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Chapter 13

Before I can react, there are people flooding into the hallways from rooms and other corridors. Members of the guard appear and try to herd the panicking crowds like cattle down the main hallway to the staircases.

I push myself up, leaning against the door for support, only to be shaken by a third "BOOM!" This one is stronger than the last and pieces of the ceiling begin to crack and fall.

The screams of the crowds become louder. I turn to find a large mob about to barrel down on me in the hallway, so I start running with them.

Suddenly, I am filled with a great sense of dread: Adam.

I stop, which almost results in me being knocked to the floor by the stampeding crowd. I am pushed and pulled and hit from every direction. My right arm is hot with pain but I push past it and manage to fight my way back down the corridor toward Adam's bed chambers.

The door to his room is open and I practically have to dive through it. Disoriented, I lean against the wall.

"ADAM? ADAM, ARE YOU IN HERE?"

There is no answer. I yell out again, this time checking his closet, study and washrooms, but there is still no sign of him.

I try to temper my panic with rationale: Perhaps Adam is already outside with everyone else. He's probably with Adora or, hopefully, my father.

The fourth blast shakes me from my rationale and kicks me into full panic mode. I turn to leave, noticing that the blasts have knocked one of Adam's bookshelves over, revealing a strange cubby hole in the wall.

But my fear of the palace collapsing on top of me keeps me from dwelling on it too long and the next thing I know, I am being pushed through the hallways, down the great staircase and through the palace doors to the open courtyard.

Like the corridors of the palace, people are in motion everywhere outside. There are crowds flocking to the windraider landing pads and to open training grounds. I finally make my way to the outer walls of the garden where I have some space.

I need to find my father, but in this madness …

A young guardsman runs past me. This gives me an idea and I run after him.

"Wait! Guardsman stop!"

The man keeps running, never looking back. There is too great a chance I will lose him in the crowd so I try a different tactic:

"Guardsman, I am a Captain of the Guard and I am ORDERING you to stop NOW!!!"

Old habits die a lot harder than I thought.

This, apparently, works as the young man stops in his tracks and spins toward me. His face, at first surprised, now takes on a skeptical looks as he assesse me with his eyes. I need to have control of this.

"I am CAPTAIN Teela, soldier. Keep those eyes up here," I point to my face, watching as the blood drains from his and his eyes snap up from my chest. "I need your communicator, please."

He nods and without a word, he hands it over to me. "Thank you" I say as I pluck it from his hand and flick the receiver on.

"Calling Man-At-Arms … come in Man-At-Arms …"

I wait for a few seconds, but receive no response. I try to contact him again, only to get the same silence. A thought occurs to me and I pray to the Elders it will work:

"Teela to Masters! Is there anyone receiving me?"

A few seconds of crackle and a blessed voice come through.

"Mekanek to Teela! I hear you loud and clear!"

Thank you, Elders.

"Mekanek, what is your location? Have you seen my father or Prince Adam?"

There is more crackle. The young guard I poached the communicator from shifts nervously back and forth next to me. I try to give him an encouraging smile, but it doesn't help. Mekanek's voice comes in again.

"I'm on the outskirts of the east end of the gardens. Last I saw Man-At-Arms, he was heading for the airfield. Negative on Prince Adam's location."

"Damn it," I swear under my breath. I reach down and remove the high heels that I am wearing and then look at the scared guardsman. "Come with me, we're heading for the airfield."

Again he nods silently and we both start a dash toward the left side of the palace. While I am comforted to know my father got out of the palace okay, I still need to find him. That makes double for Adam.

I grimace before clicking the receiver on again. This will be a long shot at best, but it's an option I should have considered initially …

"Captain Teela to Captain Turkon! Do you read me Captain Turkon?"

There is silence again for a few seconds before Turkon's voice comes over the communicator.

"Turkon here! Teela, what is Elders' names are you …"

"No time!" I yell, cutting him off. "Do you have a location on Prince Adam?"

I do my best not to sound like a paranoid girlfriend and try to put some force into my voice. Turkon took my place at the palace. Therefore, he now has the joyous responsibility of being the prince's bodyguard. Not that Adam ever wanted one.

The airfield is in sight now and I begin to slow down to search for my father when Turkon's reluctant voice comes back over the communicator.

"That's a negative on the prince."

I know in my heart that any further questions to Turkon about Adam's whereabouts will be moot. I know too well that when Adam doesn't want to be found, there is no way to do so. This stirs an anger in me I had thought was dead and I hate that now, of all times, it is rearing it's ugly head in my psyche.

Instead of responding to Turkon, I toss the communicator to the guardsman I took it from. He salutes me and heads back to rejoin his squad.

Around me, the airfield is the picture of chaos. Windraiders crash into one another as frantic people try to leave the palace quickly and without taking precautions. Guardsman make desperate attempts at field control as they clear one windraider after another for take-off.

Still, I stay where I am and try to get a fix on my father. The crowds and the darkness make it extremely difficult to see any one person in particular, but as I scan the open door of the hangar, I see my father's familiar face.

Relieved, I start to run towards him when there is another explosion from the palace. I look up, mesmerized by the fire and stone shooting outwards. There is so much of it …

And I'm standing directly under it.

I know I'll never make it out of range in time. I look back down and see the terror on my father's face and I realize my last regret in this life will be that my father has to witness my death. It's a strange comfort to know that Adam won't see this. I close my eyes and wait for the inevitable.

In the same instant, I feel someone grab me from behind and lift me.

"Hold on!"

Before I can get my head around what's going on, I am in the hangar with my father who has me locked tight in a hug. I hear voices, but don't really register them:

"Duncan, is she okay?!"

"Yes, I've got her. Go lad, you're needed!"

"Get her out of here! It's too dangerous!"

"I will! Now go!!!"

I try to wake myself out of this dazed reverie and turn to see He-Man's back retreating back into the fray. Then I feel someone gently shaking me.

"Teela! Sweetie, come on," father says. His large brown eyes pleading.

I shake my head and grab his hand. "I'm fine father."

My surroundings quickly begin to come back to me, as does my sense of panic over Adam's whereabouts. I feel my blood run cold. The royal family's quarters are located near the area of the palace that just exploded.

"Oh Elders, father!" I choke out. "Did Adam get out alright? The King and Queen? Adora?"

My father pulls me aside and leans in close. He frowns and puts his fingers up to his lips to silence me.

"They are all safe, daughter," he says as softly as he can. "We need to meet up with the rest of the Masters and figure out who is behind this."

"I NEED to see Adam, father. I need to … to be sure he's safe."

My father strokes my hair. "You'll get to see him soon," he says sympathetically as he takes my hand and leads me out of the hangar. "He's not that far from us."

I nod and follow my father out of the hangar to a windraider he had on standby. The field is nearly empty now. Most of the crowds have been ushered through the outer walls of the palace into Eternos City's darkened and empty streets. A strange feeling overcomes me and I stop before getting into the windraider with my father.

Someone is watching me.

I look around, trying to make sure there are no stragglers on the airfield. I see only a few guardsmen and members of the Eternian Fire Brigade who are trying desperately to get things under control.

Perhaps my anxiety over tonight's events have made me overly paranoid. My father looks at me expectantly. I start to get into the windraider but look out one last time.

And I lock eyes with He-Man. Sitting atop of Battle Cat across the airfield amid the fires, fallen bricks and all the rest of this craziness.

"You mean a great deal to me, too."

The memory is unbidden, but I hear the words he said to me so long ago in my head. As we stare at each other now, he has a strange expression on his face: A combination of relief and resignation.

"Father, what about He-Man?" Our eyes never leaves each others' as I sit down and my father starts up the windraider.

"He has to take care of something and then he is meeting us at the Royal Compound on the other side of the Enchanted Forest," he says without looking up from the control panel.

I give He-Man a slight wave and mouth "Thank you." He did save my life after all. Again.

From the distance, he waves and then mouths something in return.

I feel my heart stop. Or time. Or whatever. A few seconds later, I can no longer see him as my father races us towards our destination. I finally turn around and stare ahead of me, my heartbeat drumming loudly in my own ears.

Years of military training taught me a number of things - how to read lips was among them. It comes in handy when your are spying on your enemy without the luxury of audio enhancement.

Because of that, I didn't have to hear it to know what He-Man said:

"I. Love. You."

Unconsciously, I reach down to play with the material of my sling, only to find it's not there. I left it in my room. My room which is probably in pieces and on fire as we speak.

Looks like no more sling for me.

For some reason unknown to me, I start to chuckle. Then laugh. Hard.

My father whips his head around at me, but I can only howl, trying desperately to gulp in some air between laughs and wiping tears from my eyes.

"Teela, what on Eternia is going on?" he asks. His brow is furrowed and I can hear the worry in his voice.

But I keep laughing … and then suddenly, my hysterical laughter turns into hysterical sobbing. My mind begins to crash and I do the only thing I can do to keep a grasp on the fine thread of my sanity:

I scream more than a year's worth of frustration out into the night sky.