by Leyton, Bisi
“Some people might call me lucky.” He was uncertain as to what she’d seen at the town square or how much she even understood.
“Lucky? I won’t insult us both by asking stupid questions, only to have you lie to me.”
“I do not intend to lie to you, Mrs. Kuti.”
“No, you just ignore what I say. I told you to leave Wisteria alone.” She fumed. “There are other prettier girls in town. You don’t need her for anything.”
“I am not going to hurt your daughter. Wisteria is really important to me and if there is anyone who can keep her safe, I can.” Once they were away, he wouldn’t have to deal with this woman.
“Safe? Those psychopathic little freaks, those girls, went after her because of you.”
“No way, those girls were insane on their own.”
“Bach, they went after her because of you. You have them worshipping you, haven’t you? You’ve renewed them? You want to turn someone into a sleepwalking Thayn? Fine, just not my daughter. She doesn’t see how dangerous you are. Or that your Family wants to use us Terrans to entertain, and serve.”
“How do you know about the Thayns?”
“That’s not the issue. As long as you don’t renew her.”
“I will never do that to her. I really love your daughter.”
This only served to make Mrs. Kuti look even more alarmed. “You love her? Don’t you see she’s human?”
“I know.”
“Then what are you doing? You know what your Family will do to her if they knew this? Bach, are you crazy?” She exhaled loudly, and then she pleaded. “Leave her and leave Smythe.”
“I will find a way to keep her safe.”
She nodded while looking calm, and then she slapped him hard across the face, digging her nails into his cheek.
“Ah,” he groaned and pushed her away. “Stop or you will hurt yourself.”
Falling back, she glared at him. “You’ve brought this on yourself, you green-eyed monster.” She got to her feet. “I hope you enjoy the bean vine or what do you call it? Strangle weed? You know what they call it in this county? Wisteria!”
There was a burning sensation on his hands and face. Checking his palms, they were blistered and bleeding. She’d put strangle weed on her skin. “You, you are Red Phoenix?” That was the only thing that would explain how she knew so much about who he was. Bach had foolishly not put this together.
“I was Red Phoenix, now I have to protect my family. Just remember—I had warned you,” she hissed in a low tone and left.
* * * * *
Bach staggered home at around three in the morning. Meeting Mrs. Lara Kuti had put a real damper on his night. Now he needed to regenerate, and then decide what to do.
Getting to the road of his house, he noticed a light in the living room. He was a little surprised to see anyone up at this hour, as Felip hadn’t returned from Hammond Village after taking the obsidian coral and Garfield was normally asleep by two.
As he arrived at the front door, it opened. Garfield stepped out with a tired smile. “Where were you?”
“Are you going somewhere?” He stopped at the bottom of the steps.
“No, just thought I’d open the door.”
“Since when do you greet me at the door?”
“Since we asked him to.” Coles came up behind his friend, pushing the short boy aside. “And before you run away, you should remember your little friend doesn’t seem like he can survive a lot of pain.”
“I do not need to run away. I can easily make you leave.” Ascending the stairs to meet the Major, he felt a prick on his neck.
“I don’t think so,” Coles replied
Bach started feeling dizzy again. “You…” Staring up at Coles and then at his hands, he saw everything was blurry. His knees gave way and the world spun around him.
“This is good medicine,” the man uttered into his ear. “Lara helped us put this little cocktail together.”
Bach must have blacked out, because the next thing he remembered was someone dragging him out of the quarantine center. After that, his next memory was waking up in a cell, handcuffed to a chair with no idea where he was. Too weak to break free, he tried anyway—to no avail.
A man in a white coat and one of the island’s guards walked into the room. Bach recognized the man in white from the school as Mr. Cheung, the mathematics teacher. Cheung walked up to Bach and injected something into his neck.
“What are you doing to me?” Back wanted to know.
“Just relax. This is going to keep you calm,” the teacher claimed.
“Is he secured now?” the soldier asked.
“He’s not going anywhere.” Cheung nodded.
The cell’s doors opened and Coles strode in with two more people dressed in white. One was Hailey’s father, Charles Davenport, and the other Bach didn’t know.
“What do you want from me, Coles?” Bach’s speech was slurred and he found it hard to think straight.
“This is the subject.” The unknown man walked up to him. “He’s stage three infected.”
“He looks remarkable. How come he’s not going crazy?” Hailey’s father asked.
“I have no clue,” Cheung replied. “Sir Charles, his blood work is clean, but when I looked at his DNA we realized there was something very wrong.”
“You saw his blood work, Tom?” Charles asked the unknown man.
“I rechecked it after Silas.” The other man nodded.
“Dr. Hindle saw the same thing that I did. He’s a post-stage three infected,” Cheung continued.
“What the hell is post-stage three infected?” Charles asked.
The teacher glanced at the island’s leader, and then at Dr. Hindle as if to say, that Charles was an idiot for asking the question.
“Stage one means he’s been exposed to the virus most likely bitten or has been kissed by someone infected. A stage one infected has no symptoms. Stage two, they get the fever and by stage three they’ve gone crazy and are dangerous to others.” Coles turned to Cheung. “There’s no other stage.”
“Well it looks like there’s one now,” Tom Hindle replied.
“Like I said, I have no clue as to what’s going on inside this boy, but it’s possible the mutation might make him immune to the disease,” Cheung said.
“At least that’s the theory. I’m pretty certain, but we need to do some more testing.” Tom nodded.
“You think we can get a cure out of this kid?” Coles gestured in Bach’s direction.
“If we’re lucky, we might get a vaccine,” Tom answered. “But he’ll give us something.”
“I cannot help you cure this disease which you gave to yourselves,” Bach seethed.
“We’ve a long way to go before we can even begin to understand what’s going on inside of him. Any talk of creating a vaccine is premature.” Cheung ignored Bach’s response. “He might not even survive that long.”
“You do know I can hear you?” Bach asked.
“I never trusted you, Bach.” Coles walked over to him. “There was something wrong with you. Doctor Hindle is going to figure it out and we’re going to unlock how you work.”
“Don’t provoke him, please, Major.” Charles signaled to Coles. “We don’t want him to become agitated.”
Bach lifted up his head and looked at the man while the room was spinning around him.
“You may be saving thousands of lives.” Cheung tried to reassure him. “You’ll save everyone, everyone including Hailey.”
“Leave her out of this,” Sir Davenport remarked.
“You do not know what you are doing. You could never help the people of this world even if you had all the scientists from before the outbreak working on this and someone gave you half a clue!” Bach seethed. “Greater men than you have tried to unlock the secrets in my Family and have failed. So will you. Your world is supposed to die.”
“You sound like you know an awful lot about this disease,” Charles Davenport remarked suspiciously.
> “You know what I think?” Coles stated. “You’re scared and you’re trying to scare us because you think we’re a bunch of thirteen-year-old girls.”
“You’ve nothing to fear from me or these people. I give you my word, you won’t be killed. You will have to stay here, but you’ll be comfortable,” Cheung tried to assure him.
“So I am your prisoner?” Bach asked.
“You won’t be alone much longer, your friend Felip will soon be joining you,” Coles continued.
“No, he’s gone.” Bach grinned defiantly.
“We know. Blair saw him scaling the outer wall. We’ve got patrols looking for him. If we can find him, we’ll bring him back safely,” Sir Davenport added.
“You will not find him,” Bach stated.
“Then you’re going to be down here alone. It makes no difference to me,” Coles retorted and started to leave the room.
“Wait, Major Coles…Sir?” Bach pleaded.
The soldier paused to look back at him, still looking irritated.
“Let me say goodbye to my friends. I do not want her to feel I have abandoned her!”
“No, you leave my daughter out of this!” Sir Charles yelled.
“She’ll get over you, don’t worry,” Coles added.
“Wisteria, can I see her?” Bach ignored Sir Charles. “Please, I am asking you for a favor.”
Coles’s jaw clenched and he turned to the other soldier in the cell. “If he mentions her name again, I want you to cut out his tongue.”
The Terrans left the room. After some hours, Bach could feel himself regenerating, but he was still too weak to break free from his shackles. He tried to focus on regaining his strength. He didn’t want Cheung coming back in to give him another dose of the poison they were continually giving to him.
Three hours passed and the doors to the cell opened. Cheung entered with his syringe and a small cup of tablets.
“How are you feeling?” Cheung knelt in front of Bach.
“I am fine,” Bach lied as he watched Nate Weiss enter behind the teacher.
Nate was the man that checked them when they first entered the island.
“These are your tablets. I’m not going to make you take them, but they’ll help you feel less queasy after I’ve given you the shot.” Cheung placed the cup in Bach’s right hand.
“You know I am very honored,” Nate remarked as Cheung prepared the injection. “It’s not every day we get such a guest.”
Bach looked up at him. “I am not a guest here. I am your prisoner,”
“I’m sorry about this.” Cheung looked sympathetic as he wiped Bach’s forearm with a damp cotton pad and pressed the needle against Bach’s skin. Then suddenly, he slumped to the ground while dropping the syringe.
Bewildered, Bach looked up and saw Nate removing a needle from Cheung’s neck.
“Eminent, we must go now,” Nate announced.
“Ah.” Grunting with the effort, Bach pulled the cuffs off the chair while smashing the chair to splinters in the process. Slamming Nate into the wall he asked, “Who are you?”
“I am here to serve you. Do with me as you wish,” Nate declared in the Family Dialect. “I am sorry that I was unable to help you when you first arrived.”
Nate was a Thayn, but there was no time to take this in. Rushing to the door before it closed and sealed them in, Bach pulled it open.
“Eminent.” The Thayn, Nate, offered Bach a gun. “Take me as your hostage, and then when the soldiers start shooting, I’ll be your shield.”
“No, stay here. Tell them I forced you to help me.”
“Sir, I must go with you, they’ll try to hurt you, sir. Please?” Nate begged desperately while falling to his knees between Bach and the exit.
“I do not have time for this!” Bach exclaimed. “I do not want Terran blood on me.”
The man continued pleading to him, “Of course, sir. That would be repugnant for you,” Nate accepted dejectedly and moved away. “But you should go that way to get out.” He pointed to the door at the end of the hall.
Bach peered out carefully. The corridor was empty, but he could hear movement on the other side of that door. Darting down the hall, he checked the doors until he came to an unlocked room.
Soon, the soldiers burst into the corridor.
Bach looked around at the dusty, windowless room. Then he looked up at the ceiling— it was made of wood and not reinforced concrete like his cell. Even in his weakened state, he would be able to break through. He stepped on to the desk and raising a dusty laptop computer, he smashed through the ceiling. Managing to break out onto the building’s roof, he jumped off the three-story building and sprinted toward a chain link fence, leading to the forest.
The doors of the building burst open, while three armed men emerged and opened fire on him.
Landing on the other side, he saw a bullet wound on his arm, but there was no time to stop. Instead, he sped through the trees, but because of the injections, each step was agonizing. Willing himself to keep moving, he reminded himself he needed to make it to the den and he needed to get to Wisteria.
The trees gave way to a very large clearing. If he ran through he would be an easy target, so he fled around the edge, still concealed by the trees. He kept going until he came out at yet another fence. Climbing over, he raced out of the trees, toward a large body of water. This was the other side of Barton Lake. Without thinking, he dove in and swam under the water, emerging at a spot hidden by the rocks and plants. As he crept out, he heard the soldiers moving around the pond or entering the water. Quietly, he climbed out onto the bank and found himself face-to-face with the end of Mrs. Kuti’s rifle.
“Did you have a nice time?” she asked in the Family’s Dialect.
“You did this!” Bach fumed.
“The poison I gave them wasn’t going to kill you, but what I have in my rifle will end you. It’s nothing like the stuff Cheung or Red Phoenix gave you when they attacked your penthouse. This will kill you in one shot.”
Bach grabbed the end of the rifle and snapped it in half before she could move. “Just stay away from me.” He threw her now useless weapon aside.
“Where are you going?” she asked him as he walked past.
“I do not have to tell you anything. The only reason I do not hurt you is because you are Wisteria’s mother! But trust me, that will not save you again.”
“I can help you get off the island. I’ve got my vehicle. It’s at the other end of the bridge. You’ll be gone before they can stop you,” she implored.
“I do not need your vehicle to leave.”
“Maybe if you were a hundred percent and hadn’t been on a steady diet of bean vine, since you arrived? The effects of their medicine would’ve been less severe.”
“You poisoned me?” He stopped and spun around. “Why?”
“I warned you before as to why, and you can see what I can do. I promise that if you don’t leave? It will only get worse.”
“Never talk to me again.” He walked away
“If you still love her, you need to leave now. If not, I’ll tell her everything about what your people are and what they’ve done to us. When I’m done? She’ll hate you,” Lara screamed from behind him. “Your Family gave us the Nero plague that’s killing our world. Go back to Jarthan and journey home to the Jade Ocean. Never come back!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was nine forty-five in the morning and Bach still hadn’t arrived. Wisteria could see the town clock from the bank of Barton Lake. She wouldn’t have considered stepping out after Hailey’s attack but she wanted to see Bach and talk about what had happened that morning. Now it seemed there might be nothing to talk about at all.
He was over two hours late.
When a couple of kids from school showed up in an attempt to avoid class, she left. She returned home, as she had no appetite for school that day.
After locking all the doors and windows of the house, she sat on her bed. It was better t
han facing Hailey and her crazies. As for Bach, she was finally done with him. He’d messed her around too many times to count. She was done being a fool for any guy. Then, she spotted Garfield heading to work, apparently someone nearby must have a rat problem.
Jumping up, she raced out of the house to meet him.
“Er…hi,” Garfield muttered when he saw her.
She noticed he had a shiner across the side of his face. “What happened to you?”
“I slept funny. What happened to you?” He pointed to her bruises. The boy started to go before she could even answer.
“How’s Bach today?” she asked as they walked together.
“Today?” he replied nervously. “No, I haven’t seen him today. Why? What have you heard?”
“Nothing. You live with him, right?”
“Uh, right. Actually, he kind of—left town. Listen, I’ve got to leave. I’m late.” He marched off.
Wisteria hurried after him. “What?” She wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly. “He left?”
“Yeah, last night.”
“Did he say why? What happened?” This made no sense. He wouldn’t do that, after what he said to her last night.
“Wisteria, it isn’t a good idea for me to talk about this.”
“Since when?” She was stunned.
“I just can’t, okay? We’ll catch up later. I’ve got to get to work and so do you. Apparently, there are rats on Harvey’s farm.”
He left her standing alone in the road confused.
* * * * *
“Where have you been?” Wisteria’s mother demanded that evening. “I was told you weren’t in school today and you didn’t go to work.”
“I just didn’t feel like going today.” She sat on her bed reading. Not only did she not want to face Hailey and her gang, she didn’t know how she would deal with Bach abandoning her.
“I’ll talk to town hall to let you have a couple of days off, but you have to face those girls sometime.” Her mother sat on the bed with her. “They might be crazy, but we Kutis are crazier.”
Wisteria nodded, but didn’t laugh. She didn’t feel like being happy.
