“I suppose asking me is out of the question.” Merrin’s voice was terse but calm. I looked over to find that, while her hands and feet were still bound, she had managed to free herself from the binds around her mouth and eyes; which was pretty damn impressive if you ask me.
“You have to promise me you’ll be quiet, or else I’ll have to put the gag back in,” Owen said, almost apologetically.
“What would screaming gain me, Owen? This is over now anyway? Nothing you can do can stop the intel in my head from reaching the Council. Even killing me would only serve to send the information faster. “
“You know we wouldn’t kill you,” I said.
Merrin cut her long eyes at me and set her jaw. “I know he wouldn’t kill me. You, on the other hand, are a killer. Your past says so. And your future says you’re much worse than that.” Before I could resond, she narrowed her eyes at me and asked, “Do you remember what I told you that day at the rest area, before Allister Leeman’s men took us?”
Images of that day, of the conversation Merrin and I had, flashed through my mind. “You said that, if you had to, you wouldn’t have a problem killing me.”
“Don’t forget it,” she said.
“Stop it!” Owen yelled. “No one is killing anyone. We’re going to find a way out of this.”
“And what if you do?” Merrin asked through gritted teeth. “Then what happens? Have you forgotten who you are, who she is? Fate doesn’t lie, Owen. You’re on different sides of the future. She causes the horror. You end it.” She looked over at me and, with as much hate as I had ever seen in another person’s eyes, added, “In fact, the only thing that might stop me from killing her is knowing that, one day, you’ll do it for me.”
I blanched. Heat and bile rose in my throat. I wanted to hit her, to take her chair up to the top of Wendy’s tower and throw her off. But that would only prove I was what she thought I was, and I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction.
“Don’t make me put the gag back, Merrin,” Owen warned.
“Stop lying to yourself,” she answered. “You can’t win this. It’s in the stars. It’s a-“
“If you say it’s a fixed point, I’m going to cement your mouth shut,” Owen said.
“What are you trying to do?” She asked; her voice lower, warmer.
“Just live, and maybe be happy,” he said, his eyes flickering over toward me.
“You had happiness,” Merrin answered, her face scrunching sourly. “But you gave it away, and for what Owen? We could still be happy. Let me out of this chair. Help me bring Cresta in. I’m sure the Council will understand why you did what you did. They’ll pardon you, Owen. I know they will, and we can live the life we were meant to.” There was pleading in her voice and desperation in her eyes that I bet would have been there even if she wasn’t tied to the chair. This was Merrin’s big push.
“And what if it’s not the life I want anymore?” He asked, pools filling his electric blue eyes.
“What does ‘want’ have to do with anything?” Merrin asked. “I’m yours. You’re mine. We belong to each other and to the calling that we were born to. Fate says so. Destiny says so. Science says so. There’s no room in lives like ours for personal aspirations. You learned that a long time ago, and deep down, you know it. I know you do.”
I wanted to speak up, to smack Merrin and to tell her that, of course, what Owen wanted mattered. To me, it was almost the only thing that mattered. But I decided to hold my tongue. Owen needed to answer these questions himself, and I was more than a little curious as to how he was going to do it.
“I love her, Merrin,” he said, blinking hard. It took me aback. Though I had always felt that Merrin suspected something was going on between Owen and me, he had never come out and confirmed it; not until now.
I expected her to start crying or something, but all she did was roll her eyes. “Yes, I know,” she said in a tone you’d expect to hear from a frustrated parent whose child had just told her that she loved ice cream. “I think you’ll agree that that’s hardly relevant.”
“Hardly what?!” I couldn’t keep myself silent anymore. “Of course it’s relevant. Love is how normal people choose their life partners, you know?”
“Well we aren’t normal, Bloodmoon. And unlike you, we were raised to believe that we were,” she sneered at me.
“Don’t call me that,” I warned through clenched teeth.
“Why not?” She asked, her tied hands clenching into fists. “That’s who you are, isn’t it; the Bloodmoon, the destroyer of the world? What’s more, you’re selfish, and a liar, and a coward. And very soon, everyone will know it.”
Before I realized what was happening, I was moving forward. I guess my emotions had gotten to best of me, because my hand, now balled into a fist, had reared back. I was about to punch her, to really punch her. But then I felt Owen’s hand on my arm, his breath against the back of my neck.
“Calm down,” he whispered and, to my surprise, I did. The hurt and anger melted away and I collapsed into Owen’s arms. “Not wanting to die doesn’t make a person selfish,” I heard Owen say.
“It does when living means that so many others won’t get to,” Merrin said from behind me. I couldn’t see her face. My head was still buried in Owen’s chest, but her voice didn’t sound mean or even harsh. It was matter-of-fact, like she was reciting a recipe or something.
“We don’t know that she’s the Bloodmoon,” he answered.
“We do,” Merrin replied. “And what’s more, you do. I saw inside your head, Owen. I know that there’s no doubt in your mind about who Cresta is, just as there’s no doubt in your mind as to who you are. What I can’t figure out is, knowing this, you still insist on trying to save her. It makes no sense.”
“Yes it does,” he said. “And like you said, you saw inside my head.” He kissed my forehead. “So you know exactly what kind of sense it makes.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I answered, pulling my face away from Owen’s chest. “What you think, what she thinks, even what I think; none of it matters. The Council is about to find out about me Owen, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
“Excuse me, but that may not be technically true.” I wasn’t sure if Flora had faded into invisibility or if I had just been so engaged in my conversation with Merrin and Owen that I stopped seeing her, but when she spoke, it sort of startled me.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
She pulled at her fingers and said, “Perhaps there is still a way to keep the truth of your situation away from the Council.”
“Who is this?” Merrin asked with raised eyebrows.
“Merrin meet Flora,” I said.
“Flora Atrum?” Merrin asked, looking her up and down. “You come from good stock. I’d hate for you to disappoint them by tossing your lot in with the wrong crowd.”
Flora bounced forward, still pulling at her fingers. “Well, in order to be disappointed, one must first be informed. I have a plan to stop you from being able to inform anyone. So I’m afraid you’ll find your threats of shaming me less than effective.” She nodded. “It was a good try though.”
“There’s no way to stop this,” Merrin sighed. “Even if you killed me, all the information in my brain would be automatically sent to the Council. It’s a failsafe.”
“Yes,” Flora pulled at her index finger sharply. “But what if the information was no longer in your head? What it had been extracted?” She turned to Owen. “When I found out about you and Cresta, you said there was a way to strip memories from someone’s head, to make them forget certain things.”
Owen folded his arms in front of him. “And did you forget the part where I said how dangerous doing that to a Breaker would be?”
“More dangerous than what the Council will do to Cresta once they get their hands on her?” Flora retorted. “They’ll kill her Owen. She doesn’t deserve to die.”
“She’s the Bloodmoon for fate’s sake,” Merrin said. “
She’s not some martyr. She’s responsible for the deaths of millions and the suffering of millions more.”
“She’s not anything yet,” Flora said. “And she hasn’t done anything to merit being executed. That won’t stop the Council from doing it anyway though, and we all know it.” She turned back to me, her lip quivering. “You could never run far enough Cresta. The Council has eyes everywhere. One day, they’d find you. Our only shot is to stop them from figuring it out in the first place.”
“He’s not going to do that!” Merrin sneered from her seat. “Forcible memory removal from any Breaker, let alone a conduit of the Council, is a corporal offense. It’s comparable to treason.”
“I’ve already been convicted of treason,” Owen muttered. His eyes were on the floor. His face was a pale, featureless mask.
“You were acquitted of those charges, and that’s hardly the point,” Merrin said, her eyes narrowing. His lips receded stone like against her teeth. “You’re not really considering this?”
Owen didn’t answer. He didn’t move at all. His eyes sat stalwart on the floor.
“Owen! Tell me you’re not actually considering this! You could kill me! You could leave me a vegetable.” He didn’t respond. “Owen! Look at me!” Slowly, his eyes turned up to meet her. “Forget the rest of it if you’d like; all the laws you’d be breaking, all the laws you’re already breaking. But remember that I am your perfect. You have a divine responsibility to keep me safe. To forgo that responsibility is to venture into the territory of the unforgivable.”
He looked at me, and then back to Merrin. “The thing is, I’m not sure I care about those laws anymore.”
Merrin sighed, like she realized she had lost, not only this argument, but maybe Owen altogether. “Then care about me,” she said. “You can pretend that you’re this person all you’d like. But I know the real you. I grew up with him, and I know that you’re not the type of person who would hurt someone intentionally; especially someone you care about. And as much as you’d like to pretend you don’t, I know that you care about me Owen. I know that you can’t do this to me.”
She was right. Owen would never risk hurting Merrin. Care or not, he felt a responsibility toward her. She was his genetic match and, whether he chose to believe in that sort of thing or not, it didn’t change the fact that she did, and that her life was irreversibly tied to his. We’d have to find another way. We’d have to leave; to run and find a place where the Council couldn’t follow- if a place like that even existed.
Owen walked forward and leaned in front of Merrin, so that they were face to face. His eyes were soft and forgiving. “Of course I care about you,” he whispered. “You’re part of me and, no matter what happens, you always will be. I couldn’t change that if I wanted to.” With his thumb and forefinger, he brushed her dark bangs out of her eyes. She shuddered, as though she had been yearning for that touch for a long time now. He leaned closer. “But I can’t live without her, Merrin. I’ve tried, and I just can’t do it. And you’re not giving me much of a choice.”
Before she could respond, his thumb dug into her forehead. Her eyes got big, first with terror, and then with only emptiness. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and pressed harder. Blue light exploded in ribbons from Merrin’s forehead . Some of the ribbons fell to the floor and disintegrated into nothingness, but most of them seemed to funnel through Owen’s hand and into his body.
“Oh my God!” I squealed. “Owen, what did you do?”
“What I had to,” he said through gritted teeth. He was still crouched down. His expression was pained and sweat was starting to form on his forehead.
“Owen, there has to be another way. What if you kill her?” I asked, my fingers curling up into nervous balls.
“Baby, I appreciate your concern. It’s sweet and all. But I really need to concentrate right now,” he grunted. “Just watch the door, okay?”
“We’ll do better than that,” Flora said. “We’ll shield it; put up anchors so that no one will be able to see or hear anything that goes on in here.”
“Good-good idea,” I stammered. My heart was racing. My palms were sweating. As much as I wanted to keep my secret, the idea that something would go wrong and that Merrin’s blood would be on my hands, on Owen’s hands, was unbearable. I was already responsible for my father’s death and, in a way; I was to blame for my mom and Wendy’s death too. The body count was starting to pile up, and even one more threatened to break my resolve. “Be careful,” I whispered to Owen. He nodded as blue energy flowed into him.
Flora and I set out in shielding the room. It was pretty simple; a standard anchor and something that I learned pretty quickly once the whole Allister Leeman thing subsided and I could focus on school. The anchors we chose were just inverted W’s that covered most of Weathersby; so they looked a lot like M’s. But, where the W’s kept baselines from seeing what was going on inside of Weathersby, the M’s had the adverse effect- keeping the people inside of Weathersby from seeing or hearing inside our room.
It felt like forever passed as I watched Owen work on Merrin. Sweat poured off him and buckets, as he winced and even groaned under the pressure of what he was doing. I couldn’t tell how it was going because Merrin, for her part, sat motionless in the chair. It was like she was a mannequin; a shell of a person as the blue energy poured out of her and into Owen.
With God’s help, she’d be okay. When Owen was done, she would wake up in that chair with no recollection of the last hour. She’d deliver her faulty info to the Council of Masons, and Owen and I would have successfully dodged another bullet. But what if she didn’t? What if she died? What if this turned her into a brain dead vessel? Owen would be a murderer, and me-I’d be everything I was trying really hard not to be.
I had no idea how much time had passed when I heard the noise. It was soft at first, but familiar somehow; a melodic ring, like keys on a piano. It was the same noise I had heard on the other end of Owen’s phone, the same noise I heard when Allister Leeman activated the stars to guide me to his trap. But what was it doing here, in my room?
My head jerked toward Owen, but he was so consumed by what he was doing that he hadn’t heard anything. The noise sounded again; a melody of tones. Usually, something like this wouldn’t have bothered me. Anybody could have any kind of ringtone, after all. But I knew what these tones meant, and Breakers weren’t allowed to have cell phones unless they were out in the field. As I turned to Flora though, leaning against the wall of our shared bedroom, I saw the phone in her hand.
The melody rang out again, keys that I knew were meant to either convey some message or unlock something in Flora’s head. But that didn’t make any sense. For Flora to have a phone like that, for her to be receiving messages like the kind Allister Leeman and his people sent, then that meant that Flora-
“No…” I muttered. “No. It can’t be. Flora, what is that?”
She looked up at me slowly, a weird foreign smile spread across her face. “I’m really sorry, Cresta. But it’s what has to be done.”
And with that, she disappeared.
Chapter 9
The Other Side
“Owen!” I knew he was busy. I knew that, with one wrong move, Merrin could be killed or rendered brain dead. But I had also just found out that one of my best friends, one of the only people in the world who knew the truth about who I was, was working for my worst enemy.
Oh yeah, and she had just gone invisible.
“Owen!” I yelled again.
“Cresta, I’m busy!” He grunted. His lips were ground together tightly. I felt a sharp tug at my side. Before I knew what was happening, I flew across the room and smacked hard against the wall.
“Cresta?” Owen was looking at me know, still crouched in front of Merrin. “What’s going on?”
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t catch my breath.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going on.” Flora’s voice sounded from somewhere on the other side of the room. Something hit Owen har
d in the gut. He groaned and crumpled to the floor. Another hit, and he went sliding across the room. The blue energy that had been flowing from Merrin to Owen began to snap and burst into bright ribbons. Merrin screamed and started to shake all over. Her face was a mask of pain. Whatever was happening inside of her was not good.
“Flora, stop this,” I panted. “You’re going to kill her.”
“Flora?” Owen asked, confused. A force swung across his face, splitting his lip and splashing blood through the air.
“Flora stop it!” I said. I tried to stand, but she was on me like a flash, pounding me with invisible fists and feet until I was back on my ass.
“I’m sorry, Cresta,” I heard her voice say from above me. “I don’t want to do this, but I have to. You messed it up. You messed it all up.”
“Who are you working for, Flora?” I asked, feeling warm blood flood metallic in my mouth. “Allister Leeman is locked away. He’s in the Hourglass. He can’t help you now.”
“He’s where fate needs him to be, Cresta. We all are.” She was close now. Right on top of me. In the corner of my eye, I saw Merrin, shaking and twisting violently, still bound to her chair. She was going to die. This was going to kill her, and we’d all be responsible. I heard a crunch and a moan. Owen was up now, standing behind me, panting. He had kicked Flora, or punched her or something. I hadn’t seen. All I knew is that he had actually made contact with her, and that was impressive on its own.
“This doesn’t mean I’m not your friend, Owen.” Flora’s voice sounded further away now. “You’re just on the wrong side of things, that’s all.”
“Shut up,” Owen muttered through gritted teeth. “I’m not the one who aligned myself with a lunatic.”
“He’s not a lunatic, Owen,” Flora answered. “He’s smart. He sees things no one else does, and he knows things about the future that the stupid Council only dreams of knowing. “
The Breaker's Promise (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 2) Page 8
