by Alexa Dare
“Now.” Brody took a half step back. He shook his head. For a split second, he’d copied his brother’s terse, soldierlike tone.
“No need to bark at us.” Hannah glared. After taking in his and Abe’s pale faces, she said, “Okay, maybe there is. Darcy Lynn, let’s help the boys find their silly how-to book.”
“Fluffy’ll be better soon, right? I lost him, then Junior gave him to me again.”
“But you didn’t want the toy. Not even after he came all the way back to bring it to you.” Hannah slid open the over-the-seats cabinet doors.
“He took the ribbon off, so my doggy’s okay.” Darcy Lynn searched the aisles and seat rows.
“No book or goodies so far.” Brody stood, and from out of the side windows, he gauged the span of water to the bank. Too far out to swim. Even if they could figure out how to get safely out. Only the top edge of the back window bobbed above the surface.
“Wait? What about Abe’s seat?” Hannah elbowed her way past both Darcy Lynn and Brody to rush up the aisle. “A manual might be stowed for the driver, right?”
Abe raised his bottom from the seat.
The alarm gouged through the interior.
“Hazard ahead,” The robotic voice said. “Dive. Dive. Dive.”
The all-terrain plunged.
To help Abe, Brody quickly limped to the front and grasped the steering wheel. He added his weight to push the column downward to take the vehicle below the surface in a sharp dive.
A log, with strings of long black strips of bark trailing, crashed against the outer hull. The hit pitched Brody and Abe to the floor.
“Every day,” said a slow version of Cantrell’s voice. From the misplaced watch, the tiny speaker played short blips of static. “I get closer to making sense of chaos.”
“No one makes sense of chaos, man.” Brody struggled to his knees as Abe crawled back into the driver’s seat. In sluggish sways, he stayed on all fours. “Any more than we can make sense out of the natural order of things.”
In a roar of churning water, the vehicle sank. A few inches below the surface, the fading rays of sunlight glinted gold and red hued, like part of a dream. Yet, as they slid deeper, the inside of the vehicle grayed as murky water closed in. Along the ceiling, blue emergency lights blinked on and then flickered out.
A thump banged the rear window.
Darcy Lynn shrieked, “He’s back. He’s back.”
Brody whirled.
From the other side of the glass, Cantrell’s milky eyes peered inside. Eerie blue shaded his pallor.
Hannah pulled Darcy Lynn’s face into her chest, and their screams joined in one long shrill.
Brody, unable to tear his gaze away, held on to the seatbacks.
Cantrell’s arm moved.
“We killed him. Now he’s come back to get us.” Darcy Lynn latched on to Hannah’s waist and buried her face in the older girl’s belly. “He’s baaaaccck. No, no, no.”
“Just the water moving his…his…body.” The older girl broke down into sobs.
Chest aching and throat burning, Brody fought to corral the emotions and grief that swelled under his ribs like foam sealant that surged to fill all the space inside him. Too bad he couldn’t just let go. But he had to be strong. For the kids. If only the filling sensation cast a numbing feeling as well.
Choking on his own breaths, he sucked in unsteady inhales.
In slow sways, the body’s arms, along with shattered broken legs, swayed in the wake of the all-terrain as the Holston River current carried the body of Cantrell Thackett away.
Chapter 35
As she crept through the Southern night, more than seventy-two hours after the kick-start of the trouble, Nora gripped the spear of wood long after splinters pierced the pad of her thumb and tore into her fingers. Without the damping of the collar, senses, colors even pain honed sharp.
The stench of the burning trees, leaves, and human flesh hung like the fresh mountain roses that had once wrapped the area in husky floral sweetness. Charred or broken, a hundred shades along the spectrum of destruction made up a vivid picture. Among the trees—some reaching to the sky, some mere skeletons, and others broken in twisted splinters—Nora stood without gloves and faced her son.
“Come with me. We’ll find food in a cellar and a stew pot. Potatoes and carrots if nothing else.”
“I hunger not for mortal food.” Vincent’s gaze held a vacant glaze.
“I realize this is difficult for you. But don’t you see, all this time, they kept our powers in check. Mine, with the vile collar, and yours by locking you away in a room lined with lead.”
“You no longer wear a collar.” Her son tilted his head to the side.
Nora stroked her bare neck as tears threatened to flow. “And you are not locked away. Don’t you see? We’re free. I can take off your collar as well. We’ll find Brody. With his help, we can live normal lives.”
“I am who and what I am. In a time when our powers can gain us status and control, why would you want to be any other way?” Vincent crossed his arms, and a sneer stretched his lips. “You cannot stop a man whose heart does not beat, can you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We are not the only ones set free.” He hung his head and stared at the body on the ground between them. “You released the final plague.”
“You’re talking in riddles. Come on, we need to remove your collar. Since I can’t risk touching you, I’ll talk you through how you can find the latch. It’s well hidden yet was there for us to discover this whole time.”
“The effects of the collar ceased hours ago. I shall wear the collar as my badge of honor. Once freed from the lead room, I became.”
“Why so ominous?” Nora tensed her grip. “Look, Vincent, this is no time to joke.”
“My mere presence bodes evil.” Vincent’s tennis shoes scuffed fallen leaves and twigs as he strode close, bringing the musk of charred manly sweat near. “However, the joke is on you, Nora.”
“We’ve been over this before. I prefer you to call me mother.”
“Nora, we Children of the Elements should have taught you we do not always get what we prefer, or need, or want.” Vincent halted a yard or so in front of her. He spared Yates’s body a quick glance down the length of his nose. “You intend to kill me, Mother.” He hocked out the word mother as if phlegm coated the back of his throat. “Sooner or later, to make things right, you shall be forced to kill all five of us.”
“I would never harm any of you.” They were far too valuable to Nora, in so many ways.
“Any more than you were already forced to harm us.” Vincent slumped inches shorter. “Brody’s brother foretold what was going to happen and what shall come.”
“Cantrell’s an unstable young man whose mind has been tampered with by the same doctor who did this to us.” Pain sliced through her thumb as she gripped the stake tucked behind her even harder.
“He sees links and options the rest of us cannot. Yates says Cantrell shares the sacred prophecy for us all to follow.” Vincent’s gaze slid to his father’s body and then back to Nora.
“Said, not says.” A low-grade throb drummed in her temples. “All along I’ve tried to keep us safe.”
“Our safety did not depend on Delbert’s or Ross’s demise.” Vincent shook his head. “Nor the former head of the Briar Mountain project.”
Nora’s heart banged under her ribs. “What are you saying?”
“You replied with a question, yet you do not deny killing him.”
Edges of wood sliced deeper into her thumb pad.
“Did you find out that Dickenson altered us before or after you killed him?”
“Vincent, the man who changed us died of a stroke.” The sting of the cut paled in the shadow of her son’s doubt.
“Which can be caused by bubbles in the blood brought about by erratic heart activity.” He sighed. “Remember, you and he forced me to study anatomy to further my skills.”
&nb
sp; “There was so much about the project that I didn’t know.” Nora’s throat pinched, and the air around her turned to syrup.
“The head scientist’s death exposed our true origin.”
“You are getting worse.” She edged back a step. “Your logic is even more skewed than before.”
“Did he harm you? Was that why you killed him?”
“He meant to take you from me.” As if a dam broke and crumbled in her chest, the words spewed out, “He let the general persuade him to separate us. He claimed we would be more useful apart. I couldn’t let that happen to you. To us. You are my son.”
“They planned to take me out of the room.” Vincent’s face and eyes blanked.
“He wanted to use medications that might cause you harm to control you.”
“Thus, I might have been free a long time ago?” He blinked. “Movies. Drive-in restaurants. Chinese food. True Italian cuisine with garlic bread. A first date. A sports car. Privacy. Art school. Movie theaters.”
“If you believe being under constant guard under the control of handlers free, then yes. But all of that is in the past, so why does it matter? We are a family. I couldn’t allow us to be separated.”
“You knew the room’s effects helped rob me of my sanity.”
“Not for certain,” said Nora. Of course, it did. That wasn’t surprising since the room was lined with lead.
“You chose not to save me from harm.”
“We don’t know that.” Her taut grip shook her arm so that she tucked the stake farther behind her back. The slice in her thumb flared hot. She hissed out, “It’s all theory.”
“I know.” Vincent rested his chin on his chest and slumped to his knees. He lifted his face to her. “Once you started killing, without being made to do so, you could not stop.” He held out his hands, palms out. “That is why you must end this, because the only way I shall be able to stop hurting others is if my life comes to an end.” Her dear teen’s eyes filled with unshed tears. “If you lock me away, I’ll spend my days plotting how to get free to kill again. Please, Nora. Mother. End my misery now.”
Agony wrenched inside her and brought Nora to her knees as well. She let her arms drop and the stick fall to the ground. “Vincent, why would you ask this of me?”
“Do this for me.” He scooped up her meager weapon, stood, and raised the stick’s jagged end to his chest.
“I can’t,” Nora croaked out, her gaze jarring from the pointed splinter end to the blood-smeared blunted edge. “Don’t do this to yourself. You can’t do this to me.”
“Release me from my agony. Stop me from turning into a worse monster than I already am. Please halt what I shall become.”
“You can choose the sort of man you will be. Don’t listen to Yates’s causes or Brody’s brother’s crazy stories.”
“Mother, please.” He pressed the tip between his ribs.
Nora held on to the wider end. “Don’t do this. You have to stop this. You must listen to me.”
“You came after me to stop me. Please, do so.”
Nora yanked the piece of wood from him. Jagged splinters sliced her palm as she tossed the crude dagger aside. “I can’t harm my only child.”
“Do not forget, I offered you the chance. From here on out, you must live with allowing your evil spawn to survive.” Vincent raised his hand, leaned in, and blew a long breath across his palm and sent a white powder straight into Nora’s face.
She gasped in a fragrance between overly sweet melon and window cleaner.
Her vision blurred, and the world around her slowed.
***
Below overcast clouds, gloom chased daylight, and her son had disappeared. Nora blinked. Yes, she had lost time. But how much? Nora’s boots raked over dried leaves as she stood and turned in a circle. Gray tree trunks speared the sky. Bits of green dotted a few of the limbs, while stark black boughs jabbed from others. “Vincent, what did you do?”
Apparently, he’d drugged her with some sort of sedating powder. A trick Yates or Cantrell taught him perhaps?
How could she regret not killing her own child? Even think of such an act in the first place? Yet, if the children were forced to, made to push past their own limits, might the balance of nature be reset to normal?
“There she is.” A camo-wearing group rushed her.
Once again, Nora seized the stick. She held the measly weapon two-fisted before her. She’d killed their leader, and now she was their target. With a cringe, she glanced down at the corpse.
No body. As well as her son, Yates’s carcass was missing.
Over a dozen men and a few women closed in on her.
Stabbing the stick into the ground within reach, Nora slipped her arms from the sleeves of her over-shirt and pulled it over her head. Stripped down to her t-shirt, she tied the khaki over-shirt around her waist. More skin to touch meant that more men died faster.
She spread out her stance. “Don’t come any closer.”
They halted.
“Sorry,” a bearded man said, “we didn’t mean to make you uneasy. We just did as Yates told us to do. If things went bad, he ordered us to find you. That you would lead us into the new world order.”
A zinging sense of power and control bristled, like energy under her former collar, along the nape of Nora’s neck.
A big-boned, camo-wearing bleached blond, with 2-inch black roots, shoved her way through the crowd. “We’ll need to take care of our injured. Lots of burns and broken bones.”
“Will Doc set up a triage?” Nora’s gaze searched the woods for her son.
“Sad to say,” the woman frowned, “but Doc didn’t make it.”
A thrill curled low in Nora’s belly. “It’s usually best if monsters don’t.”
“What?” asked the woman.
“How many made it out?” Nora ignored the woman’s question and forced interest into her tone. The swarm of their sweat failed to dampen her thrill at the sound of their combined beating hearts.
“The shafts below the camp made the damage from the quakes a whole lot worse,” a man said.
“We figured things would have died down, but the weather and quakes and such keep getting worse.” The woman rallied the growing crowd with a wave of her pistol. “If we find the children, they will stop the storms or die trying.”
What was it Nora’s son had warned? That she would have to kill them all to set things right.
Sadly, she’d missed her chance with Vincent. The longer she went without the control collar, the more clarity she found. She would not allow her son or the others to slip away again.
“Death to the freaks,” the troops chanted.
“First, we make them fix what is broken,” Nora yelled. “We will have use of their powers. Bring them in alive.”
To be used until they are like empty locust husks and of no further use.
Suddenly, Nora’s purpose and direction became so utterly clear.
Chapter 36
Earth surged in from all sides. Junior had no idea how long he’d been buried or how much time went by. Had he slept or passed out for the first time ever? Sandy grit sifted into his nose, and he sneezed. The soil soaked up the spray. Repaying the favor, loose dust closed in as if his breath were a magnet.
Shoving at the pile of dirt with his elbows, he tried to wiggle his trapped body loose. His leg hurt like shards of flint sliced deep into his bones. The mud cast he formed around his calf, ankle, and foot, by working the earth with his mind, stayed in place, but nothing eased the pain.
Dirt, like a down pillow, muffled his choked sobs. Only ten years old, he cried because he hurt, for the little lost boy he was, and for the family that would never be. Loneliness drilled an ache deep into Junior’s chest. His crying, low and creaky like an old barn door hinge, ramped. Raw sobs shrilled to howls. As he bawled, he shoved his upper body back and forth. Dirt filled his mouth, and he shoved grit out with his tongue.
From the shifting of his head and shoulders, the heap
atop him fell away.
Even as he cried and fisted the dirt, his knower told him no tunnels lay below. Hurt speared in his joints. Finally, he slumped as he grasped Nora had moved away from her perch above him and now walked on the surface.
He was safe, but the rest of what was left of the world…
Relief eased his sobs into huffs and hics. He sucked in pain-filled pants and pushed to free himself. Sharp and harsh, a throb echoed in his right leg. Blinding pain stabbed through his leg so bad he screamed. Back teeth clenched, he struck the dirt until the throb in his fists and the shove of the ground pulled him from the bleak, angry place inside his head and back into the dim tunnel.
Huge power—more than in the cellar or Briar Patch—flowed in thrums around and within him. Yards away, nature reared like a bucking mule. Pieces of ceiling fell. With a jarring roar, part of the passage buckled.
“So far below.” He sagged facedown and took in oxygen in hungry gulps.
Junior shielded his head with his arms.
A rush of damp soil stuffed his nose and his mouth.
No air. Choking.
Trapped.
He tilted his face to one side, blew out a breath, and spat grit from between his teeth.
Nora and her son were not nearby anymore, so Junior must’ve blacked out for quite a while. The others, however, moved farther along the opposite way.
Deep below the ground, he sat closer to the wrinkle that caused the quakes.
“Kid? Where are you?” a man called out. “Place is coming down on us. No time to waste.”
By walking his arms, Junior dragged his body. In his leg, bone scraped against bone. He fell to his elbows and pressed his hands over his mouth and nose. Mustn’t scream.
“It’s Roderick, from the camp. Your buddy Vincent sent me. Told me right where to find you.”
Brow against the cool soil, Junior rode the next minor tremor out.
“No use you shaking things up. It’s my duty to take you back or die trying. You won’t scare me off, and you won’t stop me. I’ll dig from here to China to find you if I have to.” The man laughed as if he thought what he said funny.
Not.