Claimed: Faction 3: The Isa Fae Collection Read online

I giggled. “We all have our secrets.”

  It was quiet outside the trailer and, at first, I thought they’d all left. The’d all moved; they’d gathered around Grant, peering over him and his tablet, and were excitedly whispering back and forth.

  Peter was the only one who looked up, almost embarrassed, and waved us over. “He has more pictures of the refuge.”

  I frowned. What was this? Some kind of sales pitch? I thought this was some kind of save haven to help survivors, so why did it seem more like they were evaluating vacation destinations?

  Grant apparently hadn’t stopped talking, or even flinched as we’d walked out of the trailer. He was in mid-sentence, “…these are the dormitories for the women. Like I said, they let married couples and families have the cabins, but these aren’t so bad. They’re a little larger than the men’s dormitories and has an attached bathhouse.”

  “Are people just randomly assigned jobs or do they take into consideration trades you already learned?” Tone motioned at Peter. “He’s pre-med.”

  “A doctor? Excellent, there are already a few onsite, from what I’ve heard, but they can always use more help.” He turned and looked at me. “What was it that you went to school for, Wren? Art? My mother would love to have you help her at the preschool, I just know it.”

  He didn’t sound convincing, in fact, he sounded like he was reading from a script. I said, “It was art history, actually, and my Pa made me drop out.”

  “I’m sure they can use more workers in the fields.”

  Bastard.

  “Is there room for all of us?” Avi shoved one hand into his jacket pocket and the other clutched mine. “Or do we have to pick who goes and who stays? Because, really, I think it should be all of us or none of us. The majority vote would decide. I don’t feel comfortable leaving people out here alone—I’m sure you understand.”

  “Oh, no, there’s no quota. They want to help as many people as they can. It’s going to be a community, I guess, a place for people to prosper and start over.”

  Avi nodded. His face was expressionless, but he didn’t look angry. Just…careful. “We can get you set up in a trailer here for the night, maybe talk it over more over dinner. The pros, the cons. Exactly what we’d be getting into, that kind of thing.”

  “Oh, no, I can’t stay. I have to keep going.” Grant took the tablet out of Soleil’s hand and turned it off. “If you want to go to the refuge, you have to come now.”

  “We need time to decide.”

  “Then, how about you give us directions and we can meet you there?”

  Grant shook his head. “I don’t know the exact route. The last transmission from my parents before the wireless broke on the tablet cut off at the end. I didn’t get the full message. I think I know where I’m going, but I could be wrong. And if I’m wrong, I don’t want you all to die in the desert with me.”

  “I’m going.” Soleil linked her arm around Grant’s and stared at me, her lips pursed. “You can stay here with them, but I’d rather die with him than live with you.”

  I stared at her. “What the fuck is your problem?”

  “She’s right.” Lyta stood up and walked to the other side of Grant, resting her hand on his shoulder. “I’m going, too.”

  Avi frowned. He looked at Tone and Peter, and then at me. “We need to discuss this, as a group.”

  Lyta shook her head. “No. We’ve had two raids in as many weeks and, this time, they almost killed you. We didn’t have this problem until she,” she jabbed her index finger in my direction, “showed up.”

  “Bullshit.” Tone walked away from them, clearly moving closer to us. “We’ve had raids before. Wren found us water—without that, we’d die out here anyway.”

  “The raids were never this bad. And we were fine without that water, we harvested our own.”

  “So, what is this? Some kind of standoff?” Avi’s glare darkened his face; he glowered at Lyta. “Three against three? This is what you want, Lyta? Really?”

  She shrugged. “Peter makes the deciding vote. Avi said it himself—the majority vote will be the deciding one.”

  “Christ, Lyta, you’re such a bitch.” Peter slumped over his lap, loudly exhaling into the top of his legs. “I don’t want this to come down to, well, Peter made us come or Peter was such a pussy and wanted to stay.”

  “I’m not going to die like this, man. I refuse. If there’s a refuge out there, I want to go.” Lyta looked at me, her eyes narrow. Critical; accusing.

  “I never said that a refuge was a bad idea.” I shrugged. “And, Peter, if you think it’s the right decision, then the majority rules. I just said that I, personally, feel like we need to take time to consider it. And now he wants to leave immediately? I’m just not comfortable with that.”

  “You’ve never liked Grant.” Soleil hissed. Her arms tightened around his. “You’re being petty—you’re making people choose between him and what you want.”

  “I never said that. Grant, you’re probably a stand up guy and I’m sure that your career with the Western State was prosperous. By no means do I think anything was amiss in you leaving the citadel and, of course, I’m sure it’s nothing more than a coincidence that we meet out here, in the middle of a wasteland, after atomic attack.” I held my hands up, squirming away from Avi, and took several steps back. “In fact, you all take me out of the equation. Take Grant out of it. Pretend, for a minute, that you all just have the opportunity to go to a refuge. You know what you know, nothing else. No other factors. Just the promise of surviving, of water and food and security. Work, even; whatever gets your rocks off. Do you go? Or do you stay?”

  Tone was still glowering at Lyta; her stare was locked on me. Peter groaned loudly and pressed his face to his hands, vigorously rubbing his flesh like this was going to help him decide. “I don’t want to make this decision. Avi.”

  “This is up to you, man. I didn’t say that I was uncomfortable with going; I just said that I don’t want to go right this instant. I want to think it over.”

  Peter sighed. He looked deflated, like he’d just failed the most important test in his field. Maybe to him, he had. “I’m sorry, Wren. But if they have doctors…I think we should go.”

  Soleil squealed. She finally let go of Grant and ran around him, throwing her arms around Lyta and hugging her tightly.

  I looked away. I’d never had that kind of relationship with her, not even when she was a toddler. I’d always hated her, I’d always felt like she existed simply to make my life miserable. And yet, faced with the fact that we were throwing ourselves out in the wilderness, I wanted her trust. I wanted her friendship.

  Avi put his arm around me, pulling me close to him. “It’ll be okay, Little Bird. Maybe it’s for the best—we can do more than live, we can thrive. Fuck, I’ll put a ring on your finger and marry you the instant we get there.”

  I smiled. “Really?”

  “Absolutely.” He tilted my head up and kissed me deeply; passionately. There was excitement in his eyes that I couldn’t ignore. It gave me hope. He rested his forehead against mine and, softly, said, “I’ll keep you safe, Wren. No matter what happens, I’ll protect you until my very last breath. I swear.”

  I threw my arms around him, casting my worries and misgivings aside. Maybe he was right, maybe this was going to be fine. I was ready to marry him and start a new life—a happy life—with him. Maybe this was the right choice after all.

  As I rested my head against his chest, my eyes fell on Grant. He was staring down at the tablet, his hands gripping it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He was shaking.

  And in his eyes, I saw rage.

  Sixteen

  Despite what I thought about Grant or the situation we placed ourselves in, the first few hours of hiking wasn’t bad. I’d changed back into my leather boots, leather pants, and tank-top before we left, leaving my jacket behind, so the lower half of my body was nothing but stink and sweat. Still, the terrain wasn’t rough and my pack—c
onsisting of nothing more than two apples and two jugs of water—was easy to carry. Avi stayed at my side; Soleil practically affixed herself to Grant’s hip.

  As we walked, the landscape gradually changed from rock and desert to thick, lush vegetation. It was more like entering another planet, with crumbling ground beneath our feet and moist, dizzying humidity. Nobody spoke. I wasn’t sure anyone could speak; the air felt thin. It was hard to breathe.

  Even Grant looked miserable.

  Tone was practically carrying Peter at this point. With ever rise and fall of the smaller man’s chest, I could hear the wheeze and rattle of his lungs. Just the very act of breathing seemed to exhaust him.

  I leaned close to Avi. “Do you think Peter will make it all the way to the refuge?”

  “He’s known all along that he was going to die out here. I think he just wanted to at least try to find doctors, someone who could help him.” Avi shrugged. “It’s some kind of lung disease, pulmonary fibrosis. His lungs are scarred. Lyta was his nurse; they were doing experimental treatments on him when the bombs hit. The hospital tried to evacuate, but, it was too late. Only they and a handful of others got out. By the time they reached us, most of them were already dead.”

  “My god.” I focused my eyes on the ground below my feet, concentrating on the evenness of my strides. I didn’t want this for him. Dying out here, halfway between hell and salvation, seemed like the cruelest punishment.

  Grant held his hand up, abruptly stopping. “Everybody wait.”

  I swallowed hard. What did that mean? We were lost? Was he trying to get his bearings? Where the hell were we?

  Instead of continuing on the path we were on, he veered to the left and through thick overgrowth. We had no choice but to follow.

  On the other side was a yellow hued body of water, surrounded by gray sand and dried out, dead tree trunks. The stench was overwhelming: sulfur, like rotted eggs. The water was bubbling and, closest to shore, it looked like lime or yellowed salt.

  “Sour Lake.” Grant answered a question nobody had asked. “Whatever festers under this land rotted that water. It’s like battery acid, it’ll belt the skin right off your body.”

  “Fantastic.” Soleil edged back into the trees. “Can we go now?”

  “My parents mentioned Sour Lake in their transmission. From here, we have to find the Grand Prismatic Basin and, I think, just continue walking east. The road to the refuge is just outside the park boundaries.”

  “How far do you think it is?” Lyta looked back at Tone and Peter. “I know you don’t know for sure, but as a guess?”

  “Seven to ten miles, maybe? It’s hard to know for sure.” Grant turned away from the lake and pushed back into the trees. “Come on. Might as well keep walking.”

  ****

  The basin, as Grant called it, was more like landing on a different planet than just hiking into a different part of the park. We found a boardwalk, long abandoned and partially rotted, but enough to get us into the lower basin. The ground below was steamed and squealed, the muddier areas bubbled from volcanic heat. From ahead, I could see the thick clouds from steam pots and geysers. Everything was pulsing and bubbling. The atmosphere was either gone or festering right at our airways. I had no idea.

  What I did know, though, was that Peter had passed out.

  Avi held my hand tightly, interlacing his fingers with mine and keeping a strong grip on me. He leaned close, shouting so I could hear him over the shriek of steam escaping from broken earth and the strange, heavy gusts of wind seeming to hit us from all directions. “Stay next to me. No matter what.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t get breath into my lungs to answer him; I felt like I was suffocating inside my own body.

  He unwound his scarf from around his neck and tied it around mine, carefully covering up my mouth and nose. “I’ve got you, Little Bird. I’ll get you through this.”

  Grant held his hand up, wildly waving to the other side of the boardwalk. I could barely hear his shout. “There it is!”

  “It” was still a little ways ahead of us, but as we crept forward, I saw it: The Grand Prismatic Spring, a perfect circle of turquoise water in the middle of red ground. It looked like a painting, the deep blue center of the water, gradually fading to green and yellow as it got shallower. The shore was yellow, bleeding into orange and then red. It didn’t even seem real.

  I saw movement on the other side of the boardwalk. It was masked by the steam, but I saw it—it was as clear as the water. “Avi.”

  He tightened his arm around me. “I know. I think—“

  Something whistled past my ear. Tone yelped; I looked over in time to see a spreading circle of blood at his waist.

  “Marauders!” Grant screamed. He ran down the boardwalk, shoving Soleil and Lyta down as he passed them. “Get down—everybody get down!”

  Avi tackled me, sliding his body over mine to cover me from gunfire. My eyes blurred with tears, all I could see were the grains of wood on the planks beneath my face. I heard him screaming above me. “You fucking asshole! You set us up!”

  “And risk my life getting you here? Bullshit. If this boardwalk crumbles we’re all dead. That mud is like lava, the spring is hotter than boiling water.” Grant dropped down beside us. He fumbled with his bag, digging through his belongings and tossing articles of clothing off the walkway. “Can you shoot?”

  “I can fucking shoot you, you little prick.”

  “Save some bullets for that then, but shoot them first!” Something clattered on the ground in front of me.

  A gun.

  Avi scooped it up and scrambled off my back. For a moment, he glared at Grant. “I should shoot you in the god damned head.”

  “Good luck getting out of here then. You need me.”

  The wood railing beside Avi’s head exploded into a shower of splinters. He cocked the handgun’s hammer back and aimed. He fired.

  I heard a scream.

  “What about you, doll face?” Grant pressed a gun into my hands. “Can you shoot?”

  “Go fuck yourself.” Despite what Avi said to me earlier, I scrambled forward to where my sister was crouched next to Tone. Tone was writhing, his body rigid with pain. He’d collapsed to the ground several feet from where Peter fell. Lyta was with him. She was screaming.

  A bullet ricocheted off the wooden balustrade near my shoulder. I flinched, choking back a squeal.

  “Damnit, Wren, get back here!” Avi lowered his gun and took a fresh clip from Grant’s outstretched hand. “What did I tell you before?”

  I scrambled forward, stretching out on my stomach and trying to flatten myself as low as I could. Tone was howling; Soleil had clamped a stick between his teeth.

  As I got nearer, he bit through it.

  “I’m here, Tone, it’s okay.” I touched his shoulder to let him know I was here. “Soleil, can you stop the bleeding?”

  “The bullet is still in there, Wren, I don’t know what it’s hit inside him. His liver, his kidneys, god, everything vital is right here.” She pulled her hand away from his flank; blood gushed out freely. “Can you use your energy to pull it out?”

  “I don’t know, maybe, but wouldn’t that make more damage ripping back through?”

  “Fine, leave it in and his whole body will go septic. He’ll die a bloated, pus-filled walking infection.”

  I heard a bullet connect with flesh and, as I looked up, Peter’s body twitched. Lyta started screaming louder, more frantic than before.

  “God, if it’s not one thing it’s another.” I scrambled up to my feet and held my palms out at the steam, screaming as loud as I could. “Lux!”

  Light flashed out of my hands, sourced from the sun above or the volcanic element below—I wasn’t sure—and flared across the basin.

  The gunfire went silent.

  Dropping back down to my knees, I pressed my hand to Tone’s side and closed my eyes. I tried to visualize the bullet, to think about the blip of steel inside his warm body. There was
blood, yet, it was flowing freely and it could help flush the bullet out.

  My palms burned from the energy. Tone was screaming, cursing in what sounded like two or three different languages. I visualized harder, I tried to picture that bullet backing out of his body, sliding through the hole it already punctured in his skin—

  It dropped into my hand. I closed my fist around it for a moment, savoring the sold feeling and then handed it to my sister. “I got it.”

  She nodded. She pressed both her hands to his skin, one to his flank and one to his stomach, and started mumbling. I didn’t understand her—I didn’t actually care what she was saying—but she kept talking. Her eyes fluttered, they opened halfway and I saw blank, white orbs. Her power consumed her.

  And she collapsed on top of him.

  Both were motionless for several moments until, finally, Soleil moved. She backed off of him and moved her hands from his wound.

  It was healed.

  Lyta’s jaw was gaping, her eyes as round as her open mouth. “What the fuck are you?”

  “She saved him.” I squeezed Tone’s shoulder. “Are you okay, buddy?”

  “I’m alive?” He struggled to sit up, I tried to ease him back down. He looked around wildly, his eyes even trying to focus on my face. “Did you save me?”

  “No, I helped. My sister saved you.”

  He frowned. He really seemed to be thinking this over. “I feel like I know you.”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “Are you a magician?”

  I giggled awkwardly and tried to help him lay back. “You just hang on there, buddy. I’m not a magician, but I’m pretty well certain that you should just be stoked you’re alive. Am I right? Anyone?”

  Soleil turned her back on Lyta and Peter, crouching down with her face close to the boardwalk. She was trembling. “Peter’s gone.”

  “You should at least try.”

  “I saw the bullet hit, Wren, I can’t bring back the dead.” She looked up at me, tears streamed down her face. “I can’t do this.”

  I crawled forward and grabbed her arm, jerking her forward. “You are the one who got us into this situation. You wanted this. Now, for once in your god damned, spoiled life, get up and do something for someone else. I don’t care what you do after this, but fucking at least look at him—for Lyta’s sake—and stop being a child. Grow up.”