The Outerlands
Coalition 2
Copyright 2015 Aria J. Wolfe
Published by KingdomNow Publishing
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Aria J. Wolfe
Jacket art copyright © 2015 by Yvette R. Dempster
All rights reserved. Published in Canada by KingdomNow Publishing,
RR 2 Site 456 Box 4 Comp 9,
Drayton Valley, Alberta, Canada.
Visit us on the Web! ariajwolfe.com
The coalition / Aria J. Wolfe. -- 1st ed.
Book two of: The coalition series
[1.Young adult-- fiction. 2. Fantasy]
Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group
Table of Contents
Characters
The Division of Edan
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Acknowledgements
About Aria J. Wolfe
Other Books by Aria J. Wolfe
Connect with Aria J. Wolfe
Characters
Shai (SHAY)
Aliah (AY-lee-yah)
Ellersly (ELL-ers-lee)
Samael (sam-AY-el)
Zev (ZEV)
Miya (MI-yah)
Elchai (EL-kye)
Remiel (REM-ee-el)
Raine (RANE)
Jack (JAK)
Oren (OR-ren)
Nathan (NATH-an)
Paige (PAGE)
Ava (A-va)
Division of Edan
Sector 1- Adena (symbol: Infinity)
Sector 2- Brenton (symbol: Circle)
Sector 3- Conley (symbol: Crescent)
Sector 4- Fino (symbol: Sun)
Sector 5- Hadyn (symbol: Eye)
Sector 6- Kegan (symbol: Triangle)
Sector 7- Kent (symbol: Flame)
The Coalition- (symbol: 3 Interlocking Circles)
To John
You’re my Aliah.
My true love.
"Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart."
Proverbs 27:19
PROLOGUE
Shai
Shai’s lungs burned with the effort to inhale. At first the only sound she could make out was her own ragged breathing, but then a clearer, sharper noise rose to the surface of her consciousness. She focused all her energy on trying to recognize it. Shuffling footsteps—no, several shuffling footsteps—followed by breath sounds that weren’t her own. Vertigo flooded her, and it took her a minute to recognize the sensation as someone moving her against her will. Their labored breathing filled her ears as a warm wind blew across her face.
“Where are we putting her?” A soft masculine voice came from a few inches above her, and she became aware the warm wind was actually someone breathing over her.
“In her room. She should wake up naturally in her own bed.” Another voice, deeper than the first, came from behind her head. She tried to open her eyes, but found they’d been taped shut.
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and refused to budge when she attempted to speak. The weight in her limbs and fuzzy dullness in her head made her think she’d been drugged and was now lying flat on her back, which didn’t make sense. A few hours earlier she’d lain down…where? She’d lain down and—
Any further thoughts hovered just beyond her reach as a thick static swept over her last conscious thought and consumed it: she was being taken somewhere, and she couldn’t see, move or speak, but it was all part of the plan.
CHAPTER 1
Miya
She jerked awake. Her chest tightened as she looked around the tiny room. Sleek metal walls and white-tiled floor. She licked her sweat-salted lips and pushed her damp hair off her face as she stared up at the strange shiny ceiling. The room radiated with a diffused light like tiny stars had been built into the floor and ceiling.
Where am I?
She moved her eyes in a slow pan around the room, taking in the sparse furnishings: one small table with two drawers and two twin beds, one of which she was lying on. She held her breath and stared at the body-shaped lump in the bed across the room from hers, her heart once again pounding in her throat. She pulled the thin cotton blanket up under her chin, waiting for whoever it was to wake up and demand who she was and why she was there.
A slender arm slipped from the white sheet and hung down the thin mattress. Whoever occupied the other bed was female. She exhaled louder than she meant to, and the girl stirred. The sheets flipped up and a blur of pale skin and white-blond hair emerged from the tangled bedding. A beautiful but disheveled young girl sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her eyes were too bright and her face too cheerful for someone who’d just woken up to find a stranger in her room.
The girl’s face broke into a wide smile.
“Miya! You’re up early!”
Miya? The name sounded foreign, but felt like it fit.
“The daytime lights haven’t even come up yet.” The girl pointed at the light-studded tiles at their feet that had just begun to illuminate the room.
The girl scooted off the bed and pushed her feet into a pair of practical-looking white slippers before coming to sit beside Miya.
“Mi? Are you okay?” Her voice and her touch were gentle as she reached over and took Miya’s left arm in her warm hands.
“Yeah…I’m, um…I’m fine. Just didn’t sleep well, that’s all.” She studied the girl’s face: her creamy skin, flawless nose and perfect bow mouth. A shiver danced down Miya’s back. She was so…symmetrical.
“Oh, a glitch in your dream prescription?”
Miya nodded, unsure of how to answer.
Raine. Her name is Raine.
“Yeah, Raine. I had a…a rough night.”
“I think I know what’s happening.” She turned Miya’s wrist over until it was palm up. Long red streaks ran up and down her arm. “I think you’re subconsciously processing the day you received your implant.” Raine’s words swirled in the air, making it thicker. Harder to breathe.
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Implant. Miya looked down at her upturned wrist to see a rectangular metallic square the size of her thumbnail shimmering just beneath the surface of her skin.
The government’s tracking device.
In the center of it blinked a tiny red dot in sync with her heartbeat.
“But”—Raine leaned over Miya’s wrist and tapped the device with her index finger—“if there was something wrong with it, you’d be able to tell. You scratched yourself in the night. That’s all.”
“Do you think the Leadership would—” Miya touched a spot below her left collarbone. She had a birthmark there that no one knew about. Except maybe Raine.
“No,” Raine said, her face somber. Her large eyes looked silvery in the brighter daytime lights as she looked at Miya. “They can’t regulate everything you know. Relax.”
Miya glanced around their shared room again. There were no windows. Only a narrow doorway near her bed led to a bathroom that held a toilet, sink and shower all in one tiny cubicle. Her breath hitched and the little red light in her wrist implant bounced in response to her frenetic pulse.
It dawned on her that the reason she was there—in that prison—was because of the Leadership. And she hated them.
CHAPTER 2
Miya
The implants weren’t just tracking devices. They were also door openers and a way to purchase food. It seemed everywhere Miya looked there were small black boxes embedded in the walls for scanning wrist implants.
Raine and Miya dressed in plain white long-sleeved shirts and trousers—exactly the same as what everyone else wore—then Raine led Miya to the ‘Food Bar’ for some breakfast. The Food Bar was anything but a bar. It was an enormous room identical in appearance to the room she shared with Raine. It was located a short distance from their room, down an L-shaped steel hallway. Thankfully the steel walls weren’t shiny enough to reflect anything but an obscure image of your face; and only if you stood real close. Miya couldn’t imagine what it would be like where your surroundings were constantly reflected back to you. Not that her perfectly shaped face framed in wild auburn curls was horrible to look at, there was something about seeing her own face that was disconcerting.
The Food Bar was built like an enormous kitchen with round tables in the center, each circled by ten white plastic chairs. Most of the tables looked occupied when Raine and Miya entered. Raine waved at someone on the far side of the room, and her face broke into an even wider grin.
Miya scanned the crowd to see who Raine was waving at. Her face warmed at the sight of a young man waving back. His light brown hair stuck up at odd angles around his head. A vague sense of familiarity jolted Miya.
She waved too, then made her way to a waist-high counter that ran the far length of the room. The counter had several black boxes fixed to it where people were busily scanning their wrists at the self-serve food station. Miya moved to the beginning of the counter, where three large shelves were lined with bowls of steaming, grayish-brown matter.
She grabbed the nearest bowl, slammed it onto a tray and pushed it down the long counter.
“Woah! Take it easy there! You wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?” Miya turned to see the young man who’d waved standing less than a foot away from her. She smiled and reached for a silver canister of water to place on her tray.
“Hi, Nathan.” Her pulse did an odd little jolt when she said his name without thinking. She’d been doing a lot of that lately, saying and thinking things that felt more familiar than they sounded. Like she was pulling memories through a haze.
“I’m okay. I just hate smack, almost as much as I—”
“Hate shmeat,” Nathan finished for her. “You always say that.” His wide smile made his eyes crinkle in the corners. He had the same symmetrically pleasing facial features as Raine.
“Well, that’s never going to change. But I know something that will make your implant jump.” He leaned toward her and whispered. Miya picked up her tray, her eyes wide.
“Oh?” Why would he choose those words? Did he notice her wildly bouncing implant light? She suddenly wished her sleeves were long enough to cover her entire hand to her fingertips.
“Not here.” Nathan took her elbow and steered her to the table he’d previously occupied. Raine was already seated with a steaming bowl of smack in front of her. A smear of the gray blobby stuff hung from the corner of Raine’s mouth, but she didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she just didn’t care.
Suddenly, Nathan’s hand jerked Miya’s elbow, pulling her back a step. Nathan landed on the white tiles behind her, and she had to sidestep in order to avoid tripping over him. Her hip caught the edge of a hard plastic chair, and she narrowly missed spilling her detestable breakfast on the laps of three people seated nearby.
Raine’s mouth was a tiny pink ‘O,’ the gob of smack already beginning to dry to a crust on the edge of her lip.
Miya plunked her tray on the table, then turned to see Nathan twitching on the floor.
“Are you okay?” She knelt down beside him.
“Don’t touch him!” a cute girl with a small face and short blond curls hissed in her ear. Miya hadn’t noticed until then that a large group of people had gathered around Nathan on the floor, but no one made a move to help.
Miya flashed a look of annoyance at the girl, then grabbed Nathan by his forearm. He’d stopped seizing and was staring up at the ceiling with a glazed look. Spittle flecked the corners of his mouth and chin.
“Don’t just stand there!” Miya yelled at the group, but still no one moved to help her haul Nathan off the floor. She managed to get Nathan into a chair and coaxed some water into his droopy mouth. Most of it spilled down the front of his white shirt.
The chatter in the room had stopped, and Miya was aware that everyone was staring. She wanted to stand on the table and scream at everyone. Why would they just stand around and watch while someone had a seizure?
“I can’t believe you touched him,” the curly-headed girl whispered. She plunked herself into a chair beside Nathan. “And nothing happened to you.” Her big blue eyes looked first at Miya, then at Nathan, and back again.
“Of course nothing happened to me.” Miya took the end of her napkin and dipped it in her water. She used the damp napkin to clean the drool from Nathan’s mouth.
Her face burned, and fury tightened her chest.
“I can’t believe no one would help him!” She flashed the girl another angry look and tossed her napkin onto her tray.
“But we can’t, Miya. It’s obvious Nate got zapped because he broke a rule. No one else wants the same treatment, so no one helped.”
Miya shook her head. “He didn’t break any rules…uh, Paige.” Paige. One of the junior helpers from the lab where I work. Miya wiped her sleeve across her sweaty face.
“He was leading me to the table here.”
“He touched you, then.” Paige’s eyes locked onto Miya’s, full of concern.
“Barely. He barely touched me.” Miya sighed. “But Raine touched me this morning. She was looking at my implant back in our room and—”
“Raine? Who’s that?” Paige pushed the canister of water closer to Nathan, who seemed to be finally coming around.
“My roommate. You know… Raine.” She pointed to where Raine was still sitting, shoveling in smack by the spoonful. She’d obviously recovered from witnessing whatever it was that had happened to Nathan.
Paige’s head swiveled around to look where Miya was pointing. When she turned back to Miya, her face had no expression.
“There’s no one there, Mi.”
“But—”
“Besides, if someone was in your room with you without Leadership approval, you’d pay for it. I doubt you’d be standing here right now. You’d still be drooling on the floor in your room from their punishment.”
Miya’s stomach clenched. She glanced at Raine, who remained silent. Her roommate dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin, then leane
d back in her chair with a satisfied look on her face.
“Raine, say something!” Miya’s cheeks blazed. This was getting ridiculous.
“Mi, you better get your implant checked. I think you’re seeing things again.” Nathan’s words were slightly slurred, but his dark eyes had regained their earlier clarity.
“And I think I’d better get mine checked too, because it seems I got zapped when I touched you, but nothing happened to you when you touched me.” His lips twisted in a half-smile.
“Are you Leadership?” she asked Miya as she leaned across Nathan, dangerously close to touching his arm. Paige’s whispered accusation held a tinge of fear.
Nathan pushed his chair back so fast it squealed on the tiled floor. Apparently he was afraid of more punishment.
“No! I’m not!” Miya began gathering her breakfast things and piling them back on the tray. She ripped her water canister from Nathan’s hands mid-drink.
“Prove it!” Paige narrowed her eyes.
“Why should I?” Miya slammed the canister onto the tray.
“Just show her your neck and make her shut up,” Nathan said too loudly. If they didn’t stop quarreling, they’d soon draw another unwanted crowd.
Miya sighed and lifted her long hair from her neck.
“Turn,” Paige demanded.
Miya flicked her eyes in Raine’s direction, but her friend just raised her eyebrows and twisted the chain of a key-shaped pendant around her finger. Its glittering red jewel winked in the light.
Miya sighed and turned her head from side to side.
“See, Paige?” Nathan stood and stacked his tray with Miya’s. “She’s not marked. Now will you let it rest?”
“How can I? You saw it too! You said yourself how she was able to touch you and not get zapped. Only Leadership and medtechs can touch people, and if she’s neither, then—”
“And parents of small children,” Miya muttered, even though she knew no one heard her.
“Just leave it!” Nathan snapped and stalked off in the direction of the wall chutes where people were putting their trays and bowls into wall receptacles for cleaning.
Raine stood with her breakfast tray and motioned for Miya to follow, leaving Paige to pout alone.
“Why didn’t you say anything? You could’ve stood up for me.” Miya frowned at Raine and shoved her tray into a receptacle. Her untouched bowl of congealed smack landed with a loud thunk on the other side of the wall.
Raine shrugged and shoved her tray into another chute before wiping her hands on her pants.
“You did a pretty good job of revealing yourself back there. You didn’t need my help for that.”