Giving up on that front, Skye sighed. “Fine.”
At that moment, Rafe ambled over and stuck his head under Shiv’s hand for a pet. She smiled down at the dog. “And I may have to steal Rafe from you from time to time.”
“Gladly,” Skye smiled as she rubbed Rafe’s neck behind Shiv’s hand. The dog gloried in the double attention. “Anything you need is yours.”
“Thank you.” Shiv grabbed Skye’s hand.
Skye bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears that were re-surfacing. She hadn’t held Shiv’s hand since they were little. But their hands still entwined the same as always, as though she was ten, and Shiv was her little, little sister again. Skye’s throat swelled.
“All these years. All these years I’ve missed with you. And now...”
Shiv squeezed her hand. “I know.”
“I am so sorry, Shiv. I am so sorry I left you.”
“I know.” Shiv reached up and wiped a tear from Skye’s cheek. “I know. I forgive you, if you can forgive me for holding you away. For not seeing you.”
“There is nothing for me to forgive, Shiv. I set it all in motion. And as heartbroken as I am right now, I’m still just so happy you’re here.”
“Let’s head back,” Shiv said with a smile and she pointed in the direction of the ranch. “I think you’ll get a kick out of what I’m making in the library. I didn’t know it when I started it, but it’s pretty clear now what it is.”
“In the library?” Skye hid a shudder. Mary almost killed her in there, and then Charlotte had put Mary out of her misery on that floor. “What in the world are you doing in there?” she asked, perplexed.
“A mosaic.”
{ Chapter 12 }
No one was more surprised by the reversal of Skye’s anger than Triaten.
Triaten and Aiden were at the smaller barn, just walking out of the new structure that held an expanded arsenal for Panthenites, when the sisters had emerged from the woods, hand-in-hand.
As they made it closer, Triaten could see both had red-rimmed eyes. Shiv looked at peace. Skye looked an odd mix of happy and worried.
As the women walked across the clearing, Triaten braced himself for the upcoming tongue lashing Skye was going to unleash on him. But it never came.
Instead the two stopped by the barn to report they were going inside. Skye gave Aiden a kiss on the cheek and Triaten a smile, then they walked up to the main house, Rafe trotting happily behind.
Over the next two days, Triaten noted that every moment Skye could steal with her sister, she did. Aiden also reported that Skye had stubbornly suspended training with little explanation, much to his ire, especially after her poor showing in Mustique. It was the moment in time that Aiden needed to push her more than ever, and she was refusing to be pushed.
Most important to Triaten, though, Skye allowed him a wide berth after the sisters’ walk in the woods. Even smiling, with a wave, when Triaten and Shiv went off together somewhere.
Shiv threw herself into her work on the mosaic, and Skye would sit in the library for hours with her as she worked on the art. Skye would mix cement or chip pieces of the smalti tile into size to keep busy, but mainly, she would just sit and talk for hours on end with Shiv.
And then the phone rang.
Shiv and Skye had spent the morning in the library, only stopping when Aiden and Triaten came in from the barn for lunch.
The four were sitting at the kitchen table, slapping together sandwiches while listening to Stewart rant about the lack of good peaches, so brutally soon after a stellar crop of Colorado peaches.
The ring of the phone interrupted the chef, and Triaten got up to answer it. It took him a moment to decipher through the thick accent that English was being spoken to him. A woman’s voice, high-pitched and frantic, spoke as quickly as her jumbled English would allow.
“Who is this? Can you slow down?” Triaten asked.
“It’s Simbali. I at the camp. They come. This is number Doctor C say — this number. She say call quick. They kill everyone. Doctor C went out at them. They come now. They –”
The line went dead.
Seeing Triaten’s face, Aiden was already on his feet.
Triaten turned to the wall. Slowly, his head down, he placed the phone back in its set.
“What is it?” Aiden asked.
Face white, Triaten looked over at Aiden. “Charlotte.”
Without a breath, both strode to the door and out, not looking back at the confused eyes of Stewart, Skye, and Shiv.
Aiden’s hand grasped the jeep’s handle before Skye had even made it a third of the way to them, running at top speed. “Aiden — stop. What’s going on?”
Aiden paused and looked over at Triaten, halfway into the driver’s side. Skye screeched to a stop in front of the jeep, hands catching herself on the hood.
She looked through the windshield. “Triaten, what’s going on?”
He stuck his head out the window. “It was a call from the refugee camp. Charlotte’s in trouble.” He started up the engine.
Skye looked over at Aiden.
He shook his head. “You’re staying here, Skye.”
“What? No. I’m coming with.” She ran around the vehicle to Aiden.
He looked down at her, face unmoved. “No. We don’t know what’s going on. And you’re not ready.”
“But what if you need me to throw back time?” She ducked her head in through the open door at Triaten. “If you don’t know what’s going on Triaten, you need me there. I can do this.”
Aiden grabbed her shoulders, pulling her attention back to him. “Skye. You are staying here. It’s too risky and I’m not putting you in danger again.”
Skye grabbed his wrists with fierceness in her eyes. “Aiden, this is Charlotte. You don’t have to worry about me. I can do this. I can. I will hold nothing back. Nothing.”
Aiden assessed her. He remained unmoved until he saw the raw determination in her eyes. Reluctantly, he relented, releasing her shoulders and nodding her into the jeep.
Skye jumped into the back seat, not giving Aiden another second to rethink the decision. Aiden got in the front, slamming his door closed.
Triaten shoved a satellite phone into Aiden’s hand and threw the jeep into gear. “You contact the airfield. The plane needs to be ready by the time we get there.”
“How are the supplies at the airfield? Do we need to stop at my place?”
“We’re good. We’re well-stocked there right now. Firepower and steel. Just tell them we don’t know what we’re walking into, so we need it all.”
“How long is the flight?” Skye asked.
“To Tanzania?” Triaten answered. “Twelve hours, give or take. Then another half-hour by helicopter to the camp.”
Dust flew, kicking up from the speeding wheels as they raced along the front fence of the ranch. Through the cloud of debris, none of the three noticed Shiv walking around the side of the ranch, looking for them.
~~~
The plane ride, all excruciating twelve hours of it, captured the multitude of personalities on board.
Aiden sat, slept, and did an occasional set of push-ups.
Triaten sat on take-off, and that was it. The moment they gained altitude, he unbuckled and stood. He paced up and down the expanse of the cabin, from the cockpit, through the seating area, past a thin wall and the bed right after it, to the back of the plane. He would spin on his heel, and complete the loop in reverse. A methodical pace with his head down, his concentration belying the thick uneasiness he struggled to keep at bay.
Skye alternated between sitting and standing, biting her nails as her leg jerked with a nervous tick. Occasionally she would join Triaten in a pace. Her track was shorter, back and forth in the seating area, a skittish rabbit stuck in a cage.
What Skye had gotten out of the mostly mute Triaten and Aiden was minimal. This was the refugee camp Charlotte had helped a Doctor Saima Mohamed start near the Tanzania border years ago, on the doctor�
�s family land. Charlotte had met Thomas, also a doctor, there. She married him, and the two worked there for years before Mary killed Thomas. Since those early years, the population of the camp had swelled to more than ten-thousand.
An hour before they landed, the plane’s phone rang. It was a quick conversation, and Triaten’s face grew increasingly grave as he listened. He ended the conversation with a, “We’re on it,” and hung up.
Aiden didn’t get up from the couch, but he did put his hand on Skye’s jumping knee, steadying it. Her knee strained against his palm, but it did slow from the frantic pace it had maintained for hours.
Aiden gave Triaten a quizzical look.
“Horace.” He said, and sat heavily on the swivel chair opposite Aiden and Skye. He rubbed his jaw, the usually clean-shaven face giving way to dark stubble.
“And?” Aiden asked when Triaten didn’t continue.
Triaten leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “And the attack on Doctor Saima’s camp wasn’t the only one. Not by far.”
“There were more?”
“Refugee camps, villages — all across Africa. A coordinated attack on hundreds of peaceful areas. And they’re still getting more reports in.”
“Malefics?” Aiden asked.
Triaten nodded.
“But why?” Skye’s face was ashen.
Triaten shrugged. “Upheaval of an entire continent and all the natural resources it supplies to the world. Oil, gas, minerals.”
Skye shook her head. “But what does that gain the Malefics?”
“The world is tied to the teat of Africa, Skye.” Triaten paused and looked down, rubbing his weary eyes with the heels of his palms. He looked back up at Skye. “Take an already unstable continent. Create complete mayhem. Lots of opportunity for power arises.”
“And they want power?” She turned to Aiden. “But you said Malefics rarely worked together.”
“They haven’t. They don’t.” Concern broke Aiden’s usual calm facade. “A few here and there. But nothing like this. This is new.”
“That’s not all,” Triaten said.
Aiden and Skye looked across to him.
“It was only a matter of time. The elders think this is the first strike in this flame moon cycle.”
“Shit.” Aiden swore under his breath. He looked down at Skye, but didn’t say anything.
Triaten studied her as well.
Skye’s eyes shifted back and forth from the two. “What? Can we stop it?”
Triaten looked at Aiden and nodded.
Aiden’s hand tightened on her knee. “We can’t, Skye. But you can.”
Understanding slowly played out on Skye’s face. She exhaled nervousness and leaned back against the couch. Her hand went to Aiden’s arm, playing with the short dark hairs lining the muscles on his forearm. “You need me to shift time back?”
“Yes,” Triaten answered, “but we need to concentrate on getting to Charlotte first. We can’t chance her safety. And if something has happened to her, and you go back to the wrong moment in time…” His voice trailed, not willing to speak the possibility of Charlotte’s death.
And so, in the early morning African darkness, Triaten, Aiden, and Skye ran from the plane to a waiting helicopter, swords and guns strapped to every appendage.
Within twenty minutes, they landed a half mile from the compound and made their way to the far northern edge of the camp. The early rays of first light filtered across the mostly barren earth. The camp was eerily quiet from a distance, even at the early hour. And the dense sound of silence only thickened as they approached the tall, barbed wire fence that denoted the border of the camp. The air curdled with a muck of stench Skye couldn’t place.
As Aiden easily lifted up the fence, Triaten and Skye slid under, and Aiden followed. The dead silence was quickly being replaced by a buzz as the morning light grew stronger. A constant buzz that grew louder and louder with each step they took into the camp.
Having encountered no one, the three approached the closest line of tin shacks. When they came around to the front of the shacks, Skye realized what the buzz was that filled her ears. In front of them, as far as the eye could see, bodies were strewn. The buzz was deafening. The sound of a cloud of flies feasting on rotting corpses.
Skye processed the sight, but she didn’t believe what she saw until her eyes managed to focus on the body closest to her.
Face down, the gaping hole in the woman’s back was obvious, the threads of her thin dress mangled into the skin, disappearing into the gory black-red hole just below her right shoulder blade. But it was the foot that froze Skye and seared her soul. Jutting out from under the woman’s belly was a leg. A tiny, motionless leg, its limp foot buried in the dirt. A foot that couldn’t belong to anyone over the age of three.
All breathing stopped, and Skye looked out at the aisle between the rows of shacks again, now seeing each individual body all at once. Women, children, babies. Piles of them. Piles rotting. Meat for the insects.
Skye staggered backward, hitting the metal shack behind her, hard. A jagged edge of the tin wall dug into her back, drawing blood, but she didn’t feel it. Her feet kept pushing at the ground, grinding her back into the sharp metal, her body instinctively trying to remove herself from the smell, the scene, the horror.
Having moved through the masses of bodies without pause, Triaten and Aiden had almost disappeared down the path to the perpendicular row of housing, when Aiden realized Skye was not following them. He whistled, and Triaten stopped. Aiden pointed back at Skye, and then motioned Triaten to keep moving. Triaten nodded and vanished in the labyrinth of random shanties.
Aiden went to Skye swiftly, planting himself in front of her and grabbing her shoulders, pulling her forward off the slicing tin. “Get a hold of yourself, Skye.”
Her eyes stayed fixated on the grisly sight and her feet continued to push at the ground. Aiden shook her.
“Skye,” his voice was a harsh whisper, “get yourself back here right now. Center.”
At his words, Skye blinked and bile immediately rose into her throat. The stench of the rotting flesh baking in the sun had intensified, and she twisted her body over Aiden’s arm and vomited.
Coughing and wiping her mouth with the back of her arm, her look darted to him, frantic. “I can’t be here, Aiden. I can’t. That this could even exist...” Her head shook as she began pushing his arms off of her. He didn’t let her succeed.
“It helps if you don’t look.”
“Don’t look? God, Aiden, how can you even say that? How can you not? Why didn’t you warn me? What sort of hell is this? That this is even possible...this isn’t what I thought it would be.”
“What did you think we were going to find here, Skye?”
“I don’t know...” Her eyes pleaded to the heavens. “Not this. God. I thought it would be like Mustique. Contained and beautiful and dangerous...not gruesome...not rotting corpses...not innocents...not babies. Who does this?”
“Skye, I know it’s hard, but we don’t have time. You need to come right now.”
“Wait. I can go back. Go back and –”
Her voice dropped off as Aiden’s right hand released her shoulder, grabbed the gun strapped to his hip, and aimed it down the path where Triaten had disappeared. A man, fumbling to get an automatic rifle in place, had wandered into view. Aiden pulled the trigger without hesitation and the man fell.
Skye watched him hit the ground. She hadn’t seen or heard him appear. “Is he a Malefic?”
Aiden watched the prone form in the dirt, and then shook his head. “No, he’d be up again by now if he was.” He looked back down at her.
“Aiden, I have to change time.”
“No, we need to move right now. We have to find Charlotte first.” Aiden grabbed her arm and pulled her as he started down the path, avoiding bodies. She stumbled a few feet, and then dug her toes into the ground.
“Aiden, I can’t do this. I’m not you. I’m not that str
ong.”
He stopped and grabbed her shoulders again. “You are and you have to. Skye, this is why you exist, why you have your power. It’s not to save a dog. Or to save one person.”
His arm swung, motioning to the carnage around them. “Your power can save thousands of innocents. These thousands. Tens of thousands at the other camps. You have the power and you will change this. But we have to do it right, we have to walk through this and find Charlotte. If we don’t find her and talk to her, and you push back time, only to go to the wrong spot, the timing may be off, and we might not save any of them. None.”
His voice had escalated to commanding, not allowing Skye the option to argue. “So you need straighten your spine, find some strength, come with me to find Charlotte, and then turn back time. Are you ready?”
It was the verbal ass-kick Skye needed. Silently, she nodded. Aiden grabbed her hand and they ran in the direction Triaten had left them.
It didn’t take long for the sound of gunfire to tell Skye and Aiden where Triaten was. They quickly pulled up behind him, and a dust cloud from their feet flew up, sitting in the thick air.
Triaten’s guns were drawn, and he had positioned himself half-behind one of the tin houses. A group of militia, seven or eight, were gathered at the front entrance to a large building. Built of white stuccoed block, it was the tallest structure in the compound. A red cross was painted above the door. Gunfire occasionally burst from the group toward Aiden, Triaten and Skye.
Triaten glanced over his shoulder at them, then nodded at the building. “It’s the hospital, and it’s where the only phone is if I remember correctly. And they’re guarding it.”
“Which means there is something important in there.” Aiden interjected. “Could be Doc S or Charlotte.”
Triaten nodded. “Let’s go.”
Skye fell into line behind the shoulders of Aiden and Triaten. All three had guns drawn as they moved in a wall at the group of men. A hailstorm of bullets flew at them, but both Triaten and Aiden picked off the militia one by one, quickly and efficiently, not paying any mind to the bullets that sliced into their Panthenite bodies.
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