As we kept moving, my thoughts continued to drift back to Pa and the conversation we had shared. She knew what was happening to her; she was trying to fight it off, but by the looks of things, she wasn’t succeeding. I was scared for her . . .
Where was she now? Had she run back to Skylar to strengthen her feelings of hatred? Or had she stayed clear of him?
Through her words, these feelings seemed a lot like ecstasy . . . it felt wonderful for her to express her feelings—as opposed to keeping them hidden the way Skylar had for so long—and she relished the sensation of feeling wanted.
“Pa!” I shouted her name in the darkness as we approached her cute little apartment. No answer. Chris and I searched the entire house, but no one was there.
On and on we traveled in the dark with my orb as our lantern; on and on we went, failing to locate either of them. Finally, at 5 am, we decided it was hopeless, and we went on home.
As the sun came up we walked through the front door, and I practically collapsed out of exhaustion.
For an entire week we followed the same procedure; Chris and I would search into the early hours of the morning, finding nothing day after day. Neither Ricky nor Pa showed up at the house, and my anxiety was reaching a new level of insane.
Chris decided it was finally time to call the school, but not for the reason I had first thought.
“Why are you calling them?” I asked.
He stared at me with a grave expression. “We’re dead, Dessa,” he said.
For a second, I didn’t comprehend what he had said, but then it struck me. He was going to tell the school that he and I were dead.
They would have a burial for bodies they couldn’t find. I would have a tombstone marked with my name . . .
“But Chris, why can’t we just say that—?”
“No,” he interjected. “With the odds we’re facing now, it’s better to be prepared for the worst.” He said nothing more on the matter, and left the room to call the school in solitude. An empty feeling hit my stomach and I felt extremely lonely.
It seemed like everyone had given up hope . . . even me.
Pa and Ricky hadn’t come by for days, Chris seemed more on edge than usual, and wouldn’t let me out of his sight for longer than the five minutes it took for me to go to the bathroom, and I was getting slightly paranoid myself.
Every night I would wake up, thinking I heard Ricky rummaging through the refrigerator, and I would run downstairs with a heart full of hope only to see the house devoid of human presence other than me and Chris. My hopes would be crushed all over again, and I would drift into a restless sleep.
Chris walked into the room with the phone in his hand. His eyes were slightly red—he must have been crying—and his face was a still, solemn mask.
“You told them, then?” I asked, assuming he had.
“Yes,” he answered.
“What was your excuse?” I asked caustically, angry for some strange reason.
“We were coming home from a weekend vacation, and our plane crashed,” he answered simply.
“What about the other passengers?” I asked just as cuttingly.
“It was my private jet,” he replied automatically.
“Oh, I see,” I replied, and turned away from him.
“I did what I had to do,” he said quietly.
“You had to convince all our family and friends that we were dead?!” I half-screamed at him. “Why? Why did you have to do that?”
He hesitated, but answered with a voice full of conviction and knowledge that made me want to sob.
“Dessa, you may not want to come to grips with this, but chances are the two of us aren’t going to make it out of this alive. Rick and Pa didn’t—”
“Don’t you dare say that they’re dead,” I said loathingly. “Just because we haven’t found them doesn’t mean that—”
“For Christ’s sake, Dessa!” he shouted back. “Can’t you understand? They’ve been gone for a week now! Look at the facts! They’re dead! They don’t exist anymore!”
I couldn’t listen to another word. The tears started pouring from my eyes and I ran away from him out into the dark night.
“Why?” I shouted to the sky. “Why is this happening?”
Almost as though the night could understand me, a cold chill swept across the yard.
“What have you done with my brother?” I yelled angrily. “Give him back to me! Give them back to me!”
Malicious laughter rang through the trees, in the inflection of a voice I knew too well.
“Skylar!” I roared. “I know she’s with you! I know she is! Give her back!”
“She doesn’t want to come back,” his evil voice replied through the wind. I looked around for the source of his voice, but there was no presence around whatsoever.
His voice carried itself on the wind . . .
She was with him . . .
“What the hell do you mean she doesn’t want to?” I asked insanely. “She hated you! She never wanted to be with you! Whatever trick you’re trying to pull isn’t going to work!”
“We’ll see,” his voice said malevolently. “In the meantime, I think your precious home is on fire.”
I whirled around in a panic and right before my eyes, Chris’ beautiful house burst into flames.
“No!” I shouted, and ran into the house. Chris was shooting jets of water from his palms at the flaming foundations of his home, but his attempts were useless. If anything, the water somehow caused the fire to grow.
I stared at Chris, and there was that look of hopelessness in his eyes again.
“Akarusa!” I shouted, and darted through the fire. Boards fell on all sides of me, one actually hit my palm and sent a splinter shooting through my thumb; I shouted in pain, but kept moving, afraid that the weapons would be demolished in Skylar’s deadly fire. Chris followed me, reaching out his hand to clutch mine, but the splinter in my thumb had me pulling my hand away.
I darted down into the earth, which seemed to rumble with the force of the fire upon it, and struggled through the darkness to find the chamber. I found the door by touch and let it open to reveal the three remaining weapons in the room. Chris grabbed Koorimizu, and I grabbed Akarusa and Soyokaze.
They seemed surprisingly light as I ran back into the burning house. Chris and I ran out into the yard and stood by the fountain, which was shining a fiery gold as the colors of the flames reflected on the metal of the base.
As I continued running, the flames of the fire began to chase me, intent on burning a piece of my flesh. One of the flames whipped me in the back, causing me to scream aloud in pain.
Chris muttered under his breath.
“It’s no big deal,” I said loudly over the roar of the fire. “I’m fine. Better the house than us,” I added truthfully.
Chris shrugged, but nodded seconds after. “Where do we go now?” he asked.
“Pa’s with Skylar,” I said. “I have proof. He was nowhere near me, and I could hear his voice perfectly. Only Pa can do that. She’s with him right now.”
“So . . . we go look for her then,” he said determinedly.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “We go looking for her.”
I was in a short-sleeved shirt and jeans, so the wind bothered me. For some reason, it was a hot, stinging wind, brutal and agonizing to walk in. Chris’ face got cut when a leaf blew past his cheek through the wind, and the splinter in my thumb only hurt that much more painfully.
“I wish I could shield us from it,” I said briefly.
“Maybe you can,” Chris said encouragingly. “Try. Please try.”
The sincerity in his gaze brought back the memories of the two of us together, and I yearned for us to go back to that time. I held out my hands and began to vibrate photons, and sure enough a force field materialized around me and Chris; it followed us everywhere we went, and filled the air with the feeling of calmness.
“Good job,” he said briefly, looking away seconds after he made eye c
ontact. I stared at him in annoyance when he looked away, but didn't say anything. I had a feeling blurting out random crap wouldn't solve any of our problems.
We walked for hours, but didn’t find Pa or Skylar anywhere. I felt my eyes getting tired, strained from the endless hours of restless nights I had endured for the past week.
We had to find them. We just had to.
I had my mission; I had my goal: find Pa and Ricky, and kick Skylar’s ass.
I still didn’t know who Darkness really was, and what her role was in all of this, but the things I did know: Ricky and Pa needed me now; Chris needed me now; and there was no way in heaven or hell that I was going to fail.
Betrayed
The night hours seemed to stretch on and on with no visible end in sight. I yearned to simply sit down and rest, but the confidence that was instilled in my brain told me to keep going.
While we traveled, I tried to tap into my clairvoyance. I kept thinking about Pa, focusing on her; then I would switch to Ricky and try to find out where he was. But every time I tried to focus on them, my vision went black and my thought process stopped right in its tracks.
Something was stopping me.
I stopped trying when the rest of my body started shouting in protest to my continued insistence on journeying farther through the night.
Chris’ water board had been destroyed in the fire, so we had been forced to search on foot all night. There were no stars in the pitch black sky, which seemed more dense and menacing than usual.
The only light was the force field that had materialized around us, and even that didn’t last forever.
I was too weak to keep going, and in the darkness I grew weaker still. I felt my hold on reality slipping away . . .
The force field collapsed on me, only covering my body. The swords fell, buried underneath my stomach as I fell right on top of them. I tried to open my eyes, to find Chris where he lay motionless next to me on the grass.
“Chris . . .” I murmured.
“D—Dessa . . .” he panted, and my vision went black, drowning me in a darkness that I couldn’t escape.
His eyes were shining a beautiful brown as he looked at me from where I stood far in the corner. She smiled, her shadowy face unclear to me.
Ricky was staring at me, his eyes a beautiful, normal brown, but then behind him, the shadowy one placed her hand upon him. She whispered in his ear, his head tilted down, and she began to smile.
Her smile was reflected onto Ricky’s face, and he lifted his face to look up at me. The blackened eyes now shined brighter than before, and he thrust the sword toward me . . .
“No! Ricky, no!” I screamed and thrashed, but when I opened my eyes, I saw myself lying on the dewy grass, my hair all messed up and wet.
It had been a dream . . . Thank God . . . just a dream . . .
I looked around me, half expecting Chris to be holding my hand . . . but I was alone.
Panic flooded through me as I saw that he wasn’t there. There wasn’t even a reminder of his presence the night before. The grass remained undisturbed; his sword was no longer resting on the grass where it had fallen. The only other presence I could feel was Akarusa against my leg.
I was alone . . .
The silence mocked me as I sat there in solitude, the wind rushed around me and cackled at my loneliness. Where had he gotten off to? Where could he possibly have gone?
Had he continued on to look for Pa and Ricky? Or had he run away from me just like they had? Thousands of thoughts circulated through my mind as it spiraled down toward the darkest of thoughts, leading me to believe that he hadn’t gone looking for them . . .
My heart sped at the impossible truth, and my eyes swam in a sea of tears.
“Chris!” I shouted, but no answer came. All I heard was the echo of my own voice and the silence of the forest around me. The panic returned again, and I tried to quell my fears with the possibility that he was simply searching . . . that he’d return in a few hours with Ricky and Pa beside him . . .
I decided to wait the hours away, and hour after hour I sat there alone, my neck twitching at every sound in the woods, my eyes darting around like a paranoid schizophrenic.
Finally I decided I wasn’t getting anywhere by just sitting there. I made up my mind to find the one person I knew was always there for me: Alyssa.
The sun hit the top of the sky and bore itself down upon me mercilessly as I struggled to find my way back to the road. The endless forest seemed to stretch on and on forever, threatening to keep me trapped in its murky, lonely depths.
Hopelessness began pulsing in my head, rushing across my forehead from temple to temple, creating one of the worst headaches I had ever experienced. I gripped my head by the temples and continued searching through the woods, holding on to the little bit of hope that Alyssa was waiting at her house.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Chris’ number—no answer. I dialed Ricky’s number, Pa’s number . . . and again: no answer. Finally, I looked up Alyssa’s house phone, dialed it cautiously, and let it ring.
The phone rang once, twice, three times . . . and finally, she picked up the phone.
“Hello?” she asked curiously. “Dessa? I saw your name on the caller ID. Is something wrong?”
I breathed a sigh of relief and found myself shaking my head as though Alyssa was right there having the conversation with me—not miles away sitting in her bedroom doing her homework while simultaneously babysitting her two younger siblings.
“I’m out in the middle of the woods, Alyssa,” I explained. “Chris and I went looking for Ricky and Pa after they went missing. We’ve been searching for a while, and I must’ve passed out ’cause when I woke up I was completely alone . . . I don’t know what to do.”
“Okay,” she said calmly. “Do you want me to come get you?”
“I have no idea where the hell I am,” I said irritated. “How’re you supposed to know?”
“I’ll find you,” she said confidently. “Don’t worry about that.”
“What about Julia and Mark?” I asked, thinking of her younger siblings alone in the house.
“Julia can handle Marky for at least an hour or two while I come get you and bring you to my house,” she answered.
“I’ve . . . uh . . . got uh—a weapon . . .”I stuttered.
“A weapon?” Alyssa asked impassively. “Okay, I’ll hide it in my room.”
“You don’t understand,” I argued.
“I know a lot more than you give me credit for,” she said, and I could almost see the smile on her face as she spoke those words.
“All right, fine,” I agreed. “See you if you find me.”
“Yeah,” she affirmed. “I’ll see you when I find you.” I recognized the inflection on the word “when” and I smiled.
“Okay,” I said more cheerfully than I could have ever imagined myself capable of. “See you soon.”
“Love you, Dess,” she replied.
“Love you, too.” and the line went dead.
Alyssa drove through the trees less than an hour later—illegally, I might add, since she was still only 15—and smiled triumphantly through the windshield at me.
“Told you so,” she retorted as I opened the driver’s side door.
“How in the name of—” I began.
“I have no idea,” she replied, still smiling. “I have no clue how I didn’t get caught.”
I laughed—something I hadn’t done in quite a while—and shoved her into the passenger seat. I shifted the Taurus into drive and plunged out of the woods following the tracks Alyssa had made. It turned out I was close to ten miles off base from where I was supposed to be; the border of the forest was in the complete opposite direction from where I was heading.
I grumbled in anger, but Alyssa didn’t seem to have heard me. Her cheery demeanor seemed to permeate the air around us, and I wasn’t feeling so hopeless anymore . . .
Her reassuring smile brought a sliver of optimism, an
d it crawled into me slowly, filling me with the most amazing sensation of security and warmth. We were going to find them. It would all be okay.
The whole way back to Alyssa’s house we listened to the craziest music. Panic at the Disco came onto the radio station and Alyssa screamed maniacally at the familiar tune, “Nine in the Afternoon.” I laughed—again—and cranked up the volume so she could jam the whole way home, and by the time the cute chorus ended for the final time, we pulled into her driveway.
The cute concrete driveway was lined on both sides with flower beds containing snap dragons and poppies. A little swinging bench was suspended by chains on the porch, and was swaying slightly in the cold breeze. Through the window next to the front door, I could see my uncle lounging on the couch in the living room, while Diane, Alyssa’s mother, was finally home from work setting the table for dinner.
I wondered if Aunt Diane had noticed her eldest daughter’s absence and what I was going to say to get her out of trouble, but then I realized I could help her get back to her room undetected.
“Alyssa,” I said quietly across to the passenger seat, “I don’t know if you knew, but I’m . . . different. I can bend light, I can manipulate it . . .”
I told her all about the Keepers and she watched me with a smile on her face. Her face didn’t show the least bit of surprise at any of the news I gave her.
“I knew all of that,” she said patiently. “I’m not so normal myself, you know,” she added. “I don’t know how I know these things, but I guess I’m just supposed to know.”
I smiled at her. “Then you’ll let me help you get back to your room?” I asked.
She nodded and smiled. “Sure.”
I got out of the car and rushed to her side, touching her hand as she exited the vehicle.
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