by Lola StVil
“Randall, dark power is the only kind of power worth having.”
“I DON’T WANT IT!”
“So you say, but think about it this way, if you had dark power, perhaps you could have stopped me from doing this,” he says as he waves his hand casually towards Randy’s girlfriend. Key’s throat splits open; blood gushes from her neck and bathes the entire room. Even before we get to her, we know Keyohmi, “the Artist,” is dead.
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Someday
Randy wanted Key’s funeral to be done the human way. He said she had come to love human ceremonies and that she should get a human send-off. So we gave her the human send-off he was sure she’d love. The Paras came, and my dad, Pryor’s grandfather, and most of the school was in attendance, including the Face.
As we stood over the white coffin, my mind wandered back to the night Key died. I wondered if we could have saved her, but every time I replayed that moment, I failed to see a point where we could have stopped what happened…
Before Key hit the ground, she was already dead and Malakaro had flown away. The asshole didn’t even bother to fly away quickly. He just casually flew out of the house like nothing happened; he was blasé about the whole thing.
We didn’t go after him. Killing him wasn’t as important as trying to save Key. And although we knew she was already gone, we still had to try to help her. Swoop placed a hand on her, hoping their newfound power would heal her sister, but it didn’t work. Swoop sobbed and refused to let go of Key’s hand. She was sure she could fix her twin. But the energy that had surrounded the twins when Swoop was hurt didn’t return.
“I don’t understand. Why isn’t it working?” Swoop cried desperately.
“She was already weak from healing you. When Malakaro cut her open, she died on the spot,” Randy said in a daze.
“No! I should be able to heal her. Key, Key, please wake up,” she begged the lifeless corpse.
“Your Heed takes from your life force and adds to hers. But there’s nothing to add to—her life force is already gone. You have the power to make her better, not the power to bring her back from the dead,” Randy said in a soft whisper. It was clear he was in shock. His eyes were wide and gazed out into nothing.
Swoop wept openly as she gathered her sister’s cold body onto her lap. East’s eyes filled with tears as he turned away from the sight of his cousin’s corpse. Diana hung her head and held Pryor’s hand.
Pryor looked over at me, devastated. I leaned on the wall and closed my eyes, hoping like hell this was all just a bad dream. It wasn’t; it never is. All nightmares seem to take place when we’re awake…
After a few moments, Randy couldn’t take the sight of his girl’s body splayed out on the floor. He got up and ran out of the room. Pryor ran out after him.
I signaled to East to watch over Swoop, and I took off after Randy and his best friend. I found them a few houses away. Pryor held on to Randy, who was sobbing as he rocked back and forth.
In the weeks following Key’s death, Swoop was so beside herself with grief, she became ill and needed to be hospitalized. They had to feed her mixtures that could synthesize parts of the soul that had been shredded by her grief. To put it simply, grief was killing her.
Randy wasn’t doing much better. He refused to eat most of the time. It took everything Pryor had to convince him to have a piece of toast. He threw it up shortly after. He slept for most of the day. He didn’t turn on the television, the radio, or even the lights.
The angel world loves us (at least for now, anyway); we were able to kill Raven and save Omnis. They invite us to every bullshit ceremony and party they have. Any other leader would be tempted to go and play politics, but not Pryor. That’s why I love that girl. She knows what’s important—the team. So we didn’t go off and party. We stayed by Randy and Swoop’s side day and night.
Although the loss of Key hits Swoop and East the hardest, it also takes a toll on the rest of us. East can’t stand to walk by Key’s room. He would rather go around back and take the long way to his room than face all the things Key left behind.
Diana pores over books to see if there was something she missed, some way she could have helped Key. I tell her it’s no use, but she does it anyway. Honestly, I think she’s just trying to stay busy. I can understand that, so I let her do what she needs to do.
Pryor also keeps herself busy by training—or should I say overtraining. She runs flight simulations at the warehouse every day for over ten hours. She practices taking aim at moving targets, hand-to-hand combat and tries to reach the same level of supernova she did before, back when Sam died.
The warehouse has become Pryor’s second home. If she isn’t attending to Randy or Swoop, she’s there. That’s where I find her training yet again. I enter the vast hollowed-out building in hopes of getting her to come back to the house and rest.
“Pry, you’ve been here all day,” I remind her as I come closer.
“I need to keep going. I need to keep training,” she says as she prepares for yet another battle simulation.
“You’re pushing yourself too hard.”
“I can do this,” she replies.
“It’s not good to keep going at this pace.”
“It’s working. I’m better with tactics, and my range is better too.”
She closes her eyes and starts to summon her powers.
“Pryor, you can’t just go supernova anytime you want. You remember what happened last time?”
“Yeah, Aaden, I do. But this time I will control it and target it at Malakaro.”
“You need to be in control of your emotions to do that, and right now you aren’t.”
“I told you, I’m fine,” she swears.
I reach out to her, but she pulls away.
“No, don’t…I don’t need to be comforted. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m…” She bursts into tears before she can finish her thought. I hold her and feel relief that she’s letting her pain out. As much as I hate to see her hurt, I know how dangerous she can be when she’s emotional.
“I don’t understand. How could she be gone? How could…”
“It’s okay, Pry. It’s gonna be okay.”
“I have to kill him. I have to end Malakaro. He will never stop trying to kill the ones I love. Because of his hatred towards my family, Swoop lost her twin. Uncle Jay and Aunt Miku lost their daughter. East lost his cousin. Randy is a mess, and I don’t get how this happened.”
“Pryor, you are not to blame.”
“Yes, I am. What kind of leader does that? What kind of leader watches their teammate get murdered?”
“Your dad was the best First Guardian that ever lived. And he lost members of his team. It’s a reality in our world. Sometimes we lose.”
“I want her back, Aaden. I want her back,” she begs as she places her head on my shoulder.
“Yeah, me too…”
A few nights later, my dad calls and tells me to get over to Inside/Out, a bar in Chicago. When he tells me why, I’m more than a little bit surprised. When I enter, I see him waiting for me by the door. The bar is dimly lit and has a few demons and angels, both too drunk to care about the other.
“Dad, where is he?” I ask.
“That’s him, in the corner.”
I look over and spot him sitting on a stool at the end of the bar. He’s summoning up Powerballs and studying them. He can barely hold his head up or keep the Powerball in place.
“How long has he been here?” I ask.
“According to my source, he came in this morning and has been getting shit faced ever since,” Dad says.
“What’s he drinking?”
“You name it, he’s had it. I thought about calling Carrot, but…”
“No, you were right to call me. Pry has too much to deal with right now.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. There’s a Port out back; it can take him home.”
“Okay, thanks,” I reply.
“Aaden,
he’s really hurting.”
“Yeah, I know. I got it.” I sigh as I make my way over to him and sit on the stool next to him. He looks over at me with a sad smile.
“What do you want?” he says.
“I need you to come with me. You can’t stay here.”
“Why not? I can do what I want. Haven’t you heard, I’m the Kon!”
“Yeah, I heard. But right now you’re more ‘drunk angel’ than ‘powerful leader,’ so let’s go.”
“I killed her,” he says.
“Who?” I ask.
“Key.”
“No, Malakaro did that.”
“Yeah, but I could have stopped it. Key asked me to run away with her when we were dating. She asked me to take her from this life and I didn’t. If I had agreed to go away with her…if I had…why didn’t I take her away? Why did I let her stay here, just to get killed?”
“Bex, she didn’t really want to go away. Key loves her team. She just asked you to take her away because she was hurt. This isn’t your fault,” I remind him.
“I sent the Omari after Malakaro. But so far they can’t find him. They have no idea where he is.”
“We’ll get him. Maybe not today, but we will,” I promise.
“You don’t understand; I am a Kon. Kons don’t lose. We fight. We win.”
“You do win—often,” I reply.
“She was always there for me. Even when I was being a jerk to her, she loved me. She always loved me, and I paid her back by letting her get killed—where’s my fucking drink?” Bex asks as he sends a Powerball flying near the bartender’s head.
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” I reply as I help him to his feet.
“Do you know what my Powerballs can do? They can destroy nearly every material on Earth. I am strong. I am powerful. I…I should have saved her. Why couldn’t I save her?”
“We can’t save everyone we love. No matter how strong we are,” I admit.
“Then what’s the point? Why does any of this matter?”
“It matters because we still have people here who love us. We have to be strong for them.”
“You mean for Pryor?”
Crap…
“Yes, you have to be strong for Pryor.”
“I love her,” the Kon says.
“Yeah, I know.”
“What if I can’t protect her? What if what happened to Key happens to her? Silver, what if we lose her too?”
The tightness in my chest comes right on cue; even the thought of losing Pry makes it hard to function.
“Bex, we will not lose her.”
“How do you know?”
“She has you looking out for her.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s right,” he says, mostly to himself.
“Come on, we need to get you on a Port and back home,” I inform him. He allows me to walk him out to the back alley. Before he gets on the Port, Bex starts to laugh.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I remember this neighborhood. I followed Key around here once. She was spying on her secret crush,” he says.
“When was this?”
“A long time ago, before we started going out. She’d try to get a glimpse of the guy and she’d spend all day giggling and daydreaming about him. I would tease her about it, but she didn’t care. She had to see him.”
“Who was it, someone from training?” I wonder.
“Marcus.”
“Key had a crush on Pry’s dad?”
“Yeah, it was just an innocent kid thing, you know, but she would get all shy around him. One day she followed him and ended up somewhere around here. Marcus spotted her and he didn’t know how to handle the situation, so he called his wife.
“Pry’s mom had a talk with Key. She told her that one day she’d meet a guy who would love and protect her like Marcus did for his family. Key said I was that guy and that I would protect her. Guess she was wrong…”
It’s been three months since Key’s death, and things have gotten so bad with Swoop, the Healers fear she may not recover from her severe depression. The team and I gather to discuss how to help her, and after much debate, we decide to do something very risky. We arrange for Swoop to be taken back to the house. There, we have East waiting with RJ.
Seeing her son could do wonders for her mental state or set her down an even darker road. Yet we really don’t have any other way of reaching her, so we take the chance. The first day RJ is in the house, Swoop ignores him completely. She’s too deep in grief to really register that he’s there. In fact, she hardly seems to notice anything anymore.
While she has yet to warm up to RJ, it’s all we can do to pry RJ from Easton’s arms. He clothes him, feeds him, and changes the little guy’s diapers. It turns out East has a knack for childcare. When the two of them play with the train set I got him, it’s hard to tell who has a better time, RJ or East.
Diana and Pryor have bought him so many outfits, he would have to change clothes every ten minutes in order to wear everything in the two weeks we have him for. When Bex comes by to check on everyone, RJ gets excited and puts his hand out. He wants Bex to summon a Powerball. It dazzles him.
Seeing RJ react to the light in Bex’s palm reminds me of Sparks, how much she loved to be dazzled by light. All in all, having RJ here has brightened the mood of all of us, well, except for Swoop, who barely looks at him. And Randy, who insists on staying locked away in Key’s room.
Now, we have gathered in the kitchen with Bex after putting RJ down for his nap. And Pryor asks for an update on Malakaro’s possible location.
“No. We have no idea where he is, but I have everyone looking. And I mean everyone,” Bex replies.
“We can’t let him get away with killing Key. And we damn sure can’t let him get that fifth vial,” Pryor says.
“I can’t believe he found the four vials Raven took from him,” East says as he peeks his head into the living room to make sure that RJ is still asleep.
“It was all just a show. Yes, Raven did take the vials from him, but it was only because he allowed her to. He knew he could find her anytime he wanted. He was always more powerful than she was. And after she died, he took back the vials,” Pryor says.
“Knowing Malakaro, he could have let her take vials of water and made her think she had all the real vials,” Diana says.
“No, the vials were real. It helped her expand her powers. But without the fifth one, Malakaro had nothing to worry about. He knew she’d never be more powerful than he was,” Bex says.
“So now he has the four vials back, and once he gets the fifth, all he needs is Randy,” Diana says.
“How is Randy?” Bex replies.
“He doesn’t eat much or sleep. He just stays up in Key’s room,” Pryor says.
“Doesn’t his dad miss him at home?” the Para asks.
“He goes home, but when his dad is asleep, he gets on a Port and comes right back,” I reply.
“Have you tried talking to him?” Bex says.
“Yeah, he’s not in a talking mood. I can’t push him. All I can do is be with him when he’s sad, which is almost all the time,” Pryor says with profound sadness.
“When we find Malakaro, that will ease Randy’s mind,” Diana says.
“Find him and do what? As of right now, finding him doesn’t do anything but bring us face-to-face with our own death. We need to find a way to overpower him,” East says.
“I will continue to do more research, but as of now, nothing I’ve read can help,” Diana admits.
“How the hell did Malakaro get to be so powerful?” I ask.
“The same way all evil beings get power, by their willingness to do anything, no matter how cruel or sadistic. Malakaro has killed hundreds of beings on his rise to power. We can’t do like he did or we’d be just as bad,” Bex reasons.
“Well, the bright side is that Randy was able to give the stone back. That means he’s got goodness in him down to his core,” Diana says.
“And we
did stop an attack on Omnis,” I reply.
“And we have RJ, even if it’s only for a few days,” East says.
“What about Swoop? Is she taking to RJ at all?” Bex asks.
“No,” East says.
As if on cue, RJ starts to cry. The sound fills the house. Right away, East goes to pick him up from his crib in the living room, but I stop him.
“Swoop needs to start connecting to RJ. She may not do that if she knows we’re there for him.”
“Silver’s right. Let him cry. Maybe she’ll pick him up,” Diana suggests.
We watch as RJ cries his little heart out. Swoop doesn’t move from the window where she sits staring aimlessly. RJ’s face starts to get red from all the screaming; tears spill down his cheeks. East tries to go get RJ; Pry stops him.
Swoop looks over to see if any of us is around; we quickly hide behind the wall so she doesn’t see us. When it becomes apparent that no one is around but her, Swoop looks into RJ’s eyes. She gets up and walks towards him. He stops crying and looks up at her as if he knows her. He opens and closes his little fingers excitedly and motions towards the stuffed monkey that has fallen from the crib and out of his reach.
She gets it and hands it to him. He presses the monkey’s hand and the music starts. But it dies soon after. The batteries are drained. RJ starts to cry once again. Swoop lowers herself in front of the crib so that they are at eye level. She taps on the bars of the crib in the same beat as the song the monkey played. RJ looks at her as if she’s made magic. His eyes widen in delight. His whole body starts to move to the beat made by his mom. The two of them produce the most welcomed sound: laughter.
While we did save RJ, it was RJ who saved Swoop. For the next few days the two of them are inseparable. Swoop watches video after video on what moms are supposed to do and not do. But soon, she finds a style all her own. She’s strict when it comes to making sure he eats, even if he doesn’t want to. But she makes it fun by doing flips in the air first. He loves it. They take naps together, and if one is awake and the other isn’t, they go back to sleep. It’s really far too cute to be believed.
