Eternal Hope (The Hope Series)

by Rose, Frankie

  “I don’t get this, Aggie. What’s going on? I thought I’d had my powers stripped- been cast out. Why am I here?”

  Another stifled laugh. “Why am I here?” she said theatrically, holding her hands up in the air. “You people are always asking the most pointless questions. There are always other, more important, valuable questions to ask.“

  Kayden shook his head. “You’re not making any sense.” It was difficult to hear her make the remark; he was one of ‘you people’ now, and not her friend. This news- that Agatha was gone and she was never coming back- was going to kill Farley and Daniel.

  “Well,” Agatha finally stood, studying him out of the corner of her eye, “the value of an individual’s question depends on the person asking it. Depends on what they specifically secretly crave. We both know what it is you care about. So a more prudent question for you to ask might be, “how long do I have to do it?” not, “what is it that I have to do?” Because you’ll do anything to get what you want, isn’t that right?”

  Kayden bit down on his jaw, for the first time scanning the room for an exit. There wasn’t one. They were in a cold stone box, the only light emanating from a small gas lantern that sat on a broken tile in the far corner of the room. Small shards of ice glinted on the ground at it’s base like splinters of glass. “Things have changed now. I don’t want that anymore. I’m not the same person I was fifty years ago.”

  Agatha pouted, nodding absently. “Your desires may have changed but that doesn’t alter your nature. So tell me, Kayden, what is it that you want now?”

  “I don’t want anything,” he snapped. This was ridiculous. Never in a million years did he think he’d get called back to the Quorum and reinstated, not after what he’d done. But even more unbelievable was the fact that Agatha had done the calling.

  “There’s no need to be so defensive,” she purred, stalking towards him. Every movement was measured and powerful, filled with a presence that made him cower. “Here, give me your hand.”

  Kayden looked down at the hand she held out to him, small and freckled. He couldn’t refuse her. If he did…he had no idea what she would do if he did, but right now she was clearly unbalanced as hell. The moment he placed his right hand in hers, Agatha’s eyes went wide and she burst out laughing.

  “Oh, this is just too good!” she gasped, flinging his hand back at him like she was disgusted at having touched it. “You really do know how to complicate things for yourself, don’t you?”

  “Apparently,” he growled. The angry tone in his voice made the Interrogator take a step forward.

  “It’s okay, old friend. He didn’t mean anything by it.” Agatha placed her hand gently against the Interrogators chest, and his eyes seemed to frost over. He retreated to lean against the wall, staring right through Kayden.

  Agatha turned back to face Kayden, grinning wickedly. “Don’t worry,” she said, kicking the toe of her boot against the frozen stone wall. “I won’t tell, I swear. It’s going to be too entertaining watching this one from the side lines.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “I’d believe you, messenger, if I hadn’t just taken that peek inside your soul. There’s no hiding what’s kept there. You know that as well as I do.”

  Kayden blew out a sharp breath and stuffed his clenched fists into his pockets. Agatha just smiled. “I have to say, I thought the drama had already reached fever pitch, but this… this is actually going to be delicious.”

  “Did you call me here just to shoot the breeze, or was there a purpose?” he snapped.

  Agatha shook her head slowly, tutting at the tone of his voice. “We have a job for you, Kayden. And once you’ve completed this task, you will be free of your responsibilities to the Quorum.”

  Dread twisting, tightening around him. “What is it?” A sour taste flooded Kayden’s mouth as Agatha explained. It was dangerous to decline the role, so he didn’t. “I’ll do it,” he said quietly, staring at the floor. “And once the job is done, I’m free?”

  “As a bird,” she laughed.

  Kayden glared at her, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling from the cold. “How does the Quorum justify all of this?” he breathed.

  For a moment, a thick silence filled the tiny cell, and it was almost as if it, too, would solidify and turn to ice. Agatha’s face was blank when she said, “There has to be a balance.”

  She disappeared in a heartbeat, taking the overwhelming force of her presence with her, but, unfortunately, leaving the Interrogator behind. The man pushed off from against the wall with the underside of his boot and took a step toward Kayden. His face was hard, and for a second Kayden thought he was going to start in on him with the Pax blade again. But he didn’t. He crossed his arms across his chest and cleared his throat instead. “Your friend isn’t there anymore, boy. Don’t go looking for her.”

  Surprise left Kayden silent for several seconds. During the whole time the Interrogator had been ‘punishing’ him, he hadn’t so much as grunted. Hearing him speak was enough to put Kayden on the back foot.

  “I know she isn’t. The Emissary never leaves enough room for the host.”

  The Interrogator nodded and then he vanished too.

  Eighteen

  Change In Management

  The display light of the digital clock in Charlie’s room read 04:08 when Farley heard the knock at her door. Other than the faint green glow from the clock, the room was in darkness. It most definitely wasn’t four in the afternoon. She propped herself up on one arm, pushing her mussed hair back out of her face, wondering how on earth she’d ever fallen asleep in the first place. Something had been bothering her before she went to bed, but her head was too muddled with sleep to remember what it was.

  The knock came again.

  “Yes?” she half-croaked. The door cracked open and Kayden slipped into the room. He stood at the end of her bed with his hands in his pockets looking rueful. Farley squinted at the outline of his figure, trying to piece together why it was weird that he was there. Then she remembered.

  “Kayden!”

  He pointed to the end of the bed. “Mind if I sit down?”

  She looked at him like he’d asked her something mundanely stupid after he’d spouted wings of light and vanished into thin air. Which was exactly what had happened. He sat down anyway.

  “I seriously hope you’re going to tell me what happened earlier,” Farley rasped. She didn’t trust herself to talk in anything louder than a whisper. The borderline hysteria she was experiencing would lead to shouting if she wasn’t careful.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked quietly.

  “You could start with why you disappeared, swiftly followed by how you’re back here now. I thought the Quorum was done with you?”

  Kayden laced his fingers together in his lap and huffed out a loud sigh. “So did I, but apparently they’re not. They’ve called me back. Seems I have one last job to do for them before my debt is paid.”

  Farley blinked, waiting for him to expand on his statement. He didn’t say anything else, just regarded his hands with a dejected look on his face. His shoulders sloped forward as though there were some unbearably heavy weight on them.

  Something inside her panicked. The last time the Quorum had sent Kayden to her, he’d revealed they wanted her dead. Surely they wouldn’t be cruel enough to send him back now to kill her? She took a deep breath. “What’s the job?”

  He cracked her a sorry smile in the half-light. “Taking care of you.”

  “When you say taking care of…”

  “I mean taking care of. Protecting.”

  Farley blew out the breath she’d been holding. So they weren’t cruel monsters after all. But then why did he look so sad? She sat up straighter, pulling the covers up to her waist. “Protect me from what, Kayden?”

  The look on his face told her she’d asked the right question. He grimaced. “From Simeon.”

  A cold finger clawed its way down Farley’s back
, sharp and unforgiving. That name was familiar. It took her a second to remember why. The memory of Agatha’s story in the car the night they’d escaped from the silos played through her mind until she hit upon the right moment. The moment when Agatha had told her that the first whyte had been created by one of the first Reavers. His name was Simeon.

  “But that can’t be…” she said, dazed. “Agatha told me the whyte bit him. She said that he went crazy. That was hundreds of years ago.”

  Kayden nodded. “The story’s true.”

  “Then how can I need protecting from him?”

  “Did she also tell you that the Reavers don’t die when they get bitten?”

  An overwhelming shiver raced through her body. “Yeah… oh crap, yes, she did.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long time. Farley sat with her knees pulled up to her chin, working on how to process this new threat. Without Daniel to calm her, it was all too easy to slip into the beginnings of a panic attack. Kayden took her hand.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “How can you say that? You’ve just told me an insane Reaver is going to come after me. Daniel isn’t here, and I don’t know how to protect myself, and-”

  “Hey,” he squeezed her hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

  The firm look in his eyes made her pause, gave her time to draw in a shallow breath. “Okay. Okay.” She looked for signs that he was freaking out even a little bit. He just seemed sad. “Were they mad at you? When they called you back?”

  He shook his head. “Change in management. Turns out that’s why the Interrogator didn’t kill me. The new head honcho sees things different to Nevoi.”

  The news was shocking, if only because they hadn’t heard about it sooner. Farley had no idea how the Quorum’s political system worked, but she was sure something that big would have trickled down the ranks by now. The Emissary who had wanted her dead was gone. But did that mean she was safe?

  “How does this new Emissary feel about prophesied eighteen-year-old girls and their continued survival?”

  Kayden pursed his lips into a tight line. “The new Emissary felt pretty good about eighteen-year-old girls with really bad morning hair once upon a time. I can’t be sure, but I doubt much has changed.” He brushed a tangled black knot out of her face.

  Farley stared at the creases in the duvet, rucked up into little mountains. She couldn’t remember how to blink, so it took a while to realize she was crying. He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant, could he? “How is that possible?” Her voice was unstable.

  Kayden shrugged his shoulders, staring down at his fingers. “People don’t really have a say in whether they’re pulled into the Quorum. They kind of just have to obey. They called her that night and she went. There was no way she could have stayed.”

  Hot, salty tears trickled down Farley’s face. She brushed them away with the backs of her hands. “So she didn’t abandon us?”

  Kayden made a pppfffttt sound. “No way. Aggie would never do that.”

  “And she knows Simeon is going to try and kill me? How?”

  “The Emissary is kind of like a seer. They get snapshots of the past and glimpses of the future. They use what they see to influence the outcomes of certain events. That’s how she knows. She’s seen Simeon searching for you. But he’s not going to kill you…”

  Farley didn’t like the way he said that. The tone in his voice implied that he wanted to do something much, much worse. Kayden moved closer up the bed so that their shoulders pressed together. “He’s stark-raving mad, Farley. He thinks you’re this Soul Child, a vessel he can use to bring his dead wife back to life. He wants to change you into a Reaver so her soul can come forward and inhabit your body.”

  Farley’s bones iced over again. She felt breakable, like she’d shatter into a thousand pieces if she didn’t keep very, very still. The cold that had lingered after her vision returned with a force, wrapping glacial fingers around her heart. She trembled, her body no longer responding to her will.

  “Hey.” Kayden wrapped an arm around her, pulling her toward him. “Jeez, you’re freezing!”

  “It was him,” she gasped. “He was there. He was there with me in the cell. He was in my vision. He said we were one.”

  “Well he was wrong, Farley, okay? He’s been locked in that tomb for centuries. He’s going to be weak, and besides, we’re going to be waiting for him. Everything’s going to be alright. Do you believe me?”

  Farley untangled herself from his shirt and looked up at him, seeing the determination in his eyes. The cold in the center of her very soul said that it wasn’t going to be alright, not even close, but Kayden’s eyes said otherwise. She didn’t know what to believe. “Why would he think he can turn me into a Reaver?”

  A soft light from the alarm clock shone green in Kayden’s eyes, hiding how blue they were. He was serious and intense. “Because of who you are. What you are. You can change just like any of them.”

  That was just the best freakin’ news ever. She could become a Reaver? She was more messed up than she could ever have known. Farley’s throat contracted, her mouth sweating like she was going to throw up. “Kayden?” she whispered.

  “Mmm?”

  She breathed it out in one go, knowing she’d never ask otherwise. It was just too ridiculous. “Are you sort of an angel?”

  He pulled her to him and rested his chin on top of her head like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Uh… sort of.”

  Nineteen

  Skykomish

  Skykomish was just like Gun Creek, except it was a seriously long drive from Montana. Daniel’s ability to concentrate above girly chitchat and spontaneously warbled songs had slowly diminished over the past twelve hours. At least Tess and Oliver had the decency to sleep most of the drive from L.A to the cabin. And when they’d been awake, they certainly hadn’t been singing.

  He’d put Cassie in the back with Anna around six hours ago so she wasn’t gossiping directly into his ear, but it hadn’t made much difference. These girls were no respecters of a silent car journey. He suddenly wished he’d brought Farley after all; it was peaceful riding in the car with her. She usually just took in the world out the window, drinking everything in with those big, soulful, grey eyes of hers. The only thing these girls had been looking for was a fast food restaurant. It would have been too risky to bring Farley, though. Beatty had sounded tense on the phone. His tone and clipped words had given Daniel a bad feeling about the whole thing, and it was wiser to keep her as far away as possible.

  Daniel briefly closed his eyes, thanking God and whoever else had a hand in the machinations of the universe that they’d arrived at their destination. Just in time, too.

  “Why on earth would Beatty come here?” Anna complained as he pulled into the sleepy mountain town. The Viper looked even more out of place than she did in her lacy black shirt. Mud-splattered utility trucks were the order of the day around here, along with plaid shirts and Sorrel boots.

  He ignored the petulant whine to her voice and followed the directions Beatty had texted through. “He obviously wanted to lie low. Unsurprising, really. World War III was breaking out in LA and he had a family to take care of.”

  Anna snorted. “Beatty’s a Southern man. Men from the third Quarter don’t run from a fight. Maybe he was just sick of the sight of your girlfriend.”

  Daniel gripped the steering wheel until his nails cut into his palms. “Now’s a funny time for you to get all nostalgic about the Quarters. Shouldn’t you have been training alongside Otis and Brynn for the past twenty odd years?”

  If Anna was troubled by the fact she’d shirked her familial duty in not learning how to fight, she didn’t show it. “I’m a conscientious objector,” she said brightly. He caught her wrinkling her nose in the rear-view.

  “I’ll conscientiously object my foot up your ass if you don’t behave yourself. Don’t make me regret bringing you. You have to wait in the car like we discussed.” He wouldn�
�t have brought her at all if Cassie hadn’t begged, and there was a strong likelihood she’d have been pouring more poison into Farley’s ear if she’d stayed behind at the cabin.

  “I’ll do what I want,” she sniped back.

  Daniel looked at Cassie, silently pleading with her to reign in her friend. She pretended not to notice, turning to look out of the window as a light rain began to fall. Why were women so damned complicated? He ignored the slight and sped up, determined to reach the address before he said something he’d pay for later.

  When they pulled up outside the location indicated by his phone, Daniel had to triple check they had the right place. The single story wooden clapboard house was more of a shack, set back from the road and practically falling down. Bright green moss grew on the exterior wood, above which crept wet, moldy-looking dark stains. Blistered white paint peeled from the single window frame at the front, which wore a soggy rectangle of cardboard over it. The garden in between the house and the road was a jungle; a dark blue milk crate lay on its side, just visible amongst the overgrown weeds, and beer cans and fast food wrappers littered the yard, their packaging faded from long exposure to the elements.

  Daniel inched the Viper up the driveway, worrying. Something felt off about this place. He felt it inside him. The maelstrom of souls tumbled in his chest, hissing their angry whispers over the top of one another until he couldn’t make out a word they were saying. They didn’t like it here either. The girls jumped out of the car before he could stop them.

  “Anna, get back in the car!” She flipped him off over her shoulder and hurried after Cassie. He swore and followed suit, turning his keys over anxiously in his hand.