The Diamond Bearers' Destiny

by Lorena Angell

  Chris fully intends to bring me on the assignment. He doesn’t, however, figure I’ll be coming along as the slowest and a member of the trio. I find that interesting, just as I found it perplexing that he’d already written and crossed off my name from his list when I saw it in Clara’s office.

  Once we begin the assignment, my own memory of entering Mr. Bates’s office included seeing Maetha the secretary. Chris’s memory shows someone entirely different. To his eyes, the secretary is a twenty-something cute girl. I recognize the fact that Maetha used her power to change her appearance in his eyes. I figure she would have looked the same to Justin too, because he knew her as Maetha, the same as Chris—a fact I would later learn.

  I am the only one who saw her in her actual form.

  Chapter 3 - The Other Side of the Story

  Chris’s memory jerks forward to the moment in the cave when I stand behind the waterfalls, right after I’d read his mind and discovered how he really felt about me. The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. He knows pretending to be upset with me won’t fly any longer, now that I know his desires. His larger concern is that I might discover the darker secrets contained within his mind—the part of his life he’d hoped to clean up before ever meeting me.

  His memory jumps to the moment when I display the Healing power by recognizing the cancer inside Jonas. She’s a Healer! Chris rejoices, feeling as though his vision might actually come true. He thinks perhaps he’d misinterpreted the vision, not identifying that I’ll also have other powers when I will heal his legs. He’s overjoyed and desperately wants to kiss me. He thinks about it, but then vetoes the notion and takes a step back to put some distance between us before he oversteps his bounds.

  I remember the moment well.

  Everything changes within his mind whenever he looks at me. Even though I am only sixteen years old—at this point in his memories—my mind and soul are incredibly attractive to him. He is held back by my age, though. The law declares me off limits.

  The rest of the delivery journey flies by in his mind, coming to rest at the moment the Death Clan leader accuses me of carrying the real diamond. The old man says it is the reason I have powers . . . my powers come from a rock. A chunk of carbon. Chris’s heart, which had been beating furiously in anticipation of being chosen for death, now explodes with complete disillusionment. Calli isn’t even a person with powers. She’s just a regular human, he thinks.

  Yet, he still holds on to the vision. He clings desperately to the idea he has something to live for . . . someone to share his life with.

  The scene shifts to the clearing. Seeing my dead body through his eyes is almost too much to take in. When I’d viewed the destruction of the Death Clan through Clara’s eyes, and then again through the mind-extraction of Mr. Stuart, I’d watched Chris’s actions from a third person point of view. However, looking through the window of Chris’s mind, coupled with his intense emotional meltdown, I gain new respect for what he’s been put through.

  In his memory, someone places a comforting hand on his shoulder after the Healers take my body to the tent. He turns and finds Maetha. He yells at her, “Why did you lie to me? You showed me a girl who was supposed to be a Healer, but she’s human. She was supposed to be my destiny, but now she’s dead!” His emotions are uncontrollable. For a moment, he just lets them flow.

  “Chris,” Maetha says calmingly, “visions of the future cannot be fabricated. Take heart,” Maetha walks away and collects the diamond shards that lay smoldering in the grass. Then she follows the Healers into their tent.

  Chris sits down on the grass, surrounded by mounds of dust piles that used to be human beings. He contemplates on what Maetha just told him and comes to the conclusion she had played with his mind before, and he’s not going to let her do it again.

  Before long, a Healer comes and tells Chris they have revived me.

  Chris jumps to his feet and rushes to the tent. My body lies peacefully, my breathing causes my chest to rise up and down, even though blood covers my body. He places his hand gently on my head, and as tears escape his eyes, he bends down and kisses my forehead. “I’m so sorry,” he says. Even though he knows I have no cosmic power, he still has feelings for me—even stronger now that I’ve sacrificed my own life to save his. Then he turns and leaves the tent.

  His memory shows he doesn’t leave the clearing at that moment. First he helps with the repairs on the tents to prevent any Demon attacks. After a couple of hours, Maetha addresses the crowd. Her words of explanation don’t give him any comfort. She reveals she is a Spell-caster, not a Seer. Those words are the only thing that makes sense in Chris’s mind. She talks about the will of nature and how nature always balances itself when choices are stripped away from other beings. The Death Clan had defied nature, she explains, and the course of events that led to this moment had been orchestrated by nature. Her basic message is: If you mess around with nature, it will come back to bite you in the butt.

  The crazy twisted turn of events leaves Chris feeling devastated. However he’s encouraged that I will be walking around on the surface of the same world as he is . . . even if it’s as a regular human.

  He sets out on his own for the compound. Once I arrive with Clara, he avoids me. Not because he doesn’t want to see me, but because he is still trying to figure everything out. The next morning he watches from a distance as I leave.

  His memories jump to a conversation with Clara as she got back from taking me to the airport. Clara tries to explain what Maetha told her about me. Chris doesn’t really care to hear what he considers are more lame excuses and explanations, especially from Maetha. His focus is on forcing Justin’s departure from the clan.

  Soon after, Chris calls a staff meeting in Clara’s office.

  Chris announces to the group of adults: “I’m resigning from the clan.”

  Clara is the first to speak. “I’m not surprised, after everything you’ve been through. We’ll need to hold another timed race to see who is the fastest.”

  “That’s why I’m announcing this to everyone. The fastest Runner is Justin Macintyre. He’s responsible for the deaths of Michael and Jessica, and the kidnapping of Dirk, John, and Macey. He has been communicating with the Death Clan all along. He cannot be allowed to remain with the clan. I’m formally asking that he be kicked out.”

  Mr. Evans speaks: “We should bring Justin in to defend himself. These are serious charges, Chris.”

  “Bring him in.” Chris motions toward the door.

  A few minutes go by while waiting for Justin to be located, during which Clara updates the staff concerning Michael’s and Jessica’s families’ requests for their things to be boxed up and shipped.

  Justin enters the room, his energy standoffish. “So, were going to do this now, Chris?”

  “Yeah. It’s time. I’ve requested you be removed from the clan.”

  “Fine!” Justin steps forward, closer to the center of the group. “If you’re going to kick me out for spying, then you have to kick him out as well.” He points to Chris. “He’s a government spy, working for his daddy.”

  Mr. Evans asks, “Is this true, Chris?”

  Viewing Chris’s memories, I realize the only people who ever knew Chris was a spy were Clara Winter, Stan Schlater, who identified the secret in Chris’s mind, Donald Rheyes the Seer, and the clan’s Healer, Frank Kinsington, and Justin. The staff members had no idea.

  “Yes,” Chris admits. “I’ve been giving careful information to my father at his request.”

  Justin’s voice rises with emotion. “His dishonesty is far worse than mine. Now that the Death Clan is dead—”

  Chris stands in anger. “You think your slate is wiped clean because you have no one to report to now? Two of our Runners are dead because of you. Three were held captive because you didn’t speak up and alert Clara. Don’t even get me started on the fact you left a scent trail for Hunters to follow us.”

  “Oh yeah” —Justin cuts into Chris’s rant�
�� “and a new Runner was taken captive because you were too busy meeting with your father to pick him up on time.”

  “Is that true?” Ms. Coleman asks Chris.

  Chris’s head hangs low. “Yes.”

  “See,” Justin exclaims, “I’m not the only one with dirt on my hands. The difference is his contacts are always going to be seeking us out.”

  Chris says, “That’s why I just resigned from the clan, Justin.”

  The clan’s Seer, Donald Rheyes, addresses the group. “Whatever information Chris has fed to his father, it hasn’t led to an invasion of our compound. As for the capture of a Runner because Chris was too slow with the pickup, many newly emerged Runners have been captured because someone was too slow. It’s always a tragedy.”

  Justin grunts his disbelief. “You’re actually defending Chris? He’s putting everyone’s life at risk and you’re defending him?”

  Chris asks Justin, “What were you passing along to the Death Clan?”

  “What does it matter? They’re dead.”

  Stan Schlater announces: “He was trying to join their group. He’d been told if he’d safely deliver the upcoming package, he’d be allowed into the group. I read it in his mind prior to the assignment.”

  Clara says, “I believe it can be assumed Justin would have joined the Death Clan and would have willingly helped them murder many people with powers, including Runners. I don’t need to be a Seer to figure that out. I vote in favor of Justin Macintyre’s expulsion from the clan.”

  One by one, hands rise in the air in support of Clara’s motion.

  In a dramatic fashion, issuing insults and profanities, Justin storms out of the office and leaves the compound with his belongings.

  Chris leaves the compound soon after and slowly makes his way across the country to Washington D.C. He uses the Hunter’s tent he acquired from the diamond delivery to protect himself from the Demons.

  General Harding, isn’t happy with Chris’s decision to quit, to say the least. “I won’t allow you to quit. I didn’t raise a quitter!” General Harding pounds his fists on his desktop.

  Chris stands tall and says, “I won’t allow you to control my life any longer. I have resigned from the clan, and I’m resigning from you.”

  “Chris, the security of the nation is in jeopardy, and you’re turning your back on everything. How can you live with yourself?”

  “Actually, I’ll be much happier, believe me.” Chris turns to leave without being dismissed.

  “Get back here, young man!” General Harding yells. “I could have you hunted down and charged with treason.”

  “No you can’t, dad. I never signed up for this. I only went along with this charade to make you happy. Clearly nothing can accomplish that.” Chris keeps walking out the door and out of his father’s life.

  Naturally, Chris doesn’t feel safe at all. He travels by foot for several weeks until he feels brave enough to visit his mother in Kansas. She reassures him his father isn’t going to come arrest him, so Chris reluctantly settles in and relaxes. He helps his mother with much-needed repairs on the house, and landscaping that has gone downhill since his parents’ divorce. His mother also farms him out to some of the other neighbors who need fences repaired, houses painted, and general upkeep. One painting job is for Jo Jo.

  The whole time Chris works in Jo Jo’s yard, he feels at peace. Whenever he leaves her house, thoughts of me, the journey we’d been on, the vision Maetha had given him, and the intel he had given his father over the years replays disturbingly in his head. Mysteriously, Jo Jo’s home is the only place his mind can rest.

  One day, Chris’s friend Dan stops by as Chris is finishing up mowing Jo Jo’s lawn.

  “Hey, Chris. What are you doing tonight?”

  “Nothing much. Why?”

  “Well, a couple of us are going out and I thought you might like to come.”

  “Are you trying to set me up again?”

  Dan chuckles. “What? Why would you think that?”

  “Uh, I don’t know, because the last three ‘hang outs’ have included a single girl.”

  “Come on, what’s the harm in me wanting you to have some fun?”

  “No harm in wanting to have fun, Dan. But what if I don’t want to date anyone?”

  “I didn’t say date. I said have fun.”

  “Look, I’ve got a lot on my mind. I could come and just enjoy the company, but the girl you’ve lined up for me is just going to be depressed that I don’t show interest in her.”

  Dan smiles and says, “You wouldn’t be hurting anyone’s feelings.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Same place as last time: Fat Jack’s. They have good buffalo wings.”

  “All right. I’ll meet you there at seven o’clock.”

  “I can pick you up.”

  “No, I’ll drive.”

  “You’re a picky guy, you know that?”

  Chris doesn’t respond and watches Dan leave. In Chris’s mind, he thinks about his strategic method of avoiding the Shadow Demons. If he arrives at Fat Jack’s Wings early enough, he can get a parking spot closest to the building, right under the street lamp, so when he leaves after dark, he’ll be properly illuminated.

  The memory switches to the dimly lit interior of a sports-bar-type restaurant. The female sitting across from Chris is beautiful and friendly. Dan and his date, along with two other couples, talk about the recent basketball games and debate over which team will take the championships.

  Chris makes small talk with the female named Sally, but because her name rhymes with mine, Chris’s mind is plagued with memories he’d just as soon forget. The future version of me he’d seen in Maetha’s vision no longer surfaces first in his mind. Instead, my recent face enters his mind, as I had hovered above him while I evaporated the extra moisture from his lungs along the river bank. Then comes the image of me walking toward the motel after I’d saved my group from the Hunters. He had watched me approach his door, noting the stress lines on my face, feeling helpless for not being able to comfort me because I might slip through the walls in his mind again and discover his secrets. Finally, his memories recall how he felt while he was held back by other team members while I lay on the stone alter. He relives the moment my voice entered his mind, letting him know I wasn’t a person with powers, that I wasn’t his Healer. This tore him apart . . . but no more so than when he rushed to my broken bloody body.

  He thinks how Sally, although beautiful and kind, won’t ever be able to be important in his life. She doesn’t have a cosmic ability. She doesn’t know about Runners, then again, he thinks, neither does Dan.

  Clara had advised Chris to be careful who he chose to marry. In his thoughts, while staring at Sally across the table, Chris decides it is time to return to the Runner’s compound. Not to run assignments, but to hopefully gain employment and join the staff. If nothing else, he needs to be involved with the world of powers in the rare event the vision of us might come true. Maybe, he thinks, he’ll hear something about me through the grapevine.

  His memories launch forward to the point when the amulet wearers begin disappearing one by one. Chris had been employed as head of security for the compound for the last two years, so unsurprisingly, he puts himself in charge of protecting Clara and the amulet. He assigns Beth Hammond and a team of her choosing to go investigate the disappearance of the other amulet wearers.

  Beth brings word that Clara has been asked to attend a meeting of the clans to discuss the disappearance of the amulet wearers: Curtis Schultz and Charles Rhondell. Chris, Beth, and Clara figure the meeting might be a trick to lure the Runner’s amulet wearer out of the compound. They design a plan which includes Clara relinquishing the amulet to Chris. He’ll remain in the safety of the compound while Clara attends the meeting.

  Once Chris accepts the powerful piece of diamond, he takes in a deep breath as the strange sensations flood through his body.

  Clara says, “Amazing, isn’t it?”r />
  Chris nods. “I guess this is what Calli felt like when she carried the stone.”

  “Use the powers with nature’s will in mind, Chris.”

  “You don’t have to remind me. Hurry back and good luck.”

  As soon as Clara and Beth leave the office, Chris sits down in Clara’s chair and tries to look for the future concerning me. Not knowing what he’s doing in the slightest, he’s not able to pull up anything more than a thick blackness. He looks out the window and tries to read the future of the first person he sees. A thirteen-year-old girl named Sage, new to the clan, will one day become the fastest in the clan. Chris searches Sage’s mind for her thoughts. Before he’s able to detect anything, an intense flowery smell hits his nose. He is able to discern the scent belongs to Sage. He reads her mind and finds she isn’t feeling well. He feels her stomachache and experiences her worry. Chris acts with compassion and sends healing energy to Sage, calming her upset stomach.

  Chris turns away from the window, feeling satisfied he helped Sage. If only I could see the future concerning Calli, he thinks. As he sits in heavy contemplation, he begins to understand how difficult it must have been for me to detect Jonas’s cancer yet not be able to fix him.

  Chris carries out the duties of running the clan for the rest of the day. He posts two guards outside the door, positioning more at all exterior doors. He’s careful not to leave the safety of the office for any length of time. By the end of the day, he’s feeling quite secure in his position, having met with several clan members needing his “diamond” assistance.

  The next morning, Chris resumes his tasks in Clara’s office. A phone call from Clara reveals the meeting she attended wasn’t suspicious in any way. She recommends he be on high alert.

  “Thanks, Clara. I’m on it.” He ends his call and hangs up the phone.

  The office door opens and a young lady walks into the room. Her dark brown hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she wears a blue jogging suit. Viewing the moment in his memory, I recognized the female as Deus Ex.