Vengeance (21 page)

“Don’t
leave me here!” Hyde screams.  I can hear him thrashing
and realize that he must be kicking against a door because of the
resounding clang against metal.  “No!  You can’t
do this to me!”

The first explosion
rocks me off my feet.  I stumble into the wall, slamming my head
hard enough to see flashes of light before my eyes.  The second
sends me to my knees.  I cry out as the wall on my left
explodes.  Wood, metal shards and fire spiral around me.  I
cover my head in my hands.  The debris slices deep into my skin,
some pieces burrowing deep, cauterizing the entry points.  

From
all around the compound I can hear the crackling of fire.  
I’m
going to be burned alive.  Get up!
I
scream at myself, thrusting up to my knees.  The air is thick
with debris and smoke.  I crawl over the remnants of the wall,
wincing at the heated wood that scalds my hands.

There is one final
explosion near the far end of the building and then silence.  I
search the skies but can’t see any ships.  The sound of an
engine roars to life and then diminishes, apparently sinking back to
the ground.

I
kick at the wall before me repeatedly, grunting with effort.  Sweat
drips from my brow, stinging my eyes.  Pain from burns and
wounds along my body seems to alight at once, stealing my breath
away.

“Hyde!”
I scream, stumbling and falling as I crawl over the demolished wall.
 “Where the heck are you?”

“Queeny?  Is
that you?”

“Yeah.”
 I grimace as I clutch my bruised ribs.  Nothing like
aggravating an old wound.  “It’s me.”

“Well I’ll
be darned.” He calls.  I peer through the smoke to find
him strung up against what appears to be a small metal shed.  The
flesh of his wrists has been torn by his struggles against the
chains.  He looks thinner than when I last saw him.  His
beard far more pronounced.  His eyes are sunken and his lips
cracked and bleeding.

“You
look like crap,” I grunt as I pull myself over the final
section of the wall, beating at the small flames that linger.  The
crackling of fire surrounds us.  I can feel the heat of the
flames at my back but am too afraid to look.  

“Missed you
too, sweet cheeks.”  Hyde’s head rolls to the side
and he tosses me a pained yet lopsided grin.  “You gonna
get me out of these chains?”

I push up to my
feet, wincing as I tread on a hot plank of wood.  I hop to the
side and pick my way carefully toward him.  I appear to be on
some sort of landing pad, large enough to house maybe three or four
Caldonian fighter wings.  Judging by the massive vehicle down
below and the vast size of this compound, there is little on this
planet that is small.

“That
depends,” I say, searching the ground.  

“On what?”

The fire begins to
stretch out from behind me, eating away at the wooden structure to my
right.  Before long we will be trapped within a ring of fire.
 We don’t have much time.  “On whether you sold
us out to those monsters.”

“Monsters?”
 He shakes his head, chuckling to himself.  “Those
weren’t monsters, Queeny.  They were men.”

“Men?”
 I turn back to look at him, my gaze narrowed as I try to decide
if he is lying to me.  

When he nods I
notice how weary he looks.  “Seems like there was more to
that future battle on Earth than Aloysius let on.”

I turn and walk back
toward him, sinking down into a crouch at his side.  “What
do you know?”

He shrugs.  “What’s
it worth to you?”  I grit my teeth and force myself not to
knock his in.  Instead I rise and start to walk away.  “Wait!
 Come back.  I’ll tell you what you want to know if
you get me out of this place.”

I look back at him,
trying to weigh my options.  I could take my chances on my own
and leave him behind to burn alive or do the right thing and free
him.  I sigh, knowing there is no way I could live with myself
if I left him.  I approach and kneel before him, jabbing a
finger into his chest.  “Any funny business and I will
shove you off the edge and not feel an ounce of guilt for doing it.
 Are we clear?”

He nods slowly and
with great effort.  I can tell if his life were not hanging in
the balance he would tell me which nearest cliff to take a running
jump off.  I nod and grab the door behind him and yank on it.
 It doesn’t budge.  “Get out of the way,”
I grunt, kicking at his side.  

Hyde sneers at me
but shifts, scooting on his backside to allow me room to slip inside.
 The heat within is suffocating.  The floor has begun to
heat to blistering temperatures.  I hop from foot to foot in
search of something that I can use to cut his chains.   

“Any day now,
Queeny.  It’s getting a bit toasty out here,” Hyde
calls.  I can hear him rustling around outside and look to see
him stamping on cinders floating in the air and landing nearby.  

“It’s
not like walking into a shop filled with bolt cutters, you know?”
 I yank open drawers and topple over racks.  Many of the
tools before me are foreign.  Some are circular in design and
remind me of something that would tighten gears.  Another is
bright yellow and looks like a floatation device you would find on a
boat.  Hardly helpful.

“Grab
something long and pointy,” he shouts.

I
grit my teeth as I topple a set of metal shelves onto the floor.
 
Nothing?
 How can there literally be nothing that I can use?

Just
as I’m about to face the reality that Hyde might not be able to
make it out of this alive, I spy a long brace running along the
bottom of the shelves.  It is nearly twice the length of my arm
and has snapped from the underside.  I grasp it, biting my lip
to still my cries at the residual heat from the metal.  

I grunt, twisting
and turning, leaning all of my weight onto it.  “Queeny?”

I look up, concerned
by the fear in his voice.  Outside, the landing pad has finally
ignited.  Angry flames flicker all around.  The heat is
intense.  I peer around the door to see Hyde pressed as close to
the shed as possible.  “Hang on. I think I’ve got
something.”

“Well, be
snappy about it.  I don’t fancy ending up like a roasted
pig!”

Leaning
onto the bar, I scream, pushing with all my strength.  The metal
groans but doesn’t give.  I push up off the bar and slam
my foot down on it in anger.  With a loud pop the bar shudders
and slams to the ground.  

“Queeny, get
out here now!”

Dipping low I grasp
the bar and rush outside, barreling into a wall of heat.  I
raise my hand to shield my eyes, turning my back on the flames.  Hyde
eyes my tool and nods, holding his chains out.  “Don’t
look,” I shout as I ram the bar into the handle.

“What are you
doing?”  He opens his eyes and stares wildly up at me.  

“I’m
saving your life.”  I pump my arms, pressing and releasing
on the bar.  Metal groans and screeches as I work to free the
handle. Pains ripple across my stomach but I fight to ignore it,
knowing that we are out of time. Hyde cries out and pulls his feet
back from the line of blue flames rapidly eating its way toward us.  

Sweat douses my
hands, making it nearly impossible to grip the bar.  I release
it and take a step back.  Hoisting my leg I slam my foot into
it.  Pain ricochets up from my heel as my bar foot takes the
impact.  I slam my foot again and again, spurred on by his
cries.  The scent of burnt hair stings my nose and I can feel
the flames licking at my back.

“We’re
gonna die!”

“No,” I
grunt, slamming my foot again.  The handle gives an inch but
it’s not enough to slide Hyde’s thick chain through.
 “I’m not going to let that happen.”

I look down into his
face, blackened by soot.  I can see his fear and his
resignation.  It is that second emotion that fuels my anger.  I
grab the bar, noticing that it has begun to bend and shove it between
the door and the wall.  I cry out as flames land upon my arms as
I slam the door shut.  Hyde cries out, dragged by the door.  The
metal creaks and snaps.  

“I’m
free!”

I turn to look at
him and my eyes widen in horror.  His pant leg is alight.  Hyde
begins screaming, beating at his pants and I look around us.  All
I can see is a wall of flame.  We are trapped.

I press a hand to my
stomach, close my eyes to wait for the inevitable and whisper, “I’m
sorry.”

A
brilliant burst of light explodes around me.  I feel as if I am
falling.  My vision begins to darken.  Rough hands grasp my
arm, yanking me, but all I can feel is heat.  
I
don’t want to die
,
is the last conscious thought that I have before giving in to the
pain.

The pounding in my
head makes my stomach twist in knots.  Something sticky coats my
skin but I can’t see what it is.  I blink, realizing that
something covers my eyes, draped over my forehead and cheeks.

“Rise and
shine, Queeny.”

“Great.
 You’re still here.” I groan and raise a hand to
pull away the covering on my face.  The texture is odd against
my fingers.  I hold the material before my eyes and blink to
clear the blurriness edging along the corners of my visions.  “A
plant?”

Hyde nods beside me.
 He digs a sharpened stick into the flesh of a pole like plant.
 A milky white stream flows over his fingers.  Cupping a
large leaf beneath, he captures the liquid and sinks down beside me.
 “This planet may look rough on the outside but it has its
upside.  Here,” he gently lifts my head, “drink
this.”

The
liquid feels lukewarm against my lips.  Some of it manages to
flow into my parched mouth, but a lot of it trails down my chin and
neck.  It tastes sickeningly sweet, like pure cane sugar,
undiluted and thick.  I splutter and try to push him away but
Hyde holds firm, forcing me to swallow.  When the last of the
milk-like substance is gone, he allows me to lay back.

“The Jonu
plants have amazing healing properties.”  He points his
stick toward the plant, motioning to the wide star shaped leaves that
dangle nearly to the ground.  “They provide nutritious
drink and a soothing balm for aches and pains.”

I raise my arms and
see countless torn pieces of leaves stuck to my arms.  The palms
of my hands have been carefully wrapped and I realize that the pain
from the burns has receded.  

“How do you
know so much about this place?” I ask, wincing as I sit up.
 The ground is firm beneath me.  Small patches of a
yellowish grass sprout here and there, dotting the landscape.  The
area looks abandoned. No tire tracks.  No scorch marks from the
fires.  

Hyde turns away to
refill his leaf with the trickle of fluid seeping from the tree.  He
drinks deep then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.  Soot
still clings to his skin, making his eyes seem darker than I
remembered.  His black hair is matted and plastered to his head.
 His clothes are a dingy dark gray.  They hang off him in a
more pronounced manner than before.  

“I asked you a
question.”

“Yep,”
he nods and plops onto the ground beside me.  He laces his hands
together and leans back into a tree, his head cradled in his hands.
 “I’m choosing to ignore it.”

“You promised
me answers.”

He smirks.  “I
promised to tell you about the Duturi.  That’s it.”

“Fine.”
 I shift to look at him and cry out as a jagged pain rips
through my leg.  Hyde flinches but doesn’t come to my aid
as I roll my leg over.  “What did you do to me?”

“Nothing.  You
got hurt by some shrapnel when you went all supernova back there.  I
can’t dig it out until I get you somewhere safe.”

“Wait.  What?
 Back up a bit.  What do mean I went supernova?”

Hyde shrugs.  “Don’t
know what else to call it.  At first I thought I was seeing
things.  Darn fire had all but licked the hair right off my
arms.  I was sure we were a goner and then you sort of exploded.
 Huge light burst out of you and blew out all of the flames.”
 He shakes his head.  “Nah, not even like that.  It
was more like you sucked all of the air out of the space and
strangled the flames.  I was sure my lungs were gonna burst and
then just as fast as it started the pressure vanished and I saw you
take a nasty tumble.  Landed on that bar that you used to free
me.  Part of it snapped off in your leg.”

He looks me up and
down.  “I gotta say for a girl your size you sure do weigh
a heck of a lot when you’re unconscious.”

I
open my mouth to speak, my jaw working up and down several times
before I finally close it again.  
Supernova?
 How is that even possible?

I run my finger
along the surface of my neck collar, pondering.  Hyde smirks and
closes his eyes.  “Guess old lizard breath back there
wasn’t as smart as he thought.”

“What do you
mean?” I ask, narrowing my gaze on him.  I lower my hand
to my lap.

“Stupid
creature spent years working on that collar.  He was so sure
he’d have complete control over you with it.  Guess you
proved him wrong.”

Before he can open
his eyes I launch myself at him.  I can feel blood trailing down
the back of my leg, feel the metal digging deep into my muscle but I
ignore it all.  Hyde’s eyes widen as I close my hands
around his throat.  “How did you know that?” I
growl, squeezing tightly.

His face begins to
darken, his eyes widening as his lips part, gasping for breath.
 “How?” I demand.

Hyde’s hand
latches onto my shoulder.  He digs his nails into the hollow of
my shoulder, finding a pressure point.  I cry out and jerk back,
forced to release my grip on his neck.  I glare at him,
massaging my wounded shoulder.  “You done attacking me
yet?  I did just save your life!”

“Yeah, but I
want to know why.  What’s in it for you?”  I
lower my hand and cup my leg.  Blood vines over my hand and for
a moment I feel lightheaded.  Although the tear in my pant leg
isn’t that big it feels like I’ve got half that metal bar
protruding from my leg.