Reckless Road

by Feehan, Christine

  “They left,” Storm confirmed, “but came back for some reason.”

  “They’d left Savage and Reaper for dead. Even after we went back for them, we waited to move them down to the dungeon because it was so much warmer up above,” Ink remembered. “It was a shit day. We were all in bad shape. No one had escaped being beaten and tortured. Steele tried to work on both Savage and Reaper in the hall upstairs, but he could barely see, he’d been beaten so badly. Czar, you had a broken arm. I don’t know how you managed to get through the vents like you did. We wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t thrown up that illusion and held it, Player. And you had been in the loom that day, hadn’t you? With Ice?”

  What is the loom?

  Thankfully, Player hadn’t had nightmares of being tortured in the loom and shared that with Zyah. Later. If ever. He rubbed his chest. The scars on my chest and back.

  She touched him right over the worst ones. He didn’t have them like some of the others did. Not like Destroyer. Destroyer had them the worst.

  “We were all beat up that day,” Player admitted tiredly. “I threw the illusion up as soon as Preacher told us Sorbacov and the others had returned and Czar started trying to get everyone down to the basement. The two instructors we killed were supposed to have gone with Sorbacov and the others to dinner. The bodies were found and the alarm went out.”

  He didn’t want to tell them the rest. It hurt to even think about it. It hurt to have Zyah know about it. He thought it would be bad for his brothers to know. For Czar to know. But his woman. Zyah. She was so damned compassionate. So amazing. Moments like this one showed him why he didn’t deserve her. He tried to wrap himself in her grandmother’s words. He wasn’t a coward. He wasn’t backing away from their relationship. She would have to be the one to leave him.

  “Sorbacov called his three favorite little snitches into his den the minute the alarm was sounded. His other friends were right outside in the big room just above the stairwell and hall where all of you were trying to get Savage and Reaper down the stairs. His friends at first were just talking, looking into his den while he grilled the kids, and then they got restless and began to pace around. They had their whips on them, still bloody from what they’d done to Savage. They were laughing about it and hoping Sorbacov would send one of his snitches to them to pass the time with.”

  Player wiped at the sweat. He glanced at the picture hanging on the wall. The frame around the drawing had changed. The etchings appeared much more prominent than they had before, more tubular, like an actual scroll. It wasn’t rolling, but he could see the distinct curves that hadn’t been there before. It was odd. He loosened his hold on Zyah and stood up, walking over to the drawing to get closer to the frame to keep his eyes on it while he explained to the others about his alternate reality.

  “It took so long for all of you to get downstairs. Czar was trying to wait for me. I could see Sorbacov was getting enraged that the kids weren’t giving him answers. He grew colder, like he gets. He pulled out that watch, that stupid pocket watch, and he came to the top of the stairs. I was already so damned shaky. My head hurt so bad. I could barely stand the pain. I could see the White Rabbit and knew it was going to be bad if you didn’t get down there. Czar slipped through and I tried to hurry, but two of his friends grabbed one of the kids and I turned back.”

  He didn’t want to admit the rest, not in front of Zyah. Not in front of the others. He didn’t even like thinking about it. He shook his head, keeping his gaze fixed on the frame. It seemed to be fading slowly back to just the etchings of scrolls and constellations.

  “The scene morphed from holding the wall and door to scenes from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The doors were too small. The floors dropped away, and then knives rained from the ceiling. The fireplaces in Sorbacov’s den and the big room suddenly had the irons glowing red hot, multiplying and attacking everyone in the room. The doorways became guillotines, and anyone trying to go through them was caught. I don’t know what was in my head. Every book I read, every torture they’d put Reaper and Savage through, ran together and became real. All I know is it was a bloodbath. Four of Sorbacov’s friends died along with two of the snitches. One of his friends was covered in burns.”

  He didn’t look at Zyah. He couldn’t. He didn’t turn and look at the others. He forced himself to continue.

  “I barely escaped through the door before it collapsed. Sorbacov came down almost right away to the basement. I was terrified I might have to try to throw up another illusion, and I knew it would collapse too fast. I was responsible for killing those people. I didn’t mind Sorbacov’s friends, they deserved it, but the kids . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “They were innocent, just trying to survive, the way we were.”

  “You saved our lives,” Savage said. “That day, Player, we all would have died.”

  “That’s true,” Czar agreed. “When Sorbacov came down, he was so certain it was us, until he saw what bad shape we were all in. He was positive none of us could have done anything to hurt anyone. He left without a word.”

  Player stared at the frame of the picture, trying to focus on it. The guilt of those deaths would never go away. Sorbacov had never spoken of the strange happenings that had occurred that night. No one had. Fortunately, Mechanic had disrupted the cameras so nothing had been caught on film. The mystery of the deaths had never been solved.

  “Hell, Player, we were all lucky you were able to do what you did. You know it was a matter of time before he killed those kids,” Ink said. “I’m sorry they died, but they were already dead the moment they started being his pets. None of those kids lasted very long. He was particularly cruel to them once he lulled them into a false sense of security.”

  That didn’t make him any less responsible, no matter how true it was. He indicated the drawing, desperate to get to another topic. “Can any of you see the way the frame has changed? But it’s already fading back to the original look.”

  Czar nodded. “I noticed it immediately. I was looking for something like that when you said the eyes staring at you had appeared in the middle of the drawing with total darkness around them. But actually, you drew something entirely different around the eyes than Zyah. She had total darkness. You didn’t. You saw much more detail than she did. I think, Zyah, you were in shock that something like that could appear in your grandfather’s drawing.”

  “I was.” She gave a little shiver. “The eyes seemed really malevolent. And they looked around the room. I had the feeling he was trying to identify markers, ways to find us.”

  Czar raised his gaze from the frame to Player. “You must have a theory, Player. Do you want to share?”

  Player glanced at Zyah and then sighed. He held out his hand to her, his heart pounding. He’d revealed a dark secret of his past, and now he was about to kick her in the teeth again. He waited. She put her hand in his without hesitation because she was Zyah. He should have known.

  “I do. It sounds crazy, but then all of us have psychic abilities. The Drakes do. Czar, every one of your brothers do. The women living on your farm do. I believe that Zyah’s grandfather did as well and so did her father. I think they came up with a way to create a portal. When they opened the portal, they could deliver a bomb precisely where they wanted it to go, close the portal and no one would be the wiser. Imagine handing the president a bomb and then closing the portal. The bomb would go off and no one would have a clue how it happened. You could target anyone in the world.”

  There was absolute silence. Czar moved first, studying the drawing again through the monocle and then the frame. “Your father was an astronomer, Zyah?”

  “It’s not possible,” Zyah denied in a whisper, pulling her hand away from Player’s. She rubbed her palm on her thigh as if removing his touch. “They wouldn’t do this. And if Mama Anat knew, she would have destroyed it. It isn’t possible.”

  “Even if it is possible that she knew, she might not destroy the drawing because it came from her hus
band,” Maestro said. “Who is this man and how would he know, after all these years, about it? Why would he have waited this long to find the drawing if he did know? It isn’t like Anat would have been that difficult to find. She didn’t come to the United States under a different name.”

  “All good questions and ones I think we need Anat to answer,” Czar said. “I’m going to ask Destroyer to see if Anat would be willing to travel here or if she would prefer us to go there. I’m reluctant to have this drawing anywhere near your home, Zyah.”

  “I feel the same,” Player said.

  Zyah shook her head. “I don’t like any of this. Do you honestly believe that my father built some portal so a bomb could be sent to an enemy? How would they know his exact location? There are too many variables, not to mention it’s all too sci-fi.”

  “You connect with me through the earth, Zyah. Ships found their way guided by stars. Are you telling me that you really think it would be impossible for your father to find a location he needed using the stars?”

  “Maybe the location, but not the person on the other end. The stars would give him a wide view, not a narrow one, Player. You’re talking about a specific location. Something would have to narrow that down, like GPS does. It would have to be even more precise.” Zyah frowned, turning it over in her mind. “If it was even possible,” she mused aloud.

  “I think it is possible and your grandfather and father figured out how to do it,” Player said. “Admittedly, there are pieces I can’t figure out. The why of it. If your grandmother knew, she might be able to fill that in. And this man. Why would he suddenly be aware of us? Why didn’t he come looking before?”

  Again, there was silence in the shed while they all thought it over. “Suppose this man thought the drawing had been destroyed,” Ink said. “There would have been no reason to come looking for Anat. In all this time there was no indication of bombs or portals. Nothing like this cropped up anywhere on the black market. No one attempted to sell it. He had no reason to think such a weapon existed.”

  “Okay, I’ll go along with that reasoning,” Player said. “So then my brain gets fucked up and I start seeing the White Rabbit and I’m building my bombs.”

  Czar nodded. “Every day you’re in the room with this drawing and you’re seeing the schematics for the bomb. You actually see it without the device, and your mind fixates on it.”

  Player had been in bed every night for five straight weeks staring at that drawing while his head was pounding out of his skull. “My head hurt like a mother. I couldn’t escape the nightmares that triggered some of the worst migraines. My brain felt like it was coming apart. The bombs I normally built to try to counteract the pain weren’t working, so my brain turned to one much more complicated and intriguing.” He knew that was exactly what happened.

  “This is making sense,” Mechanic said.

  “The pain was excruciating. At first I could barely lay out the various parts. Just moving made me sick. I know if it hadn’t been for Steele and Zyah, I wouldn’t have survived.”

  A murmur went around the shed, and all heads turned toward Czar for confirmation.

  Czar nodded. “I was told, but there was nothing anyone could do. Steele did his best. Either he was going to be able to save him or he wasn’t.”

  “Steele performed a miracle,” Zyah said. “I watched him. I don’t think anyone else could have saved him. He came twice a day for a couple of weeks after that and then once a day. He healed his brain injury, which was very severe, but the migraines persisted. Neither of us could understand why.”

  “We might have liked to have been with him,” Ink said.

  “A lot of visitors weren’t going to help,” Czar said.

  “We could have taken shifts with Maestro and Savage in the house,” Ink pointed out.

  “We didn’t want to upset Anat. She’s very intelligent, and no one was letting on how grave his injury actually was,” Czar said. “I understand you’re all upset, and with good reason. I didn’t go in other than once myself. Let’s just get this done. He’s alive and well, and he’s got Zyah. Keep going, Player.”

  “Eventually, I could concentrate a little more, but then the nightmares grew worse. That brought the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit brought Sorbacov. That became a vicious circle. I got faster at laying out the parts and then beginning to understand and put them together. Each time I got further along.”

  “You didn’t have this going on every single night?” Czar asked.

  “Not after the fourth week. The bomb was becoming too real. Zyah realized it before I did. The first two weeks I was pretty out of it and nothing could take away the pain. By that third week she was staying in the room, sitting up all night in a chair. By the fourth week she was stopping the nightmare almost before it began. We could both hear the ticking of a clock. Maestro heard it a few times. That was alarming. I knew then that my illusions, the White Rabbit and Sorbacov, were beginning to blur into the alternate reality of the bomb. That was scary being in Anat’s house.”

  “We both felt that someone had been watching us at times,” Zyah said. “We couldn’t see anyone, but a couple of times when Player was making the bomb, I thought I could see something murky over Sorbacov’s shoulder. It gave me the creeps. I thought it was someone from Player’s past, like Sorbacov.”

  “They came to me,” Czar said. “I told them to write down separately what they saw and felt the next time it happened.”

  Player indicated the drawing. “I knew the plans for the bomb were in the drawing. I had no idea about the portal.”

  “Who would?” Savage muttered. “That’s insane.”

  “It was insane to see those eyes staring at us,” Zyah said. “It was the creepiest thing ever, and I’m not altogether sure I can sleep in my bedroom ever again.”

  “I thought Czar might recognize him from my past, but he didn’t,” Player added.

  “And you believe this man was actually somewhere else,” Mechanic said, coming to stand beside Player to stare into the middle of the drawing, “looking through a portal at you? Because if that’s so, was he summoned? How did he get there? How did you summon him?”

  Player turned that over in his mind. It was a good question, and there was only one answer. “There has to be a portal on his side. It’s possible he’s connected to the bomb.”

  Czar nodded. “That’s the only answer. He would have to be drawn to the bomb, and there has to be another portal. Zyah said she started noticing a shadowy figure behind Sorbacov in the dreams Player was having in his mind. Those became illusions and then alternate reality. It went White Rabbit, which was illusion, and then Sorbacov, which used to be the alternate reality. Is that correct, Player?”

  Player nodded. “They both had a pocket watch on a chain. We all remember that fucking pocket watch of Sorbacov’s. When I was building a bomb, he’d take it out and time me, acting like if I wasn’t fast enough, he was going to punish me. I was never fast enough to suit him, but I could block him out most of the time by focusing on the bomb if it was new enough. Sometimes he brought a friend with him, and that’s what threw Zyah off. She thought this man in the background was the friend Sorbacov kept bringing.”

  “Sorbacov is dead now, so it’s impossible for him to be the alternate reality,” Czar mused. “So is his ‘friend.’ The new man isn’t dead. He’s where the illusion crossed over. The bomb started ticking, and Maestro heard it.”

  “I think Anat said she heard it as well,” Maestro said.

  “We all did the day Jonas was there,” Savage said. “But Zyah kissed you and it stopped.”

  “I was building the bomb in my head. I’d spent part of the day sitting on the bed, staring at that drawing. Before, I’d been in the bed staring at it. Just after Zyah got home, my head hurt so fucking bad I thought my brains were leaking out. I just needed the pain to stop for a few minutes. I went up the stairs and sat on the end of the bed, hoping it would stop before I had to go back downstairs and face the
cops. I was staring at the drawing again. I couldn’t look away. Sometimes I felt like it mesmerized me. It made my head hurt worse, and I began building the bomb to try to stop it.”

  Czar drummed his fingers on the wall. “Suppose the drawing triggered migraines in you, Player. You stared at the picture for hours. Your mind saw the plans for the bomb and put it all together. The longer you looked at it, the more your head hurt.”

  “It’s possible,” Player agreed. “I was out of it when I went downstairs and Jonas was there with Jackson. All I had was building that bomb or I was going to keel over.”

  “I think Zyah kissing you stopped it,” Maestro said. “She brought the temperature up in that room by about a thousand degrees.” He sent her a quick grin.

  “He can kiss, what can I say,” Zyah defended, but she didn’t smile.

  Player could see she was trying. He sank down on the bench beside her and slipped his arm around her shoulder. “Baby, I know this is hard. We aren’t certain of anything yet. We don’t know anyone’s motives, and until we do, we can’t judge anyone. I told you what Czar drilled into us when we were kids. There isn’t any use worrying about something until we know the facts. We’re figuring things out. That’s all we’re doing. Help us do that. I’ve spent time with Anat; so have Maestro and Savage. No way do any of us think she’s capable of what this drawing would imply, so something else is at play here. We have to figure out what’s going on to make certain everyone is safe and then decide what to do.”

  “Player,” Czar said. “Look at the frame.”

  All of them immediately looked at the drawing spotlighted under the blazing lights. The etchings had once again subtly changed, moving to resemble an actual long scroll.