Steel Flight [Completed]

Chapter 5: Haven

-Jack

Just look at me now, I thought. I'm leaving. Escaping to the Eastern Mountains.

After I'd donned the weird gray clothes and transferred my remaining stone to one of the pant pockets, completely ignoring the tiny clock, I'd considered heading down to the others, but thought better of it. They'd be back up.

Instead, I slid down the wall to a sitting position and pulled my duffel bag over to me. Had it really only been a few hours since I'd packed it? It already felt like it had been weeks.

I slowly unzipped it, not sure I really wanted to look inside. I paused, but my fingers crept through it, almost of their own accord, and pulled out a patchwork quilt. It was faded, but after the unending sea of gray, the splash of color assaulted my eyes. I traced the scenes with fond familiarity: a girl in a red cape skipping through a forest, a man protected by metal standing before a dragon, and a giant bird swooping down to capture another girl. I unfolded it a little more to reveal my favorite: a winged boy soaring through the clouds.

I finished unwrapping it and set the painting it held on my lap. It was a depiction of our old milky-white cow munching in one of our grain fields. Only a few days after my mum had painted it, when the rest of my family had been hard at work in that very field, I'd smelled smoke. Too late.

My head snapped up. Someone was coming back up the stairs. The footsteps were much too quiet to belong to Peb, so it had to be Skai.

Skai. I wondered why no one in the Farmlands had that name. It would make more sense to me in a land where one could see more than a tiny fragment of sky at a time.

Sure enough, it was Skai's head that rose above the floor.

I opened my mouth, but her eyes warned me quiet. I sighed. That seemed to be happening a lot lately. She finished ascending the ladder, closed the trapdoor, and crossed to me with painstaking care. When she was only a few inches away, she bent down and hissed, "The head of police is here. Put your shoes on and pack everything else back in your bag, including your old clothes. We can't leave anything here in case they come upstairs." Then her eyes fell on the little clock.

"Don't need it," I said, before she'd even opened her mouth. She looked like she wanted to argue, but I went to work following her instructions, and she just grumbled something to herself.

The shoes weren't hard to figure out. They laced up just like my old work boots. Skai cringed when I started zipping my duffel back up, but it had to be done. Finally I stood, feeling ready for our adventure.

Skai had opened the window and was currently looking down, probably trying to figure out the best way. I could only imagine her expression if she knew what I'd been thinking. Stifling a laugh, I pushed past her onto the balcony and made my way down to the ground. This time I looked both ways and listened closely before crossing back to the shadowy nook we'd stood in before. When I got there, I turned around and waited expectantly.

She needn't have spent so much time planning her descent- judging from the way she flowed down the wall, Skai knew her way around the outside of buildings. When she reached the bottom, she met eyes with me and nodded to the right. At the corner, we stopped and she studied every direction before continuing on. I looked down again at her boots. How could she possibly step so quietly?

We sped up a couple blocks away, steering clear of busy streets. With my patched up duffel, we still got some stares, but not so many as before. Still, Skai was nervous. We'd left Peb's without incident and left everyone who'd dared chase us in the dust, so I didn't know why she kept looking around nervously; a few times she even had us stop and wait.

"So you're taking me to that safe place now?" I asked her. She jumped about a foot and spun around. I grinned in satisfaction. Now we were even.

She scowled. "We're almost there."

I nodded. It was a good thing, too. These shoes felt weird. Then something occurred to me. "Skai?"

"Hm?"

"How do you know it's safe?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course it's-"

"Skai. How do you know it's safe?" I stopped, forcing her to stop too.

She sighed. "No one knows about it but me. For the past few months it's been my home. Trust me. It's safe."

Good enough for me.

After what could only have been a minute more of walking, Skai stopped. "We're here."

"Here" turned out to be the dead end of a dark alley. What part of that sounded safe?! But Skai had dropped to her knees and was shifting crates around.

She looked up. "Help me."

I sighed. She'd delivered so far. As I knelt beside her, I thought I saw something glint inside her boot.

When together we moved the last crate, I gasped. She raised an eyebrow, smirk playing over her lips. Instead of brick wall where the last crate had sat, there was a square hole big enough for us to crawl through. She gestured for me to go first, and I obliged her. I doubted I could fit with the duffel bag on my back, so I took it off and dragged it behind me. A little further into the tunnel, I heard her moving a few of the crates back behind her. Then I crawled out of the wall.

"Whoa," I breathed, unconsciously dropping my duffel bag. The area I'd just entered was among the most beautiful I'd seen in my life, much less in the City. There was grass- actual grass. And lush green trees. I still smelled the smoke and exhaust, the sounds of traffic still blared constantly around me, but here things seemed more hushed. Away.

Directly in front of me stood the obvious focal point of Skai's home: a decorative wrought iron gate. Only, from its place in this garden, I knew it was more than just a gate and the hazel tree it depicted more than some mere plant. Looking around at all the actual trees, I realized there was more than one hazel. I counted seven, making it more than half. What was this place?

I stepped toward one of the hazel trees, blinking in the abundant green. After everything I'd been told and everything I'd seen, I would never have imagined someplace like this existing in the City.

The bark felt comforting under my palm, like a lost friend. The shade softened the weather and lighting. I could almost have been in our apple orchard stealing a rare moment of rest. Almost. This small grove of trees wasn't exactly like ours, and not just because it consisted of different species. Something was off. I closed my eyes and leaned my cheek against the trunk. The wind stirred the leaves and my hair, smelling of summer. I tried to filter out the background noises and distractions. What was missing?

With my senses open and ready, the static nearly screamed.

I jumped away from the tree and looked down. Some small black contraption was on the ground. Broken noises were coming from it. I stepped forward again, heart pounding, and crouched down to get a closer look.

I'd never seen anything like it. It was bigger than my hand but small and light enough to easily pick up. Not really a square, with a long, skinny part going up, it continued to crackle and pop. I turned it over. FS was written on the back. Someone's initials?

Something told me we weren't the first to enter since Skai last left.

Slowly, whole body tensing in anticipation, I looked up.

Two sets of eyes stared down at me.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Comment below: what did you like? Dislike? I'd love to hear from you!