Shattered (Alchemy Series Book #3)

by Augustine, Donna

  "Are you sure?"

  "Positive. He told everyone on watch duty to alert him immediately if you tried to leave. I know you were drunk last night, but do you really think I wanted to sit there all night making sure you didn't fall off the ledge? He's watching you like a hawk."

  I looked up ahead to where Cormac was walking and I couldn't decide which emotion would win. Part of me, just the tiniest part, was a little happy that he cared if I left. The other part was pissed. He dumped me and still wanted to dictate how I came and went? And why did he care?

  I wasn't going to ask him. If I decided to leave, it would be easier if he thought I didn't know, so I stewed in silence as we kept on our way.

  Just like the last time, by time we got to the place we'd found Colleen, it was fully dark.

  "You ready, Chip?" Cormac asked.

  "Let's give it a go." Chip had a sort of nerdy gait as he walked closer to Cormac.

  "Hold this." Cormac said as he handed Dark his flashlight and dug the picture of Sabrina out of his bag. We didn't have pictures of anyone else. We were lucky we had the one of Sabrina. When the storms had been tearing down their homes, no one had had time to pack pictures or anything else that hadn't been an immediate need.

  "I've never tried a stranger before," Chip said nervously as he hesitated to look at the picture.

  "We've got nothing to lose," I told him, trying to relieve some of the stress he was under. Some people thrive under stress. Chip appeared to be in the group that flailed.

  He nodded and stepped forward, saddened by the truth of my words. "If this works, don't speak to me once I start, just follow me. Tapping into the satellites uses everything I have."

  "Do it. We'll follow your lead." I laid a hand on Chip's arm. "We've got your back."

  I was immediately distracted when I heard an extremely low-pitched growl. It was there and gone in a second. I looked around to locate the source, as we all did.

  "What the hell was that?" I asked before I thought better of it. The humans were already skittish, making a big deal of this would just set them more on edge.

  "It was nothing," Cormac said.

  I turned, at first thinking he too wanted to not frighten Chip and Katie but I caught a glimmer in his eyes and a slight tensing in his muscles. It was Cormac? What the hell was going on with him, these days?

  "Look at the picture," Cormac said to Chip, his voice slightly huskier than normal.

  Katie and Chip knew something was wrong with him. I could see it in their movements, as they both tensed. They were scared of him. They felt it as well. I shouldn't have been surprised they sensed something was off, but I was. They were no longer just humans.

  "Chip, can you do this?" I asked in the most authoritative voice I could muster. I needed to take over and get him back on track. "Chip!" I said even firmer when he didn't answer initially. "Can you do this or not?"

  "Yeah," he said.

  The second he took the picture, I knew I had control back.

  Chip looked down at the photo and his eyes glazed over. A minute later, he started heading north again, with us all on his heels. Katie and Dark hung closer to Chip and although I didn't want too much space between me and them, I had to get a handle on Cormac.

  "What the hell was that?"

  "Nothing," he replied, cool and calm as if he hadn't growled like an animal a few minutes ago.

  "That was not nothing."

  "It's under control. Let it go."

  He wasn't giving an inch, stubborn bastard. "Now who can't function as a team?" I threw in his face and walked off, hoping whatever issue he was having, he could keep it under control.

  I left him walking behind us and double-timed it back to the group. Chip was moving at a pretty good pace and I could see his eyes still looked vacant as I got close.

  Little Katie fell into place beside me. "I'm friends with Colleen," she said. "It's why I wanted to help. Do you think she's going to be okay?"

  "I do."

  "You can tell?"

  "No…I can't tell any more than you can," I said, wondering what she meant by that.

  "Oh. I'd heard things that made me think you could," she replied, disappointed.

  "Sorry." It was the first time I'd ever had to apologize for not being freakish enough.

  "What about Cormac? Does he know?"

  "No, he can't tell."

  "I went to the seer. She didn't know either."

  "The seer?"

  "Yeah, you ever been? She's good. She knew I'd be going with you."

  Or made her decide to come, I thought to myself. Now we had people running around pretending to be psychic. But then again, maybe they were. I had to keep reminding myself this wasn't the world it used to be. Actually, the old world wasn't what I'd thought it had been, either.

  Things were changing so rapidly it was becoming hard to keep track of all the comings and goings at the casino. I wanted to ask Cormac if he'd heard about the seer but we were hardly on idle chit chat terms. Plus, he was keeping his distance from the group, right now. I, on the other hand, couldn't. Until the rippers showed up and I knew for sure they wouldn't bother them, I wasn't comfortable leaving too much space between them and me.

  I was just about to answer no when out of nowhere I tripped. I thought I snagged my foot on a vine somehow until I heard the softest little giggle by my ear and a flashing that looked like a few lightning bugs zig-zag away.

  "You okay?" Katie asked. The rest of the group was looking around at what happened.

  "Yeah, just caught a shrub I didn't see."

  Of course, they all had to flash their lights at the ground having some sort of compulsion to locate the nefarious shrub.

  "Must have been a rock," I said when the evil shrub didn't come into view. "We're losing Chip," I continued.

  "What was that?" Cormac asked, catching up.

  "That was me tripping." I brushed off my pants and started walking forward.

  Cormac, appeased and looking a bit calmer, headed to the front of the group. It allowed me to hang back a bit, hoping to go unnoticed so I could figure out what just happened. As soon as there was some distance between the group and me, the bugs started flitting around in view again. In the dark night, they looked exactly like lightning bugs, but lightning bugs didn't giggle.

  "Hello?" I said softly, thinking I was crazy for even trying to greet lightning bugs.

  "Hi, Jo!" excited little helium sounding voices chimed out.

  "Did you trip me?"

  Little giggles filled the air near my ear. "Not on purpose. We like your boots. We didn't mean to trip you."

  "It wasn't nice to giggle at me falling," I told them in a hushed whisper. A year ago I would've been in freak out mode over hearing lightning bugs speak; these days weird was old hat.

  A sad little chorus of "awww" escaped them in unison.

  "What are you?" I asked, walking now but keeping a certain distance from everyone else.

  "We're lightning bugs, Jo," one of them said.

  I looked at the group of them flying around my head. They did look like lightning bugs. "Lightning bugs don't talk."

  A collective "Hmmm," went through the little group, as if I'd stumped them. A rough count showed eight bugs in total, flying around

  One of them did a kamikaze dive an inch away from my face. "Look at me, Jo! I can turn pink! Hehehe."

  "How do you know my name?"

  "Cuz you're Jo!" they said. "Yeah, you're Jo!"

  That explained nothing as I kept pace with the group, close enough for no one to be concerned but far enough that I hoped no one was noticing what was going on. I couldn't believe I'd never considered that magic might have an effect on other things besides humans.

  I watched the tail of the talking bug turn pink instead of yellow. "Oh no, the scary one's coming back," another one of them said.

  "He's okay," I told them as I watched Cormac approach.

  "Oh no! Got to go. Have to hide!" They started flying in frenzi
ed circles.

  "Why?"

  "We know things! We can read. We know the rules. We saw that big sign. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. We don't want to break the law."

  "That's not what it means," I tried to explain but they were whizzing around frantically.

  "Oh no, Jo. We've got to go. Rules. Got to go!" I watched the lightning bugs fly off as Cormac approached.

  "What are you doing?" he asked as he stood a few feet from me in black cargo pants and a t-shirt.

  The lightning bugs were gone. "Would you believe it if I said I was talking to bugs?"

  "Stop screwing around. This isn't a joke. You shouldn't be hanging this far back by yourself." He turned on his heels and started walking off.

  I quickly caught up to him. "And you should keep your distance from the humans, because you're scary." I kept walking past and threw back, "The bug whisperer has it under control. We don't need you," over my shoulder.

  I heard his laughter as I moved closer to the group and it almost felt like we were back to our old bickering, but nothing was the same.

  It was eerily silent and dark. No rippers, no people. Chip marched ahead at his own personal beat and I wondered, more than once, what he was seeing in his mind's eye.

  We slogged along through the night. The only one that seemed fresh as we continued was Cormac. He was lingering about ten feet behind us, perhaps taking my scary comments to heart and trying not to alarm Katie and Chip.

  The rippers didn't stay at bay completely. They would occasionally dodge in and out, but they didn't bother anyone. They would just check us out as they passed by. Except for me. They were more interested in me, for some reason, and I had to tell them to leave more than once. It didn't work the first time I said it, I had to wait until I got mad or got stressed or just got …more. That's when the mist would come out. Without the mist, my words were ordinary. But even with the mist, they wouldn't go away completely.

  We hadn't seen anything in a while and when I first saw the sparkling ahead in the dark, I thought nothing of it. I knew it was the bugs and I thought they were just playing. But something about the way they were circling over the one spot started to alarm me.

  I ran to the front and stopped everyone in their tracks, jolting Chip out of his trance in the process. Cormac was by my side before I even had a chance to look for him. He silently motioned to a knoll about twenty feet from where we stood.

  "What is it?" Cormac asked once we had some cover.

  "There's something wrong up ahead. Chip, any idea?" I asked, wondering how much he could see.

  "I can't tell, but it isn't Sabrina. She's about five miles north of here."

  "I'll go ahead and check it out," I said. "You guys wait here."

  "Like hell, you will. I'll go, you wait," Cormac said.

  "I should go," Katie's high voice said, breaking our standoff. "I'm the quietest one here and the most nimble. I'll go over there and see what's up and then come right back."

  Cormac and I met each other's stare for a moment. "Fine," we both said in unison.

  Katie just smiled and nodded. We watched as she danced along, staying close to the ground and moving from shadow to shadow until she was practically on top of the area where the lightning bugs hovered.

  "She's getting very close," I whispered to Cormac. "What's she doing?" I started to jump up but Cormac grabbed my arm, dragging me back down beside him. I was about to argue when I saw Chip's face look to Cormac and then me. I think he was as scared of being left alone with Cormac as he was of whatever was out there, so I held my breath and waited.

  I stayed crouched where I was as I saw her get closer and closer. When her scream hit the air, my patience ran out. I jumped out from behind the knoll and sprinted toward her, but Cormac was there before I even took three steps. How the hell did he get there that fast?

  He put a hand over her mouth as he ran back toward us, carrying her in his other arm. I should've been thinking only of what she'd just found, but I couldn't get past how he'd gotten there so quickly. And really, what was the point of the charade of running back?

  "Hold her," he said, practically shoving a still shaking Katie into my arms.

  "Here," I said as I then shoved Katie at Chip, who didn't look much better. Great special ops team we made.

  Whatever was out there, I needed to know. Cormac jogged back toward the spot as I followed on his heels.

  He didn't say a word as I stopped beside him and looked down at what had upset Katie so much. If I'd been a religious type, I would've said the devil lay there before us. Only issue with that notion was, the devil was the one who usually did the torturing.

  The dead man's legs and arms looked mangled. That alone might not have meant torture but I nudged Cormac and pointed to the guy's fingers. Every single one had been broken.

  "He's one of ours," I said as I squatted down close enough to make out his face. His name was James and he'd been on the senator's list. "And now we know why he never took off that cowboy hat."

  Three-inch long nubs that looked like they would've eventually grown into horns were visible as they poked through his hair. His hat lay a few feet from his body.

  "I hear something," Cormac said a second before a tiny pinprick of light appeared in the west, heading right for where Katie, Chip and Dark were.

  I took off in their direction and I heard Cormac following behind me. And then in a flash, we were standing there with them and I had no idea how we'd gotten there.

  I looked at Cormac but he wasn't paying any attention to me. All his attention was for the double set of headlights that were barreling down on us, as two large Hummers pulled to a stop in front, kicking up dust. There was no point in running now.

  "Throw down your weapons," a deep voice called out.

  "Why the hell should…" I started to yell back until the sounds of arms being thrown to the ground disrupted my thoughts. I understood why Dark would do it. He didn't need them. As soon as he switched form, he'd be able to rip them apart with his bare hands, but why would the other two do it?

  All I could hear from Cormac was an outward sigh of annoyance.

  I turned around for a second, knowing it wasn't going to make the slightest difference to the outcome, threw my hands up and rolled my eyes. "Really, people? You couldn't even wait for him to ask twice?"

  I'd like to think they looked ashamed, but in all honesty, they looked more terrified than anything else.

  Cormac was beside me, slightly angled in front but with the way the trucks were parked, it was impossible to completely block me. Looking ahead, I couldn't see much with the lights in my face, but I heard boots hit the ground. Two vehicles meant at least two drivers but we all knew there wouldn't be just a pair.

  The silhouette of a large male form stepped forward in front of the trucks. I couldn't see anything but an outline of his body with a fire arm strapped to his side. The fact that it was still in its holster wasn't reassuring. It simply meant that there were enough others trained on us that he didn't feel the need.

  "Drop your arms," a deep voice said to Cormac and me; everyone else already had.

  "Why don't you tell me who you are?" Cormac replied, taking a step forward.

  "We…" the dark silhouette started speaking and then several things happened simultaneously.

  The sounds of bullets whizzed through the air, and a sharp piercing pain hit my shoulder just as I was shoved to the ground and covered by Cormac.

  "Stop!"

  I heard the shout as I was eating a mouth full of dirt. I was pretty sure it was the silhouetted man that had given the order but I couldn't see. I could just feel the wound and it burned like crazy.

  The bullets stopped and it was dead silent again.

  "Are you okay?" Cormac asked.

  "I'm fine."

  And then he was gone, and Katie was by my side. "Jo?" she asked.

  "It's okay."

  "Stand down!" The still unnamed man shouted to his men as I watched Cormac p
in him to the hood of one of the trucks, his forearm pressing on his throat.

  "Help me get up," I said to Katie and she grabbed my good arm. I looked at my torn shirt but it was black so the blood and hole from the bullet wasn't easy to spot. I didn't know how long it would take to heal but I wasn't going to sit there, looking all injured, while we were outnumbered.

  Seven men, all in army fatigues, swarmed out of the truck, circling Cormac and the man he had pinned.

  "My name is Crash. We don't want you, we want our people." The guy's voice was strained from Cormac's forearm pressed against his throat.

  "Tell your guys to stand down," Cormac told him.

  "Do it," Crash ordered.

  "Who shot the girl there?" Cormac demanded.

  "I did," one of the guys said in a "what are you gonna do about it" tone.

  Cormac released Crash and was over to him and laid him out before anyone knew what was happening.

  "Leave it," Crash said to his men. "He deserved it. He had no order to fire."

  Something struck me as off about the explanation, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe it simply wasn't how I would have handled it.

  "Who are you?" I asked as Cormac made his way back over from the still unconscious man.

  "We're looking for Oslo. We received word he was on his way back and then he disappeared," Crash said.

  He knew we'd recognize the name. He already knew who we were.

  "They're with the senator," Cormac said, midstride, with a sneer.

  "It's nice to meet you, Jo," Crash said. "And I can only assume this is Cormac."

  Crash made a hand motion and the headlights turned off, leaving a dimmer illumination from the fog lights. His people all looked like they'd just returned from a war, crew cuts and all.

  Crash held up his hand and signaled for his people to wait where they were, as he approached Cormac and me.

  "We aren't looking for trouble. We only want our people," Crash said, once he got a few feet away.

  "They aren't your people," Cormac said, taking a step closer to Crash.

  "Look," he said, dropping his tone. "I've got a job to do. We received notice from Oslo that he was on his way back with ten willing companions. No one forced them to come. They disappeared before they made it back to the checkpoint. I'm assuming you are out here trying to find them as well."