by Holly Martin
‘Shall I tell Isaac?’ Eli asked in my head.
I shook my head and he nodded.
I wanted to be stopped but knowing Isaac he would stop me if I so much as sneezed wrong.
I went back into my bedroom and Seth followed me in, closing the door behind him. I rubbed his arms, trying to get him warm and he put his arms around me.
‘This is the only warmth I need,’ he said.
I leant against him sleepily. I was so tired. Seth kissed my forehead and sighed. ‘When I said yes to marrying you, I thought it would be the traditional, ‘I promise to love, honour and obey’, I didn’t realise I would be promising to drug you and tie you up as well.’
I chuckled sleepily, then my heart leapt at his words.
I pulled back. ‘Did you arrange our wedding?’
His smile split his face. ‘Yes, just as you said, on that beach in Mexico.’
‘When?’
His grin was even wider. ‘Tomorrow.’
I shrieked throwing myself around him, all tiredness forgotten. As he fell back on the bed, my mouth was already on his. He rolled on top of me, pinning me with his delicious weight as the kiss continued but as my powers started to roll through me at his touch he pulled back. I realised from the look in his eyes the fact that he had pinned me to the bed was tactical. He didn’t want me storming off.
‘We need to talk about your protection.’
I sighed. ‘Is it wrong of me to just want it to be us?’
Seth bit his lip, thoughtfully. Would he let me have that? Could my wedding really and truly be completely Guardian free? That was what I had wanted when we had gone to Cyprus, just a few days away from everyone. Behind my back Seth and Eli had organised for there to be a whole host of Guardians there. But it was this attempt to protect me, to ensure a Guardian presence that had flagged my arrival up to the Putarians in the first place. If me and Seth had truly gone alone, then no one would have been any the wiser.
‘If that’s what you want,’ Seth said, though I could see he was smiling about it.
It was what I wanted, so much. I cared deeply for my Guardians but my every move was followed by them and sometimes it was so oppressive I felt like I couldn’t breathe. They worried about me so much. If I so much as coughed, they were at my side. For once I didn’t want my wedding day to be about me or my protection, but about me and Seth promising ourselves to each other, and only that.
‘That’s what you said about my holiday to Cyprus, completely Guardian free you said, and Jacob, Noah and Isaac came along for the ride too plus ten or twelve others.’
‘That was a mistake, lying to you was a mistake too. If you want it to be just me and you then that’s fine, we’ll do it, though I do have a few conditions.’
I nodded, encouraged by the chance of a Guardian free wedding.
‘If I tell you to run you run. If I tell you to shield yourself you do it. If I tell you to slide home, to call your Guardians, you do it without question, without argument, you do it straight away.’
I nodded. I could certainly live with those conditions. I wasn’t stupid, I knew that the queue of people wanting to kill me was ridiculously long and going out there into that dangerous world with only one Guardian was very risky. If something happened then I had to be prepared to flee or fight. ‘I promise, whatever you say, I’ll do.’
Seth pressed on. ‘I never leave you for a second.’
I grinned. ‘That’s the general idea of a wedding, the promise to be with each other for the rest of our lives.’
‘Eve.’
‘I promise,’ I said, solemnly.
‘And we use fake names.’
I gasped. ‘No! No way. I want to be married to you legally, completely. I want to be Eve Hamilton. I’m not going to marry you as Sarah McKenzie marrying Daniel Stone. We won’t actually be properly married then, not officially.’
Seth sighed. ‘A lot of people know your name. The Putarians just have to get a whiff of Eve Jones and Seth Hamilton and they’ll be there like a shot, it’s too dangerous.’
‘I’m not marrying anyone else but Seth Hamilton and I refuse to let you marry anyone else, either.’
‘Ok, ok. I’ve booked it under fake names and we’ll keep it that way until the last possible moment. We’ll explain that we are celebrities back in England and didn’t want anyone to know.’
I thought about it for a moment then nodded. ‘Ok.’
Seth smiled. ‘Then we can get married alone, no Guardians, just you and me, I promise.’
I grinned and leaned up to kiss him.
‘Now get some rest. Mexico is twelve hours behind us here, so we actually have about twenty four hours before we wed.’
‘And then you’re mine, until death do us part.’
Seth frowned at this. ‘How about for forever, that’s much more cheerful.’
I smiled as he rolled over, pulling me onto his chest. Forever seemed very far away but right then I was going to take it.
*
I knew I had to keep myself distracted; the excitement of my forthcoming nuptials was too much to bear. Plus I had to make sure I didn’t think about it too much or Lucas would see it in his own head.
I’d been for a run but now needed something else to distract me and a good fight with Zach seemed like the very thing. Although as I grabbed Mason and headed down to the field behind the fort, I realised that Caleb had taken my secret sparring with him to the grave and Mason might not be so understanding.
As we neared the end of my corridor, Isaac appeared from one of the rooms. Great, he had moved up here now. He scowled at me as I walked past. I forced a smile onto my face; maybe if I was nice to him, he might grow to like me.
‘Where you going?’ he asked Mason gruffly. Why couldn’t he talk to me?
‘For a walk,’ replied Mason.
‘Shall I come? She should really have two Guardians protecting her.’
‘Its fine Isaac, we aren’t going far.’
Isaac’s scowl deepened as we walked off.
‘Thanks Mason,’ I muttered, as we walked down the stairs.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I erm… spar with the Guardlings sometimes.’ I didn’t look at him but I could tell he was taking this in. ‘Caleb used to come with me, he promised to keep it secret.’
‘Why does it need to be a secret, keeping up with your martial arts is probably a good thing.’
‘Zach doesn’t exactly go easy on me.’
‘Right.’
He wasn’t exactly happy about this but he didn’t say anything more about it. I guess he was reserving judgement until he saw exactly how hard Zach was on me. Maybe I could persuade Zach to take it a bit easier today, break Mason in gently to the ferocity of my fighting.
On approaching the grassy slopes, I was surprised to see a lot of the Guardlings lying sprawled dead on the floor, with Deacon seemingly on some killing frenzy to fight the last remaining Guardlings still standing. Zach was amongst the dead.
I jogged over to him, with Mason at my side. Zach grinned at me as I stood over him.
‘Morning Eve,’ he called from the ground.
My eyes slid to Deacon who was brutally finishing off the last two Guardlings, simultaneously.
‘Why are you on the floor?’ I gently prodded his corpse with my foot.
‘I’m dead. Deacon got a good hit in with his sword, I was too busy trying to impress the Sentinel with my skills and he stabbed me.’
My eyes slid back to Deacon as he ran through one of the last Guardlings, who screamed tortuously, writhing on the floor as he breathed his last. I looked back at Zach in confusion. ‘You were showing off to the Sentinel?’
‘Yeah,’ Zach motioned towards another Guardling lying near him, wearing a brown wig and to my amusement, red converse trainers. I snorted with laughter. ‘Is that supposed to be me?’
Zach nodded, grinning hugely.
‘But I’m dead.’
‘Yeah sorry about that
Eve. As soon as Deacon took me down, you were left defenceless, and he killed you too. If it’s any consolation, I fought bravely to defend you as long as I could, but after he had taken out most of the others it was only a matter of time before I fell in battle too, especially with my injury.’
‘What was your injury?’
‘Well the Sentinel was trying to use his, I mean her powers to defend herself, but she wasn’t very proficient in them and she took out both my legs with one of her bolts of fire,’ Zach grinned.
I looked over at the dead Sentinel, holding what looked like a long orange ribbon in his hand. I snorted again. ‘You mean to tell me, that you fought for me, even though you had no legs?’
Zach nodded.
‘How brave,’ I said, dryly. Mason suppressed a grin.
A triumphant scream diverted my attention from Zach’s corpse. I looked up to see Deacon holding his wooden sword above his head, roaring victoriously to the sky.
‘And Deacon is….?’ I asked.
‘Watching the battle scenes in Lord of the Rings too many times, I guess.’
Suddenly Deacon spied me, standing with Mason on the battlefield, the only two still alive in Deacon’s reign of destruction and he started charging for me, sword held high, screaming manically, a tiny smile playing on his lips.
Zach offered me his wooden sword from the ground. ‘Avenge me, good lady.’
I took his sword and charged across the field of bodies towards Deacon, screaming equally as manically. Deacon faltered in his attack for a second, clearly not expecting me to take him on, but then with renewed determination, he lowered his sword ready to run me through. I grinned as he got close.
I’d had many years of fencing and sword fighting lessons, part of the brutal training that my Dad, the Guardian posing as my Dad, put me through. I loved the sword fighting much more than the martial arts, wielding a weapon to defend myself was so much easier than using my hands and feet.
As Deacon thrust forward ready to finish me, I planted my feet and pointing the sword vertically to the ground I suddenly swung it up to parry his sword off to the side, turning sideways at the right moment, so he ran past me with the force he had been charging towards me. I span round to keep him in my sights as he quickly regained his balance and turned back to face me. He lunged forward, with a horizontal cut to my left shoulder at the same time I swung my sword down to slice his leg. We both leapt back in pain. Deacon grinned at me. He swung his sword over his head, and charged forward with the intent of slicing into my head. I raised my sword horizontally above my head as he brought his sword down and his blow glanced off again, but as he was so close, I elbowed him hard in the face, and kicked him in the shins. Hands and feet had their places too.
Deacon stepped back laughing. ‘Zach said that you fought without honour.’
I grinned. ‘Honour just leaves you dead.’
I glanced at the floor behind him for a brief second and as he raised his sword again, I lunged at him, aiming right for the heart. It was only a feint though, as I knew what he would do to defend himself and that was what I was relying on. As I got close, he blocked my sword with a parry and side stepped my advance. Immediately he toppled over the dead body behind him and sprawled out on his back. I whirled round and lunging forward I slid my sword across his throat. Deacon gargled and spluttered as he grabbed his throat, and then died.
I looked out across the sea of dead bodies towards Zach. ‘I’ve avenged you,’ I called as I made my way back across the battle field towards him.
Zach sat up, grinning broadly. ‘So I see. You certainly did better in battle than our own sentinel.’ He stood up and so did all the other dead bodies, slowly stirring, stretching, and tenderly feeling their wounds and bruises.
‘Good to see your legs are working,’ I said. ‘Can I apologise on behalf of the Sentinel for her lack of proficiency that meant you lost them in the first place?’
Zach grinned as he slung a casual arm around me. ‘That’s ok, just one of the many hazards of defending the Sentinel.’
‘I’m glad to say that Eve is slightly more proficient with her powers than your Sentinel, I’m quite partial to my legs,’ Mason grinned.
‘Slightly,’ I protested, with a smirk.
‘Ok, now she is very proficient but when she was first starting to learn her powers, she accidentally threw a car across a grave yard, set fire to the church and nearly died under a collapsing wall, burnt her brother and nearly knocked us all out with her over exuberant shield on a few occasions.’
‘Mason! You’re not supposed to tell him that, you’re supposed to tell him all the cool stuff I can do with my powers now,’ I laughed, remembering how clumsy I had been with my powers when I had first started using them. I was mostly in control of them now. Mostly.
‘Well when we were attacked by the Putarians in the helicopter on our way over here, she did completely disintegrate them, beams of fire just shot from her hands and took out the planes, that was very cool. Though when one of the planes she had destroyed flew into the side of the helicopter and made us crash into the sea, that wasn’t so cool,’ Mason touched his head, where he had received a massive gash during the crash.
Zach laughed.
‘Mason!’ I giggled.
Mason frowned. ‘Yeah it really wasn’t cool. We were all flung out the helicopter when it cart wheeled into the sea, Eve and Seth were trapped inside and we didn’t realise. It was so dark we didn’t know what was going on. The helicopter just crumpled up around them, there was no way out. Seth literally punched and kicked his way out, carving through the metal with his fists. Though he could get free, Eve was trapped and he couldn’t get her out. There was a huge piece of twisted metal pressing against her abdomen, if we pulled it away, it was quite likely that we would rip her open as well. The helicopter was sinking fast. We all fought to keep it afloat and try to free her at the same time, but it was hopeless. It sank. We had to dive down to continue trying to free her and give her air at the same time.’
I stared at Mason aghast. ‘I never knew any of this.’
Mason looked at me. ‘Seth never told you? He never left you, he was free to get out but as it sank deeper and deeper, he never left you. He fought with his last breath to free you. He somehow managed to get his hands between you and the metal, and when Eli dived back down, he pulled the metal away. We were right it literally tore through Seth’s hands and arms, but he somehow managed to stop it from touching you, taking the full brunt himself. He then pulled you to the surface. I thought he was dead when he came up, clutching you in his arms. It was apparent you were breathing, but we weren’t sure about Seth, he’d been down there for so long. Then he seemed to force himself back from the brink of death to see if you were ok, he checked your breathing and your pulse and then passed out, with you still lying tightly in his arms. Lucas tried to get you off him, to check on him, but Seth had hold of you so tightly we couldn’t prise his hands off you. He came round a few minutes later, and so did you not long after.’
I shook my head incredulously.
‘My brother the hero,’ Zach said, sarcastically.
I nudged him hard in the ribs and he grunted.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow Zach, I’d better get on with my training if I’m going to become more proficient and not lose people’s legs. Try not to get me killed tomorrow.’
Zach grinned.
I called across to Deacon. ‘Thanks for the fight, Deacon.’
‘Anytime,’ Deacon called back from his group of friends, all congratulating him on his near victorious battle.
I walked back up to my corridor in silence, deep in thought over what Mason had just told me. I walked into my room and Seth was sitting on the sofa twisting metal so quickly in his hands. It had been a while since he had made any of his sculptures. This one looked like the beginning of a horse. He looked up as I came in, and smiled as he put the metal down. I leaned against the door and stared at him. He had saved me so many times. How did
I deserve someone who loved me so much; what had I ever done to be worthy of him? My heart filled, as I stared at him, swelling to twice its size. There were simply not enough words to describe how much I loved him right then.
His smile slid off at my expression. ‘Eve?’
I crossed the room slowly and sat on his lap. He breathed a small sigh of relief as he wrapped his arms tightly round me. ‘Are you ok?’
My throat seemed to have closed, as I removed his arms from my waist and he frowned again, with concern. I took his hands in mine and fingered the long silvery scars across his palm. They looked like they were once very deep. He had probably had them healed when he had returned back to England. As we had floated in the sea, waiting for the next helicopter to pick us up, I hadn’t even noticed that he had been bleeding. Maybe the salt water had closed the wounds up a bit.
I turned his hand over and touched the similar scars over the back of his knuckles, and up his arms. Scars that I had never noticed before. When a Zeki heals wounds, they do it so effectively that you can barely see the scar, unless you were looking for it. But surely I should have noticed them, the scars that showed that he never left me, even when it meant that he was going to die as well, even when there was nothing more he could have done, he never left me.
Seth took my face in his hand, tracing my lips with his thumb, searching my eyes.
I put his hand to my mouth and kissed each scar, softly and his face cleared as he understood.
‘You have given me so much,’ my voice came out in barely a whisper. ‘What can I give you in return?’
‘You are marrying me tomorrow.’ Seth grinned, as he moved his hand down to my chest, placing it over my heart. ‘This was the only thing I’ve ever wanted and you’ve given me that.’
He took the engagement ring out of his pocket and slipped it onto my finger. My heart soared.
‘It’s yours, it’s always been yours, and it always will be. You’re my best friend and I love you so much….’ My declaration of love was interrupted as Seth kissed me.
