The Lost War (Hectic Series: Book One)

Chapter 20

"Alright," said Melody, who had Kim lying down on a tarp with a metal clamp holding her eye open, "I'm going to make a minor incision to the left of your iris in order to extract the chip. It shouldn't hurt too bad-"
Kim was stretched out on the tarp, stiff as a board. "You're going to slice my eyeball open with a tiny knife and pull a metal shard from it, and you tell me it won't hurt too bad?"
Melody was already leaning in with a syringe. "Yes."
Kim stared down the length of the needle until her vision went blurry, and then it changed from a needle to a drill-a tiny little drill with a metal piece on the end of it, and on the other end was Gregor.
And the buzzing, and the drilling, and the screams...her screams, raw and bloody.
His screams, all bitter accusations that she couldn't refute.
Then it was a fuzzy picture of  Melody, white teeth flashing a warm smile between dark lips. "It'll only take a day, alright?"
Gasping, Kim glanced dazedly around her surroundings and blinked despite the shooting pain in her eye. "A day..." -she touched the area around her eye, expecting blood but finding none- "a day for what?"
"Florida," Sam said as she sat up. "That's where the portal is, so that's where we're going."
Kim took the pain medication offered by Melody, who apologized that she had no bandages. "Supplies are drying up fast," she said, "just try and squint it closed for a while."
Kim did as instructed and Mae laughed.
"I am aware that my facial expression is not the most pleasant, but if you could please not laugh-"
"Come on, come on, get up, One Eye," Sam said as he  pulled her to her feet. Kim could do nothing but comply as she was whisked away, again, to places she did not know.
This time the prison was an odd contraption that Mae called a car. Mae took the front seat, melody the one next to her, and Kim and Sam got stuck in the back.
Kim's wings had to be held and bent at an awkward angle to even fit inside the car.
The air was hot and stale.
Mae wasn't even sure if the car would start. It was Melody's, an old rust-covered thing that took up space on her downtrodden front lawn on the edge of the wilderness. Apparently few people lived outside of the big cities anymore.
After a few harsh coughs from the machine and more than a few curses from Mae the rusty contraption finally clicked to life.
It shook and shuddered all the way down the dirt path. Kim shrunk down in her seat.
"Now listen up," Melody barked, "I'll tag along until the end of the forest to be sure you buffoons don't get yourselves lost or eaten by a mutated grizzly, but after that I'm calling it quits. Turn."
Mae jerked the wheel and veered to the right, throwing Kim against the side of the car and Sam against her. "Thanks for the car, Mel. "
"Use it up, please. I've been wanting to get rid of the old thing for years."
They drove for a bit longer-during which time Kim felt every single bump and turn the big growling machine hit-before Melody got out at the edge of a dirty hill. The grass was brown and looked like it had been doused with oil.
Melody poked her poofy head of hair through the open window and waved. "Take care of yourselves, alright? This is the last stop. And you, Miss Tinkerbell, watch out for that eye."
There was a chorus of goodbyes and well-wishes and then they were on the road again.
They'd stick to back roads, Mae told them, and should be there in about twenty four hours. When Kim asked what time and Mae answered ten p.m. She was shocked to learn most Earth times went by twelve hours, which prompted an impromptu lesson in time.
"We don't have a necklace," Mae said, "we weren't high enough profile. When we get to the ship below the portal we'll have to steal one."
"What does the necklace do?"
"Well, Angel," Sam said, "the necklaces are like portal-keys. They're programmed to two locations, the ships in our world and the ships in yours. You hold a button and say a voice command-secret code-and you get beamed to the closest location."
That's how Carver had disappeared, Kim realized. "Why did you call me Angel?  I thought I was Tinkerbell."
"You are." Mae pressed a button and music blared inside the vehicle...an old Beatles tune, she said. "But you're wings are more angel than fairy. Put your seatbelt on."
Kim looked around blankly. Sam reached over, pulled the shoulder strap, and secured it in the buckle.
She tugged at it experimentally, found it was not dangerous, and shifted her weight. Her right wing was folded against the car door and slipped through the gap between the empty front seat. Her other wing was in front of Sam's legs behind Mae's seat. Without warning he reached down and ran his fingers through the feathers near the base.
Her wing fluttered involuntarily.
Sam smiled. "It's like a dog's leg," he said to himself.
Kim kept a cautious eye on him, alarmed that he was touching her wing, not to mention the fact that it was flapping by itself.
She grew steadily uncomfortable after a few moments and drew her wing back. "That is not a place you should touch."
He chuckled. "Does it make you uncomfortable?"
"If by uncomfortable you mean that you are petting a spot usually reserved for intimacy amongst Hectic partners then yes, I am uncomfortable. If you mean uncomfortable as in hot and cramped and tired, also yes."
He quickly withdrew his hand, blushing down to his neck. "Apologies."
"None taken," Mae said as she handed back two plastic-wrapped packages.
Sam handed Kim one and she turned it over, inspecting the shiny wrapper.
Sam leaned over and whispered, "it's food, Angel," before sitting back and taking a bite of his, which he had somehow already opened.
After staring at it blankly for a few moments Kim lifted it to her mouth and bit down.
"No!" Sam yanked it from her mouth. "Like this." He showed her how to peel back the wrapper to reveal the granola bar underneath. "You don't eat the wrapper."
She took a bite and said, "it does taste remarkably better without the plastic."
She saw Mae roll her eyes in the little mirror. "Get used to it, because that's about all we have in stock until we get to your world."
Kim finished off her snack and nodded. "It would take us months to get to Carrain on foot. Once we reach Sarrin I can secure two Wryvex for you and we can make it in a couple days."
Sam had been staring out the window, slowly chewing his food, but he snapped his head around when he heard this. "Dragons!"
Kim smiled. "I guess so."
"Do they breathe fire?"
Kim failed to recognize the sarcasm dripping from Mae's voice. "Of course they don't breathe fire," she said flatly, "I don't understand where you get your information from."
"Pulled it out of my ass along with the rest of the population," she shot back.
Kim leaned her head against the window and shut her good eye.
When she awoke some time later Sam was driving and Mae was in the seat next to him, giving Kim room to stretch her wings a bit.
Click. Click. Click.
Mae loaded and unloaded her gun over and over. The radio was turned off, no longer blaring The Beatles.
Way down the road Kim could see where blue sky melted into a black vortex that swirled and sucked in clouds and sunlight.
The glass pane next to to her rolled down.
"Chaos," Sam yelled over the sudden wind, "that's your power, right? You better be good at it, Angel."
Kim stuck her arm out the window and proved him right.
They raced down the deserted highway toward the harbor, in a rust-covered little machine with black lightning trailing behind them.
The tires squealed all the way to the edge of the road. When they stopped Sam and Mae jumped out and began firing off shots at the nearest soldiers.
Kim locked the portal in her line of sight.
Home. Oliver and Dex were waiting just beyond that vortex above the sea.
Lightning exploded everywhere at once-trees lit on fire and burst, grass fried instantly, the sonic boom from the blast created a ripple effect on the water, bodies dropped.
She found it hard to reign the chaos back in-it wanted to run free so badly and she was so tempted to let it-but when she finally did the silence was deafening, and electricity crackled in the air like a smothering blanket.
"Shit," Mae said in wonder, staring at the desolation before her. "Fuck nukes. Satan's where it's at!"
Kim grabbed both of them around the waist and took off. Sam continued firing celebratory shots into the air.
They were a whirlwind on the boat, shooting at everyone and everything. Mae snatched a necklace from someone just before Sam shot him down and plugged it into a slot on the main control panel, furiously pressing buttons. A beam of light shot up from the floor to the sky.
Breathless, Kim stared in wonder. "Are you sure you want to come with me?"
Mae looked back almost nostalgically. "This place is dead, Kim. There is hope yet in your world. I want to try and make things right."
"Well..." Sam stepped forward, gun at his hip, into the shaft of light. "In that case," he said, blue eyes shining, "beam me up, Scotty."