Page 26 of Above
As I suspected, Captain Zade had left us a trail of bodies to follow.
This one was a rather petite girl, her long blonde hair tangled and matted with dirt and blood. She had a small, button nose and thin lips. Her cheeks were high and her teeth white. A look of pure terror was etched on her still face, the beauty stolen by the fear.
“You can’t help her, just keep moving,” came a familiar voice at my back.
“Not you again,” I grumbled, continuing on the dirt path instead of facing Talon.
“Clearly you don’t like me, but I do think your obvious distaste for the core families is blinding you to what I can offer.” His voice was husky, low, and almost…seductive? Was the pervert propositioning me as we were surrounded by dead trainees and who knew what else?
“I see no benefit in speaking to you at all, actually.” I was annoyed, but my mind still worked out the puzzle before us. Twelve bodies could stretch only so far. We passed over another, this one a boy with deathly pale skin and dark hair. How would we figure out where to go when their weak and frankly pathetic excuse for a message was done?
They wouldn’t only have us ruk a few hundred feet. Which meant there would need to be another sign.
“I was raised by one of the combat colonels. That means something seeing as we are going through what my mother deemed the physical stage.” Ah yes, his oh-so wonderful parents who would kill me and anyone else they deemed a mistakewithout a second thought. What a convincing argument. “I can help you, if you’re also willing to help me.”
“What makes you think I have any help to offer?” I asked, stepping over another body. The forest was beginning to thin, the trees opening up ahead. Behind us, the others could be heard, just as a wolf howled in the distance.
“I think you know much more than any of us. There’s something about you—a look in your eyes that tells me you were born to be underestimated and are desperate to prove the world wrong.” Sincerity bled from the breathy words, and I wanted nothing more than to scream. How dare he analyze me? I wasn’t some character in a book he could assess and dissect.
“Well I think you overvalue your own worth.” Just then, we stepped through the final cluster of towering trees. I had been right about signs. One final body lay upon the dead grass, her hand pointing towards the mountain before us.
Talon glanced behind us, a groan of displeasure emanating from him. Then he reached out, snatched some of my twinkling lights, and tossed them in front of us. The bright silver dots morphed, shaping into the mountain.
“Twelve thousand feet high, give or take,” he said. “We will likely need to get to the top with whatever is in these fucking bags safe and sound. I don’t think there is necessarily a time constraint, but I do imagine that being first will benefit us.”
“How did you do that?” I asked in awe. His finger guided the depiction of the mountain, small statistics appearing in the air next to it. How tall it was. How far away the top was from our position. It’s volcanic state. Even what life existed on it.Tech.Talon was using tech.
“My mother was a cartographer before she married my father and became a combatant. They both taught me and my sister, Dove, everything they know.” He shrugged as he spoke, but Icould tell that he was giving up valuable information by the way his jaw flexed.
Would this alliance of sorts actually benefit me? He could always kill me on the way up. Maybe this was a trick where he caught me off guard and attacked me. Or maybe his plan was to use me until I was no longer of value.
Well, I could always use him too.
“Fine. We can work together. But we’re not friends,” I said through clenched teeth. My finger went to his chest, poking him as hard as I could right where his heart supposedly was. “And the second you say one stupid, purist thing or try to claim I’m a mistake that needs to be corrected, I’m done.”
A smirk tilted the right side of his mouth up, his hand reaching out towards me. Sighing, I took it in mine and shook. “Deal.”
Chapter Thirteen
Nova
“Even in a crowded room, I still feel so lonely. I think I might be truly unloveable. Good thing I have Mama, Dad, and Heavens. They’re all I need anyways.”
-From the journal of Nova Tershetta, 9241 AS
Twelve thousand feet on this large of an incline was far harder than I could have ever imagined.
Talon and I had both agreed that shadow walking wasn’t an option. They wanted us stronger, which meant they wouldn’t welcome shortcuts. This was supposed to test our endurance and fortitude. Both things that I possessed, though I was forgetting the farther we went.
While I wheezed and slipped, Talon practically pranced up. Was his pack lighter? Had he willed a charm? There was no way he could be so unphased otherwise.
Eventually, I grew so sick of hearing his jokes, stories, and even breaths that I grabbed his bag from below to test the weight. Heavy. Maybe even heavier than mine. Damn.
Of course, he didn’t miss a step or so much as question my actions. Instead, he maintained his pace and continued with his story about a dog he had as a child that his dad eventually killed. It was so bleak and horrid, but Talon told it like a punchline. Asif his dad killing his beloved pet was almost funny. Or, at the very least, expected. My already queasy stomach threatened to spill when he described the burial they held for the pet.
“Stars above, Zade, that’s awful,” I managed through gulps of air. But Talon just shrugged and began a new story, never faltering. Core families were so odd. Horrible, really.
I hated feeling bad for him of all people. My sympathy was better reserved for those who the cores hurt. Still, it was startling knowing that—in the end—monsters weren’t necessarily born, butmade.
