Becoming: The Balance Bringer (The Balance Bringer Chronicles Book 1)

by Debra Kristi

  “Come on, Ana, show me what you’ve really got. Like you did with the punch.” He ribs me as our staves connect once again. “I promise not to go easy on you. Warrior to warrior.” He’s rich with challenge, driving me harder with every move he makes.

  A desire to meet his dare flares through my core. Pulling back, I twirl my staff to the ready, take stock of my surroundings and opponent, and clear my mind. Totally focused, I swing in on the left, then the right, connecting both times. I catch him off-guard when I swiftly slide my staff between his feet. I spin him off the ground, and he smashes to the floor, losing his staff. I kick it away. Jumping back to his feet, he’s quick to engage. We jab, thrust, and block, both focused on besting the other. He ducks as I twirl my hanbo, and I skim the top of his hairline.

  Ry’s gaze follows my every flinch, his muscles straining against his skin, at the ready. He knocks my staff free and laughs as he shoves me away. I taste the salt of my sweat running down the side of my face. Snatching my discarded staff, I swing into his right side. He catches it with both hands, and we struggle with the hanbo between us. Hit by inspiration, I act without thought or hesitation.

  My fist slams into his face. In the second it takes him to recover, I glide under the staff and come at him from the front, ramming my fist into his chest. He stumbles backward, and I kick him in the stomach. He doesn’t go down, although he releases his hold of the hanbo. Suddenly he’s flying through the air at me, and we flip over each other. We land painfully, with me on my back and Ry holding the staff at my chest.

  “You give up, Ana?”

  I spit in his face. He winces but holds steady.

  “Good girl. Evil will never fight fair. Remember that. They have an advantage if you insist on playing by the rules.”

  “What does any of this have to do with Hollywood?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  I narrow my eyes at him, bring my knee up, and connect. I go light and low. His crumbling reaction is instantaneous. Shoving him aside, I yank the hanbo free and put distance between us before the next move.

  “Dirty move. You’re learning.” His voice is rough and strained, yet he’s already standing, his eyes cold as steel.

  I square my shoulders. “You should have worn a cup.”

  He strides forward, beckoning me with one hand. He baits me, flushing my system with heat. I attempt to kick him. Instead, he catches my foot, slamming me to the ground. I try again, only to meet more failure, this time landing across the room without a weapon. Ry charges, and we engage until he kicks me full-force in the gut. It’s like someone slammed a small Toyota pickup into my stomach.

  It’s time to end our little game, and so I come up jabbing, adding a cross and a hook, surprised to get as many hits in as I do. Ry’s momentarily stunned. A funny expression spreads across his face, the same look he gave me earlier. Out of nowhere, he flips backward before I have time to react. I fall, slamming into the floor and cracking my skull. A flash of blinding white pain fills me. I feel something warm and wet. Rolling over onto my side, I use my shirt to wipe liquid from my mouth. The room shimmies.

  Ry extends his hand. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I think so. Ouch.” A pain splinters through my abdomen when I start to sit up.

  Ry kneels beside me and starts to lift my top. “Let me look at that.”

  I slap him away. “What are you doing?”

  “You were obviously cut in the fall. I want to make sure it isn’t deep. I promise to be a gentleman.” Blood is spreading across the side of my top. I exhale heavily and shift my hands out of the way, letting him know I’ll cooperate.

  Carefully, he lifts my shirt enough to see the wound. I choose not to look and instead stare straight ahead, glancing at the top of his head every so often. I watch him, how gentle he is as he tends to my wound. As he always has been with me. And yet, he’s so strong on so many levels, as he just proved.

  Ouch! I flinch.

  He glances up. “Sorry, did that hurt?”

  I shrug.

  “I’m going to grab something from the car. You wait here.”

  “Where would I go?” I say with sarcasm, causing him to laugh as he jogs off.

  He returns with a towel, bandages, antiseptic, and a bottle of water. The guy is always prepared. He cleans my wound, bandages me up, and decides I’m done for the day.

  “What would I do without you,” I say as he lifts me and carries me to the car. I lean as far away as I can, trying to put distance between us.

  “Be dead ten times over by now.” He wrinkles his nose at me.

  I huff and mumble, “Sure I would.”

  When he parks the car in front of the house, he slings his arm across the seat and seizes the moment to look me over, as if appraising me. A mild smile plays at the corner of his lips. He takes a deep breath, exhales, and nods.

  “What’s up with you today?” I lean away from him, cross my arms.

  His face lifts, his eyes brightening. “What do you mean?”

  “Feeling good I knocked you on your ass…or feeling good I got sliced open?”

  “Oh, come on. You know I don’t want to see you get hurt.” His brow furrows. “I’m happy to see you finally coming into your own.”

  “I don’t get it. Haven’t we been working toward this for the past two years?”

  “Hell yes!” His fists knock on the dashboard, and the car falls deathly silent.

  I stare at him. A part of me wants to push him, but that won’t get me the answers I seek. “But what you said about me coming into my own… What else is going on?” I twist in the seat to face him, instantly regretting it when hot pain sears through my side.

  He shakes his head. “Ana, I want to talk to you, but—”

  “But what?” Blood rushes to my face. I squeeze the seat’s leather in my palm. “Tell me!”

  Relief washes over his face, as if I’ve said exactly what he needs to hear.

  “Ana, listen to me. There will be no Hollywood. All this work and preparation is for something far more meaningful.”

  I wrinkle my brow.

  “It’s a lot to come to terms with in the beginning, but I promise you will eventually understand.”

  “Why keep it a secret in the first place?” I snap. “Telling me half-truths isn’t going to help me or anyone else. What about the Triune? Hiddenkel? Am I even human, Ry?”

  “Oh.” He rubs his chin between his fingers. “You know a lot.”

  “No thanks to you or Mom.”

  “Well. What’s it mean to be human, anyway?” he jokes, his smile dropping instantly when I don’t laugh. “Try to understand, the secrets were to protect you. Your mother wanted you to have a normal life. I now feel you have a right to know, better prepare yourself, but she doesn’t necessarily agree.”

  “And you kept the secret because she told you to?”

  He bows his head in affirmation.

  “Then why are you telling me all this now? Why did she have that kind of power over you in the first place?”

  His body jerks with a silent laugh. “She was the ranking officer, until seven months ago.” He watches me closely.

  My eye twitches. “Military?”

  “Something like that,” he responds, eyes still tight on me.

  “And things changed...” My hand flies to my breast, and my breath catches. Seven months ago. The seventh moon after my eighteenth birthday.

  I’ve outranked my mother.

  A grin tugs at the corner of his lips, and his head tilts slightly forward. “I see you understand.”

  “Just like that? All this time, and it was that easy?”

  He turns away, his face morphing into an expression I know all too well. He doesn’t want to tell me.

  He peers out the front window. “It was the way you said it. You didn’t ask. You demanded.”

  “Today. That sparkle in your eye. You were excited. I was experiencing some new strength because of the whole seventh moon thing, wasn�
��t I?”

  He shrugs.

  I jump into position, tuck my knees up on the seat. Facing him, I plant my palms on my thighs. I’m as jittery as if I swallowed an entire carafe of cappuccino. I don’t even care about the ache in my side.

  “You have to do what I say!” I belt out in utter excitement.

  He cracks his knuckles and turns to face me. “Don’t let this go to your head. I don’t do anything I don’t want to. Ever.”

  I gaze at my lap, feeling the sting of his hidden message just now. I remember him pushing me away, and I’m glad he did, because I know now I never wanted him. I was only lonely and looking to fill the void. I glance up and catch him watching me.

  “Tomorrow we’ll resume practice,” he says. “That is, assuming you’re up to it.”

  “I’m not done with my questions.”

  “We’re done for now,” Ry says with a tone of finality. “You need to rest and heal.” He leans across me and opens the door.

  “Tomorrow.” I slip out of the car and gaze through the window. “Where do you get all these tactics?”

  He smiles smugly. “Internet.”

  I frown, letting him know I don’t buy that line one minute.

  The first order of business is to clean my bloody shirt before Mom sees it and freaks out. I yank it off and examine Ry’s handiwork. Carefully peeling back the bandage, I see a two-inch cut along my rib cage. It appears shallow and should heal quickly. I throw on a comfy cami and a pair of shorts and head to the laundry room.

  Blood mixes with the water, morphing it into a nasty rust color. So much stuff is piled on the shelf above the washer, it’s difficult to find what I’m looking for. I start sifting through everything before finding the spot treatment. When I yank a towel free from a stack of various mismatched rejects, the whole pile shifts, exposing a book.

  I extract it for closer examination and am surprised to find Mom’s journal, the one from the floral shop. My bloody shirt forgotten, I run my fingers over the journal’s cover, certain the secrets kept from me now draw me to the book.

  Journal in hand, I steal off to my room, shutting the door for added privacy. I flip through the pages once again and notice something I didn’t see before. Not every entry is from Mom. Someone else wrote in this journal, and on a regular basis.

  For every time Mom wrote to this Marduk person, Marduk wrote her back. How could I have missed that? For the most part, his words to her are enchanting. He fills her in on the struggle or war previously mentioned, while professing his love for her often. It makes me happy my mom once knew great love. I’ve never seen her in love, and it’s a side of her I wish I could’ve known.

  Entries confirm the evil I’ve suspected of Dreya. The family is torn. Marduk’s forces go up against Dreya’s, suffering many losses. Nothing is said of Dreya’s connection to Kaia. Mom’s people are mentioned as being separated from Marduk’s by way of race, just as Dreya hinted they should be, and so I’m left to wonder what everyone is, exactly. Three-quarters of the way through the journal, Marduk’s entries stop, and then it’s only my mom’s.

  A door slams. My body jerks to attention. I run to my bedroom door and open it a smidgen to peek down the hallway. All is clear. With the journal hidden under my shirt, I bolt toward the laundry room. The room is empty, and I’m able to safely slide the journal back between the towels. I seize my bloody shirt from the sink, quickly scrub it, and thrust it deep into the bubbly water, throwing several towels on top for camouflage.

  Crystia’s waiting for me when I return to my room, looking considerably better than she did this morning.

  “Look what I found.” She holds up a striking blue cocktail dress.

  I rake my gaze over her brilliant find. “I see you didn’t waste the day away.”

  She turns it so I can see every angle. “But do you like it?”

  “It’s beautiful! This is for the party on Friday?” I run the fabric through my fingers. It’s silky-smooth to the touch. “Is it for me?”

  “It is. You’ll look divine. I got a sweet piece for myself, as well. Together we’ll knock them delirious.” She plops onto the bed.

  “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.” Her face falls, and I instantly regret my words.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” she says softly. “You haven’t changed your mind about Friday, have you?”

  “I made a promise. I intend to keep it.”

  “Great!” Crystia says with false cheer and scoots from the room.

  Hanging my new dress in front of the closet, I sprawl out across the bed and gaze at it dreamily. Someday I hope a guy feels for me the way Marduk felt for Mom. I let myself daydream about the kind of life they might have had. A life before this. A life with the guy who planted an entire meadow for her.

  Last class of the day. Study hall again. I should be headed for the locker room, but Coach still hasn’t let me return to the swim team. Considering the cut on my side, it’s probably for the best. Although this morning it wasn’t nearly as bad. Barely noticeable, actually. It’s healing like those strange bruises did, extraordinarily fast. Mom is right about keeping that little superpower to myself. If anyone knew, they’d probably toss me in a lab for study.

  Bree shows up in study hall and plops down in the seat right next to me. I try not to act surprised. Her long black nails tap irritatingly on the edge of the desk. I attempt to ignore it, crack the spine on my trigonometry homework.

  Tap, tap, tap... Tap, tap, tap.

  I stare at her dark hair wrapped with a colorful striped scarf. It matches the colors of her long flowing skirt. The two are interrupted by a crimson, pirate-sleeved blouse that shows a thin sliver of skin along the bottom of her stomach. My crystal still hangs around her neck, now on a stretched chain dropping below the breast line. She doesn’t acknowledge me, so I focus on my homework.

  Tap, tap, tap… Thump, thump, thump.

  “I think you need to do something about Skylar,” she says, still looking toward the front of the room.

  “You think what?” My voice rises too high, and people look. I want to cover my ears, block out her nail tapping, and now foot thumping. Her chunky suede boots pack an evil punch when properly directed. The metal legs of our chairs produce the perfect pitch. “Will you stop that, please?”

  The percussion stops, and Bree makes eye contact with everyone looking our way. They abruptly turn back in their seats.

  She stares to me. “Skylar. You need to do something.”

  “Why? What’s it to you?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, looking thoughtful. “I just feel like everything is wrong right now, and you need to set it right. When I see Skylar put her arms on Jaden, or when she kisses him...” She keeps talking, and I see her mouth moving but no longer hear the words. My mind is muddled with thoughts of Jaden and Skylar kissing.

  The room is warm and getting hotter, sizzling even, with each word Bree utters. The lined paper for my homework becomes a handheld fan, and I attempt to diffuse the fever rising from within. A sudden burst of sparks flies from the lights above, and the room is thrown into darkness. The class erupts in cheers, and the teacher rouses from his chair.

  Bree’s eyes widen. “Wow. She really gets to you.”

  My body goes limp, and I stare at the blown lights above, then at my classmates exiting the room. Gathering my stuff, I follow the crowd out the door, not willing to pass up an early dismissal. I’m now less concerned about Skylar and more worried about what’s happening to me.

  Jaden is at his locker again when I enter the quad. Class hasn’t been officially dismissed yet. Why isn’t he at the pool? I’m beginning to wonder if he’s dropped swim class. He seems to be free too often during this period. Not that I care.

  I tell myself I have little interest in him and his habits.

  It’s of little interest to me the way he rubs his chin when he’s thinking.

  Or how he runs his fingers through his brown wavy hair when he laughs.

&nbs
p; Or the way—

  Oh. He’s leaving. I slam my locker shut and follow. As we cross the breezeway into the parking lot, the sun reflects off something smooth in his hand. The secret item he’s been hiding in his locker is going for a walk with him.

  Stalker girl really isn’t my forte, and maintaining a safe distance, well‒–what started out as a ten-car cushion became a seven-car distance, and now there’s only four. What’s wrong with me? He appears to be slightly obsessed with the shiny bauble in his hand. He’s glanced at it several times already. It’s a sizable, polished, milky-white stone of some kind. I’m guessing clear topaz. From the way the sun catches it, it appears to be almost perfectly oval.

  Going rigid, he halts in his tracks. I stumble over my feet from the pull between us and my awkward attempt to stop behind him. Without any provocation that I can see, he chucks the stone against the asphalt, shattering it into tiny pieces. I’m frozen. Dumbstruck.

  He spins to face me. “Did you get what you wanted?”

  I blink. “What?”

  “You were following me. Did you get what you wanted?”

  “No.” The word pops out before I can stop myself. “What was that?” I stare at the broken pieces scattered on the ground. They look like chunks of glass.

  He takes a step closer, his eyes alight with mischief. “Why did you follow me, Ana?”

  He takes another step closer, and the air around us begins to hum. My ears feel like they’re going to pop. The pull intensifies.

  “You were in my dream the other night.” I immediately throw my hand over my mouth.

  A smile tugs at his lips, and he leans against a parked car. “Was I? Was it a good dream?”

  I suddenly feel like I’m standing on hot coals, and I fight the desire to blot at my hairline. “That’s not what I meant to say. What I meant was, why were you in my dream?”

  He moves closer, causing the usual buzzing to intensify. There’s no doubt he’s the source. “How would I know?”

  Man, I am stupid for attempting to figure this one out. Closing my eyes, I press my fingers to my brow and try to think of a graceful way out of this situation. The applied pressure helps fight against the increasing dizziness. I sway slightly, and a hand steadies me.