by Lainy Lane
Everyone seemed to think I’d chosen to love Phoenix. You don’t choose who you love. Love chooses two people and creates an undeniable connection between them, one that you can’t fight, no matter how hard you try. If anyone could resist the desire to love someone, it would’ve been me. I’d been hurt too many times, by people that were supposed to love me unconditionally. I’d built walls that were meant to be impenetrable. Made from steel, bulletproof, grenade proof, no expense spared. Despite all the defenses I’d created, love chose Phoenix and me, and here we were. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t logical. It was real though. Even if a part of me still wished it wasn’t because it left me vulnerable, which was one thing I didn’t like to be. I could no longer deny the fact that what we had was very real.
“Acqua,” Phoenix whispered, “here’s the tea Ethereal made you.” He sat the cup on the end table.
It smelled of lavender, basil, and cayenne, and made me feel sure I was going to puke.
“Acqua, you’re a vampire. You should be able to heal yourself from physical ailments. Ethereal is right; this is stress. Let us help you.” His voice pleaded.
“You want to help?” My temper rose as I opened my eyes for the first time in several hours and my head contested to the exposure to light, even though it was very faint. I sat up to drink the tea I was praying would be a miraculous cure of some kind. “Figure out how we’re going to outsmart Vulcan tonight. I can’t just hand him this vampirism potion and give him everything he wants so he can turn around and wipe out witches!”
I took down the tea in one giant gulp and refused to admit that it burned as it went down. I wouldn’t let my pride go enough to confess that I should’ve waited longer to drink it. Not today. I already had too much on my plate. We hadn’t even been able to come close to figuring out how to retract the vampirism potion once we’d handed it over. The plant idea seemed to be a complete failure according to Ethereal, who’d been locked in her room for two days trying time and time again to figure out how to make it work. We had already exceeded our deadline, and after begging for an extension, I knew there would be no chance of putting tonight's meeting off again.
I’d gotten us into the mess, and I was going to have to find a way to get us out of it, but I had no idea where to even begin. I needed more time, but I was out of time, we only had four hours until we were meeting Vulcan for the trade-off. My head began to settle the tiniest bit as I allowed myself to calm down some. Having a killer migraine, especially a self-induced one, certainly wasn’t going to help me figure anything out.
“How is Ethereal?” I asked Phoenix.
“Busy, she still hasn’t had a full success run yet. She keeps saying she’s close, but at this point, that could be wishful thinking.” He grimaced, probably anticipating me throwing something across the room at him.
Luckily my headache was beginning to ease up a bit which was lightening my mood slightly. He must’ve picked up the increase in my spirit as he allowed himself to scoot over closer to me cautiously.
“You look like you could use a distraction.” He smiled a daring grin.
I held up my index finger to stop him as he leaned in closer. “Sorry, I have a species to save first!”
He groaned, and I giggled.
“Listen,” I got serious. It wasn’t something I felt like doing, but being in the time crunch we were approaching, I didn’t see much choice in the matter. “I’ve already disappointed Nyx, I’m sure. If I can’t figure out a way around this situation with Vulcan, well—” I dropped the sentence off there. I didn’t know what would come next. I hadn’t figured it out yet.
“How have you disappointed Nyx exactly?” His hand cupped my cheek to attempt to console me.
I pulled away. I didn’t need sympathy at the moment. I needed solutions. He couldn’t offer me those. No one could.
“I’m this strange being. This mix between our two species that are in a war against each other. I’m like this, I worsened this war, because of my own selfishness, Phoenix. Our selfishness. I thought I could redeem myself by finding a way to fix it, but apparently, that isn’t working out so well. I don’t think there’s any redemption for someone like me anyways.” I shrugged.
“Maybe someone that is a mix between the two species is precisely what is needed to solve this war. Think about it, Acqua. You have a way to learn both sides of the issues that started this war in the first place. If you can get in on both sides, you can use that power to find a middle ground and figure out a compromise to end the war. Ending a civil war that’s been going on forever, that seems like a redemption story to me.” He smiled.
“It’s not quite that easy,” I rebutted.
“Finding your redemption never is, I wouldn’t think.” He smiled again.
He always found a way to make the heaviest of situations feel lighter. It wasn’t something I was accustomed to, and I still hadn’t decided how I felt about it. The case at hand was my soul, my issues, we were discussing, and he just smiled as if we were only pondering what kind of tea to make next.
I had to find a way to fix the issues we’d created. I knew that much. It was a big deal, a hefty situation, to me at least. To Phoenix, it didn’t seem to weigh much at all. Maybe it was just the difference in our personalities that caused me to carry it so much harder than he did. I felt like I had the eyes of my people, all of them, on me just waiting for me to screw up again. I was about to give them just that since I hadn’t figured out a way around our situation with Vulcan in a few hours. The question that had been weighing on me was who would get to me first; Nyx, the other vampires, or the other witches? I wasn’t even sure any longer which I feared most.
Most likely, I was going to die, very soon, never having accomplished my goal of revenge against my parents. Somehow, that was what bothered me the most. I had apparently been so wrapped up in my thoughts that I’d unwillingly let my walls down. Phoenix was seeing every thought going through my head. So much for privacy.
“Acqua.” He placed his hand on top of mine.
“Oh, spare me!” I jumped up. “You know, better than anyone now, that I’m not a good person. I’m filled with hate, rage, and I just want vengeance. That is the most important thing to me despite the fact that the fate of two species rests in my hands right now. All I can think about is the fact that I failed to get my revenge.” I began pacing and lit a cigarette.
“Acqua,” Phoenix’s voice was soft, “I think you’re thinking too much into this.”
“Yeah?” I accused. “Well, I don’t think you’re thinking into it enough!” I circled the room, puffing away.
My chest felt heavy, even though I didn’t have to breathe any longer, I was still slowly taking breaths in as my anxiety rose. I didn’t have any solutions, and I desperately needed them. My brain was working itself into a tizzy, and I certainly wasn’t going to come up with any logical solutions acting this way. I knew that, yet I couldn’t calm myself enough to move past it.
“I can’t help you, if you don’t stop!” He grabbed my wrists in his hands and forced me to stop my pacing.
Heat rose throughout my body, he knew better than to act this way. He was aware that I wasn’t some helpless child. I didn’t need or want help. I didn’t want coddling I’d never had anyone pamper me in my life, and I didn’t need it to begin now. I didn’t need anyone to tell me how I should behave or what I should do. I already knew. It wasn’t my fault if I couldn’t control my anxiety and the stress that was building from this situation. None of it was solving any of my ever-growing pile of issues, and I knew that. The last thing I needed was him hanging that in my face or attempting to force me to do anything.
“Just stop it!” His voice grew more forceful with each word. “I get it ok? I know you’re stressed, and right now I know you’re beyond pissed at me. But what I need for you to do is to breathe and let me help you work through this.”
“I don’t need you to help me work through this! There isn’t a way to work through it, don
’t you see that? So, unless you are going to actually fix something, I don’t have time to talk about it any longer.” My voice was shrill, and even I felt uncomfortable in the aftermath.
“But, Acqua—”
“NO!” I snapped my fingers to stop his latest argument, and in my anger, unintentionally froze him as well.
Obviously, my emotions were very much out of control since I was accidentally casting spells. I didn’t have time to feel bad. I didn’t have time to continue the ridiculous argument. I would deal with Phoenix’s anger over what I’d just done later. After I had figured out how to get around the hard place I found myself in. I didn’t need him for the meeting with Vulcan anyways. I took one last drag of my cigarette that had already burned down past the filter in all the drama Phoenix had started and stomped it on the ground.
“Seriously Acqua? I put ashtrays in the house just for you to keep you from doing that!” Ethereal’s voice shrieked and made me jump.
“Come off it, Ethereal, save the lecture for after we figure out how to escape Vulcan.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about,” she said breathlessly.
I looked at my watch. “Well, hurry up, we have about fifteen minutes before I have to head his way.” My voice choked the words out. A curse to freeze time instead of just one person certainly would come in handy right about now.
“I think I’ve got it.” Ethereal ran back out of the room.
“Ok.” I followed after her. “I need you to know you’ve got it, Ethereal, not just think. I don’t have time for thinking, which is how Phoenix got himself frozen.”
“Which, by the way,” Ethereal continued into her room with me a few feet behind her, “isn’t exactly the way to treat someone you love.”
“What would you know about love exactly?” I chuckled.
Once we entered her room, I discovered why she was so out of breath. There was a broad man with dreadlocks passed out on her bed. It wasn’t uncommon, so it didn’t surprise me, but it was a nice touch to the conversation we were having.
“Case in point.” I laughed.
“Shut up!” She walked over to the end table where the plant that would hopefully be our solution sat. “I needed help concentrating.”
“On him? How did that help?” I teased, not feeling the slightest tint of guilt in doing so.
“Just—look.” She ignored me completely as her friend snored louder and rolled over. “It takes a while. I think that’s what I was missing before. I kept wanting to control the trigger of it, but we can’t. This one,” she pointed to the first sprouted plant in the long pot that held ten different plants. “Is the first one I did. The one I dosed initially, which was three days ago.” She frowned slightly.
“Are you telling me it’s going to take three days for the cure to retract? So, I’m just going to let Vulcan run around as a vampire, wreaking havoc for three days? He could wipe out our entire species by then, don’t you think?”
“Well, I think—oh wait, I left something in your room!” Ethereal rushed out.
“You didn’t have anything when you came in my room.” Before the sentence was out of my mouth, I realized she was gone, and I was talking to myself. “What if your little friend wakes up?” I looked at the dark-skinned man lying in her bed. One sniff and I realized he was under a sleeping spell. Knowing Ethereal, she’d laced his tea. She’d probably told him it would help him relax, which wasn’t a complete lie. “I guess that’s not going to happen,” I scoffed.
Ethereal liked to put on a holier than thou front when in actuality, she was just a bit more secretive about her transgressions than Ember and I were. Ethereal was likely the worst of all three of us, but she kept up a save the Earth image that made people think she was some kind of a saint. I touched each one of the plants in the pot, and each one retracted at my touch. Why was this so hard? If they withdrew by contact, why was it going to be so hard to have it retract after we’d given the Vampirism potion laced plant sprig to Vulcan? I knew that Ethereal understood these things much better than I did, seeing as she had the affinity for Earth, but I still couldn’t seem to fathom what the complication in this was. The man in the bed stirred and rolled over once more.
“Acqua,” Ethereal entered back into her room finally, looking guilty.
“What? Did you find whatever you were looking for?” I asked, stepping away from her nightstand overrun with plants.
“Well—”
“What?” I questioned.
“I didn’t actually leave anything in your room,” she whispered. “I just couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Phoenix like that.”
“How is that different than what you’ve done to this guy exactly?” I challenged.
“We don’t have time for that argument right now.” She smiled innocently.
“So where is Phoenix exactly? Is he so pissed at me that he left?” I wouldn’t be surprised; it’s what I would have expected him to do. Once he cooled off, he’d come back, apologies would be uttered, and everything would be fine.
“Well, not exactly.” Ethereal frowned, and Ember walked into the room.
“Yeah, it’s gone.” Ember looked about as stressed as I felt. She looked at Ethereal as she spoke, intentionally avoiding me.
“What’s gone? Someone fill me in here,” I demanded as the guy in the bed snored again.
“Phoenix, I unfroze him, and he left.” Ethereal's voice cracked midsentence.
“Yeah, I figured that much. So, he’s pissed at me for freezing him. I knew he would be. I’ll deal with that later.” I shrugged, not seeing why they were so stressed about my boyfriend's anger at me.
“It’s not just that, Acqua,” Ember stated.
“What?” I yelled.
“He took the Vampirism potion. The vial of it that we had saved to lace the plant with once we figured out how to make it retract. He took it and left,” Ember stumbled out the response quickly.
“He’s going to Vulcan.” I ran out of the room instantly, leaving Ember and Ethereal behind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Well, well, well.” Vulcan chuckled as Ember, Ethereal, and I walked into his clan house. It was similar to a fraternity house, sending a new sense of irony and unsettled nerves through my stomach. However, I didn’t have time to question his housing choices, not tonight.
It had been a long journey to get there. First, we’d argued over who was more at fault for Phoenix stealing the potion and making it to Vulcan first. Then we still had to find a way to get Ethereal’s still sleeping friend out of our house before we could leave. He was rather heavy for three girls to lift, without magic, we wouldn’t have succeeded. It had to have been one of our most tense trips ever, especially given that we had still been trying to point fingers at each other the entire way. I’d finally given in and taken the full blame just before we’d met up with Vulcan’s guys in the woods. They were directing us to our final meeting place; Vulcan’s lair.
All in all, we hadn’t even expected to find anyone waiting for us. I had assumed that Phoenix would have already found Vulcan, given him the potion, in turn making our meeting unnecessary. Vulcan wouldn’t need for us any longer if Phoenix had already given him the potion. I had spent all the time in between bantering with Ember and Ethereal attempting to use my connection with Phoenix to figure out where he was, what he had done, and what he was thinking, but it had been cut off. I wasn’t sure what that meant, and I had a feeling I didn’t want to know.
“Phoenix has filled me in on everything.” Vulcan smiled, and the wickedness behind it brought me back to the current threat at hand.
A few members of his posse led us into a small room, and I immediately sat down on the ivory couch in the center. It didn’t really show much strength, but I was mentally and physically exhausted. Judging by Vulcan’s eyes, he’d already taken the potion, so he had the upper hand over us anyways. We were out of options. For some reason, Phoenix had betrayed us, betrayed me. Officially screwed didn't even begi
n to cover our situation. Vulcan was back to being a vampire, and we’d walked right into his hands. He was probably going to drain, at least me, dry and use our powers to kill our entire species and finally win the war; which had most likely been the plan all along. When I thought about it, it made perfect sense. Phoenix had been a double agent the whole time. Vulcan needed someone to keep an eye on us and ensure we weren’t going to deceive him somehow. I had to admit it was a smart plan. Leaders needed to be able to make elaborate plans like that. Vulcan was a good leader. I was not. I couldn’t plan to save my life. Literally.
“So, what do you want?” I asked.
Ethereal and Ember looked at me, dumbfounded. I refused to continue with the games. We had played right into everything. There was no sense in pretending otherwise.
“A deal is a deal, Acqua. While you may have had other plans on how this would all play out, you did develop the potion to restore my Vampirism while allowing me to remain the leader of my clan. So, I intend to hold up my part of the deal as well. I will allow you to write new memories for your parents. I am nothing, if not a man of my word.”
I eyed him cautiously, confused, and unsure of where to put my trust. It just hung in the air, waiting for me to make a decision, one I had no clue how to make correctly.
“Where is Phoenix?” I asked.
It was out of my mouth before I could think any better of it. I shouldn’t have asked; I shouldn’t have cared. I was supposed to have some kind of supernatural talent for turning my emotions off, building walls, and shutting people out. Why wasn’t I able to actually make use of that when I needed to most?
Vulcan laughed. “He’s getting his things in order, or back in order, I guess is more like it.”
I threw him a question with a glare.