David put his hands around my head, and the nausea passed. “Why didn’t you do that the first time?”
“I didn’t know how.” His voice caused fear to shoot through me. He sounded so weak; I didn’t know how he was standing there. He chuckled softly as he rubbed my back. “I’m fine, Sugar. Just tired.”
The gateway abruptly closed. I quickly glanced around the alien forest, my earlier fear morphing into panic. I didn’t take in the odd, stunted trees that were almost transparent, or the white sky. The only thought I had was that Kait wasn’t there.
“Kait never came through! Travis, why didn’t Kait come through? Where is he?” Travis put his arms around me, while David still rubbed my back.
“I don’t know, Babe, but I’m sure he will be here soon. He probably didn’t want the Lorgaire to follow us here. We need to move to the next location.” He let go of me to swing one of David’s arms around his shoulders. David weakly protested that he could walk.
Travis just said, “But can you run?” David grumbled under his breath some more, but stopped fighting Travis's help. Travis looked at me. “Are you ready?” I checked that the contacts supplies and glasses were securely in my pockets as I nodded. “Okay, then, let’s go!”
I glanced back over my shoulder as we rushed away. There was no indication of a gateway. I just hoped that Kait was fine. We ran all out for about ten minutes, then Travis finally slowed down. I had been gasping for air for a good five of those minutes, so I was grateful for the reprieve. Travis looked at me, and said, “We can walk for about five minutes to let you get your breath back, but we will need to run again after that. If we run the rest of the way after the break, we are about fifteen minutes from our destination. Once we get there, we need to decide if we want to wait for Kait, or if we want to go on to the next step.”
David shook his head. “We are going to have to wait for Kait. I don’t think I can open a gateway right now.” Travis just nodded. We walked. When Travis said to run again, I could almost breathe. This was low-level torture. I really needed to get some cardio training.
I continued to curse the situation and Travis in my mind as we ran. It kept me from worrying about Kait, or from staring at the alien-looking landscape. Not quite ten minutes after we started running, Travis stopped.
David spoke up. “Kait is waiting for us at the next gateway spot.”
Relief washed through me, and I tried to hurry ahead. David stopped me. “Sugar, there is someone between us and him. We need to be quiet, and we need to move carefully. I can’t read them; I don’t know who they are or what they want.”
Well, shit on a stick. I stopped. Travis was picking his way cautiously with David, being careful not to step on anything that would give us away with noise. David was silently giving directions, pointing out where they were and indicating when to stop and when to move. Once we had moved around them, we began to move a little faster, although we were still attempting to move silently. The pace began to wear on my nerves. I needed to see that Kait was fine.
Eventually, we reached the small clearing where Kait was waiting for us. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw him, but once we were closer, I noticed he did not escape unscathed. There was a long scratch down his right cheek, and his hair was mussed like he had been running his hands through it.
A relived smile covered his face when he saw us. “Good. Did you have any problems getting here?”
“Other than the panic you caused when you closed the gateway? No. What happened, Kait?” Angry tears were streaming down my face. Or maybe they were relieved tears. I didn’t know and didn’t particularly care. “You yelled at me, then you go and do stupid things like that! I thought you were hurt, or worse!”
He seemed a little taken aback by my tirade, but he quickly recovered. “Princess, I…”
I interrupted him. “Don’t fucking ‘Princess’ me right now! Why did you feel it was necessary to close the gateway without warning? Why didn’t you come through?”
He held up his hands. “I was going to explain, if you would let me finish for once. The Lorgaire had made it into the room, and I didn’t want them to be able to follow us. The only option I had was to close the gateway, take care of the Lorgaire, and then find you afterward. I knew the boys would lead you where we could meet up for the next step.”
David had been making shushing noises at me as I was yelling at Kait. He came over and put his hand over my mouth, stopping me from yelling at him again, and whispered to Kait, “There was someone in the woods. I think they heard her yelling. We need to go, now.”
Kait nodded and quickly summoned the gateway, which we all strode through. It closed behind us. I stood in the new landscape reeling, battling nausea that was worse than the last time. Again, David put his hands on my head and the sick feeling retreated. He wasn’t looking too good, though. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his face was pale. Kait eyed him for a second, but David took a deep breath and straightened up. Travis put David’s arm around his shoulders again, and we took off, running for the next gateway location. This time,
