CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“I still can’t believe it,” said Kira. Darkness was falling, and they were sitting in their assigned house: Kira tending the fire while Samm and the Third Division soldiers insulated the windows with couch cushions and mattresses. “Ariel and Isolde are Partials, like me—my sisters are my actual sisters, in some giant, cosmic sense.”
“If they’re still alive,” said Marcus. “I’m not trying to kill the buzz, but the odds are against it.”
“They’re alive,” said Kira. “Screw the snow, screw the nuke, screw the island full of revenge-fueled super-soldiers, they’re alive.”
Marcus held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Okay, they’re alive.”
“Four more days of ferrying people in boats,” said Calix. “You really think we can do it?”
“You mean get off the island?” asked Kira.
“I mean stay alive for four days.”
Kira poked at the fire. “I hope so. Even if we do, it’s not going to mean anything if we can’t convince the Partial army to join us.”
“There hasn’t been any sign of them,” said Marcus. “None of the explosive traps have gone off, none of the outposts have been attacked, nothing.”
“Rotor,” said Heron, sitting by the wide front window they’d left open for smoke. She was staring outside, and as Kira looked over, Heron pointed up at the sky. “It’s running dark, but you can see its shape blocking out the stars in the background.”
Samm walked over to look, the rest of the group close behind him. “Does the invasion force have rotors? They weren’t using them when they were chasing us.”
“The storm was too strong,” said Ritter. “They wouldn’t have been useful.”
“It’s not the army,” said Kira, “it’s the Blood Man.”
Samm peered at the sky. “You mean your—”
“He’s not my father,” said Kira. “Get your gear. If he’s here, he’ll be looking for ‘donors.’ Phan, run to the command center and warn Haru, tell him to put everyone on alert.” She pulled on her weather-beaten jacket and picked up her rifle, the others already scrambling for their own weapons. “The rest of you get outside, and get up on the rooftops where you can see. We’re going to find where he lands, and we’re going to stop him.”
“There’s no way we can do it while he’s got that rotor,” said Samm. “He can drop, kill, and take off again before we can catch him.”
“We don’t have to catch him,” said Kira, slapping a magazine home in her rifle. “We’re going to get his attention, and he’s going to come for me.”
The group raced outside; Kira was dimly aware that Heron was watching her intently, but she didn’t have time to wonder why. Samm helped Calix onto the roof, and she shouted out directions, sending them running down Twelfth Avenue to Rockaway Point Boulevard, pelting through the dirty snow toward the eastern edge of the town. The night was clear, the first clear night in days, and Kira wondered if that was what had finally lured Armin out of hiding. Maybe they couldn’t fly well in the snow, like Ritter had said? She tried to think of how that could help her now, some way to use that knowledge to stop him, but she couldn’t control the weather. They reached Ocean Avenue, sprinting through the night, when suddenly the black shape in the sky darted south, high over the houses. It was barely visible, but Kira could hear the bass rumble echoing between the buildings. Shouts were already going up from the command center, too early for Phan to have raised the alarm; had they already seen the rotor, or was something else happening? She swerved south, following the rotor’s path, and the rest of her group swerved with her.
“It’s dropping!” yelled Samm, and the black shape swooped down against the field of stars, punching through the cloud of smoke that hung over the village. Kira heard shouts, and the pop of a gun, but she was too far away. A spotlight shone down, probing the ground like the proboscis of a fly, searching. She pushed herself, running faster than she thought she could, but the rotor didn’t land—it simply circled a few times, then turned off its light and surged back up into the darkness.
“He’s looking for me,” said Kira. “We have to make sure he finds me before he gives up and starts taking civilians.”
The streets here were narrow, revealing only a slim strip of stars, so Ritter vaulted to the top of a car, and from there to the top of a house, scanning the sky in a slow, wide circle. He found the rotor and shouted, sending the group west, and Kira took off again, determined to be there when Armin dropped back down for another look.
“He’s going down!” Samm shouted again, too soon for Kira to have run more than a few blocks. She screamed her frustration, stumbling through the snow; Samm steadied her and they ran, breaking out of the narrow street into the wide central square in the middle of town. The command center was in front of them, swarming now with an armed militia, and Haru shouted to Kira as she bolted past.
“The army’s here!” Haru pointed the other way, back east toward the Grid outposts. Kira could barely hear him as she ran away, his voice fading in the background. “The Partial army! They’ve reached the third outpost!”
Kira swore as she ran, tripping on the frozen, sooty drifts. She stopped a moment, listening, and there it was, buried underneath the deep, chopping rhythm of the rotor: distant gunfire. Enough to carry three miles through the wilderness.
“Our group is still there,” she said. “All the refugees we brought out of East Meadow, people we almost died trying to save—all caught now.”
“They won’t kill them,” said Samm.
“Of course they’ll kill them!” said Kira. “You heard what they said—that humans are vermin, and every Partial who works with them. Green’s back there, Samm—they’re going to execute him as a traitor.”
“Not tonight,” said Samm. “We have time to talk to them, to make them see reason.”
“Are you so sure?”
Samm didn’t answer.
“Keep running,” snarled Heron. “He’s back up again.”
Kira looked up, trying to follow the line of Heron’s finger, and spotted the black patch of nothingness streaking slowly above the smoke. “South,” said Kira. “Toward the beach.” She took off again, running through the crowd. The streets south of the command center were the narrowest yet, skinny footpaths between close-packed houses, but Phan had rejoined them now and climbed to the top of the nearest house to shout directions.
“Four rows over!” he shouted. “No, the next one!”
Kira reached the next row and dove left, watching the rotor swoop down over an open lot between houses. The spinning blades in the wings threw up a flurry of ice and mud and shingles, cloaking the landing zone in a deadly maelstrom of debris. Kira covered her face with her arm and surged forward.
DOWN, Heron linked, then followed it by shouting out loud, warning the humans of the same thing. “Get down! Stay inside and get in cover, it’s too dangerous!”
Kira ignored him, desperate to make sure Armin saw her. She gritted her teeth and charged into the swirling cloud of debris, deafened by the noise of the engines. A spotlight flared to life, probing the ground before quickly settling on her. Her arm shielded her face from the glare and the debris, but this was what she was here for. She needed him to see her, to come closer so the others could catch him. She closed her eyes and pulled her arms away, baring her face to the spotlight. Dust and ice swirled around her, stinging her face; her hair whipped frantically in the wind. The rotor hovered in place, the light streaming down, studying her, until suddenly a powerful burst of wind threw her to the ground, and she shielded her eyes as she watched the rotor lift up again into the sky.
He left. . . .
“It’s going south now,” said Heron, helping her to her feet. “Out over the beach.”
“There’s nobody there at night,” said Kira. “They stop the boats at nightfall because they can’t see to navigate—the whole Last Fleet is sunk out there; it’s too treacherous.”
“Maybe he saw the army coming,” said Heron.
“Or he saw the fires across the bay,” said Ritter, watching the sky. “He’s past the beach and still going.”
“He’ll slaughter the survivors who’ve crossed already,” said Kira.
Haru trudged toward them through the snow, flanked by a trio of guards. His face was grim. “The rotor was a distraction,” he said tiredly. “A group of infiltrators sneaked into the eastern edge of the camp on foot and killed seven people. Maybe more—the reports are still coming in.”
“Damn it!” screamed Kira. Armin, you bastard. . . .
Haru closed his eyes, rubbing them in exhaustion. “We’ve roused the camp and put everyone on alert, but there’s not much we can do: Our food’s almost gone, we have ten more cases of hypothermia, and now the Partial army’s barely three miles away. A Blood Man stealing seven people here and there is almost a minor problem, relatively.”
“I also have a hangnail,” said Marcus, holding up his finger. “Just so we can keep the scale of major to minor in perspective.”
Kira nodded, breathing deep, trying to think. “Someone has to talk to the Partial army. To whoever’s leading it.”
“Anyone who tries will be shot on sight,” said Heron.
“Or imprisoned at the very least,” said Haru. “Convincing them they want peace instead of revenge will be virtually impossible.”
“Virtually,” said Kira, “but not completely. Tomorrow morning I’ll go over there, under a flag of truce, and give myself up. It’s the only way.”
“You’ll die,” said Heron.
“Samm didn’t think so,” said Kira.
“Samm is a fool,” said Heron. “The best we can hope for is . . .” She stopped suddenly, looking around at their group: Ritter, Haru, Marcus, Phan. “Where’s Samm?”
Kira scanned the snowy shadows wildly, looking for his face, trying to feel him on the link. He was nowhere. “You don’t think he . . .”
“Damn you,” said Heron. Rage scorched the link, and she turned toward Kira with a terrifying snarl. “You did this!”
“He’s gone to talk to the Partials?” asked Marcus.
“I never told him to do that,” said Kira, “I would never ask him to do that—I was going to go myself—”
“Of course you were going to go yourself!” Heron roared. “That’s all you ever do: You throw yourself right in the path of the nearest, deadliest problem you can find, and he knew you were going to do it, so now he’s gone to do it himself.”
“He’s trying to save us,” said Kira.
“He’s trying to save you,” said Heron. “And he’s going to get himself killed in the process.”