All These Warriors Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Part One: Dead

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  Part Two: The Most Depressing Club in the World

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Part Three: Dust Storm

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  Part Four: Home

  26

  27

  28

  29

  Epilogue

  Must-Read Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books

  Escape to Another World

  About the Author

  Connect on Social Media

  Copyright © 2021 by Amy Tintera

  Cover art © 2021 by Katlego Phatlane

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Cover design by Sharismar Rodriguez and David Hastings

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-358-01241-2

  eISBN 978-0-358-10626-5

  v1.0621

  Part One

  Dead

  1

  A heavy body slammed into my side, nearly knocking me off balance. I spun around, quickly regained my footing, and slashed my machete through the air.

  The blade bounced off the scrab’s thick, gray, nearly impenetrable hide. I tried again, aiming for the softer skin under its chin. It roared as I succeeded, snapping at me with its sharp teeth. I withdrew my blade and stepped back. The scrab crumpled to the ground and went still. I jumped over its body, dodging the spreading pool of blood, and jogged out of the alley.

  It was dark, the roads still damp from the light rain that had fallen earlier. The street was deserted except for the bodies of several dead scrabs. This section of north London had seen a lot of scrab attacks in recent weeks, and all the stores were deserted. One shop had a caved-in roof, the result of a scrab damaging something important structurally when it shot up from the earth. That whole side of the block was roped off with police tape, signs posted to warn people of the danger of going inside.

  Grunts and a thump came from my left. I broke into a run and rounded the corner.

  Maddie had two bloody blades in either hand, long blond ponytail swinging as she fought off a scrab. It was a huge one, well over six feet tall, with claws so long that two of them had broken off. An older scrab. You could often tell by the length of their claws.

  She sliced her blade across its stomach and moved back as it fell. She never needed help with just one scrab, no matter how big or old. It made a thump sound as it hit the ground, followed by a gurgle from deep in its throat. She kicked it to make sure it was dead. No response.

  She turned, spotted me, and motioned for me to follow her. We took off down the street.

  “Noah?” she yelled.

  “Yeah!” His voice came from somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t see him. “We’re nearly clear here.”

  “Laila?” Maddie yelled.

  “On Weston Street!” Laila called, also out of sight. “We could use some help!”

  “I’ve got it!” Patrick yelled. I spotted him when we turned, his tall, thin frame racing around the corner onto Weston Street. Maddie and I followed. Laila was fighting off a scrab at the end of the block, and Dorsey was a few feet away, taking on two at once. Patrick jumped in to help him.

  Laila’s scrab staggered back suddenly, a blade sticking out of its neck. She leapt forward, grabbing the handle of the machete and plunging it deeper.

  Maddie glanced over at Patrick and Dorsey, who were also finishing off their scrabs. She sheathed her machete and walked back to me.

  “Should I make spaghetti or roast chicken for dinner?” she asked. “It’s my turn.”

  “Oh god, neither,” I said. “I thought we decided to take you out of the cooking rotation.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because your cooking is awful, Maddie.”

  “It is not.”

  “Yes, it is,” Priya said, and I turned to see her walking toward us, pulling off the leather body armor we all wore to protect our arms. She brushed some dirt off her light brown skin and adjusted her pink knit hat.

  “Your chicken isn’t so much roasted as blackened!” Patrick called. He was wiping blood off his ax.

  Maddie flipped him off. He chuckled.

  “You have other talents, but cooking is not one of them!” Noah yelled, still out of sight. “Heads up, just lost a scrab. Headed your way.”

  The scrab galloped around the corner, abruptly changing course when it spotted us. It ran on all fours, teeth bared as it headed for us.

  “Seriously?” Priya said, making an annoyed sound. “I thought we got them all.”

  “I’ve got it,” I said, stepping forward. I waited as the scrab drew closer to us, drool flying from its sharp, bared teeth. I’d had one of those teeth lodged in my skin more than once, and I could feel the memory of it every time a scrab opened its mouth.

  “Dinner or the scrab?” Noah called.

  “Both!”

  I darted out of the way as the scrab approached, letting it pass me. It skidded to a stop, confused, and when it turned, I drove my blade in its side. It roared as it fell. I pulled my machete from its side and stuck it quickly in its neck. Some of the scrabs had learned to play dead recently, so we always made sure.

  This one was definitely dead. I shook my machete, trying to get rid of some of the blood.

  “We’re clear here!” Noah called.

  “Tell me again why we stopped wearing the earpieces,” Priya said, turning in a circle like she was trying to find where Noah’s voice was coming from. “It was much easier to talk when we had those.”

  “Because we broke them all within a month,” Maddie said. “Same reason we don’t wear body cameras anymore.” She walked to the end of the street and peered around. “Clear here too!” She headed back to me. “I can help you, at least. With dinner, I mean.”

  “That’s all right,” I said, giving her an amused look. “I know you hate cooking.”

  “I really do.”

  “I’ll help.” It was Edan’s voice, and I turned to see him walking around the corner with Noah and Dorsey. He’d pushed up the sleeves of his coat—probably to remove his armor—revealing the tattoos on both arms. I smiled at him.

  Maddie and I headed into the street to join them. Patrick and Laila dodged dead scrabs as they made their way to us.

  “A cleanup crew should already be on the way,” Maddie said, glancing at her phone.

  “You should maybe tell them to bring an extra truck,” Dorsey said, surveying the mess. He ruffled his curly hair with one hand.

  “Oh, dude, I have bad news for you,” Patrick said with a laugh, his gaze on Dorsey’s hair.

  Dorsey looked at his bloody hand. “I have scrab guts in my hair, don’t I?”

  “You sure do,” Patrick said.

  “Every time,” Dorsey grumbled, trying to shake the remaining guts off his hand.

  “We don’t have any people to drive an extra van,” Maddie said. “It’s hard enough to staff cleanup crew these days. We’re going to have to start doing it ourselves soon.” r />
  Dorsey sighed. Maddie and I exchanged a look. I’d gone over the recruit list with her earlier today, and she was right—we didn’t have the people.

  A white van turned the corner and came to a stop, headlights catching some scrab parts in the middle of the street.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Maddie said.

  A bulky man stepped out of the van, his expression stricken as he looked from us to the dead scrabs. He was a new recruit, part of the group that had joined last month. Another recruit hopped out of the passenger’s side.

  Maddie turned and started walking in the direction of our van, parked at the other end of the block. The team followed her.

  “Holy crap,” the new recruit said from behind me. “Did you guys take on all these scrabs yourselves? Was anyone injured? Or killed?”

  “Nope,” I said, smiling at him over my shoulder. “Still alive.”

  2

  We left scrab cleanup to the new recruits, and Patrick drove the team home to central London. A few weeks after Grayson died, Maddie bought an old, deserted hostel and turned it into the official London home for the St. John teams.

  It had been a tight squeeze in the hostel at first. Maddie got bunk beds and shoved as many as possible into the rooms, and she’d still had to pay for some recruits to stay in other hostels around the city.

  It wasn’t such a tight squeeze these days. In fact, there were a lot of empty beds. Recruits started dropping out after Grayson’s death, and it had only gotten worse in the last few months. Even after Maddie brought in a new group of recruits last month, we still had plenty of space.

  I shared a double room with Maddie now.

  Neither of us was the decorating type, so our room looked mostly the same as when we’d first moved in—two twin beds, two dressers, a closet, and a desk with a chair. Priya and Laila’s room was bright and colorful, with posters on the walls and artsy lamps on the dressers.

  I’d looked at some posters in a shop a few weeks ago, but I was sort of afraid to just pick something, because I would inevitably pick the stupid art. The art that was meant for a dentist’s office.

  As for Maddie, she just didn’t care. I asked her once if we should decorate, and she’d shrugged and said I could do whatever I wanted. I don’t need to hang my personality on a wall, she’d said. I liked that about her. She didn’t just act like she didn’t care what most people thought of her, she genuinely couldn’t care less.

  But even with the blank beige walls, the ugly wooden furniture, and the creaky floors, it was starting to feel a little like the first home I’d ever had.

  I showered and changed, pulling a sweatshirt out of my basket of clean clothes. It was late November, technically still fall, but it already felt like winter to me. It was cold and rainy most of the time. At least I didn’t have to deal with the scorching hot temperatures of the Texas summer. I didn’t really mind it. I preferred the cold.

  I glanced at the closet. I’d bought some new clothes over the summer, but my wardrobe was still limited. I was going to need to buy some more winter clothes soon. The jacket I’d been wearing through the fall was starting to feel a little too thin.

  I could spare some cash for it. Maddie had increased the stipends when we started losing recruits after Grayson’s death. Then she increased them again and gave bonuses to all the original, experienced recruits who stayed. It hadn’t slowed the defections, but it certainly made those of us who stayed happy. I’d actually saved up a good amount of money.

  Maddie walked into the room as I was slipping my feet into my shoes. She shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it on the bed.

  “You’re sure you don’t want my help with dinner?” She grinned. “I may be a terrible cook, but I get dinner done faster than anyone else on the team.”

  “I think we’re going for quality over speed,” I said, returning the smile. I stood and grabbed my sweatshirt off the bed.

  “Did you buy a new sports bra?” Maddie asked.

  “Yes.” I gave her a weird look. “Why?”

  “Your boobs look great.”

  I bit back a laugh. “Thanks. It was really expensive, so that’s actually nice to hear.”

  “I know your struggles to find good sports bras. I didn’t want you to think I hadn’t noticed.”

  “That’s very sweet of you.”

  Maddie’s phone rang, and she pressed Accept on the video call. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi, honey. Why is there blood on your neck?”

  Maddie quickly covered the small spot of scrab blood with her hand. “Uh, it’s nothing. Say hi to Clara.” She turned the phone around to face me as she tried to wipe the blood off.

  Nicole smiled at me. “Hi, Clara.” She was a pretty blond woman who looked very much like Maddie. “Why is there blood on Maddie’s neck?”

  “Hey, Nicole. Don’t worry, it’s just scrab blood.”

  “You know that never makes me feel better.” She gave me a look that I could only describe as a “mom look.” It caused a heavy feeling in my chest.

  Maddie turned the phone back around to face her. “She’s just saying it’s not my blood. Because I’m always careful. Not a scratch.”

  I rolled my eyes at the outrageous lie. Maddie, like all of us, got injured pretty frequently. She was still healing from a nasty scrab claw puncture in her side from last week.

  “I’m headed out to make dinner,” I said, and Maddie turned the screen around again. Nicole waved to me.

  “Bye, hon.”

  I said goodbye and stepped into the hallway, nodding at Priya and Laila as I passed by their room. Priya and Laila had the room across from us, with Dorsey and Edan next door, and Patrick and Noah across from them.

  I walked up one floor to the small kitchen. The hostel had two kitchens, a big one downstairs and this small one upstairs. Meals were provided for the recruits, but it was mostly just sandwiches and protein bars, so we occasionally cooked a real meal.

  Edan was already in the kitchen, studying a bag of potatoes. He was also freshly showered, his dark hair still damp. He wore long sleeves pushed up to reveal the tree tattoo on his left forearm.

  I brushed my hand to the tattoo on my left wrist. It was my first, and so far only, tattoo. All of team seven had gotten matching tattoos that Laila designed for us—an artistic version of the St. John logo that was on all our uniforms.

  Edan looked up and smiled. His green eyes sparkled beneath the lights, even though I could see the exhaustion beneath the surface. Edan was nearly always tired. I hadn’t noticed it about him at first, because he’d dealt with insomnia for most of his life, and he was good at hiding it. He also drank obscene amounts of coffee.

  “These haven’t gone bad yet,” he said, holding up the potatoes. “We could make mashed potatoes to go with the chicken.”

  “Sure.”

  He pulled out his phone. “I should probably look up how to make mashed potatoes.”

  “Minor detail.”

  I grabbed a head of garlic and a cutting board. Edan found a peeler and began peeling potatoes over a bowl next to me.

  “Hey, if you have time tomorrow, you want to come shopping with me? I need advice on a winter coat.”

  Edan looked up, amused. “You need fashion advice?”

  I bumped my shoulder against his. “I need warmth advice. I don’t know what to get. Back in Dallas, I just threw an old jacket over a hoodie and ran inside as fast as possible.”

  “Just admit that you think I have fabulous fashion sense and you’re jealous.” He stepped back, gesturing down to his black sweatpants—with a hole in one knee—and faded pink shirt. Or maybe it was a white shirt that had accidentally been washed with something red.

  “You are truly the epitome of fashion,” I said dryly. He laughed.

  Though he was actually pulling that look off. I returned my attention to the cutting board. “I just need something besides my team jacket.”

  “Sure. I could use a new coat too.” He turned and gra
bbed a piece of chocolate from the bag on the counter behind us, offering one to me. I took one and popped it in my mouth.

  “My tía, in Mexico, always said that most American chocolate was garbage,” I said. “I never really had much to compare it to, but after being here for six months, I have to admit that she’s kind of right.”

  Edan glanced up at me. “Have you heard from her again? Your aunt?”

  “Yeah, she emails pretty often. And I’ve talked to her a few times. She even invited me to come visit her.”

  He smiled. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I told her I was probably going to be over here for the foreseeable future, but maybe one day.” That was true, but I’d also felt awkward at the prospect of going to see Tía Julia. I really didn’t know her that well.

  But she did seem interested in having a relationship with me, which was more than I could say for my own mother. And if I stayed in touch with her, I could also stay in touch with Mom’s extended family. I had cousins and some other relatives in Mexico.

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Mexico,” he said. “And South America. And not just because they’ve never had much of a scrab problem down there.”

  “That is a bonus, though.”

  “It is.” He grabbed another potato. “You’ve been to Mexico once, right?”

  “Yeah, Guanajuato, a few years ago, when Mom took me to visit family there. Tía Julia tried to get us to stay permanently, actually.”

  “Because she knew about your dad?”

  “That’s what I always assumed. They fought about it, but they were both speaking Spanish—and talking really fast—so I couldn’t really understand. I would have agreed, if Mom had asked my opinion. I could have finally learned Spanish.” I smiled at him. “I think you’d like Guanajuato. A lot of the streets are so narrow that you can’t drive down them. You have to walk a lot.”

  “That does sound like my kind of place.”

  Edan’s phone buzzed, and his smile abruptly faded.

  “What?” I asked. “Did something happen?”

  “It’s nothing, just a news alert about Julian.” He rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles and put his phone on the counter. “It’s the interview he did yesterday. I’ll watch it later.”