by Kaitlyn Hoyt
“What? She does?” I nod. I really want Liam to be happy. He deserves that much, especially after everything he’s been through because of me. He starts shaking his head. “It doesn’t change anything. I can’t risk it.”
“I just want you to be happy, Liam. You do whatever you think is right. Just remember that a girl won’t wait forever.” I look over toward Kyril. Natalie doesn’t like Kyril like that, but my glance is enough to startle Liam. I pat his knee and leave him pondering on the couch.
Going upstairs, I go into our bedroom and grab my iPod and sketchbook off the nightstand. When I come back downstairs, everyone is seated on the couch. I walk over to Colton and sit down beside him. I lean into his side and open the sketchbook.
I put my headphones in and click shuffle. The first song that pops up is “Amazing” by Matt Cardle. This isn’t a song that I can just listen to. I quietly hum along with the music. Absolutely no inspiration is coming to me as I stare down at the blank page, so I start drawing spirals across the paper. If something ends up appearing in the drawing...of course, it was intentional. I start bobbing along with the music.
Two of my swirls that overlap each other look like an eye, giving me an idea. I mirror that image on the page, drawing a face in the middle of the swirls. The face blends into the background. You’ll have to look at the picture pretty intently to see anything. When the song ends, I am still adding details to the drawing, but I feel like everyone is watching me. Looking up, I confirm the feeling. Yanking the right headphone out, I ask, “Was I singing again?”
“How are you not famous yet?” Natalie says. I blush a little and look up at Colton.
“Was I really loud?” I ask him. I seriously hope I wasn’t singing that loud.
“Not at first. You got louder the more you got into the song.” Shoot. I can’t turn my music up loud anymore. I can’t hear how loud I’m being. “Don’t be embarrassed, Ry. You have a beautiful singing voice.”
“Do you know Sara Bareilles?” Natalie asks.
“Oh goodness, of course she likes Sara Bareilles,” Emma mumbles.
“Do I know her? She’s my favorite artist.” Natalie jumps up and grabs my hand, pulling me off the couch. She runs up the stairs, dragging me after her. We stop at her room, and she grabs an iPod docking station. Exiting the room, I see everyone walking up the stairs. “What are you doing?”
She pulls me into the music room and forces me to sit down on the piano seat. “You’re going to play.”
“Why does everyone keep doing this to me?” I jump back up. “I’m not going to play. I didn’t mean to sing for everyone. I don’t want to play for everyone either. I hate having the attention on me, Natalie.”
“Then I’ll sing with you. It’ll be on me too!” I turn around and see everyone filing into the room. I start shaking my head. I turn around to walk out of the room, when Natalie grabs onto my hand. All the nerves I have start to fade away.
“That’s not fair.”
“I don’t play fair,” she mimics me. “Now you’re not nervous. It should be a piece of cake.”
“You know I could just shock you and walk out of here.”
“But you won’t because I know you want to play that piano. Otherwise you wouldn’t have let me drag you in here. You’re small, but you’re strong. You could have stopped me.” She has a point there. I look past her back to the piano. I do want to play it.
“Wait, she plays the piano?” Kyril asks.
“Yeah, she sings, plays, draws, dances, does gymnastics, runs, remembers random facts, reads minds, manifests weather elements, kicks butt…need I go on?” Emma says. I turn around and glare at Emma. Colton walks up behind me and slowly pushes me toward the piano. I let him because I already know that I am going to play.
“What am I playing?” I ask Natalie as I sit down at the piano. I place my hands on the keys. It just feels right sitting here. Music has always been a part of my life. I feel so comfortable sitting on a piano bench…not so comfortable when people are watching me play, or sing.
“Umm…how about “Love Song?” Can you play that?”
I scoff. Can I play that? I place my fingers on the correct keys and press down, getting familiar to the weight of the keys. When I enter the first chord, I look up at Natalie. She is going to sing first. “Head underwater…” she starts off. Wow, she can sing too. Her voice is closer to Sara Bareilles’s voice than mine is.
She stops singing, and I join in on the second verse. Looking down at the piano briefly, I make sure my fingers stay on the correct chords. We both sing on the chorus. Natalie leans on the piano and smiles at me. This is fun. I’ve sung with Colton a couple times, but besides him, no one else will sing with me. I let Natalie have more solos, while I sing most of the background voices.
When the song ends, I look up at Natalie and laugh. She is smiling widely at me. “You have a great voice,” I tell her.
“Am I the only girl mage that wasn’t blessed with any musical abilities? Really?”
“Play something else. You have a much better voice than I do. More of a range.” Natalie says. I shake my head and start scooting the bench back. “Please.”
I hear a chorus behind me, telling me to sing something else. “Guys, I only know slow songs on the piano…” I am hoping that that will be enough to get me out of this.
Colton pushes me back in the chair again. “Play something, Ryanne. Please.”
“That’s not fair. You guys can’t use Colton to get your way! That’s a whole new level of peer pressure.” Gosh, darn it. “Ugh, fine, but this is the last song. And I need to listen to it while I play.” I lean forward and plug my iPod into the dock. I turn the music down, so I can barely hear it over the piano.
I place my hands on the keys and close my eyes. I love this song, but I’m not as familiar with it on the piano. This is one of those songs where you get lost in the music. You have to feel it to do it justice. I start singing quietly, gradually singing louder as I get further into the song.
When I get to the chorus, I am thinking only of the song. The room around me disappears. It is just me and the piano. This song quickly picks up speed, and there are so many spots where I could mess up. I sing out the chorus, letting my voice flow out of my mouth–the words mingling with the air around me. I start moving along with the song, feeling the rhythm beneath my fingertips as they move across the cool keys. Taking a deep breath, I sing the chorus holding the last note out. This section is repeated four times.
My fingers hit the last notes as my voice slowly crescendos to silence. Everyone is standing around the piano now. I bite my lip and turn to Colton. Why are they all looking at me like that?
“What?”
“How do you do that?” Natalie asks me.
“Sing? Everyone can sing.”
“No no, it’s not that. I don’t know what it is exactly,” she pauses. “You feel the song. When I sing, I’m still aware of everything around me. I don’t get lost in the song like you do. You completely tune out your surroundings and focus only on the music. It’s fascinating to watch.” I stare at Natalie. Everyone feels a song in some way or another. It’s not that big of a deal.
I stand up from the piano bench and walk over toward Colton. As I get closer, a low buzzing fills the air, and the room starts tilting. I reach a hand out and grab onto the edge of the piano, steadying myself, waiting for the dizzy sensation to pass. Colton reaches out and grabs onto my arm. “Are you alright?”
I blink a couple of times, and everything stops spinning. “Yeah, sorry. I get clumsy when I’m embarrassed.”
Colton narrows his eyes at me. “Are you sure?”
“You know how much I hate attention,” I cover. That’s weird. Maybe my anemia is coming back. When I was little, I had anemia, which often made me dizzy when I stood up. I used to have to take pills to keep my iron levels normal, but Logan assured me that it shouldn’t come back now that I have my magic.
“What song was that?” Emma asks.<
br />
“The one I just played? “A Million More Years” by Olly Murs. It would have sounded better if I had all the background instruments as well.”
“It sounded great, Ry,” Colton says to me. I refuse to look up at him, because I know he is still giving me that awed expression. I reach out and grab his arm. Tilting my head so I can read his watch, I check the time.
“Can we train now? Or at least do something else, so everyone will stop looking at me.” Colton laughs and grabs my hand, pulling me out of the room.
“Training it is.”
Colton
“Why was everyone staring at me like that?” Ryanne asks me as I bring her into our room. I lean back against the closed door and watch her. “Like that! Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Because you’re amazing,” I tell her. Shaking her head, she turns around and grabs some work-out clothes. “Maybe you should be reading some of their minds in moments like that. You’ll see what everyone else sees.” She throws her clothes on the bed and faces me.
“It was just a song.”
“It’s not the song that caused everyone to act like that. It was the girl singing it.”
“We could have totally had a High School Musical moment there, but no one joined in. Apparently everyone forgot to read their scripts,” she says as she walks toward me. She stops when she is standing in front of me.
Reaching out, I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She shivers slightly under my touch and takes another tentative step toward me. Reaching out, she places a hand on my chest, over my heart. My heart is racing from her close proximity. She smiles and leans forward, placing a small kiss on the underside of my jaw.
She laughs against my skin as she feels the small groan I was trying to contain. It drives me crazy when she does that. She wraps her arms around my waist and rests her head on my chest. “Thank you.”
I wrap my arms around her. “For what?”
“For being you. Keeping me grounded. For helping me with everything,” she whispers.
I push her back and look down into her eyes, “Ryanne, you never have to thank me for that. Ever. I’m always here.”
“Well, thank you for always being here,” she says with a sly smile. She steps out of my arms and grabs the clothes. Smiling over her shoulder at me, she walks into the bathroom to change.
I change into my training clothes and look toward the bathroom door. Ryanne is still in the bathroom, changing. She is taking longer than usual. I lightly knock on the door. “Ryanne, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Go downstairs. I’ll be down in a minute.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, go,” she shouts back. Something is up. Since I’m not going to get any answers from Ryanne, I guess I’ll have to settle for next option. I need to talk with Liam.
Entering the kitchen, I find him leaning against the counter. He doesn’t look too good. “Ryanne?” I ask him.
“I don’t know. I just feel strange. Something’s going on, but I don’t know if it’s me or her.”
“I think something is wrong, but she won’t tell me.”
Liam winces and says, “Something is definitely wrong.”
“Colton!” Emma yells.
I run out of the kitchen and into the living room. Emma is standing on the bottom of the stairs with her arms outstretched to keep Ryanne from falling. She’s a couple steps up, gripping the handrail, with a pained expression on her face. Her body is shaking. If she wasn’t holding onto the handrail, she’d probably fall down the stairs. When she starts moving down the rest of the stairs, I move through everyone and move toward her.
When she makes it to the bottom stair, she gasps and let go of the handrail. Falling to her knees, she starts panting. “Ryanne, what’s wrong?” Everyone is starting to crowd around us now.
“They’re pulling me back,” she whispers. She grunts and leans forward, falling against me. She is violently shaking now. I pick her up and carry her over to the couch.
She has a vacant look in her eyes; they seem to be glazed over. She is looking in my direction, but she’s not looking at me. “I c-c-can’t fight it. P-pull too…strong.”
“Pulling her back where?” Logan asks.
“It’s her vision. It’s happening,” Liam says. “Valdus is pulling her back.” She whimpers and stops shaking. Her head rolls back as she goes limp in my arms. “Ryanne?” I ask. No response. “Shit.” I lay her down on her back on the couch and stand up.
There has to be something I can do. Anything.
I rack my brain trying to think of something to help in this situation. Nothing. There is nothing I can do, but there is something Liam can do. “Liam, are you able to go to her?”
“I can try, but I won’t be able to find her unless she needs help or tries to contact me.”
“It’s worth a shot. That vision wasn’t the whole scene. It only showed part of it. More happens, and she may need help.”
Chapter Twenty
The dream fields. The dream fields. I am hoping that if I just continue to repeat this, I will end up there. I don’t want to end up in Dravin’s compound again. I’ll be so screwed if that happens.
Umph. I stop falling and land on my back on the hard ground. Oww, that could have been more graceful. Pushing through the pain, I jump up and look around. I am in the middle of the forest with tall, dark trees surrounding me. Spinning around in a circle, I don’t see anything else. Just trees. Thankfully, it’s not Dravin’s compound. I pause and wait for a moment. I’m here...so, now what? How does this benefit Dravin in any way? What am I supposed to do? Throwing up a shield around me, I start walking. I don’t know where I am, so I don’t know where to go. I just walk.
I look around for anything to determine where I am—anything out of the ordinary to help me figure out my location, but everything looks the same. I am surrounded by trees. Nothing else. Where are the field and the crazy men chasing me? I don’t understand what is going on.
“Liam?” I quietly call out. If I am in the dream world, he should be able to come here. Maybe he can help me figure everything out.
“You were supposed to bring her to the compound, not this stupid dream.” I hear someone yell nearby. Spinning in a circle, I look at my surroundings. The only place to hide is behind a tree. I run to the right and jump behind the largest tree. Pressing myself as close to it as I can get, I strengthen my shield and wait.
“She’s very strong. She was able to override a part of my magic. I could knock her into unconsciousness, but she was able to control where she went.” I’m assuming that Valdus Hamza is the one talking.
“You promised me you could bring her to me,” Dravin yells.
“She’s here somewhere. I just don’t know where. I can’t sense her.”
“She can surround herself with a shield, blocking her magic. You won’t be able to find her if she has a shield up,” Natasha says.
“I need her magic. She’s too much of a threat right now,” Dravin says, “I’m done playing nice.” When did he ever play nice?
“You’re just going to take her magic, right? Nothing else?” Valdus Hamza asks.
“If she happens to die afterwards…well, it was accidental.” I can hear the smile in Dravin’s voice. I really hate that guy.
“You promised me you wouldn’t kill her. You’d just take her magic,” Valdus Hamza shouts.
“You really shouldn’t trust a Gadramick. I won’t intentionally kill the girl. But even without her magic, she could still be a threat to me.” At least he’s finally admitting that I’m a threat.
“I don’t like this,” Valdus says.
“I don’t care if you like it. Just help me find her,” Dravin demands. I press myself farther into the base of the tree. Their footsteps recede into the distance as they walk away from my general vicinity. Holding my breath, I wait until I can’t hear anyone anymore. It sounds like Valdus doesn’t want to be helping Dravin, so why is he?
I peer around
the tree. The coast is clear. I look in the direction that Dravin has gone and decide to go the opposite way. I have no idea how to get out of here, so better be safe than sorry. The previous times I’d been here, I was either injured or woken up. I don’t really want to get injured, and I have no idea how to wake myself up. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.
I hear the snap of a twig right before I hear his thoughts. Freezing where I am, I listen. Ahh, there she is. The man behind me is literally the last person I expected to be here. “Phillip?”
“So you do remember me,” he says as he takes a step toward me. My first instinct is to turn around and run, but I stand my ground.
“What are you doing here?” He helped us before, but something is sketchy right now. I glance over my shoulder. No one is behind me.
“Oh you know, just taking a stroll through the forest.” Wait until Dravin finds out I was the one that caught her.
“Is James with you?” I ask. I don’t like James in the least bit, but right now I think I’d rather deal with James than Phillip. I don’t know anything about him. When he came to the house to help before the battle, he was silent. James did all the talking.
Of course. They always want to know about James. “No, James decided that there was something special about you; that you were the winning side. I’ve never seen anything to confirm his belief,” he growls at me. I start backing up further. Phillip just admitted to working for the Gadramicks.
“So what’s your plan now?” He is taking larger strides to get close to me. I push my legs further until I’m practically jogging backward.
He could easily reach forward and grab me if it wasn’t for my shield. Right now, we are playing a game of cat and mouse.
“Well, since we’re in this lovely predicament, I thought I’d have some fun. You’re alone. None of your little posse is here to help save you. Dravin wants you, but he didn’t specify the condition you had to be in.”