The Keepers of Azera ( Book 1 of the Keepers Trilogy)

Chapter 36

I first notice the cold. It feels like I'm lying in a freezer, on a cold metal shelf with only a sheet of fabric protecting me from the chill. 

Then I remember the Training Base collapsing, and me falling into it.

I curl up in a tighter ball, trying to control my trembling. I'm too afraid to open my eyes. I don't know what's going on, and I don't want to know. I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here, I'm dead, I am dead, I am dead and I don't want to be here...

After five minutes, I force my eyes open. I'm lying in a jail cell... made of steel.

The realization makes me feel sick. I tuck my chin to my chest to avoid the walls, but I only see a flower print gown.

The combination of stainless walls and the pattern is enough to make me raise myself onto my hands and knees on the shelf and throw up over the edge.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a guard. I slowly lift up my head and watch him. He seemed to notice me when I threw up, because he's standing and watching me as he unclips a little black box with holes from his waist. He presses a button on it with his thumb and speaks into it. "The prisoner is awake. Shall I lead her down?"

His accent is like no other. Judging by that and his wide features, I'd say he's human.

"I told you, she's not a prisoner!" a very familiar voice shouts angrily from the box.

"Do I take her down?" the man asks again.

"Yes, yes, bring her down," Simon replies.

The guard clips the box onto his belt again and unlocks the cell door. I consider bolting, but I still feel very woozy. The guard grabs my arm and pulls me down the hall.

He leads me up a stairwell, down a small hallway, into a huge room packed with people chattering in what I think is English. It echoes up to the cavernous ceiling above. It's so high up that there's four balconies around the edge, with tables and benches. He leads up a large stairwell and though a pair of double doors labeled "Control Room."

Ever since I found out all about it, I had hoped that I would never see the machine. But inside the control room, there it stands, in all its purple lighted glory. Two people are in there, one waiting by the machine, the other playing a game on the computers. Simon and Kira. Bixan help me. I stare at them, fear making my palms sweat and my body tremble.

"Callie!" Simon exclaims, as if we were still good buddies-which he destroyed when I was five. I can't talk, can't move. I never wanted to see Simon again that I can barely think.

He comes over and wraps his arms around me and holds me tight. And I'm so shocked from what's going on, from meeting Simon since that fateful night when I had just gone to bed as if it were any other day, to waking up to my Guardian leaving and following him, and finding out that Simon disappeared, that I don't realize that the man who murdered my Guardian's lover, who started a war over a dimension, is hugging me and I'm just standing here, letting him.

I pull away and take a step back. "What the hell is going on?"

"Oh, I've missed so much, girl. How's James? How's training?"

"Training is over," I say in a tight voice. "And James is-" I get choked up, because there's no reason for Simon to save him like he saved me. If that's what happened. I'm still very uncertain about cause and effect.

"James survived," Simon says gently. "I pulled him out of that mess like I did for you."

I open my mouth, and all that comes out is a very confused, "How...?"