Warriors

TWENTY

Magnolia woke up in a room that smelled like overcooked meat. Looking around her, she realized she was surrounded by it.

Dozens of burn victims lay in rows of beds, their bodies wrapped in bandages brown with blood.

With her ears still ringing, she sat up and scanned the bandaged faces for the one person she expected to see in here. For the first time she could recall in her adult life, she found herself missing another human being.

She had always counted on herself, but she had grown to count on Rodger. And Rodgeman wasn’t in any of the beds that lined both walls.

Feeling a twinge of panic, she lay back on her pillow, looking up at the ocean waves and fields of flowers painted on the ceiling.

She followed the line up from her arm to the IV bag hanging from a pole beside the bed—sterile saline for rehydration, she supposed.

It had taken her a few seconds to remember why she was here and why her ears were ringing. Memories of the attack flooded her mind, but she had no idea what had happened since the boat ride, or how long she had been out.

“Nurse,” she mumbled in a scratchy voice.

The woman attending a man across the aisle turned and said something that Magnolia could hardly make out.

The woman, named Lisa, wasn’t really a nurse. She had worked as a seamstress on the Hive, which apparently made her really good at stitching people up. The skill had come in handy since they arrived at the Vanguard Islands, but Magnolia was leery of her doing anything more than suturing a wound.

As she waited, a man with a beard raised a bandaged hand to her.

“Imulah,” Magnolia whispered. She waved back to him, and he rested his head back on a pillow.

“What can I do for you?” Lisa asked in a distant-sounding voice.

“How long have I been here?” Magnolia asked.

“Since the attack.”

“Which was when?”

“This morning,” Lisa said. “It’s about midnight now.”

“I slept that long?”

“We gave you a strong painkiller,” Lisa said. “You have a ruptured eardrum, and burns—”

“Do you know what’s going on outside?”

“Not really, but he might.” Lisa looked toward the double doors with glass windows. A militia soldier stood outside.

“Thanks,” Magnolia replied.

Lisa nodded and moved on to her next patient.

Magnolia wasted no time. Reaching down, she ripped off the tape and pulled the needle out of her vein. Then, wincing in pain, she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

The right side of her head throbbed under the thick bandage, but she didn’t care about the pain. All that mattered was finding Rodger and the Hell Divers. She threw off the blanket and placed her naked feet on the tile floor.

Several patients in the beds were people she had grown up with, but there were also Cazadores she didn’t recognize. The attack had spared no one.

After testing her balance with a tentative step, Magnolia staggered down the center of the room, past nurses and patients. A male voice that had to be Dr. Huff’s called out when she had reached Imulah’s bed.

“Magnolia!” said the same agitated voice.

She slowed but didn’t stop as the doc hurried after her.

“Where are you going?” he said.

She kept walking. She didn’t have time to argue.

“Magnolia Katib, stop!” Huff said, his voice louder but still faint.

Several injured patients looked up from their beds.

“I said stop!” Huff said in what had to be a shout.

Magnolia halted and faced the doctor. He stepped up to her, stopping uncomfortably close to her face, all the usual niceties forgotten.

“I’m going to assume you didn’t hear me because you have a ruptured eardrum,” he said.

“I can hear just fine,” she lied.

“Well, then, listen and listen well. You have third-degree burns on the right side of your head and need to rest. Your ruptured eardrum makes your middle ear prone to infection and needs time to heal as well. I’ve given you some of the last of Colonel Forge’s nanotech gel, but you still need rest if you want to heal fast.”

“Just give me some painkillers that won’t knock me out.”

Huff stared. “I really want to believe you can’t hear what I’m saying.”

“I hear you, but I have work to do.”

“What is it with you people?” he asked.

“What people would that be, Doc?”

“Hell Divers. You’re all the same. You think you’re invincible. Well, I can tell you, you’re not.”

“One of us is.”

“No. X almost died because he didn’t listen to my orders about staying in bed.”

“But he didn’t die, did he?”

Huff let out a sigh of frustration. “I give up.” He walked over to a table and returned with a mirror.

“If you won’t take my word for how badly you’re injured, take a look for yourself,” he said. “Now, sit.”

Magnolia sat on a doctor’s stool and held the mirror up while he carefully unwrapped her head. The first few winds didn’t hurt, but he stopped when she was almost unbandaged.

“This is going to hurt,” he said.

“Then get it over with.”

He unraveled the bandage one last time, then peeled the dressing away from her scalp. She gritted her teeth and took the pain. Then she held the mirror up and turned her head.

The entire right side of her scalp and her right ear were burned away, leaving gooey flesh that was covered in the gray gel. Horrified, she just stared.

“You’re not howling in agony now only because of the pain med in your saline solution, and the nanotech gel that’s speeding up the healing process,” Huff said. “But you’re still at high risk for infection.”

She held the mirror there, studying the wound.

“The ruptured eardrum is essentially a tear in the thin tissue that separates your ear canal from your middle ear,” he said. “I’ve tried to get some of the nanotech gel inside, but I’m not sure it’s going to work.”

Magnolia turned her head more, looking out the corner of her eye.

“X insisted that I keep you in bed and watch you, so you can heal,” Huff said. “Those bandages need to be changed multiple times a day…”

She lowered the mirror when she saw a flash of black armor outside the medical ward. The militia soldier standing guard suddenly ran away with another guard who had just arrived.

“X didn’t have time to heal, and I don’t, either,” she said.

Magnolia handed the mirror back to the doctor, and wrapped the bandage around her head as she hurried out of the ward.

“You Hell Divers are all insane!” Huff called out after her. “Do you hear me?”

Magnolia heard him, and of course he was right. The best Hell Divers were the crazy ones. And she was proud to be one of the craziest in the ranks.

A group of divers and support staff had gathered inside the marina under the capitol tower. X stood with them, anxious to join them in the air and search for the skinwalkers. Having a mission to focus on helped keep his mind off all the people he had lost.

But the losses were not far from his mind. And his heart.

Torches cast a glow over the freshly painted hang gliders pulled from storage on another rig hours earlier. With all the mechanics, engineers, and technicians busy working on Discovery, the divers had to do most of the work.

But most of them had come from other fields such as engineering, and some, like Michael, knew their way around equipment and machines. The young commander of Team Raptor finished applying a synthetic wrap around the aluminum-alloy poles of a glider’s control frame. Apparently, it would help lessen the risk of lightning strikes. A few feet away, Sofia was securing her booster pack to the control frame of her glider.

Two militia soldiers laid out submachine guns, extra magazines, pistols, and flares.

Ton and Victor finished tying the camouflage tarps on a fiberglass boat that would be almost invisible to any skinwalker subs still prowling. Mac and Felipe helped with the tarps on another boat. After working all day with Colonel Forge and Sergeant Wynn to scour the rigs for hostiles, they were now joining the mission to launch the divers. It was a coordinated effort between sky people and the many Cazadores who had rallied after the skinwalkers’ attack.

Even Pedro, leader of the survivors from Rio de Janeiro, had come to help. While he couldn’t pilot a boat, he was armed and could fight.

X chugged the rest of a disgusting beverage more potent than the shine Marv used to pour at the Wingman. The liquid running down his throat wasn’t alcohol, though. It was a Cazador cocktail of thick fruit juice infused with electrolytes and a special ingredient that they claimed would give him energy.

He still wasn’t even close to normal, but he wasn’t hungover, and the phantom pains where his arm had been were manageable tonight. It was his heart that hurt the most.

After finishing off the bottle of nutrients, X walked with Miles over to the divers. Michael, Rodger, Sofia, Arlo, and Edgar were the veterans of the group. They worked on their rigs quickly and efficiently, showing no sign of pain.

It wasn’t physical injuries that had X worried. Rodger had just lost his parents, but he insisted on going. And the truth was, they needed every single diver in the air.

Ted and Lena had finished rigging their hang gliders and were checking their armor and suits. Hector and Alberto were also flying tonight.

X didn’t trust any of the other rookies for a mission as tricky as this, but these four had enough experience under canopy that they should be able to figure out the gliders. He was more worried about himself. If anyone was going to have a problem up there, it was X, who had only one arm to steer with.

“Boats are ready,” boomed Mac.

“We’re good to go,” Michael said.

“All right, gather around,” X said. “We don’t have much time. The plan is simple. We take boats out under cover of darkness, use our boosters to get into the sky, and start the search in the storms.”

He gestured to Pedro and the Barracudas. “Our friends here will wait on the boats during our search. They will keep an eye on our beacons, and if you spot Raven’s Claw, you simply tap your wrist monitor to indicate hostiles.”

Michael held up his wrist monitor and tapped the screen to demonstrate. Then he said, “I’ve analyzed the area Cricket has searched so far. I’ll upload that to our HUDs and then program the computer to assign us all grids that haven’t been searched already.”

“Good,” X replied. “Sergeant Wynn and Colonel Forge will be patrolling to guard our home while we work. Once we find Raven’s Claw, we will relay the coordinates to our fleet.”

“And the cavalry will charge,” Mac said.

“Okay, then, let’s get to it,” X said.

The divers picked up their hang gliders and took them to their assigned boats.

X put his left hand on the wing of Rodger’s glider. “You sure you’re up for this, Rodge?” he asked.

All trace of Rodger’s usual jocularity was gone. “Sir,” he said, “my parents are dead, and I’m damned if I’ll sit here and wait for you all to find their killers.”

“You’re not going alone.”

Both men turned toward the hatch that led into a stairwell. Magnolia stood there in armor still covered with ash. A bullet had dented the upper chest piece.

“Mags, you—” X began to say.

“Save it, sir,” she said, working the helmet carefully over her bandaged head. “You have no room to talk on this subject.”

X grumbled under his breath. He hated when Magnolia made him look like an idiot just by being right.

She walked over and gave Rodger a hug as X decided to let it go. She was needed in the sky, and he wasn’t going to tell her no when she wouldn’t listen anyway.

The divers and support team loaded up the boats with gear. X holstered a pistol while the other divers grabbed assault rifles. Michael took one of the two remaining laser rifles.

“Let’s move out!” X shouted.

Miles got up and followed X to the boat where Victor and Ton had loaded the glider. Arlo was already on the deck.

“No, boy, you have to stay,” X said. He waved the dog back toward the docks, but Miles wasn’t having it. He jumped into the boat.

“I watch him,” Victor said in English that was getting better by the day.

X sighed. He couldn’t win an argument with Miles or Magnolia tonight. The motors chugged to life inside the marina, echoing off the bulkheads.

“Wait!” called out another female voice from the stairwell.

X turned to see Layla walk out of the open hatch in a dress, a hand over her swollen belly.

“Tin,” she said. “Come here for a minute.”

Michael, who had already boarded a boat, jumped out and hurried over. X watched, pondering whether to leave Michael behind. There was no telling when the skinwalkers might attack again, and the storms could make this mission more dangerous even than diving.

X was close enough, he could hear the conversation.

Layla wiped away a tear. “Please be careful, Tin. Please…”

Michael silenced her with a kiss. “I’ll be back by sunrise,” he said. “Meet me at the rooftop gardens. I have a surprise for you.”

Layla glared at X but didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to.

“I’ll watch out for him,” X said, raising a hand.

She held her hand up, too, then brushed a strand of hair away from her face, revealing a gash on her forehead. Michael kissed her and ran to his boat.

The marina door clanked open, and X put his helmet on as Victor guided their boat out into the night.

One by one, the boats sped away from the rig, moving out in all directions to take the people he loved most on a dangerous mission. Moonlight sparkled in the dark water ahead of the boat.

X decided to use the time before the mission to talk to Arlo. The young man sat by himself, looking at the sky. X took the seat next to him. For a few minutes, they sat in silence.

“I hope this isn’t a bad idea,” Arlo said. “I didn’t do so great last time my chute opened.”

X had heard the story but didn’t want to rub it in. He couldn’t remember a diver who had a worse landing and lived to tell about it. Arlo was lucky as hell to be here and not composting as Siren shit back in Rio.

“I haven’t told anyone this, but the skinwalkers…” Arlo’s words trailed off as a memory seemed to surface. “When they ambushed me and Edgar in Rio, I thought they were some sort of mutants because of their shriveled skins.”

“Worse than mutants.”

“Anyway, they captured us, but there were only three of them, and they didn’t understand English. Edgar came up with a plan to escape, and when the time came for me to do my part… I got scared, King Xavier, and I ran,” he said. “I ran and I left Edgar there. That’s why he was beat worse than me. He tried to fight the three bastards by himself while I took off like a damn coward.”

Edgar had apparently kept the story a secret. As far as X knew, no one had said anything about what had happened there.

“And you know what he told me when we were rescued and safely on Discovery?” Arlo bowed his helmet.

Lightning cleaved the skyline. They were getting close now. The boat thumped over waves as Victor opened it up. A distant crack of thunder sounded over the motor, and Arlo finally looked back up.

“Edgar told me he just wanted me to get away, and he was sorry I didn’t. He was sorry I didn’t get away. Can you believe that?”

“Yes,” X finally replied.

“And Alexander—he gave his life to give us a chance to escape when those freak bone-beast things were about to rip us limb from limb.”

“Everyone freaks out on their first dive,” X said. “It’s a natural human emotion to feel fear when you’re on the surface for the first time in your life. Don’t beat yourself up too much, kid.”

“Yeah, well, I realized in Rio what it means to be a Hell Diver.”

Another fork of lightning speared the horizon, illuminating the dark clouds. Arlo kept talking, seemingly oblivious to the storms.

“I realized diving is a duty and it requires sacrifice,” he said. “I’m ready to do my part, King Xavier. I’m ready to give my life if need be, for our people and for this place.”

X stood and patted Arlo on the shoulder.

“That’s good, kid, because tonight you’re going to need courage.” X looked out at the skyline. “Tonight, we’re heading out there.”