by E. L. Davis
“Stop right there,” she demanded.
The girls both froze and tensed up.
“Turn around, Alexia.” She did as she was told and prepared herself for the worst. Astropos approached them slowly, looking around suspiciously to see if others were watching. “What in the world are you two doing here?”
They knew what to say if they were asked why they were there; it had been brought up by Roman while planning. “We requested a meeting with Ahaz,” Cheri said in a steady voice, “but unfortunately he was caught up in other business and couldn’t see us.”
“Don’t lie to me, stupid girl, tell me the truth.”
Alexia stepped forward and looked right into her old blank eyes and focused in. “Astropos, don’t be silly, you know we came to speak to Ahaz. He told you this morning.”
“He did tell me this morning,” Astropos responded, shaking her head. “How could I have forgotten?”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re going to leave now, so it was nice to see you again.” Alexia turned to leave, breaking her focus on Astropos. They knew it would take seconds for Astropos to realize what happened, so Alexia grabbed Cheri’s hand to run, but Cheri stood stationary.
Looking at Astropos, Cheri asked, “A picture of the original Immortals with the Sapheneia used to hang in the building, where is it now?” Alexia could feel Cheri using her power, and even though she wasn’t using it, the adrenaline and confidence pumped through her body.
“It now hangs in the right wing of the building down the first hallway when you enter Headquarters.” Cheri squeezed Alexia’s hand hard and Alexia took over the interrogation, leaving Cheri to rub her pained eyes. Alexia hardly felt that pain anymore, as she had got used to it.
“We need to see that picture, Astro,” Alexia said. “May I call you Astro?”
“Yes, you can. I can take you there.”
“No, that’s fine, you need to go back into that office and stay there for five minutes.” Alexia focused as much as she could, hoping it would make her power last longer. “No matter what, remember that you cannot send anybody after us for doing this to you, understand?”
“I understand.”
“Go.” Astro turned and went back in the office she had just come from and closed the door.
Alexia and Cheri turned and ran as fast as they could through the room with the glass roof, back down the hallway that led to the main foyer, and back to where Demetri, Roman, and Ellie were waiting.
“What the hell took you so long? Did you find it?” Demetri held his arms open for Alexia, but she pushed past, still running.
“Follow us,” she called as she ran past, “we don’t have much time. Ellie, be on high alert. You too, Roman, keep your ears open.” They followed her back out into the busy entryway, pushing past people and not bothering to say excuse me.
“It was moved to the other side of the building.” They were just feet from the hallway Astro had instructed them to go down. This hallway didn’t have nearly as many doors lining it, but instead had windows showing into the rooms. They appeared to be conference rooms, and only one was in use but nobody noticed them running past.
“I felt a lot of anger passing that room!” Ellie yelled.
“Do you still feel it?” Roman asked, slowing his pace to match hers.
“No, I think we’re okay.”
They finally reached the end of the long hallway, that opened to a room that was identical to the one with the glass roof. This one had nobody in it at all, but art lined the walls. Alexia’s head was spinning as she searched the walls for the one painting she needed to find.
“There!” she heard Demetri yell and she whipped around to see what he was pointing at. He had been right; the painting had five very ugly people in it holding an old-looking book. She tried not to focus on the people and just on the book, soaking up every single detail about it, such as the light brown color of the leather binding and the scripture on the front. Even though she couldn’t read it, she tried to memorize what the writing looked like to describe it to the others later. A clicking noise came from beside her and it made her jump.
“A picture will be much more efficient and then we can get the hell out of here.” Roman was holding up his camera phone, snapping picture after picture at all different angles. Shoving the phone in his pocket, he ushered for everyone to move back out of the room.
“Let’s get out of here.” They made their way back through the dark hallway, past the now empty conference room, and Alexia couldn’t believe they had found the painting with next to no problems. She was sweating, and her hand was slipping out of Demetri’s who was pulling her behind him, urging her to keep running.
“Oh no,” she heard Ellie say behind her. “We’re in trouble.” They had reached the main foyer to find a large group of Immortals blocking their way out, and at the head of them all was Astro. “Anger, tension, nervousness, and fear,” Ellie said out loud for them all to hear. “Mostly anger.”
“Alexia Weiss, Demetri and Roman Viceroy, Cheri Turner, and Ellie Fields you are all here without being summoned. Explain yourselves or we will be taking you all to the chambers.” You could hear the anger in Astro’s voice, and clearly, she was not happy about what Alexia and Cheri had done to her.
They had a plan in case something like this happened, but nobody could think of what it was. Except Cheri. She knew her part in this, and she was feeling out each individual person trying to detect a useful defense. She didn’t know how easy it would be to use somebody else’s defense that she didn’t know, but she was going to try.
Astro spoke again. “You have thirty seconds before we take you into our chambers and leave you there until our Leader returns to decide what to do with you.”
“We had a suspicion that Alexia could find information about her missing father here.” Finally, Demetri had come out of his shock and recalled their plan. Cheri continued searching for a useful defense, but she needed more time. She faked a sneeze, hoping somebody would remember that this meant to stall.
“That’s the truth,” Alexia blurted out, catching onto Cheri’s signal. “Hector, my first father, has been missing for two days and we came here searching for information about his disappearance. He had mentioned a name to me the last time I saw him and that’s who we were searching for today.” Remembering that Astro probably knew that she had been searching for the painting, she added, “His office was supposed to be located by the picture of the original Immortals.”
“Who is this man you speak of?”
“Michael Fandler,” Cheri blurted out. She knew that wasn’t the name they were planning on using if this situation came up, but she said it anyway. All eyes turned on her and it made her head swim with so many voices. Somebody in the room had the defense to read minds and this was how she came up with the name.
“Fandler. Is your office located by the picture in question?”
“Yes, it is.” Astropos turned to face the man who spoke – a short balding man – and beckoned him forward.
“Did you know Hector who resides in the old village?”
“Yes,” he said in the trance tone that everyone seemed to use when they were being controlled by Alexia. “I do not know anything about his disappearance, though. I am sorry.”
Cheri still needed to find the right defense to get them out of the building right away. She was almost done scanning through the last row of people in the big front room when she found the perfect one.
“It’s okay,” Alexia responded to the bald man. “I only hoped since you knew him that you may have…” She stopped talking and looked over at Cheri who was muttering something under her breath over and over with her eyes closed and head bent down. She stopped speaking to herself for a moment and then flashed her eyes open, and they were bright red, with no white in them at all. A smile crept across her face that neither Alexia nor Ellie had ever seen before, and it was frightening.
“Cheri?” Alexia hesitantly said.
Cheri�
�s head flew up and people gasped all around the room. She pointed at the group of Immortals before them and whispered one word, her smile never faltering. “Goodbye.”
In an instant they were all flown backward and crashed against the wall behind them. Several people seemed to be knocked out by the force and several more were injured. Cheri’s eyes returned to normal and she faced her friends who were all staring at her. “This is when we all run!” Cheri yelled at them. Snapping out of it, they finally turned and ran out the door.
“Where do we go?” Ellie asked, tears pouring from her eyes.
“Back to where the portal dumped us,” Demetri said. “It should still be there.” He grabbed Alexia and Ellie and started running with them as fast as he could. Within a minute, they were in the same spot they had stepped out of the portal. Demetri dropped the girls off and then was gone again, only to return less than a minute later with Roman and Cheri.
“Did anyone come after you guys?” Ellie asked, hugging Cheri.
“No, I think they were all stunned,” Alexia said. Turning to Cheri, she asked, “What did you do to them anyways?”
“Let’s talk about that after we get away from here,” Roman cautioned, “and we should probably leave Greece, too.”
∞
When they arrived back to the beach house, they all scrambled around and grabbed all their new things to bring back home with them. They had no idea how much trouble they would be in with The Union, so it was best to leave Greece by portal and send a message to Ahaz when they returned to the house outside of Youngstown. They had only been in Greece for about four days, even though it had seemed like a month considering they had all learned so much about themselves and each other.
Alexia was sitting in the room she had shared with Demetri for two short nights. She couldn’t help feeling sad about leaving it behind after everything that had happened between them there. All the clothes she had bought the first day in Greece were downstairs in a big garbage bag with Cheri and Ellie’s stuff, leaving the room sadly empty. She half wanted to stuff the bed sheet into the bag with the rest of her stuff, but she knew that was ridiculous.
“Hey,” Demetri said as he entered the room, making her jump. “I don’t mean to rush you or anything, but we should probably leave soon. Did you get a chance to call Phil and let him know we’re leaving?”
“Yeah, I did.” She tried to hold back her tears. “I’ll meet you downstairs in a second, okay?” He moved toward her, noticing there was something wrong, and as soon as his hand touched her shoulder she let it all go. He caught her up in his arms and held her close.
“Why are you crying?” This was one of those moments when Alexia loved that Demetri was able to bring the bad boy wall down and just care about her. “We all made it out okay and once we explain to Ahaz why we were there, it’s all going to be fine.”
She considered telling him the real reason she was crying but decided against it out of embarrassment. “I know, I was just really scared but I am fine now.”
“Lay with me for a minute.” He pulled her onto the bed with him and looked into her eyes. “I’ll never forget this place,” he began, “it’s the place that I lost you and everything that ever mattered to me. It’s the place where all of my relationships with the people I loved fell apart.”
Alexia could sense the emotion in his voice as he continued. “Now, it’s the place that I got you back and we made a beautiful memory here. It’s also the place that the relationship that got destroyed so many years ago is getting repaired.” He was talking about his relationship with Roman.
“I know,” he said as he held her hands, “that right now the prophecy and what it contains is a burden for all of us, but I’m so happy that we’re all a part of it. If the prophecy had never been created, we might not be together right now, and it’s because of the prophecy that Roman found Cheri, too. I’m really happy that I have so many memories here with you, so I understand that you’re sad to leave.”
He knew why she was really upset. Of course, he knows, Alexia thought to herself. He knows me better than anyone.
“I am sad to leave,” she finally replied, “because I love what happened between us here and I guess I’m afraid that if we leave here, what happened between us might stay here.” She knew it was the wrong thing to say by the look on his face. His whole body tensed up and his eyes got huge and shined with forming tears.
He grabbed her face and made her look at him. “No. Never. You have to know that, Alexia, you have to know I love you and I always will, no matter what happens.” He was begging her to believe it, and there was such a sad intensity in his eyes that it made her want to cry again.
“I know you love me, Demetri, and I love you, too.”
“So, don’t say something like that. Don’t ever say something like that again, please.”
“I won’t, I’m sorry.” She kissed his lips softly, trying to control herself. “I love you,” she said between a kiss.
“I love you more.”
“No, you might have loved me longer, but I love you just as much.” They kissed again, and then pulled away before they started getting too into it.
“We can come back here when this is all over and have a proper vacation. Just you and me, and then we can do anything we want and make a million memories.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
Roman knocked lightly on the half-open door. There were bags in both his hands. It was time to go.
∞ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ∞
After staying at the beach house, Roman and Demetri’s house felt like a resort. When they walked through the huge front doors and into the living room, it felt like they were walking into a hotel lobby. The large living room was about the size of the whole main floor of the beach house; their footsteps even seemed to echo slightly. Alexia had half expected them to get ambushed inside the house; no doubt Astro would not have been pleased about their trip to Union Headquarters. But nobody was there; the huge house was empty except for them.
Their short time away had allowed small amounts of dust to settle on everything in the house, including Alexia’s ajar suitcase. Seeing her bags sitting there reminded her of home. Home, oh no, she thought. How long did they say their parents would think they were gone for? She tallied how many days it had been since she was away from home, and realized that they were expected home today.
Flying past Cheri and Ellie who had followed her, she shot downstairs to dramatically yell at Demetri, “My mom is going to flip!” Her voice was much higher than usual, it made Demetri jump.
“You know she thinks you’re visiting your Dad,” he casually replied. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“Yeah, and I am supposed to be back today, I can’t go home, we still have to find out where the book is.”
Demetri didn’t reply for a moment, clearly counting the days they had been away. His facial expression told her that she was right, and that she was supposed to be home today.
“What if she calls my dad?” Alexia continued, freaking out. “She probably already has called my dad! Oh no, I am so dead. Cheri and Ellie’s parents are probably freaking out, too. We need to leave right now.”
Demetri put a hand over her mouth to keep her from yelling more. Roman, Ellie, and Cheri had joined them downstairs now and the girls both looked anxious about what their families would say.
“First of all,” Demetri began, “we are not just giving up on finding the book because your family expects you home.” Alexia gave him a threatening look, daring him to try to stop her. “We can all go see each of your families; you can make them believe whatever you want them to believe, so that we can do what we need to do.”
“He’s right,” Ellie chimed in. “We need to find out about the prophecy before we can go back home.”
Alexia hung her head. She didn’t want to keep lying to her mom and she didn’t want her friends to have to lie either. She tossed a lock of blonde hair over her shoulder and sighed.
; “Whatever, let’s go then. I don’t want her to call my dad and then end up having to fly out to California to make him believe that we really are there.” Alexia stomped back upstairs only to return to the living room dragging her packed suitcase down the stairs. When she received several curious stares and Demetri stepped forward to block the doorway, she said in a frustrated tone, “I just want to get some different clothes. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on taking off. Jeeze.”
“I didn’t think you were taking off,” Demetri said in his cool voice, trying to hide that he really did think she was going to take off. He turned to Ellie and Cheri, “Grab your bags if you want to change clothes, and let’s get this over with.”
∞
Alexia stood on her front doorstep with Demetri at her side. In case anyone had followed them back into the city, it was decided that nobody would be alone at any time. She could hear the buzz of the television and knew her mom would be sitting in her favorite chair, no doubt shoving down a bowl of ice cream while waiting for Alexia to return home.
For some reason, Alexia felt uncomfortable about just walking into her house, considering how things had changed so much. Home was not where her room or her stuff was; home was where Demetri was. She decided it would be too weird to knock on the door, so she turned the familiar handle and walked inside what used to be her home.
Nothing had changed. The front entryway was littered with boots, shoes, and, for some reason, sandals. Immediately to the right of the door was a closet that was full of more shoes and coats, and to the left was the clean living room with its towering bookcases and squishy furniture. Just as Alexia expected, her mom was sitting in her favorite chair, a bowl of ice cream in hand, and a huge smile across her face.
“Alexia, I was wondering when you would be back!” She put her ice cream down and rushed to hug her daughter, which made Alexia feel worse about what she had to do next. “Did you have fun with your dad?” Then she noticed Demetri standing with her. “Alexia, are you going to introduce me to your friend?”