by S. S. Segran
“Maybe they were directed away to keep this place clear for our arrival,” Victor said. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“Oh, right. No, there’s nowhere they could be hiding as far as I could tell. The terminal is almost all glass, and the . . . those walkways that stick out and connect to planes, what are those called?”
“Jet bridges,” Kody said immediately, Aari answering half a second behind him. He shot the redhead a self-satisfied grin.
Tegan nodded. “Yeah, there are a few of those, but the parts at the end where they connect up to the planes are closed.”
Victor tried to picture her descriptions. “What about other buildings?”
“They’re too far away from the plane for anyone to use them for an ambush. All in all, it’s pretty open ground. Neutral territory.”
“Better for everyone that way.”
Kody stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, punting a stone on the ground. It went flying and hit the door of one of the dead cars. After a few beats, he murmured, “I’m really excited to get our boy back. It’s been nearly two months since we last saw him.”
“This never would have happened if we hadn’t left him in Israel,” Mariah said.
Victor wanted to dig his teeth into his tongue. Wasn’t this technically his fault? Had he not let Tony loose, the punk wouldn’t have been able to get his hands on Jag.
“But with his fractured leg, there was no way he would’ve been able to follow us through Africa,” Tegan said. “We fell into the Nile, had to fight off bandits and crocodiles, trek for hours to get to a plane, trek more hours to search for the seeds, climb a freakin’ mountain, and face Reyor’s mercenaries twice. Or was it three times?”
Aari blinked. “All of that happened in two months?”
“That specifically was actually within two weeks,” Mariah said.
As the reality of those words hit them, the friends stared at each other, incredulous. Victor was taken aback when he found himself having to stifle a small smile. “Come on,” he said, rounding the truck to get behind the wheel. “The sooner we head to the airport, the sooner we can get him back.”
“Let’s gooooo!” With a burst of exuberance, Kody took a running start and leapt, diving through the open window. Tegan shrieked, flattening herself out of the way and narrowly avoiding him as he soared into the backseat.
“Are you crazy?” she yelped, smacking his arm.
Aari and Mariah cackled, joining them in the truck as suspicion of the situation gradually morphed into cautious optimism and joy at the prospect of seeing their friend again. The ride to the airport was only three miles, but three miles of antsy teenage energy nearly drove Victor to throw himself out the door. Kody led the pack of them into a booming marching call of “I Don’t Know, But I’ve Been Told,” most of the words exchanged for something or another relating to all that had transpired to the friends since their plane crashed in northern Canada.
They settled once they got to the airport, searching for an access route to drive onto the tarmac, but every entryway they tried was blocked by upright concrete barriers with fencing on top. Victor headed toward the wider end of the airport’s exterior. Using another bird, Tegan guided him toward a small complex whose signpost, according to Victor’s limited Spanish, indicated it was the new air traffic control center. The road on one side of the facility was open, allowing the truck to rumble past in the direction of a rust-colored field with paved lanes and runways that lay between the new buildings and the terminal. In the half-mile it took to traverse the space, the vehicle went dead quiet. Victor’s four charges were holding their breath, straining to see through the windshield to where the sleek Gulfstream was parked with its nose pointing toward one of the taxiways.
Mariah let out a gasp. The cabin door opened downward, the steps unfolding. A tall, bronzed figure with longish dark hair emerged, gaze fixed on the approaching truck. He was a little thinner than Victor remembered, but Jag beamed widely as the truck pulled close to the plane and the group piled out, the friends sprinting at breakneck speed toward him. Tegan pulled ahead, reaching him first. He cried out and swooped her up in a flying hug, spinning her around before setting her down. Mariah was next but she locked her arms firmly around him, not allowing him to pick her up. He placed his hands on the sides of her head and buried his face in her hair. When the boys caught up, he lifted them in a hug, one in each arm. They yelled with laughter, trying to pull free until he let them go.
Victor arrived a little slower, the rifle across his back once more, the pistol held low but ready. Though annoyed that the group hadn’t waited for him to clear the area, there was a spark of relief in seeing Jag once more. He swept his eyes toward the plane’s open door but no one else came out. He could see the pilot seated comfortably in the cockpit, looking completely at ease with his nose buried in a book.
When Jag saw Victor, he gave a slight smile and an awkward nod. Victor inclined his head marginally in response. The friends clamored to question Jag; they were all beaming, and a couple of them were misty-eyed.
“I can’t believe this!” Tegan said, looking Jag up and down. “What happened?”
Jag blew out a breath. “Where do I even begin?”
“From the start,” Aari suggested.
“Right. Okay. So . . . in Israel, after Tony and his people killed Danny, I took off for the nearest town to shake them off, but they stayed on me. I grabbed a motorcycle, made a break for it and almost got rid of them until a stupid eighteen-wheeler came out of nowhere. I tried to avoid it but fell off the bike pretty hard, and that was where Tony nabbed me. I was knocked out. Next thing I know, I’m at the Heart, strapped to a chair, and they’ve got this device around my head that suppresses my abilities. Then Reyor walks in, and her mentor comes in right after—”
“What?” Victor cut in sharply. “What mentor?”
“Her?” Kody echoed. “Reyor’s a woman?”
Jag shook his head. “I know, right? It’s like the Elders took all the effort to erase everything about her except her name, and even that—”
“Jag,” Victor snapped. “What mentor?”
The teenager turned his amber eyes on the Sentry. “His name is Mokun. He’s the architect of everything Reyor has done.”
Tegan held up a hand. “Is that the guy you said is more powerful than Reyor? The one who can put a stop to this?”
“That’s him. He laid the groundwork for all this, and the crazy part is, he’s one of the Island’s survivors.”
Victor made a disbelieving sound. “Sounds like he’s stringing you along.”
“That’s what I thought, too.”
“It is impossible, unless . . .” Aari scratched the side of his head. “Unless he used the black crystal.”
“You know about it?” Jag asked, stunned.
“You know about it?”
“Mokun told me. How did you find out?”
“The Elders told us about it when we went back to Dema-Ki without you. They said it can extend someone’s life for centuries, but they never mentioned it had been used for that before.”
“Well, it was. Mokun got it into his system before he fled Dema-Ki.”
Mariah narrowed her eyes. “Why did he leave?”
Jag hesitated. “He killed people. He says he was in a dark place and it consumed him. After he got the black crystal injected, it sort of took over for a while and he didn’t know what had happened until he awoke afterward.”
Victor had never heard any of this before, and his mind was working overtime to piece all this new information into a coherent picture.
“I wonder why the Elders never told us about this,” Aari muttered.
“Maybe they don’t know? All this happened over two thousand years ago.”
“Do you really believe this man?” Tegan asked.
Jag rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s been pretty open with me so far.”
“So why did they let you go?”
&nbs
p; “They didn’t. Mokun did. He’s been keeping Reyor away from me as much as possible. He can stop their attacks and save the people that remain, but he wants to make sure he’s not wrong. One of the SONEs studied my mitochondrial DNA and found the part of me that has evolved—that allowed me to have my abilities. Guys, Mokun needs our help. He wants me to bring you to the Heart so they can test you as well. If all of you have the same markers I do, he’ll be convinced enough to stop everything.”
Victor couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “He and Reyor went all this way, caused all this damage, and you’re saying he’s willing to pull the plug now? Yeah, right.”
“It does seem weird,” Aari admitted. “Maybe we should find somewhere to sit and regroup, take some time to think this through. And we should get the Elders in on this.”
“We absolutely should,” Kody said firmly.
Jag’s face dropped. “Guys, the jet can take us straight to the Heart. We can stop all of this by tomorrow.”
“I really think we should talk things over, just a bit more,” Tegan said quietly. “We need time to process and discuss and ask you more questions.”
“We don’t have the time! We’re the only ones that can stop them from killing more people!”
Mariah scuffed one shoe against the other, lips pursed, then raised her chin. “Maybe we should do this. Just end it all. Sooner the better, right?”
“No way,” Kody said. “Let’s at least get out of the open and go somewhere to talk this out.”
Jag threw his hands up. “Are you serious? Lives are being lost every minute and you want to talk? I’ve already done all the talking with Mokun. Just trust me and let’s go. Please.”
Tegan glanced at Victor, as if she were trying to read his face to see what he was thinking, then said, “I know you’re impatient to get going, so how about we just get to the truck and figure out what to do from there.”
She started to move, but Jag caught her wrist. She tugged, trying to pull herself free. He held on, the tendons in his hand straining. A warning flared in Tegan’s eyes. “Jag, you’re hurting me.”
He looked down at his hand, then quickly let her go. “I’m sorry. It’s just—I’ve been stuck in that place for weeks, feeling so helpless. So useless. And now that there’s a chance . . . Teegs, this is important. You know it is. It’s why we’ve gone through everything since the Guardians brought us to Dema-Ki. We can make the difference we’re supposed to make. This is our role in the prophecy. Guys, please. Let’s go and finish this off together. We’re so close.”
Victor had heard enough. “Come with us, Jag. Tegan and Kody are right, we need to think all the angles through.”
“Stay out of this,” Jag growled.
“Hey, that’s not cool,” Kody said. “Jag, we really should just—”
Projectiles whistled out of thin air. The friends staggered, then collapsed, darts protruding from their bodies.
Victor snapped his gun up toward the plane’s cabin door. There was no one there. He frantically searched the area before realization hit him. He spun to face the closest jet bridges but was thrown back by an impact to the shoulder. Two more shots missed him. As he fell, another bullet zipped right by where his head had been. He landed on his good shoulder with a groan and fired blind with one hand while swinging his rifle around to the front.
The jet bridges’ doors stood open and over a dozen mercenaries in uniform lunged out, tucking into rolls to break their ten-foot fall. When they popped back up, it was to unleash the wrath of their arsenal. Victor made a grab for the closest unconscious form—Mariah—but nearly had his hand blown off. He took aim with the rifle and fired, knowing he was outgunned. Raising a hand, he let loose a concussive blast that knocked over three of the mercenaries, but the others had spread out so far apart he could only hit them one at a time, maybe two if he dropped his gun. Either way, if he didn’t get to cover, he’d be dead. And a dead man was useless.
Cursing vehemently, he made his way back to the truck at a stumbling run, zigzagging haphazardly to keep the bullets off him. His shoulder blistered with unbearable heat, but someone or something must have been looking out for him because he could still move his arm, which meant his nerve bundles hadn’t been destroyed.
Behind him, the plane came to life with a long, high-pitched whine. The engines started up, sounding like a flare of white noise. He flung himself behind the truck as projectiles pinging and ricocheted off the frame while others buried themselves in the vehicle.
Need to disable the plane first, then it’ll be easier to handle the mercs when they’ve got nowhere to go.
Victor dropped his weapons and forced out another wave of energy that only pushed the plane’s nose a couple of feet sideways. The nerves in his head seized; attempting to off-track a jet that weighed upward of fifty thousand pounds would have him pass out if he didn’t stop, but he could not let them take the kids. He tried again, throwing everything he had into it, but the plane hardly budged further. His vision narrowed dangerously, the pulsating agony in his head threatening to send him into unconsciousness.
When there was a break in gunfire, he dropped his abilities, panting, the taste of blood in his mouth, and looked around the tailgate in time to see the men hauling the friends’ limp bodies into the Gulfstream. Two other mercenaries had their weapons readied in his direction. He sent the pair flying, though not before they released a hail of bullets that tore toward him. He managed to deflect some but had to yank himself back to safety to avoid the others streaking by. In that moment, the plane started to roll forward. His heart sank into his stomach, and he felt sick.
He was going to lose the kids.
He was going to fail in the worst way imaginable.
He was going to have to report to the Elders that he hadn’t been able to do his job—his one job—safeguarding the Chosen Ones.
And Reyor was going to win.
For the next minute, he experienced everything detached from his body. His hands shot out another wave of energy as the mercenaries he’d struck jumped into the open door and the plane taxied toward the runway, but he didn’t tell them to. He roared as it gathered speed down the wide lane, but he couldn’t hear himself. And when the jet took off, his abilities petered off and he leaned back against the truck, jamming his fingers into the wound in his shoulder in twisted penance. The pain almost made him black out, but it wasn’t even half of what he deserved. He forced his fingers deeper, feeling the warm blood and the bullet buried within his flesh.
Somehow you always fail, don’t you? Can’t protect anyone when it matters the most. His wrath gave way to disgust and suffocating shame. You should have died with them years ago. Then someone more deserving would have been with the kids, would have been able to watch out for them better.
He stared after the plane as it grew smaller in the insultingly joyful sky, then glanced down at the guns he’d dropped for a long, blank moment. Not knowing what else to do, he reached out to the last person he wanted to speak with. He scanned the novasphere until he found the familiar, repulsively warm, altruistic presence and threw himself against it over and over until it opened up.
The voice that answered sounded astonished. Colback?
Victor slid down to the tarmac, head resting against the tailgate as he bled out. I screwed up, Mars. I screwed up bad.
Where are you?
Valencia. Spain.
There was a pause, then Marshall said, Hang tight. I’ll be on my way soon.
Victor severed the connection before any questions could be asked. He didn’t bother wondering how the other Sentry was going to arrive, or when. With any luck, he’d be dead before then.
The squeak of rubber wheels against polished floor roused Tegan from her stupor. She struggled to pull herself out of the thick fog even as tendrils crawled out, shackling her arms and legs to drag her back into a comfortable slumber. She fought against them, kicking and snarling as alarm bells sounded faintly somewhere in the depths of her mi
nd.
With a final thrash, she broke free. Her eyes eased open ever so slightly and light seeped in. She rumbled low in her throat, wanting to shut everything out again.
Then the alarm bells burst to the forefront and her eyes cracked open. Above her, a boy around her age, wearing scrubs, wheeled her down a corridor that seemed to be carved from solid rock, with walls of rich coppery-brown stone that protruded and staggered like natural ashlar. Sconces on either side gave off warm light, frosting the rockface in a dreamlike glimmer. Tegan wondered if she was even awake at all.
The boy wheeling her hadn’t yet noticed that she was conscious. Why was she on a gurney? Had something happened? Was she hurt? She wiggled her fingers and toes, doing a full-body scan, but nothing seemed amiss except for an ache in the side of her neck and the fuzziness that clung to the edges of her thoughts.
She glanced down. Between her bare feet—why were her feet bare?—she saw the narrow back of a second young man in scrubs and, in front of him, the edges of another gurney. A hand with a familiar leather cuff bracelet flopped over the side.
Aari. Tegan’s blood ran cold. Oh, no.
Before she could ponder further, a quiet buzz made her left ear twitch. She glanced over as they passed a door. A woman walked out, and Tegan got a glimpse inside the room. What the . . .
A massive screen display in front of what looked like a small control center depicted figures in space suits, some bounding over a dark, uneven surface against a black backdrop, others drilling into the ground.
Then the door swung shut and exhaustion washed back over Tegan’s body and mind, draping over her like a weighted blanket, luring her to retreat into the waiting arms of sleep. She struggled against it and tried to call out telepathically to the others, but it was as if a wall had been erected around her consciousness. She could no longer sense her friends, couldn’t make it past the barrier into the novasphere.
Defeated, she released her grip and tumbled backwards into the void.