Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy

by Venessa Kimball

  Xander interrupts him, “Alexander Sera.”

  He offers his hand to each of them as Ezra continues with the unconventional introductions. “Sebastian. Balthazar, you have both met Nate and Jesca. On the plane.”

  He looks down awkwardly since our meeting on the plane wasn’t in the physical sense but the screwed up mental kind. Nate makes the first move extending his hand to both of them.

  As Sebastian shakes my hand, he studies my face. “I’ve been eager to meet you in person.”

  Balthazar is looking at me in the same manner. “Forgive my staring. I couldn’t remember your mother until I saw you just now—in person I mean.”

  I realize that I must look enough like my mother if my appearance can affect a cousin who hasn’t seen her in years. Suddenly, his face becomes drawn. “I’m sorry.”

  His apology is meant to run deeper than the stare, but I ignore the knot forming in my throat and pull back from him.

  Nate tends to the fading fire by adding a few more logs in the fireplace as Xander and I sit across from Sebastian and Balthazar on the sofa.

  “I’m sure you are wondering why we have come.”

  I wait to respond to Sebastian’s comment until Ezra sits. “You need us in Japan to stop Sam and close the wormhole.”

  Ezra interrupts. “With Jesca and Nate combining their abilities, shutting the wormhole will be quick. Have you gotten any closer to discovering what is drawing our galaxy to Andromeda?”

  Sebastian breathes out loudly. “It seems that the gravitational pull and magnetic radiation stemming from Andromeda is becoming more intense as the galaxy approaches ours. Two days ago, a patterned spike of gamma rays emanated from the Andromeda galaxy to ours. The pattern has not stopped. We have a team targeting where in the galaxy this spike is coming from.”

  Xander asks, “When will we know?”

  Balthazar answers, “Hopefully within days.”

  Sebastian interrupts, “But, this also means that whatever is coming here is speeding the event of our two galaxies intersecting.”

  “That means that the intersection is coming sooner than we thought.”

  Ezra and I look at each other briefly, and then I look back at Balthazar and Sebastian for confirmation of what I fear is true.

  Sebastian nods. “Yes.”

  Nate rises and begins to pace nervously. Knowing that they are just as nervous and worried as I am doesn’t bring me any comfort.

  Balthazar breaks the stressful silence of the room. “We are here, Jesca, because you are our family. We won’t let you go into this without us. We started this. We have laid this legacy in your lap and we won’t let you bear the burden alone.”

  Sebastian rises from the sofa. “We need to get to New York quickly. The rest of our team will meet us at the safe house there. We leave tonight.”

  Glancing at Nate, he looks like he’s holding his breath while Xander is nervously searching the floorboards a few inches in front of him. All three of us are in a state of shock on how quick this is moving all of a sudden.

  Ezra starts to talk with Sebastian and Balthazar about the force from within Andromeda wanting to know exactly what the physicists and scientists are looking for. I zone out and walk up the stairs, my mind running through all the scenarios of combat I learned in the facility, here with Xander and Nate, and wondering how the hell any of it will help us. How could I help us?

  Just as I reach to open the door, a warm hand clasps mine, startling me. Quickly, Xander pulls me into my room and shuts the door behind him.

  He lets me go quickly and walks to the middle of the room. “Before we do this. Before we go off and fight this—this—whatever we are fighting! I need you to tell me.”

  He turns to me and paces back to me, his eyes desperate for answers. But I don’t know the answers and my mouth fills with cotton and dries out from fear.

  He keeps his distance as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I need to know what you want.”

  I find my voice through my racing thoughts. “What I want?”

  That’s a loaded question. “What I want is to go back to my life before this entire shit storm. Go back to Georgia, back to school, back to my little book store and my best friend and my family! I want to go back to my nightmares just being nightmares and not fucking visions!”

  Seeming disgusted with my rant, he shakes his head and comes at me. “No. Not that.”

  He points between him and me. “This!”

  Dodging his making this about him and me, I shoot back. “No! Don’t do this now!”

  I start past him to the window and am about to ask him to leave, when he pulls me to him, clasping my wrists in his strong hands. “Don’t do what? It’s already done.”

  The way his breath dances on my lips, it reminds me of the night he left me standing under that lamppost falling into his disappearing kiss. With me this close to him now, I can feel the quick rise and fall of our chests running against each other, sending my pulse higher.

  “Down there in that basement, Jes, I saved you not because of some fucking link through this fellowship shit. I saved you because of how I feel for you.”

  Clutching my wrists, he runs one of his hands over mine and places it on his chest. The added contact is like a release of adrenaline and desire coiling and tensing in the center of my stomach.

  His other hand releases my wrist and finds the middle of my back as he pulls me flush to him and closes the space between our lips, barely grazing them. While the touch is brief, it’s enough to set me on fire inside and the memory and emotions I kept hidden away since the night he left me standing underneath that lamppost flood back in with a vengeance.

  Like he has read me, he whispers, “That night I left you standing in the street. The moment I felt you near the cabin. You dying in my arms. Jesca, every emotion you released as I kissed you just then is coursing through me.

  As his eyes search mine, his ragged breath matches mine, like we are one as he says, “I need you to tell me it isn’t just in my head. That what I’m feeling is in you too. That what I’m feeling is real and not some one-sided bullshit.”

  Everything he says is right. I feel it. I feel the need he has for me. The weight he carries on his shoulders. Willing to do whatever it takes to protect me now that it’s been proven that my life is dependent on his abilities as much as Nate’s. Words are lost to the overflow of the emotions he’s sending straight to my heart. And while I should pull away, I lean in and let the small gap separating us close.

  The gentle touch of lip-to-lip, flesh to flesh, quickly unleashes the desire I’ve withheld since arriving here at the cabin. Urgently, his tongue running along my lower lip is asking for permission to consume me. I don’t think twice as I open my mouth, letting him in to sink deeper into the longing I’ve hidden for this long.

  As urgent as this all-consuming kiss began, it’s broken as he pulls back enough to pepper kisses along my cheek and neck before burying his face in my shoulder and clutching me closely. As I lay my head against his chest and catch my breath, a faint chain of words–– a slip of his thought––dances in the air between us. “I love you.”

  As soon as I hear them, I pinch my eyes closed chiding myself for letting him. I can’t let him. He runs his hand along the top of my head and down the length of my hair as I start to pull back and shake my head; shake away what I can’t let him do.

  Feeling me pull, Xander clutches my arms to pull me close again. “Jes.”

  I damn my voice for quaking as I tell him. “I can’t do this to you.”

  “Can’t do what to me? You aren’t doing anything!”

  I try to move past him and pull away, but he holds me still. He reaches one hand to my face, but I pull away completely, yanking my arms from his hold.

  “Jes, wait. I shouldn’t have—”

  I don’t let him finish
as I hold my breath and every torturous pain this is sending into my soul. I rush to the door, throw it open and run across the hall to the bathroom. The last word I hear him say as I close the door and lock it is, “Jes please wait.”

  It doesn’t take us long to pack the truck and get on the road to the nearby municipal airport. It’s not much of an airport though; runway and two small jets. The short ride was silent as Xander took the front with Ezra and Nate sat in the back with me. I needed the silence after fleeing from Xander and locking myself in the bathroom to escape the battle going on in my head.

  All of us were on a mental block lock down. No thoughts wandering or drifting between us, spoken or unspoken. It would normally be uncomfortable, but silence meant safety and that is what I need right now. For Nate to not discover what happened back there between Xander and me and for Xander to see that I can’t be selfish and let him fall for me. Not now and maybe not ever. I can’t have the both of them. One is my partner and the other—I don’t know what he is yet.

  Once we’re parked, Sebastian and Balthazar pull up next to us. Ezra and Xander get out and start helping them unload as Nate and I start to the back of our truck. The engine to the small jet is already firing as the pilot approaches Sebastian and exchanges a firm handshake. Lifting the hatch, Nate starts pushing the boxes we packed haphazardly to get to the bags. As I reach for mine and Ezra’s bag, I bump Nate’s arm. “Sorry.”

  “About what exactly?”

  His words are heavy with accusation as he pulls his own bag out roughly, slinging it over his shoulder and turns away from me.

  His response is surprising and I call to him. “ Hey.”

  Seeming put out, he turns on me. “What?”

  His obvious frustration is not just from me grazing his arm. “What the hell’s your problem?”

  He shakes his head and looks down. “Everything and nothing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Staring at me hard, he shakes his head and turns away from me heading straight for the jet.

  Sebastian crosses paths with him in passing as he takes Ezra’s bag off my shoulder.

  “Come. We have to move.”

  The plane ride is rough. We are dipping and swaying repeatedly from the storm we are in. As I look out the window, the arc lightning shoots across the sky more frequently now––every few seconds. The constant flashing is blinding and worrisome so I shut the window covering to block it out.

  Sebastian and Balthazar are talking to Ezra about preparing guardians worldwide for the intersection. Each guardian is part of a team, a cell. Globally, the Dobrian guardian cells are already in place and ready for instructions to move in on the Sondian cells. Balthazar says that the Dobrian cells have been successfully acquiring intelligence from the Sondian cells within their territories for weeks now. They’ve gathered intelligence regarding safe house locations and potential wormhole sites. The plan for those Dobrian cells is to systematically take out the Sondian cells before the intersection to prevent a global invasion on Earth.

  Our plan is not as systematic. Too many variables make our plan much more volatile—saving Corinna, shutting the wormhole, eliminating Sam before he can get to me and the location above all. Aokigahara Forest and Mount Fuji.

  Underlying variables–– the vendetta Sam has against my father, stemming back to my mother. The worry of failing to close the wormhole and the premonition that something might happen to my father, Nate, Xander, or all of us.

  All of a sudden, Ezra unbuckles his seat belt and walks back to the chair next to mine. “Can I sit here?”

  I give him my shittiest stare, hoping he will go back to his seat, but it does nothing to affect his decision as he sits down in the seat next to me.

  “Sure. Be my guest.”

  I shift away from him, still pissed about what he did to me. He could have fucking killed me to make a point about Xander’s abilities. Now Xander and I are––complicated. And I didn’t want another shit storm of complications. I’m beginning to think that all of the worst shit storms start with him.

  “They don’t. And, I’m sorry.”

  I look at him sideways as he leans his head against the back of the chair and closes his eyes.

  “You’re sorry. Like ‘Hey sweet daughter, I’m sorry for picking you up late from school’ sorry. Or ‘Hey sweet daughter, I’m sorry for almost fucking killing you to prove a point’ sorry?”

  He opens his eyes and rolls his head to meet my heated stare. “I’m sorry for almost fucking killing you to prove a point sweet daughter. And you should really consider how you talk to your father.”

  The slightest grin he reveals is unnerving, but definitely reveals we are cut from the same cloth when it comes to sarcasm. I roll my eyes and look back at the seat in front of me. “I’ll consider my word usage when you stop with the shit storms.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  The comment seeming out of place, I glance at him just as he closes his eyes. “What’s that exactly?”

  “Not telling Xander and Nate how you feel.”

  His thought forces me to stare at him straight on as he continues to let them flow. “I wasn’t strong enough to do that with Anna.”

  Hearing him speak about my feelings, my mother, him, I guess it would be expected for me to lower my mental block and send him my thoughts. I glance over at Nate and Xander at the opposite side of the plane. I can’t. Not while they are listening and I know they are, just as I am.

  I look straight ahead and whisper. “You’re strong. Stronger than you realize.”

  My comment catches his attention as he opens his eyes and turns his head toward me. The story his eyes tell is one of pride, sorrow and love. An unconditional, unbreakable love he carries for my mother still. “And you. The love is for you Jes. Whatever happens, just know I’ll always be with you.”

  His thoughts should bring me contentment, a sense of comfort at the very least. The fear of why he’s saying something so intentional gets in the way. Call it intuition or some super power ability I have inherited, but I can’t help feeling that his thought is some kind of revelation. One that could be attached to the added details of my latest vision of him and Nate fighting side by side. I want to ask if he’s had a similar vision. He is my father and shares the same ability as me. I’m too afraid to let him hear my thought on the matter. What if he dies? What if Xander or Nate die? I turn away from him, flip open the window covering and let the amber glow of the violent arc lightning assault my senses and blurring sight.

  CHAPTER 25: CASUALTIES

  Jesca

  JFK International Airport, New York City

  When the hatch of the plane opens and I step down onto the tarmac, the air feels sticky and thick. I shed my heavy jacket and flinch at the fierceness of the arc lightning above us.

  As we walk toward the black SUV, I feel the familiar vibration in the pit of my stomach. The sound of sirens and the bright lights of four police cars barreling up on us is a side note to the dizzying hum filling my head. Ezra, Sebastian and Balthazar are yelling for us to get to the truck, as the police cars screech to a halt and the armed officers are jumping from the vehicles with guns drawn.

  “Put your hands were we can see them!” one of the officer’s yells.

  With speed on our side, we are at the car before the officers can fire off a gun at us. I jiggle the door handle, but it doesn’t open. Nate looks at me with a look of confusion. “It won’t open. Unlock the doors Sebastian!”

  “Don’t move!” another cop yells as he approaches us slowly, his gun on Nate.

  I look through the window at Xander and see him struggling with the door. “Fuck!”

  Knowing we’re trapped, I look for Sebastian, Balthazar and Ezra just as I hear the sound of the locks on the car doors. Nate pulls open the door and pushes me in as Xander climbs in on the other side
. Shutting the door behind him, Nate sandwiches me in between the both of them as we all crane our necks looking for Ezra, Sebastian and Balthazar. All of a sudden, all three of them walk around the front of the truck, their hands up in the air. Ezra glances in the truck at us as he passes and sends me a thought. “They are Sondians. Send us your energy. Now!”

  “Shit!”

  Not hearing Ezra’s command, Nate and Xander’s attention is on me now.

  “Sondians! We have to send our energy to them!”

  “We need to help them,” is Nate’s first reaction as he turns to open the door, but his attempt is thwarted as the audible click of the lock keeps us in.

  “Ezra!” Xander yells as he bangs on the window, sending my panic into overdrive.

  As Ezra steadily stalks toward the cops with Sebastian and Balthazar at his side, the sudden rippling gunfire being unleashed on them makes me jump in my seat. I expect all three to fall and die before our eyes, but all remain standing as the gunfire continues.

  Shocked, I mumble breathlessly, “What the hell?”

  Xander’s and Nate’s faces are glued to the scene as well as Xander mumbles, “Holy shit.”

  As the gunfire suddenly dies into a deafening silence, I see what Xander has considered holy. Handfuls upon handfuls of torpedo-shaped metal hover in the empty space between my father, Balthazar, and Sebastian and the Sondian cops.

  No sooner my eyes catch them, they disappear, rebounding to the senders and taking them down methodically like dominoes.

  Before I can peel my eyes from the dead bodies, the doors are unlocking and Ezra, Sebastian and Balthazar are getting into the truck. Balthazar takes the driver’s seat and puts it in reverse as more sirens sound off in the distance.

  More flashing lights round the corner of the nearby hangar. My voice cracks as I yell, “More. There are more!”

  Still breathless, Ezra yells from the back of the truck, “Get us out of here!”

  Balthazar whips the steering wheel and guns the engine, jolting me back against the seat. As we pull off the tarmac and onto a frontage road, the cop cars move in on us, gaining speed quickly. Nate shouts wearily, “Fuck! They are on us!”