Hidden Realms

by Dean Murray

  “She knew they wanted you, and she knew that was what she had to do to give us a chance to get away,” he said. He turned to me as I swatted a tear from my cheek. “She knew what she was doing, Kris.”

  I flinched, wishing he hadn’t seen me cry. She had been his grandmother, and he was trying to make me feel better? Something about that didn’t set right. It made me feel worse, guilty even, for being so weak.

  “But we don’t even know what they want. Why do that for me?”

  “She figured that whatever they wanted was worth her sacrifice. And she loved you.”

  Those last three words brought on a flood, and I had to brush the tears away quickly. It would have been nice if he stopped looking at me. “So you think she’s gone?” This time the quiver in my voice was audible.

  Nathan finally looked away and guzzled down half his beer with one breath as I waited to hear the words I didn’t want to hear. After a long pause, he finally said them, “Yes, I think she is.”

  CHAPTER 14

  I am surrounded by the blackest black, my limbs move as if I am drowning in a pool of syrup. I cannot speak—or scream. My chest aches, I can barely breathe, and I don’t know why.

  All I know is that I have to find him. Who, I don’t even know, until I see the speck of white against the black backdrop. I don’t know if it takes me seconds, minutes, or hours to reach him in the sticky invisible pool.

  His back is to me. He is tall, lean, and dressed all in white. His jet black hair curls at his neck, under his ears. The slopes of his shoulders are oddly familiar, though I’m positive I have never seen him before. I cannot see his face or hear his voice, but I know he is looking for me, calling for me.

  I’m here, turn around, I try to say, but my mouth doesn’t work. Still, the boy starts to turn as if he hears me. I wait to see his face, for him to see me—and the anticipation is unbearable.

  As if out of nowhere, a tiny spot of red appears in the middle of his back, and grows outward in a circle, until it covers his shirt. Blood; it drips into the black abyss, disappears.

  My mouth opens and, though I cannot hear it, I know I am screaming.

  Nathan’s voice boomed in my head, and pulled me from the dream as he begged me to wake up. The boy in white faded as I went to Nathan. I bolted up in bed, and my scream cut off abruptly when my eyes fell on him. His hands were taut on my shoulders, eyes wide with concern as he stared at me. Several long seconds ticked by before he lowered his arms from my shoulders.

  “You okay?” he finally asked.

  I nodded numbly. “I think so.”

  What in the hell did I just see? Who was that boy?

  Nathan brushed a strand of sweat-drenched hair off my forehead and tucked it behind my ear before returning to press his palm against my head. His mouth twisted into a grimace. “You’re burning up.”

  Now that he mentioned it, I realized I felt kind of lousy. My body ached, my head hurt, my stomach churned, my clothes were soaked from sweat, apparently I had a fever, and I was certain I would throw up any moment.

  “I’m never drinking again,” I muttered.

  “You only had two beers.” Nathan held onto my wrist with a finger over my artery. Once he finished checking my pulse, he felt my forehead again. His frown deepened. “I don’t have anything for a fever.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll sleep it off.”

  So long as I don’t have any more nightmares.

  I started to lay down, but the movement made the room spin. I jumped from the bed and ran for the bathroom as the contents of my stomach rose into my throat. As I fell to my knees in front of the toilet, I kicked the door shut with my foot.

  Not that the door helped anyway. It was a violent kind of sickness I succumbed to, the kind that emptied my stomach and battered me with dry heaves when I had nothing left to throw up. By the time the merciless waves subsided, I could barely stand on my wobbly legs. I managed to pull myself to the sink and washed my mouth out. That nearly made me throw up again, but I managed to rinse enough to get rid of the foul taste in my mouth. With the way my legs were trembling with every step, the walk back to the bed was agonizing, if not embarrassing.

  I must have been dying because I had never felt this horrible, ever.

  Nathan sat on the edge of the bed as I crawled in and pulled the covers up to my chin. He claimed I had a fever, but I was freezing.

  “You okay?” he asked softly from behind me.

  What kind of question was that? Wasn’t the answer obvious? I peeked over my shoulder, wishing I had the energy for the snarky retort that question deserved. The movement nearly made me run for the bathroom again, but I held it together. More than anything, I was tired.

  “I just want to go to sleep,” I groaned.

  The bed lurched as Nathan stood and I mentally cursed him for the rolling in my stomach. I heard him in the kitchen as he rummaged through the cabinets and mumbled to himself. He returned to my side, looking defeated—and pissed off for being defeated—and bent down to my eye level.

  “I’ll run into town for some medicine in the morning,” he said. “Is there anything I can do now?”

  I hoped I wouldn’t need it by then. “No, I’m okay.” I shivered and tugged the sheets higher.

  Nathan left and, a moment later, I heard him toss another log on the fire. I smiled into my pillow as I felt the room heat up around me. A warm fog surrounded me and I drifted into a dream-free sleep.

  It could have been a few minutes or a few hours—hell, it might have been days—before Nathan woke me to force some pills into my mouth. He made me swallow them with a sip of water, then let me slump back into bed. I fell asleep instantly.

  When I woke again, it was light outside. I rolled over, tried to peel free of the sheets that clung to my damp skin, and was hit by a wave of nausea. I ran to the bathroom and crumbled to the floor in another fit of dry heaves. Nathan intercepted me on my way back to the bed, and handed me more pills. I looked up at him in confusion.

  “It’s been five hours since your last dose,” he told me.

  I took the pills without protest and stumbled back to bed. After that, I lost track of time. The day turned to night and still I slept, waking only when Nathan made me take more pills, and left the bed only to dash to the bathroom.

  Whatever he gave me kept my fever down some, though I suspected it was still high. The bed sheets were soaked from my sweat, and I alternated between flashing and freezing. Nathan went from concerned to stoic as he managed the regimen of pills and kept me as comfortable as he could as I went through my cycles of sleeping, sweating, shivering, and dry heaving.

  It seemed to last an eternity. It had to have been several days at least. At one point, I mumbled something about going to the doctor. I wasn’t sure how long a person could survive without food or water, but I was sure I was approaching that limit. Nathan had said something about it being almost over, and I wondered how he knew that, but again, I lacked the energy to pursue the conversation and fell asleep without asking.

  I trusted he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.

  I dreamt little considering how much I slept. The dreams I did have all included the boy in white. They were dull and varied little. Sometimes his shirt turned red from blood, sometimes it didn’t. I never saw his face. Despite my frustration with that, I came to look forward to the dreams. I didn’t feel sick in that odd, dark dream world. There was something about them—about the boy—that eased me...until the blood showed up.

  Twice, I was startled awake by its appearance. Both times, Nathan was at my side in seconds. Regardless of our strained relationship, I was glad to have him there with me.

  I lost track of how many phases of light and dark had passed before I woke without Nathan looming over me with another dose of pills, and didn’t immediately fall back asleep, or run to the bathroom. I lay still and waited for the nausea to hit me. It never did. I had woken on my own this time. Nathan was nowhere to be seen. It was light outside, and bright.
Maybe midafternoon.

  I threw back the covers and slowly put my feet on the floor. When the room didn’t spin, I stood, and was happy to find that my legs were no longer weak and rubbery. I bounced on my toes with a little smile. It was over.

  My clothes were vile from all the sweat, and I was glad Nathan wasn’t around to smell me. I gathered a fresh change of clothes and ran to the bathroom to shower. The hot cascading water and a thorough scrub was exactly what I needed, and I felt like a new girl when I stepped out twenty minutes later. I even brushed my teeth without gagging.

  I felt great and, amazingly, didn’t look as horrible as I had expected. My skin looked normal, not ashen like it had the few times I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The dark circles under my eyes were gone. My lips were no longer cracked and pale. It was like I had never been sick. The only reminder was my growling stomach and parched throat.

  I ventured into the kitchen for something to eat. Seeing that Nathan had picked up the makings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I made myself one. I refrained from chugging down a glass of water, and drank it slowly as I nibbled on the sandwich, testing my stomach. When the first few baby bites didn’t come back up, I tore into the rest like a ravenous animal.

  “Feeling better?”

  My mouth was stuffed to capacity when I spun around to find Nathan carrying a stack of fire wood in from the back porch. He dropped the logs next to the fire with a loud clatter.

  I chewed quickly and swallowed the enormous mouthful. “I think so.”

  His eyes were fixed on mine as he angled across the room toward me. He was more intimidating than usual, and I took another bite of my sandwich as he approached, needing the distraction. I glanced around at everything in the room except him, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze.

  “Look at me.” He stopped in front of me and put a finger under my chin to tilt my head back.

  I swallowed the bite I had in my mouth and desperately wanted to take another one, but I did as he said, and looked up at him. He gazed down at me, and never in my life had I ever felt so small and vulnerable. My eyes drifted from his, seeking release.

  “Kris, look me in the eye,” he barked, pulling my reluctant eyes back to his.

  What was he so worked up about? He was as unreadable as always, but I thought I detected a trace of concern. Did he not think I was okay? I was about to tell him I felt fine when he dropped his hand from my chin and turned away abruptly.

  “I can’t believe I missed it,” he mumbled to himself.

  I watched him warily. “Missed what?”

  His expression was bleak when he turned to me. “You’ve started to develop.”

  CHAPTER 15

  I was about to tell him I had developed a long time ago when he explained what he meant by ‘develop.’ Apparently, that was the term used by hybrids to describe the point in their human adolescence during which they started to develop their god-like qualities.

  And—surprise!—according to Nathan, I must have been a hybrid because I was showing the changes all hybrids exhibited when they started development. I didn’t believe him at first, not until he showed me my eyes in the bathroom mirror.

  That was where I was now, staring in awe at the black ring that encircled my irises. It deepened the amber, made it look darker, bolder. It was definitely new.

  I glanced at Nathan’s reflection as he stood in the doorway behind me. He had shown me the subtle silver rings that circled his irises and, now that I was aware of them, I could see them. There even appeared to be tiny specks of silver mixed into the blue that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed before. It was what made his eyes pop. I peeled my gaze away before I got lost in the beauty of them, and stared at the foreign ones that looked back at me.

  He had said all hybrids formed a temporary black ring once they started development and formed permanent rings upon reaching maturity—silver if they chose Kala; gold if they chose Skotadi. It was the easiest physical way to tell the difference between the two.

  I couldn’t remember if Alec’s eyes had a gold ring, or not. I didn’t think so. The other Skotadi’s eyes had shone so bright it looked like a fire burned behind them. Alec’s had definitely not looked like theirs. This new discovery only made me doubt Nathan’s certainty that Alec was a Skotadi even more, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  He was leaning casually against the door when I turned to him. “Okay, I believe you. I’m a hybrid.”

  He raised his eyebrows, visibly surprised. I figured he had been prepared for a long debate, and wasn’t sure how to take my easy acceptance. I was a little surprised myself. It wasn’t only this. I had handled everything I’d been dealt the past few days rather well.

  Maybe I was in shock?

  I squeezed past him, out of the bathroom. “How could I not know about this?” I spun to him as he trailed behind me. “Or you? How did you not know?”

  Nathan stared at me like he also wanted to know the answer to that question. He leaned against the back of the chair, and his eyes followed me as I moved to sit on the edge of the bed across from him.

  “When we found you when you were little…” He started hesitantly. “That family wasn’t your real family, was it?”

  My family, whose murders I had witnessed when I was three years old on the night I have tried for fourteen years to forget? My father, who had been shot in the entryway? My mother, who had stashed me in the pantry seconds before she too was gunned down? My older brother…

  “None of them were hybrids,” he added softly. “At least one of your parents would have to have been a hybrid for you…”

  For me to be a hybrid. Oh, God. That meant either my father had not been my father, my mother had not been my mother, or neither had been who I thought they were. Good thing I was already in shock. My world was crashing down around me, little by little.

  I groaned, and rested my head in my hands. “I don’t know,” I mumbled.

  I felt the bed shift, and knew that Nathan had sat down beside me. I felt his presence, radiating like a nuclear reactor. I wondered if it was a hybrid thing, being uber-aware of the other, or if it was just his effect on me.

  “I’m sorry, Kris.”

  It was three small words, but they broke me more than any winded monologue could have. The tears I had been holding back for days seeped out. I cried for Gran, for Callie, for Alec. I cried because of all the weird things happening to me that I couldn’t explain; because everything I thought I knew about my life, and about myself, was wrong; because I was frustrated, angry, and scared. Most of all, I cried because Nathan’s compassion was what I have craved all along. It tugged at all the emotions I had buried, and pulled them to the surface.

  It was a good hard cry, the type that left me gasping for air. Nathan had no idea what he had unraveled in me, and sat silently beside me as I let it out. After a moment, he got up and I felt the void his absence left. If it were possible for me to cry harder, I would have. Then he was back, holding out a wad of toilet paper for me. I took it sheepishly.

  “I don’t know where this is coming from,” I wailed as I blotted my eyes.

  “Take your pick,” Nathan said softly as he reclaimed his seat beside me. “You have a lot of reasons, and you’ve been so strong for so long. I’m surprised you didn’t break down sooner.”

  I peeked at him through my heavy, wet eyelashes. He thought I was strong? His unexpected words of encouragement were just what I needed to get a grip on my emotions. I even managed a weak laugh at myself and, from somewhere deep down, pulled together some bravado.

  “So I have a hybrid parent out there somewhere,” I concluded with a sniffle.

  “Yeah, Kris,” Nathan said gently. He shook his head, visibly upset with himself. “I shouldn’t have assumed you knew. You were only three.”

  “It’s okay. I was so young I don’t remember much about them, let alone remember if I had other parents before them, or knew where I came from, or…”

 
I knew nothing. Each day, I learned how little I had known about my life and the world I lived in. Nathan had known more, and this twist had taken even him by surprise.

  “So, I’m a hybrid. What happens to me now? What’s next?” I asked with forced enthusiasm. It would have been more convincing if my voice wasn’t shaking and I wasn’t oozing tears that just wouldn’t stop.

  “I guess it’s time for you to head to the base, meet the others.”

  Right. Safety in numbers. I liked that idea.

  “That is assuming you choose the Kala,” Nathan added.

  I gave him a look that expressed there was no doubt as to the side I would choose.

  “Right,” Nathan said. “Well, on the base, you’ll start training with others in development, and learn what we are and what we do. Over time, you’ll become stronger and faster, and you’ll start gaining a natural expertise in one or more of those specialties I told you about. It’s gradual, and it’ll take a while for you to know what you’re good at, and longer yet for you to master it. The base is a good place to learn along with others like you.”

  I was curious about what specialty I would have. Maybe I would have a bunch of them, like Nathan. I wondered if I would share any of his specialties.

  But then that would mean we shared a bloodline somewhere along the way. Wouldn’t that mean we were related? My stomach flip-flopped at the thought, and not because I wanted to be related to him, but because I desperately wanted not to be. It was bad enough we shared the same last name, but what if he ended up being my cousin?

  What if I was attracted to my own cousin?

  I pushed the thought out of my head before I said something stupid and embarrassing. Instead, I managed an intelligent question. “How long does the process take?”

  “Two, maybe three years.”

  I might have to wait that long to know if we were related? I bit my tongue, mentally chided myself for caring, and then remembered something that took my mind off it. For now. “Does my aging slow now too?”