TAMIRA
The pounding on the door pierced through Tamira's dream like a spear through water, creating a ripple but not disturbing it for long. She was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of a house, a baby sleeping fitfully in her arms. It was somewhere nice, somewhere green but not hot or humid. It was actually a little chilly, so she tucked her shawl around the baby, making sure that he was warm, and kept rocking.
It was such a peaceful and pleasant dream, and the damn knocking didn't belong in it.
"Open up or I'm coming in!" A woman's voice called out from somewhere beyond the veil separating dreams from reality.
Tamira knew that voice, but her brain was too sluggish to come up with a name.
"Wake up, Tamira," a familiar male voice said, and then the mattress shifted.
She forced her eyes open. "What's happening?" she murmured.
Eluheed was already on the move, pulling out the knife he kept beneath his pillow and positioning himself between her and the door.
"Stay behind me," he said quietly, calmly, but every line of his body was coiled for violence.
"I'm coming in!" The door burst open, and Tula rushed into the room.
Tamira's brain struggled to process what she was seeing. Tula was wearing a black swimsuit, and water was still dripping from her wet hair, her feet were bare and leaving dirty prints on the floor. Behind her loomed the tallest man Tamira had ever seen. He was close to seven feet tall, and he too was dripping water all over. He wore a black diving suit that gleamed in the fake moonlight filtering through the curtains, and his very long braid swayed as he walked, but it was his eyes that made her breath catch. They were pale blue, eerie looking, almost silver.
"Don't take another step." Eluheed shifted his stance and raised the knife he'd fashioned from a gardening tool.
The guy was utterly calm, even amused, judging by the slight upward tilt of his lips, and as he slowly raised both hands, palms out, his face split into an incongruously cheerful grin full of very white teeth. "I'm here to rescue you, not harm you. Let Tula explain." His voice had a sing-song quality as if he was a professional singer and couldn't help but infuse tonality into his speech.
It had an oddly calming effect.
"We're leaving," Tula said breathlessly, her chest heaving as if she'd been running. "Get dressed and get moving. You can'ttake anything with you except for jewelry you can wear on your body."
"Tula, what—" Tamira started, but Tula lifted her hands and shook her head.
"I don't have time to explain to each one of you individually what's happening. All you need to know for now is that we're getting off this island. All of us." She was already heading toward the door, the tall male right behind her. "Wear pants," Tula said on her way out. "No dresses. You are going diving."
"Diving?" Tamira choked out. "Tula, have you lost your mind? I don't know how to do that!"
"They'll teach you. Head to the cliff's edge as soon as you're ready." Tula left the door open. "I have to get the others."
And then she was gone, the wet slap of her feet fading down the corridor, leaving Tamira and Eluheed staring at each other in stunned silence.
"The cliff's edge?" Tamira's words came out in a squawk. "That's suicide. No one can survive that jump."
Eluheed lowered the knife. "She was wet and wearing a swimsuit."
Tamira's mind raced, trying to piece together the impossible clues. "That man was wearing diving gear."
"It still makes no sense." Eluheed moved to the door, peering down the hallway where Tula had disappeared. "How would she have access to—where would she even?—"
"She said we're all going to be free." The words tasted strange in Tamira's mouth, too sweet to be real, too dangerous to hope for. "All of us."
"It could be a trap," Eluheed said quietly, but he was already turning toward the wardrobe.
"Set by whom? For what purpose?" Tamira followed him and grabbed a pair of stretchy pants and a long-sleeved shirt that would protect her arms. "If Navuh wanted us dead, he wouldn't need elaborate schemes involving diving equipment."
"True." Eluheed put on a shirt. "And he wouldn't send Tula in a swimming suit with a stranger in diving gear. An immortal for sure, but not one of Navuh's soldiers."
Tamira frowned. "There are no other immortals left in the world."
"Perhaps there are." He smiled. "And they came for us. Perhaps that was what Areana was referring to when she said there was another way. She knew about these other immortals and had a way of contacting them."
