A Hidden Element (28 page)

She peered behind her again. Their tracks were visible for anyone to see but only stark trees contrasted the draped world behind them. They roared toward civilization. She turned her head back when movement caught her eye.

Two shapes behind them. They grew closer. Gray figures on all-terrain vehicles.

"Charlie, faster! They're after us."

He bent his head down and increased his speed. The vehicle tipped dangerously.

"Hang on, Mom."

She looked again. They were gaining.

Hatred surged through her. They had come this far. Nothing would stop them now.

Charlie slammed on the brakes and turned hard left. Laura slid. Her foot slashed through the snow. She screamed, trying to hang on. The cold air burned her throat. Charlie grabbed her from behind with one hand. When she looked past him she understood why he turned.

A wall stood before them. A great hull rose above them arching toward the sky.

And it was not of this Earth.

The ceiling moved in and out above Caleb. He focused on its blurry tiles in the dim light that stretched in from his tiny window. One square. Two square. By the time he counted twenty tiles the ceiling had cleared. He staggered out of his bed. So many faces reared themselves. Laura. Charlie. Ben. And his father. He was dead by now and Caleb couldn't stop it.

The door opened. He squinted at the bright hallway glare. Tollen and the elders.

"Time to put your father to rest, Caleb. Are you ready now to do your duty?"

Caleb's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. "Yes," he finally said.

Tollen moved in to the room. "Then I'll return your powers to you. The people respond to you and you are a hard worker. You normally do your duty without being asked. Will you answer to me now?"

"Yes."

"Give me your arm." Tollen yanked up Caleb's sleeve and pushed a syringe into him to counteract the first drug. A humming swelled inside Caleb. It rose and quaked then moved away. Strength filled his limbs and mind.

"Come." Tollen led the way.

"What about Laur—the humans?"

The elder turned back to him with a smile. "They have been spotted outside of the perimeter. They will be back in our custody soon."

Caleb followed his new leader, his thoughts jumping about in his head.

He wanted to help Laura and her family.

He wanted to earn Tollen's trust to be with his sons.

He wanted to breathe life into his father. He had hated him, yes, but deep down he had loved him, too.

He could not do all these things.

Perhaps it was time to choose.

He was tired of saving everyone and not himself.

Laura hung onto her son. He raced between the trees alongside the giant thing looming over them. It appeared two stories high casting a shadow of gray light. Charlie bent lower over the handlebars urging their ride on. The Elyons had turned with them. They were so close she saw their faces. They kept glancing at the building that hung over them.

The engine sputtered and the vehicle jerked. Violent snow sprayed up.

"Mom, something's wrong!"

The vehicle slowed and then sped up. It bucked and lunged forward then slid on its side, one wheel in the air. She gripped Charlie harder. They skidded across crusty caps. Their enemy headed straight toward them now and would reach them in seconds. Mad men who wanted to imprison them again. Or end them.

She hung on to Charlie as they crashed along, banging into trees.

The Elyons were closing in.

Two hundred feet.

One hundred feet.

Their vehicle spit out black smoke and died, slamming into a snow bank. She jumped up, swung a leg over the seat to get off, and fell deep in the snow. Charlie dragged her up. Benny's screams tore into her. Charlie grabbed her hand. They plunged through the merciless snow. It pressed heavy against her legs with its glacier grip. They headed to the wall that trapped them. The Elyons stopped their vehicles, were dismounting. They would reach them in less than a minute. The snow was so deep and there was nowhere to hide.

"There's no escape," she said to Charlie.

"Wait! There's a door here. It's some kind of ship. Come on."

He pulled her along, but she sank to her knees. She clutched Benny who whimpered. She faced their captors. They slowed their pace through the snow.

Charlie was yelling at her to get up.
No
. She had to end this now. She stretched out her hands. Sent her mind out. A killing machine.

And then a great blaze of lightning flashed.

His father hung in the stoning gates.

Bruises painted his body in gruesome strokes. Blood streaked his pale torn skin. A violent death. More so than Rachel's. She had been bruised but not gashed and gouged with rock. His father had been battered to death with hate and revenge. His big head hung down, defeated. His massive muscles flexed no more. He could never hurt anyone again. His father's flock had once worshipped him and accepted the rules he enforced. They had followed him here for a new life as Destroyers where they believed they would not be persecuted. But they had been, by one of their own.

Caleb hadn't wanted to come to Earth under these circumstances. He'd wanted to come here and be equal partners with humans. But he'd also wanted a life back home, even if he was ostracized by the other kids for not using his healing powers. They didn't understand he wanted to feel pain as humans did. He wanted to suffer as the humans did, to understand them. And now here on Earth he was forced to live a life as a Destroyer.

He had to believe that a Destroyer could reverse his own fate.

Could defy genetics. Could be good. Could heal. Could love.

He had one day hoped his father could. Now that would never happen.

"Go on now, Caleb," Tollen said. "Remove the executed."

"Where will I bury him in this snow?"

"You won't. You will carry him to the tree line and leave him there."

"The animals will ravage him."

"Yes. They will tear him apart and pick his bones clean. An appropriate end for a wild animal such as himself."

Nausea swirled in the pit of Caleb's stomach thinking about his father's flesh being torn asunder and chewed on by snarling wolves. He moved forward and unshackled his father. Blood spattered the cobblestones beneath him. His father's stiff body fell into his arms and he staggered back and summoned his strength to pick him up. He used his sleeve to wipe the blood from his father's face, so at peace in its stillness. Had he ever known peace? He had never seen his father with his eyes closed. He didn't look monstrous, just sad.

Hurry.
Choose, Caleb.

Snow began to fall, soft this time. It floated down and dressed his father's cold body. The flakes did not melt. He had been left out here dead for some time. Guilt spawned a seed of love inside Caleb. He had been drugged and slept while his father was battered to death. He looked at Tollen and the elders. Other Elyons had stopped to watch as they went about their business again. Back to baking and child care and laundry—after killing. They watched him now, wondering if he would have the same end as his father.

Choose.

"Why are you hesitating, Caleb?" Tollen demanded. "Follow orders or there will be consequences." He crossed his arms. The elders murmured.

More of the community came out to see what was going on. And still he stood before them with Adrian's body in his arms. He looked down at his father.

There was only one choice to make.

If he let his father die then he could never be the father he had hoped to be for his sons. He would be giving into his Destroyer gene—and that would destroy him.

He carefully placed his father on the cold stone and closed his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Tollen's voice rose loud and angry. A hate-filled murmuring swelled around him but he focused on his task. Laughter echoed in his ears. "You can't bring back the dead, Caleb."

The laughter grew as others joined in. Caleb ignored them. He looked up once. His sons watched him. They did not laugh.

He molded his father's body in his hands, cleansing it of pain and suffering. He willed life into him, inch by inch. Imagined his blood pumping through his limbs.

Please, Father, come back to me a renewed being of light not dark.

He felt movement under his fingers and opened his eyes. Color rushed back into his father's cheeks and chest. Veins pulsed like rivers of blue once more against white skin.

The crowd gasped.

"Look."

"It's an Elyon miracle."

"He brought him back."

"He's our true Elyon leader!"

"Yes. Yes! Caleb Madroc!"

Tollen shook his head, as if not believing. "You're wasting your time, Son."

Caleb looked up. "I am not your son."

"No, you're mine." Adrian clutched Caleb's arm, his eyes wide with something Caleb had never seen before in them. Fear.

Caleb helped him stand up. The crowd before him became silent. Then their voices rose up in outrage. "Kill him again!"

Adrian hung his head.

"No," Caleb yelled over them. They were silent once more and stared at him. Waiting. "Let him go. He is nothing now. His reign of pain is over. Let him be in misery. Let him flee as so many others did. Alone."

He let go of Adrian. His father tottered, his naked body weak and pathetic. The snow fell again. Mad flakes bashed at them. Tollen stood there, clearly unsure of how to react.

One elder stepped forward. "You're our true leader, Caleb. You brought him back to life. You've evolved to the higher form our scientists predicted we'd become someday. You can lead us into our new world where we will belong. It's destiny."

Tollen shook his head and held his hand up. "No need for haste! We don't know what just occurred. The elders must meet in chambers to investigate before a new leader is decided upon."

But the Elyons swarmed to Caleb, pushing Tollen aside.

"No meeting. We know what's true and right!" "Yes, true." "Brother Caleb is meant to lead!" "New world." "Our new hope."

The Elyons surrounded Caleb. They squeezed his arms, kissed his hands, and pushed at him from all sides. Then Leah stepped out from the sanctuary. She stumbled toward the courtyard, dazed and weak. She joined the surge, not knowing what was going on.

The crowd lifted Caleb up. All the elders nodded, except Tollen. Caleb watched him standing off to the side, a deep frown of anger splitting his face. The snow embraced Caleb in a frenzied celebration along with his people as they held him on their shoulders. He was stunned. This was not what he envisioned. Then a feeling burst inside him. He almost didn't recognize it.

It was hope.

He could be with his sons.

He could be a father.

He could lead his people into a world where they could live in harmony with humans, sharing the Earth as one gift.

His sons came into view. The crowd swelled toward them with him over their heads. Jeremiah and Josiah looked up as he passed by, eyes as green as his, and they smiled at him. He reached out his trembling hands and touched their soft black hair—the first touch of his children he loved and had never known—and then he was swept away from them with the crowd.

He calmed his emotions and spoke to them as they paraded him in the snow. "Elyons, we can change our destiny. We can live in peace, not pain and fear. We can overcome our Destroyer ways and not hide what's inside us anymore. If I can bring back the dead, think of all the other things we can do someday—you can do. Good things."

Their agreement flowed around him. They had been ready for a change.

"Our hidden element can be the light we never knew we had. Charlie had it. I have it. My Uncle Brahm had it. It will be hard but we can reach out to the human world and embrace them— and hope they'll embrace us back."

Tollen stood still, watching. "Elyons, don't be so quick to judge or to believe these new ideas."

"Caleb is the true leader and his words are truth," another elder shouted back over the crowd. "He will bring us into the light and out of the dark. He can bring the dead back to life. He can bring us into a new life."

Caleb's people cheered and carried him from the cold into the warmth of the compound.

Then it struck him. In the chaos he had lost his father.

He was gone.

Adrian's limbs spasmed from the cold.

His people had shoved him aside like garbage to get closer to Caleb, their true leader marked by destiny. His own son who he had marked as weak. He had stumbled off then in shock and wandered into the woods. He reached the community fence and struggled to pull himself up and over it. His flesh ripped on barbed wire. The pain no longer felt good. It no longer made him strong. Weaker he grew.

Twice he fell and began again. Finally, he dropped down on the other side and lay there heaving great breaths as his body grew numb. Could he make his way to Benevolence and convince a human to take a naked stranger in? He stood and staggered forward.

He tried to see into his future but it was now a blank space.

His people were gone. Laura and his sons were gone. And so was he.

He wept from the loss, his tears like fire on his frozen cheeks.

The snow surrounded him like a false welcome blanket, cruel in its glittering luster. It stung his feet and calves. At first it burned and he clung to the pain. Then cold spread throughout him and he felt nothing. He had died today and yet now lived.

The pine trees shook the unwanted snow from their branches. It covered him and soon melted to a chilled glaze covering his body. So tired. Needed to stop for a rest. He didn't know where he headed but something pulled him along.

Manta. Laura. Where are you?

But neither answered.