Allie's War Season One (72 page)

I grabbed his arm, harder until he looked down.

“No...Revik. Look, he’s protecting me, but not the way you think.” I yanked on his arm again to get his eyes off Maygar. “Revik! Listen to me! There’s nothing going on with me and Maygar!”

Revik turned. His eyes locked on mine.

“Are you with anyone?” Pain wafted off him.

I stared up at him, momentarily speechless.

“Allie.” He gripped my arm, hard enough to hurt. “I would understand. I know I’m not acting like it, but I would. Tell me to back off, and—”

“No.” I shook my head, still staring at him. “No...no one.”

He didn’t move. Realizing I still had him in a death grip, I let go of his arm.

After the barest instant, he released me, too.

We just stood there, staring at one another. Then it occurred to me that I’d walked up to him. Before I could move away, though, he caught hold of my wrists. His fingers tightened, pulling me closer to where he stood.

For another moment, he seemed to be trying to speak.

He looked so damned thin. I watched his jaw harden, his eyes brighten as he looked at me, holding out my hands slightly, almost like Jon had when he first saw me alive. He looked longest at my face, then down the rest of me. I felt his light on mine then, cautiously at first...growing stronger the longer we stood there.

I tried to decide if I should say anything, when an intensity rose to his eyes. He met my gaze again and I nearly flinched, but I didn’t look away.

I’d seen that look on his face before, too, but never aimed at me.

Tugging at my hands, he pulled me carefully between his arms.

I let him guide me up against him, following his pull to wrap my arms around him once I stood close enough. He let go of my wrists once I had, curling an arm lengthwise across my back, gripping my shoulder in his hand and squeezing before he wrapped his fingers into my hair. I didn’t move as he pulled it out of the soft knot, caressing it away from my neck. He slid his other arm around my waist, pulling me tight against his body before he lowered his head, pressing his face against mine.

I relaxed against him. I forgot all of it in those few seconds—my mother, all those months of believing he and Cass and Jon were dead, even the military outside. He held me tighter, tight enough that I could barely breathe. My throat closed as he pulled me deeper into the curve of his body.

Then he opened...and his light nearly flattened me.

I felt him hold his breath as he wound it deeper into mine...and then I couldn’t breathe...I breathed too much. I clutched at him as he leaned into me more, and I felt him asking me, willing me to open, asking me again. I held him tighter, unable to see as his hands clenched my back. His light slid deeper, pulling on me...I think I made some kind of sound.

Then everything seemed to happen fast.

We were kissing when someone’s arms grabbed me from behind.

Revik’s hands were under my shirt and around me as someone or several someone’s dragged him off. Yet another person held my waist, pulling me away from him.

I glanced behind me, barely recognized Maygar.

“What the hell are you
doing?”
He was staring up at Revik, his eyes and voice furious. “Are you trying to kill her?”

I felt Revik react to Maygar’s hands on me.

I saw pain on his face, confusion as he looked at me, almost like he didn’t know where he was. My own pain worsened as I stared back, and suddenly I couldn’t bear being held away from him. I had to fight not to shove all of them off me, just so I could touch him.

“It’s okay,” I said, holding up a hand. “Revik, hey. It’s okay...”

Then my light, everything about me that was me, was ripped away from my body.

“
NO!”
CASS DROPPED her gun, running for Allie as she collapsed in Maygar’s arms. Revik got there before she did. Maygar tried to shove him back, but the taller seer grabbed the front of Maygar’s shirt in his fist, and suddenly a gun was in his hand. He pressed it to Maygar’s face.

“Let go of her,” Revik said. “I’ll do it. I promise you.”

Maygar released her, removing his hands. His voice shook.

“If she dies, so help me, I’ll
skin
you—”

“Stop it!” Cass snapped. “Both of you!”

“What happened?” Jon crouched over Revik, but it was Maygar who answered in a snarl.

“Rook-boy couldn’t keep his hands to himself! He just fed her to them...”

Cass watched Revik pull Allie into his lap. He stroked the long hair away from her face, caressing her cheek with his hand. His voice shocked her. It was quiet, but a near anguish trembled on the surface as he spoke.

“Allie...gods. Can you hear me? Allie!”

“
Hit
her!” Maygar snarled. “Do you think that’s going to do anything but make it worse? Hit her, or let me try!”

But Revik’s hands had gone still.

Maygar shoved Cass out of the way, grabbing Revik’s shoulders. When he turned the other seer around, looking him full in the face, he cursed, releasing him. Bending down, he slid his arms around Allie, pulling her roughly out of Revik’s lap. Cass watched in disbelief as Revik made no move to stop him. She was still staring at Revik’s unmoving form when a loud crack of flesh against flesh jerked her eyes back to Maygar.

She watched in disbelief as he backhanded Allie again. A red mark flared on her friend’s cheek, but Allie’s eyes didn’t flutter as her neck rolled with the blow. Maygar wound up to hit her again when Jon held his own gun to Maygar’s head.

“Do it again, and I’ll shoot you, you piece of shit...” Without turning, Jon aimed his next words at Cass. “What’s wrong with Revik?”

“I don’t know.” She gripped his arm, kneeling beside him. His pupils remained pinpricks, his face a wax doll’s. “He’s just...gone.”

Maygar pushed the barrel of Jon’s gun out of his face angrily, as if it were a pointed stick.

“He’s gone after her,” he snapped.

Jon looked at Cass, then back at Maygar. He lowered the gun.

“Explain to me how that’s
not
a good thing,” Jon said.

“Stupid worm! The construct is gone! They’re all around us...everywhere, as we speak! Staying out of the Barrier was their only protection!” When Cass and Jon continued to stare at him blankly, Maygar raised his voice. “They’re going to
die!
She was already dead when he pulled her in...now he’s gone to die with her!”

Seeing the anger and frustration on the seer’s face, it occurred to Cass that maybe he wasn’t the bad guy in all of this, after all.

A jet slammed by the window, rattling the glass. The roar of its engines followed, deafening in the narrow corridor between houses. Looking across the street, Cass saw the tiny figures of men in black kevlar climbing the building across from theirs, and a kind of despair reached her.

There was no possible way they could get out of this, not anymore.

NEAR TO EARTH, the faint lines of the physical can be seen from the Barrier like a lit room through water. A swarm of beings hover over three ghosting human forms. The Rooks know a third seer exists there, too, but they cannot see him as long as he remains outside the Barrier.

It doesn’t matter. The hovering shadows are little more than sentries, left behind as the real work screams above.

I barely feel this...then it is gone.

I am the real work.

I streak through a star-filled night sky, running for my life. I try to make myself invisible but can’t, so I jerk and jump, reappear and am hit, slammed, run over...all lines leading to my body snarled and confused, broken and dead-ending. Prisons appear around me, mirages that look like hard walls, bright lights, even distant stars. They pull at me, tempt me with inviting vibrations, darting closer before I manage to twist away from their hard fire.

I am not sure how I came to be here.

I remember Revik. I remember us kissing, his hands pulling me tighter against his body, the feel of his light, him asking me...

But now everywhere I turn, silver eyes glow at me, chasing me through an endless-feeling night. They appear all around me as I try to move faster. They are looking for a way in, even as I look for a way out. I try desperately to get ahead of them, looking for any door or passage or tornado-like tunnel that might lead me out of this place. I try to feel Vash...Revik...even Maygar and Chandre...but the more I call to them, the more silver bodies converge around me.

I am too late. They are closing.

All around me rustle glimpses of presence and chiseled light.

Eyes and hands appear and disappear...they belong to more beings than I can count. Precise, lifeless, they slam into me, knocking me further off-balance. I turn, change course, change the vibration of my light, disappear...reappear. I look for resonance with something beautiful, something not-them, but more appear all the time, until I feel...

ALLIE!

Relief floods my light. He comes at me so quickly it shocks me. His light collides, then coils into mine, and briefly, we are alone.

Allie!

I feel him...all around me.

Shield! Disappear!

He hands me imprints, keys to lead me out through this winding tunnel or that one. I feel his intention...

No!
I twine my light deeper into his.
No! I’m not leaving you here!

They don’t know your light! You haven’t spent enough time with them...

They know yours!

Allie, I have ways to evade them on my own. You need to listen—

No!
My anger flares.
Don’t leave me like you left Elise!

Laughter echoes around us.

I hit a wall, one I did not see, and come to a painful stop. Before I can reverse, I lose him. He is pulled away from me so fast it is like mist evaporating from my fingers. Then I am inside a blank room with four walls. I can’t feel Revik, but I hear him, for one last—

Allie! Don’t wait for me!

I throw myself in the direction of his voice, but another wall separates us. I crash into that one, too, end up bathed in stinging threads. Red eyes surround me, shimmering hands and torsos. Dozens of them hook into my light, but Galaith’s is the only presence I feel.

Let us go! Please!

I know how futile my words sound, how meaningless. There is nothing else to say.