The Elite Read online

  Daniel pulls the throw on the back of the black couch and drapes it over her. She seems to relax a bit, her mouth closing. Daniel takes a step back, looking her over once.

  The blanket fills with blood quickly just over her stomach. Daniel pulls it back slightly, still afraid to touch her. She’s definitely bleeding from her stomach.

  “Where are they?” He mutters.

  He makes a beeline for the front door, peering out the side windows. Through the heavy falling rain, something flashes silver. The Runner’s eyes try to focus on where the light was coming from, but he can’t see really anything through the water.

  Slowly he opens the door, his heart pounding like a drum. He looks around and sees nothing, sees no one. Taking a step outside, the moist air swallows him up and makes him shiver. A cold front has blown through.

  Something in the distance catches his eye, somewhere around where the light had come from. A dark heap of something lays on the ground, a long knife reaching to the sky. Red swells around it and washes away with the rain. Could that be...?

  Daniel’s foot kicks something.

  He looks down to see the second guard. His eyes are open and blood drips from his mouth. A long knife sticks up from his chest. A kitchen knife.

  Daniel’s stomach lurches inside of him, and a hand comes up to his mouth. He looks up to try and see whatever killed his Guards, forgetting for the moment that he is in danger. His dark eyes find nothing.

  And then another flash. A thud.

  Daniel cries out. The thunder mutes him. Lightning illuminates one figure in the distance. A woman with a malevolent smile on her pointy face. More faces begin to appear, standing in a great circle around the Elite Runner’s Mansion. The Unnamed have returned, and they aren’t holding back.

  4: Boom

  The world wavers around him as the rain pours down. The mass of people begin to charge. Daniel struggles to get up, to pull himself inside. They draw nearer as he stands himself up.

  A ripple of pain plunges through his calf, and he cries out.

  Bleeding on the floor, he stumbles inside, able to shut the door before the first wave of Unnamed reach him. They pound on the glass and hit the cement walls, but the Elite Mansions are built for protection against things like this.

  Daniel limps into the living room where the girl lays. She groans as she moves slightly. The whole house seems to shake with the rebel’s pounding, leaving Daniel confused on what to do. He was supposed to have guards—guards the Unnamed killed. And now here he is, defenseless in a house that, if they find out how to get through, most likely won’t stand much longer. It’s all just a matter of time, and they’re smart. The Unnamed try to recruit the best of the best to bring down the Elites—the people like Daniel.

  It seems like forever has passed when the banging finally ceases. After a few moments of silence, there’s a sound from the front door, like something sliding beneath it. Daniel, who hasn’t tended to his wounds yet, looks up, weary and uncertain of where to go from here. Is it a trap?

  He looks over at the girl who had saved his life that one night in this same place as she moves once more, and sighs. He has to go see what they had slipped under the door. Who knows what it might be—but it can’t be worse than what’s waiting for him outside.

  Daniel makes his way over slowly, cautiously, careful not to look out the windows, although he sees the shadows playing on the curtains. All is quiet at least for the time being as he looks down at the floor.

  A wet, white paper lays silently on the dark wood. So like the Unnamed to communicate through writing. The crinkled up note, the letters, the napkin, the girl, now this. He can almost taste what he will see on the paper: We know where you are. You’ll never betray us again. Watch your back. The Elites will fall. Things like that.

  But what he sees is something entirely different. His hands tremble, making the words almost unreadable. How did they get inside?

  Since we can’t get you to come out, we’ve made ourselves at home. And we thought you would like to know that we’ve hidden a bomb. You’ll never guess where. Or how long you have.

  Good luck.

  Daniel looks around him, frantic. He makes his way around the mansion, checking every place he can find, upstairs and downstairs. He even checks in his bed, under his pillow, in its case. But thinking it over once more, his body fills with dread.

  Almost falling down the stairs, he turns into the living room where the girl sleeps peacefully. She’s stopped bleeding, but now he knows why she was in the first place.

  She’s the bomb.

  He trips over himself trying to get to her, and lands on his face. Daniel picks himself up and runs over to the girl. He places his hands on her shoulders and shakes her.

  “Wake up,” he says loudly. “Wake up!”

  She groans, but doesn’t stir.

  “Wake up. Please.”

  He shakes her again.

  Her eyes open and her body begins to move.

  “No—no, stop moving.”

  “What, why—” the girl stops cold, freezing and glancing over at Daniel. “What did they do to me?”

  Her voice trembles with fear as Daniel comes closer. The words escape him, his mouth hanging slack. He swallows. He’s never going to be able to physically tell her. So he hands her the note.

  She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, pressing her hand against her stomach where she had been bleeding.

  “So that’s what they had been doing...” she whispers. “I can hear it. The beeping.”

  Daniel’s heart rate increases. “What does it mean?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess that it’s activated.” Her face pinches together. She recollects herself. “We have to get it out of me.”

  “What—how?”

  She shrugs, “You got a knife, right? Go get it.”

  Daniel obeys, scared of her having a knife. What if she’s pretending? What if there is no bomb? What if she’s acting?

  He turns around just before reaching for it, giving her a long glance. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

  She stares at him incredulously. Shakes her head. “She knew I’d come and warn you. She said I didn’t understand what you did to us, but I would have done the same thing in your position: give in.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “It doesn’t mean you’re weak, don’t worry. We’ve had worse scenarios. It’s just they were all killed before they could leak any information.” She readjusts herself slowly, sitting up against the back of the couch and breathing heavily. If she was acting, she was doing a great job. “Please get the knife. The whole city depends on it.”

  Her face pinches again as a tear falls from her left eye. Daniel, taking pity on her, turns and grabs one. He takes it over and hands it to her, watching as she rips her nightgown where the spot she needs to work on is. A puss-filled scar stretches across her side, some of it turning green. How long has it been inside of her?

  With a deep breath, she cuts into the gash, puss and blood spilling out. Daniel has to look away to refrain from barfing. She breathes heavily as she drops her hands beside her.

  “It’s not deep enough,” she mutters, Daniel’s stomach churning.

  She makes another incision. Cries out as a metallic ringing cuts through the silent room. She’d hit something. It makes David’s veins run cold.

  “Oh no,” she utters. “It’s beeping faster. No, no, no, no...”

  She reaches inside her cut, trying to muffle her cries.

  Daniel can hear the beeping too.

  It increases in speed as she searches for it with her hand. She pulls it out, not able to find it.

  “One more time,” she whispers painfully to herself, and then reaches back in. “If I get it—” she groans. “Where will we... put it?”

  Daniel moles it over in his head. Where would it go?

  And then he remembers the basement. In every one of them there is a “panic box” made of some unknown metal, known to hardly
even melt in a situation that creates intense heat. But could it hold a bomb?

  “Got it,” she slurs, holding up the bloody metal bomb in her hand. It’s a sphere, shining silver in the lighting. “Now what?”

  The beeping is louder than ever now, and still getting faster. Without hesitation or a moment to gag, the Runner grabs the bomb and sprints downstairs. Luckily he’s the fastest person in the World.

  He unlocks the panic box and gently places the sphere in there, slamming all three lids closed. He runs upstairs, closing the basement door behind him, and rushes back into the living room where the girls’ head lolls. She can barely keep her eyes open. Daniel takes his shirt off and presses it against her wound, hoping to help somehow. He can hear the beeping from downstairs, and closes his eyes as the bomb beeps as fast as it’s ever beeped.

  And it explodes.

  5: Faith

  The house shakes with the rumbles the bomb had created, and seems to jump into the air slightly. But the Runner, as well as the girl, are alive and breathing.

  The girl forces a pained smile and a small “Yes!” in victory. Daniel, on the other hand, picks himself off the ground, shaking. What if he hadn’t have gotten there in time? They would have both been dead and the Unnamed would have won.

  He looks up at her, her chest rising and falling unevenly. She’s pressing her hands against her wound, blood seeping out from between her fingers. Daniel gets to his feet.

  “We... did it,” she whispers, her face pale. “Whoo...”

  She almost tips over.

  “Hang on,” Daniel tells her, not knowing what else to say. He rushes into his kitchen and produces several paper towels and fills a pitcher of water. “Lay down on your side—the one without the cut.”

  She obeys, groaning with pain and still holding the wound. Daniel lets the water fall and clean it out, using the paper towels to press up against it and stop the bleeding. He tapes it to her, just in case she is unable to hold it to her body any longer.

  “When did you become such a Doctor?” She laughs hoarsely, her eyes struggling to focus.

  Daniel shrugs as he puts things back into their place. “I grew up with a whole house of people in different Categories,” he says, sitting down in the chair next to the sofa. “Things go wrong, especially when you’re working in the weight room or walking near the kitchen where the Cooks play with knives, and then you kind of pick stuff up. I thought these kind of things were important to remember.”

  The girl considers this for a moment, nodding. “Well.” Her voice cracks. “I thank you for... remembering.”

  Her eyes flutter shut and then drearily open again.

  “You can sleep,” Daniel whispers. “You’re safe in here.”

  “But... I need to apply pressure—”

  “It’s fine,” he interrupts. “I’ll take care of it.”

  He nods as he ducks out of the room, ignoring the arguments started by the girl. He sprints up to the weight room and brings back a two-pound weight, flat and round and small enough to cover the surface area of her cut. Her eyes are shut as he walks back in the room, and he sets the object directly on top of the paper towels.

  “It hurts,” she breathes.

  “I know. That means you’re healing.”

  She mutters something unintelligible before drifting slowly off into sleep. After a while, the Runner finds himself dreaming as well.

  + + +

  Daniel is jerked awake by banging inflicted somewhere outside his house. The images, memories, actions that replayed in his dream come rushing back all at once—making his heart beat twice as fast, even after the loud eruptions around him. More banging makes him twist around. It’s coming from a window.

  The girl stirs and Daniel goes over to make sure the weight doesn’t fall off. Once she’s settled, the sharp blows shake the window once more. Daniel creeps closer, careful not to make a sound or move too much. He can see the shadow of someone outside, the sunrise barely breaking over the horizon. He sees the head of the shadow turn to its left suddenly, something familiar about the slope of its nose.

  It moves quickly, making a strange noise against the glass before completely disappearing. Daniel counts to ten, breathing slowly, and then approaches the window. He peels back the curtains, the rising sun almost blinding him. A dark spot blots it out in the bottom left corner. The words are barely legible against the red backdrop as he squints in the brightness.

  Carefully sliding up the window, he reaches through the crack and retrieves the torn paper. The writing is different. It’s not like the past letters he’s received from the Unnamed, from Mortimer, from Blaise... This one is softer, prettier.

  He reads.

  Daniel.

  I’m hoping I’m wrong about you. I’m hoping you gave up the Unnamed like you did for a good reason. There’s still this one part of me that believes in you, that you could save us all and change the world. Please don’t tell me I’m wrong.

  I escaped from the Unnamed. They’re overrun and corrupt now, they don’t understand why we created this rebellion in the first place. They only want revenge. On you. And I’m risking my life on telling you this. The Unnamed will be at the next Competition, and they won’t hide in the background and be subtle about how they go about their business. If you can’t already tell. You know how they work, or how they used to work, and they’ve completely turned from doing it that way. They’re getting ready to take you and all of the Elites down, no matter the price.

  If you have any good inside of you at all you’ll understand and you’ll do as I say. We need to infiltrate their system somehow, and quickly. But I can’t do it without you. After all, you are the fastest runner in the World.

  Meet me in the tunnels at nightfall. You know how to get there. If you don’t come, I’ll assume you are and never will be worthy of being a hero.

  With faith,

  Rose.

  Daniel presses his face against the window, his heart pounding. Had she been here? Was that her? It had to be her. But how can she be back after what he did to her—to the Unnamed? He was a spy the entire time... how can she be back? And did she escape the Guards that had taken her captive?

  Daniel looks out to the horizon, which stares back in wonder. She believes he’s a good guy. And he guesses he is, considering he’s trying to keep the Unnamed from corrupting everything, anything. For a moment, his brain flips the situation. In their shoes, he’s the villain. But which side does he want to stand on?

  He has hours waiting to be completed before he makes his decision, but for some reason it’s as if time isn’t on his side at all. Torn, he turns from the window and shoves the note in his pocket, seeming to weigh him down. His brain clicks to one decision: take care of what’s happening this moment. He can worry about Rose when it’s time. He’ll figure it out.

  Hopefully.

  6: Locked Out

  The day goes by too quickly for the Runner. The girl sleeps on the couch while Daniel tries to make use of his workout equipment. But thoughts often lead him astray and his life ticks away faster than he wishes.

  He can see the door to the tunnels in his mind, sitting on one of the walls in the lower part of his old Runner Building. But how will he get there without anyone noticing?

  The girl is still asleep on the couch when Daniel goes downstairs to take a long swig of orange juice. The acidic liquid quenches his thirst and leaves a tangy aftertaste as he molls over the thought of going back into his old home. Did he even want to go down there again and face what he did? The truth is, he does. He wants to see Rose again, explain to her where exactly he stands and hope she agrees with him. He wants to know about the Unnamed and what is going on, not just to protect himself but his Servants too. What if they went after them next? What if some of them are already a part of the Unnamed and he has no idea?

  He stops his thought process before paranoia takes a toll on his brain.

  Daniel makes his way up to his bedroom, still pondering. And then
he sees a black sleeve sticking out of a drawer, a red wing glowing in artificial light.

  He knows how he’s getting in there.

  + + +

  The hood casts a black shadow on Daniel’s dark skin. It’s a strange sensation, being back in his Runner Jacket. The past two years pass by him as his feet pound on the sopping wet cracked concrete. Just like they had when this all began. When Daniel, ignorant of the threat in the World at the time, watched as the Head Leader asked him questions that could have Daniel killed.

  The moonlight above casts eerie shadows all around him as he jogs, trying to step lightly, over to the Runner’s Building. Everyone should be asleep by now and he should be able to get in and out without any trouble.

  Wrapping his hand around the doorknob, he twists it around. But it doesn’t budge.

  He tugs at it, careful to not make much noise, but it’s no use. The door, for once in his life, is locked. He doesn’t remember going to that meeting. No one told him the Buildings were going to be locked up.

  Maybe it’s just the Runner’s Building, he thinks to himself. It could be to protect just the runners since the Unnamed is after me and I’m their Elite...

  Daniel takes off in the other direction, where the other tunnel is located: the Builder’s Building. If that door is unlocked, then... It’s not. He tugs and pulls and twists, the sounds crescendoing until he lets go with a frustrated groan. There’s only one option left.

  The Runner turns around and finds a quickened pace as he rounds the inner wall of the World. The gate comes into view quickly as his breathing picks up. Not from fatigue, but from the adrenaline beginning to weave into his veins.