“Alright,” Troy relinquished.
“Awesome!” Drake said happily.
The doorbell rang and Troy went to answer it. “What’s this movie about?” I asked.
“It’s about people with super powers.”
“What’s that?”
“Like extra abilities. One guy can fly and another can change shape.”
“Wow.”
“Just wait until you see it. It looks real.”
“Movies aren’t real though, right?”
“Right,” he agreed with a nod, “but the advancement of technology has made it so as you’re watching it, you really believe that it’s happening.”
“I wish I could fly,” I whispered.
“Most humans wish to fly,” Troy said as he took boxes from a young guy who was staring at me. Troy noticed and said, “Have a good day,” and then shut the door in his face.
I didn’t comment on his behavior and was saved by the pizza being there. We put slices of pizza and cheesesticks on plates and sat at the table to eat before we went to the movie. Drake and Troy talked about work and I couldn’t follow along with their conversation so I became lost in my own thoughts.
What if the silver-eyed man was a liar? What if he was just some crazy guy who saw my picture and heard my story and wanted to mess with me? Part of me wanted to believe that, but another part of me felt some weird connection to him. It was so strange and so difficult to explain. I had drawn a few pictures of him, but I hid them from Troy because I was certain that he would get upset if he saw them.
“Alys. Alys!” Troy yelled.
I jerked back in surprise and Drake chuckled. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“Are you ready to go to the movie?” Troy asked with a scowl.
I pushed my empty plate towards the center of the table and nodded my head. “Sure.”
“Let me go grab my wallet real quick,” Drake said and quickly left the house.
“Are you okay?” Troy asked me with pinched eyebrows.
I nodded my head and went to the couch to put on my shoes.
“You want to talk about whatever it is you were thinking about?”
“I was just thinking about the silver-eyed man,” I admitted to him.
“Oh?”
“I want to believe he was just crazy, but I don’t think he is. I think he was being honest.”
“We have some guys looking into it for us. Hopefully, we will have some answers tomorrow.”
“If I am some mobster’s daughter, will that make you hate me? Since you’re a cop?” I asked him softly while staring at my hands.
He sat down next to me and whispered, “I won’t ever hate you, Alys.”
“If I’m a bad guy, you’re supposed to hate me. Cops aren’t supposed to like bad guys.”
“Cops don’t have to hate bad guys. Plus, even if you’re the daughter of some mobster or gangster, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”
“Part of me hopes we never find out who I was before.”
“I think the most important thing is that you figure out who you are now.”
“I’m not a very good person right now. I need to change,” I whispered more to myself than to him.
“You’re a great person. You just got scared and that’s normal. Everyone gets scared occasionally.”
I snapped my head up to look at him. “Even you?”
He smiled and nodded his head. “Even me.”
“What scares you?”
“There are a few things, but I was scared when you were running. I was scared that you might get hurt. If that truck had hit you, I would have been very scared about your life.”
“I was scared when I saw it,” I whispered. “I’m sorry that I scared you.”
“That pizza guy was pretty interested in you,” Troy whispered.
“I saw.”
“It was rude of me to slam the door in his face.”
“Why did you?” Not that I wanted him to stare at me like he was.
“I didn’t like the way he was staring at you.”
“You told me that men were going to stare at me, remember?”
“It doesn’t mean that I will be okay with it.”
“Why not?” He wasn’t making sense.
He sighed and then met my gaze. “Because I’ve grown to like you much more than I should in these few days.”
“What does that mean?” I asked nervously.
“It means that I think you’re beautiful, smart, kind, and that I’ve been doing everything in my power not to do this…” He leaned towards me and every cell in my body began tingling nervously. I had seen this in movies and I wanted him to do it to me. Our lips were about to touch when feet stomped up the front porch. Troy leaned back, stood up, and faced the kitchen. Why had he stopped?
“Troy,” I whispered in confusion.
Drake threw open the door and asked, “Are you guys ready?”
“Yeah,” Troy said sadly. “Let’s go.”
What? He was just going to leave like that? He wasn’t going to finish what he had started?
“Who’s driving?” Drake asked.
I wrapped my arms around myself and walked out of the house without looking at either of them. I would not cry. I would not cry. I was not sad. Chin up.
“What’s up with her? Something happen?” Drake asked Troy.
Troy didn’t answer his question, “You should drive.”
I walked to Drake’s truck and leaned my forehead against the passenger-side door. I felt sad even though Troy had admitted that he liked me. If he couldn’t kiss me then maybe he didn’t really mean it. Maybe he didn’t want Drake to see us kiss because he would be embarrassed. Drake pressed a button to unlock the truck’s doors and I opened mine as fast as possible so I could get in before Troy caught up to me.
We drove listening to their music and I finally calmed down enough to ask, “Is there anything I should know before going to this movie?”
“Do you know what Norse Gods are?” Drake asked me.
“No.” It was tingling some memory in my head, but it wouldn’t come out.
“There are lots of religions from all over the world,” Drake informed me, “and the Norse were one of them. Their main gods were Odin, Thor, Loki…”
I couldn’t hear him anymore. My head was pounding so hard and so loudly that it was the only noise I could hear. I clutched at my skull and tried to rub the pain away, but it wasn’t working. Drake was still talking, but instead of hearing him, I could hear words of other men. They didn’t make sense or form complete sentences, but I could hear their voices. They seemed familiar and friendly. Faces including the silver eyed man flashed across my closed eyelids. Who were they? What did this mean?
“Alys?” Troy asked me, his voice finally breaking through. “What’s wrong?”
“My head hurts,” I whispered.
“Drake, stop at the gas station over there,” Troy ordered him. Drake obeyed and Troy hopped out of the truck as soon as we stopped.
“I wonder if we should take you to the hospital? This is the second time you’ve gotten a bad headache like this.”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
Troy got back in the truck and handed me a cold bottle of water. “Drink that while I open the pills.” I drank while he worked on getting me two white pills and then I swallowed those down.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go.”
“No!” I yelled. “I want to go watch the movie. These pills usually help.”
“Alright.”
We drove again and I drank the rest of the water before we got to the theater. There were quite a few people around so I stayed close to Troy’s side. Why were there so many people here? Did everyone really like watching movies that much? We had to maneuver around people and for a second, I lost sight of Troy. Panic began to set in and I was about to yell his name when he squeezed between two people in front of me. “Hey, come on.�
�
“I lost you,” I whispered.
He linked our fingers together and tugged gently. “Stay close to me, okay?”
I nodded my head and tried to stay right next to him as we walked. Drake was waiting for us at a doorway and handed me a ticket. “Hand this to the guy up there.”
I walked in and handed the guy, who looked super bored, my ticket. He tore it in half and said in a monotone voice, “Theater seven on the left.” Troy and Drake were told the same thing and then we started walking towards the left side.
“There are so many people here,” I whispered. Someone tried to cut between Troy and me, but I pressed myself to his side and the person swerved around us. Troy put an arm around my shoulders and held me closer to him as we walked. It felt like it was intimate, but I knew it was just to keep me from getting lost.
We entered through a door, walked down a dark hallway and then there was a huge TV screen on the wall in front of us. “That’s a huge TV,” I whispered.
“That’s why we come here to watch movies. The screen is huge and the sound is better,” Drake said. They led me up through a bunch of seats until they found the ones they wanted and sat down.
People began filing in and filling up the seats and before they turned on the show the entire theater was filled. I felt nervous with so many people around that I didn’t know, but thankfully I was sitting between Drake and Troy. I wished we were still holding hands, but he had let go as soon as we found the seats. The lights turned off and it began. First there were commercials and then I felt like I was dreaming. The images felt so real and it really did seem like the guys had the unusual powers. How did they make movies like this?
Halfway through the movie I felt irritated. “Loki isn’t like that,” I hissed. “And neither is Thor.” They didn’t look like thirty-year-olds. They both looked like they were my age. I knew they were really older than that, but they aged very slowly so at their current states they looked to be my age. And Thor didn’t love Loki and Loki wasn’t Odin’s son and didn’t have the possibility to run Asgard.
Oh, Asgard! How beautiful it looked in real life. They almost captured it in the movie, almost. My head hurt once more when I realized that I shouldn’t know any of this and then the pain released and all of my memories came flooding back to me.
Tears streamed down my face and I felt the two halves of me merged into one. I knew that there was no way I could tell Troy where I was really from or anything about my past. They wouldn’t believe it. No one would believe me. They would think I was crazy.
“Are you okay?” Troy whispered to me.
I nodded my head and stared at this kind mortal beside me. It was because of him that life on Midgard hadn’t been horrible. I owed him a great debt. How could I repay him?
Something exploded above our heads and Troy and Drake pushed me down and covered me with their bodies. People screamed in shock and then everyone became silent. We sat back up and I stared in shock at a group of Dark Elves on the floor in front of the screen. They were scanning the audience and I recognized the one in the center. He was the one who had come to Asgard and talked to me. He met my gaze and smiled. “Alys of Asgard, we have come for you.”
“Did he just say her name?” Troy asked Drake.
I swallowed the lump in my throat as I stood up. I couldn’t let them hurt the humans. “What do you want with me?” I asked them. How had they found me?
“Is this part of the movie? Is this like an extra from the theater?” someone in the audience asked.
“You idiot, they wouldn’t destroy their ceiling,” someone snapped.
“We are in need of a negotiating chip and you will help us win the war,” the Dark Elf said with a sneer.
“I won’t help you defeat the Aesir,” I told him defiantly.
Fire crackled around him and he asked, “Maybe if I kill a few mortals, your mind will change?”
“Alys, what’s going on? Do you know these guys?” Troy asked.
“They’re Dark Elves,” I whispered. “Evil beings who only like to hurt and kill.”
“We need to get these people out of here,” Drake said.
“Just stay put,” I ordered them. “They want me.”
Troy grabbed my arm. “You promised you wouldn’t run away again.”
I turned to face him and smiled. “I’m not running away, Troy. I’m leaving willingly with them.” I kissed him on the lips and while he was standing there dumbfounded, I leapt over the seats and ran out the emergency exit.
“After her!” the Dark Elf leader bellowed.
I dodged and weaved through the crowds and made it to the back where the parking lot was empty. The Dark Elves surrounded me and I felt their evil like a chill up my spine.
“Alys!” Troy yelled from the theater.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked the leader.
“Oh, don’t you worry about that. You will find out soon enough.”
The elves ran at me and I tried my best to fight them back, managing to hold my own against a few of them, but then one hit me in the jaw and I stumbled to one knee. Another kicked me in the side and I screamed in pain.
“ENOUGH!” a deep voice bellowed and suddenly the air was electrified. The elves went flying in all directions and there, in the center of them, stood Thor with Mjölnir in his hand.
“Thor,” I whispered in shock. “What are you doing here?”
He looked at me and said, “I told you that I would protect you.”
The Dark Elf leader charged Thor and he narrowly avoided the wicked-looking sword the elf tried to cut him with.
Warm arms picked me up and I smiled at Loki and his silver eyes. “It was you,” I whispered.
“I promised you that I would follow you across the nine worlds,” he reminded me.
I set my hand on his cheek and jerked it back as pain bit into me. “Loki, what’s happened?” I stared into his eyes and saw the well of darkness with no light anywhere. “No. Loki. No.”
He refused to look at me anymore and said, “I’m taking you back to Asgard.”
“No!” I leapt out of his arms. “I can’t go back.”
“It’s your home!” Loki yelled at me. “Why can’t you go back?”
“My home is Midgard. I am upsetting the balance of the Aesir by being there. I’m a mortal, Loki, I’m not meant to be with a God.”
He slipped his hand around the base of my neck and stared into my eyes. “I don’t give a damn about the balance.” He kissed me and pain pricked me all over from the darkness he carried, but I didn’t try to stop him.
Loki pulled back and instantly pushed me down. I thought he was being cruel until I saw the sword fly over our heads. He pulled his sword and began fighting with the other elves who had returned from being sent flying by Thor’s attack. Thor was still fighting the leader and I was helpless to do anything, but watch.
“Alys!” Troy yelled from nearby.
“Mortal, take her to safety,” Loki ordered him.
I stood up and looked at the two gods battling the Dark Elves. What if they didn’t win? What if…
“Alys,” Thor whispered from nearby as he fought the leader. “Go with them. We will find you soon.”
“Thor, I’m sorry.”
He smiled and said, “You did what you thought was right. You did what you thought was best for us. It has only made you shine brighter in my heart. Go.”
I stood up and ran towards Troy and Drake who were staring at the scene in shock. “We need to get away from here,” I told them. “I know you’re supposed to keep the peace here, but you can’t help them. Thor and Loki will send them away from Midgard, Earth, but we have to get out of here while we can.”
“We’re hallucinating, aren’t we?” Drake asked Troy.
Troy shook his head and looked at me in shock. “You know them?”
I nodded my head. “My memories came back during the movie. I can explain everything at the house.”
One of the Dar
k Elves started to run towards us and Thor threw Mjölnir into the elf’s head, knocking him out. “Go!” he shouted at us.
“No, Alys, come to me,” the leader of the Dark Elves commanded.
My body twitched and then I was walking towards him. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t control myself.
“Alys!” Loki yelled as he fought with one of the Elves. “Fight it! Fight his command!”
Troy grabbed my hand and tried to hold me back. “Alys, what are you doing?”
“Kill him,” the Dark Elf ordered me.
No! My free arm lifted and then punched Troy in the face. He stared at me in disbelief.
Thor started attacking the leader to break the spell, but it was no use. I kneed Troy in his stomach and punched him in the jaw again. Drake grabbed my other arm and held me.
“She’s being controlled,” Drake growled.
“Obviously,” Troy said as he held me. “Alys, you can fight this. He can’t control you completely.”
How? How did I fight it?
“Kill them!” the Dark Elf bellowed at me.
Somehow, I pushed both Drake and Troy away and grabbed a sword from one of the fallen Elves. Loki stepped into my path and the sword lowered towards his chest. No! No, not Loki!
“Alys,” he whispered.
The sword’s tip stopped, barely a breath away from his chest.
He smiled and twisted my wrist to make me drop the sword. I pushed against the wall of power in my mind that was no doubt the Elf and fell to my knees.
Loki hugged me tightly. “I told you that you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Loki,” I cried.
He kissed my cheek and set me on my feet next to Troy. “Go, go to safety and we will find you once we send them away from Midgard.”
I grabbed Troy’s hand and pulled. “Come on!” I didn’t want him to take control of me again.
He finally started walking, and before long we were in Drake’s truck and then home. We sat at the dining table and I took a deep breath. “Most of this you won’t believe,” I told them, “but it’s the truth. I was born here, but there is no record of my birth because Odin took me to Asgard shortly after I was born. I’m not sure the whole story, but I know my parents died and Odin didn’t want me to die as well, so he took me to his home. I lived on Asgard and was raised with Thor and Loki and the other gods up there. I realized that I was causing them to be unbalanced because instead of Thor and Loki trying to convince one of the goddesses to be their wives, they were trying to court me. I had Sif erase my memories and Heimdall sent me to Midgard.”
Magic and Shadows: A Collection of YA Fantasy and Paranormal Romances Page 138