by Lila Felix
She interrupted me before I could explain myself. “Sevella couldn’t perform the miracles.”
The thing about Sway, much like Ari, she never bullshitted.
I shot her a half smile. “She was human. She was not Lucent.”
I could practically see the puzzle putting itself together in her head. She continued, “You are Lucent. And you’ve sealed with the Eidolon. He has the powers—the power to restore.” She chanted the teaching to herself. “When they are sealed, all things shall be shared—in life, in death, all things under Paraiso.”
Sway rocked with the knowledge. I could almost feel her pain in that moment. It seeped into me and gave me the push I needed to have the confidence to try. I owed it to her to at least try.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
The surge of what could be pulsed in my veins, leading me on.
I could restore her powers. I could restore them all while Theo did what he had to in the Fray.
I wasn’t useless.
I didn’t have to be a victim of myself—or my place in this restless life.
I wouldn’t have to sit here and wither away.
And I wouldn’t have to sit back and plan a murder that no one, including myself, thought I would ever make good on.
Let’s be honest, red just wasn’t my color.
Before I knew it, Sway was on her knees, begging me with a strained tone and tugs on my dress. It was enough to break me. “Do it. Do it, Colby. Give me them back, now!” Her begging turned to sobs and the sobs to demands.
Kneeling down so that we were face to face, I spoke in a calm voice, remembering how Theo always did that. He could always disarm the most fickle of beings. “You’re the first one. You have to be patient with me. But I promise to try. I promise.”
Regardless of the events of the last few days, I doubted every word that came out of my mouth. I didn’t doubt that Theo could do it. I knew that he could restore the entire race with the power in his thumbnail. Some small part of me always insisted that it was me that couldn’t handle the rest. It was me that couldn’t live up to the name.
For my friend, I had to try.
Sway got ahold of herself and hugged her arms around her chest. “I don’t care if it takes a year. Just try. Please. They took it from me—he took it from me. Flashing was everything I lived for.”
Collin bowed his head again. But I needed to hear the truth from the mouth of a girl who had once been my vibrant, jubilant friend.
“Who? Tell me,” I demanded, though I already knew.
She wringed her hands together, like she was admitting guilt.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell you. I swear it. I know I’ve gone off the deep end lately—well, since. The thing is—I knew who took my powers. I knew exactly who took them but they made me tell you the government did it.”
The fear and guilt in her eyes was palpable as it resonated in my chest as a fluttering heart. I’d allowed him to get too close—too close to Theo, too close to the situation, and too close to me.
“Just say it, Sway.”
“It was Torrent, Sanctum, whatever in the hell his name is and—them. It’s always been them. They gave me some kind of meds to take—shit to make me forget—shit that made me piss on myself. But I’ve never been one to follow the rules—you know that.”
My innards shook at the truths crumbling to pieces in my memories. And even though I knew who she was talking about, I had to ask, “Them?”
“Come on, Colby. No one with nails that red is really in it for the good of our race.”
I plopped back down on the sofa as not only Sway’s admittance, but also my grandmother Rebekah’s words spiraled into place.
“How were we so stupid? How did we knuckle under and just let them fool us—all this time?”
Collin began to speak, but I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say and my fury lashed out at him.
“No, Collin. Don’t you dare? You were one of them. You hid their secrets and covered their shit trails. Don’t even say a word. As far as I’m concerned you are equal to Regina.”
His shoes scuffing the floor and the door meekly shutting were his responses to my outburst.
I didn’t have time to process what had happened with Collin before Sway resumed her previous commanding. “Are we going to try now? I’m ready, Colby. I feel like I’ve been without lungs for years.”
There was no way I was going to attempt to restore her flashing powers with all of this anger in my heart. The anger, frustration, and downright terror tangled in my chest. And the only thing I knew to do about it was to revert to my old ways.
I had to get rid of it.
“I need to flash. I’ve got too much—it’s too much.”
Not waiting for permission and certainly not wanting to hear her complain, I flashed to the first place I thought of—the only place I needed to see.
Sometimes a girl just needed the ocean. The sand in my toes. The sun at my back. The waves coaxing me to join them.
Oh who in the hell was I kidding? The ocean was where I should’ve been born. Instead of a Lucent, the Almighty should’ve made me a mermaid.
The Gulf Coast was the first place I thought of. It was salty and southern sweet, with muddy water and too many crawfish to count. But it was home. Grand Isle, though I had never lived there and had only vacationed there a handful of times, seemed like it was lonely.
I don’t think I ever told anyone exactly how often I kept it company.
Not even Theo, though I was sure he knew.
As the sun faded, the beacons of the oil rigs lit the sky like candles on a birthday cake. There was no one to blow the candles out, but I made a wish on them anyway.
I sucked in one more lungful of the Louisiana air and flicked myself back to Xoana’s home—now our home.
“I’m ready.” I spoke to Ari and Sway. The gathering of the trio reminded me of how we’d been as children. Inseparable was the word most often used.
Sway shook as she took my hands and closed her eyes. We were so screwed. I didn’t know the first thing about giving someone their powers back. Up until a few hours ago, it was not even a factor.
I whispered, “If something hurts or—just stop me. Ari, you’ve got to stay in case…”
“In case what?” Her eyes enlarged in fear.
“In case I—in case I’m killing her.”
Sway was unfazed by my remark. I knew why. Being stripped of our blessing must’ve been much like dying and not being able to travel was as good as being in a coffin.
She’d been suffering and suffocating in her coffin for too long.
Dying would be a blessing in some ways.
Steeling myself, I concentrated. I’d never been much for praying—but I called on the one who gave Xoana her powers and begged, pleaded with Him for guidance and strength that was beyond my kin.
But nothing happened.
I let go of Sway’s hands and shook out my wrists. I’d had a death grip on her hands. They were pink and wrinkled from the grasp.
“Come on, Colby. You can do this. Remember what the Almighty did. That lightning came down from the sky and touched you. That wasn’t just smoke and mirrors.”
Sway gasped. “He touched you with His lightning?”
Ari spoke for me. “He did. You should’ve seen it, Sway. I don’t really believe in miracles, but if I did—that would be it.”
She was right. Something inside had deemed me worthy of that spectacle of purity.
I wasn’t just that blonde girl who seemed so far away.
I was Colby Ramsey, mate of the Eidolon.
And I could effing do this.
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
Instead of Sway taking control, I took the lead, placing my hands on either side of Sway’s face with my fingers touching her temples. Ari gasped. She probably thought I was going to strangle Sway or try to pop her eyeballs out.
I followed the cues inside me—telling me that
the only way to return the power would be to go back to the beginning. The Almighty had bestowed Xoana’s power through a lightning bolt to her temple and I would restore them to Sway in the same manner.
The temples were the way.
Words I’d never heard in a language I recognized, but had never spoken, flowed from my mouth as though it was my native tongue. I could see us; Sway and I connected and power like electricity flowed from me to her.
For a moment, I wasn’t even in my own body. He had taken it over to do His will. My soul stood by and watched as the one who blessed us performed miracles through my bony hands.
Ari hit her knees in awe, lowering her head to the floor in reverence.
The world bowed in reverence to the one who worked through me that day.
I was caught up in the shock of it all when I was sucked back into my body like the fastest flash in history.
And then I collapsed, seeing a white light behind my lids before the blackness took me.
***
“Colby, come on babe. Theo’s gonna kill me if you die. Don’t forget, he can come drag your scrawny ass out of Paraiso anytime he wants to.” I smiled while my eyes stayed closed listening to Ari. “Oh that’s cute. Smile—go ahead—smile while I’m scared shitless.”
Reality hit me. Sway—I’d done something—or the Almighty had done something through me.
“Sway…” I choked on the dryness in my mouth.
Ari was miffed. I heard her stomp on the floor in response to my question. “Don’t even ask about her. She’s hit every country on the globe about ten times since your lights went out.”
Tears pooled in the creases of my eyes as I realized where I was. More tears came as I inhaled the scent of Theo in our bed.
I sat up too quickly and knew my mistake when the room and Ari spun around me.
Her voice was soothing. That may have freaked me out more than anything I’d done. “Don’t pass out on me again. And we need to get you in the shower—not that I want to see you naked again—I’ve seen enough of that for a century. Come on.”
She dragged me out of the bed and into the bathroom. I was sweaty and drenched with moisture. I had been crying and my gums ached from the clenching of my teeth. The whole shower went in a blur and by the time I fully woke up, she was pushing coffee and some kind of Portuguese bread in my face.
I downed three of those breads and two cups of coffee while she watched me.
I finally stopped chewing long enough to ask, “What?”
She looked around and then put her fist on her hip. “Nothing. Other than you really hurt the Sasquatch’s feelings. Nothing.”
I sighed as dramatically as possible. I had said some completely unwarranted things to him. “Where is he?”
“Outside in the gardens. He’s been out there all night. It’s pretty bad, Bee. I know we pick on him, but he’s not so bad.” Her blush came in full force.
“He’s like forty.”
She slapped the counter. “Shut up. I’m just saying he’s okay. He’s on our side—whatever side that is. There’s so few of us.”
I heard that last sentence float in the air and hang like a wind-deprived wind chime.
“I’m sorry, Ari. You’re in this because of me—for being my friend. I—I wouldn’t blame you if you walked away. I love you, you know that? I’d love you even if you left me—us—this.”
Ari, that long, lanky girl I’d loved since the poking my eye out incident, turned and her shoulders drooped. “I’m your friend for a reason, Bee. I’m Theo’s friend for a reason. It may not be as grand as yours, but it’s mine and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to own it. I’ve known you and Theo were something special since I was a kid—everyone did. That’s why I’ve always been so protective of you. I knew you were meant for so much more.”
And here I thought I was only her shopping buddy.
“Okay, I’ve got my man in heaven, one of my besties blipping around the world, one is weepy, and the other I have to fix.”
Sometimes when the emotion is too raw, the only thing I have is joking.
“Go fix the Viking and then we need to make a plan.”
I got up and headed toward the door. “Plan for what?”
Ari didn’t answer, so I turned around. “You have to restore the masses—before the Synod finds out that those hands are effing magic.”
The first thousand times I’d brought someone over—I’d conjured a great deal of finesse.
Now, I shoved them where they needed to go like sheep through a siphon—no finesse at all. I no longer let them tell their life stories or feed me saddened images.
I saw them—I read where they needed to go—I took them there.
It seemed a lot less sincere than what I was used to, but I was getting the place emptied out—sort of.
The more souls brought across, the longer the lines got.
Stopping to take a breath, I saw Torrent in the distance. It was strange that he was the only person I could actually see in this place without using my mind’s eye.
He was arguing with someone or something. He was covered in what looked like brown slime and the sludge glinted in the low light here.
I tore my eyes from him, though I was curious to know what trouble he’d gotten himself into. He only had one job, like me. He had to take the nefarious souls to the nefarious place.
It should’ve been easy.
His head snapped in my direction and I diverted my gaze, not wanting to spur another argument about showing him what I did. I’d allowed myself to become too trusting of Torrent. My first mistake was in calling him by his given name. He was no longer my brother—he was Sanctum and all that name included.
I knew what he wanted. He wanted to get into Paraiso and tell the rest of his minions—or the Synod how to get in and how to get what they wanted.
They might as well have been Pinky and the Brain, bound for a constant failure in their quest for world domination.
My eyelids drooped in exhaustion.
My brain had tried its hardest to keep track of the time somehow but now that I took a breath, I couldn’t tell an hour from a week.
What I did realize was that I’d been here a lot longer than the last time—a whole hell of a lot longer.
My heart was empty and my soul listless and the sensations overtook me all at once. It was like working all day long, not realizing how tired and hurting you were until you stopped to sit down.
Collin was moping—big time.
He was sitting in the grass in an open field—they say the field where Xoana cursed her father and received a strike to the temple as the price.
All around him was a circle of bare ground where he’d picked the dirt clean of any grass blades—the big baby.
I shouldn’t have said those things to him.
I drummed up an insincere cheery tone. “What did the grass ever do to you?”
Collin shrugged and I knew this would be harder than I thought—as though I didn’t have enough to juggle, I had to make up with the oaf.
He chimed in just in time to save me from saying something asinine. “The grass is not capable of doing anything to anyone. It is inanimate, with the exception of its growth.”
I had to keep him talking. “Yet you pluck it like a red-headed step-Chia pet.”
“What’s a Chia pet?”
I giggled at his ignorance of everything contemporary. “It’s a pottery thing that grows chia grass like hair.”
“Then how is it red?”
Oh, dear.
I let out all my tension in a weighted breath. “I’m sorry, Collin. I didn’t mean those things. I was just frustrated and aggravated. It seems like everywhere I turn there’s something twisted happening. But you didn’t deserve anything I said and I know you have our backs.”
He didn’t respond but started in on the clovers growing in front of him.
I sat down behind him, my back to his and the sun found my deficient skin. Basking in it was a faraw
ay dream.
“You are not the only one frustrated. I know who I worked for—who I lived for and took direct orders from. I almost shunned the Eidolon from the texts the first time I saw him. I kept thinking there’s no way this squirt could be our leader. But as soon as he began asking questions, I knew he was the one. There was no doubt in my mind. I would lay down my life for the both of you in an instant, but…”
I was still smiling about Theo being called a little squirt.
“But what?”
Another twist was coming, I could feel it in my bones.
“You—you’re not the only one going through something here. I was a guardian of the Synod texts, the Lucent texts, for a long time, Colby. That was my life—my lifeline. I did nothing else. The Synod prevented us from marrying, having a family, they even strongly suggested we refrain from having friends. And I was content with it. I’d accepted my fate and I knew that I was serving some higher purpose. And now—now—it was all for nothing. I’ve wasted my whole damned life.”
I laid my head back and rested it between his shoulder blades. I didn’t have anything to say. I had so much to say.
These were things I hadn’t thought about, but now I contemplated more than just Collin. I considered how this life was affecting everyone around us. Ari had put off college this semester in order to spend all this time in Portugal. My parents and Theo’s parents dropped everything when we called. Collin had been with us since the beginning—since before I knew there was a beginning.
The ones who sacrifice themselves are usually the first to catch hell.
I had proved that theory right.
The big oaf had a life to live. I didn’t want him to stay and feel obligated to keep us safe—I certainly didn’t expect him to give his life for anyone but himself.
“Collin, you deserve to live your life. I want you to leave us. Theo would want you to have a life—a life the Synod has stripped you of.”
He chuckled and it rumbled all the way down in my chest. It jostled me until I almost slumped to the ground.
His deep voice reverberated. “Why are you always pushing everyone who loves you away?”