Hotbloods 5: Traitors

“Well, if Gianne doesn’t get to him first, I’m going to kick his ass for being a romantic idiot.” I forced a smile onto my face and pressed on, with Ronad leading the way.

We reached the devastated lakeside once again, though instead of going around the shoreline, we moved past the rubble of the old concert hall and followed a wide road toward civilization. I imagined this was the usual means of getting in and out of the area, but it didn’t look like anyone had traveled along this path since the bombardment. A blanket of ash covered the ground, untouched by any footsteps but ours.

“How are we getting back?” I asked, as the path branched out into a cluster of streets. There were shops and a few terraced houses, but they were all boarded up. Ash streaked the cream walls, leaving them zebra-striped.

“Good old public transport,” Ronad enthused, gesturing toward another road that rolled away into the distance.

There were no other houses or buildings along this stretch of road, but I could see across a plateau of barren field, catching a glimpse of towns in the distance. Behind the canopy of trees that ringed the lake, I could just make out the peaks of the mountain range that surrounded Regium. On the wind, I heard the whisper of music and the hazy drone of one bellowing voice.

“She’s still going!” I said, while we jogged.

“Vengeance is a dish best served in endless soliloquy—did nobody ever tell you that?” Ronad chuckled, kicking a stone up the road.

I grinned, kicking it back to him. “I guess not.”

At the top of the road, which sloped up a low hill, we paused, surveying the landscape below. There was a small village at the bottom, little more than a hamlet, with a few houses and what looked like a blood bank, but Ronad was suddenly animated by the sight of it.

He pointed to an obelisk, larger than the one we’d used earlier, protruding from the ground. “You see that?” he asked, prompting a nod from me. “Well, that’s our ticket home!”

“What is it?”

He waggled his eyebrows at me. “You’ll see!”

Pulled along by his enthusiasm, I raced down the slope of the hill beside him, coming to a breathless halt on the main street of the hamlet, where the obelisk stood. It had a glowing button on the side, but this one was red in color. Ronad pressed it with the glee of a kid in an elevator, and the two of us patiently waited. With the executions still going on, I figured it would be a while before any public transport got up and running again.

My theory was shattered a short while later by the arrival of a long, silver, oblong ship. It sank out of the sky like a block of lead, wheezing and hissing as it descended to the ground, hitting the road with a bump. It seemed windowless, but there were two doors, one at either end, which opened with a mechanical whirr.

“Are we supposed to get inside that thing?” I whispered, as though it could hear me.

“No, you’re supposed to slap a saddle on it and ride it home,” Ronad teased. “Of course you’re supposed to get inside!”

Frowning, I took a tentative step inside the weird vessel. There were rows of seats, and though it hadn’t looked like there were windows from the outside, I soon realized that the entire metal shell acted as a two-way mirror, so passengers could see out, but nobody could see in. My nose wrinkled; it smelled sour, like New York buses.

“What now?”

Ronad rolled his eyes. “Sit down. I’ll deal with the rest,” he said, moving over to a panel by the door. It lit up as he touched it. Intrigued, I stayed beside him, glancing over his shoulder to see what he was up to. He seemed to be scrolling down a list of some sort, before settling on a set of symbols. He pressed it, then waved the pay device over a circular scanner. The doors closed.

“What did you do?” I asked, panicked, as the vehicle lurched upward.

“Gave it a destination,” he explained. “It’ll take us to the stop nearest the Idrax house.”

I frowned. “So, it’s a bus?”

“We call them Shunters, but I guess that’s the closest human equivalent.”

Trying not to fall over as the Shunter juddered upward, I slid into the first bench and leaned against the window, peering out. Ronad scooted in next to me, stretching out his legs. We were high up, the hamlet disappearing below us, the vehicle wheezing along at a leisurely pace.

“How come this is working but the cabs aren’t?” I wondered aloud.

“These start up again fifteen minutes before the end of big public events, so the elderly and infirm can leave the field before the crowds start swarming,” he explained. “I’ve never seen it happen with the executions, but it’s what used to happen before all of this, whenever there were festivals or concerts going on. Imagine all those people trying to get out at once—the sky is jammed with ships trying to get home, and the public transport is bursting at the seams. If they didn’t let people go early, it’d be a recipe for disaster.”

“Do you think Gianne really cares about the elderly or infirm?”

“Well, if she doesn’t, she must’ve forgotten to take the Shunters off their old event programming,” Ronad said. “Either way, as long as no soldiers get on, we’ll be back at the house before anyone else.”

The idea that we might’ve gotten away with it comforted me. My gaze turned back to the passing landscape. Though my muscles relaxed, my mind insisted on drifting back to the image of Navan’s face staring through the monitor. The swell of emotion that I’d been battling with, forcing it back down each time it threatened to come up, wouldn’t be ignored anymore. Tears welled in my eyes, cascading down my cheeks, the sobs coming in ugly wheezes that wracked my entire body.

Ronad put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me to him in a brotherly squeeze. “Hey, hey, what are these tears for?” he murmured.

“I’m scared he’s going to die… and I feel awful because… I want to see him so bad… but if he comes here, then… Gianne will find him, and just go back on her word… and he’ll be taken away forever,” I sobbed, unable to control myself. “I just want him to hold me… and tell me it’s all… going to be okay. I just… want to get in a ship… and go… back home with him.”

“One day you will, Riley,” Ronad promised, hugging me tight. “One day, all of this will just be a nightmare from your past, and it’ll never bother you again.”

I shook my head. “It won’t ever… end. We should… never have met you.”

Ronad sighed. “There’s a reason the two of you found each other, against all odds—which were pretty freaking slim, by the way—and that same impossible force will keep you together. I know it will.”

“I just want to see him,” I whispered miserably, burying my head in Ronad’s shoulder.

“You’ll see him again soon, and everything will be okay,” he reassured me. “I remember when Jareth found out about me and Naya, he locked her in her room, punched me in the face, and kicked me out into the street. I was sure he’d keep her from me forever.” A strange expression passed across his features. I guessed, in the worst way possible, Jareth really had done that, even though he hadn’t intended to kill his daughter.

“Anyway, Navan slipped out the back of the house while Jareth and Lorela were laying into Naya, and he snuck me the key to his cabin. They were demanding she refuse to see me again. I could hear them yelling from outside,” he continued. “They threatened to send her away to some aunt, and I could hear her crying. I just wanted to scale the wall and pull her into my arms, but I knew I had to wait. Navan promised he’d tell Naya where I was and help get her out of the house. I wasn’t exactly optimistic, but I was a fool in love—anything was possible!” He flashed me a sad smile.

“What happened next?” I pressed. There was something about his stories that soothed me.

“I got to the cabin and paced around for the next six hours, wondering if I’d ever see her again.” He laughed. “Then, I heard a knock at the door. I opened it, and—”