by Nia Arthurs
“Inside.” I pull on my jacket. “Move.”
McCarthy joins Pavel. “Morgan, you need to see a doctor. Your eyes are bloodshot and you can hardly walk.”
“Move.”
“Please,” Pavel says, trying to tug on my arm.
“I’ll only say this one more time.” I give Pavel a hard look. “You know why I have to do this.”
“You could die in there,” McCarthy whispers.
“We would have no way to bring you back.”
“That’s fine.” I push past them.
They step aside and let me through, but I can feel their worried gazes like a laser on my back.
Without hesitation, I step into the vortex. This time, I’m prepared for the sucking sensation and the push of resistance that comes with it.
I fight through and, a moment later, I’m outside the shack where I first met Shanel all those weeks ago.
The clearing is quiet but, in the distance, I hear the sounds of shouting and footsteps. Easing out of the foliage, I step into a backyard and notice a pool flashing watery blue shadows against the side of a magnificent house.
To my surprise, there are soldiers charging up and down, carrying guns and moving with urgency.
Where’s Kaz?
“Who do we have here?” A guard grabs my arm. He touches his ear and grumbles, “Boss, we have another one.”
“I’m Dr. Morgan Bacher. I—”
“Explain it to Boss,” he says, dragging me around the side of the house to a tent that’s been set up in front of a metal bunker.
A man is bent over a table.
Golden light casts over his sharp chin and frantic blue eyes.
I straighten. “Hawk?”
“Dr. Morgan?” He gives his security guard a dark look. “Do you know who you’re dragging around?”
“Sir?”
“Let him go at once.”
I’m free in a heartbeat.
Rubbing my arm, I nod at the guard who backs away like a child who just got scolded by his mother. “It’s fine. And please call me Morgan.”
“Sorry about that.” Hawk dips his head at me. “But as you can see, we’re in the middle of a crisis. Why did you visit?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“From your earth?”
“From this one.”
Just then, a guard approaches Hawk. “Sir, we’ve lost visuals.”
“What do you mean you lost visuals?”
“Someone pressed the lockdown button.”
Hawk snatches the tablet from the guard and then curses loudly.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, unease sliding through my veins. “And where’s Kaz? She should have passed by here.”
“Miles took her.”
My eyes widen and it feels like my entire world freezes. “Miles?”
“No, not Miles.” Hawk rubs the bridge of his nose. “Our Miles is on the mainland.” He points at the bunker, a hard look in his eyes. “That bastard in there has Miles’s face, but he’s someone else.”
I lurch forward. “Why did he take her?”
“I don’t know.” Hawk stares me down, his jaw twitching and his voice dark with conviction. “But don’t worry. I’ll get Shanel and Kaz back and that bastard Miles-lookalike will pay.”
My world shatters. I stumble back, my mind whirring.
Dots connect in my head, painting a harrowing picture.
The earth that kept trying to enter ours.
The ‘vision’ of Miles in the club.
It was all him.
“He grabbed Shanel and Kaz and took them in there.” Hawk juts his chin at the bunker. “We had visuals. We were in the middle of coming up with a plan when the bunker hit total lockdown.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I snap.
Hawk curses and forms his fingers into fists. “It’s a complete system override. No one can get in or out.”
“Damn it.” Pain slices through my stomach like a sharp knife to the gut. Sweat pops out on my head.
Hawk reaches out to hold me up. “Morgan, you alright?”
“I’m fine.” I brush him off. “I need a computer.”
Hawk snaps his fingers and one of the guards darts off.
I sit at the desk beneath the tent and turn the lamp so it shines against the laptop they bring me. Pain swarms my head and I have to blink rapidly to focus on the screen.
Hawk bends over the back of my chair. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you in.”
“And I’ll get her and my woman out,” Hawk growls.
I nod.
“But about that Miles guy…” Hawk’s eyes narrow to two slits. “I’m going to kill him.”
I scowl at the bunker. “Not if I kill him first.”
37
Kaz
Shanel bangs against the door. “You’re stronger than him, Kaz.” More banging. “Don’t let him get to you.”
“Shut up!” Conroy hisses. Spit flies from his lips and slaps me against the cheek. He turns back to face me, his eyes softening. “Kaz, I’m the man you’ve been waiting for.”
“Kaz…” Shanel screams.
“Be quiet before I snap your neck, woman!” Conroy yells.
I tremble in fear as he turns to focus on me.
“Kaz, we can leave together and no one will get hurt. I know the way out of this place.” He clutches my waist and pulls me against him. “I know that you’re a smart girl who accepts what she can’t change.”
My breath hits the air like a startled hammer. I can barely think. Barely move. He’s got me in his clutches, but fear has an even tighter hold on me.
“If you just accept me, accept us, no one else has to get hurt.”
“Don’t listen to him, Kaz!”
Something beeps loudly, like a phone trying to connect to the line. Conroy lifts his head, glancing around in confusion.
A speaker hidden in the corners of the room crackles to life. A moment later, a familiar voice breaks through the airwaves. “Kaz, can you hear me?”
My heart leaps to my throat. “Morgan?”
“Yes, Kaz. It’s me. I’m here. I’m right outside.”
Tears burst to my eyes. Morgan is here? He came for me?
Conroy roars. “That bastard is just begging for me to spill his blood.”
“Morgan?” I take a step toward the speaker. “Morgan! Can you hear me?”
Conroy slams me into the wall. Stars dance around my head and pain slithers down my spine, making my bones vibrate.
“I will kill him, do you hear me? I will kill him in front of you. I will wash your hands in his blood.”
“No…” I whimper.
“If you run away, if you even think about fighting me, I will hunt him down and break his bones one by one until he’s screaming for mercy. And I will not bestow that mercy on him. I only give death.” His eyes are two hard marbles in his face and I know that he means every word.
My body trembles. “Please…”
Conroy softens his tone. “Don't try to be strong, Kaz. You’re not.” He presses his nose against my face and inhales deeply. “You’re not strong, love. You never were. You will never be. That’s why I’m your strength.” He pushes me against the wall with his body, rubbing against me and making me want to puke. “I’m your conviction. I’m your heaven and hell.” He steps back. “Don’t make me any angrier than I am, okay? Just accept me and everything will be okay.”
“Kaz, please.” Shanel cries from her prison. “You can’t go with him. Don’t do it.”
“Okay,” I tell Conroy.
His smile curls over his hard face, almost boyish in its joy. “Alright. You must follow me, okay? They’ll be distracted with the girl and the fire. We can make it.”
“What fire?”
He takes my hand and leads me around the table to the back of the bunker. Pulling out a device from his pocket, he sets it against the wall.
With a proud grin, he glances at me. “Back in my
world, our labs work on many gadgets like these. Step back, love.”
I do.
He presses a button and a loud pop blasts through the room. Smoke hisses out of the hole in the wall of the bunker. Conroy pulls another device out of his pocket and tosses it behind me. A flame drops against the floor and ignites.
I glance back, horror searing my brain when I notice that the flame is heading straight for Shanel.
She’s trapped inside, her hands wrapping around the bars and shaking it desperately. Her tortured chokes fill the air.
She’ll die.
I resist Conroy when he tries to pull me. “What are you doing?”
“We don’t have time, love!”
“I can’t leave her.”
Conroy raises a hand and slaps me across the face. Shock and fear roar over me, skittering through my body harder and faster than the pain of his hand.
“Don’t think I won’t kill you if you keep arguing with me,” Conroy hisses.
The smoke gets thick and I start to cough, my eyes stinging from whatever chemical caused the inferno.
Grabbing my hand again, Conroy drags me out into the night. There are two security guards rounding the bunker and he takes them down in two shots. I watch as they crumple. He pulls me over their bodies and tramples them.
The night wraps around me, cold and stark.
I can taste my own fear, my own insecurities.
Shanel will die because of me. Because I’m not good enough. I’m not strong enough. I can never beat a man like him. If I accept it, no one else has to get hurt.
Conroy pulls me into a line of trees and I see that we’re heading for the shack. The scent of smoke is still heavy in my nostrils, and as the fire roars behind me an even bigger warning ignites in my soul.
My heart trips over itself.
He’s taking me to another world.
He’s taking me to his world.
To be his doll. His trophy. His possession.
Something deep inside me rebels. No.
I hear my mother’s voice in my head. Stop it, Kaz. Change what you can. Accept what you can’t. You are going to save our family by marrying Miles. Just accept it.
My breath slows down in my chest.
The resistance pushes against me, rising and unfurling like a flag climbing up a flagpole in a storm.
There in my head, is Morgan’s voice.
You don’t have to accept it, Kaz. You are special. You deserve more.
I can do it.
Sucking in a deep breath, I strengthen my nerves.
I can do it.
As Conroy looks back to speak to me, I reach out and grab his gun from the holster at his side. Holding it up, I point it at his head.
I’m trying.
Conroy skids to a stop, an amused smile playing on his lips. “What are you doing, love?”
I’m fighting.
“You misjudged me.” Holding the butt of the gun with my second hand, I try not to make my arms shake as much as my voice is doing. “I’m not the little dog that followed Miles around anymore. I’m a woman with her own thoughts, beliefs and opinions. I’m a woman who deserves respect.”
He throws his head back and laughs. “What are you going to do with that gun, Kaz?”
You change. You do something.
“What are you going to do?” Conroy screams. Veins stick out of his thick neck and his eyes are alight with passion and anger. It’s almost as if… seeing me with this gun is turning him on.
The bastard.
“I’m changing.” And then I point at his head and pull the trigger.
A bullet flies out of the nozzle and lands right between Conroy’s forehead.
The bang echoes on top of the trees.
The gun bucks, throwing me off my feet.
As he flops to the ground, I toss the gun into the grass, caught in a numb state of disbelief.
Did I just do that?
Footsteps pound behind me and I spin, my hand shaking like crazy and my body seizing up from disbelief as Conroy’s blood pools in the grass like a river snaking through dirt.
I stumble and a pair of lean arms surround me. It’s an embrace that feels familiar and right. Like home. I push back, throwing myself into Morgan’s arms like a desperate woman.
We both go down.
“Kaz?” Morgan smooths my hair and kisses me. “You’re alright.”
Tears burst to my eyes. “I killed him.”
“I know, honey. It’s okay.”
“I killed someone.”
“You protected yourself.”
I curl into Morgan’s chest, emotions roiling through me and tearing every part of my brain apart until it feels like I’m about to combust. My world is turning upside down and he’s the only one that can center me.
“And Shanel?” I whisper.
“She’s okay. She’s with Hawk.”
I sigh in relief. “You’re really here?”
Morgan kisses me all over my face. “I’m here.”
I cling to him. Grip his shirt. Kiss him back.
My love for him bursts through the panic and I sip of his lips as if I’ll never get enough. Tears mingle with the taste of his tongue and I press myself so close to him it feels like he’ll absorb me into his body.
When I pull back, I see that his face is extremely pale. Sweat beads on his forehead and his eyes are dilated, but it’s from more than passion. Planting my hand to his forehead, I gasp. He’s burning up.
A sleepy smile loops across his face. “I came… all this way…”
“Morgan!”
“To say…”
“Morgan, are you okay?”
“I love you, Kaz.” Then his eyes roll up in his head and he goes limp.
38
Morgan
I’m walking through a dark and hazy world. Something powerful is sucking me in and then spitting me out. I feel every sensation, but it’s muted as if my limbs have fallen asleep and gone numb.
Kaz’s face is in my head. She’s the light I’m walking towards. I know that even if I don’t exactly know where I am or why I’m here.
I can see her brown eyes, dark obsidian surrounded by white. Arched eyebrows. Small nose. Plump lips. Skin smooth and warm. Dipped in dark chocolate. Magnificent.
My hands lift and feather through the darkness, but she’s not really there. It’s just that light up ahead.
For a second, I wonder if I’m dead. Regret slams my chest when I consider it. There’s so much I have to live for, so much I want to do. So much I want to say to Kaz.
One I love you wasn’t enough. It’ll never be enough. I want to lay her heart’s desires at her feet. I want to make her smile in that way she does when she’s quietly happy and utterly content.
I plod forward, fighting against the heaviness shrouding my shoulders. If I have to cross the worlds again to be by her side, I’ll do it.
Because I’m too damn stubborn to die.
So I keep walking.
The closer I get to the light, the more voices I hear around me.
“You got him here just in time.”
Sounds like Doc.
“Then why isn’t he waking up?”
Kaz.
My heart seizes and I grit my teeth, struggling against the invisible weights around my ankles. She’s waiting for me. My determination gives me strength and I keep going.
“He has to wake up soon,” Kaz sobs. “I can’t lose him.”
Reaching out, I grab a hold of the light.
My eyes burst open and I gasp for air.
Above me is a white ceiling. The air is cold and I hear the humming of an air conditioner in the background. A startled breath comes from my left and then Kaz’s face appears above mine.
Tears swim in her sweet brown eyes and she clutches the side of the bed. “Morgan?”
I blink twice.
Touch her face.
It’s soft. Flesh. Real.
Relief spills through my veins. “I’m her
e.”
She reaches over and runs her fingers down my cheek. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I groan as I struggle to sit up. There’s a splitting pain in my stomach and I abandon that attempt after a few seconds.
“Whoa, slow down there, Morgan.” Doc enters the room, his bushy head looking wilder than usual.
“I knew I heard your voice,” I mumble. “Where are we?”
“The hospital,” Doc says.
“I can see that.”
“We’re on our earth,” Kaz whispers to me.
“What?”
She slants me an I’ll explain everything later look.
Doc coughs. “You’re very lucky to be alive, Morgan, I hope you know that.” He shakes his head in utter disappointment.
“My ulcer?”
“It was bleeding.” He frowns. ”I heard you’ve been feeling severe pain for several days now but you didn’t call me.”
“I was busy.”
Kaz frowns. “That’s no excuse.”
My lips inch up. “Is that a scolding?”
She glances away, a furrow between her brows. “Pavel told me that you were working on that ‘project’ non-stop.”
“I had to get to you.” I reach for her.
She eases next to me, accepting my touch. “I know. I just… feel so horrible. You put yourself in danger in so many ways.”
“And I’d do it again.”
She smiles softly at me, stealing my breath and making my heartbeat jump.
Doc clears his throat. “The good news is that you were brought here in time.”
“Thank you for all your hard work, Doc,” Kaz says.
“My pleasure.” His eyes dart between the two of us. “I’ll give you two some privacy.” Doc backs away and closes the door firmly behind him.
I turn to Kaz. “How did we get here? I don’t remember going back through the doorway.”
“That’s because you were unconscious for most of it.” She licks her lips. “After I shot…” Her throat bobs and she stares at the ground.
“It’s okay.” I soothe her hand.
Chasing after Kaz and Conroy took everything out of me but, even when the pain turned overwhelming, I knew I couldn’t stop or I’d lose her forever.
When I tore through that forest and saw Kaz with a gun in her hand and Conroy on the ground, I knew that she’d unlocked the fighter she’d always had inside her.
