by Pierce, SJ
A scowl formed across her pretty face. “Who’s been talking to you?” she demanded. “I’m the last person you need to be scared of!”
“Of course you would you say that.”
“Well for one, I’m here to take you somewhere safe, away from those beasts. And we need to go, like now,” she said as she pointed to the floor. “We’re already running behind, and we don’t have much time left.”
Take me somewhere safe? he thought and remembered how Oman said his arrangements had already been made, that he would be taken somewhere. Her story lined up. “Well even if that were true, which I’m not sure that it is, I’m not goin’ anywhere without my son so you can forget it.”
Her voice softened. “I know you’re worried for your son, but I promise if you come with me, we’ll figure it out. Where we’re going, there are some that can help us.”
The idea of receiving help in his search for Micah appealed to him greatly, but she still hadn’t convinced him that any of what she said was true. He shoved his hands inside his pockets. “How do I know that anythin’ you say isn’t a lie,” he said doubtfully. “And why would I be warned about you if you were actually here to help me?”
“It doesn’t make any sense to me either. If you don’t want to say who that’s fine, but what was it they told you? Did they say my name?”
“No, only that I was bein’ watched and I needed to be careful.”
Her eyes narrowed as they stared through the window, her wheels turning. “You wouldn’t have happened to see any men around here in a black suit, would you?
His stomach dropped. In the midst of his troublesome dreams and run-in’s with her, he had forgotten about the creepy man entirely.
“Maybe it wasn’t me they warned you of,” she concluded.
“How do you know about him?”
Her eyes snapped back to his. “He’s followed me too, for days now.”
“Me too,” he mumbled, feeling foolish. This whole time he had been afraid of her and for no reason. Maybe her explanations were the truth – she was his ally, not his enemy. Her role in his dreams, as frightening as they were, was of someone that seemed distressed over his demise. Not the other way around. How could he have missed that?
“Mystery solved,” she said. “I don’t know who he is, but he’s not good.”
“Could he have been the one that took my son?”
“It’s hard to say, but you have to trust me when I tell you that I am not here to harm you and I will help you find him.”
“I’m beginnin’ to see that now,” he said and hung his head. “Take me where you need to.”
She rested her hand on his shoulder. “Isaac, we’ll find him, but you are just as precious. You have been chosen as one of the Marked so that must mean that you possess something that can help us. I’ll make sure we stay alive. It’s my job.”
His eyes cut up to hers, his troubled frown reflecting back in their shine. He couldn’t deny the sincerity of her words now. In spite of her intimidating appearance, their proximity ignited a spark for her again, his attraction reemerging. “I trust you. Just tell me what I have to do.”
The corners of her mouth rose to a pleased grin, lighting up her face. “Thank you.”
“So what are those things anyways?”
She glowered through the door frame. “I’m not sure, but I think they’re associated with the guy in the black suit. I can hardly see them, but they’re there, believe me.”
“How are we goin’ to get where you’re takin’ me without them hurtin’ us?”
“All I know is that I was given instincts to protect you, but I’m not exactly sure what that is. As far as getting us where we need to go, I have an instinct for that, as well. However, that one is a little more fine-tuned. It’s a type of internal tracking device. It’s the one I used to track you down.”
“Let’s get goin’ then,” he said. “I need to get out of here and find my son.”
She extended her hand for him to grab it and smiled. “Let’s go.”
Remembering the dream in the bathtub, he grasped onto to her slender hand with as much trust as he had for her then, and they walked to the doorway.
She kicked the metal door that lay on the ground to the side, as though it were as light as a feather, and they stepped to the threshold.
She bowed her head and closed her eyes.
God keep us safe, he prayed.
“Now,” she whispered, and they took off into the cloud of beasts.
CHAPTER 12:
Precious Cargo
They made it to the top of the stairwell when a sting slashed across his left calf as though a venomous snake had struck him. “Alyx,” he gasped. “Somethin’ bit me.”
She hurried down first with her hand still clasped to his and peered up at him as they descended. “What? Where?”
“On my leg!”
As she stepped onto the landing of the first flight, something tugged at the back of his shirt, and the same sting, except deeper, ran down his torso from between his shoulder blades to the small of his back, ripping his flesh like a warm knife through butter as it went. “Alyx!” he cried.
He stopped on the last stair and fell into her arms, his legs turning numb.
“Isaac, what’s wrong?” She glanced down and saw the long gash his blood spurted from in a spring of crimson. “Oh my God!” she screamed, her voice distant, muted.
A curtain of black lowered over his eyes, and something rolled around his insides, burning and scraping as it went. The intruder shrieked as it tore at his organs. “Isaac…” it snarled, and Isaac’s soul withered into its presence, overtaking him.
“Hang on!” Alyx’s plea rang through the darkness, and her arms hugged him tight, her chin digging into his shoulder, muscles tense.
A low growl rumbled through her chest, escaping her bared teeth, and a soothing light washed over him, casting the invader from his body and relieving the sting of his wounds. His pain eased, but his life sifted from his body as the blood dribbled down in ribbons of red. “This is the end, isn’t it?” he moaned, remembering his last two dreams.
“No it’s not!” she hissed. “Don’t you leave me.” His legs swept from beneath him. “I’ve got you, stay with me.”
As she hurried down the stairs with his broken body cradled in her arms, the curtain fought to regain its place over his eyes. “I’m fadin’, Alyx,” he murmured.
* * *
Dodging in and out of the empty cars that lay scattered along the interstate, Alyx weaved through them skillfully like a stunt car driver. With her arm outstretched to the backseat where Isaac lay, the protective shield that blasted from the palm of her hand surrounded him. She wasn’t aware that she possessed that ability, assuming that by simply being near her Marked, he would be protected. But as soon as she realized that he had been attacked, something within her clicked, something intuitive. Primitive.
She surprised herself with her animalistic instinct, which literally growled at the beasts that harmed him, and a flash of light came up through her chest and out her hands that embraced him as he fell victim to their cruelty. It now extended through them to cover his mutilated body that lay in the backseat, enclosing him in a large, invisible bubble.
After they sped from the building, the beasts followed and persistently threaded through the steel cage of the car to get to him again, scraping against her shield like flaming razors, but she never faltered.
To throw the shield away from her and hold it drained her, like jogging at a light pace. Her heartbeat had lifted to a steady flurry where it remained. When she had enough energy, she would force the bubble around her as well to keep them off as they attacked. Once they realized that she was the only thing that stood between them and their prey, their curiosity turned to ravenous hatred. To hold the shield around the both of them was like breaking off into a heated sprint, and right when she felt close to collapsing, she let it snap away from her, allowing her body to be vulnerable to their ma
lice once more.
Her skin, while a lot tougher than her once human exterior, was not completely immune to these beasts’ destruction. Her cheeks and arms had shallow lacerations, appearing as though she had been brutally whipped, but she didn’t care, she wasn’t going to let anything harm him again.
By the time they pulled onto the interstate, the beasts had given up, so she uncovered herself to recharge, and thankfully so, because abandoned cars still liberally dappled the interstate like a twisted, metal puzzle for her to weave through. At least she assumed they had given up. The night air masked their movement. The only lights for miles were the sharp beams of her headlights as they sped down the highway. The moon and the stars remained hidden behind the dismal clouds, nature’s response to the evil that lurked outside.
She presumed the beasts’ invisible shapes could still be following them as they went, but hoped that her quiet scar told the truth. She didn’t want to take a chance, however, and remove the shield from around him. She would leave it up the whole way there. Wherever there was.
Before she passed out in her apartment, a quick image flashed through her mind; a dense, wooded area off of the paved road. She determined that it must have been what one of the others saw, and was possibly the place they were headed to now. She would continue to follow her draw that pulled her in the direction they needed to go, solely relying on the tiny strings to get them to the gateway.
A few miles North on Interstate 85, movement in her shield alerted her, and she glanced in the rearview mirror to see Isaac stirring in his sleep. Every time she looked at him, she cringed. The gash on his back bled into pools on her seats, and with it drained the color from his face, his eyes sunken, dark. His breaths seemed dangerously shallow, and his heart thudded weak and slow.
When his movement settled again, she sighed with relief, afraid that when he awoke he would be in terrible pain, and she couldn’t bear to witness it.
They broke through the last cluster of empty cars along the interstate, and her foot stomped on the gas, propelling her small Civic through the night’s air, its engine roaring as she worked it to its peak. Keep ticking for me, she prayed. She wasn’t sure how far away the gateway would be. It could be two hours, or four, but they only had until midnight.
As they raced to their unknown finish line, she reflected on how life on Earth was all about timing; from the moment someone took their first breath, till the day that their time finally ended and everything in between. The time it took to do something or to get somewhere. The time they had to be at work, to meet a friend, or make it home. The true weight of it was never felt though, until it fell short, and she felt it now as it bore down on her shoulders. Would they make it in time? Was Isaac’s fragile body running out of it? Would she get more of it with him? The irony of these questions was that the only one who could answer them for certain was Father Time himself.
The only gauge she had to go by was the strings; the farther they drove the tighter the pull became. But it wasn’t much help for an ending to the timeline. And as far as Isaac was concerned, she could only wait in agony as his health declined, his timeline shortening with every thin breath.
She could only hope that someone past the gateway could reverse the damage and aid his healing. Did her superiors anticipate that some might be injured on their journey? Certainly they did. Or maybe nobody was supposed to get hurt. Had she failed her Marked? The mission? The world? If he passed, along with him would leave their hope for the human race’s survival. Isaac was more than just precious to her, he was precious in ways the world could only fathom. If she failed, she failed everyone.
Her misstep in assuming that he would be protected by simply being with her was at a potentially huge cost. Why wasn’t she aware that she had that ability? It was her understanding that their actions would be dictated strictly by their instincts. Her superiors were unwilling to send their soldiers into war with all of the intricate details of the larger plan. She couldn’t argue with their logic, or their firm decision to throw their subordinates into the world with nothing more than bits of information and intuition. After all, most of creation thrived because of primal instincts. Nobody taught a mother wolf how to take care and protect their young, or of the conditions that could threaten their survival. Their instincts directed their decisions – they just knew. Her instincts to cover Isaac once he had been attacked worked flawlessly, but she still couldn’t help but wonder if the instincts that were given to her weren’t on point somehow, broken in some way. That she should have already known to cover him with her shield before they broke through the protective barrier placed upon his home. Did the others know? Perhaps she would find out if they were able to make it in time.
As they came upon the signs for Interstate 985 North, her strings tugged to the left. She got all the way over to the left lane to merge onto the interstate when another stirring inside her shield grabbed her attention. She sensed his consciousness waking and glanced into the mirror. His eyelids shuddered as they struggled to open.
As Isaac came to, so did her awareness of his condition. The further he lifted from sleep, the better she could assess his ailments. She now felt his wound as if it were on her back as well, each throb irritating the soreness. The slash on his calf – the first place they attacked – thrummed along at the same rhythm in lockstep. His eyes opened partially, and he moaned.
“Go back to sleep,” she said soothingly.
“I’m alright,” he replied with a brittle voice. “Where are we?”
“We’re in my car, on our way to the gateway which will take us to safety.”
He didn’t respond to her explanation and stared at the back of her seat, his eyes drooping.
“Go back to sleep,” she said. “You need to rest.”
“I don’t think I can. I feel so bad I couldn’t possibly go back to sleep.”
She couldn’t argue with him there, his pain somewhat distracted her, as well.
She refocused on the road, her left hand firmly gripping the wheel. This was the one last thing she absolutely couldn’t screw up – getting them there safely. By his silence, she figured he was either in too much pain to speak, or the wheels inside his head were turning. If he did speak, she expected his next question to be about why her arm stretched into the backseat with her hand nearly touching him. It appeared peculiar if you weren’t aware of why that was.
He softly cleared his throat and glanced in the mirror again. “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes meeting hers in the reflection.
Her heart dropped. What could he possibly be apologizing to her about? She asked him to “trust her” back at his apartment, and now he practically knocked on death’s door.
“For callin’ you a bitch back there. You didn’t deserve that.”
Alyx grinned as she wove around a stray car. “You’re on the brink of death and that’s what you’re worried about? My feelings?” she said teasingly.
Isaac attempted to chuckle, but coughed instead and grimaced.
She flinched along with him, feeling the pang from his wound. “Ugh, I’m the one who’s sorry now. I shouldn’t make you laugh.”
He feebly held up his hand in protest. “No, please. I need the distraction.”
His unselfish plea for forgiveness tugged at her heartstrings. He had every right to be angry with her over his condition, and yet, all he cared about was how she felt.
“I need to apologize too,” she said, and tears formed in her dark eyes. “I asked you to trust me, and I failed you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well,” she sniffled. “Look at you. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“You didn’t do this to me, they did.”
“Yes, but it was my job to make sure they didn’t.” Her sniffles morphed into full blown tears, and he watched her through the mirror as she wept.
“You listen to me,” he said sternly. “You saved my life. If it weren’t for you, I would be dead right now.”
Alyx wiped her cheek on her shoulder. “I would never have let that happen.”
“Exactly my point. And judgin’ by the way you’re drivin’ like a maniac, I can tell you want to get me help as soon as possible.”
Alyx released a broken sigh and looked into the mirror. “More than anything.”
As soon as their eyes met he smiled. “So no more of that cryin’… I can’t take it.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, and her lips drew into a grin.
It had only been five minutes into their first real conversation – that didn’t include her turning him down, or him accusing her of being something she wasn’t – and as many times as she had fantasized about what it would be like, reality far exceeded her expectations. In those few short moments, she learned something about him that matured her desire; his soul was as attractive as his exterior.
It was no wonder why his looks alone or his touch would cause her feelings for him to grow, but they were becoming more seasoned, developed. He was noble and kind, which added a completely new facet to her view of him. It was his nature to put others before himself, as indicated by his devotion to his son and his concern for her feelings, a quality she most admired above all the others he possessed. Even his eyes.
“So what are you?” he asked, breaking her moment of reflection.
Her harmonic feelings jumped quickly to unease. She never anticipated that he would ask that. She didn’t see the harm in it, though. They were only ordered to keep their existence a secret before they were summoned. After everything that had happened already, that her poor decisions were the cause of, did this really matter?
“If you can’t say, it’s not a big deal. But I obviously want to know. Who wouldn’t?”
“I understand. I was just debating whether or not I should say anything. But I don’t think it matters. So here goes…
She weaved around another stray car and straightened the wheel to stay in the middle lane. Most of the abandoned cars were on the shoulders.
“I’m called a Protector,” she continued, the look in her eyes bleeding severity, “I was created in the darkness that lies between the stars and the heavens, by my superiors, The Elder Angels and the Arch Angel of Protection. My job was to capture you when we were summoned, to make sure that you survived and take you to the gateway.”