Page 24 of The Knight
I raised my hands in a frustrated gesture.
“Be careful with her,” Mary demanded.
“I am always careful with Emma.”
“No, you weren’t, not in telling her and showing her that picture again. She hadn't remembered describing him to the sketch artist, probably for a good reason.”
“I needed to. She is stronger than you know, Mary.”
She paused; then asked, “When will you go?”
“During homecoming week.” I paced back and forth. I wished that I could have gone sooner, but I knew that it would be easier for me to leave before the football game so that I could avoid the questioning looks from Emma. She was going to the dance with Shad anyways, and I was not interested in seeing that play out.
“I should go with you, Ryker,” Mary said, placing some florist tape down on the back table. She looked so tired.
“Who would stay with Emma?”
“Maybe Glasson could—“
“Mary, are you insane? We can not leave Emma without one of us with her. If we both leave—“
“I understand; I do, but I want to help you. It was my sister, her life—her death we are talking about.”
I placed my hands on her shoulders, and I looked into her blue eyes.
“Mary, I will find this man, and I will get rid of him, or I will die trying.” She gasped and stepped away from me.
“Ryker, no! Take it back!” she yelled, shoving me away.
“I can’t. It’s already been spoken.”
“You are an idiot,” she whispered, looking at her hands on the table as she played with a rose petal. We both understood that I had just made another vow.
“I’m sure that I will find him.”
She didn’t look at me as she nodded.
“We have to tell Emma, Ryker. I keep thinking that she’ll discover something in her parent’s old things, but she doesn’t ask me anything about them, not really.”
“It’s still safer not to tell her yet. She asked me about an old letter that Lamont wrote to Ara. Sheisgetting curious. We will tell her soon, but we need some more time.”
She nodded again and looked behind me. “I miss them so much, Ryker.” Her eyes filled with tears.
“I do, too, but this is good news, Mary. We are one step closer to getting rid of him,” I assured her.
“Yes, but there is still so much to figure out. We need to tell Emma and discover how to get home. Then once we are there, who knows? We don’t even know what Terra is like after all this time, especially after the wars.”
“I know, and sometimes, I wish we didn’t have to go back, but if Soulless are being created here, it’s only a matter of time before all the Terrans in this realm become soulless. I have to go, find the cave, find who did this, deal with it, and then we can be free of it,” I added.
“And this map? This is where he is?” Mary asked.
“The people in these Terran colonies indicated that there are a large number of soulless around this general area. They alsotold me that there are a bunch of caves around there, and it all seemed somewhat familiar to me. It is in the Northern California area, near Oregon. The cave could be there, Mary. This could be our way home. Possibly, this man has already found the cave and is using it. He might be traveling back and forth to Terra and creating soulless.
“I hope you find the answers we need, Ryker.”
Chapter 15
“Idon’t understand why you are going to such lengths for revenge,” Glasson wondered out loud.
