The Gathering (11 page)

We make a run for it.

Beneath a star-freckled sky, with my backpack jostling back and forth on my back, I sprint for the trees. I don’t stop until I’m safely beneath the canopy. Once I am, I rest my hands on my knees and work on catching my breath, my bladder temporarily forgotten.

Luka sets his backpack against a tree. A shaft of moonlight filters through the leaves above and slashes across his face. He looks absolutely perfect. And absolutely tortured.

“Somebody run at Tess.”

I stand up straight. “What?”

He comes to my side, his attention focused on Link and Jillian. “Somebody run at Tess.”

Judging by the way they exchange an uncertain look, the two of them are just as confused by the bizarre command as I am. Neither of them move.

“Somebody run at her!”

A flock of sleeping birds take flight overhead.

My confusion flies with them. I know what this is about. Luka wants to see if he can throw a shield. He’s been waiting to do this ever since his cloak failed back there on that bus.

Jillian and Link remain in place. I don’t blame them. I’ve seen Luka’s shields. Getting hit by one can’t be very pleasant.

He grits his teeth. “Please.”

It’s Jillian who turns sympathetic. She shrugs off her backpack, backs up several paces, screws up her face in the way people do when they’re bracing for pain, and begins to run.

“Faster!” Luka shouts.

Her run turns into a sprint, and although she’s headed straight for me, I’m not looking at her. I’m too consumed with the boy beside me. His posture is fierce. His face, terrifyingly gorgeous as Jillian closes in. She grows in the periphery of my vision. Any millisecond Luka will throw a shield and the same burst of light that came in the stairwell of Shady Wood will slam into her.

Only nothing happens.

I squeeze my eyes tight.

Luka snags my waist and pulls me out of danger just as Jillian rushes past. He holds me against him for a second, his shoulders rising and falling with quick breaths. When he lets me go, he turns up his palms and stares at his fingers like they hold no power at all.

Help

W
e hike through the night, stopping every couple of miles to take a short rest and drink from the water bottles we stuffed in our backpacks. According to Link’s iPad, we are in eastern Missouri, heading toward a town called Greeley. It has railroad tracks that run along the Mississippi River, all the way north to Minneapolis, and all the way south to New Orleans. Looks like I’ll get to scratch train-hopping off my bucket list.

Luka leads the way. He hasn’t said anything since his experiment with Jillian, and I don’t know how to pull him free from the dark hole he’s fallen into. Honestly? I’m afraid to say anything. I’m afraid if I do, he’ll see that deep down, his pain is my relief. Panic has stalked the edges of my mind ever since Cap told me about transurgence. But if Luka lost his powers as my Keeper, then transurgence loses its power, too. The boy I love is safe—a fact that brings a huge sense of release. For Luka? Not so much. Which is why I tuck the emotion away and focus on the path in front of me.

I’ve always loved hiking. I spent hours exploring the redwoods outside my home in Thornsdale. However, hiking fifteen miles straight with exhaustion dragging at every muscle is an entirely different beast. The best distraction is conversation, and since Luka’s not talking and Link has turned into a walking-zombie-of-a-caboose, I’m left with Jillian. I can’t stop thinking about the weapon tucked inside the waist of her jeans.

“How do you know so much about guns?” I ask her.

“My dad was in the CIA.”

“
The CIA?
” I grab the branch Luka holds for me so it won’t fly back and whack me in the face.

“He was a sniper.”

My laugh comes before I can stop it. “You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack.” She takes the branch from me and hands it back to Link.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“It’s not something that comes up in casual conversation.”

“Wow.” I shake my head. “The CIA.”

“If he saw that I was on the Most Wanted list, he’d be rolling in his grave.”

His grave.
The two words chase all my amusement away. Jillian’s dad is no longer living. “What happened to him?”

“He was killed on the job.”

I step over a jutting root, my mind wandering to my own father. I try not to think about him too much. Currently, he’s locked in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. A crime I committed, actually. A truth that haunts me. Since I can’t do anything to change the situation at the moment, I usually try to push the whole thing away. A mind can only stretch in so many directions before it starts going insane. Still, my father is alive, which means I have hope that I’ll be with him again. For Jillian, that hope is gone. “I’m sorry.”

She moves through a shaft of moonlight, a sad smile on her face. “He taught me all about guns. I’m pretty sure it gave my mom ulcers.”

“Sounds like our moms would be good friends.”

“Maybe they will be someday.”

I smile at the thought. It’s a nice one. “Yeah.”

Twigs snap under our feet. I snag a berry off the branch of a tall bush, my stomach growling. Too bad my hiking skills don’t extend to berry deciphering. Having no idea if it’s safe to eat or not, I let it drop to the ground. “So how’d you end up at the hub?”

“I started experiencing symptoms after my dad died. My mom thought my grief was manifesting itself in bizarre ways, so she brought me to Dr. Carlyle. When I explained my symptoms, he asked to speak with me in private, then he told me what was happening.”

“And you just believed him?”

“I didn’t have a reason not to. My dad always believed in good and evil.
Jillian
, he’d say.
There are other forces at play in this world. Forces we can’t see.
He saw too much darkness with his own eyes to be convinced otherwise, no matter what the government or science had to say about it.”

Our moms might be similar. Our dads, on the other hand? Not so much. “So you ran away?”

“He said I was in danger. He told me about the hub. And I left. I haven’t seen my family in two years, but I dream about them almost every night.”

There’s a pang in my chest. A deep ache that rears its head at night, when I’m laying in bed by myself. I’m not the only one missing my family. It must be worse for Jillian. She had to leave her mom in the midst of grieving her dad.

“I keep wondering what they must be thinking, seeing my face on the Most Wanted list.” Jillian picks up a stick off the ground and hacks at some weeds. “One thing’s for certain. When all of this is over, I’ll have a lifetime of crazy stories to tell them.”

We share a smile. Not many people would believe the stories we have to tell.

*

As birds begin to chirp and a soft blush paints the eastern horizon, we reach the outskirts of Greeley. I expect a small, sleepy river town. Maybe a jogger or a dog-walker out before work. I definitely don’t expect the sound of men’s voices.

All four of us stop abruptly, then duck behind some shrubs. I peek through the leaves. Two police cruisers idle inside a CVS parking lot. A huddle of five men stand nearby. Four of them wear standard police uniform. The fifth wears a navy blue windbreaker that triggers a cold feeling in my gut. When he turns around, a gasp tumbles out of my mouth.

Luka pulls me down, completely out of sight.

My breathing turns jagged. The fifth man is the FBI agent Luka knocked out on the bus.
How is he here?
How could he have possibly tracked us from Fort Wayne, Indiana to the obscure town of Greeley, Missouri? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s utterly impossible.

Unless …

My attention wanders to Jillian. She volunteered so quickly when Cap said I needed a team. It wouldn’t have been hard for her to call the police, not with the emergency phone in Link’s backpack and the bathroom breaks we took during our fifteen-mile hike. If our most recent conversation is proof of anything, it’s how little I actually know her.

I shake my head.
No.
The exhaustion is talking. I can trust Jillian. She blew up a car to save us. She has a gun tucked into the waistband of her pants, which means she could have taken us hostage if she’d wanted to turn us in. She’s number four on the Most Wanted list, for crying out loud. And more important than any of that, she’s my friend.

You thought Clive was your ally …

I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing the dark thought away.

Two car doors open, one after the other.

I squint through the buds of green and watch in horror as a large German shepherd hops out of the back seat. A second—even larger than the first—hops out of the other cruiser. The two dogs sit at attention, their ears perked while every last drop of warmth drains from my face.

The FBI agent pulls a clear plastic bag from the front pocket of his windbreaker. I squint harder, trying to bring whatever’s inside into focus. It looks like the same fabric from the Greyhound bus seats. I can hear the dogs’ eager
sniff-sniff-sniffs
—like a salt shaker being rattled back and forth—all the way from where I’m laying. The agent closes the bag and slides it back into his pocket.

The dogs lift their heads.

My heart slams into my throat.

I scoot back, away on all fours. The two animals snap their heads in our direction. Luka pulls me up to standing and we take off, crashing through the woods, leaping over rocks and roots. Tree branches and leaves swipe and cut at our hands and faces.

I can hear them behind us. Barking. Running. Closing in. I can practically feel their sharp teeth sinking into my flesh. I can see their jaws locking around Luka’s jugular. Panic hurls me forward. I run faster. Faster. And then suddenly, my foot catches. An explosion of pain sears up my ankle. I slam against the ground with a loud
oomph
that knocks out all my wind, and I skid forward, shards of rock and bits of dirt tearing my skin.

Luka pulls me up and somehow, we’re tumbling down a steep ravine. We slide to a halt. He drags me back beneath a small cleft and tucks me against his side so I’m pressed between him and a wall of earth.

Everything comes into sharp focus.

I can smell pine and dirt. Wet leaves and moss. The faint scent of fabric softener pressed into Luka’s shirt, even now. I swear I can smell dog breath, too. Link and Jillian pant nearby. Luka’s heart thuds against my ear. The dogs sniff. They’re right over our heads.

And then, a burst of heat so intense, the hairs on my arms curl.

There’s a sharp yelp, followed by a high-pitched whine. Footsteps crash to a stop, as though the men have finally caught up with their furry counterparts.

“What’s the matter with them?” someone asks.

“Why are they acting like that?” another says between pants.

There’s another loud yelp.

The searing heat grows hotter, then slowly diminishes. The barking resumes, only instead of coming closer it fades off to the left.

“They must have doubled back.”

“Come on, let’s go!”

The men chase after the dogs. And the dogs are running away.

Luka pulls me out of the cleft and up into standing. A strange tail of light—like the dancing spots that come after staring directly into the sun—trails off into the direction the dogs ran.

“What is that?” Jillian asks.

Link stares after the glittering spots as they slowly fade away. “I don’t know, but we have to get to the tracks fast.”

“Can you make it?” Luka asks me.

The second I bear weight on my foot, pain stabs my ankle like a red-hot fire poker, but I bite back my grimace and nod.

He takes my backpack. “Are you sure?”

A train whistle blows in the distance.

No, I’m not sure. But there’s no time for injuries. Gritting my teeth, I break into a jog, doing my best to hide my limp. We skirt around the outer limits of Greeley as the train whistle grows louder. Our jogging turns into a run. The pain in my ankle is nearly blinding. We come out into a clearing, where the freight train rumbles along the tracks.

Link and Jillian’s run turns into a sprint. Link tosses his bag into a rail car, grabs onto a handhold, and swings himself in. So does Jillian. I try to catch up, but my legs are shaking so bad I can’t go any faster. Tears sting my eyes. I will never make it. But Luka is right beside me. He locks his arm around my waist, pulls me forward, snags a handhold and sweeps us both up into the railcar.

Dark spots swim in my vision. Cold sweat prickles across my skin. My stomach rolls. I cover my face and clench my teeth and try to take even breaths, but the pain is unbearable.

Luka crouches beside me. He rolls up my pant leg, so gently I can barely feel the touch.

“Did she break something?” Jillian asks.

“I don’t know.”

Their voices grow more muffled, like I’m hearing them underwater.

“It looks broken.”

“How is she going to get anywhere?”

“I’ll carry her.”

It’s the last thing I hear before passing out.