by Jeff Altabef
He releases the curtains, allowing them to fall and fully block the windows. “Yes. Only a few know the truth. I don’t visit with her much for obvious reasons, but we stay in touch.” For her, that must be a big loss. There’s no way she faked the look of sadness that crossed her face.
Troy slides into the living room from the kitchen with a sandwich in his hand. I shoot him a dangerous look. The last time we were here, he knew the truth and stayed silent. Another lie.
Dan locks eyes with Sicheii. “Jake, I don’t like this situation at all. We’re too exposed here. They could find us.”
“The Seeker has no way of knowing about you or this apartment. You are safe here.” Sicheii settles his hand on his shoulder. “I’ve kept you safe all these years. You have to trust me. How is our guest?”
Dan reluctantly turns his back on the windows. “She’s mildly sedated. You can question her. She should be able to answer.”
“Good,” Sicheii glances at me. “Shall we find out what she knows?”
I nod. Doctor Dan returns to his pointless vigil by the window. He pulls the curtains back an inch and looks for signs of danger he probably won’t recognize if he sees anyway.
Sicheii leads me to a back bedroom. Ms. Arnold is handcuffed to a brass bed, a piece of gray duct-tape stretched across her mouth. Her eyes are closed and puffy and her skin a sickly pallor. A small trace of crusted blood sticks to her temple.
The room is small. The only other furniture besides the bed is an oak nightstand. There’s just enough room for Sicheii, Lisa, and myself to stand in the room. Troy has to straddle the doorway.
I shake the footboard and her eyes open. When they find me, they widen and sparkle.
Sicheii slides next to her and leans close to her face. His voice is rich with malice. “I’m going to remove the tape. If you yell, it won’t be good for you. Do you understand me?”
Ms. Arnold nods with a small bounce of her chin, and he rips off the duct tape with one hard pull.
She sits up and pulls her knees to her chest, ignoring everyone in the room but me. Her eyes sweep over me in a slow arch. “I knew you were the one from the start. I should have told the Seeker months ago.”
“Did you tell him about Juliet?” Sicheii leans toward her.
When she glances at him, her eyes flicker. He scares her. “I called him before you barged into my apartment.”
I grip the footboard hard and twist my hands over the brass. “Where did they take my mother?”
She chuckles and Sicheii slaps her across the face. Hard. A red mark appears on her cheek where his hand struck her. She ignores him and zeroes in on me. “The Seeker will have her by now, Juliet. You are the only one who can save her.”
“Tell me where he’s hiding.”
Her voice rises. “Who said he’s hiding? You are making a mistake.” She sounds giddy with a crazy kinetic energy. “All of you.” She cackles. “You should join him. He will win. He is too powerful. You can’t stop him!”
“Tell me where he is!”
Ms. Arnold rattles her cuffs, her voice shrill, spit flying from her mouth as her face reddens. “He’s right where you would expect him to be, you stupid little girl!”
“And where is that?” My knuckles turn white. How could I have trusted her? I am such a fool.
She pauses, and the light temporarily dims behind her eyes. I reach into her mind, and increase the volume on her internal voice, molding the sounds, sharpening them. I concentrate hard and feel my body shake, but her thoughts stay muddled. It must be the medication. I bear down harder. Air gets stuck in my lungs and a flashing white light burns my eyes. A thunderclap breaks in my head, and her thoughts are revealed.
I pull back from the bed, woozy. “He’s at the casino.”
Ms. Arnold goes limp, her breathing shallow. She’s unconscious. I wonder if I broke her somehow.
I should feel bad, but I don’t.
We all make choices and decisions. Life is full of little compromises— like you want to get an A in Geometry, but your favorite TV show is on, or you want to lose weight, but that ice cream calls you from the freezer.
But there are some compromises we cannot make.
I’ve never considered myself a particularly brave person, but I won’t let them hurt my mother—not if I can stop it.
“We have to save her,” I say, my back to the fireplace in the living room.
Sicheii runs his hands through his hair again. Indecision creeps back into his eyes. “The Wind Spirit warned you to avoid the Seeker until after you’ve found the third book. You cannot confront him now.”
I start to tap my foot, and my hands find my hips. “I don’t care what the Wind Spirit said or what you say, Sicheii. I’m going to save Mom. I won’t leave her for those people.” A chill shivers through me like a late frost surprises an early blooming flower. I see the inside of the van and the sneer on Gold Tooth and Slicked Back Hair’s faces and suspect that the Seeker will be worse. I don’t want to imagine what they might do to Mom.
“We need a plan,” Troy says. “If we act quickly, we can have the element of surprise on our side. The Seeker won’t expect us to know where to find him.”
“The Casino is a big place,” Lisa says. She steps toward me, her expression grim but eager to confront the Seeker. She looks like she wants revenge. “We’ll need to know where he is in the Casino.”
“You had a special relationship with Roundtree, didn’t you?” I remember the photo from Roundtree’s house.
“He was my godfather, so I have good reason to find this Seeker.”
“He’ll be in the Villas,” Doctor Dan offers, his back toward us as he continues looking out the windows. “You need a special pass to gain access into that part of the Casino, and it provides the most privacy.”
Troy smiles. “Ella’s mom works nights at the Casino. She has an access card that gets her into the Villas. She cooks private meals for the whales.”
“I forbid this.” Sicheii crosses his arms against his chest. “We must honor the Wind Spirit’s wishes. Juliet cannot go looking for the Seeker or Summer until she is ready. I will go alone.”
“You will do no such thing. You heard what Ms. Arnold said—only I can save Mom.” Heat flushes my face. I’m not a child any longer. The days when my grandfather could stop me from doing something are over.
Troy steps in between us. “I’ll go with Jake. He’s right. This is too dangerous.”
“The Order has been keeping these secrets for over two hundred years. Others have died to honor the Wind Spirit’s wishes,” Sicheii argues. “You can’t throw that away now that we are so close. We can save Summer without you.”
I look back and forth between both of them. Each loves me in his own way. I don’t need any special gift to know how they feel. It’s etched across their faces, in the light behind their eyes, and in the worry lines on their foreheads.
My anger snaps like a dry twig. How can I stay vexed at those willing to sacrifice their lives to protect mine?
I take Troy’s hand and relief washes over him. “I know you would go and do your best, but that won’t be good enough. I have to be the one to save Mom.” I squeeze his hand tight and see his expression melt like snow on a warm day. “I won’t be able to live with myself if something bad happens to her, knowing that I could have saved her. I know you understand. You would save me if you had to.”
I swing my eyes to Sicheii, who stares at me hard. It is the same expression he used to chastise me when I was little. It won’t work now. “I’m sorry, Sicheii. I’m sorry you’ve sacrificed so much and have had to do things you regret. But that wasn’t my decision. I’m grown now. I’m Chosen. This is my decision.”
He isn’t convinced, so I try to reach him on a different level. “I feel the Wind Spirit in this. It can’t be a coincidence that Mom’s been taken now that I have the sword. This must be what I’m supposed to do. It’s a sign from the Wind Spirit that my time has come and that I have to rescue Mom.
” I know it’s a lie, but some lies are good. Well, if not good, then necessary. If he thinks the Wind Spirit wants me to go after Mom, maybe he’ll go along. I try to look sincere.
His arms drop to his side, and a tentative smile nudges across his face. “You believe the Wind Spirit is calling you? You can feel her with your second sight?”
I nod, worried my voice would betray the truth.
“It is written you will slay the Seeker and save our people from the army of demons. If now is the time, then we must pursue our fate. You will slay the Seeker and the demons will be defeated.”
People are willing to believe crazy things if they really want them to be true. Usually he is hard to fool, but he wants me to fulfill this prophecy so badly this fib works on him.
Troy interlocks his fingers with mine. This isn’t the first time we’ve held hands this way, but it feels different, stronger, more substantial than ever before. I feel heat where his skin touches mine. I absorb the contours of his fingers, the callouses in his palm, the strength in his hand. It’s almost as if our flesh has molded together and formed one hand, stronger and better than the two.
“We will all go together,” he says. “We just need a plan.”
“Troy, you call Ella. Ask her to borrow her mom’s access card and meet us here. I’ll call Ayden. He needs to know what’s going on.”
Sicheii groans and turns his back on me.
I don’t care. I’m done with secrets. Ayden is my father and deserves to know the truth—at least, the truth about Mom.
“What are you going to tell Ella and Ayden when they arrive?” Troy asks. We sit in the corner of the living room on the couch close together, our knees touching. He smiles. “The whole story might be a bit much for them to believe right away.”
“I could always take out the sword. That’s pretty convincing.” I smirk.
Troy grins back, and his eyes light up the way I’m used to seeing them. “It won’t be good enough for Ella. You know how her mind works—”
“It spins a mile a minute.”
“Yes. She’ll try to find some rational explanation for all of this.” He rolls his eyes. “We could be stuck here for hours. Marlon will raid the kitchen and tell us more ridiculous facts he’s learned from Snapple caps.”
“I’ll figure out something, but I’m going to tell them the truth the first chance I get.” I hate the idea of lying to them, but Troy is right. We have to move fast.
The buzzer rings. When I open the door, Ayden hesitates at the doorway, his eyes silently asking if he can enter.
“Come in.”
He strolls into the apartment, his shoulders swaying as he moves.
“We were so worried about you, Juliet.” He inches toward me as if he wants to hug me, but he doesn’t have it in him yet, so he stops in his tracks and looks down toward the floor.
“I’m fine.” I smile back at him. “I’m feeling much better than before.”
“Are you still hearing the voices?” He whispers as if he does not want to disturb this secret conversation I might be having.
“They’re all gone, but that’s not important now.” This is the first lie I’ve told Ayden, but it’s a white one. “Mom’s been taken. We need to rescue her.”
Sicheii enters the living room from one of the back bedrooms, and a cold frost follows him. Ayden’s eyes lock on his, laser tight. He seems to grow taller, and his chest puffs out. “What is he doing here?”
Sicheii stops ten feet away from us. “Where else would I be?”
Ayden turns toward me, his hands curled tight. “Juliet, I can’t be here with him.” His voice is low and rumbly, and his cotton t-shirt rubs tightly against his shoulders. “He’s robbed me of everything.”
“You did that yourself,” Sicheii says. “We don’t need him. He’s unreliable.”
“You didn’t give me a chance!” Ayden explodes and inches toward Sicheii. I sense the aggression in the air as if two rams are about to butt heads.
“You had many chances and you couldn’t change. I warned you.” Sicheii’s face turns red and the veins on his forehead pulse. “Don’t blame me for your own faults!”
I step between them, separating the two bulls. “We need to work together. It’s the only way.”
“But—” Ayden growls.
“But nothing! I know what Sicheii did to you was wrong. He should have told the truth.” I place my hand on his arm, which is tight with anger. “But you admitted you had done bad things. If you hadn’t gone to jail back then, who knows what path you would have followed?” The tension relaxes in his arm.
I turn to face Sicheii. “And you’ve robbed me of a father.” Tears rush to the surface of my eyes. “I need you both to get Mom back. I can’t lose her.” Sicheii’s eyes soften, but I don’t care. I rush from the room and into the main bedroom, slamming the door shut hard behind me.
I have a difficult time breathing as tears rain down my face. Mom’s been missing for hours, and my imagination whirls at a breakneck speed. An unlimited number of nasty things could have happened to her by now.
Knock. Knock.
The door swings open. Ayden stands in the doorway. “Can I come in, Juliet?”
I nod and he steps into the room and shuts the door behind him. “I’m sorry. You and Summer come first. I’ve been angry with that old tosser for a long time. It seems like it has been the only constant in my life. First, his meddling with our relationship, and then his testimony at my trial.”
“Can you put your feelings aside for now? We need you.”
He walks to the bed and perches next to me. “Yes, I promise not to kill the old goat until after we retrieve your mom.” He beams a half-smile at me. “That’s the best I can do.”
I stick out my hand, and he shakes it. “Deal.”
“Now tell me what’s going on and where we can find your mother.”
I look into his eyes, and the stranger I had just met a few days earlier morphs into my father. Unfairly separated from his daughter, he missed out on so many memories, memories he can never get back. I had not made up my mind what to tell him until now; he deserves more than a bunch of lies. I have an inkling he will believe me, that he will trust me if I tell him the truth.
So, I start with my birth. He tenses up when I show him the scar on the sole of my foot, and I continue to explain everything I know. I include both the sweat lodge and the fluid from the crystal vial, explain Sicheii’s theory about the Wind Spirit and Coyote and see skepticism in his eyes and in the line of his clenched jaw. I linger on Gold Tooth and Slicked Back Hair. He needs to know how dangerous they are.
He only interrupts me once, when I tell him that I alone can kill the Seeker. He pulls a .38 from behind his back. “A well placed bullet should kill the bloke.”
I shake my head. “He can create a force field around himself which will stop bullets. Only my sword will penetrate.” At that point, I remove the crystal hilt from Troy’s backpack. When my fingers wrap around it, the blade appears. His eyes widen and he leans back on his hands.
I slash the sword through the air with a series of rapid sideswipes, upper swings, thrusts, and twirls. The blade moves in a blur, whistling as it goes. It feels slightly awkward at first, and then I let my subconscious take over. When I act without thinking, my body moves fluidly, faster than before. I finish my display, rewrap the sword in the felt, and sit beside Ayden and wait. I hope he’s convinced. It’s all I have.
“When did you learn how to do that?”
I shrug. “The fluid has given me that knowledge. I don’t know how it works, but one moment, I don’t even know how to hold the thing and the next, I’m Zorro.”
His eyes turn inward as if he is calculating odds and probabilities. “This still sounds very dangerous to me. I’m sure Summer wouldn’t want you rescuing her. I don’t fancy you taking this on.”
“It’s not your choice. I want your help with Gold Tooth and Slicked Back Hair, but either way, I’m going in.”
A trace of malice glints behind his eyes. “I’d be happy to meet up with those two. Are you sure you want to do this?”
I nod.
“When you do something dangerous like this, you have to be all in. You can’t go halfway. You must be prepared to do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary to kill this Seeker if it comes to that.” He nods at me knowingly. “Otherwise you won’t have a chance. Can you do that?”
“I understand.” At least, I think I understand. Either way I don’t have a choice.
“When I was your age, I had to do some rough things when my brother went to jail. I was hoping you didn’t inherit that proclivity from me.”
“I can do this.” I grab Ayden’s arm with both my hands and grip it hard.
The buzzer rings. He jumps.
“That must be Ella with the access card.”
Time accelerates.
The Seeker is out there, and I am going to find him. For sixteen years, it was the other way around. Now I’m taking the fight to him.
Blood races through my body and my heart thumps.
Troy holds the door open and Ella, Marlon, and Katie walk into the apartment. When Ella sees me, she darts forward and embraces me in a miniature bear hug. I close my eyes. She smells like jasmine, her favorite perfume, and I smile. For a moment, I remember what being a normal, average teenager felt like, before I became Chosen or knew about the Seeker or the sword or the Wind Spirit or before Mom was taken.
That feeling lasts exactly one and a half seconds and is replaced with the knowledge that I am forever changed. I will never again be the girl who shrinks in the back of the classroom, who tries to blend in. I will forever be the Chosen, the Seeker Slayer. I will fulfill my destiny. I will be strong. I have no other choice.
I detangle Ella from me and she frowns. “Where have you been? Are you feeling okay? What’s going on? Who just leaves the hospital and doesn’t text anyone?” She sounds like a breathless train building up speed at a breakneck pace. “I was worried about you. How come you didn’t text me?” She puts both hands on her hips and glares at me.