The Gatherer Series, Book 1

by Colleen Winter

  Maria held her ground, prepared to do what she needed to protect Storm but the woman went to Daniel first, looking down dispassionately at his exposed frailty.

  There was a faint sigh, the first expression of emotion Maria had heard from the woman, though it was irritation not sadness that she communicated. Maria would have stepped forward to keep her away from him if it hadn’t meant leaving Storm.

  Dorian leaned over, circled a fist around the cross that rested in his clavicle and yanked it off his neck. She lifted his right hand and pulled the small metal ring off his pinky. Maria had to swallow against the revulsion and fury that welled up together in a toxic wave. Dorian slipped the jewellery into her pocket and patted it twice.

  “Put them back.”

  Her throat ached with the effort not to shout.

  Dorian turned, grinning a lifeless smile.

  “Spoils of War.”

  It happened fast, Maria stepping forward to force Dorian to give back Daniel’s remaining possessions and the flash of a knife from Dorian’s pocket. Maria acted by instinct, jamming the heel of her hand into Dorian’s throat and smashing the hand holding the knife against the wall, as she shoved the soft, toneless body against the wall.

  Dorian slumped down the wall, eyes wide in panic, hands clasping her throat as she gasped for air. The guard barged in, and in the few seconds it took him to adjust to the dimness, Maria struck him in the solar plexus and knocked him on the back of the head. Maria felt the impact of him hitting the floor as she leapt to catch the door before it latched.

  Wild, throbbing pain pulsed in her leg as she balanced on one foot and stretched, one hand on the door, to grasp for the back of a chair. Her fingers just reached and she had enough leverage to tilt it back until it fell to the floor. She dragged it across the floor, and after checking the corridor was empty, wedged its leg in the door.

  Dorian was wheezing against the wall, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to call for help. Maria yanked the cord off the projector screen and tied Dorian’s hands behind her back, being intentionally rough with her so that the woman protested with a wordless moan. If there had been more time she would have really hurt the woman.

  Apologizing to Daniel as she did so, she peeled one of the socks from his foot. It was old, worn and hadn’t been washed in a long time. She rolled it into a ball and kneeled before Dorian. At first the woman turned her head, keeping her lips pressed together, but after a few well-placed points of pressure Maria stuffed the sock into her mouth. Dorian gagged, and Maria waited to make sure it was only from disgust before yanking her to her feet and pushing her down to sitting where she could tie the other end of the cord to the table leg. When she was secure, Maria dug the cross and ring from Dorian’s pocket and slipped it into hers.

  Under muffled protests from Dorian, she dumped the content of the medical bag onto the carpet, grabbing pill bottles, syringes, and small bottles of liquid, anything that might be useful. She swallowed two pain killers dry, and took a third for good measure. She gagged on the bitter residue as she checked the hall again. There were voices from the offices, people moving past the open door to the warehouse, no one yet concerned the guard had left his post.

  Storm lay quiet, her skin translucent and pale, the tiny blue veins visible at her temple. Bracing against the pain, Maria sat Storm up, crouched down, and draped Storm across her shoulder. She gasped and grunted before she stood at full height. The first step was agony, the second worse, no adjustment of weight making any difference.

  She hobbled, under Dorian’s baleful glare, taking strength in having Storm close to her again and glad to be moving.

  One of the hunters was in the corridor walking in the other direction. As soon as he disappeared into the warehouse, and before she could think, she latched the door behind her and crossed the few steps to an adjacent hallway. It was darker in the short passageway, the bulk of a water cooler narrowing the path so that Storm’s arm dragged against it as they passed the two doors of darkened bathrooms.

  She paused at the second door to the warehouse, trying futilely to rise above the pain. It rose and twisted up her leg like the flames of a raging fire. The start of the aisles was ten, maybe fifteen strides away. She shifted Storm’s weight, her arms locked around the back of her knees. A row of loaded skids lay between them.

  “It’s happening faster than we thought.”

  The man’s voice echoed from the main corridor, a second voice responding.

  “There will be more troops.”

  She yanked open the door, her leg threatening to buckle with each step to shelter behind a mound of full burlap sacks. Storm blocked her view on one side as she waited for sounds of pursuit. The noise was concentrated at the far end of the warehouse, where Maria had been before. Someone was speaking, with punctuated responses from a crowd.

  She half-ran, half-hobbled to the closest opening in the stacks, ecstatic and astonished she had made it this far. It was dim and cool between the stacks, the sounds from the front warehouse muted. She tasted earth and rot on her tongue, the smell of it crowding her senses.

  The aisle extended deep into the warehouse, its far reaches completely in darkness, twenty times the distance she had already come.

  She settled into the excruciating rhythm, able only to put one foot in front of the next and letting go of the responsibility of not being seen to whomever or whatever had gotten them this far. They had just passed a halted forklift, its two-pronged lift flat to the ground, when Storm moaned. A faint scream, from a long way under, of the pain and panic Maria was causing her.

  Five more paces and Storm had started to squirm, pushing weakly against Maria’s back to lift her torso. Maria staggered under the shifting weight, grabbing hold of a stack for support.

  “Keep still!”

  Her words were a strangled whisper. Storm refused to calm, struggling against Maria, her movements increasingly manic as she tried to free herself. A strong sudden lurch and Maria’s leg gave out, her arm pulling on her socket where she tried to hold the shelf. There was agony in her knees as she hit the floor. Storm’s weight pushed her down further, her face against the cold dirt and concrete. Storm rolled off her, the blanket twisted around her.

  Maria rose to her hands. Storm had covered her eyes with her hand, a turtle tucked into its shell hoping the world would go away.

  “What can I do?”

  Storm lowered her hand, looking up at Maria with bloodshot, infinitely pained eyes. The blue was darker than Maria had ever seen, the darkness not far in the distance.

  There was the sound of feet running several aisles over. The shelves were too stocked full for Maria to see who ran. She waited, barely breathing, as the footsteps came parallel to them, and kept going. She leaned over Storm, preparing herself for the weight and pain. Storm laid her hand on Maria’s forearm, long, white fingers, the touch so light it was almost not there.

  “Don’t,” Storm whispered.

  “You’ve been exposed too much already.”

  Storm’s eyes closed, her chest slowly rising and falling as if they weren’t about to be found at any moment.

  “You need to find Ari.”

  Maria threaded her forearm beneath Storm’s knees, preparing to lift her.

  “I have to get you out of here.”

  Storm grabbed Maria before she could gather in her shoulders. The grip was harder.

  “He’s at the headquarters. Daniel says he’s alive.”

  There was a rise of energy again with her insistence, though less this time, leaving her more depleted when it left.

  “How does he know?”

  The barest shake of her head came as her eyes closed, an assumption that her belief in Daniel would be enough for Maria. The muscles across Maria’s chest and arms engaged, wanting to pick Storm up and pull her back from wherever she was going. Yet she didn’t touch her, c
ouldn’t cause her more pain.

  There were more footsteps and Maria was forced to carry Storm two steps into an open section of shelf. She laid her down as quickly as she could. Storm’s eyes were wide with shock and pain, arms braced at her sides to ward off more attacks.

  “It will take them longer to find you here.”

  Maria pulled a skewed edge of the blanket across Storm’s knees. Not that it would do any good.

  “There are imperfections in the lattice.”

  Maria looked into the shelves above, touching the rough sacks of grain beside them. There was nothing that would protect Storm.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Storm lay back, her head next to the shrivelled remains of a fallen cabbage leaf.

  “I heard you.”

  The sounds came of people being marshalled at the front end of the stacks. A crowd had formed, each person being assigned an aisle.

  Maria wiped the leaf away from Storm’s head. It had been the same with Havernal, his weakness a detriment to what they needed to get done, his determination no less than Storm’s. The expectation of it gathered on her shoulders, that she would be the one to keep going and they would travel with her.

  She laid her palm gently on Storm’s forehead. Her eyes opened.

  “I have to go.”

  Storm nodded, her gaze hauntingly clear in its understanding. Maria wanted to find hope in the wisdom it held, yet pain clouded it, always threatening in the distance.

  “You’ll find him?”

  Every part of Maria was rebelling against this. You didn’t leave people behind unless you knew help was coming. And the footsteps that were echoing around them wouldn’t be help.

  “I will.”

  Something went out of Storm at Maria’s promise, whatever strength she had been clinging to slipping away. Maria straightened the blanket a final time, fighting the overpowering need to stay.

  A figure was outlined at the head of the aisle, backlit by the lighter area at the front. A woman, though it was hard to tell at this distance. Maria crawled through the shelf. In the next aisle another person stood at the head. She climbed through an opening in the shelf above her, up onto the second level. She could just see Storm through the slatted shelves, her eyes already closed, her cheek turned into the floor. Maria fought the renewed need to go back to her.

  She wound her way around empty crates, reeking of old produce, and canisters of unknown liquids. She moved continually higher so that eventually she was six shelves up, moving through empty slots where the air was warmer and the emptiness of the rafters was above her, the distance between her and Storm stretching and attenuating like a rubber band that would pull her back.

  A line of searchers had spread into the stacks, moving slowly, checking the shelves as they went. When they had almost reached Storm, Maria climbed lower, waiting for the moment of discovery before she risked crossing the aisle.

  The shout came when she had reached the second shelf, and as people abandoned their searches and ran, Maria jumped to the floor, landing carefully on her good foot, the jolt sending partially muted sparks of pain into her leg. She crossed one aisle, two, and reached the final aisle before the end wall. It was wider, with space enough for two forklifts to pass. A current of fresher air flowed along the empty path. At the far end, away from the commotion of the searchers arguing, the red letters of an exit sign glowed above a steel door.

  She stepped into the aisle. It would take the searchers a few minutes to regroup, now that they had Storm. Maria tried not to think about their ignorance and the lack of regard they would show her. She walked quickly, without a limp, a fleeing individual more likely to attract attention.

  The warehouse rushed in on her, loud and clear, every movement of air, call of a voice, or sound of dirt scuffing on concrete registering and logged into her wide-open senses. She imagined she could hear Storm’s cries of protest, the absence of them even worse. The letters on the exit grew larger, the red outlines burned into her retina, even as she scanned the aisle ahead, the shelves above, and marked each column that she passed. She allowed herself to look behind her once, then twice, each time expecting to see someone in pursuit or a running body about to tackle her.

  Her pace increased to a jog by the end of the stacks, a full run the final steps to the door. She tried to block out the image of Storm lying in the shelf, crumpled like a discarded wrapper, the agony she would endure as they pulled her out. The need to go back to her was almost unbearable, a tearing at whatever had connected them opening a wound in her back like the exit hole of a bullet.

  Her hands touched the cool metal of the push bar. There were no wires attached to the door to set off an alarm. She looked one final time behind her. The aisle was clear and long, the layer of dirt on the concrete still, the space as empty as anything Maria had ever seen. The release bar clunked and the latch released.

  She felt the sharp, fresh touch of cold air and embraced the wide-open space of the sky. It was late afternoon, almost dusk, the glow of the sun receding behind a stance of trees less than the width of a highway away. The door shut. She paused as if it had cut the final tether that had held her to Storm and she was now freefalling away from her. She held tight onto the metal bar of the door handle, the sweat on her palms delivering the coldness straight into her skin.

  With a force of will beyond thought, she released her hand. One step, two. She reached the edge of the tarmac and was running by her first steps through the long grass. The pain in her leg had shrunk, the cool air returning it to its source, and for the first time since the explosion, she felt a gathering of strength in her limbs. In twenty paces she reached the woods, not slowing as she ducked into the deeper darkness of their shelter. She stayed looking forward, the branches scraping across her face and hands, attuned to the distance between her and the warehouse.

  The trees didn’t last long and soon she was crossing a rough field, slowing to navigate the dips and hollows obscured by the tangled grass. An unbroken space of darkening sky stretched above her, the peaks of the mountains that overlooked Rima visible in the distance. For a moment, she faltered, consumed by the urge to turn around.

  A barnyard light turned on in the distance, a point of focused light against the yellow backdrop of the setting sun. The dusk had deepened enough to make her hard to see, though anyone looking for her would still find her.

  At a road paved in broken asphalt, she turned away from the barnyard and its light. She stepped lighter than she had in weeks, revelling at the ease of moving alone, her body adjusting around the information Storm had given her. Her mission was clear. She experienced the same certainty she had when she’d pressed the throttle on the train and felt the power of it move through her.

  She almost didn’t see the car in the dusk, its running lights off, the evening well past the point where headlights were necessary. She dropped into the ditch and crawled through the soaked decaying bottom, up the other side and into the shelter of the grasses. The dead stalks cracked under her hands, the sharper ones digging into her knees. As the car slid past, its windows dark, it slowed. She flattened to her stomach, her heart beating slow and steady against the ground. The dark shape coasted past the empty barnyard and blended into the horizon.

  The first stars were pushing into the fading sky, bits of infinite energy from a distance that would take several lifetimes to travel. She rose to her feet, testing the strength in her leg, and on a diagonal made her way back to the road.

  The city glowed to the north. She turned towards it, aware now of silent cars and the people that searched for her. Already the night was colder with an edge to it, her only comfort coming from the knowledge Storm had given her.

  She turned back once, noting the place where she had emerged from the trees, remembering the layout of the outbuildings of the farm and the curve of the hill behind them. When she faced forward, the darkness was al
most complete and the light of the city beyond brighter for it.

  About the Author

  Colleen Winter is a science-fiction junkie and uses her electrical engineering degree to create stories that walk the line between what is real and what is possible. In a previous life she worked as a journalist and now is a communications consultant in the Ontario electrical industry. She lives near Toronto, Canada, and spends as much time as she can hiking the beautiful places of the world with her family and her dog.