Transcending the Legacy (17 page)

I run my hand over the smooth glass covering the original device on my neck as I stare at the candle-lit lantern.

Damn it! I can’t sleep.

I can only blame myself. I set myself up for it.

I roll onto my back, shift under the heavy
blanket and I stare at the chiseled rock above me as the candle light spotlights the hard work the colonists put into these burrows. The sounds of the mountain rock stretching and constricting keep me from folding to the exhaustion that every muscle in my body is screaming for. I close my eyes just for a second. When I reopen them, my surroundings are not the same.

*
* *

I am staring up at a tree swaying and dancing, the sun peeking through the lush, green leaves. I want to jump up, see where I am, but I am not in control and this body wants to remain here in this vision, this moment for a reason. The sound of crushing leaves behind me doesn’t illicit me sitting up, but rather the draw of a smile on my face.

The sound of treaded leaves gets closer to my resting head.
I start to panic inside, but the body I’m prisoner in continues to lay still, grinning at the sound of an approaching being. I feel my heart begin to race. Wait, is that mine or the person I am being commanded by in this vision?

Ira told me that they would intensify. I have to calm down. This isn’t really happening.

“I know you have heard me.”

The rich deep voice sends a shiver of excitement down my spine. The spine-tingling, yet eerie, sensation feels like the vibes I got during Corinna’s and my
shared vision of Sam.

I
roll over onto my stomach to see a noble man dressed in antiquated military uniform standing before me. His eyes are the first thing I notice; the truest blue and eerily familiar. My eyes quickly move to his full lips displaying a tender smile, but it doesn’t hold. The smile falls away as he rummages in his deep coat pocket.

As he searches, he says,
“I have something for you.”

His words warm me, but his strong, working jaw worries me just the same. I hear my voice in the vision for the first time. It sounds innocent, simple, and untaught “Wh…What…is…it?”

My words are chopped, like they are freshly learned.

He pulls something shiny from his pocket. My curiosity is piqued instantly and I
rise to my feet and walk toward him. This admirable man towers over me, a good foot taller. His sandy brown hair hangs around his ears and rests just above his brow on his forehead. Without my guidance, my hand extends to brush the brown hair from his brow. He visibly reacts to my touch, closing his eyes to accept the moment. When he reopens his lids, he clears his throat and puts his hand out to me, palm open displaying a shiny, copper metal attached to a thin, crimson leather cord. The amber metal looks like a ringlet with a cord tethering it on either side. I lean in and look at the object closely; it has been brushed to shine brightly. My fingers take hold of the ringlet and hold it close. As I turn it at just the right angle, my reflection, the one that does not belong to me, is exposed on the plated copper. Her hair is dark and long just like mine. Her eyes are a mossy green just like mine, but the shape of them is different. Her skin is darker than mine as well; hers is a deeper olive tone. Her lips even resemble mine in a way as she smiles at her reflection. I think of Sebastian and his vision of a girl, a Native American tribal princess. Is this her?

The gentleman asks,
“Do you like it?”

He searches my eyes for the excitement he hopes it brings me. He tries to keep his smile reserved, but he is obviously proud of the joy he has brought me and he can’t keep his lips from stretching wider.
His voice carries the joy as well as he tentatively reaches for the ringlet and cord.

“Here,
let me help you,” he says.

He takes the copper treasure and attaches it to my wrist, his hand grazing the back of my own as he fastens it.

I look up i
nto his eyes. He is no longer focused on fastening the wristlet, but rather completely on me. The weight of his blue-gray eyes lay heavy on my heart; I have felt that weight two times in my own life; by Nate and Xander.

The words this body holding my mind says match my emotions warmly and true-heartedly. “Th...Thank...you.”

My hand runs carefully over the smooth copper resting on my wrist as this man places his hand under my palm, while resting his other on top of it.

I look up into his eyes as he says, “There is something else.”

He carefully takes his fingers and turns the tethered ringlet over to reveal an inscription on the back side. Even though I know the writing well, the girl must not since she doesn’t say anything in response to what it says. Instead, my eyes meet his and I feel the need to seek an answer from him.

Responding to the curiosity the girl must have on her face, he says,
“It says ‘Always’.”

He moves closer and brings my hand that he still holds to
rest gently on his chest. I feel the slightest patterned tremble under the cloth of his shirt as soon as I touch him. Realizing that it is the beating of his racing heart, my own quickens to match his.

His words are gentle, “I am yours
, Onawah, always.”

“Onawah!”

The unexpected and dominant full-tone call makes me jump. The gentleman looks up over my head, searching for the voice, then looks back down at me. His hands come to rest on either side of my face as he speaks quickly, “I love you, Onawah.” Without another word or warning, his lips crash against mine taking my breath away.

*
* *

Drawing in a deep breath to fill my lungs brings me back to consciousness. The sound of my gasps and panting echoes in this small carved outlet I’m occupying. The sound is desperate, like I have been deprived of oxygen for far too long. Was I holding my breath in my sleep? Wait, I wasn’t sleeping. I just closed my eyes for a moment, then I was there in the vision.

I want to crawl out of my skin from the
adrenaline coursing through me now.

That man’s touch. Feeling his racing heart. His strikingly
familiar eyes.

I can’t lay here.

I need to get up! I scoot off of the cot, head out the entryway, and take a left. The candle lit lanterns staggered through the passages are sparse, but I can see well enough to make out a soft, opaline glimmer reflecting on the stone wall of the tunnel a few feet down. As I step closer toward the reflection, I hear the trickling sound of liquid hitting a pool of water.

I come around the corner of the passage and enter a hollow cavern occupied by a shallow iridescent lagoon just like the one in our facility.

A drop lands on the water and the ripple catches my attention. The ripple spreads out over the small lagoon, then stops when it meets the edge of the water. I find myself hypnotized and calmed by the repeated drip, ripple, drip, ripple pattern and I walk over and sit on the edge of the water. All of a sudden a weak wave of queasiness rolls through my core then dissolves away into nothing.

A
Dweller.

I’m about to scan the walls for alternate ways out
from this enclosed cavern, when his troubled voice precedes him, “I’m sorry, I followed you.”

Nate.

How did he find me?

He comes into the suffused light of the cavern. His eyes widen as they take in the surroundings. He stumbles over his words as he pans from one end of the sea-green lagoon to the other, then focuses on me. “I felt something wake me. It felt like you.”

Did he...oh crap, did he sense my vision? He couldn’t have! He can’t hear my thoughts anymore. Hastily I question him, “What felt like me?”

Nate walks toward me, mesmerized by the water just as I am. His voice trails off, “Your presence. Remember when your nightmares would wake you and I would be there?”

His sentimental explanation softens my anxiety and I follow him with my eyes as he comes to sit next to me. This is strangely déjà vu.

Nate says, “Jes, this is like the pool in our facility.”

When he looks at me, the reflection of the water on his eyes bring back the memory of the first moments Nate and I shared in front of a lagoon of water just like this. So focused on his eyes searching mine, I nearly feel his hand covering mine. Immediately, a distinct fever instantly soothes the length of my arm then spreads through me quickly. A swelter that had been absent has found its way back to me just from this small touch, this small gesture.

Nate looks down at his hand covering mine then back at me with such devotion, it makes my heart pound and my legs weaken. The intention in his voice matches the passion in his sparkling eyes as he says,
“Do you feel that?”

I do. The nerves of being in his presence, the anxiousness of hearing him speak, the intensity between us, the fervor that gathered between us in those first moments in our facility, they are all there filling me, making me whole again, making me the Jesca I was.

I don’t think my heart could beat any faster or harder without bursting out of my chest.
I answer him with bated breath, “Yes, I do.”

His fingers lightly grazes my skin from temple to chin and I lean into the warm trail it leaves, bringing us closer to each other. His voice is sultry, bold, and
mesmerizing all at the same time when he says breathily, “It was never the device. It was always us, Jes. We just got lost.” His fingertips settle below my chin, and tip my face back so my eyes lock with his. Decisively, he says, “We have been given another chance...”

He moves in close and I let my eyes drift closed as he breathes his light breath on my lips.

His throaty, deep voice raises goose bumps on my arms when he continues, “Another chance to find each other.”

“Jesca! Nate!” Ezra’s voice
rings through the tunnel, breaking the spell we are under.

Sharply, Nate
’s fingers drop from my chin and his warm presence disappears, leaving me chilled. I open my eyes in time to see him shake his hand out, then pump his fists as he walks toward the opening in the cavern. He did that same thing with his hands in the truck earlier. I gather my senses and my breath deeply, wondering if his reaction was solely from Ezra’s call or from something else, me.

My head is still spinning from Nate’s tender touch then brash recoil
, when Nate angles his head toward me and mutters, “Coming?”

Is he serious?
He laid his heart out a moment ago, and now he is cold and non-emotional? I shake my head and scoff before answering in a mocking whisper, “Yeah, sure.”

Nate leads us through the tunnel, keeping his distance from me and his eyes straight ahead.

Ezra calls again, “Jesca!”

“Coming!” I holler.

I hear Tessa yelling for Tom and him talking in the near distance as we walk back through the tunnel, Nate leading. The open cavern of the common area comes into view. Everyone is awake, some rubbing their eyes and yawning.
Siobhan and Jake are crouching next to Shiva and Tessa is in her father’s arms. Nate has already disappeared among the meandering colonists and guardians.

I scan the room and find him talking with Xander, shaking his head about something that has been said between them. Xander is leaning over Nate dominantly, talking quickly.
Are they arguing? Xander must feel my eyes on him, because he looks in my direction and steps back from Nate like he has been caught or spied saying something he shouldn’t have. Nate notices his shift in behavior and angles his eyes in my direction. The weight of their stare is different suddenly, foreign. They both drop their gaze at the same time, Xander grabs a duffle bag, hands one to Nate, and they both disappear into the outlet behind them. I see Monica and Luke pass them, exiting the same outlet with full duffle bags. We must be loading supplies.

I hear Tom say audibly, “Take what you need.”

I start toward the doorway after Nate and Xander when Ezra blocks my advance. “Where did you go?”

Good question
. Where did I go? Why did Nate come for me? How did he know I was there? Why did I feel a Dweller and the sensation disappear suddenly? Why are Nate and Xander acting so strange? Too many questions.