The Stolen Sky (Split City Book 2)

  ALSO BY HEATHER HANSEN

  THE SPLIT CITY SERIES

  The Breaking Light

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Heather Hansen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Skyscape, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542046817

  ISBN-10: 1542046815

  Cover design by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative

  For my husband, Steven. Thank you for filling my life with joy, laughter, and selfless love. There is no one else I’d want to walk this life with. You make everything better.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  They were being hunted. The pressure of the chase and the exhaustion from battle felt thick inside Dade, slowing his movements. Numbness made it difficult to think. Still, he did not stop. They had to keep going. The govies could catch them and blast them full of phase-fire at any second. Fear, not for himself but for the girl in his arms, pushed him onward, straining his body past the limits of its endurance.

  He held Arden against him, his arm wrapped around her back. The wet tackiness of her blood coated his fingers from where a phase-fire blast had ripped open her side. Around the wound, her suit had been cut away to expose the injury. Her skin was charred and puckered from the in-field attempt to cauterize the damage. She felt cold from the chilled air and loss of blood.

  It was a real possibility she would die.

  His worry increased. They’d managed to get halfway across the city through the Lower Levels without incident. He’d have considered their escape a success except they had nowhere to go—no friends, no one to rely on. Even their families wanted them dead.

  Arden leaned heavily into his side, her eyes closed. Dusky lashes contrasted against the bruised purple translucence of her skin. She sighed shallowly, making her breath rattle in her chest, which was followed by a pain-laced whine.

  Their running suits were charred. The material regulated their body temperature against the extreme chill of the Lower Levels and helped repel phase-fire. It wore like a second skin, moving with their anatomy as if it were part of them. The fabric was black, created with nanotech that swallowed light.

  Like Arden’s, his suit had been compromised as well. He’d taken repeated fire blasts that had broken down its synth-fibers. He felt the cold to his bones along with the chapping wind against the exposed parts of his face and hands.

  Dade stopped to adjust the long blast-phaser that lay strapped across his back, while maneuvering Arden to the center of his chest so she wouldn’t fall. He had a smaller phaser tucked into the palm of his opposite hand. Both hands were bandaged, broken fingers taped together.

  His plan was simple: get themselves lost in the Lower Levels of Above. There were always so many people here, struggling to survive as a fluid jumble, bodies packed together. He had used this tactic to disappear many times. It was easy enough to become invisible even with the city’s vid-cams perpetually monitoring the streets. The govies used these cams to keep the people in line. But Dade knew they weren’t the only ones with access. Piggybacking on signals was a given by anyone with technical ability. This made discovery by the govies not the only thing he feared.

  Today was different, though. Not only because they were bruised and broken and he was half carrying Arden, but also because the entire citizenry seemed to have flooded outside to watch the destruction they’d left behind. Those in the crowd craned their necks for a better view. Others, covered in debris, screamed for help, not knowing which way to head for safety. Govies and emergency vehicles swarmed, adding to the pandemonium.

  Dade pushed against the crowd, descending farther down into the Levels. He tuned out the sounds of chaos, the smell of rotting garbage, and the lingering tang of sulfur from the static cloud that surrounded the planet, cutting it off from the sun. The cloud sat thick in the atmosphere, covering the planet in darkness and chilled fog. All except for the Sky Towers that rose above it.

  He hoped that the lower he went, the easier it would be to cross to the other side of the city. But the throngs of people pushed back their progress. Tucking Arden closer, he shoved his way through. Using his free arm, he landed blows when he needed a hole to open in the crowd. Fighting aggressively until he was able to he maneuver himself and Arden into a commercial space and the corridor that led into the center of a building.

  Businesses lined either side of the hall. Most were closed for the day, their lights off. From here, he could continue his route through the city as the buildings slipped one into another, their entrances and exits interconnected.

  “I’m cold.” Arden’s voice was thready over the chattering of her teeth. She’d not spoken for miles, pained gasps being the only sound she’d made.

  “We’re almost there,” he promised. Though he had no idea where “there” was or even if they’d find someone to help her in time.

  Being indecisive wasn’t his usual weakness. He’d been born to luxury, inside the Sky Towers. With unlimited access to the cloudless purple sky, blood-orange sun, and two moons. He hadn’t understood the depth of his privilege until he’d walked away from that life. Perhaps he still didn’t understand the extent of his loss.

  It didn’t change the fact that he’d make the same choice again, all circumstances being what they were. Because he could not embrace the life his father had set out for him. Eventually he’d figure out where he fit in.

  Helplessness felt like a monster inside him. The feeling grew and pulsed, filling his mind with desperate thoughts. It reminded him that he was a tiny cog in a big organized machine. Power had been an illusion. One he’d believed in until reality had shown him otherwise. Dade had known that providing the poor with the VitD he stole was just a bandage on a significant problem. Yet now the wiped-out VitD refinery meant the end of anything g
ood he’d set in motion. He’d have to figure out where that left him and what his new purpose would be.

  He could live with his decisions that had forced him away from his family, into a life and circumstances that felt unstable. Dade had made the choices, knowing their consequences. Though he clung to the hope that he wouldn’t lose the two things most important to him: his sanity and Arden.

  Arden made a tiny motion with her arm, indicating the blackout band on her wrist. It was strapped there to keep the govies from accessing the implanted data sensor they used to monitor citizens. She swallowed several times before she managed, “I have credits.”

  The credits would be off grid if they were keyed to the band instead of the chip beneath her skin. And hopefully not attached to Lasair’s black-market accounts. Dade nodded. That was good.

  Dade kept credits under an assumed name to fund his activities as well. He’d put away a vast sum of money into the account for his planned escape from his family. But his codes didn’t work after the fall. He wasn’t really sure how it had happened. The blackout band wasn’t damaged, but he’d been unable to access the funds when he’d tried to do so before rushing to the joint refinery to find Arden.

  For now, they could use some of her credits to get her medical attention. Any credits remaining could be used on a place to hole up. And then when he gained access to his, they’d be okay.

  He hoped.

  “How much do you have?” he asked.

  She shook her head, her eyes closed. “Not a lot. I didn’t plan.”

  He knew she’d meant to die when Lasair had attacked the joint refinery. Dade was still angry at her for attempting to throw her life away. His blood still sang with anxiety at the thought of not getting to her in time. And when he had, she’d been hurt.

  Swallowing back the fear that once again threatened to crowd his thoughts, he focused on this task. Recriminations needed to come later.

  The hallways became gloomier the deeper they went into the expanse of interconnected buildings. The tracked domes in the ceiling were powered by poloosh, a glow stone from the Wilds. The domes didn’t do much to pierce the darkness that the closed and shuttered storefronts created.

  Just when Dade had reached the point of exhaustion where he didn’t know whether he could continue to walk himself, let alone carry Arden’s weight, hope appeared. Ahead, a medical sign caught his eye, a caduceus, two snakes winding around a winged staff, bolted to the wall. The paint had been rubbed half off, and a solid metal grate had been tacked up in front of the cracked moonglass window. But he could see light from inside still creeping through the edges.

  Arden must have been at the end of her endurance too. Her body sagged heavy against him, her legs no longer working to support her. Suddenly, she slipped from his grip to land on her knees. Dade went down with her, gathering her into his arms to keep her from hitting the floor.

  “Arden,” he said sharply, lowering her the rest of the way. He slid his hands to her face. His thumbs brushed her cheeks. When she didn’t open her eyes, he pulled up her lids, only to see sightless, dilated pupils.

  He shook her. “Wake up.”

  Fear, which he’d managed to ignore for the most part, bloomed hot and snaked its way through his chest with a searing burn, making it difficult to breathe. Here they were exposed—he could practically feel eyes on them—through the city’s vid-cams, or from curious strangers in the darkness who might sell them out for credits. He needed her to wake up, to help him take a few last steps.

  Arden’s eyes finally opened. Her gaze was hazed and unfocused. He gave her a moment to wake fully before he dipped his shoulders under her arm and then hefted her to her feet.

  “Dade?”

  “I’ll get you help,” he promised, leaning in to kiss her forehead. Her skin was feverish against his lips. Already infection might be setting in, her body too damaged to fight it.

  At the door of the med center, he placed his hand against the scanner, but the door didn’t open. He tried again. Nothing. Frustrated, he gently propped Arden against the wall and then banged against the metal door.

  Someone had to be inside. He refused to believe otherwise. There was nowhere else for him and Arden to go. He knocked on the door again, even louder than before. Using his full forearm, he put his weight into it. Dade’s already-strained muscles ached.

  A speaker clicked, static crackling.

  “We’re closed,” said a muffled voice. “There’s an emergency med center on Aurora Passage, about three blocks west.”

  He glanced at Arden, noticing that her breath had thinned. Staccato gasps punching through her body interrupted the stillness of her chest. She was now slumped over, her head hung low and her body curved in. They’d never make it to another med center.

  Dade searched the doorway for a vid-cam centralized to the facility, not one of the cams connected to the city grid. Even so, he didn’t like showing his face, because this feed could be hacked if his enemies were persistent enough in wanting to find him. Locating the tiny black lens with its telltale pinhole red dot, he looked directly into it while twisting his shoulder so that the blast-phaser strapped to his back wasn’t visible.

  He attempted to even his breathing. The vid-cam system would monitor his voice inflection, his breath pattern, the flush of his skin, all to determine if he meant harm. Given this was a high-crime area, it was a good precaution, just not one that worked in Dade’s favor.

  “I need a doctor.” He let just enough desperation bleed through so that hopefully the person on the other side of the door would feel compassion for their situation. But he also knew he was covered in grime from the battle, making him appear objectionable. And if the person had seen their weapons—

  No, he’d focus on talking their way in. He had to because Dade wouldn’t accept defeat. Not now that they were so near help.

  The speaker crackled. “The doctor isn’t here.”

  “Then let me buy supplies,” Dade begged. He leaned forward into the cam while making his voice soft with promise. “I can pay you. I have off-grid credits. They can be yours. No one has to know.”

  Appealing to greed was a tactic that had often worked for Dade. If he could somehow convince this person that it was in his best interest to open the door, they’d have a chance. Dade didn’t need a doctor. Gaining access to a med pod would be enough.

  There was a long pause. Dade could almost feel the hesitation on the other side of the door. Then he heard the words, “You’d better have the credits.”

  The door slid open to reveal a boy. He was about Dade’s age, but shorter, with blue scrubs that hung on his lanky body. His hand twitched before reaching up to run his fingers through his overgrown hair. It took him only seconds to assess the situation, to see the shape Arden was in and the phasers Dade carried. His eyes opened wide.

  Dade was ready, though. He pushed his foot into the doorway so that it couldn’t slide closed, then bent to pick up Arden. “Thank you for helping us.”

  The boy startled, and his eyes got wider as his gaze bounced between them. “You’re one of them.” He gulped and then let out a pant. “You tore up the city.” He took a second step back, his voice turning into a whine. “Don’t kill me.”

  Dade didn’t have time for this. Holding Arden’s limp body in his arms, he didn’t offer explanations or reassurances as he stepped fully inside. He pushed past the boy who tried to block his entry.

  The door autoshut behind them.

  “I can’t help you,” the boy babbled.

  Dade walked through the front office and into one of the exam rooms. It appeared sterile, the surfaces empty. He laid Arden down on a shiny metal table. “Where do you keep your bandages? Do you have a suture gun? Hook her up to the med pod and start the scan.”

  The boy stood just inside the door. His eyes were wide, and his face had lost its color. Instinct, rather than any intent to help, had probably made him follow Dade into the room. He shook his head once, briefly, then shook it aga
in harder as Dade stared at him. He turned to leave.

  Dade aimed his phaser at the boy’s chest.

  The boy squeaked. Tears gathered in his eyes as he swallowed. “Please, I don’t want to die.”

  “I won’t shoot if you do as I tell you.” Realizing that the boy was growing more agitated, Dade made his words soft and reassuring even though he kept an edge of commanding sharpness. “Relax, take a deep breath. We’ll be gone soon. Do as I say, and you’ll live. Plus, I’ll leave you the credits I promised.”

  Arden coughed, snagging his attention. Blood stained the table beneath her. It reminded him that they only had a precious few minutes to stop her blood loss. He prayed it wasn’t already too late.

  Flicking his phaser toward Arden, he indicated that the boy should go to her. Repeating his previous directive, he said, “Get the med pod hooked up.”

  The boy’s lip quivered, but he did as Dade told him. He placed his hand against a scanner located on the wall next to Arden’s head. A strip of light ran under the boy’s palm. On either side of the table, a wall of plasma emerged. It stretched over Arden, connecting in the middle. Then the plasma solidified to create a dome.

  It looked as if a clear coffin had formed over the top of her body. She lay pale and broken inside it, like a discarded doll. Her eyes were open, wild with pain, as she fixed her stare on him. She reached out to touch the solid plasma shield, sliding her finger against it.

  His heart twisted. Clearing his throat, Dade told her, “Stay still.”

  She closed her eyes.

  The boy started the scan. They didn’t speak as the med pod processed her body, vibrating at a low hum. When the scanner beeped, the boy studied the light readout projected on the side of the plasma shield. “She doesn’t have any broken bones.”

  That was a minor miracle.

  Dade had taken a few classes in field patching and knew the basics. But he wouldn’t be able to help Arden beyond getting her stabilized. He appreciated that the med pod was intuitive. The projection labeled the information it had gathered. He focused on the readout since the projection indicated her numbers in comparison to a normal baseline.