by Krystal Wade
“Hey. You’re gonna be okay.” The words sounded fake and foreign tumbling from my lips, but she sniffled and looked up anyway.
“You don’t know that. You can’t even mean it. And why aren’t you crying? Those guys beat up Derick and shot at us.”
“She’s not crying because it’s not her nature,” Derick said, leaning against the archway between the deck and living area, Will two steps behind him, smiling at me. “Do you know what she did when those guys kidnapped her, when they bound and gagged her and stuffed her in the trunk of their car?”
Megan jumped a little, a small squeak escaping her lips, and slowly turned her head toward me, but I couldn’t take my gaze off Derick. He looked menacing, terrifying, arms crossed over his chest, veins bulging around his toned muscles, eyes locked on me and not Megan.
I had a feeling that even though we’d apologized, he still wanted the truth. Now.
Could I give it to him?
“She fought back, Megan.”
She reached for me. “I know. I couldn’t believe it when she told the cops. I couldn’t believe I was friends with someone so brave, so calm. I would have panicked when I woke up in the trunk of a car, but Abby not only stayed calm, she seemed to take notes.”
Derick didn’t stop. “So you know she escaped through the woods, had her head bashed in hard enough to earn herself a concussion, then when she awoke tied up again, she tried so desperately to free herself that she fell off a couch and dislocated her shoulder—?”
“I may have cried at that point,” I said, hoping to break the tension in the room. What’s wrong with him?
Derick sat on the cushion between us and placed a hand on her knee, earning a nasty scowl from Will. “The point is, Megan, that any normal girl would have cried the whole time—and not just from the pain; any normal girl would have cowered in on herself and probably been killed. But Abby’s not normal. Neither of us are. That’s how I rescued her.”
Will sat on the other side of Megan, staring at the leather-bound book on the table. “What are you trying to say?”
“What I’m trying to say is: Abby and I are not from this place; we’re not human.”
Will’s cheeks flushed, and he reached back, hand clenched into a fist, ready to lean across my best friend and hit Derick, but within one breath, my boyfriend disappeared.
“What the…?” Will dropped his hand to his lap, shoulders slumped, a deep crease in his forehead. “He’s not kidding?”
I shook my head. “He’s not kidding.”
Slowly materializing back into visual existence, Derick said, “What would we have to lie to you about now? You’re helping us, against your own father. We need you to trust us, but we also need you to know how dangerous this is, how dangerous we are.”
“He’s not much of a father,” Will muttered, clinging onto the saddest part of Derick’s explanation. “And I’ve known you both for a long time and don’t find either of you particularly dangerous. You need my help. We just have to keep Megan safe.”
Megan turned up her chin, defiant. “I’m not going home, not after that, not until your dad is behind bars, Will. He shot at me!”
“Well, his lackeys are the ones who actually shot at you.”
Did he not understand what Derick was trying to say? That they were risking everything, their lives, by being near us? I couldn’t let my best friend put her life on the line for me. Not when Aedan’s words kept playing through my head.
You did this. “Maybe—”
Overhead speakers blared to life, preventing me from telling them to run far away from us and never look back, and someone announced we were departing and heading south—and that Will needed to get to the control room.
“Who’s that?” I asked. We weren’t alone and we’d just revealed a lot of better-left-unknown-things about ourselves. Great. Just great.
“The closest thing I’ve ever had to a father—the captain of this ship.”
Will took off toward a set of black glass doors behind us, slid them open and then slipped through, leaving us alone with Megan. She looked from me to Derick, leaning forward as though she wanted to touch him to see if he was real, then leaned back again, her face still marred by a day and night of crying.
After a few awkward, silent seconds, Will strode through the doors and returned to his seat. “Where were we?”
“We were at the part where you explain why you really want to help, where you’re taking us, and how well we can actually trust you now that you know the truth.” Derick sat still, confidence rolling from him in waves.
“Call my assistance an act of rebellion to protect a hot friend.” Will nodded pointedly at me and winked, making my cheeks burn. “And I’d say who you can trust is limited. My father left his research papers on the counter. He must not know we’re friends—not that he’s ever around to know. So, I figured we’d take a trip to Key West or something. It’s not unusual for me and my friends to disappear for a few days when we’re on vacation.” Will glanced at the black glass doors; there was something sad and small about the way he looked. He needed friends and a real family and adventure, and our problems were his perfect escape. “Harvey won’t know the difference.”
Your powers grow stronger, as does your essence’s light. Hiding here is impossible now. Those were Boredas’s words, and Mr. Crawford said protecting humans was our job. Mr. Crawford—“We can’t go to Key West.”
“Why?” everyone asked at once, staring at me, mouths agape as if I’d just ruined their big plans.
“Derick, your parents said they’d be on the next flight here, and Boredas can track our essence. We can’t hide.”
“Your essence?” Will grabbed the book and nodded. “Kalós, huh? What does it mean?”
“Good. It means good. And according to Derick’s father, we have the power to influence positive human emotions—and we have other abilities.”
He thumbed through a few pages. “Should have known you weren’t angels or demons, or vampires or werewolves. None of those interesting things.”
“Those interesting things don’t exist except in the imaginations of man.” Derick laughed then, reclining against the back of the sofa, and propped his ankle on his knee.
“So what are you?”
“Good guys with supernatural abilities.”
“Like invisibility.” Will narrowed his eyes. “And you fight…?”
“Arsonists, terrorists, sociopaths—basically really bad guys with supernatural abilities,” I said, remembering my conversation with Mr. Crawford.
Megan’s cheeks drained of color. “Arsonists? Really? And supernatural… terrorists?”
“Yes,” Derick said. “I believe we fight gargoyles, as well.”
“You do?” Megan asked, eyes big and round.
My knowledge of our newfound world equated to practically nothing, and Derick had a three-month head start on me, but his father didn’t say anything about gargoyles. “He’s joking.”
He shrugged. “Poor timing?”
“Just slightly.” I sighed, scooting closer to my friend. “You don’t have too much to worry about, Megan. Our ancestors have fought these beings for years, but they’re stuck outside this world for now. With the exception of a few, the terrorists, murderers, and sociopaths roaming the world don’t have supernatural powers; they’re simply bad guys that have no one to guide them. The really bad guys and the good guys can’t get here because the doors to allow our kinds to enter are closed.”
If I figured out a way to open the doors, an influx of horrible people with the purpose of terrorizing humans could take over the world, but life would go on as intended, a life where Kalóans guide and protect humans. And Mr. Crawford could go home; maybe he could hide his wistfulness from everyone else, but when we were in the woods behind my house, I saw how he longed to return. He wanted peace for a place ruled by someone trying to kill me, someone working with our enemy.
Opening the planes would be suicide. My father hid the Guar
dians here for a reason, and he hid us without knowledge of how to return to Kalós… except, somehow I did have knowledge. The book tried to show me earlier, the image it painted, the one Derick couldn’t see, the breeze on my shoulders that lifted my hair and surrounded me with serenity unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
“When did you guys learn all this?” Megan asked as I rubbed the back of my neck; a tension headache was building, tension from the gnawing urge to travel through the planes and the strange intuition that told me we were better off right where we were. “Because I know you, Abby, and keeping secrets isn’t something you’re very good at.”
“Derick found out in September, and I found out a few days ago.”
“And I’d say she’s pretty good at keeping secrets ever since she met this book.” Derick plastered on a fake smile and tapped the cover of History of Kalós.
My mouth watered with salty fluids. “Derick, I—”
“And you aren’t the only one who stays awake and reads all night long.”
I wondered if the book told him about my secret, if it jotted down line after line about each of my actions and explained my plans and emotions. Yep, I’d definitely have to check for an entry with my name on it. “What else did you learn?”
“Not enough to know how to remake a Safe Zone, but I learned enough about why this Zone broke.” He made a point of looking at me, as if to say I know it’s because we fought and it’s all your fault because you’re keeping something from me.
“So,” Megan said, sliding closer to Will so they could read at the same time, “can you start with the basics?”
Derick chuckled. “You’re assuming we understand the basics.”
“You’re a couple of mythical beings and know nothing about your mythicalness?” Incredulity colored Will’s face, his thin lips pressed together but not tight; he wasn’t totally disbelieving.
“Well, aside from what we’ve told you about us being good with supernatural abilities and fighting bad guys with much of the same, we know there are classes of good guys, I’m the last remaining Guardian who can open the door between our planes, and there are people who want to kill me so they don’t need my permission to enter and exit the human plane. Is that basic enough for you?”
“Okay, but how did… how did you find out?” Megan tied up her hair, somehow perfecting a sleek ponytail, even after all the running and screaming and being shot at. “Start with that.”
I smiled as I remembered how Derick discovered what we are. “Well—”
“Emotions and age play a role in how our abilities present themselves. I was happy, beyond happy, and when I walked through my front door, my parents couldn’t see me.” Derick saved me with his generic explanation. Megan already knew about my first kiss with Derick, but neither of my friends needed to know how we’d reacted to it.
“What about you?” she asked.
“Something similar”—or the exact same moment—“except I didn’t realize it until after Derick rescued me, and even then his parents had to break it down for me.”
“His parents?” Will closed the gigantic book, then set it on the table. “Why would your mom and dad not tell you themselves?”
“Another thing I only recently discovered: I’m adopted. My real parents gave me away. They were Elders and had a duty to fulfill, but they brought me here first.”
They both looked at me, like really looked at me, and I saw pity in their eyes. They didn’t owe me any of that; my adopted parents were way better than their birth parents, but rubbing that in would have been cruel.
Especially after Mr. Banaan tried killing us.
Derick recounted his part in my rescue, taking time to mention every gory detail about the nasty shack Boredas trapped me in, probably to scare them; he explained how my parents somehow lived with—and hid—the knowledge that a day would come when I’d have to leave. Then he went over all the other glorious particulars of our abilities, our travels here, the book and how it mysteriously writes itself, and unfortunately, about how the Safe Zone broke.
Will and Megan stared at me.
“So why aren’t you happy?” she asked, taking his bait.
Because this book keeps asking me to lie. Maybe it served as an accomplice for what Aedan, Boredas, and Ruckus hoped to achieve. Why else would something so powerful and knowing want me to do the very thing that would go against what my father, the Crawfords, and my adoptive parents wanted for me? But that couldn’t be; the book couldn’t be lying. The Crawfords gave me this book, told me to trust it, to research it.
I sat back and grabbed a throw pillow, focusing on the dark gray stitching around the roped edges, wondering what I could say that wouldn’t infuriate everyone. They all knew this situation was my fault, just how Derick knew Megan would latch onto his dangled bit of information, but I had to trust the book knew more about us than we did… and it told me to keep a secret. Well, a secret that a secret even existed. If I couldn’t tell them about that, I definitely couldn’t tell them what the book showed me. “I can’t say without destroying the world.”
Derick gasped. Did he understand how tormented I was? How every time I lied to him a part of me died? Or did the fact that he now knew I truly was hiding something only make him more upset with me?
We met eyes, and I held his gaze, willing all my pain and fear to go into him, willing this glance between us to explain how much I loved him and wanted him to give me time, to let me deal with this on my own. At least let me figure it all out in my head.
“Must be pretty bad to make you two so unhappy. I’ve never seen but one thing come between you, and now that I know it’s related to this…”
“What are you trying to say?” I asked, feeling like Megan was onto something, like maybe Derick and I were being forced to fight. Could the book really be responsible for that?
“Not sure. I just don’t like that something keeps hurting my best friend’s heart.” Megan sighed and glanced at Derick. “So if she’s not going to tell us, what do we do?”
“We protect her.” He grabbed my hand, not gently either, more how an angry parent grabs the hand of an unruly child. “That’s my job. That’s what this book told me my purpose is, and that by loving her I’d kill her.”
“What?” My heart hammered, pounding in my ears. Stinging heat flooded my fingers and toes.
He squeezed my hand, hard. “You heard me. Those sensations in your chest, well this morning, the book told me they were a sign of a strengthening bond between a Guardian and a Somatoph.”
“Somatoph?”
“Yeah. A warrior, a protector… a servant. The book also told me that a bound Somatoph could never love a Guardian because that love would cloud judgment in life-threatening situations, going against everything regular Kalóans were created for. So, that’s my secret, and I’ve only kept it since this morning.” Derick got to his feet, crushing my strength, my heart, my world, all with the empty space beside me and the hard look on his normally beautiful, warm face.
“But—”
“You must have read something wrong, Abigail. That, or the book is lying. Trust me, I don’t want to believe it, and I don’t like how it’s turned you into something you’re not.” Anger and hurt and so many emotions stormed behind his eyes, the blue a little less bright, clouded by what I’d done to him. “Take the book. Read it, study it, fawn over it like you have, and continue withholding information from the rest of us.”
“It said—”
“Not to tell me anything?”
Nodding would be an admission but one he deserved, so I did.
“Yeah. Me too. Said it would break your heart to know that, and break the Safe Zone. Except I’d put my faith in you over paper any day—or I would have—and you took care of the zone yourself.”
Derick fled the room, heading back in the direction of the boat’s deck, and all I could do was stare after him, dwelling in the truth.
He believed in me more than I believed in him.
&nbs
p; And a book showed him as much.
Derick
paced the deck for an hour, spending every second of said hour wishing Abby would come out and tell me the truth, wishing for her to act like herself.
But she didn’t.
And I refused to go in and face her.
Whatever game that book was playing, it changed us. And the change felt intentional, dark, and so beyond anything my parents ever taught me about our real identities. They told me they used this book, often. And after my revelation, we read it non-stop. So why didn’t they warn me about its confusing ways? Why didn’t they tell me History of Kalós wrote answers to questions?
I needed to talk to them now. Waiting for their flight would take too long.
The glass door slid open, and I turned around expecting to see Abby—
“Hey, man. Megan just took her downstairs.” Will shoved his hands in his short’s pockets, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly, giving away his annoyance with my presence. No one else ever noticed this about Will—or if they did, they didn’t mention it—but I noticed. He hated me, or was jealous of me. “You should cut Abby some slack.”
“Cut her some slack? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re running away from people who want to kill her—your father included.” Grabbing the railing, I stared into the churning water. “Besides, you’re only saying that because you’re attracted to her emotion.”
“Is that what this pull is? The magical side of her? Because she’s always made me feel so… like I need her, like I need to be in her presence, to protect, to admire. It’s annoying, and at the same time, I like it. I feel alive. I feel like life has purpose.” Will took the spot next to me, and I really wished he’d move away.
Before I decided to punch him.
“So what is her magical emotion, this uncontrollable power you all seem to have?”
Wish I knew. “Not a clue. I asked my dad that question when I discovered this new world. But he said the only way to find out is with some potion that can’t be made here.”
The book I couldn’t trust confirmed that.
“Weird.”