Protecting Truth

by Michelle Warren

  When it stops, I can barely catch my breath. Students clap and scream and whistle for more, but the show is apparently over. Eventually the DJ returns to spinning music, and students return to dancing. A large buffet has been set out in a nearby room.

  “Would you like some food?” Bishop asks after another dance. “I’m starving.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Bishop makes his way through the crowd, disappearing from view. Now, I finally have a moment to do what I’ve wanted to do this whole night. I scan the crowd. When I find Turner alone I march to him, where he’s pouring punch for himself. Perpetua chats with a group of friends across the room.

  I stand next to him, practically boiling out of my skin. With quick movements, I grab a cup, swipe the ladle from his grasp, and pour a drink for myself. I take a quick swig, casting my disapproving eyes from behind the rim, and then I slam the glass on the table. My opinion can’t be held in any longer.

  “I can’t believe you brought her with you!”

  “Are you suggesting you have a problem with my date?” He smiles, acting innocent.

  “She’s a horrid, back-stabbing witch!”

  He shoves an arm under mine and hisses, “Aren’t you the one who told me to move on, Seraphina? What was it you said exactly? ‘Find someone new,’ I think it was.” He drags me out a set of ornate doors and onto a veranda that overlooks a holographic city. Turner kicks the doors closed behind us. The party and music disappear, leaving us in silence.

  “Uh!” I grunt and stomp away, but he latches onto my arm.

  “No! We’re having this out now! You aren’t going anywhere!” He swings me back to face him. “Why don’t you ask yourself why you’re so jealous of her?”

  “Jealous! I am not!” I scream. “You’re out of your delusional mind!” I pull away.

  But he isn’t done with me. He pulls me back again. My body lands with my chest against his. Before I can react or even say another word, he crushes his lips into mine and kisses me. I struggle to get away, but he holds me there, letting his hungry fingers skim over my shoulders and down my back. His kisses are frantic, hot, and out of control. I lose my mind, because suddenly, I kiss him back.

  All the tension that has built up between us explodes into fireworks. They sizzle through my veins, shooting throughout my body. The kiss, heated with passion, is the consequence of the raw and careless emotional disturbance that’s been building for months. His scorching lips work mine over. I reach into his dark hair and twine my fingers into its roots, pulling him closer, gasping for more.

  Turner kisses the line of my collarbone and bare shoulders. In the frenzy, he lifts me from the floor and staggers backward. I land seated on a ledge and lock my legs around his hips. Then I grab his collar, jerk him closer, and vanish into absolute delirium. There’s passion—so much more intense passion than I’ve ever felt before.

  “Sera!” The veranda doors fly open.

  We pull away from each other. Turner’s wistful eyes lock with mine. I drag my wrist across my wet lips, breathing heavily. I want to jump back into his arms and devour him when he steps away.

  Sam rushes forward. Her beautiful taffeta gown sweeps behind her. She slaps Turner in the face and grabs my arm, quickly dragging me away. I only look back over my shoulder, staring at his silvery eyes. I want to return and allow his kisses to consume me. A ghost of a smirk reaches his lips as though he can read my mind. Then he’s gone from my view.

  Inside, Sam drags me through the people dancing, holographic animals, jugglers, and finally out a door on the opposite side of the grand ballroom. She shoves me into the ladies room, drags me to a circular sofa, and pushes me down on the seat.

  “Sit!” she commands, but she doesn’t have to. Lost in this abyss of complete and utter shock, I would have let her guide me anywhere. My stunned mind buzzes as I stare off into space. A single finger lingers at my lips, brushing the exact spot where I just allowed Turner to kiss me in a way I never dreamed imaginable.

  A set of fingers snaps in front of my eyes, awakening me. Sam paces back and forth, biting her nails. She never bites her nails.

  Awareness drenches me. “Don’t tell Bishop!” I plead. “Don’t let him see into your mind or show him what you saw!” The words tumble from my lips at a hurried, frantic pace. “Please!” I jump up and grab her arm, imploring with desperate eyes as my fingers dig into her skin.

  Fear surges through me when she doesn’t answer. “I don’t know what happened. He just—kissed me, and I fought, but then I didn’t.” I stare off again, considering the awful consequences of my actions. Overwhelmed, I fall to the floor. My gown puddles around me. I lean into the billowing fabric and cry.

  Sam bends down, bringing her eyes level with mine. Her mouth turns down at the corners. “Sera,” she says gently, her eyes brimming with tears. “Bishop’s already seen.”

  ::29::

  One Kiss

  Heartbreak. I actually hear my heart break. It shakes and crushes into a thousand little pieces that seep out of my body. They float away into the air, extinguishing into nothing. I feel nothing; I am nothing.

  Sam wraps her arm around my back, helping me to stand. She enlists someone else to help. I hear the exchange, but it doesn’t completely register. I don’t even bother to see who it is, or care to recognize the voice. I want to disappear into my sadness, allow my body to fold up into nothing. Bishop knows. He saw me kiss Turner through Sam’s mind. What have I done?

  •

  When I begin to come to my senses, I realize we’re on the catwalk of the ballroom, sitting on a bench, looking down at the gala. People are twirling and dancing to music I don’t hear.

  “Sera, can you hear me?” A sad voice breaks through.

  I tilt my head listlessly; my eyes land on Sam.

  “Pay attention if you can,” she says. “I have a lot to tell you, and I’m sorry it has to be now.”

  My brows furrow. There’s not much life in me.

  “Look around, do you see everyone dancing down there?” Sam asks and gestures toward the crowd. I sluggishly turn my head in the direction of the fun. “Do you see Macey, Quinn, and Xavier?”

  I nod.

  “Now, do you see Jessica and Stu? Or Agnes and Atticus? Do you notice anything they have in common?”

  “No,” I whimper.

  “They’re dating…they’re in love.”

  “So?”

  “Think about it. They’re all in teams. Remember the connection we had when we first met? For me, I knew you were my family, and I’d never even met you before. In my heart, I knew you belonged to me,” Sam explains.

  “Yes, I remember the feeling,” I mumble.

  “Now think of Bishop. The first time you saw him, how you felt—that attraction, an unreasonable attraction beyond teenage hormones. You wanted him even though you had no idea who he was.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, Sera, that it doesn’t matter that you kissed Turner. Bishop will forgive you. He doesn’t have a choice. He has to love you.”

  “What?” I sit up a little.

  “I’m saying, we as a team of Wanderers, Seers, and Protectors are genetically predisposed to love one another. We are our own best matches, soul mates.”

  “You’re saying I don’t have a choice who I love?”

  “Well, actually, you have a choice. Unlike others, you have a very unique choice—one that was never given to you. You had a choice to love one of two people, a choice most of us don’t get. And the choice was stolen from you.”

  “Sam, you’re not making any sense.”

  “You have two Protectors, Sera. Or you did before you came to the Academy.”

  It clicks immediately. Turner doesn’t have a team. “I suppose you could say it just didn’t work out,” he said when I asked him about them. I assumed that meant they didn’t take the oaths and decided to live as Normals.

  “How?”

  “Twins, Sera. Both meant for yo
u. Only one can have your love. Only one can be our Protector.”

  “Who—who decided for me?”

  She clears her throat. “I promised I would never tell, but I can’t stand to see you like this. It’s not fair, and you deserve to know.” She grabs my hand and tightens her fingers around mine. “The moment Bishop saved you from the gang in the metro last year, the moment you talked to him in the Academy courtyard, it was decided for you. Bishop kinda—cheated.”

  “Cheated?”

  “He and Turner were told to wait, not to reveal themselves to you. Terease was to administer some kind of test to see who you gravitated toward. The one you chose would have been our Protector, the one you would love forever. And I’m starting to think, it may not have been Bishop.” She frowns.

  “What about you, how come you didn’t choose?”

  “I was too young at the time. I didn’t connect with either in that romantic way. I only saw them as my brothers, equally suited for the job, and I still do, because they’re both in love with you. My match will be made with an odd member of another team.”

  I let it sink in, remembering every instance Bishop popped up when I moved to Chicago, every strange emotion I felt when I was compelled to be near him, stare at him, talk to him. I never thought I didn’t have a choice. Why didn’t I question how irrational everything was?

  “He sent me his photograph,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Before I moved here, when my wandering abilities started appearing in Miami, I received an envelope. It had Bishop’s photo in it. It must have been him, trying to seal his own fate.” I glance at her.

  Sam’s expression reflects her horror. “I—I can’t believe it.” She frowns with obvious disappointment.

  “Me neither.” I’m sad. I’m mad. I’m confused. If I were feeling more like myself, I’d want to lash out, make someone pay. Not for taking away my choice between two boys, but for taking away my choice, period. I was delusional to think that my relationship with Bishop was pure, untouched by the laws of Wandering. Nothing seems immune.

  “There’s more.” She clears her throat.

  “Please, no. This is bad enough.” I sink back and hug my stomach, holding myself together. I might split apart at the seams if I let go.

  “We have to leave for me to explain. You’ll have to see it for yourself.”

  ::30::

  An Arrangement

  Sam and I leave the gala. She drags me through the empty corridors to our apartment. I’m apprehensive. “Is Bishop here?” I’m not ready to see him. I don’t even know what I’ll say to him, how to feel.

  “No, don’t worry.”

  She walks into my bedroom and heads for the closet. She pulls out the first outfit she sees—the one hanging on the door—and throws it at me. “You’ll need to change. You’re going to wander.”

  “In this?” I look at the outfit, the one I saw myself wearing in London that day, weeks ago.

  “It’s as good as anything else.” She shrugs.

  She doesn’t know the significance of the outfit. I sigh. Sam leaves my room as I change. I shimmy out of my costume, letting everything fall to the floor. I step into a pair of gray leggings, a skirt, t-shirt, and suede jacket.

  On my desk sits my oath package. I unlock it, lift the top, and remove my new phone. I shove it in my pocket when Sam returns with a relic.

  “Here.” She drops a set of keys into my palm.

  “These are Bishop’s house keys.” I turn them over, considering why she’d want me to wander with them.

  “You must go there to see, and you have to leave now, before anyone finds out what I’ve done.”

  “Just tell me, please.”

  “Trust me, Sera. If I had known what I know now, I would have told you so much sooner. You need to see it for yourself.”

  “Fine.”

  We climb out Sam’s window and down the leafy vines that wind around the walls of the Academy’s facade. Society soldiers dressed in plain clothes stand at the entrance, but they seem more worried about who wants to come in, rather than which students are sneaking out.

  There’s a crisp autumn chill in the air. I pull my jacket closed as Sam and I make our way to the center of the courtyard, next to the obelisk. Only the city continues to move. Taxis and cars fly past the nearest streets. All the others in the school, including the teachers, are still enjoying the festivities.

  “Do you have the relic?”

  “Yes.” I hold up Bishop’s keys.

  “You’ll repeat this as your keyword to travel to London: ‘August, twenty-five, this year, three o’clock.’”

  She’s just confirmed what I know is coming, I’m going to London, the day I visited Bishop over summer vacation. I nod, a little sad for the tears I know are coming. There’s a good possibility my life will get worse, but how, I can’t even comprehend.

  “August, twenty-five, this year, three o’clock.” I say the keywords out loud and grasp the keys. Then I say the phrase in my mind, letting the numbers swirl through my head, injecting them into my soul. I bolt, leaving Sam behind as I run across the courtyard, feet pounding the grass. I pump my arms, pushing them farther, until I hear the familiar rumble. The ground shakes, buildings crack in half, grass rips, the city rolls up into the sky behind me like a carpet, blocking the twinkling stars and the breeze off Lake Michigan. The land finally races down from the sky and slams me into a time-traveling wormhole.

  I launch feet first into inky nothingness. Colors of the night swirl and ripple, increasing into light. My feet land on firm ground in a running stop. Cobblestone streets wrap around a neighborhood of Victorian homes and flats. This is Chelsea, London. Bishop’s home stands fifty feet away. With shaky determination, I walk to the front door.

  Instead of using the keys, I knock on the door. If Bishop answers, he’ll have no knowledge that I’ve betrayed him to Turner yet. Where I am in time now is weeks before that event ever takes place. I relax my shoulders and try not to appear guilty, not to appear as though I know our love has been tainted.

  The door creaks open. Thirteen-year-old Charlotte, Bishop and Turner’s little sister, stands at the door. Her face, fresh with youth, sparkles pretty as a peach. Her strawberry-blonde hair hangs to her shoulders, and her eyes shine with recognition, even though I have never met her before.

  “Sera!” She giggles with delight and pulls me into a hug. “However did you get here?” She squeals and drags me down the hall. Bishop told me that she’s a Normal and so far she hasn’t shown signs of becoming a Wanderer. She doesn’t know how lucky she is.

  “Oh, I was just in the neighborhood.” I make a joke. It’s the easiest way.

  “Mum,” she calls. “You aren’t going to believe who’s here!” She drags me into the main living area.

  “Who, darling?”

  I stop in my tracks when I see Aunt Mona standing at the kitchen counter, cutting carrots. Mona looks up, her face draining of blood as her eyes meet mine, and she slices her finger with the knife. Apparently she’s as surprised as I am. I spin around, looking for anyone else in the room, but there’s only Mona.

  “Oh, blast!” She holds up one finger, beginning to drip blood, and sticks it in her mouth.

  “Mum, are you all right?” Charlotte runs to her aid.

  “Yes, but why don’t you run and fetch me a plaster from the medical,” she says in an unfamiliar British accent.

  Charlotte runs off on her errand. I’m thankful she doesn’t see my face as she leaves.

  When the sound of her steps disappear up the stairs, I turn to Mona and hiss, “What the hell is going on, Mona? Why is Charlotte calling you ‘Mom’?” A tear escapes.

  Mona frantically sweeps forward, ready to gather me into a hug. Is she really going to try to console me? I lunge away from her, too angry to let her touch me. I back up to a nearby wall, to keep a safe distance.

  “Sera, oh, I knew this day would come, but I didn’t know it would be here so quickly. Who t
old you? How did you know?”

  “I didn’t.” My lips tremble. Somehow Sam knew. She wanted me to see. Mona is Bishop and Turner’s mom.

  “How? Please tell me Bishop is not my cousin,” I blurt, gripping my stomach to hold in the disgust that roils there.

  “No, of course not!” She takes off her apron and tosses it on the counter. She sighs and holds her hand to her head, massaging the skin as though she has a headache.

  Charlotte returns. “Here ya go.” She hands Mona a bandage and lingers nearby.

  “Love,” Mona says to Charlotte, “I’d like very much to talk with Sera, alone. Do you think you could leave for a bit?”

  “But—but—that’s not fair,” she whines. “I want to talk with her too. I want to hear about the States.” She pouts and crosses her arms.

  “How about we ask Sera to stay for dinner and you can question her to death then?” She runs a hand through the girl’s hair and pinches her chin lovingly.

  “All right,” Charlotte concedes and runs off, up the stairs.

  Mona sighs and turns her gaze back to me. “Sorry, she’s wanted nothing more than to meet you with Bishop talking about you all the time, showing her pictures of you. I think she’s a little jealous of the boys going to the Academy in the States.” She gives me a strained smile.

  I don’t even know how to look at Mona, what to say, what to do. I want to run away and never see her face again. I want to lash out and make her hurt as much as I do. But all I can do is stand here, too stunned to react.