The Gathering

by K. E. Ganshert

  My head begins to shake.

  Luka steps forward and pulls me into a hug—his body warm and strong.

  Mine is cold and lifeless.

  “They’re saying he died of the same virus that’s killing the other inmates.” Cap keeps talking. His voice turns into an indistinct mumble, as though he’s talking from the bottom of a deep, deep well. Or maybe it’s me who’s at the bottom. I stand there, my arms dangling like dead weights by my sides. It’s a lie. My father didn’t die from a virus anymore than Chief Fredrick committed suicide. My father was murdered.

  It’s time for me to go after his murderer.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Overcome

  My heart has turned to ice. It’s frozen over with hatred. All of it points at one singular target—the man with the scars. The man who won’t stop until he’s destroyed everything and everyone I love. He nearly ruined Luka. He almost enticed Pete into darkness. Because of him, my grandmother turned traitor and Jillian is dead. And now, so is my father. It’s a truth I can’t process. It’s a truth I don’t want to let sink in. I’d rather focus on hate.

  As Joanna snores, I lay in bed, focusing every ounce of mental energy on the source of my hatred. The enemy can worm its way inside a person’s soul and take over. A Linker can hop inside dreams, which is essentially the same as hopping inside a person’s mind. Scarface isn’t a person, but he most definitely has a mind. Is it possible for me to hop inside of it?

  The people I love won’t be safe until I destroy him once and for all. He’s been waiting for me. Hunting me down. He wants me to come. That’s exactly what I will do. I fall asleep with the image of his marred face pasted to the underside of my eyelids, the memory of his cultured voice crooning Little Rabbit in my ear.

  When I wake, darkness surrounds me. A heavy, oppressive darkness—like I’m sitting at the bottom of the ocean, crushed beneath the weight of all that water. It takes strength and concentrated effort to expand my lungs. I squint into the cold, heavy blackness, but my eyes won’t adjust.

  The sound of laughter rises up out of the darkness. Malevolent, bone-tingling laughter that bounces off the walls, as though coming from every direction. As quickly as it comes, it stops. The echoes fade away. There’s a loud scritching—like a match against cement. A small flame dances to life and casts shadows along the face I fell asleep hating. His expression is triumphant. Deranged. Gleeful. Like my presence thrills him.

  “Little Rabbit, here at last. And a few hours too late. If only you’d come sooner, your father wouldn’t be so decidedly …” His mouth twists with pleasure. “Dead.”

  A volcano of rage erupts in my soul. I want to lunge at him. I want to gouge out his eyes. But the invisible weight bearing down on my shoulders is so heavy, I can’t move. Not even a finger. What’s happening? Why am I paralyzed?

  “After all this time, after all the trouble you’ve caused me, I finally get the pleasure of ending you.” He comes closer.

  I try to jerk away, but my muscles are frozen.

  “Poor Luka will be so crushed.”

  I try to move again, but it’s impossible.

  Panic beats like a drum in my chest. This is all wrong. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. I can’t fight him when I can’t move. I try to startle. To abort the mission. But I can’t do that either. It’s like B-Trix’s dream all over again, with the black wall of mist locking me inside. Only this time, I’m not in B-Trix’s dream. I’ve entered Scarface’s mind. I found a way inside without considering if there would be a way out.

  “I can see him now, sitting by your side as you waste away, wondering what could have been had he not been so weak and powerless to protect you. Oh, I will have fun whispering those reminders in his ears. So, so much fun.”

  Leave him alone!

  But I can’t say the words. I can’t even breathe, and this time, Luka’s not here to help me.

  “Your father got your sweet message, by the way. You should have seen his face when he realized that everything he believed was a lie. Then the hope. Oh, the hope. He really thought you’d come. He really thought he had a chance. It was a delight to watch the life drain from his eyes.”

  Fury strikes like lightning, scalding me from the inside out. A giant, electrical jolt that fissures the ice encapsulating my frozen, stone-of-a-heart.

  “Had I known killing dear daddy would be the thing to get you here, I’d have done it much, much sooner.” He strokes my cheek with the tip of his finger.

  His icy touch sears my skin. Pain. Indescribable pain. Unlike any pain I’ve ever felt. The kind of pain that has a scream clawing up my throat and my insides writhing in agony. And yet I remain as still as stone.

  “Don’t worry, Little Rabbit. I’ll make sure the rest of your family joins you soon. Leela, too. Luka can live. I’ll enjoy watching his misery.” With a widening grin, the man I hate wraps his hands around my neck and squeezes.

  My eyes bulge. My body convulses. I gasp for air that doesn’t come. I can’t let him kill anybody else that I love. I can’t let my father’s death be in vain. Heat seeps into my bloodstream. It courses through my veins. Gathering and swirling. The tighter his fingers close around my neck, the more sinister his evil smile, the more the heat builds. Until it’s hotter than the agonizing cold. Until I can’t hold it anymore. With every ounce of strength in my possession, I force my palms up and release it.

  Ribbons of light escape into the darkness.

  Scarface lets go of my neck, his pleasure giving way to alarm. He takes a step back, but the light snatches him. It wraps around his body like the black mist wrapped around Luka’s. He tries to tear the light away, but he can’t overcome it.

  His demented eyes go wide. With shock. With disbelief. With fear.

  I keep my palm up, releasing more as my head splits in two. The light seeps into Scarface’s nostrils and his ears and his mouth. His body begins to fissure. Shafts of blinding white shoot from the cracks, breaking him apart from the inside out. He screams—one long, piercing note before he shatters into nothing and the world goes black.

  *

  When I open my eyes, I’m laying on the ground in a white room. A magnificent creature stands in front of me, so dazzlingly beautiful I can’t look away. This being is brighter, more stunning than the guardians outside the Rivard home. Only instead of wanting to fall to my face in fear, I want to move closer and touch. I try, but my muscles are so weak, I can’t even lift my head.

  The being smiles down at me with a face like the sun.

  “My family.” Scarface will kill them. He’ll hunt them. After what I did, he won’t stop until each person is dead. “Please. Will you protect them?”

  “You have no reason to worry.” The voice. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Serene. Hypnotic. Alluring. “Your family is safe, dear one. You eliminated the threat.”

  “Eliminated?”

  “It was extraordinary work. You should be very proud of yourself.”

  I try to remember. The unbearable heaviness. The dark. The pain. And then the light. It came from me and it destroyed him. I did what I set out to do. But his destruction doesn’t change the fact that my father is dead. He has been eliminated, too. A heavy ache builds in my throat. I don’t want to feel it.

  “My dad.” I choke over the word, my eyes filling with tears.

  “Shhh. You don’t have to think about that now.” The being strokes my hair and shushes me like a parent comforting a frightened child. “Rest, dear one. You deserve to rest.”

  Exhaustion drags at my eyelids. I’m so, so tired. I let them close. The sharp talons of grief digging into my heart release their grip. And I slip away. When I wake up, the being is still there. Humming a soothing lullaby.

  “How long have I been sleeping?”

  “Shhh, not long. Rest. It’s important that you regain your strength.”

  I am lulled back to sleep—over and over again—but my strength does not return. I remain listless. Numb. Floatin
g in a cloud of nothing. No pain. No fear. No sadness or anger. No motivation. No pressure to save the world. Just this angel and its lullaby and its reassuring touch. After all that I’ve been through, it feels good. It feels safe. So I stay. Why should I go? What is waiting for me out there but more loss and pain and hardship and a frightening, unknowable future?

  Then I remember Luka and something deep down in my soul beckons me to wake.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The Death Knell

  “Any improvement?”

  “None.”

  There’s the sound of somebody sighing. “You should come get something to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  That voice is familiar. It pulls me to consciousness even though I’m not sure I want to be conscious. My head throbs. My stomach lurches. My tongue is impossibly thick, like every last drop of moisture has evaporated and will never, ever return.

  I crack open one of my eyes.

  The room I lie in is dimly lit and deathly still. Like a tomb. I open my other eye, trying to make sense of my surroundings. This isn’t my bedroom. It’s … the west wing infirmary. Was I injured? Judging by the way I feel, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was hit by a truck. I try remembering what got me here, but all is fog and haze and jumbled memory.

  I turn my head—a movement that makes me nauseous.

  The blurry form of Cap sits in his wheelchair near the doorway, his mouth fixed in a grim line. I follow the direction of his stare, past a short, pudgy nurse named Penny and see Luka sitting in the corner. He sits with his elbows on his knees, fingers threaded through his hair, staring at the floor. An ace bandage wraps around his right hand. Was he injured, too?

  “You need your strength,” Cap says.

  “For what?” His posture is so defeated—so utterly despairing—that I try to reach out and comfort him. But the effort is torturous and a groan slides past my lips.

  Luka’s head jerks up. His hair is a mess, his jaw covered in scruff, his eyes bloodshot beyond all reason. When he sees me, they widen in disbelief, like I’m the last person he expected to find in this bed. “Tess?”

  I want to ask what’s wrong. Why is he here like this? Why am I here like this? What’s going on? But my throat is too dry for anything more substantial than another groan.

  The nurse comes to my side, shushing me like … like that angel. There was an angel and a white room and a hypnotic lullaby.

  Penny places her hand behind my head and brings a cup to my lips. “Here, drink this.”

  I do. The cool liquid is heaven. I drain the cup and ask for more. Luka jumps out of his chair. He takes the cup from Penny, quickly fills it, and sits on my bed, cradling the back of my head like Penny did, only his hand is bigger, stronger. It’s also trembling.

  Cap mutters something under his breath and wheels away. Out of the room.

  Penny stands behind Luka, a sheen of moisture building in her eyes. I don’t understand why. I don’t understand what’s happening. Why do I feel like I’m suffering from the world’s biggest hangover? Why does Luka look like he’s suffering from one, too?

  I drain the cup, ignore the pounding in my skull and attempt to shove clarity into place. There was the angel and the soothing lullaby and before that … Scarface. I went to bed last night thinking about him and it worked. I found him and somehow, I destroyed him. He’s gone. He can’t hurt the people I love anymore.

  Luka returns with a fresh cup and this look on his face. This crazy, intense look. I can’t tell if he’s going to kiss me or yell at me. Instead, he helps me sit up and hydrate my Sahara-Desert-of-a-mouth. Cap returns with Felix and Link, who looks every bit as wrecked as Luka, only his hand isn’t wrapped in a bandage. He stops in the doorway, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

  Penny scoots Luka aside. “I need to check her vitals.”

  “What’s going on?” Despite all the water I just drank, my voice is gravelly. “How did I get here?”

  Penny presses the stethoscope against my chest. “You were moved here three days ago.”

  “Three days ago?” Surely I heard wrong. “That’s impossible.”

  Felix shakes a toothpick from a small container in his pocket. “Apparently not.”

  Penny moves the stethoscope to my back and asks me to take a deep breath. “We weren’t sure you would make it through the night, but your heartbeat sounds nice and strong now.”

  Link steps further inside my room. “Where’d you go, Xena?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I kept trying to find you, but I couldn’t. We thought …”

  I look from one to the other—Luka and Link. Dark hair, ginger hair—sticking every which way. Green eyes, amber eyes—haunted and tortured. Faces covered in scruff. Cheeks hollow. They thought I was gone. They thought I was gone like I once thought Luka was gone.

  “How have I been out for three days?”

  “Not out, Tess,” Luka says. “Gone.”

  “What were you thinking?” Cap’s voice explodes inside the small room, so sudden and loud I clasp my head against the pain piercing my skull. “Were you on a suicide mission?”

  “No.”

  “Then why in the world would you go after the enemy on your own, without backup?”

  “To protect what’s left of my family!” My anger matches his. If only it didn’t cause so much physical pain to maintain it. I sink back against the pillows. “He would have killed them just like he killed my father, and everyone else I care about. Somebody had to stop him.”

  “So you decided to stop him by yourself?”

  “I didn’t even know if it would work.”

  “It sure as hell almost didn’t.”

  “I think it’s best for the patient,” Penny says calmly, “if everyone would avoid yelling.”

  Cap paws his face. When his hand drops away, he has dark circles beneath his eyes, too.

  The room oozes with tension.

  Guilt twists my stomach. I picture them—the last three days—sitting by my bedside, imagining the worst. Waiting for me to waste away like Gabe’s sister. Thinking that the One who was supposed to save them was as good as dead. I’m sorry I put them through that, but I’m not sorry for what I did. I remember the shafts of light breaking Scarface apart from the inside out. I didn’t just fight him off. I abolished him altogether. And doing so knocked me unconscious for three days.

  I clear my throat and ask nobody in particular, “How’s my mom?”

  Everyone exchanges a strange look.

  My guilt turns to alarm. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine. So’s your brother and your friend.” Link takes another step closer, the torture in his eyes ebbing away. Luka isn’t so quick to recover.

  “Then what is it?”

  “A lot’s happened the past three days, Xena.”

  “Is somebody going to fill me in?”

  “Secretary Young is dead,” Cap says.

  “When?”

  “Yesterday. Heart failure. The coroner will most likely uncover poison.”

  “And B-Trix?”

  “Also dead.”

  I fist the thin comforter covering my legs. “Let me guess. Suicide?”

  Cap shakes his head. “The virus.”

  “The virus? What virus?” He can’t mean the one that put the California State Penitentiary on quarantine. B-Trix checked herself into a rehab facility on the east coast.

  Felix removes the toothpick from between his teeth. “The same one that supposedly killed your father.” His blunt words make me wince. “Three days ago, the government declared our country in a state of emergency. The virus is airborne. It’s highly contagious. And it’s lethal. Apparently, it has the potential to wipe out the entire population.”

  I scratch the inside of my wrist and gape as Felix continues.

  “The country’s on lockdown. A zero-tolerance policy has been enforced. Police have permission to shoot looters on site. They’re saying desperate times c
all for desperate measures.”

  I shake my head, unable to believe what I’m hearing.

  “Perhaps you would like to see it for yourself.”

  *

  My legs are so weak, Luka has to partly carry me to the command center.

  Link enters the room ahead of us and has a chair waiting. “Ronie was able to patch into several city-wide security systems so we have eyes on the situation.” He wheels the chair closer. “I have to warn you, Xena. It’s not pretty.”

  I sink into the seat, cupping my clammy hand over my clammier forehead. I take a few steadying breaths, then look up at the monitors. I recognize the cities. New York. Chicago. Detroit. What I don’t recognize is the chaos. Each one has morphed into an apocalyptic Hollywood film set, with military men dressed in hazmat suits, shooting at looters setting fire to buildings and throwing rocks at windows.

  This can’t be the United States. It’s like I went to sleep, battled my worst demon, and woke up in an alternate universe. One where anarchy reigns.

  On another monitor, a somber-faced President Cormack sits in the oval office with someone I don’t recognize. An egg-headed man wearing an outfit like a pilot’s uniform, with glasses and a part down the middle of his hair.

  Ronie rises from her spot behind one of the computers and stands beside me. “It’s good to see you awake.”

  I’d say it’s good to be awake, but I’m not so sure. I give her a faint nod and keep my attention on the man.

  He intermittently looks from the screen to his notes as he speaks to viewers. “Authorized personnel are working around the clock in every county across the nation. If you need food or water or medicine, call the hotline number for your county and it will be delivered as soon as possible. Anybody found outside their home will be arrested. Anybody resisting arrest will be shot on sight.”

  I glance at the two monitors that show the refugee community in Newport. Rows and rows of tents. What are they supposed to do? How can an airborne virus be contained in places like that? Felix’s words come back to me on an echo.