Rift

by Heidi J. Leavitt

  19. A Hostage Recovered

  Thud, thud, thud.

  Jimmy groaned and rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head.

  “Jimmy!”

  The demanding voice finally penetrated his foggy brain.

  “Wha—huh?” he mumbled, dragging his eyes open blearily. A shadowy form stood in the outline of a lit doorway. All of a sudden Jimmy launched straight up, adrenaline racing. Where was he? Was he under attack? What was going on?

  “Low light,” the voice at the door commanded. Dim lights came on, making Jimmy blink. The room was utterly unfamiliar. What was he doing here? He threw his legs over the side of the bed and then looked again at the doorway, his muddy thoughts finally clearing a bit.

  Richard stood in the doorway. His memories flooded back. Jimmy and his father-in-law were staying with Mark, Richard’s brother. They’d arrived late in the evening, and Jimmy had only bothered to eat a quick sandwich before falling into bed and letting the built-up exhaustion overwhelm him. What time was it? How long had he been asleep? He tried to make his eyes focus on the clock panel next to the bed. It was still the middle of the night, a couple of hours before dawn.

  “I just got a high-priority comm from Marian,” Richard told him. “Mrs. Smitz was returned to Tarentino Bay.”

  “What?” Jimmy exclaimed, his heart leaping. “Is she all right?”

  “She was still in a med capsule. Marian will update us from the clinic there in Tarentino Bay.” Jimmy rubbed a hand through his hair, wondering why Marian hadn’t commed him as well. He rolled over and fumbled for his flipcom, which was sitting on the low table next to the bed.

  “I missed two messages from her,” Jimmy noted, embarrassed. Jenna had often teased him about his ability to sleep through anything, even natural disasters. Then he gasped. “And one from Monserrat forwarded by Grier. Monserrat stated that he was only able to win the bid for one member of the family, and that he would arrange delivery as soon as he had details regarding the delivery of one Swazi crown.” Jimmy sucked in his breath. “He must have won the bid for Mrs. Smitz.” He sent a quick comm to Grier acknowledging and asking about the payment. Clearly Grier must have managed it somehow.

  “I’ve already booked you for the morning shuttle flight to Tarentino Bay,” Richard stated, his face guarded.

  “What?” exclaimed Jimmy.

  “It’s better this way,” Richard said. “You can check on Mrs. Smitz personally, and Marian says someone needs to check on your brother since he won’t respond to her at all. You’re the only one who can do that.”

  “But what about Jenna and the kids?” Jimmy argued. “I need to be here, working to get them back!”

  Richard drew in a deep breath. “Jimmy. I can take the Omphalos end from here. You are going to get yourself killed if you keep up this Red Zone investigating.”

  Jimmy grimaced. “Grier has been the one leading me into the Red Zone. And with good results, too! It was our visit to Monserrat that led to Mrs. Smitz getting returned.”

  “It’s out of your hands,” Richard said. “I tipped my hand to the Quintans. They’ll be on the defensive. It will be just that much harder to dig now.” Jimmy frowned, remembering the meeting at the Quintan Edge the evening before. He didn’t believe that either his father or Lev Quintan had actually orchestrated the kidnapping. But they had to know now that Zane was involved, and they were still standing by him. It made Jimmy sick.

  “Fine,” he muttered. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Mrs. Smitz or make sure his twin was coping. It was just that his gut was telling him that Jenna and the kids were here in Omphalos, in the Red Zone somewhere, and if he went back home to Tarentino he would be abandoning them.

  What kind of man abandoned his family?

  ●●●

  Marian picked him up from the shuttleport in Tarentino in the old battered transport. They headed straight from the shuttleport to the clinic.

  “How come she’s still at the clinic?” Jimmy asked. “Is she all right?”

  “I think she’s fine. They’re just keeping her under observation for a few more hours.”

  “She’s awake, then?” Jimmy asked eagerly.

  “Yes. The doctor revived her an hour ago. The detective is interviewing her right now.”

  “So does she remember anything about her kidnappers?” The words rushed out, leaving Jimmy breathless with hope.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her,” Marian said, but Jimmy could tell she was eager to know what Mrs. Smitz remembered too. If Mrs. Smitz could tell them anything, anything at all, it might be just what they needed to find the others before anything happened to them.

  At the clinic, the assistant asked them to remain in the waiting area. The Tarentino Bay police detective had already finished interviewing Mrs. Smitz, but the medtech was performing another check of her vitals. Marian sat patiently in a chair, but Jimmy found it impossible to sit still. Finally, he got up and paced back and forth across the lobby. The med assistant’s eyes tracked him nervously. Jimmy knew that he was making her uneasy, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset anyone at the clinic, so he looked around in desperation. There was a flat terminal screen streaming a news feed about a major tropical storm hitting the plantations on Zoria, and he tried to focus on that, but it only distracted him for a couple of minutes. He went back to pacing. When the medtech appeared at last, Jimmy sighed heavily in relief.

  He came right to Jimmy first. “You must be Mr. Forrest,” he greeted. His voice was pleasant, with a hint of an accent that Jimmy couldn’t place. He wasn’t native to Tarentino Bay, Jimmy guessed, though that was true of most people who lived here.

  “Yes,” Jimmy answered, accepting the man’s hand.

  “I’m Dr. C,” he said.

  “Sea, like the ocean?” Jimmy asked.

  “No, C like the letter. Short for Cieslowski. Most people here slaughter it, so I just use C.” Jimmy laughed. He could see that, here on Zenith. But the name was familiar to him.

  “Cieslowski like Nataly, the famous singer?” Jimmy wanted to know.

  “Yes, actually.” The medtech’s eyes brightened. “She’s my cousin. I don’t know about how famous she is, though. You’re the first person I’ve met on Zenith who has heard of her.”

  “Of course! She’s probably the most famous sopranist on Terra—or at least that was true when I lived there. I met her at a party once. She was unforgettable.”

  Dr. C laughed. “Unforgettable is one way to put it. Ostentatious is another.”

  “That too,” Jimmy admitted with a chuckle, remembering the diva who had insisted on having the indoor climate lowered twenty degrees so she didn’t have to take off her chinchilla cape.

  “How is Mrs. Smitz?” he asked.

  “She is doing well. I’d like to keep her for observation overnight, just to be sure, but she should be able to return home in the morning. I think she will be able to go right back to her normal routine if she wishes.”

  “May we see her?”

  “Certainly. I’ll have my assistant take you to her room.”

  The clinic wasn’t large. They’d passed only a couple of doors before the assistant stopped. She entered a code, and the door slid open. Inside Jimmy could see his longtime surrogate grandmother resting in a lounge bed that had the back raised so that she was mostly sitting up. Her white hair was limp and plastered to her forehead and cheeks, and her skin was slightly yellow, probably leftover from the med capsule coating.

  “Hey!” he greeted, his tone soft.

  “Jimmy!” she gasped. Tears pooled up in her eyes and spilled over onto her papery cheeks. Jimmy crossed the room quickly and sank into a chair next to her bed, taking her hand. Marian followed and took the chair on the other side.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “It’s all my fault.”<
br />
  “What? Of course it isn’t!”

  “I should have kept the children safe. They were in my charge. I never should have left our home.” She swallowed. “I’ve worked for the Forrest family for forty years now. I knew better!”

  “You can’t blame yourself, Mrs. Smitz,” Marian protested.

  The old woman merely shook her head, the tears turning her face all blotchy red.

  “You couldn’t have known that someone would come after the children,” Jimmy protested. “We’ve been living here for ages, and nobody’s bothered us.”

  Mrs. Smitz drew in a shaky breath. “Oh, Jimmy-boy, you know that don’t mean anything,” she contradicted. “You are a Forrest. As long as your father lives, you’ll always be at risk. And now the children—the children are suffering for my lack of judgment.” Marian pulled a couple of tissues from the wall dispenser and handed them to Mrs. Smitz. She blew her nose and wiped at her eyes.

  “They managed to convince Jenna to go straight to them,” Marian reminded, her voice quiet but strained. “I’m not sure there was anything that could have stopped them.”

  “We can still get them back,” Jimmy said, his voice firm. “All of them. But we need anything you can help us with, Mrs. Smitz. What happened?”

  She drew a deep, shuddering breath. Jimmy waited for her to compose herself.

  “It had been a long day,” she began. She smiled slightly. “I’m sure you know what I mean. Erik had finally taken a nap in the afternoon, which let me get things picked up, but he woke up in a terrible mood, fussy and unhappy. The girls were impatient to hear from you, and I knew we probably wouldn’t receive a comm for at least another hour or two.”

  Jimmy frowned. Had they tried to comm her that evening? Then he remembered.

  “Jenna did try to comm you, right before we went to dinner, I think. But you didn’t answer.”

  Mrs. Smitz’s eyes filled again, but she straightened her shoulders and continued on.

  “Well, I proposed a walk to the children. We decided to take Zip up to the reservoir and back. I thought the walk would wake Erik up and put him in a better mood while distracting the girls from the wait until you commed.”

  She wiped her eyes with the tissue again.

  “They stepped out of the trees while we were on the trail. Two men in front of us, and two men behind. They were all dressed in black and wearing holographic masks.” She frowned, remembering. “They never spoke. Just closed in. They all had weapons. Zip went wild, of course, and,” she swallowed, “they shot him without warning. Then all the kids went crazy, and they were grabbing us, I tried to shield Erik, but one of the men yanked him away and sedated him with an injector. One of the men had an arm around Berry and a hand over her mouth—I could hear her muffled shrieking—and then . . .” Her voice trailed off. Jimmy realized that he was holding his breath. He let it out slowly, clenching his fists instead.

  “Kendra had crawled outside of the ring of attackers somehow. I saw her, crouched in the bushes, staring at us, but she didn’t look afraid—she looked like she was concentrating. She stood up, and all of a sudden we were attacked by this wind out of nowhere. Dust and debris flew everywhere, and a couple of tree branches nearly hit us. I managed to pick up Erik and shelter him somewhat and when I looked for the girls. Kendra was just standing there with her eyes closed while the wind raged completely around her. Nothing touched her, though. None of the debris, none of the branches,” Mrs. Smitz explained in an awed tone. Her eyes had grown bright while remembering it. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Our attackers were getting pelted. They held tight to Berry, but they stayed back from Kendra. Eventually someone shot her with an atlatl gun.”

  Jimmy’s nails bit into the palms of his hands.

  “That is the last thing I remember. They must have sedated me too,” Mrs. Smitz said, her hands trembling. “They must have kept me sedated the entire time. The next thing I remember was waking up here in this clinic.”

  No longer able to contain himself, Jimmy stood and started pacing the small room. He’d thought knowing the exact details would make it easier so he could quit imagining the worst, but it didn’t help. What kind of monsters were they dealing with? Were his children safe?

  “Jimmy.” Mrs. Smitz’s voice was quiet, and her solemn tone stopped him short. He turned to look at her, pale and exhausted and gaunt in her medical bed.

  “I’m afraid Kendra may be in the most danger. I know those men were afraid of her. You know how people react to something they don’t understand.” Jimmy frowned. He’d let the strange abilities Kendra seemed to possess fade into the back of his mind. He hadn’t really wanted to think about it because, if he was honest with himself, it unnerved him probably as much as it had the attackers. He didn’t want to be afraid of his own daughter, and so he’d shoved the thoughts away and concentrated on other problems instead. But now he wondered. Could this gift or whatever it was help Kendra escape? Or would it just condemn her to death, like Mrs. Smitz was suggesting? How much time did they have?

  Marian whispered something unintelligible, and Jimmy glanced at his mother-in-law. He’d almost forgotten she was in the room. She was staring at Mrs. Smitz, her eyes wide with apprehension. “Are you sure?” she said, her voice barely audible.

  The lines on Mrs. Smitz’s forehead deepened. “Of course I’m sure.”

  Marian shook her head. “No, I mean, are you sure that Kendra was the one causing the wind?” She didn’t look as astonished and confused as Jimmy would have expected. Instead, she looked horrified.

  “I’m not positive, but it certainly seemed like it to me,” Mrs. Smitz defended, crossing her arms across her chest. “Of course, it don’t make sense. Rationally she couldn’t have caused the wind, but it don’t matter whether she did or not. Those men believed she did, and it terrified them.”

  Marian turned away abruptly and strode to the window, staring out. Jimmy exchanged baffled looks with Mrs. Smitz. Was she just having a hard time believing something like this was possible? Or was she facing the same fear as everyone else, wondering if Kendra was some kind of freak of nature?

  “I think it was Kendra,” Jimmy confirmed quietly to Marian’s back. “We’ve seen stuff a couple of times before. Jenna once caught her playing with figures made out of leaves that seemed to follow her in the air. And once,” here he stopped and swallowed again, “I saw her surrounded by a bunch of levitating soldering cubes.”

  Marian whirled around to face them. “You saw that?” she whispered.

  “With my own eyes,” admitted Jimmy. “I can’t explain it, but Kendra seemed to know what she was doing. She wouldn’t talk about it.”

  Marian sank back onto the chair, her eyes staring blankly at something Jimmy couldn’t see. She really didn’t seem to be taking this well, which Jimmy didn’t understand. Yeah, it was crazy and scary, and they would have to do something to figure it out. But all that could wait until they got her back. Until they got the whole family back. What did it matter if Kendra could somehow make things fly around if . . . he couldn’t finish the thought. He didn’t even want to think about what could happen. It wouldn’t happen. They were going to get Jenna and Kendra and Berry and Erik all back safely. No matter what.

  “She’s just like Roran,” Marian muttered. “Just like him.”

  “Just like who?” Mrs. Smitz asked in confusion.

  “Konrad Roran. The man who led the Roran Uprising.”

  Mrs. Smitz just shook her head in confusion, but Jimmy suddenly dragged up a vague memory of a conversation he’d had with Jenna. Her grandfather had ended up killing this Roran because strange things kept happening to his soldiers when they caught him. Dust storms and branches falling and other weird stuff. Just like Kendra had been doing.

  “He’s the man that cursed our family,” Marian said finally. “He could do all kinds of unbelievable stuff.” She turned
to Jimmy, her eyes fierce. “You can’t tell anyone about this, ever. If the Armada knew, they would take her. Not everyone believes the soldiers were delusional,” she added in a smaller voice.

  “No worries,” Jimmy said, lightly. “What’s one more secret in this family?” He tried to make a joke out of it. “Besides, maybe it will come in handy. Seems like that Roran could cause lightning strikes, right? Maybe Kendra will call down a few lightning bolts and end all of this easily.”

  Marian didn’t even crack a smile, but Mrs. Smitz’s mouth creaked upward, and she patted his arm. “That’s my boy. Always looking on the bright side of things.”

  20. Locked in the Red Room

  Kendra was first of the children to wake up. She raised her head, looking around with bleary eyes. “Where are we?” she said, rubbing her face where she had a red mark from lying on a crack in the floor. “Mommy!” she suddenly cried, her eyes alighting on Jenna. She crawled over and threw her arms around Jenna. Jenna groaned and flexed her arms, bringing them around her daughter’s back. She’d started to get some feeling back in her limbs. Her legs were still like dead weights, but she could lift her arms and torso a bit. She figured her legs would come with time.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to Kendra’s golden head. “I’m glad to see you awake.”

  “Where are we?” Kendra bit her lip as she glanced around at the dim, unfamiliar room.

  “I’m not sure. Some bad people have us locked up in a room,” Jenna explained carefully, wanting Kendra to understand the situation, but not wanting to make it any worse for her than it already was.

  Kendra pressed her face against her, as if to block out the room and everything around them. “Who are these people, Mommy?” she whispered, her voice barely audible against Jenna’s chest. “What do they want?”