Common Ground (The Common Ground Trilogy Book 1) by Barry Chaison

Author:Barry Chaison [Chaison, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-02-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10: An Hour Early

The clouds that had been covering the beauty of the night had dissipated, and slowly, stars began to shine. I inhaled deeply and focused my eyes on a small cluster that had broken through the grayness. My body was rigid and stiff but for some reason, I couldn’t remember exactly why I was on the ground staring up at the clearing night.

My senses seemed to be the only part of me that was working properly. The rankness of the garbage lining the ground all around me burned my nostrils. A slight rustling and muffled yell was coming from somewhere nearby. After another moment, I saw Liam’s face calmly emerge from the shadows, looking stoic as he bent down to check on Annie’s motionless body. The star cluster that had taken my gaze was covered up again by clouds. It ended up wakening me from my trance; everything that had happened suddenly came back to me as my body regained composure.

“Annie!” I startled, sitting up at once. Her motionless body lied curled up in a fetus position as I quickly crawled over to her on my hands and knees. “Liam, is she alright?”

We were both leaning over her body and with each passing second, she looked worse and worse. Her face had gone white and when I grabbed her hand, she was as cold as ice. Liam, whose eyes had returned to their customary deep black, sat across from me, staring blankly at Annie. His sturdy hand then began to caress her face smoothly.

“Is she?” I choked up again, barely able to mutter the words.

“She’s not dead,” he said shortly, not looking over at me.

“What happened to her?” I asked, panicked.

“The gunshot must have shocked her because she passed out and hit her head on the concrete.”

“Then we need to get her to the hospital now!”

“No, that’s the last place we should go.”

“What? Why? She’s hurt you idiot! She needs a doctor!”

“She’ll be fine,” he snapped, “but we need to get out of here immediately.”

Carefully scooping up Annie’s limp body in his strong arms, Liam scanned the alley behind us. After a few seconds, he slowly turned back around and strode out of the alley towards civilization, leaving me behind. I quickly pulled myself up against one of the big trash bins and dusted off.

While I was cleaning my shirt, one of my fingers got stuck in a penny sized hole that had developed by my stomach. The odd thing was that there were no markings, bruises or blood and I didn’t feel any pain. If Annie was okay like Liam had said, I started to realize that she wasn’t the one who had actually been struck by the bullet. A dreadful feeling overtook me while I ran to catch up with Liam.

“Let’s go!” he barked from the sidewalk, still carrying Annie’s body in his arms.

He was already more than half way to Atlantis before I finally caught up to him. Liam sounded very confident that Annie would be okay, but her complexion hadn’t changed at all while we walked.

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