23. RAVEN

23

RAVEN

Maddy, Sonny, and I, escorted by guards, arrive at the Center minutes later.

It’s the middle of the night, and Sonny should be asleep, but he got scared from the distant explosion. To be honest, if anything happens, I want him to be next to me and Maddy.

And something is happening as we rush toward a large gathering at the rows of screens on the wall. This is not an average emergency. We are getting attacked.

Archer and the crew are already here. As well as the entire staff of IT guys. Security personnel are on their radios. Guards crowd the building.

The Commander in charge of the special ops team is here, with several of his right-hand men. He is never here. I know. I only ever saw him at the port.

“What’s happening?” I ask Archer, noticing Katura among the people, too.

“A guard tower was blown up. All the drones we sent out were hit. There are attackers all through the jungle. They are scattered, with no pattern. Some cameras were blown up, so we are still trying to figure out what’s happening. But this is not looking good.”

“If this is an attack, we should alert all the residents.”

“Done already. We just sent a mass text telling everyone to get to the Center. If this is a security breach, the Center is the safest place.”

We watch dozens of live feeds on the screens that show Molotov cocktails flying from the depths of the jungle and toward the posts, creating a trail of fire.

“Why are they using Molotovs?” I ask.

Molotov cocktails are homemade, whereas Butcher’s men know how to use guns and explosives and have plenty, I’m sure.

My eyes dart from one screen to another. Most of the explosions come from the jungle area near the main road. There’s something extremely amateurish about this, the way the cocktails don’t fly far. They are scattered, not synched. There are no tactics here.

“I don’t get it,” Ortiz murmurs.

“Me neither,” Bishop says. “A diversion?”

“Prepare for an attack,” says the Commander, who has a computer with the same cameras in front of him, a radio in his hand, an earpiece that has someone on the line. “We’ll shoot them all down.”

“Wait. Something is not right,” I say.

“It’s not,” say Bishop and Ortiz at the same time.

“Get more drones to fly over,” Archer barks. “Night vision on. Send them now!”

Pink hair flickers among the men gathered around—Margot. “Archer! Some of the residents have arrived.”

“Grab Kat and Maddy,” he blurts over his shoulder without taking his eyes off the screens. “Get everyone to the conference rooms for now. If things get worse, I will let you know, and you will take everyone underground.”

I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Maddy, her gaze worried. “You’ll be fine?”

She’s worried about me ?

I nod and cover her hand with mine. “Go. Be safe, okay? Take Sonny.”

“I’m staying,” the little guy butts in, standing next to his guard, his face determined.

“Maddy, take?—”

“I’m staying,” Sonny says, and I motion to her. “He’s with me. Leave him.”

I don’t have time for arguments.

My eyes are back on the screens. What’s happening is a bizarre intervention that doesn’t fit with any military tactics.

“They are children,” someone says, and my head instantly snaps to the main screen that zooms in on a little figure that’s coming out of the jungle onto a clear path. Its shirt is on fire, and another figure approaches fast and pats it down until the flames are gone.

“Oh, fuck,” Ortiz whispers. “Hold the attack. Hold it! Someone just literally set themselves on fire by accident.”

The Commander freezes with the radio in his hand, his eyes on the big screen.

We all stare in shock. And now we see it, several little bodies scrambling like ants out of the jungle toward the security posts.

“They are children,” I repeat, the realization making me sick. “Hold the fire.”

“Hold the fire!” someone else repeats, the same order being passed around. “No fucking way. They are throwing Molotov cocktails? They can’t be children. They don’t know what those are.”

But the camera zooms in on one of the faces, barely visible, and there is no mistake. It’s a kid, barely ten.

“Hold it! Hold the fucking fire!”

“We can’t.” The Commander presses his finger to his earpiece. “We just received an order to start firing.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snap.

“Hold it!” Archer barks.

Marlow interferes. “Order from who?”

The Commander taps his earpiece. “From one of the sponsors.” He means the board members, one of the few providing security funding.

“Bullshit. It’s Archer’s call.”

We can’t take our eyes off the screens, stepping forward, bumping each other’s shoulders, squinting as we try to figure out what’s happening.

There is no mistake though. It’s there, right on the screen. The moving shadows are smaller than any soldiers would be. And there are shiny flickers here and there.

“What the hell?” someone murmurs.

“Those look like night flares?”

“Reflectors?”

“Why?”

“Holy shit,” Marlow says. “There are no adults leading them. None. We can’t shoot!”

“No fucking shooting!”

“They are kids!”

Then we see more of them, dozens of little shadows with neon flares crouching through the jungle, now in full view of the cameras.

“It’s Garrick,” Sonny says meekly from behind me. “Garrick! I know him!”

I snap my head over my shoulder.

I forgot he is still here.

“It’s Garrick,” Sonny says, his eyes full of tears, widening in horror at the screen. His hands are clawing at his hair. I’ve never seen him like this.

My heart slams in my chest. “Your friends?”

He doesn’t look at me, his teary eyes on the screen, his fingers raking his hair. He’s in a trance. “Yeah,” he croaks, his voice breaking. “Garrick,” he murmurs. “That’s Garrick and everyone.”

I glare at his guard. “Take him to the conference rooms.”

“No!” Sonny snaps. “I wanna watch!”

“Take him,” I bark, then tell him, “It will be all right.” Then I turn to the screen. “We can’t shoot. Those are homeless kids from Port Mrei. We can’t. Give the order to cease fire until further notice.”

“Fucking scumbag,” Ortiz snaps. “Butcher got an army of little kids and sent them to the slaughter. Fuck.”

The silence is deafening.

But then the Commander gets up. “We got an order to eliminate anyone who comes close to the Ayana perimeter. The Center’s and Lab’s safety are at stake. We have the permission to shoot.”

“No!” Archer shouts. “You don’t fucking shoot! No permission! No permission granted!”

“It’s not your call, sir. Gen Alpha is jeopardized.”

Other guards are pressing their fingers to their earpieces, getting orders from someone we can’t see.

My eyes widen in shock as I stare at the screen. A chain of guards, dark uniforms, guns pointed ahead, step out of the jungle into the camera view. There’s a line of them, like a wall, pushing toward the children in the distance. The flares now and then burst between them, but we know those are Molotovs thrown by little kids who don’t know the combat rules. They are just throwing stuff they were given.

“What the fuck?” Ortiz rasps. “Stop the fucking guards! Who gave the fucking order?”

“No shooting, I said!” Archer roars, his hands on his hips, his face red. “It’s my fucking island! Hold! The fire!”

He starts walking toward the Commander, but several guards step in, blocking him.

And here’s the thing about war. Someone always has a special interest in one. And then there are soldiers. They get paid. They have to do their job regardless of their moral compass, and that’s how you explain PTSD and mentally fucked up vets. Being a soldier doesn’t give you an option to step away from your contract when you are in the active line of duty. You simply don’t get to decided what’s right or wrong. And unlike other jobs where you can tell your bosses to fuck off, soldiers don’t have that luxury. They have to obey.

“Sir, GA is our priority,” the Commander says coldly.

“Not people? Fuck you!” Archer punches the guard.

I am about to intercept another guard, but suddenly, there’s a collective click of triggers cocked. The Commander and his men stand in a line with guns drawn at us, stopping us in our tracks.

The Commander presses his finger to his earpiece. “Prepare to execute,” he says into the radio.

Then, a calm, low, commanding voice cuts through the deafening silence in the Center right behind him. “Abort. I said tell them to fucking abort. Or I shoot. Right. Fucking. Now.”

It’s Ortiz, pressing his gun barrel against the back of the Commander’s head.

The Commander lifts his hands slowly in the air in surrender.

Bishop cautiously steps toward the Commander and takes the gun out of his hand, then turns to face the other guards pointing guns at him. He smiles. He fucking smiles. “Drop the guns before we blow his head off.”

There’s nothing the guards can do when their superior is at gunpoint. Again—soldiers.

Bishop takes the radio out of the Commander’s hand, brings it to the Commander’s lips, and presses the button. “Tell them to stop.”

“Abort,” the Commander says, his face reddening. “Do not move until further orders.”

“What the hell?” Marlow whispers, and we all turn to the screen again.

There’s another little figure separating fast from the line of guards and running toward the bright flashes.

“What the hell,” I murmur. “It’s?—”

“Zoom in,” Archer orders.

It’s a person, a little person. But he is coming from the guards’ side.

No, no-no-no-no.

My heart does a flip, and blood rushes to my ears.

On instinct, I whip around, searching for Sonny, but only see his guard running toward me across the Center. “Sir, the kid…” He looks horrified. “He disappeared. One second, he was here, another?—”

I want to punch him, but I whip around and stare at the screen.

“It’s Sonny,” I murmur, my guts twisting into a knot. “It’s Sonny. It’s fucking Sonny!”

I can’t breathe. I stall. I inhale sharply, but the breath stalls in my throat with a ball of bile. “It’s…”

The little figure, Sonny, waves his arms in the air.

“Get that kid out of there,” I yell, then dash to Bishop and yank the radio out of his hands. “Get the kid out of there. He’s ours. Repeat. Get him out!”

The radio beeps. “Sir, he snuck through. He is approaching the explosion line. He is shouting something to them. We are not getting in the potential line of explosives. Not a chance. We can start firing.”

“No!” I roar, blood pumping in my head. “I’m going there! Hold the fire!” I rush away, but Archer fists my shirt at the shoulder, yanking me back. “You can’t go there.”

I yank my arm out of his hold. “I am.” I turn to Marlow. “I need a bulletproof vest. Now! And several men!”

I turn to the Commander. “If anyone fucking shoots in their direction, I will take your men out one by one. You included. Understood? One single shot at the kids, and I put a bullet in your head.”

With that, I storm out of the building.