Sky was shaped like an X, made of five supposedly even squares. It was divided by Citizens, Guard, Chief Executive, Shopping, and Working.
As Zeke had explained to me before, that the Citizens' Sector was in the center. My group wanted to meet us in the very center of Sky: at the main water basin that caught most of the sector's water.
"If they try anything," Zeke was grumbling as we arrived on the scene, "I'm going to wring their little necks out of existence."
"Shut up, Zeke," Kari said calmly.
There were a few people milling around. Most were getting water from the large bowl-like cement structure in the center of the square. The top of the rim reached my waist, and the very other side of the bowl was four of our houses away. Forty feet.
Everything was very doom and gloom. It was quiet, and no one moved very fast. It wasn't peaceful. It was almost a heavy anticipation. Of what, I wasn't sure.
"Dex!" someone shouted. "Did you bring her?"
We snapped our attention over to a small group of four guys. They were heavily muscled and unbelievably scarred, just a tad more than Zeke and Dex. Intimidating, to say the least. Suddenly I kind of understood why everyone around here slithered aroundlike shadows. This place was their turf.
Was this really the group I used to be with?
Zeke stepped forward, fists turning white. But anything he said wouldn't have helped the situation any. They had already locked eyes on me.
And what they said next chilled me to my bones. "That's not her!"
"What?" The word slipped through my lips before I could stop it.
The guy in front, their leader I suspected, surged forward, taking long strides across the square. Every other person in sight was quick to scuttle away. Even Zeke and them all took a step back.
"Where is she?" he bellowed, reaching for Zeke but Zeke slapped his arms away.
"We don't know who you're talking about," he growled.
The other guy's friends caught up, standing behind their leader with hateful glares on their faces.
Dex and Cade stepped up to Zeke's sides, giving them the most menacing looks I have ever seen on their faces.
"This is our new recruit," Zeke said calmly, angrily. "If she isn't her, we don't have whoever you're looking for."
Their leader grabbed Zeke's collar and everyone behind each leader surged forward, anticipating what was going to happen.
"Look here, you little son of a Stardite," the leader spat. "I know you have her. Don't pretend you don't."
Zeke shoved him away. "Do I look like I have time to hold a hostage? What would I do with yourgirl anyway?"
Their leader scowled and glanced at me. "The same thing I'm going to do to your girl." Before his words even registered, there was a hand on my jacket sleeve and I was yanked forward through the barricade of Dex and Zeke's shoulders. I crashed into the leader's chest, realizing quickly that it was him who yanked me forward. Before the others could even react I was pushed behind the four strangers, one of them pulling my arms behind me.
"Hey!" I tugged at the hands holding my arms. "Let me go!"
Zeke shoved at the leader but all the other guys stiffened up, crowding them.
"Give her back," the leader said darkly.
"Mother of Thunder," Zeke growled, "we don't have your thundering girlfriend!"
"You'll get this one back when I get mine back."
I gaped, yanking on the iron hands bruising my arms. I locked eyes with Zeke's haunted ones. We watched each other, my heart pounding in my chest.
How the hell did this all happen?
The iron hands tugged and I was walked backwards, my eyes still fixed to Zeke's in panic. I glanced at Cade, at Kari, and my panic was reflected in each. I looked to Dex and even he looked a little stressed.
And then Zeke did the unexpected.
In one quick smooth motion, and without even looking away from me, he grabbed Dex's pipe from his hands and swung it upwards, catching the leader full in the jaw with a large crack.
Someone screamed. Maybe it was me. And then everything turned to shit.
The leader screamed in rage. "Kill her!"
It felt like my arms were ripped from their sockets. The guy holding my arms suddenly yanked me away from the action. I stumbled, being pulled backwards. I had no chance to even try and pull against him. He was way too strong and he kept pulling me off balance. I had no idea where we were going until my arms were released and I was shoved backwards. My back slammed into a half wall that I quickly realized was the water basin.
I looked up into his eyes. I looked straight into his sharp green eyes before he punched me in the stomach, winding me immediately. I couldn't breathe. Then he grabbed my hair and forced my face into the water. The rim caught at the bend in my hips, my whole upper body submerged. I flailed my arms around helplessly in the water, finding I had nothing to push myself out with.
I fought the urge to breathe. I fought so hard. I kicked at the air, trying to find the leverage to swing myself back up, but the guy's hand was firm. I was panicking, and finding that water was making it up my nose. I tried to huff it out, and then did what was natural after blowing out air; I took a breath back in.
Except I didn't get air, of course.
I started choking, and with that I started losing all sense of control. Real panic set in. My nose and lungs burned with water, and my body struggled to get it out but all I took back in was water.
My hair was suddenly given a sharp tug... and was then released.
I flung up so fast that I whipped water back with my hair. I was coughing, and falling flat on my ass. Water spewed from my mouth. Tears streamed from the corner of my eyes from panic, but surprisingly it was mostly from my body's reaction to the water in my lungs.
I coughed up more water and then Cade was there, pulling me to my feet, and dragging me at a dead sprint across the pavement. We passed the others in what was registered to me in dizzy flashes. Dex throwing a punch at a guy. Then diving his shoulders to the side to avoid one. Kari screaming as she swung a bat right into the side of someone's knee. Zeke, rolling on the ground with the leader, locked in a deadly wrestle until one person could pull out a weapon. And Cade, his back as he led me away.
Left, right. Left, right. I tried to convince myself the world was not tilting. I just kept running.
Cade came to a stop in the nearest side street. He turned back and I ran right into him, almost taking him down before he grabbed my arm and righted us both.
He stared out at the fight without a word, every muscle tense.
I leaned against a wall, still recovering from my swim. I pushed my dripping wet hair from my face, getting my fingers caught in tangles. I unzipped my jacket and tossed it aside, not really in the mood to wear a cold, soaking wet layer of clothing. It was stolen anyway.
"Are we helping?" I asked, my voice a slight bit hoarse.
"If we have to," Cade said. His grip on his knife tightened when he watched Kari go down under a sailing foot, but she was able to scramble back up before the guy was able to take up the advantage."Can you fight?" Cade asked, glancing back at me.
I looked down at my hands. "I have no idea."
"Try and think," he said, looking back out at the fight. "You woke up near death with no memory. Either you were a fighter, slipped up, and just got wrecked, or you're not a fighter so you just got wrecked." He offered me a knife. "I have to help them and it's not safe for you to run back home alone. Want to find out if you were a fighter?"
My eyebrows rose. "Right now?"
He nodded. "Right now."
Well... I was a little nervous. Really nervous, actually. Borderline terrified. But I took the knife anyway. "I guess now's as good a time as any to find out."
"Okay." Cade took a deep breath. "I'll go help Kari and you go help Dex. Dex is a better fighter than both Kari and I, so if things go to thunder you at least have Dex at your back."
I frowned. I didn't think Dex would want me around for all the trouble I just caused, but I didn't argue. Instead, I shut off my thoughts and followed Cade at a dead sprint, heading straight for the action.
Breathe in. Breathe out. I braced the knife in my hand. I visualized myself pushing it right into the flesh of Dex's opponent. I felt sick.
Cade parted off, heading for Kari. I made a beeline for Dex, getting closer and closer, my heart pounding in my ears, my mind racing. Ten feet away. Five feet. I brushed by Dex's arm. My movements became automatic. A plan grew in my head, a mapping of what was about to go down. I leapt, throwing myself towards the guy facing Dex.
I mean, I did have a plan; an idea of what I was going to do. But once I realized my brain had come up with the ideas on its own, I hesitated. I hesitated and my mind came to a stop. And my body slammed into the guy facing Dex.
I managed to knock him completely over. Albeit I went down with him, landing not so spectacularly on top of him, and knocking the breath from both of our lungs. I struggled to recover, but he was apparently better at it than I was. He grabbed me, rolled us over, pinned me under him, and was bringing his knife to my face when Dex kicked him off me.
I threw myself clumsily from the two. Almost hyperventilating, I scrambled away and stood abruptly, almost tripping over my own feet.
It was a quick fight. When it was over and the other guy stopped moving, Dex stood up, his face red with rage. "What in thunder were you doing?" he growled.
"Helping," I said meekly.
He glowered at me. "That was probably the stupidest thing you could've done. If I wasn't here, you would be dead right now."
"But I'm not," I growled back with a little more fire than before. "And he's down, so it's fine. I helped you. If nothing else, I at least distracted him. You could at least say thank you."
His eyes narrowed at me. "He almost killed you. You want me to thank you for that? What made you think that that was a good idea? Just ramming into him?"
"I had my ideas. I know it sounds stupid, but I had my ideas. And then... I just kind of forgot them when I realized I had them."
Dex just stared at me. He shook his head. "You're not a fighter."
"But maybe I was." I thought of the moments before I slammed into that guy. Anger slips from my voice and instead I start trying to persuade him. "Dex... I think a part of me actually knew what I was doing."
He shook his head again. "You're not a fighter. You made that obvious. You're not fighting."
I glared at him. "Who said you got to make all the decisions? I know you've hated me since I magically showed up, but I don't think you should start making my decisions for me."
He looked surprised. He opened his mouth to say something but then Cade was sprinting for us, bumping into me when he stopped. "Time to go," he said, taking my arm and dragging me away. He grabbed Zeke from his fight and then we were all sprinting for a sidestreet, Zeke taking the lead and Dex and Kari covering the back.
Glancing behind us, I could see why we ran. A guard had stopped at the scene. Climbing from his hoverboard, his sword shining on his hip, he approached the unconscious people we had left behind, their leader scurrying into the shadows.
Zeke turned a corner and we followed, making me lose my line of sight on the soldier we had all fled from.
No matter the circumstances, no matter the fight, they were all nothing compared to the fight against the Guard.
I turned forward and kept running.
......
"What do you mean I can't fight?" I asked incredulously.
Zeke shook his head, his hands up. "Adalia," he said, appealing to my newfound name. "No offense. You just don't know how to fight, and that's not your fault."
I fumed, throwing a glare upladder. Kari and Cade and Dex had retreated up just a moment ago.
"I think you should at least let me try," I said vehemently. "I swear I felt something when I was running into that fight."
"You were also almost drowned, and then almost sliced to pieces. If I hadn't been there, their leader would have probably taken you back to their place and you'd be his play thing. If Cade hadn't been there, you would have been drowned. If Dex hadn't been there, you would have been killed. You're not fighting."
I glared at him. All were true, but I didn't want to say it. "So what am I going to do? Lay around here all Waketime while you all go out and handle all the work? Am I just some sort of freeloader?"
"No," he said, rolling his eyes. He reached forward and took my hands before I could take them away, moving his body in front of me so I would look at him. "You're someone I care about."
My breath caught in my throat, along with any argument I still had inside me. Like the flip of a switch, I remembered our kiss from last Waketime. My ears turned red.
"You're living under my care," he said softly but firmly. "You don't need to worry about a thing." He squeezed my hands.
My whole body tingled. I stared up at him, almost entranced, the anger leaking from my body as fast as it had entered.
Then he smiled. "You know... I'm kind of happy they didn't turn out to be your group."
"Me too," I admitted before I could stop myself.
His smile widened. His head dipped and then he kissed me. It was an explosion of tingles.
Would I forever weaken at Zeke's requests? Would I always give into everything he asked?
Pretty spineless of me.
His mouth overtook mine and he pressed me to the bed.
But hey, spineless was okay with me.