The Last Revenant (Book 1): The Crash (43 page)

“Tess,” Olivia called for me.

I recognized what she wanted without any words and got a hand around Grey. The former dead man yelled in pain as I forced his arm around my shoulder and helped him limp back behind the bus. I sat him down against the wheel well and took a look at his chest. I stuck a pair of fingers into the holes on his ripped shirt to feel the majority were smooth skin. The wounds had healed themselves. I glanced back up at a breathless Grey for an answer.

“It's not as easy as it looks,” he rasped. He drew his remaining sword with a grunt and I helped him back up to his feet.

Olivia joined us just as Martinez showed up from behind. The shooting around us had suddenly died down. The explosions from the balls of light hurled by Abel detonated just outside the circle. It was a taunt. He could have hit any number of the vehicles and killed hundreds in an instant if he really wanted to.

“He's trying to draw us out,” said Olivia. “Martinez, get everyone on board. You're leaving as soon as you're booked.”

“You got it.”

I watched him limp back towards the center of the circle and direct the final remainders onto the buses. Only a single pickup-truck had been parked in the opening. Badger and the rest of his line walked past it. Murphy was carrying an unmoving Nick in his arms. I couldn't tell if he was dead or not before they disappeared into a thinning crowd.

Badger hesitated at the door to our bus with his last team member leaning on him for support, both of them wounded enough to grow sluggish. He wanted revenge, but he could also get in the way. The thought seemed to coalesce through his mind until Olivia made the decision for him.

She took one good look at the wounded on his shoulder. “I got this.”

Badger fought the hidden order for a second, then gave her a curt nod. “Give 'em hell.” They got onto the bus and Olivia turned to me.

My turn.

“Tess—” she started. It was all she could get out it before Grey yelled and threw his hands forward.

I cried out in alarm as we both flew away from each other and a blade quicker than sound sliced through the air where Olivia had been just a moment before. I fell onto my back and fought to get up as quick as possible. In front of me, Abel had already forced the doors of the buses closed with a wave of his hand and set out to cut down any stragglers before they could even get a shot off. One of the buses tried to accelerating, but the wheels screeched and spun against the ground as if it were covered in mud. The vehicles were held in place.

I brought my rifle open to shoot at Abel's back only to get a
click.

Empty.

I swore and threw the gun at the ground, looking for anything to use from the corpses that littered the inside of the circle while Abel made quick work of the last of the resistance with his sword moving through the air faster than I could keep track. I finally got my hands around the grip of a pistol and brought it up to shoot at the Arbiter.

The blur of a crimson coated, blood drenched sword blocked every single bullet that I had to offer. He threw his had forward as soon as I spent my magazine and an invisible force flung my body across the opening into the opposite bus before falling to the ground. I chocked on the immediate loss of air. I forced myself to ignore the pain in my spine and looked up past the spent blades of grass in front of my face.

Grey and Olivia were the only ones left. They took turns battering down on Abel with swordplay that screamed of a long-lost art form. The blades cut through the air, but they never made contact past the ring of screeching metal. Abel was too strong. He was too quick. He'd glance off a blow from Olivia and kick her away, then turn around a split-second later and parry a thrust from Grey. The sight of a flick of a wrist followed by a shout of pain meant that they were slowly losing.

Soft, incessant
thuds
from behind prompted me to turn and look as soon as I got up. The men, women and children on the buses were hitting the windows as hard as they could. All of them were trapped. I looked, dazed, as every single bus had suddenly become a pristine prison as if the bullets holes and shattered glass had never even existed. One inside fired his sidearm into a window only for it to bounce off harmlessly in a burst of light.

The ones nearest the fire starting screaming. I could see them bash the windows with the balls of their fists and then point at the destruction behind them. I ran past the trio of Knights fighting in the center as if I had crossed a dance floor. The firestorm was raging only a few hundred feet away. The hot wind blasted my face like a massive hair dryer. Above, the sky was completely gone. Everything else was black and covered in smoke.

I sprinted at the bus and threw my shoulder into the glass of the door.

Nothing.

Inside, a pair of girls were screaming at me to get them out. I tried to pry my fingers on any hold until they bled. The wheels underneath spun and screeched against the ground, tearing off layers of soil, but the vehicle wouldn't move.

“I'm sorry!” I yelled. I shook my head. “It won't open!”

The girls inside continued to scream from me. The fire was getting closer. I could already smell the char and feel the heat on my skin. All the people trapped inside would be cooked like they'd be in an industrial sized oven.

I turned around and strained to look for anything that might help. Anything. Something—
someone
was doing more than keeping the vehicles held in place. They were holding them in an impenetrable barrier. They wanted this to happen. They wanted everyone inside to die a slow and painful death. They wanted me to be surrounded by their screams as they were burned alive.

A shift in the fight automatically brought my attention back to the Knights. Olivia skirted back across the ground after Abel pushed her away in a riposte. He focused his attacks on Grey and the former Knight yelled at Olivia to turn away.

She glanced at the firestorm encroaching the circle and stabbed her sword into the ground. She ran into the center, jumped on top of the truck, and held her hands out to either side. An invisible force immediately pushed back on her and she struggled to keep it at bay.

The roar of flames got me to back up from the bus in disbelief as a tidal wave of fire swept over the vehicle before stopping. It crashed into an unseen wall and pooled to either side as if it were a stream parting around a bolder. I could feel the intense heat blister my skin and dry out my eyes as it rose above and surrounded us before reforming at the opposite end, just narrowly sparring the rest of the buses. The entire wildfire had engulfed our group like a hurricane and we were the eye in the middle.

Olivia
was the eye in the middle.

I could feel the sudden pressure waves emanate from her core. Her entire body tensed at the effort, but her arms stayed put. She kept the fire at bay.

I heard Grey cry out in pain and I knew what I had to do. I sprinted towards the half-mangled sword stuck in the ground and pulled it out. Between Olivia and the bus in front of me, Abel laid in on his sole opponent. Almost at the same time, their blades began to glow white hot as if in response to one another. The swords glanced off each other with sparks that rained around them like weighted confetti, the impact of each hit sounding like bursts of massive, electrical bolts.

And then it changed.

Grey parried blow after blow from Abel, but he couldn't keep up. I could see the fatigue in his eyes even as the edge of the Arbiter's sword met the inside of his arm and the entire length of his chest. His muscles gave up on him and the sword fell from his hand in underwhelming silence, a moment all too brief before Abel drove the burning hot metal of his own blade through his chest and out into the bus behind him.

Someone inside screamed.

Grey sputtered, breathless. He grabbed Abel's arm, but it was all he could do as little wafts of steam drifted up in front of his face—his own flesh, burning from the inside out.

Abel pulled his sword out and the bus groaned in response.

I ran at him and swung.

And I missed.

He effortlessly dodged out of the way before cutting my sword in half and slapping the side of my face with his blade in one quick movement. The flat of the metal connected with my cheek like an iron. It burned my flesh and was strong enough to knock me head first into the side of the bus. I sprawled out onto the ground. Half of my vision was dark, the other random, massive bursts of light that blinked in an out of existence in an instant. I couldn't stop the world from spinning.

I heard a voice. Abel had said something, but I couldn't make it out. I forced my head up to see Grey's lifeless body in front of me, dead—maybe for good this time. More words behind me. Abel was talking to someone else.

I turned to see him walking towards Olivia. The exasperation on her face was rigid and unending. Her arms were laid out to either side still keeping the firestorm at bay. She couldn't move. And Abel knew it.

He took his time as he climbed up on top of the truck to meet her. He stood in front of her and said something else that I couldn't make out. The blade of his sword grew brighter and seemed to vibrate in response. He slowly brought it close to her face, teasing her, and I could see the heat in the air blur her features.

I managed to stand up without falling over. Something Paranormal was keeping the roaring fire pressing in on us. The flames began to whirl like a tornado and a vortex opened up into the sky. All the people on the buses could only stand and watch, completely helpless. Olivia was the only thing keeping it all back.

And then there was me.

Abel threw his sword forward in a thrust and I held my hands out to keep it there. I pulled on the blade from dozens of feet away. I poured myself over the burning hot metal and struggled to keep it still.  The blade remained motionless for what seemed like too long.

Then I began to lose my grip.

Abel was too strong. Second after second, he pushed onward and his sword moved closer towards Olivia's midsection. I strained to keep it back. The metal slipped through my invisible fingers and tore the connection no matter how hard I tried to hold on. I knew it would happen even before it did, but I still wasn't ready for it.

Olivia screamed out in pain while the tip of the blade sizzled and popped as it slowly stabbed into her flesh. Inch by excruciating inch, Abel continued to push deeper and deeper while I fought him, only prolonging her torture. Olivia faltered for a moment. The invisible barrier surrounding the buses shrunk and the flames grew inwards to devour us, but she held them back. Somehow, screaming in agony, she pushed onwards while the sword through her stomach came out through her other side.

I finally let go.

The two stared at each other. Abel didn't continue, not yet, but I knew what would come next. The end. The twist of the blade that would force her to finally give up. The fire around us slowly edged closer as Olivia's muscles began to spasm. She began to cry, and I could feel my own tears roll down my face to match hers.

No...

I wouldn't see it again. I wouldn't see her die.

“STOP!”

Abel paused as the single word left me and hit him like a plastic bag in the wind.

Pitiful.

He took the chance to glance back at me, his eyes growing in surprise.
He hadn't killed me for a reason. He wanted me alive, so I decided to use that against him.

I had taken the revolver hidden underneath Grey's coat and pressed it up underneath my chin. I cocked the hammer back and closed my eyes just as Abel threw his hand forward in a flash of light, but he was too late.

I pulled the trigger.

“What do you think you're doing?”

I opened my eyes. Emma stood in front of them as rigid as stone, the lines across her smooth face as taut as could be. My stomach automatically dipped in anticipation of her response, but it had worked. Behind her, Olivia and Abel stood still. Further away, numerous faces plastered against bus windows stared out, frozen in time. The flames surrounding them looked like papier-mâché. I brought the revolver away from my chin to see the hammer stalled halfway through its swing, motionless.

Time had stopped moving.

“I said...” Emma started again, her lips rigid and tense—livid. “What the
fuck
do you think you're trying to do?”

I peered into her eyes and instantly felt regret shoot up through my gut. I knew she wouldn't have let me die. Just like in Arrino, she had come at the last possible second to freeze the world and halt my death. She wanted something. A girl. A body. Me. She had been using me ever since she found out I would be a good match and I had just returned the favor.

I tried to stall. As long as time was still, Olivia was kept from death. That was all that mattered. I opened my mouth, fumbling with the words. “I—”

“YOU'RE LYING!”

My existence instantly turned into a blur as she shoved me back through the air and into the side of a bus. My vision faded and consciousness held on by a thread. Something in my spine had snapped. I couldn't move.

She was already there in front of me without having to take a single step.

Knox.

“Emma,” she corrected me with a scowl. The jet black hair of her bangs fell over her eyes and shook as her body trembled in utter rage. “YOU. DO. NOT. GET. TO. CALL. ME. THAT.”

Invisible blades tore through either side of the bus with a piercing screech until they ran across my body. They cut off the tips of my fingers. They diced through my digits and I screamed out in pain until I couldn't anymore and then I screamed some more. The edges tore through my arms like claws, again and again, crisscrossing against my chest until my flesh looked like wet honeycombs. I shrieked until a fissure opened up in my throat, but the torture wouldn't end.

Please, God—

“NO,” she said, and pressed her face closer to my own. “I. AM. GOD.”

An unseen spike slowly drove itself through my skull until everything turned to black.

And then it stopped.

“What do you think you're doing?”

I opened my eyes. Emma stood in front of them as rigid as stone, the lines across her smooth face as taut as could be. I stood in the opening. My stomach automatically dipped in anticipation of her response, but it had worked. Behind her, numerous faces stood plastered against the windows inside buses, frozen in time. The flames surrounding them looked like papier-mâché. I brought the revolver away from my chin to see the hammer stalled halfway through its swing, motionless.

Time had stopped moving.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I had been through this before. Emma had brought me back. I looked up into her cold eyes that pierced through me like ice. She had killed me, but she had brought me back. She could save Olivia. She could save the others. “You need to help—”

My body was viciously flung against the side of the bus like a lifeless doll, and the force continued. Emma was in front of me again without taking a step. Her hand was up. An immense weight pressed itself against my being. The air fell out of my lungs. The bus began to groan and buckle underneath the force, the rest of my body quickly filling into the rapid forming cavities. The glass windows shattered above my head. I could feel my bones crack underneath the grip. My eyes threatened to explode. My ribs shuddered and splintered into my core.

I opened my mouth to cry out with an unmeasurable amount of pain that shouldn't have existed, but nothing came out. I couldn't scream. My teeth bent towards my throat and I could feel my mouth fill with fluid. Streams fell down my cheeks, but they were too warm, too viscous. Everything took on a crimson tinge.

Emma only stared. A cool breath fell past her lips to reinforce the pressure of the Earth crushing my soul into oblivion. Her eyes grew black like Juno's. She was a monster. “YOU. DO. NOT. GET. TO. TELL. ME. WHAT. TO. DO.”

Her palm began to glow and my flesh heated up until it burst into flames, until the smoke from the embers of my body rose up into the air, until my vision finally grew black and caved in around me.

And then it started again.

I opened my eyes with Emma in front of them. I stood in the opening. My stomach automatically dipped in anticipation of her torture. Behind her, numerous faces in windows and flames like papier-mâché, frozen in time. I brought the revolver away from my chin and it went off in a flash of light.

My jaw tore itself away from me and I spilled over onto the ground. My ears wouldn't stop ringing. I tried to move my tongue, but I could only feel warmth where the rest had been. The suffering swept through the front of my skull without the luxury of deafening nerves. Emma stood above me, then her face was close to mine. I tried to speak, but the connections weren't there. She had to know. She had to. The pain started up again.

And then it stopped.

I opened my eyes. Emma stood in front of them, but her own were cast down. I stood in the opening. My stomach automatically dipped in sorrow. Behind her, faces and papier-mâché were burned into my memory, frozen in time. I brought the revolver away from my chin. It took me a moment to realize I was back again, but I couldn't remember how many iterations I had gone through until we'd finally reached a pause. I threw the gun to the ground.

“Why?” Emma whispered softly. Her voice poured over me like molten glass. She still wouldn't look at me. She was disappointed, somber, like a mother hurt by their only child. My heart instantly began to ache. I couldn't believe I had hurt her. She had cared for me. She had loved me, and I had only thrown it back into her face. I deserved her scorn. I deserved more.

I opened my mouth to apologize, but then I felt the pain. Not her pain, but
my
pain in
her
. The pain that I had felt for so long. The pain that I had been burdened with by losing my family. The pain that I had felt after losing so many. The pain that I had felt after taking a life like a thief in the night. The pain, I remembered now, that
she had made me feel.

She was using me again.

No.

I shook my head. I wasn't going to play her game any longer. “You're an Empath.” She looked up at me and I recognized the words rang true. My thoughts invariably fell back to the lost towns. “That's why you had them grouping up girls... That's why you were looking for a Paranormal. That's why you want me. You need a body. You need
my
body. You need an Empath. You—” The words caught themselves in my throat. I was too afraid to let them out in light of what she could do.

Say it.

I swallowed the knot. “You need me...”

She eyed the bits of courage that had survived her punishment like a fox.

I anticipated the torture to come again. I prepared myself to feel death come again and again, but it never did. I could feel my future unravel in her mind as she decided what to do, and then something else.

Anger. Sorrow. Sadness. Grief. Rage.

It was all coming from her. Deep down in the furthest reaches of her body, they resonated up through her limbs like the shattered pieces of a star falling through blackness. Then:

Exhaustion.

She couldn't do it forever. She couldn't move heaven and earth and freeze time until they all stopped existing. She was growing weaker. She was running out of time, and she knew it. Her lip bent up for just the slightest curve of her mouth. A smile. Had I gotten it right? She began to turn away but stopped when I moved closer.

“Why?” The question was more important than anything else. Why did she need control? Why did she need to kill? Why did she need any of it?

She ignored all of it and looked away at the pair of Knights on the truck, one of them frozen in agony. Olivia pressed on with a grimace on the edge of total failure. The sword that had been stabbed through her abdomen was still there, and then it wasn't. Abel was hunched over with a small ball of light floating in the air in front of him, and then he wasn't. He was gone, but the little bauble was still there, waiting.

Emma turned back and expected me to understand. She went on without explaining that she was responsible for all of it. “Don't do this again.”

Or what?

The air in my lungs turned into ice as she came back. The consequences were obvious, but I would go through them again, forever, if I could use her to save those that she would try to take away from me. She must have known that.

She stopped in front of me, her face only a few inches from my own as she said my name with the utterance of a mother onto her child. “Tess...” She tilted my chin up with a finger and my heart immediately turned to gold. “I don't need you.”

All the resistance I had was gone. Instead, my veins ran cold. I couldn't believe I had gone against her. I couldn't believe she was letting me go.

“
You
need
me.
” She brought her lips closer to my own, but they never touched. The warmth tried to jump the gap, and failed. “Do you understand?” She pulled back and a part of me immediately rolled down my cheek and dripped to the ground.

I wanted her close. I wanted her next to me. Why was she pulling back?

“If you don't,” she started. “Then you will fight. You will struggle. You will try to imagine, but you will fail, and you will learn...” She smiled, the vicious curl of her lips extenuating her beauty just as much as her wrath. “...Starting now.”

“No. Please.” I reached out for her and blubbered like a baby, but she wouldn't turn back. It felt like my heart was tearing in two. I couldn't live without her. I needed her as much as I needed to breathe. How could she expect me to go on?

She stopped at the little ball of light thrown by Abel and ran her finger across the edge until it spun.

“Please...” I dropped down onto my knees. I couldn't bear the sight of her leaving. “I love you...”

She smiled at that, and prodded the small bauble to free it from its grasp. It began to drift towards me, slowly, as if it were pushing its way through time like a current in a pool of still water.

I love you.

“Good,” she said, the ball of light drawing ever closer. “Then show me.”