Rise of Xavia

by Tara Chau

  “Do you really think that doing all this,” I say, pointing to the destroyed punching bag and the discarded swords and arrows, “is going to help with getting her back?”

  Gabe walks over to the swords, tossing me one as he chooses one half-heartedly for himself. He doesn’t wait for me to be ready. Instead, he just charges, angry and devoid of emotion. His attacks are sloppy, uncontrolled, utterly spent from his unfortunate encounter with Lucien. I block him easily, ignoring the wines of my body, the strain, and the ache, as I dart around his blade and his fury. Gabe just stops and stares at the ground as I disarm him with one manoeuvre, making no move to reclaim his fallen weapon or continue with this charade.

  “Stop it.” I hiss, throwing aside my own blade. “You made her a promise, as far as I know. Is this how you plan to deliver it?”

  “I made lots of promises to her, some unspoken, many of them so.” He mumbles, slowly bending to pick up his sword finally. “This is how I prepare, Anne so that I’ll be able to continue making promises to her.”

  “You’re pathetic.” I spit, unsurprised by the lack of emotion in his face, even at my harsh words. “She is my friend, my family, so forgive me if I refuse to leave Di’s fate in the hands of her brooding boyfriend. Even if it’s you.” His eyes flash at that, but Gabe remains quiet. “So, if you won’t respond to me, maybe you will to someone else.”

  Gabe opens his mouth to speak, but not before I stride out of the hall, only to collapse against the wall and break down.

  * * *

  Tytus

  It hurts, more than my screaming limbs and muddled head, to see him like this. A lifeless drone stands before me, with only one purpose programmed into him: find her, save her. His eyes, blazing with inner hate, bare into me as I approach him, only the shell of my brother remaining. Like Anne before me, he hands me a sword, taking up a defensive position across from me, and like Anne, I disarm him instantly. Scowling at him, I throw my own blade to him, motioning him to take the offence. I predict his attack, a desperate, lazy move, one taught to children Ronnie’s age. A knife jabs at my chest, familiar and unwelcome, costing me a second of my time to block his next attempt. My movements are small, left and right, forward, back, my feet never moving from their planted spot. This infuriates him. I watch as his brows furrow in concentration, as I see his rage climbing, causing his attacks to become sloppier, hurried. We could be here all night and into the day. His temper driving him past his exhaustion until one of us yields or stops. My tiredness presses down on me, though my dodges are skilfully timed and planned. A growl rumbles from his throat, and I know to end this. With his next thrust, I dodge right and grab for the handle, clasping it over his shaking hand and using the momentum to drive the pummel into his gut. Though I know the feeling well, Gabe shows no sign of pain as he drops the weapon by my feet.

  “She’s right. You’re pathetic.” The insult is bitter on my tongue but is needed at the moment.

  Gabe nods, still distant, unreachable, “Anne is often right.” He agrees, “Anything you have to say, Ty, is nothing I don’t already know.”

  “You have no idea what I came to say,” I argue.

  “Everything that you are going to tell me, my brain already knows, twists it till it’s one-hundred times worse. So, even with all the insults, you can throw at me, it is still nothing compared to what I am thinking.”

  I knew, knew he would retreat into his head, where he would get the punishment he thinks is due for leaving her.

  “We can save her,” I assure.

  “No, she’s dead. The girl that I… that I love, she’s dead.” Gabe’s voice breaks. It breaks on that one word like it is a curse to utter it, a curse to even feel it.

  “You don’t know that,” I say, not only to him but to myself.

  We have no idea what has happened if she is still alive inside this demon, this Sin. We have no clue what happened or what is happening.

  “I do,” he stutters, “I looked into her eyes, I couldn’t see one glimmer of her, and I ran.”

  His voice is soft, filled with scorn and hate. Hate for himself, for Lucien, for the world. That dark spot he had disappeared into three years ago, he is travelling to now. Too close. Gripping his shoulders tightly, I look deep into his eyes, beyond the hate, and into his broken soul, into his exposed and bleeding heart, and I nod firmly.

  “Then let’s run straight back. Let’s run back and kill that rotten son of a bitch for what he’s done to our girl.”

  Gabriel

  The door creaks loudly as I swing it open, revealing the dimly lit den where countless playdates had been held years ago. Tee-Ly-Ren, the Lycan, the traitor on numerous accounts, looks up to me. A lazy smile spreads across her face. Closing the door firmly behind me, I stride down the stairs, ignoring the filth and trash strewn across the floor and tables. She places her magazine down, the bean bag shifting slightly under her weight.

  “Well, it’s been a while, Max.” She purrs.

  That name, another reminder of her, of the times we’d spent laughing at that stupid made-up name. I almost snap the correction but bite down on my tongue, hard enough for sticky iron to swarm my tastebuds.

  “Ren,” I say by way of greeting.

  She doesn’t bother to rise, just picks at some invisible dirt under her nails before blowing out a breath. “Are you just going to stand there playing bodyguard? If so, come closer.” She whispers with a wicked grin, “I’m bored.”

  Anger, raging hot, surges through me, knocking away the exhaustion still hovering above me. Unable to fall asleep, I had run straight here as the numbers on my clock had ticked to six, zero, zero.

  I realise at this moment that my hand is on her throat, effortlessly swinging her up into the air and smashing against the wall. Her eyes flash green but are halted by my tightening grip. Ren’s hands claw at mine, extended nails digging into my skin, the pain and blood far away in a distant world. She gasps, her expression shifting into a scared girl. Something inside me tugs back on my arm until I loosen my grip. She gasps, sucking in the limited oxygen I allow her. A snarl leaves my throat as I lean closer, close enough for noses to connect if I were to lean in even a touch.

  “You’re going to help me,” I say through grinding teeth as the memory of being strangled by Di rises again.

  Letting go, Ren falls to the ground, gasping and soaking in the air with desperate breaths.

  “W-where is Dianna?” She asks, rising to look me in the eyes.

  Even as her body shakes, her gaze is stone but shockingly full of concern. I do not let the surprise show. However hard it is to keep my emotions from Anne and Ty, it’s easy to keep them from a Lycan.

  “You’ll get your answer soon, whether you wish it or not,” I say, stepping back.

  “Where is she? I want to know, now.” Ren demands, she may as well have stamped her foot.

  The voice echoes inside me. A voice newly formed and discovered over the course of the night. Due to exhaustion or grief, it matters not, for its words speak true. Gone, she is gone. Her last words a curse for me to remember, to bare until I die. As if reading the words in my eyes, Ren’s face grows pale.

  “I’ll do anything to get her back.” She swears, unaware she will have to do it anyway. Willing or not.

  “Don’t swear yourself to a cause you don’t understand.”

  Ty’s voice filters through the room, sending Ren’s eyes rolling back into her head and a groan escaping from her mouth. But she walks to Ty, steady and unfaltering.

  “She saved my life. It’s because of her that I’m here and not dead in the middle of the Xavia camp.”

  I can’t help the words that flow from my mouth this time. Don’t stop as I see her face pale further, as the idea of escape dances in her eyes. “Well, that’s where you might end up when we’re done.”

  I can hear Ty’s silent curse, and I couldn’t care less. As I turn to look at them both, another part of my plan unfolds itse
lf. Walking over to the desk, I begin to scrawl, only partially aware of the chatter behind me.

  “You said anything,” Ty’s voice is soft as he speaks. “I hope that you’re willing to do everything, as well.”

  Anything and everything that I am willing to do to end this, my promise. The air behind me stirs, and I know she has agreed that Ren will too. Silence fills the room, the only sound being pencil to paper and the deep breaths coming from behind me. Turning around, I find them both looking at me, Ty with worried and sceptical eyes, Ren with determination and anger flooding her features.

  “You were pretty high in the Xavia, correct?” Emphasising on were.

  “Yeah.” She answers, unable to keep the hint of pride from her face.

  “Great,” I say drily, “then let’s get to work.”

  They both come to look over my shoulder, Ty shaking his head and Ren paling upon seeing another map of the underground station.

  “Tell me something, Ren,” I say, pouring cold ruthlessness into my voice. “Are you a good actress?”

  A wicked amusement flickers in her eyes as she pouts, looking up at me from under thick lashes. “Who do I get to play?”

  I return her grin, adding some wickedness of my own as I open my mouth to retort. “The traitor, the beggar, and the distraction.”

  A moment passes by where I sense Ty bristle and see Ren’s hands clench into fists. Her eyes openly portray her cold calculations, her desperate attempts to read me.

  “What happened to you?” Ren asks cautiously, eyeing me up and down.

  Ty hisses a warning, but I continue to look at her with an adamant stare. She refuses to back down instead of raising her chin in defiance.

  “Everything,” I mutter, the only answer that makes sense to her and myself, the only one that matters right now.

  Ren just nods, and I know that it is not just a reaction to my answer but to the silent price I have asked of her. To play bait, to be dangled in front of the Xavia, could cost her everything. As if she can read my thoughts, Ren opens her mouth to speak.

  “I have nothing left to lose.” She says, sorrow filling her eyes, though Ren desires no pity for the confession.

  “Then you’re perfect for this job than I thought.” The only words I have to offer her.

  Another nod, another agreement. Ty almost looks like he will protest and challenge my unfolding plan, but he bites his tongue. I look back to Ren, her stark steely expression. Finding that I have no hesitations towards the words about to flow from my mouth as I continue.

  “I need you to get back into the camp,” I say, ignoring Ty’s eyes that are widening with horror. “You’ll walk right through the front entrance, with me in tow.”

  Ren’s face fills with scepticism but also a jumpy thrill. For the danger, for the glory, if we succeed in bringing back Lucien’s dead body. I don’t allow the hope to flare, don’t allow myself to remember her face, her words, the possibility, however small, of bringing her back as well. Instead, I reign in my rising emotion and take another breath to talk.

  “You’ll offer me as a way back into their fold, Lucien will undoubtedly come to witness, to judge,”

  I’m interrupted by Ty’s harsh yet sorrowful words. “She’ll come too.”

  “I don’t want to know how we’re getting Lucien right now.” Ren speaks, “I want to know how we’re getting Dianna back.”

  Ty nods his agreement, another part of me, from somewhere deep, from somewhere only she could reach, breaks off, is fed to the approaching and inevitable dark.

  No energy or will to lie, I simply steel myself for their protest and shouts. “We don’t,” I growl to their shock, the only way to disguise my quivering voice, “and I have no plan to make a plan. So, let us get back to figuring out how to kill Lucien.” That will be the only way I will be able to live, to breathe.

  Knowing that he is dead, knowing that I killed him, or one of us did. But his death will never trump hers. His death will never be able to wipe away hers during the nights, during sleep.

  “Remember what you promised me. An-and I love you.”

  Those will be the words to haunt me for the rest of my life, hanging over my head like a stormy cloud, as they do now, even before anything is planned. The words shower through my head, attempting to wash away the details of the plan I have yet to explain, so I open my mouth again and let the rest spill out into the tense air.

  After everything is laid out, debated, and finalised, I’m about to stride out when a thought occurs. Whipping around, I throw my balled fist into Ren’s jaw, fast and hard, ignoring the pain that slices through me. Ty barks something, but I am already walking away, out into the world. How the sun still shines, how the birds still sing, is beyond me, beyond what I can process. How life continues still, when hers is so obviously over, consumes me.

  The crunch of grass softly drifts from behind me. Always somewhere close by for as long as I can remember, always comforting. The only thing halting me from drawing my dagger, her dagger, is Ty’s familiar scent. He walks to my side, and I end up being the one to follow him into the house.

  Strolling through the door and into the living room, I note the uneasy heaviness of my body, the stiffness of my movements, but cannot bring myself to shake it away. The house is unusually quiet, the stillness of the air unsettling. I listen for the sounds of quiet giggles that should be lighting the house, but Ronnie… A small pathetic gasp comes from my throat. I close my eyes, willing the picture to come to life, willing the image of Ronnie, healthy and happy, leaping into my arms, to pull a face at her brother, to come to life. A shake rolls through my body uncontrolled and escapes through my feet. The picture vanishes, leaving me once again with the heaviness of my thoughts and body. Hearing Ty take an unsteady breath, I ready myself for the question that I know is forming on his lips, on the edge of his mind. I am about to explain the purpose of the backhand inflicted upon Ren minutes ago when he whispers. “You speak as if she’s dead.” Ty murmurs, not a question, an accusation.

  Though the words are true and were expected, they hit harder than I had anticipated. The fear and disappointment in his tone, the way I can see his face distort from the edge of my vision, sends another quivering wave through my body. This time, it’s more hesitant to leave.

  “She is not dead,” Ty insists.

  “How do you think we are supposed to get her back?” I ask, surprising myself with the roughness, the cold tone that I always spared Ty from enduring. “Did you not hear what she told us? She’s the Sin now, and we-I have to kill her, seven times.”

  “We can get her back.” Ty persists, “I know we can.”

  “How?” I ask voice barely a whisper.

  “She is not dead,” Is all he says.

  “Gods, I wish she was.”

  And there it is, the one thing that I held back, refrained from admitting it to even myself. I look away from Ty’s disbelieving face, his horror, and his sorrow.

  “I wish she was,” I repeat, “I wish that the last thing she had to do, was to admit that sh-she loves me.” I swallow down the bile that threatens to surface upon seeing the pity in Ty’s face. The one person I could count on to know, to understand, I need none of that shit.

  “Di-I wishes she knew I understood the goodbye, and I wish that she knew I loved her right back, more. And then I wish that she would have died, so she will not have to endure that pain and the darkness.” For months, everything that I had lived in for months, the feeling that I am now retreating to, a place familiar and sickeningly welcoming. “I wish she could be in peace, not torment. A-and I wish we had more time.” My voice breaks, and it takes too much restraint, energy, and will to keep upright on my shaking knees.

  “I wish she loved me enough to fight one more time,” I say, finally dropping to the floor, eyes darting over the intricate patterns in the carpet, where my single teardrops, a speck in the swirling mass of dark like she is now. “Most of all, though, I wish
she didn’t have to fight at all.”

  Ty lowers to the floor next to me, and he too looks down at the fallen tear, slowly seeping into a rug. I sense him looking at me, watching as I slowly let my unstable wall finally crumble. Ty, the one person I can do this with. Even now. Even though we fight endlessly, he is always the one I can come back to in the end, in the beginning. So, I let myself fall, let myself bow, let my head drop. And when he rises, I do not wipe away the falling tear as I look up at his pale face.

  “Then let us fight. For a world that she’d be proud of.” Ty offers me his hand, not just for help but as a silent promise.

  I don’t falter as he hauls me to a standing position, but the weight seems to push me down again, so my head remains bowed.

  “Let’s make a world where people will know her name and everyone else who was killed in this battle.”

  Because that is what it is, it is all one big battle. A battle is raging inside Di, inside me, perhaps even in Ty himself, but mostly, the one to come, that one last stand against Lucien.

  So, I wait for the words to sink in, wait for my heaving breaths to slow and steady once more, before I raise my head, and nod in agreement. Yes, I will fight, maybe one more time, for that world where she’ll be remembered, not as the slave of darkness, but as the harbinger of light.

  * * *

  Dianna

  It has crammed me deeply, deep into my own body where there is no way to track time, to escape. The darkness is a heavy mass around me, weighing on my shoulders, my stomach, my soul, one that does not falter or ease.

  Through the black and the red, I catch a glimpse of another dark place. Not like my own confinement where it is a cloud of sorrow and fear, but a blackness of its own, hate and blood. The things that I see are filtered through the black, allowing me to see what it allows, only the pain. I scream and scream and scream, endless it seems, never stopping, even as I feel blood ooze into my lungs through my torn throat.