Page 137 of The Souls Harvest
“There’s a fracture—the barrier will not hold for much longer…” My brother offers me his hand as I cough up dust, and my legs try to remember how to hold me upright.
Inhaling rough air, I grab a glass of water from a trolley to my right and splash my face. Surprisingly, the room is intact despite the debris on my mouth and hands.
In the fading mist of cement, Mack’s features take shape. Except for some scratches on his forehead, he seems unarmed. Other figures are rising behind him like ghosts on a battlefield.
He brushes off more dust from my shoulders, takes my face in his hands, and slowly turns my neck left and right. “No visible trauma,” he nods, satisfied, but as if delaying the answer to my question.
“Mack?” I urge him.
He drops his head, avoiding my scrutiny. “Roden thought it was a good idea to send all his people against the fence—at once.”
In the corner of my eye, some monitors cast flickering images of the outside perimeter. They are unstable, but crisp enough to show the devastation caused by Roden.
As the voices of the others reach me increasingly defined and louder, I dash for the wider screen. Bodies lie on the ground, some twitching in silent pain, some charred, their clothes fused to their skin: my hand moves and zooms in despite the horror uncoiling before my eyes.
“Where is he? Where is Roden?” I pant. I’d do everything to distract my mind from the idea that Jyn may be among those corpses.
“He’s looking for a way in.” Tabitha’s strong, reassuring hand turns me around, blood running down her cheek from a cut to her temple.
Mack steps beside her, guilt on his face. “And it won’t take him long to find it. With the fence malfunctioning, every access to HQ,disguised by my building in ruins illusion, will soon be visible to the naked eye.”
“What about the tunnels?” Nikrah approaches, limping and using Lily like a living crutch.
“Their defence system is not connected to the fences. Roden shouldn’t be able to find them. However—”
“He can senseus.” Galen’s face is pale with traces of white dust that make him look drained and on the verge of giving up. But the way he’s protecting Lucretia under his arm, the young Harvester curling her shaking fingers against her chest, forces me away from the monitors, from a scene of death I can no longer control.
We’re still alive.
Behind them, July looks at me, nodding as if understanding my increasing fear. The last image I can recall is of her kissing Kris, just moments before the explosion of light. They’re still holding hands when July steps forward. “Roden’s connection with Galen’s mind is something he must have trained for years, but it was the only mind he could access from afar. Until now. We don’t know what he can do with me now that there is nothing between us…” She eyes the key at her neck. “Not even Mack’s genius will stop him now that only mere meters divide us.”
She glances at her fingers, interlaced with Kris’, sadness veiling her eyes as she gifts him a smile, unspoken words they can only hear.
Their hands separate.
“Ms Drestall? Take us to The Mother,” she calls to Lily, butkeeps her eyes on her hands as if directing the order to aJuly, who would rather forget about everyone and remain with Kris.
Lily pats some dust off the embroidered H of her long-sleeved, black shirt, after having lowered Nikrah on a chair, who stretches his right leg and tries to mask a grimace of pain with one of his usual proud smiles.
“Do you think you can keep up with us with that leg?” She slices a feline glance at him, a corner of her still perfectly rouged lips twitches with amusement.
“I bet she still hasn’t forgiven him for what happened with Amelia,” Mack whispers in my ear, gaining a puzzled look from Lucretia, who is finally standing alone without Galen’s help.
Grunting like a wounded bear, Nikrah pushes himself up, the chair groaning under his weight. “I can travel through those tunnels carrying you and little Sable on my back.”
At that, Tabitha clears her throat. She’s been observing us, probably wondering - like me - when and if we will see Jyn again and if we can even leave this room before Roden finds us. Unless it’s already too late.
She steps between us, hands folded on her front, her voice rough with dust and fear, “Sable is safe in one of the secret rooms in the north-west tunnel. I thought Brenath may be safe, but The Mother is where our stronger firepower is. It’s been hard convincing her that I will follow up soon.Please, protect her at any cost…” Tears shine in her eyes, tears she tries to hide, rubbing her face. “It’s time to go. There are supplies upstairs. Take what you can carry.”
We heedfully climb the stairs to the upper levels in silence, like a mountain of sharp rocks and shards of glass. Tabitha leads the group with Galen, followed by Nik, and Lily just behind him to catch him should his leg give up.
Mack mumbles behind me about possible improvements to the building and new animal scouts like his Rary. Nobody interrupts his train of thought because we all know that’s his way to relax and think straight.
The young Harvester climbs beside him, listening to his monologue, enthralled.
July and Kris close the line. They’re quiet, not even a whisper escapes their mouths. I’ve seen them like this before. Every time they had to say goodbye, before Kris would confine himself to his room for days, conscious that July had probably already forgotten him.
A new wave of Roden’s power nearly swipes us off our feet on the landing between the first and the second floor.
