CHAPTER 12

 

WE LEAVE THE SCENE of the motorcycle gang massacre quickly, in case the sound has drawn unwanted attention.

As we hurry up the hill on the side road at a rapid march, Kai maneuvers himself alongside me. I hold back a smile—it’s always nice to have him close by. His scouting duties don’t allow this to happen nearly enough for my liking. I almost long for those few days when I had him all to myself, before the others caught up with us back on the California coast. Not that I’m not thrilled to be reunited with my dad and my friends, of course.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say. “Those guys never even got off a shot.”

Kai doesn’t say anything—he’s not the most talkative guy I’ve ever known, for sure. I like being reminded that he cares, though. I struggle to come up with something to keep the conversation going.

“You reacted awfully fast back there,” I say. “Before any of the Marines.”

Kai shrugs. “I was ready. It was pretty clear there was going to be trouble, so I had an arrow already aimed at their leader. When his head fell off, I switched to another target.”

When his head fell off. Kai says it so matter-of-factly I can’t help smiling. This little skirmish was clearly next to nothing to him.

“How did you choose your next target?” I ask.

For the first time, a bit of hardness creeps into Kai’s voice. “I didn’t like the way he looked at you,” he replies.

A warm sensation flows through my body—I could get used to comments like that. Feeling bold, I rise up on my toes and give him a quick peck on the cheek. It’s not as easy as it sounds at our fast-paced walk. His skin tastes salty, the result of his trips across the bay with the mermaids. My skin undoubtedly tastes the same, though the thought hadn’t occurred to me until now. When you’ve only bathed a couple of times in a month, it’s easy to get used to being dirty. I don’t expect there’ll be a shower in my near future—I’ll settle for another cold stream if we come upon one and have the time to stop.

“Thanks,” I say. “I didn’t like the way he looked at me either.” Something inside me makes me want to emphasize the point. “I didn’t like it at all.”

Kai stares into my eyes for a moment and then smiles. “Well, he won’t be looking at you—or any other woman—like that ever again.”

We maintain our rapid pace up the hill for half a mile or so. Despite being in the best physical shape of my life, the steepness of the slope has my heart pumping and my breathing growing rapid. Kai, on the other hand, looks like he’s out for a morning stroll in the park. Even though his physical abilities are no longer new to me, I still marvel at them.

When we round a bend in the road, Dad motions everyone to a halt. He sends the advance guard up ahead once again, and because of what happened with the bikers, he also assigns a squad of six Marines to hold back and act as a rear guard, just in case. After taking those precautions, he turns to Kai.

“Kai, will you go scout ahead again, please,” he says. “I’d like to avoid any more surprises, if possible.”

“Of course,” Kai replies. He turns and looks at me. “See you in a bit.”

He sets off at a fast jog up the road, and just like that, he’s gone. Radar, however, is still at my side. With Kai gone, she edges closer.

“Looks like you two are getting more and more chummy,” she says, smiling. “And you’re getting bolder, too. That little kiss on the cheek was a good move. I approve.”

“Oh, hush,” is all I can think to say, though I think the kiss on the cheek was a good move, too. I just hope Kai thought the same.

Our company continues moving inland. As we climb higher into the hills, the views of the bay and the city behind us grow increasingly spectacular. The sun glints off the wide expanse of startlingly blue water below us like jewels sprinkled from the heavens, and from this far away, only the most severe damage to the buildings is visible. The whole thing probably looks a lot like it did in the days before the incident. No wonder people paid so much to live up here.

We have no real destination in mind, no way to know when we’ve reached a spot where the woman from the other world can open a portal. Our plan is simply to keep walking, ascending ever higher into the hills and getting farther and farther away from Alcatraz, until Radar informs us of an approaching Anomaly. When that happens, we’ll have to hope it’s the portal we’re waiting for. If it is, then ten of us plus Kai will step through into a world I can barely even imagine.

Around midday, the terrain begins to more or less even out. It’s still rugged, but now the road we’re following goes down as much as it goes up. The views are gone as well—we can no longer see the bay or the city. The houses are smaller up here, tucked into tree-filled lots. Almost all of it is wildly overgrown, and as usual, we see no signs of life.

We take a short break for lunch. Kai is out scouting, so I sit with the Miracles, exchanging small talk and making guesses about what we might find once we enter the other world. Radar’s fantasies are the wildest—she’s guessing fairies and unicorns as well as monsters. Sneak’s are the next most imaginative, filled with wild combinations of beasts. Gryphons are the only ones I’ve ever heard of.

While we’re eating, the weather abruptly changes. The books we studied about the area warned us how rapidly the weather can shift in this region, but I’m still stunned by how a bright sunny morning could morph so quickly into a cool overcast day. The wind has picked up as well, blowing hard and cold out of the west. The sky looks heavy and threatening, and I won’t be surprised if it rains, though I hope it doesn’t. While the rain might help clean us off, cold and rain and wind is not really a welcome combination. I suppose we could duck into any of the nearby houses to wait out a storm if the weather got too bad.

One thought leads to another, and I wonder if any of these homes we’ve been passing still have running water of any kind. As long as I’m thinking about it, I decide I’ll start checking roofs for solar arrays—a hot shower would be a true luxury. If I see one, I wonder if I could get my dad to stop long enough for some quick showers. Somehow, I doubt it—a shower would be way down on his list of priorities—but a girl can dream, can’t she?

Kai returns just as we’re getting ready to resume our journey. He’s been coming back to the main group every twenty or thirty minutes, but he never stays long, reporting briefly to my dad before heading back out to scout. Neither of them wants to take a chance of getting caught off guard again, though there’s nothing anyone could really have done about the confrontation with the biker gang, since they came at us quickly from the side on their motorcycles.

Since we never change our route or take any extra precautions after Kai’s reports, I know he hasn’t come across any signs of danger on his scouting forays, which is just fine with me. There will be danger aplenty when we go into his world—we don’t need to run into any more while we’re still here in ours. Thoughts about the other world set me to wondering exactly what the woman on the other side of the portal expects from us once we get there. There’s really no way to know, of course, but she already has powerful allies like Kai on her side, so why does she need us? It obviously has something to do with our Powers, but that’s about as far as my thinking takes me. I know so little about the other world that there’s really no point in speculating. If Kai knew anything more about it, I’m pretty sure he would have told us by now.

I catch his eye and we exchange smiles, but have no chance to talk before he’s off again.

We follow along behind him, but he’s moving at a fast jog and is soon lost to sight around a curve in the road. Once again, I find myself marveling at his physical conditioning. He doesn’t seem to ever get tired even though he’s traveling much faster than the rest of us, and by coming back and forth, he’s covering a whole lot more distance besides. None of the Marines show any signs of fatigue, either. As for me, I’m glad we seem to have left the steepest slopes behind us, though I’m certainly not going to sound like a wimp or a whiner by voicing that thought aloud. I bet my friends feel the same way. We’re all in good shape by now, but we’re for sure not Marines.

With the heavy gray cloud cover looming over us, darkness begins to descend early. December twenty-first is already the shortest day of the year, and we’re far north of San Diego as well. I bet it’s barely four o’clock when the light begins to fade. I’m guessing Dad will have us looking for shelter very soon.

As if reading my mind, Dad calls the company to a halt. He sends two runners to recall the advance guard, then turns to the rest of us.

“It looks like there won’t be any portal today,” he says. “We need to find a place to hole up for the night.”

“We passed a pretty big house just a little while back,” I offer. “It even had solar panels on the roof. Maybe there’ll be some hot water.” I smile inwardly, pleased that my alertness for solar arrays might now pay off with the luxury of a hot shower.

Dad smiles. “Sounds like a winner,” he says. “Let’s go.”

We turn around and head back the way we had come, meeting up with our rear guard on the way.

It takes us less than five minutes to reach the two-story home I had noticed. The house sits on a raised lot a short distance back from the road. The pale yellow walls are badly in need of several coats of paint, but the place looks otherwise undamaged. Dad sends a squad of men inside to make sure no one—or no thing—has chosen the house for a residence.

We wait out front while the soldiers make sure the house is safe. It doesn’t take long until one of the men waves to us from the front doorway, inviting us in.

Inside, there’s good news and bad. The bad is that there’s no hot water, no running water of any kind as a matter of fact. I had been hoping the solar might be gravity based like at the fitness place, but no such luck. The good news is that though only remnants and splinters of the furniture remain, the expensive carpeting is pretty much undamaged. It’s a bit soiled after all this time, of course, but the plush, cushiony surface will be almost as good as a bed for sleeping on.

While Lieutenant Gregerson gets busy setting up a rotation of Marines to stand guard outside the house, my friends and I sit down on the carpet in the center of the living room. It’s pretty dark in here, so Lights calls up a couple of illumination spheres and lets them float a foot or so above the floor, well below the level of the windows. He also keeps the glow dim enough to not draw any unwanted attention from outside. The light isn’t much, but at least we can see each other as more than dark outlines.

Kai appears in the doorway and begins conversing with my dad. As I watch them talk, I wonder if Kai will come in and join us for a bit or if he’ll just go back outside to keep watch. I want him in here, of course, for a little while at least.

I feel a sudden sharp nudge in my ribs. Radar. I turn my head toward her.

“What?” I ask, sounding a bit more annoyed than I intended.

Radar ignores my tone. “Are you just going to sit here and watch?”

“What do you want me to do?” I ask.

Radar shakes her head in exasperation. “Go talk to him,” she says, looking toward Kai. “Before he disappears outside for the whole night.”

“Uh, in case you haven’t noticed,” I say, “he’s talking with my dad.”

When Radar sets her mind to something, she’s not easily dissuaded. “So?” she asks. “He’s your dad. You’re allowed to cut in.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“How the hell do I know? Say anything. Ask him how he likes the weather. Or tell him you want to feel his tongue deep inside your mouth.”

My cheeks immediately grow warm. I’m glad for the dim illumination, so no one can see me blushing.

“I’m with Radar, Blaze,” Plush says.

It takes me a moment to realize Plush is talking to me—I’m still not used to the sound of my new name.

Plush takes Lights’ hand in hers. “It’s good to have someone special,” she says. Then she grins. “I wouldn’t go with the thing about his tongue in your mouth just yet, though.”

“I would,” Sneak interjects. “That line would totally work on me.” He flashes me an exaggerated wink.

I sigh. With friends like these…

I push myself to my feet. I have no idea what I’m going to say, but anything is better than sitting here being scolded by Radar and teased by Sneak.

My dad and Kai both smile at me as I approach. As soon as I reach them by the doorway, Dad excuses himself.

“I need to speak to the lieutenant,” he tells me. He kisses me atop my forehead then spins away.

I’m not sure, but he looks like he’s happy to get away. I wonder what’s going on inside his head—beyond worrying about the mission, I mean. He obviously recognizes my attraction to Kai, but I’m not sure he knows what to do about it. I haven’t had any real use for guys up to now, so Dad’s been spared the stress of having to deal with any teenage daughter crushes. On the one hand, he likes Kai and knows I could never be safer with anyone than I am with him—and believe me, in our present world, that’s got to be a comforting thought for any father. One the other hand, though, Kai is from a completely different world and Dad has to be wondering what could possibly ever become of the two of us. Believe me, I’ve had the same thought more times than I like to admit.

Kai is looking at me expectantly. In the dim light I can’t really read his expression, but I think I see a bit of amusement in his eyes. I have to remind myself that he can see my face a lot more clearly than I can see his. I try to hide my nervousness behind a smile. I need to think of something to say, pronto.

“You’ll be spending the night outside keeping watch, I’m guessing?” I ask.

Kai nods. “Yes. I can do much more out there to keep you all safe than I can in here.”

“Not to mention you prefer being outside to inside in any event,” I reply. My newfound boldness rises up. “If you get bored out there,” I add, “feel free to come wake me. I’d be happy to keep you company for a little while.”

Even in the dimness I can see his wide smile. “That would be nice,” he says. “But it might be a bit distracting. I’m supposed to be keeping watch out there, remember?”

Thoughts begin whirling inside my head as I try to decide what to make of his reply. He said it would be nice, which is good, of course, but part of me feels rejected, too. If he was rejecting me, it sure was in a nice way, calling me distracting. That could even be a compliment—I sure as heck find him distracting.

I stifle a sigh. This guy/girl stuff is all so complicated. Radar and Plush make it all look so easy with their boyfriends. Of course, Jordy and Lights grew up in the same world as them, and they don’t walk around half-naked, either—though I know Radar would love it if Jordy did. The thought makes me smile.

Kai pulls me back from my thoughts.

“I’d better get going,” he says. “If there are any nocturnal hunters in the area, they will be stirring.”

Before I can reply, he bends his head forward and kisses me on the forehead.

“Sleep well, Leah,” he says. “I won’t let anything in to harm you.”

As Kai turns and disappears into the night, my thoughts begin racing again. I like that he still calls me Leah, instead of Blaze. It feels much more intimate. And then there was the kiss. His kiss wasn’t much different than the one my dad gave me—Kai’s lips may have lingered just a bit longer—but it sure felt a whole lot different!