by K. J. McPike
“I haven’t seen Kala since she was a baby,” I admitted, the words burning in my throat.
Lali stayed quiet, and we both watched the water inching toward us. The moon reflected off its surface, creating small sparkles that faded as the ocean’s edge pulled back again.
I would have given anything in that moment to have Grandma Naida here to talk me out of my spiraling. She knew how much I hated not knowing my only sister, and she always had a way of making me feel better about it. But the truth was, everything I knew about Kala was a second-hand memory of her as a baby. My sister was virtually a stranger to me. She probably had no idea I even existed, but I still wished every day that I could trade places with her, that I could take on even a part of the pain she had to endure at the hands of the Eyes and Ears.
“So, how am I supposed to find her?” Lali’s voice shoved into my thoughts, lifting part of the heaviness that had settled over me. If she was considering helping me, then all this hadn’t been for nothing.
“That depends on how your power works.” I shifted to face her. “You can travel, right? That’s the only way this can work.”
She stared at me, incredulous. “You abducted me before you even knew if I could help?”
“I wouldn’t have had to do that if you would’ve let me explain without screaming bloody murder,” I snapped.
I knew I shouldn’t have let her comment get under my skin, but it did. Because, in all honesty, I could have held her hostage in the shipping container. I could have kept going along with Cade’s failing plan and kept Xiomara captive for the rest of time. But I was trying to move things along faster, for Lali’s sake as well as mine. Yes, I wanted my sister back, but getting Kala back sooner meant Lali would get her mom back sooner, too. All Lali had to do was cooperate, but instead—
She scoffed. “Gee, I’m really sorry I made it too hard for you to kidnap me.”
Now it was my turn to look incredulous. “You didn’t give me a choice,” I reminded her. “I tried to do this the easy way. I pretended to sign up at your school just to talk to you, but you bolted in the other direction every time I tried. What was I supposed to do?”
“How about not resorting to criminal activity?”
I clenched my jaw. If only she knew the amount of criminal activity I had not resorted to for the sake of trying to avoid traumatizing her even more. But she’d made it impossible just to have a conversation.
“You know what?” I growled. “Sometimes morality has to take a back seat. This is my family we’re talking about. Imagine not knowing if your little sister was safe, or even alive.” My mind jumped back to when I’d almost kidnapped that very little sister. Lali had no idea how close she’d come to facing that reality.
“What would you be willing to do to make sure she was okay?” I challenged. “For just the chance to see her again?”
Not surprisingly, Lali stayed quiet.
“Exactly,” I said. “You don’t know what you’d do in my situation, and for your sake, I hope you never have to find out. So feel free to quit judging me now.” Crossing my arms, I stared out at the ocean again. The crashing waves and the smell of the saltwater were the only things keeping me sane, and even they were struggling.
“I never said I was judging you,” Lali argued.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Oh, so you can read minds now? All I’m saying is there are other ways to handle things.”
“Not that work.” I had already attempted other ways to handle things, and it still resulted in Lali freaking out.
“Have you tried?” she pressed.
I glared at her. I so badly wanted to set her straight, to tell her I have your mother, and I’m not giving her back until you help me. I knew Lali didn’t know how I had tried to be gentler with her than I had been with anyone else, but her verbal attacks made me regret wasting all that energy when I could have just grabbed her like Cade suggested.
“You don’t know what I’ve tried,” I snarled.
“Yeah, and based on what I’ve seen so far, I probably don’t want to.”
“It doesn’t matter!” I exploded, my blood boiling in my veins. “Can you just shut up for five seconds and tell me if you can travel?”
“I can’t shut up and tell you at the same time, moron.”
Fury stole my response, and I had to take a second to breathe. “For crying out loud, Lali,” I finally managed. “Can you travel or not?”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
I held in a sigh. “Traveling means flying in astral form.”
“Well, why can’t you do it?”
Still holding my breath, I stared up at the dark sky and prayed for patience. It was going to take a miracle for me to put up with Lali long enough to find out if she could even help.
“I don’t have an astral form,” I said. “You may have noticed that my whole body projects, along with whatever I’m touching.” I lowered my gaze to meet hers. “Now, can you fly in your astral form or not? You do know what an astral form is, don’t you?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Shut up. Yes, I know what it is.”
Well, thank God for that. I was glad she’d figured it out somehow, even without the letter from her mother.
“But if you don’t have an astral form, what makes you so sure I do?” she asked. “How did you even find me to begin with?”
Crap. I hadn’t thought through how to answer that last question. I turned to mocking her instead. “I can’t shut up and answer questions at the same time,” I parroted, mimicking her annoying tone. “Moron.”
Her eyes told me she wanted to strangle me. “Let’s just get to the point,” she huffed. “How do I know if I can fly? And why do I even need to? Where is your sister that I have to fly to get to her?”
“I’ll explain everything after you figure out if you can do it.”
“How do I do that?”
“You project and try it.”
She shifted her weight but didn’t say anything.
After a full minute of silence, I blew out my breath. “Or we could build a fire and sing ‘Kumbaya’ all day. You know, whatever works for you.”
Shooting me another death stare, she turned to face the breaking waves. She stayed quiet for a long, uncomfortable moment. When she finally looked at me again, she suddenly seemed nervous.
“The thing is…” she started, and I felt my heart clench. Please don’t tell me you can’t travel. Anything but that. “I’m still learning how to control it.”
My relief released in a heavy exhale. “Of course.” I hadn’t expected her to have full control of her ability, and I was fine with trying to teach her. I opened my mouth to tell her as much, but her glare caught me off guard.
“Give me a break,” she huffed. “I didn’t even know I could project until yesterday.” Her blue-streaked hair blew in the wind, making her look more like a vengeful goddess than a misplaced teenager.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I should have figured you’d still be learning the ropes. But it’s not hard once you figure out how to trigger your projecting. After that, it’s just a matter of building up your strength.”
She blinked. “How long will that take?”
“It’s hard to say for sure. I don’t have an astral form.” I wasn’t crazy about the idea of telling her exactly how long it had taken me to get my strength up after I figured out my trigger—the emotion I had to feel in order to project. She was already tightly wound as it was, and I didn’t want to give her another reason to flip out. Then again, I didn’t want to give her false expectations and have to deal with her losing her cool again later.
“But I got really drained after projecting for the first few weeks or so,” I added, my eyes sliding to her face as I waited for her to freak out.
Instead, she asked the one thing that promised to unravel my whole plan: “Then can you take me to my mom first?”
Chapter 30
Agreement
&nb
sp; I could only stare at her. How had I not seen that coming? It was a reasonable request, but I couldn’t take Lali to her mother and blow my cover. And there was nothing I could say to turn her down nicely. Any response other than sure, no problem was going to turn this into another argument, and we’d already wasted enough time fighting.
I had to shut her down quickly. Effectively. Maybe it was time for me to accept that the nice guy approach wasn’t going to work after all.
Forcing my face into the harshest expression I could manage, I said, “This ain’t my first rodeo, Lali. Helping you now would take away my leverage. Who’s to say you’d still go along with this after I took you to your mom?”
“Well, how do I know you’ll keep your word?” she bit out.
I shrugged, hating how easily I slipped into the role of the bully. But I couldn’t exactly tell Lali I was holding her mom captive. I didn’t want this to turn into me using that as leverage.
Even if I did, Lali would be useless. Judging from our interaction so far, I was sure it would turn her into an emotional mess. Well, more of an emotional mess. If I had to be a jerk to keep that from happening, then so be it.
“You’ll just have to trust me,” I told her.
“Oh, but you can’t trust me?”
“I’m still deciding.”
Her face flushed, and I could practically feel the hatred coming off her body in waves as powerful as the ocean crashing beside us. “In case you forgot,” she snarled, “you’re the bad guy in this equation, not me.”
“Maybe so. But we’re doing this my way.”
She tried staring me down, but I didn’t flinch. “You need me,” she tried. “You’re the one who said you went through so much trouble to talk to me.”
I let out a sardonic laugh. All the trouble I’d gone to had been my failed effort to do the right thing, and it had only come back to bite me. All Lali had done was prove that Cade was right. Again. Trying to do things the nice way wasn’t efficient, and it caused me more headaches. Apparently, threats were the only way to get anything done, especially with someone as bullheaded as Lali.
“That’s right,” I said. “I did. I should’ve just appeared at your dinner table and abducted you in front of your entire family, but I tried to be human about it. And now you’re trying to take advantage of my compassion.”
She squinted. “Right. I’m the one taking advantage of you.”
I could feel this turning into another fight. Time to pull out the big guns and shut her down, Cade-style. “You know, this whole bargaining thing was really just me doing you a favor. I could hold one of your sisters hostage until you help me. Would that be a more effective way of getting you to cooperate?”
“Don’t you dare threaten them,” she hissed.
“Well, you’re not giving me much of a choice.”
“I’ll call the police.”
I wanted to laugh. Was that supposed to be a threat? She had to realize how ridiculous it sounded. “Go ahead. They’d never be able to catch me.”
She kept her mouth shut, but the tension in her expression told me she knew I was right. Still, she scrutinized my face, moonlight reflecting in her eyes as they searched for a way to one-up me. I stared right back, keeping my expression smooth. I couldn’t let her see how much I was depending on her.
Though the air was hot and thick, she shuddered, and I saw the fire behind her glare die out. “Fine,” she conceded. “You win. I’ll help you.”
…I know how much you hated me in that moment, but I could have kissed you I wanted to jump for joy. After everything else had failed, you were all I had to keep me going, to keep me believing that there was a chance for me to find Kala. I don’t know if you can ever understand how much that meant to me.
I admit that I shouldn’t have been so quick to snap at you and threaten your family, and I’m sorry for that. It seemed like my only choice then, despite my plans to get you to help me without resorting to threats. I told myself I would have time to make it up to you—I knew it was going to be a long road for us when it came to teaching you how to control your projections.
Even so, I don’t think either of us was prepared for where that road would lead us…
Chapter 31
Cover
I appeared in Delta’s house, still reeling from my victory with Lali. I’d wanted to get started teaching her to trigger her projections right away, but the bags under her eyes told me she was fading fast. I was sure projecting with me so many times had taken its toll on her, and I didn’t need her keeling over—especially since she seemed to be my best shot at getting to Alea. I dropped her off at her house so she could get some rest and promised I would come back later.
In the meantime, I wanted Cade to know we had something else to focus on besides sitting around waiting for Delta.
“Uncle Cade!” I rushed to where he sat in Delta’s living room, poring over the photo albums we’d already been through. “I was right,” I announced. “Lali has an astral form.” I left out the part about her not knowing if she could travel. It shouldn’t matter; Cade already explained to me that having an astral form pretty much guaranteed the ability to travel.
He frowned at me from the floral-print chair. “What are you talking about? How could you know that?”
“Because I talked to her.” A smile stretched over my face as I sat down on the sofa across from him.
“Oh, really? You just waltzed up to her and asked?”
“More or less. The point is, she could get us to Alea.”
He rubbed his eyes with the base of his hand. “Look, I don’t want to discourage you, but even if she can travel—even if she can get us to Alea—it won’t help us get Kala. You can’t get into the lab. There’s a block around it that only the most powerful Astralii know how to penetrate. That’s why I need my ability. They won’t let me into the lab without it.”
I huffed. “Well, what were you going to do before? Back when you thought I might be able to travel, you were planning on going to Alea with no ability.”
“I hadn’t thought things through, nephew. At first, yes, I was disappointed that you don’t have an astral form, but now that we’ve started hunting down XODUS, I see that it was all for a reason. And you know what? Maybe Lali came into it for a reason, too. Can her ability help us find the others? Did you talk to her about that?”
“Not yet,” I said, though I had no intention of pulling Lali into that dead end. “But if she can get us to Alea, I can find a way into the lab. I’m sure—”
Cade shut the photo album in his hand so hard I jumped. “That’s way too dangerous.”
I heaved a sigh. I understood why he was worried—after all, they did horrible things to semmies in that lab—but one of these days, he was going to have to accept that my going in might be the only way. As much as it scared him, I would do it in a heartbeat if there was a chance I could get Kala out of there. But maybe my uncle didn’t need to know that just yet. Maybe he didn’t need to know about my plans with Lali at all.
Later that afternoon, after a quick visit to check on Solstice and explain what happened with Lali, I appeared back at Xiomara’s house. Lali was on the sofa, staring into space with the dog in her lap. He barked before she noticed me, and she jolted so hard she nearly fell over the side of the couch.
I chuckled, but Lali wasn’t amused. “What are you doing in here?” she asked, crossing her arms as the dog rushed over to my feet with his tail wagging. For some reason, his excitement made me nervous, like Lali might somehow figure out that I’d snooped around her room based on her pet’s reaction to me.
I pushed aside the irrational concern as I bent down to scratch his ears. With all the things I was hiding, Lali figuring out I’d read part of a diary entry was the least of my worries.
“Just came to see how you were doing,” I said. “And to see if you were up for practicing.” The dog jumped to try and lick my face, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Gotty,” Lali scolded.
“Stop.”
I arched a brow. “Gotty?”
“It’s short for Gottfried.”
I nodded, fighting another laugh. This family managed to come up with the weirdest names.
“My dad got him after my mom left.” She shrugged. “He gave the dog the name my mom refused to let him give one of my brothers.”
“Oh.” A spite name. I didn’t know how to respond.
Lali pulled her knees to her chest, and her dark hair spilled around her thighs. “So what kind of practicing?”
“Well, for starters—”
Gottfried took off toward the kitchen howling.
“Crap!” Lali jumped to her feet. “My brothers and sisters are here.” Grabbing my arm, she practically dragged me upstairs and into her room, slamming the door behind us.
“Panic much?” I teased.
“You have to go,” she whispered, shooing me with her hands. “Do your little disappearing thing.”
“What about practicing?”
“Keep your voice down.” She pulled me away from the door, and I nearly bumped into her dresser. “If they find you in here, I’ll be grounded for life. We’ll have to practice after they go to sleep.”
I scoffed. “After they go to sleep? It’s not even four o’clock.”
“Yeah, well I can’t go running off whenever I feel like it. And besides, I have to start dinner at some point, too.”
Start dinner? Was that normal?
It probably is for her since you hijacked her mom. The thought made me lower my gaze.
“Lali?” a voice called from downstairs.
“Be down in a sec!” Lali gave me an impatient look. “Can you come back around—” She slapped a palm to her head. “Crap.”
“What?” I asked, starting to feel tense myself. She was like a walking ball of nerves.
She rushed over to grab her phone from the nightstand. “I meant to cancel my plans with my friends.”
