From within the confines of the sinister hisses, a stark bellow punctures the echoes, “Open your eyes, Nate!”
The leaden pressure bearing down on all my senses lifts instantly and the echoing, whispering voices silence. I pull in a long, deep breath, my reaction to being back in the present, out of the vision. One breath is not enough and I pull in the air around me greedily again, and again.
* * *
Nate slumps against the wall as he pants rigidly. He is breathing too fast. He is going to pass out.
Just as I think it, Nate starts slipping down along the wall behind him. Swiftly, I grab him under his arms and support his body with mine to keep him standing. I angle my gaze over my shoulder to make sure no one has heard or seen him almost collapse. I lean him back against the wall so I can get a good look at him. When his eyes open, I see that they are clear and alive, no longer dull and lifeless. He is still breathing hard, but slower and is starting to come around. Nate looks down at my hands gripping his shoulders and tenses, quickly diverting his eyes as he leans his head back against the wall and stares up at the ceiling. I can see the frustration he holds in his darting eyes.
I ask, “What just happened, Nate? Where did you go?”
Still looking up at the ceiling, he shakes his head from side to side. “I’m just tired.”
His cop-out answer pisses me off. I get up in his face and let him have it. “Do you think I’m stupid? You were somewhere else. Something was controlling you and you were trying to fight it!”
I had an idea of what that something was, but I didn’t want to admit it yet. If I did, that made it real and if it is real then that meant Nate is at risk...all of us are.
Nate looks into my eyes and pushes off the wall, sending me a few steps away from him. Stoically, he maintains, “I’ve got this okay! I won’t let them take me!”
His behavior and words remind me of Sam beyond the veil as he was fighting for his unraveling mind against Michael.
Nate just said “them”.
I need to tell someone. Ezra. I am backing away from Nate, when his hand snatches my forearm and holds it tight.
* * *
“You can’t tell them, Xander!”
Glaring and noticeably riled, Xander looks down at my hand like he is about ready to bite it off. I concentrate on telling myself to let go. Uncoil your hands, Nate, and ball up your fists to keep everyone safe.
Xander’s voice trembles with emotion, but he keeps it low enough to not draw attention to the team on the other side of the doorway. “I have to! They are trying to get to you!”
I want to unbind my mind, let him in and see what I think may be happening, what I believe can save me, but I fear that it may be the last time my mind will be my own. I look beyond Xander at the doorway to make sure it is clear, then I tell him, “Please, just listen to me, then you can make your choice.”
Xander runs his hands over his face aggressively, then folds his arms across his chest. Standing unmoved and listening he give me the green light to talk. “Go.”
“Before we came back, when we were beyond the veil and Jes was...” The memory is too vivid still and it tugs at my chest.
I push through the emotions and continue. “When she was in my arms, dying, I had a revelation confirming what I have always known. My purpose will always revolve around Jes. I gave her every ounce of my life force…well, I thought I had.” I search the ground, like the memory of what happened after that will suddenly spring from it.
“I remember the walls shaking around us, the Dwellers coming for us, the vortex, scooping up Jesca in my arms, then feeling my body drain until I lost consciousness.”
Visibly confused, Xander shakes his head skeptically. “Sebastian took hold of Ezra and I took hold of you as you held Jesca in your arms. Your eyes were closed, but you were able to stand with help. You were alert, Nate.”
“See, I can’t remember any of that!” I look at the doorway again, checking for the others.
“The next thing I remember is waking up in the Kyoto facility with a sore neck from the re-implantation.”
A wall of silence forms between Xander and me all of a sudden.
I look at Xander’s face to see the expression. It does not hold judgment or ridicule, just unease for what I might say next.
I shake my head trying to figure out how to explain this to him so he will understand. “I was awake, but not alert, Xander. I was trapped in a vision.”
Xander asks, “What if you brought something back from beyond the veil?”
* * *
I fold my arms over my chest continuing to probe. “When you gave all of your energy to Jesca beyond the veil, you were weak. What if something like a Dweller latched onto you. We have to tell Ezra or Sebastian.”
Nate leans in to me as he speaks, “I don’t think it is a normal Dweller. If it was, I don’t think I would have come to after we got back.”
I push, “We have to tell Ezra or Sebastian.”
Nate questions, “What if they can’t help me? What if the only thing that can save me is in Georgia, within the Etowah Mounds?”
I point toward the doorway and demand, “What if they can save you, keep you from completely losing your mind!”
I feel my pulse increase just picturing Nate’s captured stare in my head again. He is right, it isn’t like the Dwellers we have seen taking a human, but it is still something trying to get at him. “Cousin, I have lost too much of my family. You are my blood. The only blood I have left in this world. If you don’t let us try to save you and you are consumed...” A spasm of misery threatens to take my breath, but I swallow it down and breathe in deep before I tell Nate what I would be forced to do if he was consumed by the Dwellers that are attacking him. “If you are taken, you won’t be my family any more. Your blood will be on my hands.”
Nate’s voice is unsteady as well, “I won’t be taken, Xander, and my blood will not be on your hands. As long as you help me, I won’t be taken. When you touched my shoulder just now, it peeled away the control this thing had on me. I think your energy, your life force did that. Somehow it connected with me.”
I did feel a surge of energy leave me when I reached for him.
Nate continues, “You were able to transfer your life force to me to pull me away from them. Your ability is returning. If you can do that until we get to the mounds...”
What if it was a fluke? What if I can’t duplicate it? “I did it once Nate. Monica said our abilities could be different if they returned. What if my abilities aren’t solid and I can’t bring you back when I need to!”
* * *
I shake my head, knowing in my soul that this is not a fluke. “It isn’t a fluke, Xander. Nothing is a coincidence in our lives. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
As Xander’s fixed stare bears down on me, I stand firm, not backing down from what I have grown to believe as the truth in our existence as guardians. “I have faith that once I get to the mounds, I will be freed from this thing that has latched onto me. Right now, I need you by my side on this cousin.”
As I wait out Xander’s decision, the heavy silence between us crumbles from the sound of a massive explosion from above.
I stand next to Elisha, Nick, Siobhan, and Jake watching the doorway I rushed from moments earlier.
I was talking to Ezra and he was pissing me off with his over protective dad complex. He begged that I stay close to him and Sebastian and not do anything stupid. That little gem ticked me off and I let him have it.
My anger was quickly doused when he rested his hand on my shoulder and told me, “I just want to you to be safe, alright?”
The magnitude of his sentimental touch and words went deeper as I saw a glimpse of my mother holding Ezra in her arms beyond the veil. A myriad of sadness covered me as I remembered that image for myself. Michael had put a dagger through my father and my mother held him as I raged in Michael’s direction.
Wanting the image to end, I closed my eyes and pu
shed it as far back in my mind as I could. I nodded at Ezra in understanding and acceptance of his request to stay close to him and Sebastian. When he left, I was hit with the nausea and a heated sensation covered every inch of my body. I listened for the tell-tale hum that usually accompanies it, but it wasn’t there. It felt just like it did earlier, when the Dwellers attacked Briggs’ camp. As I turned searching for the cause, I locked eyes with Xander first, then Nate partially in the shadows behind him. No one else was in the room, just the two of them and me. Suddenly my stomach retches and the absent humming spikes to flood my ears. I wondered if something had attacked Briggs and his troops above and we just hadn’t heard it from down here. Trying to remain unaffected in front of Xander and Nate, I rushed from the room.
As soon as I got out there, the humming completely stopped, but the squeamish feeling lingered. I saw Elisha and made a bee-line toward her.
Seeing my expression, Elisha grabbed something from one of the bins and shoved it into my hand. She demanded, “Eat this. You look like you are going to pass out.”
Absently, I nibble on the nutrition bar she handed me moments earlier and stare at the doorway I just rushed from while Elisha, Nick, Siobhan, and Jake stationed around me. Nate and Xander have been there a while now. I consider marching back in there, but it would stir up Ezra and the others. They may just be talking. Trying my hand at my telepathic ability again, I try to listen to their thoughts. I come up with nothing though. Damn it.
My stomach lurches again and I take another small bite of the bar. What is making me nauseated? Only Dwellers and shifters have that effect on me. I look at the entrance we descended from, but I don’t see or hear movement. Briggs and his men are up there. If something was going down, they would have come to us. If Dwellers were attacking, it wouldn’t be this quiet.
“I wonder what it will look like out there? I mean, we know what it smells like,” says Nick breaking the silence among us.
Jake huffs, then says, “Third Tuesday. I don’t think Kyoto did that with the bodies.”
Siobhan replies, “We wouldn’t have known if they did. We only went out a few times before...” Siobhan shifts uncomfortably and looks away from our huddled circle just as she softly says, “. . . before the last time.”
Tenderly, Jake puts his arm around her. Elisha, Nick, and I look at each other discreetly, knowing that the last time was when Angela didn’t come back.
I look back at the doorway; still no sight of them.
What are they talking about in there? Are they fighting? I close my eyes and try one more time to get into their heads with no avail.
Nick and Elisha are making small talk considering what above ground will look like in the daylight, when I feel the well-known vibrations channeling from the tip of my toes to the core of my stomach. A wave of heat accompanies strong nausea and my vision goes awry. I pinch my eyes closed to keep the room from spinning.
Hold it together, Jes. Breathe.
I breathe in the deepest breath I can take, then blow it out completely, imagining all of the nausea inside of me being discharged from my body. I feel better, but not completely normal. I open my eyes and I mumble, “Something isn’t right,” but not loud enough for Nick, Elisha, Jake, or Siobhan to entirely hear.
Siobhan looks at me, “What did you say?”
I say it louder now, “Something isn’t...”
The clap of a thunderous blast ignites just above us. Instinctively I cover my ears and scurry to any shelter I can find as ceiling and walls quake and begin to crumble from the spreading blast above.
Monica yells at us, “Get in the truck, hurry!”
I see her already opening one up and the guardians are running toward it.
Instead of running in the direction of the truck, I run toward the doorway that holds Nate and Xander when two arms take hold of me and keep me from getting to them!
“No, Jes, get in the truck!” bellows Ezra.
Another blast jolts and rocks us and I slip from Ezra’s strained grasp. I run for the doorway to save Nate and Xander when they appear at the entrance. Relief fills me when I reach them.
Ezra comes up behind me instantly and yells, “You three get in the trucks now!”
Moving together, Ezra, Nate, Xander, and I move to the truck.
Siobhan and Elisha are standing at the open doors of the cargo trucks waving and yelling at us to hurry. Their voices are lost to me when a rain of gunfire is unleashed above us. It’s Briggs and a cluster of soldiers firing back into the hallway entrance of the compound and shuffling down the ramp toward the trucks. I jump into the truck after Ezra and see everyone sitting on either side of the truck. Xander and Nate come up behind me and we all file in to sit. The truck looks bigger inside than it did on the outside. All of the guardians actually fit in here.
“This everyone?” Briggs asks at the door.
Monica yells from the front of the truck. “Yes!”
Briggs looks over his shoulder and I follow his gaze through the window panel on the side of the truck, catching sight of the soldier’s firing on Dweller occupied humans bearing down on them as they make their way to the other cargo truck.
Ezra yells, “The Dwellers got in?”
Breathing hard, Briggs nods quickly. “Yes, we just lost the Kyoto facility and another compound just south of Kyoto. My guess is we are the first in the U.S. We can’t hold them long. I’m sending two of our soldiers to drive you. They know the route. We will follow you in the second truck!”
Before anyone can respond to him, he slams the double doors and hits the back of the truck three times. Daniel rises and lunges at the back door, setting the latch in place, locking us in. The truck leaps forward then starts to move. I watch Briggs from the side window running toward the other truck and his men break off from the entrance to the upper compound. Our truck makes a slight turn to the right, but I follow the fighting soldiers at the entrance through the window panels on the other side of the truck. Then, a wall of stone and dirt surrounds us on all sides; we are in a tunnel.
I keep my eyes on the rear windows, watching the clouds of dirt billow up from the tires. No sign of headlights following us has me worried.
Xander’s voice breaks the breathy, adrenaline driven inhales and exhales in the truck. “Where are they?”
As soon as he asks, I see the dull glow of headlights through the dust behind us. I yell, “There! They are behind us!”
Their truck comes up on us quickly, then keeps pace about a car’s length behind us. Swaying side to side in my seat from the rugged terrain, I notice something jabbing the center of my back. I turn to see a metal rod running along the back of our seats.
Noticing my shifting around, Ezra looks down at me.
I ask him, “What is this?”
Suddenly, the truck thrusts sending me into Ezra and Nate. The power of the truck’s momentum is so strong, it takes a bit for all of us to right ourselves with the help of the metal rod.
I grip it tightly and look across the truck at Nick, Elisha, and the others as they work to right themselves with the help of the rod as well. I notice the blur of the tunnel beyond them through the window panel. I wonder how fast we are going. Suddenly, a scrapping sound on the metal wall at the front of the truck catches my attention. A small rectangular piece of the metal slides open connecting us to the front cab of the truck and a set of dark eyes peer through. “Buckle up and hold on to the rods back there! That is what they are for,” says a deep, baritone voice.
Everyone is holding onto a portion of the metal rods now and Nick responds with a sarcastic bellow, “Yeah, yeah got it! Thanks for the advanced warning on the warp speed, Han Solo!”
“Sure thing, but you haven’t seen warp speed yet, pal!”
The soldiers chuckle on the other side of the cabin before sealing us off from them. We are instantly hit with another punch of speed more powerful than the last. I curl my hands tighter around the rod behind me. The inside of the truck suddenly shifts from
darkness to light and I look in the rear windows to take in the tunnel’s exit on the side of the stacked mount that cradled Briggs’ compound.
The view is brief as a swarm of bodies clawing and climbing, pounding and driving their bodies into the truck carrying us. One body attaches to the back doors of the truck, peering into the windows with onyx filled eye sockets and a sunken, skeletal face that once resembled a woman. Another body hits the window panel behind my head and I turn to catch a glimpse of its evil grin, rising inhumanely around the edges.
The bile rolls in my stomach now, a reminder of what happened earlier in the compound. That must have been what I was feeling, these Dwellers. The truck jerks to the right, when two large male Dwellers throw the weight of their bodies into the side of the cab. Then it fish tails to the left as a cluster thrusts into the other sidewall of the truck. Everywhere I look, the black eyes and sunken faces that once were human are concentrated on what is in this cab. The Dweller at the rear window steadily pounds the glass over, and over again.
Elisha screams out, “It is going to break!”
Daniel sits centimeters from the window being struck by the Dweller and says unshakenly, “No it won’t.”
Bravely, he hits the pane of glass just as the Dweller strikes it. “Metallic glass. Stronger than steel.”
With each pound of the Dwellers fist, I flinch wearily, not sharing Daniel’s confidence in the strength of the glass. I yell over the pounding, “It isn’t going to stop is it?”
Daniel looks back at me, then back at the Dweller as it continues its focused, forceful attempt at invading this truck. He answers simply, “No.”
Siobhan hollers over the bodies crashing like hail upon the sides of the truck, “Daniel, I thought they didn’t attack in daylight?”
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