by Kailin Gow
“What are you going to do?” Jack asks. And then he knows, because I feel something pass between us, like a jolt of power. Like whatever happened in the viewing room. As it does, I know that he’s seen what I have planned. “Oh no. That’s too dangerous, Celes.”
“Really?” I ask. “Do you think they want to blow themselves up? You need a distraction, Jack, and this could work.”
Sebastian looks from his son to me, and although he obviously isn’t happy about it, he nods. “It could,” he admits. “And you’re brave for suggesting it, Ms. Caine.”
“She’s not going out there by herself,” Jack says. He seems adamant. “Not if I can help it.”
“Oh, she won’t,” Sebastian replies, then looks at me. “I think I have one or two refinements for your plan, dear…”
A few minutes later, I’m on the surface. Jack has gotten me there, he and his team taking out those members of the Others who didn’t fall to the electrified floor. I’m wearing a tactical vest wired with enough C4 to blow up a small country. At least, that’s what it must look like from the outside. It’s actually a patchwork thing put together in a couple of minutes, and which will never explode.
I see the second wave of Others in their vehicles, and I get ready to move over to them. My hand is held high, wrapped around what is actually my cell phone, but which I hope they will assume is some kind of trigger.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Jack promises, kissing me.
And that’s when Grayson rushes over from one of the Jeeps parked next to the base. “No, Celes. Don’t.”
Jack has his gun up in an instant. So do all the Faders with him. I move between them, but they swarm round me, grabbing Grayson and forcing him to the ground so that they can put some kind of plastic tie around his wrists. He looks up at me with imploring eyes.
“Grayson? What are you still doing here? Did you bring them here? Did you tell them where we were?” I have to ask it.
nt faceKkNo, I swear.”
“But you broke out.”
“They were going to erase my memory, Celes. Take everything I knew about you. I couldn’t… I couldn’t forget you. Now, please don’t do this.”
I know I shouldn’t, but I believe him. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I have to. It’s the best way to stop more people getting hurt. You need to forget me, Grayson.”
Grayson shakes his head. “I’ll never do that.”
In a sudden burst, he’s up on his feet, breaking free of the grips of those who hold him. He’s stronger than he looks. He’s also probably lucky the Faders don’t shoot him. “Let me come with you. If you really want to end this without bloodshed, I can help. You can see the Others?”
I look over to where the vehicles are waiting further back. There’s a small body of people with them. I nod.
“They’re important people, Celes. My father is there. If I take you over, it looks like I’ve convinced the Underground to give you up. If you need a distraction, that will be a good one. Then Jack can capture them without a fight. The Underground can take their memories.”
“You’re suddenly willing to do that, when you wouldn’t let us Fade you before?” Jack demands in a mocking tone. His gun’s still out, I notice. “I don’t trust him, Celes.”
“Well, what’s your plan?” Grayson snaps. “An explosive vest? They aren’t going to be that stupid. They’d shoot Celes before she got close enough to use it. I can get her closer.”
I gulp. I hadn’t thought of that. After all, the Others tend to be more interested in wiping out threats than talking to them. And they’ve killed people like me before. I’ve seen the footage. I look over at Jack. “Can we try it his way?”
Jack starts to protest. “These men are highly dangerous-”
“I’ll jump in front of Celes before they can lay a finger on her,” Grayson says. “You know I will.”
“What I know is that you tipped them off,” Jack counters.
“I didn’t,” Grayson says. “I swear it.”
I believe him. I don’t think he’d deliberately do something that would put me in this kind of danger. Even though there’s so little in my life I can be sure of right now, I’m sure that I would know if Grayson were lying. “I think he’s telling the truth, Jack.”
“You thought that all the years he was lying to you,” Jack points out.
That’s enough to make me angry. “I’m doing this,” I say, in a tone that doesn’t allow for argument. It probably makes me sound like a teenager throwing a tantrum, but I don’t care right then. “Now, un-cuff Grayson.”
Jack cuts the plastic strip and Grayson gets into the driver’s side of the nearest Jeep. I get into the passenger seat.
“Take off the vest,” he says. “You’ll be safer without it, believe me.”
I trust him enough to do it. I also don’t like what he said before about the Others shooting me. Grayson looks over at Jack.
“You know I’ll keep her safe.”
“I know I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
The two stare levelly at one another for several seconds, until I know I have to intervene. “Are we doing this or not?”
Grayson nods. “We’re doing this. My father will listen to me. You’ll see.”
He puts the Jeep in gear and we set off towards the Others’ perimeter.
TWENTY-ONE
Gray drives the Jeep out steadily, exactly as we planned. It’s a bold move, and I’m relieved to see that the Others appear so surprised at seeing a lone jeep come out of the Underground’s complex towards them that they don’t fire.
Though that could have something to do with the man at the front of them with his hand up. His temples have Gray hair, and he’s dressed like the others, all in black. I recognize him as Grayson’s father. Presumably, he’s worried that his son would be caught in any crossfire.
We’re close now. Close enough that I’m a little nervous. I trust Grayson. Of course I trust him, yet now we’re well past the point where the Faders could rescue us if something goes wrong. We’re certainly past the point where they can ambush the Others easily. When I mention that to Grayson though, he shakes his head.
“I have to get closer for them to be convinced I have you with me, Celes; that this is peaceful. We can lead them back afterwards.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, and fall quiet, because at that point I notice something the Faders should have picked up on. Grayson has a gun in his pocket. It’s not enough to frighten me. After all, I don’t believe that Grayson would ever use a gun on me, but it’s enough to worry me. After all, the Grayson I know wouldn’t be carrying a weapon at all.
It’s too late at that point, though, because Grayson brings the Jeep to a halt just yards from the Others’ vehicles. He steps out, and what I hear him say next makes my blood run cold. “I brought her, just like I said I would.” He smiles. “Now let’s go get those freaks inside.”
My mouth drops open, and a brief wail of anguish comes out. Grayson? Grayson could do this? I get out of the Jeep, staring at him. “I… I trusted you.”
“And I trusted you!” Grayson snaps back, his eyes flashing with anger. “I loved you once, but you disappeared, and I didn’t even know if I would ever see you again. I was a mess, a total mess, and you did that.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” I say.
“Yes, you did.” Grayson looks at me without compromise. “There’s always a choice, Celes, and you chose to hurt me. Well, I chose to stop hurting, and if that means stopping loving you, so be it. You didn’t even tell me what you were.”
“I didn’t know,” I insist.
“Liar. My dad knew. When he and his colleagues came to question me, they knew all about you. They told me all about you. And from what I’ve seen, he’s right. You’re dangerous.” He points to the Underground. “They’re dangerous for wanting to harbor you.”
“I’m not dangerous!” I still can’t quite believe Grayson would do this to me.
“Yes, you are.” That�
�s from Grayson’s father. Richard. I remember his name now. He moves forward, handcuffs in one hand, but Grayson takes them from him.
“I’ll handle it,” he says, and that only makes it worse, somehow.
I glare at him. At all of them. “You don’t even know what I am!”
Grayson’s father shakes his head, almost sadly. “I do, Celestra. After all, I’m the one who first caught the news of you, all those years ago.”
I try to make sense of that. “But that… that was the Underground.”
Grayson’s father laughs. “We hadn’t quite got to that point by then. You see, I’m a scientist. I explore the unknown. At that point,I was a colleague of someone you might know. Sebastian Cook. We were on the same mission. We worked for NASA, we were among those who picked up the rather interesting signals that come from you. Only they weren’t from this planet. They were out close to Mars, and moving rapidly. So you see, Celestra, I do know what you are, and I know where you’re from, too.”
I don’t know whether to be terrified by that or almost grateful. After all, this is one of the few people who can give me the full truth about myself. I’ve been waiting for this moment almost since the Underground Faded me. I try to look confident.
“What am I then? Where do you think I’m from?”
The older man shrugs. “We have good reason to believe you’re the last remaining survivor of a hostile planet close to Mars. Our telescopes and satellites weren’t able to detect the planet, but it was always there. By the time we might have detected it though, it was gone.”
“Gone?” How can a planet be gone?
“We believe it was destroyed, leaving just a few, very dangerous, survivors behind.”
We’re back to that theme then. I try to talk to them. I’m not dangerous. I’m just a teenage girl. “If I’m so dangerous, then why let Grayson befriend me, get close to me?”
That doesn’t even make Grayson’s father hesitate. I know then that he used his son without a second thought. “We didn’t know for certain that it was you, at first. After all, the woman and baby we were trying to locate could have been anywhere. Grayson getting close to you gave us the optimum opportunity to observe you.”
Observe me. I have to look at Grayson then. “Was that all it was?” I demand. “Was it just you observing me? Doing your father’s dirty work? He really put you in danger for that?”
I can barely think of all the things Grayson and I have been through together. We weren’t just a couple. We were friends. Best friends. We had been for years. And we’d come close to being so much more on several occasions. Only the fact that I had wanted to wait had stopped it.
“You were using me, Grayson.”
He looks away, unable to meet my gaze. That’s all the answer I need.
“I wish I never met you! That way, I wouldn’t have been thinking about you while all this was happening. I wouldn’t have come back for you.”
“Celes.” The force of those words are enough to make Grayson look like he’s been slapped. Good. Paler now, he says, “I deserve that. But you have to know… I didn’t know anything about this until you left. All that was real. We were real.”
His father shakes his head. “Get on with it, Grayson.”
Grayson moves towards me, and I decide to add a real slap in the face to the more metaphorical kind. He catches my hand, with reflexes that are far faster than I remember. He’s stronger than I remember too as he leans in close to me, looking like he might kiss me.
“Keep this fight going. They’re buying it.”
What? For a moment I can’t make sense of the words. Then it comes to me. This is still part of the act? All of it? I thought… I really thought…
I try to rip my hands clear of Grayson’s, but he holds me easily even when I struggle. Then I see it. All the Others nearby are watching. All of them. I’m still too confused to know what’s going on, but I know that this distraction is working, real or not. I guide Grayson’s hand’s down to my waist, and he bends close again.
“Kiss me, and then slap me, Celes. As hard as you can. That will get their attention better than anything.”
Gladly. I kiss him quickly, passionately, thoroughly. Then I pull back sharply and hit him as hard as I can. I don’t know which feels better in that moment.
“How dare you try to get back into my good graces with one kiss!”
“That’s not all I want to get back into,” Grayson says. That’s not something he would ever usually say, but right now I don’t know what is normal and what isn’t. I don’t know what’s an act for the sake of the men around us, and what is real. Right now, I’m not sure if I even care.
“After all this?” I say. “You’ve got no chance.”
“Really?” Grayson asks, raising an eyebrow. That gets a laugh from the men around him. Typical. “I think after all this, my chances have gone up. I had to be so careful before, so we never went all the way, but now I know that you’re strong enough to handle it, I don’t have to hold back anymore.”
The men snicker at that. It’s embarrassing. It’s humiliating. And it’s distracting. Oh so distracting.
He kisses me then. The first few seconds are firm, almost controlling. Then it’s softer as I yield to Grayson’s lips, growing to something truly passionate as the seconds go on. His hands are on me, pulling me close, holding me there. I dread to think what it must look like from the outside, or how much some of the Others around us must be enjoying the view. I have to admit though, I’m almost as distracted as they are. Grayson when he’s the nice boy next door is one thing. Grayson when he’s taking charge, powerful, and only just the right side of scary is quite another.
“What’s going on, Grayson?” I whisper, trying to force him to finally make things clear. In spite of my body telling me that it doesn’t matter so long as he keeps kissing me, I need to know. I need to.
He whispers back, in between kisses. “Celes, don’t worry, I’ll get us out of this.”
So he isn’t on the Others’ side. At least, I assume he isn’t.
“I know you’re confused,” he says, which is understating things just a little, in my opinion. “I’m confused. They memory faded me. They changed so many things…”
“Grayson.” His father’s voice is firm now. It’s the voice of a man who has business to get on with, and can’t afford to wait around for his son’s amorous adventures to finish. “That’s enough. Cuff the girl and get her into one of the cars out of the way. We don’t have all day if we’re going to finish the Underground.”
“…including this,” Grayson finishes, spinning away from me and pulling the gun from his pocket, training it levelly on his father’s chest. “If anybody moves, he dies.”
The Others are still for a moment, apparently trying to decide how seriously to take the threat. At the same time, they don’t notice the other threat, in the form of Jack and his team. Jack is racing forward, on the Others’ blind side, with his full team of Faders in tow, sprinting to keep up as Jack moves in on the Others rapidly, his weapon already raised.
That should be a reassuring sight except for two things. The first is that there is almost certain to be a gun battle in the near future with me somewhere near the middle of it. I know that’s what I signed on for when I agreed to be the distraction, but that still doesn’t mean I have to like the idea of bullets flying past my head.
The second problem is a lot simpler. Jack isn’t focused on the Others. I can see, just by looking at him, that his focus is on Grayson. And it looks to me like the only thing on Jack’s mind right now is murder.
*********
Celes, Jack, and Grayson’s stories continues in
Falling (FADE #2)
Releases
October 2011
Winner of 2 Awards
EXCERPT FROM
PULSE
By Kailin Gow
*****************************
prologue
She ran like an animal. Her clothes were wet,
sopping, clinging to her thighs and to her chest, hollow and transparent around the curve of her shoulders. Her hair shook out droplets of rain; her cheeks were flushed and she was breathless. He could see her heartbeat throbbing at the side of her throat, see it in the rhythmic panting, hear it from across the street, pounding in his ears, intermingled with the thunder bolting from the sky. He could feel it – it felt like an earthquake to him, shaking his ribs, his shoulders, his legs. It had been so long since he had seen a heartbeat like hers – since he had felt a heartbeat at all.
The skies had opened up – as they so often did in North California – without any warning, without any hesitation. It was as if the smooth blue glass ceiling of the world had shattered all at once, letting the primordial oceans pound down upon the pavement. He could see her consternation, her irritation – she wanted nothing but to get out of the rain, to dry herself off, to curl up into
something warm and dry.
But Jaegar loved the rain. He loved the energy – the pulse of life beating down upon the earth. He could hear the scattered raindrops in their rhythmic approach to earth and pretend that each fall of rain was a beat of his dead heart. And she was alive with the energy, too – alive as he had never seen a woman alive, tossing her hair back, running into shelter, and her lips were pink and her cheeks were red. He remembered that his lips would never again be pink, that his cheeks would never again be red.
She was so young.
Humans so often surprised him in that way. They looked no different from him – he could have been seventeen; he had been seventeen for so long – but their youth never failed to surprise him. The way the world was so new to them – that rain could still take them by surprise, when he had seen so many rainfalls.
He could smell her. The wind carried her scent to him like an animal's scent, and it was all he could do to keep his fangs in check. He leaned heavily upon the branch and parted the leaves to get a better look at her. He could feel the blood – stagnant in his veins – begin something like a torpid, sluggish, shift towards life – the closest thing he would ever get to a heartbeat. She was the sort of girl who made young boys' hearts pound, he thought – and they never knew how lucky they were to experience that sensation.
