“It’s strange the things we remember first, isn’t it? You are a tragic story, Remy. No one wanted to see you fall from grace. Not even me.”
I stare at him. “I don’t remember everything.”
Someone enters behind me, and I can only hear their voice, “They’re not far off. You should go.”
Navin nods and comes to my side.
“Do you remember that you used to be like me?” It is hard to distinguish between mind control and simple conversation, so I say nothing. He continues, “Obviously from your face, you don’t. I remember the first time my brother brought you home. You were so sweet and timid. Nobody wanted you two together.” I am curious and he can tell. “It was like Romeo and Juliet. I thought it was so ridiculous, the two of you wanting to be together, and yet simply because the Powers told you you shouldn’t . . . you were going to end everything and just be miserable. Does that sound sane? Remy, the Powers tell people what they can and cannot do. So, you two were from different bloodlines. He’s Rykor and you are Landolin . . . and yet you were willing to do it. That’s when it all changed. I wasn’t going to give up so easy.”
“I know what you want from me, Navin. You can make it sound any way that you want, but I know what you really want,” I say quietly.
He pauses for a moment. “The sweet Remy that had so much passion.”
“I didn’t for you. Never for you.”
The anger that I had seen that first night creeps back into his eyes.
“Let’s say it like it is, Navin. You want power.” It isn’t easy to keep my brain defensive and carry on a conversation.
“Let’s go,” he says as he takes my arm.
“Where are we going?”
“I know my brother. We won’t be waiting for him.”
“But Ian’s still alive?”
Navin shrugs. “Nearly. You want to find out?” He dangles the carrot, leaving me no choice but to follow. Soon, several men surround us as we race downstairs.
“You’d better find me,” I chant, in hopes that Arek will somehow hear me.
For the first time in weeks I wake up hot and sweaty. My clothes stick to my skin, especially since I am still dressed for snow and the high-collared shirt suffocates me under the intense humidity. My eyelids seem to be made of stone and weigh too much to fight. When I raise my hand to wipe my eyes, my palm slaps my face—at least it wakes me. My hands do not feel like my own.
I survey the room while lying on a brightly striped, thick, and surprisingly comfortable couch. It seems to be night as very few lights are on and only the sounds of insects can be heard over my breath. The décor on the walls is split in half—the upper part is a deep, muted army green and the lower is a gray blue tile, and yellow vases sit on wood tables with bright flowers. In truth, it is amazing. I don’t get the feeling that I have been here before. The décor is new, however the cracks and crevices in the walls tell me of the history this house has seen.
The door just ahead is yellow and shaped like a nine-foot keyhole with chunky wrought iron handles and locks. The fog in my brain is still thick so I sway to the left and right when I sit up. Beneath my feet are weathered, black and white tiles adding humor to the unexpected decor. After a few moments, when my feet feel stable enough to stand, the table next to the couch helps. I peek through the large Jalousie windows. Flat rooftops sloping down reach out for miles. I can see that the sun will come up soon.
There is a second door in the room that is locked, but just beside it are folded clothes on a weathered bookshelf. The tank top and linen pants smell newly washed as they fall onto my body. The only thing left to do is pace, so I do, back and forth until the click-clack of the door tells me that someone is entering.
Three men dressed in jeans and T-shirts, their ears plugged with Bluetooth pieces, come in. Their guns are prepared, as though they expect someone with great strength. My withered body—bent at the chest with fatigue—should tell them my inability to fight.
“Let’s go,” one of them says.
“I should just follow?”
“To get what you want.” He throws a watch at me that drops heavily in my palms. My hands shake at the cracked face and even more so when I must wipe blood away from the engraving of my name and Ian’s. No more is said as they lead me through the halls.
The rest of the house continues to emulate a mixture of color, age, and unconventional style. Do I love it, or do I hate it? Something in my chest tells me that we are getting closer and my breath begins to come in and out in waves. We enter an office.
Navin sits in the corner, staring at a computer screen.
“An artist must have lived here,” I say, as I wrestle my brain to stay on a beat that he can’t get in. I can feel him try instantly.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
He shakes his head and keeps quiet. The manipulation and power in his silence brings a smile to his lips.
“Why am I here?” The gold rimmed chair next to me is high enough for stability, so I use it.
“You and I could have done so much. The prophetic healer.” He smiles and comes closer.
“I did. I just didn’t need you to do it.”
“For what gain, Remy? The government? The rich men who convince us from a young age to stay quiet,” his dramatic whisper turns back on. “They convince us that it’s just easier to be the same. Forget who you are. Conform, repent, for the sake of everyone else . . . but us.”
“I didn’t want that,” I shook my head.
He steps closer. Navin is good looking, tall, and built just like his brother, but his darkness clouds everything. “You’ve told me that before. Do you remember?” He backs me against a wall, and I can see the glisten of sweat on his temples.
“No,” is all that I can say.
“No matter what I tell you, you’ll never understand that Ephemes don’t accept anyone who’s different. We are better than them, Remy. Don’t you understand that? And they will never allow us freedom or safety because of this.”
“I don’t believe that. There has to be a way.”
He moves his face close to mine, nearly rubbing our cheeks together, and strangely this is familiar. We have been this close before, which makes my heart drop.
“You’re even more of a Pollyanna than you used to be.”
“Your only solution is to eradicate.”
“I’m trying to do what’s best for everyone. You and I could be what’s best for everyone,” he whispers.
His eyes drill into mine. He moves closer, inch by inch, until finally his thick lips touch mine. I don’t kiss him or close my eyes. It isn’t long or aggressive, but when he pulls away, he isn’t happy.
“Why’d you set me up? So long ago . . . If you wanted me, why did I die for something you did?”
He takes a moment, studying my eyes and then my lips, and finally he pulls away to sit on the edge of the desk in the middle of the room. “I didn’t. She did. From the first moment I met your mother, that woman was willing to do anything. Somehow, she knew . . . the entire time it was you that I wanted. I never realized that she was ruthless enough to give her own life for yours to be taken. She didn’t want either of us to have what we wanted.”
We are interrupted by a figure coming in from the side entrance—moving stealthily and gingerly. Japha steps into the light, his white hair and scarred face looking more homely next to Navin.
“Where is he?” I am losing my patience.
“You need to see him?” Navin asks.
“I need to know you haven’t done anything.”
“Okay.” Navin places his hand in the air. For a few moments all is silent, then I hear the rustle of feet. Behind Japha and Navin, Ian, busted and bruised, barely able to walk without help, comes out blindfolded.
Navin shakes his head. “Remy, you know you can’t do that,” he says as though he is reading what I want to do to him.
“What do you want?” I struggle with my breath.
“Willow?” Ian cries
out.
“Ian, I’m here. It’s okay.”
Navin steps into my line of sight. “I need to know some things.”
“I don’t remember anything.”
He reaches out and grabs my arm. I nearly tumble as he rips me from the room and into a large hall made with cement floors and green ceilings. Large paintings with women of all different colors and sizes line the walls, but there is no time to look at them since he yanks me so hard that I nearly fall to the ground. We enter a dark room at the end of the hall. I gasp as we enter.
“What are you doing?” I try to pull my hands away.
The walls are a deep red that look nearly black in certain angles. Shackles line the room to the left and weapons line the walls to the right. Every weapon, some that I have seen, some that I have never seen, hang heavily against a metal-framed wall.
He throws me against the wall so hard that he knocks the wind out of me, forcing the wheeze from my lungs. Then he takes my hands, one at a time, and raises them until they reach metal restraints hanging from anchors on the wall. When he leans closer, his resemblance to Leigh is striking—a strange combo of Arek and Leigh.
“It’s so sad, what you became.” My words try to pierce the callous man, but instead fall flat.
He looks down at me as his hands work. “I have wanted different things my entire life. Ephemes can live without hiding. I want that. You should want that.”
“Clearly, all humans do is hide everything about themselves. It’s just what we do. Every one of us. It’s the way the world works.”
He stops moving, clenches his jaw, and looks away seeming lost. I try to peer into his eyes, but he turns too far away. Yet then he continues like nothing has happened and chains me to the metal grate behind me.
“You hate them.”
Finally, this angers him, and his face flies to mine. “You’re right, I hate them. But so does every man and woman working with us. We’ve all lost something from their hate.”
The inflection in his voice makes me dig deeper so I cock my head empathetically to the side, “What have you lost?” He is so close to me I can feel his chest hit mine. He looks me over.
“You look like your mother,” he says quietly.
When I refuse to look at him, he grabs my chin and forces my eyes to turn. Yet the moment we connect I am aware of his Trace. My defenses are down. How do I figure out where he is? What he is searching for? I start to chant within my thoughts, “Listen to your own voice—your own voice—your own voice—”
He’s testing, poking and prodding, which is uncomfortable and draining. Colors begin to swirl in my eyes, so I shut them tight. Then in between my breathing comes a voice . . . a whisper. He has gotten in.
“Remy. I will kill him if you don’t look at me,” he says. Rage warms my body as I open my eyes. He’s not actually speaking or moving his lips, instead this voice comes from within me. “It’s no secret that I want you with me or I need you out of my way. You have been against me from the beginning.”
“Then why don’t you just do it?” I growl. He is quiet for a moment, which allows me to read some vulnerability. “Because you can’t kill me. You can’t kill me because it’s Remy you want.”
“You’re weak right now, the weakest you’ve ever been. But believe me, if I can’t get in your head, then I will destroy you.”
“I don’t—” my voice drops when the pain in my head begins. Every time it is always the same. My eyes roll and my knees weaken until I nearly hang from my hands.
“Navin . . .” A woman’s voice. She’s come into the room. I strain to open my eyes and get a hold of my body. The woman is nearly my age and everything about her is uncomfortably familiar. Navin notices me looking at her and instantly my head swells, and I cry out in pain.
“Leave now,” Navin warns.
She watches me inquisitively. Her thin face, deep-set eyes, and dark blonde hair—despite a few differences, she looks like . . . me. Even down to her age and the way she holds her hands. However, I realize age is hard to tell with the Velieri.
“Mom?” My voice cracks.
Navin delves deeper and I can no longer see her clearly due to the pain in my head.
“Japha and I can change your world, what it was like, who you loved, what you saw, what you did,” Navin threatens. “We don’t have to leave anything the same as when we find it in here.”
The room begins to close, like a wormhole is enveloping me. The woman becomes a blur.
Suddenly, I am in darkness. There are no walls, ground, or sky—only black—like I am kneeling in space. Fear engulfs me—Willow’s instinct. I need something solid, something tangible, something that will provide me safety from nothingness. I think of Geo’s words. There must be a rhythm that I am missing, a slight sound that I can’t hear because my emotions are controlling everything. If I can just be calm and listen—hear the quiet and reach for peace that will allow me to use the skills he taught me. I will count and concentrate on that.
Before I can try, voices fill my head. Then, as if rewinding, images begin to pass. I can’t tell whether it is just in my head or whether I can reach out and touch these images. It is tempting to watch every second that passes. It may remind me of a life I have yet to remember. Then I realize the history that I am being shown isn’t anything I want to know. One passing memory stops just before my eyes. I am in San Francisco, walking along the sidewalk. I have seen this nightmare too many times to forget. The man breaks the bottle on the brick wall, then moments later lunges at me. I can’t watch.
“Stop!” I yell, but the abyss swallows my voice. The images keep flashing, further and further back in years.
Memories pass by slowly. One feels so familiar that I can feel the pain from the handcuffs on my wrists and the chaotic suffocation of a large crowd in a court room. Then it becomes so real that I am no longer watching Remy in handcuffs but living it myself. People with angry eyes and hateful slurs yell loudly through the crowd, while a host of others stand with devastation in their eyes. I walk to a chair, made especially for criminals during their execution. The guards surround me, making it impossible to say anything to Briston and Elizabeth as I pass. My father’s tears streak his cheeks. Leigh is within arm’s length. He bids the executioner to come to my side and I feel the warm tears fall off the end of my nose as the executioner dons gloves and pulls out the syringe to take my life. A loud yell fills the air. Arek rushes in, his face already bruised and swollen. Several guards run to him, but he easily fights them away. It isn’t until the other Protectors come to aid against one of their own that he is unable to do anything. They finally wrestle him down. Leigh nods as Arek cries out. The executioner covers my eyes with a cloth. My chest rises and falls rapidly in panic. Then all goes black.
I don’t want to see any more. “Stop!” I beg.
The further they go, the less control I have. Geo’s face comes to my mind. If I can think of Geo, then it’s not completely hopeless. Quickly it becomes a fight to not immediately turn back to the darkness. I try to think of specific memories, yet they are disintegrating. If this is what it is to age, God save us all.
“Arek, Sassi, Kilon, Geo, Peter, Beckah, my father . . .” I chant and try to picture them. If their images are in my head, then I won’t have to use my voice and Navin’s beat will be clearer. For a moment this works—gentle images pass and the pain in my body begins to subside—then my body jolts, like lightning has struck. Within me burns, every organ and tissue writhes with fire. Breathing deep feels impossible and I lie in the darkness convulsing for air. The strength against me has just doubled. Japha. I know instantly he has joined in the effort to strip me of everything.
There’s nothing to do, but fight. Find a rhythm. Just do it, Willow. An image flashes of people running, screaming, dying . . . and the pain of it claws at me in the black abyss. Anger tears at my soul and shakes my body. Geo’s voice returns, “Picture the pain and chaos rolling off my shoulders like raindrops.” I close my eyes and l
isten. It takes a while but eventually, I hear a low hum masked by ambient noise. It is a fast rhythm and I try to match it. After a few moments, I do.
Then I adjust my own vibrato, trying to break up the monotony of theirs. I’ve never concentrated so hard on anything in my life. My fingertips are tense from the strain. I must figure out how to separate Navin and Japha, but I am losing. There is no way that I can win this—not by myself. The only other option is to give up.
Time doesn’t exist in a black hole. Just like any dream, the passage of time is infinite—either minutes or days or longer. Navin and Japha have me right where they want me. Fighting only seems to make things worse.
“You’re going to want to give up, Willow,” Geo had told me.
When my mother went through continuous recurrences of cancer, one day she whispered softly in my ear while protected by a large quilt, “I’m done. I’m tired.” This angered me. Enraged me. “No, you’re not!” I assured her. But in the end, she was too tired.
Yet, here I am so weak. How little I’ve fought compared to her. She was the warrior. She was the woman of strength. Perhaps if I just lie still, I will find more peace?
Flashes of memory—good and bad, Willows and Remys—keep coming through the dark abyss with the shining stars fading in and out.
Just as quickly as the darkness came, it recedes and I am back in the room with Navin and Japha, still trapped.
Navin cocks his head to the side. “You really aren’t Remy?”
“No,” I whisper.
“You have no fight.” This seems to bother him. Instantly this makes me wonder. Does he need me to fight to do what he wants to do? Navin thinks for a moment. He and Japha speak quietly to each other until Japha leaves.
Then he angrily grabs my chin. “Where’s that emotion, Willow?”
That’s when I know: to find what he needs, it seems my emotion creates his path. “Oh, I see,” I grin.
Out of the Shadows: Book One of the Velieri Uprising Page 23