Scorched Souls (Chosen Book 3)

by Jeff Altabef

  “You did. Still, you could have made it easier.”

  He shrugs. “Easier, but not better.”

  Part of me wants to choke him and the other part wants to hug him. With Sicheii I always seem to feel both conflicting emotions at the same time. “You know I love you, right?”

  He nods. “As I do you.”

  “But sometimes you make me crazy.”

  He chuckles. “As you do to me.”

  I laugh along with him. Every story has two sides. I’ve never thought about our relationship from his perspective. I’ve certainly shaded the truth between us, and can be as stubborn as he is. We’re really not that different.

  He holds two glazed donuts in his hands and offers one to me.

  “Where did they come from?”

  He shrugs one shoulder. “I thought how much I wanted one, like when you were little, and it appeared. Sometimes the universe works that way. It’s a shame your mother always denied you sugar. She got that from your grandmother. She tried to curtail my sweets, but it never worked.”

  He takes a healthy bite into the donut, and I join him. It tastes like summer, like youth, like innocence and love.

  “Have I died?” I ask. “Are we in the spirit world?”

  Sicheii takes another bite of his pastry. “You don’t have to die to be in the spirit world. Sometimes you can visit. Besides, life on Earth is only one of many lives we live. Your spirit life is always longer and more important.”

  He hasn’t answered my question, but pressing him won’t help, so I change the subject. “Aaric tells me there’s no spirit world after we die. He doesn’t believe in visions.”

  Sicheii finishes his donut and strolls toward the water. “It is hard for some to believe what they cannot see. Unfortunately, those people are usually limited, with the worst sight. You can see with both your eyes and your heart. Your heart is most reliable. Aaric uses his mind to avoid looking with his heart.”

  We reach the water’s edge and he sits, legs crisscrossed.

  I join him. “We’ve saved Mother Earth from the Alphians who wanted to blow her up. And we’ve driven off the Deltites. I should feel good, yet I don’t. I can’t shake this hollow feeling.”

  “You have done much, Little Bird, but we don’t celebrate a harvest half collected. You haven’t chosen yet. You need to choose. After all, you are the Chosen.”

  I always thought the name meant I was chosen to be special. Now it has another meaning.

  I skip a rock along the water. “How can I know what to do now? Aaric has the Heart Stone. His power has no bounds. He can save me. Together, we can do good. Or maybe we can do a lot of damage.” I skip another rock. “I can’t see the future. What should I do?”

  His gaze pierces through me as if he’s seeing into my heart. “There’s a difference between not seeing and refusing to look, Little Bird. To choose wisely, you must seek the truth first.”

  He’s trying to tell me that I need to know what Aaric means by partnering together. I haven’t probed him on it, probably because the idea scares me, yet I need to see that future to understand and know what to do next.

  “Do you want to go back?” he asks me.

  “I can’t leave the job half finished, but I don’t want to leave you just yet. Can we sit here by the river a little longer?”

  “Sure.” He hands me another donut.

  Aaric hovers over me, watching me, his lips forming a thin line. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that I could save Blake. I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “That was extraordinarily dangerous. Another few seconds and you would have died. Risking your life for one of them.” He shakes his head. “Your life is too valuable. You are meant to rule with me.”

  “He’s my friend.” I say no more about it because that should be enough. “Did it work? Is he okay?”

  He shrugs. “I do not know. You were so weak, I had to bring you back here to your physical body.”

  When I stand and stretch, I get dizzy. I have to lean against the stone before I fall.

  “We need to be careful until we get used to the Heart Stone’s power. Over time our own abilities will grow, and with that so will our strength. Eventually, we might even be able to handle its power on our own.” He steps toward the pedestal. The crimson light from the crystal dances across his face. “It is magnificent! When I first thought there might be a Heart Stone on the planet, I could not possibly have imagined this much power. It is so much more than I dreamed it would be.”

  When he first thought there might be a Heart Stone.... How long has he known about it?

  Blood starts to rush to my head. “So you knew the Alphians had planted a Heart Stone on Earth before I told you?”

  He turns to face me. “There were rumors from Alpha. Barrett’s mother warned us, but we could not be certain. I calculated the probability at 85.6 percent.”

  Things start to make more sense to me. “So you didn’t come here to partner with humans. You came for the crystal.”

  He frowns. “The two are the same. With the Heart Stone we can lead humans to conquer the rest of the universe.”

  The two are not the same, and this is the first I’ve heard anything about conquering the rest of the universe. It’s time to learn—learn more about him, more about what he wants. “That’s why you were so interested in me from the start. You thought I could help you find the Heart Stone.”

  “Of course, I deduced that you were the most likely person to know where it was.” He grabs my arm. “But that was only at first. Once I saw your eyes, when we connected while you were at the Boathouse, I felt something else. I knew our destinies were linked.”

  I pull my arm from his as I remember a hushed conversation between him and Jared back in England. Another piece of the puzzle falls in place. “So that’s why Jared turned on you. He thought you were going to control the Heart Stone together. He wasn’t happy when I showed up and suddenly replaced him.”

  “He misunderstood his role in events. He would never have been powerful enough to control the Heart Stone with me.” He grabs my hands and I feel his warmth and strength flowing toward me. “You must feel the pull of the Stone as do I. It is calling us even now. There is no limit to what we can accomplish with it.”

  He’s right; I do sense it, and I want to feel that power and energy again. I want it to flood through my veins and make me unstoppable. I imagine it’s the same yearning an addict has when he’s hooked on a powerful drug. A voice in my mind says that it’s okay, that the crystal is good. It will make me powerful, strong, invincible.

  I shake my head, but the voice still coaxes and encourages me. Demanding. It’s not my voice, but I’ve heard it before. It’s Coyote. He’s real, or at least what he represents is real, and a part of him has always lived inside me, as he does in everyone.

  Aaric squeezes my hand and his eyes blaze with a fire and intensity I haven’t seen before. “You are special. Together we will accomplish wonders no others have done before us.” His eyes are wide and sincere, his voice honest. His hair falls like sunrays against his shoulders. He does look like a god or an angel.

  It’s easy to believe he’s good, that he’ll fix the universe. The potion that joined us has made our connection strong, but it’s not real. It’s just a byproduct of our brains being linked. Still, it feels real and pulls me anyway. It’s hard to sort reality from illusion.

  My snow-white Husky returns and rubs against my legs. I pull my hands away from Aaric’s and run it through her soft fur.

  She broke the trance. Free to think on my own, doubts swirl back into my mind.

  He bends to pet the dog, but she growls at him and he steps backward. “Strange. She was defeated back at the Compound. I have never heard of an apparition appearing after it has been defeated.”

  I smile at him, and for the first time I understand. “The Husky was never my creation. She’s the Wind Spirit in animal form. She’s here to offer her strength to bolste
r mine.”

  He smirks. “There must be a more logical explanation. Perhaps the power of the Heart Stone has changed things.”

  “No, logic has nothing to do with it.” I take a deep breath and reach out to his mind. It’s easy, the connection already so strong. I push through until I’m inside his thoughts.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Have you ever played the What If game?”

  Connor

  Blake opens his eyes and bolts upright.

  “Are you okay?” asks Troy.

  “I don’t know. I felt Juliet with me somehow. She saved me.” He smirks. “It’s strange, but I have a really strong desire to kiss Connor right now.”

  We all laugh and temporarily forget about the blood, the pain, and Frankie.

  He makes snogging sounds at me, and I’m laughing so hard tears fall down my face. “You get those bloody lips away from me.”

  When the laughter fades, Landon operates as a medic, wrapping a bandage around Ayden’s head, making a sling for Summer’s arm, getting another bandage for Troy’s thigh. He tosses Akari a handful of plastic restraints.

  She sorts through the enhanced humans to determine who’s dead and who’s injured. In typical Akari style—she kicks each and sees who responds.

  Ayden steps toward me. “What about Juliet?”

  I feel like a slug, but this is my chance to escape. I can slip out now and be gone by the time she returns. She’ll never see me again. I won’t weaken her. Aaric can keep her safe. She can live a long productive life with that nob.

  I glance at my jersey as if I’ve just noticed that it’s shredded. “I can’t believe my lucky shirt is ruined. I’ll grab a new one from one of these guys and then we can find Juliet.”

  I amble away from the others and pause when I reach a large chunk of a building that’s in the middle of the road. I turn to look at the Chosen one last time. I’ve never had good friends before, and it hurts to leave them.

  Troy stares at me. He knows something is wrong, but once I run, they will never catch me.

  I ready myself to bolt when my heart stops, and everything changes.

  Juliet

  Aaric’s thoughts are neatly filed away in his mind like a database. I avoid his childhood memories, or any memories for that matter, and search his dreams, his desires for the future.

  He connects with me telepathically and sounds young, which shouldn’t surprise me because he is young, probably around the same age as myself. It’s just that I don’t think of him that way.

  Now his self-confidence seems to have been stripped away. “What are you doing, Juliet? I do not like it.”

  “I need to know, Aaric. I need to see the future.”

  “It is impossible to see the future. We can only predict what we think will happen.”

  “That’s right. I need to know what you predict will happen.” I dig deeper, shifting through different strands of his thoughts as if I were a super computer.

  “Those are my thoughts. You have no right to them.”

  He throws up walls to block me, but I’m faster than he is, and he’s unwittingly given me a roadmap to the exact location I need to go. His logical mind seeks to protect the same thoughts I’m after, so that’s where the walls appear more numerous.

  Finally, I reach the future, and he’s intensified his efforts to stop me. I’m constantly dancing to avoid the obstacles he’s throwing at me. If one of them hits me, I’m sure it will expel me from his mind, and he’ll never let me back in.

  “Stop!” he shouts.

  Unlike his memories, these thoughts appear as images, disjointed and fractured. They stretch out before me like a stepping stone path across a river. I hop to each one and they offer me glimpses of his future.

  We stand on a vast stage in front of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, a map of the universe has red planets and purple planets—the red for Alpha-controlled and the purple for those controlled by Deltites. The purple sweeps toward Alpha itself.

  Aaric sits in the largest throne chair at a counsel meeting.

  I concentrate back on Earth, leap to another set of thoughts, and images whip through my mind. There are organizational charts with Deltites in charge of swaths of the globe, enhanced humans as their top lieutenants. I see giant testing centers, three classifications, vast ghettos, and impressive major city centers.

  His orderly vision is logical. Strife, poverty, and illness are largely confined to ghettos for those classified as least worthy, so the human army could be most efficient, most deadly. The human faces have no joy in them, no love, no spirit—only order, logic, and duty.

  My heart breaks, and right before I lose my connection, one last thought appears before me. It’s protected by a towering wall with barbed wire on top—one last image for me to see. This one must be his deepest, most closely held secret.

  I soar above the wall.

  It’s Aaric and me. We’re alone in a shower of rose petals, and he kisses me. It’s passionate and sweet and contradicts everything I’ve learned about his plans for Earth. It makes me cry.

  The wall crashes in on me and I’m thrown back to the cave. We’re both breathing heavily from our mental gymnastics.

  “So did you find what you were looking for?” he asks in a quiet voice that simmers just under the surface.

  He wants us to be together in a way that we’ll never be. I love Connor, not him. I touch his hand. “Aaric, I don’t feel that way about—”

  He pulls his hand from mine. “It is not important. Not now. Over time you will change your mind. I can wait. We can remake the universe first, and the rest will follow.”

  I’ll never change my feelings, but other images from his mind, more important ones about his plans for Earth, are more pressing. “Why do we need testing centers and ghettos? I thought you wanted to free us and partner with us.”

  “Yes. We will free humans of all these false choices they face. The testing centers are necessary. That way we can divide resources between those who are most able and those who are not. The valuable humans will become leaders and help organize our army, to bring order to the other lesser planets. It is logical. Together we will make it a reality.”

  The Husky rubs her fur against my legs.

  It is logical, but it’s also wrong. “Humans shouldn’t be divided into a caste system based upon... genetics. We have hearts and souls, and each person is unique.”

  He grabs my arm and his grip hurts. “Your confusion is understandable. This is all new to you. The Alphian DNA has only started to improve your cognitive abilities. Over time you will become more logical and think clearly. You will realize this is the only way forward. It will be best for humankind and the rest of the universe. We will lead them, and they will follow us.”

  I yank my arm back. “Best for mankind? Maybe for those who are judged to be valuable, but what about those in the bottom castes? Life won’t be better for them.”

  “They will contribute as they are capable. We cannot waste resources on those who are not worthy of them. Eventually, they will be thinned when we do not need them anymore. This is our way.” He shrugs. “Even you pointed out the inequities in your society. Resources will be divided by ability, which is more logical than your current system.”

  “Even as unjust as our system is, there’s still a chance for people to improve their lives.”

  His expression turns hard. “You need not concern yourself with these details. I will handle them.”

  Some partnership.

  His face reflects certainty and logic. He believes this future is best. He’s not evil.

  I wish he were. My decision would be so much easier if he were evil, someone to despise.

  He doesn’t want to hurt people for the sake of causing pain. He thirsts for power, and sees it as his right to rule, as someone who is most capable. Still, he is capable and someone has to be in charge.

  I’ve been tossed like a grain of sand in a sandstorm from the moment I first l
earned my role as a Chosen. Most of my choices have been made out of necessity, such as saving my mom and defeating Gagarin back in New York. He would have killed millions with his brainwashing scheme. To turn my back and run would have been cowardly.

  Things are different now—I’ve been given a real choice. I can succumb to Aaric’s vision and live a long life ruling over humanity and most of the universe. Earth would become orderly in a cold, calculating way. Ability decided by some genetic test will determine everyone’s fate, and once designated they will be locked into that role.

  Or I can be strong... a rock.

  I glance at the Husky. The Wind Spirit won’t help me decide. Sicheii won’t help me either.

  I’m on my own.

  Aaric gazes at the Heart Stone. He sees a glorious future in that light. He sees me. He wants to love me.

  I can still feel that imagined future kiss as if it is a whisper in the wind.

  I think of my dad and the tough life he’s led. I think of Connor. Where would the test rank them, or the other Chosen? My minds spins, and I think about the Native Americans from back home. They face so much prejudice it suffocates them, and then my mind spins again and it settles on Stuart, his curly red beard and funny way of talking.

  He was an Ugly. He lived with Alphians as a servant, to do their bidding, because they judged him as less worthy. He sacrificed himself for us because he said we were better than them.

  I reach into my heart and know what must be done.

  Aaric must sense my internal debate because he steps between the Heart Stone and me. “What are you thinking? This is our dream, how we can change the future. Everything is before us.”

  The Heart Stone is within reach, just a few feet away. I steel my nerves as a faint breeze and the smell of Sicheii’s cologne.

  “This is not my dream.” I lunge for the crystal.

  He grabs me with his mind, my fingers inches away from the Heart Stone.

  “Let me go!” I struggle against his energy, but he’s too strong.

  “I thought I could trust you!”

  I push against him, but it’s futile. He’ll never let me near the crystal again. He’ll find someone else to live out his future.