Destiny

by Amanda Lynn Petrin

  Eric stayed quiet until we arrived at the stables. He got off his horse and looked at me with the same concern I was looking at him with, only he didn’t have my guilt.

  “Can we talk about this, or were you planning on pretending nothing happened?” his look gave me the impression Option Two wouldn’t be happening.

  “You can ask,” I said quietly. “But you’re sure you’re okay? Maybe we should take you to a clinic, just to be safe?”

  “I’ve had way worse. I’m tougher than I look,” he gave me a sad smile.

  “I slammed you into a stone wall. With supernatural force,” I reminded him.

  “I touched you without asking,” He shrugged.

  “To stop me from falling flat on my face,” I looked at him like he was insane to compare the two.

  “You’re more beat up about it than I am,” he pointed out.

  “I never meant to hurt you. To hurt anyone. It scares me,” I explained. Even Annabelle’s enthusiasm for the magic died when she realized it was real.

  “Do you want to start at the beginning?” he offered.

  “My beginning was normal.” I never thought I would look back fondly on the days when I was just a little girl whose family kept dying around her.

  “Until?” he pressed.

  “Prom,” I said simply, telling him how I escaped from the window and ran into Gabriel, who whisked me off to the plantation after telling me he promised my ancestor to protect her line until she returned. How he couldn’t die until that happened. I told him how the bad guys found us, so we fled, visiting other Gifteds. But the bad guys kept finding us. I struggled to tell him about the motel, how I have a birthmark the Big Bad is after, so he gave me the choice to go willingly, but I didn’t. I chose to fight instead, so Sam fought with me and he died. They still got me and took me across the country with them until I escaped by killing someone and the guys found me.

  “They said it would be over then, at least for a bit, but it wasn’t. This lady found me in the washroom, and she was coming at me, but when I put out my hands, as if they could protect me...she disappeared.”

  “Into thin air?” he asked, being amazingly quiet throughout my entire tale.

  “She was gone, but there was a pile of ash on the floor. We realized they found us with a tracker they put in Gabriel, so Embry took it out and we came here, where the guys decided I had magical powers and now they’re trying to train me, so the Big Bad won’t get me.” I waited for his reaction, but he was taking his time, considering everything I told him.

  “I guess I’m glad you only threw me into a wall and didn’t turn me to dust.” I looked to him, horrified, but he was smiling.

  “This isn’t funny,” I warned.

  “I know, but I would rather see you laugh about it than cry.”

  “What kind of person would that make me?”

  “One who made a mistake, because she can’t control a new gift she never asked for, but who would never hurt a soul otherwise.”

  “A gift?” I asked.

  “What kid doesn’t wish for superpowers?” was his defense.

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “But it could be,” he shrugged. “You could figure out how to use them and become a superhero. Teleport places. Fly,” he gave me options.

  “I don’t think it works like that,” I argued, but he succeeded in making me smile.

  It started to rain, so he took my hand as we ran to Charlie’s, not stopping until we had shelter.

  “What time do you leave tomorrow?” I asked him.

  “Early.” I could tell there was something he wanted to say, but I wasn’t ready for him to make me feel better.

  “Take care Eric,” I gave him a goodbye hug, letting it last longer than I had intended, before leaving him standing there.

  I walked in the direction of the villa, but I was overwhelmed by everything that happened in the past few months. I wanted to run, I wanted to punch things, I wanted to cry…I settled for a run through the trails in the rain, so I couldn’t even tell if I was crying anymore. My legs burned and my shoes were soaked through, but I kept going until I had nothing left.

  I walked back from the stables, taking a detour on the way to the villa so I could check in on Eric, maybe see him through the windows. I was walking around to the back patio when Charlie nearly made me jump out of my skin.

  “He went to bed early. He has a lunch thing at school tomorrow.” He was sitting on a patio chair.

  “He told you?” I asked, walking over. He looked concerned, but not afraid of me, so Eric mustn’t have told him everything.

  “Enough,” he agreed. “How are you sweetie?”

  “I just wanted to make sure Eric is okay,” I told him.

  “I’m making some tea; would you like some?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, looking over to the villa. It was getting dark out, so the guys were either still out and I should be worried, or I was in trouble.

  “Eric thought you might need some time,” he caught my look.

  “They know too?” I asked.

  “They were worried when you didn’t come back, but Eric was home, the horses were in the stables…”

  “I should head over.”

  “He’ll be fine,” he assured me. I just wasn’t sure I would.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Apparently, spending the evening in the same room waiting for me did not mean that Embry and Gabriel had resolved any of their issues. Rather, the fact that they weren’t avoiding each other meant they were finally letting it all out without holding back, calling each other on all their pent-up anger from the past three centuries.

  I heard the raised voices as soon as I walked through the door. I found them in the living room and tried to cut in to get them to stop arguing, but as soon as I touched them, I was gone. Only it wasn’t an Owens memory…

  “It really is like losing Annabelle all over again, isn’t it?” Embry asked while he and Gabriel sat at Rosie’s bedside. It was the middle of the night, but she didn’t look like she would make it to morning. She was pale and sweaty, every breath sounding like a losing battle. I was able to walk around the room, rather than being confined to whoever’s memory this was.

  Gabriel was anything but friendly, practically glaring at Embry. “She isn’t Annabelle,” he argued. “She has her face, but she isn’t her,” Gabriel cringed, looking to my ancestor like he regretted his words. He and Embry both looked absolutely torn up by her imminent death.

  “I’m sorry,” Embry looked broken and apologetic. “Do you think there will be another?” he asked.

  “There will never be another Annabelle,” Gabriel argued.

  “I know, but do you think there will be another one like Rosie, who looks like her?” Embry rephrased his question.

  “You want one who loves you next time?” Gabriel was harsher than necessary. I remembered the look on his face when he told Rosie he didn’t feel the same.

  “Annabelle said she would come back,” Embry reminded him.

  “She said a lot of things,” Gabriel turned him down, but whether they admitted it or not, they were both still waiting for her, even in my time...

  “It’s not like that for me. I love her like a daughter,” Embry was saying when I woke up with both of them huddled over me. Someone had carried me to the living room and put me down on the couch.

  “You did not love Annabelle, or any of the others, like a daughter. You were looking for your--” Gabriel did not appreciate what he saw as a blatant lie.

  “I was looking for Beth,” Embry cut him off.

  “You’re awake,” Gabriel spotted me and helped me sit up.

  “I’m fine,” I assured them.

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing useful,” I tried to convey neutrality.

  “What happened this afternoon?” Gabriel brushed the hair out of my face. He was oblivious, but his attitude in the memory stung.

  “I tripped and
accidentally knocked Eric into something,” I said dismissively, though it was still weighing heavy on my heart. I didn’t want lectures on being more careful or needing more practice; I wanted them to make up for once and for all. “You should tell him,” I told Embry.

  “Tell me what?” Gabriel asked. He looked once to Embry, then tried to read my face.

  “I didn’t just stay here to help Beth with Helen after David died. Maybe at first, but...we were married,” Embry admitted.

  “You got your own,” Gabriel was upset. The words were meant to cut Embry, but as it was, they caused a pang in my chest.

  “No, it had nothing to do with that. I understand what you meant, all those years ago...we had a son,” he shared.

  “A child?” Gabriel’s mouth dropped.

  “I got my happily ever after Gabe. It ended, but I am not looking to replace her. I love Lucy like a daughter because she is the daughter of my daughter’s daughter’s daughter. As far as I’m concerned,” he added, since Helen wasn’t biologically his. “I’m not looking for anyone else, I’m ready to get up there so I can be with Beth again.”

  “You had a child and never told me about it?” Gabriel looked hurt.

  “It was the first thing I wanted to do,” Embry mirrored Gabriel’s pain. “It seemed so wrong to not have you there, for you to not be Uncle Gabe...but we haven’t been friends since I broke both your hearts.”

  “Both?”

  “I know she loved you. I would never have done anything to take her from you, but you died, and she didn’t deserve to be alone. She deserved someone who would love her and still be okay with her being in love with you. When you came back, yes, it hurt that I was going to lose her, but I knew that was the only way things could go. You were meant to be, and I was the placeholder. She left, but if she had stayed, I would have been happy to step aside and let you both have your happily ever after.”

  “You weren’t just holding my place,” Gabriel argued, but the fight was out of him.

  “Of course not. I loved Annabelle, and I would have fought any man to have her, but not you. You were my best friend and you loved her first and...as much as I do believe she loved me; she could never love anyone the way she loved you. I am so sorry.”

  “Me too,” Gabriel admitted.

  They stood there, looking at each other for what felt like forever before they finally pulled each other in for a hug. They slapped each other on the back, as guys do, but I think it was the first hug in centuries for the two best friends who finally forgave each other.

  I didn’t dare interrupt, but after a while, they pulled apart and Gabriel asked, “You said a son?” looking like he knew exactly what that meant.

  “I was lucky,” Embry gave a sad smile.

  “I’m sorry I never got to meet him.”

  “Me too.”

  “How were you lucky?” I wondered if their son was an exception to Caleb’s rule, and we had another branch to our family tree.

  “Jack was with us for nineteen wonderful years.” I knew from the cemetery at the plantation that sons didn’t make it past childhood. I think ten had been the oldest one I found.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Jack was barely older than me.

  “Don’t be,” Embry assured me. “We never thought we could get pregnant, so that in itself was a miracle. When we knew it was a boy, we assumed we would have a couple of years with him, tops. I got to see him grow up and find his passion.”

  “Was he a World War 2 pilot?” Gabriel asked suddenly.

  “A decorated war hero,” Embry agreed with pride, the tears filling his eyes.

  “I visited Helen not long after he died. She was torn up, but so vague about who he was to her.”

  “She doted on him like it was no one’s business,” Embry said fondly.

  “What was he like?” I asked, getting the impression that after all this time spent keeping him a secret, he wanted to share.

  “You don’t need to humor me.”

  “I would love to get to know Jack,” I assured him.

  Embry went up to one of the two rooms he told us to ignore and came out with a large box full of letters, pictures, and rolls of film. When I mentioned that I would love to know about Helen too, he got another box and we spent the rest of the night visiting Embry’s past. There were a lot of tears, but also lots of smiles and happy memories about Embry’s kids, then about my other ancestors and their kids...all of the people Embry and Gabriel got close to, and then lost.

  We ordered pizza around 10 o’clock, which I don’t think I have ever done with them, and ate it in the living room while watching old home videos. One of them had a visit from Gabriel, before Jack was born, so one minute we would see Gabriel entertaining Helen, then we would see Embry and Beth stealing a kiss in the background.

  “I didn’t want to upset you, or have you think I was using her, and she didn’t want you to hate her for loving me,” Embry responded to the question Gabriel wasn’t asking.

  “I think I see why Terrence called us stubborn idiots,” he smiled.

  After a while, they took out some top-shelf bourbon, so I decided it was time for me to get some sleep. I had spent most of the prior night tossing and turning.

  We exchanged goodnights before I went to put my plate away. I lingered in the doorway, watching them laugh and catch up like the old friends I always wanted them to be. Gabriel must have felt me watching because he turned around and we locked eyes before I quickly headed upstairs. Not for the first time this summer, I wished I looked like anyone else.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I was up long before Embry came downstairs the next morning. He looked like he spent the night partying, but happier than I had seen him other than in the memory with Beth.

  “Sleeping in this morning?” I called him on it, cradling my cup of tea. I finished the Chronicles, which was more anti-climactic than anything. Unlike regular books, this one didn’t have an ending. It went from a homemade remedy for chickenpox to a note saying another Bearer of the Crescent Moon was born on September 20th, 1990 to Marilyn Owens and Unknown. There were the tiniest of entries marking occasions such as the first time the guys met me, when Mrs. Boyd died and Mr. Boyd insisted he wanted to raise me, then again when Mr. Boyd passed away and Sam refused to let them take me. It brought a tightness to my chest I wasn’t expecting. When people asked, they always apologized for the loss of my mom, but no one really dwelled on the Boyds. For all intents and purposes, they were the ones who raised me until Sam took over, at which point he was more like a brother taking care of me than a parent.

  It was different for Mrs. Boyd, because I had known my mom, albeit briefly, and Grams. She was always an additional motherly figure for me, but Mr. Boyd was the only father figure I ever had. Unknown never showed up, so every Father’s Day, Mr. Boyd was the one who received my macaroni flowers and glitter cards. When he died, Sam and I would get together amid celebrating Sam’s Father’s Day to celebrate the man who raised us. He was everything you needed a father to be.

  “Where’s Gabriel?” Embry asked after pouring himself a cup of the coffee I brewed for them hours ago.

  “He hasn’t come down.”

  “He’s not upstairs,” Embry argued. A fear came over me before I reminded myself of all the places he could be other than dead or captured.

  “Morning,” Gabriel came in after I listed all of his potential early morning escapes to myself. Jogging, surveillance, training…

  “How are you standing?” Embry asked.

  “I switched to coffee after the third shot,” Gabriel reminded him.

  “How did you manage to sleep?” I chipped in.

  “That is why I already did my 10k, showered, got attacked by a dog, and figured out a game plan for today.”

  “Attacked by a dog?” I asked while Embry inquired, “Game plan?”

  “We disagreed over who should eat my last piece of bacon. He won,” Gabriel told me. “And I went through the Shadow Book to see what we
could work on today,” he elaborated on the game plan.

  I didn’t bother telling him it was a Book of Shadows, as I’m pretty sure he does it on purpose. “I’m not doing magic anymore,” I reminded him instead.

  “We don’t have to work on new stuff. We can use the burning paper thing,” he tried.

  “No,” I shook my head, the image of Eric on the ground all the deterrent I needed.

  “Or the floating spell. We can use any of the simple ones.”

  “I said no,” I repeated, not quite storming off, but choosing that moment to get a refill on my tea.

  I could hear them whispering about me before Gabriel came over to the kitchen, with Embry hanging back.

  “I know your powers scare you, and you don’t want to use them,” he began.

  “I don’t,” I agreed.

  “But not using the powers intentionally doesn’t mean you won’t use them accidentally,” he paused so I could remember what happened to Eric, but he was using it as motivation to learn. “If ever someone invades your personal space or creeps up on you or…”

  “I get the picture.” Even catching me so I wouldn’t fall could be deadly.

  “I’m not blaming you, Luce, I’m saying it’s new and you can’t control it. Yet.”

  “When I try, people get hurt,” I pointed out.

  “That’s why I thought we could work on that today.”

  “Using it wasn’t helping,” I argued.

  “We’re not going to learn new spells or practice the old ones for the sake of it. I want you to work on actively controlling your magic.”

  “How?” they kept saying I needed to control it, but never showed me the way, or anything that worked.

  “Working on precision rather than power. Flinging your arms without making things happen. I want you to know how to not use them as well as how to master them.”

  “That sounds great in theory, but I’m not comfortable with any magic right now. I have nightmares of when I threw you into the tree, and Eric into the well, or when that woman…” I shuddered, remembering it, but I didn’t want to say out loud that I killed her. “I feel evil when I use it.”