FOUND (Angels and Gargoyles Book 1)

by Brenda L. Harper

  Dylan felt Sam’s fingers twitch in hers. She snagged one of his fingers between her index finger and thumb and squeezed, trying to tell him to stay quiet.

  The man continued to watch Dylan, his eyes again moving over her as though looking for something, an outward sign of whatever he thought she was. “They made a mistake in Genero when they let you go.”

  Dylan stiffed slightly. “You know where I’m from.”

  “We know a great deal about you, my dear.” He gestured toward her. “If you’ll move over her, I can release those ties on your wrists.”

  “Be careful, Dylan,” Sam said quietly.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” the man said. “If I had meant her harm, I would have had the guards kill her instead of bringing her here.”

  Something about his amused tone did little to reassure Sam. He maneuvered his fingers in an attempt to keep Dylan from pulling away. But her shoulder hurt so much, she was afraid she would never be able to do anything about it unless her wrists were free. So she pulled away from the wall, away from Sam, and rolled to her feet to approach the man at the door.

  His smile was filled with something that made worms crawl in Dylan’s stomach, but she approached him just the same. She turned, backing up with her arms stretched out behind her. He chuckled as he pulled a knife from its small scabbard, a movement that made the metal of its blade sing over and again through the room. Dylan’s eyes rested on Sam’s as she waited.

  She felt pressure on her wrists, and then they were free, their restraint falling to the ground. She cried out, her hand moving quickly to her shoulder as the sudden movement in her arm sent shivers of pain up and down her spine.

  “Come closer and I’ll try to push your shoulder back in place.”

  Dylan shook her head, moving deeper into the box, away from the strange man. “Cut his restraints,” she said, gesturing toward Sam.

  The man shrugged, moving over to Sam’s box. Dylan nodded when Sam looked at her, holding up her freed wrists to show him it was safe. She watched as he did the same as she had done, backing up to the door of the box and holding out his wrists to the man’s knife. In a quick flash of sharp metal, Sam’s hands were freed. He came to the wall that adjourned her box and slipped his arms through, reaching his hands out for her. She took his wrists between her hands, rubbing away the marks left by his bindings.

  “Touching,” the man said.

  “What do you plan to do to us?” Sam asked without looking at the man, without acknowledging anything about him.

  “You? Nothing. We’ll likely let you go when everything is said and done.”

  “And her?”

  The man made a sound that brought to mind a deep sense of satisfaction. Dylan glanced at him, not surprised to see a smile of delight dancing across his thin lips.

  “We have a great number of plans for her,” he said. “That’s why we had Wyatt bring her here.”

  It was as though he had dropped a great weight over Dylan. Her vision darkened for an instant, her shoulders sagged, even the one that was already dipped in injury. “Wyatt?” she asked quietly.

  “He didn’t tell you? He’s been searching for you for several years, my love.”

  Dylan let her hands fall from Sam’s wrists, tears forming slowly in her eyes. Sam moved his hand, reached for her face, but she moved out of his reach.

  “Why?” Sam asked.

  “Because,” the man said, his tone suggesting exasperation, as though they should have known the answer to this question already, “she is the one we have all been waiting for. She will be the destruction of the human race and the beginning of our new existence here on this forsaken planet.”

  Chapter 30

  Dylan lay curled up on the dirty floor. She had tried to heal her shoulder, but she couldn’t concentrate enough to make…whatever it was that did it, work. All she could think about was Wyatt, but she couldn’t even concentrate on him enough to see him, to find him wherever he might be. The pain in her shoulder was part of the problem, she knew. It overwhelmed her thoughts, made it difficult to think of anything else.

  That, and heartbreak.

  “That man was lying,” Sam said for what Dylan imagined was the hundredth time, though not that much time had passed since their visitor had left them.

  “How do you know?” she finally asked.

  “Because he wants to make you think you can’t trust Wyatt. That you can’t trust any of us.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sam was pacing in his box, his long legs moving so quickly over the confined space that he could only take two or three steps before he had to turn around and move in a different direction. She watched him, only vaguely aware of his movements. It reminded her, for a moment, of her fascination with watching Wyatt move the first few days they were together, of the unique way in which a man’s muscles moved and functioned. There were similarities between Sam and Wyatt. Sam was leaner, his muscles less defined, but there was that same hint of power just below the surface.

  She wished that power could do something to save them now.

  He came to the wall that their boxes shared and studied her, his green eyes so much like Donna’s that it only served to remind Dylan once again of all she had lost. He reached up and smoothed a lock of dirty brown hair off his forehead as he watched her, fear laced with concern etched in the fine lines along his graceful jaw, his low forehead.

  “We’ll figure this out,” he said.

  Dylan shook her head. “Genero sent us out of the dome to die. Wyatt set us up to be captured by these—” she thought of the Redcoat whose throat Sam had cut, a fatal wound that healed itself without any effort on the man’s part, and knew she had no word for what they were.

  “We don’t know that Wyatt set us up.”

  “He told you to take us down the same path the Redcoats took us down, the same path that led to the same door he told us to go through.”

  Sam pressed his forehead lightly against the bars of the wall. “He did. But maybe he didn’t know they would be waiting there.”

  Dylan shook her head. “This is his city.”

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “So we forget about Wyatt and Stiles and Ellie, and we fight for ourselves.”

  “How?”

  The sound lay flat and sad between them. The truth was, she knew, neither of them knew the answer.

  She closed her eyes and tried to think of something soothing, of something that might ease the pain burning in her shoulder. Images flashed through her mind: her sisters at D dorm, Donna smiling after winning a game of chess in the commons room, Denise laughing at a joke someone else had told her, Davida whispering a secret in Dylan’s ear. Tension slowly began to leave Dylan as the images increased, coming faster. Mostly centered on Davida, on the compassion in her eyes each time she looked at Dylan or Donna.

  And then it was just Davida, urgency in her tone as she touched Dylan’s shoulders and begged her to listen.

  “We’re coming for you,” she said. “You must stay aware of everything around you. Danger lurks everywhere. Do not trust anyone.”

  She disappeared as quickly as she had come, making Dylan sit up, gasping for breath.

  “Dylan? What is it?” Sam asked, his voice as anxious and his tone as urgent as Davida’s had been.

  Dylan shook her head even as the sounds of footsteps reverberated off the stone walls outside the boxes. She stood, slipping over to Sam, their hands reaching for one another as she stood facing the door to her box. Three Redcoats appeared in the entrance to the room. They paused, splitting apart to let two young women step forward. For a moment Dylan thought one of them was Davida. Dressed in a silky, white dress, she had her dark head down. Something about the way she held herself, the shape of her body, the curve of her shoulders, reminded Dylan of her beloved guardian. But then she looked up.

  Caramel-colored eyes met Dylan’s. Caramel, not hazel.

  “You’re to come with us,” the young woman s
aid.

  Dylan moved back, closer to Sam as his hands gripped hers tightly. “Where are you taking her?” Sam demanded.

  “She will not be harmed,” the woman said, her voice unnaturally calm. The woman turned to one of the Redcoats and motioned for him to open the door to Dylan’s box. Sam’s hands tightened on Dylan’s that much more. She squeezed back, but then slowly pulled away.

  “Don’t,” he whispered, his fingers reaching as far into her box as the tight bars would allow. “Don’t go with them.”

  “I don’t think I have much choice,” Dylan said as she turned, trying to hide the fear that was tearing through her chest as she looked at him for what might be the last time.

  Sam held his hands up for a long second before stepping back, dropping his hands to his sides as one of the Redcoats came into the box and grabbed Dylan roughly by the arm. Sam lifted his chin in the same gesture she had made to him soon after they were caught, showing her his own defiance. She returned the gesture before following the Redcoats and the mysterious women out of the room.

  Chapter 31

  It was like a maze, the stone corridors they followed. Dylan could tell they were moving up, as though on a circular track that wound up and up the inside of a mountain. The higher they went, the more decoration she began to see on the walls. Tapestries, long, colorful rugs that hung over the moist stones. Portraits of beautiful people Dylan didn’t recognize from any of the history she had been taught in Genero. Small shelves with small trinkets, some she knew, some she didn’t.

  And then they turned down one long corridor where there were windows that allowed bright sunlight to shine down over them. It was early morning, Dylan realized. A whole night had passed in what felt like seconds.

  A door opened, and the guard released Dylan. The dark-haired girl gestured for her to enter the room. She did, with some reluctance, and found herself in a room a dozen times larger than her small bedroom in D dorm, a luxurious space filled with huge, heavy furniture and silky linens that just begged to be touched. Off to one side was a bed bigger than any Dylan had ever seen, wrapped in this translucent fabric. To one side was a table covered in jars and tubes, a mirror set behind it in which Dylan could see her own shocked reflection looking back at her. A mirror in the bedroom. That was unheard of in Genero.

  There was a desk and a small couch in one corner that looked as though it had confused its identity with a bed. A straight-back chair, rugs scattered across the stone floor, a tall cabinet with doors that were taller and wider than Dylan herself. And in the center of it all was a bathtub with feet, filled nearly to the brim with steaming water.

  “What is this?” Dylan asked.

  “Your bedroom,” the dark-haired girl said. “The masters were very angry to learn you had been taken to the dungeon. That was not meant to happen.”

  “What about my friend?”

  The dark-haired girl looked at her companion, a timid wisp of a thing with equally dark hair. “I’m sure he will be given his own room,” the first girl said in a happy, even tone that belied the confusion in her eyes.

  Dylan walked over to the tub and dipped her fingers in the warm water. She had forgotten already how refreshing it could be to soak in warm water. It made her think of the river, the lake, where she had spent the few happy hours in the ordeal of the last few days.

  And of Wyatt.

  The first girl, the talker, came up behind Dylan and began to tug at her shirt. Dylan pulled away, wrapping her arms around herself. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “It is our job to help you clean yourself,” the girl said, dipping her head slightly. “I apologize for any misunderstanding.”

  “I can undress myself,” Dylan said, but she made no move to do so. Instead, she continued to look around the room, running her fingers over items that were familiar to her, such as writing paper and upholstery and brass cabinetry, as well as unfamiliar things, such as the jars of color, the beveled edges of the tall mirror, the writing sticks that were metal rather than lead.

  “Where did all this come from?” she asked. “Who lives here?”

  “You do.”

  “Before me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Dylan glanced over at the girls. The talker was watching her closely, but the other was standing with her eyes on the rug, as though she were afraid to make eye contact with anyone. “What are your names?” she asked.

  “Ruby,” the talker said. “I am called Ruby.”

  “And her?” Dylan said, gesturing at the other girl.

  “She is called Becky.”

  The girl looked up at the sound of her name only to quickly shift her eyes to the floor again. Dylan watched her for a moment, but she didn’t look up again. She tried to hear her thoughts, but had no success at that, either.

  “You should get in the bath,” Ruby said. “The doctor will be here soon to look at your shoulder.”

  Dylan touched her shoulder lightly, the flesh still so tender that even that little touch sent waves of nausea through her belly. “If I don’t?” she asked.

  “Don’t what?”

  “If I don’t get in the bath? What happens?”

  Ruby shrugged. “You will meet the masters dirty.” She frowned. The look only made her perfect features that much more beautiful. It was a little intimidating to Dylan. “I don’t suppose they would like that.”

  Dylan inclined her head slightly. “Is that what happens next?”

  Ruby’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. You get to have an audience with the masters. That is such an honor.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Dylan looked at herself in the mirror, studied her dirt-smeared face, and decided it might not be such a bad thing to soak in a tub of warm water. She touched the compass in her pocket, the small stone and wrist bangle hiding there. She glanced behind her, then subtly slipped them from her pocket and hid them behind one of the many jars on the small table. Then she walked back to the tub, running her fingers through the warm water once more. Slowly she began to undress, never concerned about her nakedness. The girls always showered together in D dorm, the guardians included. But the intensity in Ruby’s gaze was a little unnerving.

  “Do you have to stare at me?” she asked.

  Ruby immediately dropped her gaze to the floor. “I apologize,” she said.

  Dylan finished undressing and stepped into the tub, allowing the water to slowly cover her tired, abused body. Her dislocated shoulder proved to be a bit of a problem as she tried to find a comfortable position in which to recline. It also didn’t help that she couldn’t move her arm very far and the soap happened to be on a little shelf on that side of the tub. She sloshed some of the water onto the stone floor as she tried to reach the soap with her other hand.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry,” Becky muttered as she came to kneel at Dylan’s side, a cloth mitt over her hand. She picked up the soap and rubbed it into the mitt before she began to run her hand over Dylan’s arm.

  “I can wash myself.”

  Becky hesitated but continued as though Dylan had not spoken.

  “It is her job,” Ruby said.

  Dylan bit back words she was afraid would only fall on deaf ears and lay back, trying to force herself to enjoy the touch of a stranger. It was not easy, and she was glad when it was finished.

  The water turned an almost pleasing reddish brown color as the dirt and dust washed from Dylan’s body. The worst of it seemed to come from her hair, her head a soft magnet for every type of dirt there was out in this desolate landscape. She watched it drip from the rinse water as Becky washed the soap out of her hair. It would have been embarrassing if every particle of dust had not been hard earned in these past few days. Her badge of strength was washing away in the warm water of convenience.

  With the washing complete, Dylan stepped out of the water into a huge, fluffy towel that Ruby offered up to her. She dried her own skin as best as she could as Becky retrieved a jar of some
unknown white substance and began to rub it into the skin of Dylan’s hand. It was cool, refreshing, and made her skin feel as silky as the linens hanging around the bed. Dylan slipped the jar from Becky’s hand and rubbed the fine fluid over other parts of her body, parts she did not relish having some stranger touch again.

  Ruby produced a long, flowing dress made of the finest materials Dylan had ever had the pleasure of touching. It was a pale blue, the bodice cut low and straight below slender sleeves and above a high waist and a long, flowing skirt. Dylan had never worn a dress before but had read of them, so she knew enough about the styles of the past society to realize that this was not an everyday sort of thing, but something special.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said quietly.

  Ruby beamed, as though she had made the dress herself. For all Dylan knew, she might have.

  Before she could dress, however, there was a knock at the door. A tall, blond woman walked in without waiting for a response from any of the room’s occupants.

  “Doctor,” Ruby said in a low, conspiratorial whisper.

  “I am Doctor Regina,” the woman said, approaching with her hand held out to Dylan.

  Dylan studied her face, remembering what Davida had told her in her vision. Trust no one. “This isn’t necessary,” she said. “It’s fine.”

  The doctor rolled back on her heels, her hands on the waistband of her tight-fitting pants. “Your shoulder is dislocated,” she said.

  Dylan nodded.

  “It needs to be pushed back into place.”

  Dylan lifted her arm a little, trying not to wince at the pain that sliced through her as she did. “It’ll go back eventually.”

  “Are you a doctor?” the woman asked with some laughter in her tone.

  Dylan stepped back a little, knocking the backs of her knees against the edge of the bed. “Really,” she began to say as the doctor gave some sort of signal to Ruby and Becky. The girls immediately advanced on Dylan, taking advantage of her position to shove her back on the bed. Becky climbed onto the bed with Dylan, using strength Dylan would not have thought she possessed in her small body to drag Dylan’s legs onto the bed at the same time Ruby grabbed Dylan’s good arm and dragged her farther back. Dylan began to protest, jerking her legs hard enough to pull them out of Becky’s grip momentarily, as the doctor climbed on top of her.