The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (115 page)

             
Several of our people, even those not on security detail, were on the trail of the man with the machine gun.

             
I pushed the man off of me and crawled on top of him to find that he was still alive, but barely. His torso was protected by a
Kevlar vest but given that he had no miraculous protective device to shield his neck and head, the bullet that had gone through his throat would surely be the end of him.

             
“Where are they?” My nose was almost touching his when I whispered fiercely again. “
Where are they?!”

             
He was muttering a prayer to himself, making his peace with the Lord for all the evil he had committed in his life. Through the blood and mud that filled his mouth, I heard something about adultery, prostitutes, and that red-headed woman
from camp whose name he could not remember. God, why couldn’t he remember? He had hurt her terribly.

             
The man was in a great amount of pain. I had been the one to inflict such profound suffering on him. Yet in his heart, I sensed no hatred for me. I sense
d only regret; he was sorry that it had come to this. The revelation stunned me; it jerked my heart free from its proper place in my chest cavity and wrung it dry. I pulled away and ran one bloodied hand over my hair, urging myself to keep fighting, urging
myself to believe those people were evil hypocrites who deserved to die…

             
“Come on Brynna!” I muttered out loud before slamming my hand down in the dirt. I had never had a moment of sympathy for anyone, including and perhaps especially, myself. Now, in ba
ttle, I was going to feel for another human being. I was going to question his motives, his very nature as a human being, instead of just killing him outright for what he and his leaders had done to our people and our home. My humanity, for the first time
in my life, was getting the better of me. I had not even known that it existed in any remarkable capacity and in that moment, it was suffocating me.

             
“That’s it! Take the rest alive!” Don shouted over the pounding rain, screams of agony, and despairing sob
s. I had witnessed the fate of those that were taken alive. A swift exit from our world was an option that, in comparison, was worthy of being begged and bartered for. I turned back to the man who had turned over onto his side; the tears of pain that fell
from his eyes scratched at my already raw heart with fingernails sharp enough to draw blood. I shuddered as I knelt beside him. I was soaked through with rain, covered in mud, bleeding from the fight; it was déjà vu all over again. I recalled bitterly the
fight with the natives that had led my father to imprison me. I looked around at the others
who had resided in our house; they revered our powers and celebrated them as gifts. I did not have to fear being prosecuted for no longer being human. If I were fro
m the camp where the man dying before me was from, I would have been killed long ago. I pitied him even more; he had the potential to embrace great power yet was not allowed to. Perhaps was even
unwilling
to. His devotion to the Bachums and the higher powe
r they acted in favor of had blinded him to the necessity of the change. It was very, very sad.

             
What provoked an even stronger despondency in my heart was that I knew the man would be healed only to be tortured. Several of our number were missing, accordi
ng to Don’s shouts of rage. The survivors of the opposition would provide us with their whereabouts, whether they wanted to or not. Answers would be retrieved, by any means necessary. It would be excruciating for them both physically and emotionally; as th
ey suffered unthinkable torture, they would also fear for the moment when it ended, for the end of their torment meant their death. It was so very cruel. It was so very senseless. I could not bear to see that man in any more pain. The only difference betwe
en us was one of opinion; that difference was certainly not worth killing one another over.

             
“I’m sorry…” He whispered when his eyes met mine.

             
I stared at him, not wanting to speak. I did not want to exchange any words with that man I had almost killed, w
hom I would see being tortured brutally over the following days.

             
“For what?” I said after gathering enough fortitude to speak.

             
“For your sisters…”

             
I would kill him. I would rip him to pieces if he did not elaborate. I needed to know what he knew. Where
were they? What did the Bachums want with them? Why had he spoken of them?
             
“Not their fault… don’t deserve it…”

             
“Where are they? Where are they?!” I shouted again and in my rage, I jerked my hand forward to dig my nails into the open wound in his shoulde
r. He cried out, his entire body tense in response to the great agony. Then, his muscles relaxed and his face went slack. He collapsed on the ground, dead at my hands.

             
“Brynna! Where is Brynna?!”

             
Why in the world would Alice be demanding to know my where
abouts? I turned to find her running towards me, gasping with tremendous sobs. I shuddered at the show of emotion despite the situation. How very pitiful it was… Admittedly, the situation was one to bring forth harrowing fear and crushing sadness, but to s
how the world both through one’s tears was not admirable or useful in any way.

             
“I tried to stop them! I tried to get Penny and Violet back from them but they shot at me!” She screamed as she threw her arms around my neck. I smelled blood seeping from a ga
ping wound inflicted on her that I had not yet seen.

             
“Did they hit you?” I asked in a trembling voice. She nodded and pulled away to show me her arm.

             
“I did everything I could! Quinn went after them! He’s not fast because he got hurt but he’s going after
them!”

             
“Which way?” James and Elijah had appeared behind us; James was the one speaking. “Which way, Alice?!”

             
“That way!” Alice pointed behind the house. James and Elijah needed no prodding, nor did I. Alice, despite her injury, was also ready to fight
for my sisters. We all took off running, a deadly herd of terrified beasts hell-bent on killing those that had taken ones we loved so dearly.

             
We tore through the trees, stopping not when our bodies protested the continued assault of running without pause
or even when we realized that we were alone in the forest. We just moved, smelling the air constantly for any trace of my sisters’ scents.

             
The only thing that could stop me was the realization that my sisters were gone, taken far from where I could reach.
The joined landmass that gave Pangea its name was endless, larger than three of
Earth’s combined land put together. I stopped running and my knees buckled beneath me. I breathed in and out rapidly, clawing the earth as I drew each shuddering breath.

             
“We’
re going to find them, Brynna! I promise. I promise you, Brynn. I promise!” Elijah was saying to me, though I knew that he scarcely believed his own words. I threw my arms around his neck, my eyes wide in that potent terror that made breathing almost impos
sible.

             
“Oh, God,” I gasped out, “Oh, my God… oh God, oh God…”

             
There were no other words to convey the storm of feeling in my heart; regret, guilt, fear, sadness… I should have been there. I should not have left them alone. I should have seen it coming. W
here were they? Were they going to be hurt? Were they going to live past the next day? On Earth, when someone was abducted, police and federal investigators gave the person a twenty-four hour window to be found before they could be sure that the worst had
happened. In a day, would my sisters no longer exist?

             
Elijah lifted me into his arms and turned to carry me back to the house. I was petrified, frozen to him as the terror thrashed my heart from side to side, throwing it against the walls of my chest unti
l it laid dormant, indefensible. I squeezed my eyes shut and realized that my entire body was trembling.

             
“It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay, Brynn.” Alice’s voice, her hands rubbing one of my arms that were wrapped around Elijah’s neck…

             
Once
we were back at the house, Elijah handed me to James.

             
“Eli!” I called after him, my voice cracking in the threat of tears. He turned back to me and put one of his hands on my face. “Stay with me!”

             
I was begging him shamelessly, needing him to stay close
, where I could see him. Only seeing him would assure me that he was alright. Our sisters were gone, taken from us. I could not lose my brother, too. Together, we would find them. Together, we would make everything alright. I could not bear the emotional b
urden of fearing for my sisters’ lives without my brother.

             
“Watch her for me.” Elijah looked up at James, speaking with a softness in his voice, showing clearly a grateful resignation of his anger. He was ready to accept him. He was tired of hating him, o
f worrying that he was preying on me. James had proven himself to Elijah and as a result, had won his approval. I should have been relieved.

             
“Don’t worry. I’ve got her.” James replied and Elijah nodded, thankful for him being there to protect me. James wa
s another set of eyes to watch over me, another body to keep me safe. He loved me, Elijah knew now.

             
I must have whimpered because James sat down on the cold ground so he could look me over. My wounds were internal, entirely emotional… They would not kill
me, at least not quickly. I rolled out of his arms and knelt on the ground, bent over so that my arms were rested on the sopping wet earth. I rocked back and forth with my head hung. The sound I was making did not precede tears, though it certainly sounded
like a torrent of them were ready to cascade down my face.

             
My Penny… my beautiful, precious, innocent Penny… I had raised that little girl. I had loved her when our mother and father had deemed her insignificant, when Maura turned away. I had done my bes
t, at such a young age, to make sure she grew up happily, free from the same fear and resentment that plagued me.

             
Violet had suffered the brunt of my frigidity. I had loved her when she needed me to, only to cruelly pull away when I decided she was old en
ough to fend for herself. I owed her a thousand useless apologies. I owed her warmth every day for all eternity to make up for my coldness.

             
I would never get the chance because someone, for whatever reason, had decided that I could no longer have them. I
was angry at the Bachums, at the cave-dwellers, at Adam, at myself, at God… I was
furious
at God. Why did my sisters have to be pawns in that ridiculous game of tug-of-war? Why should they suffer for Adam’s cruel entertainment? They had nothing to do with
the war. I was the soldier fighting. They were merely innocent bystanders. But weren’t the innocents always the ones to suffer? The guilty always walked free. In terms of conflict both domestic and foreign, the innocent
civilians were always the ones to be
maimed or worse. The true threat, the one that pulled the strings and ordered for the violence to occur, never showed his or her face long enough to be hurt.

             
It was always the innocents.

             
My whimpering choked off suddenly to be replaced by a mighty screa
m that sent the huge blackbirds flying from their nests in the surrounding forest. Somewhere in the distance, a large cat roared, frightening the smaller wildlife even more severely. When my scream abruptly stopped, I drew another shuddering breath only so
I could scream again.

             
“That’s it. That’s it.” Alice was encouraging me softly. I could feel her hand rubbing my back. “Let it out.”

             
Normally, I would tell her to leave me alone, invoking a certain obscene slang term for the act of engaging in intercours
e followed by the word “off.” Instead, I only screamed again, my hand squeezing hers in a tight grip. It was as though my grasp on her was the only thing keeping me from plummeting into a dark, endless ravine. My head was still hanging forward, my mud and
rain soaked hair covering my face. James’s hand was running down the back of my hair as he sat in front of me; I leaned forward and rested the top of my head against his chest. I felt Quinn’s hands on my back, too; he had found his way out of the woods and
returned to us.