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

by J Peregrine

  As I pulled the straps away from him, he sat up and rubbed his wrists where he had obviously struggled to pull them free. "Remind me to thank you properly someday," he said with a grin.

  “Really? How can you be coy at a time like this?”

  “A time like what?” he said, as he got up and went across the room to the door. He turned the lock and then listened at the door for a moment before moving through to an adjoining space where I heard him turn another deadbolt and then come back to where I stood.

  He pushed the hair from his face and looked at me. "Have you seen my bag? It's dark brown leather."

  "Yes, absolutely." I said looking around at the leather couch and chairs. "It's the first thing I noticed other than you tied to the table." I knew I was being snarky, but I couldn't help it. “Do you know where we are? And do you know there are about a hundred soldiers about to come through that door?” I said, not at all sure I was right, but afraid I was actually. I grabbed my stomach which had turned sour again and threatened to explode this time.

  “Nice to see you, too,” he said, and then started searching the area around us.

  “I am glad to see you, more than glad, and I’m glad you’re alive. I just don’t understand what you are doing here.” I motioned to our surroundings.

  He opened the glass doors to the outside and looked out. “Umm, I was looking for you, of course.”

  The funny thing was that he seemed suddenly sincere.

  “Here? This is not exactly the first place I would look if I was looking for me.” I was feeling ill, and my mother’s presence or whatever it was that had warned me before started to press upon my brain again to escape and quickly.

  “Ah ha,” he said, pulling a leather bag from the floor near the other table he started rummaging through it. “After you left, I walked right into Andre’s thugs. They brought me here and stuffed me in a room and knocked me out I suppose. When I woke up, I decided I better make a run for it and well, that's all I remember,” he said, looking embarrassed.

  I sighed. “How were you going to get out of here? We are miles high you know.” My heart was freaking out now.

  “I know,” he said, standing. "That's a good thing, really, and luckily they didn't take my pack." Then he pulled out what looked like folded gray sheeting.

  “Really? Are we making a bed?” I asked as I watched and then started looking around for anything we might use to escape.

  “Hold this,” he said, as he pushed the square of fabric at me. His voice sounded defined and sure of himself along with something else I couldn't define.

  I looked at him. “What were they going to do to you?”

  He shrugged. "They didn't really share their plans with me."

  I looked at him for a moment and he looked back up at me.

  "Look, don't try to make sense out of crazy," he said, as he pulled leather straps from the bag.

  “What is this for?” I said, looking down at the straps as he worked on sorting them out. I was not feeling good about this.

  “It’s a parasail,” he said, now pulling coils of rope from his pack.

  I looked out the window. “You mean you want us to jump?” I said, shaking again, whether from terror and adrenaline or the cold wind coming in through the open doors I didn’t know.

  Jake continued to unwrap straps and rope. “Here,” he said, as he held out his hands. “Step in.”

  “What?” I looked down.

  He shook the straps. “You want to get out? This is the only way out of here. Come on, if we're going to get out of this and have a chance to go, we need to go now. Step in!”

  I looked at him, trying to decide if he was making sense or grasping at straws. The look on his face convinced me. I took a breath and stepped in. He pulled up the harness. Then he pulled my arms through another set of straps and hooked the whole thing at my shoulders. Looking at his face in the darkness I wished we could stay here, in this moment, and just then he looked at me and I was suddenly nervous. "You're sure this will work, right?"

  He didn't look at me as he worked with the straps. "You're going to have to trust me. Plus, there's no other option."

  His quirky smile made me fill with anxiety and dread. At that moment something smashed into the door beyond, making me jump.

  Chapter 42

  Jake quickly hooked the ties to the harness. “Listen to me,” he pulled me in to him and looked into my eyes for a moment. “Outside those doors is a flat section of rock, beyond that is a canyon. You’re going to run and jump off the edge." He pulled the ties through the rings and tied them off quickly. "When you jump, the wind will rip the sheet from your hands, then the sail will unfurl and take you safely down into the canyon and the valley below. All right?"

  My heart froze. "What?" I grabbed onto his shirt with one hand, holding the sail to my chest with the other. “You want me to jump off the mountain? Oh no big deal, yeah, do it every day no problem." I glared at him, and holding my shoulders he kissed me hard.

  "Trust me, the sail will catch you, but you have to go." He looked deep into my eyes.

  Time stopped for a moment. "What about you, you're coming too?!” My eyes dug into his for confirmation.

  “I have a sail in my bag, but you have to go first." Splintering sounds of the breaking door in the other room interrupted him.

  “Go,” he said. “Run!” he hissed at me.

  "You're coming, right after me, promise!" I growled at him as I panicked. Desperate to get away but not wanting to leave him behind.

  He grabbed my shoulders again and turned me to face the window. "Yes." Then he squeezed my hand making me realize I had a deathlike grip on his and from within me the voice whispered, “Go!” The crushing of wood and shouts broke in on my consciousness again making my heart race and my attention focus. This seemed so inevitable now, so destined.

  Jake ran with me pushing me forward. “Go!”

  Through the open doors and toward the cliff, reaching the end I sprang into the emptiness. For a moment I felt suspended as my momentum sent me out into the void, away from the cliff, and then I fell.

  He had been right, of course. As I flew into the air, the wind grabbed the sheet and yanked it and my arms skyward. The cold blast of wind hit me in the face and made me gasp and the only thing I thought of for a few moments was not dying. At the back of my brain, I felt the voice inside me gasp and cry out. Then the sail unfurled fully and yanked me from the dead fall, back upward. When it did, I grabbed hold of the lines at my shoulders and fought the air trying to turn the sail by swinging my legs and twisting my body around to see if I could see him following. Nothing happened, so I tried grabbing onto one line with both hands and pulling to see if I could make it turn. As soon as I did this, the sail swung me into the side of the cliff, smashing my shoulder and knocking the wind out of me. So, I stopped struggling and prayed to the Gods that he would jump, that he would survive. The cold air froze my tears and eyes, so I shut them tight and tried to make peace with myself for abandoning him.

  Chapter 43

  I felt the urge to be sick, but the cold stopped me from retching and froze the tears on my face. Had I taken the only sail he had and now he was trapped there with the very people he had been so desperately trying to avoid? Did he really have another sail? What had I done?

  “Be thankful he helped you get away,” the voice inside my head whispered.

  “Don’t you get it,” I screamed. “If he dies, it's my fault.”

  "I don't think you can give yourself that much credit. This struggle has been going on without you for quite some time, and it will continue even if you escape and disappear. You are only one small trophy. Their plan includes much more...."

  "Shut up!" I shouted as my head reeled and my stomach heaved.

  After I got over the shock of jumping and began to trust the sail, I looked down to see where I was falling to, but I could see only darkness beneath me. Then slowly I realized I could discern darker blotches within the darkness
here and there. I watched as the mounds of darkness came closer. They must be hills and trees I decided with lighter sections of open land. I experimented with the sail leaning and pulling on the lines until I could maneuver myself a little more towards an open area, away from the trees, and as I got closer, I could see that a short ways away at the base of a dark blotch of what seemed to be hills was a pinprick of light that must be coming from a campfire. I hoped that whoever was at that fire either wouldn’t see me or, and I prayed it was the second possibility, that it was Dungadar and his men.

  As I hit the ground I was immediately twisted around as the sail drug me backward along the ground. Then it seemed to catch another gust of wind and pick me up again, dropping me back on my heels just as quickly to drag me again and then settled on top of me. I hadn’t seen anyone, but I also had been facing away from the trees as the sail drug me across the ground. I hoped I would have time to free myself and make a run for the trees.

  I pulled at the sail, desperately trying to find an edge and uncover myself when I felt another set of hands working to uncover me. When I got my head free, I looked up into the eyes of V and the tattooed girl from the kitchen.

  “V?” I whispered. I could just barely see her face in the moonlight and as disappointment took hold, I looked away down to the harness as I tried to unhook myself.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, obviously trying to dispel her disappointment as she took a knife to the ties and sliced through them expertly.

  “Well enough,” I said, and she immediately pulled me up. The girl had already gathered the sheeting and grabbed up the harness as we started off.

  “I didn’t want to go without him...” I started to explain.

  “He's alive?"

  "Yes, he said he would follow me, but..." I was afraid for him again, but I couldn't tell her what I feared.

  "It’s all right. We’ll talk later, right now we need to move.” She went forward through the grass, toward the trees and we followed.

  Chapter 44

  We didn’t go towards the firelight as I had expected. Instead, we went across the grass to our right and then down into a ravine. It was hard going, but I assumed we were guarding against being seen by the Agency men. We kept going until I could see trees up above and then we made our way back up and under their cover.

  We stopped and V stood, listening intently to the surrounding sounds. She motioned to me to sit, and I did, grateful to have a moment to rest. I was exhausted but still anxious and not interested in sleep. I pushed down the dizziness in my head and the desire to retch and willed the voice there to be still. I couldn't bear to be sick and exhausted.

  When the girl touched my shoulder, I jerked awake. I was surprised I had fallen asleep, but I could not have been asleep for long. Unfortunately, now I felt my exhaustion even more. V signaled that we should move up the side of the ridge closest to us. So, we climbed. When we got to the top, we stopped again. This time V signaled to the girl. The girl dropped the sheeting at the base of the tree and climbed. Standing in its upper branches I could see her looking out over the surrounding area. Thankfully V again touched my shoulder and motioned for me to sit. So, I sat at the base of the tree and closed my eyes again. I didn’t understand why but I had never been this tired in my life and never so grateful to be able to rest.

  V touched my shoulder this time and my eyes popped open, she had her finger to her lips and motioned for me to get up. The bird noises and hint of light told me the sun was rising. I stood, but no one spoke, I could feel her nerves as we waited. So, we were still in danger, the thought made me even more anxious.

  V reached out and took my hand and squeezed as if she sensed my anxiety. She looked at me and adjusted her pack, not smiling but reassuring me. Then she looked up to the tattooed girl still high in the tree. It seemed we were waiting for something, ready to run.

  The woods were full of the light noises of early morning. But still, we waited. Finally, there was the call of a bird somewhere in the distance. V looked up into the tree. I followed her gaze and saw the girl, quickly descending from her roost. We moved carefully now through the trees, V taking the lead and the tattooed girl behind me.

  At the top of the ridge, Dungadar stepped out of nowhere into our path followed by those who were with him. V stepped into his embrace. It was incredible to see the obvious love and respect they had for each other.

  His eyebrows went up when he saw me. “You found her,” he said.

  “Jake put her in one of his parasails and sent her off the top of the mountain. She landed practically on top of us out on the plain."

  Dungadar nodded. “Are you fit enough to travel?” His eyes searched mine.

  “I’m all right,” I said, which was mostly true, except for the extra person living in my brain, I thought, but I wasn't going to mention that.

  “All right, let’s go,” he said. He looked at V one more time and then started off through the trees at a fast jog, climbing the hillside.

  Chapter 45

  The pounding of boots through the undergrowth was methodical and mesmerizing, which spoke to how exhausted I was. We may have been running from something, a hidden danger, but it was comforting to be surrounded by others. They seemed to take this as a normal occurrence, but to me it was part relief part awe at having such a tribe. We went a good distance through the trees. Then we came to a small ravine and stopped at its side next to the trees that still grew there. I wondered if it filled with water when it rained, I assumed it did.

  We were obviously waiting for something, but no one sat. I decided they must somehow know that someone was coming. How I did not know. Dungadar spoke with several of the others who had arrived with him earlier in hushed tones.

  Finally, there was another bird call. A girl in front of us answered the call and several people stepped forward in anticipation. I didn’t hear anyone coming but two groups emerged a few minutes later, down the slope from the east. Relief was palpable and the leaders of both groups converged on Dungadar. They spoke for a few minutes and seemed to be giving reports and offering insights, not arguing but deciding together what to do next. We started off again and this time at a faster pace. I wondered at the ability of everyone to keep up with the group despite the fact that there were many who were older and younger. Some of the youngest children were carried but most were old enough to run along with the rest of us.

  By midday, I was exhausted. We stopped in a meadow under a giant oak and from somewhere they produced bread and cheese and nuts. Everyone got a handful of food and even less water. The man with the water-skins guarded them carefully, making sure that everyone got a fair ration of what was left.

  We didn’t continue as I thought we would, instead we seemed to be waiting perhaps for another group, but no one spoke or moved about. At sundown, everyone got another handful of food and even less water.

  The tattooed girl came over and she sat down.

  "I am Annalee," she said as she joined me. "This is Shandy," she said of the small, dark girl with the longest hair I had ever seen. Several boys came and sat as well. "This is, Kye, Mack, and Temwyn," she finished.

  I had seen them all as we traveled but had not met them until now. We sat next to each other eating the small bits of bread and dried things. Finally, Annalee spoke.

  “Did they do anything to you,” she asked quietly, “when you were inside the mountain?”

  The wind blew across my skin and I shivered, but not because of the wind. She was the first person to ask about what had happened and although I felt curiously comfortable with her, what could I say that would sound real? “They did something,” I finally said, looking down at my hands and trying to find words.

  She looked at me quickly. “Do you have wounds?”

  I stared out into the wild and shook my head. At least not on the outside I thought.

  We sat there in silence. What could I say? I trusted her. I wanted to be part of this tribe, part of them. Was I going to say there was
someone else's voice now living inside my head? I didn’t want them to think I was crazy.

  “I have seen others disappear,” she said. “They go inside the mountain and they never came back.” She looked at me with a mixture of fear, anger, and resignation. The others nodded in agreement. They all seemed so much older than their years, like the boys that worked for Mo.

  As I ate, I noticed V and Dungadar talking with a small group. Some of them had empty water-skins, a few of them had weapons. A few others joined V and Dungadar and they seemed to be discussing grave subjects.

  I looked to Annalee. "Do you know what has happened?" I asked.

  She smiled weakly. "They say the mountain exploded." She raised her hand and mimicked an explosion. "It may have had something to do with explosives they left behind.” She nodded toward the warriors and Dungadar. “But it is a bit like poking a bear, you have to be prepared for the anger."

  The others nodded in agreement but nothing more was said. It seemed they didn't agree or disagree with this development, it was just another part of the life they led.

  As we sat there, the stars came out and the moon started its ascent in the distance. We watched as a group of girls and boys climbed high into the old oak tree. We could hear them making bird calls back and forth to each other again. As it got darker, the calls switched to hoots. First one would call and then another as if it were pairs of owls calling back and forth to each other.

  The boys started telling stories of warriors and monsters and I was mesmerized.

  Suddenly there was the screech of a night bird I didn’t recognize, but it was clear this was whoever they had been waiting for.

  Chapter 46

  Annalee put her hand on my shoulder. “It's the missing wing.” She held my arm as she got up and I moved with her to the edge of the group already gathered near the meadow.