Frantic with fear, I pull on shoes and a sweatshirt and attempt to repack everything we’ve dumped out. “We can’t keep carrying all this stuff around with us.”
He eyes me warily, tying his shoe. “Are you suggesting we leave it here?”
“Not everything. We’ll condense.” A change of clothes, my cosmetic bag, and a brush go in his backpack, along with everything of his that fits. Kye pulls on his hoodie and takes the pack as we hear a loud splintering of wood, followed by shouting in the next room.
“Time to go,” I squeak.
Silently, Kye pulls open the outer door and we run. Down the hall, around the corner, and into the elevator. As the doors close, I catch a glimpse of Juri storming toward us, his eyes darting from room to room. Boone isn’t far behind him. I’m not sure if they’ve seen us, but the elevator engine whines as it moves. That’s probably all they need at this time of morning.
My chest constricts, feeling heavy, and my eyes blur. I squeeze Kye’s hand. “Oh no. Not now.” The elevator walls close in on me.
Kye crouches in a corner as the demons advance on him. The creatures are at least eight feet tall with smoky black skin and eyes filled with heat. Fire shoots from their fingertips as they close in on Kye, but he never backs down, never lets on that he’s afraid. “Run, Abby!” he yells, searing me with a piercing look. But I don’t run. I stand frozen and watch the demons consume him in a funnel of flames.
I come to, doubled over, my heart beating so fast I can’t catch my breath. “Kye ...”
He grabs me around the waist and holds me up. “Big breath. Come on now, we have to run.”
I’m swaying. “Can’t.”
“Yes you can. Come on, babe, let’s go.” The elevator dings and the doors open to the empty lobby. Kye tows me behind him, his head swinging back and forth as he looks everywhere at once. We sprint down the stairs to the ground level and burst outside into the chilly air. I’m suddenly very aware that I’m wearing shorts.
Footsteps echo behind us and we take off down the street, running. Several blocks later, we slow. I’m panting, out of breath. “Kye, I can’t keep going like this. Can’t we take a cab?”
“To where?”
“Away,” I say. “To wherever we’re going.” His eyes travel my length—my shorts, shoes with no socks, goose bumps up and down my legs, and me bent over holding my ribs—and he tries to hail a cab. Footsteps pound the ground behind us. I turn to look behind us and almost trip over my own feet. Juri’s running fast, despite his stubby legs. Boone’s in front of him. They’re closing the distance rapidly.
Someone has propped open the entrance to a coffee shop and we dash through, dodging early morning customers, then out a door on the other side. Finally, a cab at the curb. Kye throws open the door and we dive in, shouting, “Go!”
The car moves at the pace of a snail. “Um, excuse me,” I say. “We’re kind of in a hurry here.” Juri and Boone are now standing on the corner, looking for us.
We both slide down in the seat as the driver merges into traffic and we’re swallowed in the sea of vehicles. We’ve lost them.
For now.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Strawberry Pancakes
Since our flight doesn’t board until after midnight, we have the driver drop us off in front of a museum on the east side of town. There’s a statue of a man riding a horse, and large stone pillars that look like they’re holding up the arched roof. The building looks familiar.
“Isn’t this the museum from that movie?” I ask. “The one about the displays that come alive at night?”
Kye laughs. “Yeah, I think it is. Shall we go in?”
“It’s closed.”
He shrugs. “Can’t hurt to try.”
The morning chill raises goose bumps on my bare legs and has me shivering. “We should find somewhere to change.”
“If we can get in, the museum will have restrooms.” Kye wraps his arms around me to keep me warm.
“The question is how long we’ll have to wait to go inside.” I don’t relish the idea of hanging out in this cold for hours. Especially in my pajamas.
We find an unlocked service door and sneak into the lobby where dinosaur bones tower over us. Four arched hallways branch off the main room, each labeled with a different section heading.
A janitor sweeps by on an electric buffer. When he sees us, he frowns and shuts off the motor. “How’d you get in here? Museum doesn’t open until ten.” He points to a clock on the wall. It’s 7:23. I swallow, shivering again.
“We know,” Kye says. “Could we please use the restroom? We’ll hurry.” The man hesitates, but doesn’t immediately say no, so Kye continues, “Come on, man. It’s freezing outside. Ten minutes and we’ll be out of your way. You won’t even know we were here.”
The janitor’s gaze sweeps us up and down, taking in our rumpled appearance. “You two homeless? Runaways?”
I shake my head. “No.”
With a roll of his eyes, the janitor points. “Down those stairs and follow the signs. Hurry up. If my boss sees people in this building who aren’t supposed to be here, I’ll lose my job. Nothing wrong with helping people every so often, but we’re not a shelter. Understand?”
“Yes,” we agree together.
Adrenaline keeps me moving, despite the fact that I can’t stop shivering. Kye takes a few things out of his backpack before handing it to me. “Use whatever you need. I’m sorry we had to leave so much behind.”
“My fault. It’s fine.” I change into the only clothes I have—a pair of jeans and my new “I ♥ NY” T-shirt—then brush my tangled hair and wash my face. As I fold my sleepwear into the pack, my fingers brush the cosmetic bag and I decide to take two more minutes to be a girl, knowing it’ll make me feel infinitely better. Lip gloss, concealer, mascara, and the tiniest bit of eyeliner, and I feel more awake and refreshed than I have in days.
Even after the makeup, I’ve been in the restroom for less than ten minutes. “Wow,” Kye remarks. “That was fast. I’ve never met a girl who could put herself together in such a short amount of time.” He looks like he just stepped out of the shower, all fresh and pressed. His hair is combed, waving slightly on the sides, and he’s changed into slim-fit jeans and the T-shirt I bought him. He turns in a slow circle. “What do you think of my new shirt?”
I laugh. Other than the fact that my shirt is pink and his is black, we match. “It suits you.”
He brushes a kiss on my forehead and takes me in his arms. “Thanks. I love it.”
We stop for breakfast at a deli a few blocks away. The waitress brings me pancakes with strawberries, and Kye an omelet with wheat toast.
“You know, considering how people have been chasing us pretty much since the bus, I’m starting to wonder if you’re bad luck,” he says. His eyes sparkle with mirth as he laughs over a frosty glass of orange juice, and my heart swells in a way it never has before. I can deny all I want, be afraid and apprehensive and adolescent, but my heart screams.
I’ve fallen completely, absolutely, and unchangeably in love with Kye.
My throat clogs because I understand that this is it for me. The thing people spend their whole lives searching for. Maybe several lifetimes. The feeling poets write sonnets about. All the sappy love songs on the radio finally make sense. This is more than TV sitcom love, this is movie love. Storybook and fairy tale love. Except we’re writing our own story. Whatever hesitation I felt getting on the plane, whatever unease trembled up my spine when I left my mother behind, I would follow Kye anywhere. Whatever the sacrifice, I’ll make it willingly to be with him. To protect him. Us.
In this moment, he’s become my whole world. Everything that came before him pales in importance to the boy who is really a man. Warmth spreads from my heart and heats my cheeks to a bright blush as I smile into his eyes.
“What? Do I have something in my teeth?” He runs his tongue over them.
“No.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“I’m smiling at you,” I tell him. “Because you’re just so pretty.”
“Right back at ya.” His hand trails down my back until his arm is around my waist and he pulls me closer, chair and all, and leans his cheek against my head with a sigh.
My ring hums to life, drawing my attention to the softly glowing stones. Kye notices too, but his expression is hard to read. He seems bothered by it.
“Are you okay?” I press my lips to his chin.
He kisses the tip of my nose. “You know, this isn’t the first trip I’ve taken trying to protect the world from the Dark Elen.”
I scoop a forkful of his omelet and taste it. “Mm. I figured.”
“But you’re the first person to come with me. Well, besides Val. But he doesn’t really count.” He samples my pancakes before paying the bill—refusing the money I offer—and follows me outside. “Did I tell you Val taught me how to use my Gift?”
“Val? Not your parents?”
“Are you kidding? For the first half of my life, they thought the genes skipped a generation. Their abilities are so obvious.” We start down a quiet side street that is mostly devoid of foot traffic. “They sent me to live with Val, hoping he could teach me to have one of their Gifts, but it didn’t happen.
“Val had a cat. The thing started talking to me as soon as I walked through the door. A few weeks later, Val realized I was communicating with his pet and started teaching me about the Earth Guardians—you know, faeries, merpeople, animals and plant life—and that’s been my calling ever since.”
Near the entrance to Central Park, a bicyclist towing a carriage slows to a stop. “Get you a ride, kids?”
“Yes,” Kye says, drawing me aboard the carriage.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Surprise us.” Kye puts his arm around me and I lean my head on his shoulder. “Just make sure we end up in a completely different place from where we started.”
The guy grins. “Mind if I put in my earbuds? I gotta have music to keep going in the morning.”
Kye shrugs. “Sure.”
All around us, tall buildings skewer the sky above the trees like spires on a castle, enclosing the park and making it feel smaller than it really is.
When I shiver, Kye tucks me under his arm. “You cold?”
“Not like I was earlier.” I turn my face to the gray sky. “This whole thing seems so unreal, so dream-like. Do you ever get used to it?”
He kisses the top of my head. “Not really. For a long time I tried to keep my worlds separate. I had a life at school, where I was a normal guy with homework and friends. And then I’d leave campus and go to Val’s—where my other life took over. The one where I could communicate with plants and animals, and fairies and sprites sent me messages. And on top of my school work, Val had me studying a whole other curriculum. Ancient texts about communication, how to rappel, climb, scuba dive, survive in the wild ... all kinds of fun stuff.”
“Like picking locks?”
“Yep.” He grins. “Like that. About the time I turned sixteen, I realized I was attempting the impossible. I couldn’t keep up.”
“No one can live a double life forever,” I murmur.
“I came to understand that my Gifts have a purpose—that I can actually make a difference as a bridge between the natural and supernatural worlds. So, I decided to embrace my abilities and my heritage—which meant accepting that I would never be able to have certain things most people take for granted. Only now ...”
His breath is shaky. “I realize that even embracing everything else, I’ll still to have to give up the thing that has become most important to me.”
A knot of dread curls in my stomach. “What’s that?”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. He leans his head back and squeezes his eyes shut. “You don’t want to know.”
The misery in his expression makes it impossible not to believe him. “Tell me anyway.”
His eyes are tortured when he opens them. “You, Abby. Heaven save me, I’ll have to give up you.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Debt
“What are you talking about?” I untangle myself from his arms and lean back, confused. “We hadn’t met when you were sixteen.”
He swallows again, grinding his jaw, his eyes glassy. “I know. But I’ve been dreaming about you my whole life. I didn’t know who you were or how I’d ever find you, or if you were even real. Part of me thought you were just a girl in my dreams, sometimes my nightmares. I didn’t put it all together until yesterday—in the subway.” He takes my hands and I can’t tell who’s shaking more. The look in his eyes burns a hole in my heart.
“What are you saying? I don’t understand.”
“If you’re really Raina, and I’m really Theron, then we’re cursed. Something happened during the war. One of Raina’s protective spells backfired. It was meant to protect them, to save them, keep them together, but instead, it killed them. No one knows how or why, but in all the years since, none of the scholars or historians has found a way to fix it. We have about two months—three at most—as long as Raina and Theron were together before the war.”
Kye presses his fingers to his eyes. “They warned me not to get attached. They said I can’t keep you anyway, but at the time it didn’t make any sense. We hadn’t even met yet, so I had no idea how it would feel—that it would be so hard.” He scrubs his hands over his face. “Abby, I swear, I had no idea that day on the bus. I wouldn’t have put you through this on purpose. You have to believe me. Please believe me.”
His voice cracks on the last words, and my heart cracks with it. I pull his hands away from pressing against his eyes. “Kye, you’re babbling, and I still don’t understand.”
“Okay. Okay.” He threads his fingers through his hair and presses down like he’s trying to hold his head on his shoulders. Like it’s going to explode. “Theron and Raina can’t stay together. We can’t stay together.”
“Why?”
“We’ll die.”
My stomach pitches. He said this once before, and I think ... I know he’s right, feel the truth in his words. Sick dread bubbles in my gut and I experience an entirely new form of nausea. “Who tried to warn you?”
“The faeries. The sprites. The animals. Even ... even the mermaids in the river.” He looks stricken. “I was so caught up in you that I didn’t even listen to their song.”
“What were they warning you against?” I’m trying to stay calm for him, so I turn his face toward me with my palm on his neck. “Being with me? Or fighting this supposed curse?” This feels like an important detail. Something I should know.
He closes his eyes and shakes his head, his throat working.
“Has anyone ever asked the faeries—or animals or plants—for help in reversing it? Do they know what went wrong?”
He opens his eyes again. “Val wanted me to build a relationship with the elementals because he hopes Dryden will someday be restored. But before that can happen, both worlds have to be balanced. That’s what I’ve been working on for the past two years. Trying to help find balance. They know what has to be done. But, Abby, we’ve been through this—or Theron and Raina have, anyway—five or six times. It’s all documented. If the elementals could have helped with the curse before, they didn’t, so why would they now? I doubt there’s anything they can do.”
He shifts in his seat, pulling me into his lap, seeming to calm a little with the contact. “The thing is, despite all the warnings, even if I’d known, I wouldn’t have stopped myself from falling in love with you.”
My heart skips and my blood warms. “You love me?”
The sound he makes falls somewhere between a whimper and a choke. “Abby, I love you so much my heart wants to explode with it. I want to touch you all the time, and hold you, and ... just ... be with you. I want—”
My arms wind around him and my lips cut off his words. I kiss him until my heart feels like it could beat out of my chest and i
nto his. Until we melt together like we’re one person, until the energy surrounding us turns a perfect pale lavender that glows through my closed eyelids. Our lips and tongues tangle together, creating a taste sweeter than anything I’ve experienced and completely, uniquely ours. His arms slide up my back until his fingers tangle in my hair and send shockwaves of happiness down to my toes. My fingers stroke the short hair at the nape of his neck while I kiss him like we’re the only two people in the universe who have ever truly loved—because in that moment, we are.
My heart is his. Irrevocably.
By the time we break apart, my face is flushed and my skin tingles, and I don’t care about curses and demons and death. Right now, what matters most to me is that I’ve found the boy in my dreams, and I finally understand why I’ve always needed him. Holding his face between my hands, I tell him, “I love you too. Whatever happens, I’ll love you until the day I die.”
He swears, his arms tightening around me. “This is impossible. I can’t love you the way I do, but I can’t help it. You can’t be with me here, but you are.”
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” I lean my head on his shoulder and nuzzle his neck.
“Even if it kills you?”
My eyelids flutter closed, tickling his skin with my lashes. “It won’t. We won’t let that happen. There has to be a way. There just does.”
“No.” He gently nudges me onto the seat. “No, no, no. This is like déjà vu. I told you, we’ve been through this before. A lot. It doesn’t work. And there’s something else.”
I lean back, stare at the tops of the buildings towering above the trees, then glance at the back of the guy who is pedaling so hard. A spot of sweat has soaked through the back of his shirt, even though his breath comes out in puffs of white.
“Raina died because of me.” His eyes change, filling with pent-up emotions that seem hundreds of years old. An image superimposes over his face and his voice takes on a thick Irish brogue. “I won’t let that happen this time. The world—I couldn’t survive it again.”
Descendant Page 18
