My lungs felt heavier than a sack of potatoes. I could barely breathe, and the more it hit me, the less I knew how to continue forward with all of this. Maybe it would be better to stay back instead of intervening. She didn’t need us anymore.
Donovan pointed his finger into the night sky where all of the stars shone as brightly as they did on earth. “All my life, I wanted to explore the solar system.” He spun his finger around and let it drop to the ground. “There’s nothing to explore, to know or find out about that’s greater than what we were given. It was greed to think we could understand it better than ourselves.”
“We are it,” Mag said. “Our minds shaped this place. Wouldn’t doubt if our minds somehow shaped this whole damn universe. But I’m not much of a spiritual guru, and metaphysics hurts my brain, so fuck thinking about it.”
“Whatever it is, it’s time to end it,” I admitted. “But Zane must stay with us. He can’t chase her back through the gateway.”
Mag checked his belt and satchel before going. A look of worry dragged on his face. “My blade has been taken,” he groaned.
“Zane?” Donovan asked.
Mag closed his eyes and focused. “No,” he murmured. “She took it.”
“How can you know?” Cadmar asked.
Mag’s eyes opened, red and targeted. ”She’s not going there to say hello. She’s going there to kill him. We have to hurry.”
And as we gathered the rest of our things, I saw a dark cloud form on the horizon, at the precise location of the greenhouses. It was time to watch this place go up in flames.
12
Adeline
It was only a few more steps forward before I could see the faint outline of the white buildings in the distance. I had seen this image before, in my dream that pushed me to set Zane free. Well, he was still in this realm’s cage, most likely more lost than he even knew, and I was going to do my best to fix the damage that had already been done. He wouldn’t hurt them. No, because I was going to get him out of here and stay behind foreve
r.
I reached the top of the mountainside, and the trail began to thin out into nothing but loose rocks. The greenhouses were closer. I kept walking, managing to stay low to the ground. Though the area was completely quiet, I suddenly had a bad feeling about being there.
I started to get a little paranoid. What if Zane wasn’t the only one who’d followed me in? What if my team was here, waiting for me with higher command from back in D.C? Dark thoughts came into my mind, but I quickly brushed them off before they could sink into my subconscious.
I got down to the rows of greenhouses. They were crude, made out of old wood and crumbling cement. The three of them had done a good job at making so many despite the circumstances. They really had tried to create a home here.
As I passed in between, I analyzed at the various types of plants. There were tomatoes that looked like pumpkins, lettuce that grew as big and wild as bushes, and tropical plants with the most wonderful and elaborate spikes surrounding a bright and gorgeous type of fruit. They had the makings of something different here, and I was sure I could offer my own expertise.
I wanted to explore more and see all of the exotic things they had grown, but I quickly noticed the smell of burning and was taken away from my childlike wonder. I walked toward the scent, searched the sky for a sign of the fire. I could see the smoke, and it took no time at all for the flames to rise high into the air. One of the greenhouses. I broke out running, knowing Zane was behind it.
“Zane!” I ran so fucking fast I could barely keep the sight of the plants that blurred past and behind me. My muscles carried me farther and faster than my usual speed. I barely had the chance to breathe. When I saw him standing in the center of the area, staring at the flames like he was the devil himself, I stopped.
He turned his head and gazed at me. In his hand was a large gasoline canister, which he soon tossed into the rising flames. “Zane,” I said, catching my breath but still startled. “I know everything.”
He wiped his hands clean but didn’t move far from the fire. “This must be done, Addie,” he said, regaining his human conviction. But he was on the wrong side. What I found out couldn’t be unlearned. Everything had changed.
“You’d leave me to die?” I asked.
For the last time, every memory ran through me. I could feel the excitement I’d felt with him again. I could remember his smell. I remembered our laughter and the connection that seemed so strong.
“I’m not against you, Addie,” he said, reaching out for me. The fire spread to the other greenhouses, forming a large horseshoe of flame around us.
“If you cared, you would tell the world what happened. You’d let them live,” I cried.
“Give it up,” he sighed. The building beside him collapsed alongside others. The ground shuddered from the crash. “This place was a mistake. Come with me. Back to our home. Make your father proud.”
More of the buildings fell to the earth’s floor, and all of the rich and new vegetation, plants that could have possibly been brought back to Earth and cloned for our benefit, perished in the flames. As the buildings dropped into oblivion, only a few structures remained. The one I had my eyes set on was the giant marble obelisk. The stone emanated a strange color and drew me in. I started to walk toward it, just like I walked toward the mirror in my vision, but Zane screamed, “Do not move. If you do, you will snare them here forever.”
“The source,” I whispered, and a smile spread across my face. It was just how the natives explained the myths. The beasts of this realm were to guard the stone tablet. The tablet granted the wish. Except, they were wrong. There was no wishing. There was only one way out, and once it was used, the place would implode and forever be a vacuum.
Zane had stolen the battery. He’d powered it last night when I was screaming my cunt off with ecstasy. I cursed, knowing I could have stopped him. All of us could have, but we wanted one last celebration. Love was worth so much, and Zane didn’t seem as capable.