CATHERINE

Roses and Thorns

by

AJ DIAZ

Copyright © 2021 IN THE LIGHT PRESS, INC

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ISBN: 9798352427996

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COVER DESIGN by AJ DIAZ

To Catherine Diane Horner.

For your dedication to me.

It means everything to me, and I’ll never forget it in all my journeys.

Here’s to you starting me, in so many ways, on my JOURNEY.

Quick note from Mr. AJ Diaz,

You’re about to enter a world you’ve never been to, a world you’ve never before seen. It’s not dissimilar to steampunk—but it is its own new thing. It’s magnet punk, something that I haven’t come across in my readings.

The planet in which this story takes place is heavily polarized (in the scientific sense), the gravity is slightly different and, as such, engineers have figured out how to invent technology that takes advantage of these things. Many machines run off of magnet power. Many weapons use the planet’s polarity in their mechanics.

You’ll see…

ENJOY.

MEET THE TEAM

CATHERINE is a young Resistance fighter hell-bent on destroying the Authority — the all-too-powerful totalitarian government that won’t let anyone be anyone — but she’s not sure if there’s any reason to live. And she’s not sure what she believes. Or what she wants to believe. Except kill or be killed.

KARA, a gearhead, always covered in grease and low-expectations, is discovering she may have more power than she had ever realized. Maybe even the ability to see things before they happen. And maybe more than that.

SCARLET is the soft-spoken empathetic member of the team. Unassuming, and yet a deadly shot. Trained by her father at a young age, she has the uncanny ability to never miss a shot. Maybe the best sniper in the land.

TROY is a writer and a poet. A lover not a fighter. But he can fight. And he does. With killer intention. He believes that there is meaning in life and wants to experience that meaning. He wants to truly LIVE.

AKIO, from the southeast, is the youngest and most impetuous member of the team. Bold and daring, he never hesitates and never questions himself.

CATHERINE

Roses and Thorns

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

THE PLAN WAS I had no plan.

I pretended to have a plan, and for some reason they believed me. They’re not stupid. They’re actually incredibly smart—my team. More likely than not, they knew I didn’t have a plan but followed me anyway. They didn’t follow me for ME. I don’t consider myself to be very special. And neither did they.

They followed me because it was in their bones.

They couldn’t keep to themselves, not with what was happening.

If we did nothing, we would die, or the next generation would die.

Or perhaps we were dead already, living under the tyranny of the Authority.

That’s why we ran the train.

That’s the thing about hope—it’ll kill you if you’re not careful. But is it worth living if you’re not living on the edge? Some say it isn’t.

Me? I wouldn’t mind a little peace and quiet.

Or a lot of it.

Because my alternative was standing here, two men approaching. Long black wool coats fell past their knees, wide belts hugged their waists, cinching their coats flat and tight to their bodies. They matched. And they gripped wooden pistols in each hand with golden triggers and trigger guards. Hefty black boots, sturdy material, fell in step on the wet concrete.

They hadn’t said a word yet.

They were wondering why I was where I wasn’t supposed to be.

“Hey, girl! Hands up!”—the man on the right.

The towering wall stretched up high on my left side, blocking out much of the moonlight, darkening the faces of the men who approached me. It didn’t help that they were wearing tall wide-brimmed black hats that cast shadows over their eyes. They were the same height. Same body build.

I didn’t move.

“Now!”—his voice raised.

They slowed their approach. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know their protocols or training. Was this part of it?

I needed them closer, so I began raising my hands, slowly.

They continued their approach—coming within fifteen feet.

I needed them closer.

“What’s your name?” the one on the left asked.

“Catherine,” I said, which was the truth.

I wanted them to know my name. And it didn’t matter. Because I was about to kill them. I had to. No choice now. And I only had two minutes left before my friends got badly hurt.

“Less than two minutes,” Akio said.

The way he said it annoyed Scarlet. He’d wanted to do Catherine’s part—thought he could do it better, had better chances. Scarlet knew what Akio didn’t know about himself: he was too impetuous. Catherine was the better choice. She thought everything through, in great detail, even useless things.

“She’ll do it,” said Scarlet. “Don’t worry.”

Troy came up beside them, looking out the window.

They were standing at the front of the train, inside.

An incredulous disparity presented itself: Here they were, in the cover of late-night darkness, attempting a mission that not even the Resistance—with all of their resources—could accomplish. And all seemed tranquil, though they were barreling toward a closed gate, going one hundred miles an hour. A gate designed to stop trains just like this one.

If they hit it, they would die.

And they would reach the gate in—

“A minute-and-a-half,” Akio said, looking at his silver-inlaid wristwatch.

But that was the thing.

Though she didn’t know much about trains, this being her first time on a train, Scarlet wasn’t afraid. The three of them stood before the tall window, facing their fate. At the very front of the train, the window spanned the entirety of the wall, twenty-five feet high and twenty-five feet across—made of thick, clear-as-the-night strong glass. Advanced tech, Troy had mentioned earlier.

It was an absurdly expensive train, plush-as-a-pillow-in-a-rich-man’s bed-set, decorated by the best designers, furnished with the best pieces, and temperature controlled.

Even though it was freezing cold outside, this room was a cool seventy degrees.

The controls, a long and confusing panel of blinking lights and switches and things Scarlet didn’t understand yet, stood against the left wall, leaving all the space to stand before the window.

Troy brushed Scarlet’s shoulder with his finger. “Should I slow us down?”

Scarlet shrugged. “We can’t.”

He nodded.

“We’re going to die,” said Akio. “Before the freakin’ mission starts.”

“Calm down,” Scarlet said.

Akio spun away from the window, ran both hands through his hair.

“She has plenty of time. She’s probably already in the control room. Waiting for the right moment,” said Scarlet.

Feeling secure within the opulent setting of the train car, Scarlet knew there was nothing safe about this mission.

The radio speakers, mounted in the corners of the room, crackled. A voice followed: “Train approaching. We need your entrance code.”

“Great,” said Akio, throwing up his hands and facing the window once more.

“I think I should slow the train,” said Troy.

“We have to trust Catherine,” said Scarlet.

CHAPTER TWO

STANDING TEN FEET from me, the two men raised their guns. I didn’t know why they hadn’t raised their guns earlier. I suppose I didn’t look like much of a threat. I’m a whopping five feet, one inch tall, small frame.

“Nice coats,” I said. “Very practical. It’s cold outside, you wouldn’t want to catch cold.”

“What are you doing out here?” one of them responded.

I’m trying to sneak into the gate control room and open the gate so that my friends and I can enter this Armory, break into the mansion, and steal some very important documents for the Resistance.

“I got lost,” I said.

“How’d you get over the wall?”

I knew I only had a little over a minute before my friends smashed into the reinforced gate. Our train was top of the line, but the gate was built to keep out top-of-the-line trains. The gate was seventy feet tall by fifty feet wide, surrounded and integrated into a massive wall—a hundred twenty-five feet tall—that surrounded the entire property. All ten thousand acres. A little more about the gate: it was protected by a polarity field. And it was three feet deep—made of nothing but steel, cold and pure and unforgiving.

It wasn’t going to be pretty if I couldn’t get it open.

I know I said I didn’t have a plan, and that still stands. This was the only part I had planned and it wasn’t going according to plan.

I’d climbed the wall, which had been more arduous than expected given that there was no metal at the top of the wall. I couldn’t magnet jump. I’d had to climb the brick exterior like a rock climber. A hundred twenty-five feet. I’d thought it was impossible, but I had no choice. I had no way of contacting my team and telling them to call it off. They were already headed this direction. I had to get over the wall.

And I had.

I’d lowered myself down, onto the ‘SACRED’ government property. And I began working my way toward the gate control room, checking my wristwatch often. Timing was crucial.

When trains that had clearance approached this property—which was a government Armory—they were supposed to radio the gate control room and give a clearance code. They were not permitted, under any circumstance, to slow down or to stop. They were to go exactly one-hundred miles per hour. Without slowing, they were to provide a clearance code. The gate would open and they’d enter.

If a train slowed or stopped it would be immediately considered an enemy of the state and descended upon by all the forces of the Armory guards.

It was a smart way to keep out unwanted visitors. The Resistance had learned this protocol the hard way. They’d lost two trains and many fighters.

I didn’t care what anyone said, the government was smart. Which was why they were in absolute control right now and everyone was suffering for it.

I could see the control room from here.

Situated on stilts, it stood taller than the wall and a ways back from it, made entirely of glass. I could see two men through the glass, standing before the control panel. One was standing, talking into a radio piece, probably trying to reach the oncoming train—my friends. The other was sitting, holding a hand over his mouth to contain a yawn, looked tired, uninterested.

And it stood a good hundred yards from me, across pavement.

My path from here to the control room was dark and clear except for these two armed guards.

To my left, the giant bulwark of a wall stood, seeming to hang over me. To my right, fresh-cut grassy hills rolled away from me as though they were a picnic blanket being brought down through the air and settled into place. Seeing it in my periphery made me dizzy.

Outposts dotted the hills.

Acres stacked on acres of beautiful land carried the train track deep into the hills and back to the castle that housed the Minister of the Armory himself.

Trains were a pretty important part of everything these days.

The government—or, what they should really be called, the dictatorship—had many more of them than us. Not only trains, they had everything and left nothing for us. They killed us and starved us and taxed us and took from us until we had nothing. And then they took that.

These guards, their faces, looked exactly how they always did. Soft. Different from my friends and me: We had very different upbringings.

We have nothing.

These men have soft lives and government money and protection from famine and disease. Everything has been taken from us. And we FEEL like nothing: Inconsequential human lives that have been put down, crushed and forced to live in this rotting world, made incomprehensibly worse by the people who rule us.

We were nothing, but we had everything to lose.

If the men would only step a few feet closer, I could kill them. But they’d stopped. Following some sort of training protocol.

This was supposed to be a clandestine mission. There weren’t supposed to be gunshots. We were supposed to be in and out, quiet, no fuss.

Like I said though, there wasn’t a plan.

And I NEEDED to get to that control room.

So I unsheathed my sword.

CHAPTER THREE

BILLIONS OF LIVES in this world and three of them were right here. What did that mean? Or, rather, what did it matter? Philosophically speaking, I didn’t think it meant anything.

I FELT like it meant everything.

It was me or them.

Technological breakthroughs had been made within the last century. The Akhenaten Authority had seen to that. And they hoarded the technology. The Resistance had secured SOME of the tech. Not much. Some. And we had a few things in our arsenal for tonight.

The men took my cue.

They put away their guns, figured they were moot, figured that if I’d taken out my sword that I was wearing magnetic armor. I wasn’t. But they fell for it.

Magnetic armor is like extremely thin chain mail that you can wear under your clothes. Most lethal men and women in the government employ wear such armor under their clothing. These men were wearing armor no doubt. It has a strong negative pulse and can repel metal bullets. It makes you invincible to some weapons.

But not to reverse-pulsed electric swords, which was what we held now in our hands.

I had a quick moment to glance at my watch—forty-five seconds.

I began walking toward the men.

They raised their swords.

This wasn’t my first sword fight. I kept my sword parallel to the ground, holding the handle by my side. Walking, walking—

The man on the left took the lead. He stepped in fast and slashed his sword through the air. He was quick. Not as fast as me. His sword caught nothing but air as I leaned back from its arc. My turn. I jabbed as fast as I could, forward, plunged the sword straight into his gut, through his overcoat, through his magnetic armor. Electric swords sliced through most things with relative ease, like a knife through butter—but imagine that knife could also melt the butter.

The sword went through him and out the other end.

Before I could pull it out, the other man thrust his sword at me.

I let go of my sword, dove and rolled out of the way.

Back on my feet, I started running for the control room, forcing the guy to chase me. I had thirty seconds.

Without even a pause I heard the man’s boots sounding off behind me. My boots weren’t so bulky as the man’s. And I ran as fast as I could, my feet barely touching the ground. I didn’t look back, but I knew I was okay, so long as he didn’t pull out his gun and try taking a shot at me.

Catherine, the voice said. She’s here.

The voice always made my temples throb.

I almost lost my footing.

I shook my head. I hadn’t told the others about the voice. I never would. But, sometimes, I heard a voice in my head. I was pretty sure I was slowly losing it—my mind, that is. I wanted to accomplish this mission before I lost it completely.

The voice, which was really my mind slowly breaking down, was referring to my mom. I didn’t tell the others that either: the real reason I was here. I wanted to find my mom. They told me—the Resistance—that she was dead. But I knew they didn’t know that for a fact.

And I knew that if my mom were still alive, she would be here.

“We’re gonna hit that thing in twenty-five seconds,” said Akio with an annoyed, ‘told you so’ laugh.

“Nothing we can do about it now,” said Scarlet, crossing her arms.

“We can slow down,” said Troy, his eyes darting to the control panel against the left wall.

Only Troy and Kara knew how to work it. Akio knew the basics.

Pealing from the window, Akio walked behind Scarlet now, going for the panel.

“No,” Scarlet said, but Akio didn’t stop. “No!”

Troy took Scarlet’s cue, blocking Akio’s path. Standing just before him.

“Let me around.”

Troy stayed put.

And Akio pushed Troy. Though Troy was the bulkier of the two, the push caught him off guard. But he was quick to find his footing, taking Akio by the shoulders and shoving him back and across the room.

“Boys!” Scarlet yelled. “It’s too late anyway.”

Troy and Akio shoved themselves apart, straightening their shirts and assuming their original places before the window.

The gate loomed, fifteen seconds away. The speedometer sat securely at one hundred MPH.

Akio turned away, leaving the room.

The man in the radio tower called in over the speakers, without an ounce of a frantic tone in his voice. The way it stood: if the train crashed, it crashed. Wouldn’t hurt the men inside the Armory. It would only make their day a little more interesting.

“Catherine…” Scarlet whispered.

CHAPTER FOUR

I’VE RUN FAST before in my life. Had to. But I was running faster now than I ever had in my entire life. I was running for all I had. The guard couldn’t even close to keep up.

And I got within distance of the tall glass control room.

Thirty yards out.

In a perfect world, I would have gone all the way up to it and taken the ladder stealthily, entered and killed the two men.

No time now.

Thirty yards was close enough. I took out my equalizer—a pistol that uses polarity to pull you towards anything metal. The control room, glass though it was, was wrapped in a metal framework.

Without slowing my run, I aimed the pistol with one hand, being sure to hold on tight, toward the metal ceiling. Pulled the trigger.

And I was in the air. I’d done this a million times. I could feel the gun’s magnetic hold on the metal, pulling fast, an invisible string. I flew through the air, hair whipping back, whipping the hood off my head. I rose higher and higher, crossing the thirty yards.

I flew all the way up to the metal platform. I’d aimed the gun above the platform and, as such, I got pulled high enough for my feet to light down just before the door. The guard would land behind me any moment.

The two men inside the glass booth looked at me.

I threw open the door.

Before they realized what was happening, I’d whipped out my pistol and shot one through the head. Good. They weren’t wearing deflective armor. The other jumped back, out of his chair. I swung my gun around, shot him twice through the chest. He flew back into the glass wall.

Then I faced the panel of controls at the front of the booth. I only had seconds. I saw our train reaching the gate. With a glance, I saw a button marked OPEN GATE.

I hit it.

The gate responded. The doors slid apart instantly with a loud hiss, opening fully in a half-second. The train followed a half-second later, barreling through the entrance like a beast out of its cave toward unsuspecting prey.

Now all I had to do was magnet jump to the top of the train before it sped past me. Being that it was the length of ten cars, a total of about four hundred fifty feet, I had a few seconds.

Again, if the train stopped, the security at the next-nearest outpost would notice. That outpost was far enough away that as long as the guards weren’t looking at this control room with a telescope they wouldn’t see me.

But they would see a giant stopped train.

The final guard landed on the platform.

I knew he had deflective armor. My gun was useless. I holstered it.

All I had was my electric knife, since I’d left my sword in the dead guard near the wall.

Coming through the door, the man held his electric sword.

I couldn’t get past him and, even if I could without killing him, it would ruin our mission. So far, no alarms had been sounded, which meant there was a chance to salvage our stealth. I had to kill this guy so he couldn’t sound any alarms. I was sure a button in this room could set off the alarm.

Below, our train was rumbling by.

“I see what you’re up to,” he said, and he swung his sword.

I jumped back, out of the way. Easy. “Missed me,” I said.

He took a step toward me so that I was backed into the wall.

“I should tell you something,” I said. “I know we’re friends and all, but I haven’t been honest with you.”

He made a confused face.

I shrugged. “I’m not wearing deflective armor.”

His face remained confused for seconds. Then he understood. With his free hand, he reached for his gun. That’s when I made my move. I threw my knife at him, hard. Precision aim. It went through his neck. Blood went everywhere, all around the room, as he dropped.

I quickly took his sword and slid it into my sheath, then removed my knife and wiped as much of his blood as I could onto his coat. I took his gun.

“I forgot to mention I’ve extensively trained with throwing knives,” I told his lifeless body. “My apologies. I’ve been told I need to talk more.”

Then I went to the platform.

“I’m honestly not much of a chatterbox,” I muttered under my breath, as if I were talking to the dead man’s soul as it rose from his body.

The train had passed the control tower. But it was only twenty yards distant. I aimed the equalizer and pulled the trigger. My body shot from the platform, toward the train. I’d aimed high, toward the middle of the train.

If you’re unfamiliar with equalizers, they don’t hold onto the spot you’re aiming for.

After you pull the trigger, you’re locked onto the original spot you’d first aimed.

Which meant that as I flew towards my train, my train flew away from me.

You can’t change your direction mid-pull. And it takes ten seconds for the gun to recharge. You can’t take multiple shots one after the other.

Soaring through the air, I looked down at the ground far beneath me. My coat was flapping out behind me. The cold air helped quell my sweat and, for a moment, everything felt okay.

We’d made it inside.

Until I realized that I was going to miss the train. I was going to hit the track just behind it. I was halfway to the train, when I saw Akio coming through a hatch at the top of the train. He was on the final car and, turning his chin up, he spotted me immediately.

I wanted to yell, I’m not going to make it!, but I didn’t see how that would help anything.

It was going to be close.

CHAPTER FIVE

STANDING AT THE edge of the train, Akio extended his hand.

Flying through the air, nearly there, I reached for his hand. My leading foot touched the end of the train and slipped. Simultaneously, my grip found Akio’s. His grip tightened, but his other hand was holding onto nothing.

My weight sucked him downward.

And we fell off the back of the train.

But with his free hand, he caught the end of the train’s roof, which was wrapped with a thin metal bar that was easy enough to grip. He stopped my fall. His grip was tested and his strength prevailed and our bodies slammed back against the back end of the train, pure steel, hard. Akio held.

As we hung from the roof of the train, he looked down at me. “You good?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I yelled over the noise of the train on the tracks, the wind rushing past us, my heart in my ears. “But I love you.”

With a grunt, he lifted me up so I could take hold of the extremity of the train. Tucking my equalizer into its holster, I reached for the metal bar. Then pulled myself up and spun around, sitting on the end of the train now.

Akio pulled himself up and sat beside me.

“That was close,” he said. “I thought we were going to die.”

“Thanks for catching me.”

“No, not that. The gate. I thought we were going to crash.”

“Oh, that.”

“Why did it take so long?”

“Guards.”

“Did you have a plan?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“I’m going in with you. Into the castle.”

“Only I’m going in. We already went over this.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Akio—“

“If I wasn’t here right now to catch you, you’d be dead or worse.”

I pictured my small self missing the train and landing on the track, skittering over it, breaking a leg or something. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

It was easy to see he was pissed about the last-minute gate entry. And he didn’t believe my lie. I figured now wasn’t the best time to argue with him. And he might have had a point.

“Fine.”

I took a deep breath, watching the gate doors slide closed on their own. Now that there was no one in the control tower, I hoped no other trains would arrive in the next hour or so. They would cause a wreck in front of the gate, which was the only entrance and EXIT for trains. If a train were to wreck against the gate, it would barricade our escape route.

“You’re sure there are no other trains coming in tonight?” Akio asked.

“I’m sure.” Another lie—one I’d told the entire team to get them to agree to this mission.

CHAPTER SIX

OPTING NOT TO take the ladder, I dropped through the hatch into the tenth and last car of the train, moving out of the way as Akio dropped in behind me.

A narrow, rectangular slice of window wrapped the walls of this car, providing a good enough view. Spacious as the rest of the cars, for they were all the same size, this car provided a spare room of bunk beds. We didn’t need them; there being only five of us. Which was a slight problem. This train was meant to be piloted by fifteen.

I couldn’t find fifteen willing people for this mission.

I would have done it by myself if I could have.

Looking out one of the long windows, I felt Akio watching my profile. When at last I faced him, he looked concerned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“We’re really inside.”

He stepped up to the window beside me.

“We’re really inside the Armory,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

I understood his feeling.

The manicured lawns shaped into hills, extended past horizon lines, scrawled in the darkness and unseemliness of the night shadows.

So much lawn, grass, and green. They must have had a fleet of garden workers. I couldn’t even imagine it.

We lived in shacks, and the Akhenaten Authority thrived on us. We weren’t people to them. We were things to be used to get resources. We were resource-makers, commodities.

So that they could live in places like this.

“I didn’t imagine it this massive,” Akio said, standing beside me.

“I didn’t imagine you,” I said, adding a pause, “imagining it.”

He smirked, as it was now my turn to watch his profile.

So much different from me: he had the slanted eyes of his people from the southeast, from the treacherous mining lands. He was tall and strong and broad-shouldered. He wasn’t as studious as I. He more often said his true thoughts, didn’t hold back. He was probably the least diplomatic person on the team. He’d been my friend for years, and I knew I needed him on this mission for his strength and resolve. He had dark hair, like me, thick as well. Though his was medium-length, whereas mine fell to just below my neck.

“Welcome to the Armory, Akio,” I said with a wry smile. “I get the sense you didn’t think we’d make it inside.”

This seemed to remind him of the barely-in-the-past event.

He only glanced at me, pain in the periphery of his eyes.

“We’re friends, right?” I asked.

“Yes. But I want to survive this mission. Otherwise what do we have?”

“I’ve been asking myself that same question.”

This was the Armory branch of our all-powerful government.

The Authority had many, many branches of government, all important in order to keep us, the people, in line. They tell us they’re protecting us from the outside armies, from the outside peoples, but they’re destroying us and living off of us. Somehow we survive. There’s something about humans. You can press us down like grapes and we’ll thrive.

If you sweep through a land killing all the game for food, you’ll run out of food. Humans aren’t like that. You can kill them, poison them, tax them, dash their hopes and dreams, and they’ll thrive. They’ll multiply like rabbits. They’ll, somehow, against all odds, prevail.

The Authority realizes that the more they crush us the more they can use us, and there will be fewer chances of an uprising. Because we’ll be weak.

And it’s been working for hundreds of years.

I’d heard of a movement of old, when the Authority was first finding its form. It’s basically myth, but I’m supposing there’s truth in it somewhere:

There were six strong men. According to the myth, supernaturally strong. They were from a breed of ancient creatures. Half-breeds. Half-human and half-supernatural beings, or something like that. The point is: these men were powerful.

One man among them was also brilliant—a philosopher and a poet: His name was Akhenaten.

These men lived longer than normal humans. It gave them, especially Akhenaten, time to watch, time to study. Time to plan. Akhenaten formed a team with the five other strong men.

And they conquered the land, formed a government, beat the people into submission. It took them fifty years to develop an infrastructure. They became rich and powerful, dominating the land from the western ridges of the Polar Mountains to the Silk Oceans.

Their army had been fifty thousand strong, the beginnings. Now it was a million strong and growing. However, in their beginnings, they were almost defeated.

Two strong men, also half-supernatural beings, not apart of the original six, saw the despair in the land and wanted to change things. Wanted freedom. These two couldn’t find any others like themselves so they banded with a small team of six normal humans. These eight fighters took on the Authority.

They took on the army.

They attacked the Authority strategically, over the course of a decade.

They started an uprising and came within an inch of exterminating the Authority. They were able to kill five of the six strong men in epic battles that every kid in our country hears about at the dinner table growing up. But they couldn’t beat Akhenaten.

The uprising died.

And for many, many years the Authority ruled, unopposed—until a few years ago, when the Resistance sprang into existence from the dream of a young woman named Felicity.

This Resistance had, so far, brought some hope to the people of our land.

As it stood, however, the consensus among us, including myself, was that overtaking the current government was impossible.

I liked to consider these old myths, though. It seemed from the stories that a small group of people could start a revolution. Could change things.

Our three moons were out in full tonight, bathing the hills and glowing in certain pockets. The freezing temperature elicited steam from the warmer grass, rising against the backdrop of the moonlight.

I shook my head. I didn’t think my meager team could make any significant difference: we were only five people, young people. I was twenty. Akio clocked in at seventeen. Scarlet and Troy shaped up at nineteen. And Kara was the eldest at twenty-two years of age.

If we could only accomplish this mission, though, maybe it would help the Resistance. Ultimately, we needed to accomplish the mission. If we came back to the Resistance without any result, they’d likely kill us.

Because we’d stolen this train from them and had had to blow up a pretty large bridge they’d built to escape without them catching us. The Resistance and their leader, Felicity, had let us join but had only given us grunt work, scavenging and recruiting. Felicity wouldn’t let us take on our own missions.

But I needed this mission.

For myself more than anything.

I believed in the cause—sometimes. I believed in the Resistance sometimes. Mostly, though, I was here for me. I wanted to find my mom, if she were still alive.

Believe, Catherine. The plan is greater than you can see.

The voice crashed through my mind like a hiss, like a glitch, like something unreal suddenly coming into reality. Dizziness made my legs weak and I squeezed my eyes closed for a few seconds until I felt normal again.

“What’s wrong?” asked Akio, always annoyingly perceptive.

I hugged myself and took a deep breath, feeling better now. “It’s freezing cold tonight.”

Anyway, this tenth car was just an extra room. It was also one of four cars that had a hatch in the ceiling to access the roof.

A door against the back wall led to what had been a platform for sitting or standing, until the platform had become collateral damage from blowing up the bridge.

Now if you stepped out the door, you would fall off the train.

Yay us.

I stepped away from the window. As alluring as the view was, AND IT WAS, I had to get in the right headspace. Akio and I were about to raid the Armory castle.

“Five minutes,” I said as I stepped past him and into the next car, going toward the front of the train. “In five minutes, we’re out in the freezing cold again.”

“I’ll make you some hot chocolate,” Akio said, “in the meantime.”

And he winked.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HOT CHOCOLATE. IS. Important.

The fifth car, the heart of the train, hosted the most brilliant room—the kitchen.

(Not really and truly, but my stomach would like to think so).

And it had a hot chocolate machine that makes happy hot chocolate. Which is simply hot chocolate that tastes incredibly good, because of the whipped cream and chocolate syrup and love with which it is made.

Kara stood over the stove now, making popcorn. Quiet as always, she didn’t talk. And I didn’t feel like saying anything to her. I didn’t know her well, and I didn’t feel like small talk.

At one point, Akio brushed her shoulder tenderly, saying, “Popcorn, huh?”

With our mugs full, Akio and I went to the front car.

I appreciated the design—the massive glass, the pane of controls set out of the way, the emergency ladder in the back right corner that led up to a hatch. Comfortable seats and couches sat in the corners and against the back wall.

Scarlet and Troy stood before the front window with their arms crossed, watching the track disappear under the train as we sped onward across the Armory’s land.

Scarlet saw me and turned around. “Catherine. You had me a little worried there, but I knew you’d come through.”

I smiled.

Troy raised his eyebrows. “That was close. Hopefully that was as close as it will get tonight.”

“Great, you jinxed us.”

He laughed.

“I can reverse the jinx,” he said. But then didn’t explain.

“How?”

“You can let me have a sip of that hot chocolate.”

“You can get your own,” I said with a smile.

But I held out the cup. He took a sip and handed it back.

“The hot chocolate is why I agreed to this mission,” he said.

Akio was silent, watching out the window, steam rising from his mug. Nothing but green presented itself past the window.

We would arrive at our destination, the depot, in approximately three-and-a-half minutes. Just enough time to down my hot chocolate and reassure my team that the rest of the mission would be smooth after that rough start. I should have gotten the gate open a minute before they arrived.

Even with the warm liquid, I felt bad about the ordeal.

Scarlet moved beside me. Her voice was soft, not because she was telling me a secret or anything—she had a naturally soft and smooth voice. She wasn’t a loud or expressive person. She was always calm, quiet and reserved, which in her case didn’t mean shy. It was just her personality.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

I nodded while taking a sip of the hot chocolate.

Her name was Scarlet and she often wore red, like right now.

A beautiful red dress, tight-fitting thick material, fell to just above her knees. She wore a jacket that complimented the dress, being a slight shade different in color, to combat the cold. Stockings kept her legs warm. And a black fedora on her head completed the outfit, her dark hair falling out from underneath, curled. She was the picture of beauty, a catch by all definitions. And even though he didn’t seem to know it, she had a crush on Troy.

Which made sense.

Troy was everything any good woman would want: he wasn’t as tall as Akio, but he was broad, had bigger muscles. His biceps bulged beneath his long-sleeved black shirt. Thick dark cargo pants and brown boots completed his simple outfit. Like Akio, he had medium-length dark hair, but his skin was lighter.

Most notably, he was a lover more than a fighter, even though he was one of the best fighters I knew. If he needed to fight, he could, and he showed up full force. In his spare time, he wrote poetry and novels. He devised fictional stories, trying to find truth in the stories.

Sometimes, when I’m in a spiral, I think of Troy's manuscripts and feel like maybe there is SOME meaning to this world.

He had a strong jaw and thick eyebrows. I thought he would make a great match for Scarlet. And she would appreciate him for who he was.

I took a large sip of my drink. It went down to my belly and warmed my body the whole way down. Time was ticking, and I wanted to finish my cup.

There was one thing the four people on my team had in common that I didn’t. They were all orphans. I’d lost my dad. And the Resistance had told me my mom was dead. I didn’t think their information was correct. I would find out soon.

I took a final sip of my hot chocolate and it was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DEPOT WAS a large hangar filled with trains.

I didn’t know how it looked, because I’d only seen it from a distance before Akio and I had polar jumped off the train with our equalizers. We’d gone to the back end of the train, on the roof, and connected with the track. Flew down and landed gently.

And our train and our three teammates continued toward the parking hangar. When they arrived, they would have to meet the depot workers, who would direct them where to park. And would perhaps ask for clearance. We didn’t know the depot protocols, only that that was where the train was supposed to go.

I listened as the noise of our train died away, and we were left in near silence.

Akio and I stood on the track, about twenty feet off the ground, looking down, then to each other. I could see his white hot breath.

Then we hopped down and landed on the grass. I kneeled down and touched the grass for a moment. I had never stood on this much of it. I felt like it was an illusion that would be ripped out from under my feet at any moment.

“Spectacular,” Akio said, his hand running over the grass.

And I smirked because he’d said it very weird.

“What?” he said.

He had a mixed accent, like his people.

His olive-toned skin glowed under the bright moons.

My white skin probably looked more pale. But there was no way of knowing because I was wearing gloves and dark face paint for this mission. Scarlet had painted my face—twirling and concentric designs that actually looked pretty.

“I like your face,” he said flatly.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Akio took off running, up the first hill.

I ran beside him, a little behind.

We got to the top of the hill, dark figures.

And we continued, down this hill, up the next.

Headed for the Armory castle. Some referred to it as a mansion. Either way, it was headquarters for the Authority when it came to weaponry and tech.

Warehouses and factories (many, many of them) full of the most advanced tech and best weapons stood on this sprawling property. Being created and stored and studied and tested and all the rest. The back end of the property—which was fortified to hell and back—contained the bulk of the factories. It buzzed with workers, going at it all day and night.

From here, we could hear the faint noises of their labor.

But that was miles off.

We were in the residential portion. Here were the homes of some of the higher-ups, including the main castle—the residence of the Minister of the Armory. I knew his name from the papers: Fredrick Wallace.

As subjects of the Akhenaten Authority we were required by law to know all the ministers’ names. And we were required to read all the propaganda pieces put out by our government. Which I thought was a stupid tactic on the part of the government. Required reading required the citizens to learn to read, which bred a smarter populace. It’s always better to keep people dumb if you’re trying to keep them subjected.

Still most people didn’t do the reading. I never heard of anyone being punished for not reading the propaganda. And most adults couldn’t read, anyway.

Maybe that was the Authority’s plan. Make the reading required and the subjects would naturally NOT want to do it. And therefore wouldn’t learn to read.

I was thinking too much.

And my breathing had increased. We’d been running hard for a few minutes now. Hadn’t run into any security detail. Coming to the top of a hill that dropped off rather steeply—about thirty feet—we jumped. Landed and rolled.

Continued running.

When we got to the top of the next hill, I could hear the rovers.

Guard rovers were vehicles that hovered above the ground about a foot. They could fit four passengers and often four passengers occupied a rover at all times. The four seats faced different directions. Guards in the seats were almost always bearing long rifles. Some rifles were powerful enough to bypass deflective armor. Not that Akio or I were wearing deflective armor. Any rifle could kill us if we got spotted by a rover squad. The rovers could go an easy one seventy-five mph top speed.

If we were spotted by one, we’d be dead.

Since I didn’t know a lot about what we were getting into, I didn’t know how many rovers would be out right now. No doubt they’d be patrolling nearer to the castle, which was half a mile from us at this point, looming larger. I was making out its features in greater detail.

This mission was simple, but like I’ve been saying—it meant different things to me than to my team. This mission had already been attempted by the Resistance and it had failed. My mom was a Resistance fighter. A squad leader. She and her team had taken a train very similar to our train to this very Armory. We didn’t know much of what happened because none of her team of fifteen had survived. From intel, we knew they’d made it past the gate. Into the Armory.

But they’d never made it out.

By all accounts, they were dead.

I had reason to believe my mom was alive.

That’s what the voice in my head was telling me.

I had some bit of hope that the voice wasn’t a part of my brain that was losing its cognizance, but that maybe it was some sort of subliminal intuition. Perhaps there was some advanced science we didn’t yet understand. Perhaps I could SENSE that my mom was still alive.

It had only been four days since her capture or possible death.

The Resistance told me she was dead, and I’d grieved for two days. But my voice told me to come here. I asked Felicity, our leader, and she’d told me no. Wasn’t old enough. She said they’d see us coming. We’d all be killed. The Resistance didn’t have enough resources. Only had two high-powered trains left. I didn’t care about any of those reasons.

I got my team together. All were my friends except for Kara. Akio had recommended her. She was a gearhead, an engineer, supposedly a genius. I just thought she was weird.

I told my team I wanted to complete my mom’s mission, and that part was true.

We were here to complete her mission.

And I was here to find her.

The mission was an extract of files. The files, according to Resistance recon, were located in the minister’s castle. In the library, in a backroom. The files documented all locations of Armory factories and hideouts and protocols. This information would be heart-level vital to the Resistance. If we knew the locations of the factories, which were distributed around the continent, we could raid them and destroy them, but not before stealing tech for ourselves. We were seriously under-stocked when it came to our arsenal.

I would look for the files once we got inside the castle.

But I would look for my mom as well.

Simple as that.

As we ran, I checked my side pocket, running my hand over it, making sure I had the shot. I’d found an adrenaline shot—only one—in the medical car of the train. There wasn’t much in the medical car so I was glad to have found this one shot.

I couldn’t bear the thought, but if they’d tortured my mom in the last few days, or hadn’t fed her, she’d probably need the shot. It would give her loads of energy. The dose was meant for a full-grown man.

Akio pulled up, dropped to his stomach. I dropped beside him. A rover’s headlights, from a few hundred yards off, shone right at us. We buried our heads in our hands. The light remained on us a few long moments. Then turned away. We dared not move, only listened, as the rover drove away in the opposite direction.

Then we got back to our feet.

Three hundred yards from the castle, running through the cold night, steam still rising from the soft blades of rapidly-cooling grass, neither of us had any idea how to get inside the castle.

We couldn’t get caught or trip any alarms.

If we did we’d never get out of here, and the prevailing theory of how my mom’s mission had failed was that one of them had tripped an alarm. A guard had been alerted. And the game was over.

Since her mission had failed only days before, I was sure security had been heightened.

I hoped that perhaps because my team and I were not trained Resistance fighters that we stood a better chance. We’d have to rely heavily on instinct.

We were self-taught, self-trained. Our lives were training. I’d killed my first Authority guard when I was ten, slitting the man’s throat unaware. Troy had killed his first when he was seven. We hadn’t joined the Resistance because we wanted to become fighters. We already were.

Our personalities were to push back, to survive, to never give up. To do what it took to get the desired result. We’d grown up fighting. For ourselves and our families. It was in our blood.

And that’s why maybe, just MAYBE, we had a chance.

CHAPTER NINE

KARA NEVER FIT in.

She figured it was because she didn’t grow up how the others did. She had been a princess in a small kingdom. She didn’t remember those days, before the fall of her kingdom. But everyone treated her like a dyed-in-the-wool dainty princess was all she was. Most of the time, she was covered in engine grease, so she didn’t understand why people thought of her as such.

Could have been her appearance.

Or her quietness.

She didn’t talk much.

Catherine didn’t like her.

She knew that much.

She was here for Akio. She wouldn’t have joined anything like this otherwise. She wasn’t a fighter. She thought the Authority was terrible, like everyone else. She didn’t think there was anything to be done about it, like most everyone else.

The Resistance people were crazy in her opinion.

Akio was her only friend. He’d explained the mission to her. And she knew she had to go. Not for the mission’s sake. But for the sake of Akio: to protect him.

They’d never make it without her. None of the others knew how to work these trains a tenth as well as she. She had always understood mechanics and machines intuitively. And she loved working on them. Had an appreciation for them.

She had always understood life intuitively, and she was always dreadfully right about everything. ‘Dreadfully’ being the key term. Right now, sitting at a table in the kitchen, she was still, calm, but in her mind she KNEW—something was wrong. She didn’t know how she knew. But Akio was in danger.

Getting off her seat, it took her a moment to balance in the moving train. She hadn’t walked or stood much in the past hour.

She moved into the front room with Troy and Scarlet. If anyone could help Akio, it was Troy. Kara didn’t like Scarlet or Catherine, but Troy was okay. He was smart and strong and kind and always smiled at her when she entered the room.

Like now. “Hi, Kara,” he said.

Scarlet didn’t acknowledge her. Never did.

Kara joined them at the window and watched as they pulled toward the depot.

That’s when their radio crackled.

“Need clearance to park in the depot. What is your clearance code?”

The depot was a giant hangar, bigger than any Kara had ever seen. She could make out at least a dozen men. All wearing matching yellow coats.

There wasn’t much else to see but the depot and the grass and the rolling hills of the property. There were four trains parked in the depot right now, tucked away on the far left, stacked one on top of the next.

“This could be bad,” said Troy.

“Let me talk to them,” Scarlet said. “I’m pretty. Disarming.” She shrugged as if she didn’t believe it.

They rolled toward the depot, Troy bringing down the throttle, preparing to park. He said, “I’m pretty, too.”

“Yes, but it’s different,” said Scarlet.

He smiled. To himself: “True.”

CHAPTER TEN

I THOUGHT THERE would have been four rovers, maybe five. That would have seemed like a reasonable number. There were ten, that we’d counted so far.

Running over the hills of trimmed grass, we didn’t have many places to hide.

We tried to stay on the lee side of hills, out of the light, and had been successful.

Now there was this final stretch. One hundred yards. We’d worked our way to the left side of the castle where we found some ongoing construction. Scaffolding ran up the side of the wall. Tractors stood on the ground beneath the scaffolding. Three men working the night shift, wearing bright yellow suits. Easy to spot, easy to avoid.

We were stuck behind this particular hill, lying on our bellies, prepared to run the moment we had a chance. The rovers didn’t patrol in a pattern that we could discern. So far they’d only given us five-second openings.

The castle was actually, in the words of Akio, spectacular from here.

Made of brick, rising high into the sky. Tall spires stretching and reaching for the stars. Beautiful design in the crenels and carved figures on the many ledges.

My mom had been here.

Might still be here.

“We’re going to have to bound onto that scaffolding,” Akio said.

(When Akio says ‘bound’ he means use our equalizers to magnet jump or ‘polarity jump.’ Everyone has different terminology.)

“Rovers?”

“If they see us, they see us.”

“If the alarms go off, we’re all dead. That’s how my mom’s team died.”

“They didn’t die,” he said.

I was taken back. “What?”

“We all know, Catherine. The intel wasn’t complete. Your mom might still be in there. That’s why you’re here.”

Before I could say a word, he added, “We all knew that was your motive here.”

Two rovers passed in front of us, operators sweeping powerful beams of light in all directions. We couldn’t make our run.

I was shocked that they knew.

“Why did you agree to this if you knew?” I asked.

“You’re our friend. And we want to prove to the Resistance our value. And the thought of your mom still being alive, for you, will make you all the more committed to the mission, to do whatever it takes.”

“You’ll help me find my mom?” I asked.

Without looking at me: “That’s why I’m here—we have an opening!”

He got to his feet and started for the castle.

I moved fast, right behind him.

The rovers had dispersed. One could come around the corner at any moment, but Akio had made the right move. We couldn’t just lay there forever.

My heart was beating out of my chest. I watched the sides of the castle, waiting for the inevitable rover, headlights blaring, to come around and spot us.

Fifty yards crossed and we were good.

I glanced up at the yellow suits working on the scaffolding. Hadn’t seen us.

Akio was faster than me. Taller.

I pushed and got just behind him.

Took out my equalizer.

A rover came around the left corner of the building. Headlights flashing. Different directions. Hadn’t seen us yet. We weren’t close enough to bound.

We needed ten more seconds.

I pushed harder, coming beside Akio. He’d taken out his equalizer. I was ticking off the seconds in my head, hoping the beams wouldn’t spot us. I didn’t even want to look at the rover.

I found the spot on the scaffolding I would jump to.

I began raising my gun.

A headlight beam swept towards us, low—I saw it in the grass ten yards in front of us, sending a sheen of white across the blades. Coming our way. We’d have to jump over it.

Three.

Found my aim.

Two.

Akio was ready. I could tell.

Jump, Catherine! said the voice.

And I did—pulled the trigger and launched into the air, over the beam. Not even my feet passed through the light. I flew up twenty-five yards toward the spot on the scaffolding, attaching the gun back to its holster in mid-air. The scaffolding didn’t have any good place to land so I’d have to catch onto it and pull myself up.

I caught it, accompanied by a loud noise. The wood and metal bars shook. Akio caught the bar beside me at the same time. We hoisted onto the wood and laid down across the planks, in case a headlight beam flashed up after us.

And one did.

A beam shot right towards us, but we were laying on our backs, side-by-side on the wooden platform. The beam held there for a good ten seconds, then moved away. We could hear the low whine of the rover move away. The men in the yellow suits hadn’t seen us because they were working at a lower level of the scaffolding.

From here, I could see the first ledge on this castle, high above. I saw a man with a long rifle and his foot on the ledge, leaned, peering out, overlooking the land. And my heart stopped for a moment. They had snipers on the roof. I mean obviously they should—I just hadn’t been thinking of it. Akio and I could have been sniped down without even realizing what had happened. I felt like a terrible leader. How did I not take snipers into account?

Didn’t matter.

They hadn’t seen us.

I got to my feet and moved for the first available window. The window was open, letting in the freezing night air. And the window setting was large enough for me and Akio to step into it and look into the castle.

That was when I knew this mission was impossible.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KAYDEN WAS ON the roof of the castle, standing directly center, at the highest point, between the four tall spires. He took a deep breath of the freezing air. It filled his lungs. He could feel the air trapped in his lungs, seeping into his bloodstream. He could feel the cool moisture turning warm in his veins, getting pumped throughout his body. He could feel, if he remained still, the nutrients from the air moving through his veins with each pump of his heart.

He wondered if others could feel these sensations. He had talked about it with some, and they couldn’t understand what he was saying.

He had abilities.

His senses were keen, supernatural some said.

He knew they were here, a team with the Resistance. He had caught the first team. Easy enough. This team would be even easier because he’d expected their arrival.

He had been up here and watched the two go into the window: the girl with the face paint; the boy with the slanted eyes.

He knew that they’d go deep into the castle, to the jail.

There were five snipers up here. They had been on this roof for years and had barely seen action. Kayden told them to be ready for tonight.

Likely, Kayden would be able to dispatch these young Resistance fighters on his own. These snipers provided backup. If the two inside the castle tried to run, they would be shot down. Simple. No mess.

Taking another deep breath, Kayden walked to the roof exit. He was going to be at the jail when they got there. They hadn’t yet realized this was all a trap. Sure, Kayden had let the control room attendants die, and the guards. Wasn’t such a big deal. He wanted to get the Resistance team inside these walls.

Wanted them to face their greatest fear.

Failure.

Scarlet was twirling the lipstick tube in her hand. She tucked it back in her pocket and zipped it closed, didn’t want to lose it.

Parked in the depot now, the workers yelled over the train’s radio, demanding the clearance code. Then they started banging on the side door of the front room.

Scarlet opened it. Three men stood there.

“You need clearance to park here,” the man in the lead said harshly. When he saw that only Scarlet was standing here, his voice lowered—surprised to see a pretty girl.

She blinked a few times—long eyelashes.

“Were you on the radio?” she asked.

“Yes. Why weren’t you answering?”

The men wore hefty jackets. Burly men, bruisers. The two behind had giant beards. Their jaws looked strong as steel. Scarlet wondered if Troy would be able to take all of them on. These three, plus the remaining dozen or so working this hangar tonight.

“My radio broke.”

Pause.

“How’d you get in the gate?”

Scarlet laughed. “It was really strange. It worked for the gate and then broke right after. I’ve always had really good luck like that.”

The man’s tone changed. Much softer now. “Would you like me to take a look at your radio? Maybe fix it?” He scratched the back of his neck.

Scarlet definitely didn’t need that.

She would need to stall them.

Kara was in the second car, her back up against the wall near the doorway to the front room. Troy was across from her, back against the wall. Listening to Scarlet.

Kara made a face to Troy.

She was thinking, I don’t see how this is going to work.

Kara watched Troy's face. She could tell his pulse was racing. She could practically FEEL his pulse. If Scarlet couldn’t stall these guys, and she couldn’t stall them forever, he would have to fight. Being that he was outnumbered, his chances weren’t great.

His right fist was clenching and unclenching, warming up his muscles.

Getting the blood to flow.

A shade of blue mixed with the black of my coat. Only a hint. In most lights it was indiscernible. Blue glitter, a light layer, patterned over the concentric black-painted designs on my cheekbones. Almost indiscernible. It was odd to me how something could be there and not be seen.

I hoped the blue would be my good luck charm.

Maybe the nearly invisible color would help me be invisible.

If Akio and I tripped an alarm we would die.

The whole team would be as good as dead.

Standing in the tall window frame, we pushed the heavy glass doors open all the way, and we planned our GRAND and INVISIBLE entrance.

The interior of the castle loomed, giving me vertigo for a second being that we were so high up. Two marble staircases on the bottom floor rose from the center of the room to a second floor. Additional staircases stood on the right and left sides, winding their way up to the second floor.

There was a third floor, but it wasn’t an open floor plan. We could only see windows, framed in by a light-stained wood. Slatted shutters, pulled closed, fronted all. From here, we were looking into the heart of the castle.

Logic said we needed to get low, as low as we could, to find the dungeon. I pictured a winding staircase of old stone. I pictured grime. And it led down to the dungeon where my mom was being held.

“Do you have glitter on your face?” Akio whispered.

I smiled. How did he notice these things?

“That’s cool,” he added.

He ran his hands through his hair. It fell back down over his forehead, right back into place. He looked focused.

To get to the lowest level of the place would require plenty of stealth.

Understatement.

Three chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

The closest one to us was seventy-five feet distant. Our plan was to bound to the first one, then to the next, then to the next. Once we reached the third, we’d be on the other side of the castle. Then we’d be able to jump down into the overwatch box situated between the second-floor and third-floor levels. It overlooked the grand foyer. We could see two men standing in the box, rifles at the ready.

We would take out these guys, then figure out the rest.

I hoped they wouldn’t hear us as we jumped to them. Hoped they weren’t the kind of guys to glance upward every once in a while. We’d need them to keep their eyes low, watching the foyer, if we were to get across the chandeliers. And the chandeliers looked to be our only option.

We took out our equalizers, aiming at the metal cords that suspended the chandelier. It was a straight shot.

“I’ll go first,” I said.

“No, I will.”

“Akio.”

“Fine.”

I would need to land softly.

Think soft, I thought.

I pulled the trigger.

This was nearly about when everything went to hell.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SCARLET DIDN’T KNOW what to do.

Five men stood before the door now. Big guys.

“You need to let us inside, missy,” one of them said, stepping up to her.

Scarlet realized this could be a good idea. Let these five guys in before more showed up. Let a few in at a time. That gave Troy a fighting chance. Still, it would be five vs. one.

“Are you sure?” was all she could think to say.

“Yes,” the lead man said matter-of-factly, then pushed past her, followed closely by the rest. The bright jackets passed her one by one until they’d all entered.

Quickly, on the prowl, they moved towards the second car.

Scarlet slowly and quietly began to close the side door. Didn’t want the people outside to hear what was about to happen.

She felt the gun at her side.

Couldn’t use it.

Gunshots would draw attention.

Attention would sound the alarm.

I was on the first chandelier. My landing caused it to sway slightly, making a bit of noise, hopefully not too much. I glanced down. If I fell, it would hurt. I would probably break my legs from this height. Or break my neck if I didn’t land just right.

With a dose of vertigo, I aimed my equalizer to the next chandelier.

WHOOSH!

I flew across the expanse. My feet came down on the top of the chandelier, on the rim. I gripped the cord that went up and bolted into the ceiling. Again, the chandelier swayed, but it was strong enough, despite the creaking noises it made.

I squatted, peered down beyond the edge of the rim. I could see security detail on stairways, on walkways. I could see several armed guards standing in posted positions in the expansive foyer. I could see the box from here.

I needed to jump to that final chandelier, then to the box. Take out the interior overwatch. And then we’d be home free to sneak down to the jail. Was the plan that we’d hatched literally moments ago.

Troy was at least as tall as these guys. He knew that. He was in the third car, waiting for them to enter. He’d made Kara go into the fourth, told her to run to the back if things got messy.

Troy was strong, strapping, worked out. Akio and Troy had a gym setup back home. Bench press, barbells, dumbbells. And Troy was fast. This wasn’t his first or even tenth fight.

But these were big guys.

He didn’t have a sword like Catherine and Akio. They’d needed theirs for the castle. He had a knife, but it wasn’t reverse-pulsed. There was nothing special about it. He had a gun with a few shots in it. Couldn’t use it for risk of setting off an alarm. He’d have to challenge these guys to a brawl, and they’d have to go for the challenge.

He could hear them approaching the door to the third car.

He moved into the center of the room, stood tall, knife in his right hand.

They saw him, entered the room, fanning out, by rote.

“You’re Resistance, aren’t you?” the main guy asked.

Troy sized them up. The leader of the group was his height, but more broad. These guys’ jaws looked strong. Troy had a softer face. He decided not to go for their faces. He’d more than likely break his hand if he punched one of them across the jaw.

Troy's hand was shaking, slightly, and the leader took note. The leader’s eyes moved about Troy, sizing him up. Then to Troy's eyes.

The leader had a radio on his front shirt pocket, left chest. He lifted it to speak.

“No,” Troy said.

The man stopped, looked at Troy, then smiled.

“Oh, I get it,” the man said.

After a few moments, he let go of the radio.

“You’re giving us a chance to take you down without help.”

“You don’t look like you need it,” Troy said.

“Drop your gun, kid.”

Troy slowly removed his gun and tossed it aside.

The five men began shrugging their shoulders, getting loose. Cracking their knuckles. Troy took a few deep breaths. He was nervous as hell, but now was the time to get focused. Forget the odds, forget the repercussions of failure. Forget everything but HIT or BE HIT.

Troy's hand steadied.

The leader took two quick steps forward and swung a left fist.

I made the final jump.

Flew across the open air, silent.

Landed perfectly on the final chandelier. I could barely hear it as it swayed. And I took a calming breath. So far, so good. The overwatch guys hadn’t looked up. I looked back at Akio. He was on the first chandelier, about to jump to the second. We’d been taking turns, trading off. Didn’t want to make a lot of noise together. After he reached the second, he would jump to this final one with me, then we’d jump together to the box.

He pulled the trigger on his equalizer, launched across the space toward the second.

His heavy boots hit the rim of the chandelier a little hard. He almost lost his footing, almost fell backwards. And then he did.

His left hand gripped the cord, but he slid down the cord. He couldn’t use his right hand because he was holding the equalizer. He slid down to where the cord met the chandelier. That’s when he finally caught himself.

But the chandelier was swinging wild now and making all sorts of noise.

It sounded like a giant wind chime.

That’s when I noticed the top of the cord, where it was bolted into the ceiling. The ceiling cracked—the crack widened and lengthened. The cord was coming undone.

“Akio,” I whispered sharply.

Shaking even more now, Akio’s chandelier lowered a few inches, ripping out of the ceiling. It caught. But then it fell a few inches more, stopping abrupt. Akio looked at me. Our eyes met. Concern in both of our expressions.

Finally, his chandelier broke free of the bolts that held it and fell, taking Akio with it to the main foyer of the Armory castle.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IN THE DUNGEON of the castle, Kayden looked through the bars of the cell at the sullen form of Christina. She sat with her back against the farthest wall, a full tray of food beside her. She hadn’t touched it.

She’d lost her entire team.

Kayden had killed them all.

Left her alive, because he’d had a feeling.

She saw him looking at her through the bars. Made eye contact with him. And that’s when he realized. He saw the resemblance.

“Do you have a daughter?” he asked.

Her face changed. Curious, but then scared.

“That makes sense,” he said.

The alarm started ringing overhead, a shrill noise created by an advanced breakthrough in sound-wave tech. The entire castle was wired with speakers that could transmit the noise.

Christina was on her feet now, at the bars, just before Kayden.

“What about my daughter?”

“She’s here,” said Kayden, nodding to the alarms. “I didn’t think she’d be caught so soon.”

“She’s here. You kidnapped her?”

Christina shook the bars.

“You are so beautiful, like your daughter,” Kayden said.

Christina was slight of frame. Even though her face was sweaty and her hair was sticking to it, she was a picture of beauty. A model image. Perhaps that’s why Kayden had left her alive, though he’d slayed the rest of her team. Her daughter was more beautiful, in part because she was younger.

Christina spoke through clenched teeth. “My daughter?”

“She came here to rescue you.”

Christina’s face was a pool of worry, of rage, against Kayden, against this Armory, against this world. Kayden could read her so easily, could see through to her soul.

Now her eyes were darting. She was looking for a way out, a way through these bars, something she hadn’t thought of. But she wouldn’t be able to think of anything.

“How do you know it’s her?” Christina asked.

“She looks just like you.”

“Why did you keep me alive? Why are you here?”

“I was told to leave the leader alive. For information, interrogation. We were thinking of using you for bargaining with the Resistance.”

“Leave my daughter alive. Please.”

“My orders are to kill,” he said coldly.

And Kayden left the dungeon.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BEFORE AKIO HIT the floor, the alarms had started. Someone had spotted him falling and reacted fast. Now the shrill sound was blaring, pulsating throughout the entire Armory.

Before Akio hit the floor, I aimed my equalizer at the overwatch box. I’d have to kill these two men before they sniped Akio. There was nothing metal to grab onto. I aimed at different places, pulled the trigger. Got nothing. No connection.

I’d have to jump without the gun.

I strapped it to its holster. I gripped the chandelier cord in my right hand. My feet were on the edge of the rim. I leaned back, then I pulled on the cord, pulled myself forward, sprung off my feet. I had to clear fifteen feet. It was on a lower level than I so there was a good chance.

Akio had reached the floor.

He was stronger than me. I wondered if he’d broken a leg. It was likely. If he was lucky, he’d be okay. But all of the security detail would begin shooting him any moment now.

There was nothing else I could do but kill these guys in the box, and they were in my view. Both of them were holding long rifles against their shoulders, pointed down at Akio.

They saw my form in the air and began to react.

But a second later my feet landed on the ledge of their balcony.

The man on the left pushed me, but I grabbed onto his shirt. Their rifles were too long to get a shot on me because I was right up against them.

Holding onto his shirt, I swung my legs up and wrapped them around the man on the right’s neck. I pulled with my legs as hard and fast as I could. The guy didn’t anticipate this. I pulled back, trying to throw us all off the ledge. I knew if I used all my might, the man on the left would immediately grab onto something, keeping us from falling. He did. Which allowed me to throw off the man on the right.

I released the final man’s shirt, pulled out the knife from my thigh holster, stabbed him through the heart. Taking the knife from his chest, I let him fall away, off the ledge, but not without grabbing his long rifle.

I spun around, looking down over the foyer, tucking the gun against my shoulder.

This was the best view.

I saw four targets immediately, all taking out their pistols to shoot Akio. I took four quick shots, and I dropped all four targets. Dead. And now guards, moving onto the edge of the second-floor walkway, were looking up at me, then ducking behind cover.

I saw Akio in the rubble of the fallen chandelier.

He got to his knees, extended his equalizer, and launched out of my sight. I didn’t know where he’d gone. It looked like he’d bounded onto the second-floor walkway.

Two additional men stepped into my line of sight.

One aimed his gun at me. I aimed fast, right at his neck. Took the shot. The bullet hit him full in the face. The second man was beginning to take aim at me. Same thing. Same result. At my level, this third level, I saw wooden shutters open on one of the rooms across the way to my right. A man with gray hair, in his sixties, was looking down at the foyer.

It was the MINISTER OF THE ARMORY.

I’d seen his picture in the paper so many times. He was standing right there. He certainly didn’t know this overwatch box was compromised because he wasn’t looking this way. He figured he was safe from the action in the foyer.

I raised the gun to shoot him, but he wasn’t armed, which made me think twice. Sure, I’d killed Authority guards before, but only when I’d been provoked. Still, he was the Minister of the Armory, killing him could provide value to the Resistance. I was about to pull the trigger.

Don’t, Catherine.

The voice threw off my aim. I didn’t pull the trigger. In fact my vision blurred for a moment. I blinked hard, and when I opened my eyes the minister wasn’t in his window, though he’d left the shutters open. The shutters were made of wood. No way I could jump to it.

Besides, I needed to find Akio.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

KARA WAS IN the tenth car of the train.

She’d pulled the curtains across the windows. Troy had told her to hide. She’d climbed into one of the bunks up top and closed the curtains to the bed. Now she was laying on her back in the darkness, feeling completely vulnerable. Trying to keep her breathing calm. There were too many feelings in her, upsetting her, twisting her stomach in full circles, then back around again. She couldn’t explain it. The feelings were washing over her. They became so intense that she lost her vision. Everything went black, and she just laid there, trying to move in the blackness. But she couldn’t. She was lost to some sort of in-between world. Couldn’t see a thing. And all she knew was fear. Knew this mission wasn’t going to go well. She struggled in the blackness, lost, trying to come back to reality.

“The alarm isn’t for me,” Troy said to the men.

The train’s radio crackled: “Resistance fighters in the base. RED ALERT. Resistance fighters in the base.”

Standing back against the wall, Troy faced off against the five men.

The lead man swung a fist. Troy ducked and the man’s hand hit the metal wall, pretty hard. Troy grabbed the man by the legs and drove him toward the two on the left. He drove them all into the nearest wall, which was lined with shelves.

The other two gathered behind him.

Troy spun around, taking out his knife.

They stepped back in response to the knife, then pulled out their pistols.

A gunshot. Blood burst from each of them. Troy glanced through the doorway and saw Scarlet, down the way, holding her long rifle. She’d sent one bullet through the two men with deadly accuracy.

The remaining three were collecting themselves.

Troy rammed toward them, slicing one’s neck. He plunged the knife into one’s stomach. The final guy was trying to pull out his gun. Troy was too far to stab him. He side-kicked him instead. It knocked the wind out of him—sent him into the nearby wall. Scarlet was in the room now and shot the man through the chest. Holding the long rifle with the huge bullets.

Five down. A dozen more to go.

“What do we do?” asked Scarlet.

“We have to wait for Catherine.”

“Fight them off?”

They heard the door open in the front room. Men yelling. Entering.

“Should have locked that,” said Scarlet.

“They would have broken a window if you had. We have no choice. We have to fight.”

Troy flipped his knife around in his hand out of habit.

“We can do this,” said Scarlet.

“Great speech,” said Troy.

“It wasn’t a speech. Was only saying. Don’t be so sardonic.” She was offended.

“I wasn’t.” He smirked. “I was trying to make a joke.”

“Oh. Next time. Don’t try.”

“I’ll try. To not try.”

Kara could see Catherine in her mind’s eye, being replaced by the blackness. It was a vague picture, black-and-white. Then Catherine was gone. Nothing but darkness. Kara felt a pulsating feeling. White light bounced around a room and she saw Catherine again. Catherine was at the top of a stone stairway, beginning to descend.

Trepidation was all Kara could feel. Her fingertips were tingling, and she knew that Catherine was going to run into something she couldn’t stop. She knew Catherine was going to be killed.

I was running down the stairs from the overwatch box. The stairs spiraled, down and down, around and around. I needed to find Akio, and we needed to escape. My mind went to the dozens of rovers out front. I didn’t know how we would get past them.

Someone came around the next corner. I raised my pistol, nearly pulled the trigger—it was Akio. I stopped for a moment, lowering the gun, taking a breath.

“You okay?” I asked.

He nodded.

“We need to get out of here,” I said.

“We need to get your mom,” he yelled over the alarm.

I shook my head. “She’s probably not even here. There’s no time.”

“Catherine! You know we have to check.”

“I don’t want us to die because of me.”

“This is my choice!” he yelled.

I thought a few moments.

He was taking the blame on his shoulders.

I thought about Scarlet, Troy, Kara. They would be under attack by now. Ultimately Akio and I needed to get out of this castle, get back to the train, somehow get the gate open and get the hell out of here.

The train was fast, advanced, reinforced. We’d be fine if we could get our bodies and the train out of here. There was no time to FIRST find a dungeon, SECOND see if my mom was there, and FINALLY get out of here. I couldn’t risk the team.

I think Akio knew what I was thinking.

“I’m going to find your mom,” he said.

And he started down the stairs, with or without me.

Scarlet dropped to a knee, aimed at the doorway.

She was ready for the men.

Troy ran for the back of the train. He heard men coming in through the backdoor. He knew Kara was hiding back there so he was booking it, running straight down the line of cars. He’d picked up the dead men’s pistols. One in each hand.

I’d endangered my team from the beginning. I hadn’t been honest from the beginning. Akio was being the sweetest guy in the world for going for my mom. It wasn’t the right choice. I decided to follow him anyway. Because it was my mom. If she were alive, I needed to know. I needed to save her. I was ten feet behind Akio.

We came to the bottom of the stairs.

Three men stood abreast here, guns aimed at us. They began firing. We backed around the corner, bullets punching into the brick walls near us.

We waited three seconds, looking at each other.

He nodded.

We spun out from behind the corner. Dropping to our knees. Aiming our pistols. I pulled the trigger a few quick times. He did the same. The three men dropped. Clearing a path.

We jumped over their fallen bodies and ran down this wide hall on the second floor.

Shiny marble graced the floors. Red carpets lined either side of the hall. Staying in the center, we passed giant windows, inset in the wall on the right, some hidden by velvet curtains. Bronze statues stood here and there of great leaders in the Akhenaten Authority. And large oil paintings of other leaders and philosophers hung on the tall walls.

Our footfalls, ringing against the marble, blended into the alarms.

Neither of us knew where we were going, looking for a stairway or something.

I heard shouting far behind us. Glanced back. Nothing yet. Then men showed up, sliding around the corner, raising guns, shooting.

Fifty feet ahead of us and to our right were large double doors. We angled for them, bullets flying past us.

“We could really use some deflective armor right about now,” I yelled.

Akio and I dropped to our sides ten feet before the doors and slid the rest of the way, over the polished floors. We sprang to our feet before the doors and yanked them open.

Entering a kitchen, we ran past chefs, harbored around pots and long counters. A delicious smell filled my senses as we nearly knocked over the white-clothed cooks.

“Deflective armor could really be my best friend, if I had some,” Akio said as we reached the other end of the room.

“I thought I was your best friend,” I said.

“If you could stop bullets, you would be,” he said.

Pacing in her cell, Christina could barely think over the sound of the annoying alarm. But it wasn’t the alarm. It was the fact that Catherine was here.

How had the Resistance even allowed a mission like this?

Christina realized that they wouldn’t have. Catherine would have stolen a train, done what it had taken, to get here. To save her. It was so sweet and yet so heartbreaking. She couldn’t stand the thought of Catherine dying here. Christina had seen firsthand the overwhelming power and force of the Authority. Of the man KAYDEN.

There was no chance of escape.

For any of them.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A MAN CAME through the doorway. Scarlet took the shot. The body dropped, instantly dead. Another man behind him, raising a gun. Scarlet shot. The man dropped, blood bursting from his abdomen.

Scarlet had one more bullet before she would have to reload.

A cluster of three men showed up ten feet behind the doorway, guns raised, shooting before even coming through the door. Scarlet jumped back, out of the way, behind some cover. Bullets sprayed through the door, thrashing against the train’s metal walls.

Sparks flew.

Troy made it to the tenth car. Two men had already dropped in through the overhead hatch. Another dropped in as Troy entered the room.

Pistols aimed, Troy shot the first two men.

But the third guy, a mammoth of a man, grabbed Troy's guns and ripped them from his hands, tossed them aside. Then he grabbed Troy by the collar and lifted him into the air.

Troy punched the man in the face and the shoulders and the neck, but nothing affected the guy. He was a juggernaut, unstoppable. Neck like a tree trunk. Hands like hammers, but with the ability to grip.

One-handed, holding one hundred seventy-pound Troy, he threw Troy across the room.

Troy scrambled to his feet, but the man was there, slamming a closed fist into Troy's face, plowing him into the floor. Troy's head bounced against the metal floor and everything went blurry.

Kara heard the noises and awoke from the strange darkness. Blinking, she was thinking how she’d never experienced anything like that before. Peering through the curtains, she saw Troy unconscious on the floor.

A really big guy was moving out of the room, to the next car. Going for Scarlet.

Kara dropped out of the bunk to try and wake Troy.

Akio lifted a gun at one of the chef’s heads. “Where’s the dungeon?” Akio yelled.

The man pointed, frantically spoke, choking up during words, “That door. Down the hall. The hall will curve down at the end. Follow that to the rounded door. That leads to the staircase to the dungeon.”

It was a crude description.

We were moving as he finished.

Akio practically ripped the door off its hinges, and we were in the first hall. I could see the curve at the end of it, about a hundred yards out. And we were on our way.

This hall was narrow, dimly lit. We couldn’t run side-by-side.

I ran behind him.

The wood floors announced our footfalls without any doubt of our fast and deadly intentions. Doors appeared on either side of the hall. As we passed them, I saw inside a few of the rooms: living quarters for employees of the Armory. Could see twin beds tucked in the corners, toilets and sinks. Tight-packed brick walls. No windows. Lit by lamps. Not the best conditions. Better than our homes.

Kayden woke up, dizzy.

He was midway up the dungeon staircase, sprawled over the stairs. Slowly, with a horrid pain in his head, he worked his way to a seated position. He rubbed his temples, his forehead, ran his hands through his long hair. His muscles were pulsating.

He couldn’t remember how it had happened. He’d been walking up the stairs and—he must have tripped and gone unconscious. He remembered his dream though. He had seen a young woman with a purple highlight in her hair. She was beautiful, but looked scared and small, laying in darkness. Helpless.

Now that his head throbbed, the blaring alarms were that much worse.

We turned the corner of the hall, descended to the lowest level. At the far end of this hall, I saw the curved door the man had mentioned: the dungeon entrance. I felt it for the first time, a difference in my pulse. I had hope. Whether or not it was founded, I had it.

Akio had gotten a bit ahead of me, about seven feet. There was a door in this hall, and it opened between us. Two men ran into the hall, swords and pistols in hand, cutting me off from Akio.

Akio heard them and turned.

“Get my mom!” I yelled, taking out my sword.

He nodded, continued running for the dungeon entrance.

Akio made it to the curved door, threw it open, began descending the stairs. Everything became darker down here, dank, the way one would expect. There were torches on the wall, incrementally, whereas the rest of the castle was lit by bulbs and candles. The torches burned against the wet brick.

Bolting around a corner, jumping down the steps three to four at a time, he ran into someone, hard. The man fell backwards and they rolled down the stairs a bit. Akio, scrambling, trying to get oriented, climbed to his feet. The man got to his feet, pulling out a knife.

He wasn’t a guard, but the way he held the knife Akio realized this guy knew what he was doing. He sliced at Akio’s stomach, but Akio jumped back. Unsheathed his sword and, in the same motion, thrusted it towards the man’s chest.

Kayden was happy one of the Resistance fighters had made it this far, to the dungeon staircase. That was impressive enough. He’d figured they would have given up and run what with the advent of the alarm.

Kayden was pleased he’d get to kill this Resistance fighter.

Maybe he’d get to kill more, if he was lucky.

The kid had skill, for certain.

Not enough. Kayden saw the jab coming a mile away. He easily dodged it and came around with a feint and THEN—a quick and jarring stab to the shoulder.

Kayden moved in and stabbed the knife through and through, in one end of the shoulder and out the other. The kid cried out in pain.

Then, leaving the knife in his shoulder, Kayden grabbed the kid by the neck and threw him down the stairs with only a portion of his strength.

Akio flew through the air like a rag doll, as if he were a feather. He hit a wall, knocking down a torch. Part of his coat caught fire, but it went out as he landed and rolled down the stairs about ten feet. The man came down the stairs to him, leisurely.

Akio’s shoulder stung in pain as Akio reached for the knife and pulled it from his shoulder, screaming against the pain.

All the while Akio considered how there was something wrong with this guy. He could see things coming. He had more strength than he should. He wasn’t super muscled, but he’d been able to throw Akio THAT far!

It didn’t make sense.

A sense of dread washed over Akio as he got to his feet. Or was that the rapid blood loss from the knife wound? The man walked slow, like there was all the time in the world. Akio’s heart was beating in his ears. He got to his feet.

Raised his sword.

“Hey,” I yelled at the two men so that they didn’t run after Akio but faced me instead.

And I stabbed my sword at the man on the right. He dodged, sending himself into the wall, creating an opening between the men. The man on the left raised his pistol. I ducked. He SHOT. His bullet plowed into the wall behind me. A spray of brick came over me, as I came up at him, taking hold of the gun, aiming it away from me. The remaining guy was close enough to stab me, and he went for it—which was my plan.

Moments before he took the jab, I yanked back the man I was holding, right into the other man’s stab. The blade went through the man’s side. I saw the guy’s face as he realized he’d accidentally stabbed his friend. They looked at each other.

I sliced my sword across the remaining man’s neck.

Then started running for the dungeons, sword in hand, feet sounding off on the hardwood floor. Strands of hair clinging to my sweaty face. I took a few deep breaths as I came upon the entrance. I could hear swords clinking together as I ran fast past blazing torches against the walls of the spiraling staircase.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FROM HER CELL, Christina could hear the sounds of the fight but she couldn’t see it. Nevertheless, she stood at the bars, holding them, looking through into the darkness at the end of the long room, anticipating. She knew it wasn’t Catherine. Couldn’t be.

There was no way Catherine could have made it this far.

Christina wanted to hope, but she didn’t want hope to betray her.

Shaking him as hard as she could, urgency in her soul and mind and spirit and voice, Kara was trying to wake Troy. But he was cold as a frozen rock.

The behemoth of a man had walked for the center of the train, where Scarlet was exchanging plenty of gunfire. Each and every gunshot made Kara’s insides curl and jump. Made her eyes nearly blink.

“Wake up! Troy! Wake up!”

Shaking him as hard as she could, she couldn’t help herself—tears began forming in her eyes. She was the oldest person on the team, and she was probably the only one crying. It was who she was. She cried easily, was scared easily, and was timid and shy even in normal situations.

The sounds of the gunfire, the men surrounding the train and entering and trying to kill them—these were the very reasons she hadn’t wanted to take this mission.

Alarms blared, and Kara was sure Catherine and Akio were being hunted or even killed at this very moment.

“Troy!”

Akio double-backed, down the stairs, into the dungeon. He saw the first cell to his left, then spun around to face the man, covered in shadows in this dark place.

The man came at him, walking a little faster than he had been.

Akio knew he couldn’t fight this guy.

There was something wrong with the guy. Or something weird about the guy.

Akio backed up more and more until he got down the hall and reached the final cell. Torches burned back here. Two or three. Shadows and light danced over the damp brick walls and floor.

“Akio!” said a voice behind him.

He glanced back. It was Catherine’s mom.

He returned his attention to his attacker just as the man swung the sword toward him. Akio dodged to the right, but the man was coming back around with another strike.

Akio raised his sword, deflecting the man’s strike.

The man was insanely fast—he brought his sword around and, with a quick twist, thrust his sword straight through Akio’s abdomen.

Akio couldn’t believe it, even as it happened. He saw it go in. It didn’t hurt—because in the first moments shock seized him.

“Akio!” Christina cried.

Eyes wide with fear, Akio looked up into the man’s face.

The man smiled, looking into Akio’s eyes, happy that he’d won.

“You’ve accomplished nothing,” said the man.

Then the man yanked the sword from Akio’s body. Akio remained standing, trying not to fall, though everything in him wanted to fall and just lay there and die.

“Hey,” Catherine’s voice yelled from behind the man.

Akio lifted his eyes and saw Catherine, running toward them.

“No,” Akio tried saying.

“No!” Christina yelled.

When I saw my mom, my heart skipped a beat, but I knew I couldn’t think about it right now. I needed to kill this man. He was wearing a long overcoat. He looked young, healthy. He raised his sword and smiled as I ran toward him.

“He’s impossible to beat!” yelled Christina.

I didn’t know what that meant, and I didn’t slow my run.

Akio fell to his knees, and my heart dropped.

I saw blood coming from his stomach, a little to the right of center. In this lighting it looked dark like ink.

Crushed and furious now, I didn’t stop running until I was in front of the man. I swung my sword as hard as I could, as fast as I could. He side-stepped, caught it with his sword, and with incredible speed went in for a counterattack.

I imagined this was what he’d done to Akio.

I was better with a sword than Akio.

I deflected the blow, tried to stab him.

He jumped out of the way, smirking. “You’re pretty good.”

He took a step toward me. I took a step back. He moved with leisure, like he had all the time in the world, like this was easy.

Akio, moaning, got to his feet and got beside me.

The man watched. “I’m impressed.”

“Catherine, don’t fight this man. He has powers,” Christina said.

The man looked over at my mom.

Then to me. “She’s right. You’ve lost.”

I didn’t lose. My mom was right here. Even if we didn’t recover the documents, we could recover my mom.

“Right now,” he said, “there are teams being gathered to slaughter you. Guards everywhere. Snipers on the roof. You’ve lost yourself, your team, and your train. You’ll never make it out alive. It’s simply impossible.”

I glanced at my mom. I didn’t understand why this guy was talking. Why wasn’t he killing me already?

“He’s thinking of using you as a bargaining tool for the Resistance,” my mom explained. “Maybe trade you and me in for someone. Maybe send our train back with us in it, but as a trap.”

I took my gun from my holster and put it to my head. “You’re not using me.”

“Before you do that,” he said, “we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Kayden.” He smiled. “And you’re Catherine, leader of the small group of Resistance fighters trying to rescue your mom and collect documents that don’t actually exist.”

I looked at my mom. She looked away.

“I leaked false information to the Resistance. The documents you came for, that your mom came for, don’t even exist. We wanted one of our trains back and, thanks to you, we have two. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.”

I raised my gun at him and shot. I knew he’d be wearing deflective armor. The smoke from the gun filled the space between us and I stepped through it, thrusting my sword as fast as I could.

He dodged. I raised my gun and unloaded all the bullets at him. They bent around him, hitting walls, redirecting into empty jail cells.

He stopped backing up.

Then he came at me.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SCARLET WAS DUCKED behind a wall. She’d killed maybe six men total, but she needed to reload her gun. More men were coming.

She ran into the next car—the engine room.

This was the most important room on the train. She hadn’t wanted to get pushed back this far. This was where the generators that loaded their deflective polar shields were located. This room controlled the entire train. And she’d led men with loaded guns back here.

She leaned against the wall, taking a few bullets from her pocket. Her hands were shaking as she tried to reload as fast as she could.

A man entered the room from the other side. Scarlet saw him and stopped reloading. Somehow he’d gotten past Troy. The man was carrying no weapon—no knife, sword or gun.

Only two giant fists. The guy was huge. It looked like all he did every day was workout, all day—and take growth hormones and think about muscles and dream about muscles and write books about muscles and draw pictures of himself drawing pictures of muscles.

He saw her and scowled.

Sitting beside Troy, tears in her eyes, Kara didn’t know what to do.

A man dropped through the hatch in the ceiling, landing down beside them. The man looked at Kara sitting there beside Troy's unconscious form. Then he raised a pistol right at her.

Kara closed her eyes.

She knew that this would be where she died.

The man shot the gun. Once, twice, three times. Kara heard each shot. Loud. Each one made her jump and scream a little. Silence followed. For a good few moments.

She opened her eyes.

The man only stood there, smoke coming from the gun.

“You’re not wearing deflective armor,” he noted, swallowing nothing.

He’d missed all three shots.

“What’s wrong with you?” he said.

And Kara was wondering the same thing. Her hands were tingling as if they were full of electricity. The electricity spread across her body. In literal moments, she felt like she was going to explode. She noticed that Troy's eyes had opened, but that was the last thing she remembered. She felt the energy release, out of her, exploding from within her like when a giant rock falls into a small pond. The waves of energy bounded from her, reached over the edges, moved out, bounced back, moved out, crashed together, separated out further. Then further. Then further.

And, with the man standing over her, she fell unconscious.

Scarlet got one bullet in the gun when the big man swung a giant fist at her. She dodged back. He took another swing. She backed up into the wall. Then the man collapsed, clutching his side, clutching his heart. He fell to his knees. Then to his face. Falling just before her feet.

The men coming through the doorway fell, one by one.

Leaned against the wall and trying to catch her breath, Scarlet’s eyes darted around the room. She didn’t understand.

Right then a man fell through the doorway, groaning in pain, shaking as if he were having a seizure.

This guy, Kayden, had amazing footwork—better than mine. He was circling around me, swinging his sword in interesting ways, deflecting, feinting. I deflected all of his blows, surprised I was doing this well. I was fast and focused. Akio was still standing off to the right, but I knew he would collapse any moment. He was trying to be strong for me.

Then, the strangest thing happened. Kayden’s movements slowed. He closed his eyes tight and opened them, trying to blink something away. He looked like he’d been overcome by dizziness or disorientation.

He swung his sword, half-heartedly.

I leaned away from the strike, then countered.

Even as it happened, I couldn’t believe it. I stepped in and pushed my sword through his stomach, all the way in and through. He dropped his sword. He couldn’t believe it, either.

I let him fall before me, and I looked at my mom.

It was a few moments before my mom could find words.

“He has a key in his pocket,” she said.

I searched a few of Kayden's pockets before finding it. I tossed the key to my mom, through the bars. Then I went to Akio. He collapsed at the last moment, right into my arms.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I COULD BARELY support Akio’s weight. I was small, didn’t have much muscle. Enough to handle myself well, but not enough to carry a full-grown man. My mom let herself out of the cell and stood at my side. She put a hand on my back. I looked at her.

In the dim lighting, darkness covered half her face.

But light danced against the other half—I could see the flickering of a torch in her brown eye.

And I could see tears.

“Akio,” I said.

“We have to leave him,” she said. “We have to leave now.”

I heard loud footsteps, voices, coming from the stairway. It was the only exit and entrance to this area. Guards were coming to kill us.

I could feel Akio’s breath on my neck.

I couldn’t leave him.

He was my friend. He always supported me, even when he doubted me. He was the one who brought us down here, to find my mom.

“Honey,” she said. “He’s going to die.”

“Is there any chance?” I said, as the voices grew louder, coming down the stairs, “that we can get out of here alive?”

Christina’s eyes fell. She didn’t think there was.

This mission was useless.

The documents were fake. Didn’t exist. The Authority and all of their resources, which were serendipitously—to their benefit—located here, would terminate us and leave nothing left.

Even if we could escape, by some miracle, we had nothing to bring back to the Resistance.

Akio’s weight was bearing down on me. I lowered him to the ground and laid him out on his back. Tears welled in my eyes as I looked at his face. Light going past and around his dark hair, which was frayed sideways across his forehead. His coat had come slightly undone at the top and I could see a ton of sweat forming on his chest. He breathed heavy, eyes closed.

He was fighting the inevitable.

My mom leaned down at my side and put her arms around my neck.

That’s when the tears broke from the pools in my eyes, streamed down my face.

“I failed,” I said. “I killed all of us.”

It was weird. I’d grown up with nothing, so you would think I’d have nothing to lose. But these people were my friends. This was my mom. I had no hope in this life and yet I couldn’t bear the thought of losing my mom, couldn’t bear the thought of losing my own life.

If I had nothing to live for, then why did any of this matter?

“We have to at least try to escape,” my mom said. “But you have to leave Akio. We can’t carry him. It’s impossible.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

TROY WOKE UP, sat up straight, shook his head, took stock of his surroundings.

Kara lay beside him, unconscious. Out cold. The purple stripe in her hair had fallen over his leg. Leaning over her, he listened. But he couldn’t hear her breathing. Rolling her to her back he began compressing her chest.

“Kara.”

He pressed, counting. Pressed, counting.

“Kara!”

Scarlet ran into the room. She gasped and knelt beside Kara.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, but I think she saved our lives. Or something.”

Troy put his mouth to hers and breathed in everything he had in his lungs.

Kara coughed a little but didn’t wake.

He could feel her heart revving up in her chest. “It’s beating too fast. She’s going to crash.”

“Troy,” Scarlet said.

He didn’t hear. Was trying to revive Kara.

“Troy!”

He looked up at her.

“What do we do now?” she asked, eyes searching his.

Troy continued trying to revive Kara. He didn’t know what to do. One thing at a time. But the thoughts started rolling in. Should they start up the train? Start leaving? Were Catherine and Akio dead? Was it even possible that they could make it out of the castle?

There were too many questions.

He gave Kara a moment, listened to her breathing.

It was there, barely.

Troy looked at Scarlet.

The men, the armed guards, had almost reached the bottom of the stairs. Almost reached our hallway. We’d have to fight them back any moment.

I stood there, preparing my mind. My mom was right. I wasn’t ready to give up. But my mom was also wrong: we couldn’t leave Akio.

You already know what to do, the voice said.

And this time it didn’t make me dizzy.

The voice, my inner voice, my conscience or whatever-the-hell it was, was right. I already did know what to do. “We don’t need any documents,” I said, standing beside my mom. “We’re going to kidnap the minister himself.”

“He’s here?” Christina said, moving toward Kayden. She bent over him and began taking his weapons, checking to make sure there were bullets in his gun. She picked up his sword.

“If we take the minister, we’ll have something to give to the Resistance. He’ll know the locations of all the weapons’ factories. He IS the documents. He knows everything.”

Four men burst into the hallway.

My mom raised her recently-acquired pistol and fired four quick shots. Two of the men fell. The other two wore deflective armor and the bullets curved around them.

I’d thrown my knife while my mom had been shooting. It was a twenty-yard throw and the knife reached one of the men—went right through his throat. The last man turned tail and ran back up the stairs.

“We have a chance, Mom,” I said. “But we’re taking Akio.”

She grabbed my arm. “Your friend would want you to run. Even if we wanted to carry him we—”

I pulled out the adrenaline shot from my inner pocket.

“That’s not going to wake up Akio,” she said. “It’ll make him lose blood faster.”

“Not for him,” I said, moving it to my leg.

“No, honey, you can’t put that in yourself!”

I jammed the needle into my leg and pressed it down hard.

“I’d brought it for you,” I said. “Thought you might need it. It lasts ten minutes. I’ll be able to carry Akio. But we only have ten minutes.”

I felt the adrenaline circulating. First through my leg, to my stomach, up into my chest. Like a flash of heat. Like the roar of a tiger trying to escape.

My heart picked up speed.

I walked to Akio, stood before him, waiting for the adrenaline to reach my mind. After all, it always comes down to mind over matter.

“Only two things,” I said. “We need to kidnap the minister. I saw him in his room. The center one on the third floor. We need to get on the radio and get a message to our train.”

The adrenaline coursed through me with each beat of my rapidly-beating heart.

My mom looked concerned, and I knew what she was thinking. I was too small for that shot. It could burst my heart, damage my organs. She was a foot taller than me, bigger boned. I shouldn’t have done it. She should have.

Too late.

I lifted Akio onto my shoulders.

We had ten minutes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE TEN-MINUTE clock had started seven minutes ago.

We had three left to make it back to the train before I couldn’t carry Akio any longer. Already he was beginning to feel heavier on my back.

My mom had grabbed Kayden's radio. She’d also taken Akio’s equalizer. And as much as she didn’t want to, we split up. I had had to yell at her to get her to agree. It was the only way we could salvage this.

She had gotten on Kayden's radio and said to the guards that we were on the east side of the Armory mansion. They bought it, apparently, because we made our way around the west side of the place easily enough. I ran into two guards. I’d had to drop Akio, kill them, and pick up Akio once more.

I told my mom to get the minister. I’d get to the radio control room.

See, Kayden's radio was set to a frequency that went out to the local guards. It couldn’t be changed from his device. I needed to get to the radio control room and patch into the train’s frequency. If I could get a message to Troy and Scarlet, we could be on our way.

I found the room. It was marked on the outside, but the door was closed. I tried the handle. Locked. I took out my pistol, shot the lock, which would let nearby guards know my location, but there was nothing else I could do.

The door came loose and I kicked through.

There was a man sitting behind radio controls, wearing headphones, shocked to see me.

I shot him through the head, kicked him out of his chair.

I set Akio on the floor and stood in front of the controls. The panel was long, spanned the width of the room. There were cords, lights, and switches everywhere and I couldn’t make out half of the markings. Most of it was in a different language. The Authority communicated their intel in different languages in case spies were listening in.

It took me a few moments to figure it out. I flipped a few switches, put on the headphones, and pulled a mic close to my mouth. I was still holding my gun in one hand, and I raised it at the door. Guards would be here any moment.

The way I had to stand to use the mic had me half-turned away from the door. A bead of sweat formed on my forehead. When a guard showed up in the doorway, I wouldn’t be ready.

I tuned a dial to our train’s frequency: d3.

I pressed the button for the mic.

“This is Catherine! We’re alive and on our way out. We need to start moving for the exit. I’ll get the gate open in seven minutes starting NOW.”

Did I have a plan?

This time: Sort of.

Kara was still unconscious, sucking in small gasps of air.

Scarlet and Troy were kneeled beside her, listening to Catherine’s voice over the speakers. Troy was on his feet in an instant, running for the front room.

I threw the headphones off my head and spun around to the door just as a guard appeared. I pulled the trigger of my gun. The bullet exploded from the barrel but, when it reached the man, it curved away from him. Deflected. Pounded into the doorway, splintering it.

He came through the doorway, carrying an over-powered electric sword. Reverse polarized electric swords, like mine, didn’t show flashes of blue or emit any sort of electric spark.

This man’s sword was sparking. Smoke even came off of it.

He entered the room, and his eyes fell to Akio slumped on the floor. Sad thing for this guy was the adrenaline was still in my veins. His sword may have been over-powered but so was I.

Before he could make a move I closed the distance between us and stabbed him three times through the chest and stomach. I stepped over him as he fell to the floor. Glanced into the hall.

Clear.

I put Akio on my shoulders. I regretted that I’d put him down. It was difficult standing up straight again under his weight. The adrenaline was tapering off fast.

Didn’t matter anyway—these were the last few minutes whether I wanted them to be or not. And our success was predicated on a few things. One, I needed to get to the roof with Akio. There would be less security on my way there because no one would expect me to go to the roof. I also needed to clear the roof—kill the snipers. If I could do those two things, we were halfway home.

I picked up the man’s over-powered sword and moved back into the hall. Still clear. I was sure the guards would figure it out soon and swarm this side of the castle. Until then—

I found a stairway and began ascending.

Each step burned the muscles in my legs.

Our success was also predicated on my mom. She needed to get the minister. For two important reasons. One, the Resistance would likely kill us if we came back to them with nothing. Two, we could use him as a shield on our way to the gate. The rovers wouldn’t shoot us because they wouldn’t risk shooting the minister. Without him, we’d never reach the gate. My mom would also have to steal a rover, but she’d said she knew where the unused ones were stored.

Finally, it depended on my team. If they didn’t get the train going, if they were caught or killed, we’d obviously never make it.

Carrying Akio up the stairs, I felt as though it would be a miracle if we were able to accomplish all these things. I was about halfway up the long and spiraling stairway when my knees started shaking.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WE HAD FOUR minutes to reach the gate.

A heavy wooden door stood as the entrance to the roof.

I set Akio down on the long concrete steps, letting his head lay back against the wall. He was unconscious, still breathing. I felt horrible leaving him there but there was nothing else I could do. If guards came up this way, they would kill him first thing. I couldn’t take him through the door or he’d get killed first thing. I needed to kill the snipers fast.

The adrenaline had worn off.

It didn’t matter.

The door was operated by a large handle that I had to spin clockwise. It looked like something that would make a lot of noise. It did. No time for subtlety anyway. I kicked the door open. I held the electric wisping sword in one hand and my pistol in the other. Wasn’t sure if these guys were wearing deflective armor. I would soon find out.

These guys’ guns, heavy-as-frick caliber, could pierce through deflective armor, so they would try taking shots at me.

I went through the door.

Rather, I ran through it. I figured they’d be expecting a slow entrance. I ran as fast as I could and saw the roof spanned hundreds of feet in all directions. The moons served as the only source of light. As such, the light was ambient and quiet, flat and vague.

I saw the giant spires, mounted in the corners, reaching for the sky. And I saw one man, a hundred feet from me, spinning about, taking aim.

There was only this one man that I could see.

I aimed my weapon towards him and fired two shots.

From this distance, using a pistol, I missed both shots. Couldn’t confirm whether or not the man was wearing deflective armor or if I just had bad aim.

The man aimed with his rifle, standing straight up and down, resolute.

Finding his target.

I pulled the trigger once more but I was out of ammo.

Standing there, there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t throw a sword from this distance. Maybe I could, but he would see it coming. My knife was tucked away. Would take too long. And I was too far from the door. No way I could run back for cover.

A gunshot went off beside me! The lone sniper fell to his knees, then to his face. Akio was there, just outside the door, back against the frame to support himself. He’d taken the shot. Smoke came from his pistol.

“Impressive,” I said. More impressed that he’d gotten the energy to rise to his feet and aim and fire a weapon.

Snipers moved in from around the backside of the spires to my right and left.

Running now, I dropped alongside the body of the fallen sniper, using him as cover, just as two shots from two snipers rang out. Both shots plowed into the dead body. Didn’t get me.

The men were coming at me from either side.

But I pried the long rifle with the heavy bullets out of this man’s dead arms.

I heard Akio take a few shots from back at the door. Providing cover. I rolled about and supported the powerful rifle over the man’s body. I hit one of the snipers through the arm. He dropped his gun. I’d come back to him. I hit another through the chest.

I went back to the one, who was running for cover.

Got him through the back. He dropped.

There were two more that I’d seen. But I didn’t see them now. Which meant they were prone or hidden behind something. They were snipers—their advantage was finding good places from which to work.

I knew this would be my only chance to get up.

With the rifle in one hand and the sparkling blue sword in the other, I ran toward the nearest spire, began circling it. Couldn’t see anyone yet. Moved fast yet cautious-ish. Continued around. I was walking on a ledge about a foot-and-a-half wide now. The roof fell away here.

I ran into the first man. Looked like I’d caught him off guard. I aimed the rifle from my hip and got him. He clutched his stomach in response.

I ran toward him as his body fell off the side of the roof. I was a quarter of the way around the spire when I RAN into the final sniper—a female, looked to be only a few years older than me, trying to aim her gun. I was close enough to take hold of the barrel of her gun and push it out of the way. I alternatively sliced the sword across her leg. I was at a weird angle so it was all I could do. In a quick move, I pushed her off the building. And continued around the spire until I was back on the main square of the roof. Five snipers down.

I waited, watching, eyes flicking everywhere. There was no one else.

I ran to Akio, who was still surprisingly standing, and he put his arm around my shoulders.

I led him out, further onto the roof.

“Where are we going?” he moaned.

“We’re jumping,” I said.

He moaned. I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Maybe a few obscenities. But he walked with me.

We had to jump off the building. There was no way we’d make it back through the castle. The guards would be swarming the west side, would be up here soon.

I moved Akio to the edge of the roof, on the east side of the castle. My mom was supposed to meet us on the ground with a rover. I let him rest against the inner wall that surrounded the top of the roof. I ran back for the long rifle and slung it on my back.

So far, so good.

I went back to the edge, taking in a breath of the cold night air. I tied the belt on my coat a little tighter, looked down at Akio. “You ready?”

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“I know. I love you, too,” I said with a lot of excitement in my voice.

I lifted him to his feet, and he mustered up enough strength to take the step up onto the top edge of the inner wall. He used me for balance, and I was afraid he’d knock us both down before I was ready. For the record, I’d never done anything like this before. I wasn’t even sure if it would work. My heart skipped a few beats and I felt lightheaded.

Considering what I was about to do.

I could hear, and then see our train in the distance, far off, headed back toward the gate. They’d be there on time.

All we needed to do was jump to the ground, meet up with my mom, race the rover to the gate control room—back to where this whole thing had started. Get the gate opened once more. Then jump onto the train.

“Is there another way?” Akio said, very clearly. Fear had given him some strength back.

“Unless you know how to fly,” I said.

“You’re going to catch us, right?”

“Hug me tight,” I said.

There wasn’t much room on the ledge, so it was difficult but he hugged me, the biggest and strongest hug of my life. Which was good.

Our faces were right in front of each other. His breathing was still ragged, edgy. I looked down beyond our feet. I saw rovers far off, away from the castle, making their rounds. I saw a group of what looked like fifty soldiers marching over the grassy hills, coming this way—from this high up they looked so small. Because there were so many of them, I could hear their footfalls—coming down in unison, creating one echoing sound.

I saw a rover, that looked like a small bug from here, park beneath us—far, far below. Tears came to my eyes, especially because it was cold up here. I blinked them away. My stomach felt queasy. But I stopped thinking about it.

I dropped the over-powered sword and watched it fall, and fall, and fall, sparking all the way down to the ground. Maybe it’d catch the grass on fire and burn this place down—was a random thought I had.

“Now this is a trust fall,” I said.

“I hate you,” Akio said, offering a half-smile, filled with bewilderment.

“But you’ll learn to trust me.”

He nodded.

I didn’t know why, but I kissed him on the cheek.

And then, equalizer in my one free hand, we let ourselves fall from the ledge.

PART TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

NO MATTER WHAT it was going to hurt.

The cold air whipped past us, beat against our clothes, through our hair, cooled our sweat. The brick wall of the castle blurred past.

Akio clung tight to me.

After the seconds, he began yelling—a cocktail laugh, a mixture of excited and scared.

He was a thrill seeker.

Stuff like this was right up his alley.

Maneuvering us in the air, I spun about so that I was looking up towards the sky. I raised my equalizer with my free hand. It had a thirty-yard reach. The plan was to grab onto something metal as we fell past. It would slow our fall—stop our fall. It would actually sling us up to the metal. Then we’d fall back the rest of the way.

I knew we’d fall past the scaffolding any moment now.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

We fell and fell and fell.

My ears started to tingle from the cold.

We fell past the first bit of scaffolding. I lined up my trigger but didn’t fire. We needed to be lower, closer to the ground. The scaffolding met my eyes with a blur. Hard to discern the detail I was looking for. I was afraid I’d miss my opportunity.

“Anytime now!” yelled Akio.

Wait, said the voice.

I waited.

I waited…

My hand, holding the equalizer, began to shake. I was afraid I’d miss it, but we needed to be lower.

“The ground is right here!”

I could hear my mom’s rover.

I could even hear the electric sword I’d dropped, buzzing against the grass.

Finally, I pulled the trigger. It connected with a metal beam and our incredibly fast fall slowed and slowed as if we were being pulled back in a slingshot. Then we bounded upward toward the beam. Again, I maneuvered our bodies, spinning us about. When we got to the beam, we were underneath it. I planted my feet against it to stop us. We were upside-down and angled a bit away from the wall. I pushed off as hard as I could and sent us back towards the floor, which was about fifty feet distant.

Akio helped maneuver us in the air so we’d land on our feet.

And we did—landed on our feet, no problem.

It took Akio a moment to let go.

He held onto my shoulders as we went to the rover, which my mom brought near. There were additional seats in the rover. My mom was driving. The minister, Frederick Wallace, was in the other seat, hands tied behind his back. His gaunt face had a look of utter disdain and even humiliation. Mostly, though, he just looked mad. I nodded to the man. He remained stoic.

Putting Akio in his seat, I doubled back to the get the electric sword. It wasn’t far. It had landed point first in the ground and went deep into it, nearly up to the hilt.

I pulled it out, climbed into the rover. My mom spun us around and floored it. I took the long rifle off my back, made sure it was loaded, set it down beside me. I took out my pistol and moved to the minister.

“Wallace!” I yelled over the noise of the engine, the wind, the alarms that were somehow still blasting out here over the property. He looked me up and down, evaluating, judging. He also glanced over at Akio, who was slumped against the inside wall of the vehicle. Akio was holding his side, blood pouring over his hand. I was afraid for him. I knew he’d found the strength on the roof for me, and I knew he had nothing left.

I grabbed Wallace by his ruffled shirt and spun him around, putting him at the back of the rover. He was our shield. They wouldn’t shoot us as long as he was in the way, because they wouldn’t shoot him. I made sure he was positioned so that if any snipers went to the roof they wouldn’t risk taking a shot at the three of us.

“Stay!” I yelled.

Then I went to Akio and dragged him over a little so that he was hidden behind the minister.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

VIOLET WOKE UP with a start. Her heart came alive moments later. She was still alive. She had thought for sure she’d seen her last moments. The girl with the electric sword had killed them all, all of the overwatch. Violet could feel throbbing in her leg, where it had been cut. She didn’t dare reach for it. She didn’t dare move. She was suspended from the building in some way, hanging here. She’d fallen off the ledge beside the spire, must have fainted. She was afraid that if she moved, she’d fall.

She was hanging in such a way that her body was against the wall. Her stomach was parallel to the ground, which was far below. A deadly fall.

“Stay calm,” she whispered to herself.

She saw a handhold in the brick a bit in front of her. She reached for it and took hold. Her leg wasn’t hurting too badly, she took note.

She’d failed—hadn’t stopped the girl. That was the worst part.

Slowly finding handholds and footholds, climbing up the wall—she was only a few feet from the top—she knew she was going to kill the girl. Taking hold of every hold, she said it to herself, repeated it to herself, let it take its place in her mind. I’m going to kill the girl.

The small girl with the electric sword.

Troy was in the engine room with Kara.

She’d finally woken up. He hadn’t been able to get the engine started and he’d had to get her awake and walk her to this room. She’d been dizzy and awkward. She’d looked around and moved a few things and pulled two levers and the train had started up.

On par with Catherine’s timetable, they’d reach the gate in three minutes.

It was like the beginning all over again.

Troy was in the front room now, looking out the side windows. A fleet of rovers tracked with them, shooting and firing and to no use. The train deflected the bullets.

Troy knew they were perfectly safe on this train. But, still, he said it out loud to comfort Kara, and to remind himself: “A mammoth of advanced tech.” He placed his palm against the nearest wall. “Heck even if the shields were down we’d be safe. Reinforced steel. Special kind of rare steal that goes through some kind of smelting process. Some guy at the bodega told me about it, I’m not—”

But Troy stopped when he realized Kara was barely listening.

Troy felt relaxed.

Until he remembered the gate.

Scarlet, standing at the window, caught his attention. “There are, like, thirty rovers shooting at us.” She wasn’t scared. Only amused.

Troy came to her side, and they simply watched.

“What happens after we get through the gate?” said Scarlet.

The Armory would send everything they had after them.

They wouldn’t be safe, but they’d at least be beyond the walls.

“One thing at a time,” said Troy.

But, still, a stressed feeling gathered in his stomach.

“Three minutes,” I yelled for my mom’s sake.

Always at the mercy of time, I thought.

I was holding a gun to the minister, making sure he didn’t move. I glanced back and saw my mom put the throttle all the way forward. My eye caught the speedometer as the needle neared two hundred miles per hour.

Looking to my left I could see our train, probably going seventy-five, being followed and shot at by a squad of rovers.

I saw a few rovers far behind us, but we were too far for them to catch up. We’d slipped right through the patrols.

I knew this couldn’t be pure luck. Something strange was happening. But for now, I’d be happy if we got ourselves and Wallace onto the train.

I had a nervous feeling in my chest and stomach. I knew it would be there until we got to safety. I began wondering about the gate control room. Had they placed more men in it? Is that why they were letting us go? Were they letting us go? Did they figure we’d simply crash into the gate?

Two and a half minutes. Scarlet was worried about the gate control room. She knew there would be men posted in it. It didn’t make sense that they wouldn’t reinforce it after a Resistance train had gained access to the place.

“I’m going up,” she said.

It took Troy a moment to realize what she was saying.

“On the roof?” he asked, aiming his eyebrows inward and then upward. “You crazy?”

She grabbed her sniper rifle from the wall where it was leaned. She moved to the front window and took aim through it, looking through her scope. She could just see the control room from here.

There were what looked like ten men patrolling the glass enclosure.

Scoped in, she followed the stairway to the bottom of the stilted room. There were more men down there, perhaps fifteen or twenty. All armed with armor-piercing guns.

“Yep,” she said, “I’m going up.” And she threw off her coat once more and strapped a heavy belt of bullets around her waist.

She glanced out the side window. Rovers were still shooting up a storm.

Troy had a worried face but stood aside.

“I’ll stay low,” she said.

“I’ll go,” he said, reaching for the gun.

She held the gun. “You can’t shoot as well as me.”

And she went to the ladder.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

WHY WERE THE alarms still ringing? Violet thought as she tore down the stairs. She’d checked her leg—the cut wasn’t deep. She didn’t wrap it or anything. It wasn’t a big deal.

She pulled up on the wide second-floor hall. Guards were running in every direction. She sprinted down one way, hung a left. She navigated the path to the back offices.

Then she entered the palatial hall—the widest and most elegant of them all.

Crystal chandeliers caused light to sparkle. Hanging high, they cast pretty beads of light that swayed with the movement and hum of the inner workings of the castle. Right now, they were swaying more than ever as men in hallways above rushed and ran and scrambled to follow orders.

Violet rushed toward the double doors at the end of the hall.

This was Lieutenant Barnhart’s office.

Two sentries stood in front of the doors.

They saw Violet running towards them and began reaching for their pistols.

“I’m overwatch,” Violet said, slowing down before them.

They stopped reaching for their guns.

“I need to see the lieutenant,” she said.

“You have to have a meeting.”

“Now’s not the time for protocol. It’s about the Resistance fighters.”

One chewed the inside of his cheek and deferred to the other. The other didn’t seem to know what to do but felt he was put on the spot by the one chewing his cheek. And so he said, “Fine.”

And Violet pushed past the men and through the doors and found herself in the largest office in the place, occupying a greater square-area than even the minister’s office. The lieutenant’s post. The lieutenant of the entire Akhenaten Authority.

And he was standing in the center of the office, surrounded by a group of people seated on couches. They were all soldiers. They looked at Violet. Lieutenant Barnhart wasn’t a guy you could just go and see on a whim. He was in the highest ranks of the government. You had to deserve to see him.

“She was on the roof,” Violet said, taking more steps into the office, feeling unwelcome. Feeling repelled by every eye and sign of body language.

Shrewdly, the lieutenant said, “I know.”

“She killed all the overwatch.”

“I know,” he said. “I didn’t request you. Leave.”

Violet shook her head. “She killed my friends. Let me go after her.”

“Now’s not the time for personal vendettas,” he said. “You’ll get over it.”

Violet realized she’d lost. They would kick her out any moment now.

That’s when the doors burst open. Four men were carrying a gurney. Violet stepped aside as they went past and she saw Kayden laid out.

The lieutenant’s face became that of anger.

Until this very point, he’d seemed only amused.

The lieutenant stepped up to the body and put a hand down over the bloody spot on Kayden's stomach.

“Sir,” one of the men reported, “we found him like this in the dungeons. What treatment should we provide? Tank, shots?”

“He doesn’t need treatment,” said the lieutenant. “Leave him here.”

The men left the gurney on the coffee table in the center of the room.

And then they were gone, out the doors.

Violet was standing on one side of the room, frozen, afraid, and staring at Kayden's body. He was barely breathing. Why didn’t the lieutenant want him healed?

“You,” the lieutenant said strongly.

He was pointing at Violet.

“How good are you?”

“I’m the only overwatch who survived. I’m the best.”

“So was he.” And the lieutenant’s eyes fell to Kayden.

Then he sat down on a couch, motioned for Violet to take a seat next to him. Walking over to the seat felt very awkward, as they were watching her every step. Three soldiers who Violet knew must be high level were sitting across from them. Kayden was between them on the table, fighting to stay alive. Strange as it was, Barnhart didn’t seem to care.

The lieutenant pointed to Kayden once more. “He was the very best, and somehow the girl beat him. It’s not possible. Unless she’s a half-breed as well.”

Violet didn’t understand what he was saying. She wanted to ask but felt like she shouldn’t. Barnhart noticed and explained. “Kayden there is a half-breed. Half-human and half-something-else. Something ancient. Made of the same stuff as Akhenaten himself.”

The three men were silent. Violet figured she should be too. She knew what he was referring to. The ancient myths of Akhenaten and his team of strong men who had some sort of supernatural powers.

“That’s why I’m not going to put him in the tank. He has the ability to heal himself.”

Violet couldn’t help it. Her eyes went wide. “He can heal himself?”

“Yes, part of the ancient blood. He can heal from any wound but a direct hit to the brain or heart. He’s stronger than all of us put together. He’s smarter, faster, can see things before they happen, intuitive. Whoever this girl is, she should never have beat him. And now we’re in this mess.”

The lieutenant was holding a cup of coffee, took a sip.

He continued: “If I put him in a tank, he’d heal within a few minutes. I want him to suffer. To learn from his mistakes.”

“She must be a half-breed,” said Violet. “She killed the overwatch with relative ease.”

“Except for you. And you want revenge.”

“Lieutenant, if I may ask.” Violet waited a moment, afraid to ask. “Why are we sitting here? Shouldn’t we go after them?”

In response, the lieutenant pointed to the three men. “These three men will kill them. You’ll act as their overwatch.”

“Thank you. But how are we going to catch up to them?”

One of the three men smiled at this—indicating her question must have been overly simple. The lieutenant had to hold back from scoffing, but he answered the question.

“We called in support.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

SCARLET KEPT HER head low as she crawled through the hatch in the ceiling. She rolled out onto the roof. The wind hit her in the face. The train felt so much faster up here than it did inside. Much louder.

The rovers couldn’t hit her from here since she was laying down. She could hear their bullets deflecting off the side of the train, hear their guns blasting hundreds of bullets at them. They were stupid. But they were trying to keep their jobs, so they had to keep up the chase.

Scarlet had seven bullets in the chamber.

Ten men in the box.

Laying prone, she extended the gun out in front of her and peered at the men through the scope. One of them pointed in her direction, had noticed her. She shot him first. Her bullet tore through the glass and went through his forehead. Blood burst upward, touching the ceiling. There was commotion in the box, men reaching for arms, ducking, dropping, deciding what to do.

Scarlet began picking off the men, moving the scope left to right. Headshots only. She emptied seven shots right quick.

She began reloading and the return fire began. She was low against the train, which meant she was covered by the train’s deflective shields. If she stood up, they’d be able to get her. She heard a bullet whistle over her head.

One hand began slightly shaking.

It was strange. Her personality was timid. She got nervous in situations like these—even in much smaller situations, like talking to Troy. She wasn’t as consistently steady as Catherine. Until she looked through her scope and took a breath. Everything steadied in those moments because she knew she could hit the target. She had complete control. Holding a gun felt natural to her.

Before she’d been orphaned, she was raised by a single father to the age of ten. They’d lived in a small house in the woods. He was a hunter. He was gruff, had a big beard with patches of grey. He had giant shoulders and before her mom had died, he’d been happy.

After her mom had died when she was seven, she saw it in his eyes—a deep pain. He rarely smiled. He looked tortured and lost, like all he knew in the world, all that made the world right to him was her mother. He was a man’s man, alone but for a single daughter.

He did the best he could.

He taught her hunting and shooting. That’s how they spent most of their time. He didn’t talk much. He laughed seldom. Usually when she bullseye’d a target. She lived for those moments. He was always pleased with her skill.

Often he was quiet, hiding somewhere deep down, somewhere he’d never told her about and never intentionally shared with her. But she felt it: utter hopelessness. He was sick, had been for years. She knew that he’d been teaching her to shoot because he knew he was going to die soon and he wanted her to know how to take care of herself.

Despite the fact that he didn’t think he was a great father, he was great at raising a daughter. He would go into town and come back with dresses for her. He made tea for her every morning. And he gave her a hug every night before he blew out the candles. He always did these little things, and sometimes he may have done them by rote, by habit, but she loved him all the more for it.

He’d kept all of her mother’s things: even a perfume bottle and a lipstick tube. A few dresses. One of which Scarlet was wearing right now. Her mother loved the color scarlet and named her after it. Scarlet remembered little of her mother. All she knew was that somehow and in some way she’d given hope to her father. She was a giver of hope.

Scarlet didn’t take after her mother in this area.

She took after her father.

She was quiet.

Scarlet met Catherine years later and they’d slowly become best friends. They’d stayed up many nights, talking long into the night about hopelessness. Catherine understood. They had the same feelings. Except that Catherine always took it a step further. Catherine had talked about suicide on numerous occasions. Scarlet had never known what to say, how to respond. She’d often end up saying, “You’re my best friend. I need you.”

“No you don’t,” Catherine said. “You’re stronger than you know.”

Scarlet didn’t believe it, but sometimes she thought about it. Thought about why Catherine had said it, what it meant. Catherine didn’t say things she didn’t mean—but she was mistaken. Scarlet wasn’t strong.

She finished loading seven additional bullets, put her eye to the scope. She saw three men climbing the ladder, for the box. There were still three men in the box. She shot all six with one bullet to spare. Men remained on the ground, at the base of the ladder, but the control room was ripe for Catherine’s taking.

“Tell me the plan,” said Violet. “I’m overwatch. I need to know.”

She wanted to know the plan, wanted to know that the Authority was bringing in everything necessary to kill these Resistance fighters.

“We’re bringing in a few reinforcements.”

Words Violet liked.

Lieutenant continued: “A Battering Train for one, is on its way. There’s only one way, one track, that leads to this Armory. One way out. Unless they go through the mountain, but then they’d die anyway. The Battering Train will meet them head-on and plow through them. That’s what it’s built to do. It’s the strongest train on the line, and it will crush them.

“But,” he continued, “if for some reason that doesn’t work, we have these three men. They’re Elites.”

Violet looked at them for a few moments, aware of their status for the first time. They were wearing grey and black uniforms, made of expensive material. The suits were form-fitted. The men’s jaws were squared and clean-shaven. Looked like they could take punches. They were handsome, bulked, neat and their eyes were sharp. She could tell they were educated, top of their class. They were truly intimidating.

“They’re the best. As you probably know.”

Elites were top-tier. There was no one better, no one better trained. They were provided with the best tech and rewarded with the most money. They reportedly didn’t care much for the money. They lived for the work. They loved what they did. Mostly, they assassinated high-profile targets. They were the only ones to successfully infiltrate a Resistance HQ and take it down without any backup.

“These men were staying here at the Armory for different reasons. But the alarms went off, and they volunteered.” The lieutenant smiled at Violet. “In addition, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. This is the Armory, after all.” He had a glint in his eye. “And it’s time I use some of my favorite toys. You’ll be in the air with me. If you have a shot on any of the Resistance fighters, I’ll let you take it.”

Violet was pleased. She’d been dating one of the overwatch soldiers that the girl had killed. They’d dated for six months and she loved him and she’d watched the girl kill him. Remembering it made her dizzy. She shook her head slightly. She didn’t want to appear incompetent in front of the Elites.

One of the Elites finally spoke. “When do we begin?”

“They’re fueling our jets as we speak. They’ll be ready in about two minutes. The Resistance fighters will get through the gate and think they’re safe. Then we’ll demolish them.”

Violet couldn’t help but smile. The Resistance fighters had beaten the guards of the Armory—minimum-wage losers. They couldn’t beat the lieutenant’s forces and tech, Elites or a Battering Train. Or her, for that matter. Kayden sat up on the table between them. He looked at every one of them. Then he looked down, realizing what had happened. He looked devastated.

“You failed,” said the lieutenant.

Kayden spit onto his gurney, between his legs. “Won’t happen again.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

WE WERE FLYING, the rover keeping steady at two hundred mph. The engine was whining more now than it had been before, but that could have been my nerves. I still felt that nervousness in my gut. I felt like something was going to go wrong.

We were a minute out. It looked like we were going to win.

Two things left and we’d be free: get Akio, Wallace, and my mom onto the train. And I needed to get to the gate control room one more time. Then we were out.

I felt hope, but I suppressed it.

We were so freakin’ close.

My mom held our path steady. We would cut across in front of our train in ten seconds. We’d actually be going underneath the track—which was suspended about twenty feet in the air. I held the minister in place for now, but I’d have to jump in a few moments. I looked at Akio. His eyes were opening and closing. I didn’t know what that meant.

We passed under the track. The gate was right before us, which sent my pulse racing. Again, I was working with seconds.

My mom pointed us toward the control room. I saw two men on the ladder, several on the ground, taking shots at our train. Then looking at us.

My mom didn’t slow. Put us within thirty yards. I let go of the minister and bounded to the landing above the stairs, arcing over the men. They began shooting at me, and I heard a bullet pierce the air as it went past me. But then I was on the landing. No one here, just a bunch of dead bodies. I fumbled over them, knew where the button was and hit it.

The gate slid open no problem and my mom had already been driving the rover towards it. Seconds later, she was through. I let out a small sigh of relief.

I went back to the landing but was careful not to show my head to the men below. I watched our train rolling near. A consistent loudness, magnetically flying over the track. Troy had throttled faster now that the gate was open. I saw Scarlet on the top of the train, shooting the men beneath me. She shot four times and the train was before me now.

I aimed my equalizer, bounded, flew through the air. Tension came back into my stomach—afraid I’d be shot by one of the men below. But then I was on the train, dropping to my stomach as the train bolted through the gate. The archway above the gate went right over me, a few feet above. I dared not move.

I was midway on the train.

Past the archway, I walked to the car behind me, to the nearest hatch. But before I dropped in, I watched a few rovers come out the gate, coming down the track. Troy had punched up our engine and the rovers were already beginning to shrink in the distance.

That’s when I let out a sigh of relief.

As I watched the gate and the Armory fade as we sped onward and away.

I dropped into the hatch into the sixth car. I was sure Troy had jumped into my mom’s rover to collect her. My work here was done.

Then, moving into the kitchen, going toward the front, I remembered Akio. I remembered the last glance I’d taken at him. He hadn’t looked good.

My heart picked up a little.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

WHEN I GOT to the front room, they were all inside. My mom, Akio, Troy and Scarlet. The minister. The overhead hatch was closed and we were safe.

I gave my mom a giant hug.

Then I released and looked at Akio, who was still awake somehow. Troy was holding him up. I went to Akio, looked at his face, at his eyes. Then at his wound.

I undid his belt and Scarlet helped remove the coat on his back so we could get a better view. His shirt was soaked in blood and it ran down into his pant line.

“Do you have any medical supplies?” my mom asked.

“Yeah,” said Troy. “Sixth car.”

“Bring him back there. I’ll get him on an IV, get some medicine in him.”

Troy carried him back. Once he was out of the room, I asked my mom. “What are his chances?”

“I don’t know how he’s still conscious. He’s strong, but I don’t think he can make it through this.”

“What if we make it to the Resistance base in a straight shot? We’re six hours away if we maintain top speed.”

“If he can last six hours, I’m sure the Resistance could get him into a healing tank. I’ll see to it.”

It was the way she’d said it that tipped me off. There was no way Akio could make it six hours, though I was sure the second part was true. My mom hugged Scarlet.

“I better get back there,” she said, and headed back, taking the minister with her.

Scarlet and I stood there. I looked at her, my eyes full of fear for Akio. Her look was that of utter empathy like only she could muster. Her greatest strength, in my mind, was being able to identify with others and carry their burdens. I wasn’t sure if she realized it was one of her strengths.

She gave me a hug.

Standing in the front window, the moonlight fell across our profiles. Ahead of us, the track was clear—and changing. Up until this point the track was a few feet off the ground, but the ground dropped away here, giving way to a deep canyon, a gulch.

For the next two hours, the track would be suspended several hundred feet in the air—even several hundred yards at times.

At the highest point, we’d be two miles from the ground.

It was a beautiful ride, with mountains all around. Green valleys. Some lightly snow-filled valleys. Everything you could think of in the space of two hours. Then the scenery would become more and more dull until we reached our hometown, back to the Resistance.

“Akio saved my mom. I wanted to run when the alarms went off.”

Scarlet was going to say something but didn’t.

I knew what she was going to say. She was going to say that he’d make it, but then she realized that she couldn’t say it. Because he wouldn’t. These were his final minutes, or hours. It all depended on how long he could endure.

I went to the window, turning my face from Scarlet.

I’d saved my mom and lost a best friend. I didn’t feel like it balanced out. I’d endangered my team and we’d almost died.

“We all knew the risks,” said Scarlet. “Don’t put it on yourself. That’s selfish. And stupid.”

I sat down in front of the window, taking a deep breath.

“I’m right, you know,” she said.

And she was right.

“Akio knew the risks. He decided to go in the castle with you, and it’s a good thing he did. You wouldn’t have made it on your own.”

That was probably true.

Scarlet always seemed to know my thoughts.

“You’re a good leader, Catherine.”

She took a seat next to me.

“Since I met Akio,” I said and I smiled, remembering our first meeting. It was five years ago. He’d had more of a babyface then. “Since I first met him, he’s been in love with me.” I looked at Scarlet. “I never loved him in the same way.”

I looked away from Scarlet, out the window, watching the track disappear beneath us, hearing the air pass around the thick windshield, the slight shift of the floor beneath us. Could hear the magnetic pull of the train, roaring us down the track.

“But you do now?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

VIOLET FOLLOWED THE men out of the castle. They all piled into a rover and drove across the grasslands to a warehouse on the property. Inside the warehouse two dozen men prepared flying machines and weaponry. Violet wasn’t familiar with these machines. The lieutenant took Violet to the biggest ship. The Elites followed.

Looking up, Violet said under her breath, “This is the biggest ship I’ve ever seen.”

It was a carrier of some kind. An entrance ramp extended down from it. Violet started up, then turned back and examined the rest of the warehouse.

A fleet of ships was being prepared, engines fired to life.

Men yelled.

Pandemonium was about to ensue.

Troy entered the room.

Scarlet and I, sitting before the floor-to-ceiling window, turned to him. He gave a cautious wave, then took a seat beside us, entering within the spill of moonlight. “Akio is hooked up to a few things back there. Your mom says it will take away his pain. The minister is tied up in the tenth car.”

“What about Kara?” Scarlet asked.

“She’s with Akio.”

I’d forgotten about Kara. Kara and Akio may have been a thing, a couple. They were together a lot. Akio had recommended her for this team. I couldn’t help but wonder now. Had I ever seen them kiss? I realized I hadn’t actually thought about it until now. The thoughts passed quickly, because there was something we weren’t acknowledging.

“They’ll give chase. We took the minister. They’ll have to,” I stated.

“I didn’t see any advanced trains in the depot,” said Troy.

“That property has many warehouses on it. Who knows what they have? They have ten thousand acres of secrets. That’s all we know—that we don’t know.”

“If they were giving chase, they’d be here already,” said Scarlet. “We’re going top speed. I don’t see how they could catch up.”

“The only way they could,” said Troy. “Is…” He paused for a few moments. “I don’t see how they could. We’re safe, Catherine. Besides, this train is top of the line. They’d never be able to hurt it. We stole it from them, remember? Well, the Resistance stole it from them. And we stole it from the Resistance…” Troy trailed off.

I had a bad feeling, and their reassurances didn’t quell it. I sort of wished my voice would tell me something. It had been right so far about everything. Maybe it could let me know what we were going to be up against. You can’t set off Armory alarms and get away without retaliation. We had a six-hour trip back to safety. They could catch up to us or cut us off at any time.

There was a lull here. No one said anything. Not that any of us had to. We’d just been through horrible experiences, and there was no need to say anything. I did think about telling them about my voice. I wanted to tell someone. Maybe one of them had read about it before, knew what it was. Knew how long my brain would last before I couldn’t put thoughts together any longer.

The thought made me shiver.

“What’s wrong?” asked Scarlet.

“Nothing.”

Scarlet let it go, even though she knew something was up.

I wasn’t settled yet. I felt like this was only the beginning. And then there was Akio.

Why had I kissed him? I began asking myself that. I kissed him because of his strength. I kissed him because he stood for me when he needed to stand. He’d used up every ounce of his strength for me. I’d kissed him because earlier he had gone against me and decided to save my mom. He was a leader. I felt like I needed to say thank you. It wasn’t love—certainly not romantic love. Saying thank you to someone didn’t mean you loved them. I’d never been in love before, had never even thought about it, so I didn’t know what anything meant.

Certainly I didn’t know what a kiss meant.

It’s only that I’d felt something when I kissed him that I’d never felt before. I didn’t want it to be love, because it couldn’t be. Not now, and not in this hopeless world.

All the feelings inside me right now were loud. There were some nights back home and at times in my life when my feelings were simple and easy to interpret. There were times my feelings exactly matched my thoughts. Right now, there were too many. Most of the time, there were too many. I’d learned that I had to ignore most of them, without even an acknowledgment, to get by. I had to just DO. Move forward, without regard.

I was slightly happy that we’d made it.

I was very happy we’d gotten my mom and the minister.

I was anxious that something was going to happen.

Most of all, I was scared for Akio.

It was heavy on me.

I decided to think. Anytime I’d been stuck, I’d always felt there was a way out. Other people gave up. Too easily. I tried to think of all my options. There was always an option. There’s always a way out. There’s always a solution, right? What was Akio’s? I tried thinking of our inventory. Was there anything that could heal him? Was there any place to stop on the way, some sort of remote hospital?

I created lists in my mind that branched off into other lists.

There had to be a WAY.

I had a gnawing feeling rise behind the thoughts about a separate issue: perhaps the minister didn’t know as much as we thought he knew. What if he was only a figurehead for the Authority? If he didn’t know anything, then all we accomplished was capturing a skinny, angry old guy, which wouldn’t help anyone.

That’s when my ultimate feeling took over—the feeling that was always there and had been since the day my father died when I was five years old. Somehow I was able to reason, when I was only five, my feeling of hopelessness against the reality of the world.

We were a bunch of human animals, going about daily lives, all of which were completely inconsequential. The people at the top, the rich ones, the ones who changed things and made great discoveries, those people seemed consequential. But that was only an illusion. They’d die soon, from old age, from anything. Death made nothing matter. If we won this little mission and it helped the Resistance, I still wouldn’t feel like we accomplished much of anything. If the Resistance overthrew the Authority, would it really matter? We’d have a better government and a chance at futures for ourselves and our kids, but one day someone else would take over. Governments rose and fell. Dictatorships came and went. Even the strong men of old, Akhenaten himself, were all dead. They accomplished big things and we still feel their effects, but then we die, and it renders everything moot.

There is no reason to live.

I cared about Akio based on some illusion that he mattered and that I mattered. Everyday people Akio’s age died, and I could care less because I didn’t know them personally. The chemicals in my mind were making me FEEL like I cared for Akio. Ultimately, it didn’t actually matter.

Every second of every day I felt attached to the world, like it DID matter, like my mom and my friends mattered. And every second of every day there was a subversive feeling that never fully took the other feeling over but threatened it like a tidal wave. The feeling told me that nothing mattered. My generation would come and go like all the others. Even if we achieved utopia it wouldn’t make a difference because we couldn’t stop death.

One day the whole planet would be gone, according to what I understood from science.

The track began lifting.

Our train, powered by top-of-the-line tech, didn’t slow as it came upon the incline. We rose, at top speed, higher and higher into the sky. It was a steep incline to the point where we were looking up into the starry sky. Straight up at the three giant moons. It was beautiful. For a moment, I felt very strongly that all of this mattered.

But then the track began to decline, and all I could see beneath us was the track in our headlights. Beyond that, the gulch, dark shadows. Couldn’t make out too much from here. Couldn’t see much of what was ahead of us.

CHAPTER THIRTY

CATHERINE HAD GONE back to see Akio. Scarlet knew that that was only one reason Catherine had gone to the back of the train. The other was that Catherine wanted to talk to the minister, though she hadn’t said it. Scarlet knew Catherine very well, could read her better than anyone. Catherine wanted to make sure capturing the minister had been worth it to them.

Then there was Troy.

Scarlet couldn’t read Troy.

He was looking out the window, his black hair fallen near his eyes. His eyes were shining in the moonlight. He wasn’t smiling, but he looked content enough. Then his eyes looked down, his eyelids lowering. Scarlet didn’t like pressing him. She’d noticed that he liked to share his thoughts on his own free will and that he held back often.

“If Akio doesn’t make it, Catherine’s going to blame herself forever,” he said.

Scarlet hadn’t yet thought of that. She’d been thinking of Catherine’s current sadness, not her future sadness.

Troy was the most thoughtful of them all, which was probably why he wrote. He felt like he needed to put down all his thoughts. That way they lived forever. Then he was more than a man. He was a reference or a sage. Scarlet actually didn’t know. She’d only talked briefly to Troy about it. He didn’t seem to like talking about his writing. He always turned the subject off himself. Turned the subject to her.

Like now.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m worried for Akio and Catherine. I can only imagine what they went through in the castle.”

“What do you think of Kara?” asked Troy.

Scarlet was taken back for a moment, wondering why he’d asked. In the back of her mind, the jealous part, she worried. She liked Troy, but he never seemed to return her affection in the same way. Did he like Kara? During everything, he’d seemed to care for Kara. In fact, other than Akio, who had some sort of bond with her, he was the only one who seemed to care for the girl.

She put all that aside. Those were all stupid, childish thoughts.

“What do you mean?”

“I think—” He stopped. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Scarlet had no clue where he was going with this. “No.”

“You’ve never seen one?”

“No. Have you?” she asked.

“No. I’ve heard stories.”

“That’s all they are. Interesting stories.”

“What about the strong men? Akhenaten.”

“Those are fiction. Made up by the Authority to explain to us why things are the way they are. Propaganda.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, “I forgot you don’t believe they existed. You believe the conspiracy that the government poisoned our water and sickened us to the point that they could take over.”

“My dad believed it.”

“I don’t buy it. I believe the stories of the strong men.”

His eyes were full of moonlight, as if somehow he’d captured the light in his eyes, and they were full of wonder as he stared out the window.

Scarlet couldn’t buy it. “Because you want to believe it. You want to believe that things can be different than they are.”

“I’ll always believe that things can be different than they are,” he said.

He shifted so that he was facing Scarlet. Their legs were touching. Their faces were close, washed in moonlight.

“Why shouldn’t we believe that?” he asked.

“We shouldn’t believe things that aren’t true. That can only hurt us.”

“But what if they are? The tales of the strong men are well-known. And I’ve heard other stories.”

“You’ve been hanging out with the barrel guys.”

The barrel guys were a group of guys who hung around barrels that they lit on fire. They didn’t have homes. They roamed from barrel to barrel, from town to town. They would stand around and perform cappella singing.

People gave them food and drinks, sometimes clothes. But most of their clothes were worn thin. They had to light the fires to keep themselves warm through the night.

And long after midnight, when the darkness of the night had seeped into every corner of the town, they changed tone. And spoke of stories that had been outlawed by the Authority long ago. Stories that weren’t allowed to be told. Stories about great men of the past, great sages and wise men who spoke in riddles and swayed large groups of people to commit horrible atrocities.

In some cases, these men of old had even caused wars.

Rebellions.

Insurrections.

“Why would the Authority outlaw the stories if they weren’t true?”

“They’re divisive. When people choose to believe different things, it causes factions and disagreement. If we all believe the same thing, the truth, there are no factions and we can live in peace.”

“Yeah,” he said with a slight laugh. “Because things are so peaceful.”

“If people,” Scarlet said, “start to believe in archaic beings and enchantments and made-up rules, we’ll divide WORSE than we are.”

“Right now, the Authority tells us there’s nothing. No beings. They tell us only the story of the strong men and Akhenaten. That they were the last of their kind, an ‘ancient’ breed.”

He went silent, thinking.

Scarlet let him think.

She didn’t like when he got like this. She was a vacuum of hope, in many ways. She didn’t believe in anything more than what they had, what they could see, what they experienced. She loved Troy because he was the exact opposite. He was full of hope all the time.

She couldn’t turn off the vacuum, however. Not even for him. How could it help him to believe in false things? False hope was false hope. It wasn’t real.

The barrel guys believed in an invisible world within this world.

They told stories that could get them beheaded by the Authority or put up on stakes. Scarlet didn’t like the idea of Troy hanging out with them. They were crazy. And they got drunk every night they could, which was often. The Authority didn’t do much about the import of alcohol. In fact, it was one of the lowest taxed imports.

It was as if they wanted us to get drunk all the time.

“Kara saved our lives,” Troy said. “I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. It doesn’t make sense, but I’m pretty sure she killed all of those men.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

THE MEDICAL ROOM of the train was sparse.

If the train was in the possession of our government, it would be equipped with everything important for healing non-fatal wounds. If we had access to those things, we could easily recover Akio. The blood loss was the worst part of Akio’s wound. I knew that much without anyone telling me.

My mom had patched up his stomach and his back, where he’d been draining blood like a bucket with holes in it. He was asleep now, an IV in his hand.

My mom was washing her hands in the sink. I watched the blood coming off her hands until the water became clear.

Kara was sitting in the one chair beside Akio, brushing the hair off his forehead. She had swollen eyes from tears, and she looked up at me a few moments after I’d entered. Her expression turned from sadness to a slight bit of rage, and I felt a shadow fall over me.

When she looked away, the shadow went away. I looked around, thinking someone had walked behind me, causing the shadow.

My mom was drying her hands now.

“How is he?” I asked.

“The wound wasn’t horrible. He’s lost a lot of blood. Too much.”

“Can we give him some?”

“I don’t know his blood type. He doesn’t either.”

I didn’t want to look at Kara again (or, rather, I didn’t want her to look at me again), but I did. She returned the look and shook her head. She didn’t know his blood type.

“That would solve the problem, though, a transfusion. Or, at the very least it would give him the next six hours, delay the problem until we get back to the Resistance.”

“Mom,” I said. “Do you think the minister will be enough?”

“The Resistance will be very happy.”

“What if he doesn’t know anything?”

She smiled. “You think a lot like me, you know that? I’ll talk to him.”

My mom left us in the room, walking toward the back of the train. Kara turned her body away from me, only looking at Akio now. Again, I wondered about them. I tried to picture them kissing. Kara was pretty enough to be his equal. I could see them as a couple. It was only that Akio was so outspoken, so outgoing. Kara was so quiet and odd. He was clever and funny. And Scarlet and I had always known he loved me. When we’d first met him, Scarlet pointed it out. I asked how she’d known. She’d said it was because of his eyes. Apparently she could read people’s eyes. I believed her. But then it became obvious, even to me, that he liked me. THEN he told me how he felt. It was a vivid memory for me.

It had been raining outside. My mom was gone, working with the Resistance. Akio had come over, which was normal. We were sitting by the window in my room, on my bed, drinking tea.

Tea was the one nice thing the Authority let us have—and alcohol. For morale, I suppose. They shipped in large amounts of tea, sugar and milk. They provided it for us at low costs. The only thing we could buy that wasn’t inflated to the max. We were talking like we always did.

Then he told me he saw something in me that he’d never seen in any other girl. This was the sort of thing that I knew made girls happy, to hear a man tell them something like this. It made them feel special. I didn’t feel anything. He said he knew it from the moment he’d met me, and that he loved me.

“Because I’m different?” I’d asked.

“In part.”

I couldn’t figure it out.

“I’m not different than any other girl.”

“You’re the only girl I know who’s more zealous than me.”

“And zeal is attractive?”

I wasn’t trying to give him a hard time, though he may have interpreted it that way.

See, for how much he knew about me, and for how much he DID truly understand me, there was a lot he would never be able to understand. I wasn’t the girl for him or for anyone. That’s what he couldn’t understand. I wasn’t available. I was taken already—taken by a force that couldn’t be penetrated by any sort of intimacy, physical or emotional. I was a lost girl. I drank tea and did my hair every day and wanted to believe that things made sense, but I wasn’t who he thought I was.

I was dead inside.

Here he was now, two years after he’d proposed his love, asleep with Kara, the girl with the purple streak in her hair. And she was stroking his hair. I wanted to be her right now. She seemed to have a real connection with Akio.

I took a chair from the desk and moved it beside her and Akio. I did fear the weird shadow thing, but I felt a softness near Kara now. I couldn’t explain it, but her mood had changed and so had the room. That was a thing with everyone. A person could change the room with their affectations and demeanor. Kara, enormously so. Normally, I wasn’t affected by such things.

I wondered for a moment what it was about her.

Perhaps emotions emitted signals and she had very strong emotions.

“Where do you get purple die?” I said, indicating her hair.

“When we fled the attack, I took a tub of it with me. It was the only thing I took,” she said, wiping away a tear. “I still have half left.”

The “attack” she was referring to was when her castle fell under attack. When her small country fell into the hands of the Authority.

Akio’s breathing was even.

Maybe that was a good sign.

“He’s a fighter,” said Kara.

“Do you think he’ll make it?”

I didn’t know why I was asking her.

Tears rolled down her face, and I could feel her emotion. I could feel it enter into my own body and fill my heart. I felt exactly what she was feeling for Akio. A deep sadness, not so much because she was in love with him, but because he was Akio. Because he didn’t deserve this. He deserved much better. Those were her exact thoughts. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew.

Her eyes found mine, and she squinted.

I had tears in my eyes.

“You love him?” I said.

“He’s my only real friend,” Kara said. “But, yes, I do love him.”

The leader in me, the part of me that found nice words to say, wanted to tell her I was her friend too, but she knew better. I’d never been a friend to her. Kara didn’t care for empty words.

“That’s good,” I said.

I didn’t know if I meant it.

“You love him too,” she said.

My eyes went wide. “I don’t know—”

“You do, Catherine. You’ll figure it out.” She abruptly pushed her chair back and stood, wiping away tears with resolve. Then she looked at me, changing her demeanor. “That’s not true. You may never figure it out.”

She said it with disdain. And the shadow returned, like a hovering darkness over my eyes. Then she walked out of the medical car, leaving me alone with Akio. The shadow was gone once more.

I’d gone through so many lists, had run so many ideas into the ground in the last minutes. Maybe it was simple, like the old fairy tales. Maybe I just had to believe, and he would recover. Maybe I had to tell him I loved him. Maybe I was the key.

Kara is the key, the voice said.

But I didn’t want to hear it. I tried to repress the thought, and my head started hurting. My vision blurred more than it had hitherto. I took a few deep breaths, rubbing my temples, closing my eyes. When I finally opened them, they were clear.

I wondered if I should take Akio’s hand in mine or stroke his hair.

Doing those things weren’t really me, weren’t normal to me.

Instead I sunk back in my chair and tried to think of ways we could save him.

Mostly, though, I cried.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHRISTINA CROSSED HER arms.

The minister wasn’t talking, just scowling. Christina didn’t need to get information from him right now. She only needed to confirm that he had information. She didn’t even need an admission—only needed to see it in his eyes.

He was very white and pale. The only redness in his face was that which was caused by anger. It was in his cheeks, on his forehead. He had white hair, matching his face. He was skinny and long. He didn’t look well-fed, though she knew he had access to the best foods.

He looked like a man who drank a lot. His liver was probably on the verge of destruction.

“What do you know?” Christina asked.

“I know that you’re not going to get very far.”

“They’re never going to save you.”

“You’re right.”

Christina uncrossed her arms, and at the same time she saw something behind him, through the back window. A small light twinkled. It was probably nothing.

“What do you know?”

“I know things,” he said with a laugh. “Don’t you get it? I know things. They’re not going to rescue me. Lieutenant Barnhart is the active security liaison for the Armory. Because I know things, he’s going to kill me. We’re never going to make it back to your Resistance base, because they’re going to derail us.”

Christina was going to scoff, but she saw a second light twinkle in the distance. Followed by a third. Minister Wallace turned his head around.

Scarlet made eye contact with Troy. His eyes glistened. The light passing through the window covered one side, highlighting his perfect face, perfect nose. His eyebrows were created perfectly—exact correct proportions to make him look as handsome as a guy could look.

She didn’t break the eye contact.

It was easy to hold.

It didn’t use to be, but she’d practiced a lot. It had gotten to the point that she knew EVEN in her soul that she loved this man. That’s why she could hold contact so easily. She didn’t want to NOT look into his eyes. So she looked.

And she saw everything she needed to see.

She saw her vacuum of hope being crushed to a billion pieces. She saw it shatter and fade. Replaced by Troy's arms around her waist. Replaced by his gaze, upon her every morning when they woke up. Replaced by the thought of drinking tea with him every morning, and even having kids with him. Maybe a girl that she could teach to shoot. Maybe a boy he could teach to write. The thoughts were endless, and she thought them often.

But she didn’t know if he loved her.

He didn’t break eye contact.

“How do you have so much hope?” Scarlet asked.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said.

“Tell me,” Scarlet said in a low and quiet voice, as if they were sharing secrets.

He leaned forward. Their faces were inches from each other. Then he took her hand in his. She looked down. Electric ran up her hand to her heart and brain and mind.

Catherine was yelling from a few cars down. “You need to see this.”

Troy held her hand for a few long moments, then finally broke eye contact, dropped her hand and began to get up. Scarlet got up right after him, thrilled and heady.

Then Troy stopped, right there in the middle of the front room.

He spun around and went back up to the window, gazing through as if something were wrong.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I saw something out of the corner of my eye.”

Scarlet stood beside him, peering out. She didn’t see anything, didn’t know what he was looking for or what he thought he saw.

When she looked down, she got a slight case of vertigo. They were at least five hundred yards above the valley. Tall snow-capped mountains rose up on the left side. To the right, massive hills stretched back towards what seemed like infinity. Scarlet glanced over to the controls and saw that they were, in fact, six hundred yards above the ground.

And then she saw a glint out the window and right then Troy pointed. “That. See that?”

“I did.”

“Guys!” Catherine yelled from many cars back. They could barely hear her.

Troy went to the ladder, hit the button for the hatch to open.

Scarlet followed him to the roof.

Cold air hit her—and the unsettling feeling that if she slipped she would die. Troy didn’t seem to have that feeling. He moved to the center and stood right at the front edge of the train.

“No way!” he yelled, pointing. “No way.”

She saw it now, too.

And the first word that came to her mind was a very bad word.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

WE WERE SLICING through the air. My hair was whipping in every direction. I tied it back in a quick ponytail to get it off my face. I was on the last car of the train, on the roof, watching the fleet of flying ships come after us. They were coming into view, somehow catching up to us. I knew that flying ships existed. I’d seen fleets of them fly over our city.

The Resistance didn’t have access to any such ships.

We neither had one nor had we captured one.

“How are they catching up?” I yelled to my mom who was beside me.

“Catherine!” I heard Troy yelling.

Turning, I saw him at the front of the train with Scarlet. They were pointing at something ahead of us. I made out his words: “Battering Train!”

I turned my back on the fleet of incoming Authority soldiers.

I began running to the front of the train.

I took my first few steps with caution. The wind threatened to throw me off the train. It was difficult to look straight ahead and keep my eyes open.

My mom and I made it over to them, and I saw the Battering Train. It was a few miles out, which meant it was only minutes, maybe only two minutes out.

A fleet and a Battering Train was coming after us. A Battering Train: designed and engineered to ram trains off the track, coming right at us.

My mom started laughing. She had a loud nervous laugh. It made Scarlet jump. I grabbed Scarlet’s arm, afraid she would fall off. My heart was beating like it had been back in the castle, like I was on the adrenaline all over again. We were all sort of looking at each other, sort of not. Mostly in disbelief that this was happening.

“How much do you trust our train?” I asked my mom.

“It has no hope against the Battering Train. It’s four times heavier than we are. Has twice as much horsepower. It’s powered by magnets and rockets. It’s made of the heaviest steel and has the most powerful deflective generator in it. We have no chance.”

“What do we do?” I asked.

“We have to abandon the train.”

I was shocked. What about Akio? He needed the IV, needed rest if he had any chance of surviving. If we jumped from the train…

Well, I wasn’t sure how we could even do that. We’d hit the ground and die. I moved to the edge and saw that we were what looked like a mile high.

“There’s no way we can do that,” yelled Troy. “We don’t have any flying gear.”

“No parachutes?”

“No.”

Think, think, think, Catherine.

Blood Gulch, said the voice, but I ignored it.

Didn’t even register it. Because that was crazy.

“Anyone have ANY ideas?” I yelled, mostly to myself.

“Kara,” Troy yelled. “She has some sort of power.”

“What?!” I yelled, in disbelief, confusion and slight annoyance.

“She saved our lives at the depot. With some sort of power.”

“Troy,” said Scarlet, “you don’t know that.”

Troy's face lowered. He conceded.

Blood Gulch, the voice said louder, causing my ears to ring.

“Blood Gulch,” I yelled.

Troy's eyes lifted back to mine. “Are you crazy?”

He sounded scared. I’d never heard him sound like that before.

“Honey, I don’t think that still exists,” my mom said.

“I saw it,” I said. “I saw it on the way. It still exists.”

“If that’s true,” my mom said, “we should be close to it.”

We scanned in front of us and saw it. It was still there, not very far from us. We needed to make our move soon.

“We’ll die,” my mom said.

“I’ve only ever heard horror stories about Blood Gulch,” said Scarlet. “That’s why the name.”

“You said it yourself,” I yelled to my mom. “The Battering Train WILL kill us. We need to get off this track. Blood Gulch is THE only option.”

They already knew it was true.

I dropped down the hatch into the front room. Then I ran back down to Kara. She was pacing about the medical room.

“Kara, I need you to juice up the engine. Now.”

“What’s going on—”

“Kara! Now.”

She interpreted my zeal and ran two cars back. I followed.

“I know we’re going max speed. Can we go faster?”

I appreciated that she didn’t ask why. “A little.”

“Make it happen. As fast as it can go.”

I ran back down to the front room. Troy was at the control panel, using the touch screen. He was trying to pull up maps of the Blood Gulch track.

Blood Gulch was old railroad track that had existed before the new reinforced track was put in. It had been constructed before the invention of magnetically pulsed trains. Most of it was made of wood. When magnetic trains were invented, some metal supports were retrofitted into the track.

It was dubbed Blood Gulch because there had been a gold rush in this area, in the surrounding mountain ranges. The tracks were constructed quickly, oftentimes by the miners themselves, to help them find gold or transport their found gold. No standards or permits were used in the construction of Blood Gulch and a lot of people died. There was track that went nowhere. There was loose and unsupported track. It was a mess.

It also ran in all different directions. Around the mountains, down into valleys, down to Lake Tiu. There was even one track that went into the mountain—Mount Bellz. Many miners had dug into Mount Bellz only to find that it had already been hollowed out—filled with tunnels.

And then they’d discovered there were people living in the mountain.

Not really people, though. Mutated creatures from an ancient race. They’d carved out their lives in the mountain, their civilization inhabited it. Their skin couldn’t see the sun, so they stayed inside. They were a race steeped in enchantments and magic. According to the stories.

All the miners who ventured into the mountain died.

The legend is that no one who went into the mountain came out alive.

I hoped Troy knew the stories so that we could avoid Bellz. He would have to navigate us through Blood Gulch. Would have to consult the interface and choose the tracks we should transition to.

I could hear the rockets on the Battering Train, propelling it towards us. I also felt a bump in our train as it picked up speed. I checked the speedometer. We were pushing three-fifty mph. I looked at the Battering Train. Blood Gulch was between us. I could see where the track off-shooted toward the mountains. We’d need to disengage from this track onto that track. Simple enough.

My mom had run back to the tenth car to watch the oncoming fleet. The Battering Train wouldn’t be able to follow us onto the track, but the fleet would certainly follow.

“I have a small problem,” said Troy, standing over the control panel.

“Why do I have the feeling it’s not a small problem?”

“Because it’s a big problem. There are no maps of Blood Gulch on this interface.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

WITHOUT MAPS, WE couldn’t navigate. Without navigation, we would die. It would be very anti-climactic. A Battering Train and a fleet of Authority ships after us—but we would die from accidentally driving off the track. There was no way to get across Blood Gulch without maps.

“Any chance we could sight it?” I asked.

“You mean, could we try to see where the track goes and follow it?” Troy asked. “NO! There would be no way. Maybe at five miles an hour. This speed and in this darkness. You’re crazy.”

We couldn’t slow down.

We couldn’t make the sun come out either.

We were topping three hundred and seventy-five miles per hour. The train was humming beneath us. Scarlet was biting her fingernails, then she ran out of the room. Troy went to the window, stood beside me.

He was watching the Battering Train—it was a long jet black and massive thing, shadows heavy upon it.

“We can beat it,” he said.

He walked back to the interface. “We should reach the transitional track in two and a half minutes.” He ran his hands through his hair and groaned for a moment, then faced me. “That gives me time to make coffee.”

“You’re going to make coffee now?” I asked, incredulous.

“Why not?”

That was a good point.

“Make me some.”

“Sure,” he said, sounding annoyed, walking back to the kitchen.

Now I was alone in the front room, biting my nails now. It was cold in here, but I felt hot. My hands were moist. I wiped them on my coat and removed my coat, throwing it against the corner. Then I took a deep breath. In two and a half minutes we would be crushed or free. Free on Blood Gulch, which wasn’t free at all, as we would be at the mercy of the track.

I wondered about Kara. Wondered if Troy was right. Did she have some sort of powers? I would have never given it a second thought, but I remembered Kayden from the Armory. I remembered what my mom had said about him. But I killed him, so he must not have had powers. People didn’t have powers. It didn’t make sense.

My mom and Troy weren’t crazy though.

I decided they were mistaken.

The only tools we had at hand were our minds AND chance.

Chance had worked in our favor up until this point.

We’d need some more of it.

Scarlet ran into the room, went to the panel and hit a button. A small four-by-four foot table rose in the center of the front room to waist-level. She was carrying a wad of big papers, all crumpled and folded messily. She splatted them down on the table and began unfurling them.

“I saw these earlier,” she said. “They’re old maps.”

“Old maps?” I asked.

“Archaic.”

I stood beside the table and clearly saw Blood Gulch markings.

I was a tiny bit happy. Mostly worried.

“Archaic maps are better than no maps,” Scarlet said, looking into my eyes.

“A sword is better than no sword, but a gun is better than either option.”

“Don’t try to be cute, Catherine.”

Scarlet thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying. But this is—”

“All we have,” I finished.

Troy entered the room and put down the coffee cups on the table.

“Old maps,” he said.

“Where’s my coffee?” said Scarlet, faux angry.

“You can share mine, sweetie pie,” he said.

“Oh thank you. Cream and sugar?”

“Black.”

“Never mind, sweetie pie.”

I took a sip of my coffee, and spit it out.

“You burnt the coffee,” I said, gagging a little.

“What? That’s not a thing,” he said.

“Yes it is,” said Scarlet.

“You overheated it. That’s disgusting, Troy. Did you try yours?”

He shook his head, lifted his mug to his lips. Took a sip. He tried not to make a grossed-out face. “Tastes good to me.”

We smiled.

The giant horn of the Battering Train interrupted our moment of respite. My muscles tensed. That was the thing about Battering Trains. They had the liberty to announce themselves because they were unstoppable.

I suppose the drivers of the Battering Train didn’t think we were crazy enough to transition to Blood Gulch, which was looming large in our view. Troy saw something I didn’t yet see. “AWWWWWWW!” he yelled.

I looked out the window. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I ran as fast as I could to the engine room, to Kara.

“Overhead track,” I said, sliding to a stop.

“We can’t. It’s broken.”

“Can it be fixed? We have a minute.”

“Before what?” she asked.

“Before we die.”

“We need to go to the roof.”

We ran for the front room.

Kara appreciated the gravity of the situation and followed just behind me. See, we hadn’t realized that when the track transitioned from this newer line to Blood Gulch it temporarily switched to an overhead track, which meant that we’d have to connect the top of our train to the track and it would hang from the track rather than ride on top of it. Back in the day, most of the track was built this way. I was sure not all of Blood Gulch was overhead track, but this first portion was.

Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem, except that when we stole the train from the Resistance, we accidentally damaged the overhead track. It didn’t matter at the time, because we knew the line we were taking didn’t include any overhead transitions.

I went to the ladder in the front room. Without slowing. “Time?” I asked as I jumped a few rungs up the ladder.

“Less than a minute,” said Troy.

And then I was out in the open, on the roof, standing in the wind at nearly four hundred MPH. The Battering Train’s horn blew, and I felt the bass in my body. It shocked me and I nearly lost my footing. I could hear the thing chugging towards us—and the whine of its magnetic engines. It was running off of magnets and gasoline—probably diesel to be more exact. Kara was beside me, not looking at the danger, getting to work on our overhead rails.

“Go to the back, Catherine,” she yelled as she started doing something I didn’t understand. “The final rail on the train’s right side. Lift it. It’s stuck.”

I took off running as fast as I could, ticking off the seconds in my mind. I wasn’t so much worried about myself at the moment as I was for Kara. She wasn’t a very agile person. I hoped she would be able to fix the railing and get back inside the train before we hit the transition.

As I jumped the small gap between cars to the final car, I saw the fleet had come much nearer. There were four ships. One mega one and three smaller ones. I was just within shooting distance. If they had a sniper on board, they could take me out.

I couldn’t think about it, unfortunately.

I bent down beside the broken rail. It was jammed downward, bent. I pulled on it. Wouldn’t budge. “What the hell?!” I yelled, trying to lift it with all my might. I looked down the line to see how Kara was doing it. She wasn’t there anymore.

I continued pulling. If I couldn’t get it straight, we would derail. It was bent for a good twenty feet. I didn’t actually see how it was possible to fix.

Kara had seen a vision.

She knew what was about to happen.

She’d fixed her railing but knew that Catherine’s would be more difficult. Catherine would need some sort of crowbar to bend it back into place. That wasn’t her main worry, though.

“Christina,” she yelled as she ran down the train. “Catherine’s in trouble.”

Violet had seen Catherine the moment the girl had appeared on the roof of the train.

Violet knew she could make the shot. Sure, they were flying over four hundred MPH. Sure the wind would be a factor. But Violet had trained five years for this. She’d passed rigorous training. She knew in her gut she could make this shot.

The lieutenant let her climb into the overwatch post, which was in the open air, at the top of the ship. It was a little box she could stand in. She could rest her gun on the edge of the box. Moreover the ship flew smooth, didn’t shake at all.

The gun was ready, locked and loaded.

She began to aim. Realized the scope wasn’t dialed in for this distance.

“Dammit.”

She began dialing. Would take a few moments. Each moment felt like a millennium. This was her chance before the Elite Squad took over. This was fate playing in her favor.

The hatch opened beside me. I assumed it would be Kara. It was my mom. Followed by Kara. Kara had a crowbar and slid toward the rail on her knees. Jammed the crowbar into place.

My mom stood between me and the fleet of ships, dropping to her knees in front of me. Her eyes were full of tears.

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

I heard the faint sound of a gunshot in the distance.

“I love you,” was the last thing she said.

My pulse was pounding. I was scared, didn’t know what all of this meant.

And then my mom grunted and blood came out of her abdomen in what was the most surreal moment of my life. Immediately blood streamed from her mouth, and my beautiful mom died right before my eyes. Before I could catch her, she fell backward, off the train, into the abyss far below.

I didn’t feel Kara taking my arm, yelling for me to follow.

She dragged and pushed me through the hatch.

I fell in, somehow landing correctly. My legs were incredibly shaky and I didn’t know what to think, how to feel. Kara moved me to one of the nearby beds.

I sat down, completely out of it.

Frozen and shocked and lightheaded.

The world around me, though I could see it, seemed to have faded.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“JUST AS I thought,” said Troy, staring at the maps alongside Scarlet.

“What?”

“I don’t know how to read these.”

She smiled. “I’m figuring it out.”

Kara ran into the front room. “Christina is dead. Catherine’s in the tenth car.”

It took Scarlet a moment to realize what was said.

When she realized, she began running down the train.

Troy was shocked, looking at Kara. “How is she?”

“Not functioning.”

Kara saw the Battering Train through the window. Troy noticed she gulped, though she was trying to act calm. She went to the window.

“We’re going to make it,” she said.

Troy went to the panel. It was about time to switch tracks.

“Five seconds,” Kara said.

“I know.”

He counted off the seconds in his head and clicked the button to remotely change tracks. He left the panel. Kara’s fingers were crossed.

The track shifted on the line before them. The Battering Train was right there, maybe two hundred feet out, when their train transitioned track. They slid smoothly into the overhead track—which was constructed of metal.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this. I’ve heard stories of Blood Gulch,” Kara mentioned.

“So have we all.”

In a matter of seconds, they were on the overhead track, flying into Blood Gulch.

The track dove down and turned sharply, which caused them to swing out sideways. They had to adjust their footing, leaning to one side as the train barreled down the way. The overhead track created loud friction, and it was turning them around, taking them towards the mountains that had been to their left.

“You need to slow down the train,” said Troy.

Kara moved to the controls.

The train shifted, listing the other way now as the track curved. Troy moved to the table with the maps, his heart pulsing in his hands.

Escaping the Battering Train was great, but they wouldn’t be out of the mess until they navigated Blood Gulch.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

SCARLET DIDN’T SLOW down before she reached the tenth car, though she had wanted to slow down. She was nervous to see Catherine. Scarlet had no idea what to say, if she should say anything. And she was devastated herself.

The minister was sitting there on the floor, keeping to himself.

Catherine was sitting on a bed, weeping with her hands on her face.

The fleet was almost within attack distance, Scarlet could see through the window. The train was making a lot of noise now, rocking back and forth.

Scarlet sat beside Catherine and put an arm around her.

She couldn’t think of anything to say.

Catherine spoke first, fighting back sobs.

“Don’t worry,” Catherine said. “I’m going to kill all of them.”

Scarlet squeezed Catherine tighter.

Kara was in the engine room, dialing everything back. She made sure the gas engine was working fine. They’d be needing it soon. She brought them back down to a much safer two hundred seventy-five MPH. Blood Gulch would be difficult.

Now that the train was going much slower, there was a lot less jarring. Kara took a breath. She thought about what Catherine must be feeling right now and it grieved her.

Then she thought of Akio.

She walked to the medical car, combing her hair back after it had gotten messed up from everything.

Akio was lying on his side now, blood was seeping from his mouth onto the medical table. Kara dropped beside him. “No, no, Akio, no.” He coughed up blood, trying to gasp in air. He was on the edge of death now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

SCARLET HEARD THE loud horn of the Battering Train and didn’t want to believe it. She rose from her seat beside Catherine and looked out the back window. The fleet of ships was nearly above them and they sounded like a hive of bees. Their engines roared overhead, closing in.

That wasn’t what scared her so much.

The Battering Train was behind them now, coasting down the overhead track. It had transitioned onto Blood Gulch. And it was catching up to them.

“There’s no hope,” said the minister. “We’re all dead.”

“Catherine,” said Scarlet, but didn’t have anything else to say.

Catherine was on her feet beside Scarlet, taking it all in.

“Maybe there is no hope,” said Catherine.

Scarlet was worried. Catherine was the best fighter they had. With Christina dead, Scarlet couldn’t help but wonder how Catherine would be able to manage. She would either fight harder or give up and she seemed to be suspended between the two options at the moment.

But then Catherine turned and began running toward the front of the train.

I needed to tell Kara to turn the engine back up. I didn’t care that we were on Blood Gulch. The Battering Train was catching up. It could still knock us off the tracks from behind.

Scarlet was behind me.

“Move the minister to the front room. They don’t value his life, but we do.”

“Got it,” said Scarlet, turning back.

She understood. We NEEDED him. Without him, we truly had nothing from this mission except that now I knew my mother was dead.

And Akio…

I was passing through the medical car and saw Akio coughing uncontrollably, Kara trying to calm him. There was blood all over his chin, going down his neck. On the bed beside his head. Everywhere. I stopped here, eyes wide.

Kara looked at me, looking for empathy or for an idea.

I wanted to grieve for my mother. I wanted to stay here with Akio and do everything I could think of to stop his pain. I NEEDED to get our train to go faster.

It didn’t matter what I wanted.

All of these thoughts came to me in quick succession. And I realized that though my heart felt like it had been pierced by a long needle that was deepening by the second, I’d have to ignore it until we were safe.

This mission needed to be salvaged now more than ever. I didn’t want my mom’s life to have meant nothing. I didn’t want her to have died in vain. And I wasn’t about to either.

“Kara, we need the train to go faster.”

“Akio—”

“Faster. Train. NOW. We’ll attend to him in a minute.”

“I can’t leave him. He’s going to die.”

“Yes, he is if you can’t get the train to go faster. We’re all going to die if you can’t get the train to go FASTER.”

She stared back at me a few moments, then nodded and ran out of the room. I stayed for a moment longer and Akio opened his eyes, which had been squeezed tightly shut against the pain. His eyes were full of tears and he looked at me, but he looked like he was looking through me, past me, like he didn’t see me.

“Akio?” I asked.

“Catherine,” he whispered.

Scarlet entered the car, holding the minister’s arm, walking fast.

She saw I was looking at Akio, but she kept walking.

“Help Troy read the maps,” I said.

Then it was only Akio and me.

I got on my knees beside his bed, coming down to his eye level. My eyes were misting now. He’d been staring through me, I’d thought, because he was in his final moments and was delirious. But I realized that that wasn’t what was happening. I was staring into his eyes and I saw something I’d never seen before. I saw Akio. I saw past the tough guy, talkative, helpful and funny person he was. I saw through his personality, and I saw something deeper. His person. His existence. His being. I didn’t know how to explain it.

And in that moment, though he was covered in sweat, though blood was rolling down his face, I felt dignified, and I knew this man was a man, in every sense of the word. I knew I loved him.

“I love you,” I said.

He blinked, acknowledging.

I felt the train pick up speed.

“I don’t think…” he began to say, having a difficult time.

“That I can save you,” I finished.

He blinked.

“You have bad timing,” he muttered with a small smirk.

I put my hand to his forehead, without thinking, brushing his hair out of his eyes. I didn’t know what to say or what to do except to be here. I think he understood.

Then tears broke from my eyes, rolling down my cheeks. Resolve swelled in my heart. “No, Akio,” I said. “NO.” His eyes slightly changed.

I thought about our train.

I ran through, in my mind, all of the medical supplies we had. I thought about the Battering Train, the fleet of ships. Could I turn ourselves in, surrender, in exchange for medical attention for Akio? No, they would kill us. Was there anything I could offer them? Apparently they were ready to kill the minister, which made him a poor bargaining piece.

What could I do?

I remembered the voice.

What had it said?

It had been trying to tell me about Kara.

That’s when a giant jolt rocked through our train, vibrating the whole thing. We gained speed. A few moments later, Kara entered the room.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Not me,” she said.

And we knew.

“Akio,” I said. “Fight it. You have to keep fighting!”

Then I ran toward the back of the train. The back window was shattered, the tenth car had been smashed about a quarter in from the back, and the Battering Train was against us. It hadn’t had enough speed to derail us, but it was pushing us now.

Kara was beside me. I could hear her thoughts in my mind.

Now what?

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I PULLED UP in the front room. Troy was nervously, frantically pouring over the maps, trying to figure out a path.

“Here,” said Scarlet, pressing a finger to a point on the map. “We take the right track.”

“Why the right?” asked Troy.

“Because if we take the left, we’ll die!”

“Right it is,” he said, moving to the control panel, adjusting our course.

“The Battering Train is pushing us,” I said.

This wasn’t news to them.

“I’m going to jump onto it, take them out from the inside.”

They looked at me, shocked.

“Keep us from crashing,” I said.

Before they could say anything, I ran down the line. I couldn’t go onto the roof right now because of the overhead track and because, even if I could, I’d get sniped by the fleet. I would have to drop through a floor hatch and hang from the bottom of the train. The train designers had anticipated these things so there were rungs on the bottom of the train.

We were going over three hundred MPH and I was going to hang from a train. My hands began sweating. Which wouldn’t be good. I had gloves in my pocket that I quickly fitted to my hands. Made sure they were tight around my wrists.

Then I opened the hatch in the floor.

“Catherine’s going under,” Scarlet said. “She can’t go on the roof, so she’s going to swing from train to train.”

“I know what she’s doing,” said Troy.

“You don’t get it,” Scarlet said. “That means we need to stick to overhead track as long as she’s down there or she’ll, you know, die.”

His face was nothing but concern.

“I barely can read these. I believe the upside-down red markings indicate the track is overhead.”

“That means the next transition is overhead,” said Scarlet. She pointed to a “W” beside the line of new track. “That must mean ‘Wood.’”

“I believe so. It transitions into overhead wooden track.”

“It’s going to get bumpy.”

“Catherine has good grip,” he said, but he looked at Scarlet for confirmation.

She only returned the look, unsure.

Opening the hatch filled the car with the sound of loud wind, pushing its way into the cabin. I immediately knew this was a bad idea, but I was committed.

I thought of lowering myself nice and slowly, but time was of the essence and I wasn’t given much of it, so I let myself drop through, catching the outer edge. My body was immediately blown in the wind. I clung to the hatch opening.

Because the wind was blowing so hard against me, I wasn’t straight up and down vertical, but I wasn’t being pressed against the bottom of the train either. I spun around so I was facing backward. The first rungs were right there, about three feet from me. Then they were spaced only a foot apart.

Taking in and holding a quick breath, I reached out my arm for the first rung and caught it. My gloved hand held tight. And then I heard a strange noise from above—at the same time, I felt a jolt that sent panic into the hands I really needed to not be panicked right now. I clung tighter as I realized that the train was transitioning onto a different track.

The streamlined sound of the train rushing down the metal track changed to the clunky bass noise of the train sliding down the wooden-built track. Sure the rails they were sliding down were still metal, but the wooden track was rickety and unsure of itself. It sounded much different. It was bumpy. Our train slowed.

I reached for the next rung, took a strong hold and swung for the next. I reached each one with relative ease, being sure I had my grip before swinging for the next.

As I made my way for the Battering Train, I took in the scenery. I could make out very little in my present position. I could see the ground, though, now that I wasn’t standing under the cabin lights in the train. It was mostly a wooded area. There were mountains to my right, the edges of them were sharp under the moonlight.

I only had a few rungs left.

My grip strength was fine. I had plenty of natural adrenaline in my body. I realized though that I was slightly shaky. I needed to eat something when I got back inside. Too much adrenaline, not enough food.

My face was freezing cold in the wind.

Then I swung onto the first rung of our tenth car. The Battering Train was just ahead. Since the tenth car had been smashed in, the rungs ended abruptly. I made it to the last one and saw the first rung on the Battering Train, about five feet from me.

I could reach it if I swung. I began trying to swing my body back and forth, but the track curved and threw me around.

Because of the curve and the wind, I was being thrown around. My body slapped against the bottom of the train, but I held on. The track jolted and jarred, and then I heard a loud creaking noise. Didn’t know what it meant, but we were still moving so I was sure it was nothing. When we came out of the curve and settled a bit, I readied myself to swing onto the Battering Train. I felt that I could make it. I knew that when I had the feeling in my gut that I could do something, I always could.

I acted fast, swinging forward once, reaching as far as I could, releasing the final rung on my train. I caught the Battering Train’s rung with one hand and hung there for a moment with my one arm, letting my other arm rest for a moment. Still, I wasn’t tired. And I had successfully reached the Battering Train.

“We’re heavy on this wooden track. It’s old,” Troy said. “That’s why it’s creaking.”

“You think it will support us?”

“It should. I don’t know much about trains, though.”

Scarlet went back to reading the maps. Then had a thought. “The Battering Train is four times heavier than our train.”

I heard more loud creaking. I realized it was coming from the overhead track. All in the same moment, I realized what was happening. It happened faster than I could have anticipated.

The Battering Train lowered a foot. I heard loud splinters, metal bending, wood breaking. Then the train dropped ten feet, stopped. I nearly lost my grip. I grabbed the rung with both hands. The first car had disengaged and the second car was pulling loose, ripping from the tracks.

Before the train dropped the rest of the way, I swung and pushed myself off the rung, back towards my train. Now I was holding onto nothing, falling through the cold air. I fell a fast ten feet, struggling to get my equalizer from its holster. It wasn’t coming undone.

I calmed myself and carefully unstrapped it.

I was afraid of dropping it.

I held it tight in my gloved hand, aimed at my train, as far forward as the gun would reach. Pulled the trigger. I flew past the front of the Battering Train just before it fell further, passing behind me. I reached, literally, the final rung on the end of the bashed-in tenth car, catching it with one hand.

I holstered the equalizer and let myself spin around, holding to the rung with one hand, watching the Battering Train rip away from the wooden track, taking much of the track with it. And at length fall completely away. I realized my body was slightly hanging out from under the train, leaving me open to getting sniped.

I climbed forward a few rungs and turned back to see the headlights on the Battering Train shrinking as it made the long fall to the ground. I worked my way back to the open hatch. When I reached it, I looked back down once more and saw the Battering Train hit the ground with a loud THUD that I could feel.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

BARNHART WATCHED THE Battering Train fall.

“It’s our turn now!” he yelled.

The Elite Squad looked at him.

“Not yet,” he said, “Let’s try pulsing them off the track first.”

Troy flipped through pages on the table. “I can’t find the next transition. We’re missing a page.”

Scarlet flipped through. The pages were numbered, and Troy was right. They were missing the next page.

“Can you brighten our headlights? We’ll have to choose our path from sight.”

He went to the panel and turned up the lights as high as they could go. It gave them an extra ten feet of sight.

“VERY helpful,” said Scarlet, being very sarcastic.

I pulled myself back into the train, closed the hatch behind me. Everything sounded very quiet, at least compared to the outside. I ran to the front room. Scarlet was at the window, yelling, “Take the right track. Prepare for transition. It’s going to switch back to under-track. Metal.”

They weren’t looking at the maps. It was probably missing a page.

I watched through the window as the train lifted five feet with the rise in the track, fell down fifteen feet, then curved to the right. We hit the transition, remotely activating it. We seamlessly slid onto a track that ran beneath us now. We could access the roof again, except for the snipers.

“The Battering Train is gone,” I said.

“Good, good,” they said, focused on their task.

This track began climbing at an easy enough angle. Not too steep, but I had to be careful of my footing.

Kara was in the engine room. Everything was still working fine. They’d been stressing the engine for an hour now. It was new and would be fine, but it still bothered her. You never want to mistreat an engine for much of a duration. She reminded herself this train was built for such things.

She took a deep breath.

I saw the minister sitting in the back corner of the room, handcuffed to a bar on the wall. He nodded at me when I looked at him but didn’t say anything. I liked him. Because he didn’t talk.

The light was low in this room and I could barely make out his face. We needed to keep the light low so we could see out the window.

The headlights flashed far ahead, illuminating the track as we passed over it. It was metal again and smooth, quiet. That’s when we felt a shockwave and our train rocked from side to side. I caught myself against the wall.

“What was that?” Scarlet said.

“A pulse wave,” Troy said. “They’re trying to reverse pulse us off the track.”

“That would be the easiest way to kill us.”

“It won’t work. I don’t think,” he said.

“You don’t think?” said Scarlet.

“I’m not sure. Don’t know much about trains.”

Then the train’s trajectory changed. The track gave way and began descending. It was a slow descent at first, but they started picking up speed fast. I kept thinking, there’s no way it would get steeper. There’s no way it could get ANY steeper. I watched the speedometer increase one hundred MPH as we got nearly vertical. At length I was lying against the front window. But I felt like my body would lift from it.

“AHHHHHHHHH!” Troy began yelling beside me.

I could barely breathe. I felt like I was being choked by wind though I could feel none whatsoever. I was watching the track intently, hoping against hope it didn’t end any time soon. Some miners thought building out track like this would be a funny joke.

“Right!” I yelled the moment I saw it.

The track split off each way or continued straight down. The straight-down option was a dead end. I wasn’t sure where the right led, but we had to choose left or right and the left option was wooden track. The right was metal.

Troy would have to climb to the control panel. He rolled across the window, used bars along the walls to pull himself along.

“They’re going to pulse us as we’re switching track,” Scarlet said to me.

“That’s what I would do if I were them.”

“Will it work?”

“We’re about to find out.”

Our train was eating up the track. Going faster than ever. Then we hit the transition, and the pulse wave hit us. I could hear the wave slap against the left side of our train and rock us. Our train listed to the right and continued listing. It wasn’t falling back down. I knew my bodyweight wouldn’t do anything, but I rolled to the left anyways, trying to balance us out. We got hit again. It slapped against the left side and we began listing even more.

I was sure we’d go over the edge.

But then our train sucked itself back onto the track.

Kara. She must have turned up our traction levels.

This train was freakin’ Over-Powered, in the best of ways.

“They’re not going to be able to pulse us off,” said Troy, laughing.

We must have picked the right track because it began smoothing itself out so that we weren’t so vertical.

The pulse attack hadn’t worked. They’d try something else.

I turned to Scarlet. “I need you to kill someone.”

CHAPTER FORTY

THE TRACK HAD leveled out enough that we could stand again, albeit we had to lean to keep our balance. Akio may have fallen off his bed during the descent. I wondered about him for a moment, then I heard a loud explosion and our train rocked. Then another. Then another, the last one being the loudest, coming from directly overhead. The entire front room rocked and vibrated like hell.

“RPGs,” said the minister.

Rocket-propelled grenades.

They were shooting us with grenades. Wasn’t working. Our train was too strong. There were a few more explosions and then the explosions stopped.

“I need you to kill the overwatch,” I told Scarlet. “The sniper who killed my mom. I don’t know if there’s only one or if they have many. But we can’t go up there if they have snipers.”

“We can’t go up there if they have RPGs,” Troy countered. “Are you crazy? We can’t go up there at all.”

“We can’t sit this out,” I said. “We need to attack them before they kill us.”

“She’s right,” Minister Wallace said.

“He’s just saying that,” said Troy. “They can’t touch us. Can’t hurt us. We can ride it out.”

I looked at the minister. “What are they going to do next?”

He shrugged. “Everything. They’re going to try everything.”

I turned to Troy. “I’m going on the offense.” I turned to Scarlet. “Ready?”

She looked at Troy, unsure what to do.

Troy was looking between us, then to the map. He wasn’t a coward. I think he was scared for us. He went to the control panel and prepared to move us onto a different piece of track.

“He’s scared for us,” I said to Scarlet quietly. “But we have to.”

“I heard that,” he said. “And that is what worries me.” He faced us. “I’ll go out.”

“You can’t. Scarlet’s a better shot. She needs to take down the overwatch.”

It took him a few moments to respond. With his back turned to us, he said, “Be careful.”

We ran down the train.

After we made it down three cars, I said, “He’s worried about you.”

“He’s worried about us,” Scarlet said.

“Mostly you,” I said, because it was true and because it would make her happy to hear.

We passed the engine room and I heard a weird noise overhead, like something was sizzling. I also smelled something weird. We’d probably been pushing the engines too much.

Then the medical car.

Akio was on the floor, on his back. Kara was by his side.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” she was muttering.

“Set up in the back,” I said to Scarlet.

Then I kneeled beside Kara.

Akio’s eyes were closed. He wasn’t moving. I didn’t see any signs of breathing. After staring at him for a few moments, I realized he had passed. I heard a much louder noise from the engine room, a steaming noise. I ignored it for now.

“He’s gone,” said Kara, releasing his hand.

I stared at him. I didn’t have tears. I couldn’t cry now.

The noise was building in the engine car.

I needed to help Scarlet if we were ever going to make it.

Kara’s eyes were streaming and her body was heaving with sobs.

Kara, the voice said to me.

And I knew what to do.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I KNEW THE answer. If my voice was right, then Kara was the key. And if my mom had been right then a blood transfusion could save Akio.

Troy said Kara had some sort of powers.

If she did, I was sure there was a scientific explanation. It would have to be in her blood. The power(s) manifested itself from her physical properties—and DNA was the most identifying of the physical properties. At least, in my limited knowledge, that’s what I told myself.

Plus, I had no other options.

I rummaged through drawers and cabinets in the Medical Room and found needles and tubing. I scrounged together everything in my hands and dumped it all on the floor beside Kara, getting to my knees. I pieced the tubing and needle together.

“Get a vein to rise,” I said.

“What are you doing?”

“Just do it.”

“He’s dead.”

“We’re going to wake him up.”

“We can’t wake him up. He’s dead, Catherine!”

“Kara, trust me.”

“You’re insane! We lost him. He’s GONE.”

I squeezed her arm. She tried pulling away but then stopped.

“Troy says there’s something about you. We’re about to find out.”

She gave up fighting me, let me stick the needle in her vein. I wired the other end into Akio’s arm. I watched the blood stream through the tube and go into him. I watched his lifeless face. I waited.

Kara put a hand to her head. “This is not going to work, Catherine.”

I knew it would. Somehow I knew.

“Do not move,” I said.

I ran to the back of the train. Half of the tenth car had fallen away, leaving a giant open wall. Scarlet was in the ninth car, dialing in her scope. I could hear the fleet from here.

“I’m going up top,” I said. “The overwatch is going to try to kill me. Kill them first.” She looked like she was going to object. But then nodded. She knew there was no arguing with me. We didn’t have time for anything else, anyway. She needed to be faster than them was all. She’d have to be the faster and more accurate sniper.

Violet was in the overwatch box, waiting. She’d killed the woman who had blocked her target and had hoped the bullet would have gone through and hit the girl. Didn’t have such luck. She needed to get another chance before Barnhart unleashed the Elites.

It was a weird sight right now. One of the ships in the fleet was hovering over the train’s fourth car, the engine room, dumping acid all over the roof. Acid, since it wasn’t metal, wasn’t blocked by the magnetic shields. It was cutting through the reinforced steel, steam rising off the hot metal. She could smell the burning from here. The acid would melt through and destroy their engines and shield generators.

I went to the second car and pressed the button to drop the stairway. I didn’t want to climb up the hatch. I wanted to walk up the steps to the roof. The stairs lowered, extending down to the floor. I could hear the very loud sizzling noise now. I began walking up the steps. I heard an RPG explosion, but it sounded like it had hit more towards the back of the train.

I was holding my pistol in one hand.

Scarlet heard the RPG smack against the tail end of the train, the open part. She was shielded behind a wall, but she felt the heat. For a moment, she thought she’d been burned. The feeling passed and she stood, taking a few deep breaths. Her hands were shaking. She knew they would stop once she took aim. This was the highest stakes shooting she’d ever done. If she couldn’t take out the overwatch, Catherine would die. If she got hit by an RPG when she turned around the corner, she would die. Which meant she needed to take out the RPG shooter. She wondered how many there were. She had no idea where any of these people were perched.

Catherine would be on the roof soon.

My head passed into the open, and I could see the cause of the sizzling. A smaller ship was hovering over our engine car, pouring out sheets of steam-producing acid onto our train. They were burning into our engine room. The only good thing about it was the larger ships in the fleet couldn’t see me because this ship was shielding me. I raised my pistol and shot at the windshield, right at the pilot. The windshield didn’t even crack. Deflective shields. The pilot and copilot didn’t react.

And I knew what I had to do.

I ran down the line towards them. An RPG hit the back of the train again. It rocked us a little bit, but I didn’t slow my run. Then the track shifted. It tilted one way. I slid to the left side of the train, and my foot stopped against the small side railing. I moved along the side railing, keeping my balance. Then the train leveled, and I continued my run.

I raised my equalizer towards the top of the acid ship and launched. The pilots watched me fly past their window. Then I was on the roof. The fleet of ships loomed larger than ever. I saw two of them moving in, angling to get on either side of our train. I saw the main ship, couldn’t see the overwatch from here because it was dark.

Scarlet leaned around the corner of the wall. She was sure Catherine was on the roof now. Scarlet’s hands were steady. She could see two ships, flanking either side. She glanced through the scope at the larger ship and came across a man holding an RPG in an overwatch box.

She pulled the trigger and moved the scope, not bothering to see whether or not the bullet had hit him. She knew it had—right through the chest.

Then she spotted a blonde-haired girl, young, holding a sniper rifle. She took the shot. Hit the girl right through the head. Scarlet searched a few additional seconds and only saw a few men through the windshields. No more overwatch or RPGs.

Kayden saw Violet die. She’d never had a chance.

“Is that why you let her come along?” Kayden asked Barnhart. “So she would die.”

Barnhart nodded. “Now you’re beginning to understand me.”

“But why let someone die?”

“She was an amateur, thought she was better than she was. She was a rooftop sniper, not good under pressure or on a flying ship. I was teaching her a lesson.”

“A lesson that can’t be learned,” said Kayden. “Because you’re dead the moment you learn it.”

Barnhart only nodded.

Kayden and Barnhart were watching out the front windshield. They saw the Resistance girl jump onto the acid train.

“You ready to fight again?” Barnhart asked Kayden.

Kayden sighed. He very badly wanted to kill these Resistance fighters. His position in the Authority depended on it. He’d failed today and needed to prove his worth. “Not yet,” he answered honestly.

“No matter. They’ll die soon.”

I didn’t spend any time worrying about or looking for the overwatch. I trusted Scarlet. I plunged my electric knife through the metal on the ceiling and began cutting around the hinge of the top hatch. It took thirty seconds, and I didn’t get blown away by an RPG or shot through by a sniper. I threw open the hatch, pointing my gun. There was a man standing there with a gun. I shot him through the head.

Then I dropped in, immediately aiming my gun.

The only man left was the pilot—I’d just killed the copilot.

“Are you okay, man?” he asked, still facing forward.

I shot him through the back of the head.

Instantly, the craft began dipping downward.

I cut the man’s seat belt away. The craft continued lowering, dropping acid on our train. It took me a few moments to get him off the seat because he was heavy.

Then I took the seat.

I’d never flown one of these before but it looked easy enough. There was a tall joystick sticking up from the floor. I took hold of it with both hands and pushed it forward to ascend. It descended and I almost ran it into the top of our train. I pulled back—it began to ascend. I didn’t know how to turn off the acid.

Didn’t matter.

I pulled up and to the left. The craft turned around quick enough. Had good maneuverability. I turned it too far and had to correct. Getting the hang of it, I angled for the main ship. I was going to crash into it—on purpose.

Barnhart looked to the Elite Squad and nodded. The girl had commandeered the acid ship. He’d underestimated her. It was time to launch all of their attacks.

The Elite Squad pressed open the back door and jumped out of the ship. They fell for a few moments before taking their flying boards from their backs—longboards, like snowboards, with slight curves in them—and attaching them to their boots. The boards were magnetically pulsed and allowed them to fly. Top-of-the-line tech that the Resistance hadn’t gotten ahold of yet.

Barnhart watched the girl spin the acid ship around.

He spoke into his radio. “Breach their train.”

He was speaking to their second crew: The two ships that were on either side of the train.

Troy was watching the ships through the side windows, wondering what they were going to do. He was also busy trying to navigate. He’d so far made good decisions. If he hadn’t they would have truly crashed because a lot of this track was outdated.

He was coming to a fork in the road and had another decision to make. Left or right? He consulted the maps while watching those side ships out of the corners of his eyes.

He was beginning to understand these maps. Even still, his pulse was spiked. The more good decisions he made, the more he felt he wouldn’t be able to keep it up. He had to trace along the track with his fingers to see how far it went and see how the other track intersected with it.

That’s when he saw men deploy themselves from the ships on either side. Five men bounded out of each ship. They were wearing magnetic suits. They flew bounded to our train and literally magnetized themselves to it. He heard their bodies slap against the train.

I saw the men with what looked like flying snowboards coming at me. I figured out where the throttle was on this thing and punched it all the way forward. Now I was speeding towards the main ship. I could see Kayden through the windshield. Collision in only a few seconds. I aimed for that windshield. A man in a lieutenant’s uniform stood next to Kayden. Looked like the man in charge. I’d plow directly into them. I didn’t know what would happen to me. I couldn’t put on the seat belt because I’d cut it off. I was worried. Mostly, I just wanted to knock these guys out of the sky so my team could get home.

I had the thought in the back of my mind that I’d die right here. If I hit them at this speed, we would die.

The engine whined in this smaller ship. I was just about to hit their windshield when Kayden lifted his hand, waving it. At that very moment, my ship got thrown violently upwards as if I’d gotten hit by a massive gust of wind from beneath. I went right over the top of the main ship. I fought to get control of the thing as it rocked side to side and spun about.

I finally did get control and turned it around. Again, moved the throttle forward and began chasing the main ship and my train. I was behind them now. I saw magnet men from the two ships beside the train bounding onto our train. I saw blood burst out from one and he fell from the train, peeled off of it like a sticker.

Scarlet had shot him.

There were at least fifteen more.

The flying board men were coming at me.

I had so many thoughts. Kayden had somehow thrown me. At least that’s how it had seemed. Had he hit me with wind or moved me with his thoughts? I didn’t get it.

These flying board men were Elites. I remembered learning about Elites. They were the best. I was an untrained Resistance fighter who’d most likely prematurely undertaken this endeavor. I had no chance. They would board this ship and kill me easier than I’d killed the pilots.

Knelt beside Akio, Kara watched the men magnetize themselves to the train. She’d given up. Akio had taken much of her blood and he was still dead. Catherine was an idiot for thinking this mission was possible. They were up against the Authority for crying out loud. And now her only friend in the world was dead.

These magnet men were wearing masks, she noticed. And she saw smoke coming from the car behind her. The men were smoking them out. She couldn’t smell it yet but she was sure it was hallucinogenic.

Kara knew there were some masks in this medical room, but she didn’t feel like standing or moving. If she did, she’d have to detach from Akio and she didn’t care anymore.

Troy ran into the medical room.

“Kara, we need masks!”

He threw open cabinets. Found two breathers. He handed one to Kara and strapped one on himself. Then he unsheathed his sword and took out his pistol.

Scarlet ran into the room.

He pointed to the cabinet, and she strapped on a mask.

That’s when the train leaned violently into a descent. It threw Scarlet and Troy off their feet and they even slid down the metal floor a few feet before catching themselves against a wall. Kara and Akio slid into the wall. She didn’t even try to catch herself, just let herself slam into it and laid there.

“Are we on safe track?” Scarlet yelled.

“I don’t know.”

He maneuvered himself to the door and let himself slide through it, out of Kara’s sight, toward the front of the train.

Scarlet stayed here. “Are you okay, Kara?”

She didn’t answer.

Scarlet loaded two bullets into her gun. And aimed at the door that was now above them. A man slid through the door right then. He fired off a shot from a handgun. Scarlet put a bullet through his head and, his dead body, which had entered as a live body, slid past them, through the next door.

“Don’t give up, Kara.”

“It’s over,” Kara answered.

“It’s not over yet.”

Kara grudgingly put on her mask.

A man slid into the wall beside the door above them. Scarlet waited for him to turn the corner. He put his hand around the corner to blind fire. Scarlet hit his hand. He dropped his gun, yelling.

It was over. There was no way we could win.

That’s all I knew.

I throttled this smaller machine forward. The Elites in my flight path. Rather, I was in their flight path.

My train flew down a descending track. I aimed towards it. The main ship was still following them. I could barely keep up.

Then I saw a button that said “Boost” on it. The Elite Squad flew over me. Were going to jump down the hatch any moment. I hit the Boost button. Rockets flamed on either side and the ship, shaking like it was too small to have rockets attached to it, launched forward. I aimed toward the main ship. A few pieces of zig-zagging track jutted before me. I pulled up to avoid it. I ascended for a few moments, pointed upward, seeing the tops of the mountains and sky. Then I levered the joystick forward and veered downward. Going full force toward the rest of the fleet. I was catching up pretty quick. I didn’t know how long these rockets would last. I was sure it was temporary. I was sure they were burning fuel like crazy.

I turned my head back, making sure the Elites weren’t entering my ship. They weren’t. Must have fallen behind. The throttle was all the way forward. This whole machine was buzzing.

I didn’t know what to do.

Try to ram the main ship again?

There was no way I could take on Kayden even if I got into the ship. He seemed to have some sort of powers. And there was still the possibility of hurting myself by crashing into them. Perhaps Kayden throwing me out of the way wasn’t the worst development as it might have saved my life, though it did give me shivers to think he had that kind of power.

Kara is the key, the voice said.

This time it didn’t hurt my mind.

In fact, it cleared my mind.

The Catherine from two minutes ago had been too liberal in her actions. I needed to think, take a deep breath for a moment, make the right move. There was still a chance to salvage this.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

In a few seconds I’d have to decide where to aim this craft. I’d have to decide how to take care of the Elite Squad. With my eyes closed, I realized that there was no way we could outrun these people. There was no way we could beat them. They’d used a few of their tricks, and I was sure they had many more weapons and points of attack. We couldn’t keep up like this and we couldn’t kill them. I pictured Kayden. I pictured the Elites.

We couldn’t kill them.

Couldn’t outrun them.

Couldn’t outmaneuver them.

I opened my eyes.

We could out-crazy them.

I saw Mount Bellz looming before us. In fact, the track the train was on was pointed that direction. If I could get back to Troy, I could tell him to get to Bellz rather than avoid it. He wouldn’t like it, but there was nothing else we could do. The Authority wouldn’t follow us into the mountain. They were too afraid of it. It was crazy. But I’d rather die in Bellz than by the hands of the Authority.

I was coming up on the main ship. I hit the yoke forward and went below the main ship, shooting out from beneath them—toward my train.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

TROY SLID ACROSS the floor into the front room, feet coming down hard on the front window. His boots clumped against it but it didn’t give way, not even a bit. The papers from the table were down here at the window, scattered.

Troy snatched up the papers, crumpling them, and climbed toward the control panel. He needed to pick a new path before they crashed.

He saw a man coming through this front room’s hatch, sliding down the wall. Troy yanked out his gun and shot, missed. He shot again. Hit him. Then he watched the hatch for a few moments, making sure no one else entered.

That’s when the noise that had been present since the very beginning of this mission—but for the time they were stopped in the depot—faded. The train’s engine had turned off. Following the disappearance of engine noise, the lights turned off. Troy checked the control panel to see that the train was, in fact, off. They were going down an incredible descent which was the only reason they were still moving. He tried igniting the engine from here but nothing happened. Figured as much. Someone must have manually turned it off.

Scarlet heard the engines turn off. She looked at Kara. Kara realized what had happened, but she wasn’t prepared to do anything about it. The lights turned off everywhere. Between the car being filled with smoke and having no lights, Scarlet gulped.

Scarlet slid through the open door down to the engine room. There was no one here. There was a lot of steam though. She couldn’t exactly see what had happened so she unsheathed her sword. It had a slight blue glow that allowed her to see the room. The ceiling was melted in part and acid had seeped into the main generator. Which meant their shields were down.

Since they were still rolling fast on this straight-down track, the Authority fleet wouldn’t realize the engines were off. They were safe for now, thought Troy. The Authority wouldn’t realize the shields were down.

But then the track started leveling out.

They were beside a mountain, a few feet out from it actually. They’d lowered from very high in the sky to about five hundred feet from the ground, which was now a giant lake. A lake of death. Literally. Under the moonlight he could see the tombstones alongside the beach from here. For some reason the Authority had turned this lake into a graveyard. The lake had become poisoned. It used to be the center of trade for many of the Authority’s subjects, but the Authority didn’t like it. So they destroyed it.

As the train leveled he saw a waterfall up ahead, pounding over the track. They were going to go through it. He looked up at the hatch to make sure no one was coming in. He looked back through the door. No one.

Leaning close to the window so that he could read the maps under the moonlight, he tried to figure out their course. Kara would get the engines running soon and they’d need to know where to turn. Mount Bellz was just ahead and they needed to avoid it. There was an old path that went through the mountain pass, staying out of the actual mountain. It was incredibly circuitous—long and arduous. It looked like their only option.

As the track leveled, they slowed.

Either our train was slowing or I was picking up speed. My ship was still pouring acid. I didn’t see the button that stopped it. Didn’t matter. Five of the magnet men were still on the side of our train, trying to break through side windows. I flew right over them, dumping acid on them.

I passed in front of our train.

The track was leveling and they were slowing. I flew out in front of them, spun my ship around, and flew over the opposite side of our train, dropping acid on four remaining men who hadn’t yet broken into the train. I flew so close to the mountain I was afraid I’d scrape against it.

The Elite squad, on their flying boards, were just in front of me, swords ready. Then they were over me. I yanked the yoke about, spinning back around, flying over my train.

My train plowed through a waterfall. Water cascaded over the roof as they shot through it.

It was actually a beautiful sight—our mammoth train going under the waterfall.

Now I was above the lake, to the side of my train. I turned around in my seat, aiming my pistol, shooting at the opening in the ceiling. I hadn’t seen anyone enter, but I needed to keep them out. I fired three bullets, leaving two seconds between shots.

A popping blue sword, like the one I’d taken that was currently in my sheath—came through the ceiling just above my head. I heard its noise as it cut through the steel overhead and I dodged away. It missed my face by an inch.

I rolled out of my seat so that I was between the passenger and driver seats. I took out my sword and kept my head low. I saw one of the Elites fly in front of the windshield.

The train was stopped. The waterfall was halfway between it, washing over it. Troy ran back toward the engine room. The smoke was clearing out of the place, but he had to keep his mask on. He came across one man—yanked out his sword and swung as hard and fast as he could, cutting the man’s head off.

Then he pulled up in the engine room.

Scarlet was touching the engine, holding a cord. She had no idea what she was doing.

“Catherine!” Kara yelled from the medical room.

Troy and Scarlet went into the room and saw that Kara was looking out the side window. They could see Catherine through the windshield of the acid ship. The thing was hovering in the air, spinning in circles. Two Elites were on the roof, stabbing their swords through it. One was hovering in front of her windshield, taking a long rifle from his back.

Up and off to the side was the only remaining ship from the Authority’s fleet: The main one. The two that had deployed the magnet men had flown away. Apparently that’s all they were there for.

The main ship flew towards Catherine’s ship, which had spun around so that Troy couldn’t see Catherine anymore. The Elites that were on the ceiling dropped through the ceiling hatch one at a time. Catherine didn’t stand a chance. Kara and Troy stood in silence, breathing heavy.

Scarlet ran out of the room to retrieve her rifle.

Troy grabbed Kara by the shoulders, spun her towards him. “You’re the only one who can save her.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how.”

Akio was still connected to her arm, blood flowing into him.

Troy looked down at him because he’d seen something. Akio’s eyes had opened.

Kara didn’t notice, and Troy didn’t point it out, but he knew now more than ever that Kara was special, that she had special powers whether she realized it or not. Whether she accepted it or not. She was the only one who could save Catherine right now.

Scarlet showed back up in the room, taking aim through their side window. This window had been cracked by one of the magnet men but hadn’t yet shattered. It would in a second. But she couldn’t find a shot. The third Elite had entered the ship. The ship was still spinning about, windshield turned away from them.

Barnhart was smiling. Kayden cracked a smile. This was what Barnhart lived for. Authority soldiers, even the Elites, were stupid. They didn’t realize that they were all pawns of the Authority. Sure, the Elites were the best fighters, the deadliest.

But Barnhart commanded the Elites, which made him the deadliest.

He turned to the man at the ship’s main cannon—a cannon that fires a four hundred pound explosive projectile—and he gave a small wave of his hand. That was all it took.

The cannon had already been loaded. They’d been thinking of launching it at the train, but the train was too reinforced—not like this small ship.

After they killed the girl on the acid ship, they’d launch the rest of their men into the train, which had come to rest on the tracks, engine depleted. The acid had worked.

If the men couldn’t subdue the rest of the Resistance fighters, Kayden said he was ready to get back into action. His wound had healed.

The cannon fired.

Kara heard the noise of the canon and screamed. It looked like a giant fireball and then it hit its target. Kara watched Catherine’s ship explode to fiery bits, and Kara’s head exploded in pain. She yelled against the pain and watched the flaming pieces of debris, some of which flew outward and hit their window, fall down and down, to the lake.

Catherine, the Elite soldiers, all dead.

Scarlet dropped her aim for a moment, but then she aimed up at the men in the main ship. She fired a shot that broke the window just before her, then fired shots that hit the ship’s windshield. They had deflective shields. Her bullets couldn’t pierce them.

Then the big ship started their way.

Akio got to his feet, ripping out his IV. He hadn’t just come back to life, he looked fully alive, fully himself. Kara saw him for the first time and threw her arms around him. She was confused right now, by everything.

But she knew.

“Catherine is alive,” she said quietly. Then louder. “Catherine is alive.”

Akio looked around.

“She’s in the lake, unconscious, but alive.” Kara looked at Troy. “I think.”

Troy ran to the window, ripping off his gas mask, and looked down. Couldn’t see much of anything. It wasn’t possible that Catherine was alive. He’d seen the thing get blown to pieces. Unless Kara had done something… The lake was five hundred feet beneath them.

“What’s going on?” asked Akio.

“You were dead,” said Kara.

Akio looked at all of them, saw Troy looking out the window. “Where’s Catherine?” he asked.

“The lake,” Kara said, and she could see his thoughts, feel his thoughts. She didn’t like the idea he had, but she knew it had to be done.

Without another word, Akio backed into the furthest wall to get a running start. Then he ran at the open side window and dove through it to rescue Catherine.

Barnhart saw the girl with the rifle was trying to shoot them. How cute. Then he saw the boy dive out of the train. Who were these people? They were batshit crazy, and that’s why they were so easily subdued. They didn’t deserve to live. A bunch of morons.

“Charge the next cannon shot. Their train’s shields must be down if their windows break so easily.”

“Cannon will be charged in a sixty seconds.”

“We have all the time in the world.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

AKIO SOARED THROUGH the air.

He knew he’d been dead seconds ago because Kara had told him. He didn’t feel like he’d been dead. How long had he been dead? He had no idea.

He felt like he’d woken up from a great sleep. He was fully energized and alive, fully focused. He knew that he was falling five hundred feet through the cold air down to a freezing cold lake. He realized now that he was falling towards the famous graveyard lake that was apparently poisoned. He could see as he fell further and came closer—a glimmering portion on the lake waters, a portion clear of debris and pieces of the ship. He angled toward it, adjusting his body during the fall.

He also knew Kara.

If she said Catherine was alive, Catherine was alive. If Catherine was alive there was no question that it was his job to protect her. Kara somehow knew things.

He took in a deep breath of the cool air and could smell the lake—a dead pungent aura that made him want to gag. But he held it and put out his arms as he dove right between floating debris, plunging down and down into the lake. He went deep because of the inertia from the fall.

The water was freezing. He barely noticed.

Heart pumping, fully alive, Akio clambered for the surface. He broke into the open about thirty seconds later, taking a good breath.

“Catherine!” he yelled.

Troy knew if they didn’t get the train moving, they’d get blasted off the track. They had no shields and the main ship was sitting there in the air, charging the next cannon blast. Troy could polar jump to the main ship. It was just within distance. Maybe. He couldn’t tell. It was too risky. They needed to get the train going.

“Kara, get the train started.”

She didn’t object.

Ran to the engine room, leaving Scarlet and Troy.

“What do we do?” Scarlet asked.

“If Kara gets the shields up, we sit. Figure out how to fight.”

Scarlet could see the two leading men in the windshield of the ship. “I have a feeling we can’t win.”

“I have the same feeling.”

How could they get Catherine? How could they get Catherine back up to the train? Is all Troy was thinking. The track was stilted up from the lake. They’d have to climb down. Or Catherine and Akio would have to climb up.

Troy would need to take down this main ship, which was impossible and he already knew it. And Akio and Catherine would need to climb back to the train, which very well might be impossible. The stilts might not have handholds, might be too thick to grip onto. And even so, it would take a very long time for them to climb. Men would be dispatched to kill them if they were down there. And the lake was poisoned, so even if they did make it back to the train they’d likely die from disease in the next few weeks or even days. Still, Troy had hope.

He always had hope.

Somehow.

“Kara?” he yelled, because the train still wasn’t on.

No answer for a few seconds. “Working on it.”

Troy walked to the engine room.

“Is it fixable?”

Red lights began flashing. This room was full of steam and there was slight sizzling in the corners of the ceiling, acid still burning down the walls. It was powerful stuff.

“Almost charged,” said the man at the cannon.

Barnhart smiled.

Kayden said, “We shouldn’t shoot them. I’d like to use my powers while I can. I could jump to their train, take them all out.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thirty seconds,” said the CANNON MAN.

“I have thirty seconds to think about it,” said Barnhart.

Akio continued yelling for Catherine. There was no response from her or any others. There were heavy scraps of metal all around, some floating, others sinking. “Catherine!”

He heard movement behind him, but before he could respond, an arm took him around the neck. He heard the man grunting, applying all his strength to Akio’s neck. But the man was weak and Akio had just come back from the dead.

Akio got the man’s arm loose, spun around and grabbed the man by the throat, dunking him under the water, holding him there. “Catherine!” he yelled, holding the man under.

Then, still holding the man, Akio continued moving through the scraps. There was a large rectangular scrap, flames dancing around the top.

Through the flames, he could see Catherine’s body, floating, on her back. He could make out the profile of her face, lit by the flames.

He let go of the struggling man, could care less about him, and dove under the water, swimming under the large scrap of metal. He came up on the other side beside Catherine’s body.

He took hold of her, shaking her. “Catherine!”

I woke up in a field. I was lying on my back on a grassy hill. Healthy green grass smothered the hill. It was full of color and shimmering under soft sunlight. The day was cool and there was a nice breeze. The sky was blue and clear. No clouds.

A perfect day.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and I couldn’t believe what I saw.

It was acres upon acres, miles upon miles, as far as the eye could see—it was a field of roses. Beautiful red roses interspersed with swaths of yellow roses. The yellow was sparse, accenting the red. I rubbed my eyes once more. I hadn’t seen anything more beautiful than this in my entire life.

The air smelled sweet here, perfect.

And my mom was standing among the roses, wearing a beautiful white dress. I smiled. She was still alive! My mom had survived. I stood to my feet, waving. She waved back.

I wasn’t wearing any shoes, barefoot.

I looked at my clothes. I was wearing a white comfortable dress that fell just above my knees. In all my life I could never have afforded a dress this nice. I couldn’t believe I was wearing such a beautiful thing. Everything was PERFECT.

I began running toward the field of roses, toward my mom, when I heard Akio’s yell and I came to—with a SPLASH. I was awake, drenched in water, cold. My body hurt all over. My right arm was stinging in pain—the worst—and I didn’t know what from.

Akio was there, looking at me.

I’d woken up from a dream. The roses weren’t real. My mother was dead. I was in the poison lake, and Akio was holding me.

For a moment I felt like I was in a dream again but I realized I wasn’t. Akio was alive. I smiled and threw my arms around him. Which hurt tremendously but I didn’t care.

A man, one of the Elite members, surfaced beside us.

Akio let go of me and punched the man hard across the face, knocking him unconscious. The man’s body went under the water, then floated back to the surface.

I began treading water, realizing more and more the pain in my body.

I’d been—we’d been—shot out of the sky.

I remembered now. The Elite members had entered my ship. I had my sword. We had just begun fighting when I heard the cannon fire and flames engulfed us. Except I was in a weird bubble. The flames wrapped around me. I remembered that I threw my arm up, trying to catch myself. It left the bubble and got burned, which was why it was stinging. But it was working, which was a good sign. Akio saw something and swam to it. I followed, breathing heavily now against the pain and the cold. My lips started chattering.

He picked up one of those flying boards.

“They even float,” I said. “Why am I not surprised? The Authority can’t filter our drinking water, but they can create flying snowboards that float in water.”

“You think they’re waterproof,” he said, searching for the activation button. “I think this one’s broken.”

I swam away from him, searching for the two other boards. I found two dead Elites, floating there, boards strapped to their feet.

“Over here,” I said, taking hold of the nearest Elite and unstrapping the board from his feet. The board was still humming. I smiled, looking up at our train—a shimmering hunk of long metal stretched out under the moonlight. The main ship was hovering above, no doubt charging a second damn cannon shot. I wondered why our train wasn’t moving? Were they waiting for us?

Akio was unstrapping the other guy’s board now.

“This lake is the poison graveyard one, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, getting the final strap undone on mine.

“Well, if we die in a few weeks, at least we’ll get to have some fun on these,” he said.

I laughed. I could see his white teeth behind his big smile. I couldn’t believe he’d been dead earlier. He was so alive. He was so… AKIO.

I laid back in the water, floating on my back, and began strapping the board over my boots. “You have any idea how to work these things?” I said.

“Nope.” Then he added. “They have controls strapped to their hands.”

He was removing the one for his board.

I swam about for my guy. He had a small remote strapped to his hand. I got it undone and strapped it around mine. The controls were intuitive. There was no writing but there was a small touch strip that was activated by pressure. I figured you could control up, down, forward and backward. The rest was up to shifting your weight, leaning and maneuvering with your body.

I lowered the board beneath me so that it was completely under the water and I was standing up straight. Then I pressed down on what I figured was “up.” I thought I would rise nice and easily. Nope. I shot out of the water—shot straight toward the sky. Akio shot up beside me, then passed me up, yelling with childish glee. I applied more pressure and began catching up to him.

ENGINE ROOM

Kara: “I can get it started, but we need to get rolling.”

Troy: “How?”

Kara: “I don’t know. Like, push or something.”

Troy: “We can’t push a train this size.”

Kara: “There’s nothing else we can do.”

Scarlet: “Are you sure?”

Kara was about to respond, then she got a look in her eye.

She went to the generator in the corner and began pulling out wires. She took out a small knife. Began to cut some of the wires.

Then she turned back to them. “You should leave. This could blow up.”

Troy was going to object, but then he turned and left the room, Scarlet right behind him.

CAPTAIN’S ROOM OF MAIN SHIP

Barnhart folded his hands before him.

Cannon guy: “Cannon’s charged.”

Kayden put a hand up. “Wait. Let me have a second chance.”

“Nah,” said Barnhart. “Fire.”

Kara connected two wires and nothing happened. She was sure it would work. She stepped back from her cobbled creation. Then she realized she forgot to press the “on” button. She kicked it with her foot and ran out the room, thinking it would explode.

The cannon operator pulled the trigger.

The train buzzed to life. The lights came back on in an instant with the hum of electricity and power. The invisible shields spread out around the train.

I shot up past our train and saw the fiery cannonball hit it direct center. Our train rocked side to side but otherwise nothing happened. Then our train started rolling down the track. Akio flew past me, getting the hang of it.

I still felt a bit unsure.

I moved the pressure in my fingers so that I would begin to descend. I had to press with my pinky on the small pad. I pressed a little with my ring finger and I began moving forward. I leaned into it and it carried me fast through the night air toward my train, past the waterfall that was beating down on the rusty track. I flew beside our train, behind Akio who was yelling with glee.

“Woooooohoooooooo!” I yelled.

Couldn’t help myself.

Flying past the windows of our train, I saw Kara. I saw Troy and Scarlet running to the front room. They hadn’t seen us, but they were all there.

I had a pang of sadness—thought of my mom.

But I leaned to the right, angling for the front of the train. I flew over the top of the roof and lighted down on the roof. It took me a few moments to get the board unstrapped from my feet. The main ship was following us.

Kayden was happy.

The cannon hadn’t worked, which meant it was his turn.

Barnhart was slightly displeased but ultimately didn’t seem to care. He still had faith in Kayden, and Kayden would reward that faith.

“Get us a little closer. I’ll jump,” said Kayden.

I dropped into the front room, dripping wet. I saw Troy and Scarlet under the low lights, completely shocked to see me.

Before they could say anything: “Mount Bellz. That’s our only option.”

“No,” said Scarlet. “That place is cursed.”

“You don’t believe that,” I said.

Troy was looking at the charts now.

Scarlet noticed. “Are you looking for the path to Bellz?” she asked.

He nodded and, without looking up: “It’s the only way. She’s right.”

“No one who goes in comes out alive,” said Scarlet.

“No one who goes in the Armory comes out alive,” I countered. “We can’t outrun these guys. Kayden, who has POWERS, is on the ship and he’s coming for us. I beat him once but I know I couldn’t do it again. Trust me. This is our only choice.”

Scarlet took a moment, then nodded her head.

Troy went to the control panel, moved a lever, preparing for the next transition.

Kayden was about to move to the outside of the ship to make the jump, but then he saw the train change tracks. Barnhart smiled, amused. “They’re going into Bellz.” He laughed. “We don’t have to kill them after all. They’re going to kill themselves.”

Kayden ran his hands through his long hair. “Great.” Not happy.

“Don’t worry, Kayden. The Authority still believes in you.”

They watched the train slow down a bit as it rose higher on its track, then swerve down. They followed it leisurely to make sure it was actually going to enter Bellz. They wouldn’t be able to follow them in because of the span of their ship. Besides, Barnhart would never go in. He would be too scared. Kayden knew, because he felt the same way. He would never enter Bellz, not even with his powers.

He knew the stories were true. The Authority had given up on Bellz. They’d taken all their firepower and all their tech into that place on MANY occasions. There were supernatural things in there. Things impossible to destroy.

“Let them die,” Kayden finally said under his breath.

He went back and sat in his chair, resigned.

They followed the train and watched it enter the mountain. The mountain only had one entrance and one exit. The exit was on the opposite side and in theory took several hours to reach, if and indeed the track ran all the way through the mountain. No one had attempted entering the place in years.

“We’ll post someone here and create a blockade on the other side of the mountain as well,” said Barnhart. “Just in case. I don’t need to be there. I’ll let you run point, Kayden.”

“How many resources do I get?”

“As many as you want.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

I STOOD A foot away from the front window. There was Bellz. Even from the outside it looked threatening. The stone around the entrance was dark and jagged, etched in shadows.

I could feel FEAR.

It wasn’t a thought. It was a presence or a sensation of some kind that came over me as we neared the dark entrance. The entire team, even Kara, was in the front room now, standing side by side.

“Spooky,” said Scarlet.

“I should let you guys know something,” said Kara very evenly. “I didn’t know we were going to enter Bellz.” She sounded very calm, the way she spoke, but I could tell she was having a hard time. “I needed to get the train rolling and nothing was working. The brakes were jammed. So I cut the brake line.”

“We’re entering Bellz without brakes?” I asked.

She nodded.

No one said anything more.

The minister was slumped in the corner of the room. He’d been completely knocked out through much of the whole event by the gas. He was snoring.

We passed through the entrance of the mountain, which was just big enough to fit our train. Darkness smothered us. We couldn’t make out a thing through the window. I could see my reflection in the glass because of the cabin lights.

The track began descending and we started picking up speed. I couldn’t hear anything but our train pushing through the air and my friends’ breathing. And the minister snoring.

I felt like I heard a voice, but not my voice, not the normal voice that I recognized, tell me WELCOME TO BELLZ.

PART THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

GODS AND MONSTERS.

That’s what I’d heard about this place. It was inhabited by an ancient and lesser evolved civilization of cannibals. Some said their skin couldn’t see the sun. Others said they came out and kidnapped people from nearby towns. What did I believe? I didn’t believe in anything I couldn’t see.

Right now, all we could see was darkness as we shot down the rails, gaining more speed. We had no brakes. At first, I hadn’t been mad at Kara for severing our brakes, but now I was beginning to think there must have been another way. Kara must have been missing something when she cut the brakes.

The faster we went in this darkness, the angrier I became.

The train hit a bump or something—I didn’t know what it hit. But we lurched—and we all lost our footing. And the track tilted even further. Now we were barreling down the track, completely vertical. I could hear the track screeching under us. We were going faster than the gears could hold us back.

“Kara!” I yelled.

“Nothing I can do.”

We were laying against the front window. I knew that I knew that I knew we were going to crash into the floor. That’s what was going to happen. The creatures in the mountain had constructed the track and would have likely built it to lead us into a trap. We would wreck into the floor. The creatures would eat our dead bodies. And there was nothing we could do about it.

Our deflective shields wouldn’t help one bit.

Physics said that if we came to a sudden stop going this fast, we’d die. WE WOULD ALL DIE. I started to think of last words. There was no way this ended well.

Scarlet yelled, “Can you hear that?”

All I could hear was the wind rushing past us. I felt like I could hear the darkness, which didn’t make any sense to me even as I thought it, but I knew it to be true. I felt, sensed and could literally hear the darkness, whatever that meant.

I had the incredible sense that we’d entered a NEW WORLD. Something that we had never come in contact with before. Something that would tear us apart from the inside out if we didn’t absolutely respect it.

Where were these thoughts coming from? I asked myself. My thoughts were so dark and negative, but I knew they were true.

Kara was on my left and she placed a hand on my shoulder. I looked at her and she looked into my eyes, except that she was looking into my soul. I blinked and looked away, getting shivers all through my body.

“It’s going to be okay, Catherine.”

“It’s water!” Scarlet yelled.

“I hear it,” said Troy.

“I hear it,” said Akio excitedly. “I hear it.”

And then I heard it. It was the far-off sound of a giant waterfall. Still we couldn’t see anything. But I could hear the water getting louder. And then I could hear the water above us, through the ceiling of the train. In my mind’s eye I saw it—it was like a vision. I’d never had a vision before but I was having one right now.

I saw that a few feet above our train was a rock ceiling. We were in a very claustrophobic tunnel, screaming down it. There was water rolling down the ceiling above us. But it wasn’t dripping onto our train’s roof. It was sticking to the rock ceiling. Gravity didn’t affect it.

Now there was water on the walls around us. And there was a river beneath us, beneath our track. I didn’t actually see these things with my eyes, but I knew they were there as sure as if I’d seen them with my eyes. Then it all disappeared and I could see nothing—I could only see with my eyes. Beyond the window, there was nothing but darkness and the sound of water.

I wanted my vision back.

I looked at Kara. Her eyes were closed. She’d withdrawn her hand from my shoulder.

That’s when we broke out of the tunnel into an expansive cave in the mountain. The track was still going straight down. But we could see. And it was stunning.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

NO LONGER IN the tunnel, we were flying through a giant cavern. The walls were golden and glowing so that we could see everything perfectly. Thousands of stalactites. Thousands of rock outcroppings. Water flowed up from the floor, up the walls, over and across the ceiling, defying all the laws of physics. Creating a bubble in the center of the large cave. I wanted to watch it longer, figure it out, but then we passed through into another pitch dark tunnel. The water was still surrounding us. We could hear it.

It sounded like it was rotating around us but not touching us, sticking to the walls and the ceiling of the tunnel.

“Can you feel that?” Akio said.

He was on my left.

I knew what he was talking about, but I didn’t want to respond or give words to my thoughts. Fears were rushing through my mind. The cave had been wondrous and I wanted to go back to it. But the wonder wasn’t an awesome wonder. It was interlaced with fear.

The fear was more intense than anything I’d felt. I felt like it was pressing down on me but also pulling at me. Pressing me into the window, trying to pull me out of the window. I felt like I was about to suffocate. I almost started having a panic attack but then I remembered Akio was beside me.

I took Akio’s hand in mine.

Instantly, the feeling was pushed from my body.

Mostly.

It started seeping back in.

“Everyone hold hands,” said Troy.

So he was feeling it too. We all linked hands. Again, the feeling went away. The fear dissipated. But then a minute went by of nothing but descending into this darkness. Then two minutes went by. Then three. Several minutes went by and I lost track.

The suffocating feeling began to take hold of me again.

“This is a place of sorcery and dark magic,” said Troy. “It’s going to mess with our emotions.”

“How is that even possible?” I called out.

He didn’t respond for a few seconds.

“There’s more to this world than we know.”

I wanted to deny it, but I didn’t know how I possibly could. At least not right now. Maybe if we got out of here alive, I could deny it. And I would deny it, instantly, because I didn’t want to remember these feelings.

And then we came into another cavernous opening. Again, all the rock around us was glowing—the color of gold. This cavern was even bigger, miles wide. Miles high. The rocks weren’t gold, at least not most of them. But they were glowing. And water was flowing all around, same as the last cavern. Except that the water was more violent here, torrents splashing up against each other.

“It’s science,” I said. “It has to be. Gravity is twisted down here.”

Saying it out loud made me feel slightly better.

Some of my fear went away.

“That’s all it is,” I said.

We flew down the track. I watched it wind underneath. I saw sparks flying out before us now and then. And I saw a few hundred yards beneath us, a large pool of water, reflecting the bright gold of the rocks. We were headed for it.

“Hold on,” yelled Akio.

“To what?” I asked.

“I. Don’t. Know.”

I turned to Kara. “The shield is still up, right?”

She looked at me, concern on her face.

We were about to plow at hundreds of miles per hour into a pool of water. The track went straight into it. We would be able to go through it. This train was built to go underwater, but only if the shields were running.

“Kara,” I said.

“They’re working.”

“But what?”

Before she could answer we hit the water with a giant noise. I held my breath, sure that the glass would break inward and we’d all die.

It didn’t.

We sliced into the water and were in yet another narrow tunnel, except in this tunnel the walls were glowing. Mostly golden but there were some blue rocks here and there. And we were completely submerged in the water.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

“THERE WAS NOTHING else I could do,” Kara said.

“The shields could turn off any moment is what you’re saying?”

“There was no way I could permanently fix it. I gave it a bandaid.”

“Bandaids have a tendency to come off.”

Kara nodded solemnly.

“When?” I asked.

Kara shook her head. Didn’t know.

Akio squeezed my hand.

There was no need to say it out loud: if the shields shut off, we would drown. We were completely submerged in water. My pulse was spiked. I wondered about my heart, how long could it last? It had been beating fast this whole night, and I’d taken that adrenaline shot earlier.

The deeper we went the more I realized we weren’t going to make it out.

But if we did. If we made it to the other side of the mountain, then what? A fleet of Authority ships would be waiting for us. Our shields would likely be down. We barely had weaponry, certainly not enough to fight off another fleet.

The minister, who was lying against the corner of the window, came to with a start. He yelled and looked at the window and yelled some more. “What is going on?”

“To be honest, I forgot he was here,” said Akio.

I laughed.

“We’re in a bit of a bind,” said Scarlet.

“Where the hell are we?”

“Exactly,” said Scarlet.

“Mount Bellz,” Troy answered.

The minister’s head fell in resignation. “Don’t you realize?” he said. “You’ve killed us all.”

We broke out of the water tunnel into another open cave, but this one was different. It wasn’t glowing. Giant chandeliers the size of mansions hung from the ceiling. The span of the cave was larger than the size of the entire Armory; it stretched as far as I could see.

The chandeliers were completely ignited in concentric rings of fire. I could smell the smoke somehow. There were torches the size of logs set into the walls.

I couldn’t see the floor of the cave yet. The place was too tall.

But we could hear chanting.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

THE TRACK LIFTED only a little so that we weren’t traveling completely vertical. I noticed that it was very slowly leveling out. We still couldn’t see the floor of the cave.

That was when I noticed a change, though it was very subtle.

It was as if the color of our window changed hues, but only by a nearly indiscernible shade.

Kara explained—“The shields are down.”

“Do you not realize we can’t survive this?” yelled the minister.

“Too late now,” Troy said.

“We can turn around. We must turn around!”

“We don’t have brakes. If we try to catch ourselves with our engine, we’ll break the engine. It’ll overheat,” Troy explained. “We would never make it back up the straight verticals.”

“The mountain people must not want people to be able to get out,” Scarlet said.

“Of course not,” said the minister. “They’re savages.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because I was assigned to this mountain twenty years ago. Before I became Minister of the Armory, I hired teams of people to explore this mountain and report back to me.”

“What’d you learn?”

“My people never returned. I sent dozens to their deaths. I sent them with radios. We’d have communication for a minute or two before it cut out. We entered the mountain many different ways, finding hidden entrances. I saw one of the creatures one time. It looked like a human, but it was an animal. It was a savage.” We were roaring down the track, but it continued leveling out, which was helping me breathe easier. “I saw the savage,” the minister yelled over the loud train, “eating one of the explorers. He threw the explorer’s body off a cliff.”

“Guys,” Akio yelled. “Write that down. Don’t get eaten.”

“How can you make jokes?” he said.

Akio didn’t respond, because we could see the floor of the cave now.

None of us could speak, not now, not seeing this for the first time.

I knew that at this point, the amount that we’d traveled, we were at the bottom of the mountain, deep underground. This region of the cave was far too expansive to be anything other than the heart of the mountain. And I learned why they called it Bellz.

Mixed with the chanting was the sound of giant bells, ringing, creating a song. We’re talking massive bells. I couldn’t see them, but I was sure they were the size of houses. They rumbled and sent bass notes through my gut, through my heart—in my mind. More fear. More fear. More fear. More fear with each rumbling ring of the bells.

Torches, lamps, barrel fires lit the floor of the cave. I could see scattered train track running every which way. Had what looked like small vehicles on the tracks: mine carts. And now I could see the people that the minister called savages. I could see thousands of them.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

IN THE HEART of the mountain.

I knew that was where we were. I knew that we were all feeling the palpable fear. I decided to try my best not to acknowledge or think about it.

Thousands of people.

From here they only looked like moving things with skin like ours. Though their skin was much more white, stark white, because they never saw the sun, I assumed. We were too high and they were too small to make out much else. I couldn’t tell if they were people or savages or what they were.

I knew that some of what I “knew” about this place was only legend. We were about to find out what the rest was.

The track was slowly but surely leveling itself out. We were descending diagonally, slower than before, but my pulse was still at maximum. There were tens of thousands of people beneath us, milling about in long lines.

“What are they lined up for?”

Maybe figuring that out would give us a clue as to whether or not they were friendly.

“These are the savages,” said the minister.

The bells were ringing, growing louder as we descended further.

“Are the bells for food? Are they lined up for dinner?”

Two minutes went by and I could see more clearly. We were still leaned against the window, watching intently. I could see that the people were in lines, but it didn’t look like any of them were eating. Most of them were dressed in loincloth. The leaders were dressed in gold-plated jewelry, wearing headbands. The lines were formed in front of these leaders. There looked to be hundreds of leaders among the throngs of people. And then I finally saw what was happening.

The people in the lines stopped at the leaders, and then they were moved forward in one of two directions. In one direction, they were going and sitting down at tables. They were eating. In the other direction they were being placed on tables of fire. The fires would ignite for a few minutes, then turn off. I saw a few turning off from here. I could see the charred bodies from the fire.

They were cannibals, eating themselves.

I shut my eyes tight, fighting the urge to throw up.

I heard Scarlet gagging off to my right.

“I told you. They’re savages,” said the minister.

“How’d they get like this?” I asked, mostly to myself.

“They’re of the line of Cale,” said the minister. “According to history, they’re of the line of Cale. A cursed line. And they’ve fully accepted the curse.”

“Who cursed them?” asked Troy, and he wasn’t being sardonic. He was being inquisitive.

“The gods,” he said. “We are taught in the Authority schools that only Akhenaten could curse people or groups of people. But I’m not so sure. There are many gods among us. I don’t think Akhenaten was the only one with the power to lay down curses.”

I shook my head. This was all too crazy.

The minister was crazy.

We had leveled out enough that we were finally standing on the floor. I took a deep breath as I released Kara and Akio’s hands.

Our track continued descending and I looked out in front of us, as far as I could see. It continued descending until it reached the ground floor of this cave. It reached a makeshift depot, constructed of tent material and rock on either side. Burly savages stood by, looked to be fifteen feet tall, and they held giants staffs in their hands. Waiting. Watching our train.

The bells rang. The chanting thrummed.

The savages noticed us.

They began pointing and “oohing” and “ahhhing.”

“We’re gonna reach them in about two minutes,” I said. “Any ideas?”

CHAPTER FIFTY

I’M THE QUEEN of your heart, Catherine. You know it’s true.

The voice said to me. Not the normal voice, the new one. One I didn’t remember ever hearing before, and yet it was familiar, like something out of a dream or a past experience I could barely remember.

I’m the queen of your heart, it repeated.

It sent bad shivers through my body, and I wanted to take a bath, a really hot bath filled with all the soap money could buy.

“Are you okay?” Akio asked me.

“No,” I answered.

We were looking into each other’s eyes. His were glistening from the firelight coming through the window. He had a bead of sweat on his forehead. I was instantly conscious of the sweat on my forehead. I dabbed it.

He only stared at me for a few long moments.

“You’re beautiful,” he said under his breath.

Good shivers went down my spine, and I didn’t feel like I needed a bath any longer. I took my coat off, threw it against the wall. He did the same.

“Guys,” said Scarlet. “It’s time to make a plan.”

We were a few hundred yards from the ground. The makeshift depot was just ahead. And additional unbelievably tall and burly savages, even a few gold-plated ones, had joined the ranks of our receiving party. Then I noticed a group of about ten of them, carrying a massive boulder. They were moving slowly, but I saw they were going to place it in the center of the track.

“Do you think we can break through that?” I said, pointing.

“Not without our shields,” said Troy. “It’ll stop us.”

“They’ll chew us limb from limb,” said the minister. “Starting with you.”

“Definitely starting with YOU,” Troy said with a smirk.

“Again, I don’t understand the humor,” he commented.

“Well, why would they start with me?” Troy said. “What is your logic?”

Scarlet ran out of the room, toward the back. She hadn’t said anything, but I was sure she was getting her sniper rifle. Akio and I exchanged glances. He smiled slightly, glancing over with his eyes. Our flying boards were on the floor. I went to one and began strapping it on my feet.

“No,” Troy objected. “I’ll go.”

“I already know how to fly it. You make sure the train doesn’t stop. Kara, make us all some coffee. When I get back inside, I’m going to be thirsty. Besides, my poor heart needs it.” Of course, it probably needed rest, but rest would come later. If we survived.

“My poor heart needs a boost with cream and sugar please,” said Akio, strapping on his board.

I saw why he’d said it. When I’d first asked Kara, she was hesitant to listen. But since he asked, she nodded. “Be careful,” she said, looking at Akio. Then she walked out of the room.

Akio motioned to the hatch in the ceiling. “Ladies first.”

“Always,” I said, applying pressure to the controller. I hovered above the ground and moved under the hatch. Then I applied more pressure to the “up” button and shot through the opening—into the humid and fiery hot heart of the mountain.

You’ll never escape me, Catherine. You will bow to me always.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

I FLEW ALONGSIDE our train for only a moment before shooting out in front of it. I had to keep one hand on the controller, so I only had one free hand for a weapon. I decided to start with my pistol. I was afraid to get near these people. With a pistol, I could keep my distance.

So far all I knew was that they were albino, some of them were freakishly huge, and they stunk. Or maybe that was because they were burning themselves alive and eating each other. This whole place stunk like death and it was making me dizzy.

Akio was flying beside me. “Don’t think about the smell.”

“I think with my nose. I’m a girl.”

We were moments away from arriving at the depot. The men carrying the rock had almost reached the track. We had to kill them. I wondered if they could be killed.

I moved my board so I was a foot away from Akio as we sliced downward.

I turned his face toward mine and kissed him on the lips as big as I could. I held on for a few moments and then released. We were both smiling.

“Now we have a special first kiss,” I said. Then I looked around and added with a laugh, “Sort of.”

He laughed—wide smile.

Then I leaned forward, aimed toward the rock-carrying men. I flew down so I was a few feet over the heads of the clamoring people who were now reaching up and yelling. Horrible gasping yells that chilled my blood. I aimed my gun at one of the rock-carriers and fired. The bullet ripped into his flesh but no blood came forth. I remained there, hovering. He continued carrying the rock, didn’t even flinch. I shot him again in the back of the neck.

I saw the bullet go in. It was as if the bullet had entered rubber. Nothing happened to the guy. A hand grabbed my board from behind—one of the taller savages—and yanked me down. Now I was surrounded by hands, some of them grabbing my legs. I applied pressure and shot skyward. They fell away except for one, who was clinging to the board.

I aimed down and the creature looked up at me. It was a woman—one of the smaller creatures. She growled, exposing her rotten teeth. I shot a bullet right through her mouth and she lost her grip.

That was a stupid waste of time, I thought.

Our train was almost at the depot.

Akio was pounding bullets into one of the rock-carriers to no avail. Then one of their heads exploded. I’d heard the shot from our train. Scarlet was standing on the roof with her sniper rifle.

With one carrier down, the men fumbled the boulder to the floor.

Akio and I began flying back to the train, but then I saw several big guys standing on the track. They were going to try to stop the train with their bodies. Scarlet hit one in the head. I angled toward them, unsheathing my popping blue sword.

If these guys actually were able to stop our train—

There were too many thousands around, shouting and growling at us. If we didn’t get through this depot, it was all over.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

I WAS TAKING short breaths, trying to ignore the smell and not throw up. My face was drenched in sweat from all of the fire. I was coughing from the smoke. The savages were yelling and screaming at us, and I felt like I was in a nightmare.

I was flying toward the four big guys standing on the track. I was going top speed on this thing, which I was guessing was around two hundred, but I wasn’t sure. I swooped behind the guys and made one great arc with my sword, taking off two of their heads—they were no match for the OP sword. Their bodies fell on the track, which I realized wasn’t helpful. Their bodies, lying down, could still stop the train.

Too late. Our train was here now and plowed over the bodies, crashing into the two remaining live ones. They caught hold of the front of the train. The train continued forward, taking them along for the ride, zooming past the depot, passing now through the thousands of people who were clambering toward the train and screaming. Akio and I caught hands and we flew above the train, taking it in. This whole thing was crazy.

“Any ideas?” he asked.

“Let’s get back in the train. And not stop for anything.”

The thousands of cursed creatures were reaching hands to the sides of the train. Some of them were catching and being dragged alongside the train. Some were catching the tail of the train and moving in through the open-ended tenth car.

I zoomed to the front room and dropped in, unstrapped my board.

“We have a problem,” Troy said.

He pointed at the window. I could see the two big guys, clutching the train at either side of our window. They were banging on the window, not making any progress.

“Leave them,” I said.

“That’s not the problem. The track diverts up ahead. We have to choose left or right.” Troy laughed nervously. “And guess what? There are no maps of this place.”

I ran toward the back of the train with my pistol and sword.

I’d let Troy figure it out.

Akio and Troy were in the front room, admonishing the choice they had to make.

“They both look exactly the same,” said Akio. “I say go right.”

“I was thinking we should go left.”

“Why?”

“Instinct.”

Akio tapped on the window and the guys moved their heads to look at him—they stopped their banging. “Excuse me, fellas. Which way do you think we should go?”

“They’ll lie,” said the minister, taking the exchange seriously.

Akio gave him a face, like, Dude…

The big guys responded with more yelling.

“RIGHT it is,” said Troy.

“You guys are insane,” said the minister, disgusted.

“Insane enough to kidnap you from the Armory,” said Akio. “And it worked.”

“This will never work. I sent the best explorers into these caves—”

“Please go back to bed,” said Troy. “I’m begging you.”

“No. I want some of that coffee.”

“Fine, but then shut up.”

“Don’t be so mean to the guy,” said Akio. “He looks like he hasn’t eaten in years. And he’s an old man, and we should always treat the elderly with care.” Akio faced the minister and spoke loudly, as if the minister were deaf. “Do you want some oatmeal?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

I RAN TO the second-to-last car of our train and some of the savages were here, running at me. Fast. I had to turn away, start running from them, pointing my gun back and shooting. I hit one in the head and he fell. These guys were the normal-sized guys, two feet taller than me and astonishingly skinny. Some of them had knives it looked like, but I wasn’t paying full attention. Some of them were fully naked, and I could see that they were human, but they were messed up humans. Cursed humans.

My gun ran out of bullets and I retreated to the fourth car from the back. I holstered my gun and held my epic sword. Ran at them. I took off one’s head. Then stabbed one through the chest. Before pulling the sword from his chest, I pushed him back and back as he screamed out in pain, into his friends, pushing them back as far as I could. Then I took out the sword, let him fall to the floor. He slashed out his arms at me before falling on his face.

The next person, a woman—I stabbed through the throat. None of them were saying intelligible words. None of them could speak apparently.

Now I was in the third to last car.

I slashed my sword across two of their bellies. And then I came to a creature who wasn’t moving, just stood in the doorway, staring at me. “Why you here?” he asked in a deep voice.

He could talk!

“Why are you trying to hurt me?” I asked.

He smiled. Then ran towards me. I stabbed him through the stomach. It smelled awful here. These people oozed purplish-green blood.

Akio watched as they changed tracks—to the right. The track ran straight for some time before diving into a wide tunnel. The thing was tall and wide and torches lined either side at relatively even intervals. He saw other tracks near the walls—abandoned mining carts.

The noise of the bells coming from the main cavern began to dissipate as they went deeper into the tunnel. There weren’t creatures back here, but the big guys were still holding onto the front of the train. The way they were holding on didn’t allow them to climb easily, so they were stuck.

I heard the bells begin to fall away. I could sense that we were descending. I killed the last few people and kicked the final one off the back of the train. He landed on the track, sprung to his feet and began running towards us. We were going too fast despite his speed. Then he leaped towards us. He probably made it a very impressive fifteen yards with his leap. I made a note to myself that they could do that. Finally, he gave up and we were free from the thousands of cursed creatures in the heart of the mountain.

I made my way to the front room. Everyone was here now and Kara had put the coffees on the table. She pointed to mine without saying a word. I picked it up with a thank you nod and took a sip. It was much better than Troy's burnt coffee.

My heart was slowing down. I wanted to believe we’d made it through the hard part, that the rest would be easy.

There was an opening at the end of this tunnel, but the track rose up at the end, past our line of sight. It was another small cavern, and we could see that it was raining inside. In fact, I could hear the rain, splashing and streaming. As we got closer I realized the rain was falling, but it was falling in the opposite direction. It was falling from the floor to the ceiling. Or rising, depending on how you looked at it.

Then we hit the rise and went upward on the tracks. That’s when we saw it—and there was nothing we could do about it. The track rose and then ended. We flew off the track into this cave. The cave wasn’t large—nothing compared to the heart of the mountain, but it was expansive enough. We completely derailed before Troy had a moment to hit the brakes—which we didn’t have anyways. The final car of the train left the rails and we would have fallen to the floor except that we didn’t. My feet lifted off the ground, and I was floating.

And our train was floating.

And rain was streaming past our front window in the opposite direction.

I looked at my friends. We were floating in the air as if there was no gravity in this cave. The big guys who’d been holding onto the front let go and were floating as well.

But then I saw creatures through the window, jumping into this cave from above. First they fell a few feet, but then they were caught in the air, floating and swimming through the air toward us. They looked different from the former creatures. They had bracelets around their wrists and ankles—were wearing beaded shorts. They were carrying handheld things that were creating trails of smoke.

“What the hell?” said Troy.

Now there were over a dozen of them coming from an opening near the ceiling. They began chucking the smoking things at our train. Some kind of smoke grenades.

One of them must have come from the side of the cavern because we hadn’t seen him coming—he opened our hatch with help from one of the big guys and threw one of the smoke grenades inside.

That was the last thing I remembered.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

I WOKE UP in my field of roses, but this time I wasn’t lying on the grassy knoll—I was standing among the roses. I was right in the middle of them. My feet were barefoot. Fresh roses and spring air came to me. I looked around, in all directions. A beautiful panoramic view—I could see the horizon in all directions. Harsh white edges against the green-and-red field. I was the only one here.

I had a moment of panic but it was replaced by the gentle sway of the roses, by this place, because this place was perfect. I told myself it was perfect. Because it was.

If there was any place perfect on this planet, it was definitely this place. I’d never been to such a serene place. And then I heard a voice.

Catherine, find me where I can be found.

It was MY voice! The voice I was familiar with.

But I heard it more clear than ever.

It filled me with peace.

I took a step in the direction I’d heard it, but my legs scratched against the roses. I took another step, cutting my bare ankle. A little drop of blood ran down my ankle. The roses were thick, and there were thorns on every stem.

Catherine, find me, the voice said, getting louder.

I looked everywhere. Panic began to set in. I couldn’t recognize from where the voice had originated. I took a deep, calming breath, shutting my eyes, motionless.

This place was perfect, I told myself, never mind the thorns.

Catherine, find me.

And this time I knew where it was coming from.

I took a few steps, each one painful. A thorn drew blood from my foot. I stopped walking, looking around at the miles and miles of roses. They were so dense. It would take me hours, maybe days to get out of this beautiful place. My ankles would be scratched to the bone.

Panic really set in now, my heart beating as I stood.

In the stillness, another voice came to me:

I’m the queen of your heart, Catherine.

A pause. I looked around. Then it continued:

You know it as well as I do. You’ll never outrun me. We’ve been best friends since the day you were born. Or was it since the day your father died? Perhaps that was the day you were born again. Born into me.

“Who are you?” I asked out loud.

“It’s only me and you NOW,” it said audibly. “I killed Him.”

I was turning my head in every direction. I knew I heard the voice out loud, but I didn’t see anyone.

“Who did you kill?”

“It doesn’t matter. In killing Him, I took your soul. I will always hold you. I will always protect you. You’re one of my favorites, Catherine.”

The palpable fear filled my lungs, nearly stopped my heart. I knelt down among the roses trying to breathe, my knees scratching against the thorns. My chest constricted, felt really tight like there was no breathable air here.

And I realized the voice was fear. I knew what it was because it or he or whatever it was was right.

I’d known this thing since I was small, since I’d lost my father.

It had always been with me. My ever-present companion in times of trouble—which were all the times. In a perfect world of roses, there were still thorns.

That would never change.

And IT knew that I knew it to be true.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

AKIO FOUND HIMSELF in a dark tunnel, pitch dark. But then torches flashed to life on the ceiling, one by one, four feet from each other, lighting up the long tunnel—which seemed to go on forever.

He felt small in the expansive tunnel.

Could smell the dirt and the fire.

He was all alone, and he felt nothing—knew nothing but fear.

And then a growl came down the tunnel, like nothing he’d ever heard before: loud and malicious. He spun around and saw a giant MONSTER running down the tunnel towards him. The monster’s head was just below the ceiling. It was as wide as the tunnel. It looked like a giant gorilla but its skin was leathery and it was wearing loincloth around its waist.

It roared again, the bass of it pounding through Akio’s body.

He began running down the tunnel, away from the monster.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!” he yelled as he pushed as hard as he could.

He didn’t look back. He could hear the monster’s heavy footfalls. Gaining on him. He didn’t stand a chance. And a voice spoke to him, in his mind, You’ve been trying, but you can’t outrun me, Akio. You think you can. You can’t, my silly, silly friend.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

SCARLET WAS LYING in a bed beside Troy.

She felt like she was having an out-of-body experience for some reason. They looked to be in a nice house. The room was nice. There were a few candles on the dresser, melted down. Troy was asleep beside her. Looking at her finger, she saw she was wearing a ring.

She and Troy were married.

He opened his eyes and saw her. “You’re so beautiful.”

Already beside him, she scooted nearer. She knew this was a dream, somehow she knew. But still, it was the most vivid dream she’d ever had. She felt like it was happening. She felt like she was watching it happen.

Troy began coughing violently.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

He caught his breath after a minute. “I’m dying, remember?”

Why? How?

Scarlet tried to remember why he was dying. Was he sick? She remembered that Akio and Catherine had fallen into the lake. They would have been the more likely ones to get sick.

Not Troy.

But right then Troy coughed up blood.

She cradled his head in her lap, stroking his hair.

An entire hour passed, and so did Troy, right there in her lap.

Dead.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

KARA WAS UNAFFECTED by the smoke, though it had knocked out the rest of the team. She went into frantic mode. She wasn’t a fighter. She picked up Catherine’s sword and watched the hatch. The gremlins with the smoke were trying to enter. The big guys were blocking their path. One of the big guys was trying to fit through the hatch, but he couldn’t get in past his arm. He began tearing at the opening, trying to widen it. He was literally bending the metal.

All of her friends were floating in the air, asleep.

She was floating near the ceiling.

She pushed off from the wall to the second car, pulling herself through the doorway. She floated through this car into the next. Grabbed onto the door frame and pulled herself into the next.

It only took thirty seconds to reach the engine room. In the event that dangerous gas leaked from the engine into the rest of the train, there was a redundancy that filtered the air.

Kara hoped it hadn’t been impaired by the acid.

She wondered why the gas had knocked them all out except for her. The minister was out cold. Everyone was out cold. Except for her. She’d always known something was wrong with her. She’d been looking for answers her whole life and today had only brought up a million more questions.

She found the ventilation panel. It was shut with a screw. The toolbox was on the floor and she was floating towards the ceiling. She tried to swim to it, but she was making slow progress. She let herself float up into the ceiling. Then she kicked off down to the floor. She opened the toolbox and got the screwdriver, pushed off from the floor, back to the panel.

The train was curved in the air, like a U, just floating in this cave.

Her hands were shaking as she lifted the screwdriver. She dropped it. Didn’t matter. It just floated there. It was at this time that she heard the sound of a high-pitched squeal behind her.

She spun around and saw one of the smoke savages pulling himself through the train—coming from the opening at the back. Catherine’s sword was floating beside her.

She continued her work, undoing the screw as fast as she could.

Once she opened the panel, she scanned the buttons. Finally found the right one. When she hit it, the entire train made a loud noise, from front to back. It sounded like it was coming from the ceiling. The redundancy was working, sucking the air out, filtering it.

The creature, coming into the engine room, squealed—bright and loud.

Kara grabbed the sword, kicked off the wall and aimed the sword right at the thing’s chest. The thing didn’t have a weapon, only extremely long arms. It grabbed Kara’s hair but let go once she put the sword through its chest.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

I WOKE UP groggily.

Kara was yelling, “Guys, wake up!”

My mind couldn’t focus and it took a full minute for my blurry vision to focus. There was a loud sucking noise, like air being sucked out of the train. And there were the loud growls of the big guy trying to pry his way through our hatch.

Finally, I was awake.

I was midway between the floor and ceiling, floating.

Scarlet was against the wall. She woke up, looking around, looking confused.

Troy and Akio came to, clutching their swords. They immediately pushed off for the big guy. They each stabbed him through the part of him they could see—the side of his abdomen. He roared in pain and pushed off from the train, their swords still in his body. When he pushed off, because of his weight, our train was pushed through the air a surprising distance.

“Great,” Troy said, “he has our swords.”

Now that he wasn’t in the hatch, a smoke bomb creature tried to take his place, carrying more smoke. It took me until this moment to realize the field of roses was only a dream. The smoke had knocked me out, I realized. Must have knocked us all out, because I’d seen the others wake up. Except for Kara, who’d woken us up, but wasn’t in the front room right now.

And now the minister woke up.

The dream had felt so real that I still felt the fear.

“I had a dream,” said the minister, scared to his wits’ end. “In my dream, those larger monsters”—he pointed to the two big ones outside our window—“figure out they can throw our train around in here.”

Right then, the one with the two swords in his body pushed off the cave wall with his giant legs and rammed his shoulder into the side of the train. I didn’t expect much of an impact. I was wrong. He sent us flying across the cave. The entire front of our train turned so that we could see the opposite cave wall. We were flying towards it.

I looked to Akio, but he wasn’t looking my way.

I looked to Troy.

He was looking at me in a way he never had before. I didn’t recognize the look. He looked away, like he knew something he didn’t want to know.

Then I realized what was wrong. He was horrified. I’d never known him to be a man full of fear, and that’s why I hadn’t recognized the face.

He responded to the minister, “What happened in the dream? The rest of your dream.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m pretty sure they kill us, but I woke up before I saw the end.”

“They don’t kill us,” said Troy.

We got rammed again, this time by both of them. The wall dented inward.

They sent the train flying toward the nearest cavern wall. I flew back into one of the train’s walls, caught myself. Scarlet rammed into the wall, unable to catch herself.

“Are you okay?”

She moaned. “Yes.”

I couldn’t see the big ones anymore, but I felt their effects. They threw our train again, into the nearest wall. Our front window hit the wall with more force than again I could have anticipated. The window shattered. Now they had a way in.

And the next thing they did was pull us away from the wall, so they could enter through the broken window. They’d barely be able to fit. They would, though. And they showed up in the open window a moment later.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

WE WERE ALL smart enough to know to flee into the next car back. The big guys would have trouble fitting through the doorway into the second car, and it would take them a minute to beat their way through it.

Then, again, I forgot about the minister.

We all pushed and pulled our way into the second car, but he was still in the front, only a few feet from the big guys.

I had to remind myself that he was still our priority. We still needed him if we wanted to have a place in the Resistance—the only thing that seemed somewhat meaningful in the world.

No one else had noticed we left him.

I was in the doorway. At the last moment, I pushed off from the doorway towards him. I grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him backwards. In doing so, I went forwards a little bit. The big guy on the left began swinging his giant fist at me.

I knew for sure I was going to get hit in the side. As it was coming at me, I wondered if it would kill me. This beast could throw a train. Would he break all my ribs and my arms? Would I hit the wall and break my neck?

But then someone grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me out of the way at the last moment. We flew back into the second car really fast, and I realized that it was Akio. He’d strapped on his flying board, which was how he was able to snatch me so easily.

The big guys growled and charged the door.

Scarlet yelled, “Out of the way!”

We all moved to the sides of the walls. She was holding her sniper rifle. She took a shot at one of them. The recoil sent her flying back through the third doorway. The bullet hit one in the head. She shot again from the third car. Hit the same one in the head again. He went down.

She took two more shots, hitting the remaining guy in the head twice.

He didn’t go down.

He was the one who’d been stabbed earlier. Now, he was mad. He tore through the doorway, bending the metal all around, charging at us.

I’d strapped on my flying board, and Akio and I grabbed Troy and flew back to Scarlet. We flew past Scarlet. There were smoke creatures down the line of the train, squealing as they floated our way.

“They’re mine,” said Troy, taking out his knife.

I stayed behind Scarlet. She was reloading.

She put one bullet into the chamber, then shot the thing in the head, right between its giant eyes. It put its hand to its head for a few moments, then crumpled to the ground.

Akio flew past us. “Catherine, follow me.”

I flew out the open side window on my board, turning my body sideways to get through it. There were about two dozen smoke creatures flying about. Most of them didn’t have any more smoke. I wasn’t worried about the ones that did. This cave was too big—the smoke didn’t have enough density here to affect us.

Akio, out ahead, flew through the creatures, zooming in and out, around them.

I followed. One reached out for me, but I ducked.

He was flying for the top of the cave.

I glanced back and saw our train, suspended in the air, curved rather than straight. I saw the bottom of the cave was a pond. The rain was floating up from the large pond, hitting us from beneath. Akio flew to the top of the cave and pointed at a tunnel with track on it. “That’s what we have to do,” he said. “We have to pull the train up to this track.”

The train was about twenty yards away and far beneath us. Not to mention there were many stupid bracelet-ed creatures floating towards us. They swam pretty slow through the air so I supposed they weren’t much of a problem.

I did see a few of them under our train. I couldn’t see what they were doing from here. They were underneath the engine car. I applied pressure on the remote and zoomed towards them, weaving through the crowd of swimmers. As I neared I could see they were chewing through cords. They’d opened a panel and were chewing through engine cords.

I didn’t have my sword on me, so I had to pull out a knife. I cut them all across the backs of their necks, and they fell away from the train. I saw a tangle of wires and didn’t know any of what it meant. I closed the panel door, and Akio flew beside me.

CHAPTER SIXTY

IT TOOK US a few long minutes to get the train to the track. Akio and I had to hold onto either side of the front of the train and turn our boards to full power, pulling the train through the air. I realized there was a gauge on our boards showing our fuel consumption. My board was low. Akio’s was halfway down.

The ghouls were all about us, trying to get us. We batted them away with our swords. The antigravity didn’t work well for them. Made them too slow.

When we finally reached the track, we slid the train onto the rails. After we got the first two cars on, we flew around to the center of the train and began lifting. It didn’t feel heavy in this gravity.

Kara, engine running, began moving the train slowly into the tunnel.

The gravity was different in the tunnel. You could still float, but you fell faster. Because of the train’s enormous weight, it stayed on the tracks.

At long last, we got the entire train into the tunnel, and Akio and I boarded through the open car at the end of the train. I flew down the line.

In the front room, all of our people and the minister were able to stay on their feet now, though they felt really light. Troy pushed our speed faster and faster. The tunnel widened out gradually. Torches lined the walls. No signs of life back here, though. Which was good. The tunnel broadened to about forty feet high by one hundred feet wide.

The gravity returned to normal.

That’s when we saw a mine cart coming at us from out of the darkness ahead. It was filled with three medium-sized creatures. They wielded staffs and swords.

Then I saw one of them raise a rifle at us.

Our front window had been completely shattered—it was just an open space. We were completely exposed.

“Gun!” I yelled.

But Scarlet was ready. She picked him off. Then the other two.

The mine cart was still coming at us. I was a little afraid that when we hit it the mine cart would jump into our room and take one of us out. Especially because we were picking up speed. We hit it, and it skittered off to the side. We continued. The torches ended, and there was nothing but darkness beyond the limited reach of our headlights.

The air was clear here.

“We must be closer to the exit,” I said.

“We have a problem,” said Kara. “It’s impossible to get the shields back up.”

We already knew that.

She continued: “And our core magnetic generator has been compromised.”

She left it at that.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Troy pushed us to one hundred MPH. The air was blasting in at us without the window. It was loud now so that we had to shout to be heard. There was nothing before us but track and darkness. The sides of the tunnel looked to be made of dirt. Smelled pungently like dirt down here.

“It means it’s been compromised.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I yelled to her, taking a few steps closer.

“It’s a liability,” she said, lowering her voice. “It can blow up at any moment.”

“What? How long has it been compromised?”

“Since the acid.”

“And you’re telling me now?” I asked, frustrated.

We could have blown up at any time down here.

“How big of an explosion? Would we lose half the train?” I asked.

“We would lose all the train. And our lives.”

“What do we do?”

“We have to throw it out, then run on our gas engines. No more magnet power.”

“I thought you said we were low on gas.”

“We are. But I’d rather take our chances with gas. We probably have enough.”

“What does ‘probably’ mean?”

“It means probably. We’ll probably make it.”

“We have to make it out of this mountain, past the Authority blockade that I’m sure we’ll run into. And we have to get all the way back to the Resistance.”

In the darkness down here, I felt that palpable fear again, like the dream. I replaced the fear immediately with better thoughts, thoughts of fresh air and freedom. Thoughts of making it back to the Resistance. But the roses and thorns came to mind.

There was a war within me.

There was hope and there was fear.

I walked out of the room toward the back of the train.

The cabin lights were low since we didn’t have all that much power. Kara followed me. “Turn off all the lights,” I said. “Saving electricity is saving gas.”

“Got it,” she said. Then, “Catherine, I’m sorry.”

She seemed to genuinely mean it.

“Tell me next time,” I said.

“I was overwhelmed with everything.”

I stopped and turned back to her. “Look. Is there any indication that it’s close to blowing up? Does it give off a sign before it blows up?”

“No. Everything looks normal one second and everything’s in pieces the next. No two-minute warning. No countdown.”

I could feel the wind from the front room. Hear us tearing over the tracks. Hear the hum of the train all around. Other than that, there was nothing.

Kara’s face was shadows.

“I don’t want to be hypocritical,” I said, changing my tone. “You did nothing wrong, Kara. We can’t remove the generator. We need it as long as we can. We need to get further up this track before we offload it.”

“That’s not smart, Catherine. That was my mistake. We can blow up at any time.”

We were a few cars down. No one could hear us. They hadn’t heard her explaining the whole thing to me either.

I said, “I’ll get Troy and Akio to offload it right now if you can promise me we have enough gas to get back to the Resistance. Are you familiar with the track that comes after we get out of this mountain, if we get out of this mountain?”

She shook her head, NO.

“We go through forest for a stretch, maybe fifty miles. After that we go through an Authority checkpoint. About twenty-five miles outside the forest. An Authority checkpoint. Those things are impossible to get through. They’ll have lines of massive machine guns and RPGs on either side of the track for a good half a mile. They’ll blast us into the sky seven ways from Sunday.”

“How are we going to get past it?”

This time I shook my head. I didn’t know.

“And the fleet will be there,” she added. “The powerful man.”

I nodded. “That’s why we can’t throw out the core yet. We need all the gas we can get to get past the checkpoint.”

Kara, my voice told me, and it tried to tell me something else but I stopped listening.

I was staring into Kara’s eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“Why have you been so nice to me? I’ve been mean to you.”

“You’re Catherine.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re fearless.”

That stopped me.

It wasn’t true.

If only she knew…

But her words—I felt like they went through me, warmed me.

“Do you believe in things beyond the natural world?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

I wanted to tell her about the voice in my head. I didn’t want to lose her respect, though, or the respect of my team as she would most certainly tell Akio.

“I would be more scared of that blockade,” she said, “but I don’t think we’re going to get out of this mountain. No one has ever got out. I imagine that the things we just went through will be nothing compared to what’s at the end of this tunnel.”

A shiver ran through me.

But then I realized something, something that changed everything. Changed my body chemistry. Changed my mind. Actually, it was the voice that spoke it to me. It had said, Bells.

“Bells,” I said.

Don’t be afraid, my voice said.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

THE OTHERS DIDN’T know about the Authority checkpoint outside the forest, at least not that I knew of. Maybe they knew and weren’t bringing it up.

I didn’t know how we would get through it. Then again, I hadn’t known how we’d get in and out of the Armory. I hadn’t known how we’d get through Blood Gulch.

I ran to the front room and yelled, “Bells!”

They all looked at me.

I pointed to the minister. “You’re wrong. People have made it out of this mountain. Because of the bells. There were bells ringing in the heart of the mountain.”

“How did they know to name the mountain Bellz?” said Troy, following my thoughts.

“Exactly,” I said. “Someone made it to the heart of the mountain and made it back out.”

“Maybe they went back out the entrance,” said the Minister.

“Even so,” I said. “Someone made it down that track, through the heart of the mountain, and then made it out SOME WAY. The point is, we can do this.”

Akio smiled.

Troy smiled.

I looked out to the tunnel before us. Still nothing in front but darkness. It had been a few minutes. Kara was in the back, checking on the engines.

The lights turned off over our heads.

“What was that?” Scarlet asked.

“I told her to. To save gas.”

“Oh. What were you and Kara yelling about earlier?”

“Nothing,” I said.

She didn’t press the point.

I looked ahead for a bit. Kara had left the headlights on. Not that they helped much. I figured we had a little bit of time. “Let’s make some hot chocolate,” I said.

I felt much better.

I knew we could make it out of this mountain.

Scarlet and I used my blue sword to light up the room. We made the hot chocolate in the blue glow. We made some for everyone. She brought the mugs of chocolate out to them as I made them. Then she came back into the kitchen.

“I had a dream,” she said. “That I was married to Troy, but then he died.”

I narrowed my eyebrows. “How did he die?”

“I’m not exactly sure.”

“It was just a dream,” I said.

“It felt real.”

“Doesn’t matter. It was only a dream.”

“The minister. His dream came true. When I heard that, it got me thinking.”

I thought about it for a few moments.

“I’m worried, Catherine.”

I took a deep breath. “I had a dream too. It felt very real, and I still feel feelings I had in the dream to this moment. Like, a very heavy fear.”

“Me too. I have the same feeling.”

“The mountain is messing with us.”

“How can a mountain mess with us?”

“Or someone’s using the mountain to mess with us.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But maybe Troy is right. Maybe there are things beyond the natural world. Maybe they’re trying to speak to us.”

I thought about telling her about the voices I’d been hearing.

She said, “I can’t lose, Troy. I haven’t even told him how I feel.”

A few beats.

“You should tell him,” I said.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

SCARLET AND I sat at the table in the kitchen. Kara joined us a few minutes later. We sipped our hot chocolate and enjoyed the silence. I didn’t have anything to say. Things were peaceful for now, so I decided to let the guys take care of things. After a few more minutes went by, however, I started thinking. I started thinking about my mom.

“Excuse me,” I said, standing from the table and walking towards the back of the train. They didn’t follow me.

I went to the end of the train, to the opening.

I eased down and sat, letting my legs dangle off the end of the train. Nothing but darkness back here. The smell of dirt. And the hot chocolate by my side.

I couldn’t drink any more of it though, because I started crying. I hadn’t gotten a moment to cry for my mother, and I expected this was the only moment I was going to get.

I cried for ten minutes straight and finally laid back down, supporting my head with my hands. I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes and tried not to think about anything.

Scarlet shook me awake. She was sitting at my side. I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

“What happened?” I asked.

We were still in the wide tunnel, but there were torches—flaming torches—on either side, lighting up the place.

“It’s been an hour and a half,” said Scarlet, taking a seat next to me.

My mind went to the magnetic generator. We still hadn’t blown up, but we’d need to dump it soon.

“According to Troy's calculations,” she said, “we’ll reach the other end of the mountain in ten minutes.”

I smiled. Rubbed my eyes some more.

“Akio has estimated seven minutes. They’re taking their calculations pretty seriously. They made bets.”

“What were their wagers?”

“They wouldn’t tell me. Apparently it’s top secret.”

Interrupting our conversation, a giant roar, bigger than I’d heard from any creature down here, erupted throughout the tunnel. My eyes went wide. I jumped to my feet and ran toward the front. Scarlet just behind me.

Kara joined us as we ran past the kitchen.

As I neared the front room, I heard Troy: “That’s a problem.”

The roar erupted again—I use the word “erupted” because it sounded like a volcano exploding. I’d never heard a noise so loud. I could see the tunnel clearly because of the torches—could see the cause of the noise clearly. About a hundred yards before us—charging toward us—was a MONSTER. A true and genuine monster. It was over forty feet tall and looked like a giant gorilla but had tight skin rather than hair.

“This was in my dream!” yelled Akio.

And then the thing growled again, a low and deep growl that sent ripples of fear through me, through all of us. We couldn’t slow down easily because we had no breaks.

“First gear!” Akio yelled.

Troy moved to the panel.

“Bad idea,” said Kara.

Too late. Troy did it. Pulled the gear back into FIRST.

A high-pitched whine came from the engine as it tried to bring us down.

And we did slow, all the way down to fifty miles an hour.

But the monster reached us, grabbing the front of our train with two giant hands. Our train came to a sudden stop and we all got thrown from our feet. I flew forward and bounced into the thing’s stomach, shot back into the train—my back hit the table and cracked.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

I WAS AFRAID to move, afraid that I’d broken my back. But the monster let out another roar, ripping our train from the track and dropping it back down. We flew into the air. Trying to catch myself, I realized my back was fine. No pain.

We fell back to the floor.

I saw Kara unconscious. Troy getting to his feet. Akio was holding onto the wall and seemed fine. Scarlet was on the floor.

The thing picked up the train again and threw it into the ceiling of the tunnel as if it were a toy. We flew into the ceiling of our train car. Hit my head. Not bad enough to break my neck. Still, I didn’t like taking all this damage.

Then the monster stepped back for a moment. His giant face appeared in our window, nostrils protruding. He took a giant breath.

Our train started rolling forward, toward the beast, because it was still somehow in first gear. The monster backed up in unison, just watching us, apparently interested.

That’s when I heard a roar, nearly exactly the same as this monster’s, but coming from down the tunnel, behind us. There were TWO of them. I got to my feet.

The first one stood tall to look at his companion over the top of the train. I could hear the footfalls of the second giant beast running towards us from behind—the footfalls echoing past.

I was sure it was going to grab that end of the train and whip it around.

I had no idea how to handle this.

It’s not like they run you through these situations in Resistance training.

Furthermore, I’d never taken any Resistance training.

Furthermore, I was currently persona-non-grata to the Resistance.

Furthermore—

Akio was strapping on his flying board.

“Get yours,” he yelled at me.

I spilled over Scarlet, who was groaning on the floor, and made for the second car.

Sliding on my butt, I came to rest beside my board and began strapping the thing on. Took a few seconds.

I hovered and moved back into the front room. The beast was reaching for Scarlet, who began to roll out of the way.

I hovered here for one moment, glanced at Akio.

He glanced at me and nodded.

I applied full pressure and shot toward the beast like a bullet. He did the same. I turned my board up at the last moment, plowing it into the thing’s chest. We knocked it back about a foot. But, before I could veer away, it grabbed me and flung me backwards—down the tunnel.

I spiraled out of control, flipping around, trying to apply opposite pressure on the remote. I flew forward in the tunnel and nearly got control of myself, but then my board shut off and I hit the floor, slid across it hard—rolling every which way, having no control whatsoever.

My board was out of fuel or battery or whatever it took.

I sat up, somehow intact.

The thing had thrown me about a hundred yards this direction. He turned around and looked at me. That’s when I saw that the tunnel curved upwards from here. There were small mine cart tracks on either side of the tunnel, and normal-sized people—cursed people—were making their way down on mine carts, shouting war cries. They were holding rifles and pistols in their hands. ARMED cursed people. I threw the board off my feet and began running back toward the monster because I didn’t want to get shot.

The monster had lost interest in me, but then it must have heard my footfalls or something because it turned back and watched me for a few moments. Then it turned its entire body toward me. Then it started running at me, taking giant steps. It would reach me in seconds.

I turned away from it, started running toward the creatures with the freakin’ guns! They were aiming and started firing. Fortunately, they had lousy aim. Bullets hit the sides of the tunnel. Dirt flew. A few hit the floor before me. I turned back around, toward the monster.

What do I do?!

Akio swooped around the side of the monster and flew down to me. He grabbed me at the waist and shot upward. I hugged him tight and positioned my feet on the board beside his. We shot between all the mine cart creatures as they took free shots at us. But we went too fast for them. We went up the curve of the track, ascending and ascending. We passed all the mine carts—there had been about ten on either side. After about fifteen seconds of flying upward, we saw what we were hoping to see—light. There was daylight at the end of this tunnel. Morning light. We were so close.

Akio turned us back around.

“Catherine, your knife.”

I took out my knife.

We flew back down toward the mine carts. Akio took us along the right wall, applying more pressure to the remote. We picked up speed. And as we sliced past the creatures, I sliced their necks with my knife.

Passing them, we went even faster.

Then we sped past the monster—who had lost interest in us and was running back for our train.

“Hey, grumpy guy!” I yelled.

It turned around and ROARED.

I held on tight as Akio swooped in between the thing’s legs and came up the other side. He flew over the top of our train. The second monster looked bigger than this first guy and it grabbed the tail end of our train, about to whip it.

I took out my pistol and shot it. The bullet hit its head and did absolutely nothing, except that the monster didn’t whip the train. It offered me a curious look.

Scarlet finally got to her feet and took hold of her rifle. She saw the mine carts coming this way, armed creatures.

She also saw the giant monster, but it didn’t care about her. It didn’t seem to care about the train either. But then it started running towards them, and Scarlet was sure it was going to ram this train car to bits. When it reached them, it didn’t. Instead, it jumped clear over the first car, out of the way.

Troy was at the control panel, hitting stuff.

“The train’s not going!” he said.

Kara was at his side now, shaking her head to wake herself up.

The minister was awake, hugging himself in the corner, rocking back and forth.

Scarlet nearly laughed.

Instead she took aim and began taking out all the monsters in the mine carts. The ones in the front first. She went through seven shots and needed to reload. One of them chucked a grenade that landed right in their car. She dropped her rifle, tossed the grenade back at them. The thing exploded in midair. Didn’t hurt anyone. She needed to reload her gun.

“We need to go,” she yelled.

“Trying,” Troy yelled.

“You have to move it back to neutral,” said Kara. “I might have to jumpstart it.”

“How do you do that?” said Troy.

“Just rev the throttle up and down. Don’t stop.”

Then she ran out of the room.

Akio and I zoomed past the second monster as it reached for us. We narrowly missed its reach, and I shot it in the head once more as we passed. It growled with disdain.

The first one had jumped over our train and landed down beside the second one. Now they were standing side by side, watching us, clearly annoyed.

I shot both of them in the face once more, making them angry, trying to distract them from our train. Then we took off down the tunnel. They followed. Running angrily and growling.

“This was very similar to my dream,” said Akio.

Kara tripped and slid face forward into the engine room.

When she came to a stop, she was looking directly at the compromised battery, which was buzzing and smoking and looking all sorts of unstable.

“Shit,” she said.

Apparently it does give indication before it blows.

Making the battery priority one because it was obviously about to blow any moment, she pulled it away from its place, found a knife, and cut away all the wires that connected it to the train.

Then she began pushing it. It was heavy and sparking and shocking her hands, but she barely paid it mind. Sweat glistening on her forehead, she pushed the heavy battery across the floor and through the doorway into the next train car.

She needed to get this thing the heck off the train before she jumpstarted the train.

They needed to get the heck away from this ticking time bomb.

“Is this as fast as it goes?” I asked, referring to the board.

“Yes. I think it’s having a hard time with both of us on it.”

One of the monsters leaped toward us, reaching out. It swatted us ever so slightly with its fingertips, and we got thrown toward the side of the tunnel. Akio corrected us and my back barely grazed the sidewall. I knocked a torch off the wall, but then he flew us back to center.

“Phew!” I said.

I looked down at our fuel consumption. My foot was covering it. I moved my foot a bit. It was low. “We’re low,” I yelled.

“Jeez,” he said.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

TROY REVVED THE throttle up and down but nothing was happening. Holding his pistol with his other hand, he took shots at the oncoming creatures in the mine carts.

He could hear Scarlet reloading.

Her clip only held seven bullets. Luckily all seven found their targets. And she was reloading freakin’ fast—with perfect precision and speed, even grace. She was adept with her gun. He was watching her. He couldn’t help but think that if he died here, at least he’d die alongside a really hot woman. It was such a stupid final thought. But it made him laugh to himself.

He knew they’d make it through this, because his final thoughts would probably be more serious than, Yay, a hot girl.

His only other thought was, What the freak was up with Kara? He continued revving.

Kara pushed with all her might, which wasn’t much.

Sweat dripped down her face. The heavy battery steamed in her view.

She was afraid it would burn her. She didn’t feel any pain, so she kept pushing. She didn’t stop for one moment, not to take a breath, not to rest.

She pushed as hard as she could and, when she finally looked up, she saw that she was at the end of the train. When she pushed it off the end, it would fall seven feet to the ground.

She took a breath here, considering. If she dropped it and it exploded when it hit the ground, it would kill her and completely destroy the train, killing Troy and Scarlet as well.

What other choice did she have?

She bit her lip, held her breath, and heaved the thing off and onto the track. The moment it hit the ground she heard what she thought for a moment was an explosion. Her heart leaped in her chest. It was the monsters roaring down the tunnel.

Kara ran back to the engine room.

She moved fuel lines into place.

Then she grabbed a gas can and took a swig of it, held it in her mouth. It tasted disgusting. She placed her head in the small space, directly over the critical piece of the engine. She spit the gas through the hole. Flames emanated, and the train roared to life. She backed away, nearly getting her hair caught in the fire.

The train moved forward in first gear.

And now Kara ran to the front.

There was a host of creatures ducked behind overturned mine carts, taking shots into the train. A bullet pounded into the ceiling, raining sparks on Kara as she knelt behind the table.

“Punch it,” she yelled to Troy.

“I’m taking it gentle.”

She thought of the bomb behind them.

“PUNCH IT!”

He kept it in first and throttled forward. The train plowed through the overturned mine carts, squashing the remaining creatures.

The train hit the incline, began ascending. Kara stood up from behind the table, holding onto the table with both hands because she was nervous. She knew the bomb should have gone off already.

And what about Akio and Catherine?

“FASTER!” she yelled.

Troy pushed the throttle forward. When he switched into second gear—it wasn’t automatic without the magnet engine—it slowed, almost to the verge of rolling back and stalling. But he held it. Applied more throttle.

“Holding it in second for the incline.”

After thirty seconds, Kara could see daylight streaming in at the end of the tunnel. There was an orange hue, which indicated to her that it was sunrise. She couldn’t see sky yet.

That’s when the bomb blew up.

The entire tunnel shook from side to side. The train lifted from its wheels, side to side. Now she really had to hold the table. Scarlet was thrown off her feet. Troy gripped the throttle and accidentally revved it forward.

Flames licked past the side windows and tried to wrap around the front window, dying out as the train lurched forward.

The flames receded, and everything seemed fine for a moment. Until she realized the train had turned off. They were rolling backwards.

“Uh-oh,” said Troy.

Just before them, a boulder fell from the ceiling of the tunnel, landing down beside the track. She heard a heavy rock land on the ceiling above them. Then a few more.

The tunnel was caving in.

Akio and I heard the explosion.

It took me a moment to remember about the battery. I had thought there was no way I could be more frightened. We were getting hunted by freakin’ giant monsters that I had only thought existed in legend. But now there was the possibility that we’d lost all our friends.

“We need to turn back,” I said.

The monsters were right on our tail, continually jumping at us, reaching for us. Akio had done a great job at evading them. There had been a few close calls.

“Hold on,” he said, taking a concerned breath.

“Duh.”

I squeezed him tighter though and closed my eyes. I didn’t need to see this. My gun was out of ammo anyways. There was nothing much I had to offer.

We came to a sudden stop, began boosting backwards, then upwards. He leaned into me and sliced at an angle. I opened my eyes, unable to keep them closed. I saw an arm swinging just over our heads. Slicing the air. My hair moved.

Then we were on the other side of the monsters.

Akio hit full speed and we launched towards our train, which we couldn’t see. They had been going up the rise. We did, however, see rock falling from the ceiling of the tunnel.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

“IT WASN’T ME,” yelled Troy. He wasn’t making excuses. He was explaining, trying to help Kara. If he hadn’t stalled the train, something else was the problem.

Catherine had mentioned some of the creatures had chewed on the engine wires.

Kara sighed. She wasn’t sure how to fix that.

She’d have to improvise.

She ran down the line of the train, snatched up the toolbox in the engine room and continued running. She jumped out the back of the train. A large rock fell right beside her, nearly crushing her foot. A few pebbles landed around her shoulders. She ducked underneath the train and let it roll back over her. It was going slow at the moment, but it was picking up speed. She’d have to catch the rungs under the engine room.

These cords could only be reached from the outside of the train.

She realized she wouldn’t be able to hold the toolbox and hang from the bottom of the train at the same time. She opened the box and pulled out wire cutters and pliers, put them in her back pocket.

She left the toolbox and ran for the engine car, staying low. It met her quickly. She grabbed the first available rung and swung her feet up to a rung about the span of her body away. Held herself like this.

She opened the panel. It fell open. She realized she wouldn’t be able to close it after this, but whatever. She looked inside. The cords were a mess. Even she didn’t know what it all meant. What the hell was she supposed to do?

Cut some wires, the voice said to her.

Sometimes she heard a voice in her head. She knew she was going crazy, especially now more than ever. There was no way, there was NO WAY that cutting wires would fix anything. It didn’t even make sense.

Rocks continued to fall.

The entire tunnel creaking, groaning—caving in on itself.

“Oh, c’mon,” she said out loud to herself, sarcastically.

She took out the cutters. She wondered if the voice had offered this advice because she’d grabbed the cutters, or if her subconscious had spoken it to her because she’d grabbed the cutters, or if she had been supposed to, according to fate, grab the wire cutters from the beginning. As if her actions were in coincidence with the will of her voice.

She cut a wire.

Nothing happened.

She cut another wire.

Nothing happened.

She felt like she was making the situation worse.

Now she was sweating, losing her grip.

She cut two more wires and then fell off the train, landing hard on the track, on her back. She groaned, dropping the wire cutters beside herself. The train continued rolling backwards, past her, gaining momentum. Then it rolled completely past her and she was in the open. A stream of dirt landed right on her face.

Then she heard what she never thought she’d hear again: the engine of the train. The roar of the gasoline beast, revving forward in first. She got to her feet as the train climbed towards her, up the incline. Scarlet leaned past the front, reaching for Kara. Kara took her hand and climbed into the train.

Troy shifted into second.

“How’d you fix it?” asked Troy.

“I thought you did,” said Kara.

A giant boulder landed in front of them—about twenty feet out. It was questionable whether or not they’d be able to break past this one. Troy revved up the engine, creating speed.

They plowed through the rock, breaking it to chunks.

Troy pressed the engine HARDER.

Finally Kara could see the sky. Clear blue sky. Well, it was tinged with pink from the rising suns. A few more sizable boulders landed before them, but the train was going fast now, edging up to seventy-five. It plowed through them like nothing.

Then, as easy as cake, they exited the mountain.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

MANY CONCERNS.

Giant rocks fell from the ceiling.

Our train may have been blown to bits.

The monsters were even more mad, coming at us with everything.

And our board was low on fuel—indicating with a beeping sound.

I watched the monsters.

One jumped for us, landing right behind.

He rallied his arm back, preparing to throw a closed fist at us, loading up as if he were a prize fighter. I watched the arm swing towards us. I knew this was the end.

But a boulder fell onto his arm at the last moment and took him to the ground. We sliced away. I watched the monster angrily get his arm out from under the rock. He stood there for a moment, growling. Then he picked up the rock with both hands, growling, turning towards the second monster, apparently speaking to it. The second monster reached for the nearest boulder.

They were going to throw them at us.

Dirt and debris streamed from the ceiling.

Akio was trying his best to navigate. A rock was falling out just before us. He swerved around it. It fell just after us. I didn’t dare say a word to Akio. Didn’t want to break his concentration.

I watched the monsters.

They chucked their boulders at the same time.

The things came flying toward us.

“Akio!” I yelled.

He glanced back, just in time to shoot us toward the ceiling. The boulders flew under our feet, crashing down on top of other rocks just before us.

Then we met the incline.

Looking back I saw rocks piling up before the monsters, blocking them off. I had no doubt they’d be able to punch through the pile, but it would slow them down. They weren’t a problem any longer. I faced forward, watching rocks pile before us, filling halfway up the tunnel, closing in fast. There was about a ten-foot gap. We could make it through. Our train wasn’t anywhere to be seen. A good sign. They must have gotten rid of the bomb before it had blown up.

Akio swerved out of the way of a falling boulder at the last moment. He swerved so sharply that we were completely horizontal in the air. My back was parallel to the ground and I was clinging to him. My feet came off the board.

He tried, but couldn’t get us back to vertical. The board didn’t have enough power. He spun us around completely, instead, so that we went upside-down and then right-side up. He punched the throttle forward and boarded over the pile of rocks just ahead. The bottom of the board skimmed the tall pile.

Daylight ahead.

The board started beeping faster.

LOW FUEL.

Akio leaned forward, causing me to lean forward a little. Boulders falling on either side. Dirt poured past us. He dodged one last boulder and then we shot out the exit of the mountain, into the open, into the clear blue sky.

I took a deep breath.

We shot straight out.

The track went down pretty steep from here and we could see the train a few hundred yards below. He angled for it. Which was when the board stopped beeping. And also stopped flying.

EMPTY.

I looked at Akio. He was staring down at the train. The track wasn’t straight down, though it was steep. We started lowering towards the track as we fell toward the train. If the track had been completely vertical, we could have easily let ourselves fall down to the train. But we were falling TOWARD THE TRACK. The track, from here, looked like a thin line of metal suspended in the sky. There was nothing beneath it but a long drop back to the ground far, far, far below. In fact, we couldn’t even see the ground, because we were above the freakin’ clouds.

“If it’s any consolation,” I yelled, “at least it’s beautiful up here.”

“We’re not going to die,” he said.

We would, though. We would hit the track and break our bones, bounce off. Either way something horrible was about to happen.

He reached around my leg and took my equalizer from its holster.

“Help me spin,” he yelled over the roar of the wind.

He spun us so that my back was to the train. He was holding his equalizer in one hand and my equalizer in the other—reaching over my shoulders, past me, towards the train. I realized what he was doing.

He shot the track as far out as he could and we bounded for it, picking up speed, staying airborne. Then, at the last possible moment, he hit the other gun. We bounded again, picking up speed. He let the other one regain its charge, hit it again at the track out ahead of us.

It was working, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

He shot one last time, and then spun us about. I could see our train was right here. We were flying towards the wide-open tenth car.

I am not lying—our board landed flat and easy on the back end, on the inside of the final car. And because it was a steep track, we slid down the train on the board. Akio caught the sides of the first door to slow us down, but let us continue sliding. We slid to the next car. To the next car. And so on.

Scarlet was worried for Akio and Catherine.

“They didn’t make it out,” she said.

“I’m sure they’ll make it,” said Troy.

Right then, Akio and Catherine slid into the front room, catching themselves at the table.

Everyone looked at them for a few moments.

“What’s up?” said Akio.

“How’s it going?” Catherine asked.

And everyone laughed.

PART FOUR

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

WE HAD A moment of respite.

A moment of laughter—to enjoy and acknowledge our escape from Bellz.

And then we were standing at the front window. Troy and Scarlet on either side, holding onto the wall. The rest of us were holding onto each other, facing the near-vertical descent.

Standing a foot away from the edge of the window.

It was scary, but the sight was beautiful.

The wind hit us strong, pressing our clothes against our bodies, blowing our hair everywhere. If I gave too much thought to it, it was difficult to breathe. The track was rough out here, jolting up and down. Shaking side to side. Each time it shook, each time strong vibrations came under our feet, my heart raced.

We watched the twin suns crest the hemisphere of the planet. One sun was a strong orange and the other was a bright white—subtle pink rays spread over the canopy of clouds. There were mountains to our right, snowcapped, jutting up from the thick, pink-and-grey clouds.

With the clouds obstructing our view, we couldn’t see how high up we were.

We’d exited from the top of Mount Bellz, which was at least a few miles tall. Which meant we were a few miles high.

Standing together, even the minister, holding onto one another’s shoulders to keep from falling, one unit, held together by insane circumstance, we breathed in the fresh air—such a stark contrast from the heavy air in Bellz.

For a few moments, linked to my team, I felt courage. But it quickly washed away as we neared the clouds. We’d made it through Bellz. We’d accomplished something very few had. We’d escaped the monsters.

But I was sure the worst was yet to come.

Our train was falling apart. I wondered if it was having such a rocky time on the track because the track was old and rough, or because our train had been thrashed. Perhaps the train was out of alignment.

I couldn’t see the stilts that supported the track from here. They were few and far between. All we could see was the thin piece of track, suspended above the clouds, and we were barreling down at top speeds. We couldn’t slow ourselves.

And then we hit the clouds, and I could feel the moisture on my face. Feel the moisture entering the train. Then we were under the clouds and rain was hitting us in the face. I had to blink against it. Rain slammed against the roof. It wasn’t a gentle rain.

We’d entered a storm.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

WIND SLAPPED AGAINST the side of the train, bringing a torrent of rain with it.

It was dark.

And loud.

The rain whipped every which way—in accordance with the volatile wind.

Slapping us in the face.

We remained unmoved, watching.

I was afraid, now, that because the track was wet, our train would slip off. We weren’t magnetized to the track. Our gasoline engine was running the show.

The forest was far beneath us and, looking out across the land, I could see nothing but the green. I could see that the track continued its steep descent all the way to the forest. We would then have to ride through the forest about fifty miles before exiting into the open land.

This was the only track back to the Resistance.

Once we exited the forest, about twenty-five miles out, the Authority checkpoint stood. The checkpoint that I knew we’d never make it through. My team didn’t know about the checkpoint. At least, not that I knew of, so I didn’t bring it up.

I didn’t have a plan yet.

Once I had a plan, I’d tell them.

I had a strange hope that my voice would speak to me—that somewhere in my subconscious levels I had an idea that my conscious self didn’t know about yet. For now, that was my only hope, because I’d been nonstop thinking about how to get through the checkpoint, and I’d come up with nothing.

My best idea was to bring our train to a stop outside the forest—or maybe in the forest—and make Kayden and his fleet come to us. Fight them. If we could steal one of their ships, we could fly back to the Resistance.

I knew, even as I thought it, the odds were slim that we could win. Kayden had powers that I didn’t understand, and he would want revenge. It wouldn’t be like the first time. The fleet would be bigger. Our train was weaker. We were weaker. We had less ammunition. It was very wishful thinking to think we could commandeer a ship from their fleet.

We beat them once, back when our train had shields and was in pristine condition. It had taken a beating through the Gulch and the mountain. And, more than that, we didn’t necessarily beat them. We escaped them. A temporary fix.

A giant gust of wind hit the right side of the train, and we slightly listed on the track. The gust was relentless, lasted a good twenty seconds. I watched the rain out the front window being drawn across in giant swaths, pulled in the direction of the wind.

The wind calmed, allowing the rain to fall normally.

Until another gust redirected it.

“Whoooooo-eeeeee!” shouted Akio.

There was something primal about boys, I thought. They enjoyed this sort of craziness. I wasn’t in it for the adventure. Akio was an adventurous man. All I wanted, all I knew now, is I wanted to get the minister back to the Resistance. Because if we didn’t accomplish that, we accomplished nothing. I also understood that we would never get him back to the Resistance if we didn’t survive.

My only other idea was to stop the train in the forest, disembark and try to walk back to the Resistance. But I knew we didn’t have enough food or water. We’d likely die from thirst on the journey—or be mauled by one of the many ferocious animals that inhabited the region.

Being eaten by a bear in my sleep was, believe it or not, one of my fears.

More than that, Kayden and his fleet would certainly find us and, even though our train was falling apart at the seams, we were better off with it than without it. The faster we could get back to the Resistance’s protection, the better off we were.

More than THAT, it was entirely likely that because we kidnapped the Minister, the Authority would begin disassembling their factories and depots so that the Resistance wouldn’t get anything from his information. This excursion would be rendered pointless.

Time was of the essence.

We had to run the train the rest of the way.

Back to the Resistance.

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

MOUNT BELLZ HAD crushed me with fear. I wasn’t as afraid out here, but the night had taken a toll on me. My emotions were crazy and, yet, at the same time, I felt emotionless. It didn’t make any sense.

I felt slight gratitude that we had made it out of Bellz, but I wasn’t really the type of girl who dwelled on the past, not even past victories. The odds in front of us were impossible, and I couldn’t stop running the calculations.

WE plus CHECKPOINT equaled CERTAIN DEATH.

And I knew Kayden would be there with his fleet, in case the checkpoint’s defenses weren’t enough. His presence would be pointless. The checkpoint would certainly kill us. But Kayden would be there. It was overkill.

In my head, I asked my voice to speak to me.

Nothing happened.

I looked at my team. Troy was clutching the side of the wall, anchoring us together. Akio was beside him, staring into the looming forest. Kara was blinking a lot against the wind and rain, but she couldn’t take her eyes from the sight. The minister was linked to my right arm. I looked at him and he looked back at me, concern very obvious in his face. He didn’t say anything, though. Finally, Scarlet was holding onto the right wall.

She returned my gaze, hair wild.

I faced the green canopy of the forest once more.

As we were much closer now.

The rain skittered every which way across the green top.

I watched the canopy ruffle and roll under the pressure of the wind. And I wondered what was in the forest. I’d never been in a forest before.

WHOOOOOOSH!

Wind rushed in right at us, pushing us all back slightly. I breathed in the fresh air deep, rain splashing all over me. This was the shower I’d needed after Bellz. It was cold, but it felt so nice.

In about two minutes, we’d enter the forest. The track hadn’t leveled at all. We were still rushing toward the ground.

What did it all mean?

I asked myself this often, and I asked myself this now. We had two minutes to be introspective. I was an orphan now, like my friends, and I felt utterly hopeless.

Life had no meaning. There was nothing beyond material. There was no reason to fight, because we were all going to die and if any of us had kids, they would all die as well. The generations past have died, and the generations future will die. All we do is suck up the air and the resources of the planet, and then we leave. Good and evil mean nothing in this light. A person can cure a disease, but all the diseased people cured will still die from old age. The cure only postpones the inevitable. In the face of death, nothing matters.

I wondered how life would be if there weren’t an Authority. I imagined life as a utopia of sorts, where everyone was healthy and the taxes were low and we all had decent jobs. What if our biggest worries were what we had to wear each day and the boys we liked? Would life mean something then? If my parents were alive, would life mean something? I imagined it would be a much better life, but ultimately it would still be meaningless.

This was the thought I lived with. This was the thought that became real to me in Bellz. This was the thought I’d go to the grave with. Did I love Akio? I felt like I did. I felt like he was the kind of man I’d want to be with—which meant I loved him. When we kissed, it felt electric. Still, it was meaningless. It was chemicals in my body causing me to feel that way—feel like it actually MEANT something.

Recognizing the feeling as nothing caused me to feel callous towards everything.

Yet in my gut I knew this mission was important. It had to be. Getting the minister back to the Resistance would really help the Resistance in their stride against the Authority. The Authority mistreated the world. They were bad for the world.

I thought about Troy. I’d read some of his poetry. It always bordered on the edge of heresy. It talked about things beyond the natural. Of other dimensions.

I thought of Kayden. How had he thrown that ship—with some sort of power? I thought of Kara, but I dared not look at her for fear that she could read my thoughts.

I wondered for a moment if it was possible. If these things didn’t have natural explanations. If it was possible that not only monsters existed, but gods existed. And what would that mean for this world? I wasn’t sure.

Kara is the key, the voice whispered to me.

It was here! My voice was back, and it felt comforting.

For the first time, I answered the voice. I answered out loud. I was sure no one would be able to hear me because of the sounds of the storm all around.

“How?”

It’s all for you, Catherine.

“What’s for me?”

All of it.

“What does that mean?”

The voice didn’t answer.

And moments later our train approached the opening in the top of the forest canopy. The branches had grown over the extremities of the opening and they slapped against the frame of the train as we roared into the dark forest.

CHAPTER SEVENTY

IT WAS ALMOST pitch dark. The thick canopy blocked the little light that came through the storm clouds. Now and then the canopy would separate just a little from an extreme gust of wind and a soft shaft of light would pour into the forest, illuminating a floor of glistening leaves—about one hundred feet beneath us.

We were about mid-high in the forest, between the canopy and the ground.

The rain was pouring so violently onto the canopy above that it was the loudest noise in the discord. As we plowed forward, water sprayed up from the track, shooting out either side. The track was about level now and we were being pushed forward by our archaic gas engine at a decent speed. About one hundred twenty MPH, according to the speedometer.

Without thinking, we unlinked arms. Continued standing here, staring into the drab forest. Big raindrops fell—the rainwater collecting into bigger drops in the canopy.

Our headlights revealed the massive trees, like nothing I’d seen before. Trees as thick as our train. We were passing right beside them sometimes. Overgrown branches scraped the sides and top of our train.

Kara walked back and turned up the cabin lights just a little. So that Troy would be able to see the control panel.

After a few minutes of smooth riding, the track rumbled beneath us. I moved to the edge and stared down. The track was wood now. Bumpy and really loud—threatening to overpower the noise of the water coming down on the canopy.

We dared not talk.

We dared not move.

We simply stood abreast, like so many times before, speechless in this new world that none of us had ever visited. Well, maybe the minister had. I wasn’t sure.

The trees smelled beautiful.

The air was filled with moisture, thick, smelled like fresh leaves and dirt. Branches slammed into us as we tore through. One broke off and hit Scarlet in the face. She let out a small scream. Troy made sure she was okay. Small leaves and twigs snapped off into our train.

In another life, I would have loved to stop the train right here in the middle of the forest and explore. It was otherworldly and beautiful.

“Did you see that?” said Akio, loud and alert.

My heart skipped a beat, taking me from a relaxed state. He was pointing out to something, but the track curved away to the left, winding around trees.

“I saw lights,” he said.

“What kind of lights?” said Troy.

“And a house.”

“A house?” Troy yelled.

“In the trees,” said Akio.

“A house in the trees,” shouted Troy. “Why didn’t you start by saying that? That’s much more interesting than ‘lights.’”

“No one lives in these forests,” said the minister flatly.

That sounded right. What kind of people would live in a forest like this? The minister knew all about the land.

“I know what I saw,” said Akio. “I saw a house in the trees, with torched lined around it on a deck.”

“That’s better phrasing,” said Troy.

“Torches?” said Scarlet.

I believed Akio, but I thought it was strange.

Radio, said the voice, my voice.

Instantly, I knew what it meant.

Instantly, I knew how we’d make it through the Authority’s impossible checkpoint.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

THE TRAIN RUSHED down the wooden track at ninety miles per hour.

Trees as thick in diameter as my childhood home faded past.

Heavy raindrops dotted the air.

And I realized what we had to do. It was so simple. I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. Perhaps this was because, since the beginning of this mission, I’d viewed the Resistance as our enemy—that if we failed this mission they would be our enemy.

And that was true.

But the deeper truth was: they weren’t our enemy.

We had the minister, and the Resistance could help us complete our mission.

“The Resistance. We need to radio them,” I said aloud. “They can help us get through the checkpoint. They can send help. We’ll tell them we have the minister.”

I saw Troy's reaction. He understood the idea had merit. He moved to the panel of controls, where we could access our radio. He lifted the communicator, flipped a few switches. I watched in suspense. Then we heard static on the overhead speakers.

He turned back to us. “Still works.”

“How are we going to find their channel?” said Scarlet.

“We’ll flip through all the channels, relay our message over and over again. We’ll take turns,” I said. “Troy can start. Flip to a channel, repeat that we need help and we have the Minister, and then flip to the next channel.”

“The problem is distance,” said Kara. “I like the idea, but it’s unlikely the Resistance has anyone listening this far out. This is a short-wave radio.”

“But if they do have someone listening,” I said, “we’ll reach them. They’ll be able to save us. It’s literally our only option. We need to reach the Resistance on the radio before we reach the checkpoint, before we reach Kayden.”

“That actually might work,” said the minister. “The Resistance is a horde of swine, but they are great at eavesdropping.”

Troy flipped to a channel and relayed the message. Then he flipped to the next channel. This idea had to work. It was all we had.

Kara looked at me, and I knew her thoughts. We would never be able to reach the Resistance from here, in the forest. We were much too far. She was right. It was unlikely that even if we reached the checkpoint we’d be in radio-signal distance of any Resistance outposts. It was likely that twenty or thirty miles beyond the checkpoint, we’d be able to reach them.

But we had to try. We’d never make it past the checkpoint otherwise.

Reaching the Resistance was our only hope.

My voice had told me, had given me the idea, and my voice had been right all night. I decided to believe that it could work. That if we could reach the Resistance on the radio, we could make it. We had a chance.

A sharp noise pinged off the right wall of the front room. Looking, we saw very clearly under our extremely-dimmed cabin lights that a spear of sorts had come through the wall and extracted into a hook. THEN, another noise, on the left wall. Same thing—a spear with a hook on the end came through and mounted itself into our wall.

Looking ahead, I saw small lights—what looked like fiery torches—far in the distance. Akio’s eyes had been working just fine. There were people in this forest.

Three more hooked spears came through our walls, instinctively making us duck and step further back into the room. Seriously, like, what the hell?

I took out my sword.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

JEFF WAS MANNING the outpost that day. It was a small setup in a thicket. This was his first time and he was trying to remain calm. So far, nothing exciting had happened. He was kind of hoping against “exciting.” He wasn’t here because he wanted to be here.

The last man to have manned this outpost had been murdered by the Authority because he’d ventured out. The Authority hadn’t discovered the outpost, but they’d been looking for it ever since. He had the overwhelming feeling that he’d been placed here as bait. Could have been wrong. Didn’t think he was. He was slightly overweight and uncomfortable in the seat. There was a panel of controls before him and a pair of headphones. He wasn’t wearing the headphones, but they were turned all the way up. He’d be able to hear any radio communications that came through from around the area.

The area was far outside the city—between the city and the forest in the no man’s land area. Not far from the government’s checkpoint. He’d never been this close to a government checkpoint.

Jeff’s job here was to listen in on any nearby Authority radio communications.

As such, the radio was automated to switch between channels. It was programmed to switch to any channel where communications were transmitting.

Right now, there was nothing.

And nothing was good.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

WE RETREATED INTO the second room and hook spears were piercing the walls here, dozens of them now. The spears were attached to ropes, I realized, because we were slowing down. I could hear some of the ropes snapping as our train continued forward.

I checked the third car.

Spears snapped through the walls.

Must have been a hundred or more by now.

Which meant we were surrounded.

We slowed considerably.

I ran to the front room and saw the torch lights more clearly now through our open window. I saw huts built in trees about a hundred yards out. Bridges, suspended in the trees, extended between the huts. It was an amazing sight. The small village—the portion I could see, anyway—was lit by torches and lamps, all contained in glass.

I had no idea people existed out here.

“Punch up the engines,” I said to Troy.

“Not a good idea,” said Kara. “We’ve been pushing too long. It’s going to overheat.”

I checked the speedometer. Down to fifty MPH.

What do we do?

We hadn’t seen any of the spear-throwers yet. They were in the trees around us, hiding behind limbs and shadows.

“They’re primitive,” said the minister. “Must be. They won’t have guns or electric swords. They’ll have rocks and sticks.” He seemed to be saying this to reassure himself.

“A lot can be done with rocks and sticks,” I said.

Even as I said it, a huge log fell onto the track before us. It looked like the trunk of one of the smaller trees—probably three or four feet in diameter.

We plowed through it no problem. It broke in half under our weight, sent splinters flying out in all directions. I got swiped across the face with a splinter and felt blood ooze from my cheek.

More spears punched into the walls.

Another log fell out in front, then another.

They were about the same size as the first one. I shielded my face with my arm and clung to the table as we hit each of them, slightly slowing, sending jolts through the train. I opened my eyes and saw two things.

One, we were down to forty miles an hour.

Two, a massive trunk—ten feet in diameter—fell from seemingly the canopy overhead onto the tracks. Whoever these people were they had hella contingencies in place. They were ready for us or for any train that ventured out this way.

If we had brakes, I would have stopped us at this point.

Instead we hit the tree, and our train derailed.

Only the front car came off the tracks as we came to a stop. It swung slightly off to the right, lowering a bit. We didn’t fall or anything, we were just turned off the track. It could be reset. Would take a few minutes.

The only good thing was the view—the tree-hut village glowed before us. I saw people on the bridges, women and children. They were fully clothed and looked completely normal. Except their faces were slightly painted, but it looked very stylistic. Pretty.

That’s when a man swung down from our ceiling and landed on the floor of our front room, at the edge of the window. I drew my gun instantly and shot him through the chest. The bullet launched him backwards, off the train and down to the floor a hundred feet below.

Two more swung into our car.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

KAYDEN SAT IN the commander’s chair. It was an early morning, but he’d gotten a good few hours of sleep. All he needed. He was drinking some coffee. The entire crew was on a coffee break, in the air-conditioned ship, the sun rising before them. It was a beautiful morning.

In the main ship, fully in charge, Kayden was calm and ready for the day.

His fleet hovered around the checkpoint, forming a half-circle.

The checkpoint guns would do the job. The broken-down Resistance train would never make it through. Kayden wouldn’t have to do anything but sit here.

He’d take a shot with the cannon, however.

Because, why not?

He’d watch the train explode into a million tiny pieces and he’d be on his way. This wasn’t the main fight. This was a small group of idiotic Resistance fighters who’d embarked on a suicide mission. They would arrive here soon, if they made it through Bellz. And they’d die.

Either way, he was done with them today. Then he could move on to the real fight against the Resistance. Against Felicity.

If the Resistance train didn’t show up by sunset, Kayden and his fleet would scour the track from here up to Mount Bellz to make sure they weren’t hiding out.

The day would be relaxing.

Still, it nagged him. It nagged at his mind that he hadn’t been able to kill the girl. He was annoyed at the thought that the mountain may have killed her. He wanted to kill her, or at least watch her die at the checkpoint.

He wanted her to show up. Wanted to see the Authority execute her like the little bitch she was. He took a sip of coffee and took a deep, relaxing breath.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

AKIO AND I shot the two men who’d tried to enter. They flew off the train. Had been holding wooden spears.

I had done a quick count earlier. I had twenty bullets left for my pistol. I didn’t know how much the others had. I saw Scarlet preparing her gun. Troy had his pistol. Akio was ready. I was suddenly very afraid for the minister. He was old and defenseless and if he became collateral damage from these tree people, we’d lose the only thing that could make this mission a success.

“Scarlet, protect the minister.”

She took him by the shoulder and led him back into the train. That was good.

Akio and I didn’t have flying boards.

I hit the button in the second car to lower the stairs. The stairs unrolled from the ceiling. Water dripped in from the canopy.

The train’s engine had stalled, was off.

The cabin lights were on, dim.

There were dozens of spears stuck into either side of our train.

The front car was hanging slightly off the track.

I could hear the canopy shuttering under the wind above. That was the only noise I could hear. I stepped onto the first stair.

“Wait,” said Akio.

I didn’t dare look back at him. Kept my eyes on the opening above.

“We can’t go up. They’ll stick us with spears. We won’t even see it coming in the darkness.”

He had a point.

I heard a gunshot go off behind us. Turned around. Troy took another shot at the man, and the man flew out the front of the train.

I was halfway up the stairs. Still safe. They couldn’t see me yet. Looking out the top, I yelled, “What do you want?”

My voice echoed.

The only response was the heavy raindrops falling around us. The whistling of the trees. I shouted again—“What do you want?”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

THERE WAS NO response.

For a moment.

Then two spears flew in through the opening in the ceiling. They just missed Akio and me. We backed up a few steps. I glanced down the train to see if I could see Scarlet. Couldn’t see her. She was hiding somewhere with Kara and the minister. I didn’t see anyone coming down from the back. They would come. That was for sure.

That’s when I heard Scarlet’s loud gun pop off from the back.

Trying to hold them off from that direction.

They’d be coming in through the windows too.

I could hear them landing on the roof now—they must have been jumping down and swinging in from the trees.

Three men landed in the front car’s window.

Akio and I drew our weapons. They had knives—threw them at us. We dropped to our knees as we took shots. Two more men took the place of these. I fired off the last two bullets in the chamber and Akio had to reload his gun.

Troy was watching our backs—he’d moved away from the control panel.

“They’re coming in!”

He shot the ones trying to come down the stairs in the second car.

Scarlet fired from the back.

One shot. Two shots. Four shots. Two more men swung in through our front window. One had literally swung in from a rope. They wielded spears. Akio saw them, but he wasn’t finished loading his gun. He ran at them instead. He threw his gun at one—hitting the guy in the throat. It stopped the guy for only a moment.

Akio tried to front kick the second guy off the train.

I got one bullet loaded, shot the injured guy off the train.

Akio was struggling against the other guy, hand to hand. I noticed Akio trying to take out his sword with a free hand. Before he could, the guy pulled out a knife. He slashed for Akio’s stomach. Akio dodged back, then went in close to push the man off the train. But the man deflected. They struggled together for a few moments, but the man won the struggle and threw Akio off the train. I saw him fall out the window, a shocked expression on his face.

He yelled on his way down.

“Akio!” I yelled.

I needed to jump down there—that was my first and main thought. I needed to jump down to Akio. There was nothing metal down there. I couldn’t slow myself down with a bound. I had to jump a hundred feet.

Then I realized the man standing in the front window—the man holding the knife and looking at me with a killer’s lust in his eyes—could soften my blow.

I ran at him.

His shocked expression told me he wasn’t expecting this from me. I was able to grab his wrist—so he couldn’t stab me. Yelling, I plowed all my might into him. I didn’t try to stab him with my sword, simply tackle him. Another man showed up, dropping in on our right. He was too late to stop me.

I pushed my guy straight out of the train, keeping hold of him.

Then we were falling through the cool forest, a hundred feet down to the floor. Raindrops falling with us. Gunshots sounding off from within the train. In a few moments, we’d hit the floor.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

THE MAN STRUGGLED against me, trying to spin us around in the air. He’d completely forgotten about his knife. He wasn’t trying to maneuver that arm. He was trying to get me under him to soften the landing. I didn’t let him. I’d had too much falling practice this night.

Keeping him beneath me, we hit the ground with a THUMP!

Fortunately, falling to the ground of leaves and soft rain-drenched dirt wasn’t the worst pain of the night. Still, hurt pretty bad. The man broke his back. I rolled away from him as he roared in pain.

Akio was standing beside me now. He’d just gotten to his feet and a whole side of his body was nothing but mud. My back was muddy, I’d just realized.

Akio was holding his sword—it was glowing blue.

I yanked out my sword. It was sparking and ready. Right then, a barefoot man landed on the dirt in front of me. Had a spear. I stabbed him through the stomach before he could even begin to strike.

I heard Akio move behind me.

He grabbed the back of my coat and threw me backwards with all his strength. I flew back off my feet, landed on my back and slid across the mud. I’d realized why though. A knife had traveled past me, right in front of my face. He’d seen it being thrown and threw me out of the way.

I was on my feet in half a second, sword in hand.

Men were dropping around us. Some were descending from ropes. Others were running in from the dark edges of the forest.

It was dark here, but my sword illuminated a fifteen-foot perimeter around us. The glow of the village above helped us see a little. I could see the front car of our train, hanging slightly off the rails, still upright. Shots were still going off up there, and every bone in my body wanted to get back to the train to help my friends.

The native men were wearing shorts, cut off above their knees, and threadbare coats. They were all barefoot. The threaded coats looked warm enough. Many of them had painted faces. There were seven around us this moment, coming in from all sides.

They were a gang of bandits. Had to be.

They had everything planned to take down any wealthy-looking Authority train that entered this forest. From the looks of it, they had the manpower to accomplish the task. They were fearless warriors. I could see it in their eyes.

My gun wasn’t loaded, though I had bullets in my belt.

If I could get it loaded, these men had no chance.

Some of the men were carrying knives. Some spears. One of them had a sword. There was a slight opening between them—to my left. Without alerting Akio, I ran for it. He followed. Our feet splashed through the mud.

I saw the man in my periphery bring back his spear to throw it at me. I dove forward. The spear went over me and stabbed into a tree. I could hear its THUD. I slid across my stomach. Got to my feet, Akio catching my hand as he ran beside, pulling me up to speed. He let go after a few seconds.

Then we were running pell-mell for the village.

I swerved around a thick tree, putting it between us and our pursuers.

Two men swung down from above, landing fifteen feet in front of us. Akio and I raised our swords. We killed them easily enough and continued our run.

I took a couple bullets from my belt.

I sheathed my sword as we ran—the blue perimeter of light disappearing.

We swerved around another tree, trying to avoid getting a spear to the back. I got out my pistol and loaded six bullets.

We came to a ladder on one of the trees—it led up to the village.

“Climb!” I snapped to Akio.

Then I dropped to my stomach in the mud, aiming my gun. I waited for the six men to come out from behind the trees. I was in the darkness, blended against the mud.

Akio ascended the ladder.

The first two men came around the tree, spears cocked.

I hit both of them through the chest.

Four bullets left.

Two more men came around. Smarter, though. They rolled out into the open. I shot one. The other one was running at me now, about to throw a knife. I hit him through the head.

Two bullets left.

I waited a few seconds, glanced up at Akio. He was halfway to the huts. When no more men came out, I began climbing the ladder.

That’s when a man came out from behind a tree. I shot him and saw a large burst of blood. Then I realized that a man had been running behind him. I’d taken out both with one shot—that’s why the blood.

I continued up the ladder.

Only had one shot loaded in the gun now.

Troy tried firing his gun. Out of ammo again. The thing only made a clicking noise. There would be no time to reload. He threw it aside. Kicked a spear up from the floor to his hands and stabbed the man through and through.

He quickly threw off his coat. Was sweating profusely. Scarlet had reloaded her gun several times now, back there with Kara and the minister. He ran back to help them.

He could tell by the sounds of the shots she’d been taking that they were in the second to last car.

He reached the fourth car when a man, at the last moment, came through a side window and tackled Troy into the wall. They crashed into one of the side windows so hard that it cracked. Troy dropped the spear and fought against the man, who was trying to stab him in the face with a knife. Troy felt a slight pain in his side but didn’t think anything of it.

He got his arms around the man’s neck and twisted it.

With a broken neck, the man died. His limbs went lifeless and Troy threw him aside. Then he reached down for his spear and felt a sharp pain in his side. He looked down and, horrified, eyes wide, realized he’d been stabbed. The man must have stabbed him with the knife when he’d tackled him into the wall.

He’d been stabbed through the stomach, almost in the exact center. Blood was coming out profusely. He stripped off his second shirt and wrapped it around his stomach. He wanted to yell in pain, but he bit against it. Then he started with a limp for the back of the train, for Scarlet.

He worked his way up to a slow run.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

AKIO AND I pulled ourselves onto the platform that surrounded the hut.

A thick, heavy cloth hung—serving as the doorway.

We went through and saw a woman sitting on a bed with her kids. She pulled her kids closer, hugging them to herself.

We ran out the other side of the hut, and we saw an amazing sight.

We were standing at one end of a large village.

It was lit up with an assortment of techniques. Mostly fire, but they did have some lightbulbs streamed over the top. I could hear water moving down beneath us now. They had a river generator.

There were suspension bridges running from huts to huts to platforms. There were verandas and porticos. What looked like a giant kitchen area in the center, smoke streaming up towards the canopy.

Akio and I ran across the nearest suspension bridge. I led the way because I had an idea. I didn’t know what these people wanted—they were probably thieves. Either way, we needed leverage.

The biggest hut, looked like a mansion comparatively, stood at the far end of the suspended village. It was suspended higher than the rest of the huts. Painted red. There weren’t many people here that I could see.

Some young boys. I figured all the women and most of the children were hiding in their huts like the ones we’d seen. A spear whizzed through the air right past me.

I kept running, glancing askance. The spear had been thrown by a boy. When he saw me looking at him, he cowered back into his hut.

Ropes hung intermittently from the trees overhead. In case the villagers didn’t want to walk the bridges, they could swing from one hut to the next, or from one bridge to the next.

Even though the place was made of wood and a lot of leather, even though the huts were crude, the place as a whole looked better than the town where my friends and I lived.

Men yelled far behind us. They were far off. Hadn’t been expecting us to play offense. Akio and I ignored them. Again, he ran out in front of me because he was faster, and he must have realized my plan. The bridges were tricky because they shook a lot when we ran over them. They had no railings. Caused us to slow down a bit.

I glanced back and saw about a dozen men now, swinging into the village, running across the bridges much faster than we were able to, trying to catch up with us. But we were about halfway to the big hut.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

THE MORE HE sat here waiting, the more he realized that this wasn’t his purpose in life. He wasn’t the second line of defense. The Authority had hired him because he’d cultivated his special abilities. Because he was special.

Kayden got out of his chair and walked to the pilot, put his hand on his shoulder.

“Take us to the edge of the forest.”

The pilot looked up at Kayden. “You sure?”

“Very sure,” he said.

Then he walked back to his chair. Catherine would never make it to the checkpoint, wouldn’t have a chance to make it. He’d kill them all the moment they came out of the forest.

Jeff was eating his sandwich when he heard the small alarm come through the headphones. He was in a semi-circular thicket of trees and shrubs, hidden pretty well. Camouflage had been thrown around the little outpost. That’s when a voice came through the headphones. He put them on as quick as he could.

“You can hear those alarms, right?” said the voice, and he recognized it.

It was Felicity. The leader of the Resistance herself.

He nearly choked up.

He spit out some of his sandwich.

“I hear them.”

“That means someone is approaching. Actually four men. We’re watching from a distance.”

“What do I do?” he asked.

“Stay put. They probably won’t find you.”

“If they do?”

“If they do, then run.”

“Which way?”

“Away.”

Jeff had been right. They were using him as bait.

“We’re not using you as bait,” Felicity said.

“I wasn’t thinking that,” he said.

“Yes, you were. I heard you mumbling it earlier. Listen, Jeff, we don’t want them to find this outpost. That’s why we can’t let you move unless you have to. We have snipers looking down from here. You’re perfectly safe. Stay calm, okay?”

He nodded. Then realized she probably couldn’t see him nodding.

“Yes,” he responded. And gulped.

He took a frantic bite of his sandwich.

Scarlet was in the second-to-last car, on her knees. She had two bullets left in the chamber of her gun before she had to reload. After that, she would only have five bullets left total.

Three men swung from above into the back of the car. So far she’d successfully picked off every intruder. She hit the one on the left. Moved to hit the next guy, but he dropped to the floor. She moved to the man on the far right. Hit him through the throat.

Then she was out of ammo, and the man in the middle was in front of her now. Darting towards her, reaching for her gun. Kara and the minister were there, in the corners of the room, in the shadows.

They stayed silent. Scarlet tried to hit the man with her gun, but he caught onto the barrel and held it tight and she couldn’t move it at all.

He punched her in the face, hard.

She hit the floor, sliding back.

Now he had her gun in his hands. He held the barrel end with two hands and lifted it over his head. He was going to swing it down on her.

That’s when Troy entered the room, wielding a spear, running at the man. The man dodged out of the way, punching Troy hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

Troy dropped the spear and sucked in a breath, wheezing. He landed on the floor on his face. Scarlet heard more pain in his voice than she’d ever heard. The man must have punched him hard.

She got to her feet, preparing to fight the guy. He took out a machete and laughed at her as she came closer. He took a step toward her. She took a step back. He took another step toward her. She took another step back.

That was when a blood-curdling scream pierced the air, coming from the village, louder and more shrill than any other sound.

It caught this man off guard. The man’s face was painted all red—Scarlet hadn’t seen anyone else’s face painted all red. He ignored her, went to the side window and peered out toward the village.

Scarlet heard Catherine’s voice.

“Chieftain! I have your wife and child at gunpoint. If you want them to live, we need to talk.”

The red-faced man spit and walked away from Scarlet, ignoring her, out the back end of the train. Scarlet watched him jump onto the track, then grab a rope and swing away. She watched through the side window—he swung from one rope to another, then to one more. Right into the village.

Troy was on the floor, wheezing.

Scarlet dropped to her knees beside him.

The battle had, apparently, come to a standstill.

“Are you okay?” she said.

Rolling him over, she noticed his shirt was tied around his waist.

She didn’t think much of it. He had tears in his eyes. She’d never seen him with tears before. It didn’t make any sense.

“I’m good,” said Troy through gritted teeth. “He got me pretty good.”

She put a hand behind his head, cradling it, and helped him sit up.

“I’ll be okay,” he said.

Even as he said it, Troy knew he was lying.

He wasn’t going to be okay. His time was limited. He looked into Scarlet’s eyes. Tears blurred his vision. A pain tore at his heart. He’d never told Scarlet how he felt about her.

She hugged him and held him, and it made the pain worse.

He’d never told her that he loved her. He hadn’t told her because he’d been too scared. Figured he’d get to it later. Figured they’d have more time.

Now they had none.

He couldn’t tell her how he felt now.

He was dying. It would only make the pain worse. As she held him, he felt soothed and he tried to soak it all in. It would probably be the last hug he’d ever receive from Scarlet.

CHAPTER EIGHTY

THE MAN WITH the face-painted-red walked towards them, cautiously, raising a hand as if to say, Don’t do it. Akio would never do it. He knew Catherine wouldn’t either, but they needed to seem like they would. Catherine was holding a sword around the chieftain’s wife’s neck—they’d found her and her small child in the red hut.

This red-faced man was quite obviously the chieftain—given his stature, distinguishing face paint, and the concern written across his face.

The village was out in full now, but you could hear a small leaf fall from the trees. Dread was in the air. As the villagers watched their chief brought low by this threat to his family.

“What do you want?” Catherine asked.

Catherine and Akio were standing on the middle of a bridge, in the center of the village. They’d been able to walk their hostages out to this point.

The chief stopped at the end of the bridge.

“I want my wife and child,” he said in a deep voice.

“We want to leave here in peace,” Catherine said.

Akio watched the man’s eyes. They nearly glanced off to the people gathered around. He was the chief. He couldn’t accept this deal. He couldn’t show weakness, even with his wife and child under threat. They’d gone to great lengths to stop the great and mighty train. He couldn’t let Catherine and team go so easily. Otherwise, he’d look pathetic in front of his people.

“A bargain,” he said. “We shall make a bargain.”

“I let your family go. You let us go,” Catherine said.

“No. We must take something from the train.”

“There’s nothing on it.”

“Perhaps there is. I felt something on it.”

He obviously didn’t speak English very well.

He’d meant to say, saw something.

Catherine didn’t seem to understand the chief’s problem. He needed something to show for all the dead men’s work. Otherwise the tribe would murder him or turn against him, lose faith in his leadership.

Akio leaned to Catherine’s ear. “We have to let him take something. He needs it for show—”

“I understand,” she whispered.

To the chief: “Fine. We’ll let you walk the train. Only you. With my friend here. We’ll let you remove one item of value. Deal?”

He nodded.

“Until then, I stay,” Catherine said.

He was hesitant, but he nodded.

Akio stepped away from the child, began walking toward the chief.

Catherine kept the sword around the mother’s neck and aimed her pistol at the child’s head. Akio heard her tell the mother, “If you make a move, he dies.”

She made a gulping noise. She understood.

Akio slowly approached the chief, afraid he was going to make a move.

But the closer he got, the more he realized the chief wasn’t going to make a move so long as Catherine had his family. So that was good. Akio breathed easier.

They walked together, the entire village draped in silence, to the end of the platforms. Then Akio followed the chieftain’s lead, and they swung across ropes—back to the train.

I was afraid my hands would start shaking from the nerves. I just felt like something was going to go wrong. This was all too easy. Plus, my shoulders began aching from holding up the sword and the pistol. I didn’t know this tribe. This woman could be a fighter, preparing to take me out and push me off this bridge.

I only had one bullet in my gun.

They didn’t know that.

But then I noticed something. I could barely see because of how I was standing, but I saw enough. The wife’s belly had a slight bulge. She was pregnant.

She wasn’t going to make a move.

I breathed easier. Perhaps this would work out okay.

I waited for Akio and the chief, shoulders aching—but I wasn’t going to put down my weapons until Akio and the chief returned.

Akio stood behind the chief, sword pointed at his back. They were in the last car of the train. “Don’t kill him,” Akio yelled to the team. “Step aside. We’ve made a deal with him.”

The chief walked through each car, examining each room.

He walked slow and steady, and Akio got the strange sense that he was looking for something specific. Finally, they made it to the front room.

The man turned around and faced Akio. The man was puzzled. But then his eyes received a sort of clarity. Whatever problem he’d been having, he figured it out. “I know what I want,” he said.

Then he walked down the train to the second-to-last car, Akio sticking close behind him. Scarlet and Troy were against the wall.

The minister was in a dark corner.

The chieftain walked to one of the corners. There was a blanket resting on something. He yanked the blanket away and Kara was there, hunched in the corner, very frightened.

He looked at her, got to a knee in front of her.

Akio put the end of his knife against the chief’s neck, drawing a bit of blood.

The chief, smartly, didn’t move or turn his head.

“Easy,” the chief said.

“I was going to say the same to you.”

The chief stared into Kara’s eyes for a few long seconds.

“I’m going to stand.”

Akio backed off and let him stand.

“I want her,” the chief said. “The girl.”

Akio was confused. “No, you can take an item, not a person.”

“I will only leave if I have her.”

“We’ll kill your family,” said Akio.

“Then you’ll have nothing with which to bargain.”

“Why do you want her?”

“We saw your train come out of Bellz.”

The chief looked at Akio, made eye contact.

He explained, “She’s the reason you made it out of Bellz alive. She has powers that not even she seems to realize she has. If she knew her power, she wouldn’t be so afraid.”

“What are you talking about?”—but they were empty words.

Akio had always known there was something different about Kara, and this whole night had been proof of it. There was no denying it. But how had this man seen it?

Akio remembered just minutes earlier the chief had said that he’d felt something of value was in the train. He’d felt Kara’s power or uniqueness. Somehow.

“She is a valuable trade,” said the chief. “We’ll take her and let you go.”

Everything in Akio wanted to say no, but he knew Catherine.

He asked himself, What would she do?

And he realized what needed to be done.

“Take her,” he said, dropping his sword for effect.

Kara’s eyes widened. She screamed, “Akio! No!”

The chief grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet. She struggled against him but he was overwhelmingly strong. He began dragging her to the end of the train.

Akio watched without making a move.

Only stood there.

I heard Kara screaming.

I held the wife tighter. I looked down at the boy to make sure my gun was aimed at the back of his head. I understood what was happening. The chief wanted Kara.

It all made sense.

These people weren’t thieves who regularly robbed trains. If they were, they’d have been destroyed, run out of this forest. The Authority wasn’t to be trifled with. The Authority would have burned down the entire forest and obliterated this village.

These people were ready. They had plans in place to capture anything that came out of Bellz, because anything that came out of Bellz ALIVE was, by definition, special. They probably worshiped the mountain. It didn’t matter the reasoning. All I knew was that nothing about the next few minutes would be pretty.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

THE CHIEF HELD Kara by the arm, walking her out into the open. Kara’s eyes were pleading with me. I didn’t make eye contact. I watched the chief, trying to judge his mannerisms. Right now, I knew what Akio was doing, and I knew what I had to do.

Akio was in the engine room, looking at all the generators and parts and things he didn’t understand. Troy limped into the room, Scarlet holding her arm around him.

“Are you okay, man?” Akio asked.

“Yeah.”

“We need to get this thing started.”

“I understand. Get the front car on the tracks.”

Akio ran for the front room.

Troy turned to Scarlet. “You need to get that log out of our path. We have one stick of dynamite.”

“Got it,” she said.

“Timing is crucial,” Troy said. “I’m sure Catherine will give us a signal.”

“I understand.”

I had to give a signal. I knew that much. Otherwise, they wouldn’t know when to start the engines. The fighters of the tribe were in the village now. Standing around, with their families, watching.

The chief was on the other end of the bridge from me.

“Fair trade,” he said.

“Not true,” I said.

“You don’t accept?”

“I accept,” I said.

He began walking Kara across the bridge. He wanted to get close to me, close enough to get my gun away from me and make sure I didn’t kill his family.

I couldn’t get a read on him. He had a few options. Accept the trade and let us go in peace. Or kill me because I’d threatened his family and let the rest of my team go in peace. Or kill me and then try to kill the rest of my team. By the way he walked, I couldn’t tell what kind of man he was.

It didn’t matter.

My plan worked no matter what.

He was nearly halfway across the bridge. Walking slowly. Afraid I was going to do something brash. He was right.

I lifted my gun from the kid’s head, as fast as I could.

I aimed directly at the chief, and I could feel it in my hand, in my mind, in my gut. I knew that I was going to hit him right through the head. I fired the gun—smoke spewed from the barrel. The bullet discharged, traveled through the air, and took him right through the forehead. No one moved as he stood there for a few seconds, then fell off the side of the suspension bridge.

It was the shot heard around the village.

Before the fighters and families figured out proper responses, I abandoned the wife and kid and ran for Kara. There was a rope hanging down from the canopy beside her.

Akio heard the gunshot.

He was in the front room. He’d tied a rope to the side railing of the train and was pulling the train back onto the track, inches at a time. He heaved with all his might and got it in line.

“That’s the signal!” he yelled to Scarlet.

“I know,” she said, lighting the stick of dynamite.

The train’s engines whirred to life, thanks to Troy in the engine room. For a moment, it sounded like it would stall, but then it came on full force. Akio pushed the throttle up, keeping the engine revved. It wasn’t in gear yet.

The engine roared.

The train sat.

The stick of dynamite burned.

I grabbed Kara around the waist as shouts and cries erupted. The women were wailing and the men were yelling. I grabbed the rope with one arm and swung us across to the next platform, which was supporting a group of women. They parted around me, scared.

Spears weren’t being thrown our way because we were surrounded by civilians. There was a rope here that swung to a tree. I saw a perch in the tree that we could probably reach.

“Kara, you have to hold on,” I said.

She took hold of the rope alongside me. I kicked off the platform and we swung through the cold air. Our feet landed down on the giant limb, and we let go of the rope. I almost lost my balance for a moment, almost fell backwards, but we caught each other.

Then we began climbing the tree.

A stick of dynamite blew up, causing more outcry from the villagers. I heard the sound of wood splitting. They’d blown the log out of the way. The men would be descending upon us right away if we didn’t get going.

I pulled up onto a thick limb. Kara was having difficulty. I found a place to lock my foot in, then I leaned down and lent a hand to Kara, pulled her up behind me. The branches were slippery, large raindrops falling all around us, soaking the tree and our handholds. The canopy shuttered over our heads as we climbed toward it. We needed to get high enough to swing for the train.

I swung Kara up to the final limb and saw men below her, climbing FAST after us. There were many ropes up here. I tried to follow them with my eyes—but it was dark here. I grabbed one that looked promising. Kara took hold.

Then we both pushed off the tree as hard as we could. My heart missed a few beats when the rope didn’t catch. We fell a few feet—the rope wasn’t connected to anything!

But then it went taut, catching our weight, and we swung towards the train.

“We’re not going to make it,” yelled Kara.

She was right, but I had already taken that into account. I held on tight with one hand and reached with the other for my equalizer. It took me a moment to loosen it from its holster. We reached the apex of our swing, and we were within distance of the train for a bound.

I lifted the gun, about to pull the trigger—

A spear sliced over my hand and I lost hold of the gun, blood coming from my hand. We began swinging back down, back toward the tree.

I whipped my head around and saw five men waiting for our return. They were armed and ready to kill us.

“We have to drop,” I yelled.

“What?!” she yelled.

We were about one hundred fifty feet high.

It would hurt tremendously.

“We slide to the end of the rope and then fall!” I yelled.

We were midway back to the tree when I loosened my grip and let myself begin to fall. Kara’s hands were under mine, and I took her with me. My hand, and I’m sure hers as well, began burning from the rope. It was wet, which helped a little.

We reached the end of the rope, maybe seventy-five feet off the ground now. I’d fallen this far before and had landed on my feet. We let ourselves slip through the air, had a few moments of peace. Then we hit the ground. I saw and heard our train overhead, begin chugging forward.

I saw men running barefoot across the muddy ground.

Sprinting.

Towards us.

Kara had survived the landing and was on her feet now. I took her hand and we ran for the train. There were a few ropes hanging down from our train from when it had been speared earlier. I could see four out ahead of us. But the train was picking up speed.

Kara wasn’t a very fast runner.

“Run!” I yelled.

Outcries from the warriors reaching our ears.

Running towards us.

They motivated Kara. She picked up her speed, and we got within ten feet of one of the hanging ropes. The rope was sliding across the muddy floor. The train would reach twenty miles per hour in a few moments, and we’d miss our chance.

Sure, our team could always slow down the train for us, but then they’d be murdered. They were counting on the simple philosophy that we had to do what we had to do. Which was the philosophy I’d employed this entire mission. They expected me to do my part.

I pushed harder.

Then my foot slipped in the mud. I felt it slip and decided to use it to my advantage. I leapt for the rope and got ahold of it with one hand. It was wet and muddy and began slipping through my hand. I gripped it tighter. Kara dove behind me and grabbed my leg.

I got a grip on the rope, and we began sliding across the mud.

Next problem: we were headed towards a thick tree.

“Hold on!” I yelled down to Kara.

“I intend to!” she shouted between grunts.

I got a two-hand grip on the rope and tried to maneuver my body so I would hit the tree broadside and not with my head. That’s exactly what happened. My full body hit the tree, spreading out the blow. Kara got whipped around but kept hold of my leg.

And then we were in the clear for a bit.

The train went faster.

We began skittering across the mud, which was a bad thing. The good thing was that the warriors were disappearing behind us.

I kept my grip.

Kara kept hers.

And after a painstakingly long two minutes, because of the speed of the train, our bodies lifted up off the muddy ground and into the air. My forearms were burning and I felt like I would lose my grip any moment, but I held strong.

“Scarlet! Akio!” I began yelling, but I knew they wouldn’t hear me.

After what felt like an eternity, one of them began pulling us up.

“How are you doing?” I yelled to Kara.

“Horrible!”

“Don’t let go.”

No response.

“Kara?”

“Don’t. Intend. To.”

Good.

It took them a few minutes to get us back to the train. They pulled us all the way up to the roof. I laid down first thing, right there on the roof, finally safe, slow raindrops falling around me. Closing my eyes, I breathed a giant sigh of relief. My arms felt dead at my sides.

I opened my eyes, watching the forest canopy.

In what felt like a few moments later, we burst out into the open, out of the forest. It was really bright out here. Still raining, but the suns were backlighting the clouds—much brighter than before we’d entered the forest.

The air was cold, but not freezing.

I continued to lay here, trying to catch my breath. Kara was beside me. Akio was saying things but I didn’t hear a word he said. His voice raised. Scarlet was up here too, her voice raised.

I looked at them, the world coming back into my mind.

They were pointing up at a fleet of ships coming our way.

The Authority had arrived before we’d even made it to the checkpoint.

In a sarcastic tone, I muttered, “Great.”

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

THE FLEET WAS flying towards us at incredible speeds. I could hear the magnet-tech buzzing from here—they were fully throttled.

Without speaking, we ran to the nearest hatch and dropped into the eighth car.

“We NEED speed, Kara,” I yelled.

She ran towards the engine room even as I was saying it.

“Scarlet,” I said. “They’re going to blow us off the tracks. They’re going to pulse us or hit us with a cannon.”

“Do they know our shields are down?”

“Don’t know. I do know that if you can snipe any of the pilots that would be great.”

She went her way.

I signaled Akio. “Where’s the minister?”

“We’re keeping him in the center,” he said. “In the kitchen.”

I ran toward the front of the train, Akio following. Saw the minister in the kitchen, seated at the table.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

I ran past him, went to the front room.

Troy turned to us. “We’re edging two hundred miles per hour. I don’t think we can outrun the fleet, Catherine. We would need to hit three or four hundred. With no magnet tech, it’s not possible.”

“What about the radio?” I asked. “Anything?”

“The radio is broken. The spears came through the side and hit the transmitter.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I can try.”

“Then try. It’s our only chance.”

“We can’t outrun the fleet, Catherine,” he repeated.

Akio seconded. “We have to fight the fleet here. We have no choice.”

“We can’t fight them,” I said. “Not without the Resistance. We have no CHANCE.”

“Then what are—”

I ran off before I could hear what Akio was asking. As I sprinted down the train, it jolted underneath us for a four-count—and then smoothed out. We’d entered fully metal track. I reached the engine room. Steam filled the space.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re leaking gas,” said Kara. “And I’m still not sure we have enough to make it past the checkpoint.”

“We have to run full throttle,” I said.

Kara wiped sweat from her forehead.

“We need to go four hundred miles per hour,” I said. “Whether or not it’s possible. We need the impossible.”

Kara laughed.

“We need to go four hundred or we’ll die,” I said.

Kara’s eyes looked away from mine. Apparently she was thinking.

“Kara…”

“Why don’t you just ask me to make us fly?” she said.

“Kara.”

“Or turn invisible.”

“Kara!”

She wasn’t looking at me.

But at length she faced me, biting her lip.

“We can do it,” she finally said.

I nodded.

“But we’ll have to drop half the train. Sever all the cars after this car. It’ll lighten the load. Then I’ll have to pour gas directly into the engine. Also, if the track were to slant downwards that would help. It’s the only way.”

I didn’t hesitate. “Do it.”

Akio was standing in the front window, watching the fleet approach.

“If they know our shields are down, we’ll be dead in about a minute,” he said.

When Troy didn’t respond, Akio looked at him. Troy was standing at the controls, back turned to Akio. Then Troy fainted, collapsed against the panel. He accidentally shifted the gear down to second and the engine roared from being in such a low gear.

Troy fell away from the panel onto the floor.

Akio jumped over to the panels and put it back into seventh gear. Dropping to his knees beside Troy, he saw the shirt tied around Troy's waist. Dark blood had soaked through it.

Troy's eyes were opening now.

“What happened?” Akio asked, horrified.

Troy slowly sat up. “Nothing.”

“You’re wounded.”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

“What—man, you’re crazy. We have to tell someone. You need medical attention.”

“No shit, Akio,” Troy snapped. “There’s no time. We need to get past the Authority. Then we’ll worry about me.”

Akio stood and began walking away.

“Akio!” Troy yelled. “Not now. Let’s get to safety first.”

Akio decided against listening to Troy. He continued walking back to tell the others about Troy, but then the train burst forward, throwing him off his feet. They picked up insane speed, wind funneling past him. He looked down the line of the train and saw the last few cars had been detached.

Akio got to his feet and went back to Troy, who was standing at the controls now, leaning over them. “Shift down,” Akio yelled.

“I know,” Troy said, drearily.

Akio came beside him.

Troy shifted down to third and kept the throttle at max. The engine was revving high and the speedometer needle rose above three hundred.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

KARA HELD THE five-gallon gas can over the open engine, pouring it in liberally.

I watched for a few moments.

We’d picked up speed, but the question was how much?

I grabbed the minister and ran to the front of the train. Scarlet was lowering the retractable stairs in the second car, holding her rifle at her side. I nodded to her and she nodded back. I told the minister to stay in the corner of this car. It was more or less the center of the train now that we’d gotten rid of half our train.

Then I was in the first car, looking over Troy's shoulder.

We were going three-hundred-and-seventy.

The fleet looked to be about thirty seconds out.

“Almost there,” said Akio, referring to the speedometer.

“When the fleet arrives,” I told Troy, having to yell over the massive wind pouring into the car, “drop it into second gear. We’ll hit four hundred.”

“We’ll overload the engine. Break it.”

“We have no choice.”

He knew it was true and didn’t object.

“How are we coming on the radio?”

There was an open panel in the center of the table. He was messing with wires and had a small knife in his hands. He didn’t answer.

I noticed blood dripping from his side—soaked into a shirt he’d tied around his waist.

“You okay?” I yelled.

I noticed Akio look over, looking concerned.

“Fine,” said Troy.

Scarlet lay prone on the top of the train, looking through the scope of the rifle. She saw the man from the night earlier—in the main ship. The one in the center.

She took a shot.

The bullet didn’t even hit the glass. Bounced away from the deflective shields. Scarlet scouted for anyone who might be in the open. No one she could see.

There wasn’t anything she could do from here.

The fleet was so close.

“Hold onto something,” yelled Troy. “I’m gonna drop to second.”

Kayden was looking at the cannon operator.

“Charged,” the operator said.

“Fire in three.”

“Not yet,” I said to Troy. “When I say.”

“What are you waiting for?”

I heard the sound of the cannon firing.

“NOW!” I yelled.

Troy dropped us into second. The engine caught. We shot forward, topping four hundred miles per hour. The cannon fire hit the fifth car of our train—would have hit the center if we hadn’t sped up—and the car blew off the end of our train, exploding to bits.

We had four cars left. The engine room was our fourth car. Couldn’t afford any more loss.

We zoomed underneath the fleet and were going four hundred twenty MPH.

“This can’t hold for long,” said Troy.

“Fix the radio,” I said. “That’s all we need.”

Scarlet came back into the train.

I walked past her to check on Kara. The engine room was hotter than ever. Kara was determined, pouring more and more gas directly into the engine.

Scarlet followed me into the engine room.

“Catherine,” she said. “My dream. I feel like it’s going to come true.”

“What do you mean?”

“From Bellz. I had that dream—”

“That Troy dies?”

Tears came into her eyes.

“It was only a dream,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if I fully believed that.

I thought about Akio—he’d seen the monsters in the tunnels in his dream. The minister had also predicted that the big savages would throw our train around based on his dream.

It didn’t make sense, though, because I wasn’t in a field of roses and thorns, nor would I ever be in a field of roses and thorns. I had a feeling, even as I thought it, that that wasn’t the purpose of my dream. My dream was metaphorical. And in that case it WAS true.

“Kara,” I said. “Did you have a dream in Bellz?”

“No,” she said.

I didn’t know if Troy had had a dream. Hadn’t asked. I’d be sure to ask him later. Right now, we needed to keep the train going.

The fleet was behind us now, turning around. The track far behind us, where the fifth car had been taken out, was smoking—but there were no flames. It was metal. Couldn’t catch.

The rain was much lighter now, a drizzle, and the suns were breaking through in spots. We were basically in a giant field of grain. Completely flat. The ground was a hundred feet beneath us. That hadn’t changed and didn’t look like it would change for miles upon miles. There was nothing to see out here but flat, golden fields blowing in the wind.

Troy was in more pain than he’d ever been in his life. He was actually surprised he was still able to move and think. Dizziness was continually trying to overcome him, and he knew he didn’t have much time left.

“Akio, would you help me with this?”

Troy pointed at the mess of cords. “We need to cut away one of these red wires and re-string it into the transmitter. Which should fix it.”

Akio began helping, saying nothing.

They worked for a solid two minutes. Troy's entire face and hair and chest were drenched in sweat.

That’s when the dream flashed into his mind. The dream he’d had in Mount Bellz. It came back vividly and replayed a portion to him, and the feelings he’d had in Bellz—those feelings of insurmountable fear and terror, came back to him.

He’d accepted he was going to die from this knife wound. But the thought of his friends dying terrified him and he found himself losing his breath.

“Man,” said Akio. “You need to sit down.”

Troy listened this time—moved to the nearest wall. He leaned down against it and fell to the floor.

Akio continued working on the radio.

“Akio,” he said, “thank you. For being my friend.”

“You’re going to get through this. You don’t need to say goodbye.”

“I’m not going to get through this. I need to tell you something. I had a dream in Mount Bellz.”

Akio was listening now, stopped working on the radio.

“I’m afraid it’s going to come true.”

Akio listened to the dream, and it sent chills down his spine. It took away any hope he’d had—made him feel absolutely powerless.

He stared back at Troy for a few long moments, then the train began shaking violently from the strain of the engine. Akio considered shifting back up, but they were still making good speed, staying ahead of the fleet. They couldn’t slow down now. He waited a few moments and the shaking subsided. He’d never heard an engine rumbling as loud as the train’s engine was now—straining with every ounce it had left to get them to safety.

Akio finished connecting the wires, and the radio came to life. He heard static over the speakers when he flipped onto a channel.

It didn’t matter, though. None of it mattered.

Akio’s dream had come true.

The minister’s dream had come true.

And now he knew Troy’s dream—in which every one of them dies at the checkpoint.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

AKIO BROUGHT ME to the front room. He’d taken my hand and pulled me this way. He said it was of critical importance. The fleet was still behind us, but I was sure they were gaining on us.

We were still topping four hundred MPH. It had been a few LONG minutes. I knew we couldn’t last much longer. We were riding the edge of reality and the impossible. Soon, reality would come crashing in on us. Our engine would break or explode. The fleet would catch up to us. And finish us off.

Akio said, “Troy had a dream. In Bellz.”

He let Troy explain. I noticed Troy's face was very pale as he explained. I didn’t overthink it. He finished his story with—“We all die, Catherine.”

“That can’t be true,” I said right away.

“I didn’t know about the checkpoint before I had the dream, Catherine,” Troy explained. “I had no idea it existed. I saw it in my dream. And, later, you mentioned it.”

That would have been true. I hadn’t told them about the checkpoint. Kara was the first person I’d told. Then I remembered something Troy had said after we’d woken from our dreams.

“That’s why you’d told the minister we weren’t going to die in the cave,” I said. “You knew we’d live through Bellz and die out here.”

He only nodded.

“We don’t know that all of our dreams will come true,” I said, trying to remain hopeful.

“So far they have.”

“What does it mean, then?” I asked. “Are the dreams trying to tell us to go a different route? Because there’s nothing we can do. We can’t go in reverse. We can’t get off the train. Our only option is to drive through the checkpoint. Our only hope is that we’ll reach the Resistance on the radio before we reach the checkpoint.”

Akio was at the radio, frantically relaying our message into every available channel.

“We’re ten minutes from the checkpoint,” Troy said. “If the engines hold up.”

“That gives us ten minutes,” I said.

He nodded gravely.

Jeff sat in the small box of an outpost, among the stand of trees, drumming his fingers against the board of controls before him. He couldn’t see the men yet, who were apparently approaching. Four men, Felicity had said. If they entered this thicket, they would surely find the outpost. Jeff would have to run. He wasn’t a fast runner.

The plan was that he’d run out of the small thicket into the open. The men would follow and Felicity and her snipers would take the men down. “Simple,” she’d told him moments earlier. “If you see them, run.”

If the men discovered the outpost and Felicity killed them all, the Resistance would still have to abandon the outpost. The Authority would realize the four men they’d sent out hadn’t returned. They’d send more people. Felicity was hoping these men wouldn’t find the outpost. That they’d skip over the small thicket.

“They’re nearing,” said Felicity. “Hold still, buddy.”

Akio was relaying the same message: “Calling out to the Resistance. Resistance, we need your help. We have the Minister of the Armory. We need your assistance. Calling the Resistance. If you’re listening, we’re on Field’s track. Approaching the Authority’s checkpoint. NEED HELP!”

We were all in the front room now. Including the minister. The air was blasting in through our open window. Kara was biting her nails. She’d dumped every bit of reserve gas straight into the engine. She didn’t know how much gas was left in the tank. The fuel gauge had been melted through by acid.

We exchanged furtive glances. Wondering the same thing: Were our escape and survival possible? Or was this the end of the line? All signs indicated our demise.

Troy was the only one not looking at us. He was leaned against the control panel in a seemingly uncomfortable position. He was staring into the wind, his hair blowing back.

He’d had a dream that we all die at the checkpoint. That the guns lined up on either side of the track pierce us all and blow us off the rails. He’d had the dream before he’d even known about the existence of the checkpoint. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. All of our dreams were true or had come true.

Was there any redemption? I asked myself.

We’d stolen a train from the Resistance. My mom had died. We’d captured the minister but he was about to die at this checkpoint. Was there any redemption—anything that made this mission a success or worth it in some way? What had we proved?

We’d faced our fears. We’d overcome tremendous obstacles. We’d bonded more as a group. It didn’t matter. Our deaths loomed over our heads. Kara and Scarlet didn’t know about Troy's dream. I didn’t want to tell them. If these were our last few minutes, I didn’t want to discuss our impending death. I didn’t want to discuss anything.

I moved forward, to the window, a few feet from it—and watched. Watched the suns cutting through the clouds, shafts of light pouring out across acres of wheat. Felt the air against my body. Thought about life. About this giant field—this giant world. There were places on the map I knew nothing about. A hundred thousand years of human history, most of it covered up and washed away by the Authority.

There were other countries and lands I knew nothing about. Places I’d heard about that I’d always wanted to travel to if I ever made it out of our oppressed and tyrannized land.

My mom had told me about cities built underwater. Inhabited volcanoes. Islands made of magic itself—inhabited by people who worshiped powerful deities.

Free lands where humans thrived.

Things I would never understand—or be able to even picture.

I only had intimations of such things—in dreams.

Or dreams within dreams.

I thought about Troy and all of his theories and thoughts about higher powers and gods and real magic. I thought about Bellz. There was something very really evil about that place. There was a presence in it that was beyond me, certainly. A presence that was beyond even the chemicals in my mind.

I took another step toward the front window, watching the track roll beneath us. My mind stilled. I didn’t hear or feel the wind. Or the roaring engine. I wasn’t thinking about the fleet behind us or the checkpoint before us.

I thought about the fear under the mountain and, for a long moment, and for the first time in my life I had an objectivity about the fear. I DID NOT feel, for the first time in my life, like a subject of the fear. I realized that the fear was separate from me. It was real, but it was separate.

And it was REAL.

The thought filled me with hope.

If fear was real, then so was hope.

It made perfect sense. All of the sudden, hope began rising in me because I realized that evil existed in that mountain. Evil had tried to overtake me with fear. Evil tried to stop all of us. But evil was going to undo itself because I realized that evil objectively existed.

Which meant that GOOD existed—objectively.

Outside of myself.

It made perfect sense. For years I’d wondered about the world and my place in it. How could anything matter if nothing mattered? Death was the end and rendered our lives worthless. But GOOD and EVIL couldn’t exist on their own. I’d always thought up until this moment that good and evil were feelings that we had. That evil things were those things that hurt people. And good things were those things that helped people. Bellz had taught me otherwise.

Bellz had taught me that evil was real, and it manifested itself in those things that hurt people. By extension, Good had to be real.

And for that to be true, there had to be so much more to the world than I understood or believed to be so.

My thoughts went back to Troy.

Then to Kayden. He had powers. I knew it to be true, though I’d wanted to deny it because it didn’t make sense to me. There were forces at work beyond what I understood.

And that was when I realized:

The Resistance wasn’t the key to getting through the checkpoint.

I looked at Kara, the girl with the purple streak in her hair. The girl so timidly watching out the window. The girl who right now knew she was going to die.

Kara was the key.

We flew onward, down the tracks, toward the checkpoint, and I had no fear. I knew for once in my life that I couldn’t find the answer or solution. I couldn’t think through all the options and figure it out for myself. Because the answer had already been given to me from the beginning of the mission.

Now the checkpoint was coming into view.

Troy looked to me, but I didn’t return the look. I watched the checkpoint looming larger and larger until I could very clearly make out the giant walls of turrets, cannons, and machine guns that stood high on both sides of the track. The walls were long and in two minutes we’d find ourselves between them. We’d be blasted by tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. They’d hit us with all the firepower they had.

At these thoughts, fear began creeping into my mind.

Maybe I was losing it.

After all, I was hearing voices.

The checkpoint ahead was very real and very deadly.

But again, fear was very real and very deadly.

It all depended on what I chose to surrender to—fear or hope. They were about to have their reckoning in my heart. I blinked away the fear, taking in a deep breath.

It was time to act.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

“Catherine!” Akio yelled over the wind coming into this front room.

I went to the center of the room. “I have an idea,” I yelled. “And it’s going to work.”

They gathered around me, including the minister.

Well, except for Troy. His face was completely drained and his eyes had bags under them. He was clutching the panel. Something was very wrong with him.

I’d have to find out after the checkpoint.

“Akio,” I said, “help Troy walk. We all need to go on the roof.”

“Why?” asked Scarlet.

“Trust me.”

She didn’t say more.

Kara said, “We’re not going to make it.”

“We are,” I said. “We most definitely are. But we need to go on the roof. Troy was right, there’s something else in this world. I’ve been hearing a voice. I’ve been hearing a voice and I thought I was losing my mind, but my mind is clearer than ever. Whatever it is, there is a force out there trying to help us.”

Akio walked Troy to the doorway of the second car. He clicked the button to drop down the stairway. I took Kara’s hand and began walking for the stairs. Scarlet followed. I looked back and saw the minister hesitating, but then he followed.

The stairs reached the floor.

Akio glanced back at me, confused. But I nodded and he started up the stairs with Troy. Scarlet followed. Then Kara and I.

“I have the feeling we’re walking to our deaths,” she said.

We got onto the roof and could hear the fleet much louder, see them trailing behind us. We gathered around on the roof of the second car.

“What’s the plan?” asked Akio.

“Kara,” I yelled in our huddle. “She’s the key. She’s saved us again and again on this mission and she’s going to do it again.”

I could tell they all thought I was crazy.

“What about Troy's dream?” Akio asked.

Scarlet and Kara looked at me.

“What dream?” Scarlet asked.

I didn’t want to answer.

“About the checkpoint?” said Scarlet. “He had a dream we all die, didn’t he?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

But Kara pulled her hand away from mine and ran for the stairs.

“Stay here,” I told the others and ran after Kara.

She’d bolted down the stairs. I ran after her, back into the engine room, which was full of smoke. She didn’t seem to care.

I ran in and she yelled, “Go away! I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can,” I yelled.

She was facing away from me.

I grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. She looked away from me. “Something’s wrong with me,” she said with tears. “Something is horribly wrong. I’m not special. I’m messed up. You know it. Everyone knows it.”

I looked into her eyes. “Nothing is wrong with you,” I said. “Nothing is wrong with you, Kara. Look at me.” She wouldn’t. “Look at me.”

Her tear-filled eyes found mine.

“You’re the key. You’re special. You were designed for this, meant for this.”

I could feel her spirits lifting, through my hands that were on her shoulders. I remembered how much her emotions could affect a room. I had a random memory that I hadn’t interpreted until just now. When I’d seen the vision of the tunnel walls around us in Bellz, her hand had been on me.

She communicated through touch somehow.

I squeezed her shoulders, and she looked absolutely terrified.

Then I gave her a hug, and I knew as I held her that she was special. All of my fear washed away and a power I’d never felt before flowed through my body—even filling the space around us.

“You hear voices too?” Kara asked.

I nodded. “A good one and a bad one. Unfortunately I responded to the bad one before I’d even thought to respond to the good one. I live in a world of hopelessness, and I don’t want to live in one anymore,” I said. “How about you?”

“That sounds good to me.”

“I believe in you, Kara.”

Holding her hand, I led her back down the train, up the stairs, and onto the roof. When we got to our people, I didn’t say a word to them. They didn’t say a word to me. We all held hands and stood abreast, facing the checkpoint.

Thirty seconds.

Kayden watched them from the main ship. He took a scope and looked through at the huddle of pathetic Resistance fighters. And his jaw nearly dropped. He saw the girl with the purple-striped hair, and he remembered her from his past. He could feel her presence now that he was looking at her.

“I know her,” he said to himself.

She was the princess of Levi’s kingdom before it fell.

The girl who wore purple in her hair. The Authority had been trying to find her since the fall of Levi’s kingdom. He wondered why she’d laid low for all this time. He could barely contain his power, and she’d kept hers hidden.

He also saw what the fighters were attempting. They were going to use the girl to block the bullets, the cannon-fire, the RPGs. He knew she would fail. No one, not even he, was powerful enough to withstand the firepower of the checkpoint.

They would die here.

Suddenly, he was sad.

He’d wanted to kill them.

But it would be interesting to watch this girl’s powers fail.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

THEY WERE LIKE monoliths.

Like deadly beasts, living things that were impossible to kill, impossible to withstand or survive. They were like two giant waves threatening to crash in on us—and drown us all. Or kill us on impact.

They were the two giant walls of the checkpoint—standing tall on either side of the track and stretching alongside it. We were about to pass between them.

Automated turrets were mounted on the top of the walls, staring down on the track.

The moment our train passed between the walls, the motion sensors would set off the guns. The cannons were primed and charged and ready to decimate us.

Men stood post within insets in the walls, wielding RPGs.

This was one of the ultimate checkpoints, created to keep the cities in order, to keep the people subjected. I took a deep breath as we reached the walls—and then entered between them.

The turrets, oiled and standing by, began popping off—loud gunshots that rang out, echoed between the walls. Sounds ringed between us, past us, over us. Men yelled to each other in the insets. RPGs fired.

Bullets began tearing into the first car of our train, tearing into the roof, the sides.

Metal shards flew off every direction, and I realized I’d made a mistake. My voice wasn’t anything. It was a sign of the deterioration of my mind.

But even as I thought it, I realized it was untrue.

I knew it was untrue as well as I knew anything.

I squeezed Kara’s hand tighter and she looked at me. We looked into each other’s eyes. And I saw the color of her eyes change. They were brown, but they changed to purple.

The bullets reached our car, the second car. I held Kara’s gaze. I believed in her, and she knew it. She drew her power from my belief.

The bullets reached us—and bent around us.

Thousands of bullets coming our way, rocket-propelled grenades and whatever-the-heck else. They bent around an invisible sphere, created by Kara. I couldn’t see anything in the air except for the bullets bouncing off and around and missing us.

Kara wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was looking around, up, over our heads. The bullets were passing a few feet overhead. We could hear them whistle by. Resound. Bounce away from us. And we remained unscathed, protected by the power emanating from Kara.

She returned her gaze to me.

Her eyes were bright purple now—her irises and pupils.

Her skin glowed.

I felt power flowing through her hand into mine, up my arm and into my body. I felt it continue through me and to Scarlet, who was holding my other hand.

I looked at Scarlet. She was in utter shock, regarding Kara in a way she’d never had. We all were. We’d all underestimated her.

Some color had returned to Troy’s face.

Even the minister looked radiant. His old skin was bright as he watched the bullets arc around us.

I returned to Kara, who looked into my eyes.

I saw something in her right then that I hadn’t seen in anyone. She knew exactly who she was in this moment. She smiled, and a few moments later, the sphere grew larger around us. Her smile widened—and so did the sphere.

“This. Is. Amazing!” Akio yelled.

The minister was laughing like a child.

I couldn’t help but smile.

Scarlet was squeezing my hand in delight.

We were halfway through the checkpoint.

And Kara was truly the key.

Kayden watched in unbelief.

Couldn’t believe his eyes.

This girl was more powerful than he.

It was insane.

He’d been sure he was the most powerful in the land.

He remembered fainting back at the Armory, in the castle. He realized now that it was because of her. Being of the same blood, they had a connection in their powers. She’d caused him to lose consciousness. Which meant he could cause her to lose consciousness right now.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, descended into his mind.

Kara’s demeanor was pure radiance.

The sphere expanded. I watched the top of the sphere extend higher and higher until it was at the height of the walls, where the turrets were. The turrets’ bullets began ricocheting back into themselves, breaking. The men in the insets were screaming in terror. They stopped firing.

But then Kara started breathing weirdly. Taking small gasps.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She blinked a few times. The purple drained from her eyes.

“What’s happening?”

“It’s him,” she said.

I turned back, saw the fleet at the edge of the checkpoint, flying over it. Kayden. The man with the powers. Must have had the same powers as Kara.

The sphere began closing in on us. Faster, faster. It was six inches from closing on us when she stopped it. She was squeezing my hand tighter now.

“You got this!” Akio yelled.

“You can do this,” said Troy.

The minister vouched. “I believe.”

“You can do this,” I said.

“You’re amazing,” said Scarlet.

The sphere went out six inches. Then further.

Then another two feet.

The girl was fighting against him! She was only barely discovering her powers and he’d been honing his for years. He was angry now.

He’d abandoned everything he’d known to fight for the Authority. He’d lain down convictions and beliefs that had been instilled in him since childhood to fight for the Authority. To prove his worth in a place where he was appreciated. And he was losing to Resistance fighters and a girl who didn’t even understand the powers she had.

He bit down hard, eyes shut tight.

He began to yell, exercising his power against her.

Kara’s eyes were closed.

She blinked and tears rolled down her cheeks. The sphere began closing. We were three quarters through the checkpoint.

“Almost there,” I whispered, mostly to myself.

Akio and Troy were yelling encouragements.

The sphere continued closing.

“He’s too powerful,” she said.

She has you, my voice said.

I knew what that meant, and I yelled to Kara, right into her ear. Over the noise of the bullets ricocheting between the walls, the guns firing, bullets tearing into the walls of the train, our giant revved-up engine propelling us forward.

“He’s evil,” I said. “You’re good!”

The meaning carried to her. She opened her eyes. The purple seeped back in, but this time, like thick ink, it covered every part of her eye and glowed. The streak of purple in her hair glowed brightly onto my face.

“Don’t let go,” she said to me. “Please don’t let go!”

“I won’t.”

Then she closed her eyes and yelled incredibly loud. The yell was loud but then it became unnaturally loud, coming from another place entirely. She was squeezing my hand so hard I thought it would break.

In that instant, the sphere bounded outward from us, blowing out past the walls. I saw something shift in the atmosphere. Waves of power emanated from her, rippling out toward the turrets and the men in the walls. As the ripples passed the turrets, they broke to pieces, spewing smoke. As it passed the men, they died. Every piece of machinery except for our train broke.

Which meant—

I turned my head back and watched the ripples rise up towards the fleet. The main ship must have seen the ripples coming because it had turned up and rocketed toward the sky. The others weren’t so lucky. They burned up in the sky and came crashing down, giant balls of flame.

Kara, as we neared the end of the checkpoint, fainted into my arms.

The sphere was gone now that Kara was unconscious. We were between the walls for a few moments longer, but it didn’t matter because she’d broken all the guns—killed all the men.

Our tired engine began making popping sounds as we cleared the end of the checkpoint—back on the open track.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

WE RAN DOWN the stairs, back into our train.

The minister and Akio carried Kara inside. Scarlet was at Troy's side. He was coughing profusely. I ran ahead of them—into the front room. I switched the gear up to fourth to give the engine a break. The popping noises subsided, and we began losing speed.

I couldn’t believe anything that had just happened.

The minister and Akio entered the room with Kara, leaning her against the wall. Akio was shaking her. “Kara! Wake up.”

“Is she breathing?” I asked, moving over and glancing at the stairs. Scarlet was having a difficult time getting Troy down. One step at a time.

“I don’t—” Akio leaned in to hear her breath. “No! She’s not. She’s not breathing.”

More strange noises came from the engine.

I fell to my knees beside Kara, the men moving around me. I laid her down and began to compress her chest. “C’mon, Kara,” I said.

Scarlet and Troy finally made it to the front room. “He’s hurt,” she said with an edge in her voice that told me it was serious. “Stabbed in the stomach.”

I’d noticed his blood-soaked shirt earlier.

He was pale as hell. And I remembered Scarlet’s dream. Troy’s death. Before I could give anything much thought and before I could revive Kara, something hit the back end of our train, the engine room. Our train got shot forward on the track, jolting side to side.

“Pulse waves,” said the minister.

The main ship was after us.

We still had to face Kayden.

We had no shields.

Another pulse wave hit us, nearly knocking us off the tracks. Our train stuck, even as it rocked side to side. I tried to hold Kara in place. Troy was on the floor now, convulsing.

There was no way the girl could have survived that, thought Kayden.

Then he yelled at the pulse operator. “Stop! The shields are down.”

“I can knock them off in one more blast,” the man said.

Kayden turned to the pilot. “Take us down to them. I want to kill them myself.”

The pilot tilted them down, throttled them forward, and they descended rapidly towards the train, which was going much slower now.

“When we get close, deploy the magnet-suited men,” Kayden said. “I’ll jump onto the roof. I want Catherine. She’s the small girl—the leader of the crew. Leave her alive for me.”

We needed Kara alive and awake. She had powers that we absolutely needed. I couldn’t face Kayden without her. “Kara!” I yelled, pounding a small fist onto her chest.

“No,” said Akio, taking over from me.

I let my eyes fall to Troy. A pang of sadness hit my heart. Scarlet held him in her arms, and his eyes were closed. His chest was rising and falling in spurts. Tears streamed down Scarlet’s face.

The minister looked on with tear-filled eyes.

And I remembered the radio.

It was still our only chance.

I needed to get to work, ignore all else.

I sprang to my feet and went to the radio. “Calling the Resistance. This is Catherine! We’re approaching the city and have an Authority fleet on our tail. Calling the Resistance! We need backup.”

Jeff was still in the outpost. Sitting completely and utterly still.

He heard the voice coming through the headphones, but he wasn’t wearing the headphones. He’d thrown them off because the men had entered the thicket.

The Authority soldiers had entered the freakin’ thicket.

If they wandered just a little deeper into it, they’d find him and he’d need to run.

Burst from this booth.

He couldn’t hear what the voice in the headphones was saying, but it was a girl’s voice and it sounded frantic. He wondered if it was Felicity.

“She’s alive!” Akio yelled. “She’s breathing!”

I relayed the message into the radio over and over.

“She’s not waking up, though.”

I wondered why the pulse waves weren’t hitting our ship anymore. But then I heard the bass noise of the ship’s magnet engine. It was descending towards us.

I turned to my team. “They’re going to board us.”

Jeff watched the edges of the trees closely. He wasn’t a fast runner but he had Felicity’s promise that if they came after him, she would take care of them.

He saw the edge of one of their long guns poke out from behind a tree.

Then he saw the first of the four men. The man spotted the outpost and Jeff in the window, and the man raised his gun. Jeff dropped below the window and pushed out the backdoor of the small box. And he ran as fast as he could, booking it through the trees, jumping over bushes.

Then he was out in the open, in the wheat fields, running for all he was worth. He knew Felicity would see him from here. But he didn’t see her anywhere, though he did see a small dilapidated shack a few hundred yards out—which was probably where she was.

He ran forty feet out into the field and then dropped into the wheat. It was tall so he was sufficiently hidden. He waited. He waited. He waited.

It felt like forever.

And then he heard the first sniper-rifle shot pop off into the open air. It came from the shack, as he’d expected. The men from the thicket had obviously entered the open. They returned fire. Though he was out of the way of the exchange, Jeff held his hands over the back of his head all the same. Squeezing his eyes shut.

Additional sniper shots rang across the valley.

And then the noises died away.

Except for the sway of the wheat field.

He decided he would continue laying here until Felicity came to get him.

“Akio,” I yelled. “Drag Kara over here and relay the message.”

He could do the two things at once—monitor her vitals and relay the radio message.

The minister and Akio dragged Kara to the control panel. Akio began relaying the message. I went to Scarlet.

“It’s time to fight.”

She nodded to me, blinking tears from her eyes, letting Troy's head rest on the floor of the bumpy train. He groaned in agony.

“For Troy,” I said.

She had a face I’d never seen on her before.

Rage.

I took my popping blue sword in one hand. It was all I had. I had no ammo for my pistol. I had a knife strapped to my leg. Scarlet’s sword was holstered. She had her long rifle—a few bullets remaining. Then we ascended the steps in the second car.

Kayden was here already, on the roof of the fourth car, sword in hand.

Four men stood behind him.

Then I saw the main ship moving to the side of our train. Men in magnet suits deployed—flew to the side of our train, attaching. Three men, four men. Five men.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

FELICITY CAME NEAR Jeff.

“It’s safe,” she said.

He got up from the wheat, dusting off his clothes. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “And thank you. For saving me.”

“Thank you for holding the post,” she said. “Now let’s go see if it’s still there.”

He didn’t know what she meant, but then he saw smoke rising from the tops of the trees. They’d set it on fire.

She was walking towards the trees. He followed. His mind was so overwhelmed that he’d forgotten about the girl’s voice that had come through the radio.

Akio prodded Kara with his foot—and yelled the message into the radio. Yelling loud for the benefit of Kara as well—perhaps it would wake her.

“Resistance! Need your help.”

The minister cut off Akio: “We can hook up her blood to his.” He pointed to Troy. “That’s what saved you.”

“We need a syringe. A needle.”

“No medical car.”

“No medical car.”

Akio thought for a moment. Trying to think of another way to get Kara’s blood to Troy. He couldn’t think of any method that didn’t involve a needle and tube.

“Drag Troy over,” Akio said. “Have him hold her hand.”

It was all he could think of.

Akio continued relaying the message.

Scarlet stood behind me.

Kayden was only two cars away, staring right at me, paying no mind to Scarlet. She raised her rifle toward him.

“Don’t waste the bullet,” I said.

The four men behind Kayden lowered into the engine room. They would be gunning for everyone inside the train. Including the minister.

I hoped Akio could handle it.

Scarlet moved to my right.

Our hair whipped in the wind. I glanced at her. Could feel her rage—see it written plainly on her face. Without a word, she lifted her equalizer and aimed it at the main ship. She bounded off the train.

Scarlet flew through the air, right towards the opening in the side of the main ship that the magnet men had deployed from. It was closing now. She curled up into a ball and shot right into it, and it closed behind her. She rolled and slid right into a wall. Her gun slid away from her.

She looked up, trying to get oriented.

Dizziness filled her mind as she got to her feet.

All she knew was that everyone in this ship was about to die. She was going to kill them all. She was in a short hall that led to the main control room. There was a man at the end of the hall, seeing her now. He began to pull out his pistol.

Too late. She picked up her rifle. Shot the man through the chest. Blood exploded and she stepped past his falling body.

She saw the pilot, the cannon operator and the pulse operator all from here. A few people at control panels, monitoring the ship. She shot the pilot first, right through the head, because why the hell not? The plane began sinking, aimed downwards.

She moved into the room, shooting the cannon and pulse-wave operator. One of the men at the panels. Then she was out of ammo. She removed her sword, running across the room to the remaining two people.

One of them raised a pistol, but she was too late. Scarlet was here now, pushing her sword through the woman’s stomach. She removed the sword quickly and sliced it across the final person’s neck, slashing it across in one quick move, yelling in fury.

Blood squirted from the neck and the man went down.

She picked up one of their pistols, dropping her sword.

She saw a man and a woman peering into the room from around one of the doors. She shot them both. Through the head. Perfect aim.

The plane was listing more now.

Scarlet ran to the pilot’s controls. Grabbing the dead pilot’s collar and throwing him from his seat, she assumed the position. Only took her a few seconds to figure out the controls.

She slowed down the aircraft and flew behind the train.

She could see the magnet-men on the side of the train, climbing in through the windows. Three of them. Two of them had already made it inside the train.

Catherine and Kayden were walking towards each other on the roof.

She throttled the craft forward and sliced beside the train, running the right wing through the magnet men’s bodies.

There was no way I could beat Kayden. I knew that. If he wanted to, he could use his powers to throw my body from the top of this train and that would be the end of me.

But I knew he didn’t want to do that.

He wanted to sword fight—kill me with his own hand.

He wanted revenge.

I didn’t want to give him the pleasure, but I knew it would happen.

If I could keep him fighting me, though, for a long enough time that Akio could contact the Resistance, I could maybe save my team. I would die, but they could be rescued.

That was my only thought as I approached Kayden. Kara was the only one powerful enough to fight him. Not me. I was just a normal person.

“Nice to see you again,” I said to him, in a pleasant tone. “I was beginning to miss you.”

“This should be fun,” he said.

There was one car between us.

He jumped farther than any normal human could, closing the distance between us, and slashed his sword at me, not holding back. I deflected, taking a step back.

We hit something on the track and the train rocked—I nearly lost my footing. He kept his balance and laughed at me, uproariously.

“I’m having fun, too,” I said. “Don’t forget that.”

He stopped laughing.

His face became menacing as he came at me again.

I jumped back, the blade missing my stomach by only an inch. He wasn’t holding back. When he swung the sword, he swung it faster than I’d ever seen anyone move before.

He swung again. I couldn’t jump back. I blocked it, slid my sword forward across his, toward him, trying to stab him. He stepped aside and forward, reaching for my wrist with his free hand. Before I could pull back, he took hold of my wrist and swung me off my feet—threw me backwards, down the line of the train. I landed on the next car back, bounced and slid toward the edge of the roof. I caught myself against that small inner railing, then got to my feet as fast as I could. Wind passing fast.

As our train bounded through this open field.

Wheat gently blowing in the wind.

Kayden jumped the distance between us, bringing down his sword. I was at the side of the car, right beside the edge here. I blocked his sword but he front-kicked me right in the stomach and I flew off the side of the train, high into the air.

I moved fast—pulled out my equalizer and bounded back to the train. I caught the side railing and began to pull myself up. But he was beside me now, kicking a boot into my face.

I only had a one-hand grip on the railing. I held on as my body flipped around so that I was facing away from the train. Hanging here.

My arm and wrist bent, but I held on.

If I fell off here, I would die.

“Too easy!” Kayden yelled from above.

Then I felt him taking hold of my hand. He very easily lifted me by one hand back onto the train. “I let myself get carried away,” he said. “Let’s continue.”

This guy was crazy was all I knew. He wanted to extend the fight, make me suffer. He knew he would win. He knew that I knew it. He relished it.

I still had my sword in one hand.

I moved as fast as I could, thrusting it toward him.

As if I had a chance.

Troy felt power surge through his hand, and he was suddenly alert, sitting up.

“Wow,” said Akio.

Kara was unconscious beside him. It was weird, but he knew that the surge of energy would be short-lived. Temporary.

He got to his feet, stinging pain in his side. He looked to Akio, who explained: “Catherine and Scarlet went up top.”

Troy moved to the second room, taking out his sword. Akio was shouting into the radio, trying to summon the Resistance.

As Troy entered the second room, he could see, past the lowered stairs, men in the third car, coming this way.

He ran to the third car doorway, backed up beside the doorway. The men saw Troy and fired round after round. But the bullets couldn’t puncture the steel. Troy waited until they unloaded a few shots. When they stopped, he spun through the doorway, sword extended.

There were four men here. The nearest one was only a few feet away.

Perfect. Troy stabbed the nearest man, taking the man’s gun and using his body as a shield. He shot at the others but they had deflective armor. They dropped their guns and took out their swords. Troy let the dead man fall away from him.

Then raised his sword.

“Why are you doing this?” I yelled over the wind.

Kayden swung at me twice. I blocked both strikes.

“Because I can,” he said.

“Why help the Authority? With the power you have, you can help the Resistance. Help us take our country back.”

He smiled, stopping for a moment. It gave me a moment to try and catch my breath. The loud wind filled my ears. The train jolted under our feet.

“I did fight with the Resistance,” he said.

I was shocked. It couldn’t be true. “No, you couldn’t—”

“I did. They banished me.”

“When?”

“When I was twelve.”

“They knew about your powers?”

He nodded.

“Why did they banish you?”

He took a few steps back and lifted his sword, pointing it at me. My feet came off the ground, and I was floating a few inches above the train. Then a foot over it. He was holding me in the air. I didn’t feel any pain or anything. I didn’t even feel weightless, but here I was, floating in mid-air.

“They banished me because I tried to kill a member of my family who they said would be more powerful than I.”

His voice was sharp—laced with anger—and I was afraid he would throw me from the train. In that moment, clouds moved in front of the sun, the skies turned grey, and rain began to fall.

Troy stabbed the final man through the chest. But then he heard gunshots from the engine room. He ran in and saw two additional men. They were preoccupied, trying to destroy the engine. Troy killed them within seconds.

Then he ran for the stairs to the roof. He wanted to help Catherine and Scarlet while he could. While he had this energy.

Felicity and Jeff stood side by side, watching the small outpost go up in flames.

“So much for that,” she said. “We were getting good intel out here.”

Jeff was really nervous being next to Felicity—the freakin’ leader of the Resistance. His hands were shaking.

Felicity: “Let’s get going before the Authority spots the smoke.”

She turned around, began heading out of this small oasis.

Jeff followed.

Troy emerged onto the roof and saw Catherine suspended several feet in the air. Kayden was pointing his sword at her. Troy could tell what was about to happen, though he’d never seen anything like this. Kayden was going to bring her down on his sword.

Troy ran at Kayden as fast as he could. The main ship flew near them. He paid it no attention. He lifted his sword, preparing to slice Kayden in half.

Crossed onto the same car.

Kayden looked at him, made eye contact, then flicked his head to one side.

And in that moment, Troy, pulled by Kayden’s power, flew off the side of the train. High into the air, at first. But then he fell towards the ground.

Scarlet watched in horror as Troy was thrown off the train. She saw his body crash down into the wheat field. She piloted the ship to him.

“Nooooo!” I yelled, and I couldn’t believe what had happened.

In a moment, Troy was gone.

He wouldn’t be able to survive that, not even if he were in good health.

I wanted to yell, to scream, to kill this man before me, but I was powerless.

Caught in his grip.

And I could see it in Kayden's eyes—he was ready to kill me now. His eyes were very black, more than they’d been earlier in the fight. Even now, black seeped into every part of his eyes, filling them. But I noticed something right then, right before the moment he was going to kill me.

I noticed the tiniest glint of purple in his right eye.

“Kara!” I yelled.

He began moving my body through the air, toward his sword.

“You’re related to Kara,” I finished my thought.

He stopped my body in mid-air, holding me there, letting me continue. “She’s the girl you tried to kill. Because she’s more powerful than you. I can see purple in your eye. Like her.”

He squinted, annoyed. “There’s no purple in my eye.”

“In your right eye,” I said.

“Kara survived that?” he asked, incredulous.

And I realized what I’d done. Up until this point, he thought he’d killed her during the checkpoint. Which was why he was only concerning himself with me.

He turned away from me, letting my body fall back to the train, and headed for the stairs.

I wanted to run after him, but I knew he’d throw me off the train and that would be the end of it. What was I supposed to do?

He would enter the train and kill all of them, easily, including Kara, who was unconscious.

Felicity and Jeff exited the small thicket when Jeff finally remembered. “Oh!” His sudden exclamation made her flinch. “Sorry,” he said. “I remembered—I heard a girl’s voice over the radio just before the men got there. She sounded frantic.”

“What?” she asked.

But before he could explain, she ran back into the trees, to the small flaming outpost. Jeff followed, losing distance because she was much faster.

I felt everything collapsing in on itself. The mission would end here. We beat the checkpoint. We beat the fleet, but we couldn’t beat the one man. Which was why the Authority kept him. Because he was powerful beyond what was natural to this world. He was invincible. Kara was the only one who could beat him, but she was unconscious.

You can beat him, said the voice.

I don’t have powers, I thought.

You have me.

I didn’t know how that would help.

Trust me, the voice said.

I do, I thought.

Fight, the voice crashed through my mind.

I ran after Kayden. He’d reached the top of the stairs. I threw my sword at him. He stopped the sword in mid-air, just as it was about to pierce his back. He turned around, facing me. He turned the sword around in the air so that the blade was facing me, then he shot it towards me with his mind.

The blade came right at me, and I shielded my face, closing my eyes.

I knew the blade would pierce my hand and come through my face.

But nothing happened.

I could hear nothing but the wind passing around me, the engine rumbling below, making more crackling sounds as if it were going to break any moment now.

I removed my hand from my face, opening my eyes. I saw the sword was hanging there in the air, inches from my face. Kayden was confused, raising a hand now to try to propel the sword through me. It didn’t move.

He was genuinely shocked.

I chose you, the voice told me. There are billions of people in the world, and I chose you, Catherine.

I believed it with my whole heart now more than ever. More than any philosophy, more than any string of words or any string of thoughts, I believed that I actually mattered.

Somehow, and against all else, I believed it.

I stepped past my sword, taking the handle of it and walking towards Kayden, who looked afraid now. Our swords clashed together and we began fighting, exchanging blows. I was keeping up with him now. The voice, the person, the higher power, was helping me. Speaking to me. Telling me how to move and fight. I let it lead me. I let the person lead me. Kayden was struggling now.

He hit my sword out of the way with his, stepping back. “You’re not a half-breed.”

“Nope,” I said. And I shrugged.

“Then who are you?”

“I’m Catherine.”

“How?” he asked, wondering how this was possible.

The world is bigger than either of us realize, I thought.

He took a swing at me, but my Helper guided my response. I leaned away from the strike, blocking it with my sword. Then I leaned forward, thrusting my sword at his side. He blocked it, which allowed me to slice my sword across his leg.

In his shock, he didn’t react quickly enough when I brought my sword back around and plunged it through his heart with both hands.

The black drained from his eyes, and they rapidly returned to their original blue color. His eyes held mine as he dropped his sword, and we stood there. Both in shock. The clouds separated above us and a beam of light washed over us, the rain dissipating for a few moments.

“Who was helping you?” he asked.

Somehow he realized I was being helped.

I am, the voice said to me.

I only looked into his eyes, watching him die. Then I pulled the sword from his heart, fast. He collapsed here, bleeding all over. I fell to my knees, completely out of breath and tired and spent.

The clouds blocked the sun once more, and the rain poured.

Felicity reached through the smoke and grabbed the headphones. They were on a long cord so she was able to stand a few feet from the fire. She coughed a little as she placed them on her head and heard a frantic young man yelling. She heard his message and immediately understood.

“They made it,” she said, barely believing what she’d heard.

Then she ran out of the forest, calling out on her short-wave radio. “Need backup! Move now! Catherine’s team made it.”

Scarlet had brought the ship down beside Troy. It had taken her a few long moments to figure out how to get the exit platform down. When she finally got it down, she’d run to Troy's side.

She was holding him now, in her arms.

He was still alive, but she knew he was going. She could sense it would happen any moment now. He’d been through hell these last few hours.

“I love you,” Scarlet said. “I’m in love with you.”

His eyes went wide and tears came to them. “I love you, too.”

Scarlet’s tears were pouring.

They looked at each other for long moments. There wasn’t much else to say. His face was pale. She placed a hand on it. He was cold. Pulling him slightly higher and leaning in, she kissed him on the lips. A cold kiss, as the rain fell over them.

He smiled and reached a hand out, taking hold of the back of her neck for a few moments. Their last moments. Then he coughed up blood, like in the dream.

A minute passed, and Troy died.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

THIS WORLD WAS cruel.

Scarlet had known that as long as she could remember.

It wasn’t for the faint of heart. It was for the rulers and the dictators. Not only the ones who ruled the Authority, not only the ones who ruled governments and kingdoms. But the rulers and dictators of every day. Those who woke up every day and fought for better circumstances. Leaders like Felicity. Leaders like Catherine. Leaders who lead themselves, their very wills.

And Troy.

He was a leader of the heart.

He led his own heart toward truth.

For the past many days, Catherine and Scarlet had been collecting and reading everything Troy had written, mostly while weeping. He wrote about Scarlet a lot, sharing his feelings.

They—the team and Felicity—were standing out here in the old, abandoned factory. It was late. Troy's body was being cremated before them.

It was a small ceremony.

They stood in silence, watching the body burn. It was morbid. Tears streamed down Scarlet’s eyes as she remembered the night of the mission. Everything they’d been through. They’d completed the mission at such a great cost. Then again, they’d known the cost.

After twenty minutes, standing here in silence, Felicity stood beside Scarlet. Everyone was spread out enough here that no one could hear Felicity.

“I have a mission for you,” she said.

Akio watched the body burn. He couldn’t help but think of the bet he and Troy had made in Mount Bellz. They’d tried to predict how long it would take them to get out of the mountain.

Troy’s prediction had been right. He’d won the bet.

Akio fought back tears, but ultimately had to give in. They flowed down his face, and he had to hold back sobs. Lucky for Troy, Akio would still be able to pay him for winning the bet, because they had wagered experience.

Akio would be sure to fulfill the bet as soon as possible.

Kara couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. Troy was a beautiful man in every way. She’d cared about him from the moment she’d met him. Not in a romantic way, but in a way that honored who he was. He was a poet. And a good guy.

I stared at the body, memories and images coming to mind. When my mom died, I hadn’t had time to process it, since we were in the middle of our mission. After the mission ended, it all slammed in on me. Right now, it hit me again, and I knew this wouldn’t be the last time.

My mind went back to those final moments of that day. I’d stabbed Kayden through the heart and sat beside him, catching my breath. Our train’s engine sputtered and popped and finally broke, and we came to a stop out there in the middle of nowhere.

Minutes later, Felicity and the Resistance arrived in jeeps and cars and other vehicles alike. She had an over-powered equalizer, and bounded all the way up to our train. When I saw her coming towards me, for a moment, I was scared she was going to berate me for ever taking on this mission. But I saw the compassion in her eyes. I ran towards her and actually collapsed in her arms, hugging her and crying. I’d been strong the entire mission, and I knew we were safe now, safe with the Resistance, and I broke down right there. She understood and held me for several minutes.

I told her about my mom, mumbling the story through my tears.

Felicity cried with me. I’d felt more compassion from her than I knew she had. After a duration, I knew we had a bond.

I thought of Troy. Memories flashed through my mind. I thought of my mother, her final words to me. I remembered her face when she first saw me in that dungeon, happiness and sadness interlaced in her expression.

Kara thought about Kayden.

Catherine had stabbed him through the heart, but he was still alive. Only way to kill a half-breed is to pierce their brain. Felicity wanted him alive. She had him in a holding cell designed specifically for him—a room that inhibited his powers. There was no way he would escape.

Kara had been told she was related to Kayden. Their blood was intermingled with some ancient race, like the strong men of old. Kara didn’t fully understand, and it hadn’t yet been fully explained to her, though Felicity had scheduled meetings to talk about it—as well as Kara’s role in the Resistance.

Even with knowledge of her powers, Kara couldn’t help but be filled with fear and anxiety. She didn’t want to serve the Resistance in a large way. She didn’t want to have the powers she had. And, right now, she could only think of Troy and how much she would miss him.

To honor Troy’s memory, she decided to investigate her powers and this world, because she now knew there was more to it. Troy had been right all along. He’d been right about her.

Felicity said goodbye to all of them and left. She admired their bravery and their successful mission and let them off the hook for stealing the Resistance train. She said she’d give them some time off before she recruited them for a mission. They’d proved their value.

As I stood in silence watching the body burn, I knew that Troy was gone. He wasn’t that body. He was a soul, a person. I knew that there was more to this world than I knew. Like Troy, I decided I wanted to find out more.

I knew, standing here, that I would continue to fight the Authority, because I was angry. But I also knew that I needed to start looking. I needed to travel, even if that meant sneaking past the Authority’s checkpoints. I needed to explore this world.

I didn’t know what was and wasn’t impossible anymore. I even wondered for a fleeting moment, and then put it out of mind, if there was a way to get Troy back.

Or find him again.

Or my mom, for that matter.

I tried not to think about it. I wanted to find the locations my mom had told me about, places of magic and powerful people. After this mission, I knew this world was not enough for me any longer. Everything I thought I knew wasn’t enough. For my sake, and for Troy’s sake, I knew I had to go. I had to discover what was beneath the material in this world, beneath the visible things. Beneath the expected.

Everything was different now.

I was different now.

I had hope.

And maybe even a little bit of a plan.

THE END

You’ve reached the end of the first book of THE WINTER EDEN SERIES.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

My name is AJ.

Hi.

Recently I’ve been watching lots of ‘The Twilight Zone’ — the old Rod Serling version — reading Hemingway, and occasionally throwing a Julia Roberts’ movie into the mix.

‘Vertigo’ might be my favorite movie of all time.

One never knows.

And sometimes ‘The Net’ with Sandra Bullock.

I’m the bestselling author of a mid-grade book where a video game comes into real life. It’s called, ‘Diary of a Gamer Noob.’ So that’s cool.

And right now I’m looking to take over the YA space.

A little bit through writing.

And a lot through lattes.

My writing is powered by lattes.

When I’m not writing, I’m hanging with my friends. And continuing my Duolingo streak. And pondering how it is that I’m so handsome.

That’s my life in a nutshell.

(Although technically I’ve never lived inside of a nutshell).

I’d love for you to subscribe to my email list — because then I’ll be able to give you updates on the movies I’m watching and maybe even the books I’m writing. Who knows?

ITLPRESS.COM/AJDIAZ

Oh, and I’m writing the sequel to this book.

It will be called: KORA.

Thanks.

*taking a bow