Echoes From the Moon (The Token Book One), page 16
“I know you’re faking it.”
With a better view, Silas spotted the familiar metal object in Rory’s grip. Without thinking, he dashed into the room. “Get that out of her hand!”
11
Rory knew precisely where she’d been transported to, and it immeasurably terrified her. There were a few footprints on the gray sand, which she knew from her extensive research was called lunar regolith. She briefly wondered if she’d been shot by Jack, and was possibly bleeding out in the very room her grandmother had left the world behind in. If so, Rory could accept her fate. This truly was a view from the heavens. She smiled to herself, feeling a slight burning in her chest. Her eyes were dry, and she lifted her hand, finding her fingers to be paler than a phantom’s.
She gazed up, staring at the Earth. It was the most spectacular sight of her life. Of course she’d seen photos taken by lunar landers, but nothing could prepare you for the real thing. When she was a kid, her parents took her to the Grand Canyon, and she’d spent a week reading about the geological wonder. But when she arrived, the sheer scope of the canyon had shocked her to tears.
Rory had heard of the Overview Effect, and finally understood why people experienced it when seeing Earth from afar. She tried walking forward, but her feet were planted on the ground.
Rory…
The voice was distant, from inside her head.
Then she noticed it.
The blackness was darker than anything she’d ever witnessed. It hovered a foot over the ground, and she crouched, peering below it. Grainy bits of dust lifted from the Moon’s surface into the opening. Above it, inky blotches rose into a thin atmosphere before vanishing.
“It’s a hole,” she said, but her voice didn’t extend past her own mind.
Rory, come back…
She didn’t recognize the voice, and it felt like a trap. Rory struggled to recall why she was here. Her fingers reached for the hole, her arm an apparition.
Rory looked at her hand, finding the metal piece she’d discovered in her grandpa’s paperback Western. Blood welled around her palm, and she jolted upright, letting it go.
She was in a bedroom, the blood real, the bookmark on the floor with red splattered around it. Rory’s breaths were labored, like there wasn’t enough air in the world to fill them. Her legs gave out, and she fell to the carpet, landing in a heap.
“Don’t touch it!” someone shouted.
“Why? I don’t get it,” the other said. Rory recognized the voice as Jack’s. She tilted her chin and dry heaved, coughing and hacking until her eyes filled with white light.
“I have to find a glass of water,” the first one said.
“Move and I’ll shoot you,” Jack told him.
Rory managed to control the coughs, and she wiped her lips with her forearm, sitting against the nightstand. Her gaze flicked to the second man, who also held a gun. “Silas?”
Jack laughed, the sound uncomfortable. “You brought it here? Saved me traveling around to search for it. Nice try. Oklahoma. How did you know I had her here, of all places?”
Rory wondered if this was all a dream, and her experience on the Moon was reality. Silas had come to rescue her?
The object lay on the floor, and Jack’s gaze lingered on it. “Pass it over.”
Rory shook her head, moving farther from the thing. Her hand stung where the edges of the metal had dug into her flesh. “No.”
A switch flipped in Jack, and he kicked a plastic garbage can, sending it flying across the room. “Give it to me!” He fired the gun at the ceiling, blasting a hole into the plaster. White flecks drifted down to land on his shoulders.
“I’ll do it.” Silas walked to it, not letting his gaze leave Jack. He turned toward Rory. “We’ll be okay,” he whispered. “You can have both. Just let us leave.”
Jack grinned and nodded. “Sure. Whatever.”
Silas picked up the stained bookmark by using the whiskey bag in his hand, and Rory noticed how carefully he avoided touching it. Instead of offering them to Jack, he tossed both onto the bed and helped Rory to her feet. His grip was firm, but didn’t hurt. Silas propped her up, taking half of her weight, given the weakness lingering in her knees. Her breaths came in ragged gasps, as if her lungs had been damaged.
“Downstairs!” Jack yelled.
“We’re leaving,” Silas told him.
Jack smirked and shot Silas.
Rory tumbled to the floor again, this time landing with a semblance of grace. Silas’s shoulder recoiled, and the gun fell. Jack was on it, snatching the weapon, and he booted Silas in the wound. Blood welled through Silas’s sleeve where the bullet had struck, and he grunted in agony. Rory peered behind him, finding spatter on the wall. She thought that meant there was an exit wound, which gave him a better shot at recovery. If they could get out alive.
“You okay?” she asked him.
Silas’ face was pale, and he cradled his injured arm with the other hand. “I will be.”
“I said, downstairs.” Jack hauled Rory up while Silas climbed to his feet, glaring at his attacker.
Rory and Silas went ahead, plodding down the steps with Jack muttering to himself as he clutched the bag.
“You said we could go,” Silas said.
“The boss will be happy,” Jack mumbled. “On the couch.”
Silas waited for Rory to sit; then he took the spot right next to her. She already had her belt off, and wrapped it around his shoulder, cinching it tight. “Is that bearable?”
“Think so.” Silas groaned, but she thought the flow was already improving.
Outside was dark, despite there being most of the day left. The overhead clouds were enraged, the wind blasting the home. Shutters clattered against the window frames, and Rory watched as the oaks danced back and forth. A large limb sat broken and drooped to the grass in the yard.
Jack set the bag on the coffee table, out of reach, and slid his cell from a pocket. He peered at them as he dialed a number. A muffled voice spoke from the speaker, but Rory couldn’t decipher the words. “Hey, I got the artifacts.”
Jack’s eyes grew wider, and he blinked, looking at the floor. Rory peered at the gun in his pants that he’d taken from Silas, then at the front door.
“Okay. I’ll report back.”
A pause.
“Two.”
Rory’s throat ached as she swallowed.
“Understood.” Jack met her gaze, and she realized he’d been instructed to kill them.
“We can help,” she said with tears in her eyes. They began to fall, and Silas, despite his gunshot wound, held her hand while they awaited their fate.
Jack slipped the two flat metal pieces out and dug into his jacket, removing another matching whiskey bag. Rory could only assume this came from Fred Trell. He had all three side by side, and she noticed he hadn’t touched any of them with his skin.
Jack appraised the tokens, and from this angle, all three appeared to be identical. “He told me to kill you.”
“Who is he?” Silas asked.
“That’s none of your business.”
“He’s an investor or something.”
Jack looked at Silas for a moment. “We’ve met, haven’t we?”
“At the gala.”
“Right.”
Rory had no idea what they were talking about.
“You asked about Commander Gunn. I should have realized something was off,” Silas said.
“Those were the early stages.” Jack grabbed the metal bookmark on the right edge, the one he’d already been carrying.
Rory gasped, expecting him to have an out-of-body experience like she had. But nothing happened.
“Why can’t you touch them?” Jack flipped it around, showing them how harmless it was.
Silas squeezed her hand once, comforting her.
“They only affect the family members,” Rory quickly said.
Jack’s brow furrowed. “How would that even work?”
“They must be linked to our grandparents’ DNA.”
Jack paced while holding his prize. “That complicates things, if you’re telling the truth. Are you, Rory?”
She nodded as sincerely as possible. “Why would I lie now that you’ve found it? Grandpa Swanson used to regale me with tales of his Moon landing, and how they stumbled upon the hole.”
“The hole?”
“It’s how you access other worlds,” Rory said. It was a theory, but the evidence made it seem plausible. Jack had spoken about visiting worlds with the triangle earlier, and then she’d encountered the mysterious darkness mere minutes ago.
“I need to test it,” Jack said.
“Let us help,” Silas told him. “We’re as invested in this as you are.”
Jack eyed Silas with suspicion, but clearly he was curious. “My boss warned me not to connect them.”
Rory observed with nervous energy as Jack stretched his finger toward the second metal strip. This was it. He stopped an inch short and shuffled to the fireplace. The lights flashed off as the storm grew in intensity. She’d seen Jack agitated earlier, but now he looked ready to explode.
“I don’t trust either of you,” he said.
“We’re being honest. Put them together, and we’ll show you how to use the triangle,” she lied. “Imagine how impressed your boss will be when you can demonstrate its power.”
Jack’s cheek twitched, but he returned to the coffee table. “Fine.”
The shutters bashed into the frames, and Rory flinched as another oak branch snapped off, falling to the sidewalk outside. Jack didn’t even pay attention. He took the second metal bit, making Rory tense.
The moment he had hold of it, his eyes rolled into his head, and he fell sideways, hitting his temple on the coffee table’s ledge. Rory was out of the seat, speeding to the kitchen. She searched the drawers and eventually found a roll of duct tape in the pantry. Her grandfather had used it for everything, and she silently thanked him for leaving this behind.
Silas had Jack flipped onto his stomach, and Rory tugged on the tape, wrapping it around his wrists to secure them. She was careful not to brush the object in his palm. When they felt confident he couldn’t escape, Silas hauled him up with a grunt, and pushed him into the couch.
“Now what?” Rory asked, glancing at Silas.
“We wait for the FBI.”
“What’s this really about?”
Silas checked his arm, and Rory helped keep him steady. “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”
12
Special Agent Waylen Brooks parked out front, beyond a broken tree branch. When he dialed Silas’ number, the man answered in a flash. “Have you seen anything?”
“Come inside,” Silas responded.
It had taken Waylen an extra fifteen minutes, and he had a sinking feeling that Rory was already dead and the abductor gone. The hurricane had hit the southern coast, and the weather had pummeled his current location. He fought the deluge and jogged up the steps, gun in hand. Waylen didn’t knock as he bolted into the home.
He was shocked to find Rory and Silas standing over a man in the dim room. “What happened?”
“Who are you?” the woman asked. Her eyes looked red and puffy, and he’d appeared much the same after his lunar experience. He wondered if she’d had a similar vision.
“Special Agent Waylen Brooks, but you can call me Waylen. You’re Rory Swanson,” he said, and she nodded. “And who is that?” It was the guy from the camera footage he’d watched mere hours ago.
“He went by Jack, but I doubt it’s really his name,” Rory told him.
The man’s head bled from a scalp wound, and his arms were tied behind his back. Waylen noticed his straining breaths. “Is he…”
“Yeah, we tricked him into touching the real token,” Silas said.
Waylen finally noticed that his younger friend had been shot. “You okay?”
Silas shrugged and grumbled from the motion. “Maybe we can visit a hospital.”
“We should take it back.” Waylen pushed Jack forward and slipped on a pair of nitrile gloves from his pocket. Jack threw up the moment Waylen removed the object in his grip. The man that had abducted Rory from her guest house and broken into the hangar to steal NASA property stared blankly into space.
Waylen gazed at the piece, and then at the other two on the table. “We have them all?”
“I don’t think so.” Rory walked to the pair on the wooden surface and shakily reached for one. She snatched it, but there were no ill effects. “I believe Fred Trell had a fake.”
“I’ll be damned,” Waylen whispered, and processed the information. They had footage of the guys they’d met in Loon Lake stealing the whiskey bag from Trell’s storage unit, but nothing else had been sorted through, which suggested Fred had left the duplicate in plain sight. Waylen gathered them all, slipping them into one bag, and pocketed the treasures. Two people had already been killed because of these, possibly more in the earlier stages of their hunt. He needed to be extra cautious with them.
“You don’t know who you’re messing with,” Jack spat, finally coming to.
“Then enlighten me,” Waylen said.
Jack’s phone beeped, and Waylen patted the guy’s jacket, finding its hiding spot. The text was from someone labeled as: B. “Is this Bobby?”
Jack’s surprised expression told Waylen he was right.
When Waylen had interrogated Bobby in the hospital, he mentioned traveling to the East Coast. “We’re about to get some company.” He rushed to the windows and flipped open the blinds.
“Who? Those goons that killed my grandpa and Leigh?” Silas asked.
“Yes.”
Silas had a gun in his non-dominant hand, and he aimed it at the front door. “Good.” It was fairly obvious to Waylen that his aim was off, but he didn’t comment.
Waylen tried to think, but all he could do was concentrate on the meaning behind the trio of objects presumably brought to Earth from the Moon. They only had two, if Trell’s was a fake. That left the last a mystery. Waylen didn’t know what their purpose was, but he had a very strong and validated suspicion it was important.
“We can’t stay here,” Rory said. “Let’s get the hell out.”
Rain splattered hard against the windowpanes, filling the room with white noise. “I can’t do that. I’ll call it in and have the local PD pick him up. Then we’ll bring Silas to a hospital.”
Another text appeared, and Waylen read it.
Is the storm passing?
“What will convince them to leave and not come back?” Waylen asked Jack.
“Like I’d tell you.” Jack struggled to free his wrists, but Rory had used half the roll on him.
Waylen took a chance. All clear. No need for umbrellas. He hesitated and hit send. No message came in response, and Waylen hoped that was a good enough signal that Jack didn’t require his henchmen’s help.
Rory waited at the living room window, peering at the street as the weather battered the area. “Someone’s here.”
Waylen grabbed his own phone and dialed 9-1-1. “Yes, we need assistance at…” He gave the address, and quickly explained to the dispatcher that there were already gunshot wounds on site. Waylen mentioned he was an FBI agent, reciting his credentials. He hung up before she could respond and ran to the edge of the room, watching as the thugs he’d encountered halfway across the country strode up the sidewalk.
“What do we do?” Rory asked.
Jack had dropped the third gun, and Waylen passed it to the woman. “Go hide in the kitchen. I’ll come for you when it’s over. You too, Silas.”
“No way,” Silas muttered. “They killed my grandfather. I won’t let them hurt anyone else.”
Waylen cringed, knowing he shouldn’t be agreeing with this condition.
“They’re inside! Kill them all!” Jack shouted so loudly, it hurt Waylen’s ears. He clipped the guy in the head with the butt of his gun, silencing him as he slipped from the couch to the hardwood floors.
“Do you have any more of that tape?” he asked, and Rory quickly obliged, slapping a length over Jack’s mouth.
Bobby and Shane obviously heard him, because they ran faster. Waylen lunged to the entrance, flipping the bolt before they arrived, and stood there while they tested the handle, banging ferociously. He didn’t react until a gun was fired, and he worried the bullet would penetrate the thick door. Waylen jumped to the side, staying below the window, and watched as Rory slipped into the kitchen. Silas was in the hallway, peering around with wild eyes.
Waylen hadn’t needed to shoot anyone during his tenure on the police force or with the Bureau until a day ago. Or was it two? He couldn’t even recall. The duo no longer made any noise, and Waylen risked a peek through the blinds, finding the front steps devoid of the figures.
“Where are the other exits?” he asked Silas, but he shrugged.
“I came in there.” Silas pointed at the door. “Then I went upstairs.”
“Stay put.” Waylen rushed into the kitchen, and didn’t see Rory. The pantry was closed, and he silently thanked her for obeying his command. The rear entry had glass panes covering the top half, with curtains tied at the middles, giving a full view inside the home. Bobby arrived with a sneer.
Waylen listened for sounds of sirens, but couldn’t hear any beyond the noise of the storm surrounding the house. They were close to the ocean, and the waves battered loudly against the cliff side. From the back, all he saw were black twisting clouds, their fury about to be unleashed on the coastline. They didn’t have long.
Bobby’s arm was in a sling after his visit to the hospital, but he shattered the glass with his gun, reaching in to turn the lever and unlock the door. Waylen hesitated for a moment, waiting for his attacker to step into plain sight, and the man saw him at the last second.
Waylen’s bullet went wide, striking the cabinets. Bobby barreled into Waylen’s chest. They tumbled to the ground, his back hammering into the wall. A serving bowl fell and shattered on the tiles.
