Destiny Series Boxed Set

by Bronwyn Leroux

  With a flourish, Sven produced a slim metal tube the size of his little finger. Directing its beam into the key slot of the chest, he pushed a button on the tube. Moments later, the lid snapped open. “You like my toy, no?”

  But Jaden wasn’t listening. He gawked at the chest. With the lid gaping wide, medallions were floating out, boosting themselves as though escaping a prison. His mouth fell open when the medallions hovered for a second before zooming in different directions all over the room. Small oohs and aahs escaped as each medallion stopped in front of an individual, making their way back to their generational owners.

  Jaden didn’t bother wondering how this was possible. He was beyond being surprised. “Take the medallion. The one floating in front of you is rightfully yours.”

  Everyone else was either too shocked by the magical distribution or as beyond questions as Jaden was because, without a word, the riders claimed their medallions.

  Jaden grinned at Markov’s awed expression. When Markov raised wide eyes, Jaden chuckled.

  “I have my own medallion,” Markov whispered.

  “What are we supposed to do with them?” Vicken said, still turning his own medallion over in his hands as he inspected it.

  “We needed the medallions to protect our riders from the Gaptors’ EMP blasts. Now that we have them, we can end this,” Jaden replied.

  Even though he’d spoken quietly, the whole room went silent the moment he opened his mouth. They all stared back at him.

  “You mean finish this for good?” Markov was the one who dared ask what they’d all been thinking.

  “Yes. Problem is, I don’t know how we do that.” Jaden glanced into the chest. “Also, it seems we’re missing people. This chest is still half full of medallions.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kayla had never been one to rely on others. With all the moving their family had done, she’d learned to be self-sufficient. It was easier to not have to disappoint someone else when they invariably moved on. Or be disappointed.

  But this? Tarise is implying escape. Why offer me the opportunity to join her? Something’s wrong with this picture. Tarise made no bones about wanting Jaden for herself. Except that plan backfired somehow. Tarise ended up here, as much a prisoner as me. But if she can escape back to Jaden and leave me here, well now, that would meet all her objectives, wouldn’t it?

  Kayla played along. Perhaps she might yet turn the tables on Tarise. “Yes, I’ll heed your warning and be more civil the next time ‘he’ pays me a visit.” That should be enough for whoever was listening to think Tarise had been warning her to be circumspect around the usurper.

  Kayla blinked against the dark. How do they see in this infernal blackness? I need to get light in here. If I escape, I need my eyes accustomed to light. Otherwise, I’ll be blind the moment I step outside. Assuming there is an outside. Or perhaps that’s the point of all this darkness. To hinder escape.

  As though Tarise approved, either of the words Kayla had spoken to sell the lie or of Kayla accepting her plan, her voice wasn’t as cold when she spoke again. “I’ll see you in two days.”

  So specific. That wasn’t suspicious at all. Why doesn’t Tarise just tell them when we’re escaping? Aloud, Kayla said, “Why two days? Somewhere else you have to be?”

  Tarise was silent for a fraction too long. Kayla paused. Her question had put Tarise off-balance. But why? Ugh, this is aggravating! I get an answer then don’t know what it means!

  “They said I couldn’t see you tomorrow,” Tarise blurted.

  A weak excuse. Did Tarise really think Kayla would buy that? “Why not?”

  This time, Tarise was snippy. “You think they tell me everything?”

  It wouldn’t surprise me if they did. If you’re just playing both sides. Doing their bidding while planning your escape. Pretending you want me to escape with you because you need my help. Because you plan on double-crossing me as soon as you have what you want, perhaps using me as a scapegoat while you make a clean getaway. Kayla kept resentment from her voice but it was difficult. “I never said they did. I just hoped you might have an inkling why.”

  “Well, I don’t. It seems this discussion is as pointless as our friendship. Maybe I won’t see you in two days.”

  If there had been light, Kayla would’ve seen Tarise flounce out. But only the click of the door told Kayla she was alone again. Time to work on her own plans. First, she needed to figure out the layout of this place. Doing that would also tell her whether she needed to get her eyes adjusted to light. After that, she would reassess and make further plans accordingly.

  Tarise’s words suddenly echoed in her head. Why did they say Tarise can’t see me tomorrow? Kayla went cold. Goosebumps peppered her skin. Is tomorrow the day Slurpy plans to cut into me? To slice off my birthmark?

  The thought made Kayla sick. She focused on getting past her horror, debating whether this was even a plausible theory. Concluding it was only made her more skittish. Is there another reason to stop drugging me for an extended period? Slurpy isn’t a fool. He’ll only stop long enough so I can fully experience the pain he intends inflicting. So he can savor every second. Then . . . Kayla didn’t want to think what would happen after he had taken what he wanted. After she had served her purpose.

  Kayla sucked in a sudden sharp breath. It means only one thing. I have no choice. I have to escape today. I must wing it. That didn’t mean she had to rush into it. Didn’t mean she couldn’t at least have some plan. Her brain ran through scenarios until it found an acceptable solution.

  When she began screaming a few minutes later, it wasn’t for show. She hadn’t expected reopening the wound on her arm would hurt so much, but it was way worse than she’d imagined. She hadn’t held back the hearty, full-blooded cry of agony. Blood dripped from the area at a steady clip now, enough to make a mess but not enough to weaken her.

  Achieving her goal under the sheet’s shielding privacy—where spying eyes couldn’t see she had done this to herself—had taken some maneuvering. But she’d managed. After securing the scalpel Tarise had given her in the bandages around her leg, Kayla had used her fingers to find the spot on her arm where the skin glue formed a nodule. A sure sign of a novice bonding her skin.

  Not allowing herself to think about what she was planning, Kayla had gripped the nodule firmly, then ripped upward. Pain shot white light through her. But she didn’t stop. Enough of the nodule was attached to the rest of the glue to open a fair-sized section. When it tore free, Kayla sagged with relief. She only hoped the tear was clean. It would make repair faster.

  Kayla continued wailing until the door banged open. Claws skittered across the floor. Then there were shrieks, so shrill she raised her hands to slam them over her ears. Before she could, the bed began rolling, and she had to grab at the sides.

  Kayla didn’t smile. This was only the first of a list of things which had to go her way to escape this nightmare. She clutched at her arm, pretending it was more interesting than her surroundings, but her eyes scanned the tunnel. Thankfully, the lighting was dim. Enough for her to see without blinding her.

  She marked their path as they rolled across tunnels intersecting theirs, noting how many intersections passed before they finally made a right turn. Then another right turn. Five more openings. A left turn.

  The commotion to her right almost made her lose track. She doubled over with a loud wail, and the bed stopped moving long enough for her to peek into the room.

  The woman standing with her back to the doorway, hands on her hips, every line of her body telegraphing anger, was shouting. She was making enough noise that she either hadn’t heard Kayla’s wail or didn’t care. Even though her back was to Kayla, her voice was unmistakable. Tarise!

  “Where is he? I have to see him! She doesn’t trust me.”

  Kayla’s mind worked furiously. “He” has to be Slurpy. “She” is me. Why is Tarise in such a tizzy? Unless there’s a clock on this?

  An irritated female voic
e replied, “I already said I didn’t know. I also told you to let me get the last of his creations through, and then I’d help you find him.”

  Only then did Kayla see what was causing most of the commotion. Countless Gaptors were stuffed together at the far end of the room, their wings and beaks clacking into each other. They fidgeted, each Gaptor trying to find a clear space for itself, the mass of claws scraping on the ground enough to generate a constant clatter.

  That wasn’t what drew her attention, though, or made her pulse spike. At the very back of the elongated, narrow room, an arch glowed, pulsing light through the room like a beating heart.

  Before she could see more, the beast rolled her bed away. She’d ceased wailing when the bed stopped moving. The Gaptor, perhaps intending on checking on her, hadn’t bothered. Perhaps he thought a stop was all she’d needed.

  Whatever his reasoning, Kayla couldn’t believe he’d stopped when he had. The Gaptors really lacked mental acuity. Because, if she wasn’t mistaken, the room he had allowed her to glimpse contained the portal between worlds.

  The revelation was so stunning she forgot to count the rooms and passages they passed. Only when the bed took such a radical right turn that she almost rolled out of it, did she remember she was supposed to keep track.

  As if fate were intervening—or was it a darker force?—she heard clicking. Not just any clicking. A sound identical to the one she and Jaden heard all those months ago at the storage facility. The sound an old rotary telephone made if you left it off the hook for too long.

  We were right! It’s how Slurpy communicates with his minions! Then her bed was crashing around another corner, and she focused on the turns again. But there weren’t any more. Seconds later, the only turn the bed made was into a room she remembered from before. The one with the bright overhead disc for a light.

  Intentional or not, Kayla was thankful the light wasn’t on. If it had been, it would’ve blinded her. Casting her eyes around in a quick scan, she wondered whether the light being off had been intentional after all—so she could see the strange instruments lined up on a tray and along the one wall.

  Not medical instruments. Things with curly ends and spiky tips and long wands, reminding her of the tools they found in those dungeons where they retrieved the first artifact. Had he been in that place too? All those centuries ago?

  The sudden loss of the Gaptor’s revolting odor made her aware he’d left the room. He hadn’t said a word. Just dumped her here and left. Kayla realized it was just her and the nurse in the room. The woman had her back to Kayla as she checked the tools lined up on that tray against a clipboard in her hands. But even from this angle Kayla recognized her as the woman who had been in the operating room with Slurpy that day.

  Kayla croaked, loud enough to get the woman’s attention. “Water!”

  The woman whirled. Evidently, she hadn’t heard Kayla being delivered. “You’re only supposed to be here tomorrow.” Then her eyes went wide at the sight of the blood. “What happened to your arm? I thought I fixed that!”

  Dropping the clipboard, she dashed over and grabbed Kayla’s arm. Her proximity was what Kayla had hoped for. Not wasting the opportunity, Kayla whipped her free hand up, chopping it into the woman’s throat. The woman’s eyes bulged, and her hands went to her throat as she gasped for air.

  Kayla’s hands were both free now. In a fluid motion, too fast for the woman to react, Kayla grabbed the woman’s head and slammed it down on the metal edge of her bed. Pain stabbed her leg. Kayla muffled her cry, angling her body so she was ready for another attack. But the woman collapsed onto the floor, unconscious. Now what?

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was a miserable night. Despite his exhaustion, Jaden slept in fits and starts. Every time he woke, getting back to sleep again took forever. His brain whirred like a fan trying to cool an overheated CPU. How did they find the owners of the other medallions? Was Kayla still alive? How could he cross the breach? On and on the questions went until he finally dozed again. When dawn filtered past the drawn shades, Jaden gave up on sleep and went scrounging for food.

  Passing the monitoring room where they kept tabs on not only the entrance to Sven’s valley but communications in general, he heard excited chatter. He poked his head inside. “What’s up?”

  Atu turned serious eyes his way. “Come in. You’ve got to see this to believe it.”

  Mystified, Jaden ambled closer until he could see the screen Atu held out to him. He stared, not sure what he was looking at. Then it shifted, and he got a better view. Memories of the desert came roaring back. The unnaturally large rats with teeth almost as long as his hand. That hideous spider weaving webs of cabled steel. The snake with polished metallic scales.

  Something else caught his attention. He was glad he hadn’t eaten yet, or it would’ve ended up on the floor.

  “My reaction too,” Atu said, taking his screen back.

  “Can you explain it?”

  “No.”

  “When did this start?”

  “I’ve gone back through the footage. As far as I can tell, it began when those Gaptors came through that gate. The day when it wasn’t just us who could see the Gaptors and gliders. But the changes were so small, I think everyone missed them until they became what they are now.”

  Shocked, Jaden stared at Atu. “You think this is an ongoing process? That they’ll keep changing?”

  In answer, Atu turned to the bank of screens in front of him. He began throwing images onto the wall behind the monitors. “It’s easiest to see the progression in domestic animals.”

  The screens showed several shots of the interior of a home. It looked familiar. “You hacked someone’s security system?”

  “I didn’t have to. This is Shianna’s home. She gave me the codes.”

  A hand shot up into the air from behind the backrest of a large chair. “Hey, Jaden.”

  Shianna had been so quiet, Jaden hadn’t realized she was in the room. “Heya, back. What do you make of this?”

  “It’s incredible. I’ve never seen transformations like this. Usually, it takes generations, and then the changes are tiny adaptations to the environment. But these changes happen in the space of a few weeks. Watch!”

  Although Jaden understood her fascination, it was disturbing she didn’t see the bigger picture. “You do realize these . . . things could be dangerous?”

  Swiveling in her chair, Shianna focused the full power of her emerald gaze on him. “I know. Just because I’m passionate about the subject doesn’t make me blind to reality. Why do you think I’m here studying the phenomenon?”

  Jaden stared at the screens. The first was an image of Shianna’s cat, an adorable tabby with black and gray stripes and a black mark resembling an M on its forehead. On the second screen, Shianna had highlighted changes to the ears. They were longer and more tapered. The third screen showed her cat yawning, highlights emphasizing the pronounced canines.

  On and on, until the final screen where a revolting hairless pink blob hissed at the camera. Its fangs extended beyond the mouth and dripped with saliva. The ears had hardened into things bristling with tiny, shiny spikes. The wickedly curved claws looked like they could shred Kevlar.

  “Jaden?”

  He registered Shianna was waiting for an answer but ignored the question. “Will she ever go back to being what she was?” He’d loved that cat.

  Shianna’s eyes shimmered with sorrow. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. There has to be a reason for this. There has to be something we can do to reverse whatever is happening.”

  Jaden slumped into a nearby chair. “And this isn’t just limited to house cats?”

  Shianna shook her head, replacing the images on the wall with others. Things that could’ve been birds. More that looked like they had been insects. He closed his eyes at what had to have been a dog once. “Are they all changing as quickly as your cat?”

  “Some changes have been faster, others slower but more dramat
ic. The common denominator is whatever they might’ve used to protect themselves before is now more a weapon than a defense.”

  “Any reports of these things attacking people yet?”

  Atu answered this time. “No. But looking at these things, it’s only a matter of time.”

  Jaden was silent as he digested the information. The changes began when the gate had appeared. Would they stop if the gate appeared again or accelerate? Why were the animals in his world changing? He glanced at Shianna.

  “We know when the changes started. What do you think triggered them?”

  Shianna shrugged. “My best guess is the atmosphere of that other world affected the animals closest to it. Or they pumped something through from that world. Whatever was in that air was the catalyst for the mutations.”

  “But if that’s true, wouldn’t the changes only affect a negligible part of the animal population?”

  “That’s just it!” Shianna exclaimed, her eyes shining. “Logic says it should only have been birds affected at that altitude. So why are animals on the ground showing symptoms? After asking myself that question, I began charting the progress of the changes—or at least, how they looked based on the limited information I could gather. And do you know what I found?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “It started in the area directly under that open gate! An almost perfect circle. Since then, the circle’s been growing. Jaden, I think it contagious!”

  Jaden’s legs would’ve given way if he wasn’t already seated. How were they going to fight this? “How fast is it spreading?”

  “Slowly enough I think it’s a direct contact disease.”

  “So you think the cats got it from eating infected birds?”

  “Yes. Other animals could’ve contracted it the same way or from coming into contact with the excrement of infected animals.”

  “It’s possible to contain it, then?”