by M. C. Sutton
He thought for a minute she might cry. But that wasn’t Alex’s style. She was strong, and opinionated, and vibrant. Everything he wasn’t. She threw her arms around him instead.
It surprised Matt that she would make such an open show of affection toward him. But with the warmth of her body pressed against his, the anger and anxiety he had felt—from his mom, from Professor March, and from everything they knew but refused to tell him—began to melt away.
Matt closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her, too. He breathed in the sweet, floral scent of her hair as she rested her head against his shoulder. Matt knew he continually sent her on an emotional roller coaster just by allowing her to be a part of his life. But at that moment he was so grateful she cared about him enough to want to be a part of it anyway. He should have known she would be more concerned about his well-being than her own feelings. She had always been there for him, through the good and the bad. She was his beloved Alex—his dearest and closest friend.
And so much more.
“Matt?” she said, her eyes darting across his face. “You are going to be all right, aren’t you?”
He could still feel the intense pounding of his heart against his chest, but he knew that, for the moment, it had more to do with her than it did anything else. “I think I will be now,” he said.
She smiled at him—that warm, bright, incredible smile of hers. Matt pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and put his hand on her cheek, brushing his thumb lightly across her lips. She gave him that look, the same look she had given him on the back deck of the cabin his parents had rented in Colorado during spring break their junior year. The night when she first became so angry with him. He could feel her pulse growing more rapid now, with his. But unlike the erratic, fleeting rhythm he was used to from his own heart, hers was strong and steady.
Maybe it was the constant spinning in his head. Or maybe it had something to do with the intense heat of the sun shining through the window. But at that moment, Matt decided to do something completely crazy. The one thing he had held himself back from doing—had held himself back from even thinking of doing—a hundred times before.
He kissed Alex for the first time.
It wasn’t passionate or seductive. Matt didn’t think his heart could have handled that even if that’s what he intended, which it wasn’t. His and Alex’s attraction was something much deeper than physical. No, this was a kiss that was sweet, and soft, and tender. Like the first strawberry of summer. The one that you savor slowly because you know that it will be an entire year before you can experience it again. That’s what Matt wanted. To savor it. To be able to freeze time in that one precious instant they had both waited so long for. Because in this moment he could forget about his heart, and his parents, and the war. In this one single moment, life was about nothing more than him and Alex.
Too bad it had to happen in the hallway of the liberal arts building.
“Well,” said Alex, smiling up at him once he was finally able to pull himself away from her. “It’s about time.”
Matt grinned, his mouth still tingling with the sensation of his lips against hers.
“So,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I guess this means…”
But Alex didn’t finish her sentence. She drew her brows together, her delicate smile melting into a look of panic. Her expression reflected the sensation that washed over his body at that very moment.
The moment when his heart stopped.
Matt felt the color drain from his face and continue all the way down to his feet, with nothing but an icy chill to replace it. His entire body tingled, like little electrical explosions dancing across every muscle. When his heart finally started again, it beat harder and faster than he had ever felt it before. As if something had gone wrong inside him and it was trying desperately to escape before all hell broke loose.
“Matt?” Alex looked terrified. “Matt! What is it?”
“Lexi,” he said, fighting himself to keep from hyperventilating. “I think something’s wrong.”
“What?” She grabbed him as he started to sway.
Matt’s vision was beginning to go white. “Alex, find the professor.” He put a hand against the wall to steady himself.
“Matt, I can’t just leave—”
“Go, Lex.” His knees began to buckle. “Please.”
Alex put her hands on his chest and looked him in the eyes. “Don’t you dare die on me, Matthew Grant,” she said. “Or that will be the last time I ever let you kiss me.”
He grinned between labored breaths. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
As much as Matt knew she didn’t want to, Alex left him there to go find help. He was all alone now. If he was going to die, right then and there in that empty hallway, he was going to die alone.
So much for the war.
At least he got to kiss her first. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that it had happened in the middle of a hallway. Otherwise, it might have never happened at all.
Matt leaned against the wall and slid down it, his legs finally giving out. He’d always thought when he did go, it would hurt more. But he had pretty much lost all sensation at this point, as well as all sight. He couldn’t even feel the coolness of the tile beneath him, and the only thing he could see was the sunshine pouring through the window.
Matt did feel one thing, though. Guilt. Kissing Alex was going to make it harder for her when he was gone. Which was exactly why he had never done it before. He had always known this was going to happen one day, and the last thing he’d wanted was to hurt her. Now here he was, about to die, about to leave his family and everything he cared about, and all he could think about was how selfish and inconsiderate he had been to kiss her. He wasn’t even going to get the chance to apologize.
He closed his eyes.
I’m so sorry, Alex.
CHAPTER 18
Emma’s mother clutched the steering wheel. “Emma Elizabeth Scott, I said drop it!”
Twelve-year-old Emma huffed and threw herself against the back seat of the family station wagon. They cruised down the interstate, headed back home from Christmas shopping. Rain came down in sideways sheets, smacking the side of the car angrily. Emma knew her mother was already frustrated enough from fighting the holiday traffic and the crowds at the mall. Having grown up on a reservation in western North Carolina, her mother always got nervous driving through a big city like Dallas. The storm made it even worse.
But Emma didn’t care. She was mad, and she wanted her mom to know it.
She tossed a toy car at her little brother, who sat in his car seat next to her. “No, Adam, I said I don’t want to play!”
His eyes welled up, and he began to cry.
“Emma!” her mother yelled. “He’s only four years old! He didn’t do anything to you. Don’t take it out on him just because I wouldn’t let you get that necklace.”
“But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t let me get it, Mom! Do you have any idea how long I saved up to buy that necklace? Besides, you’re the one who’s always telling us we should embrace our heritage. It’s a dove. Just like the name that Pow’wah gave me.”
Emma’s grandfather had once been a tribal elder, so when Emma was born he gave her a tribal name, as was the tradition. The name he had chosen for her was very special to Emma. It meant Soaring Dove.
“Yes, Emma, I know the dove is your spirit guide. I never said I didn’t want you to have the necklace. All I said was that I thought you should wait to buy it, that’s all.”
Adam calmed down and began playing with his toy car.
“But why, Mom? We never come into Dallas, and you know the mall is the only place I’ve found that has that necklace!”
Her mother shook her head. “Listen to me, Emma. There are some things you don’t understand yet—but just because you don’t understand them doesn’t mean things won’t work out. This is not the world according to Emma. You have got to accept the fact that ultimately you are not the one in control h
ere, and trust that the person who is in control knows what they’re doing. Let it go, Emmy.”
Emma folded her arms and stared out the window. Her eyes began to tear, but she wasn’t about to let her mother see it. In the reflection of the window, Emma saw her brother holding his little toy car out to her.
“Here, Emmy,” he said.
Emma ignored him.
“Here, Emmy, here.” He held it out further to her. The car dropped onto the floorboard. Emma pretended not to notice, which made Adam cry again.
“Oh, Emma, please get his car for him.”
It was starting to get late, and Emma knew Adam was already tired. But she defiantly continued to face the window.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Emma’s mother reached a hand back to feel around on the floor for the toy car. She turned her head back for just a second to try to find it.
In that same moment, the red brake lights lit up on the car in front of them.
“Mom, look out!”
Emma’s mother gasped and slammed on the brakes. The station wagon skidded across the wet pavement, veering to the right, and clipped the back corner of the car in front of them, throwing them into a spin. Adam’s cries were joined by a screech of metal as the passenger side of the car slammed into the guardrail, throwing Emma hard against the door. Christmas packages flew around them as the car flipped right over the rail.
Over and over they rolled down an embankment, the windows shattering. Emma screamed and grabbed Adam’s hand. With each second, each shard of glass that struck her body, Emma pleaded for it to stop. For it to be over. Instead the entire scene continued to play out as if in slow motion.
Until they hit the river.
Emma’s head kept spinning even though the car no longer was. Once she realized what was happening, she panicked. They were sinking fast. She screamed for her mother as she struggled to get out of her seat belt, the freezing water already flooding in around her feet. Emma was having trouble focusing, though. Something warm ran down her face from just above her right eye.
Her head pounded painfully. In a hazy fog, she looked over at her baby brother, and then at her mother. Adam’s hand had gone limp in hers. Neither he nor her mother moved.
Struggling to keep her eyes open, Emma knew she would soon be out, too. As she began to lose consciousness, all that she was aware of was the sensation of icy water washing over her body.
The cold seeped into her. Deeper it ran until she could feel it down to her core. It reminded her of something she knew. Not something she had known then, as a child, but something she knew now. Something she had felt. Something she had seen.
It reminded her of him.
And then Emma could no longer see her mother, or smell the river. She could no longer feel the pain in her head. She could no longer feel anything. Even the darkness was gone somehow. All that was left was the cold. It called to her to let go.
To give in.
I don’t want to let go, she cried out from deep inside the darkness of her own mind. I don’t want to die.
Then the world faded, and in the darkness, a bright light appeared.
“Dr. Grant?”
When Emma opened her eyes, she was lying on the stage in the conference room. The fluorescent lights shone in her face, blocked partially by the shadowy outline of a figure hovering over her. She coughed and gasped for air. There was a pinching in her arm, then something burned through her veins—something that told her to struggle. To fight. But whoever it was kneeling beside her had already anticipated the reaction. Her arms and legs were pinned against the carpet.
“Emma, it’s all right. Just breathe,” a familiar voice said. She managed to focus enough to identify the person holding her down. It was Aaron, kneeling beside her, his forehead wrinkled.
That’s when she noticed the intense pain above her eye and the bag mask over her mouth.
“You’re going to be all right, Dr. Grant,” said the man above her, squeezing and releasing the respirator over her face. “Just try to calm down.”
Emma didn’t feel all right. She felt cold and shaken from having so vividly relived the nightmare of her mother’s and brother’s deaths. And she didn’t want to calm down. What she wanted to do was cry. To break down and scream the way she had done when she was told that she was the only one who had survived the accident.
Emma fought to hold back the anger and stinging tears. She squinted up at her shadowy helper, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t seem to focus on his face.
She pushed the mask away from her mouth and tried to sit up. Aaron helped her. She cradled her head in one hand, touching the spot on the right side of her forehead from which the pain radiated. There was a bandage there.
“I’m afraid you hit your head pretty hard when you passed out,” said her unidentified caretaker.
Emma looked at him again, her vision no longer blurred by the lights. No wonder she couldn’t see his face before. Her soft-spoken rescuer was wearing a black ski mask.
Emma shrank away from him, away from the hand he had put on her shoulder. It was hard to tell with the mask, but she thought she saw hurt behind his eyes when she pulled away.
“Don’t worry, Dr. Grant, no one is going to get hurt.” He scooted closer to her, whispering just loud enough for her to hear. “Well, not any more than they already have,” he added. Putting his hand back on her shoulder, he looked her directly in the eyes. There was something warm and friendly about them. “I give you my word.”
Emma didn’t understand what about the masked figure felt so familiar. Then again, Emma didn’t understand most of what she felt these days. But she knew there was something about those eyes.
The man picked up his med kit and the gun sitting on the floor beside him and walked away.
“Emma, are you okay?” Aaron put his hands on her shoulders and scanned her face. “You were crying, and kept mumbling something about your mother. Then you just stopped breathing.”
Emma shook her head. So much for holding back the tears. “Yeah, I think I’m okay,” she said. Apart from this horrendous headache. “Aaron, what in the world is going on?”
He drew his brows together in a look of seriousness that she wouldn’t have thought possible for someone so laid back. “Emma, I don’t know who these guys are, but they’ve taken over the convention. They’re all wearing masks and toting AR15s like they’re some kind of terrorists. But as far as I can tell from their accents and speech patterns, they’re American.”
Emma didn’t want to believe him, but one look around the room told her he was telling the truth. Across the conference room, people were slumped over in their chairs and across the tables. The terrorists, whoever they were, were moving from one person to the next, administering shots. Whatever was in the syringe jolted people into consciousness, some of them kicking and screaming. It was surreal. Like something you only saw on the news where you couldn’t help but be sympathetic for the people involved and secretly thankful it was them instead of you.
Just below the stage, the masked men had set up half a dozen monitors and a few laptops, each showing what looked like feeds from inside and outside the hotel. Whatever these guys were doing, they had come prepared.
My god, who are these people?
Emma quickly realized there also wasn’t a single FBI or security agent in sight. Where had they all gone? Worse yet, what had the terrorists done with them?
There was also someone else she didn’t see.
Jon. Where was Jon?
Emma scanned the room frantically, faintly recalling what had happened before she blacked out. The sweet floral smell, the buzzing in her head… and the look of horror on his face.
Emma heard Jon before she saw him, down against the wall, with Jack beside him. Jack was still out, but it looked like Jon had just been given the shot. He came back to consciousness much more violently than she did, complete with a few colorful expletives. It took three guys just to hold him down, and even they
appeared to be struggling.
Then with a burst, Jon threw them all off and tackled one of them. They wrestled around on the floor, the two other guys trying to pull Jon off the third. Emma heard bones crack. She tried to scream at Jon to stop before he got himself killed. Before she could manage to steady her spinning head enough to do it, another one of the guys in masks grabbed Emma by the arm, yanked her to her feet, and pushed his gun into her side. Emma winced at the pain of the cold metal barrel between her ribs. She hated guns. She could deal with storms and earthquakes and evacuations, but she abhorred guns.
“Grant!” the guy holding her shouted.
Jon stopped fighting as soon as he caught sight of Emma. The terrorists grabbed him by the arms again. This time, Jon didn’t struggle.
The masked man who had helped Emma with the respirator walked over and took her by the other arm. “That’s enough, Mac,” he whispered as he pulled her away from the other man. He walked her off the stage and over to Jon.
He gestured for the guys holding Jon to let him go. “If everyone cooperates, no one gets hurt. Are we clear?” he barked at Jon.
Jon glared at him, his jaw clenched.
“Now I suggest the two of you sit down and try not to cause any trouble.” He shoved Emma toward Jon before walking off.
Jon caught her before she could stumble and fall. He cupped her face in his hands and scanned her forehead. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little dizzy.”
The big guy called Mac, the one who had shoved the gun into Emma’s ribs, yelled at them from up on the stage to shut up and sit down. Jon’s jaw and the muscles of his arms tensed, the signs of a fierce storm brewing underneath. Though Jon often doubted his own abilities, Emma was well aware of what he was capable of when desperate.
Especially when it involved her safety.
“Jon,” she whispered, putting a hand on his cheek.
He turned to look at her.
Don’t, she told him with her eyes. Not here. Not with all these people.
Jon sucked in a deep breath, scanned the crowd, and then nodded.