The 52nd (The 52nd Saga Book 1)

by Dela

  “Lucas!” I cried again, reaching for him as he jumped into the boat.

  His hands on my cheeks, he frantically searched my face for the slightest scratch. There was dirt on his. A moment later, his brows released the worry they held. Then he grabbed my shoulders and frowned.

  “Zara, what were you doing?” he asked.

  “What was I doing?” I repeated, confused.

  He stared at me incredulously, as if we spoke in different languages. “Why were you taking your hood off?”

  “I . . . I . . .” I stuttered, realizing with horror that I had no memory of doing so.

  He swooped me up and carried me to the end of the dock, where his family stood in a semicircle. As Lucas removed the cloak, I looked anxiously to my protectors. Dirt clung to Dylan’s clothes, and pine needles stuck out of his hair. There was a hole in Gabriella’s left sleeve, and her prized hair was tangled in knots. Niya and Malik lay on their bellies, tongues lolling as they panted. Dried blood ran down Tita’s nose and Valentina’s cheek, while Andrés had a fresh gash across his forehead that appeared to be resealing itself.

  Valentina stepped forward. “Are you okay?”

  I stumbled, more from fear of what I felt than what I saw. The desire I had warned Lucas about had nearly taken over, and now I was confused about how I felt safe with them too. I hadn’t expected that. I hardly noticed that Lucas had nuzzled close to me. His body was trembling.

  Andrés looked at his watch. “Lucas, please take Zara home. You will need to move quickly to make it before her parents wake up.”

  “We’ll see you in a few hours at the airport,” Valentina said, gently rubbing my arm.

  I lifted my weak head from Lucas’s warm chest. “No, wait. What happened?”

  “The executioners are on their way back to the Underworld. And Xavier . . .” Andrés sounded unsure.

  “That was too close,” Dylan added.

  “He’s getting stronger. I can feel it,” I blurted.

  Their heads snapped to me, the pressure of royal eyes making me timid.

  “What do you mean?” Lucas was first to ask.

  I swallowed before I could speak. “It isn’t just the blacking out. It’s the connection. It’s controlling me in a way I can’t resist.”

  Andrés moved. “Tita, is there any way Xavier might gain power without Zara?”

  “No.”

  He pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “Lucas, take Zara home in my car.”

  When Lucas nodded, there was a sudden pressure against my back, pushing me toward the car.

  “Wait, I want to stay. What’s going to happen?” I protested.

  “We wait for Xavier to return to the Underworld so that we can trap him down there,” Lucas answered, pressing his hand again against my resisting back.

  And so the plan began, slowly, secretly. My shivering was relentless, even with the heater blasting inside the black Mercedes-Benz. Lucas was entering the freeway by the time the warmth heated through my bones. It was a perfect, cloudless morning, but I couldn’t seem to breathe normally.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Lucas eyed me as he pulled up to my sleeping house.

  I looked up to my room on the second story. “Am I safe?”

  He followed my gaze and smiled slightly. “You are, yes.”

  “So the executioners are out of time? They can’t come after me anymore?”

  “Yes. But if we are breaking the treaty, I wouldn’t be surprised if they do too.”

  “What!?”

  “Calm down. This is why you are coming with us to Mexico. We will protect you until everything is back to normal.”

  I rested my head on the seat and stared out the tinted window as a new problem abruptly formed. “So, how do you propose I get back in my room without anyone seeing?”

  His arrogant chuckle was comforting. “I would think you trusted me more.”

  “I do trust you,” I admitted, though it didn’t sound very convincing.

  He hopped out, half snickering and half shaking his head, muttering something in Spanish. He stopped on the driveway under my window and waited. I stayed in the car, looking from him to the window and then to the front door, which I desperately wanted to use.

  “To get up there, you have to come to me,” he joked.

  “How are you so sure we won’t be seen?” I asked, moving slowly over the slippery driveway.

  He sauntered forward, pulled me into his arms, and jumped. My eyes clamped shut as I tugged at his shirt for support, and then it was over. The air was suddenly warm. I opened the eye closest to the window first and looked around my room. Lucas put me down and took a step back as he ran his hand through his tangled hair.

  “Thank you,” I mouthed quietly. The clock read six o’clock, but I couldn’t be sure my parents were still sleeping.

  All of a sudden, his face seemed strained.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “We’re alone, in your room,” he stated, deep in thought.

  The rush of the Solstice battle had left me too exhausted to deal with his problems. Not after what I just went through. Frustrated, I plopped down on the unmade bed and looked up at the ceiling. He stood there like a statue until I rolled my head over to him.

  “Are you going to do something about it?” I stabbed sarcastically.

  His eyes finally blinked as he moved to the side of the bed and looked down. He was so close I could see his chest rise when he breathed in. My cheeks suddenly felt much warmer. I had again underestimated the power he had over me. I braced myself for the collision of his body against mine—I nearly imagined it, wanting it—but all he did was sigh.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking of me. You don’t know me,” he said.

  “Because you won’t let me.”

  He paused a good three breaths, his eyes locked on mine. “I envy you . . .”

  “For what?”

  “You live in the moment, no matter the consequence.”

  “You should try it sometime,” I said, stretching my arms above my head.

  Lucas took another big breath. This time his shirt pulled tightly over his chest, and the roundness of his pecs peered through. “It’s impossible. I fear the consequence too much.”

  “I have a friend who’s allergic to sugar. Literally. His throat starts to itch when he eats too many sweets. Does that mean he never eats candy? No. In fact, he eats it until his stomach hurts and he can’t take any more.”

  “Sounds like an idiot.”

  “Sounds like someone who’s living life. He chooses to be gratified now and deal with the consequences later.”

  Lucas shook his head and laughed mockingly. “If only my consequence was an upset stomach.”

  “What does it matter what the consequences are? What’s wrong is wrong; the consequences don’t change it to a lesser degree. If you’re going to choose your actions based on consequences, you don’t know who you are. If you’re going to do something because you want to, no matter what the consequences, then I reckon you know who you are and what you want.”

  “I’ve been alive for more than twenty generations’ worth of your ancestors, and you think I don’t know what I want? And who ever said you were wrong? What if I thought you were right?”

  I gulped. “If I was wrong for you, what are the consequences if I say ‘yes, you don’t know what you want’?” It was rude, but it was the truth, and I needed to pronounce it slowly and clearly. “Y-e-s. You don’t know what you want, whether I’m wrong or right for you.”

  The glare of his eyes hardened, and his Adam’s apple moved slowly downward, and then he took a step back. “You’d better get some rest; we’ve got a long trip coming,” he said, expressionless.

  I propped myself up on my elbows. “But—”

  “We’re done tal
king about you and me. I don’t care what the stupid prophecy says. I care about you, and me—with you—is a cause with too many consequences.”

  “Like what?”

  “First, I could hurt you.”

  I rolled my eyes, remembering all the times a boy had broken up with me. “I’m stronger than you think.”

  “I’m not talking about me breaking up with you; I’m talking physically. If you haven’t noticed, I’m much stronger than you. I can hurt you . . . badly.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “I haven’t been with a human since I’ve changed, so I really don’t know how hard . . . okay, I’m not talking about this anymore.”

  I threw my hands in the air. “You started it.”

  “And another reason, of course, is that I don’t age.” He stepped sideways, pulling at his hair, then rested his fists atop his skull in the mess. The crooks of his arms blocked portions of his face, but I could see enough of the pain creasing his face. “It makes me sick.”

  “That I’ll get ugly and wrinkly?” My heart nearly stopped. In one swift step he was at my side, his hands reaching for mine, but then he stuffed them in his pockets instead.

  “Hell no,” he said. He sounded upset that I would even suggest it. My heart continued to pump at its normal pace. “It makes me sick that I could never grow old and wrinkly. Nobody should be immortal. It’s unnatural. Couples belong together in all their forms, and they should change together too. I could never give that to you.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What else? What else is stopping you from doing what you really want?”

  He glanced at the corner of my room. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Try me.”

  We heard footsteps a few doors down and fell silent, waiting to see if they would approach. When they didn’t, Lucas took a step toward the window.

  “It would be wise to rest before the flight,” he whispered.

  “But I thought the flight wasn’t that long.”

  “It’s not. It’s the other part that’s going to be long. All this time we’ve talked about the Underworld, but there is a whole other world you’ve yet to learn about.”

  “Which world is that?”

  His gentle lips crinkled upward. “Mine.”

  I imagined he heard the galumph in my heart and thus gave me a moment to breathe before he said, seriously, “I’ll be here at two thirty to pick you up.”

  “You’re leaving me alone?” I started to panic.

  “Dylan and Gabriella are tracking them. And I shouldn’t be here in your room, alone.”

  I raised my eyebrows, waiting for more excuses as he lingered, but none came. He looked around the room, resisting, his fists balled in his pockets. It should have been me feeling embarrassed, the way my room looked like a pigsty, but I didn’t care. I stared him down. Just do it, I thought.

  “I need to clean myself up,” he finally coughed, now looking outright uncomfortable. Avoiding eye contact, he hurriedly crossed to the windowsill. “I’ll see you soon.”

  He escaped out the window before I could speak another word.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Playa de Castillo

  I shut the window and drew the drapes, suddenly drowsy now that my body had thawed in the heat of the house. There were clusters of clothes and shoes on the floor that belonged in my suitcase, but I could rest for a while. Lucas wouldn’t be here for six more hours.

  The alarm woke me at two o’clock. I wiped drool off my cheek and went to the bathroom to splash cold water over my face, hoping it would ease the pounding in my head. I was running a brush through my hair robotically when I heard familiar cackling downstairs. I flew down the steps and stopped at the bottom, clutching the railing.

  “You’re home,” I said.

  The twins turned with mouths full of Pop Tarts.

  “Case and I got done earlier than we thought, thanks to our new professor, who let us off the hook,” Max said cockishly.

  “What professor? What hook?”

  “Whoa there, sis. We can’t tell you all our college secrets. And besides, what kind of question is that?”

  I shook my head at the idiot. “It’s no secret, you moron.”

  “Nice to see you too,” Casey added. He sounded annoyed.

  I realized that they didn’t remember. It was Dylan who had made them forget. I left them and went back to my room. I flipped on the TV, paranoid about anyone noticing last night’s peculiar stormy weather. But it soon became background noise as I threw anything that might be of use in a hot climate into my suitcase.

  “Mom, hurry please. Lucas will be here soon,” I hollered as I tossed in a pair of gladiator sandals.

  I frantically smoothed out the wrinkles in the bedspread and then ravaged it again to find anything left behind. I had picked up a gray tank when a word struck me like lightning. I dropped the shirt and spun to the TV.

  “Government officials are leaning toward the conclusion that this was a freak storm. However, given the unusual size of the electromagnetic field that accompanied the storm, NOAA scientists will be running tests and observing over the next two weeks,” the weatherman said.

  I sighed and flipped the TV off. I picked the shirt up again and moved it to the suitcase.

  “Forgetting something?”

  I about-faced, and my stomach dropped at the sight of him. Lucas was leaning back in my desk chair, his feet rested atop my homework, dangling my bikini top on one finger. The twigs were gone from his hair, and his face had been freshly shaven, revealing the smoothness of his ageless skin. His grin was fluid this morning, the flirty kind that made my breath skid and eyes flutter. I snatched the green polka-dot bikini away from him.

  “How’d you get in here?” I whispered worriedly as I stuffed the suit into the outside pocket of the suitcase.

  “You really should lock your window.”

  When I realized he wasn’t going to leave, anxiety took over. “The storm is on the news right now.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re not worried that anyone saw something?” Just saying it let the panic loose, and my breathing quickened.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Are you?”

  “Yes!”

  Lucas stood. “No one saw anything, so you can stop worrying about it. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  He kissed me on the cheek and then vanished out the window. Half a second later, the bells on the front door jingled as he entered.

  “Mom, Dad, we have to go right now. Remember, the airport’s in Reno!” I yelled.

  I pulled my phone off my nightstand and began flipping through it as I reached for the suitcase on the bed, but my hand swung through empty space and I stumbled against the mattress. Lucas!

  Downstairs, the barefaced prince sat on the living room couch next to Max. Casey faced them, leaning against the wall. There was an awkward silence when I entered, as if I’d interrupted a conversation about myself. The twins glanced at me, and I realized suddenly just how much they despised him.

  “I was just telling Lucas that if anything happens to you while you’re gone, he’s going to have us to come home to,” Max said.

  Lucas held back a faint smile. I gave him a scornful look.

  Casey stepped away from the wall. “Zara, just because you’re going to be in Mexico hobnobbing doesn’t mean you won’t have a curfew,” he announced flagrantly.

  “Dad didn’t tell you?” I asked, confused.

  “Tell us what?” they both said.

  “Boys, stop heckling your sister,” Dad said. He wrestled a heavy suitcase down the stairs and set it near his feet. “I would have told you earlier, but you didn’t exactly come home last night. The Castillos have been so kind as to invite you to their home for Christmas. Now, go get your suitcases,
we leave for the airport in five. ”

  Max and Casey shot Dad a surprised look, then glanced at each other in utter shock. Then their annoying cackles filled the room.

  “See, Case, this is how we roll!” Max said, and they chortled as they disappeared to their rooms.

  I imagined them like this the entire trip and cringed. As long as they’re safe, I reminded myself.

  Once Dad was back upstairs, Lucas effortlessly lifted his giant suitcase in one hand. It swayed gently back and forth, as if it was full of feathers, as he carried it to the door. I followed him outside, where the silvery air spun with bitterly cold sweetness. I shivered, wondering if I’d ever be back at all. When I glanced back to the one thing keeping me safe, I realized how odd it was that he wore shorts and flip-flops and never shivered. I checked for goose bumps, but his skin was smooth as polished stone.

  “Seriously?” I said, shivering even in the sheepskin lining of my bomber jacket.

  “What?”

  “Could you be any more obvious? Shorts in the winter?”

  “We’re going to the beach. And besides, I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have.”

  We passed the sidewalk bend and approached a new black Escalade parked on the driveway. I stopped, but Lucas kept walking.

  “Whose car is this?” I gasped.

  He popped the hatch and leaned back so that it wouldn’t clip him as it opened. “Mine.”

  “Since when?”

  “Today.”

  “You bought a car just to take us to the airport?” I asked, perplexed.

  He laughed. “No, I bought a new car because my window got crushed,” he reminded me.

  “Most normal people would have just bought a new window.”

  He chucked Dad’s suitcase into the back and smiled. “You’re probably right, but I don’t place myself in that category.”

  I was silent when he tossed the keys at me. “I’m going to get the rest of the suitcases.”

  The car-lot sticker was still attached to the front window. I peeled it off, bunched it into a ball, and buried it underneath my seat. So I can see better, I told myself, in case anything dead tries to fly at me again. Just as the seat warmed, Max and Casey walked out empty-handed. Lucas must have insisted on carrying their suitcases. The twins were still enthusing about their fortunate turn of events as they slid into the seat behind me. Max wrapped his arm around my chair.