Eternity Crux (2 page)

“But why?” It didn’t make any sense. Why would the Legion kill people not guilty of any crime? They were the law. “Where did you even get all of this?”

A shadow settled over Sayer, not from the sun, but an inner darkness he’d been trying to conceal from me. “A few months ago, I was issued solo orders. Top secret. I couldn’t even tell you about them.”

“Kill orders?” My horror shone through my words.

“Imprisonment, but they may as well have been. Who do you think was waiting on the other end of those imprisonment orders?”

“Galen.” It wasn’t a question. I knew the answer.

“I went with every intention of doing what I was told, but the man I was sent there to detain . . . he was just this normal guy, Aura. A power technician. A nobody. It felt wrong. And then he starts telling me all of these things about the Legion, and corruption, and sanctioned murders. I didn’t believe him, at first, but I listened and he showed me all of this.”

“He gave you the file? Why?” I had no idea how a power technician could possibly have gotten a hold of classified orders, but it seemed like he’d risked a lot to do it. And then to just hand them over to a stranger . . . A Legion officer, of all people . . . It didn’t compute.

“He knew he was a dead man. It didn’t matter what I did, the Legion would never have let him go. Galen would’ve been at his door by the next day, cleaning up my mess.”

“What did you do?” The thought of Sayer being any part of that soured my stomach.

“I tried to let him go. Told him to run, that I’d tell the Legion he escaped. He wouldn’t let me. Said he was trusting me to carry on his work, and that I couldn’t do that if the Legion didn’t trust me.”

“So you brought him in.”

“I delivered that man to his death, Aura. He was willing to die. For this.” Sayer’s hand settled almost reverently over the papers in my lap. “And he wasn’t alone. I did some more digging into the people who were executed. I talked to their friends, their family . . . They’re all insurgents. They know how corrupt the Legion has become and they’re fighting to expose it.”

My stomach twisted into so many knots it felt like I’d swallowed a pretzel whole. “You’re telling me that we work for a corrupt agency? That commits . . .
murder
?”

Sayer nodded grimly. “That’s what I’m telling you. And I know how dangerous that is. That’s why I haven’t said anything before now. I wouldn’t have involved you at all, but they already have. You’re a good officer, Aura. Loyal to the Legion. Accomplished. There’s no way you’re not on their radar. How long before they start issuing
you
these types of orders? How long before they expect you to kill for them without question like Galen does? Like I did?”

“Oh . . . crap.” Damn me and my ingrained desire to please the Legion and follow their rules. What had I gotten myself into? “What do we do?”

I watched Sayer’s throat bob as he swallowed hard and felt that pretzel in my gut knotting tighter than my boots. “The people I talked to . . . I couldn’t deny that I was an officer. It took a long time for them to trust me.”

“O-kay . . .”

“I’m going to help them. We’re in a unique position to get our hands on the kind of proof they can only dream about.” He tapped the file still clenched in a death grip in my hands, and my head started shaking of its own volition. “If we can get more like this. Take it to the right source. Expose it . . .”

“No. No way. Sayer, are you insane?” What was he thinking? “Look at this file. It’s all right there in black and white, what happens to people who try to do exactly what you’re talking about. You can’t—“

“Then, who? Who, Aura? Who’s going to put an end to this? Who’s going to stand up to them?”

A spark lit in my chest, fueled by anger. And maybe a little bit of fear. “You make it sound like you’re taking on the schoolyard bully. This is the
Legion
we’re talking about, Say. The government, the law, the ultimate power in society.”

“All the more reason they need to be stopped.” Sayer had been a man of honor for as long as I’d known him. I’d always respected that about him, valued it. Now, I was beginning to hate it.

“It doesn’t have to be you. You said there are others out there working on it. Let them handle it. Give them this file, bury it, burn it, I don’t care. Just get rid of it and let’s get on with our lives.”

“You could forget so easily? Go on carrying out their orders like nothing’s changed?” The look of disapproval in his eyes made me sicker than any file. “I’m disappointed.”

“That’s not fair.” My voice came out weak and we both knew what that meant.

“None of this is fair, Aura. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need someone I could trust with my life.”

And there was the final nail in my coffin.

><><><><

“Aurgh.” My entire body felt like it had been stuffed in a blender and set to puree.

“Aura?” Gentle hands rolled me onto my back and cradled my head as it lolled to the side.

A face swam in my vision. “Sayer?”

“Hey, there. It’s alright. Relax. You’re okay, now.”

Okay?
Not exactly the word I would have chosen to describe how I felt at the moment. More like the hangover from hell with a first-class case of the flu on top. “Where are we?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Sayer’s fingers trailed over my cheek, leaving a fiery path in their wake. “We don’t have much longer. You should rest while you can.”

“Sayer . . .” I squinted the rest of the room into focus. Though it made me dizzy, I scanned for clues and my gaze settled on the high-tech equipment in the corner. Some really new-age stuff. As in
new,
new age. Better question . . . “
When
are we?”

“Don’t worry about that now. How are you feeling?”

“Sayer. When are we?”

He frowned at me, obviously displeased with my dog-with-a-bone mentality, but that wasn’t going to change a thing and he knew it. “We’re back in our time. I brought you home.”

“What? Why?” I sat and my head spun. The whole room spun. The whole freaking planet. Faster than normal. Carousel-on-crack fast.

“Whoa. Slow down.” Through the whirl of color, I was able to pick out the red of Sayer’s shirt and reached for it. His arms closed around me, steadying me, as everything else settled back into place.

“Why would you bring us here? Are you crazy? They’re hunting us.”

“What choice did I have? You were sick.”

“Yeah, but, Sayer—”

“Don’t tear into him too badly. He did the right thing . . . For once.” A portly man with a scruffy gray mustache that made it look like all the hair from his shiny head had migrated to his upper lip stepped into the room wearing a wide smile I never thought I’d see again.

“Doctor Ballard?”

“Who else, my dear?”

I reached for him, desperate to touch the man I’d considered a father for most of my life, but knowing full-well Sayer would probably tackle me if I tried to get up. Not to mention my legs weren’t exactly cooperating.

“Welcome home, Auralia.” Ballard’s crushing embrace really did feel like home, but that didn’t change the facts.

“We shouldn’t be here.” I pulled away, sticking with the stubborn streak ingrained in me since birth.

“You’re wrong. You’re exactly where you need to be. Sayer made you a passenger on too many jumps, too fast. Without your own crux to stabilize you, your cells couldn’t handle it. They were coming apart.
You
were coming apart.”

“This isn’t Sayer’s fault.” I jumped to his defense, knowing Ballard would take every shot he could at him. They’d never been what you’d call . . . close. And one look at Sayer exposed just how much guilt he already harbored.

“That’s beside the point. At least the boy had enough sense to bring you back here. When else would they have had the knowledge to diagnose that? The technology to treat it?”

I could respect the predicament. I knew the day they asked me to turn over my eternity crux that I’d regret going along with it, but I’d still been naïve enough at the time to think we could complete our mission before anyone noticed. I didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention, so I’d gone along with their orders like a good little soldier. The order alone should have been enough to tip me off that things weren’t going to be as cut and dry as we’d hoped. They were already on to us, moving in slowly for the kill.

“Besides, it’s nice to see my girl again. But for now you must rest. Your body still needs time to recover.” With a quick kiss on the cheek, Ballard excused himself from the room, leaving Sayer and I alone.

“You shouldn’t have stayed here.” I kicked my feet back up on the bed and reclined my aching body, slowly until my head hit the soft, fluffy pillow, abandoning any hope of going anywhere soon.

“What part of ‘you were sick’ are you missing?” Sayer tipped his head and cocked a brow.

“The part where that has any bearing on
your
ability to travel.”

“The damage must be worse than we thought if you seriously think I’d leave you here alone.” He settled beside me, sitting against the headboard, and drew the covers up over my body and his legs. “Close your eyes, Aura. Stop fighting the rest you need. I’ll be right here when you wake up. I promise.”

I hated being told what to do. It only made me want to do the exact opposite. But I couldn’t fight Sayer’s command if I’d tried. Sleep crept over me like a thief in the night and I succumbed before I even processed a thought not to.

><><><><

“Aura. Wake up.”

I groaned and buried my face in a hard, yet not entirely uncomfortable pillow. A pillow that smelled of ice and wind. Blinking my eyes opened, I got an up close and personal view of red cotton stretched over hard muscle. Lifting my gaze, I located the head attached to said muscle, and blinked again.

“Sayer?” I was draped over his torso like some kind of house cat. “How long was I out?”

“A few hours, but we have to go now. We have to keep moving.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “Okay.”

Sayer slid out of bed first, and then offered me a hand to do the same. I wasn’t exactly stable, but he steadied me until my feet no longer felt like they were stranding on a funhouse floor. “We should pack some food. Where’s Bal—”

The slamming of the front door was the only warning we received before a Legion officer exploded into the room, looking far less surprised to see us than we were to see him. They’d been chasing us so long that I’d actually let myself believe they’d never really catch us as long as we kept running. So much for that theory.

Sayer set me aside with a tenderness that did not foreshadow the rage with which he hurled himself at the man, after I was safely out of harm’s way.

“Sayer!”

He beat on the officer until his knuckles turned bloody and the man’s body hit the floor with a solid thump, but he wasn’t alone. Two more officers barged through the door and Sayer kept on fighting. He fought tooth and nail like our very lives depended on it. Because they did. And all I could do was stand back and watch, using the majority of my strength simply to remain upright.

“Say!” Three more uniform clad monkey puppets with the Legion’s hands up their rear ends charged into the room and surrounded us. “Sayer, stop.”

It took him a moment to realize what had happened. The fight was over. We’d lost.

Sayer flattened me against his chest at the same time as his free hand closed around his crux, and I braced myself for the inevitable pain.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A cocky smirk tipped Galen’s lips. “Look at her. She’s barely holding together. One more jump could kill her. Are you willing to take that chance?”

I knew Galen wasn’t lying. Everything inside of me felt so fragile. Another jump without my personal crux, tuned to my cells to counterbalance the effects, would likely shatter me. But as Sayer’s gaze fell to me, I silently begged him not to listen. No doubt being lost in a jump would be preferable to whatever Galen had planned for us.

I knew the moment Sayer made his decision. His shoulders slumped as though the weight of eternity rested on them.

“Go, Sayer. Please. You can still get out of here.”

I used what little strength I had left to try and extricate myself from his embrace, but his arms only tightened around me. His nose brushed over my ear, followed by his lips. “Not a chance.”

“Secure them until transport arrives.” Galen looked at us like we were the scum on the bottom of his boot. Funny, I felt the same way about him.

Some brute tore Sayer’s crux from around his neck and herded us into a small side room Ballard kept stocked for emergency medical situations.

“Where’s Doctor Ballard? What did you do to him?”

Galen looked down on me as though I were dumber than a box of rocks. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about him. You have bigger problems.”

That did it. If I’d had full control of my physical abilities, I would have punch him right in that ugly face of his. As it was, I needed Sayer’s help just to make it into the medical closet. The hard-core locking device that Ballard had installed to deter would-be thieves wasn’t doing us any favors. It snapped into place as I fumbled around for the light switch.