Marked for Vengeance (24 page)

He
pointed his finger and backed away. “Oh no you don’t, I’m not buyin’ that. I
was already warned about you, that you were watchin’ me.”

Her
hands flew to her hips. “Warned? By who!?”

“I’m
not sure I need to tell you that,” he replied, crossing his arms.

A
scowl formed across her pretty face. “Who’s been talking to you?” she demanded.
“I’m the last person you need to be scared of!”

“Of
course
you would you say that.”

“Well
for one, I’m here to take you somewhere safe, away from those beasts. And we
need to go, like
now,
” she said as she pointed to the floor. “We’re
already running behind, and we don’t have much time left.”

Take
me somewhere safe?
he thought and remembered how Oman said his arrangements had
already been made, that he would be taken somewhere. Her story lined up. “Well
even if that were true, which I’m not sure that it is, I’m not goin’ anywhere
without my son so you can forget it.”

Her
voice softened. “I know you’re worried for your son, but I promise if you come
with me, we’ll figure it out. Where we’re going, there are some that can help
us.”

The
idea of receiving help in his search for Micah appealed to him greatly, but she
still hadn’t convinced him that any of what she said was true. He shoved his
hands inside his pockets. “How do I know that anythin’ you say isn’t a lie,” he
said doubtfully. “And why would I be warned about you if you were actually here
to help me?”

 “It
doesn’t make any sense to me either. If you don’t want to say
who
that’s
fine, but what was it they told you? Did they say my name?”

“No,
only that I was bein’ watched and I needed to be careful.”

Her
eyes narrowed as they stared through the window, her wheels turning. “You
wouldn’t have happened to see any men around here in a black suit, would you?  

His
stomach dropped. In the midst of his troublesome dreams and run-in’s with her,
he had forgotten about the creepy man entirely.

“Maybe
it wasn’t
me
they warned you of,” she concluded.

“How
do you know about him?”

Her
eyes snapped back to his. “He’s followed me too, for days now.”

“Me
too,” he mumbled, feeling foolish. This whole time he had been afraid of
her
and for no reason. Maybe her explanations were the truth – she was his ally,
not his enemy. Her role in his dreams, as frightening as they were, was of
someone that seemed distressed over his demise. Not the other way around. How
could he have missed that?

“Mystery
solved,” she said. “I don’t know who he is, but he’s not good.”   

“Could
he have been the one that took my son?”

“It’s
hard to say, but you have to trust me when I tell you that I am not here to
harm you and I will help you find him.”

“I’m
beginnin’ to see that now,” he said and hung his head. “Take me where you need
to.”

She rested
her hand on his shoulder. “Isaac, we’ll find him, but you are
just
as
precious. You have been chosen as one of the Marked so that must mean that you
possess something that can help us. I’ll make sure we stay alive. It’s my job.”

His
eyes cut up to hers, his troubled frown reflecting back in their shine. He
couldn’t deny the sincerity of her words now. In spite of her intimidating
appearance, their proximity ignited a spark for her again, his attraction reemerging.
“I trust you. Just tell me what I have to do.”

The
corners of her mouth rose to a pleased grin, lighting up her face. “Thank you.”

“So
what are those things anyways?”

She
glowered through the door frame. “I’m not sure, but I think they’re associated
with the guy in the black suit. I can hardly see them, but they’re there,
believe me.”

“How
are we goin’ to get where you’re takin’ me without them hurtin’ us?”

“All
I know is that I was given instincts to protect you, but I’m not exactly sure
what
that is. As far as getting us where we need to go, I have an instinct for that,
as well. However, that one is a little more fine-tuned. It’s a type of internal
tracking device. It’s the one I used to track
you
down.”

“Let’s
get goin’ then,” he said. “I need to get out of here and find my son.”

She extended
her hand for him to grab it and smiled. “Let’s go.”

Remembering
the dream in the bathtub, he grasped onto to her slender hand with as much
trust as he had for her then, and they walked to the doorway.

She
kicked the metal door that lay on the ground to the side, as though it were as
light as a feather, and they stepped to the threshold.

She
bowed her head and closed her eyes.

God
keep us safe,
he prayed.

“Now,”
she whispered, and they took off into the cloud of beasts.

CHAPTER
12:

Precious
Cargo

They
made it to the top of the stairwell when a sting slashed across his left calf
as though a venomous snake had struck him. “Alyx,” he gasped. “Somethin’
bit
me.” 

She
hurried down first with her hand still clasped to his and peered up at him as
they descended. “What?
Where?
”

“On
my leg!”

As
she stepped onto the landing of the first flight, something tugged at the back
of his shirt, and the same sting, except deeper, ran down his torso from
between his shoulder blades to the small of his back, ripping his flesh like a warm
knife through butter as it went. “Alyx!” he cried.

He
stopped on the last stair and fell into her arms, his legs turning numb.

“Isaac,
what’s
wrong?
” She glanced down and saw the long gash his blood spurted
from in a spring of crimson. “Oh my God!” she screamed, her voice distant,
muted.

A
curtain of black lowered over his eyes, and something rolled around his
insides, burning and scraping as it went. The intruder shrieked as it tore at
his organs. “
Isaac…”
it snarled, and Isaac’s soul withered into its
presence, overtaking him.

“Hang
on!” Alyx’s plea rang through the darkness, and her arms hugged him tight, her
chin digging into his shoulder, muscles tense.

A
low growl rumbled through her chest, escaping her bared teeth, and a soothing
light washed over him, casting the invader from his body and relieving the
sting of his wounds.  His pain eased, but his life sifted from his body as the
blood dribbled down in ribbons of red. “This is the end, isn’t it?” he moaned,
remembering his last two dreams.

“No
it’s not!” she hissed. “Don’t you leave me.” His legs swept from beneath him. “I’ve
got you, stay with me.”

As
she hurried down the stairs with his broken body cradled in her arms, the curtain
fought to regain its place over his eyes. “I’m fadin’, Alyx,” he murmured.

* *
*

Dodging
in and out of the empty cars that lay scattered along the interstate, Alyx
weaved through them skillfully like a stunt car driver. With her arm
outstretched to the backseat where Isaac lay, the protective shield that
blasted from the palm of her hand surrounded him. She wasn’t aware that she
possessed that ability, assuming that by simply being near her Marked, he would
be protected. But as soon as she realized that he had been attacked, something
within her clicked, something intuitive. Primitive.

She
surprised herself with her animalistic instinct, which literally growled at the
beasts that harmed him, and a flash of light came up through her chest and out
her hands that embraced him as he fell victim to their cruelty. It now extended
through them to cover his mutilated body that lay in the backseat, enclosing
him in a large, invisible bubble.

After
they sped from the building, the beasts followed and persistently threaded
through the steel cage of the car to get to him again, scraping against her
shield like flaming razors, but she never faltered.

To
throw the shield away from her and hold it drained her, like jogging at a light
pace. Her heartbeat had lifted to a steady flurry where it remained. When she
had enough energy, she would force the bubble around her as well to keep them
off as they attacked. Once they realized that she was the only thing that stood
between them and their prey, their curiosity turned to ravenous hatred. To hold
the shield around the both of them was like breaking off into a heated sprint,
and right when she felt close to collapsing, she let it snap away from her,
allowing her body to be vulnerable to their malice once more.

Her
skin, while a lot tougher than her once human exterior, was not completely
immune to these beasts’ destruction.   Her cheeks and arms had shallow
lacerations, appearing as though she had been brutally whipped, but she didn’t
care, she wasn’t going to let anything harm him again.

By
the time they pulled onto the interstate, the beasts had given up, so she uncovered
herself to recharge, and thankfully so, because abandoned cars still liberally
dappled the interstate like a twisted, metal puzzle for her to weave through.
At least she
assumed
they had given up. The night air masked their
movement. The only lights for miles were the sharp beams of her headlights as
they sped down the highway. The moon and the stars remained hidden behind the
dismal clouds, nature’s response to the evil that lurked outside.

She
presumed the beasts’ invisible shapes could still be following them as they
went, but hoped that her quiet scar told the truth. She didn’t want to take a
chance, however, and remove the shield from around him. She would leave it up
the whole way there. Wherever
there
was.

Before
she passed out in her apartment, a quick image flashed through her mind; a
dense, wooded area off of the paved road. She determined that it must have been
what one of the others saw, and was possibly the place they were headed to now.
She would continue to follow her draw that pulled her in the direction they
needed to go, solely relying on the tiny strings to get them to the gateway.

A
few miles North on Interstate 85, movement in her shield alerted her, and she
glanced in the rearview mirror to see Isaac stirring in his sleep. Every time
she looked at him, she cringed. The gash on his back bled into pools on her
seats, and with it drained the color from his face, his eyes sunken, dark. His
breaths seemed dangerously shallow, and his heart thudded weak and slow.

When
his movement settled again, she sighed with relief, afraid that when he awoke
he would be in terrible pain, and she couldn’t bear to witness it.

They
broke through the last cluster of empty cars along the interstate, and her foot
stomped on the gas, propelling her small Civic through the night’s air, its
engine roaring as she worked it to its peak.
Keep ticking for me,
she
prayed. She wasn’t sure how far away the gateway would be. It could be two
hours, or four, but they only had until midnight.

As
they raced to their unknown finish line, she reflected on how life on Earth was
all about timing; from the moment someone took their first breath, till the day
that their time finally ended and everything in between. The time it took to do
something or to get somewhere. The time they had to be at work, to meet a
friend, or make it home. The true weight of it was never felt though, until it fell
short, and she felt it now as it bore down on her shoulders. Would they make it
in time? Was Isaac’s fragile body running out of it? Would she get more of it
with
him? The irony of these questions was that the only one who could answer them
for certain was Father Time himself.

The
only gauge she had to go by was the strings; the farther they drove the tighter
the pull became. But it wasn’t much help for an ending to the timeline. And as
far as Isaac was concerned, she could only wait in agony as his health declined,
his
timeline shortening with every thin breath.

She
could only hope that someone past the gateway could reverse the damage and aid
his healing. Did her superiors anticipate that some might be injured on their
journey? Certainly they
did
. Or maybe nobody was supposed to get hurt.
Had she failed her Marked? The mission? The
world?
If he passed, along
with him would leave their hope for the human race’s survival. Isaac was more
than just precious to her, he was precious in ways the world could only fathom.
If she failed, she failed everyone.

Her
misstep in assuming that he would be protected by simply being with her was at
a potentially huge cost. Why wasn’t she aware that she had that ability? It was
her understanding that their actions would be dictated strictly by their
instincts. Her superiors were unwilling to send their soldiers into war with
all of the intricate details of the larger plan. She couldn’t argue with their
logic, or their firm decision to throw their subordinates into the world with
nothing more than bits of information and intuition. After all, most of creation
thrived because of primal instincts. Nobody taught a mother wolf how to take
care and protect their young, or of the conditions that could threaten their
survival. Their instincts directed their decisions – they just
knew
. Her
instincts to cover Isaac once he had been attacked worked flawlessly, but she still
couldn’t help but wonder if the instincts that were given to her weren’t on
point somehow, broken in some way. That she should have already known to cover
him with her shield before they broke through the protective barrier placed upon
his home. Did the others know? Perhaps she would find out if they were able to
make it in time.

As they
came upon the signs for Interstate 985 North, her strings tugged to the left.
She got all the way over to the left lane to merge onto the interstate when
another stirring inside her shield grabbed her attention.  She sensed his
consciousness waking and glanced into the mirror. His eyelids shuddered as they
struggled to open.

As Isaac
came to, so did her awareness of his condition. The further he lifted from
sleep, the better she could assess his ailments. She now felt his wound as if
it were on her back as well, each throb irritating the soreness. The slash on
his calf – the first place they attacked – thrummed along at the same rhythm in
lockstep. His eyes opened partially, and he moaned.

“Go
back to sleep,” she said soothingly.

“I’m
alright,” he replied with a brittle voice. “Where are we?”

“We’re
in my car, on our way to the gateway which will take us to safety.”

 He
didn’t respond to her explanation and stared at the back of her seat, his eyes
drooping.

“Go
back to sleep,” she said. “You need to rest.”

“I
don’t think I can. I feel so bad I couldn’t possibly go back to sleep.”

She
couldn’t argue with him there, his pain somewhat distracted her, as well.

She refocused
on the road, her left hand firmly gripping the wheel. This was the one last
thing she absolutely
couldn’t
screw up – getting them there safely. By
his silence, she figured he was either in too much pain to speak, or the wheels
inside his head were turning. If he
did
speak, she expected his next
question to be about why her arm stretched into the backseat with her hand
nearly touching him. It appeared peculiar if you weren’t aware of why that was.

He
softly cleared his throat and glanced in the mirror again. “I’m sorry,” he
said, his eyes meeting hers in the reflection.

Her
heart dropped. What could he possibly be apologizing to
her
about? She
asked him to “trust her” back at his apartment, and now he practically knocked
on death’s door.

“For
callin’ you a bitch back there. You didn’t deserve that.”

Alyx
grinned as she wove around a stray car. “You’re on the brink of death and
that’s
what you’re worried about? My feelings?” she said teasingly.

Isaac
attempted to chuckle, but coughed instead and grimaced.

She
flinched along with him, feeling the pang from his wound. “Ugh,
I’m
the
one who’s sorry now. I shouldn’t make you laugh.”

He
feebly held up his hand in protest. “No, please. I need the distraction.”

His
unselfish plea for forgiveness tugged at her heartstrings. He had every right
to be angry with her over his condition, and yet, all he cared about was how
she
felt.

“I
need to apologize too,” she said, and tears formed in her dark eyes. “I asked
you to trust me, and I failed you.”

 “I
don’t understand.”

“Well,”
she sniffled. “Look at you. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“You
didn’t do this to me,
they did
.”

“Yes,
but it was my job to make sure they didn’t.” Her sniffles morphed into full
blown tears, and he watched her through the mirror as she wept.