Fervor (35 page)

Sam was having difficulty grasping what everyone was saying, his mind still muddled as Sarah continued to work on him. The damage had been extreme and, without Sarah there, might have proven to be very serious, if not fatal. Even Nathan had not survived the mishap unblemished. He had struck without any regard for his own well being, driven only to hurt Francis as badly as he could possibly manage, and he had split open his knuckles in the process, a result of the level of force with which he had made contact. Sam’s injury had taken priority, however, so Nathan now stood with his hand dripping with blood as he waited expectantly for Sam to consent as well.

“
This wouldn’t have happened if I had been here, Sam. You know it. Tell him to let me go. That way I’ll be able to help Sarah and Elliot with the hover, and maybe speed things up a little,”
he urged.

“
Nathan will be a better Watcher without his ‘gift’. Use the Languorite on him. Let’s deal with this and be done with it,”
Sam muttered, finally able to sit up with a tolerable amount of pain if he supported himself on Sarah. She slid an arm around him to anchor him in place, the fixing less burdensome as well if he were sitting up.

“
Okay, I just wanted to make sure that you are all in agreement,”
Elliot conceded.
“There are still threats out there. Your Control and his friends know about me, and since they have already demonstrated a willingness to break the rules, they may see you as more vulnerable now that I’m here. Then there are the scholars themselves. If we don’t work fast enough, who can predict what will happen if we are still here when they come to investigate what has happened to Nathan. I’ll take him outside to do this. Sam seems to be faring well enough that I would imagine that you can handle him on your own, Sarah?”

The Fixer nodded. Sam was no longer in agony, the pain having lessened to a dull, throbbing ache as long as he remained fairly still. They were both fairly certain that she could finish the job within the next several minutes.

Elliot placed a hand on Nathan’s shoulder and guided him toward the door. When they were gone, Sam finally noticed something that hadn’t come to his attention while they had been there.

“
Where’s Francis?”
he asked.

Without giving Sarah the opportunity to answer, he started searching the connection for the young man. Sam found him a fair distance from the house and moving away from them quickly. His walls were up, and for the most part solid, but dotted with holes in some areas, like Swiss cheese. Sam ventured close enough to glimpse at Francis’s mind through those holes. It was frantic and chaotic, nothing like the Francis Sam had known for years. Sam had never seen anything like it. He frowned glancing at Sarah.

“
Where’s he going?”

“
I don’t know,”
Sarah replied glumly, pausing a moment at the mention of his name and hanging her head a little.
“He lit out of here as soon as you presented Nathan with a distraction. He didn’t take anything with him. In fact, he didn’t even bother to grab his boots.”

That was startling news to Sam. Considering the pace at which Francis was moving, he clearly was choosing to ignore any discomfort or damage that it would be causing to his feet. There might have been feelings of pain intermingled with the other thoughts Sam had sensed through those holes, but he had not been able to tell – they had been so jumbled.

“
What happened to him, Sarah?”
Sam demanded.

“
I told you. We had a chip. Now our windshield is cracked straight through,”
she replied with a ragged sigh.
“And what happened here today might just have been enough of a jolt to cause it to shatter. I knew he was in trouble, Sam, but he wouldn’t let me fix him. If it had been one of the rest of you, I would have done it anyway, but with Francis, I couldn’t do it, not as long as he didn’t want me to.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek and she brushed it away hurriedly.
“I failed him.”

“
Don’t say things like that. You can fix him now; he won’t be able to stop you anymore. Maybe when we get the hover fixed, we can track him down before we leave Fervor.”

She looked at Sam with dismay.

“
I’m pretty sure that will be too late for him,”
she murmured.
“I know that I promised Elliot that I would focus on the hover, but if there’s any way I can help Francis, then I need to.”

“
The damage isn’t physical, right? Can you possibly fix it through the connection? After it’s too dark to work on the hover tonight, I can help you locate him. You could try it.”

Sam was not sure if he could concentrate well enough at the moment to guide her to him, a trick much more difficult than just tracking Francis on his own. His mind was still too foggy from the blow, and by the time Sarah had him fixed to the point that he would be fully functioning, Elliot would likely be done with Nathan and want to get started on the hover right away. With that thought the windows flashed with brilliant light. It was too late for anyone to change their mind now.

“
I don’t know if we can afford to wait that long, and I don’t know if I can do it that way. I’ve never tried anything like that before,”
Sarah protested.

“
You’d never catch up to him on foot,”
Sam thought.
“He has a good head start on us.”

Sam was also tempted to add “and he’s running like a madman”, but he somehow felt that this would upset Sarah even more, and chose to restrain the thought.

“
If you can’t fix him through the connection, you would probably have to wait until the hover is repaired anyway, just to be able to reach him.”

Sarah never got the opportunity to answer this, interrupted by a new distraction.

“
What just happened to Nathan?”

It was Fiona. She stood trembling in the doorway to her room, her face tear-stained. “There’s something different about him. Did Francis do something to him, too?”

Sarah released Sam, who could now support himself on his own, and scrambled to her feet. Then she cautiously approached the distraught young woman.

“
Francis is gone, Fiona. It’s okay. You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you anymore. If you need me to fix...”

“
You didn’t answer my question!” Fiona barked angrily. “What just happened to Nathan!”

The front door opened and the young man in question walked in. He looked over at Fiona and locked eyes with her, his face suddenly apologetic.

“
I’m so sorry. I should have been here. He should have never been able to lay a finger on you.”

He never had the chance to finish his thoughts on the matter. Fiona ran over to him and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. He silently returned the embrace, trying to avoid getting any blood on her from his wounded hand.

“
Can you walk? I can finish fixing you down on the beach between stretches of working on the hover,” Sarah whispered.

Sam nodded. He was not as concerned about himself now, feeling much more like his usual self other than the fuzzy thoughts and mild ache. Sarah was already looking exhausted from her efforts with his injury. He hoped that Elliot would recognize that and give her plenty of opportunities to rest once they started work on the hover again.

Sam rose shakily to his feet. Weaving their way around the older couple, who no longer seemed to really notice them anyway, they joined Elliot outside. The technician was staring up at the dark clouds overhead.

“
It’s going to rain. We had better hurry. If we work fast, we may be able to finish up the bottom of the hover before the weather worsens. We won’t be able to do anymore than that until Nathan helps us flip it, and we’re going to have to set up that hoist that Sarah suggested first. Then it will just be a matter of some few final touches and we can finally leave this cursed island,” he muttered.

The tide was high and the waves choppy when they reached the shore. Sam was surprised at how much progress that they had already made since he last laid eyes upon the hover. The sleek, bullet-like shape was gradually being restored; and although it was discoloured in places and its surface slightly marred in others, Sam could get a good idea of what it had originally looked like before the accident. If Sarah had invested as much effort in mending the vehicle that morning as it would appear, followed by having to fix him, Sam was amazed that she was even still able to stand. Nevertheless, she joined Elliot unwavering, a determined look in her eye and desperation in her expression.

Sam wished he could be more useful while sitting around waiting for Sarah to have a moment to spare. She flitted back and forth between him and the hover, and just watching her do this made him tired, but her energy seemed limitless despite her fatigue. Sam gained a new respect for her that day, deciding that perhaps it made sense that she was the Fixer with the strongest presence in the connection out of everyone in the house-family, since she seemed to have the strongest spirit. He knew that it was because she was so anxious to find Francis, and that the sooner the remainder of the repairs for the day had been made, the sooner they would be able to try and hunt him down and possibly fix him.

From time to time, Sam did check on the young man by means of the connection. Francis was still on the go, and getting steadily farther away. There was purpose to his travels, but Sam could not figure out what that was. He did not dare peer in through one of those Swiss cheese holes, for fear he might get lost in the turmoil and chaos that he saw within and never escape.

Sarah and Elliot did manage to finish the repairs before the rain began, with time to spare. Elliot called Nathan down from the house to help set up the hoist, but the Watcher would not agree to leave Fiona alone in the house no matter how far away Sam claimed that Francis was. Sarah had fixed the Finder to her satisfaction, so he volunteered to return from the beach.

Fiona and Nathan met him at the door. She was reluctant to let the young man go, but she understood the importance of completing the restoration of the hover as quickly as possible. As he departed, she dragged herself over to a chair and stared forlornly out of the window. Sam sat nearby and fidgeted for a while, not knowing quite how to deal with Fiona anymore.

“
Are you going to be alright, Fiona?” he finally asked, the stillness in the room getting to him.

“
I wasn’t sure at first,” she answered, still gazing out through the window. “I had my problems with Francis, but I never expected him to try anything like this. I was worried about the memories this would leave. You know what it’s like for me. Once it’s there, it’s there for good. It isn’t a matter of time making the experience fade for me.”

She hesitated, shuddering.

“
It was awful, Sam. The things that he made me say...the things that he made me do. He was merciless. I didn’t want any of it, but I had to do it.”

“
I’m sorry. Sarah said that he was broken, and I don’t think that she was mistaken,” he offered quietly. “Elliot has been right all along. What they’ve done to us – the changes that they made to us and the changes that they prevented – the enforcement of the Directives, the making us act like little adults, but stealing the capability from us to actually grow up. How can they justify any of it?”

“
I’d probably be just as broken if it weren’t for Nathan,” Fiona admitted. “He’s giving me memories that overshadow the ones Francis left with me. Any time that I’m haunted by the bad things that have happened over the years, all I need to do is hold on to the ones of Nathan and they can’t hurt me anymore.”

“
Whatever helps you to cope, Fiona. Hopefully all of this will just be a bad memory soon for all of us. We’ll find something new – something better. Elliot has a plan for us.”

Sam saw her smile, still watching outside.

“
It’s raining,” she announced. “That means that they’ll be back soon.”

Fiona relaxed into her chair, her relief almost tangible.

She was not wrong, several minutes later the threesome piled into the house. Nathan was tired and grimy, smeared with oil in places. Fiona greeted him joyfully and dragged him off to the kitchen to clean him up. Elliot, who entered behind him, was carrying Sarah, who was curled into him, exhausted. She was so tired that she had actually dozed off on the way back despite the awkward position in which he was forced to hold her. She was petite for a girl approaching thirteen, but Elliot was as fatigued as Nathan was, and Sarah was no longer a little child. He lay her down the first chance that he got, and headed off to shower. She stirred immediately.