by A. P. Jensen
Doc pointed a shaking finger at her. “You. You!”
“Yes, me. What? Spit it out, Doc,” Raven taunted.
“You’re an abomination!”
“Why? Because I’m like you?”
“You will never be like us!”
She smiled. “Yeah, that’s right. I don’t fancy being a dick.”
Doc swelled in outrage. Despite the fact that he was probably pushing one hundred years old, he wasn’t anorexic and hunched over. He was strong as a horse and when his face turned scarlet, she was glad she was armed. The door opened to admit Luester and Sunshine.
You’d make enemies with a priest, Luester swore telepathically.
I can’t help it when men think women are only good for one thing and he’s not talking about cleaning, Raven retorted.
Luester gave Doc a pat on the back that snapped the healer out of the haze of red. “Bones is stable?”
Doc gave Raven a fuming glare before he turned his back on her. “He is, no thanks to this hussy.”
Raven opened her mouth, but Luester shot her a warning look and led Doc out of the room. Raven slumped in a chair as Sunshine ambled over in Superman pajamas, humming the soundtrack for The Two Towers. Unlike her, Sunshine looked as energized as ever. Without a word, he handed over his sketchpad. Raven flipped through the pages and saw the sketch of Belle’s house and then a snapshot of herself navigating the boat through the swamp. The next illustration showed Bones shielding her against the car and the next photo was of Belle in a prison cell. Sunshine’s internal humming continued as Raven flipped to the next page and half rose from her seat.
The drawing took place in Bones’s room. Cain stood on the other side of the bed with his hand extended to her. Raven pulled out her cell, but didn’t see any missed calls or texts. She began to punch in numbers to call him, but Sunshine snatched the phone away. She stared at him in surprise. Sunshine urgently tapped the paper and shook his head.
“Is Cain on his way?” Raven asked urgently.
Sunshine shook his head. “Bad.”
“He’s actually a good guy,” Raven said and looked closer at the image of Cain. “You got his eye color wrong. Cain has blue eyes, not black.”
Sunshine tapped the page again and repeated emphatically, “Bad!”
Sunshine looked so agitated that she put her arm around him. “Cain’s on our side. He wants to break the curse and...”
The bedroom door opened and Raven stopped breathing as Cain stepped into the room. He locked the door behind him and mimicked the drawing when he held his hand out to her. Raven was so relieved to see him that she didn’t take his hand. She launched herself at him. Cain staggered backward with a grunt of surprise. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. She sank into the heat of him and let his presence wash away her anxiety. Cain’s hand gripped her hair and tilted her head to the side to deepen the kiss.
“Damn, you made it fast,” Raven whispered when she pulled away for air.
“I came as fast as I could,” Cain said and pulled away with several strands of her hair clasped in his hand.
“How’d you get into the mansion undetected?”
“I have my ways.”
Sunshine tugged on her shirt. Raven unwrapped her legs from Cain’s waist and dropped to the ground. She turned to Sunshine and blinked when she saw that Sunshine was glaring at Cain. He wasn’t humming anymore and he had the sketchpad clasped against his chest. Raven reached out for Sunshine, but he backed up and pointed from Cain to the sketch repeatedly, eyes wary as he tried to explain something she couldn’t understand.
“Bad!” Sunshine insisted.
“What’s going on?” Cain asked.
“I’m not sure,” Raven said uncertainly, staring at the illustration. “Sunshine can draw the future.”
A pause from Cain and then, “What else has he drawn?”
“I don’t know. I saw the picture of you and stopped.” Raven held her hand out to Sunshine. “Let’s see what else you drew.”
Sunshine wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixed on Cain. Without a word Sunshine flipped to the next page and Raven’s body went cold with fear. The last sketch was a picture of the Unmemorable mansion covered in flames. Raven stared at Sunshine, unable to believe this could come true. If it was...
“We need to get out of here,” Cain said.
“We need to warn everyone,” Raven said. How much time did they have?
“I’ll get you both to safety and then I’ll raise the alarm,” Cain insisted.
Raven stared at Bones who lay unconscious in the bed.
“You don’t want Sunshine to be here if something happens, right?” Cain asked.
“No.”
Cain nodded and held a hand out to Sunshine. When he didn’t take it, Cain grabbed Sunshine and set him against the wall so hard that Sunshine grunted. Raven snapped out of her stupor.
“Don’t manhandle him, Cain.”
“Sorry, we don’t have much time,” Cain said in a low voice.
Sunshine struggled as Cain took several strands of his hair. Raven tried to calm him down.
“Sunshine, Cain’s a good guy,” Raven said.
“Bad!” Sunshine protested.
Cain eased the bedroom door open and stuck his head out before he wrapped a hand around Sunshine’s wrist and yanked him out of Bones’s room. Raven walked into the hallway, searching ahead for Unmemorables who would kill Cain on sight. She paused when she saw Sunshine’s tormented eyes. He was walking alongside Cain, but he was half-turned so he could see her. He was trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t figure out what.
What is it? She sent the message telepathically, but as always with Sunshine, there was no answer. Sunshine shook his head and looked Cain up and down. The realization hit her so suddenly that she stopped in her tracks. Raven drew her knife and the sound of the clicking blade made Cain stop. He turned and his eyes narrowed when he saw that she was armed.
“Let go of Sunshine,” Raven ordered.
Her mind seized on something she would have noticed right off the bat if she wasn’t so damn tired. Cain walked through walls. This man opened the door.
“We need to get both of you out of here before something bad happens,” Cain said.
“Let go of Sunshine,” she repeated.
Raven let the blade in her hand fly. It sank into Cain’s shoulder and for a split second his eyes faded from brilliant blue to pitch black. Even his features contorted strangely before he was Cain once more. The man pulled her knife out of his shoulder and dropped it on the ground. Her heart nearly beat out of her chest as she reached for her gun. She wasn’t quick enough. Cain pulled out his own gun and placed it against Sunshine’s temple.
Raven screamed a warning on the Unmemorable frequency. There’s an intruder in the house who looks like Cain Henson! We’re under attack!
Shouts echoed through the house almost instantly and “Cain’s” eyes narrowed. Male voices ricocheted in her head and she blocked them out to focus on the impersonator in front of her.
“Who are you?” Raven asked.
“That doesn’t matter, does it?” He backed up with Sunshine. “I need you to come with me.”
“Give Sunshine to me and I might let you live!”
Gunfire erupted outside and from the startled look on the impersonator’s face, this wasn’t going according to plan. Raven took aim and blew the bastard’s earlobe off. He screeched and released Sunshine, cursing. Cain morphed into a man with pitiless black eyes, dark skin and a bald head. Raven scrambled forward, but came to a stop when she was faced with five men in black uniforms. They weren’t Unmemorables. Explosions echoed across the grounds. The impersonator bashed Sunshine viciously on the back of the head and hauled him over his shoulder. The sound of breaking glass and gunshots filled the air.
“We need her alive,” the impersonator snarled at the men. “Alert me when you have her.”
Even as the impersonator turned away, blood
dripping from his ear and shoulder, he morphed into another person she didn’t recognize. Raven shot three soldiers before she tossed the gun away. She had her knife in hand when the men smiled. Too late she realized they were wearing Kevlar vests. They rushed her as one. She didn’t show any mercy as she used the knife on them. When they lay at her feet, she rushed back to Bones’s room. Doc was there with a shotgun and his eyes were feral.
“You brought this on us, didn’t you?” Doc shouted.
“Lock the damn door and keep him safe!” Raven screamed and rushed through the hallway to the foyer.
It was a bloodbath. Dead bodies lay half in, half out of the fountain. The front doors were gone, blasted apart by some kind of bomb. Bullets whizzed through the air and Unmemorables used a variety of weapons, which included machine guns, knives, pans or weights, to kill their opponents. She saw beyond the ruckus to a man carrying Sunshine in his Superman pajamas into the woods. She rushed through the battlefield, mind locked on one thing. She lashed out at whoever stood in her path. Part of the forest crackled with flames and dark shapes darted in every direction. There were small red blasts from guns and the air smelled of smoke, terror and desperation.
Raven blasted on the telepathic intercom. The impersonator has Sunshine! He’s heading into the forest! Sunshine is on his shoulder wearing Superman pajamas.
Even as she hightailed it into the woods, Big Daddy barreled out of nowhere. She felt hopeful until he staggered as he was hit by a round of gunfire. Jackie and Luester returned fire and a man dropped out of the trees with a high-pitched scream. Raven kept her eyes trained on her target as she leapt over bodies, narrowly missed being hit by a bullet and pivoted to avoid a man who tried to tackle her.
The night exploded in a blast of color as someone detonated a bomb that knocked her off of her feet. Before she could get up, a man straddled her. She sliced his abdomen and ignored the choked sound he made and the warm blood that splashed over her. She forced herself up and continued to run, heart pumping with panic. The mansion went up in flames behind her, illuminating the woods.
Raven saw her target and knew she was too far away. She reached for a knife just as a black shape dropped from a tree. The impersonator staggered and dropped Sunshine who sprawled on the ground and didn’t move. Batman raked his claws down the impersonator’s face and chest before he daintily dropped to the ground and turned his yellow eyes on Raven.
She ran faster and grasped a knife as she closed in on her prey. Sunshine lay like a lifeless heap beside the impersonator who reached out and grasped his ankle. The impersonator reverted back to the bald man now that he was in significant pain.
“You’ll be seeing me again,” the impersonator mouthed.
Raven rushed forward even as a man darted forward. At first she thought he was an Unmemorable until the light revealed the baby face of the Transporter. She screamed and let the last knife fly, but Sunshine, the bald man and the Transporter disappeared before the knife hit its target. Raven stared at the empty space as her blade sank into the dirt.
Someone wrapped his arm around her neck from behind and squeezed. The pressure made spots float over her vision and then her survival instinct kicked in. She wasn’t even sure what she did, but seconds later, the man was at her feet, body contorted in an unnatural position. Her heartbeat slowed and all emotion faded into background noise. She took the dead soldiers’ weapons and walked through the forest to the heaviest part of the battle at the tree line. She was instantly surrounded by a gang of men.
Beyond her, the Unmemorables moved in organized groups. One team of Unmemorables trapped the last of the soldiers while the second put out the fire. Louie, the cousin who hated her guts, started toward her when he saw that she was surrounded. She shook her head to keep him away and bowed her head. Raven closed her eyes and let emptiness engulf the despair that coursed through her. When the first soldier darted forward, her blade sliced through the air. Her mind was a cold, blank landscape without thought. Raven let her instincts take over.
***
“Raven.”
She came back to herself with effort. She blinked several times. The smell of blood was overwhelming and she was trembling. The Unmemorables looked from her to the circle of unmoving bodies around her.
“Raven?” Jackie called. “Can you hear me?”
Raven shook her hand, sprinkling the ground with red splatters. The sun was rising and the fire in the mansion and woods was contained. The driveway and forest was a quiet battlefield of bodies, weapons and blood.
“Its over,” Jackie said.
The roar of an engine made them turn as one. A black SUV braked with a screech of tires and Cain hopped out of the car. Raven tightened her hold on the knife. Her rational mind said it was Cain, the real one, but she couldn’t take a chance. The Unmemorables stepped between her and Cain, but what stopped him in his tracks was the knife she held in her hands. She figured she probably looked like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.
“How’d you find us?” Gerald asked in a gravely voice.
Cain’s eyes flicked to him and then back to Raven. “I can track her.”
“What a coincidence that you arrive after the Battalion retreats?” Louie sneered, face covered with dirt and soot.
Cain fixed him with an icy look. “You think I’m working with the Battalion when they slaughtered my people and kidnapped my sister?”
Cain looked back at Raven. “Are you hurt?” he asked brusquely. She shook her head and he switched his gaze to Jackie who stood at her side. “What happened to her?”
“The Battalion was focused mostly on her. She fought them off,” Jackie said.
Cain’s eyes heated when they locked on Raven. “Come here.”
She shook her head again and his eyes narrowed. Cain started forward and the men gave way, allowing him access to her. She held up the knife with a wavering hand.
“Prove it’s you,” Raven croaked, voice so faint it was a mere whisper of sound.
Cain paused. “What?”
“Vick was here,” Jackie said quietly. “He disguised himself as you and took an Unmemorable.”
Cain’s body locked. He unbuttoned his sleeve and held up his wrist, revealing her braid. When Raven still didn’t move toward him or lower the knife, Cain walked through the SUV. She dropped the knife and her legs gave out beneath her. Jackie caught her, and a second later, Cain was there.
Raven’s eyes filled with tears. “I lost him,” she wheezed, swollen throat on fire.
“We’ll get him back, Raven,” Jackie said.
Raven shook her head. “My fault.”
“She’s been up over thirty hours. She needs to sleep,” Jackie said.
Cain picked her up in his arms, started for the SUV and found his way blocked by a line of men with rifles.
“She’s not leaving,” Gerald declared.
Cain tightened his hold on Raven. “I’m not leaving her here alone.”
Gerald gave him a grim smile. “Then I guess you’re bunking with the enemy today.”
Cain didn’t move. Gerald tightened his hold on the gun in his hands.
“The Battalion took one of our own. You’re our only hope of tracking them down,” Gerald said.
“You want my help,” Cain stated.
Gerald’s finger twitched on the trigger. “I need you to fix the shit Raven’s done to my family.”
Raven jerked in Cain’s arms and he tightened his hold on her. “Where’s her room?”
“I’ll take you,” Jackie said.
No one spoke as Cain carried Raven into the house, which was filled with lingering smoke and ash. Someone broke the glass that encased the elevator so now it was a platform with no sides. When Cain entered her bedroom he strode to the bathroom and began to strip her. She was so exhausted and numb that she stood like a doll and let him put her in the tub.
Cain didn’t say a thing as he washed her hair and his own. Weariness weighed her down. Cain was back, the real Cain. His hard arms wer
e around her, and when he rested his forehead against hers and let out a long sigh, her eyes filled with tears. Images of the past hours slipped through her mind and she collapsed against him, shivering. Cain bundled her into a robe and sat her on the edge of the bed while he put on a pair of sweats and crouched in front of her.
“Can you talk?” he asked, eyes dipping down to her bruised throat.
“Little,” she said in a hoarse voice.
His face hardened. “Good. I have some things to say.” His hands rested on her thighs and squeezed. “I’ve never been so damn scared in my life.”
Raven opened her mouth, but he shook his head.
“After I left you, it all seemed so wrong, and it wasn’t just because I didn’t want to be apart from you or that fucking fight. I knew deep down I shouldn’t leave you and I did it anyway.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Damn it, Raven, I could see smoke for miles and I knew you were in the thick of it. You wouldn’t answer the fucking phone. When I drove up, you were standing there covered in blood. I don’t know how much more of this I can handle.” Cain’s hands slid under the robe and gripped her thighs. “This stops now.”
When she didn’t respond, he kissed her tears away and brushed his mouth over hers. Her lips trembled under his. He wrapped his arms around her waist and tucked his head under her chin.
“What did Vick do?” he asked.
Raven shuddered and swallowed before she whispered, “He kissed me and took my cousin who has autism.”
Cain went rigid and pulled away slowly. His eyes were ice shards of rage. “He kissed you?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, disgust and rage pounding in her veins. “I didn’t know...”
Cain sank his hand into her wet hair and kissed her hard. Her arms wrapped around him and she sank into the kiss, needing him to wash away the vile taste of death and the impersonator. Emotions bubbled up inside of her. Need, anger, frustration, helplessness, love. Her man was here. She didn’t know what would happen in the next hour, but right now she had Cain. There were too many unknowns in the world, but Cain was real and solid. She needed him more than she needed her next breath.
