Chapter 4

He staggered at her words.  Physically staggered backwards as if she had dealt him a blow.  Against her better judgment and more by instinct than design, Des reached out to steady him.

His breathing was labored and Des knew that if he didn’t get control soon, he was going to hyperventilate.  She took a step towards him and placed a hand against his chest.  She could feel his heart pounding and from the glazed look in his eyes, he was only a few seconds from blacking out.

Let him. The voice whispered to her but she mentally shook her head.  He was dangerous, there was no doubt about that.  But right now he was also panicked and scared, two emotions that Des understood and couldn’t help but respond to. 

And, she had to admit, she had played a part in his reaching that state.  If she hadn’t slipped getting out of his box, he would still be in whatever state of sleep he had been in.

“Hey, man. You need to calm down and try to breathe normally.”

He glanced at her, his eyes wild and shook his head at her.  “Can’t…be…true.” He gasped out harshly.

Des nodded, understanding what he was saying.  “Yes, it can be and it is.  But you need to calm down, and breathe or you’re going to hit the floor.”

As soon as she said floor she felt him drop down to one knee.  Her attempts to hold him up were futile and his momentum nearly took her down with him.

“Can’t breathe.”

Des crouched next to him.  “Yes, you can.  You’re talking so you’re breathing.  But you have to slow your breathing down.”

This time he nodded his understanding, responding to the authoritative quality in her voice.  Des began to talk with each breath.

“That’s it.  Deep breath in…deep breath out.  Deep breath in…deep breath out…”

She continued the words even as he started to match his breathing with her voice.  When Des finally felt he was coming around she stopped chanting.  It was then that Esme broke in.

“Des, are you talking to the man that was in the box?”

“Not now, Esme.”

The man turned his head at her words, a question on his face.

“My sister is speaking to me and I want her to shut up.  Nothing for you to worry about.”

The man looked around, as if he expected to see Esme in the container with them.  Des reached up and took the ear piece out of her ear and showed it to him.

“She’s on the other side of this wall trying to find me a way out.”  Why Des was speaking to him as if they had not been pitted in battle just minutes before, she didn’t know. 

The man’s eyes left Des and looked at the wall that she indicated.

He frowned thoughtfully and then spoke.  “I can open that wall.”

Des froze and looked at him in surprise.  “You can?  How?”

She didn’t realize that she had tightened her grip on his arm where her hand had been resting until he tugged gently to release her grip.

She stepped back with a rueful look.  “Sorry about that.”  She shook her head and looked at the ceiling.  “Why the hell am I apologizing to you?!”

He looked at her oddly, his eyes going from her face to her neck and then quickly up and down her body.  “I’m sorry if I did something to hurt you.”

            The apology caught her off-guard but she didn’t have time to dwell on the oddness of having a genial conversation with someone who had just tried to kill her.  She’d have her head examined when she was out of the container and safe.

            She pointed to the wall, “You can make this wall move?”

            The man’s eyes lingered on her for a long moment before he finally turned back to the wall, gave it a long look, and then looked back at her.

            “Yes, I can make that wall move.  I’m not sure how it works or how I can control it, but I sense that I can.”

            Des opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but thought better of it and instead nodded at him.

            “Can you give it a try then?”

            In her ear, Esme started talking again.

            “Des, this wall looks pretty solid and I haven’t found anything that looks like a lever or a way to control it from this side.  If you see the same thing on your side, then how is this guy gonna get rid of this wall?”

            Des watched the man with the same question in her mind, but she wasn’t in a position to question the logic of the situation.  She stepped back out of his way as he approached the wall and placed both of his hands flat against it.

            For a moment Des thought he was going to try to physically move the wall.  She had no doubt that the man was stronger than even a man his size would be expected to be, but there was no way she’d believe he could move a wall that size with brute strength alone.

            She had just started to say that aloud when she saw what looked like circles of light appearing under the man’s hands where they rested against the wall.

            As the circles grew wider and wider, Des also picked up an audible hum that grew in intensity, in time with the growth of the circles.

            “Esme, get away from the wall.”

            Des said the words calmly but Esme heard the strain in her sister’s voice.  She didn’t know what was worrying her sister, but she knew that tone.  She didn’t hesitate to move back against the door at the back of the container where she waited at what she hoped was a safe distance.

            Des couldn’t see her sister, but the lack of response told her that she had followed the order.  She heeded her own suggestion and moved another step back from the man and the wall.

            Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Des stood and watched the wall with baited breath, wondering if the man could truly get it to release.

            Then, the hum became a whine as the wall began to shake.  Less than a minute later Des’ eyes widened in surprise as the wall began to ease upward at a steady pace.

            The man kept his hands on the wall as it moved, allowing them to slide down as the wall moved up.  Des began to ease towards the wall, intending to roll under the wall as soon as it cleared a few feet from the ground.

            But she froze when she saw the man’s hands lift from the wall as he took a step backwards.  Des tried to watch him and the wall at the same time but her eyes locked on the man as he looked at his hands as if they did not belong to him.

            Des could hear the wall still moving but she moved towards the man who had paled noticeably again.  She looked at his hands and though the glow she had seen when he touched the wall was gone, his hands were a livid red color.

            She also noticed that he was shaking violently.  She took a step towards him, not sure what she was going to say or why she wasn’t just heading for the exit now that she could.  Her every instinct was screaming at her to turn and run, but something in her was holding that instinct at bay.

            Despite his size, despite the danger she knew he represented, this man reminded her of the lost children she and Esme found and rescued in Four Crossings.  She knew that the comparison would seem like a stretch to many, but if comparing feelings of being lost and frightened, this man ranked right up there with the rest they had been able to save…and those they had lost.

            Des took another step and then another until she was standing directly in front of him.  She put her hands out to rest on his and had to snatch them back when the heat emanating from his hands singed her through her gloves.  She looked down at her gloves and saw that they were smoking where they had made contact with his skin.

            His eyes met hers and she saw that he was confused and afraid.  “Does it hurt?”

            He looked at his hands again and then at her.  “No, it feels strange, though.”

            “Strange how?”

            He again looked at his hands then back to her.  “They tingle as if they’ve been asleep and now they are coming back to life.”  He frowned thoughtfully.  “Actually, that’s how my whole body feels right now.”  He looked back at the box that she had found him in.

            Des followed his gaze and frowned as a sudden urge to destroy it flashed into her mind.  She normally only had that reaction when she found a slave traders strong hold.  The urge to destroy it always took over, and she and Esme had burned the last one down, with the ring leader still inside.

            But the box was just a box, right?  Why was her mind comparing it to places that housed acts of torture and depravity?

            She turned back to the man and started to ask him about the box when she noticed that his gaze was fixed on something behind her, and that his eyes had gone silver again.

            Des whipped around and saw her sister ducking under the door to enter the container fully.  Like Des, she was dressed in all black, including the cap that covered her hair.

           “Damn!”  Des stepped in front of the man trying to block his view of her sister.  She yelled over her shoulder.

            “Esme, take your hair down!”

            Esme stopped and stared at her sister as if she had lost her mind. “What?  Why?”  Her eyes widened when she saw the large man towering over her sister but staring straight at her.  “Whoa!  Is that him?”

            Des wanted to glower at her sister but she couldn’t look away from the man as she tried to figure out how to get him to stop focusing on Esme.  If he went into full attack mode again, Des wasn’t sure if her hair would be enough to stop him.  She could only hope that if her sister let her hair down it would protect her as well.

            “Esme, damnit, stop staring and do as I said. Please!”  She reached up with both hands and tried to force the man’s head to turn and look at her and was surprised when his head and gaze moved to hers.  But it was only for a brief moment as he switched back to staring at her sister again.

            It was the please that alerted Esme to the seriousness of the situation.  Des didn’t like to beg or ask anyone for anything.  The fact that she offered a “please” without any hesitation told Esme to move quickly.

            She whipped the cap off and stuffed it into her back pocket.  She unpinned the coiled set of braids and started unraveling the thickest one from the bottom, wishing now she had not chosen to braid it up so intricately.

            She glanced up at her sister and the man and noticed that her sister was still standing in front of the man but they were closer to her now as they did a strange two step in her direction.  The man would shift to move towards her, and Des would counter his move with one of her own and then use her hands on his face to get him to look at her.

            Each time they did this his gaze would linger longer on Des and less on her as more and more of her dark auburn hair came free.  By the time she had gotten the last braid down, her sister and the largest man she had ever seen in person were standing only a few feet away from her, but the man was no longer looking in her direction at all, his eyes locked on her sister.

            It was then the Esme realized that her sister was also saying something to the man and she was finally close enough to hear the words.

            “You’re fine.  She’s not going to hurt you.  She’s here to help you.  You’re fine.  She’s not going to hurt you.  She’s here to help you.”

            Des kept repeating the words and only began to relax when she saw no hint of silver in the man’s hazel eyes.  It had taken her words and her persistence to bring him back.  Des also suspected that her sister’s hair was fully down and finally felt safe enough to glance behind her.

            She almost smiled at the riot of auburn waves her sister now sported, knowing how much Esme hated to wear her hair down.  But she didn’t want to give her sister the impression that it was safe to relax around this man.

            When she returned her gaze to his face she saw that he was again looking at her sister, but this time his gaze was clear and simply curious.

            He looked back at Des, “This is your sister?”

            Des nodded, only then noticing that she still held his face between her hands.  She released him slowly, dropping her arms back to her sides before she turned back to her sister.

            “Esme, go back under the wall.  I don’t want to risk both of us being caught in here if it decides to slam down again.

            Des could see that Esme wanted to argue but they didn’t have the time.  Des could feel the container slowing and knew that they were approaching the switching station where the van was.  They needed to get off of the transporter and back to Four Crossings before daylight.

            She waited until her sister had slipped under the wall before she turned back to the man.  She was having an internal battle with herself about what to do.  Leave him there or take him with her?

The man was dangerous and clearly unstable.  Her small successes at controlling him weren’t a guarantee and Des didn’t know if they would continue to work with others around.

            But she also knew without a doubt that he was the weapon that Arguletti had sent her after, though she suspected that he had not planned on her actually surviving the job.  If she delivered the “weapon” to Arguletti, she would be handing him a seemingly indestructible force that he likely knew how to control.

            But if she left him on the Transporter and he arrived in Four Crossings, he would end up under the government’s control, and that would likely be worse than having him go to Arguletti.

            Des sighed heavily, knowing that her mind was already made up.

            “I need you to come with me.”

            He looked surprised at her words as he looked towards the back of the container where her sister now stood waiting.

            “Where are you going?”

            “To Four Crossings.”

            She knew her response confused him.  “I thought you said this transport was already going to Four Crossings?”

            “It is, but to a different part, an unsafe part.  I want you to come with me where you’ll be safe until we can figure out where you truly belong.”

            The man’s eyes held hers and she knew that he had other questions that he wanted to ask, but for some reason he withheld them.  He again looked towards the back of the transporter, this time with curiosity in his eyes.  Des decided to take advantage of that curiosity and surprised him by taking his hand in hers.

            “Come on, we don’t have much time before the transporter starts moving again.”  She was taking his silence as agreement and turned to leave the container.

            Almost as if he were in a trance, the man followed her, his hand still held loosely in hers.  They both ducked under the wall and joined Esme at the door.

            “Let’s move.”

            Des and Esme shared a long look before Esme pushed the door open and stepped out onto the back deck.  The transporter was still moving, but slowly enough that Esme was able to step down easily.

            Des followed with the man in tow.  She glanced down at his bare feet and thought of the rocks and likely glass that would be scattered around the tracks.  She winced for him, but knew that there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. 

            Not giving him time to think, she jumped down the steps and quickly followed her sister towards the van where it was parked in the shadows.

            The man followed her silently, showing no indication of discomfort as they crunched over gravel.  Esme was already in the front seat when Des opened the back door of the van and stepped in, pulling the man behind her.  She maneuvered him into a seat built into the back of the van facing sideways.

            As if he were a small child, she quickly strapped him in with the safety harness and then gave his knee a pat.

            “We’ll be safe soon.”

            His eyes caught hers and he gave her a nod of understanding.  Des patted his knee again and then moved to the front of the van to join her sister.

            As soon as she was buckled in, she felt the van lurch as Esme put it in gear and maneuvered them out of the hiding place and onto a back road hidden by the overgrowth.

            Des glanced at her sister and noticed the grim line of her mouth.  Des knew what her sister was thinking, because she was thinking the same thing.  What had she gotten them into?

Though her sister hadn’t said a word, Des answered her silent question.

            “I don’t know, Sis.  I really don’t know.”