Linked

by K. R. Fajardo

  “You thought what?” Citera shouted, nearly in a panic. “No, no … I don’t understand what is happening nor do I know why I don’t remember anything. But the one thing I am sure of is that K didn’t do this to me. She wouldn’t have! She was better, the block had worked.”

  “Not surprising.” Jaron glared at Mikel. “I believe that I said K would never harm Citera.”

  Tension radiated between the pair. Neither of them had made an effort to acknowledge the other since her father entered the tent. And Mikel continued to ignore Jaron and his angst as he stared down at the back of his head. It wasn’t all that unusual; trust between them had never been great, not since what her father viewed as a hostile takeover of their clinic back in Vicaris. Though she couldn’t help but wonder what had transpired during the last few days that had intensified it to this level. But there was something else that bothered her more than her father’s and Jaron’s spat, and that was the thought that the majority of the camp believed K had harmed her.

  Already tense, Citera suddenly felt so overwhelmed with anxiety that if it hadn’t been for her still very painful hip, she would have jumped out of the bed and began pacing. Instead she settled for letting her hands fidget with the sheet of the bed while thought after thought about K whirled through her mind. Something had to be done, Jaron and the others had worked too hard to make this camp into the oasis that it had become. However, the entire system was based on the premise of K leading them in a war against the Shadows. She was the only one who could defeat them, this fact was undisputed. But how was that going to work if the one person the people of Oasis needed more than anyone else was also the one person nobody trusted?

  “Perhaps she took you somewhere to show you something,” Janil joined in, attempting to relieve some of the stress in the room. “Perhaps she needed to leave the area and needed to keep you close by so the link wouldn’t harm the both of you.”

  “Even if she did, which I don’t believe, it doesn’t explain why I don’t remember any of it,” Citera argued. “Or why K didn’t come back with me. I’m telling you she was better, she told me herself she was going to come back to camp with me. None of this makes any sense.”

  “Maybe we are thinking about this all wrong.” Dirik made his way to the side of the bed next to Citera. “We have been so focused on the fact that Citera was missing, we haven’t paid any attention to the fact that K still hasn’t turned up yet.”

  “He’s right.” Jaron’s brows knitted with concern. “There are no signs of cuts or wounds deep enough on Citera to leave the amount of blood behind we found in the forest. Which means someone, besides the three of you, was in that forest. And either they are injured or K is.”

  “My vote is on them,” Dirik mumbled.

  “Perhaps, but even so it doesn’t explain why she has disappeared again.” Jaron looked seriously at Citera. “How are you feeling, emotionally?”

  Taking a moment, Citera searched herself for any signs of the emotions she had been experiencing prior to Jaron’s block. Her body was racked with nervous tension and her hands still fidgeted at her sides. But other than the stress of having lost nearly a week of her life and having K disappear once again, she could feel nothing.

  Shaking her head, she looked disappointedly at Jaron. “I’m sorry, I can’t feel anything beyond my own anxiety and stress.”

  “You feel anxious?” Mikel asked. “Why?”

  “Yes, terribly.” She paused, searching for the best way to describe her current state. “I feel overwhelmed … as if I have completely lost control over my own fate.” Jaron’s stoic face stared back at her with clear concern. “Wait, surely you don’t think that is K. I thought she was never scared or nervous; at least she never seemed it. And what could possibly make her think she had lost control over her own fate?”

  “Good question.”

  His distress only worsened her own, until the fidgeting wasn’t enough. In a desperate attempt to calm herself, Citera reached up and grabbed a fistful of her hair with both hands. Mikel gasped and grabbed her wrist.

  “What the hell?” he shouted, pulling her arm down to get a better look.

  Citera stared in silence, while beside her Janil and Dirik gasped. Even Jaron was unable to hide the surprise in his expression. For there, encircling her wrist was a fresh, unhealed bite wound.

  “She fed on you?” Mikel exclaimed, anger contorting his features. He glared at Jaron. “You said this would never happen! That she would be safe!” Jerking her hand toward Jaron, Mikel continued yelling, “Does this look safe?”

  Jaron remained silent, staring at her wrist, unable to speak. “She couldn’t have,” was all he mumbled.

  “Well apparently she could,” Mikel bellowed.

  “Mikel, calm yourself,” Janil soothed him. The constant mediator, she stepped between the two of them. “There has to be an explanation for this.” She then turned her focus to Jaron. “Why did you say she couldn’t have? Does this affect the link in some way?”

  Mikel humphed and began pacing the room to calm down while Jaron remained fixated on the wound encircling Citera’s wrist. Finally, after several long moments of Mikel’s pacing and mumbling, Jaron faced Janil and answered. “I don’t know because it’s never happened before.”

  “Maybe she didn’t do it,” Dirik, ever the optimist, joined in, “maybe whoever took K did it.”

  “No, it’s hers,” he responded, holding his own scarred wrist next to hers. The marks were identical. Shaking his head, Jaron refocused on Citera. “This makes things way more complicated.”

  “More complicated?” Mikel stopped his pacing to shout, “Just how can it possibly become any more complicated?”

  Jaron didn’t even acknowledge him; instead he continued mumbling to himself, just loud enough for them all to hear, “The link may be stronger. If she truly fed, and depending on how much she took …” He paused and looked her in the eye. “We need to find K and soon, for both of your sakes.”

  Frightened by the expression on his face, Citera asked quietly, “Why, what happens if we don’t?”

  “If she is still in the forest nothing too serious.” Jaron frowned, returning his attention to the mark. “But if she isn’t, which I am beginning to suspect, then the two of you will begin feeling the effects of being separated. And if she actually fed, then theoretically the effects will be significantly worse.”

  Mikel stormed across the room, and to everyone’s surprise, pushed Jaron away from Citera. “Dad!” she shouted, reaching and grabbing his shirt.

  But he ignored her, continuing to unleash his fury on Jaron. “Then get out there and find her! And when you do, bring her here, and the both of you figure out how to undo all the damage you have done to my daughter!”

  Even though he could easily have handled Mikel, Jaron was sympathetic to Mikel’s love for his daughter and backed away with his head lowered. “Mikel, you know I have been looking everywhere to find her. But I have no idea where to even begin, especially now.” He sighed, running his hand through his dark brown hair.

  “What about Maya?”

  Everyone’s attention focused on Dirik. Even Mikel seemed to calm down at the boy’s suggestion. But Citera was beaming with excitement. “Dirik’s right! Maya touched K at the clinic. Why not call her here to help us track K? She is still with Jarod, right?”

  “Yes, as far as I know. And it might work, but it’s dangerous.” Jaron sighed. “We risk the Shadows finding out where we are if we bring them here.”

  “But I thought he came here before with Janil,” Dirik asked.

  “No, he only brought me as far as the town on the outskirts,” Janil answered for him. “Jaron met us there and brought me the rest of the way, then met back up with him later so they could travel to Vicaris together.”

  “He’s never been here,” Jaron responded solemnly. “We both agreed it was too dangerous. If the Shadows ever merged their minds with him looking for this place, he wouldn’t be able to hide it from
them. The same goes for Maya.”

  The room grew quiet. No longer did this matter just involve the consequences of the link between Citera and K. Now they had to take the rest of the community into consideration. These people had left everything they had behind to come here and escape the Shadows. And bringing Jarod and Maya into their midst could threaten it all.

  “I’ll have to discuss this with Tyran and the others. We built this place together. I can’t make a decision like this without at least getting their opinions.” Jaron paused, scanning the group. “Then again, I don’t know how much longer we will make it without K here to fulfill her destiny. It’s only a matter of time before they find us on their own.” Sighing heavily, he turned to leave the tent. “Give me until the morning and I will come back with their responses.”

  They all watched silently as he exited the tent. Citera sank down in the bed.

  “Rest, dear,” Janil comforted. “There is nothing more we can do now.”

  “I don’t think I will ever sleep again,” Citera groaned. Her leg hurt, her muscles were tense, and she wasn’t the least bit sleepy. “I just want things to go back to the way they are supposed to be.”

  “Never again,” Mikel mumbled, seated in a chair across the room. He raised his head and smiled slightly at her. Seeing even the slightest resemblance of her normal father lifted a ton of the tension from her shoulders. “That’s what you told me at the clinic. Never again will our lives be the same.” Slowly he stood and approached her. “Little did we know just how right you were.”

  Janil, realizing they needed time alone, gathered her things to leave. “I need to go home and tell Gabriel the good news,” she said, nudging a protesting Dirik toward the door. “We will see you in the morning.”

  Once they had both left, Mikel settled himself next to her by the bed. Her absence and subsequent condition had taken its toll. Dark circles shadowed his blood shot eyes, and more lines than she had ever noticed before decorated his face. His clothing even seemed to be hanging looser from his frame.

  “Dad, I know this all seems real bad at the moment,” Citera soothed, taking his hand, “but we have to remember K and Jaron are not our enemies. If it wasn’t for Jaron building this place and K bringing us here, Sara would be working side by side in that horrible factory with Mirna. And we both know it was only a matter of time before the patrols,” she shuddered slightly before continuing, “or possibly Jarod returned for one or both of us.” She smiled, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Instead, I am now a semi-immortal linked with the most powerful Full-blood in existence. Granted, it does seem to have its downsides, but once K is here and things are normal, I can’t wait to see what she can teach me to do.”

  Mikel ran a hand through her hair and kissed her on the forehead. “You are so much like your mother it still amazes me. No matter how dire a situation, the both of you could always find a silver lining.” Taking a hold of a chair, he dragged it next to the bed and took a seat. “But that doesn’t mean I trust them, and it’s apparent from their recent behavior that they don’t trust us either. When they aren’t flat out lying to us, Jaron is dancing around the truth while K speaks in riddles. And let us not forget K broke the promise she made to me back at the clinic when she bit you.”

  Citera slumped in the bed and stared at the scar on her wrist. She remembered like it was yesterday. K standing in front of her, her father, and Dirik in the halls of their small clinic, promising no harm would ever befall any of them. She ran a finger of her other hand delicately over the wound, feeling the soft raised edges. None of this made any sense. She wouldn’t deny her father the argument that K did speak in riddles and stretch the truth at times, but the one thing that she never did was break her word, at least not until now. Not even her father could deny that. So why had she broken this promise, what could have happened to them in the forest that would have made her feel she had no other option but to feed on her?

  “Dad,” she sighed, after being unable to come up with any sensible answers, “I know how this looks, but I can’t shake the feeling that we are jumping to the wrong conclusion. So do me one favor, please hold off on condemning K until we find out what happened in the forest, especially since I can’t remember.”

  Mikel laughed weakly. “Remind me again which one of us is the adult in this relationship.”

  Citera grinned and was about to make a sarcastic retort when out of nowhere her gut wrenched tight inside her. In only a matter of seconds a band of sweat had formed on her forehead and her hands trembled as panic and anxiety tried to consume her every fiber. Refusing to let the emotions get the best of her, she fought hard to suppress them. Her knuckles turned white as she tightly gripped the bed rails and closed her eyes, desperately searching her memories for peaceful, calming images that she could use to help combat the rising panic. The meadow by the stream was the first thing that entered her mind.

  She remembered the way it looked the day she and Dirik went swimming, before K showed up and everything blurred. Of the way the stream’s cool water felt while they splashed in its waves and the way it sparkled in the warm rays of the sun. She remembered the feel of the wind blowing through the tall grass around her, filling her senses with the aromas of fragrant flowers and damp grass. And the look on Dirik’s face as he lay in the grass beside her, red highlights glistening in his dark hair while the two of them went about talking and laughing as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

  Citera could feel the anxiety fade away with each new precious memory she relived. Once she finally had her stress down to a tolerable level, Citera reopened her eyes and was once again met with the tormented face of her father. Her heart went out to him; she knew how hard it was for him to watch her dealing with this and not be able to do anything to help her. He had always been the type of person that carried the weight of the world on his shoulders—as if he felt he could fix the problems of the world just as he did the sickness and injuries that came into his clinic—but when it came to her he was especially sensitive. He had struggled her whole life to keep her sheltered from the cruelty and unfairness of the world they lived in, but in the end he couldn’t. Life is what it is, and as she found herself being thrust head first into it, while her father was forced to stand by helplessly and watch.

  “I’m okay, Dad. I’m tougher than I look,” she said, winking at him.

  “I know.” He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Can you sense anything about where she is from all these emotions she sends you?”

  “No, all I sense is that she feels trapped and helpless to do anything about it,” Citera replied, glancing up at her father, “Wherever K is, she doesn’t want to be there.”

  Mikel heaved out a deep breath. “There isn’t anything we can do to help her until we know where she is. We will just have to wait until tomorrow and find out what Jaron and the others have decided the best method for locating her is.” Yawning, he ran a hand down his face and leaned back into the chair. “In the meantime we should both try to get some rest.”

  Citera was anything but tired—she had, after all, just woke up—but not wanting to stress her father any more she laid down in the bed and stared blankly at the roof of the tent. To her relief, Mikel followed her lead and rested his head on the bed beside her. It took only moments before he was fast asleep. She smiled as a faint snore escaped with each breath, finding that sound more comforting than any words he could have spoken.

  Pleased that he was finally getting the rest he so desperately needed, Citera decided to focus what energy she had left into trying to block the emotions still coming at her from K. She focused her attention on remembering how the block had felt when she had it, the way the warmth and light had enveloped her core. She then concentrated on recreating that light inside herself. To her delight it came easily. Perhaps Jaron helping her the first time had made her more adapt at making it again. Whatever the reason was, it came and she shoved all the negative emotions into it, using it to trap and bury th
em deep inside.

  The relief was instantaneous, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She had done it, she made a block and all on her own, despite how fragile everyone seemed to think she was. Citera smiled, proud of her accomplishment, as her thoughts once again drifted back to K.

  K, I hope this helps you wherever you are. And if by some miracle you can hear me somehow, know one thing—I won’t let them give up on you. No matter what it takes, we will find you and bring you home.

  Chapter 12

  Maya struggled to contain her giddiness as they continued along the path that would take them back to her hometown. She knew she should probably be more angry and intent on finding the chief who had locked her and Jarod inside a jail vault and left them to rot, but she couldn’t help it. Ever since his tracks had pointed her in the direction of Vicaris, only one thing had consumed her every thought—the hope she might get to see her mother again for the first time in over six months.

  She glanced up at Jarod. His face, since they left the small farm village behind, had become fixed in a permanent scowl. Now definitely wasn’t the time to discuss her mother with him. Instead, she refocused on the road ahead. In only a matter of hours they would be in Vicaris and somehow she had to find a way to bring up her desire to see her mother to Jarod in a way that wouldn’t seem like it was the only reason she had lead them here. Deep down she feared that was what he already believed.

  The topic of her mother had always been a touchy subject with him, mostly because she had been hounding him for months to allow her to contact her. In the beginning she had begged him to allow her a visit, so she could let her mother know she was still alive and well. But even she had known that was impossible. There were only two ways to leave the Tower, one was with the Shadow’s permission and the other was in the death cart. So instead she switched tactics and requested to write her mother a letter or perhaps send her a telegraph, but once again he refused. He said any attempts she made at trying to contact her mother would do nothing but place them both in danger and lead the Shadows straight to her.