Heart and Soul

Prologue:

Separated

Layla

I looked down at my iPhone. It was the only thing my "father" had ever given me that was worth anything at all. The battery was almost dead but there was enough juice left to tell me the time. 2:45 am beamed at me in light blue characters. I should have guessed. What time would monsters come to take your soul other than the middle of the night? Of course they would stick to the shadows. Cowards.

I looked across at Chris lying next to me. He looked so tortured, even in his sleep. His dreams were full of the beautiful baby girl he had barely held in his arms. She was gone now; lost to us both. Chris's thoughts had always been a comfort to me, especially since his thoughts, words and actions usually matched up. He never lied to me. That was why I'd given into him when he'd started trying to get me with him. He loved me, in the way that I was the only girl in his world besides his sister and he needed to be with someone so that he could reassure himself that he was alive. I'd enjoyed being with him, and that itself was incredible. I'd never though it possible that I would enjoy that.

My eyes turned to Sadie, who was staring at me. Her animosity had wavered a bit since the baby had died. I'd always understood the reason behind her hostility. Her brother was the only person she'd had in the world until she'd found me but one look at me and all Chris could think about was having me. She had hated that; hated being alone but she could never hate the only family she had left so all her hatred centred on me.

Chris didn't have the survival instinct that Sadie and I did. She protected him fiercely, not wanting him to really endure the harshness that she faced being the oldest and having to keep him from a world where left alone he would probably die. I understood that too. Were my own brother with me, I'd do anything to protect him. I'd faced horror my entire life, from the minute I was born, before the aliens had invaded. Survival was all I had ever known. Sadie was awake for the same reason I was. She could feel it and I knew it without a doubt; the Seekers were closing in on us. Our little campsite in an abandoned trailer park on the outskirts of Nevada had been discovered.

"We should wake him." I said and Sadie closed her eyes. Her thoughts screamed out her pain, how wrong this all was but she simply reached out and brushed Chris's hair out of his face. I'd never liked the powers I'd been born with. Being able to hear peoples' thoughts had always seemed so invasive to me. I had spent my entire life fighting it and I'd finally learned how to turn it off. That hadn't mattered to my parents; they could still barely look at me, right up to the end. When they'd started being nice to me, I'd known those people couldn't be my parents. I'd forced myself to reach into their minds and when I'd heard their thoughts and figured out that they were aliens, I could hardly believe it. I'd run as fast and far as I could in the dead of the night and ironically in the dead of the night the body snatchers had found me.

Now, a year since that summer night when I'd hightailed it out of New York, I was finally grateful to be a mind reader. I knew how many souls there were and where they were. I knew what they could see, which was very little. I knew what they knew – that there were rebel humans in the area – but none of them knew how many. We needed to move. They were getting closer. I reached across to shake Chris awake and Sadie caught my hand. What was going through her head made me freeze. I waited for her to say it.

"I'm tired of running Layla. So is Chris. So are you." Sadie whispered. That was true buy I would rather run forever than let them take me. I may not like myself most days but I knew how much damage a soul could do if they had my body. No one was going to suffer like that just because I wanted to give up. "We try to run, we try to make lives after the apocalypse but we're three people against billions of souls. You and Chris buried your daughter two days ago. He doesn't have the strength to do this and I don't want to anymore."

"So you're just going to surrender? You're just going to let some little worm invade your body and use it as it pleases? We can't let them win, Sadie!" I whispered in a rush, horrified by the idea. I had so admired her resilience and now she was going to give up.

"They've already won." It was Chris who answered me, sitting up slowly as he glanced at his sister and then focused on me. "You two are all that has kept me going for the past year but I can't do this anymore."

Before I could answer, an unfamiliar voice called out from five yards away. He couldn't see anything but he was trying to get us to answer him so he could gauge our position. We should have left from the time I'd known they were there. We could have this discussion about surrendering when we had time to think. Right now our lives were in immediate danger. I looked between Chris and Sadie and saw the fear and hopelessness in their eyes. This war had worn them down and they couldn't fight anymore but I could fight and I wouldn't leave them behind.

"We are not surrendering to them. There must be more humans out there, we just need to find them. We didn't fight this long to just give up. Think about what we would lose! I would rather die." Sadie looked at her brother & through her thoughts I could see him standing in the sunlight, smiling Chris's smile with a soul's eyes. The image broke my heart & hers & her resolve snapped back into place. Seconds later we were inching toward the trees at the edge of the trailer park, ready to run under cover of the forest.

"Over there! Look they're over there!" Sadie cursed under her breath & broke into a sprint, Chris & I on her heels. I wished we had left earlier. They were going to catch us. I pushed my legs harder than I ever had before, pulling Chris along with me. He was running but his thoughts were on little Cassie. He wished he could be with her & my heart clenched as I thought of her. Chris snatched his hand from my grip & stopped running.

"There is no point to this!" he said, running his hands roughly through his hair. We didn't have time to respond. The Seekers broke through the trees, their flash lights blinding us. When my eyes adjusted Chris was on his knees, at the mercy of a taser.

"No!" the scream was Sadie's but that word repeated itself in my mind. No, no, no, no, no! The Seeker brought the taser to Chris's shoulder & Sadie let out a strangled sob. She pulled a gun from the waistband of her jeans and trained it on the Seeker, pulling the trigger. He buckled, the taser falling harmlessly to the ground. How had she kept that from me? For the entire year we'd been together, I'd had no idea she had a gun.

The other Seekers - out for blood over their friend's death - advanced toward us. I looked at Sadie and saw in her eyes a woman who had nothing left to lose. She ran towards Chris and hugged him to her chest, her gun trained on anyone who came near them. Her eyes were desperate & they locked on mine. She pushed Chris toward me and I caught him against me as she put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

A horrified scream broke the silence after the sounds of the gunshot had faded. Sadie lay crumpled on the ground, her body at impossible angles and blood staining the ground from the wound on her head. Chris sagged against me, gasping out his sister's name. The Seekers paused, horrified by the display of human desperation. Their thoughts unified as their inhuman gazes turned to us. We can't let them get away.

I pulled Chris with me as I ran, struggling under his weight. I managed to get us away from the Seekers but they would catch up soon enough. Chris stopped running and I tried to pull him with me but he pulled away from me again, the grief too much for him. He looked at me, the tears streaming down his cheeks and held my face in his hands.

"I used to think that Sadie was the strongest person I'd ever known." he said through his tears. "But she's not. You are. Don't let them get you Layla. Run & keeping running. Be safe." he stroked my face with his thumbs & gave me a tender smile. "I love you." he leaned down and kissed me and then, with determination in his grey eyes, he ran toward the Seekers.

I stood paralyzed with tears streaming down my face, watching his broad back as he ran back the way we'd come. Should I go after him? He'd told me to run. He was sacrificing himself to save me. If the Seekers caught me, his sacrifice would be in vain. I needed to get away. I took off into the night, pushing myself harder than I ever had before. And as I ran, trying to contain my sobs, a gunshot louder than any I'd ever heard in my life once again broke the stillness of the night...

So as promised the new prologue. I'll upload the next chapter tomorrow whether or not you guys review but if you did I'd be sooooooooooooo grateful :D tell me what you think?

- Ashley :3