“What is it?”
I pointed to the spot, but they were gone in a flash.
“I thought I saw something.”
“What?”
“Two people.”
He stared at me, pulling the information from me with a glare.
“Minoan, one figure smaller than the other.”
“They could have been mine or Rion’s family.” Willard came to stand behind me.
“Perhaps,” I said remotely, but I did not think it was, their stares, their bodies were rigid and intruding.
With the shoreline behind us, the sun had risen to full morning. Troy’s hair clung to the sides of his face and neck from the ocean’s fine spray. Robert’s green vest, stained dark with sweat, clung to his body; rock hard abs and chiseled chest like a liquid silk. As Greg walked past, his potent body odor made me feel ill, as did the ship’s swaying over huge restless waves, only intensified by the foreboding anxiety. And although my skin could not feel the peak of a blistering heat wave, my insides baked.
“I think I am going to be sick,” I said, suddenly swaying.
I leaned back over the railing, my face resting in my hands. Troy pulled back my hair and I twisted out of his reach snapping cautiously, “Don’t touch me.”
“Sorry,” he pleaded with indignant eyes. “Are you going to be okay?”
Suddenly it was all too much, me hiding the damn tattoo, the feelings, the thoughts, the darkness creeping back in as my instinct ardently tried to protect its vessel.
“Do you need to go lie down for a while?” Troy asked softly.
I nodded and turned, watching with intent and horrid gloom as apprehension twisted in everyone’s eyes, the dark look of dread burning behind their gazes. About forty military students; seven members of the Jaguar gang; a handful of Minoan warriors, and about fifteen student volunteers stood quietly and motionless awaiting the onslaught. That was our army, our forces against Enoch and his droids, against the Council and their drone militia? There was no way we could win. The epiphany became truth and somewhere, a part at the back of my twisted, disease ridden mind – made me revel in it, in our swift death, we would all finally be free of this so called life. Never in a million years would I have guessed to live in a time where the fate of the planet, the future, a rebellion in the making, was so small. Heck, a few months ago I had no idea how intoxicating, seductive and destructive emotions could be. However, my pre-requisite need for self-preservation and instinct turned my mind defensive, seeking and gathering information for something, and it compelled me in ways I struggled to control.
“Tell me about Legentium,” I blurted out suddenly.
Kronan turned with startling, judging, inquisitive eyes.
“Please.” I corrected my attitude.
“He is the last soul reader – one of the very first ancients.”
“He is also the prophet of this quest,” Tatos interrupted.
Upon my blank stare, Anaya filled me in on its meaning. This Legentium was the one who foresaw the prophecy, the one who carried the handbook, in a manner of speaking. I felt betrayed somehow at the knowledge they had kept from me.
“Not many people know of him,” she said, trying to reassure me.
My voice peaked in anger. “You mean to tell me we had someone who could set us straight, who could have prevented all of this and you didn’t think to take me there, or to leave my dying body and go seek…”
Kronan stopped me mid-tantrum. I sobered upon seeing Troy’s smirk grow at my outburst.
“It’s not that easy. We cannot just take you there, not when you had the ancestral spirit in you, and definitely not now.”
“Why?”
“It is forbidden,” he said, curt and to the point.
I stared at them in disbelief, at how they always do as they are told. How they did not think it – to save lives by their contempt of rebellion?
“Why are you smiling?” My eyes narrowed on Troy.
“Hey.” He gestured, arms up and palms out. “Not my fault – theirs, remember?”
I sighed.
“You ever think about why I was never at your resurrection?” he added.
I turned away from them all, totally feeling the bite of nausea hit my stomach.
“I need to see Legentium, it’s urgent.”
“The journey is a very dangerous one, one that would take a very long time.”
“In other words, we won’t have the time to go there and…” Anaya started to say.
“And to stop Enoch in time,” I whispered.
“His droid army. You saw what I saw in that fortress, and we don’t have much time before he figures out a way to triple the production,” stated Troy, earnestness flaming behind his irises, hazel specks deepening his green eyes, the outer ring of his retina grew darker as I kept staring into his eyes. There was something I should have told him, but I couldn’t, not until I saw Legentium and I was sure. I turned my back, because I couldn’t stare at his endearing face and not spill my guts about how ‘sick’ I was getting, how my disease was growing, and then to admit it was I who brought this upon myself. I kept my eyes on the waves slamming against the ship. The spray drenched my white shirt, my hair clung to my neck and chest. I stopped my thoughts from going any further. I would not think of my disease, of what it was changing me into, of my tattoo that confirmed my existence to be deceitful. Of my blood being the driving force behind the Shadow army coming to life.
“There’s something we need to do first…” Tatos swallowed his words.
I stomped my foot. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“What?” He almost smiled.
“You know what. Just say what you need to say to me.”
Tatos looked down at me, the intensity of his turquoise eyes reminded me of Enoch.
“You want to know, you really want to know?”
I nodded.
“You are unstable, and I have to watch what I say or do around you – everyone does. We keep information from you just in case you blow and kill us all, but as far as I’m concerned, I do not believe you are the one the prophecy has foretold, you are the one we are warned about.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Well, for once, I think we agree.”
Water tainted with blood, any light from above the surface of the brilliant, blue ocean disappeared into a solid cloud of bleeding red. Beautiful fish dissipated into midnight ink, and then that cold metal hand twisted its brutal claws around my throat, iron torture piercing into my mind, penetrating its grip into the Shadow lurking beneath my skin. The currents turned violent outside the cabin window, no scream escaped my mouth, although I tried. I got lost in the nothingness inside me. Watched as my lies took the ones I thought I cared for – vanished beyond my reach. No emotions filled me. Hallow and alone once more. I tried to move away from the large, cabin window because something was coming, something that should not be, but I was pinned to the metal interior wall with a crushing of bones and mind. I witnessed in horror as an object hit against the large, glass pane over and over again. The darkness was coming for me, and the blame was my own. Eventually, the glass slowly cracked all the way up to the dark, ceiling above, the rottenness seeped and I no longer wanted to be part of what was coming for me. The cloud poured in – brutal – cold water turning me to a liquid mess. I tried to kick free, push it into the cracks to prevent drowning but it was too late, bodies bumped against mine. If there was one place to find me vulnerable, it would be beneath the surface of the water with so many to save and yet, it knew there was no way to save them all. It was unfair that only I had the ability to breathe under water. I felt the shift come; would there be a way out of this as a mind-shifter? But the moment the blood-shift turned me, everything eclipsed and my lungs filled with water. I would lose everything today because of it. I screamed as a body hit me with such ruthless vigor it slammed me against the glass pane, the cabin totally submerged in dark, murky water. The Shadow beckoning with tentacles of overpowerin
g sorrow and bitterness. I felt my arm slip through the cracks of the window to the other side, water rushed over my body and the entire ship tilted – bodies left with no choice but to push me deeper into the crack. I screamed again. I didn’t want to go anymore. I should never have allowed that thing to be!
I felt it, Troy was near – the deep, vigorous, brutal thump-thump of his heartbeat, hammering inside my head. He can’t find me like this.
“Hey!”
My eyes flung open. My heart jerked back into my chest with a burning shiver. I pushed my fist into my chest, my white shirt plastered to soaked skin. I stared at Troy, his face inches away, his dark eyes focused on mine, and then he took my shaking hands. I pulled him closer, grabbed hold of as much of him as I could.
He held me so tight. “Are your dreams getting worse?” he whispered into my hair.
Nodding, my mind still fogged over from the hell I had escaped from, I never thought to wonder how he knew about my dreams. He held me to his chest, one hand cupped behind my head pushing me deeply into him. His heart a steady beat against my racing pulse. His scent smothered me into the bliss of being so close to him. Over his shoulder I looked around the cabin, reassuring myself it was just a dream, nothing but blue water and steel walls stared back at me, tiny fish swam by silently through the port window. Maya’s soft breathing filling the cold silence.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
I wouldn’t let go of him, needed to hear his voice, needed it to pull me away from the tremors threatening to explode inside of me. He held me away from him and wiped hair from my face, my skin tingled beneath his touch, but it was the persistent pins and needles sensation – not the kind I was hungry for – erupting in the wake of his fingers trailing down my arms that had my stomach knotting – tell him now! He smiled at me gently and my fear turned me into a coward once again, clinging to that smile for as long as I could.
“Yes, I get it, you don’t sleep at night like the rest of us.” I kept my gaze on him. “I don’t know how much longer I can be patient with…” I pushed him away, feeling anger twist inside of me. It was killing me to know I knew nothing about him at all. Like how he was able to elude death the day the spear hit him in the water, or what I truly meant to him after finding out I was his assignment. I looked into his eyes, searched for a lie that wasn’t there. I tried to push the thought into his mind but instead, I was taken back to that day. There are some things I would never forget, even if these memories felt like they were not my own, they were imprinted into every fiber that was me. These memories served the blood-shift. I felt the hard, cold wood dig into my hips as I regained consciousness on that canoe, while a new day broke over me. A day that changed us forever. A day I would forever regret – that feeling, too, served the Shadow inside of me. I remember Troy and me hitting the cold water, our hands bound, my body aching, his release and the red water around me, it was not my own, all that blood, so much of it was his, and yet he had escaped death. My mind kept telling me to ask him, to think, think, think about what was there that I couldn’t remember.
His hand cradled my head against him once more, pulling me from my awakening nightmare. I was abruptly brought back to the present and just in time, because the next memory would make me sick to my core.
“Please tell me how it is that you cheated death?”
The soft thump of his heartbeat filled my eardrums, and I was there with Troy and he was not gone. I burrowed my face further into his shirt, his warmth soaking through as he stroked my head. It knew what he was doing. I pushed him from me firmly and walked over to the large cabin window. The room drowned in a blue underwater haze. Maya shifted beneath gray sheets. Turning my back against the window, I stared at him.
“What was the dream about?” he asked, all innocently.
“Drowning,” is all I mumbled through clenched teeth. “I know what you are doing,” I stated.
He was distracting me so he wouldn’t have to answer a question that was so simple. How are you able to cheat death?
He kept his intense gaze on me, studying me, with a look I describe as judgment. My chest was on fire with the anger that would become me and just like that, my disease pulled on my insecurities.
Addiction: Phase Five.
“You don’t want to tell me because I am your assignment, and the best way to get me to do what you want is to pretend that there is something between us. Or do you just want to use me and get in my pants like everyone else?” The words came from the place where dark things hid, where the anger and frustration festered into something ugly.
He stood, and walked toward me slowly. He didn’t say anything, just kept staring at me. I knew I had gotten to him, and perhaps it was my way of testing what he really was to me.
“You are not denying it, are you?” I spat.
“I’m not going to answer that.” His eyes touched mine with dark restraint. “You need to watch what you say.”
“Why?” I challenged him.
“Go back to sleep.” He turned to walk away.
“Yes, sir.” I saluted him.
His shoulders were rigid as he slowly closed the door behind him. The soft night air from above, the faint sound of the others sleeping on deck totally disappeared as the door clicked shut. I kept my eyes on the metal door, trying very hard to understand what had turned me into such a twisted fool. My eyes swept over Maya, her dark hair peeking out from under the covers. I was so mad at the fact that I couldn’t help her in any way. The truth, however, was I had no idea if I’d survive the disease corroding through my veins, spreading into every shadow of my mind, threatening to eclipse over every last part of me. Was I still capable of being genuinely helpful, or sympathetic to anyone anymore? Emotions were only a tool, a mockery, a distraction to my disease.
Sometime during the night, the ship had made a detour on one of the islands where Kronan, Anaya, and Tatos, gathered some plants for their potions. I kept to myself and stayed with Maya in the vast, empty cabin below. The solitude was welcoming, although the longer I stayed the more I vexed over my sister and what kind of magic had crushed her. Was it right for them to sedate to a state of coma? I was no doctor, but surely the problem was being ignored. The same as taking a drug for the symptoms, but the cause would always linger, never healing, ever itching.
I never fell back asleep. I lay for what seemed like all eternity swirling around me as the fractures of reflected water clung to the walls, danced on the roof, taunted me with bright, silvery-blue shimmers. I held Mom’s box close beside me, staring at the intricate patterns like they were clues to every question I had ever held. Troy had a matching box, and I needed to find out why and what he knew. But I was afraid of the answer, of what it could possibly mean. He, too, held things from me and it hurt – a lot. Thoughts haunted me, became paranoid and threatening to my temper. Was his assignment more important than us? Would this prophecy make fools of us all? Staring up, I surprisingly found the taunting reflections of the water playing on the metal walls a comforting friend and slowly I dozed off, overcome by tiredness.
I suddenly shook awake from a loud bang when the box hit the hard surface of the floor. The knock reverberated throughout the empty room; still rippling through my thick tendrils of slumber. Maya lay unmoved. Her ribs rising with each drawn breath. Leaning down to retrieve it, I must have triggered something as the box vibrated and a soft clicking sound echoed through the thickness of silence. When I turned it over however, to inspect the strange behaving box, it just died on me. I felt my resolve snap. Oh, not now! I begged. My calmness had matched the soft lapping of water against the hollow deck of the ship, but now it felt like a surge of an electrical storm waiting to exhale within me, begging for release, and I was in some way thankful for the gentle knock on the door, which pulled me from my sickening temper. I quickly pushed the box under the covers, silently feeling the waves of the monster creep back into the black, empty shadows inside of me. Kronan cleared his throat as the door slid open, a sliver of
light crawled toward me on dark, gray floors like bony fingers coming for me.
“Good, you are awake.” His head cocked to the side for me to follow, then his hazel eyes studied Maya with a hard furrow of dark brows.
I nodded and wiped my hands on my tattered denims out of habit. Grabbing my sack and pushing the box into the depths of my bag, I went over to Maya, kissing her cheek softy, hoping small gestures like these would bring on my humanity, but as I pulled back, her eyes shot open and I was ready for the screams.
“Good morning,” Anaya’s voice came. “Who’s hungry?”
I shook my head, my earlier cravings for food had totally dissipated, in fact, thinking of food suddenly made me feel ill. I looked back at Maya, her eyes were dull, hiding behind a wall of icy magic. I looked back over my shoulder again, the soft patter of Anaya’s footsteps gnawed at me. I could not stand being around her. I bit down on my lip automatically, not being able to figure out what had me so on guard around her suddenly. As she neared, her purple caftan was still tied around her waist, the back had pulled out and was now flowing behind her like a silky, purple tail. Her scent tinted the metallic air with vanilla and spice as she crossed the room.
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