ME2 (S.E.E.D.S. Book 1)

by J Peregrine

  She hadn’t resisted and now she looked at me, but her eyes quickly went out of focus.

  “Bring her a cot,” he said to the woman. He looked at me for a moment but said nothing, then turned and rolled away.

  When I turned back, her eyes flickered into consciousness again. “I’m sorry, my love... so sorry.”

  “Can we talk?” I asked. She didn’t answer me. I looked around the room to the pool and the waterfall where there seemed to be a fog rolling in off the water and by then it was too late to do anything.

  Chapter 38

  First, I heard a voice. It seemed to ring in my ears. I was tired, so tired. But the voice was hammering on my consciousness and there was the sound of something being moved or rolled towards me, and then whispering. “When she wakes...” It was her voice it seemed, and I shivered.

  “Elzbeth,” she whispered. “Elzbeth,” she said again, more urgently.

  I tried to pry open my eyes. They were heavy, but I opened them.

  She was lying on a cot like mine, on her side and looking at me. There was a small woman putting pillows behind her, so she was facing me. I was deathly tired, so I watched but said nothing.

  “I am too weak to move most days,” she said, in explanation. “It doesn’t help that I have no reason to move and more reason not to,” she said, and sighed looking past me out what might have been windows.

  “I used to dream of finding you, you know,” she said, her eyes moist. “I had to leave when I did, do you understand? I loved you so very much.” She sniffed again, and she seemed to have trouble breathing. “When I realized what they had done, my world came crashing down. Every hair and freckle were the same, down to the whirls on our fingers and toes.” She shook her head. “It was terrifying, they made you to replace me... do you understand? He couldn’t stand the idea of my dying. Oh god,” she moaned and waved the woman behind her away when she tried to offer her water.

  “I am so sorry I left you, but I couldn’t bear the idea of what they wanted to do, and I wasn’t strong enough to take you with me.” She sighed. “After Andre found me, he brought me here, and here I have remained. Elzbeth, are you listening to me?”

  I blinked, I was trying to listen, but I had fallen into a thought, of Grandfather and then I was listening again and nodded.

  She looked at me with the same green eyes. “Elzbeth, please know that I love you, and I will help you.”

  Then seemed as if she was going somewhere and it made me cold. I wanted to ask where she was going but I was too tired to talk. A door opened and feet shuffled in and across the floor. There were several people clad in blousy, green uniforms. One had a contraption he wheeled in front of him. He stopped by the head of my bed. Then he picked up my hand and held it. Done with that, he jabbed a needle into my arm without warning. I couldn't understand why he would want to do that. Then they went to my mother and busied themselves around her before they disappeared beyond our view.

  It didn't matter. Whatever they did, did not matter. Soon I heard something else. I knew it was Mo because I could hear his wheels but mostly because he immediately started yelling at something that was out of place. It had been so peaceful in the room that the commotion he made, made me instantly anxious and uncomfortable. “You idiots!” Something crashed to the floor and there was much shuffling of feet.

  Finally, it was quiet again. Mo came into view dressed all in white, it made him look like a terrifying specter in his coke-bottle glasses and billowing white.

  “This is the beginning of a new day..."

  His voice faded as he turned or moved, and I could not hear him.

  "...so will I,” he whispered. “Very soon.” He checked the instruments on the machine at the head of her bed. “Don’t worry.” Then he leaned into her. "We will be new again and he will be like a wilting vine.”

  She stared into my eyes unflinching.

  I wanted to care about what was happening, but I didn't. Would she save me? And from what? I didn’t know. Was it from whatever Mo had in mind? Did it matter? I couldn’t move and I didn't care. Then he was talking to her again.

  “Believe me, dear, you won’t feel a thing, maybe a slight tug...”

  Chapter 39

  I heard nothing more of what he said. Instead I fell into a deep sleep and then a dream or many dreams. One was a foggy dream that played in snippets, like old movies that I became a part of... children running in a forest, then standing high in a tree the wind rushing through our hair. I closed my eyes as the wind blew across my face, and then nothing. The next thing I knew I was dreaming of Josef and Mo when they were young and like brothers, before me, before this... It played like a movie and made me wonder. There were other dreams of Grandfather and I when I was young that made me cry.

  Then someone jostled my shoulder. I couldn’t tell if it was real or a dream, and I couldn't remember where I was. I heard mumbling and I knew the mumbling meant to be words, but I couldn’t tell what the words were. I wondered if I was dreaming again. I was afraid to move or make any noise for fear that it wasn’t safe, but I couldn't remember why it wouldn't be safe. And with that I slept again and after a time I became aware that I could hear a tapping sound as if a wheel was going round and round, tapping, tapping, tapping making a low hum as it went.

  I woke again but inside another dream where butterflies brushed my cheeks, first one, then two and then thousands of beautiful butterflies kissing me with their wings, they were yellow and black and blue ... and then they were gone. I wanted to find them. I needed to find them and suddenly everything was white and silent but, in the distance, someone was talking. It was the voice of the woman, my mother.

  “Elzbeth. Elzbeth listen to me, open the door,” she said.

  I wanted to say, what door? Where? But I didn't want to, I was too tired.

  “You can touch it, just reach out your hand,” she said, in a sad, quiet voice.

  So, I reached forward but there was nothing there. “I can't find it,” I said, but she interrupted me.

  “It’s all right, just relax,” she encouraged me, her voice full of kindness. I wanted to see her, to be with her but... “Give me the key," she said, "I will open it for you.”

  I took a deep breath and suddenly the door flew open. She stood before me and I reached out to her, but she was suddenly on a mountaintop, far away. I could see her but then she disappeared as if she had been whisked away like a ghost. I wanted to look for her, but my eyes became heavy and there was a loud rushing in my ears.

  “Elzbeth, can you hear me?”

  I heard her, but I couldn't respond or move. So, I ignored her and sighed.

  “Elzbeth,” she said, insistent this time, “I need you to wake up, we need to get out of here!”

  I realized my head was throbbing, and I felt sick like I wanted to gag. I could hear her. She was somewhere near. Her voice felt like a hundred tiny voices whispering inside my ears and it made me dizzy and needing to hurl which I did, turning my head to the side. I forced my eyes open and looked across expecting to see her. I knew something was wrong immediately. She had been speaking to me, I had just heard her, but now she was laying across from me looking like she was sound asleep. Perhaps I had been dreaming again.

  “Mother?” I said, quietly then I looked around the room. My body was so stiff, it felt as if I had been lying there forever and my body had filled with lead.

  “Elzbeth,” she said, “We need to get out of here, before they trap us and it's too late.”

  My world spun, and I grabbed my head as my mind reeled. I felt like I had been smacked with a brick.

  “Elzbeth, I beg of you.”

  I moaned and leaned over the side of my bed, losing what felt like the rest of the contents of my stomach. Then I fell onto the floor not carrying that I had landed on all fours in a sea of my own liquidy vomit. Panting, I grabbed onto her bed and pulled myself towards her. “Mother, I’m up, let’s go,” I whispered and shook her but as soon as I touched her, I caught mys
elf and leaned away from her and into the side of my own cot. She was cold and limp, but how could she be dead? My eyes opened wide, and I tried to think. We had just met...? She had just been talking to me. “Mother!” I said, again, but she didn’t move. It was quiet as the grave except for the constant tapping and hum of the machine.

  “Quickly, there is nothing left for us here. The body is empty, we must go,” she said.

  Her lips did not move.

  I hurled the emptiness from my stomach and panted, trying not to cry... There was a horrible pressure inside my head and when I tried to get up, it felt like I had vertigo. “Did you hear her?” I said, desperate as I looked around. But there was no one else. I grabbed at my throat and my stomach and heaved again. When I looked at her, she was still and unmoving as she had been before. “I don’t understand,” I said, as I searched her face waiting for her to speak again or open her eyes.

  “My body is no longer functional because I am with you.” She spoke but again her lips did not move.

  I retched as fear and adrenaline raced through me. I wanted to run but my feet were not listening.

  Desperately trying to understand, I studied her unconscious form, “Do you mean you are speaking to me from your mind?”

  “Yes, and no. My mind and body are gone. Only my consciousness remains, and that is within you...."

  She continued talking but my mind reeled and I wretched... This couldn't be happening...

  "...it’s practical really if you think about it. My body was dying but I have many things I can share with you. As two, we can be better than one, don't you think?" She paused. "Although I don’t think he meant for us to be here together... in one body, he thought he was erasing you, leaving only me.”

  “No," I shook my head, "No, no, no. What are you saying? What are you doing to me?” I wanted to wretch again but there was nothing left.

  I held my head in my hands as I tried to overcome the dizziness, but there was no way to overcome the confusion.

  “I think they're coming, we have to get out of here, before it's too late...”

  “Ahhh.... Stop that!” I was panting now. “Stop speaking. I don’t know what's happening but if you keep talking, I won't be able to move." My head wanted to explode, and my stomach erupted each time the voice spoke.

  Like a disciplined child, I felt her move away from me.

  “Ahh, I’ve gone mad!" I yelled at myself. "I'm hearing the voice of my dead mother inside my head!” I then I cried.

  Chapter 40

  I looked around the room trying not to hyperventilate but there was no one there, not Mo, not the Sister, not the guards. However, even without the warning, I knew I needed to get out of here if I could. My body ached like I had the worst kind of illness and felt dull and far away, as if we were disconnected, like my brain wasn't able to talk to my legs and my legs were unused to moving.

  “I can do this,” I said to myself as I tried to breathe without panicking and pushed myself up to standing. Jake’s warnings had been true. I had to get out of here.

  I held onto the cart near the bed trying to decide which way to go. I looked towards the waterfall and realized with a start that there was an old woman, not the same one as before but she was dressed the same, and she was beckoning me. Did I go? I looked around. What choice did I have?

  I stepped forward and ran my foot right into my bag that was still on the floor. I grabbed it and hoisted it up onto my back. Then I tried my legs again, cautiously at first to make sure I didn't fall over. They felt numb but they worked. As I got closer to the back of the cave the sound of the waterfall drummed loud in my ears as I watched it cascade into the pool far below. At the back of the cave, I could see now that the Sister was standing halfway into a small space between the rock and a man-made wall behind it. I could see light coming from somewhere down below so I assumed there must be a passage of some kind. She stepped back into the passage leaving room for me to pass in front of her. It was so dark I could barely see her wrinkled face. I wanted to ask her what had happened to my mother and where I should go but she put a finger to her lips and motioned downward to the stairs that were below us.

  Then from the far end of the room I heard voices. The Sister grabbed onto me and pushed me forward, sliding a panel across the opening, closing us off from the rest of the room. There was sudden shouting in the room, and I assumed they had discovered I was gone.

  “Go,” she whispered in my ear.

  My head was killing me. All I could hear was the thundering of the waterfall as it hit the pool then I realized that the sound I was hearing was actually boots pounding across the floor above us. I supposed those were the bodyguards I had seen before and my adrenaline spiked.

  “If Andre finds us....”

  I jerked when I heard her voice. “Mother?” I whispered. “Where are you?”

  “Run!” she whispered.

  I couldn’t see her, but I felt her presence. My stomach clenched in fear and pain shot through my head. I sank on one knee to keep from falling.

  “Go,” she said. Then the old woman grabbed my arm and pulled me up as I forced myself to stand.

  I turned to ask her where we were going but she was gone. At least I couldn’t see her. “Sister?” I said. Noone answered so I turned and moved as fast as I could down the dark stairwell. Confusion mixed with adrenaline swam within me making me want to hide as well as run. The stairs hugged the wall round the tower as we descended, like we were slowly falling from the sky.

  “Wait! There's something below us.” This time the voice shouted between my ears.

  “Ah!” I grabbed my ears and moaned: my head spun. The dizziness overwhelmed me. "Stop, stop, stop!" I sobbed. The pain was sharp and real inside my head. I held my head in my hands and scrunched my eyebrows together willing it to stop. A cold sweat covered my body and I shivered as the pain subsided.

  As I sat there trying to get a grip on myself, I realized I could hear something, something strange and rumbling beneath us. I got up and moved farther down the stairs until I could see what was happening. There was a hallway below coming from the center of the tower to the exterior wall. I crouched down and listened. It sounded like something moving this way. Then I realized it was swords clanging against each other and the shouts of men fighting. I watched and waited as they grew closer. Several sets of men emerged, forcing each other first one way then the other as they pushed each other backward and forward, their swords clashing and echoing against the stone walls.

  It was Dungadar who emerged from the tunnel fighting another man even larger than himself and wielding not a sword but what looked like a long metal pipe. He smashed it back and forth into the other man's sword pushing him back until the other man hit the wall and then unexpectedly Dungadar looked up, right into my eyes. Another of Dungadar's men hit the other man just then knocking him to the floor. Dungadar looked at me for a moment and then abruptly looked towards a sound coming towards us and back at me. He motioned with his head upward.

  Back to where we’d come from? I thought. I shook my head. I didn't want to leave him but then I heard what he heard. It sounded like a hundred men descending rapidly upon him and his group. The thing in my head seemed to open a window onto what was coming, and fear roared through my mind dispelling any doubt as to what I needed to do.

  Chapter 41

  I turned and jumped the stairs two at a time. I didn't know where I was going, only that I needed to get away from whatever was approaching and up was my only other option. The problem was that I hadn't seen any other doors or hallways leading off the stairs on my way down. I prayed there was somewhere to go to get out. I went past the door I had come out of and when there were no more stairs I stopped and fell to one knee gasping for air. "Damnit!"

  I could barely breathe but I had to think, I had to find a way out of here. I looked up and suddenly realized I was actually in an alcove. Looking around the wall to my left I found a door.

  I pushed the hair out of my eye
s, moved next to the door and put my ear to it. Silence. I paused for a moment and the thing in my head reminded me of the soldiers down below us making my stomach turn instantly.

  I tried the handle. Locked. I took my bag from my back and dug through it till I found what I was looking for. Grandfather had given me a tiny toolkit a long time ago, so long ago that I had almost forgotten it. I unwrapped them and found the small pointed tool. Sticking it into the lock I closed my eyes and held my breath. Feeling around the inside of the lock, pushing and poking until I found just the right spot and then it clicked. I breathed a sigh of relief, put away the kit, and turned back to the door.

  I pushed the door open a fraction of an inch and peered inside, listening intently. It was quiet and dark except for a single candle flickering at the far end of the room. It seemed like a cozy living space, with chairs and tables and along the far side there were tall windows.

  Stepping inside I watched for any signs of movement. There was a long table in front of me. I moved forward and realized that beyond that was another table and on the table was a body.

  The body appeared to be strapped to the table and either asleep or unconscious, but hopefully not dead.

  I moved forward, quickly checking the room as I went. When I got to the stretcher, I put my fingers to his neck and he flinched at my touch, turning his head.

  "Jake? What are you doing here?"

  "I'm here to rescue you. No really," he smiled with less bravado than his words.

  I cocked my head looking at him. "Actually, according to my calculations, this is the second time I've had to rescue you, not that I'm counting." I looked towards the door quickly. "I'd love to stay and chat, but we may have company any moment, so if you have any brilliant ideas on how to get out of here, that might be handy," I said as I found the release for the straps.