This Is Where I Want To Be

204. Attempted Rescue

Juliet

I sat beside an oasis, trying to catch my breath. I still had to run all the way back to the village. It was one of the more beautiful spots they had in the desert. It was one of the bigger ones, with massive trees and different fauna growing around the water source. The water snaked into high sandy dunes. The wind was blowing, and the trees swayed from side to side. I wasn’t as attentive as I should have been. Especially after the last time Charlene and I decided to relax. I also didn’t hear anything strange. I felt a few water droplets on my neck and slowly wiped them away, turning my head. A snarling mouth with lips pulled up, snappy white teeth glistened in the light, and a low growl from a chest.

I rolled forward through the water, and the wolf dove at me. My short blade was in my hand. I sliced over its chest as I rolled out from under it. The yelp was distinctive. The wolf was slow and untrained. She turned into a vampire and sat back on her heels in the water, a giant lash across her chest. I stepped back, “Who are you?”

“I need your help.” Her accent was so distinctly Asian it was hard for her to speak.

“That’s not really how one asks for help.”

“I’m sorry…” She fumbled with her words. “My…” She tapped her chest. I didn’t know how we would cross the language barrier.

“Your partner?”

She nodded.

“You tried a branding, and it worked.”

She nodded.

“My English not so good. My partner…”

“He can speak English. Well, that sucks… Where is…” The realization dawned. Michael. Charlene. I strutted over and pulled her up. She was dead weight in my arms. “Come, you got to get up,” I grunted, trying to get her to at least attempt to stand.

“Tired.”

“You’ve been jumping planets the whole night. Well great. You’re our ride that way.” I pointed. “It’s two hours walking or an hour running.”

“No... Too tired.”

I kicked at the water. No wonder my husbands were being so attentive. It seemed it was time I went back. Whether they were ready for it or not. I had turned my back to her for a second. It was my second mistake of the day. We were traveling. We landed… somewhere. I didn’t have time to assess or take stock of our surroundings. She was pretending to be useless. At that moment, she countered all my strikes and pursuits. Grappled like a master and almost had me a few times. What she didn’t know was that I could disappear. It caught her off guard. I could also stay with her while she teleported, anticipating her thoughts, sinking my nails into her skin. Glad that I had some sessions with Sylvanus over the last few months. As I fought with her, everything Marcus had done made sense. He knew this moment would come, just like with Michael. He was always one step ahead of me.

She was not fighting to subdue me or get me to surrender. She was out for blood. I disappeared. Her eyes darted in every direction, frantically looking for where I could be. I came back from my invisibility and popped the red blade knife open. The friction of the stone against its metal sheath was enough friction for it to activate. She dived at me. I jumped and made a forward roll over her to be positioned behind her, disappearing again. She was swearing in some language, transformed into a wolf, and stood staring at me. A quick learner. It would be an opportunity. I came back from my invisibility and cut her across the face. She was stuck as a wolf, circling herself when she couldn’t go Riphath and run. “I made two mistakes. You made too many.”

Nevertheless, she came at me. She couldn’t speak to me, so I figured we were either on Earth, Zoreah, or any of the other planets we didn’t know about where wolves could not talk during their manifestation. We were fighting again. She didn’t know what to do in her wolf form. Her body was too long to turn quickly with my movements, too unbalanced standing up on her thin back legs. She would bite, and I would hit her face as she came at me. Not trained in her manifestation but only in human. I had gotten on her back. Her instincts would make her fall on her side. I would take my short blade in hand and drive it into her heart. Her breath gurgled. She spasmed as I was trying to get my leg out from under her. I disappeared and slipped out. Her tongue was hanging out of her mouth as she tried to hold on to life. I bent down and stroked her face. Not wanting her to die alone. “Don’t worry. He will die with you. May your decisions bring you peace.” She closed her eyes, and that was it.

***

Chris

It was a mission handling all the teleportations from Mirach. Jessy was in control of all comings and goings. It was more controlled than ever, and distribution alone was a full-time job. That was what I had been doing those last few months. I had to feed our islands. I was the one who had to find a planet for water and figure out how to get it from one planet to another. It had been educational. I had fought some of the small fights that would ensue. It was more of an alert, and then we needed to do damage control.

Although we were not allowed on Earth, they begged us to come and help that last week. So, us being there would not be an interplanetary incident. Not anymore. Michael and Caleb were busy the whole time and had discovered precisely what Fahan could do with the teleporters. But Ian was using Fahan, and we didn’t even know they had any coordinates for Earth. Let alone enough to invade. We guessed Soren was responsible for that. The three of us were cautious when we appeared at the diner near the barracks. We would walk around invisible. Each one a hand clutching my son’s arm.

Fahan and Ian didn’t have the forethought to put someone in charge to know who was coming and going. We believed we were moving around undetected. What Michael had said before he passed out was, “tunnel under Agatha’s house.” So, were we supposed to find Carl in a maze of tunnels. But we also figured Ian would set up base at the compound. It was a place that was already prepared. It would make it even more difficult.

The three of us had to walk from the diner to the turnoff towards the compound. “What if we miss him. They might not be there anymore.” Caleb asked.

“Carl is locked up in a cage… We don’t have a choice. So Liam, how do you want to do this?”

“Option one is going to the gate. Wait till someone opens it. Do Recon. Go through the house and figure out how Rodrigo had access.”

“Second option?”

“Is the gorge.”

“The gorge?”

“The tunnels lead out to the gorge through a gate. And before you blame me for not getting my daughter out that way. You will see it’s almost impossible. And Jessy’s father was in charge of the gorge and all the outside activities. If he couldn’t get his own daughter out. You can hardly blame me for propelling my fourteen-year-old daughter down a rope and hoping no one would be waiting at the entrance. And even if we got out the other way, it’s a desert. The compound had helicopters and an army. We had a roll call every day and guards walking around.”

“So, how the hell do you want us to get in there?”

“Carefully. Look here. We either follow the road or walk another ten k and a two-day hike to the entrance of those tunnels. Because it’s not smooth sailing in the gorge.”

“Like Caleb said, we don’t want to miss him. They would never go into the compound. So it has to be the gorge and hope and pray they don’t choose one of the deserts on either side.”

“You’re right. Even Lyla should have figured getting the hell out would be in her best interest. Let’s start walking. You know… how do four grown men get themselves in such a mess? Captured by a little girl.”

“Sounds familiar,” Caleb said.

Two hours later, we were nearing the turnoff into the gorge. We walked off the road and followed what looked like nothing. Liam swearing it was that way. A car was parked and camouflaged by a little hill and trees from the road. “Convenient.”

“If the keys are inside.”

“They’re not here.” Caleb was searching every place someone might have left some keys.

I felt above the front tires. “Pop the trunk.” It slowly made its ascend. “There is nothing in here.”

“I found something.” Caleb was feeling the floor of the back seats. He held up a packet. “It says dog treats.”

“Well then, this is Nevin’s “get into the compound car.””

“Come on. We have to go.” Liam said.

“Liam, we are not geared up for a two-day hike there.”

“You should have said that before we chose the gorge. So now, you’ll do it. Caleb and I will wait here.”

“What if they have surveillance in there.”

“Does it matter?”

“Suppose not. Fine.”

I was making good time, and it wasn’t so difficult if you could see the surface you needed to land on. The gorge wasn’t as tricky to maneuver through as they had said. I had seen worse on Zoreah. The gate came into view. I took in the surroundings. Earth had bombed the compound. Ian might not even be there anymore. I wondered how Ian proposed to attack the Earth? With their swords drawn? How long did it take Qadir to figure out how to make us bend.

A noise made me step back into the darkness of the tunnel. Two dragons came flying overhead. “That was one way.” But still, Fahan and his teammates would never be able to survive a bombing or rapid fire on flying targets. What had happened?

I smelled blood. It was getting dark, and had to hunch down to investigate. There were tiny droplets on the ground leading out into the gorge. Carl had made it out.

The dragon’s disappeared. I decided to go deeper into the darkness. The first steel door on my left was open. There was a backpack on the ground. “We wouldn’t be that lucky.” I rummaged. “It’s all camping gear.” I went through every pocket to see if I couldn’t find the keys. Nothing.

Well, no point in standing around. If I were Carl, I would not have scaled the blown-up part of the gorge. With Fahan there, cover was the best option. I traveled slowly back to the car. Six sets of footprints were running at a brisk pace. Caleb touched me. “Carl is out. I found blood. Their footprints are still fresh. We must’ve just missed them.” I followed the tracks down the road. They had tried to stay off the road. “Good man, Carl.” I teleported back. “They got in a car.”

“What was the boy thinking? Where would they go?”

“It’s not that they had a plan. Ian is here. Fahan is flying around. The Barracks must be full of his men. I guess Ian found the tunnels. It looks like Earth bombed the compound. We should get out of here. They could be anywhere by now.”

Liam reluctantly agreed, and the three of us went back to En-gannim.

***

Carl

The six of us were in the back of a truck. It rattled and jerked over every bump in the road. It was old and had those wood slates on the sides that farmers would use to transport hay or small livestock. Lyla was asleep against my shoulder. It had been a grueling two days, but we had made it out in record time. Jack didn’t let up and pushed us through the day and night. We had run the whole time, and Lyla had surprisingly kept up. Oh, she did complain and fall down. The rest of us had just ignored her. If we had to climb and get over a rocky part. The girls were pushed over first and yelled at to keep running. We would soon catch up, and so it went. Before the sun came up, we had reached the road. Jack had decided that we would hike in the opposite direction. It wasn’t like Ian could patrol the streets. A farmer had seen us, and we got on. I had no idea where we were headed or what awaited us. The boys were quiet. It had been months of being caged up, and it had taken its toll on us. All I could do was close my eyes and nudge on Charlene, out there somewhere. If they knew I was still alive. I believed they would come for me.

The man driving the truck was not very communicative. He had not asked one question or offered an answer to ours. It was frustrating. I would have loved to put on a TV or take my phone out. I did fall asleep at one point and woke up as the truck came to a bumpy stop. The man got out and stepped around the truck to open the makeshift gate for us. “I live down there. You have to get out.” Jack was the first to descend. He gave the man one hell of a punch, and his body dropped to the ground. “He shouldn’t have told us where he lives,” Jack said. Warden picked him up and tossed him in the back. Jack closed the gate, and the two got into the front. Jack turned onto the gravel road leading into a deserted farm area. Dogs came running up to the gate, and the man started to stir. James and I had bound his hands and feet like we were accustomed to.

He was told to call off his dogs and tell us if anyone else was on the lot. He swore there wasn’t. He was at least telling the truth. Once in the house, the group dispersed, each finding a water source. I dunked my face into handfuls of water. I probably smelled like a pig sty. Jack opened the fridge and pulled out whatever was on hand. Warden and the girls were getting anything they would deem food, and we stuffed our faces with dry bread dipped in jam and fruit. Jack put a pan on and threw a steak in. He cut it up and gave us each a piece while we each drank the beer we had in hand.

The spot where Jack had hit Lyla had cut her lip. She had two dirty wounds that had to be looked at. I rummaged through the bathroom and hall cabinets until I found the man’s tub of emergency medicine. “Come, Lyla.”

She had taken the last sip of her beer and placed the bottle on the table. I led her to the bathroom and pushed her into the shower. I closed the curtain and told her to get clean. She handed her clothes to me. I went outside to shake them out and let them air for a while. It was the best that we could do.

Jack was on the phone. Warden and Jacklin were discussing what would happen with the Earth. Jack shook his head. “It’s dead. It’s all dead. The man says nothing works. No TV. No Phones.” James made his way past me into another room. I heard another shower going.

Lyla was sitting on the toilet with a towel wrapped around her breasts. It barely covered what it needed to. She fumbled with the towel to push it in between her legs. I reached for another one and tossed it at her. She laid it over her legs and relaxed. I was busy with the disinfectant and pulling skin together with plasters. She complained a few times. “You’re not going to talk to me, are you.”

“As soon as I’m able. I’m out of here. I don’t know why I didn’t leave. I thought I could stop you. So much for that idea. I still don’t know how you did it.”

“It’s easy if you have a network all over the world.”

“Jacklin with resources.”

“Yes, it was a bonus when you guys left, and she found me.”

“That’s how you got involved with the infected vamps.” She bobbed her head. I finished with the cut on her lip, dabbing some ointment and getting up off my haunches. “Have you spoken to your parents? They must be really proud of you.”

“I don’t know if you mean that as an insult. But did it help? I think so. For a time. I never thought your people would lose the war on En-gannim.”

“It doesn’t mean we did. I don’t know what happened.”

“Do you know who Soren is?”

“Soren! Yes… why?”

“Well then, there you go.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“He did. And is… was seen in every video of Ian in some fight. They were so clever about it, too. First, they attacked the major Capital cities. Every country was hit at the same time. Who knew they had bombs. The vamps would place one down and travel a thousand miles away. The power went. The communication went.”

“And then?”

“En-gannim seems to have more advanced things than we do. We have guns. They have the equipment to stop anything from flying. No electronics. No radio waves. No navigation. They fought with gas masks on and launched surprise attacks on military bases… Looks like someone knows more about Earth than even we do.”

“So no tanks or aerial attacks… No boats… We have a new ruler. Thought you said we would win.”

“There is nothing as bad as surprise attacks when you’re asleep. The enemy is fast, and the other is bulletproof. And when you get your wits together, they’re not there anymore. The worst is that it didn’t unify us like I thought it would. It became a fight for survival and fighting from the border inward. Every country is focused on themselves and saving their own skins. It’s not like we can ask China for help when they are busy with their own fight… No way to get together anyway.”

“Means Ian put a lot of feet on the ground.”

“Yes. Destroying major roads and food sources. Poisoning our water… Are you really just going to leave? You don’t have any patriotic duty in your bones.”

“What like you? No, sorry. I have been through too much to know what is important in life.”

“And that is?”

“To choose my regrets. Would I regret walking away and letting you decide what happens to Earth?”

“Not anymore,” Lyla answered for me.

“Not anymore.”

“I didn’t count the cost.” She said, lowering her head.

“No, you didn’t. But like Soren, choosing the wrong side happens at the matter of one decision. One press of a button for some personal goal.”

“She always makes calculated decisions. Doesn’t she.”

I had to laugh. “Juliet! No. Hell no. Her list of regrets is a mile long… But if you live like her, you must be sure you can live with yourself first. She is, unfortunately, very determined to make her own choices. Much like you, I suppose… But when it comes to her family. Once you cross that line and you’re in... It’s a matter of “I have enough bail money.”

Lyla was thinking. “Lyla. Juliet is not your enemy. She is just a girl who grew up in crappy circumstances, with too many traumatic scenarios to count. Fighting her way through the galaxy to find a home that would accept her for who she is. And to make four husbands happy.”

Lyla smiled. It dropped as soon as it came. “Carl. I made a mistake.”

“I know you did. I told you to go home.” I left her there to go get her clothes. I was worried all around. Charlene would come face to face with an Ittoqure at some point. En-gannim and Earth were being attacked. We had been in cages for four months. At that point, all I saw was being stuck in that house. Nowhere to go. I walked back to the bathroom. “Here. Go get dressed in the bedroom. I need a shower.” She was almost at the door. “Hey, where is your dog?”

Lyla burst into tears. Her hands had sprung up to cover her face. I sighed, walking over and wrapped her in my arms.

***

Marcus

We were in the lab cooking up our brew for our extraction. It was fun doing something creative for a change. A change of pace. My head lifted, and I had to stand back. “Mum.”

Agatha [ Juliet is not back ]

A chill began in my gut and spread over my arms, settling in my heart. It was an involuntary feeling. I had not felt anything in a long time. I was still very angry with Juliet. Nothing I did wanted to break down the resentment that had fixed in my heart. Four months had meant nothing. I couldn’t even touch her. Had to force myself to greet her. She had taken away some of my excitement with the baby coming. Our war would’ve been over. I would’ve had my time with her. I wanted to show her the house I had built for us.

Louis walked past me, bringing me back to reality. We followed him out of the room. He was on his way to the holding cells. Totally creature-proof and teleportation-proof. Louis slowly stepped forward and peeked into the cubicle. I joined him, and my mum and Samuel came to stand next to me. “He’s dead,” I said and was somewhat relieved. Although I couldn’t conjure up my emotions for her. I didn’t want her to die. All of us die? We were bound until death. At that moment, I didn’t understand the brandings at all or love. Any of it. “How could she? What about Michael? She didn’t know he’s not on Earth… And Earth?” Louis turned around, and we followed again to the infirmary. Michael’s vitals were sound. “How did she know?”

Agatha turned to me. [ I was trying to tell you she has not come back. Jessy already went looking for her. He knows where she goes, and he’s been there and back. If the woman took her. She will be stuck ]

I had too much on my plate to worry about Juliet. Felt I had done enough to prepare her for what would come. Chris, Caleb, and Liam came into the room. “Chris. Juliet is somewhere. You’re up.” I said.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. Nothing. “Are you doing it right?” Caleb asked.

“Really?!”

“She did say there would be consequences.” Caleb went on.

“Not that. Please not that. I’ve tried it before. It worked.”

“Maybe she’s in a different galaxy, and you’re too far,” Michael mumbled. We all turned to him.

“It’s over space and time. I don’t think the distance is the problem.” Chris retorted.

“Well… now we have two missing kids on our hands,” Liam said.

“I guess you didn’t find Carl,” I asked.

“At least we know neither of them is dead,” Chris answered.

“Did you go see Romero last night?" Michael asked.

“No… The doctor to help me sleep.”

We all sighed and made frustrated noises. “You’re right, Marcus. We have to get off that planet. How Romero ever fell in love with Charlene in the first place is beyond me.” Louis said, irritated.

“Maybe that’s why you guys have not cared so much. Juliet was so quiet? Well, you got your time, Louis. But now. Now we do something.” Chris looked pointedly at me.

“Chris, that is not what’s going on. Well, not all of it.” I rubbed at my brow out of frustration. “Come. We need to talk. All be on the same page. We were just hatching up a plan.” I didn’t want to discuss our family dynamic at that moment. I had to stay focused. She asked me to fix the mistake she had made. But her one mistake had caused a million others.