Thunder: The Shadows Are Stirring (Thunder Stories Book 1) (22 page)

My breath, shallow and quick, burns inside my chest. Nausea roils in my belly, my palms are slick with sweat, and I can feel him staring at me from almost every stall. There’s no doubt he’s following us and my gut is screaming “red alert!” We’ve got to disappear. And fast. Ethan stares at me in alarm. He must sense my panic. Squeezing my hand in reassurance, he picks up his pace, and we merge into a throng of shoppers and merchants.

There, a new pattern emerges. The people around us begin to converge in an ebb and flow—blending, shifting, pushing, and nudging—like something intricately planned and choreographed. Ethan and I let ourselves get sucked into the tide. Trying to disappear into the bodies thronging through the market, I recognize that a vast majority are clothed in the same blue and green hues of our own borrowed garments. Many walk in pairs or small groups— slow, fast, changing their minds, and heading elsewhere. Even children and dogs are running loose like there’s a huge game of hide-and-seek in progress.

It would be difficult for anyone to pick out or follow any particular individual. We are deftly guided through the city streets to where our crossroad awaits with not a sign of the dark haired man. I’m not sure who or what we avoided, but I’m positive we have a lot of support in this town. As I glance back, I see one last distinct face at the edge of the crowd. One that flashes a smile and a wink before disappearing back into the bustle. Lispeth. And then we’re on our own. And we run.

Chapter Eighteen: Darkness and Light

(OLIVIA)

W
E RUN AS FAST AND AS FAR AS WE CAN
,
until we’re both doubled over and gasping, barely able to stand. The sun is getting lower in the sky and the shadows created by the leaves dapple the dirt across the path. We’d left the main road hours ago, weaving among fields, trees, and hills; skirting towns and even running through the length of a shallow creek, in case someone tries to track us by scent. Always letting my gut lead me, always keeping Ethan at my side.

Running that hard makes it quite easy to clear my brain of interfering thoughts. Well, pretty much any thought at all, and it’s much easier to let the currents guide me. But now I’ve slammed against the runner’s wall, seizing the muscles in my legs, and leaving any forward motion unlikely if not impossible.

I vaguely notice the undefined brown patterns at my feet, thinking I’m a tad woozy and wondering why the ground is much closer to my face than it should be. Thrusting out my arms to push back the strangely webbed shadows, I register someone calling my name. But my arms completely fail in their duty and a sudden flare of pain, which bursts across my face, awakens me. My eyes stream with the shock of it.

Ethan swears, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. “Olivia, are you okay …?”

I blink up at him and his form wavers. He, too, is on the ground, but at least he’d been able to stay on his knees.

“You finally won a race,” I choke through the blood gushing into my mouth and past my chin. Pushing my upper body off the ground, I turn my head and spit.

Ethan moves from my line of sight and I feel the pack being tugged from my back. With one sore arm, I adjust to a sitting position, while using my other hand to pinch the bridge of my nose. Already it feels swollen. I tip my head forward, letting the blood fall onto the dirt between my knees.

“Here, take this.” Ethan puts a balled up spider shirt in my hands and guides it up to my nose. There’s a fuzzy white droning in my ears, so sound has this whole underlayer to it and I have to concentrate on what his words mean. “We need to get you up to walk. Come on. Lean against me or … I dunno; I can get you a branch if you’d prefer. You don’t look very steady.” He uses his feet to scuff the dirt and cover the spatters, trying to make it blend with the rest of the path.

Yeah, my legs are rolling like I’m standing on a canoe in high seas. “You,” I say, and thinking I may not have been clear, I pull away the shirt and state, through the fuzz of my brain, “I’ll just take you. You’re all I need to keep steady.” Even I recognize that I sound like I’m talking through peanut butter. The world is spinning much too fast and I sway with it.

Flashing a half grin, he says, “I’ll remind you of that when you can think clearly.”

He doesn’t elaborate and I’m woozy and confused, so I let it go. The white noise is still pressing in and I take Ethan’s arm. We walk, step by step, until I can feel my legs again and my nose stops gushing and both of us can breathe regularly. Ethan, who still has the pack, hands me my bag of trail mix.

“Eat some of this; I hear it helps raise your iron and protein levels.” His voice is still scratchy, but I can hear the smile behind it.

Opening one of our spare waters, he offers it to me first. I down half of it before handing it back. When we feel as refreshed as possible, still being caked in dust and blood, we hunt around for somewhere off the path and out of the way of anyone or anything that may come through the area. We’re away from civilization again, but, obviously with the trail, the area is traveled enough to make us wary.

We discover a small copse of trees and hunker down on the far side. After pulling out our bows and some other gear and placing it all near us, Ethan turns to me.

“Whew! Let’s see this nose of yours. We’ll find out if I’m as good as you with the Healer stuff. Doesn’t seem broken, anyway, only bruised.”

He sees my skeptical expression and adds, “It’s
swollen
, but it’s not crooked or bent weird. Here, tip your head like this.” He pours some medicine into my nose, and I sputter and gag as it drips down the back of my throat.

“Nugh! Gaw, Ethan! That’s nasty.” I spit again. He will never have a refined image of me, that’s for sure. I wait for a couple minutes to pass and, when I can breathe through my nose again, I move my head back and forth and beam at him. “Wow! You’re amazing! It’s already feeling better. How’s it look?”

“Um. Honestly?”

“That bad still?”

“I’ll put it like this: If you had big feet and a red wig, I could call you Bozo.” He jumps away from my swat. “Actually, it’s not that bad,” he tries to reassure me, but I can tell by the way his eyes slide over my face and kind of shift and wander back, that it’s not that good, either. Oh, well. How it feels is what counts; I’m not concerned. Bozo? Whatever.

He lowers himself to the ground, stretching his body, rolling his shoulders, and pulling his arms across his chest and behind his back, trying to loosen up after that insane running stint. I follow suit.

“If we want to be able to move tomorrow, we should both take something for pain and inflammation; we just ran our muscles pretty much to death,” I say, and Ethan extracts another little container, this time with some powder, and we both take a dose. I clear my throat and ask, “Okay. What was that? Back in Cropton. Did you feel any of it?”

“Feel? What? No; I noticed some huge dude following us, and I didn’t like the way he looked. What happened to you, though? It was like you were going in for a panic attack or something.”

I have no idea what happened, but I explain the feeling as best I can. I watch his eyes flicker with concern, and something stronger—not fear exactly, but something close—before they carefully go blank.

“What?” I ask, gripping my necklace for security. “What? That means something to you. Tell me what you’re thinking. I need to know.”

“Aw, Livs, it could be nothing. I don’t want to freak you out, if I’m not—”

I lean forward. “No! No, you will
not
do that to me. We are a team and we are doing this together; if you think there’s some information that might ‘freak’ me out, you’d better darn well tell me what it is. How else can I protect myself?”
Or you
, I think in my head. I do not like the game of ‘Little Lady.’ No one can tell me what I can or cannot handle, not even Ethan; I will not be treated like a half-brained twit because I happen to have two X chromosomes. And I know my voice sounds angry. Well, tough. I am.

Deal.

He rakes his hands through his hair, leaving it tufted up in the back, and his green eyes plead at me in quick apology. I soften my glare; I’m a sucker for puppy dog eyes and he’s easily forgiven.

“It’s something I was talking about with Xaiben.”

“Whoa. Hold on. Xaiben?! That was, like, eons ago.” I’m feeling that anger sidle back in. The flush of it creeps up my neck and reddens my cheeks.

Ethan, who is quick to read my emotions, interrupts. “No, it’s nothing like that! It’s not anything I was keeping from you; it’s something he said after his Dialogue. I was asking him about the Sliders and he explained that, you know, they all come from the same darkness, being the embodiment of chaos and all ….”

“Yes, we know that.”

“Yeah, but he was saying since there’s so much negative energy swirling around in the deepest layers, the Sliders can be created with different degrees of power and strength. If darkness wants to interact on this layer more directly, without using weaker peons, it can even create one almost completely separate and real entity in which to infuse most of its essence. Which can only happen if there’s a rift; otherwise the Barriers would block it from coming through. Usually, it wouldn’t want to condense itself so much because that would make it more vulnerable—to have so much of itself concentrated into one form.

“I mean, realistically, it couldn’t ever be
completely
destroyed; we wouldn’t even
want
to completely destroy it because it would change the balance of the layers way too much. But we’d want to weaken it to the point where it’s not able to do more than hide out in the darkest of the layers for ages to come.”

“Hang on a second. Are you saying it’s something like some sort of devil and hell situation? Because I absolutely don’t believe in things like that. A higher Being of Power, of Goodness. Yes. Of Light and Knowledge and Creation. Yes. Souls, yes. Some sort of ….” I struggle even saying the word. The thought of it is so vile to me. “No. Just, no.” I shake my head adamantly.

“Yeah, you’re right, but it’s where humans get the idea for all of that stuff. Something purely and inherently evil. But there’s not some sort of fiery pit somewhere for ‘bad’ people. Only layers of time and learning until the soul can make it through to the next higher levels— growing, changing, evolving. Becoming as pure and ‘good’ as possible. That’s where the idea of reincarnation comes from; the soul reborn; the soul traveling as many times as it needs to reach its destination.

“There are many names for God, and many faces humans have put on that particular entity. But all the religions, pagan ideals, agnostic and even atheist beliefs, anyone who claims a goddess, or Jesus, or Buddha, or Allah, or any other name, or even nothing at all … anyone who believes in any of these and acts in goodness and love and peace and acceptance—they all serve the same side. The Truth by different names, but still, the one side: Goodness.

“Anyone who claims to be a part of that ‘good’ side—no matter what name or religion they choose to follow—if they act in hatred, spread prejudices of any type, or revel in ignorance and blame, they serve only the darkness. Bad acts in the name of something Good are simply bad acts. These are the people who need to live through all those extra layers. And maybe it does feel like a hell for them until they start getting it right. Meanwhile, those Sliders can just feast, you know?”

I stare at Ethan, my jaw dropping open a little. That all sounded rather deep for a sixteen-year-old boy. But I know I’ve had similar thoughts, even if I’d never put the words to them.

Ethan, appearing self-conscious about his mini soapbox speech, makes a slight noise in the back of his throat. “Uh, but that gets away from what I was trying to tell you.”

Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten this was supposed to be linking up to me somehow.

 He watches me closely as he elaborates. “I was wondering, with the reaction you had to the guy, if he might have been one of the stronger entities? Not necessarily the strongest, but at least one with more power than, say, the mosquitos or bull or dog; someone who would be a leader or master or whatever that side calls it. If it’s true, he’d be trying to track us now; the other things would be following his orders.” He lets his voice fade away, while I let it all sink in.

Shoist. He could be right. And I have no idea what that means for us.

He raises his hand like he means to touch me, but he lets it fall to his side. His eyes are sad. I reach out to him instead and take his hand, scooting myself so I can rest my head against his shoulder. We sit like that in silence, with my heart racing and my brain trying to power down.

~~~

S
INCE OUR BODIES ARE SHOT
with fatigue and it’s getting on towards evening, we decide to camp right here. The night is cool with the promise of autumn in the air. We eat a cold dinner of bread, hard-boiled eggs, and apples. Leaning back against my makeshift bed, I watch the stars appear. Their light glows bright against the darkness of the sky. It reminds me of the evening when Gunther Shifted the first time for us. I can almost hear the silvery music and see them dance and swirl in tune. I sigh deeply.