“He’ll join us shortly. Ye’ll see.”
He better not join them. They haven’t come all this way just to return to HuBReC. “How many Hyboreans are on board?”
“Just Ferly Mor.”
“How do I get off this thing?”
“Addy, ye just reawakened from death. Though Ferly Mor fixed ye up fine, ye still need time to rest and heal, lass.”
“I don’t have time to rest and heal. I have to save my family. Now where are the doors to this thing?”
Duncan sighed in resignation like he usually did when it came to dealing with her.
“The back wall is a Hyborean door. As are the doors in the cab. I’m afraid ye canna open them.”
“What about these observation walls? Can I break them?”
“No, lass.”
“Dammit, Duncan. There has to be a way out.”
Ferly Mor’s thoughts drifted to her from the cab but they weren’t strong enough to decipher. He must have been focusing his conversation through his tech-ring. Good. While he was occupied on the Hyborean equivelant of a cell phone, she’d search for an escape route.
“Here, hold Noah for a moment.” She gave Duncan the baby before jumping off the table and searching the craft’s cargo area, opening and closing cabinet doors.
“Addy, stop this nonsense. Ye belong to Ferly Mor. Ye always have.”
“Just because he was tracking me doesn’t mean I belong to him.” Behind door number three, she found their backpacks.
“Aye it does. Ye were his experiment, lass. Ferly Mor was studying the effects of different environments upon human twins. One child was to be taken into captivity as a Hyborean pet. The other was to stay in the wild on Earth. That was you.”
“Ferly Mor tagged the wrong person. My mother never had twins.” She rummaged through the gear, finding no weapons. If Ferly Mor gave Regan the Flesheater, what happened to the gladimort and her kitchen knife?
“But she did, lass. She believes your sister to have died after birth.”
Whoa. She wrenched her head toward Duncan so fast she almost got whiplash. Addy had a sister? Mom had a baby who died? Or at least Mom thought her baby did. Aftershocks of grief and heartache from losing Noah hit her with intense power. She wanted to cry for her mother. The loss of a child must have been devastating. And without the father there to support her, it was no wonder she’d been depressed. No wonder she resented Addy. How could she look at her living daughter without thinking of the daughter she’d lost? Addy’s twin.
Her body tingled with cold numbness. Question after question flooded her brain. Sorrow and anger and other emotions she couldn’t even name conflicted inside her. There were too many things to think about. There were too many things to feel. She was quickly sinking into emotional quicksand.
Get out of the quicksand. Focus on the escape.
Taking a cleansing breath, she willed herself to calm down. She couldn’t allow this revelation to suck her into an abyss. She had to ignore her emotions, push all personal feelings aside, and stay focused on the goal. Crisis training had taught her that much.
And if losing Max, Noah, and their freedom wasn’t a crisis, nothing was.
Concentrating all her thoughts on her task, she knelt, dumped everything out of both backpacks, and then started filling Max’s with only the essentials.
“What are ye doing?”
“We’re going to need supplies when we get to the refuge.”
“Did ye no’ hear me say ye have a sister?” His voice raised in frustration woke Noah. The baby fussed in his arms.
Her instinct told her to go to him, to soothe him. But she couldn’t just yet. She had to save her family. They were so close to the refuge. It would kill Max to be this close to freedom again and not attain it this time. She had to get him there at all costs.
Duncan would not manipulate her into staying Ferly Mor’s captive.
Why did he care so much that she had a sister anyway? It's not like he was her— The sewing kit slipped from her fingers and tumbled onto the floor. Her stomach tightened into a knot.
I’ll make HuBReC your daughter’s living Hell,
Regan had said to Duncan. He hadn’t been referring to Tess.
He'd been referring to her.
Get out of the quicksand. Focus on the escape.
Ever since Addy could remember, she’d wished to have a relationship with her biological father. Little did she know her wish had been granted when Duncan brought her to this planet over two months ago. A painful ache tightened her throat making it hard to gulp in air. Why hadn't he told her this before? Why did he wait until now? What did he expect her to do, drop everything and run into his arms? Tell him she loved him? How could she after he'd betrayed her and her mother? He'd caused them so much anguish and grief.
Get out of the quicksand. Focus on the escape.
Inhaling a calming breath, she retrieved the sewing kit and stuffed it into Max's backpack. “I have only one question.” She zipped up the backpack and shrugged into it. She gazed up at Duncan, holding his grandson in his arms. The baby had settled. “Did you love my mom?”
“Yer mother was a beautiful young lassie. So full of life and passion. Ye remind me so much of her.”
If only he’d been describing the woman she knew. That would have been a beautiful thing to witness. “Did you love her?”
“It doesna matter now.”
“It matters to me.”
Tears shone in his eyes. “Aye. I loved her.”
Her heart ached with sorrow and a sad kind of happiness. If that made any sense. The craft moved, pitching Addy forward and pulling her from her quicksand. Outside, trees and forest passed by as the craft moved and picked up speed. “He’s taking us back without Max.”
“No, lass. I can see through the trees on this wall. We’re still headed downriver. Ferly Mor is searching for the alphas.”
She let out her breath and racked her brain to devise an escape plan before Ferly Mor found Max. She entered the cab where he was driving. Maybe she’d have better luck in here.
Someone moved. She jumped. It took her an instant to recognize she was looking at herself. Only it wasn’t a mirror’s reflection, as she first thought. She was watching her training day hologram. The same hologram Ferly Mor had kept in his apartment. The image projected upward from its hologram chip on the passenger seat along with three others: Duncan, Regan, and Max. Had he shown these life-sized holograms to the HGC agents to prove they were his humans? Was that why the HGC hadn’t pursued them?
When Ferly Mor noticed her in the cab, he stroked her head. He didn’t seem at all irritated at her presence, nor did he mind her crawling the floor searching for a way out. Then again, he probably didn’t know what she was doing. Or he did know what she was doing and was confident there was no escape.
Finding nothing, she climbed onto the passenger seat and slid her hand along the transparent wall looking for a lever. But the wall was smoother than Noah’s bottom.
Duncan entered and passed her the baby so he could climb up to join her on the seat. He sat on the hologram chips and their images disappeared.
The vehicle slowed.
They stopped short of two exhausted alpha gladiators battling on the edge of the waterfall. She didn’t have to be four hundred yards away to recognize the falls. It was only a thirty-foot drop to the vine rope below where they were to cross the river. If she could sneak out behind Ferly Mor when he sublimated the driver-side door, she could descend the steep, rocky slope and bring Noah to the refuge. Max would follow and perhaps Regan, but that was all.
Her heart sped up.
Think. Think.
Ferly Mor ducked into the cargo bay. Addy reached down and scooped up the hologram chips. Concealed in her fist, no images projected. Once Ferly Mor sublimated the driver’s door, she’d place them on the floor in the white vapor, tripping the safety sensors and preventing it from solidifying. It would give her a chance to get outside and run away. In the hot summer day, the sizeable, furry Hyborean would be quick to overheat and forced to slow down. If this worked, she was only a moment from freedom.
With Noah in her arms, she carefully climbed off the seat, keeping a watchful eye on Ferly Mor. He opened a cabinet door she had previously found locked, and retrieved a silver gun. “What’s that?” she asked Duncan.
“Tranquilizer gun.”
The cargo hold’s rear wall sublimated. Dammit. She had been waiting on the wrong door.
Addy sprinted across the cargo hold, was halfway there when Ferly Mor crossed the threshold. There was no way she’d make it outside before the door solidified. It had already started crackling. She flung the hologram chips with a Hail Mary pass. They hit the floor, bounced, and slid like miniature hockey pucks into the white fog. The sensors registered the objects and the phase transition halted.
Outside the wall, Ferly Mor rounded the van toward the gladiators grappling at the edge of the rocky cliff, oblivious to the small gaseous hole in the door.
She would have whooped with elation, but she didn’t want to draw Ferly Mor’s attention. “Good-bye, Duncan.” She headed for the opening.
“Addy don’t leave me. Please. I love ye, lass. I’ve loved ye all yer life. Stay with me. Ferly Mor can’t give ye up. Ye were an unsanctioned abduction from Earth. He’d get into trouble if he gave ye away. We can be a family.”
“Max and Noah are my family now.” She squeezed through the opening and into the summer heat. She quickly pocketed the holograms projecting their movies in the thickets to avoid catching anyone’s attention and then crouched behind the hovercraft, spying beneath it.
Max was trapped on his back, head hanging over the cliff, struggling to keep Regan’s knife from piercing his heart. If he rolled a half- foot to his right, they’d plunge into the waterfall. Moving into position on his left was Ferly Mor with his tranquilizer gun.
“Run to the refuge, Addy!”
How, in the midst of battle, Max could have known she was there was a mystery she wasn’t going to contemplate until she reached freedom. She held Noah tight to her breast, ran through brush and rock, navigating the steep slope Max and she had descended earlier.
A trigger’s snap echoed down the rock, drawing Addy’s attention upward. Two bodies plummeted over the waterfall. Her heart plummeted with them.
Like air being sucked into a backdraft, Ferly Mor’s frustration rushed past her upward to the ledge. Then exploded. It was as if Ferly Mor had taken a deep breath and then swore.
Had he cursed because he missed his intended target, or because he lost his gladiators over the falls?
She raced down the slope even faster. Ferly Mor would be right behind her in unmitigated fury. Considering the dense vegetation and vines, he’d have to descend the mountainside on foot, and his size and the climate were against him.
She slipped, sending a tumbling cascade of rocks to the talus below. Gasping, Addy continued down. Pressure swelled in her chest, constricting her as if Hyborean hands were squeezing blood from her heart like water from a sponge.
Were her sutures splitting? Was it a heart attack?
Sweating profusely, sucking wind and unable to bear the strain on her heart, she reached the bottom of the cliff. Through the trees, she could see Max had snagged their vine rope and was hauling himself onto the riverbank. Regan was a shadow behind him, knife blade gripped between his teeth.
Holding Noah in one arm, Addy retrived the hologram chips from her pocket. She threw them into the forest and away from the river, hoping the images would fool Ferly Mor and gain them a few precious minutes to cross.
She took in a deep breath and made her way to the vine rope.
At the riverbank, the two beaten, bloodied, and now drenched gladiators circled each other, hunched over in exhaustion. Max’s right arm hung limp, the knife wound in his shoulder rendering it useless. How did either man have the strength or fortitude to keep fighting?
Regan lunged with the Flesheater. Max deflected the blade, but Regan’s shoulder rammed his chest, knocked him flat on his back, pinned.
Max grunted, struggling against Regan and the knife.
Quickly, Addy placed Noah in the ferns where she had made the vine rope earlier that day and grabbed the only weapon she could find. She snuck behind Regan, threw the vine around his throat and yanked it back with the strength of a pissed-off grizzly protecting her cub.
“Hello, pet,” she said with icy derision. Unlike the time she’d tried to poison him, there was no fear. There was no guilt or remorse. The bastard was going to die at her hands and she was glad.
Regan twisted around. He swung the knife wildly at her. Max redirected the arching blow into Regan’s chest.
Regan choked.
Wheezed.
His muscles slackened.
His body slumped to the ground, pulling her off balance. She wouldn’t let go of the vine. She pulled it tighter. He’d died after she’d poisoned him in HuBReC but had come back to life. This time, she had to make sure he stayed dead. She had to prevent him from ever coming after her family again. Hot tears blurred her vision as she strangled him with all her strength.
“Let go, Addy.” Max’s voice was gentle. Somehow, he had gotten off the ground and was kneeling besides her, peeling her fingers from the bloody grip she held on the vine. “He’s dead.”
* * *
“But that’s not enough.” She turned to him with tearful, red eyes. She sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing blood under her nose. “We have to make sure he never comes back to life. We have to get rid of his body.” Her gaze darted around their surroundings.
She looked crazed. Manic. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. This wasn’t good.
“We have to throw him in the river.” In the next instant she was on her feet, pulling on Regan’s arms in an attempt to drag his body. “Help me, Max.”
“Leave him. Ferly Mor will be here any second. We have to cross the river now.”
“But—”
“Addy.” He took her soft hand in his. His gaze held hers. “Is Regan’s ultimortem more important than saving our family?”
Her pupils dilated. She blinked as if waking from a nightmare. “No.”