by Sara V. Zook
My nerves were getting the best of me. I looked around the dimly lit room for something to use as a weapon. I couldn’t find anything suitable. I rushed over to the curtains and ripped them back. Nothing. My heart pounded as I walked to the other side of the room to the other window and did the same thing. Again, nothing. I flipped the light on in the bathroom, my hands trembling. No one was here.
I walked back out to the bedroom and over to the door. I turned the knob. Ben had locked me in. I covered my face with my hands and let the tears fall. I leaned my back against the door and let my body slump down to the floor. This stuck feeling was one of the worst ones I had ever experienced. I didn’t belong on Evadere. I didn’t belong on Earth. Emry was the only one I wanted to be with, and now everything was a giant mess with our relationship, with his relationship with his newly-found mother. Nothing made sense, and I felt so useless. There wasn’t one thing to concentrate on. I couldn’t help Emry. I couldn’t help figure out who had killed Raleigh, or Jillianne, or what the motive was. Everyone thought I was a threat no matter what I said. Emry didn’t, but now wasn’t a good time to be working on us.
I couldn’t do anything locked in this room. I was going to lose my sanity this way. Me alone with my thoughts was not a good thing. All I felt was self-pity. I was wallowing in it. I leaned my head against the door and closed my eyes.
Someone knocked on the door. The sudden noise startled me as I clambered away from it on my hands and knees.
Chapter 13
“Anna?”
The door opened. It was Emry. I hurried to get to my feet, the tears still streaming down my cheeks. He walked over and hugged me, his warm chest against my cheek.
“This is too much for you,” he whispered, his arms gripping me tighter. “Look how upset you are. I never wanted this for you.”
I looked up into his blue eyes, now clouded with the wreckage of a castle that was being handed over for him to take care of. He wiped away the dampness on my face with the palms of his hands.
“I don’t know what to do about this, about us,” he said. It sounded so honest, it hurt. “I have to deal with my mother who is very unstable at the moment. Ben said he’s only seen her like this one other time, when my father was killed and she had to send me to Earth.”
I understood, I really did, but I wished I didn’t. This just wasn’t working with us. He was trying to become this great king, and I had to be locked up in a room. I was just another nuisance to add to his huge list of problems. I wasn’t helping matters by being here.
“Emry,” I whispered, choking on the lump forming in my throat. “I’m so confused right now.”
“Me too, me too,” he agreed.
“But I do know that I can’t stay here anymore, not like this.”
He nodded. His hair fell forward and he instinctively pushed it away with his fingers. He avoided making eye contact with me as he pulled away.
“There are things going on here,” I continued. “Things detrimental to people’s lives. Evadere is a place on the verge of war. It’s not fair for me to wage war on you, too, which is what I feel like I’m doing.”
“No, it’s my mother …”
I took his hand and stared at his fingers. Then I looked up at him again. He was still staring at the floor. “You’ve found family. You’ve discovered who you really are. I’m so happy for you.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you. I didn’t mean to …”
“I’m not looking for you to make me feel better. The truth is, I feel horrible. I feel like I’ve caused you more problems that you should’ve had to deal with. If only I would have known and wouldn’t have tried to come here,” I said, more tears slipping from my eyes.
“No one could’ve known all this was in my future.”
“Or your past,” I added.
He grinned. “Yeah, really.”
“Emry, I’m going to leave you to deal with all of this. I don’t want to be a distraction anymore. I don’t want to keep coming between you and Atavia,” I said.
His eyebrows lowered in concern as he looked at me. I wondered if he was feeling as much pain at this moment in his gut, in his chest, in each breath he inhaled and exhaled, as I did.
“What do you want to do then?” he asked.
I bit my bottom lip. This was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to say. I had thought starting out here on Evadere that it was just me and Emry against the world, against any world. “I want you to take me back to Earth.”
“I think that’s the best thing, too,” he whispered.
Wow, I thought. He didn’t even try to stop me. This had to have been in his head before I suggested it. Did he even realize that if this happened, which it would, that I doubted I’d ever see him again? This could possibly be our very last personal conversation with each other, and he was avoiding even touching me.
“You know, maybe spend some time with Carlin. She’s probably worried sick.”
“You’ve thought about Carlin?” I asked, surprised. I had barely thought about her.
He shrugged. “Take a break from all this.” He spread his arms in the air and looked around the room. “Get to know your mother.”
“While you get to know yours,” I said, feeling as if I were going to puke.
“Yeah.”
“Get to know our mothers …” The words floated off my tongue. “And never get to know you.”
These words struck him as he shot me a glance. “You’re the one who said you wanted to go.”
“And you agreed with me,” I added.
Emry began pacing around the room the way he always did when his mind was going full throttle, his temper peaking along with his thoughts. “You want to stay here locked in this room, then fine, have at it.”
“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I’m locked up in this room,” I yelled. “You know I don’t deserve this.”
“Right. You don’t deserve any of this, which is why you need to go back to Earth. That’s the reason I agreed.”
“We don’t spend any time together. Atavia is always putting me down.” I watched him pace. I could feel the emotions bundling up within me. I didn’t want to have a fight.
“It’s not my fault, Anna. I need to be properly trained …”
“Atavia has put all of this in your head to keep us apart.”
“You don’t like her,” he accused me.
“She doesn’t like me,” I replied, my voice rising.
There was a knock on the door. Emry glared at me before opening it.
“Everything okay in here?” It was Ben.
“Fine, Ben,” Emry answered, shutting the door again and turning back to me. “I’ll take you back then.”
I closed my eyes for a few moments trying to block out the pain of his words, the harshness that his voice had turned into. “When?”
Emry walked over to the window and peered out. “After the execution.”
“What?” What was he talking about? “Who’s being executed?”
A smirk crossed his lips as I could see he found delight in whoever it was. He turned around and stared into my eyes. “Mrs. Anderson.”
“What?” I said. This new information shocked me.
“She’s been after me for a long time, as you’re well aware of,” he explained.
I struggled to process it. Had this been his decision? Atavia’s? “She’s in the dungeon, though,” I said. “She can’t hurt you down there.”
“Yeah, but she can’t stay there forever.”
“So you’re going to kill her?”
“It’s an execution, Anna,” he corrected me, his blue eyes dark in the delightfulness of destroying an enemy.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I told him. “I thought execution was killing.”
He sighed. “I actually thought that’s the one thing you’d understand.”
“No, I don’t. You’re not the person I thought you were. Emry Logan on Earth is not Emry Logan on Evadere.”
His face sh
owed a hint of pain from my comment.
“This world was supposed to be beautiful, magical. It just seems like everyone’s hands have blood on them here. Everyone kills so freely. It’s justified somehow in their minds, but to me, it’s murder nonetheless.”
“Mrs. Anderson is a threat to me. She has tried to kill me. She’s a danger in the dungeon, out of the dungeon, on Earth, on Evadere,” he said.
I nodded. “Right. So just get rid of her.”
“Yes,” he said, smugness showing through. “So she’ll no longer be a burden. Ben is in agreement with this, too, and she’s his sister.”
“Oh.” I rolled my eyes. “I guess since Ben thinks it’s okay, then it is okay then.”
“Look what she did to you, in her basement,” he reminded me.
I thought about the time I had been viciously tossed down Mrs. Anderson’s basement stairs by her son and then kept there as a prisoner while they tried to keep me from interfering with Emry’s trial. I was severely injured and kept in dirty conditions until Carlin came for me and released me from Mrs. Anderson’s grip.
“You’ll have more enemies than just Mrs. Anderson. Do you plan on killing them also?”
He narrowed his eyes as if the thought had never crossed his mind before. “If it comes down to it, and if you’re referring to the Scaves, don’t think I’m not going straight for Karn’s throat. He murdered my father in front of my mother.”
I really didn’t want to stay here and watch the blood bath any longer. I would be sad to leave Emry, devastated even, but at the same time, this kind of revenge was not something I could condone. “I don’t want to be here for Mrs. Anderson’s execution,” I told him.
He ran his fingers through his hair and then his hand rested at his hips. “It’s happening in a few days. It’s something I need to train for. I need to save my energy and not use it on transporting, so just enjoy a few more days in Evadere.”
“Locked in this room?” I raised my eyebrows.
He shook his head as if I were being impossible. “Mrs. Anderson is a traitor to the royal family. She has always been after destroying the royal blood. She will be destroyed first, and this will be a lesson to others who may have similar ideas, to the Scaves even. That’s why it will be a public execution.”
Yes, it was all justified in his mind. Atavia had twisted his way of thinking. He was turning into the son she had always wanted all these years. He was conforming into her puppet.
“I have nothing left to say,” I admitted, my determination crushed by Atavia’s reign on her son. She wasn’t even present and yet her hold was still so strong.
“Okay then,” he said. “Right after the execution, I’ll take you back.”
I nodded and watched as he opened the door and slammed it behind him.
I heard the door creak as my eyes fluttered open in the dark. Someone turned on a lamp and came over to the bed where I had been in and out of sleep for hours.
“Hey.”
I looked up into the face of Jo. She sat down beside me.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Early morning,” Jo said in a whisper. “I was just getting ready for the day. I heard you had to stay up here, so I thought I’d stop in.”
“Oh, Jo,” I said, feeling so pathetic but having had no one to talk to at all here. “This place is pure hell for me. Everyone’s against me. Everyone’s against the idea of Emry and me. Now they think I’m a murderer.”
“It’s easy to blame an outsider,” Jo whispered. “I’m sorry everything didn’t turn out the way you had pictured it in your mind.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I never pictured Emry Logan being the king of another planet. I mean, I knew he had powers, but all of this, and this castle and his mother …”
“Yeah,” she said. I could tell she really did sympathize with me.
“I’m the one who’s sorry. I got you in the middle of this mess by having you bring me here. Now Rooney is gone …”
“I miss Rooney,” Jo admitted. “But not Karn. I hope I never see him again.”
I sighed and sat up in the bed. “Jo, I have to tell you something.” I paused to look at her. She looked different. Her face was filling out from all the nutrients she was now receiving from eating properly. She looked healthy and had clean clothes on. Her hair was pulled neatly back. “I’m leaving.”
She looked down at her hands. “Going back to Earth?”
“Yeah. I can’t stay here any longer than I have to.”
She remained quiet.
“Do you want to come with me?” I asked.
She looked up at me then, her eyes big and round in alarm. The thought terrified her. “To Earth?”
“Yes, to Earth.”
“Anna, I can’t. I’m a Scave.”
“Actually, Jo, I bet you’d fit in there better than here. We could be roommates. I’d teach you all about humans. No one has powers there.”
She kept staring at me as if trying to decipher whether I was a lunatic or not. “I really like it here.”
“Serving Atavia?” I wrinkled my nose.
“I know she can be mean sometimes, but so was Karn. I get fed here. I have a nice bed. The other maidservants are really nice to me despite who I am. I’m just not as brave as you, Anna.”
“You’re way more brave than me. I can’t believe you’d even say such a thing. You left all that you knew to come here,” I reminded her.
She twisted up her lips. “Only because I had to. I have no other choice but to leave or die at the hand of Karn. I can’t go to another planet. I just want to stay here,” she said. And there was that shy girl I had first met on the beach. A shy girl with an enormous solider within her.
I patted her hand. “All right then, Jo. You stay here. Are you going to be okay?”
“You’re not coming back?” she asked, her eyes growing large again.
I looked away from her. “I don’t know. I really doubt it. Emry’s life is here, and with Atavia in the picture, his life can’t have me in it.”
“You need to fight, Anna.”
“I’ve tried. I talked to Emry about all this. It’s decided. It’s what’s best, really.”
Jo stood. “Have you heard about the execution?”
I nodded. “What are people saying about it?”
“They’re excited. Such a thing has never happened. Everyone’s going,” Jo explained.
“Huh.” The excitement part had thrown me into a state of sorrow once again. “They just don’t understand what’s really happening.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Nothing. Never mind.” I forced a smile at her. “I’ll be leaving right after that.”
“Goodbye, human Anna James.”
I chuckled. “Goodbye, Scavegirl Jo. I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for me.”
She smiled. “Nor I you.”
Ben came to see me later in the morning.
“Have you eaten today?” he asked.
“Yes.” I looked at him curiously. “Ben?”
He raised his eyebrows as he opened the curtains wider to let more light in. The day seemed unusually dreary outside.
“Is Atavia still saying I have to be in here?” I really wanted to sneak out and talk to Cassie. I had been scheming since Jo left how I was going to get that chance.
“Yes,” he answered.
I sighed. “Of course she is.”
“She’s not going to change her mind, Ms. James,” he told me. “She feels more secure with you … secured.”
I rolled my eyes. I was so sick of this bed, this room, their queen. “For my lunchtime meal, can I request that the one maidservant who doesn’t speak bring me my food?”
He glanced at me as if trying to read my mind to decide if I were up to something.
“Because,” I said quickly. “I don’t feel like talking to anyone today. Sometimes the maidservants talk to me. I’m just not in the mood for chitchat, and I know for sure that one won’t
strike up a conversation.”
“I can tell the maidservants not to speak to you,” he reassured me.
“No, just send that one. She’ll be in and out. And that goes for you, too,” I added. “You don’t have to check up on me again today. I don’t want to be disturbed.”
He eyed me up again as I collapsed back into the bed with my arm over my eyes as if pouting. I was trying my best to show him a classic human trait and hoped he’d send Cassie. I promised I’d take her back with me. I had to speak with her.
When there was a knock on my door around noon, I jumped out of bed realizing I had fallen asleep with my arm still covering my eyes. It took me a moment to realize where I was as if I had dreamt this entire thing.
I licked my dry lips and walked over to the door, praying it was Cassie.
“Come in,” I shouted.
The door opened and in she came, the only other human on Evadere. I saw Ben standing right outside the door. I briefly glanced at him and then shut the door behind Cassie.
“They said you requested me,” Cassie hissed. “What’s going on?”
“We don’t have much time to talk,” I whispered back, looking around is if there were cameras on me. “I needed to tell you I’m leaving.”
“Where? To Earth?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Right after Mrs. Anderson’s execution.”
“The witch?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s her,” I whispered. “I’m meeting up with Emry right after and then he’s transporting me back. Are you coming with me?”
She hesitated and looked at her hands, realizing she still held the tray. She set it down on a small table.
“You don’t want to go now?” I asked. I couldn’t believe she was even considering staying here with Atavia.
“I’m just worried that the Queen will somehow find out I’ve deceived her all these years,” Cassie confessed.
I glanced back at the door, realizing every extra moment with Cassie would be suspicious to Ben. “She won’t. Just find me during the execution and stay close by. Your family misses you.”
“Another thing I’m worried about is going back. I’ve always dreamt of it, but actually doing it …”
