Collide (Entangled Teen) (The Taking Book 3) (13 page)

“Ari, I’m sorry, but once her heart stops, there’s nothing we can do. She’s gone.”

“But, why? Why didn’t we heal her?”

Vill’s gaze rests on mine, and I know the answer without him having to say it. She didn’t want to be healed, didn’t want to be an Ancient, and now…

I tear myself away and rush out of the craft, getting as far as a patch of weeds before retching over and over, unable to catch a breath. Jackson is beside me in a second, holding back my hair, and then he helps me sit back. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. There’s nothing to say. No number of
I’m sorrys
will take away this pain. Immediately, my hurt turns to anger, and I jump up, pacing around, desperate to find a way back to the person who did this, the person that betrayed her—us—the most. I don’t realize that I’m saying all this out loud, until Jackson grips my shoulders and pulls me to him, burying my head in his chest. “Killing Law won’t bring her back. You know that.”

“He deserves to die.”

“Maybe. But there’s going to be enough death in this war. Besides, if the time comes, if you’re faced against Law, I’ll do it. I don’t want you carrying that guilt.”

I jerk back, prepared to yell that there isn’t a shred of anything left in me for Lawrence Cartier, when Jackson shakes his head.

“You will.”

“But…Gretchen, she’s…” I stare into his perfect blue-green eyes, my own beginning to well, and then I collapse against him, all the fight in me gone.

My best friend is now dead, and the war hasn’t even begun. How many will I lose before the fighting ends?

Chapter Twenty-One

By the time Jackson and I pull away from each other and peer around, my sadness has been replaced by fear. There is nothing around us, only trees and overgrown land. I wonder where we are, when I hear the sound of wild animals in the distance and then something else, not sounds but a feeling. Someone else is out there. Suddenly, I’m aware that there are other dangers than just Ancients in our world.

“Ari, get over here!” Mitch yells from the hovercraft.

Jackson and I exchange a look before darting toward the plane. Mitch motions to his T-screen and we peer down to see a satellite reading of the area. A tiny box blinks showing our location, and then he zooms out and points. There, several inches away on the screen, a mile perhaps on land—or even less—is the layout of a village. Tiny triangles show what have to be the roofs of houses or huts. My eyes scan over the village, counting one, two, ten, twenty, thirty huts. Thirty. That could mean—

Simultaneously, Jackson and I spin around. Footsteps They’re soft, too soft for the others to hear, but they’re out there, creeping in.

I lean toward Jackson and whisper as low as possible, “Threatening or curious?” I focus on the footsteps, trying to find something in the person’s aura that hints at his or her motive, but the distance is too great, or maybe I’m not experienced enough to decipher. I start to speak again, when Jackson holds out his hand to stop me, his head cocked, listening.

“There’s more,” he says into my ear, then he points to the east and west of where we’re standing. “I’d guess ten in all.”

Ten. There are only six of us, but we’re half Ancient. And we have weapons, but maybe they do as well. My pulse speeds up, my stomach twisting into knots. This is the last thing we need right now. “What do you want to do?”

Dad walks over with Vill, Naomi, and Myers.

“Everyone get strapped,” Jackson whispers to each of them. “At least two guns per person, understand? But try not to use them. We don’t want to alert their village. Let’s try talking to them first.”

“And if talking doesn’t work?” Naomi asks.

“Then we fight,” I answer. “But we fight as half-breeds.”

Everyone starts to move at once. Everyone except me. Dad stops just inside the hovercraft. “Ari, you need a weapon.”

I pat my leg. “I’ve got three on me already. I think I’m covered.”

He smiles, and then the smile drops away. “About Gretchen…I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

I bite my lip to keep it steady and then say, “I have to be.”

Dad nods slowly and then goes on to grab his weapons, leaving me alone to think through all that’s happened and all that’s yet to come. I tell myself that I’ll have time to process Gretchen’s death later, that I’ll have time to grieve, but I know that time will never come. So instead, I close my eyes and allow the pain to consume me for a moment, allow myself to grieve, and then I reopen my eyes and put her death out of my mind. Gretchen is gone, and no amount of crying can bring her back.

I wipe my eyes with the heel of my hand and blink a few times to clear my vision.

Jackson is back beside me when I look over, his face expressionless. “Are you ready?”

“For what?”

“Listen.”

And that’s what I hear what he had already heard. They’re here.

I push away from the hovercraft, and Jackson and I start for the clearing just in front of the craft. I’m torn between wanting to be out in the open to show that we’re harmless and hiding to see them before they see us. I decide from their aura to go for open, but only for Jackson and me. I wave the others back, so we’re covered if needed, and keep my gaze fixed on the thick patch of trees ahead of us. Briefly, I wonder how the trees have survived, how this land seems so untouched by the harshness of the rest of the world, when two men and a woman step out of the clearing. They’re dressed in pieced-together clothing, all mismatched and all covered in dirt. Their faces are etched with harsh lines, and their stance tells me they’ve seen enough to know that we’re from Sydia. And they aren’t friends of anyone from Sydia.

“Introduce yourselves,” the man in the center calls, his voice raspy and older than he looks.

I cock my head. “You first.”

At that, I hear the thoughts of each of them. They never planned to come here in peace. They’re prepared to fight us. To kill us. As they’ve killed so many who’ve crossed their land before us. I see the killings in their minds—some as simple as a snapped neck, others more brutal. Flashes of bloodied bodies, left for the scavengers that still live on this land. Instantly, I wish there were more light. The sun disappeared behind the mountains a half hour ago, desperate to go to sleep for the night. If they could see us, maybe they would see that we’re Ancient and would run. Instead, they view us as easily defeated, which is a shame. I don’t want to kill these people. But I will.

The man takes a small step toward me. “I’ll ask you one more time. Introduce yourselves.”

I mentally curse myself for not asking Vill to join us. Together, we could hold them at bay without moving an inch, but I’m not sure I can hold them all on my own, and Vill is not an RES, which means he can’t hear my thoughts, so there’s no telling him without calling out the others’ location.

I draw a breath and open my mouth to tell Mr. I’ll Ask You One More Time what he can do with his threat, when Dad steps around me, his tone every bit that of the commander.

“Hello, I’m Commander Alexander, and I’m afraid our hovercraft has gone down on our way back to Sydia.”

The man peers behind us at the craft, and I do the same to see the others must be hiding. Good. With Dad out in the open like us, we’re even more vulnerable.

“You’ve crashed in the lower Appalachians. These are our mountains.”

Dad nods. “I can see that, but rest assured, we have no desire to stay. We are simply out of fuel, so we hoped to hike the remaining thirty miles or so on foot.”

The man takes another step forward. “I’m sorry, but we can’t allow you to do that. Ay-he!” he screams, and my eyes dart around as five more men and women appear from the trees on our right and left. “You see, we have lived here for many years now without anyone knowing. We can’t have you leaving only to return with more men to take over our land.”

“But we have no intention of returning here,” I say.

“Sorry, we’re not willing to take the chance. You’ll have to come with us, and if we determine you’re safe, we’ll take you to Sydia ourselves.”

“By what means?”

The man laughs. “I see. You assume because we’re not raised in your city with fineries such as you that we don’t have transportation and weapons? We do. You’d be wise to stand down. Now.”

I feel the xylem in my blood coming alive at his words, as though it needs to prove the man wrong. “Sir, it’s you who needs to step down. You don’t realize who you’re dealing with.”

“Ay-he!” the man calls again, and I have only a second to hear a woman to my right reach down for her gun, before I’ve turned on her, freezing her midmotion. I keep my mind on her as she screams out, and then weapons are drawn all around us. Naomi, Vill, and Myers appear and fall in line with us, their weapons ready, but my eyes are on the man in the center. Their leader. “I am giving you five seconds to call their weapons down before I break her neck,” I say, cocking my head at the woman. “One…”

The man takes a step. “You haven’t even moved. How could you—”

“Ahhh!” the woman yells as I snap her back straight and jerk her head to the right.

“Aven, listen to her,” another woman screams.

“Two…”

“Ahhh!”

I twist her neck just a little more. “Three…” I say, and then add, “I can do the same to you when I’m done with her. Four…”

“All right! All right! Stand down,” the man says, and I release the woman, but then I see his eyes dart to the left and hear his tongue cluck, giving another command, and then I’m in motion, pulling two guns out at once and spinning, one aimed at the leader, one at the one prepared to shoot me.

“Well, I guess trusting you is out of the question,” I say.

“How did you move that fast?” the man says, his voice full of awe.

Jackson lifts his weapons. “Easy. We’re Ancient.” And then he fires, shooting both easily dead.

Everything happens all at once. Shots ring out from us, from them. I have only a moment to register that either Mitch or Myers has been shot when a roar yells down from the sky, louder than anything I’ve ever heard before. All firing ceases for a moment as we all crane our necks up to see what created the noise, and then another thunderous roar booms out from above and my mouth drops in horror as lightning covers the sky, threading out in a zigzag pattern like electricity running through wires. Another rumbling hits, and then the lightning stretches out its fingers farther and farther, the sky cracking in on itself. The spaceship arrives out of the cracked lightning, bursting through our atmosphere.

“Jackson…”

“They’re here.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

It takes all my effort to rip my eyes away from the lightning-carved sky, and when I glance back to where the humans had been before, they’re gone. They must have run the moment the sky split.

“Anyone hurt? Myers? Mitch?” I ask. I peer around, and then once satisfied that no one is hurt, xylem healing the bullet that pierced Mitch’s arm, I start back for the hovercraft. “We need to get to Sydia as fast as possible.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I thought we could steal one of their vehicles. They’re probably in a state of chaos right now. If we can locate where they keep them, it should be easy enough to take one. Vill and I can hold off anyone on guard from a distance while the rest of you grab it.”

“But won’t that take longer? We’re thirty miles out,” Cybil says. “We could try to find fuel for the craft at their village.”

I glance back up at the sky. “Something tells me we’re safer on the ground than in the air.”

…

It takes us ten minutes to gather what we need and another ten to get to the village, even with our speed. As expected, it’s in a complete state of panic. Some people are outside their hut-like homes, staring up at the electric sky, trying to make sense of what feels so incomprehensible. Others are racing around, gathering things as though there’s anything in the world they could do. I almost want to shout at them to just relax, that at this point they’re likely all dead, so why not enjoy their last few hours in peace, but I don’t have time to comfort these people. Not now.

My eyes scan the perimeter as my mind zeroes in on conversations, searching for any hint of where any vehicles might be housed. Finally, I see a large barn away from the rest of the huts and a pair of men making their way over. They’re talking about fuel and whether they need to search out more for their trucks.

“Did you hear that? They have trucks,” I say to Vill, who’s beside me. “And that’s where they keep them.” I turn around and motion for Jackson to look. He peeks through the trees and then back at me before filling the others in on what we see.

They start around the other side of the trees, staying just inside the protection of the forest edge. Once I can see them across from us, close to the barn, I nudge Vill and then the men freeze mere steps from the barn’s doors. They shout and I try to silence mine’s voice, but I can’t control them in that way. Fear slices through me as their screams bring on new attention, and then Jackson and Myers are leaping from the trees, attacking in one, two, three hits. Dad, Naomi, and Cybil disappear into the barn, and I hear the definitive sound of a truck engine coming to life. Jackson and Myers spin around, their stances wide, readying for an attack.

Five more men and women start over, calling out to them and each other, but I can’t stop all of them at once. Vill focuses on one, me another, and then the truck bursts through the barn’s doors, sending wood pieces in all directions. Jackson and Myers latch onto the back of the truck as it starts to speed off.

“Let’s go!” I yell at Vill.

“You’re not going anywhere,” a voice says from behind us, and then I hear the sound of a gun cocking.

I draw a breath, evaluating what’s around me, if I feel any other bodies, and then coming up clear, I flip around and jab, hoping I make contact. My hand connects with a firm chest, tossing the man back, and then Vill is over him. He points his gun at the man’s head, and tears course down the old man’s face. He’s afraid, but he’s too proud to beg. I grab Vill’s arm and pull away the gun and then focus back on the man. “We’re leaving here. We don’t mean you any harm, but we have to go. We have to go find our friends. Okay?”

The man nods quickly.

“Ari, we can’t just leave him,” Vill says.

“We can.” And then I start away. “There’s going to be enough blood in this fight. I don’t want to kill one more person than I have to.”

Vill considers me, and then sighs. “Fine. Let’s get to the road.”

When we arrive at our designated spot at the road, the others are already there. Jackson races from the truck as soon as he sees me and wraps me in his arms. “Are you all right? What took so long?”

“We ran into some trouble, but we handled it. We’re good to go.” The sky rumbles above us again, and I peer up to see the Ancients’ craft has disappeared. “Wait, where did it go?” I walk out into the open for a better look, but it’s nowhere in sight. “Jackson, where did it go?”

He follows my gaze to the sky and then reaches for my hand. “Come on. We need to get to Sydia. Now.”

Mitch pulls up a map of the area, and Dad races along every broken back road and dirt path to get home as quickly as possible. Zeus’s warning told us to expect a fight in Virginia, which is just outside of Sydia, but it didn’t say when.

I tap my foot against the bed of the truck, a bundle of nerves that won’t seem to settle. What if this is it? What if everything I know and everyone I love is about to disappear? My hands shake, and Jackson tightens his grip on mine. He opens his mouth to say something, but it closes at the sight before us. We’re just outside the city, on a hilltop, so close I can almost smell Mom’s perfume, and right above it is the Ancient craft.

There barely enough time to scream before a beam shoots down from the center of the ship. It fires again and again, one blast after the other, followed by a loud
BOOM!
that shakes the ground, throwing the truck off the road. Dad tries to steady the car on the uneven terrain, but it’s no use. We’re going to crash. Dad whips the truck around to try to bypass a fallen tree, and then we’re flipping and rolling. Jackson, Vill, and I are all tossed from the truck. I have a moment to tell myself to protect my head before slamming into the earth.

I cough and sputter as I roll onto my back, desperate for a breath, but then the ground shakes again and I’m petrified that I’m about to sink into the dirt, gone before I’ve even made it into the city.

I scramble to my feet. “Jackson!”

“Here,” he calls, his voice labored. I climb over a large broken branch and then my eyes round out as I see that he’s trapped under a fallen tree, his torso wedged below the trunk. Vill is beside me, and I wonder if Dad and the others are okay, but I can only handle one worried thought at a time, so I take off for Jackson.

He’s pale when I reach him, the pain written all over his face, though he refuses to scream or yell. My chest tightens.

“You’re okay. It’s okay. We’re here,” I say, holding his gaze to make sure he stays with me. Vill and I lift the tree off him, but he’s badly injured, his right leg broken, and likely a few ribs. I press my hands over his ribs, concentrating on correcting each broken bone, desperate to put him back together again, and suddenly, the pain is too much for him and he screams out, the sound so raw it tears me in two.

“It’s okay,” I say again, my voice thick from the effort to not cry. “It’s okay.”

Jackson grinds his teeth together, his eyes clenched tight as we continue to work, unsure of whether we should go faster to get it over with or slow down to give him a break. All I know is that I can’t continue on without him. I can’t…just…he has to be okay.

Vill shifts his attention to Jackson’s leg, speeding up the work of Jackson’s xylem. I run a hand over his face, repeating soothing words, tears streaming down my face now with each cry of pain.

After what feels like forever, the color returns to Jackson’s face, and I release my pent-up breath. “Can you stand?” I ask.

“I think so,” Jackson says, always the fighter.

Vill and I help him stand, and he winces at the pain. The breaks are corrected, but the injury is still very much there. All I can hope is that his xylem continues to heal him before we get into the city.

With Jackson now mending, I peer around for the truck and find Dad trying to muscle his way out of the driver’s side door. But where are the others? “Can you sit or stand alone while Vill and I go help them?” Jackson nods and leans back against a tree, his breathing still unsteady. I hesitate, not wanting to leave him alone. “We’ll be right back.”

“I’m fine. Go.”

The truck is lying on its side, the driver’s side door facing the sky, so when we open it, the door immediately tries to slam shut. Vill climbs onto the truck and holds the door while I try to pull Dad free, only to have him scream out in pain after my third attempt at lifting him. “What is it?” I ask. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s my shoulder,” he says, holding it close. “I think it’s dislocated.”

“Okay, let’s just try to work around it, and we can fix it once you’re out.” I reach around to pull him out again, but he drops back into the truck, wincing in pain. I peer back around at Jackson, wishing he were well. He could lift Dad without a problem, but Vill and I are both much smaller, and one of us has to hold open the door.

Finally, I realize there’s no way of getting him out without fixing the shoulder first—xylem isn’t going to magically put his shoulder back into place. So I climb into the truck, ignoring Vill’s arguments for me to stay outside, that it isn’t safe. I secure myself as far away from Dad as I can manage, and then grip his shoulder and before he can argue, give a swift jerk, Dad grinding his teeth, his eyes watery, and then the joint is back in place.

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to hide the emotion in my voice at the sight of him in such pain. First Jackson, then Dad. It’s too much, too soon after losing Gretchen.

He draws a deep breath, allowing the wound to heal. “No. That was brave. Thank you.”

“I learned from the best.”

Dad gives me a small hug before scooting back so I can lift myself out of the truck, when another explosion sends the ground rocking and the truck begins to flip again. I leap out of the truck and reach for Dad’s hand, pulling him with me, before the truck rolls again, caging the others inside.

I lower myself to the ground and peer in, scared of what I’m going to find. “Cybil, can you hear me? Naomi? Myers? Mitch?”

A grumble comes as way of an answer, but only one. My heart sinks. “Cybil?”

“I already answered you once. Now, can you please get me out of here?” I laugh a little and feel my heart swell at the sound of her voice, strong and as agitated as ever. I don’t think I could handle losing someone else close to me so soon after Gretchen.

“Okay, we’re going to lift the truck so you can slide out. Think you can do that?”

“Just don’t drop it on me.”

“Can you see the others?”

She pauses. “Mitch is here and Myers, but Naomi, she’s…”

Oh, no. I force myself to inhale, exhale. Breathe. Focus. “Okay,” I say then peer up at Vill and Jackson. “We’re lifting on one-two-three!” We raise the truck just enough to allow Cybil to climb out her window, then Mitch and Myers follow, both badly injured. “Maybe we should pull her out, just to check?”

Myers looks down. “No. She’s gone. Her head…it’s no longer with her body.”

I jerk back, bile climbing my throat at the thought, but I push it away, knowing my focus has to be on the others’ injuries.

We spend the next ten minutes healing injuries and getting everyone packed. The Ancient craft has moved away, out of sight, and though I know that must mean it’s attacking some other city or region, I’m grateful for the break so we can hopefully get to Mom and Emmy.

Jackson reaches for my hand and we start the descent to Sydia, my nerves wrecked, my heart racing, and then I hear the sound before I see it—a piercing
zoom
from the sky and then an explosion so loud that I wonder if I’ll ever be able to hear again. Ringing fills my ears, and I don’t realize that Jackson has pulled us down or that he’s over me, protecting me like always, until I open my eyes, and then I wish I’d kept them firmly shut. I push Jackson’s arms away so I can see, so I can prove that I’m not imagining what’s in front of me.

That Sydia, once tall and strong, isn’t now a pile of debris and smoke. Gray and gone.

My eyes burn, the ache to cry so intense I nearly fall to my knees, and then before anyone can tell me I’m crazy or try to stop me, I take off running. Mom and Emmy were in the Underground. They could still be alive, trapped there. We can’t just leave them. I can’t just leave them.

I hear the others fall into step beside me, and I’m grateful beyond measure that I don’t have to search for Mom and Emmy alone. I can’t imagine Zeus sending ground soldiers into the site, but he could and then I would be quickly outnumbered.

“Thank you,” I call over to Jackson.

“I told you before, Alexander. Wherever you go, I go.”

I nod, fighting the urge to break down. My mind feels too fragile to allow myself to think, to feel what’s happening. Because if I take that moment, if I let it digest, I may never get back up again. And I have to continue—I have to find Mom and Emmy.

It takes us a surprisingly short amount of time to reach the back entrance to the Underground, but the ground is all crumbled in, the first two levels exposed. I’m not sure how anyone could survive unless they were on a much lower level, and even then, how can we get to them without getting ourselves trapped?

I put my fear aside and start for the largest opening, hoping I can just drop down, when I see a familiar face burst through the stairway door, carrying someone else. Someone…

My eyes strain to see who and then my mind snaps into painful focus. No. No!

“Mom? Mom!”

I take off toward the opening, toward Law, the traitor, who is carrying my mother’s limp body. I will kill him. I will slit his throat and walk away without a hint of guilt if he hurt her.

“What did you do?” I scream. Dad jumps into the opening and rushes for Mom, taking her in his arms. I can’t bring myself to drop down, too, because I already know. I can tell by Dad’s shoulders, how they’ve caved in over Mom, as though every muscle in him wants to pull her closer. I drop to my knees, unable to stand any longer, the world around me growing fuzzy and then silent. All I see is Mom’s body, all I hear are Dad’s cries of agony.

I think back to my first memory of my mom, of her braiding my hair into two long braids. I was three, maybe four, and her touch was like silk, soft and smooth and never pulling. She smiled at me in the mirror and tugged each of the braids. “You’re going to be amazing, little girl. You know that?”