In Search Of The Neon City

33 - Lo

I immediately heard the shooting sound from the place where I'd left Tristan, my heart was aching for him in my chest and my thoughts immediately strayed from my mission.

"Lo, are you still there?" Carl's voice rattled out of the Link pulsing on my arm.

"I-it's Tristan, ORION has found us ..." I sobbed and stared at the opening in the pitch-black tunnel.

"Hide yourself Lo" my father urged me with a restrained calm "go find a good hiding place and wait for him. He'll be fine, you said it yourself, he is a soldier, right?"

I nodded in the dark and even though he couldn't see me, he continued to speak calmly.

"We'll be at the coordinates in two hours Lo, so hurry there. Hannes longs to see you."

"Be careful" I mumbled quietly before turning off the connection. "I love you." The link went out and I started crawling further into the tunnel system as quietly as I could.

Two hours. That would be enough time to get us there, if only Tristan came back!

The sound of gunfire continued to echo through the tunnels and with each passing minute I found it harder and harder to hold back my tears.

I squeezed myself into a small carved hole I had found and put my arms around my legs so that I could rest my chin against my knees. All I could do now was wait. Wait for Tristan to come and get me, or for the soldiers to look for me.

My heart was pounding so hard that I was sure the whole force of soldiers could hear me.

But then suddenly everything was silent. Death silent. No voices were heard, no rifle shots, no footsteps. Nothing.

I held my breath, bit my lower lip and closed my eyes as hard as I could. What should I do now? stay here and wait even longer? What if he's lying somewhere bleeding? What if I could save his life? What if he's dead? The darkness thickened around me as my thoughts drifted away and my body sat frozen on the stone floor.

"Lo? ... Lo, are you here?" Tristan's whispering voice struck me like a wave of relief.

"Tristan!" I whispered and crawled out of my hiding place to throw myself into his arms "are you okay?"

In the glow of our Links, I could see the splashes of blood and the grim facial expression he wore, which immediately softened when he realised that I was alive.

"I'll be fine, how are you?" he gasps and puts a gentle hand on my neck to study me more closely, as if he was looking for invisible marks and gunshot wounds.

"They'll be here in two hours," I exclaimed excitedly, "we have to hurry!"

He nodded and took my hand, "Listen Lo, we are hunted, they are still over there so we need to move quietly in the dark."

I nodded and took a firm grip of his hand and felt a huge gratitude to his synthetic eye with night vision. "I'm following you," I whispered, pressing my lips lightly against the back of his hand.

For the next few minutes, my nerves were on the outside of my body. My stomach screamed in anxiety and my head throbbed. I had never felt like a prey before, not even when the Harrows were chasing us.

This was different, because now, for the first time in a very long time, I had a reason to live. There was so much I wanted to tell Hannes before I died and I wanted Carl to meet Tristan, because I really thought they could get along really well.

I wanted to hug Sofia and Amanda and show them around the streets of Vegas, look at the neon signs and eat ice cream!

Jonna would force me to tell the whole story over and over again and she would hate herself for not taking down the Harrow Camp that captured me.

But Tristan would calm her down and send some code to some satellite that destroyed the camp in a cloud of dust.

I laughed at my fantasies and looked up at the broad back that could barely be discerned in the dark. It might not really work out that way, but I was sure he could be part of the family. Although he himself seemed to doubt it.

But as we finally stepped out of the camp, we were met by my greatest fear. All hope and joy seeped out of my body as my eyes caught on to the scene in front of us.

On the ground my family sat in a row, on their knees with their hands behind their heads and all five looked up at us wide-eyed as we stepped out of the darkness.

"Galwa ?!" Tristan roared, taking a step toward the leader "what the hell is going on?"

"The tunnels are filled with your friends Kaltium, so I felt we needed something to bargain with," he replied with a wide smile.

"Idiot," he hissed, "they are as much my enemies as yours, I shot at them out there, they will not hesitate before opening fire on us all, and you will hand us over on a silver plate!"

"Of course they will open fire on us" he muttered "I know what you all are capable of, I have seen it with my own eyes, I have seen you in all your glory Commander Kaltium, when you massacred my whole village."

Tristan narrowed his eyes and tightened his jaw as he stood in the middle of the room, trying to gather himself.

My eyes slid over my family as everyone had their eyes fixed on me. I smiled at them and felt tears begin to flow down my cheeks.

"This is between you and me Galwa" Tristan muttered and pushed me away, forcing me to take a few staggering stepps from him and towards Carl who was closest to us. "Leave Lo and his family out of this!"

The leader laughed so loud it echoed between the cave walls "At first I wanted to save him from the ife as a lab rat, just like you." He grinned wickedly and took a step forward "But Tristan my friend, he immediately became part of this war as soon as I understood that you have feelings for the boy."

"So you planned this from the start?"

"Give me the security codes Commander, and maybe I'll let you live."

Tristan shook his head and sighed heavily "you are a madman, just like everyone else. Would the people of Vegas really have a better life under your rule?"

"It does not matter what you think, you will not live to experience it anyway."

Suddenly a rebel takes a firm grip of my collar and pulls me to my knees next to Carl.

My eyes glided across the room which was relatively empty and I suspected that Galwa had given orders to evacuate the base as soon as ORION started flooding the tunnels.

With a sigh, I realised that we were without a chance of surviving this. My eyes wandered towards Tristans and I met his surprisingly calm gaze that kept my eyes steady.

A soft smile spread on his lips as his eyes moved towards Carl and then to Jonna and the others. I watch as their Links flash and I immediately glance down at my own.

"Be prepared, help is on the way." - 12