After that, they had to return to Kiara’s room where they waited. One of the male nurses offered Caleb a spare pair of the clothes and the opportunity to shower in the staff changing rooms, which he accepted. It would be good to wash the lingering Thames from his hair and his body. He appreciated that they didn’t make him go home, even though he wasn’t family. Hallie’s parents were both on their respective flights from Australia and the US and Kiara didn’t have anyone.
Well, that wasn’t technically true.
Following his shower, Caleb went to get some fresh air. It was 5am and there was very little going on. The city around them was quiet except for a few cars here and there. He leaned his forehead and elbows against the wall, taking a minute to let his emotions wash over him away from the prying eyes of others.
Caleb stood like that for a few moments, his breaths short and fast as he tried to not lose too much control. He felt someone gently touch his shoulder and peered round to find a blurry Lily standing there.
“Hey,” she said softly, pulling on his shoulder a little so he would let go of the wall.
Usually he didn’t accept hugs from strangers, but Lily didn’t feel like a stranger. Obviously, she was upset too. Her niece had just fallen off Tower Bridge, that was terrifying even if you knew that she couldn’t die.
Lily wrapped her arms around his waist and placed her head against his chest, holding him firmly but comfortingly. He wasn’t exactly tall, which made her tiny by comparison. It didn’t take him long to place his own arms around her shoulders and press his cheek to the top of her head. She smelled faintly of lavender, which was soothing. They needed soothing right now.
Caleb lost track of how long they stood there like that, it was only when the tears finally dried up that he pulled away.
“Thank you,” he said.
“It looked like you really needed it.”
She was right, there hadn’t been anyone else around to comfort him. Master Mahmid rightfully yelled at him and the girls were both in pieces.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner, if I had known what they were going to do…”
“No, there’s absolutely no blame here, I was the one who was supposed to be responsible for them. It’s me who has to shoulder this.”
“So long as you don’t take too much of it,” she said. “Remember, the girls also chose to do this, so it’s not all on you.”
That was the sort of sensible thing that he needed to hear. He didn’t know whether she was reading his mind right now, but it was appreciated either way.
“Do you want to come upstairs and meet her?” he asked. Family could be the thing that Kiara really needed right now.
“Won’t it be too much?”
“I don’t know. But I think that honesty is the best policy from now on.”
“Of course,” Lily said.
This was a big moment for her. She’d had to keep herself a secret for so long, from everyone including her only remaining family member, everything was about to change.
“Take a breath,” he said.
Lily did. A couple, actually, just to be sure.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” she nodded. “Lead the way.”
~
Kiara was drifting. The pain medication they had her on made her head fuzzy, which made it difficult for her to think through everything that had happened. She kept considering asking Caleb what he had meant before that man showed up at the door, then the thought would slip away again. The same happened when she thought to ask who it was and why they were so angry. One thing remained whenever the other questions passed by and that was her heartache over Hallie. They were coming up on 18 hours into their 24 hours with no real news. Caleb had said that no news was good news, but she couldn’t help the fear that Hallie was going to slip away up there, and they wouldn’t know about it until it was too late.
Caleb had been gone for quite a while when he finally returned. He lingered in by the door until her attention fell on him.
“Clean?” she asked, her drowsiness coming through with her words.
“Very,” he said, his hair still damp from the shower.
Kiara couldn’t muster a smile, so silence fell instead.
“Do you feel up to meeting someone right now?”
“Is it that guy from yesterday?”
“No, not yet. It’s someone who I think could make things better.”
Kiara wasn’t sure what he meant but nodded her head. She would take anything right now to make this easier.
From behind him, a woman appeared. She had short brown hair and a dress on under her long coat. Wasn’t she…
“Lily?” Kiara murmured, unsure. She had only met the woman once after all.
“Yes, hi. Can I sit? I’ve got something to tell you.”
“If it’s that I’m going to die, we covered that already.”
Lily looked pained. “No, it’s about the secrets that have been kept from you. I think you finally deserve the truth.”
Kiara was so confused.
“Caleb?”
“Please, hear her out. I’m going to be right outside if you need me.”
After a moment, Kiara agreed to both things, watching Lily as she came and sat down beside her in Caleb’s chair. She couldn’t tell whether it was the drugs or the lighting, but now that Lily was so close, she looked like someone.
“What secrets are you going to tell me?” she asked, looking into Lily’s hazel eyes.
“The ones your parents kept from you. There’s a lot that needs to be explained and I know that Caleb will do a lot of that, but it’s important for you to know about your family in order to understand what comes next.”
“You knew my parents?” she asked, having never come across anyone who had before.
“Very well, I spent a lot of time with them when I was growing up. Because, you see, I’m your Dad’s sister.”
Kiara stared at her, hard. “What?”
“Your Mum never told you because she didn’t want you to know about your family’s history, about the tragedy that lay there. She was hoping to spare you from it, that all of this would never happen.”
“The dying?”
“And the stuff that goes with it. You see, Kiara, you’re something called a Chosen. Your Dad was one too.”
“A Chosen?”
“Centuries ago, a woman called Sitara discovered that there were people out there in the world that could see the future. A man called Kyros told her that there was this guy in a local village who was destined to die in a matter of months, but before then, he would save them all. It turned out that Kyros was the first known Oracle. Sitara watched over the man who was supposed to be their saviour and saw things that she could barely believe. In a fight, weapons would bend around him like he had an invisible force field. When he saved a family from drowning, he almost lost his own life, but a freak wind blew him and the water back to shore. Until finally, one day, raiders came to sack the village. It was his bravery that saved them all, but he was killed in the process, a few months after Sitara first heard the prophecy. She decided to try and find more like him and she became the first Guardian, starting up an order of people who were supposed to train and guide those chosen by the Oracle. Hence the name Chosen.”
The story was a lot to take in. It sounded like some of the stories which Hallie found, except neither of them had suspected that there was something huge going on behind it all.
“So, I’m like that man, the one who saved the village?”
“Yes. Caleb and the man you saw before are Guardians, and I’m an Oracle.”
“It was your prophecy?”
“Yes, I let Mindy do her own thing with everyone else. I sometimes help her get inside their heads. But with you, it was important that she told you the truth, just in case. I didn’t want you to waste the time you had left, even if your Mum wanted you to stay away from the dangerous part of it all.”
Kiara’s head was spinning. Her Mum
had lied her whole life? About her family. About her Dad. About everything. How was she supposed to take all this? What else didn’t she know?
“How… How did my Dad die?”
“It was on a mission in Ethiopia. Him and his Guardian, Ezra Mahmid, were there to help save some aid workers who had got caught in the fighting. They were able to get everyone else out alive, but only if your Dad stayed behind to hold the soldiers off. He didn’t make it back.”
Kiara pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, refusing to let the tears start again. She was so over crying at this point.
“Why couldn’t my Mum just tell me the truth? Why didn’t you?”
“If there was a chance that you could live a happy life without being tainted by all of this, then we both would have done anything to protect it. I saw what it did to your Dad, what he had to give up in order to be a hero. Your Mum didn’t want that for you.”
Kiara choked up a little. “Why did Caleb lie?”
“He was trying to protect you too. Guardians don’t usually get to know their Chosen beforehand and that’s down to me. Me hiding you from them messed everything up and I’m sorry.”
Kiara didn’t say anything, she just clenched her fists in an effort to stop herself from falling apart.
“This is so… so…” she tried to say.
“I know,” Lily replied, placing her hand over one of Kiara’s closed fists briefly. She chose not to linger just in case Kiara didn’t want her touching her.
“What am I supposed to do with all this?” Kiara asked, managing to open her eyes again without anything spilling out.
“Don’t make any decisions right away. Caleb is going to explain everything else once Hallie is awake. Give yourself some time to think it over and make your own choice. We’re all so sorry we took that away from you.”
Kiara didn’t say anything else, she just looked off at the wall. Lily was thankfully smart enough to know that she was done with the conversation.
“I’m going to leave my number with Caleb. If you want to know anything else, just ask him for it.”
Kiara glanced at Lily and then away again, slowly tilting her head in acknowledgement. She was grateful when Caleb didn’t come in right away after Lily left as she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to him either right now. It was going to take her a while to sift through all the lies and figure out what she was supposed to do. She needed to do that by herself for once.
~
Caleb and Kiara didn’t talk much after Lily’s visit. Instead they both mustered through the waiting period quietly, Caleb grading papers and Kiara flicking through the TV channels whenever she needed something new to watch. Hallie survived the rest of 24-hour period without any hiccups, but they waited another full day before trying to wake her up, just to be safe. Kiara and Caleb nervously waited around outside the room as they took the tube out of Hallie’s throat and performed all the necessary checks to make sure there wasn’t any brain damage or loss of motor function. Her parents were both delayed by bad weather, otherwise they would have been there too.
“Well, it’s still early days, but everything seems to be okay,” the doctor said when he exited the room. “So long as there aren’t any unforeseen circumstances, she stands to make a full recovery.”
The two of them breathed a massive sigh of relief, looking at each other properly for the first time all day. While Kiara didn’t hug him or anything, it looked like maybe her feelings of betrayal were beginning to fade now that she didn’t have to worry as much about whether Hallie was going to live.
“Can we go in and see her?” Kiara asked.
“Yes, but take it gently. We don’t want to stress her out too much while she’s still fragile,” the doctor told them.
“We will,” Caleb promised, then gestured for Kiara to go in first.
“Hey,” Kiara said to Hallie as she approached the bed, leaning forward to kiss her ever so carefully on the lips. “I was so scared I was going to lose you.”
“Me? Never,” Hallie croaked, managing a small smile.
Kiara took the seat by the bed, leaving Caleb leaning against the doorframe.
“The doctors told me that you were the one who pulled me out of the water,” Hallie said to Caleb, her expression telling him how much she appreciated it.
“I wouldn’t thank me yet,” Caleb warned.
“Why?” Hallie asked.
“He lied to us the other day when we came to ask him about your research. You were right all the long, there is something going on,” Kiara explained.
“You lied?” Hallie looked surprised, which wasn’t what he was expecting from the usually fiery young woman. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“A bad thing,” Kiara said.
“Meh, I dunno,” Hallie countered. “I’d shrug my shoulders, but they’ve pretty much committed me to this ‘mummy’ look for a little while.”
If she could crack jokes when she was this messed up, Caleb was pretty sure that she was going to be just fine.
“How can you be so cool with it?” Kiara asked her.
“This is Caleb we’re talking about here, babe. If he lied, he had to have a good reason. He’s one of the best people that I have ever known.”
Caleb wanted to be touched by this, but he knew Kiara was still angry.
“Besides, even if he did lie, he didn’t tell us to climb up a 100-foot bridge after a rainstorm. We’re the ones who did the dumb thing. I’m just happy that I still get to see both of your pretty faces after what we pulled.”
Kiara had been holding onto the dishonesty part so hard that she hadn’t really gone there. He could tell because of the way she teared up.
“No, I wasn’t supposed to make you cry,” Hallie said.
“Why did we think that was a good idea?” Kiara tried to wipe her eyes, but the tears kept on coming.
“Brave stupidity. But it’s okay, we learned our lesson. From now on only you get to do that sort of shit, I’ll stay way out of it.”
Kiara nodded her head. They all knew that was for the best. No one wanted to see Hallie this badly hurt ever again.
“Now you, explain,” Hallie told Caleb. “So I can sit back and listen.”
Caleb went over some of what Lily covered with Kiara, explaining how everything worked. Kiara chipped in here and there, including why she hadn’t been found by the Guardians in the first place and why everything had spiralled out of control.
“I’m so sorry about your Dad, babe,” Hallie said to Kiara.
“I know, I wish I’d got the chance to know him.”
“You can always talk to Master Mahmid about him. I’m sure he won’t mind once he knows who you are,” Caleb suggested, figuring that the man might have a soft spot for her if what Lily had said was true about her Dad and Master Mahmid being close.
Kiara looked like she took that on board and that she was starting to warm up to him again. She would have to if they were going to train and work together.
“How did you become a Guardian?” Hallie asked him.
“My aunt had some of my Mom’s old journals stored up in her attic, they had research in them that she had done into all of this when she was a teenager. I delved deeper and decided to head out to the Citadel to find out more.”
“Citadel?” Kiara said.
“It’s where all Guardians go to live and train when they’re not travelling with their Chosen. The Elders also preside there, watching over all of us.”
“Is Master Mahmid an Elder now?” Kiara continued prompting him.
“Yes, he has been for a while now, but he still mentors me from time to time. Or berates me in this case. I lied to him too and I think it’s going to take a lot of hard work to gain his trust back.”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you,” Hallie said from the bed.
“Thanks.”
“Do Guardians run in the family too?” Kiara asked him.
“They used to, apparently, but then a Guardian broke the rules regarding when they could tell their child about everything to do with the order and it was forbidden for Guardians to have families,” he explained. “I never knew either of my parents, they both died when I was young. My Mom could have been one, but I think Master Mahmid would have told me. It’s more likely she didn’t get any further than the research written in her journals.”
“I didn’t realise we were both orphans,” Kiara said.
“Well, my story isn’t quite as dramatic as yours. It’s part of the reason I kept all this from you, I figured you had been through enough in your life without this secret order piling on a whole load of responsibility. I know it was wrong now but-”
“I don’t know, actually,” Kiara said, cutting him off. “I think if Hallie hadn’t gone looking into reasons why all of this stuff was happening, yours and Lily’s plan probably would have worked, and my life would have been much less scary for it. But then, I never would have known that I had family left or that there was a way to do something more meaningful with my life before I die. I don’t like the way all of this happened, but I’m starting to understand it.”
This sounded a lot more like the reasonable Kiara that he had come to know over the last several months. Everything was beginning to fall into place.
“What happens now?” Hallie asked.
“In a few days I have to report to the Citadel to explain what happened to the Elders. Now that we know you’re going to be okay, I should be able to come back after that and start Kiara’s training. So long as that’s what you want, of course,” he said, turning his attention to the redhead.
“I think so, yeah.”
“Good, I think you can do some really great things once you’re ready.”
“Me too,” Hallie smiled.
Caleb was really glad that they had got to talk. It would have been terrible if he’d had to leave with things still unresolved.
“I’ll leave you two alone for a while,” he said, pushing off from the wall.
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