by Tisha Wilson
The man produced a little gadget from his pocket and tsked as he shook his head. “You should have taken my offer. Now, we are going to have to do things the hard way. Until we meet again. Happy trails.”
The man turned to begin walking away and Saul took aim. Just when he would have pulled the trigger the man depressed a button that appeared in his outstretched arm. The building behind them exploded with a deafening roar. They were both lifted off their feet as the shock wave rocked the desert. It took a moment for the ringing to clear from Miranda’s ears as she turned over on her back and looked up at the stars.
She felt something wet trickle form her ear and she reached up to see what it was. Her fingers came away sticky with blood. Her head had landed on a very jagged rock and she could nearly feel it dip inside her skull. If she hadn’t been in hunter mode she would be dead right now. Still. She was wounded. Bad. If she didn’t do something about it she was going to loose consciousness.
She took a moment to go inside herself. She healed the head injury first. After that she turned to other places. She was bleeding internally where the wolves had begun to tear her. She took a deep breath and focused. She entered her muscle tissue and forced the muscles in her abs to reconnect with each other and her diaphragm to fall back into place. While she journeyed inside her womb something caught her attention. Something faint, small, tiny… foreign. What was it? What was it doing in there? She didn’t know what it was but she knew that it didn’t belong there… only it did.
Was it part of what made her a hunter? Was it some of the poison left over from when the wolf had bitten her and infected her blood stream? No. It didn’t feel evil. It didn’t smell dead or diseased. Just as she was about to pin down the intruder, she felt herself being drawn back out and into the darkness. She was still on her back.
The wolves were gone and she couldn’t feel her legs anymore. It took a moment for her to clear her head some. She took a few deep breathes and the thick smoke rolled over her making her cough some. She heard someone else coughing off to her left and she began to crawl that way, using her arms as her useless legs drug behind her. She reached Saul who was sitting up looking at the blaze with a stunned expression.
“How… our sensors had to go off if they approached the building,” he said slightly dazed.
“Did you see the way that guy’s face changed? What if he made himself look like someone that works for you?”
He shook his head and took a deep breath. He coughed again as he did so. “They would still have the scent, the DNA of a creature. Plus, an assistant mentor would never… I mean we are trained not to…”
“Well the evidence says they accomplished it some way. Plus. If they stole an assistant mentor’s identity, the assistant mentor probably didn’t let them take it voluntarily,” she said as she placed a hand on his shoulder. She did her best to console him but it looked as if his whole world had just been shaken to its core.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
There had been lots of people in that building, people who were probably like family to him. It seemed that he had been working for the agency a long time. It was ironic that he hadn’t experienced the pain, the total loss of a life, of those he helped until just now.
“My cousin Hector-” He started and stopped. Tears filled his eyes. She gave him a little time as she watched the blaze. It seemed like it had been a half an hour when she finally spoke up.
“Saul. We have to call someone.”
He shook his head. “Dios Mio. My cousin… my friends… Sabrina… Sabrina.”
He was crying, his shoulders shaking. She threw her arms around him and hugged him. He didn’t hug her back, just sort of let his arms hang at his sides while he cried with his head down. She released him and pulled herself into a sitting position beside him after a while. She looked him in the face. He wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“We have to call someone,” she said again softly, her heart broken for him. Why had they done this and how?
Wiping his face he finally stood up and pulled out his cell. He dialed a number. He made a face as he hung up without having an answer. He began to pace as he dialed another number and again looked confused as he disconnected. He dialed two more numbers with similar results. Finally he connected with someone.
“Ira. I tried to reach the British home office but-”
He stopped his pacing as he listened to what was being said in loud tones on the other line. “All of them?”
“What?” Miranda asked.
“Are you sure? How?” It sounded like the man on the other end of the line began to curse as Saul held the phone away from his ear. “I can’t do anything to help you. The base here is gone… everyone’s gone. I’ll be in touch.”
Saul hung up the phone and the look of sheer devastation outdid the lost expression he’d worn before. He closed his eyes and shook his head, then to her amazement he opened them again with a look of determination the likes of which she had never seen before. He looked more like an army general than the easy laid back Saul of a few hours before.
“What happened?” she asked.
He bent down and scooped her up into his arms as he began moving towards the ruined building. “It’s a good thing you were so wild and went after them when you did. If you had not come out here I would not have come after you and I would be dead,” he said in an odd detached way.
“Saul. Please tell me what’s happening?”
He handed her his phone. “Get online and check the news clips.”
She opened the phone as he skirted around the blaze to the parking lot. There were sirens moving swiftly towards the blaze. She hit the application on the touch screen that would allow her to watch the news and almost instantly scenes of various explosions around the world came into view. She listened in horror as the news caster spoke of massive destruction.
“Again, the reports coming in from several major cities around the globe confirm that at least eight major military test facilities have been rocked by explosions, killing, at last count, at least two hundred military personnel. Wait… this just in, there has been another military test sight hit by an explosion right here on U.S. soil. We will keep this news feed live as we continue to receive updates on today’s tragic events. We return to Sue Walton who is near the sight in India, where attempts are still under way to try and control the blaze and rescue personnel trapped within the building.”
The screen flashed to a scene similar to the one they faced, only in the daylight. Miranda noticed that there were no victims being hauled from the building. There were no witnesses standing around watching the building burn. All the facilities had been isolated in the middle of nowhere and there was no hope that anyone could have survived the blasts. Two hundred people…
They finally came to a car that looked to still be in tact. Most of the others had been blown every which way, tires popping, wind shields shattered, or locked without hope of entry. This one was a grey Saturn that looked like it had time warped straight out of nineteen ninety one. The door was open and Saul dumped her in the passenger seat.
“Listen to me okay. I am going to have to be in charge of this mess until I can figure out how many other Assistant Mentors there are left and if the day walkers hit our IT building. If the website is still up I can curb a lot of panic right up front, if not I am going to have to start a chain of phone calls to the other hunters. The story is we were on our way to work and we pulled up just as the building exploded. Nothing more, nothing less. If anyone tries to press you for more, show them this,” he handed her an official looking card from his wallet.
“What is this?”
“It’s a clearance card. You are authorized a certain military level that prevents officials from being able to press you for more information. You would have received yours with your information pack when you completed your training. For now, stay in the car. This will have to be our post until Braden retrieves you, can you understand?”
She nodded and when
he would have left she grabbed his arm. “I’m sorry Saul.”
“This no es your fault Mira. I guarantee I am going to discover the one’s responsible for this and they will be sorry for sure.”
She recoiled form the deadly look in his eyes as he slammed the door closed and began calling people on his phone. The fire trucks pulled up as well as the cameras and Saul went into full action as he directed people and answered questions. A few people attempted to approach her in the car but Saul headed them off the best he could while still yelling out orders.
Miranda took a few moments to take stock of the damage done to her body. The major gashes to her legs had healed, tissue and skin reappearing, but several smaller wounds still bled. She couldn’t tell how bad her shoulder was at the moment because she still had her bloodied down jacket on. It was a mess, a combination of blood and exposed fluff. It felt like someone had stood on her chest and slammed down into her shoulder with a sledge hammer. The loss of blood was making her light headed. She needed food. She needed food in the worst way.
The hunger was like a gnawing aching beast clawing at her insides, screaming to break free. She looked around the car and cursed how clean it was. Anyone who kept a car over ten years old this clean deserved to be shot. She opened the glove compartment and gave thanks to God above. There were a few power bars stashed inside. She ate them quickly and wished that there was more.
Panic seized her as fatigue slammed into her. She rolled down the window quickly calling out to Saul. He said something to a policeman before he loped over. The policeman held the reporters away from the car to give them a moment.
“You have to get me out of here. I’m going to crash.”
“It’s all right. I’ll watch the car until-“
“Listen to me, when I wake up… something happens to me. I can’t be here around all of these people.”
He nodded. “I forgot. Braden mentioned something about that. You rest. I will take you out of here long before you wake up.”
“You take me somewhere and then you leave me.”
“Mira. I can’t-”
“You promise. You take me and then you leave me. I… don’t… want…”
She was fading fast. Saul reached inside and leaned her chair back so that she was lying down.
“Don’t worry. I’m not afraid. I will take care of everything,” he said before he closed her inside the car.
She couldn’t bring herself to respond to him. Her last bit of effort was used to call out to Braden, but he wasn’t here to protect her, and he should have been.
Chapter Eleven
Braden felt something smash into him. It hit him right between his eyes. Something was happening to Miranda. She needed him and he was God only knew how far away. He tried to will his rented truck to go faster. If only he had his own truck, he could roll right into the desert and straight up to the compound, alarms and whistles be damned. He’d seen the reports about the bombings on television and tried to call her on the cell phone he’d left behind for her. There was no answer. He’d tried Saul’s cell, and still it was busy. His heart was pounding hard and he actually felt himself begin to sweat.
If they had done anything to hurt either of them… this was why he’d given up personal connections. He didn’t want to have to go through this, yet here he was and he knew one thing for certain. If anything had happened to either one of them his single goal in life would be to hunt down each and every day walker and execute them with his bare hands. Maybe he had loved someone this strongly once, but he couldn’t remember it.
He couldn’t ever remember holding anyone so tiny so close to his chest before as he whispered pretty things in her ear. He couldn’t remember ever wanting to protect someone so much. He couldn’t ever remember wanting to see a woman parade around in pink frilly lacy clothes but he would give the heart from his chest to see Miranda do those things again. She was cute, she was petite, and she had his heart thoroughly wrapped around her little finger. The last forty hours without her had been pure hell. He was lost and he knew it.
It seemed like it took forever to reach the compound but finally he pulled up to the barriers that led up to the burning building. Dawn was approaching yet the fire was still as bright as the sun. It was furious, angry, and unfeeling. It might be at this very moment consuming his tiny precious treasure. What had he been thinking to leave her alone?
A cop was trying to tell him to turn around when he rolled down his window and held out his badge. The officer came and took it from him.
“I’m not familiar with this clearance card.”
“I work in that building and am authorized to enter even in times of catastrophe.”
“I’m gonna have to check with my supervisor.”
“Do what you must but I am only willing to wait a certain amount of time before I take this truck and come through that barricade.”
Braden saw the man’s pride surge forward and war with fear. Even people in authority had to acknowledge that Braden looked large and menacing enough to crush a man’s head in one hand and it often made them twitchy around him. Braden chose to remain silent as the cop strode off and made a phone call. It only took two minutes for the cop to return his badge and move the barrier with a grudging look. Usually Braden didn’t mind the way humans treated him, especially when they saw him as a threat, but right now the stupid human was lucky he still had his head on his shoulders.
Braden hit the gas and had to pick his way through a crowd of emergency workers. The reports had obviously been pushed back behind the barrier meant to keep such persons out. He left the keys in the truck and it was as if he had some kind of internal guide that carried him through the mass of confusion. He was in the parking lot headed towards a car in the center.
All his vision and attention was focused on that one spot. He growled as someone got in his way. He pushed the man so hard he landed on a nearby trunk. Braden didn’t stop to see if the man was all right.
“Braden.”
The voice registered as someone he knew, but he couldn’t stop to see who it was or what they were saying. Whoever it was was smart enough not to touch him. He couldn’t think about, couldn’t hear, couldn’t see anything else. She was there and she needed him. He reached the car and pulled the door open so hard the door bent back and came off the car all together. She was nestled inside a down jacket that was ripped at the shoulder.
Her face was smudged with soot and half her jacket and her jeans were covered in blood. He growled ferociously and turned on whoever had been behind him. He was about to rip his head off until the face registered. It was Saul and his eyes were huge as he whipped off his jacket and lifted it to try and conceal Braden’s face.
“What the hell are you doing muchacho?! You want to air your hunter’s face on National Television?” Saul snapped in outrage.
Braden hadn’t realized that his face had changed. He forced it back. Saul lowered the coat and Braden saw a few people look their way skeptically. As soon as they saw his face was normal, they shrugged it off and went back to what they were doing. People saw what they wanted to see.
“I leave her in your care for one day… I thought I could trust you!”
“She isn’t dead! Not for lack of the day walkers trying! You think I wanted any of this… Hector… Trent… Mericruise… Sabrina,” he began and had to stop as tears and rage gathered in his eyes.
Braden relented some. He had met Saul’s girlfriend Sabrina. She had been tall and lithe with her long blond hair and big green eyes. Braden could remember thinking that her only flaw was her freckles which made her look younger than she was.
“What the hell happened here? Was there some type of demand, some type of warning?” Braden asked instead.
“When has a day walker EVER needed an excuse to strike out at the hunters,” Saul said so angrily that Braden could almost feel the heat of his temper.
He was hurting but hiding behind the mask of authority he had thrown up to take care if this si
tuation. The phone in his hand hadn’t stopped ringing yet and it looked as if three people were standing to the side waiting for him to take charge once again. They looked to be frightened of Saul and Braden didn’t blame them. The look on his face was all sharp angles and hawk eyes. Braden had seen a hint of this in his friends face when they had been under attack in various skirmishes before, but never to this extent.
“Day walkers capture hunters, torture hunters, eat hunters for supper; they do not waste life this way.”
“Well apparently something has happened to change their minds now hasn’t it?! Now. If you are through tossing people around and exposing your face in public, I have a job to do and by the way, if you could try NOT to do that anymore, por favor. There aren’t going to be anymore clean-up crews for a little while to pick up after your ass if you should mess up again! I need everyone to be on their top game if we are going to make it through this.”
“I want to take her back to Norway,” Braden said giving his friend a break. Braden had better control than to go off halfcocked, but just barely. Someone had hurt his woman and Braden would not stand for it. The mood he was in, Saul’s outburst nearly set him into motion, which would have been bad for everyone.
“You want…” Saul shook his head and took a deep breath. “You want me to uproot Paula and bring her here, acclimate her to a territory she’s never been in, get her acquainted with Alaric to make sure she knows his scent and doesn’t rip his head off on top of all I have to do here? No! You are going to have to suck it up and protect her within the confines of your new territory.”
Saul began to turn away when Braden stepped in front of him and looked him in the eye. The black eyes that were usually filled with so much life and laughter were hallow… soulless. Braden reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry about Hector… about Sabrina.”
Saul shook his hand off and stepped back. “Don’t… they made the choice to be here just like me. We knew the risk of being involved with the hunters. And Sabrina… I should have never allowed myself to get so close to her in the first place. We are not supposed to date each other and now I know why.”