Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3)

by DelSheree Gladden

  Chapter 11

  Standstill

  (Olivia)

  I feel like I’ve been stomped on. Like a hundred times. Groaning, I try to lift my head, but I don’t get very far. Hands move to help me. They’re not Mason’s, though, a realization that snaps my eyes open. “Hayden?” I blink several times, taking in the fact that I am way cozier with him right now than I have ever been before. Removing my arm from across his chest quickly, I glance around the room in confusion. “Where are we?”

  “I’m not sure, actually,” Hayden says. “I guess I never bothered to ask. Getting caught up on everything kinda distracted me.” He shrugs lightheartedly and helps me up to sitting.

  “How long have I been asleep?” On top of you, no less, I add to myself.

  Hayden runs a hair through his perpetually perfect hair. How does it stay so nice all the time? “Well, when I woke up this morning,” Hayden says, “Mason told me it’d been about twenty-four hours since you guys broke me out. It’s six in the evening now. You’ve been out all day.” His eyebrows scrunch together as he looks at me. “You look like you still need another two days of sleep.”

  I feel like I need a week of sleep. “We don’t really have time for that,” I say.

  “Apparently not,” Hayden agrees.

  “So, Mason and Sloane filled you in on everything?”

  Hayden ducks his eyes. “Uh, yeah.”

  Groaning, I realize they filled him in on everything. “Mason told you about what his parents said, didn’t he?” I shake my head, wanting to slap him.

  “It was Sloane, actually, and she told me a bit more than what you or Mason know.”

  I’m kind of surprised Sloane volunteered to tell Hayden about mine and Mason’s problem, since clueing in Hayden only puts him more out of her reach, but I’m even more disturbed by the idea that there’s more to it that she didn’t bother to share with us. I listen as Hayden explains the connection between the human and Aerling worlds and what failing will really mean. Falling back against the headboard, I struggle to take it all in.

  “About finding the Mother…” Hayden begins. I can tell by the hesitant tone to his voice that he’s figured out what I realized soon after we got back and I had two second to process everything.

  “Yeah, I know. I can’t find her without knowing her and being connected to her.”

  Hayden actually looks a little relieved. “You already pieced that together, then?”

  Nodding, I run my hands through my tangled hair. I realize I must look like a mess by this point, but I’m too tired to care much. “I need help, Hayden, but I have no idea who to trust at this point.”

  “Have you asked Sloane?”

  My nose wrinkles in distaste, which makes Hayden laugh.

  “I kinda picked up on the hostility between you two after the rescue. Care to explain?”

  “I couldn’t find you without her help.”

  “And that didn’t go well?” Hayden asks.

  Huffing, I cross my arms and glare at nothing in particular. “If you count her getting inside my head and stealing my memories of you, then no, it didn’t go well.”

  “She did help you find me, though, right?” Hayden asks slowly.

  When I look up at him with a nasty expression, it falters in the face of his grin.

  “What are you so worried about?” Hayden asks, trying to contain his laughter. “Her seeing our time together doesn’t mean anything. She can see it all she wants. It doesn’t mean she actually lived it. It doesn’t change that fact that those were our experiences. She can talk about it like she knows what happened, but she wasn’t there with me. You were.”

  “She could feel everything, too,” I say.

  Hayden frowns. “That’s kinda creepy, but it still doesn’t change anything between us.”

  Sighing, I’m annoyed at him for not getting more upset about Sloane’s invasion. “Just, be careful around her, okay? I think she’s got some kind of weird fixation on you, either from the memories or because of Levi.”

  I don’t miss how Hayden instantly tenses up at the mention of Levi’s name. I know Levi’s death still haunts him, but he’s never done that before. Before I can question him about it, though, Hayden moves on. “Anyway, we need to figure out how to get you connected to the Mother or this whole plan is going to fall apart.”

  “Do we actually have a plan?”

  “I was using the term loosely,” Hayden says.

  Glad to be talking about something else, I say, “Where do we start?”

  “I doubt you’re going like this, but you need to ask people for help. Sloane, the Montgomery’s maybe, the Parkers if we can get in touch with them, anyone you can possibly think of that will be able to shed some light on the Mother. If we can’t actually manufacture you knowing her, we have to get you familiar enough with who she is that we have a chance at making a connection,” Hayden says.

  My first choice would be going to the Parkers for help. After the attack on their home, the Caretakers Officers put them into hiding. We can’t contact them. They call when they’re able, but it’s dangerous for them right now. My view of the Montgomery’s has changed drastically since discovering all of Robin’s lies, but trusting them is still hard to swallow. That leaves me with Sloane, who I really don’t want to ask for anything. Speaking of my least favorite new friend….

  “Where is everyone?”

  Startled out of his thoughts, Hayden looks around for a moment. “Robin’s trussed up on the floor by the window. Sloane’s standing guard outside and Mason went to grab everyone some dinner. Pizza, I think.”

  Surely Mason will be back soon, but there’s no time to waste. Sighing, I shake off my insecurities and make a request. “Would you mind trading places with Sloane for a bit so I can ask her some questions?”

  Hayden nods and stands up, but before he walks away, he points a finger at me. “Play nice, okay?” When I roll my eyes at him, he says, “If you don’t, I’ll call in all the basketball time you owe me. You’ve got to be up to like a week straight by now.”

  That draws a smile to my lips. I love Hayden, but basketball sucks. Okay, I suck at basketball, but still. “How about you teach me to skateboard instead?”

  Grinning, Hayden says, “Deal.”

  I shake my head at him. How does he go from serious grownup to ten-year-old boy so quickly? I don’t think I would have survived all of this without him. As soon as he disappears, I miss him, but I really feel the loss when Sloane shuffles into the room and sits down across from me on the bed, legs tucked up beneath her nervously.

  “Hayden said you have some questions?”

  “Yeah,” I say, “about the Mother. I need to get to know her.”

  Sloane nods, as though she’s been expecting the request. “I’ve only been back home for a year, but the Aerlings really hammer home the history of our people when new Aerlings return. I’ll tell you everything I can.”

  “Great. Let’s start with what kind of person she is. What’s she like?”

  Settling in a little more comfortably now that she realizes I’m not going to bite her head off, Sloane takes a deep breath and begins. “Well, the Mother is a nurturer. She and the Father each played different roles. They created the Aerlings together, but while the Father focused on making us strong and capable, the Mother made sure we were filled with kindness and compassion. She understood that surviving wasn’t the end goal. There was no point in protecting a civilization that wasn’t willing to care for its own and those less fortunate. She governed the morals of the Aerlings while the Father governed the structure and protection of the society.”

  “So, who’s been doing all the nurturing and morals and stuff since she’s been gone? It’s been millennia, right?”

  “Sure,” Sloane says, “but all the basics were put in place a long time ago. Having her there to answer moral questions and guide everyone toward kindness and compassion would be great, but it’s not like the Aerlings need to be led around by the h
and. It’s more like she set up the rules and laws and the people were expected to follow them. Tāwhiri took over a lot of her responsibilities when he came back, but it’s not the same.”

  Thinking about what she’s said, I can easily accept the roles of each supreme parent. That’s how every society is ran, really. One group governs day to day life and the other governs law and morality. Something about the comparison doesn’t quite sit right with me, though. Maybe it has more to do with what Mason told me outside the compound.

  “Tell me about the barrier. The Mother created it, right?”

  Sloane nods. “Yes, after the war between the brothers, when they realized Tāwhiri couldn’t defeat Tū.”

  “Wait,” I interrupt, “why couldn’t Tāwhiri defeat Tū? Is Tū stronger?”

  “No, of course not,” Sloane says as if I’ve asked a stupid question. “They’re evenly matched. Neither one can defeat the other.”

  “But Tāwhiri defeated his other brothers. Why not Tū?”

  For a minute, Sloane just stares at me. After a few seconds she shakes off her apparent confusion and says, “Sorry, Olivia, all of this has been crammed into me for the last year. I forget how little the Caretakers know, or how little they teach the Aerlings in their care.” She shakes her head again. “Tū and Tāwhiri can’t defeat each other because they’re not just brothers, but twins. The first children born to the Mother and Father. They share each other’s power, and so they can never use it to defeat the other.”

  “Hold up,” I say as what she just said immediately hits me as wrong, or mistaken, or something. “Before we left, Cedrick said we didn’t have to defeat all the Sentinels, we just had to defeat Tū and then everything would be fine once we fix the barrier.”

  “Yes,” Sloane says slowly, clearly not getting what I’m saying.

  “But we have Tāwhiri’s power!” I exclaim. “How the hell are we supposed to beat him with Tāwhiri’s power if Tāwhiri himself couldn’t do it?”

  Sloane’s shoulders drop, clearly confused. “I…I don’t understand.”

  “Join the club, sister.”

  About that time, Mason and Hayden both come striding back into the room, arms full of pizza and sodas. Mason is immediately on alert just seeing Sloane and me sitting together without me glaring at her and ready for a cat fight. Hayden glances between the both of us. “Everything okay?” he asks.

  “No,” Sloane and I both say.

  Mason sets down the pizzas and gets even more serious. “What’s going on?”

  “What did the scarred Sentinel say to you at the compound? Specifically,” I ask.

  My question does nothing to put Mason at ease. “He said he wouldn’t need to stop us from fixing the barrier because once we learned the truth we wouldn’t want to fix it.”

  “He didn’t say anything about how we wouldn’t be able to hurt him?” I demand. “Did he know we have Tāwhiri’s power?”

  Caught off guard by my questions, Mason sits down on the edge of the bed. “No. He didn’t mention either. Why?”

  “Because Tū and Tāwhiri can’t defeat each other. At least, that’s what the Aerlings have told everyone. That’s why they had to create the barrier, because Tāwhiri couldn’t defeat Tū since they’re twins and share the same power or something like that. Mason, we can’t beat him if that’s true.”

  “If that’s true,” Hayden says darkly.

  Sloane looks up at him in confusion. “What do you mean, if that’s true? Why wouldn’t it be true?”

  Hayden scoffs. “Ninety percent of what we’ve been told by Caretakers, Sentinels, and Aerlings has all been a load of crap. All three groups have twisted their history to however it best suits them.”

  “How does this story benefit the Aerlings?” Mason asks him. I want to know the same thing.

  Leaning against the dresser behind him, Hayden frowns. “If the barrier was put in place for a reason other than what you were told, this story gives the barrier a believable backstory, one the Aerlings won’t question. It’s for their protection. The big bad rotten apple of the family is out to get them, but locking them all up tight in the Aerling world keeps him out, right?”

  “Right,” I say, beginning to see where Hayden is going with this. “They don’t want to leave the Aerling world once they get there, because leaving means being exposed to Tū. They’re happy being locked up like cattle.”

  Sloane starts shaking her head. “But…I don’t understand…I mean, why would they want to close off the worlds if it wasn’t to protect us from Tū?”

  “I’m sure part of it is to protect the Aerlings from Tū,” Mason says. “None of us can deny the fact that he’s going around killing Aerlings and Caretakers. There’s another reason they want to keep him out, though.”

  “Like what?” Sloane asks quietly.

  Nobody has an answer to that. Whatever it is, it’s the real reason behind this war. Tū knows what it is, but he’s not telling. Not that we’d trust anything he’d tell us…which is exactly why he wants us to find it out for ourselves. Tricky, psychotic, murdering devil. He knows everything, except maybe where the Mother is, but he’s happy to watch us stumble around in the dark while the barrier keeps crumbling to pieces. Either way he thinks he’ll win. If we find out the truth and realize the barrier isn’t what we think it is, we’ll prevent it from being repaired. If we’re too slow at figuring everything out, it’ll fall to pieces anyway.

  He doesn’t have to stop us. He doesn’t have to kill us, either, I realize. My heart sinks as that thought really hits me. “Tū already knows we have Tāwhiri’s power.”

  Everyone turns to look at me, Mason especially. “How do you know?”

  “It’s why he didn’t try to kill you,” I say.

  The other three people in the room with me stare at me like I’m speaking gibberish. Mason is the only one to voice his concerns. “What do you mean he didn’t try to kill me? We haven’t even met Tū yet. All we know is that he’s leading the Sentinels.”

  “We have met him,” I say, “several times.” Now they’re all really confused. “The scarred Sentinel, he’s not just following orders. He’s the one giving them. He’s Tū. He’s the one we’re supposed to defeat, and we can’t do it.”

  Mason’s head starts shaking back and forth in panic. “No. Really? That can’t be right. He can’t be Tū.”

  “You said yourself that you couldn’t even affect him the night he came for you at the Parker’s house,” Hayden reminds him. Mason’s head falls into his hands.

  “That’s why he didn’t kill you at the compound,” I say. “He only wanted to see how much control you have over his brother’s power, but fighting you directly would have revealed that he can’t hurt you either.”

  “You think it’s true, then?” Hayden asks.

  I nod, even though I want to have any other answer than this one. “If it wasn’t, he would have just killed all of us at the compound. We all know he’s powerful enough to do it.”

  “But,” Mason says, “what about his scar?”

  Sloane peers up at him, confused. “What about it?”

  “I gave it to him,” Mason snaps. “The night he killed my Caretakers, I gave him that scar. I could hurt him then, but not now?”

  Hayden puts his hands up and drags them down his face. “None of this makes any sense. Why would Tāwhiri give you his power and ask you to defeat his brother if he knew giving you his power would keep you from doing exactly that?”

  “Something’s missing,” Mason says adamantly. “I can hurt Tū, somehow. He’s strong, yes, but I gave him that scar and I can do it again. There does seem to be something protecting him now, because every attack I threw at him back at the compound seemed to just bounce off him like it did that night at the Parker’s, but I can hurt him. I just have to figure out what I did when I was five.”

  “You don’t remember?” Sloane asks in surprise.

  Mason shakes his head. “My memories from back then, they’re damaged, bu
t I’ll figure it out.”

  The room is quiet for a long time as everyone thinks and tries to unravel this confusing mess. No one seems to be making any progress. As I sit there feeling more worn out than I have ever felt in my life, a strange, nagging thought begins to pull at me. “How did Tū manage to kidnap the Mother?”

  “Before the barrier was put in place, there was nothing stopping him from traveling back to the human world,” Sloane says. “There were guards, but he managed to slip past them, I guess. He snuck in and grabbed her once she had already set the barrier creation into motion.”

  “But why?” Mason asks. “What did stealing the Mother gain him, and why doesn’t he know where she is now? If he kidnapped her, why not hold onto her, try to get her to take down the barrier or something?”

  Another impossible question. I just want to go back to bed at this point and hope everything makes sense when I wake up. My brain hurts from thinking about all of this so much.

  “What if that’s not what happened?” Hayden asks. When everyone has their attention pinned on him, his conviction seems to grow. “Well, wouldn’t it make more sense that if the Mother can fix the barrier on this side of it, she had to have created it on this side as well?”

  “So, she left voluntarily, to create a barrier that would lock the Aerlings in and Tū out?” I ask. Hayden only shrugs, but the rest of us are nodding. That certainly makes more sense than the story we were told, and it explains why Tū doesn’t know where the Mother is right now. He never did.

  “So,” Sloane says, “the big question is, why did the Mother really need to lock Tū out of the Aerling world when he and Tāwhiri were already at a standstill?”