Break The Ice (26 page)

“He probably lied,” Ti says. “That’s what he does. He lies to get people to follow him.”

“No. No. He’s connected to here somehow. I helped him cross over. It has to work.”

Tinjen rubs his eyes. He’s drawn out, tired. “You already spoke his name three times. If it were true, he would be here. This is not the place he is anchored to.”

“You’re saying that it should actually work?” Ti says.

“It is an ancient law that a powerful Dinmani must be invited onto the planet before he can ever take that first step.” Tinjen says. “As long as that Dinmani lives, anyone can speak his name at that spot. He must come.”

“He must have had somebody else anchor him before you,” Ti says, catching up with Tinjen.

“No he didn’t,” I say, a new revelation sparking. I shove past them and run back down the hall. I’m only three doors away, so I don’t expect any trouble. That’s when six Dinmani turn the corner. I can make it. Pushing my legs as hard as I can, I sprint the short distance and jump into the room, slamming the door behind me. My fingers fumble for the lock, but I turn it right before they get to me, pounding on the door and twisting the doorknob.

I press my back into the door and let the darkness around me soak in. “I almost forgot,” I say to myself. I don’t know if he can hear anything I say, but that doesn’t stop me. “Everything with our first meeting was so unusual, it’s a little hard to keep the facts straight. We didn’t meet for the first time in mom’s room, did we, Tinjo?”

“If you asked,” Tinjo says, stepping out from the shadows, “I would say I have never met this man in front of me. You are not the same boy I last met.”

“Humans change, especially when confronted with monsters like you.”

“And yet, you are here for the same reason that you first joined me.”

I squeeze my fists, each knuckle popping in turn. Deep breath, Sam. You can fight him after mom is safe. “Where did you take her?”

“Which one? The dying woman or the crying girl? You have so many people screaming your name, I cannot keep track of them all. Except for perhaps the boy atop the flag pole, I do not think he has moved in a while.”

My hands shake now, almost uncontrollably. I slam my fist against the nearby bed frame, trying to steady my nerves. A layer of frost explodes over the metal. “Where?” I say.

Tinjo pats the wall and one of his foggy portals open up. They’re still not clear like mine. Maybe he’s not as powerful as he thinks. “Right this way.”

I walk up to the portal but don’t enter. “After you,” I say.

He grins and takes a side-step through the opening, crossing over without another word. The idea of following him makes my stomach turn. Who knows what he’s planning on the other side? He could have an army waiting.

Or he might actually let me see her. I cast a quick glance at the door I came through. The pounding has stopped. I take a deep breath. Ti and Tinjen can take care of themselves for a few minutes. I hurry through the wall, muscles tense and ready to fight. The smoke takes forever to die down. I take twenty steps before it thins at all. Only a few more before I emerge into a clear room.

The lighting is minimal, only two flickering florescent bulbs suspended in an uneven light fixture hanging from the ceiling. Tiles cover the floor, but they’re smeared with dirt and what looks like blood. Metal cabinets line the walls, doors open and revealing nothing but cobwebs inside. In the center, right behind where Tinjo stands with his arms tucked behind his back, sit two beds, each occupied and surrounded by monitoring equipment.

Mom lies in one bed, Kaitlyn in the other.

“What have you done to her?” I say, running forward.

Tinjo raises a hand right as I crash into an invisible wall. “I was going to warn you,” he says.

I push against the transparent barricade, trying to figure out what blocks me from helping them. I trace, press, and kick along every square inch and find no weak spots. There has to be some way through.

Tinjo stands on the other side, grinning like a madman.

Concentrating more than I have had to in the past, I visualize a portal opening up between the two beds. I push against the invisible wall again, half expecting to pass right through it. Why won’t it work? I bang my fist against the wall one more time, hoping that might create some spark.

Nothing. “What do you want?” I say.

“I want what is rightfully mine. I took every necessary precaution to ensure that nobody could stop me from taking it, and then you had a change of heart. With you out of my way, nothing can stop me from building my empire.”

“So you brought me here to kill me?”

He laughs. “Not at all. What if I should need your help again? With a little leverage, you are very easy to manipulate. I cannot let an ace like that slip away.”

“Then what? Let them go and I’ll do it.”

“I want you to leave me alone. Leave this city and go somewhere else. It will take me ages to build my new civilization. Go anywhere across the country and it is likely you and I will never meet again.”

I have no intention to leave this building without Tinjo dead, but I swallow hard and go along with it. “Fine. I’ll leave. Wake Kaitlyn up and heal my mom like you promised, and we’ll all leave, right now.”

Tinjo looks over both shoulders and shakes his head. “That would be too easy. And I have a feeling you will go back on your word.”

“I won’t,” I lie.

“Choose one.”

My heart misses a beat. “What?”

“Choose one of them, and I will let her leave with you. Once you are gone, I will send the other. It is simple and still leaves me with my collateral, in case you change your mind.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I kill them both, right here in front of you.”

“I won’t choose.”

“You are testing my patience. That is not a good move.”

“Let them both go. They can leave together and you can keep me here.”

“Your time runs short. Make your decision now.”

“You’re bluffing,” I say. I’m leaning in, nose touching the invisible wall, eyes locked on Tinjo’s, waiting for him to call it off.

“Not this time,” he says.

Before he finishes the last word, Kaitlyn springs forward in the bed, coughing and gasping for air. She lifts an arm but only manages a few inches before the IV stops her. Without taking in the situation around her, Kaitlyn grabs a cluster of wires and tears them off, IV and electrodes all in one pull. She cries out in pain as every electrode tugs at her skin and hair simultaneously. A clear liquid drips from the IV no longer in her arm, pooling up on the floor between the beds.

She’s still alive. “Kaitlyn?” I say, pressing harder against the wall, hoping to see if she’s coherent.

“Too late,” Tinjo says, smirking, and whips around to face mom. He draws a long blade from thin air. Without pausing for a second, he raises the blade as high as his arms allow him and drives it down through her chest.

Her body sinks into the dirty bed. Unmoving. Forever.

“No!” I shout, pounding on the wall, hitting it with my fist, then my shoulder, trying anything to bring it down. I don’t know what to do anymore. I keep trying to break through but my will to continue shatters. He murdered her, right in front of me, and I couldn’t stop him.

Tinjo wipes his weapon off on the sheets. “And since you did not choose in a timely manner…” He faces Kaitlyn and thrusts.

All of the emotions firing off in my brain cause me to see red. I slam the wall hard enough to break my knuckles and a portal appears between Tinjo and Kaitlyn. I jump back as Tinjo’s blade passes through the opening and misses my stomach by a hair. Reacting without thinking, I grip the blunt end and pull, catching him off balance. Tinjo stumbles forward and through the portal, landing on the floor near my feet. I step on his back and push my way to the other side, closing it off behind me.

“Mom!” I lose my footing and trip, falling onto the bed and soaking my hands in blood, but I don’t care. I press them against the wound, not caring that there’s no use, only trying what I can to save her.

Two hands grab my shoulders. It has to be Tinjo, but I don’t care. Why bother fighting back when I lost the reason I started this damn mission in the first place?

They shake me.

“Sam? Snap out of it. We have to go.” It’s Kaitlyn. She pushes her way between mom’s bed and me, forcing me to look at her. “He’s going to get in here any second. We have to do something.”

I look back and meet Tinjo’s stare.

“How did you do that?” he says. “Not even I can penetrate this wall with a portal.”

His hands begin to glow. He stands still in front of the wall, smiling. “It does not matter.” He mutters under his breath, some of the words recognizable from training. The wall pulses with light, stronger at the top until it bubbles and begins boiling, shrinking six inches in a second. Once he melts the wall, nothing will stop him from killing us both.

Facing Kaitlyn again, it’s like I’m looking at her for the first time. Her features are strong, fierce, determined, not the soft and innocent face I saw at the Orange Cone. Her hair, tangled with dirt and blood sticking to it, falls over both shoulders in a wild mess. And yet it looks better than the tight braid, intricately knotted to perfection.

Murderous alien behind me, mom dead beside me, I’m only clinging to life right now because of this girl. Wrapping my arm around her back, I pull Kaitlyn in close. She’s not much shorter than me, but she pushes herself up onto her toes and meets me at eye level. I’ve been waiting too long for this and yet some part of me holds back. Part of that shy kid still remains, hidden behind my new façade.

A small smile tugs at her lip. No need to hesitate any more. I press my lips against hers, sending my senses into overdrive. It’s not my first kiss ever, but it’s more powerful than anything I’ve experienced before. Every beat of my heart shakes my chest in slow motion, like time has slowed down for me to enjoy this moment. I pull back and the smell of the mystery flower I still can’t place fills my nostrils, defying nature. “In case I don’t get another chance,” I say.

Snapping my fingers, a bright room appears beside us. People line a far wall, all staring at us. “Go,” I say. She doesn’t hesitate and jumps through into the cafeteria. I spring to life, sliding around mom’s bed to push it with everything I have. It won’t budge at first but the wheels start grinding on the grimy floor. I risk a quick glance over my shoulder.

Tinjo almost has the wall down to eye level. He can jump over it any second, but he doesn’t move. He hasn’t stopped smiling. He’s enjoying every second of this.

“Come on,” I say, gritting my teeth and shoving the bed hard enough to bend the frame. It breaks off at the last second, and I steer it through the portal, spinning to a stop on a clean floor with nothing but silence around me. I scan the crowd–scattered throughout the room but all watching my every move–until my eyes stop on the man I hoped to find.

“Over here,” I say, a more commanding tone than has ever come out of me.

Doctor Halliday glances around for a second, checking if somebody else responds first. Nobody else budges, so he runs across the room and stops five feet from me. “Sam? I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“Help her,” I say, giving mom’s bed a gentle push in his direction.

He takes another step towards her before he gasps. “I-I…” His hand covers his mouth.

“You’re her doctor,” I say. “It’s your job.”

Taking a deep breath, he approaches the bed again. He touches two fingers to her throat and again to her wrist. For a second, he looks almost confused. He turns her hand over and squeezes each finger one at a time. I can tell he has a hard time spreading them apart. “Sam…I don’t…”

“Tell me.”

Halliday rests mom’s hand back on the gurney. Looking up at me, he says, “I can’t be certain without a proper autopsy, and we can’t exactly–”

I narrow my eyes. My arms cross without a conscious effort. I don’t have time for sugar coating, he must know that.

He clears his throat. “Your mother has been dead for…days. My best guess? Almost a week.”

Even though I’m not surprised by what he says, it doesn’t help the pain. His words knock the air out of my chest. My knees weaken, and I don’t fight it. I drop down, landing hard. The pain doesn’t faze me. Tears drop from my eyes, and I don’t bother stopping them. I want to mourn while I can, before the anger takes over.

Kaitlyn stands next to me and places a hand on my back. Her breathing, heavy yet quick, says it all. She’s crying. She didn’t even know mom, but she knew how important she was to me.

“Sam?”

Mel stares at me from halfway across the room. She runs over. “What’s wrong? Did you find him?” Her eyes fall on Kaitlyn, and her lip curls back into a snarl. “You.”

She shrinks a little. “Me?”

“You told them where to find us. You got Ted killed!” Mel leaps forward, but I’m on my feet now, hand out to guard Kaitlyn. Mel stops herself before I need to.

Kaitlyn doesn’t say anything at first. A heavy silence falls over us all. “What…” She clears her throat, but it’s weak. “What did you say?”

“You heard me,” Mel says. “You betrayed all of us.”

“Ted is dead?” she says. “Ted is dead…” Anger replaces the confusion. “And you’re accusing
me
?” She pushes against my back, but I keep my arm out, stopping her this time. “How could you think I had anything to do with that? They strapped me to a dirty hospital bed and kept me in and out of consciousness for days. You were with him last, how do I know you didn’t do it?”

Mel’s eyes tighten. “I would never sell out a friend.”

“He was my friend!” Kaitlyn yells. “I knew him for years, not days.”

“Enough, both of you,” I say, standing between them. “We don’t have time for this. Nobody here killed Ted, alright? Neither of you would have given his life up like that.”

They’re both silent for a few seconds until Mel sighs. “You’re right. Only one person in this hospital would do something like that. Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know where anyone is at this point.”

A door slams on the far side of the cafeteria. Two Dinmani run through. Without consciously doing it, I’m standing in front of Kaitlyn, two spikes sliding into my palms, and ready to fight. My hands buzz with energy until I can make out the panicked faces of Silo and Ti.

“What are you doing?” I shout at them, watching the doors swing on their hinges, open. “Stay with Mel,” I say before I dart across the room.

“I thought we lost you,” Ti says. Her bare stomach shows through three gaping holes in her shirt. A long gash bleeds along her arm, leading up to her sleeve, half of which has been burned off. She catches me looking at the injuries. “Dan needs to work on his aim.”

“Why did you break the barrier?” I say, staring down Silo.

He checks over his shoulder but doesn’t react right away. “I fixed that days ago,” he says after a long pause. “Before I returned to Dintar. I did not trust Tinjo’s intentions.”

I let out a long sigh. “You could have told me.” I watch over his shoulder as the doors stop moving, waiting for the others to come in. Dan and Tinjen aren’t behind them. “Where are the others?”

“We could not stop them,” Silo says, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead and smearing it with a streak of blood. “Tinjo appeared out of nowhere. They ran after him. Told us to find you. I thought, why not where he went last time?”

“Smart,” I say.

“And accurate. What is the plan?”

A distant tremor shakes the room. Earthquake or explosion, I can’t tell. Seconds later, a blaring siren tells me someone set off the fire alarm. The people will panic in no time.

“Keep them inside here,” Silo says. “This is still the only safe room. My protection does not reach outside these walls.”

I nod, trying to think of what to do. “Okay. Go find Dan and Tinjen. Help them out if you can. I’ll catch up.”

When I turn around, Kaitlyn and Mel both stop people from leaving. They walk back and forth along the line, yelling at everyone to sit down and relax, that the alarm will shut off soon. Mom’s bed sits alone in the middle of the room, and my chest hurts again. I never got to say goodbye and that will haunt me forever, but it doesn’t stop me from sneaking out of the cafeteria before Kaitlyn sees me leave. I close the door behind me and freeze the lock. It’s better for her if she doesn’t know I’m walking into a fight that will most likely kill me.

It isn’t hard figuring out which direction the others went. Three steps out the door, screams bounce through the halls louder than the alarms. I make it around the corner in time to see Ti drop the fourth and last Dinmani.