“Okay, Jeanell, just hold on.”
It was hard for Jeanell to tell, as she spun idly on that length of rope. But with every spin, she could see Ric climbing the royal pine trunk, inching his way toward her. “Hurry, Ric, hurry!”
Jeanell looked around, unable to see any encroaching threat. But that only worried her more, that they’d be stumbled upon unaware, Ric crawling up the tree like a bear cub and she dangled from a rope like a fish on a line.
Blood filled Jeanell’s skull, she could feel her face turning redder, pressure pounding in her temples. The snare line was slung over an extended branch, and Ric slowly made his way toward that branch above her.
Ric’s foot slipped and he slid down the side of the trunk, hands gripping that dewy, mossy bark before finally hitting another branch with a painful thud.
“Ric!”
“I’m okay, I’ll all right.” Ric stood up on the branch and then climbed again, hands clawing the tree as he pulled himself up. Jeanell strained to breathe, her guts sinking upward to press against her lungs and heart. She wondered how long she could stay in that position without passing out, and, after that, how long she’d manage to keep breathing and not slowly suffocate to death.
Ric made his way to that lethal branch above her. He called down, “Hold on, Jeanell. I’m gonna pull you up!”
“No, I’ll fall!”
“It’s our only chance!” Jeanell felt the pressure of Ric pulling up on the rope, her body slowly being raised up inch by inch. She started to spin and swing, holding her arms out to steady her, and that became more and more difficult. The more she tried to steady herself, the more she swung and spun.
“Jeanell, stop,” Ric called down, “stop moving!”
“I can’t help it, I’m gonna fall!”
“You will if you keep thrashing around!”
“I’m not, just pull!”
“I am pulling!”
There was a frightening crack cutting through their bickering, and Jeanell measured her quick fall at about six inches.
The branch is breaking, she realized, calling up, “Hurry, the branch!”
“I know, Jeanell. I’m right here!”
He kept pulling and Jeanell’s perspective slowly changed, higher and higher. “Okay,” Ric said, “this is the hard part.” Another loud crack did nothing to explain his caution. “We’ve got about three feet of slack, that’s just enough to get you to the trunk. When you’re near enough to it, grab hold and don’t let go.”
“What? No way! I’ll fall!”
“You won’t,” Ric said.
“I’ll be upside-down, Ric!”
“I’ll tie the rope off up here so you won’t fall. Then I’ll climb down and help you.”
“It’s crazy!”
“It’s our only chance,” Ric said with another loud crack of the tree branch. “Now get ready.”
Ric swayed her from side to side, her stomach ready to empty out as she got closer and closer to the tree trunk. He finally swung her close enough and she tried to grab hold, but her face hit the trunk and she swung back. A second try and Jeanell was able to hold on, clinging upside-down to the side of the tree trunk. Ric felt the tugs of the rope while he tied her off. Her arms ached, her legs threatening to fall back behind her.
“I’m coming, Jeanell, just take it easy.” But Jeanell couldn’t allow herself to speak, to think, even to breathe. Ric scrambled down the other side of the tree trunk. “Okay, Jeanell, do you see that branch beneath you?” She nodded but said nothing. “Okay, I’m gonna cut you lose, but I’ll hold your ankles. I’m gonna need you to climb down to that branch while I lower you. We’ll only manage in that position for a few seconds, so you’ll have to be quick. Stabilize yourself on that branch and I’ll come down and help you the rest of the way.”
Jeanell held on, feeling the reassuring tug of the rope around her ankle. She waited, near to passing out from too much blood to the head when Ric said, “Okay, ready?” She wasn’t, but she didn’t have any more time to think about it. Ric cut the rope and Jeanell felt her weight pull her down. Her hands crossed one over the other to find the branch and then to lead her out onto it, feet lowering until she could cling to the branch with both arms and legs.
Ric helped ease her back on the branch and turn her around. “Don’t look down, Jeanell,” he cautioned her, hand supporting her arms as they inched their way back down to the forest floor. Finally safe, Jeanell threw her arms around Ric and held him tight, his muscular arms warming and reassuring her, pulling her close, their hearts pounding nearly through their chests.
“Okay, it’s okay,” Ric said in a voice, low and smooth. After gathering their wits and steadying their nerves, Ric led Jeanell onward, Boulder close in the distance.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jeanell and Ric hobbled into Boulder once again, looking around and feeling conspicuous for the filthy condition of their clothes. “These things are so impractical,” she muttered to him. “Why on Earth?”
“The original chancellor found them slimming.”
“Really? Did they make his hands seem bigger?”
Ric huffed with a little chuckle. “Truth be told, he did a lot of good.”
“You’re kidding me? You’d say that, in the position you’re in, that we’re all in?”
“Well, once again, it’s not the inventor’s fault if the thing he or she created gets carried out of hand, right?”
“He didn’t invent anything, he only branded it.”
“You’ve missed a lot, Jeanell. He ended gun violence, stabilized the economy, rescued the country from the Great Darkness—”
“Which he allowed to be created—”
“It’s theoretical. And honestly, Jeanell, our problem isn’t with a man who’s been dead for fifty years. That’s not the future, it’s the past.”
“Sorry, but… for me, they’re kind of all getting jumbled up.”
Ric nodded. “No, no. I understand that. But… we have to stay focused, right?”
“Right, exactly. And speaking of that, what about those drones? Aren’t this chancellor’s force going to be surveilling that apartment? We barely escaped, right? Don’t they say that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime? And in this case, we’re the criminals.” Ric looked her up and down, smiling. She asked, “What?” but he had no answer. So she went on, “Isn’t there anywhere else to go?”
Ric hit her with a steely glare and a wordless shake of his head. Then he finally said, “Anyway, we’re not going in through the front door, for just that reason.” With that, Ric stopped and tapped a few numbers on the LCD pad at the door of the building in front of him. The door slid open and he led her in, trying to be casual and inconspicuous despite their filthy white clothes.
He walked quickly across the lobby to a door marked stairwell. They pushed through the door and closed it quickly behind them, suddenly in a still and echoing stairwell, clear walls all around them. But as they descended underground, the clear walls revealed concrete and plumbing beneath the city streets. The stairwell was lit by a steady light, soft enough not to be glaring but strong enough to light the way safely.
“What is this?”
Ric answered, “These buildings were owned by the same company… my father’s company, matter of fact. We kept this secret, just in case.”
“Sounds like you knew there would be a worst-case scenario.”
“He did,” Ric said. “That’s why he sent me away, that’s why he stayed here, to draw their fire, to distract from my existence and the others’ as well.”
“Didn’t you say you left to protect him?”
Ric smiled gently. “He let me believe that, and it did become true. But I couldn’t have done it without him, that’s for sure. Good man. I can’t believe I just left him that way.”
“No, Ric, we didn’t have any choice. We were running for our lives.”
“After my father gave his ow
n.”
“I know,” Jeanell said, “for me. And I’m so sorry, Ric.”
“No, Jeanell, no, there’s no more time for that.”
“Not for either one of us.” A still silence wrapped around them, their eyes locked, faces nearing to one another.
They found a long hallway and walked down, footsteps echoing in the dank chamber. Jeanell knew they were cutting across under the street, and that they’d soon be back in that apartment. There could still be a drone there, or a synthetic black hole waiting to suck them in, or those jackbooted chancellor’s goons with the rare guns available, ready to blast them into eternity.
They found the staircase and ascended, footsteps echoing. Jeanell couldn’t help but reflect on that staircase leading out of the collider compound. That climb had ended in Lux’s tragic death, and to the deaths of so many others. But at least that had led her to escape. Jeanell couldn’t deny the idea that instead of heading to freedom, she headed straight into capture.
But once again, Jeanell had no choice.
They reached the top of the staircase and Ric paused, leaning up against the door just as his comrade Lux had done, just before the man’s death by explosion. A cowardly booby trap had taken his life, and Jeanell knew that such a thing could be waiting just on the other side of that door.
Ric was ready to give his life in a similar fashion, and he was about to do it. Jeanell wanted to tell him not to, but she knew there was no point. She knew he didn’t want to die any more than she did, any more than Lux had. He looked at her, eyebrows high, eyes wide, a nod telling her what both knew; if they died, they’d be reunited in whatever world awaited them.
Ric pushed the door open, no explosion meeting him, no armed guards in the hallway on the other end. The walls were transparent, but curtains blocked their view. They had to go on faith, and trust, and the government had outlawed both of those.
Jeanell and Ric crept down the hall toward Graham’s apartment. Jeanell couldn’t escape the idea that they’d be met by their enemies, at the very least one of those terrible, deadly drones, to expose them to the chancellor, which would be the beginning of the end for them both, for them all.
They got closer to the door, Jeanell and Ric both shooting glances down both directions of the hallway. They arrived at the door to find it still ajar. They looked at each other, then Ric pushed the door slowly open, prepared for whatever or whoever waited on the other side.
They slipped into the apartment, bodies strewn everywhere. Ric was overcome with a somber tone as he stepped into the room. He’d created many of the deaths on the floor of his father’s apartment, no less that of his father himself, laying on the couch, already swelling up.
Jeanell said, “Oh, Ric,” but she didn’t dare say any more.
Ric steadied himself against her. “Follow me.” They crept down the hall, quiet and slow, Jeanell ready for any adversary to burst out from some adjacent room to kidnap or destroy them. Ric led her into a small study, peering around to see nothing out of the ordinary—a desk, shelves of old books, piles of old newspapers. Ric went straight to the rug and lifted it, a box in the clear floor, lined with more dark rug material of the same pattern.
Ric pulled the compartment open and pulled out a smartphone, a tablet, and several small portfolios. He pushed a button on the side of the phone and handed it to Jeanell. She waited while it activated, then Ric turned on the tablet, its own screen coming alive. He said, “Bingo.”
Jeanell helped stash the folios in the pockets of her formfitting white outfit. Ric glanced around. “Okay, halfway home.”
Ric led Jeanell out of the room and carefully down the hall, peeking out and around first to make sure the coast was clear. They prowled down to the room at the end of the hall, which Jeanell recognized as the same room she’d fallen asleep in, when she’d dreamed of making love to Ric.
It was hard to forget.
Ric went to the closet and slid it open to find several white suits in various sizes. “This should do it,” he said, glancing around the closet for a suitcase. He found one and threw it onto the bed, popping it open. He filled the case with the white suits. “This’ll give us a chance of getting into the tower,” he said. “A chance.” He zipped the luggage shut and turned to her. “One more thing to do.”
Jeanell followed Ric back into the living room, where Graham lay dead on the couch. Ric stepped away, leaving Jeanell behind as he approached his father’s corpse, gentle and melancholy.
“I’m so sorry I had to run out on you, Pop, on you, on the others, I… I was only doing what I thought was right, what I thought you’d want me to do, to protect Jeanell and preserve her secrets, our society’s future. And I’ll keep on doing that, I… I want you to know, to know that I’ll do whatever I can do, so you didn’t die in vain. Pop, I won’t let that happen, I won’t… I won’t…”
Jeanell’s eyes filled with tears, soon streaming down her cheeks, salty trails burning just a bit. But she knew it was nothing compared to the pain Ric felt, would go on feeling forever. He’d suffered so much, lost so much, sacrificed so much, it almost seemed beyond endurance.
Yet Ric was strong, and he stifled his tears, ready to endure. He gasped and sighed and braced himself. Jeanell did the same. She knew she must follow his courageous example, the courage shown by both men, and she even must do better, with even more at stake.
Ric gave his father one more kiss on the forehead and a gentle stroke of the cheek before laying him back and stepping away. He took out the smartphone and swiped the screen, barely able to say to Jeanell, “One of the great benefits of your own invention.” He turned to face his father one last time, pointed the phone at him, and swiped the screen. In a flash, his father was gone.
Jeanell snuggled close to Ric, hoping to offer some kindness, some warmth, some love. And he was wordlessly ready to accept it, and return it, if either one of them would still have the chance.
“Okay,” Ric said, voice quivering, heaving with sorrow, “let’s get back to the others. There’s no time to waste.” Neither of them could have known how right he was.
***
After a swipe of the screen, Jeanell and Ric suddenly stood in front of their cave sanctuary. Jeanell’s head began to swim, her stomach nauseous. “I just don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.”
“Hopefully, you won’t have the time.” Reading her glare, he explained, “Because we’ll get you back to your own time, where you belong.”
Which brought up a tricky and potentially heartbreaking question: “What about you? Where do you belong?”
Ric smiled. “If we both survive, then by your side. But if only one of us gets out of this alive, and we’ll be lucky for that, then it’s going to be you.”
They looked around, and Ric called out, “Reeves? Brooke?” No answer came back from the dark cave, and both Jeanell and Ric knew that was bad news. They stepped into the cave, calling the names of those they knew should have been there and getting no response.
Jeanell asked Ric, “Is there some reason they’d all be gone… beside the obvious, I mean?”
Ric shook his head. “Unless they were chased off, a bear maybe, the mate of the one we killed.”
“We didn’t kill it… not alone anyway.”
“Tell that to the bear!”
They stepped out of the cave, and Jeanell felt a hard hand grabbing her arm and jerking her away from the cave, and away from Ric. She looked up to see Brad, smiling at her and holding a smartphone.
“Hello again, Miss Glenn.”
“Brad, no!”
But before Jeanell could jerk herself out of his grip, he put his thumb to his smartphone screen and they vanished. Jeanell turned to see Ric holding out his hands to her, calling her name before she was pulled away from him, probably forever.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jeanell and Brad appeared in a flash in a special section of the chancellor’s tower in New York, for fifty years the
seat of power in the United States. Everything was plated with gold except for the white marble statues and diamond-crusted crystal chandeliers. Jeanell was a bit dizzy, usual after a hole trip, but she refocused quickly and tried to pull her arm out of Brad’s grip.
“Brad, let me go!”
“Of course.” Brad glanced at one of the lobby doors, two armed guards standing in front of it. Another big door on the other side of the lobby was also guarded. Brad said, “There’s nowhere to run and no point in screaming; everybody in this tower is loyal to the chancellor, and nobody’s gonna raise a finger to help you.”
Jeanell looked around and knew he was right. She nodded and, with a strong tug, pulled her arm free, rubbing it to encourage circulation under the skin. “Brad, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Why?”
Jeanell repeated “Why? You just kidnapped me! You’re in league with a tyrant and a maniac.”
“That’s what those rebels told you, Jeanell. But did you ever stop to think that they have reasons to lie, that they may not even know the real Chancellor Kana, the person behind the power?”
Jeanell looked around the opulent surroundings. “I think I can guess what kind of person he is, living in a golden palace with all the power in the world.”
“The chancellor also presides over a zero-crime society,” Brad said, leading Jeanell across the lobby. “No starvation, very little disease—”
“But isn’t he keeping the population artificially low?”
“How and why would any single person do that? Those rebels just can’t procreate, they’re dying out. All the better if they can blame their leader, to blame us.”
“Us?”
“Of course. Jeanell, the chancellor is the leader of the free world! Not perfect maybe, but okay, nobody is. It’s time to join the winning team! And you could be MVP if you played your cards right.”
Jeanell huffed. “I’ve never been much of a gambler.”
“No?”
Jeanell had to reflect, and she knew Brad was right. Among other things, Jeanell learned about herself, she realized then that she was much more a gambler than she’d ever known. She’d gambled her life on the Earthtech project, even wound up gambling with the fate of every man, woman, and child in human history.
Maruvian Bride (Alien SciFi Romance) (Celestial Mates Book 5) Page 33