drake had had to carry helen, and though gilda had accepted angus's support, she hadn't allowed him to do the same. there was an odd kind of distance between them that zach didn't understand, but he hoped like hell it went away soon. this place needed them strong, functioning as a team.

it needed him and lexi to do the same.

zach's back ached, but he ignored it, preferring the mindless monotony of labor over the worries eating away at him.

what if lexi's fears were right and she never managed to access his power? he was sure the failure would crush her, not to mention the fact that he had no clue what that would mean for him. his lifemark was no longer dying, but it wasn't renewing itself, either. there were no new leaves forming, no buds.

patience. he needed to stop worrying and have some faith. it had only been a couple of days. he needed to give lexi some time to figure things out. heaven knew she was trying.

a warm smile pulled at his mouth. he could hardly wait for her to try again.

a small whimper of sound rose up to his ears, barely audible. zach stilled and held his breath, listening. it came again, a little louder this time, from the thick brush on the far side of the wall. it sounded like a wounded animal.

or a child.

fear kicked hard, making zach's body move into action. had one of the human children wandered out through the opening and gotten hurt? there was so much chaos around the wall's break, it could have happened.

the sound came again, a little sobbing noise of pain and terror. definitely not an animal.

zach shouted to the closest man, "neal, come here. back me up."

the sky had lightened enough that the floodlights shining on the work area had been turned off. the humans who had needed the illumination had all gone inside for food, anyway.

deep shadows left dark pockets over the landscape, but zach had served perimeter duty enough times that he knew the area well and had no trouble negotiating the dips and ruts in the dim light.

neal was bare-chested. he pulled a t-shirt from his waistband and wiped the dust and sweat from his face. "what's up?" asked neal. his voice was deceptively lazy as he came up beside zach, moving so smoothly, it was hard not to watch.

"thought i heard something. like a kid."

"doubt it," drawled neal as he dropped the shirt and drew his sword.

zach had been teamed up with neal often enough to know that despite his casual manner, the man could go from zero to killer in about three seconds.

"yeah, me, too. guess we'll see." zach checked the sky. "whatever it is, can't be that bad for long. sun's almost up."

the pitiful sound came from the bottom of a shallow ravine about fifty feet away.

"it sure as hell sounds human," said neal, but he didn't put away his sword.

they reached the edge, and zach saw a movement in the brush below. something wearing pale blue. "help me," said the kid, and it was definitely a kid. "i'm stuck."

both men slid down the side of the ravine, which was maybe seven feet deep and twenty feet wide. during the rainy season, the crevice would be running with water, but right now, it was filled with scrub brush, mud and weeds.

neal sheathed his sword as zach pushed through the brush toward the kid. it was a little boy, maybe ten. he was wearing faded blue jeans and near him was a fishing pole and tackle box. his feet were sunk into the mud up to his calves and he'd fallen back, lodging his arms and his butt in the thick mud as well.

zach didn't recognize the boy, but there were a lot of kids at dabyr, more all the time.

"what's your name, son?" zach asked as he looked for a way to reach the boy without getting stuck himself.

"clay."

"are you hurt, clay?"

"i twisted my ankle." he sniffed and looked like he wished he could wipe the tears from his face before zach got close enough to see them. his night vision was good enough that he had no trouble making out the shiny streaks over the kid's face.

"don't worry. we'll get you out of here."

his voice wavered with genuine fear. "are you gonna tell my mom?"

absolutely, but no sense in freaking the kid out. he had to learn how dangerous it was to go outside the walls-learn it well enough that he never did it again. "don't worry about that right now. let's just focus on getting you out of here."

from behind him, zach heard the metallic click of a gun being cocked. he turned to see what was going on, already knowing it was bad.

a burly man in denim overalls stood on the sloping land behind and above neal with a matte black gun pointed at the theronai's head. "move and i'll blow his brains out," said the stranger.

zach stepped in front of the kid to protect him from stray bullets.

neal's hand moved to his sword.

"i wouldn't do that," said another man behind zach.

zach whirled around and saw a skinny human with a scraggly beard on the far side of the ravine. in his hands was a shotgun, and it was pointed at the boy.

outrage surged through zach. this whole thing had been a trap with the kid serving as bait.

"you won't kill him," said zach. "that child is one of your own."

"he's not my kid," said skinny, his voice chilly with indifference. "go ahead. see if i'm bluffing."

the boy's eyes overflowed with tears and his nose started running. "you said we were going fishing."

"shut up," barked skinny.

"what do you want?" asked zach.

"you and your buddy here are coming with us."

"like hell," drawled neal. and then he went into a blur of motion that severed the man's weapon hand at the wrist, sending it spinning through the air.

the man screamed, holding his bleeding wrist against his body.

zach didn't wait to see what neal did next. instead, he lunged for the kid and ripped him from the mud. he spun, putting his back to the shotgun, holding his breath in anticipation of the blast.

none came. zach tossed the child into some nearby brush to cushion his fall and drew his sword.

"run!" he ordered the boy.

a second later, white-hot pain bloomed across his back as power poured into him, stretching his insides until he thought he'd explode.

he roared in anger and spun around in a clumsy arc, slamming his fist into the man behind him. the man stumbled back, revealing two more men crouched in the brush.

zach drew his sword and charged.

one man lifted some kind of gun and fired. a staticky crackling sound split the air, and an instant later, another sledgehammer of pain slammed into zach's chest.

the second man aimed and fired.

zach's muscles clenched down, completely out of his control. the branches of his lifemark shivered in pain, and a thin, high squeal trickled from his throat against his will.

he crumpled to the ground, landing on his side, gasping for air, trying to blink the spots from his vision. when it cleared, he was staring at a pair of worn work boots. he tried to move, but couldn't. one of those boots pulled back and slammed into his head, flipping him onto his back. he looked up and saw an old man whose face was shadowed by a cowboy hat holding some kind of stun gun in his hand.

wires trailed out of the thing, leading straight to zach.

that was what had taken him down? stun guns?

"worked like a charm," said the man. "just like that creepy fella promised."

zach had trouble making sense of what the man had said, but he didn't waste time figuring it out. in the distance he saw neal slumped on the ground, his head bleeding heavily, a pair of wires streaming from his bare chest. as zach watched, several leaves on his lifemark fell as he lay there, twitching.

the addition of so much energy into neal's body so fast with no way for him to release it was going to kill him. zach had the benefit of being connected to lexi, but neal wasn't so lucky.

skinny lifted another stun gun from his belt and aimed it at neal. zach didn't think his friend would survive another shot.

zach tried to reach for his sword to cut that bastard down before he could kill neal, but he couldn't move. he couldn't even seem to find enough air to call for help.

if he didn't do something, they were both dead. maybe the boy along with them.

that was the thought that burned through the paralysis and got his body moving again. he found the hilt of his sword and pulled it free of the sheath.

"oh no, you don't," said a gruff voice.

shock made zach's body go numb, and a second later, he realized he'd been kicked in the head again. funny how it didn't hurt.

he tried to react, but nothing seemed to be working right. he lost the grip on his sword as his limp fingers fell away uselessly. even his neck didn't work. he couldn't turn his head to look at his attackers and defend himself.

another blow rocked his body. he was blacking out. he reached for lexi's mind, trying to call out a warning: dabyr was under attack. he wasn't sure if he got through or not, but as his vision faded, he knew it was too late for him and neal. there was nothing she could do in time to save them.

jake morrow answered lexi's call on the first ring, even though it wasn't quite six a.m. yet. he didn't sound sleepy, either, which made her wonder if he had spent a sleepless night, too.

"hello?" he asked.

"it's lexi."

"thank god," he breathed out in relief. "we'd thought they'd killed you."

"i'm fine. in fact, better than fine. we were wrong about the sentinels, jake. and that's not some kind of brainwashing talking, either."

she hoped.

silence flowed over the line for a moment. "are you alone?" he asked.

"yeah, why?"

"i just wanted to make sure you could talk freely."

"i can. i am, jake. i'm not sure where my mom got all the ideas she drilled into my head, but they're all wrong. these men are good. they're giving up their lives to protect humans from the synestryn."

another long pause made her nervous. "i want to know what you've learned. can you meet me so we can talk about it?"

meet him. only one reason he'd want to do that rather than talk on the phone. "you don't believe me. you think i'm brainwashed, don't you?"

"i just want to be sure, alex. the only way to do that is to get you out of there. away from any hold they might have on you."

"it's lexi, not alex. i'm not in hiding anymore."

"maybe you should be. just meet me for a few minutes, and let me judge for myself that it's really you talking."

it wasn't smart. she knew how they operated. if they thought she was brainwashed, they'd no longer trust her, or worse, they'd see her as the enemy. "i can't. i'm sorry, jake, but i don't trust you not to do something rash."

"they know about the c-4, don't they?"

lexi closed her eyes in frustration. she wanted so badly to help jake see what she had, but didn't know how to make him open his eyes. "yeah. i told them."