18
We enjoyed a slow walk back to Tira-Mi, and I relished the warm, comforting feeling of his hand in mine. Neither of us saying much, just appreciating what we had. I could have walked that way with him, around the entire planet.
It was evening when we made it back to our hill-top home. We watched the fading sun as the last of its light sank into the distance.
The following morning, he informed me that he needed to go back to the city to see Mason. And when he did, I clamped my mouth closed before any wayward thoughts escaped, giving myself a moment to think before speaking. I didn’t want to question. But I also didn’t want to spend the day without him.
“And I can’t go with you,” I said.
“I would rather you didn’t attract the Guardian’s attention, for obvious reasons.”
“But will you be ok? I mean, to enter the city… with the wards?”
“Of course,” he smiled at me, stroking my cheek.
“You should still be careful, though. Why can’t Mason work from Tira-Mi?”
“He needs to stay with the Spire. He wouldn’t leave it, even if the militia did manage to take over,” he said, placing one warm palm upon my cheek.
“Just come back to me, and soon,” I whispered, keeping every protest locked inside.
He kissed me for several moments before rising. However, the moment he left the room, I threw my head into his pillow, and breathed him in.
I didn’t move until after I’d sensed him walking through our garden. I didn’t want to follow him out, I’d be too tempted to follow him to the edge of Tira-Mi, then to the edge of the Colony, and then the city.
I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do with myself, and so I did the only thing I knew. I ran to the dome, suited up and fought with simulated-ward-wearing Dax until I could no longer stand. He reassured me that he was fighting at my level, but I didn’t care, and I pressed him to fight harder.
After several hours though, he dragged me out of the room and down to Haize, who was thankfully, ready for me. Dax stayed while Haize healed me, no doubt waiting to muster me back up to the training room for more practice. But before she could finish, Dax and Haize each swung their heads up at the same time, to stare at one another.
“Go,” she urged him. And he ran from the room, with an animal-like growl erupting from him as he left.
“Haize, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Lena,” she said, as she closed her eyes and turned her head to concentrate. “She’s being attacked.”
“Who would attack Lena?” I asked, but that was obvious. The Guardian would want her in its ranks, of course.
“She’s ok. Well, I wouldn’t say ok, but she’s not hurt… much,” she said. Then opening her eyes, she released me from her screen. “Come with me.”
I could feel my insides complain as I stood; I was not completely healed. However, I attempted to keep up with her as she ran through the dome. We suited up, and then flew to the stadium.
“Where is she?” Haize asked, as she entered the healing room.
“On her way,” Gaias told her. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, or afraid.
A moment later, Lena burst into the room carrying an unconscious Hera. She threw her onto an empty table, and stared down at her. She then planted her fists upon its white surface as though she was trying to stop herself from tearing into the unconscious body.
Bruises were beginning to appear upon the exposed parts of Lena’s skin, and a black and red scorch mark wrapped around her neck. It looked as though someone had tried to burn their way through her.
“Strap her down,” Lena said, her voice shaking with anger. I’d never seen her express such rage. “She’s working with the Guardian.”
Haize sighed. “We should have known it would try to control her, once it was reinstated.”
“No,” Lena said, with a snarl. “She’s not working for the Guardian. She’s working with the Guardian. She’s shared everything with it. Willingly shared it. It knows everything now.”
Haize briefly paled before righting herself. “Someone get Castor here. And Connor. And… the whole damn council.”
“When she wakes up,” Lena began again. “You tell her, the next time she wants to come at me in a group attack, she’s gonna need a few more men.”
Dax strode into the room carrying two unconscious men, and threw them onto the floor at Haize’s feet.
“The rest are outside,” he told Lena.
“Bring them in,” she said, turning to him. “Restrain them all.”
“Who are they?” I dared to ask.
“Terahns,” Lena answered, as her gaze careened from Dax to me. “Stay with her until Jordan returns from the city.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I said to her. I wanted to be angry at her suggestion, but in the face of the rage that she was barely suppressing, I found myself instead, wishing to disappear through the floor.
“Yes, you do,” she returned, and then raced from the room.
“Where’s she going?” I asked, in a barely audible voice. Dax left the room with Gaias to bring in the remaining eight unconscious men.
“To the stadium,” Haize answered. “She needs to work off her anger before she tears the place apart.”
“Heaven help anyone who meets her,” I whispered.
“Seph is waiting,” she responded. “With two of his strongest men.”
I watched as each of the Terahn’s were laid upon a table near the back of the room, and then encased in a solid green light. I wished I could have followed Lena to the stadium. I wanted to watch her fight, even for just a few moments. But as I watched Haize heal the wards, thoughts of Lena subsided, and Jordan returned to encompass my every thought. If the wards were back, taking people again, what was stopping them from taking him? He was right there in the city, within their easy reach. I tried with everything I could, to reach him, but I couldn’t even sense him.
“He’s fine,” Haize tried to reassure me. “He’s with Mason. The wards are not after him, so you can stop worrying. Go home and rest. He’ll be back later.”
I wanted to ask how she could possibly know all of that. But what she could do was beyond what I would ever achieve. And so, I took her word for it.
As I began to leave however, I heard footsteps fall in sync with mine, and I remembered that I would not be alone.
“You don’t have to follow me,” I told Dax, and turned back to face him. “I’ll be fine.”
“Lena doesn’t think you will be,” he said. “And I agree with her. After Hera’s attack, there’s no knowing what will come at us next.”
“I have no idea when Jordan will be back though,” I said, hoping to find something to make him go his own way. There was no way I wanted to spend the next few hours - or however long it would take for Jordan to come home - attempting to amuse my sparring partner. “I will bore you to tears.”
“No, you won’t,” he said with a grin, and flashed a brief glance at my forehead.
Great, I thought. He was going to spend the afternoon amusing himself in my head.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I told him. “Back to the dome.” And I took off in that direction.
The only problem was that there was now no healer in the dome. Both Haize and Gaias, and no doubt also Connor, were at the Arena. It was only after what felt like hours more, of Dax wrestling me to the floor and holding me in bone-crushing grips until I gave, that I realized this. All he could do was laugh while he explained that we could have trained back at the Arena, and he refused to help me get back to Haize.
But after almost falling from the sky from the pain he’d inflicted, he decided help was what I needed. Either that or face Jordan if I fell. That last thought I’d sent in his direction.
And while I was being healed once more, three bodies were brought in, one after the other. The first two were Seph’s men, broken and twisted in ways I’d never thought I would see of a human form. Not long after them, the third body to enter was Lena. Her suit hung off her in places, exposing deep cuts. Blood splattered her body from head to foot. There was so much of it that it couldn’t have all been hers. One arm hung loose as though it was only held on by the threads of her suit. And her face was paler than any alive person could possibly be.
Dax almost fell to his knees when he saw her. But he managed to stay on his feet as he shuffled to her side. I was sure he wouldn’t be able to sense her, not in the condition she was in.
“Haize,” I tried to whisper, while attempting to control the nausea.
“She’ll be ok,” Haize told me. “This was necessary.”
I couldn’t understand this. I couldn’t understand them. Not even a little. They were insane.
Seph stumbled into the room, shortly after. He was barely holding himself up. He sat in a chair, staring from his men to Lena and back again. But he didn’t say a word.
I silently backed away from them, as I watched Haize work. She seemed confident that Lena would be fine. And so, I had to take her word for it. And despite Lena’s request for Dax to stay with me, I decided he needed to stay right where he was, at her side. And I quietly left the room.
I made my slow way to our home upon the hill and waited upon our bench. I watched the ocean, and the sun slowly sinking, still without its reflection upon the water. And despite the qualm inside me, I managed a small smile at it anyway.
But as the darkness deepened, I began to lose my ability to keep my eyes open. I couldn’t remember going inside, or even getting into bed. All I knew was that he was with me, but I was sure it was just a dream. His voice whispered, calling me to him, and I knew that this was a dream I hadn’t had for some time.
Mine, I heard in my mind, as his hands trailed over my body. Slowly, my mind became aware as I awoke, and I realized that I really wasn’t alone. He was with me. And I smiled that barely-there, still-half-asleep smile, enjoying both the unfinished dream of him, and the real him beside me at the same time.
“Mine,” he whispered, his breath rolling across my face. The scent of him wasn’t what I was used to, but I inhaled him just the same.
His body pressed against mine, one hand exploring me, but he was rough, not caressing as he normally would be. One arm was wrapped beneath me and around me, holding both of my arms in place. His other felt its way across my skin, down my stomach and then stopped, holding me there, pinning me against him.
Something was not right. It didn’t feel like Jordan. He never held me this way.
“Mine,” I heard him say again, louder this time, and in a voice, I wasn’t expecting.
Not him, I tried to tell myself. But this couldn’t be real. He couldn’t be here, out of the Spire. In my house. I had to be dreaming.
But his breath once more rolled into my lungs, and I felt his mouth move down my neck. He planted a small kiss and then bit down hard, his teeth clamping around my throat. However, it only lasted a moment, as though he was only trying to get my attention.
You’re not asleep, I told myself. It’s not him. Not Jordan. It’s not a dream. Realization raced through me and I opened my eyes to the darkness of the room. Not his hands, not his body. I commanded the room to lighten, and tried to pull away, but he held me in place.
“I told you, you were mine,” he chuckled deep in his throat.
“No,” I exhaled.
They told me he couldn’t get out!
“They told me you couldn’t get out,” I choked out the words, right after I’d thought them.
He only laughed in response, “They lied.” His hand moved down, forcing its way between my thighs and I kicked out and back with everything I had, trying to push him away from me. I wrenched my left arm free of his hold, and threw my elbow backward, into his face.
“So, you want to play,” he taunted, as he rolled me onto my back and slammed his body against mine. He grasped both of my hands in one of his, and held them above me.
But Dax’s grip was stronger than his. Much stronger. I could do this. I could take him. And if I couldn’t, Haize would come. Soon. I hoped.
I bucked him upward, and shifted to one side, in a move Dax had taught me, and forced one leg up and in between us. Then wrapping both legs around his waist, I forced him backward. I wasn’t strong enough to throw him over, but I had enough in me to push him off me.
And with my hands now freed, I rose into a crouch to face him. But he didn’t make another move toward me, he only waited, and watched.
Too often when training with Dax, I’d let him make the first move, and I’d wait on the defensive. But not this time. I lunged at him. And one after the other, my fists made contact with his face, his ribs, with whatever body part I could reach. Then pushing myself up, I stood over him and kicked with every ounce of strength, contacting every part of his body. I was sure I heard a bone break, but I couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.
“Not yours!” I screamed at him, erasing every ounce of fear that tried to rise.
And I kicked him again and again, until I felt my own feet bruising and breaking. My toes, feet and ankles screamed from the pain. And I stopped, falling backward. Exhaustion and frustration weakening me.
Jordan, I tried to scream, hoping he could hear me through the shield around our house, but I was devoid of volume, even in my head. Help me!
Lydia, run if you can! I’m coming.
He heard. I wished for him to already be with me, but I was relieved to know he was on his way.
But I couldn’t run, I wasn’t even sure I could move. I looked back at the ward, but he only stared back at me, still smiling. Then springing up, he crouched back on his haunches, and dug his fingers into the bedding, ready to spring forward.
“Go ahead,” he sneered, his eyes wide in anticipation. “Do as he says. Run.”
I gasped, and a whimper escaped my throat at the same time. He could hear our thoughts.
“I’ll even give you a head start,” he continued, waiting for me to move, like a hunter watching his prey.
Despite the pain, I struggled upward, and kicked him backward. Then dropping to his level, I resumed my attack until my arms were weak, and my hands, numb. His blood splattered across the bed, it covered my hands, and dotted my arms, but still he didn’t move. He didn’t try to stop me. He didn’t fight back. And still, his smile remained.
Why wasn’t he dead yet! I wanted to yell at the room.
But as I looked down at him, I wondered if perhaps he was, and I stopped for just a moment to check his bloodied face. But his smile grew wider as his every cut, bruise, and broken bone healed. Within moments, he was whole again.
“My sweet, you couldn’t kill me if you tried,” he taunted.
He grabbed at my elbow, and yanked so hard that I felt my shoulder burn as though it was ripping apart. I closed my eyes for only a moment, trying to stave off the pain, but when I opened them I was beneath him once more.
“Loved the show,” he growled in my face. “But now it’s my turn.”
I tried to push him away, tried to fight back, but my strength was no match for his now, not after the beating I’d attempted to inflict upon him. He apparently, had only been waiting for me to wear myself down. He grabbed my arms on either side, pinning them down, and I bucked upward once more, trying to force him off, but my movements this time, barely moved him. As I struggled in his grasp, I tried to roll him off me, or at least get out from under him, and I managed to force a turn, but he kept the roll going and we fell to the floor. The cold, hard surface smacked into my back, knocking the wind out of me.
I gasped again and again, trying to force the air back in, hoping to stave off the black spots that wanted to draw me down into darkness. However, as I did, he pinned my arms above me once more, holding them there. His legs entwined mine, and his body flattened against me. I couldn’t move. His body was hard as he held me down, his skin was heated against mine, and I realized I must have been too tired to even change into my PJ’s before going to bed, for I was now only dressed in my underwear. The show he’d spoken of, had been me. I wanted to be sick.
But as I lay there helpless, breathless, I realized that he hadn’t tried to hurt me. He was only holding me, as though waiting for something.
The panic eased, and as it did I felt his breath upon my face. I opened my eyes to see the darkness of his, barely an inch away.
“That was too easy,” he whispered. “On my world, a man must fight and subdue his woman or she’ll not have him,” he explained. “In my village, I chose the biggest, toughest woman of them all. Ahh, she loved to fight,” he said, with a smile, as though relishing the memory. “She fought everyone, men, women, and she beat them, every one. But not me. She was strong. She’d snap you with barely a thought. Took me three days. She almost had me for a while. Damn, she hit hard, but I wore her down. And when she finally agreed to marry me, we had the run of the town.”
I had no idea why he said all he did. And I had no interest in asking him.
He moved his face closer, and bent his cheek to touch mine. You don’t need to worry about her though, she would have passed away centuries ago. I heard in my head. You have my undivided attention. He lifted his head so that his face hovered just above mine, but close enough for our noses to almost touch, and for his breath to replace any other air in the room. And I know you can hear me. He continued. Just as I hear you.
No, I wanted to say out loud.
We are connected, you and I. Just as you are with him.
I struggled against him. My hands throbbed as I pulled at my arms to free myself from his grasp, but he only tightened his hold on me, smiling as he did. His all too familiar dark eyes never wavered, never blinked. They bored straight through me.
It was my connection to you, and the Guardian’s, that brought you here, not his.
“No,” I objected, trying to shake my head, but he continued as though he hadn’t heard me.
For weeks, I begged the Guardian to allow us to attack the colonists during the day, and when it finally agreed, you weren’t to be found. And then, you came to me. And I felt you… the moment you first entered the city. I sensed you, sensing him. I watched you create your little piece of home. I hadn’t yet decided though, if I wanted to capture you, or kill you. If you had stood your ground, fought like a woman should, fought and won, that may have been the end of it. But instead, you ran, his breath washed over my face, as a stifled groan escaped him. His grip tightened once more, his body flattened mine, constricting my circulation and straining my bones until I thought they would break.
“The Guardian didn’t want me to know about our connection. I thought I was only sensing you through it. The Guardian thought if I knew that it would weaken me. It thought I would protect you,” he laughed. His reaction however, only renewed the panic within me. He was playing with me, and I knew this would not end well. “But thanks to Lena’s little friend Hera, the Guardian now has a new objective. It knows everything about the warriors. The strength within them was beyond even the Guardian’s reckoning.”
But what has it puzzled, what it can’t seem to replicate, he continued in my head. Is how, we are able to communicate this way. That’s where we come in. The Guardian allowed me access to all knowledge of our connection, and it hasn’t weakened me. Although, once it’s done with us, I still haven’t decided if I’m going to kill you, or keep you.
“I’ll never help you, or it,” I told him, but my voice was strained. His grip was painful. “I’ll die before I do.”
“Well, see, that’s the plan,” he said, and smiled once more. “First, we need you in the Spire. Connor and Hera had already been inserted, too late for it tag those areas of the brain in at least one of them. But you and me, we’re just what it needs.”
“No,” I gasped, and struggled against his grip, but I couldn’t move him. I could barely breathe.
Jordan, I called.
“Shh,” he said out loud. “He can’t hear you now. Or me for that matter, and he can’t get in. When you’re with me, I control where your thoughts go. The Guardian has us figured out you see. And from its source, I wield its power. That shield around your house?” he chuckled. “Too easily reprogrammed. No one, nothing, can enter this room. You need to forget about him, all thoughts of him. For he will only bring you pain.”
You have two soulmates, his resumed inside my head. But despite my attempt to keep him out, he was just there, the way Jordan was. The difference is, I will never lie to you.
His mouth descended, but I turned my head to the side and closed my eyes, trying to shut him out as much as I could. His breath traveled across my cheek to my ear, where he whispered, “The Guardian said you were different. It wants you to co-operate. It said if we wanted you to come willingly, I would have to be pleasant.” I felt him shake, briefly, as though he was stifling a laugh. “I don’t understand what being pleasant has to do with anything. But for you, I’ll try.”
He lifted his body from mine, while still holding me in place, and he shifted somewhat to the side.
As he did, a warm breeze blew between us and around us, and the scents of a hundred different flowers filled my nose. I opened my eyes to see the roof of my bedroom still overhead, but around me was a beautiful garden. Every manner of flower, every color, every shape, surrounded me.
“I can give you everything you want,” he said, gently stroking my cheek with his free hand.
His words at first didn’t sink in. With the pain that coursed through me, I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t imagine why he would want to present me with such a scene.
Another breeze blew warm around us, unhinging a thousand flower petals, swirling them around the room. Gently, they landed upon us, whispering across my skin. Their softness was a welcome change from the pain.
I attempted again to focus on what he’d said, but I couldn’t be sure I’d heard right. His meaning escaped me.
The scene and the scents that surrounded me, overloaded my senses, and with the fluttering petals on the wind, his nonsensical words dropped into place. And I realized what he was saying. He wanted me. To stay with him. As what though, I didn’t yet know.
I closed my eyes against the scene, I couldn’t look at it any longer, and I brought my every thought back to Jordan. Quietly, I whispered his name, hoping once more, he would hear me.
However, as I did the light that had penetrated my eyelids faded along with the warm breeze. Too easily, he picked me up and threw me against a wall. Hard stone scraped against my face, my chest, and my stomach, as my arms were stretched above my head, tightly bound in cold steel.
I chanced opening my eyes to see the room around me. It was still somewhat mine. My white ceiling, still overhead. But the walls as they traveled downward, turned to the coarse, dark, blue-gray stone that rasped my skin.
He, however, was no longer touching me, for which I was grateful. But his breath chafed my ear, and he groaned before releasing his next words.
“I told you not to think of him. I told you I would never lie to you.” His voice was rough, thick with satisfaction, and a moment later a crack sounded through the air. “Ahhh, feels like home.”
Jordan, I called, unsure if he could hear, but I had to try anyway. But his name barely had time to run through my mind, before the crack sounded again. This time though, it was swiftly followed by pain, searing across my back.
Jordan, I tried one more time. But the crack came again and again, always followed by the burn that lashed across me. I squeezed my eyes shut, but I couldn’t contain my cries that echoed around the room.
And without warning, it stopped. The vice grips released my arms and as I fell, the ward caught me, and gently lowered me to the floor. But the scene had changed again, and through blurry eyes, I saw we were lying in a green meadow beside a slow-moving stream, and I realized it was home. Earth. My meadow, my stream. Even the ceiling of my bedroom was gone, and in its place, was a sunny, cloudless sky. We had to be outside. But it didn’t make sense, I was sure it was still the middle of the night. However, the sun was warm, the wind was soft, and the stream beside us burbled along.
The relief at seeing the change of scenery, and feeling my limbs freed from their binds, was fleeting as the grass beneath me cut like shards of glass, into the wounds that now lined my back. He could have healed me, or his Guardian could have, but his face almost glowed with pleasure at seeing my pain.
As he lay beside me he had mostly released me. His one hand only loosely held both of mine, but I couldn’t have moved anyway. And I was sure he knew that. His other hand was gentle upon my skin once more.
“He will only bring you pain, heartache, and death,” he whispered. His voice making what had to be, its first ever attempt to be forbearing. “Come with me, willingly, and you’ll be spared all that is to come.”
I looked up, only to see him smiling down at me. Not mean, not menacing, just happy. Happy to be next to me. Happy to be looking at me. I’d apparently appeased the danger within him.
The challenge you present, gaining your co-operation, will be worth spending an eternity at the Guardian’s disposal.
Jordan, I moaned inside my head again, but immediately, I feared what would follow. And I wasn’t sure what was worse, the sight of the ward’s smile, or his snarl that briefly appeared. I hoped Jordan could hear me. But even if he couldn’t, just sounding his name inside my head was comfort enough.
As I let his name echo throughout my mind, somewhere off in the distance a rumble erupted in response to my thoughts, like thunder warning of an approaching storm. But as it grew it shook the ground, creating a gentle ripple through the grass beneath me, and I couldn’t help the cry that left me as each blade of grass felt like those shards of glass, digging further into my wounds. The ripples of sound however, blew away the grassy field beneath me and the sky above, along with every trace of color, leaving only the reality of my room.
The thunder turned into a roar as it reached for me through the barriers the ward and the Guardian had constructed around us. And I heard him then, Jordan, calling my name.