Undone

I was loaded into the jeep again, this time in the back, with an escort who kept his gun aimed steadily at me.

I had no strength to escape, and, in fact, this time I did not see the advantage in doing so. Below in the camp, there might be medical treatment, rest, and the possibility of finding Isabel. Drawing power from a Warden, maybe even Luis.

The forest held nothing for me now but death, and while that didn’t frighten me as much as I’d expected, I did not intend to die a failure.

It offended me that after such a long, powerful life, I should end it with a mortal whimper of defeat.

My interior turmoil had manifested itself in tensed muscles and clenched fists, although I had not realized it until the soldier aiming at my head said, “Stop moving or bullet in the head.”

I sighed and relaxed.

The compound was, in fact, larger than I had expected. It had taken time, money, and hard labor to raise the structures and walls. They had learned from their ancestors, I saw—clear open space all around the perimeter fence, where nothing grew, not even grass. I wondered if they used an Earth Warden to tend that barren ground.

The towers evenly spaced around the wall held armed guards—not a surprise, given the convoy that accompanied me. As we traveled into the white glow of the lights, I studied my captor closely. He was nondescript. Medium build, medium coloring that might have owed its origins to any race or country. He wore unmarked camouflage fatigues and sturdy black boots. No jewelry, no markings of any kind, even on the uniform.

“Get your eyes off me,” he said. “Or—”

“Bullet in the head,” I finished. “You can stop repeating yourself.”

He smiled, very slightly, and with no trace of humor. “I don’t think so. I think you need the reminder. I will kill you.”

“I have no doubt.”

I turned my attention outward, to where the massive metal gates were slowly opening to allow us passage. Like any good security system, it controlled the flow of traffic, so the gate behind us closed before the one ahead opened, leaving us vulnerable and exposed in the no-man’s-land between.

I wondered how I might be able to make use of that. Nothing came to mind, but I was weak, sick, in pain, and had a simmering level of anger that seemed to impair my thinking to a remarkable degree.

The next gate creaked open. Hydraulics, I thought. I could work with hydraulics, perhaps.

Just not at the moment.

The guard opened his mouth as I shifted. “Bullet in the head, yes, I know,” I said. “Do try to aim for the center of my skull. I would hate to be left clinging to life and force you to waste a second shot.”

He shut up.

Inside the compound, the streets were clean and logically organized. Not a soul walked on those pristine streets, though I saw curtains and blinds twitch as we drove past houses and barracks-style buildings with a roar of engines. There was relatively little in the way of greenery, except for a park in the center of the community, with a few tall pines and grass.

Ah. And a playground. I saw the swings, slides, and sandboxes. More proof, as if I needed it, that whatever went on in this military-style outpost, it involved children.

Beyond the park, another building glimmered—not like the others. Pearly white, almost organic in its lines. I only saw it in glimpses, but what I saw disquieted me. There was something that raised echoes inside me, from long ago.

Something that did not belong here.

The jeep came to a halt in front of a nondescript concrete building. “Don’t move,” my guard said as he climbed out of the vehicle. He never took his eyes away from me. Wisely, he didn’t come within my reach, only kept his weapon trained steadily on me while two other soldiers pulled me from the seat and—however unsteadily—upright. I did not offer resistance, or much in the way of assistance, either, since I could hardly manage to walk at the moment.

The concrete building was a prison, and inside were individual cells, reinforced to the strength of vaults. That, I thought, was designed to prevent the use of Warden powers, but no matter how massive the door, there were always smaller fault points to be found. It was difficult keeping an Earth Warden chained. . . .

I sensed a familiar power signature, and my head, which had been slowly drooping, rose with a snap. “Luis?”

He was in the first vault we passed. I saw the familiar flash of his brown eyes through the narrow slot in the door as we passed. “Cassiel?” His voice sounded slow and uncertain. “You okay?”

“No,” I said.

Knowing he was here and alive filled me with a water-sweet relief I had not expected. They locked me into a room next to Luis’s cell, and it was grim indeed—plain, seamless floor, plain walls, a stainless steel toilet in the corner, a sink with a water tap. A rolled mattress in the corner.

Nothing else. Nothing at all.

They had not removed the restraints, which begged the baffling question of how they expected me to make use of any of the lavish facilities they’d provided, until I heard the ponderous movement of the locking mechanism rattle, and an Earth Warden stepped into the room.

She was tall, severe, with short brown hair and a pinched mouth, a sharply unpleasant expression that seemed to find me and all I stood for—whatever that might be—in utter contempt. She wore a standard olive green jumpsuit, which fastened with snaps in the front; again, curiously, there was no insignia to be seen. I had always thought humans were compelled to self-identify.

She dropped a neatly packaged bundle to the floor and made a twirling gesture with one finger. “Turn around.” I did, a full shuffling turn, coming back to face her. She rolled her eyes. “No, idiot, put your back to me.”

 “Then be precise,” I said.

Once I had my back to her, she advanced with a few quick, light steps, and I felt the plastic straps holding my wrists part with a snap. She stepped away again, holding the remains of my restraints. “All right,” she said. “Strip. Everything comes off.”

If this was a human effort to make me feel awkward or humiliated, it was doomed to failure. The only issue I found with stripping naked was that it was difficult to bend and stretch without waking new waves of agony from my side. Once I’d managed it—she did not offer help—the Warden walked closer again.

“Raise your arm,” she said, and bent to examine the wound in my side. “Nasty. One of our little pets do that to you?”

“Pets,” I echoed.

“Rejects,” she said. “We still find a use for them. Hold still.”

She did not say, This will hurt, because I suspected she didn’t care. I braced myself against the wall with my other palm, trying desperately not to whimper at the acid wash of agony as she poked and prodded.

At length, she seemed satisfied. “You’ve got an infection in there,” she said. “Damage to your liver, nicked a couple of blood vessels. I’ll fix the worst of it. Try not to scream.”

She put her hand over the wound, and I learned that not all Earth Wardens who could heal should. She seemed to have little knowledge of how much pain she caused, and cared even less. In the end, I couldn’t stop the scream. It felt as if she had filled the wound track with boiling lava.

Once she’d exacted the price of the scream—which, I realized, she’d been waiting for—the Warden closed up the cut and stepped back to admire her handiwork. It wasn’t neat: A hand-sized patch of reddened, blistered skin, and a knotted scar. “You should consider training,” I said. She hadn’t given me any power through the contact, hadn’t so much as replenished my lost blood supplies. Her healing had, in fact, left me weaker, not stronger, and I believed that was exactly her intent. She’d left me in a position that I would not sicken and die, but I’d be too weak to present an effective threat.