Chapter Three
Lynx nodded his agreement and started toward the door of the living room before he could give himself the opportunity to change his mind. He trusted these men and he had to keep reminding himself of that. He was not going to be able to save Rain or any of the other people in the settlement on his own. It was going to take the skills, the insight, and the abilities of all of them together to release the Light Ones from their binds.
As he climbed the stairs toward the bedroom he could hear Ciyrs close behind him with Pyra coming second and Bannack bringing up the end of their line. He didn't hear any of the other men following behind and he was relieved, happy that they were showing enough respect for him to stay in the living room while the four of them went up to Rain.
Pyra had never gotten around to explaining to him why he insisted that Bannack go along with them, but as he stepped into the bedroom with Rain and turned to allow the other men to come inside, he could see Bannack's hand mindlessly touching the large silver compact around his neck. He realized then that it was not so much that Pyra wanted Bannack up there with them as he wanted to be able to contact Loralia, and therefore the other women, if he needed to. That compact was their only true connection with the compound with the exception of the men being able to communicate with their mates through their minds, but Lynx knew that they had been so tense throughout the journey that none of them had been able to be open enough to connect with their partners.
The door closed behind Bannack and the three men looked at Lynx for a few tense seconds. It was as though none of them wanted to be the first one to say anything, or the first one to take a step toward Rain. Lynx finally stepped up to the edge of the bed and smoothed the blanket beside her. For the first time he noticed the clean cut through the blanket over her stomach and the slightest tinge of red around the edge of the torn fabric. He wanted to touch her, but this was not the moment for him to get swept away into one of his visions. In that moment he hoped that there would come a time when he would be able to touch her without that happening. He hadn't even known that he had that ability, and he certainly didn't know how to control it. Of course, if they figure out how to release the people from their locked state he would no longer have any need for the ability. Perhaps it would simply go away when it was no longer necessary.
"Can you show us, Lynx?" Ciyrs said quietly, breaking through Lynx's musings and bring him back into the reality of the moment.
"Please be gentle with her," Lynx said, "I know that she is locked, but we don’t really know what that means. She may still have some awareness or be able to feel."
"I won't hurt her," Ciyrs assured him, stepping up closer to the bed.
Being careful not to let his hands brush her body, Lynx took hold of the top fold of her blanket and gently peeled it down away from her. It stuck in place briefly before releasing and coming away to reveal the airy nightgown he saw her wearing in his vision and a puncture wound in her stomach. He had noticed the wounds on the other people throughout the settlement, but they hadn't bothered him. This, however, made his body twitch and his face feel hot and tingle with fury.
"I don't understand," Pyra said, stepping up beside Ciyrs and looking down at Rain, "What was the difference? Why did Lynx, Ty, and Vax become violent and angry when they were cut by the Covra, but the rest of these people were just locked?"
"Loralia said that her grandfather spoke of them using their enemies to fight themselves by infecting them. That is their primary method of battle."
"That must mean that they can control when they are infecting a person to turn them into a weapon and when they are locking them. It is a conscious decision, not just a biological effect."
"You saw that prison, Pyra. You can't think that creatures that were capable of building something like that would just be mindless animals. They are obviously more intelligent and more skilled than we are giving them credit for."
"Or they know how to manipulate another species into doing the work for them. I can't imagine how those sharp, pointy little legs would be able to build a prison like that. I can, however, see hands like that doing it."
Pyra gestured toward Rain's hands and a hushed moment fell over the room.
"If the Covra are able to weaponize anything that they want to," Bannack said, "Why didn't they just do that right along? What happened that they weren’t able to make the Light Ones fight each other? What could have weakened them so much that they couldn't fight, but that they could still lock the entire settlement?"
The other men shook their heads and Lynx glanced down at Rain again.
"I guess if they weren't locked by the same type of poison that the Covra use to turn people into their own personal killing machines, then you can't just use the same tool to draw out the poison and it will make them better."
"I think that would be a bit too simple," Ciyrs said, reaching forward to gingerly move Rain's gown so that he could better see her damaged skin through the cut in the fabric, "I could try it if you want me to, though. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try every option that we have. I just can't imagine that the Covra would have their last ditch effort of a war be something that could be resolved so easily."
"I don't think so, either," Lynx agreed, then took a shuddering breath to prepare himself for the next statement he was going to say, "but I think that we should try everything. I don't want to leave her locked for any longer than we have to just because we didn't try something that we thought was too simple."
Ciyrs nodded and stepped up closer to the edge of the bed. Lynx reluctantly got out of the way, moving closer to the head of the bed to allow Ciyrs to get nearer to Rain. Without taking his eyes off of the injury in Rain's stomach, Ciyrs lowered the bag from his shoulder onto the mattress. He reached into it and withdrew the same tools that he had used to heal Lynx, Ty, and Vax. Lynx couldn't remember what it felt like for the healer to use the strange instrument to draw the poison that the Covra had injected into him out of his body, but it still made him shudder to look at it. It looked painful and invasive, two things that he never wanted Rain to experience.
"This isn't going to hurt her," Ciyrs said as if he could sense the discomfort and worry that Lynx was feeling.
"What's going to happen when they do wake up, though?" Lynx asked.
"What do you mean?" Pyra asked.
"What's going to happen? If we can figure it out and we do unlock them, what will happen to them? They've been this way for decades. Are they going to wake up and be violent and aggressive and think that we are trying to fight them like the Covra were? Will they be able to understand us when we talk to them so that we can tell them that everything is going to be alright and that we want to help them? Will they even be able to survive? They are locked now and that is keeping them in this suspended state, but if we release the lock are they just going to shrivel up and die because all of these people should probably have died long ago?"
Everything poured out of him with greater emotion than Lynx had intended, but he felt like he couldn't hold back all of the questions and concerns any longer. As desperately as he wanted to look into Rain's eyes, hear her voice, and complete his bond with her, it terrified him to think about what could go wrong when they finally figure out how to unlock them. As horrific as it was to see her that way, and as heartbreaking as it was to think about never actually getting to be with her, at least when she was this way he knew that she was safe. For as long as she was locked the way she was, she was alive and he could be with her. It was a terrifying balance between wanting to preserve and destroy the same moment.