Lightning Bringer: (Lighting Seeker Book 2)

Worth Considering

Vale didn't move. She forced herself to do everything her body fought against. She breathed, she ignored her heart's cries of protest and forced her face to remain impassive. No one needed to see her despair. No one needed to know that she was broken inside. That Sky had destroyed her without needing to say a word. He had told her to go. That his family had needed him. Is this what you meant? That your past life was more important than the cries of others who have no choices?

She killed that train of thought and forced her mind onto another track. He could have been warning me, disguising it as a threat to keep his grandfather satisfied. Maybe he is as trapped as I feel? Maybe this is all a terrible nightmare and I'll wake up back on The Ignis before everything fell apart.

"Turn that blasted thing off," Mortem growled as he walked through the door, his large frame filling the doorway and blocking the hallway from sigh. "They made their point. Get the screen ready for our call and stop wastin' our time with this propaganda."

Geo squeezed Vale's hand, offering her strength and keeping her grounded in the present. "You look like you are going to shift. Try not to spear Ace with your magic fingers." Vale blinked and stretched out her metal hand, forcing herself to relax. She felt like she was a coiled snake, on the verge of snapping anything that startled her.

"Lightning!" Mortem barked sensing her dark mood. "Outside. Now." Vale left the room without a word, Mortem a step behind her. "Healer! You too! Errr... Geo make sure the other Tradesmen have seen that stunt." Dash had just enough time to squeeze past Mortem before he slammed the door to the conference room shut.

Dash and Vale followed Mortem to a separate room that felt too small for Mortem, let alone the three of them. "Sit."

Vale and Dash scrambled onto two different crates and waited. Mortem, whose brows were pinched in irritation shoved a set of papers off of a barrel and sat down facing them. "So ye've seen the news." The silence was heavy in the room, strong and choking.

Vale nodded past the lump in her throat.

"They've been circulatin' it for hours. Trying to push the footage of you down to the bottom of the search engine." He leaned back, the buttons of his jacket stretching across his chest, threatening to break the poor buttons that tried to keep the jacket closed. "Fat luck that'll brin' 'em."

Running his fingers through his chaotic peppered hair, Mortem leveled Vale with a stare. "You're the last one to 'ave seen 'im."

"Yes," her voice sounded hollow, empty. A verbal representation of how she felt.

"What happened?" Mortem urged, trying his best to sound comforting but coming across irritated.

"You saw the footage," Vale said to buy time. She needed a moment to collect her thoughts, to hide her heart behind several wars of numb indifference.

"You said you were taking to House Devinus," Mortem replied, crossing his arms. "You lived."

"Clearly," Vale snapped before she could stop herself.

"Vale," Dash warned.

"No!" Vale turned to glare at him. "You are both acting like I did something magical. That I asked to be kept alive when I should be dead. Don't ask me how. I. DONT. KNOW."

"Just tell us what happened at the Devinus house!" Mortem cut in before Vale could continue yelling at Dash. "Ye too need to stop trying to pummel each other into the ground with words." He rolled his eyes. "Useless waste of yer time," he muttered. "Fists are far better for destruction. Blasted youngin's and their mouths."

Vale ignored the insult and took in a steady breath. "I woke up in a guest room..." Vale went on to explain finding Kedar and how strange Sky had been. How she had grown angry and tried to kill Kedar but Sky had stopped her.

"I... hit him with a lot of lightning..." She remembered Sky's silent screams of pain. At least I know he's alive. "He went down. The AI's knocked me out and... well you know the rest," Vale finished. Mortem and Dash had been silent through her explanation, allowing her silences to go uninterrupted as she collected her thoughts. She had stared at the worn wooded floor, tracing a circular pattern into a groove with her thick soled boots. After the silence became too heavy to bare, Vale looked up to find Mortem staring at her with a look of open concern.

"What?" Vale asked, confused by the gentle caring look.

"Things are gonna be worse for ye before they get any better." Vale pursed her lips to keep herself from scowling. "Look. The boy is changed-."

Vale shook her head. "He could be working from the inside. He told us what he knew. It could have been a warning."

"That's just it. We don't know. And I know ye well enough to know that ye plan on going back." Vale didn't deny it. Something about her conversation with Sky had been wrong. Even with that announcement, she needed to get him alone, without his grandfather, without the security and know for sure. Sky would come for her if things were reversed. He had saved her before when she had fallen onto an AI ship. Vale had to return the favor.

"We can't risk being wrong about 'im."

"Then I'll prove it. Let me go after him. I can find out," leveling Mortem with a stare.

"No," Dash said through gritted teeth.

"He knows their system inside and out. It's worth risking-."

"My grandparents would have you killed the moment you got there," he replied.

"Not if Sky wants me there. I already survived once. I don't think they left me alive out of kindness," Vale spoke directly to Mortem, ignoring Dash's growl of protest.

"They won't care! You are the poster child of the rebellion Vale.! You can't seriously think showing up there is a good idea."

"I say it's worth considerin'." Mortem interjected.

Dash's jaw dropped open. Standing to his feet he began to pace back and forth across the small space. "You are both out of your ever loving minds!"

Mortem gave him a dangerous grin. "True. But still very much alive. I bet if we play this right, Vale can walk in there and keep all her extremities... well all her other extremities without too much trouble. But it depends..." Mortem began to stroke his beared, deep in thought, a far off look crossing his dark eyes.

"On?" Dash asked.

"How much that boy loves 'er," Mortem replied pointing a thumb in Vale's direction.

Vale blinked, surprised by the turn of the conversation. She didn't want to talk about her feelings for Sky or vise versa with Mortem or Dash for that matter. It was far too comfortable an idea.

Her face flushed red, betraying her determination to steer the conversation away. Dash stopped pacing, his green eyes staring between Mortem and Vale.

Mortem searched Vale's face, ready to search for the truth that she so desperately was trying to hide. "How much do ye think Sky would sacrifice to keep ye alive?"