Rogue Wave (The Water Keepers, Book 2) (36 page)

I shook my head. “That sounds…stressful.”

“Believe me, it was,” he went on. “We were told that we would earn different points based on the difficulty of each person we rescued. Council members, who work on the Ambassadors Council with your father, were worth the most points at twenty-five. They were planted around the course in the most difficult circumstances. Then it went down from there—fifteen points for other dignitaries, politicians, and Academy professors, ten points for women and children, twenty points for expectant mothers, since they counted as two people, and five points for anyone else. The worst part…was when they told us that the student with the least amount of points would automatically fail the test.”

“Is that what happened?” I asked. “You thought you scored the lowest points, so you assumed you failed? Were you not able to rescue anyone?”

Rayne paused. “Well…sort of, but there was a little more to it than that. There were only two Council members on the course during my group’s test, and I spotted one of them shortly after the start of the simulation. He was being taken by enemy troops at gunpoint from a vehicle off the street where they pulled him inside a heavily guarded building. Basically, I had to get past thirty armed soldiers all on my own in order to reach the Councilman and release him.”

Unfortunately, I had seen Rayne in a fight before, after Voss had taken me prisoner in his beach house several months ago, and I knew Rayne definitely had skills. But fighting off thirty armed men sounded crazy, even for him.

“It was the first time I’d ever been shot,” Rayne went on. “I took one in the leg and another in the right shoulder.”

“You mean they used real guns?” I said, horrified.

Rayne lifted his eyebrows. “Yep. But bullets don’t typically kill people in Banya because it’s so close to the source of the Healing Water. We heal really fast there. Getting shot is just really painful and inconvenient. I had a teacher shoot himself in front of the entire class once, so he could show us how to dig the metal out of the wound before it healed up, but it was still pretty intense to try it on myself for the first time.”

I pictured Rayne digging through his bloody flesh with his own fingers and winced. I shook my head in disgust. “I can’t even imagine. That sounds awful.”

“Let’s just say, it wasn’t exactly one of my favorite moments at the Academy,” he said. Then he laughed. “At least they weren’t using real grenades. Losing a limb would really slow you down, and they’re a lot harder to recover from. The school would be looking at a lawsuit if their surgeon didn’t put everything back together correctly. But they did have these annoying, less powerful versions of a grenade that would definitely knock you off your feet when they went off. And the smoke would stain your uniform with this disgusting, rancid-smelling oil. It also didn’t help that we were all mentally and physically exhausted from the other tests we had already gone through that day.”

“Gee, sounds really fun,” I said. I leaned into his side and squeezed his arm. “So, how did everything end up? Did you rescue the Councilman?”

Rayne smiled and gave me a little peck on the cheek. “Of course I did.” Then he shrugged. “At least…I got him out of the building no problem. But I had no idea what a huge target that would put on my back. I had to fight off several other competitors just to keep them from stealing my points.”

I scowled. “That’s not fair. Shouldn’t that be against the rules or something? I mean, no one would do that in a real life attack, would they?”

“No, I think a lot of the students were just worn down by the stress of the situation. The fear of failure alone was enough to pump our systems full of adrenalin and bring on some pretty bad decisions.”

Understanding finally set in, and I said, “One of the other students stole your points from you, didn’t they. That’s why you thought you were going to fail the test?”

“Well, they definitely
tried
,” Rayne smirked. “But I was able to fight them off. What happened was, when I was almost to the extraction point with the Councilman, I noticed a friend of mine coming towards us, helping a pregnant woman out of the line of fire. I mentioned that pregnant women were worth a decent amount of points as well, right?”

I nodded.

“Anyway,” he continued. “My friend Honey was—”

“Wait,” I cut in. “Your friend
Honey
?” For a minute I wondered if I was about to learn of another one of Rayne’s out-of-this-world-beautiful old friends, like Frankie.

Rayne chuckled. “Oh, that was just a nickname. His last name was Honeycutt, that’s where we got it from. He’s a Scout now.” He paused to reminisce. “Man, I loved that kid. I haven’t seen him for years. Unlike me, the guy was this amazing computer genius. And he used to have this ridiculous, red curly hair, so of course, we as his wonderful friends had to tease him about it whenever possible.”

“Boys will be boys,” I joked.

Rayne continued his story. “So anyway, Honeycutt was all set up to earn a nice twenty points for helping this pregnant lady, but he was totally blindsided by another competitor right before the finish line. This guy came up out of nowhere and kicked Honeycutt right into a big ditch then carried off the pregnant woman before anyone could stop him.”

“What a jerk. It’s hard to believe people can be so mean sometimes.”

“I know,” Rayne agreed. “It made me so angry. Honeycutt was a good kid, and I knew how badly he wanted to be an agent. It just didn’t seem fair. The clock was running out, so I didn’t have time to think about what to do. The next thing I knew, I was shoving Honeycutt towards the Councilman I had saved, yelling at him to get to the extraction point before it was too late.”

“After all you went through,” I said, surprised. “You just handed the Councilman over to your friend and gave up your points,
knowing
that you would fail?”

Rayne ran a hand through his damp hair, shrugging as he leaned back against the wall. “Um, yeah, I guess. Somehow it just felt worse to watch a close friend fail instead. He really wanted it. He wanted it more than I did. I never really knew why I was there to begin with. I guess it just felt like he deserved it more than me.”

“That must have been a major surprise when my father offered you the Scout position, then.”

“It was definitely a surprise,” Rayne said. “At first he didn’t even tell me that they were offering a position at all. He just kept asking me all these questions, trying to understand why I did what I did. I guess I was the first student to purposely give up my spot like that. But I think Hamlin was even more surprised when I turned the Scout position down so I could be a Keeper. There are a lot of nice perks that come with being a Scout, but it felt like I would have to change who I am in order to do the job. As corny as it may sound, I became a Keeper because I wanted to feel good about my work; I wanted to help people.”

I smiled warmly into his eyes and placed my hand on his arm. “I don’t think that’s corny. I think you made the right choice. Helping people is an admirable thing to do.”

He laughed once and looked down at his hands. “Where I come from, there are a lot of people who would disagree with you. Many of them don’t want the Keepers to come to Earth at all anymore. They want us to discontinue the Keeper program all together.”

I frowned. “Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. I guess they don’t think what we do is worth putting Ambrosia at risk of being discovered. They just don’t get to see firsthand all the good that Keepers do, so it’s hard for them to understand the point. I know my situation is a little different than other Keepers, but I still understand the importance of what they do. They help people live longer, happier lives, people who don’t have the luxury of the Healing Water like we do.”

“But it’s kind of understandable,” I offered in their defense. “Just like you told me earlier today, if the wrong people found out about the Healing Water, they could cause a lot of problems for your world.”

“That’s true; obviously we still need to exercise caution, but I don’t think we should stop coming here all together. Think about people like your mom, and Frankie; there’s a good chance they would have died without our help. And more than anything, I feel like the more distant from the Keeper program the people in Banya become, the more they take for granted what great advantages they’ve been given just by being born there. I feel like the people are changing. They’ve lost sight of what’s important.”

Even though I had absolutely no idea what was going on in Rayne’s world, I found myself saying, “I’m sure things will work out for the best.” There wasn’t really much else I could say.

“Do you remember your ancestor William Fairbanks, the one I told you about that discovered the first Threshold?”

I nodded.

“Well, he was also the one who founded the Keeper program,” Rayne said. “I honestly believe that he was inspired. It’s amazing how much good has come over the years by just this one man’s ideals, to make both your world and my world a better place.”

I couldn’t help but wonder, as I examined Rayne’s face thoughtfully, if I had ever believed in something, or cared about something, other than my mom, as much as I could tell Rayne cared about this. I definitely admired him for it, and in a way…I envied him.

“You must be completely bored out of your mind,” Rayne joked.

I leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Nope. Not even close.”

He laughed. “Oh come on. Even I was about to fall asleep just listening to myself talk.”

“Well, you can think what you want, but I love listening to you.” I looked at him wryly. “I mean, how else am I ever going to get any sleep around here?”

Rayne tickled my side in retaliation. “Speaking of sleep,” he said between my squirmy giggles. “We should probably think about getting some.”

“Okay, I give up,” I said, laughing, causing him to finally relent. “We can go to sleep.”

He stopped moving and brushed a tangled strand of hair off my face. I stared up at him with anticipation until he placed a gentle kiss on my lips and whispered, “Goodnight, sunshine.”

Rayne moved to the corner of the room and plopped himself down on the couch. It was suddenly clear that he was letting me have the entire bed to myself. He was the sweetest guy I had ever met. So sweet in fact, that I felt instantly guilty. I couldn’t bring myself to switch off the lamp still glowing dimly next to the bed. The couch was so tiny. Rayne’s feet were dangling awkwardly over the edge of the armrest. There was no way it could be comfortable.

“You don’t have to sleep on the couch,” I hinted across the room. “It’s way too small for you. You’re going to wake up with a broken neck.”

“I’m okay,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve slept through worse.”

“But you need a good night’s rest,” I insisted. “I can sleep on the couch; I’m smaller.”

Rayne rolled over to face me, smiling and glaring at me simultaneously. “Sadie…just let me do this for you, okay? It’s kind of…a guy thing.”

I had to laugh. “A guy thing? Sorry, I didn’t realize that offering you a good night’s rest meant I was robbing you of your manhood.”

“Well, it is,” he joked. “And believe me; you don’t want to do that. It wouldn’t be pretty.” He jumped up from the couch and clicked off the light next to me on the bed.

Before he could walk away I said, “You do realize that this bed is huge, right? It’s like an ultra, mega king size. You could just sleep way over on the other side. I wouldn’t even be able to tell that you’re there. I promise not to try anything in the middle of the night.”

He smirked. “Well, that’s a very generous offer. You almost have me convinced. There’s only one problem…I can’t make the same promise in return. If I had you lying next to me in a bed all night, I wouldn’t sleep a wink.”

He grabbed the corner of the blanket beneath me, and in almost a parental tone said, “Now get some sleep. I’m not taking no for an answer.” Then he waited for me to slip under the covers so he could tuck them gently around me.

I held back a laugh. “So now you’re tucking me in, just like my mother used to do when I was little? Yes, that’s extremely
manly
of you.”

He hovered over me, folding his arms to his chest. “Well, I wasn’t finished yet. Did your mother ever tuck you in like
this
?” In one smooth movement, his hand slid skillfully under my neck, lifting my entire torso up off the bed. And then he was kissing me—kissing me in a way that no mother would ever kiss a child.

29. RAYNE CHASES A THIEF

Rayne set the bag, containing two prepaid cell phones he purchased from the store down the street, on the desk. He had been planning for Sadie to stay behind in the hotel while he went down to the pier to retrieve the Healing Water from the drop location, but he could see it in her demeanor; she had been lethargic all morning. It was only a matter of time until her body gave in to the drain on her system. She would have to come with him so he could give her the Healing Water as soon as it was in his possession.

Sadie broke her attention away from the tray of room service waffles and the movie she was watching on TV. “Did you find everything you needed?” she asked, trying to maintain her cheerfulness. But he knew she was struggling to keep up her energy.

“Um, yeah.” He sat next to her on the edge of the bed. “Listen, I changed my mind. I want you to come with me to the drop point.”

Her face wrinkled in concern, but she tried to hide it by taking a big bite of food. He loved the way she was always so brave when things got the worst for her. “Okay, if that’s what you think is best,” she said. “But I’ll probably just slow you down. I thought you said things would go more smoothly if you went alone, that it could be dangerous if that thief showed up again.” She hardly flinched as she said it. Sure, Sadie had her moments of fear just like anybody else, especially when it came to trusting people, and she didn’t have any training for this type of thing. Yet, the minute her life was in danger, she always seemed to pull through.