The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  He paused, cocking his head to one side. “Why are you becoming more distressed?”

  Had he read her thoughts? Without touching her? To hide her surprise at his question, she asked him one. “What kind of doctor are you?”

  “Heal-er,” he said in an exaggerated voice of impatience. “Understand?”

  She buried her worry under her temper. “Oh, I understand. Doc-tor A-hole. Got it.”

  If not for the dire circumstances, she’d get a laugh at the dumbfounded look on his face that said he had no idea what she’d just called him. And male ego, being what it was, meant he’d never admit to not knowing.

  Instead he frowned even more and reached for a basket on the floor. He pulled two puce-looking dried flowers out, tossed those in his bowl then continued crushing that with the leaves. He eyed her again, trying to decide something. When he finally made up his mind, he said, “I’m from the healing house. But I’m not called whatever you are calling me.”

  “Why not?”

  He paused in thought. “There are many names for what I do, but I have not studied them all.”

  Odd answer. Who were these people? But no matter how much effort it took, she had to keep the conversation going, hoping to find out something useful. “I was born in China. Hong Kong, but we moved around a lot.”

  Digesting that for a moment, he asked, “Your home?”

  “No.” Her neck muscles ached, getting tight like her arms, but she didn’t want to stop the tentative truce. That much she’d learned from her dad. The number of real discussions with him could be measured on the fingers of one hand, but if she did get him to talk, she made darn sure she kept him talking.

  Jaxxson pondered a few seconds then asked, “If you’re not tek-nah-tee, where are you from?”

  Her heart did a double bounce at the word “if.” Here was a chance to convince him she wasn’t tek-nah-tee and open the door for his friends to consider that Tony and Rayen might not be either.

  She carefully explained, “I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico for now, but my dad consults all over the world so I’ve lived everywhere–Berlin, Dubai, Singapore. What about you?”

  The silence that met her words raised hairs along her neck. The intensity of his stillness sent her pulse skyrocketing and with each hard pump of her heart she could swear she felt the infection spread.

  She started breathing in shorter, rougher gasps.

  Jaxxson grabbed a handful of his mixture again, sandwiching it between his palms. He shook his head as if grappling with something he couldn’t comprehend. “I live in City Four.”

  She shook her head. A city called by a number? “Four?”

  As if reading her mind again he explained, “Yes, YEG/4.”

  What was he talking about? Had she heard him right? Her eyes blurred then cleared. She wheezed a breath in and out.

  He squatted down in front of her, real concern showing on his face for the first time. “I have to rub this on your wrists at the infection origin. Right now.”

  That meant touching her. She swallowed past her dry lips, and her fear. “No. Give me the bowl. I’ll do it.”

  “How will you do that with fingers that refuse to work?”

  She didn’t have an answer for him. Her head was splitting and it was getting harder and harder to swallow.

  “This will not work without my touch,” he added.

  “Why?”

  “You’re serious? Were you born of this millennium?”

  Pain blazed through her. She snapped at him. “Of course not, I was born in...” Her chest wouldn’t expand. She forced out, “1997.”

  His eyes widened as he whispered, “Not possible.”

  “Oh, really? When were you born...uhggg...” She flailed her arms at her neck, unable to reach her throat.

  Jaxxson reached for her, his face ripped with anxiety and anger. “You lie. Who are you? Don’t close your eyes!”

  His fingers latched tight onto one of her wrists.

  She tried to protest, but couldn’t. Words snagged in her closing throat. Her vision blurred. Pain raged through her wrist, her whole body. She jerked her arm, but couldn’t pull away and started falling back, back, back into a bottomless void.

  Jaxxson’s bewildered thoughts burst into her mind.

  She lies.

  1997 is impossible.

  I was born in 2162.

  CHAPTER 19

  I stalked behind Zilya who followed Etoi as Callan led all of us through another tunnel in the green fog that protected the village. The air seemed to have thickened, clawing at my skin and making each breath labored, even though we were not yet in the jungle.

  Zilya had traded her queenly robes for a leaner, two-piece look similar to Etoi’s. The tops covered their breasts and tied at the necks. The bottom parts stopped mid-thigh. Pants...no, I’d heard them called shorts.

  Where? At the school? Or somewhere else?

  The material hugged their bodies like soft deerskin.

  But deerskin was tan colored. Not spotted like a leopard.

  Leopards have spots. If that was correct, more fragmented memories and knowledge were sifting through the black hole in my mind.

  We exited on the opposite side of the village from where I’d originally entered. I set my bearings according to the red moon–as Gabby had labeled it–that had moved halfway across the sky. Hard to believe that a full day hadn’t passed yet since we’d arrived here. Or had it?

  Callan picked up his near-silent pace, moving us quickly over a narrow strip of open land, through dead grayish and yellow-orange vegetation to a copse of trees that looked more like forest than jungle. The minute the four of us reached the first tall trees with ghost branches, gnarled and white, Callan swung around and said, “This is good.”

  Etoi carried two spears and whispered something to Zilya as they both stopped.

  When Zilya’s gaze intercepted mine, she lost her chuckle and fumbled with the short spear Etoi handed her. Could the delicate Zilya handle that weapon and hold her own? Guess I’d find out soon.

  Callan ordered, “Etoi will lead, then Zilya, me, then her.”

  Her? “My name’s Rayen.”

  Etoi protested, “I won’t have her behind Zilya or me.”

  So much for trying to get on a first-name basis. I felt a smidgen of sympathy for Callan who always seemed one word from losing his patience with Etoi.

  Zilya didn’t interfere, other than allowing Callan to see that she, too, wasn’t comfortable with me following her.

  Callan’s skin deepened in hue when he drew a long breath as if that would wash away his frustration with outspoken Etoi. “If the three of us don’t return to the village, the other two prisoners will be executed. She–” Callan nodded at me. “–knows this and won’t try to escape or harm one of us. And since you should know the most vulnerable position is the last in line, does that mean you wish to take her place?”

  Understanding brightened Zilya’s eyes once she grasped Callan’s logic. “Good plan. How do you want to split up?”

  Etoi opened her mouth to voice her opinion and Callan glared her into silence. “You take Etoi, Zilya, and I’ll take...her.”

  “Why?” Zilya demanded.

  That snapped the latch on Callan’s temper. He stepped over to her, his body swelled with restrained fury, his color one shade now–deep violet. “Etoi is too impulsive to be put with her and heeds only you. I’m the best one to deal with the captive if she creates a problem. We don’t have the time to argue with a child’s life potentially depending on us. You’re of the Governing House, not the Warrior House. Need I remind you who is in charge out here? Force me to waste another breath explaining and you’ll regret it.”

  “We’ll discuss this further with Mathias when we return.” Zilya stood firm and spoke with authority, but everything else about her seemed to shrink back from his anger. Flags of embarrassment waved in her cheeks. She didn’t wilt like a flower that had been trampled, but withdrew in respect of the foo
t that could smash her.

  Interesting dynamics. Now if only I could use that tension to my advantage to get myself, Gabby and Tony free.

  Callan sent me a look of discomfort at having his group’s flaws laid out in front of a stranger, but when he spoke to Etoi, his voice was that of a leader. “Are we clear?”

  “Of course.”

  She’d answered in a respectful tone that I didn’t believe for a minute, but it seemed to mollify everyone’s temper. I didn’t know why I wanted to do it, but I decided to help out Callan by distracting his attention from the other two.

  I asked him, “How long is it going to take to get where we’re going?”

  “Not long. Let’s get moving.”

  Etoi took off into the undergrowth with Zilya right behind. Zilya’s white-blond spikes of hair bounced above the vegetation, keeping her visible.

  Callan stepped away and tossed over his shoulder, “Keep up.”

  I smiled and waved my hand in a keep-moving motion. “I won’t lose you.”

  He headed into the forest at a brisk pace, slapping chocolate-hued branches out of his way with sharp swings of his sword. I noticed which plants he tended to sidestep—orangish pink, and deep blue ones. Some were spiky and others furry like soft chick-down. So I knew what chick-down was, huh?

  A loud caw overhead alerted me to a gray-yellow bird. At least I thought it was a bird, except for the long scaly tail that drooped behind it. The tail broke off into four individual lengths, like different sized whips.

  “Watch that,” Callan ordered, halting me in my stride.

  I shoved my gaze in the direction he pointed and saw a very small bear-type animal, all fluffy and furry until the critter’s neck extended once again as long as its body. Half its head opened up to expose three rows of lethal, slicing fangs that were almost as large as the animal’s wide paws.

  “What is that?” I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until Callan made a snort sound.

  “It’s called a muttrapper.”

  “Is it as lethal as it looks?”

  “Worse. Each of those teeth is tipped in poison.”

  “Nice mutt-whatever. Be a nice mutt-rapper,” I murmured as I sidestepped around the critter. “Guess this means you’re saving me for the croggle.”

  He glanced at me, puzzlement staining his expression. “If I wanted to feed you to something, I’d have told you to pet the muttrapper.”

  He’d sounded insulted. What’d I say wrong? “Just joking. I appreciate the warning,” I said to his back as he marched ahead. This bunch didn’t have much sense of humor.

  Fine by me. Now, I could drop my mask of subservient prisoner and focus on the important things, like keeping track of where I was in relation to the village.

  Callan followed a trail deeper into landscape thick with vines as large as my legs, leaves of yellow, red and rust.

  I tried to memorize as many landmarks as possible in order to return on my own if I needed to, but the trees were so huge they blocked out any distant view. So I started noting shapes of trees like the one I’d just passed that hunched over like an ancient elder. Another towering one dead ahead split into five arms, with long, thin branches like fingers reaching toward the changing sky. Everything in this place seemed oversized, twisted and lethal.

  What made this place a sphere? That’s what Mathias had called it. Who were Callan, Mathias, Zilya and the others, and where had they come from if this was not their home?

  They clearly weren’t happy about being here and it wasn’t by choice, so what had happened? Were they prisoners, too? Maybe I could convince them to work with us and find a way home...but where was their home?

  And what was the possibility of Callan working with Tony–the one he’d deemed an enemy tek-nah-tee beyond any doubt–in any lifetime? Zero.

  That put me back to where I’d started, which wasn’t much of a place to be, considering I had no idea what the word “home” meant to me either. And if I didn’t get back to the Institute, I wouldn’t find out what information my fingerprints had revealed.

  Even if I did, would that give me my memory?

  What about that healer who was hopefully taking care of Gabby? Could he heal more than the body? Like finding my lost memories? I asked Callan, “Can your healer work on any part of the body?”

  Callan snapped at me, “You feeling ill?”

  “No.”

  “Then be quiet and keep up.”

  So much for a friendly conversation.

  I managed to stay on pace just fine and, like Callan, I moved ghost-quiet in this setting, which made me wonder if being in the wild was familiar to me. Had I hunted at one time?

  Slipping up close to him, I whispered, “Right behind you.”

  Smooth muscles flexed with his fluid movements. The mottled colors on his skin shifted a tiny bit. Did emotion affect the change? He’d never admit I’d surprised him.

  With Etoi and Zilya moving along seven to eight steps ahead of Callan, I tried once more to engage the hard-nosed warrior in a conversation. “Why are you here?”

  He wouldn’t answer.

  “What is this place? Did you get into trouble to be sent here?”

  He sent an implacable expression over his shoulder that should unnerve me if I had that kind of temperament, but I was finding I didn’t have many docile bones in my body.

  I kept verbally poking at him, telling myself it was only to get information. Not because I wanted to break through that stony wall and make him interact with me as someone other than a prisoner. “How long have you been here?”

  “Be quiet, tek-nah-tee,” he growled.

  “Thought I made it clear that I am not a tek-nah-tee.”

  “Anyone who walks with the enemy and protects the enemy is the enemy.”

  That told me the cost of defending Tony and stepping in to take his place. “You going to tell me what a tek-nah-tee is?”

  “Vermin. You’re all vermin.” He spat the words.

  Vermin? That sounded familiar. “You think I’m a...rodent? A rat?”

  He shook his head as if to himself and muttered something that would be dark if it had color. “Calling you a rat would be unkind–”

  There was hope for this conversation.

  “–to rats. Tek-nah-tee are more like cockroaches. Single-minded, stupid insects with no regard for what’s decent. No other creature than the cockroach has survived every devastation in our world.”

  His attitude annoyed me on a level I couldn’t explain. More than feeling irritated. He compared me to something disgusting. That cut me when I shouldn’t care what this stranger thought. I changed the direction of my next question. “So where do the tek-nah-tees stay in this place?”

  He swung around so fast I almost ran into him and had to throw my hands against his chest to stop myself.

  My pulse pounded at touching him.

  He stood there for a second, long enough for me to feel his heart thrumming a fast beat before he backed away from my touch. I dropped my hands, fighting an awkward feeling at the way he made it clear how much he detested being touched by me. He walked backwards so I had to follow, but not as close as before.

  After a silent couple of steps, he said, “You know tek-nah-tees only visit this world to drop off incoming mystik passengers or spy on those of us who still live. Why do you ask these questions?”

  I juggled what I knew to this point. I could understand his hostility if the tek-nah-tee forced kids into this scary place and killed them, but I still didn’t understand why he seemed convinced that I was one. I had no mark on my neck like the one on Tony that had created a stir with them.

  “You’re an intelligent person, Callan. Think this through. You have no solid proof that I’m a tek-nah-tee. If you could open your mind to the idea that I might not be your enemy, then maybe we could help each other.”

  To be fair, there was some chance I could be a tek-nah-tee since I had no memory prior to this morning, but I would not harm a child
and, without any real proof, I refused to be marked as a child killer.

  Callan turned around and picked his sure-footed way through an undulating area of roots–had that root just moved?–and uneven, hard-packed red dirt when the path leveled out.

  Was he actually entertaining the possibility of what I suggested?

  I thought so, until he muttered, “I will not be tricked again by a tek-nah-tee.” He turned to me again and jabbed the spear at my chest, point first, but stopped short of breaking skin.

  Furious at the mere threat of attack, I caught the shaft before the tip had any chance of doing damage. Yanking the end up and toward me, I brought us face-to-face, feeling smug when we stood so close I could see sparks of red firing through his eyes that were now a somber brown in this shadowed light. His nose flared as if he’d caught a wild scent and his gaze dropped to my mouth.

  My thoughts skidded to a halt, long enough for the anger to bleed out of me. I had the craziest thought of wanting to run my finger across that sculpted mouth to force a smile, just to see what he looked like happy.

  A flash of movement drew my eyes to a flutter of rainbow-colored wings the size of my two hands spread open. Four flapping wings on a furry body that had a chipmunk-looking head, beady black eyes and small legs with claws that were extended as it flew towards Callan. Large and lethal claws.

  Shaking himself from whatever had happened for those few seconds, he snarled at me. “Don’t think to use your powers on me without suffering repercussion.”

  I ignored his words, too focused on the threat. I spun away and broke a dead limb thick as my thumb from a tree and leaned back, prepared to throw my make-do spear at the attacking bird.

  Callan took one look over his shoulder and dove at me, grabbing my arm. “No!”

  We both lost our balance. I toppled backwards, landing hard against the ground, one shoulder scraping a tree. He came down on my chest with a thunk, knocking the breath from me. I groaned, but kept my eyes open, searching for the threatening bird thing.

  The flying critter had landed on a small sapling at Callan’s feet but now flew back up into the tree, squeaking in terror the whole way.