James Axler – The Mars Arena

Peering up, he saw yellow light invade the bedroom behind Phaedra. Bitha was still screaming, and Dean couldn’t believe the pitch she was getting, not to mention the lack of wear and tear apparent on her vocal cords. The girl should have been in choir.

“Sorry,” Phaedra called down in an excited whisper, still holding the blanket over her breasts.

“Dean,” Calgary said, “help me. I think I broke my leg.” He reached a hand up, tears streaking his face.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break your bastard neck, you stupe.” Dean took the other boy’s hand, unwilling to leave him there.

“I think it was a pretty near thing.” He hiccuped as he tried to suck in another breath.

A big arm swept Phaedra out of the window. She cursed and hit the man attached to it. The man shoved his flashlight outside and held it aloft to light up the grounds.

Dean knew they were drawing entirely too much unwanted attention. He moved Calgary by force, pulling the boy along behind him at almost a dead run.

He kept them moving, dodging between the girls’ quarters and the stable. Horses whickered inside, woken by the shouts of alarm starting around the perimeter of the school.

Dean ran Calgary headlong into the corral fence, getting behind the other boy with just enough shoulder and strength to start him over the top rail.

Calgary wasn’t happy about the turn of events at all, groaning as Dean muscled him over the railing and pulled him down into the tromped earth. It had rained a couple days earlier, so the ground was still soft in most places.

The flickering torchlight from one of the school’s sec guards on the ground illuminated the rails but didn’t reach far into the muddy areas beyond. Men yelled to one another, calling out clear areas.

There was no sound, no warning. Then a light but firm hand shoved against Dean’s shoulder as he lay on the ground and watched two sec men go wandering by with flashlights in their hands.

Dean came around quick, curling up and ready to spring to his feet. As he made the effort, responding to the shadow leaning over him, the hand shifted from his shoulder to the center of his chest. A strong push sent Dean tumbling to his ass again.

“Don’t,” a man’s voice warned. “Damn kid. You’re already in it up to your neck.”

Peering through the gloom, Dean recognized Jake. The sec man had been the first school resident Dean had met. “I’m sitting,” the boy grumbled.

Jake glared down at him, then looked at Calgary and back again. He wore a sun-bleached and battered brimmed hat, a gray work shirt and blue jeans tucked into scarred work boots that had never seen an honest day of rest. The way he held the Browning 71 rifle in his hand, it looked as if flesh, bone and steel never parted company.

“That you up in the girls’ dorm?” Jake asked.

“No,” Calgary answered quickly.

Dean returned the man’s penetrating gaze. “Yes, sir.”

“He went in,” Calgary said, pointing at Dean with one hand and trying to brush shit off with the other.

“You was just hanging around on the rooftop,” Jake said, pinning the other boy with his gaze.

Calgary didn’t have anything to say to that.

Jake canted the rifle over his shoulder and pushed his hat back with a gnarled thumb. He looked at Dean, his face stern but his eyes full of mischief. “I ain’t gonna ask you what you was doing inside that dorm.”

Dean felt relieved.

“But Brody, he’s gonna want to know. You might want to think on that.”

“Yes, sir,” Dean said.

Jake nodded. “Let’s go. You boys caused enough of a stir tonight.”

Dean got up and followed the sec man, knowing he’d probably just blown every chance he had of finishing out the term at the school. He figured his dad was going to be real disappointed.

RYAN DIDN’T BOTHER checking his chron to find out how long the march took them to get to the pass. He stayed in the lower reaches of the narrow trail that twisted through the broken slabs of rock that had tumbled into their way, evidently from the latest earthquake.