Undone: The Dark Skies Trilogy Page 10

  With no weapon, the first thing I have to do is get Calliope away from Mrs. Lee. Before Calliope can get back into fighting stance, I dive roll on the rocky ground, away from both of them. I come to a crouching position, low on both feet.

  Out of the blue, Phoebe springs from the ground having come through the weird alien elevator. It takes her a split second to get her bearings, but she quickly assesses the situation and steps protectively in front of her mother while at the same time addressing me, “Who's your friend, Astrid?”

  “Allow me to introduce my star sister Calliope.”

  “Funny, you girls look nothing alike.”

  Catching on to the joke, Calliope replies, “I know, right? I got all the beauty and the brains too.”

  “Maybe so,” I say, springing forward from my low crouch and aiming for her knees. “Lucky for me, I got all the fighting skills.”

  For a moment, I think I'm going to land short, too far away from her, but I stretch my arms forward, and my aim turns out to be spot on.

  I fishhook my forearms around Calliope’s legs and yank. She crumples backward before she knows what hit her. In the process, her arms windmill backward, and I'm able to thrust my left hand forward and grab the wrist of the hand that's holding BrightSky.

  My beautiful BrightSky.

  As we tumble to the ground, I land on top of her and manage to twist her wrist inward at a sharp angle. She yelps in pain, releasing the sword.

  Unfortunately, our collective momentum forces us forward, causing the sword to fall out of my reach. It clangs to the rocky ground, tumbling down to a ledge that hovers precariously above the crashing waves below.

  For a confusing moment, we’re both disoriented, until Calliope thrusts her leg forward and rolls away from me. I realize she’s trying to grab the sword. She wants it back.

  On my hands and knees, I scramble after Calliope and manage to grab her ankle.

  As we wrestle, her foot inadvertently hits the hilt of the sword, causing it to move closer to the edge of the cliff. I want to grab it before it tumbles into the sea and gets washed out with the fearsome tide.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see my uncle, with the limp body of Ruby’s unconscious father on his shoulder. As soon as he sees us teetering on the cliff, my uncle yells. “Forget about her.”

  “No,” I say. “I'm not leaving without my sword.”

  Calliope roundhouse kicks me to the side of my head, rocking me backward. She sneers, “You don't deserve that sword. You're too weak. A beautiful Sword of Stardust like that belongs with a deserving warrior. Not a sniveling coward like you.”

  She lunges towards the sword that now rests at a precarious angle with a third of the blade already hanging out over the ocean below. Peering over the edge, I see that if it falls, it will land on razor sharp rocks that are being pummeled by the raging surf.

  Still, I'm so close. If I stretch just a little farther, I might be able to reach it before Calliope can get it.

  “It's not worth it, Astrid,” my uncle calls to me. “The sword does not a princess make. It is the princess that makes the sword.”

  “But I’ve almost got it!” Pushing out just a little farther and ignoring him, I wrap my fingers around the hilt and pull it closer. Success!

  As I stand, I see Calliope barreling toward me. “Oh no you don’t!” she snarls, lunging for the sword.

  She manages to rip the sword from my hand. Unfortunately, she’s unable to stop her forward motion. In less than the blink of an eye, she tumbles off the cliff holding BrightSky.

  They’re both going to plummet to the rocky coast.

  But somehow, as she falls, her hand hits part of the rocky cliff. The impact causes the sword to ricochet back up. It seems to defy gravity.

  Standing perfectly still, BrightSky sails perfectly back into my open hands.

  As Calliope falls, she manages to swivel her body in the air, turning back to face me. Our eyes lock. The last vision of her is one of a spiteful, hate-filled girl falling to her death. I can’t watch and turn away.

  Arriving at my side, my uncle pulls me away from the edge. Then he inches forward, peering over the cliff. When he grimaces, I know that what’s left of Calliope on the rocks below is not a pretty sight.

  Even though she betrayed me, I feel a tinge of sadness. She was the sister I never had.

  “What a waste,” I say.

  “You see, she held the Sword of Stardust. But it did not make a princess. Nor did her own short blades. They did not make her the Chosen One.”

  We turn to head back to the rest of the group on the grassy plain as the thumping of a helicopter approaches. Help is on the way.

  I look down at BrightSky in my hand. She seems to hum with energy.

  I wonder where it all went wrong. There were Seven Sisters of Light sent out to uphold the values of the Pleiadian people. Each sister was born with a special gift, a powerful weapon, and a guardian to keep her safe.

  Six sisters are dead.

  By the process of elimination, I have somehow now become the Chosen One spoken of by the ancient prophecy.

  This makes me worry for the fate of the universe and everyone who lives in it.

  Chapter 28

  “Wait,” I say, turning to look back at the cave from which we just escaped. Something just occurred to me. “Where’s Jax?”

  The Navy helicopter is slowly landing 100 feet away on the grassy plateau.

  “He’s not coming with us,” my uncle answers, still carrying Mr. Lee who’s looking worse by the second.

  “Why?”

  “Complicated,” my uncle says, turning to help the Lee family.

  Obviously, he’s not going to give me more information right now. Is Jax a good guy or a bad guy? Is he working for them or us?

  I don’t understand why no one is explaining this to me. Part of me thinks that I may not want to know.

  Back on the Navy ship, Ruby is reunited with her family. I stand back and watch them joyfully embrace. Ruby shakes with relief and happiness as she hugs her mother.

  I want to stay mad at her, but I’m having a hard time, mostly because I can’t say for sure what I would have done if someone had threatened my uncle. I’m not sure any of us actually know what we would do if one of our loved ones was being threatened.

  Dr. Maggie and her team immediately sweep Ruby’s father away on a stretcher to the sickbay on the ship. The Navy doctors are there too.

  “Please let me come with him,” Ruby clings to her father’s arm as Dr. Maggie gently tries to get her to let go. Ruby pleads, “It’s my fault he’s in this shape. If something happens to him, I just don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive myself.”

  Dr. Maggie listens to his chest with her stethoscope. “His heart rate has already begun to stabilize with the med. You need to let us get him to the infirmary so we can get his ticker beating like a drum again.”

  She reluctantly agrees. After he’s gone, Ruby wraps her arms around her sister Phoebe. The two hold each other like they never want to let go.

  The sisters’ bond is clearly deep and intense. While I admire it, I also feel a twinge of jealousy. Maybe somewhere out there in the universe I have a blood sister too. Or a blood brother.

  The closest I've had so far is Calliope and look how that turned out.

  Chad, along with Simmons and O'Malley, enters the room. Phoebe's eyes go wide at the sight of Chad.

  “Oh my God!” Phoebe gasps, covering her mouth. “You’re alive.”

  “As far as I know,” Chad laughs and walks over with a grin on his face. “It's nice that you're so happy to see I'm still alive.”

  Phoebe looks dumbstruck. She's not laughing. “Your parents think you're dead.”

  “What?” Chad’s smile fades. “They do?”

  “They even had a funeral for you,” Phoebe explains. “The whole town came. The rumor is that Meegan McGowan cried for two straight weeks.”

  Ugh. Meegan McGowan. My former rival for Chad’s
love. She’s his obnoxious ex-girlfriend who never missed an opportunity to torment me or rub my nose in the fact that she and Chad had been going out for over year.

  Still, because of me, she did get infected with the Venuvian fire-breathing virus and accidentally burn down the school gym. So maybe I should cut her a little slack.

  Even though they broke up, I can still see the pain on Chad’s face. He's a good guy. And good guys don't want to hurt anybody's feelings — even obnoxious ex-girlfriends.

  “My parents had a funeral?” Chad sounds stricken. “But it's not like they found a body or something.”

  “Your mom was so upset that a therapist suggested that they have an official service so she could find some closure and try to move on with her life.”

  “I…. I…” Chad begins, but then abruptly turns and walks out of the room. Being faced with his mother’s reaction is too much.

  Everyone stands in stunned silence for a moment. The gravity of the situation sinks in. I spin around and follow him out of the room. He’s walking way with his head down and his fists clenched.

  “Chad!” I have to jog to catch up to him down the narrow hallway of the ship. “Hold up.”

  “Not right now, Astrid,” he says in a wavering voice that sounds different, and I can tell he's crying.

  “It's okay.” I want to be supportive. “I understand. Really I do.”

  He stops and whips around to face me. “Do you? Because I’m not so sure. My own mother thinks I'm dead. She had a funeral for me. She thinks I'm never coming back. All because I'm here doing… doing—“

  His words trail off, but I know what he was going to say. He was going to say that he's here helping me. I'm the reason his poor mom thinks he's dead. My heart wants to burst, I feel so bad.

  “Chad, I wish I could go back and change everything.”

  But he unexpectedly says, “That's not why I'm upset, Astrid.”

  “It’s not?”

  “I’m not upset because I'm here helping you. I'm upset because something much bigger and worse is going on. This all makes me realize that life as we know it is over. Especially if that creepy Crimson Lord has his way. If you think about it, maybe, in the end, my mom will be the lucky one.”

  “How so?”

  “Because she will be one of the few who got to have a funeral for her son.”

  The look in his eyes is so intense that I can’t look away. I have no response, because I know he's right.

  Chad Olson, the boy with the beautiful eyes, gives me a sad smile. “It's not your fault, Astrid.” He turns and keeps going. I don't follow him this time. “Really. It's nobody’s fault.”

  Chapter 29

  Thanks to our helicopter powered by alien technology, we’re back in Washington D.C. two hours later.

  “I’ve already spoken to Tyler and Jake about setting up some controlled temperature experiments to determine your reaction to extreme hot and cold,” my uncle tells me as we head down the hall toward our suite.

  “Okay. But not today, right?” All I want is a nice hot shower and a good long nap.

  “We’ll get on it first thing tomorrow,” he says. “In fact, I asked them to —“

  He’s cut off by the sound of a girl’s plaintive cries. “Help! Help me!”

  We exchange looks then run down the hallway to find Bella kneeling next to an unconscious Waylon on the floor.

  “Bella, what happened?” I ask, joining her at his side.

  “I don't know,” she begins, “we were just talking and all of a sudden in the middle of the sentence, Waylon just collapsed. It was like someone just shut him off. And now he won't wake up. I'm not even sure he's breathing.”

  My uncle looks to me, “Call Dr. Maggie.” Then he kneels next to Waylon and leans forward hovering just above his face.

  Worried, Bella and I exchange concerned looks.

  “He's breathing!” my uncle says, “but just barely.”

  Dr. Maggie and her team come rushing in and get him up to the infirmary.

  “Busy day, huh Doc?” my uncle says helping lift Waylon onto the stretcher.

  “I’m going to need a bigger clinic pretty soon,” she says, checking Waylon’s vitals as we roll him toward the clinic.

  The TV that dangles from the ceiling’s corner is loudly playing as we enter the clinic. I’ve never seen it on in the clinic before.

  “… here at News 25, sources tell us that at least one thousand people in the D.C. area have fallen into a coma-like state, and many more seem to be in some sort of trance. Reports are coming in from all over the country, potentially the world, informing us that people of every nation are falling into this mysterious sleep.”

  Bella gasps. “That’s what happened to Waylon. What’s going on?”

  They show images of unconscious people in China, South America, Europe. Every corner of the world.

  My uncle says, “The same thing is unfolding all over the planet.”

  Just then Fitz and Tanaka rush in carrying Simmons. She’s unconscious and totally limp.

  “What happened?” Dr. Maggie asks.

  “She just passed out,” Fitz explains. “She was fine, working at her laptop, then she fell out of her chair to the ground. She’s non-responsive.”

  “Up in the lobby, three random people collapsed right where they were standing,” O’Malley reports. “One of the doormen nearly got run over when he fell in the street, and a business woman became trapped in the revolving door.”

  “It’s begun,” my uncle declares.

  “What has?” Tanaka asks.

  “They’ve set their plan in motion.” He hesitates, looking grave. “This is a sign. A first step. The Draconians are preparing to invade.”

  Chapter 30

  Twenty minutes later, Fitz calls an emergency meeting in our makeshift command center. Everyone gathers.

  “We’ve run a preliminary DNA test and have confirmed that Simmons’ DNA was on the list of implanted abductees,” Tanaka tells us.

  “Wait,” Chad asks, looking shocked. “Does that mean she was working for the Horlocks the whole time?”

  “We don’t believe so.” Fitz shakes his head. “We’re speculating that she wasn’t even aware that she had an implant.”

  “Just because you have an implant, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you have any awareness of the alien threat,” Dr. Maggie explains.

  “Then how would she have gotten it?” I ask.

  Fitz turns to me. “We have no idea. She has no history of abduction or any “lost time” incidents where she may have unwittingly been implanted.”

  “Have you crossed referenced the rest of the teams’ DNA with the list we acquired from Jax?” my uncle inquires.

  “Yes,” Tanaka answers. “We knew Waylon was on the list. Simmons, along with the three other people who fell into an unconscious state in the hotel, were on the list as well. But the list is huge. It takes time to search it for a single individual.”

  “We’ve also become aware of another disturbing development,” Fitz says, moving to a bank of monitors. He brings up three different live images. I recognize the first one as the bunker we discovered back in California. Except now, every single cot is filled with a sleeping person. “The previously empty bunkers are now filled to capacity.”

  “What does all of this mean?” I ask, trying to calm my rising sense of worry. “Why is this happening? How does this connect to an invasion?”

  “We think the Crimson Lord and the Draconians are building a sleeping army right here on Earth,” Fitz answers.

  Chad laughs. “But sleeping armies aren’t much of a threat.”

  My uncle answers, “It is when you wake them up.”

  I ask the obvious question, “When will that be?”

  No one has an answer.

  Finally, my uncle breaks the silence. “I know who we can ask.”

  An hour later, I find myself in the middle of a screaming blizzard.

  I turn to my uncle, who’s
standing right next to me. I can see that he’s speaking, but I can’t hear what he’s saying because the howling wind drowns out his words.

  “What!” I yell to him. I can see nothing but the falling snow in every direction.

  He leans in and raises his voice. “This is not a good sign.”

  “What’s not a good sign?”

  “The storm.” He gestures to the sky. “Weather is an indication of the Gatherings mood.”

  We’ve come to the Gathering seeking information.

  The Gathering is more than just a setting or a location. It’s some sort of living, breathing alien organism that can change its physical attributes the same way we can change clothes or change our persona.

  The first time I went to the Gathering, it was an old-fashioned circus complete with a red and white striped big top. At the time, Jax told me that when he’s been there, it had sometimes been in the form of a medieval fair or even a dungeon.

  You never know what you’re going to get.

  My uncle made a few calls to the underground alien community to find out where a local entry point to the Gathering might be in Washington D.C.

  Turns out, there was one in the back of an upscale gourmet grocery store in Georgetown, which was great because I got a vanilla latte on our way through.

  My uncle spins a circle in the blizzard looking for some clue as to which way to go in the totally engulfing whiteout. Considering you can only see about two feet in front of your face, this is not going to be easy.

  Finally, we spot a faint shimmering red glow in the distance. Following it, we reach the outskirts of a cluster of building set along a single dirt road. The flickering red isn’t the flames of a fire; it’s the glow of two distant suns on the horizon.

  “This place is a ghost town,” my uncle mutters.

  “We should at least check the buildings out before we decide there’s no one here.”

  “No,” he smiles. I misunderstood him. “I mean, it’s a real ghost town. Like out of the old west.”

  I squint through the falling snow to see that all the buildings have been constructed from aging gray clapboard and have a look that’s somewhere between forlorned and totally forsaken.