Claiming Trinity (18 page)

“I finally got tackled by you,” the gargoyle groaned with amusement.

A bolt of lightning struck a tree just feet away from them, and Arawn bolted upright, his heartbeat racing. “We have to get you out of here.” He scrambled to his knees and held his hand out to help her to stand.

“Wait.” She glanced all around. “Where is Cemil?”

“He’s looking for Brody.” Kane clambered to his feet.

“Brody is doing this?” She frowned at Arawn. “Is he dreaming again?”

“No.” He didn’t want to tell her, fearful she would insist she stay in the midst of life-threatening danger.

“Tell me,” she demanded.

A burst of wind blasted so hard it nearly slammed the three of them over. Thunder rolled long and deep as Trinity and Arawn got to their feet.

“A security team radioed.” He held up his small radio unit. “Brody took off from the barracks. He was upset.”

“Upset? As in sad?” She narrowed her eyes.

“No,” Arawn admitted. “In a blind rage.”

The faint rose of her cheeks flushed to gray. “By the gods….”

Arawn gripped her shoulder. “What is it?”

“A blind rage. It’s the Furies.” Trinity furrowed her brows. “Where did he go?”

“We’re not sure. Deeper into the forest.” Knowing she would take off, Arawn grabbed her arm. “Rekkus is out there. He’ll keep Cemil safe. We have to go.”

“No! Don’t you see? They’re using Brody to get to me. He’s an innocent boy, and people will get hurt. I have to put an end to this now.”

“What can you do, Trinity? They want you dead.” Kane let out a ferocious growl.

“They’ll leave him alone if they find me. I won’t have anyone else harmed, not because of me.” Trinity dashed into the open field and hollered for Brody and Cemil. She disappeared into the trees beyond the lavender.

“Wait!” Arawn started after her, but Kane held him back. “What in Tartarus are you doing? They’ll kill her.” He tried to jerk free.

“Kane, Arawn, I need you. Do you copy?” Rekkus’ voice crackled over the handheld unit.

He snagged it off his belt and pressed the button. “This is Arawn. Trinity is back and headed your way.”

“Kane, unit eight spotted the Dread Ones in the air. They’re heading here.”

“Copy that.” Arawn released the button, panic and rage coursed through his veins. “We have to find her, now.”

“Listen.” Kane let out a deep growl. “If we chase her, we can’t protect her. Rekkus needs my help. You follow, but keep your wits about you. It’s the only way to keep her safe.”

He was right. The mere thought of Trinity in danger drove Arawn half out of his mind. “Okay. Rekkus. What is your location? Kane is on his way, over.”

“I’m at the north end of the conduit forest.”

“Copy that.” He tucked the radio back on his belt and looked to Kane.

“You take the ground. I’ll go by air to Rekkus.” Kane tore off his T-shirt. “There’s no time to lose.”

“What? You’re okay to let her see you shift?” Arawn choked out.

“If I don’t, we lose the vantage point to protect her. If she sees me and never wants me again, that’s a risk I’ll have to take. We can’t let them hurt her.”

Kane crouched and let the shift take hold. His face contorted with agony; his tanned flesh morphed into a slate-gray, leathery skin. He let out a torturous roar as his wings sprouted from his shoulder blades and his talons protruded. In moments, he was fully shifted into his gargoyle form and stood nearly eight feet tall. He spanned his wings, flapped hard and fast, and took off into the sky. Arawn followed on the ground.

***

Trinity’s legs strained as she bolted through the tall flowers against fierce winds. She halted by a cluster of pine trees when a black fog-like energy field radiated behind the massive trunk of a Dragon’s Blood tree.

“Brody, listen to me.” Cemil’s voice was strained.

Trinity scanned the nearby brush, to find Cemil sheltered on the other side of the gnarled and twisted wood. “They’re messing with your mind.” Cemil’s aura glowed with red fear.

Trinity snuck up behind him. “Let me talk to him. Please, get out of here.”

“I can’t leave you two here alone.” Cemil pointed to two armed security guards twenty yards or so behind Brody. They tucked down and hid but aimed what looked to be dart guns at the teen.

“Give me a chance. I think I can get through to him,” she pleaded.

He held his palm up toward the armed men, motioning them to wait. “But don’t go out into the open until he’s calm,” he cautioned her.

Trinity patted his hand. She surveyed the black aura completely enveloping the adolescent. He stood maybe a few inches shorter than her, a gangly lad with wild, blond curls and bright amber eyes widened with terror. He shrieked and howled with delirium.

“Brody, my name is Trinity. I’m a friend of Cemil’s.”

“I don’t have any friends,” he wailed in a squeaky, unsteady voice. “Leave me alone. You’re the reason. It’s all your fault,” he hissed at her.

Three fierce flashes of fork lightning blazed across the ominous sky. Thunder boomed and vibrated all around and under their feet. Wind gusted about them, forming mini dust funnels that whipped the lavender stems back and forth. The force of flying debris of sand and leaves stung her cheeks.

“Brody….” Trinity delved into his thoughts—a muddle of burning red, ill-omened black, and sheer hatred. She closed her eyes and focused on how his heart punched against his chest, his pulse thrummed behind his ears with a deafening intensity. Nausea overwhelmed him and bile rose in his throat. Fear and devastation overrode even the most basic of his emotions. This boy had become riddled with the frenzy of rage, a volume so colossal, she wouldn’t have read this much on the entire island filled with paras and humans alike, even if they were engaged in a full-fledged war. The psychic assaults on Trinity by the Dread Ones paled in comparison to the torment they perpetrated onto this poor child.

“Tell me what you want.” She sensed the emotional pillar the Furies played on, the teen stuck on how he never felt loved or cared about. Beneath the layers of resentment and hostility, there lay a deep-seated sorrow and…guilt? Emotions she was all too familiar with. “Who did you lose, Brody?”

“Get out of my mind,” he screeched and, gripping his palms over his ears, he dropped to his knees.

Trinity moved from behind the tree and slowly approached. Cemil grabbed her arm, and she raised her palm. “I’ve got this. It’s okay. Trust me.”

Cemil let go and pursed his lips before he nodded.

Trinity moved toward the boy with her hands open in front of her in a show of support. “I feel your grief, Brody. Your father?”

“Stop it. I can’t take the voices anymore.” He yowled and curled into a fetal position on the ground.

A crack of lightning struck a tree feet away from them, the top branches bursting into flames.

“Get out of here,” Cemil hollered over the commotion of the wind.

Trinity glared at him and motioned with her finger for silence.

“The three women in your head?” She knelt on the ground beside Brody, careful to use a calming voice. “I can see them.”

“Yes, they’re telling me to do terrible things,” he wailed.

“They want you to destroy things and hurt people.”

“They want me to strike you with lightning and burn you alive,” he whimpered helplessly.

“I know. I also know it’s not who you are. You’re not a violent person. They hurt me, too, Brody. I can help you make them stop.” Reaching out, she rested her open palm on the side of his head. “I know it hurts. It feels like a knife stabbing through your brain.” She winced, trying to ward off the secondary pain.

“How? I can’t block them out, my father—”

“I can see what they’ve done. They’ve made you think you killed your father.” She caressed his arm.

“I did! It’s all my fault. I got mad at him then I blew up the furnace.”

“No, Brody. Open your eyes and look at me, right now,” she commanded in a firm, but calm voice.

The teen complied, forcing his eyes open as he panted with fear.

“Brody, listen. They did the same to me. They make us see things that aren’t real. That is not how your father died.”

Trinity motioned Cemil to come closer. She closed her eyes, searched his thoughts for the information she needed, and she found it. “Brody, your father died in a car accident. Do you remember that?”

Another flare of lightning lit the sky, the crack of thunder pierced her ears, and rain dropped in a sudden torrential downpour. She sensed the shift in his emotions—she was breaching his wall of rage and piercing the veil of sorrow that fueled the Furies’ wrath.

“Brody, you know this. Think back, before they came to torment you last night. You’ve been here all week. You’ve worked with Cemil to get past your loss. It was an accident. You were in school when it happened. It wasn’t your fault. There was no explosion, no furnace. You did nothing wrong.”

The downpour lessened, and the wind died down. Thunder rolled in the distance, and Brody released his death grip on his ears. He stared up at Trinity as tears spilled down his face. “That’s right. I wasn’t there.”

“Sit up.” She shushed him and sat cross-legged. Trinity collected the teen in her arms and hugged him tight. “You did nothing wrong. I’m so sorry you lost your dad.” Tears stung her eyes. Her sorrow crashed to the surface and met his. She really did understand his emotions.

Brody melted in her arms, curling up like a baby as he wept—they both did. For the first time in months, Trinity released her sadness and tears she’d worked so hard to mask. He clung to her neck and unleashed his concealed sorrow. “That’s it, sweetie. Good job, Brody. They can’t hurt you anymore. They have no power over you.” She rocked him back and forth until his sobs lessened. “They have no power over either of us anymore, I promise you.”

The rain stopped, the winds calmed, and Brody settled back into a normal adolescent with swollen red eyes and puffy lips from his emotional release. “I’m so sorry I caused all of this.”

“Hey,” Trinity prompted him with a finger under his chin to meet her gaze. “No more guilt, for either of us, remember?”

“I promise.” Brody threw his arms around her neck and held on for a long hug.

“After I take care of a few things, we’ll spend some more time together before we have to go home, okay?”

“Deal.” The gangly lad’s freckled face lit up with the first smile she had seen from him.

“All clear here, sir,” one of the armed men spoke into the radio unit.

“Be advised, we are heading to you now. Stay put.” Rekkus’ voice crackled.

“Copy that,” the bald para replied.

“And stay out of sight,” Rekkus ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“This isn’t over yet. He shouldn’t be here any longer, in case they try something else.” Trinity offered caution to Cemil. An inner strength she had lost sight of for a long while resurfaced, along with her confidence.

“You’re right. I’m gonna get Brother Nature back to the barracks.” Cemil grinned and tucked his arm over the boy’s shoulder. “Rekkus and the guys will be here in a minute.” He nodded to the armed men in cargo pants and jackets. “These two guards will stay with you until they arrive.”

“Take care.” She winked at Brody and waved good-bye.

Cemil and the lad headed out to the open field. A glimmer on the ground caught her eye. She bent to examine and discovered a silver necklace had fallen on the ground. She opened the rectangular locket and found two small photos, one of a baby and the other of a man who looked very much like her new young friend. “Oh, this must be Brody’s,” she gasped. “I’ll be right back.”

Trinity bolted out into the field. “Brody, you dropped this.”

Cemil and the teen turned toward her. Their weary, yet light-hearted expressions morphed into ones of horror.

“Trinity, look out!” Cemil pointed to the air.

“Get down,” the men behind her yelled.

Before she could spin around to see what the commotion was about, flaps of wind rushed over her and sharp stings pierced both of her upper arms. A brute force lifted her up from the ground. The security guards gripped her ankles and tried to tug her free, but they dangled in the air and slipped, landing on the ground with thuds.

Trinity screamed and, twisting her head upward, she shrieked at the hideous creature carrying her high up into the clouds. Two more flew on either side of them.
The Furies!

They carried her toward the forest.

“Put me down,” she screeched with rage.

“Soon enough, we will leave you to your accord, but for now, we take you away from those who interfere with our duty,” the one on her left with dangling red serpents for hair hissed.

They carried her through the deep forest and set her down on a branch on top of one of the tallest oak trees. Standing on the thick limb, she clutched the trunk tight, terror ripping through her chest.

“You can’t kill me,” she scowled. “I know all about you.”

“So you may think, half-breed.” One landed on the edge of the branch, causing it to waver. She spanned her decrepit wings to steady herself.

The other two landed on nearby limbs as they took turns taunting Trinity. Each of the former beauty queens were now horrid winged women, all draped in tattered black cloth, their repulsive jagged teeth dripping with ooze. Their previous features and figures, which would have made movie stars swoon, had been replaced with hair of hideous hissing serpents, one yellow, one red, and one black. Their black eyes all dripped with blood. Their wings of pale gray were reminiscent of rotting skin. A wretched odor emanated from them, reeking of death and decay.

“We do not kill. We simply give you a reason to take your own life.” The one in front of her crowed.

Instead of petrified, as Trinity had expected to be, she was desperate to piece the last several weeks together to make sense of it all. “Did you steal my clothes at the hot springs?”

“Yes,” Red hissed.

“And my bathing suit?”

“We did, along with everything else you couldn’t find,” her tormentor snarled. “Including your precious talisman.”