“A few times,” Wyatt admitted. “It’s not that far from some of the ruins my dad used to send me to scout out.”
A little tension squared Wyatt’s shoulders when he mentioned Jimmy. Dylan touched his arm. He didn’t pull away. She saw that as encouragement. But then she realized he was studying the park down below them so intently, he likely hadn’t noticed her touch.
“What is it?” she asked.
He lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight. “Someone’s down there,” he said.
Stiles, who seemed to constantly be watching Dylan closely, moved up behind her. “How do you know?” he asked Wyatt.
“I saw a flash of something. Metal, I think.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t just reflecting off of one of the rides?”
Wyatt didn’t respond. He just kept watching. After a second he pointed with his other hand, the one not pressed to his forehead. “There,” he said. “A little flash, like someone moving around.”
“I saw it,” Stiles said.
Dylan hadn’t, but it didn’t matter. She had already known someone would be there waiting for them.
Stiles gripped Dylan’s arms and turned her around. “You need to go back.”
“No,” she said, pulling away from his touch. “I can’t keep running.”
“You don’t know what might be down there.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Dylan,” Stiles began, reaching to touch her again. But then he was jerked backward, as though hit by a powerful force. Dylan cried out as he fell to the ground, his body stiff, as though his nerves had all misfired at the same time.
“Guy is so irritating,” Ellie said.
“What are you doing?” Wyatt asked, his voice surprisingly calm as he slowly stepped in front of Dylan and confronted his former admirer, his hands held at chest level in response to the weapon in her hand. “Stiles wasn’t bothering you.”
“He wanted to keep her from going to the park. I couldn’t allow that.”
“Why? Who are you working with?”
Ellie simply smiled. “You two were so easy, you know? Didn’t even have to beg to get you to take us along with you. You just fell for that wild pig attack like you saved damsels in distress every single day. Davida sure had you pegged.”
“Davida?” Dylan asked. “What about her?”
Ellie just shook her head. “You are so blind, Dylan. Did you really think they would put a bunch of experiments into the dorms without someone there to watch over them? Lily’s not nearly that stupid.”
“What does Lily have to do with this?” Wyatt asked.
Ellie didn’t answer. She gestured with her weapon, the same sort of short, wide weapon the Redcoats had when they came searching for Dylan at the resistance camp. “Let’s go,” she barked.
“What about Sam?” Dylan asked.
Ellie glanced over her shoulder. Sam was unconscious on the ground behind her. Dylan couldn’t tell if he had been hit with another of the projectiles from her gun. She didn’t think so. His body was not stiff like Stiles’, or like Bobby’s had been days ago. And he was clearly unconscious. Stiles, on the other hand, was staring up at Dylan, and his voice, distant and garbled, was trying to communicate with her. She didn’t know what he was saying, but she had a pretty good guess.
He wanted her to run.
She would have. If it hadn’t been for Wyatt.
Chapter 39
They walked at a much slower pace than before. Apparently, Ellie hadn’t been completely lying about her sore feet. Or maybe it was the necessity of keeping a weapon on them that forced her to walk slower. Whatever it was, it gave Dylan time to figure out what her next move should be.
Too bad she didn’t have any brilliant ideas.
“Why would you do that to Sam?” Dylan asked at one point. “What did he do to you?”
“Sam was a puppet,” Ellie said. “Just someone to help make my cover story.”
“Was he a student at Genero?”
“No,” Ellie said. “From what I understand, he had never heard of Genero until Lily put him up to this little charade.”
Dylan ran her fingers through her hair, annoyed to discover her fingers were shaking. She glanced at Wyatt, tried to see if he was holding up all right. She shouldn’t have worried. His face was as impassive as ever, but there was anger snapping in his eyes. He wasn’t going to take this lying down.
“Then it was you? You’re the one they told to bring me here.”
“You heard that?” Ellie clicked her tongue, making a noise that gave voice to her irritation. “They told me they could block your powers. Keep you from hearing the majority of my thoughts.”
“Who told you that?”
Ellie didn’t answer.
Block her powers. Dylan remembered how she had tried to find Sam after they were separated, after Ichabod had grabbed her in the night and flown her away. It was like someone had blocked her then, kept her from seeing and hearing him and the people around him. Someone with a voice she had recognized.
She tried to remember it now, that voice. Had it been Lily? Or one of the women she had met in Viti? Could it have been Ellie? She didn’t think so. Whoever it had been, she hadn’t heard the voice often enough to be able to recognize it easily. Lily’s she would know, even if they had only really met once. Lily occupied enough of her dreams that her voice was imprinted on her memory permanently. And Ellie’s, she would have known her immediately. She still had no idea who it could have been.
Ellie marched them right up to what must have been massive gates once. Parts had fallen over, while other parts appeared to be missing. Ellie nudged Dylan with that weapon in her back. Dylan picked up her pace, moving into the park at a quicker pace.
“They’re in the back, near the tall roller coaster,” Ellie said.
“What’s a roller coaster?” Dylan asked.
“This way,” Wyatt said, grabbing her hand and leading her down a brick path that led around some of the odd contraptions—rides, Stiles had called them—and into the heart of the park.
When I say, you move into that…whatever form and get out of here, Wyatt said to her without glancing at her, without moving even a single muscle in his expressionless face.
I’m not leaving you.
He did look at her then, a softness coming into his eyes for a brief moment.
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Ellie said, jabbing her weapon into Wyatt’s back, “but you need to stop.”
They walked a few moments more in silence. When they rounded a corner where there appeared to have been some sort of body of water at one point, a man stepped out of the shadows and confronted them.
“Finally made it?” he asked Ellie.
“Finally,” she agreed.
“Just in the nick of time.” He gestured behind him. “They’re over by the roller coaster.”
Ellie pushed Dylan. “Just you,” she said.
“No,” Wyatt said, refusing to let go of Dylan’s hand. “We stay together.”
“It’s not you they want,” Ellie told him.
“Doesn’t matter. We stay together.”
Ellie seemed to consider the idea for a long moment. The guard stepped over beside her and whispered something Dylan couldn’t hear. She moved into Wyatt’s side, closing her eyes to find Stiles. She could see him, still lying on the crest of that hill, his body still caught in the paralyzing effects of whatever it was Ellie’s weapon had injected into him. Sam was still on the ground a yard back. But he was coming to, rolling around on the grass and moaning deep in his throat.
You have to help Stiles, Dylan projected to him.
Sam stopped moving. He reached up and touched his head. “Dylan?” he muttered.
Help Stiles, she repeated.
Sam sat up and looked around himself. He seemed confused, as though he had no idea where he was or how he got there. It wouldn’t have surprised Dylan to know that was exactly the case. Then he spotted Stiles and be
gan to crawl in his direction.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Ellie said, jabbing her weapon into Dylan’s shoulder. She lost the connection, opening her eyes to find not only Ellie, but the guard, standing in front of her, fear in their eyes as they studied her.
“Don’t try any of your tricks,” Ellie said. She gestured toward the path behind them. “Start walking.”
Dylan clung to Wyatt’s hand as they began to follow the path again. She wasn’t sure what to expect when they got to their destination. Luc and Lily was the most likely scenario. Or maybe the gargoyles again, but she doubted that. Angels were more likely. The only question was, which angels? The ones working with Luc and Lily, or the ones who wanted to blow up the world and start over? Neither seemed like a pleasant option.
Do whatever you have to do, Wyatt whispered in her mind as they turned a corner, moving closer to the round tracks that marked the ride Ellie was pushing them toward. But don’t let me stop you from saving yourself.
I won’t leave you, she repeated.
Wyatt glanced at her and squeezed her hand.
A moment later, they turned one last corner and found themselves face to face with their newest captor.
Chapter 40
Davida.
“I wish I hadn’t taught you so well,” she said as she approached Dylan. “You’ve made this far more difficult than it needed to be.”
A shiver ran through Dylan. But it wasn’t her shiver.
Wyatt clung to her hand with a crippling grip that threatened to break every bone in her fingers. She squeezed back, moving as close to his side as she could get.
“What have you done?” she asked.
Davida studied her face for a long moment before reaching over to run a fingertip along her jaw. It was a familiar touch, not unlike the many times she had touched Dylan before. It reminded her of dark, frightening nights after a nightmare, when Davida would come to her and hold her, humming songs to her to keep the fear at bay. Of long afternoons playing board games with Davida and Donna instead of extra lessons like many of the other guardians forced their girls to do. Of the affection Dylan had always believed Davida lavished on her because she saw who she was and loved her, not in spite of it, but because of it.
“I knew the moment I saw you in the nursery,” she said. “I knew you were something special.”
“Who are you?” Dylan asked.
“I, my love, am the woman who is going to deliver you to your fate.”
“Woman?”
Davida stepped back, but not before she first scraped her fingernail over Dylan’s face again. But this time she drew blood and laughed as she watched how quickly it began to heal.
“You are amazing,” she said. “You heal ten times faster than most angels.”
“Was all of it a lie?” Dylan asked. “Did you ever care about me? About Donna?”
“Donna?” Davida said the name as though it was a joke, something that was taken seriously when it was never meant to be. “Donna was nothing, just a healer who had no idea what it meant to have such powers.”
“Donna was my sister.”
“Donna is a child who will find herself as dead as those gargoyles she believes so deeply in.”
Dylan started to pull away from Wyatt, to strike out, but Wyatt pulled her back. He pulled so hard that she fell into his side. It was almost a lover’s embrace, the way his arm twisted and moved around her, protecting her from Davida’s touch.
Davida studied them, a slow smile touching her lips. “Isn’t this sweet. The two hybrids have discovered each other. Wouldn’t Joanna be proud?”
Wyatt stiffened at the sound of his mother’s name. Davida just laughed, as though it was the funniest thing she had ever seen.
“What do you want from me?” Dylan demanded.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Davida asked. “My sister, my only true sister, is dying. She’s being brought here as we speak. And you, my darling, are going to fix her.”
“Never,” Dylan said.
Davida’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t much choice, child.”
She made a gesture and a group of Redcoats moved up behind her.
“Where’s my father?” Wyatt suddenly demanded.
Davida’s eyes moved to his, some real emotion suddenly shining in them. She really cared about Jimmy, Dylan realized. There was hurt there, a deep hurt that only an emotion as deep as love could cause. Dylan didn’t know much about the relationships between men and women, but she had learned that much from her time with the resistance.
“Not far,” Davida said, her voice low and controlled. “You’ll see him soon.”
The Redcoats moved forward, one grabbing Dylan’s arm as another moved to restrain Wyatt. As they did, a breeze washed over Dylan’s shoulders. She caught Wyatt’s eye and gave a little nod. Then she jerked from the Redcoat’s grip and wrapped her arms around Wyatt’s waist.
“Isn’t young love sweet?” Davida said.
And then they were floating.
They had underestimated Dylan once again.
She was pretty sure they wouldn’t do it again. That was, if she ever gave them the chance.
~~~
FREED (Angels and Gargoyles Book 2) Page 16