Destiny (Vanish Book Four)

by Daise, Sonny

  They hadn’t noticed us yet. I told Dante that we should go, but before we did, their eyes were on us.

  “Hey, what are you doing over there?” One of them laughed in a condescending voice.

  We didn’t answer. We started walking away before things could get ugly. I heard one of them whisper something, and then they moved closer to us. One of them got in our way and stood in front of us, waiting for us to say something.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” One of them slurred, in the most serious voice he could muster.

  “We’re just going back to our friends,” Dante said, his voice was calm.

  “No, you’re not,” the man said before he grabbed Dante. Instantly, the gun was pointed to his head.

  I couldn’t believe this; this couldn’t be happening. It was bad enough when we knew the Alliance was after us, but to stumble upon two drunken idiots with a gun—this was bad. The only thing I could process, the only thought in my mind, was that if Dante was shot, that would be the end, he couldn’t come back.

  My eyes searched the forest floor for something, anything I could use to save him. I tried not to be suspicious, but I needed to act fast. Conveniently, the tree to my left had a broken whisky bottle lying next to it. Now, I just needed to figure out how to get to it, and get back over there faster than the man could fire the gun. It was hopeless. Then I realized; the Alliance was gone. I could use my powers in front of whoever I pleased. I could imagine whatever weapon I needed, but with the situation in front of me, I figured a knife would be best. I’d never fired a gun, and Dante was way too close to the man.

  I put my hand behind my back and imagined a knife. I refocused my attention back to them; they had been arguing without me even noticing. The man holding the gun was getting angry, apparently Dante insulted him. What did he think would come of insulting the man holding a gun to his head? Then I realized; he was probably trying to distract them. I lunged forward and stabbed the man in the chest. Dante grabbed the gun before the other man could. I paid no attention to them, only the man lying on the ground covered in blood. The weaker he got, the stronger I felt.

  Before I could comprehend what was going on, Dante shot the other man, who was running at me. Dante closed his eyes, and I knew he was feeling what I felt only moments ago. That’s when I realized—we were monsters, and as long as we wanted to live, we would be. This was what we needed to do to survive. I didn’t understand it, but I knew that I would never be the same again.

  “Do you realize what’s going on here?” I asked. My expression was blank, and my voice didn’t give away what I was feeling.

  “You feel stronger too?” he assumed.

  “We need to find out more about this. We need to know if this is the only way.”

  “Those guys were creeps, Scarlett. They would have killed us, and we’ve made it this long, maybe it’s not something we’ll have to do that often.”

  “If it’s something we’ll ever have to do again, then we need to know if we have other options.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed, “but I wouldn’t let this bring you down—they wanted to kill us. It wasn’t even like before, the Alliance had a reason. I’m not saying that makes what they did right, but something tells me, we weren’t the first people that ran into those guys.”

  “You always know how to make me feel better,” I sighed.

  “Come on let’s get back before they come looking for us.”

  Chapter 5: An Unlikely Savior

  We went back to camp. Everyone was still swimming around without a care in the world. I wondered if I could ever be that way, I wondered how all of this would play out.

  Day after day, it became clearer that I was different. I wasn’t the same person I once was, and I would never be the same again. Did that mean that I would never find happiness? No, I had all that I needed here with me right now. His arms were wrapped around me as he stood behind me, watching the others. I just needed to figure out who I was—or what I needed to learn to accept it.

  We grabbed a blanket from the tent when we were sure they weren’t planning on getting out anytime soon. We lay down and faced each other. He looked better than he had in days, his skin was a little brighter; his eyes had a spark in them, and he no longer looked the least bit tired. I assumed the same applied to me, and I knew exactly why—killing was the only way we could stay strong.

  It seemed as though a soul taking over another body was specific to the Alliance—specific to evil. They had no problem killing to keep their strength. In fact, I was almost certain that it was a welcome excuse.

  The sky was starting to darken; the clouds were slowly rolling in. The sun peeked through while it still could, leaving us with a slight shimmer of light for the time being. I heard thunder in the distance, getting louder with each thud. The others didn’t notice; the waterfall was too loud, and they were too busy having fun.

  “Hey, guys, it looks like it’s going to storm. You might want to get out,” I called over to them.

  They swam to the shore and got out, but not before it started pouring. Dante and I jumped up and took our blanket into the tent.

  I hadn’t been paying much attention to everyone else. My mind was wrapped up in other things, but when Cooper ran up to our tent in a panic, I realized something was wrong.

  “Lily is missing,” he said. “I don’t know when the last time I saw her was… I don’t know how—”

  “Okay Cooper, when was the last time you remember seeing her? Even if it wasn’t the last time, it will help. Come on, think,” I urged.

  “I—I don’t know, Allison and I… we found a cave behind the waterfall…” he began, sounding embarrassed.

  I unzipped the tent and got out. I asked each person if they had seen her leave. None of them had seen a thing.

  “Okay, Dante and I will go look for her. You guys stay here in case she comes back.”

  “No, I think more people should go. We don’t all need to stay here and wait for her,” Cooper argued.

  “Okay,” I said, keeping it cool, but inside, I was panicking. If they went out there, they would find the two guys that we killed. We needed to be smart about this, and we should have hidden the bodies. “You’re right. You and Allison go that way, Annabelle, Rose, and Grace will stay here and wait for her.”

  We headed toward the spot where we were earlier. We didn’t have any time to waste, but we needed to hide the bodies. Dante was thinking the same thing; we went without a word. I imagined two deep holes. Then, I imagined one of them in each, and the holes filling with dirt. Next, I imagined a bush covering where they were buried.

  There was a bolt of lightning that lit up the area completely, and then, I heard a scream. We ran in the direction that it came from. Dante managed to get about ten feet ahead of me.

  As we got closer, I heard a cracking sound. I’d never really heard anything like it, and before I realized what it was, it was too late. I stopped running and looked up in horror as a giant tree came plunging toward the ground—toward me. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. It would be over any second.

  The next thing I knew, I was laying on the ground a few feet away from the fallen tree. Dante was on top of me. I felt a sharp pain in my arm. I looked at it, there was a huge gash. I wasn’t certain, but it looked like I could see the bone. I gasped, and Dante looked down at me.

  “What?” he asked. I raised my arm, but the gash was gone. “I don’t see anything.”

  “It’s gone,” I said, staring at my arm in awe. “There was a huge cut, but it’s gone.”

  We didn’t have much time to speculate, before Dante could say another word, there was another scream coming from the same direction. We got up, climbed over the tree, and started running again.

  The urgency of the scream made Dante pick up his pace—I was glad he did. I couldn’t keep up, and we needed to get there as fast as we could. At first, he got a few feet ahead of me, but only moments later, I could barely see him through the tre
es.

  There was another scream, it seemed to come from a different direction. In fact, it seemed to be a different matter altogether. The first scream was shrill, but this scream was blood-curdling. I didn’t know if Dante had followed the new path or had carried on searching in the direction of the first scream. I tried to follow the second. I ran blindly in what I could only hope, was the right direction.

  I tripped on a root and went tumbling to the ground. This turned out to be a good thing, however, because when I looked up, a giant fireball passed over my head.

  I looked in the direction that it came from and saw a small group of people standing in the distance. They were watching me, and one girl had a flame burning up from her fingertips—so she was the one who tried to kill me. I figured it was an accident, but I couldn’t be too careful. It was obvious that this group of people had powers, but I wondered what they were doing here.

  “Hey, is your name Scarlett?” One of the girls asked.

  “Why?” I wondered.

  They came closer, eyeing me as they walked. They had a certain look in their eyes, all the same. It wasn’t hate, or malice, but determination.

  “Because,” one of the boys said. “If you’re Scarlett, we’re going to need you to come with us.”

  “Why?” I asked again, as if it was the only word I could find.

  “Can you feel it?” Another boy said with glee, ignoring my question. “This is the beginning of something greater than we could have ever imagined.”

  “Exactly what are you talking about?” I asked.

  “If you come with us, the new Alliance can’t turn us down.”

  “Oh gee, that is so very generous of you. But if I am Scarlett, and if you knew anything about Scarlett, you would know I took down the Alliance. Also, if you really wanted me to join you, I don’t think you would have just tried to kill me.”

  “You took them down to make room for bigger and better things. Those fools could never execute any of their plans. The people behind them—brilliant, but the Alliance we’ve all come to know, not so much.”

  “Well, I’m not Scarlett, sorry,” I shrugged.

  “That’s a lie,” a girl in the back chimed in.

  “We’re lucky we have you Mel, our little human lie detector.”

  They all turned around to praise Mel for her fine work, but they made a mistake. They left me with a very small window of time to escape, and I took it.

  I ran through the trees getting whipped in the face by branches. The speed I was running at was incredible. It made it hurt that much worse, when someone grabbed on to me and dragged me aside. I felt like I had whiplash, and it was like the world was spinning underneath me. I looked up at the face of my captor. I’d know him anywhere—Skylar.

  “Let me go,” I demanded.

  “Shh, they’ll find us,” he warned.

  “Why are you helping me? If that’s even what you’re really up to.”

  “I have my reasons; you may think of me as evil, but not everything is categorized so easily.”

  “You are evil, pure evil,” I spat.

  “I could say the same about you. Is that blood on your shirt fresh?”

  “You have no idea, so before you go—”

  “Precisely what I was trying to get across to you. You can’t just go judging people based on the one time that you’ve met them, right?”

  “Well, I guess not, not usually anyway, but with you, I think I’ll make an exception.”

  “Fine, do what you want,” he said, “but I think you’re going to be needing my help very soon.”

  “And how will you help me?” I asked.

  “There are a lot of ways that I could help you,” he began, “there are lots of things you don’t know.”

  “Like what?”

  “How to make your energy last longer. You have figured out what you need to do to survive, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” I sighed.

  “Have you ever thought that maybe there isn’t just one way that life is supposed to go?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “No—I don’t know.”

  “I mean, a lot of people know that if you can share your powers with someone else, you’re probably meant for each other, but I don’t believe that’s always the case.”

  “I’m not going to sit here and chat with you; I need to find Dante.”

  I ran out from behind the trees, running in the same direction that I began running in. There was no doubt that Dante was looking for me. I didn’t want him to run into the group that I had just had the pleasure of meeting. I heard someone scream, but it wasn’t a scared scream, no, it was more of a ‘hey look over here’ scream, and I did.

  When I looked, I saw one of the girls from the group with a strange-looking knife in her hand. The handle looked as if it was made of glass. The girl smiled and in one swift motion, flung the knife in my direction. It came hurling at me, spinning around in circles as it made its way to its destination. I stood there frozen.

  If I couldn’t move, it looked like it would hit me right between the eyes. Then, something blocked my vision; it was someone’s hand. I heard a ripping sound as the knife met the hand, and tore through the flesh right through to the other side where I could see. The handle filled up with a blue liquid that started to glow.

  I looked up to the face of my savior. I was expecting Dante, but what I saw instead, was Skylar. He took the knife out of his hand and stashed it away in his pocket. Then, he started dragging me away.

  “Now do you believe that I want to help you?” he said as he grimaced with pain.

  “I do,” I concluded; I sounded confident, sure. “I just don’t know why.”

  “There are a lot of reasons, not all of them can be explained right now,” he said as he grabbed the blade from his pocket.

  “I’ve never seen a knife like that,” I said, making conversation.

  “You haven’t?” he laughed, amused. “Well, I have a feeling you’ll be seeing a lot more of these.”

  He grabbed the blade right in the middle and started to twist it. He made sure to stay away from the edge. After a few twists, the blade came off, leaving the handle full of liquid exposed.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Killing two birds with one stone,” he said. “I’m really surprised you’ve never seen one. They’re for killing people and taking their powers all at once. Now, if that wasn’t enough convenience, everyone is starting to figure out that this is the best way to take what doesn’t belong to you. This is the only way that I know of to get the powers in their purest forms. That leads to more powerful people.”

  “What do you do with it?” I wondered.

  He looked down at the handle. It looked like there could have been as much as six ounces of liquid in there. When I got a closer look, I could tell the liquid was much thicker than I thought. He closed his eyes and drank it like a shot. His hand started repairing itself before my eyes, only seconds later, the wound was gone.

  “This is why you need my help; people are learning far too much about our way of life. Ways to be stronger, faster, better in every way.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit that sounds plausible, and thank you for… that. But I can’t honestly believe you have no ulterior motive in this. I don’t know if it’s innocent or evil, but I just can’t be a part of it.”

  “You are a part of it, you and everyone else that helped take down the Alliance. It doesn’t matter what strengths they have, what powers. What matters is they are all a part of this. They are all part of the evolution of our kind, and that, well, that makes them almost as desirable as you.”

  “Why? Why us? If these people want to create a new Alliance, then they can do it by themselves, and leave me out of it.”

  “Well, you don’t always get what you want, now do you?”

  “I need you to leave, if anyone else sees you, they’re going to feel threatened. They remember the past, everything.”

  ”Yeah, well, so do I,” h
e mumbled. “While not much has changed, I’m not who you think I am.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said as I turned my back to him. I looked back over, and he looked—sad. “Give me your number,” I sighed. “I will call you… if I ever need to.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He handed me the number, leaving little room on the paper for me to grab onto. He held onto it for a minute; it seemed like he was unable to let go. Finally, he did and he looked down at me with something in his eyes. They burned into mine with an intensity I didn’t have the time to focus on.

  I nodded, “now go.”

  He ran off at an incredible speed, probably another benefit of drinking his powers. I didn’t understand it, but nothing in this world seemed to make much sense. I only had to walk about fifty feet before I found Dante, and the screaming girl—Lily.

  “You found her,” I sighed with relief. “What was going on? Why was she screaming?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Look at her face; she’s in shock.”

  She stood there motionless, with her hands balled up into fists. Her eyes were open wide, but it was like she couldn’t see anything. She just sat there, staring blankly at a tree.

  “Let’s get her back to camp, I’m sure it’s nothing,” I lied.

  Though I had no idea what was wrong with Lily, in the back of my mind, I had no doubt that something had happened.

  “Where were you?” Dante squinted as he looked over at me.

  “I was—” I paused for a moment; I wasn’t sure if I wanted Dante to know the truth behind what had just happened. “I tripped,” I shrugged, and the lies kept coming.

  Chapter 6: Deceit

  We made it back to camp just as Cooper and Allison returned. Cooper was happy to see that we found Lily, but he was concerned about how she was acting.