“This way!” Dave made a grab for her but she sidestepped him and pulled one of her shuriken, aiming at the wolf.
She let the shuriken fly, and the wolf tumbled off.
“Ella, move!” Dave shouted.
Hm? Oh, right. The Kyr was still heading toward her, looking pretty damn pissed.
She drew another shuriken and threw it. It struck a massive leg, ricocheted and flew in another direction. The Kyr slowed, planted its claws and turned its head, snapping at Finn.
He swung his blade backward, striking the fanning crest rising behind him, striking sparks off it — but suddenly a crest sprang up from the creature’s back, fanning over Finn, glittering like metal. He jerked, his body stiffening.
“Finn, look out!” Ella didn’t wait to see more. She drew her other knife and ran toward the creature.
“Strike the left leg,” Dave was shouting from behind her. “Above the knee!”
So she raced right at the Kyr, pounding between the massive legs, and jammed her knife into the leg. Using it as leverage, she pulled herself up, climbing the moving limb like a tree trunk, pulled her knife free and shoved it right over the knee, hoping Dave was right.
The animal roared.
“Pull the knife out!” Dave yelled, damn him.
“Why don’t you do it,” she groused, pressing her lips together as she tugged on the knife that was well damn stuck. “You lying bastard robot, you...”
The blade slid out and she barely had time to duck her head as blood jetted out in a fountain. An artery? Wow.
Another hot spray hit the back of her neck and she glanced around to see Dave attached like a leech on the other leg, holding his bloody knife, his face spattered with crimson.
“Jump,” Dave said and she obeyed without a second thought.
She hit the ground hard and her head slammed on the asphalt. Nothing made sense for a moment, then Dave was again dragging her away and it was a good thing as the Kyr folded down and its head thumped down between its bent legs, spraying snow in all directions.
“Christ,” she whispered, trying to clear her blurry eyes. “Is it dead?”
“The aelfr finished it. It’s bleeding out,” Dave said.
Wordlessly he lifted her up and dragged her backward. She dug in her heels — until she realized he was leading her toward a dark shape in the snow.
That cleared her head and she went along, helping Dave lift Finn up. He hadn’t put on his Kevlar, and his jacket and sweater were torn to shreds. Blood glistened through, turning her stomach.
At least he seemed conscious when they pulled him to his feet. And in pain. He groaned when she pulled his arm over her shoulders to take on some of his weight.
“Finn?”
“No more,” he grunted. “No more.”
“He’s hurt.” Her heart banged. She tried to catch Dave’s gaze over Finn’s bowed head. “Is this thing poisonous?”
“No. He’ll be fine.”
“My back,” Finn hissed, his feet dragging.
Ella slowed, her heart in her throat. “Told you he’s in pain.”
“You promised.” Finn’s voice dropped to a raspy whisper. “Let me go. Let me—”
He struggled weakly in their hold, not lifting his head. Bright lines flashed on his skin and his hair gave a faint glow. “Let go.”
Oh god. He was flashing back to the cave.
Dave tightened his grip on Finn’s arm. “He’s remembering something. It’s as if the pain in his back has triggered his memory.” He gave Ella a long, measuring look. “What if we—”
“We can’t,” she snapped, tugging on Finn’s arm, pulling him through the swirling snowflakes toward her car. Oh hell no. “We won’t.”
“Won’t we?”
She opened the door and Dave guided Finn inside. “No, we won’t hurt him to jolt his memory. No way.”
“But what if it’s the only way?”
“It doesn’t work like that.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “It’s a flashback. He won’t remember it afterward.”
“But while he’s inside memory lane, he does. Doesn’t he?” Dave leaned into the car where Finn sat hunched forward, ash-blond hair falling forward, hiding his face. “Hey, Finn. What do you see?”
“She’s here,” he rasped. “Adramar.”
“The queen?” Dave’s brows lifted, clearly caught off guard. “What for?”
“Checking.” Finn let out a shuddering breath. “If I’m the one. She promised...”
“Promised what?”
“To let me go.” The words came haltingly, painfully. “I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
Ella pushed Dave aside. “Enough. This isn’t helping him remember his dreams. It’s useless, Dave.”
“And what are his dreams about?”
Ella shook her head. She wasn’t sure she could trust Dave with more. She wiped snowflakes from her lashes. “There must be another way to do this.”
“Then find it, Stabilizer, and do it fast.” Dave leaned against the car, folding his arms over his chest. “A little pain is a small price to pay compared to what will happen if the aelfr doesn’t find his strength. He’ll destroy your world, or don’t you care anymore?”
“Now you want to play off my guilt?” Heat rose up her neck. “Back off, Guardian. Guilt is a strong emotion, something you’re not acquainted with. All this isn’t my fault, or Finn’s.”
He smirked. “Emotions have never been my forte, I’ll give you that.”
“But you’re full of brilliant ideas, instead.”
“Recreating the conditions of the repressed memory to trigger his memory? That wasn’t my idea. Sarah was the one who suggested it. And it seems to work.”
“Piss off.” She was so furious she could see Dave’s glittering seam, running from the top of his head to his shoes. “If you can’t help, then at least back off and let him breathe.”
Dave grumbled something but turned and left with long strides.
She exhaled and lifted a shaking hand to Finn’s face. “Hey. You’re not in that cave anymore, okay? Look around you. You’re with me.”
“Ella.” He reached for her hand and clutched it so hard she had to clamp down on her lower lip not to whimper. “Is it over?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “You’ve done more than enough. Let’s go home.”
***
“Dave’s such a bastard.” Ella threw her backpack at the sofa. She missed and it crashed against the coffee table, sending a mug to the carpet where it spilled cold tea. Finn’s knives rattled inside, courtesy of a grumpy Dave right before they left. “I mean, anyone can see you’re trying, and I’m trying, so what more does he want?”
To fix the mess. To change Finn’s dreams. To help him reach his full potential.
She rubbed a hand over her face, realizing her anger wasn’t directed at Dave.
Well, not all of it.
She didn’t want to say it out loud, even less since she’d opened her big mouth and spilled Finn’s secret to Dave — but Dave may be, after all, the only one who might know what she was able to do. Yet all he’d thought up so far was another reason to hurt Finn — and he was still lying about the transmitter.
Finn limped inside and shrugged off his shredded jacket, saying nothing. His brow was creased, his eyes dark. He winced, and she stopped, taking a better look at him as he took a staggering step toward the sofa.
“Whoa.” She rushed to catch him around the waist as his knee buckled. “Steady there.”
His face was white as milk. She pushed him down on the worn velvet cushions and knelt by his feet. She’d already cleaned the cuts in his back with the medic kit in the car, and Dave had been right, they didn’t look too bad.
But between not sleeping and waking up from night terrors, fighting the Shades and getting beaten up to hell and back, he was bound to crash sooner rather than later.
“I thought I remembered something. But now I don’t,” he whispered. “Faen.�
�
“Don’t worry about it. It’ll come to you sooner or later.” She started unlacing his boots and he straightened, his frown easing, watching her from heavy-lidded eyes. “And sorry about the rant. It’s just that I’d been hoping...” For what? Finn to remember it all? Dave to have a good solution? Pressing her lips together, she tugged the boots off, let them drop on the carpet and laid her arms on the couch, propped her chin on them. “Always hoping.”
“I hoped... for so long.” His accent lilted, something that rarely happened anymore — a sure sign of fatigue. “For something good. But the gods forgot me.” His hands clenched on his thighs. “Then I came here and found you and thought the gods remembered. And now I can’t fight the nightmares, I can’t remember, I’m not getting stronger and can’t control the Gates.”
“Shh.” She climbed onto the sofa and drew him into a hug. His outburst scared her worse than ever. He was at the end of his tether, she thought as he held onto her, his face buried in her neck, his heart thumping hard. Or maybe he’d been for a while, only now free to express himself, with no other listening. “Not your fault.” She sighed. “It’s apparently mine.”
He made a soft noise in the back of his throat, but she didn’t know if he was denying it or groaning, so she held him tighter, crushing him to her chest. “Cut yourself a little slack. The dreams and memories are out of your control, so you can’t blame yourself. You’re doing all you can, you hear me? You’re fighting it all — the Veil, the Shades, the Gates, Dave, your bond to the dragon, the lies everyone is telling us — and you’re still sane and alive. That’s a victory in my book.”
His scent curled around her, caramel and cinnamon, a hint of apples from his shampoo, blood and musk. He shook, his panting breaths warm against her skin. Not weeping. Just trembling in the circle of her arms.
“Do you think...” He drew a sharp breath and his arms tightened, threatening to crush her ribs, his hands splayed on her back. His voice slurred when he asked, “There’s a reason I can’t remember?”
Oh baby. Many awful reasons, I’ll bet. She closed her eyes, because that had been on her mind from the beginning, and what she’d seen only made it more plausible. That his mind was protecting him from something terrible that had happened. “You’ve been through a lot. Your mind needs time to sort it all out.”
Yeah, like she knew what she was talking about. Finn’s hold relaxed a fraction, though, and he let out a long breath. She felt bad for pretending it was all okay, but he knew it wasn’t, and letting him fall into the dark pit of depression wouldn’t help.
But what would? Her anger had helped before; she hadn’t managed that emotion at all in his recent dreams — mostly because both he and she were too confused with the alternating dreamscapes and unanswered questions in Finn’s memories; or were shell-shocked with the pain Finn suffered in the cave.
She petted the soft silk of his hair at the back of his neck, stroked circles on his back and his hold slackened, his back relaxing.
Yeah, maybe she needed to gather whatever scrap of memory Finn had and use it to whip up her fury for those who hurt him. It might work, and they had no other clues.
She tried to ease back to ask him when she realized he was dead weight against her. His breathing was slow and regular. Wow. He’d fallen asleep. Out like a light.
Talk about being exhausted. No wonder he’d almost broken down — almost. That was Finn, after all, stubborn as all hell.
“Finn.” She shook him gently and he stirred enough to lift his head. He frowned, his gaze confused, and she smoothed her thumb over a sharp cheekbone. “Lie down. You’ll be more comfortable.”
She pushed him on the sofa and he tugged on her arms, pulling her down with him. She fit perfectly against him, her head cradled on his shoulder, and he gave her a sleepy smile. She placed her hand on his chest, on top of his heart.
“Sleep,” she whispered. “I’ll take first watch.”
***
Pain. It lanced through Ella’s body with each breath, cascading down her bag to her legs, rising up to the base of her skull like a venomous snake, sinking a thousand fangs on the way.
But it wasn’t her pain.
She retreated and her back met the wet, cold rock of the cave.
Right. She was in Finn’s memory.
He hung over the stone table, and he’d managed to raise his head, although his expression was blank. His eyes were half-open, his lips white, his jaw clenched so tight she thought she heard it creak.
“Is it you?” asked the glittering creature standing in front of Finn — the Aesir commander with his shiny breastplate. The red eyes burned like coals. “Are you the one?”
Finn jerked in the restraints that held him spread-eagled and blood dripped down his sides, splashing below. His head drooped and he drew a hitching breath.
Ella pushed off the rock wall and took a step toward him, then another.
“Finn?” she whispered, but his head didn’t lift. “Can you hear me?”
“He’s not the one,” a new voice said, harsh like broken glass, and Ella looked up to see another shining Aesir approach. “We’d know by now.”
She reached out to Finn, tried to touch his face, but the invisible barrier was there, telling her Finn wasn’t aware of her in the dream. Couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel her.
“Give him more,” the second Aesir said. “Maybe that wasn’t enough.”
Enough what? Damn, her heart was hammering, her chest was tight. Her fingers scrabbled against the barrier that kept her from touching Finn.
Something whirred behind him, but he couldn’t see it, so she couldn’t, either. A machine? A different creature?
More pain. She gasped, fire digging into her back.
Finn groaned and his back arched. His breathing came faster and faster and his eyes rolled back in their sockets.
Blackness. Disoriented she turned, trying to see something — anything — to regain her sense of space.
A pinprick of light to her left. She focused on it, took a step toward it.
And spun in an eddy, swirling round and round, sparkles flashing in her vision. Space opened, expanding rapidly like an unrolling highway, blinding white with streaks of grey. She stumbled, flailing to keep her balance.
The pain was gone, and that was dizzying on its own. She straightened, shading her eyes against the glare of weak sunlight hitting the snow-covered ground and mountain slopes.
She knew this place. Frowning, she turned in a circle. There.
The tower carved in the shape of a figure.
Finn standing on the plain, the shiny weapon in his hand.
The corpses.
But something was off. Okay, more than usual.
The landscape seemed to breathe and sway. The mountains wavered and blurred, as if the camera was going out of focus, then solidified again.
The corpses moved.
Bile rose in Ella’s throat. She watched, horrified, as the mutilated bodies slithered on the ground, changing position, arranging themselves into rows.
She fell to her knees, nausea making her stomach ache. She pressed a hand to her middle.
Finn staggered sideways, the gun falling from his hand. Without a word, he crumpled to the ground.
***
The living room came into focus. Ella lay on the sofa, staring at the heavy-draped windows and a sliver of darkness outside, a weight on her waist and leg, cutting off her circulation.
Or was she lying in the snow, on the plain of another world?
No, she was warm and comfy, apart from the weight pressing down on her. She’d fallen asleep, too. So much for taking first watch.
Evening had fallen. How long had they slept?
She blinked furiously, trying to tear herself out of the dream, to separate the images, the emotions — to tell what was real. Finn. With a gun in his hand.
She half-expected to see the tower carved in the likeness of an impassive face staring down at her, the corpses lining the f
loor.
Thought she saw them move.
The weight against her side shuddered, shaking her. She twisted her head to see, and yeah, the weight pressing on her waist was Finn’s arm, and his leg was tangled with hers. Now she noticed, his breath ruffled the fine hairs on the back of her neck, tickling puffs of warmth.
A quick scan of the living room revealed nothing out of place — no threads, no Shades, no Gate.
Finn muttered something she couldn’t make out and tensed. Trying to extricate herself from Finn’s full-body hold, she clasped his hand and lifted it off her waist. She paused, staring at his bandaged knuckles, her chest inexplicably tight, then she turned his hand over and brushed her lips over his palm. “Finn...”
He drew his hand back. “The web,” he whispered, his voice thick, the word barely audible. “The spider.”
But there had been no web or spider in the memory, and it wasn’t the first time he’d said something like this after a dream.
Finn muttered something under his breath and twisted, thumping his arm on the backrest.
“Hey.” She turned around and touched his cheek, traced the lines of pain around his mouth. “What are you seeing?”
His body strained upward. She expected him to try and punch or shove her, but he seemed caught in the web of the nightmare so deeply that he could barely move. Yet every muscle was tense and trembling, and his hair stuck to his temples in sweaty strands. He wheezed, his breathing shallow, his eyes moving rapidly behind his lids.
“Goddammit, Finn, wake up.” She pushed the soaked hair out of his face, fingers trailing on the line of his jaw. “Come on. Open your eyes.”
Finn jerked awake, his eyes wide. He gripped her hand. “I remember.”
A shudder slithered down her spine. “What do you remember?”
“Corpses,” he panted. “The plain. The Commander.”
“What else?”
He shook his head — but his hand in hers began to burn so hot she had to let go. He lifted it and light sprang from his palm, rising and falling like a wave.
Boreal and John Grey Season 2 Page 27