Evanescent (45 page)

“What do you want with me?” I sat up, the world around me swirled into focus. A sharp pain assaulted my head. My breath settled in my chest forcefully. I was now tired, irritated, frustrated and growing increasingly bored of this game.

“We have been studying you,” a voice said.

I rolled my eyes. “Who hasn’t?”

“So, it’s no surprise then, what’s coming next.”

I shifted in my seat, my hand touching my face to gain some sense of gravity.

“Okay, I’ll bite.” I started scanning the room around me. “Nice prison cell you have here,” I said.

I found myself in a room set for an Earth movie princess; white, oak cupboards dressed in gold embellishments complimented the gray walls.
How cliché
. I climbed out of a gigantic, white puffed up bed, my toes nestling into a thick, snowy carpet. It felt like I walking on clouds, my body almost floated from its surface. I pressed down on the soft cloud. It was not at all like our bunks back in the dorm. My eyes fell on my iPod resting on a nearby table, my computer screen was unrolled and stuck onto a glossy surface, its faint, blue light emitting and reflecting off the white surface wall. I wanted to run to my things, to feel the familiarity of my old life again. I missed Sam. And as sick as it was, I missed the days when everything was uncomplicated, fake and much easier. I stood, hardly staring at the dirty medical gown, which reminded me of what had transpired back on that golden moon. I felt a loss with great ache for being so far away from Troy, wondering if he and the others had escaped unharmed. My focus had to solely be on taking the High Council down. Walking around the room, I took in the clothes of every color, shape and size from the wall to wall dressing room. I ran my hands over each item. Colors I had never seen, not even in Maya’s cupboard, stared back at me. I wondered if I would ever see my sister again. Was she okay? I wished I had kept my prying mind silent, stayed away from Maya and the Minoans. Then they all would have been blissfully going about their daily duties in their beautiful village. Orange, bright green, coral pinks and blue pastel, hazily pushed past me. It was the blue that drew me in, a powdery, soft blue, like that of Earth’s sky – a planet I was dying to explore. I remembered why I had chosen to go along with the prophecy; freedom, beauty, peace, to feel loved and to give it. Just one day on Earth, beneath a big, blue sky represented everything I ever wondered about.

I swallowed suddenly, knowing what it was all about. Someone was leaking Earth images to me, someone was telling me to get out, to seek, to desire. Troy!

I closed my eyes, feeling overwhelmed.
Why didn’t he just tell me?

I forced my eyes open. I had to go on. I had to save them. I breathed through the collapsed feeling in my chest.

“What is this?” I said out loud. I looked down at my body suddenly, but instead of seeing the paper-thin gown I had been wearing, I was dressed in white. I ran my hands over the dress’ gorgeous material. I smiled. I looked really good. I stared at my hands, my skin a gorgeous glow.

“This is your future. Should you choose it.” Again, the same voice.

My bare feet still rested on the soft and luxurious, white, cushioned carpet, the fur wrapping around and in between my toes. It felt like I imagined my
Heaven
would. When I looked up and straight ahead, I faced a huge mirror. It was the traveling mirror, we were joined now somehow. When I had shattered it, it had told me what to do, it called to me. I had changed destiny forever on that day. It glowed as I neared; a radiant, golden smoke twirling around the intricate, silver symbols snaking through the pattern laid out in the amethyst pendant with radiant diamonds. I remembered the golden mist that had escaped my mouth when I had tried to save Troy form Enoch’s poison.

“How did…” I started to stutter, trying to remember how I had come to be in such a glamorous place.

“You have everything you need now.”

I narrowed my eyes on my reflection. I didn’t recognise the girl staring back. Perhaps once, she had been everything I wanted, a princess surrounded by gorgeous things with perfect skin and shiny, wavy hair.

“What do you want in exchange?” I stared into my reflection. Gray eyes staring back, curious and longing.

“Only your cooperation.”

“No,” I grunted.

“Silly girl,” the voice paused. “You’ve already cooperated. Do you honestly think everything happened because of your destiny?” Another pause. And then the voice continued condescendingly, “Everything has gone according to plan.”

“But there is more?” My voice hurt as I spoke. Why would they have me in this situation? They wanted more.

“There is one more thing you have to do. But it needs to be done willingly. Do it, and you can have everything we know you have always wanted.”

Did they do this to me? Activate my desires, so they could trap me?

“We know your inner most wants.”

I stared at myself, hard and long.

I was different now, had felt things, things that have moved me. People who had moved me. There was nothing more I’d ever want than their happiness.

“There is nothing you have that I would ever want,” I said slowly, and clearly. I ran my fingers through my luscious locks, staring at my too perfect reflection disbelievingly, an ache filling my chest. I don’t want this, this was not how things were meant to be.

“You only know what I want, because you’ve made me want them,” I sneered, my heart racing now. Troy was the only true thing I ever had. He brought me to life. And I’d live happily with only the clothes on my back, on the brink of starvation, just to be with him. Food and things couldn’t fill the gaping hole.

A knock sounded at the door. I looked up, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from, my chest suddenly tight. The dark, metal door swooshed open, and I felt like bolting right through it.

“In case you are thinking of running, take a look outside,” the voice warned, pulling tight on the reins of my escape plan.

Suddenly, I became aware of a large window. My feet carried me there without thinking. I put my palms to the big, glass window, and the first thing I saw was an image I never thought I would ever see. Earth – a planet with unmistakeable colors, it was so clear and brilliant. Blues of the ocean, whites of the clouds, grays of snow-capped mountains, and luscious, green grasslands. An iridescent, sapphire sky, radiant and glowing reached into the black space beyond. Stars dotted the black distance between us, calling to me.

“I will ask you again. What do you want?”

“The antidote.”

I snorted. “I’d rather die.”

If they got to the antidote, they could very well abolish it. Mutants would evolve, stuck, controlled beings forever, and those of the Shadowing kind would destroy everything in their path until nothing existed but darkness.

I spun abruptly when the scent of glorious food enveloped me. My mouth watered profusely. The smell grew in intensity until I was sitting right in front of the table about to take my first bite. I drew back, stood, and with one hand swept the plate clean from the table. All of it meant nothing to me. Food littered the crisp, white carpet. The plate bounced from the force and landed near the bed, a dark splatter tainting the crisp white sheets.

“One thing, and I’ll do anything you want.”

There was silence.

“Troy and my friends – all of them. The school. You leave them be. You rid them of your agents, your partners, whatever. Poseidon will be ruled by Minoans once again.”

Silence.

My chest rose and fell. “Is that a yes?”

“They are already on the ship.”

“What about Poseidon.”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

“That will take time.”

“Show me!” I shouted.

“Ava.” At the mention of my name, my chest filled with warmth, spreading and igniting my entire body.

I ran to Troy. He stood there, all cleaned up, a few scrapes on his brow, his lip swollen. My arms flung around his neck, my throat a tight knot with everything I wanted to say. When his arms folded my body into his, I broke down and cried.

“We are all here, even Arriana. It’s all going to be okay. Just give them what they want, and we can get on with our life on Earth, just as you always wanted.”

“So Earth wasn’t destroyed? I was right?”

He nodded, his hand finding the back of my neck. He pressed me closer, his scent drowning me. I kissed his neck and his face.

“You would give in?” I frowned incredulously.

“To have you in my arms, safely – yes, I would,” he said softly.

His lips found mine. But it was wrong, he would never give in, never. I loved him because he freed me – now? Suddenly, I experienced an excruciating pain shooting through my brain and gasped as a dark images flashed, leaving a white noise echoing inside my head.

“Ava, are you okay?” he asked, hands cupping my face.

I pushed him from me, but he tried to pull me back. I looked away while he still held on to my hips. The mirror was glowing, an amethyst so bright it drowned the room in purple hues. A warning.

“Let me go, please let me go,” I wailed, not being able to stand what I was feeling.

“Ava?” His unsure tone blistered into my mind.

He pulled me back forcefully. I turned and punched him in his face, the shock and hurt in his expression splintered into my chest.

I fell to the floor.

“I know what you’re doing,” I spat.

My eyes found the food I’d flung all over the white carpet.

“Ava, please!” Troy begged. I could smell him, but it wasn’t real.

My hand found the green peas, then I rolled it through the bright, yellow corn. I stared at the juicy meat. Troy’s hand touched my shoulder as he crouched down beside me.

“There is no stain.” I lifted my hand to take a closer look.

“What?” he said.

I stared back into his eyes, they were every bit his eyes. His face. I ran my fingers over his bottom lip, heat flowed from my fingers to the very tip of my toes. His arms found me. I kept my eyes on his. It was gentle, just breath between us before he placed his lips over mine. I knew it. It was non-existent, just a kiss. That is all there was.

“You forgot something.” I pulled back, my hand resting on his chest, the other around his neck. His eyes slowly fluttered open, like he was lost for a moment. I stared into his hazel eyes.

“Troy would never give up,” I said and stood back, letting Troy’s grip around me fall to the lonely nothingness.

My words blew away the ashes of devastation, carried it away by the wind of forgotten sorrow. I knew this feeling, the taste of loss. There was even the wind’s bellow through the trees before it striped everything away. “His eyes are green when he is happy,” I added. A cloud fell over me, a dark, heavy, stifling cloud as I was lifted from my sedated state.

“I was afraid of that,” the voice said.

Abruptly, I stood from my metal bed in a dark, gray passage – metal walls, metal floor – in that paper-thin, infirmary gown. The white noise peaked, bleeding back dark shadows. My breath came out in wisps of white clouds. I started to shiver. Closing my eyes, I tried to sense something near me, smell something, feel a breeze, feel anything other than my loneliness, my only friend.

A crushing voice startled me. “You will activate the antidote,” he repeated.

I shook my head.

“We have your friends – take a look.”

A bright light flashed from the floor beneath my feet, my eyes painfully tried to adjust. On the screen set in the floor was an image of a well-lit room. A large chamber with dozens of teenagers. I found a boy I recognized from the English school, then I recognized Greg, and next to him Willard and… Sam! Her red hair such a brilliant sight to see. She was alright. They were all alright.

“What do you want with them?” my voice broke. “How do I know this is not a trick?”

“We have been searching for your kind for a long time,” a sarcastic voice answered. “We are so close. I know you have something we need.”

Another screen flickered to life beside me on the metal wall. It looked very much like a boxing ring, except it was on a field, similar to our hockey field back at Vista.

“Please don’t hurt them,” I said loudly.

“The stadium separates the mutants from the Curatrix born.”

“What?” I barked.

“You still have no idea what the Broken are?” I could hear the smile in his voice. “Your grandfather is none other than Hitler’s son and very much like you, a perfect specimen. He sought after the cure for all mutants, because he hated what he was, just like you do. I think he knew what the cure was and hid it. And guess what? It lies in your kind, your race has the answers we need. Some of our mutants cannot be controlled or killed, but with the cure… well, you are a smart girl. No need to elaborate further.”

“If you have all the answers, why do you need me?”

“There is one piece of the puzzle missing, isn’t there?” Silence. “You will activate the antidote.”

“That’s not it.”

“The Shadowing cannot possess the earthly plane as we once did. We need your help.”

I could shift right now, and kill each and every last one of them. I smiled. However, they didn’t deserve to get off so easily.