Heart of Annihilation (9 page)

“Rose!”

The word drew me away from the darkness. Light and heat scorched my eyelids. Dad?

“Rose! Dammit, where are you?”

The voice raced across the unknown, responding to my silent question. No, not Dad. Dad wouldn’t call me Rose. Or swear. There was quiet again.

“Rose!”

“Thurmond.” My voice croaked. I pried my eyes open and found myself staring into a bush, body leaning against a large boulder.

My limbs were rigid and achy. My cheeks felt wet. I brushed a hand across the moisture on my face. My other hand hung limp and numb beside me.

“Rose!” Thurmond finally came into sight. I rolled my eyes upward to see him better, blinking rapidly to clear my vision. Dust covered one side of his uniform, clinging to what looked like a lot of blood. He held a rifle in his hands. My rifle? I dropped my eyes to my empty hands.

“I’m so sorry. The wind caught the chute and dragged me way in the other direction, and when I got back to the place where I dropped you . . . I’ve been tracking you for hours. Where the hell did you think you were going?” He fell to his knees beside me. Thurmond lightly touched the blood-saturated handkerchief.

“Ah—” I exhaled in anticipation of his touch.

“Dammit, Rose, you’re bleeding all over the place.” He retracted his hand, his eyes wide. Then his brows descended and his voice changed to deep anger. “What’d you let that little ass shoot you for?”

“What?”

“You couldn’t have shot him first or something?” He pulled off his camouflage jacket with angry yanks, balled it up, and pushed it none too gently against my shoulder.

“H-hold on—” I gasped, clenching my eyes shut.

“That’s what rifles are for, you know.”

I wanted to cry, but I could barely swallow.

“And here we are, out in the desert without so much as a field bandage.” He took a deep breath and released it noisily. When he spoke again, it was with the cool calm I associated with Thurmond’s military efficiency. “Let’s get this bleeding stopped.”

I peeked from under teary lids to see Thurmond pulling his t-shirt over his head. He pressed it flat across his lap, folding it over several times.

Some distant, semi-conscious part of me wanted to admire his flat stomach, with its hint of a six-pack and well-defined chest, sun glistening in the beads of sweat nestled among the trivial amount of chest hair. It was nice here in semi-consciousness. Nice and toned.

Thurmond removed the wadded jacket from my shoulder and pressed the neatly-folded, brown t-shirt on top of my saturated handkerchief. Fiery shards of pain brought my fingers to life, burning up across my chest, returning me to full consciousness.

“Ow! Thurmond. Ow. Ouch,” I whimpered my way into a pained silence.

“Hold this here.”

My hand was shaking but I managed to locate the folded shirt and hold it in place. Thurmond pulled a knife off his belt. He cut and tore the sleeves off of his camouflage jacket and then ripped them into long strips.

I was aware, in an abstract way, of Thurmond tying the shirt to my shoulder with the strips of fabric he’d cut from the camouflage.

“Th-thanks.” I rubbed my eyes with a finger and thumb
.
“You know, for the bandage, and the lecture.”

“After following your trail for damn near eternity, I figured it couldn’t be so bad . . . even after all the blood you left. I mean, you made it this far.” That sounded suspiciously respectful. His tone softened. “Sorry I yelled.”

“S’okay.”

Thurmond sat back on his heels, an uncertain twitch at the corner of his mouth. His hands were covered in blood and lay palm up on his knees, as though he didn’t know what to do with them. After a moment he rubbed his palms on his pants and then rose to his feet. He slid his arms through the gaping holes of his sleeveless camouflage jacket and fastened it with unhurried, meticulous fingers. I blinked away the haze and started to push myself to my feet.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Getting up.”

The world fuzzed and darkened. Thurmond called my name from somewhere at the end of a long tunnel, his voice growing louder and louder. The earth under my feet became concrete, the sun hot atop my head, and the arms around my back more than an ethereal presence. My face was pressed against a solid, warm body. I opened my eyes to find myself leaning against Thurmond’s chest, one of his arms tight around my back and his voice loud in my ears. I breathed in his scent of soap and sweat.

“S’all good. S’okay.” I pushed away from his chest, and he released me with the greatest reluctance. One of his hands remained tight on my arm. I held my other close to my body. “Where’re we?”

“Sonoran desert. Somewhere in the vicinity of Fort Huachuca, if I were to guess.” Thurmond sounded worried. “We fell out of the plane. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I remember.” The words came out clearer now. “I was just wondering how close we are to the tower?”

“Oh. Yeah, it’s right there.” He rubbed his hand across his scalp, turning his eyes to the left. I followed his gaze. Storm clouds behind the tower swathed the tops of the mountains, roiling deep and close. “Once I figured out that’s where you were heading, you were easier to track. I’m gonna go see what I can find.”

You want answers? You’ll find them there,
said the voice.

“Okay, then. Let’s go. Just, you know, don’t let me fall and bash my head open or anything.” I made to move, but Thurmond held me back.

“You’re not going anywhere, Rose.”

“I’m fine. It’ll be fine.” I blinked away the fog. “I’ll just walk with you ’til the ambulance arrives.”

“I’ll be much faster if I don’t have to drag you along.” He wasn’t looking at me anymore but studying the landscape, his mind making the heroic trek for help.

“I told you, I can walk.”

“We’re wasting time.”

“I just—”

“What?” He finally looked at me. Irritation and worry tightened his mouth.

I felt about ten years old, pestering Dad to get him to take me with him on his business trip to California, rather than having to stay with a sitter. “No, Krissy, the DLA’s not a place for little girls. Too scary,” he’d said, his expression stern, his eyes distant. “I’ll only be a few days.” The few days turned into an unprecedented few weeks, and my grudge lasted a few months beyond that. His face was haunted every time I’d brought it up, and he’d never left me that long again.

Even the memory brought the taste of abandonment to my tongue. Would I find a RETHA coin in Thurmond’s place after he’d left? Would I be left wondering where he’d gone for the rest of my—granted, probably short—life?

Wait . . . DLA? I shook my head. Why hadn’t I recalled this memory before now?
The
DLA. I squinted over at Thurmond, trying to remember our argument.

“I just don’t want to be left alone here, in the desert—” I tried to smile through the encroaching anger “—with Justet’s aliens and scorpions and stuff.”

“There’s no such thing as aliens,” Thurmond said slowly, as if he wanted to yell but didn’t think it was appropriate to yell at someone who’d been shot. I had no such reservations.

“Well I wish you’d been around to tell Justet that back in the armory!” Anger flushed my cheeks. The spot above my left ear throbbed.

“Give me a break.” Thurmond rolled his eyes.

“Not to mention that Justet and the commander are probably going to be driving around, looking for us.”

“And you want to expend your remaining strength climbing that damn hill when I could—”

“Why do you get to be right? Why can’t I be right this time?”

“Because I am!” Thurmond was yelling now too, his face red.

“What are you, my father?”

“That depends. Do you listen to your father?”

“Hey, I know. Why don’t we stand around and argue while I bleed to death?”

The two feet separating us seemed to widen even while our heads butted together in uncompromising conviction. My resolve wavered. A tear tickled down my cheek. I brushed it away and dropped my eyes.

I hated the clinging whininess of my voice. The desperate pleading. My mortality loomed over me, a giant red-eyed monster, waiting for Thurmond to look away long enough to drag me to hell.

“Fine,” Thurmond conceded in irritation. He hitched the rifle more securely onto his shoulder. Then, as if remembering something, he turned back and reached into his pocket. A bloodied chain raked across the edge of the fabric. My dog tags and pendant followed.

My first reaction was surprise that Thurmond was holding it when I very clearly remember it entangled in my fingers. Then fury scorched my throat. I snatched for the tags like the strike of a cobra.

“Holy shit!” Thurmond drew as far away from me as possible without letting go and clutched the tags close to his chest.

The sudden movement caught up with me. I wheezed in breath after breath. The maniacal desperation receded, but I still wanted them.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I—”

“What the hell was that?”

“I . . . what was? Nothing . . . it was nothing. Can I . . .” I held out my hand for the tags.

We stared at each other for another few seconds. Thurmond cocked a cautioning eyebrow and released me to the care of the boulder. He removed the broken section of chain, wrapping the remaining chain around my neck, and reconnected it. The chain was much shorter now, fitting snuggly against my throat. The warmth of the pendant contrasted with the coolness of the tags. I rubbed it between two fingers, the way I always did when I was in need of my father’s comfort. Then I pulled up the neck of my sweaty shirt to hide the tags.

Thurmond’s fingers grazed my cheek, his lips pressed together. He turned toward the tower and immediately dropped to his knees, pulling me down with him. I groaned my disapproval. Thurmond stared over the boulder and drew the rifle from his shoulder.

“Someone’s coming,” he murmured.

“Really?” My stomach gave a hopeful jerk. “Someone as in . . . ?”

He pulled the rifle up. His thumb flicked the safety.

“What?” Worry replaced the hope and settled deep into my chest. I pictured the commander and Justet charging in to finish us off.

“Okay, you know how Justet was talking about aliens out here?” His finger hovered over the trigger.

“Yeah?” I drew out the word.

“Well, there’s someone coming—and I think . . . I’m thinking it might be them.”

“Them who? Aliens?” I leaned around Thurmond, trying to see what he was seeing. “There’s no such thing as aliens. Remember?”

At first glance it looked like the sun reflecting off a line of shiny objects, until I realized the objects were moving. Figures sorted themselves out like a mirage shimmering in the hot desert air. Their legs flickered in and out of oblivion, becoming more solid as they descended the hill. The four figures stretched out in a long parallel line, a good ten feet separating each one.

Arms and legs, heads and torsos, all with the correct proportions to be human. Each was relatively normal-sized aside from a singular figure standing head and shoulders above the rest. He was so enormous that Andre the Giant came to mind. They approached with silky steps, their legs moving so rapidly that my mind struggled to make the leap. The sun glinting off of their silver, metallic-looking hair and white, almost translucent skin also gave them away as something different—something alien.

They wore metallic blue uniforms of sorts, their pants tucked into white boots military style. As they came closer, I was able to discern a distinct jogging pattern over the shoulders and descending across of the uniform that looked like silver lightning bolts—rank, if I were to guess.

A shiver stole through my body, drawing tingling voltage from every cell. Electricity ran across each individual nerve ending, intensifying every sensation. Sunlight blinded me, scents of dirt and heat assaulted my nose, and the crunching of distant footsteps were as loud as if they were walking right by my head.

One of the visitors spoke. I jumped. The sensory-overload vanished, and the voice became as distant as they actually were.

“She’s around here somewhere. Deputy Hoth obtained a visual not more than ten minutes ago.”

The person’s soft face and curving figure gave her a feminine appearance, and the way she spoke clearly identified her as their leader—not to mention the five stripes of lightning across her shoulder. Her voice croaked in a harsh, raspy, crackling tone, reminding me of electricity. And of anger, and mayhem, and an inexplicable act of violence I somehow knew I didn’t want to remember.

I wanted to hold my hands to my ears to block everything out, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t hide.

Two males flanked the female, one the Andre the Giant-sized one and the other a small, ratty individual holding some sort of white instrument. The fourth, a male of average height, with a ponytail, trailed behind the others. Their heads moved this way and that, searching.

Thurmond lay the barrel of the rifle across the rock and sighted down its length.

“Don’t waste my round,” I whispered. I had an indeterminate plan for that round, and I didn’t see how it could help against a bunch of strange folk with powers yet unknown.

“Can’t you pinpoint her exact location?” The female said, hand on her hip and expression impatient.

“Well, uh, no. Her dimensional camouflage has rendered the signal unreliable. But she’s here.” The rat-like male said, and if the timbre of his voice wasn’t so bizarre, I would have thought he sounded frightened.

“Spread out!” the female commanded, and her troops peeled off. The only one left was the female, and she seemed to be staring at our boulder.

The ache above my ear split my head with pain.

Kill them before they find you. Kill them. Kill them!

“Shoot her,” I said in a soft guttural tone.

“What?” Thurmond glanced at me.

Icy calm spread through my limbs, bringing with it the tingling sensation of voltage. Anger surged from the ache above my ear. I had no doubt at that moment the female would have a bullet between her eyes if I’d had the rifle and the ability to fire it. I flexed my fingers. A movement in my peripherals jolted the anger out of me.

Silver, pupil-less eyes stared into mine from the right of the boulder. They were set deeply into a thick head and rimmed with silvery-white lashes. Silver stubble covered a square jaw, which sat atop Andre the Giant’s body. He crouched, eye level to me, with one of his hands rested on the boulder and the other lay clenched on a muscled thigh. A deep, tangy odor, like the smell of the earth after the rain—
ozone
—washed over me, filling me with a hint of familiarity and a sensation I could only describe as affection. Then I tasted fear.

“Here!” His rumbling voice was as enormous as his body.

I rose slowly. Blood pumped in my ears. He also stood, towering over me, silver eyes locked onto my face.

“Step back, sir!” The butt of the rifle rested against Thurmond’s shoulder as he aimed at the guy’s chest.

My legs ceased to exist. The rock scraped my back as I slid down onto my butt, my shoulder throbbing. I had only a vague perception of what was going on around me. Shadowy figures blocked the blazing sun while voices rang hollow and indistinct. Deep breathing of the hot desert air helped my vision clear, and I found that we were surrounded by a tight circle of Justet’s aliens.

“Is that really her?” asked a tall thin man. Not man. Alien. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail. Revulsion twisted his face.

“Looks like her.” The small, rat-like male said. His apparent fear of me was almost as strange as everything else about him. Ponytail Guy threw an arm across the female’s chest, pushing her back a step.

“All of you! Back off!” Thurmond shouted.

Andre the Giant released my gaze, flicking his eyes toward Thurmond. There was a minute tightening of his lips and, in a flash of movement, he smacked the rifle out of Thurmond’s hands.

Thurmond tripped backward, striking my shoulder with his leg and jarring pain through my body. I clutched my arm, unable to suppress a whimper as the rifle clattered to the ground near my feet. Andre the Giant pressed a large ham-like forearm against Thurmond’s neck, holding him against the boulder.

With Thurmond disarmed, the female approached. Her look was cold and penetrating. An involuntary shudder spread to my extremities, and I felt as much as heard a retreating hiss within my mind. Two more cautious steps put the female at my feet. She crouched before me, stared for an eternity, and then extended her hand.

“Get away from her!” Thurmond shoved at his captor.

One of the dish-sized fists plowed into the side of Thurmond’s head. His breath exploded in a gasp, his eyes crossed, and he clutched the arms of Andre the Giant to keep himself on his feet.

Aggression channeled through my arms and into my hands in a blinding burst of energy. With a crackle of jagged, blue light, the burst of electricity struck the female in the shoulder. She barreled over backward, smashing into Ponytail Guy and the little rat-like fellow.

Ponytail Guy shrugged the female out of his arms and lunged at me. With an agonizing stab to my shoulder, I discharged a second burst of voltage at him. The volt sizzled a jagged knife of light across his arm. He wrenched his whole body to the side.

A movement to my left had me redirecting my other hand. Andre the Giant rested his fingertips lightly on Thurmond’s chest. My eyes traveled from his unreadable expression to Thurmond.

Thurmond’s mouth hung open, but as he saw me looking, his jaw slowly clenched and his eyebrows furrowed. This look was one I had no trouble interpreting. The ache in my head retreated, leaving me empty and cold. I lowered my hand.

Ponytail Guy pulled himself to his feet and reached over to help the female. The rat-like one stayed on the ground where she’d flattened him, the rapid rise and fall of his chest the only indication he hadn’t been crushed to death. The leader’s fingers clenched the shoulder of her uniform. She drew her hand away for a quick glance beneath it. A black scorch mark marred the silver lightning and blue fabric. Her eyes flashed back to mine.

“All the violence of the Slayer in a brand new package,” her rasping voice dripped with disgust.

“What’re you talking about?” My mind felt sludgy and rumpled.

The female rubbed her hands across her neck, softly touching some red indentations, like finger-sized scars. I wondered if the scars had anything to do with her rough voice.

“Inmate two-three-six, you are currently in violation of code two-twenty-two stating that no felon shall approach closer than five hundred grid lengths of—”

“What?” I interrupted her lawyer-esque ramblings before my brain imploded.

She narrowed her eyes. “What in Gauss’s law are you doing here?”

“Fell from a plane.” I leaned my head against the rock. The effort of trying to make sense of anything was almost too much. But something nagged at my mind. “Did you call me . . . inmate? You said felon too.”

I caught Thurmond’s eye. A wad of saliva caught in my throat. There was distrust in Thurmond’s face, and it bothered me more than the less-than-friendly aliens or even my tortured body. I pictured what it would be like for me if he suddenly sprouted a cape and flew through the air. Or maybe it was more like sprouting tentacles.

The female snapped her fingers.

“Inmate would be a polite term for someone like you, but yes, inmate. Your sentence here precludes contact with any Rethan of non-convict status. So you can imagine why we’re not necessarily happy to see you so close to our base of operations.”

A shiver raised the hair on my arms before tremoring down my spine and across my buttocks and legs. I swallowed.

“R-Rethan? As in Retha?” I attempted to rise. The female ignored my question and reached for me. I slapped her hand away and fell back, breathing heavily against a shock of pain. I forced the words between clenched teeth. “What’d you freaks do with my dad?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The female rubbed the back of her hand.

“My dad, Benjamin Rose. You’re Rethan, you have to know . . . you have to know.” The pain was too much. Tears rose to my eyes.

The female ignored the question, her expression cool. She offered her hand to me again. Did she want me to shake it?

Don’t let her touch you. Don’t let her touch you.

“I’m the officiate here,” she paused. “Please, we need to confirm your identity.” When I still didn’t move she blew out an exasperated breath. “I don’t intend to harm you.”

“Get away from me!”

Her lips tightened, and she snatched the fingers of my right hand. Pain warped up my arm. Her skin was chilling, a cold foreign feel that only exacerbated the shivery feeling I couldn’t banish despite the heat of the desert. I tried to retract my hand, but she held tight.

Something silver flashed between her fingers, and she pressed it into my palm. Cold seared my skin, followed by an electrical jolt. She released my hand and stepped back, taking the silver torture device with her. Rat Face appeared at her shoulder. Ponytail Guy crowded on her other side. Together they stared down at my hand.

My fingers curled over my palm. A quiet hiss and then a miniscule trail of smoke rose from my palm. I gasped and jerked my hand off my lap, my fingers spreading apart to distribute the intensity. Rune-like characters appeared in a silver, glowing sequence across my palm.

As quickly as it set upon me, the blistering decreased to a faint burn and the glowing of the silver muted to a black, tarnished look. A quiet hiss of sound filled my mind and quickly graduated to angry mutterings.

Damn marshals
. . .
RAGE
. . .

What was this? A trick of some kind? Some alien trick to make me think I was someone else, to throw me off kilter?

“That’s her!”

“The DCC Slayer!”

“Gauss’s law!”

Clenching my teeth against the pain, I grabbed the rifle and used it to drag myself to my feet. Yellow spots popped out in my vision. I scowled at the four of them to prove I wasn’t weak and with an arch of my eyebrows, I hitched the rifle to my shoulder. Left shoulder, left hand, awkward as all get out, but it was up. I couldn’t muster the energy needed to raise the muzzle to point anywhere but the gaggle of white boots. Not to mention my hand was shaking so badly I didn’t think touching the trigger was a good idea.

“Stand back!” Ponytail Guy spread his arms wide to push everyone back.

Their hands disappeared into pockets, making me wary of hidden weapons.

Andre the Giant released Thurmond and stepped back with his comrades. Thurmond pulled himself upright. He rubbed his knuckles across the purpling bruise on his jaw where he’d been struck.

I groaned, losing my grip on reality. Somewhere voices continued to argue.

Watch your mouth. Watch your mouth
, the voice inside my head sounded more like a warning than a threat. Colors and images whirled around me.
Careful now. Don’t let her touch you again. Don’t let her touch—

“Looks like she’s found a companion here.”

The words came from a muddy, fuzzy someone who didn’t look remotely real. I swayed on my nonexistent feet. I squeezed my eyes shut to hide from the blackness surrounding me.