The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (55 page)

             
“This young man was part of my retrieval operation.” Brynna explained to him. “I owe him quite substantially.” Her tone fell upon sayi
ng that. Brynna was not comfortable being indebted to anyone, even someone as non-threatening as me.

             
“Forget it. Have you seen my girlfriend? She's about 5'4, blonde, blue eyes...”

             
“I know what she looks like. I saw her when we were fleeing the campsite.
” Brynna replied shortly.

             
Her disdainful tone was just about the strangest way to thank me for saving her life. I figured I wouldn't call her on it just yet. But if it continued, I would surely bring up how Alice and I risked our lives to help her.

             
“How
very stereotypical of youth, Quinn Wesley.”

             
“I never told you my name. How do you know my name?” I demanded, wondering if I should have dropped the branch. Maybe she really was a Pangean spy...

             
“I can read your thoughts. Basic information like that stays
at the forefront of our minds, strangely enough.”

             
“What are you talking about? What's stereotypical?” I asked.

             
“Your need for thanks. Your need for recognition of your heroic actions. I do very much appreciate it. However, I am not going to change my in
herent behavior in order to make that gratitude known.”

             
“You'll warm up to her. If I can, anyone can.” The man behind her told me. In his voice, I heard a slight exasperation.

             
“Who are you?”

             
“You ask a lot of questions.” Brynna told me.

             
“I'm James. You
're Quinn. Nice to meet you.” He reached out his hand to me and I shook it. He might not have thought twice about killing me had he stumbled upon me while alone but then, I probably would react the very same way. The territory was hostile and our lives wer
e all we had.

             
“Have you seen my siblings running through here?”

             
“Don't you think I would be with them if I had?”

             
“I do not know. Maybe you are like this odd man and you enjoy being alone.”

             
The way she wrapped her arm around James's back as she said tha
t alerted me to the fact that they were a couple. I looked between them, trying to calculate the age difference. At the
very
least, it was twenty years.

             
“I don't enjoy being alone. I didn't really have a choice last time, did I?” He grinned broadly at her
. With a slight smile on her face, she rolled her eyes.

             
“I suppose not.” She replied before looking back at me again. “Oh, look, he is very confused. That is also quite stereotypical of youth.”
             

             
“Aren't you like, twenty?” I asked her, though her age was
none of my business.

             
“Twenty-two, dear.”

             
“Okay. Well, first of all, I'm only eighteen.”

             
“Hmm...” She replied carelessly as she and James continued walking.

             
“So, that makes you only four years older than me.”

             
“Your point?” She asked patiently. She was
not looking at me as she strode along lightly but instead, was gazing at the ground and up at the trees as though following a shouting match between the two. She was so incredibly odd, even back then.

             
“When you comment on youthfulness or whatever the hel
l it is that you're commenting on, you're being weird.”
             
“That is her typical state of being. You might as well get used to it.” James responded over his shoulder.

             
“You're not that much older than me, so you're still young.”
             
“Only in physical age, Mr. We
sley.” She was looking up at the sky that was darkening overhead. “It is going to rain. Your girlfriend is very close. Her scent is on the trees and her footprints are on the ground.”

             
“What do you mean, her scent? You can smell her?”

             
“That hasn't
happened to you yet?” James asked me and I looked at him in complete bewilderment as he pressed his nose to a tree and smelled it. “What do you think, baby? Maybe twenty minutes ago?”

             
“Less. Weren't you shouting for her at the very least?” Brynna asked as
she walked past me, looking at the ground.

             
“Do you hear my voice?” I pointed at my throat as though she could see my voice box that I assumed was hemorrhaging from the force of my shouts.

             
“Did you bother to look down?” She replied as she delicately move
d some leaves off of the ground to reveal more obvious footprints. “She was treading lightly. Perhaps something was in pursuit of her.”

             
“Yeah, something was in pursuit of her:
Me
.”

             
“Well, did you give her any reason to avoid you?” Brynna asked before loo
king up at me over the tops of her glasses disdainfully.

             
“Of course not! The last time I saw her, we were running from the natives.”

             
“Is that what you've been avoiding telling me?” James demanded suddenly as he turned to face her abruptly.

             
Her jaw
opened and closed once as she tried to come up with a quick answer to his question. After scowling at me darkly, she found her words.

             
“I have only avoided it because now is not the time to discuss it. You said you have seen other people that you did not r
ecognize. They were not ours. There are other people here. What other knowledge do you require?”

             
“Are they dangerous? Are they...”

             
“
Very
dangerous. They can come up on you without you even seeing them.” I answered, “And they're strong, too. I saw one of
them force his hand into someone's chest without cutting them open or anything.”
             
“I saw one rip a man's head from his neck.” Brynna added, “James, I was going to tell you all of this. Is there truly a goal that can be achieved by knowing all of this now?
We should not be talking about this now while we are searching for Elijah, Penny and Violet.”

             
“Hold on, I'm still lost. They've been killing people?” James continued the conversation, completely ignoring her request to stop it. We both stared at him, neit
her wanting to answer his question though we already had with our details. James had looped his large knife into his belt buckle at the back of his pants but he reached back and pulled it out, checking the blade to make sure that it was still sharp enough
to slash down a threat if we encountered one.

             
“They want us to leave Pangea immediately. They ordered us to get on the ship and go. We tried to explain that there was nowhere for us to go but they already knew. Apparently, they have been studying us. They
can speak English because they have been watching us since the beginning of time.” Brynna explained grimly, “I do not know what their motive is. They said they would take ten of our number every night until we left. As you are very well aware, we do not h
ave a planet to which we can return so lest we wish to live on Mars, we need to make peace with them.”

             
“How?”

             
Brynna's expression darkened as her mind traveled to some not-so-distant memory. We would learn the details of her quick reminiscence much later
. She never offered a verbal response but her boyfriend appeared to know that look and its implications.

             
“We are going to talk more about this later, Brynna. Right now, we need to find everyone.”

             
“And then?” I looked between the two of them.

             
“That is th
e million dollar question, isn't it?” James replied with a nonchalant shrug. “I have enough rations to get us through a couple of days. Oh...” He reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of water. “You're starting to look peaky.” He tossed it to me and
I caught it in one hand.

             
I took a grateful chug, relishing the coolness as it traveled through me. No drink had ever been so glorious.

             
They started to whisper softly, not realizing that though I hadn't developed a super sense of smell, my ears had begun
to pick up the tiniest sound. As I sat and focused, I could hear the sound of
some unknown animal treading lightly across the soft forest floor. My instinct told me that the creature was harmless and therefore, there was no need to run. I could hear the l
eaves as they fell and their soft impact as they hit land. I could also hear James and Brynna's secret conversation.

             
“I was going to tell you all of this.” Brynna informed him softly.

             
“You keep saying that.”

             
“Yes, because I am being honest.”

             
“What are
you hiding from me? There's something else. I know it. There's something that you don't want to say.”
             
“Don't you know by now that if I do not want to say it, it will not be said, James?”

             
“I'm not
telling
you that you have to say it. I'm
asking
you to.”

             
“I am well aware of that. I will say it when the time is right.”

             
“It's something that scares you.”

             
“It does not scare me. Stop your dramatics. You know that I am very difficult to scare.”

             
“I know that if you were scared, you wouldn't admit it. What does
your father have to do with this?”

             
“It does not matter. Not at all, James.”

             
“It
does
matter. You should see how red your eyes are.”

             
“Do you have a mirror?”

             
“Ha-ha, you are so funny, baby.”

             
“We cannot have this conversation now while Violet, Penny and
Elijah are out there alone. We are discussing this later.”

             
“Yes. We are.”

             
“Okay.”

             
“Okay.”

             
A smooching sound and they were walking away from me.

             
“Hey!”

             
I ran after them, watching as they both bent over to observe the ground.

             
“She was running erratic
ally.” Brynna told me lightly, “There are two bigger sets of footprints here. She was being followed. Well, not followed, actually. It appears that she was being chased.”

             
“By what?”

             
“They are human footprints so we can assume the natives.” Her head jerke
d up suddenly and she smelled the air. “I smell blood.”

             
I almost collapsed. But somehow, I was able to suppress my fear of stumbling across Alice's dead body long enough to run after James and Brynna when they took off speedily. We pushed through trees an
d bushes, hurtled over fallen logs, and jumped over a ravine at least eight feet wide and bottomless. All along, Brynna led us.

             
My senses came alive during that sprint. I could smell the blood mixed in with the scents of the greenery and mid-afternoon haz
e. Together, they were a tantalizing mixture that should have lulled me into hypnosis. I could hear animals stomping their way away from us in fear as though we were lions on the hunt. I could see clearly in my side vision deer-like creatures dropping to t
he ground and camouflaging in the dirt. Weird...