by M. H. Soars
It was decided that Ethan would spend the night at La Maison Falafel in Sean’s room. Gary tried to protest, but shut his mouth with one glance from Durgin.
I really wanted to talk to Alexia, to make sure she was all right, but with the compulsion in place I wouldn’t get anything real from her. As soon as she and Ethan went to bed, we headed to Gary’s office for a debriefing. Gary’s office was big, but tonight it seemed the walls were closing in. I wanted to be anywhere but there. My cousins and I took the couches, while Durgin, Lucas, and Gary remained standing.
“Durgin, what is the meaning of all of this? Tonight the binding ceremony was supposed to take place, and now I have Alexia and that ex-boyfriend of hers looking like sleepwalkers. And where’s Henry?”
Gary stood in a corner looking exhausted and irritated.
Durgin didn’t seem one bit intimidated by Gary’s questions. Lucas tried to remain impassive, but I caught a quick emotion flash in his eyes as he glanced in Melanie’s direction. The animosity was still alive and kicking between those two.
“It’s funny that you ask, Garyanx. Were you aware that Henry was a fake?” Durgin asked, his voice as cold as ice.
I was surprised that Durgin used Gary’s Arcadian name. That in itself didn’t bode well. His sharp tone and the tension in his body made us remember who he really was, and what he was capable of. Since he had become my instructor, I had relaxed around him and forgotten that the man was lethal. I was beginning to think that had not been wise on my part.
“What? That’s impossible!” Gary exclaimed. He shook his head in denial. So Durgin was aware of the conspiracy. But what did that mean? Why would the Council sabotage its own means of salvation?
“You didn’t think it was strange that the boy they claimed was the Promised One didn’t evoke any feelings in Alexia or show any special abilities? You really expect me to believe you were that gullible?”
Gary blanched as he caught the implication of Durgin’s accusations. Even though I agreed with Durgin, I became very afraid for Gary’s safety. Durgin was implying that Gary had deliberately tried to tamper with the Prophecy. I could only imagine what kind of punishment that would incite.
“I was following the Council’s orders. I trusted their judgment!” Gary exclaimed.
Durgin laughed wryly. “Oh, yeah. You always were the faithful servant.”
“I give you my word that I had nothing to do with this deception. I love Alexia like a daughter. I would never put her in harm’s way,” Gary said through clenched teeth.
I might have been angry with Gary lately, but I believed in him. He had raised Alexia, he had raised all of us. He might not have been the ideal parent, but he had never let us feel like we didn’t belong.
Durgin shook his head. “I want to believe you, Garyanx, I really do. But unfortunately, the stakes are too high for me to take the risk.”
A feeling of dread traveled down my spine, making me shiver. What did he mean by that? I quickly stole a glance at Matthew. I didn’t like the look on his face.
Without taking his eyes off of Gary, Durgin called out, “Matthew?”
All eyes in the room were on him. His jaw was shut tight as he briefly closed his eyes, like he was preparing himself mentally for something he didn’t want to do. He got up, avoiding eye contact with everyone. When I tried to reach his mind, I found myself blocked out. That had never happened before.
“What’s going on?” Melanie asked, anxiety in her voice. When no one answered, she attempted to get up from the couch. Lucas was already next to her, and with a single hand on her shoulder held her in place.
I expected her to bat his hand away and cause a scene, but she just stared at him and remained quiet.
Matthew was standing in front of Gary at that point. “I’m sorry, Gary. But I must do it,” I heard him say. Gary just nodded.
Like they had rehearsed the whole scene, Durgin and Lucas positioned themselves on either side of Gary and held him in place. Matthew kept Gary’s face still between his hands and focused on his eyes. Matthew’s eyes glowed a fiery amber, and soon after Gary began to whimper and thrash against his restrains.
I grabbed Zach’s hand and suppressed a gasp. Durgin was making Matthew use his power against Gary. I felt nauseated. The whole thing only lasted a minute but it felt like hours. Matthew finally released Gary’s face and took a step back, looking ashen. I tried to get up and go to him, but Zach held me. Melanie went to Matthew, instead.
Gary fainted and would have collapsed if Durgin and Lucas weren’t holding him. Zach and I quickly got up from the couch and let them lay Gary’s unconscious form there.
Durgin turned to Matthew expectantly. “And?”
Matthew was still recovering from the effects of using the Phoenix to invade someone’s mind, and was leaning heavily against Gary’s desk.
“He was telling the truth. He didn’t know.”
Durgin exhaled in relief, but Matthew continued, “Is he going to be okay?” It broke my heart to hear his voice sound so small.
“You didn’t stay in his mind long. He’ll be fine,” Durgin reassured Matthew, who could only nod.
Melanie led him back to the couch opposite the one Gary was occupying. He sat down and buried his face in his hands as Melanie rubbed his back. I immediately felt angry that I couldn’t be the one comforting him, but now was not the time to come clean about our romance. Instead, I dumped my frustration on Durgin.
“Are you going to tell us what the hell happened tonight?”
Durgin narrowed his eyes at me but answered my question without reprimanding me for my lack of respect.
“I suspected from the beginning that Henry was not one of the Promised, but I couldn’t prove anything. So I had Lucas investigate. He discovered that Henry wasn’t a seventh son. He was the youngest of twin brothers, making him an eighth son. His twin brother, the actual seventh son, died at birth. When Lucas told me about Alexia and Ethan’s breakup, I immediately suspected compulsion had been used to accomplish the feat. It didn’t take long for me to conclude that someone on the Council was plotting to prevent the Prophecy from taking place.”
“But you’re also part of the Council. You could have voiced your suspicions to them. They would have listened to you,” I pointed out.
“I’m not a member of the Council. My father and my brother are.”
We had always assumed that Durgin belonged to the Council. How come no one ever bothered to correct our erroneous assumption?
“So if you are not a Council member, what are you?” Sean asked.
“Nox Elite,” Durgin replied without hesitation. I guess the time for secrecy was over.
“Nox Elite? What is that? Some sort of Arcadian version of the Navy Seals?” Sean continued, showing a clear interest.
“More like the British SAS, but with a bang,” Lucas replied. For the first time I got a clear emotion from him: pride.
I also noticed something else. It wasn’t obvious at first glance, but looking at Durgin and Lucas standing side by side, I could see some similarities between them. It wasn’t in their physical appearance, but more like in the way they moved and in their voices. I wondered if they were related, and if so, if it meant that Lucas was also Arcadian royalty. That was just freaking great.
“Can we get back to the point, please? So what happened at the Kissing Grove that required your presence, Durgin?" Melanie asked, unable to disguise her irritation.
Matthew looked up and exchanged a glace with Lucas. It seemed that whatever had happened there, it had formed a bond between them. Lucas was the one who replied. “Ethan killed Henry.”
“What?” We all shouted.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Mia chanted in anguish, hiding her face between her hands. Zach looked at her pained reaction like he wanted to comfort her, but it was Sean who placed his arm around her shoulder in support.
“How?” Zach asked as he took his eyes off of them.
“With his powers,” Matthew an
swered this time.
“What powers?” I asked. Then it dawned on me. Ethan was the Promised boy. It made sense. It was only after Alexia had started dating him that her powers manifested. He had been the trigger. And since the moment they met, they couldn’t stay away from each other. “But how is it possible? Ethan doesn’t have six brothers. He’s an only child,” I contested.
“Ethan is adopted. That explains why we didn’t suspect he was our boy immediately. But after I witnessed the despair in both Ethan and Alexia when they broke up, I began to wonder whether he could be the one we had been waiting for. When Gary announced that the Council wanted to go ahead with the binding ritual, I knew immediately that something was very wrong, so I had Lucas take the blame for the fake photos and reconcile Ethan and Alexia,” Durgin replied.
“Yes, but you said you suspected compulsion was responsible for their breakup. Now you’re saying that someone forged the photos of Ethan and Chloe together? I’m confused,” said Sean as he scratched his head.
“I had to say I faked those photos. I couldn’t tell them that someone used compulsion on Ethan to make him kiss Chloe,” Lucas explained.
“Any idea who could have done that to Ethan?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Probably the same person responsible for the drug distribution,” Lucas replied.
“So, in other words, you have no clue,” Melanie added sarcastically.
“And the mystery deepens,” Sean mumbled as he stroked his chin.
“The important thing is that we have the Promised Ones together, and they’ve already started bonding,” Durgin continued matter-of-factly.
“Yes, but what about poor Henry?” Mia asked. Matthew and Lucas sneered.
“Good riddance,” I heard Matthew say bitterly. The color had somewhat returned to his face, which was now distorted in a scowl.
“How can you say that, Matt? He was probably just a victim,” Mia countered.
“He tried to rape Alexia,” Lucas answered bluntly and we all made disconcerted noises. So that was what Matthew meant when he said he’d gotten to her in time. Poor Alexia. Now I was glad Durgin had erased those memories. I hoped that they never came back.
“But we can’t blame him for that. He was not himself, Matthew,” Lucas continued like it cost him to say it. When he noticed everyone’s confused glances he explained, “He took the drug, and he was also under the assumption him and Alexia were soul mates. It wouldn’t be a far cry to assume whoever planned the deception also coaxed Henry enough so he would act that way.”
“I don’t care about any of that!” Matthew snapped. “I would have killed him myself if I had the chance.”
I wondered if the majority in the room agreed with Matthew. Durgin quickly veered the conversation back to the drug topic and I was glad to have something else to focus on.
We finally learned the name of the mysterious drug that was causing so many problems and what it really did. Ayahuasca was an ancient medicinal recipe that blended the extracted liquids from two or more Amazonian vines. It was mixed and proffered by shamans in South America. The concoction first quieted the user’s ego, then lowered his barrier to the spiritual world. In most cases, users had a hallucinogenic vision and believed they had a psychological breakthrough. However, someone was using the drug to allow Earthlings to become possessed by Myserians.
So now we had to contend not only with banishing the Myserians, but also with finding out what they were doing here on Earth. Since the portal to the Myserian’s dimension had been opened in Arcadia, the only conclusion we could reach was that an Arcadian was responsible for the Myserians' presence on Earth. But how was that possible?
We expected Durgin to shed some light to that problem, but he refused to share his suspicions with us until he knew more. That pissed me off. Why did everything have to be a big secret? If Durgin had been straight with us from the beginning, maybe we could have avoided what happened to Alexia tonight. I wanted to argue with him, but I sensed the energy drain from me as soon as the first complaining thought crossed my mind. I just felt too tired and overwhelmed to voice my opinion.
Later that night, I could finally offer Matthew the comfort that I hadn’t been able to before. Our earlier quarrel didn’t matter anymore. Lying in his bed together, he had his arms around me, and my head rested against his chest. Our skin was damp, and his heart still beat at a heightened pace, like mine.
I wanted to ask him what he’d felt when he invaded Gary’s mind, but I didn’t dare broach the subject. So we just stayed in silence, each contemplating our own disturbing thoughts. After a while, as if Matthew had read my mind, he confessed, “It was awful, doing that to Gary.”
“I know,” I replied and placed a quick kiss on his chest.
“But I don’t regret it. I’m glad that I could prove he was innocent. With everything that's going on, I don’t think I could handle it if I found out that Gary had betrayed us.”
We were silent once more before I changed to another subject that had been nagging at me. “What kind of relationship do you think Durgin and Lucas have?” I wanted to know if Matthew had noticed the resemblance between them too.
Matthew took a deep breath before responding. “I don’t know,” he paused. “Seeing them together disturbed me profoundly, and I can’t explain why.”
His response put fear in my heart, for I knew he was referring to something altogether different. Whatever had bothered Matthew, it was more sinister than a possible familial relationship between Durgin and Lucas.
CHAPTER 31
Alexia
The weekend of the Homecoming Dance was a bunch of blurry, disconnected memories. I remembered Lucas’s big confession, and Ethan and me getting back together and going to the dance. But after that, everything was fuzzy. Ethan had come back to the house with me and spent the night, but not in my room. He also didn’t remember much after the party.
My cousins teased us, saying that we’d probably had too much to drink — hence the blank spots in our memories. But I remembered everything that had happened at the gymnasium with clarity. We didn’t drink anything. What had happened after we left the dance? It was possible that we’d helped ourselves to the contents of the minibar in our limo. But we would never drink to the point of alcohol-induced amnesia. I wanted to drop the subject, like Sam had insisted I do. She said that some things were better left alone. But I couldn’t let go of it. Somehow, I would find a way to remember what happened.
Monday arrived way too soon. Mercifully, I didn’t get as many stares as I thought I would as I walked toward my locker. Ethan and I had shocked the hell out of everyone at the dance, but we were already old news. I was rummaging through my locker contents when Julian stopped by. He always seemed to prefer catching up with me when I was alone.
“So, Alexia, you and Ethan, huh? I thought that ship had sailed a long time ago.” I caught a hint of annoyance in his tone, and looked up at him, surprised.
“I’m always the last one to know. I’m wounded,” he pouted.
“Julian, what are you talking about? You saw Ethan and me together last Saturday at the dance. We talked to you, remember? You said you were happy for us.”
He frowned at me. “I did? I must have had too much to drink then,” he said dismissively as he patted my shoulder and left.
It wasn’t the first time Julian had showed extremely contradictory behavior. I would keep an eye on him. He was probably going through some trouble, and knowing him, he was trying to hide it. Maybe the murder investigation was getting to him. The police still didn’t have any leads.
“Did you hear the latest gossip?” Rachel whispered, leaning closer to my desk.
“You mean that Ethan and me getting back together is already old news? Things move fast around here,” I joked.
“This is California, babe, the land of scandals and indiscretions. Anyway, you know that new kid from Oklahoma?”
“Louisiana,” Brianna corrected her.
“
Whatever,” Rachel replied. “What was his name? Henry. It seems he’s vanished without a trace.”
My blood went cold hearing Henry’s name, and I cringed.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asked me. “Your face just turned completely white.”
“Y-yes. I’m fine,” I stammered. I got up suddenly. “I just remembered that I forgot my assignment in my locker. I’ll be right back.” I practically flew out of the classroom. I still had five minutes before the final bell, and I made a beeline to the nearest bathroom.
Thankfully, it was empty. I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face, completely disregarding my makeup. I leaned against the marble counter and stared back at my reflection. I looked like a ghost. Why had I reacted so strongly to hearing Henry’s name? I was overpowered by a sense of impotency and despair.
I grabbed a paper towel to dry my face and tried to get my nerves under control. The final bell sounded. That was my cue to get back to class. But as soon as I walked into the hallway, I heard a commotion. I turned the corner and saw two of Julian’s playmates coming to blows. The open display of violence froze me in place. It was like watching a train wreck — you knew it was going be bad, but you just couldn’t look away.
It was beyond bad; it was horrible. It looked like they wanted to kill each other from the vicious way they were fighting. The hallway floor was already speckled with blood. It didn’t take long for people to try to break up the fight, but their efforts were in vain.
When a bold freshman tried to pull the fighters apart, he got shoved against the lockers near me. The cracking sound his skull made as it connected with the hard metal brought me out of my daze. I knelt next to where he had fallen and tried to feel his pulse. Please don’t be dead, I chanted in my head.
He was passed out, but I could feel a weak pulse. Then I felt a surge within me, that compulsion that pulled me to those who were sick or injured. I tried to suppress the overwhelming feeling that was trying to burst out, but it was stronger than I. I was on the verge of healing the freshman when I felt an arm on my shoulder pulling me away from the unconscious kid. It broke the connection instantly. I didn’t even need to look up to know it was Ethan.