Gavin looked down as he thought over last night. He stood up. “I didn’t look everywhere for it,” he said, then boldly walked around the side of the house.
They were walking Cadence out. On the front steps, they stopped and began to read her rights to her. Gavin bravely walked past the guards we knew could see us and went right up behind Cadence. He whispered something in her ear as his long arms reached down and pulled up the hem of her black dress, revealing black thigh-high stockings. He moved his hands around the band as Cadence started to struggle. The officers holding her restrained her, and because of the commotion they never noticed her dress moving up.
Either Gavin found what he needed or nothing at all. He moved his hands up her dress, squeezed her hips, and then walked away shamelessly. The guards started to move after him, but Gavin was smart. He put himself right beside Ben and all but dared them to make a move for him.
“That is why that S.O.B. is my best friend,” Mason said in a proud tone.
Gavin never looked in our direction or gave the guards any reason to believe that he was not alone in this act.
Gavin stayed shoulder-to-shoulder with Ben as he watched Cadence being loaded into the cruiser. Once they were gone, Ben made another call as he walked to the side of the yard, toward the woods in front of the lake we perished in. Once Gavin was close enough to the woods, he took off in a sprint.
“What do we do now? Wait to be zapped back in that house?” I asked Mason.
“No, we go to the memorial garden. That was the plan.”
“Whose?”
“Mine and Gavin’s. He was supposed to corner Cadence, figure out what he could. I was supposed to get you and get there.”
“Where is Wilder? Why there?”
“We told him to figure out his girl, see what she knew about all of this and that we would see him when we were all zapped back to your house. The key had ‘Falcon M’ on it—you were born there, so something connects to that place without a doubt.”
Seeing he had a point about the connection, I only had one argument. “Wilder is going to have a hard time doing that. I killed that girl, and Phoenix burned what was left of her.”
“Did you?” Mason asked with a disbelieving stare. “He doesn’t know that.”
“Right. So we need to find him and tell him that,” I stressed.
“Listen, if he would stop being Mr. ‘I-know-everything,’ then maybe we could have figured that out before. But no, his plan is to charge Rasure. He needs to figure out how to be a part of a team.”
“We don’t have time to fault him for that,” I said in Wilder’s defense.
“Then ignorance will keep him safe. We were not about to let him put us in danger. He already managed to put you at the bottom of a lake.”
“He was run off the road.”
“Yep, and Gavin will swear to you that after we crashed he was more concerned about getting Cadence out than the rest of us.”
“Because he’s a gentleman. Of course he would have tried to save her.”
“I’m not arguing with you. I wasn’t paying attention. I was trying to save Sophia, and obviously I had greater forces working against me,” he said with evident disgust and guilt. Sophia followed him into the truck that night, and he was bearing the weight of that.
“Don’t we all,” I muttered as I started to follow him through the shadows. It seemed like it took us forever to reach the path that led to the gates of the massive tomb and observatory just before it. I was grateful that the iron gates were open and that we would not have to push through that pain again.
A few steps later, I was wishing for that pain. All at once, it felt like a million razor blades were coursing through my veins. I couldn’t figure out why, and every step I took made it worse. If we moved to the side or forward, the wicked pain grew exponentially. In my frantic state, I realized we were not walking on snow, but salt—a ton of it.
It was sucking the life out of me if that was even possible. We were both so disoriented that we couldn’t figure out which way was back, where the snow ended and the salt began.
As if it were the flap of an angel’s wings, I heard a swoosh of wind and then found myself inside the gates of the memorial garden, side by side with Mason. We both leaned forward on our knees, trying to catch our breath. A second later, Gavin appeared at my other side and Skylynn was in front of us with crossed arms. Behind her, leaning casually into the frame of the doorway leading into the observatory, was Phoenix.
In the center of that marble room behind him was a forevermore burning fire. The warm, reassuring glow of it made Phoenix look all the more inviting to me. I no longer felt the cold of the snow, but I most definitely felt the cold stare of disapproval.
“I told you to stay put, not move,” Skylynn said to me.
“I don’t think those were your exact words. I’m on the grounds of the manor.”
“You wouldn’t have been for much longer. Everything is salted around here. That evil wench obviously has no mercy on Mother Nature either,” Skylynn said with a degree of disdain.
“Cadence didn’t die,” I said, holding her stare, letting her know I was not some blind fool.
“Does she know that you know that?” she asked with wide eyes.
“No. But I know that the two of you knew that,” I said, nodding to where Phoenix was, “and neither of you bothered to tell me that.”
“We had our reasons.”
“Which are?”
“Which are too numerous to name—the obvious one is that you are in the veil. Your soul is inside out, and you would have acted before thinking anything through.”
“I’m not an idiot. Instead of telling her I loved her and pushing her to let go, I would have been able to get more information out of her. Now she’s gone, and so are her secrets.”
“I doubt they can hold her very long. Your brother is trying to scare her into doing something foolish. Very wise of him,” Skylynn said with contempt.
“And what would she foolishly do?”
“Attempt to save her own skin.”
“Sounds like self-preservation to me. Maybe she is a victim.” As soon as I said that, both Gavin and Mason threw a wicked glance at me.
Then Gavin handed me the part of the key we had been searching for. “She is not a victim. I don’t think you know the real her.”
With a shaky hand, I took the gold piece from his hand and connected it to the key in mine. With the new piece, it was now in the shape of star. A bolt of energy came from the metal as it found its counterpart.
“OK, then,” I said as my heart broke a little. I loved my sister, and I trusted her. Feeling a betrayal this deep was painful, and it made itself known all around me as ice began to cover the snow. “What now?”
“Now we find what it goes to,” Mason said as he reached to grab my arm to lead me to wherever they thought this key went to.
Before he could take one step or Gavin could think to follow, an unseen force held them both in place. I thought it was Phoenix and threw a glare in his direction, but as I did I saw Skylynn slowly begin to circle the three of us with nothing less than a predatory look in her eye.
“You will not be permitted to be alone with her until I deem you worthy.”
“And who are you to do that?” Gavin said with more audacity than I have ever known him to have.
“I led you to her. I did so because her energy called you, but it is clear that her soul can be fooled, at least temporarily. I need to know if I have put her in danger and if I have, I will redeem myself.”
“You’re not doing anything to them,” I seethed. “I admit that I trusted Cadence as a sister, but I did so because I am a Falcon. We love the broken, we heal the broken, and we set them free to do the same for others. I’m not shocked that she has been led astray by Rasure. I’m not shocked because I am not my parents. I was weak and wallowed in my own grief and left her alone. All the signs were there, but I ignored them because I could not bear to lose another
sister. These boys have done nothing but love and support me, accept me for who I am, and allow me to live through them when my life became too cold for me to handle. They followed me to my death, and I will be damned if they must now stand in your judgment.”
Skylynn nodded her head once, and with that both Gavin and Mason moved forward a few feet. When they did, the energy that was in control of them shifted to holding me in place.
I locked eyes with Phoenix, asking him for help, but the flames staring back at me offered no sympathy.
“Shirts off,” Skylynn said to them.
She was insane. Dead or not, it was freezing out here. They listened, though, and both of them pulled their shirts over their heads, every muscle in their long, lean bodies tensing with the chill of the night air.
A ball of fire appeared in Skylynn’s hand. She shaped it carefully, whispering something over it, dividing it in two just before throwing the fire at the two of them.
I screamed and struggled to move forward, but the power around me was too strong.
The fire surrounded them for an instant. They never made a sound. In fact, it seemed to be a welcome relief to them, which stopped my screams, but not my struggle.
Along their sides, fire started to wind through them, just beneath their skin. A beat later, what looked like wings made of fire were on each of their sides.
Skylynn began to circle them as they both held their heads high. “To redeem your soul, you must pass through the line of the moons—the flaming sons of the east and the west to reach the seventh sister, whose touch will destroy the flames of evil that bind you,” she said under her breath, as if she were reciting a sacred oath.
“I bow to you,” she said as she did just that.
The flames absorbed into their bodies at the same moment the hold around me released.
Unable to handle the cold, both Mason and Gavin pulled their shirts back on.
“What did you just do to them?” I yelled as I charged forward.
“Nothing,” she said with a degree of sadness in her voice as she glanced behind her at Phoenix, who did nothing but look down before turning and walking into the observatory.
“Something just happened,” I said as I felt an ache in my soul.
Both Gavin and Mason reached for me simultaneously. It was as if they could feel my heart breaking.
“The words I just said…those are sacred...they are the words that every supernatural being knows. They are ingrained in our minds so that if or when we are taken by the forces that we fight, we will know how to redeem ourselves, escape our demise.”
“And what do they have to do with them? Why did you put fire wings on them? Did you just change them—without asking?”
“They’ve always been there,” Skylynn said with a sense of remorse. “They were intended to be your guardians, to shield you from unworthy souls that asked for your redemption.”
“Past tense,” Gavin said under his breath.
“Very much so,” Skylynn said, letting her eyes rise to meet his. “You would have to be alive to fulfill that fate.”
“But, but we are working on that, right?” I said with a tremble as I tried to understand why she seemed so upset.
“I don’t know anymore,” she said with a hopeless sigh. “I always knew you were one of the seven, that you had a remarkable power to stand within the bitter cold of the evil, but I didn’t realize that though you were born to rule the veil, your power came with life. That once life was taken, your rule was taken.” She looked down. “The veil grieves tonight.”
“I’m—we’re not going anywhere until vengeance is ours,” I swore as I struggled to grasp what she thought I was, what I was supposed to be.
“That is a very fine line you are walking there, Indie. I will find your vengeance, along with so many more at my side. Rasure had to have known that she would answer for your demise, and yet she committed this ungodly act without hesitation. She sacrificed herself for your death. Know that.”
“Well, call me crazy, but I don’t give a damn why she did it. I’m going to find some freaking clocks, set my family free, and become more of a vengeance than that red-headed demon has ever dared to fear.”
“Not tonight,” Skylynn said in a whisper. “I’ll find your clocks…” She glanced over her shoulder. “You need to say your goodbyes.”
As soon as she said the word ‘goodbye,’ I felt everything in my soul break apart. My will to breathe, to live, to fight—vanished. I sucked in a deep breath and scolded myself for acting like a fool. What was one goodbye? I’d lost him before. I’ll find him again.
What I could not figure out was why Skylynn had changed her play, why she was no longer willing to cross him—to have someone else turn us all so we could live our lives and move this world. I couldn’t figure out why she was giving up on me.
“Come on, boys.” Skylynn said. After a whisk of wind, the three of them vanished, leaving me to gape at an open doorway that led to Phoenix.
I stared at that threshold for countless moments, trying to find the courage to move forward, to understand what I could have done to lose the defense of Skylynn. I kept telling myself that it could not have been something as foolish as trusting my sister. It had to have been him. Phoenix must have convinced her that the war they are fighting was too dangerous, that I was too weak to stand at their side.
I’d never been a quitter. The two of them would have to force me to let go, and I doubted either of them knew how difficult a task that would be.
I walked forward boldly, prepared to argue this out, prepared to tell him that I didn’t care that he was leaving me again, that the universe itself had divided us for its own selfish reasons. I wasn’t giving in.
He was leaning against the pool of fire in the center of the room. His strong arms and long legs were crossed, and every muscle in his body was flexed in what could only be anger.
Around this oval room, there were stained glass windows that reflected angels at play. The ceiling was glass and amplified the stars above.
I walked over to the ledge next to the stained glass window that imitated the sun and the moon and pulled myself up, slid back, and stared at him. He held my stare for what seemed like forever.
“Well played,” I finally said.
He tilted his head, as if to question me.
“You have managed to make the cold ice I live within as warm as fire…you have managed to make me feel the agony of rejection once again. I don’t know what you said to her, how you convinced her that I should move on, but I’m not listening. I’m on the verge of uncovering something that never should have been hidden.” I looked down. “So if the lingering question in your eyes is if I will now finally let go, the answer is no. Not now. Not ever. I have seen…and felt too much to say any goodbyes.”
Like a predator, he slowly moved forward. When he was inches from me, he leisurely leaned toward me, causing me to fall against the window. He reached his fingertips for my brow, and when his skin touched mine I could swear that I felt fire course through my soul. Slowly, as if he knew how agonizingly blissful his touch was, he let his fingertips trace down my cheek, neck, shoulder, chest, waist, all the way down to my thighs just before he whispered, “The question is…if eternity with me is what you really want.” He squeezed my thigh as his smoldering eyes invaded my very being. “Or is this our next goodbye.”
He leaned into my ear, letting his warm breath slide down my neck. “I already know the answer.”
It took every ounce of willpower that has ever existed in the universe, but I pushed him back and stepped down from the marble wall. My first instinct was to run, and I made it a few steps before rapid-fire memories started to flood my mind. Some were of my childhood, words my mother used to say to comfort me when my curse was too much to bear. Others, most of them, were of him, in another life, in another time. The wounds were fresh again. The emotions were raw, and the one emotion I refused to let myself feel immersed me.
“You’re play
ing the devil’s advocate,” I said before turning to glare at him. “You—you know I am the one person on this planet that cannot stand commitment. You know it took the better part of a year for me to even let you speak to me, that the more you promised me, the more I refused you. It was only when you let me be, when you made it seem like it was my idea that I ran into your arms and confessed that I loved you from my first breath, that when I laid eyes on you for the first time I found purpose, life.”
He was speechless, which gave me confidence that what I was saying was not only true, but also to him—as well as me—it felt like that happened just yesterday.
I went on. “Half of you wants to believe I’m real.” His eyes grew wide with surprise. “Don’t look at me like that. I know. I know you think I’m some kind of echo of the girl that you once knew, that this is my image, my words, but that my soul, the one that has belonged to you since the beginning of time, has moved on.” I swallowed nervously. “And by the way, the next time you decide to throw me on the floor and have your way with me, you better be damn sure that this is all me. I have never—and I mean never—given that much of myself to anyone. Ever. To think that you were not all there, that you were holding back because you thought I was not the real thing, is by far the coldest thing you have ever done.”
That hurt him. I could see the agony all over his flawless image.
“But I forgive you for that…” My eyes absorbed every inch of him. “I forgive you because I would have done the same thing because in this short, pointless life I’ve lived, that is what I did every second of every day. I held back.”
I balled my fist in front of my stomach. “There is a rock right here, covered in layers and layers of ice. I pushed everything deep down inside of me. Too scared to feel. To love. To be held. Because everything I touched, I destroyed. I refused to live because I feared who I was. What I was. I found people. Good people, who were not afraid to live life, to take a passion and make something beautiful out of it…and wanting to be closer to that, to feel it firsthand, I began relationships that were doomed from day one. I would reach the edge of the cliff and refuse to jump. I refused because it was the wrong cliff. The bold, fearless girl they thought they knew didn’t exist. I refused because it wasn’t worth the dare.”