by Kaleb Nation
“We were outside, in a garden,” she continued. “It was giant like a courtyard, with all red flowers hanging from the trees and the ground just…littered with them. Like that was the ground, these bloody-looking red flowers all over the place. And I just stood there with Thad next to me, there was nobody else but us and you.”
She lifted her right hand. “Thad was whispering something to me and showed me his silver ring. It only had one mark on it then. He said that every Guardian has two rings for picking their Chosens: two humans that a Guardian trusts more than anyone else, and wants to keep for eternity. It was almost like he was reciting something from a ceremony.”
“Then you started talking,” Callista went on. “You told me I could still leave if I wanted. If I wasn’t absolutely sure of what I was doing, that I shouldn’t go ahead, and you wouldn’t hate me.”
She shook her head. “But I wasn’t going to hear any of that. I didn’t have any control over myself, but I knew that I wanted it, back then. And when you finally got your hand up and put the ring on my finger, everything just went black, and I woke up.”
Here she reached over her shoulder, massaging the back of her own neck just like I’d wished I could have done minutes before. I held my hands as she eased her own pain out.
“Then all the other dreams kept going. Can you imagine what that did to me?” she said. “This real-life ring started growing from my finger and I was still dreaming about you night after night. My parents already had me going to a psychiatrist for the nightmares. I think that’s how the Guardians found me—all my wild stories in my medical records about claws and Chosens and someone named Daniel Rothfeld…it had to have sent up a flag to them somehow.”
She was fighting back tears. “Then they found me, and…you know. But the dreams kept going until the scales appeared while I was lying in their cell. I kept seeing you at night, watching you die in your lives, watching Thad die…watching me die.”
She sighed, the sound almost agonizing to me.
“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “I couldn’t stop watching you get killed. Every dream just made me remember. Like those other lives are still buried somewhere in the back of my head: just old torn-out chapters to my life now. And I begged for the memories to stop: how many dreams do I need to endure? How many times do I have to die before I can live with you again?”
The words rang like a saddened bell, so permeated by lost hope that they were excruciating just to hear.
“I missed something and I didn’t even know why,” she said. “I missed you. It was like an echoing feeling that stuck around from the other life. And I fought it, and that worked for a while, but now…”
Her hand stopped rubbing the corner of her eyes to wave once with dissatisfaction at me, sitting so close to her, unaware that my presence had unearthed something she’d tried hard to bury.
“So you have to understand,” she said, grabbing my hand between both of hers, squeezing them like she’d fall if she didn’t hold on to me.
“I don’t hate you,” her voice broke, weakly forced. “I just can’t get close to you. Everyone I’ve known in every life I’ve had is dead. And I know you’re trying, but I can’t risk it. You’ve already died too many times to me, and I can’t go through that again. I can’t get close to anyone, and that’s especially you.”
Our eyes were locked with each other’s, the corners of hers red and leaking tears that ran down her cheeks in zigzagging lines. She was begging me, pleading that I not let happen what had already sealed her fate. In some other life, when she’d been such a close person to me—however impossible that seemed– she’d given herself to become my immortal Chosen so that we would never be separated. But in that forever, somehow it had become her downfall, and that was why she was there, thrust into a war that wasn’t hers, crushing my hands, regretting a decision she hadn’t even made as herself.
I swallowed hard. Her gaze didn’t break, studying my face like it was the first time she’d ever really seen me. Her hands shook; or maybe they were my hands that moved?
“I want to promise it,” she whispered. “It’s for both of us. If we’re going to be stuck here, we can’t let it happen again. We can only work together; we can’t be what we once were.”
I’d never consciously thought of it. The idea of having the slightest of attachment to Callista hadn’t even presented itself to me, so unfathomable that I’d glossed over it. Or had I? From far away, I could sense them nipping at me, as I stared at Callista and her anxiously waiting eyes, ready for me to commit to the promise. This should have been easier. I didn’t even know her—the promise she asked for was like me promising to never be a trillionaire. It wasn’t like I was ever getting close to her anyway, so what did it hurt to promise what would never be?
“Alright, I promise,” I finally conceded. It was much harder than I’d expected. Callista’s chin trembled. But she understood me, in the fewest and strongest words I could muster. So she gave my hands one final squeeze, our silver rings touching each other as she did.
“Thank you,” she said, letting out a breath. I couldn’t tell for sure if it was relief or not. Then she let go of me and settled back into the corner, and closed her eyes.
Why did I feel a pain inside my chest? It made me sick. I wanted to sleep again. I could have gone to bed, but I chose to stay with her, four or five inches away again.
15
The Vault
No one was around when the scents of cooking woke me up, my arms touched by noon sunlight that streamed through the tall windows. I stumbled down the stairs in the direction of the rattling pots and pans.
Thad was in front of the giant metal stovetop, warming slices of apples on one side and pancakes in the other. Beside him on the counter was the jar filled with the strange doughy mix.
“Like apricots?” he asked me in a rush. I nodded.
“Good,” he said. He pointed to the jar of mix. “These are pancakes. He didn’t forget that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
He flipped one of the pancakes over onto a plate and slid it across the island counter to Callista. She was perched on one of the stools, holding a glossy guitar that she’d found somewhere, attempting to tune it. She glanced at me and gave a cynical half-smile.
“Obviously,” she said with disgust, “whoever owns this house is a habitual instrument abuser. This thing is vastly out of tune.”
“Maybe it’s just for looks?” I suggested.
“Leave it to the uber wealthy to keep such a wonderful device just for looks,” Callista murmured. I was relieved that she appeared to have forgotten—or at least was trying to ignore—our late-night meeting.
Callista strummed the guitar, smiling when she was satisfied. She started with chords again and Thad picked up on it, singing a hoarse rendition of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” from Poison. I knew that band well because my mom still had an old record of theirs, and sometimes on weekends she’d break it out. I had been born with no vocal talent whatsoever, but the feeling of the three of us together—just like I did back home with Mom and Alli —was far too inviting to resist.
After we’d eaten our fill, Thad dumped the remainder onto our newly-ordained trash plate.
“So in the words of our dear friend Callista,” he said, “what’s the plan, Michael?”
We all knew why this decision fell on me—I’d naturally been pushed forward as the leader ever since the truth had come out about whom I’d been. I drank my water down until the glass was empty and left me with no remaining excuse to keep from talking.
“We go to the bank,” I said. “That’s the next obvious step.”
I still had the paper in my pocket, so I pulled it out and spread it onto the island countertop. We all slid closer to look, my finger underscoring the address.
“I was thinking about this last night,” Thad said. “I know it’s a long shot, but if we get you to the Blade,” he tapped my shoulder, “and you actually have it, won’t the Guard
ians be afraid enough to back off from us?”
“Maybe,” I said, trying to be hopeful. “Then again, the last time I had it was the first time they killed me. So we might have some fighting to do after all.”
We all knew that we’d be no match for what the Guardians could throw at us. I wasn’t even sure how much more time Anon could buy for us. But it wasn’t like there was another way.
“How are we gonna get there?” Callista asked.
“Same way we get everywhere,” I replied.
“Think that’s a good idea?” she said. “Isn’t that downtown? Where will we land? It’d seem a bit suspicious in the middle of the day.”
“You’re right…” I admitted. That would certainly be a problem, as mundane as it seemed. I scratched the side of my face as I tried to think of a solution, surprised to feel stubble growing since I hadn’t shaved for half a week.
While Callista and I were debating our options, Thad had been searching for a garbage can to dump our trash plate into. I heard a sound of surprise from Thad when he opened a door.
“I’ve found a way to get there!” he called to us, standing right outside the kitchen. Callista and I jumped to our feet, scurrying to him. Since we’d gotten to the house I’d thought that door led to a closet, so I hadn’t opened it. But behind it was a garage.
To call it a garage would have made anyone I knew back home fall over in disbelief. There were no bins of junk, no ripped cardboard boxes on wooden shelves, no bicycles hanging by hooks from the ceiling. When Thad reached around the corner and flipped a switch, suddenly the polished concrete floor glimmered as the place became illuminated by intense ceiling lights. These same lights shone upon five polished things sitting in a row.
My heart nearly stopped beating when I saw the fourth.
The magnificence of this mansion, every piece of expensive furniture it housed, I would have eagerly thrown away for the device before me now. I’d glanced over the black Bentley Coupe, the silver Maserati Gran Turismo, and even the white Audi R8—locking on the single piece of flaming red glory behind them.
A Shelby GT500. The most glorious car the world had ever been graced with; the car no road deserved to feel trample its gravel. My BMW would have melted in jealousy at the sight. Its wheels were the blackest of black, windows tinted, the sweeping red angles of the hood and side and door like a carefully crafted ship. The silver cobra on its front whispered seductively at my heart. If I’d had my camera, I could have photographed its two front lights, and likely would have been able to read nothing but eternal bliss behind their pupils.
Did it matter that I couldn’t remember what its V8 engine could do, or what its lack of a white racing stripe meant, or that the other cars were far more expensive? Did it matter that I’d seen more than my fair share of nice vehicles when working with wealthy clients? I was still captivated by this piece of machinery.
Callista punched me in the shoulder, finally breaking in to my thoughts.
“I take it you’re going to marry the red one?” she snapped. I heard Thad laughing at me from the corner.
“You’re just better at hiding your admiration for this god-machine,” I told him. I approached the car with caution, hands out until I’d touched its warm metal. Callista tilted her head at me in surrender as I ran my fingers over its hull.
“Well good,” Thad called. “Maybe your admiration will make you a safer driver.”
The shadow of something came flying across the room from Thad, and I yelped and grabbed it out of the air before it could dent the Shelby. I was about to hurl obscenities at him, before I realized that I was holding a ring of keys.
I looked from them to Thad in alarm but no words would come out, because I saw that he was standing next to a row of key hooks on the wall. He was already heading for the Audi with another key in his hand. I turned my head and saw that Callista had climbed into the passenger seat of my new car.
“Let’s go!” she demanded.
The speed at which I got to the door could have won marathons. I tore it open and dove into the chair before I had fully realized I was even moving. The black leather formed into my back, a button on the side adjusting the seat to be just right, the slam of the door snapping like a battle tank’s hatch. I turned the ignition and the engine sound sent a thrill to my heart.
The garage door opened behind me, letting sunlight stream in. It felt like the first time I’d seen the outside world in ages. With shaking knees I pushed on the gas to ease us out, and suddenly I was going down a driveway, passing trees and a yard, then out an open gate, then facing the runway of a road before me. I pressed the brake a bit too quickly, not accustomed to its taunt control.
Thad was at the end of the street already, waiting impatiently for us to follow. We sat in the center of a beautiful lane, trees overhanging the street and everything blissful.
Not for long. I switched gears and pressed the pedal, and we shot off.
Riding in the Shelby was like traveling by road submarine. The world outside was entirely blocked out by the tinted windows and the thick metal as we dashed across the Beverly Hills, following the car ahead. Had Thad punched the address into his GPS? I certainly didn’t know where we were going, so I hoped he had. I just knew that I was driving a Shelby GT500. When a person is driving a Shelby GT500, it doesn’t really matter where they are headed, because anywhere they end up becomes a landmark.
“I think I’ll name her Ophelia,” I said over the hum of the engine.
“Who?” Callista whirled to me in alarm.
“This car,” I said, rubbing its dash. “This wonderful car. This piece of dreams.”
I’d never felt more thrilled to irritate a person before. Callista grabbed the radio dial and spun it up so high that it suffocated my voice. But I was too far on top of the world now for anything to dampen my spirits. So I flicked the volume up even more than she had put it, feeling the bass beat against the walls and the chairs and my foot as it pressed the pedal.
I glanced at Callista, whose lips were pressed tightly together, and when she looked at me she pushed them even tighter, though I could tell her disgust was mostly faked. She was biting her tongue to keep from making fun of me.
Soon I was forced to slow the car down as Thad took an exit in front of us, and we began to venture down the streets into the heart of Los Angeles. There never really was a “good time” for traffic in LA: the only times it really let up was between 2 and 4 AM, and then only if there wasn’t late-night construction. It was midday so the lunch hour traffic was out, and I had to dodge my unfamiliar car around blocks and up busy streets as Thad weaved in and out of the lanes insubordinately. People would stare at my car when we stopped at a light but luckily none of them could see me inside. I was horrible at being covert. In fact, flying might have brought less attention. We hadn’t thought this one out well.
Finally, I saw the massive bank building: a towering behemoth of crystal black windows that reflected the city, straight and tall without so much as a single curve to interrupt its sharpness. The only things that broke the black were two clear, revolving doors at the bottom, people going in and out in a constant stream. And far at the top of the building was a red sign that said, in blocky letters: VERSTONE BANK.
Thad swept his car around the corner and onto the side street. I parked behind him, forcing myself to turn the key but hesitant to get out. I came around the front where Callista was waiting with a raised eyebrow.
“She’ll still be here when we get back,” Callista growled.
“Are you jealous of a car getting my attention?” I asked. She refused to acknowledge me.
Thad gestured between us at the building, which now rose so high in the air that I had to bend backwards just to see its top. I’d probably passed by this building hundreds of times while driving downtown—it was just one of those bank skyscrapers so common in the city that nobody’d look twice.
“I think Callista and I should stay out here,” Thad suggested. “It migh
t be suspicious for a bunch of teenagers to walk in and ask for a bank box. We don’t know what’s in it yet. And besides…”
He spread his hands over both our cars. “We don’t have quarters to pay the parking meter.”
“Well that decides it,” Callista said, hopping onto the hood of my Shelby. “I can face ruthless murderers who control the world, but please not a parking cop.”
I rubbed my hands together nervously, trying to think of any flaws in Thad’s logic but finding none. So I turned and left them for the sidewalk, pushing my hands into my pockets to try to still some of the nervous tension that had begun to creep up again.
I’d been through this before, those minutes preceding some event that would reveal terrible secrets or answer some of the million questions that faced me. I still couldn’t calm myself though, as I turned the corner amidst lines of cars that rolled down the hectic streets, pedestrians babbling to one another, crossing signals whistling to let the blind know it was safe to go. I looked back to Callista and Thad but they were already out of sight, so I pressed on through the revolving doors of the bank.
The squeak of my shoes made me feel all the more noticeable. The inside of the bank sprawled on like a train station, with counters below windows of inch-thick Plexiglas plates, people standing in lines to make deposits or withdrawals or open accounts. They babbled incessantly as the ceiling speakers struggled to fight back with cheap saxophone music.
My back was hit by the revolving door.
“Excuse me!” a brawny woman barked, her two children in tow. I came to my senses and pulled my hand out of my pocket, taking the letter and looking at the access code that Anon had given me. There were two numbers, actually: one, a 16-character, and the other a 4-digit PIN code. I approached the back of the line and waited.
I was easily distracted so the line seemed to move quickly. All the people around me were simply going about their own business, hardly any of them even paying me a glance. I saw rows of pictures going around the upper wall, showing the long line of Verstone CEOs and board members. In my boredom, I picked out which ones had been stealing from the company, two that were having affairs and one who might have been a murderer. I hopped from one Glimpse to the next—it was like a game.
