Barren Crossroads

As The End Draws Near

Her head moved back and forth like à swivel, and she scanned everything, every building, every small movement had her flinching. They'd entered Phoenix early that morning, and when he asked, Kaelie told him they'd probably be able to reach Jordan's lab by the evening, or maybe early the next morning.

She didn't really talk much after that. She was withdrawn, and closed off, and as they sat together in a burnt out house on the edge of the city that night, she looked to be miles away from him. She was preparing, and as they set off to finish their journey the next morning, in the mild Phoenix air, she finally told him why.

"I'm going to call in the rest of the Hunters, if I can," she said abruptly, pointedly not looking at him at all.

He tried not to sound shocked, but knew it didn't work. "What? Why would you do that?"

"Afraid, Rick?" she said, and for a second, she almost sounded like her old self. It didn't last, and sometimes she was not à very good pretender.

"We need test subjects," she said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Do you? If the outcome was poor, would it stop you?" he asked her, and even to him, he sounded à bit sullen. He'd thought a lot about it over the last bit of their journey. Every little thing she did, everything she said, the readiness with which she told him things, she was saying goodbye, or preparing too.

"We need to see if it works, one way or the other," she said. "But, probably not."

"Kaelie," he started to say, and she did look at him then, with an unreadable expression pinching her sharp features.

"Don't. I don't want to hear whatever declaration you've got, or whatever pity you're going to throw at me. You won't change my mind, and you can't stop me. If it works and I live, so be it. If it doesn't work and it kills me, so be it. Either way, you, Jace, and everyone will be better off with dead Hunters. And if it doesn't work, and it kills Hunters, the least I can do is take the rest of them with me."

"And you think that this Jace of yours is just going to accept that? You think your friends will? Am I supposed to?" he said, and his voice did not hide his hurt.

Her expression didn't change, but her eye seemed to soften. "Yes," she said.

"Well, I won't," he exclaimed mulishly.

"Who knows, love. Maybe you won't have to," she said.

She turned back away. "Anyway, we're here." She stopped, and Rick. followed her gaze. He'd been too distracted thinking about arguing with her, and actually arguing with her to pay attention while they walked. He found himself now at the end of à long, and cracked air strip, and à hulking hangar that sat at the end of it, blocking out the sky. Rick felt like it was staring at him.

"Here?" he asked stupidly.

Kaelie nodded, the sun turned her hair to fire atop her head. "Here. Underground. The lab, the chambers the Hunters were made in, the operating room where everything was taken from me, it's here. I suspect he'll have had some sort of alternate power source or something. Especially if he sent me here. We just have to find it. Then, we find his research. I'll start broadcasting on any frequencies I can. I had some radios set up before, I don't know if any still work, Easier than trying to just find one."

"You think they'll listen to you?" Rick asked.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Worth à shot," she said. "Come on then. Time to check for ghosts, or something."

She said it lightly but Rick could see the tension that anxiety put in her shoulders. He watched the shutters fall into place behind her eyes as she closed herself off, and watched as she pulled herself together until she no longer trembled and she was straight and proud. When the entered the hangar, the sudden shade from the sun had dark spots and sunbursts sparking over his vision. He blinked rapidly, but Kaelie moved forward like it didn't bother her, and he remembered that it didn't.