If there was an order to the opening of the portal regarding the various tunnels, Brandon wasn’t seeing it. After the last opening had been at fourteen, which made absolutely no sense to anyone, Brandon had given up on that being their method of concocting a way out of here. Heather insisted there was never any rhyme or reason to it, but the three older, wiser Guardians were still hashing it out. Not that his dad was much help; he wasn’t quite as clever as the other two when it came to situations like that. He had his merits, though, and Brandon would’ve rather been trapped in here with Elliott than just about anyone when it came to finding a way home. He had managed to cheat death once already, after all.
Heather was sitting against the tunnel wall studying the weapon she’d inherited from Alex. She had a solemn expression on her face, and Brandon couldn’t tell if that meant he should leave her alone or if she just always looked like sour grapes. He decided now was as good a time as any to see if she would tell him more about how she’d come to be here, so he left Dax with the adults and sauntered over.
“Pretty neat piece of machinery, isn’t it?” he asked carefully taking a spot on the cave floor next to her. “Alex wanted it to appear to be the same as his actual musket but have the firepower and accuracy of a higher tech weapon.”
“Yeah, it ain’t at all bad,” she said, seeming unimpressed. She took one more glance down the scope and set it so that the muzzle was leaning against the stone next to her. “We’ll run out of ammo long before those bastards stop trying to eat us.”
“We’ll be out of here before we run out of ammunition.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.
“Ya think?” She shook her head. “You have a lot more confidence in those morons than I do. Ain’t no way to tell where the next shebang is gonna come from. You just have to be ready to run, and then look before you leap.”
“Well, maybe we should try that method next if this falls through. I guess they just don’t want to leave anyone behind if they can help it, though I’m pretty sure Aaron would send us all through if he could get them to go.”
“I’ll tell y’all right now. If one of them openings happens, and I am anywhere near a viable option, y’all can go to hell. I’ve missed the last two because some damn monster was tryin’ to kill me. That’s the only reason I’m still here.”
“I can’t say as though I blame you.” Brandon tapped his hands on his knees anxiously, trying to decide if now was the time to press on. “You’ve been here a long time.”
“Ya don’t say?”
“How... uh, how did that happen exactly?”
Her pretty face puckered even more than before. “What in the world makes you think I wanna talk about that?”
“I don’t know. I just thought... you’ve had no one to talk to for so long. Maybe you’d want someone else to know what happened to you.”
“Ya, well, I think I’ll wait until I see someone on the other side since the chances of your ass gettin’ out of here to record the story aren’t grand.”
“Thanks for that,” he said sarcastically. “I think there’s a real good chance I’m going to get out of here, actually. My dad will do what he needs to do to make sure I get home. I’d be the first one out if you hadn’t already called dibs.”
“Yeah, well, I did.”
“You sure are cantankerous,” Brandon said, picking up one of her own words. “Were you like this before, when you were a human? Or was it crossing over that turned you into a grump?”
Heather didn’t seem to like that. An even deeper scowl took over her expression. “I was just fine before. You try being turned into some sort of a mutant against your will, and see if you like it.”
“I know plenty of people who never meant to alter their human existence, and they’re not bitter about it, not anymore anyway. Take Jamie for instance. He didn’t want to do this. I’m pretty sure my dad didn’t either. I’m not sure about Aaron, but he hasn’t had an easy go of it. So... maybe you just need to change your perspective.”
“Yeah, all of them folks is Guardians. Ain’t a one of them some sort of half-this half-somethin’ else.”
“True, but that’s what my girlfriend is. And she’s not angry about it. At first, she was scared, and probably a little embarrassed. But now... she can do things no one else can do. We wouldn’t have been able to accomplish half the things our team has done the last year without her. You could embrace your differences, you know.”
“Listen,” Heather turned her body a little more so that she was facing him. “I don’t know how that came about, but I reckon it weren’t the same way my glorious Transformation took place. I was near done with the first change, an unwelcomed one, when the second one happened. So, no I won’t embrace it. I’ll be pissed off about it for as long as I live—which’ll likely be a lot longer than you do, the way you shoot.”
“Damn!” Brandon muttered, both offended and impressed with her gumption. He shook his head for a second and let her resettle against the cave wall, staring at the darkness across from them. “So you were almost a Hunter when—what? You got bitten?”
“Told you I ain’t lookin’ to talk about it.” Heather crossed her arms, her forehead crinkled.
Undeterred, Brandon pressed on. “That had to be rough. Was it at the same time that Mina was turned?” he asked.
