Gregg Hurwitz: The Tower

The lock on the weapons cabinet was easy, and he soon had the Win Mag. 300 in his hands. It was a substantial weapon, laying heavy against his shoulder. He stepped out onto the deck, resting the gun on the railing. It was a bolt gun, holding four rounds in the mag but only one in the chamber.

He saw the black dot of the guard patrolling out on the Tower and raised the gun, leveling the scope's crosshairs on the back of his head. He squeezed the trigger slowly until he felt the gun jerk back against his shoulder. The bullet must have kicked wide because the guard never broke step. Allander ducked as the guard swept around the far edge of the circle and headed back, facing the mainland.

Allander watched him through the scope, pausing to manually recock the gun. The wind gusted strongly, whipping his cheeks, and he realized that he hadn't adjusted enough to take it into account. He peeked through the scope again, finding the back of the guard's head. Taking a deep breath and aiming a touch to the left to compensate for the wind, he fired.

The guard's arms flared and he was down and out of sight instantly. Allander smiled and lowered the gun to the deck. He continued whistling as he descended the ladder, looped the weighty bag over his shoulder, and headed out to the dock.

Jade ran off the path and sprinted through the rough terrain, cutting through the forest in the direction of Maingate. An incredible pounding started in his head as he ran along the top of a small ridge in the forest, carefully avoiding the forty-foot drop that sloped dangerously to a creek.

He felt as if he was going into the twelfth round of a boxing match. The tender burn across his face, the bruise on his cheek from Travers's blow, and the raised bump on his head took his attention in turns, each greater pain momentarily distracting him from the others.

But he recognized his headache and knew it could not be blamed on recent injuries. The systematic thudding through his temples welled from something not entirely physical. He gritted his teeth and kept running, trying to ignore the needles of pain that his footsteps sent up the back of his neck. And as he ran, the furious pumping of his legs brought him back again to the terrible day of his frenzied childhood run.

Moving swiftly through the foxtails and ignoring the blood streaming down his left cheek, the boy heard his name cried again: Jade. It was a doleful, wavering sound, and he ran more quickly, until his breath burned in his throat.

The four boys had surrounded his brother in the clearing by Mr. Hollow, and one had already knocked him down. They tore into him, kicking him about the face, the head, the arms.

Eenie meenie minie moe

There was no sign of Allander and Jade moved faster, his run edged with panic as his feet expertly gripped the uneven ground, propelling him forward. He finally caught sight of a broken sapling just on the brink of the ridge and he ran past it, barely glancing down.

Saliva drooled from his brother's chin as he struggled to his feet.

Catch a retard by the toe

One hand went to the straw by Mr. Hollow's cuff (a hand, I swear he thought it was a hand) and the other reached out toward the sun setting atop the rolling hills, showering the foxtails with orange. His mouth was awash with blood and spit and he opened it and screamed a word, one word, his last word: Jade-a sound that would echo in Jade's memory for years.

Make him holler blow by blow

A fist closed the mouth as it yelled and Jade burst into the clearing as his brother toppled backward, his hands moving dumbly in the air, one holding tightly to a few loose strands of straw. He saw the panic in his brother's eyes as he reeled backward and heard the crack as his head struck one of the jagged stones framing the site, and heard a grunt-a low grunt, like an animal's-and then that was all, and he knew he had lost him. Then he was a whirlwind of knees and fists and elbows and he had lost his hat on the ground and he didn't even know what was moving his body, but when he reached his brother there were four boys lying around him coughing blood and whimpering.

Jade ducked and dodged reflexively, his eyes straining in the faint light to spot broken branches and trampled bushes. He rounded a tree at full speed and a jagged limb caught him across the left cheek, slicing along the line of his scar. Once again, he felt the hot blood oozing down his cheek.

His focus on the path ahead was so intense that the cut barely registered. He came to a clearing and halted, unsure in which direction to continue. In the dim glow, he spotted a broken branch, and he sprinted past it, back on course.

The boys were clutching their legs and stomachs, and tears streamed down their bruised faces. The boy who was Jade knelt down in the clearing and looked into the blank eyes of his brother. He felt the hole across the back of his head when he put his hand there to hold him against his chest, and as he sat with his dead brother under the brilliant sun, he felt the blood spreading stickily through his clothes and across his stomach.

Eenie meenie minie moe.

Jade pounded through the brush. He felt exhausted, but also somehow purged. It had finally come flooding through him, and he realized for the first time that his brother's panicked cries had long ago blended with the cries of other victims. Though Jade couldn't save them all, he had spent his life making sure that they didn't die on his shift, on his time.

Fear had propelled him, whipping him: What if you're not there, Jade? What if you can't stop another life from slipping away? He had to oversee all things dark and dreadful-he had to reign over it all. Fear was his bedmate and his lover. Fear was his anger and his hatred. Fear was the burden he had carried ever since childhood, just as it was Allander's.

He felt as if he was stirring from sleep, lost in the aftermath of a dream. A few lingering cries still rang in his ears. He heard them behind him now, and he picked up his pace, feeling adrenaline pumping again and thinking of Claude Rivers and the guard ahead. He was sprinting so fast he couldn't really see where he was going.

Bursting into a small clearing, Jade whirled around, searching for signs of Allander's path, desperately trying to remember in which direction the Tower waited. It was silent here except for the noise of his own labored breathing.

He sensed that the ridge he was running was parallel to the Maingate entrance. He looked at the trees ahead, then turned and faced down the slope. From his angle, it looked almost impossibly steep. The creek running below wasn't moving very fast, but it looked rocky. He glanced back up along the ridge, and suddenly realized he had to change direction.

"The quickest distance," he said in a low, growling voice as he stepped off the ridge.

He tried to keep his feet ahead of his torso as the slope carried his body to a full sprint, but about halfway down, his shoulders passed his center of gravity and he tumbled over, hurtling out of control down to the river below. The thick weeds that ran along the creek slowed his fall before he crashed into the icy water, but since he couldn't see it coming, he gasped at the shock. He pulled himself up, feeling heavy in his wet clothes, and sloshed through the creek to the other side. The pain of a thousand different bruises stung him, but as far as he could tell, he hadn't sustained a serious injury. It took him a few steps before he could feel his legs under him again, and then he ran into the forest, leaving the creek and the ridge behind.

Twenty feet later, he broke through the trees, and the steel gates of Maingate lay open before him. He saw a shadow flash, deep within the prison. He had been right-after all the struggle, Allander had returned to his starting point.

Jade sprinted through the gates.