Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (62 page)

The only thing that stopped her from forcing Kim to help was the fear of what form his revenge would take on the girl. Freedom was not worth another person suffering. She sulked to the desk, propped her head up on her arm, and picked at the eggs. She glared at the fork, refusing to touch it. Not without Karina with her.

“If I ever find my way home, I’ll always use it.” Althea cried. “I don’t care if I drop food. I don’t care if they laugh at me.”

She ate about half of it before she couldn’t stand the taste. After crawling onto the bed, she curled into a ball and closed her eyes. Her life had been an endless cycle of abduction as far back as she could remember. At the distant edge of memory, lingered a family she had when she was small. The wagon man, countless raiders, other villages, Den, Vakkar, and now even Archon. Even in this supposed
civilization
, she was still a captive because of what she could do.

Her hands balled into fists, held to her heart. She cried out with her mind for help, at the edge of desperation. If only she had used her powers at any of a dozen different moments to save herself, she would not be here. Now it was too late; Archon was too powerful. Her magic didn’t work on him.

A hand brushed the hair out of her face. She looked up at onyx pools set into a porcelain face, and gazed into their endless darkness. Althea drew a gasp, but held still.

“Aurora?”

The woman smiled and sat at the edge of the bed; the placid alluring voice filled the room yet her lips did not part. “I heard you beaconing.”

Pushing herself up to sit, Althea stared past her feet at the rug. “I don’t like it here. This place has so many bad people, and everything is dead.”

“Because of what you are, someone will always want your power. Your only true freedom is choosing who benefits from it.”

“I want to help everyone. I’m tired of being locked up. Why can’t people just come get help when they need it? Why do they always want to keep me away from other people?”

Shiny white leather creaked as Aurora leaned closer. “Your fear of mistreatment lets people own you, so they do. You do not accept this yet, but there are those who do not deserve your help.”

Althea broke eye contact, looking down, thinking of Archon.

Her fingers threaded through Althea’s hair. “The time will come when you will not save his life. You will watch him die.”

Something about Aurora had changed. She did not seem as scary in person. “Why is your skin so white? Why are your eyes black?”

“Why do yours glow?” Aurora tapped the tip of her nose. “Many Awakened have little quirks about them, sometimes not so little.” She chuckled. “For me, it’s obvious. I can’t talk; I just make telepathic voices in people’s heads. Most telepaths have to send their words into one brain. Mine go everywhere all at once. Not to mention, I’m white as a ghost and my eyes are black.” She examined her fingernails. “It’s caused some issues.”

“I have a Querq, too.” Althea pouted.

Aurora threw her head back, as a disembodied laughter reverberated in Althea’s brain. She swiped a finger across the girl’s cheek below her eye. “I mean these.”

“When people see the light, they know who I am and either take me or worship me.” The tone in her voice gave away both as unappealing. “What about Pixie or Archon?”

Aurora smiled. “When Annabelle gets emotional, her control of electricity goes a bit wonky. I don’t know what Archon’s peculiarity is; perhaps he does not have one because he was not born Awakened.”

Althea blinked. “He wasn’t?”

“No. He used to be a big important professor at a fancy school across the sea. He spent many years searching for a way to increase his power and found it. He became Awakened long after he was born.”

“Why are you here?”

“Curiosity.” Aurora smiled. “As well, it seemed proper to facilitate others like us meeting.”

“But he’s bad.” She stood and stomped. “How can you help him?”

“There will always be bad. People could not know good without bad to compare it against. Things are going to happen whether anyone does anything. There is a plan, and I’m lucky enough to peek at the pages every now and then. I told him bringing you here was not a good idea, but he has chosen to pursue you nonetheless. I knew he would, so I didn’t put up much of an argument.” She traced a finger along Althea’s jawline. “I am sorry for taking you away from your family.”

“You did it?” Althea gawked at her in disbelief. “Why?”

“I knew it would be temporary.” Aurora put her hand on the child’s back. “I wanted Archon to understand the nature of what I see, and know the folly of rash decisions. When dominoes fall, they have to land on someone. There is more to you than he knows. He senses great power yet to be unlocked, but he is mistaken in its nature.”

Althea sniffled. “A strange man thought I was sent here to end the world.”

A laugh, reverberating through the back of her mind, faded before the voice returned. “Then, like Archon, he was only half right.”

“What do you mean?” Althea’s voice carried a pleading whine.

“No ordinary person could withstand what you have and kept such untarnished innocence. Archon was somewhat correct. Your mother was present when a portal opened to another place, and it did collapse and destroy the entire facility.”

“What other place? What happened? Where is my mother?”

Aurora smiled. “When we meet again, I will explain more.”

“Wait. Don’t go.” Althea grabbed her by the shoulders. “I know you can send yourself places. Can you please tell Karina I’m okay?”

Aurora stood and glanced at the closed door. “You can tell her yourself soon enough. Damn. This is going to hurt.”

“What’s going―”

The door wrenched away from the hinges, drawn into the hallway where it clattered to the ground out of sight. Althea scrambled to the back of the room, her scream becoming a cheer when Shepherd squeezed himself through the opening. With an angry growl, he leapt for Aurora and grabbed her about the throat.

“Don’t hurt her.” Althea yelled.

It was too late; the ivory figure bounced off the wall and landed on the desk, alive but unconscious.

She knew it was going to happen and didn’t leave…
Althea stared at her.

Shepherd scooped her up and sidestepped out of the room. She cuddled to his chest with her eyes closed, adoring the back and forth motion of his run. Shouts and gunfire chased them. He skidded around a corner as bullets hit the wall behind him. Her hand flattened against his skin; her power boosted his adrenaline and endurance. She nudged his body into overdrive.

The rocking gained intensity and she imagined the hallways blurring past them. Her body jostled about from several stops and hard turns as he changed course away from shouts and the chirps of arming weapons. Aurora said she could tell them herself. The woman had known Shepherd was coming. That meant she was going home.

Althea kept her head down and her eyes shut, concentrating on bolstering Shepherd, huddled tight against him. He navigated in a frenetic dash through this place. Different chemical smells drifted by; they had found a part of the building she had never been. She sensed his worry; he did not want to confront people with guns while she was at risk. Each time there had been a corridor with so much as a single armed teenager, he went in a different direction. He got lost and ran wherever was open. His heavy tromping steps became metallic clanks as they went from concrete to catwalk.

The change in the sound made Althea open her eyes. He loped across an elongated metal walkway from the upper floor of the primary building to the side of the cooling tower complex. As they got closer and closer, the great monoliths stretched so far above her she could no longer see the top.

“That is quite far enough,” Anna yelled from in front of them.

Shepherd slid to a halt, grabbing the railing to arrest a fall before shoving Althea behind him; the nine-inch blades slid out of his fingers and locked. The lens-eye whirred.

“You know how this ended for you last time, cretin. Now get out of the way.”

Althea clung to his side, staring around his hip at her. “Pixie, please don’t hurt him. Please don’t do this. Let me go home.”

“I can’t do that, mite.” Anna tossed a lightning bolt between her hands. “If Shepherd gets hurt, it’s because you are running away.”

He growled, stomping towards her with murder in his eyes.

“No, don’t hurt her, either,” Althea wailed.

Anna shook her head and flung her arms forward. A scintillating cloud of blue lightning arced from her fingertips into the metal railing, dancing along until it engulfed the huge man. Barefoot on the metal, Althea had nowhere to hide and convulsed with tingles that crept up her legs and became burning.

She fell to the ground, twitching out of control and shrieking as the big man lurched to one knee. He moaned in sorrow, exuding guilt as if it was somehow his fault Althea screamed in pain.

The light and crackling ceased.

“Had enough, then? Or do you want more? On second thought, you’re going to be a needling little problem as long as you’re around.”

Another smaller crackle; Shepherd gurgled.

Stop it, both of you!
Althea tried to yell, but her jaw remained closed.

Shepherd tore loose a section of the balustrade, the whirring of his metal arms ground down to a belabored drone until the pipe gave way with a deafening
crack.
He staggered backwards as it broke, recovered, and swung the length of pipe at her. Anna ducked the bar as it whooshed over her head, and tossed another arc of lightning into the improvised weapon once it cleared.

Rigid and shuddering, the big man fell to the side, draped over the intact railing. Foam sprayed from his mouth as he gurgled in anguish.

“You had your chance.” Anna put more energy into the arc. “I’m doing you a favor, you poor sot. You aren’t even human anymore.”

Althea reached out, clawing at the air towards the woman. She felt Anna’s energy killing this man who had come to save her, this man who only came because of what Althea had done to him. Her magic had made him want to protect her as if she was his daughter, now he would die because of it.

“
Stop
!” The child’s scream flooded the woman’s mind, louder than the sizzling electricity.

Althea’s desperate need to protect her protector mixed with her newfound rage, and she commanded the woman’s throat to close. Anna grabbed her neck with both hands, eyes growing wide as a constricting wheeze leaked from her nostrils. She reached one hand towards Althea, horror and astonishment in her eyes as she murmured and fell to her knees.

Eyes rolling back into her skull, Anna loosed a weak gasp before flopping face down on the grate. Althea stopped concentrating and slumped, out of breath, against a strut below the handrail. As the large man struggled to his feet, she crawled to Anna’s side. Shepherd raised his claws at the inert woman, but Althea held her hand up.

“Please don’t.”

Althea’s hair rose when her hand touched Pixie’s cheek. After making sure the woman was still alive, she sent a flood of sleep into her brain that would keep her out for at least an hour.

An immense metal hand drifted into her peripheral vision. Althea stood, clasped her hand around two thick, metal fingers, and glanced up at her guardian. “No one has to die.”

The door at the building end of the walkway flew open; more of Archon’s loyalists clambered out with guns at the ready. The teen girl with the strange blue sandals led the way, her tiny machinegun faltered when she got a good look at how big Shepherd was up close.

“
Go away!
” Althea screamed.

The wall behind them became a shadow play in the radiance from her glare.

No longer afraid, she was angry, and she added a blast of radiant fear atop her psionic command.

They stopped, some trembled, the girl in flip-flops fainted, and several sets of pants became wet. Shepherd scooped her into his arms once more and ran in the only direction he could go from here―to the other end of the walkway, onto the spiraling catwalk that rimmed the outside of the nearest tower.

ong strides took her higher into the air, upon the bouncing walkway, around and around the spiral. Soon, the journey brought them to the apex, a narrow viaduct leading straight across the first tower’s maw, through a dense cloud of dark smoke. The swaying metal bridge spanned a chasm of air filled with the taste of metal, broken by puffs of mist and fog from the darkness below. It went to the top of the adjacent tower, from which they could reach the ground away from their pursuers.