by AJ Eversley
“So you just conveniently showed up when all the damage was already done?” Max said.
I kicked Max hard under the table.
“What?” Max said to me. “It seems like they have it all figured out. Meanwhile, our families and friends were being massacred for the last ten years, and all you did was try to help us?” His eyes narrowed with a challenge for me fight back.
Anthony gave Max a warning glare.
“I think you’d better go,” I warned Max. He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at me. His head tilted to the side, surveying me, before he finally conceded and left with a grunt.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. Lankey returned to his tea, and Anthony’s stance loosened.
“His anger is understandable,” Lena said. “But do know that any violence against my people will not be tolerated.”
“I understand. I’ll go talk to him.” I stood to leave.
“Sawyer?” The princess stopped me. “It was great to finally meet you.”
“You as well, princess,” I said and pivoted on my heels, stomping down the long hallway, ready to give Max a piece of my mind.
Chapter 12
Not bothering to knock, I barreled into Max’s room, ready to tear him a new one, but I was stopped up short when I opened the door and he wasn’t there. I peeked into the bathroom. Empty. Just as I was about to leave, the door crept opened, and Max snuck in behind it.
“I take it they believed my little temper tantrum?” he asked as he walked toward me.
I glared at him. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting to know our lovely hosts a little better.” He shrugged, casually stuffing his hands in his pockets. He stopped inches from me, so close I felt the heat from his body radiating against mine.
“And?”
“And…” he said with a smirk, brushing past me as he strolled over to the balcony railing and leaned his arms against it. “They seem to have a whole lot of nothing around here, which doesn’t usually bode well when trying to find out what people are hiding.”
“So, what? You don’t trust them?”
He glanced over his shoulder to where I stood in the middle of the room, “My gut tells me there is more to this princess than what meets the eye. But my instincts tell me not to worry yet.”
With a frustrated sigh, I joined him, leaning on the railing. “And you trust your instincts but not your gut?”
“Absolutely,” he replied. “Instincts are something we’re born with as a tool for survival. But your gut is educated over years of training, and although they may give you some warning signs, your gut is always suspicious by nature. Therefore, you can’t always trust it, but you always trust your instincts.”
I sized him up before I glanced back to the city below. “You’re a very strange man.”
He chuckled softly with a smirk. “You like it.”
I rolled my head back before the corner of my mouth twitched with betrayal and a small grin threatened to escape. “So that whole thing was just an act?”
“Oh no, that was completely true. I’m pissed they got to sit around and just live safely while we were dying.” His voice went cold. “But don’t worry, I’m not planning on making any scenes again. Unless you ask me.”
“I—uh…” I stumbled at the way his eyes dropped to my mouth. “Oh, shut up.”
He shrugged. “The offer is always there. We could probably make a pretty good scene, you and I.” He winked.
I rocked on my heels before I pushed off the railing ready to leave. I’d barely taken a step when his voice, so soft and nearly inaudible, stopped me in my tracks.
“Thanks.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For not treating me like a child,” Max said.
“It would’ve been warranted if I had.” I shrugged my shoulders with a smirk.
He chuckled before his face went serious. “I know you think I had it easy.” He paused. “I get that I wasn’t there, but you had people. All of them. Even if it was brief, you had family; you felt love. I was alone all that time. I’d give anything to have one week of what you had.” He turned to me, and ghosts haunted his vision. “You don’t know what it was like, the feeling of emptiness, of being alone. Never knowing if you’d see the next day, or if anyone would even mourn you when you died. Even when others arrived, they were never the same, never what you had. And the first moment he gets a chance, my dad ships off again, to this place.”
I took a small step toward him, not daring to say the wrong thing.
His usual smooth, cocky demeanor was broken as he spoke with honesty, “All I wanted for ten years was to know I wasn’t alone. To have something other than loneliness and fear surround me. I feel like I’ve been searching this whole time for something else, and I just can’t seem to find it.” He softened as he met my gaze, and there was a fire behind his eyes that went right through me, deep into my soul. He circled away. “This isn’t how it was supposed to be—”
My heart clenched as I watched his face fall, “Max, I get it. But the people I had weren’t my real family; they became my family. Sometimes we can’t choose the people who are put in our lives, but we can choose to let them in.”
Max looked at me before he turned back to the window with a scowl on his face. “Who would want to be my family?”
“Well, if you stopped acting like such a jerk all the time, maybe you’d find someone.” I nudged his side, and he barely smiled; it was something.
“You like it when I tease you. Admit it.” His cocky smile had returned.
I pinched my lips together. “Just try not to make any more scenes, okay? I don’t want to have to look like the bad guy all the time.”
I was nearly out of view when I heard his quiet voice. “Sawyer?” He peered over his shoulder at me, and a hint of a smile poked through.
“Yeah?”
“I know you like it.”
I stuck out my tongue as I hid the smile creeping onto my face.
Chapter 13
The crisp, cool air did nothing against the blazing sun. Seated on a ledge surrounding the large courtyard outside of my bedroom window, I struggled to catch my breath. I was dripping in sweat. After a total of twenty minutes of training, I thought I was going to pass out. Despite having a “superior” body, I couldn’t handle the heat and humidity. It was drowning me in my own sweat.
I kicked off my boots and grabbed the knife I’d stashed inside. With the sharp blade, I cut a small hole into my black pants, halfway up my thigh. With a little tug, I tore the fabric away until the bottom of my pant leg fell to the ground. I did the same with the other leg. Then I took a hold of the sleeve of my shirt and pulled it off so my arm was bare to my shoulder, and finally I stripped away the fabric covering my torso so a sliver of skin was exposed. Finally, I felt a reprieve from the heat.
Reluctantly, I stood to my feet, holding my knife in my dominant hand, and resumed my training.
“Your left leg is too far back.” Spinning around, I startled to find Max at the top of the stairs behind me. His gaze drifted to my bare legs, to my torso, and then up to my shoulders before he met my eyes.
“How would you know?” I argued.
“I had a lot of time to practice proper techniques, Sawyer. Here let me show you.” Max directed me to get into position as I was before. “If your leg is too far back, you expose your ribs too much. You want to stay in tight and compact.” He kicked my heel forward and adjusted my guard arm. “See?”
I hated to admit that it did feel better.
His hands lingered on my side before he stepped away, a hint of a scowl and concern written across his face. “You’ve lost a lot of weight,” he said.
I looked down to my rail-thin body. It was already small to begin with, but he was right. I had lost too much weight, and the lack of food was making this training that much harder, despite the huge meal I’d consumed only hours before. It wasn’t enough.
“D
on’t worry about it.”
There was pure anger behind every word from him as he spoke, “Someone has to watch out for you, even if you won’t do it yourself.”
“I’m fine.” I brushed him off.
“And I’m serious.” His stance changed as he stood in front of me with determination, crossing his arms as his brows furrowed. He was worried about me; I saw it in his eyes.
“Don’t fret. I’m not about to let myself wither away. I had a few bad weeks, but it’s over. I’m fine.” I said, and I meant it. I’d spent way too much time feeling sorry for myself and allowing my body to become weak and frail. I’d allowed this depression to eat me from the inside, and from the moment I set foot on this island, I’d made a silent promise to myself to move on and stop sulking.
Max pondered me before he cocked his head. “I hope so.”
Wanting nothing more than to forget this entire conversation and wipe away the worry on his face, I went to resume my training, but I paused. I glanced at Max, “Seeing as you know so much about this and clearly want to help me in some way, want to spar?”
He harrumphed and pointed his finger at me. “You have an unfair advantage.”
My brow scrunched.
“Uh—you’re a Carbon, remember?”
“I’ll go easy on you, I promise.”
He shook his head no and spun back around again.
“Scared?” I yelled.
That stopped him in his tracks. He spun around with a piercing glare and a tug of a smile threatening. “Fine. Open hand only. I’d hate for you to mess up this pretty face.” He grinned sheepishly.
I lightly slapped his face with a little wink.
We lined up in front of each other, circling before I went for his head.
He blocked me with his forearm. “I knew you’d go for the face first.” He smirked.
The corner of my mouth flickered with a devilish smile, and I shrugged.
He aimed for my shoulder, and when I stepped my foot back to guard, he aimed a blow to my exposed rib cage. “Don’t you ever listen, Sawyer?” The way he said my name made the hairs on my arms tingle. I quickly shook it off.
This time, I didn’t hold back as I came in hard, swinging for his side, and then aimed a hard blow to his head, but he blocked my attempts.
I advanced again, swinging wildly with my right. I swept my leg low to take his out, but he jumped nimbly over my leg and once again struck my exposed rib cage.
“You’d think your superior Carbon brain would help you learn a little faster.” His cocky grin grew.
I growled as I charged at him, connecting with his shoulder. But I realized a moment too late that he let me hit him so I would be off-balance and closer to him. He grabbed my arm as he kicked my leg out, tossing me over his hip and catching me, just before I was about to smash headfirst into a shrub.
I hovered over the ground looking up to Max, and for only a second I could see him. Kenzie. His brilliant blue eyes and his perfect smile staring back at me. I blinked away the confusion and he was gone. I stood up, brushing Max’s hand from my wrist.
“Are you okay?” Max scrunched his brow.
“Yeah, fine. Just need some water, I think.” I grabbed my things and rushed past a bewildered Max, leaving him standing there alone.
I barely made it past the threshold of my room before I threw my stuff to the floor and crouched to the ground. I buried my face in my knees and hugged my legs into my chest. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Kenzie’s face was burned into my memories like a nightmare from which I couldn’t wake up.
Chevy nuzzled his nose under my arm and licked the side of my face. I pulled the pup in closer, and his warmth comforted me. I missed Kenzie more that I was willing to admit, but he was gone. He wouldn’t want me to torture myself like this, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him. The only way this could end was to find Coleman and figure out how to stop him. Until then, the nightmare would continue to replay.
Chapter 14
I didn’t go down for supper that night, but Max made sure I ate. He brought a plate of food up to my room and handed it to me without saying a word before leaving me in silence. He did, however, leave a note on the plate that said, “Eat all your veggies. Love, Mom,” which I ripped up with a scowl. I barely got any sleep that night. The evening heat was about as bad during nighttime as when the sun was at its peak in the middle of the afternoon. Even without any blankets, I was sweating. The nightmares still haunted me.
The next morning, my stomach rumbled with hunger as I munched on an apple while I waited for Princess Lena. She had promised to start training me. I was about to go back in when a carriage rounded the corner with the same small man in front and Lena in the cart.
“Come in.” She motioned for me to join.
It surprised me to see her without her guard, Anthony. He seemed to be her shadow, following one step behind every time I saw her. My shadow, however, was forced to wait on the steps in front of the castle for me to return. I tossed Chevy the rest of my apple before stepping in beside Lena.
The carriage moved, and Lena sat. We didn’t speak the entire way down to the bottom of the island.
“You will be getting out here,” Lena said politely when the carriage came to a stop.
“Oh, okay.” I squeezed past her and out onto the street that was already buzzing with people in the morning rush. Everyone who passed tipped their hats or curtsied low to the princess.
“Now what?” I asked.
“We’ll see you back at the top before breakfast is finished,” she said and the carriage began to move swiftly up the winding hill.
“Thanks,” I mumbled to myself.
With a deep breath, I began a steady jog up the hill. Running had become second nature to me; this wasn’t that bad of a task for me. Although Cytos was mostly flat and this might as well have been a mountain, I still felt confident I could do this without any issues.
As I weaved up the streets, I noticed people staring at me. I kept my pace constant and forced myself to keep my focus on the castle high above the island, trying to avoid any distraction. But I couldn’t help noticing the magnificent colors all around me. The pale stones melted into each other almost like a painting. Two colors became one before they seeped into a new hue, pale and brilliant all at the same time. Just like Lena’s castle, there was no glass covering any of the windows, just open air with aromatic smells wafting into each house, causing my stomach to rumble once again.
The people’s pleasant smiles were complimented by their warm, soft eyes. Soft stone lightly crackled under my feet, and the thick humid air soaked up my lungs, making it hard to stay on pace, but I didn’t slow down. By the time I reached the castle, I was dripping in sweat and gasping for air. Chevy was waiting for me on the step where I left him, tail wagging happily, as I approached.
I nearly crawled the rest of the way inside, desperately in need of water. I cursed myself for the weeks of moping around and not eating on the ship.
“You are too slow,” Lena said, standing at the entrance to her study, arms crossed, when I came inside.
“It’s a straight uphill climb. I don’t think I could’ve gone much faster,” I argued.
“You will try again, tomorrow.” She turned and left, her golden blond hair and white dress flowing behind her.
Try again tomorrow? I could maybe shave off a few minutes, but I wasn’t sure how much good that’d do. With a sigh, I slumped to the floor beside a sprawled-out Chevy. A servant handed me a glass of water, which I gulped down a little too fast.
~
For the next three days, we followed the same routine. And although I became faster each day, Lena kept saying, “Too slow.”
On the fourth day, I lost my patience. “How the hell am I supposed to do this any faster? I’m going as hard as I can. Can’t you see that?”
“You are approaching this task as a human, but you are not a human. You are a Carbon,” Lena stated as she w
alked away.
~
That night, I lay awake on my bed, trying desperately to fall asleep. I couldn’t get what Lena said out of my head. She was right. I was a Carbon, not a human. That was the whole reason I was here. But how was I supposed to use any of my abilities if I wasn’t even taught how? Wasn’t that the whole reason I came here? She was supposed to teach me, not throw me out there and expect me to figure it out. I wouldn’t have come all the way here if that were the plan all along.
A burning rumbled in my chest as I became angrier thinking about it. I’d risked not only my life but countless others to come here to find a solution, to find a way to beat Coleman finally, and this was all I received—a half-assed running clinic by a teenage girl, the size of a child. I prayed this wasn’t a huge waste of my time.
Frustrated, I rolled over and nearly knocked Chevy off the bed. I bet if Kenzie were here, he’d have a solution.
Once I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of a thunderstorm rolling in the distance. I felt it reverberate deep in my soul where the anger and frustration had settled.
~
The next morning, as we took our usual carriage ride down to the base of the island, I broke the silence. “I don’t know how to use any of my Carbon abilities. How do you expect me to do this without any guidance?”
“You haven’t tried yet. You don’t know if you can or can’t until you try,” Lena said.
The carriage jolted to a stop as we reached the bottom. I bit my tongue at the venom threatening to spit out and stepped out onto the street. The carriage made its way back up the hill, but I didn’t follow. Instead, I walked over to the white sand beach and grazed my fingers over the cool, refreshing water.
Come on Sawyer, I urged myself. Think! How does this damn thing work? With my eyes closed, I tried to feel for whatever might be inside of me, the Carbon part of me, thinking of how Kenzie harnessed his powers from within, but I’d never thought to ask him how he did it. There was a warmth within my chest, longing to break free, but there was no key to open it. It was a locked box, deep inside of me.