Sovereign Hope (28 page)

“
What is it?” I asked, sensing her alarm.

“
The hatch is open.”

There was no
way Daniel would have left it unsecured.

“
I’m going ahead. You wait here. If you hear shots, get in the
car and go.” She handed me the flashlight and the keys and then
disappeared down the service hatch.

“
Farley, this is crazy,” Tess whispered. “This woman’s
completely out of her mind. I have no idea what’s going on or why
you would think I’m in danger because of Oliver, but he’s nearly
bleeding to death here. Can you just think about this rationally
for one second? We should just get in the car and go.”

“
I can’t. I’m sorry. Agatha’s not crazy. These people have
saved my life more than once. We need to stay here with them where
it’s safe.”

“
Safe? They may have saved your life, Farley, but my life was
just fine until you came over this afternoon. Since then it’s been
decidedly
un
safe.”

“
Please, Tess—”

“
Maybe we should trust them,” Oliver broke in groggily. “I get
the feeling the crazy pixie lady might know what she’s doing. I’ve
never seen a chick drive like that before.” He gave a half-hearted
laugh before clutching at his shoulder again and falling into a
pained silence.

“
We’re not going down that hole,” Tess declared.

I gritted my
teeth and scowled in the dark. Fifteen minutes dragged by so slowly
it felt like time had stopped altogether. I stared at the hatch,
pacing backwards and forwards. There hadn’t been a sound from the
silo. We shivered in silence a little longer before Oliver’s legs
gave out from underneath him.

“
That’s it. It’s time to go get Agatha. She should be back by
now, and he’s getting worse by the second.” I tried to make my
voice sound stronger than I felt. “Are you going to come with
me?”

Tess struggled
to help Oliver up from the dirt and locked her jaw. “No.”

“
Fine. Here, take the keys. Just don’t drive off, okay?
Please?”

The hole in
the ground was murderously black. I’d lived down there long enough
to know my way around the corridors in the dark, but that by no
means meant lowering myself into the nothingness below was
enjoyable. I hummed nervously as I made my way down the ladder and
through the rabbit warren.

I was at the
intersection, about to head towards the welcoming light of the
hangar, when a low wail sounded out into the oppressive silence
from the other direction.

“
Agatha?” My voice echoed down the black corridor.

The passageway stretched out, the bright yellow chink of
light under Aldan’s door a beacon beyond. Something inside me
itched, and that itch swiftly developed into a stinging bite. It
gnawed at me.
Go back
, it said.
Do
not
go in there
.
Go back up the steps, out of the
hatch…get in the car and drive away. Forget all this. Forget.
Do
not
turn the
handle.

But beyond was
Agatha, stoic little Agatha, and her heart was breaking.

But. Why was
there always a but?

I pushed the
door and it creaked open, revealing the nightmare inside. Agatha
was slumped on the floor leaning against a bookcase, a few
scattered volumes lying beside her. Tears ran down her cheeks
whilst she hugged her knees to her chest. She struggled to gasp in
a breath as I stepped into the room. And Daniel flinched.

“
Don’t touch him,” she whispered.

He was wearing
the faded purple t-shirt again, the one with the little hole at the
neck, and worn blue jeans. And he was on his knees. His hands were
locked in Aldan’s, his body rigid, his head thrown back, and his
spine bowed. Every muscle was tensed, as though he were being
electrocuted. Beneath closed lids, his eyes moved rapidly. Every
breath he took looked labored, excruciating. Aldan lay in the bed
as serenely as usual, yet for the very first time there was
movement in his body, too. His eyes flickered as quickly as
Daniel’s.

“
He did it,” Agatha choked out.

“
Did what?”

She continued to cry, leaving me to stare at Daniel’s
contorted body as he gripped tightly onto Aldan’s hand. He was in
pain. I had no idea what was going on, but it was something
unbearable. I should have listened to that voice in my head. It was
trying to spare me from
this.
I took another step towards Daniel and Agatha
stirred.

“
Don’t touch him,” she repeated.

“
Why? What’s happening?”

She stared
down at her hands, tears streaking down her face. Her shoulders
shook silently. I collapsed on the floor in front of her and
grabbed her by the arms, determined to get some sense out of
her.

“
Agatha! Tell me what he’s done!”

Our eyes met,
and through gasped breaths she managed to tell me, “He’s giving it
back. He’s giving it back.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
The talisman wasn’t whole…couldn’t work. He made a deal. To
keep you safe. He’s giving it back.”

An immediate,
cold realization overcame me. “You knew about this?” My voice
trembled. When I looked over, I could see a flow of blue-white
light passing between Daniel’s and Aldan’s hands. It looked like
tiny glowing particles of sand flowing from one into the other,
their hands a linked hourglass.

“
Yes. He wanted him to… said Aldan had agreed, but I thought…
I thought…” She couldn’t go on. Her sobs took over, turning into
television static inside my head.

“
No. Aldan wouldn’t do that. He promised him. He promised…” My
chest was a hollow drum, just an empty space where my beating heart
should have been. The emptiness grew and grew, all consuming, as
the life seeped out of Daniel. “How long? How long
before…?”

As if in
answer, Daniel shuddered. The metal bed frame that supported Aldan
rattled.

Agatha shot to
her feet. “You better get back. I don’t know how this plays
out.”

I remained a
lead weight on the floor beside him, afraid to move away. Aldan
began to tremble, too, and suddenly the light between their hands
grew in intensity until it was almost too bright to look at.

“
Farley, get back!”

I couldn’t
move. Daniel’s face was distorted into a mask of agony. “What’s
happening to him?”

It took
everything I had not to reach out and touch him, to try and take
the pain away somehow. My head spun and the edges of my vision grew
hazy and dark. I released my breath and sucked in a shallow gasp,
but the air in the room was impossibly thin.

“
I can’t breathe,” I croaked. White pin pricks of light burst
in my eyes, and suddenly I was on the floor. Agatha was on all
fours on the other side of the bed.

“
It’s them,” she gasped.

A crushing
weight pushed me down to the ground. I had to get to Daniel.
Somehow, I fought against the pressure and edged towards him. It
was when I reached his side that I noticed something was changing.
The light was fading, and the tension in Daniel’s body along with
it.

“
It’s stopping. Agatha, it’s stopping!” I cried, just as
Daniel sagged forward. A single thought stabbed through the
panic:
Is this it?

I watched him
breathe. Every exhalation seemed like it was his last, like his
chest wouldn’t rise again. Finally, it didn’t. Daniel collapsed to
the floor in slow motion, like a marionette with its strings cut.
He lay on the floor beside me, his eyes closed.

Dead.

A high-pitched buzzing noise cut through the silence.
How can he be dead?
The
hollow of my chest was suddenly full. Full of searing, terrible
pain that threatened to swallow me whole. To make me forget why I
was ever alive, why I would ever have wanted to live in the first
place. The only physical signs of it were the tears that rolled
down my face onto the cold concrete, leaving wet pools that mixed
in with all the dust and someone’s blood. Maybe mine.

I wanted to
take his hand in mine but I could barely lift my arm under the
lingering pressure. I struggled to reach out and touch him, to feel
his hand in mine at last. I had almost made it when out of nowhere
the pressure trebled, like a boot smashing down onto my spine,
pinning me to the ground just an inch from his fingertips.

Then the room
flooded with light.

Brighter than
before and packed with electricity, the power of it prickled and
snapped on my skin. I squirmed, desperate to get away from the
unnerving sensation. I heard Agatha, distant and wild, the noise
coming out of her a strange gurgle. It was impossible to see if she
was okay from where I lay.

I could see
Aldan, though. He was moving on the bed. He’d done it. He’d killed
Daniel. Why did he get to live? He said it himself—he had no right
to take life. He’d broken his promise.

The old man
rose vertically a clear foot from the bed, stiff as a board. His
long white hair fell loose beneath his head, and his arms and feet
hung at his sides so that they almost rested on the mattress. At
that point, his back bowed just as Daniel’s had.

The
electricity in the air grew. The crackle of it bit at me until I
could feel the current of it running through my whole body. This
wasn’t right. I had to get out… away.

The light pulled at everything just like it had on the
highway, the sky and the ground distorting towards Daniel as his
fist met the ground. Except now it was me.
I
was being pulled towards the bed.
The ceiling was falling down on top of us, the floor rising up in
greeting.

When the light
came again, it burst out of Aldan’s eyes, his nose, his mouth.
Great forks of white electricity that snaked savagely into the
room, searching. It didn’t take long for them to find their
mark.

Daniel
convulsed as the spears of energy hit him, punching into his body.
All of a sudden, his fingers started scrabbling at the floor. The
pressure on my chest instantly vanished, and the air rushed back
into my screaming lungs. I scrambled back as Daniel’s head twisted
side to side, and his arms and legs flailed around him.

And then I
saw: his eyes were open. I choked out a cry and pulled my knees up
to my chest, wanting to hold on to something. All the while, the
light kept coming.

It was a long
time before it began to slow. Eventually Daniel went limp, the last
few snaps of energy pushing their way into his body. His head fell
still, his eyes open, staring straight at me. And they were filled
with tears and pain.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Broken.

His arms were
around me, his face buried in my stomach. He was shaking. He was
alive. I clutched at Daniel’s shirt and stroked my hand through his
hair with my heart hammering in my chest. I thought he would have
pushed me away but he clung tighter instead.

“
Daniel? Daniel…” Agatha’s stunned voice repeated. He didn’t
respond. She stood up and went to the bed.

“
Aldan’s dead,” she murmured. Daniel let out a low, strangled
moan. I rocked him in my lap, stroking the back of his head while
staring stupidly up at Agatha. The tiny woman’s shoulders were so
hunched over she looked like she might topple forward under the
weight of her sadness. She slid back down beside us to the
floor.

“
I knew he wouldn’t do it,” she whispered.

Daniel’s body
writhed in my arms, and then he was pushing me away, trying to get
to his feet. Agatha reached for his hand, trying to drag him back
down. “Daniel, don’t!”

He looked down
at her, numb, and shook his hand free. In a step he was at the
bedside. His hands hung down by his sides. He looked much like the
broken boy Aldan had told me about once before. I got to my feet.
Unable to stop myself, I reached out to touch him on the shoulder.
At the last second, I thought better of it.

Aldan lay
still on the bed. His peaceful expression had a look of finality to
it that pulled at my heart. Shame burnt at me. In those few
moments—those unbearable moments when Daniel had been dead—I’d
hated him. Nothing had ever consumed me so totally.

And now a
sinking sensation filled me with dread as I looked down upon his
body. What was going to happen now? The talisman was gone. It was
hard to focus on that thought, though, seeing Daniel slumped
forward onto the bed, propping himself up with his elbows. He
stared at Aldan, shock devastating his face.

“
He lied to me… he lied to me…”

I bit my lip.
“What happened?” I whispered. He was quiet for a moment and then
began to speak in hushed, exhausted tones.

“
I came back here to get it over with. You nearly died
today.
Again
. I
couldn’t bear it. Aldan had to take back the power he had given me.
He needed to end this nightmare once and for all. He promised me he
would.” His voice cracked with emotion, and I stepped closer,
running my hand gently across his shoulders.

Broken,
I
thought.
But better broken than
dead.

“
I came down here. I went to him. He said he would take it,
and then…” he paused, his eyes going wide. “He started to...to take
it. I could feel it all slipping away. When I was too weak to do
anything, he told me. Told me what he was going to do. I couldn’t
stop him. He said that I could do more with it, that it wasn’t his
anymore. He told me I had to live and keep you safe.” He swallowed
hard and pushed himself away from the bed. “I don’t want to be here
anymore.”