Erin M. Leaf (8 page)

“She’s not here,” Theo said, moving
forward cautiously.

Bea stared at him. He wasn’t even
limping. He looked strong and serious and she pushed away a pang of regret that
they’d had no time to really get to know each other.

Ivy looked around, then tugged on
Bea. “Over here.” She let go and darted across the room before Bea could stop
her.

“Ivy!” Gideon whispered harshly.

She ignored him, going to her knees
behind a desk.

“Shit,” he said, moving forward.

Bea agreed with him as she walked
across the room as best she could, given the broken office furniture strewn
everywhere. When she got to Ivy’s side, she sucked in a breath. The girl had
shoved aside a rug and was tapping on a metal door set into the ground.

“This is the safe. You can’t stay
down there for too long,” Ivy said worriedly. “The air will run out.”

“How did you know about it?” Bea
asked.

The girl shrugged. “My mom showed
me.”

When a deep clang came from below,
Bea jumped back, dragging Ivy with her. The girl struggled, but Bea shushed
her, holding on tightly to her arms. “Let your uncle see what’s coming. He’s
trained for this.”

Ivy calmed down, but didn’t let Bea
move her back any further. “She’s alive. I know she is. That’s my mom.”

Bea hoped Ivy was right. When the
door slowly opened, she looked away into the rest of the room, not that it did
much good. The dark had swallowed them up. The windows along one wall were
facing the wrong direction for any moonlight to shine inside. Theo was too
focused on the door to look for outside threats, but she hadn’t forgotten what
was happening outside. Gideon’s eyes met hers and he gave her a tight nod. He
was also watching their backs. When she glanced back to the door, to her
surprise, Theo was helping someone climb out.

“Mom!” Ivy pulled away from Bea and
rushed to her mother’s side.

Bea had no idea how she could tell
it was her mother, but the indistinct shape of a woman hugged Ivy close.

“Ella, thank God,” Theo said, quiet
but urgent. “We need to get out of here.”

“I saw them coming. The guards ran
out to deal with the aliens, but somehow I knew it was going to be bad, so I
hid in the safe,” she said. “I’m so glad you came.”

“You did the right thing,” Gideon
said, still scanning the room.

“Gideon? Is that you?” the woman
asked.

“Yeah. I picked him up at the ER.”

“He’s okay? The cut wasn’t too bad?”
she asked.

“It was a clean puncture with a
little bit of tearing. He’ll heal just fine,” Bea replied, instinctively
answering the question. “I’m Bea Morgan. I treated him at the hospital.”

“I’m Ella, Theo’s sister. Since you’re
here and not at the emergency room…” She trailed off.

“Yeah,” Bea said tiredly. Her
adrenaline rush from earlier had disappeared and now she was even more
exhausted than before. And hungry.

“We need to get out of here,” Theo
said again. “The longer we stay in one place, especially in a building, the
more likely it is that they’ll find us.”

“I saw them before I went into the
safe. I was going to drive home, but then I saw them,” Ella said, her voice
going low and shaky.

Bea understood. She, too, was busy
repressing all her shock and horror from what had happened, but she knew it was
going to come back up again.
Probably at the most inconvenient time
imaginable,
she thought.

“That’s why we need to get out of
here,” Theo said, moving toward the door.

“Where are we going to go?” Ivy
asked tremulously.

“I know a place,” Gideon said.

****

Gideon led the way up the trail,
moving slowly so that everyone could follow him. They didn’t dare use a light,
so even though he knew the trail well, it was rough going. He’d been hiking
along this section of a large nature preserve since he was a kid, looking to
get away from his foster family. He’d stumbled upon the cave system by accident
one day.

“How much farther is it?” Bea
asked.

She was right behind him, hand on
his hip so she could follow without using a flashlight. He tried very hard not
to think about how sweetly she’d kissed him in the elevator.
Now is not the
time,
he told himself repressively. “It’s not far,” he murmured aloud. “Just
around the next curve in the trail.”

“Why is this safer than going back
to the house?” Ivy asked, her voice carrying more than he’d like.

“Keep it down, Ivy,” Ella said
quietly. “And it’s better because it’s not a house. It’s not somewhere people
live, so hopefully they won’t be looking for anyone there.”

“If they have any sort of
technology, they’ll find us,” Ivy said, demonstrating that she was young, not
stupid.

“We just need somewhere we can rest
for the night. We can figure out what to do next tomorrow morning,” Theo said,
bringing up the rear.

Gideon kept moving, not saying
anything more. There wasn’t anything
to
say. The rumbling of the alien’s
tech had faded, but their larger ships were still in town. Ivy was correct. He didn’t
even know if the caves would be safe, but they were a better bet than staying
in a house. Thankfully, the night wasn’t too cold. Spring had come, but
sometimes the temperature was downright unpleasant until summer.

“It’s just ahead,” he murmured a few
minutes later. He led the way down the path, careful to stay to the right. “To
the left is a ravine. Be careful.” When he was sure he was in the right spot,
he stopped, looking for a way to climb up to the caves.
This isn’t nearly as
difficult in the daytime.

“We need to climb up about twenty
feet to the first cave. Bea, you’ll have to let go. We can’t do this if we’re
right on top of each other,” he said, starting up.

“Okay,” she replied softly.

He grimaced. There was no trail to
the rocks, so climbing was difficult. He wished he could turn on a flashlight,
but they couldn’t risk it. When the full moon came out behind the clouds he
breathed a sigh of relief. It didn’t provide much light, but it was better than
what they’d had before.

It took them nearly an hour to
climb. When they reached the small ledge outside the cave’s tunnel, he waited
until they were all there before leading them inside. He took Bea’s hand and
she held Ivy’s. He didn’t stop until he was at least twenty feet down the
tunnel.

“I think we can use a light now,”
he said quietly. “The tunnel curves so it should be safe.” He reached into his
duffel and pulled out a light, flicking it on. After being so long in the dark,
it hurt his eyes.

“Whoa,” Bea breathed, staring.

Gideon frowned at her, then turned
to see what she was looking at. When his eyes landed on the cave wall, he went
perfectly still.

“What are you looking at?” Ivy
asked. She moved closer, jostling Gideon.

“Can’t you see it?” Bea asked,
voice hushed. She reached out a hand, but stopped short of touching the
luminescent symbol carved in the rock.

Gideon’s heart knocked against his
ribs painfully. He’d been able to see the carvings since he was a boy, hiding
out in the caves, away from his foster family, but he’d never seen them like
this. Back then, they’d been faint carvings etched on the stone walls, nothing
remarkable except for the tantalizing puzzle of their possible meaning. But
now— He reached out and touched a finger to the glowing symbol. It lit up
brighter.

“My God,” he breathed, the dreams
he’d tried to suppress—
No, memories
,
he allowed himself—floated to the surface of his thoughts. Sand towers, runes,
and armor… What did it mean? And why couldn’t he remember more?

Theo sucked in a sharp breath. “What
did you do? Gideon?”

“What are you looking at?” Ella
asked, moving closer to Ivy. “You’re staring at a blank wall. There’s nothing
there.” She put her hand next to Gideon’s. Her fingers blocked the light that shone
right through Gideon’s palm.

Chapter Five

Theo stared at Gideon’s hand where
it rested on the glowing symbol. He could see the etching
through
Gideon’s
skin. It looked like a rune of some sort, but if he squinted and turned his
head, the meaning popped into his mind like magic:
transport.

“You can’t see that?” Bea asked,
staring at the symbol too. “It’s so bright.”

“I can’t see anything,” Ivy said.

Ella shook her head. “Me neither.”
She let her hand fell away.

“Wait. You’re telling me that
Gideon, Bea, and I can see it, but you and Ivy can’t?” Theo asked his sister.
That didn’t make any sense. Why could he and Bea see it, but not his sister?

She glanced at the wall. “I can’t
see a damn thing. It just looks like a cave wall.” A distant rumble had her
stepping back. “And how safe are we in here, really?”

Theo knew why she was nervous, but
what choice did they have? They needed somewhere to stay for the night. He’d
pushed through his tiredness, but he was starting to drag. He needed at least a
couple hours sleep if he was going to keep everyone safe. He touched Ella’s arm,
trying to reassure her. The look she gave him told him he hadn’t succeeded.

“I used to come here when I was a
kid,” Gideon said, absently tracing the rune with his finger. He dropped his
hand and turned to Theo. The rune continued to glow. “I could see these runes
on the wall, but they just looked like really old carvings, barely there. I
used to wonder where they came from.”

“They didn’t glow before?” Bea
asked, moving closer to Theo and Gideon. “That’s really odd.”

“Stranger than aliens invading?” Theo
asked. He had to say it. What was the likelihood that the runes would glow only
when the aliens had come? “I’ve been here before, with Gideon. I didn’t see
anything except bare stone.” He took a deep breath. “You’re telling me that
when you brought me here before, you could see runes on the wall? But I couldn’t?
You never said anything.”

Gideon nodded. “You couldn’t see
them. It was obvious you couldn’t see them. So I figured, why tell you? You’d
just think I was crazy.”

“I
still
can’t see them,”
Ivy said peevishly. “It’s not fair.”

Her teenage irritation made Theo
smile. “Ivy, I couldn’t see them before. Now I can. And we don’t know why. I
don’t think you should get too worked up over this. I may not be able to see
them tomorrow. Maybe it’s just some weird thing.”

She shook her head. “Oh come on.
This is
not
just something random.” She sounded strangely adult as she
glanced at Bea and Gideon. “Only the three of you can see it?” She stared at
the wall again. “Maybe it has nothing to do with the invasion. Maybe it has
something to do with you and Gideon and Dr. Morgan.”

Theo looked at his niece. Could she
be right? He thought about the embrace he’d shared with Gideon and Bea. He
thought about the moment everything had changed, when he’d inadvertently kissed
his best friend in the middle of a dark elevator. He hadn’t hated it. He hadn’t
even been freaked out by it. He’d just wanted more. More of Gideon and more of
Bea. Those shared kisses had felt like he’d been missing something his whole
life and had finally found it. They’d felt like home. He rubbed his face, too
tired to figure any of this out. He just knew there was no way the elevator had
anything to do with the runes.

“Maybe we can see the runes because
we were closer to the aliens than either of you,” Bea said to Ella. “Could be
something happened to us. Changed our physiology.” She sounded worried.

Ella shook her head. “The aliens
were in the room above the safe where I hid. That’s really freaking close.”

“Does it matter?” Gideon said. He
was staring at the second rune. The one that said
Terrene
to Theo’s
mind. When Theo focused on it, he felt a sense of space. And familiarity, which
made no damn sense at all.

“This rune is your last name,
Gideon,” Bea said, sounding completely weirded out. “I can
feel
it.” She
reached out a hand to the third rune on the cave wall.

“No! Don’t touch it,” Theo began,
but it was too late. The moment her fingertip made contact, it began to glow as
brightly as the one Gideon had touched.

“Shit,” Bea said, dropping her
hand. She rubbed her fingers together.

Theo stared at it. Gideon’s last
name was Cearvall. That’s what the rune meant. He glanced at his partner, not
surprised to see Gideon’s eyes slide away from his. Something strange was going
on and Gideon knew more about it than he was willing to say.

“What happened?” Ivy asked.

“She activated another rune,” Theo
said shortly. The second symbol glowed dimly at him from between the other two.
He wanted to touch it so badly he stepped back.

“There’s still another rune, isn’t
there? I can’t see it, but you’re looking at it, aren’t you?” Ella asked,
looking at Theo.