by Jamie Magee
“I think we need some jeans and guitars. We have to step outside of this if we are going to understand it.”
He grinned boyishly. “I kinda have a surprise for you.”
“Do you?”
He glanced away, hiding his eyes from me. “I do. Brady is going to guide us to it when this is over. We need to be alone.”
“Can it be over now?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Those words made him laugh as his eyes returned to mine.
“Cashton said he was going to be there for a hot second. He wants to show me how to let my soul rise.”
I took in a sharp breath and turned crimson all at once.
“That scare you?” he whispered with the music.
I moved my head slowly from side to side.
“Good,” he said under his breath as he pulled me to him then spun me around.
Just as our dance ended I heard quiet applause and looked up to see Drake and Madison, her arm in his, a hue of red around them - the good or bad, I couldn’t tell. I was new to this energy thing. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, they crossed the floor to us.
“Until tomorrow,” Drake said humbly as he kissed Madison’s hand intimately, then turned and left the room.
I wasn’t sure what we should do now - at least not until I saw Perodine in all of her royalty, standing at the entrance to the ballroom. She turned as if she were waiting on our approach. We followed her direction out of the ballroom, up the wide stairs, down a hall, up another set of stairs, down another hall, then up even more stairs. Finally, I realized where I was: the hall we had been in when Landen and Draven were trapped in The Realm. They were leading us to the passageway.
“What do we know about Grayson and Winston?” Madison asked us once she knew we were on a protected hall.
“They are chasing their mom. Grayson was adamant with Aden, telling him to leave them be and keep Monroe safe. I think he is trying to lead whoever is after him as far away from her as he can,” Draven offered solemnly.
“Aden all right?” she pressed.
“Little scattered. He said it’s all flashes. He can’t pin the images down long enough to get a clear vision of all that was unlocked,” Draven said, glancing between Madison and me.
“But you guys are cool?” Madison was not going to let this rest.
“Cool,” Draven said under his breath.
Madison squeezed my arm. “I’m going to stay here for a second. You guys go ahead.”
“Are you crazy? No way,” I argued.
She looked over her shoulder to Chrispin and Olivia. “You guys will stay with me, right? Make sure I get back to Chara.”
They both smiled slightly to say yes.
Once we reached the doorway to where the passage was, Perodine halted and turned, then gazed down at me, breaking out of her role as the Queen.
“Revenge will be yours - all of ours. Rest now... and thank you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just did the bow I was getting really good at.
Inside the room, I saw Drake waiting, his deep, dark eyes inviting Madison closer. Now I knew why she wanted to stay behind. Go Drake - one point for you, five thousand for Madison.
“How are we going to get back?” I asked, noticing that if Madison had Olivia stay behind, we didn’t have anyone to show us how to navigate the strings - and I wasn’t going to chance it on my own. There was no telling where we’d end up.
“Your guide is waiting,” Drake said as he nodded to the passage.
I raised my brow, doubting him, but Draven pulled me closer, then through the haze. When the gray passed, I saw Brady.
He smiled vaguely and nodded for us to follow him.
Chapter Thirteen
It felt like we weren’t alone in the string. I glanced back and saw two figures in the glow. I thought for sure it was Landen and Willow, but when they made no effort to approach us, I assumed I was wrong. I wanted to thank Landen for saving me and halfway wondered what role they played tonight, but I let those thoughts drift to the back of my mind as the anticipation of wherever we were going built inside my soul.
Brady led us past the passages that I knew led to Landen and Willow’s home, a few feet past that point anyway. He stopped just outside a haze that was a breathtaking yellow.
“The door is unlocked. Your stuff is in there, along with some food. I’ll be back around noon tomorrow so you can get to your concert. You’re still doing that, right?” Brady asked.
Draven nodded once to confirm.
“All right, then. You guys did good tonight. Relax so you will be ready for tomorrow.” He nodded his head for us to move through the passage.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when we stepped through. The sound of waves and the sight of sand caught me off guard.
“Where are we?” I asked apprehensively.
“Still Chara, just a different part,” Draven said as he slowly leaned down.
I took in a sharp breath when I felt his hand on the back of my leg, slowly sliding down. It took me a second to realize that he was only taking my heels off so I could move through the sand more easily. This boy was wreaking havoc on my heart. After all this time as his girlfriend, he still made my head spin with the simplest of gestures.
In the distance stood a small beach house with a wrap-around porch. Like Brady said, the door wasn’t locked. Doubt it needed to be. There wasn’t another sign of human life in any direction.
Inside we found a living room fully furnished, with a small kitchen and bedroom just behind it. From the door I could see our bags on the bed.
“Why don’t we change and take a walk?” Draven said to me as he shed his jacket and smiled when he saw two guitars on their racks in the living room. “Paradise,” he said to himself.
Before we managed to get out of our formal attire and into beach worthy clothes, there was a knock on the door. Then it opened.
“Whatever you’re doing, stop. I built a fire on the beach,” Cashton called into the modest home.
Nervously, I glanced at Draven, who was pulling on one of his T-shirts.
“Class is in session,” he said with a smirk before leaving the room so I could change.
Not trusting Cashton alone with him, at mach speed I shed my dress, then pulled on some cotton shorts, a tank, and a white hoodie.
They were outside on the porch, waiting on me.
“Where did you run off to?” I asked Cashton as I closed the door behind me.
“Trying to see if Xavier would lead me to his first. No luck.”
I wasn’t sure what a ‘first’ was, but I was curious about how he was selectively seen tonight.
“So all this time, you have been with your lady friends...?” I asked, raising my brow, telling him I had not forgotten about that.
He sighed. “That dimension has, like, no line between it and the veil, so when they have an event like that a few corporeal ghosts come out and play.”
“Ones that you know,” I pointed out.
“It plays into my emotion, what I have to conquer during my time here.”
“Which is what - lust? Being a player?”
“Not a player,” he said with a degree of disdain. “Memory is still hazy, but you know what it is, all right? Right now I just need to help you, wait for the queen of the veil to rise and get me out for good so I can move on.”
“What is the emotion?”
“It wouldn’t make sense to you right now. It’s all right. I’ve made mistakes I’ll have to answer for - sure of it - but I just want the chance to answer for them, ya know?”
“Did you cheat on somebody?” I asked, instantly glaring at him.
“Can’t remember.”
“So...um...meditating?” Draven said to help change the subject. I guess that was like a guy code or something, to stop the thrashing I was going to give my newfound brother.
By then, we had climbed a sand dune, and now we could see the fire that Cashton had built. It was
modest, but what was so inviting about it was the blanket around it and the guitar lying there.
That was smart: to teach Draven through music.
“Yeah, you need to learn that, but we have to figure out where we are on this time table,” Cashton said just before throwing a few more sticks on the fire.
He sat down, then nodded for us to do so. Draven leaned against one of the large logs framing the fire, straightened the blanket, and reached for me to sit in his lap. I nestled up against him, feeling nothing but warmth between him and the fire.
“What is a ‘first’?” I asked Cashton as I watched him start to draw in the sand with a stick.
I could see his mind struggling to hold on to images of suppressed memories. The only issue was that most of them were in that den where I found him - or at least the one it resembled - and in that room, talks of wars, dimensions, and twin realties were rarely discussed.
Those memories I could see in him were doing nothing but bonding me to him, making me realize that I loved him the same way I loved Kara.
“Kinda like a first child to the master Escorts,” Cashton said.
“Why were you looking for that person?” Draven asked.
“Because we are on a time table. I just don’t know where on that table we are.” He glanced at me. “You have no kill marks on you, so that makes me think we are in the beginning. But it doesn’t make sense that Xavier was trying to get you to remember Pompeii.”
“‘Kill marks’?”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s because Draven is still in transition.”
“What is a ‘kill mark’? You are losing me,” I said.
His lips turned into a straight line as he gazed at the sideways figure eight he was drawing. “I really didn’t want you in the middle of this. I know that much. You are too good at making peace. You are the calm in the chaos of any storm. But the mark on your back grew after I left. That circle in the center of your back will grow lines with every kill you make.”
“I’m not a murderer,” I said as a sick feeling rose in my throat.
I may have said I was going to kill Bianca a million times over, but I’m not sure how literally I took myself. And if I did, it was only because I saw her to be unreal.
“I know,” Cashton said as Draven positioned his legs around me and pulled me to lean against his chest. “These lines you are fighting are hard to end. The fastest way is to take out the first because that will be a direct blow to the master, but even the first will be hard to take down unless you are strong.” He glanced up at us. “Considering you are not sharing energy and have been convinced that the act is bad, I can only assume that you’re not.”
Draven started to move his hand slowly across my back. I could tell by his curious stare that he wanted to know exactly how to make me stronger, and he was prepared to make sure that I never single-handedly killed anyone.
“When the first mark appears, you only have three more to kill before you have to strike the first. The fifth blow has to be for the master. The fifth is supposed to bring a final change. You have to be strategic, though. If you waste your five blows on petals, then you will remain unarmed and a very easy target.”
“Everyone has five blows - or just me?”
“You are from the other reality from the heritage of The Selected. Obviously, so is Madison. Landen looked familiar to me, but if he did become a phoenix at any part of his life plan his mark is going to be gone because he has the power to recreate himself over and over again. Good to know that is an option down the road.”
“So Madison and me so far?”
Cashton glanced at Draven. “Maybe Aden. Your image looks familiar to me, but the energy is way off.”
“Is that like a world of doubles over there? Is that why Madison and Willow look the same? Why Draven is a twin?”
“Not a world of doubles, but there are some that have vessels that look the same. They always have opposite energy and are said to be warriors – quite deadly when they are together.”
I didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t want Draven to adopt an absolute plan where he and Aden teamed up to end this.
“The thing is, I only have a fraction of the memories I need to help you, and even after the queen of the veil rises - and if I convince her to let me out - it will take some time for them to surface, time that I am sure we do not have.”
“Why do you need her again? And how are you stuck in the veil if you are not dead?” I asked, knowing Draven was more than likely just as lost at this point.
Cashton drew a huge circle beside the eight he had been tracing, then divided it with a line. “This is The Fall.” He moved the sand to make it darker on one side of The Fall, and on the far side of the other half he darkened the sand. “On this side the veil backs up to The Fall and the worlds are further away. They move faster, too, which is why life is so short and seems to move quicker.” He pointed the stick to the other side. “We lived against The Fall, so life is way longer. In the past, a large number of souls would pass through this Fall. They would learn something from one side and be the innovators on the other side in the next life. The thing is that since life is so long in our home reality, we could come through The Fall, live a whole life, and then go home - and only a month’s time would have passed. It worked beautifully until this side started to crumble.”
Sadness filled the blue in his eyes as the outer layer turned even darker. “I came through that Fall some time ago, but I fell inside the veil. The veil had grown more than we had thought - well, everyone but you, little one.” He sighed. “So, the veil thinks I’m dead when I’m not. If I were dead and all was right in the universe, then I could request to see The Reaper, and he would let me out. But these master Escorts have control over the veil. Very few make it to The Reaper or even know that he is a way out. The queen of the veil, when she has taken her reign, will be able to release any and all supernatural souls to fight again. And she will also be able to usher souls that have no reason to be in the veil to The Reaper’s doorstep so he can divinely convince them to move on.”
“We’ve released the dead,” Draven offered, clearly wondering if we could help Cashton.
“You release what is left of the dead. That energy is like leftover food to these master Escorts, and they need to be released. You need to do what you do. You guys are fighting the emotion of shock. The biggest shock is our own death. The ones in the veil are all on different levels.”
“What level are your girlfriends on?”
That didn’t create the smile I thought it would. Instead, Cashton looked furious at himself.
“The queen of the veil will move them on, too. Cowards...they are afraid of life, so they dance with death.”
“So I’m supposed to kill Xavier?” I asked, moving away from that touchy subject.
“Apparently. But I can’t understand his strategy. Why he is so focused on what you remember about Pompeii? I wonder if his first was there, if you know what they look like, what their energy feels like - and he wants to make sure you forget.”
“That or remembering anything past that point would be a strain on anyone. That was forever ago,” I countered.
“No,” Cashton said as he moved his stick back to the figure eight. “Time moves on a loop. We often planned exactly where we would land in that cycle. Life before that could have been in the future, for all you know. The thing is, you are all here. So either we planned it or they backed us into this corner.”
“I doubt they would have planned for me to save Draven in a past life and fall into this one.”
Cashton grimaced, showing that he halfway agreed with that. “It doesn’t make sense that Britain came for you either, unless that was just dumb luck on his part.”
“He seemed like he had a plan, wanted my light so he could take over The Realm.”
Cashton pointed the stick at me. “That right there makes me think he is unclaimed - a pack of wild dogs. Yet his energy states that he is more powerful than that. Besides,
you can’t rule or control The Realm because it is all. That is like an ant saying he is going to grow up to be an elephant. Great to have dreams, but seriously.”
“Bianca, then. She is pulling all the strings. Took Drake and Landen a few days ago, toyed with Draven before.”
“I’d have to see her to know. But it almost sounds like Xavier is trying to get you to waste one of your kills on her.”
“Tried. Can’t kill her.”
“Yeah, but what if he puts the real one in front of you and you do? Then he’ll know for sure you are who he thinks you are, and your clock will start ticking at a rapid speed.” He scratched out the sand drawing. “It’s going to hurt really bad.”
“Killing? It’s not going to be easy,” I said with a sigh.
“No, the mark. It will hurt when it is created. If you are not strong, it could be enough to take you out. You guys have been played, which isn’t a surprise considering that you are up against shock. Never really know what to expect with him.” He reached for the guitar beside him. “We need to figure out who Xavier’s first is.”
“Do I need to ask Silas? He was in Pompeii.” All that got me was glares from each of them.
“He was there in the end. For Xavier to go and get someone to kill Aden or whoever, he had to have known who or what you saw - that if you and Draven saw each other, it would all click into place.”
“Aden.”
“Which doesn’t make sense either. Why would they open him up just for you to see the plot of the war?” Cashton said as he began to adjust the strings. “Maybe they were trying to throw him off his target, crash his mind so he couldn’t move forward.”
“Which is...?” Draven asked sternly, knowing that any enemy of his brother was an enemy of his.
“Not a clue. Thinking maybe the emotion of worry, the master of that emotion. But I get the impression you guys are the closest people to him.”
We both nodded to confirm. “Yeah, well, that means he has to find the people he needs to fight his master. It’s not Madison or the two of you. I know that much.”
“Mom and Dad did not say one word. That whole time you said you saw Dad in the veil and thought he was someone else – he didn’t say anything.”