Destiny (Vanish Book Four) (8 page)

I pushed a small branch out of the way and
there was a clear view of the house. A man came outside. He was
looking around for something. Then, he yelled into the house—I’d
heard that voice before. A woman yelled back from inside the house,
and she, too, had a familiar voice. I couldn’t quite put my finger
on it. Then, the vision of the woman who was murdered popped into
my head. This man, was the man who murdered her, and whoever yelled
back to him, was the woman in the attic.

“Are you ready to go?” he yelled to the
woman.

“Yeah,” I heard two people respond.

The man walked closer to the fence, and I
started to panic. These people obviously weren’t good people.

“Come on,” I said as I grabbed Skylar’s hand.
I led him over to a patch of bushes for us to hide behind.

They went in the opposite direction, and I
didn’t get a chance to see the woman, and whoever else was there.
We sat there for a minute, making sure the coast was clear.

“Do you want to go see what’s in there?” I
asked, expecting him to say no. I waited for him to reason with me
as to why this was a bad idea, just as Dante surely would have.

“Let’s go,” he said.

He pulled me over to the fence. There was an
area without bushes, it was covered only in vines and when he
pushed on it, it opened. We shut the gate behind us and headed
toward the house. It was small and not very well taken care of, but
they had better things to worry about, like not being caught for
murder. I felt kind of like a hypocrite, but I didn’t kill innocent
people.

The front door wasn’t locked, and we got
right in. It was messy, but other than that, it looked just like
any normal home. There were dishes in the sink, pictures on the
walls—pictures of people I knew before I went back in time. Even
though we were related, I had only met them the day before.

Sienna and Hazel. I don’t know why, but I had
figured they just didn’t exist. I figured with getting me and Rose
back, Violet would have brought them up, but she never did.

Here they were, just as I remembered them but
worse. They were bitches when I first met them, but that was better
than this. It didn’t really matter; they were no different than any
other horrible person. The one problem with this: they looked way
too much like me.

“What’s wrong,” Skylar asked. He looked at
the picture then casually looked away.

“They’re my sisters.”

I needed to find what they took from that
house; I knew the boxes had to be somewhere. I ran around looking
for them. I looked in every last place they could have been, but
found nothing.

I went back outside to see if they were in
the shed, but this was no ordinary shed. I had a hard time getting
inside and when I did, I knew why. There was nothing inside this
shed, nothing but a door leading to underneath it.

“Skylar,” I called. “You’ve got to come see
this.” He ran outside and to the shed.

“Whoa,” he gasped as he looked. “Let’s open
it.”

There was a staircase leading down. At the
bottom, there was a light switch. I flicked it on, and it was like
I was somewhere else entirely. There was nice furniture and
cabinets filled with everything you would ever need. There was a
stove, a fully stocked bar and a bookshelf filled with books. I
walked over to the bookcase and noticed a button on the side. I
pushed it, and the bookcase slid over and went right into the
wall.

Behind it, were the boxes I was looking for,
along with other things. I looked inside the boxes; they hadn’t
taken any potions, but there was a box full of books. There was
one, in particular, that enticed my curiosity. It was a book that
looked like an almost exact replica of the one Dante had found at
Grace’s house. There were differences though; this book looked
older, and a little bit thicker.

I let my guard down, as I sat there holding
the book, wondering if it was the same as the other, or if it would
have more information. I felt safe with Skylar. Dante made me on
edge. Whenever he was unsure of something, it made me unsure also,
and I didn’t like feeling that way. Right about now, however, would
have been a good time to be on edge. A good time to be paying
attention to everything that was going on around me, because soon
it was obvious that we weren’t alone.

“Hey, who left the door to the shed open?”
the man yelled.

“Not me,” one girl called.

“Neither did I,” the other followed with the
exact same voice.

I ran to the light switch and turned the
lights off. The door in the floor closed, and then I could faintly
hear the other close and lock. I ran back to turn the light on, and
once I could see Skylar’s face, I saw that he shared the same
worried look. We were locked down here, until someone else found
this place—or they came back and found us.

We sat down on the comfortable couch and
waited. I knew that even though we were related, they wouldn’t
hesitate to kill me. I was unsure of their motives, but I was sure
they would only see us as a roadblock. It could still be a while
though, so why not enjoy it?

“How are you doing?” Skylar asked.

“I’m fine,” I smiled. “He didn’t have to
leave, but he did. I couldn’t stop him, so why should I sit here
and dwell on it?”

“You shouldn’t. I don’t exactly know how you
should
deal with a situation like this… but I know it will
be a lot harder on you if you can’t get him off your mind.”

“Yeah.” I looked into his eyes. They were
amazing. They looked like gems that shined a million equally
amazing shades of green.

He walked over to the bar and grabbed a
bottle of vodka and two cups. Then he came and sat back down.

“This will help us pass the time,” he
smiled.

“Fine,” I said.

What was being uptight all of the time
getting me? Sure, I still needed to use my brain and think for
myself, but I could let go some of the time. I could just enjoy
things without overanalyzing and spinning everything to be so much
worse. Sure there were some things that warranted my paranoia. But
why even bother now?

He poured a shot for each of us. I walked
over to the fridge; there was a twelve-pack of Coke. I grabbed a
can; I figured we could split it. I grabbed the cup and smelled it;
it stung my nostrils. I plugged my nose and swallowed it. Then, I
grabbed the can of coke to take a sip. After a few more shots, we
started talking.

“So, when did you know that you were in love
with Dante?” Skylar asked.

“It’s kind of hard to say. There were a few
fleeting moments when we were younger. I’d have to say I really
fell in love with him when I found out he pretended to be you just
to help me…” I sighed.

“You miss him, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “But you’re the next-best
thing. You remind me of him in so many ways besides your looks.
You’re actually kind, you’re nowhere near who I thought you were,
and ever since we—”

“Ever since we… what?” He wondered.

“Nothing, It’s nothing.”

“Tell me, please,” he begged.

“Ever since we… kissed… I felt this part of
me—”

“You felt it, too?” He blurted

“What did you feel… exactly?” I wondered.

“I—I felt whole, complete.”

“No, I didn’t feel like that. It was more of
a part of me that I’d never felt before, I never even knew it was
there, and now I can’t ignore it—that’s why Dante really left.”

“Part of me wishes that we’d never met, that
we were never meant to meet each other. I wish that you had a
chance to be happy.”

“Skylar, it’s not that I couldn’t be happy
with you. It’s that fact that I was completely happy with Dante. I
thought we were meant to be together; I thought we were bound by
some magical, amazing thing. I thought that nothing could tear us
apart. I thought that no matter what happened, no matter what
anyone did to us, no matter what challenges we would face, we would
have each other.
That
was the one thing I thought I could
count on, but I couldn’t even count on that.
He
was the one
person I knew I could count on to always be there, but he
left.”

“If you ever decide that I am worthy of a
chance, you will always be able to count on me.”

“It’s not whether you’re ‘worthy’ or not,
It’s whether I can live without Dante or not.”

“You’re going to live forever and so is he,
and I know that someday you will be together, but for now, could
you try—”

I put my fingers to his lips; no amount of
him trying to talk me into this would help. I was at war with
myself. That part of me was begging to kiss him, but the rest of me
was wishing Dante was here. I couldn’t go on like this. Dante left
me, and Dante wanted me to be with Skylar.

“Pour me another shot,” I ordered. He did. I
drank it and immediately, after my lips were touching his. Unlike
Dante’s kisses, which were always soft, gentle, Skylar’s felt
desperate, passionate. He stopped and looked down at me, and then
he sighed.

“This isn’t fair to you, I can tell this
isn’t what you want,” he smiled at me, letting me know it was okay.
“What time is it? We should see if we can find a way out of here, I
bet it’s dark out by now.”

“Alright,” I smiled back, confirming what he
thought. It just didn’t feel right. Maybe someday it would, but I
couldn’t give up on Dante until I knew why Skylar and I were
supposed to be together.

We went up the stairs, but there was no
handle on the door. We tried to push it, but it wouldn’t budge.
Skylar went back down the stairs, walked over to all the boxes, and
then, he looked around. He ran over to me, with a knife that looked
a lot like the one that went through his hand. He dug the blade
into the palm of his hand, about half an inch in. The handle
started filling up with the blue liquid again. He did the same
thing as last time, he drank the liquid. The cut was gone before he
finished it. Then, he went up to the door. With one quick motion,
the door was up. When I got into the shed, I realized it looked
like the hinges were bent.

“Wow, that was amazing,” I complimented.

“Just one of the many things I can teach
you.”

Skylar walked me home. The entire time I had
the book I found clutched in my arms.

When we got to my house, I wasn’t quite sure
what to do next. He didn’t seem like he planned to leave, but I
needed some time alone.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” I said as I
walked in the house.

“Okay, bye.”
That was easier than I
thought.

I went up to my room and fell face-first onto
the bed. I’d never really had to deal with a breakup. I was sure
that if I had boyfriends before, the slight pain of losing them
might have prepared me for all of this. I wasn’t sure how it was
supposed to go. I didn’t know anything. It would have been easier
in some ways, if Dante would have just stayed. I wanted to see his
face, even if that was all I would be able to do.

I thought back to the time that I found out
Dante had been pretending to be Skylar, I thought back to the night
when we stayed awake in each other’s arms. I remember so vividly
the night that we swam in the glowing pink water, how much fun we
had, how alive I felt, how lucky.

I turned on the fan; the heat was unbearable.
Then I put the book that I had found on my bed and starting
flipping through it. Each page was filled with priceless
information. Stuff I knew I would use eventually, but now I needed
something a little more significant to what I was going
through.

It was taking forever, and I didn’t think I
would be able to find the page. I decided to go take a break and
get a glass of water.

When I came back, the pages were turning. It
was because of the fan, but it seemed to go slower than it should
have.

Finally, it stopped and the page it fell on
went back and forth violently—it was Skylar and I, but the next
minute I could have sworn it was Dante.

As the breeze from the fan moved the page,
Skylar’s eye and hair color seemed to change every other second.
His eyes went from green to brown, his hair from ashy blond to
dark, mysterious brown.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a faint
green and blue light coming from the backyard. I jumped up and ran
to the window, more precisely, I ran
into
the window. That
blue and green light was exactly what I thought, but once Dante saw
me, he was gone as quickly as he appeared.

I rubbed my forehead where it met the glass,
and then, I sat down on the bed. I took a deep breath, balled my
hands into fists and beat my pillow. I couldn’t control myself,
even as the tears started to sting my eyes, the frustration
remained.

I looked down at the book; the page still
remained open. Like the other book, there was no writing, no
explanation, nothing.

I lay down on the bed, staring at the
ceiling, why was Dante here? Why couldn’t he let me see him, not
even for just a second?

In the corner of my eye, I saw the faintest,
hardly even noticeable, blue and green haze. In the corner of the
room, for one split second, I saw a slight outline.

“Dante?”

Slowly, he appeared. I was amazed. He had
never done that alone before. He had never been able to use any of
my powers on his own, and now he was.

“Skylar can find you, wherever you are he
knows, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t find you.”

“I’m okay,” I said.

“Oh, well, that’s good. I’m going to get
going.”

“What I meant, was that I didn’t get hurt.
I’m anything but okay. I’m confused, and I feel like you took a
part of me with you. The rational part, the part that knows how I’m
feeling,” I sighed. “Look at this,” I said as I pointed to the
book.

He became visible and knelt down on the
floor. It was like we were two magnets, and I couldn’t help but go
to his side, and kneel right next to him. I moved closer every
second, and soon he was right next to me.