Insight (29 page)

I didn’t answer Landen’s thoughts. He kissed my forehead and pulled my hand toward the door.

“Let’s go get them,” he said under his breath.

We walked out to the porch where they were all waiting, and the quiet whispers stopped when they saw us. Landen looked at his dad first, then at each of them in the eye, one by one.

“We need to bring those girls back here until we can stop the demons. Does anyone have any objections to that?” Landen asked.

Ashten glanced at August, then they looked at my father. My father cleared his throat. “We’ve brought family here before. Olivia seems to be fine,” he answered, looking up at Landen.

“What is he talking about?”
I asked Landen.

“There’s an old myth that you must be loved by someone who lives here to survive in Chara.”

“You tell us what you need us to do,” Ashten said, beaming with pride as he looked at Landen.

“What’s your plan?” Marc asked.

Landen looked down then out to the others. Their anticipation and excitement frightened him. He didn’t want them involved in this at all. “Jason, we heard the mothers talk about you last night. They respect your medical opinion. Do you think you could convince them to let the girls come with you?”

“I’m sure I could think of something,” my father said, certain of himself.

“Dane, your mother is expecting you any day now. I say we go to Franklin with Dane. Jason, you can run into one of the parents and convince them that you have to take them away somewhere,” Landen planned out. The others nodded in agreement.

“All right then. We need to go, it’s almost night time there,” my dad said.

August decided to stay behind. I reasoned he didn’t want to place himself between Ashten and Landen. We waited as Ashten and my father called home. Brady and Chrispin didn’t have to go far to say goodbye to Felicity and Olivia. They were in the field by our house, picking flowers. Olivia’s emotion elevated as she heard Chrispin’s voice…the emotion was undeniable.
“Has he told her yet?”
I asked, knowing how they both felt about each other and that Olivia would never have the nerve to say it first.

Landen smiled as he watched them.
“He’s waiting. He thinks she needs to see his face,”
Landen answered. Feeling my disapproval, he wrapped his arm around me.
“I know. Don’t worry. I can tell he can’t wait much longer. It’s kind of funny to think back about how worried he was about looking, and then you come along and throw her into his arms.”

The smirk on his face made me smile, but we were both too stressed to find the energy to laugh.

In the string, I lingered near the back with Clarissa. I thought Landen needed space. I didn’t feel comfortable with the way he was acting…he had changed since he’d seen the charts. He was aloof and trying desperately not to seem that way to me. Brady and Marc took the time to try and show Dane the passages. He was able to feel them, but the colors escaped him.

“So, do you think I am going to like Franklin?” Clarissa asked me.

Like any other time I’d seen Clarissa, she resembled a runway model: a unique beauty that could capture anyone’s attention.

“I think Franklin is really going to like you,” I muttered, smiling faintly.

Clarissa grinned, staring at Dane. “He never really talks about anyone from there, except you and his family.”

I smiled, remembering how oddly Dane and I fit into Franklin. “For us, it was like a waiting room. We’ve always known that we were meant to be somewhere else,” I offered as I realized that my soul seemed to know way more than my mind.

Clarissa grinned and wrapped her arm around me. “The first time I heard about New York, I was ten. Something always told me that was the place I was supposed to meet the one…that makes me think this is all fate. I was meant for the one person out there that could see in the string, already connected to you. We were meant to help you.”

As Infante came into view, green passages illuminated the walls. Landen glanced back in my direction, smiled slightly, and then walked on. A moment later, the walls seemed to turn completely green, and you couldn’t see one passage from another. Landen stopped and looked at the wall cautiously. The others watched him carefully. To them, it was solid white.

“What is it, Landen?” Ashten asked.

“I’m trying to remember which one is Willow’s house. That’s the best place we could all appear out of nowhere without being noticed,” Landen said, debating now on one area of the wall.

The admiration coming from the others was intensified in the string. Landen held his hand up, telling us all to stay put then he stepped inside the haze. Everyone in the string tensed, expecting Landen to feel the burn as he walked through the wall. I saw Ashten look at my father and shake his head in disbelief.

Seconds passed, and Landen didn’t come back. I felt my heart rate rise. Pain was seeping into my veins, the same way it did when he left me before. I held my breath, trying to block it out, but with each second that passed it intensified. I saw spots in my vision, and my head started to spin. I fell back without warning. Brady, who was standing beside me, caught me.

“Jason, what’s going on here?” Brady yelled.

My father quickly turned and saw my condition. I felt his panic, along with everyone else’s. It wasn’t helping me at all—it was draining me.

“It’s happening again. Their bodies can’t be separated by the string,” my father said, trying to remain calm. My head was so heavy it fell back.

“What do we do?” Brady said, picking me up. “Do I walk through the wall?”

Suddenly, I felt life come back into me—I felt Landen again.

“No,” I heard Landen say.

He emerged several feet from where he’d disappeared, walked quickly to Brady, and took me from his arms. With his touch, the pain left, leaving a tingle in its wake. I was weak. It had taken my energy, but when Landen kissed my lips, it sent a rush of energy through me. He squeezed me in his arms, and it was as if nothing ever happened.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Are you okay?”
he thought.

I nodded. Hating that I looked weak. Feeling that emotion he slowly put me down.

“Is something wrong? Why didn’t you come back?” Marc asked, ready for a fight.

“No, that goes to their house, but there are a ton people there, cleaning up after the fire.” I couldn’t just disappear. I had to find another opening.

“Let me look at you,” my father said. He circled Landen and me, shaking his head. “I don’t understand why you can’t be apart. I mean, you were apart for eighteen years.”

“Maybe that’s their bodies way of saying that they should have never been kept apart in the first place,” Brady bit out, still upset with Ashten for hiding me from Landen.

Clarissa saw the potential disagreement and added a more positive note. “Or maybe it symbolizes that they are now joined forever,” she said, glancing at Brady. “We can’t change the past. We’ve all made mistakes in judgment.”

Landen squeezed me tighter and kissed the top of my head. I could sense turmoil inside him. He didn’t want his family to fight over any of this. My father nodded in Clarissa’s direction and let the matter go.

The current in the string began to flow more aggressively, and the hum grew a little bit louder. Landen looked at my father. “You don’t have long to convince them to come. The storm will pass here in less than six hours,” he warned.

“I don’t think it’s going to be hard. Grace told me that both Jessica and Hannah’s parents wanted the girls to go with Willow to Paris,” my father said.

Landen held me tight and led us forward. Everyone lined up behind us, and we passed through the green wall together. The passage led to a wooded area just fifty yards from my house. I could still smell the smoke in the air.

We causally walked to the road, and in the distance I could hear hammers and saws. As we approached the house, trucks lined the street in front of the shell of a home that was left. People were rushing in every direction.

We walked into the front yard, and I looked up at the home in which I was raised, the one in which my mother was raised, the brick remained in place. The roof was gone, and so were all the windows.

It didn’t take long for someone to notice us. On the front porch was Josh’s father, Mr. Campbell. He owned a very successful construction company. Mr. Campbell saw my father and grinned from ear to ear.

“Well, now, I didn’t expect to see you back so soon,” he said to my father, once he reached our side.

“We’re just passing through. Grace wanted me and Willow to see if there was anything that could be saved before we went overseas,” my father said, clearly not comfortable lying.

“Now, Jason, I told you the night it burned that I was going to fix this for you, and I meant it,” Mr. Campbell said looking over his shoulder, then back at my father, feeling proud of what he’d accomplished in such a short time.

“Really, it’s not necessary,” my father said, raising his hands.

“Look, Jason, I had doctor after doctor tell me I needed open heart surgery, but you took one look at me and told me how to heal myself. I vowed then to repay you. All these people here, they don’t work for me. They’re volunteers, your patients, Grace’s friends, and Willow’s friends. I’ve never known a man as good as you before, none of us have. This is our way of saying thank you.”

“I really do appreciate this. This town will always be a part of me and Grace,” my father said humbly.

“Well, there isn’t a lot that can be salvaged. We have a few storage containers in the back of the house. Anything that we think you’d still want or use, we put in there,” Mr. Campbell said, looking at all of the people my father had with him. His eyes landed on Dane. “Son, your mother is going to be happy to see you.” He then looked around at the trucks lining the street. “How did all of you get here?”

“Cab,” my father said quickly. “We’re actually on a layover, and we don’t have very long before our next flight,” he continued, getting better at lying.

Mr. Campbell nodded as my father talked; that was a trait about him that I’d always found funny. “Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “Dane, take my truck go and introduce that pretty thing you have with you to your mother.”

Clarissa blushed, not knowing how to respond to Mr. Campbell. Smiling, Dane took the keys then glanced back at Landen and me before he left; it was clear he was amused by how blunt Mr. Campbell was.

“I tell you what, Jason. They’ve been hoping you would show up. Seems two girls showed up at the hospital, and they don’t know what to make of what’s wrong with them,” Mr. Campbell said.

“Are they still at the hospital?” my father asked.

“No, I believe they sent them home,” Mr. Campbell answered, waving his son, Josh, over to us. Josh walked over to all of us and looked at Landen and Brady, confusion all over his face.

“Are you a doctor, too?” Mr. Campbell asked Ashten.

I felt my father’s embarrassment as he looked back at us, realizing he hadn’t introduced anyone. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me. This is Ashten. Yes, he’s a doctor; he taught me everything I know,” he said.

Mr. Campbell reached over and shook Ashten’s hand. Everyone else was trying not to laugh at the idea of Ashten being a doctor.

“And these are his sons, Brady and Landen, and his nephews, Chrispin and Marc,” my father said.

Mr. Campbell shook everyone’s hands, saving Landen’s for last. It was not hard to see that we were a couple. Since the pain in the string, Landen had made sure that one part of him was always touching me.

“You must be a lucky man,” Mr. Campbell said to Landen. “I told my son Josh here that girls like Willow are rare.” Mr. Campbell looked back at Josh, shaking his head in a teasing manner. “Maybe next time he’ll listen to me.”

Josh rolled his eyes at his father then nodded in Landen’s direction, still confused.

“Josh, let Jason take your truck. He needs to go and check on those girls,” Mr. Campbell said. Josh complied without complaint.

“I want to stay here to see what’s in storage,” I said to Landen and my father.

“Dad, just go with Jason. I’ll stay here with them,” Brady said to Ashten.

Mr. Campbell waved then turned to go back to the house. Josh looked at Landen one more time then followed his dad.

“Maybe your herb didn’t work that well on him,”
I thought, Landen shrugged his shoulders, not really caring what Josh thought of him.

“We’ll be back in a little bit,” my father said over his shoulder.

Brady and Chrispin walked toward the house, and Mr. Campbell gave them hard hats before he allowed them in. Landen, Marc, and I walked around the house. Looking up at the damage, I felt an overwhelming grief. I wondered how many people I would bring destruction to before this conflict with Drake was over. I tried to hide my emotion from Landen, but he felt it.

“I’m sorry, Willow,”
he thought, filling with remorse.

Though we never lost touch, I could feel his mind drifting somewhere else. If I could turn back time, I wouldn’t have allowed him to look at those birth charts. They’d changed him.