Banished (The Ravenmaster Chronicles Book 2), page 16
It’s a thrilling and frightening feeling, but I don’t have time to dwell on it because behind me, Corbin starts giggling. I turn my head, extricating myself from the kiss to see Corbin standing there, his hands clamped over his mouth, his eyes teary and squinty, as his giggles turn into an attack of embarrassed snorts that don’t stop until Méridienne smacks him on the back of the head.
“Ouch! Why’d you hit me?”
“Parce-que tu es un idiot.”
Brohn and I join Méridienne in a rare but well-deserved bout of laughter while Corbin blushes and presses a hand to the back of his head as if his sister has just delivered a fatal blow.
Through my new eyes, Méridienne looks like I remember her: Perfect skin as smooth and glossy as a bowl of melted milk chocolate. Bright, dancing eyes. High cheekbones. A slender, athletic build. Cascading twists of chestnut-brown hair falling down waterfall-style over her shoulders. Basically, all the same beauty and robust energy I wish I’d had when I was her age.
Only now, unlike before, she’s got a faint auburn-orange glow around her. It could be from my enhanced senses, but it could also be a trick of the light or even a hallucination brought on by the lingering pain in my arm and leg. Whatever it is, it makes her look very pretty. Or maybe the halo effect I’m seeing is the essence of beauty, itself.
“Nos amis sont peut-être encore là. Nous passerons la nuit ici.”
Cleary embarrassed but also duty-bound to obey his older sister, Corbin grinds his teeth and bites his lip as he translates. “She says we should stay here, at least overnight to make sure the Devoted have really moved on.”
That’s all the invitation I need. After what Brohn and I have been through in the past twenty-four hours, the chance to stay put in a safe space—even if it’s just for a day—is one of the more welcome suggestions I’ve heard in my life.
As it turns out, we stay in that little attic for another three days. During that time, Corbin regales me and Brohn with stories of his and his sister’s survival, more bird trivia, and a little more about how he and Méridienne found their way here in the first place. He clams up a bit when we ask him too many questions about his and Méridienne’s past. I can’t tell if he’s trying to hide something or if he genuinely doesn’t know the answers, but it doesn’t seem worthwhile to press him. So we let it slide. For now, at least. Giddy about having guests, he introduces us to every corner of the attic and even takes us out the door and down a flight of creaking wooden stairs to show us the rooms on the level directly below us. Whatever furniture remains in the rooms is thick with blankets of gray dust.
“We shouldn’t go to some parts of the building,” he tells us. “My sister says it’s too dangerous. She says it’s because the floors aren’t stable.”
“And you don’t think that’s the case?” Brohn asks.
Corbin shrugs. “I think she doesn’t want me to see all the bodies.”
While he’s telling us tales and giving us tours, Méridienne pops in and out of the attic, always returning with supplies—bandages, water, food—all things she’s magically procured from somewhere out in the city.
At the end of our third day, Corbin tells us that Méridienne has instructed us to get moving. “She says some of the Devoted are still in the neighborhood, and it’ll only be a matter of time before one of their Surveillance Drones detect our heat signatures up here.”
Mérdienne adds something in French, and Corbin nods his understanding, glancing up at the ceiling as he explains. “There are heat shields in the roof. But they’re old. The Devoted are backed by the Wealthies so they can keep making improvements to their technology. With the new generation of Surveillance Drones…”
Brohn puts up a hand. “We get the idea. We don’t have any desire to stick around any longer than we already have.” Turning to me and pinning his eyes to my much-improved arm and my still-healing leg, he asks, “What do you think? Are you good to go?”
“I’m good to not stay cooped up in here any longer.”
“That’s just about as good as ‘good to go,’” he laughs. He points over to Render, who is preening his feathers from his dark perch on one of the long, slanted wooden rafters. “What about him?”
I tap two of the black squares and two of the smaller black circles on my forearm to check in with Render. It’s a simple connection and one I could probably initiate without my forearm implants. I’ve been able to connect with him on this kind of basic level for years now. But weak as we both are and still in recovery mode, it’s less painful this way.
Are you ready to help us find the rest of the Fallen?
~ Finding them will be the easy part. Rescuing them will be harder.
But not impossible, right?
~ Nothing is impossible to a willing mind.
24
ATTRACTION
With Méridienne and Corbin in tow, we set out to track down Tallynne and Dove.
We walk for fifteen minutes, but it feels like a week. It’s oppressively hot, and snaking vapors swirl in the air under a tangerine-colored sky.
Render is doing his best to stay airborne, but I can feel how much he’s struggling. He stops on the top edge of nearly every building we pass, ruffles his hackles, and barks out a metallic “tonk!” before lurching on. What used to be a slick, stealthy, wind-surfing glide has turned into a sad struggle to stay aloft for more than one or two minutes at a time.
Every time he flounders, I stumble, too. Brohn doesn’t seem to notice the correlation, and I’m glad. He won’t talk about it, but I’m sure he’s worried about me turning into Render and then losing me as a result. I want to tell him he’s crazy if he thinks that. But after learning about Bondo and then struggling to keep myself connected to Render while staying myself at the same time, I’m wondering if maybe I’m the crazy one. I do appreciate Brohn’s concern, and I know it’s sincere and from the heart. Still, shouldering the weight of my own worry is more than enough. Having to carry his as well might be too much.
“I’m okay,” I insist to Brohn as he hovers over me, his hand splayed out lightly on the small of my back as we traverse the dead city.
“You’re sure?”
“My leg hurts, but it’s not going to heal any faster with you walking right on top of me.”
I mean it as a joke, and Brohn does grin, but he doesn’t laugh, and I feel like I might have offended him. I know he wants to help and that he genuinely cares about me. But I’m sore, tired, and confused.
In addition to my desire to explore this next step in my evolution as an Emergent, I’m also driven to find the rest of the Fallen. I don’t know if they’re even alive or where they are, although between me, Render, and Méridienne, I feel like we have a good chance of getting back to where we saw them last. I hope we find them…and fast. We’re exposed and vulnerable out here. It doesn’t help that every time we turn a corner, pass by a windowless storefront, or exit one of the smaller laneways, I’m prepared to be met by wild dogs, desperate survivors, or a battalion of the Devoted.
For a mostly deserted ghost town, there sure are a lot of ways to get yourself killed.
On top of everything else, my vision keeps shifting from blurry to normal to so hyper-focused I think my skull might crack like an eggshell, leaving my poor brain to burble out and poach itself on the hot asphalt.
It’s getting to the point where I’m not sure if the aura I’m seeing on the objects around us is the result of my vision being too defective or too acute.
Over the past hour or two, though, the expanded vision Corbin introduced me to up in that attic hideout has been fading pretty steadily. I’m torn about that. I enjoyed being able to see so much, but it was also overwhelming. Having my vision slowly returning to “normal” feels old and smooth. But the thrill-seeking part of me—the baby bird part that’s ready to leave the nest—longs for something rough and new.
One thing I’m pretty sure I’m seeing with crystal clarity is the way Méridienne keeps taking small side glances over at Brohn.
At first, I figured it was either my still-adjusting eyes or else my overactive imagination. But when Corbin sidles up to me, I start having second thoughts. He nudges my arm and tilts his head toward his sister. “I think she likes him.”
“Brohn?”
“He’s very handsome, don’t you think?” When I don’t answer, he shakes his head and continues to plod along through the rubble, his eyes fixed on Méridienne and Brohn, who are now about half a block ahead of us. Shorter than I am and more than ten years younger, Corbin struggles to navigate the broken, cluttered, pitted road. When he trips over objects in our path, he scowls and kicks at them as if they’ve deliberately leapt in front of him. He’s a strange combination of wise man and inexperienced little boy, and I wonder how much of his young life was spent holed up in that attic with his sister. At one point, he half-turns an ankle in the middle of a stretch of cement and rebar. Steadying himself against me, he groans but promises he’s okay before turning his attention back to his sister and my boyfriend. “He might not have yours and Render’s sense of direction. But there is something magnetic about him, isn’t there? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Attractive people attract people, right?”
“That, they do,” I agree, growing mildly annoyed at this boy who’s quickly going from a human database of bird trivia to a gossipy little know-it-all.
“I’ve never been outside too much,” he tells me, confirming my suspicion about his young life as a recluse. “Méridienne became a Fallen a couple of years ago. They took her to the arcology all the time.”
“Who took her?”
Corbin shrugs as if the question is irrelevant and carries on. “She made sure I was safe. She could get out of the arcology and back in without anyone knowing. She checked on me and brought me food and made sure I was okay.”
“How on earth did she manage to get out of the arcology?”
“I dunno.”
“And why the frack would she ever deliberately go back in?”
Shrugging again, Corbin seems a little embarrassed, either by the question or else by the answer, which he is clearly reluctant to share. “The Fallen are rewarded,” he confesses through a mumbled huff. “They get tap-coins to spend inside. And sometimes food or presents and things. To keep us alive, she had to keep going back.”
“What is it she does, exactly?” It’s a question I asked him a couple of days ago on one of our tours of the building. He didn’t answer then, and he doesn’t answer now. I decide to press him. “It has something to do with déjà vu, doesn’t it?” Corbin’s lips stay locked in a tight line. “You know about déjà vu, right? It means something you’ve already seen.”
Corbin shakes his head. “It’s not a good translation.” Then, he says something I can’t hear, so I ask him to repeat it.
Reluctantly, as if the words were somehow toxic in his mouth, he squeaks out, “It means something you’ve already dreamed.”
Dreams. The idea of dreams seems to keep popping up. The Lyfelyte is supposed to be a border between worlds we call the “real world” and the “dream world.” Hypnagogics have the ability to draw on the power of dreams—usually with deadly results. And now, this mysterious girl walking fifty feet ahead with my boyfriend, might have the Emergent ability to tap into some kind of dream-state.
I’m about to ask Corbin to elaborate, but he’s clearly not interested, and I’m left with several gaps I know I’m going to need to fill in.
Stifling a boyish giggle, he pokes me in the ribs and directs my attention to where Méridienne is now walking shoulder to shoulder with Brohn, her hand lightly brushing his as they forge over the blistered, uneven terrain, with Render still leading the way, fluttering and half-gliding up ahead. “She’s always taken care of people. It’s what she’s best at. Maybe she needs someone to take care of her for a change.”
I’m hardly the jealous type. Growing up, I was too shy to want the kind of relationships others had. Okay, maybe I envied their confidence but never their intimacies. Besides, I had my own rapport with Render. Back at the Academy, Mayla once asked if I thought my human relationships were ever influenced by my strange, pseudo-psychic connection with Render. It was a casual question. We were interrupted when Terk lumbered in to tell Mayla she was needed upstairs, so I never got to answer the question. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t wind up thinking and occasionally obsessing about it.
Turning my unreliable eyes back to Brohn, I wonder if he has any regrets about our relationship. He could have had his pick of any girl, or boy for that matter, in our town. The girls in the younger cohorts used to follow him around puppy-style, giggling behind their hands every time he so much as made eye-contact. Knowing recruitment was coming, the older girls mostly stayed with the kids their own age. In our own cohort, Rain turned out to be a ferociously independent little spitfire, hell-bent on saving the world, single-handedly if she had to. Kella nearly went insane after seeing Karmine die, and now she’s become inseparable from Granden. Twice our age, Mayla has become a mother-figure to the rest of us. Manthy lived in her own world until all her walls came down, and she invited Cardyn in.
That left me.
Brohn and I are compatible in a lot of ways. We both love a good fight. We can both get kind of tunnel-visioned when it comes to a mission. And, underneath the value we always say we place on community and camaraderie, we’re both capable of some next-level competitiveness.
But in other ways, we couldn’t be more different. Other than the infrequent insecurity about his dyslexia, he’s all strength and swagger. Me? I don’t think I’ve ever made a decision without torturing myself first by pondering all the permutations of what could possibly go wrong.
Could that be all I am—the leftovers, the last girl standing after a nightmarish relationship-game of musical chairs?
How come the more experience I have and the more enhanced my abilities get, the less confident I become?
I swallow hard, hoping to send my stupid insecurities back down into the invisible depths where they belong. It doesn’t work.
Up ahead, Méridienne is pointing out things to Brohn on either side of the street—a mag-car on its side, a rust-red fire hydrant covered in a dense coil of crispy-brown vines, a high-heeled shoe standing in a patch of dried blood—and telling him how to say all those things in French.
Laughing, Brohn shakes his head. Languages have always been tough for him. But he’s a soldier through and through, so I also know he’s tempted by the chance to improve himself and is easily lured in by a challenge.
I just hope that’s all he’s tempted by.
He doesn’t seem to notice Méridienne’s attention, but how could he not? After all, I’m the one who was blind.
Every once in a while, we catch a glimpse of a lone person or a small group lurking in the shadows inside an abandoned building or peering out at us from behind piles of rubble or from under the tangled branches of a dead, fallen tree.
So far, no one’s threatened us or even stepped out into the road to greet us. When I catch one of the sneaky spies—a chapped-lipped girl of about seven or eight years old—staring at Render before slipping back into her hiding spot just inside a nearby doorway, it occurs to me that he might be the one keeping everyone away. Anyone left alive in this city will certainly have had the experience of seeing the decomposing bodies of their fellow human beings picked apart by the scavenging animals—crows, rats, vultures, and ravens—which makes Render an automatic omen of death.
Abruptly turning her attention away from Brohn, Méridienne does a half-spin back toward me and Corbin and waves us forward.
“Nous sommes arrivées!”
“We’re here,” Corbin repeats in English.
I immediately recognize the low stone wall and the two massive complexes of buildings on either side of the pitted dirt road leading into the woods.
Brohn tells Méridienne and her brother to stay out of sight. When Méridienne looks like she might object, I remind her about our previous encounter with these two warring families.
“If it weren’t for Tallynne and Dove, you and I would be prisoners inside one of those houses right now. Assuming they didn’t decide to just kill us.”
Corbin starts to translate, but Méridienne stops him. “Je comprends. Mais, comment allez-vous rentrer?”
“How will you get inside?” Corbin asks for her.
“Don’t worry,” I assure them both. “This is what we’re trained for, and it’s what we train our students to do.”
“Should we split up?” Brohn asks. “Or hit each house together?”
“Let’s make it interesting,” I offer, pointing one at a time to the sprawling estates to our left and right. “I’ll take Sylvia’s house. You take Christopher’s. First one out with the Fallen, wins.”
“Wins what?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not. When did you get so competitive?” Brohn grins.
“Since I had to start trying to keep up with you.”
25
RESCUE
I don’t know what Brohn is planning for the rescue mission on his side of the road. At over six-feet-tall and with the kind of healthy physical robustness that’s hardly ever seen anymore, he has all kinds of advantages. If you top that off with his strength, combat experience, natural leadership instincts, stubborn determination to succeed, and, especially, his virtually impenetrable skin, he’s definitely the guy you want coming to your rescue.
Me, I don’t have any of his super heroic traits. On the other hand, I’ve got Render.
He’s not a hundred percent, but he’s healing at an exponential rate. For a normal bird, the wounds Render suffered would normally take weeks to heal—if they healed at all. That makes me both happy and a little nervous. In my experience, doing anything too fast can be just as deadly as doing it too slow, and I send him a mental warning not to strain himself.
