by Heather Todd
Lola looked at him and nodded. “I know. I’m willing to give it a try.”
“That’s all I ask,” he smiled.
They stopped at the guitar player as he began to switch from Bruno Mars to Ed Sheeran’s “A Team”. His voice was soft and sentimental, matching the tone of the song and setting the mood for the night.
Lola was so entranced with the song that she barely noticed the fact that she was holding hands with Dean. He was closer to her, too. It felt nice, though.
“Lola?”
She kept her eyes trained on the strings of the guitar being plucked expertly, but paid attention to Dean’s words. “Hmm?”
There was no response.
“Dean?” She looked to her left, but there was nobody there. Venice Beach was deserted and there was no more music. It had gotten colder, too. The ocean was barely moving and there was no wind. Everything was just bleak and cold.
“Hello?!” she shouted, hugging her body as she shivered.
“My, you sure are something.”
Lola jumped and turned to see a man dressed up in a business suit, looking far too formal for Venice Beach. “Who are you? Where did everybody go?”
“I never thought it could be this easy to get into your mind, but you are really vulnerable. I don’t really know how you came to be one half of the team to bring the gift back,” he explained, slowly walking towards her.
“The gift…” murmured Lola. “You know about it?”
“Of course I do.” He lifted his right palm, showing off a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt. “See?”
“What is that?”
“It’s my imprint.”
Lola’s heart stopped. She didn’t know this person. He was making these claims that he could get into her mind, but she didn’t remember any other times. She tried to think back and only came up with a blank space. She thought she had told Dean about something weird that had happened earlier that day, but it was erased too. Everything that they had talked about on the swing was erased.
Where were her memories going?
“What are you doing to me?” she asked.
“I’m simply preparing you for what is to come.” He folded his hands together. “You and Dean are going to change things.”
“Change things? How? What are you talking about?!” exclaimed Lola, getting annoyed with his cryptic responses.
“Lola? Lola! Wake up!”
The man smiled and waved his fingers before disappearing into thin air, leaving Lola alone in the cold. She blinked and gasped, feeling a brush of warm air and an enormous amount of noise filling her ears.
Dean was standing in front of her, grasping her shoulders. They weren’t with the guitar player anymore. In fact, he was gone. They were all alone standing in the same spot as before. He looked worried.
“Lola, are you okay?” he asked.
“What happened?” Lola looked around. Nobody was looking at her strangely, but she felt strange herself. She felt like she had just woken up from a long sleep.
“Your eyes were closed and I kept trying to talk to you, but you wouldn’t say or do anything. I couldn’t hear any thoughts, either. I got scared,” he explained.
Lola quickly remembered the illusion and knew she had to tell Dean before it disappeared from her memories again. “There was a man and he was telling me that you and I were going to change things. Since we brought the gift back, we were going to change things.”
“What do you mean? What are we changing?” asked Dean, furrowing his brows in confusion.
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell.” She stared at her vacant palm. “He had an imprint.”
Dean let go of her shoulders and stared at her incredulously for a few moments. “An imprint? He was a Manifester?”
Lola nodded. “Yeah.”
“Which one? What did it look like?” he asked softly.
“It was a lightning bolt. Why?”
Dean looked away, his skin turning pale as if he had seen a ghost. “Shit.”
Lola grabbed his hand, trying to get him to look at her. “What? What is it?”
He looked at her, his face determined and angry. “We have to see my parents. Right now.”
12
“His name is Leo,” explained Frankie, looking through the bookcase in the library later that evening.
When Lola had entered the library door, she had expected something small. Instead, she came face-to-face with multiple tall shelves holding what seemed like millions of books. There was a bay window that showed the beach outside, an antique Persian rug, and even a baby piano in the corner.
“He made such a show about never wanting to have the first sight,” started Frankie. He sat down at the piano bench. “Then, he actually experienced it.”
“With whom?”
Frankie flipped through a few pages in a leather photo album and handed the book to Lola, pointing at a photograph of a young woman with blond hair and blue eyes. She looked very pretty as she smiled in front of a fireplace. “Her name was Beverly Johnson. She was a human, just like you. Leo met her by accident in the park in New York. They accidentally bumped into each other and their eyes met.”
“Sounds really typical,” said Lola, shrugging.
“They were attached at the hip and it completely changed Leo’s point of view when it came to the first sight,” said Frankie. He flipped the page to reveal a photo of Leo and Beverly together.
Lola furrowed her brows at the photograph. “Was this a wedding?”
Frankie nodded. “They got married about a year after they met. Her imprint turned out to be a flower. She could make any plant or seed bloom in record time. It matched her beauty of the world.”
“Leo’s imprint was the lightning bolt. Why is it so rare?” asked Lola.
Dean looked through the shelves as his father continued talking. “The lightning bolt imprint is so rare because nobody else has ever had it before. Leo’s the only one. We weren’t sure at first what the imprint meant. He could do just about anything. We figured he could basically borrow any other imprint. Then, things started to change.”
“Change?”
“He started to become angry as each day passed,” started Frankie, sighing. “His days grew darker and he became pretty psychotic. It became obvious that his imprint was controlling him. It was taking over his body, mind, and soul. Beverly did the unthinkable when it became too much and she attempted to leave him.” He paused somberly. “But, when she tried to leave, he got angry and his imprint burst from his hand. He created a fire in his house and everything inside burned. Including Beverly.”
Lola gasped and looked at Frankie in shock. “He killed her?”
“Some believe it was a mistake. But it’s the imprint. Nobody else has had it before. It controls you. There is no way for the person to control it. It’s pretty much a death sentence to any relationship,” explained Frankie.
“But, how did he survive without her? They had the gift for a while. Can it still go away?” asked Lola.
Frankie nodded. “It’s still possible, but it’s rare for soul mates to part with each other after spending so much time together. They are meant to be together. With Leo, it just went away but he was so controlled by the imprint that it stayed with him.”
Dean sat next to Lola with a worn, leather book. The pages had been worn down along with the spine. He pointed to an open page that featured the lightning bolt imprint. “It puts everyone in fear once somebody sees it.”
“What happens if somebody gets the imprint?” asked Lola.
Frankie chewed on his bottom lip. “Our speaker of the family, Matthew Baker, has said that if anybody else were to get that imprint then there will be an execution. Nobody wants to risk it happening again. So, according to Matthew, extreme precautions need to be taken.”
“You mean, they would kill?” Lola shook her head. “That’s immoral, though.”
“The speaker controls the laws in our family,” ended Frankie. He watched Lola
carefully. “What is it? What are you thinking, Lola?”
“What if I get that imprint?” asked Lola, looking at the two. “I mean, we don’t know what imprints we could get. I don’t want to get the lightning bolt.”
Dean held her face in between his hands, causing their gaze to meet. “Lola, stop it. You aren’t going to get that imprint, okay? You are meant for greater things.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” said Dean. He smiled at her. “You are a good girl.”
Frankie smiled at the couple and stood up from his seat. “I think your mother and I are going to contact some family members. We haven’t spoken to Shelia in years.”
Lola watched Frankie leave the room, leaving her and Dean alone. “Who is Shelia?”
Dean shrugged nonchalantly. “She’s an aunt I’ve only ever talked to twice.”
“Oh.” Lola nodded. She looked over at the piano and smiled at Dean, nudging his knee. “Can you play something for me?”
“What do you want to hear?” he asked, walking over to the piano and sitting down.
Lola sat next to him. “Surprise me.”
Dean stared at the keys before beginning to play a soothing melody. As Lola listened to the tune, she immediately recognized what song he was playing for her.
She scoffed lightly in surprise. “‘Truly, Madly, Deeply?’ Savage Garden? How did you know that was one of my favorites?”
He shrugged, but kept playing with a crooked smile. “Lucky guess.”
Lola sighed as she relaxed without stress resting on her shoulders, listening to the soothing melody from her soul mate’s fingers.
Frankie waited on the other end of the line as his Skype beeped, sending a call to Matthew. He didn’t care what time it was over in Paris. Things had just gotten worse and he couldn’t keep lying to his son when so much was at stake.
Matthew’s face appeared on the screen. Surprisingly, he was still in his suit and he was in his office. “Frankie Baker. So wonderful to see you!”
“Yeah. We have a problem,” he murmured.
Matthew furrowed his brows, taken aback by his tone. “What is it?”
“Dean’s soul mate, Lola, has experienced an illusion. There was a man and he told her he was invading her mind. Apparently, he is a Manifester and he has the lightning bolt imprint.” Frankie paused and glared at Matthew. “You know exactly who I am talking about.”
The two men were silent as Matthew took in the news with a shocked, yet sober look on his face. It was definitely unexpected, but Frankie knew he had to be informed of this.
“I can’t keep this secret from Dean anymore,” said Frankie. “He needs to know.”
Matthew shook his head. “No.”
Dean walked back into the house later that evening after dropping off Lola at her house. After he had played the piano for her, he had been tempted to kiss her. But, since it had only been a first date and there was so much going on with his world at the moment, he felt it wasn’t exactly the right moment.
He walked down the hallway towards the stairs and stopped when he heard his name coming from his father’s study.
“I can’t keep this secret from Dean anymore,” said his father. “He needs to know.”
Dean peeked through the crack of the doorway. Matthew, the speaker, was on the laptop.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Matthew…”
“He isn’t ready to know, Frankie. This is something big and he is far too young,” explained Matthew.
“He is my son, Matthew. He is eighteen years old. He deserves to know that he is supposed to lead our species in this war you have planned,” said Frankie, his voice taking on an angry tone.
Dean’s foot caught against the door as he reacted to the news, causing both Matthew and Frankie to look at him in surprise. All three men were silent as the air grew thick with tension.
Frankie closed his laptop, ending the video call. He stared at his son, feeling lost for words. “Dean…”
Dean’s brows furrowed with anger as he stared at his father. “Are you fucking kidding me, dad?! I’m supposed to lead us in a war?! Why are we even going to war?!”
Frankie stood up from his chair and put his hands up in defense. “Dean, I know this is hard to take in. But, we can’t change this.”
“Why does it have to be me?!” demanded Dean.
His heart was pounding as his anger grew. He didn’t want to lead his species in some battle that seemed completely unnecessary. Why were they going to war in the first place?
“You should sit down,” said his father, sitting down on the couch next to his desk.
“No, I’ll stand.”
It was silent and tense until Frankie decided to break the silence and come clean.
“When your mother and I met, we were completely different. She was not a Manifester,” he started.
“She was human?” asked Dean. He didn’t know that much about his mother’s life before she met his dad.
Frankie shook his head. “No. She was a Reader.”
Dean furrowed his brows. “A Reader? What is that”
“Before we met, your mom was a part of a species called the Readers. They have psychic abilities and they can see things even when they are not present to see it in person. Is any of this making sense?”
Dean shook his head. “No.”
“You know how your mom’s imprint allows her to see things without you knowing?” he asked.
“Yeah. Like, she has eyes in the back of her head?”
Frankie nodded. “She has that imprint because of her past life. We still don’t know how it happened. But, when we met, she chose to stay with me. In doing that, it caused the Readers to lose their abilities. They became normal humans while your mother still kept her powers.”
“How is that possible, though?” asked Dean, confused.
“Your mother was their leader,” said Frankie. “Because she was who she was, her race lost the gift. Combining different supernatural races can be very risky.”
Dean looked away from his father, feeling like he was talking to stranger. His parents had been keeping so many secrets from him. What else were they hiding?
“So, why am I in this? Why do I need to lead a war? Why are we going to war?” asked Dean, his heart beating faster.
“Dean?”
He knew that Lola could hear his thoughts racing. “I’ll tell you later.”
“The Readers have been threatening us with war ever since the gift was lost. Matthew had it always set in his mind that, if the gift were ever to come back, then we would go to war. Whoever brought back the gift would lead our race in that war,” explained Frankie, looking away with shame.
Dean rubbed his head vigorously. “I can’t… I can’t lead us in a war. I’m only a teenager.”
“Nothing is set in stone,” said Frankie, standing up and walking over to his son. “We’re trying to convince Matthew…”
Dean backed away from his father. “You can’t convince Matthew to do anything, dad! He is the speaker, for God’s sake! He won’t change his mind and you and I both know that.”
Frankie stayed quiet.
Dean shook his head. “I can’t believe you and mom would keep this from me.”
He walked away and went out the back door, slamming it shut behind him. He gripped the porch railing tightly and dipped his head down, angry tears running down his cheeks.
He couldn’t lead his race in some war. He had just found his soul mate and she was finally accepting him. To be told that he had to go to war was like being sentenced to death.
“Why did you tell him?” demanded Matthew, pounding his fist on his desk.
After being abruptly cut off, Frankie had called back Matthew to inform him that Dean knew everything. Matthew had expected Dean to be angry, but he didn’t expect complete disgust towards the idea of having the opportunity to be a leader.
Frankie sighed. “I had to tell him. He is my son.”
&
nbsp; “He has no choice. You know that, right?” reminded Matthew.
“We don’t have to go to war,” murmured Frankie.
Matthew chuckled dryly. “They are going to war with us. I didn’t start this. But, I will do all that I can to protect our race. It’s my job to protect.”
“Matthew, he is too young for this. I beg you to reconsider,” said Frankie, clasping his hands together.
“Dean is an adult. He is eighteen. He brought the gift back and leading our race to victory rests in his hands now. I can’t take this back.” Matthew paused and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
He shut the computer down before anything else could be said and sighed. He looked up at his brother and shook his head. “You can’t do this.”
His brother shook his head. “I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m simply preparing them.”
Matthew stood up from his seat and walked towards his brother. “Leo, you are exposing your imprint. I spared your life because you proved to me you can change. You won’t let it control you. But…”
“You think I can’t control it?” asked Leo, cocking a brow. “Do you doubt me?”
Matthew sighed. “I’m not saying I doubt you. I just don’t want you to have any blood on your hands again.”
Leo held up his hands and wiggled his fingers, his imprint glimmering against the lights in the office. “Blood free.”
13
“Have you decided to speak to Freddie?” asked Lola the next day, sitting with Jessica outside on the quad for lunch.
She hadn’t heard from Dean in a few hours and it kind of worried her. He still hadn’t told her what had happened last night. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. But, she wasn’t going to force him to talk about it. She would let him tell her on her own time.
Jessica still hadn’t spoken to Freddie and it bothered Lola. She had a feeling that Jessica was scared to talk to him. She never believed in soul mates. She believed in hooking up. To her, forever meant nothing for relationships. Forever meant something when it came to Lola and her friendship.
Anything else? No.
Jessica shrugged as she picked at her food. “I don’t know.”
“He’s a nice guy. But, he is hurting. I’m sure you are too.”
