Redeemer (20 page)

More shots ring out, and they're all I need to run faster. At first I don't notice I've passed Keegan and he hasn't caught up, but after a moment of running lead, I begin to worry. A chance glance over my shoulder shows him close behind me, but something red stains his right shoulder, and a grimace covers his face.

I gasp. “Keegan!”

“Keep going!” he manages to groan.

I do, but I suddenly feel every pull of every muscle in my body. We're running, and by some miracle we're even
out
running the guards.

But Keegan is hurt. Worse than hurt, he's been shot with a gun. I have no idea what that does to a person. Does this mean he's going to die?

Swallowing back the panic in my gut, I push harder and reach the bridge. Keegan is a few feet behind me, and once we're under the safety of the huge metal beams, he takes it a bit slower. The guards seem to be hanging back. They're slowing, and even stopping.

They're letting us go.

One glance at Keegan and I don't care. I'm just glad they're doing it, whatever their reasons.

“You're going to be OK.” I grasp his hand and lead the way across the bridge.

That's when I hear the deafening motor from the sky. A long, slender, flying transporter emerges from the distance and heads in our direction. It's only after a moment I spot the guns on either side.

“Keegan!” I drag him along faster. “We have to go now!”

He glances up and spots the transporter, and his eyes widen.

We run.

The first shots ring through the air like the rushing of wings when a huge flock of black birds erupt from a field.

Sparks fly as bullets hit metal, but at least for the first round, the beams protect us.

“We have to reach those trees!” I shout.

Keegan's entire arm is red now, and he can barely keep up with my pulling. Getting him to the safety of the trees is our only hope.

We reach the middle of the bridge where I fell through earlier in the day. It seems like days ago instead of hours.

Keegan stumbles but manages to keep himself upright as the flyer shoots another round of bullets.

I am going to die.

The terror squeezing my heart is worse than anything I've felt in my entire life. I. Am. Going. To. Die.

This must have been what Mom felt while lying in that hospital bed.

What about Mr. Elders? Did he know he was going to die before he was killed the night I learned about Christ's love?

Somehow—miraculously—we reach the trees. Keegan slows down, but I yank his arm and shake my head. “No, Keegan! We need to go further.”

He groans but keeps moving. I glance at his pale face and watery eyes. He won't make it much further.

The growling of the flyer's motor screams above us, and a moment later the blazing bullets rain toward us. I manage to pull Keegan into a small drainage pipe. Rocks rip my skin, but it's nothing compared to Keegan's wound.

He rolls into a fetal position, but I manage to coax him around so I can see his wound. Blood pours from his front and his back, and I realize the bullet must have gone in the back and come out the front. That's good because the bullet is gone, but bad because he's bleeding heavily.

I press my hand over the wound in the front of his shoulder as I close my eyes.

“Dear God, please help us. Please, God. Please help us.”

I don't know how long I pray the same prayer. Maybe for a few minutes. Maybe a few hours.

At some point I realize the flyer is gone. At some point I realize Keegan is either asleep or passed out, but his chest still rises and falls in a somewhat normal pattern, so he's alive.

No footsteps fall in the forest.

We are alone. Keegan is injured. I have no idea how to get us back to the skyscraper. I have no idea if he's going to live or die. I don't even know where we are, and there's nothing I can do about it.

I tear a strip of my shirt and pack it into his shoulder wound, then I lie on the rocky ground and press myself against Keegan.

Now I wait.

 

 

 

 

28

 

Darkness has begun to fall when I crawl out of the drainage pipe. A twig snaps and I jump, but then I realize the noise came from under my own foot. I can't do this. I can't let fear stop me. Keegan needs help, and he needs it now. If only I knew where I was in relation to where we hid the car.

Then another thought hits me. How are we going to drive home without being stopped? If they weren't monitoring the roads before, they probably are now.

I mark my path through the trees so I can find my way back to Keegan, but after a few minutes of walking it's clear I don't even know where the bridge is located, let alone which way to go to reach the car.

Another twig snaps, and this time I haven't moved. Leaves rustle and I hold my breath, waiting for the shots to ring out that will leave me as bad off as Keegan.

“Hana?”

Les's voice registers in my brain, and I gasp. “What are you doing here?”

He moves quickly now, maneuvering between trees and overgrowth. “We followed you here.”

“Why?” Trust for Les isn't high on my list.

He shifts and looks away. “It took us a while to find a car we could use, but we saw the flyer and knew which way to look.” He's visibly shaken and he shakes his head. “I've never seen anything like that.”

“Neither have I,” I say. It gunned us down without mercy, and I shudder. Still, I notice Les didn't really answer my question. I don't want to ask him for help, but Keegan's life depends on it. “They shot Keegan. Will you help get him back?”

Les glances around and nods. “Where is he?”

“This way.” The path is easily marked, and Les and his men pull Keegan's pale body from the drainage pipe. He's still breathing. That's something.

Les helps carry him back the way we came as I trail behind. They have no problem finding the way back to their car. Uneasiness creeps into my stomach as I climb in the back seat. Keegan lies unconscious on my lap, with all three rats up front.

“Where did you find this car?” The question pops out before I can stop it. I don't want to do anything to make them angry. If they refuse to help Keegan, there's no way he'll live.

“We still have connections inside the city. The hardest part was staying where you couldn't see us.”

“Why would you follow us?” I ask again.

He glances over his shoulder at me, and his look pierces me. “I don't owe you an explanation. Do you want help or not?”

I scowl at him but keep my mouth closed for the rest of the drive. He keeps to the road for the most part, only taking smaller, off-road paths when clouds of dust rise in the distance.

Fischer and Guard Rok are there to meet us when the car rolls to a stop outside the skyscraper.

“He was shot,” I explain. “He's lost a lot of blood.”

Fischer is a medic. I almost laugh with relief when it hits me, but instead, I cry. I was hoping someone here could help him, and I didn't even consider Fischer would know what to do.

The others carry Keegan to the first floor and lay him out while Fischer gets to work right away. Someone brings water and clean linens, and after washing away the blood, Fischer packs the bandages over both wounds.

It takes time, precious time that might be Keegan's last. I'm too afraid to ask Fischer if Keegan will be OK. I would rather believe he'll recover.

But Fischer knows me well. He nods to a dilapidated bench a few yards away, and I follow him to sit. “He's in bad shape.”

I nod, afraid to talk because I'm sure my voice will crack.

This isn't me. This isn't the person I've become—the person who willingly got a tracker implanted in her arm, broke into a prison, outran the guards, escaped from a Lesser City. That person wouldn't sit in a rundown skyscraper and cry.

Except my life is a lie and my best friend is dying a few yards away.

My face lowers into my hands and the tears come. Fischer pulls me close but doesn't speak until I calm down.

“I think he's going to be OK,” he says. “The bullet came out, so that's good. But we don't have any antiseptic. We need supplies other than food and weapons.”

Les.
He said just a few hours ago he had connections.

I jump from my seat and hurry for the stairs, but Fischer catches me. “Where are you going?”

“To find help.”

The corners of his mouth turn down slightly, and his eyes show me their worry, but he doesn't stop me. “Are you OK yourself?”

Keegan needs me, and that's all that matters. I turn back to the stairs. “I'm fine.”

Les leans against the windows on the eighteenth floor, staring down at the city on the other side of the fences.

“I need your help.”

He turns slowly, casually, like he couldn't care less what I have to say.

“Keegan needs antiseptics. I don't even know what that means, but he needs help. Fischer can tell you.”

His eyebrows rise and he chuckles. “How is that my problem?”

“You said you had connections. You're part of this group, aren't you? I thought you wanted to fight Greaters. Keegan is a fighter. We need him.”

Les's face changes and he straightens his shoulders. “I'll get you the supplies, but first I want to know what you were doing in Middle 3.”

I frown. Why would he need to know that? My hesitation makes him draw back, and I flounder for an explanation.

Keegan needs my help, but telling Les the truth could put Dad in danger. I may need Les's help, but I still don't trust him.

“Keegan and I are from Middle 3. We had questions needing answered.”

“Questions for whom?”

I grind my teeth, unwilling to answer.

He shrugs and moves back to the window.

“My dad,” I finally say. “I had questions to ask my dad.”

A slow grin pulls across his face, and he steps forward again. “I'll have your supplies by morning.”

Isabel takes my side as Les slithers away. “I don't like that one.”

“Me neither,” I say. It comes out as a whisper.

She gives me a long, calculating look. “You don't look so hot yourself. Why don't you take a seat?”

“I want to get back to Keegan.”

“Not until after you rest. And eat. Have you eaten today?”

No. I haven't, at least not since breakfast.

Isabel finds me bread and water, and I curl up in our corner and nibble on it. My stomach protests, but after a few minutes my shaky nerves still. Once we've settled in, Isabel studies me. “So, did you find answers?”

She must have heard what I said to Les. Everyone in the room must have heard.

Keeping my eyes on my lap, I nod. How can I admit what a fraud I am? Do I even want to help the Lessers? How should I know, since the idea was obviously planted in my brain from a young age?

Did Mom even love me? Did she care about what I wanted? Or was she brainwashing me to do Frost Moon's work?

“Don't go there.” Isabel's voice holds a soft warning, but it's like she read my thoughts. “This doesn't change anything about you. Everyone's family has a secret. Some never learn theirs, but others do. It doesn't mean a thing.”

Her words are spoken with passion, but there's a catch in her voice. I turn to her and frown. “Do you have more secrets, Isabel?”

Her face pales and she turns away, busying herself with tidying our blankets. “Like I said, everyone has secrets.”

So she doesn't want to tell me her secrets. That's fine, but I have to assume she doesn't know. She doesn't understand everything I've gone through over the last few months has been for nothing. I've fought against a government I was secretly bred to serve. Maybe Mom didn't want to fight for chemotherapy. Maybe she didn't want me to search for God. She probably didn't want me to find out about the prison, or anything else. I would have become Greater no matter what, only before I would have been flattered. Excited. Honored.

Instead of disgusted and doing everything in my power to get demoted.

I might be a Greater still, implementing the changes I recommended. And I probably wouldn't have even cared when I found out the Lessers' training was actually military training, because by then I would have been indoctrinated.

Like Dad.

“You're going to be OK, just like me.” Isabel nudges me with her shoulder, and I nod, but I don't mean it.

I have no idea if I'm going to be OK. I have no idea what my future holds.

 

 

 

 

29

 

At some point I fall asleep. I jolt awake as first morning light filters through the dirty windows. A few people whisper quietly in the corners—more came through the night—but most of us still sleep.

I scramble from my pallet and maneuver through the bodies to the stairs.

On the first floor, Keegan breathes shaky breaths from under a thin blanket. Fischer sleeps propped against the corner of a wall and window. But I see the supplies without anyone pointing them out to me.

Alcohol, something in a brown bottle, and some type of medication sit on a small table pulled near Keegan's body. They've all been opened and obviously used.

Les came through.

My stomach rolls and I'm not sure if it's at the thought of Les or because I'm famished. A few supplies sit in a box near Fischer, and I move toward them and scrounge for any food. Sitting gently, I prop myself up beside Fischer.

It's a few moments before I realize he's staring at me, watching me eat bread from his box.

“Sorry.”

“For what?” he asks.

“Waking you up.”

He sits up straight and stretches. “I wasn't asleep.”

“And for eating your food.” I smile. “But you were definitely asleep.”

He doesn't argue but nods at Keegan. “I think he's going to be OK. He made it all night, and Les and his guys brought in some medicine for him.”