“We asked what we could do to help.”
His mother smiled. “Oh, that’s nice of you boys. If you don’t mind . . .” She rattled off a list.
Thirty minutes later, the food was almost ready, and Jaden heard the whine of an approaching ‘pod. He leapfrogged the stairs, catching the interaction between Atu and his mother as he did.
“There he goes again,” Atu hummed, and Mrs. Jameson laughed.
“I guess he’s recovered from the busy day you boys had,” Clara commented.
Jaden hesitated on the stairs, just out of sight, waiting for the inevitable question about what they had done that had made them so tired. But it never came. His mother prattled on about her day. Huh, that was strange. Disturbed, Jaden resumed his dash up the stairs.
His worry dissolved the moment Kayla stepped from her ‘pod. She looked amazing in a lime green dress that played up the color of her eyes. Her hair was swept up into that messy knot again, showcasing pretty, dangly earrings.
“Nice earrings.” Jaden moved toward her and pulled her into his arms. “Did you make them?”
Kayla beamed. That smile made his day. It was refreshing to see her looking so carefree. And not so tired anymore. Despite the day’s grueling activities, the dark smudges under her eyes were gone.
“I did make them,” Kayla admitted shyly.
“Girl, you’ve got talent. Anyone ever told you that?”
Kayla giggled. “As a matter of fact . . .” She pressed a soft kiss on his lips before pulling out of the hug and taking his hand, talking a mile a minute about her online business as Jaden led her downstairs.
They entered the kitchen, still talking up a storm. But Jaden didn’t miss the glance his mother swept from him, to Kayla to Atu, or the way her shoulders drooped in resignation.
“Hello, Mrs. Jameson,” Kayla said.
His mother returned the greeting, her despondency fleeing as she hugged Kayla. “It’s lovely to see you.”
“Thank you, you too.”
The whine of another ‘pod pricked Clara’s ears. “That must be Ty. I’ll be back in a moment.”
She left the room, and Kayla studied Jaden. “What’s wrong?”
Jaden frowned. He would have to do better at keeping his emotions off his face. If Kayla had picked up on his concern, his mother surely had too. “Atu and I were still asleep when my mom got home today. I think she knows we did something we aren’t telling her about.”
Kayla put a hand on his arm. “You think she suspects we’re training?”
“I don’t know what she suspects. That’s the problem.”
“If she suspects something, wouldn’t it be better to tell her?” Seeing Jaden’s pending refusal, she quickly added, “I know you don’t want to worry her. But sometimes it’s worse not knowing something than knowing the truth.”
Jaden was silent as he considered. “You may be right. I need time to think.”
That was the end of the conversation as they heard Clara and Ty descending the stairs. A moment later, they were exchanging greetings and pleasantries before taking their seats at the table. They chatted through their meal, conversation flowing randomly from one subject to the next.
Jaden noticed his dad didn’t ask how the teens had occupied themselves that day. Since his mother usually went up to greet his father when he arrived home, he hadn’t paid it much attention. But what if she had done that today specifically so she could tell his father not to ask the teens what they had been up to? Maybe Jaden was being paranoid. But as the evening progressed, Jaden became more convinced.
Jaden picked at his meal, strung out like a steel wire stretched to breaking point. He was going to have to tell his parents, but he would need to check with Kayla first. After all, if he told his parents, hers would find out too, and she might not want them knowing for the same reason. Ugh, this is just getting messy. The truth is so much simpler.
When Kayla reached out a hand under the table and squeezed his knee, Jaden almost jumped at the unexpected contact. His eyes snapped to hers, and he saw the unspoken question in those sage green eyes. Hoping it conveyed that he’d tell her later, he shook his head ever so slightly. She must’ve understood, because she gave her own slight nod and removed her hand. Jaden wished she had left it there.
When the meal ended, Jaden said, “We’ll clear the table and put the kettle on.”
“Thanks, son,” Ty said, standing and stretching. “I could use some down time.” Ty looked at his wife. “Care to watch a movie with me?”
Clara smiled and rose, following him into the living room. Soon the vid was loud enough to prevent Jaden’s parents from hearing anything else. Still, Jaden wasn’t certain they wouldn’t sneak into the kitchen just to catch what the teens were talking about. He needed to put some distance between them and his friends.
“You guys want s’mores?” Jaden offered.
“What’s that?” Kayla asked.
“Those,” Atu corrected with a grin. “You’ve never had s’mores?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“You’re in for a treat, then.” Jaden smiled. “Atu, why don’t you and Kayla get the fire going, and I’ll get the ingredients?”
Kayla looked from the one boy to the other. “Oh, so it’s a secret?”
Jaden laughed. “I think you’ll figure it out.”
“Some sort of dessert?”
“Yes,” Atu answered as he steered her outside. “Let’s get that fire going.”
When Jaden joined them on the deck a few minutes later, the fire was blazing, and Atu and Kayla had pulled up chairs. Jaden grinned when he noticed Kayla inspecting the ingredients as he set them on the side table between them.
“Hmm, marshmallow, chocolate, and graham crackers. I could go with plain chocolate.” Kayla broke a piece off and popped it into her mouth.
“Wait until you try the whole lot together,” Atu said. “You might change your mind.”
Kayla chuckled. “We’ll see.”
Jaden was quiet as he handed each of them a long, metal fork and passed the marshmallows around.
“So, are you going to tell us what you’ve decided?” Kayla asked, not looking at Jaden as she attached a marshmallow to her fork.
Jaden shot her a look. She lifted her head and gazed back, her eyes unwavering. “What gave me away?”
“Well, let’s see. You were edgy all evening. You didn’t eat with your usual appetite. And then towards the end of dinner, you got peace. And now you’re quiet. Like you’ve reached some sort of conclusion. So out with it.”
“I was thinking about what you said—that perhaps telling my parents that we’re training again would be easier than letting them make up all sorts of horror stories about what we’re keeping from them.”
“And?” Kayla pressed.
“I think we should tell them.”
“But?”
“If I tell my folks about us getting back to training, then it follows your parents are bound to find out too. Is that okay with you?”
Chapter Five
Kayla didn’t even consider the question. “About that—I’ve also been thinking. Before I answer your question, I have one of my own.”
Atu spoke before Jaden could. “Shoot.”
“How does all this work for our gliders?”
They looked at her, confused.
“Can you be more specific?” Atu asked.
Kayla swished a hand through the air in front of her face, as if wiping a slate clean. “Sorry. What I meant is how does time work for them?” Blank stares. She tried again. “We had a whole day with our gliders, came home, and because the time freeze lifted, we had a whole day to sleep. Now we have an entire night for sleeping again—although how we’ll do that I don’t know. That being besides the point, do you think our gliders have this much time to recover as well?”
“Huh,” Atu grunted. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Why is that even relevant?” Jaden asked.
Kayla sighed. “If we’re supposed to be doing training, then shouldn’t we be working at it like we did at Sven’s? Without these extended breaks? And I say that because I’m assuming that the gliders get as much time off as we do.”
“Can you get to the point?”
Kayla glared at him. “If you give me a moment, I will. Don’t be so impatient.”
Jaden folded his arms and sat back in his chair, lips pressed together.
Kayla groaned inwardly. Ugh, he can be so petulant sometimes! But he did look cute sitting there with that scowl on his face. Although to tell a guy he looked cute . . . she almost giggled. Jaden must’ve picked up on her humor, because his scowl deepened. Okay, enough. Kayla curbed her inner laughter. “We should simply stay with our gliders while we’re training. That way, we’ll get used to taking shorter breaks, and so will they. And it means we won’t be coming home exhausted every evening, then trying to hide that from our parents.”
“You’re thinking this approach will negate the need to say anything to either set of parents,” Atu mused.
“No, I think she’s trying to get Taz to kill us with her training.” Jaden’s tone was mocking.
Kayla caught the twinkle in Jaden’s eyes and smiled, relieved he seemed to be regaining his sense of humor. “Honestly, I’d love it if we didn’t have to do the training at all. But that won’t help us in the long run, now will it?”
“Regrettably not.”
They sat in silence, the boys digesting Kayla’s proposal. The fire crackled, reminding Kayla about her marshmallow. She yanked the charred remains from the flames. “Now what do I do with this?”
The boys snatched up their own forks, but the marshmallows were beyond redemption. The three of them replaced the marshmallows, nursing them over the flames this time. When they were all gooey, the boys showed Kayla how to assemble the s’more. She took a bite.
“Well?” Atu asked.
“Yup, pretty good,” Kayla murmured. “I still prefer plain chocolate.”
“What? You’re not serious.”
Kayla grinned. “If I was, would I have another?”
Atu eyed her, unsure whether she was teasing. When she squished another marshmallow onto her fork, he grinned and indicated that she should pass the bag. With his own marshmallow toasting over the fire, Atu leaned back in his chair. “Jaden, any inspiration about how to decode our map?”
Shaking his head, Jaden reached into his pocket and produced the cube. Reflexively, he flipped the wooden bars until the one side popped off. He freed the opaque disc and stared at it sullenly. “It’s as much a mystery as ever. But at least the sharp edge on that chip has worn down, so it won’t cut anymore.”
Kayla rubbed her arm. She wished it would stop itching. Strange. She hadn’t heard the annoying buzz of a mosquito. Maybe she should ask Jaden for some bug spray.
Kayla caught Atu staring at Jaden intently as Jaden twirled the disc in his long fingers. Her own gaze went to the disc. Kayla had to admit that the fire sparking through the pinprick holes was mesmerizing. For some reason, the tiny flashes of light sneaking through reminded Kayla of a shooting star. She almost jumped when Atu abruptly sat bolt upright.
“May I see the disc?” Atu asked, his voice tight.
Jaden handed it over. Atu peered at the fire through the disc. Kayla tried to figure out what Atu was doing when he flipped the disc and repeated his actions. Jaden seemed just as perplexed as she was.
“I know what this is!” Atu crowed.
“What?” Jaden and Kayla cried in unison.
“A star map!”
Jaden blinked. “A what?”
“A star map, you know, a map of the stars as they appear in the sky at a certain place at a specific time.”
“Yeah, and that helps us how?”
“If we have the date and time the map was created, we can use those to work out the exact location on earth where this precise stellar arrangement could be seen,” Atu explained.
“Um, still not getting how this helps us. We don’t know when the map was created.”
Atu deflated. Kayla leaned over and touched his arm. “Well, at least we know what kind of map it is now.”
Atu smiled as if aware she was trying to make up for Jaden’s lack of enthusiasm. “Thanks, but Jaden’s right. Without a date and time, we can’t identify the place.”
“Here we go again,” Jaden grumbled. “Another thing with other things that we need to find to get the answer to the first thing! And I know there were a lot of ‘things’ in that last sentence. Oh yes, I must be trying to make a point!”
Kayla rolled her eyes. Hadn’t she just been thinking Jaden had regained his equilibrium? “Well, I’m sure that like before, we’ll get the answers to those ‘things’ when we need them.”
Her tart tone had Jaden grinning. “Look who’s getting some faith!”
“Isn’t that what the first clue was all about?” Kayla shot back.
Atu chuckled. That stopped them. They glared at him for a moment, but then laughed too. Smelling burnt sugar, Kayla jerked her fork out of the flames for a second time, laughing even more. When the boys realized they had forgotten theirs too, the three of them laughed until tears rolled from their eyes, tugging the blackened, smoking pieces off their forks.
“I’d say these are inedible,” Kayla giggled.
“Yeah, just a tad overdone,” Atu agreed.
“It’s nice to hear you all having so much fun.” Clara’s soft voice startled them. They turned and found her and Ty standing in the doorway to the house, smiles on their faces.
“We’re doing a fine job of burning things,” Jaden confessed.
“Looks like you might need to brush up on some of those cooking skills Atu supposedly taught you,” Ty remarked.
Jaden smiled. “Yes, it seems we should. Want to join us and test your own skills?”
Ty laughed. “Thanks, son, but no. That late night and the early start this morning has done us in. We just came to say goodnight.”
“Oh, will we keep you awake if we stay out here?” Kayla asked, not wanting to overstay her welcome.
“Not at all,” Clara reassured her. “You stay here as long as you want.”
“Just try to not burn the house down,” Ty teased as they said their farewells and retreated into their home.
Jaden waited until they were gone before he asked, “Do you think they’re safe here?”
“Care to explain?” Kayla probed.
“Why do you think that lone Gaptor came to our house?”
That was a sobering thought. At the time, Kayla had been so thankful no Gaptor appeared at her home that she hadn’t considered why the beast targeted Jaden’s. Then she remembered Clara’s dreams. “You think that Gaptor was sent here to spy?”
Atu’s head bobbed as he looked from Kayla to Jaden and back again. “Why would a Gaptor need to spy on your folks?”
Jaden scrubbed his face, then dropped his hands to his knees, leaning forward and looking worn-out. “Because my mom had this dream—” He gave Atu the facts in bullet-point format.
Kayla realized Jaden was too fatigued to explain in more detail. The thought of his parents being kidnapped because of him was nagging at him, wearing him down. She stretched out her hand and clasped Jaden’s. He smiled absently as he continued recounting his mother’s dream. His tepid response had Kayla wondering whether her gesture had given him any comfort at all. That wasn’t good. If this small amount of contact couldn’t break through that wall of worry, it must be insurmountable.
She would have to discuss this with Jaden. There were clearly issues he wasn’t addressing, and Kayla couldn’t have him distracted while they were on their next journey. It was far too dangerous—for Jaden and for the rest of them. Kayla couldn’t lose him. And on a practical level, Jaden was the only one who knew how to open the maps. Kayla’s worry would’ve spiraled some more, except that Jaden gave her a genuine, heartfelt smile just then, like her hand on his had registered. Bu
t that didn’t negate the need for Kayla to have that talk with him. Jaden had to deal with this, one way or another. Realizing Jaden had stopped talking, she focused on Atu, puzzled by his response.
Atu’s face was ashen. “Maybe that’s what it was doing.”
“Pardon?” Jaden asked.
“Spying,” Atu spat. “I’m pretty sure we had a Gaptor near our house before my parents disappeared. I didn’t see it, but I got the same feeling back then as I do now every time a Gaptor is near.” Atu paused. “Do you think my parents were taken for the same reason?”
Kayla’s eyes swung to Jaden. He looked like he’d been kicked.
“That’s more than possible,” Jaden admitted.
“Which means my parents could be in danger too,” Kayla concluded.
Glumly, they stared at the flames licking the edges of their marshmallows. That’s how I feel. Like that marshmallow. Slowly getting roasted until I’m all burned up. She wallowed in self-pity for a split second, then shook herself. What was she thinking? Was she going to allow this monster to get to her? To win?
Kayla squared her shoulders. “I don’t believe for a second we’re going to lose. And we have to play to win. If we think our parents are in danger, we should call Pallaton. Maybe the Legion can camp out here and keep an eye on our families while we’re away.”
Jaden’s face brightened. “That’s an excellent suggestion. And it also makes me far more comfortable with staying up in the mountains while we train.”
Kayla smiled. She should’ve known his reluctance would’ve run deeper than just being wiped out. Those he loved meant everything to him. And he would do what he had to in order to protect them. “We’re agreed then? No telling the parents because if we stay away while training, the time freeze will keep them ignorant? And we get Pallaton here to keep an eye on our families while we’re away?”
The boys nodded their agreement.
“Perfect. Now let’s see if we can get some of these things cooked without burning them.”
Chapter Six
Jaden stirred his coffee absently, staring into space. Training had made it an exhausting week. Taz had been merciless. Their first day was rough, since, just as Kayla had predicted, none of the teens had slept well the night before. Taz’s own tiredness was a small mercy. Not that she would’ve admitted it. But after Kayla pointed out the anomalies in her behavior the previous day, Jaden had paid more attention and found Kayla was right. Taz was slower than usual, hadn’t been so quick to get them back to training after lunch, and had definitely dragged by early afternoon. Of course, Taz had made the excuse that the teens were tired, and that was why they cut the day short. Jaden suspected Taz would revoke her offer if he even hinted that she was equally tired, so he’d kept his mouth shut. That had been the only day with some respite. A day was all Taz needed to regain her strength, and it was all business after that.
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