Chapter 24: Buried Beneath

In the weeks after our loss against Ashlocke, Adam had been quiet and busier than he used to be….His lights would be on all hours of the night, making me wonder if he slept at all. "One of us has got to talk to Adam, Jer this isn't like him…you know that."

"And say what Val? Geeze Adam you need to move on? Just give him some time. Adam needs to deal with Adam….not us."

I shrugged and walked away from him, once again I was pissed off at him. Sometimes Jeremy had a big mouth and said the wrongs things, one of his major flaws. As I walked I had no idea where I was going and as I turned the corner I heard someone call my name. At first I didn't recognize the voice till I saw who it was coming from. "Adam? Are you alright? We're worried about you…"

He was sitting down with his elbows on his knees to hang his head down between his arms. "Take a seat."

After taking a look around I sat down slowly across from him, eager to hear what really was on his mind.

"A lot has gone on the past couple of weeks; losing Samuel…losing any team member no matter how long they've been with us is not an easy thing. But there is something else I need to tell you and I know this is horrible timing but you need to know now."

I gave Adam a look of curiosity and hate….this always meant there was something he needed to tell me that he couldn't tell me before…or that he didn't want to tell me.

"What Adam…I'm already pissed at Jeremy now tell me why I should be pissed at you," I snapped forgetting the drawn face and empty eyes staring back at me that used to be full of authority and hope.

"Ashlocke has a new right hand…and it's a woman named Lisa. She's…an elemental and also your half sister," Adam finished.

"What? Half sister?" I looked around for the video cameras…this was insane; I had to be on some cheezy ass daytime drama or Maury. "Adam I don't have any sisters…or brothers for that matter...hell I don't even have parents anymore and your trying to tell me that...no, that can't be! My parents were married till their death and your trying to tell me that one of them cheated and had a kid with someone else.?" I got up from my seat with blood pumping and eyes feral.

"Now Val take deep breaths…"

"To Hell with breathing Adam you better explain yourself quick!" I advanced toward him but stopped hearing Jeremy run into the room to see what was going on.

"I didn't know either…her name is Lisa Prescott, she's two years younger than you. I assume that your father had an affair and never knew of the child. Her mother must have brought her to me for gene therapy."

"Then how did you find this out? Hm? Prescott is pretty common last name." My head was turning to mush quickly; none of what Adam was saying had sunk in at all…my dad a cheat? When I was only a baby?

"I'm aware of that. With the information of her DNA that I had from back then in comparison to yours…there was a match."

I looked over at Jeremy and he didn't seem to understand what we were talking about. "Half sister or not…I'm going to kick her ass so hard she won't remember her name." I turned and took off running to my car, in a hurry to get away from the strange facts just uncovered.

I got on Shalimar's bike even though I couldn't find the helmet and that I didn't really have a motorcycle license either. "Damnit…" I was so pissed off that Adam didn't even have a chance to tell me what kind of elemental I was dealing with, but I wasn't going to bother asking him…it would be a surprise. When I got to the strand location I parked outside and smiled at the body guard, "I'm not here for freak show boy…I'm looking for Lisa, she's got something of mine that I want to rip out of her." After a strange look from the guard he disappeared and I waited patiently tapping my foot and folding my arms. When the door opened a rather short...I'd say five foot two, blonde haired chick with green eyes looked at me.

"You Lisa?"

She nodded, "Yeah who the hell are you?"

I punched her in the face.

She grabbed her left cheek in pain, "what did I do to you?"

I was just disappointed that I didn't hit her hard enough to knock her to the ground. "You exist…that's what you did to me…your whore for a mother slept with my father and gave birth to you. And just like all other mistakes, you need to be corrected." I cracked my knuckles.

She looked at me with surprise, "Omg…you're Valerie right? Ofcourse! The witty and dark feral canine. Gabriel has told me much about you."

I rolled my eyes, "oh? Like the time I punched him the nose…and the time he kicked me in the shin? Wow he is a great bearer of knowledge isn't he?"

Lisa looked at me disgusted, "No…you're wrong. He told me the truth, about you, your mother and our dad…about what happened to them, that you killed them."

My eyes turned to ice, "I did WHAT?"

"Killed them Valerie, you kicked them, punched them, beat them up, and then shot them dead." Her voice was cold as she looked me dead in the eyes; the truth in her voice disturbed me the most.

"No, you're lying…I'm not going to believe a damn word that any of Ashlocke's followers say, in my eyes you're corrupted like him."

"Go ahead, deny what you did…but everyone will learn the truth sooner or later don't you think? You can't hide anymore and an innocent man was sent to jail because of you."

In a split second my leg came up and this time I did knock her off her feet to the ground. The guards were coming fast so I took off to my bike, and to my surprise they didn't follow.

"I didn't….they were murdered, I saw their bodies in the morgue…the guy confessed to doing it, didn't he?" She was nuts…beyond nuts...Insane, that little bitch was just trying to get under my skin, but it worked.

When I got back to Sanctuary I hid, they didn't hear what Lisa said so they didn't know. It wasn't true…couldn't have been true because I hadn't visited my parents until I saw them at the morgue. Then another strange feeling came over me, panic…a familiar panic feeling…not human, but feral.

"EVERYBODY LEAVE SANCTUARY NOW!" I yelled over my comlink and got out of my room and ran toward the helix, trying to get it powered up.

Jesse rushed in with Lex not far behind, "Val what's going on?"

"I don't know…but we need to get out of here now, just trust me on this one. Where is everyone else?" I found Jeremy with Adam when I went searching in the lab; they had the same questions but I told them to just trust me and so they headed to the Helix.

"Brennan! Shalimar!" Running around the corner I ran into Bren, "Where's Shalimar?" That was when it hit, the earthquake.

Our heads went up to the rocky ceiling above us as seemed to shake forever. "Everyone but Shal is in the helix, go and I'll grab her and meet you there."

Brennan defied that and ran the other direction, "ugg…"

When the shaking seemed to stop I noticed a lot of things had fallen over or were barely hanging together. It was too dangerous for any of us to be walking around. Jesse was calling over the comlink but the signal was fuzzy.

Then another one hit, "Shit!" I fell into the wall as pieces of rock and metal started to fall.

"Did you find her!" He didn't hear me. "Damn you Brennan!" The damaged computers started a fire from a spark; it spread like crazy. My fears were now pointing me into a different direction; Sanctuary was almost unrecognizable as the aftershock stopped.

"Shalimar!" I called out running to the other side, no answer. "Brennan!" Someone grabbed me from behind, "Put me down!"

It was Jeremy, "we've got to go, the mountain is going to cave!"

When he said that I felt myself panic even more, "No we can't leave Brennan and Shal! STOP!" I fought him kicking all the way to the helix.

When Jeremy put me down in the Helix I took off back down the catwalk, the metal was so hot from the flames my shoes were starting to melt. "BRENNAN ANSWER ME!" I cried out but Jeremy and Jesse had a hold of me and Lexa flew the helix right out of the mountain before it collapsed. "How could you leave them?" I begged them to answer me as I sat on the floor with swelled up eyes. No one could answer me. "We've got to back. We need to dig them out before they run out of air. Turn it around Lexa; you wouldn't leave me behind like that would you? Or Jesse?"

"Do you think it's safe Adam?"

He shrugged but I could tell he was really considering it. Finally she turned the bird around after Adam said to and in a few minutes we were at the bottom of the mountain. Smoke was rising from underneath some loose rocks.

"Let's go" I pointed to there but Adam held us back.

"It's too dangerous and we have no tools to get them out"

I glared at Adam for not pointing this out sooner.

In a couple hours Adam managed to get a crew of people and some tractors to start moving rock. The guys gave me some boots and gloves so I could help in their search. I climbed around carefully, not wanting to fall through or unintentionally crush one of them buried beneath. In frustrated I looked to Adam, "I can't do this like this…my nose isn't as strong."

He was a little hesitant at first because they had no gear to protect paws, "alright, but be careful."

I started to change form before he even finished, nose forming a snout and legs got shorter, bending into hind legs. My entire body itched as fur sprouted, melting away the clothes I was wearing. With my snout I could smell lots of things, like the body odor one of the crew guys had. Adam was right; the rocks were hot, making me move quicker…covering more ground than any of the workers. I knew what Shalimar and Brennan smelled like and I froze…catching a familiar scent. I barked for the others, pawing at the dirt; they quickly started to dig and I ran back down to a trailer and changed back getting a pair of clothes and going back up there. By the time I got up there they had dug down ten feet using some strange machine.

"Brennan! Wait stop!" I told them being able to see his hand. I could hear Jesse shouting as he ran up to see what was going on. A little scared I touched his dirty hand and felt it twitch then take hold of mine. "He's alive! Let's get him out." I stayed on the ground holding his hand while they dug around him, carefully removing dirt and rocks. He managed to hang on for an hour; it took them that long to dig up the area around him. Finally they had his head out and he could breathe; a guy said that a small air pocket was the reason he was still alive. The first soft spoken words from his mouth were Shalimar.

I looked at Jesse and he answered for me, "Don't worry man we'll find her alright?" Brennan made a coughing sound and then he started to free himself from being buried.

It was getting dark as I made my third trip around the area for Shalimar. She was just too deep to be detected by scent and Brennan wasn't going to believe me.

"Search again, keep looking."

I was tired and didn't think I could search anymore; my shoulders sank as my paws carefully went over debris. Yawning I lost my footing and slipped down a few feet, clipping a rock with my shoulder. Jesse came over to see if I was alright and I walked down to the trailer to change back and get something to eat. Lexa was looking nervous as she was talking to Jeremy. Right when I laid down on a cot there was yelling and cheering coming from outside. All of us jumped up and rushed out of the trailer to see large lights focused on one area on the south side. I tried looking over their shoulders and managed to get a view of Shalimar as they tried to pull her out, but for some reason they had stopped. Shal was unconscious dressed in her exercise clothes, and then the strong scent of blood hit me. There was a pole sticking clear out of her side that they were now trying to shorten to get her out. I honestly thought Brennan was going to cry, he started choking up a little as they started to access her injury.

Adam had gotten closer and started examining and sighed, "She needs blood and it looks like it missed her liver by a few inches. We need to get her out carefully and quickly to the hospital."

I went back to the trailer and I felt better knowing that the two were found but I had so many other things still on my mind…was Shalimar going to be okay? And do I mention to the others that I met with my half sister? No…now wasn't the time for anything like that, but what she said was still eating at me for some reason, that chick was insane though.