I heard the gun explode in slow motion. Everything went silent, or really loud. I couldn't tell—like when water is so hot it feels cold for a moment. My ears rang as I went numb and fell to the ground. Blood covered me, and my arm stung.
Drake's mouth moved, but I couldn't hear what he said. Rage overtook him, and he turned to the doctor. He broke from my mind and unleashed all his power.
Dr. Pana brought the gun to his own chin. Time slowed. The doctor's finger tugged against the trigger.
"Drake no! Don't do it! Don't become one of them." The words didn't reach my ears. Maybe I only spoke in my head. Nothing made sense. I couldn't move. Something pinned me down.
Drake looked to me, tears in his eyes. "I can't lose you, Sam. I lost them. I can't lose you too. I'm sorry."
My mind filled with Drake's. His pain became mine, his memories my memories. We existed as one in that terrible moment.
The doctor's head exploded in a splash of blood and brain.
I blocked the image of him from my mind, and my connection to Drake snapped shut. The guard still lay unconscious in the corner, and Ana lay like a dead weight against me.
I shifted her, and screamed. A crimson gash covered her abdomen. I tried to move my arm and flinched. Blood covered my right shoulder. Two bullets—one in her, and one that just grazed me. She must have moved at the last minute, and thrown herself in front of me.
She'd saved my life.
This plan was supposed to be simple. How could this happen?
My hearing returned as I choked on my sobs. I held Ana and rocked her, stared at her, willing her to wake up. I waited for that movie moment when she would open her eyes and tell me it was okay, that it was best this way. When she would make me vow to help her children and all the other kids in this hellhole.
That moment never came.
I was robbed of those last words, that final connection.
Images of Gar's lifeless eyes plagued me. Two deaths.
I looked at my bloodstained hands and cringed. I would never wipe my soul clean from this.
"Sam, we have to go now. I'm sorry, but we don't have much time to get out of here. Are you okay? Is our baby okay?"
I stared at Drake, still in a daze, and nodded mutely as he moved Ana's body off of me. "We can't leave her here. That's not right."
"I know, but we have no choice. We're the only hope left to save her kids. She'd want us to go."
"No! I'm not going to leave her here. Her kids deserve to know where she's buried. She deserves some respect. I will not leave her in the hands of these monsters! Not like I left Gar."
"Please, Sam, listen to me. For the sake of our baby, we have to go. Please!"
"I can't. I just can't. The babies. Ana. I can't."
I sat on the floor, crying, clutching her body in my arms, unable to move, unable to think past the grief that ate away at my soul. She'd given everything for her kids, and for us. Her whole life had been a sacrifice for others. I had just reunited her with her children, gave my best friends their mom back. Now, because of me, they'd lost it all.
Sobs tore out of me. My body shook as my tears spilled onto her lifeless face.
***
'Sam, I am so sorry to do this, but I have to. Sam, you will get up and come with me to the car. You will move quickly.'
My mind emptied. Only a compulsion to do as the voice commanded remained. My body moved reflexively as an unknown arm helped me up and guided me out of the building. Distant alarms sounded, but the compulsion was all that mattered.
I saw the guard and what was left of Dr. Pana as if looking through murky waters.
A thread of anger uncoiled inside me. I despised him. I despised them all. If I could burn the whole building down, I would. These thoughts rose up like bubbles from some buried mind, but I could do nothing but walk forward and get in the car.
We found the blue Honda where Ana said it would be. Drake pulled the backpack out of the trunk, and we jumped in. He drove.
The compulsion disappeared, my mind cleared, and all the memories and feelings flooded back to me. I felt violated, mentally raped. Drake couldn't make eye contact with me, and I couldn't speak to him. My rage wouldn't allow it.
I thought about the babies. What would happen to them? Ana had been the only one who loved them and gave them what they needed. We had destroyed so much tonight—so many lives, so much hope.
My arm throbbed in pain and practicality gradually took over. I checked the bags, trying to focus. Good Ana, she'd left us a first aid kit. I disinfected my bullet wound and wrapped it awkwardly with gauze, also replacing the wrecked bandage Ana had put on me.
"Do you want some help with that? I can pull over and—"
"I can do it myself!"
"Sam, I'm sorry. So sorry. But you would have died. Our baby would have died. I couldn't let you stay there!"
I screamed, "You could have used your physical strength! You could have carried me if you had to. You didn't need to use mind control on me. On me!"
"There was no time. You would have fought. You were injured. And you're pregnant! What would you have done in my situation? Huh? Would you have let me die so I wouldn't get mad at you? Would you have held that ethical line at the expense of my life?"
I refused to look at him or answer.
We drove in silence while I counted our cash. Drake looked over at the money. Ana had left us several thousand dollars, at least, and that didn't count the money I'd squirreled away in my secret box.
He finally broke the silence. "We should dump this car and get something else. The plates are traceable."
I finally looked at the GPS. We were in Montana. I hadn't been far off in my guesses, assuming my school was near the hospital.
We drove in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Big Sky Country. We cruised the long, winding country roads, the only sign of life an occasional road sign.
Drake set the GPS for his apartment in Venice, California, but programmed it for back roads until we could get a new car.
"When and where should we get a new car? I don't see any dealerships around." I did not want to speak to him, but logistics had to be handled.
"As soon as possible. First we should swap the plates with another car. That will buy us time until I can get us to a car lot."
"Fine."
It took us a while to pass anything resembling civilization, but we finally found a parking lot full of cars outside a truck stop. I stayed in the car while Drake made the switch. My first night of freedom and I was already an outlaw. Great.
We kept driving.
I dozed on and off, in pain and sickened by what had happened. Ana's dead face flashed every time I closed my eyes. We drove for hours that first night, stopping for gas and food as infrequently as possible. I stayed in the car, not wanting to alarm anyone with my bloody clothes.
Ten hours of driving exhausted us both. I was surprised we'd stayed on the road so long, after the adrenaline crash from our escape. We pulled into a small motel. I wasn't even sure where we were; everything looked the same after so many miles.
Drake checked us in with cash from the bag.
As soon as we walked into the room, I threw my clothes into a trash bag and jumped into the shower, scrubbing until my skin turned red and raw. I couldn't wash away the memories, but at least I could wash away the blood.
As I washed, Shakespeare's Macbeth ran through my mind:
Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then
'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow'r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?
So much blood, indeed. Blood spilled for me.
Drake took a shower after me. He came out wearing the sweats and t-shirt Ana had left him. I sat on the double bed in my own sweats and t-shirt and looked through the backpack. The bandaging on my arm slipped. I couldn't get it to stay.
He came over and rewrapped it. We didn't speak. I couldn't even look him in the eyes, but the graze of his skin against mine sent shivers through my body.
We each had clothes to sleep in, undergarments for a few days, and one pair of pants with a few different shirts and sweaters.
I booted up the MacBook and found the memory stick, while he counted the cash.
"Sam, this is $20,000. How could she even have this much money?"
"They probably paid her, right? I mean, they thought they controlled her with her kids, so why wouldn't they pay her? Or maybe she found a way to steal from them. Even better."
I shut up, remembering that I wasn't speaking to him.
It was a lot of money, but without jobs, or IDs, or anything, it wouldn't last long. Still, my eyes filled with tears. Ana had given us so much, and paid for it with her life. And we'd left her there to rot.
The baby kicked, and Drake noticed me holding my stomach.
He sat next to me and swallowed hard. "Can I feel her?"
I nodded and put his large hand over the bump, and she gave another good, strong kick.
He smiled and looked in my eyes. "We got out. We saved her. And we will make it through this. Together. I'm so sorry about what I did, Sam. I swear I'll never do that to you again, but I couldn't let you die!"
Tears rolled off my cheek and onto my shirt. He wiped one away with his finger. I was furious with him, but why? If I could use these powers for what I considered the greater good, why couldn't he? He probably did save our lives. We had to get out of there, and he was right: I would have done the same thing to him if it meant saving him and our baby.
Part of me wanted to stay angry, the part that feared the loss of control, but I was too tired to keep fighting with the only person in the world on my side. I leaned toward him, to put my head on his shoulder, but hesitated. Each moment suspended itself in blown glass—so beautiful, so fragile.
As if sensing my uncertainty, he wrapped his arms around me, and I melted into him as though my body had been made for his.
"Don't ever do it again," I said into his t-shirt.
"I won't, I swear." He held my eyes with his. His breath touched my face and smelled like the mint of his toothpaste.
In that moment, as if sensing my desperate need, or maybe reflecting his own, he leaned into me.
Fire grew between us and poured through us.
The blaze reached our lips as they brushed together, gently at first, soft and tender. Then his tongue split my lips. The taste of his mouth, my fingers digging into his back, his hand sliding into my hair as he pulled me closer—with the ebb and flow of this newfound passion, a craving flared to life deep within my body, something new and forbidden. He traced a line of kisses on my cheek.
I willed time to stop and suspend us in this moment forever, like those blown glass memories.
It didn't feel like a first touch or first kiss, but rather like we'd been apart for too many lifetimes and had finally found each other again. My body recognized his intimately. We fell into each other naturally and without hesitation.
I finally felt home. Free. Safe. Loved.
The computer beeped, reminding us we had work to do.
Drake pushed it away. "It can wait until morning. Now, you need rest, and I need to hold you."
How could I argue when all I wanted in the world was to be wrapped in his arms all night long?
I thought my tears had gone for good, but that night I cried myself to sleep again. This time, my tears fell on the strong shoulders of the man I loved. He held me all night, avoiding my injured shoulder. Words were still too much for us after all the shock, but the contact kept me from falling apart.
***
We woke early the next morning and looked through the computer files, which contained compelling evidence—addresses, pictures, secret documents. Everything we'd need to expose Rent-A-Kid.
Drake grabbed the cell phone and made a call. "Brad, this is Drake. Call me back at this number. It's urgent. I'm in trouble." He hung up.
Money and clothes covered our bed. I thought of Ana and.... Oh God, I have to tell Lucy and Luke.
I didn't want to, not after everything. My head split in half.
But we had to.
Drake agreed, and we made the link.
And I had the worst conversation of my life.
Their mother's loss shocked and saddened Lucy and Luke. They'd lost more than just a person they'd only talked to once. They'd lost an idea, a dream of how life might have been. They also feared for their future, understandably so. I had to get them out and protect my baby. I didn't know how, but I would find a way.
We dressed, packed up, and hit the road early, still worried about being followed, or reported, or killed. Minor things.
I took the medicine Ana had left me, and told my baby to be good and stay put for a while longer.
We drove and drove and drove, at last finding a used car lot. We ditched Ana's car and bought the cheapest vehicle that looked like it could go the distance. It didn't help that Drake had no ID. It did help that this guy didn't want to report everything to Uncle Sam. They shook on a deal, and we left with our new ride.
We aimed to get to California by that night, and head straight to his apartment.
I leaned back in my seat and admired Drake as he drove. "What do you think Brad will say about all this?"
"Honestly, I don't know. He's always looked for the next great story, but really has been stuck at the newspaper equivalent of middle management. He gets some local stuff, but nothing hard-hitting. He wants to make his mark, but so far he's just barely making rent."
"Maybe this will be the big break he needs."
"If anyone listens. I have a feeling it won't be that easy to bring down this organization."
Yeah, a group like this didn't cave just because some kids showed up with a memory stick and a story. Still, someone had to listen, to see the pieces that didn't add up and want to investigate further.
If his friend couldn't get our story out into the world, we'd find another way. I had sketches, sensitive information on top government officials, and no identity. That proved something, didn't it? I didn't just make myself disappear. Someone, somewhere, would have to believe us.
Drake squeezed my hand. I turned on the radio and shuffled through the many Christian and country music stations, settling on a Dixie Chicks song. I sang along and tried to forget about my life for a while.
Drake glanced at me. "You have a beautiful voice."
"Thank you." I hesitated. "Drake, I know what I want to name our baby." The thought had been percolating in the back of my mind since the night before, but I wasn't ready to speak about it. Until now.
"I'm pretty sure I don't need to read your mind to know what it is."
"Ana." We said her name together. As a prayer. An offering. A promise.
"Sam, I want you to know... I love you. I know I didn't say it last night, but I do. I always will."
"I love you too."
Right on cue, Lonestar's "Amazed" came on.
"I WANNA SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE... WITH YOU BY MY SIDE... FOREVER AND EVER...."
I sang, he listened, and we went to meet our future together.
THE END
Get Forbidden Fire (Forbidden Trilogy, #2) now and find out what happens next.
Sam and Drake may have escaped, but they aren't free—not with a powerful Seeker after them. As Sam struggles with the ethics of her new powers and embraces a blossoming physical relationship with Drake, Lucy and Luke face challenges of their own.
With forces coalescing inside and outside the Rent-A-Kid dorms, it's only a matter of time before the fire they started forces each of them to make choices they can't undo. But will it be enough to save them?
Get Forbidden Fire now here.
