“I don’t think we’ll have much longer.”
“What about the kids?”
I walk towards the window and stare at the overcast sky. Pentras Tower looms in the distance, calling me home. “What if we can get back to the academy? We’d be safe there. It’s a fortress.”
“I’m sure it’s been locked down. Probably when the first wave hit, but if you want to try for it, let’s go.”
We tell the kids we’re going on a journey. They’re so young, they won’t know what’s coming when it happens. When we’re down in the lobby, my mate is the first to step out, making sure everything is clear. He waves us out. We each pick up one of the children and begin running for the highway down the street. We have to slow down a few blocks later, too exhausted to keep up the hurried pace. Others join us along the way. Emerging from their hiding spaces, even though they don’t know where we’re headed. Many that have gathered talk about the realignment and what it could mean if it’s successful.
“Why would you want it to be successful?” my son asks a man next to us.
“So that my grandchildren can have a future.”
“Wouldn’t they have one already since they’re alive?”
The man smiles. “That’s a good point, young man. What part of Pentras did your family come from?”
“Waverly,” my son responds, happy to provide the answer.
“Ah, you lived in the same area as my daughter did. Were you happy there?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good. You should always be happy where you live.”
“But I’m not happy anymore.”
“Why not?” I ask.
He changes his focus from the man to me. “We had to leave because people didn’t like us anymore. And I miss my friends.”
I squeeze his hand, which makes him smile.
We’re a block from Pentras Tower when a bright flash behind us ignites the air. I turn to see a mushroom cloud rise to the heavens. People begin to scream and run. We grab the kids up into our arms and race towards the academy. The air is already getting hard to breathe, not from the heat, but from the radiation that I know is following us. Another bomb goes off, this one to the north.
Pentras is in our sights, though its doors are closed, the purple glass obscuring our view from whatever or whomever may be inside. Our kids are screaming as another bomb detonates to the south. We climb up the stairs, but the doors are locked. Only a few of those who had joined us made it to the building. The glass barely rocks when we bang on it. I know there are people inside, there have to be, so why aren’t they letting us in?
“Look,” my daughter says, pointing to someone approaching the door.
The man stops a few feet away, hands crossed over his chest. He smiles as another bomb detonates, this one closer. The one that will kill us. We scream to be let in, to be saved. He just stands there, watching as the world outside dies. The blast cloud finally hits us, knocking us down. My children die instantly. My mate a few seconds later. As I take my last breaths, I stare at the man, memorizing his face so I can haunt him in the afterlife, but all I can see are the dragon tattoos up and down his arms. A marauder has captured Pentras Tower.
Not a marauder, but something I haven’t seen in a long time. A brief memory falls into place. One day I caught my mother hiding a marking on her shoulder from my father. This was just before I left for the academy. It was that of a dragon. I asked her about it, and she swore me to promise never to tell my father that she was joining a force to bring down the Patrician.
A group called the Dracken.
Eighteen
A scream catches in my throat. I bolt up so fast in bed that I almost hit my head on the springs of the bunk above me. My clothes and sheets are soaked in sweat, my heart racing. I strip my bed, toss the sheets into the laundry bin, add my clothes to it, and jump into the shower. I scrub my body until I’m raw, trying to erase the images of incinerated bodies from my mind. In the dream I felt like I was Sadie. That everything that was happening to her was happening to me. I could even feel the heat from the bombs when they fell.
After drying off, I dress and go to the common room. Matron Kaniz is sitting on the couch with Frey. Their conversation stops when I enter the room. Frey rushes to my side, puts his arm around my waist, and has me sit on the couch he was on.
“Max, are you all right?” Matron Kaniz asks, an alarmed expression on her face.
“It was only a dream,” I say, more to myself than them.
“What happened?” Frey asks, his arm still around me as we sit together.
I give them an abridged version of the nightmare. Keeping much of the gory details out of it, especially how the children looked when they died.
“Shit,” Matron Kaniz says, standing. She walks to the lift and descends, leaving us without any reasons as to why. She returns a few minutes later, Cil beside her.
“What is she doing here?” I ask, jumping up from my seat, pointing at Cil.
“She’s going to take a look at your wristband. It may have been compromised.”
“How do you mean?” Frey asks.
“The nightmare Max experienced was Patrician generated. They’ve managed to highjack her mind, probably through the wristband since they can’t get into Thrace Tower any other way.”
“But why?” Frey asks.
Matron Kaniz turns her attention towards me. Speaking to me more than Frey. “To make her one of theirs. To show her what can happen if a realignment was to
