Fallen

Kyra gripped the balcony’s edge, rust poking into her palms like mirror shards, metallic and cold. The air was heavier than usual; thick with smoke from distant explosions, the pops and sizzles a sound she’d long learned to ignore. Her lashes collected sweat with the snowflake-like soot drifting casually from the sky.

Climbing without pause, her steel toes were clumsy in the gaps of the fire escape. She grunted, ignoring the empty space where the metal ladders and stairs had once hung, removed to keep citizens at ground level. The apartment had been too old for redesign, too weak to stand the chrome architectural attachments designed to keep citizens from reaching its roof. Kyra redirected her frustration to a quickened climb. She was numb to the destruction of her city.

She remembered the early raids, rebel citizens thriving atop the city’s structures. When this advantage became clear, zealots turned their efforts to tearing the skyline down to its bones. Initially, citizens had refused life at ground level, adapting to the new-age building structures; finding ways to climb their sleek build. But in time, this only amplified the city’s decay, explosive demolitions forcing most survivors into the mud. The city Kyra had grown and lived-- the place she’d once felt small-- now, left its citizens exposed, like ants in the beam of a sun-focussed magnifying glass.

“Kyra.”

She ignored the voice.

From window frame to balcony, she fell into a rhythm of lifting her body up each fire escape, momentarily swinging in grip of the bars, like she had as a child on the playground. The vine-overrun brick brightened the dark metal rails, her focus contained to gripping each beam in anticipation of their inevitable judder; the building’s attestment to the nearby aerial bomb drops. The devilish drones, once an exciting technological feat, were ghoulish.

“Kyra, the drones are already past sector X, we have to go now,” the woman’s voice hissed in Kyra’s earpiece, fractured by static. Kyra scrunched her nose, releasing the charm from her teeth, contained to avoid its awkward swing. She cringed, the chain dangling down to her chest, swaying from skin to air in her climb toward the final terrace.

“I’m two seconds from the top, tell Raf he’s a deadman if he leaves without me.”

The lack of response worried her, but without pause, Kyra pulled herself to the peak of the final fire escape. She allowed herself a celebratory exhale, wiping her palms across her shorts, the fabric heavied with sweat.

“Hello?!” Kyra exclaimed, watching the top of the building. The remaining wall was pronounced by distant clouds, her craned neck happy to stretch. The brick screamed at her to climb, but she’d come too far to fall twelve stories at the hands of shaky fingers and crumbling stone.

She thought for a moment, wondering if she should beg through the headset or offer every profanity she’d learned in her twenty-four years of life, when suddenly, the rope fell over the building’s edge, hitting the brick with a thwap.

“He says to hurry.”

“No shit,” Kyra mumbled, clutching the rope as high as she could, pulling her weight with lifted knees. Nearing the top, two sets of arms appeared, waiting to pull her up. She ignored them, lifting herself to the building’s ledge and swinging her legs over gracefully.

The arms had returned to stand with the group, a half dozen men and women watching her with squinted eyes and folded arms, each wearing a backpack. Off to the side, a woman Kyra didn’t know stood in front of a helicopter-- its long sought-after pilot. Kyra offered her a nod.

“We agreed on seven PM sharp-- do you know what time it is?!” Raf hadn’t stepped forward, but his voice carried as though he stood inches from her face. Kyra’s shoulders fell, her exhaustion out-willing her desire to match his stoney stature. Beneath his gear, Raf’s russet skin shone with sweat from the heat, his muscles illuminated and clenched.

“I--”

“We’ve worked our asses off to get here, Ky,” he interrupted her, “You put everything at risk because you forgot a goddamn necklace!” He was yelling now. Kyra’s face reddened like a stove set to high, her freshly buzzed hair unable to conceal the flush of her cheeks and freckled chest. She wanted to scream in his face, jab his shoulder with her fist, demand to know if he was actually willing to leave without her-- but he was right. She knew by their faces, their fearful frowns, their sunken under eyes, the tightness in his voice as he yelled. She turned from the group, unclasping the necklace chain, and gingerly placing it in the pocket of her vest.

“Work it out later,” Cass yelled. She removed her headset, swiftly pocketing the earpiece and microphone. “We need to--”

Suddenly, a thunderous explosion rattled the building like mallets over the scales of a xylophone, the helicopter’s skids groaning atop the cement, its rotor blades creaking.

“Oh for Christ-- everybody in!” The pilot yelled, already moving for the copter’s cockpit. Raf was suddenly at Kyra’s side, his hand at her waist. His mouth was in a thin line, but his eyes and brow had softened; they ran hand in hand to the copter, mouths and eyes agape in their lift to the air, a neighboring skyscraper engulfed by its own monstrous height and weight. The drones, overhead, hovering.

The air rang with the sharp wail of breaking glass, filling Kyra’s ears over the epic hum of the helicopter’s flight. The throbbing noise was immediately muffled, and Kyra wondered if she’d gone deaf; too shocked to investigate, her eyes counted the small black specks falling from the windows of the building’s collapse. Some hurled themselves in clumps while others dropped alone; survivors leaping to their death.

She shivered at the sight of what they’d nearly succumbed to, stomach churning in thought of the blame she would later be assigned. As the helicopter sliced through the sky, rising in height, the specks became smaller and smaller in their descent to the fiery ground.

As the shock settled, from the corner of her eye, Kyra observed Cass’ yelling, and recognized the weight of Raf’s arm around her shoulders. She desperately wanted him off, but couldn’t bring herself to shove free. Instead, she finally tore her eyes from the distant destruction, turning her face to his.

He wore a headpiece, similar to the one she’d just seen on Cass. Kyra lifted her hands up to her own ears. Headsets--Raf must have put her’s on amidst the chaos. So at least, she wasn’t deaf. There was that.

She reached into her vest, tracing the locket with her fingers. She’d memorized its heart shape, the pop of its hinge when it opened; the rattle it normally made when she moved her head too quickly. But only she knew, the true reason she’d risked everything to retrieve it.

* * *

Kyra woke hours later, temples heavy with pressure. She opened her eyes to Raf, her chest still harnessed into the copter. She looked past him, to a long metal domed building, illuminated by towering floodlights. The light bounced off the building, casting a dreamy yellow haze at the surrounding dirt.

“You okay?” he asked gently, cradling her cheek in his hand. He squinted, lifting it to her hairline. He showed her his blackened fingers, thick with soot.

“Where’s everyone else?” she mumbled.

“Inside. Pissed.”

She nodded, freeing herself from the buckles and straps before stepping down from the helicopter. She winced, her back sore and stiff. “Well…” She paused, selecting her words carefully. “They have every right to be.”

“I could’ve left without you, you know.”

She slapped the back of his head, a little harder than she intended.

“Augh--Geez.” His smile was crooked and tired. “I’m kidding.”

“So, this is it?” she asked slowly, gesturing to the building with her chin. He ignored her question, leading her by the hand to the building’s only visible entrance: a slim, chrome door, lined with bolts the size of large coins. She noticed for the first time, that the air was crisp and clean, free of smoke and pollutants. She inhaled graciously.

“Just gotta…” He rapped his fist to the door in a patterned rhythm, retreating to firmly wrap his arm around the small of her back. Kyra used the moment to take a final look at her surroundings, smiling at the stars. The first she’d seen in a while.

At the sound of creaking metal, she turned to find the door opening slowly. Without time for thought, her head was met with the smack of a rifle. Falling to her knees, her throat emitted an involuntary croak, and in the blur of being lifted from the ground, Kyra fell back into unconsciousness.

* * *

She gasped, sucking the air like a piglet hungry for its mother. Her captor had finally removed the wet cloth from Kyra’s face, the sensation of drowning dizzying her already racing mind. She flailed, arms tied behind her back.

“P-please, j-just tell her, Ky,” Raf stammered. He sat across from her, arms cuffed behind him, his hair drenched with sweat. They’d removed his clothes, and the brawny man she’d consistently teased for his enormity, looked small.

“Tell me why they sent you,” Cass said coolly, “and you have my word, you’ll both be free to go.”

“I already told you,” Kyra said quietly, saliva dribbling to her neck. “I’m not telling you anything.”

“P-please, K-Kyra--”

“God, will you shut up?” Kyra yelled. “The waterboarding was heaven, next to your incessant whining!”

Raf sobbed, shaking like wind through a flame. Cass sighed.

“Give it up Raf, for Christ’s sake, you’re boring the girl.”

His shaking became still, his brow furrowed. He leaned forward seriously, calm and sincere for the first time in hours. Kyra watched him with a straight face.

“Fine.” He was frowning, annoyed. “How did you--”

“I’m not an idiot. I know you,” Kyra said, wiping her chin to her shoulder. “You wouldn’t have waited for anyone.” She spat a mixture of saliva and blood to the floor. “Not even your girlfriend.” He scowled, and a small, manic laugh pulled from her throat. “I’m curious, when did you realize I was using you?”

He broke free from the cuffs, standing over her, arm raised to strike.

“Go ahead, beat the shit out of me, if it makes you feel better,” she said, amused. His arm fell to his side, his knuckles white.

“You’re a goddamn rat,” Cass said, moving to stand in front of him.

“I keep the rats where they belong.” Kyra smiled, her lips bloodied and split. “In the mud.”

Cass forced her arm through Raf’s, leading him to the room’s exit.

“We’ll get you to talk, Ky. By all means necessary,” Cass said, her voice tight. She paused in the doorframe. “We won’t let you destroy what we’ve built.”

Kyra blinked, her smile unwavered.

As the door closed with a click, her eyes turned to a chair on the opposite side of the room. Hung over its back, were her clothes, including the vest and its pocketed tracking device, nestled safely in the locket’s hollow.

Kyra’s alliance had assured her rescue prior to the air raids. The rebel extremists would be stormed, Kyra’s rescue and return to glory illuminated by the fiery glow of their bombed haven. Her grin widened, tears of relief forming in each eye. It had all been worth it.

The years of earning the group’s trust; infiltrating the organization to its core, pretending to fall in love with a bottom feeder-- she had exceeded the cause, and would be rewarded.

Her smile suddenly flickered into a line; drooping, with the recognizable hum of drones overhead. Like the rifle to her skull, she had no time to think. She shared in the screams of her crew, the hiss of bombs slicing through gravity’s pull toward the dome. Her reward.