by Tina Gayle
“No, if you give us a chance we’ll find another way,” Stihl argued. “Marohka has a special talent for discovering quatrilium. She’ll help us.”
“You don’t have to do this.” She stepped up beside Stihl. “We’ll increase the output, and you’ll receive more money than you need from the mine.”
Tankton paused, and then shook his head. “It won’t matter. We’ll still have to divide the profits four ways.” He raised the gun higher into the air. “No, it’s much better this way.”
He backed up a few more steps. A hand appeared out of the darkness. A vicious blow landed against Tankton’s neck. Shock flashed across his face.
Frame by slow frame time passed.
Tankton’s stunned eyes lit on his gun.
Air rushed from her lungs on a scream.
A smile lit his face.
His head dipped.
The trigger clicked.
Time jolted back to normal. Her sight blurred with a sudden blow to her body.
* * * *
“Marohka!”
Stihl jerked her away from the path of the bullet. A ping sounded on the back wall. Bits of debris hit the lower part of his pants leg. His heart beat like a speeding train.
He turned her in his arms and examined her for injuries. “Are you all right?”
Stunned, she blinked. “Yes, I think so.”
He hugged her in a tight embrace.
Cyd stood over Tankton, who sat dazed on the ground. “Did he hit her?”
“No.” Stihl held her against his chest and stared at his brother. What could he say?
Dumbfounded, Tankton stared first at his empty hand and then at the gun where it lay against the wall. Tankton considered the distance then glanced at the black box in his other hand.
Stihl’s gaze shifted to the box. A green light blinked. He focused back on his brother’s face and read the answer to what the light meant. “You armed it, didn’t you?”
Tankton closed his eyes and nodded.
“What?” Cyd stepped around to glance at the box.
With lightning speed, Stihl set Marohka away from him and shoved her down the tunnel. She stumbled, and he offered a guiding hand. His hands sweaty, his mind numb, his demons demanded he protect her from harm. He had to get her out of the mine. He stood over his brother. “How long do we have?”
Tankton shook his head.
Stihl kicked his brother’s foot. “Tell me.”
“Only a few itons until the charges go off.” Tankton gripped his head in his hands. “I wanted time to escape.”
“Get her out of here. And don’t stop for anything.” Stihl handed her to Cyd.
Her gaze burned into him, before he turned to his brother.
“No, Stihl, leave him,” Marohka screamed.
“I’m right behind you,” he yelled back to her and grabbed his brother’s arm to yank him to his feet. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
* * * *
“No, Stihl, I have nothing left to live for. You do. Get out of here while you still can.” Tankton jerked away from Stihl. He had no reason to leave, nothing waited for him on the outside. “I’m staying.”
“Are you nuts?” Stihl’s grip tightened, and he continued to tug on his brother’s arm. “We need to move.”
“No.” Tankton used all his strength to jerk away. Stihl stumbled into one of the steel supports.
Tankton dove for his gun. His hand closed around the cold metal of the handle. He turned and pointed the gun at his brother’s chest. “Don’t make me shoot.”
“Tankton, don’t do this. Let’s just run.”
“No, Stihl, I can’t be you.” Tankton crawled back to lean against the tunnel wall. “Nothing I’ve ever done has measured up, not to Dad or Granddad. I can’t be like them. Words, prose, books and rhymes, they’re my life.”
“It doesn’t matter as long as you’re happy.” Stihl held out his hand and stepped forward.
“No, Stihl, move back.”
Tankton lifted the gun higher. Stihl couldn’t know about the dark demons which plague a failure’s mind.
An innocent pawn in the game of success, Stihl followed the strings his father yanked to control them. He stood like a puppet master to every event in their life.
If Stihl and Marohka had died in the cave-in, Tankton knew he’d have mourned their death. But now, with time ticking, he’d alternate his course of action. He couldn’t watch Stihl die. As the older brother, Tankton wouldn’t fail in his last task to save Stihl. He had a life worth living and deserved a chance.
“Move.” Tankton forced Stihl closer to the support.
The finger on the trigger twitched when Stihl didn’t move. A bullet hit the wall next to his shoulder. His baby brother shifted farther into the back area of the tunnel. A rush of power surged through Tankton at seeing Stihl follow his order.
“Neither one of us is leaving.”
Tankton shifted his position and kept the gun trained on Stihl.
“What about your wife? Shouldn’t you think of her?” Stihl shifted back against the steel beam, a leg-length away from the back wall of the tunnel.
Tankton snickered. “Right, she’ll be glad I’m gone. Then she won’t have to give me her token sex.”
“She’s carrying your child.”
“Yes, because she enjoys all the attention. She couldn’t care less what happens to me.” Tankton smiled weakly. “Welcome to my world.”
A rumble started like a giant belch. The sound raced through the tunnel. A dark billowing cloud rushed at them through the shaft.
Stihl yelled above the noise. “Tankton, you have . . .”
The deafening roar drowned out the rest of his words. Dirt filled Tankton’s lungs. Large boulders rained down on the floor, shaking the foundation of the mine. Steel beams buckled. Small rocks pelted him. Debris roiled through the tunnel. The lights blinked out. A dark silence crumbled over him, and the wall behind him collapsed.
Chapter Twenty
The sudden eruption froze Marohka in her tracks. The noise vibrated through her head. Cyd, unprepared for her sudden shift in momentum, paused and drew her forward for a few more stumbling steps.
“No,” she yelled. “We have to go back.”
The ground beneath her feet trembled. Her body shook, and the tunnel far down in the mine crumbled. Off balance, she placed a hand on the wall to steady herself. A pulse beat through the soil as though a demon had them in his grip.
A sound, Marohka would never forget, bellowed through the tunnel. Her mind froze. Stihl, behind her, caught in the monster’s throat, was being consumed by the rock, dirt, and gravel. The walls behind her crumbled.
A strong blast of hot wind almost knocked her to her knees. The air, thick with dust and rock, she fought for each breath. Darkness covered her like a cloud. Even the lights from the torches couldn’t break through the inkiness. Terror’s fist pummeled her chest, pounding out the desire to live. Without Stihl, life wasn’t worth living. She fell to the floor, screaming. She clenched mounds of dirt.
An eternity later, a hand touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes to see the soft glow of the torches hanging along the tunnel walls. She glanced up to see who clutched her arm. A large dirty giant sat crouched by her side.
“Help,” she screamed and jerked away from the figure. His huge hand refused to budge.
“Marohka, it’s me,” Cyd said.
She threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck, crying. “Oh, Cyd, he’s gone.”
His arms enclosed her in his warmth, his heart breaking right alongside hers. He offered no comments or false reassurances. His big arms held her while she cried.
Men’s voices echoed from a tunnel that led to the exit. “What’s going on down there?”
She lifted her head and stared down the path toward the sound. A bright light blinded the area.
Someone asked, “Was anyone caught in the cave-in?”
“Yes, Stihl and Tankton were following us,
” Cyd’s said in a rough voice. He stood and pulled her to her feet. “We were coming from the stubbed fork on the left-hand side.”
“Then let’s get to it,” the man ordered and moved around them.
A number of men passed. Some carried large air guns to break the rocks into smaller pieces, while others lugged along large power-packs to suck the debris from the cave-in site. Trash robots followed the group. They’d haul the waste back to the surface.
They trooped past her, and she turned to follow.
“You shouldn’t be in here.” Cyd blocked her path. “Stihl said to get you out of the mine.”
She glanced up. Dirt marked his face. His somber eyes showed his grief. She shared the big man’s pain and laid her hand on his cheek. “I can’t leave. I love him too much.”
Cyd stared at her for a moment. Then he smiled and nodded. “Didn’t hold out much hope of convincing you anyway.”
Slowly, they walked back down the path. The floor of the cave was covered with debris. The supports buckled in places, still held up the roof. Hope blossomed in her chest until they turned a corner and faced a wall of rubble.
The men, hard at work, moved like armidiggos over the mess. Her heart sank. No way could Stihl have survived.
* * * *
With her head in her hands, Marohka sat on a large rock at the mouth of the mine. For the past few zitons, she’d been doing everything conceivable to help the miners. It was no use. Once they found Tankton’s body, she hadn’t been able to stay in the mine. Stihl would’ve done anything to save his brother. If Tankton hadn’t made it, how could Stihl?
She closed her eyes against the bright suns glaring down from the crystal blue sky. In her heart, Marohka begrudgingly admitted the truth to herself. She’d been trying to connect with Stihl in her head for the last ziton. A black wall of death sent a chill through her heart.
Grief overcame her, and tears formed in her soul, but her eyes remained dry. The pain was too deep to be released with a few drops of water. Regret and anger churned. She’d fought him every step of the way. And now, when she’d finally bonded with him, he was gone.
Now free, her career path would be secure. But her dreams had changed. She no longer wanted to be a mineralogist, not if Stihl wasn’t by her side. She covered her stomach with her hand, and agony surged through her system. She’d loss everything she’d held dear.
A picture flashed. A small bundle. A baby. Stihl’s baby.
She wrapped her arms around her waist. For the first time in her life, the idea of being a mother lifted her spirits.
A whooping sound caught her attention. A gyro-craft descended from the sky.
Only one person could be in the machine, Stihl’s dad. He alone would have the right to fly across Lustralia in an aircraft. The large spinning propellers blew a cloud of dust around the area. The machine landed on the rough gravel path, which led to the house. She waited for the passengers to disembark.
“Marohka,” someone called. She turned to see Cyd and another man carrying a body-board out of the mine. Stihl lay, unmoving, on the device.
With her heart pounding, she rushed to his side. His eyes were closed. She clasped his hand, but he didn’t move. Was he dead? Her brain struggled with grief until she caught the movement of his chest.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s unconscious for the moment,” Cyd said. “We think he might have taken a blow to the head.”
She fell into step with the group as they moved toward the house. A shadow fell over her. The men carrying Stihl stopped. A large man loomed at her side, his hair graying at his temples. She knew the man immediately by his resemblance to his son.
On the other side of the board, another man started scanning Stihl with a medical-scope. After checking Stihl, the med glance at Stihl’s dad. “It looks like he has a broken leg. But I’m not sure about his head. We’ll need to do some more tests.”
“We’ll fly him to the medical center in Central City,” Stihl’s dad said. “Let’s get him onto the gyro-craft.”
The group moved down the path to where the aircraft sat. Working together, the men loaded Stihl in the back of the flying machine.
She opened the front door and moved to the seat next to the pilot. A hand stopped her progress.
“There’s only room for the four of us. You’ll have to travel over land,” Zarro said.
Marohka turned to Stihl’s father. The man responsible for her long stint as an unmated woman ignited her anger. “I don’t think so.”
She jerked on her arm, but his grip held firm. “Let’s just say its payback time.”
Then with a quick little jump onto the seat, her foot hit her mark between his legs. Zarro released her arm and fell back from the aircraft. She turned to the pilot, who sat in his seat, and signaled for him to take off. The engines flared to life.
* * * *
With Cyd’s help, Zarro moved away from the spinning blades. At a safe distance, they watched the machine rise into the air and fly away.
After a few steps to return the blood to the injured area, he said in a strained voice. “The lady doesn’t soften her punches, does she?”
“No, you could say the lady doesn’t endure any injustice without handing out some of her own.” Cyd smiled and turned. “She wasn’t happy about learning you’d reserved her for Stihl.”
The comment about payback now made sense. He’d have to work to win her over. Stihl meant too much to him to let her come between them. Zarro stepped onto the porch and thought about the woman he’d chosen for Stihl. “I bet with her temper a number of sparks flew between them. I’m sorry I missed it.”
“Oh, I don’t think the light show will die anytime soon.” Cyd leaned back against the porch railing. “Marohka knows what she wants. And she doesn’t let Stihl get away with anything.”
Zarro lowered himself gently into a rocker. He needed to rest for an iton. “Then I guess I’d better prepare myself for the show. I have a feeling my son is very pleased with his wife.” The thought sparked a vision of his own wife. He wondered how he’d ever explain what had happened to their sons.
* * * *
A smile crossed Stihl’s face.
The med ran his scope back over Stihl’s head. His brain waves numbers were increasing. Something sparked the patient’s sense of humor.
The med checked Stihl again and waited for the man to wake.
* * * *
A few days later, Stihl watched Marohka flutter around the room. She straightened blankets, poured water, and positioned chairs around the foot of the bed. He’d only been out of Central City medical center for a few zitons, and she hadn’t sat down since they’d been home.
“When did they say they’d be here?” Stihl shifted his leg on the pillow in the center of the bed into a better position.
“Anytime now,” she answered without glancing his way.
“Want to stop an iton and tell me what’s bothering you?”
She paused near the curtain leading into the lily and turned her head. A glare fell on the soft brace encasing his injured leg. A flicker of anger sparked in their depths. Her hands knotted into fists. Her heated glance traveled over his red shorts and paused for an iton on his crotch. Her face reddened, and then her gaze slid to his chest. Her eyes met his.
A liquid-hot fire burned a picture through his brain.
Stihl smiled. “Marohka, the doctor said I can return to my normal activities.” He held out his hand. “Why don’t you come over here and sit down?”
She stepped back. “No, our fathers will be here any iton. We have to be ready.”
“Did they tell you what they wanted to talk about?”
“No. When I asked my dad about us buying Taunton Minerals, he wouldn’t give me an answer.” She fumed. “Both he and your father keep putting me off with ‘Wait until Stihl is feeling better.’” She pushed one of the chairs closer to the bed. “Like I don’t have a brain.”
“They just didn’t wan
t you to worry.” He watched her fuss about the room, unable to settle down until she received her answers, and he caressed her sexy body.
“Did Dad say how Tankton’s memorial service in Royal City went yesterday?” She shook her head and turned away so he couldn’t see her face.
“No, your father doesn’t talk to me.” She sounded strained. “Cyd said it was very nice.”
Stihl hated her being so far away and longed to soothe her ruffled nerves. “Marohka, please come here.”
