“Dahlia!” Echo screamed.
“A little busy, dear,” she said from a back room. Her voice, though nowhere near the fever pitch of Echo’s, was tinted with her own, more refined, strain of stress.
“This isn’t optional!” His voice was a roar throughout the cabin, so it didn’t surprise me when Royce- or Poe, I wasn’t sure what to call him anymore, came rushing into the living room. He must have been showering because his sandy hair was wet and slick and he wore only a towel. I twisted in Echo’s arms as a flash of pain, starting in my palm, pulsed across my body.
“What in seven hells…” Royce muttered. I would have totally appreciated the Game of Thrones reference if I hadn’t been in such agony. As it was, I just moaned as another bomb of pain exploded in my hand.
“It’s her lines,” Echo said frantically. “Somehow, they’re changing.”
And that-that was the last thing I remembered hearing.
Usually, when I passed out-something that’s happened with startling frequency since I learned about my Breaker heritage, I’d wake peacefully in new surroundings with whatever pressing matter that caused the blackout changed or resolved in some manner. That didn’t happen this time.
There was no peace when I came to; only pain. Royce was above me, still in his towel, his hair dripping down on me like an open faucet. “Come on, Sweetheart,” he said through clenched teeth. His hand was pressed against mine, something that made my palm hurt even more.
“Is it working?!” A voice, Casper’s voice said from close by. It was then that I noticed that, while I was lying on the floor of the cabin, my head was propped up on something. Hands, gentle and familiar ran across my forehead, sweeping the hair out of my open and watering eyes. It was Casper. My head was on his lap.
“I don’t know,” Royce said. His voice, low and gravely, seemed shaky and more than a little on edge.
“What do you mean you don’t know?!” Casper’s fingers tensed at my forehead.
“I mean I don’t know! There’s so much. I don’t know where it’s all coming from!”
“I’d start with the glowing hand!” Casper was screaming and, judging from his voice, a voice I knew every bit as well as I did my own, he was crying too. “You know what, just stand back and let Echo take care of it.”
“He can’t! I’m the only one who can do this, Baseline. So shut your mouth and let me work!” Royce’s face hit up with anger like somebody had punched him in the mouth. Then, just as quickly as it did, he tensed back up, his mouth snapping shut forcefully. Wait, it wasn’t anger that had got him so animated. It was pain. Was he hurting too?
His eyes, eyes that I had seen kill Ezra with a glance, flickered down at me. They weren’t really his, though. He was Poe. His real eyes were luminous. They sparkled with green and yellow, like a bird’s; like a raven’s. Still, even now, after everyone knew his secret, he still kept up the façade. I wondered what that said about him, and if he had been forced to hide who he was for so long that it was second nature to him now. His expression went from pained to stunned as he caught sight of me. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that my eyes were open or something completely different that caught him by surprise. And I didn’t care. The pain in my hand had traveled now. It seized my body, running up and down my left side, then my right side, and filling up the center with spikes of fluid, agonizing pain. It was hot and excruciating. It felt like I might explode and, if exploding meant the pain would end, I would welcome it.
The whole of me clenched up, Royce’s hand trapped in mine.
“Fate’s hand! It’s too late!” Dahlia’s voice shouted from somewhere beyond me.
“Like hell it is!” Royce said, leaning forward. “I just need a new tactic, that’s all.” He pressed down on me and, even though I was in more pain than I ever thought possible, I suddenly became very aware that there was only a thin layer of red cotton separating me from every inch of him. “This ain’t how I pictured it happening for the first time, Sweetheart. I’m sorry ‘bout that.” He said, looking me right in the eyes. “But we do what we do, right?” Then he leaned ever closer, and kissed me.
I was surprised- so surprised that I barely noticed how wet his face still was, or the brush of stubble against my cheek as he moved into the kiss. I barely noticed that he smelled like leather and soap, or that he tasted like honey and chili powder. In fact, the only thing that did register with me was the fact that I didn’t feel as bad as I used to. The pain, the throbbing hot knives that-just instants ago- seemed ready to spear me from the inside out, had started to subside.
He leaned further into the kiss, grabbing the side of my face with the hand that wasn’t locked in mine. He didn’t come up for air. He didn’t come up for anything. And for my part, I was glad of it. It wasn’t that he was a good kisser (though honestly, he sorta was). It was that the longer his lips stayed pressed against mine, the less I felt like I wanted to die. When he finally pulled away from me, leaving my face almost as wet as his, the pain was a shadow of its former self.
“…thank you,” I muttered in a weak pathetic voice.
His lips twitched into a mischievous little half grin. “Anytime Sweetheart.”
And my eyes fluttered mercifully closed.
The next time I woke was something more akin to what I was used to. I was in a bed. One look at Casper’s ode to Star Wars sheets, and I knew exactly where I was. Leaning up, I happily noticed the pain that had rendered me a weeping mass in Echo’s arms, was still gone. Thank you, Royce.
Guess that was a hell of a kiss.
There was a beeping though and, turning to investigate, I saw that I was hooked up to one of those monitors that you always see in hospital TV shows. Seems a little dramatic, I thought, as I pulled the stickums that helped the machine read my vitals from my arms and chest. How long had I been out anyway? Judging from the angle and intensity of sunlight streaming through the window, I figured it was late evening which meant I had been unconscious all day. No wonder they were concerned. Rubbing sleep from my achy eyes, I noticed Casper stretched unconscious a chair on the other side of the room, snoring softly with a line of drool hanging from his mouth.
“He hasn’t left your side, not even for an instant.” Echo came striding into the room. His voice was a whisper and he held a covered tray in his hands.
“You don’t have to do that,” I croaked out. My throat was dry and sore. “It would take a grenade to wake him up when he’s sleeping like this.”
“Noted,” Echo said, smiling. “I’m glad to see you up finally. How are you feeling?”
“Confused, and not very hungry,” I said, motioning to the platter in his hand. “But okay, other than that.”
“It’s actually not for you,” he answered, placing the platter on a nearby table and motioning to Casper. “It doesn’t look like he’s very hungry at the moment either, though. Now I-“
“I wanna know what’s going on,” I said, straightening up under Casper’s R2-D2 sheets. “And none of that Breaker hokum, with the rambling beginnings and the middles that don’t make any sense. Just tell me, straight up, did the Council almost kill me?”
“Did you just use the word hokum?” Echo’s brow creased.
“I’m serious!” My voice raised a couple octaves, though it still wasn’t enough to wrestle Casper from sleep. He just sniffed and readjusted himself across the chair.
“It wasn’t the Council. You’re safe here, Cresta. They can’t find you,” he said steadily.
“Then what was it?” I asked as he made his way closer. “It felt like-like I was gonna die or something.”
“We won’t let that happen,” he answered. “There are things that can be done.”
“What-“
“Give me your hand,” Echo said, and took it before I had the chance to answer. I flinched, sure that it would be sore or hurting or something. But, as he ran fingers across my palm, I realized that-whatever Royce did when he kissed me- did a damn good job of fixing what was broken i
nside me. “These lines on your hands; they’re not just lines. “
My mind flashed back to Owen standing at the bottom of the stairs in Mrs. Goolsby’s basement. It felt like a million years ago, though it hadn’t been more than a handful of months. He was talking to Ezra and Jiqui, amazed about what he had seen when he touched my hand.
The lines are changing, he had said. And that was what Mom had said before those bastards burst in the day our house exploded. It was the thing that finally convinced her something was up with me. And now, when Echo carried me back into the cabin, he had said it again. Her lines are changing. But what the hell did it mean?
“These lines, for Breakers anyway, are outward signs of everything within us. They show us our destiny, our potential. Everything we are, everything we do, have done, or ever might do sits etched across our hands,” Echo continued. “Now, you’re probably wondering why we don’t just use these lines to decipher a person’s individual future.”
I wasn’t, but go ahead…
“It’s because there’s no way to differentiate between potential and intent. Just because a person is capable of something doesn’t mean they will or won’t do a certain thing. My lines tell me I have the potential to be a master pianist, but that never came to fruition for me. So, as it stands, I couldn’t play if my life depended on it. Do you understand?”
“I mean, as much as I ever understand anything around here,” I admitted, sighing. “So you’re telling me that there’s a chance that the whole Blood Moon thing is just my potential; that it’s not set in stone-just set in palm?” I wiggled my fingers.
“Unfortunately not, prophecies are a different thing altogether. But there are times when- and this is rare to the point of being basically theoretical- a person’s lines can change. It takes a massive amount of energy and a precision that simply doesn’t exist among Breakers anymore, but it is technically possible. “
“And mine are changing?” I sat up straight as a board. My whole body tensed.
“They’re in flux; or they were,” Echo answered, but there was an edge in his voice that told me he was hesitant about all this.
“And when they’re not in flux anymore, I maybe won’t be the Blood Moon?”
Echo sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re a fixed point, Cresta. Fixed points don’t change unless they die. You are the Blood Moon and, as much as I wish I could change things for you, you will always be the Blood Moon.”
My heart dropped, crashing against the pit of my stomach. It was too good to be true, of course it was. “So, if it doesn’t matter, then why are you telling me this?” I asked, trying to mask my disappointment.
“Because I want you to understand what’s happening to you.” Echo still had hold of my hand, and he squeezed it, as if to tell me he was here for me. “Right now it seems like your body is either producing or absorbing massive amounts of shade; too much for it to handle. All that shade is why your lines were in flux and unstable. Now, if you were almost anyone else the shade would have probably spent itself out adjusting and readjusting your lines until you were left with an entirely new identity; new future, new potential, perhaps even new interests and desires. But, because you are a fixed point- and because things like that cannot be changed, the shade has no way of burning itself off. It was trapped inside of you, lighting you up like some sort of overcharged battery.”
“I don’t get it,” I answered. “I use all kinds of shade. I tied a giant freaking dome to the moon last night. And now you’re telling me I’m overcharged?”
Echo sighed. “That wasn’t- Look, you know your abilities. You shape the shade of others. All your feats from earlier, they were likely accomplished using borrowed energies. That says nothing for the shade you produce yourself. Now, I’m of the mindset that you must also be absorbing ambient shade, because there’s simply no way your body could create enough shade to explain what’s happened to you.”
“But why now?” I asked, trying really hard to keep up.
“Because of where you are,” Echo answered matter-of-factly. “There is no place in the entire world that is party to the amount of shade that exists within the Hourglass. You’re surrounded by Breakers here, Cresta; many more than you ever have been before. I think you’re inadvertently siphoning their energies. The more Breakers you’re around, the more power builds up inside of you.” He looked down at his own hands. “Even now, you’re probably siphoning from me at some low level.”
“Great,” I sighed, instinctively scooting away from him. “So now I’m a freak, a murderer, and a thief.”
“The way your powers work is not your fault,” Echo answered softly.
“Yeah, but if it kills me whose fault it is won’t matter,” I said. I leaned forward, knitting my hands together. “And that’s what’ll happen, won’t it Echo? When the shade started in my hand, it felt like I was going to explode.”
“We don’t know that’s what will happen,” Echo replied, but he didn’t look me in the eye.
“But you don’t know it’s not what’ll happen either.” I didn’t need him to respond. I wasn’t new. I knew how this worked.
“What’s happening to you is unfortunate,” Echo slid closer to me. “And no, I can’t be certain of anything. The quicker we can get you out of the Hourglass and away from all this built up shade, the safer you’ll be. But until then, it can be managed.”
“Managed, how?” I turned to him.
His eyes lit up, like I had just stumbled onto the one bright spot into this otherwise hopeless conversation. He smiled a little as he spoke. “Royce.”
“What the hell did Royce do?” I asked, but flashes of his lips pressed against mine, of the stubble that grazed against my cheek, of his red towel and not much else, skipped across my mind and I remembered what part he played. My face reddened as Echo continued.
“I admit that I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I brought you back into the cabin. I had never seen anything like what was happening to you; so much energy with no way to escape. But then Royce came and, as soon as he touched you, the energy just started melting away. You could see it-literally see it- flowing through you, into him, and then out into the ether. I’m not sure how or why, but you’re physiologies seem connected. He was able to help you, and eventually he was able to stabilize your condition.”
“He kissed me until I settled down?” I asked, clutching the Star Wars sheets tightly and trying to hide my embarrassment.
Echo smiled despite himself and shook his head. “You had massive amounts of energy to dispel then, and that was a quicker way of clearing it out. I promise you, every time since then, he’s done nothing more than hold your hand.”
A rush of relief flooded my mind, but it was immediately followed by curiosity. “What do you mean every time? How much shade could I have possibly produced today?”
Echo’s eyes narrowed. He looked to Casper, still sleeping on the chair, and then back at me. “Oh, you haven’t spoken to him at all, have you?” He put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me like he had so often, like he was about to tell me something I wouldn’t like.
“Echo, what is it?” I asked; my mind racing to a million different, and equally horrible, hypothetical situations.
“What happened to you was very severe. It took time for us to wrap our heads around what was happening, and even more time for you to stabilize.”
“Echo, what are you saying?” I said through nervously clenched teeth.
“It hasn’t been a day, my dear. You’ve been unconscious for well over a month.”
Chapter 3
Bad News, Sweetheart
A month? A month?!
I looked around frantically, like there might be something in the room that would discount what Echo had just told me. I couldn’t have been unconscious for an entire month. There was no way.
“Cresta, it’s fine, you’re fine,” Echo told me in a slow calming tone. Of course, that didn’t do much good. He wasn’t the one
who had just lost a month of his life. He wasn’t the one who was so sick or broken that it took more than thirty days to get him ready to even walk around.
What had I missed? I hadn’t been in the Hourglass a full day before my entire life fell apart. The thought of what might have come and gone in a month’s time made my blood run cold. And Owen-...
God, I was supposed to go get him. I was going to save him, and now the Council had had him for a month. He probably thought I abandoned him, that I had taken that stupid promise I made seriously and that he’d never see me again. My heart broke into a thousand tiny little pieces as I threw Casper’s sheets off of me.
I pulled at previously unseen wires that ran across my body; wires to monitor my breathing, wires that stuck across my legs, and a tube that- to put it delicately-made it possible for me to go to the restroom. Echo turned his head as soon as I threw the covers off.
“Cresta stop. Let me get Dahlia in here to help you.”
“I’ve waited long enough,” I answered, pulling the last of the wires off of me. I swung my legs off the bed and attempted to stand. My legs were jelly though, and I went careening to the floor.
“Fate’s hand,” Echo muttered, and quickly made his way to me. “You’re going to have to take it slowly. It’s been awhile since you’ve been on your feet.”
He knelt down to help me, but I pushed him off. I needed to do this on my own. “I got it,” I answered. “I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.” Using the bed frame for support, I pulled myself up and let my feet and legs get used to the idea of holding my weight up. I could see Echo aching to help steady me. Casper, for his part, snorted a little and snuggled back into his chair.
The Breakers Ultimatum (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 3) Page 2
