Forbidden (The Seeker Saga, #2) (15 page)

“I… I don’t know,” I defended.  The shock of seeing Mr. Stannis’s face was too much.  My knees buckled beneath me, and I collapsed to the ground.  What had I done?  What… what had I done?  Had I killed him? 
Killed
an innocent man?  For what?  Because I was so scared that I expected an attacker?  “Is he… alive?” I finally managed.

Ashley put two fingers on his neck.  After a tense moment, she nodded.  “He’s out cold.  But, his heart’s still going,” she said sternly.  “Weakly though.  He’s not young.”

Relief flooded me.  But I was still shaking.  I had
attacked
Mr. Stannis!  “What was he
doing
here?” I wondered desperately.

“We’re not the only ones who use these woods!” Liz screamed.  I shied back.  I felt on the verge of tears.  “That’s why the crystals are so dangerous!  This is why we can’t keep them on ourselves!  We can’t control their power!  This is what I warned you about!”

I had no words.  The horrible sinking feeling in my stomach just continued growing.  I… was numb.

Surprisingly, it was Eve who came to my defense.  “Tracy only did what she thought best!” she said.  “What if this had been someone else?  What if this was another of those men?  None of us would have had the power to do anything!  Only she does!  And she noticed him before any of us even knew he was there!”

“How
did
you know he was here?” Madison asked softly.

“I just… I heard a sound behind me,” I explained.  “I pulled through the crystal, and it just… worked.  Like the time in the caves.  I was connected to everything around me.  I sent the tremor toward him.”

“The real question,” Eve said, “is what was he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I couldn’t have known it was him!  It’s not my fault!”

“I know,” Eve said soothingly.  She placed a hand on my shoulder.  “I know how you feel.”

“What do we do now?” Madison wondered.

“We keep going,” Liz said.  “We have to take him with us now.  We have to go warn Rob.”

“How?” I asked desperately.  Mr. Stannis wasn’t the lightest of men, and I did not think any of us had the strength to carry him.

“We make a litter!” Madison announced.  I blinked.  “I did it in scouts once,” she explained,  “when I was eleven or twelve.”

“With what?” Ashley asked.  Rain continued to fall around us, soaking everyone to the skin.

“We don’t need much,” Madison said.  “Our jackets.  Two branches.  We tie the jackets between two branches.  It should be enough.”

“We don’t have any time,” Eve urged.  “We have to get to Rob immediately.”

“Eve’s right,” Liz admitted reluctantly.

“But we can’t just
leave
him here,” Madison pleaded.

“We’re not going to,” I said.  I had created this mess, and it was up to me to solve it—even if I was still shaking.  “Eve and I know the way to the caves.  We’ll go there and get Rob.  Madison, you stay here with Liz and Ashley.  You can get started with the litter.  If we return quickly, maybe Rob can help us bring Mr. Stannis somewhere safe.”

“He needs to go to the clinic,” Ashley said.

“Right,” I agreed.  “It’ll be easier to manage with Rob.  What do you guys think?”

“I don’t like separating ourselves again,” Liz said, “but that might be the best idea.  All right.  Let’s do it.  Eve, can you get to the caves with Tracy?”

“Of course.”

“Then go.  And hurry!”

Eve grabbed my hand, and together we raced through the pouring rain.  My heart was still pounding out of my chest.  But we had a plan, and I latched onto it like a drowning woman to a floating log.  We would get Rob.  He would come and help us.  We’d bring Mr. Stannis to the clinic.  He would be taken care of there.  Everything would be made right for him.  And then, finally, we’d get off this island. 

Eve and I ran so fast it was a wonder neither of us tripped.  When we finally reached the entrance to the cave I was completely winded.  A sharp pain jabbed the spot just beneath my lungs.  I didn’t have time to catch my breath before Eve shoved a flashlight at me and slipped through the opening.  I followed without hesitation.

The flashlights were a necessity now.  No light penetrated through the cracks in the ceiling.  Rain dripped from the roof, spluttered down the walls, and coated the ground with deep puddles.  I fiddled with the handle on my light, cranking it to make it work.  I was disappointed at how much effort I had to put into it to generate just a tiny beam.  I thought I’d be able to see farther if I just used the screen light from my cell phone.

“Come on,” Eve urged, starting down the cave.  There was a tightness to her voice now.  Even she was on edge. 

The tunnel’s twists and wide puddles made running impossible. Even so, we did our best to move quickly.  We were nearing the point where the lantern had been last time—except I couldn’t see the light anymore. 

“Rob?” I called out.  My voice echoed down the length of the cave.  I waited, but there was no reply.  “Rob, are you here?”  The silence that answered was deafening.

I looked at Eve.  “Maybe he went closer to the cells,” she suggested.

I nodded.  That made sense.  Now was not the time to let frightening fancies take a hold of me.  Pointing the pathetic beam of the flashlight forward, I pressed on.

I hurried forward, leaving Eve behind.  The water level was lower here, just halfway up my foot, and I could move faster.  I started to run.  I only got a few steps forward when I stubbed my toe on something.  Wincing, I pointed the flashlight down.

A scream erupted from my throat.  Rob was lying there, out cold. 
Dead
?

I fumbled the light and it fell to the ground with a splash.  With desperate haste, I opened my mind to the crystal.  The blue light flared from beneath my shirt, coating the cavern rock, streaming over Rob’s body, covering everything.   Everything became still, silent, held in place by the time-freezing power of the crystal. 
Rob
.  He lay collapsed on the ground, his head slumped lifelessly to one side.  Both his eyes were closed. 

The crystal’s power seared through my mind.  I let it in, and pulled for more.  The light intensified, growing brighter and brighter, until the entire cavern was lit up as if by the sun.  Nothing could harm me in this state.  I felt the connections, those marvelous links that connected my mind to the world, that let me perceive so much more, that made me one with my surroundings.  They exploded in my mind.  I felt and knew Eve’s exact location in the caves, around the turn and only a few yards behind me.  I could feel the life force surrounding her, and – thank God! – felt the same around Rob.  He wasn’t dead.  Relief instantly overwhelmed me, but that was not what I was after.

I closed my eyes and drank in the power of the crystal, drowning in its untold bliss.  I sucked it all in, until there was nothing left, until the crystal could give no more.  My mind screamed with pain, scorched by the trillions of connections that existed all around me, but I ignored it.  I probed out, jumping from connection to connection, searching the caves for something else. 
Someone
else.

The crystal took me farther, deeper, until I was one with the entire cavern.  Its entire formation became imprinted deeply in my mind.  I could tell the location of every boulder, every rock, every speck of dust, every drop of water and piece of dirt.  I knew every twist the tunnels took, knew the cracks in the rocks and faults in their foundation.  I
felt
all of it in my mind,
knew
it all with enough detail to separate every particle that ever existed here.  It would take a lifetime to sift through the tiniest fraction of that, a hundred lifetimes, but I pushed it all aside as I searched for only one thing.  The presence of whoever did this to Rob.

I knew it was the same man who had attacked me, because I sensed his cell was empty.  But strain as I did, I could not find him here.  He had fled. When or how I could not say.  All I knew was that he was not in the cave. 

Relief and disappointment flared up within me as one.  Relief for his absence, for the safety it afforded, but the bitterest of disappointment for being unable to pay him back for what he did to Rob.  Down here, it would have been all too easy to send a shift of energy through the rock, to alter the precarious balance just enough to send the entirety of the roof down on top of the man. 
Had he been here.
  He was lucky he was not.

Reluctantly I released the crystal, severing the link that offered life, sustenance, and protection.  In an instant, everything sped up to normal.  All the sounds of the cave returned.  Drops of water that were frozen in the air by the blue light splattered to the ground.  My ragged breathing made a noise again.  Eve’s footsteps ran behind me.  And the darkness returned.

I fell to my knees beside Rob.  I did not need light to tell me where he was.  The feel of the cave was still imprinted in my mind, but it was fading fast.  An unenhanced mind could not hold on to that much information for long.  And everything became second place after my concern for Rob.

“Oh, my God,” I whimpered, lifting his head in my hands.  “Oh, my God, Rob.  Poor Rob.”  Tears stung my eyes.  I clutched him, determined to never let him go.  He had no idea what he was up against.  He had no
chance
against what he was up against.  He had been caught in the crosshairs of a weapon aimed at me.  It was all my fault.  Completely my fault.  I brushed wet hair away from his forehead, and saw a nasty welt there.  His face was cold.  His body was cold.  But he was breathing.  He was still alive.

I heard Eve running down the tunnel.  “The crystal,” she began breathlessly as she turned the corner, “why did you use— Oh, God.”  Her light fell onto me, and she saw Rob too.

She clutched at her neck, but stopped short of linking to the crystal.  She could sense the connections as well as I, but would not be able to manipulate them to anywhere near the same degree. 
Why
was a mystery to all of us. Why was I the one who had so much strength? Eve had enough sense to understand that I must have already searched for Rob’s assailant.  “We’re alone,” I told her, just to be sure.

She jerked her head in a nod, and fell to my side.  Her face was twisted in a look of pure terror and unmitigated shock.

“What happened to him?” she whispered.

I didn’t have the strength to answer.  Rob had always seemed indestructible.  Nothing stood in his way, nothing frightened him.  He had come to save me like a knight in shining armor last night.  And now here he was, reduced to lying limp on the cold wet rock.  I clutched his head desperately to my chest.  Tears rained down my cheeks.  Rob’s life was balanced on the edge of a knife.  He was just one breath away from plunging into the eternal darkness of death’s abyss.  Seeing him like this sapped me of what little courage I had left.  I was running on empty. My soul had been drained by the evil and malevolence of those who wanted to harm me and the other girls.  Now, Rob had fallen victim to them.  All the certainty in my life was gone.

“He’s still breathing!” Eve exclaimed.  “Tracy, he’s still alive!”  She gripped my shoulders hard.  “We need to get him to the clinic!”

“We can’t…” I mumbled weakly.  I realized I was sobbing, gripped by the throes of despair.  “We can’t.  We can’t handle this by ourselves!”  I was on the verge of hysteria.  All certainty was gone.  “Everything’s gone wrong!  We can’t… I wish we never found these damned things!”  In one jerky motion, I ripped the crystal from my neck.  Then, with as much strength as I could muster, I flung the vile thing into the darkness.  Eve gasped.  I heard the crystal rebound against a wall before plunking to the ground.

Blue light exploded from Eve’s chest, but only for a moment.  As soon as it retracted, Eve raced in the direction I had thrown my crystal, and then ran back.  In the dark, I never even saw her full-handed slap coming. 

“Are you crazy?” she demanded after I picked myself up from the ground.  The force she put into the slap had sent me flying!  “Get a hold of yourself!  This isn’t you!  What the hell were you thinking?”  She dangled my crystal dangerously before my eyes.  “
This
is the only reason you’re still alive!  If you forsake it, you forsake your life.  You forsake all of us.  You forsake Rob!”  She thrust the crystal into my hands.  “Without this, you’re defenseless! 
Never
let me see you do that again.”

I ran a hand along my cheek, stifling a sob.  I thought she might have dislocated my jaw.  But she was right.  Now was not the time for despair.  Now, in the most hopeless of situations, was the time for strength.  And even though I didn’t think I had any left, even though I was scared witless, I had to remain strong.  Anything less would be suicide.

“You’re right,” I said finally.  I took the crystal, and her hand.  She pulled me up easily.  “I’m… sorry.”

“I’m frightened too,” Eve whispered, “but we have to stay smart.  We’ll be off this island soon, and then we’ll be safe.  We’ll find the answers we’re looking for.  But before we do that, we have to help Rob.”