Joan leads the raid. I’m really only here to follow orders and provide support since Ellis didn’t give me a specific role. Mostly, I just hope we don’t have to kill anyone. I don’t think I can slaughter a bunch of defenseless Etioles.
The rebels don’t have a lot of technology, and what they do have, they save for more important missions. Which means our group moves out on foot.
The moon hangs overhead, a sliver of orange. We don’t risk lights, so even though the thin moonlight sucks, it’s all we’ve got. I stick to the back and make sure no one can get the jump on us.
It feels like we sneak around for hours before Joan finally holds up her hand for us to stop. We crouch in the cover of some boulders without speaking. With everyone dressed in all black, in the dead of night, even knowing where to look, I can barely see some of my teammates. They don’t budge an inch.
And then we wait.
I watch the moon as I fiddle with the power crystals on the silver chain Ellis gave me. I’ve added a couple more since joining the rebels. Apparently it’s pretty common to trade them. It’s like a wish, Gabriel said as he gave me his own neutralization crystal before we left earlier. I felt guilty accepting it, adding more pressure to him, but as bad as I felt, I don’t want to die. His hand lingered over mine. A wish for someone to come back safely. Everyone has friends they want to return alive, so we’re all trying to increase the odds of that however we can.
A wish. I’ve gotten so many of those from strangers over the last two and a half weeks it doesn’t feel worth counting them all. But looking at my string of crystals, it’s weird to think of each one as someone wishing for me to make it back okay. I guess there’re a lot of people watching out for me, but it doesn’t really feel like it. If anything, they’re weights dragging me down. A reminder. A curse. The person they really want to protect is the old Erik. The real Erik is selling all of them out. It’d be better for them if I didn’t make it back alive.
A murky green one stares me down. Lai’s. Above all else, you have to live.
I close my eyes. Don’t think about it. Everything will be fine. Everything is fine.
No one says anything, but there’s a shift. Everyone stiffens. The air hums. A buzzing crawls up my skin before it reaches my ears. They’re here.
The actual appearance of the trucks follows after the rumblings of their engines. There’re three total: one supply truck and two smaller armored trucks on either side of it, lights flashing over the dead, empty landscape.
We wait as they drive toward our hiding place. My muscles groan from crouching for so long. My heart is about to break some ribs as the trucks get closer, closer, almost on top of us.
They pass us.
Siobhan jumps out behind one of the armored trucks, and with an upward swipe of her hand, thick vines break through the ground to wrap around it. The wheels screech as the truck tries to keep going forward and fails. The vines tighten.
“Don’t damage it too much,” Joan orders crisply as Jared and Lily sprint to deal with the second armored truck. “If we get rid of its occupants, we can take it for ourselves.”
“Understood.”
Joan glances at me, but she doesn’t say anything before taking off. I follow her.
It feels like a lifetime since I was on a battlefield. It’s hard to keep my head on straight. Everything’s happening too quickly—where’s the Order? Lai definitely said they’d be here to counterattack, but there’s no sign of them. Did I mess up when I sent her the location?
The other armored truck’s driver must have realized what was happening and tried to fight back, but they can’t do anything against a change in landscape. Lily’s gift is making holes appear wherever she wants, and so the truck now sits in a pit as deep as the truck is tall.
Up ahead, the supply truck screeches as it twists and makes a break for it, but the field of boulders blocks its path. If the truck wasn’t made of starlight metal, I could’ve stopped it with my gift. As it is, with a glance between me and Joan, I lift her through the air with my gift and send her flying into the back of the truck. She latches onto a door handle with one hand. With her sword gripped in the other, she jams the blade into the thin crack between the doors and tries to pry them open.
I can’t lift myself through the air, so I have to run after the supply truck to catch up. Not that I have any chance if Joan doesn’t stop it. Even with the heightened speed of a Nyte, the idea of outrunning a truck is ridiculous.
Shouts and screams break the air behind me, but I don’t look back. Just keep running. Go.
I can’t see what’s happening ahead of me, but guessing by the ear-shattering crash that splits the air, Joan must’ve formed a wall of ice in front of the truck to force it to a stop.
I pick up the pace. Whether or not I actually want to get there any faster is another question.
After the crash and the screams just seconds before, the air feels dead as a graveyard now. The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
When I reach the truck, there really is a wall of ice, the fender smashed up against it like a crushed tin can. Faint moonlight plays over the shiny black shell of the truck, and without any movement or sound around me, it feels like I just stumbled across a long-abandoned piece of the sector rather than an until-recently running truck that I helped bring down. My stomach turns.
The back doors slam open and then Joan is there, beckoning me over.
I jog up to her. “The driver?”
Her pale, ice-blue eyes glitter in the shadows of the truck’s cargo hold. They drop away. “She escaped.”
“She escaped?” I repeat. “How in the gods’ names does some Etiole in hulking Outside armor escape you of all Nytes?”
Joan’s eyes snap back to mine. She lifts her chin. “She wasn’t even armed.”
“Since when has that ever mattered?” Haven’t they been killing defenseless civilians? Isn’t the rebels’ sole goal to wipe out all Etioles—innocents included?
Joan scowls. “Shut up and get in here already.”
I don’t argue. I’m more relieved than anything—one less life on my conscience. There are already more than I want. But I wasn’t expecting mercy from any rebel, let alone efficient, reliable, cool Joan. Maybe there’s more to her than I thought.
Joan backs into the truck so I can join her inside. Soon, our teammates will be here, too. Come on, Lai. Where are you?
“Is this thing still operational?” I ask. “I noticed it had a small, ah, accident.”
“If not, then we load everything into the armored trucks,” Joan says. She kicks one of the crates lightly with the toe of her boot. They’d probably been stacked before, but with the chase and the crash, they lie randomly across the floor. At least it doesn’t look like any broke open. “We don’t need a slow, bulky vehicle like this. Better to abandon it and take back only what’s useful. Start looking for the food and I’ll see what else we can use.”
“On it.”
Distantly, a scream goes up.
Footsteps head toward us. Joan and I both look to the barely open doors, but neither of us move. There are a lot of footsteps. More than the number of our teammates.
My heart hammers. The Order. Do they know I’m on their side? Probably not. They’re going to attack me the same as Joan, intending to kill. Lai warned me as much, but it really does suck being in the middle of two warring sides when you can’t actually fight either of them.