The Breaker's Promise (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 2)

by Conner Kressley

  “Once you’re done with the crone, you’re given an escort home,” Owen told me. “When people learn bad things about their future, sometimes they react in unexpected ways.”

  “They don’t want me to kill myself,” I stated.

  “Basically,” he answered. We all sat; Owen next to me and Echo across from us. So much had happened to me in the last few months. I had lost everything I had ever been given and then, when I thought I had nothing left to lose, I realized I was wrong. Still, these two people were the closest thing I had left to a family. I trusted them more than anyone on the planet. And that was a gift worth noting.

  “I’m sorry about your father’s family,” Echo said after sitting for a few silent moments. “The way they’re acting is ridiculous.”

  “Screw them,” I answered instinctively. “I could not care less about those idiots. If they don’t want to claim me, then I don’t want to be claimed. The only thing I don’t get is, you guys are big into D.N.A. stuff, right? Wouldn’t it be easy to determine whether I was or wasn’t a Blut?”

  Echo shook his head. His fingers started drumming against the concrete bench; a constant that, curiously enough, comforted me a little. “Your D.N.A. was sent to the Hourglass after that night in Crestview. You are a Blut. There’s no denying that. Your father’s family is contesting your legitimacy for other reasons. Your mother was a siren. Her Breaker ability had to do with mentally bending people to her will. Because of that, the Blut clan is claiming that your father was psionically seduced.”

  “They think my bio dad was raped?” I asked.

  “For lack of better terminology, yes,” Echo answered. “But you needn’t worry about that. Public support isn’t with them.”

  “I don’t care about public support, and I don’t care about the stupid Bluts. If being declared illegitimate means I won’t have to live with those wastes of space, then I’ll declare it myself.” I looked down at the floor. “Even if it meant I had no place to go.”

  “You would never have no place to go,” Echo said. “Not ever.”

  I looked up at him and suddenly, I couldn’t remember all those reasons I had given myself to warrant those boundaries I thought were so important. So Echo wanted us to close; would that be so bad? So, somewhere deep inside, maybe he looked at me and saw something of a daughter. Maybe when I looked at him, I saw something similar. And maybe that had scared the hell out of me.

  “Echo, I-“

  The clip clop returned. The woman appeared in the doorway, cutting into my sentence.

  “She will see you now,” she said, pointing to Echo.

  “Are you going to wish me luck?” He smiled at me.

  “Nah, somebody like you doesn’t need it,” I said. In an instant, he was gone, leaving Owen and I by ourselves.

  As soon as he was sure we were alone, Owen grabbed my hand. There was something calming about him touching me, even in this small way. And the fact that, even while in his home, we had to hide the fact that we were together, made little moments like this all the more special.

  “I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

  “What are you talking about? We’ve been together this entire time,” I said. He kissed the back of my hand.

  “I’ve missed you anyway.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder. Just for this, this quiet moment with him beside me, the rest of it was worth it. “Tell me we’re going to make it out of this,” I said.

  “We’re gonna make it out of this,” he repeated, squeezing my hand. “We’re gonna move to Vermont and open a bed and breakfast. We’re gonna be the most ordinary boring people in the whole world.”

  “And the happiest,” I added. Leaning up, I kissed his cheek. “How’s Merrin?” I asked. “I know you went to see her last night.”

  “The same,” Owen sighed. “I’m sorry if you heard-“

  “It doesn’t matter,” I answered. “You’re here now, with me. Merrin will wake up.”

  “She will,” he answered. “And when she does, we’ll deal with it. What about the letter?”

  “I haven’t opened it yet. I wanted to be safe,” I answered.

  He leaned up, brushing bangs out of my eyes. “Surveillance of any kind is forbidden in the lair of the crone. It doesn’t get any safer than this.”

  Reaching into my back pocket, and pushing past Casper’s sweater piece, I pulled the letter out. The ‘Poe’ on its front had worn and was running, probably from the warmth that came with being pressed up against me all the time. Like a soldier working to defuse a landmine he had stepped on, I opened it slowly. The envelope ripped easily, like the letter wanted to be released. Funny enough, my hand started to tremble a bit. Whoever Poe was, he must have been important to me. Why else would my bio mom leave a picture of the two of us in the locket she left me; the locket my dad gave to me before he died?

  Cautiously, I pulled the letter out of the envelope. I was about to find out who Poe was, what Dahlia had to do with it, and hopefully, why he was so important to me. I thought about the picture that fell out of my locket; two babies, Poe and me, according to the inscription on the back. But who was he? What did he have to do with my past and, given the fact that I had learned pretty much everything there was to know about my origin story in the last few months, why hadn’t I been told about him?

  The letter rubbed at my hands like sandpaper. It was folded in the middle and browned with age. As I opened it, breath caught in my throat. Owen’s stare weighed heavy on me with the letter in my hands. I wasn’t the only one who had something to discover here. If Poe had something to do with my past, it also meant that he might have a hand in shaping my future. And, given that fact that he was the Dragon and that we planned on spending the rest of our lives together, my future was of the utmost importance to him.

  “What does it say?” He asked before I had even opened it.

  “Gimmie a second,” I answered. I blinked hard as the letter unfurled in front of me. It would tell me everything I needed to know. It would answer questions I didn’t know I had. It might even direct me to my bio mom, to that idyllic place my mother had told me about the night she died.

  …you know, if it wasn’t totally unreadable.

  It was nothing, gibberish. The letters were a mixture of weird shapes and numbers that made absolutely no sense. There was something that looked like half an eight, a shape that closely resembled a humpback whale and, toward the bottom, the number 46 written over and over again.

  “It-It’s garbage,” I stammered, totally floored. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Owen leaned over my shoulder, examining the letter. My heart sank. All the things I had built up in my mind were dashed with a single page of unreadable jibber jabber. But why would Dahlia have something like this locked up?

  “It’s encrypted,” Owen answered. “What we’re seeing are anchors. The real contents are being hidden from us, sort of like what my dad did to my tattoo.”

  “So it’s not gibberish?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he answered. “If anything, what’s in this letter is probably very important.”

  “So how are we gonna manage to actually read it?” I asked.

  “There are people who can do that sort of thing ; people trained to see through even the most complex of anchors.”

  “And my guess is the number people who can do that and the number of people we can trust probably overlap exactly zero percent,” I muttered.

  “Probably,” Owen sighed. “But we’ll find a way. We always do.” He looked up at me from the letter. “What I don’t get is, why this letter? I understand why you went into Dahlia’s office, and I get the whole ‘Mother’s man’ thing, but what made you pick this letter? And what does Poe mean?”

  My face flushed. I wasn’t sure exactly why I hadn’t told Owen about the picture in my locket or the inscription on the other side of it, other than the fact that I hadn’t told anybody. Still, Owen wasn’t just anybody. He was Owen. I told him everything. But ther
e was something about that picture, about that little baby boy with those weird eyes that made me feel instinctively guarded. Besides, I was willing to let him read the letter, so it’s not like I wanted to keep whatever it was from him forever. I just-I just didn’t want to burden him it; that was all.

  “Because it was hidden along with the picture. I figured it had something to do with it,” I lied. Folding the letter back up, I stuffed it into my pocket. “We should ask about Mother’s man. What was his name; Renner? Maybe people know about him. Maybe he’s here.”

  “We can’t be too obvious about it though. People in the Hourglass are pretty open about things unless there’s a damn good reason not to be. The fact that I’ve never heard of any Renner leads me to believe that there’s more to his connection to Dahlia than simple friendship or attraction. So, going around asking questions could warrant us some unwanted attention.”

  “Which is the last thing we need right now. I just- I can’t figure any of this out,” I said, putting my head in my hand.

  “Don’t do this to yourself, Babe,” Owen said, squeezing my hand again. “Everything will be okay. I promise.”

  “Is that a Breaker’s promise?” I asked through my fingers.

  “It’s whatever you want it to be,” he said, and kissed my cheek. It felt good, resting beside Owen; feeling the steady up and down of his chest, the rapid beat of his heart. I wanted him; all of him, forever. Even now, with everything about my life spinning and up in the air, I had never been more sure about anything.

  He pulled away from me quickly. I keeled over as he straightened up beside me on the bench. It took me a second to realize what had happened, but once I heard the clip clap of feet return, I knew what was up.

  The old woman returned to the doorway. Her face was hard and expressionless. “You,” she pointed to Owen. “The Crone is ready for you, Dragon.”

  He looked at me, bristling just enough for me to notice. He thought I hated it; when people called him the Dragon. But the truth was, no matter what anybody called him, he was just Owen to me; he was just mine.

  “See you at home,” he muttered, and stood to meet the woman.

  “Kay,” I answered, and watched him leave. I slumped in the bench once I was alone. Of course, I would be the last one seen. Could it have gone down any other way? I did not want to be alone with my thoughts right now. I wanted a distraction, someone to talk to, and someone to keep my mind occupied. But here I was, all alone with nothing to do and no one to steady me.

  “Someone’s feeling sorry for herself.”

  The voice literally turned my stomach. Of course it was her. Of course she’d pick now to return. “Hello Merrin,” I said, looking over at the apparition beside me. She was still dressed in the same outfit she wore the day she went into her coma. Her hair was still pinned back and unmoving. Her expression was a mixture of pain and smug satisfaction. “I thought I told you to leave me alone.”

  “I don’t think you necessarily understand the concept of ‘trapped in your mind’,” she scoffed. “I’m stuck here; whether you see me or not, whether you hear me or not. I’m always in here. And believe me, it’s torturous.”

  “I don’t have the energy for you right now,” I sighed.

  “Imagine that; you’re tired. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m comatose, and it’s your fault,” she sneered.

  “How could I forget when you’re so diligent about reminding me?” I answered.

  “Would you like to know the worst part about being in your mind, Cresta? It’s being subject to your ridiculous thoughts,” she leaned closer. “Even after all this, even after all the senseless death, you still believe there’s a chance to make it out of this. It’s like you’re purposely trying to not understand.”

  “What would you have me do, Merrin?” I asked. “Should I lay down and die for you people?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “For the sake of the world, for the sake of the centuries of work our people have put into it, you should.”

  “And what about all the work my family has put into it?! What about everything my mom gave up keeping me safe? I would never dishonor her by giving up.”

  “This is all about that place she told you about,” Merrin scoffed. My teeth clenched. No one knew what my mom told me before she died. No one knew about the place or the people who Mom said would be on my side. But Merrin was in my head now, and she knew what wasn’t hers to know. “Your mother was lying to you Cresta. Either that or she had a death wish. No one can get past the Council. If that little group your mother spoke about actually has managed to evade us for this long, the minute they reach out to you; the instant they throw their hand into this world’s endgame, the Council will chop them down like the poisonous vines they are.”

  “It won’t get that far,” I said, clenching my eyes tightly and hoping against hope that, when I opened them, Merrin would be gone. “I’m not gonna be what you think I am. There will be no end of the world, because I won’t end it.

  She chuckled. “Even you don’t believe that. That’s why you haven’t slept with him.”

  My eyes shot open. My head darted in astral Merrin’s direction. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Don’t be shy,” she grinned. “I promise, you have no secrets from me.” Her eyes widened and glinted with something fierce. “You haven’t given in to your disgusting base desires for Owen because you know, sooner or later, you’re going to have to leave him. Sure, the two of you can pretend that you’re going to have this idyllic future. You can talk about Vermont and forever, but deep down, where you live, where I live now, you know the truth. Fate will pull you apart. It will put you on different sides of things, and it will make you being together an impossibility. That’s why you haven’t slept with him; because you know that, once you do, giving him up will hurt too much.”

  I didn’t remember standing, but I must have, because I was looking down at Merrin now; my hands clenched into tight little fists. “We’ll leave,” I answered. “As soon as you wake up and spill all those secrets in your mind to the Council, we’re going to get out of here. We’ll find those people Mom talked about, and we’ll be happy.”

  “And what if I don’t wake up?” She asked. More blipping than actually moving, Merrin stood to meet me. “You’ve spent all this time crafting a contingency plan in your mind about what would happen if the Council finds out the truth about you, but what if they don’t? What if I never wake up? Would Owen really leave this place; leave his family and his brother again if it wasn’t absolutely necessary?” She laughed loud and hearty. “He’d stay, and you know it. He’d stay shackled to me until my pathetic body finally gave up, and then the Council would find him another, decidedly less perfect, perfect. And they’d find someone for you too, Cresta. You’d live your life here, close enough to touch Owen but never able to. You’d watch him have children with someone else, grow old with someone else, and learn to love someone else; because that’s the way it works. This is the world he knows, Cresta. And, whether you’re in it or not, a part of him always will be.”

  “You’re lying,” I said. “You just want me to give up. You want to think things are hopeless.”

  “If I wanted you to think things were hopeless, I’d remind you that Flora knows your secret; which means Allister Leehman’s people know your secret; which means, even now, they’re very likely gathering their forces and preparing to strike. Because if you’re the Bloodmoon, Cresta, it means that he could also be the Raven.” She gave me an infuriating wink. “You have too many people after you Cresta. One way or another, someone will get to you.”

  At the end of the hall, the clip clap of the old woman’s boots returned.

  Merrin looked down the hall, and back at me. “I guess this is your cue. Do try to relax in there,” she said, and vanished in front of my eyes.

  The old woman appeared in the doorway almost instantly. Somehow, she even droopier than before, hunched over as she beckoned for me. “You. She will see
you now.”

  If her representative was this old and decrepit, I could only imagine what sort of dust bag the crone herself would be. I stood slowly, examining the empty space beside me where Merrin sat; though sat wasn’t exactly the right word for what she did. Technically, Merrin was lying in a hospital bed somewhere, and absolutely not capable of sitting anywhere at the moment.

  “Is there a problem, and if so, could you leave it where you stand?” The old woman arched her silvery brows, making her face inexplicably more crinkled.

  “No,” I muttered, and walked toward her. She spun around, moving down the large hallway so fluidly that it looked as though she was floating rather than walking. The hallways itself seemed to spin out into forever, stretching as far as I could see. The walls were stone and etched with symbols that must have been anchors that I didn’t understand. There were portraits too; faces carved in the stone. A painful flash from the past shot through me as I realized what the faces symbolized. Like Wendy’s gravestone back in Weathersby, these were the faces of past seers; all nameless, all probably forgotten outside the halls of this place.

  “Wait a sec,” I said, looking around. “This place is a shack. How does this entire hall fit in here?”

  The old woman didn’t answer me; of course, that might have been because, by this point, she had float/walked way out in front of me. I sprinted; trying to catch up when I (finally) caught saw a door. It was large, red, and covered with the same weird markings all over the rest of the hall. I shuddered. Mom had always warned me against red doors. She said evil lurked behind them. The door swung open as the old woman approached. She turned back at me, beckoned for me with a long wrinkled finger, and then disappeared into the darkness on the other side.

  As soon as I walked through the doorway, everything shifted. The darkness was not darkness anymore. In fact, the room was so bright and vibrant that I had to squint. Looking back, I saw that the long endless hallway was actually just a short alleyway; ten feet at most.