The Outcast and the Survivor: Chapter Twelve

further from them among these distant stars. I wish against the despair I feel that I’ll be able to return and save them before time runs out. That I will be able to overcome whatever it is within me that is tearing my old self apart.

  “We’ll need more rope here,” a soldier calls out as he lifts his flair to reveal a large wall of rock blocking the way.

  The ceiling of the cavern is high above it, and I can see the faint outline of a plateau above maybe a hundred feet up.

  “This is all we have,” Brogan says to Dalton, handing it to him. “Can your men handle this?”

  Dalton nods, and he tosses the rope to one of his soldiers, a woman, who drapes it over her shoulder and immediately starts climbing without any support. I watch nervously as she scales upward. She slips a couple times, drawing gasps from Helena and myself, but after a short time, she is at the top, tying the rope to something and dropping it down to us.

  Helena goes first, Brogan climbing up right behind her to help support her as she goes. Dalton follows, then Astor, myself, and finally the rest of the soldiers. When I have nearly reached the top, an explosion echoes from the way we came, and my heart sinks. The creatures have broken through.

  I push myself to climb faster and then turn around once I’m at the top, my eyes trained on the darkness from which Kat will hopefully emerge in only moments. Astor comes over by me and squeezes my arm encouragingly, but I’m too anxious to feel any relief right now. The sick feeling I had earlier is returning, and worse than ever, even as Helena walks over to stand with us.

  Some of Brogan’s men join us, too, but not those who belong to Dalton, who all seem eager to keep going. Dalton then walks over to the rope, reaching down and unsheathing a small blade as though he intends to cut the knot.

  “What are you doing?” Brogan says, removing his pistol.

  “She made her choice to stay back,” Dalton answers, his voice annoyed. “What if we need to get over another obstacle like this?”

  “We won’t,” Helena reassures.

  “How convenient for you to say,” Dalton scoffs. “The choice you make now Brogan will cost lives, either Kat and those with her, or all of us. Not everyone is going to make it out of this alive, no matter what you do.”

  Brogan lifts his gun, pointing it at Dalton’s head.

  “I doubt that was ever your intention,” he says.

  More guns raise, some pointed at Brogan, and more pointed between his men and Dalton’s. I stand by as helpless as Dalton, who raises his hands in the air.

  “You’ve endangered all of us with your blind faith, all these years looking for someone more dangerous to us than the creatures who stalk the night.”

  He glares at Helena, then at me.

  “Going to shoot an unarmed man?” he says snidely.

  Brogan begins to lower his weapon, but the moment he does, Dalton quickly raises his own.

  “This was never going to end any differently.”

  To my surprise, Brogan completely lowers his weapon to the ground, putting his own hands up. At the same time, he slowly steps closer to Helena, like he means to protect her.

  “She has already proven to us that we can trust her,” Brogan says, his voice imploring Dalton to change his course.

  “I have my orders,” Dalton replies coldly, his gun immediately turning on me.

  Brogan dives to get in the way, and a shot is fired. I stumble in shock, but I’m not the one hit. Dalton is, though no guns were pointed at him. Except for perhaps one I could not have noticed, one pointed from somewhere in the darkness below by Kat or someone else in her unit.

  More gunfire immediately erupts. Brogan is the next one hit, his face grimacing as his continued momentum sends him crashing into me, knocking me back toward the cliff. He stops, but it’s too late, as I am sent careening off the edge.

  Astor grabs me by the sleeve of my jacket as I fall backwards, just enough to redirect me toward the ledge so that I can grab onto it. But my grip immediately slips, and I drop a short distance before finding something to hold to.

  I hang there for a moment, my head pounding at the sound of gunfire and the blow it took as it banged against the rock when I caught myself. I can’t see any of the conflict above me as it develops, and I fear for the worst. Though there were fewer soldiers with Dalton, they were definitely more prepared for the conflict that was about to take place than Brogan’s men. I hope he’s still alive somehow.

  “Kaela,” Kat yells from the ground below as she and the rest of her unit emerge from shadows and start climbing.

  Unfortunately, the rope hangs too far from where I am for me to get to it, maybe fifty feet away to my right. Those who climb won’t be able to reach me either, instead rushing to reach the firefight still taking place on the plateau above.

  It tapers off a little by the time they reach the top, flurries of gunshots taking place now and again. I recall noticing a lot of cover further up the cavern from various rock formations, and I imagine Brogan’s men would use these areas of safety to wait for Kat and her reinforcements to arrive.

  In the meantime, I hold to the rocks where I am, using my feet to press against some light areas to relieve my tired arms. I could stay here for a while, but I feel so weak and vulnerable exposed like this. I want to hear a familiar voice, someone reassuring me that things are going to be okay.

  But no voice comes as a different sort of rumbling instead slowly rises from below me, the terrifying stampede of the hording creatures as they come this way. Kat appears above me, holding a flare that she drops off the edge. That is when I see the creatures, hundreds of them, closing in beneath me.

  “Cut the rope!” Brogan’s strained voice orders.

  Kat reaches down right as some of them grab onto the end of the rope. The increased tension causes her to slip, the knife in her hand slipping as well and cutting into her arm. She winces but otherwise hardly reacts as she picks the knife up again and slashes at the rope, sending the creatures holding it crashing down, rope in hand.

  Others immediately try to climb the rocks like the woman from Dalton’s unit did, most unsuccessfully, but a few are able to start making quick progress.

  “Hold on,” Astor says, appearing closer to where I am.

  He peers over the edge, his body lying on the ground like he’s avoiding being noticed. Kat disappears, I’m not sure to where, but a sudden increase in gunfire suggests that neither she nor and anyone else will be able to help me right now.

  “Can you grab onto anything and make it further up?” Astor asks.

  “No,” I shake my head as I star to panic.

  I could not have ended up in a worse place. The rock I hold to juts out just enough that I can maintain my grip, and there is nowhere else to go from here except down. I start mapping a route in my mind, but I become discouraged when I realize that I will have to backtrack almost halfway down before I can start climbing up again. The creatures might reach me before I can even start heading back up.

  “Helena?” I call out, turning my head again toward Astor.

  “She’s fine,” he says. “Brogan grabbed her and took her behind some rocks, but they’re pinned down. The rest of Dalton’s men got to higher ground before we did.”

  Another round of heavy gunfire suddenly begins, and Astor has to rush away. Then things go silent.

  “Astor?” I call out. “Please tell me you’re there.”

  Nothing for a long moment. I look back down and realize I have no choice but to figure this out on my own. I descend quickly, taking a lot of risks and slipping twice to beat the creatures to the point I need to reach before I can pivot upward. But surprisingly, they don’t seem to care that I’m getting closer. Each one continues its own course, not one diverting even a little to get a better angle to reach me.

  “You’re still alive.” Kat exclaims, standing on the edge above me and drawing the creatures’ attention.

  In her hand is another line of rope, this one not nearly long enough to reach me. An
d even worse, my muscles are reaching the point of exhaustion. I don’t know if I have it in me to get high enough for them to pull me up.

  “I’ll get to her,” Astor says, reappearing next to her and stepping off the edge with the rope to help him rappel.

  Helena appears as well, yelling encouragement to me and grabbing onto the rope with Kat. Astor descends quickly, but the creatures immediately start clawing his way with much more haste and urgency.

  I use all my remaining strength to stay ahead of them as Astor reaches the end of the rope and holds his hand down. Just as I reach him, the nearest creature springs up to claw at us. Astor grabs my wrist, but before the others are able to pull us to safety, the creature gashes its long nails into his side. He groans in pain as I strike the creature with enough force to knock its grip free, sending it plummeting into the massive horde below. I then use my free hand to grab the rope and hold to Astor, who is about to lost grip himself.

  “We’re going to make it,” I reassure, looking into his panicked eyes.

  He nods, and we climb rapidly with the assistance of Kat and Helena, who pull us up to safety. My heart sighs in relief as we near the top, but then I hear another familiar voice and realize that there is no hope of escaping this night.

  “Not so fast,” Dalton says, and a shot is fired.

  The tension in the rope is immediately gone as Kat lets go. Helena tries to pull it tight again, but the extra weight makes that impossible, the rope slipping helplessly through her