by Kailin Gow
“Not the freedom of a whole population, no.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Graves said with insistence. “Major Kaplan has asked that I escort you back to his base.”
Pim nodded and held out his hand to order the lieutenant to be patient then turned his gaze to his son. “I’ll need you to take over, Liam. I wish I’d had more time to prepare you for all you're about to face. This isn’t really the time or the way I wanted to pass the power on to you, but duty calls and I need you to be a man.”
“I’m ready,” Liam said. “I’ll do the best that I can. I’ve watched you enough throughout the years. Surely I’ve picked up some things about running Arcadia.”
“The people of Arcadia rely on you.” Pim turned his glare to me. “The people you’ve grown up with. Don’t let them down.”
“I won’t. Go ahead and join the Catchers,” Liam said.
Pim retreated and followed the Lieutenant, his last gesture that of pointing to Torrid with a silent order to his son.
Capture him.
Chapter 16
In the moment his father left, Liam’s eyes lost their sense of confusion, and determination took its place.
My heart pounded. Would he really capture Torrid? Could he do such a thing? Regardless of who was stronger, who was more experienced, I simply didn’t want to see them fight it out.
It would be like watching my childhood collide with the adult I now was. “Liam, please let me talk to you before you do anything rash.”
He looked hurt, as though my request had greatly insulted him.
“I may be young, Kama.” He glanced briefly at Torrid. “And perhaps I lack the experience of… your friend, but I still believe I’m above doing anything rash. I’ve known you all my life. Do you really think I could turn on you now?”
My heart swelled as I finally saw the Liam I’d always known, emerge. Without his father at his side, he was a different man. “That’s not what I mean, Liam. So much has happened. Things have changed so fast. I hardly know which way to turn and I imagine it’s the same for you.”
He looked pointedly at Torrid. “You seem to have found someone to turn to all too easily.”
The aching in my chest couldn’t have been more painful had he hit me with his fist.
“Catching him isn’t going to solve anything,” I said, looking for some way to deter the inevitable.
Casting his gaze to the ground, he shifted uneasily. My heart ached for him and the guilt I had felt earlier returned. I wanted to weep for the pain I was causing him. Suddenly I wished he’d announce his love for another… anything to minimize the pain I felt.
“Your Life’s Plan,” I said, knowing full well I was grasping at straws. “It’s Sarah.”
He frowned and shrugged. “What does that mean?”
“Your Life’s Plan said you were to marry a girl you’d known all your life. From the moment you received it, we assumed that girl was me. It seemed to make such perfect sense. But it’s not me, Liam. It’s Sarah. She’s the one you should ultimately marry. She’s the girl in your Life’s Plan.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.” With a grimace, he shoved his hands into his pockets and gazed woefully at me. “Is that how you explain all this? How you justify everything that has happened between us? You find Torrid and run off to… where? To the Nethers? And I’m to stay here and marry Sarah?”
“Please don’t blame me for what’s happened. I’m not the one who plotted out our Life’s Plans. You know very well I would have done anything to have things turn out differently.”
“I’m not blaming you, dear Kama. I just find that your rationalization is a little too convenient. I can’t deny I’m tempted to go through with my father’s orders and capture…him, if it’s only to set things right between us, to get even, but I realize that wouldn’t change anything, would it?”
I felt suddenly so old; so old and tired. Adulthood had rushed up to me and slapped the easy-going girl I’d once been right out of me. I was too weary to make sense of it all.
“Do you really think it makes me happy to learn that you should eventually marry my best friend?”
“I don’t know. Does it? I mean, it clears you to do what you really want.” He tilted his head arrogantly toward Torrid.
I furrowed my brow, too upset, too confused and too hurt to know what to say; what to think.
Torrid stepped up, but I wasn’t yet ready to have him interfere. I held out my hand, silently begging him to give us a little more time.
“You know very well how heartbroken I was when I saw my Life’s Plan. You were there. Everything that’s happened to me…” I glanced away. I hadn’t come out here, spent the day searching for him, only to pick a fight with him. “This isn’t what I expected to find as I searched for you, Liam.”
He gazed over my shoulder at Torrid. “Yeah, this isn’t really what I expected either.” His eyes filled with anger and loss as he took a forceful step forward.
“Please, Liam,” I begged. “I couldn’t stand to watch you two fight.” I stepped to him.
Before I knew it, he pulled me into his arms and held me in a tight embrace. For a moment I thought he’d carry me off, run away from everything that was happening here, then I feared he would callously toss me aside in order to fight Torrid without my interference. His hand pressed to the small of my back, keeping me pressed to his chest.
Memories flooded me; all the times we’d held each other close, reassured each other in times of trouble, encouraged each other in the face of challenges; loved each other as we cuddled up close on cool nights or walked hand in hand on warm afternoons. A lifetime of loving and planning, of envisioning our future, our lives together.
“I’ve always loved you,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, almost cracking under the strain of such emotions. “And I think I’ll always love you, no matter what you do, no matter what life throws at us.”
“Liam…” Tears sprang to my eyes and my heart ached so much, I could barely stand.
He pressed his lips to mine, kissing me with such passion, yet with such finality. I didn’t want it to end. I wasn’t ready… not the kiss nor the relationship.
I wrapped my arms around him, struck once more by the massive size of him.
Just as suddenly as his kiss had come, it stopped and he gripped my shoulders and held me at arm’s length.
“I know Torrid will do what’s best for you. He’ll protect you and keep you safe.”
Frowning, I stared at him and tried to make sense of the words he spoke.
He gazed over my shoulder, his eyes locking onto Torrid’s… the gaze of a man who concedes defeat to another. “Take good care of her,” he said. “She comes on like she’s strong and can go through anything. That strength might have been enough in the Arcadia we grew up in; the Arcadia that once was, but things have changed. The world has gotten so much uglier now. This new world will eat her up alive… and all too easily.”
Too stunned to verbally respond to his assessment of my abilities, I stared up at him, my mind still trying to comprehend where all this was going, what he was leading to.
“I’ll put my life on the line for her if I have to,” Torrid said.
Liam pressed his lips into a grim line.
With a guiding hand to my elbow, Torrid prepared to lead me away, but I wasn’t ready to leave just yet. There seemed too much to say, but no words to truly convey all I felt. There were so many questions, most of which I knew there wasn’t yet an answer to.
I looked at Liam, so tall and strong. There was barely a trace of the young boy he’d once been, but only the strong and resilient man he’d become.
“And what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? Arcadia is falling to pieces around us.”
To accentuate my point, a large chunk of glass fell atop one of the taller buildings nearby and teetered precariously on the roof’s edge.
In unison and with the same line of thought, Liam and Torrid grabbed me by an
arm and rushed me to a sheltered corner; a roofed entrance. Liam tried the heavy door, but it was locked and wouldn’t budge and the roof over our heads didn’t appear solid enough to resist the chunk of glass should it fall.
With awe and amazement we watched the large chunk settle safely on the roof only to teeter again when the wind shifted.
“We can’t stay here too long,” Liam said. “That thing could come down any time now.”
Smaller pieces crashed around us and in the distance screams of horror rang out as Arcadian citizens where showered in glass. The sky darkened as more of the Force Field shattered, taking on a blood red hue beyond the blue expanse the protective shield had created for so long.
“My father wants to try to restore Arcadia… after all this.” Liam gestured towards the ruins, his voice strangely calm and solemn as he spoke. “It’s not only the sky that’s falling, not only the protective Force Field… the whole illusion is shattered.”
His hand still on my arm, he looked at me. “You hear those screams?”
“Too well,” I said, my heart aching for every broken dream, every shattered life.
“They come from everywhere in Arcadia. Not one district has been spared… and through all this my father really believes he’ll be able to erase this horror from the minds of Arcadian citizens. He thinks these people, these lifelong citizens of Arcadia, will be able to forget their destroyed homes.”
“Not to mention all those who’ll have lost a loved one,” I added.
“Getting things back the way they once were will be impossible. People will simply refuse to ignore all this. There’s no way of candy coating it.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Torrid said.
We turned to him, aghast that he could suggest the people of Arcadia could be so callous as to forget this war and the devastation it’s caused.
“Pim Seer is capable of going to great lengths in order to get what he wants. Don’t underestimate that about him.” He gazed at Liam. “No offense.”
Liam shrugged, seemingly resigned to the opinion Torrid held of his father.
“And don’t forget he has Dr. Sanz on his side. Once the battle is over, he’ll take all his trapped genies and start the process of creating the illusion all over again, using the stolen power of each djinn to create his vision. Chances are he’ll even attempt to make it bigger, grander and more perfect than ever before.”
“We can’t let that happen,” I said. “The people of Arcadia won’t let it.”
“They probably won’t have a choice. Dr. Sanz will have their collective memories reorganized. Much of this will appear a distant dream to them… a childhood nightmare of which they’ll only remember vague fragments. By the time Arcadia is physically rebuilt, this will all be a distant and unpleasant blur.”
Another chunk of glass fell not too far away and the ground shook under our feet. We all gazed up at the teetering shard on the roof.
“Can we make a run for the building you were in?” I asked, sensing the increased urgency of the moment.
“The place is overrun by my father’s men,” Liam said with a shake of his head. “Going in there will be suicide.”
“We need to find a way of getting inside this building.” Torrid tilted his head to the locked building beside us.
“There’s another entrance on the side.” Liam’s gaze followed the edge of the building just below the teetering shard. “I just can’t guarantee it’ll be open.”
“When that thing comes down, it’ll shatter into thousands of pieces and we’ll be sitting ducks. We have to give it a try.”
“Okay,” Liam said as he prepared to run. He turned a concerned gaze to me. “You ready?”
Taking a deep breath, I nodded.
“Let’s go.”
We darted out from our shelter and sprinted to the next entrance. Unable to resist the temptation, I looked up at the threatening shard and prayed we’d make it inside before it crashed down.
But the large shard wasn’t our only concern. The smaller pieces that continued to rain down on us were enough to leave us nicked and cut by the time we reached the door. Liam pulled on the handle and we all let out an audible sigh when it opened.
“You okay?” Liam asked, his hand quick to find the cuts on my forehead.
I could feel the warm line of blood streaking down the side of my face. “It’s not as bad as it looks, I’m sure.”
Finding Torrid to be unusually silent, I turned to him and let out a loud gasp when I saw the large gash on his shoulder and a large shard of glass still deeply imbedded in his skin. “Torrid! My God, sit down.”
He grinned and grimaced at the same time. “Like you said, it’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said on the verge of panic as I guided him to the nearby steps. “The chunk of glass is still in your shoulder.”
Sitting, he seemed to derive a degree of pleasure from my attention, but was otherwise unfazed by his injury. “I heal remarkably well,” he said with a smile.
I knelt beside him and fingered the impressive chunk. “I’ll need something to put over the wound when I pull this out. It’ll bleed something awful.”
“I’ll go look inside,” Liam said. “See if I can find anything to bandage it.”
With that sweet smile still on his lips, Torrid looked at me. “I’ll admit I’m very tempted to allow you to take such good care of me, but a simple hand to my wound will quickly take care of it.” He held my gaze and whispered. “Concentrate, Kama.”
With careful fingers, I pulled away the fabric of his shirt to better expose the wound and gasped anew at the sight of his broken skin. “Torrid,” I muttered, unsure I’d be able to mend him.
“You can do it, Kama. I know you can. Envision the skin, smooth, mended, like new.”
“It’s in deep, Torrid. The blood is going to gush out.”
“You’ll have to hurry… between the time you pull it out and the time you mend the skin… you can’t waste a moment. This isn’t the time to get squeamish, Kama. You have to be strong. Don’t look at it like skin and blood.”
I cocked my brow. What was I supposed to see it as? Steak and potatoes?
“If that’s what it takes,” he said to my silent question. With a light chuckle, he put his hand over mine. “Take a deep breath, pull it out, put your hand over the wound and see it mend and close up in your mind. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I don’t mind a scar. Makes for better storytelling later.”
“Okay,” I muttered. With a stilted breath, I grabbed a hold of the shard with one hand while the other hovered over the wound, ready to slap down the moment it was clear. “Ready?”
He didn’t even bother looking away, but rather gazed at the wound with cool interest. “Go ahead.”
I pulled up, but the piece didn’t slide out of his flesh as easily as I’d expected.
Torrid winced only slightly at my failed attempt then grinned. “Try again. Maybe you’ll have to use both hands.”
With another deep breath to clear my head, I put both hands on the glass, shifted my weight to have better leverage and tugged at the piece with all my strength. An ugly and nauseating sucking sound accompanied the release of the piece of glass and I almost fell back, but quickly regained by balance and put my hand over the exposed and gushing wound.
Blood squirted through my fingers and for a moment, it was impossible to concentrate.
“Quick, Kama.”
I closed my eyes and envisioned Torrid’s smooth skin, healthy and strong. My hand remained on the wound as I fell into a semi trance, my inner eye focused on the skin mending, and the bleeding stopped.
“I think it’s okay now, Kama.”
Torrid’s voice reached through the trance and brought me back to the moment.
“You did a great job.” He put a warm and congratulatory hand over mine.
Opening my eyes, I pulled my hand away from the wound, fearful of what I’d see. “I did, didn’t I?” I happily exclaime
d. The wound was even cleaner than I had expected.
“I had no doubt you could do it, Kama. You have it in you… so many possibilities.”
I gazed at him, his eyes filled with so much pride, so much confidence in the woman that I was. I immediately felt a great sense of accomplishment and realized, with such profound conviction, all I was truly capable of.
With a will of its own, my body leaned toward him, seeking his warmth. Though I no longer felt I needed his reassurance, I still felt the pull of wanting to be close.
Just as my lips prepared to brush over his, Liam’s footsteps approached.
I hurriedly pulled the shreds of Torrid’s shirt back over the mended wound and stood.
“I couldn’t find anything suitable,” Liam said. “But I did find something I think you’ll be interested in.”
Torrid stood and faced Liam expectantly.
“Follow me.”
We stayed close behind him as he led us up a narrow stairwell. The lights were out but an eerie red glow streamed through the long narrow windows.
“I know you’ll probably want to find Matthew and Jocelyn,” Liam said as he turned up onto another landing.
I smiled, pleased to see how he knew me so well. They’d been at the forefront of my thoughts since seeing Sarah and Melanie, but I’d almost forgotten about them with the storm of falling glass.
“Are they being kept up here?” The notion seemed preposterous. Every indication I’d gotten pointed to the Coliseum, not the business district.
“No, but I’ll show you where they are.”
After seven flights of exhausting steps I asked, “How much higher are you taking us?”
“Just another four stories.”
My breathing was increasingly labored, but knowing that each step brought me closer to Matthew and Jocelyn pressed me to continue.
“Here we are,” Liam said. He pushed open a door and guided the way down a dimly lit corridor.
At the end of the hall, a tall window gave us a striking bird’s eye view of Arcadia. The destruction and devastation was even more evident from this vantage point, and the rain of glass all the more apparent.
