Lightning In My Wake (The Lightning Series) (22 page)

I was more confused than ever. All these history lessons were fine and good, but the only thing I really was concerned about was Theo and how to relieve him of the madness that was slowly consuming him.

“Just tell him what to do!” Screaming at Collin wasn’t what I intended. But it happened anyway. The last two weeks made me feel like I was constantly teetering on the edge of sanity myself.

“T
he Synod want to enter
Paraíso
—not for the gift of seeing the Almighty, but rather to ‘borrow’ the Army of God for a sole purpose.”

My hands moved him along with a paddlewheel motion.

“They want to annihilate the human race.”

Even though I was supposed to be strong for Theo,
the information overload made me lay down in place, resting my head in Theo’s lap. I still didn’t understand Theo’s place in all of this. And more than anything, I needed to know. After all, the former Eidolon’s didn’t fare so well.

A groan of complete frustration erupted from me. Collin was vomiting out a lot of things, but none of them were actually helping.

“Where’s Pema?”

I turned to face Collin, hoping that the fierce expression on my face would make him spill his guts and her whereabouts.

“In Tibet.”

“Call her, please. Tell her we need to see her.” I pointed at the Viking, “And don’t even think about telling me that you don’t know how to contact her.
We all know better.”

“Theo,” I implored him, dragging him out of another deep thinking session. I’d itched for days to flash but I felt guilty travelling when
my grandmother could no longer. “Let’s go somewhere far away. Just come with me. By the time we get back, Pema will be here and we can get some answers.”

He didn’t answer, so I took control of bringing him back to sanity. Enveloping his waist in my arms, I flashed us to the first place I thought of
—the Haiku Stairs in Hawaii. I was so careless, I didn’t even think about the time difference or about anyone spotting us—I just needed to get Theo away from it all.

He needed to be reminded that he was the Eidolon but the Eidolon wasn’t all of who he was.

When we arrived, it was right before dawn and thankfully the only people awake that I could see were eager surfers who probably thought that a storm was now brewing from the sighting of the lightning. The entire island could be seen from that vantage point. It ranked in my top ten places to see the sun rise.

“Do you remember this place,” I asked him, framing his chiseled jaw with my hands.

After a few minutes, he shook himself free of the depths and met my eyes. “Hawaii, when we were fifteen.”

“Welcome back,” I grinned and as he mirrored my smile, it became apparent how long it had been since we were happy. It seemed like decades past.

We stared at the ocean for hours as the sun rose. I missed the sun rising. I missed my gift. Lately it had just been used to run from the Resin or the Synod, whichever one they were.

“Can you promise me something,” Theo asked with an attitude of lament. His hair was out of control now, blowing this way and that. High School Theo would’ve offered him some gel and a comb. He laid back as he spoke, taking a more relaxed stance against one of the steps behind him.

“I will promise you anything.”

He blew out a breath, heavily laden with sorrow, “Sometimes I can’t pull myself out of it—like today. It’s like the voices anchor me to that spot in the garden.  Can you promise to get me away from there if it gets too heavy?”

“How do I know when? Is there like a code or are you going to knock twice and whistle once?”

It was a lame attempt at a joke but hearing him laugh proved it was worth the shame.

“Use your intuition. It worked pretty well today.”

Who knew I had intuition. That little attribute may have come in handy all the times I’d stepped out of line.

“Come here,” he commanded, patting the spot between his legs. “You’ve been taking care of me when it should be the other way around.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just always been that way.”

I tilted my head back so that I could see his face upside down, “Maybe that was the problem, Theo. Maybe all the time you were taking care of me, we should’ve been taking care of each other.”

He lowered his face down so that his lips barely grazed my forehead. Outlining the perimeter of my face, he whispered, “I think you’re right. But do I still get to spoil you?”

“Absolutely. What? Just because you’ve got super powers, you think I don’t need shoes? Please.”

What started out as an easy laugh evolved into an all-out, doubled over, tears running down his face laugh—a every time he stopped, we would begin again.

A text brought us back down to Earth. It was Collin, informing me that Pema was back.

Chapter Twenty-One

Theo

Lucents should not attempt to travel while pregnant.

Could I just ignore the whole Eidolon thing? It would be fairly simple. I could avoid the gardens, the books, and the Synod for the rest of my life.

Easy.

The gardens were simple to avoid. The books were missing. And the Synod, well, they were actually a problem. Everyone was scared of those three heinous wenches. But to my knowledge they’d never carried out any orders other than to punish Colby by not letting her travel.

Now we knew they were capable of so much more. In the days that followed Rebekah’s murder, there had been whispers among the other Lucents about the scandal. It wasn’t a secret. Everyone knew who had murdered Rebekah. They may not have killed her with their own hands, but they had ordered it for sure.

Plus, I didn’t want Colby living the life of a fugitive. She deserved better than that.

“I guess we’d better go see what Pema has to say. But you’re not going back to that garden. Even if I have to chain you down.”

I rolled my eyes at her tenacity. We flashed back to the house of the Lucents where Collin, Ari and Pema were already in some kind of heated conversation. Heated wasn’t quite the word to use. Ari was in Pema’s face pushing her back inch by inch with tiny, jerky shoves.

“Hey, knock it off Ari.”

Colby’s spunk best friend turned on us, “She’s nuts. She’s trying to defend the Synod.”

“Just sit down, everyone, please.” Theo begged. He was exhausted, anyone could see how this whole ordeal had worn down on him.

All five of us sat down and for a few minutes were silent—each of us, I supposed, were gathering our thoughts.

Pema ticked her eyes around the room like she was on the clock and her lunch hour was dwindling away. “Collin said you have questions.”

“I’m only going to ask one question. What is my purpose?”

Pema took a deep breath and crossed her hands over her lap. “The Eidolon’
s original purpose was to escort those caught in the fray to
Paraíso
. They are shrouded in doubt and cannot find their way. However, your purpose to the Synod is to allow them to travel to
Paraíso
with you. They think that somehow they can tap into the power of the Almighty and command His army. They plan to threaten God with the annihilation of the human race.”

“But isn’t that why they want the army?”

“No, they wish to use the army to enslave the humans. But if necessary, they will begin to slaughter the humans until the Almighty relents.”

“So I don’t let them go with me. It’s done.”

Pema zeroed in on Theo with a gaze that could melt steel, “Yes, because the Synod reacts so well to being shot down when they want something.”

Pema was sarcastic after all.

“Colby and her mom will go into hiding—Ari and Sway too—and my parents.”

“You’d cement them into a life of hiding—which isn’t a life at all.
Trust me. That’s what Eivan did to us. His love for Sevella kept him from completing his tasks. He refused to grant the Synod entrance to
Paraíso
and in doing so, thrusted us into this life where our family is scattered to the winds, assuming aliases to keep the Synod off our trail. It’s no life worth living.”

I didn’t know if it was just this moment, or everything building on me and coming to a head. But if
Pema wasn’t a girl, I would’ve added the word throat punch to her vocabulary five seconds ago. These damned people wouldn’t know a straight answer if one was stapled to their eyelids.

“So what choice do I have here?”

Pema wrung her hands in distress. For a few seconds she studied the wall behind me—I recognized the maneuver as one of procrastination. My mind made no attempt at figuring any of this out—it was done trying to navigate a maze that had no exit in sight.

“The way to
Paraíso
must be locked—or the Synod must be overthrown. Those are your choices.”

I applauded her straight answer and even more, answers that seemed easy. Well, the first choice seemed easy.

“So, I figure out how to lock the path and that’s it. Jeez, you would’ve thought I had to throw myself into a sacred volcano the way you two stayed so cryptic.”

Collin stood and excused himself from the conversation, dragging a very unwilling Ari with him.

Pema closed her eyes while she spoke the next words, “In order to seal the path between
Paraíso
and Earth, you must close it from the inside. After all, the Almighty opened it from heaven’s side, it must be closed in the same way.”

“Meaning, I won’t be able to return.”

She parroted me, “Meaning you won’t be able to return. I’m going to get some fresh air. The two of you should talk.”

Pema expected me to talk to Colby about the tw
o grave options we had, both choices left much to want. But I couldn’t even look at her, much less talk to her about which path I would take. Needing an anchor to stop my swaying, I reached out for her—but she recoiled in an aggressive huff.

“Don’t, Theo. You promised.”

“Which promise was that? I’ve made millions of promises to you.”

“The one where you promised not to leave me.”

My own anger decided that this was the time and place to seek an outlet. I roared at her, “Colby, really? Does it look like I chose this? Is this a promise I’m breaking or a life that chose me regardless of what I want? I don’t want this life. You know what, Colby? This is not about you! For once, this is not all about you and that’s what you can’t stand! All my life I’ve put you above myself and was glad to do it and now this happens to me and you can’t take the heat.” My own eyes dilated in repulsion of what I’d just said to her.

I expected tears or screaming. I expected slapping and pinching or something equally as violent. Instead I became the receiver of a rebuttal I never thought Colby was capable of—silence.

It turned out that silence was the sharpest knife she could’ve stabbed me with. It was beyond hurtful, what I’d said to her. I’d like to deny the whole thing, but Colby had always been a tiny bit self-absorbed—but it was one of the qualities I found endearing about her.

“Colby, I’m sorry.”

My apology didn’t really even cut it.

“I need to breathe.”

The tones of burgundy in her wake told me all I needed to know. More than angry, she was hurt. In this time when we needed each other most, I’d pushed her away with callous accusations. I was certainly not fit for being an Eidolon.

The so-called answers Pema and Collin provided me, answered the issues about who I was and what was expected of me. But I now knew, firsthand, Eivan’s great dilemma.

In the cavity of my chest, her path travelled through me, making me aware of her travelling direction. She must’ve been really pissed at me, because she hit all the places I hated. I hated Antarctica. I hated Easter Island. I wasn’t really fond of the Cayman Islands. And one by one, she hit them all.

She could never be contained, even in anger. Her love of the Earth and all it contained would remain the same
even if she was in hiding. So, hiding her would be like killing her.

I could fight the Synod, but that would put Colby, her mom, and my family in danger.

I’d rather them be in hiding than in danger.

One way or the other—I was screwed.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Colby

The Escuro must not be spoken of.

Why was this happening to us? Why was Theo chosen and why in the name of all that was holy couldn’t all this just end in a big, gushy, happily ever after?

I wanted to throw myself on the ground and beat my fists on the dirt in a dramatic, childish show of ‘this isn’t fair’.

Because it wasn’t fair. The Synod just get to live their hoity toity lives, cooped up in that hallway of horrors. Pema gets to be set free and Collin probably wanted to give her his Viking Sasquatch babies. And two of them would live happily ever after and I would be stuck here without the one person I needed more than air.