LAILAH
NINE
Sitting on the plane looking out the window, I didn’t quite believe we were heading off to Cape Town with a meeting scheduled with the head of one of the world’s largest supplier companies, Pride Resources.
Yesterday, we did as much research about the company as we could, so we knew what we were getting into and who to talk to.
It helped to have the sons of some of the most well-known families in business as my partners, allowing us to get a meeting with whoever we requested.
They had items that would be useful to all the different businesses their families owned so it was easy to pretend we were looking for a new supplier.
“How did your parents take the news?” Parker asked, sitting across from me.
I’d decided not to tell them where I was going or what we would be doing when we got there.
I made sure that Cami and Beth knew what was going on so they could contact them if it was needed, but my parents needed to stay out of this whole thing.
“They didn’t like it but there isn’t much they can do about it when I won’t give them more information. ”
“Your mom just worries and your dad only sees you as his little girl. Once this is all over, I’m sure they’ll understand why you chose to keep them out of the loop,” he said, giving me a half-smile.
“How do your parents deal with all this? You all fly around the world, living a completely different life without fear that they’ll get involved,” I questioned, knowing they hadn’t really checked in with their family much since coming out to Wisconsin.
Parker shrugged, looking out the window at the clouds below.
“The moment they learned we were Elementi Knights, they no longer controlled our lives—the Elementi did. We went to training all summer long then back to school until we graduated. Instead of the split, it became a full-time gig to train while at school, giving us a slight break for the holidays and the summer. If you hadn’t been struggling the way you were, we wouldn’t have left for the summer.
Instead, it would have been intensive training to get you closer to where we are in skills and knowledge.
That’s our life, to be the weapons against the demons, always ready to be sent on a mission someplace.
Personally, I think they would have pulled us out of school completely if we didn’t need to keep up appearances for the outside world. ”
“You know, the more we talk about the Elementi, the more it sounds like they’re just as evil as the demons,” I commented, trying to fight against my anger at the whole thing.
“The moment they found out who I was, they started to control my life without my knowledge. How is that not considered something the angels would disapprove of?”
Parker let out a dark chuckle as he met my gaze.
“That’s where the whole freewill thing comes into play.
The angels can’t control what we do, only judge the intentions of our heart, which is what they care about.
To be honest, I’m surprised I wasn’t stripped of my powers once the Oath was broken because now I’m tainted goods. ”
“Guess that means your heart is still in the right place,” I whispered, dropping my eyes to the book I’d been staring at but not really reading.
“There is only one person who I want to believe that, but it won’t be easy to convince them of that. In the meantime, I will do my damndest to prove that I’m worth the effort,” Parker stated.
I knew he was talking about me. Even though having him around all the time again the past few days hadn’t been as hard as I thought it would be, I wasn’t willing to accept things could be fixed.
We fell into a comfortable silence and soon he fell asleep, his snoring filling the air of the cabin, making the guys glare at him.
Choosing not to be bothered by it, I slipped on my headphones and reclined my chair, letting my music pull me into that place between wakefulness and sleeping.
“Synergy...”
My eyes snapped open, terror flooding my body, but the moment I saw I wasn’t in the darkness, I relaxed.
Instead, I found myself lost in a vast world of bright white light with a being in front of me, wings unfurled behind them.
I’d been here once before when I first accessed my powers and the angel told me who I was and what my mission was.
“Synergy, it is time to complete your mission.”
A sense of bone-deep weariness settled over me at their words, making me snarky. “Really, I wouldn’t have guessed that with how well things are going. You sure it’s time?”
The angel ignored my words and stepped closer to me.
“You and your knights must defeat the evil that is flooding the earth before all is lost. This was never what God intended for his people, but they chose to allow the demons to gain a stronghold in their world. You six are the only hope because we of the Heavens can’t intercede. It’s forbidden.”
“So you want us to clean up your mess? The demons should never have been able to make this happen. Aren’t you supposed to keep them banished to Hell? What if we say no?” I challenged.
A glowing hand reached out and pressed on my heart.
“You will not say no. The reason you were chosen as Synergy is the love you have for others. Who else could love five men the way you do? Even when one has broken your heart and betrayed your trust, you do not cast him aside as many would. Do not let the demons win by hardening your heart. You are stronger than you or the demons realize. Trust your heart and the men who each hold a piece of it.”
“How can you say that when you voided the Oath between me and Parker?” I snapped, shoving the hand away, but I never made contact. It just went right through the arm like it wasn’t even there.
“We did remove the Oath between you. When he gave the Oath, he thought he understood what he was saying, but he didn’t.
We needed him to learn, to lose, to suffer, and to grow.
It might seem cruel to you and him, but it is like when you prune a bush to help it grow bigger and stronger.
It might hurt initially but the benefit outweighs the harm.
All things will work out for the better...
have faith in the knowledge that they were created for you and you were created for them.
No one but the six of you can bring down this evil.
We just needed to wait for the right time before bringing you into the world,” the angel answered.
Everything about this was crazy. None of it made sense. If the angels were able to make this happen then why couldn’t they clean up their own mess? Was God that cold that he would just abandon us to this fate because he wouldn’t step in?
“No!” the angel barked. “Do not let those thoughts dwell in your mind. They are from the devil and his minions. Everything about this is going according to God’s perfect plan. You might not see it but have faith and trust. What else do you have if not faith?”
The force that the angel said this made me take a step back in surprise. Who knew you could piss off an angel?
“When you return to wakefulness, all of you will be rejuvenated and healed. It is all we can do from this point forward. Heed my words, Synergy. Without faith and trust in each other, there is nothing else...”
A flash of white light blinded me and I gasped as I woke up, almost falling out of my seat as I got my bearings.
“Trouble, what’s wrong?” Parker asked as he kneeled in front of me, resting a hand on my knee. “I didn’t feel anything demonic.”
Clutching my heart, I shook my head. “No demons this time. It was an angel.”
Shoving out of my chair, I got up and looked back at the others who were all sprawled out, sleeping peacefully. Would it ever be safe for me to sleep anymore? If it wasn’t demons coming to kill me, it was angels forcing their plans on me.
“Lailah...” Parker spoke tentatively, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Talk to me. What happened?”
“I need to wake the others up. This is something we all need to talk about.” I sighed, letting my shoulder lean into his touch a moment before I stepped away.
I wanted to believe that Parker and I would be able to figure this out, but I just wasn’t willing to allow myself to get hurt by anyone right now. I was too shattered and barely holding myself together as it was. My issues with him would just have to wait on the back burner longer.
“Guys,” I called out as I shook Brayden’s shoulder then Jay’s. “Come on, guys, I need you to wake up. Something’s happened.”
It worried me slightly that it took so much effort to get them awake but once they were, I noticed something different about them.
All of us had been working ourselves to the bone and still recovering from the car accident that was almost a week and a half ago.
Now, any lingering bruises they had were gone, along with the shadows under their eyes from lack of sleep.
“What happened? Was it the Dark Lord?” Micah asked, getting to his feet without any sign of pain from his knee. He took a step toward me then paused as he seemed to register the change. “What the fuck! My knee doesn’t hurt, like at all. As if it never happened.”
“Ah yeah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you guys about,” I shared, causing all of them to snap to attention.
Hudson frowned at me. “Did you do something to us? I feel the most rested I have since before New Year’s.”
That broke my heart, knowing that was when my nightmares and PTSD started. “So I was just visited by an angel—”
Brayden’s jaw dropped at this. “I’m sorry, what? Did you just say an angel came to you?”
“Unless I’ve completely lost my mind, which could totally be a thing at this point, they came to tell me it was time for us to end this fight with the Dark Lord,” I explained. “At the end, they said something about healing all of us but I didn’t think that was actually going to happen.”
“Holy shit, I got healed by an angel,” Micah muttered to himself as he hopped around, testing out his knee. “The things we experience in this life are just crazy, you know that, right?”
“What else?” Jay asked, crossing his arms as if expecting something bad.
I took a seat on the couch now that Micah didn’t need to keep his leg elevated.
“They just kept telling me that I needed to trust that we could do this, that everything was planned. We knew it was time for this fight to come to an end, but now it’s as if that’s the only hope humanity has to survive.
If we fail, the rest of the world will go to shit.
The demons will run the show and God will let it happen because we did it to ourselves.
If I’m understanding the cryptic way the angel kept talking, we are God’s way of saving the world... like, no pressure.”
“Wow, that’s kind of heavy,” Parker grumbled. “Did they have any good news?”
“Not unless you count the fact that they took the Oath from you to teach you and help you grow into a better person. Do you feel better for them doing that to you?” I asked, pissed that they would fuck us both over like that just to prune the dead weight from us.
Parker’s face turned dark as he processed what I said. “They did this to us?”
“Ha! Sorry, douchenozzle, you don’t get to blame the angels for your fuckup. She just said they stripped the Oath from you for the stunt you pulled. That doesn’t fix the fact you did what you did,” Micah cut in, poking Parker in the chest as he spoke.
“I know what I did, Micah!” Parker roared.
“The agony of having her look at me with pain and sadness kills me! Nothing I do will ever atone for how I hurt her, but I can learn to be better and never cause her that much pain ever again. Trust me when I tell you that your daily reminders of my fuckups are not needed. I’m very good at reminding myself. ”
This seemed to be enough to make Micah back off and take a seat next to me, pulling me to his side with his arm wrapped around my waist. It was like he wanted to prove to Parker that he was on the outside physically.
I understood his feelings, but I believed that Parker agonized over his choices all the time.
“Enough, please. This isn’t helpful to anyone, especially since the angel made it clear that we need all six of us to pull this off.
They said we were made for each other, that they were waiting for the right time for us to be brought into the world so we could end things with the Dark Lord and the demons.
Somehow, we need to find a way to at least be able to fight alongside each other. ”
“I don’t give a fuck what those angels or God himself says. I don’t trust that fucker to watch my back,” Micah spat.
Parker glared at him. “Then let’s hope I’m a better man than you and I decide to keep you alive through this battle. It would certainly make my life easier to just have a demon kill you off.”
“Stop! Parker, you sit over there and, Micah, shut the hell up,” I growled. “None of this is helping us figure out how to even find the Dark Lord before the world goes to hell—literally.”