LED lights spilled through the windows into the night, lighting up the edge of the forest. Troy wiped the sweat from his neck and shoulders with a towel. I stared blankly as one bag popped at the seams hitting the ground with a solid poof. It was then I noticed there was no lighting illusion on the moon we had just come from. The sand really was golden. And underneath the brilliant, white glow of the lights, the dazzling colors bounced back. My glare caught each fragment and shade reflecting off each particle, a kaleidoscope dance of amazing colors beaming onto and off the craft’s smooth, mirrored exterior. It was all too unreal, each particle, each dust speck, every fragment of light burst into my vision. I shut my eyes tight at the sudden sting of intense light.
“Are they okay?” I heard Greg ask in an almost whisper.
My eyes opened.
Troy nodded.
“Are you okay?” he asked Troy.
“Oh, this?” Troy pointed to his leg. “I’ll be fine.”
“Your body is not healing is it?”
“No, but I can do other things.”
“Like?”
“Not now.” Troy’s tone was clipped.
“Ava.” I heard her voice. I knew that voice….
“Hey.” The redhead beamed as she stuck her head around the corner giving me a shy, goofy smile.
My face emitted a happiness I never knew I had. “Sam.” I remembered her. But the memory of why lagged a moment behind.
She climbed the stairs, but hesitated when she saw me flinch at her proximity.
“Geez, what did they do to you up there?”
I frowned, biting down on my lip.
“Come here and give me a hug, you idiot.”
I nodded into her hair as she wrapped her arms around me. Sam pulled away very quickly, her eyes scrutinizing every inch of me.
“What in Poseidon’s name are you wearing?” She pulled on the tattered, old dress at the hip with a scrunch of her nose.
I shook my head. “I have no idea.” My lips pursed.
“Look, I don’t have long. Robert told me about the trackers and managed to cheat mine for a few moments, apparently cutting them out will alert the Keepers.”
I gave her an incredulous look as a cold chill ran through my bones. “Is it everyone?” I swallowed hard.
“I have no idea.” She glared behind me, giving Maya a once over as she lay silently sleeping in the craft.
“Woah…” she said, her eyes taking in the interior of the craft.
“Magnificent, right?”
She ignored me. “Troy didn’t tell you?” She seemed to revel in those words a bit too much, a slight smile reflecting in her eyes.
I looked back to the boys, still unpacking all the ‘specimens’ brought back from our time on Poseidon’s hidden moon.
“No, not yet.” I exhaled through my nose. What was she on about?
“You need a shower, friend, you look like… ass.”
I looked down at myself. She was right. My eyes reverted to Troy and we exchanged a look. He came swaggering over, removing his gloves and tucking them into the waist of his pants.
Sam crossed her hands over her chest. “Sorry, didn’t know you hadn’t told her.”
Troy shot Sam a blazing glare. “Looks like you beat me to it then.” He snickered.
I sensed tension between the two.
“No time like the present. She needs to know why we can’t be seen together, why she will be spending the rest of her life on Poseidon – in hiding.”
“What?” I shouted, my eyes moving from his to hers.
“Ava. Things have, well, kind of changed…” Troy began, glancing away.
“Changed?” Sam scoffed.
Troy crossed his arms over his chest, biceps flexing, veins straining. “Go ahead, Sam, I can see you want to tell her, because obviously what she has already been through means nothing to you.”
Sam took my hand, blatantly disregarding his cynicism. “Friend, you’re a fugitive.”
Her sense of touch was lost to me. I knew then that Troy was the only one I could feel. So, pretty much everything after that sifted through me, hardly touching sides.
“So dramatic.” Greg sniggered beside Sam.
“Can someone please just give me a straight answer!” I huffed back.
Everyone just looked at me.
“You choose now to hold back?” I glared at Sam.
Looking at Troy, I said, “We were not supposed to make it back, were we? That’s why you were concerned about cutting the tracker out, why we were hiding in that dust cloud.” I said on a gasp. “It is out… isn’t it? The tracker is gone, Enoch…” I almost shrieked, I couldn’t think straight.
I felt a blow to my gut. I stood frozen, letting the words filter through, letting them settle in my already heated mind. My eyes went back to Maya lying in the cargo area of the ship.
“Well, not only do my personal scanners not work on you or your sister over there, but this hangar is rigged to scan everything that comes close to this area. We didn’t pick anything up but the same disturbances as before.” Troy’s face was shadowed and his brows pulled together, lost in thought.
“So, Enoch has done something to scramble the signals, because I have no scars.” I lifted my hand, and narrowed my eyes on the finger that held the tracker I’d previously noticed before in the library that night. I tried to see through my skin, the way my eyes had mysteriously and magically zoomed in on the light fragments just moments ago.
“How would we be able to tell now, if your body seems to be healing?” Troy queried softly.
I wondered about that, too.
“Or,” Greg said, “he reprogrammed them so only he has the frequency, because our scanners are obviously not as advanced as we had first thought.”
“But, Isis should have been. Her scanners come from the best technology there is on this sector of the universe,” Troy interjected.
“That’s it!” Greg’s eyes widened. “Perhaps our technology is so advanced it doesn’t recognize primitive telecommunications at all.” He grinned.
Troy was nodding.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked in a soft whisper.
“I wanted to,” he assured me, while my eyes searched the surface of the concrete floor.
“What now, what are we going to do?” I started to feel the rush of panic gathering inside me.
“It’s not that bad,” Sam tried to reason with me by further adding, “You hated staying in the city anyway. You can stay with Anaya, or something.” She rubbed a hand over my upper arm. It was strange knowing, seeing her touch me, and not be able to feel it.
“Nope, afraid you can’t do that either,” Greg stated.
“The Council has spies in the village,” Troy confirmed, but it was no surprise to him.
“You’re telling me we have no home, nowhere to go?” I started pacing the length of the craft, leaving the others staring at me from the hangar floor as memories shot through my mind. Journals – pages and pages of secrets. Somewhere, there is an answer to who was behind it.
Troy was inside the craft beside me, heat radiating from his body. I could feel him even though he was not touching me.
“You’ll stay with us for now,” Troy said taking my hand in his, stilling my trembling heart. His warmth brought back the pins and needles, which erupted all over my body. As his touch lingered, my skin came flourishing back with sensations. It was confirmed then, only he could instill sensation on my skin. I knew I was going to have fun exploring the whys.
“Even better.” Sam tried, her brilliant grin left me seeing something in her delight. She didn’t like Troy very much, so why was she so eager for me to stay with him, why the sudden change?
“You still don’t get it, Sam!” I moved away from Troy, and took the steps down toward her. “They own us, they have their claws in everything and everyone around us!” I stared up at her. “Including you.”
Sam shook her head. “So?”
“Really,
Sam?” I lifted her arm to her face. “You have a tracker embedded under your skin. Why can’t you see the scar? Why have they never told us? Lies mean secrets, secrets mean bad things – always.” If only I followed my own advice. I shook my head. I had been so caught up in my own misery, I never even thought it might have been like this from the beginning.
“Well, maybe it’s a result of the war, because pupils like Sage had gone missing. This is their way of finding us if anything like that should ever happen again. They saved us once.”
Wow, she actually sounded stupid. She must be in denial – so not Sam.
“You really believe that,” I said, sounding disbelieving.
“It’s for our own good, Ava. You told me about all those things, what we really are; we’re dangerous, and we need to be protected from ourselves.”
I shook her, her red curls bouncing on her head, falling over her face. Sam pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, not noticing how quickly I had just snapped.
“It’s fine, you were never one to handle pressure very well.”
I felt ashamed. Yes, I never was and it was a weakness, one I had to cut out.
“Wake up! Remember the trackers, the deaths of those two students on bonfire night?” I crossed my arms, trying to hold back. “The break-in at the vault, one we never knew about? Now the hit on me and my sister, on Troy – they are hiding something, something worth killing over!” I stopped talking immediately; it was all making sense to me. Enoch was working with the Council, there was just no other way. But what scared me the most was my selective memory. It should have been a guide, a clue to what I was becoming.
“Ava, what’s going on?” Troy stroked my arm in comfort to my reaction.
“Where is Kronan, and Anaya? Should they not be here!” It was a demand not a question. Who else was in on it, who else wanted to see me fail? I redirected Troy’s attention.
Manipulation: Phase Two.
“The Truth Seekers should have known this!” It was like before, the more I felt, the more emotions came trickling through, words spilling from a place I had no control over. Blame and suspicion were always my back up. I couldn’t think straight in those heated moments, just felt an overwhelming need to be defensive.
“This is pathetic, you are all liars, all of…” That was how far I got.
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” Troy stepped forward, taking hold of my arms.
“It will be okay.” His words dampened my cinders of cynicism, my dark paranoia pulling back at his magic touch.
I stared into hazel-green eyes. Calmness came over me, thick, solid and true.
“The Council is watching them, Ava!” Greg retaliated irritably.
“Apparently, not good enough,” Sam said, turning her head toward the door.
“You guys really need to learn to keep your voices down,” someone announced from the entrance.
“You found a blocking spell, or…” Troy squinted as he scrutinized his father.
My eyes caught Sam, who was staring at Kronan, no – studying him. She was up to something.
We all bowed in greeting as Kronan, Willard and Tatos came to stand before us. I felt my body, my reaction to every sound and smell react automatically, as if I was taught how to act in certain situations, very much like I needed a wall guarding me from certain people. Then, I remembered their telepathic abilities. And for some reason, I could not allow them to touch me. My mind filled with the certainty of the how they managed to read my mind; by touch. How I knew this, I couldn’t explain at the time.
Kronan smirked. “Yes, I have learned how to be in two places at the same time.”
“Awesome.” Greg nodded, and grinned wildly.
“Where is Maya?” Tatos asked.
“I gave her some peace elixir.” Troy sighed. “She’s not in a good way.” He indicated to the craft.
“Arriana?”
The dark, hollowness filled the room with a thick cloud of remorse as Troy shook his head.
Kronan and Tatos bowed their heads in respect.
“So.” Troy crossed his arms.
I stared at his bulging biceps.
Kronan put his palm up as if to stop Troy’s pattern of thought, and said, “So far, I can only generate enough energy for one person, and that’s why Anaya is still held up at the summit.” I stared at the dark purple on Kronan’s robe, golden patterns snaked around his wrists and collar. His turquoise beads clattered together with his graceful movements while gesturing with his hands.
“What summit?” I interjected. I needed to know everything, every small detail, like my existence depended on it.
Tatos’ eyes racked over me, immediately sensing my change. But young Willard gave me a goofy smile, his eyes lingering on my very short dress.
“The dean has had a change of… heart,” Tatos shared, his stare remote as he spoke.
I glared at his long multi-beaded, braided hair, and wondered when I had met him for the first time. Why were memories of certain people so vague? But the need to gain information was stronger than the one pertaining to the missing gaps of memory. I shook my head, as if to clear it from the clutter. “Explain please.” I stared up at him.
I actually said please, although being polite was the furthest thing from my mind, especially after finding out that Troy had hidden things from me. I guess our etiquette teachings had an effect on me after all – wouldn’t my Keepers have been proud of me – that’s if they didn’t want me dead!
Tatos looked down, his turquoise eyes staring at the floor.
“They are reinforcing the rule between your kind and ours.”
My eyes narrowed on him. I stared at the bow strapped across his back, the tip sported blue and purple feathers – just like Enoch’s. I pushed out a sigh. Would everything remind me of him?
Tatos continued without meeting my eyes. “They are putting a lockdown on Vista. Minoan and human interaction will be banned once again, with more force this time.”
I looked to Sam. “You see, Sam, this is how it starts.”
Sam’s glare still held a perfect hollowness. Was she back on her meds? Had the Council found a way to poison their drinking water with the numbing drug once more?
“Look, Enoch must be working for them. It’s a way for them to have a reason in cutting us off from other civilizations, telling us Minoans are a threat. That way, it reinforces their initial ruling that we are safer in the compounds of our schools,” I kept looking at Sam as I spoke, pulling my hands through my hair. Was I actually believing what I was saying? My words, my ideas, felt somewhat forced into my head, like I was trying to distract them from something.
“It will be like when we grew up. Always being watched, closed in.” I was starting to remember things I shouldn’t have, things the Council had tried to hide from my mind before. I raised my eyes to meet Sam’s as she spoke.
“I have no idea what you are talking about. They have been nothing but good to us, maybe someone on the Council just had a minor objection; after all, Enoch was Minoan, and magic is a threat to all of us.”
I grabbed her arm. “You are not listening! Where is Robert, maybe he can make you see things more clearly.”
“He is jamming my signal from our apartment, remember?”
“Sam, you better go before they order a hit on you, too,” I sneered bitterly, wanting her out of my sight with her stupid reasoning. But most of all, the quicker she got back to the school, the quicker I could study what was going on with her and figure out what the Council and Keepers were up to.
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