CHAPTER EIGHT
CAINA OPENED THE WINDOW as they rode, the scent of the sea and the cold salty breezes rushing past. Beside her, Joshua sat back, his lean body loose and relaxed. She knew better. In his red eyes, she saw rage, almost glowing around his black pupils. Didn’t Cristian know her brother well enough to see the anger?
Cristian hadn’t seemed very aware of anything. He had not even noticed the onix threads crisscrossing over Joshua’s clothes. Unable to decipher him, she turned her attention to the scenery. The sea-green aqua of the ocean under the bridge seared her eyes with its beauty. Diamond-white sands sparkled against the blues of the water and the sky. Any other time she would have been drunk with the colors, but now her stomach was in knots. She couldn’t pretend to be calm like Joshua could. Even though she’d argued with him about his unease, she believed him the moment he’d patiently lowered his voice.
She believed Cristian was lying to them, but seeing him bruised and hurt made her ache for him. He was staring ahead in the driver’s seat, though she knew he had set the transport to drive itself. He could have swiveled the seat around to talk to them, but he didn’t.
Elegant skyscrapers reached into the blue sky, some of them curving and earthy, others stark and mirrored. They stopped at a tall building that stabbed up into the sky, and she stepped out into a cold wind. The three of them walked under a concrete pavilion to the entrance, across an expansive courtyard with the monarchy’s crest embedded in the plasticrete.
Cristian jammed his hands into his coat pockets, his head down. Joshua flung an arm around Caina’s shoulders as they walked. It wasn’t a casual gesture, she knew. He was keeping her close. Cristian looked back at them, his cut lips tightening as he turned away. He was limping—she hadn’t noticed it before. Inside the building, they went through an atrium that reached up to the endless ceiling. In a glass elevator, they watched the levels slide by as they ascended. They arrived at one of the top floors, and Joshua followed Cristian, even though Caina knew he had been to Cristian’s home before.
“Are your parents home?” Joshua asked.
“Are they ever?” Cristian asked, and the bitterness in his voice was the first bit of honesty she’d heard from him.
The ceiling was high and domed, the whole floor like its own building. Columns rose up around the dome, framing marbled corridors. Cristian walked until they came to a set of double doors. They opened silently, identifying Cristian through any number of biomarkers.
A view of the ocean greeted them, the walls made of gilded windows. Cream-colored pieces of artfully sculpted furniture matched the carpet. The monochromatic colors drew her gaze to the horizon in the windows. The three of them stood in the scarlet haze of the sunset, watching each other.
“Where are they?” Joshua asked.
Cristian stared back at him for a moment, and then his body was enveloped in a green aura. He groaned once, and his back arched before he collapsed to the floor. The d-plasma crackled around him for a moment, and then faded.
“Get down!” Joshua warned.
She dropped to the floor, her face next to Cristian’s. His face was contorted in pain, the agony etched deeply in his unconscious face. Above her, Joshua faded from sight. The onix, she remembered.
Two men in the same uniforms she’d seen on Huron emerged from a doorway beyond the windows, their eyes covered by black visors. Fear gripped her, and she clenched her fists close to her body. Joshua had told her to stay down, but she felt vulnerable without him.
One of the men jerked backwards as if pulled by an invisible string. Joshua, she realized. The man lifted his gun, his arm shaking and his face strained, and shot his partner. Then the gun slowly turned, the man’s hands shaking as the barrel faced him. He grunted with the effort of fighting the invisible Joshua, and then the d-plasma burst over him and he fell.
Her relief was short-lived as four more men came through the main door. One of them broke away from the rest, running to her. He was broad-shouldered and heavy with muscles, his face harsh with a large, bony jaw. He lifted his gun at her, taking aim. She jumped from the floor and ran.
She heard a sound, a muffled curse that sounded like Joshua. She ran along the windowed wall, the gilded panes flying past her. Her sandal straps bit into her legs, not meant for running.
The windows led to a slick, open room where chandeliers hung over an empty floor. She skidded out across the floor. Heavy footsteps behind her slid, the soles squeaking for traction. She slipped, her sandals unable to catch hold. Scrambling helplessly, she looked behind her just in time for the man to crash into her. The wind was knocked out of her as he fell, crushing her beneath his weight. She heard the sound of the plasma gun whining to discharge at point blank, and closed her eyes. Suddenly, her pursuer grunted and rolled off her. She turned to see him jerking in a plasma convulsion. Someone grabbed her wrist, helping her up.
“I told you to stay down,” Joshua muttered. Still invisible, he pulled her across the room to a set of vintage Old Earth double doors.
They went through the opened doors and into the corridor beyond. Caina guessed that Joshua had been at Cristian’s house enough times to warrant a guest security clearance since all the doors opened for him.
He found a bedroom and pushed her inside. “Get in the closet and stay there no matter what you hear. Understand?”
She nodded in the direction of his disembodied voice and watched the door shut. The room was very masculine, dark wood on the walls and a square bed with black linens in the center of the longest wall. She found the closet, closed the doors, and sank to the floor, her arms around her knees as she listened.
Her heart beat against her chest as she tried to breathe quietly. She couldn’t hear anything. How would she know he was all right? Where were her parents, really? What had happened to them?
The clothes smelled like Cristian, so this was probably his bedroom. What made him betray them?
She slid the doors open and crept out. She crouched on the floor, listening, then crawled towards the door. Then she heard footsteps. A lot of them. Terrified, she looked at the closet trying to decide if she should retreat or try to make it under the bed. The footsteps were at the door when she rolled under the bed.
The door opened, and a voice said, “Leave him here.”
One of them commanded the lights to turn on and the room brightened. She stopped breathing. They would find her, she knew. Someone stumbled toward the bed and sat on it.
“Just leave m-me alone,” a familiar voice mumbled from the bed. Cristian.
“Stay here, Psycho Boy,” one of them said and the footsteps went out the door.
She remained frozen under the bed, but Cristian didn’t speak. The bed moved as if he were lying down, and then there was only the sound of his breathing, slow and deep. He was sleeping.
She dared to peek out, but she couldn’t see anyone. Were there cameras recording the room? If there were cameras she would have been caught already. Torn between fear and curiosity, she finally crept out from under the bed.
She stood over Cristian, watching him sleep. His face was peaceful, free from the pain she’d seen earlier. Actually, he looked too peaceful. He looked very much like he was faking.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she warred with the unfamiliar idea that she was afraid of him. He was no longer a friend, he was an enemy. The bruises around his eyes, the cut on his mouth and the other signs that he’d been beaten told her that he had his own enemies. Were his enemies theirs as well? If he had the chance, would he help or betray?
There was no moment when she made a conscious choice. She simply gave in to the one emotion that outweighed all the others—the belief that Cristian was still the same Cristian she’d always known, no matter how improbable it seemed. She leaned over him, touching his arm, terror flooding through every cell in her body, warning her not to do it. His arm snaked out and grabbed her hand. She would have screamed but his hand fumbled for her mouth and clamped over it. What frightened her most was that his eyes remained closed. His hand was so tight on her mouth it hurt. He whispered, the words barely more than air, “Don’t speak.”
She went still. His hand loosened on her mouth a little. Her mind raced as she stared at his closed eyes. He was refusing to look at her, deliberately blind. Why? And he didn’t want her to talk. She struggled to put the pieces together. He didn’t want to see her, he didn’t want to hear her, but he could touch her.
She put her hand on the fingers clamped over her mouth and gently tugged at them. He slowly loosened them. When she was free she sat up. He put a finger to his lips, to signal her to silence. She couldn’t nod or even whisper to tell him she understood.
She reached out tentatively and found his hand. He wrapped his hand around hers, twining their fingers together. The gentle gesture was just as surprising as his silent attack a few moments earlier, and she sat there, feeling the warmth of his hand around hers.
He’d never touched her like that. She was always Joshua’s little sister, and though she was crazy about Cristian, she didn’t realize he’d felt the same way. Was he just traumatized and lonely? She let him hold her hand, filled with confusion.
He drew her hand up his chest, pressing it against his heartbeat. From his closed eyelids, a tear slid down his face. Her blood ran cold. What had happened to her strong and fearless Cristian? Were her parents with the same people who had done this to him? The fear made her heart race. She freed her hand from his and touched the bruises.
The bedroom door opened, and Cristian jumped off the bed, his eyes still clenched shut. A familiar voice growled, “Where are my parents, Cristian?”