opening my eyes to see the room around me. It was still somewhat mine. My white ceiling, still overhead. But the walls as they traveled downward, turned to the coarse, dark, blue-gray stone that rasped my skin.

  He, however, was no longer touching me, for which I was grateful. But his breath chafed my ear, and he groaned before releasing his next words.

  “I told you not to think of him. I told you I would never lie to you.” His voice was rough, thick with satisfaction, and a moment later a crack sounded through the air. “Ahhh, feels like home.”

  Jordan, I called, unsure if he could hear, but I had to try anyway. But his name barely had time to run through my mind, before the crack sounded again. This time though, it was swiftly followed by pain, searing across my back.

  Jordan, I tried one more time. But the crack came again and again, always followed by the burn that lashed across me. I squeezed my eyes shut, but I couldn’t contain my cries that echoed around the room.

  And without warning, it stopped. The vice grips released my arms and as I fell, the ward caught me, and gently lowered me to the floor. But the scene had changed again, and through blurry eyes, I saw we were lying in a green meadow beside a slow-moving stream, and I realized it was home. Earth. My meadow, my stream. Even the ceiling of my bedroom was gone, and in its place, was a sunny, cloudless sky. We had to be outside. But it didn’t make sense, I was sure it was still the middle of the night. However, the sun was warm, the wind was soft, and the stream beside us burbled along.

  The relief at seeing the change of scenery, and feeling my limbs freed from their binds, was fleeting as the grass beneath me cut like shards of glass, into the wounds that now lined my back. He could have healed me, or his Guardian could have, but his face almost glowed with pleasure at seeing my pain.

  As he lay beside me he had mostly released me. His one hand only loosely held both of mine, but I couldn’t have moved anyway. And I was sure he knew that. His other hand was gentle upon my skin once more.

  “He will only bring you pain, heartache, and death,” he whispered. His voice making what had to be, its first ever attempt to be forbearing. “Come with me, willingly, and you’ll be spared all that is to come.”

  I looked up, only to see him smiling down at me. Not mean, not menacing, just happy. Happy to be next to me. Happy to be looking at me. I’d apparently appeased the danger within him.

  The challenge you present, gaining your co-operation, will be worth spending an eternity at the Guardian’s disposal.

  Jordan, I moaned inside my head again, but immediately, I feared what would follow. And I wasn’t sure what was worse, the sight of the ward’s smile, or his snarl that briefly appeared. I hoped Jordan could hear me. But even if he couldn’t, just sounding his name inside my head was comfort enough.

  As I let his name echo throughout my mind, somewhere off in the distance a rumble erupted in response to my thoughts, like thunder warning of an approaching storm. But as it grew it shook the ground, creating a gentle ripple through the grass beneath me, and I couldn’t help the cry that left me as each blade of grass felt like those shards of glass, digging further into my wounds. The ripples of sound however, blew away the grassy field beneath me and the sky above, along with every trace of color, leaving only the reality of my room.

  The thunder turned into a roar as it reached for me through the barriers the ward and the Guardian had constructed around us. And I heard him then, Jordan, calling my name.

  19

  The Ward in the Wall

  The ward’s free hand gently clasped my face, bringing me back to him.

  “No,” he growled. “You’re needed in the Spire.”

  “I’ll never go anywhere with you,” I told him in the strongest voice I could muster.

  “You will go, willingly or not. It would be less painful though, if you chose it.” And he held up an all too familiar object for me to see.

  I couldn’t react to his words. All I could do was stare at the weapon now aimed at me. My heart couldn’t decide if it should stop beating, or pound double-time. For fitting neatly in his hand, was a dark, oblong shape, with one end sharpened to a point.

  I tried to struggle, tried to fight him, to push him away, but every part of me hurt to move, even just a little. However, the pain that throbbed through my hands, my arms, my back, my legs and feet was bearable, compared to what I knew would soon overtake me.

  “This, is the more painful option,” he continued, as though he hadn’t even noticed my struggle. “It sends a signal through every cell in your body, halting all functions and preparing each cell for coding. The signal then analyzes each cell’s make-up and the DNA within. The Guardian is then able to scan every part of you, tag and remove every defective fragment of DNA as it sends you straight into the Spire, without the need for the insertion process.”

  He released his grip upon my wrists, but before I could move he wrapped one strong arm around my body, holding me tight against him. The pain from his touch ripped across my back, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his other hand, as it rose, ready to strike.

  “Last chance,” he said. The tip of the dark object began to glow a searing white light, but I couldn’t look away.

  “Do your worst,” I told him.

  But before the arrival of the pain, Jordan’s presence moved through me. He was near, though I couldn’t yet see him.

  No, the ward said again, this time inside my head. How? And then it was gone, the pain of his arm around my back, the pressure, his grip holding me down. Gone. He was gone. Replaced by a face I knew well.

  Jordan’s roar reached my ears this time, he was not just in my head. The sound echoed throughout the room, bouncing off the walls, and around the ceiling. And despite his anger, the sound of him, the force of his rage, renewed my strength.

  I knew I was safe.

  “Stay away from her,” his words were an unending explosion.

  “Jordan,” I moaned, relieved to see him. I rose onto my elbows, needing to relieve the pressure on my back, and watched him pummel the ward into one of the walls. He then staked him to it, stopping the Guardian from pulling him back to the safety of its Spire.

  A blanket draped over me, and wrapped around me. Strong arms picked me up and held me close. I looked up to see Grid, white faced, trying to comfort me.

  “I’m ok,” I whispered to him, barely more than a croak. He pulled me closer, and I sucked in my breath as my back arched away from his touch.

  “No, you’re not,” he whispered.

  The ward hung limp from the wall, held up only by one stake. Jordan forced the rest of the ward’s body upward, and held him against the wall with one booted foot upon his stomach. He then placed his hands upon the wall, on either side of the ward’s limp body. The rock wall melted behind him, then reformed around the wards wrists and chest, holding him to it. When Jordan removed his foot, the ward’s head slumped forward, and all I could think was, I wish I’d done that to him.

  Turning his attention back to me, Jordan’s face fell as he slowly stepped toward us. And through my blurred vision, I could see the moisture on his cheeks, all pain and anger, falling for me.

  “Lydia,” Jordan whispered. His hands hovered close, but before he touched me, his eyes studied my face and my hands, the only parts not concealed by the blanket.

  Grid rose, handed me to Jordan, and then stepped away.

  “My back,” I groaned from the pain of being held once more. “Lay me down.”

  He did as I asked, and immediately I rolled onto my stomach. Upon doing so, Jordan and Grid swore simultaneously. I turned my head toward them, to reassure them that I was fine, or would be, but this onl
y prompted looks of incredulity from them both.

  Jordan sat by my side, gently stroking one hand across my temple.

  “I’m sorry,” he moaned. “We got here as fast as we could. All I heard was you calling for me, and then I could no longer hear you. I couldn’t sense you. I thought…”

  But he couldn’t finish his sentence, and I couldn’t speak to console him. Instead, I stretched one shaky, broken hand toward him. But I was unable to close my fingers around his shirt, so instead I dug them into the fabric, and let the emotion run free.

  He’d saved me.

  Grid held out a tube of fluid to Jordan, “Give her this, it’ll help.”

  I rose my head, as Jordan held the tube to my lips with shaking hands, and I swallowed what I could. His knuckles were bloody and already swelling.

  “Haize is on her way,” he tried to reassure me.

  Jordan picked up my forearm, and gently clasped it between his hands. I was sure he wanted to hold my hand, was sure he wished he could heal me, but waiting for Haize was all we could do.

  “Get Mason here,” Jordan urged Grid. I could hear him trying to steady his voice, control his anger, no doubt trying to be strong for me. “And put a shirt on that.” His hand left me for only a moment to indicate the ward in the wall.

  “I’m here,” came Mason’s voice as he stepped into the room. And he stopped to take in its appearance. As he did, I heard him swear a string of cuss words that under normal circumstances would have made me smile at his attempt, but right now it just seemed fitting as I tried to take in, what he saw. Blood smeared across both pillows, splattered in waves across the bed, as well as the floor, and the wall around the ward.

  Not long after this, Haize approached me. The fluid Grid provided had helped. It calmed my nerves and minimized the pain. My back was no longer burning.

  But in my head, I wanted to scream, and I was sure she could sense this. She handed Jordan some more fluid to give me, and as he did she touched one finger to his temple.

  He jerked backward, almost spilling the vial’s contents. “Haize, no, what did you do?”

  “Something to calm you. She doesn’t need any more violence around her right now.”

  Once more, he helped me drink, though his hands were no longer shaking. And the fluid slipped down my throat. Normally, the thick, foul-tasting substance would be hard to swallow, but this time I barely tasted it. Then gently prying me from Jordan’s fingers, Haize urged him to leave my side. She pressed her hand to the panel on the wall beside the bed, lowering a small square of ceiling. It encased me in its light. And at once, Haize began to heal me.

  “I don’t want her to remember this,” Jordan told her, and she nodded in agreement.

  But I forced myself to speak through the restraint of the light as it held me in place while it worked.

  “No,” I objected. “I want to remember. All of it.” I needed to remember. I refused to be helpless anymore. I refused to not confront the things that try to destroy me, no matter how much they hurt. But more importantly, I needed to remember all that the ward had said.

  Haize commanded clothing from her panel for me, and once I was healed, I was also fully clothed. The moment the light released me, I sat up slowly, testing first to be sure I could move. Upon looking about however, I found all traces of the fight were gone. My bed, the floor, even the wall around the ward were all clean, as though nothing had happened.

  Jordan pulled me to him, smothering me in his arms, and enclosing me in his warmth.

  “We’ll get through this,” he whispered.

  And I was sure I would, eventually. My body may have been healed, but I was already aware of the storm that was going to blow through my mind, when I gave it a chance to breathe.

  He calmed himself enough to look around at those in the room, and his gaze landed upon Mason. He then released me to jump from the bed, and in an instant, he’d wrapped his arm around Mason’s neck, and forced him face first into the wall. But I could tell from his leaden movements, that Haize’s touch to his temple had slowed him down. Mason didn’t struggle. And I was sure he was only letting Jordan hold him there.

  “Why is he out of the Spire?” Jordan snapped at Mason. “Why weren’t we warned?”

  “The Guardian has complete knowledge of the Heart and all they can do,” Mason answered around Jordan’s chokehold.

  “Hera,” Haize said, shaking her head. “She did this.”

  “It’s been trying to figure them out,” Mason said, with a throw of his head in her direction. “And in doing so it realized its opportunity to study these two.” Mason indicated first toward me and then the ward. “I tried to stop it, to stay ahead of it. I didn’t even see him gone until it was too late. I came as soon I knew.”

  “He’s not going back into the Spire,” Jordan said, releasing his friend.

  “Let me have him,” Lena’s voice came from the doorway. As much as she was trying to suppress her emotions, her quiet, white-faced fury stilled the room.

  Haize stepped closer to me, watching me, as though studying me and my reactions.

  Mason strode to the ward, but stopped short. The ward was healed again, already. Only the blood, his and mine, remained upon his skin.

  “Wake up,” Mason growled, and then back-handed the ward, slamming his head into the stone wall.

  The ward groaned and rolled his head, then opened his newly healed eyes, and smiled through the fresh blood that now covered his mouth. I couldn’t believe that he’d dare to do so. But his smile wasn’t for me. It was for Jordan.

  “You can’t keep her,” the ward warned him. “We need her in the Spire.” He then glared at me, as though I’d betrayed him.

  I didn’t flinch under his gaze, but only because Haize had whispered in my mind not to. She was telling me to be strong, to not let him see that he could affect me. And so, I glared right back at him.

  Jordan grabbed his face and forced his head backward, into the brick. “Don’t look at her.” He then moved his body to stand directly between us. The ward couldn’t even look around him.

  I was grateful; I doubted I could have kept up the pretense.

  Lena took several steps closer to the ward, as did Grid. I climbed off the bed and took a step toward joining them, but I stopped. I wasn’t ready to look at him again. I didn’t even want to be in the same room as him. In fact, I no longer wanted to be in that room ever again.

  My body may have been healed. But there was still my mind to deal with, and I glanced toward the door. That hollow in the wall screamed salvation. But as I stared at it, preparing to race toward it, I knew I wouldn’t move without Jordan. The storm within me was already brewing. But craziness and pain I was used to, we were old friends. And I was sure I could deal with this too.

  “When we are done with him,” Jordan growled, and repeated his demand. “He’s not to go back to the Spire. I want him buried and staked in the fields. Permanently.”

  “Separate fields,” I whispered, and sent an image to Jordan’s mind - knowing full well, they would all see it - of him tearing the ward from limb to limb, then staking each little piece of him in separate graves around the city. All of them turned at once, mouths agape, as though shocked that such a violent thought could come from me. Back on Earth, people could be committed for such thoughts, but here, where violence and pain seemed to rule, it seemed to be a necessary evil.

  “You wouldn’t,” the ward began, trying to look around Jordan. Shock and betrayal filled his voice, as though what he felt for me, or wanted for us, was mutual.

  Jordan grabbed his jaw once more, swinging the wards face back to him, and cutting off his view.

  “Watch me,” Jordan promised him with a sneer.

  “Take him to the Arena first,” Lena said. “He likes to play with girls, and his Guardian likes to heal him. I want to show him how we play.”

  “Like you could touch me,” the ward snarled at her.

 
Lena’s stare cut straight through him, she didn’t see him at all. I knew that look, I’d worn it myself. She was staring into the past. She’d only briefly mentioned a time in her youth when her planet had been overrun, and I wondered if that was the memory that had surfaced within her. Her upper lip briefly curled in disgust before being replaced by her normal deviant grin as she turned to Mason.

  “I hear you’ve taken on Lydia’s colorful vocabulary,” she smirked.

  “It was rather well put together,” Grid added.

  “You’re one to talk,” Mason teased Grid, for Grid never swore, not once, not even a little.

  “Just this one time,” Grid responded, his smile fading. “It was warranted.”

  I gaped at them in astonishment, and sensed the word, “Huh?” escape my mouth before I could stop it.

  Lena snorted in response. “You’ve been swearing up a storm, pretty much since you got here,” she said to me.

  “I don’t swear.”

  “Sure you do, it just doesn’t come out of your mouth,” Lena said. I couldn’t understand why she would tease me at such a time.

  They simultaneously turned away from the ward, who was still being held by the wall, the bulk of them blocking me from the ward’s line of sight. And when Jordan reached me, he wrapped his arms around me, and tugged me toward the door. Although, considering how tightly clenched his fists remained, I was sure the move was his way of stopping himself from going after the ward again.

  “Hey,” the ward called to us. “You can’t just leave me here.”

  “Have some patience,” Lena turned back to him. “I’ll get to you.”

  And as we walked away, a small part of me wished I’d been strong enough to join her in whatever she had planned.

  20

  Spare Rooms

  I was sure Jordan already knew my answer, but he asked anyway, if I would join them in the stadium. I was grateful to feel included in their scheme, even if I couldn’t participate. I didn’t want to see what they would do. I only wanted to know that he was done with.