The Reaper's Curse #1 - Complete

Pieces of the Past

Alicia finds herself by the tunnel again, the night already waning to give way to dusky light. The old train tracks are no longer in use, leading only to the Dead Lands. The train-yard was once a flurry of activity, exporting and importing goods from mines, farms, mills, and more beyond the walls of the capital. These tracks once earned people a lot of money. But now only the sound of the wind through the grass and the creak of ageing metal inhabits this place.

Alicia rubs at her tired and grainy eyes, everything catching up to her.

"Are you alright?" Kieran asks as he crouches beside her prone form.

Glancing up at him, she manages a stiff nod.

She glances ahead again, making sure to keep her head low. Standing between them and the gate they need to open for the other exiles are a handful of the capital's guards. Ex-soldiers most likely, those that took the duke's money to save themselves from exile.

Getting past them won't be easy and regret pricks her heart that she didn't bring Oliver with her. She doesn't particularly want to face his accusing gaze right now.

"How do you want to do this?" Kieran questions, settling down on his stomach on her left.

"Quietly. No one dies."

Kieran nods without argument. "A couple of my men are on the other side of the tracks, at our signal they'll take out the two closest to the gate."

"That leaves the three by the cars to us." Alicia eyes those three guards standing around a barrel of fire, passing a bottle between them. Considering what waits beyond these walls, Alicia understands why these guards would be lax in their duties. No one in their right mind would willingly try to go into the Dead Lands.

Except her, of course.

"We go now before it gets too bright." Together they move down the hill, towards the empty train cars, keeping to the shadows.

They split up, Alicia going around the back of a car to approach the soldiers from the right and Kieran approaching them from the left. Kneeling behind the cart, Alicia watches the shadows of the guards, tossed along the gravel by the barrel of fire. She waits for Kieran's signal.

Alicia shakes out her hands—palms damp with sweat—before she grips the gun tucked into the waistband of her trousers and pulls it out. She's spent the last four months as an exile, she's seen what true monsters look like, she can take down a couple of guards.

A sharp whistle pierces the air and—before the guards get a chance to react—Alicia lunges. The first guard catches the butt of her gun against the back of his skull and he crumbles to the guard. She swings the gun again to the other guard but he catches her wrist and his fist slams into her jaw. The gun is torn from her grip, and her head spins with the blow.

Alicia manages a gasp as a hand encircles her throat before she can think to act, the man showing no remorse as he clenches. Alicia scratches at the soldier's wrist as she tries to suck in a breath, but he drives her back, her boots struggling to find purchase on the loose gravel.

She can't think about anything else at this moment apart from trying to draw in breath, her vision blotting with colour as she fails to do that.

He's too close to her, pushing her against the icy metal of a train car to wrap both hands around her neck, threatening to crush her windpipe. Her sight begins to waver, and she can hear someone shouting, but it's distant, too far away to possibly help her.

Her gaze catches on something within the blooming spots and her heart leaps.

The only person who can help her is herself, the exiles reminded her of that fact.