by Seven Steps
“Well, when you’re up and moving again, we’ll be sure to make sure to see that you are well taken care of and comfortable.”
He kissed Leilu on the side of the head. Something passed between them. Something that made Leilu grip the fabric of her dress.
Then Phineas was gone, taking the heavy tension along with him.
“I guess I’ve worn out my welcome already.”
Leilu shook her head, her eyes glued to the door.
“He’s just afraid,” she said. “He doesn’t know how to take you. Doesn’t know if he should fear you or keep you close.”
Phineas feared them? That was akin to a boot fearing a cockroach.
“What did we do to him?”
“You lived. You now represent the one thing that Phineas is most afraid of. Death. It both calls and repels him, especially since his father died. He’s afraid that death will come for him, too, and he wonders if that death is embodied in you.”
“So your husband is both evil and superstitious.”
“Perhaps. I’d keep my distance, though. No telling what he’ll do.”
She walked to the door and placed her hand on the knob, leaving Taklin feeling exposed and vulnerable.
“Don’t you feel anything?” he asked. The words were out of Taklin’s mouth before he could fully vet them.
Leilu turned, but didn’t respond.
“Don’t you feel any remorse or guilt? You’ve seen what this machine does. Don’t you fear that God will have his vengeance?”
She swallowed, her hand going to her belly.
“He’s already having his vengeance,” she said softly. “He’s making sure that Phineas Zorg’s bloodline dies with him.”
Taklin’s eyebrows shot up. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?
“How many?” he asked.
“Three. Three boys all cursed from conception. We hear the heartbeat. Then, an hour later, they are dead. I like to think that God is merciful. I don’t want to imagine him being cruel.”
“Like you?”
“I am not my husband.”
“But you love to watch him work I’ll bet. Sitting up in that machine. Imagining that you are God himself controlling the furnace of creation.”
She whirled away from him as if he’d struck her. Her knuckles turned white as her hand gripped the doorknob.
Then, she stopped.
“Taklin,” she said, her voice regaining the energy it had lost before, “I suggest that you get well soon. For the safety of us all.”
Chapter 4
Time stretched on.
Taklin didn’t know how long he’d been on the ship. Days? A week, maybe?
The windows of his room only let in the darkness of the sky, and there were no clocks to tell him the time. He’d meant to ask Troy how long they’d been there, but each time he visited, it ended in a fight.
Troy wanted to follow Leilu’s advice and find a quiet place to settle down and begin again, while Taklin was looking for the best spot on Phineas’s chest to bury a knife in.
Troy argued that Taklin should let his rage go. That there was nothing to do about it now. Taklin reminded him that he hadn’t lost someone he loved. Sarah was everything to him. The beginning of his day and the ending of his night, while Troy jumped from woman to woman, searching for the piece of him that his mother and father had taken with them in their death.
Still, Troy insisted that they leave the ship. Leilu had promised him a good career at a thriving company where he could start again. She said that because he’d survived the reaping that he was unique, just like Phineas. That he could be a success.
Taklin didn’t buy it for a minute.
Leilu’s words formed a bigger and bigger wedge between him and his brother. And so, in his loneliness, he built up his strength. It began with him walking around his room. Then he walked the length of the ship. He practiced pushups, did chin ups on the pipes below decks, and shadow boxed in the engine room.
Troy tried to tell him that their welcome was quickly running out, but Taklin refused to be sucked into his brother’s fear. He had a mission. A single goal that drove him. A solitary anchor that weighed him to his purpose.
He was going to kill Phineas Zorg. Then, when Phineas’s body had gone cold, he would turn the blade on himself and finally have peace. The thought brought relief to his tired bones, and set fire to his overworked muscles. He was so focused on his training that he didn’t notice when his brother walked in the room.
“Tak.”
Taklin stopped his pushups and looked up at his brother.
Troy had changed.
His clothes were white, and looked expensive. His golden beard had been shaved, and his blond, dreaded locks cut short. His muddy boots were replaced by shinier shoes, and he held a bag in his hand.
Taklin frowned. What had his brother been up to?
Taklin stood up and wiped his forehead with the neck of his shirt.
“I’m leaving, Tak.”
Taklin’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Troy couldn’t have just said that he was leaving. That would be ridiculous. They’d been inseparable since Troy was born. He couldn’t leave him. Not when Taklin had planned to avenge Dry Creek.
“Where are you going?”
“To a place called Nova. It’s a small planet, but Leilu says that I’ll fit right in.”
His brother was leaving. The idea hit him like a log to the gut. Yes, he and Troy had had their differences, but for Troy to abandon him was a shock that he hadn’t anticipated.
It felt like the whole scene was happening to someone else. He couldn’t be saying goodbye to his brother. His best friend in the world. One of only three people left to carry on the legacy of Dry Creek. His heart felt as if someone had taken it out and stepped on it. He felt angry and hollow.
“Wha, wha, what will you do there?” he stuttered, struggling to keep his raging emotions under control.
“I’m going to be a jeweler. At least, at first. Leilu spoke about a science lab that would take me on.” Troy shrugged. “I never thought I’d be one for science.”
Taklin’s breathing turned shallow. He felt as if he were drowning. If Troy was gone, he’d be truly alone in the universe. He swallowed down the miserable lump that formed in his throat.
“Come with me,” Troy said. “There is plenty of room in the shop, and plenty of money for both of us to start over.”
“To forget, you mean?” Taklin asked, allowing the insinuation in his voice to ring clear. His sadness and anger dueled for control. Troy was taking the money and running, allowing Phineas and Leilu to continue with their reaping as they saw fit.
Didn’t Troy want to stand up? Didn’t he want to fight? Didn’t he want revenge?
“I will never forget Dry Creek,” Troy said. “But I can move on. I can start again. They may be the devil, but I have a wad of cash in my bag and a promise of a new start. If God wanted me to do something different, he would have told me so by now.”
“What makes you think he hasn’t?” Taklin’s anger won out.
Didn’t anyone have any loyalty? Any sense of home? Of purpose?
“What makes you think he has?” Troy sighed and put his bag down. “Look, Tak: I know what you are trying to do here. I can see the plans in your eyes. I’m only going to tell you this one time. Don’t.”
“So you’re okay with what they are doing?” He was shouting now. Troy was abandoning him. He never thought he’d see the day. “You don’t want to stop them? To keep others from going through what we went through?”
“Tak. Don’t.”
Taklin closed his eyes to keep from ramming his fist into his brother’s face. Troy may have been bigger, but Taklin had more rage. He was sure that he could take him down if he wanted to.
Hot betrayal tinted his rage.
His brother was running away from the only fight that had ever meant something. The fight for their home. How could he? How could he kneel when everything in Taklin call
ed for him to stand? To fight! To see his vengeance! To see that Sarah’s blood was remembered? That was not the brother he knew. The brother he grew up with. The man was broken. Lost. Drifting.
“Well, then,” Taklin said, putting his hands on his hips. “I guess this is goodbye.”
Troy looked shell shocked.
Did he think that I would go with him? I thought he knew me better than that. Maybe he didn’t understand what Dry Creek meant to me? What Sarah meant to me.
“Are you sure?” Troy asked, his eyes wide in disbelief.
Believe it, Brother. Whether I live or die here, I’m going to make a stand. Someway. Somehow.
Taklin took a step forward and wrapped his brother in his arms. He sniffed back the tears that burned his eyes. He’d lost his love, his home. And now he was losing his brother and best friend.
What else will you take away from me, Lord?
He patted Troy’s back twice and retreated.
“Take care, Troy.”
Troy didn’t respond. His mouth worked like a fish out of water as he picked up his hard cased bag and walked out of the engine room.
Taklin couldn’t help but frown. He wished his brother the best, but he had a job to do. The people of Dry Creek depended on him.
With his sense of purpose strengthening with each passing moment, he got down on his hands and knees and continued to drive his muscles to madness.
Phineas Zorg’s time was approaching.
Chapter 5
Taklin didn’t know how long he’d been exercising in the engine room when Leilu Zorg floated in, her white dress and light hair making her look like an angel.
An angel of death.
She walked up to him, stopping only a foot away. She didn’t seem to mind the sweat that poured off his body.
“Troy is gone,” she said.
He nodded, the thought of Troy’s leaving still stinging his heart.
“You should have gone with him,” she said.
He shook his head. “Couldn’t.”
“Why not?” she demanded. “Is it because you plan on killing my husband?”
She took a step closer, her blue eyes flashing. For a moment, she embodied Sarah, all blonde and blue and full of spark. He swallowed and stepped back, the thought of his dead fiancée overwhelming.
Leilu didn’t allow him the ground. “You should have left with him. Phineas is getting suspicious. He thinks that he should have killed you after you survived the reaping. I talked him out of it, and now he’s questioning it.”
“Why did you save us Leilu?” he asked. The question has been bothering him since he’d woken from his coma. “What could you have gained by letting us live?”
“I had to save you. Don’t you see? If I had killed you, that would have made me a murderer.”
“You’re already a murderer.”
“No. The machine is the murderer. But you and your brother survived it.” She took a deep breath. “I am not a killer.”
Taklin wanted to scream at her that she wasn’t making sense. That she was a deluded mess. She couldn’t possibly think that by mentally disassociating herself from the machine that she could take away her responsibility, did she?
And yet, when he searched her eyes, he saw that it was true. She had deluded herself so deeply that she believed that she was innocent. That, by saving him and his brother, she was doing an act of charity before God.
He shook his head.
Was that how she slept at night? Was that how she faced herself in the morning? With delusions?
“You’re just as insane as your husband,” Taklin said.
She reeled in anger as if he’d slapped her.
“My husband is not crazy! He’s a genius. He’s going to change the universe!”
Taklin had had enough. He was tired. His anger was draining him of his energy. Energy that he needed to fight Phineas.
“Leilu, please, just go.”
“I didn’t come down here to talk about Phineas. I came down here to talk about you.”
He was done with her games and her lies.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You are a man seeking a purpose. You think that that purpose is killing my husband, but I don’t think you are correct. I think that your purpose is to find others like you.”
“What do you mean others like me?”
“Phineas is special. He can move between the dimensions. That was how he found me. How he found Dry Creek. I think that you can do the same thing.”
Dimensions? What was she babbling about?
He continued his walk away from her. He was tired. So very tired. There was no more time to wait. He’d kill Phineas tonight and figure out everything else tomorrow.
“Taklin, wait. There are more of you. I’ve seen them. There are probably millions more throughout the universe. You can help them. You can help me save them.”
He laughed out loud. The woman was obviously confused. That, or she had lost her mind.
“Save them? From the machine?”
“Yes.”
“Leilu, your husband is running the machine. If he stops, you will save them.”
“I can’t speak for my husband. He has his purpose, and I support it. But I had a vision last night, Taklin. While I slept. In the vision, God spoke to me, and do you know what he said?”
Taklin shook his head. She was stark raving mad.
“He said if I save who I can, he would bless me with a child. A child who’d grow big and strong. A boy. I’ve already given him a name. I’m going to name him Taklin, after his uncle.”
It was like the world had suddenly stopped spinning. Leilu Karis had officially lost her mind.
“We’re not related,” he said.
“We are. We are the sole surviving people of Dry Creek. Do you know what that makes us?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “It makes us family. And family sticks together. I consider you family, Taklin. Will you stick by me? Will you help me find the others?”
“You are insane,” he whispered.
“That I may be, but believe me when I say to you, Taklin Iba, that you would rather save a life than take it. I can see it in your eyes. You are not a killer.”
Their gazes dueled, his brain swirling in confusion, anger, grief, and pain at her words.
She looked so confident. So assured. But he couldn’t listen to her. He had a job to do. A purpose.
“Leave me alone,” he growled.
She grinned up at him. A knowing grin.
He swallowed down the anger within him. He wished she was a man. Then he could knock that grin off her face. But Taklin would never hit a woman. No matter how much he wanted to.
He sat in the engine room for a long time. His mind moved from his memories of home, to Sarah, to Troy, to Leilu, and back again. It was like a never ending wheel.
Were there others like him? Could he save him? What would killing Phineas do? Maybe Leilu wasn’t as crazy as she sounded?
He paced, feeling like a caged animal. There had to be some relief. Some conclusion to the events that Leilu and Phineas had put in place.
Dear Lord, tell me the way to go.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glint of the knife that he’d stolen from the kitchen earlier. It winked at him in the low light. It called him. Beckoned him.
Kill Phineas, it said. End this.
His mind was made up.
Grabbing the knife, he shoved it in the waistband of his pants and ran up the stairs. The ship was still, the crew long gone to bed. He tiptoed through the corridors before finally arriving at a door.
The door to Leilu and Phineas’s room.
His hand gripped the knob.
He turned it.
The door groaned as it swung open.
Phineas and Leilu laid in bed, peaceful and serene.
As if they didn’t wipe an entire planet off the map, he thought.
The knife weighed down his pants. He pulled it from his waistband a
nd crept inside the room. His shoes were silent as he slid over the white carpet.
The drapes hung still in the darkness. A patchwork of stars winked and twinkled at him through the window.
Do it, they whispered to him. Kill Phineas.
He crept to the overly large four post bed covered in a soft white quilt.
Phineas snored softly, unaware of his impending doom.
Taklin raised the knife over his head.
“You’re not a killer,” Leilu’s soft voice whispered in the darkness.
“I am,” Taklin replied, the knife shaking in his grip.
What’s wrong with me? Why am I not moving?
“There are other ways to fight, Taklin. You can save them. You can save them all.”
Her words swept over him like a wave of cold water.
His hands released the knife. It dropped silently to the carpet.
Leilu’s eyes met his, the look of knowing clear in them.
He hated himself.
He hated her.
“How?” he asked.
Leilu’s lips rose in a smile.
“I will teach you.”
Also by Seven Steps
Science Fiction Romances
Saving Kiln – Venus Rising Book 1
The Fall of Arees – Venus Rising Book 2
The Martian King: Venus Rising Book 3
Night of the Broken Moon (A Venus Rising Companion Short Stories)
The Escape (A Venus Rising Prequel)
Time Bomb – Dimensions Book 1
Free Fall – Dimensions Book 2
Collision Course – Dimensions Book 3
Saving Nadir – Dimensions Book 4
Leilu – Dimensions Origins Book 1
Phineas – Dimensions Origins Book 2
Taklin – Dimensions Origins Book 3
Contemporary Romance
The Last Rock King
Peace in the Storm
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