by R. D. Brady
“Three minutes.”
Damn it. Laney grabbed the priestess’s arm and dragged her across the room. The woman wasn’t dead, and Laney couldn’t leave her here to be blown up. Well, she could—but she kind of liked being considered one of the good guys, and good guys didn’t leave people to get blown up.
Besides, if Laney left her behind, there was also the possibility she would wake up and escape the blast on her own. And then Laney would have to track her down all over again.
Another set of arms reached down to grab the priestess, and Laney looked up into Mustafa’s face.
“Let me help,” he said.
“I thought I ordered you out.”
Mustafa smiled. “You did? I must not have heard that.”
Together, they hoisted the priestess to her feet between them, each taking one of her arms across their shoulders. Then they raced as fast as they could down the hall.
“What’s the closest exit?” Laney asked.
“The southeast exit. Just stick with me.”
Laney keyed her mike. “Jake, we’re coming out the southeast exit.”
Jake’s voice was urgent. “Laney, there’s a bomb not too far from there. You need to move.”
“Shit.”
They tore down the hallway. More than once Laney thought of ditching the priestess, but she didn’t. They turned right and then another right. Laney saw daylight ahead.
The sight urged her on. And just as she and Mustafa burst through the exit, the priestess between them, a Jeep pulled to a stop in front of them.
Behind the wheel, Jake yelled, “Get in!”
Laney and Mustafa tosses the priestess roughly in the back and then leapt in after her. Laney barely caught hold of the roll bar before Jake took off.
They were no more than fifty feet away when she heard the first rumble. Then six explosions sent dirt into the air. A cloud of dirt descended on the Jeep, and Jake screeched to a stop while Laney and Mustafa covered their heads.
Chunks of dirt and rocks pelted them. Laney held her breath, squeezing her eyes tight. Finally, the cloud of dirt passed, and Laney raised her head.
Next to her, the priestess stirred. Laney reached over, placed one hand on either side of her head, and snapped her neck again. “Oh, no you don’t.”
CHAPTER 89
Jake drove them to where most of the Honu Keiki members had been gathered. Mustafa jumped from the Jeep. “I will get a sedative for her.”
Jake looked back at Laney. “You good?”
“I am.” She coughed and wiped away the mud that was dripping from her wet hair into her face. “Well, sort of.”
Jake smiled. “You really need to stop these last-minute rescues.”
“It’s part of my charm,” she said, wiping more mud from her arms.
He laughed. “That it is. I’ll go see what needs to be done.”
He walked away, and Mustafa jogged back over with an SIA agent in tow, a black briefcase in hand. Laney hopped from the Jeep and let them take custody of the priestess. They’d sedate her with amobarbital and transport her to the West Virginia facility. Laney knew the woman would be locked up for the rest of her life, but she felt no sympathy—not after what the priestess had been planning.
Laney keyed her radio. “Did everyone get out?”
“It looks like we got everybody,” Matt replied.
“Any injuries?”
“Some, but none are life-threatening. Good job.”
“Your guys, too. Tell them for me, would you?”
“Will do.”
Laney pocketed the radio and stared at the crowd of people. They all looked lost. Spotting a familiar face, she walked up to Oasu.
She tapped him on the arm. “Hey.”
He looked down at her, and his eyes went wide. “What happened?”
Laney reached up a hand to the back of her neck and came back with mud. She flicked it to the ground, then wiped her hand on her pants, trying not to picture how much mud was probably coating the back of her. “It was a little tricky getting out. Everyone all right?”
“I think so. I don’t know.”
A rumble tore through the ground, feeling like an earthquake. Oasu reached out to steady Laney as part of the underground facility collapsed, sending up another plume of dirt. Laney put her hand to her mouth, imagining what would have happened had they not gotten everyone out in time. Oh my God.
“I don’t know what we do from here,” Oasu said softly.
Laney spied a line of ambulances and emergency vehicles already making their way toward them. She squeezed Oasu’s arm. “We’ll get you all back to Malama. But right now, we need to take care of your people’s medical needs. Some may be hurt, some in shock. Can you gather your people together and pull out the ones who are going to need medical attention?”
Oasu nodded, but his gaze drifted to the columns of smoke rising into the sky.
“Oasu,” Laney said gently, not entirely sure he wasn’t going into shock. But when he looked back at her, his eyes were clear.
“The priestess?” he asked.
Laney met his gaze without flinching. “She’s contained.”
He nodded. “Then I’ll get to work.”
He moved off into the crowd, stopping to talk with people here and there. And Laney’s heart broke for him—for all of them. This situation would be tough for anyone to understand, but for a group that had been cut off from the world, it was going to be that much more difficult.
Laney’s radio came to life. It was Matt, and his voice was urgent. “Laney.”
She hit the call button with a sigh. It would be nice if sometime she could hear her name come over the radio in a way that didn’t suggest serious trouble. “What’s up?”
“It’s Samyaza. She’s gone.”
CHAPTER 90
As Laney drove to the spot where she had left Samyaza, she saw Matt standing over two bodies. Her heart dropped. She pulled to a stop and stumbled from the car. “Matt?”
He turned, his face drawn. Laney’s gaze immediately dropped to the two agents. A red stain had spread across both their shirts. The woman’s chest was slightly caved in, reminding Laney of the Companion Killers’ victims.
“Samyaza?” Laney asked.
“Gone.”
“How? We had all her people.”
Matt knelt down by the male agent and picked something up. He held it out for Laney to see.
It was an earplug. The truth of what happened slammed into Laney, and she took an involuntary step back. Her gaze flew to Matt’s face. “She was never under my control. She was faking it.”
Matt’s eyes stayed on the two downed agents. “Yes.”
Laney’s words came out as a whisper. “Why would she pretend to be under my control?”
Matt didn’t say anything.
She must have been reading our lips. Laney stared at the two dead agents. This is my fault. These two people are dead because of me. I’m so sorry. She closed her eyes and pictured the smug look on Elisabeta’s face. Why did I think I could beat her? Why did I think it could be that easy?
She brimmed with the humiliation of it, but also with the anger. Damn it. I need to be better than this.
Her gaze shifted back to the people of Honu Keiki. All these people… Samyaza would have killed them all to get to the priestess.
Laney looked back at the two agents, and then back to the members of Honu Keiki.
“What is it?” Matt asked.
“Why did she tell us about the bombs?”
“To get you to leave, so she could escape.”
Laney shook her head. “No. She let us capture her—that much I’m sure of. She wanted us to know there was a bomb. She wanted us to go in.”
“But why? Why would she care if all these people died?”
“She wouldn’t. She must have had some other reason.”
“But what?”
Laney felt completely lost. “I have no idea.”
CHAPTER 91
> They spent another three days in Australia helping the people of Honu Keiki get transferred back to Malama Island. In that time, they had found no trace of Elisabeta. They knew her plane had taken off from Perth Airport, and so they’d had SIA agents waiting when it landed in Italy—but she wasn’t on board. No one had seen her since Laney had left her with the two SIA agents.
Laney was not so lucky—everybody seemed to be able to find her.
Representatives from the Israeli government arrived in Perth to get a fuller accounting of the incident in Jerusalem. British officials arrived to get a fuller accounting of the incident in Australia, as did Australian officials. And an American official showed up to hear about both.
Laney spoke with each group individually, and then all of them collectively. She took them through everything, omitting only the information about her abilities and the Fallen’s.
But they weren’t letting her get away with those omissions. They wanted to know how she had flown over Jerusalem. And Laney was at a loss as to what to stay. “I’m the ring bearer destined to fight the Fallen” sounded a little melodramatic and unbelievable, even if it was true. So she simply said she didn’t know.
It was a weak answer. But honestly, she was so wrecked by everything that she couldn’t come up with anything better. And she wasn’t yet up for telling them that the world they lived in was a lot more complicated than they realized.
Surprisingly, they hadn’t pushed it too much—but Laney knew that she was only being given a short reprieve. Soon, the world was going to demand answers.
For now, the officials were mostly interested in the specific events of the priestess’s making. They had been astounded at the potential scope of the damage. A single individual from a small island had almost set off World War III. And by Laney’s tenth time telling the same story, she’d lost all emotion in the re-telling, which probably wasn’t helping the believability of it. But she didn’t care. She was exhausted, emotionally, physically, and generally.
And every time she let her mind wander, she saw the little girl that the priestess had held, and she imagined what would have happened if she had made a wrong move. Or she imagined all that could have gone wrong in Israel. Then she’d wonder where Samyaza was and what she had been up to—and why she had gotten involved.
All she really wanted was to go home.
Finally, the governments were satisfied—for the moment—and Laney was allowed to board a plane back to the States. Jake had headed back a day earlier, so it was just Laney and Oasu for the long ride home. Oasu had decided to go to the States to see Kai, Aaliyah, and Noriko before heading back to Malama Island.
Laney slept for the entire trip. The wheels lowering woke her.
She sat up and stretched, rubbing her eyes. Then she looked over at her phone. She’d missed a ton of calls. Some were from Henry, Patrick, Jake, and a few others she recognized, but there were also at least a dozen calls from numbers she didn’t recognize.
She shoved the phone back in her bag. She’d land in a few minutes, and she’d speak with them then.
Oasu smiled at her from across the aisle. “I was afraid I was going to have to wake you.”
She grimaced. “Sorry. I wasn’t very good company on this flight.”
“That’s all right. You needed to sleep. I slept a little as well, and watched TV for most of it.”
Laney raised an eyebrow. “You watched TV?” Access to TV would have been a first for him. “What did you watch?”
“A lot. Have you heard of the Real Housewives of New Jersey?”
Laney tried not to smile. “What did you think?”
“Are all women like that?”
Laney laughed. “No—just reality TV women."
Oasu gave her a small smile but a furrow appeared in his brow. And she realized what a big step this was. Besides Australia, he'd never really been off Malama. And he certainly hadn't had the freedom he was going to have now. "So, are you ready?” she asked quietly.
The smile on Oasu’s face dimmed. “I don’t know.”
Laney knew this was a big step. “Well, where Kai, Aaliyah, and Noriko are is very quiet. In fact, the Chandler Estate is usually very quiet. It’s not a city, or very near one. It’ll help you ease your way in. In fact, the airport we’re going to is one of the smaller ones. There’s usually no one there when we arrive, besides whoever’s picking me up.”
Oasu smiled. “Quiet sounds perfect.”
When the plane landed, they gathered their things and headed to the door. The flight attendant pushed open the door and lowered the stairs.
“You’ll see,” Laney said. “It’s nice and—”
She went still as the sound of a thousand voices reached her ears. She peered out the doorway, and her eyes grew wide.
Barricades had been erected around the terminal, and behind them were dozens of reporters and hundreds of other people. Police patrolled the barricades, making sure everyone stayed back. Some people held up handmade signs reading, “God Bless You Laney,” “Welcome Home to our New American Hero,” and a half dozen similar sentiments.
And when they saw Laney, the crowd let out a roar.
Laney stared, her jaw hanging open.
Oasu leaned down and spoke in her ear, “Does quiet mean the same thing here as on Malama?”
CHAPTER 92
Jordan and Jake pushed through the crowd toward the plane. Laney watched them with a sense of disbelief. She knew that her stunt in Jerusalem would have an impact, but she hadn’t thought it would start as soon as she arrived home. And she hadn’t looked at any press while in Australia—there had been too many other things to focus on.
“Come on, Lanes,” Jake said, grabbing her arm as he reached her side.
“Hey, Laney,” Jordan said with a grin as he took her other arm.
Oasu fell in step behind them.
The crowds surged against the barricades as Laney passed. Two police officers held the door to the terminal open, and Laney hurried inside.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked as the doors shut behind them.
Jordan raised an eyebrow. “I guess you haven’t watched the news since Jerusalem?”
“I slept on the flight. And I was too busy meeting with every official under the sun when I was in Australia. What is this?” She gestured back to the doors.
“Believe it or not,” Jordan said, “when you fly over one of the best known cities in the world with a bomb strapped to your back, people notice.”
Laney groaned. “Oh, God.”
“Well, they are making you out to be a hero—again,” Jake said.
“This is nuts.”
She turned to Oasu, who was looking back out the doors with a frown on his face. “Jordan, this is Oasu, Kai’s son. Can you get him to Aaliyah and Kai? No need for him to go through any more of this ridiculousness.”
Jordan held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Oasu. Noriko’s told me a lot about you. I have a car ready to take us.”
Oasu looked down at Laney. “Will you be all right?”
“Yeah. They’re an annoyance, not a danger. Go on. Get out of here while you can.”
With a salute to Laney, Jordan led Oasu away.
Laney then turned to Jake. “So, how are we getting out of here?”
Jake just grinned.
“Jake?”
Just then a man and woman approached them. The woman was Laney’s height, and her hair was styled the same way as well. And the man looked an awful lot like Jake.
Jake turned to Laney. “Give her your jacket.”
Laney did.
The woman smiled. “Thanks. I’ll get it back to you.”
The man took the woman’s arm, and the two headed for the front door. They paused for just a moment before heading outside. Shouts and yells reached Laney as the couple, their heads down, ran to a waiting SUV. As they hopped in the back, the journalists sprinted after them. Some even continued to run after the SUV as it drove away, while others ran
to their cars, no doubt intending to pursue.
“Did that really just happen?” Laney asked.
Jake put an arm around her shoulder. “Welcome to the life of a celebrity.”
Laney groaned. “Oh, I so don’t want to be a celebrity. And I’m really hoping that wasn’t our only way home.”
“No.” Jake took her hand and led her toward the lounge. “I thought maybe we could have a little bite to eat before we left. That’ll give everyone a chance to leave before we make our escape.”
Laney really wanted to go straight home, but Jake was right. No point setting off another frenzy. “Okay. Let me call Henry and let him know—”
Jake opened the door to the lounge, and Laney went quiet. The lounge was empty except for one table, where Henry, Patrick, and Jen all waited. An iPad set up on the table showed Dom, who waved at her. And Cleo was there as well. She padded up to Laney and rubbed her head against Laney’s chest.
Wrapping an arm over Cleo’s neck, Laney laughed, then kissed Jake on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“Any time,” he said.
Laney hugged each one of her friends in turn, but her thoughts were never far from the media horde outside.
What have I done?
CHAPTER 93
The media assault on Laney was all-encompassing. Her face was plastered everywhere, all across the country and in all forms of media. Newscasts recounted the events of both Israel and Australia, accompanied by footage from not only Jerusalem but the bridge incident as well. Physicists and geneticists discussed the possibility of human flight.
Laney’s grade school teachers were given their fifteen minutes of fame. Talk shows and academics discussed what factors led to strong women role models. Entertainment shows discussed the possibility of her life being made into a movie. Book deals were floated. And Laney received dozens of offers for interviews and a few offers from Hollywood, including one to be the next Bachelorette.
