Hannah's Warrior: Cosmos' Gateway Book 2 (2 page)

Hannah pulled her jacket closer around her as
she settled down on the top of the Land Rover. She felt it rock a
little as Abasi settled down inside before all was quiet. Truth be
told, Hannah loved this part of her life. She enjoyed the peace and
quiet of the night and the beauty of the stars untouched by
artificial lights or pollution. In the distance she could hear the
sounds of the night predators as they moved. The sounds of the
snorts from wildebeests and the faint roar of a lion filtered
through the cooler night air.

Hannah let her mind wander
as she stared out into the darkened landscape. She wondered what
type of ‘marvelous adventure’ her baby sister had gone on. Jasmine
‘Tinker’ Bell was the light in the Bell family. Her petite size and
infectious personality lit up any room when she walked in. She was
three years younger than Hannah’s twenty-five, although, Hannah
often felt much older. Their parents had the three girls within
three years of each other. None of them were planned but all of
them were loved. Their dad, Angus, was a successful science-fiction
writer while their mom was a bit of everything. Tilly Bell could
work on any motor in the world if given a wrench and ten minutes
and program a computer any hacker would have a problem getting
into. She was just as hyper as Tink was while Hannah was more
reflective like their father.
Tansy,
Hannah thought for a moment
with a soft smile,
well, Tansy was
probably an invention of their mom’s as she didn’t really fit under
any category Hannah had ever figured out.
Even as a kid, Tansy had always been different. She was the
strong, quiet type that could see right through you or scare the
shit out of you depending on the situation. It was almost like she
came from one of their dad’s science fiction stories. But, then
again, Hannah couldn’t say too much as she was different too,
especially since Nicaragua.

A shudder went through
Hannah as she let the memories come. She learned a long time ago to
just let them flow through her so she could let them wash away the
pain and guilt. She used to try to bury them but found it just made
it worse. Each time she let the memory come, it seemed to help make
it a little less painful.
At least they
weren’t coming near as often,
Hannah
thought with relief. Her parents spent the better part of a year
trying to get her to open up about what happened but Hannah never
told them everything, she couldn’t. Hannah knew they felt extremely
guilty about what happened but Hannah never blamed them. In a way,
it became a blessing. Her parents always said there was always a
silver lining to everything that happened in a person’s life. In
this case, Hannah learned to trust that feeling she gets when
something is about to happen or when it tells her to do something.
She would have been dead or worse dozens of times if she hadn’t
learned to accept it.

Hannah let her eyes move
over the darkened landscape as she let the memories flow through
her to when she was fifteen. Her parents were in Nicaragua for a
meeting with an oil conglomerate to discuss some new power
generator her mom was working on. Her mom had her degree in
mechanical engineering with a specialty in power grids and
generators…
probably a throw-back to
working in her grandfather’s garage when she was growing up,
Hannah thought distractedly as she watched the
shadows of a group of hyenas go by.

Hannah pulled the jacket closer and folded
her arms around her knees. She knew as long as there were predators
and the night sounds around them, they were alone. She refocused on
the memories determined to let them run their course. She
remembered how excited all three girls were to be at the big
function the oil company executives were giving. There was a huge
reception with dinner and dancing. When you spent most of your life
in a home with ten wheels and one closet size bathroom, it was a
dream come true to have a huge bedroom all to yourself. Hannah
being the oldest was allowed to stay up an hour later than the
other girls. There were several handsome young boys in attendance
and Hannah was surprised at all the attention she was getting. Her
parents made sure they never let her out of their sight, which
truthfully, Hannah was perfectly happy with since she didn’t know
how to handle all the attention she was getting.

It was as she was having her last dance when
the gunmen burst in. Hannah remembered staring in shock as the dark
red splatters of blood covered her dress as the men opened fire on
several of the guards. The boy dancing with her was hit by one of
the bullets. Hannah watched in horror as the life faded out of his
eyes and he collapsed in front of her. Several of the guards had
grabbed her parents and the two top members of the oil company and
their wives and thrust them into a ‘safe room’ sealing them inside
while the gun battle raged outside in the ballroom.

Hannah remembered as if it was yesterday
being knocked down by the people fighting to escape the bloodshed.
She lay in the blood soaking the floor near the body of the young
boy who moments before held her in his arms. When the gun fire
stopped, the masked gunmen began jerking up those who were not hurt
and pushed them out into several trucks. Hannah had been one of the
ones grabbed. She was numb with shock and unable to understand most
of what was being said as her Spanish wasn’t good enough to
understand it when it was spoken so fast. She didn’t remember a lot
about the actual trip to the rebel camp deep in the jungles but she
remembered the crying, the fear, the dark, and the never ending
twists and turns the trucks took to get there. It was dark again by
the time they arrived.

The women were lead into a small wooden hut
while the men were placed in open cages. Hannah remembered looking
around and realizing she was the youngest one there. There were two
other girls a couple of years older and their mother and two other
women she vaguely remembered being introduced to. She spent three
days living in terror as one by one the women were taken out.
Hannah could hear the screams before the silence. As each one was
brought back, the blankness in their eyes scared Hannah more than
anything else. She could hear the laughter of the men as they
brought them back and the anguished screams of the men in the cage
as they were tortured.

Hannah knew when it came time for them to
come for her she would fight or die. She refused to become a hollow
shell of a person. Her parents taught her how to fight, how to
defend herself and she would. It was funny but she could feel it
was time for her to do something. Hannah had spent the last two
days working on loosening one of the wooden boards that was
cracked. It broke off and one end made a sharp, jagged point. Using
a piece of her dress, she tore some of the under skirt off and
wrapped it around as a handle. Hannah looked through the cracks in
the wall at the jungle surrounding the small camp they were in. She
had always felt at home in the wilderness. Perhaps it was because
of all the places they had lived and her love for exploring the
wilderness and photographing it. She didn’t really know. Whatever
the reason, Hannah would rather take her chances with the jungle
animals than with the human ones.

Hannah felt the sweat drip down her back as
the next wave of memories washed over her. Two men came this time.
They called for one of the girls who were close to Hannah’s age and
Hannah. The girl started crying softly as the man yelled at her
again to get up and follow him. Hannah moved silently holding out
her hand to the girl when the man took a threatening step towards
her. The mother of the girl got up and started forward begging the
men to let her go in her daughter’s place. One of the men, a short,
heavy-set man stepped forward striking the woman across the face
hard. Hannah looked on in horror as the woman flew back against the
side of a small table and fell to the dirt floor, not moving. None
of the other women, including her other daughter, moved to help her
or see if she was alright.

Hannah could feel the rage building as the
memories came. Her fists clenched into tight balls as if she was
once again holding the broken piece of wood like a knife in the
palm of her hand. Hannah’s eyes flashed to a shadow in the sky as
several bats flew over the gulch. She forced her hands to relax and
drew in a deep breath.

Hannah closed her eyes briefly allowing the
sounds of the night to calm her as the images flashed through her
mind. She remembered the hatred that swelled through her like a
tsunami rushing toward shore. She remembered the men laughing as
they pushed both of the girls out of the hut. Hannah walked with
her head high glancing about as she moved looking for an escape
route as the girl next to her cried softly. Hannah let her gaze
slide to the men in the cage. Most of them didn’t move. There were
a couple who followed Hannah and the other girl with their eyes but
they didn’t say anything. Hannah cringed as one of the men touched
her hair and said something. Hannah recognized the crude words and
shuddered as revulsion swept through her. In that moment, she was
no longer an innocent young girl but a woman determined to
survive…even if it meant killing another human being to do it. She
was about to become one of the predators of the jungle. Hannah
could feel something inside her break free and knew it was time to
trust in the feelings coursing through her body. As soon as the men
pushed her into the small hut Hannah moved. She swung the sharp
point up into the throat of the man closest to her, piercing his
jugular. The only sound he made was a gurgling sound as he gripped
his torn throat before he collapsed onto the dirt floor. The other
man, intent on the young sobbing girl in front of him, never saw
the sharp point that pierced his throat from the back. Hannah
ignored the blood pouring down over her hands and arms as she
pulled her make-shift knife from the man’s throat. She remembered
quickly turning and shutting the thin wooden door of the hut so no
one else could see what was going on inside.

Hannah glanced at the girl sitting on the
ground rocking back and forth, no signs of awareness in her eyes.
Hannah leaned down and tried whispering to the girl to get up and
follow her…but the girl just curled up into a ball on the dirt
floor whimpering. Hannah knew she had no choice but to leave her if
she was to find help for the others or save herself. The girl would
get them either captured or killed. Hannah whispered a soft apology
as she ran her hand over her dirty hair but she doubted the girl
even heard her.

Hannah moved to a low window in the hut
saying a word of thanks the back bordered the dense jungle. Within
moments, she had disappeared into the thick foliage. Hannah
remembered the fear of being alone and lost for the first couple of
nights before she began realizing being in the jungle was less
frightening than being held captive by the rebels. It took her ten
days before she came to a small village along the Rio Coco. By
then, she looked more like a wild woman than the elegant young girl
who two weeks before had attended a dance. Her hair was a tangled
braid down her back and her dress was in pieces. She had used
strips of it to bind around her shins for protection and had
blended in dirt to hide the color of it as much as possible. The
first two days she spent a good deal of her time hiding either in
the trees or under the thick ferns and other undergrowth as the
rebels searched for her. By the third day, they seemed to feel she
was probably dead. She survived by drinking rainwater from the
leaves of plants and eating what few pieces of fruit she could
find. To help protect herself from the bugs, especially the
mosquitoes, she applied thick coatings of mud to her skin. With a
quiet resolve to survive so she could help the others, she began
moving west towards the glimpse of river she was able to see from
the top of one of the trees. She slept in the trees at night, tying
herself to them with vines to keep from falling out. During the ten
days it took to find her way back to civilization, Hannah realized
one thing…she would never be the same.

Hannah gazed up at the stars and let out a
series of deep breaths as she felt the same resolve that gave her
the strength to survive the jungles flow through her now. She
understood the world…the circle of life. In order to live, she had
to kill. She would always regret the need to take a life, in her
case two lives, but she understood the necessity of it. She saw it
in every species she photographed. From the lions to the ants,
there were always a predator and a prey. It was up to her to decide
which she was going to be.

She smiled as she watched a meteorite flash
across the star-lit sky. Hannah chuckled softly as she made a
ridiculous wish. It would seem even she still had childish dreams.
Hannah’s eyes jerked down as she heard the distant sound of an
engine. Sounds could be deceptive out in the open like this. The
vehicle could be twenty miles away or two. Hannah listened
carefully but it soon faded. It was crazy to be driving at night
under any conditions in this region. Lights could be seen for miles
and the roads were treacherous enough during the daylight. Hannah
suspected it must be some of the rebel forces from across the
border, more than likely smuggling guns or drugs. Either way, she
was glad they were well hidden.

As she settled back down she
let her mind finish taking her down memory lane. Hannah grimaced at
that description of a very bad time in her life.
Well, it wasn’t too bad.
Hannah had to admit.
She did meet
Jacq and Maria.
Hannah had tumbled out of
the jungle near the cantina they owned on the river. Maria was
throwing out some dirty wash water when she spied Hannah standing
just outside the thick growth of the jungle. She had taken one look
at Hannah and let loose a long line of Spanish curses. Hannah would
have been afraid if it hadn’t been the look in her eyes and the
feeling telling her the curses weren’t directed at her. The next
thing Hannah knew she was being guided into a small room in the
back while Maria yelled for Jacq. Hannah mumbled out her story
about the other captives while Maria carefully washed and cleaned
the numerous small cuts on Hannah. Jacq used a satellite phone to
contact the local authorities with the information Hannah was able
to give them.