To Be Free (4 page)

"Hey, wait a second," I start,
a thought coming to me as he turns back towards the hatch. Nine
gives me an irritated look over his shoulder, and I pull my
outstretched hand back slightly, making a face. "You had a shard of
glass skewering your right arm not too long ago - you shouldn't be
able to walk with a wound like that!"

To prove my point, I grab the
sleeve of his right arm and pull on it so that he turns to face me.
His eyes are wider as he watches me, lips parted slightly as if
he's surprised at my actions. He blinks, and I look to the torn,
bloody sleeve of his shirt.

"I could say
the same about your shoulders and your chest," he starts with an
exasperated sigh, rolling his uncanny eyes and tipping his head to
the ceiling. Righting himself, he pulls his arm from my grip and
pushes the sleeve up. "Gifts are offensive-defensive, you
know,
Quinn
,"
here he says my name with extra emphasis, making a face that's
borderline silly. I deadpan. "Our wounds heal the moment our power
can be spared to care for it. You should have two gaping holes in
your shoulders and your innards should be outards, yet here we
are."

He then turns back to the
hatch, pulling it open and shooting me a Look.

"Are we done
here, Twenty-One Questions? Recon One will be here soon and we need
to haul ass before then if we want to survive." Without waiting for
a reply he hauls himself into the hatch, holding on from sliding
down the dark depths for a moment longer - with a strength I didn't
expect from the lanky male. "Unless you
want
to get taken apart piece by
piece and be conscious for the process? Then by all means, stay
here."

With that said, the man lets go
and he slips down into the darkness, leaving me with throbbing
shoulders and a spinning mind. I watch the hatch, trying to process
what just happened, but I'm brought back to reality when I hear
shouts outside.

Looking over my shoulder, I
bite my lip and swear under my breath.

Shit, this
stuff sounds like something out of a bad Sci-Fi novel, not real
life!
I groan, and immediately bite down
on the sound when I realize it can give my position away. I press a
questing hand to my right shoulder, expecting blood, and come back
dry except for some dried-up blood caked on my skin.

Human experimentation,
supernatural powers, quickened regenerative abilities... all I had
to worry about when I got out of bed this morning (or maybe
yesterday?) was burying the surfacing emotions deep inside my
heart. Now... this!

Good Lord, what the fuck?

I hear something knock against
the door, followed by yelling, and it pulls me back to the present.
Turning to face the hatch, I pull it open and carefully slip
in.

The smell hits me as I'm
halfway in.

I gag, the rotting smell of
human flesh so ripe it's as if I'm sniffing a month-old corpse; and
putting my hand to my mouth I let go of the hatch, launching myself
into the depths while I close my eyes so I can ignore the blood and
the sense of weightlessness.

Instead, I pretend I'm back
with Meredith at my parents' house, in the living room, and we're
fighting for the remote the way we always do. Her shouting about
watching the History channel, and I wanting to watch the Discovery
channel. Which, in the end, was the same thing and she always won
regardless, but we'd tussle on the couch until one of us
yielded.

That morning she'd left for the
hospital before the Vigils came, and I'm honestly glad she wasn't
there to witness the truth. I do wish I could've said goodbye to
her, though, and apologize for the shitty husband I've been.

As I fly through that tunnel,
an eternity passes in an instant. I see her pixie-like, smiling
face with her slightly crooked white teeth, the dimple forming on
her right cheekbone. Her bright, grass green eyes shining with a
hint of rebelliousness and her blonde hair cascading around her
shoulders, as soft as the first snowfall.

With the sight of her face the
guilt comes, how every time I saw her I couldn't help but feel
horrible for doing this to her, for marrying her when I honestly
felt no love for her except that of a friend. For using her to bury
my emotions deep inside myself and force myself to love her the way
she loved me. For never telling her she's beautiful even though she
is and telling her I love her and never meaning it.

For giving her my child,
because I know she could never rid herself of it even when she'll
find out. She was like that - too good for me.

I feel weightless as soon as
that thought graces me, and I open my eyes a crack to see bright
blue sky ahead dotted with storm clouds. They widen just as I fall,
but I don't fall far - I land on something somewhat soft and I go
rolling, the smell of decay suddenly so much more powerful.

Rolling to a stop with my nose
pressed into the grass, I push myself onto my knees and glance
around.

Nine's crouching on his toes
nearby, hands pooled between his thighs and a pale eyebrow arching
over his eerie eyes.

"Do you want
to live?" He asks me as I stare at him, and sighs when I just
continue staring at him. Snapping his fingers in front of my face,
he scowls at me. "Hey, Eleven!
Do you want
to live
?"

"What's
that
supposed to mean?" I question, and here he grits his teeth
and narrows his eyes. I feel a shiver crawl up my spine with sharp
talons as he stands in one fluid movement and pulls me up with a
hand at my throat, loose enough to allow me to breathe but tightly
enough to be uncomfortable.

"Exactly what
it implies," he growls, and I realize then that having that gaze
narrowed in hate at me is very unpleasant - it feels as if I'm
stripped clean and he can see the darkest parts of my soul, and my
immediate reaction is to try to shut him out; even though I can't.
My defenses are stripped clean with that uncanny glare. "Out here,
only the strong survive and we have to fucking fight to stay alive.
Running isn't a game, and if you lose, you die; if you kneel by the
dead here and wait for Recon One, you'll be dead within the
hour;
I promise you.
So, I'll ask one last time, Eleven, and you'd better fucking
answer right."

We're nose-to-nose by now, so
much that his eyes almost blur out of focus, and I can feel his
breath on my skin. For a man who's been in captivity for God knows
how long, he's frightening yet surprisingly alive.

"Are you strong enough to
survive?" He asks, and I take in a breath to reply, but he
interrupts. "Do you want to live? I don't give a shit about
whatever bullshit excuse you make for yourself to fight, but you'll
never survive out here alone. I need you, and you need me, and it's
the only fucking way to survive."

I wait until he's finished,
frowning. Then I speak.

"What's your
name, Nine?" I counter, and he pulls his head back a second,
blinking in confusion. There's that innocent look again, gone in an
instant. "Your
real
name."

He laughs once breathlessly,
grinning without humour

"Jaeger," he offers, letting go
of my throat and stepping back. "Sebastian Jaeger - looks like
we'll be partners for a bit."

"Quinn Terry," I say, and with
that said he turns his back to me and pulls out towards the forest
surrounding the pristine white facility we just rocketed out of. I
smell like decay and this feels like a bad dream, but I turn my
back to the pile of corpses I rolled off and decide it's time to
Not Think.

I follow.

• May the Odds
  be Ever in your Favour
  

SEBASTIAN

The odds aren't in my favour at
all.

It smells like ozone as I lead
the way through the copse of trees - a thick, coppery smell that's
sort of orange-brown; I apologize in advance for that, by the way.
I tend to smell in colours - and there's a distant rumbling in my
ears that promises a hell of a storm. I can also hear the dogs as
they're let loose, no doubt after finding out that Eleven and I are
on the run.

Then
there's
him
.

The sound he makes as he
follows behind me reminds me of that saying about an elephant in a
China shop, and I resist the urge to thrash the man - after all,
the N.O.'s not very famous for letting its citizens hone their
skills in stealthier arts.

It feels liberating to finally
have the dirt beneath my bare feet, though, the smell of the rich
substance almost overpowering the promise of rain and lightning in
the air. My lungs are protesting almost painfully at the exertion
that I haven't done in ages since I came here and my legs are
wobbly with the lack of exercise, but I push onwards. We've got a
long way to go before we're home free, and our options are rather
limited.

First off, though, we need to
find a change of clothes and a place to wait out the storm where
the dogs won't sniff us out - luckily, though, the rain will wash
out our tracks and should give them a harder time to locate us, but
they'll be expecting us to go south since Mexico is closer than
Canada.

So we'll have
to head north. It's going to be a hell of a long run, especially
with this
stealthy
asshole in tow, but if we get the right equipment and find
the right place to suit up, we should be okay...

I stop in my tracks as my
vision blurs, the trees bending out of shape and trying to create
new ones out of a red haze in my vision. Quinn bumps into me when I
do so and I stumble to my knees, holding my head in my hands and
gritting my teeth, eyes snapped shut as I press my forehead against
my knees.

Not
here,
I plea, squinting up to the trees as
my companion kneels beside me, worried. They dance in the haze, and
a jolt of pain shoots up through my skull.
Wait until later, for the love of God.

I take deep breaths, ignoring
Eleven's questions and pushing myself back to my feet - albeit
shakily. After another moment the world rights itself again, and as
I stand there breathing carefully I realize how close I was to
collapsing.

Oh.

So I turn to look at the man
over my shoulder, and he flinches slightly as our eyes meet.

"We'll go north," I inform him,
and I notice the protest about to leave his lips, so I beat him to
it. "They'll expect us to go to Mexico since it's closer, so we
need to take the long road home. I know of a small mountain lodge
not far from here where we can get some supplies, and there should
be a ranger's station not too far from there. The station isn't in
use this time of year and the store's closed for the season, so we
can stay there to wait out the storm."

"What storm?" he questions,
frowning. When he frowns, he bites his lower lip slightly and his
right eyebrow falls a bit lower than his left. He watches me with
those hazel eyes that have changed colours at least three times
now.

"If you'd stop knocking into
trees as if you wanted to make out with them, you'd realize that it
smells like rain and ozone," I tell him, rapping him lightly on the
forehead with a knuckle. He rubs the spot, scowling now. "It's
going to be a big one; the electricity in the air is making the
hairs on my arms stand on end."

He nods after a moment,
probably trusting my judgement enough to let me call the shots, so
I lead the way through the trees once more with him on my heels.
Directions come more easily to me than time does - now that I think
about it, that's quite ironic - and I rely on my inner compass to
head north-northwest, the wind dying around us as the storm surges
from the west.

The storm hits as we're
trekking through the forest.

It starts out small and is
easily ignored; the rain falls in slight bursts, small droplets
that aren't enough to get us wet. It makes the rocks and dirt we
travel on slick and we both fall more than once, Quinn hugging his
bare arms against the chill of the water. He doesn't complain,
though, which is honestly a surprise - he strikes me as a pampered
man, one used to getting his way and who never had to fight for
anything in his life.

Sometimes it's refreshing to be
wrong.

Just as I can dimly make out
the lodge sitting against the base of the hill we've been scaling
for the better part of half an hour, I look behind us to tell
Eleven of this and notice the wall of water quickly making its way
towards us, and I blanch. He looks behind him to see what I saw,
and swears vividly in French.

Both of us shift it into fifth
gear as we sprint down the slick grassy hill, dodging trees and
rocks as we skid and slip down the slope. Branches slap me as I
pass and I fall down on my ass hard enough to bruise, but I get
back up with Quinn pulling me up by my arm as he passes me, the two
of us pulling each other along.

Normally it'd be a sight to
behold; rain falling so quickly and so uniformly that it creates a
sheer wall as it approaches, cascading over you in an instant - but
not now, when we're caught out in the open with Recon One on our
ass, exhausted from the time spent on the run already as well as
having used our gifts - not to mention Quinn at risk of catching a
cold thanks to being minus one shirt and I forming a painful stitch
in my side and my legs threatening to collapse at any moment.

The rain attacks us as we reach
the valley, merciless tendrils of ice hitting us like needles. I
suck in a breath and swear as loudly as I can, the sound drowned
out by the thunder that peels and the lightning that cracks on the
mountain not far from us. I'm stumbling and faltering in my steps,
my legs like lead, and Quinn pulls me along by the arm as much as
he can.