by G. Bailey
“Prophecy?” I ask.
“The prophecy goes like this:
Two planets will break in war and hate. For sharing the true light has a fate.
When there is light, darkness is found. The true light must be restored, or all will fall before there can be a choice…”
“The true light has to be restored or everything will fall? I don’t understand why you are telling me an old fairy-tale,” I ask him.
“You are the true light, Aura,” he replies simply. “You must find your power and how to control it, or all will be destroyed. Your fate is to find your power and lead our people into a peace like no other.”
“I am not this true light,” I say, shaking my head, “whatever the hell it is anyway.”
“Yes, you are, and Maxx wants you to share it with him. If you share the true light, there will be a price. I don’t want you to die for his selfish need to save his own clan and people that are evil,” he replies, looking disgusted as he speaks Maxx’s name.
“I am part of his clan,” I reply, shaking my head.
“No, you are a dark, and a dark does not live in a light clan,” he responds, his expression changing from disgusting to sympathy for me so quickly that it makes my head spin.
“Landon is a dark and part of Maxx’s clan. Explain that one!” I say, knowing that he has missed something in his lies there.
“Maxx allowed Landon into his clan as long as Landon pretended to be human and never used his powers. Maxx will never allow a dark into his clan who actually uses and embraces their powers,” he replies. “Landon is part of our clan now and promised to my daughter. He will become what he is truly meant to be, just like you will now that you are away from the lights.”
“You can’t possibly know that,” I say, shaking my head. Of course, this man is Austin’s father.
“But I do. You are the prophecy, and Maxx is the one who will make the prophecy fail. The true light will fall if you follow him instead of your own people,” he replies. “I made a deal with your mother many years ago when you were simply a child. I saw the power within you and knew you had to come to your own people to find your power. I hoped promising you and Austin would be a way of making sure you were safe. Though the past is the past now, and I hope you can learn to trust me.”
“You expect me to trust you? I trust Maxx, so this whole conversation is pointless,” I snap, feeling angrier than I should. I know it’s because he knows more about my parents and my past than I do.
“Let me take you to your mother. Maybe then you will trust me,” he suggests after a long sigh.
“How is showing me my mother going to make me trust you?” I question as Okeken gets up off his chair and walks to one of the two doors in the room, holding it open for me. I get up off my chair and walk out of the room into a small corridor. Okeken closes the door and walks around me, down the corridor. There is nothing I can do but follow him down the white walls and similarly coloured tile floors until he stops suddenly. I follow his gaze to the wall which fades into a two-way window which shows me a room. On the bed is my mother, rocking back and forth with her arms around her knees, her hair messy, and there are claw marks down her arms. Suddenly, a blast of yellow light slams out of her, pushing everything near her away and causing it to set on fire. Water falls from the ceiling, putting out the fire before clicking off, and my mum doesn’t even seem to notice it as she continues rocking.
“Your mother is struggling with control since she used too much power once. It is a common condition in our kind, and without help, they usually cause their own deaths by accident,” he says as I watch my mother stand up, walking around the room with a very confused expression.
“How long has this been happening to her?” I ask.
“Roughly five years ago, we found her in this state and took her in. We have tried to help her as well as search for you, but your father worked for the light clans. They made sure you were hidden well,” he replies, seeming frustrated as he watches my mother.
“My dad did what?” I ask, shocked. There is no way my dad knew about all of this and what mum really was. Let alone that he worked for the light clans. My dad watches sports every Sunday and has always read the newspaper the moment it came through the door. He is a normal dad, and it hurts that he might have been hiding a world from me that I belong to. It’s bad enough my mum never told me and then disappeared. Dad, well I didn’t think he kept big secrets from me. Especially after mum left and then the car crash. We became super close, and a thing like, “Oh your mum was an alien, so you are half one,” should have come up in conversations at some point.
“The light clans hired your father to work for them, like they did many other humans. They would travel and find dark clans by moving from town to town, unnoticed. His job was to call in when he found a suspected dark, but I believe he fell in love with your mother when he found her. Then you were born, and they both ran. Your mother came to me, we made a deal, and then everything was fine until this happened,” he waves a hand at my mum.
“So…my father hid me? All this time, he knew what my mum was, and he was lying to me?” I ask, knowing he can’t give me the answers I want from my dad, but it all escapes my lips either way.
“I assume so, though I do not understand his reason for hiding you. Let alone his reason for moving you so close to a light clan he must have known existed there,” he tells me. Every memory of my dad wanting me to be friends with the neighbours comes to mind. He pushed me into everything from going to a party to taking thank you cupcakes over. Damn, I miss those cupcakes.
“Maybe it was just a coincidence?” I suggest.
“No, Aura. It was not,” he replies coldly, and I nod, looking away. I know it can’t be a coincidence that my dad chose to move to a town in the middle of nowhere. Though he kept me well hidden for years until the car accident. So, he didn’t have a choice where to move me. Okeken smiles at me before he pulls his eyes away from me to my mum. “Would you like to have some time to speak to her before you go back to your room?”
“Yes.” The automatic reply comes from my lips, but my hands shake with nerves at the thought of being close to my mum after all this time. After all the secrets hidden by lies I’ve found out. The woman in that room is nothing like I remember my mum being. I don’t know what I will say to her and how confused she looks, I doubt she will remember me anyway. I remember back to seeing her outside my house, and how she told me to run.
“Why was my mum outside my house? Did she escape?” I ask Okeken, who crosses his arms in a defensive manner.
“Yes, she did escape after killing her guards. The mountain limits our powers, whereas it bans the light ones altogether. You have to be powerful and in full control to jump here. Your mother jumped out of a window to escape, using the fact the outside of the mountain is just like anywhere else. Did she tell you anything?” he explains to me.
“She told me to run,” I inform him, expecting to see some kind of surprise, but he nods his head like he expected as much.
“She likely meant from your father. Sometimes your mother talks of him, and she does fear Ross,” he tells me, shocking me that he knows my dad’s name.
“Maybe she wanted me to run from you,” I suggest instead, needing that to be the truth at this point.
“Why would she promise you to my son if that were the case?” he counters. “She brought you to me. That would never have happened if she didn’t trust me.”
“Time can change someone’s opinion. She finally realised who you are,” I reply, and he sighs.
“I do hope that is the case with you, Aura. I am not the evil one in this war.” With that, he knocks on the door, and I have to put his words behind me as I get ready to see my mother.
Chapter 10
Aura
I walk into the room slowly, fully aware of the warnings the guards gave me about not getting too close to my mum in case she attacks. The door shuts behind me just as I lock eyes with my mother stood in
the centre of the room right next to the bed. She is wearing a white outfit similar to mine, but hers looks burnt in places and messy. The room is covered in burn marks, scratches on the wall, and every bit of furniture looks close to breaking from the damage.
“Mum?” I call out to her, crossing my arms and waiting for a response that doesn’t come.
“Mum, it’s me. Aura.” The moment she hears my name, she turns and looks at me, tilting her head to the side. It’s a creepy motion, and I feel nothing but threatened when I look at my mum who used to be comforting to me. I want her to hug me, ask about my pink hair and nose piercing. I want her to tell me she misses how we watched movies together and how I used to be terrible at making her cups of coffee.
“Aura?” she asks, her face dropping from cruelty to love in a moment’s notice, though for some reason it just doesn’t feel the same. She quickly walks towards me with her arms open wide, but before I’ve really thought about it, I’ve taken a step back. She pauses mid step, lowering her arms.
“You’re not in control right now. The mum I knew would never forgive herself if she hurt me, so it’s not a good idea that you come any closer,” I find myself saying, warning her.
“You’re right. There are moments I don’t have control,” she replies, roughly rubbing her arms as she keeps eye contact with me, “but I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Where did you go? You just left me. You left us,” I calmly ask her, proving that she did hurt me once.
“I didn’t leave!” she screams, and I step back again, her eyes following my every movement.
“But you did leave. Why?” I ask.
“Your father made me. He made me leave you both,” she cries out, rubbing at her face and not looking me in the eye once.
“Dad wouldn’t do that, he was in love with you,” I reply.
“But he loved you more,” she spits out. I shake my head, stepping back until my back hits the door. Mum practically runs at me, and I hold my hands out, watching as they both glow brightly. She pauses, staring at my hands for a long time and not moving. The pink glow radiates off her face, making her seem crueller.
“That’s what parents do. They love their children. It doesn’t mean he stopped loving you. Is that why you left us? Do you not love me, mum?” I question, sounding like a five-year-old begging her mum not to leave, but at this point, I don’t care how vulnerable I sound. I hardly recognise the woman in front of me that is meant to be my mother. It hurts to even think that.
“Of course I love you,” she replies, staring at my hands as she speaks, and my heart cracks as I watch her. I’ve gotten better at telling when people are lying, considering so many people just lie to me all of the time now. I know she isn’t telling me the truth, and I honestly don’t know what to make of her. Every part of me is on edge, wanting to run away from her.
“You are lying. You don’t mean that,” I snap, and my hands glow brighter as she suddenly starts laughing. Deep, almost howling laughs that make my skin crawl.
“Smart little Aura. Did you know I had a sister? The very man who locks me up here was her mate,” she tells me. “My sister was a bitch, and you act just like her. Someone who thinks they know better. Thinks they know everything.”
“Does that mean Austin, Aliana and Cameron are my cousins?” I question, trying to ignore that my mum just called me a bitch.
“Yes,” she replies, laughing.
“And you promised me to Austin? That is disgusting!” I snap at her.
“Austin and Cameron are not my sister’s children by blood. She adopted them when she mated to his father,” she explains. “Therefore, you two being cousins is purely a title.”
“They say you’re crazy, but you speak fine to me right now,” I muse. “I think you’re just mad and have become cruel. You always were, and dad hid your behaviour from me.”
“I’ve been locked in here for years, so yes, I might be a little crazy, and my powers betray me at times,” she replies. “Though, smart little daughter of mine, what did you come here to really ask me?”
“Why did you tell me to run? Who did you want me to run from?” I ask.
“Your father. He is not a good man, and he only wanted to keep you from your powers,” she tells me, but the twitch of her right eye makes me think she is lying. I’m not sure I believe a single word that comes out of her lips. I make the mistake of lowering my hands to my side, and she suddenly blasts a sphere of yellow light straight into my stomach. I slam against the door, gasping for air as my head bangs against the wall, and I fall to my knees. I look up at my mum with blurry vision as I hear the door opening behind me and the sound of shouting.
“Don’t come and see me again. You are just like him. And just like her!” The burning question of who “her” is stays in my mind as I fall back into someone’s waiting arms.
Chapter 11
Aura
A pain in the side of my head makes me wake up, sharply sitting up in the cloud I’m in as I slowly realise I’m in a dream. I ignore everything to look around for Maxx, seeing him stood facing away from me, staring at the swirling stars. He has no shirt on again, this time letting me see all the swirling blue marks on his shoulders and back. The moment I stand up, Maxx turns, his eyes widening as he sees me. I don’t think he expected to see me here, for some reason. I run to him, and he catches me, holding me close to his chest as I wrap my arms around his shoulders. From the moment he holds me, every part of me relaxes, and I breathe in his scent.
“How are you here?” Maxx mutters, pulling me away and sliding his hands onto my cheeks as I look up at him. I think back to my mum and everything that happened. She must have knocked me out.
“My mum threw a ball of yellow dark light at me, and I banged my head on a wall,” I say, and he frowns, sliding his hands into my hair like he can tell where my head hurts. I almost close my eyes as his hands drift down my neck to my shoulders.
“Your mum? She is here?” he asks me.
“Yep, and she is crazy. The last thing she said to me is that I remind her of him, which I assume is my dad, and some girl I have no clue who she means,” I reply.
“I’m sorry, Freckles,” he gently says, moving closer and kissing my forehead. The moment his lips touch my head, a soothing feeling sweeps over me, relaxing me. Maxx moves back only an inch, and this time lowers his head as he stares at me. I don’t know if he is going to kiss me, but all of the sudden, it makes me nervous.
“I met Linda and saw Iris and Landon today as well,” I nervously blurt out to Maxx, who grins.
“Mum’s here?” he asks, and I nod. “Is she okay?”
“As okay as you can get in here,” I reply.
“Good. That’s really good news, Freckles,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Why do you look happy about your mum being in a place like this? One you are trapped in?” I ask. I really thought he would be upset about his mum being here.
“I told you, I am escaping soon with everyone. I have a plan,” he replies. “Soon we will be free, and all this will be over.”
“Want to share that plan with me? I’m scared, and I hate not knowing what is going on,” I admit.
“No,” he replies simply.
“No?” I question.
“I trust you, completely, but not where we are. Some very powerful darks can steal your memories, your deepest secrets as they drain you. I can fight them off, trust me, they have tried, but I don’t know if you can,” he tells me. “It’s our only chance of escape, and we have to take it.”
“Have they hurt you?” I ask, feeling sick at the thought.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he replies, waving off my concern. I place my hand on his cheek, hoping he is as healthy in real life as he looks here. The longer I stare into his swirling blue eyes, the more I start to wonder about everything Okeken said. We have a lot to talk about and answers I need to know.
“Maxx…what is the true light?” I ask, and he frowns, stepping away from me.
Which has the added effect of feeling like part of myself just walked away. Maxx turns around and looks at the stars as I stop at his side, waiting for him to say a word.
“The true light is a power. The power to save life, destroy life in the blink of an eye, and literally control the very energy around you,” he explains to me. “True light was said to be the power that destroyed the planets.”
“Austin’s dad thinks I’m the true light,” I tell him, watching how his body tenses up.
“He is right, almost. We are the true light, both of us. That’s what the shadow of a man in my dreams has told me since I started coming here, but I don’t know if it is true. I don’t know how we access that power when, in real life, we just drain each other,” he tells me.
“He told me that you would steal the true light from me. That you would never let a dark light into your clan,” I tell Maxx.
“What do you believe, Freckles?” he asks me, sharply turning to face me. I stay quiet as he places his hands on my face, moving closer so our bodies are pressed against each other. I move that tiny bit closer, so our lips meet, and Maxx’s hand slides to the back of my neck, pulling me further into the gentle kiss. The kiss goes from gentle brushes of our lips to a fevered, passionate kiss that makes me forget everything but how Maxx feels. I move my hands into Maxx’s soft hair as Maxx deepens the kiss further. I gasp when Maxx pulls away, placing his hands on my hips and asking once again, “What do you believe?” The world fades before I can even tell him my answer. That I always will trust Maxx.