04 Last

by Lynnie Purcell

  I landed us back at the train station. There was no fire, no explosion. The bomb had done its dirty work. That fact did not improve the scene in front of us. People were in a panic. They screamed and searched for organization in the chaos. Clouds of dust circled the air; the night was darker with the dust. People with injuries sat in dazed confusion, while those not injured did their best to help where they could. Other people were beyond help – they remained motionless on the floor, their blank eyes questioning what had happened to them. Seeing the people in pain was beyond upsetting. I felt a swirl of anger – not just at the person who had set the bomb, but also at myself. I should have stopped this. Daniel noticed the anger and put a calming hand on my arm. He wasn’t prepared for what he found – the guilt. He took a moment to take in the guilt, wanting to understand where it came from. I didn’t hide it from him – I wanted him to understand how I had failed.

  This isn’t your fault, he tried to assure me.

  His words were the last thing I wanted to hear. I pulled away from his touch and focused on the damage around me – I wanted the images embedded in my brain forever. I wanted to remember.

  I finally turned my head away from the damage. I knew the truth. I could not help as much as Eli could. We would just get in the way. There was another task that needed to be done.

  “Eli can stay here and help, but I think we should search for Reaper,” I said. “He wouldn’t just fall off the grid without a reason. Something has to be wrong.”

  I wasn’t sure what had me wanting to leave the platform – the analytical part of my brain or the guilt-ridden part. Serenity was also looking around the platform with guilt in her eyes – I wasn’t sure where her guilt came from. I wasn’t eager to ask.

  “I’ll stay with Eli,” Serenity volunteered.

  “Me, too,” Alex said.

  I eyed Alex carefully. I was worried about her; worried there would be another attack and she would be in the middle of it. I couldn’t protect her. I had only barely managed to get her out of the way the first time. She saw my worry.

  “My choice,” she added.

  I accepted that choice. She had a right to it.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I promised.

  She smiled. “I thought those words were supposed to be some kind of curse,” she said. “At least, according to you.”

  “We’ll find Reaper then come back,” I corrected.

  “Alright,” she agreed.

  Alex moved away from us and went to a woman who was holding a towel to her injured head. She bent down and started to try to give the woman comfort. Eli was already doing the same with others on the platform, though his comfort was more of a healing kind. He was skilled, only healing the life-threatening injuries and leaving the superficial cuts alone.

  Knowing no one would pay attention to us with the chaos that had descended I held my hand out to Daniel, Margaret and Jackson. They were also incredibly affected by the scene in front of us. Their uncertain touch reflected their emotions. I saw a lot of anger in all of their eyes. I sighed and pushed my own emotion out of my mind long enough to focus on a visual of the interior of the boat. The pull to the ship was difficult when all I wanted to do was stay and help.

  For the second time in an hour, I felt a sense of déjà vu, which was followed quickly by ultimate terror.

  When we landed on the familiar hall of the boat – the one directly outside the galley – I was immediately struck by the difference from the last time I had seen the ship. For one, it was totally empty. There was not even dead bodies to suggest there had been a horrible struggle. It was simply abandoned. It was as much of a ghost town as the historian’s home was.

  Daniel, Margaret, Jackson and I shared a look of questioning fear, and without discussing it, we allowed our training to take over our bodies. We were cautious, prepared for a fight, as we separated and searched for signs of life. As I walked in to the galley, I was aware of another difference. It was silence. The engine of the boat was not working. More than that, there was no subtle rocking of waves against the hull of the ship. There was nothing beyond stillness. The boat was no longer on water. The image of seeing it in the desert came back in to my mind. I was not the only one who had the same thought. Daniel had moved to the exterior door to look outside.

  “Clare…I think you had better see this!” Daniel called.

  I moved to the exterior door. Daniel was in the middle of the door. His body was full of surprise and wonder. He turned at the sound of my footsteps and pointed. He didn’t have to say a word. I moved past him and saw the reason for his shock.

  We really were in the desert. It was everything my imagination painted of deserts, not the cracked, rocky kind I had grown used to in my travels. This was the Sahara, or something similar. It was the desert all other deserts dreamed of being. I looked at the rolling sand dunes that stretched out for miles feeling confused. Why was the ship in the desert? Why not in the ocean where it naturally belonged? Why was it abandoned? More importantly, where were the others?

  “What do you think?” I asked Daniel.

  “I think that we are in the desert,” Daniel replied.

  “Thanks, really,” I said.

  “Notice how ‘really’ makes everything sound either sarcastic or ambivalent?” Daniel asked playfully, though his eyes were consumed with the landscape in front of us.

  “Not really,” I said.

  Margaret and Jackson had finished their search. They had come up empty and had come looking for us. They stepped around Daniel to look outside.

  “We are in the desert,” Jackson said helpfully.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “Where is everyone?” Margaret asked.

  “I have a theory,” Daniel said.

  “What?” Jackson asked.

  “Marcus was prepared for us to be in New York,” Daniel said. “He used Clare to draw us out. It’s possible he also knew where the boat was. He could have waited for us to leave then attacked the boat. Sara and Shawn might have been forced in to drastic action.”

  “Define ‘drastic action,’” I said.

  “Moving a whole boat through the place in-between, as you call it, and landing it in the desert,” Daniel replied.

  “Thar,” Jackson said.

  “Bless you,” I said.

  “No, I think this is Thar. A desert in India. I met a girl here once who could…” He glanced at Margaret, who had an eyebrow raised. “Well, never mind.”

  “Sara and Shawn are from India, so that makes sense,” Daniel replied.

  “But where are they now?” I asked. “Maybe they weren’t as successful as you think.”

  “Maybe they were,” Daniel replied.

  His expression had changed. He moved to the edge of the boat, and his eyes narrowed as he looked at something in the distance. I followed his gaze and saw movement. It was difficult to make out more than that, but the shape of the movement felt familiar.

  “Do you think it’s them?” I asked.

  “Let’s go ask,” Daniel said.

  Without hesitation, he jumped over the rail and took the fifteen-foot fall as only Daniel could take it. Jackson and Margaret followed after him without hesitation. I followed after them, trusting my new body to protect me from the fall. The way down was amazing, it was a sense of freedom unlike any I had ever felt. It was the rush of wind in my ears and the slight fear that the ground was more solid than I was. As I fell, I got the strange sensation that I could defy gravity if I wanted to, rise back up against the forces pulling me down. I didn’t try, but I was certain all the same.

  I hit the ground with a roll and fluidly got back up to my feet. The others were already moving toward the horizon. Daniel led the group in a swift run I had no trouble matching. The sand moved and shifted as our feet created a pattern of determination in the folds of the dunes.

  We ran until we found the cause of the movement.

  Sitting on the crest of one of the dunes, looking as if she were waiting
on the train, was Moira. Her red hair was pulled back in to a braid and her feet were bare, like normal. She wore a black dress and had her legs crossed casually as she read from a romance novel. I realized the glint of light had come from her chair. She looked up when we were ten feet from her.

  “There you are,” she said, as if she had been expecting us for some time.

  “Were you expecting us?” Daniel asked.

  “Reaper said you would be along…” Moira said. “Though I didn’t think it would take you a whole day.”

  “What happened with the boat?” Daniel asked.

  “Got attacked by Seekers in the middle of the ocean, of all places. They had a walker and a weatherman with them. We almost didn’t make it.”

  “Wait, how we’re you attacked?” Daniel asked.

  “By a Watcher,” Moira said.

  “No, I mean, how did Marcus find the ship?” Daniel said.

  Moira shrugged. “Marcus has the answer to that, not me. I just know that a storm came out of nowhere and suddenly we were surrounded by Seekers. It was a hell of a fight…before Sara and Shawn saved us.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” Daniel said. “Where are Reaper and the others now?”

  “A secret place,” Moira said.

  Daniel frowned at Moira. She was being too coy to for it to be normal. I saw him trying to figure out why. A thousand reasons to doubt the Moira I saw in front of me flashed in front of my head. A Seeker by the name of Grace was one; she had been able to mimic the appearance of others and had tried to take over my identity after Lorian had been killed. New York blowing up was another reason. Everything was sideways. Our world had been shattered. Could we trust in the same way? I knew that Moira was loyal to Reaper. But what if she was being controlled or the Watcher in front of me wasn’t Moira at all? We couldn’t take the risk. She couldn’t take the same risk, apparently. Daniel had come to the same conclusion, though he was careful to keep his expression neutral.

  “Does he have his phone?” Daniel asked politely.

  “No,” Moira admitted. “He ordered us to drop all of our phones. They are easily traced. He could be how Marcus found us.”

  “Explains why we couldn’t get in contact with him,” Jackson said.

  “But not why we can’t see him now,” Daniel said, eyeing Moira carefully for her reaction.

  “How do I know you are who you say you are?” Moira asked. “It is a question that is more important now than ever. You could be a skillfully crafted illusion. One that could help the Seekers track us back to our location…you could be a group of Watchers specifically picked for your ability to look like others – Clare looks changed enough to be a Watcher now, which is not how I remember her…if I fail at protecting my people, I fail at more than just a duty.”

  Daniel nodded – he understood her sense of duty and the reasons behind her cautiousness. It was the same reasons that kept him from getting too near her or releasing the tension in his body.

  “So, if we’re both too paranoid to touch the other, in fear that it’s a trap, how do we solve this? How do I even know if you are the real Moira?” Daniel asked.

  “Our abilities have been proven,” Moira said.

  “I understand,” Daniel replied.

  Moira looked down at her hand. Her red eyes were intense – prepared for the pain she was about to face. After only the briefest of seconds, her hand started to bleed. Silver blood ran out from her skin, as if it had decided on its own that it no longer wished to be in her body. Moira looked up from her hand and eyed us with her calm eyes.

  “Proof enough?” she asked.

  Daniel had not flinched when she had made her hand bleed. His eyes were narrowed and far away. He was contemplating the future. I wondered if I could do the same. Seeing the train station explode was the first time I had ever seen the future in my waking moments. But why not now? Why not try to see what she was going to do? I focused for the briefest of moments, feeling my mind expand in a way that transcended time, and a scene rose in front of my eyes. It was Moira using her talent on Jackson. He collapsed to the ground, his face covered in blood; his eyes searched my face for help.

  Moira was about to speak when I was pulled back to the present. Her words were the beginning of the scene I had witnessed.

  I didn’t give her the chance to begin. I knocked her out of her chair with a swift kick and moved to her. She rolled away from me and gained her feet with a graceful movement. Her eyes moved to my face – I was the new focus of her talent. But I was not as helpless as Jackson was to submit to her talent. She started to use her talent, but I held up a hand. The talent backfired, and her face was the one that erupted in blood. Instinctively, I moved through the darkness between places and came out behind her. I kicked out her knees. She hit the ground, sending showers of sand out around her. Before she could get up, I put a foot on her back, so she couldn’t use her talent on anyone else, and pulled out my knife, which Daniel had returned to my boot. Daniel caught my hand before I could follow through on my violence. In my mind, she was attacking my friends – that meant I had to be proactive. I had to stop her. Daniel had realized that; perhaps he had even seen what I was about to do next. His expression told me to calm down. His touch told me that he was willing to move toward violence to stop me from doing something I would regret. I took a deep breath and willed myself to calm down.

  I stepped away from Moira, and she was able to get up again. She looked at me, her eyes impressed with what she saw. Whatever she had been expecting from her attempted attack had not been what she had encountered.

  “Well, that settles that,” she said. “I’ll take you to Reaper now.”

  “Just like that?” Jackson asked.

  “No one but Clare could have reacted like that,” Moira said.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  Moira’s lips lifted up in to mysterious smile, but she did not reply.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  I looked at Daniel and the others for their opinion. They had no doubt – Moira would take us to Reaper. Daniel nodded at her, and Moira held her hand out to me, to share the location of Reaper’s ‘secret place.’ The place in mind, I took the others’ hands, and we moved out of the desert to the place in-between.

  The scenery of our landing was unique. It was, in a word, jungle. Bright greens and lush foliage decorated the earth in a splendid display of nature. The world of blue skies and brown earth ceased to exist – there was only green. It covered everything. A thick canopy of trees blocked the sun, though it did not stop the heat that circled us. I could feel the heat working against my body. It was the first time since the change I had felt affected by the weather. A small trickle of sweat started at the base of my back.

  A large snake taller than me was curled along the branches of one of the trees above us. It was a bright yellow and looked very poisonous. I did not have long to focus on its deadly nature. As soon as we appeared, I felt an overwhelming sense of being watched. It came from more than one place. I searched the thick foliage for signs of the watcher. The historian’s training helped me realize that there were ten watchers – I felt tied to all of them.

  There was a brief pause then River stepped out from behind a row of vines as thick as my body. She had looked better. Her hair was a mess and was missing its usual bright display; her face was covered in dirt and sweat. Her clothes were ripped in places and she was down to a tank top and jeans. Her jacket was gone. She took us in with a neutral expression on her face. The friendship I had developed with her, the friendship she had with Moira was tempered by her desire to make sure we were not impersonators. She was just as cautious as Moira had been.

  “Two years ago you saved my life,” River said to Moira. “How?”

  Moira’s answer was confident. “With a spoon.”

  I looked between Moira and River curiously, wondering if they were being serious. It was hard to tell.

  “Alright,” River said with a nod.

  I felt the fee
ling in the air shift around us as a great sigh of relief went through the Watchers. They had gone through enough in the past day, perhaps even more than I had. They were happy we weren’t Seekers. It was the first good news they had heard since the attack.

  River gestured us to follow her through the vines. The vines shifted and moved to create a path as we walked. The talent was impressive. I felt myself instinctively trying to understand the process. My mind latched on to the talent and filed it away for later.

  Finally, the vines stopped shifting.

  The part of the jungle we had come out to was just as crowded with vegetation as the rest, but when I looked up, expecting more jungle snakes, I saw a city of rooms made out of the vines. Large trees were circled with stairways that went up and circled around the rooms. The rooms were as far as the eye could see in all directions. There was a canopy of tree houses that went beyond the clearing. People peeked out of their rooms as we stepped in to view. Some of the faces were familiar – older members of the Saints – while other faces were brand new. There was relief in many of the faces. I saw their expressions turn from solemn to hopeful in an instant. It was a strange thing to witness when it was directly related to my appearance. I ignored the people watching us – though seeing them only reinforced the impression the scene left in my mind. The Watchers were the closest things to elves I had ever seen, and the jungle, with vine-made rooms made it difficult to ignore the impression.

  “Did we just step in to Middle Earth?” I asked.

  The others looked at me blankly, except for Daniel. His eyes also swept the canopy of formed vines, as impressed by them as I was. His expression suggested my question wasn’t far from the truth – or so it appeared.

  “Where’s Reaper?” Daniel asked.

  “Over here.” River gestured at the large tree in the center of the small clearing. “He’s been trying to coordinate us all, but it’s been difficult. Sara and Shawn have been asleep since they passed out after bringing us all here. Our communications have been down…he’s doing what he can to keep us going…We all are.”