Casper only had great things to say about this place. He had loved every minute of living here. He had loved this girl who stood in front of me. And, in case his sterling recommendation wasn’t enough, I did have an entire race of Breakers hunting me down right outside the town limits. This was, as Liv told me back in the sewers, my best chance at safety. But something still wasn’t right. There was something off about this place, something they weren’t telling me.
“I’m not sure what I want yet,” I answered, pulling my hand away from his.
“Fair enough. You’re a thoughtful girl. That’ll make you and Olivia great friends, I think.” He peered at me from over his glasses now, the same way he had peered at Liv just moments ago. “But before you make your decision, I’d like you to come with me. There are a few things I’d like to show you, things that I think might color your decision.”
I nodded in agreement. What else could I do? And started following Commissioner Rivers down the sidewalk. Liv walked beside me, keeping pace silently. But, after a few moments, the older man turned to her and said, “That’ll be enough, Olivia. Cresta and I can take it from here.”
She balked. “But I-” Swallowing hard, she tried to put her thoughts together. “I was successful Commissioner. I brought you the Bloodmoon and secured the package.”
“Which is why you’d do well to take a bit of downtime. I’m sure your mother can find something for you to do at home,” he answered, hands behind his back.
“With all due respect, I’m not interested in downtime, and I’m sure that whatever you could find for me to do would be a much better use of my time than puttering around at home and helping with the pot roast.”
“This isn’t a debate. Must you be so stone headed? You did well, Olivia. Your community appreciates your talents. Is that what you want to hear? Now for God’s sake. Go home, turn on your Kindle, call up your friends and talk about boys. Do whatever you need to in order to unwind. Because I promise you, this is only just beginning.
She moved closer to him. With her eyes on the ground, she whispered, “But the package…”
“Yes,” Commissioner Rivers answered. “I understand that you have a personal investment in whether or not the package was delivered in one piece. It is for that very reason, that I can’t have you here. We can’t have your judgement clouded.”
“I can keep my emotions in check,” she answered.
“Not when you’re a teenager, sweetheart,” he smiled, patting her arm. “Which is completely understandable. Now do us both a favor, stop acting like you father, and just allow yourself to believe that you did a good job.”
He swallowed hard. “Yes Commissioner. I’ll go home.” She turned on her heels and started the other way. “See you at dinner,” she said over her shoulder.
“See you at dinner,” the commissioner said, as he motioned for me to continue walking with him.
A bit of apprehension crept up in me. I didn’t trust Liv, but at least I had known her for more than thirty seconds. She had saved my life and helped me through that horrible sorrow field. Sure, she had also shot me was a Taser, but who knew what the commissioner was capable of? He was an old guy, but so was Chant. I had seen old guys do some horrific things in my life.
But part of me was confident. I had grown powerful lately, more powerful than I ever imagined I could be. And while that scared me, it also made me feel safe. If this old guy was going to come at me, he was more than likely going to limp away. I could promise him that.
But as we walked, silently down a street full of cheery looking people waving and smiling at me from a distance, I started to feel more and more at ease. I wasn’t sure whether it was clarity or the fact that it reminded me more than a little of Crestview, but something about this place made me comfortable.
I remembered the diner, the familiar tasting pie and the Beach Boys song that floated in the air. Everything I heard, saw, and tasted in that diner was an attempt to throw me off my guard. Was that happening again here? Had I marched right through a sensor, traipsed through another energy field designed to screw with my Breaker mind.
“I suppose it wouldn’t do me any good to ask what the package is, the one Liv was talking about,” I said, intentionally steeling my voice. If they were going to soften me up, they were going to have to earn it.
“I’ll tell you if you’d like, but I’d much rather show you.” The Commissioner turned to me, a smile dancing across his features. “We’re headed there now actually, and I feel like you might have a lot of questions after you see it.”
I bit my lip. There was something about the deepness in his voice that calmed me, sort of like James Earl Jones reading me a bedtime story. Damn these energy fields.
“You said I could leave here if I wanted to, right?” I asked, actually having to speed up to keep pace with his old ass.
“I did, and you can. Though I wish you’d hear everything I have to say first,” Commissioner Rivers answered.
“See, that’s the thing. I have been hearing what you’re saying, and I’ve decided that a lot of it is bull.”
The commissioner’s eyes darted to me. He seemed equal parts confused and tickled as he answered. “How so, Ms. Karr?”
“Well, Liv would have me believe that the folks here are satisfied with normal small town life, and I’m sure your little ‘disagreement’ with her was just an attempt to prove to me how much you guys value the importance of everyday life. Very un-Breaker of you. But I know how these things work, Commissioner. I know that movements aren’t born out a desire to play Bingo on Saturdays and gather outside the barbershop to talk. And, regardless of how authentic this recreation of the Andy Griffith Show might be, this is definitely a movement. So tell me, Commissioner Rivers, and understand that-if I don’t believe the answer- I’m out of here quicker than you can count your chest medals, what do you people want with me?”
Commissioner Rivers stopped short. His eyes narrowed, but his face didn’t lose even a hint of the amusement it held. “You get right to the point, don’t you?”
“It’s a commodity that I value. Answer the question,” I barked.
“You’ve lit the world up, Ms. Karr. We’ve watched you for quite some time and, to be completely honest with you, if Allister Leeman hadn’t set forth the series of events that brought your true nature into fruition, we would have. Albeit, in a much more bloodless fashion.”
“Why would you want that?” I asked, my hands balling into fits. “Why would you want to turn me into the things that ends the world?”
“Is that what you think?” He asked, near breathless. “The Breakers have taught you only the strictest translations of their prophecies, haven’t they?”
“Don’t play games with me. I know what the prophecies mean,” I answered, my voice probably louder than it should have been.
“I don’t think you do, Ms. Karr. Because, if you did, you’d know what you’ve just caused.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, my blood chilling. “What did I just cause?”
Commissioner Rivers cleared his throat and straightened his stance. “When you brought the bloodmoon into fruition over the Hourglass, it reacted the only way it could. Binds that had been placed all over the world by Breakers started to snap. Anchors began to lose their potency. Shade that Breakers put into place years, decades, even a century before started to crumble and disappear.”
“That’s not true,” I said quickly. “That can’t be true. If it was, then that would mean-”
“That the world that they put up, that the lies that they fed to mankind for all these years are finally being brought to light. But you have to keep going, Cresta. What you did was only the beginning. You have to stay the path if you really want to free the world of all of this tyranny. I know what they told you about the Damanatus, that her death would mean something horrible for you.”
“That I would kill children,” I said, tears burning behind my eyes. “That I would kill all the children in t
he whole world.”
“Again, such strict translations,” he sighed. “It doesn’t say anything about children. It speaks to the innocent of the world, to the uninitiated. It doesn’t mean that you’ll kill any children, Cresta. You know yourself well enough to know that could never happen. What it means, what we want from you, is to free all the people whose lives have been touched by the machinations of the Breakers, to open their eyes, to remove the world of the innocent by replacing turning them into the learned. We want to give the people of the world control over how they want to live their lives. And we need you to help us do it.”
My mind was racing, and my face must have betrayed as much. Because Commissioner Rivers leaned in. “You only said you had to believe it. You never said anything about having to like it.”
“I-I don’t know,” I answered, really unable to process anything. “I don’t know that I can do that. I don’t know that I want to.”
“I understand that. Of course, I do. And I don’t expect you to have an answer right now. Just considering it is enough. But, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to show you the package. I’d like to give you a full view of what we have to offer you here.”
“I don’t-I don’t know,” I repeated.
“It’s just right here,” he answered, pointing to the door we now stood in front of. “We’ve made it the entire way. All that’s left to do is walk in.”
Without waiting for me to answer, Commissioner Rivers pushed open the door. He followed and, though I was still a bit shell shocked, I went in behind him.
The corridor I found myself standing in was vast and dark, lit only by ambient light coming from a room at the end.
“Just follow me, he answered and marched toward the light.
Y mind went back to the crone’s temple as I followed, to the long hallway and the pictures of Seers from all throughout history. I wished Wendy was with me now. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to decipher anything she said, but at least I’d have a friend. At least I’d have someone. But she was dead, just like all the others. And I’d have to make due on my own.
Commisioner Rivers settled at the edge of the corridor, staring out into the brightness of the room at the end. As I approached, I heard chatter coming from it. People were guarding this package, whatever the hell it was.
Another figure appeared in the doorway. It was Marco, the boy from the street. “Hey Cresta. I’m so glad you could make it. They’ve all been talking about you.”
“Who?” I muttered as I neared the room. But as I approached him, he moved out of the way. I could see the room, bright white and cheery. And I could see the package.
And it took my breath away.
There, sitting along a series of tables, drinking tea and eating finger sandwiches, sat Casper, Dahlia, Jiqui, and Royce. They were there. They were all there, alive, smiling.
“This isn’t real,” I said, unable to stop torrents of tears from pouring down my face.
“Hey now, Sweetheart,” Royce said, standing up and walking to meet me. “Don’t let your face get so long. It’s all gonna be okay.”
“You’re not here,” I said. “This is the field, the machines they have. They’re making me see the thing I want. They’re trying to convince me to do what they need me to do.”
“Am I the thing you want?” He asked, settling in front of me, brushing moisture off my cheek and entwining his fingers with mine. “I’m here, Sweetheart. We’re all here. Your barrier, it saved us. It was strong as hell, just like you. I tried to get to you, but you were already gone. And when these folks said they could bring us to you, we had to take them up on it.” He grinned. “Of course, it didn’t that she was the one doing the asking.”
“Who?” I said, my brows raising. “Who said that?”
“I did.” A voice chimed in from behind Royce.
I looked past him and, once again, the breath left my body. She stood there arms folded, staring like she had never abandoned me, like she had never abandoned us.
Laurel Luna, my former therapist, my biological mother was right here. And she had a lot of explaining to do.
“It’s good to see you,” she said, biting her lip just like I always did. “It’s really good.”
“No,” I stammered. “No. No No. I can’t. I just- I can’t.”
“I told you it was too soon, Momma,” Royce said from in front of me. And just like that, two syllables instantly made me ridiculously confused and horribly sick.
“Did you just call her Momma?” I stumbled away from him. “Did you just call my biological mother Momma?!”
He moved toward me and I threw my hands up to stop him.
“It ain’t like that, Sweetheart. There’s no blood there.” He motioned to her and then back to me. “There’s no blood here. My own parents were about ready to throw me out with the bathwater. So your mother took me in. She raised me. I told you she saved my life, Sweetheart. I just didn’t tell you that she did it every day.”
“So my biological mother raised you? Like, baked you cookies and helped you with your homework?” It was stupid, but tears started welling behind my eyes.
“Is that a bad thing?” Royce asked, his brow furrowing.
“I don’t- I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I don’t know anything right now.”
“Well then let me help you,” Laurel Luna said, moving toward me. “I want to help you Cresta.”
“Help me with what?” I balked, barely able to look at her.
“Well,” she swallowed hard. “With ending the world.”
Chapter 21
And He Knows it
Owen
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
It seemed like I had been saying that for hours now. Ever since Echo sauntered into that room, less a finger and full of contradictions, it seemed the world was on edge. The Council knew where Cresta was, some little town in Maryland named Clarity. And how did they know? Because Echo told them.
But why? The last time I saw Echo, he was full on in Cresta’s corner. He tortured me the first time I met him, in part, because he thought I was spying on her. He was the closest thing she had to a father for fate’s sake. The idea that, not only would he betray her, but he would betray her in a manner that would cost her life seemed unimaginable to me. But here it was. What had happened? What sequence of events could possibly be enough to explain this away?
“I need to know,” I said, arms folded and eyes fixed at the door.
I was in the Medic Bay, still recovering from the ill-advised trip that Sevie (or whatever it was that was now occupying Sevie’s headspace ) put me on. And it was a good thing too. Merrin was with me, though she was so weak that it was her, not me, laying in the bed. If the Council was to be believed, I’d have to consummate our relationship if her condition was ever going to improve and if I was to keep myself from going down a similar path. But I couldn’t think about that right now, not with everything else going on.
“I just need to know.”
“What good would that do?” Mother asked, sitting beside Merrin and stroking her hair. “It wouldn’t change anything. They know where she is now. The reasons behind Echo’s actions are superfluous at this point. Things will move forward, regardless of the rest of it.”
“I understand that,” I said without looking at her. Of course, I understood that. It had been laying on my mind like a brick ever since I woke up into this horrible nightmare. “He was one of us,” I said. “He was one of us, and now he’s done this. I need to know why.”
“Owen, I need you to stop this foolishness before your father gets here,” Mother said, her hand leaving Merrin’s head and resting on her lap. “I understand that things have been difficult for you, and I have tried my best to accommodate that. But things are serious now. We’re not talking about puppy love and unfulfilled potential. Cresta Karr is, at this very moment, responsible for the anguish and hurt of countless people across the world. The anchors that she broke weren’t there for fun. And if she isn�
��t stopped, the world will end. Playtime is over. She is the Bloodmoon. You are the Dragon. It’s time that you dealt with that fact.”
My head was pounding. Was this real? Was my mother, the only bastion of sense I had in a sea of ravaging lunacy, finally starting to turn on me? And, if so, what did that mean? I would never kill Cresta. Nothing could make me. But was I wrong to side with her? Was what she had done, inadvertently or not, so bad that she had forfeited her right to defense? Was that why Echo had turned on her? Was he seeing something I didn’t, something Mother was finally coming to terms with?
But I couldn’t let it go at that. I couldn’t let her preach to me as if her hands weren’t every bit as dirty as my own.
“And whose fault is that, Mother? Who made me the Dragon in the first place?” I asked, standing up shakily.
“That isn’t a thread you want to pull, Owen. None of it matters now,” she said. “Now sit down.”
“It does matter. It matters, and I will not sit down. You started this. Maybe there couldn’t have been a Bloodmoon without a Dragon. Did you ever think of that?? Did you ever think that, if you hadn’t branded me this thing, that none of this would be happening now?”
“Do you know what would be happening now, Owen?” She asked, standing to meet me. “You would be dead. You would be cold, in the ground, and forgotten by everyone but me. So no, I try not to think about that, son.”
“Maybe I’d rather that,” I said, blinking back tears before they got a chance to form. “Death wouldn’t be so bad. It couldn’t be worse than this.”
“Tell that to the dead,” she answered. “Tell that to their families. Tell that to those suffering and losing their lives because of what Cresta Karr has brought about. Tell that to your wife, laying here feverish and weak because the two of you can’t find it in your hearts to grow up and understand that life will always just be life.”
The Breaker's Resolution: (YA Paranormal Romance) (Fixed Points Book 4) Page 16