The Breaker's Promise (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 2)

by Conner Kressley

  Owen’s brows crinkled. “Well…not technically.”

  Okay. So, not the answer I was hoping for.

  Before I could answer-you know, maybe to ask him what he was talking about, Royce jumped into action. And, because he was Royce, he did it literally. In an instant, the boy with the sandy hair, Southern drawl, and killer stare, soared over me, landing between me and Owen in a really kickass ninja-like stance.

  The kid has skills.

  “This is not a fight you want to have,” Owen said, inching forward and bridging the testosterone filled gap between them.

  “You might be right, but then again, you might not,” Royce said in a tone much more playful than Owen’s. “Tell you what, how’s about you get your lanky troublesome ass out of here and I won’t show you why I’m the baddest son of a bitch you’ve ever met? Sound good?”

  “Lanky?” Owen muttered. Then, shaking his head, he looked past Royce, and asked me, “Who is this jackass?”

  “He saved my-“

  “Too late,” Royce butted in. He rushed Owen, battering him with a flurry of body blows and face hits. His fists were so fast that they were little more than a blur, but somehow, Owen seemed to be able to block most of them. Still, Royce had the momentum and was forcing Owen backward. Mixing it up, Royce connected with a sweeper kick that made Owen stumble but not fall.

  “Stop it!” I shouted. If they could hear me, they were too stubborn or stupid to respond. What it is about guys? It’s like they get stupider in pairs. I wonder what would happen if you got them into a pack.

  Owen threw an elbow that collided with Royce’s face. He faltered backward, and suddenly the momentum was on Owen’s side. He slide into Royce, shoulder first, and hit Royce in the gut, knocking him off his feet. If I was to take Royce’s instructions seriously, this would be the part where I would run, use the compass he slipped into my back pocket while I was sleeping (the perv), and try to find his weird uncle who lived in an abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere.

  Why did it sound so much less crazy when he said it?

  But this was Owen. He didn’t pose me any threat, and if I could get either one of them to pull their heads out of their butts for long enough to take a breath, maybe I could explain that. Royce swept Owen’s legs out from under him, and suddenly they were both on the ground; leaves crunching and dust swirling around them.

  “You’re a lunatic!” I heard Owen grunt. There was a crunch and then a thud, but they were rolling around now, and I couldn’t tell who was getting the better of the fight. There was a yell, and then blood. Owen’s blood, Royce’s blood: I couldn’t tell. It covered both of them. Oh God, they were going to kill each other over nothing.

  Somehow, Royce managed to throw Owen off him. He sprung up in an instant, not even using his hands to get to his feet. I looked over. Owen struggled, trying to get to his feet. Now that they had separated, I could tell that the blood that stained both of them was definitely Owen’s. Royce must have popped him in the nose, because it was a gushing red geyser. And now Royce was charging toward him, ready to literally kick him while he was down.

  “Stop it!” I said, but Royce was still coming. There was no way Owen would make it to his feet in time. “Stop it!” But neither of them was listening to me. Owen grabbed a stick from the ground and reared back, ready to strike Royce; who, even after registering the weapon, still wouldn’t stop. “I said NO!!!”

  I’m not sure what happened, but a rush of anger later, and both Royce and Owen were flying through the air; Royce hard to the left and Owen (a bit more gently) to the right. They collided to the ground at roughly the same time, and I rushed between them.

  “I don’t know what you idiots think you’re doing, but we do not have time for this! We have got to get out of here and, so help me, if the two of you don’t get it together, I’m gonna start cutting off stuff. And I promise, it’ll be stuff that you’ll miss.”

  “He’s the Dragon,Swee-“

  “I don’t care!” I yelled in Royce’s direction. “And now is not the time to be calling me sweetheart.”

  “When is?” Owen muttered, rubbing the top of his head. His nose was still bleeding, so his other arm rested against it; the white fabric of his shirt soaking the blood up.

  “Just” I shook my head. “Never mind that. Time for Cliff’s notes. This is Royce. He saved my life. He knows my mom. He’s here to take me to her. Oh, and Allister Leeman’s dead.”

  I turned to Royce. “This is Owen. We know each other well. He’s saved my life too; way more times that you. And I not leaving him or letting you hurt him. Dragon or not, he’s staying.”

  “If you trust him so much, then why don’t cha ask him who he brought here,” Royce said, dusting himself off.

  That’s right; Owen said he wasn’t alone. But, with everything as delicate and dangerous as it was, why would he bring someone here? And for that matter, how did he find us in the first place? Even I didn’t know where we were.

  “That would be me.” Another voice; familiar, but neither Royce’s nor Owen’s, sounded from beside me. I looked over, and saw…absolutely nothing. Now, just a few months ago, I wouldn’t have been afraid of nothing. My stomach wouldn’t have soured for absolutely nothing. My whole body wouldn’t have tensed up for absolutely nothing. But that was before I knew what nothing might hold.

  “Flora.” My teeth gritted. In a shimmer that warped the air around her, Flora appeared; her newly shorten red hair ruffling in the wind. “You brought her!”

  “It’s not what it looks like,” Owen answered quickly.

  “Usually I’d say that those are the traditional last words of a loser, but in this case, he’s right.” Royce nodded toward Flora. “She’s with me.”

  “No she isn’t,” I said, ready to finally deliver the knuckle sandwich I promised this bitch at the lake. “She’s with Allister Leeman. Or she was, before Ezra put a pole through his heart.”

  “What?” Owen asked. “How did Ezra even get in here?”

  “One annoying question at a time,” I raised my hand. “How is she with you?” I asked Royce.

  “Your mom recruited her a few years ago. The Council had just let her brother die; typical douchebag Council behavior, and she was ready to pitch it all.”

  “I was going to run away,” Flora said. “But your mother found me. She told me that not all Breakers thought the way the Council does. She said there was a place where people were fair; that I didn’t have to live under tyrannical thumbs. And then she told me about you.”

  Listening to Flora talk about my mother hurt in about a dozen different ways. First off; because I hated Flora; and secondly, because it meant that she knew my mother, the woman who gave birth to me, way better than I did.

  “That’s when I promised I would do whatever was necessary to keep you safe,” Flora continued. “But she didn’t tell me I had to do it. She didn’t force me. It was my choice.” She beamed, like the idea of actually choosing something was an accomplishment in itself.

  “Keep me safe?” I balked. “You’re the reason we’re in this situation in the first place. If you hadn’t betrayed us-“

  “Then the Council would have found out about you sooner. I was just trying to keep your secret Cresta.” She looked from me to Owen. “All of your secrets.”

  “Faking allegiance to Allister Leeman was a failsafe. In case she got caught; which she did,” Royce said, giving Flora a playful pat on the shoulder. “That’d keep the Council from finding out about us.”

  “I couldn’t tell you the truth. The less you knew, the safer you were,” Flora said, looking at me with green puppy dog eyes. “I hope you can understand that.”

  “I…We need to get going,” I said with a sigh.

  “You need to give me a second,” Royce said. “There’s something I need to take care of.” He turned and started marching toward a nearby hill. Turning back around, he shot a glance at Flora. “Keep an eye on him.” He motioned to Owen. “I’m just a holler a
way.” Flora nodded, and Royce disappeared behind the hill.

  Flora turned to us, pulling at her fingers like we were back at Weathersby. Suddenly, she was that nervous girl again; though now, her trepidation made a little more sense. She was always looking out for me; always worried that she was going to get caught or fail somehow. “He’s really not that bad once you get to know him.” She grimaced.

  “Flora, Cresta and I need to talk,” Owen said. “Can you give us a minute?”

  “Oh, w-well I’m really not supposed to,” she said, looking over at the hill Royce had vanished behind. “But I mean-Yes, of course. You-you are my friends, and I imagine you have some catching up to do.” She looked at me and made a weird kissy face. I didn’t respond. Even if everything she did was actually for me, I wasn’t ready to be friendly with her again-not yet. “O-okay then. I’ll just be over here,” she said, and shuffled behind a tree.

  “Ezra killed Allister Leeman for some woman named Isis; said she had a change of heart,” I started.

  “Okay,” Owen said flatly.

  “Well?” I asked, tilting my head.

  “Well what?” He countered, and I couldn’t help but notice his tone was less than happy.

  “Well, do you know who that is?”

  “Can’t say that I do,” he said, backing away from me and leaning against a tree. His nose was still bleeding, and I wanted to help him. But something about his body language told me that wouldn’t be welcomed.

  “How did you find us?” I asked, edging closer to Owen.

  “Flora and your brutish friend-what’s his name- Royce? They have trackers that give one the other’s coordinates.” Owen folded his arms and set his jaw. “She told me what she said to you… and what you did.” His words cut off curtly. “What were you thinking?”

  Wait. Was he angry with me? I had been so happy to see him; happy enough that it made the rest of this garbage fade away into the background, and he was actually angry. “Honestly? I wasn’t thinking,” I admitted. “I just knew I needed to find a way out of this.”

  “Out of marrying my brother?” He asked with his eyebrows raised.

  “Is that a problem?” I asked.

  He gritted his teeth; actually gritted his teeth at me. “Of course it’s a problem. Look at where we are, Cresta. Look at what’s happened because you refused to-“

  “Refused to live my life without you!” I said, much louder than I probably should have, given that we were technically in hiding.

  “Don’t put this on me,” Owen said. “You certainly weren’t thinking of me when you asked Allister Leeman to build you an exit ramp.”

  “The first thing I did was ask about you!” I was purposely yelling now. Let the slew of Breaker assassins find me, so long as I got to be right. “The absolute first words that came out of my mouth when everything went to hell were about you.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” he muttered bitterly, looking at the ground.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked. It was funny. The tone of his voice did way more to take the wind out of me than the motorcycle crash had.

  “What would you have done if Ezra hadn’t shown up; if Allister Leeman had actually offered you a way out of here? “

  “I’d have come for you,” I answered.

  “You’re smarter than that,” he answered, shaking his head like he didn’t believe me. “I’m the Dragon. There’s no way in fate’s underbelly that Allister Leeman would ever let us leave here together, and you know it.”

  “I don’t like what you’re insinuating,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

  “Would you rather if I just came out and said it?” His words were venom.

  “You are such a hypocrite,” I said, trying desperately to keep the tears out of my eyes. “It’s okay for you to abandon me, but the second I get outside of your range of vision, suddenly I’m a traitor or something.”

  “I would never abandon you!” He said as his face twisted painfully.

  I pushed the urge to comfort him out of my mind and continued. “Of course you did. You avoided me. You wouldn’t talk to me. You broke up with me.” I swallowed hard. “Face it, you gave up on us.”

  “You think I wanted to do that?” He asked, finally coming closer. “You think I wanted any of this? Watching you marry my brother is not at the top of my wish list; I promise you, Cresta. Turning you away was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I did it.”

  “Why Owen, to keep your brother from getting his heart broken? Is Sevie’s happiness really worth more than your own? Is it worth more than mine?”

  “It’s not about Sevie being happy,” Owen muttered.

  “Then what?! What on earth could be important enough to get you to throw me away like some piece of trash?”

  “The crone!” He said, and threw his hands in air, like he was giving up. “It’s what the crone said!”

  My heart skipped, remembering what the crone had told me; about how things were going to get hard and complicated, about my choices, and about how what I did would matter. But what could she have told Owen to make him act like this? The idea gave me chills.

  “What did she tell you?” I asked, terrified of the answer.

  “This,” he answered softly. “She told me that you were going to have to do something that you wouldn’t want to. And that, if you didn’t do it, everything we had been trying to hide would come pouring out. Like water flowing up, she said.” Wendy’s words to me in the dream screamed at my mind.

  And it all breaks when water falls up.

  “She didn’t say it would be…what it was. But when I got back home that night, and saw Sevie in his coupling guise, I knew,” Owen said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” I asked, putting it all together. Owen was gung ho on me marrying his brother, but it wasn’t to keep Sevie from getting hurt. It was to protect me.

  “I already abandoned my home. How many ancient laws do I have to break, Cresta?” He asked.

  “Don’t lie to me,” I warned. “I know you, and you don’t give a damn about those laws. They wouldn’t have stopped you for a second.” I marched closer. “So why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because it wouldn’t have done any good,” he sighed. “You said you know me. Well, I know you too. Telling you the truth is the worst thing I could have done. You’d have never given up your happiness to save your life. You’d have jilted Sevie for spite.”

  “As opposed to for you?” I asked. This time it was my face that scrunched painfully.

  “I thought that-“

  “That if you broke up with me, I’d be so heartbroken and lonely that I’d marry the first person who came strutting by in a tux?” I was fuming. This had hurt me on a deep level, and I wasn’t sure Owen understood that. “Do you not get how awful that was?” I asked. “You manipulated me!” I pushed him as hard as I could. He stumbled back a little, but wasn’t really affected. I guess I wasn’t as intimidating outside of my ‘shadeshaping’ gig. “Everybody I know, everyone in my entire life treats me like a chess piece. They move me here. They push me there. They put me where they want me to be.” I pushed him again. “Everybody but you. Or at least, that’s what I thought.”

  “I was trying to protect you!” He screamed.

  “You were trying to control me! And who asked for your protection anyway?! I’m not a kid, Owen. You don’t get to make my decisions and keep me in the dark because you think it’s in my best interests. We’re supposed to be in this together, equally! I’m the Bloodmoon and you’re the Dragon. That can’t work if you’re not honest with me.”

  “Like you were honest with me about Merrin being in your head?” He asked. “The Council got all of her memories. They’re saying you hijacked her consciousness; that you held her captive to keep your secrets.”

  “And do you believe that?” I asked.

  “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed. “But you kept it from me. And maybe you did that for my own good. Maybe you knew t
he idea of my perfect lingering around and waiting to die inside of your head would be too painful for me. And I get that. You were trying to protect me.” He set his jaw and I knew where this was going. “But I was trying to protect you too. That’s what we do for each other, Cresta. You and me against the world.”

  “Literally,” I muttered.

  Owen sighed. “I know things aren’t going to be perfect, but we have to rely on each other. You have to know that I love you, more than I’ve ever loved anybody or anything. And that, if I’m keeping something from you, it’s because I think it’s for the best.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Things are too complicated. There are too many moving pieces on the table for us to be keeping things from each other. If we’re gonna get through this, it’ll be because we were honest with each other. Don’t ever lie to me again, and I’ll never keep things from you.”

  “Okay,” he said quietly.

  There was moisture under my eyes, so I swept it away with the back of my hand.

  “What are you wearing?” Owen asked, staring at my shirt.

  “It’s a Bloodmoon,” I sighed. “Royce’s attempt at humor.” My head was pounding. I wanted nothing more than to lie down and wait for it to stop, but that wasn’t in the cards. We needed to keep moving. “We’ve been here too long. We have a long way to go, and I screwed up Edgar,” I motioned to the twisted bike. “I’m gonna get Royce, so we can hit the road.”

  Owen nodded. I walked to the hill that Royce disappeared behind, but turned around. “I’m sorry I hurt your brother,” I said to Owen.

  “Me too,” he answered.

  “Are you ever gonna see him again?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I hope so.”

  “Me too,” I answered, and walked down the hill. I found Royce down in a valley, pacing back and forth slowly. He had his hand pressed against his ear and, as I got closer, I saw that he was holding something that might have been a phone.

  “I don’t know,” he said to whoever was on the other end of the phone. “Because I didn’t take into account that she’d have a preppy chick hitchhiking in her gray matter.” He didn’t see me, but he was definitely talking about me. But who was he talking to? It hit me in a rush of warmth and adrenaline that Royce might actually be on the phone with Dr. Conyers; or, as she was known around these parts, my birth mother. “Yeah, it’s been a setback. There’s no denying that, but I promise-” He stopped short, listening to the other person. “I have no idea. You’d have to ask Flora about that. She’s the moron who brought him here.” Oh, they were talking about Owen now. “It doesn’t matter. I’d break both my hands against his face before I’d let him touch her. The Dragon ain’t getting nowhere near her. I promise, Mom.”