The Sentinel

by C Cato

Ditre had the decency to blush, and Ray buried his face in Elise’s hair. She patted his arm.

  “Explain the hunting thing,” growled Risa.

  “Years ago, the Valkyrie council learned of a serum or weapon that might be used to reverse the damage the plague had caused. They created groups like my own and sent us out on every lead to try and find the hidden Vault.”

  “Did you say Vault?” asked Soren, his head snapping to the woman.

  “Yes. Why? Does that have some significance for you?”

  “Shit!” said Risa, jumping to her feet. “It really is a fucking journal! Celene had told us about some sacred book.”

  Cole crossed his arms, rubbing his chin. “It would explain a lot. But it’s not a surprise. We’d already guessed as much from what Celene said.”

  “Cole?” asked Ray.

  “The man that created us—and I use that term loosely—wrote journals. To an outsider they were basic ramblings about his work. I can’t believe he would have spoken about the Vault.”

  “Do you think it’s a real journal, then?” asked Ditre. “One that didn’t get destroyed?”

  “Could be. We can’t assume anything with that man at this point.”

  “Do you think he sold us out?” asked Soren, who’d gotten up to pace.

  “It doesn’t help us to speculate,” said Ditre. “Ren, sit down. You’re just working yourself up.”

  “Yeah, well I think I’m fucking justified. We just found out these murderous women are looking for us because they have some intel, we don’t know a thing about!”

  “Ren!” bellowed Cole. “Sit down!”

  He sat hard with a huff.

  Everyone laughed, and more of the tension eased away.

  “Do you think you would know where to find the journal?” Risa asked Tessa

  “Mother Superior most likely has it. She is the head of the Valkyrie.”

  “What about the council you mentioned?”

  “They are more show than substance now.”

  “Cole, we need to go to the city. Sonya’s there, and we need to recover her and the journal.”

  “Agreed, but what about Keet? Will there be more like him in the city? He found us pretty easy.”

  “Keet?” choked Ray.

  Cole watched the gorgeous man closely, torn between jealousy and genuine worry. “Do you know him? Celene had said he is one of the Ghost People.”

  “You spoke with him?” Ray asked, in a whisper.

  “Yes. Sort of. He spoke to Sonya more.”

  “How did they… where was he… was he okay?” Emotions scrolled across Ray’s face like an old movie reel. Anger, pain, longing, regret, and more that were there and gone too fast to name. How did he know Keet? He wasn’t sure he was ready to know. “Was he alone?” Ray struggled to compose himself.

  “Yes, but he said there were others.”

  “Tessa,” said Ray, carefully lifting a now sleeping Elise and handing her over to Cole like he’d done it a thousand times. “We’ll need to tell them. It may not be too late. Why the hell are they here?”

  This time, Ray did the pacing. Cole caught his hand and ignored the heat that spread from the contact. He was a good-looking man, but Cole had his hands full with the two people he wanted in his life in the hands of the Valkyrie. “We can help.”

  Ray returned the hold and squeezed Cole’s fingers before letting go. “Good. We’ll need to go north. Keet and his people don’t venture past the Barrier. There had to be a reason they put themselves in a vulnerable position. I’ll need you to come and give witness to what you saw. I may not be very… welcome there.”

  “They were using them as trackers?” asked Tessa.

  “Yes. Keet said that Sonya was his mate, and that I was his mate-brother.”

  Ray stopped in his tracks, turning to fully face Cole. “When you separated, how did you feel?”

  “Like part of my soul was ripped away.”

  “How is that possible?” he said. Cole didn’t think the question directed at him.

  Ray visibly shook himself and turned back to Tessa. “We need to go north in the morning.”

  She shrugged and reclined on her back, her head in Dallas’ lap.

  Cole envied her ability to take this in stride. She yawned.

  “We can’t go with you, Ray. You’ll blow our cover. We have to get back to the city and report.”

  “I’m going with you,” said Risa. There was a finality to her tone. No one argued with her. Cole knew better than to tell her what to do. She could kill him twelve ways with her little pinky…and she’d smile while doing it.

  “We have a couple of problems,” said Soren, gaining everyone’s attention. “One, we can’t take the little munchkin all over hell and back. It’s not healthy for her, and second. What’s your power level, Sarge?”

  Cole had forgotten all about that. He called up the basic stats of his Halo.

  Power: 32%

  “I’m at thirty-two percent. Not great.”

  “I’m about the same,” said Soren.

  “Twenty-one for me,” chimed in Risa.

  “Fifty-six,” beamed Ditre. “Does that mean I won?”

  “Don’t make me throw something at you,” warned Risa.

  “What does this mean?” asked Ray.

  “It means we need to go back to our base as soon as possible. If we drop below five percent, we’re in trouble,” said Cole.

  “Then what happens?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “The theory is that the computers in our brains would reset once power was restored, but the systems were still a work in progress when we agreed to take them. The few that I saw that were drained to conservation mode didn’t fare well,” said Soren. He’d drawn up his legs to cross them.

  “What happened?” Several people asked at once.

  “The Halo failed to reboot. Once Ian did get a reboot, but it wiped all the files. It had some glitches that’s for sure.”

  “Then by all means, let’s get you to your base,” said Ray. “Once you are all charged again, we can make plans for what to do next.”

  Everyone agreed on the next course of action, and Cole laid out the cloak he still had on the ground. He curled up next to Elise and stroked her hair, hoping he would be able to keep her safer than he had Sonya. His eyes began to droop, and the last thing he remembered was Ray draping another cloak over them both.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sonya

  Sonya’s extremities screamed with agony. One giant throb of pain. The bolts weighed her arms down, the chains clinking with every movement. Arms shifted beneath her, holding her close, and she forced her eyes to open, only to drown in a sea of endless black.

  “Keet?” Her voice was raw, a strained whisper, her head in his lap.

  “Not out loud, my mate. They don’t know we can communicate and for now, we think that is for the best.”

  “We?”

  “Keet, how rude of you,” said an amused female voice.

  Sonya shifted her head to gaze at a hauntingly beautiful woman. Little light filtered under the canvas canopy that covered them, but it was enough to see without enhanced vision. Skin as white as milk had trace veins visible just beneath. They were as black as her eyes. Hair braided into an impossible decorative tangle on top of her head, and flowed over her shoulder down to her waist, partly covering the short, plain, white linen dress she wore. She sat with her hands between her knees, and Sonya caught the flash of metal around her wrists. A chain attached to the collar she wore and a bar behind her, limiting mobility.

  “I’m Lafa,” she said, and then indicated another man with her chin. “This is Talic, Keet’s mate-brother. Your second mate.”

  “Third,” argued Keet.

  Lafa smiled, but Sonya no longer paid attention to them. Talic had captured her attention. He and Keet could have been twins. They were the same in build and probably in height, although she couldn’t tell from where she was laying. Color bled aw
ay on his arms from dark at his hands to light. On his left it ended below his elbow and on his right on his bicep. Like Keet he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the veins that decorated Lafa’s face, were visible on his chest and arms too. But it was his eyes, his obsidian gaze that captured her soul. Etched on his face was a longing so deep, it made her chest ache. Chained like Lafa, he couldn’t move from his seat. The muscles in his arms strained and bulged in his attempts to pull free.

  Instinctively, she reached for him and moaned as agony brought her nerve endings to life.

  “Don’t move, Nuse’a. You’ll only make the wounds worse,” pleaded Keet.

  “Take them out,” she begged. “I can heal.”

  Lafa perked up. “Oh? Rapid healing, too? At what rate?”

  “Haven’t had a lot of time to analyze it, but small injuries take a couple of hours and something like a severed limb, a day or so.” Sonya tried to assess the damage to her body but couldn’t lift her head high enough. “These won’t take long.”

  “You’ve sustained severe damage before?”

  “Yes. Partially severed fifth metacarpal and multiple fractures. It took a day to fix everything, but I was healed enough to function in a few hours.”

  Lafa licked her lips, the tip of her tongue as black as her eyes. “Keet tried to remove one, but there is a clawed clamp on one side. The bolt can’t be pulled out. There appears to be a release, but alas.” She raised her hands enough that Sonya could see the same deadly talons as Keet had. “Our hands are not made for finer work.”

  Sighing in resignation, she tried to swallow and moisten her dry throat. “My body must be trying to protect me, since it can’t heal me. How long have I been unconscious?”

  “Four days. You are a doctor?” asked Talic, his voice a low rumble in her head. Like a distant roll of thunder. A shudder passed through her, but this time not from pain.

  Keet shook against her. “He has that effect on me, too.”

  Talons gently scratched her scalp. Each stroke creating a conflict of pleasure and pain in her body.

  “Keet! Iyai use’a ras ussaze’as!”

  His hand fell away, and Sonya immediately missed his touch. What had Lafa said? Closing her eyes, she pushed it all down. The lust these men created in her, the irritation of the bolts peppering her body, even her curiosity.

  “Yes,” she said, once she’d regained some composure. “I’m a doctor.”

  A grin stretched across her beautiful face, revealing sharp canines. Elise had been thrilled too when they’d fished her out of the river. Were physicians so rare now?

  The mild swaying of the wagon, stopped, and raised voices came from the other side of the canvas. The flap opened, allowing sunlight to fully stream inside, silhouetting the figure standing there. A soft breeze brushed her wounds, cooling the heat around them, but making her acutely aware of the burn the bolts caused inside her body. She bit her bottom lip, swallowing back a moan.

  “Stand her up!”

  Sonya wasn’t sure if the order was for Keet or not, but he made no move to do as she said. Instead, a trio of growls erupted from the throats of her three companions. They quickly turned to whimpers and Keet tightened everywhere. The muscles in his abdomen convulsed against her cheek.

  “Keet! What is it?”

  Someone grabbed Sonya’s feet and dragged her from Keet’s lap to the floor, bumping her head. She screamed as the bolts dragged and ripped open her wounds again. Dazed, she fought to stay conscious as she fell heavily to the ground.

  Sonya lifted her head enough to see the gray-haired woman halt a horse next to the wagon. She watched Sonya with pure malice, lip curled up and eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. The Sentinels had not made friends among the Valkyrie. Yanked to her feet, her legs wouldn’t support her weight. Flanked on both sides, the women had to support her beneath her armpits to stay upright.

  Willow closed the space between them, with a swagger that spoke of confidence. Sonya had to tilt her head down to maintain eye contact. She was taller than everyone.

  “We wouldn’t want to risk infection for Mother Superior’s greatest prize, so we are going to remove the chains and put a collar on you. Try anything and those others will pay the price. You will not murder more of my women today.”

  Her pulse increased. “Murder?” Sonya croaked. She needed some water.

  The General backhanded her across the face with a resounding crack. “Yes, you bitch! Murder! Pull the bolts and tie her securely. I’ll have you both sent to the auction block if she gets away.”

  They needn’t have worried. Even if she’d been completely healed, she needed to conserve energy as much as possible. The warning about running low on power, was ever-present in the back of her mind. If she ran out of juice before Cole and the others got to her, that would be the end. Maybe. They just didn’t know enough about the devices in their heads for her to speculate. Sonya did know if the power went out, she would be in trouble. She should’ve warned Cole and the others about the relationship between the synth cells and the nanobots. She vowed to herself that she would as soon as she saw them again.

  When one of the women at her side grabbed the bolt in her thigh, Sonya clenched her teeth and inhaled hard through her nose, trying to force herself to relax. It still didn’t prepare her for the searing pain of having it ripped out. Each bolt was a foot in length with barbed tips. The chain was removed, and her tormentor twisted the end of the bolt, while pulling. Sonya grit her teeth. The claws retracted, but small barbs tore her all over again. Each one was yanked out until Sonya was a quivering mass of suffering. As soon as the barbs were gone, her body began to repair itself, and the pain subsided.

  Another Valkyrie produced manacles like the ones Keet, and the others wore and locked her wrists together.

  The bloody work done, Willow stepped in front of her again, this time with a metal collar. If Willow believed that was all it would take to subdue her, she didn’t want anything to do with it. Sonya began to struggle.

  “Hold her!” hissed Willow.

  The women restraining her, dragged her to her knees. Belatedly, Sonya realized she could have powered up and overcome them. Then the collar snapped around her neck.

  The Valkyrie let her go, and Sonya wearily glared at Willow.

  “Just a little demonstration. Want you to understand the situation. We will have a few more weeks on the road together and I don’t need any trouble from you.” Willow took four large steps backward and produced a small device that resembled like a small car key fob. She pushed a button and Sonya was glad she was on her knees.

  Compared to this, the bolts had been a mild tickle. Liquid fire coursed through her veins and every muscle seized. Her throat burned, as she screamed.

  As suddenly as it had started, the pain stopped.

  Sonya fell forward on her hands and knees and heaved the contents of her stomach. Shaking with reaction.

  “What reason do you have for hating me so much?” she moaned.

  “What reason?” Willow growled. “Eighty-one! That’s the number of worthy women that have died to retrieve you over the last few weeks, and for what? A solution! That was our hope, what we searched for. Not a weak woman. You are not worth the lives of my Valkyrie!”

  Sonya allowed power to build with her anger, knowing the glow was menacing, and rose to her feet. She spoke so quietly the General had to lean forward. “A small price to pay for the five beautiful people you murdered.”

  Willow raised her hand high and brought it down with whistling speed. Sonya braced herself, proud she didn’t flinch.

  “I’ll see you dead, bitch!” the General growled.

  “Bring it,” said Sonya, taunting the woman further.

  “Put her back in the wagon with the other freaks. Chain her down like the rest. We’ll make camp in a couple of hours.” Willow gave more orders and then turned on her heel, dismissing Sonya as though beneath her notice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sonya

/>   The ride for the next couple of hours was far more comfortable than before. Without the bolts, Sonya was able to sit up. Chains tied her by the neck to the bar behind her and to the floor at her wrists. Keet was next to her, but not close enough to touch. That was its own agony.

  At a guess, they had left the Pacific Northwest region and were moving closer to California, since the air had grown warmer. Without any cities or famous landmarks, it was hard to tell.

  Roughly removed from the wagon by midday, Sonya was allowed to relieve herself. Then returned to her place with the others. Valkyrie set up camp while the four of them remained chained to their seats.

  “This isn’t going to be comfortable if they keep us this way for the whole trip,” said Sonya.

  “You’re welcome to lodge a complaint,” said Lafa, a twinkle in her dark eyes.

  She smiled. Nothing appeared to deter Lafa’s sense of humor. The levity helped to keep her panic at bay.

  Noise outside the wagon died down, and eventually, the flap opened, a Valkyrie hopping in to feed them. Dinner consisted of some bland biscuit that was almost too hard to bite into and water.

  From outside of their makeshift prison, an orange glow lit up the canvas. Feminine voices laughed and shouted at each other from across the camp. Sonya checked to see if there were any guards and didn’t see bodies silhouetted. Powering up, she strained against the heavy metal cuffs on her wrists until the metal groaned.

  Chains rattled beside her. “Stop mate! That General always seems to know when we are trying to break the chains. We suspect she has someone close to listen, or she has planted a listening device in the wagon,” begged Keet.

  Too late, the damage done. Canvas flew aside, revealing General Willow holding something in her hand. Sonya arched her back as her collar fired up every nerve ending in her body. Her muscles locked and the only sound was the relentless pounding blood that pulsed in her head.

  When it stopped, she collapsed sideways, toward Keet. The chain on her wrists and restraint on her neck kept her from going far. A whimper accompanied every intake of air. And she wasn’t alone. The General had punished all of them.