Devoted

by Hilary Duff

  She was in no danger of toppling.

  Their eyes stayed locked, and for a horrible second I was sure they were going to kiss.

  “Thank you,” Lila said, inching closer.

  Sage stepped away, breaking the spell.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at Lila anymore. His eyes were far away.

  “I saw her again, Lila.”

  “What?!”

  The exclamation was from Petra. She had appeared right next to me, and her face contorted with fury. Of course. She had no idea Amelia had brought Sage and me together.

  My heart was pounding and I felt Petra’s angry stare before I heard her hiss, “He did?”

  I shrugged and shook my head. If Sage had seen me, I knew nothing about it.

  Petra moved closer to Sage, standing unseen immediately in front of his face.

  “We were . . . I don’t know where we were, but I could see her, and touch her, and there was this . . .”

  He was going to say it. He was going to say something about Amelia. I willed him not to. If there was such a thing as psychic energy, I begged it to work right now. I didn’t know who or what Amelia truly was, but I had a terrible feeling that if Petra found out what she’d done, it wouldn’t just be Amelia who was destroyed . . . it would be Sage and me as well.

  A shadow crossed Sage’s face, then he shook it off.

  “It was a dream, that’s all. It just felt . . . it felt so real. . . .”

  Petra had gone back to looking at me, those eyes hunting for the truth, but I concentrated on staring at Sage as if my life depended on it.

  It wasn’t hard.

  Then his eyes were on mine in return.

  I moved closer. I couldn’t help it. He was looking right at me, the longing in his eyes so beautiful but so much more painful because it was for me, but I was there, I was right there in front of him, he just couldn’t see. I didn’t know why he couldn’t see when he could before, but he couldn’t.

  I reached up and placed my hand on his cheek, knowing I’d feel nothing. Tears welled in my eyes.

  “She’s life to me,” he said, his eyes going through and past me, even as I leaned up to try to kiss him, hoping he would finally feel and know. . . .

  But he turned away as Lila sniffled. Her head was down and she was crying a bit, though she tried to cover. Sage rested a hand under her chin and tipped it up.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I know this isn’t fair to you.”

  “You can’t help how you feel.”

  “No . . . but I don’t have to tell you about it. That’s not right. Not after what you said.”

  What she said?

  She gave Sage a hurt, puppy-dog smile.

  Fury roiled inside me, and I jumped in between them, which didn’t interrupt their moment in the slightest.

  What did she say, Sage? That she loves you? And you believed her?! She’s one of them! One of the Saviors! Why would you ever believe what they say? They took you! They’re holding you captive! They’re hurting you! These are the people who swore they wanted to protect you, and they’re hurting you! And you believe one of them?!

  I screamed the words inside my head, knowing he couldn’t hear me.

  Sage and Lila started walking again. Watching them hurt so bad.

  Petra grinned.

  “Have you noticed,” she asked, “the last time we saw them, Sage was being held prisoner. Now he seems to be wandering around quite free. Free to run away . . . or to take long, romantic walks with a woman who clearly adores him. How interesting to see which one is his choice.”

  I scanned the horizon. Sure, it looked like he was free, but the tree line was probably riddled with barbed wire. Or snipers. Or an invisible fence—like for dogs, but for people.

  I thought this, but at the same time I knew it wasn’t true. If Sage wanted to escape, he could. He just . . . didn’t.

  Impossible.

  There had to be something else. I’d thought before that he was betraying me, or that he was dangerous, and I’d been wrong. I couldn’t jump to conclusions. Questionable behavior from Sage usually came from him trying to protect me. Is that what this was? Had the Saviors threatened my life if Sage tried to escape?

  Had they threatened Lila’s life?

  Were they willing to sacrifice their own people like that? I wouldn’t have thought so, but then again, I’d thought the CV were ruthless and bloodthirsty; I’d thought the Saviors wanted to keep Sage protected. I didn’t know half as much as I thought I did.

  But what if Lila’s life was at risk? Did Sage care enough about her that he’d stay to save her?

  I had to know more. I raced after Sage and Lila, running as fast as I could . . .

  . . . but that tug in the center of my being pulled my feet out from under me.

  The world was spiraling wildly now. I was the center of a whirlpool, getting sucked farther and farther away from the swirling mouth. . . .

  “Clea, are you okay?”

  It was Ben, and he was one of twenty people whose eyes were fixed on me.

  I’d woken up on the plane screaming.

  fifteen

  * * *

  I still hadn’t recovered from bringing Sage and Clea together. It had taken more out of me than I thought. I was only barely keeping myself from slipping into that state of nonexistence. Doing nothing, focusing on nothing . . . that helped, and it was exactly what I was doing when a viselike grip crushed my mind.

  Mother.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped.

  “Ow! Nothing!”

  “You haven’t been visiting Sage?”

  “No! Ow! Stop!”

  “Are you sure? Because I heard Sage say he dreamed about Clea.”

  “If he did, it was a dream! A regular dream!”

  “Really? Because he shouldn’t be dreaming about her anymore. We want him falling out of love with her, remember? That won’t happen if someone’s bringing them together in their dreams, Amelia.”

  “I’m not! I swear, I’m not! Please, you’re hurting me. . . .”

  “I want to believe you, I do. But if I find out you’re lying . . . if you’re getting in the way of our plans, it won’t just be me hurting you. It will be all of us.”

  “Okay, but I didn’t do anything! Ow!”

  “Good. Then don’t. Because if you do, I’ll know.” She released my mind from her grip. “You’ll be happy to know that the dream didn’t affect Sage. He’s all about Lila. We’ll be ready by the next full moon.”

  She gave my mind a final squeeze before she left. I didn’t have the energy to fight against the nothingness. The last thing I thought before I disappeared was, “Another way . . . I need to find another way. . . .”

  sixteen

  * * *

  “IT’S OKAY!” Ben said. He was standing in front of his seat in the airplane, turning to address everyone. “Just a panic attack. She gets them sometimes. Nothing to worry about.” He lowered his voice into a dramatic whisper and added, “She’s on medication.” He sat back in his seat and looked at the doctor who was hunched over my chair, listening yet again to my heart through a stethoscope.

  “Sounds good, doc?”

  “Sounds great.”

  “Terrific.” He shook the doctor’s hand. “Great call having the stethoscope in your carry-on, by the way.”

  “Never know when you’ll need it!” the doctor agreed.

  Ben gave him a knowing finger point, and the doctor went back to his seat.

  “Guarantee he’s been waiting his whole life for someone to shout, ‘Is there a doctor on board?’” I said.

  “No doubt,” Ben agreed. “So are you going to tell me what happened?”

  I grimaced, unsure of how much to say.

  Ben sighed. “How about this? I’ll tell you what I think happened. I think one of them came to you in your dream again and showed you something you didn’t want to see.”

  “Ben . . .” />
  “Was it Petra? Was it Amelia? One of the men? What did they say?”

  I rummaged through the back-of-the-seat pocket. “I hate two-hour flights. Long enough to get bored, but not long enough for them to show a movie.”

  “I’m guessing they haven’t done anything to Sage that can’t be fixed. You recovered too quickly for that.”

  “Do you think they have any more peanuts?” I asked. “I could use more water.”

  “Who are they? What did they tell you? What do they want? Why do they even care if you and Sage are together or not?”

  “Ben . . .”

  “I told you, Clea. I want to be involved in this. I need it. You don’t have to tell me, but if you don’t, I’m going to keep looking into this thing on my own. Please don’t cut me out. There’s too much riding on it for me.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  How could I explain it to him? He was worried about the safety of his eternal soul, which I understood, but it was intangible. I had no idea if there even was a heaven or hell. My dad didn’t think so. He thought we just stopped, and if that was true, nothing Ben did now would change his ultimate outcome.

  But Sage needed me in this world. I would do anything to keep him alive, and if that meant I had to hurt Ben’s feelings, so be it.

  “Fine,” Ben said, reading the answer in my silence. “Tell you what—after we land, take a cab back home. I don’t want to get in your way.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He had gotten up and was already several rows down the aisle.

  “The flight’s not full. I’ll see you.” He stalked off to an empty seat in the back.

  When we landed, I didn’t wait for Ben. I didn’t even turn my head to see if he was behind me. I did just what he suggested and caught a cab back home.

  I didn’t want to go to my house, though.

  I called Rayna.

  “Did you know you say ‘ho’ to make a horse stop?” she said without preface.

  “I thought it was ‘whoa.’”

  “Apparently it’s either/or, which I didn’t know before Nico and I went out for a trail ride this morning. He had me lead, and when I heard him yelling ‘ho’. . .”

  “Oh my God, he called you a ho?”

  “No! But I freaked out! I thought he’d read my diary or something.”

  I laughed. “You? Keeping a diary?”

  “I know! Can you imagine?”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “Just finished the postride shower and am about to collapse in front of the worst reality show I can find.”

  “That sounds awesome.”

  “My brain rot is your brain rot.”

  The whole time we’d been talking, I’d been making my way toward the guesthouse Rayna shared with her parents, Wanda and George. I walked in and went straight for the kitchen, remaining on the phone despite the fact that I could now see Rayna, already sprawled on the couch in the living room. She waved. I waved back.

  “Are these seriously blackberries?” I asked from deep in the fridge.

  “Grab ’em. And a couple Diet Cokes. And if you nuke up a popcorn, I’ll be your best friend for life.”

  “You’re already my best friend for life.”

  “So you can bring me along to the next one. I’d be way cooler than Ben.”

  “You have no idea,” I said.

  I hung up the phone, and five minutes later I had a tray loaded up with the popcorn, blackberries, sodas, and several slices of cold mushroom pizza that had been close enough to the front of the fridge that I guessed they were reasonably fresh.

  “Ooh, good call,” Rayna said, grabbing a slice.

  “Protein,” I agreed.

  Rayna found a makeover show on TV—one of those where they sneak up on unsuspecting people going about their business, accost them with cameras, and tell them they look like crap in front of a zillion people, make them cry, then build them back up with a new makeup job they won’t be able to replicate and outfits so intricate they’ll never remember how to fit them together.

  It was perfect.

  We sat for a while, just munching and watching. It was one of the things about Rayna I loved. She could tell when I had something on my mind, but she also knew when I was okay talking it out or when I needed time to keep it to myself. Maybe it was because she knew sooner or later, whatever it was, I’d tell her anyway.

  “What do you think Sage did between Olivia and Catherine?” I finally asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Or between Catherine and Anneline. Or Anneline and Delia.”

  “Or Delia and you?”

  “You’re sensing a pattern?”

  “I thought he told you,” Rayna said. “He pined for you miserably.”

  “Right. But when he wasn’t pining for me miserably. I mean, he’s a guy.”

  “Okay . . . let me make sure I have this right. You’re upset because you’re worried Sage cheated on you . . . before you were born? You’re losing it.”

  “It sounds lame when you say it that way.”

  Rayna arched an eyebrow.

  “Fine,” I said. “But it’s not about me being jealous. I was just thinking about it, and it makes sense that he’s probably fallen in love with other girls and had relationships before.”

  I was making the case like a lawyer, but I was pleading with my eyes for her to tell me I was both wrong and absolutely crazy for even considering such a thing.

  “I know you want me to say he hasn’t . . . and maybe he hasn’t . . . but yeah, he’s a guy. And a hundred years between dates is a freakishly long time. No matter how close he is with his hand, that’s a lot of years for the two of them to be exclusive.”

  I knew it was true, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

  “But, Clea, even if he did have other relationships—and I’m not saying he for sure did—it’s not like he was cheating! You weren’t even alive! He didn’t know if you’d ever come back! Not for sure. And now that you are back . . .”

  She saw it in my face.

  “Oh please,” she said. “Is this about the wound-washing slut at the girly hotel? Not a chance. Sage is not cheating on you. The boy is obsessed with you! Remember, I was hanging on him when we played boyfriend and girlfriend for your mom, and I got nothing back. Nothing. That doesn’t happen. He’s yours.”

  “There’s more.”

  “Of course there’s more!” Rayna wailed. “You and Ben ran off to chase down big guys with guns and bring back Sage; now you’re here, Ben and Sage aren’t, and I’ve been shockingly patient about not shaking you to get the dirt!” She took a handful of popcorn then froze.

  “What?”

  “The popcorn. It totally needs parmesan cheese.”

  She bounced up and ran to the kitchen, then shook the cheese generously over the bowl.

  “Okay, I’m ready. Tell me.”

  I filled her in on everything that had happened. I didn’t go into the CV stuff, except to say Sage wasn’t with them and they’d give me backup against the Saviors. The other stuff would bore her. But I told her the dream with Sage and Amelia, my dream on the plane ride back, and Ben’s freak-out over his immortal soul. Rayna took it in.

  “Whatever. Ben will get over it.”

  “I don’t know. This is deep with him.”

  She waved it off. “So you think Sage and Goat Girl? . . .”

  “She said she loves him.”

  “You didn’t hear her say that.”

  I just stared at her. I’d told her their conversation verbatim. Was there any other conclusion?

  “Okay, yes, she probably said that.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Fine! She said it! She loves him! So what? You think every time I tell a guy I love him, he automatically falls for me and loves me back?” She thought a second. “Okay, maybe that’s a bad example. . . .”

  “He was sympathetic about it. He apologized for talking about his feelings for me. Like
being in love with me was something he felt awful about because it hurt her. Your ‘soulmate’ isn’t supposed to do that.”

  “Maybe he’s acting,” Rayna said. “You said yourself you thought they might be threatening you and using that to keep him there. And how do you know there isn’t some kind of human electric fence, or hidden people with guns pointed at him? You don’t.”

  “I don’t know. . . . It’s not like he’s never been with anyone else but me. . . .”

  “Seriously? You don’t see the difference between Sage maybe possibly having a quickie with someone when you didn’t even exist, and him acting any way he has to act to protect the woman he loves, or just to stop from getting tortured?”

  I stared at her, open mouthed. For long enough that Rayna threw a piece of popcorn into my mouth.

  “I’m an idiot,” I finally said after I finished choking and laughing.

  “You’re a jealous girlfriend,” Rayna said. “Very similar, but different. Now I, on the other hand, have no reason to be jealous. I’m fairly certain Nico was a nun before he met me.”

  “You do know nuns are women, right?”

  “A boy nun. What is that, a stag?”

  “A monk. A boy deer is a stag.”

  “Bummer. I’d rather go with stag. It sounds kind of sexy.”

  “Agreed. He was a stag.”

  “Exactly,” Rayna said. “He’s twenty-one . . . and I’m his first girlfriend.”

  “Or so he says.”

  “Real deal, Clea. We’re together all the time now. What do you think we do?”

  She didn’t even wait for me to answer.

  “No! We don’t! He’s clean as driven snow! We talk. It’s nice.”

  “Imagine.”

  “Shut up. I like it. It’s just sad, mostly. I hear about his life and I want to have my parents adopt him . . . except then the incest thing would be a problem.”

  “I remember,” I said. “Dead dad, poor family, four younger siblings . . .”

  “Two,” she amended.

  “I thought you said he had four.”

  “He did have four. Did. Past tense. Two of them died.”

  “Oh my God. What happened?”

  “Freaky shit. It’s awful. One of his brothers was born with some super rare skin disease. The kid’s skin was so hard when he was born, it was like a coat of armor. I looked it up online—it’s for real, and there’re some people who live until adulthood with it, but they’re rare. The skin on these people is so hard that the eyelids flip inside out, and they have to drown themselves in Vaseline or else they can’t move. . . . It’s crazy.”