False Sight Read online

  Peter and Rhys yell my name as they climb.

  I sag on Axela, gripping her mane to stay upright. My energy seeps out of me. Nina is already so far away, with her army laid out before us. No matter what, her head start will cost lives.

  “The Torch is everything,” Gane says. “Survive long enough to take it.”

  I ditch the pity party; we’re still alive. It’s not over.

  I snap the reins, and Axela takes off after the monsters.

  We have to stop a mile from the city to let the eyeless horde pass. It’s either stop or ride into them. They pour in from all directions, from all corners of the Blasted Lands, Gane says. I assume they’ve been given the order to head to the Black, but I’m not going to test if they’re allowed to stop and kill us. They keep coming.

  And coming.

  And coming.

  They ignore us, thankfully. It’s clear Nina holds them in thrall, commanding them to the same place.

  “How many?” I ask.

  Gane can only shake his head. “They’ve been multiplying for years. It took far fewer than this to bring my world to its knees.”

  Any strength I’ve managed to gather dissolves. If a world that was once as mighty as Gane’s could fall to less, how long will our world be able to stand? There won’t even be a fight. Suddenly I regret stranding the others back in the valley. I need them. I need them to hold me up. And I can’t ignore the shame I feel—I made the choice for them. If someone told me I couldn’t fight…just to keep me safe…

  That’s exactly what Noah did to me, when he stole my memories. And it only made things worse.

  We sit in silence while the horde continues to funnel into the city. I check behind me, but the others are nowhere in sight.

  “They’ll go to the Verge,” Gane says. “The Black in Central Park is sealed.”

  I say nothing.

  When the horde passes, we canter into the city on its tail, coughing on the massive grimy cloud it churned up. A few stragglers limp along the Lincoln Bridge, deformed or injured eyeless not strong enough to keep up. As we pass, Gane tears them apart with his mind. I try to judge how vast his powers are in case we somehow fight again in the future. He can’t stop the horde, but he can destroy a few eyeless here and there. And a Humvee is obviously too heavy for him to control.

  I block out the noise of shredding flesh and dying wails, keeping my eyes on the Verge as it steadily grows larger. With each eyeless Gane kills, I almost feel happy; it’s one more that won’t join the assault on my world. The streets are empty, but signs of the passing horde are everywhere. Rusted but intact vehicles are now crumpled, as if victims of a hailstorm, with huge dimples in the hoods and roofs. Then we’re at the Verge, still riding hard. I charge into the dark tunnel the way Noah charged into the dark room, waiting for a sword to take my neck or an eyeless to yank me off Axela and into the shadows.

  The torches are on the ground, some extinguished, some smoldering. Gane pounds next to me until we reach the tunnel’s end, where we have to stop so fast I almost fly over Axela’s head. The main floor of the Verge is gone—completely gone. All of it. The other tunnel entrances end in open air too, traps for whoever charges down the tunnel blindly like we did. The destruction of a solid place where I once stood makes my skin tingle.

  Hundreds of feet down, a narrow walkway is attached to the rock walls in the shape of a ring. The walkway is only a few feet wide. The rest of the floor is a bottomless black hole. Pure nothingness, empty and still. It’s my first time seeing the Black in person since finding out what it is. I have to swallow several times to keep from throwing up. The vertigo only fades when I close my eyes.

  This is the first time I realize that the end is really here. The eyeless have already gone through. My task is nearly impossible. I have to travel through the Black and survive long enough to find Nina. That’s it. I have to survive long enough to beat her. Survive long enough to save the world. But even then, I don’t know where I’ll take them. I don’t know where to take thousands of monsters.

  “End of the line, girl,” Gane says.

  “You aren’t coming with?” I almost laugh.

  “My place is here. We didn’t make it in time. I am sorry for your world, but I am beholden to my people. The Torch is gone.”

  “It isn’t,” I say, a simple denial that sounds childish.

  Gane shakes his head. “I could’ve prevented this.”

  “But you didn’t, because you’re a fool.” Gane doesn’t reply, instead staring down into hell with me. I want to tear his head off for making this possible, but it won’t change a thing. It won’t make me feel better, or give me hope.

  Gane grabs my arm and digs his fingers in. “If you can get the Torch, bring the eyeless back here. Pack them into the Verge. I will take my people away. In my office are enough explosives to destroy this place. You’ll kill the eyeless and seal the Black.” He tells me the passwords to get into his office and where to find the explosives.

  He doesn’t tell me how to get out after setting them off.

  “Go now,” he says.

  I take a breath and kick my heels into Axela, hoping she’ll jump. If Nina is on foot, maybe I can use her to catch up. And being atop her makes me feel safer, even if I’m not.

  But she doesn’t budge, just snorts through her nose and flicks her tail.

  “Give me a push?”

  Gane nods and raises his hands. Axela comes off the ground, then bolts forward as soon as her hooves touch rock. We leap out into open air, and gravity pulls us toward the Black. The hole grows bigger and bigger in my vision until it’s all I can see.

  I close my eyes.

  Iopen my eyes to the huge cavern we first came through, with all the tunnels leading to different cities. The lake of Black is to my left, a perfect circle two feet away. My wounds throb anew. My stomach gurgles, and I roll over and spew black oil for the second time in two days. Some of my hair falls past my face, still auburn.

  Axela has black liquid dripping from her mouth too. I push myself up slowly and blink away the disorientation. The cavern is filled with the tangled and twisted metal from the Verge’s main floor. Nina must’ve somehow collapsed the floor into the Black, which then vomited it up into the cavern, like it did with me.

  The stone floor is covered in claw marks.

  I realize I still hoped the Black led somewhere else, that I would open my eyes to a different world. Now even that hope is gone.

  The gouges in the stone all lead in one direction—to the tunnel labeled WASHINGTON, D.C. That particular tunnel entrance is thick with the same gouges, while the other openings are pristine. It all makes sense now. After removing our government, the eyeless will come back and disperse through the tunnels to different parts of the country, and then around the globe.

  I reach back and feel Beacon, my sword, but I lost the bow somewhere along the way, which doesn’t really matter since Gane decided to explode all my arrows. Nothing left to do here but swing my leg over Axela and ride down the tunnel.

  The trip takes no time at all, less than five minutes of hard riding, which means the cavern must sit directly under D.C. This was the plan all along, the plan for decades. I keep my ears tuned for sounds of the eyeless, but everything is quiet. The tunnel begins to slope up. We’re nearing the end, I can feel it, and the adrenaline is welcome. I find myself straightening on Axela’s back, eager to get above ground. The world may be ending, but it isn’t over. “C’mon girl,” I say, urging her along. The tunnel continues its upward slope until I see stars in a black sky—my sky—and then we’re up and out, hooves thumping on grass in cool night air that tastes clean and fresh and just like home.

  Artificial light illuminates the ground in front of me, and I turn Axela around with my left heel.

  We’re next to the Washington Monument.

  Right in front of me is a pile of shredded clothes covered in blood. A tennis shoe pokes out. At the base of the monument is another eviscerated pile of
clothes and stuff that is not clothes, all of it red. Screams rise in the distance, layering over one another, rising, rising. I turn in a slow circle, looking for signs of life, but expecting to see none this close to the ramp. And I’m right. Axela snorts and tosses her head from side to side, thoroughly freaked at the smell of blood. “Easy, girl, easy,” I say, patting her flank, for as much my benefit as hers.

  The screams are loudest to the north, where I can see the tiny back of the White House surrounded by trees glowing with bright lights. If they’re going to wipe out our government, I can’t think of a better place to start. Nina might be there, in the center of everything. I spur Axela onward until she’s in a full gallop toward the White House.

  Gunfire rattles in the night. A siren blares, like the kind in old war movies. Sirens from emergency vehicles mix in with the nightmare sounds.

  After the monument is a wide street of six lanes, then more grass before the White House’s south lawn. Ahead is a collapsed fence, as if the eyeless decided it was easier to knock it down than leap over it. More gunfire crackles in the distance, like fireworks. I imagine the confusion. People don’t know what’s coming for them, or why.

  The Secret Service knows, but can’t possibly understand. A hundred yards away, they burst out of the White House in dark suits. Bright white spotlights light the agents from behind, while a cluster of eyeless approach from darkness. It’s just a group of fifteen to twenty of the monsters, a pack. There’s only time for a few bursts of automatic gunfire—Axela suddenly sidesteps behind a copse of trees, tossing her head, and I struggle to move her forward. The gun muzzles flash with orange light, and then the eyeless overtake them. Clothes shred and blood sprays and I feel empty because the men never had a chance. It happened so fast, there probably wasn’t time for much fear or pain. Axela pounds the ground, moving under me, but she isn’t quick enough. And it wouldn’t matter anyway, because I don’t mean to face the eyeless, not like this. Even if I could fight that many at once, what would it do? Nothing. The Torch is the key. It becomes a mantra in my mind. Finding Nina is the key. She has to be here. Why else would the eyeless be swarming in this direction?

  The eyeless funnel through the doors into the executive residence of the White House, no longer silent but screaming. The screams are of delight and hunger, so different from the screams of the dying.

  I’m twenty yards away when the last eyeless slips inside. An agent groans on his back in the Rose Garden to the left. He lifts a bloody hand like he’s waving to the sky. I stop Axela next to the agent and jump off. She spins away from me, and for a second I fear she’s going to bolt, but she just prances in a circle, eyeing the space around us.

  The agent’s suit is torn open. Where his stomach is supposed to be is a blood-filled hole the size of my fist. Blood pumps out in time with his heart, soaking the grass. This man is dying here because of the place I came from.

  His eyes widen in fear when he sees me. “You…” he croaks.

  He recognizes me.

  “I’m not her. Listen, I’m not the same girl. I’m not her. Where is she? Have you seen her?” I kneel and grip his shoulders lightly, then snap my head up at a noise from inside the White House. It sounded like a watermelon being dropped on concrete from ten feet.

  The agent’s eyes keep rolling up. I need to know.

  “Hey, you can help stop this. Tell me where she is.” Please know something. Please.

  His lips make an O-shape.

  “Where? Where?” I lay my hand along his cheek. “It’s okay. Tell me. I can stop this.” Maybe if I say it enough, it’ll be true.

  “Oval…”

  The Oval Office.

  “Where? Where?” I try to remember my history lesson on this place, but it’s fuzzy. The agent tilts his head and moves his eyes to his right. The Oval Office kind of bulges off the West Wing, with vertical windows taller than I am. Windows that are just openings now, the glass blown out.

  Two Humvees roar behind me and turn onto the lawn, big knobby tires digging into the grass. They skid to a stop outside the East Wing. Soldiers pile out and ready assault weapons. They’re too far away for me to get their attention, but I try anyway. “Wait, stop! Stop!” My voice is drowned out by the scream of a jet overhead. The soldiers fast-march into the building, doomed. When I look back down, the agent is still, eyes unseeing. The lack of light in his eyes reminds me of Noah and makes me wish he were here. It reminds me this could be my last minute as myself. When I go into the Oval Office, Nina might kill me—or worse, erase me. But I’m ready for whatever comes next.

  “You’re not alone.”

  Noah’s sudden words give me strength.

  I pull Beacon off my back and sprint the hundred feet to the Oval Office, slowing just before I reach it. Thick red light spills out from the window frames, dappling the grass with blood.

  Itake one step, then another, leading the way with Beacon’s tip. Finally I reach the window frame and step through. The Torch lights the room a brilliant red. Nina sits behind the president’s desk, hunched forward and still. Seeing her so close, with her back to me, I almost freeze in surprise. But the hesitation fades in the next second, and I swing Beacon in a horizontal slash, intending to take her head and end the fight before it begins, knowing it means I won’t get answers from her; I won’t be able to shake her and ask why.

  Nina dips her torso to the left like she’s stretching, and the blade whistles over her harmlessly, pulling me off balance. I put so much behind the strike, so sure it would land. She bursts upright and mule-kicks the chair back at me, then rolls forward over the desk. She lands on the other side and spins around with the Torch held in front of her. She’s standing directly on the presidential seal, between two plush couches.

  I’m already heaving and near breathless. Sifu Phil’s lesson is like a shout in my ears—Erase the emotion. A calm mind delivers sure strikes.

  Seconds pass where she’s out of reach, but Nina doesn’t say the code. I’m still me.

  Her right hand holds a straight sword identical to mine, save the black grip tape she’s wrapped around the hilt. She grins. The Torch makes it look like she has blood on her teeth. “Why are you fighting me, Miranda? Put down your sword and I’ll take you to True Earth. You can join the army of Roses.”

  Despite the sickening rage in my chest, tears jump to my eyes. “Why are you doing this?” I guess I get to ask her after all.

  “Because this world is like the one we just left—sick. One day it will reach critical mass and become a cancer that will spread to other worlds. Call it preventative surgery on the collective universe. Call it saving you from yourselves.”

  That’s it, right there. We’re just a tumor to them. And I see it too. Maybe our world has more bad than good. We kill one another over stupid things, or we let people die. We are selfish. They aren’t wrong in those respects. And maybe the people of my world are too stubborn to change. We might always be this way, until the world destroys itself.

  But it’s not Nina’s call to make. Or anyone else’s from True Earth.

  “You know I’m right,” she says. “Open your eyes.”

  The time to say the code has passed—I want to believe that. But something is wrong.… She doesn’t seem worried at all. It’s like she really wants me to join her, and knows she’ll get her way in the end.

  My mind is whirring, but I’m not considering her offer like she thinks.

  “You’re fighting on the wrong side, Miranda. We’re the defenders. Help me. It’s what you were made to do. Think about it—how different can we really be? We’re the same person.”

  I don’t want to think about that. We might be the same, but I’ve never felt I could be like her, or Mrs. North, or the director. It’s your choices that make you who you are.

  And I choose to fight.

  Nina is giving me one more chance, one more moment to lean toward her cause. And who wouldn’t want to join the winning side?

  “Choose,” she says.
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  Already did. She can see it on my face now.

  “Then I’m sorry. It’s time to wake up, Nina. Be free.”

  A lightning bolt sears my brain, blinding me. I go to one knee, Beacon loose in my grip. I feel the copy of Nina barge into my mind with a victory scream, and I understand in that brief moment that Mrs. North did taint me with a copy of Nina, that she was inside me all along. There is the vague sensation of tears running down my face, and of utter darkness swooping in, pushing me aside, and one thought—This is really happening—before a moment of darkness so pure, I’m sure that I’m gone. But then Noah rises up within me, roaring in defiance, and somehow he takes my hand and pulls me out of the ether. In the next instant, I feel our combined power crush Nina into oblivion. She’s gone in a single moment. I hear a thought, either mine or Noah’s, I can’t tell—No room for three in here.

  I open my eyes.

  “Impossible…” Nina says.

  I’m still on one knee, but that changes when I stand up. Noah’s strength courses through me, mingling with my own. Together we’re strong enough to beat her.

  “Apparently not,” I reply.

  Her eyes are wide with fear.

  I move right, beginning to circle around the desk. “Who are you, really?”

  “I am the director’s daughter.” She seems to be regaining her composure.

  “No, you were my friend. I saw you wake up on a table. So how did you get inside my friend?” Where is she? I want to scream.

  Her lip curls in a sneer. “Your friend is gone. My true body remains in True Earth, but I loaned my identity to a new body for this mission. I spent the last few months seeing your world firsthand, hiding in the back of Sequel’s mind, and when the time was right, I put in a request with the DJ.”

  The violation of having a secret observer in your mind at all times makes my stomach turn.

  “Are you ready to finish this?” she says, holding her hands wide in welcome, Torch in the left, sword in the right.