Reign of Outlaws Read online

  A knock came at her office door.

  “Yeah?” Mallet barked.

  Her head lab tech entered the office. “I’ve found something you might want to take a look at.”

  “The library books?” Mallet asked.

  “Actually no. An older project, from a few months ago.”

  “I don’t have time for that now.”

  The tech strode forward, anyway. He placed a small silver sphere on Mallet’s desk. “Remember this?” he asked.

  Mallet picked up the metallic sphere. She studied the inscription: Breath, Blood, Bone.

  “It was confiscated, the day we burned the tents,” Mallet said. The day Robyn Hoodlum became more than just a nuisance but a leader and a threat.

  “Robyn recorded her own message over it, as you’ll recall.”

  Mallet nodded. “I remember.”

  “The sphere was significantly damaged, though,” the tech said. “So it’s unclear if Robyn, or anyone, ever saw the original message in its entirety.”

  “But you can play it now?”

  “Yes.” The lab tech played the hologram. Robert Loxley’s face and form appeared. The sphere projected him into the room in front of them.

  “Robyn, honey, if you’re receiving this message, I fear the worst has happened. Listen closely, love, for there is much I will need you to do now.

  “I’m sorry you will be alone to deal with the challenges ahead. There are many others who can help you, but you will have to also find strength within.

  “You must visit the shrines. Gather the elements. They will be your closest friends. But you have a special role to play. The moon lore has promised us there is one who can save us. One who will lead us through darkness and light, and Robyn, the signs suggest you could be the fire our people are waiting for.

  “You have to choose to trust the moon. These words are for you and you alone: a gift passed down through our family. The ancient map of Sherwood holds many secrets: the path to the shrines, the truth in every arrow. Your pendant is the key. My half plus Mom’s will open the door.

  “You must conceal your Tag to stay off the radar. Wear the gloves everywhere you go. Like the fire, you are strong and brave. I love you and I believe in you always.”

  One thing was very clear after watching the hologram Robert Loxley had created for his daughter: the love and devotion they felt for each other. He’d gone as far as to gift the child with the Pendant of Power.

  Mallet lifted the charm and studied it. Black stone, in a cool curving arc, nestled around the white oval that gradually warmed against her palm.

  The message about the shrines rang true. The legend of the one who could be as the fire. Mallet remembered these lessons from when she was very small. The chosen one would bear the pendant, the key to great power.

  Mallet stroked the pendant. Its power was hers now. The hoodlum was all that stood in her way.

  Robyn was not likely to turn herself in as a result of Crown’s ultimatum. But the girl would be equally unwilling or unable to stand by and watch her loving parents destroyed. Shiffley thought he was rubbing his victory in the hoodlum’s face? No, actually, his premature actions had given Robyn and her friends plenty of notice as to how, when, and where the Loxleys would be dealt with.

  Yes, Mallet was sure that Robyn would be there in the morning, ready to wreak havoc. The city was already teeming with graffiti symbols, indicating that Robyn’s rebellion had a stronger foothold than anyone had realized.

  There would be consequences to standing against Crown. There would be more consequences for standing against Mallet. She called in her senior MPs to begin planning for the morning showcase.

  No way she’d let Nick Shiffley waltz up onto that stage and take credit for ridding Sherwood of Robyn Hoodlum.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  All the Possible

  They were sitting around the fire, close to achieving a plan, when the TexTer buzzed. “It’s Pillsbury,” Robyn said.

  C COMING TO YOU. 6AM

  The friends looked at each other in surprise. “Does that mean what I think it means?” Scarlet said. “I mean, is there some other way to interpret it?”

  “No,” Robyn said slowly. “Crown is coming to the showcase.” She looked at the sky. “Of course he’s coming. He wants to be there when I turn myself in.”

  Scarlet agreed. “Or in case you don’t. To still show everyone who’s really in charge.”

  Key jumped to his feet. “This is amazing. We’ll get him. Tomorrow.” He paced in place, and murmured, “Crown will die tomorrow.”

  “Uh, what?” Scarlet said. “That’s a little dramatic.”

  Nessa Croft looked skeptical. “Crown leaving Castle District means a lot of extra security. We need to rethink everything.”

  “The basic plan will still work,” Scarlet argued. “We resist. And we record it all. Whether he’s there or not.”

  Key groaned in annoyance. “Crown is coming to us. We never expected that! We can’t let this opportunity pass us by.”

  “We won’t,” Robyn said.

  “But it doesn’t mean killing him,” Nessa said. “Obviously we can’t do that.”

  It wasn’t obvious to Key. “Crown has to die. That’s how this ends. Why can’t you all see it?”

  Robyn watched him stirring the air with his fists. Strange. Key’s anger was normally a slow steady simmer. All under the surface, with small bubbles occasionally ranging to the top. Now, it was boiling over. He seemed eager to scald the whole world.

  If anyone should be full of rage at Crown it was her. And yet, knowing he’d be there tomorrow gave her a surprising feeling of calm. “No one is going to die tomorrow,” she vowed. “Especially not my parents.”

  Key looked at her. “Crown’s mistake was not killing all the Parliament. When we free them, their work can continue. We don’t want to make the same mistake with Crown.”

  The coldness of his words gave Robyn a chill. “Those are my parents you’re talking about. Not killing them was a mistake? Whose side are you on?”

  “You know what I mean. You know I’m right.”

  “What happened?” Robyn asked. “Why do you always want us to fight that way?”

  “We’re not killers,” Scarlet said softly. “We can talk about it and think about it, but it’s not even real.”

  “We have no weapons,” Laurel said. “We don’t want any.”

  The other three exchanged glances. It was impossible to forget the storeroom full of guns at their disposal. But that wasn’t the way to beat Crown. And they all knew it. Even Key, Robyn was sure.

  “We stick with the original plan,” Robyn said. “Tomorrow’s about stopping the MPs, and rescuing my parents. If Crown will be there, fine. If we can get him, too, all the better.”

  “Right,” said Laurel and Scarlet.

  Key said nothing.

  Nessa left the group at the fire well before midnight, so that she could to find a place to broadcast. Thousands of old radios tuned to the chosen frequency. Thousands of ears bent toward the speakers to listen.

  “Crown may put up his walls and checkpoints; we will not go quietly. He may hoard our food and try to enslave us; we will not starve to do his work. We will fight.”

  The people listened with a mix of excitement and fear.

  “Robyn won’t let you down. Don’t you let her down, either. We are in this together.”

  Some of the people listening were workers who had been part of the rain demonstration at the showcase. Others had fingertips stained from paint. Some felt too fearful to try, but still hopeful.

  “The storm has come. Crown is feeling our rain. All over Sherwood, he can see the signs of rebellion.”

  The people had seen the signs, too. They knew it was true.

  “The Crescendo is in our blood. The storm is all of us.”

  Nessa then invited people to open their windows. “Sing with me. Sing out into the streets. Let them know that we won’t be silenced.”
/>   She began singing.

  “Gather the Elements as you will: Earth to ground you, Water to fill. Air to sustain, a Fire to ignite; Elements gather, all to fight.”

  The voices rang through the streets. They came from within houses, they came from passersby. There were MPs in the ranks who recognized the tune, though they dared not sing along.

  “Gather the Elements as you will: till Earth cannot shake us, nor Water be still; Air, boundless, our everything; the Fire, our true light; Elements gather, all to fight.”

  The music was everywhere. Soon, the sound reached the group of young rebels sitting in a circle around the Tent City fire. They gazed at each other in wonder.

  It was approaching midnight when Sheriff Mallet left her office. She walked through the courtyard of the Sherwood Central Office Building Complex and got into her personal vehicle. The driver was ready and waiting.

  “Good evening, Sheriff.”

  She nodded to him, but she was lost in thought. The singing from the hologram haunted her. As the car pulled away from the curb, she could almost still hear it. The same song. Very faint, but very clearly … She had to snap out of it.

  But as the car carried her through the neighborhoods toward home, the song became more insistent. It wasn’t in her head.

  “Stop the car,” she ordered her driver. The vehicle slowed. Mallet rolled down her window.

  The singing had no clear source, and yet it filled the air. Her PalmTab lit up with reports from MPs across the city. Nessa Croft was singing on the radio. The people of Sherwood had opened their windows to join her.

  It was the kind of subversive act that had power. No arrests could be reasonably made. Not enough arrests, anyway. And not in time.

  A few citizens gone missing here or there would not be enough to scare the entire population into silence.

  Crown had seriously misjudged his opponent. Mallet wouldn’t make the same mistake. Tomorrow, she’d be ready.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  According to Plan

  The governor’s motorcade arrived about the time that the workers started filing into the square. For many, it was unusual and unexpected to be corralled into the showcase square in the morning time. For most, though, it was a slow march fraught with nervous anticipation.

  Sheriff Mallet was already there, with her full crew of MPs. She was surprised to see Crown’s entire motorcade pulling up. She had been expecting Shiffley, and a handful of guards.

  Crown’s presence changed everything.

  The stage was set up much as it had been the day before. The main difference: there was a third wooden pole and two sets of chains. Robert Loxley already stood chained in one half, where he had remained throughout the night. Seemingly unguarded.

  Robyn had not taken the bait. Shiffley had no doubt been expecting the girl to stage some kind of middle-of-the-night rescue attempt. Surely he’d had guards hidden around the square, waiting to close in.

  Mallet shook her head. Yes, Robyn’s hoodlum acts mostly took place sneakily and at night. But Robyn was too smart to fall for someone else’s shadowy tricks. She was trying to start a movement. Today, she needed an audience.

  And Shiffley was making sure she had one. Fool.

  Mallet pulled back her shoulders and adjusted her sidearm. This showcase was bound to get interesting.

  Crown’s guards brought Mrs. Loxley out of one of the motorcade cars and led her up onto the stage. They chained her up alongside her husband.

  Crown got out of his car and Merryan started to follow him, but he closed the door between them.

  “Lock her in,” Crown ordered. The driver tapped his PalmTab and the doors latched with a crunch.

  Merryan’s eyes widened. She tugged the door handle, but was helplessly trapped. “Uncle Iggy?”

  “You can see everything just fine from there,” her uncle told her through the glass.

  He climbed the stairs to the wooden stage as the square continued to fill with Sherwood workers.

  “Marissa.” He nodded to the sheriff, who eyed him with a peculiar combination of annoyance and admiration.

  “Ignomus,” she responded.

  His eyes flashed at her impudent tone. She should know by now not to provoke him. And yet the more she stood up to him, the harder it was to look away.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked him, not loud enough for the crowd to hear. She could challenge him all she wanted, one-on-one, but the unified front was important to their shared power.

  “I’m here to kill Robert Loxley,” he said. “And to take Robyn Hoodlum into custody.”

  Mallet shook her head. In her gut she wanted to argue. This was not the way to take the girl down. “What makes you think she’ll really show?” she asked instead.

  Crown looked out over the square. “She’ll show.” He clipped his portable microphone to his collar. Before tapping it on, he added, “That little hoodlum loves an audience. She won’t be able to help herself.”

  With that Crown stepped forward and began to address the gathering crowd, his voice projected over the square. “This special showcase has been brought to you by your so-called friend and standard bearer, Robyn Hoodlum.”

  “Robyn is our hero,” Mrs. Loxley said, from her place in the stockade. Her voice was weak. Her body sagged against the chains. “Robyn, we love you.”

  Crown folded his hands behind him and waited for the murmurs across the square to settle. He pointed back at Mr. and Mrs. Loxley. “These rebels have been a thorn in my side for too long. Their daughter, your would-be hero, doesn’t care about them.”

  “You’ll never win, Ignomus,” Robert Loxley shouted. “Sherwood forever!”

  Crown whipped around and smacked him hard across the face. Then with a wave of his hand, he ordered the couple gagged. MPs dashed up onstage and stuffed cloth into the prisoners’ mouths.

  The crowd surged with muttered words of outrage, and the occasional echo of “Sherwood forever!” rose up like popcorn from a few people spread across the sea of workers.

  “I’m a reasonable man,” Crown said. “I’ve given the hoodlum a chance to save these rebels, and she has declined. What kind of hero leaves her family to suffer?”

  Crown was on a roll. “If she won’t stand up to save them, what makes any of you think she cares and will stand up for you?” He pounded his fist against the air. “I am the one who cares about Sherwood. I am the one who will make Nott City great again!”

  Sheriff Mallet tried to keep from laughing out loud. Robyn loved an audience? That was the pot calling the kettle black. Crown was the only one grandstanding here. If anything, he was giving Robyn a platform to make even more of a name for herself.

  Mallet could see the next hour unfolding like clockwork. Robyn would refuse to appear. Crown would be forced to kill her parents in front of hundreds. Robyn would emerge as the sympathetic, sacrificial orphan, and the whole of Sherwood would rise up to support her.

  The question was, could Mallet turn the tide of Robyn’s rebellion to her own favor?

  Robyn, Scarlet, Key, and Laurel stood on the nearby rooftop watching the showcase gearing up. Crown’s opening speech speared them with rage.

  “Everyone understands how to use the earpieces?” Scarlet confirmed.

  The four friends all touched their ears in unison.

  “Yeah,” Laurel said. “This is cool.”

  Jeb had given them small listening devices that allowed them to communicate while on the move. The small rubber earbud poked into the ear canal and was held in place by a plastic hook over the rim of the ear. All they had to do was touch the outer rim to talk to each other. It had taken several weeks for Jeb to sneak enough of the devices out of the MP stores. And it had taken Scarlet even longer to hack them to change the frequencies to match each other, but not the MPs’. This would be their first time using the earpieces, and it couldn’t have come at a better moment.

  “It’s about half an hour to the deadline,” Key said. “Time to tak
e our positions.”

  Robyn secured her beret atop her head and tucked the sewn-in braid over her shoulder. In one hand, she clutched the Arrow of Truth. For courage. As she moved through the crowd, people recognized her. The workers parted for her, then closed ranks behind her. Their whispered encouragement bolstered her confidence.

  “We knew you’d come.”

  “Thanks for what you’re doing.”

  “We’re behind you.”

  “We believe in you!”

  “We won’t let them get to you.”

  Folded into the sea of large men, she felt protected and emboldened. It was time to go to work.

  Up onstage, Crown was still speaking. He spewed the same tired slogans over and over. He taunted. He dared Robyn to show her face, dared her to show up and challenge him. He seemed almost delirious, high on his own power. He was ready to close in for the kill.

  Robyn didn’t have a fancy lapel microphone. But she did have a way to project her voice. She raised the digital megaphone to her lips and began to shout.

  “You wanted me here, Crown? You’ve got me,” she said. “But you will never take me down.”

  The device was only the size of her fist, but it made her voice enormous. Robyn’s words echoed up from within the heart of the crowd.

  “No one is going to die today,” Robyn announced. Her words had been carefully scripted, according to the plan. “Not on my watch.”

  From another spot in the square, Laurel waited patiently for her cue to send up the signal. She was nervous. She felt small. But she was following the plan.

  Up on the rooftop, Scarlet pounded away at her keyboards. “Just another couple seconds,” she muttered to herself. She was nervous. She felt slow. But she was following the plan.

  Down in the crowd, Key steadily edged toward the stage. He was not nervous. He felt ready. No one would see him coming. He crept closer, step by step. Not following the plan.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Showdown

  Scarlet tapped her earpiece. “Almost,” she reported. “Get ready.”