Chapter 23
Soldier On A Warpath
Lillian
I’VE NEVER SEEN anything quite like the land that surrounds the gates to the colony. There had been theories about scorched earth left in the wake of the killing shadow that swept across the land, but all of this is much more than nature left depraved by wildfire.
Ben explained to me that the path of impact looked like the fields in France had when he had been there in war; it was as if a shell had exploded outward from the gate.
Still, he hadn’t seen anything at this big of a scale.
Perhaps I should be worried that he has never seen anything like it in all his years of travels, but nothing surprises me anymore.
We’re perched just at the edge of the scarred land, out of the immediate reach of the German patrols, who with every waking moment seem to be focused on the gate and nothing but the gate. Ben keeps a weather eye on them, leaving me to work the problem.
I’ve felt the buzz at my chest from the moment we descended.
It’s now a steady hum urging me forward.
It doesn’t ask permission before it forces me ahead.
I take a step and then another. A whisper tickles my ear, and the wind pulls my hair into a dance around my shoulders.
The voice does not belong to my mother, nor does the wind’s. They belong to that of another woman.
Heal the land, the voice says. Begin the end.
Sunny skies overhead turn to messy dark clouds as a vision threatens to take over.
The overwhelming of the senses is enough for me to start reaching for the charred remains in front of me.
Anything to appease the restless spirits waiting.
The moment I catch a glimpse of the gate over the hill, history steals me away. There is nothing but the gate.
Wherever I’ve fallen, the gate stands open wide; people flitter in both directions. There is laughing, chirping of birds, and soft moss beneath my feet. I take another step forward and then…
“Hey, wait,” Ben says, blocking my path.
The immersion breaks, but the pull toward the ground does not.
I want to touch the earth. I need to feel it between my fingers.
Ben’s hand finds my shoulder, and his eyes lock onto mine.
He physically holds me to the spot. “I said I’d get you closer, but this is it for now.
” By finding his eyes and letting his touch warm me, the pull to the ground ebbs away.
“I think I’m meant to heal the land here.” The premonition would sound preposterous to any other, but Ben doesn’t question me.
He glances over his shoulder toward the top of a tent that’s become visible just beyond the next scattering of rocks.
“You can do it here,” he says before slowly stepping away.
He’s clearly unsure of his choice, but he chooses to support me anyway.
“I’ll be right beside you if you need me.
” As he separates from me, the fog from before takes its place in an attempt to drag me back through time.
The feel of Ben’s fingers against my shoulder slowly disappears, and my brain quickly forgets it. The growing hunger of the necklace rumbles again. A chanting ensues as I go to ground. The necklace comes to life, shining brightly against the oncoming storm. It sweeps me away in its glow.
The land breaks open in front of me with a bone-cracking snap. Laughter is replaced with screaming, and gentle souls turn to a mob stampeding for the caves.
This was it, I realize. This was the moment they left forever.
Turning back toward the gate that now hangs heavy on its hinges, I try to understand the power that’s turned it black and corroded.
I feel nothing but hollow emptiness. Even as a child falls before me and is turned to ash, I feel nothing but a chomping need to understand it and champion it.
When I turn toward the Pico da Neblina, that’s when I see it: the flash of a face I have long yearned to see in detail. The man who wielded the dagger.
It’s only a flash, but I can see every detail; the way his brows arch aggressively on the ends, how his hair seems to grow long out of utter rebellion, and his eyes… Eyes sucked of all life… Eyes that see me through time and space.
The Corpo Seco.
For the first time since the vision began, emotion runs wild. If this is what evil feels like, then I must smite it where it stands. Clenching my fists around my necklace, I lean forward deeply. Nose to the ground, I’m about to let all those spirits work through me; I can feel them at my back.
Sucking in a hard breath, I move to release my necklace when a harsh hand grabs my forearm and yanks me upright. Twisting painfully, I find my captor wearing an amazonite crown, a dagger raised, ready to strike.
“Lillian!” a voice screams. Blinking, the Corpo Seco transforms into a monster much the same.
Ivo Sch?fer stands, leering down over me, holding not a dagger but a gun.
The voice—Ben’s—calls for me again as I continue to try and decipher what is and isn’t my imagination. The sky has returned to a brilliant blue, and the necklace is still hanging from my neck, that much I know.
“I’m surprised that lover boy let us sneak up on you like that, pequena flor.” My whole body chills at the sound of his voice.
“I’m surprised you still find it appropriate to call me little flower,” I spit.
He drags me to my feet at the barb. Despite my struggle to make myself a burden, he lifts me with ease.
“Don’t you touch her, Ivo!” I glance over toward Ben’s hollow voice and nearly cry out when I see him.
He seems to ease ever so slightly, seeing me acknowledge him, but the men holding his arms tightly out to the sides do nothing to give him slack.
I nod to him slightly to let him know that I’m okay, for now.
He makes no moves to offer me the same reassurances, but there’s no world where moving would be comfortable for him.
In whatever time I was lost to my vision, they’ve managed to beat him so badly that his entire face has swelled.
The rest of him seems to be intact, but knowing Ivo’s work first-hand, I expect there to be bruises and gashes beneath Ben’s shirt.
Knowing that I was unreachable while he was going through that brings me to tears.
“You should have come knocking,” Ivo says, completely ignoring Ben. “Your father would have loved to see you alive after all this time of you hiding, pretending to be dead to the world.”
Daring to look him in the eye for the first time, I boldly announce, “I wasn’t hiding—”
“We’ve known for years, by the way.” His grip on me eases, but his gaze on the necklace does not.
“You couldn’t possibly think you could sneak through Germany for nearly a decade without me knowing.
” I have to squeeze my eyes shut as a finger pinches one of my curls at my cheek.
“Such a shame you didn’t keep the red.” Ben snarls from nearby at the comment.
When I don’t play into his comment, he shrugs. “Well, no use standing out here all evening.”
He whistles, and the rest of his men start to head back toward camp. Ivo moves to drag me with him.
“Wait!” I protest. “What are you going to do with him?” The grip retightens, and I’m dragged forward. “Wait!” I cry again. As a group of men crowd Ben and block my view of him, I begin to struggle. Growing more violent with each step, I begin to lash out. “Stop this!” I scream. “Stop!”
Ben
I keep my eyes on Lillian as long as I can but don’t move a muscle.
Even as she fights Ivo’s grasp and screams my name, I force myself to remain calm and aware.
I force myself to allow her anguished cries to become background noise.
It’s agonizing in every sense of the word.
Having her torn from my side is like having my entire world ripped apart, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I won’t be able to protect her if I don’t get out of this predicament, and I know how dire the situation is.
These four men surrounding me intend to kill me; Ivo said as much while they beat me to a pulp.
I had been so stupid, so hung up on the way the ground beneath Lillian had begun to grow from black to green again.
She had done what she set out to do: healed a portion of the land that called to her. I hope she realized she accomplished it even as they tore her out of her dream and the earth turned back to the scarred black it was before.
The fleeting sight of Lillian’s peaceful dreamlike slumber cracks under the weight of the next blow. This particular hit sends me to the floor. The two holding me have released their grip.
A big mistake.
I let my years of training take over. Countless hours spent sparring hand to hand, countless more practicing to escape a moment just like this one. I’m about to kill them, and they’re just standing there laughing.
The man to my left has crumpled to the ground with a broken neck before the current round of laughter can cease. The man to my right is sent sputtering with a shot to the throat before the others can even react to the first kill.
Thus begins the dance.
The third assailant draws a gun, but I’m able to pivot into the man still clutching his throat as the shot goes off.
Gripping the body close to my chest, I twist another neck.
Feeling the pop, I immediately go for the gun at his hip and draw.
I easily shoot the fourth man, who has been frozen to the spot since I took action.
“Halten!” the final man says, the man with the gun.
Stop.
There will be a response quickly from the others just over the hill, and then there will be too many for me to take on alone.
Throwing all caution to the wind, I run dead on and only just manage to reach his arm as he fires.
The shot rips through my left shoulder, but the risk pays off.
I’m able to knock him off balance as I collide with his shooting arm.
We tumble to the ground, and I barely manage to stay on top of him as we roll twice.
Each punch I throw sends a searing pain through the hole torn in my shoulder, but there is nothing but survival instinct here.
I continue on until the body beneath me stills.
When I’m sure the man is dead, or at least teetering on the edge of it, I scoop up the weapons of the others and manage to pry a holster away.
I can hear a party calling for their comrades now; they’re close.
Wasting no more time, I turn on my heel and race back toward the caves, where I pray the rest of the team is still inside, rattling around.
Team.
There’s no team. Not any more. There are only those willing to go after Lillian, and those who are not. I don’t think I will take kindly to anyone claiming to be in the camp of the latter.