by Tara Ellis
A sweet-smelling smoke began to creep over the ledge of the cliff and into the cave, reminding Jason that being shot wasn’t the only threat they faced. There were still several Lokono stranded at the base of the waterfall who were counting on them. He’d have to make a move soon, even if that meant forcing the confrontation to escalate.
“One drink,” Eddy said, looking pointedly at one of The Cured. He was a middle-aged indigenous man who stoically held the rifle in his hands, though the way he stared back at Eddy made it clear he was also surprised by Eddy’s transformation. “I had one cup of that tea less than twelve hours ago, and I’ve already partially recovered.”
“You all know me!” Kavish added, moving up next to Eddy. Turning to the man Eddy had spoken to, Kavish lowered his weapon while boldly reaching out to take hold of the one clasped tightly by The Cured, pulling it to rest in between their bodies. “We grew up together. We’ve been friends all of our lives, so you know I would not deceive you. Eddy is telling you the truth. You’re being misled. If a simple tea is all it takes to undo the changes caused by the Kra Puru, how can it be divine? We still have a choice, and it’s time to stop listening to Dr. Davies. You must decide how you want to continue living your lives!”
“Shoot them!” Davies roared.
While the two men by Eddy remained indecisive and didn’t move, the Cured holding Peta raised the gun toward her head. She reacted by bucking in his arms and slamming her head into his face. With a grunt they both fell to the ground.
The one remaining Cured lined up on Eddy, and Devon reacted without hesitation, firing once. The sound spurred everyone else into action.
Jason didn’t have a clear shot on Peta’s attacker, so he focused back on Davies.
Eddy grabbed the rifle of the other Cured, becoming locked in the same stance as Kavish with none of the men willing to shoot each other.
Madeline stood transfixed by something Jason couldn’t see.
Davies was staring at him down the barrel of his gun. His finger slid to the trigger. It was a barely perceptible motion that someone else might not have noticed.
But Jason saw it. He methodically processed everything whether he wanted to or not, an attribute that had haunted him all his life.
He was aware of Jess at his feet, holding on to Tyler in a dazed shock. Would she ever be able to forgive him? Forgive him for killing the man who’d raised her and been the only father she’d ever known?
Davies could still be cured.
He didn’t have to die.
All of those thoughts passed through Jason’s mind in a fraction of a second. The same amount of time it took for him to pull the trigger.
It was a fraction of a second that might have cost him his life, as both guns fired at the same time.
As Jason was thrown back by the impact of the bullet to his chest, he saw the look of horror on Jess’s face when he fell to the ground next to her. And he knew in that moment that he’d been wrong. That he’d made the wrong choice. Because Jess wasn’t looking at Davies as he staggered sideways from the non-lethal hit to his shoulder.
She was looking at Jason.
Chapter 22
MADELINE
Bergi-Olo Caves
Amazon Jungle, South America
The voices. There were so many of them. Too many.
Madeline didn’t know who to listen to anymore.
This is why you came here! Help Davies, if you ever want the chance to become the woman you know you were always meant to be. Someone to be followed. To be worshipped. To be feared.
“No!” She slapped a hand to her forehead, and Madeline scrubbed at the skin, trying to silence that particular voice. The one that had always been whispering in her ear since she’d been a small child. The one The Kuru set free.
The gunshots were still fading. They’d come from both sides of her, and she wasn’t sure where to look. She didn’t want to look.
You must look! See what you’ve done, Mads. See what you’ve become a part of. Henry would be so ashamed.
Madeline whimpered, struggling to hold on to the unraveling threads of her subconscious mind. The part of her that was still sane enough to recognize what was real. It was still there. Peta saw it. She’d said so.
“Maddy!”
The voice of her younger sister came from the dark pool behind her.
Spinning around, Madeline ignored the thrashing forms of Peta and the man she wrestled with. She also ignored the other commotion to her right, from where the two shots had just erupted. From where Dr. Davies and the other man were facing off. She didn’t want to see it. Let them kill each other.
All that mattered was Lizzy. She had to find Lizzy. Mom and dad would be so angry with her for letting her wander away. She was supposed to be watching her, and they trusted—
“Maddy!”
Madeline froze at the edge of the water, tears spilling down her face as she stared into its inky depths. Steam skimmed the surface, which was randomly dispersed by pockets of gas bubbling to the surface.
Blinking, Madeline pulled at her thick black curls and took a step back.
No.
She wasn’t on their family property that long, hot summer day so long ago. Lizzy was gone. But there was someone else that needed her help.
Spinning back around, Madeline saw that Jason was flat-out on the ground with Jess leaning over him, sobbing. Her red braids hung in her face, much the same way Lizzy’s had.
Davies was across from them, down on a knee, his left arm hanging loosely at his side. He still clutched the gun in his right hand, and he was doing his best to get back on his feet, ignoring the blood spreading out across his light-colored shirt. The same shapeless apparel all of his followers wore.
Madeline looked down at her own shirt, the polo she’d brought with the ICONS name stitched over her left breast. The one she’d envisioned wearing as she ascended her way to the top of whatever hierarchy was left after all of the dust had settled.
“You are complicit!” Lizzy whispered, her voice gurgling from the spring behind her.
“It isn’t real!” Madeline moaned, grabbing at her shirt and twisting the fabric in her fists until it pulled tight against her back.
Except the voice was right.
She was complicit. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t known the corporation’s true intent when she first started out. Once Madeline had put it all together, had seen what it was they were really looking for way down in the depths of the MOHO, she should have done something about it. There’d been plenty of opportunities. Occasions when she could have reached out to the right people and planted the appropriate seeds.
Henry would have listened.
Henry didn’t love you! You were never good enough for him. You weren’t good enough for anyone, including a board of pompous asses willing to risk the world for their own wealth. And you certainly were never good enough for your sister.
“No…” Madeline sobbed, not bothering to try and push the voice from her head this time. Her eye spasmed as she wiped some drool from the corner of her sagging mouth.
Peta.
Madeline had brought her to that place.
To help you destroy anything left that’s good!
“To stop it!” Madeline slurred, shaking her head against the accusations of her own, sick mind. She remembered. She could remember now, when she’d been lying there in her bed, finger hovering over the send button. She was still that woman. The one who wanted to do the right thing.
To stop it.
Eyes widening, Madeline sought out Peta’s form on the ground, not far away from where she stood. Devon had launched himself into the scuffle and had a firm grip on the weapon The Cured had held to Peta’s head only moments before. His legs were wrapped around the man’s arm to prevent him from using it, while Peta threw random punches in a mad attempt to free herself. It was working. She was already partway out from under him, as Kavish and Eddy attempted to take the rifles away from the other Cured furth
er back in the cave.
They were gaining control.
“Jason!” Jess wailed, reminding Madeline that she still had some decisions to make.
She whipped her head back drunkenly in Jess’s direction. The girl flailed her small hands in an effort to apply pressure to his chest wound. Akuba limped toward them, where Jason lay moaning as blood pooled beneath him. Tyler was desperately trying to pull the dropped gun out from under Jason’s body as he watched Davies regain his footing and raise his weapon.
“Stop!” Madeline shouted, feeling some satisfaction when Davies froze and shifted his attention to her.
“Don’t you see?” Davies whispered, nostrils flaring and mouth parted in what might have been either excitement or anticipation. Gesturing to the cave wall with his chin, he then shook it slowly. “This was all set into motion thousands of years ago, by forces we can’t even comprehend. It’s impossible to stop. The Libi Prani will burn and the Kra Puru will spread to everyone…to every living creature. Without fear, our limits are endless.”
“We’ve already reached the end,” Madeline gasped. Taking a few steps in his direction, she splayed her fingers at her own face. “Look at me! Look at what it’s done to me…to you. How many of your followers have you buried already after they went crazy? How many more deaths will you order before accepting that the Kra Puru is nothing more than a disease? A disease that is changing and progressing—”
You’ll never be good enough!
Madeline twitched, her head jerking sideways in response to the internal battle being waged.
Where was she?
Madeline rubbed at the back of her neck, where an intense throbbing was beginning to spread outward. Her vision blurred slightly, making it even more difficult to discern her surroundings.
Was she standing in her office? In her home. The retreat in California she’d worked her whole life to build and had been so proud of. Where she’d been securely tucked away and…safe.
No. She’d burned it. She had stood in the driveway with her hands smelling of gasoline and watched it burn with a deep, unsettling satisfaction. Why had she done that?
“Maddy, help me!”
Lizzy. Lizzy needed her.
No.
Jess. It was Jess who needed her.
Rubbing at her gummy eyes, Madeline tried to focus again on Davies. To make the walls of the cave solidify around her. To feel the hard stone and dirt under her feet, where she stood next to the origin of the Libi Nati, in the thick of the Amazonian rain forest.
“This is the end,” she said with determination, taking another step toward the man who was supposed to have made it all come together for her.
Davies ignored her and leveled his gun at Jason’s prone form.
“Dad, stop!” Jess screamed, throwing herself in front of Jason.
The gun wavered.
Jess stared at him in disbelief as tears fell down her dirty face. “Daddy,” she cried, holding out a hand. “Please, we can help you. I can make you better. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to come home? I love you.”
A gut-wrenching sob escaped Jess as Davies steadied the weapon and his lips set in a firm line. “Love doesn’t exist anymore.”
Love.
Madeline had only felt true love a few precious times during her life. For her parents, for Henry—for Lizzy.
Jess looked at her then. She looked at Madeline with eyes full of an innocence that was forever crushed, her red braids and freckles transforming her into the young girl who’d cried out for help much the same way, in Madeline’s distant past. She’d hesitated that day. Madeline had weighed her options and the risk to her own life before running to save her little sister.
Turning back to Davies, as the pain at the base of her neck blossomed into a blinding explosion, she hurled herself the last few feet, colliding with him as the gun went off.
The pain in her chest blended with that in her head, and as her vision dimmed, Madeline wrapped her arms around Davies in an eternal embrace. Her forward momentum carried them both backward and over the edge of the largest pool in the cave.
The warm waters encased them, sucking them down into its dark, endless depths where the sun had never reached. Davies fought against her, his body convulsing in a frantic attempt at freedom. But he only had one good arm, and Madeline pressed her face into his terrycloth shirt as she focused the last of her strength into holding on as they spiraled down through the bubbling water in a macabre dance.
Madeline’s last thoughts were of her sister’s red hair as it had flowed just beneath the surface of the watering hole. She reached for it, could feel its soft strands as her fingers twisted into it.
She pulled.
I’m coming, Lizzy…
And this time, Mads didn’t hesitate.
Chapter 23
JESS
Bergi-Olo Caves
Amazon Jungle, South America
The breath was stolen from her as Jess fell forward, her mouth open in a silent scream. Ripped away by emotions too intense to process, she could only manage a whimper while crawling toward the edge of the hot spring.
There was nothing left but expanding ripples broken by bubbling gasses. In the light of day, the bottomless pools were so clear that it gave the illusion of being empty. In the dark, it was transformed into something else. A pit of blackness ready to devour whatever fell beneath its surface. To be whisked away into the bowels of the earth, perhaps to where the thermophiles were created and the prions spawned.
“Jess.” Peta took her by the shoulder as she spoke her name, pulling her back slightly. It was a voice of reason…of calm. Without saying the words, the simple gesture confirmed what Jess already understood. There wasn’t anything she could do to save him. Not anymore.
“Are you hurt?” Peta asked as she moved around Jess, perhaps looking for blood or other signs of having been shot.
Jess shook her head.
As Peta moved away, Jess became aware of the other sounds escalating around her.
“Stop!” Kavish yelled, amid the sound of stomping feet and grunts.
“I don’t know what to do!” Tyler’s voice was strained. Scared.
“Eddy!” Peta yelled. More stomping feet. “We need your help. I can’t stop the bleeding!”
The sound of bubbling water, underlying it all. It was a sound Jess had grown up with. Interesting, how the outdoor springs at the resort sounded the same as the ones in the cave. They smelled the same, too. And while most people would wrinkle their nose in disgust, Jess was instead calmed by it. It was normal, expected, and something she understood.
She stared at the water. The ripples were gone.
Her father was gone.
“Dad,” she whispered, the tears finally breaking through her wall of disbelief. “Dad, I’m so sorry.”
The only comfort Jess could claw at while slumped there, surrounded by the origins of the Libi Nati, was that her dad would spend eternity with his life-long obsession. Perhaps that was why in the aftermath of the infection, he was so fixated on it. Once the emotions he had for her were stripped away, it was all that was left. The preserve and his investigation into the Libi Nati were his world, and that made it easy for him to believe his destiny was to advance and rule over it.
Jess closed her eyes, fighting to stay present. It was a state of mind Akuba often instructed her in. To set aside the things she couldn’t control or change, and direct her energy to how she reacted to the things she could.
Jason.
Her eyes flew open, and Jess pushed against the ground so that she fell backwards, physically distancing herself from the experience that threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t save her dad, but Jason and the Lokono down at the base of the falls still needed their help.
The rest of the cave came into focus then, with its flickering torches and bobbing flashlights. The mingling of voices as everyone spoke at once, trying to figure out what was happening.
To her left, toward the b
ack of the cave, the two cured with Kavish had laid down their rifles and they were all moving toward Devon, where he was still wrestling with the other man.
Eddy was jogging between the pools of water to where Tyler and Peta were bending over Jason. Akuba moved in front of her, blocking her view, and offered a hand.
Taking it gratefully, Jess allowed Akuba to pull her to her feet. Her friend wrapped her up in a hug that had always gotten her through the worst of things. It was going to take more this time, but it was a good place to start.
“He is at peace, Lobiwan,” Akuba muttered close to her ear.
Nodding, Jess pulled away and wiped once at her face. Eddy had reached Jason and was tearing at his shirt as he moaned in pain, exposing a jagged wound across the left side of his chest. “He did that for me,” she whispered.
Her face drawing into a pained expression, Akuba took Jess’s chin and forced her to look at her. “He did that because he is a good man, who was trying to do the right thing. You are no more responsible for his choices than you are your father’s. Now come, we have to let Sahil know it is safe to come up.”
A flash of urgency quickened her pulse and overshadowed her other emotions, as Jess noticed the thickening smoke. Blinking rapidly, she ran ahead of Akuba to the head of the trail. “Sahil!” she yelled before having reached it, as the realization that the Lokono could still be consumed by the fire broke through her shock. They had to get them, they had to—
“Jess!” Slaider shouted. His head popped up above the ledge, his eyes wide in astonishment and a rifle held firmly in his hands. He looked around frantically before finishing the climb and acknowledging her and Akuba, who was still limping the rest of the way to the trail. “Where are they?”
As Jess reached the other man, she saw that he wasn’t alone. The trail behind him was full of the other Lokono, both young and old. Armed with a few of the remaining rifles, the rest had only bow and arrows…a couple of them long sticks. Pride swelled in Jess’s chest and she found it hard to speak again. They were coming to save them.
