Taoree: Taoree Trilogy #1

by Michele Notaro

  The sun was starting to come up and I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. So far, it didn’t seem like the Feral hunted at night, probably because they couldn’t see, so now they would be coming out. I guessed the Taoree didn’t care if the sun was up or not.

  Colt broke the silence. “So, you have any idea what that was back there, Heavy Ass?” He was out of breath.

  I snorted. “No clue.”

  “How did you know they were coming?”

  “I had a dream,” I answered honestly.

  He nodded, but didn’t say anything to that. After a long moment, he said, “It was like some outside force pulled the three of us to you, making us grab onto your arms.”

  I made a noncommittal sound in my throat. That is weird.

  A while later Cal asked, “Do you think we’re far enough?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered.

  “I think we should rest,” Colt admitted.

  “Okay,” I said quietly, feeling guilty that I still didn’t have enough energy to walk.

  He walked us close to a nearby tree and gently released my legs. I slid off his back and put my weight on my shaky legs. He turned around, threw my arm over his shoulders and lowered us to the ground. He moved us around until he was leaning against the tree with me leaning my back on his chest and in between his legs. Cal and Nolan sat against the same tree on either side of us so we were all facing different directions. I laid my head back on Colt’s shoulder and closed my eyes.

  “I’ll take first watch,” Cal offered.

  No one argued, so Nolan said, “I’ll go after you since those two need more sleep.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Colt said to them.

  I didn’t hear anything after that because I fell into a—thankfully—deep sleep.

  The alien was sitting against a tree with his knees tucked to his chest, his arms around them, and his head resting on top. Without thinking about it, I walked over and sat down next to him, copying his position. I felt weak and tired, even there in my dream.

  I felt the alien shift a little, though I didn’t have the energy to look at what he was doing, but soon I felt his arm drape across my shoulders. I leaned into him and a contented feeling filled me. We stayed that way for a long time.

  ***

  I heard the three of them talking before I had even opened my eyes.

  “I guess that’s a possibility,” Cal was saying, “but my money’s still on him stepping on one of their weapons or something.”

  “I guess, but how did he know they were coming?” That came from Nolan.

  “He said he had a dream or something,” Colt offered.

  “What in the hell does that mean?” Cal asked.

  “I dunno,” Colt replied. “I think we should just count ourselves lucky and move on. He doesn’t know any more than we do.”

  “It’d be nice if he could do that again if we get attacked, though,” Nolan said.

  “He coulda died, you asshole. Couldn’t you see how much pain he was in?” Cal whisper-yelled at him.

  “We all would’ve died if he hadn’t done that,” Nolan argued back.

  Cal started arguing again, “You’re—”

  “I didn’t die, and I would do it again to save your sorry asses if I could figure out how,” I said, startling them all.

  Colt started rubbing my chest comfortingly and kissed my hair.

  Nolan mumbled, “Sorry.”

  I waved him off and asked, “Does anyone have any food? I’m starving.”

  “Nope,” Cal answered casually, like it wasn’t horrible news.

  “The map?” I asked them.

  “Nope,” Colt answered.

  “Weapons?”

  “I grabbed my axe and have a knife in my boot,” Nolan said.

  “I still have my bat, but that’s it,” Cal supplied.

  “I have a knife and you have yours, right?” Colt asked me.

  I reached down to double-check my shoe. “Just the hunting knife. I’ve been keeping it in my boot.” That one had a sheath, but the other knife had been in my backpack. “Water?”

  “Just this.” Nolan held his water bottle out in front of me. I took it, shook it, and grimaced at how light it was, then took a small sip and handed it back.

  “Anyone know where we are?” I asked.

  “We’re somewhere near Chancellorsville. At least, we were before everything that happened last night,” Colt said. “I think we’ll need to try to find a main road to get our bearings, but we should be able to make it home sometime tomorrow if we aren’t too far off course.”

  “Okay, I think I can walk now,” I told them.

  “Oh, and we need to be careful because I know they have a pretty big Taoree camp in Chancellorsville. Like three times as big as the one at home,” Colt added.

  I grimaced at that, but started to get up with Colt helping me. He ended up grabbing my ass to push me all the way to my feet. I looked over my shoulder at him. “You couldn’t resist, could you?”

  He grinned at me. “I told you, Dimples, I’ve been watching that ass of yours for years and now that I finally get to touch it, I’m not going to stop.” He kissed my cheek and slid his hand into my back pocket so he could keep fondling me. I didn’t mind at all.

  “I don’t have dimples,” I pointed out as the four of us started walking.

  “Not here,” Colt poked me in the cheek, “but you do here,” he squeezed my ass with the hand in my pocket and used his other to slide under the back of my shirt, then into the top of my pants, making me jump at his cold fingers and laugh at him and myself.

  “Do I really?” I asked while he still had his fingers in my pants.

  He nodded and winked at me, so I stopped walking, turned to him and kissed him for a few seconds. Cal and Nolan pretended not to notice us. He kissed the tip of my nose before giving me a little push to start walking again.

  “Thanks for carrying me, by the way,” I said.

  “Anytime, Baby.”

  I smiled at that and chose not to point out the completely normal pet name he used that time.

  It took a while to find a road we recognized, but once we did, we knew we could make it home sometime tomorrow as long as we didn’t run into too many issues—not likely.

  The first time we came across some Ferals, I couldn’t believe how weak I still felt. And all I had was my hunting knife. Luckily there were only three Ferals that time. I tried to kick one over, but almost fell over myself. Colt ended up pushing me behind him as he punched the Feral in the face until it fell over. Then he lifted his knife and shoved it through its eye. It started twitching. Colt pulled his knife out and stood up, looking at Cal and Nolan.

  Nolan was hacking at his Feral—gross. And Cal was dodging swings by his Feral, who had what looked like a table lamp as a weapon. They went back and forth a few times until Cal swept the Feral’s feet out from under him with his bat. Then he hit him in the head with it.

  “Axe,” Cal called out to Nolan.

  Nolan handed it over, and Cal took care of that Feral and the last one that Colt had taken down. Then we moved on.

  About two minutes later, my stomach started growling.

  Colt chuckled, “You know you must be famished if your stomach is growling after that.”

  “We haven’t eaten yet today, so sue me,” I replied with a little push to his shoulder.

  He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and tucked me into his side. “If memory serves, there’s some homes coming up on the right. We’ll find you something to eat, Sugar Lips.”

  I grinned. “Where are you coming up with these?”

  “The names?” I nodded, so he answered, “I have tons of them. That’s what I’ve been thinking about on my watch to keep me awake.” He shrugged.

  I grabbed his chin and brought his lips down to mine. Fucking adorable. Then I stole his hat and placed it on my head, earning an amused look from him.

  We hit the mother lode in the fifth hous
e we searched, finding a backpack, some food, and even another bat, only this one was wooden. We searched a few more homes, finding some water bottles, but we also took a regular pot so we could boil water if need be. By the end of our rummaging, we had eaten and had two bags of supplies. It was a good day—minus all the Ferals we had to kill. Passing the axe back and forth was a major pain in the ass, but we didn’t have a choice until we found more weapons.

  Out on the street, after we ate—which seemed to help my energy some—we ran into a group of six Ferals, some of which had weapons. Cal and Nolan went up to them first while Colt and I stayed back since we had the crappier weapons. The plan was for Cal to take as many down as he could and Nolan to follow behind with the axe. Then Colt, who had the wooden bat, would take out any that got past them, and I would use my knife to keep them down until Nolan came back with the axe. We had used this strategy once already on a group of four, and it worked pretty well.

  Unfortunately, Cal only took one down before a different one got past him that Colt had to get. Regrettably, two more of the bastards came from behind the house we had been in and ran in my direction. One of them had a huge fucking knife and of course he came right for me, so I ducked and ran around a car to try and separate the two. Weaponless Feral got to me first, but I saw his swing coming and dodged by jumping back. He twisted a little so I kicked him in the knee, which made him stumble. I pushed him until I was behind him and ran into his back with my shoulder.

  Both of us fell, so I rolled off of him just as Knife Feral brought his arm down. Thank fuck the knife bypassed me and went into Weaponless’ shoulder, but Knife pulled it out effortlessly. I dodged and kept backing up, trying to put space between us because that fucking knife was so big I couldn’t get close enough to the Feral to do anything. As I backed away, I looked around and saw a loose board on the fence.

  I ran over to it and pulled until it came off, just in time to knock Knife’s stabbing arm out of the way. I hit him a few times as he tried to cut me. Weaponless got back into the fray, but I was more worried about Knife. As I hit Knife’s arm away from me again, Weaponless tackled me to the ground. I was able to keep ahold of the board, so I hit him in the head until he started twitching on top of me.

  With the body on top of me, I was pinned to the ground and didn’t see Knife coming, but I felt a sharp stab of pain in my neck. Before I really registered what was happening, Knife was knocked out of my line of sight with a bat and Colt’s head appeared above me.

  There was a ringing in my ears, but I could still hear what was going on. I felt Weaponless Feral get rolled off of me and then my boyfriend was over me again, holding onto my neck. I would’ve laughed, if I was capable, at the irony of that thought—I had never even called him my boyfriend, let alone told him how much I cared about him.

  The fear in Colt’s eyes told me how bad off I was. He had a few stray tears leak from his eyes and I wanted so badly to brush them away and make him smile, but my arms felt like lead and I couldn’t even move my fingers.

  He leaned close to me. “Jeremy, baby, you’re going to be all right. It’s gonna be okay. You need to hang in there. We found that sewing kit earlier, remember, and some first aid stuff. Cal’s searching the bags for them, but you need to hang on.”

  All I could do was blink at him. My body was starting to feel cold—I must have lost a lot of blood already. My blinks started becoming longer every time, and I felt my own tears leaking out of my eyes.

  “Jeremy, look at me,” Colt said, now with more of his tears falling onto my face. “Please. You can’t leave me. Not when we’re finally together. J, I…” He sobbed a little and I closed my eyes—he finally called me J and now I was going to die before I could call him out on it. He was whispering, but I could still hear him, “Please. God, I was such an idiot. You were right there the whole time, but I knew… and I was scared. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. But you can’t leave me.” I heard him sob, then so quietly he said, “Please open your eyes.” I wanted to so badly, but my eyelids were too heavy now and my body wouldn’t listen to me.

  “Move your hands, Colt,” I heard Cal’s voice.

  “Don’t bother cleaning it; there’s no time. Just sew it. We’ll just have to clean it real good after. He’s lost too much blood,” Nolan said to one of them.

  Their voices were fading out. I was losing consciousness.

  The last thing I heard was, “Please don’t leave me, Jeremy.”

  Then everything went black.

  Chapter Ten

  “Jeremy,” I heard the alien’s voice, but everything was still black.

  “Where are you?” I asked, but my voice was so quiet I didn’t think he heard me.

  “Do you feel that warmth?” he asked me.

  “Huh?” I still couldn’t see anything and I sure as hell couldn’t feel anything now that I was… dead.

  “You are not dead,” he said, somehow reading my mind. “But you are close. I need you to concentrate. Feel it in your core, in your soul, Jeremy.” His voice was filled with concern, almost as if he were crying.

  I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but I gave it a try anyway. I concentrated on my nonexistent body. I tried to think about what my stomach and chest felt like and suddenly I could feel them… sort of. Then my chest was overrun with a deep-seated warmth that felt like it was glowing inside of me. Like the warmth of a nearby fire, only inside of my body.

  “Yes,” the alien cheered. “That is it. Do not let your light go out. Please, Jeremy. You have to keep it inside of you. You have to let it heal you.”

  “You mean I’m really not dead yet?”

  I could hear his smile. “No, Jeremy. You are very much alive. I can feel you using your light.” He took a deep breath. “You are going to be okay. You are healing.” I felt him lay his forehead against mine, even though that didn’t make sense.

  I expected to be weirded out that he was touching me like that, but I wasn’t. I didn’t really care if he was that close or touching me; he wasn’t real anyway… just some weird figment of my imagination. I just kept concentrating on that warmth… my light, as he called it.

  I started blinking again and I caught a few glimpses of white. I felt the Taoree sit up, so I opened my eyes and saw his pale face looking at me with tears in his eyes, but with so much happiness. I wanted to reach up and touch his cheek, but my arms were too heavy to lift.

  His dark eyes softened and I felt his fingers rub my cheek. He whispered, “Jeremy…”

  I blinked my eyes again, but this time when I opened them, it was Colt above me, staring at me with tear tracks on his bloodied, dirt-covered face. His blue-green eyes were bright with tears and his curly blond hair was sticking up in a million different directions. He had never looked more beautiful.

  “Jeremy?” his voice was soft, but filled with sorrow and hope.

  “Colt,” I croaked out.

  “Oh god.” He fell forward, crying again and resting his forehead on mine. “I thought I lost you,” he whispered, his warm breath ghosting my lips.

  I slowly picked up one hand and dug my fingers into his hair. He moved his head to the right side of my neck—not the left where I was stabbed—and pressed his face into the crook of my neck. He had his arms around me, hugging me, and he was trying to be so gentle. We stayed like that for a while, but finally I pulled on his head a little so he would look at me.

  When his eyes met mine, I whispered, “I’m not finished with you yet.”

  He laughed and cried at the same time, wiped his cheeks, then gently kissed my lips. “Ditto, Babycakes.” He leaned up to look me in the eyes. “We’re just getting started. You’re not allowed to leave me yet.”

  I squeezed my grip in his hair in agreement and wanted to say so much more, wanted to make him promise not to leave me either, but I didn’t have the energy.

  Cal’s head appeared over top of us. “We need to move inside.” He had tear tracks on his cheeks, too. I held my fist up
and he bumped it lightly with a little smile.

  Nolan, who also had tear tracks, looked over us and asked softly, “Do you think we can move you now?”

  I held my fist up for him, too, and when he bumped it I said, “Yeah.”

  Colt and Nolan lifted me to a seated position and I felt like the ground was swirling. “Whoa.” I closed my eyes. “Everything is spinning,” I whispered, since my voice and body were still so weak. I was freezing and shivering uncontrollably.

  They gave me a minute before each getting under one of my arms to lift me to my feet. Holy shit. Now everything was swirling even worse. The guys took a step forward, forcing me to move and I felt like the whole world tilted, so I stumbled.

  “Whoa there,” Colt said, grabbing me and pulling me into his body. I closed my eyes and breathed in his familiar scent. It helped ground me.

  “I can’t walk,” I whispered to him, feeling stupid and weak.

  “I’m going to pick you up,” he whispered back. “We’re too exposed out here, so I’m going to carry you into a house that Cal cleared already.”

  “Okay.”

  With my eyes still closed, I felt him scoop up my legs and cradle me into his chest. I put my head on his shoulder, in the crook of his neck. With every step he took, I felt like the ground was shaking. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought we were having an earthquake.

  He laid me down on a couch with a pillow under my head, but I felt him start to pull away. I fisted his shirt and opened my eyes. “Don’t leave me.” I couldn’t be alone right then. I needed him next to me, assuring me that I was alive and so was he. I felt like shit and I was so, so cold, and every little movement took more energy than the last.