The Network ( Book One of the Grounders Series )

22

When I wake I'm sprawled across the floor of a landing craft. I look around. Rebel soldiers surround me, all talking and whooping, celebrating their victory.

We are in a narrow cavern. A river rushes from a dark crevice in the rock. Next to the massive, shadowed alcove is a a wall of rock facing us, with a square cave cut into it about twenty feet in the air.

The river turns and the narrow cavern opens up into a wider cavern, one I recognize.

Aroculan's fields are covered in blood, deep, thick crimson. Soldiers and rebels shuffle through the fields, cleaning up the dead and taking the wounded inside the palace for treatment. People who don't look like soldiers at all are running plows through the fields, taking out all of the plants and trees growing. They empty the rubble into the wide river and it is whisked away.

Kali appears next to me and hands me a glass of water. I gulp thirstily and then hand him back the empty glass.

"What are they doing to the fields?" I ask.

"They are stripping the fields. The battle ruined the crops, there's no reason to keep them," Kalin says.

"Are you guys going to replant them?"

"Yes of course, those fields are the food supply for all of Arocule. The demand for food will be high especially after a battle like this."

The landing craft sailed along the current of the river, straight towards the Strip in the middle of the water.

"Aroculan's soldiers are handling the defeat well," he says, "turns out they all thought of him as a tyrant, but none of them had the courage to fight back except the rebels." Kalin says.

"That's why you won," I say, "you fought for what you knew was right but you were also brave."

The landing craft dock at the shores of the Strip and we file onto the docks. Some soldiers linger on the surface but Kalin takes me downstairs to meet back up with Joss, Jonah, and Cicada.

Once inside the Strip, I feel much more secure. I've only been in a battle like that twice, and it never gets easier.

I hear Cicada before I see her. "ALARIC!"

My eyes follow the sound and find her rushing toward me, her eyes full of anger. "How could you fight in a battle without telling us!" She demands. "You could've died! You put the entire quest, the fate of the Network in jeopardy!"

"Relax, Cicada," I say, probably more nonchalantly than I should. That just sets her off again.

"Relax? How can I relax? One minute I was resting and the next I find out you left us here to go fight a war that has nothing to do with us! I was worried sick for an hour! Do you have any idea how it feels to be so totally helpless, to be able to do nothing but wait while your friend is out in danger? Do you have any idea the things my mind did to me? I imagined them coming to me and telling me that you didn't make it out, one-hundred different ways!"

"I'm sorry," I say moving in for an apology hug, hoping maybe that will melt into a kiss.

She places the palm of her hand firmly against my chest. "No," she says, "I don't think I'm ready to forgive you for this. Not yet."

"Wha-."

"I'm going back to the village. Join us when you please but don't go fighting anymore random wars," she says condescendingly, and then she's gone.

My chest hurts at the thought of her being upset with me. I've already had enough of that in my life, I don't need to be on Cicada's bad side either.