Chapter Eight.
The Hunt A large, furry animal with pointy teeth nips at my heels. Every once in a while, his teeth nick the back of my leg and draw blood. But I don"t slow down, racing toward the thick forest about a mile ahead. I don"t know who I"m running from or why they"re chasing me, yet I somehow know the forest will protect me. Just like I know the men will kill me if I don"t get to safety.
"Get her!" a man yells over the thunder of hooves hammering against the soil. "Shoot her if you have to! Remember, she can"t die! She"s one of them, so be on alert! She might try to retaliate! And we don"t know yet what she can do!"
Bile burns at the back of my throat. Do they know what I am? How?
Sweat drenches my skin as I collect my lengthy black dress in my hands and pick up my pace, charging across the field faster than I thought I could run. How am I moving this fast?
The overly grown gra.s.s hisses at my legs, and pebbles in the ground tear at my bare feet. My long, brown hair fell from the pins about a mile ago, and strands blow in my face.
A heavy fog snakes from the trees, and a light mist haunts the wide river just to my left. I think about veering toward the river, diving in, and letting the rapids carry me away, but a horse gallops up and blocks my path.
Sitting in the saddle is a younger man wearing a wool jacket with pants tucked into leather boots. In his hand is a long-barreled gun.
"Just stop running, Allura!" he begs. "I don"t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to."
I know this man and well. I just don"t know how I know him. The memory is old and has faded with time, almost forgotten.
"Please, just stop running," he pleads in desperation. "It"ll ruin me if I have to shoot you."
"If I stop running, then you"ll shoot me!" I scream, a venomous rage bubbling inside me.
His eyes briefly widen, but then his expression contorts in disgust. "You look just like them right now."
"Like who!" I cry, legitimately having no clue what he"s talking about.
"You know who." He shakes his head then kicks his heels, and the horse speeds up. "I"m sorry, but I know what has to be done now."
Tears sting at my eyes, and my heart splits in two. Whoever this man is, I think I may have loved him once. But now he looks at me like I"m the most repulsive creature on earth.
No! I can"t let my thoughts break me. I need to focus on getting away!
I rip my attention off him and run as fast as I can.
Just get to the trees. Just get to the trees. They"re my safe haven.
"Don"t let her get to the trees!" another man shouts. "If she gets in there, we will lose her!"
I turn my head and look at the river again. The guy I loved is pointing his gun at me, ready to fire. A part of me withers and dies.
"Get ready, men!" a man shouts. "When I give the orders, we all shoot at once! We don"t want to take any chances!"
My heart slams against my chest. Please, please, please, let me make it.
Just a little farther and then I"ll reach the trees. When I get there, I don"t know what I"ll do, but right now, I can"t think about it.
"Fire!"
Boom! Shots ring out and the bitter taste of gunpowder burns at my taste buds.
I dive, ducking for cover, and hit the ground hard. I don"t move fast enough, and pieces of scorching hot metal pierce me from every angle, slashing through my skin and ripping through my muscles. Blood gushes out of the wounds and saturates the dirt below me.
I cough, trying to breathe, but blood spurts from my mouth. I want to give up, just lie down and die. My body and mind both feel so broken, but the will to live kicks in, and I claw my fingernails into the dirt and drag my body toward the trees.
No, I can"t let them capture- Fingers enclose around my shoulder and flip me over onto my back. The blue sky has turned a thunderous grey, and a mysterious silence has settled around me.
Am I dead ...?
I feel myself being pulled somewhere else.
"Allura, can you hear me?" a familiar voice asks.
"I know you." I cough through the blood. "You"ve saved me before, but you"re not from this memory."
"Allura." His voice basks over me like a hot summer day underneath the sun. "Answer me."
"I am." Why can"t he hear me?
He sounds upset, and I want to comfort him, but I think I might be dying. I was shot so many times by those men on horses in a world I hardly remember, but that no longer exists ...
Wait. I"m only dreaming. I have to be.
"Squeeze my hand if you can hear me," the guy says, taking my hand.
I try to squeeze it, but my fingers feel numb. It"s okay, I want to say. Don"t worry. I"ll be fine. I always am ...
Darkness rims my vision.
"Whatever you do, don"t close your eyes," he whispers in my ear.
That"s when it hits me.
Blaise. He"s alive. He didn"t die. He"s here with me. But where is here? Where am I? I can"t see anything anymore.
"Just hang on," he demands. "Don"t go to sleep."
I want to hold on. I don"t want to go back to that nightmare where I"m lying shot on the ground. I want to stay with Blaise, but exhaustion drags me down.
I hear him curse, scream in frustration, and then he cups my head in his hands.
"Just give in to it," he says, defeated.
"Give in ... to what ...?"
"The poison."
"What ... poison ...?" My voice fades, and I fade along with it.
Chapter Nine.
Dreamland When I open my eyes again, I"m lying in the dewy gra.s.s, gazing up at the stormy sky. Purple and silver bolts of lightning flash in the distance, illuminating the lofty trees and rolling mountains around me. Quietness has settled, the noises of horses, guns, and men shouting no longer haunting the air. The scent of rain fills my lungs as I take a breath.
"I tried to get it as close to what you described as possible."
Blaise"s voice startles me, and I start to leap to my feet, but he snags my elbow and pins me down to the ground.
"Don"t move," he warns. "If you do, you"ll break the connection, and then I could lose you."
I turn my head, following his voice, then blink at the empty s.p.a.ce beside me.
"Where are you?"
"Right beside you," he says. "You just can"t see me."
"Why not?"
"Because you"re stuck in dreamland, and I"m here in reality."
I drape my arm across my forehead, dizzy with confusion. "I don"t understand. One minute, I"m getting hauled to a camp by the Forsaken, and then I"m in some place where people are trying to shoot me, and now I"m here ... and I can hear you ... but I can"t see you."
He heaves a sigh. "You were poisoned by the Forsaken. Someone gave you a shot of dreamland, and now your mind is teetering between falling into your nightmares and trying to grasp reality. And the reality is you"re just lying in the hole with me."
"So the stormy sky isn"t real?"
"The sky"s only there because I"m ... helping your mind rest. If I were to let you go, you"d probably tumble into whatever nightmare you were having before I grabbed you. You said you were dreaming someone was trying to shoot you?"
I bob my head up and down. "They did shoot me, and I was dying, but then I heard you, and now I"m here."
"Do you dream about stuff like that often?"
"I don"t think I"ve ever dreamed that I was shot before, but I"ve had bad dreams ... ones where I was being chased by wardens. But I don"t know if they"re dreams for sure. Sometimes, I think I"m remembering stuff I forgot, stuff that happened a long time ago, yet ..." I trail off. Yet I"m always the same age.
A beat of silence stretches between us.
"When I was first brought to the station, after I ..." He lets out a rough cough. "But, anyway, I had a lot of nightmares. And a lot of them were connected to ... the s.h.i.t I saw before I came to the station."
I wonder what kind of stuff he saw-what haunts his nightmares-but don"t dare ask.
"Do you still have them?" I ask. "I mean, the nightmares?"
"No too much, thanks to Reece."
"How did Reece help?"
"He hooked me up to this machine called Oblivion and pinpointed the cause for my memories. After a lot of work and a lot of f.u.c.king pain, he managed to fade some of the memories causing the nightmares."
"Do ...? Do the Grim have a machine like that? Maybe they used it on me, and that"s why a lot of my old memories are resurfacing."
"Not that I know of. Reece built the machine himself," he says. "But machines pretty much run the world-well, besides the Grim. So there could be another machine out there like it."
"Sometimes, I think I remember a world that doesn"t have machines." I jolt as thunder booms and the ground vibrates. "Like the one where I was being shot at. Everyone was riding around on horses, and there were no cars or signs of the Grim. There were trees and a field and a river."
"That is strange," he murmurs. "I"ve never seen most of that stuff."
I shut my eyes. "I feel like I came from someplace else, and maybe that"s why I"m always so confused all the time. Maybe those burial places you guys talk about really do exist, and I lived there once." I open my eyes and stare up at the cloudy sky. "I don"t know why the sky would be blue there and red everywhere else."
"There could be a lot of reasons for that. Maybe it wasn"t the sky you saw, but a screen."
"What"s a screen?"
I feel him shift beside me, his hands never leaving my head.
"We"ve found them in a couple of channels," he explains. "The wardens use them to give the illusion that the cells look like someplace else, mostly to mess with the minds of the Nameless. It"s their twisted way of making them feel like they"re going crazy. Still, those screens are really small, and the wardens usually use them to display horrible things. I"ve never seen one as big as the sky. And I didn"t notice one in your cell or anywhere else in that section of channels."
"It"s not just the sky," I say. "Sometimes, I dream of quiet streets and old buildings and trees and gra.s.s and flowers and dirt roads. I"m wearing these long dresses, and people around me are dressed differently, too."
"I wish I had some answers to give you, but I don"t. Maybe Reece can get to the bottom of it when we get back to the station. He can hook you up to Oblivion and see what"s going on inside your head." His fingertip sketches along my hairline. "How are you right now? I tried to fill your thoughts with the cloudy sky and the lightning you told me about. I don"t really know what they look like, so I hope I got it right."
I manage a small smile. "You did. It"s so much like the place I pictured when I was trapped."
"Good," he says with a drop of relief.
"How long will I see the sky before I return to reality?"
"It all depends. Normally, the poison can take several hours to wear off, but with you, it might not take as long."
"Why would it take less time for me?" I ask then immediately want to retract my question. Deep down, I think I may already know the answer-because I have Grim blood in me and heal more quickly. But does Blaise know?
"Allura, your hands are completely healed and scarred over when, only twenty-four hours ago, they were sc.r.a.ped raw." He pauses. "Then there was your shoulder. I know it was dislocated, but now it"s fine. And I"m pretty sure you cut your head on that shelf, but the wound healed before Mable could even get st.i.tches in it."
My breathing turns ragged. Blaise has always known I"m a little different, but does he know about my blood? Will he ask me if I know what I am? How will I answer?
As if tuning in to my panic, the lightning picks up, blazing across the sky like a firework show.
"You need to calm down," he advises. "Or I won"t be able to control where your mind goes."
"I"m trying," I croak between breaths.
His warm fingers spread across my cheeks. "Look, I know you"re different. I"ve always sort of known. But it"s not a bad thing. And ... I get it."