She nodded and looked at me, still smiling slightly.
“In the same way that my opinion matters greatly to you, yours matters greatly to me. If you ever tell anyone I said that, I will injure you severely, far worse than any Shadow in the woods ever could.”
My heart surged. Brynna had always done whatever she saw fit to do, with no regard for what anyone, even those who believed they were close to her, thought of her actions. Now, she had just admitted that what I thought mattered to her. It was a moment that repaired and strengthened the bond between us. Watching her reckless courage and wishing I possessed a fraction of it had ignited the electrical surge that was pulling us back together. Her gentleness that I had long believed to be permanently dead was beginning to resurface, making it easier for me to see her clearly. My heart still ached for our mother, whom Brynna had heartlessly left behind. I had been so thrilled to find that our father was alive but now, I wished that her truly cold decision had been reversed. I wished that he had been left to die and our mother had been spared. A part of me even wished Maura had died with him.
“Forget about her.” Brynna told me as we walked back towards the boy.
“Brynna!” I covered my ears like I always did when she entered my mind to read my thoughts, “How do you do that?!”
“When someone has a sudden change of mood, generally going from very happy to very sad or angry, as you just did, their thoughts scream what their mouths will not say.”
“I just don’t want to talk about it. Do you know what I realized?” I said in an attempt to change the subject. “You talk like them.”
“Like who?”
“The Pangean people. They’re all really eloquent, aren’t they?”
“They are, indeed. Though, I was eloquent long before we arrived here. I chalk that up to my vast intelligence, as you very well know.”
“I know. Or maybe…”
“If you are going to suggest that fate, which is a fallacy, mind you, had anything to do with this, I am going to scowl at you.”
“Okay.” I shut up.
We had reached Elijah and James, who were pulling the boy up onto his feet. Elijah tied his hands behind him with the vine, utilizing his knowledge of knots that he had acquired in Boy Scouts. Apparently, he never forgot the lesson.
“Alright, let’s go.”
“Just take me back to my father. He’ll kill me! Adam will kill me and then my father will come after all of you!”
“Shut up!” Elijah snapped at him as he walked him forward. “I’ll kill you myself if you don’t shut up.”
“Eli!” I exclaimed in horror. I was truly shocked that he would even suggest mercilessly murdering someone who posed no real threat.
“Just keep walking.” Elijah shot at the boy.
And so we were walking again, Elijah and James leading the struggling boy forward in the direction of the city. Brynna followed closely behind, cradling a still sleeping Penny. I followed her, trying to fight against my stubborn heart that knew what we were doing was wrong. Alice, Quinn and Nick moved in our wake, mumbling about heartlessness and bad decisions.
I almost turned and joined their group.
Part Three: The Almighty Split
Brynna
We had believed that we were going in the right direction. I forgave my mistake simply because we had only been on Pangea for a short while. It was impossible for me to hold myself accountable for not knowing the full layout of the land. The Pangean boy was by no means going to give us any help. We were walking him to his death, after all.
I was sitting down quietly, watching Elijah as he tried to coax Penny into eating some berries he had found. He had eaten a whole handful the day before in order to decipher any toxicity that may have been present under their green, scaly skins. Surely, fruit so ugly had to be poisonous. I had given him a long, furious lecture on reckless actions, suppressing my urge to scream and hit him for being so unforgivably stupid. I understood why he had done it. What I was truly angry at was that we had to play Roulette with our lives in order to eat. He hadn’t apologized. He hadn’t spoken at all. He had just let me lecture him on foolishness.
“Stop glaring before you burn a hole in his back, baby.” James told me and I turned the furious glare he had just commented on to him. “Never mind. Glare all you want.” He walked down the fallen log he was perched on. My anger dissolved as I reached up to wrap my arms around his middle.
“I am running out of cigarettes. I stole several packs from one of the storage units on our first night here. I should have stolen rations.”
“Yes, so we could have witnessed a witch hunt to rival the one in Salem hundreds of years ago. That’s a smart plan, my love.”
I beamed happily as he knelt beside me and grasped my hands. He smiled, too, when he looked up at me.
“I like when you call me 'my love.’” I told him softly, “It sounds so medieval, so it is similar to the way I always talk. Plus, the endearment is heartwarming.”
He laughed softly and kissed me.
“My love, my love, my love…”
I laughed now, too, and wrapped my arms around his neck as my lips caressed his. We both stopped, looking over to see Penny still refusing the berries that Elijah was offering her. No amount of begging or lying was going to work.
“Are you going to step in any time soon?”
“No, sir. If he wants to eat potentially poisonous plant life, that is his prerogative.”
“Those aren't poisonous, though. The ones he ate earlier have worked their way through his system by now and if they were poisonous, he wouldn't still be here.”
“I know. But as punishment for the scare he gave me, he can fight Penny to eat. It is a lost cause. She is as stubborn as I am.”
“If you went over there and told her to eat them right now, she would do it.”
“I know she would. That is one of the perks of my job as surrogate mother. She listens to me.”
“You’ve never told me how that came to be.”
“There is not much to tell.” I shrugged, “Our mother had her in order to fill the void left by the death of my youngest brother. Maura and my mother resented us both. I was young and self-interested but I knew that I had to put that aside and take care of her. During the time that I raised Penny, I was also chiefly responsible for Violet. See? That is not really much of a story now, is it?”
“Actually, it is. You rarely divulge details like that.” He kissed my cheek, “You must be succumbing to my charms.”
I laughed and placed my hand on his face.
“That happened long ago, sweetheart.” I stood up after kissing him again, knowing I had shocked him by admitting my enchantment with him out loud. He followed after me and after catching up, he put his arm around my shoulder. I smiled up at him again.
“I have been meaning to tell you that there is a structure nearby.”
He looked at me in slight surprise.
“How do you just randomly drop that into the conversation?’
“Technically, we were not talking so there was no conversation. But I digress…” I linked my fingers with his and pulled him along. “Come with me.”
I had been out wandering, looking for shrubbery that appeared to be non life-threatening. I led him to the canal that I had almost tripped in. It was an irrigation system of some kind that was quite advanced, considering our surroundings.
“I was going to follow it but I was not sure if I would be encountering any more natives looking for a sacrifice.”
“Good. Let’s follow it now.”
We were careful to avoid falling into the ditch. It was deep, with steep sides fashioned from dirt hardened by the blazing hot sun. Once, I lost my footing and if it weren’t for James’s quick hands, I would have gone tumbling down into it.
“Graceful, baby…” He told me sarcastically.
Later, he almost tripped and I reached out, grasped the back of his shirt in both hands and pulled him away from the edge.
“Go ahead and say it because I know you want to.” He challenged me in good humor, but I sauntered forward, smiling widely as I walked in front of him.
“It is nice up here on the high road, James.” I told him over my shoulder. I heard him laugh as he rushed forward to wrap me in his arms from behind. He kissed my cheek and for some reason, I found myself giggling girlishly again. We were currently enjoying rare alone time that we had not been gifted with since meeting up with Alice and Quinn. We both knew that we had a task at hand and that romance would have to wait. But that does not mean that both of us were not thinking about it…
When I broke free of his arms and walked ahead of him, he reached out, grabbed my hand, spun me around and pulled me back to him. The maneuver was as graceful as a classic dance move yet I still yelped in surprise. Just as the sound escaped me, I felt his mouth on mine and his arms locked around me once again. We walked further away from the water ditch; there was nothing that would kill the mood faster than rolling down the steep embankment and slamming onto the hardened earth.
We fell into a soft mossy patch. I started to undo his belt as his lips trailed down my neck and chest smoothly. I tilted my head back, relishing in the feeling of his kisses on my sensitive skin. When I felt his mouth moving slowly and sensuously down my stomach and his hands pulling my pants down feverishly, I struggled to draw in a steady breath but once I had, I managed to moan his name only once. Then, I could only draw in deep, heaving breaths.
His lips were trailing up my inner thigh in an almost cruel tease. The places where his hands or lips touched my skin tingled deliciously before sending a scintillating rush of heat to the place where soon his mouth would be.
When that happened finally, it was an almost sinful relief. Instantly, my eyes were closed and I was running my hands through his hair, crying out his name loudly.
It was while I was clawing the ground beside me and breathing heavily that I began to feel dead eyes watching us. Somehow, the heavy feeling of that eerie presence interrupted the mind-numbing pleasure that James was inflicting on me.
When I opened my eyes, my furiously beating heart lurched upwards. Before I could even process what was before me, my arousal completely evaporated and I could only feel a sharply painful surprise that streamed through my veins to every part of my body. That surprise dissolved into icy shock and then, to a horror that almost pulled a scream from deep in my stomach.
“James!” I whacked him harder than I intended on the back. When he did not respond fast enough, I yanked his head up by his hair that was still clutched in my hand.
“Ow! What?!” He asked. But after looking up, his eyes immediately fell on what I was seeing. He jumped up and pulled me with him so that I was cradled in his arms. I allowed myself just one second where I squeezed my eyes shut and burrowed my face into his neck.
“Alright, we're going to go. It's okay, baby.”
I rolled out of his grasp and landed on my feet. The sight before us paralyzed me; all I could do was stare in utter terror and repulsion. Vaguely, I felt James pulling my pants up again.
“Honey, I want to go.” My voice betrayed my fear as did the way my entire body shook. “James, I don’t want to stay here.”
Rows upon rows of bodies were hanging from the trees, their eyes and mouths opened wide in a silent scream that would never be heard. I held James’s hand to my chest, stopping him from walking forward when he went to observe the bodies more closely.
“It wasn’t being hung that killed them. That’s just for show. Look…” He pointed at the body that was closest to us.
I had been so distracted by the morbid way the woman's head was rested sideways on her shoulder that I had not noticed the contents of her stomach hanging from a gaping, still-dripping wound. My body lurched forward abruptly. If I were to vomit, it would simply be the physical, tangible manifestation of the scream I was refusing to give life to.
James had not realized that I was going to be so thoroughly sickened by the sight of that woman’s mangled body. I had handled everything else so efficiently, with not even a hint of any kind of discomfort. After calling my attention to the true atrocity of what we were witnessing, he knew that he had inadvertently frightened me.
“Baby, I’m sorry.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes, struggling to suppress the nausea churning my stomach in sickening gyrations. He rested both of his hands on my face and kissed my forehead.
“There are so many of them...” I whispered in a quivering voice, “James...”
“I know. Come on, we'll go. You're alright. We're both alright. Can you walk, sweetheart?”
I nodded vigorously but clutched him tighter when he released his grip on me slightly.
“I have to start taking care of myself again, James.” I muttered with my eyes still closed. I needed to change the subject in order to keep the angrily bubbling bile down where it belonged. “You are spoiling me with your attentiveness and your care.”
“This is spoiling you?” He cupped my chin, raised my head and pressed his forehead to mine. “This is what you consider spoiling?”
“Indeed. It is an amazing albeit unfamiliar gift. You are the only one that has ever gotten this close to me.”
“Well, I’m not going anywhere.” He assured me for perhaps the hundredth time. It did not matter how many times he said it. Every time was a new reminder, a new breath of life to resuscitate a slowly dying idea. “I know very well that you’ve spent your entire life taking care of yourself. But you need to understand and accept that it’s alright to let someone else carry your weight for you. Don’t tell yourself that you need to start pulling away. Don’t do that again, Brynna.”
His words held a soft plea that I had not heard before. He had teased me on my never-ending urge to run from him and all he represented. He had been both infuriated by that tendency and profoundly hurt by it, as well. Now, he was expressing indirectly that he could not stand for us to be apart again. I looked up at him and put both of my hands on his face now.
“I do not want to leave you, honey. The fact that I have made it this far is astounding. Trust me, you should be patting yourself on the back for hanging in this long. We have been through the worst things that any living beings can experience and we have gotten through them together. Do you agree?”
“Of course I do. I never would have been able to get through this without you. And I even count your condescending, pain-in-the-ass side, because that got me through, too.”
I smiled and stroked the stubble on one side of his face with my thumb.
“Only because you were picturing all the quiet places on the ship or on this planet where you could possibly kill me?”
“Not kill you, no.” He replied with a teasing grin, “But definitely bang your head against the wall a couple of times.”
I laughed before hitting him lightly in the chest. After standing on my tiptoes to wrap my arms around his neck, I turned my face to him and breathed in his delicious scent. Our bathing options were limited. In fact, they were nonexistent on most days. Still, James smelled as seductively wonderful as ever.
“Can we go?” I asked, “I feel like they just watched this entire conversation.”
“You’re afraid of dead people hearing you confess that you have feelings, too?” He replied.
“I am afraid of dead people, period.”
We turned to walk away, abandoning our search for the building from which the irrigation system stemmed. Nothing threw off a hunt for shelter like finding bodies hung up and slashed open in the trees. Just as we began to walk away with our hands clasped together, we jumped at the sound of a loud bang behind us. Immediately, we whipped around, our eyes white in cautionary alarm. We were ready for a fight.
We were never given a chance because when we turned, a spotlight that illuminated the darkness of the forest blinded us. I covered my eyes, only to feel two pairs of hands grabbing me.
“No!” I threw my body forward and
flipped one of the assailants over my shoulder. The other let go and backed away as he realized that I was rounding on him to attack.
I stopped before the fight even began, though. I recognized the face of the man who had grabbed me.
“James, stop.” I looked over to see him repeatedly punching another man in the face. He released his iron grip on that one's throat and watched him crumple to the ground. Then, he walked back over to me.
“Are you with Don Abba?” I asked the boy. He was trembling terribly and holding up his hands in surrender. “Do not stand like that. You have not seen half of what we are capable of. You are betraying your weakness.”
The boy immediately put his hands down.
“You’re his daughter, aren’t you?”
“No. My father is the obnoxiously power-starved man with the gray hair who believed that he was fit to be ruler of the campsite.”
“That's who I meant. You're Olivier's daughter.”
“I suppose you could call me that as it is factually accurate. It's accurate biologically, anyway. In terms of sentimentality, though...”
“Brynn...” James said behind me and I shook my head slightly, rerouting my mental course until it was back on track.
“You are human, aren’t you? Your thoughts clearly show human tendencies.” I was speaking gently, noting that he was carrying a double barrel shotgun. If I frightened him too severely, I would be shot and no level of superior powers would heal a wound from a gun that size.
“How do you know…”
“Just relax.” James instructed him calmly. “We're all on the same side here, okay? You startled us. That’s why we attacked your friends.”
“We saw you from inside. We thought you were from here.”
“You thought we were Pangean?” I asked and he didn’t respond. The poor young man was shaking so severely that if he was not talking clearly, I would fear that he was succumbing to a seizure.
The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) Page 47