Van Terra

Chapter Twenty-Two ~ Good Graces (Reprise)

The girl didn't know why she was running. She had no idea who the man in the lab coat leading her was. She had no idea why people were chasing and shooting at the two of them.

All she knew was that her name was Grace Alvarez and she was fourteen years old.

Out of place memories raced through her mind, but they were like a dream she'd just awoken from: confusing, foggy, and rapidly fading.

"We're almost out," the man told her as they reached a set of double doors. He slammed his badge against a box on the wall. The box's red light turned green, and the doors opened. The man led Grace from clean white halls to a dark, dirty tunnel. When the doors closed behind them, they blended in perfectly with the tunnel wall.

Grace and the man didn't slow until they reached a rusted ladder.

"You go up first," the man told Grace.

"Why?" Grace's mind was starting to catch up and override the instinct that had told her to run. To follow him. "Who are you? Where are we going?"

"I'm sorry," the man said. "We couldn't grab you before they started the memory wipe procedure. I'll explain everything as soon as I can, but right now we have to—"

A gunshot echoed through the tunnel. The man clutched his chest and staggered into the wall.

"Go!" he gasped.

The violent shaking in Grace's hands made the climb up the ladder difficult. She feared she wouldn't make it to the top. Security guards approached below, guns up. The man in the lab coat drew a weapon of his own, a blaster, and pointed it at them. The guards slowed.

"Go!" the man repeated. His trembling hand squeezed the trigger. Blood spread across the front of his coat. "Now!"

Grace reached the top of the ladder and lifted the cover. She pulled herself onto cold concrete and collapsed onto her back.

She couldn't stay here. They would find her.

The ladder had brought her into an alleyway. Buildings on either side stretched impossibly high into the sky, and more beyond blocked out most of the sunlight. Grace rose to her feet and ran toward the sound of traffic.

She burst out of the alley onto a sidewalk. Vehicles raced by. People walked past her, not giving her so much as a second glance. She wandered aimlessly from there, not daring to stop, constantly throwing glances over her shoulder.

Her body gradually stopped trembling and her thoughts calmed. Who could help her? Police? That sounded like a good idea, finding the nearest police station. She moved up, taking every staircase she could find, hoping to find the top of the city that became more insane the more she saw. Had she always lived here?

Grace seemed to be nearing the city's upper limits when screeching and blaring horns grabbed her attention. She froze and looked up. A vehicle careened off one of the overhead streets and fell toward a walkway stretching between buildings.

The shadow of the falling vehicle passed over a man.

No one was around to help him. Even if he moved out of the way, the walkway he stood on wouldn't hold up. Grace started toward him, but she wasn't moving fast enough—

Wings.

She had wings.

They came out of the slits in the back of her shirt—she noted, for the first time, that she was dressed entirely in plain gray clothes—and extended to either side. Grace jumped and took to the air. Grabbing the man, dodging the falling car, carrying him to safety—it all passed in a blur.

She got the impression that the man was trying to hide his identity. He wore sunglasses, dressed in casual clothes complete with a hood that hid his face in shadow. But the disguise didn't last. Police and reporters and nosy citizens descended on the skywalk, and the man was forced to reveal himself as Governor Syrus Starr.

The name briefly sounded familiar, but when Grace tried to figure out where she'd heard it before, she realized she hadn't. Not that she could remember, anyway.

Grace watched as Governor Starr dismissed everyone but the medics and a handful of officers, who worked to keep the growing crowd and reporters away. And then the governor was taking to Grace, asking who she was, apprehension in his gaze.

Grace admitted she had no idea. She explained what had happened. The governor relaxed after that.

He offered her a place to stay while the authorities investigated the tunnels and tried to determine what had happened to her. Shelter. Education. A life. It sounded like a good option.

Not that Grace had any other choice.