Lightning Kissed (7 page)

And this was one of them.

She was that bull-headed. She would’ve stood
there and agreed to bonding with me just to make sure she could
come with me.

If Colby was going to bond with me, I’d be
damned if it was going to be under duress.

Forget the Resin and the Synod and our
parents—I was gonna kill the beauty myself and then chase her
around eternity until she folded.

The door that linked my parents’ room to
mine was open. I figured it was now or never. They needed to know
every facet of the situation in case something happened to me.

I splashed water on my face in the adjoining
bathroom before knocking on the frame of the door that led to their
room. They both turned their attentions toward me. My parents knew
most of the situation with my new gifts, but I hadn’t told them
everything—not even close.

“Colby,” my mother questioned. She claimed
there was a particular expression I got after my encounters with
Colby. It used to be one of utter and complete joy. But since
things had, on the surface, ended between us, it had evolved into
total and complete pain.

“It’s fine, Mom. We do need to talk though.
I have a feeling she will tell you if I don’t.”

“Sit, son,” my dad commanded.

I recounted the whole story. Everything I’d
found out about Eivan, all my gifts, and all my suspicions. My mom
began to cry halfway through, and we stopped several times in order
for her to compose herself. It was hard to watch. It was grating on
my heart, knowing I was the one bringing her pain.

“What is the plan? How can we help you?”

My father was all business. He supported all
that the Lucent culture was. His mother was a Lucent and now his
wife was one as well. He worshipped my mom.

I felt movement somewhere in my psyche and
knew it was Colby. She was flashing, and I concentrated on her so
that I could know exactly where she was going.

The tiniest of jolts resonated in my chest
as she landed. Involuntarily, I closed my eyes and pictured her in
my head, as I grasped at ways to pinpoint her location.

Rebekah—she’d gone to see her Grandmother.
To seek her counsel, no doubt.

“She’s gone to Rebekah,” I relayed the
information to my parents.

“You two try so hard to escape each other.
The world itself will turn on its axis when you finally give in.
And I, for one, can’t wait.” My father chuckled and kissed the
temple of my still weary mother’s head.

“What do I do, Dad?”

My father and I had a decent relationship.
He’d reared me to be calm and patient, yet headstrong, just like
him. It had caused a rift between us when I was a teenager. But by
the time I was eighteen and needed him after Colby had left me, the
tension fizzled.

My head hung and then plopped into my palms.
She aggravated the fire out of me. This was the problem and the
glory of Lucent women. You couldn’t hold them down. Any man in love
with a Lucent female was doomed and blessed to eternally chase her
lightning. You couldn’t anchor them. You couldn’t guarantee they
would be in your bed the next morning or anytime at all.

But when I had Colby—I had her heart and
soul.

I smelled the cologne that was uniquely my
father’s as he kneeled down in front of me. He didn’t force my
hand. Instead, he waited for me to look at him. When I met his
eyes, I expected to see pity. I wasn’t in the most predictable
situation. There was only hope.

“Theodore, we will work through this. And
you may hate me for saying this, but I think Colby accompanying you
is the best option. She has bravery where you would rather fall
back and remain safe. She has an ability to see the details the
rest of us miss. But she needs you to ground her—she can be a
bit—boisterous in all things.”

I saw his point. “I won’t tarnish her
reputation with the Synod. The Almighty knows she’s already in
trouble with them every time she turns around. I know we’re in the
modern world, but the Synod is still in the nineteenth
century.”

He chuckled, causing him to fall right on
his ass. “So, we have a job to do—convince Colby to bond with
you.”

***

Everything was clearer close to the coast.
The moon stared at me in judgment as I lay in my room after several
more hours of pointless discussions about what ifs. It was almost
like it knew the thoughts revolving through my head.

Even the moon knew what a head-case I
was.

Colby was still with her grandmother,
discussing who knew what. My stomach churned at the thought of her
speaking to her about me—how to manipulate me into giving into
her.

They were all against me—the lot of them. I
expected my father to agree with me. I expected him to say he would
help me convince Colby to keep her pretty nose and, in turn, her
pretty life, out of my business.

He was a traitor.

As I lay there, arms crossed behind my head,
I concentrated on where she was. Inquisition consumed my thoughts.
I could almost picture her there, in her grandmother’s grand
mansion.

“Rebekah, please. Stop speaking to me in
riddles and tell me what to do.”

Shooting straight up in the bed, I looked
around the room, thinking I had inadvertently flashed to Rebekah’s
home. But I hadn’t seen Colby, nor Rebekah—only heard her words.
Maybe I’d just begun to fall into a dream and imagined her
voice.

It must’ve just been a dream.

LUCENT GIFTS ARE TO
BE USED WITH HONORABLE INTENTIONS.

“You should eat some fruit.”

I threw myself dramatically onto my
grandmother’s French blind-stitch couch. It didn’t give an
inch—none of her furniture did. All of her living room furniture
and dining room chairs were covered in plastic and were harder than
brick covered in steel. Every time someone moved an inch while
sitting on them, the plastic gave off the most curious sounds.

My grandmother, the oldest Prophet, had
stopped progressing in terms of technological advances when the
Synod took its place among our people. She only spoke to me about
such things. She said when they cut themselves off from her and the
sight given directly to her by the Almighty—it was akin to death.
She felt useless and discarded. Since the formation of the Synod
marked nefarious advancement in her eyes—she stopped advancing in
protest. Stepping into her home and her presence was like stepping
back to an age where Xoana ruled the Lucents and we were
queens.

Now the Synod were the queens.

And my grandmother was forgotten by
most.

We, technically, weren’t supposed to call
her the Prophetess, but that’s what she was, regardless of what
they said.

“I’m telling you that my—Theo—could possibly
be the next Eidolon, and you’re suggesting I eat a tangerine and it
will all be better? Come on, Prophetess, give me something other
than that.”

She slapped my thigh, and it stung through
my lightweight maxi dress. A rebellious tear came from my eye, and
I swiped it away before she saw it—not for the slap, but for Theo.
She grabbed my hand with hers in reaction to my crying. I loved my
grandmother’s hands. With age, her fingers had become slim, while
her knuckles stayed the same size. Her hand wrapped around mine was
like being surrounded by silk.

“Don’t sass me, Colby Sage. I can still tear
your behind up.”

My grandmother hadn’t whipped me since I was
seven. I’d lied to her and told her I was at the library when
really I was in Madagascar after seeing that movie by the same
name. I’d inadvertently gotten on the news for some weird flashes
of lightning they saw on the top of one of their mountains.

Oops.

Busted.

“I’m sorry, Grammy. What’s fruit going to do
for me?”

She let go of my hand, picked up her
never-ending cross stitching, and shrugged. “I thought maybe I
could think if your mouth would stop running for five seconds.”

I pulled my other arm away from where it was
shielding my eyes from the world. Grammy was pooching out her lips
and sucking in her cheeks in order not to laugh at her own
sassiness. I inherited my sass directly from the source.

Theo was still in Belize. I could feel him
there and then a fuzzier version of him in New Zealand, which was
disconcerting to say the least.

My head was a mess. This was why I’d broken
up with Theo—to keep him safe from being on the receiving end
of—me. But what had he done? Gone and gotten powers and abilities.
He was making my job nearly impossible. Not to mention, he hadn’t
let me have my way earlier on the island. That was the most
aggravating of all.

Since when don’t I win?

With his admission that he may be Eidolon,
which I hoped he wasn’t, he’d made a whole plethora of new enemies.
He had the usual nemeses, the government, the Resin—but now he had
the whole Lucent community as well as the Synod. There was a reason
they’d formed so long ago. They weren’t pleased with what the
Prophets foretold and so they thought writing a book and sitting at
a long table would suppress the prophecies.

They were dead wrong.

I grew serious as I addressed my grandmother
then, not as a granddaughter, but as a Lucent looking for guidance
from the Prophetess. I turned to her and smiled at her features.
Her hair was still blonde, but glints of silver peeked out around
her hairline and in the round part of her bun. Her skin was
flawless. She could easily pass for someone in her forties.

I hoped I could be half as breathtaking when
I was her age.

“Rebekah, did you see it? Did you see Theo
in a vision?”

“Be specific in your questions.” She caught
my tone and in turn changed hers. It was like the very atmosphere
turned to the past where she was revered and I longed for her
words.

“Did you see the coming of another
Eidolon?”

“I did. I’ve seen it many times. He will be
the one to restore the Resin—the ones who want it. But only if he
can conquer his greatest fear. This fear is keeping him from
attaining all the power, and it will prevent him from closing the
door. It is a shallow fear, but one whose roots bind his hands and
anchors itself into his very soul.”

I blew out a breath. I’d hoped against hope
she would say no. I needed her to say no.

Why couldn’t she just say no?

Theo didn’t fear anything—I’d never seen him
cower at horror movies or any of the heeebie jeebies most people
run from. He wasn’t afraid of anything.

“What is his fear?”

She cut her iridescent green eyes at me.
“That’s not the right question.”

Now I knew she was in full Prophetess mode.
She struck down any question whose answer would be the one I
needed. Instead, I had to ask vague questions that led to nowhere.
I was aggravated beyond anything.

“Rebekah, please. Stop speaking to me in
riddles and tell me what to do.”

“Find the truth. Even the so-called
upholders of the truth are expert liars. Search and find the truth
for yourself. False truths camouflage lies which are the truth no
one wants told. There is one keyhole, but many keys.”

What—the—hell.

“I have to convince him to let me go with
him.”

She got up and I expected something profound
from her.

“I think I have some leftover meatloaf.”

I shuddered. “Meatloaf, Grammy, really?”

“I no longer flash, child. I can eat
whatever I want. Now go. I know you’re going to him. Best do it now
while he’s open to your ideas. By morning he won’t be so
obliging.”

***

Theo was asleep when I flashed into his room
an hour later. I waited the hour just out of spite—one day, I
supposed I would grow out of that. I couldn’t wait until the day
when I grew out of all my finicky habits. He must’ve been exhausted
because he didn’t even stir when I flashed in, or when I sat on the
edge of his bed. I hated to see his face in a scowl while he slept.
All this time, I’d been thinking of how difficult it would be for
me to protect him. But looking down at his brow furrowed so heavily
in his sleep, I could see how all of this was affecting him. I
flashed from where I was on the side of the bed to the middle on
the other side of him and leaned over his face. He had no pajamas
on, only a pair of those plaid boxers that I loved to hate. They
were so awful. He looked like an old man. I giggled at how much I
hated them, plus how good he looked in everything he wore.

I rubbed my thumb between his eyes on the
bridge of his nose, attempting to get him to relax his brow. He
stirred and woke.

“
Querida
, are you okay?”

He looked me up and down—what he was looking
for, I didn’t know.

“I’m fine. Can we talk? No sarcasm or
joking, just talk?”

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Brown hair
fell every way but the right way and I loved it. Rarely was Theo
disheveled, and so seeing him when he first woke up or after he
was, well, riled up—it was a treat. It had been way too long.