Tomorrow's Gone Season 1

by Sean Platt

  As the big guard’s life faded from him, his mouth opened and the dark thing with purple and pink lights coursing through it left his body and dissolved into Slum Lord’s.

  “Now we go.”

  Sixty-Five

  Wolf

  One moment they were in the monastery with Brother Faith and the guard. Then the next …

  —BLINK—

  They were in a valley beneath the mountain where the monastery was, standing on the riverbank, just feet from a roaring waterfall.

  Bells rang at the temple.

  They were looking for the girl and her father.

  Wolf looked over and saw Emory smiling mischievously. “Did you … did you teleport us?”

  She smiled wider.

  She was a clever little shit. She’d disguised her intent to teleport them by pretending to demand to touch him and see his memories. They had no idea what she was going to do. And he had no idea how she’d done it.

  “Where’d you learn to do that?”

  “They brought me to a tree. It opened up more … powers inside me. I was able to heal you. And … I knew I could do this.”

  “They brought you to a tree?”

  No, no, no, no.

  “Yes. And there was a man that looked like you in it. Except he had a different name.”

  Then she said that name out loud, and it triggered more memories from Wolf’s past and his previous life. Shameful memories of the terrible man he had been. A monster unworthy of redemption, let alone love or the trust of a child.

  Wolf remembered the tree swallowing his Darkness. Fear slithered inside him. “Did … did anything from the tree go inside you?”

  “Inside me?”

  “Yes.” Wolf kneeled so Emory was looking down at him. “Did anything, anything dark I mean, come out of the tree, maybe go into you?”

  She stared off. “I … I can’t remember everything. The man asked me to touch his hand. And then I saw things.”

  “What kinds of things?” Wolf asked, ashamed. “Did you see what I did to your mother?”

  Emory shook her head. “I think I saw the future, but maybe it was actually now. I saw a kid like me being held by the general. Kids in cages being forced to fight each other. A man who was dying, and another with fire for hands. I saw mountains of garbage. I saw … a bunch of people with white eyes. So many. More than I can count.”

  “What about me? What did you see just now? Or before, when we touched?”

  “A lot of pain. And I saw you with my mom. But … I didn’t see much. I didn’t see whatever you did to her. Why didn’t she tell me about you? She loved you?”

  “Yes. We loved each other.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I only remember apologizing. And her not wanting to hear me.”

  She wasn’t asking the question Wolf had been anticipating. He wondered if she knew, or was afraid to ask. Maybe she didn’t know about the birdies and bees, or basic math. Maybe Alma had told her that some other man was her daddy.

  The why didn’t matter for now. They needed to get the fuck out of there first, before the place started oozing monks.

  “What?” Wolf asked when he found Emory staring at him.

  She looked around. “Something feels off. Some—”

  Fire spread through his gut. He looked down to see a sword piercing his chest.

  Emory screamed and lightning streaked across the sky. Thunder rumbled so low and deep it could have been coming from the ground beneath them.

  Wolf turned to see Brother Truth pulling the blade from his back.

  “You should have stayed,” Truth said.

  The wind whipped at Wolf’s hair, howling as the air began to thicken and purple around them.

  Emory was board-stiff, fingers like claws at her side, eyes rolled back in her head, staring up at the sky. Her mouth, wide open, kept screaming.

  The girl was summoning a Ruin Storm, but her yelling would also draw all the monks to their position.

  “Stop!” Truth took a decisive step toward Emory.

  Wolf got between them, moving toward Truth but stumbling as he swung his little, ineffective shiv.

  Truth parried. “The blade is poisoned. You will be paralyzed in minutes. Give up and I might take you back to be healed.”

  “Fuck … you,” Wolf growled, taking another clumsy step toward the man, swinging and missing again.

  Adrenaline was overriding his pain, but doing nothing to soothe the sudden weakness he felt everywhere.

  His body wanted to lie down and give up.

  But he couldn’t.

  Rain fell hard as the air thickened enough to obscure Brother Truth and Emory entirely.

  “Get us out of here!” Wolf shouted, but Emory couldn’t hear him. She looked almost possessed, still screaming the storm into existence.

  Truth moved towards her, his sword drawn.

  Wolf threw himself at the monk, trying to stab the man in his back.

  But the monk heard him coming, and spun around, stabbing Wolf again.

  He fell to the ground.

  Brother Truth looked down at him, almost apologetically. “I’m only trying to help her. To help both of you, you fool. You have no idea what’s coming.”

  Wolf was paralyzed. The poison making its way through his system.

  Truth approached Emory, sword raised and yelling at her to stop.

  She was in a trance, probably not even hearing him as the air swirled and lightning crackled overhead, bolts kissing the ground all around them.

  Brother Truth swung his sword.

  Wolf tried screaming to warn her, but nothing came out.

  Truth didn’t stab the girl. He hit her in the head with the hilt of his sword, knocking her to the ground.

  The storm stopped immediately.

  Brother Truth sheathed his sword, then bent over to pick Emory up.

  Wolf was still paralyzed; dying and helpless.

  The monk slung her unconscious body over his shoulder and began to carry her away from the river, leaving Wolf for dead.

  He could only watch as the man took his daughter away.

  He had failed her, same as he’d failed to stop her mother’s murder in front of him. Darkness clouded the corners of his vision, death coming to claim Wolf for once and for all.

  But then he realized: the darkness wasn’t a product of his failing senses. It was a shadow falling over him.

  He looked up to see a big man with long hair dismounting a horse in a blood-covered suit.

  The man spoke, but not to Wolf. “This is your ally?”

  Who the fuck you talkin’ to, Jack?

  He knelt next to Wolf, staring down at him.

  You gonna help me or fuck me, bro?

  The man opened his mouth and Darkness spilled out of it.

  No, no, fuck to the no!

  Wolf wanted to run, already desperate to escape it, but still he was frozen. Helpless as The Darkness floated from the big man’s mouth into his.

  “Hello, old friend.”

  No. Get the fuck out. I already got rid of you!

  “But now you need me. Unless you want them to take your daughter.”

  Wolf watched as the monk and Emory shrank into the distance.

  “Or I can leave you to die. Tell me what you prefer.”

  Have the big fucker go save her. Just stay the hell out of me!

  “Too late. Besides, I promised to release him. It’s me and you, just like old times, or I leave and the girl will probably die.”

  Wolf didn’t want to be the monster he used to be, long before the aliens had found him. The monster that The Darkness would feed off of, especially since most of The Light had left him.

  But he couldn’t let them take Emory.

  Fine.

  He could feel The Darkness basking in delight as he lowered his defenses and invited it back inside him.

  Sixty-Six

  Emory Gray

  Emory knew something bad was hap
pening but she couldn’t stop it.

  She felt movement as the monk carried her through the woods, back to the monastery. She wasn’t sure what they wanted, but it had to be bad.

  She didn’t trust them any more than the soldiers who murdered her mother.

  She tried opening her eyes to look for Wolf. She could only manage to open them a bit, but all she saw was ground as she was still too weak to move her head.

  The storm had drained her dry, and still it hadn’t mattered. The monk managed to knock her out. Wolf would die, and it was all her fault.

  She heard footsteps, moving fast from behind them.

  What … what is that?

  Her first instinct suggested another monk coming to seize her. They’d take her back and lock her in the room until she finally obeyed them and did whatever it was they wanted her to do.

  The monk turned and she saw a blur. Wolf, closing the distance, leaping into the air and stabbing a small metal wire straight into her captor’s eye.

  The monk screamed, dropping Emory as he stumbled back, clutching at his eye. She watched as Wolf stabbed him repeatedly, alternating between his face and his gut.

  Blood colored the world.

  Mostly it felt vicious, but a part of Emory was overjoyed to see Wolf alive, and to know that he’d saved her.

  The monk found a string of words to start begging, but they were all gurgling and curdled with blood. “Please … Wolf … you don’t have to—”

  Wolf stopped stabbing him, then leaned in and growled, “Name’s Boricio Fucking Wolf, bitch.”

  He then took the brother’s sword and finished him off by plunging the blade into his skull.

  Boricio rushed over to Emory, his eyes wild and face painted in blood.

  She saw a flash of something she’d seen when they touched back in the bar, a monster, a madman.

  He looked scary, terrifying even. But something in his eyes softened as they settled on her. “Are you okay?” His voice was rough but gentle.

  “Yes,” she said, sitting up slowly.

  He pulled her into what seemed like a needy hug, and though Emory wasn’t sure, it felt like the man was crying.

  Boricio helped Emory to her feet.

  “Can you walk?” He took the monk’s belt, sword, and sheath, then strapped them all on himself. “Or maybe blink us the fuck outta here?”

  “I can walk, but … I don’t think I can blink us away anytime soon. I’m pretty weak.”

  Movement behind Boricio.

  Emory flinched, then saw it was a long-haired man on a horse instead of a monk. He climbed down off of his mount and said, “You two can take mine.”

  Then he gave them directions to The Slums, and a hotel where he promised their safety.

  “What about you?” Boricio asked the man. “How you gonna get back?”

  “I’m faster without one,” said the man with a smile.

  Then he was gone in a flash.

  Boricio stared at the horse, then at Emory. “Well, I guess we don’t need to blink out of here after all.”

  Epilogue

  Richmond wasn’t sure if anything could get worse.

  He was drinking alone in a dark corner of The Baxter’s downstairs restaurant, feeling sorry for himself, and stupid for getting busted cheating on his wife and booted from Hope Springs. The more whiskey he drank, the more he wallowed in self-pity — a quality he hated in himself even more than he hated it in others.

  But right now he was too drunk to censor his self-flagellation.

  He’d fucked up.

  He’d fucked it all up and the impact of his selfishness had destroyed his family as surely as a detonation.

  He’d obliterated everything — his job and his family, the good name he’d been fortunate enough to be born into, a name he’d never felt truly strong enough to carry. Richmond Freeman, the name that had once belonged to his father, Hope Springs’ great leader after The Event, was now reviled as a traitor, a Benedict Arnold who had an affair with the man known as Slum Lord.

  He was staying at The Baxter, accommodations granted him by Sebastian. While he was finally close to him, Richmond may as well have still been in Hope Springs, as he’d yet to see the man since arriving. First, Sebastian was busy with something. Then he was fighting off an attempt to take him out. And now, he wasn’t sure where his lover was. He’d asked Axl to let Sebastian know they needed to talk, but that was hours ago and it was getting late.

  Sebastian had to be blowing him off.

  And Richmond felt foolish to have thought that they might one day be together. Slum Lord didn’t love him. He was Richmond as a pleasant distraction. Now that Richmond was here, and an actual relationship was a possible reality, along with all its complications, he was likely having second thoughts.

  He probably wanted to stay with Sasha.

  Richmond hadn’t left his wife so much as been kicked out. But he still felt the sting of having imploded his entire life for a man that had yet to make time for him. Clearly whatever Richmond had thought was there between them was not.

  He ordered another drink from the waitress and the part of him that wasn’t yet wasted, argued that perhaps Sebastian was just in the middle of dealing with a lot of shit, and didn’t have time to nurse his hurt feelings.

  Sebastian and his people had just survived an attack, an attempted takeover of their city. There was still a tension in the air. And while everybody he’d dealt with in The Baxter had been friendly enough, some of them looked at him suspiciously — including Sasha.

  He had never felt more alone.

  Richmond looked around the bar at the people there, none of them even glancing at him, save for the occasional sideways stare when he wasn’t looking.

  Suddenly he saw a familiar face.

  Val entered the bar, looking around. She was with Charlotte, the teenage girl saved by Pascal.

  He was confused to see them here, and was about to approach them when she spotted him and made a beeline right to his table.

  She sat and so did Charlotte.

  “I’m so glad you’re here.” Val met his eyes and he knew something was wrong. “The stablehand told me you might be here.”

  Before he could ask what was wrong, she told him the terrible news.

  And just when Richmond had thought things couldn’t get worse, the Gods laughed at him and yanked the world out from under his feet. His wife was dead, his son was missing, Pascal had been killed, and Hope Springs was under siege by the general using Alt bandits.

  Richmond had never felt so truly and utterly lost.

  General McTaggart stared at the gunshot wound in the mirror of his room at the Hope Springs Inn. The city was still burning outside, but the Rangers were taking care of it.

  They would rebuild, the city would heal, and he would be seen as the hero that saved them from the “evil Alts.” And then the citizens would turn to him for leadership now that the mayor and vice mayor were out of the picture. They would need him. They would let him do anything if it meant he could keep them safe.

  Everything according to plan.

  Except the wound in his gut.

  He couldn’t help but think of how close he’d been to death back when he’d gotten cancer. Back when his body had betrayed him, turned him frail and weak, a shadow of himself. It had made him question everything.

  But then, a little more than a decade ago, The Light had found him and entered his body, healing him, returning him to his old self. No, better than his old self. He was stronger, smarter, and he felt better than he’d ever felt his entire life.

  The Light, over the years, though, had turned into Darkness. Still, it helped him. Made him even stronger, it seemed, the darker it got.

  And now it was healing him again, knitting the wound closed.

  I almost died, he thought.

  “I wouldn’t allow that,” it whispered in his head. “Not when we’re this close. You did well. You got the Registry and we will find the rest of The Light. It’s
got to be among the Alts.”

  And when we do find it?

  He knew the answer, but it still comforted him to hear the thing inside him speak it to him. He needed reassurance that everything was still going as planned. Because even a decade after nearly dying of cancer, it didn’t take much to remind him of how tenuous a grasp anybody had on life.

  “We will turn it dark. And then … then you will live forever. And then, once you’ve got all of it, you can be young again and stop living in disguise. You can be young forever.”

  He smiled.

  A knock on the door.

  He put on a fresh shirt and went to the door to find Monique waiting, looking ravishing as usual in a low-cut red dress. He invited her in and closed the door.

  “So? Did you get it?” she asked.

  He nodded and she kissed him.

  She met his eyes. “Stratum will be pleased.”

  “Yeah, about that,” he said. “I don’t think that’s going to work out.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

  He locked the door.

  A nervous look crossed her face as she realized her error. She thought she’d been spying for Stratum. It was, in fact, him using her and her resources to put these arrangements in place. And now that she no longer served a purpose, it was time to be rid of her.

  He moved closer, eyes locked onto hers.

  She didn’t see the blade until it had already slit her throat.

  * * *

  TO BE CONTINUED …

  IN SEASON TWO OF TOMORROW’S GONE

  What to read next

  Tomorrow’s Gone was written in the world of the original Yesterday’s Gone series. If you haven’t read it yet, go get the entire 6-Book Yesterday’s Gone Box Set for one conveniently low price.

  Get the complete Yesterday’s Gone Box Set

  Want more?

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