She was dead though, and me, I was all alone.
I asked to see Casper on the third of my five days. They said no. I asked to see Owen. They said no again. I asked to see anyone. I was going crazy looking at the walls and trying not to think abouteverything. Instead of people, they brought me a TV.
It helped for a few hours, but there are only so many Maury paternity test results shows a girl can watch before she loses interest. And it wasn’t long before the loneliness crept back in. I looked out the window a lot that day, watching as the Breakers trained, learned, and went about their routines. From my window, they looked like normal kids, like they could be from any high school in any part of the world, except for one thing. As much as I watched them, and I had a long time to watch them, I never saw any flirting. Sure, they joked, they laughed, they got mad, they got happy, and they fought and made up. But there wasn’t even a shade of anything romantic going on.
In Chicago, and then in Crestview, all people did was kiss. They hooked up, broke up, and switched up all before lunch. That was the way of it. We were teenagers, after all. But here, within the walls of Weathersby, that sort of thing seemed a world away. They didn’t kiss. They barely touched. In all the time I looked at them, I couldn’t catch even one longing glance among them.
Maybe it came with being a Breaker. Maybe, when you knew that your eventual life partner was going to be picked for you based on things you had absolutely no control over and that the way you felt or the things you wanted would mean about as much as spitting into a fire, you just didn’t think about the lovey dovey type stuff. It sure seemed like it would suck the romance out of a situation.
But what about people who did take time to nurture their romantic side? Certainly there was somebody in Weathersby who had at least thought about it? They were evolved, after all, not androids. And what about gay Breakers who didn’t procreate regardless of how potent their DNA was?
I didn’t have the answers for any of this and, judging by my unmoving locked door, I wasn’t going to get them anytime soon. I stared off into the distance, into the empty air where the seer’s tower stood. I still couldn’t see it, but I wondered if she could see me. Was she looking at me right now; one girl in the tower to another?
The sun melted behind the hills, stealing the light from my third day as a willing hostage. When seven o’clock rolled around, and the lady came to guide me to my nightly shower, I couldn’t take the silence anymore.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked.
She was older than Dahlia and Echo, probably closer to Dr. Static’s age, with dark pinned back hair, flaxen brown eyes that were too close together, and a pinched off nose that looked as though it had been turned up for about thirty years now. She wore a plain white blouse, a long black skirt, and flat black shoes. Here lips were pressed together, turned down at the ends and, when she looked at me, it seemed as though my question pained her.
“Mulva,” she said flatly, and turned away.
“Oh, that’s a pretty name,” I lied. Scratching my head, I said,” Pretty quiet tonight.”
She didn’t respond.
“So, you been here long, Mulva?”
She sighed. “The specifics of my tenure are none of your business. And ma’am will do just fine.”
She marched through the empty hallway, her feet clapping heavy against the floor.
“Not a fan of me, are you, Mulva?” I let her name stretch on my lips. I never called my mom ma’am. I sure as hell wasn’t starting with this chick.
She stopped and turned toward me. The way she crossed herself with her arms reminded me of Dahlia. In fact, there was a lot about her that was very Dahlia-esque; the way she stood up completely straight, the holier than thou tilt in her voice, the sour expression that seemed tattooed on her face.
“It’s change that I don’t care for, young lady. Change is a mistress of the unknown; bred from a lack of discipline and dangerous at its core. You are change, Cresta Karr. And that makes you extremely dangerous.”
“You know,” I said, staring at her. “You know who I am. Or, who they think I am, I mean.” I inched a little closer, examining her. She didn’t move. She wasn’t giving me an inch. “She told you, didn’t she? What are you, Dahlia’s mother?”
Something like a smile, but colder, danced across the woman’s face. “As I’ve said, my life is none of your business. Though rest assured, Dahlia holds her word in too high a regard to ever go against it, even for the likes of you. If she told you she would keep your secret, then she will.”
“Then how do you know?” I asked. There was no denying it. The look on her face, full of anger and disgust, told me everything I needed to know.
“Because I’m no fool. I’ve been around long enough that I’ve seen it all, most things twice. Still, I have never seen the likes of you. An unknown Breaker with unknown abilities; it’s unheard of. And now you’ve been locked away just days from the solstice, anyone with a working brain stem could see what’s going on. Not to mention how much you look like your father. That Blut hair is hard to overlook.”
My fingers instinctively went to my head. Blut hair; did that mean white blond, like mine? Did everyone notice it?
“So you think I’m evil?” The words came from me softly, like a little girl.
“I think all people are evil in one way or another. You’re just a cut above the rest.”
“But I haven’t killed anybody. If I don’t kill anybody by the time the sun comes up on the solstice, I’m not the Bloodmoon. Echo said so.”
“Is that what he told you?” Mulva scoffed. “Prophecies are tricky and troublesome things. They don’t always mean what they say and, even when they do, things never happen the way you expect. Do you really think all of this, the nature of your birth, what happened to you back in that dustbowl town you called home, is just a coincidence? You are the Bloodmoon. You know that just as well as I. And every second you walk this earth is another minute closer to its end. You being here, even locked away as you are, is just tempting fate. “
“You know, back in the real world, we judge people by what they do, not by what they might do,” I said through gritted teeth. Her words had angered me again.
“Then isn’t it a pity that you’re no longer in that real world,” Mulva answered. “You’re a girl now, but one day, you’ll be a monster. If, that is, you’re allowed to live that long.”
“What are you-“
“Your head should be mounted on a spike, young lady; plain and simple. And, if by fate’s hand, I had even a wisp of the power I once did, it would be.”
“And you call me the monster!” I yelled. My words echoed, bouncing down the empty hallway. “Have you ever thought that it was people like you that make the monsters? Maybe if you showed a little compassion, maybe if you treated people like actual human beings instead of chess pieces in some game!”
“What is life if not a game, Bloodmoon? You win or you lose, but you always have to play” Her arms were still folded. Her face was still painted with that bitchy Dahlia expression.
“It’s life, you lunatic,” I said, and then ran.
I didn’t look back at Mulva. She probably thought I was going to try to make a break for it, to try and get out of Weathersby and go out on my own. She’d have loved that, me making good on all the horrible things Dahlia had said about me. I wasn’t having it though. I didn’t have anywhere to go and now, thanks to Mulva’s cutting words, I had something to prove. I slammed the door of my room. Grabbing a chair, I wedged it against the handle so that the door couldn’t be opened from the outside. I might have been trapped in here, but now everyone else was trapped out. I didn’t want anybody coming in, not if they were like Mulva.
I melted into my bed, my hands drawing up into fists at my sides. Who did she think she was? Who did any of them think they were, strutting around with their doomsday games and prophecies? Maybe I’d become a seer too. Maybe I’d close my eyes tight and, when I opened them, I’d tell them
all that they were the ones who were going to destroy the world and that the only way to save it would be for them to march off a cliff like lemmings, like stupid cult member lemmings.
Bitter tears stung behind my eyes. I muttered curse words into my pillow, cursing the Breakers, cursing Allister Leeman, cursing the prophecies that they’d allowed to take away their free will, cursing fate, cursing myself, and cursing my mom for not being here and for sending me to Weathersby in the first place.
How could she lie to me? How could she let me think everything was so simple when, all the time, we were dancing on top of razor blades? My stomach started to churn. This whole thing was making me sick. I wanted to cry, to scream but I was too tired. I was sick, fed up, and exhausted.
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, the sun was up, peeking over the tree line and into my room. It wasn’t the morning rays that woke me though. It was something a lot more peculiar. I hadn’t heard a cell phone since the night I came to Weathersby. Though Owen had been glued to his back in Crestview, it seemed the rest of the Breakers didn’t use them, at least not in Weathersby. It made sense. Who would they have talked to? For all the conversations I had been in with them, none of the Breakers ever brought up their families or friends back home in the Hourglass. They rarely talked about the past at all. Even while I was skimming Owen’s memories, I never felt any sense of longing on his part to be back home. It was like they had been programmed not to make those sorts of lasting connections. Maybe they thought that sort of thing might make them weak. Still, as my eyes fluttered open against my soft down pillow, I recognized the unmistakable ring of a phone.
I leaned up, gathering myself. That had been the first time I had actually slept since being locked away and, it turned out, three days of sleeplessness had taken its toll. I shook my head, forcing myself to wake up. I had never been a morning person, and today was no exception. The phone rang again. It was soft and distant, but it was definitely a phone. I stood. Something tickled at the back of my mind, something the girl in the tower had wrote to me.
Mind the ring.
“Stupid seers,” I muttered. The ringing seemed to be coming from under my bed. I hit the floor and, pushing back the bed ruffle, saw the silver briefcase my mother gave me the day she died. I pulled it out. The ringing got louder. I popped it open, remembering the cell phone she had placed inside beside the huge stacks of cash and my ‘turned-out-to-be-fake’ asthma medication.
The phone rang and vibrated against the case. This was the phone my mother left for me. Who-who on earth would have the number? I grabbed it slowly, like it was a bomb about to explode or a piece of alien technology.
The phone’s screen lit up.
UNKNOWN CALLER
I flipped it open and held it wordlessly to my ear.
“Are you there?” The voice was light and flirty, but undeniably male. “Cresta, talk to me baby.”
I went through a rolodex of voices in my mind, trying to place the one on the other end of line. I was drawing a blank, but the way he addressed me; baby. There had only ever been one man in the whole world who had called me that. But it didn’t make any sense. It couldn’t be. Could it?
“D-dad?”
The laugh that came across the line, cold and relishing, gutted me like a fish on a hook.
“Oh baby, which daddy would that be, the dead one or the one you’ve never met?”
After a few beats of silence, the voice continued. “It doesn’t matter, baby. Soon enough, I’ll be your daddy. I’ll be the only man you’ll ever need.”
I thought my heart was going to explode into a thousand pain filled shards as I realized exactly who it was I was talking to.
“Oh God,” I choked out. “Allister Leeman.”
Chapter 14
The Future Becomes Her
Bile rose, burning my throat as I realized who I was talking to. Allister Leeman, the Raven; he was a fringe lunatic who even the crazies that surrounded me considered to be insane. If Dahlia, Echo, and the rest were to be believed, it was Allister who set this whole thing in motion. He was the one who sent Owen, and God knows how many others, to spy on me. He was the ringleader who sent the men who blew my house up. He was the reason my mother was dead and, worst of all, the nutjob wanted to marry me.
“Raven.” My voice was shrill echoing over the phone.
“That’s a formal way to address one’s fiancÉ, don’t you think?” I could hear the sleazy smile spread across his face.
“Go to hell!” I said, my fingers wrapping tightly around the phone.
“I will. Haven’t you heard? You’re the one who’s going to show me the way.”
“The only thing I’d like to show you is the broad side of a bat,” I stood. Frantic, I started pacing the room.
“Good,” he answered. “Harness that anger, baby. It’s going to serve you so well in the future.”
“You wasted your time, you head case. I’m not who you think I am.”
“You’re exactly who I think you are. I can hear it in that saucy little tone. You’re a sparkplug. Though, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything less, given who you are.”
“I’m not the Bloodmoon! Now just leave me alone!”
“Careful,” his voice took a low, serious tone. “You don’t want to make too much noise. If you raise suspicion, your jailers might take your phone away, and you don’t want that. I promise, you’re going to want to hear what I’ve got to say.”
How did he know I was locked away? Did he have eyes here too, a traitor the Breakers didn’t know about? Did he have a secret surveillance system? Was he watching me now? No. The Breakers were smart; the smartest people in the world. There was no way some crazy loser could bypass their security. And nobody, no matter how skilled they were, could fake out Echo. That dude was a walking lie detector.
No. Allister Leeman was just using his brain. He knew that Dahlia would find out the truth behind the explosion. And from there, it’s just common sense to think they’d do everything in their power to keep me from fulfilling the prophecy, even if the idea of me killing someone was just about as likely as peanut butter falling from the sky. Still, I wasn’t going to let him paint me as a victim.
“I don’t have jailers. I chose this. I’m going to prove to everyone that I’m not some killer,” I answered.
“No darling. You’re so much more than that.” I heard the smile creep back across his face. “And I don’t appreciate the tone. If you take a moment to listen, you’ll find that I’m on your side. In fact, I think I might be the only true friend you have in all of this.”
“You killed my mother,” the words slipped from my mouth at about the same time that tears fled from my eyes. “You tried to kill me. You destroyed my life. We are not friends. We’re nothing. I hate you, and one day really soon, after I prove I’m not the stupid Bloodmoon, I’m going to make you pay.”
“Good. I love that fire in your voice. There’s a thin line between love and hate, you know. And darling, we are destined to cross it.”
“I could never love you!” I was standing on my bed now; standing on top of it like I was six years old.
“And why’s that, because you’ve fallen for my little chess piece? How is Owen; still engaged to that annoyingly perfect girl?”
He was trying to hurt me, to twist the Merrin shaped knife in my back, but I was way beyond that.
“Don’t answer that,” he laughed. “It doesn’t matter. The truth is, Owen could never love you, not the real you anyway. To him, you’re something to be changed, something to be avoided at all costs. He doesn’t understand how special you are; the real purpose behind what it is you’ll do. He wants to change you, to make you something you’re not. Though, I suppose that’s better than trying to kill you.”
“Owen and I are none of your business, you sick freak.”
“You’re right.” His laugh morphed into a loose maniacal giggle. “You’re young. I shouldn’t hold your transgressions agai
nst you. Besides, it doesn’t matter where you heart starts, I suppose, given that we both know where it’s going to end up.”
“You’re screwing with me, and I’m not going to play anymore,” I answered. Letting him egg me on was just going to lead me into trouble. He couldn’t get to me in this room. In this room, he was powerless and, in three days, it wouldn’t matter. The solstice would be over, nobody would be murdered, and the whole prophecy thing would be out the window. “This isn’t about me. You don’t care who the Bloodmoon is, so long that she actually comes. Because you know that if the Bloodmoon doesn’t come along, then you don’t get to be the Raven. And if you’re not the Raven, then what are you? You’re just a pathetic Breaker who couldn’t cut it and is trying to overcompensate. So, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t think I’m going to give you even one more minute of my time.”
I held the phone back from my ear, ready to end the call and, with any luck, be done with Allister Leeman forever. But then, I heard him speak.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I got the number?”
“What?” I asked, exasperated.
“The number to this phone; don’t you want to know how I got it? If I was in your place, I’d be pretty curious. Though, seeing as how only one person on the planet had it, it should be an easy guess.”
My heart thumped. He wasn’t saying what I thought he was saying. He couldn’t be. I gripped the phone so tightly that I was sure it would break.
“Come on Cresta, darling. Who had the phone number? Who gave you the phone?” His voice sickened me.
“My mother couldn’t have given you this number. You killed her. She’s dead.” Tears, hot and angry, poured down my cheeks.
PANDORA Page 19
