The ball of energy in my hand gave me a particularly sharp shock and I jerked back, accidentally dropping the ball of energy from my hands. Everything seemed to move in slow motion from there. I watched in dismay as the energy ball hit the ground and crashed like glass, splintering out with a ripple of white light around me. A pulse of energy followed the light, blasting everything and everyone. My hair was blown back and up as a blast of energy brushed past me. Everyone was lifted off of their feet and tossed ruthlessly away from me in all directions. Shadow Guards and Shadow Walkers alike were brutally slammed into the walls and the tables as they were thrown carelessly around the room, leaving wreckage and debris in their wake.
Once everything came to a sudden halt, my legs seemed to drain of energy and were unable to hold me up anymore. I slid to the floor, holding myself up by my forearms. My vision was darkening and closing in. I tried to focus, to stay together. I found and watched Leif as he rose up and looked at me with a look of shock and awe on his face.
I tried to say something, but only a small weak sound escaped before my arms gave way and I slumped down on the gritty floor, the darkness blanketing me as I lost the battle of consciousness.
~ * ~
As I was making my way back to consciousness, I was aware of the quiet hum of conversation around me. Only Leif's voice was recognizable to me. I was in that place between awareness and being fully awake. I was just listening to the sound of their voices when the words finally began to make sense, and with it an unknown emotion that felt a bit like fear.
"You did a great job, Leif. You brought her in just as we planned."
"Do you think she really is the one?"
"Did you see what she could do? I've never seen that gift before."
"How do we get her to Acadia? Do you think she'll come on her own?"
"Leif can get her to come. She trusts you, right?"
All of this conversation was in jumbles around me but I got the gist of it. I slowly sat up and took in my surroundings. I had been lying on a hotel bed. You know, the ones with the hard paisley bedspreads and flat pillows.
I looked over to the bedside table and there was a card thanking me for staying at the Inn. At least I was not far from home. The Inn was the only hotel-type place in the vicinity of Nelsonville. It was about two miles outside of town just before Athens. There was one mystery solved at least.
"What happened at the diner?" I asked, my voice gravelly.
The room had gone completely silent when I sat up. I looked at the occupants in the room, not sure of how to proceed. Leif had faint blue and purple markings shadowing his face and a few coursing down his neck. He was going to have quite an array of bruises come tomorrow. I wondered how many I would have, and how I was going to explain them to my mom, who missed nothing.
"Everything is fine. We told Dee that a motorcycle gang got into a fight and busted up the room. You were accidentally caught in the middle. We swiped the wad of cash out of Aiden's pocket and gave it to Dee for the repairs. She was just as happy with the money, said something about wanting to spruce up the second dining room anyway. The police were called but we left before they got there. Don't know what happened to Aiden and the other Shadow Guards though. They probably phased out and no one will see them again."
I looked at the others in the room again, not sure what to do, or even to say to them. I suddenly felt so very alone.
Leif thankfully took over the introductions. "Sunny, I would like for you to meet Leigha." He indicated the chic Shadow Walker from Dee's, "Gavin," who was the military-looking guy, "and Austin," the brown shaggy headed one. Great, all the players had names now. I just directed a questioning look back at Leif.
"And?" I asked, as sarcastically as possible.
"Uh, these are my friends."
I kept the same expression on my face and waited him out.
"From Acadia." Leif, the guy who didn't have any knowledge or history of the Shadow Walkers or their world, was a big fat stinky liar. I ruthlessly grabbed hold of and shoved down hard on every single emotion I had. I first needed to understand the situation before I freaked out. I tried to wipe out the emotion totally, but it still crept out and into my voice.
"Why?" I asked, my fragile voice cracking.
Leif came over and knelt down at my feet where I sat on the hard bed. He took both of my hands into his and said, "All the stuff I told you about me was true, Sunny. About my life as a child, about running away, about getting my birth certificate, that was all true. I, ah, just left out the part about the trackers, the Acadia Rebels stumbling on to me when I first started to change. See, they had been searching for something else when they felt me phasing in and out of the shadows. They tracked me down and offered me a place to stay, a place with them. I was thirteen years old, Sunny. What else was I supposed to do? I was raised with Leigha, Gavin, and Austin. They are my family now."
I looked up at the others again. They all looked hard and cold, like Leif had when I first met him. They were just empty shells with pretty faces.
"Why?" I said again, looking back at Leif, but with a hard edge to my voice this time. Leif just looked at me for a moment, like he was trying to figure out what to do from here.
"I want to tell you a story. Will you listen?" he finally said. He was looking directly into my eyes when he asked me this. I thought about being petulant and refusing, but that would not get me anywhere.
"I'll listen," was all I said.
Still holding my hands, he sat down next to me and began, "Once upon a time." I rolled my eyes at him with this story opening. I was pretty certain this was not about Cinderella and everyone would not live happily ever after.
"On the other side of the shadows, there was a King and his Queen. They were very much in love and loved by all in the Kingdom of Acadia. Queen Arianna found out she was expecting a child and the Kingdom of Acadia rejoiced. Everyone was happy with this wondrous news, or so it was believed at the time. Late in the Queen's pregnancy, King Malcolm was killed while hunting with his Knights. It was believed to be an accident. The Queen did not believe so. Queen Arianna believed it to be murder. No one would believe her. Everyone thought Queen Arianna was simply distraught over the loss of her beloved and wanted someone to blame.
"The death of the King was never investigated as it should have been. Soon after the King's death, Queen Arianna and one of her handmaidens disappeared. The Queen was never seen again. The Kingdom of Acadia fell into mourning. The loss of the King and Queen and the loss of the child was devastating to all."
"King Malcolm's younger brother, Gideon, took the throne one year from the death of King Malcolm. He sits as King to this day. That was almost seventeen years ago. There have been rumors since the disappearance of the Queen and child. It is said that Queen Arianna escaped the castle and went beyond the shadows to another world and gave birth to a baby girl in secret with the help of her handmaiden. The Queen never recovered and is believed to have died of childbirth fever. The handmaiden, not knowing what to do, it is said, left the baby with a childless couple of another realm, to be raised and kept safe. There have been sightings of the lost child throughout the years, but whenever anyone would go to check out the story, the child would be gone."
"Leif, what does this have to do with me?" It was a sad story, and I think I knew where he was going, but I wanted him to say it out loud. It was a fantastic similarity, I admit. I was adopted and no mother ever found. We moved a lot as a child, but that didn't make me a princess. Or a queen. What would that make me now with the queen dead?
"I think you're that lost child. I think you're the rightful ruler of Acadia."
"No, King Gilbert is."
"Gideon." Leif corrected me.
"Okay, no, King Gideon is the rightful ruler. He has been ruling the place for what, sixteen years now? You don't need a lost queen child. You already have a ruler."
"Sunny, he is not meant to rule. You don't understand. Once he took control of the Kingdom, he had every
Shadow Walker register. Not just their names, but also any special gifts they may have. Anyone with a special gift is offered two choices, they can become a member of the Shadow Guard, the police of our kingdom, or they can be executed."
"But he can't just do that."
"Yes he can. He is the King. Acadia is not a democracy, Sunny. What he says goes. That is why there is a group that has been searching for you for fifteen years. I am part of that group. We, the Acadia Rebels, have been searching for you so you can take your place as Queen."
"You don't know that I'm this lost child, Leif."
"You have the gift of Shadow Sight, as did your mother. You also have the gift of energy reading, as did your father." I was assuming that the energy reading was the aura stuff. "Plus, whatever you did in the diner, that was…that was amazing."
I wasn't ready to talk about the diner and what I had done. I wasn't ready to share anything with them. "How do you get to Acadia?"
"It's just on the other side of the shadows. I'll show you how to get there. I'll take you there," he said.
Before we even began to talk about me going to Acadia, I needed to know one thing. "What about you, what about you and me, what was that?" I had to ask it. I was so afraid of what he would say. I didn't want it to be just a way to get to me. Truthfully, that was all I really wanted to know. Was I just the lost child to him, or was I something more. All the other stuff, it could wait. Did that make me shallow? Maybe, but it also just made me human.
"What do you mean?" he said evasively, as he stood up and took a few steps away from me, putting some distance between us.
I stood up and closed the space between us again. I locked our eyes together then asked him directly, "What about you and me? Was I just part of the plan?" Please say no, please say no.
"Sunny, we," he indicated the others in the room, who had remained surprisingly quiet through out our exchange, "were sent in to locate you. Once it was decided you were the lost child, I was told to..." Oh he would not say it, he would not use that word. "...retrieve you."
That was it, the very final blow I was willing to take that day. I was not an object to be found, darn it! I was tired of everyone trying to "retrieve" me for heaven sake!
"You are a liar. You used me." I said this precisely and firm. My voice was finally empty of emotion. It did not waver. It did not sound weak. I had learned something from him after all. How to be cold and calculating. How to get what I wanted by just walking over, trampling over anyone that stepped in my way. I was walking towards him and he was backing away. Good, I hoped he was unsure of what I was going to do. Let him think I would blast him like I had in the diner. My feelings were in such turmoil it would serve him right if I did lose control.
"I am not a thing! I am a person with feelings." I had walked us over between the window and the table. I picked up my set of keys from the table and pushed forward toward Leif so that only he could really hear what I was about to say. "I love you. I thought you felt the same. I was wrong. You are just like everyone else. You are just like the ones you hate. The shadow guard was sent to 'retrieve'," I snarled this word, "me. Aiden was at least up-front about it. He told me from the moment I met him what his agenda was. You used my feelings and my vulnerability against me. You lied to me."
I stepped away from him and addressed the room at large. "I don't want to be a part of your cause. I will not be going anywhere with you. I don't want to have anything to do with you at all."
I felt the burning of tears and knew my emotions were about to take over. I walked purposefully to the door. When I reached for the handle, Leif's hand covered mine. His hand was warm against mine. I was suddenly so cold. "Don't leave me," he whispered to me.
My eyes filled with tears, but I held them back from falling as I looked up at him and asked, "Why?" He looked to the others in the room then back to me without an answer. I opened the door and said over my shoulder, "What kind of people are you?"
I walked calmly to my car, got in, and locked the doors. I had just put the key in the ignition when Leif pressed his hands against the window. I looked up at him, one lonely salty tear slide down my cheek. "Sunny!"
"Go home Leif, there's nothing left here for you to do." I started the car, pulled out, and drove home. ,
Once I parked the car in my driveway, I got out and walked in. I must have looked even worse than I imagined. My mom stood up and rushed over to me saying, "My God, honey what happened? Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, mom."
"Sunny," my mom said firmly blocking my way and waiting for an explanation.
"Leif…" I started to say, but my mom pounced in.
"Leif did this to you!"
"No, we just…"
"Boys do not hit girls, ever!"
"No, mom. Yes, Leif and I had a fight, but not a physical one. I was upset and clumsy. That's all." I started to choke up, my chest felt tight, and my voice shook, betraying me.
"Oh, honey."
"Don't mom. Just…just don't." I went around her, heading to my room.
"Wait." She had the worry lines going on her forehead. I knew she was concerned, I just didn't have anything left in me to give to her right then. I didn't have any energy to comfort her. I was breaking apart inside. I just wanted to get to my room.
"If you need to talk, you know I'm right here."
I nodded once then said, "Night mom," and went upstairs to my room. I then did something I had never once done in my entire life. I went into my room, closed the door, and locked it. Was I locking everyone out or locking myself in? I went to the window, and slid its lock into place as well. There would not be any midnight visitors for me tonight or any night for that matter.
I got into my pj's and crawled into my lonely bed. I was so cold. I just wanted to get warm. Finally, I couldn't hold them back anymore, I let the tears flow and I cried. I wasn't noisy, or snotty, it was just silent. I think I would have felt better if I could have sobbed and wailed. My heart hurt. I cried until I didn't think I could anymore, but the tears just kept flowing.
The shadows were calling to me in the dark. It seemed as if they were feeling my sadness, and they were scared and confused. If I hadn't been able to feel the shadows, I would not have been able to hear them, but now that I could, I felt them trying to cover me, blanket me. I don't' know if it was to try and comfort me or to offer me safety. I just waved them back. Whispering to them in the night, "It's alright, it's alright."
I had just about cried myself to sleep when I heard a soft bump at the window. I ignored it, knowing exactly what it was. I didn't want to see Leif now, maybe ever.
That's a lie. I wanted to see him. I wanted him to hold me and tell me it was alright, like I had in comfort to the shadows. I just couldn't though. That guy didn't exist. He was a figment of my imagination. He wasn't real. The cold man of ice was all there really was. I had just been too stupid to see it before I let my heart get involved.
I closed my eyes and let myself sleep.
Chapter Ten
Homecoming
"Mom, can you drive me to school today?" I caught my mom about fifteen minutes before I should be at school. It was Monday, the start of homecoming week. As if I couldn't get any more depressed, I didn't have a date for the dance. What a waste of a dress. I sighed, deep and long.
"Honey, it's one block away. You can see the school from the sidewalk out front." My mom was still in her robe and her hair was a disaster. On any other day it would have made me smile, but today I just took note of it.
"I know where the school is. Please?" When I saw she was about to still say no, I added, "Leif always walks me to school. Please, mom." I couldn't stop my hands from wringing in agitation. It wasn't that I didn't want to see Leif. I did. I just couldn't face him today. My heart still felt raw and jagged.
My mom reached out and impulsively hugged me tight. It made me feel a bit better. Not much, but enough that I found the strength to give her a small smile. Just a twitch of my lips, but it was en
ough. "Okay, give me five."
I watched her dash off to her room, hopefully to ditch the ratty robe and throw on some clothes. True to her word, five minutes later we were pulling out of the garage.
There he was, just as I knew he would be, leaning against our tree. I was happy to note that he looked just as ragged as I felt. He saw me in the car, his face a blend of shock and surprise. His features then smoothed and he walked away without looking back.
My mom saw our short exchange with a mixture of emotions on her face. She said, "I know it's none of my business really, but sometimes, people do or say things they regret. They just don't know what to do or how to fix it. They get in over their heads."
"Mom, he lied." I pressed my hand against my heart. It was aching. "Not a little lie, either."
"I can't believe I am saying this, because I so am not ready for the steady boyfriend thing, but I hate to see you so sad. Did you look in the mirror today? I see you, Sunny. You slept badly. There are dark rings around your eyes. Your normally pale complexion is sickly-pale today." She cocked her head at me and continued. "Give him a chance to tell you his side. You may not owe it to him, but you do owe it to yourself. Just a thought."
She reached out and cupped my chin in her hand, looked directly into my eyes, and said, "I love you, sweetheart."
I impulsively embraced her as best I could within the confines of the car and said, "I love you back." I got out of the car and went inside the school to start my day.
Once in my first period class, I sat down in my chair next to Ben and laid my head down on my arms. I was already feeling fuzzy around the edges. This was going to be a long day.
"Hey, you sick?" I looked up at Ben as he leaned over me. He was grinning as usual. He had soft brown eyes that twinkled when he smiled. They were nice eyes.
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