Marston feints left then goes right, slipping around the bigger, slower assassin. He’s trying to help Mona, but the assassin on her tail gets there first. He wraps his arms around her, tackles her to the ground, and in an instant, they both disappear.
“No!” Marston yells, but now the assassin at the door charges him, and the exit door is unguarded. Aunt Mona is gone. I can’t help her now because I’ve lost my Jumping ability. I can escape. But I’ll never be safe. These hooded men will find me. They’ll hunt me down and they’ll kill me. And Marston is my cousin. I have to help him. Making a split-second decision, I race across the room. I’m almost to Marston’s side when the third assassin reappears directly between us.
Darius grapples with the second assassin. “I’m not the enemy,” Darius pants out through gritted teeth, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the oily man trying his best to kill him.
Clarissa continues to cower in a corner.
The third assassin rushes Marston. The man grunts as Marston lowers his shoulder and shoves it into his chest, but the assassin stays on his feet. Marston is off-balance and now the first assassin circles around behind, his knife raised. They’re not going to teleport him out of here like they did Mona – they’re going to kill him. Without stopping to think, I throw myself between them and wrap my arms around Marston, shielding him with my body. The tip of the assassin’s knife plunges into my shoulder, but I don’t even have time to register more than a millisecond of pain before my arms tighten around Marston and everything goes black.
23
Heidi
We crash with a thud to the wooden floor, Marston wrapped in my arms. I inhale sharply and smell cedar as I roll onto my back. Pain stabs through my shoulder and I cry out.
“Shit!” Mars yells. He rolls me over onto my stomach. I feel a jerk and my shoulder goes cold. He sets the knife he pulled out of me on the floor near my head. An inch of the tip glistens with my blood.
“Stay still,” he commands. He straddles my hips and presses something against my shoulder, holding firmly for several minutes while I alternate between squeezing my eyes shut tightly and panting.
Finally, he clambers off me and kneels at my side, inspecting my wound. “It’s not deep,” he says. “Just bled a lot. It’s clotting up nicely; you won’t need stitches.”
As quickly as possible, I stagger to my feet.
“Lie back down,” Marston admonishes. “You’ll start bleeding again.”
“Should we go back?” I ask.
“Mona’s gone.”
“But the others—”
“Are not our friends,” Marston finishes. “Mona’s blood wards are unbreakable. We know how Clarissa got around it, but Darius couldn’t have gotten in if Clarissa hadn’t brought in a vial of his blood. And one of them brought the blood of the assassins.”
I bury my face in my hands. “Clarissa was terrified. I don’t think it was her. But still… They went after Darius and left Clarissa alone.”
“Between a fit, middle-aged man and a sobbing woman, I’m sure they pegged Darius as the bigger threat.”
“And maybe Clarissa feigned her panic,” I say.
Marston lifts his shoulders and lets them fall back down. “I thought she was a silly academic who only got where she was because of her important parents. I probably didn’t give her enough credit. I never thought she’d return with Darius.”
“Yes, you did. You predicted she’d come back. And you were right.”
“That’s right,” Marston says, his voice far away. “Visions are like dreams. When you wake up, you remember them vividly for a few moments, but if you don’t work hard to set them, they’ll drift away. Everything went crazy so fast, my vision didn’t have time to gel. But now that you say that, I remember. I saw it play out in the reflection of Mona’s glasses. Clarissa returned, followed immediately by Darius. But I didn’t see the assassins arrive. I didn’t see Mona get abducted. Everything would have been different if only I’d—” His voice cuts out and he pounds his fist against one of his cedar walls.
“The last thing you said, was, well…you thanked me. Did you know I would save your life?”
Marston freezes in place, and his eyes slide away from mine. “I don’t remember. I must have.”
He’s lying. Someday, I should find out why. But not now. Right now, it’s time for some thanks of my own.
“I’m sure you wanted to stay and fight, but thank you for Jumping away and bringing me with you,” I say quietly.
Marston does a double take. “I didn’t do that. That was all you.”
Now it’s my turn for a shocked stare. “What?” I whisper, the word barely making it through my tight vocal cords.
“And I have to know – our safety might depend on it. How did you bring us here? I’ve never shared the coordinates with anyone.”
“I…I don’t know. I thought you teleported us out. I just wanted to shield you for a second so you could get away from the assassin and fight him. And all I could think was I just wanted us to be safe.”
“The metal!” Marston exclaims.
“The what?”
When you Jumped to The Citadel, you had a metal GPS tracker in your ear. I don’t know why you went there, but there must be a reason.”
“When I what?”
“And when Clarissa discovered you, going back and forth to your worksite without buzzing in and out of your room, you had metal slivers in your foot. Going to work was safety for you because of the repercussions of not going.”
“You’re not making any sense. I never met Clarissa before tonight. Are you sure you aren’t wounded anywhere? Are you losing blood?”
Marston doesn’t even seem to hear me, he just keeps talking. “And when that metal blade pierced your skin, we came directly here because you wanted to be safe. I think safety is the driver, but you don’t use minerals. It’s the metal. Or, maybe you do use minerals, but you need metal to activate them. I’ve never heard of anything like it, but that must be the explanation.”
“The explanation for what? Me forgetting how to teleport?”
“You didn’t forget, Heidi. You never knew how.”
“But…”
“And Mona wasn’t your aunt. When a Lumen dies, the family always knows. You can feel it, as if a hole has been ripped into your soul. Do you feel it?”
I search myself and my feelings, but finally I shake my head. “No,” I say quietly.
Marston touches his chest. “I don’t feel a hole, either. She’s not my blood relation any more than she was yours. She’s not my aunt, either.”
“That’s not necessarily true. The fact that we don’t feel holes in our soul probably just proves that she’s still alive.”
“The assassin didn’t kill her?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I saw them Jump away. She was alive when he took her.”
Marston steeples his fingers and presses them together tightly. “I’m…relieved. But you’re not related to her. Clarissa discovered you a couple of weeks ago working in a bobbin factory in Region One. She gained your trust and then she brought you in to the closest scout – Mona – for testing. That testing happened yesterday. You never met Mona before twenty-four hours ago.”
“But I don’t remember Clarissa at all before a couple hours ago. And I remember growing up with Mona.”
“Mona implanted those memories of her when she wiped your last couple weeks, supposedly for your own protection. And here’s the thing.” Marston sighs. “I remember growing up with Mona too. I have vivid memories of spending my thirteenth birthday with her, and robust memories after that. My time at the Academy, my work since graduation, everything. But before I turned thirteen, there’s very little. Just yearly memories with Mona. Search your mind.”
I pause and suck in my breath and I really think. What Marston says is true for me too. Except I don’t have any robust memories of anything to do with Mona. All I’ve got is the last several hours, and before that, snippets of s
cenes with Mona. “She’s wearing the same outfit in all of my memories,” I murmur.
“Me too,” Marston says quietly.
I feel tears well in my eyes. “But we have to help her. She’s the only person I can remember ever loving.”
“Me too,” Marston says again, his eyes downcast. He raises them and locks onto my gaze, pain etched in his features. “But is it because she programmed us to or because we honestly do?”
We blink at each other for a few minutes, and I can’t think of a single thing to say.
Finally, Marston breaks the silence. “We’ll find a Minder, one we can trust, who can unwind your memories and release the dam Mona built. You’ll know who you are again, I promise,” he says.
This is all so upsetting, I don’t know where to look, so I bury my face in my hands. “I don’t even know what to think anymore, Mars.”
I suck in my breath again, but this time, I don’t smell the cedar. Instead, it smells like hot desert sand. “Oh.” An image forms in my mind. “Mars,” I gasp. “I called you ‘Mars.’”
“Yes,” he says, hope surging in his voice.
I’m hopeful too, but I have a bunch of other emotions mixed in there too, and none of them are as sweet and pure as hope. “I’m mad at you,” I say boldly. “And I don’t forgive you for your part in this. I think you helped Mona brainwash me. You must have.”
He gives me a long, level look. “I understand. You might not ever forgive me for that. But I’m willing to take the chance that you will. I haven’t had another vision since that last one in Mona’s studio, but when I do see the future again, I want you to be in it.”
I swallow hard and stare into his eyes, trying to see in their depths everything that his statement implies.
He turns, breaking our loaded gaze. “I know that you’re safe here. If they’d found out where we Jumped to, there would have been a Canceler here waiting when we arrived. But there wasn’t. You can stay here, with me, and they’ll never find you. I’ll hide you here forever, if you want.” He’s speaking to the wall, not at me. It’s as if he can’t bear to look at me while offering me the opportunity of a lifetime.
And all I have to do it say yes. Yes, Mars. I’ll stay here with you and you can keep me safe. I’ll never step foot in a factory again. I’ll no longer be a gray. It’s everything I ever wanted, and yet…
“I have a power. One grays shouldn’t have,” I say.
Mars nods. “And now that I understand the metal connection, I’m sure I can teach you how to use it. I have connections at the Academy. If we can figure out who to trust, I can get you in there.”
“And we can help Mona. I don’t like what she did to me – at all – but I don’t think she’s dead, and even if she was kind of awful about some things, she’s on our side…isn’t she?”
Mars closes his eyes for a couple of heartbeats, then opens them again. “I believe she is.”
I clasp my hands in front of myself. “I can’t hide here forever, Mars. I think you and I both know that. But I’m not going back to the factory or my old life. I can’t, and I won’t.”
Mars strides to the fireplace, crouches down and picks up the knife whose metal – combined with my ability – apparently brought us here. He touches his fingertip gently to the sharp point of the blade and a dot of blood appears. “If you choose to stay here with me, it should be because you want to, not because you can’t risk leaving.”
I stare at him for several silent seconds as the blood wells at the end of his fingertip. I’m unable to say anything, because I can’t assure him that my reasons for being here are as pure as he wants them to be.
After a moment I guess he realizes that, because he seems to come to a decision himself. He considers the spot of blood on his finger then bends and draws an X on the floor. He straightens and clears his throat. “Let’s get to work.”
Author’s Note: Heidi’s story continues! I just haven’t written it yet. But I ***am*** working on it! In the meantime, if you’re interested in some of my other work, try The Collapse Series. It’s got time travel, dystopia, and post-apocalyptic along with tons of twists! Turn the page for a preview of Book 1 in the series, Time Bomb!
Sneak Peek of Time Bomb - Book 1 in The Collapse Series
April 19, 2006
“She’s going down the alley!”
I don’t spare time for a look over my shoulder. These cops aren’t on foot like last time. I’m dealing with bike cops, and I won’t stay ahead of them much longer.
I thought it was a good plan, going to the methadone clinic first. Clearly, I’d been wrong. When I showed up at Seattle Needle Exchange, it was like they’d been waiting for me. Maybe they had been. This wasn’t the first time we’d hit them. And it wouldn’t be the last.
I tug on the knot that holds my shield sack to my body. It’s tight and the bag’s contents are secure. I try to push an extra burst of energy out of my legs. It’s no use. I’ll never make it to Columbia Tower before they catch me. My eyes dart around frantically and fall on Safeco Tower. It’s farther downhill than Columbia, so I’ll have to climb more flights of stairs before it’s safe to plunge. But that’s fine by me. Bike cops will have to dismount to follow me. Nobody from 2006 is going to catch up to me on stairs.
I dash into the lobby of Safeco. It’s seven o’clock at night, but there’s still a bunch of people around. I know this place almost as well as my own tower, though the lower floors aren’t accessible where I’m from. I know exactly how to access the stairs from the ground floor, and I burst through the door and gallop up two steps at a time. A cop is right behind me, the door doesn’t even close all the way before he’s throwing his body against it, but I’m already on the second floor.
I have to get to the twentieth floor before I plunge. Safeco’s only flooded up to the fifteenth floor, but if there’s a storm, waves can send detritus as high as the nineteenth. I don’t want to go home to the present, only to be knocked out by a rogue wave of junk. I hear the cops down below, out of breath, unable to keep up with me. I pull way ahead.
I allow myself a small smile when I reach the landing marked 18. The smile is wiped completely off my face when a stairwell door two stories above me smacks open with a hollow boom. “Hold it right there. You’re under arrest,” a man’s voice shouts from above. Dammit! He must have taken an elevator to get ahead of me. I always forget about those.
Under arrest? Oh no I’m not. I can’t let them take me to the King County juvenile detention center. Dad flew me over it once in a helicopter. It’s way too far from the Towers. Even if I could somehow swim the debris filled waters between juvie and Columbia Tower, the radiation would fry me.
I whip my helmet out of my vest pocket and Velcro it all the way around my jacket collar. I ratchet the two locks on either side of my collarbone. The guy above me stands on the landing of the nineteenth floor. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks in bewilderment.
I push the extra-long sleeves of my jacket up to my elbows. I unzip my left vest pocket and peel away the second skin to reveal my port-a-cath.
The cop takes slow, cat-like steps down the stairs, his hands held cautiously out in front of him. “Just take it easy,” he says. From below me, I can hear lumbering steps and the heavy panting of his partner.
I unzip my right pocket and pull out my hypodermic.
“Nobody move,” the cop above me shouts. “The suspect has a weapon.” His hand flies to his gun hip.
I flick the cap off the hypodermic needle. I don’t have time for a proper countdown. Plunge. I thrust the needle into my port-a-cath and depress it. Withdraw. I slide it out. Drop. I open my hand and the spent hypodermic falls to the floor.
The officer throws himself at me, knocking me to the ground.
Slap. I flip the second skin back over my exposed port-a-cath, covering it up. Zip. I barely manage to zip the flap on my vest before the cop has wrestled my arms behind my back. He can’t seem to find my wrists under the extra-long sleeves of my
jacket.
It would be better if the cop wasn’t here to witness this, but it’s not the end of the world.
Everybody knows that’s not for another thirteen years.
Spots bloom in front of my eyes and grow big enough to burst into a shower of black glitter, and I slip into the void.
Click here to get your copy of Time Bomb for only 99 cents!
Acknowledgments
More than anything, I need to thank my critique group, Jennifer Bardsley (aka Louise Cypress), Laura Moe, and Sharman Badgett-Young for their help seeing this book to completion. I wrote this book after finishing a different six-book series and it was really hard to plunge into a completely new world with totally different rules, and they helped me so much.
I’d also like to thank my editor, Amy McNulty, for her sharp eyes and excellent attention to detail. Any errors or mistakes are mine alone.
Huge thanks goes to Nicole Conway for her gorgeous cover design. This cover was really the reason I decided to publish the book. I’m working on two different series currently and when I saw this cover I said “That’s perfect for Destination Unknown, I guess this is the series I’m going with!”
Finally, I’d like to thank my husband, Travis Wright, and my daughters, Madeline and Annika, for being the most perfect family I could ever hope for. You’re all amazing and interesting people and I’m so lucky you’re the ones I get to spend most of my time with.
Destination Unknown (Lumen Academy Book 1) Page 15
