The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2) by Ramona Finn (no david read aloud .txt) 📕

“Where’s the other three?”

“Didn’t make it.” Starkey passed his mask to Jasper, who passed it to Ben. Ben took a grateful breath.

“Once we get out of here, I’ll share with this guy instead.” Starkey nodded at Prium. “Doesn’t seem fair, him getting his own air.”

Prium made a disgusted sound. I goosed him on faster, past a gauntlet of soldiers, three deep on either side. He panicked at the threshold, thrashed and flailed in my grasp.

“I’ve got my finger on the trigger,” I warned him. “Squirm too much, I might slip.”

Prium went still, then, and the tattered remnants of our crew limped into the night. The gate rolled shut behind us, and Prium laughed aloud.

“Well, you’ve got me. What now? You have no idea, do you? You—”

Starkey bashed him a good one, right across the jaw. Prium crumpled in the dirt, gray hair tumbling from its clasp. Starkey shrugged sheepishly.

“I wasn’t going to listen to that all the way home.”

“Can’t argue with that.” I scooped Prium up and slung him over my shoulders. He didn’t weigh much. “How far to the rendezvous point?”

“Too far for him.” Ben nodded at Jasper. “I’ll radio. They’ll come get us.”

I closed my eyes, just for a moment. Prium was sort of snoring, huffing into his mask. Starkey was coughing, waiting his turn to breathe. Ben was on the radio, tapping out some wordless signal. Jasper hopped up beside me and caught himself on my elbow.

“We’ll make it,” he said. “I mean, in time to save Lock.”

“You think so?”

“I’ve always been an optimist.” He looked back at Echelon, at the smoke over Sky Station. “A world like this, you have to be. You have to believe your children will breathe free, and their children after them. If you don’t—if you don’t, what’s the point? Why live at all, if this is all that’s left?”

“So that’s why you came tonight.” I shifted Prium on my shoulders. Our rescue was coming—I heard the purr of an engine somewhere nearby.

“Sounds like our ride,” said Ben, and I felt something like hope.

Chapter Thirty-One

“We did pretty well,” said Ben, “all things considered.” He sat sprawled out beside me in the back of the truck, watching the exper flash by. “Five bags of blasters, and a hell of a bang.”

“We really need all these guns?” I rubbed at my temples, half-sick from the static.

“That bad?”

“Not really.” I closed my eyes and leaned back. “I think I’m getting used to it. I can push it down now, fence it off from my thoughts. But it’s still annoying, like an itch in my head.”

Ben didn’t say anything, and I let myself drift, looking for something good, some bright spark of memory to ease my heartache. I thought of Lock in the toy shop, but it hurt to remember that, so I pushed the thought away. I thought of Gran’s place instead, her cards and her potions, those little pots of jam. I thought of her hugs, always tight, always warm. That hurt even worse, and I opened my eyes.

“You okay?” Ben leaned in closer, and I let him, craving warmth.

“I never thanked you,” I said. “For getting that gretha.”

“I hope it’s enough.” His knee nudged up on mine. “We had three tanks, to start with, but—”

“But what?”

“If I tell you, you’ll blame yourself. But it wasn’t your fault. A lot went wrong, not just—”

“What?”

Ben sighed, a weary sound. “One of the tanks took a hit. It blew up.”

I waited for tears to come, the heavy well of sadness, but all I felt was cold. “That’s how they died, those other three.”

“Rob, Tam, and Victor.” Ben’s hand twitched next to mine. “What happened with Ona?”

I stared up at the black sky. “I screwed that up too.” A shiver went through me, and I hugged myself. “The way she looked at me, the things she said—I hurt her. I’ve been hurting her. Maybe I pushed too hard, or I wasn’t there when she needed me, but it all felt too late.”

“You tried. That’s what matters. You did what you believed in.”

“I tried?” I choked back a bitter laugh. “You haven’t heard the worst part. She wanted to come with me. She almost did. She wanted to forgive me, but I ruined it. I lied to her—I lost her. I thought...” I touched my cheek, where she’d marked me with her blood. Ben reached out, hesitant, and laid his hand over mine.

“It’s never too late,” he said. “Not while you’re both still alive.”

I tried to say something, but the words stuck in my throat. I wanted to throw myself into his arms, wrap myself up in him and not think for a while. I wanted his hands in my hair, his pulse against my cheek. I wanted to lie against him and feel him breathe—to feel, more than hear, his murmured reassurances.

I pulled back instead, and his hand fell away. I took it in both of mine, squeezed it, and let it drop. “Thank you,” I said.

Ben just looked at me. His eyes were black behind his mask, his expression unreadable. We rode on in silence, the Spire dwindling at our backs. I tried not to think of anything at all, of Ben at my side or Lock up the mountain, Ona in her glittering cage. Prium regained consciousness and sat sullen under Starkey’s watchful eye. At last, I saw the riverbed, a black scrawl across the desert.

“Here’s the river,” said Ben. “And our welcoming party.” A truck sat on the bank, barely visible in the dark. Sergey pulled up next to it, and Ben jumped down. Jetha strode forth to meet us and made a beeline for the back seat. She reached in the window and flipped up Prium’s mask.

“Well, I’ll be damned. It’s really him.”

“He’s not coming with us,” said Starkey.

Jetha nodded. “We’ll take him. We’ll take your guns too, back to Stillwater.”

I glanced at Ben. “Stillwater?”

“The village by the river.” He shrugged. “You’ll see in spring. The water runs slow, pools