Oh, that sounded so wrong. Kayla groaned inwardly. But the reality was they were going to some mysterious place, without knowing why, to perform some task they’d been predestined for, the details of which were nebulous at best. And they would do all this, unsure whether they would survive the ordeal and achieve the goal or hit another brick wall, prompting their return home empty-handed yet again.
Jaden shook his head as if he’d been thinking the same thing and was trying to clear his pessimistic thoughts. He looked at his mother, his face growing wary when he noticed she wasn’t reacting to the news. Not just not reacting—like she had anticipated this. “Mom?”
“I’ve been expecting you to leave since the day you and Kayla went to the storage locker. That was when I worked out that, somehow, this is all related to what I’ve seen.”
Kayla squeaked. “Pardon?”
“What you’ve ‘seen?’” Jaden asked, confused.
Clara Jameson nodded in resignation. “Take a seat, you two. There’s something you should hear before you leave.”
“Wait, Mom, before you start, can I ask a question?” His mother looked a little put-out at the interruption, but nodded. “How is it we still have that old toy box—you know, the one I use for my sports equipment?”
Mrs. Jameson smiled fondly. “You know it came from my brother.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. How long has it been in our family?”
Mrs. Jameson’s brow furrowed. “I’m not sure. We’ve had it for as long as I can remember. But now that you ask, your grandmother has the oddest clause in her will about it.”
Jaden blinked. “You know what’s in Gran’s will?”
“Not that it’s relevant, but she asked me to proofread it for her. What is relevant is the clause stipulating that the chest is to never leave our family’s possession. And whoever inherits it has to have the same strange clause in their will.”
“That makes sense,” Jaden muttered.
“It does?”
“Yes, it does, considering the box held the key we needed for the map.”
“The map was in the toy chest?”
“On it, to be more exact. It was one of the balls on the side of the chest.” Jaden reached into his pocket and extracted the wooden disc.
He was about to open the map when his mother said, “No, wait. Don’t show me. If I don’t know where you’re going, I can’t put either of you in jeopardy.”
Jaden glanced up, shocked. “But you always want to know where I am.”
Mrs. Jameson smiled grimly. “Not this time. And you need to get there, so I should tell you what I have to say. For the second time, have a seat.”
It was an order. Kayla dutifully sat beside Jaden on his bed.
Mrs. Jameson glanced at them nervously. “What I’m about to tell you would’ve sounded paranoid, or unbelievable, before your, uh, experiences of the last few weeks.”
“Don’t worry, Mom, we can relate.” Jaden gave her an encouraging smile.
As though her courage might desert her, Mrs. Jameson jumped in. “The first time it happened was about a month before Jaden was born. I was on my bed, putting my feet up, when something shiny caught my eye. I realized it was my medallion, reflecting the light. It was halfway out of my jewelry box on my dresser when it shouldn’t have been. I had removed no jewelry in days, and there was no logical reason for it to be hanging out. But I told myself I must’ve accidentally knocked the box open, allowing the medallion’s escape. I went to my dresser, intending to put the medallion away, but I wanted to look at it again. Carrying it back to the bed, I lay down again. As I fiddled with the medallion, it slipped out of my fingers and landed on my ‘baby bump’—you.” She smiled at Jaden.
He returned the smile, but Kayla could almost feel him mentally willing her to continue. They both sensed something momentous coming.
“The instant the medallion touched my stomach, it was like an electric shock. Jaden, you came alive inside me, kicking and squirming as though you would crawl right out of me to snatch up the medallion. I was so startled, I jumped up, and the medallion fell to the floor. As soon as your contact with it was broken, you quieted down. It was all so bizarre I didn’t dare try touching the medallion again. I left it lying on the floor and made your father pick it up and put it back in my jewelry box that evening. That night was the first night I had the dream.” Mrs. Jameson bit her lip, hesitating.
“What dream?” Jaden asked, his tone coaxing.
“The dream I’ve had twice more since then, a total of three separate occasions: that night, then again when you were about seven, and finally, the night of the day you went to the storage locker. Each time it’s just as nerve-racking, realistic, and troubling as before.”
“You think this dream has something to do with the mission Jaden and I are on?” Kayla asked.
“I do. Each time, some incident connected to the medallion activated the dream. That first time was when it touched Jaden in my womb. The second time, it was after I touched the medallion when it gave off a strange green glow. This last time, I touched Jaden’s medallion when I was returning it to his room after he’d left it in the kitchen—that was the day you visited the storage locker.”
Jaden frowned. “Why didn’t you tell us before, Mom?”
“I think you know why. But with what my mother’s told me, it’s clear that whatever you have to do, it’s because you have the medallions. The dream links to the medallions, which in turn links to this mission you’re on, which leads me to conclude there’s a link between your mission and my dream.”
“Tell us what happens in the dream, Mom.”
“I can do better than that. I’ll show you.”
Jaden blinked. “Show us?”
Clara Jameson looked abashed. “I was a little traumatized after I had the dream the first time. When it happened the second time, your father suggested I see someone.”
Kayla wasn’t sure if Mrs. Jameson meant what Kayla thought she did. Jaden asked for her.
“You mean a therapist?”
“Yes. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I had someone create a holo-recording for me.”
Kayla was surprised. Hesitantly, she asked, “How does watching what traumatized you help?”
“It doesn’t. But speaking about it does. The therapist had a graphic artist come in and generate images as I talked, so we could . . . let’s just say clear the images from my head. But we don’t have time.” Mrs. Jameson pulled a microdisc from her pocket. “Jaden, please put this up on your holo.”
“Mom, we don’t have to watch this. If it upsets you, let’s just leave it.”
“Jaden, play it now. You need to watch.”
Mrs. Jameson’s tone was so sharp even Kayla felt the cut. Wincing, then sighing, Jaden set the microdisc to play.
The opening scene was nothing—just a black screen. With their experiences to date, Kayla thought she understood. Until Mrs. Jameson added the soundtrack.
“The dream always begins the same way. I wake up in a terribly dark place. Neither words nor this image adequately describe how utterly black it is. It’s like the darkness is so thick, it’s touching me. Can you relate?”
Kayla could. She shivered, noticing the tension drawing Jaden’s mouth into a thin line.
Ignoring her son, Mrs. Jameson continued. “The darkness is beyond oppressive. Panicked by the claustrophobia and my lack of sight, I turn to my other senses, and I hear someone breathing. At first, it frightens me. Then I smell him—your father. He’s near, but I can’t talk to him. And somehow I know that for the same reason, he can’t speak to me either. I don’t know why we can’t communicate. We just can’t. I’ve tried, but it’s like my lips have been sealed shut. I can’t even move the muscles around my mouth.” She trembled at the memory.
Jaden placed a soothing hand on her arm. She smiled, grateful. “Then what?” Jaden breathed, desperate to hear more.
Kayla honed in on Jaden’s gesture. Even amid his impatience to hear
the rest of the dream, he set his own desires aside in consideration of his mother’s anxiety. No wonder she was falling for him. Or had she already fallen? Kayla raked a hand through her long hair, irritated with herself. She really had to focus on what was important.
“It’s hard to explain, but from the very first time I dreamed this, I knew we were in that place because of you.”
Jaden inhaled sharply. “Me?”
“Yes, I’m sure of that fact, aware of it even before it’s confirmed later in the dream. I think that’s because at the onset of the dream, what’s always vivid is my desire to save you—the desperate need for your father and I to escape, to keep you as far away from there as possible.” His mother shuddered. “Our captor’s plans for you are abysmal.”
“I’m there too?”
“No, but you’re on your way to rescue us. We’re the bait, dangled there to lure you in. It’s his way of guaranteeing he’ll get his hands on you. He offered to give you our freedom if you surrendered to him, but threatened to kill us if you didn’t.”
Jaden interrupted, shaking his head, unwilling to believe what he was hearing. “How can you know that? How can you be certain?”
“Because I’ve heard him speak. I’ve heard what his plans are.”
Kayla cut in this time. “You know who kidnapped you?”
Mrs. Jameson’s voice faded to a whisper. “I think we all know him. He’s exceptionally handsome. His voice is like silk, smooth and soft, so believable it lulls you into a false sense of security. If I hadn’t witnessed what follows, I would never have believed he was responsible, and I wouldn’t have believed he was capable of it.”
“Capable of what? And you still haven’t told us who,” Jaden said.
“Oh, you’ll know him when you meet him,” his mother replied. When her son snorted, she said, “It is a dream, remember? It’s another one of those things I can’t explain. I somehow know the perpetrator, but I also can’t name him.”
Jaden sighed. “Okay, so what does he do?”
“Dread, despair, desolation. He brings them all. But rather than me telling you, watch.”
They waited for what seemed an eternity, watching a black screen. When Kayla thought she might dare ask Jaden to skip ahead, Mrs. Jameson spoke.
“Your father and I are in the dark for ages. We’re unable to speak, unable to move—only able to think and wish you weren’t coming. Inexplicably, we aren’t hungry or thirsty, even though we must have been in that almost comatose state for days. Then this next part happened.”
Kayla jerked back as an unbearably bright light splintered the dark holoscreen. Sound played, accompanying the light. What the voices said was unclear, except for one word they repeated: “Master.” Kayla glanced at Mrs. Jameson.
“Yes, the person commanding our guards arrived, bringing the light with him. It was a cruel illusion. Because that’s when I saw him—that’s how I know how unbelievably beautiful he is. His voice is exquisitely soothing, but somehow simultaneously sinister, despite its mellifluous flow. What his words are exactly, I don’t know because as soon as he speaks, the vision comes.”
Mrs. Jameson began pacing, and Jaden frowned. He made to rise, but Kayla put a hand on his arm. His mother needed to finish this.
As if words were beyond her and she couldn’t bear to look, Mrs. Jameson waved a hand at Jaden’s holo. “Just watch.”
The sound of multiple explosions propelled Kayla to her feet before she realized it was coming from Jaden’s screen. Guns rattling on top of the explosions did nothing to soothe her nerves. Mist swirled, obscuring what was happening. The cries of pain and wails of despair followed, and Kayla felt sick.
She opened her mouth to ask what was happening, but like a fog lifting, the mist swirled away, and images filled the screen.
An orange haze bathed the entire scene. Smoke filled the air, so realistic Kayla wanted to cough. They had left no building standing. Fires raged across the cityscape, blazing beyond control.
Worse were the corpses littering every place Kayla’s eyes skittered to escape them. Left to decay where they lay, piles and piles of rotting flesh. With no one to care, to bury, to take away the dead. Dread crawled over Kayla. Mrs. Jameson saw all this?
The next part was a punch to Kayla’s gut. The scene cut to a street, like the person filming it was standing in the middle of the road. It was complete pandemonium. People raced past, terrified and panic-stricken. But more horrifying were the people who stumbled along, misery creasing their weary faces, their will to fight, to live, gone.
Like the videographer was trying to escape the horror, the shot panned to the ground. But the lens caught agonized people writhing on the scorched earth, moaning in anguish from whatever disease decimated their bloody, ruined bodies.
Kayla closed her eyes. She couldn’t take more. But the soundtrack ran on, the chaos escalating. The violence marked by screams and cries. The thin, hungry cry of an abandoned infant had her eyes flying open again.
But there was no hope. Destruction was everywhere. An all-encompassing desecration. Kayla wanted to scream herself. This is what we’re trying to prevent? How does Zareh think we can do that?
The recording cut off abruptly. Mrs. Jameson’s voice was despairing as she said, “He brings it all with his diabolical, demonic dictatorship.” Tears streaming down her distressed face, she dragged herself from the nightmare, reaching out to grip Jaden’s hand. Disturbed, Jaden covered his mother’s hand with his own.
Like his touch had given her strength, Mrs. Jameson spoke earnestly. “Jaden, if you try to save us, this is what will happen to our world. We will lose everything! Trading yourself for us won’t change a single thing. It’s a lie you can’t allow yourself the luxury of believing. You’re the only one who can stop these terrible events, and to do so, you must leave us to our fates.”
Kayla gaped. Surely his mother hadn’t just asked her son to abandon them? She looked to Jaden. His face was bone white.
“No, I can’t accept that. You must be wrong,” Jaden whispered, desperate to find some loophole that would release him from this nightmare. “You’re wrong,” he reiterated.
“Sweetheart, difficult as this is to accept, I’m not. Because at this point the vision fades and I hear the deceiver’s words clearly. He’s boasting to our guard that you won’t be able to resist liberating us. He’s convinced you’ll come, gloating over your foolishness because you’re sealing humanity’s fate if you do. Jaden, he lied about releasing us—he doesn’t intend freeing us anymore than he intends not harming you. He will destroy you. Stay away—you must stay away, please! If there’s any chance of saving our world, you can’t come to us,” Mrs. Jameson pleaded, her tears a river down her cheeks, her words forced out between muffled sobs.
Jaden and Kayla stared at her, aghast. The picture she had conjured was so miserable, so depressing, so painful, it was difficult to breathe. And her request? Well, that was just ludicrous! How could they possibly stay away if, by their absence, they would sentence Jaden’s parents to certain death?
Kayla was the one who finally spoke, her voice quaking. “Mrs. Jameson, why did you want me to hear this too?”
Clara Jameson looked directly at Kayla, wanting to make sure Kayla understood that she meant every word she said. “You, my dear, are the only other seeker I know, and the only person I can trust to keep Jaden away.”
“No!” Jaden shouted, jumping off the bed. “I won’t let you die. I don’t accept what you’ve seen, no matter how sure you are of it. I can’t just leave you to die!”
Mrs. Jameson and Kayla were both startled by his violent outburst. His mother recovered first.
“Jaden, darling, you must,” his mother answered gently. “Don’t you see? This is your destiny—this is what they called you to do.”
“I won’t.”
His tormented cry broke Kayla’s heart.
“You must,” Mrs. Jameson insisted, more firmly this time. Turning to Kayla, she gripped her hand
with both of hers. “And you must ensure he does. I know it’s a lot to ask, but you have to.”
Kayla swallowed and nodded. She would try, but how could she promise? If their roles were reversed, no way would she sacrifice her parents to save everyone else—and if Jaden tried interfering, what wouldn’t she do to stop him?
Jaden, prowling the room like a caged lion, halted. When he faced them, he was eerily calm. His voice was dangerously soft, with quiet, composed conviction. “Mom, I know you believe things will happen the way you’ve seen them, but I don’t.”
“Jaden, how can you say that? I’ve had the exact same dream three times. Doesn’t that say something?”
“You’d think it would. But I know it won’t be like that, and I can’t tell you why. I just have this feeling that there’s more to the dream than you’ve seen. Like you can’t explain some things, I can’t explain this. I simply know that’s not how it will end. There must be a way to save you, and I will find it,” Jaden promised.
His mother smiled timorously, standing and pulling him into her arms, hugging him tightly. “I believe that if there is another way, you’ll be the one to find it.”
She held him for a long time before drawing back and pulling Kayla up to repeat the process. “However this plays out, you know what I’ve seen. Don’t despair. Jaden, know that nothing you can do will ever change the fact that your father and I love you. But now, it’s time you were on your way. Your journey awaits. No regrets, Jaden. No looking back, Kayla. Move forward and do what you were destined for.”
Kayla stared out Jaden’s window at the Shadow Mountains visible in the distance. That was where Jaden’s destiny had begun. No, that’s wishful thinking. If what his mother said was true, Jaden’s destiny had been set long before he encountered the Gaptor in those mountains. And so had hers.
Kayla swallowed. Not a lot to ask a pair of teens to save the world. But if they were humanity’s last hope, they’d better deliver. And Jaden’s mother had said it best: it was time to leave.
Chapter One
Jaden couldn’t bear it. His mother’s words echoed in his head. She had told him outright not to come for them if her vision proved true. To save the world instead of them. Would Jaden really have to make such a dreadful choice?
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