Tandem

over my shoulder to get a peek at my unexpected savior.

Thomas was crouched on a nearby Dumpster, pointing a pistol at the other two men, who had their guns trained on him. My eyes flew to the top of the building, the only place he could’ve come from. It had to have been a three-story drop, and yet he looked unfazed.

“Let her go,” he said. His voice was tight and his face was set in an expression of such incredible focus and determination that I felt myself rescued before any rescuing had taken place.

The bald guy staggered to his feet, but Thomas didn’t hesitate; he shot the man in the leg, and he was down again. One of the others—this one had long, stringy hair and was the tallest man I’d ever seen, quite literally looming over my five feet seven inches—wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled me backward toward the alley’s dead end. His grip was so tight it was cutting off my breath; I choked and sputtered, swinging my elbows in the hopes of jamming one into his ribs, but all I found was empty, indifferent air. The third man, who had a black ski cap pulled tight over his ears despite the warm weather, advanced on Thomas as he dismounted the Dumpster and they faced off, guns aimed and fingers on the triggers.

“No,” Ski Cap said simply. “She’s coming with us. Get out of the way.”

“Not without her.”

My gaze zoomed back and forth between them. My heart was pounding as fast as a hummingbird’s, and it was almost impossible to focus on anything but sucking in air as Stringy Hair’s arm continued to crush my throat. Then he jerked me sideways, which allowed him to lift his gun and point it at Thomas. It was two against one now. Thomas was outnumbered. And yet, from the look in his eyes, I knew they had more to fear than he did.

“We don’t take orders from KES scum,” Ski Cap said.

Thomas laughed mirthlessly in disbelief. “Oh, I’m scum? I’m not the one blowing up hospitals and train stations, making traitors out of innocent people!”

Ski Cap sneered. “It’s for the greater good.”

“Please, spare me,” Thomas scoffed. “Hand her over.”

“Not a chance,” Ski Cap replied. “She’s ours. We’ll kill you if we have to.”

“Fine,” Thomas challenged. “Shoot me.”

Ski Cap raised his gun, but he wasn’t fast enough; before he’d gotten off a single round, Thomas drew out a second pistol and pressed the trigger. The gun fired, but what came out the other end was like nothing I’d ever seen before. The barrel emitted a conical stream of blinding white light, the edge of which hit Ski Cap and sent him flying across the alley, where he came to rest, finally, completely still, his head streaming with slick rivulets of blood.

The blast shook the alley and we all stumbled backward in its wake. Stringy Hair released his grip and his gun, which clattered to the ground near my feet. I gasped, pulling in air as fast as I could. I stared at the gun, unmoving, my brain screaming at me to pick it up, to defend myself, but I was too disoriented. I’d never handled a gun before, never even touched one, and I knew I’d never be able to shoot somebody. I wouldn’t even be able to hold a gun convincingly enough to make anyone think I was capable of shooting somebody.

Thomas charged forward, unaffected by the chaos he had wrought, but Stringy Hair managed to get to his feet and attack. He was unarmed, but he was fast and brutal. He punched Thomas squarely in the jaw; Thomas barely flinched, recovering from the recoil fast enough to knee his assailant hard in the groin. Thomas pushed him backward and kicked him in the solar plexus before spinning and knocking the man in the face with his elbow. I heard the stringy-haired man’s nose crack; blood spurted out of his nostrils and he fell to the ground, where he writhed in pain, clutching his stomach.

Thomas put away his gun and retrieved another, smaller weapon from his belt. He held it steady as he shot each of the men in the shoulder, one by one. The bullets made a soft whistle as they traveled through the air, and the men were still.

I watched this unfold as if at a distance, light-headed and quivering. It was as though I was in some sort of trance. I stared at the bodies of the three Libertas commandos. Were they dead? I didn’t think so. I could just barely make out the rise and fall of their chests. I must’ve looked horrified, because Thomas held up the small gun and said, “Relax, they’re tranquilizer pellets.”

I nodded dully.

“What the hell were you thinking? I told you people would recognize you—I told you to hide your face!” Thomas was shouting, but I could barely hear him over the roar of blood in my ears. I flexed my fingers and pressed them against my throat. The air tasted exquisite now that I could fill my lungs to bursting, like a never- ending drink of cool spring water. I’m alive, I thought, giddy with relief.

“Sasha!” Thomas shook me by the shoulder. His eyes were dark slits, his brow furrowed in something like concern.

“I—” I didn’t have an excuse. He had warned me. But how could he have expected me to listen? Did he really think I’d be that easily managed? How could he have thought I’d give up without a fight? Is that what he would’ve done? Surely not. “I’m sorry,” I said dryly, not at all meaning it.

“Don’t you understand that you could’ve been killed? I was trying to keep you away from them and instead you ran right for them!”

“What was I supposed to do?” I snapped. “Stay put and wait for you to do God knows what with me?”

He glowered at me. “There’s more where they came from. We’ve got to get out of the city as soon as possible.”

“I’m not coming with you.” I folded my arms across my chest in defiance. I was putting on a pretty good show of being stubborn, but actually I was of two minds. On the one hand, I didn’t want to submit to him, to follow his orders and obey him as if he had some sort of claim on me. The urge to resist was personal; I wanted to punish him for what he’d done to me in whatever small way I could. But on the other hand, reason was telling me to go with him, that whatever his plans were for me, they were preferable to falling into the hands of Libertas.

The emotional part of me was winning out.

“Yes, you are,” Thomas said. “Those men were going to take you to an underground bunker somewhere, torture you for information you don’t have, and then kill you. Is that what you want? Because if I’d known you had a death wish I would’ve just left you to them.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” I said. “You need me. Otherwise I wouldn’t even be here.”

“I don’t have time to stand around and chat about this with you. You have two choices: them, or me. And if I were you, I really wouldn’t choose them.”

I said nothing. He made a frustrated noise.

“Look, you want the truth? That anchor brought you here, and it’s the only thing that can bring you home. I have the device that controls it. The anchor is made out of a reinforced titanium alloy—you can’t cut it off, and even if you could, removing it won’t send you back. So we can both sit here and wait for more Libertas to come calling, or we can leave. I strongly suggest that we leave.”

Still I didn’t speak, didn’t move a muscle. I knew he was right, at least about Libertas, but I was having a hard time motivating myself to go along with him. I just didn’t want him to think that I was going down without a fight. Or maybe, I didn’t want to think that about myself.

“I have to admit,” he said, his tone lightening, as if he was trying, in a small, weak way, to make nice. “I’m impressed. You got farther than I expected. It was smart of you to use the rally as cover. Even I don’t have X-ray vision.”

“What was that whole thing, anyway?”

“Antiroyalist rally,” Thomas said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Bunch of rabble-rousers. Nothing to worry about.” But his expression said it was much more serious than that. I had a million questions; the rally had piqued my interest in this strange new world, but even though I was usually quite the determined interrogator when there was information that I wanted, now wasn’t the time.

“Nothing to worry about? They recognized me,” I told him. “And they didn’t like what they saw. Overall, I do not feel welcome here in Aurora.”

Thomas sighed. “I did try to warn you.”