Sophie Littlefield - Unforsaken

“Tá mé mol seo draíocht,” I whispered, my lips trembling with the ancient words, and before I could draw another breath, the voices joined in, stronger than before, a chorus that wound up and down a beautiful dark scale, a harmony that only I could hear.

I gave in to the voices, but not before I tightened my fingers on Bryce’s ruined flesh. I felt his body spasm with agony, but I held on.

“Na anam an corp cara ár comhoibrí…”

I saw nothing. The room fell away, and we were alone, me and Bryce and the ancients, my ancestors whose voices encouraged and strengthened me. Misgiving left me first, and then doubt, and finally pain; I felt nothing at all except for the energy flowing between my fingertips and Bryce. Other voices twined with the chant, speaking words I did not know: a man’s voice, sure and gentle, and a woman’s soft murmur in answer. I understood that they were the most ancient, the ones who had been there at the beginning. The original Banished were beside me, within me, guiding me, and in that moment I knew that they would be with me for the rest of my life.

And then I felt Bryce respond.

Just a tiny little tic, a blip in the flow of energy, but I’d felt it. I started the chant one last time, from the beginning, and as I spoke the words clear and strong, the other voices faded away, one by one, until the only one left was mine. I felt sorrow for their absence as my body returned to me. My vision flickered and I was aware of Kaz next to me, and there was a part of me that longed to follow the voices into the past, into a place that time and death could not reach, where I would be with my ancestors forever.

Then I heard Kaz whisper my name and I returned. I finished the verse and lifted my hands from Bryce, letting my exhausted body fall into Kaz’s arms. As my vision cleared, I saw Bryce tremble and then go still. His flesh crackled with energy, his body sealing over the fissures on its own, repairing the cracked and blackened tissues, bursting forth with new cells.

I had done it. I had healed the man who’d tried to kill me and Prairie, the man who’d come closer to pure evil than anyone else I had met. Our struggles were far from over, and we were still in great danger.

But I had used my gift and used it well.

I FELT STRONG ARMS AROUND ME and I knew that Kaz would not let me falter. He held me as I watched Bryce’s tremors slowly subsiding. I couldn’t judge how far Bryce had come, but he was better. His eyes no longer quivered in their sockets; he licked his restored lips; his exposed neck showed pink areas where healing appeared in the sheen of the flesh.

“Are you all right?” Kaz demanded.

I nodded. I felt fine-better, in fact, than I had before I touched Bryce. “We need to go.”

“Yeah. Look, Safian, we’re out of here. It’s gonna hurt like hell and we can’t be dragging all this crap along, so you’re just going to have to hope that what Hailey did was enough.”

I pushed Kaz gently away. I could stand on my own, and I was ready to run on my own, and fast. I had no idea how much longer we had before someone figured out what we were up to and came after us.

“We need a laptop.”

“You heard her,” Kaz said to Dr. Grace, who had been watching with a combination of fascination and horror. He handed me the gun and started shoving the equipment away from Bryce’s bed, yanking out the tubes and peeling back the gauze from his body to free the IVs in his arms.

I kept the gun pointed at Dr. Grace while I scanned the room, spotting a laptop sitting on a desk crowded with papers. The program open on the screen made no sense to me, a chart with dozens of data points and a lot of scientific language along the bottom-but that didn’t matter.

“I’m guessing this is password protected, right?” I asked Dr. Grace. “But I bet you have an override.”

She shook her head. “No, sorry, I-”

Something in me snapped. My new strength was accompanied by an impatience that bordered on rage. We hadn’t been through this much only to stop now. I pointed the gun directly at Dr. Grace’s heart and said, “Try again. I’m not as patient as he is.”

Reluctantly she went to the computer and typed a quick series of keystrokes. “I disabled password protection,” she said.

“Launch the browser.”

She did so, and when I was satisfied that it worked, I snapped the laptop shut and tucked it under my arm.

“So you don’t need me now,” Dr. Grace said. “I’ve given you the password, and you have Bryce. Go, and I’ll stay here, and I promise I won’t sound the alarm. You can even lock me in here, and by the time they find me, you’ll be long gone.”

“Nice try,” Kaz snapped. “But you’re coming with us. Just in case we run into any trouble with the computer.”

“I don’t know anything more about the programs than I just showed you,” she protested.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” I said sarcastically, but I didn’t mention the other plan I had for her. Once we had destroyed the data, I was going to make Dr. Grace help us free Chub.

“Let’s go,” Kaz said, rolling Bryce’s hospital bed away from the wall. Bryce had quieted down, and I could see perspiration on his face, on the skin that looked almost human again.

“Take us to your car,” Kaz ordered Dr. Grace.

“I don’t have a-”

I pulled her keys out and shook them in her face. I had noticed the logo on one of them. “It’s an Audi, Dr. Grace. Does that refresh your memory? And do you really want to take your chances with me now that you know how easily I can put you out?”

She shook her head, fear showing in her eyes.

“So why don’t you tell me about your car?”

“It’s a… uh, an A4. White.”

“That’s better,” I said, pocketing the keys again.

“I know I don’t need to tell you this,” Kaz said, “but take us by whatever route passes the fewest people.”

Dr. Grace nodded, and after I checked to make sure the hall was empty, she led us through a part of the building I hadn’t yet seen. We took an elevator down two floors to a subbasement, the cinder-block walls and concrete floors lit by fluorescent lights, and after another brief walk, we took a freight elevator back up and paused in front of a set of double doors.

“This leads to the garage,” Dr. Grace said. “Go ahead.”

I turned Dr. Grace’s key in the lock and was getting ready to push when Kaz stopped me.

“No. Wait. How do we know it’s really the garage? She could have brought us anywhere.”

I stared at the doors, the freshly painted surfaces, the gleaming hardware and realized that Kaz had a point.

I rolled Bryce’s bed backward, away from the door, but while Kaz hesitated, Dr. Grace threw herself at the doors and they crashed open, revealing a windowless room where three men worked at desks. In a fraction of a second, they bolted from their chairs and reached for their weapons. One hit the floor and rolled, and another fired at the doorframe, sending splinters flying.

“Get them!” Dr. Grace yelled, but we were already on the move. Kaz shoved her from behind, propelling her into the room, and I threw the doors shut. I heard a scream on the other side and realized that Dr. Grace had been hit.

Kaz yanked the bed linens off Bryce, revealing his wasted body in a hospital gown, and muttered “Sorry” before lifting Bryce over his shoulder. I flinched when Bryce cried out from the pain.

“Come on!” Kaz yelled, and we dashed back down the hall, the laptop heavy under my arm. We rounded a corner and saw that the freight elevator was still waiting with open doors, and we threw ourselves into it and I jabbed at the Close button. In seconds we were descending again.