The building was a tall one-storey warehouse, not too far from the centre but not quite in a bustling neighbourhood. A thin metal fence cordoned off the industrial perimeter, but Kian simply reached over it and unlatched the gate to get inside. There was a dirty pool behind the place, as if there was a better season than summer to swim, and it was just closed for the time being. The murky waters had become opaque.
“Not exactly high security,” Garrison muttered.
“What would someone steal?” I asked. “The walls?”
It still boggled my mind that someone would actually pay to climb things — or that places existed with walls to climb.
Feeling more like creeps than detectives now, we peered through the dusty windows. With their helmets and harnesses, it was difficult to make out the faces of the clientele. We spent an hour like that when suddenly I felt something pull at my insides.
It was a twitch, not directionally like what had brought me to Seth and Garrison, but it was more than we had gotten in the last few days.
“Did you feel that?” Seth asked.
“No,” Kian replied.
We all turned to him awkwardly.
“Oh,” he said.
Kian, never having gone through any ritual binding himself to any of us, didn’t have the same draw to the others.
“He must be close!”
Seth stuck his head closer to the window, as if that would help him see well through the grime on the glass. It didn’t.
“What does he look like again?” Garrison asked.
I pulled up the memory.
“Tall,” I said uncertainly. I had spent my time looking around, not trying to catch glimpses of him.
“Anything else?” Garrison asked, sarcasm lacing his voice.
“Brown hair,” I said. “Maybe not brown. A little lighter than brown.”
I heard Kian chuckle behind me at their frustration. I was really bad at this.
“Longer. Shoulder length. Maybe a bit shorter. Grey eyes.”
We all squinted through the dirty window. More than half of the room could have fit that description. Still, the feeling was getting stronger. It was as if my insides were being sucked toward some kind of magnet outside of my body. My heart raced.
“Enough of this,” Garrison declared. “I’m going inside.”
“Good idea,” Seth said.
Before Kian or I could say anything, they were bounding to the other side of the building. Just as they were about to round the corner, a big fist came out of nowhere and hit Garrison so hard in the face that he fell straight to the ground. Seth tried to stop so quickly that he fell over Garrison and went flying forward. It would have been comical had the fist connecting to Garrison’s face not made such a definitive sound.
Kian and I ran. I didn’t even need to see who the fist was attached to as the person rounded the corner. I threw up my arms and intended for the lawn to rise up and envelop the large man, but he anticipated it. He stepped on the earth as it rose into a mound and pushed it back down.
I paused, shocked.
“Gwen!”
Kian pushed me down as the eavestrough from the building swung down and nearly whacked me in the head. I got up as fast as I could, only to find the dirty pool behind me was rising in a sheet and coming my way. I reached inside in a panic for my magic. I had nothing in the outside world to fight with that couldn’t be turned against me.
Fire slipped through my fingers and met the wall of water.
Everything slowed. I stood face to face with our attacker. The eyes that looked back at me were so familiar, yet escaped me, like an answer on the tip of your tongue. He was the one we had been waiting for. Just as I had seen him in my dreams, he stood before me, looking just as shocked as I was, but also scared and angry. And for the first time there was a solid note of recollection.
As we faced each other, the magic I was holding strained my muscles. I let out a shallow breath, trying not to gasp from exertion.
Though only seventeen, he was probably done growing. He was a huge, hulking man, though through my memories I knew his eyes were usually kind, and I had never fought him before.
Suddenly it clicked. I recognized him from the vision of when the king had handed down his decision, ultimately our death sentence — this man had been right next to me.
The water hit the fire and we were enveloped in a dense steam. I choked in the haze and could only make out the stranger in front of me by his shape. I didn’t dare move — Garrison was somewhere around my feet. The shape in front of me crumpled and fell to the ground. Garrison yelled.
I had to sit, blind and lightheaded, until the mist cleared and we could actually see. It turned out that Seth had snuck up behind our new friend and put him to sleep while I distracted him. I could see Seth felt guilty about using his magic on us by the way he refused to leave the larger man’s side.
When the steam cleared, we assessed the damage. Kian announced Garrison’s nose was most definitely broken. When we pried him out from underneath our new friend, who had fallen on him, his face and shirt were covered in blood. He took his hands away from his face, and it didn’t even look like a nose anymore. I tried not to wince.
“’Ow ’ad id it?” Garrison asked.
“Not that bad,” I lied.
Kian helped him up while Seth and I looked at the prone figure on the ground. At least it didn’t look like anyone had noticed us behind the warehouse. This would have been much more awkward and difficult to contain had he come upon us in the parking lot.
“What do we do with him?” I asked.
His gym bag lay beside him. He hadn’t even gone in yet. He must have sensed us before he got close to the doors.
Seth walked around the body a few times, as if examining it from different angles. I knew he was trying to find a good way to move this guy, but from any side, he was still big. He was taller than Kian by about half a foot, and more muscular than anyone I had seen before up close.
Garrison couldn’t bend over with his bloody nose, so after securing him in the car, Kian ran back to Seth and me.
I still don’t know how we did it, though magic was definitely a factor. I tried to roll the body on the ground along the turf, but I couldn’t do this into the parking lot or someone would notice. We had to lift him. Seth and Kian hoisted him up, each one under an arm, as I hopped around them trying to be helpful, even though I really wasn’t.
It was a sprint to the car, since anyone could have stopped us at any moment to ask why we were carrying this unconscious man and stuffing him into a vehicle, and I had no answers prepared.
I briefly considered how easy Kian had it when he had tossed me over his shoulder. I was wondering if he was thinking the same thing as he and Seth nearly toppled under the weight, sweat beading on their foreheads just from the short walk to the car.
Getting him into the car was another challenge. I was struck with paranoia, as if we had just killed him.
While I kept lookout, Kian and Seth managed to push him in, which ended up with him in a weird position resting on Garrison’s lap. Garrison, who still had his head tilted backwards, could do nothing but squeeze himself as far toward the door as possible. When Kian and Seth got back into the car, finally ready to go, we realized there was no room for me. I stood in the parking lot.
Improvising, I had to climb into the trunk of the hatchback, hugging my legs with only my head popping up over the seats. This was probably the most awkward thing I had ever done in my life. I really did feel like we had just killed somebody and kept watching out for the police on our tail.
When I wasn’t doing that, I was asking Seth to feel the guy’s pulse to make sure he was still alive. Which was a little annoying, I admit.
We hadn’t been able to predict any of what would happen. Finding our newest friend could have gone as smoothly as when Kian and I had found Seth and Garrison, or as complicated as when we had found Moira. If this experience taught me anything, it was that we were all di
fferent — and finding numbers six and seven was a question still very much up in the air.
Upon pulling up to the hotel, we realized a further flaw in our plan — we had no way to get him up to our room without anyone noticing. And Garrison was still bleeding all over the car and himself. It looked like someone had been shot.
Seth ran in to find out where the service elevator was, and after a lot of shuffling feet and hoisting limbs, our broken little group managed to get him into my room without anyone seeing.
While Seth and Kian laid him carefully out on the floor, reminding me of how I had woken up with Kian in my own backyard, I gently moved Garrison’s hands away from his face. His nose looked even worse than before and had swollen to the size of a pomegranate.
“Ba?” Garrison asked, more nasal than ever.
“It’s okay, I can try to fix it,” I told him, trying to sound reassuring.
“Dry?”
“Well, I’ve never really done anything so … delicate.”
I looked at his broken nose from a dozen different angles, trying to figure out what went where. He didn’t seem convinced by my abilities, but I wasn’t either. I didn’t actually know how to heal, so the plan had been to move his bones back into place. Now that I looked at it, though, I had no idea what that place was.
“You’re going to make him look like a Picasso,” Seth joked. “Or maybe Michael already did.”
Garrison shot him a sideways glare. He couldn’t really move his head.
“Michael?” I asked.
“I found his ID,” Seth said. “Michael Davis.”
I turned back to Garrison. The dried blood everywhere made my stomach churn. I had no idea where things went, so I tried for the healing. It was hard, and I don’t know how long I stood over his chair as he leaned his head back and tried breathing.
I felt very little connection with my magic inside the hotel. There were no natural things to move or shift. After failing to find the connection with a more concentrated magic that could heal him, I focused on the sunshine falling on my hands from the window and warming them. I drank in the feeling of rays against my face and pulled on the threads that laced over my hair and the back of my neck, bringing everything into me. Finally, it flowed throw my fingers.
Satisfying cracks and pops, along with Garrison’s shrieks of pain — which Seth quickly muffled — told me something was working. It wasn’t until I had drained my own magic and felt faint that I finally stopped and looked.
Garrison’s nose looked pretty much right. His face was a mess, with blood caked everywhere and tears running down his face, but it was otherwise fine. As soon as I tried to move, however, I sat heavily on the ground.
I shook my head to clear it and got up to reassure my friends.
“Just overdid it, I think.”
“Thanks,” Garrison said, standing and feeling his nose. “Try not to make it hurt so much next time.”
“Try not to get punched in the face next time,” I retorted.
Garrison looked at me, deadpan. “You know that will be harder than what I asked you,” he said.
“I guess that’s true,” I admitted.
At that moment, Michael groaned.
We hurried over to where he lay on the carpet, all of us peering over him as if he was some kind of feature attraction. Garrison stood with his hands protectively covering his new nose, just in case.
Michael’s eyes fluttered, then opened. For an instant, he looked at all of us with nothing but sheer curiosity. Then he must have realized his situation. He sat up suddenly. When his eyes focused on me, he nearly jumped out of his own skin.
“You!” he screamed, backing away from me. He was still sitting, and when his back hit the bed and he had nowhere else to go, true panic set in. His eyes darted wildly for an escape. It was strange to have someone so big scared of me. “Get away from me! You and — and all of you!”
We certainly weren’t expecting co-operation after what happened earlier, but this was something else. Before any of us could open our mouths to ask him why he was so frightened, he began yelling again.
“Get away! Leave! Go!”
I was really curious about where he expected me to go.
“Vanish, ghost!”
Chapter Fourteen
The bed behind Michael began to shake. I could feel him drawing magic as if the air was gravitating around him. He was about to use it again, and I was too spent to defend myself.
“Wait!” Kian said, anticipating the same thing. “We’re here to help you.”
Michael was still staring at me, barely listening to Kian.
“Everybody get out!” Kian yelled. There was such urgency in his voice that no one protested.
Seth, Garrison, and I sprinted out of the room, closing the door behind us and just waiting to hear something smash. I could feel the vibrations from the bed as it bounced on the floor. Only after we left did I realize how stupid it was to leave the only person without magic with Michael.
Surprisingly, though, we could hear nothing breaking, and even the vibrations slowed until they stopped altogether. It seemed everything was calm. Frankly, I was happy for the break. My vision was still hazy, and I felt weak.
It was well over an hour before Kian came out looking tired and worn, like a surgeon exiting the operating room. We all jumped upon seeing him, asking questions about Michael.
“He’s adjusting,” Kian said. “I told him the story. Everything this time, along with who I am,” he added. “It seems that he’s felt something was off for a while. Since last year, in fact.”
Kian turned to me and gave me a shrewd look. “He thought, probably still thinks, that you’re a ghost,” he said. “As much as you’ve been seeing him, apparently he’s been seeing vague reflections of you.”
“How does that even work?” I asked. It was unnerving to think so much in my dreams was reality.
Kian shrugged. “There must be some kind of connection. Or a memory. I just don’t know what it is. But you can come in and talk to him now.”
We entered slowly, as if the large teen were a deer that could bolt at any moment. He still sat exactly where we left him, back to the bed, arms hugging his knees. His eyes were wide with shock.
“Did you do that thing to him with the memories?” I quietly asked Kian, meaning the silver screen effect of seeing your hidden life flash before your eyes. He shook his head.
“No magic, remember?”
I kept forgetting.
Seth and Garrison sat slowly in front of Michael, as if he’d run away if they moved too fast. Kian and I joined them, forming a semi-circle in front of him. I doubt this made him feel more at ease, but him bolting from the room was a real concern.
“So,” Michael said finally. “You’re like me?”
We nodded. He turned to me.
“And you and I are …?”
I didn’t know how to answer that, so a response full of guesses would have to do.
“I think we have some kind of past,” I told him. “I thought I was just dreaming. I had no idea you could actually see me. But when we’re … similar … we feel drawn to each other, because we’re meant to find one another.” At least that’s how I thought it worked.
“When Kian first found me,” I told him, “and I started remembering, it may have triggered you, too. Garrison has known for a while, so has Seth. But Moira only began to experience things when we found her.”
I nearly bit my tongue. The others exchanged awkward glances as we tried to telepathically communicate a response to Michael’s obvious next question.
“Who’s she? Where is she?” he asked. There was nervousness in his voice that implied to be like us meant to drop like flies from the face of the earth.
“She’s like us,” Seth told him. “But she went home.”
“And you’re all saving the world?” he asked. If he hadn’t said it with such an ominous look on his face, I would have thought he was joking.
“We’re try
ing to,” I said.
I didn’t know how much Kian had told him. The hour he spent in here was probably used to keep repeating the same information over and over again, since it was just so hard to believe. But Michael had used magic. He had shown more control than I ever had when Kian first found me.
“Where did you learn to use your magic?” I asked, making sure to keep my voice gentle.
“I … nowhere,” Michael said. “It’s just there when I need it. Somehow, things work out.”
Lucky.
“Like when you fell from the cliff?” I asked.
His eyes widened. “You were there, too?” he asked. “Yeah, that was the first time. I was stupid. Should have tied my lines better, but I got lazy. I fell, and things just worked out.”
He was obviously gifted and strong. Now, how to tell him that without freaking him out? We could certainly use his help.
Michael took a deep breath. “What happens now?”
We all exchanged glances.
“Now, if you’d like to join us, you’ll go home and make something up,” Seth said. “Tell your family you’ll be back, that you’ll be okay, and I can come with you to make it more convincing.”
“How will you make it more convincing?” Michael asked. When Seth only smiled, his brows furrowed. “Oh, right.”
After fielding several more questions about the logistics of our travels, Michael slowly got up and we followed him. We had agreed to take him to his small house outside the city centre, where he and Seth would talk his parents into letting him leave.
It wasn’t easy. With every step Michael made, I could sense he wasn’t sure whether to move forward or turn around. But as with all of us, learning the truth about himself pushed him to join us.
When we drove to his neighbourhood and parked in front of a blue bungalow, Michael didn’t even reach for the door handle. He just sat, hunched over, packed into a car full of strangers. I didn’t blame him for being unsure. It didn’t even sound like a good deal to me anymore, especially after what happened with Moira.
Lives of Kings Page 20
