A Fractured Light (14 page)

I sat by myself again on the bus. Ellie was talking loudly about me a couple of seats away.

“Freak,” I heard her mutter. “I bet she’s on steroids or something.”

I sighed and leaned into the seat. The trees blurred past my window. Only a month or so ago, Ellie and I had kind of been friends. I closed my eyes again, willing the bus ride to be over.

Aunt Jo had cooked a feast. She let me shower off from the race, and then the two of us set the table while we danced around to romantic comedy soundtracks. At eight, the doorbell rang, and I opened it to see Cassie and Dan standing on my doorstep. Cass was dressed up in her favorite vintage dress, the yellow one with the little flowers. One leg was cut off a pair of tights to fit over her cast. Her red hair was piled into a purposefully messy bun. The fact that Dan was wearing a jacket instead of his navy-blue hoodie meant that he had dressed up, too.

“Yay!” Cassie said, clapping her hands. “Dinner party!”

I hugged them both. “Come in!” I said with a flourish.

“Hi, guys!” Aunt Jo called from the dining room. As we walked in, Cassie presented her with a bottle of red wine.

“From my mom.” She winked. “She made Dan promise not to drink any so he can drive me home.”

“That’s responsible,” Aunt Jo said, patting Dan on the back.

Dan mumbled something under his breath.

Aunt Jo brought heaping plates of food to the table while Cassie and Dan sat down. The doorbell rang again, and I got nervous, like Asher was here to pick me up for a date or something. I hoped he was in a better mood than he had been in this morning. Later I’d confront him about his conversation with Devin.

Asher was standing on the porch, and when I opened the front door, he smiled down at me. There was a shyness in his eyes, a vulnerability that I still wasn’t used to. He was wearing a deep green sweater and brown corduroys, and held out a bouquet of flowers.

“Don’t get your hopes up.” He smirked. “They’re for Aunt Jo.”

“Did you dress up for me?” I asked, smiling widely as he walked in.

“No.” He shook his head.

“You did,” I said. “You totally dressed up.” With a glance over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching, he turned on me, taking my waist and drawing me close to him. I shivered. He leaned in as if to kiss me but instead moved his head to the side and whispered in my ear.

“I should probably say hi to everyone else.”

I knew for a fact that I was turning red, and the room was growing warmer. Asher laughed. It seemed like no matter how good I was becoming at controlling my powers, he could still swoop in and ruin all of my progress with a single touch.

“Guys?” Aunt Jo called. “Dinner!”

It was the best dinner I’d ever had. Aunt Jo had prepared heaping family-style bowls of pasta, lamb tenderloin just the way I loved it—smothered in her ancho chile rub—and her special string beans. We’d opened the bottle of wine, and Cassie, Asher, and I were all flushed and happy. Dan was good-natured about it, but I couldn’t help but think how sweet it was that he was listening so intently to Cassie’s mom’s instructions. Cassie and Dan were like my couple role models. Maybe one day, when all of this was over—
if
it ever could be—Asher and I could be together in a normal way, living in some normal house, just being . . .
normal.

Sometimes, as I looked around the table at my old friends—Cassie, beaming at Dan as he passed her the pasta—I almost forgot what was happening to me, that I was trying to turn myself into a fighter. I felt strange, like I was keeping something from almost every single person at the table. And I was. But a houseful of people determined to keep me safe was better than a lonely, empty house. It was a feeling I’d never really had before. This was my family.

Aunt Jo was laughing and smiling, but I noticed that the smile never fully reached her eyes. She looked far away, and every time she glanced at Asher, she began to fidget nervously, an uncomfortable look washing over her face. What was going
on
with her? I’d never seen her act like this. I started to wonder: had she been so upset because I had run away—or because I’d been spending so much time with
Asher
?

After dinner, we nibbled on some lemon bars. I got up to bring a stack of plates into the kitchen, and Cassie followed me. The bruises on her face were looking a lot less purple now, but her eyes were still ringed with a muddy yellow. “Do those hurt still?” I asked tentatively. I put a large ceramic bowl in the sink.

“Getting better,” she said, flinging a stray hair over her shoulder with a dramatic sigh. “I hate this effing cast, though. Do you see how stupid this looks?” She motioned to her one-legged tights.

“Maybe it could be a new look?” I asked. “Like cutoff shorts?”

“Not likely.” She snorted.

I patted her head. “I’m glad the accident hasn’t affected your adventurous fashion sense.”

Cassie giggled. “I like Asher,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one could hear.

“You do?” I beamed. “I just want . . . I want us all to, you know, get along.”

“No, he’s really great.” We peeked into the dining room, where Asher and Dan were apparently having some heated music debate. “I’m glad you don’t hang out with Devin anymore,” she said suddenly. “He’s really such a creep, Skye. He gives you the weirdest looks in homeroom.”

I hesitated. All I wanted was to come clean about everything. “I know,” I told her. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“I mean, he didn’t treat you very well at all, even as a friend. And he wasn’t very nice to any of us.”

I busied myself arranging the remaining string beans on a platter into a haphazard flower pattern.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

“And his new girlfriend’s the worst. I mean, seriously. What a bitch.”

“Cassie, come on. I know all this.” I turned around, and we looked each other straight in the eye.

She gasped. “Oh my god. Skye, no way.”

“No way, what?”

“You still have feelings for him!”

“What? That’s crazy. I so do not.”

“Do we really have to go through this again? You absolutely do. I can tell these things.”

“You’re losing your touch,” I said.

Her hand flew to her mouth.

“Skye Parker, you can abandon me in the hospital to spend time with your disgustingly gorgeous boyfriend and you can invite me to dinner and get me tipsy, but you wound me on the very deepest level when you insult my ability to detect matters of the heart—especially when it comes to you. Did I or did I not call Asher from Day One?”

I smiled, despite myself. “You did,” I admitted.

“So what is happening with Devin?”

I wanted to tell her. I wanted to stay up late after everybody left, gushing about everything that had happened to me since her accident. But what if the Order was watching? Lurking in the woods, just like the notebook said? Was that a risk I could take? What if this time, they actually took her life? I couldn’t be responsible for that. I
wouldn’t
.

And then there was that other troubling thought. What could she see in me that I couldn’t? Did I still have feelings for Devin? Even after everything I’d been through, was it possible I still cared about him?

“You’re wrong this one time,” I said. “There’s nothing happening.” And I wasn’t lying about that, at least.

She stared at me, and I could tell she thought I was holding back.

“You know, we used to tell each other everything,” she said. Then she turned and walked into the dining room.

I sighed and threw the rest of the string beans into the composter. I had a feeling that Cassie would never truly forgive me for leaving until I could finally tell her the truth. But I knew that if I told her, she could get even more hurt than she would if I didn’t.

Aunt Jo went upstairs to go to bed, and the four of us spilled out onto the deck. The night was so balmy that we didn’t need jackets—or maybe we were all just flushed and a little giddy from the wine. Cassie kept ribbing Dan for being her Designated Driver. “No, no,” she kept saying. “It’s cute! You’re my knight in shining armor!”

“All right,” Dan said. “That’s it! You better run!”

Cassie shrieked and slowly made her way down the steps of the deck, and Dan pretended to chase after her, into the field behind our house. We could hear them laughing, and then suddenly we couldn’t hear them at all—which meant their fighting had devolved into making out.

Would I ever find something like that? All I wanted was to feel safe and stable, like my life wasn’t going to suddenly change in the middle of the night. I loved Asher so much, but he was part of a scary and unpredictable world. And now, for better or for worse, I was, too.

As if reading my thoughts, he came up behind me and wrapped me in his arms. I leaned back against him, letting my cheek graze against the soft wool of his sweater. Above us, a shooting star streaked across the night.

“Make a wish,” Asher whispered.

“I think I already have.”

“You know,” he said, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you caused that shooting star yourself.”

I laughed and nodded. He pulled me even tighter against him, and I could feel his breath rise and fall more rapidly against my back—and the marked lack of a heartbeat.

“We’re so close,” he whispered into my ear. “Every day, you’re getting stronger. The universe is shifting. Can you feel it?”

“Yes,” I said, gazing out at the stars. “I can.”

I had no idea what the future held, but for now I’d just have to be happy resting in the arms of my dark angel.

That night, after everyone had left, I lay in bed, staring up at the cracks and water marks on my ceiling. I was still warm from being with Asher, still felt his arms wrapped tightly around me. I tried to let the memory comfort me, lull me to sleep. But my brain kept working, and I knew sleep was impossible.

The notebook called to me from the bottom drawer of my dresser, under all those socks. I tried not to think about it, rolled over, and stared at the blank wall—but something pulled me back. Finally I couldn’t hold out any longer. I jumped out of bed and thrust my hands into the bottom drawer, digging around until I found what I was looking for. The little notebook stared up at me, taunting. Whose was it? Could I have really written this? It seemed so unbelievable.

It had to have been a relic from a different time. Another hand had held the pen that formed those words. Another set of Guardians had stalked those woods. In a time before I was born. A time—I realized, staring harder at the date—
right
before
I was born. Then a strange, new thought lit up my mind, and I sat down hard on the floor where I had been kneeling. What if it wasn’t
my
handwriting that I was staring at? I stared at the page as the words came to life in my mind, and a whole story for the cabin and the little notebook wrote itself in my head. What if it was someone whose handwriting I had recognized?

What if it was my mother’s?

Chapter 17

I
an came through, after all. The Mysterious Ellipses had a gig at the Bean on Saturday night. Cassie sent me a thousand and one texts informing me of this.

I had an early-morning ski practice with the team. Asher was right: each day I felt myself growing stronger, learning to control the power that surged through me in the most mind-blowing ways. My times were getting better, too. I knew my chances of making team captain were looking good. I’d always had a great relationship with Coach Samuelson, and even though I’d left the team, he didn’t seem to be holding it against me.

When I got home, the energy still crackling off my skin, Asher was leaning against the front porch with his arms crossed.

“Hey,” I called. “What are you doing here?”

“I miss the old days.” Asher grinned, some of the familiar playfulness returning to his voice. “I thought we could go out back and practice together.” He laughed. “I miss you getting all huffy and yelling at me.”

“Aunt Jo’s home,” I said. “We can’t go out back.”

“Then let’s go for a hike or something.” He winked at me. “Where no one will see us.”

I felt my cheeks redden. “Let me just run in and drop my stuff.” It took me a few minutes to convince Aunt Jo I was responsible enough to go on a hike with Asher, but I finally met him out back, and we hiked out to a trail I rarely used. It was a warm morning in early March, and the sun crept through the heavy evergreen trees, throwing beams of light across our path. We hiked single file, not speaking much. Every now and then, Asher would grab my hand and spin me around for a kiss. When he did, the sun burned brighter, making the trees shimmer with thousands of tiny evergreen flames. So much snow had melted and the purple alpine flowers were blossoming once again. I tried not to think about what they meant to me, but the purple flowers, like seeing Devin in the halls at school, reminded me that I wasn’t
just
a Rebel. There was Guardian blood in me, too—my mother’s. No matter what the Order stood for or what they had tried to do to me, the more I thought about the notebook—that small piece of her, the only piece I had left—I felt I couldn’t just abandon the part of me that she was responsible for.

Just because that part was harder to see didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

I was now sure that my visions were my mother’s powers flowing through me in some way. Those were powers of the mind, vaguely precognitive in some sense, even though I wasn’t manipulating anyone else. It was my own mind I was controlling. My own thoughts. I just had no idea how, or what they meant.

“Have you had any word from the Rebellion?” I asked Asher as we neared a clearing in the trail. “Do they know what the Order is planning?”

He avoided my gaze.

“Asher?”

“No, nothing yet. They’re biding their time, waiting for you to get stronger. Killing Oriax was sort of the first shot fired—the official end of the truce. But the Rebellion will come back with something fierce, don’t worry.”

“How will we know when they do? Aren’t the Guardians nervous?”

“We’ll know,” said Asher. “And yes, I imagine the Guardians are just as concerned about the coming war as we are. They know we’ll retaliate, but they don’t know how—because of you. Don’t forget, Skye, your powers are making it impossible for them to foresee the outcome of this war. Thanks to you, they don’t know what we’re planning. That’s one of the reasons why the Rebellion needs you.”

An uneasy feeling made the hair on my arms prickle. I’d known this in the clearing in the woods the night that the Order had tried to kill me. Whichever side I chose to align myself with would have untold power. I didn’t want to believe that was the reason Asher wanted to be so close to me, but a small part of me couldn’t help but feel it was awfully convenient that we were suddenly inseparable right when the Rebellion was trying to hide plans for a retaliation.

I shook my head. No, that couldn’t be it. Asher loved me. He just wanted to be with me as often as I wanted to be with him. I couldn’t believe that he would use me for the Rebellion’s purposes just to win a war. Wouldn’t that make the Rebels—my friends—just as bad as the Guardians?

This was a dangerous train of thought. I had to wipe it from my mind.

“Asher,” I said suddenly.

“Yeah?” His eyes were focused on the edge of the woods at the far end of the field.

“Think fast.” He whipped around just in time to dodge the fireball I lobbed at him. He grinned and threw it back at me with lightning-fast speed. Rather than ducking, I closed my eyes and raised my arms high in the air, calling an enormous gust of wind that carried the fireball into the sky. It dissipated into the thinnest wisps of smoke.

“Not bad!” Asher called. He walked toward me slowly, an evil grin tugging on the side of his mouth.

“What?” I said, backing away. My voice was shaking slightly, but not because I was afraid. “What is that smile for?”

He reached me, running his hands up my waist and pulling me close. The sun burned bright through the trees, too bright, blinding, until the thousands of tiny evergreen needles erupted with real flames.

“Oh,” I said under my breath.

“I think,” Asher said, the evil smile widening, “that we need to work on your control when this happens.” He trailed his hand up my neck until it was cupping the back of my head. I drew in a shallow breath. The fire consuming the pine needles began to crackle inward, trickling along the branches toward the trunk of the tree. Asher leaned in slowly. He touched his forehead to mine and tilted my neck up so I was gazing into his startling black eyes. Dizzying eyes. “Focus,” he said, his voice no louder than a whisper.

“On what?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“Your emotions.” His lips grazed my earlobe. “Use them to fuel your power. Put that fire out.”

I closed my eyes, trying to block him out. I could feel the tickle of his breath on my neck, his eyelashes flutter against my cheek. I swallowed.

I could do this.
Focus.

The crackle of the fire was growing into a roar. I opened my eyes, and the tree was ablaze. Panicking, I broke away from Asher.

“Come on, Skye,” he said, pulling me back to him. “I believe in you.”

Okay, I had this. All I had to do was conjure up a storm—something big enough to put out the beginnings of a forest fire. I’d done it before, right? In the car with Ardith, I’d controlled the streaks of lightning. I’d kept our small car from getting struck by the blinding flashes that touched down all around us. Flashes that my own volatile mood had caused.

As I turned in a slow circle, taking in the fire that was now raging through the trees, Asher wrapped his arms around me and whispered into my ear. “Focus, Skye. Make the fire stop.” It was almost impossible to focus on anything with Asher’s hands running up my back, but I closed my eyes again and I thought of rolling black clouds, thunder rumbling so hard it shook the mountains, cracks of lightning that lit up the night. When I opened my eyes, darkness had fallen like a blanket across the Colorado sky, and I knew that they were glowing liquid silver.

Lightning flashed across the black, starless sky. It touched down a few feet away from us.

“Come on, Skye!” Asher’s voice grew louder.

I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, letting every ounce of energy that I had flow through me.

That’s when the rain came. A freezing, fast rain that drove down in heavy sheets, soaking us. I started to laugh as the thunder rumbled beneath us.

Asher took my hand, and we stood there, watching the rain wash away the fire. It soaked my clothes and plastered my hair against the sides of my face; made Asher’s hair look even wilder and matted his eyelashes together like he was crying. I gripped his hand tighter, and he turned to face me. I wasn’t laughing anymore.

The look in his eyes was so strange. A fierce mix of love, fear, pride—and something else. Something that made me shiver in the icy rain.

Possession.

And that’s when I dropped to my knees.

The rain swirled around me, so densely that soon it blocked everything out, and suddenly it was daytime and the rain had stopped and I was sitting on a rock overlooking the field on my favorite trail. I’d sat there so many times before. The last time I’d sat there had been with . . .

I looked up, and Devin was sitting next to me.

“Try it,” he said softly. His voice was gentle, so calming. As always. “You have this. Just focus.” I looked down at my hands. I was holding a small withered flower. Just a tiny, dead thing.

“I
am
focusing,” I said.

“Focus harder.” I closed my eyes. And when I opened them again, the flower that I held in my hands was purple, vibrant, and alive.

“You did it,” he said, his voice quiet with awe. “I knew you could.”

“Skye?”

I opened my eyes. I was lying on the soaking wet ground, completely drenched. My teeth were chattering, and I coughed up a lungful of water.

“Hey,” Asher said, kneeling next to me. He brushed his hand against my cheek. “What happened? Another vision?”

I nodded.

“Can you sit up?” he asked.

“I think so.” He put his strong hand on my back and helped me to a sitting position.

“Maybe things got a little intense,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I really thought you could handle it.”

“I—I
can
handle it,” I said, blinking slowly.

“I just thought . . .” He swallowed, and suddenly he looked nervous, vulnerable. Such a departure from his usual mask of confidence that, for a moment, I worried that something was really wrong. I reached my hand out and touched his cheek lightly.

“What?” I asked.

“I . . . hate that I can’t be close to you without something bursting into flames. I feel responsible, like it’s my fault.” He looked at the ground. “I thought if we worked on controlling it, we could . . .” He took a breath, and I realized his hands were trembling slightly. “I wanted us to be able . . . I mean, one day, you know, I was hoping . . .” He coughed, and a shadow of the old cocky smile returned. “Be together, you know?”

“Asher,” I said, taking his face in both my hands and drawing his eyes up to mine. There were no witty retorts left in me. All I wanted was to be honest with him. “Me too. We’ll get there. It will happen.” I kissed him, a soft, tender kiss. “I promise.”

“I love you,” he whispered.

And all the snappy comebacks in the world couldn’t compare to that.

Asher put my arm around his neck and helped me back down the trail. About ten yards from the house, I heard something snap behind us. When I whirled around, there was nothing there.

“What was that?” I asked, trying not to let my voice give way to fear.

“It was nothing,” he said, but his eyes grew dark. “Nothing.”