Page 12 of Last of Her Name
What happened?
Are we under attack?
Feeling a wave of heat from my left, I turn to see flames spreading along the far wall. Choking on the smoke, I search for something to grab on to amid the rubble.
My hands lands on something soft and warm.
I look down, and bile rushes up my throat. I jerk my hand away and fall back.
It’s a face, belonging to a body sheathed in red armor. Green eyes stare up at me through a helmet that’s been half blown apart. A shard of it is lodged in the young vityaze’s cheek, but he doesn’t feel the pain.
He doesn’t feel anything, and he never will again.
I stare at him blankly, then push myself to my feet and stumble through the chaos. Pressure expands in my chest, squeezing my heart and making my ribs ache. Is it from the explosion, or just rising panic? My parents are in here, somewhere. Clio is here. Alive? They have to be. Theyhaveto be—
“Stacia!”
Out of the smoke looms a tall figure in a gas mask. I’m still clutching the dead vityaze’s staff, and I punch a button on its rubber grip. White lightning sizzles along the rod.
“Stay back!” I raise it, arms shaking.
“Stacia, it’s me!” His hand raises the mask briefly.
Pol.
“Come with me!” he shouts, hooking an arm around me and helping me to my feet. We stumble over the vityaze’s body. I blink hard, trying to make sense of his appearance. The world spins around me the way it did that time I crashed one of the dories, driving too fast through the vineyard. It had rolled six times, with me bouncing around inside. I feel the same dizzying disorientation, breath suspended as I wait to see where I land, if I will live or die or find myself horribly injured. No space in my head to think beyond that. Every moment is a jumble, and my brain can’t keep up.
“My parents and Clio—”
“It’s you he wants, Stacia. They’ll be fine. We have togo!”
“No!” I try to push him away, but a sudden flare of pain seizes my left leg and instead I end up gripping him just to stay upright. I can’t worry about that right now, though, not when I could be searching for my family. We pass more bodies, and not all of them are vityazes. In one horrible moment, I find myself staring into Ivora’s open eyes, but she isn’t staring back. I try again to pull away from Pol.
“Stacia!” He only tightens his arm around me and I’m forced to turn and face him, his featureless mask smeared with—is thatblood?
“Pol, let go of me!” The pressure inside me is still growing. I feel like I’m going to explode any moment. Ihavefind my parents, have to find Clio.
“A war is about to break out,” he says. “And this is where it starts, Stacia. Here, in this room. And I have orders.”
“Orders?” I shake my head. “No, Pol! I’m not leaving until I find them!”
My hand tightens around the staff, but I know I won’t use it on him. He pulls me away, through the gaping hole where the explosion was centered. I don’t see any sign of Alexei Volkov.
We plunge out of the town hall and into the street, which has erupted into chaos. The sky, now dark, is filled with smoke from a dozen fires. I blink at the scene, unable to believe this is Afka. The houses across the street are burning. People run every which way, screaming or shouting or begging for help. Pol passes by them all, dragging me along with him. With the pain in my leg, I have no choice but to follow. I can barely stand on my own, and it’s getting worse. He’s limping too, obviously still in pain from the beating he took.
“Pol—” With a cry of pain, I stumble to my good knee and drop the staff. Letting go of him, I put a hand to my calf and find it covered in blood. Shrapnel is buried in the muscle. I stare at it, not accepting that the ugly, mangled flesh is my own. It looks like a bad makeup effect. But the pain feels real enough.Tooreal. I sway, nauseated. My head pulses and I freeze up, half expecting to wake up and find myself in bed, sweating and disoriented, but free of this nightmare.
“Stacia! Snap out of it!”
Pol lifts me in his arms with surprising ease, then takes off at a jog. I bounce against his chest, suppressing a whimper as each step sends a jolt of pain through me, excruciating reminders that the nightmare is real and there will be no waking up.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he pants. “It was supposed to be a distraction. No one was going to get hurt!”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to make a plan. I have to go back. I can’t just leave Clio and my parents in that burning building. But my mind is squeezed with pain and confusion. I can’t even follow what direction Pol is taking me in. My town, which I thought I knew blindfolded, seems suddenly foreign, everything turned inside out. The smoke and flames and screams have turned Afka into a grotesque mockery of itself.
Volkov’s face haunts me, a ghost I cannot shake.You… I keep seeing the dawning recognition in his eyes when he looked at my parents. It makes me sick.
Pol carries me through a patch of trees, away from the town center. Sharp branches bristling with rust-colored needles claw at us, but he wrenches free of them, stepping into a trimmed backyard. I blink, vaguely recognizing the large house ahead. Pol has shed his gas mask; I hadn’t even noticed. There’s an angry red scratch across his cheek, probably from the trees we crashed through, and an ugly bruise on his temple is evidence of the vityaze’s kicks. There must be a whole patchwork of bruises under his clothes.