Eyes screwed shut to ward off the pain in my head, I try like hell not to wake up. The bit of light that seared through my eyeball into my brain just now was enough to let me know sleep would be the better choice. A strong chemical scent burns in my nostrils and my gut roils when I try to move, making me feel as if I’m experiencing the worst hangover ever felt.What in the hell? That isn’t right.
I haven’t had a drink in weeks. Wading back through my memory feels like swimming in a swamp. The last thing I can remember is standing in the street outside Ashe’s house, on my way to return her book I had borrowed. It had been dark when I stepped out of my car. A breeze had swept over me, raising goose bumps on my arms. For some reason, I’d looked up from the pavement at the star-filled sky. That’s my last memory and now there’s pain. That persistent damn light filters in through my eyelids when I try to relax, highlighting thin, purple veins, making my stomach hurt even more.
Against all better judgment, I crack my eyes open a millimeter again. Light floods my vision, but I stay the course. Through crusty, glued lashes, I force myself to take in more this time. I’m in a small room or cell. The walls are close and I’m on the floor in a heap. The light isn’t as bright as I first though. It’s dim actually and quite blue. Smooth metal panels make up what could be white walls. I can’t tell because that blue light bathes everything.
“You found her? The first of them?”
A deep voice speaks somewhere nearby, muffled as though outside the room. I close my eyes again and listen.
“Per your instructions, we searched the Earth Realm for the subjects. We found this one hiding in plain sight there and brought her back.”
Subject? Fuck. Are they talking about me? I fight the urge to sit up, straining my ears to hear through the long pause that ensues.
“You did well. We’ll need the others brought here to the Astrals and soon. The alignment approaches. But she is a key. Quite the find, Temeaus.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
These voices. I don’t like these voices. My heart starts to race. They speak calmly but sound so cold. I feel like I can’t get enough air as I wrap my head around the realization that I’ve been kidnapped.
They continue to speak, but they’re walking away, distance and footsteps muffling their words until I can no longer hear anything. I push up to sitting, my head swimming in a sea of purple and blue as I take a better look. In the silence, the narrow space of the cell closes in around me. My bones press into the hard floor and my chest constricts as my uick scan of the room yields now way out. Nowhere to go. Where am I? How did I even get here? Wherever this is. I feel the panic setting in, gripping my chest under my ribs in its viselike grasp.
“… brought here to the Astrals….”
Astrals? Wha—
“Where am…”
Before the words leave my lips a loud blast tears through my ears and I’m thrown, sliding across the floor. My head slams into the wall, wringing a pained gasp out of me as I curl into a ball. Oh, god, please let this all be a nightmare! Somewhere, mixed in with the ringing of my ears from the blast, I hear shouts. I barely have time to register before hands are grabbing me. Hard and relentless, they wrap around my shoulders. Quickly, I’m yanked out of my little self defense cocoon and turned. Through my hair and my fingers, bright light shines in from the back of the cell, illuminating the shadowy figure above me.
A tall dark-eyed male stares down at me. He takes one of his hands off my shoulder to touch his ear and I use the opportunity to scrape my hair out of my eyes. That’s when I notice my fingers are wet with my own blood. Before I can investigate its source, the guy holding me nods as though listening to something be said in an earpiece then he looks down at me again. His eyes go from dark to light to gleaming with piercing white light. Flinching, I try to cringe into my former ball but he holds me in place. I’m helpless, paralyzed by fear and the way he has me pinned as those creepy laser eyes of his move down to scan my entire body. What the absolute hell?
As quick as it came, the laser light vanishes and his eyes go back to normal. I squirm, but his hands stay put then he touches his ear again and nods once more, his eyes trained on my face now.
“Contact with subject has been made.” He says in very no-nonsense, military sounding voice. “Identity confirmed.”
My mouth falls open. Somewhere I hear pounding. The guy above me looks back and I realize the sound is coming from the door at the front of the cell. He looks back and I swear his face changes, the hard lines softening infinitesimally. His eyes lift to a space behind me the same moment my scraggly hair lifts off my shoulder with a gust of air and I look back. And Freak. The. Fuck. Out!
A purple-black midnight flooded with millions of bright lights swallows up my vision. That and the fear of being sucked into endlessness engulf my uncomprehending mind. Until that moment it hadn’t come to my attention that the whole back wall of the cell was completely gone. I was staring into space!
I scream and push off the floor, slamming into the guy in fatigues’ chest. His arms wrap around me, steadying me.
“Easy.” He says. I pull my eyes away from the maw of the galaxy before me and look up. His face is hard again, every star in that black sky I almost fell into reflected in his stare. He dips his head down closer to mine, so close I feel his breath on my skin. For some reason I can’t explain this eases my panic a little. He touches ear again and frowns. Who the hell is he listening to? The pounding at the front of the cell gets worse and I get a feeling in my gut that warns me things are about to get imminently worse. His eyes flick back for an instant before they’re back on me.
More wetness slides down the sides of my face. I’m crying. I know I should try not to, but I can’t help it. I’m so fucking scared.
“We have to leave.” He says matter of fact. I feel his weight push forward toward the busted out wall of the cell, toward space. I scream again, planting my feet on the floor and pushing against him with all of my strength.
“Noo! Not out there!”
Something like a roll of thunder roars through the space. I shriek and cling to him even harder as his body tenses and his eyes narrow.
“I can’t hold your captors off much longer.” He grits out.
“Wh-what’s going on? I don’t even know where I am!” I sob.
Again the lines of his mouth soften. I don’t know how in my state of terror I can find this appealing, but I do. Blame the mental break I’m having. He lets out a quick, annoyed sigh then speaks.
“I have instructions from the Order of the Zodiac to extricate you from this place. Do I have your consent?”
“Whu—?”
“Look,” his fingers press in sharp on my arms. “You were stolen from your realm. The ones who took you mean you harm.” His star-dark eyes pierce through mine. “I’m here to help, but I need your consent.” I blink, dumbfounded. He frowns. “Trust me, your safer with me than you are with them.”
Another roar of thunder rattles the walls and I flinch. He braces against the shaking. I can’t explain it, but feels like he’s doing something—holding whatever’s trying to get to us off. In my terror*, I nod up at him. All he does is squeeze more with his fingers.
I squeak, “I-I g-guess?” One of his eyebrows lifts along with the corners of his mouth and he slants his head. Another roaring shake moves the ground.
“Yes!” I blurt out.
He nods, turning me toward the ominous galaxy. His hands grip my waist as his body surrounds me from behind.
“Deep breath, Cassie,” he says in my ear, “I have you.”
The door behind us blasts open and before I can flinch we’re shooting out of the cell. An unseen force rockets my body forward so fast I can’t even breathe. Blinding swaths of light fire past us as we cut through milky, black oblivion. It’s so mind blowing my body goes limp as all sense of reason slips away. A rumbling at me ear brings me back to consciousness.
“You still with me?”
Lifting my head, I take in a breath finally. A strange feeling comes over me as I take it all in. The gusting, glittering rush of the galaxy. The hard body at my back. I’m bereft of my sanity for sure, but somehow this all feels right… or familiar, or… I’m not sure, but I relax and nod. His arm around my waist tightens. A sudden burst of speed propels us through space even faster, but I don’t feel afraid. It comes to me then. I’m free.
Finally.
First published as Order of the Zodiac by Amanda V Shane on Monsters & Mystics. Copyright 2024. All rights reserved
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