Ambrosia Shore (26 page)

The lights in the auditorium flashed off and on to warn everyone to take their seats. The show was about to start. One last time, I looked back in the direction of Heather’s family, and finally, I found Nick there, ushering Heather to a seat next to them. For a moment, I felt myself breathe with relief. The chaos of the auditorium finally went quiet as the lights dimmed, and Heather’s dad turned off his phone to take his seat. After Heather settled in her chair, her gaze suddenly turned and met mine. I couldn’t help it; I smiled at her hopefully. But her face went hard, and she quickly looked away.

Halfway through the first act, I realized I was actually enjoying myself. I already knew that Nicole was an amazing singer, but now I realized she was a talented actor as well. It was nice to immerse myself in the show and let my mind rest from all my worries. By the time intermission came, my mood had lifted considerably. Lindsey had a major sugar craving, so the two of us headed out cheerfully to the foyer and got in line at the concession table. But the cheer was short-lived. Heather’s dad was in the foyer as well, back on his phone again, turning in circles and throwing his hands in the air as he spoke with obvious aggravation. I could feel his negative energy. My worry began to return.

When I saw Heather emerge through one of the doors and slip back to the women’s bathroom, the worry came back with full force. It felt wrong to be in the same room and not even acknowledge each other. It had been days already. I had to try to talk to her.

“Hey, I’m just going to run to the bathroom,” I said to Lindsey. She nodded and continued her conversation with Zach.

As I walked by, I glanced up discreetly at Heather’s dad, catching a few of his words when I passed. It sounded like his frustration had something to do with his job. I was just about to open the bathroom door when Heather’s face appeared through the opening. Her feet froze in place, staring at me without saying a word.

Blocking her path, I said, “Can we just talk?”

“I’m not exactly in the mood,” Heather said, pushing around me.

I followed after her. “Please just hear me out.”

Just as Heather turned, about to face me, my eyes went wide with alarm. Heather’s dad collapsed to the floor right before my eyes. His phone cracked across the tile. His body went rigid, gasping, in shock from pain.

As if in slow motion, Heather’s eyes moved from my terrified face to the source of the alarm. Then she saw him. “Dad!” she cried. She fell to her knees beside him. “Dad, what’s wrong?” He wheezed and clutched at his chest. Then his face went blank. He stopped moving. “Dad!” she cried again.

A crowd of people immediately went silent. My first instinct was to call for an ambulance, but suddenly I remembered the crystal hidden inside my bra. The Water Briolette had healed me and my mom; maybe it could help Heather’s dad, too.

I saw Zach holding his phone. “Call 911,” I instructed him. Then I rushed to the other side of Heather’s dad.

Terror filled Heather’s eyes. “Should we do CPR?”

“Just wait,” I told her. “I think I know what to do.”

Something instinctual kicked in, something guiding me from deep within. I leaned over her dad’s torso, slid my hand discreetly inside the top of my shirt, and pulled out the stone. I kept it cupped under my palm, pressing it against the skin along my sternum, keeping it concealed. When I took my other hand and placed it over her dad’s heart, my eyes closed. Instantly, the corrupted energy pulsed through my fingers. I could feel the damaged tissue, the sickness inside his body. I concentrated, connected myself to it, pulled with all my strength to carry it away.

There were voices and sounds around me, but I heard nothing. I clung to the source of his pain, swallowed it down my veins; pulled and swallowed and repaired, until there was nothing left to fight away. It took only moments, and then the fibers were clean, rejuvenated beneath my touch. Heather’s dad was healed. I could feel his heart move to life.

It should have been finished, but the energy continued to drain out of me, holding me tied, just like with my mom. I could feel it try to carry me away. But somehow, I felt stronger this time; more in control. I sensed the tethers that bound my soul to his, understood them, and I knew I could peel them away. I took them one by one and released the bond, separating myself strand by strand until I was finally free.

My body fell back. My vision was hazy, wobbling. It took all the remaining energy I had to keep the stone from falling out of my hand. Heather stared at me, dumbfounded, like I was a crazy person or an alien from another planet.

I could hardly push out the words as I fumbled to stand. “He’s going…to be okay.”

Before Heather could reply, a rush of paramedics forced me out of the way. I stumbled back around a corner, staggering down the hall away from the crowd, just as Agent Duke’s blurry face wavered before my eyes.

“Are you okay?” he said, holding out a hand to steady me. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

I squinted. “Seven?”

He shook his head. “We need to get you home.”

He spoke into his earpiece, instructing his partner to pull the car around, then he reached his arm up to help me walk. Just when I let my weight fall against him, Agent Duke grunted with pain. His strength fell from beside me to the floor. I gasped and stumbled sideways.

That’s when I heard it—the repulsive, sick voice from my never-ending nightmares. “You’re supposed to be dead,” Voss growled. “I killed you.”

I wanted to run, but I could barely stand. I clutched the Water Briolette as best I could in my hand. My head throbbed as I tried to make sense of his terrible face, of anything in front of my sight. But the darkness started folding in around me.

“Well,” Voss went on, “I guess if at first you don't succeed, try try again…”

The last thing I saw was his gun lifting from his side. Then my legs gave out from under me. The final drop of energy left my body and I plummeted down. My will fought to hold on, but I couldn’t act upon it, couldn’t move at all, forced to watch with my last flicker of sight as the precious stone slipped away from my fingers.

A state of panic bled through me. I heard a voice, but it was echoey, pushing across the distance to my thoughts.

“I’m here,” the voice said, “until you’re ready to wake up.” Soothing warmth, like a coat of down feathers, wrapped around me, pushing away the fear. “You can rest awhile,” the voice said. “Everything will be okay. Rest now…rest…”

The voice spoke calmness to my soul. So, I listened. I rested.

***

My mother’s face was the first thing I saw. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said gently. She stroked the hair away from my cheek. “How are you feeling?”

I gazed up at her from my pillow. “I don’t know. Okay, I think. What day is it?”

She smiled. “Sunday.”

I rolled my head sideways and read the clock. It was eleven in the morning.

“What happened last night?” I asked. “How did I get home?”

“Your guards brought you home,” she said. She gestured near the door where Agent Duke was standing in the corner. He didn’t have any signs of injury. “They called me at the hospital,” Mom continued. “I came home right away. You spoke to me for a minute before you fell asleep. Don’t you remember?”

I rubbed one of my eyes and sat up in the bed. “That’s so weird. I can’t remember anything except being at the school.”

She chuckled. “Well, you did seem pretty out of it.” She paused, eyes shifting away. “They told me you passed out again, like you did the day you…the day you…”

I knew she was referring to the day I returned from Banya and used the Briolette to save her from dying, but I had a feeling it was a tender subject.

I shook my head. “That’s okay, Mom. You don’t have to say it.”

She smiled. “I’m just so relieved you’re okay. And Heather too,” Mom added, “She went through quite a scare last night.”

Somehow I knew that Heather’s dad was fine, but I still asked, “Is her dad going to be okay?”

Mom nodded. “He’ll be just fine. I spoke to her mother this morning, and they were getting ready to send him home from the hospital. His blood tests confirmed that he suffered a heart attack, but they couldn’t find any permanent damage. He was lucky; it could have been much worse.”

It
was
much worse. Nobody else would ever know it, but I knew. This wasn’t just some minor attack. His heart had stopped beating completely. And the power of the Water Briolette had brought it back to life.

The Water Briolette…where was it? Suddenly, the night before, the last few moments before I lost consciousness, flashed through my mind. It was gone. The most important possession I had in the world was gone. Voss had taken it, stolen it right from the palm of my hand, like taking candy from a powerless baby. Only, it wasn’t candy; it was the one thing in all existence that I was sure could keep me alive without the Healing Water. And without it, I felt naked, exposed, vulnerable.

I glanced down quickly at my Watermark. It still appeared clear like a diamond, just like it had since the day I arrived home. Hopefully that was a good sign. Hopefully, that meant it would be a while before my water system would drain to empty again. I hated that feeling more than anything in the world. It was even worse than being separated from Rayne.

But Agent Duke appeared to be fine, and I was pretty sure he had been shot the night before. That meant our security team still had some supply of Healing Water, so if anything happened to me, or to my mom, they should be able to fix it. At this point, I just had to keep moving forward and hope that everything would work out. There was nothing else I could do.

“I should probably go over to Heather’s house and check up on her,” I said to my mom.

She moved from the edge of the bed to stand. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to it? Maybe one of us should drive you over there.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” I said. “I feel fine. And Agent Duke will be following behind me just like he always does.”

“Okay,” Mom said. “Just, make sure you pull over right away if you don’t feel well.”

I gave her a small hug. “I will. I promise.” I was about to let go when a memory triggered in my mind. I pictured another hug I gave my mother, after I’d been shot in Voss’s penthouse, right before he dragged her away like a hostage to the roof.

When my mom pulled away from our embrace, I stumbled backward.

She reached out her hand to steady me. “Honey,” she said, “are you sure you’re okay?”

I dragged my hand through the top of my hair, inhaling a deep breath. “Actually, maybe I do need to take it easy today. I guess I could just call Heather later.”

Mom reached her arm around my shoulder. “Of course you can. If you’re not feeling well, you should rest.” She pulled me toward the bed. “Do you need to lie down?”

“Um, no that’s okay,” I said. I didn’t want to admit it, but physically, I felt fine. It was my returning fear of Voss that had me stumbling over my feet. “Maybe we could just hang out together today,” I suggested. “Here at the house.”

Mom smiled. “Sure, sweetie. Sounds like fun.”

***

I never did make a call to Heather later that day. Maybe it was my growing fear that Voss would return at any moment that kept me from attempting any sort of communication outside the house, or maybe it was simply the fear that Heather would turn me away because she hated my guts, but either way, I couldn’t bring myself to call her.

No matter how hard I tried to let my mind go free, the image of Voss’s face appeared relentlessly, dominating my thoughts. It ate away at me so completely that, later in the afternoon, I did something I never thought I would do. I told Orion about the Water Briolette. Now that the stone was lost, my priority was no longer to keep it a secret. Instead, I had to warn whoever was trying to catch Voss, explain to them what they were up against. With such a powerful object in his possession, Voss would be more than just a criminal or a tyrant, he would be invincible.

Without a hint of surprise, Orion said, “This must be the valuable object you were referring to in our earlier conversation regarding the Council.”

“Um, yeah,” I replied. I fidgeted with the bottom of my shirt. “Sorry I didn’t mention it sooner, I guess I just…”

Orion smiled casually. “No, no need to explain. If anything, I should be the one apologizing. Voss shouldn’t have been able to get that close to your school, let alone step inside. I assure you…I plan to have a few strong words with my men who were tracking him. This won’t happen again.”

I looked down. I wasn’t sure I believed him this time.

Orion continued. “Thank you for telling me about the Briolette. This bit of information will certainly help us in our pursuit. Now, I’m wondering if you could give me an idea of its size, so we understand the strength it might give Voss against our forces.”

I lifted my hand in front of me, picturing the stone in my grasp. “Maybe three inches long or so; two inches wide. It fit diagonally across the palm of my hand.” I took my finger and showed him, drawing an invisible tear shape over the skin along my palm.

Orion watched my finger intently, pausing a moment before saying, “You’re certain it was this large? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

I swallowed. “Yes, I’m sure.” Orion paused again, staring at my hand, deep in thought. I couldn’t hold back my concern as I continued. “With that stone, Voss is practically invincible. I’m not exaggerating. You have to believe me. I didn’t tell my father because he was already so upset, but when he found me up on the roof after Voss took me, I had just been shot. Voss basically killed me. There was something in his eyes; he seemed more deranged than ever before. But I didn’t die because I had the Briolette. It healed me before my father could reach me.”

Orion shook his head in disbelief. “Are you sure? Perhaps you just blacked out from fear when you saw his gun.”

“No,” I insisted. “I’m telling you, I didn’t imagine this. I heard the blast. I felt the impact. Voss was only, like, a foot away. There’s no way he missed.” My hand lifted to the side of my forehead. “He hit me right here; I can practically still feel it.”

Orion’s gaze followed my fingers to examine my head. “And you’re certain that Voss stole it?” he asked.

I stared intently back at him. “I’m one hundred percent positive.”

His eyes shifted nervously, as if the seriousness of the situation had finally settled in. Then his focus broke and he glanced back at me. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “I had no idea of the magnitude of this ordeal which you have been through. Thank you for telling me. I’ll make sure my men do everything they can to stop Voss from hurting you or anyone else again.”

I nodded quietly, wishing I felt sure he could make such a promise.

Then, a confident smile took over his face. “Try not to worry, Sadie. I have a feeling we’re going to catch Voss very soon. In fact, I’m almost sure of it.” He patted my shoulder and turned to walk away.

“Wait,” I said. I glanced over my shoulder and lowered my voice. “Can you do me a small favor?”

“What is it,” he asked.

“Can you maybe…not tell my mom that Voss was involved last night? I think she has enough to worry about right now.”

Orion nodded. “Of course.”

After Orion left me alone in the hallway, Agent Duke appeared from around the corner. Usually, he took his place discreetly, trying to blend into the background as much as possible, but this time he made eye contact with me as soon as he entered.

With quiet concern, he asked, “Are you okay?” I wondered if he had been listening to my conversation with Orion about the Briolette and Voss.

I pushed out my usual smile. “Um, yeah. I’m fine. By the way, thanks for getting me home last night.”

Agent Duke nodded dutifully in response, but then his expression softened. He looked down as he said, “I…saw what you did for your friend’s father yesterday.” My head suddenly jerked up with worried eyes. He lifted his head to meet my gaze. “That was very brave of you, and…kind.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I tried to shrug it off. “Well, anyone in my position would have done the same thing.”

Agent Duke took a small step closer as he replied, “Not everyone… You may not realize this, but you’re a lot like your father. You saved that man’s life last night, without hesitation, without any thought for how it would affect you.”

My body felt suddenly hot. I took a step back. “I don’t know what you mean. I just saw somebody that was hurt and tried to help him—that was it.” I wasn’t sure why I suddenly felt so uncomfortable, but I started to move away. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my room,” I said in haste. Then I shut the door behind me.

As soon as I was alone, I took a deep breath and went straight to my purple butterfly diary to send a message to Rayne.

Please tell me that you’re there. I really need to talk to you right now.

I waited impatiently until his message appeared.

I’M HERE. WHAT’S WRONG? I THOUGHT YOU SAID EVERYTHING WAS OKAY TODAY. AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE RELAXING AND WATCHING A MOVIE WITH YOUR MOM?

I wrote:

I was. The movie just ended a few minutes ago. But I miss you... A LOT!

There was a pause in the conversation. I wondered if one of the guards had come into the room, causing Rayne to hide his diary. While I waited, my thoughts couldn’t help but wander back to some of my worries. I had been sneaking little messages to Rayne all throughout the day while I spent time with my mom, but I never could bring myself to tell him I lost the Water Briolette the night before, or that Voss was the one who took it from me.

Finally, Rayne’s handwriting reappeared again on the page. As if almost reading my mind, he wrote:

SORRY, ONE OF THE GUARDS JUST CAME TO COLLECT OUR DINNER TRAYS. BY THE WAY… I MISS YOU TOO. EVEN MORE THAN A LOT...

Despite my frustrated mood, I felt the corners of my mouth curve upward. Rayne always knew how to make me smile. Before I could even reply, he wrote again, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.

IS EVERYTHING OKAY THERE? I DON’T KNOW WHY, BUT I’M SUDDENLY GETTING THIS FEELING LIKE SOMETHING IS WRONG.

Even from halfway across the universe, it seemed like Rayne could still feel my distress, just like he used to whenever I was in trouble. Even though I was worried about upsetting him, I was relieved at the idea of getting everything off my chest. Not only did I hate keeping things from Rayne, I just needed to hear him tell me everything would be okay. I wrote:

Actually, maybe there is something I need to tell you… I lost the Water Briolette.

When Rayne wrote back, he tried to soothe me.

SADIE, IT’S OKAY. YOU DON’T NEED THE BRIOLETTE. THERE ARE AGENTS ALL AROUND YOU WITH ACCESS TO HEALING WATER. THEY WON’T BE LIMITED TO HOW MUCH THEY CAN GET LIKE I WAS WHEN I WAS WORKING IN SECRET FOR YOUR FATHER. YOU’RE GOING TO BE FINE. JUST KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON YOUR WATERMARK AND TELL SOMEONE THE MINUTE IT STARTS TO FADE.