Secret of Betrayal: Book Two of The Destroyer Trilogy (23 page)

“Braden, I …” I can feel my tears slowly
freezing as they roll down my cheeks. Braden’s fingers tremble with desire to
brush them away.

His first two fingers press against his wrist, a
renewal of his promise that he loves me. I have to turn away from the reminder.
“Let me give you my Oath, Libby. Please,” he asks.

“I can’t, or it will only get worse. Don’t you
understand that?” I’m pleading again, but Braden is too absorbed in my question
to answer. “If you give me your Oath, everything we’ve been feeling will get
ten times stronger. Please don’t do that to me. Please don’t force me to live with
that. I can’t handle it.”

Now it is my hands clutched tight against my
body so they can’t escape me and grab him, shake him until he gives up. Slowly,
Braden says, “For me it will definitely get worse, but for you, nothing will
change unless you honestly feel something for me.”

He says it as a statement, but I can easily hear
the question in his words. He waits for an answer. My throat constricts at the
thought of actually having to give him one. I don’t want to do it. It will only
encourage him to push harder, to try and steal me away from Milo.

He’s still waiting. He’ll wait forever. Hoping
like a fool that Braden’s stone cold maturity will hold out a little longer, I
force myself to answer him.

“It will get worse for me, too, Braden.”

Hope shudders around him, but he quickly stifles
it.
Or not.
Pent up elation knocks
me
back a step. “Do you have any idea how much I want to kiss you right now?”
Braden asks.

Uh, yeah.
But I put my
foot down on that idea. “Don’t you
dare!
” I purposely
look over at Milo then back to him. “If you do anything to clue Milo in about
how you feel about me, I swear you will regret it. I’ll give up your help if I
have to. Milo means more to me than anything, including the Ciphers.”

“I won’t do anything,” he assures me. His gaze
slips past me to where Milo is thankfully still standing. “You really love
him?”

“I do. Some of the things you said about me,
that’s how I feel about Milo. After my Inquest, everyone in my life abandoned
me. Milo was the only one who gave me a chance, who loved me in spite of who I
am,” I say, my burning desperation to convince him bubbling to the surface as
more tears. I just hope tonight hasn’t ruined things between me and Milo.
Braden frowns, but says nothing, so I go on through a bought of sniffling. “If
I let you give me your Oath, it may wipe Milo out of my heart completely. I’m
willing to risk a lot for the sake of the Ciphers, but not Milo. Please don’t
force me to give him up. I’ll be able to trust you completely if you do, but I may
never forgive you.”

Pure, unabashed begging fills my eyes as I plead
with him, soul to soul. Forget Perception, I can see every emotion that rolls
across his face. His fingers twitch, eager to reach his emblem and make the few
simple gestures that will bind him to me forever. I squeeze my arms around my
body more tightly, my entire body begging for his agreement to this one
request.

“I want you to be able to trust me, Libby. I
don’t want you to doubt anything I tell you,” he says softly.

“I do trust you.”

“How can you?” he asks.

Lessening my death grip on myself, I say, “It’s
enough that you’re offering, for now.”

I truly mean it. Being this close to him,
nothing could ever convince me that he would put me in danger. My hands move to
reach for him of their own free will, but my brain catches up with them and
yanks them back before actually making contact. I can feel his pulse speed up.
I also see Milo’s shadow disappear and the door opens a second later. My body
starts going into panic mode, while Braden seems completely unaffected. My
breathing and pulse are climbing with each of Milo’s steps. I have no desire to
hurt Milo any more than I already have tonight by giving him any clue of what
this conversation has been about, but I need to say one more thing before Milo
gets within ear shot.

“Promise me that you won’t give me your Oath
until I ask for it,” I whisper. It’s a miracle if Braden even hears me.  

“I promise,” he whispers back, “but only as long
as it doesn’t put you in any danger.”

“Fine …” I stop myself before insisting he
promise on his emblem. I have to show him that I trust him or this deal won’t
last. Milo would never agree with me about trusting Braden, but I swallow the
words.

In a normal voice I say, “Now go home and get
some sleep. We’ve got a lot of work to do starting tomorrow, and I know you’ve
got to be as exhausted as I am.”

Milo pulls up beside me and folds his arms
across his chest. “That sounds like a great idea. I think this conversation has
lasted longer than it needed to. What was so important?”

“Braden had some questions about his place in
our team, and I wanted to make sure he understood exactly what it will cost him
to join us,” I say before Braden can respond.

“Death,” Milo says, “or something worse that
makes you wish you were dead. That’s the cost if we fail and the Guardians win.
Simple as that.”

Seemingly unaffected by Milo’s dire but true
statement, Braden says, “Simply winning or losing doesn’t matter. That’s what I
wanted to talk to Libby about.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Braden’s gaze leaves Milo and comes back to me.
His eyes take me in differently than before. This time it isn’t a sensuous, but
a more serious look. “Libby, you know this isn’t going to end with rescuing the
Ciphers, right? There’s a lot more to your destiny than raising an army.”

“My destiny?
You think
you know something about that?”

Braden finally steps back from both of us. He
moves to his car door before looking over his shoulder, and saying with
absolute honesty, “Yes, I do.”

“What?” I demand. I know he’s not joking or
teasing. Milo looks ready to walk over and beat it out of him, but I hold him
back. “What do you know, Braden? You have to tell me.”

“If you expect us to trust you, you had better
tell us everything you know about Libby,” Milo says seriously.

Braden opens his car door, ready to disappear.
“If it were only a matter of trust, I would.”

Chapter 1
8

First Wave

Even attempting to go back to the spirit world after
first making contact with the Ciphers was too much stress on my body and
spirit. I tried to go back with Casey the next night. As soon as I tried to
push my spirit away from my body, I started shaking uncontrollably.
Fortunately, Lance was with us. He pulled me back out quickly and started
warming me up right away. And then the obnoxious little brat called Braden and
told him all about it. Braden pretty much forbade me from going into the spirit
world until he deemed me recovered enough to try. Casey went instead and let
Saia know what was going on. Saia and I have been patiently waiting for two
weeks.

The one good thing about having to wait for
Braden’s okay is that it’s given Milo more time to work on his own
Spiritualism. As much as I’ve been dying to get back to Saia and the others,
having to face Braden and that frightening connection between us has kept me
from getting too upset. I still have no idea how to react to that development,
or what to think about it. Milo figured out how to reach the spirit world a few
days ago and he’s going to come with us tonight. Which means no
Braden,
because I’m not going to risk Milo’s figuring out
about the whole Companion thing. I am really not up for trying to explain that
any time soon.

Casey sits down across from Milo and starts
reminding him of the process we’re about to go through. Casey is extremely nice
and very compassionate toward just about everyone, but she and I haven’t really
clicked in that
best friend
sort of way. We talk at school and enjoy
each other’s company, and we’ve even eaten lunch together on the weekends a few
times since she joined our group. It’s just not the same as having someone you
can really unload on.

Jen hasn’t spoken to me since my Inquest, but I
wish she would. All she’s done so far is write about me on her blog. Thankfully
there hasn’t been anything too revealing, other than my rescuing Casey in the
hall. Even still, I miss her no-nonsense attitude and die-hard love to gossip
and dish. If anyone could help me figure out how to get Braden to stop being in
love with me, it would be her.

As I sit down on the floor next to Casey and
Milo, ready to get started, a sour taste develops in my mouth after thinking
about Jen. Lance promised he would keep an eye on what she’s been doing. When
he made the promise, I really hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. I was wrong
again, big shocker there. Keeping up with what she writes on her blog is easy
enough, but Lance has been digging deeper. He let me know yesterday that Jen
has spent some time at my mom’s house since her Inquest. And she isn’t the only
one.

Apparently my lovely mother has collected her
own little gaggle of talented young adults to do her dirty work. I have no
doubt but that once her teaching methods start to pay off, I’ll be the main
focus of that work when it comes to Jen. She must see her coverage of me as a
way to get noticed. I wouldn’t have thought so unkindly about her once, but
knowing that she’s hanging out with my mom, I can’t count on Jen not being
influenced by her.

If only I could put Jen’s reporting abilities to
use for me, get her to help with the Cipher families and drum up support for
what I’m doing. I sigh. If only.

“Ready?” Casey asks me.

I shake off thoughts of Jen and my mom and nod
eagerly. Milo looks both nervous and excited. He actually looks at me without
any hint of the lingering anger that has been there since I told him about
Braden. Milo still sits with me, kisses me, holds my hand whenever we’re
together, but I can feel the little bit of extra distance between us that
wasn’t there before. It kills me to know it’s my fault. I lied to him, yes, but
I honestly felt as if I had to. I don’t know, maybe that’s not a good enough
excuse. I have faith he’ll forgive me … eventually.

For now, I’m just going to focus on trying to
get back to the spirit world. I’m nervous even to attempt it. I’m all on my own
this time. So is Milo, but his excitement to go back seems to be slowly
overpowering his anxiety. I wasn’t there, of course, but I guess when he first
made it into the spirit world the other day he was nearly swallowed up in their
enthusiasm. He hadn’t been expecting that and was caught off guard at first. I
take his hand for a moment and squeeze it encouragingly. He smiles back and
takes a deep breath. Casey goes into her trance first, then Milo, and finally
me, with Lance watching me very closely.

I can’t feel my body once I start pushing my
spirit away, but not being yanked back out by Lance right away proves Braden
was right that I’m well enough to make an attempt. This trip might not last
very long, though, so I push ahead quickly. Or at least I try to. The other two
are probably already there, but I can’t seem to find any footing. Getting away
from my body is a constant game of tug-of-war. Fear that I won’t make it is
defeated by my determination to get there and eventually yanks me forward.

Facing the barrier, I know I’m in for another
battle. I shove myself into the barrier and start wading through. What little
strength I had left is drained by the time I finally make it past. Casey and
Milo are already here. Milo’s celebrity status hasn’t dulled. Dozens of Ciphers
are crowding around him, pestering him with questions and asking to see his
diktats.

When I first met Milo, he was practically
invisible. He was doing it on purpose since he was hiding from the Guardians,
but that quiet, unassuming, almost shy person is the one I know best. I was
shocked to find out later that before his disastrous Inquest, Milo was a star
football player, quarterback even, and extremely popular. I have a hard time
imagining that. Not so much the star athlete, since he’s very fit, but the
popular and outgoing part. Even now that he doesn’t have to hide he’s pretty
reserved, but I guess that’s mainly because me and my little group are social
pariahs. None of us could manage popular and outgoing even if we tried.

Despite being outcasts, it seems as if Milo
never lost his flair with people. I watch him grin and shake hands, answer
questions like a key note speaker, and drink in attention. I don’t think he’s
even noticed that I’ve arrived. It’s a strange thing to watch. With Lance
around all the time now, Milo is usually glued to my side making sure Lance
doesn’t try anything. I feel strange standing in the background with him completely
unaware of me.

A slight touch on my shoulder finally pulls my
eyes away from him. I turn to find a gleeful Saia standing behind me. I smile
right away and happily accept a hug from her.

“Libby,” she says, “I’m so glad you’re finally
back. I was worried when Casey said your first trip affected you so badly.”

I try to shrug off her concern. “That’s what I
get for ignoring this talent for so long, I guess. I’ll be fine.”

My eyes drift back to Milo, and Saia laughs.
“He’s made quite the impression on everyone here. None of the Ciphers can get
enough of him.”

“Apparently,” I say.

“Why don’t we leave him to enjoy the attention?
We can get started with just us,” she says.

“Alright.”

I follow her away from the congregated Ciphers.
She walks with me instead of jumping directly to where she wants to go like
other Ciphers do. That’s one of the things I like about Saia. She seems so
considerate of other people’s needs, even when they inconvenience her. I’m
convinced that if I had met her in the regular world she wouldn’t have despised
me for being the Destroyer. I don’t think Saia could ever hate anyone. She
looks to be around the same age as my mom, and actually looks somewhat like her
with her dark hair and eyes, and golden skin. They’re thankfully nothing like
each other, though. I think that’s what I like most about Saia.