Destined_The Immortal Defenses Series

by E. L. Davis

  She was playing them both out now, and she couldn’t decide who she liked more. Little had she known that was the root of the whole problem. When she had heard that they had been the cause of her death, she was furious with them, unable to even stay in the room with them. Now that she knew the truth, she knew she had caused their deaths because she was a teenage girl who didn’t want to decide between the two brothers.

  “This is all my fault,” Roman began. “If I hadn’t…”

  “No!” Alexia shot up off the carpet sending her glass of water flying. “None of this was your fault. It was mine. All because I wanted both of you, I killed us all, and on top of that, tore you two apart! How can you have stuck around with me after all this time? I played you both out, making you think I loved you when really I was just a girl that couldn’t make up her mind!”

  Then something clicked in Alexia’s mind. “You never wanted to stick around, did you? You had to because of the curse, and you didn’t have a choice but to play the game, didn’t you? So why are you helping me, protecting me? You should hate me. You can finally be rid of me, so why are you helping me?!”

  The rage took over before she even realized it was there. Her mind was blank, and she grabbed anything in her reach and threw. She heard the smash of a window and a scream, and then nothing at all.

  ∞

  Alexia woke up with the worst headache she had ever had. Her vision was blurry, and she had no idea how she had got to the bed she was now lying in. The light coming in from the window stung her eyes badly, so she sat up to draw the blinds closed, but when she tried to sit up she realized she was not in a bed.

  She was lying with her back against the stainless-steel island in the kitchen, held down by the same cuffs that Silos had been held down by. She began to panic and struggled against her bindings, but they didn’t budge. What had happened? Had somebody hurt her friends, Roman, and Demetri? Was she being held captive by Amarantos? A million things ran through her mind and she screamed as loud as she could, pulling on the bindings trying to break free.

  “Alexia!” Cheri came running into the kitchen “It’s okay, it’s ok! Calm down. Please don’t get mad, but we had to do it! We just had to!”

  “Let me go!”

  “You have to promise not to lose control, Alexia. You smashed the window and pretty much everything else you could get your hands on. It was so scary.”

  Alexia could tell Cheri feared her and it calmed her instantly. “I… I don’t even know what happened. I blacked out. I remember them telling me the story and then I lost it.” It was all coming back to her now. The reason she had freaked out and lost control was because of how she treated Demetri and Roman all those years ago. She began to cry. “Cheri, I was such a horrible person. I was a whore and I don’t deserve friends like you and Ellie. I don’t deserve anything good at all.”

  “Stop talking like that, it’s not true.”

  Ellie came in then and Alexia could tell that she had been crying. “Alexia? Are you okay?” She was inching toward her very slowly, obviously scared after what she had seen her do.

  “Ellie, please let me go. I’m not going to do anything, I swear. I am so sorry for what happened. I didn’t even have time to stop it.” Her two best friends looked at each other and Cheri nodded, instructing Ellie to go get Demetri and Roman.

  “They are going to let you go but you have to stay calm,” Cheri cautioned her.

  Alexia nodded. She was so embarrassed by her behavior. It wasn’t going to be easy to get used to how easily her anger could get the best of her. She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind of everything that had happened, everything she had learned. Then she heard voices approaching.

  “I really think she is calm now,” Ellie was saying to the boys.

  “I guess we will see about that,” Demetri said, entering first, followed by Ellie then Roman. “Hey, sunshine, how are you feeling?”

  “Embarrassed,” she mumbled, not looking at him. “Please, let me go. I’m calm now, I promise.”

  “Before I do, you have to understand one thing. It was not your fault, okay?”

  “Okay.” She knew she wouldn’t be let go unless she pretended to believe it.

  “That was not very reassuring.” It was Roman who spoke this time. “You have to believe it, Alexia. It really wasn’t your fault. It was ours, okay? If it was your fault, The Union would have cursed you, not us.” She looked at him now, trying to search his face for a trace of a lie, but he was being honest.

  “I believe you, I swear.” They let her left wrist free, then her right, and she sat up and rubbed them. Once she was free, she hopped off the island and turned to apologize to everyone. “I’m so sorry for everything. I can replace your window, I swear.”

  “It’s already fixed, so no worries,” Demetri said.

  “How did you get it fixed so fast?”

  “You have been out for like four hours.”

  How was that even possible? She looked out the window and, sure enough, the sun was already going down. “Oh, wow.” Her stomach rumbled, and she said, “I haven’t eaten yet.”

  “None of us have, it’s been a rough day,” Demetri gently said. As if the mention of food had turned on all of their stomachs, there was a rumble going around the room.

  “I think we all need to eat something.” Roman turned to Demetri and gave him a look that made the girls wonder what he was thinking.

  “I think we all need to get out of this house,” Demetri said. Roman nodded and, for what seemed like the first time since Silos had tried to attack them, he smiled.

  “Are you serious?” Ellie’s face lit up.

  “Yeah, I think we all know that Alexia can defend herself if a problem arises. You both could, too. We got some kickass Immortal girls to protect us now.” They all laughed together, and the girls ran up to their room to throw on some better clothes.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were all piled into Roman’s red mustang and peeled out of the driveway at top speed. It was decided that it was not safe to go into their town, since people still thought they were in California, so they were going to the next town over to get some greasy burgers and fries.

  At the thought of this, she asked Roman, “Hey, do you remember when I brought up that beach house my grandparents had in Greece?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “That’s where we used to live, isn’t it?”

  “Not that house specifically,” Roman acknowledged, “but yeah, I knew right away that it was the same area. That’s why I got all weird when you brought it up.”

  “It’s kind of weird that my family in this life had a home there… I wonder if there is connection.”

  “I don’t think so, Alexia,” Roman assured her. “You’re not born into the same family over and over. It’s different ones every time.”

  “So, for all I know,” Alexia inquired, “I could have stood on the same cliff that we toppled from three hundred fifty years ago?”

  “I seriously doubt that you have, but yes, it’s possible,” Roman responded while speeding down the highway, enjoying being free from the house they were imprisoned to.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Ellie asked. “Are you just going to keep Alexia locked away from Amarantos? Or are we going to fight him?” This was the first talk about a plan of action, and everyone seemed to be surprised that it was Ellie who mentioned it first.

  “First,” Demetri responded, “we need to figure out what you guys have for your individual defenses, and then we use them to our advantage.”

  At the mention of their individual defenses Alexia was reminded of what she had overheard the two men by the trailer saying. Then she realized she hadn’t even told them about the trailer outside the woods. “Oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you something…”

  “What is it?” Demetri asked inquisitively.

  “When I took off the second time, I ran so far I reached a clearing in the woods, with tall grass and a trailer right in the middle. I overhe
ard two men outside the trailer talking about me, saying something about how they knew that you would be training me to use the defenses and how to use my own. Then they said something like, ‘So you believe it’s true?’ and the other man said, ‘Amar says it’s true, so it is.’ What do you think they meant?”

  Everyone thought for a moment and Demetri spoke first. “Before we all died, our father spoke to Amar about you. It was so long ago I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something along the lines of you having something that no other Tera or Immortal had.” There could be something special about her that Amar knew about, and he could possibly be the only person alive that knew.

  “Your dad,” Alexia asked, “he is dead, right?”

  “Yeah, he never became Immortal,” Demetri confirmed.

  “Is there somebody he was close to that he could have told?”

  The two boys thought for a second and then a light bulb went off in Roman’s mind. “Our dad might not be alive, but yours is.” He quickly swerved onto the next exit ramp and took the first right. “You ladies are lucky. You don’t have to wait to turn eighteen to go to Greece, because we’re going now.”

  “Wait, my dad, my real dad, is Immortal?” Alexia asked incredulously.

  “Your first dad is Immortal, yes.”

  Were there other family members that were Immortal? Could she possibly have cousins or aunts that were Immortal? She remembered they had mentioned she had a brother – she never even asked his name – could he be alive too?

  “You said I had a brother,” Alexia said. “What about him, is he Immortal?”

  “No, Franz lived and died.”

  Franz. That had been her big brother’s name once upon a time. This made so many other things click in her brain. She realized that she had never lived to be more than twenty-one, which meant that there were at least two sets of families that were once hers that were still alive.

  “Obviously,” Roman said, “if there was something special about you, our father would have told yours.”

  “Roman,” Ellie asked, “how do you even know he is still in Greece?”

  “His whole life was there, and it’s where he lost his daughter. He knew one day the curse would have to end and that she would know everything, so why would he leave when there was a chance she would come back?”

  “Sorry to burst your travel bubble, but we don’t have the money to just up and go to Greece! Even if we did, we would need passports, and we can’t go home.” Cheri was the voice of reason, but Demetri had the answer to that.

  “You really think that after living for three hundred and fifty years that we don’t have money?” It was ironic that, as he said this, Roman was pulling into the parking lot of a big bank. Alexia hadn’t even noticed that they had reached the next town over.

  “Okay what about passports? How do we know we won’t be followed? How do we know that somebody won’t try to take out the plane once they know Alexia is on it?”

  “Why do people always assume that flying is the only way to travel?” Roman looked back at the girls and flashed a devious grin before getting out of the car and walking into the bank.

  “This is crazy. Are we actually going to just up and go to Greece?” Ellie sounded like she was trying to restrain herself from completely freaking out in excitement.

  “I guess we are.” Alexia was still trying to soak it all in, especially about the fact that she was going to meet the first father she had ever known. “How are we getting there, Demetri? What was Roman talking about?”

  “For about a thousand years now, The Union has had portals set up around the world so that you can get back to Greece if you need to meet with them. I know what you’re thinking, ‘Portals are real?’” He mimicked a high pitched girly voice. “Well, yes they are.”

  “I am freaking stoked!” Ellie finally let her excitement burst from her. Cheri and Alexia knew all too well that after Ellie said this it was followed by a high-pitched scream, so they covered their ears just in time. Demetri, on the other hand, looked around at every angle trying to see the source of danger, which made them all laugh hysterically.

  When Roman got back to the car, a big duffle bag in hand, he asked, “What the hell is so funny?”

  There were no words to describe the scared look on Demetri’s face when Ellie had screamed, so Alexia said, “Nothing, now let’s go find us a portal.”

  Once again, Roman slammed on the gas and peeled out of the parking lot at top speed.

  It had been years since Roman or Demetri had used a portal, so it was a bit of an adventure trying to seek one out. The guys were the only ones who knew how to recognize them, so the girls were looking out the windows with blank looks on their faces.

  They drove for what seemed to be hours, passing fields and then small forests that were once again replaced by fields. The moon had replaced the sun and light was replaced with darkness.

  Alexia had never gone this long without eating before. When she mentioned that they should get food before going to find the portal, she was shot down by Demetri, who said, “If you don’t want to barf your face off when you step through the portal, I suggest you wait until we get through it.”

  So, as hungry as they all were, they had to wait until they found the portal, which was sure to take a while in the darkness. After about two and a half hours of driving, Roman finally pointed into a field and said, “There.” He immediately pulled to the side of the road and hopped out of the car with the huge duffle bag slung over his shoulder. None of the girls knew how he could possibly know there was a portal in the field. There was nothing special about it. It was covered in snow except right in the middle.

  “How do you know there is a portal in there somewhere?” Alexia asked curiously. They were all standing outside the car now, waiting for the guys to lead the way into the sopping wet field.

  “We can sense it. If you knew what it was like to go through a portal, then you would sense it, too. It’s like a vacuum; it just sucks you up, so when you’re close, you feel it kind of pulling you toward it. Not quite like the third defense, but it is similar. If you to focus hard, I’m sure you can feel it a little bit.” The three girls closed their eyes and tried to imagine what it would feel like to be sucked through a vacuum, but they felt nothing.

  “It’s okay,” Roman said when he realized they weren’t feeling anything. “You will feel it once we’re close.”

  With Demetri leading the way, they started trudging through the wet field. Alexia wished they would have known they were going to do this when they left the house, so she could have packed some things. She was sure the reason Roman had taken out money would be, so they could buy anything they needed while they were gone. Her socks and the hems of her jeans were already soaking wet. Everyone was tripping over their feet in the darkness, and Ellie slipped and fell right on her back. They were approaching the only area without snow when Alexia felt it. A small suction feeling, like she was walking toward a strong magnet.

  “Do you feel that?” She turned to Ellie and Cheri, who were almost invisible to her in the dark.

  “Yeah, I do,” Ellie replied.

  “Me, too,” Cheri said.

  “It’s right here.” Demetri stopped to face them. “Okay, so I’ll go through with you, Alexia. You’re going to feel like you can’t breathe at first and then…”

  “Hold on,” Roman interrupted. “I think I should go through with her.”

  “Why would you? I have traveled through portals many more times than you have.”

  “How in the hell do you figure that?”

  Before Demetri could argue back Alexia cut in. “Seriously, you two need to get over whatever happened between us. Right now, we all have other things to worry about. I’ll go through with Demetri first, and then Roman can take Ellie and Cheri through right behind us, okay?”

  The fact that she had chosen Demetri to take her through the portal made Roman remember what she had said in her sleep. It broke his heart all o
ver again.

  “What were you saying about not being able to breathe when you go through?” Alexia asked.

  “You’re going to feel suffocated,” Demetri explained, “but trust me, as soon as you’re on your way out of the portal, you will be able to breathe again. It’s really disorientating the first few times, but you get used to it. One more thing, don’t let go of me.”

  “Demetri…” she said in a warning voice, since she didn’t want them to argue again.

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t want you to get lost in the portal. You won’t know which way to go. Basically, I’m going to pull you through, so whatever you do, don’t let go of me, okay? The same goes for you two,” he gestured to Ellie and Cheri, “don’t let go of his arm or you could turn up in Africa or something. So, are we ready?”

  Alexia turned to face her friends. She wished she could see the looks on their face, as she wanted to know if they were scared so she could comfort them.

  “See you on the other side.” She flashed a smile that no one could see. When she grabbed onto Demetri’s arm, her heart fluttered a bit. She tried not to think too much about how strong it felt, but it was hard not to picture him in his underwear again. He walked straight toward where Alexia could feel the suction.

  “Hold on tight.” He took one step forward and Alexia felt herself be lifted off the ground and pulled straight forward. Demetri was right; it was hard to breathe. She thought it had been dark in the field, but this was pitch black. She clung to Demetri’s arm as if her life depended on it, which in a way it kind of did. It felt like they were in the portal for too long. Weren’t these types of things supposed to be fast? Had something gone wrong? The darkness was pressing down on her and her lungs couldn’t suck in any air at all. Just as she was about to pass out from a lack of oxygen a gust of wind hit her face and she gulped it in fast. Her grip was loosening on Demetri’s arm and he grabbed hold of her hand to stop her from letting go.