by D. Laine
While I hated being separated from Thea and Sadie when we did these runs, I couldn’t turn them down. For starters, the thought of walking circles around a fenced in perimeter for hours on end sounded like a boring waste of time. More importantly, though, Jake and I had a double mission every time we stepped outside the fence.
Today’s adventure brought us closer to Calvin and the Preppers than any of the others before it. Unfortunately, it seemed we still wouldn’t learn anything useful.
“We need to come up with another plan,” I told Jake as I pulled on the sturdy new pair of boots.
“I know. This isn’t working.” Jake looked down while I tied the laces. “How are they?”
“Perfect.” These boots had barely been worn. The size was perfect. It was like wrapping my feet in a tiny slice of heaven. “Sure you don’t want them?”
“Nah. You need them more than I do.”
I stood with a grin. “Aww, Jake. It’s things like this that make you such a good best friend to have.”
He rolled his eyes and started out the door. I would have followed if not for the tickle dancing across the back of my neck. It was a familiar sensation by now, and I knew before I turned what I would find behind me.
Only this time, the Watcher that visited me was not a part of a dream, and it inhabited a familiar body.
Maria stood propped against the doorjamb between me and the kitchen with a smirk on her face.
“That is so sweet.” The chilling sound of her voice sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. It was her, but it wasn’t. The Watcher’s reflective white eyes darted over my shoulder, where I felt Jake’s presence radiating behind me. “Do you cuddle each other at night, too?”
“What do you want?” Jake demanded, stepping farther into the room.
“No?” The Watcher glanced at me. “Still using the abomination to keep you warm at night, I assume.”
My jaw clenched at its mention of Thea.
“I suppose she is pleasing to the eyes,” it continued in an icy, monotonous tone. “Too bad she can’t be bred, and is essentially worthless to us now.”
“You’re not going to do a damn thing to her,” I gritted.
“Me? No. But you will.” The Watcher pushed away from the wall, and took a step closer. “Once you give yourself to us, you will see that she and the others like her are tainted. You will gladly dispose of them.”
“We’re not going to give ourselves to you,” Jake stated confidently.
The Maria-Watcher shrugged lazily. “Then it will be your fault when Lucifer wins.”
She—or it—took another step closer, and something flickered. My initial thought was that my eyes were playing tricks on me. But then the air grew less dense and the Watcher’s footsteps faltered. When it looked at me again, it wasn’t a Watcher’s radiant, white eyes I stared into.
It was Maria’s.
Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Or I couldn’t hear it.
I inched closer, extending my hand and angling my head closer to hers. “Maria?”
Again, her lips moved. This time, I heard her whisper, “He’s closer than you think. He’s . . .”
Another flicker, and her body twitched. The air around us fizzed and snapped with energy.
“Jake?” I called, because I didn’t know what to do.
Maria was in there. Somewhere. She and the Watcher fought for control of her body, and I had no idea what to do.
“Who is close?” Jake asked, closer.
“Lucifer,” she whispered. “He’s . . .”
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head so far that I saw nothing but white. The air grew thick around us as her body shuddered. It smelled like burnt ozone after a lightning storm.
“You’re running out of time.” The cold voice returned, indicating that the Watcher had regained control. “Lucifer is preparing to make his final move. You must be ready.”
The Watcher twitched. Maria’s body faded out for a moment before materializing again. I dragged in big gulps of air as soft, sad brown eyes lifted to peer up at me. “Help me.”
This wasn’t one Watcher asking another for help battling Lucifer. This was Maria, pleading with me to help her.
“Jake!”
A hand came down on my shoulder, but not to aide me. He pulled me back, moving me away from Maria’s flickering form. The air fizzled and popped with energy, causing the hairs on my arms to stand on end. I glanced at the ceiling, half expecting to be struck by a bolt of lightning at any moment.
Despite the obvious signs of danger, I reached for Maria where she trembled, her slender frame fading in and out like a ghost trapped between worlds. “Maria?”
Her hand reached for mine, sending a zap of electricity up my arm. It didn’t feel bad. More like a twinge from a small battery than a bolt of lightning.
“I can’t do it!” She wailed, and the despair I heard in her voice nearly broke me.
The Watcher won the battle, pushing all visible sign of Maria aside. I watched the transformation with a dizzying combination of disbelief and denial.
Maria was there—right there. And I couldn’t get to her.
Then the door burst open behind me, and everything slowed. Each step, each word, each look passed in slow motion, as if to elongate the moment. Not with the purpose of giving me a chance to stop it. But to draw out my inevitable suffering.
Voices yelled, but I didn’t know who. Someone pulled on my arm, but my feet stayed rooted to the floor. I couldn’t look away from the Watcher. I couldn’t give up on Maria. She had asked for my help. I had to find a way to save her.
I would never get the opportunity. The roar of a single gunshot took it all away. Forever.
I flinched. First from the unexpected blast that came from somewhere behind me. Then from the sensation of wet stickiness coating my face and hands. My eyes were squeezed tightly shut, but I knew what I would see if I opened them.
I couldn’t bring myself to look.
I turned and blindly shoved my way through the wall of excited voices yammering from the doorway. Once outside, I opened my eyes and looked down at my blood-spattered hands. I followed the trail up my arms, to the front of my shirt. My new boots were covered in wet globs of red.
I veered off the concrete path somewhere between the house and the street, and dropped to my knees in the thin layer of ash that covered the front yard as bile and whatever I had eaten for lunch worked its way up my throat. My body shook violently from the shock and adrenaline. Though the ringing in my ears, I heard the repeated echo of the gunshot reverberating in my head. Over and over and over . . .
A hand came down on my shoulder, causing me to jump. But it was only Jake.
“Is she dead?” When no response followed, I turned to peer at my friend. His ashen face was speckled with tiny drops of crimson. Not as bad as I suspected mine looked, but enough to confirm what I feared. “She’s dead. They fucking killed Maria, didn’t they?”
“They knew what she was,” he told me in a hushed voice. “Keep your cool.”
“Keep my cool?” I repeated slowly, tasting the bitter words as they came out of my mouth. “They fucking shot her, Jake! They—”
“Because she was a Watcher.” Jake’s grip on my shoulder tightened as someone exited the house behind him. Whoever it was started in our direction. “They know, Dylan. Pull it together, or we’re next.”
“Hey! Are you guys alright?”
I glanced behind Jake to spot Red coming our way. My defenses immediately shot up in response to Jake’s warning. They knew about the Watchers. What else did they know? What kind of game were they playing?
I was pissed, but I also realized Jake and I were at a disadvantage right now. Acting on emotions or saying the wrong thing could get us both killed. So I did what Jake suggested.
I didn’t strangle the motherfucker like I wanted to. I played it cool. I pretended Maria meant nothing to me.
“We’re fine,” Jake answered for us both. “Dyla
n has a bit of a weak stomach though.”
I grunted, and nearly proved his point by throwing up again.
“Yeah, it looks like you took a heavy hit to the face.” I felt Red’s eyes on my back during the silence that followed. “It didn’t hurt you, did it?”
Fisting a handful of ash, I shook my head. “No.”
Another long pause, then, “What did it say to you?”
This was the important part. I recognized the debriefing—as informal and casual as it sounded—that was taking place. Whatever we said now could and would be used against us if necessary. I had been trained for moments like this. I had experience with this—even if only to fool bottom-of-the-barrel local law enforcement. Not top secret organizations that obviously knew a hell of a lot more than we thought they knew.
“Something about breeding,” I answered passively.
“Breeding?” Red repeated with a hint of surprise.
“It seemed to want us for . . . something,” Jake added. “It was a little difficult to understand. It kept—”
“Stop calling her an ‘it,’” I growled.
They both fell silent, and I realized my slip up. My best option was to play the oversensitive idiot traumatized by what he had just seen. Turning to peer up at Red, I said, “I mean . . . she was just a girl, right? You guys shot a girl, and I have her blood all over me.”
“She wasn’t . . .” Red shook his head before turning to look at the house as the other three Duggies filed outside. One of them nodded his head, passing a silent message to Red.
I could only assume what it was. Maria was dead.
“What’s going on?” Jake asked.
“I can’t . . .” Red blew out a noisy breath before looking us both in the eyes, one at a time. “You need to speak to Anderson. He’ll explain everything.”
I didn’t doubt he would. But I wondered how much Jake and I would learn from our discussion with him. And whether or not that conversation would take place on our way to stand before the firing squad.
18
DYLAN
While two stayed behind to take care of the body, the rest of us left in the other vehicle along with the rations we had scavenged throughout the day. Leaving Maria behind was one of the most difficult things I had ever done. Accepting the fact that it was too late for her was a bitter pill to swallow. More importantly, witnessing her death led me to one concrete conclusion.
I would not allow the same to happen to Jake.
The drive back was a tense one. Not because the Duggies seemed to be plotting our demise, which Jake obviously suspected from the way he watched them. To me, they genuinely seemed concerned about what they had just seen and done. They had the same awed look on their faces I had the first time I saw and killed a tag. Not the look of seasoned killers.
Red suggested the sacrifice of a bottle of water for me to wash my face and hands with. I felt slightly less tainted after the evidence of Maria’s death was gone, but nothing would erase the memories I had of her final moments. The terrified sound of her voice—her real voice. The fear in her eyes.
She had fought it. Though she ultimately lost, she had tried.
By the time we made it back, I started to wonder if death wasn’t the best thing for her. If she could find peace in death that she never would have found under the control of the Watcher. I accepted that Maria may be better off this way.
After unloading the car, Jake followed me to the creek while the Duggies scattered. I assumed one of them would notify Anderson of what had happened, and I figured we had only a few minutes to scrub off the last of the blood. We helped ourselves to the bars of soap and bottles of shampoo that lined the muddy bank.
By the time I finished washing the matted clumps of blood out of my hair, Jake was staring at me. “You okay?”
I nodded stiffly. “Fine.”
“Because I won’t think less of you if you’re not okay,” he told me.
I nibbled on the inside of my cheek as the words of truth threatened to break my resolve. I felt it shattering little by little, and suddenly, I didn’t care.
This was Jake—the guy who had seen me at my worst. The guy who had saved my life, and whose life I had saved. I could tell him anything.
“No, I’m not okay,” I admitted, but I didn’t stop there. “I don’t care that they only saw a Watcher and reacted. I don’t care what they know or how much they know. All I know is that Maria was in there. She was trying to get out, and they shot her. She may have never gotten out, but now we’ll never know. Because she’s dead. She and Marcus are dead, and this is turning into a big fucking mess that I don’t know if we can get out of without losing someone else.”
Jake didn’t contradict me. He didn’t offer me some meaningless words of promise that we would get through it. He merely nodded, because he got it. And he unknowingly encouraged me to keep going. Because, apparently, my dam had broken.
“And she was pregnant. Was, as in before the agency found out. But hearing that, and knowing that, and then watching her die like that . . .” I finally stopped with a shaky breath, and sat down on the bank of the creek to stare up at the sky while it quickly lost light. “I wasn’t ready to be a father. I don’t know why I’m so . . .”
What exactly? I couldn’t pin down exactly how I felt about the whole thing.
Jake wordlessly sat down beside me. Just when the silence started to get to me, he said, “Because it’s a life-changing experience, no matter the outcome.”
That made some sense to me, so I nodded, even if it didn’t feel like enough. I couldn’t help but think I should have felt something more . . . profound.
“Now I know why you were so worried about Maria after the Watcher took her,” Jake said. “You should have told me sooner. I might have understood better.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. We wouldn’t have been able to save her anyway.”
He lowered his head. “No. I guess not.”
So much heaviness had already settled on my shoulders. When I realized what losing Maria—as a Watcher—meant to Jake and me, I sighed from the immense weight it added. “It’s just you and me now.”
“I know.”
“We need to step up our effort to find Calvin,” I concluded. “To find Lucifer.”
“And if we can’t . . .” Jake sighed heavily as he turned to me. “I think we both know what the other has thought about at least once. That we will be the one to deal with it.”
“Jake, I—”
“My sister is not going to be left here alone,” he cut me off, forcing me to bite my words. Because his stung. “I promised her I wouldn’t do something stupid. I also promised her I wouldn’t let you do something stupid. I might not be able to keep both of those promises, but I will do my damnedest to make sure she has one of us when this is all over.”
“Jake, I really don’t know—”
“And I think it should be you,” he concluded.
“So you think I’m going to let you run off into the night and turn Watcher on me? You think I would let you go at it alone?” I paused briefly before answering my own question. “Because I wouldn’t do that.”
“So you would abandon Thea instead?”
“It wouldn’t be like that.” I couldn’t abandon my partner. Not to deal with Lucifer alone. She would understand that. Right?
“I’m not asking, Dylan.” Jake waited for me to look at him again before he added, “Watcher or not, if you choose me over her, I’ll never forgive you.”
Mouth rendered useless by his words, I could do nothing but stare at my friend. My partner. My brother. The one person who had always come first . . . until Thea came along. As difficult as it was for me to agree with, I understood what he was saying. She would need one of us.
She deserved to have one of us when this was over.
For some reason, he thought I was more worthy of that future than him.
It wasn’t a discussion I wanted to continue at the moment. Not after the emotional see
-saw of losing Maria, and not so soon after hearing his words. I needed to mull them over.
Besides, I heard boots stomping across the ground behind us, and assumed the time had come for us to speak with Anderson. Depending on how this went down, Jake might still break both promises to his sister. If Anderson had any idea who we really were, our options for making smart, life-sparing decisions would be cut drastically.
I wasn’t surprised when I turned at the waist and found the lieutenant standing on the flat ground behind us. He was the type of guy who took care of his own problems. Unlike Spence, he didn’t send errand boys to do his work for him. He faced us like a man should, prompting Jake and me to get to our feet and return the gesture.
I liked the guy. It was really going to suck if he came all the way out here to try to kill us.
My eyes involuntarily flicked toward the roof of the building behind him. I didn’t see anyone in sniper positions, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, hidden from sight until their commander gave the signal.
“I don’t know who you boys are, or where you come from,” Lieutenant Anderson started, and my insides knotted with trepidation. “You all came in here with enough firepower to take on the devil himself. My guys tell me you’re skilled at fighting the enemy. The civilians think you’re some top secret Special Ops team. You’re not National Guard. I don’t know why you told us you were, and I don’t particularly care as long as you continue to help keep this town alive.”
Other than a surprised blink, I kept my expression neutral. I was so not expecting that.
“The guys tell me you’ve had your first encounter with another creature of this new world,” Anderson continued.
Beside me, Jake nodded. I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing.
“What did it say to you?” Anderson asked.
Jake shifted, tossing a glance in my direction. He cleared his throat, then repeated what I had said earlier, when Red had asked the same question. “It wanted us under its control, for breeding.”
Anderson’s lips twisted into a look of disgust. “Anything else?”