Excerpt: Earth Shatterer

Michael’s heart was in his throat. There were two hours before midnight finally came and Elena was banished from his room. He hadn’t seen her most of the day. Every time he opened the door there was a hand in his face pushing him back in the room. He hung his body out his window. He wondered if there were alarms on those too. If not before then now because he was such a defiant kid. He was two storeys up. He’d seen it done before. Not in real life but that didn’t matter. He could fashion some kind of sheet rope and climb out the window. He kept thinking back to gym class and the rope climb. He sucked at it.
A muffled gurgle came from the other side of the door followed closely by a slump and a thud. He really didn’t want to see what had happened on the other side of his door but the frantic light knocking told him he didn’t have a choice.

When he cracked the door a heavy, unexpected weight pushed against it and threw it open against Michael’s wishes. Thankfully he choked on his tongue so no one was able to hear him scream when the wide-eyed body flopped into the room and started bleeding on his carpet. When he looked up, there was Elena struggling with his legs, his own knife tucked into the top of her dress.

“Could you help me? He’s not exactly a feather.”

Michael grabbed the man’s jacket at his shoulders and started to pull, allowing Elena to swing his legs through the doorway. She kicked him the rest of the way into the room and quickly shut the door behind her.

“Did you really slit his throat?”

Michael was astonished. Even more so that there was still blood on the blade that was seeping through her dress. And she didn’t seem to care.

“No. You’re seeing things.”

“So . . . you just stabbed people on the way up here?”

Elena paused in thought, her hands on her hips. “That sounds about tight.”

“But, where did they stick you?”

“Mucking the basements. Dark, dank fun.”

“And my knife?”

“It was tossed in one of the scrap metal piles for the smiths. We shared working space. I guess Rowan never thought to make the connection. Where’s your sister? I thought she was coming with us?”

“Crater’s still got a hold on her. I haven’t been able to get through.”

“Crater?” The question was all over her face. Crater was just second nature to him. He’d never gotten used to calling him Rowan.

“He was my dog on the other side. When we got him we named him Crater.”

Elena did her best to fight back her laugh but failed miserably. “Kenlin turned him into a dog? Fitting! A mongrel, I hope.”

“A lab, actually. Probably the exact opposite of what he really is.”

“What’s a—”

“Nevermind. Stay here. I’ll go try and get Zana. Do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Strip the bed and tie the sheets together and make a rope.”

Elena looked at him, her eyebrow raised. “We’re only on the second floor. You don’t want to jump?”

There was just no time to try and salvage his dignity. “Just do it, ok?”

Elena put her hands up in mock surrender. “Whatever you say.”

The covers and pillows were already on the floor by the time he’d walked through the door and across the hall. He looked both ways in the corridor and thankfully there wasn’t anyone coming. He thought on it for a moment and decided time was too precious to be wasted knocking. Lucky for him, the knob to Zana’s room turned.

He’d never seen her jump so high before. A smile almost made its way to his face and would have if her wasn’t so determined.

“Zana, come on. We have to go.”

Michael looked around the room to search for any kind of servant that may be in there. He didn’t see any immediately and figured there wouldn’t be any hiding in the wardrobe or under the bed or anything like that. They just didn’t seem like those kinds of people.

“Michael, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you know what time it is?”

Zana pulled the blankets up closer to her neck. On this side she wore a full length night gown that covered everything that should be. Like he hadn’t seen her in less, right?

“Of course I do. That’s why we need to go. Elena’s getting us ready. Come on.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I told you you were crazy.”

“Crazy is as crazy does.”

He had no idea what that meant but grabbed onto Zana’s wrist and pulled all the same. She grabbed hold of the head board in turn and let the blanket drop.

“Would you stop it? I’m not going anywhere!”

“Think of Mom and Dad. Remember them? We have to go.”

“I’m staying with Rowan.”

Michael could feel the burns that he was starting to rub on her arm and cringed. Not that those would stop him but he felt a little bad doing it.

“You don’t belong here and you’re in danger the longer you stay here. Stop being stupid and come on.”

The tug against him slackened and he stumbled a couple steps back. Finally she had a dawning of sense! But when he looked up, the look on his sister’s face was contorted with rage and her arm was stretched across her body. Out of the corner of his eye he caught something dark and silver as it hurtled towards his head. There was no time to react and the thing, whatever it was, clanged against his head. Stars and spots burst in front of his eyes and a shrill squeal erupted in his ears.

He just wanted to lie down. He started to crawl onto the bed but was simultaneously kicked and wrenched off. There was another voice in the room. He could hear it among all that screaming. And another clang this time not on his head. On the floor. Things were still bursting in front of him and the edges of everything he looked at were blurry but he saw Elena’s desperate face. It was her tugging him along. He looked back to Zana, standing on the bed, on her pillows, up against the head board, her eyes squinted and her mouth hanging open. Michael had a feeling that’s where the squealing was coming from, not inside his head.

“We have to go now! Come on!”

Wasn’t he just the one to say those very words? Now they were being whispered in his ear and he was the one being dragged along. At least he wasn’t fighting.