by May Dawson
“Thanks,” I said. “I was sure I could count on you.”
He raised his fingers from the stick shift just long enough to give me a mocking little salute.
The car came to a stop. The four of us met around the trunk, which Ryker raised, exposing the armory inside.
“So hopefully,” Ryker said, slipping his sword on, “We avoid ghosts. We avoid company men. We get in, we look for the office, maybe we blow it if we find it, and we get out again.”
“Hopefully.” I slung my own sword over my back. I briefly fumbled with the buckles on the sword harness. Jacob impatiently pushed my hands away, adjusting them for me. His long fingers were quick and brusque, but the familiarity of his touch was unexpected. I side-eyed him, but all I said was, “Thank you.”
“And if we run into any trouble,” Ryker said, looking between me and Levi, “You two stay in the middle of the pack. No heroics, okay?”
Levi didn’t answer. He winced as he threw his sword over his back, and then he picked up a handgun, sliding it into a belt holster on his hip.
“Yeah,” Ryker said. “And that’s why. You’re no use to us.”
“I might be a little broken right now,” Levi said, “but I’m far from useless.”
“Let’s hope we don’t find out,” Ryker said. He checked one of the duffel bags, which was full of explosive blocks, and then zipped it up and slung it over his shoulder. “It’s going to be a long trek. We’ve got about two miles to cover through the woods to make sure they don’t see us coming.”
“It’s not going in that worries me,” Jacob said. “It’s getting back out.”
“That’s why rule one has always been cardio,” Ryker said. He clapped Levi on his shoulder. “Come on, brother. Last chance. Would you just stay with the car? Be the get-away driver if we need one?”
Levi hesitated. “Nothing good ever happens when we’re split up.”
“Nothing good ever happens with stitches either,” Ryker said. “Okay, fine. Let’s get moving.”
We began our trek through the silent woods, back towards the asylum we’d just escaped.
Chapter 20
There was a thin sliver of moon in the sky that night. The light that trickled through the lattice-work of leaves and branches ahead barely illuminated the forest ground we crossed. Brambles pulled at my boot heels and wrapped around my calves, and I was grateful to the jeans that protected my skin from scratches.
I tried to stay close to Levi, worried he would struggle when he was wounded. But when I tripped, my foot caught by a vine that wouldn’t yield, he reached out and grabbed my shoulders to steady me. “You okay?” he asked, his voice just a breath, barely audible in the night air. He knelt, and I felt him untangle my foot and lift it free. He leaned into me and stood, whispering, “Barbed wire.”
I looked up at him, at those cool blue eyes that were silvery in the moonlight, and nodded. He smiled at me, his lips arching up just slightly, and nodded back as if he could give me some of his bravery. Together, we forged on through the forest.
Finally, we emerged on the edge of the hospital ground. My breath caught taking in the enormous half-burnt-out brick building in front of us; the roof had crumpled down into the remnant of the upper floors. It was strange to think that I had leaned out of one of those windows just a few days before, waking up into a whole new life, one that was awful and wonderous.
“Let’s circle around the perimeter,” Levi said, his voice low. He nodded at Jacob, and the two of them loped in one direction; I lost sight of them in the woods almost immediately.
Ryker brushed his hand against mine. I turned, and he jerked his jaw in the other direction. I followed in his footsteps. He was just a step ahead of me, that broad back in a dark long-sleeved t-shirt, his sheathed sword dangling between his shoulders.
The two of us did a long slow loop through the woods. I was so intent on walking quietly, picking my way through the soft, damp leaves piled up up at the edges of the forest, that it took me a second to register that he had stopped. My shoulder brushed his, and he caught my hand in his. He turned to me as his fingers knit with mine, raising a finger to his lips. He pointed out into the clearing around the building.
A low-slung white outbuilding stood sheltered just under the tree-line. It was obviously as old as the building itself, and I wondered what it had been used for—and more importantly, what it was used for now.
He knelt in the brush, tugging me with him, and together we waited, watching the building. As long as we were there, nothing happened; I had time to take in every aspect of it, from the weathered white boards to the single light that hung alongside the steel door entrance. There were no windows.
There was a soft sound beside me. I looked up at Levi as he knelt in the dirt next to me. “You think we found it?”
Ryker nodded. “Should we go see what’s inside?”
“I’ll keep lookout,” Levi said.
Ryker nodded. He squeezed my hand and released it, slowly drawing his sword from the sheath. It was soundless, eerie in the silence of the night; for the first time, I realized that there were no crickets or frogs anywhere. All I could hear was the rustle of the leaves. The blade glinted in the moonlight.
Behind me, Jacob drew his sword too. He reached out and rested his hand on my shoulder for just a second, pushing me ahead of him and after Ryker.
There was a keypad on the side of the door. Ryker stepped aside, putting his back to the wall, and Jacob quickly dropped his sword low in one hand to pull a lock-picking kit from his pocket with the other.
“Hold this,” he mouthed to me, handing me his sword, and I took the heavy leather-bound hilt; his sword was heavy in my hands, even harder to lift than the regular sword I carried. A broadsword, I remembered Ryker calling it in passing.
Jacob quickly worked his magic with the keypad, holding the doorknob to keep the door closed when the pad pinged softly and the lock released. He slid the kit back into his pocket and then reached out for his sword. I passed it to him, his fingers briefly overlapping mine, and I took in a deep breath at the shock that seemed to pass through my body when my fingers touched his. I heard him take a quick breath in, as if he had felt it too, but when I looked up he was already pulling away from me.
Ryker nodded to Jacob that he was ready. Jacob kicked the door in and went in hard, his sword raised, ready for a fight.
We were in a long, empty room. Folding tables ringed the walls, covered in laptops and files. There were numerous TVs along the wall. They were black now.
“I’ll bet these were the feeds that they had up watching us,” Ryker said. Quickly, he went into the back of the room, opening the door at the end. “No one here. Bet this was Parrish’s office, though.”
Ryker switched on a flashlight, and the two of them began to look for files. Ryker opened one of the laptops. “I want to get a record of what they had before we burn the place. Give me a second.”
I nodded and wandered into Parrish’s office, intent on finding out what I could as well. Her office was tidy, and framed photos of her with her two kids, teenagers, sat between the file folders and the monitor. I swung open the beige metal door of her armoire, wondering what kind of secrets I’d find inside.
Hanging beneath lab coats was a big, hot pink suitcase. My breath caught in my throat as I reached for the brown leather luggage tag. Ellis Landon.
It was my bag. The one I’d carried for college tours and for our family trip to Disney. My hands shook as I pulled it out of the armoire and lay it on its side to unzip it. I threw open the top, and saw rows of neatly folded tops and jeans, sneakers, even my favorite fleece throw and my journal. My mother had packed this for me. Thoughtfully.
Maybe even lovingly.
And Dr. Parrish had kept it from me.
I knew I couldn’t take it with me, though. There was no way I could haul all of this back through the woods, or ask the boys to help me. I tucked my journal under my arm and zipped the bag back up, wrestling it ba
ck into the armoire. I had to be practical, even though I ached to be selfish, to somehow drag this back out with me instead of abandoning into the embrace of orange flame.
Jacob filled the doorway. His eyes were cool and I couldn’t read his face as he watched me push the pink bag back into the metal locker. I closed the door.
“Time to go,” he said. “Get Parrish’s laptop. We’ve copied all the files we can.”
I nodded and unplugged her laptop from the dock, stacking it with the journal on my arm. Together, we made our way out through the office and back into the clearing.
As soon as I took a step out behind Ryker, he stepped back into me, pushing me back into the Quonset hut. But it was too late.
The forest was alive with men with guns. Levi was nowhere in sight.
It took a second for me to process anything more than a blur of terror over Ryker’s broad shoulder. Then I took a step back myself, getting enough space to draw my sword, slowly and cleanly.
Beyond Ryker and Jake, who stood in front of me, ready to protect me, I could see Burly and Nurse Tom. The survivors of the brawl. And there were four more guys. With guns.
Six to three.
And let’s be honest, one of those three barely counted. My hands were trembling on the hilt of my sword, and it felt impossibly heavy; the edge of the blade hovered just above the cracked tile floor.
“We’ve got your brother.” Burly called. “We’ll call it a fair swap. For the girl.”
Jacob didn’t bother to respond to that. He just stepped forward, his sword raised.
Chapter 21
Nurse Tom’s eyes locked on mine. They were still bloodshot. His lips curled up slightly as his fists tightened, as if he were going to come after me. He took a few quick strides towards me, but Jacob was there between us.
Tom raised a gun towards Jacob, impatiently, as if he were in a hurry to get rid of him and get to me, as if he thought a boy with a sword would be no sort of opponent, and Jacob side-stepped him faster than thought. Jacob’s sword arched through his arm.
Tom’s arm fell to the grass in a spray of blood. He stared down at it, aghast, as if he didn’t know what to make of his hand, still gripping the gun.
And then Jacob shoved the sword deep into Tom’s torso. He raised his leg to shove Tom off his sword blade, drawing the sword out slowly, both hands wrapped around the hilt. Red drops of blood sprayed across his face.
Jacob held his sword in both hands, but he turned his head slightly. “Come on, Ellis.” His voice was low and urgent. “I think we’ve overstayed our welcome.”
I followed him quickly as he and Ryker battled their way across the field. Ryker dispatched Burly; Jacob took out a man who made the mistake of seating a rifle into his shoulder, aiming it at us. “Where’s Levi,” I heard Jacob mutter to himself.
My mind was overwhelmed by the blur of fast-moving violence around me. Everything in my body screamed at me to run away into the woods and hide, to run through the woods with the branches whipping at my face until I could crawl into the safety of the car. But I would never run without Levi.
“There,” I said, pointing at a pick-up truck gunning it across the open field towards the access road that led from the hospital. I turned and sprinted after the truck.
“Ellis, go!” I heard Ryker yell.
But from the corner of my eye, even though my running made him a blur, I saw him turn back from me to drive his sword through a man who was coming at him with an ax.
And I saw the man who raised a gun from behind his back, the sites fixed on Ryker’s broad back, and slowly pressed his finger against the trigger. The careening world around me seemed to slow as I stumbled to a halt.
“Get down!” I screamed at Ryker.
Ryker stumbled forward. The gun went off. I couldn’t make sense of time, which had happened first; had he fallen from the bullet or had he ducked the bullet?
Jacob slashed with his broadsword overhand, and the man who had just shot at Ryker crumpled to the ground. In one quick motion, Jacob dropped the sword and grabbed the gun from his still-moving hand; he brought the gun to bear on the wheels of the retreating truck, firing determinedly at the treads, trying to bring the truck to a halt. We couldn’t let them get away with Levi.
There was the low, steady whine of a helicopter engine overheard, and then I felt the wind being whipped around us. This time, it wasn’t our calvary arriving by helicopter.
“It’s a trap,” Jacob said. For a second, he held the broadsword in one hand, his face grim and expectant, and then he raised it in both hands. Clearly, he was ready for the battle, even if it was unwinnable.
The helicopter landed between us and the pickup truck. The wind from the helicopter blades whipped grit into my eyes, but before I had to blink, before I lost sight of the truck, I realized that it leaned hard to one side; Jacob had blown one of the tires to nothing.
Ryker groaned, staggering to his feet. Blood was spreading over one of his shoulders, and he switched the sword to his other hand. When he turned to me, his face was set.
And then he winked.
“We’re not going to let anyone hurt you, Firestarter.”
“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, Dream-stalker,” I said.
Men piled out of the helicopter into the grass. And then I saw the machine gun in the window of the helicopter.
“I thought you were sure they wanted to take us alive,” I said.
But the machine guns didn’t fire, not yet. Instead the six men who had just jumped out of the helicopter, all heavily armed, spread out. They approached us with guns drawn.
Ryker swung his sword with his good arm, waiting for them. Jacob was still, his broadsword held in both hands. Both of them waiting for their chance to run at our new enemies.
I glanced back at where the pickup truck had been, even though I could no longer see it. I would try to get to Levi. We couldn’t escape until we had him.
“I’m going,” I said, sprinting to the left, arching around the men who had taken up their positions.
“Ellis,” Ryker said, and then cursed. He and Jacob burst into motion, running to intercept the men who were coming forward now. Only two men, the two on the far edge where I was running, stayed in my path. One of them was hunkered low with his rifle’s sites on me—they must still want us alive or I’d be dead by now, and I thought about Ryker’s quip about a tactical advantage. The other one was on his feet, barreling towards me towards me. He ran for me hard, one shoulder dropped low, like he was going to knock me down again like the day I’d been kidnapped.
You can’t take me down the same way twice.
When he was close to me, when he was furling like a cat about to pounce, I let my feet slide out from under me like when I was a kid playing baseball and I’d slide into home plate. His steel-toed boots passed within inches of my face, making me wince and turn my head to one side. He tackled thin air where I had been just seconds before. I hit the ground hard on my ass and shoulder blades, feeling the shock all through my body, but adrenaline took over. I rolled up and to my feet, knowing he would be on my heels. I sprinted desperately for the pick-up truck.
Up ahead of me, a man stood with his arm looped around Levi’s neck, holding him tight. The gun barrel was pressed against Levi’s temple.
“Hey.” The voice was low, guttural, a bark across the open field. “Stop right there, girl, or I’m going to put a bullet through his brain.”
Levi grimaced, his hands raised slightly in front of him.
“Don’t hurt him,” I called.
Suddenly Jacob was right by my side. He too held out a placating hand, his broadsword tip in the dirt so that he could hold it one-handed.
“It’s all right,” he said, his voice low and rich, almost hypnotic. I hadn’t heard that tone from Jacob before. “Let’s calm down now.”
I glanced up at him, and met golden eyes. I was jarred by the fact that his gaze was on me, even though his words were for the man who held a g
un on our Levi. His determined jaw was set. I stared back into those dazzling, inhuman eyes. Whenever we’d made eye contact before, he’d quickly glanced away, as if he couldn’t stand to look at me. But now his eyes were on mine and there was something besides the usual anger and condescension there. There was a softness when he looked at me.
Maybe that was what he hadn’t wanted me to see all along.
“Things look pretty desperate,” he said. “You up for trying something new?”
“Just give us the girl,” the man in the bed of the pickup said.
I nodded at Jacob. Levi was saying something else—something about running, about leaving him—but no one would have listened to him anyway.
“Here goes nothing.” Jacob wrapped his hand around my jaw, and he leaned forward, and his lips pressed against mine. I breathed in his scent, which smelled like dew-soaked greenery, eucalyptus, bitter coffee, and a faint, pleasantly sour scent like cherry wine. The hand he pressed to my cheek was dry and warm, and so hot that his fingers blazed against my face.
The sword in my hand vibrated. I felt a sudden heat beating against my leg, and I broke away from him. I stared down in wonder at my sword, which was blazing against the night; flames licked up and down the metal. My sword was on fire.
And so was Jacob’s broadsword.
Behind us, Ryker said, “Holy shit.”
Even the man in the pick-up truck looked startled. His mouth hung open, and just for a second, the barrel was in the air, not against Levi’s temple.
Levi threw himself over the side of the pickup truck, away from the gunman.
Jacob ran forward, cocking back his broadsword over his body; he threw it with two hands. The flaming sword arched through the air. It buried itself in the surprised man’s chest. He crumpled to the ground over the side of the truck.
Levi was up. He wrenched the sword out of the fallen body. He limped towards us as fast as he could. Together, the four of us ran into the woods, leaving a trail of blood and fire.