Sovereign Hope (11 page)

What the…?

I was paralyzed. Couldn’t move a single muscle. Something
wasn’t right. The air in my lungs began to vibrate, faster and
faster, until it was burning up inside me.
Escape!
my mind demanded, but my
body wouldn’t…no, couldn’t oblige. I’d grabbed hold of something
too, too hot and couldn’t let go. Why couldn’t I unclench my
jaw?

Pain. Pain.
Pain. PAIN. PAIN!

It throbbed
around my nervous system, growing and growing until there was
nothing else. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it
did. The pressure inside my head, small at first, swelled until it
pushed at the inside of my skull, then exploded, all fireworks and
color. I could even taste it, acidic, like licking a battery. But
there was something else…

Let go! Let
go! Let go before—

Suddenly the
ground was gone. My stomach lurched, and I was weightless for a
second before my back slammed against the far wall. There was a
sickening, twisting crunch… falling…and then my head cracked
against bare concrete. Teeth smashed against teeth, a strangled
gasp escaped my lips, and then the lights were most definitely
out.

CHAPTER TEN

Kinda Hurting

“
Hold this, will you?”

“
Listen, I’ve only got two hands, kid.”

“
Then… here… just hold it in your teeth.”

“
Okay, okay.”

“
There’s so much blood. I don’t know where it’s coming from.
Can you… can you… here… yes. Yes, I’ve got it. I’ve got pressure on
it.”

“
Good. It’ll stop soon enough. Don’t move your hand. I’ll be
right back.”

“
Hurry.”

Muffled footsteps disappeared and breathing quickened as
someone leaned over me. They grunted with exertion as they pressed
down hard on my shoulder, pinning me to the floor. I lay absolutely
still. A foggy memory was taking shape in my mind. I was standing
in Aldan’s room, I touched his scar, and then…
wham
. Pain and dizziness and
blood.

My ears rang
as I lay there, feeling strangely disjointed and uninvolved in what
was happening. The strong hands worked over me, pulling my body
straight and lifting my head to place something soft underneath
it.

“
Damn it, Farley. Damn it.”

I jolted when
I realized who was piecing me back together so frantically. I
attempted to turn, to move out of his hands so that my pride
wouldn’t be quite so wounded, so he couldn’t shout and scream at me
for doing exactly what he’d told me not to.

“
Don’t do this. Don’t do this…” Daniel repeated it over and
over like a mantra. He brushed my hair back out of my face. The
strands were sticky as they peeled from my skin, smelling like the
bitter tang of blood. Uneasy, I tried to open my eyes, to feel out
my body, but all I managed was a pained moan. Daniel stiffened,
exhaled sharply, and then went back to work.

Agatha returned. She lowered herself to the floor, tutting as
she fiddled with something. Another second passed by. I felt
Daniel’s strong grip around my upper arm. He squeezed hard, cutting
off the circulation. My stomach fluttered, nervous.
What’s he doing?

A scratching
sensation in the crook of my arm—an injection. Daniel released his
grip.

“
She’s coming to,” he said.

“
You better do it quickly, then.”

“
Here. Hold her up a little.”

Daniel grunted, and Agatha’s small hands moved underneath my
head, gently lifting me up into a half-sitting position. After
that, Agatha maneuvered herself in behind me to support me against
her stomach. At this
point
I managed to crack
my eyes open, wincing, to see Daniel crouching over me. His face
was creased with something that looked shockingly close to
concern.

Sweat ran from
his brow as he took hold of the top of my arm. He rested his other
hand over my shoulder, placing the heel of his palm against my
collarbone. Agatha gripped me tighter. I managed a frown, trying to
figure out what was happening, just as Daniel braced and pulled
sharply in opposite directions. There was a popping sound, and a
wild surge of fresh, crippling pain sprinted through my body.

Dislocated
shoulder.

I swooned and
swallowed back the urge to vomit as my stomach heaved. Daniel let
go as soon as it was done, pushing himself back to reveal that his
white t-shirt was spattered with fat, round circles of blood. The
hem of it was a sticky, dark red mess. Our eyes met, and he
struggled to his feet, his face hardening in a matter of seconds.
Amongst all the pain, the added knowledge that he was going to be
mad made the situation a hundred times worse. I groaned and closed
my eyes again, not wanting to see him shut down.

“
I gotta get outta here.”

It sounded
like he tripped in his rush to escape, and I opened my eyes in time
to see his green Converse disappear through the doorway. Agatha
huffed and heaved herself out from underneath me, shifting so that
she was in view.

“
How you doing, kid?”

“
Kinda hurting.” My voice was a weak rasp.

Agatha
grimaced. “I’ll bet.” She rummaged through the first aid kit at her
knees and pulled out another syringe, tearing it from the plastic
and inserting it into a clear glass vial. Her hands were steady,
methodical. “This’ll knock you out. You might feel a little better
in a couple of hours.”

She didn’t
sound as hopeful as I would have liked. How badly had I been hurt?
I nodded and barely flinched when the syringe was emptied into my
arm, enjoying the dulling sensation as I crept out of consciousness
once more.

******

“
Here. Squeeze it. Like this.” Agatha mashed the small red
Styrofoam ball in her hand.

“
I’ve been doing it all morning. It doesn’t hurt anymore, I
swear.” I was growing irritated with Agatha’s never-ending
physiotherapy.

“
It’s only been six days. Of course it still hurts. Now
squeeze.”

I obliged
Agatha, if only to shut her up. It really didn’t hurt that much.
Aside from the dislocation, it turned out that when I was slammed
into the wall, a small steel bracket had pierced my shoulder.
Apparently Agatha had never seen so much blood, but I suspected
that was hyperbole. It seemed to me that the other woman had
probably seen a lot of blood in her time.

I sighed and flexed the stupid ball. “Has he called yet?”
Daniel had bolted after the accident and hadn’t been back since. I
was dreading his return more than a trip to the dentist, and
I
really
hated
the dentist.

“
Nope.”

Perfect.

“
He’ll be worried about Aldan. He’ll be back soon.”

“
Worried about
Aldan?
The man tried to kill me!”

Agatha pursed
her lips into a hard line and cut me a sideways look. “You have to
understand, Aldan never meant to hurt you. Please believe that. I’d
explain more, but it’s all too intricately linked with Daniel. It
wouldn’t be fair of me to discuss it with you without his
consent.”

She was being
ridiculous if she expected me to buy that sorry excuse. “It’s not
like Aldan accidentally tripped me or something, Agatha. He could
have killed me.”

And that was
the end of that particular conversation. Agatha refused to discuss
it any further. Instead, she told me about herself. She told me how
she’d left the Four Quarters a long time ago—she couldn’t stand the
way the Reavers took life—and refused to be a part of their
society.

I knocked out
a distracted rhythm on my water glass with a pencil. “Have you
always been with Daniel and Aldan?”

“
No, not always. I spent a long time just traveling, seeing
what was out there, y’know? I didn’t even know who they were until
I came across Daniel one day.” She laughed. “He tried to kill me.
I’m glad that was back when he hadn’t refined his skills and not
now.”

“
How long ago was that?”

Agatha thought for a moment. She looked up to the ceiling in
concentration, frowning. “A
really
long time ago.”

That didn’t
really help. “This side of the year two thousand?” I asked. Daniel
would have been a kid before that.

“
Ha! No, when I say a long time, I mean a really,
really
long
time.”

My jaw
dropped. “But…I thought it was just the Reavers who didn’t die. You
said only the men of the bloodline were immortal.”

“
That’s true. But members of the Four Quarters live a lot
longer than normal people. We die eventually, yes, but most people
in our society can expect to live for at least a thousand years or
more. I’ve been alive four hundred and ten years. I guess in your
terms I’m around thirty-six or thirty-seven. I was born in 1601 in
Stirling, Scotland. I came to America a hundred and forty years
later. I missed most of the formative history of this country,
however. We always kept to ourselves.

“
Once I left, I did get to experience the Industrial
Revolution and the twentieth century, though. And that was a very
exciting time to be around, I can tell you. Daniel was in his
element. He learned how to design and build every kind of steam and
combustion engine imaginable.” She cast a glance over to the
dismantled engine that still lay on the sheet before the main
entrance, totally missing my horrified reaction to her
speech.

Everything had ground to a halt. There were a hundred
questions I wanted to ask, but I was too busy freaking out over the
fact that Daniel wasn’t my age. He was old. Like,
really
old. History
class sucked, but I still paid attention. The Industrial Revolution
had been sometime in the nineteenth century. That made him well
over a hundred at the very least. The number was probably much
bigger, though. That knowledge was, for some reason,
earth-shatteringly upsetting. It took a lot of effort to wrestle
free from my weird emotions.

“
So you’re from the First Quarter?”

Agatha snapped
out of her reverie and smiled. “Yes, the first of the houses. We’re
the oldest after the Reavers. Our history goes back the furthest.
We were alone with the Immortals for a very long time.”

“
And which house is Daniel from?”

Agatha pursed
her lips and drummed her fingers on the desk. “Daniel doesn’t come
from any of the houses. He’s…something else.”

“
What do you mean,
something
else
?”

“
Sorry, kiddo. It’s Daniel’s story. Not mine to
tell.”

There was no
point probing further. Agatha would only give me the spiel. The
topic was clearly out of bounds. I groaned and rested my head on my
arms folded on the desk, wishing there were no more mysteries.

Agatha laughed
under her breath. “He’ll be back soon. I’ll get him to tell you
everything. Until then, you’ll just have to be patient.”

Patience had never been my forté. “He’s not going to tell
me
anything,”
I
grumbled into my arms.

“
He doesn’t have a choice,” Agatha murmured, so low I barely
heard her, and then stood up. The tiny woman left me with my face
still buried in my sleeves.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Thank Daniel

It was
Wednesday, but it could have been Sunday, or maybe even Monday. The
days were all depressingly the same here, after all. I retrieved a
brand-new horror novel from the shelf in my room and sat down in
the lounge, preparing to immerse myself in another world for a
short while. It was easier than dealing with the confusion of my
own. It was a thick book; at least it would last a couple of
days.

“
I never did thank you for setting up my room, Agatha,” I
said, as I traced my index finger along the lines of the
blurb.

“
You should thank Daniel,” Agatha replied without pausing in
what she was doing. The sound of her typing was all machine-gun
determination.

“
What?”

“
Oh, yeah. He arranged all of that for you. I was surprised he
managed to get that bed down here at such a short
notice.”

Daniel?
I stared at the cover of the
book. How had he known my favorite author? Or that this was the
only one of his books I hadn’t read?

I did my best
to follow the story for a while, but it was impossible. The
fifteenth page came around and I had no idea what was going on. The
book made a loud snap when I slammed it closed. Why did he have to
be so confusing?

As if on cue,
Agatha’s head shot up. She paused, her eyes distant as she listened
for sounds I couldn’t make out.

“
He’s home.”

A rush ran through my body, a mixture of apprehension and
panic, combined with a considerable amount of excitement, and I
chastised myself
. “
I don’t know what you’re so happy about,” I grumbled to
myself under my breath. He was going to be hella furious with
me.

Agatha caught
sight of me muttering and chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him.
I may be small but he’s more afraid of me than you’d imagine.”