Tim

  All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

  --Sun Tzu

  Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.

  --Sun Tzu

  I sprint the fastest race of my life but already know I’ll never make it in time.

  She’s only a couple car spaces away, backing between another a sedan and a Rav4, but he’s almost on top of her.

  Ghost raises her blade in a futile parry as Escalante slashes down in a killing stroke. One that slices her short, edgeless blade in half with a single blow.

  Unimaginably cold wind and fog bursts explosively from the broken blade.

  And Ghost twists desperately to one side as ice covers Escalante’s sword and the man himself. He stands blinded by the freezing gas, like someone doused in liquid nitrogen, though I’ve never seen anything so cold as whatever pressurized coolant Ghost had sealed into her sword.

  And I feel the cold of a thousand winters sweep over me as I slam into Escalante, tackling him with all the force I can muster. He crashes back against a Rav4, seemingly half-conscious, but still gripping the hilt of his weapon.

  And silver-white sigils writhe up his ghostly blade from a place of white and crimson.

  “Got… you,” Ghost gasps out. The blade pierces her chest in the sternum. Light flows from the wound even faster than blood.

  I stare at it in shock, trying to calculate in a rush just how close this thing is to her heart. If the blade isn’t inside it already.

  “Help!” I scream.

  “What?” Escalante demands in my arms. Even now he seems impossibly strong, but as sight returns to his frozen eyes, he stares at Ghost as if still blind. Or unbelieving.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Had…” Ghost coughs, “to get you close. Sorry, Est. They got you first. Never saw the signs.”

  Escalante straightens slightly, moving me back with seeming to notice me, and for once, it’s not because of my Fade.

  “Galen,” he begins, and takes a ragged breath. “What have you done?”

  “My best,” Ghost says. “I couldn’t break all they did to you. I thought maybe if Dante knocked you out, I’d have a chance…” She shakes her head, and blood flows in a steady stream down her chest. “But you’re too good.”

  “Help!” I shout again, pushing away from Escalante, but not too far. I’m not sure whether to hit him or try to pull out the blade, but I have a terrible feeling that Ghost’s lifeblood will spill out along with the sword. But jostling him now, with his weapon there, is almost certainly a death sentence for a girl who may already have only minutes of life.

  “You feel it now, don’t you?” Ghost asks slowly. She reaches up and pulls off the mask. A girl with white hair and pale blue eyes meets Escalante’s gaze. “The price of what they’ve made you. The blood price.” She draws in another slow breath. “I’ve paid it now. You can see it, and you’re free.” Her eyes flutter.

  “Ghost…” Escalante begins.

  “Look at my face. This is what your slavery cost. And now I’ve paid it. They can’t wash this away.”

  “Galen,” Escalante whispers.

  “Free the others.” Ghost’s head and body slump, and the blade disappears with a flicker as Escalante surges forward, reaching for the dying girl.

  But something is faster.

  A blur of gold and gray and silver shoves past us with a rumble like approaching thunder, and suddenly someone is between us and Ghost.

  An empty palm slams Escalante backward while another hand reaches towards Ghost’s chest holding a small cylinder. A tan liquid sprays out of it with tremendous force, directly into her wound. And a square of white follows, slapping into place over a bare, bloody patch of chest now no longer covered by cloth.

  White fibers weave around the girl faster than a fingersnap and then she is rising into the open belly of a pale hovering drone which is somehow just above our heads.

  And the blur moving around us resolves into a girl. No, a woman.

  “Go!” she snaps at the drone, but it’s already leaving.

  Storm-grey eyes flash with the promise of lightning as she turns.

  The woman radiates wrath as she turns to me, but I feel none of it directed towards me.

  She towers over me, only a few inches taller than my six feet, but somehow feeling like a giant who just tore the roof off this dollhouse we call a normal life.

  “Est…” she says, looking from me to Escalante. She pauses, her jaw working. “This isn’t your fault, either. I’ll deal with you later.” She looks back to me. “Streets are clear for now. Go somewhere safe.”

  And then she is gone.

  And Escalante, I notice, is unconscious. And so is his companion with the cards.

  My phone pings as I stagger a few paces away from where Ghost fell.

  She’s at Waycross Trauma Center. We have people working. Not sure she’ll live. Come if you wish.

  I stare at the anonymous text.

  Then another word comes through.

  Lyra.

  Sirens sing outside, and not my tiny whistle, but cops and EMTs. But they’re still far off.

  Suddenly what seemed like something distant, or some kind of dangerous game, feels all too real. And I can’t imagine how much more carnage is out there.

  How much blood, like Ghost’s, has just been spilled.

  I turn to the ramp, and stumble towards daylight.

  Once I would have hidden from what’s happening outside. Invisible. Uncaring.

  But Ghost set me free as well.

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