The Last City Read online

  I looked back at Mya, and reached for her, understanding the pain and torment she must have felt through me. But she only held up her hands and whispered she was fine. But I knew she wasn’t. I wasn’t.

  Try as I may, I couldn’t bring myself to reconcile what my ears had heard with what I felt. It was wrong. It wasn’t Jordan in that room. Not his words. It couldn’t have been.

  “It was him,” came Dax’s pained voice. Haize was finishing up healing his wounds, as he spoke. “He saved me, but only so they could torture me, interrogate me. He should have let them kill me.”

  “Dax,” Lena hissed, but not out of concern, instead she was disappointed, and she placed one hand upon his newly healed arm.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t say another word. He only stared at me, until Haize gave him the all clear.

  And once she did, he leapt from the table, coming at me so fast I didn’t have time to react. His hand grasped my throat, lifted me off the floor, and then slammed me down. The air was forced from my lungs, and I thought for a moment that I would continue on, crashing through the floor, to whatever lay below. My eyes swam as darkness tried to overtake me, but I fought to keep them open.

  “Traitor,” he growled at me. “You’re in this with them.”

  Pain shot through me - my head, neck, back, and my arms that had flung out to my sides. My throat felt as though it had temporarily closed and I opened my mouth, trying to suck the air back into my lungs, but all I could manage was a strangled wheeze. I tried to claw at his hand. I knew I didn’t stand a chance against him in a fight, as he’d proven many times. But strangely enough, I didn’t want to fight him. Not Dax. He knew me. He would stop, or someone would stop him. I hoped.

  “Dax,” Lena placed her hands upon both of his shoulders, not trying to pull him off, but only to reassure him. “We scanned her mind. She’s not with them.”

  Her spoken words ended there, but I knew more was said between them when his hand loosened its grip upon my neck, and he slowly rose his face to hers.

  Moments later, he looked back down and released me. He then stood and stepped away. I gulped the air back in. My own hands surrounded my throat protectively, trying to stop the pain, and I rolled to the side. Once I was sure I was breathing again, I pushed myself up, and fought off a wave of dizziness.

  I gingerly felt the back of my head, but as I did pain spiked through my skull and down my neck. My fingers came away wet, and as I looked at my hand it was red with blood. I almost sank into the floor again, not from the pain, but from the sight. Haize helped me onto the table Dax had recently vacated, and began to heal me.

  When she was done, I looked over at Dax, wanting to apologize to him for what he’d been through. It was then that I realized, that more was different about him. His arms were just like theirs.

  “What is that?” I asked him.

  Before tugging on his shirt, he studied the length of each arm, as well as his chest, and his stomach. He then looked back up at me with one raised eyebrow and a small, smug smile.

  “I began training in the city, in a room I’d built for myself, almost from the first moment I’d connected with Lena. Knowing who she was, I was determined to be worthy, if we should ever meet.”

  “And just how long have you had those marks?” I accused, wanting to know at what point he’d reached their level. I remembered Lena telling me… something… about his level. But not this.

  “Not long after we met in the city,” he said, grinning at Lena. “She demanded to know how much I knew of their ways, and insisted I show her. I easily beat some of their warriors. And in a matter of days, they marked me.”

  “And you pretended to be my level, why?”

  “You needed someone other than Lena to train with, a male someone. Someone you weren’t afraid to fight, someone who would hurt you, and make you fight back.”

  I should have known. He was always so much better than me. Beating me easily every time, with barely any effort on his part.

  “And yes, I beat you, but my abilities were limited to your level. So technically, I still beat you fair and square,” he added.

  I narrowed my eyes and huffed at him in frustration. There was nothing fair and square about it. However, I couldn’t help but notice that his words and actions had distracted me. That sense of loss I’d begun to sink into was gone. My feelings were now elevated to something closer to irritation. And I had to wonder if they all knew exactly how to manipulate me into feeling what they needed me to feel.

  “Then why let Jordan believe he was training you?” I asked, but my voice broke upon saying his name. “Why fight him?”

  “All he could think about was protecting you. He needed to focus on himself. He needed to be stronger. And I helped him do that,” he said, grinning again, and then frowned. I could only imagine the regret he now felt.

  “Hmm,” I huffed at him again, and thought about every time I’d fought him, and every time I’d born witness to Jordan’s injuries inflicted by him. “Sure explains a lot,” I grumbled back at him.

  I was not done with the conversation, but there was no point dwelling upon it. There were more important things I needed to focus on, and I pulled my gaze away from Dax.

  “Where’s Aleric?” I asked Haize.

  “Tracking Mason,” she responded.

  “Has he found him yet?”

  “He has,” Lena answered, but she said nothing further. She only looked at me as though expecting more questions. The problem was I didn’t know which set of questions to ask. There were too many that needed answers. And too many that I just didn’t want answered. Then there was Jordan, and the woman he was with, and the most obvious question formed in my head. Who was she, and why did her skin move the way it had?

  “Shaylen,” Haize responded.

  Of course, it was. Who else could it be. Images and thoughts that I would not normally think, raced through me. I felt a deep need to push her away, wanting her hurt in a way that I was hurt. But not because she’d destroyed an entire planet and most of its inhabitants, but instead, I found, simply because she was close to him.

  “And she wasn’t really in the room,” Lena added. “If she had been, no shield would have kept me out.”

  As she spoke, a large group of the Heart and the Rathe returned from their missions. They amassed in the room, spilling into the hallway and the stairwell beyond. Haize explained that most of the warriors, would remain where they were, watching, waiting. All that was needed was Aleric’s cue to move forward with whatever plan they had.

  But her words were mostly a blur. Quite possibly meant as a distraction. For thoughts of Jordan overtook everything else that was happening around me, and I had to close my eyes to stop the feelings that twisted through me, trying to churn my insides. There was no denying what I’d seen and heard. But I decided I couldn’t think about it anymore, and I pushed the jealous feelings away, along with that sense of betrayal. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

  And I resolved myself to one simple fact, that I would play my part, whatever that may be, I would see this through. Either to the end of this world, or to save it.

  I opened my eyes and refocused upon what Haize was saying. It had to be important, otherwise why would she bother saying it at all.

  They’d captured or killed, almost all of the militia and most of the wards, that had occupied the building, she quietly explained. Those remaining, were at its center, and were now for the most part, surrounded. But there were many more militia who were posted throughout the city, and still more back at their settlement.

  Upon hearing of the wards, the memory of my ward came flooding back. He was out there somewhere, hopefully captured, and I glanced up at Haize hoping for an answer.

  After what seemed like several minutes, she shook her head, she couldn’t say if he’d been caught and staked, or if he still roamed free.

  Haize’s brief whisperings about the ward however, were the last words
I’d heard. They waited in silence, all of them, with an endless supply of patience. Watching, listening, not moving. Each expression a mask of acute preparedness. I was the only one in the room unfocused, and unable to communicate. No one spoke to me, either out loud or in my head.

  And I could taste the irony of being in that room, and in the center no less, when I thought of how I’d lived back on Earth, lost within my own self-inflicted solitude, surrounded by none, known by no one. And yet somehow here in this room, I felt more alone than ever.

  “Bring her,” Aleric’s voice quietly sounded throughout the room. I hadn’t noticed when he’d arrived. And even though he spoke to Haize, he looked at and motioned toward, me. “Mya, stay close.”

  I looked around to see Mya sitting behind me, intently watching me, and I wondered if she’d been listening to my every thought. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw the briefest of smiles lift her mouth, then leave just as quickly. And upon Aleric’s command, I felt her faint shroud thicken around me, in an overlaying haze of protection, ensuring my thoughts remained between me and her only.

  “When this is over,” Dax said, as he strode passed me. “I am going to throw you around that stadium until that word is no longer in your vocabulary.”

  “What word?” I asked, hurrying to catch up to him.

  “Alone.”

  My thoughts, as always, had kept them occupied.

  I slowed my pace, no longer wanting to be a part of the fray, and felt the room empty around me in a wave of bodies, all rushing through the doorway.

  But stopping was not an option. Several hands, some at my back and others upon my shoulders pushed me forward, moving my feet along, and I moved with them, so as not to be swept beneath the crowd. I was surrounded, moved through rooms, along corridors, down stairs and more stairs until I was sure we had to be below street level. The white of the walls were barely visible above the girth and height of the bodies around me. I didn’t want to chance looking up, for fear of falling and being trampled, but I was sure that if I did, the high, white-washed ceiling would still be there, unchanged.

  The closer we came to the center of the building, the slower they moved. They dispersed down corridor after corridor, until the main group of us that had remained, were barely a handful together.

  When finally, we came to the end of the hallway, Aleric held up his hands, halting our movement, as he stepped closer to the wall before us. He lowered his head, turning it to the side, trying to sense what lie beyond. Several moments later, he looked back at us, shaking his head.

  What? I silently asked Mya.

  He can’t sense what is on the other side, she responded back to my mind.

  What now?

  We go in anyway, she ended.

  Aleric waved us onward, opening the wall, and admitting us in.

  And from the moment the doorway opened, the warriors open-fired with the weapons from their suits, but they stopped almost right away. The light from their right hands shimmered across an invisible barrier, and dissipated along its length. As it did, the light flashes allowed us to see the barrier that curved almost half-way around the outer edge of the room, providing a narrow corridor for us to spread out. The wave pulses from their left hands however, bounced off the barrier and rebounded around our restricted portion of the room, sending the warriors in front flying backward, and knocking others behind them down.

  Haize rushed to those in need, and the rest of us cautiously advanced into the room. Lena sent one more light pulse from her hand toward the barrier to watch it shimmer across the field, as though studying its effect.

  It seemed they had been expecting us, and had prepared the room, anticipating our attack.

  I stopped after taking only several steps in, stunned by the room’s size, and the width of the Spire in the center. It was huge. The Spire was a thick column of crystal-blue, at least fifty-feet across. It stemmed from below the floor, from the heart of the building, a depth I would never be able to guess at. And traveled upward through the ceiling, through each floor above. Until finally, reaching skyward, rose its beacon of bright blue.

  The circular room we stood in, spanned a good hundred-feet, and stretched upward around the Spire, forming a domed ceiling just as high. Standing beside the base of the Spire however, was Shaylen. Her skin no longer shimmered, and I figured she’d appeared in person this time, instead of sending a mere image of herself.

  Not several feet away from her though, and closer to the Spire was Mason.

  And Jordan.

  Upon seeing him, I took a small step backward, but was stopped by the person behind me. I no longer wanted to be there. A tingling sensation crept up my spine, warning me to run, as far and as fast as I could from that room, and from everyone in it. There was no point in me being there anyway, not for either side. But Jordan had said I would come, she had asked if I would, and I was shuffled forward once more, regardless of my internal objections.

  My gaze however, remained glued to Jordan, until his eyes found mine, and then I had to look away. I couldn’t bare it. I couldn’t sense him, not his presence, nor his feelings toward me. I didn’t know what he was thinking, or why he was doing what he was doing, nor even, for that matter, what he really wanted of me. Everything I’d felt since connecting with him on Earth, and since coming to this world had been real, inside of him and inside of me, every memory, every moment. And yet his recent actions and words contradicted it all.

  I wanted to look back up, to at least attempt to puzzle this out, but my courage, as usual, failed me.

  Mya attempted to calm my thoughts, and I could feel the anxiety diminish. But with it went the shroud she had kept around me.

  Mya? I began to question.

  It’s no longer needed. Mya responded. She knows what you have.

  I began to ask who, and what it was that I had, but then I remembered Mason’s theory, his work inside my head.

  Just breathe, she said.

  Breathing was about all that was left for me to do. I was no longer in control of my own fate. I most likely never had been. I looked down at my feet and wondered who the next person would be to direct their steps, and in what direction they would take.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, deciding I should at least, try to follow Mya’s advice. After all, I was there amongst it all. I’d wanted to come. And it was time to start abiding by my own decisions.

  But when I looked back up, the enemy was crowding the room from the opposite side. They spread out before us, behind the field in an arc formation, each holding a long, sleek weapon. Once their defensive line was complete, they simultaneously took a knee, and rose their weapons toward us.

  A small group remained near the center of the room, no doubt to protect their leader. And stepping slowly amongst them was him, my ward, staring back at me, with a small smile creeping across his mouth.

  29

  A Matter of Faith

  I gulped back my fear of him, pushing the feeling down. The sight of him reminded me of what he’d said. That the Guardian and the wards were working with Shaylen. But the more I thought about that, the more it didn’t make sense. The Guardian’s purpose was to protect the city and the Central Unit from every threat. His words couldn’t be true.

  I watched him move amongst the militia, until I could no longer see him. That was the second worst part, not knowing where he was. The worst was knowing he and Jordan this time, were in the same room together. And from the little that I could tell, Jordan hadn’t made a move toward him.

  But I couldn’t dwell upon that. There was too much happening. Too many other things I needed to focus on. And while distracted by him, I’d missed everything that had been said, and I returned my attention to the argument that raged between Shaylen and Lena.

  “I’m afraid not, princess,” Shaylen snarled at her. And more of her soldiers entered the room from behind her, each of them with hands raised, their aim leveled at
us. “Unlike yours, our weapons will penetrate this field.”

  The soldiers that filed into the room, wore their weapons on the back of one gloved hand; a small, black, rectangular mass, always at the ready, but not obstructing the use of their hand. The weapon itself didn’t look like it could do much, but I’d seen the evidence of their power during their first attack upon the city. And somehow these smaller weapons appeared to me, to be more dangerous than the longer sleek design of the ones held by the militia kneeling before us.

  However, despite my preoccupation, I realized Shaylen had called Lena, princess. It was more of an after-thought though, and I decided to think no more of it. Lena after all, was well-known amongst all on this planet, for her abilities and her stature.

  “Wait,” Jordan urged them, and I glanced across at him as he stepped between the rows of militia, closer to where I was. His arms were up, attempting to calm the two sides, and I wondered, if he was also trying to protect me. However, I wasn’t ready to take that leap. And I didn’t want to look up into his face, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  And as I did, his gaze I found, fell only upon me. But it was too much, hoping he was well-intentioned, and I again had to look away.

  “Shaylen,” Jordan pleaded. “Tell your men to lower their weapons, we have what you want. Lena, please…”

  “Don’t even speak to her,” Dax growled, taking a step toward him.

  Lena didn’t speak out loud, she only placed a hand upon Dax’s chest, stopping his forward momentum. The wave pulse from their suits may have bounced off the barrier, but there was no telling what it would do to a person.

  “My men will stay as they are,” Shaylen stated, as though already bored with the conflict.

  “Shaylen,” Mason said. “We have the Spire coding and the access commands for the CU nerve-center. They can be ready for transfer upon your signal. Please, return our connection to the colonies.”

  She took a small step closer to an air-screen that hung beside her, and entered her commands. “Done.”