The Red Door Read online

  A mismatched band of men and women crept out from behind the trees inside the forest. They wore plain clothes, the color red was nowhere in sight. The people carried a variety of weapons. They spread out to check on the injured.

  “You can come out.” A large man with dark skin and a gruff voice called out. “We won’t hurt you.”

  I glared at Brek, who finally let go of my arm. With my arms raised above my head, I stepped out from our hiding place. “I’ve captured one of the soldiers. We need to take him alive because he can provide us with information.”

  Two other men rushed behind the tree, pulling Brek out. He strained against them, his face red from the exertion.

  The large man, who I assumed was the leader, turned to a woman with long, gray hair. “Bring me the chalices.” He nodded to the men restraining Brek, who shoved him down onto a tree stump.

  Placing the chalices on the ground, the woman opened a canteen and filled one of the cups with what looked like water. She removed a vial from her cloak, letting one drop of its contents leave the container and mix with the water. Next, she filled the other chalice with the water from the canteen.

  The man remained silent during the entire process. “You have a choice, soldier.” He lifted the chalices from the ground, one in each hand. “Drink from the chalice of life or drink from the chalice of death.”

  It was too simple. Choose life, Brek. Duh.

  Brek scrunched up his eyes. “If I choose life, do I get to go free?”

  The man produced a huge smile. “Of course, on one condition.”

  “And what’s that, rebel?” Brek spoke to the man in the same way he spoke to kids from the rich side of town.

  “The life-giving cup involves a chaser.” He opened his palm to reveal a green capsule.

  My heart accelerated. I might get my Brek back. With my eyes set on the green capsule, I instinctively reached over to squeeze his arm in encouragement.

  “Get your hand off me, woman!” He shoved me to the ground with his arm.

  The insurgents lifted their weapons, aiming them in Brek’s direction. I crab walked away from the scene, my feelings hurt more than any part of my body.

  The leader crouched down in front of Brek and pointed a knife at him. “You’re limited on your choices. Either you drink from one of the cups, or we end your life for you.”

  My pleadings with him would do no good. In his condition, I had no influence over which chalice he drank from. “Can’t you make him take the green capsule?” Maybe my begging would work with the rebels.

  “What difference does it make to you?” The man kept his knife pointed at Brek. “He’s nothing but a trained killer.”

  “Lift his right sleeve,” I said.

  The man nodded at a woman with an arrow cocked in her bow. She kept her weapon directed at Brek’s head. Another man grabbed his arms from behind and restrained him. His face flushed red as he tried to free himself. With one swift movement, the man lifted his sleeve, revealing my best friend’s transport bracelet.

  “He’s a foreigner, like the girl and the dark haired one.” The leader dropped his sleeve and turned to me. “You do know why the bounty hunter brought you here, correct?”

  I nodded. “You want me to be your queen.”

  Brek’s eyes grew wide, the vein on his forehead popping out. “You’ll never be my queen. Athena’s the only one worthy of such a title.”

  “Shut up,” the man and I said at the same time. He threw a rag at the man who restrained Brek. The insurgent shoved it into my friend’s mouth.

  The man walked over and held his hand out to me. I eyed it somewhat suspiciously, seeing that he, and those with him, had just taken out a bunch of people. After I let him pull me to my feet, he got down on one knee, bowing his head. “My name is Jaco, and I’m the leader of the rebellion. It will be my honor to serve you as my queen.”

  Except for the two holding Brek, every insurgent dropped to their knees. Even Satchel, in his bruised and battered state, bowed his head. It was too much. They had to know I wasn’t the one to defeat Athena in their so-called prophecy. It had to be someone else.

  Jaco stood, his knife back in his hand. “Whatever you wish for this Athena follower will be carried out, my queen.”

  The change in the atmosphere around the campsite freaked me out. But my goal in this whole situation was to save Brek. “I wish for you to force the prisoner to take the green capsule. He’s my friend, and it never hurts to have one more soldier on our side.”

  Jaco gave a slight nod to the man holding Brek down.

  The soldier pried open Brek’s mouth, and Jaco poured the water and the capsule down his throat.

  Brek spit the remaining water out, his face turning the same color as his uniform. “You won’t get away with this. She’ll come after me. She loves me.” He struggled to free himself from the man’s grip. “You’ll all hang for your crimes.”

  “It’s not working.” I approached him, staying out of smacking distance.

  “He’s been under Athena’s influence for a while. It takes time to balance and overtake the red powder in his system.” Jaco turned to the other rebels. “Clean up the mess and make sure the injured are ready to travel.”

  I joined one of the rebels, who bandaged up a large cut on Carter’s forehead. “Are you going to be all right?” With feather-soft fingers, I traced the bruise around his eye, trailing to his jawline. His lips were swollen with a deep gash running across the bottom one.

  “Do you mean to travel, or that he’s rejoining the land of the living?” Carter watched Brek as he smacked the soldiers pinning him to the ground.

  “Both.” I dropped my hand from his face, running a finger along the bandage on his arm. “He’s a part of our team.”

  He flinched when the woman put medicine on his cut. “I know. But his feelings for you get in the way of us sometimes.”

  I sighed. “Any man that’s going to be part of my life has to accept that Brek will always be in it. It’s just how things are.” There was more I wanted to tell him, like how one look from his liquid brown eyes turned my insides into a bunch of mush, or his touch ignited my skin on fire, but it was a tad awkward in present company.

  “That should about do it.” The woman taped a bandage to the side of Carter’s face. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  “Here, let me help you up.” I reached down, took his hand, and helped him stand up.

  He winced, trying to straighten himself.

  I lifted his shirt. A massive bruise ran across his stomach where the soldier had laid a heavy blow.

  His eyes flicked to mine. “It’s sore, but I’ll be all right.” Still bent over, he propped himself on my shoulder. “Besides, you might want to check on Brek. When he comes to, he’ll be searching for you.”

  Next to us, Jaco scrambled to the top of a boulder and addressed the small band of soldiers. “Our work here is done. Tonight, we cross through Mateel and rejoin our brothers and sisters. With our queen now secure, the revolution can begin.”

  11

  Satchel passed Brek a steaming bowl of gruel he had concocted from local plants and herbs. Without hesitation, Brek grasped the container and shoveled every last drop into his mouth. My own dinner had grown cold. Vegetables had never really been my thing. It was Brek who was always coaxing me to eat healthier.

  Carter elbowed me. “You’ve got to eat. Who knows what we’re going to face in the haunted woods.” Using a stupid, spooky voice, he wiggled his fingers around. Leaning in close, he whispered in my ear, “He’s going to be ok.”

  He was right that Brek’s condition weighed heavily on my mind. It freaked me out that he hadn’t spoken a word to me since the effects of the green capsule kicked in. He laughed and joked with the others around the fire and even agreed to wear some of Satchel’s extra clothes so he wouldn’t stick out like the wart on our science teacher’s nose. But through his transformation back to normal, he hadn’t acknowledged my presence.

&n
bsp; Jaco’s band of soldiers cleaned up the area, hiding the bodies beneath bushes, and leaving little evidence that any kind of battle happened there.

  As the sun hid behind the towering pines, dipping further toward the horizon, I decided that my charade to pretend that everything was all right had gone on long enough. We stood around in small groups listening to Jaco’s experts fill us in on the dangers of Mateel. In a last ditch effort to avoid screaming at Brek, I grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side. “Are we good?”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because you haven’t said a word to me in the last two hours.” I wasn’t sure how my frustration was so difficult to comprehend. It was like our friendship had gone from eighty to zero in no time flat. “Because you’ve been under a hypnotic trance for the last two days.”

  “Oh, you mean the whole Athena thing.” He avoided my eyes, instead focusing on a squirrel darting across the forest floor.

  “Of course, I mean the whole Athena thing.” I began talking with my hands, a trait I inherited from my mother but tried to avoid. “And, believe me, I get it because I was under her spell, too.” I grabbed his arms. “But why are you ignoring me?”

  He glanced around at the soldiers around us before leading me behind a grove of trees. His eyelids were hooded as he turned to the side and shuffled his feet in the dirt. “Because… I’m not a virgin anymore.”

  “Holy mother… wait a minute, the woman is old enough to be your mother.” I set my palm on his chest. He was shaking.

  “I know, don’t remind me.” He slouched against a tree, covering his face. “If you were under her influence, then you know what it’s like.” He uncovered his eyes. They welled with tears. “And what about you? She brought you to that cell with Carter for one reason. Are you?”

  “Is that any kind of question to ask a woman?” I drew in my eyebrows and pouted. “You know better than that.”

  “No, but it’s a question to ask my best friend.” He jammed his fists into the pockets of his pants. “I wanted the first time to be special, with someone I’m actually in love with, not someone I’m forced to love.”

  Chills ran up and down my spine and pricked my skin. It’s what I’d said to Carter a month ago. I’d told my boyfriend that I wasn’t there with him yet. It was something I had to be a hundred percent sure of, even if it meant marriage.

  “Yeah, I get that.” I took his hand, running my finger along the side of it. “I’m sorry you went through all that. We tried to save you, but you weren’t having any of it.”

  “Meg!” Carter shouted to me from a group of soldiers holding torches. “Stop holding hands with other guys and let’s go.”

  I rolled my eyes and unzipped my backpack. My stickies were buried beneath my clothes and it took me about a minute to rummage for a pen. I scribbled the message on a pink sticky note, placing it in Brek’s palm.

  He read the note, and a tiny smile tugged on his lips.

  “I love you, too, Covington.”

  He walked with me back to the group before he split and joined Jaco and the other soldiers near the front of the pack.

  The formation marched down a narrow path that weaved through the thick layers of trees. Carter and I marched in the middle. I tried to lighten his load by carrying one of the torches and taking on the role of an outer formation scout. I used the light from the fire to keep an eye on the perimeter.

  “What did he want?” His bandaged forehead wrinkled in what could only be concern.

  “It’s what I wanted. I’m the one who pulled him aside.” I shook my head and bit my lip, the emotion crawling up my throat. “He’s messed up.”

  He remained silent for a minute. I watched the dark shadows dance with the light from my torch. The forest played tricks on my mind because at times, I swore I saw something move in and out of the trees.

  “Did he say what happened to him inside the Red Palace?”

  It was the first time any of us had coined that term, but it was appropriate.

  “I don’t really want to tell you right now.” I swept my torch downward as the land beside the trail sloped into a ravine. “It’s his secret, not mine.” The guilt of leaving Brek behind had grown into a full-blown storm ravaging me inside. I glanced up at the front of the flanks, now below us, crisscrossing their way into the valley. Brek marched right behind Jaco with a knife held awkwardly in his grip. “Let’s just say that we shouldn’t have left him.”

  “We didn’t really have a choice.” He hurdled a stream that ran across the trail. “You were brainwashed, and I was spending quality time with Athena’s guards.”

  I didn’t want to play the blame game anymore. We were together again, and that’s what mattered. Now all we had to do was storm the castle, grab the crown off Athena’s lifeless body, and get out of there. Easier said than done. And I wasn’t sure I trusted Jaco and his band of misfits quite yet.

  An icy chill in the air made me shiver as we climbed the hillside on the other side of the stream. The forest on this side appeared denser and wilder. Somehow, the trail mustered up the courage to remain visible even though the low-lying branches threatened to swallow it whole. An owl screeched across the open air from one tree to the next. I gripped the shaft of the torch tighter as if it might protect me from the impending doom of the wicked woods.

  Carter guided me to the inner part of the trail, taking the torch from me. His eyes darted from one shadow to the next. And yet, the insurgent party continued on as though nothing were peculiar or out of place.

  A crashing noise to our left changed their laissez-faire attitude to one on high alert. Jaco and Brek trudged off the path toward the noise with a small band of soldiers behind them.

  “Stay here.” Carter took off into the dark abyss, the bouncing of the ball of fire on top of his torch the only way to track him.

  Like hell.

  I took off after him despite the protests of the insurgents around me. I assumed they weren’t used to seeing a queen run head first into battle. It was better to take on whatever was in the woods than to let it take us by surprise. I weaved in and out of trees, keeping Carter’s torch in sight.

  All of the lights converged into a single spot that appeared to be a clearing in the forest. As I drew closer, at least twenty trees had been ripped up from their roots by a gigantic object. My heart pounded against my chest.

  I fell in beside Carter as Jaco approached the massive metal structure. It was a spacecraft with a glass hatch enclosing the occupant. The person or creature at the helm wasn’t moving. I reached down and took Carter’s hand.

  “What do you think it is?” I whispered, never taking my eyes off the scene in front of me.

  He squeezed my fingers. “Shhh.”

  Brek circled around, flanked my other side, and drew a sword. Perhaps he thought whatever was in the craft might leap out and attack us.

  Jaco reached up and pressed a button on the craft. The glass retracted into the shuttle, leaving the occupant exposed to the night air. He climbed up the side, his dark clothes and skin camouflaged, but I tracked his movements.

  After what felt like an eternity, he hopped back down from the ship. He faced the men and women around him. “There isn’t an immediate threat. Aric’s dead. This ship’s a death shuttle.”

  Did that mean that Athena knew about the resistance within the palace? I clutched Carter’s hand tighter and wondered if anyone else knew how to make the protective potion.

  A murmuring rose up from the insurgents as more of them joined the small flank that broke off minutes before.

  Jaco unfolded a note that he must’ve swiped from the shuttle. “Athena has delivered a message.” He cleared his throat. “This is what happens to people who defy me. Deliver me the girl, or the next death shuttle will contain someone near and dear to her heart.” His dark eyes rested on me.

  Only one person remained within the castle that had any hold over me—Tyran. If I didn’t return to Athena, she was going to kil
l the magician. Did she think I was the foreigner who fulfilled the prophecy?

  “There’s a resistance inside.” Brek’s pale face was visible in the dim moonlight. “One of my main jobs was to root out the traitors and bring them to Athena.”

  In the shuttle, Aric appeared to be in a deep sleep. My eyes wandered to the bottom of the craft, where a dull light illuminated the grass. In an indirect way, had Aric led me to the moonflowers?

  The rebels slowly cleared out, ready to complete the trek through Mateel. We lingered behind, and insisted we’d catch up after a short break. When Jaco and his people were out of sight, I rushed over to the capsule.

  I crouched down and picked a half dozen of the moon glow flowers.

  “Is that the flower Aric was talking about?” Carter peered over my shoulder.

  “Yes.” I observed one of the flowers. The petals held an iridescent light that ran up the veins in the stems. They reminded me of the glow sticks Brek and I always got from the firefighters on Halloween. I laid the flowers into the bag Brek brought from the palace. “I should have grabbed Aric’s books. He had the recipe for the potion somewhere in his notes.”

  Jaco stepped out from behind a tree, his gun drawn. “It’s time to leave.” He glanced down at his weapon. “It’s my duty to make sure our future queen is with us at all times. No lingering behind for too long. We’ve got to find a safe place to camp for the remainder of the night.”

  If this guy still saw me as the future queen, I had to be able to push my weight around a little bit. I didn’t trust him. “These two are not to be harmed.” I inclined my chin to Brek. “He will be the head of my guard and he…” I swallowed, trying to find the right word, my eyes resting on Carter. “And he will be your future king.”

  Carter’s eyes grew wide. I’d officially freaked him out. I didn’t even dare look at Brek.

  Jaco’s eyebrows drew inward. “Rushna has never, and will never, have a king.” His expression darkened. “The queen should be available to pursue the pleasures of all her people.”

  That would be the first tradition I’d change if I ever became queen of this crazy place. And what happened to equality of all people? Why couldn’t men become leaders?