Prodigy

it. We’ve been hit.
    At the last second, Kaede pulls up. We skim above the buildings at mach speed, so close that the roofs seem like they’re going to rip the bottom right off our jet. Immediately Kaede starts slowing down the jet, until we’re cruising at a speed barely fast enough to keep us airborne. Suddenly I realize what she’s going to do. It’s completely stupid. She’s not taking us over the Armor at all—she’s going to try to squeeze the jet through the opening that the trains use to pass in and out of Denver. The same tunnels I’d seen when I’d taken that train ride with the Elector.
Of course.
The surface-to-air missile systems mounted along the Armor’s wall aren’t designed to take down anything like us from the ground, because they can’t shoot at such a low angle. And machine guns on the wall aren’t powerful enough. But if Kaede doesn’t aim exactly right, we’ll explode against the wall and burst into flames. We’re close enough for me to see soldiers running back and forth on top of the wall of the Armor. Their communications must be flying fast.
    But it doesn’t matter at this rate. One second the Armor’s several hundred feet in front of us, and the next, we’re hurtling toward the dark entrance of an open train tunnel.
    “Hold on!” Kaede shouts. She pushes the jet lower, as if that were possible. The entrance yawns at us with its gaping mouth.
    We’re not going to make it. The tunnel is way too small.
    Then we’re inside, and for an instant the tunnel’s pitch-black. Bright sparks burst from each end of the jet as the wings tear through the entrance’s sides. A rumbling sound comes from above us. They’re rushing to shut the entrance, I realize, but they’re too late.
    Another second. We zoom out of the entrance and into Denver. Kaede slams the jet’s lever the opposite way in an attempt to slow us down even more.
    “Pull up, pull
up
!” Day yells. Buildings zip past us. We’re too low to the ground—and heading straight for the side of a tall barrack.
    Kaede veers sharply to one side. We miss the building by a hair. Then we’re down,
really
down. The jet slams into the ground and skids, flinging our bodies forward hard against our seat belts. I feel like my limbs are ripping off. Civilians and soldiers alike run out of the way on either side of the street. A few sparks crack the cockpit; it’s random gunfire, I realize, from shocked soldiers. Crowds line the roads several blocks away from us—they gape at the jet careening across the pavement.
    We finally come to a halt when one of the wings catches the side of a building, sending us crashing sideways into an alley. I jerk roughly back against my seat. Our canopy pops open before I can even catch my breath. I manage to undo my seat belt and leap dizzily up onto the edge of the cockpit. “Kaede.” I’m squinting to see her and Day through the smoke. “We have to—”
    My words die on my tongue. Kaede’s slumped against the pilot seat, her buckle still wrapped around her. Her pilot goggles sit on top of her head—I guess she never even bothered to put them on. Her eyes point vacantly at the buttons on her control panel. A small bloodstain soaks the front of her shirt, not far from the wound she’d received when we first got into the jet. One of the stray bullets had gone straight through the canopy and into her when we crash-landed. Kaede, who just minutes ago had seemed invincible.
    For a moment, I’m frozen. The sounds of chaos around me dull, and the smoke covers everything except me and Kaede’s body strapped into the pilot seat. A small voice manages to echo through my mind, penetrating the black-and-white fog of numbness, a familiar, pulsing light that gets me going again.
    Move,
it tells me.
Now.
    I tear my eyes away, then search frantically for Day. He’s not sitting in the jet anymore. I scramble onto the edge of the wing and slide down blindly through the smoke and wreckage until I hit the ground on my hands and knees. I can’t see a thing.
    Then, through the smoke, Day rushes up to me. He pulls me to my feet. I’m suddenly reminded of the first time I’d ever seen him, materializing out of nothingness with his blue eyes and dust-streaked face, holding out his hand to me. His face is slashed with agony.
He must’ve seen Kaede too.
    “There you are—I thought you’d already gotten out,” he whispers as we stumble through the jet’s wreckage. “Make for the crowd.” My legs