Jennie didn’t give an inch of ground. Ross stopped himself from getting into a defensive stance, but every muscle in his body longed to do so. Every time he saw the man, he thought of how Mr. Preston had sent the bounty hunter to kill him.
“Ross, I’m not going to stop you from doing . . .” Mr. Preston’s mouth twitched, the way it always did when he mentioned Change powers. “. . . whatever it is you mean to do, which I can’t say I fully understand. I just wanted to remind you to be back by midnight. If you’re not, I’ll send a search party.”
“We’ll be back on time,” Ross promised him.
He hurried toward the cornfields, the girls matching his pace. He wished he could have simply climbed the wall. But he hadn’t wanted to go alone, and he couldn’t risk Mia and Jennie getting in even more trouble for his sake.
“I don’t fully understand it, either,” Jennie admitted. “Do the singing trees trap the souls of the people they kill?” She was so close to Ross that he felt her shudder.
“No, I’m sure they don’t.” He struggled to put into words what he felt and understood. “A soul is the whole person, right? What’s in the singing trees is everything the person was thinking and feeling in the minute or so it took them to die, before it becomes something else—the tree.”
“Like a footprint?” Mia suggested, stamping on the damp earth. “It’s the imprint of a boot, not the boot itself.”
Ross nodded. “The tree that grew from my blood wanted to communicate with me. The trees that grew from the soldiers I killed want something from me, too. I thought at first that they wanted to kill me . . .”
The sound of shattering glass rang sharply in his mind. He flinched, then spoke louder to drown it out, “. . . and they do, but I have something else to offer them.”
He could see the jagged spires and shards of black now, rising above the corn and stabbing at the sky.
Ross turned to the girls. “Stay here, okay? No matter what happens, don’t run in to rescue me unless I say it’s safe.”
They glanced at each other, then reluctantly nodded. He walked on, trying to draw courage from the knowledge that he wasn’t alone.
He stopped out of range of the crystal shards, fear gnawing at his belly. But it felt right to come and face the obsidian trees. After all, he had created them. He had killed all those people. It didn’t make a difference to them how justified he’d been.
His hand drifted upward, rubbing his neck. He had no feeling in the scars themselves, only on the flesh beneath, as if he was pressing down on a fingernail. The imprints of Luis’s fingers remained as shiny pink-white scar tissue. When he had to deal with people he didn’t know well, their gaze kept drifting to his throat.
Gold Point had left its mark on him.
Ross closed his eyes. The concrete wall in his mind was crumbling, pierced through by sharp black branches and roots. The anger of the obsidian trees clawed at him. Ross hurriedly rebuilt the wall, thicker than ever, though he knew it wouldn’t hold long.
Then he cracked open the steel door. Before the trees could wedge it farther open, to attack him with a barrage of fear and pain, he sent them an image of his own:
The broad main street of Gold Point, lined with shops, and all the people turning to look at him.
That caught the attention of the obsidian trees. One nudged at it curiously, trying to get a closer look at the woman floating a few inches above the ground. Ross tried to remember her as vividly as he could: her soundless steps, the green scarf fluttering around her neck, her bright smile.
He offered that picture to the tree, and received a flurry of images of the same woman in return: asleep in mid-air above the bed, laughing and gesturing with a forkful of salad, standing with her eyes closed and her face tipped back, waiting for a kiss. Whoever the woman had been, whoever the soldier had been who had died to create that obsidian tree, they had loved each other.
The other trees pressed eagerly at Ross’s mind, throwing images and feelings at him, far more than he could take in. He was caught in a storm, buffeted by a stream of memories. Then he spotted one he recognized: a young man with clipped black hair, sitting back to tell a story.
Ross grabbed at it like a lifeline, pushing the other images aside. He pictured Santiago with his hands spread over a glowing rock, Santiago winking at Kerry, Santiago playfully knuckling his little cousin’s head. Ross focused on those memories, in as much detail as he could bring up, and felt the satisfaction of the tree.
He recalled Gold Point for the black trees until every one of them had found something that matched one of their memories, whether it was a person or a place or merely the trumpet call that summoned the soldiers to their next shift.
Then he showed them himself, walking forward and opening his mind to them, and he showed them his concrete wall, with the trees waiting patiently on the other side, not trying to break through.
Chimes rang out in an eager note, and the black roots and branches withdrew from his wall. The deal was accepted.
Ross closed the steel door.
He was back in his body, dizzy and disoriented. It was pitch-black . . . no, his eyes were closed. He forced them open. He found himself on his knees in the dirt, leaning against one of the obsidian trees.
By the light of the moon and lamps, he saw Mia and Jennie standing out of range, the lines of their bodies rigid with tension. Ross wanted to go to them, but the crystal tree was the only thing keeping him upright.
“You can come here now,” he called. “They won’t hurt you.”
Mia immediately ran toward him, the lamp swinging in her hand. Jennie hung back, eyeing the shard-filled seed-pods, then slowly followed. He didn’t blame her, remembering how terrifying it had been the first time he’d deliberately approached a singing tree. He couldn’t imagine how much courage it must have taken for Mia to get within range that first time, when she hadn’t known whether or not it would kill her.
Mia sank down beside him and put her arm around his shoulders. “Did it work? It worked, right? How do you feel?”
“It worked. I’m okay. Tired.” His head ached fiercely.
Jennie knelt down, holding up her lamp. The bright-moths’ wings flared as her hand began to tremble. “There’s blood all over your face.”
He touched his cheek. He’d cut himself on a razor-sharp ridge on the black tree’s trunk. His face was wet with blood and tears.
Ross caught her hand. “I’m all right, Jennie. Really, I am.”
Jennie gave him a doubtful glance, then her fingers relaxed in his. “Standing there watching you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But Mia said you knew what you were doing, so I had to trust her.”
“What did you say to the trees?” Mia asked curiously. “You never did tell us exactly what you meant to do.”
Every time he’d thought of explaining, the words had stuck in his throat. He swallowed and tried again.
“The singing trees at Gold Point didn’t only remember fear and pain. That was . . . on top, I guess. But beneath that, there were other memories. Places they wanted to be, things they wished they’d done. But mostly, they remembered people.”
That was the easy part. He could leave it at that, and the girls would understand. But that wasn’t what had given him the idea.
“When I thought I was dying. In the hell cell. I remembered us sitting on my bed, looking up at the stars.” Ross made himself meet Mia and Jennie’s eyes. “I thought of the people I loved.”
Mia squeezed his shoulder. Jennie lowered her head until their cheeks were pressed together.
“That’s the deal I made with the trees,” Ross went on. “They stop sending me nightmares and trying to force their way into my mind, and I come out here sometimes and show them my memories of Gold Point.”
“And of the people they loved.” Jennie gave a nervous glance up at the canopy of crystal leaves and branches. “I know they’re not really the souls of the dead . . . but could you give them a message from me?�
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“What’s the message?” Ross asked.
Jennie gave a rueful chuckle. “I don’t know yet. I just know I’d like to say something. Maybe I’ll know what by the next time you come.”
“I know what you mean,” Ross replied. “Well . . . I’m not sorry for what I did. It was the only way to save the town. I guess I’m sorry I had to. I wanted to say something, too.”
Who had that soldier been, whose dying thoughts had been of Santiago? Some family member or close friend, Ross was sure; the emotions hadn’t been romantic. In all that time and talking, Santiago had never breathed a word of it.
“Can you walk, Ross?” Mia asked. “We’ve been here for hours. I’d hate to run into Mr. Preston’s search party.”
Ross took Mia and Jennie’s hands, and they helped him to his feet.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
Authors’ Note
Thank you for reading Hostage. It is the second in the Change series. In order, the books are Stranger, Hostage, Rebel, and Traitor. If you’d like to be alerted by email when new books in the series are released, please click here to be added to the mailing list.
Please consider writing a review of this book. We appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative.
Copyright & Credits
Hostage
The Change Quartet, Book Two
Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Book View Café January 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61138-471-0
Copyright © 2015 Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Production Team:
Cover Design: Cormar Covers
Copy Editor: Judith Tarr
Proofreader: Judith Tarr
Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Digital edition: 20141214Dvnm
www.bookviewcafe.com
Book View Café Publishing Cooperative
P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624
About the Authors
Rachel Manija Brown is a martial artist and PTSD therapist who has worked in Hollywood, and writes under several names.
Sherwood Smith writes fantasy, science fiction, and historical romance for children and adults.
About Book View Café
Book View Café is a professional authors’ publishing cooperative offering DRM-free ebooks in multiple formats to readers around the world. With authors in a variety of genres including mystery, romance, fantasy, and science fiction, Book View Café has something for everyone.
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Book View Café authors include New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award winners, World Fantasy and Rita Award nominees, and winners and nominees of many other publishing awards.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One. Las Anclas.
Chapter Two. Las Anclas.
Chapter Three. Las Anclas.
Chapter Four. Las Anclas.
Chapter Five. Las Anclas.
Chapter Six. Las Anclas.
Chapter Seven. Las Anclas.
Chapter Eight. Las Anclas.
Chapter Nine. Ruined City Outside Las Anclas.
Chapter Ten. Las Anclas.
Chapter Eleven. Desert.
Chapter Twelve. Gold Point.
Chapter Thirteen. Gold Point.
Chapter Fourteen. Gold Point.
Chapter Fifteen. Gold Point.
Chapter Sixteen. Las Anclas.
Chapter Seventeen. Gold Point.
Chapter Eighteen. Gold Point.
Chapter Nineteen. Ruined City Outside Gold Point.
Chapter Twenty. Ruined City Outside Gold Point.
Chapter Twenty-One. Arroyo Outside Gold Point.
Chapter Twenty-Two. Gold Point.
Chapter Twenty-Three. Las Anclas.
Chapter Twenty-Four. Las Anclas.
Chapter Twenty-Five. Las Anclas.
Chapter Twenty-Six. Las Anclas.
Chapter Twenty-Seven. Las Anclas.
Chapter Twenty-Eight. Las Anclas.
Chapter Twenty-Nine. Las Anclas.
Chapter Thirty. Ruined City Outside Gold Point.
Chapter Thirty-One. Las Anclas.
Chapter Thirty-Two. Las Anclas.
Chapter Thirty-Three. Gold Point.
Chapter Thirty-Four. Las Anclas.
Chapter Thirty-Five. Las Anclas.
Chapter Thirty-Six. Las Anclas.
Chapter Thirty-Seven. Gold Point.
Chapter Thirty-Eight. Las Anclas.
Chapter Thirty-Nine. Las Anclas.
Chapter Forty. Las Anclas.
Chapter Forty-One. Las Anclas.
Chapter Forty-Two. Las Anclas.
Chapter Forty-Three. Ruined City Outside Gold Point.
Chapter Forty-Four. Las Anclas.
Chapter Forty-Five. Gold Point.
Chapter Forty-Six. Gold Point.
Chapter Forty-Seven. Gold Point.
Chapter Forty-Eight. Gold Point.
Chapter Forty-Nine. Gold Point.
Chapter Fifty. Desert.
Chapter Fifty-One. Las Anclas.
Chapter Fifty-Two. Las Anclas.
Chapter Fifty-Three. Las Anclas.
Chapter Fifty-Four. Las Anclas.
Chapter Fifty-Five. Las Anclas.
Chapter Fifty-Six. Las Anclas.
Chapter Fifty-Seven. Las Anclas.
Authors’ Note
Copyright & Credits
About the Authors
About Book View Café
Hostage Page 40
