Page 39 of The Infinite Glade (The Maze Cutter #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Flaring Justice

X imena had read about cave systems in the same military stories of the past where she first learned about grenades.

But as she followed Cian and Erros toward the naturally carved-out section of cliffs, her feet slowed beneath her.

The size of its entrance looked so much bigger than her imagination had previously provided.

A crooked, jagged, gaping mouth of darkness, taller than any building she’d ever seen.

Someone bumped into her from behind.

“Sorry,” Isaac said. “You good?”

“Watch it.” Ximena traced her fingers all along her backpack to make sure nothing had fallen out.

“Important stuff in here, you know.” She couldn’t care less if the Villa’s Cure leaked out—she was more worried about the weapons she’d grabbed from the pile in the back of the Berg when no was looking.

She’d also stolen a light-flare, now in her back pocket.

Cian and Erros might be dumb enough to go into another’s Village without weapons, but she certainly wasn’t.

“I guess this is it,” Isaac said sarcastically. He looked up at the massive entrance of stone—or lack of stone—probably thinking of Frypan’s stories about the Maze, built inside of a giant cavern. “Looks a little creepy.”

“Do we have to go in there?” Miyoko asked. “Maybe Jackie and I should stay out here, guard the Berg.”

Frypan wasn’t having any of that. “We’d better stick together—only way I know we’ll all be safe.” He held out his arm to Miyoko and she joined him, step for step. They entered the darkness of the opening. Erros lit up another one of his weird herb packets.

We can’t let the truth stay buried , Ximena’s inner-knowing shouted at her.

“Whatever that is, it stinks,” Jackie said to Erros.

For the second time, Ximena agreed with her. “Yeah, ?Qué es eso?”

“Coltsfoot and lavender, for the lungs. It’s a different type of air down there, I’m telling you.

” A breeze swept the smoke of his cigar away from the group, but despite the cool air, Erros had what looked like sweat gathering on his forehead.

He wiped it away once he noticed Ximena looking at it.

“The families you’re about to meet have lived for generations as if they were the only survivors of the solar flares and the virus that came afterward.

About twenty years ago, someone got the bright idea to tell them that wasn’t the case.

” He stopped to set the air tank down and get a better grip. “It didn’t go well.”

“That’s an understatement,” Cian said, turning back to the others. “We’ve been on the cusp of a war within the Sequencers. Typical civil-war stuff. History, basically.”

Isaac shuffled the box in his hands—the glass containers clinked against each other. “Why lie to begin with? Why not just tell them the truth from the start?”

“Yeah, what was the point?” Jackie asked.

The islanders were so naive.

Cian fixed his red scarf around his neck and gave Isaac and Jackie a look like they’d just asked the dumbest question possible to humankind.

“What do you think would have happened if everyone who worked at WICKED knew there was some great safe haven and they weren’t invited?

” Isaac and the others went quiet. “No one wants to be on the outside. That’s what gives any society its power.

” He traded his box of supplies from the Villa for the second air tank Erros had trouble carrying. “Here.”

He shouldn’t have been lighting that coltsfoot cigar so close to an air tank, anyway. Everything from the Villa was flammable. Ximena was counting on it.

“You remembered the Cure, right?” Cian pointed at her.

She tightened the strap of her backpack.

He didn’t have to point at her; she remembered all too well what she had promised back at the Alaskan Villa.

“Impossible to forget.” Her life, even from before her birth, revolved around the small vial she carried.

She’d stolen it to spite Professor Morgan, but also hoping to use it for leverage, somehow, somewhere, before destroying it. She was still convinced it should be.

“I have a plan,” Cian said to his brother with a smile.

“Plan for what? I thought bringing them the Cure was the plan?” Ximena hated it when adults lied to her. Maybe she shouldn’t give it to them, after all.

“It’s not that easy,” Cian said as he walked farther into the cave, where the light from outside was dwindling fast.

“A Cure never is.” Erros scooped Ximena’s backpack off her shoulder before she could react. He put it on to his own, picked up his box, then continued following Cian.

“Well, that’s how you made it sound!” Ximena’s body went rigid, head to toe, and she stopped walking into the tunnel. Not one more step into the darkness until she heard more.

Frypan stuck his walking stick’s point into the soft earth of the cave. “What aren’t you telling us? What exactly are we walking into?”

Cian turned around and rolled his eyes at Ximena. “Look, I didn’t want to make it seem impossible, but the Sequencers . . .” he looked at his brother, but Erros wasn’t any more forthcoming with explanations. “They don’t exactly like visitors.”

Everyone had stopped walking, now. They were spread out beneath the overhang of the mountain above them.

Even Isaac, who had a death wish and almost caused the Berg to drop out of the sky, set his box of supplies down. “This is why you said you needed a plan?”

“All those weapons back in the Berg and you handed us these boxes filled with crap?” Jackie let her box fall to the ground and something inside broke into pieces.

“Watch it!” Cian motioned to the noise from the box.

“Don’t be stupid! Weapons would have gotten us nowhere.

The Sequencers need these supplies. Now, let’s get in there!

” Cian and Erros trudged ahead, deeper into the ever-growing darkness of the cave, but the islanders didn’t budge.

Ximena pulled the flare from her back pocket and struck it against the wall of rock in front of her.

“You want the truth?” She held the sparkling stick of light out to her side, away from her clothes so they wouldn’t catch fire. It was a symbol, a slight show of power, if nothing else. She’d shown initiative, taken something that wasn’t hers. “We’re not going to find it standing here in the dark.”

She moved forward, walking ahead of the islanders, lighting the way.

“Come on. Like he said, let’s get in there.”

Remnant soldiers aimed their guns and pushed her back to the others. How quickly they brought her back down to earth.

“Okay. Okay.” She returned to Roxy, Dominic, and Sadina as more soldiers hovered over their group.

If they hadn’t been surrounded in such a tight circle with weapons pointed directly at her, Alexandra might have felt protected by such an army presence.

Mikhail had always refused Evolutionary Guards, and she’d never understood why, until now.

All this time, he’d had an entire army at his disposal.

If only the Orphan soldiers knew how manipulated they’d been, that they’d been led by a half-Crank.

The pain in the back of her skull pulsed electrically.

The Flaring Discipline be damned, the Godhead would not be defeated.

“We have to do something,” she said to the others.

“And what exactly would that be?” Sadina whispered.

“Minho said to stay quiet,” Roxy spoke through her teeth.

Alexandra needed a plan. Some sort of distraction to escape and get help from her faithful Pilgrims. Once the Pilgrims recognized her, they would protect her at all costs. She could find a way out of this mess. An idea popped into her mind.

“The Godhead,” she said aloud, but the soldiers around them didn’t hear her.

She cleared her throat and lifted her head to the trio of soldiers who surrounded her, then spoke louder, directly to them.

“You have in your presence the one and only Godhead.” Her heart beat in sync with the digits, 2, 3, 5, 8.

She now had the soldier’s attention, all of them.

It was a word they’d heard from the day of their birth.

“Huh?”

“The Godhead. She’s here among you.” She watched as Sadina’s eyes widened.

Dominic shook his head. “What are you doing . . . ?” he whispered.

Alexandra stood up, stood tall, and pointed a finger. “The Godhead is the one they call Roxy.” The one true Goddess exhaled as she looked at Roxy, who’d frozen still, completely.

“I won’t protect your lies, not anymore!” Alexandra slapped the woman across the face. “She’s here. The Godhead! This one! Right here!” She stepped back as soldiers swarmed in to grab Roxy. “That’s her and I can prove it. Kill her. Kill the Godhead!” She pointed again to leave no doubt.

The soldiers yanked Roxy up, began dragging her away. She said nothing, didn’t fight back. But her eyes glared, fiery with betrayal.

“No!” Sadina pulled at Alexandra’s cloak, pleading. “Why would you do that?”

Sadina. Dear Sadina . She would forgive her in time.

“Oh, child.” Alexandra rested her palm against the girl’s face. “One of us must die in order to save the rest. There is no grander gesture in all the world. And I wasn’t going to let it be you.”

Sadina went as still as Roxy, her eyes dropping to the ground.

Just as she’d wanted, confusion and chaos reigned as the news spread. People were running this way and that, in every direction, no one quite sure what was happening. Rumors created more rumors. Her lie grew and blossomed, then grew some more.

It had worked. Of course, it had worked. She was a Goddess.

Alexandra slipped away from her group. She ran for the cover of the strange forest, still growing within the Glade after all these decades and decades, like a blight.

The darkness had a smell which reminded Isaac of the waterfalls inside the caves of the cliffs back home.

Earthy. Unforgiving. He limped behind Jackie, Miyoko, and Ximena, who still held a hissing, sparkling light, through the tunnel beneath the mountain.

He ran his hand along the side of the dark rock wall that rose and arched high above him.

The echo of Cian and Erros talking ahead of the group made Isaac want to pick his words more carefully.

“Frypan,” he whispered. “Two lefts and a right . . .” There weren’t any markings in the rock, and he needed to make sure they could find their way out of the cave system.

“Way ahead of you.” Frypan knocked his walking stick against the wall then gestured at the dirt beneath them. He’d been dragging the point of his stick into the earth, leaving a deep groove to guide them out.

Or guide anyone else in.

Isaac shivered at the thought, not knowing if it was good or bad.

Alexandra heard the betrayal behind her as she fled.

Sadina was shouting at the soldiers taking Roxy away. “No, she’s wrong! She’s not the Godhead! Please, don’t take her!” Sadina then screamed, but that only enhanced the distraction Alexandra needed to escape. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 . . .

Her Pilgrim cloak slowed her down, but shedding it would only show them her true garments.

The Goddess ran from the commotion as fast as she could, waiting for gunshots or screams from behind, but there were none.

She ran a path between pockets of Pilgrims and Remnants, distinguished so well by the colors of their clothing and the way they stood.

Her Pilgrims looked defeated, slumped over and beaten, and the Remnants stood on the heels of a power Mikhail didn’t deserve. Had never deserved.

Alexandra’s hood slipped as she ran; she quickly pulled it back over her head.

“Goddess!” A Pilgrim reached out and grabbed her, spinning her to a stop.

Tattoos covered his face, tattoos of names.

Thomas. Newt. Alby. Chuck. “You . . .” He stared at her with a fanatical, almost evil smile.

Zart. Minho. Winston. The names of Gladers of Old, staring back at her along with the face of the crazed Pilgrim.

The Goddess fought to get free from the desperate grip. “No, you’re mistaken.” She pulled her hood tighter with her other hand as she wiggled to break away. “Let me go.” She dug her nails into the Pilgrim’s arm. “Let go of me!” she demanded.

But he didn’t budge or loosen his hold on her.

His eyes widened with lunacy. “You . . . you tried to have me executed in front of the whole city for your own deceit. You killed Nicholas. . . . It was you, not me! The Godhead killed their own!” the tattooed Pilgrim shouted to the others behind him. “The Godhead lives!”

Another Pilgrim ripped at her cloak. “It’s you . . . ?” she whispered. “It’s really you. Here in the Maze to save us!”

“She’s here for flaring justice!”

“Goddess!” Pilgrims flocked around her.

“Flaring justice! Flaring justice!”

“Calm yourselves!” Alexandra commanded, but without her podium, without her guards, without her song and dance and all the trimmings, she was nothing. The Pilgrims were out of control.

“Let go of me!” she screamed, growing desperate with panic. She never should have made her people so dependent on her. Remnant Guards were closing in, now. She’d drown a slow death in the pitiful Pilgrims’ desperation.

“They’re crazy,” she said to the soldiers, shaking her head. “Absolutely mad.”

“The Godhead lives!” The tattooed Pilgrim held up Alexandra’s hand and a soldier released his grip from the Goddess.

“Thank you,” Alexandra said. “They’re crazy. Mad. Absolutely mad.”

“Come with me.” The soldier pulled her by the hood of her cloak, nearly choking her. He was joined by others, at least a dozen.

“No. You have to believe me—they’re crazy! They’re all crazy!”

The soldiers dragged her to the center of the Glade. It was all falling apart. All of it! The Evolution, all of it! She screamed, a thing so loud that surely the very stone walls of the Maze shook from its power. Her heart was melting inside her chest.

The tattooed Pilgrim chanted behind her.

“Flaring justice, flaring justice, flaring justice . . .”