Destiny Defied (The Destiny Series)

by Marx, J. A.

  He unloaded the ingredients on the kitchen counter.

  “Who left it open?” Jase’s panicked whisper brought Isaac to his side in a flash.

  The backdoor was ajar.

  Isaac’s stomach lurched into his throat. He inspected the porch then closed and secured the lock.

  Sabio emerged from the hallway. “She’s still asleep. But I saw mud prints in the bathroom.”

  “Stank.” Jase sweated like a sauna. “Caedis drugged our shampoo and soap. He’s trying to poison us like he did Kiko.”

  “Chill out.” Isaac slapped him upside the head. “God’s on our side.” He dragged his friend over to the peninsula where Sabio and Akiko waited.

  The scholar popped a tablet in his mouth and swallowed it dry. “I might not have latched the backdoor after getting my shoes.”

  “Unlatched and open are totally different.” Isaac felt through his shorts pocket for his pocketknife. “Arm yourselves.”

  Akiko scratched his blotchy cheeks. “Why didn’t the guy disturb Chiara?”

  “He’s playing with our heads.” Isaac felt bad that the hydrocortisone hadn’t worked on the Asian’s rash. “Just keep acting normal. For Chiara’s sake. Don’t ruin today.”

  Dr. Creep was outnumbered.

  Leaving Jase to create his masterpiece, Isaac went to guard the bunkroom door. He had to see for himself that Chiara was okay. Peeking inside, he smiled at the sleeping bundle of energy. Warmth swept through him. He wanted to go sit near her but made himself stay against the doorframe.

  The threesome transported a colorful creation down the hallway. Jase grinned. “What’s with the tinsel eyes and enchanted smile?”

  Isaac’s cheeks heated up like a radiator. “What do you mean?”

  The musician snickered impishly. “She still catching Zs?”

  “Yep. And lookin’ adorably peaceful.” Isaac swung open the door.

  “Adorably peaceful?” Brushing past, Jase tiptoed across the room.

  Chiara lay on her back with the sheet drawn to her chin. Her arms draped over the pillow, framing her head. The bruise on her forehead faded against an amazing radiance of peace.

  Yep. Adorably peaceful. Isaac couldn’t stop staring.

  Jase handed off the platter before picking up his guitar. He sat next to Chiara and lightly tapped her belly. “Chiara?”

  Isaac would make sure nothing ruined this special day.

  “Sun’s up, princess.”

  Chiara heard the voice and felt a hand patting her. Jase? Or a dream? She lifted one eyelid. Then the other. Why were the Ohioans crowding her bedside?

  The guitar strummed. “Happy birthday to you …”

  The unharmonious singing gave her heart wings. She sat up, full of giggles.

  “Happy birthday, dear Chiar-ahhh. Happy birthday to youuu.” On their knees, shoulder-to-shoulder, Isaac, Sabio, and Akiko presented a platter with an interesting fruit stack.

  “Leapin’ lobsters!” She propped herself up on one elbow. “You guys made a cake for me?” Maybe her intoxication was skewing her judgment. “Is it, or isn’t it a cake?”

  Oh, the snickering. Three pairs of eyeballs pointed at Jase, the apparent creator.

  “Of course it’s a cake.” Jase fished an item out of his back pocket and set it on top the stack.

  An exquisite, tiny flower with reddish pedals delicately unfolded.

  Don’t cry, Chiara. She sat up all the way, eyes dewy. “A candle.”

  The last birthday cake she saw, she’d popped out of it wearing not much. That and other shameful party tales remained classified.

  “This is your day.” Jase strummed a chord. “Whatever activity you wish to do, we’ll do.”

  She gulped. “Me? Choose?”

  No one ever asked Chiara Spencer what she wanted to do. Tyranny offered ultimatums, not alternatives. Nor had anyone ever celebrated her birthday—only those of Max’s clientele. Max had declared hers a cursed day.

  I love having friends. In the musician’s honor, she gave hints according to what he’d sung up at the waterfall. “We three kings, bearing gifts.” The gift idea rocked. “Joy to the world. Heaven and nature sing.”

  A vision of nature literally singing appealed to her artistic bent. Whatever had happened yesterday on Mt. Merhamet must have opened her eyes to earth’s richness because the view out the bunkroom window mysteriously appeared more vibrant and lush than anything on Omeàla. Where Omeàla embodied a concentration camp, Chiara was positive Ohio possessed celestial qualities. A perfect world.

  The boys were as perfect as everything in that world. And they were celebrating her birthday. Goose bumps dotted her arms.

  Jase’s smile twisted into a regretful grimace. “We can’t properly celebrate Christmas here. Sorry.” He reminded her of the required ornaments and special foods. Then his bubbly grin returned. “But just wait a few months.”

  “I’m counting down.” Until December arrived, she intended to experience every place, food, and pleasure the boys had talked about.

  “What’s your second wish, Princess?”

  Conquer the water. She bit her lower lip, hoping the lifeguard wouldn’t object. “Is snorkeling cool?”

  “Snorkeling, it is.” Sabio started toward the door with the fruit stack. “Hurry and get dressed before your cake rots.”

  My cake? Her stomach did a cartwheel. Her mother’s secret stories of life beyond Omeàla awakened like a dormant dream.

  Chiara felt like dancing. “Is this a real birthday party?”

  The Foursome halted at the bunkroom door. Four breathless statues.

  Isaac looked at her as if someone just died. “A birthday … party?”

  Why the piteous stares? “Is it, or isn’t it?”

  Did they not understand how oppressive life on Omeàla had been? Did they forget she’d had no friends? No celebrations? No games or gifts? Until now.

  Akiko frowned and smiled at the same time. “A party to bring down the house, princess.”

  “Yes!” Clapping wildly, she couldn’t begin to imagine what thrills this day would bring.

  Jase put his guitar away and hustled out behind Sabio and Akiko, sniffling like crazy.

  Allergies? No, that was Kiko.

  Isaac hung back. “Birthday girl?”

  The label tickled her toes. “Say it again.”

  “Birthday girl.”

  She giggled. “Yes, Wild Man?”

  His laughter reached his eyes. He sat beside her. “You’re glowing.”

  “I am?” She leaned on one hand, and the pajama sleeve slipped off her shoulder.

  She barely had the sleeve back in place, and Isaac hugged her, trapping her hand between their chests. Her hand automatically fisted against his front, but she stopped herself from pushing him away.

  “Happy nineteenth, Chiara Shadi Spencer.”

  “It wouldn’t be happy at all if it weren’t for the Fabulous Foursome.” The tear she felt gliding across her cheek had better not worry him.

  Letting her go, he sat back and gazed at her in a funny way. His cheeks flushed. Was he sick?

  She didn’t want to celebrate without him. “Are you not up for snorkeling?”

  “’Course I am.” He handed her a fresh T-shirt out of the duffel next to the bunk then walked out, locking the door behind him.

  What powers his battery? Her musing passed quickly.

  “Chiara.” She delighted in speaking her name without reluctance or opposition. Never again would she hear the loathed nom de guerre.

  Never again would her tongue utter the name Riki Hammad.

  Chapter 50

  Chiara left the water and peeled off her snorkel gear. Humming Happy Birthday left a scrumptious taste in her mouth. She settled into a square, two-meter parcel of sand at the edge of the stone beach and started building the Taj Mahal.

  She looked over her shoulder at the trees. Whatever caused her hallucinations of Vétis still existed, but its potency had diminished. Isaac ha
d said certain problems took time to mend, so she dismissed her paranoia with a practical reminder: He’s dead.

  Judging by the Foursome’s civilized behavior, the atrocities common to Omeàla did not typify Ohio. She therefore decided to divulge her previous life without elaboration. Just the basics. The corruption, immorality, and manipulation she once considered cultural norms would demand a complete shift in the boys’ worldview. Why mar their perfection?

  Flipping the hypothetical coin over, she found herself grappling with the concept of a country that espoused human freedom. Until she could experience it first hand, she decided to shelve that utopian dream.

  Her island mates waded out of the water, treading cautiously across the wet stones.

  “Scorpions!” Jase lurched.

  She laughed at his clowning dance. “That’s dinner. Don’t crush them.”

  The threesome razzed Jase. They tossed their snorkel gear in a heap then Isaac and Akiko wandered toward the trees.

  Jase plopped down next to Chiara and scowled. “It could’ve stung me.”

  “All’s fair in the food chain.” She gave his earlobe a tug. “Even your clown face is a beacon of joy.”

  “Bratty mermaid.” He flicked her hand away.

  Sabio separated all the snorkel gear so it would dry better before he reclined next to the Taj Mahal. “Did I hear you humming Happy Birthday through the snorkel out there?”

  “Affirmative.” She patted sand into the base of her building. “And I’m officially labeling last weekend Freedom Day. Nobody pet, teased, groped, pinched, kissed, slobbered on me, or made me dance.” Grateful for the T-shirt Isaac lent her, she smiled. “And I’m never again wearing lingerie. So happy birthday, Chiara.”

  Sabio squirmed, unable to find a comfortable position. “How old were you when you started working on the ship?”

  “My seventh birthday. Max gave me a pair of black tights and a red dress.” She winked at Jase who had the biggest sense of humor. “Mom called it a smut suit.”

  Jase grimaced at her witty label. “Max made you sit on men’s laps and kiss them when you were a little girl?”

  “Back then, I merely wore smut suits and makeup.” She carved out a window with her finger. “I sat on the bar like a fixture. Sang a few songs. Had to talk to the scum who came for a drink.” Her introduction to life on the Nave surfaced in vivid color. “My first night, some manufacturing mogul with a hairy chest gave me a lollipop. He rubbed my thighs while he watched me eat it. Scum.”

  She never ate candy again. Until Swedish Fish.

  Hands covering his face, Jase peeked between his fingers. “Didn’t the hairy guy make you uncomfortable?”

  She couldn’t pull herself to mine for any emotion linked to the shaggy-chested man. “Omeàlans learned to live uncomfortably to avoid Max. Unlike my mother, I favored defiance over submission.” Chiara didn’t want to travel down that road either. “Another subject, please.”

  “What did your tutors teach you?” Sabio proved himself more curious than a cat.

  “Last year, Anatomy. Calculus II. Advanced Physics.” She built up a squat minaret at the corner of her structure, hoping someday to see the real Taj.

  “Differentials make me happy.”

  She chuckled at the Ivy Leaguer. “That’s a tough slope to climb.”

  “Don’t go off on a tangent.”

  Discovering that her scope of academic learning matched that of the boys made her day. “World History and Cultures with Master Ammani was my favorite.”

  “Master?” Sabio threw her a funny look while finger-raking the barren grounds around the Taj.

  She shrugged. “Tutors are masters, aren’t they?”

  Jase groaned. “School is out, people.” He leaned across the Taj. “I bet you’ve never ridden a roller coaster.”

  A correlating textbook picture materialized in her mind. “In the park of amusement?”

  Laughing for no apparent reason, the musician gestured with his hands. “Movies. Go-carts. The mall. Goin’ out for pizza …”

  Pizza. She remembered their description. The phrase going out however still eluded her understanding.

  “Zoos. Parades. Museums.” Sabio and Jase took turns assembling a never-ending list of adventures.

  The overwhelming opportunities condensed her euphoria to a sigh. “Wow.”

  Omeàla had no businesses, food markets, or modern means of transportation. Not even a bicycle. She had electricity, but televisions and radios were forbidden. Most modern luxuries and conveniences she’d learned of through books.

  Worldly luxuries are but worthless fixations of the unenlightened man. She had intimately trusted her tutors’ lectures. How was she now supposed to know what was truth?

  To counter a flare-up of abnormalcy, she summoned the only event that offset her ritualistic schedule. “I traveled the world with the head tutor when I was eleven. In an excessively long motor vehicle, I explored the pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China—”

  “Long vehicle?” Sabio made a right angle out of the Taj’s beveled platform.

  “Master Boleć called it a limo.” She’d hated Boleć for interrupting their sightseeing so he could introduce her to foreign attachés. “When we were in Berlin, he rented the movie Bambi to watch in our quarters.”

  She had pestered him so much regarding the mystical square box of animated pictures that Boleć conceded just to shut her up.

  “Bambi?” Jase scoffed. “That’s ancient. Boring.”

  “And benign.” Sabio’s comment jarred Chiara with a realization of how rigorously the Lux had worked to keep her in ignorance of the real world.

  “I guess I have a few movies to catch up on.” She fashioned the fourth minaret at the corner of the platform. “Anyway, at the part of the story when the hunter shot Bambi’s mother, I begged to go home to check on my … mom.”

  An ache ripped at her insides over thoughts of her mother. Jamila’s survival depended upon Chiara giving in to the constant bullying to perform. And vice versa. They’d suffered under the same oppression.

  Only now I’m free, and she’s … Chiara had been resisting the undercurrent of mourning since she awoke.

  Sabio touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  Sorry. Sympathy was no longer a character blemish as she’d been taught.

  Her vision clouded. “Mom was the sole reason I didn’t run away.” She steadily flattened the Taj Mahal. To honor her mother’s sacrifice, she would make something good out of this second chance at life. “I don’t know where to go from here.”

  “We know plenty of people who’ll take care of you.” Sabio tweaked Jase’s arm. “Don’t we, J-boy?”

  The sniffling musician rubbed his shirt across his eyes. “Yep.”

  God is too good. Flooded with hope, she straightened stiff as a flagpole. “You mean I can come to Ohio? The land of liberty?” Raw wonder rushed through her veins. “Are there really more people like you?”

  “Caramba, amiga.” Sabio pressed his hand at her. “We’re not unique. Our world isn’t perfect. But in our small circle, people take care of each other. They’ll do the same for you.”

  A trip to the moon couldn’t top this first birthday party.

  Her hands clapped because they had to. “Tell me more.”

  Jase etched a list into the sand where the Taj once stood. “Fireworks. Fairs. Concerts—”

  She bounced up to her knees and read every word. “Can I ride a bicycle?”

  With the bay at his back, Isaac surveyed Turtle’s Head towering above him. At the base of its sheer, wide face was a sandstone cave. Woodlands expanded off either side. Mangroves. Sea grapes. Gumbo limbo trees.

  The setting dared him to indulge, but Isaac couldn’t play as long as Chiara was at risk. He prayed for a confrontation so he could put an end to Dr. Caedis’s psychological warfare. Akiko helped him search the cave. They found an ash-covered altar, but to see beyond that point, they’d need a fl
ashlight.

  Traveling into the red-barked gumbo limbos, they came across a puddle of tattered, black cloth near the base of one trunk.

  “Those are his pants,” Akiko whispered like a librarian. “Think he’s pooping somewhere?”

  Using his open pocketknife, Isaac lifted the soiled, stinky trousers off the ground. Blood encrusted the hem of one frayed leg. The guy was wounded.

  Movement grazed his peripheral sight. Letting the garment drop, he bounded out of the away, shoving Akiko with him. Isaac pivoted back around just as a bamboo spear lodged in the tree trunk where he’d been standing.

  A tan-skinned, half-naked man bore into him with crazed eyes. His blood-speckled, shredded dress shirt covered only fractions of his torso.

  Isaac seized the bamboo with one hand and raised his knife. “Who are you?”

  Snarling meaner than a Doberman, the guy yanked on the shaft. Isaac kept his grip, studying the grossly infected bite mark on the doctor’s thigh.

  Dr. Caedis grasped the beetle on his necklace and lifted it toward Akiko. “You betrayed me.”

  Akiko stepped back. “Your magic doesn’t work anymore.”

  “She deceives you.” Dr. Caedis jerked the spear out of the trunk.

  Still holding on, Isaac snapped it in two with a swift kick. “What do you want with Chiara?”

  Chapter 51

  Akiko felt like Peewee Herman standing up to the sick shrink. Putting on his best Arnold Schwarzenegger, he dug into the pouch of his trunks for the pocketknife Sabio had told him to bring. I can’t believe I was hexed by a gold bug.

  Isaac kick-boxed the homemade spear. Broke it in half. “What do you want with Chiara?”

  “Yesterday Hope. Today Chiara. Tomorrow Sasha.” Caedis’s quiet, eerie laughter ricocheted through Akiko’s frame. “You ignorant mongrel. Don’t think you’ve won. Tanta stultitia mortalium est.” He withdrew into the trees carrying his end of the shaft.

  “Did you understand the Latin?” Isaac whispered.

  Breathe, Kiko. He repeated the phrase a couple times. “No. But Sabio will. Aren’t you—I mean, aren’t we going after him?”