41
PEREGRINE
I’m all right. Really, I’m all right,” Talon said. Perry held him as tight as he could without hurting him. “Uncle Perry, we have to go.”
Perry set him down and grasped his small hand. He took in his nephew’s face. Talon was healthy. And here.
Brooke’s younger sister, Clara, ran up and hugged his leg. Her face was red, and she was crying. Perry knelt. “It’s all right, Clara. I’m going to get you both home. I need you and Talon to hold hands. Don’t let go of each other, and keep close. Right next to me.”
Clara ran a sleeve over her face, wiping away tears, and nodded. Perry straightened. Aria stood with Soren, the Dweller who he’d fought months ago. Dozens of people had run up with him. They were alert and terrified, unlike the dazed people he had seen moments ago. He noticed they weren’t wearing Smarteyes.
“You brought the Savage?” Soren said.
Across the atrium, a sudden burst of flames spewed from a corridor. A second later, the wave of heat hit him. “We need to move, Aria. Now!”
“The transport hangar,” she said. “This way!”
They raced back to the Panop door, Soren and his group following. Aria called out as she ran, yelling to anyone who would listen to leave Reverie, but the peal of fire alarms and the thunder of smashing concrete swallowed even her voice. The people sitting in groupings on the ground floor didn’t move. They stayed blank-faced, oblivious to the chaos around them. Aria stopped in front of the girl she’d spoken to before and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Pixie, you have to get out of here now!” she yelled. This time the girl didn’t respond at all. She stared ahead, unresponsive. Aria turned to Soren. “What’s wrong with them? Is it DLS?”
“It’s that. It’s leaving her for the outside. It’s everything,” Soren answered.
“Can’t you shut off their Smarteyes?” she asked desperately.
“I’ve tried!” Soren said. “They have to do it themselves. There’s no getting through to them. They’re scared. This is all they’ve ever known. I did everything I could.”
An explosive boom filled Perry’s ears. “Aria, we have to leave.”
She shook her head, tears spilling from her eyes. “I can’t do this. I can’t leave them.”
Perry stepped toward her, taking her face in his hands. “You have to. I’m not leaving here without you.”
He felt the truth of his words settle like cold over him. He’d do anything to change it. Give anything. But no matter what they did, they couldn’t save everyone.
“Come with me,” he said. “Please, Aria. It’s time to go.”
She looked up, her gaze moving slowly across the crumbling Pod. “I’m sorry … I’m sorry,” she said. He put his arm around her, his heart breaking for her. For all the innocent people who deserved to live, but wouldn’t. Together they ran for the exit, leaving the Panop behind.
They raced back into the outer corridors, leading the pack of Dwellers. Black smoke poured from air ducts, and the red emergency lights pulsed slowly, stuttering on for a second, off for a few more. Perry kept track of Talon and Clara, but Aria worried him more. She held her arm close and was struggling to keep up.
They reached the transport hangar and darted inside. It looked abandoned, nothing like the teeming hub Perry had seen earlier. He didn’t see any soldiers, and only a handful of Hovers remained.
“Can you pilot any of these?” Aria asked Soren. The color had drained from her face.
“I can in the Realms,” Soren said. “These are real.”
People streamed in around them. Through the vast opening at the other end, the desert still flashed with the full power of the storm.
“Do it,” Perry said. He and Aria had barely survived the journey there. He saw no way of leading dozens of scared people—Dwellers who’d never set foot outside—into the wrath of an Aether storm.
Soren wheeled on him. “I don’t take orders from you!”
“Then take them from me!” Aria yelled. “Move, Soren! There’s no time!”
“There’s no way this works,” Soren said, but he ran to one of the Hovers.
The ship was immense up close, the material of the body seamless and pale blue, with the shimmer of a pearl. Perry grabbed Talon’s and Clara’s hands, pulling them up the ramp.
The cabin inside was a wide, windowless tube. To one side, through a small doorway, he saw the cockpit. The other end was packed with metal crates. A supply craft, he realized, though one that had only been partially loaded. The middle of the hold where he stood was empty, but quickly filling with people.
“Move all the way back and sit down,” Aria instructed them. “Hold on to something, if you can.”
He noticed the Dwellers wore the same gray clothes Aria had when he’d first seen her that night in Ag 6. They were fair-skinned and wide-eyed, and though he couldn’t scent their tempers through the smoke, their reactions to him were blatant, plain on their stunned faces.
He looked down at himself. He had blood and soot covering his battered clothes, and a gun in his hand. Besides that, he knew he’d look hard and feral in their eyes, just as they looked soft and terrified to him.
He wasn’t helping anything by being there.
“In here,” he told Talon and Clara, ushering them into the cockpit.
He bumped his head on the door as he entered and flashed on Roar, who would’ve made a wisecrack. Who should be there. Who Perry had treated awfully earlier. He couldn’t believe he’d questioned Roar’s loyalty. Suddenly, he remembered Liv. The air rushed from his lungs and his stomach twisted. At some point he’d think about his sister and end up on his knees, but not now. He couldn’t now.