Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(105)

Blood covers her face. Her eyes are open, but they don’t really see anything.

“You couldn’t just let us be,” I say. “It didn’t have to be like this.”

I aim the point of my bracelet right between her tear-filled eyes.

“Crying doesn’t fix anything,” I say. “You cry because you are weak.”

She trembles. She’s beaten, she’s helpless, and I don’t care.

All I have to do is straighten my fingers, then she will be no more.

The shuttle shudders. I hear and feel a rumble.

The engines—Gaston has started them up.

It’s enough to distract me, to make me look at what I have done.

A deep cut above Bello’s eye pulses with red blood. Her nose lies at an angle, bone or maybe cartilage sticking out of a jagged rip that leaks blood down her cheek. Her upper lip is split, bleeding badly. Her front two teeth are gone, and the left incisor is broken in half, a splintered tip jutting from bloody gums.



A strong hand, gentle on my shoulder.

“That’s enough,” Bishop says. “Come to the pilothouse.”

The kids are staring at me, wide-eyed, openmouthed, as are Okereke, Cabral, Borjigin and Opkick. A handful of Aramovsky’s young circle-stars stand there, their faces alive and drinking in the violence. They look at me with newfound respect. I have spoken a language they were programmed to understand.

Bishop lifts me, sets me on my feet.

“Put Bello in an empty storage room,” he says. “Lock her in. Don’t hurt her further.”

People rush to gather her up, just as the kids outside rushed to gather up Farrar after Bishop knocked him out.

At the coffin room entryway, Barkah and Lahfah stare at me. How much of Bello’s beating did they see?

The shuttle shudders again. The unseen engines scream so loud I almost cover my ears, then the noise drops down to a mere roar.

I sprint to the pilothouse, gesturing for the two Springers to follow me.

Inside, both Gaston and Spingate are bathed in color.

“Preflight checks complete,” Gaston says. “Shuttle, give us handholds.”

Spots on the black floor rise up, seem to flow right out of the solid surface. Gaston and Spingate each grab one. Barkah and Lahfah do the same.

“The floor of the pilothouse accommodates for sudden banks or thrust, but it’s not a perfect system,” Gaston says. “That means hold on tight. Shuttle, open internal comm.”

“Internal comm open, Captain.”



When Gaston speaks again, I hear his words echo throughout the shuttle. “Everyone, get into a coffin and stay there. This ride will be short but the landing might be bumpy.”

He waves his hand. I hear something click. He looks at me, and when he talks his voice is normal.

“We’re ready,” he says. “Is this still what you want?”

Behind Gaston, one of the walls shows the rising sun. The blazing red orb has just lifted free of the horizon.

“Take us to the clearing,” I say. “As fast as you can.”

Gaston nods. “Shuttle, initiate flight plan.”

We lift off. I feel us banking slightly this way and that, but as Gaston told us, the floor shifts instantly at each movement, tilting to counter the effects. Despite that, I grip the handhold far harder than I ever held the spear.

We rise quickly. Images on the walls change, showing us the spreading grandeur of Omeyocan. In seconds we are up high, much higher than the Observatory. We can see mountains off in the distance, great rivers, vast plains and the ever-present yellow jungle.

Barkah and Lahfah look terrified, but they hold on tight and make no noise. They have suffered much. A broken leg, a ruined eye, burned and blistered skin. Some of their cuts have crusted over, others still leak blue blood.

“Five minutes,” Gaston says.

The sun is up—has the battle already begun?

I look at Bishop. Cuts and welts dot his swollen face. His knuckles drip blood to the pilothouse floor. The beating his creator gave him…I don’t know how any human being could keep going after that, yet here he stands, at my side and ready to go even further.

“You look terrible,” I say.

He smiles. “And you look like a warrior.”



I keep one hand locked on the handhold while the other feels my face. My broken nose. O’Malley, hitting me so hard. His knife. The way it slid into him…the shock on his face, his horror at knowing he’d gotten what he’d sought for a thousand years and I had just taken that away from him.

“You had to do it,” Bishop says softly. “But what you killed, that wasn’t O’Malley.”

He knows my thoughts.

I want to believe he’s right, but I can’t. Kevin was still in there, at least some small part. If I had captured him rather than killing him, maybe I could have found a way to bring him back. Instead, I stabbed him to death.

In my head, I know I did the only thing I could. There was too much going on, blood and death and fire all around—there was no other option.

In my heart, though, I will always know I could have found a better way.

Bishop reaches out, touches my cheek. So gentle. It is almost enough to make me forget the horrors, forget the things I’ve done.

“And my progenitor,” he says. “Don’t feel bad about killing him, either, because doing so saved my life.”