It was still dark out when I got everyone up so that we could make our move.
"Scott your job is to sit in the back of the truck with the fertilizer," I said.
"No way. You smell that ammonia just like I do. You want me to suffocate to death?" he asked.
"It won't be for long. It's maybe a ten minute drive tops."
"Lei you'll be in the passenger seat while I drive," I handed her a piece of cloth.
"Cover your eyes with this and don't take it off until I tell you. Understood?"
She nodded before complying.
"What about me?" Alex asked.
"You're going to stay here. Find a car for us to use on the way back," I answered.
"You sure you know what you're doing, Celeste?" Scott asked, all three of them looked at each other as if they were thinking the same thing.
"Kinda late to be asking that isn't it? You've trusted me thus far. When the moment comes, you'll know what to do." I paused, "I specifically chose you all because I know that none of you will get killed. You guys are a lot like me, so I felt like I could trust you."
Alex gave me a knowing look, but they all seemed to relax a bit. Scott climbed into the back, and I shut the door behind them. Lei covered her eyes with the cloth as I started up the truck. I took a deep breath. It was now or never.
I drove quickly, but made sure not to be too reckless. Keeping an eye out for landmarks I'd had the wolves take note of earlier, I knew when we were close.
"Lei, you're going to switch places with me in the driver's seat."
"Huh?"
"Take off your blind folds and switch places with me."
She removed the cloth from her face and we gingerly swapped places.
"Keep your foot on the gas pedal and don't stop."
"But...there is a building there."
"I know. You can regenerate, correct? Don't let up on the gas."
"Yes, I can, but..."
"I know it's scary, but if I didn't think you could do it, I wouldn't have asked. You can regenerate. You'll be okay. And we aren't going far. I promise. This is for the future of our kind," I said putting my hand on the steering wheel, guiding it back to the path.
Lei nodded and revved the accelerator. I rolled down the window and climbed out, partially morphing my hands and toes into bear claws that allowed me to dig into the side of the truck. The building was rushing up quickly. We had to act fast.
I crawled along the side of the truck until I reached the back, then I flung the door open. Scott looked up at me, surprised. Very deliberately, I pulled a lighter out from my waist band and lit it, given Scott a knowing look. The blood drained from his face before he a devious grin crept across both of their faces. I flipped out of the truck, to put enough distance between myself and what was about to happen.
The truck closed in the building.
CRASH!
Rubble began falling down on the truck. Metal crumpled as it made contact with the brick exterior of the building. Flames appeared near the engine and before I could verify that Lei had made it out safely there were several rapid fire flashes of blinding white light.
BOOM!
I was at least a hundred feet away, but I was still send flying backward, tumbling roughly on the concrete. As I rolled, all I could make out was flashes between the sky above and the ground beneath me, with the sky suddenly turning from a crystal clear blue to a black cloud engulfing everything around me. My head cracked against the pavement.
I didn't even have a chance to register the pain because it felt like my lungs were on fire. My body bounced on the ground, knocking the wind out of me each time I tried to catch my breath, but with the debris flying, what little air I could get before was nonexistent now.
BOOM!
Another loud explosion. No opportunity to even attempt to make sense of anything around me anymore. It felt like I was rolling forever, before I finally came to a halt, my skin skidding against the pavement, leaving a burning sensation.
I laid there for a few moments, trying to overcome the intense dizziness I felt. After a few moments, I got on my hands and knees. Something pricked the palm of my hand and I jerked back. It was a tooth.
"Jesus fucking..." I trailed off as I glanced up and noticed my surroundings. Or rather lack of surroundings.
The arena that had been there just a few moments ago? Gone. The semi truck? Gone. Literally nothing was in front of me except for scorched earth and a billowing cloud of black smoke.
Timothy had been in that building. But so had Leona, and hopefully Giovanna as well. If everything had gone as planned, I'd just sacrificed my brother in exchange for wiping out the enemy.
The sound of coughing in the distance, caught my ear.
"Scott? Lei?" I tried to call out loudly, but my voice was raspy.
"Celeste?" Lei's voice. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's me! Where are you?" I asked.
"Over here. I can't move," she said. I followed the sound of her voice. We called back and forth until I found her.
"Shit," I spat, as soon as my eyes landed on her. There was blood everywhere. Lei must have caught the brunt of the explosion because she was in pieces. Her torso had been blown off, right below the diaphragm. One leg was about five feet away from her and it was only from the calf down. The other leg was yet to be found. I had already passed an arm on my way to her and the other one still attached to her torso, but it was crushed and twisted to oblivion.
"I will be okay. I just need a few minutes," she said, she said hoarsely.
I crouched down next to her as she regenerated.
"That building was where Leona and Giovanna were. The explosion hopefully killed them both. I needed you guys in the dark for as long as possible so that Leona wouldn't suspect. You're a true soldier, Lei," I said, feeling admiration towards her.
"But...your brother..."she trailed off, her crushed arm finished fixing itself and the other one began to grow. A nub appeared before it extended out, the fingers forming before the arm even reached full length. It was a bit disturbing to watch.
"My brother...was a necessary sacrifice for our survival," I said.
Her expression was hard to read. It was hard to tell if it was a reaction to my words, if she was in pain, or if it was because she was focusing on her powers. I was disgusted as I watched her torso grew back. Her guts form themselves, exposed to the environment before the skin even appeared. Lei's legs returned in a similar fashion to her arms. A nub appeared first and each toe grew out as the rest of her legs emerged. The whole process took maybe five minutes. She got to her feet. Then she helped me stand up straight from my crouched position.
"You need to heal yourself," she said.
"I will. After we find Scott," I said.
Lei grimaced.
"I was blown to pieces. I am not sure if someone like Scott could have survived that," she said.
I felt a tickle on my nose and scratched at it. My hand came away bloody. Despite my best efforts to hold still, my fingers trembled. I pushed back against the emotions trying to rise to the surface. There was still a job to do.
"We find Scott...or what's left of him, before we do anything else," I reiterated.
There was a lot of debris on the ground and in the air. Lei and I spent a long time looking around, shouting Scott's name even pushing large chunks of rocks out of the way. We searched for at least an hour and found quite a few bodies. None of them Scott. None of them Leona or Giovanna. Or Timothy for that matter. Then again, plenty of them were burned beyond recognition. But there was one face I did recognize.
"We need to take her back with us," I said, struggling to keep looking down at the body. Lei bent over to pick her up, but I put a hand out to stop her.
"I did this. I'll carry her," I lifted her up and heaved the body over my shoulder, almost faltering under the added weight.
"Who is she?" Lei asked.
"Let's get back to Alex. We need to head back to the others. It's a five mile trip" I said, ignoring the question.
We walked in silence for a while before she spoke again.
"You still haven't morphed to heal yourself," she noted.
"I will. There's no hurry," I said. My body hurt all over, but it wasn't slowing me down.
"Celeste. Are you sure that blast killed them?"
"If they aren't dead, then they will be soon. That is if they don't...," I trailed off.
"Don't what?"
"You see that?" I pointed off in the distance, about a hundred yards from us. I couldn't tell if it was a person or a corpse from this distance. Lei jogged over to it. I trailed behind her.
Lei bent down and sat them upright, against a tree they'd landed next to. Once I got closer I could tell it was Scott. He was alive, but definitely dazed. His blue eyes met mine.
"You're a freaking nutcase, Celeste. You know that? I've never seen an explosion that big and I'm the king of explosions. How'd you know a bunch of fertilizer would blow up like that? Who was in that building? They're definitely dead. No way anybody inside of there survived. Dead," he said, motioning his hand like a knife slicing his neck.
"Some knowledge I learned from my brother. Leona and Giovanna were in there," I said quietly.
Scott just now seemed to notice what I was carrying. The excitement drained away.
"And you are sure they did not survive?" Lei asked.
There was one way to find out. I could check my connection with Timothy. If I could take command of the animals around me that meant he was alive. But it would also mean that I'd failed. And if I couldn't reach the connection at the very least it meant that Timothy was dead...but it was no guarantee that Leona had died with him.
"We need to get back to Alex," I said after a few beats of silence.
Lei and helped Scott to his feet. He was untouched except for a twisted ankle.
"How'd you make it out of there without any major injuries?" I asked.
"My abilities aren't just good for allowing me to blind people. I've done my fair share of accidentally igniting a few fires. By this point, I know how to get out of the way or at least protect myself from the brunt of it," he answered.
"You know it'd be a lot faster if you morphed something that can carry us," Scott suggested.
"I'll morph when I feel like it and not when you tell me," I snarled at him, surprising myself when I lashed out.
He threw up his hands defensively.
"Hey, I was just making a suggestion. Unlike you to not take advantage of your abilities."
"Did either of Alex's clones survive the blast?" I asked him.
"Doubtful. Maybe. Hell if I know," Scott said.
"You seem really concerned about him," Lei said.
"I'm not concerned. We just need to get back to him. We just need to get back and...We just need to get back to Alex."
I ignored the look the Scott and Lei exchanged. Now wasn't the time to start dwelling on what could have been done differently. It wasn't the time to break down or worry about what if's. It wasn't the time to wonder if Timothy survived or if I should have looked harder in all the rubble for his body so that maybe he could have a proper burial.
"Mm," an involuntary hum vibrated in my chest, high pitched and foreign sounding.
My teeth gritted, biting back tears, unwilling to let the ominous, swirling thundercloud of thoughts in my head to erupt into a violent storm. Until I could keep my emotions in check, I wouldn't entertain the thought of seeing if my connection with Timothy was still there. There was too much that could go wrong on our way back to the rest of the camp to allow myself to grieve. I'd have to deal with it later, when it was all over.
See, the fact that we didn't find his body was just as horrible and gruesome of a truth as if we did. That was because, if Timothy was alive, I knew Leona was smart enough to at least deduce that he was involved somehow, even if she couldn't get concrete evidence. If she'd lived as well, he'd have hell to pay. And if she'd died...that meant he was probably close behind her. Whatever state Leona was in, given their close proximity, it was safe to assume that Timothy would be in the same predicament. I had a gut feeling about it that I couldn't ignore. If she was alive, then had I had a pretty good idea of what Giovanna would do next. We just had to make sure we were ready.