Bound by Prophecy (Descendants Series) (6 page)

“Smart zombies,” she said.

I smiled wryly, conceded.

“And this Morgan, he can turn anyone with his sway, make them do what he wants.” She bit her lip. “An endless supply of smart zombies.”

The smile fell from my face.

“Well, I suppose it’s good to know what we’re up against,” she said.

I stared at her.

She nodded. “Yeah, well, my sister always makes me find the positive in any situation.”

She moved back against the wall and leaned her head and shoulder against me.

“And you called her Bri,” she murmured.

Chapter Six

Prophecy

For the first five minutes, I couldn’t believe she was lying against me. And then I recalled the ache in my injured shoulder. Where she lay. I was fairly certain she’d fallen right to sleep, but I still didn’t move for another half hour.

When I finally shifted, my arm gave a scream of relief and my shoulder a cry of pain. Emily mumbled something unintelligible and slid lower until her head rested on my leg and her shoulder against the floor. I attempted to adjust the blanket to better cover her, but she had it tucked up under her chin in a tight fist.

And then my arm just hovered there, over her. She was finally still. And cold. And had lost her sister.

Everything about her begged to be touched. And yet, even with her head against my leg, I hesitated. It seemed important somehow. My hand ached to wrap around her. I settled for an elbow, placing the length of my arm over hers to keep her warm, and she squeezed her arms tighter into her chest, and then snuggled closer.

It was becoming harder not to fall asleep. After so many hours, my breath began to match the slow, drawn-out rhythm of hers. Our body heat began to level out between the cover and carpet, and even the ache of my shoulder became a dull background noise to the dust motes that danced in the tiny rays of dim light filtering through the blinds. My eyelids were getting heavy, but I knew I couldn’t sleep. Not even here.

There was no way to be certain Morgan couldn’t find us. No guarantee that at any moment a dark figure wouldn’t pass in front of our window on its way to the door, leaving no more than a brief shadow in its wake… a brief shadow over the dust motes floating among the rays of afternoon light.

I cursed, suddenly roused from my stupor.

Emily jerked awake. I held her still for a moment, my hand hard on her shoulder. I didn’t hear the door.

I slid carefully from beneath her, and then tight against the wall to see out the window. A tall, dark-skinned man in a business suit was crossing the lawn. He peered into the windows of the house next door, and then crossed the street to check there.

I watched him until he was three houses down. Emily moved silently beside me, her body flat against the wall in waiting.

“He’s looking for us,” I whispered, “but it seems pretty random. He’s undoubtedly swept the entire area.”

Emily leaned in front of me to peek out the space between the blind and the frame.

Her face was inches from mine when she whispered hopefully, “He left his car.”

I shook my head. “Right now, they don’t know we’re here. If we take the car, we’d be giving them a lead.”

She nodded, and the little sigh of breath she let go hit the skin of my neck.

I had to touch her again. My hand found her waist. “We need to let him get out of here, report back that he didn’t find any sign of us. And then we’ll go.”

“To Brianna?” she asked.

“To a safe house. Somewhere Morgan can’t find you and the others can protect you.” And I would have to leave her.

“Is that where Bri is?” she said. “I know you can’t tell me, but I mean, is that the kind of place she’s in?”

Against all reason, my head gave a small nod.

“Then why can’t we go there?” She leaned closer, her whispers taking on an edge of desperation. “If she’s safe there, then we’d be safe there.”

“No. I won’t risk it. Morgan is searching for us as we speak.”

“He’s searching for her, too,” she argued. “And if all he plans to do with me is use me against Brianna, then the best place for us to be is together. If he gets to her, then at least I’ll be with her.”

“I can’t take you to her.”

“But—”

I cut her off. “I will keep her from Morgan. I won’t risk him getting to her. There are things you don’t know, and you’re just going to have to trust me until I sort things out.”

She opened her mouth to protest and then suddenly stopped. I couldn’t tell whether she’d held back her retort, or simply realized she was nearly pressed up against me as we argued in undertones. She stepped back and leaned once more on the wall, staring across the room rapt in thought.

We were both silent as the man reappeared on the street and walked toward his car. The muffled thump of a car door, and then the engine turning over, and he was driving away. And I was alone with Emily again, with seventy miles of road between us and the safe house I wanted her in.

When dusk settled, I returned the blanket and now empty water jugs to the basement, and restored the key to its place beneath a landscaping rock. We walked through several backyards until we were forced to go street side. The first occupied house we came to had a boarded-up front window and a rust-orange clunker in the driveway that didn’t look as if it was likely to start.

We kept on a few more blocks, though I didn’t want to go too far, because every home we passed was a gamble of being spotted. Remembered. When we finally came to a nicer block house with a promising sedan in the drive, I pressed Emily to hide by the garage.

“If Morgan’s men come here, they’ll be more likely to ask whether the two of us were seen.”

She went along with the plan, but I didn’t think she trusted it.

I knocked on the door, a deep evergreen with white trim, and waited. A gold-plated mailbox hung loose on the red brick, its hinged door stuck partially open. Faded lava rock filled the otherwise empty flower beds. I could see the scuffed white toe of one of Emily’s sneakers peeking out from the corner of the house. Maybe she was scared. Or planned on listening…

“Yeah?” the old man croaked when he opened the door. He wore a robe over a stained white tank top and belted slacks.

I stared into his smoky gray eyes. “Ask me to come in,” I urged in a tone low enough not to carry.

He stared blankly for a moment, and then stepped back. “Come in, young man. Come in.”

Fifteen minutes later, Emily and I were driving a 1992 Pontiac down Emerson toward the freeway.

She spoke around a mouthful of ham sandwich. “You didn’t kill him or something, did you?”

I laughed.

She swallowed her bite. “I’m serious.”

“You decided to eat his food before you asked?”

She took a long swig of water. “No. I just didn’t think of it until then.”

“I’ve never killed anyone, for a Pontiac or no.”

“Good,” she said. “He isn’t hurt?”

I glanced at her. She meant it. “He isn’t hurt, I swear it.”

And, once again, she didn’t ask what he
was
.

The old man didn’t have much, but at least I’d been able to get us a car with half a tank of gas and something to eat. I’d used my sway to convince him he’d not seen us, but if Morgan did the asking himself, it wouldn’t stick.

“Aern?” Emily put down the empty napkin that had held her sandwich.

“Yes?”

“What about the others? The ones you said would protect me.”

“I don’t want to tell you that,” I said.

“Because it isn’t safe for me to know? Because he can get information from me?”

I thought,
Because I’m not sure myself
. I said, “It’s better this way. I wouldn’t keep it from you if I didn’t have good reason.”

“Okay,” she murmured. She was thoughtful for a moment. “And you have good reason to trust them with me?”

She was asking all the wrong questions. I pursed my lips. “They will keep Brianna from Morgan at all costs, Emily.”

And again, she simply nodded. Not asking why her sister was in the middle of a fight between Morgan and some untold others. Not asking why this one girl was so important.

I pulled the car to the side of the road and stared at her.

“Emily, is there something you’re not telling me?”

She froze mid-bite of her second sandwich. Her face went pale. I waited.

“Wh—” She lowered the sandwich. “What do you mean?”

I took one calming breath. “I mean you’re taking this whole thing very well. I mean I’m risking everything to keep your sister safe. I mean, so help me, if you’re sitting on something—”

Her face went hard and she leaned forward. “Don’t you threaten me, you… you…” She stopped and went for a new tactic. “Listen, no one asked you to save Brianna. We. Were. Fine. You didn’t have to come along and steal her from me for some sick—”

“Sick what?”

“I don’t know, okay. I don’t have any idea.”

I narrowed my eyes on her and her shoulders fell in defeat. She tossed the sandwich in the bag and slapped her hands against her thighs in frustration.

“Maybe I don’t want to tell you, either.”

“Fine,” I said. “But if you’re keeping something from me that will endanger Brianna—”

She huffed indignantly. “I would
never
risk Bri.” Her hands came up to cover her face and she took several long breaths. She mumbled something incoherent.

I pulled her hands down. “I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

She stared at me for a moment. “I can’t tell you,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I can tell anyone.”

My mouth went dry. I realized her hands were still in mine, and I drew mine back to the steering wheel.

“It’s not… Aern, it’s not that I don’t trust you. I can see that you’re helping. It’s just…” Her eyes flicked down and then back to me. “It’s just that my whole life, it’s been our secret, mine and Brianna’s.”

“So this is something Brianna knows?” I felt suddenly more at ease. Brianna knew Morgan was after her, she would have told us if it was imperative to stopping him.

Emily bit her lip.

I mentally cursed. “Emily, if it’s important…”

“I would never do anything to hurt my sister,” she said. “I would never keep anything from her that wasn’t… that I didn’t have to.”

So Brianna didn’t know. “I can’t be swayed, Emily. Nothing you tell me can be ripped from my mind, do you understand that?”

“I think I do,” she whispered. A hand came up to rub her temple, and suddenly, she wasn’t speaking to me. “I never thought this would happen. It was all too crazy.”

“It doesn’t have to happen,” I said. “We can stop it.”

She stared at her hands in her lap for a long moment. When she finally spoke again, her fingers twisted together. “I never believed her. How could I? It was ridiculous, a story.” She rubbed her palms against her legs. “I didn’t tell Brianna. I just couldn’t. At first, it was because I thought she was fibbing.” She shook her head and glanced up at me with an embarrassed smile. “That’s what she called it, fibbing.”

Emily’s eyes were so sad, I couldn’t bring myself to smile back, only nod.

“She was always a little eccentric, odd. She didn’t like us to go out in public, always wanted us right there with her. She told us wild fairy tales as if they were true. But this, this one was different. And it was only for me.” She drew a shaky breath. “That’s what she said. Only for me. I was never to tell Brianna.”

“Your mother?” I asked.

She nodded. “I didn’t know. Until she died, I never believed.” She waved her hand. “Then they shipped us off to foster homes and it was a constant struggle to stay together. How could I tell her then? How could I tell Brianna she just lost her mother because…”

“Because of the prophecy.”

“It’s my job to protect her,” she said. “I’m the only one who can keep her safe.”

So she knew. All along, she’d known. But she was wrong, she wasn’t the one to save Brianna. “The prophecy never mentioned twins, Emily. There’s no reference to you at all. I understand how you feel, but you weren’t meant to take this on yourself. Your mother should have never put that on you.”

Her eyes were hard on mine. “She wasn’t wrong about the rest of it.”

She had me there, things weren’t exactly going as planned on either side. “Maybe so,” I said. “But you aren’t the only one trying to save Brianna.”

Emily’s eyes softened and she nodded. And then she brought her legs up to her chest and hugged her knees to look out the passenger window, effectively ending the conversation.

Chapter Seven

Change of Plans

I’d already told her too much. Emily was no minor player, she wasn’t simply a victim unwittingly caught up in her sister’s mess. There was no safe house in existence that could hold her. She was determined to save her sister, and, one way or another, she’d unquestionably end up in the middle of it all.