Secret of Betrayal: Book Two of The Destroyer Trilogy (19 page)

“I have the heater on high, but if she keeps
shaking, make her some tea and put another few blankets on. Keep her as warm as
possible,” Braden instructs. “I put my number in Libby’s phone earlier, so call
me if anything changes for the worse. Don’t wait. If you’re not sure, call me
anyway.”

Having given Lance his instructions, Braden
turns back to me, and I ask, “When did you put your number in my phone?”

He smiles down at me and says, “When you were
changing. I didn’t want you to not know how to get ahold of me if you change
your mind.”

I roll my eyes at his persistence and try to
soak up as much of his warmth as I can before he lets go of me. I watch as he
walks over to the door. He and Lance say a few more words to each other, but
they’re both being civil for the moment so I let my eyes close and don’t worry
about it too much. My body instantly starts pulling me into a deep sleep. Weary
pleasure fills my mind at the prospect of unconsciousness until Lance’s voice
pulls me back.

“Change your mind about what?”

I cringe beneath my mountain of blankets.
Doesn’t he miss anything, anymore? This whole not lying to him thing really
sucks.
“About him giving me his Guardian Oath.”

“He offered?”

I nod without opening my eyes. “And I told him
no.”

“Why?”

“Because it wasn’t for the
right reason.”
It’s the vaguest answer I can give without lying. The
silence of the room makes me hopeful that Lance doesn’t know what I mean.
Fat chance.

He sighs as mounting frustration rolls off of
him and bashes into me.
“Him, too?
Seriously?
How can he possibly think he’s in love with you already? First Milo, now
Braden. I really don’t have any chance of getting you back, do I?”

“Not anymore,” I say softly. I know it stings
him, but it’s the truth. Forget
the
what
ifs
,
the
maybes
. I will never see those alternate futures. This one is all I
have.
Whether I could have avoided losing Lance or not, I did
lose him.
Now I’ve moved on, and too many things have changed to go
back. The mellow grief of delayed loss surrounding Lance makes me hope he has
finally accepted the end of our romantic relationship for real.

Bottling up his pain, Lance turns back to why
Braden was here in the first place. “So how did breaking the block go? When
Braden told me you had to relive the reason for the block, I was afraid that
meant watching your dad die again.”

“When did he tell you about that?”

“Just now at the door.
He’s still pretty worried about you. I’ve been studying everything I can get my
hands on about Spiritualism, trying to find some answers for you over the last
couple of weeks, but I never found anything about this. I hate that he’s even
here, but I guess we really do need him,” he says. His mood darkens even more
and his eyes drop. “Was that what happened?”

I nod quickly and keep a tight hold on my
memories of that experience.

“I’m sorry, Libby. Was it awful?”

“Yes, it was horrible, but in a way, it was
good, too. I went through the whole thing again actually understanding, and
having the chance to make the decision for myself,” I say. “I don’t think I’ll
have nightmares about it anymore.”

“That’s good,” Lance says with a laugh. “Maybe
one of these nights I’ll actually get some sleep again. Your nightmares have
woken me up several times.”

Looking up at him, I finally realize how
exhausted he looks. The glassy quality of his eyes and the way his shoulders
sag douse me with guilt.

“Do you regret it?” I ask. “Giving me
your
Oath?”

“No.” He doesn’t even have to think about it.
“And I know you think I only gave it to you to try and make you take me back,
but that’s not true, Libby. I gave it to you because I knew that whether you
ever loved me again or not, you are too much a part of me not to help you. We
were friends long before we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I think I forgot
that for a while. I can’t let you face something this dangerous alone. And
surprisingly enough, I’m actually in this for the Ciphers, too. What the
Guardians are doing is wrong. I don’t want to be a part of something like
that.”

For this one moment, I am sincerely glad for my
connection to Lance. I want him to know exactly how what he just said makes me
feel. My chin quivers, but not because I’m cold. “Thank you, Lance. You have no
idea how much that means to me.”

He smiles and strokes my hair. “Will you ever
forgive me for what I put you through?”

“I’ve already forgiven you, Lance,” I say,
realizing the truth of my feelings for the first time, “and I’ll always love
you. It’s just that I can only love you as a friend now. That other part of our
relationship is over, but I would never want to lose you as my friend.”

“Neither would I.”

He’s quiet for several minutes before saying, “I
think you should let Braden give you his Oath. Whatever his reasons, if he’s
willing to help us, you should let him. We don’t exactly have people falling
all over each other to team up with the Destroyer, miniature
vigilantes
aside.”

“I can’t,” I say quickly.

“Why not?
So, he thinks
he’s in love with you. Either you decide you want him and ditch that idiot,
Milo, or he realizes it’s never going to work out. Either way, he’ll still be
bound to you. He’ll still help us.”

How can I even begin to explain my mixed up
emotions to him? It feels incredibly weird to be talking to Lance about my guy
problems, but he’s the only one I can really talk to right now. “Lance, it’s
not as simple as that. It’s not just that he has feelings for me. There is
something else going on between us. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel him
the second he gets even remotely near me. My skin tingles, vibrates sometimes,
when he touches me. It usually takes me at least a couple months to get mildly
sensitive to a new person. Then there’s the way he makes me feel.
It’s
way more intense than it should be. He actually thought
I was manipulating him the first time we met because he felt so drawn to me.”

Lance frowns as he considers what I’m saying.

“And that’s not all. When we went into the
spirit world tonight, there was this weird connection between us, like an
actual link. I could see it stretching between our hands.”

The sudden breath Lance sucks in stops me from
saying anything else. I look over at his shocked
face,
somehow knowing the next thing to come out of his mouth is going to make me
want to cry.

“I can’t believe it. I know what that is. Milo
and I read about it a few days ago. Braden is your Companion.”

It’s the same word Saia used. I thought she was
just talking about Braden being in love with me or something. But the way Lance
says
it,
I can hear the importance behind the word.
“Lance, what do you mean? What’s a Companion?”

“He’s your Spiritual Companion, your perfect
complement,” he says.

I think I’m going to throw up. Right here, all
over my bed. “Lance, please tell me you’re not talking about soul mates, or
some kind of crap like that.” Please, please tell me it’s just an awful joke.

“No, not soul mates.
It’s different from that. It’s more like your power matches his. When you’re
together, you amplify each other’s talents. Using your Spiritualism, it was
easier than usual, right?” he asks.

I nod slowly.

“With him, it would be like your own
Spiritualism is doubled. You can do twice as much as you would normally. And it
doesn’t just apply to the talents you have in common. It works on everything.”

“Including emotions?” I ask.

“Absolutely.
Emotional
responses are part of Perception. They’re amplified like everything else,”
Lance says excitedly.

But the feelings have to be there in the first
place. I liked it when he kissed me. Amplified, it made me delirious. And
Braden, maybe his intense fascination with me is just made worse by this thing,
but he swore on his emblem that he loves me. His feelings for me are real. And
I think mine for him are, too.

“And Milo knows what a Companion is?” I ask.

Lance nods. “Yeah, I told him about it because I
thought maybe he’d be yours. I thought it would make him try a little harder to
reach the spirit world and find the Ciphers, since at the time I thought he had
a better chance of getting there than you did.”

“Oh,” I say quietly. The desire to vomit
doubles. What did I do to deserve this? Why isn’t Milo my Companion? I honestly
think I’ve done enough good things in my life to deserve at least that!

“Can you even imagine what you could do if you
let Braden give you his Oath?” Lance asks excitedly. “You’d have that link not
only when he was with you but all the time! And I read that the Oath will make
the amplification even stronger, too. It’s a pretty rare thing. You’d be
unstoppable, Libby.”

All the time.
Even stronger than now.
My body convulses, and I pull my
knees up to my chest and bury my head.
All the time.
I
can’t stand up to that. “No. Lance, I can’t let him do it. I can’t have those
kinds of feelings in me all the time. That would be horrible!”

“Horrible?” he smirks. “I don’t know about that.
You seem to enjoy having him around quite a bit. I should know.”

“But I don’t want to feel like that for him,
Lance. I really do love Milo. I want to be with Milo, not Braden. I don’t care
how he makes me feel. I want Milo.”

I want the future I have imagined. I want my little
house in the suburbs and two point five kids. I. Want.
Milo.

“But think of what you could do with Braden,”
Lance says.

“I don’t care! I’ll lose Milo if I let Braden
give me his Oath.”

Lance puts his hand on my shoulder and waits
until I’m looking at him. “What if you’re not strong enough to free the Ciphers
by yourself? What if the only way to save them is to give in to Braden? Will
you really let them die just to make sure you get your happily ever after with
Milo?”

Tears spring to my eyes. “Why can’t I have both?
For once in my life, why can’t I have a happy ending like everyone else? This
isn’t fair!”

Pulling me into a hug, Lance says, “Libby, when
has your life ever been fair? And who says anyone else gets a happy ending,
either? You can’t think about things like that right now. There won’t be any
future to worry about for any of us if we don’t rescue the Ciphers and do
whatever it is we’re supposed to do with them. You have to stay focused on
that. And you have to decide whether you’re willing to give up the lives of
every Cipher just for the
chance
at a life with Milo.”

I want to scream at the top of my lungs that
Milo is more important to me than anything else. Let the Ciphers rot. They have
no right to ask so much of me. Nobody does. It’s my life, damn it! Why don’t I
get a say in how it will play out? I scream and rant at everything and nothing,
though nobody can hear me. I feel as if I can scream forever, but the cold
truth of what my life is eventually seeps back into me.

I do have a choice.

Lance is right.

Just because the options majorly suck doesn’t
mean I don’t have them. I can sit back and watch the world fall apart at my
feet, but that won’t get me what I want, either. Doing nothing will get me
killed. And then I really won’t get to spend the rest of my life with Milo.

“Lance,” I finally say, “please
don’t
breathe a word of this to anyone.
Braden
especially.”

“More secrets,” Lance says with a sigh. “I hate
keeping secrets.”

I fall back on my bed and pout. “Don’t worry,
you’ll get used to it.”

“You have to let Braden give you his Oath,
Libby.”

“I know,” I say, though I have to tear the awful
words from my lips, “but only if I’m desperate.”

I just wish desperate weren’t the theme of my
life.

Chapter 1
5

Trust

For what seems like the millionth morning in a
row, I wake up knowing it is going to be a positively awful day. My first clue
is opening my eyes less than three hours after closing them and finding Lance
sprawled next to me. He’s so exhausted I can’t even wake him. I am forced to
shower and get dressed while he snores. I didn’t even know he snored. I’ll have
to tease him about that later. Just not in front of
Milo,
or Milo will wonder how I know that. It’s only by drizzling icy water on his
face that I get him to wake up before it’s time for Milo to come and get me for
school. I watch his car disappear only minutes before Milo pulls up.

Milo instantly notices my less-than-stellar
appearance. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Fine, just go.”

I hunker down in his bulky sweatshirt and bite
my cheek to keep from spilling out everything that happened last night. I
realized sometime in the predawn hours before I lost all consciousness that
there is absolutely no way to get started on my plan to free the Ciphers
without explaining to him how last night I did exactly what he told me not to
do. It’s not going to be pleasant, and I’m going to need to do some serious
planning of my own before I can even think about facing such a scene. I have
eight hours to figure it out.
Déjà vu, anyone?
It
sounds impossible given how much sleep I got last night, but I’ll figure
something out.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay home,
today?” Milo asks. “You look like you’re getting sick.”

I love his concern. I take his hand and lean my
head against his shoulder before saying, “Can’t stay home sick because I’d have
to have a parent call the school and explain. Since I don’t have a parent at
the moment, I’d just be asking for the Concealment Officers to come hunt me
down. I’m too tired for that.”