I get up from the carpet and take two steps to Lucas’s nightstand. I can’t call for help, can’t be caught here with him, but the Crawfords can. My arm swings in a calculated arc, swiping the table lamp into the wall. It smashes into pieces, the shattering ceramic loud enough to wake Lucas’s fake parents. I hope they’re not deep sleepers.
The inside of the shower is dry and dark, and I wipe silent tears with the back of my hand while I hide and wait. The Crawfords don’t disappoint me, creeping down the hallway moments after the noise interrupted the early morning stillness.
“I’m telling you, Robert. I heard something.” A woman’s voice, tired and scratchy, winds its way through the cleansing room doors.
“We’ll just make sure Lucas is asleep and then—” The man’s whispered reassurance breaks off with a gasp.
“What happened to him? That’s a lot of blood.”
“I don’t know, Janet,” he answers.
Shuffling sounds tell me they’re checking out Lucas’s condition, and I bite my lip to keep from shouting for them to contact a Healer. After what feels like hours, Mr. Crawford leaves the room to place the call. I wait another lifetime—but probably it’s less than five minutes—before feet trample up the stairs.
“Can you tell me what happened?” asks a voice that is not Other at all.
It might be a trick of the imagination, but it sounds like the same portly, mustached Healer who came to our house the night Mrs. Morgan was taken away.
Mrs. Crawford’s response comes quickly, steady and strong. “We heard a crash and it woke us. When we came upstairs to check on Lucas, we found him in the closet with the blood on the floor.”
“How did he get this cut on his leg?”
“We don’t know.”
“I think your son will be fine, although he does have a nasty infection and requires immediate treatment. He’ll need to be observed, so I’ll need to report this incident. Where is the communicator?”
The Healer and Mr. Crawford leave the room again, and the similarities to my own experience slick my palms and neck with sweat. I had hoped the Healer would simply give Lucas a pill to make him better. If he reports this to the same Other who required Mrs. Morgan to be taken to a Regional Healer, Deshi will be informed of the development once he’s rescued.
Springs squeak, and the image of Mrs. Crawford sitting on the edge of the bed heats my blood further. I would give anything to be out there holding Lucas’s hand, trying to soothe him, but she’s not even touching him. My heart breaks in half at the thought that he might feel scared and alone.
This time when the stairs creak, more than one pair of feet pound the thin carpet. The cold slam of their Other-like gait shrinks me into the cold tile, both to get as far away as possible and to use it to cool the fire slinking under my skin.
The voices in the room now are clearly Other, and the harmonic tones make my hands clench into fists. I remind myself that this is what Lucas needs. I have to let the Others take him right now, if that’s the way to fix the infection raging through him because of that stupid animal.
“We will accompany your son. Healer, would you please take Mr. and Mrs. Crawford downstairs and complete their statement? We’ll get Lucas settled on his transport and get out of your hair.” An Other, indistinguishable from all the rest, dismisses Lucas’s parents.
Three pairs of feet shuffle from the room. The Others—are they Wardens? The white-clad Others? I have no way to know. And even though my worry for Lucas dominates every breath, I also hope they stay out of the cleansing room.
“What on Earth happened to this kid?”
Noises accompany their conversation. I think of how they treated Greg, and push it from my mind. The Healer can help Lucas. They’ll be careful with him.
“I personally don’t give a shit.”
“Really, Hanaj? You’re going to curse like a human now?”
When the first voice doesn’t respond, the second continues. “You know he’s the male that Deshi told us to watch. Lucas Crawford. We can let the Healer treat him, but we can’t let him go to the Observatory Pod until Deshi talks to him.”
Oxygen stales in my lungs. I’m afraid to breathe, scared they’ll say something important and I’ll miss it. I press scalding hot hands into the shower wall, trying to maintain some kind of composure. They know about us, and they’re going to take Lucas somewhere to wait for Deshi.
“We haven’t heard from Chief since last night.”
That’s what Cadi called Deshi, I realize.
“So, we’ll take the kid and the Healer to the Cell and keep him in the Administrative Center until Deshi shows up and tells us what to do. Orders are not to dispose of him.” The Other who spoke like a human earlier sounds impatient, his words clipped.
They don’t say anything else, apparently agreeing on their course of action. Despair fills me. Instead of sending Lucas with a Healer to get help, I’ve shipped him off with a bunch of Others who’ll turn him over to Deshi. The notion that I could still stop what’s been put in motion, that using my heated body to overpower two Others and get Lucas away would be much more feasible than taking on Deshi, flutters around but I slap it away.
Lucas still needs help, and I can’t give it to him. Being with the Others, even Deshi, is better than being dead. Isn’t it?
Helplessness tightens my chest, making it hard to breathe. I bite my knuckles to keep from crying out as they exit the room, leaving a looming silence that says I’m alone up here. After a moment or two I creep out of the cleansing room and back into Lucas’s private space, the lingering smell of him making me want to collapse.
Through the window I see the Crawfords’ front door bang open and the Others and the Healer exit, and Lucas following on a floating cot. One gestures the bed toward the rider at the curb, then they get inside and slam the doors shut.
The rider, taking away the only person who means anything to me in this world, disappears. My knees give out, dropping me on the floor with my back against Lucas’s window seat. I remind myself that all is not lost. I know they’re taking Lucas to the Cell, and he’ll be there at least the rest of the day. Even if Deshi manages to get help extricating himself from that stream this morning, they have interviews and no one is talking to Lucas until the Healer fixes his leg enough to wake him up.
The earliest they’ll be able to move him is this evening. I have the day to figure out how to get into the Cell and get Lucas back.
Before I can find the energy to pick myself up off the floor, footsteps patter down the hall. The Crawfords enter the room, staring at me with comical, surprised expressions a moment later. He’s wearing blue-striped pajama pants and a white T-shirt, his ebony skin visible through the worn threads. Glasses perch on his thick nose, magnifying his dark brown eyes. Her legs are pale and bare beneath a nightgown the color of sapphires.
They stop inside the doorway, seemingly unsure of what the protocol is for finding strange girls sitting on the floor of your son’s bedroom.
Mr. Crawford clears his throat and attempts a smile. “Hello. What are you doing here?”
I’m careful to keep my frustrated thoughts to myself so I don’t Break them, too. “I was, um, looking for Lucas?”
Mrs. Crawford’s smile wobbles a little. “He had an accident and had to go away with the Healer. But he’ll be back.” Confusion thickens in her grass green gaze. “I don’t think you should be here.”
“Yes, you’re not supposed to be here.”
Their puzzlement over my intrusion on their already bizarre morning worries me. In the past, no one has commented on my outbursts or pointed out instances where I am somewhere Unacceptable. But now that I know how strong a hold the Others have over the humans, I worry it’s too engrained, that Mr. Crawford will report my appearance to the Others. There’s only a small chance I’ll be able to save Lucas, and getting caught turns that into no chance at all.
Weariness settles in, joining a bone-deep resistance to using my powers to d
eal with the Crawfords. But time is precious. Deshi could already be awake but still trapped, using his brain tunnels to contact help. The longer I stay hidden the better. I drag myself off the carpet and frown. “Get in the closet.”
Their faces morph into masks of stunned bewilderment, almost making me laugh. Mr. Crawford recovers first, putting out a hand to stop his Partner as she steps forward to obey. “No. I think it’s time for you to leave.”
I step toward the bed, pulling a pillow from under the comforter, and stop beside Mrs. Crawford. Nausea bubbles up as I press the cotton between my hands and push the heat. Acrid smoke rises up, filling my nostrils. I thrust the smoldering pillow toward Mrs. Crawford’s chest as flames sprout and flicker from under my palms. It’s so hard to say the words around the vomit in my throat. A picture of Lucas at Deshi’s mercy flashes in my mind and makes it easier.
“If you don’t want me to light her on fire, get in the closet.”
It’s the weirdest thing, watching them try to process fear without any knowledge of how to be afraid. Their empty eyes flash with emotion, but it quickly disappears. Then Mr. Crawford grabs his Partner’s hand and drags her with him into Lucas’s closet. They huddle together along the back wall, clothes falling around them like the snowflakes outside.
Tears burn my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Before the sight of their blank faces changes my mind I slam the door shut. I press my hand to the brass doorknob, heating it until it melts and spreads from the door to the jamb, effectively trapping them inside. I tell myself they’ll be fine; when they don’t report for work in a couple hours, someone will look for them. It was good practice at trying to use only the right amount of heat, I suppose, though thinking of scaring them—even if they didn’t realize they were scared—as practice makes me sick.
The morning is cloudy and cold. Small lacy flakes continue to waft down from the iron gray sky. My watch says it’s just past five, still two hours before the rest of the world will wake up and greet the day.
I grab my bag where I dropped it in the backyard and run for the park. I can’t go to Cell right now. I can’t go to the Morgans’. Deshi, screaming and on fire, skitters through my overwrought brain. There’s only one place I can go to wait out the hours until I can try to save Lucas, and although I want to go get him now, at least I’ll have time to strengthen my plan.
And time to come to grips with what I’m going to have to do.
The houses drop from sight and my feet break into a sprint. They don’t stop until I’ve reached the dead section of the boundary, thrown my duffel bag into the Wilds, and scrambled over the top. I pick my way through the underbrush, stopping at a tree with a funny-shaped trunk. Instead of being a perfect circle it has an indentation in one side, about three feet across and two feet deep. I curl into the tree’s roots and close my eyes against this impossible situation as hopelessness tightens my chest.
My tension starts to unwind as a plan begins to form. It’s not very good; in fact, it’s reckless and will most likely get me locked up right along with Lucas, but it’s all I’ve got. It’ll probably end up with me captured right along with him, but that’s better than being alone again.
I spend some time scanning my chemistry and physics books, researching the melting point of glass and similar materials. Practice would be beneficial, but my emotions flounder around so violently it frightens me that the animals in the Wilds could suffer if the fire gets out of hand. Out here, with nothing but flammable trees and brush as far as the eye can see, flames would be disastrous. Not to mention they would give me away. I’ll have to hope that my fire hands, as Lucas termed them, don’t let me down when I actually need them.
Exhausted, I unzip my bag, pull out one of the blankets, and wrap it around me. Snuggled inside, aching and raw from both the cold and grief, worry tramples my tenuous hope. My blood carries it from my head to my heart and down to my stomach until my entire body trembles from holding it all in.
Thoughts of Lucas, of what the Others might already have done to him, make me feel ill. I hope the Healer fixed his leg, but if I ever see Lucas again, I am going to punch him right in the face for not telling me how bad it had gotten.
***
Night falls on the forest. Deshi is free of our makeshift imprisonment. Three Wardens opened the gate and rescued him several hours ago. They passed within twenty yards of me, never guessing, never looking.
It’s too late to turn back. Alarms have been raised. I didn’t go home or to Cell, and the Wardens return and sweep the park. It’s after curfew now and they call my name, loud enough for me to hear from this side of the boundary. The fence rattles and I stop breathing.
A laughing, melodious Other voice shatters the still night. “What are you doing, idiot? He said not to bother checking out there.”
“I know, but she’s not human. How do Chief and the Prime know what she’ll do?”
The first one snorts. “She was raised human, though, right? If Chief says she’ll walk right into our hands, then she will.”
Heavy feet thud into the earth. The second voice, deeper but no less pleasant, sounds sheepish. “I’m not questioning the Prime or the Chief. Just wanted an excuse to get out of this town.”
They walk away and my lungs release a shaky breath.
Weeks ago, back when only my life depended on me, I would have given up. Now Lucas’s life is in my hands. He’s made life tolerable, been my friend and confidant. I can’t let him go. Besides, he would do the same for me. There’s not a doubt in my mind.
The moon rises as the sun scoots into tomorrow, casting a haunting, silvery glow over the trees and underbrush. The peculiar silence full of sounds that only exists in the Wilds drapes the night. Stars twinkle all around and for a moment I ponder Cadi’s stories. I wish I could see Sprita from here; Deasupra was light years away, when it still existed.
Sounds materialize, hoots and scratches that bring back the memories of our mishaps with the animals. A howl echoes in the distance, haunting and free. It sends shivers along my spine and up my neck. The serenity this freedom offers is a lifeline; I clutch it and hang on. I’m free now, like the animals. If I get Lucas out, I’m never going back in there again.
A rustling comes closer and a scraping sounds above me. My muscles don’t even twitch, trusting the natural world to behave as it should. Lucas might laugh at my calmness after what happened to his leg. My smile fades as I wonder if I’ll ever hear his playful voice again.
I keep waiting, knowing that the longer I hold out, the fewer possibilities there will be for disaster to strike. The humans need to be tucked safe in their homes before I march into town and stir up trouble. I sense someone—something—watching me. It could be an animal, or perhaps Deshi is out here searching for me after all. Like a small child afraid of the dark spaces under my bed, I draw the blanket up around me and bury my face. If I can’t see them, they can’t see me.
When it’s time to go, the moon is high in the sky. Dark, wispy clouds pass in front of it, not dense enough to staunch the light. I tear my eyes away from the void and make my way cautiously back to the fence.
Shadows hide me on the way into town. My heart whispers one last wish for help. If Cadi is listening, maybe she’ll throw a bit of luck our way. I’d feel better just knowing she lives.
Four Wardens loiter on the sidewalk, talking. I jerk farther back into the shadows and slip behind a tree trunk large enough to obscure me. I’m afraid they’ll hear my gasping breath from where they stand, even though their conversation is far away, barely audible over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
“This is dumb. Why didn’t we bring them in weeks ago, when Chief found the fish?”
“The Prime wanted to find out who was helping them. Plus, you know how they like to play with the humans.”
“He better be right about her taking the bait at the Cell. The Prime isn’t going to be happy if he loses the girl.”
The Wardens split up an
d wander down the block, voices fading as they head toward the park. Disgust heats my face and hands. The reminder that Deshi and the Prime Other have known about us for weeks feels cold and slimy inside my mind, an unwelcome invasion. A hot flash of anger follows, spurring me forward with new determination. I know now the idea to keep Lucas at Cell is a trap set for me, but if Deshi thinks they’re getting Lucas or me without a fight, he’s got another think coming.
I’d worried before about the front doors of the Cell being locked, but now that I know Deshi is counting on my stupidity—or loyalty, depending on how you look at it—I feel sure they’ll be open. He wouldn’t want to lock me out of his baited snare.
The door pulls open easily in my left hand, confirming the trap. My right palm stretches toward the camera watching my every move. Wild, thrashing emotion travels down my arm into my hand. When my palm feels as though it will explode from the heat bubbling under the skin, I push the heat out of me. It hits the camera, melting it in an instant. An acrid smell hangs in the air as the charred, gooey lump falls off its mount.
Maybe that was a bit much.
Ignoring the dead camera, I head into the building and straight to the Administrator’s office. No point in trying to be sneaky. Deshi is expecting me; I don’t want to keep him waiting. Chances are, as soon as that camera melted someone alerted him and the Wardens to my presence. Dread pulses and burrows, but the prolonged adrenaline rush deadens the sensation.
The hallways are dark and strangely eerie with the lack of voices and banging lockers. The cameras I pass along the way melt with a flick of my wrist now. A sense of strong, heady power buzzes in my fingertips. Along the way I experiment with pressure, and by the time I pass through the last doorway just the lens melts, the rest of the camera staying mounted on the wall.
When a Warden steps around the corner we both startle.
I avoid his gaze, having no desire to experience the pain of their brain invasion, and scramble backward. My own feet trip me and I land in a heap.
Dark Roses: Eight Paranormal Romance Novels Page 53