The Breakers Ultimatum (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 3) (3 page)

“We don’t know that’s what will happen,” Echo replied, but he didn’t look me in the eye.

“But you don’t know it’s not what’ll happen either.” I didn’t need him to respond. I wasn’t new. I knew how this worked.

“What’s happening to you is unfortunate,” Echo slid closer to me. “And no, I can’t be certain of anything. The quicker we can get you out of the Hourglass and away from all this built up shade, the safer you’ll be. But until then, it can be managed.”

“Managed, how?” I turned to him.

His eyes lit up, like I had just stumbled onto the one bright spot into this otherwise hopeless conversation. He smiled a little as he spoke. “Royce.”

“What the hell did Royce do?” I asked, but flashes of his lips pressed against mine, of the stubble that grazed against my cheek, of his red towel and not much else, skipped across my mind and I remembered what part he played. My face reddened as Echo continued.

“I admit that I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I brought you back into the cabin. I had never seen anything like what was happening to you; so much energy with no way to escape.  But then Royce came and, as soon as he touched you, the energy just started melting away. You could see it-literally see it- flowing through you, into him, and then out into the ether. I’m not sure how or why, but you’re physiologies seem connected. He was able to help you, and eventually he was able to stabilize your condition.”

“He kissed me until I settled down?” I asked, clutching the Star Wars sheets tightly and trying to hide my embarrassment.

Echo smiled despite himself and shook his head. “You had massive amounts of energy to dispel then, and that was a quicker way of clearing it out. I promise you, every time since then, he’s done nothing more than hold your hand.”

A rush of relief flooded my mind, but it was immediately followed by curiosity. “What do you mean every time? How much shade could I have possibly produced today?”

Echo’s eyes narrowed. He looked to Casper, still sleeping on the chair, and then back at me. “Oh, you haven’t spoken to him at all, have you?” He put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me like he had so often, like he was about to tell me something I wouldn’t like.

“Echo, what is it?” I asked; my mind racing to a million different, and equally horrible, hypothetical situations.

“What happened to you was very severe. It took time for us to wrap our heads around what was happening, and even more time for you to stabilize.”

“Echo, what are you saying?” I said through nervously clenched teeth.

“It hasn’t been a day, my dear. You’ve been unconscious for well over a month.”

A month? A month?!

I looked around frantically, like there might be something in the room that would discount what Echo had just told me. I couldn’t have been unconscious for an entire month. There was no way.

“Cresta, it’s fine, you’re fine,” Echo told me in a slow calming tone. Of course, that didn’t do much good. He wasn’t the one who had just lost a month of his life. He wasn’t the one who was so sick or broken that it took more than thirty days to get him ready to even walk around.

What had I missed? I hadn’t been in the Hourglass a full day before my entire life fell apart. The thought of what might have come and gone in a month’s time made my blood run cold. And Owen-...

God, I was supposed to go get him. I was going to save him, and now the Council had had him for a month. He probably thought I abandoned him, that I had taken that stupid promise I made seriously and that he’d never see me again. My heart broke into a thousand tiny little pieces as I threw Casper’s sheets off of me.

I pulled at previously unseen wires that ran across my body; wires to monitor my breathing, wires that stuck across my legs, and a tube that- to put it delicately-made it possible for me to go to the restroom. Echo turned his head as soon as I threw the covers off.

“Cresta stop. Let me get Dahlia in here to help you.”

“I’ve waited long enough,” I answered, pulling the last of the wires off of me. I swung my legs off the bed and attempted to stand. My legs were jelly though, and I went careening to the floor.

“Fate’s hand,” Echo muttered, and quickly made his way to me. “You’re going to have to take it slowly. It’s been awhile since you’ve been on your feet.”

He knelt down to help me, but I pushed him off. I needed to do this on my own. “I got it,” I answered. “I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.” Using the bed frame for support, I pulled myself up and let my feet and legs get used to the idea of holding my weight up. I could see Echo aching to help steady me. Casper, for his part, snorted a little and snuggled back into his chair.

That boy really could sleep through anything.

Once I felt comfortable, I let go of the bed; surprised at how quickly I got back into the habit of moving around.

“Cresta, take it slow,” Echo warned, but I wasn’t interested in listening. Anything could have happened in the month that I had been out of commission- anything but one. The people around me had not seen fit to save Owen. If they had, he’d be here now; waiting by my bed for any sign that I might wake up. I knew that as well as I knew my own name.

Looking over at Casper; still sleeping peacefully, Echo’s words about him suddenly meant something very different to me.

He hasn’t left your side, not even for an instant.

“When he wakes up, tell him thank you,” I told Echo, looking over at my best friend in the entire world.  “You know what, don’t tell him that,” I said, reconsidering. “I’ll tell him myself.”

“Where are you going?” Echo stood. “We still need to run some tests, make sure everything’s on the up and up.”

“And you can,” I said, making my way to the door. “I just need to get some air first.”

“Alright, I suppose,” Echo answered. He wanted to stop me, I could tell. But he could tell I wasn’t in the mood to be stopped. I grabbed a pair of sweatpants slung across the chair that seemed to be my size and ducked into the bathroom. A splash of water to my face and a much-needed tooth-brushing later, and I was standing outside.

It was here now, with a warm wind moving through the trees, that I could finally feel some evidence of what had happened to me. My skin prickled like it hadn’t felt the sun in some time. And the breeze moving through my hair sent cozy shivers up and down my back. It was quiet out here, the sort of quiet that could only exist inside the Hourglass; where nature had been stripped of animals and insects. It was strange to think that, just a few miles from here, armies of Breakers readied themselves to take my head off.

It was warmer than I remembered it being, which made sense since I had been out of commission for a month. Running fingers through my hair, I took a deep breath.  The weight of everything that had happened started piling onto me like bricks being laid across my chest. Owen was gone. Flora was gone. The Breakers knew. Renner, Royce, and the rest were going to try to get me out of here, Echo said as much. And maybe that’s what I should have wanted. God knows I wasn’t safe within these walls, even if what Casper said was true, and the anchors that surrounded this cabin and its grounds kept me hidden. How long before the Council found a way around that and came for me? It was a miracle that it hadn’t already happened.

But, even though I should have wanted to run away and never look back (fight or flight instinct and all), all I could think about was Owen and what he said to me before I left. He made me promise not to come for him, to live the rest of my life without him and to try to be okay with that. He might as well of asked me rip my heart out and try to live without that. It would have been just as hard. No, I needed to find a way to get to him, to break him out of whatever hellish cell the Council almost surely had him rotting in, and take him wherever it was Renner and the rest were trying to take me.

“Cresta…” I recognized the Southern twang almost immediately.  Royce stood in the distance, wearing a pair of jeans and a tight black t-shirt that made the muscles in his arms look big and defined. He had a knife in one hand and a bundle of wood slung across his back with a leather strap. His eyes- copper, not raven- widened when he saw me. “Echo told me you’d be awake any time now, but seeing you up and about is different, I suppose. How are ya, Sweetheart?”

“We need to find Owen,” I said instinctively.

Royce’s eyes steeled over, his jaw set, and he looked away from me.  “Good to see you too,” he muttered.  He adjusted the wood across his back and brushed past me, grazing my shoulder on the way. “Uncle Renner’s doing better, not that you asked.”

A spike of guilt hit me. Renner had gotten hurt badly saving me from the Council and its army, and I hadn’t even thought about him.  “Look,” I sighed. “It’s not that-“

“No, you look Sweetheart.” Royce turned back to me. “I get that, at the moment, your mind is sort of messed up. You’ve got a lot going on. We all do, and I guess it makes sense that you wanna cling to what ya know. But there are a lot of people who gave up a lot of things to get you this far, and I ain’t talking about me. You miss your boyfriend. Can’t say I blame ya. Seemed like he had that whole ‘sensitive dude’ thing down pretty good. But he’s the Dragon, and even if he wasn’t, he’s lost to us. We’re already behind enemy lines here. There’s no way you’re gonna convince these people to jump back into the belly of the beast just ‘cause you miss your sworn enemy’s bad touch.”

As usual, when Royce went on one of his rants, there were about a million things I took issue with, but it seemed pointless to fight him on most of them. So I decided to focus on just one.

“I don’t need to convince them,” I said, walking toward him. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. Renner’s hurt, I’m still not sure I can trust Dahlia, and I wouldn’t risk Casper. All I need is you and maybe Echo. We’ll get in and out quickly. They won’t even know we’re there.”

“And how are you gonna manage that?” His eyes narrowed at me.

“The same way I manage everything; with shade. I hid my presence from Dahlia twice. She had no idea I was there. If I can-”

“Are you listening to yourself, Sweetheart?” Royce scoffed.  “You think ‘cause you fooled some two-bit school teacher who probably wasn’t even looking for ya, that you can take on the Council of Masons and every Breaker from here to kingdom come?” He shook his head hard. “Nope. Not gonna do it. Even if you were right, which you’re not, you need to keep as far away from the Dragon as humanly possible. He’s bad news, Sweetheart.”

“He’s not-“

“I ain’t fighting you!” Royce snapped. “I just ain’t going.” He gave me a quick nod and an infuriating smile, then started back toward the cabin.

“Then I’ll go by myself,” I muttered, trying not to sound weak.

Royce whipped back around, walking toward me in a manner that could only be described as swagger.  “Is that right?” he asked, licking his lips. “See, I think you’re bluffing.”

“I’m not,” I lied.

“You and I both know that you wouldn’t last two days out there if I wasn’t alongside ya. Even if you managed to steer clear of the Council, there’s enough shade out there to send you vibrating off into another universe.”  He traced my bare arm with his index finger lightly. I could feel the energy that had built up just by having him around drain out of me with sweet aching. “Our bodies,” he leaned in, whispering into my ear. “They react to each other. We fit together.” He leaned back, grinning like a Cheshire cat.  “Like it or not, you need me.” He gave me a wink. “You need me real bad.”

As quickly as he had turned toward me, he turned away. With his back facing me and walking back to the cabin, he said, “I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, but try not to take it too hard, Sweetheart.”

I stood there for a few minutes, feeling all impotent and sullen. I needed to find Owen, to save him. Sure, it was an awful idea. I knew that. Everything that Royce said was very true. But just because he was likely surrounded by a Breaker army that was salivating for my blood and I’d likely be caught and killed miles before I even made I to him, that didn’t mean I shouldn’t try.

That-that makes sense, right?

It didn’t matter. Owen had saved my life countless times. I loved him and, even if he himself wanted me to run far away and never think of him again, I wasn't  about to abandon him like that. Saving Owen was the right thing to do, even if it was a fool’s journey. Still, Royce had a point. I was basically a walking shade sponge and, though the idea of it made my skin crawl, my body did react to him. It was like fate’s cruel joke; that I’d be tied physiologically to somebody as arrogant and all around distasteful as Royce. But the truth was all the shade around here almost killed me, and if I couldn’t count on him to help me relieve the pressure, I’d likely explode before saving Owen even came up in conversation.

No, I was going to have to play along for a bit, pretend I agreed with everybody when they said I needed to let this go, and then somehow convince Royce to do the right thing.

Sighing, I marched back inside, still a bit wobbly on my feet. When I opened the cabin door, the scent of bacon, still on the stove, wafted toward me. The way my stomach reacted, all loud and primitive, would have embarrassed me if anyone had been there to hear it- or if I wasn’t so damn hungry. 

As it was, I marched zombie-like toward the kitchen and the absolutely heavenly aroma. Turns out being comatose for a month makes you totally famished, because as I neared the kitchen, practically tasting the salty goodness on my lips, I forgot about all the other stuff that was weighing on me.

The kitchen was empty when I broached the doorway. Only bacon, still sizzling on the stove, was there to greet me. I started toward it, scanning the room for a plate and fork, and hoping that the food’s rightful owner didn’t arrive to stop me before I fed my face, but something stopped me short.

A shimmer, the slightest turn of light, rippled across my vision. If I had been anyone else in the world, I would have probably ignored it. Hell, if I had been me from a year ago, I would have ignored it. Who notices little, almost invisible ripples in the air? Somebody who knows what they really mean; that’s who.

I pulled myself to a stop, inching back into the doorway. That ripple was a telltale sign of shade. Somebody was trying to hide something, but what? I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. When I opened them, I could see the lies before me. The bacon was real, but it wasn’t cooking. It sat still packaged on the cold stove. I was more than a little disappointed when I realized I wouldn’t be able to eat it, and completely devastated when I found that, now that I could see past the shade, I could smell past it too. And, as a result, the heavenly scent had vanished.

Looking further through the shade, I saw that I wasn’t the only person in the room. Dahlia and Echo stood at a corner, turned toward each other, seemingly unaware that I was here or that I was peering past their illusion.

“Of course, it’s different now. You know why it’s different now!” Dahlia shouted. I wondered if it was harder to mask loud noises because, if it was, the octave her voice just reached made this illusion an Olympic level feat.

Echo looked even more tired than he had in Casper’s room as he answered her, fingers tapping wildly across the nearby counter top. “All I’m saying is; we need to take our time, really consider our options.”

Dahlia’s eyes widened at this. I knew that look. It was a ‘you’re gonna regret you ever tried to talk sense into me today, buddy’ look. Echo knew it too, because he lifted his hands, trying to calm her, but it was too late.  “And what would those options be, pray tell? She’s awake now, Echo. There’s no more time to consider things. We can’t tread water anymore, not when she’s conscious and healing.”

They were talking about me. Of course, they were. What else did anybody talk about these days? I leaned in closer, bracing myself against the doorway with my right hand. I shouldn’t be eavesdropping like this, but I still didn’t completely trust Dahlia and I needed to know what she meant by treading water. Because, they were talking about me, and that made it sort of my business, right?