Collide (Entangled Teen) (The Taking Book 3) (12 page)

Bam!

An explosion hits in front of us, tossing up dirt and debris. My ears ring, and my eyes burn and suddenly I’m unsure of direction. I spin around to see the Ops closing in behind and beside us, blocking us from the hovercraft and our escape. I eye the fire from the explosion and give Jackson a look. I have only enough time to see him nod before we both take off, leaping over the flames, praying we get the height necessary to keep from dropping to our deaths. Heat lights my skin, singeing the hairs on my arms, but still I push harder. The air clears, and we plummet toward the ground, moving too fast for any hope of a graceful landing, despite our agile nature. I flip in hopes that I’ll roll instead of face-plant and keep moving, too afraid a bullet will hit me clean if I take time to breathe.

The hovercraft starts up in front of us, and Cybil hangs outside the open hatch, waving us in. Fear rips through me. What if we don’t make it? What if we become hostages to these people? What then? I can’t let that happen.

The craft lifts, and I give the last push I have in me. We have seconds before the craft shoots into the sky, autopilot controlling its takeoff. Dad steadies it, the propellers whirl, and then Jackson and I leap at the hatch just as the craft shoots up. My fingers barely connect with the edge, my grip slipping, and then Cybil, Naomi, and Myers help pull us in, and we’re gone, staring down at the crowd of Ops at the northeast base.

A shiver creeps down my back, my breathing unsteady, and I glance over at Jackson. “Well, I guess one thing’s for sure.”

“What’s that?”

“Kelvin knows.”

Chapter Twenty

Once the high of our escape diminishes, Naomi and Myers give us the rundown of what happened behind the scenes at the base. Before the sirens went off they were able to heal twenty Ops in total, including Mitch, who decided to leave with us. I just hope the others can escape before Coleson discovers them.

I spy a portable T-screen in Mitch’s lap and step up beside him to see what he’s working on. “What are you watching?”

“The frequency. It’s like we’re receiving a message, but I haven’t been able to decode it.”

“Who would send us a message?” And then it dawns on me.

Zeus.

Mitch continues to type commands that I don’t understand and don’t appear to be doing anything, until finally a box appears on the screen, followed by a series of sentences, one after the other, each more confusing than the last.

THE ENGLISH SETTLERS FIRST STAMPED IT DOWN.

WHERE POWER OVER SHIPS RUNS ABOUND.

AND THE OLDEST OF THE TRIGARTA KINGDOM TO EXPLORE.

THE MOST ANCIENT WALL BY THE PHOENICIANS shall see this war.

“I can’t track the source of the message,” Mitch says, typing continuously on his T-screen, only to receive error message after error message.

“What do you think it means?” I ask no one in particular, then turn to Vill and Gretchen, the two most analytical people I know. “Any clue?”

Vill shakes his head. “No. Each line seems completely unrelated.”

“Could they have come from Zeus?”

“Oh, they definitely came from Zeus,” Jackson answers. “It has him written all over it. The question is whether this is a hint of what he has planned or if this is just a trick to distract us from what he’s really doing.”

“Well, I don’t think we should go to Sydia just yet. We have no idea what they have planned,” Myers says.

“But wouldn’t it be better to get there before Kelvin can marshal his forces?”

It’s Dad who answers this time. “Kelvin is always ready. He was ready before we left. They’ll be waiting for us, no question. I agree with Myers. Let’s drop down somewhere solitary and think strategy before going back.”

“Why do we need to go there at all?” Naomi asks. “Why not go back to the factory, or Myers’s base?”

I steady my gaze on hers. “Because we have people we care about there. We can’t just leave them.”

She shrugs at my answer as though she thinks we should do just that but doesn’t say anything. I have to fight the urge to argue with her, to yell at someone. I’m too keyed up, desperate to do something, anything to stop Zeus.

“Why doesn’t everyone rest for now?” Dad calls. “We’ll land in a half hour. I know a place.”

“Dad…”

His eyes meet mine, and I know he can tell what I’m thinking. Mom. What if something’s happened to Mom? But I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. “Rest, Ari,” he says after a moment. “We’re going to need it.”

Jackson pulls me down beside him in a seat, and I lay my head against him, intending to rest my eyes, but then I’m fast asleep.

At first, I feel like I’m in some demented version of déjà vu. I’m standing over a crowd of people—half-breeds. I see Lane, one of Dad’s Ops, in the crowd, and then Zeus is beside me. I stand tall, proud, over the numbers we’ve obtained, but then Zeus laughs, the sound slow, calculated, his eyes telling me he knows something I don’t. There’s a flash in the sky, lightning that seems to spread forever, expanding its electric fingers, the black night traced by a yellow pen. I peer back at Zeus, confused, and then a rumble hits overhead and my eyes catch on the crowd in front of me. A blast zooms past me, and then there’s nothing, only burned land, and the electric sky, and the memory of a species called human.

I wake with a start, beads of sweat pouring down my face.

“Ari…we’re here,” Jackson says, his eyebrows drawn in concern. “What? Was it another nightmare?” I nod and he pulls me into his lap. “Zeus?”

I nod again, and then a voice in the aisle says, “When were you going to tell us that Zeus was sending you messages?”

Jackson and I both jerk around to see Dad, Myers, Naomi, and Cybil, all staring at us with their arms crossed, like we’re children who’ve misbehaved.

“He hasn’t,” I say.

“Your dreams, Ari,” Dad says. “They aren’t dreams. He’s toying with you.”

“We need to know every detail of those dreams,” Cybil says.

I glance out the window to see we’ve landed in an open field almost entirely surrounded by mountains. It’s the first time I’ve seen mountains on Earth, and for a moment, I’m captivated by them. By their magnificence. By their unwillingness to falter. I’m jealous of them. If only I had that strength.

Releasing a shallow breath, I search through my memory for the first dream, when we were at the West Coast base. How I woke with dirt under my fingernails. But then, that wasn’t the first. He’s been in my head from the beginning. “I guess it all started at the Unity tree, before Loge, before the neurotoxin, before I was an Ancient,” I tell them, watching their reactions. Then I dive into each of my dreams, including the factory, where I was sure I’d seen him.

Finally, once I’ve finished recounting the most recent one, Myers sits back in a chair across from me. “Verse. This isn’t good.”

“It was just a dream.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“So you think he’s here?”

Mitch types something into his T-screen. “I’m not showing any indication that he’s here, Commander.”

Dad’s eyes drift outside, staring at something or nothing. I can’t be sure. “He’s here. I can feel it.”

My heartbeat picks up, my spine tight. Zeus is here.

I spend the next hour running through each of my dreams again, exhausting every detail in search of something that will clue us in to where Zeus might be or what he has planned, but we come up with nothing. We decide to take a break and then regroup to discuss the message Mitch decoded, though I can tell by the looks on everyone’s faces they’re as lost as to what it could mean as I am.

Jackson and I set out across the valley, desperate for some alone time. I can process my thoughts better when it’s just Jackson hearing me. Dad tends to get a crease between his eyebrows, and though the new dad is a thousand times more supportive than the old, to me, he will always be the commander.

Jackson stops me once we’re several yards away.

“They can still hear us here, you know?” I say.

“Oh, I know,” he says with a smirk. “I know it’s a bit surprising, but I’ve been an Ancient awhile now.”

I smile. “Sorry. I’m just…” I sigh heavily. “A little worried. And a lot lost. What does all this mean?”

Vill walks up to us with Gretchen. Clearly he didn’t get the privacy memo, but then again, it’s Vill. He wouldn’t have cared regardless. “I’ve given it some thought,” he says, eyeing each of us, “and I think the dreams are nothing. Zeus is toying with you. But I think the message is important. I think Zeus is crazy enough to enjoy throwing out a riddle to see if anyone can guess its meaning. I think he’s telling us where he plans to attack first.”

I eye Jackson, watching as he stares up at the expansive blue sky, his gaze strained as though searching for something—a sign—and then he starts for the hovercraft, and we hustle after him to figure out what he’s uncovered. “Can I see the message again?” he asks Mitch once we’re back inside.

“Sure.” Mitch clicks on the screen, and the words reappear, and I notice for the first time that every word is capitalized in all of the sentences except one.

“
Shall see this war
…Vill’s right,” Jackson says. “Zeus is telling us where he plans to attack. He doesn’t simply want to hit us. He wants a fight. He wants to prove that he’s the better leader, that Ancients are the stronger species. He wants a ground fight. He wants a full-out war. This isn’t going to be a fight in the air or a fight using technology. This is man to man. Woman to woman. Species to species. Until there is only one standing.”

My insides turn to ice at his words.
Until there is only one standing.
Then a thought occurs to me—what if the
one
is no longer one species or the other? What if we could make the half-breeds a new species? A better species.

“Mitch, do you have a means to search history tablets?” I ask.

Mitch types through a few options on the screen. “I can get some, yes. Not all.”

My eyes zero in on the words “English settlers” and “first.” “Okay, search for the first English settlement in America.”

“It was Virginia,” Gretchen says, stepping up beside me. “Virginia was one of America’s fifty states before World War IV. It wasn’t the capital or anything, so I’m not sure how it’s relevant, and I can’t imagine why he would hit there, of all places.”

Mitch pulls up his findings on Virginia and we all read the words. “First colony.” “First.” The word circles through my mind. “First.” What if…?

“Do a search for the first cities or colonies or whatever word seems relevant for the other Trinities—search Africa, Asia, and Europe.” I feel my pulse speeding up, my mind whirling, as the pieces fall into place. And then the search results appear

Naucratis—the city that wields power over ships. The first colony in Africa.

Multan—the capital of the Trigarta Kingdom. The oldest city in Asia.

Cadiz—originally known as Gasir, or the Wall. The first settlement in Europe.

“He plans to attack where it all began for each of us,” I say. “It’s so Zeus.”

“What do you mean?” Naomi asks.

“Don’t you see? It’s metaphorical. He wants to end humankind in the very places it all began. Mitch,” I say, turning to him. “Can you send a warning to the other Trinities?”

“On it,” he says.

The rest of us take our seats, and we fly in silence, the thoughts of my group almost too much for me to stand. Some are hopeful. Others feel we’re doomed. I grip Jackson’s hand in mine and turn his chin so he’s looking at me. “Promise me something,” I whisper.

“Anything.”

“Promise we’ll stay together. No matter what. We won’t leave each other’s side. We’ll fight side by side. I don’t think I can…” I trail off, a lump forming in my throat. “Just please. Promise me we’ll do this together.”

“Together,” he says, and then his lips touch mine, gentle and sure. “I promise.”

We fall asleep again, unsure if this is our last moment of rest. My dreams replay in my mind, over and over, Zeus there, watching from a distance, laughing. Like he already knows so much, like he sees the future. The war is merely a formality to him.

Sydia is sixty-two minutes from where we stopped in the mountains, and as I wake up to talk to Dad in the cockpit, I realize that we’re going to be eight minutes shy. “The fuel…?”

“We aren’t going to make it,” he says. “I need to land.” Just then, the craft juts about, sputtering like it’s trying to gasp a breath in a world without oxygen. “Everyone prepare for an emergency landing. We’re going down.”

For a moment all I can think about is the irony. We’ve spent the last several days planning for a war, training people to fight, healing humans so they stand a chance, only to die in a hovercraft crash? Is that some universal sign that our efforts were a waste? Just futile attempts at changing a fate that’s already been decided? Maybe humans aren’t meant to continue. Like the dinosaurs, maybe their clock has run out.

“Ari. Sit, now.” Dad’s gaze shifts to me and then forward, and I realize in my psychobabble I’m still standing while everyone else has frantically returned to their seats, fastened their seat belts, and is now awaiting the crash.

Jackson’s strong arms wrap around my waist, and he has me strapped in a seat before I can breathe a sound of complaint. I peer over at him and reach for his hand. “I love you,” I mouth, and he does the same. I wish I could see Gretchen and Vill, just to make sure they’re okay, but then we’re free-falling through the air, the plane rushing down, down, down, the sound like a missile piercing my ears. I clench Jackson’s hand, and for a moment, I feel a flood of happy thoughts hit my mind. The first time we met. The moment I opened my eyes during the Taking and saw him floating above me. The moment I knew he meant more to me than anyone ever had before.

The first time we touched.

Our first kiss.

The shower…

And then the hovercraft slams into the earth, thrusting our bodies forward and then tossing them back against the seats as though we are nothing more than rag dolls. I feel something hard connect with my head, and I scream out as the pain ripples through me. Blood pours in my mouth from either biting my tongue or a worse injury that I haven’t yet uncovered. I reach up to check my head, and my hand comes away coated in blood. Immediately, xylem starts healing my wounds, when I realize that I don’t hear anyone else. No talking. No screaming. No crying. Nothing.

I fumble for my seat belt at the same time that Jackson does beside me, and I’m so relieved to see him moving that I almost launch myself into his arms. My eyes burn, and I release a breath. “You okay?”

He smirks. “Never better.”

But then we walk into the aisle of the hovercraft and our smiles drop away. Vill and Naomi are on the floor, surrounding someone I can’t see. I start forward, and it’s as though everything has slowed down. Like I’m watching myself on the T-screen, watching my face morph into horror. Watching as tears pool into my eyes.

I know even before I’ve gotten there that Gretchen is hurt. Badly. I drop to my knees beside her, taking in the blood pouring out from her center onto the composite steel. “Gretch? Are you okay? Are you—” But my words cut short. Her eyes are open, but she isn’t looking at me, she isn’t blinking. Why wouldn’t she be blinking?

I lift her shirt to find the injury, telling her again and again that it’s going to be okay, that xylem will heal her.

“Ari…” Vill starts.

“No, the xylem. We just have to wait for it to heal her,” I say, my voice shaking. I swallow hard, fighting the urge to break down. We just have to wait. Any second now the xylem in her body will— Oh, no. “No, no, no,” I say, shaking my head rapidly.

Vill reaches out for me. “Ari, she’s gone.”

“No, she’s not gone. I can still heal her. I can still save her.” I call my own xylem to my palms, pressing it into her, but it’s as though it refuses to go, as though it knows there’s nothing that can be done. It remains trapped in my palms, circling around, awaiting something to do, and I scream out over and over, ordering it to heal her. To save her. How could this happen? How could we heal every person we’ve encountered that wanted any part in this fight except Gretchen?