by Kit Colter
* * *
Erin was standing with one foot against the wall, stretching her right leg, when Derek walked into the cell. She only knew it was him because he was singing.
“... one is the loneliest number ...”
Erin smiled.
“I think we got time for quickie if you’re in the mood,” he said.
“How long have I been in here?” Erin whispered.
“Time does not exist,” Derek said in his best sage voice.
Erin listened to him take two steps forward, but then the door whipped open.
“She’s coming!” It was Seven. Another three steps, then silence.
“Ah, damn it.” This time it was Derek’s voice.
Erin didn’t need to sense it. She could hear it. Thudding footsteps and breathing. Men. A lot of men, actually.
“Well, I guess you caught us, boys,” Derek said in close impersonation of John Wayne.
“Guns on the ground,” a hard voice instructed.
“You first,” Seven replied.
“Put your guns on the ground,” the voice ordered. Green Eyes.
“Sure thing,” Derek said.
“Put down your weapons, Gemini.” The woman’s voice was strong and smooth.
Erin heard the slight tapping sound of metal against concrete.
“All of them.”
Several more clinking sounds: metal against concrete. Erin turned her head to one side, desperately trying to decipher what was happening around her. She didn’t know what to do, if she should be trying to run, if there was anything she could do to help the twins, if there was anything she could do to help herself. She was powerless. Just standing there, useless, waiting for an outcome to land in her lap.
“You believed you could trick me,” Green Eyes said to the twins.
“I got tissues if you wanna give it a good cry.”
“Why did you do this?” she asked.
“We’re joining the dark side.”
“Cooler costumes.”
Green Eyes let out an embittered laugh. “This will not go unpunished.”
“Heard it before.”
“Yep,” Derek said.
“So, what slipped?” Seven asked.
“Fake missions?” Derek asked.
“Excuses to inject yourselves so I wouldn’t read through on what you were doing—yes,” Green Eyes said. “Why, then, are you protecting her?”
The twins were quiet for a moment.
“No idea,” Derek said.
Seven laughed.
“The game is over,” Green Eyes said.
Erin took a step back.
“Oh, yeah?” Seven asked slyly.
Green Eyes didn’t reply.
“You can’t kill her,” Derek said. “Not until the injection wears off enough for you to take a good stroll around inside her head.”
“And you can’t kill us until you know what you’re dealing with. Until you know if you need us,” Seven said.
“Because you’re not even that worried about the Nine Souls,” Derek continued. “Sure, it’s a problem, but ...” He grinned a little. “You’re stuck on whether or not she freed Sauth Rahn up on that mountain.”
“Carried the lost half right back up to him,” Seven added. “Hell, she doesn’t remember anything. He coulda reached right into her chest—pulled out the missing pieces and slapped himself back together. Why else do you think Nekhiros was there?”
“Scrolls are gone,” Derek said. “Nothing’s keeping him up there.”
“Some village kid’s seeing a wolf on the crossroads right now,” Seven said.
Green Eyes took a very slow breath. “That is true,” she said. “You, however, will never know.”
“Death threats,” Seven said in an impressed tone.
“Detain them,” Green Eyes ordered.
There were shuffling sounds.
“NOW!” she roared.
There was an eruption of sound and movement. Someone grabbed Erin by the wrist and dragged her back, back, back—and pushed her up against the steel wall of her cell.
Gunshots. Cries of pain. The crunching thud of impact.
“Do not be fooled, Erin,” Green Eyes said. “The Gemini will not prevail.” When Erin did not respond, she continued. “Hope if you must.”
Erin tried to shove Green Eyes back, but someone pinned her arm against the wall. She noticed breathing then. Someone else was there. A guard?
“The injection should have worn off enough that I can read you now, but it will be painful,” Green Eyes said. “Hold her tight,” the woman ordered the guard.
Erin just stood there, glaring blindly, jaw clenched. Green Eyes placed her hands over Erin’s eyes. Pain exploded in her skull.
“Don’t fight it,” Green Eyes was saying. “It won’t hurt as much if you accept it.”
Erin fought harder at these words, focusing everything she had on a building a wall around her mind. The wall was black at first, but soon the black became glossy, and then it became a mirror. She knew Adanya would find a way through. Adanya—that was Green Eyes’s name, Erin realized.
Then it happened, a sudden magnetic pull, and images began flashing through Erin’s mind. Feelings thrummed in her chest. Textures impressed themselves against her skin and fingertips. And her memories were slipping away, torn out of her mind.
White flower petals strewn across the front lawn.
Mystery cocoa at Christmas.
Sirian’s eyes.
The sensation of her softball glove sliding onto her hand.
Isaiah’s smile.
The smell of her father’s cigars.
Her mother’s singing.
The feel of a softball bat against her palms.
Coach—Coach’s voice—Coach’s hands—Coach’s weight crushing her to the floor.
“NO! Stop!” Erin cried.
Her grandmother’s voice. Her grandmother’s words: “Bik'egu'indáń, na'iłédan'dzį … Ńguust'ai' … Dziłgais'ání … Biyeeji 'in'į' …” The prayer. Her grandmother standing over her, at the hospital—somewhere beyond the stitches and the medicine and the pain. Her grandmother. Sage smoke. She hadn’t remembered before—hadn’t remembered the moment in the hospital two years ago when Grandma had taken Erin’s slashed wrists into her hands, leaned down, and whispered in her ear: “Dáałk'idá 'águudzaa. They put something in the mountain that didn’t belong.”
Erin let out a cry. “Adanya, please—STOP!!!”
The rush of images and sensations were instantly swallowed by darkness. It took Erin a moment to realize where she was, what the fighting sounds meant, who was standing before her. She sank to the floor as the guard released her. Somewhere nearby, the twins were waging World War III. What sounded like a grenade boomed against the air, and Erin reached out to steady herself.
“What did you call me?” Green Eyes whispered, so shocked she could hardly force the words out.
Erin didn’t respond, instinctively crossing her arms over her chest in shame—disgust—agony.
“Tell me now, Erin, what did you call me?”
“That’s your name, isn’t it?” Erin growled, sick with anger at the invasion she had just endured, at the things she had relived. “Adanya.”
“No,” Green Eyes said forcefully. “No. No, I don’t have a name.”
Erin heard fear in the woman’s voice.
“I don’t have a name,” Green Eyes said again. “I don’t—”
Erin felt a hand come down on her shirt collar, dragging her to her feet. It was Green Eyes.
“How— How did you find my name?” she whispered. Something in the words was so grieved that Erin was afraid to reply.
“Tell me!”
“I don’t know!” Erin said. “It just— It came to me.”
“I don’t have a name.”
But it was becoming increasingly clear to Erin that she did have a name, and that name was Adanya.
“They’re going to die for you, Erin,”
she whispered. “Why are they going to die for you?”
“I don’t know!” Erin cried.
Green Eyes was quiet for a moment, holding Erin against the wall.
“You called me Adanya ...”
Erin parted her lips to speak, but Green Eyes was already speaking.
“Stop.”
The word was spoken no louder than a whisper, but Green Eyes’s order had the effect of a sonic boom. The sounds of fighting stopped—then silence.
“Come.”
Erin heard footsteps and guessed the twins had stepped into the cell, both panting.
“I found no traces of Sauth Rahn, nor of the Nine Souls, within her mind,” Green Eyes said. “Yet, it seems I may not see correctly. If Sauth Rahn has been restored, you will need her. She is the daughter of the Fifth Maiden. Watch her. Do what you must.”
The twins were silent.
Erin listened to the sound of bare footsteps pacing away. Then other footsteps—shuffling out of the way—as Adanya made her way down the hall. Stillness consumed the air behind her. All that remained was the sound of the guards—some panting, some groaning in pain, some cursing under their breaths.
“Who’s up for round two?” Derek called after them.
More shuffling. Faster. They were walking away. Leaving.
Erin stepped slowly away from the wall, feeling strangely naked. More than naked. She felt like a simple touch would shatter her. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t feel with her mind. She had been invaded, forced to live through things she hadn’t thought she could survive the first time around. And now hope was threatening to send her into tears. She wanted to think this meant she could go home—finally. That it was over.
“Guys?”
Erin felt an arm hook around her neck. “Hey, Peaches.” It was Seven.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Not sure,” Derek said. “What’d you do?”
“I don’t know. I called her a name.”
“Me too,” Seven said with a laugh.
“Adanya,” Erin said, and she felt the muscles in Seven’s arm tense momentarily.
“Adanya, huh?” Derek said, sounding darkly amused. Seven let out a low, quiet chuckle.
“Yes, what’s that mean?” Erin asked.
“We’ll explain later,” Seven said, letting go of Erin to pick up some weapons in the hallway
“Let’s get the shit out of here,” Derek added, grabbing Erin by the hand and leading her through the hall, up some stairs, through another hall—retracing their steps out of the building. They climbed into a vehicle outside, Derek and Erin in the front seat, Seven stretching out in the back, then sped up the odd slope onto the roadway outside. The radio was on in seconds, blasting hard rock, and Erin could already smell the scent of alcohol from the back seat. She was quiet for a long time, trying to gather herself, before finally speaking.
“What just happened?” she asked, still directing her face toward the floor. She wanted to hide her blindness even though the twins already knew.
“Kinda complicated,” Seven said. “Boring technicalities and all that.”
“I want to know.”
“Stubborn, but sexy,” Derek said, then turned down the radio.
“Alright,” Seven said. “With the name thing ... Inisun Raen, the Order of the whatever. Just call them Guardians. That’s what Green Eyes is part of. The Order.”
“As a guardian,” Derek said, “she becomes not so much an individual and more of a vessel.”
“For some geeky higher power,” Seven concluded. “All white light, flowers, naked-ass cherubs, and the like.”
“Sort of like a Star Trek Borg.”
“Pod People.”
“Extensions of the greater being, in this case, some word I can’t pronounce,” Derek said.
“Thus they give up their individual, eh, ness,” Seven added, sounding quite bored with the whole thing. “No names. No family. No memories of their life before.”
“Not a new idea, but still creepy.”
“So when you found her name—”
“—it meant she was acting of her own accord. It was her own will, not the greater will of the big cheese.”
“She’d separated—from the big cheese, that is.”
“Meaning she couldn’t trust her own judgment about you, or follow through on her intentions for you.”
“Meaning, actually,” Seven added, “that she had to leave.”
“Leave?” Erin asked.
“Yeah, I dunno where they go,” Seven replied. “But we won’t see her again.”
“Too bad,” Derek said. “She was hot.”
Seven laughed. Erin went quiet again. She tried to process events, tried, desperately, to think straight in all this.
“So, what did happen on the mountain?” Derek asked.
“Yeah, did you set him free?” Seven asked hopefully.
“Sauth Rahn, man. This could be fun.”
“I don’t know,” Erin murmured. “I don’t really understand what happened.”
“You were telling her the truth then?” Derek asked, sounding disappointed.
“I think so,” Erin said, searching her memories. She remembered seeing a maiden and a demon fighting. She remembered the demon dying. She remembered the demon trying to possess the maiden, but then the maiden killed him, didn’t she? Erin wasn’t sure.
“That Sirian prick brought you to France, huh?” Derek asked.
Erin hesitated, slow to register the question. “Oh—Yeah. Yeah, he did.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure,” Erin replied.
“Did he bite you?” Seven asked.
“No.”
“Don’t trust him,” Derek said.
“Yeah,” Seven said with something of a laugh, “you know he only wants one thing.”
Derek chuckled. “Ah, we’ll shoot him for you next time.”
Erin didn’t respond. An instant later, Derek had slammed on the brakes, throwing her toward the dashboard. He had evidently taken her state of blindness into account because he threw out an arm to break her momentum. Erin was too tired to care that his forearm was against her breasts, and that he probably planned the whole thing. She simply sat up.
“Where are we?” she asked, but Seven had already ripped open the door and pulled Erin out.
“Pit-stop,” Seven explained, but Erin didn’t smell gas or oil, and all three of them were now walking away from the car. Seven hooked an arm around Erin’s neck, towering at her side, and Erin stretched out her mind, trying to sense her surroundings. She felt nothing—just a headache, nausea, and blackness. She could hear cars on both sides, but she was too tired to make much sense of it.
“We should get doughnuts,” Derek was saying.
“Screw doughnuts. I’m outta whiskey.”
“Boozehound.”
“Sugar-slut.”
There was an odd, electronic chiming sound, but it was the noise that came afterward that told Erin where they were.
“Food again?” Erin asked, recognizing the very familiar, busy sound of a grocery store. There was an odd, rickety, clang. Erin guessed Seven had pulled up a shopping cart.
“Hop in, Bat Eyes,” Seven said.
“Bat Eyes?” Erin asked.
“Bat Eyes, Moon Eyes, Sightless Cinderella,” Seven explained.
“You know,” Derek chimed in, “blind as a bat.” He put an arm around her waist. “Don’t worry, you’ll always be Peaches to me.”
“C’mon, c’mon,” Seven said, “in the cart. We gotta hurry.”
Too tired to argue, Erin was about to feel her way into the cart when Derek simply lifted her up and placed her inside. She felt something wet drip down her arm and ran her fingers across the spot. Something warm and slick. She reached out, grabbed Derek’s coat sleeve, and found the material soaked.
“Oh, my God.”
“What’s a matter, Peaches?” Derek asked, gently prying her hand loose.
/> “You guys are hurt,” Erin murmured. “You’ve been shot.”
“Yep,” Derek said.
“Had worse,” Seven said.
“But—you’ve been shot,” Erin said, turning around in the cart to face Seven. “You’ve got to go to the hospital or something. Guys, this is serious. You—”
Seven laughed. “Chill out.”
“She really loves us,” Derek said.
“Guys—”
“Look, we have to get something to eat,” Seven said. “We’re going to pick up some gauze, tweezers, a razor, and some whiskey. Problem solved.”
“I don’t think—” Erin started, but they wouldn’t listen to her. She remembered their scars and guessed they probably had been through worse. So, Erin just sat there, quiet and thinking, as the twins carted her around the store piling odds and ends in on her, most of which was food.
Then the cart came to a stop.
“Alright, hold still.”
Erin put a hand up in front of herself. “Wait, what’re you doing?”
“Hold still.”
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Picking up some shades,” Derek explained.
“See if we can’t get you to stop staring at your feet all the damn time,” Seven said, sliding a pair of sunglasses onto Erin’s face. In a split second, she had pulled them off and was sliding on another pair.
“Do you really—”
Another pair.
“—think this is the best—”
Another pair.
“—idea—”
Another pair.
“—when you two are—””
Another pair.
“—bleeding all over yourselves?”
Another pair.
“You think?” Seven was asking.
“I do think,” Derek replied.
Erin couldn’t translate it exactly, but guessed that meant they had found something to their liking.
“Cool, let’s go.”
Erin clamped her hands down on the sides of the cart as Seven gave it a hard shove into motion, practically sprinting across the store to the check-out. She did her best to help unload, then climbed out and stood by, waiting, until Seven hooked an arm around her neck once more and led her out of the store with Derek pushing the cart beside them.
“Now,” Seven said, and Erin felt the sunglasses slide onto her face once more. “If I catch you staring at your feet again, you’re going to find yourself missing your best teeth.”