Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3) (24 page)

"Can you imagine if this happened in Paris? Assuming the destruction is roughly the same magnitude, there are over twelve million people in the affected area. There are seven million people in Hong Kong, and another two million in the Portland Metro area. Do you start to see how the numbers add up? Four million have already died. Do we need another twenty million to die before we do something?"

"And that is just the death toll of the current seals breaking," said Sunee. "Imagine the damage that will be done when all five Havocs are free. I abhor the thought of taking the life of this, admittedly innocent, young girl, but when compared to the tens of millions who will die if we do not, I cannot in good conscience ignore this option."

I sat in silence, observing as Sunee and Nakai opened up the floor to discussion. I could have opened my mouth at any time, but that would have given away my only advantage. I was sure if Nakai and Sunee knew I was free of their Haze that they would never have told me their plans or let me come down here to begin with.

Besides, I wasn't entirely sure they weren't right.

After listening to them talk about the potential death count, I found myself beginning to agree with them. If my death could save twenty million, then maybe they had a point. No, I didn't want to die, but when you weigh the needs of twenty million versus one, it gets kind of hard to justify saving the one.

There was a clear split for who wanted me dead and who wanted to keep me alive. Yul and Onaona were both for keeping me alive, as was Shing's Binder, Julie. Davu and Yvette were split – he wanted me alive and she thought I should die. Tez and Kamiko were both for killing me are were Arthur and Sunee. No surprises there. Miguel and Dagmar were divided with him wanting me alive, and Jacinda was extremely vocal against killing me. What surprised me was that Josiah was in favor of killing me. It hadn't been that long ago that he was hinting that we should go out. Now he wanted me dead?

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised.

I wanted to be angry at those who thought I should die, but I couldn't bring myself to feel anger. It wasn't that they had anything against me personally, they just didn't see how my life was worth twenty million other lives.

In the midst of the discussion, everything started to slow down. I looked around, trying to see if anyone else was noticing it, but I seemed to be the only one.

Voices dropped in pitch, slowed down, and trailed off. All movement around me stopped. None of the Berserkers or Binders moved at all. I stood up and everything around me stayed exactly the same. Jacinda's mouth was stuck open and her finger stayed completely still, stabbing straight up in the air, caught in the middle of making a point.

"It won't work," said a voice. I turned around, looking for the source and saw a boy I couldn't help but recognize. Roughly my age with spiky black hair and bright green eyes, he smiled at me with a wicked grin. He sat on the edge of the stage, leaning back on his hands.

"What, no dragon this time?" I asked?

He shrugged. "Nah. I only use that for special occasions when I really need to make an impression. This is going to be quick and dirty." He winked at me.

I raised an eyebrow. I was pretty sure he was flirting with me.

"We don't have much time," he said, losing the flirting edge to his voice. "I've been watching this little farce of a discussion here, and I need to tell you they are arguing with some very wrong assumptions."

"Like what?"

"Like, thinking that killing you will end the consolidation. It won't."

"It won't?" That changed everything.

"No, it won't," he said. "I could see you were starting to believe it too, so I decided to call a time out and set you straight."

"So, how do we stop it?" I asked.

"You can't," said the boy. "You have to ride it out."

"Ride it out?"

He shook his head as if I were a particularly dim-witted child he was trying to explain calculus to. Given that I kept repeating his statements as questions, I couldn't really blame him.

"They were right about the magic corrupting," he said. "I've already told you that. But they have it backwards. You aren't the one that has to die. They are." He shrugged his shoulders. "All of them. They all have to die eventually, Madison, so that you can have their powers. The Havocs breaking free is just the beginning. The magic binding Verinex's seal is just as corrupt. If that breaks, well, you can pretty much say good bye to the entire earth. See the dilemma? And if they kill you the magic will still be corrupted, only there will be no one who can bring the powers together.

"Only when you have all their powers will the magic be whole once more. With all the magic consolidated in you we can fix Verinex's seal and rebind the Havocs. But, in order to do that, you must have
all
the magic."

A million questions ran through my head as I tried to process what he just told me, but before I could ask any of them, he was gone.

Time started up again, and the voices sped up until they sounded normal once more. I let the Berserker's and Binder's words wash over me in an unintelligible wave as I processed what my mysterious informant had told me.

If I didn't get all the powers, then Verinex's seal would break and destroy the entire world.

All the powers.

Rhys. Shing. Julie. Onaona. All of them. They would all have to die for me to save the world.

I dropped my head to my lap and started to cry. It was one thing to give up my own life to save the world, it's quite another to tell those you love that they have to give up theirs.

I squashed my fears and emotions into a tiny ball and stuffed them into the far reaches of my mind. It was time to act, and I needed to think clearly. Those emotions were too painful and distracting to deal with right now. I was sure they would still be there when I went back to look.

Then I stood up.

"It won't work." I said.

Everyone went silent.

"What was that?" Nakai asked. The look of confusion on her face was almost comical. She had no idea how I could be talking against her express orders.

"I said it won't work," I repeated. "Yes, the powers are consolidating in me, but if you kill me, it will just doom us all."

"How do you know this?" Jacinda asked.

"Sit down and be quiet," Nakai said to me. "You are not to speak unless spoken to."

I ignored her. "It's not just the magic binding the Havocs that's corrupting," I said. "Verinex's binding is breaking too. If it breaks, the destruction at Nuremberg will look like a kid knocking down some blocks in comparison."

"I said sit down!" Nakai yelled.

"Let her speak," said Yul. "I want to hear what she has to say."

Nakai turned her attention back out to the audience. "That is quite enough out of you, Yul," she said.

If I hadn't been looking for it, I don't think I would have seen it. He hesitated, and for just a moment his stare became vacant – that same look I saw in my Mom's eyes when she started making connections into areas blocked by her Haze.

Yul sat back down and didn't say another word.

Nakai turned to Sunee. "Take Madison back to her room. We are going to have a vote, and we don't need any more interruptions."

Sunee motioned for me to get up and follow her. I debated on my plan of action. I could refuse and let them know that the Haze didn't work at all. But what good would that do? I could argue my case until I was blue in the face, but clearly Nakai and Sunee had at some, if not all, of the Berserkers under their control.

My other option was to go with Sunee and hope that they believed my outburst was a fluke and that I was still under control of the Haze.

I still wasn't sure why I wasn't.

I opted to go with Sunee. I had learned everything I needed to about who was on my side, and if they were going to try to kill me, I would prefer fighting for my life up above rather than under a mountain with a single route of escape.

We walked down the hall to the elevator in silence. I could hear the arguing from the council room echoing down the corridor. It wasn't until the elevator doors closed that the noise stopped.

We rode the elevator in silence, and when we reached my room, Sunee cast another Haze, once again telling me to stay in my room and await their instructions. As far as I could tell it was just as ineffectual as the first Haze. Maybe the same corruption that was causing the seals to break was stopping their Haze from working on me.

At least something good was coming from it.

I tried calling Rhys on my cell phone, but I got no signal. Clearly something was blocking the reception. I knew I had reception earlier, so it wasn't just a bad location. I suspected they blocked all communications during council meetings as a precaution.

I stepped out and walked a bit down the hall to see if I could get any better reception, but I got nothing. My phone continued to read "no signal".

Should I run? It seemed like a good idea if the alternative was them killing me. I could escape and be away from here before their meeting ended. I could likely get on a plane back to the mainland before they even noticed I was gone.

And then what? They would follow me back to Washington and take care of killing me there. But if I had Rhys and Shing with me, I could...

Only I couldn't have Rhys with me. Not
with me
with me. Being around me would cause him to go feral.

I thought through my options for quite a while, pondering what I was going to do. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to run from this. What good would it do? It would just postpone the inevitable. I would be running forward with my head always turned and looking behind me. That was no way to live.

So I waited.

And waited.

"I've called in some help," said a voice.

I jumped in surprise and turned to once again see my mysterious informant.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"I have too much invested in this realm to let those children destroy my world. They just took a vote and the results didn't come out in your favor, I'm afraid. Since they are too foolish to make decisions on their own, I am calling in some reinforcements to help out. Besides, it will make everything easier in the end. No sense in putting off the inevitable, right?"

"Putting off the inevitable? That sounds ominous."

My informant smiled at me and shook his head. "You have no idea," he said. "Believe me, I am doing you a favor." He smiled and winked at me. "So, in interest of keeping you alive, I am going to recommend that you leave here as quickly as your Berserker feet will carry you."

"But what–" I stopped my question in mid-sentence as I realized that I was now completely alone. He had once again disappeared. While I appreciated the help and insight this guy was giving me, his social graces were sorely lacking.

A moment later I heard a knock at my door. Was this the reinforcements he had talked about? From how he had explained it, I wasn't sure I wanted to meet them.

I walked over to the door and listened carefully. I didn't hear anything. "Who is it?" I asked.

"It's me," said Onaona. "And Julie and Davu. We need to talk."

I opened the door and before I could get out of the way, they all piled into the room.

"Grab your things," said Julie. "We need to get you out of here. The council has determined that you are a danger and they are going to kill you."

"I'm sure she can't understand," said Onaona. "Let me see if I can counteract the Haze." She reached up her hands, ready to send out the blue mist.

"Wait," I said. "You don't need to worry about the Haze. For some reason it didn't work. I can leave anytime."

Onaona and Julie looked at each other uncertainly. This was surely the first time they had heard of a Haze not working.

Julie cut the silence. "Then why are you still here, Madison?" she asked. "We need to get you away before they realize what we're up to."

I grabbed my bag and the four of us walked out of the room. We had only gotten about halfway down the hall when the walls around us began to shake.

I stumbled into Julie and we both hit the wall. Davu had dropped to his knees, his legs spread wide and one hand out to give him more balance.

Onaona crashed into a painting of a large mountain with trees and a river, knocking it from the wall. It fell to the floor, shattering the glass in the frame.

The house rocked back and forth and a massive crack split open along the hallway wall. That was followed by a loud bang and a shaking so violent that we were all knocked off our feet.

"It is an earthquake?" asked Julie.

"This isn't an earthquake," said Onaona. "I've felt them before."

"I wish it were," I said, as a familiar feeling of nausea and heat washed over me. I had felt this before, but this time it was so strong it threatened to overwhelm me completely. "I have a feeling this is going to be much, much worse."

It looked like the reinforcements my informant had warned me about had arrived.

Chapter 15

Wreaking Havoc

Davu and I both 'zerked. I felt my senses sharpen and the world burst into the bright colors that I could only see while 'zerking.

"What do you mean 'worse'?" asked Onaona.

There was no time to explain. Another loud bang shook the walls of the building so hard that the roof above us started to collapse.

"Gather together!" Davu yelled. He and I held up our arms and did our best to shield the Binders from the falling debris. Chunks of roof dropped onto us, but there were too many pieces for us to stop them all.

One piece slipped through and hit Onaona, knocking her to the floor. Larger pieces started falling too quickly for Davu and I to do anything more than hunch over the Binders and hope we were enough of a shield to protect them.

I had a flashback to Mexico when I fought the black monster birds sent out by Thuanar. There had been too many to fight by hand, so I had used my snare to fight them.