The grief and self-loathing that had no place in a fight were taking over his thoughts and the pressure was growing exponentially with each passing second. He was already trying to answer the question . . . Why am I doing this?
At first, he’d answered with conviction, but as time wore on those same answers lost any force. Soon he began to feel his justifications empty, whatever significance they’d had crumbling. As he slowed beneath the shade of trees he could feel as much as hear the change in perspective.
There’s a spot over there . . . looks nice. A tree to sit against. I’ll lie down. Try to hold on to one last moment before I’m back in the cage. There’s no escape. Then again . . . make it a bit further. Let the Ferox put me out of my misery. It would be quick.
For a while he tried to think of that voice as some other person, some insidious whispering minion of the bond. But it was getting harder and harder to believe it was separate from him. More and more, it just felt like a part of him that saw no point in lying to himself.
His eyes shot open with fear as he realized he was kneeling. He didn’t remember doing that. He reached back and pulled out the syringe—he’d almost forgotten about it, his mind so unwilling to focus on anything but grief. But he had to do this, no matter what might happen—he couldn’t succumb to the bond’s grip.
He swallowed, his face pinching in disgust as he thumbed off the plastic cover on the needle. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes wide and jabbed the needle into his thigh. He pressed down on the plunger, emptied the contents.
For a moment—there was nothing. He had just enough time to believe that perhaps Mr. Clean hadn’t made it concentrated enough.
Then the light around him was suddenly too intense. He had to close his eyes. It was everywhere. Pure white light.
Behind him there was an opening to an old railway tunnel. He recognized it from a dream he’d once had. He knew, if he walked far enough inside, he would find the other side had collapsed.
Yet, he was on the side of a cliff, and there was only one other direction for him to go. There, he saw a bridge.
He stepped onto it and began to walk but didn’t get far. The bridge ended in a jagged splintering mess of wood, the way across severed. He looked down over the precipice and saw darkness stretching on forever.
He knew this bridge just as he knew the tunnel.
The last time he’d stood on it he’d been naked. This place had been warm and bright. He hadn’t been able to see more than a step in front of himself. What he really remembered though, was that despite not knowing where he was or where he was going, he’d had no fear that he was heading in the wrong direction.
He’d found Rylee on that bridge.
Now, this place felt like a poorly lit crypt. The only light at all came from his implant. He noticed as he looked down at that light coming off him, that it wasn’t quite right. Far more red than its normal orange. It kept his interest for a moment, but in the end, there wasn’t anything to be done about it.
So, once again he looked back at the tunnel that he knew ended in a wall. He looked at the end of the bridge, which ended in an abyss. Given the options—he stared into the abyss.
He didn’t know for sure how long this went on before he sensed he wasn’t alone. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her approaching just as she came to stand beside him.
“I told you we needed a better light,” Rylee said.
Jonathan frowned. He did remember her saying something about light.
Light, or somewhere to hide.
But, quite literally, it was like a memory from another dream.
“Do I remember these chats when I’m awake?”
“The part of you that needs to remember does,” she said.
Jonathan took a long breath and silence passed between them.
“I wish I could talk to him again,” Jonathan said.
“Your father?”
Jonathan nodded. “He’s really gone this time isn’t he.”
“Yes and no,” Rylee answered. “The part of himself he gave you. Well . . . you can’t take that much and . . . there just isn’t enough left of him to be anything you’d recognize.”
His lips quivered, but he understood and nodded solemnly. “When I was a kid I was afraid of the dark. He’d sit by my bed until I fell asleep. I was afraid he’d leave. He always said, I promise, I’ll never leave you alone in the dark.”
“He hasn’t, Jonathan,” Rylee said. “You know he hasn’t.”
He looked at her, struggling with his tears. “Are you my intuition now?”
He waited, but she never answered, only waited a time before changing the subject to what was troubling her. “Jonathan, I don’t think you’re supposed to come here.”
“Thought I was in my head. Where is here?” Jonathan asked.
“This bridge. It’s not exactly a part of you. It’s a place at the boundaries between your mind and the implant. The device can bring you here when it’s right. The way you got here—I don’t think any Borealis planned for that.”
“I had to try something,” Jonathan said.
Rylee nodded. “No, I get that. But . . . what exactly was the plan?”
“Bond doesn’t fight fair. Thought maybe it wouldn’t know how to deal with this,” Jonathan said. “Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe that’s why I’m here.”
Rylee looked uncertain. “Might be how you were able to get here, but it isn’t why you came.”
She kicked a piece of broken wood off the ledge and they watched it fall. After it disappeared into the darkness, they waited for the sound of it hitting ground. It never came.
“What do you think would happen?” Jonathan said. “If I just . . .”
He trailed off, finishing the statement by flinging his hands at the abyss.
“Jumped?” Rylee asked.
He turned to look at her, then back to the darkness below. Finally, he nodded.
“This place isn’t physical, Jonathan,” she said.
He shook his head. “What’s that mean?”
She snorted and shook her head. “You can’t solve problems in the physical world by diving off a ledge in your imagination. Get your head out of your ass.”
In the silence that followed, a smile began to creep onto Jonathan’s face. “Right,” he said, beginning to laugh at himself.
She smiled with him for a moment.
“Seriously though, Jonathan, this place is dead. You knew it would be. Why come here?”
“You know why,” he said.
She stared at him, as though it didn’t matter if she knew the answer or not, she wanted him to say it.
“Fine,” he said. “I need Rylee. The real Rylee—no offense.”
“None taken,” she said, then sighed. “But, even if you could cross this bridge, you’d be doing it for the same reason a junkie wants another hit.”
“I know,” he said.
“But there aren’t any more hits,” Rylee said. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “She took a part of you with her when she died, but she left a part of herself as well. That’s all that is left, Jonathan—she’s gone.”
He turned to her slowly, studied her. “Are you the part she left behind?”
She sighed, but she didn’t give him an answer.
Instead she changed the subject by jabbing her thumb over her shoulder, “Not remotely interested in heading back that way.”
Jonathan didn’t bother to look back at the tunnel. “There is no way out back there.”
He gestured with his hand into the abyss, “and apparently no way forward.”
A thoughtful smile formed on Rylee’s face. “Ever think that, if there is nowhere left to go it’s because you’re where you need to be. That you’re what you need to be.”
Jonathan shook his head. “The bond isn’t going to let me be anything.”
She considered this. “Do you remember what your Grandpa said on his death bed?”
The last time Jonathan thought of those word
s was the night that Sickens the Fever attacked downtown Seattle. The first time he fought a Ferox, and his first glimpse of what his future held. Like his grandfather, he’d been within an inch of death when the words came to him.
“Where there is a will, there is not necessarily a way,” Jonathan said. “Not when deadlines are involved.”
Rylee nodded, then she said nothing. Just stood there in stoic silence waiting for Jonathan to get annoyed.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Yoda, was that supposed to be helpful?”
“The only thing more powerful than will is time,” Rylee said.
Jonathan nodded. “But my will isn’t mine, and I don’t have time. So, what do either matter?”
“Why are you still alive, Jonathan?” Rylee asked.
He shrugged at her—the question had a million possible answers.
“It’s not your skills, or your strength. Clearly, you’re an idiot, so it’s not your brain. The only thing you’ve ever had going for you is that you endure whatever must be endured.”
Jonathan groaned. “Fine then, I don’t have time to endure.”
“Hmm? Don’t you though?” Rylee asked.
He looked at her like he was seriously considering pushing her off the bridge.
Rylee sighed. “The bond is the scariest thing you’ve ever had to stare down. You can’t fight it; you can’t outsmart it. So, you think that all you can do is run.”
“Give me another option,” Jonathan said.
“Take it,” she said.
He stared at her in disbelief. Just as he thought to pull away from her she reached up, took his head in her hands and made him look her in the eye. “The bond can hurt us in a million unimaginable ways. The one thing it can’t do is make your heart stop beating. A beating heart gives you time.”
He gazed back at her.
The conversation felt like running in a hamster wheel. It scared him, made him doubt there was anything real about her. That she was just some part of him trying to keep them from giving up by saying what he already knew. Why? Why was she hiding what she was from him? Why did she look at him like it was all right there . . . if he would just see it.
“You can endure—you can be afraid. You can let it have you. You only have to be brave enough to keep your heart beating, Jonathan.”
Same words, a different order, again, and yet.
“Where are you, Jonathan?”
“The bridge,” he said.
Rylee shook her head. “No, where are you?”
His eyes widened. “The Never . . . I’m in The Never. I . . . I just need to keep my heart beating.”
A smile tugged at her lip for a moment, as they stared at one another. Then, rather abruptly, she let go of his face and took a step back.
“Oh, come on, you could have just said that,” Jonathan said incredulously.
“Don’t you feel better thinking you got there on your own?”
“No! Not even a little bit.”
“Okay, fine. Truth is, I may have been stalling,” Rylee admitted.
Her tone changed so quickly it jarred him. “Don’t get upset. We had a whole Obi Wan Skywalker thing going and I didn’t want to spoil it. But there is—something—I need to tell you.”
“What?”
Rylee looked apologetic, like she was about to confess that she’d been omitting something really important.
“Oh god, what?” Jonathan repeated.
“You’re not, technically, unconscious . . .”
There was no sound. All the color had been removed from the world—everything replaced with hues of red. When he looked into the sky the red sun was too intense and hurt his eyes. He felt his breathing. He was gasping for air. His lungs heaved like he’d sleepwalked through a dead sprint until he’d collapsed.
He was still kneeling, but not where he plunged the needle in. He was in a shallow puddle. Slowly, the color faded back to normal, his wherewithal coming back to him. He was in a field. His clothes weighed on his skin, heavy and soaked. Around him, everything was tall green grass swaying gently in the wind.
He smelled the toxic stench of a Ferox’s insides. Then he looked down. He remembered waking on his kitchen floor so many months ago. He was covered in blood again, just—this time it wasn’t human—it wasn’t his own.
What was left of his enemy was spread out around him. Had it not been for the blood, it would have taken him longer to realize that the pieces spread out around him had belonged to a Ferox—the state of the remains like nothing he’d ever seen. Never, in his most feral moments, had he done this to one of his enemies. It was as though the body had been torn apart by a pack of wolves.
That was when he realized that he could still taste it. He spit, feeling a queasiness in his stomach as Feroxian flesh plopped into the black puddle in front of him. He was drenched in the stuff, his hands shiny black as though covered in tar. The white shirt, what was left of it, would never be white again. His jacket was gone, he didn’t see his weapons, even the boots he’d borrowed were nowhere to be seen.
Did I go mad? Rabid?
The last thing he remembered was injecting the adrenaline. What had it done to him? As he looked at the remains, he saw no signs that he’d even used weapons. It was as though he’d ripped the Ferox apart with nothing but his bare hands and teeth.
The Stone, where was the stone?
An icy fear turned his skin cold. Had it been destroyed somehow? Was he stranded inside The Never? No . . . no . . . couldn’t be, without the stone this world would end.
He was by no means sure of this, but for the moment it kept him from more panic. Then he felt it, the stone, its presence still there in his mind. It was nearby. Somewhere, in these remains. He scrambled through the blackened grass to find it as he heard a helicopter drawing nearer.
Finally, he turned over what was left of the Ferox’s torso, the stone dropping out to splash in the puddle. Its veiny appendages still clinging to something inside. He nearly reached for it, but his hand stopped a few inches away.
He closed his eyes and breathed. No . . . You don’t want to do that. No . . .
He tore off a part of what remained of his shirt, gently breaking the stone free. Treating it as though it were as fragile as an egg. He finished tying it safely into the cloth just as he felt the wind of the helicopter’s blades flattening the grass around him. However, it did not land.
“Mr. Tibbs,” Olivia’s voice boomed over a bull horn. “It would appear you’ve failed to fulfill your end of our agreement. Rather spectacularly I might add.”
Jonathan cocked his head. Felt himself vomit a bit in his mouth and spit out black blood. Maybe she’ll renegotiate?
For once, he was glad to find out The Cell had put tracking devices in his clothes. When he’d come back to himself in that field, he didn’t have a clue where he’d gotten off to while all the adrenaline was surging through his system.
The stuff hadn’t worn off entirely. For a while, he was anxious as a cornered cat, his limbs shivering with too much energy, making it all he could do to keep his mouth shut and think.
Olivia’s agents were dealing with collecting the remains of the beast in that field. Dead or alive, they still wanted the specimen. For the time being she was rather good at hiding how righteously pissed she was about Jonathan’s failure to bring it in alive—or even intact.
Which, he conceded, was fair.
The only thing that seemed to temper her anger, was that Jonathan wasn’t running. He hadn’t taken off the moment the Ferox was dead. Rather, he’d walked over to the helicopter and asked if she would return him to the hangar.
That had surprised her—she knew he could have been in the wind, and once he’d found a new pair of clothes, they’d have had no way of catching him. But he wasn’t showing any signs of wanting his freedom.
Now, four of Olivia’s agents stood watching him like prison guards as he showered—trying to get the Ferox off his skin. The stuff had been harder to get rid of than he’d reali
zed. He’d been covered in their black blood before, but he’d never stuck around in The Never long enough for there to be a reason to bother getting it off.
He felt the last of the adrenaline wear off while he stood with his head against the tiled wall of a shower. Like clockwork, the severed bond became a quiet whisper polluting his blood again.
He sighed. How long do I have?
He turned off the water, and the moment he had a towel around his waist, one of the guards spoke into an earpiece. He’d barely taken a step out of the tiled floor into the locker room before Olivia entered, flanked by two more guards.
He scowled at her. What, she was suddenly protecting his modesty? With all the cameras The Cell had in his house, she and everyone in this building had probably seen him bare-assed a thousand times.
“You ready to start explaining to me what is going on?” Olivia asked.
Standing there, chest glowing with nothing but a towel on, he put his hands up. “Don’t suppose I could get some clothes?”
Apparently, the request had been expected, as one of the men beside her threw down a small package sealed in what looked like transparent dry cleaner plastic. Inside—more white pajamas.
He reached down and ripped it open, Olivia turning aside before he let the towel drop.
“How about it then, Mr. Tibbs? Make your behavior over the last hour make sense to me.”
One thing had become abundantly clear to Jonathan—he needed help. He wasn’t sure exactly how to get it, the fact that he’d just failed to live up to their agreement wasn’t going to help him get any favors. All things considered, he felt Olivia was being beyond reasonable at this point.
“I don’t know exactly what happened,” Jonathan said. “Actually, I was hoping you might be able to help me put it together.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Olivia asked. “You were there, you were the one doing it.”
Jonathan shook his head. “I really wasn’t.”
“Mr. Tibbs, I’ve shown a great deal of trust letting you out of this hangar. Now, you didn’t run, and that is one thing, but I’m quickly losing any patience for—”
The Never Army Page 13
