by Unknown
“So, here she is,” Kadijah speaks, her voice like honey with an accent so thick, it is hard for me to understand her. “You don’t have to keep stepping on her, Captain Jorgen. Let her up so I can see all of her.” She stands up straight and waits with her hands primly folded in front of her.
Jorgen steps back, the pressure of his foot leaving my back. I rise, though it is not graceful as I am still in plenty of pain. I try hard to look less pitiful than I feel, but when I look down, I can see that my robe is ripped and frayed. As my fingertips brush against my sides, I can feel patches that are burnt and warm.
Kadijah is taller than I am, her presence looming, suffocating. I ball my hands into fists, trying my best to summon the strength and courage to do whatever needs to be done to save who is left of the Dreamcatchers and the City.
But what could I possibly do defenseless and on my own?
“Who are you?” I demand, urging myself to remain civil, even if all of me wants to run from here and find Echo.
“I am General Kadijah. We are from Asia. Do you know where that is?” Kadijah talks to me like I am a child, even if she can’t be much older than I am.
“No.” The truth is, I don’t know where Asia is. Until this very moment, no one was aware that other people existed outside of the Dreamcatchers, the Citizens, the Rogues, and the Seers. No one else on this side of the world, anyway. It all perished with the War, I thought.
“Ah, I thought as much. You know, the way that you people continue to live in destruction over here is quite surprising. It is … how do you say it in your language? Inhibiting. Limiting.” Kadijah looks over me and smiles. “It sets humanity back such a long way.”
I frown. “What do you know about humanity? You are murdering all these people for no reason. Do you think that is humane?”
“I think you are mistaken if you think that we are here for nothing,” Kadijah replies, and her already dark eyes darken even more. “Your people are a disgrace. Outside, you look human enough, but inside you aren’t human at all. We have been watching you and the Dreamcatchers for decades, and we decided that you mutants need to be put down once and for all.” Despite the glare in her gaze, she smiles, sugary-sweet. “And humanity must be restored to its natural state.”
“A mutant? Seriously?” I try to remain focused on her face, but she steps back, fading into a fuzzy blur.
“Seriously. The simple truth of it, Keeper, is that we’re not supposed to have these ‘gifts’ as you call them. People are not supposed to see the future. We are supposed to accept our futures as they come to us.”
“And the Dreamcatchers?” I ask, finding it to be almost absurd why I should even pose the suggestion that they are not dangerous. For all these years, the Seers have been training to keep the City safe from the Dreamcatchers. I know how dangerous they can be first hand—but we’ve moved past that.
Kadijah grins widely, then tilts her head and speaks into a small microphone. “Bring the prisoner up to the Bridge, please.” She turns to me once more, walking in my direction. “The Dreamcatchers are even worse.” Kadijah reaches out and brushes off some singed thread from my arm. “On the other side of the world, Beatrice, there is life. There are people who are happy living and not knowing what might lie in store for them. But knowing? That is when it gets dangerous. Perhaps, a long time ago, it was thought to be a gift—a way to save people, people who have choice, from their Fate. But really, you cannot escape your Fate. So why bother trying to figure out the end game? Why bother with these ‘gifts’ gone wrong?”
“Because whether you agree with it or not, we are people. You are killing innocent people over something we cannot control. We were born into this. We never chose it for ourselves. And since we have it, why not use it for good? The Seers have been protecting this City for decades because we are able to use our Vision to improve it.” A large explosion from outside shakes the ship, and I nearly topple over, but Kadijah steadies me. Some alarms blink and sound from different control boards, but they are silenced with a few frantic finger taps, and it is relatively quiet once more.
“Is this an improvement?” Kadijah motions to the window, the explosions. “Did you not See this?”
“We cannot See everything,” I growl lowly, clenching my teeth together in frustration. “And we cannot change everything.”
Kadijah, still smiling, stoops down so that we are eye-to-eye with each other. Very quietly, she whispers, “Then why bother having you?”
I slap her square across the face. My palm meets with her cheek, and the sound of the contact echoes through the room. Jorgen races forward and grabs my arm, throwing me down on the ground, reaching for some sort of weapon on his hip, but Kadijah barks an order. “Stand down! Stand down!”
I yank my arm away from Jorgen and stumble away from the two of them. “I am not going to let you destroy us. You aren’t just going to stand here and systematically wipe out my friends, my people, my City just because you are on some crazy, stupid mission to fit all of humanity into your idiotic concept of perfection.”
“You will not let me?” Kadijah laughs, and it reminds me of the way my mother, the former Keeper, would laugh when she was up to absolutely no good. “My girl, can’t you see? I don’t need you to let me. I already am.”
The Bridge doors open, and two armed guards drag in Echo’s crumpled body. They unceremoniously drop him to the ground, and my heart stops beating. Is he alive? “Echo!” I start for him, but Jorgen shoves me, and I crash into a control panel, hitting my head. “Leave him alone!” I moan and shake my head, trying to get ahold of my surroundings again. The room sways, both from the pitch of the ship and because of the spark of dizziness from the blow.
Echo moans and twitches, barely moving. At least he is alive. At least I can still save him.
“General? The Dreamcatcher fleet is down. Permission to approach the City?” one of the other soldiers on the Bridge asks.
Kadijah nods in return. “Permission granted.” She saunters over to Echo’s broken form and nudges his side with the toe of her boot. “Do you hear that, Dreamcatcher King? We have destroyed your people, and now … now, we will destroy hers.” She kicks him hard against the ribs, and Echo yelps like a battered dog. “And you.”
The soldiers who dragged Echo here pull him up by the collar of his jumpsuit. They force him to stand there like that, dangling the way a coat would on a hook.
“Bring the Keeper,” Kadijah orders, and before I can fight to get away, Jorgen grabs me and drags me to stand beside Echo. One of the soldiers behind Echo takes out what looks like a nightstick of some sort, but with a metal tip. He flicks it open, extending it fully, and pushes a button that makes it hum with electricity. Jorgen does the same, and I try again, in vain, to pull away from him.
Kadijah stops in front of us both, her head held high. “For the crimes that you have committed against humanity, I sentence you both to death. Your City, right now, is being Cleansed. When we have cured every last one of you pathetic Seers, we will send diplomats out to restructure this nonsense that you call society.”
Everyone of Echo’s breaths is ragged. When he breathes in, I can hear his lungs whistle, and when he breathes out, he coughs and sputters blood out in front of him.
Behind Kadijah, out the front window, I see bright, white lights, like the lights I saw in my Vision back at the Rogue camp. The light that took away Brandon’s Sight.
“No! Stop it! Leave them alone!” I shout in panic, my voice cracking. The lights don’t dim or go away though, and Kadijah stands there with a pleased smirk upon her face, relishing in my despair.
“Now, let’s put an end to this,” she orders and steps back. “Kill them.”
Echo grabs my wrist just as the sharp sting of the prod against the base of my spine surges through my limbs, followed by the distinct sensation that someone is ripping me into two pieces.
I scream. I scream, and I scream, and I scream, and I am sure that I won’t ever stop screaming unt
il I am dead.
And then, I die.
Chapter 25
Where I go it is peaceful and calm. It is bright white with nothing but a tree with long, reaching branches: Echo’s tree from my dreams in the past.
I feel like I am hurting, but there’s a familiar numbness that makes the pain dull and practically not there. I walk toward the tree, one step after the next, willing myself to move forward, but it’s like I am trudging through the mud, and I can never pull my feet up high enough, no matter how hard I try. A wave of warm, inviting exhaustion comes over me, and I want nothing more than to lay down here in the sunlight and stare up at the sky.
Beatrice …
Echo.
I can’t lie down here. I need to keep going. I need to get to him before it is too late.
So I walk. I walk, and I walk, and I walk, and I then I make myself walk some more. The distance between me and the tree closes, and as I near, I am delighted to see Echo standing there, a golden crown upon his head, no bruises, no cuts—healthy and perfect and handsome.
He reaches out and takes my hand, pulling me against his chest. I feel none of that pain from before, not even a dull ache. Instead, I feel the warmth of Echo’s presence, and I know I am safe here, under our tree, away from the war raging on wherever we were before.
“Is this a Dream or a Vision?” I ask as I stare up into his blue eyes.
“I think this is a little bit of both, Beatrice.” Echo smiles that ever-patient smile as his other hand cups around my cheek. “And I think, when you come out of it, I will be gone.” He says the words so plainly, as if they aren’t as weighted with the seriousness that they are.
“Gone? What do you mean?” The happiness deflates from me, and Echo’s warmth becomes a little less.
“This place, where we are, this is a place Between. This is where we linger before our Fates are made up and we go to … wherever it is dead people go.” Echo brushes his fingers over my lips, and for a moment, I taste blood in my mouth.
Shaking my head, I hold on to Echo’s arms, urgently grabbing them in my hands, as if trying to keep him here with me. “No. No, Echo, don’t you say that.”
Echo takes his hand from my cheek and runs it back through my hair. “In a way, Kadijah is right, Beatrice. Our outcomes are always going to be the same, even if you can see it ahead of time. We can spend our whole lives running from it, but it will be behind us somewhere, trying to catch up.”
Anger boils to the surface. “Don’t you dare, not for a moment, agree with that horrible Kadijah woman!” I shake him almost violently, as if trying to rid him of such thoughts. This woman is trying to kill him, and he is agreeing with her?
Echo shushes me and takes my head between both of his hands again. We stare at each other in this way, connected in our little space, beneath our little tree, and I know, right in this moment, that this is it. This is all I will have left of Echo whenever I come to. I will have failed him. He will be dead, and I will have failed him.
“You haven’t failed me,” Echo whispers, as if reading my mind. “I hear your thoughts, Beatrice. I have Caught you, and right now, you and I are one person. I am hanging on enough to give you this … so we can say our goodbyes.”
Tears well up in my eyes, rimming and threatening to spill over. As they fall, they are hot with anger and rage, and the farther they fall from my eyes, the more they cool with despair and misery. “I … I don’t want to say goodbye yet … not yet … ”
Echo half laughs, which is kind of strange, considering I’m standing here, composure failing. But the laugh is sad underneath, and tears are quick to follow. “No one ever wants to say goodbye, Beatrice.”
“Please … ” I beg him just as he pulls me back against him.
Echo kisses the crown of my head, then my cheek, and finally his lips meet mine. His kiss is as desperate as my plea for him not to go. It is all of what we have been through, the drama, the excitement, the disappointment, the fear, the frustration … the love.
Our love.
He tries to pull back, to break it, but I don’t let him. I can’t let him. When we are done here, he is no longer going to be mine. He is going to be gone, and I have no idea where I will be. Maybe I will be gone too? My hands slip from his arms and I grab the robes by his chest, clutching him closer. A sob escapes through the kiss, and that is how we part, trembling in each other’s arms, on the brink of our final farewell.
“I don’t know who I am without you. How can I do this?” I whisper, the words barely audible. I’m afraid that if I acknowledge that he is still here, then someone will take him from me right this moment.
As I raise my gaze to Echo, a single drop of blood trails down his nose and over his mouth, but he doesn’t seem aware of it. “You can do it. Without me, you are still the Keeper, you are still the Dreamcatcher Queen. You’ll be all the Seers and Dreamcatchers need.” He pauses there, wiping his mouth. He stares at his hand, as if shocked to see the blood there, then glances back up at me. “Besides,” He lowers his hand, accidentally smearing the blood over the white robe, “you have Gabe. He will love you and protect you just as much as I did.”
I can hardly see him through the tears that now flow copiously down my cheeks. I try to brush them away, but they are quickly replaced with more. More blood trickles from the corner of Echo’s mouth, and he becomes fainter, like he is fading out of this world and into the next.
Echo starts to laugh as he keeps wiping away at the blood, and I tilt my head, confused. “Why are you laughing?”
“Imagine, Beatrice … ” Echo coughs, and some droplets of blood sputter from his lips and onto my cheek. “Imagine if we were never separated in the first place. I could have had so much more time with you … ”
“No … no … ” He fades some more, and I reach for him, trying to grab for anything to keep him here. My hands meet with nothing though. “Echo!”
“Just imagine it, Beatrice … ” Echo’s words reverberate, just like his name. “Goodbye.”
And just like that, Echo is gone.
I sink onto the ground and brush the blood off my face. I look at it on my fingers, a crimson red remnant of the once Dreamcatcher King. After everything that I went through to find a cure to save him and the Auran people … and now he is gone, just like most of them. In the end, despite my Vision, despite trying to alter their fates, I couldn’t save any of them. Fate won.
“Goodbye.”
Chapter 26
I wake up, and in this fuzzy instance of time, when Echo is still gripping onto my hand and I am lucid enough to realize what I have to do, I reach out and grab onto Kadijah with my other hand.
She becomes still, frozen in this moment of agony with Echo and me. It takes everything in me to keep hold of her, even as Jorgen attempts to yank me away. But he can’t. There is something, some force, that is greater than him right now, and it keeps me standing and bonded with Echo and Kadijah.
I still scream, but to me, it is muffled and far away. Jorgen is pulling on me, and the Bridge crew has come to Kadijah’s aid, but as soon as they make contact with her, they too become frozen, linked in this death surge.
This must be what it is like to be truly Caught.
Jorgen pulls on my arm, his bare skin touching my own, and he is Caught as well.
You are the Dreamcatcher Queen, Beatrice.
Echo’s words envelop me, filling me with confidence. His hand finally drops from mine, and his body falls forward onto the ground. As soon as his touch leaves me, I, and everyone else, collapse as well.
I cry out when I hit the ground, bringing my hands up to hold my aching head. Everyone around me is still. Too still. I sob and crawl on my hands and knees toward Kadijah’s fallen form and struggle to flip her over, to see her face, her eyes. Her gaze is black and hollow, the way the Dreamcatcher victims look after being Caught. I hurry and check the rest of them, to find that they too are all dead—shells of themselves and nothing more.
Finally, now t
hat I know we are safe, I move to Echo, but I know even before I get to him that he is also dead. He told me he would be. Sitting beside him, I gently pull his head into my lap and cradle him against me. The cries that leave me rack my whole body in agony before bubbling forth. They echo through the empty Bridge, and I imagine they are loud enough to travel down the halls, spreading my sorrow to whomever can hear it.
“I love you, Echo,” I whisper against his ear, which is already turning cold. I brush his hair out of his face, the tips of his blond tresses now red and caked in blood. Lowering my lips to his, I kiss him one last time, remembering his words to me in our last moments together, suspended between reality, a Dream and a Vision.
It is as much as I let myself mourn and be angry. I need to get out of this place and save whatever is left of my City.
I grab a gun off one of the fallen bodies and stumble my way to the control panel where before people were manning the instruments that control every aspect of this ship. I study the many buttons, screens, and levers, not knowing where to even begin.
“I need to put this ship down,” I speak aloud to myself in an effort to keep calm. If Echo weren’t lying dead on the ground over there, he’d be beside me, helping me to end this. But that’s not the case, and I am on my own to figure it out.
A ship flashes by the large, control window, and I jump back, startled. I tiptoe to the glass to peer over the edge to see where it went, and just as soon as I find it, another ship—it looks like a Dreamcatcher ship—blasts it out of the sky. The remnants of the craft rain down just outside the City in streaks of metal and fire.