The Forsaken

The Forsaken

By: Lynnie Purcell

The Forsaken

The Guardian Series: Book 3

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the author, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013

CHAPTER 1

I was floating.

Or was I drifting?

It didn’t matter nearly as much as the relentless headache that was pounding against my skull. I wanted to open my eyes and see where the strange drifting sensation was coming from, but they wouldn’t cooperate. The sound of my breathing was punctuated by the sloshing of water and the steady sense that something hard was pushing against my chest.

It took me the better part of fifteen minutes to realize that something was desperately wrong. It wasn’t just in the water or the pressure I felt on my chest; it was in the sense that I didn’t know what day it was. My internal clock was trying to tell me that a lot of time had passed, but my brain was telling me how impossible that was. It had only been a day or two, I was certain of that fact. I pushed away the feeling and focused on the most important thing.

I focused on finding Daniel.

With a great deal of effort, I opened my eyes. It didn’t do me much good. I was surrounded by a wall of dark. There wasn’t even a glimmer or hint that light was possible; there was just the sloshing sound of water and the fear that all of my nightmares were coming true. Was the darkness eternal? Had I wound up in the most awful of visions?

It took me a full minute to remember the fall Daniel and I had taken. Though the city had been under the ocean, our fall had been into rock. We were underground. That was my explanation. There was no moonlight or stars to guide our way. I exhaled sharply at the thought and tried to figure out where Daniel was in the darkness.

The steady sound of water hitting stone filled up my ears. It was annoying, like a giant hourglass ticking away the hours of my life. I wanted to make it stop, as it did nothing for my headache, but I was too weak. I couldn’t move or gather my thoughts without trouble. And even if I could have stopped the water or teleported myself away, I wouldn’t have left without Daniel. I had to find him before I thought about escape.

It was only then that I realized that I was actually floating in the water. It was not drifting past me as I had imagined. I was part of it. It was the reason I felt a heavy weight on my chest. It was pressing me into a large rock overhead. I was being squeezed between the rock and water. From the small pebbles I felt on my chest, it was obvious that I was doing more damage to the rock than it was doing to me. But I was still in danger.

The water was climbing up, and it would surround me faster than I could wear away the rock. I would slowly drown over the course of hours if I didn’t move. I could only assume that Daniel was in a similar predicament. I had to hope, at least. The alternative was that he was gone. I shivered at the thought and grimly set my mind against the idea. He wasn’t gone; he was somewhere nearby. I just had to find him and find a way out of the water.

I tried to shout, his name rising up in my mind, but my throat wouldn’t work properly. All I could manage was a hoarse grunt. I cleared my throat several times, wondering why it felt like I had swallowed a bucket of sand, and tried again.

This time, I found my voice. Daniel? It was barely louder than the moving water.

I tried again, louder this time.

There was no reply.

Please don’t be dead, I said to the darkness.

The water surged again, pressing me into the wall with a firm slap. I felt myself drifting downward, but the current was sluggish. I was moving about an inch every ten minutes. It felt like I was in a narrow tunnel, though it was impossible to tell around the dark. I had the sensation of walls around me, but there was no proof in the dark.

With such a slow current, how was Daniel not with me? He should have been with me. It didn’t make any sense. The evilest of thoughts floated through my mind.

The thought that we had fallen into separate caverns made my stomach clench unpleasantly. How many caverns were there? Did he have air? Was he drowning right at this moment? How could I get to him?

I was working on a full-blown panic when something fleshy and wet hit my arm. I flinched at the touch, my mind filling with horrors of monsters in the dark. It wasn’t a monster, however. It was a lucky break. I could feel thought in the touch. It was thought that was as familiar as my own. It was Daniel.

He bumped against me again. He didn’t move or react to the touch as he normally would have. He was unconscious. It was why he had not answered me.

He drifted away from me. I felt another surge of panic, not wanting to lose him forever in the dark, but he drifted close enough for me to touch him again. Though I could barely move, I managed to grab his hand. I clung to it desperately, unwilling to let him go again. I exhaled sharply at the thought.

At least we were together this time. It was rare that we got into this sort of trouble together. I was usually alone when my life was in the balance. It was actually a bit comforting to have him with me, comforting and infinitely more terrifying. I felt the weight of his life on my shoulders. He couldn’t get us out of the trouble we were in. He was too weak. He was still out cold.

I shook my head. What was I saying? I was too weak. I could barely move. My powers were beyond me.

With a great wave of sadness, I remembered the reason for my weakness. I remembered Dahlia and Twitch stepping in front of the avenger’s sword. They had both died in order to kill him; they had died to save my life. Their deaths had somehow destroyed the avenger, creating a shockwave of light that had drained me. I couldn’t explain why I had been drained for doing nothing, but I knew for certain that it was a pain in the ass. It meant doing things the hard way.

I was a fan of easy, but nothing in my life was ever so obliging. I suddenly wished that they had let me die. They would still be alive and Daniel’s life wouldn’t be hanging in the balance, because of my choice to stay in the city until the last possible moment.

All right, I said to no one in particular, needing to vocalize my thoughts in order to keep from freaking out. We need outta here. We need to find the others…And I’m way too tired to do any of that. But Daniel is here, and I always go psycho-crazy for him. So…let me just freak out, and maybe something’ll happen…

I closed my eyes, not that I really needed to block out any light, and focused. I thought of Daniel drifting in the water unconscious, the danger we were in with imminent drowning, and the enemies we had to face in order to save the world from Odette. We had a lot to do. We couldn’t die here.

It wasn’t enough. We kept drifting, the sound of water against stone pounding into my brain.

Fine, I said, giving up.

The water pushed me up against the rock again, as if to prove it was stronger than I was. I would not escape its purposeful push and steady flow. I rolled my eyes and felt myself start to slowly drift downstream again.

In that moment, I realized that Daniel was dreaming. Flashes of my face and chaotic images of our friends and family swirled around my brain. The images were fleeting and full of darkness. There seemed to be a lot of pain and suffering. I hoped he wasn’t dreaming of the future – I hoped it was not a vision to complicate our lives. I could have peeked, to see what he was seeing, but I didn’t want to see more darkness when I was already surrounded by it. It would make the situation feel worse, no matter how much I wanted to see the future he had refused to share with me. I wanted to stop feeling out of the loop, but I didn’t want it that badly.

So I drifted.

Before I could come up with another plan to get us out of the dark, I heard a sound that seemed very far away. Anyone without super hearing wouldn’t have heard it. It was a dull thud. Bits of debris fell on top of me as the rocks rattled alarmingly. I held my breath expectantly and listened again as a second thud shook the earth. There was a third and a fourth. It took me a second to realize that the thuds were explosions. Someone was blowing up the rock around us. I didn’t like the way that sounded at all.

I exhaled sharply as another thud shook loose dirt on top of us. I knew that we had to get away from the rock before it caved in on us. I didn’t have Mathias hitching a ride inside of me now. I didn’t have an easy way of blowing away tons of rock and earth. I was too tired, and the water was too close for comfort.

But I could swim. I could find enough strength for that, if it meant surviving. I always survived, even when logic told me that was impossible. That ability was doubly important now that Daniel’s life was in my hands.

I took another deep breath, found the rock wall with my feet, and pushed off as hard as I could. The second I did, I realized that we were on the outskirts of a faster current. We were thrown into the current and swept downstream. I couldn’t have swam as fast if I had tried. It was a relief. Something had finally gone right.

As we barreled downstream, bumping into large rocks and unseen obstacles along the way, more explosions sounded from above. I was curious about the sound, but I had more pressing issues. If things went well, I would have my answer when I was free of the cave.

I felt the space open up and out as the thought occurred. A second later, I noticed the roar of a waterfall. And we were headed straight for it.

Oh sh…!

We fell over the edge, my hand still clinging to Daniel’s, and landed in a pool below. The rock cracked under us at the fall; the waterfall pounded into our bodies unmercifully. But at least we had stopped moving. The current swirled in a slow circle before rushing back out into the river. The circling current meant that we stayed in place.

The explosions had stopped, or they were too far away now for me to hear, but there was another sound rising out of the depths of the caves. It was impossible to tell what it was. The sounds were too indistinct, and the caves warped noises to the point that they no longer resembled their origin. Whatever the echoes were, they did not sound friendly.

I took deep, calming breaths to get my mind working around practical lines as the waterfall tried to drive us back down to the bottom of the pool.

I could sense that Daniel was still unconscious. I had no way of knowing when he would wake up, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to stay under the waterfall forever. We had to move. There was too much that needed to be done. And something told me that those things were pressing in on us in a very urgent way.

I focused on reclaiming my strength. Everything depended on my abilities. The strangest part was how external the weakness felt. It was as if a dark hand had been wrapped around my brain. The hand was reluctant to let me rise out of the fog. It was the same hand that had been responsible for my sleep. It was foreign, and made me feel as if something strange was going on.

I took stock of my body. I was perfectly fine. I wasn’t injured or broken. The fatigue was all mental. I figured that if my body was okay, then I could find a way to drag Daniel out of the water. I could find the strength needed for that. As the thought occurred, I realized that I had a way to see around me. I fumbled with my pocket and felt the lighter Reaper had given me. I pulled it out and flicked it to life.

I craned my neck to the left and saw a rocky slope. It was the bank for the river, though I had never seen such a large river without grass or trees nearby. The water that sloshed against the bank was crystalline and perfect, but I hated it. I wanted to be out of it and onto solid ground again. I was tired of floating. I wanted stability.

I took a deep breath, ignored the pounding of the waterfall on my chest, and forced my body to start treading water. I groaned as my body popped and complained with the movement. It felt as if I hadn’t used my muscles in months. I couldn’t understand the weakness or the sense that a lot had changed while I had been sleeping.

My brain tried to push the truth of that abnormally long passage of time in on me again, but I carefully shoved it away. I was obviously not thinking straight; the dark hand around my thoughts was affecting me somehow. And time didn’t matter nearly as much as getting out of the water and figuring out where I was and what was going on.

Knowing that I didn’t have the mental strength to pull us into the place in-between, I pulled Daniel closer to me. He floated easily in the current. The water bounced off his body and sprayed my face and chest unmercifully; the waterfall was reluctant to let him leave its harsh spray. My body protesting with even the smallest shifts, I pulled him toward the rocky bank. I couldn’t walk, I could barely crawl, but I could float and drift my way to the side. I was certain that adrenaline was the only thing that allowed me to move at all.

It took forever to reach the bank. The current of the river worked against me the farther I got from the waterfall. It swirled purposefully, and tried to pull me downriver and tug Daniel out of my grip. I had to stop several times to catch my breath and rest. The course I had originally plotted was perpendicular to the bank, but I ended a quarter of a mile downstream from the waterfall before I finally reached the edge.

I hit the bank with a sharp crack of stone and scrambled to pull Daniel after me before the current could take him. It felt a lot like trying to haul a mountain out of the water. I couldn’t manage it. Panting from the exertion, I laid back on the rocky bank with my hands still on his wrist to keep him from floating away. He kept hitting the edge of the rock with his face, but there was nothing I could do to stop him. I had to rest. Both of us would end up at the bottom of the river if I didn’t.

As I caught my breath and focused on gathering what strength I could around that dark hand, I realized that this part of the cave was not nearly as dark as the waterfall. The rocks were glowing slightly. The light was dim, and barely brighter than the darkness, but it was enough for me.

I rolled over so that I could look at him. In my exhaustion, it took me a long time to realize that Daniel was different from the way I remembered him. He did not look the same as when we had fallen. His black hair was longer, almost to his shoulders, and he was sporting a thick beard. I had never seen his face so covered by hair. He liked a little scruff on his face, but nothing quite so like a caveman. I laughed at the irony of the thought, then I frowned.

How on earth had he managed to grow so much hair in so little time? Even Watchers didn’t grow hair at the speed of sound. It took a lot of time. Our slowed-down bodies meant that it took longer than most. Still holding on to him with one hand, I reached up and touched my hair to see if I had the same curious growth. It was to my shoulder blades, far longer than I usually kept it.

What the hell? I said to no one.

As I spoke, I heard a sound that could not be mistaken for rocks knocking against each other. It was a roar. I recognized the source instantly. Nightstalkers were nearby. They were the origin of the discordant sounds I had noticed in the distance. I felt a wave of fear at the realization. It wasn’t for my safety.

In my current state, I would never be able to protect Daniel from them. I couldn’t even lift him. They would tear into him like a lion would into a gazelle. I needed to find my balance. I needed a way to push off the last of the fog around my brain. Even if I only found the strength to walk into the place in-between long enough to leave the cave, I would take it. I didn’t want to stick around for a fight I couldn’t win. I was not afraid of running away if it meant keeping him alive.

But before I could find another surge of adrenaline to give me the strength I needed, three Nightstalkers ran out of the dark. I could sense that they had come out of a network of caves somewhere to my left. I didn’t know what they had been doing, who they worked for, if they belonged to anyone at all, or even why they were in the caves. Nightstalkers, I had learned from Alex and Daniel, preferred to be above ground. Caves made them feel like they were in a cage. That meant they were in the cave for a very specific reason.

They didn’t seem to notice Daniel and me. They were too busy running away from something. I smelled burnt flesh on them, and one of them was limping. It was clear they had been in a fight. They were an explanation for the explosions I had heard. A confrontation of epic proportions was raging on the surface. I didn’t know who they were, why they were fighting, or if they were friends. They didn’t give me the chance to find out.

They plunged into the river and made their way downstream. They were out of sight again before I could decide if I wanted to risk calling out to them.

There was an expectant pause, then more sounds rose out of the dark. The sounds were a mixture of violence and fear. Someone was definitely fighting. I heard gunfire, steel on steel, and flesh ripping into flesh. There were more yells and growls that punctuated the sound of the waterfall.

I decided to wake Daniel up. It was the only thing I could think to do. Maybe he would have more strength than I had. It was possible that he wasn’t being held back by a dark hand. I had to hope that was the case. The alternative was that we were about to face a whole lot of trouble.

I closed my eyes, my ears still entirely focused on the sounds of fighting, and tried to worm my way into Daniel’s brain. For some reason, it was really difficult. I wasn’t certain if he was blocking, or if something else was going on. I pried at the barriers surrounding his mind, but the limits on mine meant that he could push me out easily.

Before he did, I saw a vision. I saw my face surrounded by a solid wall of black ash and boiling fire. I was near a volcano. It seemed then that my entire body was on fire. The vision passed quickly, and I was pushed back out. I shook off the fear, my heart pounding with the more immediate need to escape.

Part of me wondered if my strange weakness had been Odette’s plan all along. The confrontation with the avenger in Farrah’s underwater city had not been a thing of chance. She had lured him to me. Odette’s angel friend had been there as well. He had done nothing while I fought the avenger. He hadn’t tried to take advantage of me then. Had he waited because he knew I would end up here defenseless, weak and without friends to complicate his murder of me? Had they meant for me to be drained so completely so that I would be easy to kidnap or kill? Was something else going on?

Odette was the most powerful seer in the history of the world. I couldn’t see how she hadn’t planned this. She was always in control. She knew how to manipulate situations and people. She had found us in the dark city; she would find me now.

The fear of that thought was incredible.

I had the distinct impression that she and her tame angel had a very evil plan in mind for me. The idea that they would wait until I was weak, and the truth that the angel had not wanted to fight me in the city, suggested they weren’t interested in killing me. At least not right away. They would kidnap me and use me to an end that I was certain I wouldn’t enjoy, not that I ever enjoyed being used.

And I knew that they would have absolutely no reason to keep Daniel alive. They would want him dead, because he was also a seer. He had the ability to foresee their plans and react to them. He had the future in his hands; he was the conduit for Farrah’s plan. He was also the only living person on the planet who knew where the second city was hidden. It was where the shield Odette wanted to find was stashed away. And if the shield was half as dangerous as its counterpart, it would cause a lot of trouble for everyone. Farrah had downloaded the map to the city into his brain. He was the beginning of my path toward the shield’s destruction. He was no longer just the person I loved more than anyone.

The fate of the world depended on him.

Maybe that was the leverage I needed to keep him alive, though I knew it was a very bad idea to let Odette find the shield. It was probably not as scary as the dark sword Marcus had dug up, but if it was anything like that sword, it would be scary enough. It wasn’t just about the weaponry either. The sword had been alive, and it had been evil. The sword had tried to unmake the world once. I was certain the shield’s purpose would be similar. It was my mission to destroy it before Odette and her tame angel got hold of it.

I was told it would help save the world. I had to hope that wasn’t a lie.

The violent sounds moved closer as I struggled to force my way into Daniel’s mind. Nothing seemed to work. He was locked down tighter than Sing-Sing. I could tell that he was hurt, however. My touch gave me a good picture of the injuries. He had internal bleeding and burns from the fire that had tried to kill us after Jasmine had rigged the underwater city to explode. He was not as untouched by the explosions as I had thought. He also had some damage to his head, but I couldn’t get a clear picture of those injuries.

The strangest part of his wounds was the fact that they seemed frozen. It was like he had followed in the fabled footsteps of Walt Disney and had been put into a cryonic chamber, where his injuries had been kept from worsening. I knew enough about Watchers and their bodies to know that their injuries didn’t simply freeze. Given enough time, they healed, if the damage wasn’t bad enough. It was more proof that something very strange was going on.

I opened my eyes when I heard an explosion close by. Whoever was in the caves was closing in on me. They would find us soon. And I didn’t feel like waiting around for them to kill us.

Figuring that the water was a better hiding place than the exposed rock, I rolled over and allowed my body to splash back down next to Daniel’s. It was far easier than crawling up. Gravity did all the work for me.

I held on to the rock and pulled Daniel close to me. He bobbed listlessly, the water sloshing against his body. I knew that we were making a lot of noise as we hit against the rocky slope, but I hoped that the waterfall would mask the sounds.

There was another explosion and more yelling, then the cavern started shaking. It was not the sort of shaking that was comforting. While I had faced my fear of closed-in spaces a long time ago, I still didn’t want to be under thousands of pounds’ worth of rock in the middle of an earthquake. Slow suffocation didn’t appeal to me anymore than drowning did. It was more incentive to move.

I gripped the rock tighter and tried to will Daniel and me into the space in-between. The soft hand that was around my brain protested stubbornly, and I went nowhere. I silently swore and watched as a large group of Watchers stepped into sight. The rumbling of the cave continued; explosions further down the cave rang out sharply.

The group definitely did not look very happy. I couldn’t see a single Watcher who didn’t have some kind of injury. Some were worse off than others; several of the Watchers had to be carried. More and more piled out of the dark. I saw thirty, and the number kept growing.

The path is blocked! a voice yelled out of the dark. They can’t get through!

It won’t keep them out for long, another voice said. We need an exit strategy.

I thought you were supposed to have one before breaking us out? a different voice said despairingly.

Hey, shut up, someone else said. They could have left us there. They didn’t have to come. Did you want to stay in that prison until they got around to using us for sport, too?

There was a rumble of assent at his words. The man who had scorned their rescuer mumbled a brief apology. The rumbling in the cave changed tones. I realized that it was the rumbling of pounding as opposed to the falling that had characterized the destructive sound before. Someone had used an explosion to cause a cave-in further down the tunnel, and someone else was trying to force their way through. The people in front of me were being chased. They weren’t here for me after all.

Their words also gave me hope, though I knew it wasn’t a great situation. Odette sounded like the type of woman to have dark prisons near creepy tunnels. She wasn’t the kind to break people out, unless she was trying to manipulate someone. For some reason, I felt like this wasn’t a manipulation. There was something familiar about it. The desperation, and the sense that the rescuers didn’t know what they were doing from one moment to the next, was something I had grown used to during my years with the Saints.

The crowd moved closer to the water and a newly-turned Watcher detached himself from the others.

This river goes out to the ocean, he said over the frightened chattering of the crowd.

The others went silent, then started to shift to allow the passage of a person. Three people walked into the dim glow around me. I felt my heart lift up when I saw them.

We were safe. Strangely, miraculously, and definitely uncharacteristically, we were okay.

Reaper, Alex, and a man I knew worked with Fen stepped into view. Outside of my relief, I was shocked. I was surprised at how different my friends looked from what I remembered. Their faces were gaunt and held profound exhaustion, their bodies were leaner than normal and full of tension, their eyes held darkness I wasn’t used to seeing in the depths, and it seemed as if they had gone through a lot.

I was surprised that Alex was not in her Nightstalker form in the middle of such a serious fight. It didn’t make sense.

Are you certain? Reaper asked the newly-turned Watcher with uncharacteristic gravity I found startling.

Reaper loved fights. He loved the danger and the thrill of the hunt. It was as if the joy of a good fight had long ago ceased to entertain him. He had seen too much violence to truly care for it any longer.

I can feel it, the boy said confidently. We’re really close.

We’ll be exposed in the water…and the angels can find us out there, Fen’s friend pointed out.

We have about a hundred Watchers and Nightstalkers working their way down that tunnel, Reaper replied tightly. And no one here can really fight. They’re too tired and broken. We have to run. At least out there we have a chance. Durada is keeping the angels busy with his kin, so it’s this or die.

They’re getting closer to breaking through, Alex said, who had her eyes on the tunnel behind them. We need to go…and I think we’re out of options.

You have an affinity for water? Reaper asked the boy seriously.

The boy nodded.

Do you think you can break through the rock with it? Reaper asked.

The boy shook his head. I’m too tired, he replied. It’s been a long couple of months…

Reaper looked severely disappointed. I understand, he replied curtly. We’ll just have to break through the old-fashioned way...

He jumped into the water without another word and made his way to the closest wall at the far end from the waterfall. That’s when he felt me behind him. He half turned, pointing his pistol at me in violent expectation, then he froze. His silver eyes widened in shock and his hand started trembling. I could sense him doubting himself.

I was going through a similar moment of doubt. There were Watchers out there who could change how they looked. It was easy for them to pretend. It was possible that this was a trap designed entirely to put me off guard. It wouldn’t take much for Odette to stage such a scene, and I completely doubted the odds that I would wake up and end up in the same cavern as Alex and Reaper. It went against everything I had come to expect from life. I was not that lucky.

What are you doing? Hurry up! a man said to urge Reaper along.

Reaper blinked several times and rallied his senses. Do you have any more grenades? he asked Alex.

She pulled two off a tactical belt I had not noticed her wearing and threw them to him. She was too preoccupied with the people around her and the approaching enemies to notice Reaper’s strange stare or the fact that I was so close by.

Reaper pulled the pins and threw the grenades toward the opposite wall from the waterfall. They bounced and rolled several times before hitting the water, then they exploded. The dim light of the moon spilled into the cave. The light was ridiculously painful against my eyes. Reaper swam back to the edge of the rocky bank and started helping the injured into the water as more rocks fell at the entrance.

Those of you who have your strength, keep track of those who don’t. Everyone stay together. This is going to be a bumpy ride… he said to them as the Watchers jumped into the water eagerly.

The Watchers gave various signs of assent as they scrambled toward the opening he had created in the wall. The opening wasn’t large, but it didn’t really matter. The first two men to the hole widened it with the sheer strength of their bodies and their eagerness to get outside. No matter how weak they were, they were still stronger than the stone, particularly stone that had been weakened. There was a pause as they fell and then there was the distant sound of them hitting the water outside. I knew that the fall was a major one. There were hundreds of feet separating our cave and the ocean below.

Reaper ushered all of the injured to the hole, making sure they had someone to look after them, and then he stopped and looked back at me. The only other person in the cave was Alex. She had retreated into the darkness to keep an eye on the Watchers closing in on us. She had wanted to be sure they weren’t interrupted while they escaped the cave.

Reaper and I stared at each other uncertainly. The strangest part of Reaper’s stare was the dislike. It was like he hated the sight of me. The emotion I saw made me think I was right. He wasn’t my friend – he was a decoy sent to confuse me.

Alex…do you see them? Reaper asked softly.

They’re on the other side of the rock still – they haven’t broken through – but I think they’re getting closer. I can’t really see anything in the dark, though, her voice came floating out of the dark.

No…come here, he said.

She moved silently out of the dark. Her grace was surprising. It was as if she had taken lessons on sneaking while I wasn’t looking. She crouched down at the edge of the bank and looked at him seriously. I could sense compassion and fear in her expression.

Are you seeing them again? she asked in a quiet voice.

Reaper nodded and pointed. She half turned out of instinct rather than belief, and then did a double take. Her eyes widened and a dark fire appeared in her eyes. It was a fire of hopefulness that somehow seemed foreign on her face.

Clare? she asked softly.

Her voice was just how I remembered it. It was the voice of my friend. My confusion and doubt increased.

How do I know that you’re not pretending to be Alex? I asked her, finally finding my voice. It felt like it took a lot of effort to find those words.

How do I know that you’re not pretending to be Clare? she asked back.

I don’t know, I replied.

She stood and moved closer to me. Reaper hissed at her to stay back, but she ignored him. She was too busy looking at me. I could see her taking in my features in a way that went beyond normal. It was like she had assumed I was dead; it was like she was looking at a ghost. Her skepticism was profound.

She bent down in front of me. Her body was tense and her expression held a certain level of reservation. She obviously doubted her eyes. She didn’t know how to take the situation we were in the middle of without doubt. She wanted to believe, but I could tell that was very difficult for her.

Without saying anything, she reached out and held her thumb in front of me. It was the thumb she had cut the night we had become blood sisters. I knew what she wanted. Trying to balance holding on to Daniel without drifting away I touched my thumb to hers. Her thoughts were instantaneous.

I could sense that she was being careful, despite the trust it had taken for her to reach out to me. She didn’t allow me in all the way completely, but it was enough to know that it was her. There was no hiding the truth of Alex’s mind. I could have found it anywhere. It was the mind of my sister.

You’re so fuzzy, she told me. It’s like you’re blocking, but I know you aren’t…

Probably the same reason my abilities aren’t working, I said. I tried so hard to get out of this damn cave…

Alex’s hardness melted away. Her hope increased, and I saw her fighting back other, deeper emotions. Oh, Clare, is it really you? she asked softly.

I think so…though everything feels so weird. I don’t understand…I can’t figure out…

What feels weird? she asked.

I’ve only been asleep for a couple of days, but it feels like longer…and I’m so tired. I feel like I haven’t slept at all. I shook my head. And you being here…How’d you find us?

Alex hesitated and looked over at Reaper, who looked as if he was still trying to come to terms with his shock. He didn’t believe his eyes. Despite that, he knew that now was not the time to talk. We were in too much danger.

We can talk about this later, he said in a decisive tone his shocked expression didn’t quite match. His ability to lead was stronger than his emotion. Instinct had kicked in.

We need to collapse this cave, Alex said. It’s the only way to keep them from following us…Maybe it’ll be enough of a distraction to escape.

Reaper nodded in agreement, still not taking his eyes off my face. I can do it, he said.

Are you sure? she replied.

I think that I can handle some rock, he said a bit hatefully.

Then I’ll take them, Alex said.

Not that way, Reaper said.

It’s the only way, she replied.

You know what that means, he said.

We’re already in a whole lot of trouble, she said. It doesn’t matter if I add to it.

But… he tried to argue.

You really think I’m going to be more of a beacon than Clare? The moment she steps outside, the angels are going to know about it…

Which isn’t good, Reaper pointed out.

We’ll just have to hope our people get to us first, she said.

That’s a lot to hope, he replied. They didn’t know that Odette would have a secondary team waiting for us. They wouldn’t know that we had to go this way. It wasn’t planned.

They’re trained enough to be mobile. And hope is all we have, remember? she asked.

He nodded dubiously. "I’ll be