Akasha 4 - Earth (7 page)

I raised my eyebrow at her. "That
wasn't on purpose."

"Wasn't it?" she asked. "Sometimes I
wonder about you."

Alex returned from relieving himself
in the woods. "Come on ladies." He zipped up his fly. "Time to get
moving." He took Susan by the hand and looked at me. "What happened
to your face?"

Chapter
10

Afternoon Dip

We were back on the Ohio, in separate
canoes, with a new game plan. Lots of shore leave to allow for
Bee's 'energy breaks'. I hadn't really thought of it until now, but
the past few years had to be exhausting for her. We had constantly
been on the move, and as soon as she had learned to walk, she did a
lot of the hiking herself. She expended her energy in a physical
sense, and as soon as that wasn't possible, she’d found another
outlet.

"Why Earth this time?" Susan was
obviously mulling it over, same as me. "The last time this
happened, at the Chakra, it was with fire."

I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe she
channels the magic of the people around her."

"Was there a fire around her in the
library that time?" Susan asked.

I thought back – it was a long time
ago. Almost two years. Bee had been only four months old. "I think
so. But Fire may be her best element. The Elementals on Easter
Island thought she was a Fire."

Susan pushed our canoes apart with a
paddle, glancing at my boat's other occupant. "I'll give you some
privacy."

On our way back to the boats, I worked
out a riding plan with Susan and Alex. We would split up to take
turns riding with different people in order to discover the extent
of their powers, and to look for any signs to pinpoint spies from
One Less. Bee would stay with me or Susan; I had yet to get her a
life jacket. Right now she was sleeping.

I looked at the back of the head of
the woman in front of me. Margie's hair was wrapped in a tight bun
with hardly a stray hair. I looked around for her husband, Robert.
He was in his kayak, sticking close to the food canoe. Constantly
accusing people of eating too much, he cautioned the supplies
wouldn't last nearly long enough. He was probably right, but in a
world with no modern conveniences, the sooner we learned to live
off the land, the better.

"She's a good sleeper," Margie said,
looking back at Bee.

"It's the water." I smiled.
"Practically puts me to sleep every afternoon."

Margie pulled her oar out of the water
and laid it across her lap. Ahead of the pack, we could spare a
break. I kept mine in just to steer.

She turned around so we were facing
each other. "Had you been on the river long before reaching
us?"

I shook my head. "Not really. We came
from West Virginia. It has been quite the goose chase, looking for
Micah."

The hollow feeling grew in my chest
every time I mentioned his name. It must have shown on my face.
Margie asked, "Her father?"

"Yes." I didn't hesitate. Not by
blood, but by all rights, at least in my opinion. "How was Micah,
when you saw him?"

"He seemed…distracted. Perhaps even
conflicted. Very antsy. Gave us the feeling there wasn't much time
left."

"Until what?"

Margie shrugged. "We don't know. He
never actually said."

I frowned. As far as I was concerned
the worst already happened. Shawn's EMP went off, throwing much of
the world back into the dark ages. One Less was quick to shut down
any signs of progress. He still had to be stopped, but I was not
sure what else Shawn could be up to, besides maintaining status
quo.

Bee's snoring caused us both to look
down.

"My daughter used to…" Margie trailed
off.

That’s
interesting.

"You have a daughter?"
Bobby was the only one introduced as their child. It dawned on me,
"Oh. You
had
a
daughter," I said, in a much softer voice.

She nodded.

"I'm sorry," I said. I wasn't going to
be making any friends by bringing up people's dead
children.

She took a deep breath, and stretched
out her neck. "Robert and I only recently got married. I did it
more out of necessity than anything else. He is a good…protector.
Well – at least until you scorched his arrows." The corner of her
mouth turned up in a teasing smile. "Anyway," she continued,
"Bobby’s my stepson. My husband of fifteen years, and my
eight-year-old daughter, both died after Daybreak."

"Were they on a plane?" I remembered
the one that had almost fallen on us, right outside the caves in
Kentucky.

She shook her head. "No. We all got
sick. Some kind of infection. I survived; they didn't. It was long
enough after Daybreak that the pharmacies and hospitals had been
wiped clean. Medicine was horded by those hoping to profit. I gave
away everything I had, including my body, to try to get what they
needed. Problem was, I had no idea what would help. I didn't find
out fast enough."

My mouth hung open. Here she was,
losing her family because there was no medicine to cure what might
have been a basic infection, and we complained about no running
water. "I'm so sorry," I said again. There really wasn't much else
to say.

"It's not your fault," she said,
looking down again at Bee. Little did she realize, it was my fault.
Partially, anyway. I had the power to stop Shawn, but I had gotten
there too late. My stomach lurched. I didn’t want to be in this
canoe anymore, sitting face to face with a woman whose husband and
child I had killed.

I looked up at her again, for the
first time seeing the subtle red streaks in her hair. I imagined
them on a little girl in pigtails. Acid rose up into my throat. I
leaned over the side and threw up. The edge of the boat tipped
dangerously close to the surface of the river. Margie threw her
weight to the other side to compensate, rocking the canoe even
further. There was a split second of heart-stopping realization,
and then we were all tossed into the icy Ohio River.

I reached for Bee, latching on and
squeezing as tight as I could. We went under, but my head popped
above the surface almost right away. I pulled with my arms,
dragging Bee's weight up. Several agonizing seconds later, the bag
of potatoes my arms were wrapped around came up.

"SUSAN!" I screamed at the top of my
lungs. I heard splashes and shouting above the ring of panic in my
ears. Susan was already in the water, by my side. She paused,
closing her eyes and concentrating. Without a word, she jumped,
piked her body and dove under. I tried to follow, but the water was
murky. The sight of Susan's kicking feet disappeared in no
time.

I came up for air. Margie hadn't
resurfaced either. A horrible thought hit me. What if she did know
how responsible I was for her husband’s and child's deaths, and she
was seeking revenge?

Without thinking, I sent blasts of air
into the river. They were strong enough to create large but
temporary divots in the water. There was still no sign of Bee – or
Susan or Margie. I continued to tread water, shooting more divots
and pulling at the river.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw
Alex's canoe pass. He searched the water, then paddled forward and
searched again.

"You dumped a quarter of our food!"
Robert's gruff voice was just behind me. "And my wife!"

My lip curled in a snarl. I shot
another hole in the river, trying to tune him out.

I scanned the river. A few of our
supplies had popped up to the surface, much further downstream.
Despite the calm surface, the undertow was strong. It was possible
Bee had gotten picked up by it. Alex was still in his canoe. He
threw his oar into the boat, and reached down into the water,
grabbing at something.

Robert continued pestering me. "You
want to throw me in too? How can we follow you? How can we trust
you? You have no idea what you are doing." He angled his kayak so
the tip of it moved in front of me.

The river pushed me into the side of
his boat. I put my hands on it, trying to pull my head far enough
out of the water to see what was happening.

Alex had come up with Susan, who held
a limp Bee in her arms.

"Hey!" Robert yelled. "Get off." He
raised his paddle, aiming at my already slippery grasp of the side
of his boat.

I pulled, yanking on his kayak. As the
edge submerged, I ripped the paddle from his hand. Robert went
upside down just as the river turned rough, reacting to my energy.
I got pulled under without having the chance to suck in air first.
My body somersaulted until I was so disoriented I didn't know which
way was up.

Bee would have never been able to hold
her breath through this. My elbow hit hard rock. I forced my feet
against it and pushed off. I swam until my mouth breached the
surface. I got a quick glance of Alex's canoe, now parallel to me.
He already had a bag valve mask out.

"Bee!" I managed to shout until I got
sucked back under. I floundered around again. My limbs were growing
tired and refusing to do what I wanted. I didn't go nearly so deep
this time, and popped up again without hitting the bottom first.
Now the canoe was upstream from me. Susan leaned over Bee. I could
see water particles being pulled from her mouth and returning to
the river. Could her tiny lungs even hold that much water and still
function afterward?

Another surge of adrenaline hit me. I
tapped into the air element, weaving a windstorm just above my
head. Clouds rolled in, thundering at the disturbance in the
atmosphere. I raised my arms and lifted myself from the river. It
required more control than I had ever used with the air element;
ten times as much as I used with Robert's arrows.

Water dripped as I flung my body
forward. It was a hard landing in Alex's canoe, but he and Susan
managed to keep it upright. I turned to see Bee's blue lips, water
still trickling from them.

"That's enough," Alex said to Susan.
"Let me do the chest compressions again."

I was frozen still, too scared to
move. My unfortunate reaction to facing down my worst nightmare.
Susan and Alex were focused, determined to bring Bee back to life.
Alex placed his hands at her sternum and pushed, counting out loud.
"One, two, three."

Susan squeezed the bag valve mask,
forcing air into her lungs.

"One, two, three."

In contrast to my frozen over limbs,
my stomach felt like it was on fire. It grew as I stared at Bee's
blue lips, obscured when Susan placed the mask back over
them.

"One, two, three," Alex said again,
his voice cracking.

The fire reached my chest now, and my
cheeks were going hot.

One, two, three.
I counted inside my head with Alex, willing him
not to give up. Too much time had passed. The fire was molten hot,
consuming me.

"You bitch, are you trying to kill
everybody?!" Robert yelled, bobbing up and down on the other side
of the river.

I released my fire directly above his
head at a tree on the bank. The tree cracked and fell forward into
the river. Robert went under just before the tree hit. The huge
wake rocked our canoe. We all came a few inches off the seats,
including Bee. When she landed, a splash of water was forced from
her lungs and she began coughing.

Alex rolled her on her side, patting
her back. "There, there," he said. "Get it all out."

As soon as she had the breath, she
began to cry. I dropped to my knees, my eyes also brimming with
tears. Across from me, a drenched Susan sat back, hands
shaking.

Alex pulled out several blankets and
wrapped all three of us, then retrieved his oar and steered us
toward the bank. I glanced back. Robert clung to the fallen tree
trunk; both making quick progress down the river. Beyond him, on
the opposite shore, I spotted Margie pulling herself up onto the
bank. She turned just in time to see her husband go floating past,
still cursing me. She shook her head, then placed her hand on the
ground beside her. Seconds later, vines tumbled down from branches
hanging over the water. Robert and his trunk became tangled. His
forward momentum stopped until another canoe could catch up and
retrieve him.

Before I could look back at Margie, we
were jolted forward as our canoe hit land. Alex helped us each out;
we all shook with exhaustion and cold. Bee's crying had subsided.
She clung to my neck, hiccupping. Susan and I stood, side by side,
saying nothing while Alex tied up the boat then started a fire.
Half of the rest of the convoy pulled up on our side of the river;
half on the other.

Alex intercepted them as they came
ashore, keeping them clear of us despite their concern to see if we
were ok. He suggested everyone start setting up camp for the night.
We sat around a fire, bare under blankets while our clothes dried
nearby. Alex passed out portions for dinner, but I was too upset to
eat. Bee was ravenous; she finished mine for me.

An hour later, the sun sank behind the
trees and Bee fell asleep in my lap. My eyes had barely left the
fire since Alex built it. Alex was still running around, setting up
camp, getting people organized, and making sure boats and supplies
were secure. Once it was full dark, he sat down at the fire beside
me and Susan.