by Kristie Cook
“Shut up, Asia,” both men barked at the same time.
My breath caught at the looks in their eyes. Their gears were obviously turning. They were seriously trying to figure out how to get me to a clinic to “take care of my problem.” My baby wasn’t a fucking problem!
“Go to hell. Both of you!” I ducked away from where they’d tried to corner me against the deck railing. “I don’t need either of you and none of you have the right to tell me what to do with me and my baby.”
“You’re not doing this!” Drew yelled as he ran for me with his arms extended and his hands clawed like he wanted to choke me. But instead of wrapping his palms around my neck, he pressed them to my shoulders and shoved.
“I don’t know everything that happened next,” I told Jeric. “I remember lying on the concrete patio below the deck, staring up at the summer evening sky as something warm and wet pooled around me. I remember darkness closing in on my vision, blotting out the blue sky and stars, and I let myself be swallowed up by it.” I sniffed at the memory and exhaled slowly. “And then I woke up in a hospital room, no longer pregnant and with a severe concussion. All I know is that I’d moved to the top of the deck’s stairs right before Drew came after me. He and Mark both said I stepped backwards and rolled down the steps. I know he shoved me. When I freaked out about the baby, the doctors and nurses said I’d never been pregnant. The whole thing had been wiped from my medical records. They said I’d hit hard enough that I’d actually died for a few moments when the paramedics first arrived, and they blamed the head injury for thinking I’d ever been pregnant.”
“They paid off the doctors and everyone else to clean up the whole situation,” Jeric said.
“You know how much that had to have cost them? They should have been facing attempted murder charges, even second-degree charges for the baby. But their mother-fucking money kept them out of jail and saved Drew from embarrassing his family. Assholes.”
“That’s why you went after Mason like you did.”
I winced. Although Mason had deserved the broken glass stabbed into his nuts, I couldn’t believe I’d actually done that. I didn’t think I’d had it in me. But I’d grown so damn tired of rich, arrogant fuckers thinking they were invincible and getting away with everything, including murder. Mason might not ever serve time, but he certainly hadn’t gotten away with what he did scot-free.
“Yeah,” I finally admitted. “He was just like them.”
I swiped at my cheeks again, and Jeric pulled his arm away. The feeling of being so close to him had become awkward, so I scooted back over to my side of the bed.
“What’s this have to do with you and Brock not being Twin Flames?”
I sighed, leaned over, and buried my face in my hands again as more tears came. After a moment, I sat back up. “I remember dying. I remember the Darkness—not just in my vision, but in my soul—taking over. I know now that’s what it was. I remember someone saying to me, ‘Not yet. Not until I’m done with you.’ A female voice. That one phrase had brought me back. It had been the lifeline I held onto whenever my thoughts turned to suicide because I couldn’t stand living that life any longer. But knowing what I do now, I can only believe that had been Enyxa. She’d wanted to make sure I lived so I could break up Brock and Kami. She wanted to hurt him and used me to do it.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because the Darkness had already started to take me then. I didn’t know that’s what it was when I’d gone into a deep depression, but her Darkness stayed with me and began to grow already, Jeric. By the time I went back to college, I’d become a completely different person. I wanted nothing to do with my friends, even the ones I’d known since elementary school. Nobody meant anything to me. And I couldn’t be there any more. I needed to go south. For some reason, I knew south was where I needed to go, and I thought it had been to escape that ridiculous life I’d grown to hate so much. But now I know differently. It’d been Enyxa all along, driving me and setting us up. Nothing between Brock and me has ever been real.”
At least, not on his end, but I didn’t say that to Jeric. Then he’d think I was making shit up, trying to make it all look worse than it was because I was letting the Darkness get to me. That’s how it works—Darkness and depression make you see all the negatives and it convinces you that’s all there is until you completely believe it. Until you see the actual and horrible truth with perfect clarity. So in a way, the Darkness was getting to me. It was helping me to see clearly that my love for Brock had always been unrequited. That I’d been delusional in thinking that he and I were made for each other—even more, that we’d actually shared a soul. He and Kami belonged together. He’d basically told me that, and God and the angels or the universe or whatever had kept trying to bring them together while tearing him and me apart. And now she was dead and so was their son, all because of me and my selfish demands.
Brock was going Dark now, and that was my fault, too. He had every right to hate me. I hated myself just as much.
The air in my room became thick and heavy, pressing down on me, on my chest. I couldn’t breathe.
“I need air,” I croaked, jumping off the bed.
I already wore another of Brock’s long t-shirts with black leggings under it, so I only had to stuff my feet into my Doc Martens before I could rush out of the room. Jeric followed on my heels. I didn’t know why. Probably because he didn’t trust me to be alone.
I didn’t trust myself.
The Lakari had been constantly swarming over the manor and the bay like a cloud of oversized bees, so it was no surprise they were out there when I ran out of the mansion, onto the lawn, and back to the place where Jeric and I had stayed on guard when Leni, Brock, and Bex had first disappeared. Every once in a while, one or two of the Dark souls would dip down as if threatening us. More like taunting. We probably shouldn’t have been outside, making ourselves vulnerable to their Darkness—even more so than we already were. They surely sensed us on the brink of becoming one of them.
We took our sentry posts again at the edge of the manor’s lawn where the bay began. I looked out over the water toward the Gate, but the hope I’d felt only a few days ago that our Twin Flames would return had all but slipped away with the tide.
“I got an email from Yoshi today,” Jeric said, breaking the long silence. “Tokyo’s been having a lot of problems.”
I didn’t reply. He didn’t expect me to. This was probably what he’d come to my room to tell me earlier. We watched the waves lap at the sand for a while.
“The news media’s been all over the increase in murders, crimes, drug use, and suicides lately,” he finally added. “Uri couldn’t help but point out to me this morning that the biggest spikes are in cities near the Gates.”
I had no idea why he felt the urge to share all of that with me. In case we’d forgotten just how dire our situation had become? Because we needed our last bit of hope to disappear completely? Or maybe it was because deep down, he, like me, couldn’t wait for everything to reach its worst because that meant the Darkness would come. He’d told me about the peace of the Darkness taking him away right before he and Leni had been Forged. I’d begun to feel it myself more than once already. He’d said the nothingness had been comforting. The opposite of the pain we suffered right now. So maybe he was ready to hurry it all along.
Maybe he was waiting on me to give him permission to end it all.
“If you’re telling me that you need to collapse the Gates, Jeric,” I said, turning to look him in the eye, “just fucking do it already.” I turned my back to the water … to the Gate. “There’s no more hope for us.”
He scowled as he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and stared across the water. I left him there and strode toward the large wooden doors of the manor. He caught up with me a second or two later and walked silently next to me. We were still f
orty yards from the doors to the mansion when they opened, and Uri and Melinda came out, escorting another woman.
I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of the familiar face.
“What the hell?” My hand flew to cover my gaping mouth. “Impossible.”
She was supposed to be dead.
Chapter 22
“I had a feeling we’d find you here,” Melinda said as she and Uri walked toward us with a woman I didn’t recognize but who felt familiar anyway. She held a white cat in her arms that reminded me of Ghost, but with no markings, there was no way to know if they were one and the same. “We’ve been looking for the two of you.”
“What are you?” Asia asked, sounding breathless at my side.
I glanced sideways at her, thinking she said that wrong and meant who, not what. The sight of her stopped me from correcting her, though. All blood had drained from her face, leaving her skin white as snow. Her eyes, almost black in contrast, looked like they might bug out of her face if they opened any wider. Her hand hid her mouth, and she appeared to be hyperventilating.
What the hell was wrong with her?
“Asia?” I hedged.
“What are you?” she repeated, louder this time. Uri, Melinda, and the strange-but-familiar woman had come out of the mansion and stopped about halfway to us. Asia’s voice scaled several octaves as she continued. “How are you here? You’re supposed to be dead. I saw you burn!”
“There’s a lot to explain,” the woman began.
“Damn right there is! Is Connor alive, too?”
The woman pressed her lips together. “Asia—”
“Is he?” Asia demanded.
“I’ll tell you everything. I promise. It’s a long story, much of it hard to believe, but I will tell you. First, we have to get Brock and the others back before it’s too late.”
“You know how?” I asked, skepticism mixing with hope.
“I do.”
“Why should we trust you?” Asia asked. “How can we believe anything you say when you made us think you were dead? We mourned you!”
“Asia,” Melinda said. “This is our hope.”
“I know who she is,” Asia snapped, and I finally did, too. Brock’s mother, Hope, which I should have known as I noticed the resemblance now. She had Brock’s dark hair, except hers had some gray in it, and the same brown eyes. And now I understood Asia’s reaction to seeing her.
“I mean, she’s our hope,” Melinda said. “She can help us with the Gates and Enyxa and getting everyone back. But we’re running out of time.”
Asia crossed her arms over her chest and jutted her hip out. “I’ve heard that before. From you yourself, Hope. While you were supposedly burning to death! You rushed us out of there. Told us to hurry. Why? So you could make your mystical escape and leave us thinking you were dead? To fake Connor’s death so you could run off with him? To force Brock and me to Forge when we shouldn’t have?”
“Asia!” Hope pulled back, holding the cat tighter against her. “You don’t think—”
“I don’t know what to think any more!” She threw her arms in the air and stomped several paces away.
“How can you help us?” I asked Hope while Asia walked off some of her anger and shock.
“Do you have the Book of Phoenix?” Hope asked. “The answers are there.”
One side of my mouth curled tightly. “We’ve found nothing in it that can help.”
“You’re not looking in the right way. I can show you.”
Asia flew back over to us. “How the hell do you know anything about the Book? How. Are. You. Here?”
Hope sighed. “I told you I’d explain everything later.”
“You’re not touching the Book until you at least tell me that,” Asia declared. “Because you know what? I think you’re working with Enyxa. And until you can prove you’re not, you aren’t getting anywhere close to that Book.”
A few Guardians had gathered around, concerned at the sound of Enyxa’s name, but also curious. I wasn’t about to get them involved until we knew more. I tried to wave them off.
“Let’s go inside, and Hope can tell you what she’s already told us,” Uri suggested. He opened the wooden door and held it for the rest of us.
We followed Melinda and Hope inside with Uri taking up the rear, through the mansion part of the manor and into what had once been part of the hotel. Melinda and Uri led us to the same meeting room where they’d told us about the Sacred Seven. So I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Mira and Theo, my and Leni’s Guides, in there, waiting for us. We hadn’t seen them since they’d left to guide more Phoenix souls at the same time we’d left the manor for our first mission—the one that had brought us to our current situation. That had only been a few months ago, but Theo looked like he’d aged another ten years, and the old man didn’t really have much room to grow any older. Mira rushed to me, flitting her hands over me in a grandmotherly way. She hadn’t acted like a real grandmother to me since before my accident, but here she was, all concerned.
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
“You can’t be.”
“Okay, I’m not. Nothing you can do about it, though.”
“We brought her here as soon as we found her,” Mira said.
“You brought her here?” I lifted a brow.
Mira nodded and explained in a near whisper. “We were supposed to be helping some young souls, but I felt her presence nearby. I called Theo, and we went investigating. I guess because we’re Guides, we had an unusual pull to her. Theo called it instinct. You’ll never believe where we found her.”
“Explain,” Asia ordered, speaking over everyone else and cutting Mira off. She didn’t sit at the conference table. Nobody did. She leaned her butt against the edge of the table and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at Hope. “From the beginning.”
The woman stood at the front of the room, stroking the white fur of her cat, and we all faced her, expectantly. Her dark gaze slid over each of us.
“Starting from the beginning would require days or weeks, and we don’t have that kind of time. I’ll tell you what you need to know for now, and as I said, I promise to tell the rest later. After everyone’s safe.” She drew in a breath, buying a few more moments, then blurted it out. “I’m Ete’hope. A Union soul. A very high level Union soul … or what people here on Earth might think of as a low level angel.”
Several gasps came from the healers and the Guides, and then they each took a seat. Asia and I only stood there, dumbfounded. At least, I was. I thought Asia was still nothing but cynical.
“That’s how I was able to survive the fire,” Hope went on. “It would take a lot more than that to kill me.”
“Connor?” Asia demanded. “Kami?”
Hope frowned. “Kami was a soul headed for Darkness. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it.”
“Connor?” Asia asked again, her patience wearing thin. I could hear it in her voice.
“His soul is safe,” was the only answer Hope gave. “I’ve been watching over this world for a couple of millennia, since Ny’xan’s soul was split in half. In fact, I was in charge of choosing the Original Seven to take over guardianship of Earth’s Gates, and I chose you from a pool of long-time Union souls. When Satan managed to get past your defenses and enter this world, he split Ny’xan, taking the masculine half with him to the Dark worlds and leaving the feminine half—Enyxa—to return to Earth. The Original Seven were no longer Seven, and that was a problem. I tried to help Ny’xan and her Twin Flame, and after a lot of searching and risking my own soul, I was actually able to find and rescue his half. But she’d become too Dark by then and single-mindedly focused on revenge.”
Hope paused, biting her lip. Asia and I both took this as an opportunity to sit down. Standing while listening to this
was no longer an option. This was the kind of shit that knocked you off your feet.
“Enyxa made herself Earth’s enemy,” Hope went on. “Everything she’s done with every other world has been part of her plan to destroy Earth. I needed the rest of the Original Seven to return to Earth as Union souls so you could defeat her. But every time you came close to reaching that level, she would find her way to you and split your souls. And each time, we lost one of the Seven.”
“And you didn’t do anything, almighty angel?” Asia snarked.
“I’ve done what I can for their souls, but I can’t interfere in the affairs of Earth, including the Phoenix and even the Original Seven, unless all of Earth’s souls were at risk.”
“Which they are now,” I said.
“Yes. Now I can help you.”
“How?” Melinda asked.
“Yeah, how?” Asia demanded. “You said using the Book of Phoenix, but we’ve tried everything possible.”
“Not everything,” Hope said.
“What do you know about it?” I asked.
Hope gave a small smile. “Actually, I haven’t been able to interfere in anything of consequence, but I have helped you a little in the past in different ways. Like this guy.” She held up the cat, which jumped out of her hands, strode over to me and wound himself between my legs. “I call him Buddy, but I think you know him as Ghost, Jeric? He’s been my eyes and ears, especially while I was healing from the burns. Before him was Sammy. I have a few animal souls roaming this world, helping the Guardians when they can and keeping me abreast of news.”
“That explains a lot,” I muttered as I reached down and stroked Ghost’s coat.
“Like what?” Asia demanded.
“Like how he helped Leni and me fight the Shadowmen the very first time. Like how Sammy rescued Jacey from the fire.”
Asia clicked her tongue. “What’s that have to do with the Book?”
“It’s another way I’ve been able to help,” Hope said. “In an attempt to get you Guardians back on track. Part of the Separation includes a loss of memory, and you know what kind of problems that’s caused. So you don’t recall this, but I encouraged Jacquelena and the rest of you to create artifacts to help you remember from lifetime to lifetime. But after a while, they always became lost or destroyed. So I actually helped with the creation of the Book of Phoenix, making it different. I had you three dyads—what was left of the Original Seven—imprint your souls into the pages so you would know the Book and it would know you. I also channeled some of my powers into it. Including the ability to summon each other from other worlds.”