I’d never been so happy to see a house before. The cabin was just ahead, past the trees lining the paved driveway. Sunshine filtered through the branches, creating a strobe-light effect across the left side of my face, and I smiled. This was the first occasion in a couple of days where we’d have a safe and secure place to rest. It’d at least buy us some time to make arrangements to secretly meet with the Rebels.
“Do you remember the code?” I asked Dom.
He nodded.
As the driveway curved around, the cabin came into view. I pulled just outside the garage door and stopped. A shadow passed on my side, and I snapped my head in that direction. Several men surrounded my car, their expressions blank.
“Please tell me they’re Rebels,” I whispered, turning my head and looking toward his side.
“I wish I could,” Dom replied, his hand still on the door handle. He slowly withdrew it.
Glancing in my rearview mirror, they stood at the back of my car, too. They encircled us. They were everywhere.
Dom and I shared a leisurely glance. I exhaled a shaky breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding in. Dom’s eyes enlarged at something behind me. My window shattered just as I twisted around, and airborne shards of glass nicked my face. I half-squealed, half-screamed. Dom held on to my arm so forcefully, I lost circulation. As I threw the car into reverse, the man who busted my already-cracked window wrenched the lock and opened my car door from the inside. It swung open. The agent tried yanking me out, but between Dom’s fierce grip and my determination to get us the hell out of here, we won the fleeting battle.
Another agent—female, this time—decided to aid her friend. They each grabbed my left arm, my shirt, and anything else they could manage. It worked. My hand slipped from the steering wheel, and the force sent all three of us tumbling, with me landing on top of them.
“Kearly!” Dom yelled.
They weren’t fast enough to avoid my car. Still in reverse, the wheels rolled right over both of their legs. I scrambled to stand up, but the female agent clutched the bottom of my jeans, nearly tripping me. I smacked her hands a few times, and when that didn’t work, I punched her square in the jaw. She lost her grip.
“Dom!” I attempted to shout, but his name came out as more of a wheeze. My breathing was uneven, like my lungs couldn’t fill up with air fast enough.
Rushing toward my car, which steadily gained momentum coasting backwards down the driveway, I was shoved from behind and landed face-first on the pavement. A fiery sensation covered a small portion of my cheek, and I rubbed it. Pulling my hand away for examination, red droplets clung to my fingertips. The agents pinned my hands, jabbed a knee against my spine, and forced me to watch as they captured Dom. He attempted to fight off two agents—one on each side of the car—as he slipped across to the driver’s seat. They backed off without warning, and I saw why: the tree. The monstrous, probably hundred-year-old tree that Dom cruised towards at a high rate of speed.
BOOM.
The windshield shattered, and the airbags deployed just as Dom’s torso was slung forward, his face smacking the white bag with a whack.
“Dom!” I screeched, but he didn’t respond.
It was too easy then for the Ministry’s agents to drag him out of my beat-up car. His head hung as two agents lugged him in the opposite direction, away from me.
“No,” I choked out, knowing there was a strong possibility that I’d never see him again. “No, bring him back! You can’t take him!” I frantically kicked and wrestled with the agents holding me down, but it was no use. The two agents who had Dom vanished with him in a bright flash.
Julian appeared from the front of the cabin, grinning. His hands clapped once. Twice. Three, four, five, six times. Then, he stopped only a few inches away from my face. I could almost smell his leather boots.
“See, I told you I’d find you,” he said, chuckling, like his stupid quip was so damn amusing. Squatting so he could look me in the eyes, he added, “I just can’t figure out what to do with you. I’ve thought about it and thought about it, but your face”—he reached out, fingers lightly brushing against my skin—“is too pretty to pass up. A shame Dom couldn’t protect you.”
Hocking up as much phlegm as I could, I spat on his black boots.
He didn’t move for several seconds. Then, rising to his feet, he said, “We’re making progress. Must be that feisty spirit Dom loves so much. Of course, he has the worst luck when it comes to the ladies. First, Cassandra. Now, you.” Julian bent down, and one of the agents grabbed a fistful of hair, jerking my head back so I had no choice but to look up at him. “How does it feel, knowing you’ll always be second best?” His eyebrows scrunched together in the worst display of fake sympathy I’d ever seen. “It must hurt, right here.” He pointed toward his heart, then grinned wildly.
I squirmed in the agents’ hold. “You and I both know you’re fighting a losing battle.” If only I had Borphan, and the rest of my army from Cyeor, at my side. Or even some of the elves of Glasslyn. The Ministry would be taken down without any problems.
A gradual sneer replaced the hilarity on Julian’s face. “That fire is presently being extinguished. Can’t have the inferno spreading now, can we?” His green eyes were empty, void of sentiment and understanding. I could’ve sworn there was a flicker of darkness in them.
Ignoring his attempt to sway my feelings, I asked through gritted teeth, “What’d you do with him?”
Julian pointed to the empty area over his shoulder, the place where Dom was moments earlier. “Who? Dom? I wouldn’t worry. He won’t be around much longer, and you won’t remember, anyway. The Ministry’s going to take care of you both.”
“No!” I bellowed, attempting to jerk my arms free, but I was overpowered and outnumbered.
“Now, I’m sure you remember how this works,” Julian said with a twirl of his index finger. “Close your eyes.”
I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. It was either tag along without protest or get sucked into the celestial world and die. Julian was right: I wouldn’t remember any of this soon enough. I wouldn’t remember being a fugitive, hanging out at the cabin, my strange-but-helpful conversations with Ryan, watching Dom while he slept, sharing a kiss… I wouldn’t remember any of it. And Dom? I had a feeling they’d either torture him until he converted to the Ministry’s side once again or they’d kill him. Oh, God. What if they won’t stop until they have every Rebel captured and imprisoned?
Wincing at the last part, I closed my eyes, allowing myself to travel with Julian and his groupies. I was being pulled in all directions at once, like my skin was rubbery dough and unseen hands worked to make it thinner.
And then the experience was over.
Opening my eyes, I was surprised to see we didn’t arrive in the damp, dark hallway like what had always happened before. We were in someone’s office. Behind the mahogany desk sat an elderly black man, with white hair and wrinkled hands. His eyes scrutinized me for several long moments before he leaned forward, chair groaning, and rested his elbows on the desk’s surface, hands clasped under his chin.
“Is this her?” the older man asked Julian.
Julian’s eyes slowly trailed my entire body, from head to toe. “Oh, yes,” he responded.
The older man gazed at me, too, but didn’t use the same approach. “Kearly Ashling,” the elderly man stated, coolly. “You’ve caused quite a fuss inside the Ministry.”
“Good,” I replied, though my voice was shakier than I would’ve liked it to be.
His eyebrows shot upward. “Good?”
“It’s sickening what you people do, and I, personally, can’t wait for the Ministry to be destroyed. So, yes. Good.”
“Ah, well…” he trailed off. A barely-there smile warped his lips. “I don’t believe that’s going to happen any time soon. And even if it were, you wouldn’t remember.”
I wasn’t going down without a fight. “Is that how you handle everything? Just wipe a person’s imagination so they
can’t escape reality? Wipe their memory so they can’t recall traumatic events? You’re turning people into living, breathing zombies, who have no form of escape. They’re prisoners inside their own minds. Why can’t you just let the Dreamers live in peace? We aren’t hurting anyone.”
“Take her away.” He gestured to the two agents who brought me in. They had slackened their grip on my arms, but as soon as this man gave the signal, their fingers dug into my skin. I nearly cried at the sharp pressure.
“You can’t do this!” I yelled.
“Of course I can,” he said.
The agents paused long enough that I could peer over my shoulder at the aged man.
His eyes narrowed, and, slightly tilting his head to one side, he stated, “You don’t know who I am.”
“Why the hell would I know something like that? It’s not like I work for you people.”
He nodded. “As expected. Nevertheless, I figured Dom would’ve mentioned me.” When I didn’t respond, he stepped out from behind his desk and moved forward a few feet—closer to me. “My manners must’ve momentarily escaped me. I do apologize. My name is Thellius, and I’m the C.E.O. of the Ministry for International Neurological Disorders.”
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Mind's Eye (Mind's Eye, #1) Page 18
