She fell through the clouds. The wind hit her body as she fell. Her hair flew all over and her body felt alive for the first time in a while. She closed her amber eyes and concentrated on nothing else but the sound of the wind hitting her ears.
Flashes of her life with Edan passed through her mind. The first time she saw him, when he helped her. When her feelings turned from admiration to love. The first time she thought it was incredible to be in love with him. The first time she realized it was a curse when he told her about his match with Gaia. She hated how every act of kindness from him gave her useless hope. But that’s who he is, someone who would do anything for the sake of others. Willow could see him the way he was; she accepted his past and loved him no matter what. But if the only way she could stay in his life was as a friend, she would stay as his friend. His and Gaia’s. She remembered the first time she saw her after so many years, beautiful beyond words. Her long red hair floating below her shoulders. She was nice; so happy and always willing to help. Let him go, she said to herself. Let him go.
There was nothing around her. The adrenaline of the fall filled her body. The more she fell, the more she felt part of nature. Tears flew from her eyes to the sky as she accepted all the memories, pain, loneliness, and happiness she was feeling.
A sense of freedom overtook her. Freedom of accepting. She felt two strong arms carrying her like a princess, and for a moment, her feelings, her pain, and herself…it all felt weightless.
Chapter 15
The Man in the Hood
INSANE. That was the best way to describe how Edan and The Six drove. Between the high-speed switches, the absurd spins and the off-the-road shortcuts, it was clear that the twins were the ones who taught them how to drive.
Gaia was sitting in the back of the van Pink was driving when Hunter showed her a dry white rose. “Again?” Gaia complained.
“Willow said you needed to practice.” He handed her the flower.
Giving in, Gaia took the dead rose. She placed the stem between her thumb and index finger, spinning it with her fingertips. The hard rough stem turned soft and very much alive. A bright green colored the stem up to the dead petals which bloomed back into a gorgeous white rose. “For you.” She gave it back to the smiling teen.
“Less than a minute.” Shui clapped from the co-pilot seat. “Someone’s been practicing.”
“Every couple of hours every day.” Gaia glared at Hunter who kept handing her dead flowers to practice on.
“We’re stopping here!” Donovan’s voice was heard from the two-way radio. Pink parked the van behind the bikes and the Lamborghini.
Gaia was about to open her door when Edan did it from outside. He helped her out and threw his helmet on her seat. Everyone else was out of their cars waking towards the lake. “Why are we stopping?”
“Lake break!” Donovan took off his muscle shirt showing off his gorgeous eagle tattoo. “Baby girl! Cannonball,” cheered Donovan as he jumped to the lake.
Shui wielded an enormous ball of water to levitate from the lake catching Donovan in the air. He looped inside the water bubble as it raised up in the sky. His strokes were perfectly beautiful. It was evident he was from a water city. Shui released the water ball and Donovan dove into the lake.
“Wanna try?” Pink tapped Gaia’s shoulder. “It’s heaps of fun.”
“I have something more your style.” Gaia flicked her wrist. “You should take a deep breath.” A plant swirled around Pink’s wrist and catapulted her into the lake.
Pink laughed as she fell the twenty-foot drop.
“I want!” Veter and Floyd ran to Gaia begging to go next.
“Priy?” Gaia asked her best friend but she was still inside the van.
“No can do.” Priyam pushed her glasses before they finished sliding down her nose, something they did every time she was concentrating on a difficult task. “One minute.” She grabbed a metal string, heated a part of its tip with a fire crystal, and used the melted drop to repair the old circuit of a silver Walkman. She pressed the ‘Play’ button and watched, pleased with how the machine worked. “It’s alive!” she screamed with her open arms pointing at the sky. She gripped the smallest screwdriver, inserted it in the tip of the tiny screw, and tightened as hard as she could. “Done!” She hid the Walkman and jumped out of the van. “My turn.” Priyam sprinted towards the group.
Annoyed by the view, Synthia walked into the woods. “Barf…”
“Synthia.” Veter ran after her. His shirtless chest made it clear he was about to join the rest when he saw her leaving. “Where are you going?”
She pushed Veter’s massive hand away. “To the bathroom, if that’s OK with you,” she snapped.
“Be careful.” Veter put out his cigar. “Don’t go too far.”
“Don’t go too far,” she whined in a low voice. She hated seeing this popular version of Gaia. Synthia had always been, and in her mind, should always be the popular one. She hated this new world where her status was nothing. A world without makeup and selfies and people adoring her. In this new place she was treated the same way as everyone, as if she deserved something so low.
Reigniting the fire, getting hurt, blaming Gaia, having Shui stabbed; none of that was enough to make Edan leave Gaia and choose her instead. “He keeps freaking saving her, why not me?” she cursed under her breath.
Synthia was so trapped in her pity party that she wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings. She failed to notice how the trees began to change places, how the path she was walking on shifted to the opposite direction away from Edan and the rest were swimming, leading her to an unknown crossroad far away from the lake.
“He should look at me,” she whined, not understanding how a man could refuse her for someone as boring as Gaia.
“He should,” spoke a voice coming from the right side of the crossroads.
Synthia flinched at the sudden rough voice. She looked around to see where the others were but she was alone with a man in a black trench coat. His face was covered by a hood. There was something about the man that seemed terribly wrong. It was a shame Synthia was too vapid to notice.
“Ugh, stalk much?”
“You could have him,” he spoke once more.
She rolled her eyes to the stranger, “I know. Tough that bitch scarred me and stole him. Now, could you stop talking to me?” Synthia looked around to see if she could recognize any of the paths. She was absolutely lost.
“I can’t turn back what’s been done.” He paced around her like a lion circling its prey. “Nevertheless, I can help.”
“How?”
The man took a small red vile with the shape of a diamond out of the front pocket of his trench coat. “This.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” She crossed her arms with annoyance. “What’s that?”
“Call it a tonic if you want. After drinking it your beauty will blossom once again,” he said. Synthia stretched her hand to grab it but he moved it away from her reach. “Not too fast… There’s a catch.”
* * *
After asking Veter to dry them, Priyam dragged Pink to the back seat of the van. “Check this out.” Priyam placed the silver Walkman on Pink’s lap.
Pink took it. She couldn’t believe what she was holding. “Where did you find this?”
“I saw it in the last supply round.” Priyam sat on the seat next to Pink. “I noticed you keep a cassette with you all the time. Thought you might wanna hear it.”
Full of emotions, Pink hugged Priyam. “That was not the reaction I was expecting,” said Priyam, and Pink’s light-blue eyes flooded with tears. “Neither was this one.”
“Thanks, Priyam. I haven’t heard this in many years.” Pink dried her eyes.
“I’m assuming you really, really love the band.”
Pink crawled to the front seat and took out the cassette from her leather jacket. “Would you do the honors?” she offered the cassette to Priyam.
Priyam placed the cassette in the pl
ayer, she pressed play and, sharing a pair of earphones, they listened to “Alice” by Tom Waits. Pink’s eyes turned teary for the second time.
“That’s my mum’s name, Alice. This was our parents,” she said. “My dad asked my mum on a date and he bought this cassette. They used to lie down on the floor holding hands and listening to this song over and over again.” She passed her thumb over the Walkman’s buttons. “The fifth song, ‘Oh, My Love’ by John Lennon was Floyd’s and my lullaby.”
“This is the first time I’ve heard you mention them.” Priyam stretched her legs under the front seat. “Your parents.”
“Floyd and I were barely eight when they died. We don’t remember as much as we would like to.”
“What happened?”
“Private plane crash.” She slid closer to Priyam who was wearing the other side of the earphones. “After the accident, we moved in with our nana and papa. They were incredible. They raised us until the age of fifteen when we met a giant man with a heart of gold.”
“Veter?”
“The man in the flesh.” Pink stretched her legs across the seat. “My brother and I were on a hunting trip when we saw an impossibly large wolf. Floyd was as curious as he ever was. He begged me to follow the animal. We had no idea what we were going up against until it stood up on its hind legs.” She mimicked the Tracker with her hands. “It was so big but it never made a sound. We saw Veter sleeping in a tree, the wolf climbing, on its way kill him.” She pretended to throw an arrow with her empty hands. “I took an arrow and hit it right on the head. Veter woke up and found two fifteen-year-old kids saving his life from across a large field. He was so impressed that we killed the beast from such a distance that he offered to train us.”
“And then?”
“A year later we met the Boss; he was captivated by us, evidently and… Boom!” She smacked her legs. “Here we are.”
“You always have such weird stories.” Priyam laughed when the song changed to one of Pink’s favorites.
“I really appreciate this gift.” Pink squeezed Priyam’s hand. “It feels like I’ve gone back in time.”
* * *
Synthia crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I don’t care.”
“Are you sure?” hissed the mysterious man. “You won’t even resemble yourself.”
“So?” Synthia whined.
“Everything that makes you, you will disappear. Forever,” he explained. “You would be giving away your individuality for fading beauty.”
“Will it or will it not make me pretty?”
“Gorgeous.”
“Then I don’t give a crap. Give it to me.” She stretched her hand and he gave her the tonic.
With no care about the consequences, Synthia opened and drank the tonic in one sip. She took out the small pocket mirror she always had in her back pocket. After opening it, Synthia saw her reflection. The man was right, she didn’t look at all like she used to. This new Synthia had long brown wavy hair and the scar was gone. Whatever the result, Synthia liked feeling attractive again. “I won’t pay you,” she declared throwing the vial back at the man.
“You don’t have to.” He stared at Synthia like an enchanting snake. He leaned closer. “Don’t tell the others,” he whispered in her ear. “They will ask you to share it.”
Synthia headed back to the lake without even a smidge of gratitude. She was too happy with her new looks to care about anything else.
As Synthia walked away, Jinn came out of the shadows. His slimy hair covered most of the thick black mark around his eye. He sneered, showing his blackish teeth. “My king, what will you do once the others see her?”
Azazel removed his hood. A few strands of hair fell softly on his face. The black symbols on his face contrasted with his white skin and deep-blue eyes. “No one will notice. It is simply she that can see herself like that. You should know by now Jinn, humans often see only what they believe.”
Jinn combed his greasy hair away from his light-brown eyes. “What about the drops? You already gave her enough beauty, she thinks the scar is gone,” he said, worried. “She won’t come back.”
“She will.” Azazel turned around and walked away. “Her kind always take more than they need.”
Chapter 16
Janie and Rock & Roll
AFTER A CRAZY NIGHT of driving, the group reached Kansas and managed to set up camp on the Cheyenne Bottoms Refuge.
Tired as hell, Priyam rested her legs on top of a rock. She took her cup of coffee and as she was about to take a sip, the coffee levitated out of the cup leaving it empty. “I’m pretty sure when Shui said you needed to keep practicing your water wielding, she didn’t mean this.” Priyam turned to Gaia who was wielding her coffee from the other side of the kitchen.
“Probably.” Gaia flicked her fingers, bringing the coffee closer to her.
Priyam stretched her hand with the empty cup. “I’m going to be late for Floyd’s lesson,” she said while Gaia kept the coffee floating. “I see what you are doing.” Priyam thought for a second. “Cloud’s sword!”
In a beat, Gaia wielded the coffee into the shape of the Final Fantasy Buster sword. “Sorry, was that a challenge?”
“Poseidon’s trident,” Priyam dared her friend.
Gaia twisted her hand and the Buster sword morphed into a long trident. “USS Enterprise,” said Priyam.
The coffee switched to the famous Star Trek ship. “Come on Priy, yesterday’s were harder. I believe you’re losing your touch.”
Priyam slammed her hand on the table. “Veter’s face,” she announced with gravitas.
“Nice one.” Excited, Gaia wielded the coffee to resemble Veter’s face, an uncanny sight.
Priyam’s eyes filled with tears of laughter. “It looks exactly like him.” She wiped the tears with her plaid shirt. “G! Put it closer to my face.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“99% of the things we do are not a good idea,” Priyam pointed out.
“Just don’t move that much.” Gaia wielded Veter’s coffee face two inches away from Priyam’s.
“Hahaha!” She saw the reflection on a bunch of hanging crystals. “Make it talk,” she begged Gaia, and she did. “Ha, ha! You, little Prisum,” spoke Priyam with Veter’s accent.
Laughing, Gaia turned her hand and Veter’s face altered into Synthia’s face. “O.M.G like sooo not cool!” Priyam imitated Synthia.
“How about this one?” Gaia wielded the coffee into Pink’s face.
“Crikey!” Priyam lifted her hands, thrilled, copying Pink’s Aussie accent. “A cassette player. What a beauty!” Gaia changed Pink’s face into Edan’s. “Everyone, listen, we have a meeting,” Priyam impersonated their leader to perfection, down to his British accent and body language. “Brilliant, trousers, bloody hell, cheerio, Alohom—”
“I always thought I sounded a tad more… sophisticated,” Edan stated from outside the room.
Surprised by Edan’s sudden visit at the worse possible moment, Gaia jumped, losing the coffee’s wield and drenching Priyam with it.
“Go figure.” Priyam ran to the lake pulling her damp shirt away from her skin. “It’s still freaking hot.”
Amused, Edan walked towards Gaia. “Nice wielding,” he complimented her, moving his fingers across her jaw. “Is this how you always train?” he asked, sliding his hand from her cheek to the back of her neck.
“It works,” she breathed as he leaned closer. “Sometimes.”
“I noticed,” he whispered before kissing her.
Whenever she was fighting, eating, playing around, or anything else, her mind was always switching to dozens of other things… the fear of being found, what would happen to her new family, the pressure of becoming this omnipotent queen she couldn’t see of herself. Every single second of the day all of those things kept circling her thoughts, all the time, except there. In his arms.
Edan finished the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers. “I’ll be ou
t for a few hours. Try not to make any more mess.”
Gaia took a step back. “Where you going?” she asked in signs, trying to practice for Hunter.
Edan glanced at the lounge area and stared at Synthia. She was lost in a magazine. Her face looked odd. There was a dark aura he could sense but not quite figure out. Beyond the point of uneasiness each time he thought of Shui almost dying and Synthia’s knowledge towards the fire…there was something else that kept bothering him. Something had changed since Denver, where Synthia disappeared from the lake and then stopped covering her scar. He took the black motorbike’s helmet. “Klog Mor is here,” Edan answered.
Gaia laughed. “How does she get everywhere and so fast?”
“Who knows?” Donovan joined them in the kitchen. “There’s a reason why she’s the wisest of the Elder Clan. She’s dope.”
Gaia followed her march towards the golden tree. “Can I go?”
“No can do, missy.” Pink threw Gaia her Wakizashi. “We got some wicked training to do.”
“Go. I’ll be back before you notice.” Edan kissed Gaia on the lips and left.
“You heard the man!” Pink took a few swords from her black duffle bag.
“What about Priy?”
“No worries, she’s on her way to the forest where Floyd’s setting his lesson.”
* * *
Edan parked in front of a small house made of wood. He took off his helmet and climbed the crooked stairs that led to the front door.
Klog Mor opened it before he could even knock. “Morning, my boy.” She hugged him, leaving behind the faint smell of a flowery perfume.
Klog Mor took Edan inside the whimsical house and sat down on a comfy couch next to a cold Corona beer. “Congratulations,” she cheered. Her face said it all… She knew about him and Gaia.
Edan couldn’t hold back his smile. He sat down in front of Klog Mor. “Donovan told you?”
“No.” She took a sip of her bubbly beverage. “Your smile did.”
Seasons Within Box Set Page 46