“How would you know?” Calum said suspiciously.
“Because yesterday I gave her something that would make her do something rash and impulsive. I wish now we'd told you, or at least she should have.”
Calum grabbed Lee’s shirt, which was hard for both of them with an Amazon Hunter girl wedged between them.
“Kill me later. In the car. We are running out of time.”
Calum stared like the villain he was at the moment. He dropped Lee’s clothes from his grip and they shoved into the car.
Calum told me later what was discussed in the car, but I disappeared from my hidden shadows when they drove off. I jumped into the car I was “borrowing” from the school and sped ahead of them. Lee knew where I’d be, so let him come. I needed to see Szar first. I only intended to see if they were with me…or against me.
Lee told him about the letters. Calum was furious that Lee was in his things, but was more interested in the whys. They were heading back to the Valkyrie palace where Lee knew I often hid to think. I would’ve gone back only because hiding at my court was the alternative. And that was out of the question. I never wanted to go back.
ℓℓℓℓℓ
Unbeknownst to them, the boys didn’t realize Maze had woken up and managed to keep herself still enough to hear all she needed to know they were in way deep with something to do with mine and Calum’s parents. Something about the letters from the moms and they were headed to my house.
When Calum told me later, it was a stark contrast to the way Maze shared it with me the next day.
Maze listened without even opening an eye. She said she felt the car starting to make turns like it was off the highway so she dared a peek out the window. When she’d raised just enough to see where she might be, she had no idea. She wondered, no doubt, where I was from and why she had to think it in the first place.
They pulled up to a fence and parked in some wooded area that Lee carefully hid in, but not too much considering the bumps throwing her everywhere. He stopped the engine and opened the door, then Maze’s, and stood there.
“I know you’ve been awake for a while dropping the eaves all over the back seat.” He seemed too cold, even for Lee. She felt small for a second then realized she had no reason to feel that way.
“Where is Stace?” Lee motioned for her to get out of the car but asked Calum.
“She is here,” called Calum from the back of the car leaning over into the trunk. She heard clicking noises and assumed the worst. “This is where she lives,” Calum said flatly.
She looked at the high fence, barbed wire bubbling above, and assumed the other wires could only mean electricity. “Where are we?”
Lee looked at Calum with that great look of thanks for this, sighed, and whispered, “The quick version only if you promise I’m not going to have to tie you up and put you in the back seat until you calm down.”
Maze gasped, but managed a nod of the head. She told me what her thoughts really pictured with his statement.
“Stace is in trouble if she is here. Calum and I have been trying to help her solve a family problem that you, no doubt, will be privy to all too soon. We have to find her before she blows everything.”
“That’s not much to go on,” Maze reasoned with her head arched sideways.
“It’s all I can give you right now. Now, will you help us find Stace, or not?” Lee looked at the back seat.
She knew Lee was meaning the tied up alternative. She nodded having serious trouble with verbal answers.
Calum’s hand closed the trunk quietly and they were inching around the perimeter of the high fence like structure.
“Is this a Hunter area?” Something was inching closer at the edge of Maze’s brain and she needed to know. She told me she thought I never looked Hunter anyway. This is the point where I could hear them and heard the rest. Everything before was filled in by their very differently told renditions. Calum's included heavy curses.
“No!” Lee said.
“NO! And you are going to tell me where we are, right?” Maze yelled a little too loudly worried he would lock her in the car.
Calum spun around and launched himself with his knife to her throat. Lee was there a second later with his hands around the knife’s blade.
“If you so much as say one thing about what I’m about to tell you, I will kill you.”
Lee spat at Calum, “No you won’t. You’ll be dead first.” Calum’s eyes shot to Lee’s in confusion. Lee barked, “Let her go. She hasn’t even had a chance to show her reaction to the truth yet. We owe her that.” The alarm in his voice was almost charming. A change of heart?
“You brought her,” Calum reminded him.
And Lee had no idea why he’d done that either by the look on his face. Lee moved the blade away with the slightest tinge of blood running down his finger.
Maze watched it drip as Calum announced, “Stace is a Valkyrie.”
Maze’s eyes shot wide and she cupped her hand over her mouth to stop the scream. Maze said she was thinking she should have taken the tied up offer. She’d told me she’d never been out of the Hunter school grounds other than the bus rides to Summerville and her own home. A very Hunter home! Maze shuddered.
Lee placed his hands on both her shoulders as she tried to back away from both of them. Lee told her, “We are Hunters. It surfaced that Stace was Valkyrie, or half, the other half human, a few weeks ago. Someone is trying to kill her and Calum, and we need to find her right now.”
Maze shifted her eyes to Calum figuring out that he knew all this time. “You kissed her. Ewwww!” She looked at Calum disgusted, but neglected the killing me part.
“I was shocked at first, Maze. Believe me! But I know there is more now than just our species. She is a person. And Maze, I would do anything for her, or die.” Calum really believed this in his heart. I was tired of hiding in the dark now. I wanted to just have someone, anyone tell me all this would work out okay. Listening to them fight about me and even show up here to help me was warming my cold heart, but I needed more. Trust was first and foremost the number one thing of importance in my sordid life. I had none.
I meant to come here and announce my whereabouts, confront Borgon and find out who he works for, and tell father to stop whatever it was he was doing to solve it himself. I realized in my solitude that being alone is harder than taking on the danger even with possible traitors amongst the day to day. As long as I could predict their moves, I could control the situation. How much control I had at the moment—very little.
Maze’s hand still covering her mouth, she now went rigid with the scandalizing news, “You like her?”
“I do. Is that so hard to believe? You seemed taken by her too as I recall. And just because you thought she was a Hunter and not something else doesn’t make her any less appealing. Our world needs to change. Why do we need to separate ourselves? She is still a Hunter, just a blonde one with a few Supergirl powers.” He smiled at his own humor.
“Okay! Suppose I go along with this,” Maze placed one hand on her hip. That was her switch in gears. She would be just fine.
Lee raised his eyebrows and pointed to the car.
The other hand went to her hip, “I will help you. And afterward, she will tell me all this herself and I will…”
“Come on! Let’s just go!” Lee pulled her arm tight and ran. They edged the grounds until Lee stopped, pointed up, and started to climb.
“Is he crazy? What is he doing?” Maze asked Calum. They really were here to save me.
“He’s climbing,” Calum was stating the obvious.
She huffed.
Calum huffed back at Maze in a mocking tone, “Are you going?”
She stepped up to climb looking up at Lee’s back end. Hmm! She had to put those thoughts away. She looked back at Calum who told her smirking, “Done gawking?”
Her mouth wide, she was thankful for the darkness hiding her cheeks. She didn’t miss a beat at climbing. After all, she IS a Hunter girl!
Calum followed her up. They scaled the wires with Lee’s carefulness. Hitting the ground hard, Maze looked around. All she saw were trees hiding everything about the Valkyrie court and its secrets. The boys stood now, whispering in the dark while I scaled the wall and hid to watch.
“This is the brook where.…” Lee stopped looking like he was in another place. He was going down memory lane, torturing himself.
Maze got the feeling again she was left out of something and watched his pain grow like I did.
Calum stumbled over his words with a dark expression on his face, “...where you two met. The past dude. Leave it there. Where is she?”
Maze clued into this kind of talk easily, Hunter, Valkyrie, or whatever. “Did you…know Stace before?”
Lee twitched his mouth and looked at Calum, “I lived here for two years before I went to Greens!”
“The plot thickens!” Maze paused. “And you are going to tell me you are a Hunter, right?”
Lee answered Maze with a sly grin, “Wanna check?”
Her O mouth answered, “Well, well, well. Brave words. At least we all have our own pants on this time.”
“Something I should know?” my voice sounded from the darkness standing it no longer. If they’d known I’d heard everything back at the dorm and then some, they’d freak. I’d left, but I’d also returned. Mixed up in the decision making process was unbecoming of a Val princess/daughter of Anat/spy, but there was no one whom I could trust to help me make decisions on what the right next move should be. I could tell Maze was in on some part of it, but I’d wait to see what was revealed. The car ride over was the only thing I’d missed.
They all jumped into three different directions of a ninety degree angle with their backs to each other. I stepped out dagger at the ready knowing there was no danger. Calum moved out of his stance and ran to me throwing his arms around my waist, but I didn’t return it making him stand back confused and hurt.
Maze, a little too loudly, “You have a lot of secrets, Blondie. I don’t know if I can handle all this so you better be glad I am too enthralled with your love life to step away. I’ll have to see this through to know if the “love at first sight” theory I have is really true or if tall dark and Calum is somehow not a Hunter too. For which I will find hard to believe since his father is—
I managed a smile stopping her and wanting to ask Calum about what might have been discussed in the car that I missed. “You’re not angry?”
“Yes! I am. But more angry that I couldn’t be allowed to know. But I understand why you never mentioned something like, ‘Oh by the way, I’m really a Valkyrie, I don’t think I want to murder you in your sleep, but I could, and I’m with the hottest Hunter boy in school who knows what I am and well, ewww! Sorry for that, still likes you. NO! I’m so over all that in the last five minutes and now onto why I’m fascinated to know why Lee lived with you, your sneaking into your own house, if this is in fact a house since it looks more like a castle, and finally why everyone is acting like we are being hunted.”
Responsibilities take over one's life. I’ll face my suppressed list of responsibilities when they stop chasing me. This is my crazy mixed up so-called life. My very own unique death sentence.
Lee started clapping softly and walked to stand in front of Maze, “I’m very impressed, Chestnut. I can’t remember ever seeing you speak so passionately about anything before. Will you tell me more in the dark car, tied up like you asked, later?”
“No, Lee. Screw yourself. You lied too. And don’t call me, whatever you called me.”
Chestnut?
Chapter Thirty …are inseparably connected.
Lee chuckled. That made me even more mad. And he knew it.
I turned to Calum, “Why are you here?” Calum’s confused look mixed with hurt made me reach towards his face. Lately, I wanted to really spread the worry lines parted by a vein his brow seemed to form too much with the recent events.
“I wouldn’t leave you, why would you leave—
“I didn’t leave because I wanted to. It’s just, if I stay, they will kill you, Lee, and most likely, all of my friends.” I looked at Maze. “I’ve never had friends before. I can’t lose what I just found.”
Lee spoke from behind me, “Then you are here not just to ask your father about the letters and what can be done? I sense trust is an issue.”
“I am here to find out what he is not telling me.”
“And then where?” Calum whispered.
“I wasn’t sure. But I’m fairly sure away from you will keep you safe.”
Calum held my squared shoulders and pulled my dagger away, in between us. “I can’t let you do that and you know it. We do this together. Apart is what they want, remember? They win. Whatever this is, we have to fight this, together.”
I didn’t want to hear what he’d just said, but I knew I was about to crack. I put my head on his chest. “I know. I just didn’t want to believe it.” Maze and Lee had turned the other way I noticed out from the curtain of my hair. They were holding each other. Hmm!
Calum swung me back, “Let’s see your father and head back. We have only six days left. Maybe daddy can shed some light of what is to come. Lord knows, we need it.” I nodded in his grip holding my chin.
The underground entrance proved stubborn since my father barred the entrance not knowing that was how Lee and I used it for years. But he never thought his own daughter would be sneaking in with her Hunter friends in tow either.
We were through the palace tunnels and out into the kitchen crouched down behind the freezer door entrance. I dared a look at Maze worrying about how she was taking all this. She inched over to me and barely muttered in my ear, “So you live in a castle. What, are you a princess or something?” Her legs seemed to be doing some type of happy dance. I stifled a small sound with a truly embarrassed smile.
“NO! It can’t be. You’re the twin princess. OH. MY. GOD!” She looked around the obvious opulence of the atmosphere. Maze felt out of her league. Chandeliers were sparkling above her in rooms that shouldn’t house such things. The walls glittered in their light. And we were still far from inside the main house!
“Shhh! It’s not who I am, really.”
Maze glared at Lee, whose Hunter ears had no doubt, heard her. He just smiled sideways and cringed.
“You knew, you creep.” Maze growled, I think, slapping him sideways.
We waited till the coast was clear and padded around the freezer through the back entrance to my father’s rooms. Once they were in, we stayed still waiting for something, but nothing came. Szar was supposed to be here, but wasn't.
I stepped in alone.
After a long almost minute, they followed me in the opened door. We all sat down way too casually in Maze’s eyes. Her eyes followed the paintings around the room. Above her head stood a floor to ceiling painting of none other than me, me, ME! My body was all shimmery with a floor length silver gown and crown on my head from one of the ball's held. The brilliant glare it emitted almost makes one squint with awe but only because the artist made me look like a goddess, not what I am.
“Well isn’t this cozy,” Maze motioned the length of the painting.
All three of us shot our fingers up to our mouths knowing where we were at and the consequences noise may bear. Maze fell backward out of fear more than anything onto the sofa, with us frozen where we stood. There was nothing we could do now if the room registered the sound. And my father always knows.
I could read my friend's face. Maze’s eyes lingered on the other paintings. The one of the twin Valkyries were like a legend coming to life. We were real! And we weren’t trying to kill her like her Hunter parents assured her would be their only intentions if she ever met them.
After only about five minutes, my father walked in without shock and locked the door behind him. He walked to his desk, wrote something while watching Maze. No doubt wondering why yet another face was now involved.
The note said, �
�They know you came.”
I nodded. Who is "they"?
“You have to leave. They will come get you.”
I walked over to him and leaned up to his ear, “Not till you tell me about this.” I pulled the letters out for him to see I had two now.
His eyes closed. He walked over to the desk, opened the top drawer, his hand disappearing inside, and a picture on the wall clicked open. All of our eyes glued to the space behind it.
He closed the drawer meticulously and turned to the space in the wall. Inside, he pulled a pile of bundled papers and handed them to me. And then he kissed my cheek and whispered, “I have to go. You will return tonight. The letters will tell you everything I’ve never told you. Don’t hate me afterward. I can’t bear to have you hate me too.”
What does that mean?
He was gone and Calum was yanking my ponytail backward.
We were back in the car heading home with the boys sitting in the front. Calum caught me up on his version of what was said in the car. They were not happy to learn that I’d watched them for most of the “coming to find me part” at the dorm.
I sat quiet looking at the added letters to my pile of crap in my life and then out the window at nothing at all.
Chapter Thirty One We cannot build the future…
Maze couldn’t take it anymore. She belted out, “You better tell me everything before I get back. I don’t know why I’m still here if not for the fact that I have no way to get back that doesn’t include hitchhiking with some psychopath killer or worse.” No one answered. “Don’t all start at once.”
Calum was shut up tight at the moment.
Lee waited for me to answer, but I didn’t. I stared down at my lap. Maze still seemed impervious to the obvious, so I let her remain so.
Lee began, “Stace is the Valkyrie princess to the throne of her father, Lord Hathown. Her twin brother Szar was taken captive, but we rescued him and he is now hidden in the palace. There is a prophecy that two…that a Hunter and another will come together and unite the species from war. Everyone seems to believe Calum and Stace are that magic two.”
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