The whooshing sound the portal made when it opened was unmistakable. Brandon had been walking alongside Heather when it opened, and she took off running in the direction where it came from so quickly, he could hardly keep up even though something told him if they’d been on level ground, out in the open, where he could see more than five inches in front of his face, he’d be a lot faster than her. She seemed to know what to look out for, though, whereas he was just thankful by the time he reached her, he hadn’t collided with any of the cave walls.
“Damn it all to hell!” she shouted as a hole in the wall closed up. “Stupid ocean!”
He lurched forward and tried to get a glimpse of what she was seeing. Just before the anomaly was gone, he spied a bit of water, but it looked like they were still far away from the actual exit itself. It was hard to describe. It appeared to be a tunnel through the wall and then a small opening at the other end. That’s not what he remembered coming through.
“Your opening was special,” she said, like she was reading his mind. “This is a normal portal opening. You still have to run a good twenty feet on the other side of the opening. And it has to not lead to certain death.”
“But you wouldn’t drown,” he reminded her.
“Have you ever been trapped in a body of water thatcha can’t get out of?” she countered, her arms folded across her chest.
“Well, no....”
“Okay, well, then don’t tell me how not to drown.” She headed off, back the way they came, and Brandon followed.
“Oh, look. It’s my kid. Not dead,” Elliott said once he came around the corner.
“Sorry,” Brandon muttered. “I couldn’t let her go off on her own.”
“Why not? She’s been in here for a hundred years and seems to be just fine,” his father countered. The others were also waiting for them.
“Yeah, but we need her. Besides, I already told you....”
“I know, I know.” Elliott shook his head, and they all started walking back in the direction in which they’d come, Heather leading the way.
She’d said there was an object she wanted them to look at, something she couldn’t figure out. It seemed like they’d been walking forever before she had taken off. Now, Brandon had no idea how long it might take her to work her way back. And... he had almost gotten her talking, too. He had gotten a glimpse of her eyes earlier, and he was certain this was the Hybrid Cassidy had been looking for. She had one steel gray eye and one blue eye, though hers were the opposite of his girlfriends. Her left eye was the changed one while her right was still hazel, and for Heather, it was her right eye that was Vampiresque in nature. She hadn’t batted an eye earlier when he’d mentioned he thought there was someone who was missing her, like she didn’t believe him. He needed to talk to her about how she’d gotten in here, let her know she wasn’t the only one of her kind, but for someone who’d been alone for so long, she sure didn’t seem to want to chat.
There was no time in this place, she was right about that. He couldn’t tell if it had been five minutes or five hours. Nor was he hungry, thirsty, or tired. Just bored and sad. Unlike Dax, who was going to run the battery down on his phone, he hadn’t bothered to pull his out of his pocket. What were the chances their phones would work if their IACs didn’t? He thought he’d seen a little blip while he was running earlier, but if it was there, it had faded just as quickly as it had appeared.
He wished he had it so he could explain to his dad who he thought Heather was, though he was under the impression the few whispered words he’d gotten in behind her back had been enough to get Elliott on the right path. He hoped his dad would understand why Heather was important to Cassidy, and maybe he’d make sure they got her out, too, when they left. For all of her talk about being the first one out, it would be hard to leave any of the Guardians behind.
Heather walked along with precision, and eventually, Brandon caught up to her, falling into step beside her. Every once in a while, they’d hear an unusual sound—a hiss, a growl, a cackle, and Heather would pause. There was no warning that she was stopping; not an arm out like a protective mother, probably because she wasn’t used to having anyone with her, but eventually she’d start walking again, often mumbling about “damn idiots with heavy feet.”
“So... you’ve been in here a long time,” Brandon probed, trying to strike up a conversation again. “You must miss your family.”
Heather snickered. “Hardly.”
With a raised eyebrow, Brandon reached further. “Why not? You weren’t close?’
She turned and looked at him out of the side of her eye. “What’s it to you?”
“Oh, I was just making conversation. You see, I didn’t even know my dad was alive until I was eighteen, and by then he was dead.”
Heather’s forehead crinkled up and she looked over her shoulder at Elliott. “Huh?”
“Yeah, he died last year. We got him back through the Blue Moon Portal.”
“Right. So he don’t think he can die again. Well, he can.”
“You think?” Brandon was slightly alarmed now, especially when another ominous growl sounded, closer this time.
“Yep. We’s close enough to hell, anybody can die here.”
Brandon rolled that over in his head a few times, hoping it wasn’t true. “Anyway, my mom and I never got along either. But we’ve just started talking again. She... she had a drinking problem.”
“You mean she kinned to the moonshine?” Something about the idea made Heather chuckle, and while Brandon didn’t appreciate it, at least she was talking.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. You know someone like that?”
“Yep.”
Heather took a few more steps in silence and then peered around a corner at an intersection before dashing across. The rest of them did the same, though they had no idea why.
She seemed finished with the topic, but Brandon wasn’t letting it go just yet. “Who?”
“Who? Who?” she asked. “What, are you a damn owl?”
“No, you said you knew someone who liked moonshine. I was just wondering who it was, that’s all.”
“No one,” she insisted, took a few more steps, turned back to him and said, “you ask too many damn questions, boy.”
The feel of Elliott’s hand on his shoulder had Brandon falling behind her a bit as she pressed on. “Leave her alone for a while, okay? She’s not used to having anyone to talk to.”
With a sigh, Brandon acquiesced, but he didn’t like the idea of walking along in silence, unless of course, it kept the monsters away.
They continued to follow behind her quietly for what seemed like hours until they reached what appeared to be a wide opening, and Heather stopped. This time, she spread her arms out wide, making them all come to a halt behind her. “We’re here. And we ain’t alone.”
