Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3) (19 page)

21

There & Gone

I arrived in Kemet, head hanging, and spirit cracked. A smooth, polished surface was cool beneath my knees and palms. My hair was a curtain shielding me from the soft, sunny glow of the world around me.

I barely had a handful of seconds to catch my breath before a sharp cramp twisted my insides.

“No,” I gasped. “Not again.” Breathing hard, I stared down at the backs of my hands, waiting for the rainbow smoke, the telltale tendrils of At harkening yet another jump backward in time.

I stared for maybe a minute, maybe a little bit longer. I stared at the backs of my hands, waiting for some sign of my impending jump, until the cramping had abated and I was left on my hands and knees, breathing hard and at a loss for why I hadn’t been yanked through time once again.

Cautiously, I sat on my heels, pushing my hair back with one hand while the other cradled my heavy, aching belly. I stared around in complete and utter shock. It wasn’t the glow of sunlight that had greeted my arrival. Far from it. I was underground, blocked from the sun by several layers of earth and stone—and solidified At.

I was in my sanctuary in the Oasis, what had become Nuin’s tomb during my final day here, last time. One of the original walls stretched out before me, covered in the beautiful pictographs and hieroglyphs I remembered, some ancient predecessor to the scripts of my beloved Egypt—something far older than anything belonging to this world. Something alien.

I knew what these walls said, what the symbols meant, what story they told. This was Nuin’s story, his retelling of what happened between him and Apep and how they had come to be here, two lost gods wandering a foreign planet.

“How—” I spun around on my knees, both surprised and not to see the solidified At coffin holding Nuin’s perfectly preserved body.

So it’s after the collapse,
I realized with a rush of relief. I didn’t need to fear running into any Nejerets, not here, not now. Everybody was gone, returned to the cities of humans to hide in plain sight. There was no way to say how long ago I’d pulled down the rocky walls of the cliffs surrounding the Oasis, no telling how long Nuin’s body had been entombed below the dome of solidified At.

“Oh, no . . .” Logic finally caught up to me. “No, no, no . . .”

There was no way out.

In a matter of days, when my body succumbed to dehydration, Nuin’s tomb would double as my own.

A howl scraped free from my chest, and I slapped both of my hands against the side of Nuin’s crystalline coffin. “No!” I screamed, the sound transforming to a guttural groan as I doubled over, leaning almost entirely on the coffin.

Another cramp, much sharper this time, throbbed within me. I gripped the underside of my swollen belly with one hand, leaning on the smooth, solidified At with the other. A burst of wetness soaked down the insides of my legs.

“Oh, God . . .”

A sound I didn’t know I could make started low in my throat and grew. It was a deep sound, guttural and pained. A sensation unlike anything I’d ever felt dropped me to my knees. I felt like someone was reaching up inside me, twisting and pulling on my insides. It was like somebody was trying to yank them out of me completely.

Knees on the floor and hand pressed against the side of Nuin’s coffin, I did the only thing I could—I pushed. I bore down with everything I had.

It couldn’t possibly be enough.

***

I lay in the corner of Nuin’s tomb, solidified At walls giving off a gentle glow all around me in response to an expression of my will given some unknown time ago—days? Years? Centuries? I was a mess, exhausted and sweating, my hair matted to my head and blood coating the insides of my thighs, my shift, and the floor beneath me. I was stranded, a prisoner surrounded by impermeable walls.

And I’d never been more blissfully content in my entire life.

I held my babies, side by side on my chest, and stared down at their perfect, rosy faces. They each had a mop of black hair and thick, black eyelashes making little crescent moons on their chubby cheeks.

My little girl, on the left, wiggled her little fist before cracking her eyes open and gazing up at me with the most beautiful green and gold irises. Her eyes swirled with power.

“Hello, darling,” I cooed. “Are you hungry, little girl?”

She pursed her lips, almost like she’d understood me. Almost like she was answering.

My lips spread into a somewhat quizzical smile as I wondered if maybe she had. She and her brother, still snoring softly on my chest, were unlike any other children who’d ever been born. I didn’t have anything to go by. There was no precedent.

But I didn’t really care, so long as I was holding my babies.

“Alright . . .” I sat up a little, still sore, but not nearly so much as I’d been just a half hour earlier. My regenerative abilities were kicking in, it seemed, and I didn’t mind one bit.

“I’m going to set you down right here for just a second,” I said in a soft, singsong voice, settling my baby girl on my wadded-up cloak. I laid her brother down next to her, tucking the edges of the cloak up around them before reaching over my shoulder to draw my sword. The twins were still connected to the placenta, and I wanted to cut their umbilical cords before they became too cumbersome.

I set the sword on the floor beside me, then tugged my mending kit free from my bag, which had been functioning as my pillow, supporting me while I rested on the floor.

“Just a minute,” I told them, smiling. I unwound about a foot from the spool of thread, cutting it with the razor-sharp blade of my sword. I cut the thread again, this time in half, then used the strings to tie off the twins’ umbilical cords, just an inch or two from their protruding little infant bellies.

“Just one more second . . .” I gathered both slimy cords together and brought them to the edge of the sword, then glanced at my babies. “I’m almost one hundred percent positive that you won’t be able to feel this,” I told them. My baby boy seemed content to continue snoozing away, but my girl watched me, swirling green-gold eyes focused and, if I wasn’t mistaken, curious.

I bit the tip of my tongue, pressing the two umbilical cords against the edge of the sword blade. They separated easily, without even a minor reaction from the twins. I exhaled in relief.

And then I gasped, horrified, as tendrils of smoky, multicolored At surrounded my babies. Between one breath and the next, one heartbeat and the next, they vanished.

“No,” I said, heart breaking. “No!” I clutched the cloak they’d been lying on, but it was too late.

My babies were gone.

Kat

22

Love & Hate

One second.

That’s how long it takes for Lex to vanish in a cloud of rainbow smoke. For my mom to shove me out of the way. For Apep-Carson to pull the trigger. For my ears to ring with the deafening crack of gunfire. For a bullet that should’ve hit me to go through my mom’s skull instead. For my world to be destroyed.

One fucking second.

From the floor, I watched my mom’s head snap backward. Warm splatters struck my face and neck and hands as she fell, her body limp. Boneless. I was shocked into silence, too stunned to scream.

That didn’t just happen. It couldn’t have. I had to be dreaming. This was a nightmare, and I would wake up any second now and find that Carson or Apep or whoever the hell he was
didn’t
just shoot my mom in the head, because things like that don’t happen to people. Not to real people.

Not to me—to her. My mom.

I tried to throw myself forward, to go to her, but an arm snaked around my waist, holding me back. “Not yet, child,” Aset said.

Restrained and dumbstruck, I watched Nik and Marcus lunge at Apep-Carson in the millisecond after the gun fired. After my mom took the bullet meant for me.

The instant Nik’s fingers made contact with Apep-Carson’s At armor, it dissolved into nothing but a colorful, smoky vapor.

Marcus grasped either side of Carson’s head and jerked it to the side.

The gun slipped from Carson’s grasp, hitting the floor with a clank.

I watched Marcus toss Carson’s body toward the empty front doorway like a discarded doll. He was limp, like my mom, his arms floppy. Black smoke was already seeping from his nose and mouth, the rancid soul of Apep leaving his no-longer-viable host.

“Nik,” Marcus said, staring down at the body. His hands were on his hips, and he was breathing hard.

“Already on it,” Nik said, raising his hands, palms out. A convex sheet of solidified At spread out before him. It glided over Carson’s body and the small mass of blackness that had already oozed out of him, once more trapping Apep in a prison of At.

“Let me go!” I strained against Aset’s surprisingly strong hold. “It’s over! Let me go!”

Aset relented, and her arm fell away.

Tumbling forward, I crawled over the place where Lex had been only moments before to kneel by my mom’s body. I was afraid to touch her, certain that if I left her as she was, Neffe or Aset would be able to fix her. They could work their medical magic and doctor her back to life. They could do anything. There was still a chance, so long as I didn’t make it worse by touching her. There was still a chance that my mom would be alright. That she wasn’t dead. That she hadn’t died because of me.

I looked around wildly, skimming over Marcus and Dom and Carson and Nik and the At-orb in his hand and focusing on Neffe, still standing at the foot of the stairs. She just stood there, mouth hanging open, when she should have been helping my mom. What the hell was wrong with her?

“Help her!” I said. “Do something!”

Neffe’s eyes softened as she looked at me. She shook her head, a slow, defeated movement.

“Oh, my dear,” Aset said as she knelt on the other side of my mom. “There’s nothing we can do for your mother.” She reached across my mom’s chest and took hold of my hand. Her fingers were cool and dry, but her hand was shaking. “She’s already gone,” she said. Her honey eyes searched mine, overflowing with sympathy. Dripping with pity. “I’m so sorry, Kat.”

I hated her in that moment. Why was she wasting energy on pitying me when she should’ve been trying
to save my mom? I didn’t deserve pity. I’d let my mom push me out of the way. I’d let her die instead of me.

I yanked my hand free and shook my head. “She’s not dead!” She couldn’t be. “Do something! You have to help her!”

“I’ve got a pulse,” Neffe said, and I glanced up to where she’d been standing at the bottom of the stairs, hope making my heart leap.
I knew it! She’s not dead!
But Neffe wasn’t there.

She was kneeling on the floor beside Dom, her fingers pressed into his wrist. She hadn’t been talking about my mom. “It’s weak,” she said, “but he’s still with us, the stubborn bastard. Aset, I need you. Nik, Father—will you donate? I think a transfusion’s the only way we’ll be able to save him.”

“Yes, of course,” Marcus said.

“Good. I need you to move him—gently. He’s barely holding on.” She stood and moved out of the way, allowing Marcus and Nik to lift Dom off the floor.

Aset stood to join the organized chaos suddenly filling the entryway.

I watched them, tears streaming down my cheeks. Rage filled me. They weren’t doing anything to save my mom. They hadn’t even tried.

The others left, and I was suddenly alone with my mom’s body and the remains of her killer and all of that rage. I couldn’t stand the sight of Carson’s body a moment longer, couldn’t bear the idea that his stupid, fetid soul would last for all eternity because he had the good fortune to have been born a Nejeret, but my mom’s soul would dissipate because she was just a human. Just a Nejeret carrier. It wasn’t fair.

It. Wasn’t. Fair.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed up off the floor, stormed over to Carson’s body, and kicked him with everything I had in me. “I hate you,” I said, my toes striking his side again. My slipper offered little protection, and my big toe throbbed with the impact of my second blow. “I hate you!” I kicked him toward the front doorway until he was lodged half in and half out, with his head and one leg stuck on the doorframe.

With a grunt, I dropped to my knees and started shoving at his body. I needed him to be gone—out of the house and away from my mom.

“I hate you!” I shrieked with each push. I repeated it over and over as I shoved and shoved and shoved, and though Carson’s body gave a few inches, I couldn’t seem to get him all the way through the doorway.

“Kat.” It was Nik. He was behind me, but I didn’t care.

I gave an extra-hard shove, and something in Carson’s leg gave way with a sickening snap.

“Kat!” Nik hauled me backward by my upper arms. “That’s enough.”

I struggled, a wild thing trying to break free.

Nik spun me around and gathered me into his arms, holding me securely against his chest. There was no breaking free from his iron embrace.

“My mom . . .” I moaned against his T-shirt. “He killed my mom.”

“I know,” Nik said, his arms secure around me. “I know.”