Purpose (34 page)

She looked at me as if expecting an answer,
so I nodded my understanding.

“Sleep allows our bodies to completely heal
from the day’s effect on them,” Mom said. “Every organ, tissue and
cell regenerates, making our bodies exactly as young and healthy as
when we first awoke that morning.”

“But I could heal before…” I stopped as the
realization hit me. “Oh, but only injured cells.”

“Correct,” Rina said. “It is the Amadis power
that regenerates
all
cells. Every night, while we sleep, our
bodies return to their strongest. Every day is, indeed, a fresh
start. Because we heal quickly, we do not need as much sleep as
normal humans.”

No wonder Mom and Tristan always seemed to
get more things done in one day than many people could accomplish
in a week. I couldn’t wait to start this new life.

Although I didn’t look like I’d been to Hell
and back and I certainly didn’t feel it now, I remembered enough of
the phases of the
Ang’dora
—freezing, burning, sweating—to
feel the need for a shower. The feeling of the water pouring down
on my skin enraptured me, but I showered hurriedly. I wanted to see
Tristan. Just the thought of him made my soul sing.

“I see you’ve been a little too busy to do
laundry,” Mom said as I dried myself off. “You only have one outfit
left.”

She laid the brightly colored sundress on the
bed. It was my favorite one, which is why I hadn’t worn it yet.
Metallic gold outlined the abstract design in jewel tones—ruby,
sapphire, amethyst, emerald and topaz—against a black background.
The dress seemed too showy for hanging around the house. Now I had
no choice but to wear it. When I pulled it on, the silk slid softly
against my skin, like the brush of soft, smooth lips.

“Where’s Tristan?” I couldn’t wait to be in
his arms again, now that I’d finally gone through the long
anticipated
Ang’dora
.
I’m finally more like him
.

Neither Mom nor Rina answered me, but they
exchanged meaningful looks. Impatient with their silence, I headed
to the door.

“
No!”
They both cried, but not aloud.
They were in my head…or I was in theirs.

I turned around.

“What?” I asked.

Neither answered. But their faces said it
all. Something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. I dimly
remembered those bits of conversation, but none made sense.

And then the voices raged in my head all at
once.

“
He’s going to kill her
,” Mom
thought.

“
She is strong enough. She can handle
it.”
Rina’s thought.

“
I can’t hold him much longer! I need
reinforcements
now
.”
Owen.

“
Kill the little bitch
.” A
frightening, deep-throated growl. “
No mercy. Just kill
her
.”

The feeling, whose ever it was, came so
strong it filled my head until I thought my brain would explode. No
images appeared except an angry swirl of reds and deep oranges,
pulsing and growing until the mass pressed against my skull. I
threw my arms over my head as if they could stop the onslaught.

“Go away! Make it stop!” I shrieked.

“Alexis!” Rina said sharply, grabbing my
attention. My head snapped up and my arms fell to my side. “Focus
on my voice and nothing else. That’s it—focus on me, on my
words.”

I looked her in the eyes and listened
specifically to her voice. The others’ thoughts dimmed in my head,
just background noise now. The colors faded away and the pressure
ebbed back.

She spoke slowly and softly, like a
hypnotist. “There you go. Just remain focused on me. Now, imagine a
black wall in your head and the only sound on this side of the wall
is my voice. Yes?”

I nodded. I closed my eyes and imagined
pulling a wall up in my head, dividing that black space or cloud,
separating her voice from the others. The jumble in the background
went completely away.

“
Now, can you hear me?”
Rina
thought.

Yes
.

“
Anyone else?”

No
. I opened my eyes.

“
Good. You are doing beautifully. You are
very powerful.”
She smiled, then she said aloud, “Sophia, think
about something you
want
Alexis to hear.”

Mom nodded.

“
Now push my voice behind the wall and
focus on your mother’s thoughts
,” Rina directed.

I tried, but the wall fell.

“
He’s going to break loose! I can’t hold
him!”
Owen’s thoughts roared.

“
Kill. Her. Kill! Her!”
Images of
crimson blood against grayness flashed in my mind.

“Who wants to
kill
somebody?” I cried
aloud, frightened and offended by the thought. “Who else is here? I
can’t tell!”

“Alexis! You
must
focus,” Rina
ordered.

“How can I focus with that? It’s
horrible
!”

“That is
why
you must focus. You have
a very powerful and rare gift, but you need to learn to control it.
The world is full of horrible and you will not be able to handle
your power otherwise. Trust me.”

I took some deep breaths to calm myself, then
I focused on putting up the wall again.

“Do you have a wall?” Rina asked.

I nodded.

“
Now, concentrate on your mother’s voice.
You know her voice very well. Listen only for it. Do not try to
move the wall or try to take a piece of it out. It must always
remain there intact. Just concentrate on the voice you
want.
”

I envisioned the cloud again. It enshrouded
Rina, but the wall blocked off everything else. I imagined the
cloud reaching out to include Mom.

“
You can do this
,” Mom’s voice
reverberated in my head. I nodded.

“
Can you still hear me?”
Rina asked. I
nodded again. “
That is good if you want to hear us both, but you
need to focus on just one. Block me out
.”

I tried pulling the cloud away from Rina.

“
Rina is right. You are amazingly
powerful. I can feel it above my own
.” Mom kept on with the pep
rally as Rina’s voice died away.

I tried the opposite and I could hear Rina
again and not Mom. Rina must have sensed me.

“
Now tune out everyone and listen only to
yourself
,” she instructed.

I focused on shrinking the cloud until it
became nothing in my mind, nothing but my own thoughts. But my
thoughts still worried about the other voices and the wall started
to crumble. I concentrated on holding it there, beads of sweat
popping out on my forehead from the intense focus. The wall finally
held. I relaxed my mind slowly and the wall remained.

“Control will take much practice,” Rina said
aloud. “Just hold the wall up and the rest will come in time.”

I mentally assigned one part of my brain to
hold up the wall and tested the rest to wander. I thought about
Tristan. The wall remained—no one’s thoughts came through—even with
the swelling of love that felt nearly overwhelming. It felt strange
to be able to hold one part of my brain there on its own. The
capacity of my mind felt larger and I could use more parts of it at
once. I continued thinking about Tristan, kept the wall up and used
a different part of my mind to think of Dorian.
Wow! This is
incredible!
I kept those three thoughts running and tried
communicating with Rina.

Rina, I think I can do this!

She smiled. She heard me. And Tristan’s and
Dorian’s faces held, as did the wall.

“
I knew you would be good
,” she
thought.

I suddenly realized how tense my muscles
were, as if I physically held the wall in place. I relaxed one
muscle group at a time, working my way down from my neck to my
feet. The wall held.

“So who’s here?” I asked aloud. “Who is that
terrible person or…
thing
? I don’t
sense
evil. Why
would anyone here want to kill someone?”

Mom and Rina exchanged glances again.

“You do not sense evil?” Rina asked.

“No.
Should
I?”

“That is interesting,” she said. “That is
good.”

Mom shot her a pointed look. “Don’t
you
sense something?” she asked Rina.

“It does not matter what you and I sense,
Sophia. Alexis will be more highly tuned to it than us. She has a
connection that we do not. We need to rely on her in this
situation.”

At the same time as that conversation, I
thought about the voices, trying to identify that horrible growl.
I’d heard Rina, Mom and Owen in my head. But not Tristan. I still
smelled his mouthwatering scent, so I knew he was in the house.
Is he sleeping?
Or…

“Oh, no!” I cried. “What’s wrong with
Tristan?”

“Honey,” Mom said, “we have a serious
situation we’re going to have to deal with as soon as you open that
door.”

“What’s going on? Was that
him
?” I
started for the door, already knowing the answer.

“Alexis, wait!” Mom barked. I stopped with my
hand on the knob and turned to look at her.

“He needs me, Mom. He needs my help.” I
opened the door and the growl—what had sounded like a train—became
a terrifying roar.

“Alexis, you can’t just go out there!” Mom
cried. “He wants to kill
you
!”

“That’s ridiculous, Mother!” I started down
the hallway and she grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around. The
roar quieted slightly to a loud rumble while footsteps hurried back
and forth in the kitchen. “He loves me. He just needs my help.”

“That is not
your
Tristan, Alexis.
That is Daemoni. They got to him, honey, and all he’s wanted since
we returned is to kill you. Owen can hardly hold him back.”

I pulled away from her grip and continued
down the hallway. “He
is
my Tristan. I don’t
feel
Daemoni. And I was with him for two days. I think I would know.
Owen knows, too. He spent the day with us yesterday. You even saw
him last night.”

“And he wasn’t doing so well,” Mom reminded
me.

We’d come into the kitchen. Owen paced
frantically, shaking his head.

He spun at me. “He’s snapped, Alexis.
Something’s made him completely lose it!”

One part of my brain heard him, but the other
part focused on the scene.

“Holy
hell
!” My hand flew to my
mouth.

He didn’t
look
like my Tristan. His
back pressed against the front of the refrigerator, and he
struggled forcefully, the fridge moving back and forth as if tied
to him, I assumed by magic. His muscles bulged and strained against
his clothes. He growled at me, his lips peeled back from his teeth
like an animal.
And his eyes
. There were no whites, no green
or gold. Just fire against blackness.

“Why do you have him tied up like an
animal
?” I cried, tears of anger and compassion burning my
eyes.

“Because he’s a beast!” Mom said. “Stay away
from him!”

“How did this happen? Did
I
do this to
him? Is it because he took all that evil energy from me last
night?”

“We are not sure,” Rina said. “Last night
probably did not help matters, but I believe the Daemoni planted
dark magic in him. Something to respond to you only. I think the
energy change in you has set it off. Your Amadis power won, Alexis.
You overcame the Daemoni force and when it left you…”

“He took it again, didn’t he?” I asked.

Rina’s dark expression answered my question.
“Not like he did last night, no. I believe it found him, as a…how
do you say...an already open vessel. And now Tristan is
losing.”

As Rina spoke, I wondered if Tristan was in a
place like my meadow, fighting himself for his soul. Although my
life had been far from perfect, I’d always been surrounded by love
and goodness. Overcoming the evil temptations came relatively
easily to me. But Tristan had known only evil for hundreds of
years. And now he’d been separated from the Amadis, not receiving
that regular dose of good power for so long. He’d been unstable
when he came back and last night could have only made it worse. But
I knew he
wanted
to be good. If he were in that strange
meadow, part of him would still be fighting. The part that needed
me.

“I can’t hold him much longer,” Owen said,
his voice strained with effort. “We need help.”

“When you lift the shield, there will be
Daemoni, too,” Mom warned. “They’ll hear him.”

“I
know
,” Owen said. “Protectors are
waiting to get in, though. We just have to hope there’ll be
enough.”

While they debated this, I took a few timid
steps toward Tristan. My heart picked up speed as a part of me
feared for my life. His power rolled off in waves from his tensed
body, the energy crashing over me like a hot, violent sea. And his
eyes absolutely terrified me.

But I knew
my
Tristan was in there. He
had to be. And I had to bring him out. So I gathered my courage and
held up the wall in my mind while reaching out to him with my
mental cloud. I focused intensely on his mind, saying what had
always worked before.

Tristan, it’s me, baby. I love you. I trust
you.

He struggled wildly. The refrigerator slammed
against the walls, the drywall cracking and big chunks crumbling to
the ground. The floor quaked and the kitchen cabinets shook. Their
contents rattled and crashed. A cabinet door swung open, popping
the bottom hinge, and the door continued swinging, the corner of it
crashing into Tristan’s temple. He took no notice of it.

“
You disgust me. I’ve been waiting a long
time to tear your throat out and watch you die
,” his thoughts
growled. Not his voice at all, but a wretched, throaty sound.
A
devilish sound
. My mind filled with images as seen through his
eyes—him attacking me, snapping and crushing my bones with his
power, my body going limp as his teeth dug into my throat.