by Lola StVil
“I am.”
“Silver, the only time we really talk is when it’s about Sparks. Most of the time, you don’t even look me in the eye. I’ve been hated before, but I’ve never had anyone be indifferent to me,” she admits.
“I’m not. Diana, I want to do this. I want us to work.”
“Well, if that’s the case, we might need to do something really radical. I mean something really out there,” she suggests.
“Oh. It’s not that I don’t want to have—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I was thinking we could start by walking on the same side of the street,” she teases.
That’s when Silver realizes he is standing as far from Diana as he can while still sharing the same space. He takes a few steps closer to her.
“Careful…people might think we know each other,” she teases.
“Sorry, I just—”
“Yeah, I get it, Silver. But maybe we can keep going with the radical behavior and talk about you and Pryor?”
“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Trust me, I’m not thrilled to hear all the details. I just want to know how you feel about it.”
“Telling her that we could not be together was…I never wanted to hurt her.”
“I guess this whole thing was a bad idea, then?” she replies.
“No, not the whole thing. I notice the change in Sparks. I didn’t know that when your eyes glow it’s her laughing. Our daughter laughs now. I think a big part of that is because we are together,” he concludes.
“Me too. She’s never been this thrilled before.”
“I can’t get over what we created together,” he admits.
“Same here. Look, I know that I’m not Pryor and that you have a special place for her. But we did have our moments. Can you try to remember that? Can you remember us?”
“I remember a goat, a burning room, and a gold scarf that nearly cost me my life,” Silver says.
She laughs loudly and covers her face with her hands. Silver playfully scolds her by recalling a night when the two of them were under attack on a hillside. They hid out on a farm full of goats; demons found them and set everything on fire. They were running towards the exit when Diana went back in to save her scarf.
“It wasn’t just a scarf. It was a two-thousand-dollar Hermes scarf,” she says in her defense.
“What’s that? I can’t hear you over the sound of my flesh melting,” he jokes.
She playfully pushes him as they share a laugh. He praises her skills when he recalls her trying to salvage the charred piece of fabric.
“Well, a girl has to try everything. Boys come and go, but a good scarf…” she says as she shakes her head, lost in the memory of her departed accessory.
“Well, the funeral you held for it was lovely.”
“I never did that!” she protests, unable to stop laughing.
“You wore black for like a week after that,” he says.
“Okay, okay, I mourned my fallen scarf. There, I said it. Happy now?” she says with a big smile.
Suddenly the light and fun moment filled with carefree laughter stops. They look into each other’s eyes and silence fills the space between them. They lean in to kiss each other. Their movements are slow and engrossing.
“Diana…” Silver calls as he leans away from the impending kiss.
“I know, I’m not Pryor. I’m sorry. I know she’s the one you really want, and I—”
Before she can finish, he leans in again and places his lips on hers. They kiss, slowly but passionately. Pryor and I watch as Silver and Diana cement their new union.
The two of them walk off and head down the street. That was hard to watch for me, so for Pryor, I know it’s torture. She turns and finds me standing behind her.
“Pry…”
“I’m fine! They’re together, and I’m good with it.”
“You don’t have to do that with me,” I reply.
“Do what?”
“Pretend! C’mon, after the night we spent together, do you really feel like you can’t confide in me?”
“I have to go,” she says as she runs off.
Argh!
I am so done with this drama right now. If she wants to keep lying about how she feels, then fine. I march down the block in the opposite direction and head to my hotel room. I really, really don’t need this shit. I walk into the Plaza Hotel, get my key from the front desk, and head up to my room.
I’ve been doing research on the evil that came before Malakaro, in hopes of spotting a possible weakness. So far no luck, but I take out several books I brought with me and try again. An hour later, I still have had no luck at all.
Grouchy and exhausted, I close the books, take my shirt off, and start to head to the shower. Before I can turn it on, someone knocks on the door. I don’t want any company right now, and I yell that out to whoever is on the other side of the door. They don’t reply. They just keep knocking.
I head over to the front door and swing it wide open.
“What the hell do you want?” I shout.
The figure at the door stops me cold. Pryor stands in the doorway, looking crestfallen and uncertain.
“Can I come in?” she asks in a small voice.
“Yeah, of course,” I reply.
She enters my hotel suite and looks around. My room is large and elegant. It has soft lighting overhead and classical music playing in the background. Across the room, there is a floor-to-ceiling window and an oak desk. On the desk is a 3D layout of my kingdom. It springs from a ruby-colored orb.
“Bex, you were in the middle of something and I interrupted you,” she says, trying not to look at my bare chest. It’s only then I remember that I’m shirtless.
“Don’t worry about it. Just Kon stuff. How did you know where to find me?” I reply as I turn off the 3D display.
“Mrs. Doris gave me her number. I called to see if you were at La Belle, but she said you were here. And that you come to this hotel whenever you have a meeting in New York,” she explains.
“Yeah, it’s located in the middle of everything,” I reply.
“The suite is nice,” she says awkwardly.
“Do you want to sit?”
“Oh, thanks,” she says as she sits on the edge of the bed. I take a seat next to her and wait patiently for her to go on.
“Bex, how did you deal with losing Key?”
“Honestly, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. But eventually I had to be open to the possibility that maybe Key and I didn’t work out because we weren’t meant to.”
“Seeing them kiss…”
“I know how much that hurt you,” I reply.
“I didn’t know you liked classical music,” she says as she gets up and takes a closer look at my iPod.
“It helps me think. If I listen to anything else, I get distracted.”
“Maybe a little distraction is good,” she offers as she walks over to me.
I stand up and find myself towering over her. She gently places her hand on my face. She seeks sanctuary in my eyes. She wants to get lost in them and stay there as long as she can. I lean in and slowly press my mouth against hers. I then part her lips and seek the warmth that lies between them. Then without warning, I pull away.
“Bex, what’s wrong?”
“We can’t do this.”
“I know what you’re thinking, but I’m in my right state of mind. I haven’t been drinking or anything. And I’m single, so…”
“Pry, it’s better if you go.”
“What?”
“This can’t happen.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No, no, no. What’s complicated is watching Diana and Silver have these picture-perfect family moments while I’m a walking zombie. What’s complicated is trying to figure out if Silver stopped loving me or if he ever loved me to begin with. But this, this right here, is not complicated. It’s easy,�
� she vows.
“Well then, we have a problem, because I don’t want us to be ‘easy,’ I want us to be special.”
“I don’t get it. I thought you had feelings for me,” she protests.
“I do.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Are you seriously asking me that? Pryor, you were just in a relationship with Silver,” I remind her.
“That didn’t stop you the other night!” she accuses.
“This is different.”
“No, this is the exact same situation,” she counters.
“It’s not the same. The other night you were pulling away from everyone and everything. I was afraid you would never recover from what he did to you. But tonight, in this room, it’s different.”
“I still don’t get it, Bex. How the hell is tonight different?”
“BECAUSE YOU SMELL LIKE HIM!” I rage.
She opens her mouth, but words fail her. I shake my head in complete frustration.
“You will never know how many times I have wanted you to knock on my door. I dishonored my relationship with Key a million times by playing out this scenario in my head. I pictured you standing in front of me, wanting me. I can’t tell you how I felt when I opened the door just now and saw that it was you.”
“You wanted me; I’m here. Take me.”
“Pry, not like this.”
“WHY?”
“Because you’re not coming to me; you’re running from him!”
“I came here to see you, not Aaden.”
“Pry, you know how much I want to be with you. And I know you’re hurting, but I want us to have a chance, a real chance. If we keep going like this, I will end up the rebound guy. I want more for us than that.”
“You know, I’m getting really sick of hearing guys say that,” she confesses.
“I don’t want to turn you away, Pry. But if this is how we start, how are we going to end up?” I ask.
“WE WILL END UP THE SAME WAY ALL OF US END UP: BROKEN!”
I’m taken aback by her outburst. She motions towards the door and turns to address me just before she leaves the room.
“You know what, Bex, maybe you’re right in not wanting to do this tonight. Maybe you are being the good guy by not taking advantage of how vulnerable I feel. And maybe all of that will sink in, in the morning. But right now, when I walk out of this room and down the steps, the only thing I will take away from this is that for the second time tonight, someone I wanted to be with sent me away.”
I quickly put my shirt on and race down the steps after her. She storms out of the hotel and down the street. We’re only a few blocks from the bar where the party is being held, so she heads back there. I race to catch up with her.
“Pry, you know I’m not trying to turn you away, but—”
“Bex, why are the Healers here?” she asks.
I look across the street from where we are. The entrance of the bar is filled with Healers from the clinic. They gather around two figures on the ground. Pryor and I bolt across the street and find Diana on the ground, motionless. Silver kneels down before her and takes her hand in his.
“She’s gonna be okay. She’s going to be fine,” a Healer says.
Diana starts to regain consciousness. She opens her eyes and finds Silver looking down at her, worried. She smiles to reassure him she’s okay. Then without warning, Diana starts to scream for dear life. She cries out as if someone is setting her on fire. Silver sees whatever it is that Diana sees; he then cries out even worse.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, NOOOOOOOOOO!” he begs the heavens as he bursts into tears.
I look around, not sure what they’re seeing. Then I follow Pryor’s tearful gaze; that’s when I understand. It’s not what Diana and Silver are seeing that’s making them cry. It’s what they’re not seeing. The marks on Diana’s body are no longer there. The markings are gone. Sparks is dead.
Chapter Twenty-Seven:
When Angels Break
Silver’s anguish is so profound it parts the skies and brings an unnatural black rainfall to Earth. The downpour comes with a cruel, icy wind that whips across New York City. Every drop carries with it a piece of his pain and chills to the bone on contact. Silver kneels on the ground, rocking back and forth, pleading.
“Please don’t do this, Omins. Please don’t do this. Please,” he says, weeping openly.
Diana doesn’t talk; she’s too busy frantically looking for markings on her body. She talks to the child that is no longer there and begs her to turn on a light in the street. She calls out for Sparks over and over again. Each time hoping a light, however small, will turn on somewhere near them; again, nothing happens. Every member of the team is in tears as they watch the grieving parents.
“Sparks, answer Mommy,” Diana begs.
The street remains dark. The rain continues to fall. Diana is now hysterical. The healers are forced to inject a mixture into her arm to sedate her. When they try to carry her away to the clinic, Silver rages and threatens to attack anyone who dares take Diana or his child away.
“GET AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!” He sobs as grief rips into him.
“Aaden, sweetheart, you have to let them take Diana. She needs help,” Pryor says as she kneels in the rain beside them.
“She’s in there, Pry. She’s in there somewhere. I know it. My baby girl is in there,” Silver says as he takes Diana’s hand and holds it against his chest.
Shit. I’ve seen a lot of death, but this…why, Omins, why?
Pryor pulls Aaden into her arms and holds him tightly, but he refuses to give Diana over. I kneel down on the ground beside him. He looks back at me in a way that brings on a wave of sorrow I haven’t felt since the death of my own father.
“The rain is hurting Diana. You need to protect her. Let the healers take her inside. We will follow along every step of the way,” I vow.
Finally he agrees and lets go of Diana’s hand. The wind picks up speed; the rain increases and pounds even harder into the pavement. The addition of lightning and thunder render the streets of New York all but abandoned. We all take to the sky along with Silver and head for the clinic. Unlike all the other times we have gone there, we are certain, this time, there is nothing the healers can do.
The team and I spend several days in the clinic, looking after Diana and Silver. I had the Paras turn off all the lights all over the world for three minutes in Sparks’ memory. The clinic was flooded with visitors who wanted to give their condolences. But apart from Rage, Pry’s grandfather Julian, and Mrs. Maybelle, no one was allowed to see the grieving couple.
We asked Diana if she wanted a Passing. A Passing is the angel version of a funeral. We would all gather on various mountaintops throughout the world and say our goodbye. Diana preferred a human funeral like the one her grandmother had. So that’s exactly what we gave her.
The funeral is held in a small church where Diana’s grandmother’s funeral was held years before. There are white roses and candles throughout the church. In the center of the room is a small white casket that Diana picked out. She asked that we fill it with items that Sparks loved and that would mean something.
I walk up to the casket and place a small candle that once lit, always burns. The twins then walk up after me and place a pair of Dolce & Gabbana white lace booties. Easton puts a small diamond pendant that when it catches the light, replicates the stars. Randy got her a baby rattle with her name engraved on it. Pryor places a small glass jar that replicates the light of a hundred firebugs.
The last two beings to walk up to the casket are Sparks’ parents. Diana places an audio recording of birds singing and a handwritten letter to her daughter. We didn’t want to pry and ask to read it. The final item placed inside the casket by Silver is his Rah. When the service is finished, we fly to Japan, where we light paper lanterns for Sparks. Here is where Diana and Silver say their final goodbye. Her voice is small and it takes a few tries before she is able to compose herself eno
ugh to speak.
“I’m a Kaster. Before that I was a demon. And before that I was an awful human being. I hurt a lot of people. I killed whatever or whoever got in the way of what I needed. I worked very hard not to love or be loved. I did that because I knew just how painful it was to have love and then lose it.
“Then Sparks came into my life. I wanted to love her, but part of me was afraid to. I told myself I would just like her. That way if she grew up to hate me for some reason, it wouldn’t hurt that much. But she made it impossible not to love her. She had powers that had nothing to do with who were parents were.
“She didn’t just light up the streets, she lit up my entire world. She forced me to let her in my heart, a heart I didn’t even know I had. And she found a way to do something I didn’t think was possible; she saved me. She saved me from who I used to be.
“There was a time when humans hated me, demons threw me away and angels judged me; but my daughter didn’t care about any of that. She just loved me. I want to thank her for letting me be her mom. And I want her to know that she will always be with me. She will be my girl…”
Diana bursts into tears and Silver takes her into his embrace. While Diana is emotional and distraught, Silver is composed and stone silent. We have learned that Kill poisoned Diana when he made contact with her at the party.
Silver wanted to go after him on the spot, but Diana begged him not to. She wanted to bury her child in peace. She didn’t want blood spilled in the same week her daughter died. So for the past week it’s been about saying goodbye to his kid. However, the funeral is done, and judging by the stone-cold murderous expression on Silver’s face, he is entering a new state of mind: Revenge.
For the next few days while Diana continues to weep for her beloved daughter, her father quietly plots. He doesn’t write anything down or ask for any information. He just looks and watches as the healers work to determine why it is that Kill was able to murder Sparks so easily, since she was so powerful. Why did the poison have an ephemeral effect on Diana but kill Sparks?
The team takes Diana back to the house, but until Silver gets the answers he seeks, we insist on staying in the clinic. The healers work around the clock to try to find the reason the poison was so lethal. I bring our best healers from the castle to help out and hope it’s enough.
