12. Chapter Twelve
Syndeth curled his tail around Linorra, shielding her from the misty rain with his warm body. He flattened the scales at the narrow end of his tail to make a smooth pillow for her head. Though she was just a little thing, she had such a big heart, a heart that let him connect to the world around him in vivid sound and color. Their bond let him feel her exhilaration and joy when they were in the air together in a way he never felt when he flew alone. With her astride his broad shoulders, the world was more real and beautiful.
A deep, cold fear erupted in my chest. I released the shield, and it dissipated just like the portal had. My mind raced.
“Spirit,” I called. This was the first time I had called to her on purpose. “Spirit, I need you.” The words felt like a prayer.
I’m here, Lina.
“Seleca is going to kill my parents. Is there anything you can do?”
I don’t know. I will go to them.
“Thank you.”
Then, she was gone. I was getting a feel for her presence, and I wondered if hearing was all there would ever be. My poor Spirit. My friend. She had been one of those people who, when you meet them, you feel like you’ve known them forever. I had so few people like that in my life, and now she was dead because of me. I didn’t know how I could get over this.
Aaron opened his eyes slowly, then bolted upright as if waking up from a nightmare.
“What happened?” he asked.
I felt numb, so all I could do was state the situation plainly. “I pissed Seleca off and she vowed to kill both of our families. Then, she opened a bridge and disappeared. I sent Spirit after her. Oh, and . . .” I pointed at Rogue, or whoever it was.
Aaron looked at the naked man, then, having had a second to follow the logic to its conclusion, he stood and pulled out his giant knife again. The man looked like he would be tall and thin if standing, even taller than Aaron, although it looked like Aaron had about a hundred pounds of muscle on the guy. This man was so tall and skinny that he looked like he had been stretched on a medieval torture device.
“Rogue,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to call him. “Rogue, wake up.” The man stirred, then stretched out on the ground just like a dog, rolling over and exposing himself without shame or embarrassment. He had coppery-auburn hair, the same color Rogue’s fur had been, and the left half of his face had a nasty scar in the shape of a handprint. I knew immediately who it was.
“Ward,” I said.
He opened his eyes and looked at me. He smiled brightly, looking relieved, then his eyebrows squeezed together, and he looked at his own hands. His eyes widened, and he sat up quickly, backing away from us. He didn’t get up, though, but stayed on his hands and knees. Then, as if giving up, he slumped down to the ground and lay there, motionless, as if the life I had forced back into his body had unexpectedly drained out again.
Aaron and I looked at each other uncertainly. It didn’t seem like this man planned to kill anyone. He looked like he had been so beaten down by life that he wanted to give up. In fact, he looked like he already had. Tentatively, I placed my hand on the ground, digging my fingers into the dirt, and sought him out. What I found there broke my heart. Anguish, dejection, humiliation, hopelessness. Even feeling a shadow of his despair through Connection was painful.
“Why did you bring me back?” he asked.
I got up to move toward him, but Aaron stopped me, stepping in my way. “Lina, don’t. You don’t know what he’ll do. He’s been spying for her all this time.” Aaron stared at his ex-roommate’s little brother in horror, the blood draining from his face.
“He won’t hurt me, Aaron. Maybe Rogue has been Ward in disguise this whole time, but I felt him, and what I found there was love. He couldn’t possibly have faked that. Seleca was lying. He could never hurt me. Please, I need to talk to him. Alone.”
Aaron didn’t move. He glanced at me and then back at Ward, an unsettling look creeping over his face. I stepped in close to him and raised my hand to his cheek, connecting. His eyes flicked to me, then softened. He placed his hand over mine. He was understandably worried but also jealous, something he had experienced before but not in a long time. Rogue had been with me for more than ten years and supposedly loved me. He’d slept in my bed, practically on top of me, and he was a man the whole time? How could Aaron compete with that kind of closeness when he’d known me for less than two days?
In answer, I lifted myself up on my toes, tilting my face as close to his as I could, and I pressed my body into him. He leaned forward and kissed me, much harder than earlier that morning, like he wanted to claim me.
My appearance in the Rhoya at the foot of the mountains had led to the worst and best two days of his life, but now it all unraveled before his eyes. Our near-death experience at the hands of his childhood monster had shaken him to his breaking point, and the family he’d been waiting all these years to find could be in danger. He doubted Seleca could find his mother since it’s nearly impossible to sneak up on a precog, but it might be possible now that Seleca had acquired Precognition herself. Additionally, his uncle Jorin, as well as his cousin, Terik, were probably in danger, since they were easy to locate on the farm.
Aaron had never felt like he needed someone at his side, so it surprised him how much the idea of having to compete for my affection troubled him. My choice to stand by him at that critical moment when Seleca first found us had meant more to him than either of us had realized. He was attached now, for better or worse, and he worried that I would vanish like everyone else in his life. He didn’t know if he could handle that on top of everything else.
Through Connection, I let Aaron feel that I shared his affection as well as his unexpected attachment. I let him take comfort in my lips and in the feel of my body pressed to his. I needed it as much as he did. If we had been alone and not in danger, and not in a hurry to figure out how to get back to Earth so that our families weren’t slaughtered, then we might have—wait. Slaughtered. That word was in the poem.
Yes, Lina, the poem,Spirit thought.
Aaron heard her, too, and jerked his face away from me. “Ugh. I hope you find a way to block her at some point. There will be times when I won’t want an audience.”
I laughed a little, though the dire situation tried desperately to smother my sense of humor. “I’ll work on it,” I said.
He looked down at me, still debating. Aaron liked to think things through, and he needed time for that. I let him think while I questioned Spirit.
“What did you find, Spirit?” I asked.
Seleca is at your house, but it’s empty. There’s police tape everywhere from my murder. Nobody’s around. Even the horses are gone.
“Thank you,” I said, exhaling. “Could you please follow her and report back when you have something?”
Okay. You only need to call my name and I’ll be there.
“Spirit,” I said, my throat tightening. “I’m sorry I got you into this. It’s my fault you’re dead. If you hadn’t been at the stables trying to help me, this wouldn’t have happened to you. Now here you are, trying to help me again. I’m so sorry. I love you, my friend.”
Spirit somehow conveyed a sad smile. I’m not sure how, but I knew it was there. Then, her presence retreated. She didn’t seem angry about her own death, but I knew that if I dwelt on it, I would be overwhelmed by guilt. I didn’t have that many friends to begin with. I wondered how long it would be before Seleca started to pick off the rest of them out of spite.
I can’t think about that right now. I have to just keep going.
I steadied my breath, then turned to Aaron. “Everyone is safe for now. Seleca’s waiting at my house for someone to show up. Hopefully, no one will.” Aaron puffed out a breath and nodded. “I need to talk to Ward. He might know something that can help us. Please. I need you to trust me.”
He sighed. “Fine. I’ll get the packs.” He wrinkled his nose as he said it, then turned and walked back to where we had hidden our bags. He looked over his shoulder several times as he went, then paused to stare for a long minute before disappearing behind the trees.
I sighed and turned to face my friend. He still lay on the ground, facing away from me, and curled into a fetal position, which looked very odd on his long body. I approached him slowly, trying not to frighten him. Then I knelt behind him and placed a hand on his bare shoulder. He jumped a little but then relaxed.
“I have a shirt you can wear,” I said. Aaron grumbled from behind the trees. He heard that? Huh. Super eyes and ears, I guess.
Ward’s shoulders rose a little with a deep breath and sank again with his exhalation. I lifted my hand to his head and stroked his hair. I could only see the burned part of his face. His eyes were squeezed shut.
“I brought you back because I love you,” I whispered. Through Connection, I could feel his heart breaking at the thought that I still loved him. He didn’t think he deserved it. I leaned over him and placed my cheek on his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going on, Ward. I need you to explain it to me. I need you. Please don’t leave me.”
I was laying it on a little thick, but he needed it. He heard me, but he didn’t have the will to respond. I sent all our years of affection and love through our Connection link. I thought about that birthday memory again, and the time I taught him what a bathroom was, which made so much more sense now. I thought about our walks through the woods, all our naps, and all the times he lay there listening to me complain about this thing or that thing, all the while unable to share his own story, his own pain and trauma.
I loved him so much it hurt. His use of Transformation to alter his body did not change that. It was little more than a minor detail to me. I sent that to him as strongly as I could, then closed my eyes and waited.
A minute passed, then two, then something touched my hair. I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me, his hand raised to my head. He brushed a strand of hair across my forehead and held it, rolling it between his fingers. I held my breath and kept as still as possible, looking back at him. His eyes were bloodshot, but they were that same intense amber I knew and loved. This was still my friend.
“I’ll take that shirt,” he said, his voice cracking.
I sat up and nodded. “Okay,” I said, smiling. “Good.”
Before I could get up to fetch it for him, he said, “She lied, you know.”
I stopped. “About what?”
“She knows I would never hurt you. She tried to make me do it. She uses Projection to make people do what she wants.” He shivered. “She made me do a lot of things, but she couldn’t make me do that.”
“Ward, why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve helped you.”
“I know,” he said, “but I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing hard. “She did things to me.” He breathed in and out, struggling to get the words out. “She tortured me until I mastered Transformation.” He touched the burned side of his face. “She chose that dog form. She said it made sense for someone like me. Then, when she saw that I had fully transformed into Rogue, she absorbed my reservoir, and I couldn’t change back.” Silent tears spilled down his cheeks from his closed eyes. “She said she wouldn’t let me transform back until she got what she wanted from you.”
“What does she want?” I asked.
He opened his eyes and sat up, wiping the tears away with the back of his hand. Aaron walked toward us with the packs.
“You died in your accident,” Ward said.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “But only for a few seconds.”
“Well, you came back with a new reservoir, one that you can only get by dying and coming back. Even then, it rarely works. You have to have a combination of rare reservoirs, a combination that you have. That’s why they sent me to you.”
Goose bumps prickled up my arms. “I can hear ghosts now.” My thoughts drifted to Spirit, but the guilt hit me again and I pushed her out of my mind.
“You can do more than that,” he said, nodding. “You can summon them, make them do things, spy on people. And, if conditions are right—”
“I can bring them back from the dead,” I finished.
“Yes, like you just did to me. It’s an exceedingly rare reservoir. Unheard of, really. And it’s something that Eve desperately wants.”
“Why?” I asked.
Aaron swore. “She wants to bring back Anick,” he said.
Ward bowed his head. “Yes. She couldn’t have healed me the way you did today, so she’s more limited, but there are ways around that. She could do it. She could bring him back.”
“Lina, we have to go,” Aaron said. “We’re wasting time here. The fog is rolling back in.”
I looked up at him, nodding. “Yes, you’re right. Ward, we have to get to Jorin’s farm. We believe he may know something that could help us.”
Actually, we didn’t know whether he could help us or not, but Violet’s book indicated that we should start our search there. I hoped we weren’t misinterpreting the text. I dug in my pack, pulling out the shirt I’d borrowed, but Aaron stopped me.
“Not that one,” he said. I looked up at him, confused. He shrugged, then dug out a tunic for Ward and handed it to him. Ward slipped the tunic over his head and stood. He was a foot taller than Aaron.
Holy crap, I thought as I looked way up at Ward’s face. Aaron was right. He isn’t big at all. Not compared to Ward, anyway. This is the land of giants.
Ward didn’t have a belt, and the tunic only reached to mid-thigh. He looked like Ebenezer Scrooge in his sleeping gown.
Aaron had to look up at him too. “You grew,” he said, his face impassive.
“You didn’t,” Ward replied, his voice teasing.
Aaron pulled up one side of his mouth and rolled his eyes, then walked toward the dead dragon, presumably to collect our next meal. Over his shoulder, he said, “I hope the brambles in the oardoo fields don’t hurt your feet. Too bad I don’t have any boots to give you.”
Ward met my eyes, sighed, then bent down and picked up Aaron’s pack, strapping it to his own back so Aaron could carry the massive dragon.
“Here we go,” I mumbled to myself. Both men looked at me at that. I rolled my eyes. Stupid super hearing. I put my pack on and turned to wait for Aaron and his bloody dragon.