Darkside Sun (Entangled Embrace)

by Adams, Jocelyn

  “No,” Kat said. “She said it herself, she doesn’t belong here. Look at her. She’s going to be an accountant.” Curling up her lip, she mocked me, adding, “Daddy’s special little girl. The Machine would eat hear alive. I vote we wipe her and send her back to Daddy.”

  “You mean take my memory of all this?” I blurted. “Then I vote for that, too.”

  Asher rolled his neck before slicing me with his glare. “You don’t get a vote. Not only would you forget, but we’d have to suppress your growing power, which with you, I think, would be impossible. Now shut up.”

  The Colonel resumed his place standing on the edge of the hearth. A preacher on his soap box. “Sentinels, we are strong, but we are few. Upon seeing her, I was ready to discount her as you were. She is … weak, skittish, and unusual. But if all Asher tells me is truth, then we must consider initiating her.”

  “Vote all you like,” I said, “but I’m going home one way or the other. This is a free country. You can’t keep me here if I don’t want to stay.” My stomach clenched hard. Some part of me recognized the naiveté of what I’d just said. If they wanted to keep me in the Shift, they could do whatever they wanted to me for however long, and nobody would be able to find me. It wasn’t like I could call the cops, and even if I could, roads didn’t reach here. A few curses rattled through my head.

  Asher and Remy raised their hands. Apparently the voting had begun. Jesus, they could really vote me in. But what did that mean, to be initiated? I had a sudden image of frosh-week hazing, bent over while the sentinels all whacked me with a paddle. I laughed, a sharp, frantic sound that shredded my sanity a little more. I could have sworn Asher rolled his eyes. Marcus’s smile changed from the Cheshire cat to genuinely amused.

  “I think I’m with Kat on this one, Ash,” Marcus said, and he sounded sad about that. “She doesn’t have the backbone for this. No amount of training is going to take the rabbit out of her. She’d end up eaten by a wraith before she’d ever pull the trigger.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “what he said. Just make me forget, and I’ll go.”

  “That’s two for and eight against,” the Colonel said. “Is that the final vote? Remember, our founder does not make mistakes. He has granted her abilities none of us possess. Will you really let your prejudices take away what could be the most useful tool we’ve been given yet?” He spoke like a man from another time, an older time, but like Kat, his accent had begun to fade. How old was he? He waited for the mumbling to die down before continuing. “The Machine is failing. Might this new cog be the one who makes us function again?”

  He’d said two of eight, which meant only the sentinels got to vote and probably the Colonel as the tie breaker. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. If I’d have been a soldier, I might have taken exception to being excluded from deciding whether or not to add a new member to my club.

  Two more sentinels put their hands up. If another two piped up, that would be bad.

  I wanted the Colonel to shut up. I wanted to rush across the room and punch him in the kisser so he’d stop talking, but Marcus was right. I was a rabbit, and the wolves scared the hell out of me. My mouth stayed shut.

  Kyle Whatshisname stared at me through the crowd in a soldier uniform, his red hair cut short. I hadn’t noticed him until then. Already he appeared like an animal in a too-small cage, his presence pacing behind his eyes, trapped. Like I could be trapped. With a bunch of psychotic killers who hunted the things of my nightmares.

  How long had it been since I’d seen him? In class he’d appeared to be a gangly boy who could have passed for fifteen. Now his eyes, a dull blue with no jade star I could see from a distance, held stains of terrible things, as if his soul had broken, shattered like thin ice under a fist.

  Asher nodded to the Colonel, who retrieved something wrapped in cloth from the table beside one of the sofas. Holding it on top of his two hands like an offering, he came forward. Asher unfolded the cloth to reveal the bible, the golden lock once again in place. He turned to me, his expression a blank slate. “Come here, Addison.”

  My real name. Not good. I shook my head, laughed again, and even to me it sounded on the edge of hysteria. “No. Hell no, I’m not touching that thing again.”

  “Why not?” His mask slipped ever so slightly. The words were too even, too flat, but I couldn’t figure out what he wanted so I could deny it to him.

  “You know why not.” There, that was nicely cryptic, so he’d know what I meant without letting everyone else know the sight of my own blood made me queasy.

  Turning to Remy, who watched me the way a cat watched a fly caught in a web, fascinated and morbidly curious, Asher said, “Bring her.”

  The big guy’s lips curled with far more amusement than I could handle right at the moment, bunching up the portion of tattoo crossing his cheek. “This gonna be fun. She already look about to rip outta her skin.”

  I blinked at him, unable to breathe. He wouldn’t dare. Sophia stepped out from in front of me, leaving me exposed to the horde and their interested stares.

  How the hell could I get out of this? There were too many of them, mostly bigger and way more fit than me. I couldn’t run in the shoes, and I had a little pride, so I ignored my inner voice that urged me to bolt. But I didn’t need a doorway here, did I?

  Home. I wanted to go home to the cabin with its red tin roof and dense bush encircling it. The image of my childhood sanctuary and playground filled my mind.

  The air thickened in an instant. The beating heart pounded against my skin, or from within it, I couldn’t tell, but it was working. I was calling the Shift.

  Remy grabbed me around the waist, and the room snapped around me again.

  I screamed and kicked as he picked me up and tucked me under his arm like a puppy. Prying my fingers against his hold didn’t budge him. His muscles just barely flexed, as if I were no harder to carry than a limp sock.

  “This kolohe feisty,” Remy said, and he sounded surprised. “She call the Shift, and it answer. If I not grabbed her when I do, she’da gone seeya.”

  Oh, shit. Would Asher take my memories because I’d tried to take off? And what did kolohe mean? It sounded affectionate more than insulting, but who knew when it came out of a sentinel’s mouth.

  Low murmurs rumbled around the room as Remy plunked me back on my heels in front of Asher. My breaths continued to hammer in and out of me. “I’m sorry, I panicked. Please don’t take my memories,” I said, begging Asher with my eyes. “And stop trying to convince them to vote me in.”

  “You’re doing a fine job of that all on your own.” He smiled, and this one held victory. “Shocking, I know.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Maybe later.”

  Ah! He did not just say that. To go along with the flush of anger crawling up my neck, embarrassment and the images he’d induced with that comment added their own heat. “Not if you were the last prick on the planet.”

  That wiped off his smug grin in a flash. Remy, Marcus, and the skyscraper Asian guy burst out laughing.

  “Open the bible, Addison.” Asher took me from Remy, tugging me toward the Colonel by my gloved wrist. Marcus stepped in closer, Kat behind him. They both stared blankly at us, as if afraid to betray what they really thought.

  “Why would I do that?” I asked. If he wanted me to touch the book, then it would help his cause to have me initiated. No way. The Colonel shook his head and shot Asher a pointed look.

  Asher grabbed my thumb, pulling the glove off, which he used to wrap around my wrist and force my hand to the lock. The instant my fingers touched the gold, a surge of something rushed up and out of me, ruffling Asher’s raven-wing hair and even prying a few strands of the Colonel’s from the gelled lump on his head. The same delicate midnight-blue lines crawled up my arm as I’d seen on Asher in my car, lit as if someone had injected me with the stuff out of one of those glow sticks they sell at fireworks shows, a living tattoo of delicate, curling patterns. It had happen
ed for only a second the first time I’d touched the book, so why was it worse now?

  When I surveyed the shocked faces in the room, I realized it didn’t matter. Asher’s show had sealed my doom.

  “Final vote,” the Colonel said. “All in favor of initiating this candidate, raise your hands.”

  Asher and six other sentinels shot their hands up. Only Marcus, Kat, and the Aussie were on my side. Shit.

  “No.” I shook my head.

  Sophia stared at me where she stood near Kyle. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed. A tear crawled down her cheek, but she didn’t look away. I held her gaze like the last solid thing in the world, more grateful she hadn’t left me than I could ever tell her, even if in the end she couldn’t save me from the monsters.

  I got the sense that maybe I’d been doomed from the start, and nobody and nothing would have gotten me off the crazy train.

  Next stop: who the hell knew?

  Chapter 13

  Marcus sighed. “Fine, I concede that she has spectacular potential if she has the favor of the book and can call the Shift even before being properly initiated. If she’s to be made Machine, then I’ll take her as my own.”

  “This one’s mine,” Asher said in a near growl. “I will train her.”

  Something shifted in Marcus. The boy next door disappeared into contained violence as he crowded Asher. Clearly my professor wasn’t the only one who had issues respecting others’ personal space. “I outrank you, sentinel,” Marcus snarled. “This isn’t some finders-keepers game you’re playing here.”

  “You voted against. You gave up your right.”

  “Enough.” The Colonel stepped in, and he finally stared directly at me, squinting as if unsure if he could trust what he saw. “We’ve not had an initiate fought over in all of my years, but there are rules in place for such an eventuality. Whoever draws first blood shall have her as his protégé. If she truly becomes a sentinel. It wouldn’t surprise me if she winds up a soldier like the last twenty we’ve found.”

  “What?” I shrieked. “What is this, the freakin’ Roman Coliseum?”

  Everyone moved back to leave Asher and Marcus in the center. Remy herded me back against the wall. “This get more and more interesting,” he said close to my ear, having to bend almost in half to reach it. “Kat look like she want to kill you.”

  “Why?” I asked, because I agreed with his assessment of her death glare.

  “Because Asher still her sensei even though her training done, an’ we all know he drop her to have you instead. She no get it. You a natural wahine, adorable, and she a blonde goddess in her own mind. Even though it obvious to a blind man you got Machine power twice us all.”

  Something ugly twisted inside me as Marcus and Asher circled each other, having done nothing more than glare like lions over a kill. “Are they like … together? Asher and Kat?” I whispered to Remy. “But … how can they be a couple if they can’t touch?”

  God, who cared? And why did it bother me so much, anyway? I certainly had no designs on the guy. He killed people, for crying out loud, but … maybe it was just that she was such a bitch, and I thought maybe Asher deserved a little better than her. Nah. What was I saying? They totally deserved each other.

  “My brah not that stupid. Relationships are distractions, forbidden between guardians. And he have better taste than that.”

  Relief warred with a slight stab of disappointment. “So they date regular people, then? But what about the whole immortality thing?” A shadow of fear crawled up from my depths, but I couldn’t let myself think about it.

  “No dating long-term, but most have a mortal for a night to satisfy their lusts. If the Colonel find out someone getting attached to a mortal, both the guardian and the mortal are wiped clean of each other.”

  No emotional attachments? Ever? What a cold, meaningless existence that would be. I knew there were more important issues on my plate, but my future non-love-life made for a good distraction.

  Marcus launched forward as if turbo boosted. Asher dove right, rolled, and came back to his feet with more grace than I’d have managed if marionette strings had lifted me back up from that position. Roaring, Marcus swung his leg around, missing when Asher did a funky limbo move, a sort of bridge, his hands pressed into the floor above his head.

  They continued the same way for minutes. Marcus attacked, and Asher avoided with amazingly creative moves that appeared to be a combination of martial arts, gymnastics, and strangely, some sort of modern dance. It was kind of beautiful, or at least, Asher was.

  How had I gone from invisible nobody to having the two most attractive men I’d ever met fighting over me? Oh, right. It had nothing to do with me and everything to do with some sort of power trip to own the freak who could see dead things from an alternate reality. Silly me for forgetting. And not only that, but once they drew blood, something would happen to me. I’d become part of the Machine in some way. I’d be as lost and trapped as Kyle, who kept staring at me with haunted eyes.

  I’ll become immortal.

  No, I wouldn’t. So I didn’t have a perfect life, a strange, lonely life, but it was mine, and dammit, I would not give it up. Asher would listen to reason. He would.

  As the two sentinels continued their battle dance, I realized Asher hadn’t thrown a single swing. Wearing Marcus down, I thought, before he made his strike. Smart, if you had the patience for it. Whatever gave Marcus a higher rank, it had nothing to do with his fight moves. Asher had yet to make a sound, not even a grunt of exertion.

  Something subtle shifted in Asher. Stance? Expression? Something had changed to make him appear more lethal. I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been watching so closely. When Marcus threw a punch, Asher stepped aside, grabbed his arm, and slammed his own elbow across the other sentinel’s back.

  Marcus’s own momentum took him to the floor. A solid crack broke the silence. I knew the sound of a broken bone when I heard it. Sure enough, Marcus came up with a bloody nose, cursing a storm of words so vile and full of hate, it seemed to melt the air.

  I had no idea whether to feel better Asher had won or to be more afraid. I was leaning toward afraid.

  “Marcus,” the Colonel said, “return the Outfitter to the facility. The rest of you, go back to work, all but Remy and Taka.”

  Taka, wasn’t that the sentinel Sophia had mentioned, the one who’d accidentally killed his girlfriend?

  In small groups, they blinked out of the room while I tried to figure out which one of those who remained might be him. Marcus went to Sophia, who sneered at him. He stared long and hard at me, but I couldn’t decipher what was going on in that twisted mind of his. If he was still angry, it wasn’t at me. I thought maybe he was trying to figure out what I’d become and wasn’t sure he’d like someone else holding my leash.

  “It’ll be all right, Addison,” Sophia said, though her wavering tone failed to convince me of what she promised. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  Tears heated the backs of my eyes, but I held on to them so tight the muscles in my face hurt. I didn’t want her to leave me with the crazy, but I wasn’t about to beg, either.

  Remy herded me back to Asher, the Colonel, and the tall Asian guy I assumed was Taka since he was the only one left with us that I didn’t know. His hair was that gleaming, glossy black, longer on top and shorter at the back. He seemed like a boy until you got a glimpse of his almond-shaped eyes. All of the sentinels appeared normal at a distance, but every one of them had the same glacial eyes full of lethal potential. A murder looking for a person to happen to.

  I licked my dry lips and swallowed cotton from my throat. “How many people do you have to kill to get that look in your eyes?” I asked Asher, who couldn’t meet my gaze. “Like nobody’s home.”

  “Enough it kill the soul,” Remy said quietly. “It diff’ for all us. For you, I think will only take one.”

  “I guess we’ll never find out, then. I’d rather let some Bugman kill me than take someone el
se’s life.”

  “You’ll understand soon enough that the time for choices is long past for you.” Asher nodded to the Colonel. “I’ll keep you updated on her progress.”

  “Make sure she obeys, sentinel,” the Colonel said. “It would be a shame to waste this raw power simply because we were unable to tame it.” With that ominous comment, he disappeared into the Shift.

  I wanted to ask what he meant by that. Couldn’t be what I thought it meant, that if I didn’t cooperate they’d kill me instead of just wiping my mind clean of them. I didn’t ask. Denial, sweet denial. Without acknowledging my desperate attempts to get him to look at me, Asher turned away. “Taka, Remy.” Those two words held command, sadness, and exhaustion. He didn’t like what was about to happen, but I had no doubt he’d do it anyway. “Bring her to the chamber.”

  I didn’t know what the chamber was, but I sure as hell didn’t want to go there. Taka reached for me. In my state of panic, instinct sent my bare fist into his nose, my legs twitching to get me away from here.

  Taka screamed into his hands, which he’d cupped around his now bloody nose. “How dare you touch me?” he mumbled around his fingers.

  Oh, bloody hell. “You shouldn’t have tried to grab me. And I thought only prolonged contact could hurt you.” Didn’t I feel like a shit, saying that after knowing the ghosts I must have stirred in him?

  “Marcus’s ‘rabbit’ nickname flawed,” Remy said. “I say she like the fox. Her instinct may be run, but once she inna a corner, she got plenty a teeth.”

  “Idiot,” Asher barked at Taka, who cursed and moaned. Blood streaked down his black uniform. “Never mind. I’ll take her myself.”