Time of Treason

by Susan M. MacDonald

Alec headed towards the door and opened it. “I’ll tell him you want to talk to him. He’s asleep. Just a sec.” Before she could object, Alec leapt up the stairs and into the dark interior. He glimpsed Riley starting to sit up on the sofa, but mindful that the window was open, only pointed wordlessly towards the door and shook his head. Riley reached for her orb and flung the covers off her legs while Alec headed to the bedroom. He had to shake Darius awake.

  “What the..?” Darius started to gasp as Alec’s hand slapped over his lips.

  “Cops,” Alec whispered. “Did you steal this thing?”

  Darius cursed quietly as he pulled Alec’s hand away. He immediately jumped from the bed, pulling his shoes on and taking his orb out of his pocket at the same time. “Stay here,” he said quietly as he left.

  Alec sat down on the edge of the bed. His back was aching something awful now that there wasn’t anything to distract him and shivers of weakness were coursing through his blood. He’d obviously been hurt pretty badly. Through the open bedroom door he could see Riley, pulling on her shoes and listening attentively to the conversation outside.

  Unwilling to stay in the dark any longer, Alec got up and sidled over to the open window.

  “Isn’t that strange, officer?” Darius was saying with false incredulity. There was the rustling of feet on twigs and dry grass. “The license plates are similar but you notice the last two numbers are entirely different.”

  “That’s odd,” the officer mused. Alec could hear the confusion growing. “I was sure they matched.” Her voice tailed off as she walked away from the window.

  “It’s just a routine check,” Darius continued. “You should carry on with your search. Head back towards Toronto. The camper is still in the metropolitan area.”

  Well, that was that. Alec sighed with relief and returned to the bathroom. His orb hadn’t been in sight in the bedroom and he knew it had been in the pocket of his jeans before he got hurt. Why anyone would wash his jeans and not take the orb out, he had no idea, but it was worth checking, just in case. The tee-shirt was almost dry and he slipped it over his head, but the jeans were still unpleasantly clammy and, he noted, orb free. Where was it? He pulled the jeans on and forced himself to ignore the dampness; he could hardly walk around in underwear. Almost without thinking, he reached for the medicine cabinet over the sink and hooked the mirror-backed door open with a finger. The metal shelves were overloaded with various creams, pill bottles, and lotions. And, sitting incongruously in the middle, one slightly bluish-white crystal orb.

  Alec grinned. He scooped the crystal ball into his hand and rubbed the smooth surface with a profound sense of relief. No matter how much he might not like what had happened to him, one thing was undeniable; he felt complete with the crystal in his hand. Even the pain was better.

  With a sudden splintering crack, the mirrored door shattered into a thousand pieces. Tiny shards flew out in all directions like heat-seeking missiles. Alec wasn’t able to get his hands up in time and a burst of stinging bites blossomed into existence over his face and neck as the missiles found their mark.

  “Ow,” he gasped as he recoiled into the wall behind him.

  Another outrageously loud bang exploded next to him as the second bullet slammed into the wall next to the open bathroom door. A third almost immediate explosion rocked the walls of the RV but sounded in another direction.

  For a second Alec stood paralyzed in horrified disbelief. Someone was shooting at him. From somewhere outside, Riley screamed. His heart restarted and he dropped to the ground. His stab wound exploded in pain but he ignored it. He inched forward on his belly to peer around the corner of the doorway. The living room was empty. The soles of Peter’s shoes were barely visible under the mattress of the bed.

  Alec slithered into the tiny hallway and moved slowly forward towards the living room. He couldn’t hear much— his ears were still ringing from the blast of the gun—but somewhere in the distance someone was shouting. He could only hope it was Darius and that he hadn’t been shot.

  Alec poked his head past the cupboards. The screen door wasn’t latched. Alec could only see the corner of the picnic table, with his empty plate still sitting where he’d left it. Most importantly, Riley wasn’t lying in a blood-soaked heap at the foot of the RV’s steps. He pulled himself to his knees and stretched upwards to look outside the front windows. Over the dashboard there was only a vista of trees across the tiny roadway and a sign nailed to a maple tree indicating their location, lot 39. There was no sign of the police car, the cop, Darius, or Riley.

  Where were they? He assumed it was the cop firing, but why on earth would she? Darius had told her they didn’t have the stolen RV and she’d sounded pretty convinced. Had she managed to overthrow the Tyon influence and come to her senses? And even if she had, Canadian police officers hardly ever pulled out their guns and fired. It wasn’t like television.

  It didn’t make sense. Grimacing as another white-hot spasm of pain shot through his back, Alec climbed to his feet. For a second his head spun. The instant it cleared, he opened the screen door and warily stepped outside. It was totally silent, except for the wind moaning softly through the upper boughs of the thick pine trees around them. No bird calls, no people, no sirens. A prickle of unease danced across his shoulders. Where had they gone?

  Half afraid that any second he’d turn and discover Riley’s bleeding body or, worse, a gun to his own head, Alec slowly stepped forward, heading towards the front of the camper. Figuring that if anyone was going to run anywhere, they wouldn’t chose the river, he inched his way towards the deeply rutted lane that crossed in front of their campsite and disappeared into the trees. He stayed close to the warm metal of the camper, trying to quiet his harsh breathing so he could hear if anyone snuck up on him. The nose of their RV jutted slightly out into the laneway. Alec stopped and craned his neck around the bug-pitted grill. The dirt road curved to the left and was out of sight in the space of three campsites. None of the campsites were occupied. He pulled back. In the opposite direction, the road was a bit straighter. There was an SUV two campsites down on the riverside and another mammoth camper directly across. While it was early in the day, Alec reasoned by the chilliness still tingeing the air, surely the gunshots had to have awakened someone.

  Alec made a snap decision and headed along the straighter portion of the road. He kept as close to the trees as possible. Scanning the surrounding foliage while keeping a wary eye out for a deranged cop with a twitchy trigger finger wasn’t easy. And to add misery, the road wasn’t dirt as he’d first thought, but mostly dark gravel, sharp and unyielding to his bare feet. Why the heck hadn’t he put on his shoes? He brushed another heavy pine branch away and stopped before stepping into the occupied campsite.

  Two massive nylon tents were pitched side by side. A cluster of mountain bikes leaned against a spindly sapling next to the picnic table, which was laden with helmets, backpacks, and water bottles. Beer bottles littered the grass around the table and the fire pit. Someone had been partying.

  Alec eyed the tents with distrust and gripped his orb more tightly. An army could be hiding behind those. He listened intently for the sound of breathing but heard nothing. He took a deep breath and dashed across the open area, ducking into the trees again, just as his energy failed. He leaned against a pine trunk for support and fought to catch his breath. He peered back at the campsite but nothing was moving and no one seemed to have noticed him. Before he could sigh with relief, goosebumps rose across his neck and down his arms. It was creepy how silent it was. Creepy and…

  He didn’t get to finish that thought. The warm metal of a pistol jammed up against the base of his skull. He froze with the words whispered in his ear.

  “We meet again, Potential.”

  8

  Riley lay on her stomach under a small pop-up camper and scratched as silently as she could at a mosquito bite on her nose. The view was lousy. The grass underneath was too long to see past and while it was decent cov
er, it tickled her nose something awful. Great time to develop an allergy, she thought darkly to herself. She’d lost sight of the cop and Darius. Losing the cop was a good thing. The woman had nearly taken her arm off with that last shot as Riley barrelled through the RV door. If her reflexes hadn’t been as fast…

  Where Darius was, Riley had no idea either. Even with her orb clutched tightly in her left hand there was no inkling of his location. She’d had a microsecond’s glimpse of his back as he tore after the cop around the front of the RV, then nothing. By the time she’d pulled herself off the ground, they were both gone.

  She hadn’t waited for Alec and now that she thought about it, that hadn’t been a great idea leaving him on his own. Knowing him, he’d be wandering around looking for her and Darius and thinking he could take on the gun-wielding maniac with his overconfident karate whatchamacallit. He’d get himself killed.

  But getting back to their camper wasn’t going to be that easy. She’d seen the police cruiser at the last second and had managed to duck under the closest camper only in the nick of time. Now the dratted cruiser was stopped only a stone’s throw away, and so far, she hadn’t heard the door open or anyone get out. That meant the driver was sitting there, watching, and that was odd. Hadn’t the gunshots alerted anyone that there was trouble?

  She rubbed her nose forcefully to avoid the building sneeze. Carefully she inched closer to the edge of the camper on her stomach, staying within the shadows. If she craned her head she could just make out the rear passenger tire of the cop car. A hand-span away from her nose, a small spider lowered itself on a microscopic thread into the grass. Riley bit her tongue, stopping herself from squealing in disgust, and forced herself to not scramble away.

  The static of a two-way radio broke the morning silence.

  She was too far away to hear the conversation but a premonition slithered along her skin. A minute later, the driver’s side door opened and booted feet crunched on the gravel. The sounds of the footsteps got louder. Uniformed trouser legs and polished black boots came into view as the cop walked around the back of his cruiser. He walked slowly towards Riley’s hiding place and came to stop right at the camper. Riley watched his feet as the cop leaned forward, probably to look inside. She heard louder static from the radio as she strained to hear the words.

  “…The second male has died as of O-six-forty. Repeat. Suspects are considered dangerous. Approach with extreme caution.”

  The cop grunted. Riley heard the rustle of fabric against leather. She swallowed convulsively. If the gang members Darius had fought actually died, that meant Darius had committed murder, and that meant the cops wouldn’t stop until they’d hunted them down and had them in custody. Darius had no identification. In fact, he was probably on the list of missing children in his former homeland, and that was probably on an international database. How would he explain where he’d been all those years? And if the cops couldn’t figure out his name, they’d resort to dental records, fingerprints and stuff. One medical scan of either him or Alec would have the entire government breathing down their necks and who knows what kind of secret service involved to discover who Darius really was. What if they took their orbs? Worse still, she shuddered, if her father got a call saying his daughter was in custody and wanted for murder and theft, the last battle with Rhozan would look like a summer picnic.

  She held her breath and gripped her orb tightly, willing the officer to return to his car and just drive away. A trickle of sweat ran down her forehead.

  The polished boots took a step back from the camper and stopped. Knees bent into view. Riley silently groaned as the cop’s face dipped below the camper’s edge.

  “On your feet, miss,” he ordered.

  Biting the profane comment that would only get her into deeper trouble, Riley shimmied to the edge of the shadowed grass and, minding her head, clambered out from her hiding place. She kept her eye on the officer, noting that his gun was still in his holster and his expression neutral. She pasted a nonchalant look on her face and waited.

  “Are you staying at this campsite, miss?”

  Riley nodded. Her mind leaped ahead. He’d want to know where, and if she showed him the camper he was sure to notice the license plate and that would be major trouble. “With my parents. In a cabin.”

  “And what are you doing under this tent trailer?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t you ever played hide and go seek?” She hurried on before he could answer, her voice rising with the feigned indignity. “Obviously you don’t have two little brothers, who could drive a saint crazy with their never-ending whining. Or a mom who thinks your allowance includes watching the rug-rats for like hours and hours and hours, every weekend, even when you have way too much homework to do and Mr. Donahue is like way too stupid to stop giving assignments during exams. And it’s so unfair I could just spit.”

  The cop actually took a step back and eyed her uneasily.

  Riley carried on, really getting into her role now. “What are you looking for? Thieves, rapists, murders or what? Like they’re gonna hide out in this totally sucking campground for losers.”

  “Sorry to bother you,” the officer’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

  “You’ve blown my cover,” Riley accused. “I’ve gotta find somewhere else to hide. It’s the only peace and quiet I’ll have for this whole, entire, stupid weekend. If you see two ankle-biters tell them you saw me at the playground.” With that, she turned on her heel and stalked off, heading back towards their RV in the distinct hope the cop would leave in the opposite direction just to get away from her. She forced herself not to turn around to look but strained to hear. There were no following footsteps. That had been too close. She had to warn Darius and Alec that the police were searching for the stolen RV. While Darius was as good an actor as she was, Alec’s guilty expression would give them away in a second.

  The instant she turned the slight corner of the roadway and was sure she was out of sight, she launched herself into a grove of trees. She scampered into the cool dimness of the pines and, keeping her hand in front of her face to protect her eyes from the numerous pine needles, headed back the way she’d come. It was slower going inside the woods than on the roadway, but infinitely harder to be spotted.

  It took several minutes before their RV came into view. Riley paused to catch her breath before leaving the cover of the trees. The little campsite was empty and only Alec’s plate on the picnic table indicated that anyone was up and about. She strained to hear above the cawing of distant crows and the moaning of the breeze in the upper regions of the trees. If Alec, Darius, or even Peter was around, there was no sign.

  Riley gave the surrounding area one last quick look before dashing out of her hiding spot and across the little campground. She grabbed the door handle and flung herself inside. She pulled the door closed behind her as quietly as possible and pulled down the blind. She looked around. Other than the mess she’d made of the covers of her makeshift bed, there was little disturbed in the living room and she didn’t get the uneasy sense that someone had been in to rifle around. She climbed onto the sofa bed and pulled down the blind over the large window. She headed back to the master bedroom. The door was closed. Riley bit her lip. She didn’t remember Darius closing it after he left but, of course, he’d done so in a hurry and she was too interested in the cop’s arrival to think about the door. Hopefully, both Alec and Peter were still waiting inside for Darius’s return and had the sense enough to stay put. Although, in Alec’s case, she doubted it.

  She turned the handle and pulled the door towards her.

  If her nerves hadn’t been on edge her reaction time might have been slower. As Peter jumped out towards her, a tennis racket swinging in his hand directly at her head, she managed to duck in time. The racket smashed against the wall with enough force to dent the panelling. Peter nearly fell into her with the momentum.

  “What the hell are you—?” Riley gasped as she scrambled away from him, barely managi
ng to get her feet underneath her as he dove forward.

  Another swing and another resounding smash that could probably be heard back at the campsite office.

  “I am not staying here with you a second longer,” Peter grunted loudly. He swung again, this time scarcely missing her forehead.

  “Keep it down,” Riley yelped as she tumbled against the pulled-out sofa and landed on her back on the bed. She rolled away from his next chopping swing. The feather pillow next to her head exploded into a cloud of angel dandruff as the racket burst the seams. “There are cops outside.”

  “Exactly.” Peter was gloating. He was fast too. The racket swung again and this time Riley’s luck ran out. The edge of it glanced across her forehead with just enough force to stun her but not enough to knock her unconscious. She cried out and clasped her hand to the blossoming pain. Her own orb banged against her skin.

  “Enough,” she yelled, putting every ounce of Tyon willingness into it along with the fury that was building like a volcano under her skin. “You idiot.”

  Peter was in mid-swing. Riley’s gift wasn’t focused strongly enough to stop him but it did slow him down enough so that she was able to roll away. The racket hit the foam seat cushion and bounced harmlessly off.

  “Who’s the idiot?” Peter growled. “Me, for knowing you’re full of crazy ideas or you for actually believing them?” With that he threw the racket with enough force it cracked the window over the little kitchen table. He leaned over Riley and grabbed her shoulders before she could dodge him. His fingers bit deeply into her skin. He gave her a rough shake then threw her down onto the mattress with disgust. “You’re stupid enough for Alec.”

  He turned and with two long strides was at the door.

  “Don’t leave,” Riley gasped. She struggled into a sitting position. “The cops think we’ve killed someone. They’ll shoot first and—”

  It was too late. The door swung closed behind him. With a frustrated moan Riley crawled to the window and peered under the edge of the blind. She caught a glimpse of Peter as he ran down the roadway.