SAVE OUR BODIES, BUT WE WILL NOT LIVE AGAIN UNTIL THE FLOOD IS DESTROYED.
"You . . . she . . . can read my mind?" Arrabelle asked, stepping away from Niamh's touch as her body thrummed with an electric charge.
Niamh frowned, began to nod, then stopped herself, thinking out loud.
"No, not really. I mean, it's not mind reading. It's more like she . . . we . . . get flashes of stuff. Maybe they're thoughts sometimes, but it's more like impressions, mostly. Like starbursts in the sky, bright but fleeting."
"Okay," Arrabelle said, digesting the information as she noticed that the light from the cell phones was gradually disappearing down the corridor. Soon she and Niamh-and whoever the hell was sharing Niamh's body-would be alone in darkness.
"You're not scared?"
Arrabelle shook her head.
"What's there to be frightened of? It's just another bizarre thing that I can't really explain."
"I don't know," Niamh said, nervously running a finger through her long brown hair. "I get really freaked out about the stuff I don't understand. I wish I could be as strong as you . . ."
Arrabelle rested her hand on the younger woman's shoulder.
"You're plenty strong. And don't be freaked out, okay? 'Cause no one is gonna let anything bad happen to you. Not on my watch."
Niamh gave Arrabelle a half smile, but it disappeared quickly. It was strange to hear her speak about her sister as though she were standing right there in the hall with them.
"Oh, it's not for me I worry," Niamh said. "It's for everyone else and what's going to happen to them. I don't know what's coming, but it's terrifying. I can feel it in my gut-and Laragh agrees. Something bad is going to happen . . . and it won't spare you, Arrabelle. You or Lyse."
Niamh's words bore the hallmarks of a surreal prophecy, and they sent a shiver down Arrabelle's spine.
"The Flood is coming, Arrabelle," Niamh continued. "But where it will take any of us, I just don't know."
Arrabelle swallowed hard, the hairs on the back of her arms standing on end.
"We should get back to the others."
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Niamh agreed, and then her whole body trembled. "Is it cold for you, too?"
Arrabelle shook her head. She was sweating like a pig and had been ever since she and Niamh had stopped to talk in the corridor.
"No, you're burning up, aren't you," Niamh said, her tone matter-of-fact. Then she took a deep breath and pushed off the wall.
She was correct-Arrabelle was burning up, and Niamh knew it even though she hadn't laid a hand on Arrabelle's skin.
"It's just a reminder that you're still among the living," Niamh continued, replying to Arrabelle's unspoken question. "That's all."
• • •
They brought out the survivors in small groups, filling the elevator time and again, until there was not a single living soul left down below. By then, the rest of the Eagles had arrived and they worked tirelessly to get the victims settled into five Humvees they'd brought with them from Las Vegas. It was such a stark contrast, two disparate groups-the able-bodied Eagles and the emaciated blood sisters from the lab-stepping out of the darkness of the mine shaft into the purple-hued Nevada desert night.
Arrabelle wanted to reach out to the young girls, the ones who'd lived such short lives and experienced more evil than good in that brief time, but she couldn't find a way to connect. It was impossible to break through the walls their damaged minds had built to protect them. Even the adults were inaccessible, locked away behind blank eyes.
They were all so gaunt, so starved, you could see the bones pushing against their skin, trying to break through the thin flesh. There were women-blood sisters-of every age, shape, and ethnicity. The Flood had gone through and chosen them not for their physical looks, but for something more ephemeral . . .
"They're like Lyse," Niamh said.
She stood with Evan and Arrabelle at the entrance, the three of them watching as the last woman was loaded into the remaining Humvee. "They're different than the rest of us. They must have shown abilities that transcend that of a normal blood sister. My sister, Laragh, was the same. It's why they took her and left or killed the rest of our coven."
"They wanted the special ones," Evan said. "The ones who had evolved into something greater than the rest of us."
Lyse, who'd been talking to Jessika by the helicopter, came to join them.
"They're gonna take off now," she said. "Head out of here and hopefully find a way to get these women some medical and psychiatric attention."