Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (78 page)

Now’s not the time,
he thought, trying to put the
Loki?
out of his mind

The bumping and scraping
of the heavy chain made him snarl, but he did not move. He hated
this place, despised being held against his will. He would get out.
One way or another he would figure a way. Though their search
earlier had proved unfruitful, he would think – real hard – and he
would find a way for them to escape.

For the time being, he
stepped away from the portal, bending at the knees to place Vanessa
upon the ground.

J.J. unfolded her from the
covering, checking to see if had any injuries with hands that
spasmed and jerked. Like the rest of them, when they had arrived,
they had come without a scratch.

“
Do you know her?” asked
Jeremy.

From within the foul mood
consuming him, Miles frowned at the dude.
What’da’ya think, dipstick?

“
Yes.” J.J. glanced up at
the well-muscled boy. “She’s one of my best friends.” She tore her
eyes from him to gaze down at Vanessa, her body shuddering with
sorrow. “Look what they’ve done to you.” She placed both hands on
one of the girls’ arms, squeezing from time to time as she
wept.

“
She’s pretty,” commented
Jeremy, glancing over at Miles for confirmation.

The large boy found
himself peering down at the supine form on the ground.

Miller giggled, but was
nodding like a bobble-head,

She was pretty, curvy for
a teenager with broad hips and a nice set bazunga’s. Her hair was
disheveled and uncombed, but that did not take away from the
appealing set of her nose or the flushed hue of her lips. The first
was long and delicate, the second were widespread, ripe for
kissing.

She was clad in only a
nightgown. Once J.J. had ascertained that her friend’s legs and
feet were bare, she was fast to cover them with the
blanket.

“
Yup, she’s pretty
alright,” agreed Miles.

“
Of course she’s pretty,”
said J.J., maybe a little harsher than she had intended. “She’s my
friend after all.” She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head as
if the boys should have known better from the outset.

Marissa stepped to them,
all business. “Well, let’s see if we can get her to wake-up and
then find a way to nurse the headache we all know she gonna have.”
She was only as tall as Miles’ waist, yet her presence was
commanding.

Since when did we put the
little squirt in-charge?
he asked himself,
a questioning look on his face.

And yet, he was not all
that surprised when the others came closer to do her
bidding.

“
Alicia, the man-thing is
gone. You can come away from the wall now,” beckoned the little
general to her heavy-set friend.

The other girl peeled
herself from the barrier.

To Miles, she still looked
like she seen her entire lineage as ghosts, in a long procession to
boot.

Marissa smiled at her, but
it was motherly, unfit for a female her age.

But it’s not, now that I
think about it. Somehow it’s fitting.

The rest of the group
gathered around Vanessa, rubbing her hands, as gentle as possible,
shaking her at the shoulder.

Marissa remained standing,
one hand on her hip. Then she snapped her fingers with the other.
“Alicia, see what the man-thing brought us. Maybe you could find
some water we could give to J.J.’s friend.”

It worked. The thick-boned
girl smiled. It was weak, but still it was a smile. She made her
way toward the rucksack that was near-bursting.

Miles stared at Marissa
for a few more moments.
She
is
in-charge
, he marveled. How could
someone so small, so tiny –
so
young
– get them to follow her lead
without any of them taking notice? When had it happened?

He had not been down here
all that long – not even a full night. Still he still had
difficulty pin-pointing the exact moment when her assertions had
become something more than mere suggestions. She had slipped into
the role as smooth as silk, he doubted even she was aware of what
she was doing.

Was she changing? Was she
something more than she had been when I met her last night?
But, it had been less than six hours.

The strangest aspect of
the situation was it
felt
right. Though he had no idea how or why he could
make such a determination, somewhere deep, deep down it felt like a
reality he could not ignore. It was as though something in his DNA
was telling him so. How could one deny the certainty, the basic
truth, of genetics?

He shook away the thought,
his vision still on Marissa who was helping the others. “I’m going
to go help Alicia,” he stated, not sure why.

Without responding,
Marissa glanced up at him with a large smile on her face. Her tiny,
dark brown eyes sparkled in the dim glow of the lantern. She nodded
and went back to taming some of Vanessa’s wild hair.

Her approval garnered, he
moved off to help the skittish girl who almost peed on herself
every time she laid eyes upon one of the Loki.

Behind him, Marissa
touched the forehead of the girl on the ground with the middle
finger of her left hand. “Wake, Vanessa. Come join us,” she
whispered.

The sixteen-year-olds’
eyes shot open immediately.

Yes, there was definitely
something more in Marissa now.

The others moved back,
giving her room.

Vanessa blinked, rapid,
gazing about, near to panic until she found J.J. In an instant, her
face brightened. “Jay, I was just thinking about you!”

The Filipina gathered her
in her arms, crushing her in a tight embrace, which Vanessa
returned just as eager.

“
Lynn and I were so scared
that someone had kidnapped you.”

Juanita’s grip
loosened.

Vanessa seemed to notice
and pulled back. For a second, she didn’t move. Then it all seemed
to hit her at once. “Wait a minute. Where am I?” she asked,
adamant.

J.J. looked her straight
in the face. “Kidnapped.”

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

~ 46 ~

Destiny?

Day Five, Monday, 5:34
am…

He cupped her chin,
turning her vision from the hideous face glaring at them from the
large doorway. He peered down into her eyes with a soft, gentle
look of his own.

{Now, I know what this
is....}

He upturned her head so
her look became direct.

She did not resist, in
fact, she seemed to encourage the intimacy, the familiarity with
which he touched her. She let her body melt into his once more,
feeling warm in the pit of her stomach. He was so handsome, though
he did not seem like the type of guy who flaunted it, used it to
his advantage. To her, he just was what he was.

He bent down, his
shoulders hunching as he moved forward.

She felt her hands, again
upon the small of his back, push him forward even more, into her, a
building pressure - a needy clutch.

{Umm yes, this is how it's
supposed to be.}

She felt his other hand
come up from the side and reach up through the roots of her hair at
the nape of her neck. She shuddered with delight, for no boy had
ever touched her with such a soothing, confident caress. She
exhaled, whatever barriers (if there ever had been any) fell way.
She knew right then, right there, she wanted him. Even with the
horrid monstrosity screaming at them without making a sound, she
was able to express her innermost feelings. She was no longer
embarrassed.

For some reason, the evil
giant could not pass beyond the threshold of the door.

She redirected her mind
and focused on the fact that she wanted him, blotting out the
manifested malice behind them.

{It is true, I do want
him… I want him to kiss me! I want his lips on mine…}

They kissed. It was a
long, slow exploratory meeting of their lips. Their tongues tasted,
sharing, feeling one another for the first time. She felt her heart
burst open and reveal itself, flushing her chest, her neck and her
cheeks.

{I want him!}

And even though they had
not stopped kissing, even though their bodies did not part, she
heard him speak. How he was able, she would never know…

“
I am Andrew.”

He said it over and over
and over… in her mind, in her soul. All she wanted was to know even
more of him.

Andrew…

He is Andrew…

*****

…
the thought was still
passing across her subconscious when she opened her eyes. She found
him staring back at her in the semi-darkness of what little
pre-dawn light penetrated this far into the store.

He was lying down next to
her. His head rested upon a pillow. His sleeping bag covered him
from shoulder to foot. It was so fluffy with down it seemed he
could have slept on the slopes of Mount Everest and still would not
have caught a chill.

She was lying down as
well. Her head upon her pillow too, stuffed like a sausage in her
sleeping bag that she had somehow managed to tangle about her legs
as she slept. She had always been a wild sleeper.

“…
I am Andrew…”

She was sure he had
spoken, though his lips had not moved.

His eyes searched her own,
gazing over her face, serious, intent and unabashed. It was as if
he was not content to just look at her, but he had to see her, the
real her.

“
I am Andrew!”

“
I know,” she whispered to
him.

His eyes stopped moving at
once and focused onto hers. “You know what?” he asked.

“
I know who you are,” she
replied, which made him frown, befuddled.

“
Of course you know who I
am, Anna, we’ve been like hanging out for almost a day now,” he
clarified, making Marianna smile inside.

“
You keep saying your name
over and over in my head, even when I’m asleep,” she explained. She
brought her hands up under her chin, still laying on her side as
she curled herself into a ball.

“
I do?” asked Andrew with
a turn of his head.

“
Yeah.”

Silence stretched between
them as she let him consider what she had said, feeling warm and
safe inside. She gazed over his angular features, the thinness of
his face, the wild tussle of his hair, his bottomless brown
irises.

You are so handsome, Drew.
It can’t believe I found you…

“
You dreamt about us
again?” he queried into the quiet, cold air between
them.

She felt her heart tug and
she nodded that he was correct.
I was
kissing you again – kissing you and wanting to be in your arms
where I know I am safe.

“
Why do you think you do
that? Dream about us, I mean.” He was resolute and not his usual
playful self this morning.

She contemplated his
question. She knew there had been many, many strange things
happening to her. It was impossible to answer him with anything she
could call definitive, factual. All she could explain was what she
felt in her heart, what her mind had been telling her since she had
awakened in his arms. She felt secure for the first time since her
arrival upon the Melded World.

Destiny
, she giggled inside.
I don’t even
care if it sounds cheesy!

“
I don’t know, but I’m
sure glad that I do,” she said instead, smiling with the heat of
her emotions.

“
Me too,” he ventured like
a little boy who wanted to admit something, but was shy about doing
so.

He’s so sweet.

She blinked the last of
the sleep from her eyes and opened them wide, never taking her eyes
from him. I want to kiss him for real. She ran her only free hand
through her hair, straightening it out and moving it out of her
face.

“
How is it we knew each
other before we even met?” he asked of a sudden, forcing her to
look him in the eyes again. She could see there was real interest
from the cast of his face, his brow knotted, and the tight skin
about his orbs plaintive.

How else, my dear? It is
pure and simple destiny.

“
I don’t know, you
goof-ball. What matters is we did know of each other and we did
meet, all else pales in comparison. Don’t you think?” She reached
out toward him with the same hand she had used to fix her hair, and
he reached out and grabbed a hold of it immediately. She gave him a
soft squeeze after their fingers interweaved and then held on,
having no intention of letting go.

“
It’s just weird, that’s
all,” he added, his expression unchanged.