No Shelter Trilogy (Omnibus, Books 1-3) Page 7

  “Elysia?” Daedric calls out. “Elysia, I’m here.”

  “Daedric?” she calls out, and the anguish in her voice drawing out each syllable.

  We reach the halfway point in the tunnel and spot the tiny grate above us. There’s no way a person could fit through that.

  Elysia presses her face against the grate and I suddenly remember what former President Kane looks like. Silky brown hair, button nose, and soft blue eyes.

  “Daedric,” she says in her tiny seven-year-old voice. “They… they made me—”

  “Sh…” Daedric interrupts her. “You can tell me about it later. Right now I need you to tell me where you are and how many people are guarding you. Can you tell me that, sis?”

  She whimpers into the grate and I have to turn away. Mary turns away. I wonder if she’s silently wishing someone had gone searching for her after her father abandoned her.

  “Please help me,” Elysia whispers. “I don’t want to be here, Daedric. Please get me out of here.”

  “I’m gonna help you, sis, but ya gotta help me, too,” he says, his voice sounding much too thick. “How many men they got up there? Can you tell me that? Huh?”

  Daedric’s accent has returned. I turn back to the grate in time to see Elysia’s tears falling onto Daedric’s cheeks. He reaches up and sticks two of his fingers through the gaps to which she quickly latches on to.

  “Don’t leave me,” she cries.

  “I ain’t gonna leave you,” he says.

  He turns to me and I know what he wants me to do.

  I nod my head and turn to Mary. “We have to go up there… just me and you.”

  Mary’s face goes blank. Not only is she about to risk her life, she’s going to do it with me by her side.

  Mary takes a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Daedric’s seems torn between a sense of gratitude and a sense of doom. “I don’t know what to say,” he says.

  “Hey, I help you, you help me, right?” I reply.

  He nods and before I can turn around he grabs my face and kisses my forehead. “Thank you.”

  Mary and I sprint down the tunnel toward the last manhole cover we passed. Mary slips in front of me and I catch her arm to keep her from falling into the muck.

  “Jesus!” she yelps, and her Southern accent is coming back.

  At the sound of Mary’s cries, an explosion of footsteps pummels the concrete above us.

  “Crap!” she whispers.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper. “Just keep going.”

  We make it to the manhole cover and I climb the ladder until I’m right under it. I lift the cover to peek out and I immediately spot a couple of Guardians talking to an old man in front of a small house. I haven’t seen anyone so old in years. They push the old man back into his house as he protests.

  The instant the Guardians disappear inside the old man’s house, I push the manhole cover aside and climb out. Behind me, there’s nothing but an empty concrete courtyard and an archway leading to another corridor. A sign next to the archway reads: HOLDING.

  I help Mary up the ladder and we carefully replace the manhole cover. We tiptoe through the courtyard toward the archway.

  “How do these people live here?” Mary whispers as we turn the corner onto the corridor.

  The corridor is empty but for a few dim sconces wrapped in metal wires to protect them from vandalism. What vandalism? This place is so clean and efficient, except for the constant sense that you’re being held prisoner. This isn’t what we fantasize about when we dream of making it inside the Salton Sea.

  At the end of the corridor we stop at the sound of voices.

  “Take him to the interrogation room,” Vic says. “I’ll have fun with him later. Right now, I have a few sewer rats to exterminate.”

  His footsteps are getting closer, but there’s nowhere for us to hide in the corridor. I have to think fast, but all I can think about is whether it’s Isaac they’re taking to the interrogation room. Mary thinks faster than me and she pushes me out into the next corridor and pulls her machete out of its sheath.

  A scream is caught in my throat as Vic sees me. Mary grabs the back of my shirt and tosses me behind her. She races toward Vic with her machete held high, her honey curls flying behind her like an Amazon warrior woman.

  At first, Vic is too surprised to do anything. Then he reaches in his waistband and draws a sleek handgun that’s swallowed by his gargantuan hand. He points the gun at Mary and the scream finally escapes my lips.

  “MARY! STOP!”

  But it’s too late. She’s chopped off his hand at the wrist.

  At the sound of my screams, the other Guardian comes charging out from behind the dark glass door at the end of the corridor. The door opens again and Isaac stumbles out, bloody and broken as he’s held upright by another Guardian. This one is thin but wily. He pulls Isaac back inside and they disappear behind the smoky glass.

  Vic falls to his knees, but it doesn’t take him long before he realizes he still has one good hand. I race toward him and dropkick him in the face before he can reach his gun. The other Guardian finally registers what has happened and he reaches for his holster. Mary draws the small blade from her boot and heaves it at him. The blade plunges into the man’s gut, but he doesn’t drop his gun.

  He’s stunned. I snatch up Vic’s gun and point it at him.

  “Drop it!” I yell, and he obeys.

  Mary picks up his gun and stuffs it in her waistband then she pulls her knife out of his gut as he collapses against the wall. We rush through the dark glass door. We enter and motion-activated lights flicker on illuminating a stark gray corridor, which branches off in two directions. Yellow words painted on the walls read: HOLDING and INTERROGATION.

  We race down the HOLDING corridor and hope for a better outcome.

  “That was pretty amazing,” I whisper to Mary. “Gruesome, but amazing.”

  She doesn’t smile or respond. We reach the end of the HOLDING corridor and Mary grabs my arm to stop me.

  “Let me,” she says, as she inches her face forward to glance around the corner. “Two Guardians… they’re watching something through a window… They’re watching the inmates through the window.”

  Mary slips a knife from her pocket and my heart flutters at the sight of my jade knife. She hands me the knife and pulls out her medium knife the size of a small partially serrated butcher knife. Mary closes her eyes as she holds the knife in her left hand and the machete in her right, probably mentally preparing herself to chop off more limbs.

  I stare at my blade for a moment. Mary was the last person to sharpen my blade. I hope she wasn’t so angry with me at the time she decided to sabotage me. What if I try to stab one of those Guardians and the knife doesn’t so much as nick him?

  It doesn’t matter. I’m not a knife fighter. I prefer to use my hands and feet. In combat it’s always best to use what you have than rely on what can be taken away from you. That’s when I remember the gun in my waistband.

  “Wait,” I say to Mary. “Take this. I can’t use it.”

  She eyes the gun warily before she tucks the medium knife back into its holster. “Stay behind me,” she whispers before she creeps around the corner into the corridor.

  The two buffoons are staring out the window in total silence, watching an empty corridor lined with prison cells. We creep closer until we’re only a few yards away.

  “Hands up!” Mary yells, and both Guardians whip their heads around.

  The lankier one on the left reaches for his gun and Mary shoots him in the arm. The beefier one holds his arms above his head. I move toward the lankier one to confiscate his gun and he moves his fingers as if he’s going to try to reach for the gun with his other hand.

  I shake my head. “Bad idea.”

  He puts his good arm up and I slip his gun from his holster. I can smell his foul breath through the black bandanna covering his mouth. I take the beefy guy’s gun and try to hand it Mary, but she sha
kes her head so I stuff it in my waistband.

  “Take us to the little girl,” I say to the beefy guy and he nods.

  While Mary guards the wounded Guardian, the beefy guy leads me straight into the prison corridor to the last cell on the right. Elysia is curled up on the floor of the four by six cell next to the grate in the floor. There’s no toilet. She must use the grate as a toilet.

  “Open it!” I demand. “Hurry up!”

  The Guardian mutters something beneath his black bandanna as he fumbles with the keys. I press the gun to his back and he opens the cell door quickly. Elysia doesn’t move.

  “Go with them, Elysia,” I can hear Daedric’s voice in the grate, hollow and exhausted. “I’ll meet you up there.”

  Elysia pulls herself up and slogs wearily out of the cell.

  “It’s okay,” I say to her. “We’re going to take you to your brother.”

  As I say these words, the beefy Guardian snatches the gun from my hand and blasts off a shot that blows out a chunk of the concrete floor. I lunge toward him and the gun goes off again. This time it hits Elysia and she collapses behind me.

  “DON’T MOVE!” Mary shouts from the next corridor.

  She’s been shot in the shoulder and the impact must have knocked her unconscious. He points the gun at my chest and for a moment I’m helpless.

  “Put your hands up!” he yells at me, the contempt in his voice slightly muffled by his bandanna. I raise my hands slowly.

  “Ha! I just wanted to see you do it,” he says and I know I’m about to die.

  A shot explodes in my ears and I drop to the concrete. Something hits the ground next to me, but I’m too afraid to open my eyes. I’m not dead.

  “Elysia!” Daedric yells, as loud footsteps smack the pavement behind me.

  I open my eyes slowly. The beefy Guardian lies in front of me his glassy eyes open wide as blood gushes from a hole in his cheek. Behind me, Daedric scoops Elysia into his arms and throws a gun to the floor.

  “Get up, Nada!” he yells at me. “We gotta get the hell out of here!”

  He carries Elysia into the corridor and I follow close behind. Mary is holding her machete to the lanky Guardian’s throat. Eve stands next to her appearing deader than the other Guardian. Daedric feels Elysia’s neck for a pulse.

  “She’s alive,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  We make it to the ten-foot wall on the backside of the prison without rousing the attention of more Guardians. Daedric squats on all fours so Mary and Eve can climb over the wall. He and I help lower Elysia. Daedric is the last to make it over the wall and out of the Salton Sea.

  CHAPTER 15

  It takes Daedric four weeks to nurse Elysia back to health and another three weeks to make it around the scorched Yosemite National Park to President Kane’s love nest. Seven weeks I can hardly remember. When we get there, it’s just as Daedric described it: a small cabin tucked safely away in the middle of a dense forest. The trees and grass are severely parched, but the lake that lays steps from the cabin is clear and sparkling.

  “See?” Daedric says. “I’m a man of my word.”

  There’s one bedroom with two sets of twin bunk beds. Eve and Elysia have agreed to share a bunk. The rest of us pick a bed and my throat thickens at the thought that Isaac and I will never again share a bed.

  When everybody’s gone taking a dip in the lake I begin pulling the filthy clothes out of my backpack and laying them out on my bunk. The cabin has a real washing machine with real soap.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Daedric says, as he enters the room.

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend you’re going to stay,” he says.

  Suddenly the room is closing in on me and I sink onto the bed. I lean forward clutching my chest as Daedric’s boots swim in my vision. He kneels in front of me forcing me to look him in the eye. I close my eyes. I want to rip out my heart but I don’t think I have one.

  I left Isaac behind. What kind of heartless person am I?

  Daedric lifts my chin. “I’ll go with you.”

  LEFT BEHIND

  Book Two of the No Shelter Trilogy

  CHAPTER 1

  I’ve never seen Mary angrier. Not even the time I woke to find her grinning at me while sharpening the knife given to me by my dead mother. She’s practically spitting in protest at what I’ve suggested.

  “You think just because he dumped me that I feel less bad about leaving him behind?” she shouts from across the bunkroom in our tiny cabin in the woods. “Newsflash, Nada: Isaac and I are friends, too. I have a right to go!”

  Her honey curls are dripping wet from swimming in the lake as she clutches a fluffy white towel around her body. We don’t have swimsuits. We only arrived at the cabin five hours ago and I’m already getting ready to leave.

  I had a feeling Mary would react this way when I told her Daedric and I would be setting off in search of Isaac. After leaving Isaac behind seven weeks ago as a prisoner at the Salton Sea I couldn’t bare to live inside my skin. The shame of abandoning my best friend has been eating away at me from the inside out like maggots. I knew Mary would be upset with my suggestion that she stay behind at the cabin with Eve and Daedric’s seven-year-old sister Elysia, but I didn’t think she would protest so vehemently.

  “Fine,” I say, as I slip my arms into the straps of my backpack. “And I know you and Isaac are friends… some of the time.”

  Mary changes into dry clothes and repacks her backpack. Daedric and I trudge into the kitchen where Eve and Elysia are busy eating bowls of ramen noodles.

  Elysia slurps the noodles and gets broth all over her face sending her and Eve into fits of giggles. I glance at Daedric’s face to see how he’s holding up. His golden hair shades his green eyes. He puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me toward the kitchen. The regret in his eyes makes my stomach twist.

  “You can stay,” I whisper.

  He shakes his head as we enter the kitchen. The tinkling laughter explodes in my ears. A mess of ramen noodles is splattered across the vinyl tile in the tiny kitchen.

  Eve smiles at me. “She’s the one who made the mess,” she says, pointing at Elysia.

  Fifteen-year-old Eve has only known Elysia for seven weeks, but they’re already like sisters. Elysia has forced Eve to peek out of her protective shell and take a look around. Grave robbers assaulted Eve five months ago and I imagine Elysia’s innocence reminds Eve of the way things were before that day. If I leave, will Eve regress?

  “Elysia, clean up your mess, please,” Daedric commands, his voice is soft and comforting. “You have to keep this place clean. I’m not gonna be here to do it for you.”

  Elysia laughs as she kneels and picks the sticky ramen noodles off the floor.

  Eve sets her bowl of noodles on the counter and looks at me. “You’re leaving?”

  Daedric nods and Elysia drops a handful of noodles into her bowl on the counter. “Where are you going?” Elysia asks, but she’s still smiling. She doesn’t know what Eve means.

  Daedric picks Elysia up and sits her on the counter. “How’s your shoulder?”

  Elysia shrugs the shoulder where she was shot seven weeks ago then she shrugs both shoulders as if to say, “I guess it’s okay if I can still do this.”

  “We’re going to look for someone,” Daedric says to her. “When we rescued you from the bad place, one of our friends got lost. We gotta go back for him, just like we went back for you. Do you understand?”

  Elysia’s not smiling anymore. “We have to go back there?”

  “No, honey. You’re not going back there,” he says. “You never gotta go back there. Just me and Nada and Mary. We’ll be gone for a while and you’ll stay here with Eve. And you two can eat all the noodles and swim for hours until you’re sick. But you still gotta clean up your mess. Is that okay?”

  Elysia appears torn between nonstop swimming and losing her brother again.

  “You have to stay,” I say to Daedric. “I�
�ll go alone with Mary. We’ll be fine without you.”

  Daedric chuckles. “Gee, thanks.”

  “You know what I mean,” I say. “You have to stay here.”

  Daedric turns back to Elysia. “What do you think, sis? Should I stay with you or should I go with Nada to find our friend?”

  Elysia pinches her chin and tilts her head as she thinks. “You should go get him,” she says with a nod of her head and her brown hair falls forward around her round face. “You can’t leave him in the bad place.”

  Mary enters the kitchen with her backpack on and her wet curls wrapped in a knot on the back of her head. “I’m ready.”

  “Listen to Eve while we’re gone, okay? And when I get back I’ll build us a boat so we can go fishing,” Daedric says and Elysia’s eyes light up.

  The light in Eve’s crystal blue eyes flickers out. I wrap my arms around her and she barely pats me on the back in return.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  She nods. “Don’t promise me you’ll come back,” she says. “Just promise you won’t let them take any more pieces of you.”

  “Next time, we’re going back for you,” I reply. “And please build some traps around the cabin, just in case anyone stumbles upon this place.”

  This is the first time I’ve seen Eve with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her black hair normally hangs around her face hiding her fair skin and eyes. I don’t know if it’s her hair or the mild sunburn on her cheeks, but she appears livelier than ever. Or maybe I’m just trying to fool myself into believing that Eve is strong enough to be left behind. Her and Mary exchange a brief hug and Mary whispers something in her ear that makes her smile.

  We leave the cabin and set off down the steep slope we climbed when we arrived just hours ago. Daedric immediately reaches for my hand to help me down.

  I pull my hand back. “Thanks, but I can do it alone,” I say, as I grasp a small boulder and lower myself down the incline. I’ve descended inclines steeper than this a million times in the Angeles Forest.

  “Yeah, I kinda got that already,” Daedric replies. “I was just trying to help.”