Royal (Terk’s Guardians #9)

Chapter 3

J anna woke up to somebody shaking her. She silently sat up in bed.

Calum said urgently, “We’re leaving in twenty minutes. Come get a bite to eat.”

She got up, used the facilities, then headed to the kitchen, where she was handed a couple big, thick sandwiches. Her eyebrows shot up at the amount. She ate what she could, then handed back the rest, which the two men quickly scarfed down. A sandwich that big was obviously so far out of her league in terms of quantity, but she ate what she could and was full. A couple granola bars were set before her, which she stuffed into her pocket.

With everything packed up, and her backpack on her back, they slowly moved out into the darkness. She had hiking boots on her feet, and good ones, but she hadn’t had a whole lot of time to break them in. Even now as she moved at their side, she tested her feet, hoping they could get a good share of the way before she got blisters. She had Band-Aids with her, just in case, but it would still be better not to have that problem in an op like this.

She kept up with the men as they moved silently through the darkness. When they came to a series of overgrown brush hedges and what appeared to be a large waterpipe, they traipsed inside, getting their feet thoroughly wet, but it led them through a dark and wet drainage ditch. When they came back out on the other side, they quickly moved into the brush again, out of sight of anyone.

Rick caught up with her, having been in the last position, and he whispered, “We’re in Russia now.”

She nodded and pointed to the south. “We need to go that way.” He didn’t say anything but nodded, yet kept going the same way they had been. She didn’t have any choice but to follow. Now in Russia, they all remained silent. Yet somehow she felt that Rick and Calum were communicating anyway. She had no way of knowing for sure, except that some weird energy buzzed around her at various moments.

All of a sudden Calum stopped, turned, and whispered to Rick, “The women say they found both of them.”

Janna gasped. “ Both of them? So, somebody is with Royal then.”

He nodded and whispered, keeping his voice very low, “And you were right. They’re to the south of us, but that’s all they can pick up. They’re funneling as much energy that way as they can. I’m being told that the other person is quite sick, and that’ll hamper our rescue.”

“Absolutely,” Janna stated, “because rescuing only one is not an option.”

The men turned to stare at her.

She jutted out her jaw. “You don’t know which one is sicker, and it could be Royal.” The men just continued to stare at her. Almost abashed, she added, “Besides, we won’t leave anybody behind, will we?”

The men shared a look, didn’t say a word, and kept on walking.

She didn’t know whether they were in agreement or not, but she would raise Cain if they thought they would come all this way just to leave somebody else to suffer, as Royal had been suffering.

When they had walked for about thirty minutes, she got an odd mixture of feelings. “I can almost feel him.”

“But they’re not that close,” Calum noted in surprise.

“I know. That’s why I’m not sure what’s going on. Whatever it is, that connection between us is much, much stronger now.” She frowned as she looked at the men.

“Most likely it’s Clary and Cara.”

“What do you mean?” Janna asked, as she tried to keep up with them.

“The twins have opened up healing pathways, which means that their combined energy is flowing to Royal and his buddy, probably at a much stronger rate. You should know better than we do, but you’re probably tapping into that energy too.”

She wasn’t even sure what to say to that.

“I’m not sure exactly what all you were doing with the government,” Calum admitted, studying her, “but surely you understand that energy flows and highlights or strengthens all the other energy work going on around it, right?”

“Nothing like that ever came up in any of the testing that I was involved in,” she shared, “but it makes sense.”

“See if you can contact him,” Calum suggested. “The twins used your energy to get there. So, if you could open a door and communicate with Royal, that would help a lot. He should know that we’re coming, and we can coordinate with him and make a plan to get him out.”

“I’m trying,” she replied, “but, in the last while, there hasn’t been any change.”

“Keep trying,” Rick interjected. “You’ll find that communication changes and that door will spin open, maybe too fast for you to even see or to do anything about it initially, but then it should be something you can reopen again.”

She heard what he was saying, and, even though she didn’t quite understand it, she got the gist of it. She was still reeling with the idea that the women healers had used Janna’s energy to reach Royal somehow, not to mention working on somebody else in the room with him. Just as she took a couple more steps, a shot rang out around them.

She was thrown to the ground instantly, with Calum whispering in her ear, “Don’t move.”

*

Something had shifted, but Royal didn’t know what. He paced and stretched in the small room, trying to keep his body limber, not sure what was going on but feeling a surge of excitement. Any change was a good change, at least in this instance. It had nothing to do with the prison, at least as far as he could tell. He walked to the door, and for the first time in a long time tested it, and, when it turned under his hand, he sucked in his breath and carefully poked his head out.

He saw absolutely nothing here but the empty hallway and other shut doors, with rooms probably similar to the one that he was in. He walked over to Bruce and shook him awake.

Bruce looked up at him, bleary-eyed.

“The door’s unlocked,” Royal whispered, his tone harsh.

Immediately Bruce’s gaze narrowed, and he stared at him in shock. “Why?”

Royal shook his head. “I don’t know. A trap maybe?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“But the latch itself hadn’t dropped all the way, so I could open it. It could have been a trick or an oversight, but I don’t know. Why now? Why today? What I do know is that we have a couple hours before our jailer is due to return, and his visits have been like clockwork up until now.”

Bruce slowly sat up, tested being vertical again, and said, “I don’t know how far I can go, dude.”

“You can go far enough,” Royal declared. “The fact is, you’re sitting up, and that is way more than I thought I would ever see out of you.”

Bruce looked up at him and smiled. “You’re right. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ll take this energy and use it.” As they both stood, and Bruce walked slowly to the door, he asked, “Even if we can get out of here, where will we go?”

“It doesn’t matter. First off we get the hell out of here.” Royal looked over at him and asked, “You were military, weren’t you?”

“Navy. Twenty-nine years old and dying in a hole here. You’re right. I would much rather get shot while trying to escape then staying in here, waiting to die.”

“I’m not planning on getting shot at all,” Royal declared.

“Yeah? You’ll go find that woman, won’t you? She must be one helluva gal to keep her in your mind all this time.”

“Yeah, I’ll go find her all right,” he vowed, with half a smile, “but let’s get out of here first.”

“Yeah, at least you have a woman to keep in mind while you try to escape,” Bruce noted. “Me? I ain’t got nobody.”

“That’s not true. You’ve got family, right?”

“Now that I do have. You’re correct, I’ve got family,” Bruce confirmed.

They took one look at each other and slipped out into the hallway, moving quietly, hoping no other prisoners were stuck inside this clammy, nasty-ass prison. They made it to the end of this hallway and reached the intersection of another hallway, where they stopped and took a look around. They heard a sound, almost as if a TV were playing ahead of them.

Royal looked at Bruce, then slipped forward. Approaching the open doorway, Royal peered around, saw one guard snoring, his feet up on the table in front of him. Royal quickly walked in behind the guard, and, rendering him unconscious, he dropped him silently to the floor.

Bruce came in behind him, sweaty and pale, then nodded. “Do we kill him?”

“No,” Royal muttered. “We aren’t them.”

“No, but they can come after us,” Bruce noted, “and I don’t want to leave more warm bodies than we have to, who can later catch up to us.”

“I get that,” Royal replied. “And you have more reason than me, having been here longer, but my vote is no. We don’t really have time either.” He quickly picked up the guard’s weapon, while Bruce checked the guy’s pockets, cleaning out money that they would need, plus an ID, even taking his hat and his jacket. With a smile at that fast thinking, Royal nodded in agreement and quickly replaced the guard’s clothing for his own. “I’ll move him to our cell.”

And, with that, he quickly had the guard inside their room, locking him in. Royal returned to find Bruce searching the place. He was now dressed in a uniform as well, having gone through everything and turning up another weapon for him too. Bruce even found food and some coffee on the table in a travel mug. Royal was surprised.

Bruce shrugged. “Hey, we have to survive, so let’s grab what we can. I’ve got all I could find that was edible, plus money and weapons and my own uniform to wear.” And with that they headed out the guard’s TV room and down the hall to a laundry area. “How come they never used that for us?” Bruce asked.

“Doesn’t matter now,” Royal muttered. He pointed at another big coat. Bruce grabbed it. Royal felt bolstered having weapons and ammo with them. They headed forward, where the lighting was more abundant. As they went partway down the hall, they saw an exit sign. Heading down another hallway, they quickly walked toward the exit sign, glaring in front of them.

A man called out from behind and asked in Russian, “Hey, you, what are you doing?”

Keeping his voice low, Bruce turned and said something back in Russian.

The other man snorted.

Bruce continued to talk to the other guy, as he walked toward the exit door. They opened it and stepped out, when Bruce called back something else. As soon as they were outside, and the door was closed, he muttered to Royal, “We need to move now.”

Royal asked, “What did you say to him?”

“Said I was taking five for a smoke break, and he could fire me if he didn’t like it. Then he laughed, and I told him we’d be right back. So, we have five minutes, and then all kinds of shit will happen.”

“Got it,” Royal muttered. “Let’s move.”

Holding the weapons in front of them, they moved steadily to an area where parked vehicles were, and they hopped into one. Although they had no keys, Royal bent under the ignition, popped some wires, and quickly hot-wired it. With the vehicle started, he sat up and put it in gear, heading for the now-open gates to the facility. They had almost made it when a shout came from behind them, and the gate started to close.

Royal gunned the vehicle as hard and as fast as he could, squeezing through, just as the gate closed behind them. He looked over at Bruce, grinning. “Now that is teamwork.”

“Yeah, and now we’re in the deep-shit time frame,” Bruce replied, his energy fading quickly.

“No, not necessarily. We’ve got a few minutes head start because of the gate, which they’re opening behind us, and then they’ll be right on our ass the whole way,” Royal noted.

“That ventriloquist stuff was a kid’s trick,” Bruce shared, “but what we’re coming up against now will be a whole different story.”

“Yep,” Royal agreed, “but you and I both know we can do this. With stage one done, in a way that we never even thought was possible, we can still hope. So, remember that.”

“I know,” Bruce said, “and now I’m just…”

“I understand. You’re exhausted. Close your eyes and rest as much as you can because it’ll get ugly up ahead. And we don’t have any choice now. We must move, and we must move fast, and we’ll ditch this set of wheels as soon as we can too.”

“Yeah, well, look at the road around us. Nobody’s here. I see nothing, and the terrain outside of this area is heavy and ugly,” Bruce pointed out. “We won’t just drive along and hope that nobody’ll notice. We’ll have to outrun them, and, depending on how much gas we even have, that might not be possible either.”

“As soon as we run out of gas,” Royal noted calmly, “we’ll hit the rough terrain on foot, so rest while you can. You’ve got a little time.”

With a snort, Bruce closed his eyes. Sure enough he soon crashed.

Royal still wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but he knew that somebody was helping them by sharing their energy. He called out to the ethers telepathically, Don’t know who you are, but thank you. We’re free of the prison, but now we’re in for the fight for our lives .

The only person he ever knew who had this ability was Janna, which he’d heard through the grapevine, not from her directly. Supposedly she had been involved in a government program and had walked, after some huge stink had happened. That explained why she wouldn’t even let him talk about governments and the work he did for them. That was one of the reasons why he’d known that he couldn’t stay with her because he was so firmly entrenched in that kind of work, which routinely involved governments.

She had also been very clear about not wanting a permanent relationship, but maybe just something short-term. As it turned out, that’s exactly what it had been. But he’d never forgotten her, and it had stayed with him for a long time. The fact that her face had been damaged hadn’t been a problem for him, but he’d known that it was a big problem for her. She kept telling him to go, to do something else, to be with somebody else, and he couldn’t get her to change her mind.

Over the years he’d sent out probes, trying to figure out just what he could possibly want for a future without her, when everything inside him screamed that he needed to spend time with her instead. Yet even attempting to figure it all out was almost impossible. For years and years, he’d thought about her, going back and forth over all of it, that one fated weekend with her, still trying to contact her and yet getting nothing in return.

Every once in a while, he thought he felt a probe from her, recognizing that she was probably thinking about him and trying to contact him, but it was the weirdest thing. He used energy for energy. He didn’t know anything about using energy otherwise. She had mentioned that energy could be used in all kinds of ways, but he didn’t really understand but one use for energy, and she hadn’t been too open about discussing it further. So that had been that. And yet he’d never forgotten her, and even now that’s where he was heading. He was going to her.

He had told Bruce as much, in the endless hours they’d had nothing else to do but pass the time by talking, saying that, at some point in time, you realize that what you really wanted in life you had to go after, even if it appeared to be somebody who didn’t want anything to do with you. You shouldn’t let that discourage you. You had to convince them otherwise. It would be better and easier if it weren’t somebody with as many hang-ups as Janna had, but Royal certainly understood where she got them. He knew that love could make so much of it go away, and he was all about trying.

The years had gone by, and then he’d been imprisoned. So the one person who had kept him alive and sane while he had been incarcerated in Russia had been her. Just the thought of being able to return to her, the challenge of finding her again, spending time with her, that was his lifeline. He knew she wouldn’t believe him. Why should she?

In all this time, he hadn’t bothered to reach out to her, not effectively. Yet now it was all he could think about. Keeping an eye peeled on the road behind him, knowing that the Russians had to be coming fast, as soon as they figured out what was going on, Royal drove at breakneck speeds, trying hard to stay ahead of the craziness that was about to erupt behind them.

Yet nobody was behind them.

He whispered to his sleeping partner, “I don’t get it. Where are they?”

When a voice slammed into his head, he cried out in shock and pain. Immediately the volume turned down, and he heard a calm voice speaking in his brain.

We’re trying to help you. Just keep driving, and drive fast. We’re trying to cover up your tracks.

He didn’t say anything, but he drove faster, not that there was much more that he could pull out of this old set of wheels, but he was doing his damnedest. So, if somebody was out there helping him, well, he was all for it. When he got over his shock a little, he whispered, “Who is this?”

Let’s just say a friend of yours sent us.

“Who?” he asked, his tone sharp. “I don’t have many friends who could do something like this.”

Yeah? Her name is Janna, and she was getting messages for help from you. So she contacted me. I’m Terk, by the way.

Royal’s breath let out in a gush. “ The Terk?” he asked. “The mysterious man of magic?”

A note of laughter filled his tone, as he responded. I don’t know anything about that Terk. I’m just flesh and blood, but I do have some psychic abilities, and you’re getting a taste of them right now .

“I’m grateful,” he muttered. “I don’t know what the hell’s happening or how to get the hell out of here, but holy shit, Bruce and I,… we’re so grateful. The execution was set for next week.”

You have to do some things though , Terk added. You must follow instructions very carefully. We have a team coming to you, and I’m running a smokescreen behind you, with the help of some of my people. We can’t keep it up, so I’ll need you to ditch that vehicle as soon as you find other wheels .

“I don’t even know where I am,” Royal shared. “We were imprisoned, so I have no idea where we actually are.”

And I can’t tell you either , Terk noted calmly. So, just keep driving, and we’ll keep doing what we’re doing. However, as soon as you find another road or anything that can get you off this main highway, you take it , he stated, because we can’t keep up the smokescreen forever .

“Got it,” he muttered, and then he hesitated. “Is she okay? Is Janna okay?”

Yes , he replied, his voice getting faint. She is now, but she’s not the person she used to be, and she could really use a friend .

“I’m always there for her,” Royal said.

Maybe you don’t know, but she really needed you a while ago but couldn’t tell you. And now?… Well, she’s injured inside in ways that you won’t understand until you’ve had a chance to catch up. She’s in Russia looking for you right now . And, with that, Terk’s voice slipped out of Royal’s mind.

In Russia right now, looking for me? Royal sat back, still driving at breakneck speeds, with hope in his heart for the first time in a very long while. Yet shock and worry overtook his thoughts, trying to figure out what the hell had happened to Janna. They’d said their goodbyes. He was supposed to call her, and then, out of the blue, Royal had been sent out on another mission almost immediately.

Since Royal and Janna supposedly had a friendship without strings, when he hadn’t gotten back for another nine weeks, he’d realized it was probably too late and hadn’t called her. Just back from another government work thing to avoid discussing with her.

Now he realized that call—or lack of a call—had probably been what was wrong with his life these past eight years. How did one even begin to reconcile that? He’d never met anyone like her. Never, and the woman could communicate with energy, even work with energy. She’d been so unique,… amazingly so. Even the possibility of a long-term relationship seemed to put her off when it came up in their conversations. He hadn’t felt as if he could really bring up that topic again, and the door had slammed closed between them.

He didn’t have any way to understand it, but that’s what it felt like. But now, hell, if she was in Russia for him,… she needed to get the hell out of here. If the Russian government ever found out what she could do, or if they had any idea that she was back and was worth something, they would keep her prisoner until they broke her. And he didn’t know for sure just what that would take because the woman he’d known had been stronger than anyone in his life. Yet that wasn’t the woman Terk had described.

Being a woman and a prisoner in Russia was a whole different story. The last thing he wanted was for her to fall into Russian hands. All he wanted right now was to get her home, get some peace and quiet between the two of them, and sort everything out.

While he knew that time was a great healer, all he needed was a chance with Janna. A chance to make that phone call that somehow he had screwed up on, by not making it in the first place.