I grabbed the neon light and crawled out of the cave.
Walls with passages were in front of me and I didn’t know which way to go.
Blake’s fighting grunt turned into a growl and I knew he was transforming. The sound was right up ahead but there wasn’t a passage leading to it.
“Trust your gut.” Lucian’s voice popped into my head, and I didn’t think. I ran down the passage on my left and moved right into the first passage I could. The next was another dead end and I moved right again. I was moving as fast as I could, not giving a damn about my leg anymore. I had to get to him. Together we might get through this, just like the foretelling had said.
I kept moving forward and toward him, and the Saadedine with its snakelike sprouts or tongue, or whatever had snatched Blake out like that.
The pit rumbled and I stumbled and fell hard against the floor.
I grunted as I got back up, moved a couple steps and fell down from another rumble. Boulders behind me started to fall and I moved forward faster.
Their growls grew closer and I could hear snapping then see a blast of pink flame ahead.
His pink flame could incinerate him, but it died out soon as the pit rumbled again.
I didn’t dare use any of my abilities to get to him faster; he needed them more than I did.
I saw light reflecting of walls. It was orange with pink then it turned into a greenish yellow.
This dragon had green fire, just like Paul had.
My throat become sour as I thought about that bastard again. He was dead now but his presence still lingered around us. No more.
I pushed forward and had to retreat as a flame came my way.
When it stopped, I waited for a few seconds before I turned my head to look again.
Blake was slightly smaller than him. He was huge, white, and slightly yellow with bright black stripes spread over his lower back. He looked like an Elemental with a long torso and huge legs.
His wings were not as big as I’d thought, and they reminded me of Tornado’s, the wind dragon we’d helped to hatch.
How could something so beautiful and sweet turn into something so vicious? It was only Goran who could do something so heinous.
I hated him more than anything else in this entire world. He was behind all the evil in this beautiful world, the evil behind my entire existence.
I moved quickly and past another boulder as Blake and the Saadedine fought.
I looked again and tried to come up with a plan of how I could help Blake, but I knew the way they carried on was just going to get me killed too. Still, I had to help
He cannot face him alone, he is injured, he needs my help. Think, Elena, think.
Blake was fast and he trusted his wings, something the Saadedine didn’t have much of. Blake was mostly in the air, but then the Saadedine realized what was happening and snapped right after him, missing him by inches.
His jaws grabbed Blake’s tail and he pulled him back down in one swift motion.
The pit shook again as Blake crashed against the wall, and I lost my balance.
I got up and looked at where he was, and saw the Saadedine going in for the kill.
“Noooo!” I yelled, my voice so loud inside the confined walls.
The Saadedine growled and turned his blood-red eyes toward me.
He left Blake.
Think, Elena, think.
I needed my gifts and suddenly the way I’d claimed Blake flew thought my mind.
Freeze the son of a bitch. Give Blake time.
Frost balls emerged from my palms and I flung all of them at his hulking body while diving to get away from his green fire. He just kept on blasting.
I grunted and screamed again as my arms sprang alive with the pink flame as I held it in front of me, to block his green fire. It was warm, and hot as if it was going to burn off my skin as it burned as it never had before.
When he finally stopped I released a mother of a fire ball aimed right at him.
It hit the dragon full in the face, and he staggered back and fell down.
I sank to my knees as his body collapsed in the far corner.
I watched eagerly to see if his body was going to start incinerating, but it didn’t happen.
I didn’t care how the hell he died, I just needed to get to Blake.
I found him crumpled up in a corner. He’d transformed back into his human form and his eyes were closed.
“No, no, no. Wake up. Don’t close your eyes.” I spoke quickly and tapped his face hard. “Wake up, Blake!” I yelled and he opened his eyes.
For a second he didn’t know where we were, but realization made his eyes grow slightly and he took a protective stand against me.
“Where is he?”
“I think he’s dead. I hit him with the pink kiss.”
His head jolted back at me. “My fire doesn’t do anything to him.”
“Well, he collapsed on the other side, somewhere.”
He pinched his nose with his forefinger and thumb. Blood dripped from his arm onto the floor.
“Don’t, I know what you are thinking. He collapsed, let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“Then what? We can’t contain him. He needs to die.”
“How? Tell me how and I’ll help you, but we don’t know how to kill that thing!” I cried and before he could say anything, the Saadedine was busy getting up. It was too late.
“Just stay here,” he said. He kissed me fiercely then got up, transforming again.
“Don’t die, please.”
He couldn’t do this alone, and I left my post to get a clear shot of the Saadedine. I’d wait for the right moment, when Blake was clear from the Saadedine’s path and then I would strike with everything I had.
Together we would kill the son of a bitch.
The fight was hard, Blake was fierce, as he kept diving toward the Saadedine, trying to get his talons stuck into his flesh to rip him apart, but the Saadedine’s body was sleek and strong too.
His tail and the snakelike sprouts that slithered around it blocked Blake’s every attempt and pushed him away from him.
Still, he would dive and try another tactic.
My heart was pounding fast as I observed how Blake was chucked against the wall again. Boulders fell as the pit vibrated. I fell over and again then had to get up and yell at the monster that kept going for Blake.
I used my lightning this time, but it merely stung him. He would hover backward a few seconds then come forward again. Then I tried to gas the son of a bitch.
It didn’t work either.
Blake attacked him from behind and ripped off one of his snaky sprouts. The Saadedine growled and snapped at Blake.
He turned around, and I couldn’t get away from his tail fast enough.
It collided hard with my body and threw me against another wall.
I fell to the floor and blacked out.
When my eyes opened, the earth trembled again.
Sounds of dragons snapping vibrated in the distance then it grew louder and louder.
They were still busy fighting.
Blake was losing the battle.
This isn’t right.
It couldn’t be. If Blake wasn’t a match for the Saadedine, then what was going to kill it? What was the missing ingredient?
I found a pool of blood and realized it was where Blake had been lying not long ago. I looked back up, hearing the shrill sound of a dragon, and then back down at the pool of blood.
Becky was right, and Blake was wrong, well, just with one part, saying it wasn’t something we could see or touch. It was us, he’d gotten that part right, but just not mentally, physically. It was something that made both of our hearts beat, it flowed through both our veins, give us life.
My blood was magical, and so was his.
Our blood, mixed together. That was the missing ingredient.
I felt for my axes but they were gone.
I still wore my gloves, and I lifted my hand and yelled the command, “Return to me!”
Nothing happened and I said it again.
Blake’s growling was painful, and the Saadedine had a good grip on his wing.
It was busy tearing. “No!” I yelled the command as loud as I could and heard both my axes swoosh through the dark. They were making their way to me fast.
I caught the one and the other one followed right after.
I smeared both axes against my bloody leg and dipped them into the pool of Blake’s blood that was on the ground.
Please work.
A tearing sound filled the pit, and I turned around and released both axes just as something sharp connected with my back and the end exited my stomach. It was a spear.
I looked in the direction it’d come from and saw Goran a couple of meters behind me, holding a second spear.
My one ax hit the floor, I broke my sight with Goran and I looked at the Saadedine just as my second ax struck him in the torso. He growled.
“Noooo!” Goran screamed with anger.
I kept looking at the Saadedine falling, and Blake was gone.
I couldn’t see him anywhere.
Still the adrenaline in my veins made me walk forward. The Saadedine needed to die, and if Blake was dead, I didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t live this life if he wasn’t going to live it with me. This wasn’t the plan.
The growls of the Saadedine grew louder; he was in pain.
That had to be the missing ingredient. It had to be both our bloodlines together. It couldn’t be anything else.
I saw his big body then watched it growing smaller and smaller.
Another spear struck me and I gasped, but pain wasn’t a factor anymore. My body was starting to give in.
I fell to the ground as the Saadedine turned back into his human form.
I fell hard to the ground and my eyes lingered on the man’s body. So Blake was right, it was a man.
Just then there was a huge explosion. Boulders crashed to the floor, the walls were coming down as voices filled the air.
The boulders were blasted away with spells coming from all directions, and not one of them hit me.
Dragons and their riders filled the pit that was now streaming with light.
Commands were shouted that we had to stop but it was too late. The Saadedine was dead, and even if I wasn’t going to make it, my people would be safe.
The host of the Saadedine stirred. No, please. I was so tired. I couldn’t fight anymore. My adrenaline was busy fading, my eyes were so heavy.
Tears lingered in them as I knew this world will never be safe. We should never have come.
“Elena,” the Saadedine’s host barely spoke, but he said my name and his eyes locked with mine.
This cannot be. Goran killed… I gasped my last breath. “Dad.” And blew it out.
BLAKE
My wing was busy tearing as I heard Elena yelling the command for her axes.
I growled and spat my acid into the Saadedine’s eyes as he released my wing. I crashed again into the wall and fell.
I ducked as one of her axes smeared with blood came flying my way and crashed a couple of meters away from me.
Why was it smeared with blood? It wasn’t her blood, the missing ingredient wasn’t her blood, we’d spoken about that time and time again.
Elena.
The Saadedine growled as the first ax’s twin connected hard with its body. It mimicked someone else’s laugh, Helmut, no, Goran’s. He was in this pit. A huge explosion outside made the pit vibrate again, and I lost my balance just as I was busy making my way to the source of his voice. The walls had been blasted away. Light seeped through and I wasn’t close enough to Elena to save her from any boulders. Commands were shouted. It was dragons and their riders – a good sign, and not one of the boulders hit me. We’d done it.
“Don’t!” my father yelled. He was deranged, and I saw the Saadedine starting to shrink into the man he used to be.
My father transformed and ran in his direction. What on earth was he trying to do?
He blasted his acid, and I thought it was a little overkill, but when I saw boulders being incinerated and he started to move faster, it all made sense. If they wanted the Saadedine to be good, a bad host, the worst there was had to be sacrificed to become the Saadedine. If they wanted an evil Saadedine, someone pure had to be sacrificed. The Saadedine was King Albert. Goran had lied. He was still alive.
Elena.
I got up and looked for her.
I found her lying flat on her stomach, facing her father. “Dad.” She was still alive and then I saw it. Two spears sticking out her back.
“Nooo!” I yelled and ran as fast as I could to her side. I fell down on my knees and yanked them out her body without thinking. I picked her up and turned her around.
“Keep your eyes open, Elena, it’s all you have to do!” I yelled while I slapped her. She didn’t open them. “Help! Get Constance!”
Emanuel transformed back into his human form and came rushing to my side.
“Constance will not make it, Blake,” he said and laid his head on her chest. I knew what he was doing, He was listening for a heartbeat, but there wasn’t one. My healing didn’t want to come either. I was too tired.
Tears streamed down my face but no sobs came. She can’t be dead.
“Blake!”
“Don’t say it!”
I put my mouth onto hers and started to do CPR. Blood poured from her wounds and pooled onto the floor.
“Blake.”
“No.” I didn’t even sound like me, as I carried on with the CPR.
“It’s too late, you have to let her go.”
“How do I do this?” I yelled at him.
Emanuel frowned.
“The Essence, Emanuel, how do I do this?”
He closed his eyes.
“Tell me!”
“You literally have to give her a piece of your heart, Blake. There is only one way to do that.”
My fire started to spring to life. I pressed my finger against my chest. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to what I would feel if she didn’t make it.
I screamed as blood poured out. How could any one of them survive this? But I didn’t give a shit about that part. If she dies, I’m dead too.
I pushed my hand inside my chest and broke off a piece of my heart. I screamed off the pain and Emanuel shredded open Elena’s shirt and cut her chest with one of the spears that’d struck her.
Blood didn’t even pour out this time. Another bad sign. I finally got a piece of my actual heart in my hands, and I put my hand gently into her open chest, pressing it against her heart.
Her heart was so tiny and not beating, but my piece of heart was like a blood sucker and it squirmed in my hands. When it connected with her heart, it attached itself.
I pulled my bloody hand out her chest and fatigue like I’d never felt before washed over me and I collapsed right next to her.
Don’t leave me, please.
ELENA
I opened my eyes and sunlight blinded my sight. Birds chirped close by. There was no wind, only sun.
Tree tops were hovering over me, and I didn’t fear them like I used to anymore, as I knew I was safe.
I turned my head and found Blake lying next to me, on a bed. How he’d gotten a bed out here underneath the trees was beyond my knowledge.
A smile sprawled over my face as I saw him sleeping.
He looked so peaceful.
I pushed away a string of raven black hair that’d fallen on his face and he opened his peacock blue eyes and smiled.
“Hey, princess.”
I laughed. “I told you not to call me that. Where are we?”
He closed his eyes and smiled but didn’t answer me.
“Blake?” I asked, and he opened his eyes.
“Does it matter where we are? We are together.”
I frowned. He’d never answered me like that before, and I tried to remember the last thing we’d done before waking here. I couldn’t.
He touched my chin. “Hey, why the worried look?” He turned my head so I could look into his eyes and all the worry seemed to just disappear.
It was such a weird feeling: Nothing that had happened before mattered at all, not even the stupid day, the one I couldn’t remember.
“I think it’s time.” Tears were lingering in his eyes.
He scared me. “Time for what?” My voice broke.
“To show you, Elena.”
I knew what he was talking about. I’d waited for that a long time. Was our bond finally healed? I couldn’t remember. “What, the trees don’t have ears this time?”
He laughed. “I’m really getting good at this. So good that…” He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Good at what?”
“Nothing, this is where I want to be forever and ever.”
I just look at him. What is he hiding? What isn’t he telling me?
“Close your eyes, Elena.”
I did and his head rested softly on mine. It was very similar to what Cheng showed me, and I thought at a stage that Tanya may have shown him the same things, but I knew it wasn’t possible. She was dead.
The images stopped and we were both standing inside a white room.
“Okay, what is this?” I asked him, but he didn’t answer.
“Blake.” I tried to touch him, and my hand went through him as if I were a ghost. I didn’t like this.
My heart started to hammer a bit.
“Blake?” I asked again and again and realized fast that he couldn’t see me.
I looked around me. It was pure white everywhere I looked, and I felt a dizzy, spinning sensation and the outline of a room appeared. It became clearer and clearer. I saw Lucian and I sitting in a corner. The version of me sitting with Lucian was looking up and staring right at me, or at Blake. Lucian and I disappeared and the corner was empty again.
I remembered that day. I’d seen something quick, it had been quick but I didn’t understand it then. It just didn’t make any sense; it still didn’t make any sense.
I looked at Blake, who just stared at what was happening in front of him.
I knew where we were. I was back in the room with my mother and father. Back to the day I was born, but it was after I was my birth.
My mom, the queen was on the bed with my tiny body lying next to her. My dad was walking around the room. This was the day they’d discovered I was sick, the day Tanya had come to tell them she could help, by sacrificing Cara.
I looked at Blake, who just stared at my mom and I.
He didn’t say anything.
What is he doing here? That poem.
The room spun again and it stopped on another scene. It was night. We were following a hooded figure and a baby dragon. She was purple, and I knew it was Cara.
I was walking, fast. Blake protested all the way; he sounded upset, and it looked as if he had no control over his movements at all. He didn’t want to go, and fought against it, but an invisible force pulled him to stay close to Cara and Tanya.
He always had to fight against everything.
He panicked, as he didn’t understand any of this. I didn’t either.
Tanya transformed close to the wall that was near a forest. We all went through and only found sea on the other side. It didn’t make any sense; at first I thought I was going to drown, but everything spun again and the picture changed when the spinning stopped. We were all inside a hotel room – me, Cara, Blake and Tanya.
Cara was playing with a ball, just like a cat, and Tanya was pacing.
Blake screamed at Tanya, asking questions about why he was here, all sorts of profound things; it was as if he’d lost his own memory before this happened. I could see it on his face, the words forcing him to remember something as he hit his head. When he opened the door to leave, the invisible force pushed him back and he landed a few feet from Cara.
He grunted, got up, and tried again.
The same thing happened over and over. It was as if he couldn’t leave.
The spinning came again, and the next scene was the day my dad, Herbert, came.
He was so happy to find Cara. Blake tried to get through to him too, but he couldn’t hear him. I knew how it felt, as nobody could see me either, but I discovered it much sooner as I’d gone through this before with Lucian. Blake still had no idea what was happening to him.
The image changed again.
The room was different. It wasn’t the motel room anymore; it was a home. I looked outside. The backyard was big, had trees, and was open. The countryside popped into my head.
My dad sat on the bed. It was so good to see him. I wished I could go to him and talk to him, tell him I was sorry for everything I’d done. But I knew he wouldn’t hear me.
The door opened and Tanya came out. Herbert and Blake looked up at her. He wasn’t trying to leave anymore.
“What does she look like?” My father had a huge grin. Tanya didn’t. She had tears in her eyes, and walked out of the room.
My father looked at her then at the bathroom. He got up and walked in. I followed him.
A one-year-old baby was inside the bathroom and my father started to cry. He fell to his knees and broke down.
I knew who that was. It was me, and I knew this was the day he realized Cara was no more.
He swallowed his tears and looked at me as a baby with so much hatred.
He then shook his head and pushed himself up and left the room.
I didn’t follow and heard how he fought with Tanya as he knew what she’d done.
Blake listened too, got up with a jolt, and ran into the bathroom.
He stared at baby Elena, sitting naked on the floor in the bathroom.
“What is this?” he asked, and baby Elena looked up straight at him.
She smiled and looked back down.
We both stared at her.
“Whoo-hoo,” Blake said and she looked up again, smiled at him and looked back down.
He did it again and each time he got the same response.
He went down on his haunches and came closer to her. “You can see me?” She looked straight at him and smiled one more time while making baby noises. A faint curve appeared on his lips.
I saw him? No, I would’ve remembered. Blake would not have been a stranger.
The room started to spin. We were in the living room. I found myself at the window, and I looked out. It was twilight, but it was the same house as before.
Blake was sitting on one of the chairs. Baby Elena was standing right in front of him, clutching his legs to keep her balance. There were a few men on their knees on the carpet, kneeling in front of Tanya.
“We pledge with our lives to keep her safe. That is our dragon oath,” they said, and I looked at Blake and myself as a one-year-old again. He raised his eyes at her playfully and she cackled with laughter.
The image swirled again, and we were still sitting in the living room, it was a different day as baby Elena was wearing different clothes and her hair was slightly longer. Blake was sitting on one of the opposite couches. Little me was playing with one of his bracelets.
Jako was reading a newspaper on another chair.
I talked, it wasn’t clear, and they both looked up when I said the word bracelet.
Tanya got up and walked over to where Blake sat. He tried to take the bracelet out of my tiny hands but touched nothing. It made him worry.
Tanya took the bracelet out of her hands.
“Whose is this?” she asked my dad and he looked at her, got up too and took it.
“Don’t say my name,” he spoke to baby me as my father picked me up.
“Whose bracelet is this, Bear?”
He’d called me Bear.
I laughed, and he smiled then asked me the same question in a friendlier tone.
Tanya just looked at it very strangely as I giggled again but I never said Blake’s name.
Blake blew out a breath and sat back down on the couch.
My father gave the bracelet back to me and put me down.
“Find out,” he said to Tanya and left.
He was still angry with her. She stood there, staring at me then at the couch, as if she could see Blake. He saw this too, and he stared straight at her.
She closed her eyes. “She is your only chance at getting claimed one day, please, I’m begging you don’t hurt her. Protect her with your life. Please.”
We both gasped, and he stared at me again still playing with his bracelet. He nodded after a while, as if she could see him.
She bent down and looked at me.
“Is this Blake’s baby?” She knew. Then I got it. She shared a dent with my mom. This was the procedure. The poem, it was about the dent.
The image spun around again.
It stopped at a party. I was two and walking with Blake. He held my hand and we walked everywhere in the backyard. There were so many grown-ups there. No kids. The three men that had given their dragon oaths were there too, with many others.
I knew this party as I’d seen my face with my party hat on. I had a picture of this sitting on Tanya’s lap. The picture I’d lost that night on Interstate 40.
She was going to leave soon. Was my real mom still alive right at this moment? I didn’t know.
I stared at Blake as he helped me climb up the jungle gym that was in our backyard. It was still the same house.
I found Tanya staring at us as well. She smiled as if she could see Blake assisting me while I climbed the railings.
I slid down, and he caught me at the bottom, but it never showed him picking me up. It was only touch.
None of this was making any sense, as I knew I hadn’t seen him. I would’ve remembered him.
He pushed his tongue out, and toddler Elena mimicked his actions. He laughed, made a different face, and from what I could tell, she tried to mimic that too. She cackled with him this time.
I walked over to them and sat and watched how they pulled faces at each other.
Then he sighed. “This isn’t going to last is it?” he said to me. “You would’ve remembered me if it had.” He took a stray curl and placed it behind my ear.
Blake looked sad, and two-year-old Elena asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Shhh, nothing,” he said, as if scared someone might hear them.
The image changed again.
It was a different place. Herbert and Blake paced in the house while Tanya was screaming upstairs. She was in pain.
“No,” I said as I put two and two together quickly. She’d told me about this night. I tried to get up and go to her, but I only made it to the front door of her bedroom. I couldn’t go in.
I knew what this was as the screams coming from within the room confirmed it. My mom was in Paegeia busy burning on her bed, and her dragon felt it.
Toddler Elena started to cry, and I went back down. Herbert picked me up. He walked with me to another room, Blake followed, and the image turned again.
It was the four of us again. No Tanya. I was a bit older, about four and something told me I couldn’t see Blake anymore. Yet he was close, always close, with this sad expression, just watching me.
It must have been recently that I’d stopped seeing him, as I kept searching for him behind the couch and behind curtains.
Blake shut his eyes. He couldn’t watch this.
“Elena?” my father asked, and he stood by an entrance with a jacket in his hands.
I dropped the curtain and stared at him.
“Mommy isn’t coming back?”
He misread the signs, went down on his haunches and gave me a hug.
He put on my coat and we left. Blake followed after walking through the door as if he were a ghost.
The image spun again and I was about eight. The phone rang. What was said I couldn’t hear, but Blake did and he was worried. He rushed to my side and just stayed there till Herbert finished.
Herbert dropped the phone, grabbed his keys and me and we left with nothing.
The image changed. We were in one of my many rooms. I was about ten, crying my eyes out.
A knock on the door made Blake look in the front door’s direction as if he could see through closed doors.
Then my bedroom door opened and Tanya walked in.
“Don’t do this please,” the real me begged as I knew why she was here. They thought that I was never going to handle any of this so she came, erased everything.
Blake, with tears in his eyes, stood there watching Tanya and me. She started say that I would not remember anything after this, that I would see my father as the kind, loving human being he always was. I could see Herbert lingering at my door and then he went away.
I stopped crying, closed my eyes and she left.
My body shook every few seconds as a sniff came out, the after-effects of a bad cry.
Blake came over to my bed and lay next to me. He started humming, and I watched this with tears in my own eyes before I closed them.
I’d seen his face that day at band rehearsal, when I owned up to what his songs made me feel. He had that knowing smile because I did know his voice.
That is why his songs made me feel like that. He must have sang many times to me when I was still able to see and hear him.
I started to cry as I knew I was so stupid for thinking at a stage that this was a spell.
It wasn’t. He knew me better than I knew myself. He was always there. Becky was right, it’s why they changed after they woke. It wasn’t an abrupt, instant kind of emotion they experienced, an enchantment as I thought it was. It was a bond created over years and years, one that would never be broken. They were invisible, ignored by us for such a long time and that was why when the process was over, they just wanted to be with us. Because we hadn’t been able to see or hear them for so long.
The image changed again and I was thirteen.
I’d had a fight with Herbert. He was forcing me to come with him. He looked extra worried this time, and I didn’t know why.
I stayed in this memory for about two days. I saw how we moved, saw how we found a new place. I’d called him paranoid so many times and remembered how I’d hated the new school.
On the first night, Blake and Herbert watched the news while I did my homework at the kitchen counter of our new home.
“No, Elena,” Blake said as he looked down at my paper. “Y is 85.” I smiled watching him. He was trying to help me with my homework, even though I couldn’t hear him.
He shook his head. It was so frustrating for him.
Then something on the TV got both their attentions. It was a murder. My father turned the TV up louder.
The real me listened too.
My father closed his eyes, opened them and rubbed his face. “It’s the last one,” he whispered.
Thirteen-year-old Elena looked at him. “What’s the last one, Dad?”
“Nothing, Bear. You want me to help you with your homework?” he said, and I looked at the TV screen as he lowered the volume.
Blake stared at the TV too, and was deep in thought.
The last one. The last of the men. Fox had tried that long to find us. He’d killed all the dragons who had made an oath to protect me, who’d kept me safe, and I’d had no idea that any of this was happening. They’d warned my father every time. Probably helped us get away too, distracted Fox’s team and ended up dying.
I was only thirteen. How had he known the other three years?
The image spun again.
I’d fallen asleep on the couch, and my father was watching a movie. It was movie night almost every Friday.
He was watching one of those spy movies; he’d loved those.
Blake was sitting on the edge of the sofa on which I was sleeping then he went rigid.
He jumped up and vanished. He’d never vanished before.
Minutes later he appeared again. He was beside himself and crouched in front of my father. “Herbert, you need to leave, he’s coming!” he shouted. My father didn’t hear him. Blake tried a few more times, got up and grunted. He walked over to me.
“Elena, wake up,” he begged, but I didn’t. My own heart was pounding as I remembered this night too. My father had thrown me over his shoulder and forced me into the truck because I didn’t want to leave.
He then looked at the TV and stared at it. He closed his eyes.
I stared at him What is he doing? He just sat there. Until one of the actors addressed my father. Herbert’s bowl of popcorn flew in the air.
“Herbert,” the actor said again. “He’s coming. Get your ass off that couch now,” Blake spoke and the actor said his words. It was so weird. Then the actor went back to his lines, answering the actress. My father spoke to him again, but the actor didn’t answer.
I looked at Blake, who swayed a bit as if he was drunk.
My father just sat there, trying to make sense of what had happened, and then it was as if life came back into him and he did as the actor Blake had used had told him.
It was Blake who had warned my father?
The image spun again, and I found myself fighting with my dad. I didn’t want to go this time, just like all the other times. Blake stood against the wall with his fingers clamping his nose.
“Just do something.” Blake grunted.
Herbert threw me over his shoulder, as if he’d heard Blake, and walked out of the house.
The image spun again, and it stopped on me sitting in one of my other rooms. I was about fifteen years old.
I was doing homework on my bed. Blake was sitting on the chair at my desk staring at me.
He sighed. “How long is this going to last?” he screamed at the ceiling.
“Why are you doing this? It’s useless if she can’t see me, it’s cruel!” He huffed, and a small chuckle escaped him.
“I can’t do this anymore.” He didn’t get an answer, and I had no idea who he was talking to. Fifteen-year-old me was just sitting on the bed. To think that was only four years ago.
The room spun again.
This occasion was short. It was of all the times Blake had warned Herbert. A couple of times was through the TV. One was the anchor woman who read the news. It was so funny to see her speaking to my father, telling him that they were coming again.
My father always obliged, and I wondered if my dad knew it was my dragon who had warned him those times.
A few times he’d spoken through the radio, and I was always in a different room.
The image swirled and stopped again.
I was walking from school, Blake next to me, with his hands in his jeans. He didn’t look happy. I wouldn’t have been either.
I stopped when I saw Mitsy, the stray cat I used to feed, and gave her one of my sandwiches.
Blake sat on the dustbin. “So you are going to the dance with Trevor, Elena?” he asked, but I didn’t answer him. I just stroked the cat and the real me started to laugh. This was why he looked so pissed off, because Trevor had asked me to the dance.
He shook his head and walked up the stairs of the house. I followed him.
He disappeared through the door again, and I opened it. Music blared from the kitchen.
“Dad, I’m home.”
“Kitchen!” he yelled.
This was the day my dad had died.
I laughed as I saw my father cooking up a storm, grabbing a spoon as all of us entered the kitchen. I loved this, missed this, so much.
He mimicked the song and threw a huge performance for me. I followed his lead and then we laughed.
Blake watched this and finally got rid of his foul mood.
My father dished up.
“So, I take it that today was a good day?”
“The best,” my father said and turned down the music as he placed two plates of coq-au-vin in front of us. He grabbed my face gently. “I, my little Bear, I just sold my uniflex idea to Google.”
“For the love of blueberries, you are kidding right?”
He laughed.
I never said that anymore. I used to all the time, but not anymore.
Blake laughed.
It was annoying now that I thought about it. Who says that?
We talked about staying, no more moving and getting the rust bucket I always wanted. It would’ve been my first wheels.
“So, since we are staying, can I ask you something?”
“Does it involve a boy?”
“Say no, Herbert,” Blake said, which made me laugh.
“You could say that,” the me from my memory said.
“Okay, who do I have to kill?” my father asked, and Blake grinned.
“Nobody, but there is a dance this Friday.”
My father grunted. “Am I going to at least meet this boy?”
“Fine, whatever.”
“On one condition,” my father said, and Blake walked over.
“Make it a hard one,” he said, and the real me laughed again.
“Please don’t let it be a stupid riddle. I suck at those.”
“It’s not a difficult one, c’mon.”
“Fine, let’s hear it.”
“What weighs a ton when moving forward but not when you move it back?”
“What!”
Blake had a satisfying grin on his face.
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“It’s easy, Elena. It’s in the answer.”
“Do I have at least a couple of hours?”
“Sure, but you know the rules. No Google, Bing or Yahoo. I’ll know if you cheated.”
“Fine,” I got up. “I might as well kiss this dance goodbye.” I went to my room.
Blake sat with me for hours.
“It’s ton,” he said. “But you can’t hear me.”
I moved over to my bed and put on my iPod. As I plugged in my ear phones I knew what song played. I remembered it like yesterday. It was one about a miracle, and I kept thinking I needed a miracle to decipher that riddle so that I could have a normal life. It made me think about us moving around so many times, not knowing the reason why. Now it was as if I’d relived it through both their eyes.
Blake froze again and vanished, just like all the other times.
I went outside my room and only reached the top of the stairs. I couldn’t move further down but I could see him sitting on the couch. Herbert was watching a football game.
How was he going to get through to him? The quarterback stopping waving, telling him it was time to hike the ball.
Then Blake came back. I could move again and found myself in the living room.
Blake looked at the screen. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said as he saw the football game.
He looked around, and saw the radio. It was off but he still went over and closed his eyes. It turned on and my father jumped and looked at it.
“Herbert, they’re coming,” he spoke through a frequency. This time it was his own voice.
“Who is this?” My father addressed the radio.
“There is no time. They are coming in fast.”
“Please, I’m begging you, just tell me.”
“I’m a friend. Someone that would never hurt her.”
My father’s face fell and he just stared at the radio. “Blake.”
“Just do as I say, please.”
My father nodded and rushed up to my room.
My dad knew? Even though it must have not made any sense to him. He’d known before he died.
Blake rushed up the steps and walked through the door like a ghost again. I followed and found him trying to help, to get my ass moving. I walked over to him. “I’m so sorry that I ever thought this was a spell or an enchantment. I’m sorry about so many things.”
I wanted to touch his face, as everyone was speaking at the same time. The old me yelling at my father, Herbert throwing my clothes in a suitcase, but my hand just moved through Blake. I was invisible. He knew everything I’d gone through and now I knew that he knew. The yin-yang had gotten it all wrong. It’s not in every good is a bit of bad and every bad is a bit of good. It’s this. He was a part of me and I was a part of him.
We both disappeared and I opened my eyes, finding him still sitting with his head against mine back underneath the trees.
“That really happened?”
“Shhhh, you can’t tell anyone.”
I nodded. I understood now why none of them told anybody. Their enemies would definitely kill us if they knew. It would destroy them.
“Something doesn’t make sense. If all of that really happened, it means you warned Herbert. It means that you knew before I even entered Paegeia and still…”
“I didn’t.”
“Then how?”
“That is one part I don’t know the answer to, but that really happened.”
“It was two different times. When you went through that…” I froze and looked at him.
“What?”
“It’s like you jumped back in time.”
“That’s what the dent is.”
His face fell as if he was in some sort of pain.
“What is it?”
He shook it off and smiled softly at me again. “Now you know how much I love you, and that I always will.”
Tears lingered in his eyes.
What is he not telling me?
A familiar feeling emerged in the pit of my stomach. One I’d felt only two times before. Why did it feel like I was never going to see him again?
Our eyes met again and I grabbed him and kissed him like I’d never kissed him before.
BLAKE
I woke and a tear rolled down my cheeks.
That felt so real.
I looked at Elena’s lifeless body.
My Essence hadn’t worked. She was hooked up to machines that made a soft peep every few seconds.
Today was the day Constance was going to switch off everything, but I’d placed an enchantment over her, one that would preserve her body as if she was just in a deep sleep, and not dead.
I needed to find my last two orbs. They would become whatever I needed. They just had to become what I needed them now to become.
I climbed off the bed and the door opened. Constance and my mother came in.
“Blake.”
“Mom, please. Just wait. The enchantment will hold.”
“Your father isn’t going to be able –”
“He needs to, for me. Please!” I yelled at her. “I can’t live without her. Just wait until I have all my orbs. I can fix this.”
Constance and Mom both gasped and looked at me with huge eyes.
“What do you mean you can fix this?” Constance asked. “Nothing can bring the dead back to life, Blake, you know that.”
I nodded. I did know that, but that was not what I need them for.
“I need to find my orbs. Just don’t let them bury her, because then it’s over.”
I walked over to her bed and my lips touched her cheek softly.
She still smelled like her, she was still warm. I breathed in her smell, what made her her, and a tear rolled down my cheek. I shut my eyes. I couldn’t bear to leave her, but I had no choice.
That dream had felt so real, as if I could reach her mind again. As if I’d finally got through to her about what the dent was, but I knew it wasn’t her. It was me, wanting it to be her. I’d gotten better and better at it every time I’d showed her that. She would become more real, the way I remembered her.
She didn’t know anything, because if she did know what she meant to me, she would’ve opened her eyes like I’d told her to that day. It’s all she has to do!
Those questions she’d asked. She’d never asked them before, but it was something that had been in the back of my mind for a long time. Did I jump back into the past? That kiss…it was how I’d always wanted to kiss her, but I was afraid it would unlock memories again and then she would end up ignoring me. She would never be afraid anymore if she would just wake. I knew how hard it was. I didn’t want to wake either.
“Soon, I’ll see you soon. I promise.”
I sniffed, kissed her on her head one last time and got up. I didn’t pay any attention to my mom and aunt, and walked out the door.
It had been a month since Etan had been freed, and she was one of the many that had been lost to us.
I needed to find my orbs.
