Cannot Unite (7 page)

“Not anymore, it’s not.”

“Let go of me.”

“It’s not me doing the holding,” he
replied.

Jeannette’s face fell. Her legs did, too.
That’s when she knew her hold wasn’t the only thing linking to him.
He had her cradled with an arm about her back, his thighs pretty
much matched to hers. And that felt better than good, too.

“KayNan.”

“Yes?”

“Let go of me.”

“You’ll not go far?”

“And just how far could I go?”

He tipped his head as if debating it, and
then loosened his arms. Jeannette had lost her sandals somewhere
midflight. The soles of her feet felt every bit of his shins as she
slid down them, finally connecting with the floor. She probably
should’ve waited. At his height she had to crane her neck to stay
connected with his gaze.

“You’re very small,” he commented.

“So?”

“Except in certain…areas.”

His eyes flicked to her bosom. Jeannette
pulled up on her neckline with a thumb and forefinger and then
stepped back. Another step before she dropped into one of his
recliners. The chairs felt safer. Equalizing. She motioned for him
to join her with an open hand toward an opposing chair.

“What?”

“That’s a request to sit down, KayNan. So we
can talk.”

“Why would I want that?”

“We need to talk this over. Civilly.
Without…interference.”

He dropped into the chair, making it look
small.

“Good. That’s much better, isn’t it?”

“Not to my thinking.”

He leaned forward, taking up more than his
share of area, and making her feel even smaller.

“You need to sit back, KayNan. Now.”

“Why?”

“I already told you. You should have
listened.”

“You’ve said a lot, though.”

“Please remember, KayNan, that I did warn
you.”

“About what?”

“This.”

And Jeannette leaned back, closed her eyes
in order to open every other sense. She grew lightheaded. Woozy.
Tingling touched her fingers…toes. And then the vision started.

Smack.
Slap. Slap.

Smack
. Slap. Slap.

The sound assailed her first, coming from
somewhere in the murky haze, rhythmically, not unlike a really slow
waltz tempo. One, two, three. One, two, three. Smells reached her
next. Some familiar. Some not. Damp earth. Rusting iron. Old wood.
Some type of meat roasting over a coal-fired brazier. A wafting bit
of incense. And then she got a whiff of sweat. Unwashed bodies.
Blood.

Fear.

Jeannette wrinkled her nose and squinted,
trying to see down the corridor she found herself in. Light
percolated in dust-filled sunbeams, streaming down in waves that
radiated heat. She looked up, taking in several slits high in what
looked like stone walls. She ran her eyes down the wall, and then
reached a hand out, watched her fingers until they touched. Grazed.
Her fingertips slid along the wall, getting chaffed by the
emery-board type surface. Not stone…or if it was, it was
rough-hewn. It felt more like brick. Looked like it, too. Dull
color, too. Mostly beige.

Jeannette followed the wall downward,
evaluating. Deciding. The floor matched the same shade as the
walls. She lifted her skirt hem.
Oh, look
. She was still
barefoot. She wondered momentarily what sorts of viruses and
funguses she might be toying with by running around barefoot in a
strange place. Atop a strange floor. Wait. She skimmed one foot
along the floor, lifting a fine layer of silt. That was wrong, too.
This wasn’t floor. It looked more like packed sand. Damp from some
sort of water source.

She dared open her senses more, pulling in
the scent of animals…grains. Dung. The smells got added to – now
carrying the aroma of strong perfumes, vying with each other for
mastery. She caught a whiff of spices – perhaps cinnamon and
sandalwood. And somewhere she thought she detected a floral
undertone, not unlike rose petal. The air grew humid. Hot. Sapping
at her will. Taking her strength. Sending a slight sheen of
perspiration to coat her entire body, sticking the t-shirt and
cotton skirt to her.

She walked deeper into the abyss. Losing
what daylight she’d had, but gaining flickering torchlight in its
stead. It gave her patches of light to see with. And even that had
little flecks of sand reflecting in it.

This is the future?

Oh, dear. Look, Jeannette
. Looks
like someone had finally done it. They’d flipped the switch. All
the proselytizing and negotiating and political rhetoric had been
for naught. They’d unleashed a bomb. Annihilated. Destroyed.
Humankind had lost electricity. And with it, they’d lost
technology.

Jeannette frowned.
Wait
. Something
didn’t feel right. Anything nuclear would have worse consequences
than sending the world back to what looked like the dark ages.
Wouldn’t it?

Smack.
Slap. Slap.

The odd three sounds continued apace, now
growing louder and interspersed with a groan. And that became a low
continuum of them. Lots of groans. From lots of throats.

Jeannette rounded a corner. The stone gave
way to bars. Old, iron bars, rusting from the ground up with the
damp. And behind them were men. In various stages of undress, age,
nationality, and every stage of health. Or…un-health.

Jeannette stumbled, her toe catching in the
dirt, propelling her into a collision with a large man, except at
that exact moment he moved, completely unaware of her existence.
Jeannette’s palm skin tore as she caught herself on the wall,
scraping minute cuts into her flesh. That was odd. She’d never had
physical manifestations before.

She spun, putting her back against the wall,
to watch the man shove a long, spear-like object through the bars.
He was dressed in a long robe, of some dark material without a hint
of ornamentation, and he had his head wrapped with an Arabic
covering she knew to be called a
ghotra.
She wasn’t
surprised to hear him speak what was probably Arabic. She didn’t
understand it, but the inhabitants of the cell thing did. She
watched them scramble out of reach, some even using other occupants
as shields.

Smack.
Slap. Slap.

“They’re going to kill him this time!”

“Shut up!”

The words weren’t loud, but the guard must
have heard it, too. He stopped poking with his spear-thing and
cocked his head. They weren’t in view, but the first speaker
sounded young. His voice had roved two octaves with pubescent
vigor. His answer had been curt. Final. Angry. They’d also used a
language she actually understood…but how? Nothing about this vision
made sense. Something was wrong. She’d gone somewhere meaningless.
It resembled a studio set for a Spartacus movie, or maybe a Persian
epic that featured pain and suffering among war prisoners.

Jeannette closed her eyes again. Released
all thought. Began by envisioning darkness. Obscurity. Blankness.
She inhaled; held it for eight seconds while her heart did a slow
count with her; exhaled. Repeated the process. And then she opened
her eyes.

Smack.
Slap. Slap.

“Why doesn’t he speak? Give them what they
want!”

“Because he’ll never give his word not to
try to escape.”

“Then, why doesn’t he just lie?”

Nothing had altered. She was still stuck in
some sort of purgatory, getting sensory overload by the moment.
Growing more appalled. Distressed. Jeannette slid along the wall,
her skirt snagging on the rough bricks as she went. Good thing she
still wore her denim jacket. It could take such abuse. The
embroidery had come out nice, too. She’d drawn and stitched a daisy
onto this one. It matched how she’d felt at the time. It also
laundered well. No wrinkles.

Normalcy. She had to think of the normal and
mundane. That was the path back to sanity.

“He’ll never lie! His word is his bond. It’s
all he has left.”

“But…they’re killing him!”

“Hush, HanRick, before they hear! They won’t
kill the champion. Not when he has a fight next sennight!”

“But listen! He’s not even conscious!”

“Oh. He’s conscious.”

“How do you know?”

“He flexes with the blows? You see? Aware.
And waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Their arms to tire…or the specified count
to finish. I don’t know how many lashes he earned for this
escape.”

“You mean attempt.”

That was another voice into the mix. Older.
Frail-sounding. Cautious.

“They’ll still kill him!”

“Lower your voice! Imbecile! They’re using
restraint. KayNan recognizes it as well.”

“Restraint?”

“Aye. They’re using straight whips, not the
flagrum. And that’s Mehmed in the center. You know his arm is puny.
His blows lack sting. He’s probably not even breaking skin.”

“Aye. While Yashid has the bullwhip. Less
damage. Even if he tries to power through his blows.”

“They’re still whipping him!”

“Shut up, HanRick before they hear you!”

“So? What more can they do to me?”

“They’ll use you! Fool!”

“Use me…for what? I can’t heft chains, let
alone fight with them.”

“They’ll use you against KayNan! You know
the rules! No emotion. Remember?”

Jeannette was cold. Faint. Shaky. She was
going to be ill. For the first time in her life, a vision was
causing real physical symptoms. And then the guard fellow passed
her, so close he ruffled the hem of her skirt with his proximity.
She froze, conquered any reaction, and then had to will her pulse
to calm, too. She’d never been so frightened.

She heard a cry. Chains rattling. A blow.
Then another. And then the youth yelled for KayNan, his cry loud
and heart-rending, until it got choked off. Jeannette’s heart
ticked up another notch, startling her with the intensity and
strength. Surely, KayNan wouldn’t allow them to hurt the boy. Would
he?

Her feet moved involuntarily, her hands
gripping bricks to hold her upright. She didn’t want to know more.
She didn’t want to see. She didn’t want anything to do with it. She
wanted her little shop in Philly. The little piece of square
footage she called her own. She longed for her chest containing all
sorts of dried herbs and teas; the little cash register that was
rarely used; the credit card/debit terminal. She wanted normal.
Mundane.

Sane.

A torture scene came into view, a man at the
center, stretched out by iron cuffs on every limb, and those were
attached to walls with lengths of chain. He was on his belly, atop
a large barrel-looking thing. Four men hovered near him, three with
whips.

Smack.
Slap. Slap.

Oh no. No. It was KayNan.

The unarmed one looked pretty large. Stocky.
Dressed in the same type robe and
ghotra
as the guard had
been. He stood at KayNan’s head, watching, his arms folded atop
what looked to be a hefty belly. The others were on either side of
KayNan’s body, using their whips in a series of three. One heavy
smack, followed by two light, sliding slaps. This was the source of
the rhythmic sounds she’d heard earlier. Shivers rippled along her
limbs while her belly churned warningly. She couldn’t be ill. She
had to get beyond the weakness. The shivers. The cold. She was
about to violate another rule. She had to do something to stop
it.

Those whisperers had been mistaken. The
first man had a lot of power to his whip. Each smacking blow rocked
KayNan’s body slightly, and sent pink mist into the air above him.
That fellow definitely broke through skin. KayNan’s back looked
like fresh, ground meat.

Jeannette gagged, shoved a hand against her
mouth to stifle the reaction, while everything wavered. The view
blurred with a wash of tears. She blinked them down her cheeks.
More came. She stepped forward. She had to stop this! And at the
first move, the view altered, grew dark about the edges, while the
flesh about her nose started tingling. Oh, sweet heaven. She really
was going to faint. During a session. She couldn’t comprehend what
might happen. And then KayNan lifted his head and saw her. His
vivid green eyes went to slits…

“Damn you, Woman!”

Jeannette dangled from KayNan’s hands,
holding her beneath the arms to where her head brushed the plane’s
ceiling. If perishing of fear were possible, she was suffering it.
Especially at the expression behind those same green eyes as he
glared at her.

“I
told
you I didn’t wish to relive
any of it!”

Jeannette didn’t think through her next
move, she just did it, lifting an arm and holding her palm to his
cheek. Her touch changed everything, stilling him, shocking them
both. If he’d been angry, it was now dissipated. Calmed.

“Oh, KayNan,” Jeannette whispered.

“Don’t say it.”

“What?”

She brought her other hand up, cupping the
other side of his face. That was strange, but her palms stung from
the contact. If she checked, they were probably scraped. As if
she’d really been there. At that place.

“I don’t want your pity. Or your
compassion.”

Fresh tears made him glitter. She blinked
them onto her cheeks, clearing the view.

“What…do you want?” she managed to whisper
past cold lips.

He started shaking. His eyes darkened.
Loomed larger. More intense. Captivating. Enthralling. He lifted
his upper lip, displaying fangs. And then the cockpit door slid
open. Both Jeannette and KayNan turned to look as the pilot craned
his head back, slid his headset off, and then grinned.

“Oh. Apologies. I need you KayNan. Front and
center.”

“Now?”

“Right now. We’ve got company. And they mean
business.”

“Where?” KayNan asked it after a quick scan
revealed nothing amiss in the night sky.