“Okay… that makes sense.” When he wasn’t scowling or grimacing, he looked about eighteen to me.
I wheeled him down the corridor toward the spare bedrooms before finally reaching our destination. My pulse was racing stupidly fast as I reached for the handle and pushed the door open.
As I pushed him inside, my eyes were glued to his face. His first reaction was to frown as he gazed around at the elaborate setup I had worked hard on yesterday. And then he looked up at me, cocking his head to one side and raising a brow.
“This is… for me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, beaming. “All for you. For as long as you’re with us.”
His hands slipped to the wheels of his chair and he moved himself forward on a tour of the room. He eyed each of the apparatuses closely. He reached out a hand and grazed his fingers over two of the smallest weights. Then he looked out of the main window. It was low enough that he could comfortably see through it while seated, and it was broad enough to be able to get a breathtaking view, even when standing on the other end of the room. And we were so high up that if one blocked out the walls from one’s vision, one would almost feel like they were flying.
“Thank you, Grace,” he said. “When you said surprise, I… really didn’t expect this.”
He returned to the pair of small weights that he had touched earlier. Although they had been the lightest and smallest in the whole of the school’s gym, they weighed down his arms instantly as he picked them up. It looked like it was a legitimate effort to even bring them up to his lap.
But I did not even consider going to help him. This was his playground now. I would be here with him to make sure that he wasn’t putting himself at risk of any serious damage, but otherwise, I wanted him to feel like he was completely on his own here. Free to do whatever he wanted. His fingers tightening around the two weights, his face scrunched, but slowly, he raised them up over his head. They dropped down swiftly, but he pushed them up again and again.
Then he rested, letting out a breath.
I went to fetch some water for him, and by the time I had returned, he had resumed lifting.
“I thought that you could come here in the mornings,” I said as I handed him a glass of water. “I thought it would be more fun than wheeling up and down that same old corridor.” Taking a swig from my own glass of water, I set it down before moving over to the MP3 player. I had no idea what kind of music he might like. I just played the first song that was on there, a pop song.
He didn’t seem to pay much attention to the music, however. In fact, he barely even registered the sound. After he’d finished drinking, I took the glass from him and he continued his gentle exercises.
Rather than just sitting here, I decided to join him. I absolutely abhorred working out in a gym, in truth. I found it mind-numbingly boring, even with my favorite songs blasting in the background. I preferred to jog, walk or climb. But it made sense that I accompany Josh now.
I didn’t fancy weights, but there was a machine thingy that looked fairly interesting. Machine thingy. That spoke of how much I visited the gym. I needed to consult my notes to remind myself what it was called. I lay down on the backrest before reaching up and grabbing handles. I pulled them downward, feeling the muscles in my upper arms burn.
I’d barely pulled down three times when Josh commented, “You’re doing that wrong.”
I let go of the handles like they’d turned iron-hot and stared at him.
He had put down his own weights and was moving over to me. His face was serious, his eyes squinting in concentration, as he eyed the apparatus I was resting on.
“You were craning your neck every time you pulled downwards,” he went on. “You shouldn’t do that. You could hurt yourself.”
I was still staring at him. He was awfully knowledgeable about this for a man who had no memory.
“You must’ve learnt that somewhere,” I remarked.
He nodded thoughtfully, running a tongue over his lower lip. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose I must have.”
His age, and now this… I wondered how many other memories were just bubbling beneath the surface, waiting to be uncovered. The fact that he had suggested that I call him Josh so quickly made me wonder whether that had actually been his name… or perhaps the name of somebody he had once known.
Maybe with time, he will heal by himself. The drugs or whatever else the hunters had inflicted on him might simply fade away. That was a hopeful thought. I hoped not unrealistically hopeful.
“Well,” I said, “let me try again and you can tell me if I’m doing that thing with my neck.”
I retook my hold around the handles and pulled downward, this time making a concerted effort not to strain my neck muscles.
“Better,” he muttered. Then he paused again, staring at my hands wrapped around the handles. “Though,” he remarked, “your wrists don’t look right.” Reaching up, he grasped my wrists and straightened them. I realized only now that I had been bending them at a weird angle when I’d pulled downward. I really was clueless at this.
“Thanks,” I said.
I tried again, and this time, Josh approved. He watched me continue before returning to his own weights and picking them up again.
I exercised for about another ten minutes before I got fed up. Around the same time exhaustion took its toll on Josh. He set down the weights and leaned back in his chair. He reached for the blankets wrapped around him and cast them aside.
I handed him some more water, which he drank readily. Then I wondered, “Are you hungry, by any chance?”
“Hm,” he said. “You know… I think I am.”
That was certainly an improvement. “Come with me and I’ll cook something for you.”
I waited for a second to see if his arms moved to his chair’s wheels, to gauge whether he wanted to move himself, but since he didn’t, I moved behind him and pushed him to the kitchen.
“Is there anything in particular you want to eat?” I asked. “Do you have any idea what you like?”
He shrugged. “Just… whatever you’ve got, I’ll try it.”
“I think you should try eating something solid for a change. If you throw up, then, well, you throw up.”
“All right…”
I wasn’t great at cooking. Really not great. Usually when my parents were away, I visited my grandmother for main meals. My mom also packed up meals for me and put them in the freezer so I could take them out and heat them up when I wanted to stay at home to eat. But now that I had a guest, I was feeling a little more adventurous. Unwisely so.
I looked in the fridge and saw that we had all the ingredients needed for omelets. And so began my endeavor. Unfortunately, I ended up burning the first two, but the third one came out all right. At least, it came out looking all right.
I flopped it onto a plate and put it in front of him before reaching for a bottle of ketchup and a tube of brown sauce. I set them down on the table. He picked up the ketchup and squirted a bit on his plate before cutting up a piece of omelet and dunking it in the sauce. He put it into his mouth and chewed slowly, tentatively, as if afraid of what he might taste.
Then, to my dismay, his face took on an expression of quiet disgust. He didn’t mean to be rude to me, I was sure. But I’d cooked bad meals enough times for enough people to detect when somebody wasn’t enjoying what I had put in front of them.
“You don’t like it, do you?” I said. “You can be honest with me. I promise I won’t get offended.”
He stopped chewing and furrowed his brows, looking down at his plate. “I, uh, don’t think it’s the omelet. There is nothing much to dislike about it—it’s rather bland. What’s really pretty unpleasant… it’s this stuff.” He poked his fork at the tomato sauce and curled his nose. “Ketchup.”
Aha. That I had cooked food that was merely bland was actually a compliment by my standards. “Why don’t you try this brown sauce instead?”
He poured a few drops onto his plate a
nd tried it. But he didn’t like that any better. Not a ketchup or condiment fan in general, it seems. I was the total opposite. I loved ketchup. When I was a kid, my mother used to joke that I ate more ketchup than fries. I had a sweet tooth in general.
After a few more bites of pure, “bland” omelet, Josh seemed to change his mind about it. He set aside his fork, admitting defeat.
“Do you want something else?” I asked. “How about cheese on toast?” That’s British, isn’t it? “Or I can see what’s left of the frozen food my mom left…”
“I’ll try your cheese on toast,” he replied.
“Okay,” I said, half chuckling. I took away his plate and fixed him some good old cheese on toast, after adding a bit of dried oregano to it to make it a bit more flavorsome. He had a better time eating that. My main concern was not so much how much he enjoyed the food, but the fact that he was able to hold it down at all. He finished two whole pieces of toast, and after ten minutes, he was still showing no sign of vomiting.
Taking away his empty plate, I was about to suggest that he try a small piece of strawberry pie that we had in the refrigerator when a deafening explosion rocked through the apartment. I dropped the plate, my heart shooting to my throat.
It sounded like… a bomb. Josh’s eyes were wide with shock and confusion.
And then came another explosion, even more deafening than the last. “Oh, my God!” I gasped, clutching my ears and wincing.
What is going on?
I rushed to the window. In the distance, hovering somewhere above the Port, were swarms of black, wasp-like helicopters. The sky above The Shade’s boundary was choked with smoke, and as yet another deafening boom thundered down on the island’s protective barrier, blinding light flashed. Bombs. They were dropping bombs onto our barrier. What the heck?
I raced back to Josh and clutched his shoulders, hoping to reassure him. “Everything’s going to be okay, all right?” I said hurriedly.
“What is that?” he breathed.
“The IBSI. The same bastards who took you captive. They are raining down explosives, but don’t worry. Try as they might, there’s no way they can penetrate our island… You just wait here. I’m going to go and see what’s happening, and I’ll come right back to you.”
I didn’t even give him a chance to respond before hurtling out of the apartment and down to the forest ground.
I raced to the Port with all the speed my legs could carry me to find a whole gathering of residents already in the clearing before the jetty. I caught sight of Shayla near the front, her head panned up toward the sky. I rushed over to her, gripping her arms and drawing her attention to me.
“What is this?” I panted.
Shayla looked just as confused as I felt. “I’m not sure. I’m certain that they know they can’t make a dent in our island. I don’t understand why they’re even bothering…”
“Revenge?” I suggested. “For what we’re doing to them in The Woodlands?”
Shayla shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. Obviously, they want revenge, but this is the most stupid way to attempt it possible. They know the power of our boundary… I can’t help but think they just want to get our attention.”
Well, they sure got that…
I spotted several dragons standing nearby, including Lethe, who was nearest to me, holding hands with his human wife, Elodie. He was the only ice dragon on the island; he’d come here on a visit some years ago, fallen in love with one of the human girls, and never left. Warm climates didn’t suit him well at all, but in The Shade it was just about tolerable for him due to the spell of night.
“Hey, Lethe,” I called to him. He turned to face me, his frigid eyes fixing on me. “Can you take me up there?” I requested.
He frowned, then looked to Shayla for permission.
“Why?” Shayla asked, grabbing my hand.
“I want to get high enough to talk to them,” I said. “Ask them why on earth they’re here.”
Shayla shrugged. “All right. Obviously, Lethe, make sure you stay within the boundary unless you want to get blown to smithereens.”
With a grunt of acquiescence, Lethe transformed into a blue, scaly ice dragon. I hurried onto his back before he launched into the sky. As another bomb dropped, I feared that I might actually go deaf. Once there was a span of relative quiet again, and Lethe and I had neared the helicopters, I roared up, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
That was pathetic. There was no way they could have heard me beneath those choppers.
“Lethe,” I said. “Can you please call up to them?”
Lethe’s entire body rumbled beneath me as he let out a mighty bellow. “WHAT DO YOU SEEK HERE?”
I was sure that must’ve gotten through to them, even amidst the noise of the choppers’ blades.
Then the door to the aircraft directly above us slid open and a man peered down, a brown-haired hunter I had never seen before.
Shayla followed Lethe’s and my lead and joined us in the air, along with several other witches and dragons.
The hunter held up an amplifier and boomed down, “You have something of ours!”
I exchanged glances with Shayla, and before anyone else could respond, I told Lethe to yell back, “We have nothing of yours!”
“You stole away a specimen of ours from The Woodlands!” the hunter shot back down. My breath hitched. Josh. “Give him up, if you want any semblance of peace restored to your island.”
Shayla manifested an amplifier of her own and yelled back, “We do not have any specimen here! The young man we found died on the journey back to Earth. Now shoo, before we set our dragons on you!”
The hunters dropped another bomb, wreaking more havoc on my eardrums. Ugh. They need to stop doing that.
“We know that you are lying,” the hunter yelled back down. “We have a tracker installed in him!”
Oh, my God. I stared at Shayla. “How did you miss that?” I whispered.
She was already cursing herself. “Dammit. I never thought to search him for a tracker. It was the last thing on my mind.”
The Shade’s barrier wouldn’t have allowed the device to communicate once within the island, but the hunters could have traced Josh’s journey leading up it.
“Whether we do or do not have him,” Lethe responded for us, “you have one minute to back off!”
“Know that he will die if you do not hand him over to us,” the hunter replied. “He will die if we do not continue with his treatments. If you want to spare his life, you will hand him back to us now.”
My blood ran cold. Die?
“They must be lying,” Lethe muttered.
It was extremely disconcerting to me that Shayla hadn’t replied yet. Her large, brown eyes were traced with doubt. I reached out for her arm and grabbed it, forcing her to look at me. “What are you thinking?” I demanded. “Do you think he could be telling the truth?”
She chewed nervously on her lower lip. “As I told you, I don’t know exactly what they did to him. If I knew, it would be more likely that I could find a cure… I can’t recognize for the life of me most of the traces in his blood. I can’t help but think this is merely a ruse to get us to hand him over—for whatever reason they want him so badly—but of course, I can’t say for certain that they’re lying.”
I drew in a sharp breath and gazed back up at the hunters. Handing Josh back to them felt like it would be certain death, surely. Either death, or some kind of prolonged miserable existence. How could we hand him back over?
I took the amplifier from Shayla and yelled, “What did you do to him?”
“Hand him over!” the hunter roared.
“Why? What treatments have you been giving him?”
No response.
Oh, God. My breathing coming hard and fast, I twisted to face Shayla again. I was so tempted to suggest that we immediately launch an attack on the IBSI and drive them away, but… that hunter’s guarantee of Josh’s death had arrested my mind. I couldn’t shake the bi
ting doubt. What if it really were true? And who was I to make this kind of decision to ignore or accept his words? This wasn’t my life. This was Josh’s. It was only right that I talk to him about this… even though it killed me to lay this kind of stress on him—just when he had been showing some tiny signs of progress.
“L-Let me go and talk to Josh,” I stammered, as the hunters dropped yet another explosive.
“Where is he?” Shayla asked.
“I left him in my apartment. Lethe, please take me there.”
Lethe soared away with me over the treetops. As we reached my treehouse, he paused and lowered to the veranda, allowing me to leap down. I raced into the apartment to find that Josh had moved up to the window and was staring out at the chopper-filled sky over the Port.
He turned to me as I entered, looking just as confused and anxious as he had when I’d left him.
“What is going on?” he croaked.
I drew in a deep breath, buying myself time as I thought about how best to explain this to him. But in the end I figured it was best to just tell him the hard truth and not try to sugarcoat it.
“The IBSI… They admitted that they were using you as a specimen for experimentation, though they refuse to say what for… but they’re demanding that we hand you back to them.”
His eyes bulged. “What? How do they even know I am here?”
I scanned his face, neck, arms, and hands: every inch of his skin that was uncovered by clothing. “They claim to have inserted some kind of tracker in you. But right now, that’s beside the point.” I swallowed hard, steeling myself for my next words. “Josh,” I said, “they’re claiming that if we do not return you, you’re going to die.”
He stared at me, dumbstruck. “Die? Die from what?”
“Well, that’s just it,” I said, blowing out in frustration. “We have no idea. A part of me thinks that they’re simply lying and this is some stupid ruse to get us to give you up, but another part of me is… afraid.” I paused again. “I hate to lay this on you, Josh. I really do. But this is a decision that none of us can make. This is your life. You need to decide.”