Departure(45)

Sabrina makes it over the web of fallen trees and vines, then Yul.

Behind us, I hear a scream through the smoke. Harper.

I jump and spin back over the vine-covered tree, rushing toward her.

She braces herself on a trunk, reaching for her abdomen. Her eyes meet mine for a second, then she spins around as another shot hits her. She disappears into the undergrowth, swallowed by the green ocean. Grayson is twenty feet behind her, and he turns, firing wildly into the woods. The smoke is clearing now as the battle shifts to the air.

One of Grayson’s shots connects. A shimmering figure, not ten feet from him, reels back into a tree. It flickers as it slides to the ground, falls forward, and lies there, a glittering hump of dull glass against the foliage.

“Harper!” I yell.

Grayson turns to me, and I’m about to call to him when a rapid barrage of fire fills the air, pressing down on us. It’s deafening, disorienting. I slip my gun in my jacket as trees bend and shatter all around me. A ship barrels down through the black cloud, nose first, right for me.

I turn, stagger to my left, fall, and push myself up, leaping across branches, climbing over everything in my path. The trees and brush cut my hands, arms, and face, but I push on, clawing for every inch. The ground booms, and the earth below me disappears. I’m thrown ten feet forward into a vine-covered tree. The ship is bulldozing the overgrown park, throwing dirt, plants, and bits of trees into the air.

There’s no use running anymore. I’m just one of the pieces of debris riding a wave of scorched earth. Just when I think it might stop, the ship explodes, launching me again into the air, much farther this time.

I land in a sharp, prickly bed of green, my head spinning. My hearing is gone. My limbs are numb. I sit up, but my head’s spinning. Have to get up. The fallen airship burns. Smoke fills the space from me to it. Harper. She’s right beside it. Fire will burn her. They will get her.

I blink. Can’t keep my eyes open. Have to.

Focus.

In the air above, the chorus of death and destruction still plays, silent now, flashes through the clouds of smoke, ships moving, semi-synchronized, lighting each other up.

I roll onto my stomach and push up, standing for a second, but I can’t control my body. It plummets back down to the ground as if a magnet’s pulling my midsection. I close my eyes, but the spinning gets worse.

A faint sensation. For a few seconds, I can’t place it.

Hands, gripping me, dragging me through the park.





26





I awake in darkness, to the sound of bottles clinking in the distance.

My body is battered and sore, but hey, what’s new? The headache is ruthless, but my biggest concern is my left arm, which I must have landed on during the carnage at Titan Hall. I was too pulverized to notice at the time. A single finger touch to my elbow sends a radiating wave of pain.

I reach for my jacket pocket, hoping . . . but the handgun is gone. The binoculars are in my other pocket. Still there. Yes, my captor removed the gun. Not an entirely positive sign.

I have one good arm to fight with and no information to go on: basically the same situation I’ve been in continually since Flight 305 crashed. Don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.

I wait for my eyes to adjust, to get a glimpse of where I am, but it never comes. The darkness is absolute. I’m indoors, I know that. The floor is hard and there’s no wind; it’s cold, but not unbearable.

Muffled footsteps. A large door swings open, revealing faint light. I hold my hand up, squinting, but I can’t make out who it is. It closes the door quickly, without a word, then stands there a moment, unmoving.

A match strike. The light from the flame lights my captor’s face from beneath. Not captor, rescuer . . . I think.

Grayson Shaw.

His face is bruised and caked with dried blood. Dirt and debris from the forest litters his long blond hair. There’s no hint of a smile. He touches the match to a candle in his other hand and sets it on the floor beside me.

We’re in a supply closet—in a store, I would guess. Shampoo and dish detergent line the shelves. Guess those weren’t in demand when humanity fell.

“How do you feel?” Grayson asks. It’s a question I never thought I’d hear come out of his lips.

I pause. Could this be a charade? A ploy to get me to talk? Could we both have been captured by the suited figures, who have enlisted him to facilitate their interrogation? It’s possible. There’s a fine line between paranoia and brilliance. I’m not sure which side I’m on right now.

I’m only sure of two things. One: I’m extremely lucky to be alive and in reasonably good shape. Very lucky indeed. Two: I need to find Harper. There were over a hundred survivors when I left for Stonehenge, and some are probably still out there somewhere, but she’s the one I’m after, the one I have . . . what were Sabrina’s words? An emotional connection to. Sabrina certainly has a way with words, a very clinical, unsentimental way, but if I’m being honest, she’s okay. She and Yul hid things from me, but I see why now. Messages from the future? Nah, wouldn’t have believed that five days ago.

Grayson fidgets as he waits for my response, and I realize his question must have felt awkward to him too, given our history: snarky comments escalating to casual threats culminating in a punch to the face—his face, two punches, in fact—and subsequent more serious threats.