“Stay close to me. Don’t touch the trees. Don’t let them touch you.” He warned.
“Or what?”
“Or we both die.” He replied shortly.
He pulled her close, so close that she could feel the tautness of him, every nerve wound tightly in that single, perfect heartbeat of silence and stillness, the one that came before an eruption into life.
She stopped abruptly, just before they took the final step into the forest. “Wait!”
He turned to her, more than a little exasperated. “We don’t have time – “
“What’s your name? If I’m going to die, I would at least like to know the name of the person I’m dying next to.”
His gaze softened. “Alex – or rather – Alexander Patrick Cairns.”
She nodded. It felt like the final jigsaw puzzle piece falling into place, finally showing her the complete picture. His name allowed her to gather the required courage to enter the forest.
“Ok – I’m ready now.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” He asked gently.
“Allyra Warden.” She said slowly – aware even as she said the words – that somehow he already knew it. But before she could give the idea more consideration, he nodded to her and plunged them into the deadly, breathtaking Walking Forest.
Chapter 4 – Jamie
It was a slow struggle back to consciousness.
Jamie groaned – the base of his skull was still throbbing uncomfortably. He looked around him blearily, his vision spotty, like a poorly developed Polaroid picture.
He was in some kind of jail cell, the light was dim, and there were no windows that he could see. And the walls were strange too. Black, with a metallic sheen – it reminded him of something – someone had described this to him once… He struggled to find the correct memory, his mind was slow and cumbrous, and the memory darted away from him, buzzing madly around his brain like a fly.
He groaned again when he finally caught up to the vestiges of it. The jail cells beneath the Elemental College. His mother had told them – him and Emma – about it in one of their lessons with her. Told them about the walls made of granite with veins of iron and lead running through them. It was the perfect natural prison for the Gifted – the metal making it almost impossible to reach their Gift.
Jamie fought to piece together his last rational thought, scattered like autumn leaves in the wind. Then it all came together in a single massive torrent – Allyra’s obsessive pilgrimage, their fight over it, her slamming the door as she left. Driving through the night to catch up to her, Rob, the pain of the opening Gate. Then, the horror of finding Allyra lying on the ground and finally, the Cleaners arriving.
He rarely swore, but this seemed like an opportune time for it and he let out a string of curses.
“Impressive – I thought you were too buttoned up to curse? Or have you finally removed that particular stick up your ass?”
Jamie completed his cursing with a final crescendo as he heard Rob’s disembodied voice. He struggled to a sitting position and found that his brother had been sitting next to him all along and was now looking at him with a quizzical and slightly amused expression.
“What the f…” He caught himself just in time. As satisfying as it was, he had reached his cursing limit for the day. “Happened?”
“Oh please – don’t hold back on my account. I was rather entertained by your inventive swearing.” Rob replied sardonically. “As to what happened – quite simple really – they knocked us out and here we are. And no – before you ask – I don’t know where Allyra is.”
Jamie leapt to his feet, then had to pause abruptly as his vision darkened and the room spun wildly around him. Slowly regaining his composure, he started running his fingers along the smooth walls, searching for a crack, a vulnerability, an imperfection. Something, anything to suggest a way out.
“Come on, help me.” He urged his brother.
Rob shot him an annoyed look, “What do you think I was doing while you were napping? There’s no way out. The only way we are leaving this place is if they want us to.”
Rob was right of course, his mother had told them as much – there was no escaping the prisons of the Elemental College, it had never been done before and never will be done. And even if it could be done, it would probably take more ingenuity than he was capable of. But it was a hard truth to accept and Jamie refused to entertain it, choosing instead to continue his frantic search.
His fingers found nothing but smooth rock. There wasn’t a joint, not even in the corners. It was as if the room had been carved out of a single piece of rock. There was no evidence of a door either – did the maker of the cell die here? Of course not – the door was there, they just couldn’t see it, hidden by Gifted power.
After a good hour of obsessively detailed searching, he finally gave up and sat down next to Rob, sliding slowly down the wall. “So what do we do?”
Rob shrugged nonchalantly, “Wait I guess. They’ll come get us when they are ready. I’m pretty sure they have some questions for us.”
“You’re kidding – you can’t honestly expect me to sit here and wait?”
“And what do you propose? Seriously – I’m open to suggestions. First of all, I don’t suppose you can get out of those cuffs and second, I’m guessing that even if you could, your Gift wouldn’t do us much good in this place.”
Jamie looked down at
