Betrothed Episode One (13 page)

For a
few seconds I watched nervously.

Something had changed in the past few minutes. When I’d first
brought this woman in, I’d wanted to dismiss her story.

Now I
was more determined than ever to find out what was going
on.

As soon
as I was back, I would find out everything I could about
her.

I
hurried out of the room, pausing at the threshold of the door to
glance back at her one last time.

I’d never seen someone look more conflicted. She brought a
hand up and placed it over the left side of her face as she stared
with peaked eyebrows and worry filled eyes at the city below
her.

Then,
almost with a violent twitch, her gaze shifted and locked onto the
tallest tower of the horizon. The Illuminate pillar.

I forced
myself to turn and leave.

I would
solve this on my return.

Anna Carter

I was
taken to a room. Not a cell, a room. And it had a real view of the
city. As I pressed my fingers over the window sill, I could tell it
wasn’t a hologram.

When the doors closed behind me and I was alone, I let out
the loudest of sighs.

It
didn’t change how nervous I felt.

I
clamped a hand onto my stomach, and then one onto my chest. Seconds
later, my hand moved of its own accord and clamped onto the left
side of my face.

Energy
was building up behind my eye.

Energy.

This
wasn’t paranoia talking, it wasn’t my adrenaline addled mind making
up stories.

I could
feel some kind of force building up in my face.

I knew I
should turn around, go to the door, and ask for a doctor, but I
didn’t.

I stood
there, staring at the view, shaking.

That
terrorist attack hadn’t been a terrorist attack at all. I was sure
– 100% certain – that the so-called hospital I’d been held in for
the past week had been destroyed to cover-up my captor’s
tracks.

I rocked
back and forth on my feet, finding it harder and harder to
breathe.

I needed
to turn to somebody, but there was no one to turn to.

All I
could do was stand here and look at that view.

My eyes, seemingly of their own accord, were drawn to one
single tower on the horizon. Tall, and built like a pillar,
illuminated with blue
and
white strips of light down its entire length, it
was a commanding sight. But that didn’t account for my attraction
to it. My eyes locked onto it as if they had a magnetic connection
to the metal monolith.

That
tower, or someone or something in it, was the only thing that could
help me now.

I jammed a finger into my mouth as I thought that. Because I
didn’t know why I had thought it. The notion had entered my mind
beyond my conscious control.

The pressure behind my eye built until it felt like there was
a hurricane lodged in my skull.

Suddenly
I couldn’t breathe. There was something wrong with my chest. It
felt like I’d swallowed ice.

I pushed
a hand into my sternum, trying to massage away that growing
tension.

It
wouldn’t work.

My
breathing shortened into sharp, frantic pants.

“
What’s going on?” I had time to wheeze before a wave of
weakness hit me. I stumbled, hand fumbling against the table beside
me and knocking everything off as I fell to the floor. I hit my
side with a sharp thump.

I couldn’t scream. I tried, but that growing cold spread
further and further through my chest until it felt like I’d turned
into a frozen wasteland.

Just
when I thought I’d lose consciousness, something
happened.

Something violent.

My head
twitched back as if I’d been struck on the chin, and my temple
gashed against the hard metal leg of the table.

Then the
darkness swelled in. It flowed into my vision like it was trying to
drown me.

Something terrible was happening to me.

I
started to see things. I knew I was still frozen on the floor, a
bead of blood trickling from my brow, but I couldn’t move, and I
couldn’t see the room around me.

I saw a
different room instead.

One
filled with people. Dressed in regal attire, they all looked
important, and they all turned their heads to stare at a raised
platform. It had an enormous window behind it, a huge constellation
dotted with vibrant shining stars visible beyond.

Two
people stood atop the platform. One was Illuminate Hart. The other
person was irrelevant.

All my
concentration focused on him.

He
smiled, and I saw every movement of his lips and chin and jaw. He
stared over adoringly at the person beside him.

But I
stared at the view behind.

I
watched the star-studded constellation behind him morph. Suddenly
blackness cut across it, dark and violent.

Then
something sliced out of space.

An
enormous ship appeared.

I didn’t
get a chance to recognize it before it started firing.

Hart was
thrown to his knees. I watched him turn, I watched his face slacken
with fear.

Then
blackness.

Blackness overtook me, and it overtook him.

The
vision ended.

I tried to scream. I couldn’t. My body was paralyzed, and all
I could do was stare at the carpet underneath me, my face pressed
against it as the weight of my body pinned me to the
ground.

Slowly
control returned to my limbs.

But I
didn’t move. Not for ages. I lay there on the floor, the blood
still trickling down from the cut in my brow. My breath was uneven,
my chest heavy.

I
couldn’t blink; I didn’t dare close my eyes. Instead they were
riveted open as if someone had stapled them.

I could hear my breath coming in uneven, desperate
gasps
. It was like
listening to a broken engine trying to rev up.

Eventually I brought up a shaking hand and pressed it into my
brow. I could feel a sticky slick of blood collect under my
nails.

“…
W-what just happened to me?”

There
was no one to answer.

I
pressed a hand into my chest, took a breath, and pushed myself
up.

My hair
flopped over my face as I locked my gaze on the view through the
window.

It
showed the horizon line, with tall buildings jutting towards the
sky.

It did
not show that enormous purple-green constellation. It did not show
Hart’s elegant ship. It did not show a black swathe of energy
cutting across space as a vessel sliced its way towards
me.

To
confirm that, I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled over to the
window. I pressed a hand into the tempered force-field enhanced
glass, and pressed my face against it.

There
wasn’t a constellation in sight.

I pushed
back from the glass and tried to breathe. It was getting easier,
and my heart wasn’t trying to rip its way out of my chest
anymore.

I forced
a hand over my eyes and closed them briefly. When I wasn’t
assaulted by another vision, I winked an eye open.

The room
– my room – didn’t change. It was still here around me, though
messy from where I’d staggered into the table.

“
You … you’re just tired,” I tried to tell myself.

It was
the weakest, most pathetic lie I’d ever tried to tell
myself.

Something terrible was happening to me.

I had to
tell somebody.

I tried to push towards the door, but suddenly my limbs
locked as if concrete had been poured into the joints
again.

I
couldn’t move.

Because ... I couldn’t tell anybody.

That
thought flashed through my mind as if it had been shot from a
gun.

I
couldn’t tell anybody.

I was in
danger.

I had to
get to Hart.

I tried
to push that thought back, but I couldn’t. It kept repeating in my
mind as if someone was persistently writing it right onto my brain
cells.

I rocked
back and forth, but nothing – nothing – could assuage my
fear.

I had to
get to Hart.

I had to
warn him.

Yes,
that’s it – I had to warn him.

My limbs
unlocked, and I jerked towards the door, stumbling, and having to
lock a hand onto the table to right myself.

Before I
could take another step, I stopped myself.

What the
hell was I doing?

What the
hell was I thinking?

I didn’t
know Hart, and what little I knew of him confirmed I hated the
guy.

So why
was I turning to him now?

I got
another compulsion to move, but I used every ounce of will to stop
myself in place.

No.

I wasn’t
going to do this. I was going to tell somebody what was happening
to me. I was going to request a brain scan or something. I was
going to ask for help.

I was
not going to lurch my way out of here and find Hart, because that
was crazy.

I
couldn’t deny something was happening to me, but if I wanted to
find out what it was and stop it, I had to be smart, not
reactive.

Gritting
my teeth together, I tried to suck a breath through them. It was
the hardest thing ever, but I managed to keep myself standing and
away from the door, even though the compulsion to rush through it
kept surging in my mind.

I took a
step away from the door, but my head jerked towards the view
instead, my eyes locking on that tower.

I had to
warn Hart.

It was
imperative I go to his side and warn him.

Of
what?

Did I
honestly think that vision, or whatever it was, was
real?

I tried
to tell myself it couldn’t possibly be real, but it didn’t
work.

All my
other visions – though they hadn’t been as complete and violent –
had come true.

Somehow,
some crazy how, I could tell the future.

And the
future was telling me that Illuminate Hart was in
danger.

...

Captain Fargo

There
wasn’t much that could be done. The terrorists – whoever they were
– had been meticulous.

They had
destroyed all evidence.

For a
so-called terrorist attack, it was too clean. They also hadn’t
taken out a population center or a building that would be missed.
Just a single floor on a single block in the lower
quarter.

I stood
before one of the enormous long sets of stairs that led down into
the lower quarter. Both hands were in my pockets as I stared at my
security guards and watched them work.

Miranda’s words kept echoing in my mind. She’d said this
building was the place they had been holding her for a
week.

They.

Who?

What the
hell was going on here?

Either
she was lying, or she was telling the truth, and I didn’t like
either option.

As I
stood there, I suddenly got a call on my wrist device. I activated
the holo feed and linked it to my neural implant so my conversation
could be silent.

It was
the Captain of the Corax.

I’d gone
to the Academy with her, but she wasn’t calling for a friendly
chat.

“
I received a request for information on Lieutenant Mark
Havelock,” she said before I could greet her.

“
Thank you for getting back to me so quickly, but you needn’t
have called. I just want confirmation he’s on-board your
vessel.”

“
And I called you, Francis, to tell you he isn’t.”

“…
Excuse me?”

“
Lieutenant Mark Havelock was never assigned to my
vessel.”

“
But the official records—”

“
I know. I looked them up myself. They show he was assigned to
my ship, but I’m telling you, I okayed that assignment, and he sure
as hell isn’t here.”

I
frowned, the move etching itself into my lips and chin. “What’s
going on?”

“
Beats me. What do you want this man for anyway?”

I
withdrew into silence.

“
You can’t tell me, can you?” She asked
perceptively.

“
I don’t know what’s going on yet, Bethany,
and until I do, I don’t want to
speculate
.”

“
It’s meant to be impossible to fake Foundation Forces
assignment records,” she pointed out.