District Two; Esterwick Government Complex, western quadrant.
Valiant Blackwood, 53 years, Victor of the 125th Hunger Games.
It always was his job to protect them.
He's not about to forget about that now.
Even the older victors back in One always left the job to him; keeping everyone together. For years that's all Valiant's been trying to do. Keep them safe, keep everything together.
When they first started planning all this, when they first started talking about rebellion, he was terrified. He still is. All he could think about was the death, the bloodshed, and clearly they've all seen enough of that. He's always had it better than most. Didn't have to volunteer, but wanted to anyway. Didn't have to suffer to some of the lengths that the other victor's have.
But there was still always that lingering feeling, that he wasn't doing enough.
Maybe that's why he resorted to caring for everyone.
But now, striding back out into the flaming grounds, he's not so sure that he'll be able to do it. There's no telling what's really going on, in the middle of all of it. Even the houses beyond the property are up in flames, smoke pouring into the sky. The pilot doesn't really care what he's hitting. It's not going to just be them that takes hits in all of this. It's innocent people, bystanders to all of this rebellion who never asked for it in the first place.
All of this only means something if they do their job.
It's hard, though. The smoke is stopping him from making out half the people around him, the gunshots forcing him into cover just when he thinks he can see someone. It's blinding him, sending fiery stabs of pain through his throat every time he inhales. The ground is rough and uneven underfoot - one wrong step and he's going down, or triggering something that didn't go off the first time. The jet circles around again, lower this time, but nothing falls from the sky. Maybe the pilot's out, finally. That would be one small miracle, in the middle of all this.
There's a body, far on the terrace. He sees Emori go through a window and then Luca on her heels, Seren and Blair right behind him.
That's more people accounted for. He saw Tanis, before he got Dimara through. Nadir's with Kane, now, so she must not have been able to follow. It appears like the Fours have managed to stick together, but that must mean they're missing Rooke. Or maybe he just can't see them all. At least most of them have someone, most of them have a set of eyes to watch their back.
Not everyone, though. And he remembers the words don't engage alone, ringing through his mind over and over again.
Alone equals death. That's something he he learned a very long time ago. This wasn't the first time he heard those words.
But it all flies out the window.
He's not sure how he thinks to look over his shoulder, one last time, when he had no reason to. But it's at that moment that his eyes finally land on Aveza. Mia and Kiero aren't far in front of her, and that's when he finally catches sight of Vance. He's with them, which means he's safe, and Valiant knows that without a doubt. It's the same way the Fours stick together. You have to look after your own first.
Which means now he needs to find Ivory.
That could be more difficult than finding anyone else.
Chances are she's already managed to get herself right in the middle of something that Valiant doesn't even have a shot at imagining; that's what he's used to. At least it's not coming as a shock, to find Ivory missing when someone's looking for her, probably involved in something she shouldn't be.
The Peacekeepers nearby are falling easy enough, if they're not running. The ones that are staying don't seem too keen to start gunning down the victors, not for people that don't actually have any overall control of the country. It's who's among them that's worrying him, a figure that's most blurred over with smoke, dark in contrast to their white and gray uniforms.
He doesn't have to see her face to know. It's not like seeing her face would even help. Luca didn't have the privilege for pictures, just descriptions that could fit anyone, if you looked the right way.
But Valiant doesn't need anything more than a description, to know that the woman walking through the Peacekeepers coming from the building is someone he's supposed to kill. It's not just that she needs to die. It's that there are still people outside the building that need to get in, that have jobs to do. Valiant was always supposed to stay outside, to take care of things here.
The Peacekeepers are starting to spread out. There are three still around her. Dark hair, even darker eyes.
She's not looking at him.
He sees her raise the gun. He doesn't see who she's aiming for, and doesn't care.
The first Peacekeeper's helmet shatters under the first bullet he fires, and then the second one hits home, where the glass is no longer protecting his neck and face. He falls, and blood sprays all over the woman's front when he does. One of the others starts firing back at him and he shelters behind the last piece of debris that's left, before it's him and them, nothing between them.
There are bullets slamming, unrelenting, into the other side. One will break through eventually.
He swings out. He's not scared of what's going to happen to him.
He goes low this time, and his next bullet hits in the space between armor, at the top of the next Peacekeeper's thigh. He falls, screaming. No way he's dead, but it's easier, to have one less person aiming at him. He's not that far, now. There are still other bullets flying between them, from other people who are all missing their targets. He's headed right through the crossfire, hoping, praying—
He's within a foot. The Peacekeeper backs up. Maybe they really are unwilling to kill the victors. The woman's bullet scrapes over the top of his shoulder, but the pain feels very far away. She throws herself out of the way, and the bullet that comes out of his own gun misses her head by two inches as she goes skidding through the dirt. The Peacekeeper hasn't retreated fully, and Valiant knows that if he stops paying attention that'll be the second he decides to kill him for good, instead of avoiding it.
The woman aims another shot at him and then the gun clicks, empty, so he lunges for the Peacekeeper, grabbing his legs and taking them both to the ground. He pulls the trigger and the bullet sinks into the man's arm. Valiant doesn't want to kill him. He got involved in this to save himself, probably, his family. He never wanted any of this.
They're one and the same.
Valiant shoves him away and then shoots again. The bullet hits him in the shin, and his scream is a pitch higher than the first one that he hit as he drags himself away through the dirt.
He's already tired. He's too old for this, never wanted any of this, but if it was him or the people he had spent so long trying to protect, that wasn't much of a choice at all.
He turns back.
She was holding a different gun. Not spending too much time reloading another one, not giving him a second to breathe like he had hoped for. A different gun, one he hadn't seen. Smaller, hidden in the folds of her jacket, in a place that was so close he hadn't even noticed it. He thinks of all the years they spent training him at the Academy, to notice everything, to never stop looking until you were certain of every advantage they had.
It's been so long, since then.
She pulls the trigger.
Valiant's not sure where in his chest the bullet sinks in, because all that takes over is the pain.
He's two feet from the ground when he sees the woman turn, only vaguely, as Ivory slams into her.
The force of the hit hurts him, a bullet lodged in his chest, and neither of them fall. Her gun is lodged in-between their bodies, useless now that Ivory's on her. He knows what the fury's like, when it's made to rise, like all the force of a hurricane. Ivory has every right to be angry, but even anger isn't taking this woman down, anger from a victor with more kills under her belt than most.
Valiant forces himself over, onto his knees, and the pain nearly makes his vision white out. He can taste the blood in his mouth, his lungs fighting back against every breath he's forcing himself to take.
Someone's getting punched. Someone's yelling. He can hear everything, but see almost nothing. Just their shapes moving back and forth, trading blows, so blurry he can hardly tell who's who. He makes it to his knees, but no further. He can't lift his arms any further up, anyway. He grapples for her knees, and knows that if Ivory even saw him coming close to grabbing her she'd be running; he must come in contact with the right set of legs, because of that, so he throws all his weight behind it and pulls.
He hits the ground again, and he loses his grip on the woman's knees but not before she topples over and then lands half on top of him. It's not a second longer before Ivory follows, and then he really can't breathe. It's like someone's stuck a brand in him, a burning hot iron. Everything's on fire around him but it's not any better on the inside either.
Ivory's not doing it on purpose. He knows that.
They both go rolling off him together, and he tries to follow, but can hardly move. It feels like he's been paralyzed. His fingers only just manage to graze the edges of her jacket, struggling to find purchase where there is none.
They're too far for him now, and he can't roll over on his side to see what's happening.
Someone screams, again. He's not sure if it's one of them or someone much further off.
He feels the blood spray all over the ground, the edges of it splattering across his cheek. His own breathing is very faint but he can hear the wet, ugly gurgle of someone struggling to breath through all the blood, the signs of a throat that's no longer intact.
Two seconds later, Ivory grabs him by the shoulders.
He tries to turn his head, tries to see what happened, but Ivory forces his head back, trying to keep him still. Her hands are alarmingly bloody. Honestly, that's probably a good thing.
"Dimara," he forces out. There's definitely blood in his mouth. "You need to— you need to find her. You need to help her."
Ivory's not good in life or death situations unless she's the one handing out the death. When someone's dying in front of her, when she's looking at the aftermath of something she didn't participate in, that's when things go sour. She doesn't know what to do here. She wants to run, he can tell, but ducks closer as the gunfire starts up again.
"Go," he insists. He's not going to last much longer anyway. "Please go."
She's in danger the longer she's out here. If this is the last thing he's going to do, and it feels like it is, then he wants to make sure she's on her way to safety. He wants that to be the thing he remembers, when he finally lets himself go. They already lost Royal, and Tilve's nowhere in sight. Two's already in pieces.
He won't let One turn into that too.
"Go," he repeats. It hurts to speak. Her hands are gentler on the sides of his face than he thinks they've ever been. He remembers training her and feeling like a parent with a rebellious, out-spoken child. He thought she'd volunteer and get herself killed, with the mouth she had on her.
He's very glad he was wrong.
She swallows, and then nods. He doesn't watch her grab the gun that he dropped because his eyes are already so fogged over, but he feels her let go and stand back up. It feels like there's too much smoke in his eyes, and that any second someone will come running through and it will dissipate. It feels like safety is just on the other side, and he hopes for her sake that it is.
The last thing he sees is her running off.
It's very easy, to close his eyes.
Kelsea Faraday, 13 years, District Ten Female.
Every corner we turn I keep expecting something terrible to happen.
The noise from outside is still awful, the sounds of things burning and falling apart hard to ignore, even as we're running. I'm not trained to ignore the rest of the chaos like everyone else really is. It's all I can focus on, those noises and all the people that could still be out there. Vance, and Kellen, and I'm sure if Valiant hadn't been so determined to go back out there on his own that I would have been following him.
Safety only really feels like it when everyone else that needs to be safe is too.
There's not a chance in hell that Dimara's going to let me go, though.
I get it. I'm not going to fight her on it. At this point her hand around my wrist is probably one of the only things that's keeping me from imagining myself somewhere else entirely, or pretending that this is just some awful dream.
It's definitely not.
It doesn't help that this place feels like a ghost town, despite all the noise outside. For all we know this building is empty - there are half a dozen others to comb through as well, and the Sentinels hiding in them are probably doing a pretty damn good job at it, too. It's the thought that something's waiting for us that's terrifying. We're trying to be as quiet as we can, doing an alright job at it so far, but that doesn't really mean anything. They know we're here. They were waiting to ambush us this whole time.
That means that the idea of someone waiting for us downstairs, just outside the control room, isn't so much of an idea as it is a certainty.
The second we're down the stairs and enclosed in the middle of a badly lighted hallway, it feels like we've gone somewhere that we shouldn't have.
Don't have a choice now.
This is all riding on us. We're following Audrel down right now to get to the cameras, so that she can see what needs to be seen. More importantly is the nearly non-existent weight of the earpiece off the shell of my ear. We need this to communicate, to talk to each other when we need it most. That's even more important than the cameras are.
We need to be able to protect each other.
There's no one down here. No hints of footsteps around the next corner, or a shadow out of place, leaning out of a nearby doorway. There should be someone down here. I wonder if this is how the guard felt going into the Presidential mansion, wondering where everyone had gone and where they could be, if they weren't here. Hiding still, no doubt. Waiting for us to fall for something again.
"That's it," Audrel murmurs, and points at a doorway right at the end of the hall. Maybe they're inside, then. There's no one guarding outside the doors, which I feel like would be the more obvious, appropriate option, but I guess they're neither of those things. I don't know why I'm surprised.
Linnet creeps up to the door and stops. Listens. I almost don't know why she's bothering. If they don't want to be heard, they won't be. Orick still sidles up against the opposite door, waiting.
One of them pushes the door open. I don't see who, because I shut my eyes at the obnoxious creak the door lets out, as it gives and goes sliding inwards.
Nothing happens.
I haven't even fully opened my eyes again by the time Dimara's pulling me down the hall, so fast that I nearly trip over my own two feet. Orick pushes Audrel through the doors and then ushers the two of us after her, and the second we're all inside they shut the doors tight behind us.
There's no one in here.
"Someone should've been here," Audrel says. Her voice is very calm, for this entire situation.
"You think that's weird, that no one is?"
"Everything they do is weird," she mutters, and then stops to take it all in. The room itself isn't very big, but every inch of available wall space is covered by a screen or monitor. Most of them are on, save for a few in the corner, bringing forth displays of what must be all the cameras, at least in this building. It looks like there are several broadcasting other areas too.
"What do you want us to do?" Orick asks.
"Shut up for a second."
Not like I was going to talk in the first place.
"I'm gonna go back upstairs," Dimara murmurs, and I look up at her.
"You shouldn't go alone."
"Don't have a choice. You guys need to stay here. Valiant won't have gotten far, and he was supposed to be with us anyway. I'll find him, don't worry."
Of course I'm going to worry. No one's supposed to be left alone in the middle of all this, least of all us. Being alone is too dangerous.
I don't have a choice, though, but to let Dimara slip back out the doors. She can handle herself, probably better than almost anyone. That still doesn't change the fact that the people in here knows she's coming, and they could be anywhere. It doesn't help that I'm stuck in this room because I just want to make her life easier, for the time being. It doesn't mean I want to be.
"Okay," Audrel says, and then points at the black screens. "Get those on for me, and turn on some more lights. I'm gonna connect all of our comms to the main power source in here, it should make the signal strong enough that we can hear each other no matter where we go."
"And how long will that take?"
"Not that long. Ten, fifteen minutes tops. Might take a few extra minutes for everyone to connect through, though."
Audrel says fifteen minutes like she means ten seconds. I hear fifteen minutes like she said two hours. Linnet heads for the lights along the wall and Orick seems focused on getting the remaining screens up and running, which leaves me to just stand here. That's about as much as I thought I'd be doing. I'm no use here, and everyone knows it. But it means I'm safe, relatively speaking. For now anyway.
Unoccupied, I find myself staring at the screens. There was one at the top of the stairs, not all that far from where we came in, and that's the one that Dimara passes by now, so quickly I almost don't see her, with so many different monitors to look at. She's moving fast, at least, headed with purpose back to the window, and it makes me feel a bit better.
At least, it does. For a few seconds.
I almost don't see the figure pass by a camera, next to the screen I was looking at. It's so quick it seems like nothing more than a shadow, and for a second I'm brought back to the arena, constantly wondering if what I'm seeing was real, or a trick.
This is real.
"Who was that?" I ask, and Audrel's head snaps up. The person on the screen disappears as fast as they appeared, but two seconds later they're back, this time on a different screen. The same one that Dimara had been on just a minute before. She looks as if she knows exactly where she's going, and from this angle it's all too easy to see all the weapons she's got on her, practically laden with them, but she doesn't act as if she's weighed down by them at all.
In fact, I think they're making her move faster.
And Dimara may be moving with purpose, but she's still trying to be cautious. Not moving nearly as fast as this girl is, anyway, who seems to know exactly where she's headed and what will be there when she arrives.
She's going after Dimara.
The comms aren't up yet. They won't be up, before those two meet. There's no way to warn her.
Well, there is.
"She's going to hate me," I get out, and pull the door back open. Orick nearly grabs me by the coat and yanks me back into the room, but clearly thinks better of it. They can stay here. That's fine with me. I'll go up there alone, I'll go after the two of them alone. What's down here really matters, there's no doubt about that, and Linnet and Orick know it's the most important thing to them at the moment.
I know what's most important to me.
And it's not down here.
Tanis Maes, 15 years, District Seven Female.
Blair must have gotten Nadir out.
At least that's what I keep telling myself, as I open a nearly rusted over side door to the building and edge inside.
I'm in a stairwell, and even though it leads deeper into the ground I'm not too keen on intentionally burying myself alive. The prospect of going up isn't much better, not when I know the roof can't be that far off, and the sniper is still up there, but I've got to pick a direction. I've got to find someone.
It just depends if the first person I find is going to be good or bad. We all know our luck thus far hasn't exactly been stellar; I see no reason why it's going to change now. I just know that despite my better judgement I can't sit here and wait for someone to come and pick me up, give me a purpose. I can't even remember who our target was supposed to be. Everything we discussed yesterday and in the car today might as well be a complete blur. It's all very far away now.
The second the door is shut I have no way of knowing what's going on outside. There are a few windows several floors up, but I almost don't want to see.
I'm alone, I don't know where exactly I'm supposed to go, and there's no way of fixing either of those problems.
I need to think about myself, not about what's happening outside.
All of that is far out of my control.
I poke my head out into the hallway but quickly duck back into the stairwell. Everyone running for the building is going to wind up on the ground floor, save for a select few that decide to go further into the complex, or manage their way into a stairwell like I did.
I take my time headed to the next floor up. The hallway looks completely different from the one below it. Brighter, all the curtains drawn open. The marble floors and pillars look like nothing has touched or seen them in years, but we all know how untrue that is. This place is too nice to be housing a bunch of monsters, to be concealing them around any corner someone turns.
One knife, one gun, as I take a wary step out into the hall. I don't really think there's a point to taking the hatchet out. They'll either be too far away to properly hit or so close that I won't have time to get it up between us. Either way I end up dead, encumbered by a weapon that I always thought would be the thing that saved me at the end of the day.
The earpiece crackles, and I wince. Still silent, thus far, but maybe that means it's close. Maybe that means in a few minutes I'll be able to hear something other than my own footsteps, and someone will finally be able to come up and meet me. That, or I go back down. Either one will work for me, so long as I have someone watching my back. I shouldn't have even agreed to leave Nadir and Blair in the first place, nor should I have gotten to the building alone. What in the world was I thinking, with how on edge I am now?
The hallway opens up at the end, revealing where the main staircase comes up and out. There are rooms in every direction, half the doors closed. The ones that are open only serve to heighten my nerves, about what could be hiding in there even though I can't fully see.
It feels like someone's looking at me, but I have no way to know that.
I expect someone to be waiting on the stairs, too, but they're thankfully empty. What I do notice are the irregularities along the walls. One, about two feet away, halfway up. There's another closer to the middle of the stairs, one on either side, nearly concealed by the railings. Small little bundles, stuck to the walls, and I back up.
The bombs coming out of the jet weren't the only explosives they had.
It's not obvious, like a neon red stick of dynamite, but it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they're meant for detonation. Wires that are barely sticking out, like someone was almost in a rush to put them together.
I stick to the middle of the stairs, even though I feel like I'm too much in the open. It's better than being near one of those as it detonates, even though I don't know how it would. Is someone far away, controlling the charges? Are they just set to go off at random times, or when someone gets too close to them? In that case, I'd probably be dead already.
They don't end there. There's more on the wall at the corner around the bottom of the stairs.
If these were set off, they'd collapse the entire staircase. A very large portion of the floor above it. It could kill so many people, if they time it right. And they've already killed more than what we planned. I don't doubt that this isn't the only area that's rigged up either. There are half a dozen huge, sprawling buildings for them to fill. They just knew this one would be the first we got to. It's probably set up even better than the rest.
I won't touch them to find out, either. All I can do is warn them.
"Nice find, kid."
It's a good thing I had just gotten off the stairs. I turn around so fast my feet slip on the marble floor and struggle for purchase. The gun nearly goes flying, but I manage to hold on.
Someone's standing at the top of the stairs. Not anyone I recognize. I can't help but wonder how long she's been standing there watching me, waiting for me to finish my descent, or waiting for me to notice. The thought that she could've just shot me in the back, in the head, it hits me with a dizzying amount of force. That's probably what I would have done, had I been at the top and she the bottom.
And that's clearly why we're two very, very different people.
The earpiece goes all static again, and I freeze. This time a voice comes through, broken and hardly audible, but I take one last, huge deep breath.
"Guys," I say quietly. I can't tell if someone is responding, or if someone even heard me.
She pulls the gun off her back. I take off.
I won't be able to outrun her for that long. She's going to gun me down the second she gets a good shot. I just need to outpace her, just need to keep a good pace until someone can intervene, because there's no way I'm killing her on my own. I swing around the next corner, and she comes very leisurely down the stairs. It would be annoying, if I wasn't freaking out.
"—Tanis?"
"I'm gonna need some help," I manage. "Second floor."
I need to find the stairs. I need to find the stairs. Why did I think heading up, away from everyone I knew would help me, was ever a good idea? Someone down there will help me. Someone down there will be able to intervene, to save my life.
A bullet hits the wall and slams back off the marble just as I round the next corner.
I need to find the stairs.
And I need to find them fast.
Vance Derora, 16 years, District Eight Male.
The second the comms go up, everyone starts talking so fast and so loud I don't even know what I'm supposed to focus on.
I nearly consider ripping it out of my ear before I hear Tanis' voice, clearly trying very hard not to sound panicked.
Of course it's that that sticks out the most, almost instantly. Almost everyone else is barking out orders, trying to figure out where other people have gone. Trying to figure out who's alive, but I can't think about that for more than a few seconds before my own panic threatens to bubble up, and that's about the last thing I'm in the mood for right now.
Mia grabbed me, the second I got separated from Kelsea and Dimara, and that's about the only certainty I've had thus far.
There's no telling why Mia makes me feel safe. She shouldn't, with her track record. It's probably more Kiero, because at the end of the day I don't think Aveza's any better than Mia is. It's a wonder Kiero hasn't gone insane the past few years, trying to deal with the both of them. With Kelsea and Dimara long gone and no clear direction otherwise, we need to pick something to do. Someone to go after. Anything, really, as long as it gives me a purpose.
"Let us go for her," someone says. I'm not sure who. "We have a car, it's good to go, we'll get there the fastest."
"Do not go running off right now," Mia snaps. "I don't need you missing too. Let Deverin get her. Mentors can take care of their tributes, believe me."
I don't have to believe her. I've lived that.
"Vance? You're okay?" It's very clearly Kelsea's voice that's coming through now, labored, like she's running. It's a miracle I even hear her through anything else, trying not to trip over my own two feet as Mia pushes me around a corner and through the nearest doorway.
"I'm good. You're still with Dimara?"
"Not - not exactly. I'm headed her way right now, she's not answering."
She's not answering; because she's not connected to us yet, or because of some other reason? God, I don't even want to think about the possibility of there being another reason, but I know there could be. I had watched Mia out there, just barely. Watched her catch sight of a body that I didn't even recognize, half charred from the fire, but she had recognized it, and then Kiero and Aveza, more slowly. It's something that I had looked away from because I was unwilling to confront the reality that people were dying, people I should've known. People I would have known, had things not gone so terribly wrong.
"Kels, you need to be careful—"
"I know, I know," she insists wildly. "Just make sure everyone else is okay."
"And would someone take care of that fucking sniper?" someone else asks. "He's gone from the roof, mostly everyone's inside now. Someone needs to find him before he sets up somewhere else."
"Sounds like a party," Mia responds. "Let's go."
Perfect. Just what I was missing from my day; going toe to toe with a sniper who's already shown he's more than willing to open fire on a halfway innocent crowd of human beings.
"We need to find Kelsea and Dimara too," I insist, unwilling to leave them alone. They obviously got down to the control room just fine, and Dimara must have left, but if Kelsea's going after her now then something is seriously wrong. No matter if she can handle herself or not, I've watched people just as capable as her die already today, and I don't want her testing her luck.
I don't think any of us do.
"Two birds with one stone," Kiero says. "They went to the right of the first building, that's where he was close to anyway."
I don't think Kiero wants to go find a sniper anymore than I do, even though Aveza looks like she's ready to kill the guy with nothing but her bare hands. Something she's clearly much more eager, and better at, than I am.
That fear for the others is still present in the back of my mind. I can still hear more, only vaguely familiar voices, but nothing from anyone else. No sign of Celia, Rory, or Rooke, who were all supposed to be together. Blair and Nadir could be who knows where. And Dimara, who is seemingly already in danger, is radio silent. It's taking too long for all of this to fall into place, at the moment we need it to be quicker than ever.
"You want to get out of that head of yours?" Mia asks me. "Take the gun out and let's go kill the bastard."
Easier said than done, and she makes it sound very easy.
I wish I had that level of confidence.
"Kelsea, we're headed to you," I tell her. "Don't do anything stupid."
"Might be too late for that?"
"Don't say that."
I don't want to look for the sniper, and it's not just because of how dangerous that plan in. I'd rather get directions and look for Kelsea, and then find Dimara, and know without a doubt that the both of them are safe. From there we can find everyone else. I don't care about killing them. That doesn't matter if we lose everyone else anyway. The Sentinels on our side won't survive with no one to back them up. It'll be like we were never here at all.
Prometheus may be able to light the world, but even they can't save it alone.
Nadir Kuenzli, 17 years, District Twelve Female.
I don't see where Blair goes, nor do I ever see if he finds Seren or not.
The second the sniper takes a break Kane shoves me forward, grabs Meritt by the collar of his jacket to stop him from running in the opposite direction, and then herds both of us right up against the side of the building.
There's only so many bullets Kane can waste before it becomes pointless. Three's dead, and there's less bullets coming from the roof. The jet is also circling lower, too, like it'a almost ready to come down. That's another body to deal with, possibly more than one. There's no way to know. I can't even concentrate, over all the static in my ear. It's trying desperately to get through, but it's not happening just yet.
"This plan is absolutely fucked," Meritt says under his breath, and I hear him but I don't think Kane does, which is why Meritt skirts around him in two seconds flat and then takes off.
So there's the static, the things on fire, Kane yelling after Meritt, and all the noise in my own head to think about.
It's a lot.
The jet interrupts all of that, the wind growing stronger the closer it gets to the ground. It's edging closer to the buildings; and closer and it will crash right into them.
"Do you think it's landing?" I ask. Kane had been leaning around the building, clearly trying to catch a glimpse of wherever Meritt had gone, but now he turns to look back at me. It's a likely option. Whoever it is won't bomb the building, not when there's too many people inside that they don't want to kill, accidentally or not. Chances are they'll get out and start fighting themselves.
He wants to go after Meritt. I can see it all over his face.
But he won't.
He smashes one of the few remaining windows at the side of the building open and I clamber through, not even having to be urged. Not that the building's any better, with how many people I've seen already get inside.
"Audrel, stairs," Kane says, as soon as he's inside after me. "We're going up. And keep an eye out for Meritt."
Whatever is said in response, clearly he hears it much better than I do. All I hear are a list of garbled instructions, every other word cut off and nearly massacred into something that doesn't even make sense. He grabs my arm with a very distinct sense of purpose and starts pulling me off down the hallway. We pass one door, and then a second, but the third one he finally opens and pulls me through, before he slams it shut behind us.
Right. Stairs.
The whole building shakes when we're not even halfway up. Even though we can't see it it's unmistakable, the sound of the jet as it touches down on the roof.
Kane slams the access door open and doesn't even hesitate before he's got the gun up, aimed at the jet that's clear across the roof. Someone's already out, and the second the bullets start flying she disappears around the other side of it, and I can't tell where she goes. There's still someone piloting it, though. The glass isn't hiding them at all - both of us can see him clear as day.
I was really hoping I could avoid the guns, but what is a knife going to do, against a jet?
I see the girl leap across the gap between two buildings, and then she rounds the corner to what is presumably the other door. The engines of the jet start up again, and the wind starts buffeting again.
Just dropping off a passenger, casual as can be. Ready to be back in the sky.
I pull out the gun and start shooting.
I can't even tell what I'm hitting. No doubt Kane's bullets are finding a home ten times easier than mine are. The glass all along the front of the jet is starting to crack, but we both watch as it picks back up off the roof, just a few inches. In less than a minute he'll be gone.
Less than five feet off the roof, the glass finally breaks.
It could have been a bullet from either of us, but it doesn't matter. Something clearly happens, whatever it may be. The jet swerves, tilting at an awkward angle as it tries to rise from the roof, and the left wing clips the edge of the building as it tilts downward. There's not very far for it to go. Bits of the wing are torn off as it tips right off the roof and into the courtyard below. It can hardly even fit, but it still hits the ground with a tremendous boom, and the wing gets half ripped off before it lays still, smoke pouring from one side of it.
There's no way to tell if we killed the man inside.
"I can't see him from here," Kane says. The cockpit's facing the opposite way, but there's a ladder leading down from the other building, all the way down to the ground.
"If I go down there—"
"You don't know that he's dead."
"I know, but if I climb down, and you come with me to the other roof, you'll be able to see him, right? In case he's not."
I've got a gun, too, not acting any differently about it. I'm not expecting Kane to kill him, if I go down there. That's just a back-up plan, an in case.
He nods. I take a deep breath and head for the other roof.
He never puts the gun away, but he still grabs my arm while I lower myself over the edge of the roof and down onto the ladder. It's not that far of a drop. Far enough that I would hurt myself, tremendously, but it feels higher than it is. There's no movement from behind the ripped open glass.
Not until I hit the ground, anyway.
Kane's already lowered himself down, gun at the ready, and the jet's hatch pops open. What's left of the windshield and the metal exterior slowly swings outward, and a hand is gripping at the edge of it. He's not dead. At this point, it's not even surprising.
He's also not armed. Or if he is, he's certainly not showing it. There's a healthy amount of blood all over his face, and the glass must have contributed to it but he's bleeding from the head, and it's all over his face, coating everything he even swerves towards. The bullet missed the center of his head, just barely, but it definitely hit. Enough for him to lose control, a deep enough graze that the jet went haywire, without someone to control it.
He nearly falls when he manages to get out, clutching at his head and back at the jet with the other hand.
I don't know what I expected. For him to be older, I guess. He's no older than Kane, if that. Just another kid who wanted nothing to do with what he was forced into. The world makes monsters of kids in every form, in every area of life. Even beyond the fences.
He looks at me. At the gun in my hand, pointed directly at him.
I expect him to care, too. But he clearly doesn't.
"You really," he starts, trying to regain his breath. "You really think any of us are afraid to die?"
We may all be kids in a situation we shouldn't be in, but there's a fundamental difference. That much is clear. The static bursts through in my ear again, too many voice filtering through after it. None of us want to die. We're all running away from it, as fast as we can.
But he isn't.
"We've been dead for years," he tells me. "Why not go out with a—"
There is no voice in my head telling me to pull the trigger, but it happens anyway.
It hardly seems like it was my fingers, that closed around the trigger. The next thing I know there's a bullet in his chest and he stumbles back up against the jet, a bright spot of blood blooming outwards from his right side, the smallest, hardly noticeable wisp of smoke coming from the end of the gun. It almost felt like it was Kane that fired the bullet, not me, but if it had been that there would have been some element of surprise. Shock.
I stay there until he sags to the ground, legs splayed out awkwardly underneath him in the dirt. He's already very limp, but for a second my feet feel completely rooted to the ground.
That's one more down.
I thought I would feel bad, until I heard those words come out of his mouth. The lack of life in him coupled with the fact that they only ever just wanted one last moment, and then all empathy went out the window. That's reserved for people like Cade, for all the people back at the entrance to the buildings who won't ever get back up.
This isn't about controlling the country, or starting all out civil war. It was never about them, or us.
It was just about going out with a bang.
"Pilot's down," I say, and whoever was still talking to in the earpiece goes silent.
Just because I no longer feel bad, doesn't mean I want to look at it any longer.
I turn back and head for the ladder.
Also, welcome to the 50's.
I promise I won't be saying anything like that again.
Until next time.
