Chapter 19

Emmitt was not sure exactly what it was that sent him into a whole new level of protectiveness. You would think he would be excited or happy to see his father after all these years. But all it did it was make him wonder why is this man here? After all this time, he just magically appears after all this time right in the middle of prepping for war and combat training. With all the new alliances with the rest of the neighboring lands around them. He did not know who that man in that hut was.

He was not sure he really wanted to find out. If he had to think about it he would like to know what happened to his parents but it didn't bother him as it did when he was younger. The main reason for that was because he didn't feel any lack of parental love he had the Alderman's and Luca and Malik he had a whole village to teach him how to be a great man. He was contented in not knowing who that man was. His main concern was Tessa, he had no idea why his father was here but he knew with everything in him it had a big part to do with her.

"Thought you might want this." Tess said handing him a juice drink. "Thank you, love." He said in a husky low voice. "So is he awake yet?" Tessa asked as she sat with him across the way from the holding hut. "Not that I'm aware of either that or he just coming too. Listen Tess I don't want you anywhere near him. Ok, promise me you will stay away from him." Emmitt said almost like pleading her. "Why? He may have the answers we need. I don't understand why your pushing me back from this. I know it might be a little complicated with him being your parent and all but you should know by now I can handle myself pretty well Em." Tessa said getting a little offended in a confused look still on her face.

"I above all people trust and believe and know damn well you can handle yourself babe." Emmitt said shaking his with a chuckle. "It has nothing to do with you honey I swear." Emmitt said looking around not to put them in front of the village just yet even though he swears most of them already know he wasn't sure if she was ready to get that officially out there. "The fact is I do not trust that man in there. It does not matter my association with that person in there Tess. Love we do not know that man and it's just a little too wrong to me him coming out of nowhere at this point of time. I just worry about you; I don't know why he's here or what he wants but I do know it can't be for anything good. I got a bad feeling about him and I will not put you in the middle of whatever or whoever probably sent him to do. Just for me Tessa this one favor please stay away from him."

Tessandra never saw him begging this way it hit her hard in the chest. She didn't like it. Seeing the hurt and worry on his face. She wanted to take him and take away that pain in his eyes she would do anything to keep it off his face. "If it means this much to you I promise I will do my best to stay away from him. I don't want you to have to worry any more than you have to." Tessa said placing her hand over his looking deep into his eyes. "Thank you. Really, that means a lot to me." He said putting his hand over hers rubbing softly.

"I just… I can't have anything happen to you Tessa. It has nothing to do with you and what you will remember or know. Well a little but that's not the real reason. It's just. I'm so far gone for you I really don't know what I would do without you. I don't think I know how to be without you anymore and I never want to find. You have no idea how much you really mean to me. Just how far down deep my love for you actually goes. I can't handle the thought of something happening to you that I could have prevented." Emmitt said he just couldn't get his eyes off hers until he dropped his eyes down to their hands at the last statement he made.

"I promise you we will figure this out quickly, and we'll do it together. Just because I won't let you near him won't mean I won't tell you everything ok. You will know everything I know, always. I don't ever want you left in the dark about anything." Emmitt stated. "Wow, I don't think anyone has ever said, nor done that to or for me before. That means so much to me. You are the only one who's ever done things like this for me. You never make me feel like I might be doing the wrong thing you only ever given me support and always let me try. Even if the odds are high that I could fail, you still just stand there backing me up."

"I don't think I can ever thank you for being the only one who's ever treated me more like an actual human being and not just Chief Alderman who's never allowed to fail. Julian and the council from what I can recall, which isn't saying much. Always asked for my input and my best judgement but if it went off track or sounded from their own opinion or sounded a little too crazy for their liking shut it down by making me sound like it's the wrong thing or it can't work. Which now when I think about it is nuts because I have more experience than any of them more training, and a hell of a lot higher success rate in all missions than any of them combined." She said shaking her head looking down.

"You make me feel sane, and crazy at the same time Emmitt. You bring me peace and chaos. You make me feel everything, you make me see things in a bigger way than just what's in front of me. You make feel like I have a purpose in what I am doing, important in this world even if it's just being important to you, that's more than enough. You not only believe me. You believe in me and that means so much more. You gave me a life Emmitt, I may have had done all the work of training before I got here, but you made me see what's really worth living for."

"The freedom, the choices I never knew I could have or saw before are just in front of me know waiting for me to reach and grab them. I don't know what's going to happen from one day to the next and I don't need to I just need to know that at the end of the day I will go to sleep and wake up right next to you and I can handle anything else life this way. Thank you Emmitt for helping me find myself every day because I just can no longer see my future or my life without you in it. I love you Emmitt." She said. He rested his forehead onto hers not caring who saw or what they thought. This was them, this was real, if he had the opportunity to scream it from everywhere that she was his he would. "I love you too, Tess."

"Emmitt, oh hello beautiful. Am I disturbing you? Now is the time to be swooping in on my woman right now man. We are ready to start question him. We need you in there. Only a handful of people will be in there. So come on you guys." Tuca said. "I actually am going to see if I can help Chloe or the others maybe Gabe needs help fixing some of the weapons so I still have to do my daily check in on Jules so I will be informed later?" Tessa asked looking at Emmitt. "Yes, you will." Emmitt promised as he stood up looking at her with a promising look. He turned to leave her to whatever it was she planned to go do instead. Walking in step with Tuca.

"For the record she is not your woman. She's mine and only mine." Emmitt said to Tuca. "Does Julian know that? Or her people, what if they find out the truth and loose a little faith in her for loss of familiarity. They believe they are safe because of her she needs to be open with them but only when the time is right and this is not that time." Tuca chuckled as he continued.

"I knew you had it bad man. You are too obvious. I can read you like a book. You know you are my brother right?" "Ya I know Tuca." "So that being said I need to know where your head is at with this? He said pointing at the hut they will soon be in walking up to it." "I'm not anywhere with it. Honestly I just want to know why he is here and then I would like for him to leave and go back to wherever he has been hiding all these years."

"That's a little understandably bitter but I get it. I would feel the same way. I know you feel like you didn't miss out on anything because the whole takes a village to raise a family thing which is true because I swear it does but that's a one-sided opinion don't' you think? I mean you didn't miss out on much but they did. They are still technically tribe members. Can you honestly be ok with tossing him back out with everything Tessa and her parents came her with?" "That's different they came here broken, alone and with nothing hell Tessa got her memories taken against her own will."

"Your parents disappeared just up and gone. What if the Tentoria took them because they were one of the best and did to them all the things they have done others? Emmitt there's a chance that they are just victims trying to make it home right? Will you hold it against your parents after telling Tessa all this time the same speech? I know you forgive them and it means very little to you, but what can it mean for Tessa?" Tuca said.

"That's the only thing really going through my mind right now I don't know why but everything in me is telling to keep her safe FROM him. This is just not sitting well with me and I know it's not for anyone else too so let's just see what we can figure out from here. Play it by ear." "Alright boss man." Tuca said as they walked into the tent. As expected all the Circle members were there, Tuca and even Kenzo was in there in case they need to restrain the prisoner. Julian was in there as well everyone stopped and turned to look at Emmitt with a questionable brow lifting. "Where's Tessandra?" Malik asked first." He wasn't going to lie to anyone.

"I felt it was unsafe for her to be a part of this and have asked her to stay away from him. Respecting my wishes she will do just that and will be informed on everything that goes on so she will still have an input and clarity of any and all choices needed to be made on this individual before us." Tahlia nodded her head. "OK, I will agree to that, we all will. I think that is rather a deep and thought-out idea and support it." She said placing a hand on his shoulder. They all knew how important Tessa was to them but they all knew just how much she meant to him. Yet he has proven he did not put her above the people, which was smart and the rules, he just made her part of the people which was even smarter.

"So can you tell your name? Or maybe can you tell us how you found yourself to this place?" Abriel asked the man in front of them. "I came from this village. Years ago my woman and I were out scouting around checking on somethings when we heard it and saw them. A group of about at least twenty Tentoria had grabbed us we fought back but there were just to many. They took us in with bags over our heads they clearly did not want anyone to see the way on how to get there. I was only hoping that they would take us and leave the village be. Once we got there it was just so mind boggling even know to think of it. It was a cliff. There was ocean all around us we traveled about I swear two days just to get to it. " He said trying to sit up better in his chains on his legs.

"The Cliff had looked like nothing special until I looked down to the side and saw it there was a tunnel like cave and as we went into we walked right into an opened part of another canyon like place. It had no roof or top over most of it with so many huts on the ground and in the walls. There were entrances everywhere this was one of the biggest villages I've ever seen I mean all the tribes around us than combined couldn't match this place. It was incredible. We couldn't believe what we were seeing. It made our heads and stomach's turn to see all the resources our enemy had compared to what we had. Taking us to who was in charge at the time. He went by Kaial he had a son named Amal. That boy was always with him. Training to be next in line. Kaial explained to us that he was basically raising an army and that this was pretty much his kingdom." Placing his head up higher to look at all of them.

"He made it clear to us over time everything would be his to pass down to his son and their people. All people were going to be under their way years from now and then explained to us how he had help from the people floating above us. However not everyone was with this plan. They had created this serum that the Alderman's had made and shown us. I remember the importance of them keeping from the people who were helping Kaial. He showed us all the work they were doing. It all seemed so elegant and it made it seem that everyone was getting a second chance to be a better person. He made it look like the reason the alderman's said was the purpose of it in the first place."

"To see sick people living healthy and happy and the strength they had once they had. He went on about the importance of breeding with the right mate. He called them mates like soul mates because they serums would work stronger in stronger blood lines. So either only the smart or the strong was sought out for they had to be approved or the chosen woman did not have the say only the man did. So the women were tested constantly on speed, strength, stamina, physically to see if they could carry any young offspring and were healthy and most of all they were tested by intelligence there was a man from the ship that came down to run all these test he left his wife and son and apparently was related to the Alderman's by his woman."

"He said the work here was to important and that his son will be coming to join him after his training there is complete. Anyways He had my mate sold on the whole theory and basically as long as we helped do some hard work and manual labor they agreed not to kill us or come and kill anyone in town. But my mate she was convinced that this was the best way for life after us. She thought that this work had meaning. I just wanted to protect everyone and I couldn't leave her."

"So I stayed and no matter how hard she tried she just never could really get me on bored this was wrong lying to people using them as experiments killing innocent people every day made me sick. I did the only thing I knew would help anyone I learned their system and become invisible to their eye. I learned and discovered everything I could and I started tampering with it."

"Changing little things to their projects and making them fail changing the formulas in their work so nothing came out right. It caused a lot of people to die there but it save hundreds here. Kaial found me out one day and tried to get my woman to get me to see the error of my ways if not she told me I had to fight her because she was not going to give up what she believed was right for our family. It had been years since we even seen our son. Hoping to keep him from this nightmare. I did the only thing I could."

"I challenged Kaial. I told him he was a coward and this was not right. We fought. I got off his head. His son now is in charge and has been for years but he was very angry. I barely got out of course still not having any real idea where I was I just kind of made my way until I found three shadows. I fought them and woke up here. I must warn you though my mate as she likes to be called now was given the shadow serum long time ago but for some reason her body rejected it. It just couldn't work on her she almost died."

"She is such a strong fighter though so she is still pist they are nowhere near ready and they will never be as long as we keep Tessandra Alderman away. They know she is somewhere near here. She is a smart girl never stays in one place to long and I'm only hoping it stays that ways. According to The high adviser he is actually pushing Amal to mate up with her. He had his son send all her progress and videos over the years."

"Now with her being the only one who can fix and alter the work they need done to uncover the boxes left here. He has his eye and heart set for. I watch that boy grow crazy obsessed in love with her as she grew. You President Rodriguez your father knew this and was trying his best to keep that boy from her even though both your parents already planned you two out. That was not going to stop that man."

"If you are not careful with her you will lose her to a monster." Emmitt and Julian stiffened. "That's the story. That's all I know I know I passed your inspection. I know you may not believe me but I swear on everything that everything I did was to help save and protect you and I lost everything from it. I'm sorry Emmitt." He said looking up at the man his boy grew up to be. I didn't want to be away from you this long. I'm sorry for missing so much of everything but I couldn't stand the thought of those things coming here."

"They are not full people anymore most people don't even think for some selves anymore. Amal and his evil crewman can go into anyone and activate anyone who has been injected with your parents rehabilitation liquid. It's always so strange to me still how they are able to do that just take complete control over someone's mind and give them exceptional strength. I don't expect any of you to trust me and I don't expect to be seeing my way out of here anytime soon, nor do I think I want to I'm not sure I'm ready for that just yet anyway."

"Well Luca, Emmitt, Piers and Malik are the human lie detectors what say you lot?" Zayn asked. Looking around the room. Looking at each other. "He speaks the truth. He gains nothing by telling us the information. There is no information here useful to any of their needs over on the enemy side anyway." Luca said. Sounds of agreeing murmurs surrounding them. "Well than we're done for now. We believe you my dear. It is good to see you but no as of yet you will not be set free from here as we do not think you are ready yet."

"Neither you will have treatments for your wounds through the day I believe you will recovery nicely though we shall see you soon." Tahlia said placing a kiss to her old friends forehead. The others all made their way out of the tent all except Julian and Emmitt. "Emmitt it is good to see you physically and not just through some damn monitor thing. I have missed you. I watched you every day and I'm so proud of everything you have done and the man I see before me. I know I have a lot of people to than for that as well and some I'll never get to." He said looking down

"Ya, neither can I ." Emmitt agreed. Looking up to still see Julian in the room. "Julian meet my father Rylon. Rylon meet the President of the sky landers and I guess my friend Julian." Julian nodded at Emmitt. They really had no problem with each other only being madly in love with the same woman. Deep down that wouldn't change the fact that they will do everything together to make peace work between them and their people.

"I am well aware of who young Rodriguez is. You never got to see me but you can bet I've seen you. You know I really admire the way you guys handle the situations that have come upon you. I know it can't be easy being in love with the same woman." He said looking up to both of them. They looked at each other with a stiffening going through them. "I think we work rather well with each other given that one big difference." Julian said looking at Rylon.

"My father, did you know him or know him well?" Jules asked. "I knew a side of your father he never wanted you to know existed. He plotted and gave Kaial all the resources he needed. Kaial is a twisted and dangerous mind and your father is the only reason why he has gotten this successful here. I hate to be the one to tell you but that's the truth he convinced the Alderman's to make the damn thing in the first place than he convinced Kaial why it would be a great thing for humanity here."

"What he did not plan was not being in control of everything. The late President Rodriguez was a good leader however Kaial lead in a different way and ended up with more power than anyone thought power. His Amal is twice as powerful as his father. A power struggle started to form when Your father refused to give Tessa up to anyone but you."

"See I'm not quite sure if it was guilt of lying to his friends or all of you but seems he was reluctant to let her go. Tessa was never part of the deal. After seeing his son so happy he wanted to make sure no one ever got ahold of her that is until he realized she was the only one who could get the missing items her parents hid so well. So he decided to try to get out of her than give her."

"However he failed to think about how many followers Kaial had on board. The accident you had on board was all planned by Amal. They we're however never going to target her like your father wanted. instead they went for him using the bombs as a distraction. Amal was pretty angry when he found out your dad would not give her to him. Than was planning on getting her hurt enough to trick her."

"Never did anyone think you would send her here. That only mad him happy for months he looked all over that grid for her. For some reason he still can't find her and he has no idea about anything you guys have going on because I have erased all these places and his. It well In the system. Every time they came close I was able to throw them off. I was able to send that Riley the information to get into them only to block them out that's all it's good for. They are insanely smart your people. I know that isn't easy to hear but that's the truth. I don't know why or understand why you dad did what he did you won't find those answers with me I'm sorry boy." Rylon said looking at him from the ground.

"I guess I'll never find those answers unless we get ahold of Kaial or Amal. I'll be damned if he thinks he's going to be getting ahold of Tessandra." Julian said in a low growl. "What does he plan to do with her, do you know?" Emmitt asked. Looking down at him focused deep on his eyes. "Well son he's going to try to reach through to her by telling her the same thing he told us because he wants power and I think maybe a small part of him may believe into some of the crap."

"If that don't work than I believe he will use her parents own product to tweak her mind so she will be with him. He believes he is in love with her after basically watching her grow up in all those videos he saw. You could see him have pain when she did it was the strangest thing. You don't see not one human emotion come through that man at all it's scary but when Tessa is involved he's different I think that is the only thing he fears the loss of her."

"That is his only weakness. Emmitt Amal has to die. Nothing good will come of this your mother believes if she can get through to you. You will help her she's on the hunt for you even now son. I'm begging you please! Please don't let her get these people. Our people. Not only will they lose who they are. You will lose that woman you can't seem to be without." He never seen a grown man beg with his eyes before, it was not an easy thing to watch.

"Against all my better judgement. I believe you. I won't let anything happen to our people. I'll be damned if I let that son of a bitch near my woman." "YOUR woman?" Julian growled. "We both know damn well in the end Julian she will be with me. She is mine I can give her things you can't because if you could, you would have done it already. You don't know her the way I do. You have no idea who she really is Jules. Or even what she wants to be and you make her feel like you second guess her every step of her way."

" You don't know how to let go and just be a shoulder to lean on. Someone to support her when she needs it. You don't know how to do that. I accept the fact that she loves love you. You need to accept the fact that she is IN LOVE with me. I am never going to back down from here because I need her." "SO DO I. I won't back down until her memory comes back fully and she tells me look she may want you know but that doesn't mean she won't want me later. You may have gotten some of her things but I got the most and you know what they say you never get over your first love." Julian said with an evil smirk. "That's the thing though Julian you may be her first love but I'm the first love she got to choose for herself and no one scheduled her to have to grow to love me. She choose me on her own free will along with everything she choose to give. I respect you but we both know I'm better for her."

"I think it's getting late Rylon it was pleasure to meet you. Emmitt were good for now but I ain't backing down either. You got a bigger fight on your hands other than Amal." "I can take anything you got Rodriguez." Emmitt said as he walked out of the tent. "It's going to be the hardest thing to see when she tells him how she's not leaving you at the end of all this." Rylon said as Emmitt looked up to meet his sons eyes.

"Come now son I may have been busting my ass over there but I wasn't blind. I know the look of love when I see it. I personally think you two were made for each other. I will do anything I can to help you protect her from your mom, Amal and Amal's evil army. So that was pretty powerful words there son." "I stopped myself from saying some other probably wrong things. I mean hell Tessa could probably be carrying my baby any day at any time." Emmitt said tapping his foot on the ground with a low chuckle.

"Ya that would have been a bad thing to say." Rylon said with a chuckle. "Would be real bad timing for that to be true though son but I'm not going to tell you what to do. No one knows how this going to all end so I want you to live life with no regrets. I am sorry for everything I missed out on with you. But in a weird way I was with you every step of the way. There wasn't one day I didn't think of you. I am sorry for how the way things panned out. I am happy you found someone who completes you though son."

"That I did. I didn't even know I was looking for here, I didn't think I was missing anything until she literally fell out of the sky. This Amal do you think I got a shot at taking him down?" "You need to be really smart about it, he is probably your equal in brains and especially Tessa's. In combat you need to bring your best game. Yes you have a shot of bringing and the whole thing down and freeing hundreds of people. With my help you will be able to finally settle down and grew your kids. SO what say you? Will you take my help?" Rylon looked deep into Emmitt's eyes. The only thing going through his mind was Tessa's face. He needs to talk to her. "That's up to Tessa." Emmitt said walking out the tent to hunt down the one person who can calm him for the crazy anger starting to form within him. This needs to end and he may just know how to do it.