Reece is hauling ass in my direction, he grabs hold of my hand as he comes by and attempts to pull me along with him.
“I knew that was you,” he says, tugging my arm so hard, it feels as if it might be pulled out of socket at any minute. “Come on, we can’t stop yet, they’re still coming.”
I call up just enough self-fortitude to take me a couple more blocks, but I’m straggling behind. Reece isn’t alone. I’m surprised to see the woman from the fountain is running with us. I turn my head back as I go, looking for Spencer. The way he was engrossed with her earlier, I expect him to be coming at our rear. There is no one there, but I can still hear the soldiers approaching, so I try and stretch out my stride a little more.
“Over here,” the woman calls. “There’s a gated courtyard to this apartment complex. If we can climb over, we should be safe.”
We follow her and come to a tall white fence with spikes attached around the top of it to keep birds from perching there. Great, much like the rest of this night, this is going to be fun … oh yeah.
“Here,” Reece says, turning to both of us and cupping his hands together over his knee. “I’ll give you a boost. You’ll have to give yourself enough height to clear those spikes, but it shouldn’t be too hard.”
He helps the woman over the fence first and then turns for me, but a couple of soldiers begin to fill the alleyway leading down to this courtyard. Before I can take his help or question him as to why both knees on his jeans look to be intact, contrary to Cass’s story, Reece pulls me to him with both arms on my shoulders.
“Ophelia, I have to tell you something before it’s too late,” he says with a certain gravity to his voice that warns me now is not the time for my questions. “I lied about following you for two years. I’ve been watching you for longer than that … a lot longer.”
“How long?” I ask, confusion wrinkling my forehead. I don’t understand where he is going with this confession.
“A long time, Phee. Almost our entire lives, but that’s not the point. The point is that I know what you can do. You’re capable of so much more than any Mage I have ever seen and that’s how I know that you can get yourself out of here. I’ve seen you do it before.”
“What? I don’t understand. What are you talking about … get myself out of here? How?”
“Think, Ophelia, think. Remember a time when you just appeared somewhere, but you don’t know how you got there? I know you remember.”
My mind goes directly to the place I think he wants it to. Once again, I’m in the garage sitting in a running car, tears streaming from my face and a friendly man, James, is peering down at me from the open door. His eyes fixed on me … his brilliant green eyes … the same green eyes that are gazing at me now, willing me to understand.
“It was you … but how?” I’m shocked and a bit worried.
Why didn’t he tell me this before? The soldiers are closing in on us, and there is no time for me to make any sense of this, but I have to know. How is this possible? I thought Reece was an unskilled Mage, how could he have kept up the appearance of my driver with his lack of power? It just doesn’t make sense with any of the rules he has taught me about our world.
“It doesn’t matter right now, what matters is that you get out of here. If we both end up in Oberon’s clutches again, I don’t think there would be an escape this time.” He runs his fingers over my cheek and cups my face in his hand. “Phee, listen to me. You have to try. I have no clue how you ended up in the car that day, but I know that you were in the main house one minute and in that car the next. I watched the garage surveillance footage after; it was like you appeared out of thin air. You have to try and get out of this now. Remember the way you worked the freeze and unfreeze Binds? Do the same thing. Picture yourself somewhere else, anywhere but here. I know you can do it.”
I nod my head in acquiescence. He’s right, if I can get out of here, there is still hope that I might be able to save him this time. I close my eyes and try to picture myself back at Spencer’s building. I see myself on the rooftop, sitting on the unused swing set. I don’t feel anything happening, so I start silently chanting it to myself, “Disappear, Spencer’s roof, disappear.”
I open my eyes and Reece’s are still looking into them. It didn’t work and the soldiers are here. One of them recognizes me because he yells over to the others, “This one comes in alive. We have orders. Keep the other one too and scan this building behind them, there might be more of them hiding.”
Before I have a chance to fight or scream, I am hit in the back by something that feels slightly more painful than a bee sting. I turn my head around, trying to get a good look at it, and the tranquilizer hits my blood stream. I go down. The last thought I have before the world fades to black is that Reece has no spark. I wonder why that it is.
I come to with my face pressed against a hard metal surface. It’s pitch dark, but feeling around, my hands run into bars in all directions confirming my suspicion, I’m in a cage. I wipe the drool from the side of my face as I slowly sit up and try to ascertain my surroundings. As my eyes adjust, I hear the rackety sound of the other cages next to mine. We’re moving, I can tell by the metallic squeaking as each of the cages rub against each other as we go.
I try to see if there is anyone enclosed in the crates at my sides but can’t make out any figures within.
“It’s just the two of us,” someone, a woman, says from my right. I narrow my eyes, trying to figure out how far away from her I am. It’s too dark to make out much detail, but it looks like she’s sitting up in the cage next to my own.
“Who are you?” I ask. “Are you the leader of the Skull people?”
“It’s the Sugar Skull Army, and yes, that’s me … or, as least I was. Don’t know how much of a leader I’ll be now. When the NWO takes you, you tend to stay gone, if you know what I mean.” She sounds depressingly reconciled with our fate.
“What happened to Reece?” I feel frantic. Why isn’t he here? I know I heard them say to take him alive too, so shouldn’t he be in one of these cages?
“I don’t know any Reece, but if you’re taking about that dude who was running with us, they beat the crap out of him and dragged him off somewhere. He was smart enough to use the gun that you had in your holster. After you fell, he reached down and grabbed it and took out two of them before they tranquilized him, beat his face in a couple of times and then kicked him once he was on the ground. The cowards.” She clears her throat and there is an audible exhalation of breath before she continues, “If you’d only used the weapon yourself, we might have gotten out of this mess alive. There were only a couple soldiers in the alleyway, you could have shot them and made it over the fence before any more came.”
She’s right. I’m such an idiot. In the face of danger, my first instinct was to run, not try and protect myself and look where it’s gotten me … look where it’s gotten all three of us. I lay my head back against the cage and close my eyes. What’s going to happen to us now? I can pretty much be sure that I am going to end up back with Donovan because of this, but what will they do with Reece and this woman? I’m responsible for all of it.
“It’s okay.” The woman’s voice is a beacon through the dark. “It seems to be the way of your people anyway.”
“My people?” Could she know what I am?
“Yeah, don’t sound so surprised,” she replies, matter-of-factly. “The information is out there on the net for anyone with minimal digging effort to find, although there is one domain that even I haven’t been able to hack into. I guess that one will remain unknown. I’m sure I won’t get the chance to crack into it now.”
I shake my head with a halfhearted snort. Yeah, Jinx would be happy to hear that his invention, the illegal net (whatever it is) isn’t being broken into by the commons. However, this particular common knew about Mages before I did, so there’s really nothing to be smug about.
“So, you’re telling me, you read something on the internet and took it
as fact?” I ask, trying to sound as condescending as I can. Maybe she doesn’t know all there is to know. I have a strong nagging feeling in the back of my mind that tells me not to betray our people. They’ve remained hidden for this long, and seem to want to remain that way, even though I don’t exactly agree with them. Still, it’s my responsibility to lead her away from this line of thought.
“No, a friend … well, he used to be a friend, told me about you. He said you were Mages and he even tried to explain about your magic. I didn’t believe him at the time, though. I wish I would have, now it’s too late.”
“What happened to him?” I’m afraid to ask, although I’m pretty sure I already know.
“They took him. The last time I saw him was the night before the reaping. He told me the truth about himself and I turned him away. I thought he was making it up so he wouldn’t have to date me … can you believe it? He said your kind didn’t approve of mixing with ours and I thought he was putting me off with a stupid story. And then … he was gone and I knew he told the truth.” She lets out a long sigh that sounds like it might be trying to cover a shaky breath. “He wasn’t a criminal, he was just a teenager … we both were.”
“I know he wasn’t.” It’s the only reassurance I can give her through these bars. No, her friend really was just a kid, a kid caught up in something that no one could have ever predicted. “Listen, there was nothing you could have done differently. Even if you’d believed him, things would have ended up the same. He’d still be gone, and you’d still be left wondering what you could have done differently. You can’t blame yourself for it.”
“Oh, I don’t blame myself,” she states, her voice suddenly infused with strength. “I blame Chancellor Brand, the NWO, and every damn citizen who cheered and sat back doing nothing while people were rounded up and taken away. If people weren’t such sheep, none of this would have happened.” She breathes heavily, trying to calm herself down. After a couple of seconds, she seems to have regained her composure because she continues and I just listen, silently. It sounds like she has had all of this buried inside for a while. She talks with an enthusiasm that shows me just how much of a hand she has had in all of it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that she is either something of a chatterbox or slightly boastful, but if I was the leader of an army with the capability to take down trained soldiers and sophisticated weaponry like hers did tonight, I’d probably be boastful too.
“That’s why we created the SSA, me and a couple of friends that knew AJ … that was his name, the one they took. We were finally getting somewhere too, thanks to the internet and the fact that the techies our government hires are complete dumbasses when it comes to tracking our movements on it. We’ve managed to spread the word worldwide. We have people all over the place sympathetic to our cause. If only we could get more of this country’s own citizens on board … maybe we could make a difference. Well … could have made a difference. I’m not sure what will happen now that I’ve been captured.”
Something stirs inside me at her words. Before we came out tonight, I was ready to play my part. I tried to convince myself that I was going to make a difference with my pistol, my limited knowledge of my abilities, and my ignorant determination that I was part of something more important than myself. In reality, I was as helpless as I have always been. I wasn’t ready for tonight any more than I was ready for one of Donovan’s blows or for the death of my mother to shock me out of my comfortable life. I see now that I was just being idealistic and so was Spencer. It takes more than determination sometimes. David and Goliath stories are inspirational, but they’re not reality. When you’re going up against a foe of Oberon’s capacity, it’s going to take more than twenty Mages armed with meager weapons and Binds that they’re afraid to use out in public; it’s going to take an army.
I see now why Spencer was so adamant about getting to this girl. He saw, just by listening to her command the crowd, that she was special. There is something about her that makes people want to rally around a cause. Spencer has that same magic, only he doesn’t have the crowd. The crowd was what he wanted and I think he saw that through her, he might possibly have it.
The sad thing is that she really believes in what her Sugar Skull Army is trying to do. She is just a regular person who saw an injustice and decided to do something about it instead of live with it. This very fact makes me realize how important she is, not only to her followers, but also to the country. Mages need her, but humans do, too … Oberon isn’t going to stop with us. He wants absolute power. I’ve got to get this girl out of here. I fully accept my culpability in her capture, and now I’ve got to make amends by setting her free. Both of us.
“I’m going to get us out of here,” I say low and anticlimactically, almost as if I am informing myself as I say it.
“Sure,” she replies. “And monkeys might fly out of my butt.”
I try to suppress a laugh at this strangely humorous declaration in the midst of our situation, but it comes out as a snort. I’m really starting to like this lady. She seems to have a habit of speaking what’s on her mind with no filter. After being surrounded by folks who either want nothing to do with me, hate me, or are seemingly keeping enormous secrets from me, sharing time in these crates with someone who speaks honestly is refreshing. It’s like being bathed in truth and I love it. I can tell that she is probably one of those women who would really tell a friend if their butt looked big in new pants or if they had lipstick on their teeth. I can imagine that this is the type of friend I would have wanted had I ever had the chance to have a friend.
“Um … that’s the second time you’ve snorted in the last ten minutes. I think that’s got to be some kind of dork record. You do that a lot?” she asks, proving my previous assumption correct.
“Not really, my pig side is taking over around you, I think.”
“Well, it’s really getting to be kind of scary. I don’t think this is exactly the kind of situation where snorting would be considered socially acceptable, so maybe you can take Wilbur down a notch. You might want to get your sinuses checked … if your brilliant plan of escape hashes out and we ever get away.” Her voice is devoid of any hope. “My name is Allie, by the way.”
“I’m Ophelia, it’s nice to meet you, Allie.”
“Likewise, I guess.” I can hear her settle back against the side of her cage and then the shuffling sound of sudden movement when realization dawns. “Wait. One. Minute. YOU’RE Ophelia Brand, aren’t you?”
“Yep, that would be my name.”
“The same Ophelia Brand that’s married to that dickwad, Donovan Brand?”
“Just call me Mrs. Dickwad.”
“Well, shit,” Allie says with a resigned sigh. “I’ve really screwed myself this time, haven’t I?”
“Other than the fact that we’re both locked in these tiny cages like dogs in a kennel, why would you say that?”
“Hmm, let me see,” she starts. “You’re the Chancellor’s son’s wife. I’ve just admitted that I’m the leader of an Army that is oppositional to everything you stand for. It’s really just a small group, though… well, I wouldn’t even call it a group, no… we’re just a few people who are day of the dead enthusiasts and … um, hang out late at night. You know, just a bunch of punk-goth youngsters… not any kind of real threat to your husband or his father… or yourself for that ma-”
“Allie?” I cut her off.
“Yes?”
“Shut up for a second, okay?”
“Sure thing. Shutting up. I totally do what I’m told and never try to go against the grain in any way. Nope, straight and narrow—that’s the only way for me.”
“The only reason I didn’t draw my weapon tonight and shoot any of those soldiers is because I was stupid and scared, not because I hold any loyalty towards Chancellor Brand or my husband, or the NWO. You probably heard on the news that I was kidnapped away from him a couple weeks ago, and that’s completely true. What they can’t report on the news is th
at being kidnapped was the best thing that could have possibly happened to me because it got me away from my husband.” I take a moment to take a couple of deep breaths, thinking about where and who we are most likely headed for. This conversation is making the fear even worse, and I’m not only snorting like a pig but now also sweating like one.
“Listen, Allie. I won’t betray you to my husband or anyone. It’s probably hard to believe, I mean, you don’t know me any better than the next girl you could be caged in with, but I’m on your side. The NWO needs to pay for what they’ve done to innocent people. I fear, after seeing what happened tonight, that this is just the beginning of the horrors to come. Someone needs to stop them, someone like you. Like I said, I’m going to get both of us out of here.”
I hope this is a pledge that I can back up. I start mentally cataloging all of the abilities I’ve learned thus far and try to think of ways they may be used to help us. Freezing Binds would work after we get out of these cages. If I used them against our captors, we might be able to get away, but how many people could I freeze at once? It’s so risky. I could go invisible for a few minutes and hopefully sneak away somehow, but what about Allie? I don’t think the invisibility would last long enough to get very far away. Would Donovan expect such powers from me now and take measures to prevent me from using them? I have no clue how much Donovan knows about my abilities. I’m guessing he knows I’m a powerful Mage, but he may still think that my power is restricted somehow. If this is the case, the element of surprise might come in handy. I can’t be too hasty in throwing Binds around because I wouldn’t want to give him an early advantage of protecting himself against me.
I think about what Spencer said the night Reece and I got back from Target and were caught performing a Bind. I think that in this case, I’m not going to give a rat’s ass about going against Mage Law. None of the Mages I’ve come across in Spencer’s building like me anyway, so what’s one more thing for them to be mad about? If it’s a choice between exposing our kind and allowing Donovan to ensnare me again, I’m going to pick exposure every time.
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