Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3) (9 page)

My head shakes back and forth slowly. “So,
we’re not just trying to save the Aerlings.”

“We’re trying to save both worlds,” Sloane
says.

Sitting back against the headboard, I feel
sick as I let everything sink in. The fate of not one world, but two are
hanging in the balance. On the shoulders of four teenagers. I can’t even comprehend
how many lives will be lost if we fail. What is one relationship between an
Aerling and human in comparison to that? It should seem so miniscule in that
light, but strangely, it doesn’t. I can’t explain why, but the longer I think
about it, the more important it seems that Mason and Olivia shouldn’t be kept
apart. Maybe the fate of two worlds doesn’t rest on the four of us. Maybe it’s
just Mason and Olivia that will determined the future of the Aerling and human
worlds. It rings true as soon as the thought forms in my head. Somehow, they
will determine everyone’s fates.

Chapter 11

Standstill

(Olivia)

I feel like I’ve been stomped on. Like a
hundred times. Groaning, I try to lift my head, but I don’t get very far. Hands
move to help me. They’re not Mason’s, though, a realization that snaps my eyes
open. “Hayden?” I blink several times, taking in the fact that I am way cozier
with him right now than I have ever been before. Removing my arm from across
his chest quickly, I glance around the room in confusion. “Where are we?”

“I’m not sure, actually,” Hayden says. “I
guess I never bothered to ask. Getting caught up on everything kinda distracted
me.” He shrugs lightheartedly and helps me up to sitting.

“How long have I been asleep?”
On top
of you, no less
, I add to myself.

Hayden runs a hair through his perpetually
perfect hair. How does it stay so nice all the time? “Well, when I woke up this
morning,” Hayden says, “Mason told me it’d been about twenty-four hours since
you guys broke me out. It’s six in the evening now. You’ve been out all day.”
His eyebrows scrunch together as he looks at me. “You look like you still need
another two days of sleep.”

I
feel
like I need a week of sleep.
“We don’t really have time for that,” I say.

“Apparently not,” Hayden agrees.

“So, Mason and Sloane filled you in on
everything?”

Hayden ducks his eyes. “Uh, yeah.”

Groaning, I realize they filled him in on
everything
.
“Mason told you about what his parents said, didn’t he?” I shake my head,
wanting to slap him.

“It was Sloane, actually, and she told me
a bit more than what you or Mason know.”

I’m kind of surprised Sloane volunteered
to tell Hayden about mine and Mason’s problem, since clueing in Hayden only
puts him more out of her reach, but I’m even more disturbed by the idea that
there’s more to it that she didn’t bother to share with us. I listen as Hayden
explains the connection between the human and Aerling worlds and what failing
will really mean. Falling back against the headboard, I struggle to take it all
in.

“About finding the Mother…” Hayden begins.
I can tell by the hesitant tone to his voice that he’s figured out what I
realized soon after we got back and I had two second to process everything.

“Yeah, I know. I can’t find her without
knowing her and being connected to her.”

Hayden actually looks a little relieved.
“You already pieced that together, then?”

Nodding, I run my hands through my tangled
hair. I realize I must look like a mess by this point, but I’m too tired to
care much. “I need help, Hayden, but I have no idea who to trust at this
point.”

“Have you asked Sloane?”

My nose wrinkles in distaste, which makes
Hayden laugh.

“I kinda picked up on the hostility
between you two after the rescue. Care to explain?”

“I couldn’t find you without her help.”

“And that didn’t go well?” Hayden asks.

Huffing, I cross my arms and glare at
nothing in particular. “If you count her getting inside my head and stealing my
memories of you, then no, it didn’t go well.”

“She did help you find me, though, right?”
Hayden asks slowly.

When I look up at him with a nasty
expression, it falters in the face of his grin.

“What are you so worried about?” Hayden
asks, trying to contain his laughter. “Her seeing our time together doesn’t
mean anything. She can see it all she wants. It doesn’t mean she actually lived
it. It doesn’t change that fact that those were our experiences. She can talk
about it like she knows what happened, but she wasn’t there with me. You were.”

“She could feel everything, too,” I say.

Hayden frowns. “That’s kinda creepy, but
it still doesn’t change anything between us.”

Sighing, I’m annoyed at him for not
getting more upset about Sloane’s invasion. “Just, be careful around her, okay?
I think she’s got some kind of weird fixation on you, either from the memories
or because of Levi.”

I don’t miss how Hayden instantly tenses
up at the mention of Levi’s name. I know Levi’s death still haunts him, but
he’s never done that before. Before I can question him about it, though, Hayden
moves on. “Anyway, we need to figure out how to get you connected to the Mother
or this whole plan is going to fall apart.”

“Do we actually have a plan?”

“I was using the term loosely,” Hayden
says.

Glad to be talking about something else, I
say, “Where do we start?”

“I doubt you’re going like this, but you
need to ask people for help. Sloane, the Montgomery’s maybe, the Parkers if we
can get in touch with them, anyone you can possibly think of that will be able
to shed some light on the Mother. If we can’t actually manufacture you
knowing
her, we have to get you familiar enough with who she is that we have a chance
at making a connection,” Hayden says.

My first choice would be going to the
Parkers for help. After the attack on their home, the Caretakers Officers put
them into hiding. We can’t contact them. They call when they’re able, but it’s
dangerous for them right now. My view of the Montgomery’s has changed
drastically since discovering all of Robin’s lies, but trusting them is still
hard to swallow. That leaves me with Sloane, who I really don’t want to ask for
anything. Speaking of my least favorite new friend….

“Where is everyone?”

Startled out of his thoughts, Hayden looks
around for a moment. “Robin’s trussed up on the floor by the window. Sloane’s
standing guard outside and Mason went to grab everyone some dinner. Pizza, I
think.”

Surely Mason will be back soon, but
there’s no time to waste. Sighing, I shake off my insecurities and make a
request. “Would you mind trading places with Sloane for a bit so I can ask her
some questions?”

Hayden nods and stands up, but before he
walks away, he points a finger at me. “Play nice, okay?” When I roll my eyes at
him, he says, “If you don’t, I’ll call in all the basketball time you owe me.
You’ve got to be up to like a week straight by now.”

That draws a smile to my lips. I love
Hayden, but basketball sucks. Okay, I suck at basketball, but still. “How about
you teach me to skateboard instead?”

Grinning, Hayden says, “Deal.”

I shake my head at him. How does he go
from serious grownup to ten-year-old boy so quickly? I don’t think I would have
survived all of this without him. As soon as he disappears, I miss him, but I
really feel the loss when Sloane shuffles into the room and sits down across
from me on the bed, legs tucked up beneath her nervously.

“Hayden said you have some questions?”

“Yeah,” I say, “about the Mother. I need
to get to know her.”

Sloane nods, as though she’s been
expecting the request. “I’ve only been back home for a year, but the Aerlings really
hammer home the history of our people when new Aerlings return. I’ll tell you
everything I can.”

“Great. Let’s start with what kind of
person she is. What’s she like?”

Settling in a little more comfortably now
that she realizes I’m not going to bite her head off, Sloane takes a deep
breath and begins. “Well, the Mother is a nurturer. She and the Father each
played different roles. They created the Aerlings together, but while the
Father focused on making us strong and capable, the Mother made sure we were
filled with kindness and compassion. She understood that surviving wasn’t the
end goal. There was no point in protecting a civilization that wasn’t willing
to care for its own and those less fortunate. She governed the morals of the
Aerlings while the Father governed the structure and protection of the
society.”

“So, who’s been doing all the nurturing
and morals and stuff since she’s been gone? It’s been millennia, right?”

“Sure,” Sloane says, “but all the basics
were put in place a long time ago. Having her there to answer moral questions
and guide everyone toward kindness and compassion would be great, but it’s not
like the Aerlings need to be led around by the hand. It’s more like she set up
the rules and laws and the people were expected to follow them. Tāwhiri
took over a lot of her responsibilities when he came back, but it’s not the
same.”

Thinking about what she’s said, I can
easily accept the roles of each supreme parent. That’s how every society is
ran, really. One group governs day to day life and the other governs law and
morality. Something about the comparison doesn’t quite sit right with me,
though. Maybe it has more to do with what Mason told me outside the compound.

“Tell me about the barrier. The Mother
created it, right?”

Sloane nods. “Yes, after the war between
the brothers, when they realized Tāwhiri couldn’t defeat Tū.”

“Wait,” I interrupt, “why couldn’t
Tāwhiri defeat Tū? Is Tū stronger?”

“No, of course not,” Sloane says as if
I’ve asked a stupid question. “They’re evenly matched. Neither one can defeat
the other.”

“But Tāwhiri defeated his other
brothers. Why not Tū?”

For a minute, Sloane just stares at me.
After a few seconds she shakes off her apparent confusion and says, “Sorry,
Olivia, all of this has been crammed into me for the last year. I forget how
little the Caretakers know, or how little they teach the Aerlings in their
care.” She shakes her head again. “Tū and Tāwhiri can’t defeat each
other because they’re not just brothers, but twins. The first children born to
the Mother and Father. They share each other’s power, and so they can never use
it to defeat the other.”

“Hold up,” I say as what she just said
immediately hits me as wrong, or mistaken, or something. “Before we left,
Cedrick said we didn’t have to defeat all the Sentinels, we just had to defeat
Tū and then everything would be fine once we fix the barrier.”

“Yes,” Sloane says slowly, clearly not
getting what I’m saying.

“But we have Tāwhiri’s power!” I
exclaim. “How the hell are we supposed to beat him with Tāwhiri’s power if
Tāwhiri himself couldn’t do it?”

Sloane’s shoulders drop, clearly confused.
“I…I don’t understand.”

“Join the club, sister.”

About that time, Mason and Hayden both
come striding back into the room, arms full of pizza and sodas. Mason is
immediately on alert just seeing Sloane and me sitting together without me
glaring at her and ready for a cat fight. Hayden glances between the both of
us. “Everything okay?” he asks.

“No,” Sloane and I both say.

Mason sets down the pizzas and gets even
more serious. “What’s going on?”

“What did the scarred Sentinel say to you
at the compound? Specifically,” I ask.

My question does nothing to put Mason at
ease. “He said he wouldn’t need to stop us from fixing the barrier because once
we learned the truth we wouldn’t want to fix it.”

“He didn’t say anything about how we
wouldn’t be able to hurt him?” I demand. “Did he know we have Tāwhiri’s
power?”

Caught off guard by my questions, Mason
sits down on the edge of the bed. “No. He didn’t mention either. Why?”

“Because Tū and Tāwhiri
can’t
defeat each other. At least, that’s what the Aerlings have told everyone.
That’s why they had to create the barrier, because Tāwhiri couldn’t defeat
Tū since they’re twins and share the same power or something like that.
Mason, we can’t beat him if that’s true.”

“
If
that’s true,” Hayden says
darkly.

Sloane looks up at him in confusion. “What
do you mean,
if
that’s true? Why wouldn’t it be true?”

Hayden scoffs. “Ninety percent of what
we’ve been told by Caretakers, Sentinels, and Aerlings has all been a load of
crap. All three groups have twisted their history to however it best suits
them.”

“How does this story benefit the
Aerlings?” Mason asks him. I want to know the same thing.

Leaning against the dresser behind him,
Hayden frowns. “If the barrier was put in place for a reason other than what
you were told, this story gives the barrier a believable backstory, one the
Aerlings won’t question. It’s for their protection. The big bad rotten apple of
the family is out to get them, but locking them all up tight in the Aerling
world keeps him out, right?”

“Right,” I say, beginning to see where
Hayden is going with this. “They don’t want to leave the Aerling world once
they get there, because leaving means being exposed to Tū. They’re happy
being locked up like cattle.”

Sloane starts shaking her head. “But…I
don’t understand…I mean, why would they want to close off the worlds if it
wasn’t to protect us from Tū?”

“I’m sure part of it is to protect the
Aerlings from Tū,” Mason says. “None of us can deny the fact that he’s
going around killing Aerlings and Caretakers. There’s another reason they want
to keep him out, though.”

“Like what?” Sloane asks quietly.