The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass), page 27
Valie began fiddling with her mother’s bracelet hanging from her wrist. She wished Jack were there to help her discern the truth of things, to help her fight the odds. She couldn’t help but feel as if she was fighting Fate itself.
But perhaps that was her fate, she realized, to fight it.
She felt the slow invigoration of renewed purpose. The others would find a way to track her. She just needed a plan to help them find her. . . She would make her own fate. Contrary to the plans of her father, she would fight.
And she would win.
NEW DESIGN
Jack pushed Jericho aside. He shoved his helmet onto his throbbing head and mounted the yellow motorcycle.
“Jack, you might have a concussion or worse,” Jericho tried to reason. It seemed an impossible task when all of Jack’s thoughts rested on Valie. He couldn’t believe he’d allowed her to go with Isaac. His attempt at linking with Noah with his mind hadn’t been enough. They just couldn’t move fast enough.
Jack growled.
If he hadn’t been knocked out for so long, the others wouldn’t have tended to him before trying to pick up Valie’s trail. Because of him, the trail had gone cold.
“Jack!” Jericho grabbed his attention, standing in front of the bike as if immovable. He ran his hand through his graying hair in frustration. “You’re already unable to focus. Please. I realize you have to go, but at least drive with the others. It won’t help the situation for you to crash and die on the side of the road.”
Jericho’s stern gaze frustrated Jack, but he knew the doctor was right.
Jack took off his helmet and strode quickly to the idling BMW. Shane and Noah waited inside.
“How’s your arm?” Jericho inquired quickly as Jack entered the vehicle.
“Never better,” Jack replied.
Jericho frowned but moved so Jack could close the door. “Bring her back.”
Jack paused, meeting the man’s grave, coffee-colored eyes. He nodded solemnly before shutting the door.
Shane spun the gravel beneath the tires with her foot on the accelerator. The only thoughts in the three werewolves’ minds were of Valie. She had become an intrinsic part of their survival; she gave them a purpose worthwhile. She had to stay alive.
They didn’t breathe easier when they hit the road.
“How will we find her?” Shane asked.
“I don’t know, Shane!” Jack snapped. “They’re obviously covering their trail and I have no idea what she’s thinking.” Though, he could imagine. She was probably terrified. Jack wondered if she was even alive. He’d secretly believed that he would somehow know if she died, as if some part of himself would die, too, but his hope was waning.
“And here I thought you two were connected.” The appalled look on Jack’s face made Shane regret her words. “Sorry. I tend to vomit verbally when I’m stressed. I didn’t mean. . .”
Jack cut her off with an exclamation of his own. “Why didn’t I think of it before? Noah! Can you somehow sense them?” Jack leaned forward against the back of Noah’s seat. He hadn’t thought to use Noah’s ability previously, because tracking was so much more effective. That was not the case now.
The sandy-haired boy’s brow furrowed. “I’m not sure. I can try. . .Let me concentrate. Maybe I can sense further out than I usually can.”
“Try it,” Jack ordered.
Noah nodded.
“Just keep driving straight,” Jack instructed Shane. “We’ll reach the main road soon. We can figure out where to go from there if Noah can get a read on them.”
This is all assuming she’s still alive, he thought. He willed his pessimism away, but it clung to his soul like liquid tar, dragging him into its depths.
After a few minutes of tense silence, Shane became impatient.
“What’s going on?” she asked. She continued to speed down the road. “Do we know where we’re going?”
Jack shushed the girl. “Let him concentrate.”
“It’s okay. I got her.” Noah’s words were softly spoken, as if exhaustion was pulling at his mind and body.
“Where?” Jack’s thoughts began to rush to all scenarios, preparing itself for anything.
“I lost them a few miles ahead, but they were moving slow, I think on foot. I’m too tired, Jack. I can’t hold that kind of extension for this long.”
Jack fought the urge to lash out. He knew Noah was doing all he could. Frustration wasn’t going to help at this point.
“It’s alright. Did you learn anything when you could sense them?”
“I’ll show you where I think they turned off.” He described the direction of the back road they would soon come across. Shane signaled her understanding once she understood the description. “I don’t know what to do once we get there, though. I’m not sure I can pick them up from that far away again.”
Jack patted Noah on the back with a smile. “That’s alright, cub. Then, we take over and do it the old-fashioned way—we track. The car should stay near the road anyway. The element of surprise is about the only element we have in our favor.”
“Speaking of elements—here comes water.” Jack followed Shane’s upward look just as the sky began to empty. Fattened drops of rain splattered the windshield. It looked to be the beginning of a deluge.
“Great,” Jack muttered. Tracking would be difficult in the rain. Near impossible, if the others abandoned the car to reach their destination on foot.
When the three reached the opening to the quickly darkening path, Shane parked the car far enough off the road to avoid drawing unwanted attention, but close enough that, should the need arise, they could make a quick escape to the road despite the deepening mud.
A large drop of water fell from its point of accumulation on a high branch.
Shane flinched, making Jack give her a disparaging look.
“Just be happy we have some cover with these trees,” he chided, speaking forcefully through the rain. “Otherwise we’d already be soaked through to the bone.”
“Yeah, well. At this rate, we’ll be swimming before we get to where we’re going.” Her final statement was muttered for Jack not to hear, but he did. The werewolf’s thoughts turned to Valie. She would be shivering from the cold by now, her clothes wet from the rain. Jack’s heart seemed to spasm with the need for urgency. He couldn’t stand the uncertainty of their separation for much longer, as poisonous doubt continued to pervade his every thought, his every decision.
“Jack?”
Jack blinked, having just noticed Shane trying to get his attention. “I’m sorry. What?”
Shane’s blue eyes appeared shadowed with worry. For the first time that morning, Jack noticed the dark circles ringing her eyes. Along with the stitched up gash along her hairline, she was a sore sight for the caring eye.
“Jericho was right. You’re off. Do you feel okay?” Her tone was that of a worried mother.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine, just distracted. Honestly, other than a bit of a headache, I feel as well as ever.” Jack changed the subject. “Those are their tire tracks.” He walked over to the lightly indented rut, criss-crossed with the pattern of a deep-treaded tire. “Hopefully, they won’t have taken to walking until farther on. Cars are much easier to follow in the rain.” And with that, the three companions took to the path, clutching their jackets around them and wiping the raindrops from their brows.
Jack was the most experienced of the three in the art of tracking, but he was nothing compared to Eliza. Terrence could shadow any living soul, but Eliza was the master of erasing all evidence of passage. This thought weighed heavy on Jack’s mind as he thought of when the tire trail would end and a foot-chase would begin. He dreaded the event, which came all too quickly.
“Where do we go now? I can’t feel them anywhere nearby.” Noah asked when they found the abandoned SUV parked on a rock-lined stream. The boy had remained silent throughout their trek, presumably regaining his strength.
Jack looked around. The storm began to worsen as the light began to fade. The sun was beginning to decline behind the bleak clouds. They were losing time following on foot and they would lose more as they tread more carefully.
“I’m not sure,” Jack murmured to himself. He couldn’t discern any tracks through the muddied terrain. The rain was washing away any marks or scent they might have been able to pick up.
They had come too far to give up. There had to be some clue as to the others’ trajectory, something they could follow. Jack refused to lose all hope now.
“What is that?” Shane asked, calling over the hammering rain. The blonde she-wolf pointed to a tiny object out of place on the forest floor near the base of a tree. Human eyes would never have detected it.
It was a silver link. After some scouring, Jack discovered that about ten yards east, lay another.
The girl had left a trail of breadcrumbs to follow, leading them straight to her. There was a hope after all—and that hope was Valie.
THE ROCK AND THE HARD PLACE
Valie paced in the chilled room to keep warm. The wooden walls of the cabin offered little insulation and her soaked attire seemed to amplify the cold. If she ever got out of her mess of a circumstance, she was going to invest in a rain jacket.
“Come. Sit by the fire,” Isaac ordered. “It will warm you.” The mood of the company continued to be strangely degenerate, but Isaac tried to make Valie feel comfortable.
“I’m fine.” Valie dismissed his extended offer. She didn’t think she could sit still. She was beginning to worry that the others wouldn’t find her trail and all would be lost.
Valie had hated to break her mother’s bracelet, but she was unable to think of any other traces to place that would survive the onslaught of rain. She could only hope that Jack, Shane and Noah had improved sense enough to discover her attempt at direction.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Isaac tried to reassure his daughter from his chair by the fireplace. He glanced at her from over his book. “The meeting will go well. Soon, you will be regarded as the most powerful Lycanthrope in history.” He smiled as if his words were a comfort.
Valie shook her head, finally frustrated. “Why is it that you think that I won’t turn into the same kind of monster recorded in your history? The kind that inspired the law banning half-blood children in the first place?” Valie’s words came out as a demand so forcible, Eliza and Terrence looked up from their game of cards. Their dark eyes appraised her with new regard.
Isaac set down his book and took off his reading glasses. Valie fought not to shrink as she met his stern gaze. In some ways she could see him as a father, reproving his child with a glance. Except his dark amber eyes, as they glowed in the firelight, held an amount of daring that made Valie’s stomach tighten in apprehension as if she were on a dangerous brink, about to fall at any moment.
“You are different,” Isaac intoned, his authority projecting despite his seated position. “The ones that have come before you hadn’t your sense or your breeding. They were barely able to live with the gift born to them, much less the added power of the Change. It was absurd for Leian or any of his successors to think that inducing the Change would cure innate difficulties in their children. An unblemished child had to be born, a child whose mind could survive the transformation process.”
“And you think that’s me?”
“I know that’s you. Look at yourself, Valentine. You’re as healthy as any human, if not healthier! You’ve subsisted this long without any ill effects from the bloodline. You will survive. You were born to.”
“And you what? Just lucked out? This was obviously a plan of yours. How did you know that I’d live? That I would be different?”
Isaac looked away for the first time. No response seemed forthcoming.
Understanding finally reached the girl.
“I wasn’t the first. You’ve tried this before,” she accused solemnly.
Isaac’s tone was clinical. “You’re right. You were not the first, but you are the most successful.”
Valie’s countenance slowly fell in horror at the implications of Isaac’s words.
Isaac went on, “Some died during birth. Some were burdened with too many physical ailments to live long. Others were too weak to be of any use.”
“And what happened to those?” Valie asked quietly, appalled, knowing what the answer would be.
Isaac shrugged away any indignity and met Valie’s horrified stare, his gaze cold. “I couldn’t very well have indiscriminate half-bloods roaming around.”
“So you killed them?” Valie hissed, her face pale, her eyes alight with anger and hurt.
“Their existence would have destroyed all hope of utilizing the power inherent in your kind. Only the unblemished could be presented to the Council.”
She assumed that was a ‘yes.’
She looked to the two werewolves playing cards. Neither looked troubled by Valie’s revelation. Apparently they knew of Isaac’s experiments. She supposed they would have to, to have stayed with him for so long a time. It certainly explained their attitude toward Valie.
Since they had arrived at the cabin, Eliza, though easily provoked, seemed to maintain an inexplicable respect for Valie’s personal space, leaving her to herself. Terrence had almost welcomed her presence with smiles and cordial speech—as cordial as grunts and growls could be. The terrifyingly built and styled man had even tried to make small talk on the walk up to the cabin. They respected what she was as if she was some sort of messianic fruition to all of their leader’s plans.
“You should get some rest,” Isaac suggested, breaking Valie’s train of thought. “You can stay in the spare room. Night will fall within the hour. We will make our way to the Council meeting, then.”
All Valie could do was nod. Her mind was frozen, hooked on her new knowledge. Her father was a killer, though she was not his target. She was essentially an eighteen-year-old experiment of human-Lycanthrope genetics.
The spare room was the closest room to the living area—the easiest room to monitor.
Valie took up her pacing once again, after closing the door. She couldn’t find the light switch, but she had no wish to reenter the other room where her captors sat. Besides, if it was dark, she could pretend the room was limitless. It had taken her years of practice to trick her claustrophobia this way, to alter unknown, oppressive shadows from a constraining nature to a vast one.
Valie began to shiver once again with renewed nervousness and cold.
Suddenly the window opened. Valie startled at the intrusion, but bit down on her hand to keep from crying out. She tasted blood.
“Shhh,” the dark figure quieted. His words were nearly as silent as breathing. “Valie it’s me.”
Valie suddenly recognized the shadow as Jack. His eyes glowed slightly in the dark, a brighter blue than Valie was used to.
“Ja—?” she began to whisper.
All of the sudden, Valie found the figure silent in front her as he quickly placed a warm hand over her mouth.
“Shhh,” he exhaled. Valie nodded beneath his hand. She blushed and all cold left her as she realized the boy beside her was without clothes.
Jack must have felt her stiffen. He released her and backed away.
Valie resumed her previous pacing to try and lessen any suspicions her captors might have from the other room.
Without a word, Jack moved like a ghost to what must have been the closet—Valie couldn’t tell; the black was too thick for her eyes to navigate. She listened, embarrassed, to the sounds of fabric brushing against skin. Apparently, Jack had found clothes.
The dark presence returned to her with less warmth radiating from his body, layers of fabric between them. A cold wind blew in from the half-open window.
Without warning, Jack took Valie in his arms, a silent embrace.
Surprised at first, the girl braced against Jack’s solid form, but his warmth and inviting touch softened her posture. She gave herself wholly into the moment, returning the embrace, burying her face in his chest breathing in his scent. It was only the knowledge of who sat behind the door that kept Valie from dropping all defense.
Jack pulled away first, only keeping Valie’s hand entwined in his. He started to lead her to the window, but after one step, he stopped her. They paused. Valie listened, wondering if he had heard someone’s approach.
All at once, Valie’s feet flew out from under her as Jack took her into his arms.
“Too loud,” he breathed in her ear, his voice softer than moth’s wings. Apparently Eliza had been correct—Valie truly did walk like an elephant compared to the Lycans. And here she’d always believed she had a light step.
Silently and effortlessly, Jack brought Valie to the window. The time it took for Jack to exit and for Valie to mutely extricate herself from the sill and into Jack’s awaiting arms, had Valie’s heart racing. Surely the lack of sound coming from the room would tip off Isaac or the others? She anticipated the door of the spare room bursting open at any moment, the space flooding with light and the snarls of werewolves.
But no such response to her absence came.
The threat of discovery seemed to loom over Jack as well. He remained tensed as he jogged almost noiselessly through the forest, cradling Valie in his arms. At one point he stopped and unexpectedly shifted her to his back where she clung, feeling helpless.
“They should be here,” Jack whispered.
“Who?” Valie breathed into his shoulder, trying to mute her words.
