by R. A. Rock
“Shiv, just frickin’ tell us, please, man,” Chad said in an imploring tone of voice.
“You know what happened before?”
“When you lost…” Grace started.
“Yes, we know what happened?” I interrupted her before she could finish. What had happened was branded into my heart where it ached every moment of every day. “So what?”
“So, you know how because of what we did, they told you that she was as good as dead?”
“Yes,” I said, grinding my teeth and wondering why we were reliving this torment.
“Well, I think they’re wrong. Grace and I think they’re wrong. We think we know how to do it. If Grace worked with a regular surgeon and she did kinetic surgery. We think that we could save her.”
“But not if…” Grace stopped.
“Not if we don’t make it back,” Chad said. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us this before, you two.”
The expression on his face was more furious than I had ever seen it and I’ve known him a long time.
“I’m going to need a minute,” he said, stalking off towards the lake.
I stood in silence, not sure what to do.
It was terrible to have lost her.
But to have a chance to get her back? And to waste it on a stranger I barely knew?
“Shit,” I said. “I really believed that we should help Zoe. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Of course, Yumi,” Grace said, taking my hand. “But what if you could get her back? What if she wasn’t gone anymore? I know it’s been killing you slowly, what happened. What if that all went away?”
“God, Grace,” I said, my voice breaking. “It’s all I think about.”
“Then maybe Audrey’s right,” she said. “Maybe we should go back right now.”
I shook my head, still in shock.
“Chad’s right. Neither of us should make a decision without thinking about it.”
“Yumi,” Shiv said, as if he was being kind to an idiot. “You can’t make separate decisions. You need to go talk to him. This is both your decision. She was important to both of you.”
Oh yeah. Right. Somehow I had forgotten in my own pain that Chad had been hurt by her loss, too.
“You’re right,” I said. “Of course, you’re right.”
And I followed Chad down to the water, not looking forward to this conversation at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAD
I was a mess.
I was a fucking mess.
I had been hiding it behind a big smile and some really stupid missions in the past year. But this mission had to be the stupidest of all.
And now.
Now.
The thought of her.
God, I had really loved her and I had only known her for a few weeks. And now there was a chance we could get her back. She wouldn’t be gone anymore.
It was too much.
I almost wished Shiv hadn’t told us.
Because this changed everything.
Everything.
I didn’t care about Zoe.
I didn’t care about Matt and Ness and their family.
If I could get rid of this gaping chasm in my heart, I would do it. In a moment. Without even thinking about it.
“Chad?”
It was Yumi.
I wiped the tears away from my eyes before I turned to face her. The sunrise this morning was achingly beautiful — but not nearly as beautiful as Yumi, even with her face pale and dark circles under her tired eyes. But I didn’t want to talk to her. Not when I was a mess like this.
I turned back to face the lake, watching out of the corner of my eye as the sun slowly inched its way over the trees.
“What do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk. I did enough talking last night.”
“Look, forget about that. We need to talk about… her.”
“Of course we do,” I said. “What else would we be talking about? But I don’t want to talk about her. I just want her back, Yumi. I can’t take this pain anymore.”
“I know,” she said. “I know. I want her back too. More than anything. You have to know that.”
I did. I knew.
“But Chad. You taught me everything I know about doing what’s right. How could we go back and be happy, knowing that we might have abandoned Zoe to a fate far, far worse than death?”
Now Yumi was giving me moral advice? The assassin? Seriously? This night couldn’t get any worse.
“You saw what he did to her in front of everyone. Imagine what he would do to her without anybody around. With no one to restrain him?”
She shuddered and I remembered that she had once been a captive like that. Helpless. With no one to save her.
“If I could have killed him and freed you, I would have,” I said.
“I know you would have, Red,” she said, taking a step closer to me. “And that’s why we have to do this. We have to kill him and free her. Because you couldn’t do it for me. But we can do it for her.”
“But Yumi…”
“Do you think she would want us to leave Zoe? What if she found out twenty, thirty years from now? Do you think we would be able to look her in the face?”
I clenched my jaw.
“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to have to tell her that we abandoned Zoe for her.”
“Exactly. And that’s why we have to do this, Chad. We have to save Zoe. We can’t save the whole world. But we can save their world.”
I stared at her.
When had she got so eloquent?
“And then we go home. And we sort everything else out.”
“I thought my thousand apologies weren’t enough,” I said, feeling the numbness taking over again to block the pain. “I thought all that was done.”
“Maybe it is. I don’t know,” she said, her eyes showing nothing but honesty. “But Chad. You have to admit. This changes everything.”
“It does,” I said, my voice gone hard. “Everything except that you can’t forgive me. And I can’t forgive you for not forgiving me.”
She pressed her lips together.
“Okay, whatever. I… can’t think about that now. But we’ve made our decision? We’re staying to help Zoe?”
“We are,” I said, turning to face the lake, my body language clearly dismissing her.
“Okay. I’ll see you back up there, then. I think they’re still waiting for us in the living room.”
She started walking up the hill, her footsteps crunching on the fallen leaves.
“And Chad?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t turn.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry that I can’t forgive you.”
“Sure. Whatever. I don’t fucking care.”
“Oh. No, of course not,” she said in a small voice that would have made me feel terrible without the awful numbness that erased all my feelings.
I don’t fucking care, I repeated to myself as she walked away.
I guess that was my new mantra.
That one ought to make my mom proud.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
YUMI
I was still reeling from Chad’s cruel words as I walked back up the hill and told Grace and Shiv that we had decided to stay and help. The sun had risen and all I wanted was to curl up in my bed and sleep. But there were things to do. And I couldn’t shirk my responsibilities. I never had. And I never would.
“You do not have to do this,” Nessa said as soon as we came back in. “Audrey’s right. You should go right now. We know about what it’s like to have your life ripped away overnight and we wouldn’t wish it on anyone, right guys?”
She looked at Matt who nodded.
“We’ll get her back,” Matt said. “We’ve broken people out of his prison camp before. We can do it again.”
“You couldn’t do it last time,” Ernest said in a soft voice. He was staring out the window.
“Ernie,” Matt said, clearly hurting for his friend. “We’re not going to let him keep Zoe. Of course, we’re going to go back right away.”
I shook my head.
“It’s not going to be that easy. You do need us. And this is why.”
I explained what the woman in Brett’s house had told us about Brett’s plans.
“This changes everything,” Ernest said and I felt Chad’s flinch beside me when Ernest used the same words I had only minutes ago. “She said that he plans to force her to marry him? But he sent her to the prison camp to punish her first?”
“That’s the gist of it,” I said. “I hate to say it but I think he’s going to try and break her before he marries her. So she’ll be more docile.”
“What?” Ernest said, confused.
“Torture,” I said. It wasn’t pretty but he needed to understand that they truly needed us.
“What?” Nessa said.
“It’s just my guess but whatever experience you’ve had with him before. It sounds like he’s upping his game. And this is not going to be easy.”
“We have fighting skills,” Grace broke in. “We’re all Telepaths and I’m a Kinetic and can move things with my mind. Shiv can manifest shit, so that’s pretty cool. And handy. We’re not just four more bodies, Matt.”
We all nodded.
“And the guard he’s put on her sounds fucking scary,” I added. “If everything the woman said was true.”
“It’s true,” Chad said. “He almost killed me.”
“And what if more people die?” Ernest said. “And what if we don’t get her back? These people are offering to help. No, they’re choosing to help. In spite of what they may lose. Who are we to stop them from being generous?”
“It’s too much to ask,” Matt said.
“Oh really?” Ernest rounded on his friend, his black eyes flashing. “And would you feel the same if it was Nessa in Brett’s clutches? God knows what he’s done to Zoe… or is doing to her right now.”
His voice got thick with tears.
“And what about the baby, Matt? What if Penny was going to have to grow up in that place? Would it be too much to ask then?”
Matt was silent, thinking.
“It doesn’t matter what you want us to do,” Chad said, stepping forward. “We’re staying. I mean, I am.”
“Me too,” Shiv and Gracie said at the same time, then smiled at each other.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to seem disloyal to Audrey. But I wasn’t leaving either. It was the right thing to do and I was going to do it.
“Me too,” I said. “We’re willing to take the risk.”
“What about Audrey?” Nessa said.
“She doesn’t have a choice,” Shiv said. “We have to go together.”
“So, it’s decided then,” Ernest said. “We’re taking the prison camp by storm.”
He seemed pretty excited but when I looked at Chad and Shiv and Gracie, their faces were solemn. This was going to be anything but easy. And we had to plan, travel, and execute everything in 72 hours.
“Okay,” I said. “We need a plan.”
***
Chad sat back and rubbed his eyes. We had been at this for hours and we were all exhausted.
“So,” Shiv said. “To sum up. We will break in using a completely different entrance into the prison camp because Gracie’s going to pick the locks kinetically. Yumi will do her mental scream and knock out most of the guards — and probably prisoners too — Chad and I will shield our people and Zoe. With everyone knocked out, escape will be easy.”
“You forgot about killing Brett,” I reminded him. The redheads looked annoyed at that. “And Plan B is that if for some reason none of that works, we knock down the goddamn door, go in armed to the nuts, kick some ass, grab Zoe, and get out of there.”
“And we’ll take Cynthia and Penny to the narrows outpost and leave them with our people there. Because you think they’ll be sitting ducks if we leave them here,” Nessa said to me.
“Right. If I was Brett and I wanted to make you suffer, which seems to be his plan, I would definitely try to take the girl and your mother.”
They all frowned.
“And if we leave them unprotected…” I held up a hand to stave off their objections that they wouldn’t be protected. In my opinion, if one of the five of us or Matt, Ness, or Ernest wasn’t here. They were as good as unprotected. “Or even protected but here in the most obvious place in the world. I mean, if I was Brett, I’d send someone to come and get them.”
“You’re right. Of course, we’ll hide them at the outpost which is on our way and then continue on to the prison camp,” Matt said.
“Sounds good,” Ernest said. “I think we’ve thought of everything. We should get some sleep.”
“Okay, we prep tomorrow and travel halfway,” Matt said. “Then go the rest of the way the next day and attack at night. We come as far back as we can. And return all the way on the third day — getting you back in time to get home.”
Well, that would take a frickin’ miracle. And we hadn’t planned for everything that could go wrong. But it was the best we had. And it would have to do.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
YUMI
Audrey had been gone early this morning, nobody knew where. And I was worried about her. She had been making a lot of progress from evil villain, to normal human being and I didn’t want the stress of this situation setting her back, which it seemed to be doing.
I walked into the kitchen where everyone was having breakfast.
“I’m going to have a look around for Audrey,” I said. “I’m worried about her. She doesn’t know our planet.”
I saw the blink of surprise on Matt’s face as he remembered that we weren’t who he had thought we were.
“Where’s she from?” Nessa said, her face was shining. She was loving this.
I shook my head.
“You wouldn’t know it. Earth hasn’t even discovered that solar system yet using the most powerful telescopes, never mind her particular planet, which after all is a bit of a slum planet anyway, so you’re not missing anything.”
“Slum planet?” Ernest said.
I shrugged not wanting to get into it.
“Let’s say that Embly is…” I scrunched up my nose trying to think of the grammatical implications of time travel. “Was?… Will be?… a real hellhole that nobody should have ever colonized.”
“Amen to that,” Chad said, remembering the mission we’d had there. The damn planet had nearly killed us. He finished what he was eating. “I’ll come with you.”
I saw Shiv and Gracie’s surprised looks.
“What? No. I’m good.”
He didn’t seem angry or bitter at me at the moment but I recognized that look on his face. It was the one that meant he’d made up his mind and no one was going to change it.
“I’m coming.”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go. We can finalize the plans as soon as we find her.”
Matt nodded. He and Nessa got up to clear the table.
“Watch out for Brett’s people. He’s always got someone snooping around here,” Nessa said.
“We’ll be careful,” Chad said and followed me out the door.
“They’re the last people you need to worry about when it comes to fighting,” Grace’s voice floated out the door after us. “They’re the most kick ass partners ever.”
Well, we had been, I thought.
“Let’s check along the lakefront first,” I suggested.
“Sure,” he said.
We walked side by side and I snuck glances at him. His copper curls were getting too long again and they glinted in the sunlight. His face looked drawn and there were dark bags under his eyes like he hadn’t got enough sleep. He wore some clothes of Matt’s or maybe Ernest’s. The white T-shirt stretched tightly across his chest and he had on jeans.
I repressed a sigh.
Why did he have to be so damn good looking? It
would be so much easier to be his partner if he was ugly.
“Look, Yumi,” he said, stopping suddenly and turning. “I’ve thought about this all night and I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“Me neither,” I said, taken aback.
“I’ve accepted that it’ll never be the way it was and I think we should be friends again. It will make everything easier. It’s not fair to Gracie, Shiv, and Audrey that we’ve been making everything so tense and awkward on the team.”
“You’re right,” I said, staring down at the rocks beneath my feet. He put his hand under my chin and tipped my face up to look at him.
“Yumi…”
I held my breath as those blue eyes stared into mine as if trying to read my soul.
“Do you think we can put the past in the past and still be the most kick-ass partners ever again?”
So he had heard her words, too.
I twisted away from his hand, uncomfortable with the contact. I crossed my arms over my chest to stare out at the morning sun, sparkling on the water.
He wasn’t asking for forgiveness anymore. Only to let bygones be bygones. I was mature enough to do that, wasn’t I?
“Okay,” I said, deciding. I faced him and stuck out my hand. “Friends.”
He shook my hand and gave me a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Losing her had changed him in ways that I still didn’t understand. I almost didn’t recognize the man I had known since he was a boy. But at least we wouldn’t be fighting anymore and that would be a relief.
“Now let’s find Audrey,” he said, moving with agility over the rocks the covered the shoreline.
We searched their entire lot, as well as the next one where Matt’s mother’s cabin was. But it wasn’t until we came to search across the road that we found her.
We were sitting against some rocks in the sunshine, taking a short rest when we heard voices coming from the direction of the cabins. I put my finger to my lips and we slipped behind the four foot high upended roots of a tree that had fallen down — maybe in a windstorm. The voices came towards us until we recognized them.