Jason and I stopped at the threshold and I debated running back the other way, but the only way to the surface was through that stairwell.
Garrett Devereaux stepped into the center of the common room. In an instant, Jason was in front of me, one arm sweeping me behind him in a protective stance.
“Keep your power in check, Miss Rivera. I don’t want to have to shoot you,” Devereaux warned. His expression was one of disappointment and seriousness. I didn't have to feel him to know we were in serious danger. "I want to apologize for the way this went down. It was not my intention that anyone get hurt."
"Hurt? You killed people, whether you intended to or not," Jason said through gritted teeth, clenched too tightly. I felt his anger flare in my blood, hot and venomous.
"And I apologized," Devereaux said defensively. "I'm also sorry for everything you're going to have to endure from here on out. I'll try to make things as comfortable for you as possible, but you know the nature of these experiments as well as I do."
Jason moved forward, and Devereaux held out his hand. The soldiers moved toward us, guns still poised to shoot.
"I know you're going to want to fight me on this, Champ," Devereaux began with an air of regret. He was in our heads. He knew Jason was never going to give up without a fight. "There is no way out of this. We are going to take you both. Whether you come willingly or in a body bag, is your decision. Like I said, I don't intend to hurt anyone, but I will do what needs to be done."
Jason stared back at Devereaux, tension building in his muscles. I felt Jason's urge to charge him.
"Have it your way," Devereaux said with a sigh. He flicked his hand in the air and turned back to the staircase that led up to the museum.
Once Devereaux was clear, the soldiers surrounded us on all sides. Jason pulled me closer to him and did what he could to shield me from them. I grabbed hold of them with my mind, but didn't dare make a move until I had to.
"On the ground," The lead soldier demanded.
Jason lowered himself to his knees and guided me down with him. Two of the men came at our backs. Just as they knelt down to secure our wrists, Jason made his move. He threw his head back, catching one of the soldiers in the nose.
Blood spurted out and spilled across the floor as the soldier fell backward and Jason flew to his feet again. He pulled me up in one fluid motion and hurled me into the dining hall. I slid across the floor and out of the line of fire.
"Get down!" Jason yelled back to me.
The soldiers piled on top of him. They jammed electric rods into his neck, sides and back. Jason threw them off with a violent roar. He was right about the conditioning. I could feel the electricity crippling me, but Jason looked as if he could hardly feel it.
The soldiers came to their feet again and rushed him. One grabbed him by the head while another continued to jab the electric rod into his ribs. I felt it burning into my sides. My power spluttered out of me, shaking the tables and chairs in the dining hall. I grabbed a hold of a table with my mind and flung it at them. It slammed into two of them and pinned them against the wall. I felt their bodies go slack and their mind's drift out of consciousness.
"Secure the female!" The lead soldier called out and two men advanced on me, while the others charged Jason again.
Jason grabbed the leader’s head, violently wrenching it to one side. I heard the slingshot snap of vertebrae separating and felt a sharp pain burst in my neck and shoot through every nerve in my body. It only lasted a moment, but it was all consuming. Tears bled out of me and my body was still shaking long after the soldier slumped to the floor, dead.
Jason kicked another soldier off of him and went for the third. The soldier crawled backward, continuing to press the trigger that flooded Jason with electricity, but he was unaffected. Pure adrenaline, anger and determination pushed him forward. The soldier's fear sang in my blood. My shaking limbs echoed his, but I knew it would be over soon. Jason reached for him, lifting him into the air by his collar. The rod fell from his fingers.
I pulled myself up and focused on the men that advanced toward me. I tried to hold them back with my mind, but my telekinetic grip kept slipping. They came at me as if they were wading through water, slowly making headway. The ground around me began to rumble and roll as my sift escaped me in near seismic bursts.
I heard the sharp popping of gunfire echo through the facility.
I felt the bullets pierce my skin and explode inside of my chest. Every muscle in my body clenched, and the air left my lungs. I looked down at my body; prepared to see the blood I felt leaking out of me, slow and warm over my skin. But there was nothing. I ran my fingers over my chest, ribs and stomach where I still felt the paralyzing sting of the open wounds.
Nothing.
I looked beyond the advancing soldiers and saw Jason standing with his arm raised, his fist still clenched tightly around the throat of the soldier that had tazed him. Jason had crushed his neck so badly that his head lolled to one side and looked as if it were going to fall off of his shoulders. The soldier's hands fell limp at his sides and a gun fell to the floor.
Jason threw the soldier's body aside and came to my aid. When he turned toward me, I saw the blood spreading over his shirt in the three places I felt the bullets enter. He fell to one knee, struggling to hold himself up to get to me.
My telekinesis swelled inside me and exploded outward in a vicious wave that sent the last two men flying backward. They slammed into the back wall, and I felt a sharp pain in my spine and neck before they fell to the ground. They didn't move again.
I ran to Jason.
Jason grunted, turned and swayed heavily. His face was pale and feverish. His eyes looked lost. I pressed my shaking hands over the wounds, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but I could feel the pressure leaking between my fingertips. I reached for my power to try to put up a mental wall and stop the bleeding, but it wasn't going to be good enough. He'd already lost so much blood.
“Liv, don’t,” Jason groaned. He tried to pry my fingers away from him but his hands were too slippery with blood, and he was too weak to move me. “You need to go.” Jason’s chest rose and fell in shuddering waves.
“You need to get up. We need to go. Come on.” I got my feet under me and started to try to stand, hooking my arms under his to pull him up. I almost managed to get him up when the ground beneath us suddenly lurched and shuddered, throwing us back to the ground. I heard the echoing aftermath of an explosion. Devereaux had started the emergency protocol.
"That was the White Corridor," Jason coughed out weakly. "You have to get to the stairwell before the Black Corridor goes." He looked up at me with blue eyes that no longer seemed vibrant. They were washed-out and tired, but there was still a tiny spark there.
He coughed and his lower lip was suddenly red with blood. My heart twisted in my chest.
“Not without you.” I threw his arm over my shoulder and slipped mine around his waist, compelling him to lean the bulk of his weight against me. My muscles trembled dangerously and threatened to give out on me, but by sheer will I stayed upright. I gathered what I could of my power in my core and focused it on Jason, keeping him upright with me.
Jeri had told us the common room and the stairwell would be the last to go if the emergency protocol was activated. Water began flooding into the common room from the White Corridor and sloshed around our feet, getting higher by the minute.
“We’re almost there,” I said breathlessly, trying to keep him moving. I could feel him starting to disconnect.
When we finally got to the stairwell, he leaned back against the wall and shook his head, refusing to move any further. His breathing turned shallow and could feel the way his heart was fluttering.
“I’m sorry, Liv,” he murmured, putting his hand on mine as I tried in vain to pull him to his feet. He took both of my hands in his.
“Don't do this, Jason!” I said hastily, almost angrily. My chest tightened painfully.
“Listen
to me—”
“I’ll listen to you when you get up, so get up, okay?”
“Liv,” he said softly, the quietness in his voice catching my attention. The pain of his wounds was gone, and numbness crept through my body. Tears welled in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks, joining the salt water that had found its way to my shoulders, as I sank to my knees. I held onto Jason’s hands fiercely. I felt his thumbs sweeping idly back and forth against my knuckles.
He was giving up on me.
“Liv, you have to go. I can’t,” he said, opening his eyes slowly. His lids looked heavy, hanging low over his eyes.
“No. I won’t leave you. You can do this, Jason. You’re the strongest person I know. It’s only a few more steps. Please?”
“I can’t. I’m sorry…” His eyelids began to sink a little more, the movement of his thumbs against my skin slowing. I felt him flicker inside, a hiccup passing through his emotions. I held on even tighter.
His eyes closed completely.
“Jason!” I screamed at him, my tears blinding me. A tiny wave rippled through the water and crashed against my backside, pushing me, but I did not fall.
Jason stirred only a little, his eyes opening a tiny bit. He let go of one of my hands to reach up and touch my face, his freezing fingertips tracing the curve of my cheek. I felt him tuck away a wet strand of hair like he’d done a million times before.
This time, it was different.
This time, it was a goodbye.
“I love you, Liv.”
I grabbed his hand in mine, cupping his palm to my cheek. His eyes closed again.
“Please, Jason? Don’t,” I whispered.
"I'm sorry." Jason's hand loosened in mine. His arm became heavy and his hand dropped away from my face. I felt something leave him like a sigh, and suddenly, he wasn’t there anymore. I couldn’t feel him anymore, couldn’t sense the rhythm of his heartbeat ticking along with mine.
“Jason?” I put my arms around him and leaned my forehead to his, forgetting that Hawthorn was crumbling around me, forgetting that the water was rising. I was murmuring words incomprehensibly, sentences strung together like a prayer, like they would bring him back to me. I told him how much I loved him and how sorry I was, over and over and over.
“Liv? Jason?” I heard Mia's voice calling to me from the staircase. She was about half way up. Her eyes shifted from me to Jason and I felt her knees give out when she realized what had happened. She gripped the railing to keep herself up, but she was frozen.
"Help me," I whimpered. I raised my hand out to her, reaching for her. The water came up and hit me in the neck, sloshing against Jason’s face. Even though I knew he was gone, I struggled to raise myself up a little bit to help keep him out of it. “Mia, please?”
Hawthorn moaned horribly. The walls shook again and the water started to pour in faster, signaling that the Black Corridor had just collapsed. The stairwell was next. It was already trembling beneath Mia's feet and the railing pulled away from the wall.
Mia's tear-filled eyes were pinned on Jason. Her grief surrounded her, mirroring mine, but she did not come toward me. Instead, she took a step back, and I felt a wall come up between us. She made a decision, and I felt it cut through me like a knife. Mia’s tears poured out over her cheeks as she slowly shook her head and closed her eyes.
I felt her resolve break. She opened her eyes and starting to climb down toward me. She shouted, "I'm coming!"
I heard another explosion, but this time it sounded like it was right overhead. The door to the stairwell buckled and collapsed, cutting me off from my sister.
“Mia!” I called to her, sputtering as another wave hit me, this time catching my face.
I looked at Jason one last time. His expression was blank. He was blank. I was holding his body, but he was gone. I needed to get to Mia. I needed to let him go. I pressed my lips to his forehead one last time and pulled myself away from him. His body slipped beneath the water.
I swam to the door that had collapsed and pried it open with my mind, but the stairwell just wasn't there anymore. It was nothing but a mangled staircase and stone boulders that broke off from the hallway it had been anchored to. I couldn't see or feel Mia anymore. I called to her again through the twisted metal, but there was no response, emotional or otherwise. Nothing.
I'd lost by them both.
I deflated and fell back into the water. Terror swelled inside me. Deep, heaving cries wracked my body. I tried to slow down. I tried to focus, but everything was caving in on me. I was trapped.
The walls in the common room shuddered and the floor beneath me twisted violently. Water filled the common room in massive, swirling gushes. The undertow pulled me down. It knocked me into the furniture and jagged debris that floated in from the destroyed corridors; opening cuts in my arms and legs.
I couldn’t figure out where the surface was until I suddenly broke it, drawing in a deep, gasping breath. My eyes stung with sea salt, and my wounds burned from it. The ceiling of the common room was getting closer and closer.
I tried to tread water, but it was coming in too fast. I could hear the facility groan around me, a deep wounded sound. Huge chunks of wall and furniture moved around me, knocking into me, making it hard to stay afloat.
The water just kept pouring in, filling the room like sand in an hourglass. There was no way out. The common room was becoming a tomb. Something heavy slammed into me from the side, knocking me under the surface. My breath whooshed from me in a pained cry. I felt the ribs on my right side crack. I managed to get back to the surface one last time. I reached my hand up and felt something flat and cold above me, about a foot up.
It was the ceiling.
I had only a foot of air left and no chance at all. The glass was too thick to break through and the common room hadn't been compromised. The only way out would be to go back into the Black Corridor, but water pushed into the common room from both corridors, too powerful to struggle against. I'd have to wait until the whole place went under. By then I would have already downed.
Panic screamed through me. I began to claw at the ceiling with my nails. I felt them shred and break, but the pain was distant; I was numbed from the cold and the terror. I tried to focus on the glass portholes. I tried to push them out with my mind, but my power pulsed out of me like a dying heartbeat, weak and impotent.
Half a foot left and it was closing fast. I had only a minute, if that.
Five inches.
I couldn’t breathe; my chest was too tight. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t fill my lungs enough to.
Four inches.
I closed my eyes and focused on pulling in a breath, trying desperately to think of a way out.
Focus, Liv, please—
—Three inches—
I can't breathe—
—Two inches—
I don’t want to—
—One inch—
I’m so sorry.
The water ate up the remaining space, and I was thrust down into the water. My vision blurred and I could vaguely hear the final tired thumps of my heart in my ears. The sensation of weightlessness overcame me as I floated down into the dark, cold water.
All the tension bled from my muscles. The years of loneliness, the months of anxiety, and the hours of fighting drained out of me. It felt like the heavy chain that had been wrapped around me was cut and I was floating free.
I couldn't see Jason anymore, but I knew I'd be with him soon enough. We could finally put all of this mortal coil bullshit behind us and just be happy together.
We deserved it.
I was tired of fighting. I sank further down and let go of the final bit of air I had in my lungs. In the warbling flicker of Hawthorn's back up lights, my dying brain cells conjured up images from my life; wood carvings, popcorn, glass shells, guitars, bonfires, blue eyes, sunsets and Charlie swimming toward me.
This strange sense of calm came over me and, as darkness filled my mind, and salt water filled my l
ungs.
Chapter Fourteen
“Breathe! Breathe, damn it!”
My world went rudely and violently from comforting darkness to sudden light and blazing pain in the blink of an eye. I lurched forward and tried to take a breath in, but instead, my body reversed itself and my stomach started to seize. My lungs sizzled in fiery pain as they contracted to push the salt water from them. I was too cold to feel anything, but when I tried to lay back down, something firm and warm pressed up against me and helped me to a sitting position. Two thick structures wound tightly around me, supporting me.
I peeled my eyes open, blinking away the salt water. We were on the beach, not far from the crashing waves. The sky was a sick, mustard color. Off in the distance, fire leapt on the surface of the water. Dark silhouettes of all sizes bobbed on the ocean like morbid apples. The scent in the air was smoky, leaving a thick coating on my tongue. All at once, I remembered what had happened.
Hawthorn had been destroyed.
"Jason?" I coughed out and opened my eyes wide, searching for him. Glitch was kneeling beside me. His cheeks were flushed and his pale eyes were filled of worry. His bit his lip and shook his head.
I looked up at Charlie. Her clothes were soaked and she was breathing heavily. Dozer had his arms around her, but he was looking at me with glassy eyes and I could feel his sadness sinking into my marrow.
"Jason? Did you find him? Mia?" I tried to speak, but the screaming and the salt water made it unintelligible. Cash didn't need to hear me to know what I was asking. He placed his hands on my shoulders and pulled me into him. His voice was rough, but soft as he spoke. “I’m so sorry, Liv.” His tone told me everything I needed to know.
Jason was really dead.
I couldn't feel him anymore. This wasn’t like when we were kids and we were separated. Now, I knew there was never any chance of seeing Jason again. I knew he would never be okay out here; somewhere in the world—happy and healthy—even if he wasn't with me. He was lost down in the deep; somewhere under the hulking debris of the wreckage of Hawthorn.
Shift (Anomaly Book 2) Page 13