Evanescent (33 page)

Rob held him up as best he could. “You are bleeding.”

“Obviously,” Troy sneered.

It wasn’t, but it only took a moment when Troy was totally cut off from Ava that he started to heal again, his breath growing stronger and deeper. I looked to the clone and then back, not quite understanding how he was healing with her so close. Now that he knew the truth, could he sever his connection to the clone? The tricks a mind could play on a person.

“No!” he shouted, pounding fists against a barricade of rock. Whatever gas he had inhaled was rotten, acidic and ghastly smelling, it clung to his skin and clothes, turning his blood dark and ichory.

“Cheater!” Troy shouted, banging his fist on the wall of boulders.

“Coward,” he cried out through coughs, moisture soaking his entire face.

“Enoch, this is no fair fight. You can’t use her like this, let her go, it’s just you and me, it always was,” Troy kept on rambling, desperate to get anything back from behind the thick, falling boulders that entombed Ava and Enoch in the cave of ruins. With a sudden loud roar, the floor beneath our feet vibrated deep and violent. We stood on the top landing of a narrow stairwell looking down, hoping the tunnel didn’t cave in on us. As the building shook, the lights threatened to ebb out all around us.

“This place is coming down!” David shouted, as he ran up the stairs. “This is the only way out.”

“Are you okay?” Rion called to me.

“Yes, fine.” I stood back, holding my head as stones came tumbling down.

“We need to go,” Tatos said, stating the obvious.

“I’m not leaving without her!” Troy slammed Tatos into the narrow tunnel wall, more stone and sand showered down on us.

I heard Bongi’s voice calling up the stairs.

“They are here!” he shouted.

“Who?” I bellowed back.

“The Council.”

Troy swore. “I will not leave without her.”

“Fine, stay!” Tatos pushed past him. “You are just about to undo everything we have been fighting for.”

“I don’t care,” he spat back venomous, stupid words.

I turned and gave the clone a sad stare, she was responsible for the mission going sour. I turned back, punching Troy in the arm. “You saw what they are, what the Shadowing disease does to people. You’re telling me you don’t care to stop it spreading?”

“I. Just. Can’t. Leave. Her!” he scorned.

“I know.” Tears burned my throat.

“What is the Council doing here?” Troy shouted. “Of all the bad timing.”

Ava’s clone stood, holding her head.

I shoved her against the wall. “This is why I knew I had to kill you, you did this!”

Rion pulled me from her, but not before I got in one good slap across her face. “What is wrong with you!”

She just stared, all glossy-eyed, disdain suddenly brimming behind cloudy, gray irises.

“I never asked for this,” she returned.

Nobody had asked for any of this, I was ready to punch her in her rotten mouth.

“Not now,” Rion said, and pulled me to his chest, trying to calm me.

Walls shook with more urgency. We turned and headed down the steps – a ball of fire exploded at the foot of the stairs, dark, yellow flames reaching for our faces. I screamed, clinging on to Rion as he held my head in his arms.

The heat faded.

David swore. “That was close.”

“Come on! What we waiting for?” Robert yelled back.

“You go. I’ll stay,” Troy said to us.

“Don’t be stupid, boy!” Tatos barked.

“I’ll stay with him,” Ava’s clone said, so sure of herself.

“Shut up!” I shouted to her. “You only care about yourself. You just want to stay so you can finish what you started – to kill your prime.” My eyes shot daggers at her.

She didn’t deny it.

“Ava!” Troy shouted up the stairs, into the collapsed wall separating us.

I made my way back to him, pushing the clone toward Dave. “She said she will see us on the other side,” I said, trying to convince him. Truth was, I tried to convince myself.

“She’s strong, she is a survivor, that is what she does.” I leaned over his shoulder trying to reason with him. “Your father told you not to interfere, to have faith that you will be with her when the time is right.”

“She’s not herself. She’s scared and confused, she needs me!” he argued, not turning to look our way.

He shouted her name over, and over again. In all my time, I had never seen him so out of it.

“We have to go, now!” Bongi shouted.

Loud explosions erupted too close, the building quaked menacingly, wanting to swallow us whole.

“Help me!” Troy shouted, trying to pull rocks from the collapsed entrance.

A loud explosion erupted again, the walls and ceilings started to come undone. Rion pulled me, and Tatos started to make his way down the stairs again. I shuffled down the stairs, my feet carrying me numbly into the darkness. My chest wanted to explode. Was I doing the right thing by leaving Ava behind? David and Rob pulled Troy from the rubble that threatened to close us in. We continued down the stairs, with Troy’s shouts becoming almost unbearable. Escaping the narrow stairwell and one tapered passageway, we silently and desperately followed Bongi numbly along into another corridor. The others who had managed to escape the falling fortress, glided in behind us. We scurried like tiny insects crawling our way out of a maze of loss. My breath felt warm and unreal as it rushed out of my lungs, washed over my skin in the narrow tunnels, searching for a way out. My head became dizzy. I held back horrible thoughts. She wasn’t gone; just like we would find Mom, we will find her. The gray fuzz became heavier, my feet kept moving forward, never stopping, pushing through it all.
This was not happening.
I kept digging my nails into the softness of my palm, enforcing the horrid reality that it all really was happening. I couldn’t believe I was leaving my sister behind, the same way I had left Mom. I was a failure, an utter mess. Cracks formed in the glossy surface of the contempt I could not hold back anymore.

I wanted to kick Ava’s clone in the back, watch her stumble down the stairs. I pulled my mind out of the dark. I was light, I had to remember that. A haze of bright yellow and gold engulfed us, and we all suddenly came to a silent, slow, moving halt. Bongi stood with his spear, and a small troop of his warriors waiting on us at the other end of what used to be the entrance, but was now nothing but rubble and gray ruins to accompany everything else that lay in remnants. We all raised our eyes to follow Bongi’s gaze. All three moons were aligned perfectly; golden orbs so big, it swallowed up the dark sky.

“It’s happening,” Tatos gasped.

“Can’t be!” Troy shoved past us.

“Can you hear that?” Robert asked.

“What?” asked the clone.

“It’s like…”

A loud, torrential humming of something large and powerful headed our way. We all turned toward the noise. And through one of the webbed, high-rise windows, a dark shadow covered a glittering moon’s face. Its shadow eclipsed the entire window, and we all waited for it to rise over the big, gaping hole where a roof and a ten-story tower used to stand. We stood affixed to the solid, cold ground out of shock.

“It cannot be,” the words came out in a whisper.

“Maya.” Rion pulled my arm.

“Oh, shit.” David stood beside me, disbelief and bewilderment paled his face.

“Yes, it is,” Troy confirmed.

The craft seemed to slow down, its intense beams of light penetrated the darkness, beamed tentacles crawled over the ground in search of its next meal.

“Run!” Robert shouted.

“How is this possible?” I shouted, as we ran for shelter.

“It’s possible,” Troy shouted back, and as the beams almost caught us he shoved me against the wall. We all melted to the minimal shadow that remained.

“What is it?” The clone asked, her hand now holding my arm. I felt sorry for her, I did. None of this was her fault really, she never asked to be made the way she was. She was scared, and I felt it too. As the huge ship slipped over us, everything bled to a solid blackness. A glowing orange and yellow symbol smiled down, like a fire waiting to devour us.

“They found us,” Troy said.

“Who?” the clone whispered.

Troy
was about to answer when her grip tore into my arm.

“I thought it not real. It is them, I know that symbol – the Exemplars – the Illuminatus, it’s all real. I was right, we really are in exile, and now they are here to gather up every last one of their missing pieces.”

“Not to collect,” Troy said. “I don’t think you quite understand.”

“Shhh!” I warned.

“She is a part of this now, she must know how bad we have it.”

We all froze as the beams started crawling into hidden passageways, soaking up the darkness. I felt my skin burn. If they found us, they would kill us, or capture us for experimentation. The ship creaked, moaned and started moving away, its light slowly filtering in open spaces again.

“We have to find Ava before they do,” I whispered in a low broken voice.

Tatos pulled his bow and arrow, ready to aim at the ship. Dave followed suit pulling out his gun.

Robert laughed. “Really guys?”

“I have a feeling our weapons are futile against the beast that roams the sky,” said Bongi.

“Yeah, Bongi, they are,” I agreed solemnly.

“How will we escape this place?” he asked.

“We wait it out,” Tatos said.

“The others?” Bongi swallowed.

“In case you haven’t noticed, our troops outside are silent, so either they’re in hiding…”

“Or, they are in that monster’s belly,” Bongi answered his own question with dread, and with a noxious sorrow turning his dark eyes hazy.

A loud, shuddering, mechanical sound scrapped throughout the night, and a huge metallic arm came down from the craft. We watched it drop down like an anchor. It lingered for a second before it retreated. As the giant, metal claw retracted, we noticed a body resting between metal mauls. I blinked just to make sure I was not dreaming, but it was, it was Ava’s body they were hauling up. Her hair and white gown flapped violently in the wind. Troy stiffened next to me, his body rigid and as solid as a rock. He snatched Dave’s gun from his hand, immediately tore through the debris, shooting and screaming at the craft.

Cyborgs came from every entrance, around what was formerly the main chamber, and before I knew it I was running toward Troy and the receding craft. I watched Troy miss each fireball coming at him, followed each of his steps with desperation to get to my sister, or die trying. Enoch was one thing, but having her in the clutches of a feral, cold and treacherous one-world organization was pure disaster. Now we knew they were very aware of our division, a dissection created to rise against their immense power. Only now, they had the biggest piece of the weapon that could take their entire operation down. Rion and Tatos started firing arrows to distract the heat-seeking fireballs coming for us. Dave and Robert were shouting wildly behind us, acting as distractions. Zulu war cries echoed in the distance. Death stars flew in every direction; I hardly heard or registered the catastrophe around us, all I felt was that the entire world was about to end. They had Ava, my sister. The anger splayed hot and heavy, all around me became withering figures. Cyborgs suddenly fell away. But we kept at it, ran and ran over collapsed walls, broken bodies, gaping holes and golden dunes. We lunged, somersaulted and leapt over every obstacle in our path, desperation clinging to heavy chests. Eventually, Dave ran past me and tackled Troy to the ground. Troy and Dave tumbled, their dark figures rolling through golden dust.

“Let me go!” Troy shouted, and punched Dave in the face.

“They’re getting away!” I spat, pushing Dave from Troy.

I watched the ship slowly fly over the devastated landscape like it was teasing us, taunting us, shoving it in our faces that there was no use, we had lost. They had Ava.

“Troy.” I collapsed next to the two boys screaming at each other, my hands found grainy, golden sand.

“Think, Troy, think!” Dave was shouting. “If they have you – they have the entire weapon.”

“They have the weapon!” Troy shoved Dave away, causing him to fall back onto the sand.

“They have Ava. I don’t care about the weapon!”

Abruptly, Troy frowned and stared at Dave. “What did you say?” Troy’s chest rose and fell rapidly with strained emotion. His brows furrowed together in a dark, dubious look.

“I figured it out.” Dave stood, smiled and dusted himself off.

“It’s you and her together, if she is the key, and your touch…”

“Wait.” Troy shook his head.

“You are the lock, she is the key,” Robert interrupted, catching up with us.

Rion was at my side, helping me to my feet, wiping my tears with gentle fingers.

“How does everyone know this?” Troy stared into the sand, his muscular shoulder tearing through what used to be a shirt. I stared at the muscles in his forearms as they flexed for control.