Time thief, p.16
Time Thief, page 16
In his fury, my enemy wanted me to suffer as he had. His fingers tightened until my teeth cut into my cheeks, filling my mouth with blood, and the pressure forced black spots into my vision.
Instead of going for the kill, he swung his fist for my gut. I lifted my knees, managing to block the first hit. But the second battered my ribs so hard the pain paralyzed me for a moment. He hit me again in the same spot.
It nearly broke my focus on my power.
I sank my teeth into his hand, funneling my pain into that bite. Hot blood rushed into my mouth. At the same time, he had punched me in the same place again. My ribs gave in like twigs snapping.
Then he dropped me and ripped away from my teeth. Desperation drove me forward as I clawed my way across the ground and buried my fingers in his shoulder wound. We both screamed. Knives of pain hacked at my ribs.
All the while, the life and blood continued to drain from Nash as my hold on his wound weakened.
The guard thrashed as I clawed my fingers deeper into his open wound. He tried to shove me away, but I clung with all I had, digging my nails deeper and deeper until my hand ripped his wound wide open.
The man’s head dropped back. He spasmed and cried out. And then he collapsed in a pool of his own blood.
I grabbed my sword and stumbled. Fell to the ground. Dragging myself back up, I struggled to each man and sliced their necks to ensure they were dead.
Exhaustion pulled me to my knees beside Nash.
“It’s over.” I hardly had enough breath to speak. “Hold still.”
Black spots danced in my vision.
“Max …”
As the adrenaline faded, the pain flared in my body. Each breath felt like something stabbing me in my side. The brute had broken my ribs.
Unable to sit up any longer, I collapsed over Nash, barely keeping pressure on his wound as I struggled to stay awake.
I could hear the pain in his labored breathing. I was losing him.
“You’re … hurt …” Nash said. “Live.”
“Shut up. Elsie is waiting for you.” I wiped the sweat from my face and spit out the blood in my mouth. “Trish.”
“Trish …” Nash wheezed in a breath. Blood covered his lips. Speckled his left cheek. “I want someone … who fights with me … She gave in …”
“Save your strength, Nash.”
“I really wanted to survive this … and convince you to fall for me …” A hint of a smile twisted his lips. “I think I could have …”
Tears slipped from my cheeks onto his. “Stop teasing me. You’re really hurt, Nash.”
His eyes slid shut, voice quiet. “You always think … I’m teasing, when I’m serious …” The pause was long, so long, I thought he’d fallen unconscious. “I’m sorry I hurt you.” Pain gripped his expression. He was only upsetting himself. “You’re not a demon.”
“It’s okay.” I pushed his curls away from his face.
He said something, but it sounded like a groan. Nash was slipping away from me. More tears fell down my face. Wet his cheeks. Mingled with his own. I weathered through the pain of bending to press my lips against his and kiss him while he was still awake.
I carefully lowered myself beside him, holding his hand tight. He tried to speak once more, but unconsciousness took him, and it tried desperately to take me as well.
Fire consumed my body. I radiated heat. Nash, though, felt cold and clammy.
Every second stole precious strength from me.
Sleep still clawed at me. I fought it like I fought the guard who’d held me in the air.
How could we survive another hour? A whole night? But we had to. Nash had Elsie waiting for him. And I couldn’t abandon Rune and my people in the Prophet’s captivity. All these days and my little buddy must have lived in constant fear. Frightened for his life and for his papa who hadn’t yet returned.
I had to survive and return these fathers to their children. Striking all else from my mind, I focused on Nash’s wound alone.
“Hold on …” I dug my nails into his hand.
Every breath hurt like the guard hit me again. The hours passed, and though I had no idea how I held on, I did, each moment feeling impossible. Nash holding Elsie as she cried hovered in my mind through the night. Rune’s fingers reaching for help. The coldness of my father’s body after I sucked away his life during the eclipse. All these years wanting so badly to see him just one more time, even though it didn’t make sense to love him so. It all drifted through my mind, heating my skin each time, igniting embers of power still smoldering within me.
As dawn warmed the cave floor in a glow of yellow, its rays didn’t make it to me, and I was shivering with cold. Even the sound of Elsie pleading for Nash to come couldn’t draw an ounce of warmth within me. The embers of power were dying. I knew I wouldn’t last much longer. It was like drifting off to sleep. My strength faded more and more.
With shaking fingers, I lifted my shirt. My side was swollen and black and blue. But my stomach made my heart hammer. It looked like my bruise had leaked out in my abdomen and spread in a pool of dark purple. Internal bleeding. Neither one of us had long.
Nash was out. Even when I tried to wake him, he didn’t stir. His heart beat faintly.
I eyed the dead bodies on the ground. No one had come for me after those three. The guard must have decided it was too dangerous. They’d be watching, probably hoping Nash and I would die here. If we left, they would attack again.
It would be hours still before Leif and Wren made it to the tram. And longer for help to return. We wouldn’t make it.
My vision waned. A thin trail of blood dribbled from the corner of Nash’s mouth. My hold on his wound weakened each passing minute. We couldn’t die this way. There had to be something I could do.
Still, Nash grew weaker. Time only seemed to pass more slowly.
I searched for any power left inside me.
In the distance, I heard someone’s heart, too fuzzy and faint to recognize. Had my friends given up and returned? No, only death would stop them from reaching Piercey. It must have been the enemy. I was helpless to stop them from approaching. The guards must have been coming for me now that we were in such a weak state.
Would we even make it long enough for them to kill us?
A form darkened the opening of the cave. I managed to open my eyes but I couldn’t even reach for my sword.
My vision blurred as I studied the form approaching us. “Stay … back …”
“My gods. It really is you, Max.”
I tried to make out the image of the man who knelt beside me. I felt him, then. “Piercey?”
“I’ve got you now.”
Leif and Wren approached at his side. They didn’t look hurt. How had they all made it here so fast?
I blinked a few times, managing to make out those eyes I knew so well. “Piercey,” I whispered. “Bind his …” It hurt so bad to breathe. The pain choked out my voice.
The last ember of power died out and I fell limp.
Piercey had him. I had no doubt. He had me, too, lifting me gently into his arms.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nash?”
I asked it before I could register what I felt and saw in my surroundings. Before I could even wonder where I was or remember what had happened. All that came in a flash after I uttered his name, and still, I didn’t have my answer yet. Was he alive? The room around me blurred.
My heart twisted in my chest in a torturous series of somersaults.
“He’s okay. He’s in a medical room.”
The voice seized the wildness of my heart. That was right. Piercey had come for us.
“You’re okay, too,” Piercey said. “I started healing you both.”
I rolled my head to see him standing in the open doorway with Leif and Wren crowded behind him. Pale ceiling tiles stretched over his head and bookshelves lined the far wall.
Leif pushed past Piercey and ran to me, dropping to his knees, close, ready to help me. “We’re here, girl.”
My arms felt shaky as I tried to rise up. Piercey held up a hand to stop me and came to my side of the bed beside Leif. “Not yet, Max. I needed to work on you both at the same time. I didn’t make it very far before resting.”
“He needs it more.”
Piercey spoke to me in that slow, calm voice he always used when he wanted to help me settle down. “Yes, he does. And he’s getting everything he needs.”
I let myself relax into the plush mattress beneath me. The bed was far more comfortable than I remembered anything in this compound being. The lights in the room were dim and the curtains drawn closed. Beside me, there was a nightstand with books on physics and quantum mechanics. Nothing else. Piercey hadn’t stopped studying.
“I want to see him,” I said. I would try again to rise, but I knew I couldn’t. I’d used all the energy I had and now I was shriveled up.
“That’s fine,” Piercey said. “Take it slow. Your ribs were badly broken. You’re lucky your lungs weren’t punctured.”
Leif carefully sat beside me and lifted me so I could sit up.
“I really thought we were done for.” I squeezed Leif’s hand and then nodded at Piercey. “Thank you.”
Piercey was quiet for a beat. “I can’t believe you’re here, Max.”
So much time had passed. We’d both changed. Piercey didn’t look much like the boy I’d left behind. His beard was full and dark, and he’d filled out his lanky form enough that it would have taken me a moment to recognize him. “Me either.”
“Let’s get you up.” Leif lifted me into his arms and carefully carried me around the bed toward the doorway. I soaked in his comfort.
“Where are we?” We passed a massive desk with a curved screen. It was a nice room. Looked like Piercey lived here alone, though. That made me feel a little sad for him, thinking about him by himself.
“The director’s apartment …” Piercey pushed a wheelchair in from the living room. “I took over.”
My eyes widened. “You run the whole center now?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Well, yeah.”
“You missed a lot, Max. I’ll fill you in when you’re healed and rested.”
The surprise quickly fell into hurt, though. “You didn’t unseal my power.”
Piercey helped Leif settle me into the wheelchair and then paused. “I couldn’t, but there was no one to defend the seal when you started to break through here on the mountain. It’s incredible you managed to do it. Those instructors are long gone.”
Did he think I was a monster, too? He didn’t trust me down in the Valley carrying a power like this?
“How strange.” Leif ran his fingers along the rubber handle while Wren knelt to inspect the wheels.
“I know this is overwhelming,” I said, swallowing down the feeling of betrayal.
“Your friend explained a great deal of things to us.” Wren chuckled. “Too much. I’m lost.”
“He isn’t one to spare details.”
Piercey crossed his arms. “We should talk before I take you to your friend. Leif and Wren told me about what’s happened to your people. I have dozens of graduates I would trust with my life. I’m calling on them to help free your people.”
I jolted up in excitement and then doubled over from the pain.
“Calm down.” Leif pushed me back against the seat. “We still haven’t talked him into killing the Prophet.”
Piercey sighed. “Three of my best will take Leif and Wren back to your people and meet the others there.”
“We should all go together,” I said.
Wren knelt beside me. The permanent war paint darkening her eyelids couldn’t harden the softness of her eyes. “We need to get there soon. No one will trust a group of demons if we aren’t there to explain. You and Nash need more time to heal. You won’t be far behind us.”
“They’ll be well guarded, Max.” Piercey had confidence like I’d never seen in him. It soothed the fear. “We need to work fast. You should say goodbye now.”
Wren gripped my hand. She knew how hard this would be for me.
Pain twisted my heart.
I’d said goodbye to Leif and Wren far too many times this week. My heart yearned for them as Piercey wheeled me down the hall.
Now that we were alone, our years of separation and our years together burst at the quiet. “I can handle whatever you have to say, Piercey.” Windows lined the hallway. Outside, blustery winds scattered snow in the air, so all we saw was white. So much like the white room.
His voice was heavy when he spoke. “I don’t know what to say, Max. So many times over the years I thought about what it would be like to see you again.”
“Thank you for always sending the medicine. It saved me.”
“I pushed some in through an IV while you were out. You should have relief.”
I turned so I could see him. “You know I didn’t want to leave you, right?”
“Of course, I know.” The same eyes of the boy I’d said goodbye to looked back at me, even though the years had changed us both so much. “I didn’t think you’d ever come back. I thought about telling you the instructors were gone now, but I couldn’t. It’s … complicated …”
There was much more to the story than he’d told me and it was clear he felt guilty. But as important as the past was and the implications it held for the future, I needed to get him focused on my people. He had a soft heart and he would want to save them. I swallowed down the pain in my throat. “I need your help.”
He smiled softly. “I love that you want my help. The thing is, you don’t need me to do anything for you. You could kill him yourself.”
Shame and anger flooded my cheeks with heat, so I had to turn away quickly. “Your power has grown. Mine hasn’t. And the seal, I don’t know if it’s broken for good, or if I’ll lose my power when I leave the mountain.”
“I think it’s safe to say you broke it for good. I was forbidden by the gods to return your power to you or reach out. They upheld your banishment. But I told Dr. Henderson that one day you’d find a way around these limits. So, I don’t think you ever needed me. You had enough power as a child before coming to this place to kill the Prophet.”
The reference to the eclipse shot tingles through my body. “That was … I was out of control.”
“That power is inside of you. I’ve had my entire life to come close to it. You’ve always had it. You’re holding yourself back.”
Was it true? All this time, was it not so much the instructors or the gods sealing my power within me, but my own fear and guilt?
“When I don’t hold myself back, people die.” The blood raining in the white snow flashed in my mind. I dug my fingers into my side too hard and sparked pain. “I don’t want this power anymore. I want Dr. Henderson to take it away from us all.”
“We’ll talk more when you’re well. You’re in pain.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. As much as I didn’t want to let this go, just talking about the eclipse made me feel defeated. “How did you guys get to us so fast in that cave?”
“I monitor the radios. I knew there was a threat and it was a demon woman. Odds were high it could be you. Your friends got into a nasty fight. I caught it on the radio. That’s how I found them. Good thing, too. I would’ve had to use my power to get to you if I didn’t have their help. Taking on an army would have slowed me down.”
“It still couldn’t have been easy getting to the next passageway having to carry us.”
Piercey stopped at a door and reached around me to open it. “I’ve made more passageways with my graduates. We also installed an elevator system to get down the mountain quickly. You were off the beaten path. That did add some time. But not so much that I couldn’t hold the guards off.”
He wheeled me into a small room with chairs and benches. It looked like a waiting area. “You held them off?”
“I can only manage it for so long.”
I couldn’t fathom the power Piercey now possessed. Surely it was far more than what I’d tapped into during the eclipse. It distracted me enough that at first I didn’t notice the observatory window at the far end of the room. “Is that …”
Piercey rolled me right up to it. Nash slept on a medical bed with monitors beside him and an oxygen mask over his face. I touched the glass. My heart ached. “Is he sedated?”
“Yes. I’ll let him wake up after this next treatment, though.”
“Thank you, Piercey.” I curled my fingers into a fist. “He has a daughter. He has to make it home.”
“He’ll make it home, Max. Now, rest while I do your treatment.”
I closed my eyes. Peace flooded me as his healing power washed over my body like the water in the cave.
If my power was like fire, Piercey’s was more like hot springs. Powerful, yet fluid and controlled. No matter how many healing treatments I had in my life, it never stopped amazing me. I could feel a gentle stretching inside. My bones strengthening.
Soon, the pain was only a distant memory.
I stood from the wheelchair and twisted to test out my ribs after Piercey had finished healing me. No discomfort. “You’ve gotten good at that.”
Piercey only smiled as he sat on a bench by the observatory window.
“Are you working on Nash, too?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t even need to look?”
He crossed one leg over the other. “His wound might have been severe, but it’s a simple fix. It just takes time for the tissue to mend. I can visualize it easily.”
“You’re just one big hotshot now.” I sat down beside him. “Hotshot healer. Hotshot director.”
He rolled his eyes.
I paused. “Why did you take the job?”
“Big surprise. You don’t approve.”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that we went through so much here.”
“Change is always possible. We don’t train children or force them to come here anymore. We give them a home here if they need one, but that’s all.”
I sat back. “Where do they learn to use their power?” I didn’t like how the Prophets had education whereas few demons did, but that didn’t mean I wanted no one to have training.
