“Then it will all be part of the master plan,” Devin finished. I couldn’t speak.
“I told you, Skye.” Asher was getting worked up. “I told you the Order works in frightening ways. They don’t care about anyone.”
“We work for the greater good of the world,” Devin retaliated. “We keep life in balance.”
“You don’t care about life!” I shouted. “You don’t care about anyone’s lives! I bet you don’t even care about mine.”
“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”
“That’s not true. Not if you’ll do only what the Order gives you permission to do.”
“Skye, how can you say that? I—” A curious expression replaced the mask of complacency he’d been wearing. Even Asher stopped to look. “I have to go,” he said suddenly. “I’m sorry that I can’t cure your friend. I hope you can find another way to help her.” And with that, he turned and walked out through the automatic front doors.
Asher turned to me. “I don’t know what that’s about,” he said helplessly.
Why had he walked out like that? The facts were suddenly arranging and rearranging themselves in my brain. Devin had to follow the direct commands of the Gifted in order to keep the course of fate running according to the Order’s master plan. That meant that someone had to have given him the command to fix Cassie’s car. But why would they do that unless . . . unless they didn’t want to fix Cassie’s car at all. Unless they wanted to cut the brakes. Unless they wanted to hurt Cassie.
“Asher, do you think it’s possible Devin cut the brakes on Cassie’s car?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t check them. I only checked the engine.”
“But why would the Order want him to hurt Cassie?”
“I don’t know,” he said again. “I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point. I’m going to go try to get some truth out of him, and check in with my camp. Stay here, Skye, okay? You’ll be safe here. The Order is changing the rules, and we have to act accordingly.”
“You’re leaving me?” I gasped. “Asher?”
He looked down at me, tracing his thumb across the freckles on the bridge of my nose.
“I’ll be back really soon. Don’t worry.”
And then he was gone.
I tried to think back over the last few days to what could have possibly made the Order want to hurt Cassie. I worked backward. We went to the mall while Devin worked on her car. We saw him at the Shell station. Cassie and I went to Big Mouth’s for brunch. We woke up the morning after the party, with the window open. The party . . . talking to Cassie about the campfire story . . .
Suddenly I stopped cold. Devin had been there when I’d almost told Cassie everything. His creepy stare had been the reason I’d stopped. He’d heard everything. He’d heard me almost spill all of my darkest secrets—and his. He knew Cassie was the only one I’d ever dream of telling. And if he needed me alive but the secrets to remain secrets, the surest way to keep me from telling her would be to kill her.
Could the Devin I’d come to know really be capable of something like that?
Or was Asher trying to turn me away from Devin by making me suspicious? He did have a choice. He could do whatever he wanted. And they’d certainly always been competitive. Especially when it came to me.
I was back to not knowing if I could trust either of them.
Chapter 35
I returned to Cassie’s room. Her mother had gone to get some coffee, according to Dan, who was there holding Cassie’s hand and whispering to her.
He looked up at me as I moved to the other side of the bed and wrapped my fingers around hers. “I should have told her I liked her a long time ago. I think I’ve loved her forever,” he said.
“She’s going to be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“I just . . .” I wondered if I could make a deal with the Order. Let Devin heal her, and I’ll come to your side—willingly and enthusiastically. Or maybe I could heal her myself if I concentrated hard enough.
I closed my eyes and searched for the well of power that Devin had told me about, tried to find the switch that Asher visualized when he brought forth the elements. This was important. So important. My emotions were ratcheted on high. I had to make this work. I couldn’t lose Cassie. I’d lost my mom and dad. I’d been powerless to do anything for them.
I. Could. Not. Lose. Cassie.
Grief slammed into me at the thought of my life without her. And with it came anger. Why would I go to the Order when they were the kind who would refuse to help someone simply because they hadn’t been given permission? Why wasn’t blanket permission given? See someone who needs to be helped. Help them.
Why were they stingy with their gifts?
I couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe that of Devin. He had to be there now, begging for permission. For me. He would do that for me. I knew he would.
I remembered how worried Asher had been in the snow cave when he’d discovered I was hurt. He’d said that he couldn’t help. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but now I knew he’d regretted that he didn’t have the same powers that Devin did. Yes, fire had kept us warm until we were rescued, but it couldn’t heal. It wasn’t the greater power.
The rebellious angels of long ago had paid a high price for their desire to leave Paradise.
And Paradise was what the Order provided. At least according to Devin. He wanted to go back there, desperately. He wanted to take me with him.
Could I go if Cassie died?
If Cassie died . . . if Cassie died . . . if Cassie died . . .
The refrain echoed through my head. My anger built. My frustration reached new limits. My grief threatened to consume—
A loud bang erupted from the corner of the room. I jerked my eyes open. The machine monitoring Cassie’s vitals was smoking, the readings going berserk.
“Crap!” Dan shouted, reaching for the buzzer to signal for a nurse.
I released my hold on Cassie and backed into a corner. I wanted to slide down to the floor and weep. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t help anyone. All I could do was destroy things.
The boiler, the thermostat, the bus heater so hot it burned my fingers. The avalanche. Now the machine that monitored her vitals. What if I’d sent this negative energy through Cassie and killed her?
Two nurses came rushing through the door. “I need you to leave,” one ordered.
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked.
One nurse was messing with the machine, unhooking Cassie, as the other pressed a stethoscope to her chest, listening to her heart. Dan just stood there, looking as lost as I felt.
“She’s going to be okay, right?” I said. “She has a heartbeat, doesn’t she?”
“I really need you to leave,” the nurse taking care of the machine repeated.
When Dan and I both just stood there like statues, she grabbed our arms and ushered us out into the hallway.
“What the hell happened in there?” Dan asked when the nurse disappeared back inside Cassie’s room and the door closed behind her.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
We sat in a couple of chairs in the hallway. Eventually the nurses emerged. They confirmed there was no change in Cassie, but the monitoring machine was destroyed. They’d wheeled the broken one out and brought in another.
I wanted to tell myself that the machine was old, faulty. But who was I kidding? I’d ruined it. Because I couldn’t control my powers.
When everything was properly set up again, the nurses gave us permission to go back in. Dan was pushing open the door when he looked back to see that I was lingering in the hallway. “You coming?”
I couldn’t risk doing something that would inadvertently hurt Cassie. “No, I think I’m going to head on home. I’m really tired.”
It was a stupid, lame thing to say. But there were no words I could utter that would make my leaving seem all right.
“If—” I shook my head. “When she wake
s up, call me.”
I could tell from the confusion in his eyes that my leaving was the very last thing he expected.
“Yeah, sure, okay,” he said. As if I wasn’t leaving only Cassie, but him as well.
I watched as he pushed open the door and went inside. I desperately wanted to go with him. But I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t belong here any longer. The problem was, I didn’t know where I belonged.
Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I headed toward the elevator, then changed my mind. The way my emotions were rioting, I had no idea what would happen when I pushed the button for the first floor. I could knock the elevator out of commission or send it plummeting to the concrete below. So I located the stairs and hurried down them, flight by flight, grateful that none of the lights exploded as I passed beneath them.
When I reached the bottom of the stairwell, I went through the door marked EXIT and emerged in the parking lot. It was dark, the cars illuminated with halogen lights. I’d lost track of the time since I’d entered the hospital. I was surprised to find that night had fallen.
As I neared my car, I dug my car keys out of my purse and pressed the Unlock button. I reached for the door—
“Devin is losing his resolve.” Raven’s voice sent a piercing fear down my spine. I looked over. She was standing beside me, and I didn’t know where she’d come from.
“I knew he wasn’t cut out for this mission,” she continued. “I told him he should ask to be taken off it—for his own sake—but he wouldn’t listen. Something about pride and integrity, blah blah blah.” She brought her hands out from behind her back. In them was a twisted metal object. “Oh, don’t look so confused, little innocent Skye. You know exactly what this is. It’s the brakes to your friend’s car. And do you know how I got it?” Raven smiled slightly. “You’re worried it was Devin, aren’t you?”
“You bitch,” I said in a gravelly voice.
“Skye, I’m only looking out for you! If they won’t tell you what’s really going on, I will. And who knows? Maybe in the process we’ll trigger those elusive powers of yours.” She came toward me, and I found myself backing up against the side of my car.
“Here’s how it works, princess. I know you’d love to think that Cassie’s accident is the first time the Order has become, let’s say, involved in your life. The Order is involved in everyone’s lives, at some point or another. But yours above all, because you’re special.” She spat the word, like she couldn’t wait to get it out of her mouth.
“Let’s have a little history lesson. Let’s see, where to start? Your favorite color is blue, isn’t it, Skye? Because you liked the tune of “The Blue Song” on Sesame Street? How cute. Then you learned about the color sky blue, and you thought it was named after you. I mean, it’s so precious I could scream. In another house, on another street, too far away for you to have met him yet, another little boy loves the same lyrics, even so much as to ask his parents to buy him only blue clothing. On the first day of kindergarten, you walk into your shiny new classroom. There are empty seats next to a little blond girl with pink ribbons in her hair, a girl wearing a yellow dress, and a boy wearing a sky blue sweatshirt. And who does little Skye sit next to?”
“How do you know that?” I whispered.
“His name is Daniel Rosenberg, and he’s your best friend until you miss the bus one morning a few days later. . . .”
“Who told you all this?” My hands were shaking.
“Don’t interrupt, Skye. Didn’t your Aunt Jo teach you that it’s rude? Where was I? Right, you miss the school bus a few days later, and while you’re walking down the street you find a notebook with the name Cassie Saunders inside. And when you find Cassie and give her back her notebook, you realize she has peanut butter on her fingers. You discover you both love to put peanut butter in chocolate pudding cups. This is the basis of an eleven-year friendship.”
“How do you . . . ?” We still ate those sometimes.
“Skye, the Gifted see everything. They make things happen. They know. And should I bring up the reason why you’re oh-so-terrified of birthdays? Your own, in particular?”
“No,” I whispered.
“Could it be that your parents died on your sixth birthday, Skye? In a—oh, what a coincidence—car accident?”
“How dare you bring that up,” I said. “That day changed my life. That day changed everything, forever. It was my fault.” I was screaming, crying. “Mine! I lived and they didn’t! I did this to them! And you have no right—”
And then it all came crashing down on me. Coincidence? What had Devin said—the Order works in circuitous ways? They caused Cassie’s car accident. Was it possible that . . .
“The Order killed my parents,” I said numbly. “They orchestrated that car crash. Just like they did Cassie’s.”
“Bravo.” Raven burst into applause. “You deserve a big gold star.”
“They wanted me dead, too, didn’t they? They saw something about me, and they wanted to prevent my powers from ever emerging.”
“Oh, they were right about you!” Raven cooed. “So very smart.”
“But I didn’t die.”
“No, you didn’t die.”
“How come?”
For the first time, Raven looked slightly uncomfortable. “No one knows. The Gifted saw that you would die alongside your parents. But then . . . you didn’t. It was the first and only time this has ever happened. It’s why they wanted to watch you so closely. To see what would develop. Until . . .”
“Until what?”
“Now they can’t read your future at all anymore.”
“I already know that.”
“Good for you. But did you already know,” she said this mockingly, “that they can’t read the future of those around you, either? You’re blurring the destinies of others.”
I inhaled sharply. “I am?”
“You’ve certainly changed Devin’s destiny,” said Raven, leveling me with an even gaze. “The Gifted can no longer see it. And it’s only since he’s been around you.”
I swallowed hard.
“He used to be mine,” she snarled. “And you took him from me.”
“I didn’t take him!” I protested. “He isn’t mine.”
“You’d be surprised,” she said, “how much he is.”
Silence echoed between us.
“What?” I whispered.
“Devin is a Guardian, like me. We do not act on our own whims. The choices we make are not our own.” She paused, and I thought I detected a sadness creeping into her voice as she said, “Everything is decided for us. And whatever feelings are growing inside of him are going to destroy him. I know him well enough to know that.” Her eyes grew hard again.
“Feelings?” My heart hammered at my rib cage. What was she talking about?
“Yes. You’re causing him to do things, things he’s not supposed to do. They ordered him to sabotage the brakes. Luckily I checked. If they found out he disobeyed a direct order . . . I don’t even want to think about what they’d do to him. It would not be pleasant. I can tell you that.”
“If they can’t see his destiny, then how do they know that what he’s feeling for me isn’t what he’s supposed to feel?”
“Because they could see it at one time. They lost sight of it only right before your seventeenth birthday. It’s got something to do with your eyes.”
Flashing silver. Little silver bells. When they ring, we’ll know.
“That’s why they’re watching you so closely. Because you are a dangerous girl, Skye Parker. Very, very dangerous to them.”
“Why would they wait until my sixth birthday to try to kill me?”
“Oh, Skye, silly Skye. They tried to kill you lots before then. That one just had the most . . . collateral damage. The Gifteds’ sight is perfect, but sometimes sloppy Guardians come and mess. It. Up.” She held up the brakes to the car.
“And they haven’t tried to kill me since.”
“Well, after t
hat day, they knew you were more special than they’d ever realized. They wanted to see what happened.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Because,” she said. “Someone has to. And they told me to.”
“I thought Devin was the Guardian they sent to watch me.”
“I thought you were catching on, Skye. They sent Devin for an entirely different reason. Think about it. Haven’t you gotten all of your information from me—not him?”
Could she be right? My heart hammered away. What if Devin wasn’t sent here to protect me after all?
“He was supposed to lure you—make you want him enough that you would willingly come over to our side.”
Could he have been playing me all along? But if so, why hadn’t he followed the order about Cassie’s brakes?
“Anyway,” she said. “Hope your Aunt Jo’s okay. Pity about that trip leader of hers breaking her leg in that nasty fall. What was it? A faulty carabiner? And now Jo is out in the woods with no way to reach you? I do hope nothing happens to her.”
Anger unlike anything I had ever felt was blooming in the pit of my stomach.
“If you touch her, I’ll kill you,” I said, my voice rising. “You can’t take her from me! Not after you took my parents and Cassie!”
The ground beneath us began to shake, and car alarms began going off. Raven’s eyes went wide. “It’s true,” she said in awe.
“Leave me alone!” I cried. “Leave all of us alone!”
Then the parking lot lights went out, and I was someplace else.
Chapter 36
It was a vast white landscape, like the Antarctic during a snowstorm. I couldn’t tell if we were indoors or out. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t warm. No breezes or gusts of wind blew through my hair. It didn’t feel like much of anything.
Slowly, through a white mist, shapes began to materialize. The curve of an arch here, the angular edge of a step there. Figures were moving slowly. But I couldn’t make out anything other than the vaguest of shapes. I couldn’t even tell if they were human.
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