FREED (Angels and Gargoyles Book 2) (3 page)

“What’s happened?”

His eyes narrowed. “You know I lied to you. How can you still trust me?”

Wyatt didn’t like people who lied to him. He was outraged that Dylan had not told him that she knew Stiles was not from one of the cities, but a wanderer, one of a tribe of people who lived by scavenging from the ruins and helping the gargoyles. This, of course, was before they knew Stiles was a gargoyle. And then Dylan found herself a captive in the city of Viti, those there telling her that Wyatt had purposely sought her out and brought her back to them.

That wasn’t the complete truth. Wyatt had sought her out. It was part of his scouting duties to look for people from Genero. But he was not supposed to take them to the city officials; he was to take them to his father and the resistance. That was his intention with Dylan. And Sam and Ellie.

Yet, he still lied.

“You saved me,” Dylan said as she stepped into him again, shortening the distance between them to less than a breath. “You may not have been honest about your intentions, but you saved me. How could I judge you for that?”

Wyatt’s eyes softened. He stroked her jaw with the lightest of touches. “One of these days you will trust the wrong person,” he said.

“That’s why you will always be there to save me.”

She thought for a moment he would kiss her. The memory of their last kiss, of that day in a warm field just before he grew angry with her and walked away, filled her mind as though it were happening again. And then it melted into something dark and angry.

“Trouble’s coming,” she whispered.

Even though her mental wall was up, Dylan could hear the voices of strangers. With it came dark images, some familiar, some things she hoped she would never see again. It began with the room in Viti where she and Sam had been locked up by the Redcoats. It ended with a bloody room filled with instruments that looked like knives, but had subtle differences that spoke of the evil it took to brandish them.

She grabbed Wyatt’s arm and began running. The men working to free the Redcoat from the ground stared at them, but none of them seemed overly concerned. Only Sam dropped his shovel and ran after them.

Dylan focused on the word trouble and shot it forward, forcing it into the minds of anyone close enough to hear. She could see confusion on the faces of women they passed on their way back, women who were walking around the edges of the camp with their children, either looking for a place to do their morning evacuations or trying to get their children to run off some of the excess energy that could often get them into trouble on the long trail to nowhere they were traveling.

“What is it?” Davida asked, rushing to meet them as they came into the camp.

“Redcoats,” Dylan said on a quick puff of breath.

Dylan could feel the doubt rolling off of Wyatt, but Sam moved up behind her. “What do we do?” he asked.

Davida glanced over to where Jimmy was talking with some of the other adults, people Dylan was beginning to recognize as his council. Dylan knew that he wouldn’t believe her, that he would want proof. But once there was proof, it could be too late. She began formulating a speech in her head to convince him, when Davida grabbed her shoulders.

“You have to go,” she said quietly.

Dylan stared at her. “But what about—”

“You have to go,” she repeated. “You and Sam and Wyatt. Take Ellie and Bobby and Carver, too,” she said, speaking more to Wyatt now than Dylan. “Go east as quickly as you can. I’ll catch up in a few days.”

Wyatt didn’t say a word. He simply rushed off to find the others.

Dylan grabbed Davida’s arm. “What if something happens to you?”

Davida took Dylan’s face in her hands. “Then you trust your friends to keep you safe.” She kissed Dylan’s forehead lightly. “And remember everything I taught you.”

Davida rushed away, her eyes on the distant horizon. Dylan turned to look, too, but Sam was there.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

“Get your stuff,” she said.

Dylan turned to do the same thing, trying to ignore the fact that Wyatt and Ellie were standing too close, whispering too intimately to one another a few feet away. Bobby, another member of the resistance, who was about Wyatt’s age, came over. Dylan had only spoken to him once. She had no idea what his story was or why Davida would choose him to go with them. But he smiled at her, as though rushing out of camp on their own was something they normally did. She had no idea who Carver was, or where he was. She had been with this group exactly a week. She knew almost nothing about them.

But, somehow, it felt like they all knew everything there was to know about her.

Dylan slung her bag over her shoulder. It was a new bag, something Davida called a backpack, that was filled with new clothing Davida had found for her before they left their safe house outside Viti. She was grateful for the new clothes, grateful to be back in broken coveralls after fleeing the city in a dress that was more suited to lounging around a room like the one Luc and Lily greeted her in. Grateful, too, for the heavy boots that kept her feet safe from the cactus spines and thorns that littered this landscape, better than the bare feet that took her out of the city or the borrowed boots that got her to the safe house.

Wyatt snatched up Ellie’s bag and slung it over his shoulder beside the bag that already rested there. She slipped her hand in his, and Dylan noted that he did not pull away. Anger built so quickly in her head that she must have sent an image to him because he stepped back and blinked, looking hard at her when he focused again. Dylan turned away, almost relieved to see Sam lumbering toward her with his familiar smile.

“Ready?” he asked.

Others around them were watching, wondering what was happening. Dylan felt the weight of their thoughts as though they were a physical force pushing against the wall she struggled to keep up in her mind. And they weren’t the only ones. Dylan could see Jimmy looking over at them, too.

“We have to go,” she said.

Wyatt must have followed her gaze because he began to lead the way out of camp.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jimmy called, marching toward them.

“Jimmy,” Davida said, grabbing his arm.

Jimmy jerked his arm so hard that Davida stumbled when her grip on him broke. He reached for Wyatt as a heavy breeze washed down over Dylan, pushing her forward.

Run
, Stiles’ voice said in her head.

Someone screamed.

And then people were running past them, trying to flee the approaching squadron of Redcoats.

Chaos erupted.

Jimmy let go of Wyatt as he turned to see what was happening. In that split moment, Wyatt took off, pulling Ellie along behind him. Sam pushed Dylan forward, but he didn’t have to waste the effort. She had begun running the moment Stiles sent out his warning.

The only problem was, there was really nowhere to go. The landscape was so flat there was nothing more than a few cactus plants decaying in the heat. None of those were tall enough to hide behind.

Dylan made the mistake of looking back. Redcoats were everywhere, their swords out as they sliced through the innocent people whose only mistake had been to want something better for themselves and their families. Now most of them were lying on the ground, their blood nourishing the overly dry earth.

She stumbled, her thoughts flashing to Davida.

Go!

Sam grabbed her arm. “Run, Dylan,” he hissed in her ear.

She began to run again, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks.

Dylan felt the familiar breeze that she now knew was Stiles. He had led her to safety once before, so when he pushed lightly at her shoulder, she turned.

Wyatt cried out, but he didn’t argue with her. He simply moved into line behind her and continued to run.

Stiles pushed her shoulder a few more times. In a few minutes, she could see formations in the dust in front of them. She didn’t understand what they were, but they were tall and they threw significant shadows, meaning there might be a place to hide within them. She ran faster despite the exhaustion and cramps that were beginning to test her mental and physical reserves.

Wyatt laughed when they approached the formations. He knew what they were, but there wasn’t time to explain to everyone else. The image that flashed through Dylan’s mind was vaguely like the vehicle that brought her to the desert from Genero, only these were sitting on end. He pushed Ellie inside of one, instructing her to climb high and hide in a recess toward the top. Wyatt turned to Dylan then, but she was already climbing inside another.

“What are you doing?” he hissed into the formation.

“They’re coming,” she said, reaching back to give him a hand up. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed it and climbed. The others were already hiding.

Dylan was listening. She had dropped her mental wall so she could listen for the Redcoats. Now she was picking up thoughts not only from her companions and the Redcoats, but from those they had left behind, too.

It was not good.

She crouched inside the formation, vehicle, whatever it was, making as small an object of herself as she could. Wyatt was beside her, the space so tight that he had to slide an arm around her to keep from hanging halfway down into the open space below them. As they waited, Dylan could hear what was happening back at the camp. Random thoughts, most of them only half formed. But those that were fully formed...it was a nightmare. The pain, the fear that burst from the thoughts of those innocent people was overwhelming. She shivered more than once.

And then the thoughts of the Redcoats as they drew close. They were thinking of her, just as confused about what she was as she was. Some of them were afraid of her. They had been told she had abilities they didn’t understand. Told that she had to be neutralized before they approached her. An image of the weapon Jimmy had taken off the Redcoat Stiles killed filled her mind.

It was for her.

“They’re here,” she whispered to Wyatt, shivering again.

He pulled her tight against his chest. She could feel his heart pounding, but he held his breath. Dylan closed her eyes and tried to lift the mental wall again. She didn’t want to hear the Redcoats when they discovered where they were hiding. And she knew they would find them. It was so obvious. There was nowhere else for them to have gone. But that realization came too late.

She felt the thunder in the ground below them as several Redcoats walked around the formation where she and Wyatt hid. She could almost picture them reaching up inside to pull them down. She stiffened, buried her body tighter against Wyatt. His arms tightened around her. Time seemed to slow to nothing more than a trickle. Her skin crawled where she imagined they would grab her first. She knew they were coming.

But they never did.

They waited a long time, longer than they probably should have. Wyatt finally whispered, “Are we clear?”

Dylan reluctantly lowered the mental wall. There was nothing at first. She heard the thoughts of the others hiding with them, heard Ellie moaning about hiding with Sam, about the pain in her hip from the awkward position she was in. And Sam was wondering if Dylan was okay, if they had found her. The other two were just wondering how much longer they would have to wait.

And then she could hear the grief of those back at the camp. So many were dead. She could hear someone counting, could hear others thinking the names of their dead loved ones over and over. And then she heard Davida.

Leave
, she whispered.

“We need to go,” Dylan told Wyatt.

He immediately climbed down and reached back up to help Dylan. Her limbs were a little stiff from the tightness of the position, but she was able to stretch her muscles out as Wyatt moved from place to place to let the others know they were leaving. Then he grabbed their bags from the compartment at the top of one of the formations where he had hid them.

“This way,” he called, leading the way over the barren desert landscape.

They walked for the majority of the day. Wyatt took the lead, moving quickly. Dylan and the boys kept up with him, but Ellie began to struggle after just a few hours.

“Wyatt, can we stop?” she’d called.

“No,” Wyatt had answered, glancing at Dylan as he did.

He was thinking of his father in that moment. Dylan saw a flash of his father, of disappointment on his face. He didn’t want anything to happen to Dylan because he didn’t want his father to be upset with him. She wasn’t sure how she should feel about that.

Sam ended up walking behind with Ellie, trying to encourage her to keep going. Dylan closed off her mind. She didn’t want to hear what her companions were thinking about her. Bobby smiled at her each time he caught her eye, but most of the time he kept to himself. He was a big guy, tall and wide, seemed like the type that wouldn’t be much help on a trek like this. But he kept up without breaking a sweat. And he didn’t talk. Big and quiet. She liked that.