by Amy Miles
I press a hand to my stomach, close my eyes to wait for the inevitable and whisper, “I’m sorry.”
A brilliant burst of light explodes around me. I feel as if I am falling. My vision begins to darken. Rough hands grasp my arm, yanking me, but all I can feel is heat. I don’t want to die, is the last conscious thought that I have before giving in to the pain.
NINETEEN
The pounding in my head makes my stomach twist in knots. Something sticky coats my skin but I can’t see what it is. I blink, realizing that something covers my eyes, draped over my forehead and cheeks.
“Rise and shine, Queeny.”
“Great. You’re still here.” I groan and raise a hand to pull away the covering on my face. The texture is odd against my fingers. I hold the material before my eyes and blink to clear the blurriness edging along the corners of my visions. “A plant?”
Hyde nods beside me. He digs a sharpened stick into the flesh of a pole like plant. A milky white stream flows over his fingers. Cupping a large leaf beneath, he captures the liquid and sinks down beside me. “This planet may look rough on the outside but it has its upside. Here,” he gently lifts my head, “drink this.”
The liquid feels lukewarm against my lips. Some of it manages to flow into my parched mouth, but a lot of it trails down my chin and neck. It tastes sickeningly sweet, like pure cane sugar, undiluted and thick. I splutter and try to push him away but Hyde holds firm, forcing me to swallow. When the last of the milk-like substance is gone, he allows me to lay back.
“The Jonu plants have amazing healing properties.” He points his stick toward the plant, motioning to the wide star shaped leaves that dangle nearly to the ground. “They provide nutritious drink and a soothing balm for aches and pains.”
I raise my arms and see countless torn pieces of leaves stuck to my arms. The palms of my hands have been carefully wrapped and I realize that the pain from the burns has receded.
“How do you know so much about this place?” I ask, wincing as I sit up. The ground is firm beneath me. Small patches of a yellowish grass sprout here and there, dotting the landscape. The area looks abandoned. No tire tracks. No scorch marks from the fires.
Hyde turns away to refill his leaf with the trickle of fluid seeping from the tree. He drinks deep then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Soot still clings to his skin, making his eyes seem darker than I remembered. His black hair is matted and plastered to his head. His clothes are a dingy dark gray. They hang off him in a more pronounced manner than before.
“I asked you a question.”
“Yep,” he nods and plops onto the ground beside me. He laces his hands together and leans back into a tree, his head cradled in his hands. “I’m choosing to ignore it.”
“You promised me answers.”
He smirks. “I promised to tell you about the Duturi. That’s it.”
“Fine.” I shift to look at him and cry out as a jagged pain rips through my leg. Hyde flinches but doesn’t come to my aid as I roll my leg over. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing. You got hurt by some shrapnel when you went all supernova back there. I can’t dig it out until I get you somewhere safe.”
“Wait. What? Back up a bit. What do mean I went supernova?”
Hyde shrugs. “Don’t know what else to call it. At first I thought I was seeing things. Darn fire had all but licked the hair right off my arms. I was sure we were a goner and then you sort of exploded. Huge light burst out of you and blew out all of the flames.” He shakes his head. “Nah, not even like that. It was more like you sucked all of the air out of the space and strangled the flames. I was sure my lungs were gonna burst and then just as fast as it started the pressure vanished and I saw you take a nasty tumble. Landed on that bar that you used to free me. Part of it snapped off in your leg.”
He looks me up and down. “I gotta say for a girl your size you sure do weigh a heck of a lot when you’re unconscious.”
I open my mouth to speak, my jaw working up and down several times before I finally close it again. Supernova? How is that even possible?
I run my finger along the surface of my neck collar, pondering. Hyde smirks and closes his eyes. “Guess old lizard breath back there wasn’t as smart as he thought.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, narrowing my gaze on him. I lower my hand to my lap.
“Stupid creature spent years working on that collar. He was so sure he’d have complete control over you with it. Guess you proved him wrong.”
Before he can open his eyes I launch myself at him. I can feel blood trailing down the back of my leg, feel the metal digging deep into my muscle but I ignore it all. Hyde’s eyes widen as I close my hands around his throat. “How did you know that?” I growl, squeezing tightly.
His face begins to darken, his eyes widening as his lips part, gasping for breath. “How?” I demand.
Hyde’s hand latches onto my shoulder. He digs his nails into the hollow of my shoulder, finding a pressure point. I cry out and jerk back, forced to release my grip on his neck. I glare at him, massaging my wounded shoulder. “You done attacking me yet? I did just save your life!”
“Yeah, but I want to know why. What’s in it for you?” I lower my hand and cup my leg. Blood vines over my hand and for a moment I feel lightheaded. Although the tear in my pant leg isn’t that big it feels like I’ve got half that metal bar protruding from my leg.
“I knew I should have left you behind.” he grunts and rises back to a seated position. He scowls as he straightens his shirt then rubs at his neck. By tomorrow he should be sporting a fairly decent bruise.
“We had a deal.”
“Yeah, and I’m just the sort of guy who loves to break those so consider yourself lucky, Queeny.”
I apply pressure to my leg, fighting against the nausea that rises up. I look over at him. “Give me your shirt.”
“What?”
“Your shirt. Give it to me.”
Murmuring under his breath, Hyde pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it at me. In the heat of day he won’t be uncomfortable but come nightfall he will risk hypothermia. I grasp his shirt, digging my fingers into a small hole near the bottom and rip. The fabric is tough so it takes several good yanks to get the material to unravel.
I bite off the end of the shirt, disgusted by the layer of grime buried in its fibers and then toss his shirt back. He watches me closely as I brush as much of the dirt off as I can and then pull the torn bit of my pants over to conceal the wound before lassoing the makeshift tourniquet around my thigh.
“You’re pretty good at that,” he muses, tugging his shirt back down over his head.
“Growing up in the woods like I did you have to learn a few things.” I inhale sharply as I tighten the knot. My vision wavers and I close my eyes, taking several long breaths.
When I finally open my eyes once more I see Hyde staring at me with obvious interest. “I never took you for a hard ass.”
I laugh and brush my hair back out of my face. “You never really stopped badgering long enough to give me a chance, did you?”
“Touché.” He uncrosses his legs and pushes up onto all fours, crawling toward me. “How are your other wounds? I thought I saw some other bits buried under your skin.”
I glance over at him. “You been peeking while I was out cold?”
Hyde flushes but rolls his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, Queeny. I may be a bit of a jerk from time to time but I don’t feel up girls in need.”
“Is that what I am? A girl in need?” His gaze hardens as he sinks down only a few inches from me. I watch as he searches my face. No doubt it is a mass of bruises and cuts. “You can’t stand it, can you?”
“What’s that?”
“Being saved by a girl.”
He snorts and tucks his arms around his knees, drawing them into his chest. I watch as a bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face. “The way I see it I saved your life too so that means we’re even. I say we ca
n just forget this ever happened.”
“And then what? You go your way and I go mine?”
“Something like that,” he mutters.
I pull my leg around, wincing at the stabbing pain. I curl my other leg inward so that I can face him. “I know you know more than you are telling me about this place.”
“So what if I do?”
I begin to slowly unwrap the leaf from around my palms. It was applied with precision. Only a soldier or a medic would have managed this and I don’t get the feeling that he ever volunteered to be a medic. Hyde told me before that he worked under Bastien’s command back on Earth. He never said what he did after that.
“You were among Bastien’s elite soldiers, weren’t you?”
“There were a lot of us back then, but yeah. I was.” His expression turns sour.
“Seems you’ve got quite a chip on your shoulder when it comes to him.”
He turns his head to look at me. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that I doubt many people would blame you for selling him out.”
“What are you talking about?” His jaw clenches and his expression darkens. “Is that what you think happened back there? That I somehow gave Bastien up to save my own skin?”
“Didn’t you?” I ask softly.
“No. No way! I may be a lot of things but I’m no snitch.” He pounds on his chest in anger. “My sister loves him. It would break her heart if I did that.”
I nod, knowing all too well the emotion I felt when I heard Hyde talking about him. “So why did you do it?”
“Do what?” He spits back.
“Why did you lead those men to Bastien?”
Hyde’s brow furrows. He cocks his head to the side, appearing confused. “I think you hit your head a bit too hard, Queeny. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
Dread begins to worm its way into my stomach. I wrap my arm around myself. “You mean...you didn’t tell them where Bastien was? They didn’t take him?”
Hyde blinks several times. “Nah. I never saw him after Drach came and took you away from our group. My job was to take those guys to Drach. They knew he had bought you.”
“Oh god,” I double over, clutching my stomach as it roils dangerously. “He was still in there!”
A hand falls on my shoulder, gently pressing me back. Hyde ducks his head to look at me. “Are you saying Bastien was in there with you?”
I nod, unable to speak. He was trapped in that room. No one would have let him out. Especially not when the battle broke out. Oh god! Bastien!
Tears slip down my eyes as I desperately try not to think about his fate. I try to tell myself that Bastien is resourceful. He would have found a way, even if that meant beating against the wall until one of those men discovered him. Being taken prisoner was a far better outcome than burning alive, but would he have done that? Would he have risked his only chance of being near me, protecting me just to save his own skin?
“All my fault,” I whisper, over and over again as I collapse against Hyde. He struggles to hold me upright as my eyes roll back and I pass out, unable to deal with the what ifs surrounding Bastien’s survival.
TWENTY
The sounds of raised voices fills my mind, calling me back from the peaceful darkness that cocoons me. I don’t want to wake. Consciousness brings only the reminder of pain.
“How could you bring her here, Hyde?” A masculine voice growls somewhere near my feet. “You know the rules better than anyone.”
“Lay off, Donan. She was in shock. What was I supposed to do with her?” I easily recognize Hyde’s voice.
“Leave her,” a girl answers from somewhere to my right. I force myself not to move, to keep my breathing slow and steady.
“Oh, that’s cold, even for you Natasha.”
I hear shoes shuffle across the floor and catch the scent of some sort of flower. I can’t place it but it seems familiar to me. “Bringing her here was a bad idea. When the Duturi figure out we have her it will be our heads on the line.”
“That’s enough,” the gruff male cuts in. I assume this to be the man Hyde called Donan. I hear him sigh. The best I can tell the trio is stood at the end of my cot. I allow my eyes to open to narrow slits and realize that the room around me is dark, lit only by a small lantern. “What’s done is done. We will just have to deal with the consequences as they come.”
Hyde stands with his arms crossed over his chest. His stance is rigid. The man beside him appears to be a few years his senior. His beard is neatly trimmed, his pale skin clean. Vivid sea green eyes look between the two people before him. I carefully glance toward the girl and my fingers curl against the edge of my bed.
I recognize her now, by her scent and her voice. She is the girl from the D’Hatil ship that claimed I was the reason for her brother’s death. I survey her, wanting to be sure that I don’t miss any details.
Her hair is dark with a reddish tint to it in the light. Her cheekbones are high. Her eyes the color of lilacs. Her nose is small and straight. Her lips pale pink and full. Now that I can see her in a tank top I realize that she has a great amount of muscle definition.
“You’re a soldier,” I cough, grasping my stomach. My throat is parched. The trio turn to look at me. Hyde is the only one who doesn’t seem surprised.
When the girl turns to view me full on I can see a massive bruise along her left cheek that had been concealed before. Scratch marks that look distinctly like claws mar her pale flesh. The left side of her lip is still puffy and I suspect that it had been split not too long ago.
I lower my gaze, remembering her screams as the Roamers carried her and Callisto from the room. “Natasha, don’t,” the older man warns but she shoves him aside and approaches.
Her gaze is fierce, filled with hatred. “I did what I had to do to survive.”
“So now you're what...some sort of mercenary?”
“Hardly.” She rolls her eyes. She opens her mouth to speak again but a hand falls heavily on her shoulder, squeezing hard enough to silence her.
“I apologize for Natasha. She isn’t too fond of strangers.”
I smile up at Donan. “There’s no need to sugarcoat things. I think we are all clear on exactly how she feels about me.”
Natasha lunges forward but Donan doesn’t relent. “I think it would be best if you return to your post. I need you to keep an eye on the perimeter.”
She turns to glare up at him. “Handal is just as capable as I am.”
Donan dips his head, leaning in close to speak into her ear. “It is not a suggestion.”
Natasha bristles. She throws a livid glare in my direction before turning and stomping out of the room. There is no door for her to slam; otherwise, I’m sure she would have used enough force to rock the walls.
Hyde blows out a breath. “Making friends everywhere you go.”
I grimace and look back to Donan. Grasping the edge of my cot, I attempt to rise, but he rushes forward and pushes me back. His touch is gentle but firm. “You are in no condition to rise yet. Let the medicine do its job.”
“What medicine? Where am I? Who are you people?”
Hyde steps forward and claps Donan on the shoulder. “Told you she talks too much.”
I roll my eyes, annoyed with Hyde’s smug smile. Donan motions for him to leave and for a split second insanity drives me to almost call him back. Not because I need him and certainly not because I want him, but Hyde is my only remaining connection with Bastien. I need to make sure he doesn’t go too far.
When Hyde disappears around the rock wall that serves as the entry and exit to this room, Donan loops his fingers under the edge of a small wooden crate and brings it next to my bed. I roll my head to the side to look at him.
I’d like to say that he has a kind face but I think that would be stretching it. There are lines carved into his forehead that make me wonder what stress he is under. Bags hang heavy beneath his eyes. He looks exhausted.
“We
managed to get all of the metal out of your leg. Some of the pieces were buried pretty deep so you will need a few days to heal.”
“I don’t have a few days,” I grunt and push up.
Donan lays his hand atop my shoulder and presses me back into the cot. I grimace at how easily he can manage this. I sigh and decide to succumb to his ministrations for the time being.
“Our scouts are on the lookout. If anyone sees Bastien roaming the woods we will find him.”
I blink back the tears, remembering my dream from when I was unconscious. It was of Bastien and me beside the ocean back on Calisted. The lavender waters lapped against our feet as we sat together. I can remember the feel of his fingers laced through mine. The feel of sand in his hair as I ran my fingers through his dark strands. I remember his smell. It all felt so real, but even as I awoke I knew that this moment had never happened. Bastien never went with me to that beach. Aloysius would never have permitted for him to go with us and after Aloysius was dead, Bastien fled.
“You won’t find him,” I whisper, swallowing back my tears. “If he is alive, he is either taken or hiding. He won’t be found unless he wants to be found.”
Donan nods. “Hyde said as much. He has great respect for your man.”
I look at him, confused. “He is not my man.”
He frowns and leans back slightly. The crate creaks beneath him. “I assumed he was. You kept calling for him.”
I turn away as heat floods my cheeks. “He is not mine,” I repeat.
“I see.” He dusts his hands on his pants and tilts his head. “Either way we are looking.”
“Thank you.” I roll my head to look at him. There is a stoop to his shoulders, one far too weighted for someone his age. “Will you tell me where I am?”
Donan smiles and raises a hand to pat my arm. “Soon. Rest now. You’ll be up and moving around in a few days. Then we can talk.”
I stare up at the ceiling unblinking and lost to my thoughts. Dread sits heavily in my stomach. I want to believe that Bastien is still alive. No, I need to, but I don’t hold out much hope. Even if he had managed to escape his room and two sets of enemies, how could he have managed to get down from the compound? For that matter, how did I?