The brothers stayed like that for a few seconds more, both staring down at their grandfather, both of their faces white and drawn. Then Eli collapsed to one knee, raising one trembling hand to his face, touching the blood on his cheek.
I wanted to launch myself off the table, to run to him, but my body was buzzing with pins and needles, just starting to wake up. My blood just starting to pump through my body to wake my joints back up. I struggled to sit up, elbows knocking the metal table.
Cain was at his brother's side now, and surprisingly, he hooked both arms under Eli's armpits, helping him up, dragging him back over to the chair he'd been sitting in. "Eli? Hold on." There was a rending sound as Cain tore the bottom of his shirt, already ripped from the fight with his grandfather. "Hold this to the wound, apply pressure."
Eli mumbled something and gestured vaguely in my direction, his brows drawing down low, and Cain turned around and spotted me trying to sit up. "She'll be fine. Just sluggish for the next little while."
There was more hammering somewhere in the building, and Cain's head jerked up. "We have to get out of here, now."
I managed to sit up fully now, though the room spun a little bit at first, but I managed to stave off the dizziness with a deep, even breath. I didn't trust myself to speak yet, but Eli said what I was thinking.
"Those are our...her soldiers...it's fine."
"No, it's not fine." Cain darted another look over his shoulder, and his eyes locked on my face. "We have to get her out of here, somewhere safe."
What the hell is he talking about?
The look on his face, the way his eyes glittered, I was pretty sure he wasn't concerned for my safety. Not really. It made me want to run, but I couldn't even stand up properly, not yet. My feet touched the floor, one at a time, and my knees nearly buckled. I braced myself on the table top with both hands. Finally I managed to grit words out, though the inside of my mouth felt like it was coated with dust. "We'll be safe when the king and queen come."
Cain turned back to Eli, gripping his shoulder. "We have to get her somewhere else, away from them."
Eli's face went dark. "What are you talking about."
"Just you and me and her, somewhere safe. Somewhere we can study the results of the tests. The vault. Grandfather talked about it...we can go underground-"
Eli sat up straighter, and then flinched, his hand flying up to the rag Cain held against his face. "What? What the hell are you talking about?"
Cain's mouth twitched downwards, the slightest bit, and he kept darting looks over his shoulder at me. I wasn't sure if he was afraid I was going to gain my movement back and run for it, or if he was afraid of my reaction to all this. Right now I longed to throttle him, but I had to concentrate all my effort on standing.
The feeling in my legs had come back, that was a good start.
"I didn't like the way Grandfather did things, I think he snapped towards the end. And banning you was never my choice." Cain's voice broke. It almost sounded like he was pleading. "But we can't throw this all away. What happened to Vee was amazing, scientific leaps and bounds the world has never seen before. The implications of our work with—"
"She is not a science experiment." Eli's voice was a snarl, and he shoved Cain's hand away from his wound. The gash in his head began to seep blood again. "You stay away from her. Get out of here."
I could only see Cain's back, but his entire body went tense. "I'm...I can't...not after what happened to our family. Not when we're so close to a cure."
I didn't like where this was going, but at least I was managing on my feet now. One shaky step forward, than another. Cain didn't notice, he was still facing off with Eli.
"I won't let you take her," Eli rasped, but the way he sagged in his chair told me he wasn't going to be able to put up much of a fight.
"I'm afraid you will."
Cain stepped sideways, and I tensed. I couldn't see his face, but his shoulders straightened and he took an audible breath in the silence of the room, as if he were finding his resolve.
He reached for something on the counter. "I truly am sorry. You're my brother. I never wanted this. But I can't continue to live this way. Like a half breed freak. I can't bear it, Eli. You have to understand."
I stiffened, a spike of fear driving through me when I saw his fingers wrap around the neck of a large glass beaker. If he hit Eli in the head with that there was no way he was going to survive. Two severe head injuries in one night would be the end of him.
Reaching out my senses was like groping blindly in the dark for a light. I could still just barely sense Cain, and there was no way I could do anything with what I could sense. Yes, there was water there, but there wasn't enough.
Not enough water.
But I knew somewhere there was.
"Enough!" My voice shook, and I forced it into firmness, slamming my fist down on the table. "This is not between you and your half dead brother, you coward."
Cain whirled around, glass beaker still in hand. His eyes went wide when he saw me standing on my own.
"That's right." I sneered at him. "You people can get gene splicing down but apparently you can't drug up one girl very well. Excellent job."
"It won't be the same," Cain said, and he reached into his pocket and fished something out, a long plastic plunger capped at one end. Another needle.
He didn't make any kind of move toward me though. "It doesn't have to be the same at all. You can come voluntarily. We can study this together, you and I."
"I have no desire to eradicate my own people." I glared at him. "I don't want or need a cure for jotun."
Cain's face darkened. "Then I'm afraid I'll have to do this in a way I would have preferred not to."
"Well isn't that tragic for you." I turned then, just as I'd planned, grabbing for the silver table. I'd planned to flip it up, catching Cain in the knees with the edge. But the moment I was moving I knew I'd miscalculated how strong I was. I wasn't at full capacity yet. My arms felt like limp noodles, and I only managed to tip the table over on its side. It fell over with a crash that echoed through the room, making Cain jump.
Not exactly the table flipping I had imagined.
Still, it gave me a few minutes as Cain had to run around it, and I was already stumbling for the door, shouldering my way through.
The same thing pulsed through my head again and again. Driving me forward, pumping adrenaline into my arms and legs.
Just make it to the beach. Make it to the beach. The beach.
Soldiers poured into the hallway around me, a mixture of jotun and human. I ducked as eardrum-shattering gunshots rang out, echoing, sending physical pain stabbing through my ear canals. I ducked but still plunged on, through the smoke, over the still black lumps of human remains. Bile rose in my throat, but I kept going as fast as I could. It was impossible to tell if Cain was still behind me, I couldn't hear him anymore, and I couldn't sense him with all the bodies in the hallway.
The lights flickered erratically, plunging us into blackness and then glaring light over and over. Soldiers barraged past me, boots clattering on the cement, and I could see by their armor that they were on my team. I thought about calling out, stopping them, but by the time I'd opened my mouth they were past me, throwing up their shields to deflect the gunfire.
At least they would block Cain's progress, maybe even try to stop him when they saw who it was.
I would have to count on them recognizing Eli, I knew the king and queen would at the very least. Of course, I hadn't seen Queen Megan or King Loki in this chaos so far.
Finally I hurtled through the doorway, plunging into the open, finding my way into the clearing just on the outskirts of the forest once more. The mounted gun out front had gone silent, and when I jogged around it, legs burning, I could see the muzzle had been melted, subject to fire so hot that the muzzle drooped downwards. There would be no more killing of our soldiers with that weapon.
Even over the distant pop pop of gunfire both inside and out, I heard the door crash open, and Cain's ragged cry of anger. "Vee!"
As if I'm going to answer.
I turned and ran toward the beach. It wasn't as if I knew my bearings, I couldn't point anyone to east, south and west, but I could sense it. The vast, open body of water pulsed in the back of my mind. Like a hook in the gut in pulled me forward, a physical sensation that I had to give in to in order to stay sane.
Somehow the ocean knew I needed it.
Hey guys! Currently I'm hard at work on a Loki/Megan short story (a prelude to FROST) and if you want to have it sent to you when it's done, head over to elatimer.com and click on "Subscribe". The story will go out to newsletter subscribers on October 9th!