Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3) (21 page)

I wanted to throw up just thinking about it, but I had to concentrate on the task at hand. "But what if it does? I need to be with him to use my snare."

"In the unlikely event that he does go feral again," Shing said, "You will feel it through your connection, and I will use my own powers to contain him until you arrive."

"Can you do that?" I asked. "He's very strong when feral."

"He is not the first feral Berserker I have dealt with," Shing said gently. "I am familiar with how to contain them."

Of course. He and the other Berserkers had dealt with Eric when he had gone feral. I knew they had trained for that situation and there were techniques taught specifically for fighting feral Berserkers.

Of course, most of those were for killing them.

I didn't like it. Not at all. But that was mostly because it involved me being away from Rhys when I knew he was hurting. But what were my other options? I could keep Rhys here, but Shing was right, there was a greater chance of something bad happening with him close to me. It made sense to keep away from him for now.

I sighed. "Ok. Let's do it."

***

The next few hours felt like years. Shing had taken Rhys with him, and I was left alone with my unconscious father. I held his hand and told him all about my trip to Antarctica.

"Now Shing has the venom and is going to make some medicine that will help you," I said. "It won't be long now before you can come home."

At least, I hoped that would be the case. There were no guarantees that what Shing was preparing would even work. My father was a special case that didn't quite fit into the human or Berserker reaction. We had no idea how he would react to the medicine, but the alternative was to simply leave him as is and wait for him to slowly die.

When Shing finally entered the room he was alone.

"Where's Rhys?" I asked. A thrill of fear shot through me as I thought about what could have gone wrong.

"Do not worry," Shing said. "Rhys is asleep in his bed. I saw no sign of him going feral during the brief moments he was awake. However, just to be sure, I have given him a sedative that will ensure he stays asleep until I return. You have nothing to worry about."

I took in a deep breath and let it out. Leaving Rhys alone in his condition made me very nervous. Given what I knew about him and my connection to him, he felt like a time bomb that could go off any minute. We just needed to find a way to defuse the bomb before it went off again.

"So what's next?" I asked.

Shing pulled out six small bottles, each with bright red liquid in them. "This is the medicine that counteracts the toxin in your father's body. I had enough venom to make six doses. In a normal Berserker it would instantly bring them back to consciousness and eliminate any hallucinations caused by the toxin. Given the way your father has been affected, we cannot be sure how he will react."

"I understand," I said. Shing was trying to prepare me for the fact that this medicine might not work on my father at all. He wasn't a Berserker anymore so the entire trip might have been for nothing.

It was time to find out.

Shing removed the cap from one of the bottles, while I lifted my dad's head and opened his mouth. Shing emptied the contents of the bottle in his mouth and turned his head so he would reflexively swallow the medicine.

It took what felt like several minutes to get the liquid in him, and once he swallowed, he started coughing. It was the most movement I had seen from him since he took the knife for me back in Puebla.

After a few moments of coughing, Dad slowly opened his eyes and looked up at Shing and me.

He tried to speak, but all that came out was a croaking noise. After being unconscious for so long, his throat was dry and parched. I helped him sit up and take a sip of water.

"Slowly," I said. "Take it easy, Dad."

After the first couple of sips, Dad began to gulp the water, clearly thirsty. Once he had drank his fill, he swallowed hard a couple of times and cleared his throat before attempting to speak again.

"What's going on?" he asked. "Where am I?"

I jumped up and gave Shing a huge hug. "Thank-you!" I said and then gave Dad an enthusiastic – if somewhat gentler – hug.

"I'm so glad you're back!"

It took a while to fill Dad in on what had happened while he was unconscious. Even then, we didn't tell him everything – just the highlights. I left out the part about Rhys going feral. I didn't want him to worry about it yet. He needed to focus on his own recovery, not Rhys' condition.

"Are you...ok?" he asked me. His speech was halting and slow. Like a person who had just been woken up from a deep sleep and hasn't yet fully awakened.

"I'm fine, Dad. Now that you're back, everything will be ok again."

Dad smiled at me and took my hand in his. Slowly his eyelids drooped lower and lower until once again his eyes were closed. This time he was only asleep instead of in a coma but that fact that he had only stayed awake for about fifteen minutes worried me. I asked Shing what he thought about it.

"He may be like this for some time," said Shing. He looked at the ground. "In Berserkers the medicine works instantly and you see full effects right away. We need to be prepared to accept that he may never fully recover his full strength and stamina."

I took in the words Shing said and tried to be brave. "It's better than him being completely unconscious and slowly dying," I said. "At least this way he lives, and I get to have my father back, regardless of how weak he may be."

"The immediate danger does seem to be over," Shing said. "But we do not know who sent this man after you." He handed me two of the doses of red medicine. "Keep these with you at all times," he said. "You were already attacked twice, and the strong possibility exists that whoever orchestrated those attacks will try again. If you are ever exposed to the toxin used on your father, drink one of these bottles immediately. It should counteract the effects and prevent the toxin from causing you hallucinations."

I took the bottles and promised to keep them with me at all times.

No sooner had I put the bottles away when without warning a sudden pain stabbed through my head. It felt as if someone had detonated explosives inside my skull. Bright lights flashed before my eyes, and I felt the contents of my stomach churn uneasily. Only the explosion didn't happen once – it continued over and over again with machine-gun-like frequency.

The world around me faded, and I saw a castle I had only seen before in photos – Nuremberg Castle – the location of Pravicus' seal.

My Havoc's seal.

I saw the seal before me, the familiar gold with the red handprint in the center. I watched in horror as first one crack, followed by dozen's more spread across the face of the seal.

The seal shattered into a thousand pieces. Bright light flashed around me, ripping every conscious thought from my head. Buildings, trees, and people simply vaporized as the energy from the broken seal expanded outwards, destroying everything in its path. Before I could see the full extent of the destruction, my body gave out, and I collapsed to the floor in too much pain to do anything but simply curl up into the fetal position.

My last conscious thought was one of horror as I processed what I had seen – Pravicus was free.

Chapter 13

Needing a Little Space

I woke up in my own bed. How had I gotten here? It was the first time I had been in my own bed in months. My mother sat by me, lines of concern etched in her face.

"Oh, good, you're awake," she said and smiled. She reached over and stroked my hair. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of her hand on my head.

After a moment I opened my eyes again. "What happened?" I asked. "How did I get here?"

"Your friend, Shing, brought you over," Mom said. "He said you were dealing with fatigue from all your travels and that you just needed some rest."

It took me a minute to sort through my memories and piece together what had happened.

The castle.

The seal.

The explosion.

Had that been real? Had Pravicus' seal really broken and destroyed all of Nuremburg with it? I needed to find out, but I couldn't ask directly – hey did Nuremberg suddenly blow up? 

"What's been happening on the news?" I asked. "Anything big going on?"

Mom's smile faded. "Oh, yes," she said. "Terrible things. There was some sort of terrorist attack in Germany yesterday. They still don't know what happened, but everything in a hundred mile radius of Nuremberg just vaporized. They think someone set off a new type of bomb."

I felt my stomach twist. Nuremberg was completely destroyed? Did I have something to do with it? Was I responsible for all those deaths? There had been no warning – no strange weather patterns or other signs of the seal breaking.

My anguish must have been visible on my face. "What's wrong, Madison?" Mom asked.

"I can't really talk about it," I said.

"Does it have to do with your new friends?"

That question brought me up short. As far as I understood, the haze on Mom should prevent her from making the kinds of mental connections to even ask that question.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Mom paused for a minute. "I keep remembering bits and pieces of conversations. I don't understand it all, but I get the idea that you and your friends have some important secrets."

She paused, and I gaped at her. How could she know that? Was the haze Mallika had cast breaking down, too?

"Not bad secrets," she clarified, misreading my expression. "It's like you’re protecting the world or something like that." She shook her head and smiled self-consciously. "It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud."

I took in a deep breath and gave mom my best fake smile. "Yeah, it kind of does."

After Mom brought me some soup and juice, I felt well enough to go downstairs. I turned on the TV and the Nuremberg explosion was all over. Every network and news channel was covering the explosion non-stop. Reporters were standing outside the blast zone interviewing scientists and government officials discussing possible theories and explanations as to what could have happened and who was responsible.

I knew who was responsible. All the death and destruction that I saw was because Pravicus' seal had broken.

My Havoc. My responsibility. All these deaths were on my shoulders. I had been the one who failed.

Me. Me. Me.

I wasn't surprised when I got the phone call from Shing. The Binder Council had called. They weren't stupid, of course they figured out that Pravicus' seal had broken. They had demanded that he and Rhys come to the Manor house and update them on what happened to Pravicus' seal. Once they learned that I hadn't been killed to break the seal, they especially wanted me.

That evening I made arrangements to meet Shing and Rhys at the Berserker house. We would have included Dad in the conversation, but he was still sleeping ninety percent of the time and clearly needed more time to recover.

Rhys wasn't doing much better, but I hadn't seen him since he left with Shing, so we agreed to meet there.

But when I got to the Berserker house, Shing was alone.

"Where's Rhys?" I asked.

Shing shook his head. "I am afraid that your approach had an unsettling effect on him."

I closed my eyes and thumped the back of my head on the wall. "He started going feral?" I asked, already sure of the answer.

"Yes," Shing said. "He felt your approach and started to lose control. Rather than let you come here to find him like that again, he chose to run."

I felt my last flame of hope flicker and die out. "So, now he can't even be near me?"

Shing bowed his head and did not meet my eyes. "It appears that way."

It was one thing to not be able to use my Binder powers around Rhys, but it was quite another to not be able to be around him at all. What kind of relationship could we have when my very presence turned him into a killing beast of rage? Was this permanent? Would it always be like this? Was there a cure?

Frustrated at this new development, I slammed my fist onto one of the large wooden beams in the living room. I must have been unconsciously pre-zerking because the heavy wooden beam cracked under my blow, and a large chunk splintered off.

Shing looked at me with cool eyes. "Perhaps Rhys is not the only one losing his ability to control his anger."

"Sorry, Shing," I said sheepishly. It wasn't very often I lost my temper like that, but being a Berserker turned even minor slips up into potentially deadly disasters.

"I understand that this is difficult for you and Rhys. I know you both care deeply for each other. To be forced to be apart is not an easy thing." Shing walked over to the splintered beam and ran his hands over the jagged pieces of wood. "Adversity comes into all relationships. None of us have a choice about that. What we do have a choice in is how we confront that adversity. Will you choose to let it destroy your relationship, or will you accept it for the gift it is and use it to bind you more tightly together?"

"But how do we do that?" I asked.

Shing shook his head slowly. "I would not tell you even if I could. It is in your personal journey to confront that adversity that you will discover your answer. Not my answer, but the one that is right for you and Rhys alone."

I took in a deep breath. "That sounds really hard," I confessed.

"You have no idea," Shing said with a small chuckle. "But in my experience, nothing of lasting value has been achieved without great effort." He sat down on the couch and looked at me expectantly.

I wasn't sure, but I thought that chuckle might have been the first time I ever heard him laugh.

We discussed our options and next steps in great detail over the next few hours. It was clear that the Binder Council expected an in-person report immediately. It was also clear that my Dad wasn't in any kind of shape to make the trip. He was still recovering from the toxin – at least I hoped he was still getting better – and needed to rest to get better. He wouldn't like it, but Shing and I were both in agreement that we weren't going to consult him to get his opinion on the matter.