Cardinal, (Citizen Saga, Book 2) Page 8

  It happened so fast. One second we had the advantage, red light spewing across the small space between us directly at the drone's chest. The next I took a hit to my shoulder, the smell of burned flesh and ozone-like electricity filling the air, as Trent hurled us sideways across the kitchen floor.

  I landed hard on my good shoulder, but even that didn't diminish the pain in my injured one of being burned by intense electromagnetic radiation and infected, again, by whatever crap they instilled in it. The laser gun went skittering out of my hand on impact, sliding under the kitchen bench and out of sight.

  Trent was on his feet immediately, firing an ordinary gun from God knows where. Tipping the kitchen table over to offer shelter, as the drone used a pulsing pattern to make his laser gun last longer and not fry. The table started smouldering straight away, but held while I scrambled, trying not to whimper at the agony vibrating down my arm, behind it. Trent spared me a quick glance, his face set and hard, then his attention returned to the drone and he fired.

  The loud retort of the gun going off in my small apartment made my ears ring. Add into the mix the high pitched whine of the drone's laser and I could hardly hear the sirens approaching outside. They must have made it to the street, though, because red and white strobe lights reflected on the window pane in the lounge.

  I fumbled in my pocket for another weapon, my fingers finding my laser pointer. Just as the table made an ominous cracking sound, forcing my hand; time was running out. I peered around the lower part of the table, sighted the drone in the lounge half hiding behind the couch and aimed. I managed three seconds on his camera lens before he changed his target and fired the laser gun at me instead of Trent.

  I felt hands wrap around my t-shirt collar and haul me back behind the table. A split second later the edge, where I had just been peering around, broke apart under the onslaught of the laser beam. Tiny slithers of wood flew off in all directions, some of them embedding in my exposed skin. I could feel blood trickling down my neck, only a small amount, so I dismissed it.

  "What now?" Trent asked over the noise, firing his gun again, and then crouching down and reloading a magazine in the chamber. He did it so quickly, so fluidly, that it was obvious he'd effected the manoeuvre many times before. Practised. Either in a firing range or for real.

  My guess was for real, because he didn't hesitate to raise the gun and fire off two quick rounds as soon as it was ready. He hadn't even broken out in a sweat, despite the heat of Wánměi seeping in through the open door and a now broken window. He was covered in dust, wood chips dotted across his t-shirt and jeans, soot smeared on his cheeks. His eyes were bright, the blue of a pristine ocean.

  I had never met anyone as alive as Trent Masters. I was drawn to him in a way I had never been drawn to another before. In the middle of fighting for our lives... I just stared. Mesmerised and completely idiotic.

  "Lena?" he pressed. "An escape route would be good 'round about now."

  I nodded, bringing my focus back to the moment. Scents assailed me. Burned wood. Blood. The chemicals associated with electronics. The noise was intense. Loud, electrifying, thudding through my entire frame. The gun firing bullets. The laser whining in protest. A loudhailer joining the odd late arrival of a siren out on the street.

  I couldn't make out what they were saying, but it all sounded like it was coming from the front of the building. The back jutted up to another structure, so access from the street was not viable. But across the roofs I could do in my sleep.

  I crawled over towards the back of the kitchen, moving just out of line of fire from the drone by the sink in the corner. I checked out the side window, looking down into the alleyway beneath. Big rubbish bins, several bicycles, and stacks of wooden crates used for resident storage took up most of the space. Some I'd put there on purpose to clog access. A drone would have difficulty walking through that.

  I reached up and forced the window open, then climbed up on the bench and looked at the brick siding. I'd taken the time to place handholds in strategic places on the wall, camouflaged to match the bricks. From the street or neighbouring windows you wouldn't be able to tell they were there. But it provided an exit other than the front door, which I'd never had to use other than for practice.

  Practice was about to pay off.

  I turned back to Trent and my stomach plummeted. Sweat beaded his brow, his mouth was in a thin line, pain etched on every feature.

  I slid off the bench and crawled back, noting the table was now half the size it had been before.

  "Where are you hurt?" I semi-yelled over the continued noise coming from the drone and the street itself. Trent fired another round over the top of the table and shook his head, not looking me in the eye.

  "I'm fine, but breaking away is going to be tough. He's not letting up."

  A strained moment hung between us. I knew what he was about to say and I'd already started shaking my head in protest.

  "You go, take the gear," he said, trying to shrug the duffel bag off his back.

  "No way!" I cried, then yelped as a huge splinter at the top of the table came hurtling towards my face. I raised a hand in time to prevent the loss of my eyes, but blood welled immediately at the cut in my wrist that followed. Pain came not long after.

  I bit my lip to stop the gasp that wanted out and pushed the duffel back on his shoulders. My hand came away wet. One look and I knew it was blood. He'd been hit, and from the volume coating my fingers, quite bad.

  His hands weren't shaking though, as he raised the gun and fired again.

  "One of us has to get out of here alive," he ground out, changing the magazine in lightning quick moves. Whatever his injury was, he wasn't letting it affect his performance. Although his eyes kept blinking furiously and he occasionally shook his head.

  Opiate dosing, at a guess. But he was battling it.

  "Then it should be you," I argued. "Wang Chao wants me alive. You not so much," I added.

  Trent offered me a smile. Dishevelled as he was, it was magnificent. The urge to grip his messed up hair with my fingers and pull him close for a kiss was overwhelming. I tamped it down immediately.

  "I'm running out of ammo, Lena," Trent informed me. "Make a decision."

  "I'll stay," I said, reaching for his gun. He hesitated. He must have known I was right. The drone's orders would be to wipe him on sight. If he stayed, he'd be dead within minutes. My chances of survival were greater. Not perfect, but better than his. And one of us needed to remain here to offer cover, so the other could slip out the window and climb to the roof.

  It had to be me.

  "You know I'm right," I pushed, my hand wrapped around his on the weapon.

  He shook his head.

  The drone kept firing.

  Trent looked at me as though this was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do.

  "No," he said, clearly in denial. We had no choice. "Lena," he added, wrapping a hand around the back of my neck and leaning in to press his lips against mine.

  It wasn't passionate or deep, but the kiss was full of emotion. He pulled back and rested his forehead against mine, eyes closed in frustration, I think.

  "Go," he whispered, barely audible over the racket of noise in the room. "Go," he repeated, slipping out of his duffel bag and pressing it into my chest.

  We stared at each other, so much said in just one look. I didn't want to go. Knowing it meant his death. He didn't want to go. Knowing Wang Chao could use me to control the nation. In that second, where our eyes met and held, in the middle of a war zone it seemed, I understood.

  I understood what was at stake. My involvement in the revolution. My role.

  I understood what would happen if Wang Chao got hold of me. The consequences more dire for Wánměi than if the leader of the revolution didn't make it.

  Someone would fill Trent's shoes. I had a feeling Harjeet already had that covered. But those girls I met in Muhgah Foh, imitating me as though I was worthy of their emulation, as though I was a be
acon of hope for the oppressed, they would be shattered, completely controlled, subjected to doctrine all over again, if Wang Chao turned their saint into a traitor.

  He wouldn't make me a martyr, no. But he would destroy the Citizens' hope by making me appear contrite, subdued. Hell, I could picture him forcing me to renounce the rebels. Make me set a model example of being an Elite.

  He could do it. I'm not sure how. But there were people I loved. People who meant the world to me who could be held over my head like Aiko had been. And then there was everything I had finally woken up and noticed. A nation suppressed. Wánměi controlled.

  The picture of Lunnon on the back of Trent's room at the old Tehteh rebel base flickered in my mind. There was more out there than we knew. My world not so black and white anymore.

  Trent's hand came up and brushed my hair from my face as though he'd heard my thoughts. Black and white. I was an icon for the people of Wánměi. He was just one Citizen amongst many.

  "Trent," I said, my voice embarrassingly breaking.

  "Go, Zebra. Go fight another day."

  He turned his back on me, checked his magazine in a way I knew was to let me see how many bullets he had left. Half a dozen at best, from the short glimpse I managed. Then fired a shot over the remnants of the table at the drone.

  I paused for a second, praying the drone's laser gun would misfire, overheat, blow up. Anything.

  And then I heard heavy footfalls out in the hall, drones climbing the stairs to offer back-up. Time was up.

  Out of bullets. Out matched. Out done.

  I took one last look at Trent and turned towards the kitchen, shouldering the duffel through intense pain. Both inside and out. My heart in my throat, my stomach twisting and turning with survivor guilt, tears already tracking down my cheeks.

  I barely knew him. But I knew already I would pay for this dearly for some time to come. A heaviness invaded my heart. A bitterness full of regret invading my soul. Despite who his father was. Despite his involvement in the group of people responsible for my father's death. Trent Masters was a good man. And I never got to tell him.

  I climbed up onto the kitchen bench and checked the alley again. All clear. Sucking in a deep breath I turned to pull myself out backwards, so I'd be facing the wall and the handhelds when I emerged from my flat. My eyes caught Trent's. He was watching me leave, offering the odd shot over the rim of the table blindly, but his gaze riveted to me.

  I couldn't do this. I couldn't sacrifice this man for Wánměi. For me.

  I paused, felt a sob climb up my throat and watched Trent mouth, "Go."

  The table shattered, shards of wood flying off in every direction. Some of them digging into Trent's cheeks. The drones on the landing made it to the doorway and one raised his laser gun directly at me. Trent yelled. The original drone's Shiloh unit started issuing commands. And then Trent emptied the last of his bullets in a furious arc of rage.

  Time was up.

  For a frozen second I hovered between fight and flight. The futility of staying mocking me.

  Then I slipped through the window and started to climb, feeling every pull up the wall in my shoulder, through my chest, in my heart and mind. I screamed silently, grunting through the agony of moving my injured arm and using it to briefly hold my weight. My vision blurred. My breaths started to come in little hiccups. Drizzle began to fall making the handholds treacherous.

  I'd made it three feet, a pitiful amount of space, when the building shook, and the windows exploded, and smoke began to billow out of every open gap into the night.

  For a second I thought I was falling, then I was moving with increased speed, adrenaline pumping through my veins, pain no longer a consideration, me falling off the side of this building and landing on a box crate below too real.

  I gripped the roof ledge, hauled myself up and over, managing a quick glance across the wide open and apparently vacant space, and then forced myself to roll to my knees to check out my surroundings more thoroughly.

  I was breathless, dashing tears away, gritting my teeth through the aches in my entire body.

  And then I saw him. I assumed a him. Across Elliott Street on the roof of another building. Night vision goggles on his head and what looked like a handheld grenade launcher. As I watched, he fired another directly into my apartment. More and more smoke billowing out as the gas cannister went off inside.

  He lifted his head and spotted me. All breaths stalled in my lungs. Then he pointed over my shoulder.

  With burgeoning dread, making me sweat and shake and swallow painfully, I turned around to face my fate.

  Chapter 13

  I'm Not A Saint

  Trent

  Lena was as pale as the moon. Tears turned the soot into streaks on her cheeks. Her hair was plastered to her head, either from the persistent drizzle or sweat. A sheen of moisture coated her big beautiful eyes and, when they met mine for a second, I saw her facing her death.

  And then she was in my arms, somehow covering the distance between us and wrapping her entire frame around my body as though I was her life line, the most important thing in her world right then.

  She pulled back and I offered a smile, quite liking the idea of her running into my arms regularly. Even if the location right now and the multiple fucking aches in my body made this current moment somewhat inappropriate.

  And then she hit me. Hard. A punch to the chest and then another and another until she was sobbing and screaming and whacking the hell out of my already abused body. And I let her. I let her go for it, release some of that God-awful tension I saw in her frame when I finally hauled myself up here. Cursing her rock climbing skills and the fact blood had dripped into my eyes making spotting those tiny fucking handholds almost impossible. And dreading whatever the fuck they'd dosed that laser beam in making my head swim and my stomach turn.

  "Hey," I said, when she'd punched herself out and just clung. "We gotta get going. Alan can hold them off for a bit longer, but they'll find a way up here. I'm hoping you've got an escape route planned?"

  She held on tightly for a split second longer, enough to make my chest expand with joy and masculine pride, and then she pulled back, brushed dirty, blood smeared hands over her eyes and nodded. Chin lifting, shoulders back, although she grimaced at that move, and Elite mannerisms firmly set in place again.

  God, I think I was in love with this woman.

  I cleared my throat.

  "Want me to take the bag?" I asked.

  "Um, yeah," she acquiesced, unexpectedly I'll admit. Lena didn't usually back down from anything. For a moment in that apartment I thought she was going to martyr herself right at my side.

  And then the grimace was back as she tried, unsuccessfully, to remove the duffel bag without jostling her laser injury.

  "Here, let me," I whispered, knowing we had to get moving, but finding it difficult to push her to pick up speed.

  The desire to protect her from everything was all consuming. And foreign. Fuck, was it foreign. But I couldn't stop helping her, ensuring her shoulder wasn't touched at all, and relieving her of at least one burden right then.

  The duffel fell into place over my shoulders, hitting the exact spot I'd taken a laser beam myself. I hid the grimace from my face, but acidic bile rose up my throat and my vision did blur.

  Going. We had to get going.

  I glanced across the street and noted Alan was packing up and retreating. Out of ammo? Or could he see it all turning to shit from where he perched? We owed our lives to him. And to Si breaking protocol and sending back-up when we didn't have enough men to waste on crap like this.

  But Lena was important. I knew that now. And knowing Si, he'd figured it out too. An Elite on our side would do more damage to the Overseers than an army of rebels ever could. Protecting her had just become our greatest immediate goal.

  "This way," she said, starting off in a crouched run which impressed the fuck out of me. Aware of her surroundings, conscious of impending hazards -
aka drones that were sounding more and more like Shiloh every time we came face to face - and moving at a surprisingly swift pace despite her injuries.

  We came to a gap between buildings, illumination right then extremely poor. Not only was Wáikěiton lacking adequate street lighting for a densely populated area, the stars had been hidden behind clouds as the weather packed up and smoke from Lena's apartment kept swelling higher and higher into the sky.

  But she didn't pause. Simply jumped out, like some ninja athlete flying over a sand pit and not a fifteen foot fall, and landed in a spectacular crouch on the other side, turning to wait for me.

  It was official. I was in love.

  I smiled as I followed behind her, not wanting to be outdone by anyone, even if that included the woman I was so going to make mine. My landing wasn't quite as ballerina-esque as hers, but it didn't show me up either. It'd do.

  And then we were running and jumping, roof to roof to roof, climbing and sliding down tiles and swinging off gutters, and then running and jumping all over again. We must have crossed the entire length of Wáikěiton, in a zigzagging path that led me to believe Lena had worked this route out meticulously. She finally let us stop on the rooftop of a building several long and hazardous blocks away. The shutters on the three storey multicoloured above-shop homes closed for the evening. The streets, despite being a non-curfew night, almost bare.

  Citizens were in lock-down of their own accord. Wáikěiton in the distance heralding the onset of a war.

  We stared off across the space to the neighbouring suburb, watching the red and white strobe lights of the Civil Defence fire engines flashing in the smoky clouds above the Elliott Street roofline. Lena's home, her real home, gone.

  I turned my head so I could see her face, where she stood beside me watching the last of her possessions being destroyed. There was no going back for Lena Carr. And Selena Carstairs was a one way ticket to hell.

  She didn't exist anymore. Parnell gone. Wáikěiton gone. Lena was alone in this fucked up world.

  I moved closer; I couldn't help it. Drawn to the vulnerability she only seemed to let me see. I wrapped my arms carefully around her body, avoiding her shoulder, offering what comfort I could. And stood sentinel with her, watching the end of Lena's past life. I should have said something uplifting. Encouraging. Mobilising. I'm the leader of a fucking rebel base.