by W. J. May
“Then where is he?” she demanded desperately.
“When I talked to Marcus, we reached the conclusion that Ryan has probably gone somewhere in the forests or the mountains, somewhere he and Colin would usually go,” he sighed. “The werewolves usually go to places as silent and calm as the mountains to learn to control their anger. We think he’s gone off on his own. That he’s not been taken.”
He looked at her, and she fought to stop the surge of tears that was eating her composure alive. He held her hand to console her, but she instantly pulled it away and again gazed out the window, hiding the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
James inhaled a long breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve always believed Ryan was smarter than his father. When Colin grew angry, he would fight to control it in until it burst out like wildfire. More than once, he nearly turned in public. He couldn’t control it.” He chuckled, clearly remembering something Atlanta didn’t know. His face turned serious again as the memory passed. “Surprisingly, he taught his son not to be like that. Colin was a leader, I won’t argue that. He learned to control his anger as he got older. But when he was Ryan’s age…he was different. Colin tried to teach Ryan to find ways to control the anger. I know he wanted that for his son. He wanted Ryan to have a better chance, do a better job than he did. Maybe he knew that one day the leadership would fall into Ryan’s hands. Maybe he hoped it would.” He waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter. What I think, and I’m not saying this to make you feel hope—or feel better—I think Ryan knew that the loss of his father would make him react fiercely. He knows that the wrong reaction could upset the peace. Or make him a victim right beside his father. I think he understood this, so he took off to the mountains to compose his feelings.”
“Maybe.” Atlanta clenched her jaw tight, unable to say more. She was both sad and furious. They drove the rest of the way home in silence.
By the time James pulled up to the house the sun was out of sight, leaving room for dusk to sit in its throne for the night. She looked down right before she got out of the car, wiped away the tears that were reaching her chin, and then turned her face to her uncle.
James was gazing at the purple sky behind their house. “Look at the sky,” he whispered. “It’s a full moon. When it begins to split and the dark side takes over the bright one, I bet you Ryan will be back.”
“I hope so,” she replied, dismissive of the attempt to reassure her as she got out the car. “I’m heading to the basement.”
James nodded absently as they headed into the house.
Atlanta’s mind overflowed with worry about what could possibly happen next. The Wolves and Vamps were at the edge of falling into a war that could threaten the existence of both races in the city.
Yet that was only a fraction of the fear that filled her mind. If her uncle’s stories were true, then the murders that had happened and the hybrid who’d suddenly appeared in Calen could only add up to one thing.
Someone was trying to open the door.
She left her uncle in the hallway and made her way to the basement. I need to think. Someone has to figure this out before it’s too late. I need time alone.
She dropped down onto the couch and thought about the night Ryan had been there. All she could think about was him, and what his continued disappearance meant for her and for Calen.
Chapter 15
The sand compressed inside the rubber bags as the sound of the pounding reverberated in the basement again and again. Atlanta grunted as anger oozed out of her like oxygen escaping. She couldn’t stop panting or sweating; she ignored her lungs’ cry for more air and her body’s feeling of exhaustion. She kicked another sandbag and forced her eyes to stay open. Sweat sucked into her crimson red suit and she knew her hair had gone wild from the constant spinning and practice attacks.
She turned towards the bars and poles that hung horizontally and vertically around the vast basement, and leapt from one pole to the other, her body in perfect rhythm with her mind’s commands. Strands of her brown hair fell on her forehead as she dangled upside-down from a pole in the corner. The fluorescent lights beamed in hues of white and light blue, casting a weird light against her shadow.
It was well after midnight when James had come down and started altering the mechanics of the bike. His brow was furrowed in concentration and Atlanta can see how his muscles flexed as he worked, as if he were focusing all his feelings into action. He was working on a table that had a bow arched and framed with silver. The arrows had a sharp marble edge on top of them that glowed with green light, different from any light that emerged from the heart of a stone.
He’s trying too hard, Atlanta thought as she watched him. He’s going to lose it.
James suddenly slammed his hands on the table, slightly, as if to make sure he would save up some of his anger for later. He frowned and growled in frustration. His eyes closed as sweat rolled down his face, and he swept away a tear that had tried to escape. He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, and when he caught her watching he turned and went back to work.
Atlanta felt a shudder race through her. Her uncle was always composed; seeing him like this brought out a vulnerability she wasn’t accustomed to. He was always her rock when the world stopped making sense, and for the first time in forever she caught glimpse of what it meant for the both of them to be overwhelmed.
We need to be strong for each other. Somehow. She closed her eyes and listened to the slightest sounds around her: the clanking of tools, the whistling wind outside, the creaks of the house resting. An image of Ryan formed behind her closed lids, and it took every ounce of strength not to falter. She missed him. A lot.
“Atlanta?”
She opened her eyes and gazed at her uncle. There was a moment of silence before she pulled her upper body upwards and her arms waved to touch her feet. She held onto the bar and slid her legs until her feet softly touched the floor.
Ever since her parents died, Atlanta’s reaction to being emotionally overwhelmed in any way was one of two mechanisms. She would sometimes stay in the basement for days and nights, detached from the outside world. Her only solace and escape was the pounding of the sand bags and the sound of the knives piercing the boards. However, if she had to be outside of the house, her mind would drift. The sound of lips moving and uttering sounds that mingled into conversation sounded more like the sound of two metals pressing against one another. Even James hardly approached her until he would find a hole in her armor and strike up a random conversation.
Which was why his attempt to talk to her right now was odd and out of place.
That’s never a good thing.
“Easy there,” James said quietly. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“Maybe all I’ve been lately is too easy on myself,” Atlanta muttered. “I’ve been nothing but a useless sidekick since the beginning of all this.”
“There was nothing we could’ve done,” he replied instantly. “We couldn’t have helped Louis or Colin.”
“That night when we came back from the Dome,” she uttered under her sigh. She slid her back down the wall and sat down on the floor, her knees folded and her face buried in her lap. “Ryan told me he’d seen a raven staring at him from the window in his room right before he woke up in the basement. The last memory he had was of the raven. And I made fun of him, thought he was trying to make a joke in the middle of the chaos that was our day.” She paused and swallowed, trying to stop the racing of her heart.
“That doesn’t make this your fault—”
“When I went upstairs to find the bandages,” she interrupted him, “the door was open, and I could’ve sworn I saw someone standing there. Like a hooded shadow. But it was there for a moment and then vanished, and all that remained was a raven just like the one Ryan mentioned. That must mean something.” She looked up at her uncle, her face streaked with tears, then buried her face back in between her knees again and said, “And
I just ignored it. I don’t know why, but I thought it was all in my head.”
“What color were the raven’s eyes?”
Atlanta’s head shot up. Really? That’s what you’re taking away from this? She wanted to scream at him. But the serious look on his face made her freeze. “I don’t know, I couldn’t see its eyes in the dark,” she replied. “But I remember Ryan said something about the ravens having a red glow in their eyes, like the one I saw in the field that day.” The beginning of a realization rose in the back of her mind and raced forward, waving to be noticed.
Her uncle stared at her, his mouth hanging open.
“Do you think,” she paused for seconds and fell into contemplation. “I remember you said something about ravens in the story about Adelaide and the Insurgence. Does that have to do with what’s happening now?”
“Atlanta,” he said, and his voice sank into a tone of confession, “there’s something you need to know.”
“What?” She grew cold with dread.
“When we went to the Dome, there was no way the door could’ve been open.”
“Then why did we go?” she asked in confusion.
“The thing is,” he replied, clearly struggling to get the burden of the truth off his shoulder, “there’s only one person who could open the door.” He paused and looked at her. “When Beatrice locked the hybrids behind it, they were trapped inside and the key to their escape was with her. The spell she put on it could only be undone by her.”
“I don’t get what the door has to do with all this, then.” Atlanta frowned. “It’s closed.”
“I know, and that’s exactly what they’re trying to change,” James replied. “If the murders were committed by the one hybrid that accompanied Adelaide when she fled from Calen, then he must be back to free the rest of the hybrids.”
“But Grandma died a long time ago. Doesn’t that mean that the door is closed for good?”
James sighed before he breathed out the words that put the scattered pieces in her mind into one clear explanation. “No, it isn’t. The spell could then be undone by Beatrice, and when she died your mother was the only one who could do the same.” He hesitated, waiting for a reaction, before finally saying, “And now you’re the one who possesses that power.”
Atlanta felt her entire world shatter around her. For a moment she felt like she was being thrown into a dark room, its door closing with a slam and a key turning to lock it from the outside. Her breath caught in her chest, and her heart skipped a beat, and then another. “What?” she managed to croak.
“The power to open the door,” James repeated, “now belongs to you.”
She felt the blood rush from her face. “Me?”
James nodded.
“I have…powers?”
James smiled, but it wasn’t a happy gesture. He looked more like he was trying to comfort her, like he almost pitied her.
“I’m a witch?”
James quickly shook his head. “Don’t think of it like that.”
“How else am I supposed to think of it?” Atlanta blurted, rage building inside her like a torrent of fire racing through her veins.
“Atlanta—”
“When were you going to tell me?” Atlanta interrupted, her voice rising. “Oh, wait, let me guess. You were protecting me!”
James winced and averted his eyes, grimacing as he tried to control his own temper. “This wasn’t an easy decision,” he finally said. “I needed the right time to tell you, and this definitely is not it. In light of what’s happening, I don’t have much choice.”
“So you were never going to tell me?”
James sighed. “Of course I was.”
“Like hell!” she screamed, and before her uncle could say anything else she stormed up the basement stairs then slammed the door behind her.
Chapter 16
The sun rose on a nearby part of the city. She was sleeping under a willow tree that kept the morning sun from her pale white skin. Her long strands of black hair fell around her curled-up body. She slept with her head leaned back and legs folded, her lips aligned like two crescent moons that hugged. A single strand of green hair fell on her forehead, then on the side of her chin. Birds were cracking melodies that fell uneasy on her sleeping mind. Her eyes slowly opened and the tunnels of evergreen lingered in her dilating pupils. She forced the frown away with a single long blink of her eyes and breathed in the breeze that circled the ancient tree behind her.
Skylar’s house was close to Atlanta’s. It was a fairly small house with a willow tree that stood for decades before she set foot in her new home. From the window of her room, Skylar could see the forests stepping down to the hills far away. Her room wasn’t ordinary. Stacks of old books were on the shelves and in every dust- filled corner. The sunlight could barely find its way into her room, the windows halfway tinted with a dark blue cover. Yet she rarely slept in the room.
She and her stepbrother Michael had lived in the decaying walls of the house for nearly seven years on their own. They moved to Calen when their parents had decided to embark on a journey to Europe ten years before, and had left them with their late grandmother. But after six months, they learned their parents weren’t coming back, having found a house by the sea in Mikonos. Shortly after, Skylar and Michael received a letter informing them that their parents had died in a fire.
When that happened, Skylar was only eleven years old and her brother nine. She’d handled it relatively well, taking care of her brother and herself. She’d even taken it upon herself to make sure they were both keeping up with their education. The stacks of books that paraded through their house were carved in the deepest part of her memories, the words and metaphors constantly in her rambling thoughts.
Still, it was a lonely life. Until she met Atlanta. Friends since the seventh grade, they were similar in many ways. Neither was keen on socializing and mostly kept to themselves. Their eccentricity made it hard for them to talk to each other earlier than when they did, but once they got past the initial awkwardness that eccentricity drew them closer to each other.
Skylar still remembered the first time they had to work on a project together. Their similarities stunned them when they realized they shared the same interest in books, and their favorite reads were nearly the same. Their obsession with literature made them create a sort of ether that swayed their conversations and their friendship as a whole. But what really marked the deep emotional connection they had with each other was the fact that they had both lost their parents in a fire.
It was time to wake up and get moving.
Skylar stood after a night of sleeping outside by the tree and softly walked towards the house. She hadn’t talked to Atlanta at all for the past three weeks. She was bothered by Atlanta’s detachment at times, but what irritated her was not that her best friend was far away from her. She related to Atlanta’s detachment, knowing that when it happened it was usually because something serious was happening with her.
She took out her phone and Atlanta’s name flashed on the screen. Surprised, she quickly tapped on the answering button and held the phone to her ear. “Look who finally remembered my existence!” she exclaimed cheerfully.
From the other end of the call, there was only silence.
“Atlanta?” Skylar looked at the phone’s screen again, noticing Atlanta had hung up before she’d even heard Skylar’s words. She tried calling again but Atlanta wouldn’t answer, which only stirred her worry even more. Usually when Atlanta would suddenly disappear, Skylar knew to give her enough space to regain her composure. Usually she would start talking on her own. But this time, it had been nearly a month since they had last seen each other or talked.
Something’s off. Skylar decided against going to school and walked to her silver sedan in the driveway. If Atlanta won’t talk, then I’ll get the answers myself.
She opened the door and sat in the car for a moment, suddenly doubting her decision. Shaking her head, she decided Atlanta might never come
out of this one, and was probably in dire need of a friend more than ever. She turned the key and welcomed the roar of the engine.
Listening to the engine instead of music, she drove toward to the Skolars’ house. When she arrived, she idled in the driveway and gazed up at the window of Atlanta’s room.
Atlanta was standing by the curtains, staring out into space, oblivious that her best friend had just arrived.
Skylar stepped out of the car and waved at her repeatedly, but it was almost as if she were invisible.
Earth to Atlanta, she wanted to scream, but knew it was useless. Atlanta was gone, and from the look of it, far, far away. She wouldn’t notice Skylar even if she were accompanied by an entire marching band. She made her way to the front door and rang the doorbell, taking a step back to look up Atlanta again. She rang the bell again, and James opened the door.
“Good morning, Mr. Skolar,” Skylar said, smiling as the sun paraded around her deep green eyes
“Hey there, Skylar, come on in,” James replied. “Where’ve you been? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been around,” she said as she walked into the house. “Atlanta’s the one who’s been distant lately. I barely catch her in school.”
“She’s been a bit in her head lately,” he replied instantly. “How’s Michael?”
“Nothing new. He hardly leaves the house anymore. I finally got him to read though,” Skylar said with enthusiasm.
“That’s wonderful to hear,” James replied, flashing her a smile but looking distracted himself.
Skylar turned when she heard footsteps on the stairs, and a few seconds later Atlanta appeared. She wore a strange smile, one that Skylar immediately knew was fake, and her eyes seemed darker than usual. If there was one thing she knew about Atlanta, it was that you could read her emotions like an open book. And right now, her friend was hurting. Really hurting.
