Chapter Six (P. 1)
Kieran was lost. Hopelessly, horribly lost. And confused. And tired. And…
Betrayed.
He shook his head, trying not to focus on what had happened. He’d only get upset, and then he’d get more confused, and then more tired, and then more lost… Ah, Life just wasn’t smiling at him at the moment. Or it was, expect that smile was a nasty sneer. And that rain of luck falling on him? Obviously what was dropping from the sky weren’t golden raindrops, but steaming lumps of-
“Shit!”
He tripped over a root and fell flat on his face. With a groan, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the leafy canopy above him. He’d been in the African desert when it had happened, and a flash of light later he’d ended up in the Amazon? Call him crazy, but wasn’t there an ocean between them? Or maybe he was still in the desert and the weird trees surrounding him were just his imagination or some freaky hallucination.
Kieran squinted up at them, a little unsettled by their appearance. He wasn’t a great fan of documentaries, but he’d noticed that the trees in the Amazon didn’t look like upside-down Christmas trees. He was also pretty sure that their leaves weren’t usually this odd. They were about the length of his arm, right from his shoulder down to the tips of his fingers. They were pretty wide too; not as wide as they were long, though. Just leaf-shaped … surprisingly.
He frowned and cursed. What was wrong with him? His brothers had been executed for some stupid stone and he was lying on his back thinking about how strange the trees were? Damn, he was an idiot. A brainless, babbling idiot.
Sven should’ve lived instead of him. He was the one who wanted a life. Kieran didn’t care about love, redemption, a clear conscious. Nah, he was too screwed up for any of that stuff. So why had he lived and not Sven?
Huh, oh yeah. That was what always happened, wasn’t it? The ones who wanted to live died; but for those who didn’t give a damn, life just kept dragging on.
Kieran shut his eyes. There was no point thinking about what should have been. It was too late now. Even if Sven had kept his gun, that burst of gunfire had been so quick he wouldn’t have had time to reach for it, let alone get a decent shot in. And although Kieran had no idea how that stone worked, or even what the heck it had done, if Sven hadn’t unwittingly given it to him, then Kieran would be lying in a body bag right now.
His heart began to pound. That was if they’d been put in body bags. The Master probably just ordered their bodies to be left in the desert; there was less hassle that way. He wouldn’t have to explain why two of his boys had turned into human sieves to anyone sticking their noses in. But the idea of Sven and Rick lying on the blood-soaked ground, food to passing predators… It just turned his stomach.
They deserved a funeral. Medals. Trumpets. The whole lot for their loyalty to the Master. Instead they were just left in the open so the vultures could peck out their eyes.
He rolled onto his front and began to heave, sick at the thought of Sven’s body being left like that. After his stomach had emptied, he pushed himself into a sitting position and dropped his head in his hands.
Goddamn, the Master was one cold asshole. All those years… It was like Sven and Rick were nothing to him. And Kieran supposed he and every other member of the Black Dragons were included in this equation. Maybe even Vara and Leo.
…Or not. Vara was practically a daughter to him, doing everything he asked like that would make daddy love her. Leo was just a psychopath. He and the Master were a match made in heaven.
With a grunt, Kieran tried to get to his feet. But his strength was still MIA and he would have fallen flat on his face if he hadn’t grabbed the trunk of the nearest tree.
That was when it started to get weird.
The tree’s massive leaves snapped upwards, folding together to form a smooth surface. What had once been hundreds of huge leaves were replaced by an upside-down triangle of metal. Light flickered up the tree trunk from where his hand still touched it. It reached the smooth top and growing images spread across it until it looked like some huge advertisement board in London. Or a big screen T.V., seeing as how those images were moving. Kieran felt like he’d been punched in the stomach when they came into focus and Sven’s face loomed out at him.
“Holy Christ,” he breathed, the hand on the tree trunk trembling. How did a tree know what Sven looked like? Hang on, how did a tree even do that? Kieran felt like he was trapped in some drug-induced nightmare. Especially when he started wondering what happened to the sound.
The silent film of Sven showed him smiling and waving down at Kieran, his other hand resting on the shoulder of the pretty, dark-haired woman who sat next to him. A girl and a boy knelt at his feet, also smiling and waving at Kieran. Behind Sven, a wooden cross hung on the wall, next to about a hundred family photos.
Kieran choked and gasped for air as he realised it was what Sven had told him he’d wanted. But … Sven was dead. This wouldn’t happen. This couldn’t happen. Kieran shook even more, feeling the last of his courage run for its life.
Naturally, he followed suit.
Kieran pushed his way through the forest, running so fast he all but flew over the roots hoping to snare his feet. Trees appeared suddenly out of the gloom like some nerve-wracking video game. On several occasions he nearly hit them, but managed to veer out of the way just in time, pushing off the tree trunks to help him go even faster. The low hanging branches slapped him in the face as he tore past, the edges of the leaves as sharp as blades. Behind him, he heard the snapping sounds of the trees mutating like that first one. The noise spurred him on, like hundreds of hungry dogs snapping at his heels.
He didn’t know how long he ran for. The clothes he wore were basically rags, and his exposed flesh stung all over. He stretched his mouth open wide to suck as much air as he could into his burning lungs, not that it helped at all. His legs were tingling, but otherwise they could have gone on holiday and Kieran wouldn’t have noticed. He did notice the trees thinning out, though. And how it was growing lighter and lighter.
Finally, he’d reached the edge of the forest … and he was alive!
His foot caught another root and he flew through the air. He grunted as he hit the forest floor and tumbled forwards, jagged rocks and broken sticks lining up just to get a shot at him. Instead of coming to a stop, he rolled faster and faster. A glimpse of the sky and green grass told him he’d broken free of the forest. Still, he kept going faster. Until, with a bone-shattering impact, he hit something so hard and solid that it had to be a rock.
Everything hurt. It felt like he’d been stuck in a washing machine with a bunch of rocks and knives. For a couple of minutes, just lying there until he died from internal bleeding seemed a pretty good idea. Then he got his breath back and mustered enough strength to roll himself on to his back.
The pale sky was definitely a better view to have than the never-ending forest. Especially a forest whose trees turned into huge cinema screens of Sven’s face. Kieran’s vision grew blurry as he thought about Sven. That guy had wanted a life, but that would never happen. All thanks to the Master.
Tears began to spill down his cheeks and sobs escaped from his mouth like hiccups, as all the thoughts he’d kicked from his head rushed back to him. I will avenge you, he thought, picturing that image of Sven and his family all so happy and smiling. I will take down the Master for you.
