Catalyst (5 page)

             
“Prisoner transfer.”

             
“I don’t have
a transfer on my schedule f
-”

             
I
heard scuffles and grunts and it
felt like Cain was running, as I was being jostled. He set me down in a big scratchy cloth chair. I opened my eyes to see what was going on and the hall was blurring and swirling. I blinked to focus.
             

             
Daniel was fighting someone
,
and Billings and Cain were fighting another. I couldn’t tell what the
y were:
h
uman or Lighter. Lillian was on the other end of the hall. She appeared to be looking for something or someone.

             
I was finally able to move my limbs some, my bones and veins still cold and stiff but they went when I told them to now, painful as it was. I sat up in the chair and watched with horrid fascination. It all came to
a
screeching
full
on
understanding.

             
Cain, Lillian and Billings had come to save me. Daniel was helping them and now, the Lighters had been alerted and were coming to stop them. I felt so useless and scared for them.

             
I looked again and saw
a woman, no, a girl
, with Lillian at the othe
r end of the hall now. The girl
was leaning on the wall, sitting on the floor, looking as scared as I felt.

             
I saw blurs of banging fist
s
and legs.
Daniel threw one of them into the wall and b
roke
n pieces of dry wall fell off in chun
ks to the concrete floor. Billings was kicked in the stomach and doubled over but quickly recovered, upper cutting the one he was fighting in the chin sending him falling backward into a table with papers and brochures on it. The papers flew up into the air in a cloud and rained down all around him on the floor. I saw that he was a human.

             
I heard a loud crashing and looked to my left to see the door to the rest of the building had been banged open. A couple
of
people came through it and jumped into the fight, down on Lillian’s end of the hall was the same. Three enforcers ran out of the door at the end and started swinging.

             
Cain was a force all his own. He took them down easily, one after another and I knew he had hi
s gift to use if need be but I was
s
ure he was trying to not use it
to draw attention to us.

             
I was surprised there wasn’t an alarm or something. I stood up on shaky legs and leaned on the wall. I might need to run and if that’s the case, I need to get my baring before that happens.

             
I was grabbed from the side and I screamed out of surprise. He gripped me around the throat and I surprised the heck out of myself by using the hold break maneuver Miguel had taught me, out of instinct. I slammed the heel of my hand into his inside elbow and he let go. I ducked under his arm but before I could run or do anything else he gripped me again and slammed me into the wall before grabbing me from behind to hold my arms down.

             
I looked up and saw that Lillian was being attacked too from her end. An enforcer had her by the throat but she wasn’t fighting back, she didn’t know how. I screamed to Cain, who had just put down an enforcer.

             
“Cain! Lillian!” I screamed to tell him to go to her and was surprised to hear that my voice worked again.

             
He looked to me first, eyes wide, then Lillian. She was watching jus
t like I was. His gaze switched from me to her several times, his face
twisted. I realized he was struggling with who to save. He was making
up his mind on who to run to, m
aking a choice.

             
Then he made it.

             
He took off running for Lillian fast, his
boots pounding on the concrete;
I could hear them all the way from where I was standing. He grabbed the enforcer from behind and wretched his head back, throwing him to the ground. Then grabbed Lillian
in his arms and turned back,
tak
ing a step toward me. The woman
still sat on the floor with her eyes shut and her ears covered.

             
The enforcer who had me was trying to pull me out of the hall. I say trying
but
, he was succeeding. I could barely stand and he was practically dragging me. Then I saw Daniel take a stake, one of ours from home that Cain or Billings must have brought, and drive it through the stomach of the only other Lighter in the hallway.

             
I saw the bursting light.
Daniel ducked down as the bolt of light
n
ing shot forth and out of the Lighter’s chest straight through the roof of the building. The boom was massive and my ears were ringing. Lights flickered and a couple big fluorescent ones hung down from the ceiling on their hinges. Plaster and wood pieces fell all around us in a shower of debris.

             
The enforcer who had me had stopped moving to watch with horror on his face but now in the aftermath had started dragging me again. Daniel blurred my direction and punched the
man in the nose, who fell back
bleeding and confused. Daniel grabbed me under my legs and back as I started to collapse. The man took one more look at Daniel and ran the other way.

             
I heard Daniel yelling to the others.

             
“If they didn’t know you were here before, they definitely know now. Out this way. Let’s go.”

             
I buried my face in Dan
iel
’s chest. Yes, he wa
s a Lighter
and yes I felt awkward at h
is whole turn-around attitude
,
b
ut I’d heard the story of what Cain and Lillian had said about wh
at he did. I’d seen him help me and
he wa
s helping us now. And right that
second
,
he was holding me carefully like I was fragile and important enough to worry about.

             
The mo
st important of all the reasons
I was clinging to him was because I was still freezing cold and even though Lighters are cold skinned themsel
ves, he was still warmer than I was
.

             
He was still wearing tha
t big jacket from earlier and I tri
ed to sleepily snuggle into it as he crept down the hall. I heard footsteps behind us and stiffened.

             
“Don’t be frightened. It’s just your companions,” he whispered to me as he set me in a chair in the hall, took off his jacket and
wrapped it around me, even did
the buttons for me.

             
Cain came into view.

             
“How you holding up, kiddo?”

             
“I-” I tried to speak but couldn’t, my mouth was cotton and my vision started to blur again, so I tried for a smile, but it must have l
ooked more like a grimace. T
hen I was being swiftly picked up once more in cold arms and carried down the hall.

             
“Faster. We’ve got medical supplies in the van,” Cain ordered.

             
We reached the door and Billings told Cain the code to get it to open. He too had his hand
s full, trying to coax the girl
to follow us and be quiet. She looked frightened beyond belief. Her dark eyes
were
wide and shallow and dark rimmed. She whimpered behind us as he pulled her along.

             
Billings yelled something to Cain about a room next to us. They opened it and started rummaging through.

             
Daniel made it out the door first with me still in his arms and rounded the corner.
I didn’t see Cain or Lillian, not even
Billings. It was so bright I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My ears were still ringing from the lightning blast.

             
I heard y
elling in front of us. I felt the vibrations in Daniel’s chest as he yelled back. I made myself peek and saw Merrick. My heart immediately went off the charts, skipping violently, but I was still too weak to move much. I tried to tell Daniel it was ok but he couldn’t hear me over Merrick and Danny’s yelling.

             
Danny. Danny was here to
o
.

             
I realized what that must’ve
looked like to them. I
had just come out of the enforcement
facility after being kidnapped, unconscious a
nd bloody, carried by a Lighter with
no Billings or Cain in sight. Crap.

             
I raised my hand
slowly and heard them all stop.

             
“It’s ok.”

             
Daniel walked slowly and carefully to Merrick a few feet away and held me out for him to take.

             
“I believe this belongs to you,” Daniel said and passed me to Merrick’s warm arms.

             
Before Daniel could get staked by someone, I made sure to let them know h
e was not gonna hurt us, t
hat he was one of us now.

             
“Merrick-”

             
“It’s ok, baby. I’ve got you,” he said and his arms settled and tightened around me.

             
“No. This is Daniel. He helped me,” I creaked.

             
Merrick looked up to him. I looked between the two as they stared each other down. No matter how m
uch Daniel may have changed, I was
sure it wasn’t easy to be face to face with a Keeper, your known enemy for thousands of years, and not still feel a pang of needing to do something about it.

             
Danny stood off to the side glaring at Daniel too.

             
Luckily, Cain and Billings came around the corner just in time to diffuse and Cain started telling everyone to get back in the van. Now. As if something was about to happen and we needed to get out of
t
here.

             
Lillian grabbed Daniel’s arm beside me and started pulling him to the van.

             
“Come on. Come with us.”

             
“No, Lillian. I can not go with you.”

             
“Yes, you can. They don’t care. They’ll understand.”

             
“I believe you are mistaken about that.”

             
She looked at Merrick.

             
“You would stop him from com
ing with us after he
helped Sherry? You need to hear what he’s done. You have no idea, but there’s no time. Don’t stop him from coming with us, Merrick. He saved Sherry’s life.”

             
Merrick looked at Daniel sharply for a moment and nodded.

             
“Let’s go.”

             
I was
so incredibly proud of him. As I was
sure it wasn’t easy for Daniel, it w
asn’t easy for Merrick either, t
o put away all that old rivalry, but Merrick would do anything for me. And he just kept proving it over and over again.

             
I heard Daniel and Lillian talking back and forth as Merrick walked away. Billing
s was putting the girl
in and handing her to Ryan, who he explained to her was a good guy. She clung to him and buried her face in his neck to cry. He
was startled
, but he
leaned back against the front seat and settled in with her.

             
Once
settled in the van, Merrick placed me
on the floor in front of Miguel.

             
“You just can’t keep out of trouble can ya, love?” Miguel asked me and smiled. I tried to smile back but my face hurt something awful. He touched my arm. “You’re freezing, Sherry. And your face!” He looked up to Merrick to explain.

             
Merrick shrugged.

             
“I have no idea. Ask him,” he said and nodded toward Daniel, who was climbing in and everyone got really quiet.