by Lisa Beeson
No wonder she had shut him out. He was nothing compared to what she was to become. What could he possibly offer her except his love?
Logic told him to accept reality and cut his losses. But he couldn’t make himself stop loving her. It was a foregone conclusion. His heart belonged to her, and always would.
Logic was never his forte anyway.
After their short, silent conversation, bird-man-future-monk turned to Myles’s questioning stare and said by way of introduction, “I’m Adam.” He lifted his hand in a half-salute. “Adam Lennox.”
Cam’s eyes snapped back to Ari in confusion. She looked away, shaking her head and shrugging as if to say that she did not even know where to begin.
Cam had seen the pictures hanging on the walls in the farmhouse at Paradise Glades. The Adam Lennox in those pictures had seemed like a normal guy, not this shapeshifting, silver-eyed, iridescent-tattooed, monk-lookin’ dude, all mysterious and sagacious.
“What happened to you, man?” Cam asked, going straight to the source. “How did you just shapeshift from a huge ass bird? Where the hell were you guys?”
“We all have a lot to catch up on,” Adam said, with a smirk. “But it’s going to have to wait for now.”
“What about the others from the ship,” Myles asked. “What happened to them?”
Cam winced. Paloma…
“The ones that survived are in life rafts making their way towards the lagoon,” Adam answered.
“Whose ship was that anyway?” Ari asked Myles, still refusing to look at Cam. “Who else is with you guys?”
Before Myles could answer, spatters of gunfire echoed in the distance preceding a muffled scream, then even more gunfire.
His training kicking in, Cam jumped to his feet, his body a boxed coil, prepared to spring into action. His hand was ready at the knife on his hip, as he faced the threat. His other hand was itchy for a gun, but the knife would have to suffice until he could get one. He had a lot of unprocessed rage and frustration that he needed to release on some evil asshats.
Myles glanced worriedly at him. “You feelin’ up for this? You literally just nearly drowned.”
Cam took a moment to take genuine stock of himself. His pants and shirt were wet with a few minor tears, but surprisingly, physically he felt great – better than great. He felt stronger than he had before the explosion, and somehow…denser, as if that made any kind of sense.
“I healed him,” Ari said to Myles. “He’s good to go.”
She walked past them into the dense foliage towards the sound of the screams and gunfire.
Myles turned to Cam with a look that asked: she can do that?
Cam shrugged with an expression that said: apparently.
He looked to where she was walking into the jungle and was surprised to see that the plants now had a dim incandescent glow around them. The colors seemed brighter and sharper as well. Ari must have given off more of her superhero residue. Everything from before she rescued him now seemed anemic and flat in comparison.
“Wait, you have no shoes on,” Myles said to her, his fatherly instincts taking over.
Ari stopped to look down at her bare, mismatched feet, her face spreading into a small, wry smile. “I’ll be fine.” She glanced back up at her awaiting entourage. “It’s time to end this, like the freakin’ badass legends we are.”
Cam grinned with a flicker of relief he felt deep in his soul. There’s my Pipes…
She met his eyes for less than a second before turning back to the jungle and melding into the foliage around her. Cam stared open-mouthed in shock. Not only had he glimpsed a brief red-hot flare of desire in her eyes, but she had become indistinguishable from the plants around her, essentially becoming invisible even to his keen eyesight.
Adam smirked at their shocked faces. “You heard the lady, boys. Let’s go end this,” he said before transforming into a normal-sized golden eagle and taking off into the air.
*****
Ari regretted her cavalier attitude towards having no shoes on in the middle of a jungle. Every time her right foot stepped on a sharp stick or piece of lava rock, she had to heal herself and drain away precious bits of her energy. Focusing on thickening the skin on the bottom of her foot, she created a hard callus to prevent any more damage. But now that the distraction of pain was gone, her thoughts inevitably returned to Cam.
Of course, now, when she was a ticking time bomb ready to leave this planet behind, she would undeniably and irrevocably fall in love with Cam Baldwin.
Of course. OF COURSE!
When the sunlight caught his eyes in just the right way it turned their soft brown into a radiant honey-gold that she just wanted to melt into. All the beautiful things he thought about her, shone in their golden depths as if he were shouting them from the mountaintops. He offered her his heart as if it were a meager thing, instead of the priceless gift it truly was.
His gentle, considerate touch had awoken something in her that was beyond her control. She had always known that Cam was handsome, but now his roguish good looks and dreamy eyes stoked an irresistible and insatiable need in her.
She had glimpsed the potential of what they could share together. There was no doubt in Ari’s mind that they were meant to be in each other’s lives. She could feel the strings connecting their hearts in the past, present, and future, and weaving into a beautiful tapestry of joy and promise.
Nevertheless, their love affair was doomed before it even had a chance to begin. In an instant, she had gone from the girl with no chance at romantic love, to a girl promised one of the greatest loves of all time, only to have it ripped away from her grasp. The universe was a cruel and unmerciful bully.
Caught off guard by the intensity of her reaction to the way his touch ignited her senses, she had not realized what she was doing to him. They hadn’t even kissed and the effects of her attraction were tearing his fragile human body apart.
Ari knew how deeply she had hurt him when she had shut him out. His pain and confusion had absolutely slayed her, but it was for his own protection. Putting up the barrier between them had been like dousing herself with glacial-cold water. She wanted to immediately fall back into his embrace and never let him go, but she had to close herself off from him. She could not trust herself to control the desire that would inevitably kill him.
Adam had seen what was between them, and his words haunted her thoughts: Humans were not made to love Fluxxai. They’re too fragile.
Her awakened desire was a fiery beast with no master. Even if she managed not to kill him, she might unintentionally change him into something unrecognizable. Ari had sensed the alterations she had already made in him. While her mind had been fogged by passion, her will had wanted him able to be strong enough to survive – making his cells more durable and resilient, awakening advantageous traits in his DNA. But it wasn’t her choice to make. She had no right to change him just because of her selfish desires. And what if his human fragility was what made him who he was? What if in changing him, she was destroying the Cam she loved?
The memory of Jashar and Nahkar and the rest of the Shades flashed through her mind. Immortality breeds indifference… She couldn’t do that to Cam. It would break her to take his kindness and integrity away, and turn him into some kind of cruel and unfeeling stranger.
In order to preserve him, she would have to hurt him.
If he ever found out what she truly was and what she had done… her heart would not survive the rejection and disgust in his eyes. Not from him. Not from Cam.
It was best to end it now, before things got out of control. She had to get control.
She had tried testing herself by risking a glance at him before taking off into the jungle, and failed miserably. His impish grin, which she had always adored, now set her blood afire. Her lips craved his and her hands ached to touch him.
The acrid stench of burnt fabric and the sickly sweet scent of burning flesh ripped her away from her dangerous thoughts.
&n
bsp; Pushing out her field of awareness, Ari sensed the pull of something deep within the ground. It reminded her of the pull from the case that held Kael’s stones he had collected. It was as if there was a whole cache of them under her feet. It was strange and intriguing, but it did not explain the burning smell pervading the air.
Concentrating on the area immediately around her, she found recent signature paths weaving through the jungle. With a jolt of surprise, she recognized two of them. Pyro Joe and Gregory…
Pyro Joe’s path explained the burning smell, but Gregory…What is he doing here? I thought he went back to New Mexico with Mara and Blake. Why is he with Pyro Joe?
Claudia had said that Mara never went anywhere without her sons, so did that mean Mara was here working with Anaximander?
No wonder she didn’t want me to infect myself with the virus to create a cure. She already had the cure. Did Gordon know? Is he part of it too? It didn’t make sense.
Moving silently through the rhythms of Nys’Ktaan, Ari followed the source of the smell. The only people she felt nearby were Cam and Myles behind her, Adam soaring above, and the fading spark of life of someone she did not recognize just ahead. Everyone else who had been in the skirmish was long gone.
A lingering mist of blue smoke swirled in spears of light breaking down through the canopy. The air was close and smothering as if she was cloaked with a damp wool blanket.
As she moved closer to the spark, Ari was surprised to find the rusting shell of an old WW2 fighter plane entangled high up in a prison of banyan trees and vines. The skeletal remains of the pilot lay barely visible amidst the shadows of the cockpit. Ari felt a distant sadness for the dead pilot, and for the family who had mourned him, never knowing his true fate. However, that tragedy had happened long ago, and the burning smell and the sound of someone whimpering in pain were the immediate matter.
When Ari made her way around the thicket of trees, she reflexively gagged as the foul miasma of fresh death nearly choked her. The remains of six dead men riddled with bullets lay sprawled on the ground in front of her. Three of them were smoking ruins of melted gear and flesh.
Suppressing her horror and nausea with sheer determination, Ari followed the path of the energy signature past the fly-riddled corpses towards the dim spark of life. The path led to a group of large ferns settled around the roots of an ancient ficus tree just beyond the carnage. As she neared, she heard the rapid breaths and saw the trembling body of a man lying mostly hidden among the ferns. The left side of his face was smeared with camo paint, and the right side of his face and neck was a scorched wreck of third degree burns. The melted remains of the helmet he had been able to rip off laid in the growing pools of blood leaking from bullet wounds in his left hip and thigh. His eyes clouded with unimaginable pain as he looked towards the sky, begging for release.
Ari fell to her knees, abandoning Nys’Ktaan as her heart ached for the dying man. He looked young, maybe only in his early twenties.
Quieting her mind, she connected to the Aethos, searching the rhythms to see whether she should try to save his life or end his suffering. Even if she could not save him, at least he would not have to die alone like that WW2 pilot had.
Listening with her xjaasa, she felt no discord at the thought of saving his life, so she took it as affirmation.
His eyes managed to focus on her face leaning over him. “Ange de la mort…,” he panted out. “Libère moi…”
He thought she was the angel of death come to release him.
“Not yet, my friend,” she answered back in French.
Connecting to his xjaasa, Ari was struck breathless by the magnitude of his agony.
Separating herself from his pain, she forced herself to concentrate on the extent of his injuries. The wound on his hip was a deep graze; the bullet had gone straight through. Focusing on the damage, she channeled the Aethos through her xjaasa, letting her will direct the energy to prompt the rapid regeneration of the tissue. Moving on to the wound in his thigh, she was able to force the bullet out with the regeneration of new tissue and mending blood vessels pushing up behind it. Through it all, the young man’s hazel-green eyes never left her face.
“Hold on. I’m almost done.” She studied the patches of torn tissue, melted flesh, and charred ruin on the side of the young man’s face and neck. She had never healed burns before, let alone this severe. Focusing on the cells underneath the damage, she accelerated their generation, prompting them to build more and more healthy layers. The more muscle, tissue, and skin she generated the more layers of dead and damaged skin sloughed away. Ignoring another wave of nausea, Ari focused instead on the new skin revealing itself underneath. When she saw nothing but smooth healthy skin, she disconnected and sat back against the large waving root of the ficus tree.
Even though she had just eaten one of her cubes of manna fruit after creating a portal and healing Cam, Ari still twirled the strings of the pouch in her pocket, playing with the idea of eating another one. Repressing the urge, she removed her hand from her pocket. She had to be frugal with her supply. I’m getting stronger. I don’t need it, she tried to convince herself. I just have to take it easier from now on and not tax myself.
There was the sound of rustling right before Cam and Myles came bursting through the brush. “Ari…? Oh God!” Cam exclaimed at the charred bodies, right as Myles gasped then turned away to vomit off to the side.
“Cam?” the young man said as he tentatively sat up.
“Roche?” Cam asked. “What the hell happened here, man?”
Roche glanced at the corpses with a pained expression. Unable to look for very long, he focused back on Cam. “After we split off from Epsilon to follow the ones who set fire to the staff barracks,” he said in English with only a hint of an accent. “We came across a group of perimeter guards with a man, a teenage boy, and a little girl. We swept around to surround them. Barnes and Fuentes went in front, while Chang and I stayed behind to cut off their retreat. But as soon as Barnes and Fuentes came out of the brush and told them to halt, the guards opened fire and tore them to pieces. They didn’t dodge or fire back, they just stood there as if they were frozen in place.
“Chang and I returned fire from where we were hidden, and were able to take out three of them before the boy made blue flames with his hands and started throwing them. Thankfully, Barnes and Fuentes were already dead when they caught fire, but Chang wasn’t so lucky.” A flash of horror passed behind his eyes as he relived the terrible moment. “He became frozen like the other two and just stood there screaming behind his closed mouth as his face melted. I put him out of his misery, but that gave away my position. I dodged the ball of flame the best I could, but it caught the side of my face.” His hand gently touched the newly healed skin, marveling that there was no pain. The swatch of pink skin reminded Ari of Skylar, and her heart gave a painful squeeze. She had so many promises to keep.
“Jesus,” Myles said, refusing to look at what had once been Chang as he doubled over with his hands braced on his knees, trying to get his nausea under control.
“The remaining four guards pegged me with a couple bullets as I fell to the ground,” Roche continued. “They must have thought they killed me, because they took off.” His hands then went to where he had been shot, finding only newly healed skin where there had been open wounds moments earlier. He quickly glanced over towards Ari in wonder, then brought his attention back towards Cam and Myles.
“Did you just heal him?” Cam asked Ari.
Roche looked between them, shocked. “You can see her?” he asked Cam.
“Of course I can see her, she’s right there, man,” Cam said with a derisive smirk.
“He thought I was the angel of death,” Ari said, leaning her head back against the tree. She could not blame him either. She figured she looked like a drowned rat after that dip in the ocean and trek through the humid jungle.
“Roche – this is Ari,” Cam said gesturing between the two of them. “Ari – th
is is Roche. He’s part of our rescue crew.”
Roche’s eyes filled with interest as he openly took her in. He held out his hand to her. “Je m’appelle Julien.” Once her hand was in his, he brought it to his lips and kissed her scarred knuckles. “I can never repay you for what you’ve done for me, but I will certainly try,” he said in French.
“Okay, enough of that, Pepé Le Pew,” Cam snapped with a brooding scowl and a flare of jealousy. He rubbed the back of his head, while his eyes darted anywhere but at them. His eyes stopped on one of the dead guards and he aggressively started taking the flak jacket off it so he could wear it himself.
Ari nodded at Roche and quickly withdrew her hand – not because he made her feel anything, but because it seemed to bother Cam so much. She also did not like the attraction and strange, intense interest she saw in Roche’s eyes either.
Ari tried to dismiss the fact that the young man’s mixed-race coloring and features bared an uncanny resemblance to Darius. Also the fact that she now knew the language Darius had been speaking to her was French. She tried to convince herself that it had to be just a strange coincidence. The more she looked at him the more she forced herself to see the differences between them. His hair was a lighter shade than Darius’s had been, and it held a tighter curl. His eyes were also more hazel instead of Darius’s bright emerald green. The similarities she saw must only be spurred by the guilt she felt for abandoning the poor human boy in that alien marketplace.
“Does your comm still work?” Myles asked Roche.
Roche shook his head. “It got fried by the fire ball.”
Myles slumped in disappointment before he took the flak jacket off one of the other guards and relieved it of its handgun.
“You know how to use that?” Cam asked as he confiscated an M16 assault rifle, putting the strap over his shoulder.
“I was on the run for seventeen years. You don’t think I learned how to protect myself?” Myles ejected the clip. When he saw that it was full, he put it back in with a decisive snick, then shoved it into the back of his waistband.