Bullets. The word came again as she bent down to pick up a flattened copper shell.
“Haileigh!” Her sister’s name ripped through her throat when all impossibility was ruled out by the sight of the weightless metal in her hand. This was very real. “Haileigh!”
How could this have happened? Why? A billion questions and worries blew around her mind like a blizzard as she desperately waited for her sister’s voice to call back. Lee had to be safe. She had to! Lotus’s heart was racing like the rhythm of a hummingbird’s wings as she made the immediate decision to find her sister. But no matter how quickly she sprinted for the staircase, Lotus still felt as if she were running through molasses.
Had someone broken in to rob their things and Lee tried to stop them? If so then why was nothing taken? Lotus swallowed hard as a second probability penetrated her mind. What if Lee was taken? Immediately Lotus tried to comfort herself by thinking that there would be no reason to kidnap her. Lotus was more valuable, right? Lee had been out of the loop for years while Lotus had been making money… right?
“Haileigh!” Lotus called once more as she landed at the top of the stairs.
At the sight of Lee’s bedroom door kicked in, the possibility of her sister being abducted seemed more real. Lotus’s stomach did a flip as the back of her throat became itchy and swell up to her eyes. She had just gotten Haileigh back into her life. How could someone take her away so soon? Why?! How could someone be so cruel and steal the one thing from her that made her feel alive?
“Hails?” Lotus’s voice was now a whimper. Her hands had begun to tremble as she approached the broken door. Inch by inch, the hallway seemed to lengthen before her as she shuffled to the door. Lotus wasn’t sure what to expect, but the smell of blood indicated what lay inside before she could see anything.
A scream stopped itself in the back of Lotus’s throat when she caught sight of the numbers and letters written on the wall in blood. Suddenly all the questions that had been tumbling around her mind ceased to exist as the bloody image became the one thing to petrify her. She couldn’t even see the mess of shrapnel littering the floor nor wonder why the light scent on charred wood lingered in the air. The only thing that she could comprehend was the blood painting before her. Lotus wasn’t sure how long she stood there staring horrorstruck before she finally recognized what she was looking at.
It was the address to the film studio at the base of the mountain. Instantly, it made sense to her. Lee was kidnapped so she could be used as a ransom for the money Lotus did have. Before she could reevaluate her assumption, or even wonder who would be wicked enough to kidnap her sister, Lotus had whipped out her phone and pressed it squarely to her ear.
Kasper picked up on the first ring. “Hey, Lo-”
“Haileigh’s been taken.” Lotus blurted before Kasper could say much more, “I think she’s being held for ransom.” With each word she spoke, the urge to cry increased until a tear flooded over her eye. “I’m going to save her.”
“Stop,” Kasper exclaimed. There was so much vigor behind this one word that she could almost see him standing up from his seat. Wherever he was. “Lotus, slow down. Tell me everything.”
Lotus swiped a tear from her eye and glanced once more at the wall of blood. “There’s an address. Think it’s the address to the studio. It’s written in blood…” Her voice trailed off as the overwhelming urge to cry sprang up her throat once more. “There are bullet holes all over the house. Lee’s gone. Someone took her Kasper. I don’t… I can’t understand…”
“Listen to me,” Kasper began to say from the other end of the line. “Do not go after her. This could be dangerous. I’m on a plane. I’ll touch down in Hawaii in two hours. Do not go after her. You could be walking into a trap.”
“She’s my sister!” Lotus bellowed her voice cracking as she spoke. “You expect me to just wait around?”
“Yes!” Kasper exclaimed. “Lotus, I need you to listen to me. Do not put your life in danger as well. Stay put. Do you promise me you will stay?”
Lotus’s eyes never left the blood written over the wall. Two hours was a long time to wait for Kasper to land in Hawaii. In two hours she could have driven to Oahu and back seventy times. In her mind’s eye Lotus could see herself pulling up to the studio with a credit card in hand ready to pay all the money she had to get her sister back.
“No,” Lotus said into the phone. It was almost as if her body had acted out involuntarily. Instead of speaking the word out loud, someone with her voice said it for her.
Kasper had told her to do many things in the past. A majority of them were things Lotus never wanted to do. But in all the years she had known him, this was the first time she chose to act out on her own. “No, Kasper. I’m going to save my sister.”
Before Kasper could beg her not to, Lotus had jammed the phone into her pocket and spun on the spot. She was out the penthouse door before Kasper could even think to call her back.
~For the longest time, Ace couldn’t even remember he was. The memories of his past had overwhelmed him to the extent that he wasn’t sure if he were alive or dead. The thoughts of his father and Mr.Stelter faded from his memory so quickly it was as if he had lost them once more. They slipped from his mind like the way smoke slips through fingers. Suddenly he was utterly alone. It was as if he had had lost all recognition of friendship; as if his love had never existed. Suddenly it was utterly silent. As if voices, and laughter or even Tarillian City’s everyday hullabaloo had never made sweet music to his ears. But above all, it was dark. Dark beyond imagination.
Specks of light did not dance behind his closed eyelids like they normally would. No, this was the darkness that suffocated. It intoxicated the air he breathed and cocooned around his skin, caging him so tightly it was a struggle to breathe. It was the kind of darkness that would extinguish fires, or continue to blind him even if the sun were an arm’s length away. Alone, the overwhelming darkness was enough to set the stage for his next several moments. But it was the combination of dark, and quiet, and isolation that allowed his mind to be tormented in the most relentless way he had ever experienced.
That was the pain Ithaca had warned him about before he took the element. But pain had been such an inaccurate word to describe him in that moment. Even if she had used a word more meaningful, it wouldn’t have captured an ounce of what he was feeling. Physically he was broken beyond repair. Emotionally, he was lost in a place that didn’t exist.
“Ace.”
When the voice came to him, it shattered every fiber that had concealed him. Instantly the overwhelming darkness that had chained him into isolation was broken. He awoke with the sudden relief as if nothing had ever been taken from him. He was alive and he knew who he was. Mason Diachi. He remembered it all, even the things he had forgotten. Even the voice that called is name and ended his suffocation was familiar.
Ace sat up knowing full well that he was in a cave on an island. He remembered everything; including the memory of the man who called his name. But he was supposed to be dead.
Ace turned his head slowly. As he panned the empty cave, his vision finally came into collision with a familiar man standing in the darkest part of the cave.
“Shadow?” Ace called out in a quiver as he blinked multiple times to make sure what he was seeing wasn’t a mirage.
It would have been a lie to say that he looked exactly the same as the last time Ace had seen him. His entire ambiance was still the same; dark, fare skinned and tall enough to knock his head on a doorframe. As Ace stared at him, Shadow hid his long white fingers in the dark denim of his skinny jeans. His pitch black hair flung carelessly to the side and fell over his forehead so that it skimmed his brow. A brow that had once been pierced. The gauges in his ears were now closed up as if they had never been touched. His black eyes seemed so gentle without the ring of liner around them…
“Shadow?” Ace called once more. It was still a struggle to wrap his mind around what he was seeing. “I thought yo
u were…”
Shadow smiled. It was a smile that lit up his entire face and brought out the dimple in his smooth cheek. “You thought I was dead? Well, aren’t you in for a mindblower, then! Are you ready?” Shadow cleared his throat and leaned in toward Ace without leaving the darkness of the cave wall. His voice fell into a soft whisper and he continued to smile at Ace as he said, “You see Ace, I’ve never really been alive. My name is Shadow. And that’s exactly what I am.”
Ace stared at him in bewilderment. “How…?” He was dreaming. That must be the case. There is no other way he could be speaking to or listening to his dead friend.
“No questions!” Shadow exclaimed holding up a finger to silence Ace. “We haven’t got time. Lee needs you.”
Ace’s eyes widened at the sound of her name. His heart longed to hold her as he remembered what had happened earlier that morning. “Where is she-?” When Ace looked back at the dark cave wall, Shadow was gone as the last of Ace’s voice calling out to him faded into a faint echo inside the cave.
Ace staggered to his feet, not noticing how weak he was until he stumbled out the cave. When he cast his eyes up into the sky, he was amazed to see that the sun had only fallen a few inches back to the horizon. Either the element had worked on him quicker than Ithaca had anticipated or he had been unconscious for over a day. Consuming the element had taken a lot out of him. But even though he had just had a conversation with a dead man, and had is memories restored, the only thing on his mind was Lee. With whatever ounce of strength he had left, Ace willed himself off the island.
As the world spun around him, Ace felt as if a force had sucked all the air from his lungs. When he handed back down in the Stelter penthouse, his weak knees sent him face down on the carpet. A tunnel was beginning to swim around his vision as the carpet scratched his cheek with each of his desperate breaths. Ace wasn’t sure what room he landed in, or if he was able to muster the energy to get him where he wanted. Either way, he knew he couldn’t stand up without a lung full of air.
It was times like these Ace was grateful to be a supernatural. With a single breath, he knew he was laying on Lee’s bedroom floor. It smelt exactly like her; honey-lemon, soap, and cotton. But with his single breath, Ace also picked up the salty metallic scent of something else that belonged to her. Instantly his eyes weren’t so foggy. When he craned his neck upward, he was staring at the wall with an address written in her blood.
A wave of fury ignited within his core as his fists clenched beside him. He didn’t even know where the location was. All he knew was that whoever hurt her was going to get a taste of him.
Ithaca. Of course. Who else would want to sabotage the Stelters?
He read the address several times as his mind went off wondering where Ithaca could be. That’s when he remembered Ithaca’s cell phone was sitting in his front pocket. Furiously he whipped it out and his rage built as he angrily tried to remember how to find the contact list in the phone. It wasn’t hard to find her name and when he called, Ithaca picked up on the second ring.
“Hello?” she answered skeptically.
“Ithaca, where is she?” Ace growled through gritted teeth.
“Oh, Mace! I had forgotten I gave you this phone.” She said and Ace could almost see her wicked smile. “How are you awake so early? You were only gone for about three hours.”
“Where is she Ithaca?” Ace bellowed once more. His free hand had clenched into a fist so tightly his nails were digging into his palms.
“Ohh…” Ithaca groaned. This time her tone wasn’t sarcastic or fierce as it usually was. For the first time since Ace had met her, she seemed lost.
“Well…” She began slowly, “to be honest, I wasn’t planning on you waking up so soon. This throws a wrench in my plan. Do you see what I mean?”
“Ithaca,” Ace began again. His voice had almost grown so cold he was nearly hissing at her. “Where is Lee?”
The other end of the phone went silent for a while. He knew she was thinking about something. She was probably straining her thoughts for a plan B when finally Ace heard Ithaca snap her fingers from the other end of the line.
“Well, you see Ace,” Ithaca began again. This time she was more confident in her speech. “I was going to kill her-”
“Ithaca!” Ace hissed, his anger had now boiled into hot rage, “I swear if you touch her-”
“I won’t,” Ithaca interrupted with the same amount of venom Ace had used in is words. “as long as I have your allegiance.”
“What?” Ace asked as his brow went up involuntarily.
“I need you Mason. I can’t exactly move forward without you actually. I mean, I need a Diachi to claim back the corporate throne and unfortunately I am not of your blood.” Ithaca went on, “You see, I had hoped that after your baby Stelter was out of the way, you would have nowhere to go but to join me. But you see there’s an issue with that plan.” Ithaca hesitated to make sure Ace was following. “I wouldn’t have your loyalty and you wouldn’t have my trust. It occurred to me now that instead of using the love of your life against you… well technically I’d still be using her against you. But instead of killing her so that you would join me, I’ll make you a deal.”
Ace swallowed hard. So many thoughts ran through his mind as he pressed the cell phone closer and closer to his ear with each one of her words. “I’m listening.”
He could hear Ithaca’s victorious smile as she said the next words, “I swear to you Mason Diachi that I will let her go. I will not touch her. I will not touch her family. I guarantee that I will have no involvement on any damage that may come unto her from this moment… on one condition.”
Ace inhaled deeply. He hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath his vision started to tunnel. “On the condition that you have me.” He finished, “That you have my loyalty and that you can trust me.”
“Exactly.” Ithaca grinned. “Do we have a deal Mason?”
It was now Ace’s turn to stop and think. No. He wanted to say it. No, no, NO! But the word choked on the back of his throat. How could he promise to be loyal to the woman that ruined his life in more ways than one? How could he possibly sell his soul to her so that she could only continue to peruse her villainess ways? She was going to have Lee killed while he was asleep in a forsaken cave. How low, how wicked, how all around evil was this woman? That was just a taste of some of the criminal things she was capable of. He could not pledge his life for her disposal. There was no way. No.
“Yes.” His voice cracked after what seemed like an eternity of contemplating. His already dry throat seemed to be growing rawer as a burning sensation rose up to the back of his eyes. “Ithaca, if you let her go…” His voice was cracking now and though his eyes were burning, he could not shed a tear. “Then I promise you, you will never doubt my allegiance.”
Only a moment of silence separated Ace’s words from Ithaca’s vibrant cackle. “Oh goodness me. I am having the greatest day of my life!”
“I don’t care about you Ithaca. Lee goes free this instant.”
“Oh, poo, can’t I enjoy myself for even a moment?” She frowned, “Fine, whatever. After I’m done doing whatever it is that I’m doing here, I want you to meet us at the airport. We’re going back to Tarrillian City.”
“And Lee?” Ace growled.
“I’m telling one of my guys to let her go right now.” Ithaca replied casually.
“No.” Ace cut in.
Ithaca scoffed, “No? Well if you want her to die, I can arrange that right now.”
“You promised me Ithaca,” Ace growled, “I will get her from you and I am going to take her somewhere safe. Where is she?”
Ithaca chuckled once more, “What you don’t trust me?”
Ace didn’t feel like pondering the extent of Ithaca’s trustworthiness. “Where is she?” he spoke slowly and coldly so for once Ithaca could take him seriously.
“She’s with me.” Ithaca replied a little surprised at the tone of Ace’s words. “I’m
looking at her right now. She’s got a little something over her mouth so she can’t talk right now. You know it would be really inconvenient for you to come get her. You don’t even know where we are and I’m supposed to be putting on a show in… five minutes ago.”
Ace had had enough of her delaying. He had no idea his voice was even capable of speaking with so much hatred, but he managed to growl out his next words. “I will ask you one last time Ithaca. Where is Lee?”
He could hear the rush of wind escape her mouth from the other end of the phone as Ithaca sighed. “You know, it kinda turns me on to hear you so cold.” She said before repeating the address written on the wall in blood. “There’s a chain of filming studios at the base of a valley outside Honolulu. I’ll have August stand outside and keep an eye out for you. Is there anything else I can do for you Mason?”
No, there was nothing more that Ace wanted. The phone was back in his pocket in no time without a farewell address to Ithaca. He wasn’t sure what valley Ithaca was talking about, but if he kept looking, sooner or later he would find it.
Once more the blood stained wall and smell of honey-lemon was swirling around him as he willed himself off Heleow. As the scene vanished before his eyes, there was only room enough for one thought in his mind; saving Lee. If he dared to think about the commitment he had just made with Ithaca, then he would be doomed to imagine the pain it would cause Lee to know about what he had done.
Chapter 14 A Love Without A Story
~Nothing had changed from the fancy hotel room since Larissa vanished. The white sheets were still a rumpled mess as well as the assortment of Cassie’s dirty laundry scattered all over the un-vacuumed carpet. Even the curtains along the other end of the room hung half open as if someone had been too lazy to close them all the way. From where Larissa stood in the doorway, the sliver of a bathroom light poked through the half open door along with the stench of Cassie’s fried hair permanently stitched into the bathroom odor.
The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural Page 38
