“Where are we? What is this place?” Harper stared around herself in disbelief and dismay. They appeared to still be on Earth but a changed Earth. The beach was still there but the clear green waves she remembered had been replaced by greasy black, as though the entire ocean was one vast oil slick. The air was heavy with gray smog and the only vegetation she could see was a few withered stalks of black grass along the side of the road.
“This is the Earth under Hive dominion,” Shad said grimly. “Come on—we have to move fast before a Seeker senses you.”
“A what?”
But he was already pulling her through the rutted parking lot with its broken and crumbling asphalt, though where he was taking her, Harper had no idea. She just stumbled along behind him, staring at this strange new world in horror and trying to keep herself covered.
He came to an abrupt halt in the back corner of the parking area and Harper almost ran into his broad back.
“Hey, what—?”
“Watch.”
Shad put out a hand and pressed against thin air—or it looked like air. But when he withdrew his palm there was a faint shimmer and a door swung open. Not a house door, though—it was more like the door to a car.
“What is this?” Harper stared wide-eyed. She wasn’t used to seeing doors appear out of thin air.
“My ship. Get in—we have to get out of here fast.”
“But…it’s invisible,” she exclaimed. “What are you, Wonder Woman? You have an invisible jet?”
“It’s just stealth tech but it won’t keep them off our scent forever,” Shad growled. “Especially if they sense a fertile female in the vicinity. We have to get out of range. Come on!”
He pushed Harper into the strange doorway and she looked around, bewildered as her eyes got used to the dim lighting. Then she registered what she was seeing. She’d seen pictures on the news of the Kindred’s vehicles—this was clearly one of them.
There were two seats up front with a complicated-looking array of instruments. There was a living area in the middle of the ship, which was where they were standing, with a comfortable if battered looking couch opposite a narrow counter which apparently doubled as a galley kitchen. Near the back was a closed door which led to the very end of the ship—maybe some kind of a bedroom?
This ship was different from the one she’d seen in the news-vid, though. That Kindred vehicle had been shiny and new with silver chrome sparkling everywhere. Though it was spotlessly clean, everything in this ship looked dull and worn and ragged—as though it was years old.
“Not much to look at,” Shad rumbled behind her, making her jump. “But at least the stealth tech works. The Kindred haven’t made a new ship in over twenty cycles but this old girl keeps humming along.”
Harper turned and saw that he’d closed the door after him and was pulling on a pair of tight black leather trousers and matching black leather boots. He tossed her a pile of red fabric which she caught reflexively.
“Here, put this on and come up front to buckle up. We have to go.”
He was already striding up to sit in what was clearly the Captain’s chair, behind the rows of instruments as he spoke. His broad, bare chest was lit by many colors as he began flipping switches and the control panel lit up.
The ship hummed to life and Harper realized she needed to hurry. She didn’t want to be standing here naked, staring like an idiot if they were about to blast into space.
Hurriedly, she examined the red, slippery fabric and found it was a simple sleeveless dress. Rolled inside it was a pair of black ballet flats. She pulled the dress over her head and slipped on the shoes, surprised all of it fit her perfectly, the red gown clinging to her curves and accenting her warm brown skin tones.
Red always was my color, she thought. But how had Shad known? The same way he knew everything else about her? Because he was from the future?
Harper frowned—it was time to get some answers.
Going up to the front of the ship, she slid into the battered passenger’s chair which was obviously built for someone much larger than her. She sat back and started working on the complicated array of buckles and straps.
“Don’t bother with all of those,” Shad told her. “You only have to be fully harnessed when we break through the atmosphere and go into space.”
“But…aren’t we?” Harper couldn’t imagine why else they would be in a space ship.
“Not yet,” he said grimly. “First we have to go by the base of the Resistance. If we don’t have someone running interference for us, we’ll never get out of Earth’s atmosphere.”
“The Resistance?” Harper shook her head, feeling dazed.
The big Kindred shot her a glance. “Not very original is it? But it’s what we do—we resist the Hive’s rule. Their systematic decimation of our world and people.”
“But…I always thought they were just an urban legend,” Harper protested as the small ship lifted and began skimming through the air. They didn’t seem to be going very high—she could still plainly see the rutted remains of a road beneath them. The same road she’d driven on to get to the beach what seemed like a hundred years ago.
Maybe it was a hundred years ago. If we really are in the future.
“They’re all too real, unfortunately,” Shad growled. “As you would have found out if you’d touched that E’lo stone the mind-slave was trying to give you.”
“Mind-slave? You mean the lifeguard guy you punched out?” Harper asked.
He nodded shortly. “He’d been stung by a mind-poisoner—a Hive scout that carries a special mind-control venom in the tip of its barb. It compels the one it stings to fulfill a specific directive. In this case, that poor fool was supposed to give you the E’lo stone.”
“But…why?” Harper remembered the desperation in the nice-looking lifeguard guy’s face as he demanded that she take the small purple M&M shaped stone, or at least just touch it.
“Because holding or even touching the stone would have transported you instantly to the Hive’s home base on Mars. That’s where they holed up when they came to our solar system,” Shad said. “Then they laid low and waited for us to let our guard down. The Kindred had a protective energy net around the Earth—the Hive couldn’t get anything larger than a small insect though it. But that was enough.”
“If they couldn’t get anything but an insect through, how was I going to be sent all the way to Mars?” It sounded far-fetched to Harper.
“Because Druvian E’lo stones cause instant transportation to anywhere in the universe. They were actually first formed to cause two compatible individuals to switch places and trade locations but they can be calibrated to transport only one specific person. In this case—you.” He gave her a direct look with those strange, white eyes of his.
“But…why me? What would they want with me?” Harper demanded. “I’m just a regular person. There’s nothing special about me.”
“Not special? Gods…” He shook his head. “Listen, Harper—you’re a ten’sora. The only one on Earth during your time. Or at least, the only one the Hive could locate.”
“A what? What does that even mean?” she demanded.
“Look…” He ran a hand through his wild black hair. “The Hive wants human females for one reason and one reason only—incubation of their grubs.”
“Incubation of grubs?” Harper felt sick. “You mean—”
The Sovereign—the ruler of the Hive—has a breeding barb he uses to inject his spawn.” Shad stared straight ahead as he spoke, his voice flat, his eyes hard. “Most females only survive one breeding. That’s because when the grubs grow large enough, they eat their way out.”
“Ugh!” Harper exclaimed. “That’s nasty!”
“It’s a death sentence,” Shad said shortly. “For any female but a ten’sora.”
“Which is what I’m supposed to be, right? Why? How am I different?” she demanded.
“You’re different because your body produces a special chemical—an enzyme which keeps the grubs dormant so that you can birth them naturally.”
“That’s disgusting,” Harper whispered. “There’s nothing natural about, uh, birthing grubs.”
“Of course not,” he said harshly. “The point is, they don’t kill you coming out. Which means you can be bred over and over and over…”
“Stop!” Harper wanted to clap her hands over her ears. “How can you say such awful things with a straight face? It’s not right!”
“Of course it’s not right,” he growled. “It’s fucking horrible and wrong on every level. But it’s what happens to you if I can’t save you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “You already did. You kept me from touching the purple M&M, er, the E’lo stone, and took me away to the future. I should be fine, right?”
He shook his head. “It’s not enough. It’s never enough. They find you—the Hive finds you every time and takes you back. Because what I’m trying to do is almost impossible.”
“You mean trying to save me?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “But it’s more than that—I’m trying to change the past.” He turned his head to look at her. “And Harper, the past doesn’t want to be changed. It resists at every opportunity.”
“And what…what happened in the past?” she asked numbly. “The Hive got me?”
“In the past—your present—you touched the E’lo stone and were transported directly to the Hive’s lair,” he said blandly. “There you were bred over and over, producing a veritable army for the Hive.”
Harper felt sick. This had to be a nightmare, right? He couldn’t be telling the truth, could he?
“You mean I…I…” But she couldn’t finish.
“Yes,” Shad said, staring straight ahead again. His voice was flat but there was a muscle jumping in the side of his strong jaw and his knuckles where he gripped the steering yoke were white. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Sovereign X'izith kidnapped you using the E’lo stones and forced you to incubate brood after brood of his fucking grubs.”
His eyes were shiny and dry but he swallowed hard before continuing. “They built their army silently, in secret. It took years but by the time they were ready to leave Mars and attack, they outnumbered us twenty to one.”
“And what…what happened then?” Harper whispered.
“They blew the Mother Ship out of the sky. Took over the world. The Earth had no weapons that could defeat them although the humans made a valiant attempt.”
“But if they blew up the Mother Ship how did you survive?” she asked.
“I and a group of my friends—classmates—were here on a field trip at the time of the attack. We formed the core of the Resistance and we’ve been hiding and fighting the Hive ever since.” He looked at Harper again. “But I always knew that someday I would go looking for you—to save you. And in saving you, I will be saving our entire race, Harper. Do you understand?”
“I…I think I’m beginning to,” she whispered, although her head was still spinning with the wild tale he was telling her. Captured by the Hive? Impregnated with an army of grubs? The Kindred Mother Ship destroyed and the world overrun with the horrible huge insects? It was almost too awful to contemplate. Yet all she had to do was look out the viewscreen around them to see evidence that Shad was telling the truth.
They were in the city now—a huge, gray city Harper didn’t remember. It appeared as though Downtown Tampa had somehow grown all the way out past the boundaries of Saint Pete. The buildings were strange and silent—lumpy towers of crooked gray and black stone that looked like they’d been extruded rather than built. They reminded her more of the huge termite mounds she’d seen in a nature documentary once than actual buildings. There were no windows and the entrances were rounded and uneven.
The streets they were skimming over were deserted except for a few long, thin, insectile creatures who reminded Harper of eight-foot-tall humanoid grasshoppers walking on their hind legs. They stalked around the blackened streets, their long antennae twitching as though they were looking for something.
“Seekers,” Shad said, seeing her staring at them. “They’re on the lookout for fertile females. They can smell one from a hundred yards away—like fucking sharks smell blood in the water.”
“Can…can they smell me?” Harper heard the quaver in her own voice and didn’t like it. But the idea of being grabbed by a giant insect was repellant to her. She hated bugs and always had, probably because she’d grown up in Florida where there were so many different kinds of creepy-crawlies.
“They could if the ship wasn’t air tight,” Shad said. “Don’t worry though—they won’t get us here. I’ve never seen a path where that happens.”
Harper wanted to ask him what he meant when he kept talking about different “paths” but before she could, they pulled up in front of a vaguely familiar building. It was made of brick and looked like something built by humans rather than extruded by termites. There was an old movie marquee out front with a few random letters still in place on darkened board. A tall, vertical sign above the marquee proclaimed TAM…but the P and the A had been broken off and lay on the cratered sidewalk below.
Suddenly Harper recognized the building.
“Hey—that’s the Tampa Theater!”
It was a historic landmark for the city—the first air-conditioned structure in town and a common spot for school field trips. It had been built in the 1920s as one of America’s most elaborate movie palaces and had only one screen. Rows of plush red velvet seats surrounded the single screen and marble steps led up to an elaborate balcony where the blue ceiling was gilded with stars like the night sky outside.
Harper had loved the old theater as a kid and even as an adult she and her girlfriends often came on Friday nights. The Tampa Theater was the place to go see first run indie films that weren’t playing at any of the multiplexes.
Seeing the familiar building crumbling but still proud, its few front windows boarded up and its sign broken on the ground brought the reality of the situation home to Harper as nothing had before.
“My God,” she whispered, staring at the half-ruined building. “This is really real, isn’t it? We’re really in the future.”
“One possible future,” Shad said pointedly. “There are many paths the loop can take. If we can get you to She Who Alters we can change all this.” He made a sweeping gesture with one hand to indicate the bleak landscape around them. “But before we can do that, we have to forge you a new identity. She Who Alters won’t see just anyone, no matter how great their need, unfortunately.”
“She Who Alters? New identity? What are you talking about?” Harper looked at him in confusion. The big Kindred wasn’t making any sense.
But he only shook his head.
“Never mind. Before we can do any of that, we have to clear Earth’s atmosphere. And that part is always tricky. Come on—we’re going to make a run for it from my ship to that small, side entrance there.” He pointed to a metal door to the side of the main entrance which was so covered in dirt and rust it almost blended in with the blackened bricks. “You ready?”
“I guess so. But…you’re sure none of those big, nasty-ass grasshopper looking Seeker things will get us?” Harper looked around anxiously. She really did hate bugs—especially giant ones. And I thought palmetto bugs were bad!
“None around,” Shad assured her. “We’ll be fine getting in—it’s getting out and making it out of orbit that’s the hard part. Come with me. Oh, and you might want to hold your nose.”
Before she could ask why he had popped open the front driver’s side door and was pulling her out onto the pitted and cracked pavement below.
Harper took in a deep breath and nearly gagged. A stench like nothing she’d ever smelled before assaulted her nostrils. It seemed to be made up of rotting garbage, dirty diapers, burning hair, and decomposing corpses.
“Ugh!” Harper clapped a hand over her mouth and nose to keep from inhaling any more of the horrid miasma and hurried to keep up with the big Kindred who was striding swiftly towards the side door.
He rapped in quick succession and then stood back, waiting until the door opened a crack and a bright eye peered out. Harper saw with some surprise that the iris had gold and silver rings before the door opened more fully, revealing what could only be a Beast Kindred. He had broad shoulders and a wild mane of black hair streaked with gold.
“Shad,” he growled in a low, hoarse voice.
“Daniel—I’m back,” Shad said.
The strange gold and silver eyes of the Beast Kindred lit with hope.
“You’ve got the girl? The looper worked?”
“Yes and yes but it’s complicated,” Shad said. “Let us in before the latest stench Kara and Kaleb whipped up kills us.”
“Come in then.” The huge Beast Kindred with the strangely mixed eyes and hair stood aside, ushering them into the dark interior of the theater.
The door slammed shut with a muffled thud and the Beast Kindred bolted and barricaded it behind them.
“Harper, this is Daniel, our leader,” Shad said, nodding at the other Kindred. “We grew up together—our mothers were best friends on Earth before our fathers called them to the Mother Ship as brides.”
“Nice to meet you,” the Beast Kindred said gruffly. “You can breathe easy in here. The scent blowers are all outside.”
Cautiously, Harper lifted her hand from her face and took a small sip of air. The scent inside the old theater was musty and dusty but not nearly as horrible as the rotten miasma outside. What the Beast Kindred had said about “scent blowers” struck her as strange though.
“So…that smell outside is on purpose?” she asked.
“Hell yeah.” The Beast Kindred Shad had called Daniel nodded easily. “Pheromones—keeps the Seekers away.”
“The Seekers aren’t too bright,” a new voice said. A tall Kindred with dark brown hair and green eyes stepped into the limited light. When he spoke, Harper thought she saw a flash of fangs—was he a Blood Kindred then?
The new male was hand-in-hand with a tall girl with straight, pale blonde hair and ice blue eyes.
“They aren’t sentient,” she said, as though continuing the male’s thought.
To Harper’s surprise, she saw that the girl had fangs too. But wasn’t it only Blood Kindred males who had fangs?
“And everything in the Hive runs on smell,” the male went on, continuing the girl’s sentence.
“So if you mix the right scents and pheromones together and blow them around the building,” the girl said.
“You present a very effective deterrent to the Seekers,” the Blood Kindred said.
“Which means you can keep them away,” they finished together in perfect unison, both sets of fangs winking in the dim light.
“I think this last batch you two mixed is the most effective yet,” Shad told them. “It’s fucking horrible.” He turned to Harper. “Harper, these two are Kara and Kaleb—they’re twins—the son and daughter of Commander Sylvan who was the head of the Kindred High Council in your timeline. They run our science division.”
“Such as it is,” Kaleb said. Kara kept silent, staring at Harper in a way so intense her look was almost a glare. At last she spoke.
“You are the ten’sora. You’re the reason the Hive were able to take over. It’s your fault my parents are dead. Your fault everyone on the Mother Ship is dead.”
“Hey now, Kara…” Daniel put a hand on her arm but she shook him off.
“It’s true and you know it.” She looked at Harper coldly but spoke to Shad. “You should have had the Time Warden set the loop to before the Hive found her. You should have gone back and killed her instead of trying to save her. The death of one is preferable to the death of many.”
“You know that’s not how it works, Kara,” Shad said roughly. “You can’t change the past through violence—only love. The Time Warden himself told me that.”
“What does he know?” Kara gave Harper one last, hostile glare, bared her fangs and actually hissed at her. Then, still clutching Kaleb’s hand, she turned back and she and her twin disappeared into the darkened husk of the theater.
“You’ll have to excuse her,” Daniel said roughly. “She’s brilliant but losing her parents—losing all our parents—did something to her. She can’t stand anyone but her twin, Kaleb. Everyone else is the enemy.”
“Come on,” Shad said. “We need to make a plan so I can get Harper out of here.”
“This way.” Daniel turned and led the way into the darkness.
Harper started to follow but stumbled over the uneven floor.
“Careful.” Shad grabbed her by the hand and pulled her along in his wake. “Step where I step. Some of this place is booby-trapped.”
Harper stepped carefully after him, wondering what else she would see in the harsh, awful future world.
Wondering if everything she saw here really was her fault.
* * * * *
Shad took a deep breath as Daniel led them through the echoing shell of the main auditorium to the small door under the tall wooden stage. He looked up at it, letting his memory wander.
There was a rectangular hole at stage left where the Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ used to rise before the movie started. He still remembered seeing it as a kid, mesmerized by its melodious tones, wishing his mother, Kat, could have come along on their field trip from the Mother Ship to see it. Later on he had wished it even harder, desperately wanting to see her face even once more—but by then it was too late…
Stop thinking of the past, he told himself roughly. Right now you need to concentrate on the future—on making a definite change and getting to the end of the loop.
He had some hope that this time it could happen. The fact that the time path they were on seemed to be a new one made him cautiously optimistic. But then, he’d had hope before—so many times—and every time it had been shattered.
And no matter how much hope he had for his possible success this go-around, the fact was that time was running out. The dying red light on the looper implanted under the skin of his left forearm proved it.
Have to get it right this time, he told himself, steadying Harper as she nearly stumbled again. They had made the decision to leave the interior of the old theater dark and cluttered to preserve the illusion that it was uninhabited—hence the mess. He knew every step by heart but of course, the Tampa Theater wasn’t like this in her time. It was clean and well-lighted and carefully preserved by the volunteers who staffed it and loved to tell about its history.
And it will be again, Shad vowed to himself. This time we’re going all the way to the end of the loop. This time I’ll be successful.
He hoped.
They entered the side door under the stage and a familiar sight met his eyes. His twin brothers, War and Peace, were sitting behind the control bank. Most of the monitors and viewscreens had been scavenged out of junked Kindred ships but Peace—who was a technical genius—had welded them together into a workable conglomeration which ensured they knew exactly what was going on around the theater at all times. He had sandy brown hair like their father, Lock, and blue eyes like their mother, Kat.
“Hello, Brother,” War, who was the tactician of the two, greeted him quietly. He had dark auburn hair as their mother had, but his eyes were as black as their other father, Deep’s had been.
Shad could still remember how their Dark Twin father’s eyes had blazed when he disciplined the three of them. Although War got the most discipline, since he always got into the most trouble, usually dragging poor Peace along with him. How the two of them had laughed and teased each other back in those happy days. Shad, being a Shadow Twin, had always stood by and watched their antics but still, he felt a quiet enjoyment of his brothers’ happiness.
There was no more mischief or humor left in his brothers’ faces now, though. They had suffered a deep loss—one Shad knew they would never recover from.
“War,” he said. “Peace. Meet Harper.”
“Oh, hello.” Peace looked up dully and then turned away, apparently losing interest in the new addition to their party. His eyes were bloodshot as though he hadn’t slept for days. Before him, resting on the console, was a small holo cube. He picked it up and flicked it idly with his thumb, causing it to hum to life.
A holo appeared hovering above the cube—the head and shoulders of a girl who had the same creamy brown skin tones as Harper. But her eyes were different—the irises a warm amber while the sclera around the iris which should have been white was a deep, rich black instead.
Shad heard Harper catch her breath.
“Who is that? Her eyes…”
“Ziza is…was half Scourge.” War’s deep voice faltered on his use of the past tense.
Shad’s heart ached for his brothers. As a Shadow Twin, he knew it was extremely unlikely he would ever form a bond with a female himself. But War and Peace were true Twin Kindred. The pair of them had been in love with the headstrong, beautiful Aziz—or Ziza, as they all called her—since they were children playing together on the Mother Ship. She had finally returned their love and agreed to bond with the two of them just a month before.
The trio had enjoyed a week of love—the three of them blissfully happy despite the harsh and awful world they lived in. And then Ziza had been snatched by a rogue Seeker while she was out on a routine patrol and taken to the Hive’s Earth headquarters. War and Peace had mounted a desperate campaign to get her back…but they had been too late.
“She was already swollen with grubs,” Peace had told Shad bleakly. “She begged us to…to kill her. I couldn’t…couldn’t do what had to be done. But War…he could. He did it.”
Shad knew well enough what that meant, the same way he knew why the Dark Twin’s hand twitched when he held his blaster and why his black eyes were hard and dead inside.
He had to shoot her—had to kill the only woman he and Peace ever loved.
It twisted Shad’s heart to admit it to himself. But he knew there had been no other option other than to leave Ziza to die in agony when the grubs reached maturity and gnawed their way out. Impregnation with grubs was a death sentence to any female who wasn't a ten'sora. What War had done was a mercy killing—not that the Dark Twin saw it that way.
It was a wonder he hadn’t turned the weapon on himself next but somehow Peace had stopped him. Shad didn’t know why—it was clear that the Light Twin was as dead inside as his brother.
His heart ached fiercely for the twins—his blood brothers—though he had never been as close to either of them as they were to each other. A Shadow Twin was always set apart—different…lacking in the world of the Twin Kindred. Nevertheless he loved his siblings and his very soul cried out to the Goddess for their healing and for a way to avenge Ziza or somehow change her fate.
He had cried to her after Ziza’s death—cried out in pain—and for the first time since he was a child, the Goddess had answered him…had given him his mission. Shad could still remember it now though it felt as though the encounter had been years ago…
“Child,” the Goddess had said to him, her face too bright to look upon as she appeared in the dimness of the ruined closet he called a room. “I have heard your sorrow and come to you.”
“Why now?” Shad’s grief had made him fierce, reckless. “Why now after all these years? Why didn’t you stop the Hive from killing the Mother Ship? From taking over the Earth? What good can it do for you to come to me now?”
“Child…” There was a pained note in the Goddess’s beautiful voice. “I ache for you and grieve for your pain but though I love my children, I cannot alter history.”
“Then what good are you?” Shad had raged at her. “What fucking good are you? Why did you come? Just to tell me you’re sorry? Just leave me the fuck alone.”
“Child,” the Goddess had repeated gently, patiently, for the third time. “I tell you, I cannot change history. But it is possible that you can…For you are a Shadow Twin—a special one. You were born for this very task and only you can perform it…”
Before his disbelieving eyes, the dimensional door had opened…the way to the Time Warden where he had been given the looper now implanted under his forearm. And his life had changed forever…
And what good has it done me? Shad asked himself fiercely, shaking off the old memory. I just keep failing again and again and again…
“So you got the time-looper and the girl,” War said, breaking into his bleak thoughts.
“Did he?” Peace looked up, a dull kind of hope lighting his eyes. “Does that mean you could go back and change history? Make it so…so Ziza is still…still alive and we all…” He shook his head, unable to finish.
“I’m going to try,” Shad said carefully. “But brothers, you must know, this isn’t the first time I’ve tried—the first path I’ve taken.”
“So you’ve tried before and failed,” War said flatly. “Well, we knew the past would resist change. The Time Warden warned as much. And a big event like the Hive domination is even harder to change.”
“I’ll do it this time,” Shad swore. “We’re on a new path. But in order to get her altered so the Hive can’t use her…” he nodded at Harper who stood quietly by his side. “I have to take her off Earth—out of this solar system.”
“You’ll need some cover then,” Daniel said heartily. “A distraction to keep the Hive off you until you break orbit and get past Jupiter at least.”
“We can do that,” Peace said quickly. “We can keep them off your trail, Brother.”
“I know you can.” Shad cleared his throat. “But Brothers…there’s something else you need to know.”
He waited until he had all their eyes before continuing. There was no easy way to say this.
“Yes, Shad—go on.” Daniel’s deep voice was oddly gentle, as though he knew what Shad had to say.
“I’ve done this—tried this—hundreds of times now,” Shad told them. “And in every path I’ve ever taken, the Hive finds the source of your distraction and blasts the base the minute I leave orbit. I don’t…” He cleared his throat. “Don’t think the base survives the blast. It’s massive.”
“So we need to evacuate and stage the distraction remotely,” Daniel said practically.
“Can’t,” Peace said at once. “I need to be here to make it work—it’s retinal-print activated.”
“If you stay, I stay, Brother,” War said at once.
“But that’s a death sentence,” Daniel protested.
“Don’t care.” War turned bleak eyes on their leader.
“Besides, anything we can do to help Shad change the past…bring back Ziza…” Peace lifted his chin. “We’ll do it.”
“You need to know something else,” Shad told them. “This…might be my last chance. The looper is almost out of power. And you know the Warden can’t be found more than once in a lifetime. It’s a dimensional impossibility.”
A bleak smile came to War’s face.
“Then we have to make certain to give you a big send off, Brother.”
“The biggest,” Peace agreed. “Last time pays for all.”
Daniel looked like he wanted to protest the twin’s fatalism but he glanced at the holo of Ziza that Peace still held in his hand and simply shook his head. He looked at Shad and Harper.
“Do your best,” he growled. “And may we meet again at the path’s end.”
“If we do, none of you will have any memory of this,” Shad reminded them. “It will be as if nothing ever happened. I will be the only one to remember.” He would be alone in his knowledge of the past, just as he had been alone and set apart all of his life.
“Good,” Peace said. “I don’t want to remember. And I don’t want to live in a world without our mate.” He looked at War who nodded.
“Peace is right. Either Shad succeeds, the past is changed, and we all live a peaceful life…or Peace and I get blown to the Goddess.”
“Either way, the pain ends,” Peace said quietly. “Go to your ship, Shad. War and I will make certain the Hive doesn’t see you leave.”
Though he had gone through this scenario more times than he could count, Shad still felt his heart twist in his chest. Beside him, he saw Harper’s wide green eyes looking at him uncertainly. He knew all the questions she had but he couldn’t bear to answer them right now.
Striding forward, he embraced his two brothers and then Daniel, who had led them all for so many years, ever since the fateful field trip to Earth when the Mother Ship was blown apart and the Hive had taken over the small blue and green planet.
“Go with the Goddess,” Daniel said in his ear. He released Shad and looked at Harper. “Lady, may you take the right path and may your past be changed,” he said formally.
“I…thank you.” Harper clearly didn’t know what to say.
“Welcome,” Daniel said gruffly. He sighed and ran a hand through his black and blond mane. “Well, I’d better go round up Kara and Kaleb.” He nodded at them briskly and then strode away, but not before Shad saw the grief on his face. They’d lost so many of their original group and now they would lose War and Peace too. It had to be unbearable for Daniel but the big Beast Kindred who was the oldest of them all kept going, no matter what. He had an indomitable will which had kept them together and strong, despite the ravages of the Hive.
Have to make their sacrifice count, he told himself fiercely. This time I cannot, I must not fail. This time I will reach the end of the loop.
“Come on,” he said and took Harper by the arm. “We need to go.”