Another wave, and as she fought harder, he held her under, letting his head fall back, allowing the red sun to bathe his face in its warmth. This was the moment, the most sublime feeling he had ever experienced. How could taking a life feel so … so right?
Frank could feel the undertow working on his body from about the knees down. He pushed with one hand and pulled her hair with the other, getting his knee wedged into her back. He was amazed at his own strength; he wondered at how young he felt. Getting rid of the baggage was doing him wonders.
The thrashing stopped. When he felt the fingers of the undertow grasping for Kimberley’s body, he released her and she slipped away from him forever. Perhaps she’ll stay down under a thermocline for a while. Until the sharks get her.
Perhaps one already had. He waded back to the shore, and as he did, a sense of relief filled him.
The pink backpack was still there on the beach. He snatched it up and walked casually to the house, where he took off his wet clothes and then, naked, held the stone up to the sunlight. It whispered something he couldn’t put into words; it was more of a feeling than a tangible voice.
“You know where I should go,” Frank said absently, “and I know who to call.” He set the stone—the Bloodstone, he thought he should call it, and chuckled at his originality—up on a makeshift shrine near the window, where it could catch the sun’s rays.
The room became red. Frank giggled like he hadn’t done since he was in primary school. He dialed the number and waited for someone to pick up on the other end.
CHAPTER IV
Boise, Idaho—Present Day
MICHAEL HAD NEVER HAD as many questions in his life as he did now. And yet the power of his love for Airel compelled him to place them all aside as he looked on and saw her mourning in the rain at Kim’s open grave. Already, she looked older and more mature.
He understood grief. He also understood what it felt like to bear too much—experience. Whether such things would produce wisdom, or indeed, anything good, remained to be seen. What he did know was that he wouldn’t say much today. What was there to say at the mouth of a grave?
The plane ride back from Africa had been surreal. Airel’s father, John, was stoic. Stoic doesn’t even begin to describe him. After the fog of whatever sedative he had been dosed with finally burned off, he’d hardly spoken to Michael the whole trip home. All he had said was, “You can call me Mr. Cross.” And that was what plenty of people called him on the way home, all of them showing the most profound respect.
John Cross seemed to blame Michael for everything. Each sideways glance said more than any words ever could. He blames me.
Michael wasn’t entirely certain how they had been allowed to pass through customs—if that was what two armed guards, a private hangar, and a chartered jet amounted to—but he did hear diplomat bandied about more than once in hushed tones, along with the word president, but exactly which president, and of what country, he didn’t know. The expressions of awe and fear on the faces of those who attended them, the fact that eye contact was always deferred, said more. Michael wondered what kind of pull John Cross had with the authorities. It was internationally potent, whatever it was, and they clearly were going to be allowed to leave South Africa and enter the United States without documentation of any kind, absolutely incognito. His mind spun with a million questions, but the look John had given him … that stopped everything.
So they had spent the next twenty-four hours travelling on a chartered plane. It was a small aircraft and didn’t have provision for baggage beneath, so Kim’s coffin—an unceremonious-looking air freight crate—rode with them in the back of the passenger cabin all the way back to Boise. A load-keeping curtain had been strapped down between the “cargo” and their seats, but still.
They had touched down in Boise yesterday and nothing really happened after that, except for this—sometime in the early evening, John walked up to Michael, shook his hand firmly, and looked him in the eye. He said, “Thank you. Thank you for all you’ve done for my daughter. I’m very sorry for your loss.” Michael understood that John was talking about Stanley. He figured Airel must have had a sit-down with John and asked him to go easy on him, telling him he had nowhere to go, nowhere to live, nowhere even to sleep, but all he had been able to do was nod.
And now today, at Kim’s grave, he couldn’t even do that. He stood wordlessly outside the inner circle and watched Airel grieve the loss of her best friend. If anyone in this whole mess was innocent, it was Kim.
At least at first.
***
ELLIE STOOD IN THE rain under a leafless tree wearing gray skinny jeans and a black zippered hoodie, the hem of the hood brought down low over her forehead. She looked on at the mourners. There was something like pity in her eyes as they beheld the sight of the girl’s mother—a divorcée and single mother who, Uriel knew enough from her due diligence on Airel, had tried her best for Kim. But now the time in yet another human life had run its course, and those who were left had to find a way to move on.
Unfortunate that Kim got caught up in this. Uriel reflected on her own past, on her own dealings with the Brotherhood, on what she had learned over the course of millennia. Kim had been smart enough to do reasonably well in life, at least before it had gained an infinite number of extra dimensions. The Bloodstone had simply been overwhelming to her, in every possible way. And in some impossible ways.
Ellie looked at Airel and rubbed at her chest where the Mark had gripped her. Airel was so similar to how she had been at that age. She was one whose mind was usually made up without the benefit of very many unbiased facts. Ellie sighed. What am I going to do about you, Airel?
It was indeed time to move on. She turned and walked away in the rain. She felt like herself once again, no longer Uriel—the name of her youth—but Ellie. Echoes of her father calling her name, usually the wrong one, resounded in her head. She would, she decided, let the old names die with the old memories. Is there any other choice?
She needed time to grieve, time to think. And she knew where she could go.
Home.
***
I COULDN’T MAKE MYSELF become fully present at Kim’s grave. My mind was elsewhere. Random thoughts kept pressing into me even as I watched the casket hang above the open hole on wide canvas straps in the pelting rain.
She? I couldn’t tell if it was me or her anymore sometimes, but the phrase, “The Shining Ones” kept skittering into and out of my head, along with something that sounded Arabic, something that sounded like Derakhshan, but it was slightly different.
I sighed and shivered. Though my mom held an umbrella over me, I almost didn’t want it. I wanted to feel the cold rain drenching me. Maybe that would wake me from this trance. I feel like nothing’s real anymore.
“God, Kimmie. I am going to miss you.” I started to cry again, and fear rose up and seized me once more. It was so real, so final, so rude and sudden and scary that Kim could die. That she could die. And if she could, that meant I could, that anyone I loved could as well, and that this pain I now felt would never find an end, never resolve into healing.
Is this my life? To outlive everyone I love, to endure and go on as if my old human life was a whisper?
I scooped some of the moist earth up into my hands and placed it on top of Kim’s casket. Michael held me, and I was so glad he was with me. He didn’t say anything. But he was there. I didn’t know if I could go on without him; he was the man I wanted to be with. There was no other for me.
Heat filled my eyes and the tears spilled over, uncontrolled. This was all on me—Kim’s death, the reason she was even there in that stupid wooden box was all on me.
I didn’t want any of this. Somewhere deep inside me, hidden between the folds of my heart, I knew I was meant for something. I didn’t know what it was Yet.
***
THAT NIGHT, I SAT on the couch with my family at home, staring into space, the TV newscast running over me. I, like a boulder in a swift torre
nt, sat unmoved. My mind hovered over my best friend’s grave. I was in shock.
I couldn’t believe that Kim, my Kimmie, was gone, that her life was over. She hadn’t even turned eighteen yet. Then again, neither had I. I couldn’t help thinking that when I did turn another year older, and it was inevitable, that I would be forced to move on without her, and for every year after that for the rest of my life. We would not see each other anymore. There would be no more breakfasts at Sunrise Café, no more movie nights and long talks.
That event—the date that would mark what would have been Kim’s next birthday—was months away, and I had to admit to myself that the “moving on” part was never going to happen for me. I would never forget Kim, never let her go or let myself stop hurting. But she had been doomed before Africa. Before Ascension Island and Wideawake Airfield. Before we left the House of Kreios in our ambitious quest to—to do what? Save the world? Change the world?
The newscast was an incoming tide—Authorities aren’t giving any details, but sources say a local girl has returned home from a frightening abduction that took her all the way to Africa. Our investigative journalist, Les Wright, has more on this possible human trafficking ring— and it rose and fell over me like waves—and join me on location in Eagle. Sources also say that there were two minors involved, possibly three, one of them a boy named Michael Alexander, who had just moved into the area. This might provide the link to the mysterious disappearance of Eagle resident Stanley Alexander, the boy’s father. It’s their house you see behind me here. Mr. Alexander, Stanley Alexander, has now been missing for nearly two weeks and is presumed to be—and all I could do was breathe in stutters from having wept my eyes out.
Whatever I was going to do, I didn’t want to hide. I didn’t want to run from the facts. I didn’t want to try to act like everything would be okay, because it wouldn’t be. I knew I would never be the same.
“I’m going nuts,” I said, and I meant it.
“You are nuts,” Michael said. ”We all saw it a long time ago, but telling a crazy chick she’s crazy is … well … crazy.” He was the only one laughing at his joke, and I could imagine the death glare my dad was giving him. Michael was sitting on the couch behind me and I sat between his legs on the floor. He ran his fingers through my hair, and somehow it made me feel better. I was glad Michael was not treating me with kid gloves, like my parents. He made me feel normal, like things might turn out okay. I told him, “I must be crazy. I like you.”
“Sanest thing you ever did.”
My dad cleared his throat and I almost giggled, but all that came out was a coughing choke. “How about pizza?” Dad said. “I’ll buy.”
“I could eat,” Michael said, jumping up and taking half my hair with him.
“Hey, easy with the hair.” I managed to hit him in the back of the leg before he could dodge me.
“Flying Pie or nothing though, okay?” Dad said.
“Sure,” Michael said. “Have you seen my cell phone, Airel?”
I shook my head and he walked to the kitchen. I endured the trial that was my new life—parents. So good at times, so lame at others.
“Found it,” Michael called out from the kitchen.
“Airel, honey,” my mom said, moving behind me now that Michael had stood up, “are you going to be all right? She began to rub my shoulders.
I sighed. “Kim’s gone, Mom.”
She didn’t say anything. Maybe she couldn’t say anything.
I was both glad to be home—around my parents—and totally claustrophobic about it. I knew they had done their best for me, but somehow I didn’t belong here. I felt like a stranger in my own home.
I lived my life believing the whole time that I was invincible, that it would never end. And then one day, poof—time’s up. I breathed raggedly, my lungs still spastic from sobbing.
Across the room, my dad stared at the television in a trance. I’d had a heart-to-heart with my parents when we got home from Africa and my dad informed me that I was “not to see Michael anymore.” I countered that I was in love with Michael, but Dad shut down and checked out like he always did.
“We love you, honey,” my mom said, snapping me out of it. “Know that your father and I are here if you need to talk.”
I nodded, but closed my eyes. They were dry; they stung when I blinked, so I kept them closed.
Michael walked back into the room and said, “I tried to get one with rhinoceros, but they said they were clean out. Went with pepperoni and extra cheese instead.”
I turned to face him. He stood over me with a big dumb smile and I pulled him down next to me. I was glad for one thing—Michael got me. He understood me. It was such a stupid thing, too, but cracking a joke at the most inappropriate moment was the Kimmiest thing to do, and it was what she would have wanted. The last true thing we ever did together was wrestle on the grass in that park in Arlington, where she swore she was hungry enough to eat a dead rhinoceros. I looked at my mom, who seemed a little concerned about this whole rhinoceros thing. “Don’t worry, Mom.” I patted her hand. “Inside joke.”
I would miss Kim fiercely.
And … I knew this to my core … one day I would avenge her death.
CHAPTER V
IT WAS LIKE MY life had been wrenched into reverse. I sat on the couch with Michael while my mom sat across from us in her chair, acting nervous with her hands on her thighs, and my dad stalked the living room floor like an inquisitor. What, I thought, are we suddenly Amish, and we have rules for courting now? After all that’s happened, I have to ask your permission to live my own life?
“Airel,” my dad said, “after all that’s happened, I would like you to please explain to me your side of the story. I need to know what has been happening with you and him.” He thrust a finger in Michael’s direction.
Before I could say anything, Michael jumped in. “Mr. Cross, my dad was an exporter.” He just blurted it right out.
“Michael, don’t feel like you have to explain for me,” I said.
“No, I want to clear this up. It won’t be easy, but I want to do it.” He turned toward my father. “He told me himself. Stanley Alexander was an exporter of . . . of slaves, okay? He was a human trafficker. He sold people, mostly young girls, and it was probably an international thing.” He paused for a moment, taking his time. “As I think back on it—and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately—it seems like it would make sense that he’d been doing it for years. I never dreamed he was—I didn’t think that kind of thing could even happen, much less that my own father would ever be involved in something so evil. But I have to face the facts.
“I thought he was a lawyer. I guess he probably did know at least a little bit of law. But the way he put it into practice was criminal. People are supposed to study law to protect the innocent and uphold justice. Not take it apart and abuse it.” He exhaled. “I never bothered to ask, because as a kid, you trust your parents, but … I guess that explains why we moved around so much.”
There was silence. Michael continued. “I learned how to make friends pretty fast and easy. Every time we moved again, the routine got easier.” He ran a hand through the soft spikes of his hair and growled low, an expression of frustration. “I don’t have any evidence for this, but I think it’s pretty obvious—Stanley used me to scout for new recruits. I would make friends with new kids everywhere we went, and then he would—I guess—snatch them up and ship them off to the distributor.”
“The distributor,” my mom said.
My dad placed a hand on my shoulder. “Michael, what in the world are you talking about? This doesn’t sync up with the information I was able to gather by reading wire reports and the AP feed.”
“The AP feed,” Michael said, “isn’t the last word on what really goes on out there, and every ‘news’ outlet has at least a little propaganda in it.”
“Okay. You’ve summed up eleventh-grade civics. Good. And thanks for the reminder. But are you trying to tell me that your fat
her—Stanley—was the bad guy here? What about this stalker guy, this blond-haired giant who happened to show up in all the wrong places? What about him?”
“Dad—” I said, but he interrupted me.
“No, Airel. He’s a big boy. Let him answer for himself.”
“Dad,” I said, “you’re being unnecessarily harsh, don’t you think? Michael has—I mean, he lost his dad.”
My dad sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But I would still like an explanation. I chased you guys halfway across the world to find you.” He fell quiet, and I could imagine that he probably felt a little powerless since, in the end, anyway, he hadn’t really done anything except fall into the clutches of a kind of darkness he couldn’t have imagined. He’d been drugged, thankfully, so he missed the scariest parts, but then he had reawakened only to see my face, and Michael’s too, in that little out-of-the-way hotel room in Simon’s Town. Thank God he’d been able to get us home, but still, he had his many questions, and justifiably so. Everything in the middle was still a big blank for him, one that Michael and I would have to fill in very carefully. I took a breath and let it out, hoping Michael had a believable ending and that he would get to it quickly.
“Sir,” he said, addressing my dad, “the truth is that Stanley, my father, was the villain in this whole thing. You probably can’t imagine how much it hurts for me to be able to admit that, but it’s true. I confronted him about it, and he confirmed things that are too crazy for me to make up, the things I told you about his occupation or … hobby.
“What really happened was this—he sent one of his agents to the theater on the night the blond stalker first appeared. This guy—not the blond guy, but the other guy, the one who was killed that night—was a thug. He was supposed to snatch Airel and Kim right then. My—I mean, Stanley–told me everything. The ‘blond giant’ you’re talking about, whoever he is, actually intervened on their behalf.”
The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance Page 66
