Lightning (23 page)

He brushed the hair from Selah's fluttering eyes and then rubbed the back of her hand. Just that small physical contact ran a bead of warmth through his tightened chest. She looked so peaceful.

A soft sigh escaped her parted lips and her eyelids fluttered again. This whirling fireball about to wake from being riot-grade pulsed was going to hit a new level of anger. Did he really want to be the first person she saw when her eyes opened?

S
elah's vision rippled in and out as though being stretched and folded like the ribbon candy Mother made for celebrations.
Mother
. . .
Mother
is
here
.
Our
hands
pressed
to
the
surface
—

Her eyes opened a slit. Her vision cleared. Bodhi? Was she actually seeing him, or just wishing it? Selah willed away the gray covering clinging to her brain. Heat radiated from her head down to her toes. Her mind cleared. Bodhi held her hand. She wanted to smile but feared the feeling might evaporate if he knew she was awake.

Bodhi leaned on the side rail of the bio-bed and stroked her cheek. “Selah? Wake up,” he said softly. His voice hitched like he was anxious. It hurt her heart to see him worry for nothing.

She liked the warmth of his fingers on her skin. Her cheeks
betrayed her by lifting into a smile, so she opened her eyes. “Bodhi, you're really here. How can this be?”

He pulled her to his chest and wrapped her in his arms. She felt the tremble in his hug.

“It's a long story, but Glade is in Stone Braide and I have to get all of you out of here. We've only got twenty hours left,” Bodhi said.

Treva's eyes opened at his words. She rubbed her head and sat up on one elbow, squeezing her eyes shut several times. “What in the name of electrons hit me?”

“A pulse cannon. You walked into a TF capture operation,” Bodhi said.

“I should have listened to my gut. I knew something was wrong with that old lady. My brain feels like a cooked egg trying to congeal. I did catch your twenty hours comment, though. We can get out of here in an hour now that we've got your help. But why the time limit?”

“Glade accidently started a countdown. But we don't know to what.”

Treva's eyes widened as she scrambled to her feet. “We have to get out of here now! Before the Mountain closes. That's the hum I felt in my head!”

“What does the hum have to do with this?”

Treva edged around Bodhi and pulled Selah to her feet. “It's the machinery dispensing the chemicals and sealing the Mountain.”

“Sealing it for what? What does this have to do with Glade?” Selah ran her hands through her hair and lifted the old lady's blue coat flaps. She stripped off the coat and threw it on the bed.

Treva sighed. “My parents' Keeper journals said something like, ‘At the appropriate time a transitioned novarium will bring the three parts of the Stone Braide together to activate the key to the Third Protocol.'”

“But that's good. The Third Protocol is necessary to keep Selah from fracturing,” Bodhi blurted out. His face turned crimson.

Selah turned to him. “What do you mean to keep me from fracturing? And why do you know it and I don't?”

Bodhi's mouth opened and closed. “Glade entrusted me—”

Her eyes narrowed and she glared at him. “Oh, so now you and Glade are cohorts? It's bad enough my stepfather is a master manipulator, but then I get my brains scrambled by magnetic pulses and now find out my father and my boyfriend are plotting out my life—”

“Look, I hate to change such an interesting subject, but Bodhi said we have twenty hours. We can make that easy. Let's get out of here now.” Treva motioned toward the doorway. “Thank goodness I directed Cleon and your family out of here.”

Bodhi pressed his lips tight. “Cleon, Pasha, and Dane were caught by Varro and a couple of his men.”

“Where are they?” Selah felt the blood drain from her face. She moved to grab his arm. “How could you possibly know this—”

“The same way he knew about you—through me,” Mojica said. She filled the open doorway of the MedTec unit.

Selah held out her hand. “Mojica, I've been trying to find you.” They clasped each other's wrists and smiled.

“How do we track down where he took them?” Selah looked between Bodhi and Mojica.

“You're not going near any fighting. Glade pledged me to protect you,” Bodhi said, his stance defiant.

Selah gritted her teeth. “You don't get to tell me what to do about my own family.” Then, facing Mojica, “And who in the names of all my horses hit me with a pulse? I thought we learned in Study Square that those things are only used when there are clear unimpeded targets.”

Mojica appeared a shade flushed. “Since Noah Everling is no longer de facto head of the Company running the Mountain, the Politico Board took over. A lot of things are different now.”

Treva moved toward the doorway. “Where were Cleon and the others last?” she asked, her face ashen.

“You can't get there. It's in Green Court,” Mojica said. She moved away from the doorway for the exiting women.

“We've got the Keeper system. We get in there and we can get a lot closer without being seen.” Treva hopped down to the street.

Bodhi put his arm in front of Selah to keep her from following. “You didn't say what happens when the machine seals the Mountain.”

Treva looked at Mojica and then back at Bodhi. “We need to be far away before that happens.”

Bodhi took Selah's hand. She didn't pull away. He faced Treva. “Tell us what happens.”

“The Mountain is going to be sealed from the outside, forever,” Mojica said.

Selah tightened her grip on Bodhi. “How is it going to happen?”

“This community is a bio-dome built inside the Mountain, which is going to collapse, sealing off the paths in and out with enough stone that it will take a thousand years to clear it,” Mojica said.

“The ancient government of this land made preparations to have an event such as we're about to experience happen at a given period of time—after a series of events such as the Sorrows,” Treva said.

Bodhi locked eyes with Treva. “How . . . where did you get all this?”

“Oh, please! Have you ever met a child who didn't snoop in their parents' things? Mine had secret rooms, passages, and a collection of ancient documents. I read everything.” Treva grinned.

“So the Sorrows were engineered?” Selah asked.

“There are a lot of facts that have never been uncovered,” Treva said.

Selah felt a lightning spike cut through her head. She closed her eyes and then opened them to quickly vanishing sparkles of light.

“Are you all right?” Bodhi gripped her arm.

Selah recovered and nodded. “Yes, I was thinking. What's the event that's going to happen?”

Mojica pressed her lips together. “The Mountain has started the process of mixing millions of tons of stored chemicals that will seed the clouds over this range and bring rain.”

“And that rain will wash away enough of the ancient ash
from the super volcano explosion in Yellowstone to open the paths to the West,” Treva said.

“How much rain?” Bodhi pulled his eyebrows together.

“A deluge. Like the worst of floods. We need to be away from here,” Treva said.

Mojica looked up at Bodhi in the doorway. “I've only got one problem. I've got my TFs rounding up those we need to get out of here before the Mountain seals, and I can't afford security to safeguard Selah's travel back to the tunnels. She has to come with us.”

Selah grinned. Now she wouldn't have to fight Bodhi to find her family. “Are you sure Varro had a weapon on Cleon?”

“Yes, I have the video stream log here.” Mojica pulled up the frames on her ComTex. She scrolled through the collected file. Bodhi and Selah hopped down out of the MedTec unit.

“Wait!” Selah grabbed her wrist. “Go back a couple of frames.”

Mojica fingered the frames a single move at a time.

“Stop!” Selah and Treva gasped at the same time. “Mari!”

Selah stared at a picture of Jaenen and Mari coming into the Mountain.

“Jaenen Malik rode with us all the way here, he's being paid by my father, and then he does this?” Selah winced at the pain of his betrayal.

Bodhi's eyes widened. “Wait! Jaenen came down here with you? Who's the woman?”

Selah's glance darted away and back again. “Mari Kief, the regent of WoodHaven. We stayed with her last night.”

Bodhi's face seemed to pale as he averted his glance. Selah stared at him. “Is something wrong?”

He snapped back, “I was just thinking we now have someone else to save and nineteen and a half hours to get out of here without being killed or maimed.”

Mojica finished manipulating the screens on her ComTex. “I don't know if it's good news or bad news, but I just checked Jaenen's log-in. He was entrance-validated by none other than Varro Chavez.”

“So they're going to be congregating in the same place,” Selah said.

“I have to find a way to get you and Treva to the staging site in Green Court. I can't transport civilians in Green without drawing suspicion, and we're going into a high-risk situation with their security to begin with.”

Selah took a deep breath as sweat beads dotted her forehead. The tunnels. She had to get over it. They needed the speed. “We can get there faster than you can by using the Keepers' tunnels.”

“Then we could all use them.” Bodhi brightened.

“No, your shoulders are too wide to go straight on, you'd slow us down. And Mojica, sorry, but you're just too tall,” Treva said, her face flushing.

Selah clapped her hands. “Let's go. Which way to the next Keeper entrance?”

“It's at the other end of Blue, right before Green Court,” Treva said.

“I can take you that far. I have jurisdiction in Blue to have you in my vehicle.” Mojica led the way, and the three followed.

Selah sat next to Bodhi in the rear section, while Treva sat up front with Mojica.

“I've been violated,” Selah said, her head bent.

Bodhi jerked away and held her by both arms. “Who hurt you? What happened?”

“Bethany stole a bunch of her blood,” Treva piped in without turning. “In reading my parents' files, I surmised that something like this might happen. The ancients wanted these people sealed away until they had forgotten about Landers and the like. That's the reason the Mountain is sealing.”

Mojica navigated to the upper lane for security travel, causing Selah to jump. She just wasn't used to high-speed traffic where there were others to maneuver around.

“What is so special about my blood?” Selah settled back in the seat beside Bodhi. Some of these things no one could answer were frightening, but she'd have to save them and be scared later. Right now saving her family took priority.

“I don't know that anyone here has the exact answer,” Mojica said. “They know components of your blood can increase longevity. They don't know for how long, or why. The complete answers are 150 years old. They've gotten muddled with lost or omitted data, old wives' tales, and in some instances, just plain inaccuracies. When we find the Third Protocol we'll get the answers.” She pushed the speed limit and hurled them across Blue Court.

Selah looked up at Bodhi. She moved closer and felt his warmth. It made her finally feel safe and gave her shivers
all at the same time. She wondered if her brain had been permanently scrambled and this was a made-up scene from her dreams.

Bodhi touched his index finger to her nose and smiled. “Hey, firefly.”

Selah felt prickles throughout her chest. This was real. Her head moved closer to his, and she suddenly felt self-conscious that those in front would hear their business. “I thought you were done with me.”

“Please don't start fighting now. Wait till we get home or at least free from here.”

Selah started to move away. “So, are you faking being close to me?”

Bodhi snatched her back to his side. “No,” he whispered. “You were right. It was Glade making me say that, but I'm not doing it anymore.”

Selah dropped her glance. “So . . . we're a couple?”