The Energy Crusades (22 page)

"Just promise me you
'
ll say it," she leaned into my shoulder momentarily.

When she lifted her face to me, her eyes were full of trust, but other emotions as well, most of which I couldn
'
t put my finger on. I wanted to reach out and touch her face, smooth the little wisps of hair that had escaped from her braid, but I kept my hands to myself. I
'
d never known anyone like her — one minute she could fight with fierce intensity, and the next, she
'
d stare into my eyes in a way that made me want to…Well, it was no use thinking of such things.

"I promise," I agreed. What else could I say? I wouldn
'
t give her too hard of a time when she turned out to be wrong, either. She gave me a smug little smile.

For all those long hours we spent together, I tried to get her to talk about what happened, about what we had seen on the disc the Resistance had sent, but she completely clammed up. She wouldn
'
t say a word about it. It hurt, more than I wanted to admit. I knew she wanted to discuss it first with her brother, but I wanted her to discuss it with me. I wanted her to want to discuss it with me first, but we weren
'
t any good at talking to each other, we were only just learning to do that again. Kaia
'
s confusion about Jason Paris was evident, and maybe there was still a little doubt in her head about me since I
'
d started off by lying to her, denying I could hear her in my head, or that I remembered her at all. As if I could ever forget her, but all I could do was go forward and try to recover any sort of ground I
'
d lost with her.

Kaia passed the hours weaving together the long grasses surrounding us. She kept her hands busy and by the third day she had woven several bracelets together.

"Here, Ajax," she took my wrist and started to tie one on me, but I pulled my arm away.

"I
'
ll take your cuff instead," I told her, pulling back her sleeve and circling my fingers around it. I tugged at the enclosure and she looked up at me sharply.

"You would wear it?" she whispered, a look of surprise crossing her features. She reached a hand for my necklace. "That
'
s funny because I always wanted…"

Her voice trailed off as Caden
'
s interrupted us. He paged my mailbox urgently, informing us he had broken into the cells. We needed to move. What had she always wanted, I wondered? I had to suppress the thought, as well as the disappointment I felt at not being able to finish our conversation, or get the cuff off of her wrist. Instead, I read the coordinates Caden sent, and got to my feet.

"You ready?" I asked, helping her up beside me.

"Let
'
s go," she answered, replacing her solar glasses. Before her eyes were covered, I thought I saw a bit of disappointment cross her features, but there wasn
'
t time to decide. She was ready, and we needed to do our jobs.

I plugged the coordinates into my mailbox and we made our way toward the building. Malik and Tory were waiting in the shade of it, as out of sight as possible. They helped us pull on our gloves and apply climbing gel to our hands and feet. None of us spoke. As soon as Kaia had her gel secure, she jumped onto the building and began to scale, though I was the one with the coordinates. Malik and Tory suppressed chuckles as they watched her ascend. I had no choice but to follow her. I climbed quickly and gave her a stern look as I passed her by. She was exasperating, but she climbed effortlessly.

We stopped a few floors from the top with Kaia right below me. She helped me remove my left glove so I could grasp my orb. I didn
'
t like watching her detach from the glass, even if it was with only one hand. A wave of emotion surged through me as I thought about the possibility of her falling. Once her hand was reattached, the storm inside quieted and I nodded at her, letting my eyes linger on her beautiful face for just a moment. I couldn
'
t be sure exactly what would happen once the glass broke, but I knew I could trust her to do what had to be done. When she nodded back at me, I knew she was ready and I held out my orb to her. Her serious expression gave way to a bright smile as she leaned forward to kiss it. I didn
'
t have the guts to ask her to do the same for me.

I closed my eyes and pushed all thoughts from my mind, pulling every bit of energy from within and from my surroundings as I imagined the glass breaking and my orb flying through it. The energy swelled around me, a force I could feel press against me and inside of me, and I only needed to harness it in the right direction. With my left arm, I aimed my orb at the window I wished to break. The weapon flew from my hand with astounding force, crashing through the glass just as I knew it would. I immediately grabbed Kaia and hoisted her up, helping to propel her body into the room, and then I jumped in after her.

There was a lot of screaming going on inside. The glass had imploded on the people inside, and many of them were bleeding and hurt. Kaia knelt over someone and immediately began trying to dislodge a large shard of glass from their arm. She called for Malik and Tory to help with the healing.

Once I knew Kaia was okay, I left her to the healing and scanned the room. Nothing mattered except finding Jason Paris. I tuned out the chaos around me and surveyed the room, noting that it was indeed a control room. A large bank of monitors lined an entire wall to our far right. Several people, Jason Paris included, sat stunned, staring at the monitors as they furiously worked to bring them back on line. Kaia attempted to calm everyone down when they realized they couldn
'
t transport away from us, but my attention was fixed totally on Jason. I strode over and yanked him from his chair, then threw him as hard as I could against the wall, hard enough his body left an impression on the surface before he crumpled to the ground. Next, I reached to drag him to his feet to finish what I started using my fists, but I was tackled from my left by another resister and we tumbled to the floor together.

"Get off of him!" Kaia shouted, and I felt her above me. She didn
'
t need to worry however; I threw him off of me and got back on my feet in a matter of seconds. I went straight for Jason again, but this time his people surrounded us. Kaia stayed at my side as the resisters protected Jason.

"Ajax!" There was a warning in Malik
'
s voice but I ignored him. Let him do his healing, I had my own job to do. My thoughts were black with rage and I wanted to make Jason pay for what he
'
d put Kaia through.

"Let me tell you how it
'
s going to be," I commanded them, willing my voice to fill every centimeter of the room. "If you aren
'
t going to give us what we came for, we
'
ll leave peacefully, this time. You can keep your trash propaganda." I threw the case at the people standing in front of Jason as he slumped on the floor. It ricocheted off one of them and slammed against the wall shattering into bits. They hardly reacted, and it was impossible to read any emotions on their faces since all of them wore solar glasses, and most wore hoods over their heads as well. It was hard to tell one from the other, but all I cared about was Jason.

"Kaia Robi does not belong to you or to anyone else," I continued. "She belongs to herself and she is free to make any choice she wants. If—"

"Liar!" Jason shouted, and I could feel his emotions then. He was angry, as angry as I felt, and he was…heartsick, that
'
s the only way I know how to describe it. I could feel, if only for a moment, the way he loved Kaia, and it made my thoughts turn even blacker.

"Get up," I ordered, keeping my voice low and calm. He hunched against the wall and kept his face down. I went to grab him but the resisters blocked me.

"Don
'
t touch him!" Kaia flew to my side and all hands dropped from me instantly. They cleared out of our way and stepped back, giving us a straight shot to Jason. They were obeying her and it was disquieting. Why? What did they want with her?

"Stand up, Jason," her voice was calm, steady. He stood and lifted his head up to face Kaia.

"Take off your glasses please," she asked him. Malik and Tory stepped up and stood just behind Kaia and I. Jason hesitated a few seconds until Kaia raised her hand as if to call the glasses off of his face. Instead, he held up a hand to stop her, and then removed them himself.

"Kaia," he reached for her as I
'
d seen him do in the tunnel. His face was full of hope. Hope and love, the emotions plain upon his face as if he had a right to them. It made me sick.

He didn
'
t look me in the eyes but I could see him. It felt like I
'
d been punched in the stomach. Jason looked exactly like me.

"Did you change your mind?" he asked, taking a small step toward Kaia. Before he could touch her, my hand flew to his neck and I shoved him back against the wall.

"Who are you?" I demanded. It was like looking in a mirror.

"I want the girl," he choked. "We
'
ll protect her, Ajax."

I reached back to hit him as hot anger flooded through my veins. Kaia quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me away from him.

"No!" She made me look at her, and my anger was quelled momentarily. I looked into her face and thought about how Jason looked exactly like me. She kissed him. He looked exactly like me. Those thoughts kept running around in my head. I stared at her longer than was necessary and I could see the smug little look on her face. She knew I saw what she saw and there would be no way to deny the resemblance.

"Join us, Kaia, and we will show you the truth. You saw the disc we sent? We
'
ve been watching you, waiting for you. Ajax is not the one you want or need."

She kept her hand on my arm as she faced Jason.

"You don
'
t know me, Jason Paris, none of you do. If you did, you
'
d know that I would never leave my Crusaders. There are six of us, not one, and six of us will stay together. Give us the information and we
'
ll be on our way." She didn
'
t seem moved by the way his expression was full of love for her. I wondered if she could see the same emotions on my own face.

"You
don
'
t know what you
'
re saying," Jason insisted, his agitation evident. "The information belongs to us. Let me be your other half, Kaia, and I
'
ll stay by your side forever. All you have to do is open your mind and give me a chance. You will see that what we are doing is for you, for all of mankind, and for the future of Planet Earth." He paused a moment before adding, "If you take the information, it will be bad for your brother too."

The last bit sounded like a veiled threat and I
'
d heard enough.

"Don
'
t ever threaten us again," I told him, letting my anger spill onto him and all of the resisters in the room. Once again, I let my voice surround them as I spoke. "Don
'
t threaten us by saying you will follow us, track us, and try and steal Kaia away. We will die before turning her over and if anything happens to her, it will be bad for your sister," I finished. He couldn
'
t hide the surprise on his face, but he tried. We might not have been sure the girl on Danu was his sister, but his expression confirmed our suspicions.

"He
'
s not the one!" Jason started to yell. "I
'
ve protected you! I
'
ve watched what you
'
ve done. I know what you are. The Resistance was united to—"

"Jason! That
'
s enough." Another young man stepped in front of Kaia, blocking Jason. He bowed his head at her. "We apologize. We cannot turn over the information. We will let you leave freely now, but we will continue to track you. We will track your brother, too. We will do anything to make you come to us."

Kaia said nothing in return.

"Are you ready to go home?"
H
er eyes settled on me with her question.

I nodded, and she confirmed with Malik and Tory as well.

"Let
'
s go home," Tory agreed.

Kaia held out her hand to me, and I took it. We started to walk away, but before we left, I had one last thing to say to Jason.

"If you ever put your hands on her again, if you ever so much as put a finger on her, I
'
ll kill you." I meant it too, and probably would have done a lot more damage had I not been hampered by the resisters. Jason remained silent but the smug look on his face was maddening. He almost smiled at me.

I
'
ll
always
be
the
first
boy
she
ever
kissed
, he taunted me silently.

It took all of my willpower to show no reaction whatsoever, but how could he know that? I forced myself to turn away as if I couldn
'
t hear him.

We left the way we came, through the window and down the outside of the building. Caden and Balor were waiting on the ground with our transporters. We hopped on and flew to the edges of the city, back through their makeshift wall.