The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (128 page)

             
I understood she loved him. I understood she had longed for twenty-plus years to be married to him. But
his cruelty had only increased as the years went on. Pangea was a new chapter for all of us, but for him, it was a clean slate to be dirtied by his relentless need for inflicting pain. She had suffered the worst of his pent-up sadism. I needed her to make
a decision before we all met our ends.

             
“Violet, we have to go!” Penny screamed in my ear.

             
I still didn't reach out and pull Maura towards me. I would not suffer her resentment later. I would not hear that I had forced her to abandon the love of her life
. Maura was always one to point fingers. She was an insolent child when she didn't get her way. If I pulled her out of the burning house, she would tell me later that she had wanted to die with him. I would be the one that ruined her plans, even by saving
her life.

             
Only after she nodded to me and reached out for my hand did I pull her towards me. Without thinking for a minute about the drop or my legs shattering upon impact, we plummeted to the ground.

             
The phrase “angry mob” is one that so rarely gets use
d seriously. In fact, most people never see one. If they do, the occurrence is rarely grave enough to warrant even a second of worry. However, the crowd coming towards us consisted of people who were practically gnashing their teeth as they shouted about p
unishment and fiery pits.

             
“Time to go.” Nick told us. He pulled Penny off of my back and threw her onto his. I kept a firm grasp on Maura's hand as we kicked our way through the knee-high snow. If I didn't calm my fury, their whole village would be buried
.

             
“They're coming! Nick, they're coming!” Penny was shrieking as we ran.

             
I chanced a glance over my shoulder to find that the mob was closing in. The burning cabin fell away from the mountain before crashing to the earth in a spectacularly loud explosion
of wood, flames and billowing black smoke. Mary Bachum screamed.

             
“Violet, you have to do something!” Maura urged me as she looked back. “They're getting closer!”

             
I could feel their monstrous energy. I could feel their thirst for our blood. They would ha
ng all of us from the highest point of their temple. They would sacrifice us with sadistic glee. We were dangers to their way of life. We knew where they were and we would return with other “mutated freaks” to take them down. They would gladly kill us all,
including Penny, who was too young and too innocent to fight or understand.

             
They would kill Penny. I remembered Tyre talking about sacrificing her to his God. Snowballing from that thought, I remembered in its entirety the conversation Rich and I had jus
t had about all the people he had left to die simply because they didn't believe what he and his crazed wife did. Their followers might have just been scared survivors but they were also incredibly dangerous in
their own right. If Rich and Mary pointed, th
ey would swarm a target and rip him or her to pieces. Then, they would drop to their knees and scream their thanks to the heavens as their victim bled out on the ground.

             
That kind of blind and bloodthirsty devotion was evil, too.

             
The mountain gave an alm
ighty rumble that sent several more houses tumbling to the ground. We ran even faster to avoid them. I could hear the whooshing of a rushing wave of snow cascading down the mountain towards us.

             
“RUN!” I screamed over the deafening noise.

             
We narrowly esca
ped it. I turned back, huffing and puffing to catch my breath. The avalanche had killed the mob, maybe. It created an impenetrable barrier between us, most certainly.

             
“So I have to admit, your power is cooler than mine.” Nick told me through his gasps for
air.

             
I smiled slightly, realizing then that I wielded a power far greater than I ever could have imagined. I couldn't wait to tell Brynna and Elijah.

             
“Well, we don't have to worry about them anymore.”

             
Something tugged at the giddy excitement I felt at
escaping the Bachums' camp. Something Maura had said earlier was playing back to me like a deafening, relentless taunt screamed by children on a playground. I turned to her to find that she was looking off into the distance at the stars twinkling in the no
w all-clear sky.

             
“Hey...”

             
We were all soaking wet from the snow and shivering as the adrenaline died away. Maura, who had not evolved, would be the first to die if someone was meant to be taken that night. I wrapped my arms around her, praying for a surg
e of warmth that would comfort her. To my immense surprise, heat blazed between us. She turned to me, wrapped her arms around my back and buried her face in my shoulder.

             
“There was something you said earlier that I need you to tell me now.”

             
She nodded, k
nowing what I meant. Her head moved up and she whispered her secret in my ear. My eyes bugged in terror as I looked up at Nick.

             
“What?” He was utterly panic-stricken by the expression on my face. “What is it?”

             
The warmth was extinguished between Maura
and I as easily as a quick blow snuffs out a candle. My entire body was shaking but not because of the cold. I struggled to find words. I struggled to make a sound. Her secret was one that was hardly believable and yet I believed. I knew, the way we just k
new things, that she wasn't lying.

             
“What?!” Nick demanded, now walking towards me.

             
“We have to get to Brynna!
I have to tell Brynna!
”

Brynna

             
James’s arms snaked around me as I zipped my jacket onto one of the girls we had found. From the stunted gasps
of cracked, frozen lips, I had learned their story. They and their family had been exiled from the Bachum camp for possessing books and trinkets deemed morally objectionable. They had survived for two days before a blizzard that came from nowhere claimed
the rest of their family. I asked for their names simply so an attempt could be made on my part to comfort them. I couldn’t imagine losing my loved ones in such a brutal, unforgiving stream of events. I couldn’t imagine the permanence of death when Penny a
nd Violet were still missing.

             
After travailing back down the mountain after my slight emotional hiccup, my mind was hatching circumstances that might explain the abandoned village. The theories ranged from sane to ludicrous, logical to fantastical, all at
once in a tornado of words, pictures and sounds. I squeezed my eyes shut as I placed the girl down on the soft bed of half-frozen moss in the forest.

             
“We need to keep moving.” I told James softly. I felt his jacket being placed around my
shoulders and th
en his perfectly strong arms again.

             
“I know.” His lips pressed to my shoulder. “It’s still too cold here. They’ll never last the night. We might not even make it.”

             
I nodded, tensing as the girl laid her head in my lap. She was thirteen at the most and st
ill, I cringed as she desperately attempted to forge a bond with me. I could not afford attachment to any outside party. James, Alice and Quinn were each another inch of width in the threshold of catastrophe. Any more and my heart might have spontaneously
ceased to beat.

             
“Be nice.” James whispered to me. “She’s afraid. You’re helping her.”

             
As quickly as the iceberg had sprung forth from the waters, it melted away into the surrounding mass.  The ocean moved calmly again at James’s command.

             
“You know we ca
n’t afford this right now.”

             
The girl slumbering peacefully in my lap was named Ellie. Her little brother was the same age as Penny and called Oliver. Their mother, who had never regained consciousness even after we had carried her to those slightly warmer
temperatures, was named Savannah. The girl would not tell me much about the Bachum camp, though I would surely continue to question her until I had gotten my answers. There was no alternative route anymore; if those strangers knew the Bachums’ secrets, th
en I would know, too.

             
“They sent in spies. That’s a tactical maneuver we never could have expected of them.” I told James softly. “We don’t know how many there were. We don’t even know if they are still amongst us. We won’t know how much they know until i
t’s too late.”

             
“They’ve already destroyed the house. There’s not much else they can do, is there?”

             
“They can eradicate us completely while we’re vulnerable. While we’re crawling about, searching for shelter and starving to death, they can hit us. That’s
plenty. You may chalk this up to an effort on my part to tailor all of their actions mentally to involve me, but I think that they took Penny and Violet to distract me.”

             
“Of course they did, baby. But it wasn’t just you. They took so many others. It was a
risky move on their part, though. They would either cripple us or piss us off.”

             
“They’ve done both, I’m afraid. I’m finding it harder to focus. I can’t summon whatever force enables us to fight so efficiently. At least, I can’t summon it as easily. The w
orry is too great. I can’t stop thinking about what Penny and Violet might be enduring.” I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. “I’m exhausted but I won’t sleep until they’re safe.”

             
“That’s not doing them any good, Brynna. You’re right that it’s partially wo
rry; that's why you can't use the change as easily. But you’re tired and that’s not going to help you or them. Just close your eyes for…”

             
“No.” I firmly replied. I deserved not a moment of the peace that came with sleep. It would be an insult to my sister
s if I allowed myself to relax while they were missing and awaiting my rescue.

             
“Do you feel them?”  James asked me softly.

             
I looked back at him, brows crinkled in an expression of aggravated confusion.

             
“Brynna, your power is that you know things. Use it
. Close your eyes and try to feel their presence. Try to feel what they’re feeling. You can do it. I know you can.”

             
“I don’t think that is how it works, James.”

             
“Just try.”

             
I sighed in exasperation at his faith in my power. I was losing my strong trust
in the evolution; it was an inconvenience to feel the rushing stream of fear, doubt, regret and sadness felt by those inhabiting Pangea. Their thoughts screamed to be heard and sympathized with. My own were amplified tenfold by what I felt in others.

             
A
whirring noise drowned out the silence that surrounded James and I. Contorted voices shouted, their words indecipherable. Sobs and beating hearts shook the very foundation of my mind. At the center of the chaos was a glowing light, radiating warmth and tra
nquil silence. In that soft, beautiful
eye of the storm, I could see Penny. Her innocence and inner peace were wrapping around me, a blanket of serene warmth to save me from the cold of the other agonizing emotions.

             
“
I didn’t like them very much. And Bryn
na will be so happy! Maura is with us again!
”

             
Standing a few feet from her light, Violet was thinking of Nick and the telling of a long-held secret. That particular revelation that stood firmly at the forefront of her mind would rip the ground out from be
neath us all. My heart pounded in trepidation as I emerged from the sea of feeling and thought. Only my own mind was screaming.

             
“They got away.”

             
“See? I told you. You can do it.” James boasted with an air of jest to his words.

             
I smiled back at him befor
e whacking him lightly as I always did when his sarcasm took gravity from a situation that warranted grave seriousness.