Dez flew into the lighthouse keeper’s bedroom where they’d carried Alexander. The abandoned lighthouse had become the Holdout’s main base of operations due to its defensible position against the sea.
Turned out Sifts weren’t too fond of water.
They also had an ancient tanker grounded off-shore for extra housing, mainly moving the refugees who kept coming in daily there. The engines had long been stripped and the hull cracked. It tilted and the entire lower decks were filled with water, but the ship was in the shallows with no danger of sinking, yet deep enough that the monsters would have a hard time getting to them if they ever discovered the location.
He could see the tanker through the window above the bed Alexander occupied.
The two women who had come back from the past with Bekah were on either side of Alexander, palms spread over the bite wound. Dez grimaced. Damn Sift had taken a chunk out of him. Muscle and tendon shone red in the blood seeping between the woman’s fingers. It looked like they were doing little more than praying over him. Bekah watched them in rapt attention as though she could see what they were doing.
Dez bristled. Bekah he trusted. These people she brought back hadn’t earned that trust, regardless that they were relatives of Alexander.
Alexander didn’t look good. His skin was chalky from blood loss, lips bluing. He needed Doc Thomas, blood transfusions, real doctoring, not some women practicing hocus-pocus. The second they’d arrived at the lighthouse, he’d sent Ethan in search of Thomas and the list of matching blood donors.
That was one of the first things the doctor had insisted upon when he’d arrived as a refugee and began the process of typing blood types. Alexander readily backed him up on it.
That precaution had already saved lives. God willing it would spare Alexander’s as well. Not that he believed in God or any being who would leave the world to monsters devouring humanity to near extinction.
“How’s he doing?” He snagged Bekah’s arm as she tried to hurry out past him.
She flipped her bangs out of her eyes to look up at him. “I have to get—“
“It can wait a second. Report. Now.” He used his officer’s tone, sensing the girl needed to be grounded.
She stiffened. “He’s fine. He’s going to be fine. They’ve got him stabilized. They’re just…” She looked past his shoulder into the hall, not meeting his gaze, which worried him. She was scared.
“They’re just…what?”
From the hallway, Ethan came up behind him. “Doc’s on his way. He’s gathering supplies. “How’s he doing? Why was Alexander out in the field anyway?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Bekah?”
“I can’t.” She tried to get past him again, but both he and Ethan blocked her way.
“Last I heard,” Ethan’s voice lowered to his dangerous pitch. “Dez is your commanding officer. That hasn’t changed, has it? So what was all so important that Alexander had to go into the field? You’re lucky we were in the area when we got the call. Alexander knew where we were, where the Sifts we’d reported on were, so why the hell was he out there?”
“Why can’t you just let it go?”
“Oh, we can,” Ethan drawled. “It’s not the first time Alexander has been reckless. But it’s the first time he’s been bitten, which means that Sift knows everything he knows and all of you are acting cagey. What was this mission really about that none of you are telling us?”
“I can’t. Alexander didn’t want you to know.”
That stung. Dez exchanged a glance with Ethan. They’d been with Alexander since the beginning of the Holdouts organizing and fighting back. Hell, the three of them had put this army together. Alexander didn’t keep things from them.
“Need to know basis…” Bekah tried to scoot past them again.
“Don’t know about you, Dez…” Ethan’s gaze never left the girl. “But I’m calling bull.”
Dez took Bekah’s elbow and drew her out into the hallway where he and Ethan cornered her. He was vaguely relieved that the large brooding warrior she’d come back from the past with was out in the field or he’d never get answers out of Bekah. Who was he kidding? He’d never get this close to her.
He pointed back into the room. “As long as Alexander is out, I’m in command, so you’re going to tell me what in the blazes is going on.”
“Fine.” Her features softened, relieved to have the excuse to fill them in. “Alexander completed the anti-rift formula.”
Dez’s heart stuttered to a stop, clenching painfully. They’d been working on a way to keep the monsters from traveling through time for so long, he’d begun to believe it was a false hope.
“This was supposed to be a test run.” Bekah went on, oblivious to Dez’s disquiet. “…capture a Sift and monitor the effects. Alexander insisted he go to watch for the effects minute-by-minute. If we couldn’t outright capture the Sift, we’d have to track it and Alexander said it was vital that he be there to gauge everything. You know how he is.”
Dez did. Pieces started falling into place. “This has something to do with why you and your team left months ago and the people you brought back. They had something to do with Alexander finally being able to produce the anti-rift.”
“Yes. They had everything to do with it.
Dez eyed her, knowing she was still holding back, but let it go in favor of focusing on matters at hand.
“So Alexander was testing the formula. Why didn’t he tell us?” Because that was the crux of it. Alexander should have told them.
Ethan moved closer, a reassuring presence at his shoulder. “He should have told us.”
“It wasn’t a matter of trust.” Bekah rubbed at the back of her neck. “It was to keep exactly what happened from happening. You two are always on the front lines. The potential for you guys getting bitten is so much greater. If the Sifts knew how close we were to stopping their ability to build rifts or where the final ingredient came from—”
“Which happened anyway. But worse. Alexander got bitten. The Sifts know everything.”
“One Sift,” Bekah corrected.
“That jumped into the past where it can eliminate Alexander before he ever becomes a threat,” Ethan summed up the dire situation succinctly.
“You’ve traveled to the past.” Dez stared at Bekah. “Is there a way to pinpoint where exactly in Alexander’s lifetime the Sift has gone to?”
The shake of her head dropped her hair back across her anxious eyes.
“Our best hope is that Shaw can somehow sense a trace of where Col passed through the same rift. Blood speaks to blood.”
“And if he can’t?” Ethan’s tone was clipped. “He’ll what? Keep leaping through time, hoping he gets lucky?”
“Or that Col has already taken out the threat.” Bekah’s eyes blazed. “Don’t underestimate these Highlanders.”
He wasn’t, but he didn’t know them either, didn’t place all his hopes on magic the same way they did. Give him his pulsar and high-grade explosives over mumbo-jumbo every time.
“There’s another way.”
Dez and Ethan twisted at the lilting Scottish brogue behind them. The small auburn-haired beauty leaned against the door jamb, green eyes half-lidded with weariness.
Bekah pushed between them and went to her. “Edeen, you need to rest.”
“I will,” the woman, the sister to the two black-haired Highlanders, pressed her hand to her head. “I’ll have to in order to do what I need to.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Dez felt a skeptical brow rise even though he didn’t mean to put the woman ill at ease.
Tired eyes shifted up to him. “If the Sift attacks Alexander in his past, Alexander will create memories of it. Once those memories meld within this present timeline, I can go into his essence and find them. I’ll know exactly where in time the Sift went.”
“Have you seen any of those memories while you were aiding Lenore’s healing?” Bekah asked.
Edeen shook her head. “Nay
. There’s naught yet.”
“But that’s good, right?” Ethan asked. “That means the younger Highlander may have already eliminated the threat.”
“His name’s Col.” The redhead’s eyes flashed. “But aye, ‘tis possible. I’ll search Alexander’s essence again to be certain.”
Bekah curled her palm around Edeen’s wrist. “Isn’t that risky while he’s unconscious?”
The woman dipped her head. “There’s a danger of being pulled in to dreams that are mistaken for true memories, aye.”
“Then wait, just a little bit. You have time before Shaw returns.”
“If he returns,” Ethan muttered the identical thought in Dez’s mind.
Dez wasn’t willing to leave Alexander’s survival, all their survival, to these people. “Keep trying to ferret out the right memory.” Then to Ethan, “Let’s go.”
This time Bekah came after them and caught his arm. “What are you going to do?”
“Your Moon Sifter isn’t the only one who can travel back into time. We have the squids, which, in my opinion, are superior, seeing that we can actually bring our weapons through.”
“That’s great,” Bekah deadpanned. “Except for the small detail of needing the blood of a Sift to make them work. Fresh blood.”
Dez slid a glance to Ethan and grinned. “Won’t be a problem. Keep digging for that location.”
Bekah nodded. “Okay, yeah, just…guys, be careful.”
Wiggling his brows, Ethan pulled out his pulsar. “We’ll be back.
Chapter Three