Destined (Desolation #3) (9 page)

And they come.

I don’t know if soul eaters have light. I don’t really care. Maybe there are good and bad soul eaters and the bad ones only eat good souls and the good ones only eat bad ones. Maybe the good ones have light and they’ve come to eat me, to eat all my darkness and replace it with light.

I sleep. Or I don’t. And dream of nothingness. My waking and sleeping are the same.

Des
, I hear.

D
.

Speak to us, baby. You can do it.

Lucy?

I’m here baby.

Aaron?

I’m here, D.

I’m crying. Great, gut-wrenching sobs that threaten to drown me. 

I can’t breathe.

Can’t think.

We’re here, baby.

We’ve got you, D.

And oh.

Oh.

Please let this be death. Please let this be forever.

I’m not alone.

I’m not alone.

Wake up, baby. Come on Desolation, wake up for me now.

Lucy?

That’s it baby.

You’re here?

Open your eyes.

I thought they were open. Thought the blackness wasn’t the blackness of my mind. It was all the same, anyway.

Except—

Except this time when I try to open my eyes, they burn at the light, at the brightness before me.

“Ah” I cry. “It’s too—” I’m breathless, my eyes squeeze shut against the burning. The burning, burning, burning.

Try again, baby. Is this better?

It takes me a very long time but I try again. 

It’s easier this time. Better.

And I see . . . 

“Lucy,” I cry. “Aaron.” I cry and cry and cry.

I want to reach for them, to hold them, touch them, but they are Ascended and I am shackled and there is no way this is real.       

“You can’t be here,” I say to them. I can say whatever I want, because they aren’t real. They can’t be. My arms are stretched above me, affixed to giant shackles to the underside of a cliff at the end of all the worlds—no one’s here. No one but me. Even the genii have left.

We’re real, D.
Aaron smiles, but he doesn’t have his piercing. He doesn’t have black hair flopping over his eyes. He looks like a spic-and-span version of Aaron. If he was my dream, I’d remember him the way I loved him. All pierced and tattooed. All lonely and mine.

Aaron laughs.

And oh, it sounds just like him.

There’s no time, D. Are you with me?

I feel like I’ve missed something. A conversation I’m only getting half of. “Did I sleep?” I ask the figments of my imagination—they should know, right?

Something like that,
Aaron says.
But I need you to concentrate now. Can you do that, D? Can you concentrate?

I laugh. “Sure, whatever, Aaron.” Anything to keep dreaming this dream.

He reaches one hand toward me, his fingers stretching. I’m fascinated by them. They’re long and slender, infused with light. There are no tattoos. No crosses and knots. No fear against the dark.

I wish I didn’t fear the dark.

I wish I could be free. Ascended, like Aaron. 

But that will never happen for me.

If you want it, there is something even greater for you, baby,
Lucy says. She isn’t trying to touch me. She floats in the air behind Aaron, looking like a goddess—not too different from the way she looked in real life. Her black skin is radiant with light. 

“You’re beautiful,” I tell her. 

She smiles and says, Just like you baby, just like you. Except I knew she’d say that. Lucy always told me I was beautiful. Figures that my brain would pull on old material. 

And then Aaron’s finger is touching my forehead and white pain is searing through my body and it burns, it burns, it burns and . . . 

Oh 

gods.

I feel as though my body is alight with fire, but not the bad kind.

I am a torch.

Fire in the darkness.

“What—” My throat still hurts, my voice still rasps. I think this is still a dream. Because I’m not Ascended, and of course I never will be, so there’s no way I could be made of light. “What did you do to me?” I gasp.

He’s sharing his light with you, baby. Can you feel it?

I can feel it. I nod.

Can you feel your own light?

I look at her, at the hope on her face. Why does she look like that? I search inside myself.
Nope
. 

I shake my head.

No. No light.

Look harder,
Lucy says, and there’s a breathless quality to her voice, an urgency I can’t make sense of.

I mean, it’s my dream, right? Can’t she stay forever?

Another burst of fire-light burns through me and as I watch, Aaron’s light dims. Just a little. I think it’s maybe because I am brighter—maybe he only looks dim because I am bright.

It has to be that.

Look again,
Lucy says, reaching out but stopping short of touching me.
Desolation!
The sound of my name on her lips, in a voice that says,
Suck it up. Do it. Now
. startles me into action, and I look.

I close my eyes and think of the spark. Think of Lucy. Of the day she took me shopping in my new car, with my new sunglasses, with the shiny new phone—all things Lucy picked out for me, knowing I would love them.

I Remember the sound of her laughter, the way her voice fills my heart with sunshine and honey. I Remember the way she holds me.

She holds me now—not really, but it feels like it. I can feel her arms around me, hear the beat of her heart as surely as if it’s happening.

And then I feel it.

There
.

Tears jump to my eyes and a sob cuts through the muck in my throat because it’s there!

The spark.

The golden piece of Asgard my mother blessed me with.

I wrap my soul around it, squeeze it tight. I hug it and hug it and cry and cry.

I am not lost. At least, when I die, I will know.

Asgard didn’t leave me.

I have to go now,
Lucy says. I look into her eyes, radiating so much light and love—and it’s no longer impossible to look into them.

“Why?” is all I can think to ask. “I don’t want you to go.”

I need to tell Odin. Tell Michael.

“Why?” They can’t rescue me. They can’t even find me. “Can’t you stay with me until I die?”

Lucy laughs, but Aaron doesn’t. In fact, he doesn’t even smile. His mouth is set in a grim line. He’s not shining very much. He’s still touching me, but he’s drifting lower, his forehead nodding toward my shoulder.

Lucy’s gaze flicks to Aaron, then back to me.
Shine, baby. Shine with everything in you. Let the light burn out all the darkness. Let Aaron’s gift make you free.

“Aaron’s gift?” I don’t want to look at him. His eyes are closed and his skin is pale. “What’s wrong with him? Why isn’t he shining?”

Lucy smiles at Aaron, places her hand on his arm. Her light flares and so does his. I see him take a big breath.
He’s shining for you, baby. Let him do this.

Wait,
I think.
No!

The plan, it turned out, was for me to sneak into Hell, with some dude named Heimdall’s help, and follow Horonius (as a dog) through the scariest place I could imagine. Find Desi—hopefully in the place Horonius thought she was—release her from her prison, or whatever, and hightail it on out of there. 

Without getting caught.

Or killed.

Or worse. 

I didn’t know there could be a worse, but according to li’Morl there was. Something about soul eaters and complete and utter destruction of your eternal soul. I figured it was better not to think about it.

Miri had pretty much not stopped crying since li’Morl and Horonius left. She tried to convince them to stay, but li’Morl insisted we have some time alone before . . . well, before I went to Hell and maybe never came back.

We lay on our bed, the afternoon sun streaming over us, painting Miri with the pattern of the lace curtains. For a brief second, a flash, I thought maybe we’d have some goodbye sex or something, but one look at Miri’s face when she shut the door behind li’Morl and I knew what she needed. So we lay on top of the comforter, while Miri curled against my side, practically lying on top of me in her effort to be held as tightly as possible. In my effort to make her feel as loved as possible. 

I held her close, stroked her hair, and prayed my racing heart wouldn’t tell her how freaking scared I was.

Sure, I’d said all the brave things while li’Morl and Horonius filled me in on the plan. I hadn’t hesitated once I said I would do it. I knew my part. If Miri and the dog-dude were right, there was no way I wouldn’t give saving Desi everything I had. 

But now, lying here with Miri, I wondered if I’d gone about it the wrong way.

I took a couple deep breaths and tried to get the words straight in my head. 

“Mir,” I started. Terror squeezed my throat the second I began. “I—Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this.”

She froze. Stopped breathing. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if I don’t come back? What if—well, I don’t want to be anywhere, even dead, without you.” I moved to the side and slid downward a bit so I could look into her eyes.
Man, she has beautiful eyes
. And right then they were filled with such sadness and fear. 

“You have to go,” she said in a near-whisper.

“I don’t. I could stay.” I searched her eyes, wishing I could read her mind, wishing I knew exactly the right thing to do and say. “I don’t think it’s right to leave you. And maybe someone else could save Desi. Maybe they could send someone else.”

I’d had her all the way until the last line. Up until then she looked at me in that way that made me scared to death and proud as all get out at the same time. But then she kind of recoiled, and blinked, and I saw something different in her eyes. Disappointment.

“You don’t want to save her?” she asked.