I glance at him, then look at Bart. “I can sense him. He’s there.”
“Good enough for me,” Bart says. “I’ll take out the soldier. You get in there and rescue your boyfriend. Ready? On three.”
He doesn’t bother with one or two. “Three!” he shouts, as he flings open the door and drops the enforcer with a single shot. “Go!”
I race into the hall—trying to ignore the blood pooling around the dead man’s head—and slam into the closet door. It doesn’t budge. It’s locked. “Liam!” I pound on the door. “Liam, it’s me. Open up. We have to get out of here!”
“Wren?” His voice sounds strained as he rumbles around in the room. “Hold on.”
Something heavy clatters to the floor, and he curses. The doorknob jiggles as he fiddles with the lock.
Bart stands guard, the pistol in both hands, pointed at the ceiling, his gaze cutting from one end of the hall to the other. Even Seth has his knife drawn, though he remains close to the passage entrance.
“Hurry, Liam. We’re running out of time.”
“Got it.” The lock shakes one more time. “It’s open.”
I push on the door, and it connects with Liam’s hip, forcing a garbled scream from his throat. “Ow! My leg’s broken.” Clutching his right thigh in one hand, he scoots away from the door and allows me to enter.
I gasp at the sight of red liquid oozing across the floor. “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Panic sets in as I drop to my knees, shaking my hands and trying to figure out which part of him I need to heal to stop the bleeding. Where’s it coming from? His head? His leg? “Help me. What’s bleeding?”
He laughs, then winces and clutches his leg. “Wren.” He grabs my trembling hands and pulls me to his eye level. “Calm down. It’s paint, okay? Breathe. Do you smell it?”
I take a few deep breaths and stop shaking. How could I have missed the sharp, pungent scent? A shelf has toppled over, and cans of red paint are scattered across the floor. One of them is leaking.
“I pulled the shelf down trying to get up.”
Bart pokes his head through the door. “Five minutes, Miss Wren. We’ve got to jet.”
“Five minutes till what?” Liam is pale. His breathing is shallow, and he looks like he might pass out any second.
Tears well in my eyes. “Oh, the whole compound is going to explode. No big deal.” I run my hands down his leg, searching for the fractured spot.
“Stop. You have to run. Get out of here!”
“I’m going to heal you, and we’ll run together.” I try to reach for his leg again, but he takes my hand.
“Listen to me. I can’t run, but you can. You’re free now. You got what you came here for, and now you can have your normal life. Things can go back to the way they were before.”
“Things can never go back to the way they were.” I yank my hand away and go to the door. “His leg is broken,” I shout at the guys outside before turning to Liam. “And this”—I use the Sense to right a paint can and move it back to the shelf—“This is my normal now. You are my normal.”
“All right. Out of the way.” Seth barrels into the room and lifts Liam, throwing him over his shoulder.
Liam screams.
“Sorry, buddy. But there’s no arguing with her. You should know that by now.”
“I think he passed out from the pain.” I put my hand under Liam’s nose to make sure he’s still breathing. His breath tickles my skin, and relief floods my veins.
“It’s just as well,” Bart says. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride. We’ve got three minutes. Better run.” He takes off down the hall with Seth and me on his heels. There’s no time for secret tunnels now, so we barge into the stairwell and take the steps two at a time to reach the surface.
As we make it to the second landing, Solis and two of his men burst through the door below. Bart waves us past and fires a shot, hitting a soldier in the chest. He tumbles backward down the stairs as Bart races toward us, but the other two are catching up. My legs are on fire, screaming for oxygen, my heart pounding against my ribs as we plow up the final flight.
Seth yanks the heavy metal door open and shoves me through before dropping Liam into Bart’s arms. “You two get out of here. I’ll hold them off.” He slams the door shut, ramming it with his shoulder against the weight of the two men pushing on the other side. “Run!”
“You’ll never make it out in time,” I say.
“Remember your promise, okay? Find my sister.” He strains against the door as Solis fires a bullet through the small window, grazing his shoulder. He groans. “Go!”
We tear through the office façade and sprint across the grounds. Bart isn’t as strong as Seth, and Liam slows him down, but I keep pace with him. We’re halfway to the perimeter fence when the computerized woman’s voice rings through the base. “Self-destruct sequence initiated. Five . . . four . . .”
My feet pound the ground. Almost to the fence.
“Three . . . two . . .”
Bart trips, falling face first on top of Liam.
“One.”
The earth shatters beneath us. A wave of smoldering air lifts us from the ground and tosses us like rag dolls over the fence and into the trees. I roll three times before my back slams into a pine trunk, and the wind is knocked out of me. Bits of brick, glass, and burning embers shower down on top of us, and I shield my head with my arms.
It’s over in an instant. My ears ring from the blast, but the only other sound I hear is the fire burning in the distance. “Liam? Bart?” Dust and smoke fill the air, choking me as I clamber to my feet. Stumbling over shrapnel and other debris, I search the area for my friends. We were together when the blast happened, so they must be close by now.
The dust is settling, blanketing the ground in soot and powder, and the scent of burning chemicals is suffocating. I pull my shirt up over my nose and continue my search.
“Wren? Is that you?” My father jogs toward me, his lab coat flapping behind him like a cape.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
Someone groans a few feet away, and I rush over to find Bart splayed on the ground and covered in soot. When he coughs, a white cloud billows from his mouth.
“Bart!”
“I’m okay. Just banged up . . . Liam.” He points a finger to his right, and I follow the line to see Liam, lying on his side, ten feet away.
My father makes it to him first and rolls him onto his back. He’s unconscious. “He’s breathing,” Michael shouts, and I let out a breath of my own.
I scan Liam’s body for injury. His leg, two cracked ribs, and a concussion. I heal his ribs, then move on to his leg, saving his head for last. Better for him to wake up healed than to feel the pain all over again.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, I pull his head into my lap and rest my hands on his forehead. White dust coats his eyelashes like snowflakes, and I brush my fingers across his cheek where the scar used to be.
“I did good things here,” my father says.
“I know.”
The energy heals Liam as if I’ve channeled it a hundred times before. Dust flakes fall onto his cheek as his eyes flutter open. I run my fingers through his matted hair, stroking away his confusion. His gaze locks with mine, and my heart swells.
“I told you I’d come back for you,” he says.
I smile. “Yes, you did.”
“And then you came back for me.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Wren
Liam heals my cuts and scrapes, and then he takes care of Bart, who stares in amazement as the bruises on his arms disappear. His posture straightens as Liam heals the pain in his back.
“I can see why the government would outlaw this. You’d put the pharmaceutical industry out of business.” He flips his hands over and pats his body in astonishment.
“I can’t heal everything,” Liam says.
Bart shrugs. “Good enough for me.”
Michael paces back and forth behind us. “We need to get moving. If they find
us here . . . with this . . .” He gestures toward the ruined compound.
The sun is dipping behind the rubble-filled crater that swallowed the lab, painting the sky crimson. Yesterday I would have panicked at the sight of the setting sun. Today the only energy I feel welling inside me is my own. Sirens wail in the distance—fire crews coming to put out the remaining blaze. I hope everyone made it out before the explosion. Well, everyone but . . .
Bart puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he says, almost as if reading my mind.
Liam knits his brow. “Seth didn’t make it?”
I shake my head. “He held Solis off so we could get out.”
“Well, how about that.”
My throat thickens. Even after everything Seth put me through, he didn’t deserve to die. I can’t help but feel responsible. If things had gone differently . . . If I’d accepted my powers from the beginning, maybe none of this would have happened.
“Hey.” Liam wraps his arms around me, pulling me to his chest. “He made his own choices.”
I bury my face in his neck and hold him tight. We all made our own choices. For better or for worse, every decision each one of us has made has led us to exactly this moment. The experiments are over for now. We’re one step closer to freedom. I only wish people didn’t have to die to get us here. “I promised to help him save his sister.”
“Then we’ll rescue her together. You and me.”
I pull away to look into his eyes. “You would do that? After everything we went through?”
“We’re partners. We may have won this battle, but the war is far from over, ain’t it? I have a feeling we’ll be crossing paths with the president soon enough, and when we do . . . we’ll save them all.”
I hug him tighter. “We will, won’t we?”
“It’s what we were made for.”
My father grunts and marches away from the camp. “You don’t want to be here when the cleanup crews arrive.”
“The truck is half a mile away. Feel like taking a walk?” Liam offers me his arm like a gentleman and winks.
I slip my hand through the crook of his elbow. We start to follow my father, but Bart just stands there.
“Aren’t you coming?” I ask.
He shoves his hands in his pockets. “No, ma’am. I’ve got family back in Texas. I reckon I’ll go home to them.”
I hug him and kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you so much. For everything.”
He blushes. “Well, Miss Wren, I suppose it’s me who should be thanking you. I didn’t think I’d ever see the moon with my own eyes again.”
I smile and pat his cheek. “See you around, cowboy.”
He tips an imaginary hat and walks away, and we start the half-mile trek back into town.
Liam leads my father and me to the truck and pats the hood. “Good ole Bessie. Right where I left her.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You named the truck?”
“It seemed fitting. We couldn’t have gotten here without her.”
I shake my head and climb in, sliding to the middle of the bench seat next to Liam. Michael settles in awkwardly on my right. His leg brushes mine, and he jerks it away. “Sorry,” he mumbles, fiddling with his hands like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
“I held on to these for you.” Liam pulls my mom’s journal and photo album from beneath the seat.
“Thank you.” I clutch them protectively to my chest and glance at my father. “They were Mom’s.”
He swallows hard, curiosity filling his gaze as he stares at the books. “I loved her, you know. I always did.”
I sigh. A few days ago, I’d have sworn he wasn’t capable of that emotion, but I suppose it’s possible he loved her in his own way. He did blow up his entire lab to save her daughter. “You can see this one.” I hand him the photo album and stroke the faded red leather of the journal. “This one is private. I haven’t read it all yet.”
“Here we go.” Liam turns the key, and the truck rumbles to life. “Oh, and I suppose you can have this back too.” He reaches behind the seat and pulls out the dirty, wrinkled cloak.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Tears fill my eyes as I unfold it on my lap, smoothing out the wrinkles with my hands. I run my fingers along the frayed hem, counting the enchanted stones. They’re all here. As I lean forward, Liam helps me drape the cloth over my shoulders, and I clasp it at my neck.
“Sorry about the necklace,” Liam says.
“It’s okay. This is better. It was hers.”
My father feels the material, running his finger along the stitching of a seam. “Actually, I think this was your grandmother’s. Look.” He opens the album to a page near the back and points to a photo of an old woman holding a mortar and pestle. Her long gray hair is woven into two braids and accented with dove feathers. Her russet skin is etched with age, and her stooped shoulders are draped in my mom’s red cloak. The same one I’m wearing now.
“Ethel—your grandmother—was the shaman. She was the most powerful healer I’d met until you two came along. I begged the president to let me take her back to my lab, but he refused. Ethel was too powerful. He was afraid of her.”
He closes the album and traces the frayed edge with his finger. “I shouldn’t have said anything. By asking to take her, I put her on the president’s radar. He made certain she died with the others. If I’d kept my mouth shut, I could have taken her off the list, like I did your mother.”
“You didn’t know.” I rest my hand on top of his, and he looks at me. Tears glisten in his eyes.
“So, Michael,” Liam says. “You coming back to camp with us?”
“I’d like to be with my family. If that’s okay with my daughter.”
My chest tightens. He’s the only family I have left. “Of course it is, Dad.” It feels weird to call him that, but I’m sure it’ll feel normal after a while.
Normal.
There’s an ambiguous word. I used to think it meant being just like everyone else—going to school, doing my homework, getting a part-time job at the mall. That kind of normal will never happen for me, and that’s okay. This isn’t turning out to be the life I planned, but it’s definitely the life I want.
Liam wraps his arm around my shoulders. “You know, this cloak looks good on you.”
Everything it represents—my family, my roots, my powers—I can finally accept them. Embrace them. I smile and stroke the soft crimson cloth. “Yeah. It does.”
About the Author
Carrie Pulkinen is a paranormal author who has always been fascinated with things that go bump in the night. Of course, when you grow up next door to a cemetery, the dead (and the undead) are hard to ignore. Pair that with her passion for writing and her love of a good happily-ever-after, and becoming an author seems like the only logical career choice.
Before she decided to turn her love of the written word into a career, Carrie spent the first part of her professional life as a high school journalism and yearbook teacher. She loves dark chocolate and bad puns, and in her free time, she likes to read, take pictures, and spend time with her family.
Connect with Carrie online:
Website: www.CarriePulkinen.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarriePulkinen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CarriePulkinen
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Other Titles by Carrie Pulkinen: http://amazon.com/author/carriepulkinen
Soul Catchers Page 25