Von and Mason picked a spot to wait far away from the main road, but I was too keyed up to sit with them. Edward and I wandered a few feet deeper, leaving the backpack with them so I could count the trees. I know that sounds lame, but counting was a habit I fell into on the days I went off my meds. It was soothing, and helped organize my brain when everything seemed too out of place. I was a big fan of even numbers, so I counted by twos, ticking off marks on my arm when I hit the next grouping of fifty. I had a thing about groupings. So soothing.
Von’s hand on my shoulder made me jump, so engrossed was I in the counting. “Okay, you have to stop. You’re going to break the skin, and I haven’t eaten anything all day.” His nose wrinkled. “You haven’t eaten in two days. That can’t be good. Mason’s started complaining. What are you going to get on your pizza?”
“You’re making me lose count. Now I have to start over.” I began counting again, jumping by twos and growing more content while giving in to my anxiety. It was an odd little dichotomy. Counting relaxed me for a time, until the scales tipped and I couldn’t stop. I knew I was on what my therapist had called “the path to danger,” but as I was already in danger and had a mini dragon as a pet, I figured one more threat to my sanity couldn’t hurt all that much.
“What are you counting?”
“The trees.”
“You’re joking. Why?”
I rubbed my forehead, losing my place again. “I like to count them. Is that alright?”
Von wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and leaned me to his chest. “Okay. Wow. You’re overloaded with stress. This is… It’s like every time I stop touching you, it starts building up with a vengeance. What are you upset about?”
“I’m not upset. I’m counting.”
Von was quiet while he held me, offering his forearm for me to make little ticks on when I reached the next fifty. His chin rested atop my head as he pulled from me while Edward sniffed by our feet. The outlines of some of the trees in the distance were harder to make out, so I couldn’t be sure I was getting an accurate count unless I touched them.
I needed to touch them. I lifted my foot to move toward the darkness, but made a quick decision and gripped Von’s arm, my panic peaking. “Don’t let me touch the trees,” I whispered, knowing if I started, I would never stop. The obsessive touching was the tipping point where the counting started being a detriment rather than a soothing balm on my splintered brain.
“What?”
“I want to touch them, but you can’t let me. If I start touching them, I won’t be able to stop.”
“Mason! Get your hairy arse over here.” He waited until Mason joined us. “She’s cracked. That medication’s no joke. She needs it now. I’m pulling, but it’s barely making a dent.”
Mason lifted my chin up to look into my eyes, but I barely saw him. All I saw were the trees that needed counting. There was no order to them, and I had to be the one to put them right. “If only they’d been planted in neat little rows. That would be perfect. Twenty rows. Twenty rows by one hundred trees. That would be perfect. Maybe even one hundred twenty trees to a row. No, maybe one hundred forty. That would be perfect.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Mason asked, though he said it like he was pleading a prayer, begging for answers as to why I couldn’t stop counting, and why I sounded like a crazy person.
That’s the thing about love. You don’t want to believe the person you’re kissing could be cracked, but Mason finally understood that part of me was, and might always be.
Mason blocked my view by gripping the back of my head and pressing my face to his chest, but I still saw the trees in my mind’s eye. I counted them there, whispering the numbers and putting them in perfect rows like obedient soldiers who didn’t need to ever step out of line. Mason whispered a pained, “You have to stop, hani. You can’t be broken. I need you strong.”
I was sandwiched between Mason and Von while Edward whined. He whined three times, which was an odd number. I didn’t much care for those.
“Someone’s coming,” Von whispered. “My spidey senses are tingling.”
Not five minutes later, my counting was interrupted by the sound of too many marching feet coming toward us. Then I heard shouts of, “I found them!”
Mason pulled back, his senses on high alert. “Take her deeper into the woods! Run until you don’t hear us anymore.”
“What? No! We can’t split up.” I was scared to leave him to fend off an army.
“It’s done.” Mason pecked my lips, handed me the backpack and sent us off.
Von and I were barefoot and running through the woods with Edward leading the way. Von hissed when a branch broke the skin on my arm, but he seethed through his teeth and we kept up our pace. We didn’t stop for breath. We didn’t stop for anything. I couldn’t count fast enough, and the number of trees started piling up.
That hardly mattered when the soldiers had boots to charge after us with, making far better time than we could in bare feet. With tears in my eyes, I stopped and wrapped the strap of the backpack around Edward’s neck. “Go, Edward! Don’t let them get the stone! Run! Take it to Ezra!”
No sooner had Edward bounded on ahead of us did an arrow sink itself into the back of Von’s thigh. He turned with a yelp that quickly mutated into a hiss. “Run, Peach!” he ordered. Then he lunged at the dozen men who were hot on our heels. He growled like a rabid animal, and I could tell without looking that his fangs were bared as he attacked, taking them down with his best weapon.
I didn’t look to see what was happening; I only knew that three men were still giving chase. Three was an odd number. I didn’t much care for those.
I cried out when I felt a greasy hand grip my shoulder, infesting me with a flood of germs. My shouts stopped when he tackled me to the ground.
Then the numbers stopped.
In fact, just about everything stopped when I hit my head on a rock, and the world went dark.
38
Caged Omen
I awoke to total darkness, and for a second, I was afraid I’d somehow been blinded. I pawed at the ground, feeling concrete beneath me. The ground was freeze-your-bra cold, and the silence was so thick, I could practically feel it on my skin. My joints felt years older than they were as I pushed myself up off the ground, shivering in my filthy t-shirt and shorts.
I took three steps forward and hit my face on iron bars. As my hands felt each bar, the panic built up in me. I was in a cell.
The irony of a prison nurse being locked in a jail cell was not lost on me. I knew of quite a few inmates who would give up their contraband cigarettes for a picture of this. I rattled the cage and shouted, but it did little good.
I heard footsteps, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or petrified. A door creaked open and the slow cackle of a woman’s evil laughter flowed through the room, along with a dozen tiny flapping wings. “This is her? This is the new Omen? She’s barely more useful than Mariang, and that girl’s on her last leg. And you thought we could get along without Sama’s rations. This is why, Langgam. This is why you’re not next in line for the throne.”
Lang’s response was short and clipped, and my heart soared when I heard his voice. It anchored me so I didn’t feel like I was drifting in the sea of dark nothingness. “She’s new still. The numbers are far better since she’s started, Luna. You see our suns are steadier since she was awakened, and the buhay has been growing taller. Be a slave to Sama all you want; I won’t give up like that. Not when there’s hope.”
I wanted to rally at the sound of a familiar voice, but I guessed he was keeping his distance to maintain his spy status to his sister. “What do you jackholes want?” I seethed in the darkness.
“She’s a feisty one,” Luna mused, running her finger over the bar. “Do you want to eat, little Omen?” Her voice was patronizing, like I was a pet.
“I want to go home. Where am I?”
“You’re in the Sakuna underground. This is our kingdom, not yours.” She tu
rned to Lang. “Pretty hair. I can see why you made a fool of yourself trying to get her spared from Sama. But it’s her he wants, so it’s her he’ll get.”
Lang made a noise of disinterest, and I wanted to punch him for it. He was turning out to be a terrible fake fiancé. The door opened again, letting in no light to let me know where Von and Mason were.
“Good evening, Lady October,” came an unfamiliar voice. “I’m King Geon. My eldest son, Prince Aranya, brought you here on my request.”
I said nothing to this. I couldn’t even see the man who was addressing me. I wondered if this wasn’t one of their tactics – keeping me in the dark to break me down. I’d seen what solitary could do to a man.
“You’re unhappy with your lodging? I can’t say I blame you.” Geon sounded almost kind, welcoming me as if I was a houseguest there on my own free will. “My Aranya had to act quickly to capture you. When Langgam reported back that you’d found the sagrado stone, well, I knew I just had to meet you. Tell me, where did you put the stone?”
I debated between spitting in his direction and not answering at all. The debate went on too long, so silence was the thing I stuck with.
The king continued as if we were sitting down to tea. “I expected as much cooperation. After all, Ezra found you first. Probably poisoned you against me. I merely wanted to see the stone, make sure my people got their fair share. You know we’re the first ones the famine affects. When Lady Mariang doesn’t meet her quota for the day, we suffer the most. You can imagine how the sagrado stone might be of interest to me.” He waited for a response, and continued when I offered nothing. “Sama’s promised us many things if we deliver the rest of the stone to him after taking our share.” He leaned forward, and though I couldn’t see him, his pointed snarly speech let me know he was looking right at me. I made sure not to cower. “Make no mistake, child, I will have that stone.”
Again I said nothing, gripping the bars in the utter blackness. I held onto them as if they centered me to the planet, the unending void of darkness sucking at me and making me feel a little off my balance.
Lang spoke up. “Father, Aranya’s men didn’t find the stone on her. We have no idea if she even has it. It’s all still rumor at this point. When I was up there, I didn’t actually see the stone. I reported back what the council discussed, not what I saw with my own eyes.” My ears perked up as Lang fed me details of the new truth. He’d told Ezra that his spies had seen me with the stone in Bev’s trailer, but he’d hidden that gem from his own father. I heard his loyalty ring true, and it was enough to center me while I tried to stay calm. I knew Lang was remaining close so he could help me, but the help didn’t seem to be near enough for me to touch just yet.
“No, but I assume Ezra brought her down here to start splitting up the stone and take it to the nations. Why else would she be in our country? If she has it, she no doubt buried it in the woods Aranya’s men found her hiding in. If we keep her locked up in here for a few months, the stone stays with us.”
“If I’m stuck down here, I can’t reap, and the nations will slowly start to starve again!” I blurted out.
I heard the smile in Geon’s voice. “So you can speak. Good to know your tongue has use. I’ll be sure my men don’t pull it out of your head, then.” He chuckled, and I guessed he could see my horrified expression in the dark, even though I still couldn’t see the details of anything. “You’ll keep us company until we have the stone, or until the countries who didn’t send enough aid to us start to collapse. Sama will be pleased either way. If we give him the rest of the stone, he’ll be happy. If you don’t have the stone and we keep you here so the other nations are starved into taking Sama’s rations, he’ll be thrilled.” A glimmer of bitterness sunk into his voice. “He loves being the one that kings answer to. Necessary evil to feed my people.”
“You’ve got to know I won’t go along with that.”
“I don’t need your compliance. I have my cage.” The smile in his voice was wicked as he flicked his finger to one of the iron bars. “And I have your Duwendes. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own two eyes. Two Duwendes for one little Omen. No doubt that’ll be how all Omens are awakened from now on.”
Panic gripped me around the throat. “Where are they? What have you done to them?”
“My men tell me you’ve been stirring up trouble in our ranks. We lost many in the uprising yesterday. Mason forgets his new place too often for my liking. He could have been welcomed like a king, but he’s chosen to live amongst the dead. Now that he’s your Reaper? I’ll keep him here until my men can knock some sense back into him. They’ve got sturdy clubs for such things. And Von? Well, he’s just good sport. Vampires are an easy mark, especially the stubborn ones who drag out their transition.”
I kept my mouth shut, but I was sure the pounding of my heart was audible.
Five small points of light suddenly glowed in front of me, shedding some much-needed illumination on my surroundings. Upon closer inspection, the lights were fingers, casting dimly upon the brown, round Santa-like face of King Geon, who was almost seven feet tall.
My anger was fresh, but sadness controlled my mouth. “Why? Why are you doing this? You’ll starve people you’ve never even met. You know Mariang can’t keep up with the demand. And giving Sama more power? You’ve got to be smarter than this.”
“You sound like Ezra. I was the first to build a relationship with the Immortal King. I let him come in with his aid when the other countries were turning up their noses at his rations. Before you came along, a few others started begging for his help. I’ll be rewarded for my faithfulness, coming to him and trusting him first.”
I rubbed my temples. “People who want more power rarely share any. Read a book, dumbass.”
Evil Santa chuckled, looking to the snotty woman on his right. “Oh, let me have some fun with her first, father.” Lang’s sister had a pinched nose and tangled brown curly hair down to her waist. She wore gauzy gray wizarding robes and a sneer that looked permanent.
“Let me go,” I seethed.
Santa Geon wore brown pants, a ruffled white pirate-looking shirt and a long red robe that touched the floor. The geometric tattoo that curled along the side of his face was much like Lang’s, and when Luna came closer, I saw she had one, as well. The gold crown on Geon’s head glinted against the darkness, catching on the small pinpricks of light. “Oh, child. How disorganized Ezra must be if he didn’t think to educate you on our kind yet. I care nothing of the nations who didn’t send enough aid while my people slowly starved. Let them burn. I would’ve thought the gem who vanquished the entire race of Goblins in a breath would understand that. Don’t pretend to grow a conscience now. I liked you better when you were utterly ruthless.”
I flinched at the sore spot of my role in the undoing of the Goblin race. Everything in me despised Geon, especially when he laughed at my fuming. I refused to cower, though I was weak, starving and tired. “Why am I in jail? What law did I break?”
Geon tsked me as if I was a petulant child. “Now, now. I have a special guest coming who desperately wants to meet you. His army should be here in a couple days, just as soon as my men can send word after they burn the last of the buhay.” He pulled out a key that was so filthy, I cringed at the state of the pocket it emerged from. He unlocked the door and let himself into my cell, smiling as I glowered. My fists clenched as I readied for a fight. “I’ve assured the kingdom that you will cooperate. I trust no more uprisings will be happening in your name. You’ll stay here until you either give me the stone, or until Sama himself decides the other countries have suffered enough famine. He can do with the stone as he wishes, so long as we get our piece of it.”
I shifted away from him until my back hit the corner of the cage. “I don’t know what sort of negotiation this is, but it’s sucky. Some king you are if you’re locking up fifty percent of your food suppliers. All Sama has to do is stop giving you the rations, and you’re in the same
boat as everyone else. I didn’t bring any stone here, so I can’t wait to see how this all plays out.” I laid my bluff out for him to inspect, my arms crossed over my chest. “Only this time the severe famine won’t be the luck of the draw. It’ll be your fault for locking up an Omen. How well do you think Sama’s going to be able to protect you when word gets around that this famine’s on you? Where’s this almighty bringer of doom now? How far away is his aid? Where was he during the uprising when your own people slaughtered your soldiers? So far this Sama jaggoff seems super helpful,” I added sarcastically. I let out a scoff filled with probably too much attitude. “You’re burning your food in anticipation of rations coming. They’re not actually here, you know. You still need me to be reaping. What if Sama changes his mind? What if one of the nations attacks Sama’s army and steals the rations? Your people will die in days because I’m down here, and the stone isn’t. You’re an idiot.”
Geon’s amused smile mutated to a sneer. In the next beat, he raised his fist and struck out at me, knocking me across the face before he exited the cage. Maybe I would’ve been able to defend myself if I’d had a bit more light to work with. My cheekbone throbbed, and I knew I’d have a shiner in the morning.
I’d made Geon lose his temper, which meant I was winning. I needed him to doubt his plan, to think that I truly had never seen the sagrado stone before.
“I’ll teach you how to speak to a king! Lock her back up until she learns some respect.”
“Fine!” I banged on the bars when Lang secured the iron cell. “Lock me up and let your people die. I can tell you really give a crap about your nation. No wonder you guys are starving. Pride before practicality. It’s how all the great nations fell. Whoever gave you a crown clearly believed in nepotism.”
Geon cringed, turning to me with a livid glare that was lit by his five fingerlights. “Perhaps you don’t care about your own life, the way you throw yourself in front of danger.” He turned to Luna. “Should we bring the disgrace to her? Let her see what we’ve done to her Duwendes?”
Tremble (Terraway Book 2) Page 23