"TURN DOWN THE MUSIC!!!" I heard Theron's voice shout. I skidded to a stop and looked around me frantically.
I lowered my iPod volume and shouted back, "WHERE ARE YOU??"
"How are you fighting with music blaring in your ears???" Theron's detached voice scolded.
Oh my God, he's dead! He's a ghost!! I thought, panicked. I looked at the zoesphere for confirmation but it remained garnet. "THERON?" I shouted.
"You don't need to yell," he said calmly. "I can hear you if you whisper."
"Where are you? How are you communicating?" I started back up at a jog with my knife ready.
"Answer one—I'm still stuck in this lousy maze, running full-tilt. Answer two—the translators I gave you can also serve as transmitters. Because I was fighting these things, it took me a while to get the correct frequency. Are you hurt?"
I lied. "I'm fine."
"Freya, there's only one way to kill these things."
"Yeah, I figured it out," I boasted.
Suddenly, my arm was slashed from my upper outside shoulder toward my elbow and I smashed into the wall on my left. I shouted involuntarily and winced hard against the agonizing pulses of pain as they shot into my nervous system. I scrambled frantically to my fallen knife and gripped it. It was the Sicarius I thought I had killed! Dark blood caked his neck and chest plate.
"HOW DO I KILL IT?" I screamed.
"HEART! GO FOR HIS HEART!"
Before I could do anything, the creature's dagger hands plunged furiously toward me. I rolled to my right and the daggers snagged into the side of my shirt and scraped parallel lines into my armor. I sprang to the balls of my feet and cut through the strap on the left side of his chest plate. He whipped around, and I sunk my blade into his bare chest. The plate hung feebly to one side. The thing dropped, lifeless. I pulled out my knife and breathed in a heaving breath through my nose.
"I'm going to pass out," I whispered.
"Did he hurt you?" Theron sounded frantic.
"I killed it." I sucked in air, but it smelled like blood and death.
"Freya, move on!" he ordered firmly.
I nodded. Of course. I managed a small, "Yes," and then took off, speeding through the winding labyrinth with my knife clutched in my hand—both my hand and the knife were covered in sticky, putrefying liquid goop.
"How long can this freaking thing be?" Theron grunted rhetorically. Then he cursed and I heard his breath catch as if he had impacted against something. "Hello big ugly fellow," he jeered, and I heard the sound of metal on bone.
I put another knife in my left hand and ran faster—with all of my speed.
A clock was ticking on my mother's life. Both my arms were poised to strike. I rounded and rounded through the maze and tried not to think about how dizzy I was getting. Theron was still taunting his opponent when a shrill scream pierced my ears! It sounded like—a child. I picked up speed.
"What was that?" Theron spoke with exertion.
"I don't know," I answered.
"Be careful."
"Does he really think I'm not going to be careful?" I said to myself.
"You know I can still hear you."
I smiled.
The smiled withered into a grimace. Sprawled out on the floor, broken, in a pool of blood was Piper, gasping for air.
"PIPER!" I screamed and folded beside her. My knives fell to the floor.
"WHAT?!" Theron shouted.
"How did you get here, Rosebud?" I cried as I tried to find and staunch the source of the blood flow.
"Morag brought me here," she whimpered. "Am I going to die?"
"No, no, sweetheart. I'm going to get you out of here," I promised through the tears I fought back.
"How?" Piper pleaded.
"I don't know, but I'm figuring it out," I said truthfully.
"Morag said he wants your necklace and if you tell him where it is he'll let us go home." She was sobbing and breaking my heart.
"Morag is a liar, Piper."
Her small body was a sticky mess and I was terrified to hurt her more by picking her up.
"Maybe your necklace would help us get out of here?" she suggested.
"FREYA IT IS A TRICK!" Theron boomed through the transmitter.
"What's a trick? Morag has Piper here and, Theron, she's hurt," I cried.
"IT'S NOT PIPER, FREYA—RUN!!!"
"What are you talking about?" I struggled to remain calm.
That's when Piper's brown doe-eyes transfigured into deep, blackened sockets. Dread spread over me and I crab-crawled backward.
"RUN!"
I ran but was shaken mercilessly by what I thought had been Piper dying before my eyes. Now the Sicarius was ghosting after me, his body half-embedded in the wall as if it were made of water. The panic of finding Piper faded and was replaced by a blistering rage! I was consumed with anger like never before.
The Sicarius leaped out in front of me—his dagger appendages jutting forward a good six feet to impale me. With one fluid motion I dropped to my knees and began sliding across the polished flooring underneath him. I contorted my body, swinging my Chinook into my hands. I began shooting multiple rounds up and through the loathsome thing's midsection, hoping to bury an arrow into his heart. He somersaulted powerfully in mid-air, screeching in pain. I twisted around and aimed in his direction, sinking four arrows into his unprotected back. The Sicarius heaped to the floor, all animation vanished.
I got to my feet, positioned the Chinook and scanned my area like a vicious predator.
"I can't see you, Freya! Check in!"
"I'm alive and it's dead," I snarled. Seeing no more threat, I continued to sprint.
"The Sicarius can access the region of your brain that releases your emotional hormones and fear. Your brain transmits the images that are most disturbing to you and then the Sicarius projects them back to you."
"How do you know so much about them?" I asked.
"It was the soldiers' ideas that went into designing lethal weapons with a psychological component," he confessed.
"Outstanding!" I said. "I can't get the picture of her like that out of my head now."
"I'm sorry."
"I wish you were here next to me." A chill moved through me. My shirt was slick with my blood. The breeze I was producing with my running made me realize just how saturated it was. My arms ached, but I couldn't let that slow me down. "We have to hurry!" I raged, allowing the adrenaline in my veins to propel me.
"I'm working on that," Theron huffed.
"What if one of us ends up in the center and the other at the opening?" I asked.
"Yeah, I figured that was what was going to happen when he separated us with the divider."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"It's unicursul," he said simply.
I knew he wasn't deliberately patronizing me but I said, "I missed the math class for that lesson."
"There's only one path, and when Morag separated us he forced us into opposite directions. Since he wants you I'm sure you're headed to the middle where your mother is and I was headed to the opening," Theron explained.
"Was?" What did he mean by was? "How are we going to get out of this? Morag will never let us escape."
"I'm working on that too," he quipped.
"Work faster!" I came around another bend and a Sicarius crossed my path, running from the left wall into the right wall without attacking. "One just crossed in front of me into the wall!"
"Good!" he said.
"Oh, yeah! Great," I retorted sarcastically.
Just then the Sicarius flailed out from the right wall. Theron was locked onto the creature's back, discharging taser slugs into his heart through the back of his ribcage! I stopped short. My mouth dropped open. The thing lay limp. Theron vaulted to his feet.
"Hey, beautiful!" His face was lit with a cocky smile.
"How did you do that?" I beamed with excitement.
"Quantum split left by the Sicarius," he said. But his face fell and so did
his jaw when he got a better look at me. "Is this your blood?"
"Some of it." Truth was, most of it was mine.
"You're sliced up! We have to get you bandaged, now!"
"No! There's no time! It'll have to wait." Before he could protest, I bolted in the direction I had been running before.
He ran up beside me. Besides being really sweaty, he looked fine. "Are you injured?" I asked.
"Naw." He shook his head.
We suddenly heard my mother's desperate voice from up ahead. "Please, Morag stop it!" We put on a burst of speed. "They're only children!"
Brilliant light radiated across my sight. A wall of three Sicarius blocked the passage to the center room where my mother was trapped. The monstrous fencing was there to strike us down.
I grabbed ahold of Theron's arm, but my hands slipped to his wrist, and I threw all of my weight back to stop him. He spun around and opened his mouth to say something, but I covered his lips with my hand and shook my head. I had no idea how good the Sicarius' hearing was or if they even had any. But I knew we had the advantage of surprise. I mouthed, "THREE," and held up three fingers.
Theron furrowed his brow, probably wondering how I had acquired that intel. Then he gripped my blood-soaked shoulders, and a pitying look crossed his face. Doctor Hawk was afraid I was losing too much blood. He put the Chinook in my hand. He made a stop signal with his hand in front of me… "Wait here," he mouthed.
I frowned but did what he said anyway. Theron turned the curve and I heard his sword open. After several grunts, a few curse words and some slamming, Theron hollered out, "Freya, come on!"
I rounded the corner to find three downed Sicarius at the center of the maze with Theron standing in the middle of them. And there was my mother. The razored teeth were only scant inches from her cheeks.
Chapter 30 Revenge
"MOM!" I ran over and tentatively touched the violent arms to try to pull them back and away from her, but they were razor sharp.
Theron hacked methodically at the restraints behind the torture device my mother was bound to. "Quick, Freya, give me a knife."
I handed it to him fast.
"How did you get here?" My mother said, crying.
"Long story," I said as I searched behind her body with my fingers for some kind of release mechanism.
"I'm so sorry, Freya." Her crying came in bursts of sobs.
"Stay strong, Mama. We're going to get you out of here!"
"That's not why I'm crying."
"Got it!" Theron said.
"I never meant to leave you for so long! I'm so, so sorry! I missed you so much!" Sobs racked her frame.
I knelt down in front of her. "I know, Mom. I know."
"We have to go now!" Theron interrupted.
"I can't move my legs," my mom breathed. "I've been strapped here for hours."
"Plan B," Theron said and dug through his ammunitions pouch. "C4—Stay right here."
He jogged out of the room and, almost as quickly, pounced back into it. An explosion made the floor and walls around us quake. He hoisted my mother up over his shoulder and said, "This way."
Back at the room entrance he had blown a huge hole into the flooring, revealing a tunnel underneath.
"How did you know?" I asked.
"I've lived and trained here my whole life."
We descended the ladder and started to run the best we could down the tunnel.
"Thank you both," my mother said in a more normal tone. The sobbing had abated.
"I know your voice well, ma'am," Theron said with respect. "The goddess Freya is indeed in danger."
"You? You are the one?!" my mother marveled.
"Yes, ma'am. And I've been trying to keep her safe ever since I met her, but she is a difficult one to pin down," he laughed.
And so did she. To me, it sounded like the ringing of chimes.
"If I get you to the main floor, Mrs. Catten, could you direct us to the physics lab and to the Bifrost?"
"Yes, I can. And call me Anna," she said.
Theron took some sort of direction finder out of his pocket and examined it. "How are you holding up, Freya?" He was worried.
"Holding my own." I tried to throw some extra confidence into my tone for good measure, but to myself I thought—Just barely.
We traveled about a quarter mile before Theron stopped underneath another metal ladder.
"Time to go up. Let's try and get your legs working first," he said and set my mom down gently while still supporting her weight.
She wobbled at first. I couldn't help but take her in. We did look even more similar now that I was older, even though her hair was long and blond and mine was brown. She wore a soft pink button-up blouse. Her blue eyes looked tired and lacked the luster they had once shined with. She stepped back and forth, shifting her weight from leg to leg, sort of like marching in place, until the blood flow returned. She straightened her light gray pleated pants. She still looked athletic—she was the one who had gotten me into running.
"I can do this," she said. "But first—" she threw her arms around me. We embraced for a moment then she pulled Theron in. She pulled back too soon. "She's losing color and temperature," she said to Theron as if I wasn't even there.
A look of fierce determination spread over his face. He scaled the ladder and lifted a square in the ceiling that led up into the floor above us. He peered around then climbed out. "It's clear."
We all climbed up and out and closed the hole.
"This way," my mom said once she got her bearings.
We started down another white-washed hallway to the right, but didn't get far before she said, "It's there. Just up ahead."
"I'll scout it out," Theron said, stopping us. "No way it's unguarded."
He surged up ahead, came back and corralled us up against the wall. "Close your eyes," he instructed.
Flash grenade, I thought. Theron let two go. Screams were cut short. We ran over. Two soldiers were prostrate on the hard flooring.
My mother pressed a code into a computer in the wall at the side of the door. Theron went in first with his taser pistol aimed.
"Do you have the necklace?" My mother asked, rummaging through a drawer once we were inside.
"No. I've hidden it," I whispered.
"That was good thinking," she said and swiped a bit of my blood off from my shirt and onto a glass slide. She pressed the slide into a small divot on a four foot metal cylinder that stood on a table with a bunch of other equipment set up around it. A short, green laser light scanned the bloody plate, and a panel opened to reveal a chamber just wide enough for the slide. A mechanism sounded and the slide was automatically pulled through and closed in. A large blue circle on the floor on the other side of the room lit up with white light.
Theron was beside the door trying to find a way to jam it closed, but there wasn't much in the way of furniture in the lab and certainly nothing movable to stack against it.
Morag's voice thundered down the hall, "STOP THEM! THEY ARE OPENING THE BIFROST!"
"Hurry, Freya," my mother instructed. "Swallow this"—she put a little tablet into my hand—"and get in the center of the circle so I can calibrate it."
I quickly positioned myself in the center of the circle and, immediately, long glowing straight lines of light began to materialize. The pure white light was brilliant and dazzling. The beams moved and shifted all around me—above my head and below my feet—then they began connecting, line by line. They created twelve large pentagons, dancing about my body like my own private laser show. One by one, each pentagon maneuvered to link with the pentagon next to it until they were all linked to form a slowly rotating dodecahedron. A wild wind started to rise up within the light.
Theron was struggling against the door. Soldiers on the other side were shouting and smashing up against it. He had managed to wedge something under the door, but I couldn't tell what it was, and it obviously wasn't going to hold them for long. It looked like the only thing really standi
ng in their way was Theron.
"The Bifrost will stay activated for three minutes before it shuts down again," my mother explained as she grabbed a brown leather satchel and stepped into the spinning light next to me.
"Theron, it's time!" I shouted over the increasing wind.
"I told you, Freya—I love you more than my life," he answered.
"What are you saying?!" I demanded.
"If I let go, they'll get through this door, leap through the portal and kill you. I can't let that happen." Theron's voice was resolved and I could see Morag's soldiers gaining leeway against the door.
"GET. IN. HERE. NOW!" I screamed at him in desperation.
But even as the words exited my mouth, I could feel every cell and molecule of my body impossibly shifting. All at once the temperate wind gathered in one purposeful direction, funneling my mom and me through it. The lab receded into the distance, giving the impression that we were falling, but I didn't feel like I was falling. The soles of my feet felt firmly stable on solid ground.
I pushed forward to break through the lights and reach Theron—to pull him in with us. But I couldn't even touch the lights. There was some sort of invisible shield.
"Once you're in, you can't get out," my mom said grimly.
Two soldiers burst through the door. Theron kicked the first one to the side and slammed the second soldier's head with the heavy door itself.
"THERON!" I shouted, but the sound was lost in the wind.
As the two soldiers crumpled to the floor, three more rushed in. Theron's sword gleamed in the fading scene. I watched him pivot and swing the weapon in a smooth arch. Then, like the sun setting over the horizon, the void closed and the scene was gone.
My Theron was gone.
My mother's hand clasped mine. A kaleidoscope of colors flickered randomly and enveloped us. We rushed through a tube—a surrounding curtain of white lights rushed past us.
For a moment, I was the light as it radiated throughout my circulating atoms. I was a powerful star, as brilliant as any that shone in the heavens. I was invincible, indestructible—eternal.
Hunted (Dark Secrets Book 1) Page 29