The Quest Read Online Free PDF Page A

in pain as Terry did whatever she did next.
    “Okay, do it now,” said Terry. “At least you’re not bleeding.”
    Alia didn’t respond aloud, but continued whimpering in pain. Whatever she had broken, this clearly wasn’t her day either.
    Terry came back over to me. “Can you move yet? Come on, Adrian. I need you to get up.”
    With Terry’s help, I managed to pull myself into a sitting position. I tried moving my feet a bit.
    “Oh, good,” said Terry, “you didn’t break your neck. Knowing your luck, I thought you might be paralyzed or something.”
    “I’m okay,” I breathed.
    “Can you stand?” she asked impatiently.
    “Not sure.”
    “Rest a minute, then. But only a minute.”
    Terry went to look for the stuff she had tossed from the roof.
    I touched Cat’s amethyst pendant around my neck to check that it was still there. The small violet stone was all I had when I first left home after turning psionic. I realized that once again, I had left everything behind. Then I glanced at my sister, who was similarly touching her chest to see if the bloodstone that Cindy had given her was still there. Well, perhaps not quite everything.
    “What happened to you, Ali?” I asked. “Are you alright?”
    My sister lifted her left arm a bit and said bravely, “It’s a little stiff, but I’m okay.”
    “Sorry about the rough landing.”
    “It’s okay.”
    If it had occurred to me, I might have tried searching for my Braille watch, but it didn’t. Terry was gone less than a minute. When she returned, I noticed that she had recovered her hook attachment, belt, jeans and shoes. No pistol, though.
    “Time to go, Adrian. Come on, you can stand,” she said, roughly pulling me to my feet, which still felt quite rubbery.
    “Wait,” said Alia, coming up to us. “Don’t pretend like you’re okay, Terry. Addy, you too.”
    In addition to healing her broken arm, Alia had already taken care of whatever bruises she had sustained from our crash-landing, and she now spent a few minutes tending to Terry’s and mine.
    As Alia worked her healing on us, Terry smirked at me, saying, “Nice landing, Half-head.”
    “We’re still alive, aren’t we?” I replied gruffly.
    My sister finished running her hands over our bruises. My physical pain was gone, but I was still feeling very lightheaded.
    Terry didn’t care. “Come on,” she said, “we need to get going.”
    Terry grabbed my left hand and Alia took hold of my right. I somehow managed to stagger along with them as we cut across the block, heading away from NH-1.
    “I can walk,” I said, pulling my hands free, and I found that I could, albeit clumsily. “Where are we going? NH-6?”
    “NH-4,” replied Terry. “It’s closer, and there’s a Knight command post there, so if the building is still ours, we might find out where they took Cindy.”
    “Sounds good.”
    Alia stumbled, and Terry stopped to pull her up.
    “It’s alright, Alia,” said Terry, crouching down. “Hop on.”
    It was only then that I noticed that my sister, still in her nightclothes, wasn’t even wearing shoes or socks.
    Alia climbed onto Terry’s back. As we started walking again, I saw that there were many more cars and people on the road than usual for this time of night. How many were Guardians? How many were Knights? How many were Angel Seraphim?
    Picking up her pace, Terry looked back at me and said, “Probably no one will attack us in the open, but there’s no way to be certain. This may be much bigger than we thought. Stay sharp, okay?”
    We entered the large park that ran between the NH-1 and NH-4 buildings. I followed Terry through a clump of trees and across a grassy field. Looking up, I saw the forty-story New Haven Four towering over us. Most of the lights were off in the windows, but a few near the top were still on.
    Suddenly I heard a voice cry out, “Terry! Terry Henderson!”
    We stopped and turned toward the frantic figure rushing up to us. It was a teenage boy