5

I awake when Sekera stirs.

“You alright?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she groans. “I was just thinking. We’re probably going to die tomorrow, right?”

“Right.”

“Yeah,” she lays her head back on me.

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Thanks, now I have to piss.”

“How was that my fault?”

I sit up, and she slides off me. I clamber to my feet, tasting the stuffy cave air.

“Don’t piss on me,” she mutters.

“What the hell?”

“Just saying.”

I laugh and start walking. I pass Ficlan, who’s snoring heavily on his side, but don’t see Amethyst or Deqar. I reach the end of the cave and relish as the fresh air hits me. I unzip, which is an incredibly unnecessarily difficult process in the heavy military clothes and relieve myself. I tilt my head up, enjoying the sliver of sky I can see. Tons of stars speckle the inky blackness. I imagine being above, maybe reclining on a dune with Sekera, stargazing and discovering our own constellations because we don’t know any.

I finish, zip myself back up and start to walk back to the cave. Then I see Amethyst sitting almost like a vulture atop a rock. Her eyes are set directly on me, like a lion’s on its prey.

I swallow uncomfortably and walk towards her. She doesn’t look disgusted, nor angry, nor interested. All I see in her mysterious, almond shaped hazel eyes are calculations. That’s what she’s doing. She’s calculating something. Always calculating something. What it is, I’ve got no idea.

I pad over to her and seat myself next to her. For a while, neither of us says anything.

“Why are you here?” she asks.

“I’m sorry, d’you want me to leave?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I… couldn’t sleep,” I lie.

She looks at me, ever calculating. “Me neither. I can’t sleep often. They say that if being in the military teaches you one thing, it’s how to sleep. Didn’t really work for me though.”

“On the streets, probably like in the military, you learn to sleep in the most ungodly places. But you never really learn how to just sleep. If that makes any sense.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Yeah I figured.”

Amethyst shifts her position. At first I think she’s moving slightly away from me, and then I realize that she hasn’t. That’s not a sign, though. I’m sure of it.

“How long’ve you been here? With Blax?”

“Two years, nine months, fourteen days.”

“Shit, that’s a long time.”

She shrugs. “I’m good at it, so I enjoy it.”

“Being good at something doesn’t mean you enjoy it.”

“True. But… it’s all I’ve really got.”

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

I laugh. “Every single person I’ve known for the past five years hates my guts. All of West Side wants to punch me in the mouth.”

“You lost your parents?” she asks suddenly.

“Well… yes.”

“They’re dead?”

“No. Addicts. Bansilin addicts. I ran away from them when I was twelve. I couldn’t deal with it.”

“Just because they’re addicts doesn’t mean the don’t love you. They still care about you. They’re probably worried about you.”

“What about your parents?” I ask, wanting to get the subject off me.

“I don’t remember them. Last I saw them, I must’ve been younger than five.”

“Oh shit, what happened?”

“A school. A school for prodigies took me, full time. They said that parents were a distraction. I was raised by teachers. Barely got to talk to the other kids either.”

“Damn, that’s awful.”

“True. It was my life. I poured every inch of my soul into succeeding. Then one day one of the other guys, a real bully he was, tried to beat me up or something like that. It was some dumb thing, I don’t know. Long story short I nearly killed him and got expelled. I didn’t know who my parents were, let alone where they were, so I was just on my own for a while until I was found by one of my teachers. She explained how I needed to make a future for myself and how I learn discipline. That stuck with me. I found a training program, not really knowing how military affiliated it was, and enrolled. I got a scholarship and went with it. Good chunk of my life was doing that, and then I went in search of a real challenge, to put my training to a test. Found this. Blax gave me something nobody else could. Blax gave me something to live for. He gave me a new life. I’ll defend him until death because of that.”

“You don’t have to,” I say after a moment. “You don’t have to stay with him because of this. You could, and probably will get killed doing this.”

“Oh yeah? What do you propose?”

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“We could… run away. I’m going to run away. I know I will, but I’ve got to figure out where to go first. You could come with me. The streets are way more fun than some boring ass school! You’ll learn the ways of the road! It would be awesome, I swear it! We could go to parties, I could teach you parkour, we could screw with the rich kids, we could-”

“Have sex?” she cuts me off, staring me directly in the eye. A hint of a smile crosses her face.

“Um, yeah, if you want to. We could have sex. We could definitely have sex,” I say, leaning in closer to her.

“Are you any good though? I wouldn’t imagine so,” she leans closer to me.

“Why don’t you let me show you?” I tell her, with my trademark lopsided smile. My heart is racing, my brain is doing backflips, and the butterflies are turning up in my stomach, but this is the moment. It’s finally arrived.

I lean in, close my eyes and purse my lips, ready to feel her soft warmth on me, when strong hands suddenly grip my shoulders. Her mouth is a thin line, and her eyes are fiery. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Uh… oh.” I breath, swiftly pulling away. Shit you goddamn idiot what the hell were you thinking!!!

“Yeah, maybe you should catch some sleep. You’re going to need energy tomorrow,” she tells me, staring at the ground.

I close my eyes and cringe at my failure and slide off the rock. I slink back into the cave, defeated. Honestly though, what the hell? She made it look so plausible! What’s wrong with this bitch! I could’ve sworn that it would work. Damnit. God freaking damnit.

I nearly trip over Ficlan and make it back to the little dip me and Sekera were nestled in, when I hear sobs. I quickly click on my torch to see what’s going on.

Before me, Sekera’s sitting up with Deqar sprawled into her, crying into her shoulder, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

What the hell have I done?

~

I grunt as I haul myself over the edge, pressing my back to the rock. Anxiety ripples through my body as I think of all the ways I could be killed. Amethyst makes it up next, crouching and checking her assault rifle one last time. Ficlan and Sekera make it up afterwards, and then Deqar comes a moment later. His eyes are red rimmed and have heavy shadows beneath them. He scuttles to the wall chest heaving and pulls out his pistol.

Amethyst glares at me until I do the same. “Where’s Janns?” I ask.

She jerks her head to the left. “Other side.”

She takes a deep breath, then holds up three fingers.

Two.

One.

Go time.

She with wire cutters, carving a hole barely big enough to crawl through. Once she’s done, she sets them behind the rock and leads us into enemy territory. I chew my lip with angst as Ficlan follows her, then Sekera. In the moonlight I can’t see Deqar’s face, but his body is hunched and faintly shaking.

I crawl in after the, keeping my finger well away from the trigger.

The distance is longer than I anticipated and the hulking buildings stand like a pack of some automated shadowy killers, looming around me with drooling maws.

I get to my feet and push my back against the wall of the first building we reach and submerge myself in the darkness. The darkness is a shield. The darkness is what keeps me safe.

A light flickers on making my skeleton leap within my skin. A small, rectangular window, directly above my head is illuminated with stark, white light. Shit, they’ve heard us. Amethyst presses her ear to the wall so I imitate her.

“Did you hear something?”

“What? Turn the damn lights off. It’s… three in the damn morning.”

“I could’ve sworn I heard something. Just check the cams.”

“My god, fine…. Look, there’s nothing there. Go to sleep now?”

“I’ll check outside.”

“Ugh, you idiot. Korren said if we’re dreary during training he’ll dock our pay.”

“Korren also said we’re supposed to be awake during the nights, sleep during the days.”

“Fine. You do you.”

“Damnit fine I’ll sleep.”

The lights flicked off.

Amethyst nodded at me to keep watch on the left, and Sekera on the right while she pulled something from her backpack. I hustled to the left, dropped to one knee and held my pistol with outstretched arms. The stock of my gun is cold in my clammy hands. I feel the tickle of a cough in my throat and curse at myself until it shies away.

The scatter of buildings sprawls before me, with a clearing that holds a single streetlight type thing and a puddle of white light before it. Gnats and midgets flick around beneath it, starving addicts to a love they can never attain, but will relentlessly chase. But rather than provide a source of light in my mind, this beam amplifies the shadows around it, turning them into gnarly, gangly, shrouded monsters. In my mind, flashes of crooked teeth and glowing eyes flicker within them. Disgusting, horrid, bloodthirsty monsters that would welcome me with open arms and provide me with a place to hide from the true monsters that surround me.

“Hey Dingo,” Sekera hisses. “C’mon.”

I turn back to see Deqar pulling himself through a perfect hole in the window. Ficlan and Amethyst are already inside. As I’m pulling myself in I hear the sounds of a quick struggle. Not even a cry of help escapes the room. I drop into the room, silent as a cat. Sekera drops down behind me.

Amethyst clicks on her flashlight and is about to say something when a strangled scream screeches through the camp. Gunfire follows quickly.

“Shit!” she hisses. “Janns’s been spotted. We need to move fast.” She removes the safety from her assault rifle and barrels out of the door. Not knowing what else to do, I charge after her.

Amethyst lunges and knocks of unsuspecting soldier behind the ear with the bud of her gun, crippling him to the ground. I see somebody getting a face full of bullets beneath the light, not sure who they are.

Amethyst drops into a roll as a spray of bullets go straight over her, she slides into cover behind another building. Except I can’t do that. I catch sight of Ficlan, right next to me, taking off back the way we came. I follow him, quickly overtaking him and literally diving through the hole in the fence and tumble a few feet. A bullet whizzes directly over my head as I don’t waste a second, clipping myself into the harness without losing my momentum and literally flinging myself off the edge of the ravine. I’m sure I’m going to be shot, but I fly through the air, swinging back to the enemy side and smashing into the rocky surface, ten feet beneath the edge.

Bullets and screams fill my ears. Ficlan comes smashing down next to me, also clipped in.

“Damn shit, we got to go down!” he hollers, lowering himself a few feet.

I’m about to imitate him when I see ten plus men at the bottom of the ravine, lights shining from their assault rifles.

“No, Ficlan look!” I hiss.

He sees them and scrabbles back. As one of their lights dances close to us, I know it’s over.

I pull the rope and without any regard for stealth the two of us scramble as fast as we can back over the edge. I roll onto solid land as a spray of bullets decimate the rock. Ficlan grunts and rolls beside me.

“Damn!” he hisses. “I’m shot.”

“Over there!” somebody calls. Lights blind me.

I dive behind the rock Amethyst had been next to earlier as gunshots rip through the air and the fence. I see Ficlan flatten himself to the ground as bullets ricochet over him. Bullets chip the rock, reducing my cover space increasingly as I press myself further and further into the ground.

There are worse ways to go out, honestly.

Trapped between a stream of bullets from the ravine, and a stream from before me, I know its over.

That is until I hear a grunt, a snap and a thud. I swivel, gun pointed forwards, but I see only Amethyst and three downed bodies. Her neck is pressed to the third as she blows the top of his skull off.

I glide through the hole and make for her. She turns around surprised, barrel pointed at me, but her finger doesn’t reach the trigger. I pass her, slamming my back against the building an overflow of adrenaline coursing through my veins.

She makes for Ficlan, helping him through the hole and slinging his arm over her back. Together, painstakingly slow, they reach me. Not wasting a moment, Amethyst opens her med kit, wrapping a gauze around Ficlan’s leg thigh.

“Did it hit the bone?” she asks.

He shakes his head, too in pain to speak.

“Ok, listen. Here’s what I’m going to need you to do, ok?” Amethyst starts.

Before she can finish, a light hits us. It’s less than a second before I’ve swung myself towards the cut open window. From the corner of my eyes, I see over ten bullets rip through Ficlan’s chest.

I hit the ground, shoulder first and tumble into a roller chair. Amethyst lands practically on top of me, unintentionally kneeing me in the chest as she darts to her feet.

“They went in there!”

I scramble to my feet, looking wildly around the room. Back door. I lunge for it, and pull, but it’s locked. Shit.

“Get your gun out, crouch behind the monitor. As soon as they get through you shoot them dead,” Amethys orders, on one knee behind a metal desk. The barrel of her assault rifle rests atop the edge, pointed at the door. I mimic her pose with my handgun.

I don’t know how to shoot. We’re trapped. We’re freaking dead.

The door flies open.

Then men pour in.

The gunshots start.