Ilya looked around herself. This floor looked essentially identical to the one that she had just left, but she didn’t want to risk hiding under a tarp again. She caught sight of a narrow door toward the back of the room and ran toward it, ducking inside just in time to hear the door to the main floor slamming closed. Just as she had when she was under the tarp, she fought to control her breath. She didn’t know where she was or if the other Valdicians could hear her through the door, and she needed to give herself as much time as she possibly could.
She didn’t know how long she had been hiding when Ilya’s eyes snapped open and she realized that the heat and darkness of the space had combined with the fact that she had barely slept for several days and forced her to sleep. Fear coursed through her, but she realized that she was still in the small space and hadn’t been found. She strained for sound beyond the door but heard nothing. She knew that she had no choice but to try to leave. She didn’t know how long she had been hiding there, but lingering on for longer wasn’t going to benefit her. She needed to get out of the factory and back to her car. Maybe if she could get home, she could wake up the next day and pretend that none of this had ever happened. She would go back to work the next morning as if everything was the exact same. Maybe if she tried to go about her life like it had always been, nothing more would happen. Maybe Ryan would just let it go.
She reached up and rested her hand over the handle of the door, pausing for another few seconds to listen again. Everything beyond the door seemed quiet and she pressed the door open a few inches. The room outside was slightly brighter than it had been when she had gone into the space, enough that she was able to look behind her and see in the faint light that she had been hiding in a nearly empty supply closet. The closet itself looked almost like a prop, as if it had been put there to make the factory seem more legitimate. There was a single large, old-fashioned broom leaned in the corner, but it didn’t appear to have been used very much, if at all, and a small stack of cardboard boxes sat opposite it.
Though she was curious to see what might be inside the boxes, Ilya knew that her only focus should be getting out of the factory. She crept forward, slipping out of the closet and carefully closing the door behind her as not to make any noise and alert Ryan or any of the Valdicians who might be nearby. When she stepped out from behind the large piece of equipment that blocked the way to the door she could see even more brightness, and she realized that the sun had risen outside and was sifting through the tinting on the windows. Ilya didn’t know if the fact that it was daylight outside was reassuring or if it made her more frightened that she would be attempting her escape more exposed than she would have been at night.
She walked around the edge of the piece of equipment, saw that the room was empty, and took a breath before taking off running. She ran without thought until she burst through the door to the final factory floor and emerged back in the office filled with cubicles. Though the cubicles had been empty when she made her way through this part of the factory the day before, they were full now. Each chair positioned in the center of the cubicle held one of the strange, cloaked creatures. They seemed to be doing nothing. None of them had anything else in the cubicles with them. No computers. No tables. They were all sitting perfectly still, facing the inside wall of each cubicle, their hands rested on their thighs. The image was chilling and Ilya felt her body trying to stop, her mind telling her to turn back around, but she knew that she couldn’t. She had to keep going. She had to keep pushing. It wasn’t much further now.
Forcing her feet to go faster, Ilya ran down one side of the cubicles toward the door on the other side of the room. As she went, the hooded creatures took note of her, turning to face her and standing. She could feel them coming after her, but they didn’t move quickly. Instead, they all seemed to be slow, as if afflicted. Their approach was still terrifying and she continued forcing herself faster until she finally made her way through the door. Her feet barely touched the ground as she ran the length of the aging corridor, feeling more confident the further she went into the crumbling section of the factory. Soon she was at the door to the basement and running through the damp darkness, even the light of the sun from outside not getting through to this area.
The door that she had snuck through the night before was just ahead of her. She could see the light again, this time coming through the broken portion. Her heart lifted and she didn’t let herself pause. She slipped through the door and ran up the cement steps into the grounds around the factory. She looked around quickly, trying to decide which way to go. Behind her, she could hear a dull thudding sound and realized that the slow-moving horde of creatures was coming through the basement toward her. She knew that her car was parked nearly a mile away, but all she had to do was get out of the fence that surrounded the factory and she could get herself out onto the main road. Once she was there, she felt that she would be safe.
Her feet pounded into the ground so hard she felt the dirt pushing out from behind them as she went. She ran toward the front gate. Though it had been locked the night before, she hoped that because it was now day the lock would be off and the gates open to allow those who were inside the factory now access. When she arrived at the gate, however, she could see that the lock was still in place. Ilya reached up and grabbed it, yanking on it as hard as she could. No matter how much strength she put into it, however, the lock wouldn’t move. The fear was starting to prick in the back of her mind again and she dropped the lock back into place before starting to run again. She would get to the back of the grounds, she told herself. She would get to the section of the fence that she got through the night before and get out.
Knowing that by then the Valdicians would have gotten out of the factory through the door that she had used, Ilya turned and started running along the other side of the building so that she could avoid them. The grass at this side of the building was more overgrown and she felt them tangling at her ankles, pulling on her as she made her way toward the back and slowing her progress. The sunlight above her made her feel exposed and visible, but there was nothing that she could do. Now that she was outside, there was nowhere to hide. Her mind was blank as she ran. She couldn’t allow herself to think of anything but the next step that she needed to take.
Finally, she got around the side of the building and could see the back fence ahead of her. She started in a diagonal line toward the spot where the gap was, skirting the edge of the neglected parking lot that spread behind the factory. She was only yards away from the gap in the fence when she noticed that there was a figure standing in front of it. Her heart felt like it was going to explode with the fear that shot through it the moment that she realized it was Ryan. Her feet skidded, trying to slow her, but Ryan had already noticed her.
“There’s no point in running, Ilya,” he said as he started toward her. “You belong to the factory now. You can’t get away.”
Ilya shook her head, starting to walk backward.
“No,” she said. “Just let me go, Ryan. This doesn’t have to be this way. No one has to know. I don’t have to tell anybody that we were together and I won’t ask you for anything. You don’t have to be involved at all.”
“That’s just the thing,” Ryan said, his long strides closing the space between them quickly. “I want to be involved. Far more than you know.”
Ilya turned to run and saw the group of Valdicians coming toward her. She changed direction, but another group was coming from that direction as well. There was nothing that she could do. They were closing in on her and there was no way to escape. Knowing that she had to at least try, she started toward the group that was moving more slowly, hoping that she would be able to duck around them and have a chance to get back to the front fence so that she could attempt to scale it. She was able to run in a large arc around the side of the group, but before she could get more than a few steps away from them she felt a hard force against her back as if someone had pushed her, but instead of it causing her to fall forward,
it pulled her back.
Ilya screamed as she felt the ground disappear from under her feet and her body got yanked up into the air as if someone had her by a string. Without her being able to control it, she whipped around and tilted until she was nearly horizontal. She was many feet off the ground and staring down at it in terror. One of the hooded creatures approached her and she noticed Ryan at his side. Ryan looked up at her with a disturbing expression on his face. He shook his head at her.
“Why do you have to be so difficult?” he asked. “You used to be so nice and compliant. In fact, that’s one of the things that ingratiated you to me. At least for a time. You were just so willing. You could have made all of this so much easier on yourself.”
“Please,” Ilya said. “Put me down. Just let me go.”
Tears were slipping from her eyes and falling the long distance to the ground beneath her. She knew that they were dripping into the dust, leaving a trace of her there, and she wondered if that was the last remnant of her that would ever touch this ground while she was still alive.
****
“I’m honestly not sure what happened after that,” Ilya said. “The next thing that I was aware of, I was in a small room chained to an examination table. I don’t know how I got there. I can only assume that I was so scared I passed out.” She let out a sigh that sounded as though it was wrenched from her soul. “I wish that I had fought harder.”
“There’s nothing that you could have done,” Mordecai assured her. “You can’t escape the grip of a Valdician’s mind. As long as they are concentrating on you, they have you. You did everything that you could to get away.”
Ilya eased slightly closer to Mordecai. The close darkness of the space seemed to elevate the feeling of her near him and he was even more aware of the feelings that were growing inside of him.
“What did you mean when you said that you were sorry for everything that I went through with Ryan even before he captured me and brought me into the facility?” she asked softly.
Mordecai felt slightly unnerved by the question. It put him on the spot, forcing him into the position of either having to lie to her and possibly make it so that she would never know what he was feeling or to bare himself fully, making himself vulnerable to the unknown. He knew that he truly had no choice. He couldn’t continue to deny to himself or to her what he was feeling. It was only distracting him, making it more difficult for him to focus on what he needed to do. He reached through the blackness and found her hands, wrapping both of them in his and drawing them closer to him between them.
“You never should have been with someone who would treat you that way,” he said to her. “You don’t deserve to ever be manipulated and used in any way, but much less by the man who is supposed to love you.”
“He never loved me,” Ilya said.
“No,” Mordecai said. “He didn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t have ever put you in the position of not wanting anyone to know that you were together. He never would have pretended that he wasn’t seeing you, and he certainly never would have started seeing another woman without telling you. You deserve someone who would be proud to have you walk beside him and who would know that you are the type of woman who would make a man’s life worth living. I know that I don’t know anything about those types of relationships and might not even be able to feel the things that others do, but I do know that if I had the gift of you being in my life in that way, everyone would know and there would never be a moment when I would let you doubt that I loved you with everything within me and that you were the most important thing in my life.”
“I think that you are more than capable of feeling the things that any of us do,” Ilya said, her voice nearly a whisper. “I think that you are far more capable of love than Ryan.”
“If that’s true, the only reason that I can feel these things is you.”
Ilya’s hands tightened around his and Mordecai felt an irresistible draw toward her, as though his very heart was reaching out from within him toward hers. He followed the feeling, letting it guide his body toward her as they drew closer to one another through the darkness. He could feel her breath on his face and hear it streaming in and out of her. He drew closer to her and their lips touched. The kiss was soft and cautious, neither of them fully sure of what was happening between them, but wanting to venture further. Mordecai took his lips from hers, giving them both a few moments to process what they had just felt. He leaned close again, pressing slightly deeper into the kiss, and felt her Ilya soften beneath him. There was no urgency in his touch, no pressure. This was enough. Just this touch, this kiss, this feeling of truth and validation that sparked feelings and emotions within him that he believed that he didn’t have, but were emerging now, strong and clear, from where they had been hiding throughout his entire life. They had remained inaccessible until now, protected far within him where they couldn’t be used, but also couldn’t be broken. Now that he could feel them and knew that they were there, as bright and real as he could have ever imagined they would be, they reinforced him, rejuvenated him in a way that he couldn’t explain, but that he knew meant that after this moment he would never be the same.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Maxim gently ran his hand along Ivy’s face and then looked to Ellora.
“We need to get Ivy back to the compound,” he said. “I don’t want her down here. It’s not safe.”
He didn’t want to tell Ellora about Kyven’s attack in the quarry. By now he knew that she probably already knew about it, having heard of it from Kyven himself as he continued to recover in the Mikana kingdom back on Uoria, and likely from Ivy as well, but he didn’t know how many details that she knew and he didn’t want to offer more and upset her in this joyful time. Though he was filled with the excitement and pure contentment of his daughter having just been born, he was also aware of the potential dangers that lingered within the tunnels. He didn’t want Ivy or Dove to be at risk, but he also wanted to make sure that his other was protected as well. He had never expected to see his mother on Penthos, and now that Ellora was there, he wanted to make sure that she was as safe as possible until he could get her back home to Uoria.
He couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his parents beside each other once again. It had been so many years since he had been able to witness them near each other and the sheer happiness on their faces filled him with strength and perseverance that let him push the thoughts of the fight out of his mind and keep him going.
“We are far away from the compound,” Aegeus said. “Ivy can’t walk that distance now. She needs to regain her strength before she will be able to get there herself.”
“Then we bring her back to the ship,” Maxim said.
“The ship?” Aegeus asked, sounding shocked that he would make that suggestion.
“It’s the best choice right now,” Maxim said. “It’s far closer than the compound, and we’ve scanned it without finding any danger. We can bring them there and secure them for the night.”
“She’ll be strong soon,” Ellora said. “I’ll make the tea for her when we get to the ship. After she drinks that she will rest and in the morning, she will be ready to travel.”
“I will?” Ivy asked.
Maxim saw his mother look to her tenderly and touch her leg comfortingly.
“Yes,” she said. “You carried and delivered far more like a Mikana woman than a human. You will recover like one as well. It may take a few days until you are completely back to normal, but you will be strong enough tomorrow to start travels to the compound if that’s where you want to go.”
“If that’s where she wants to go?” Maxim asked almost frantically.
“We could bring her back to Uoria,” Ellora said. “Mhavrych got us here. We could bring her back to the kingdom.”
“No,” Mhavrych said. “You were right. She isn’t safe there anymore. She needs to stay here with Maxim. This is where she and the baby will be safest.”
“We only gave the ship a basic
review,” Aegeus said. “We didn’t go into all of the rooms or on all of the floors. What if Frederick is still there?”
“Who’s Frederick?” Ivy asked.
Maxim looked up at his father, wishing that he hadn’t mentioned the pilot. His focus right then was getting Ivy and his newborn daughter somewhere safer than the tunnels, and he knew that in that moment the best option was to bring her to the ship. There they would have shelter and he would be able to best protect them. The last thing that he needed was for his father to frighten them. Now, though, he had no option. He couldn’t lie to Ivy. He would have to tell her about Frederick and what had brought him to the ship. Though it was an unnerving situation, he also knew that being in the ship and leaving it to explore the desert that night had been the only reason that Mhavrych had been able to find him on time to bring him to Ivy. He settled down beside her and took her hand, then explained the situation to her and Ellora.
“Do you know Frederick?” he asked when he finished his brief explanation of what had happened with the pilot.
Ivy shook her head, pulling up to sit a little higher and adjusting the blanket over herself as if made uncomfortable by the story.
“No,” she said. “I knew of most of the pilots in the University program, but not all of them. I’ve never heard of Frederick. Are you sure that he was actually a University pilot?”
Maxim sighed, feeling some of the hope that he had had when it occurred to him that Ivy might know of the man and be able to give some insight into his personality and character drain away.
“All we know is that Pyra found him in the transportation bay when they were trying to get off Earth and back to Penthos,” he told her. “He said that they were being chased by the Valdicians and some of the hybrid army, but they made it to the bay and realized that they needed a pilot. Jonah was the closest thing to a pilot that they had with them and he had decided that he was going to stay behind, so they didn’t have anyone with them who would be able to operate the ship to get them here. Frederick was in the bay and Pyra asked him if he would be willing to take on the role. He said that he would and they didn’t have time to ask any questions or to delay anymore, so they just went.”
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