Synergy (34 page)

“So what do we do? Are there hospitals here?” I asked.

“No,” Jason said. “Looking at you now, there’s no sign of any damage, even if there was a place to take you to. I’m only telling you this so you can exercise caution.”

“S
o she doesn't need to go in The R
ealm?” I clarified.

“I’m going,” Madison said firmly.

Perodine cleared her throat. “I think what Jason is trying to say is that the two of you need to find Landen, and quickly.”

“Why? For Willow?” I asked, not grasping this one-track mind they all seemed to have.

“No, for Madison,” Jason corrected. “Landen is a healer, and I mean he is a divine healer; he heals so deeply that he erases it. If anything happens, if any one of you get hurt, you make sure you get to him as fast as you can.”

“He’s asleep in there. Y
ou realize that, right?” I asked.

“I’m just saying if you have a choice, wake him first. Even if he isn’t completely focused, he would be able to heal, better than my daughter did,” Jason said in a calm tone.

“So as a doctor, you’re OK’ing Madison going into this battle zone,” I clarified.

“As a doctor, yes; as a father, no. But if
I
can’t stop my own daughter, I doubt I can stop her,” Jason said as he casually looked over Madison once again.

“Divide and conquer, wake the healer, that’s what you need to do,” Perodine said to me.

I nodded and looked at Madison, noticing how overly
confident
she was.

“Can we speak with Madison alone?” Jason asked.

“Why?”

“We just want to explain the risk to her, and I think I’d have better luck if she wasn’t looking you in the eye,” Perodine said to me.

“I’m going regardless,” Madison promised.

“I’m sure you are, but I’m not letting you go without explaining the risk clearly,” Perodine said firmly.

Madison and I both stared at the woman, but all I could see was the image of Drake when I looked at her. Madison nudged me to go into the room. I didn’t argue with her; I was numb at this point and ready to get this over with. I would make it my personal mission to wake Landen up. I was confident that I could reach him rather quickly, or at least trick Bianca into showing me where he was.

Inside the room, Aden, Draven, and Brady were talking to Willow. People were walking in and out, setting up an altar at the foot of the bed. There was already a ring of salt around the
bed;
at least it looked like salt.

I felt someone touch my shoulder, and I turned to see Olivia. “Hey,” I said
quietly. “Monroe get to Chara
?”

“She did. She told me to give you this,” Olivia said, handing me a ring. I recognized it; Monroe wore it on her thumb, it looked like a vine. I slid it on my finger, and I swear at that second I felt calm, very calm.

“Did she say anything, like point out a color or something?” I asked, thinking of the night of Draven’s test, the night I found him in the color of purple as Monroe had casually mentioned.

Olivia looked curiously at me. “I asked her if this would be over when we found Landen and Drake’s bodies in there, and she said
...
she said it wouldn't begin to be over until we found Bianca’s
. Have you ever seen her
there?”

I focused my eyes on Olivia as I analyzed every one of her words. “First of all, Monroe spoke to you; tha
t must mean she trusts you. I’ve seen Bianca in The Realm
more times than I care to recount, but I’ve never been able to kill her.”

Olivia glanced at the bed, then to me. “Are you sure you’re fighting her? What if she’s really laying in a bed somewhere, and you’re killing an illusion or something?”

“Interesting,” I mumbled. “Feels good to try, though. Besides, if you die there, you die here, so... I guess if that were to be true, she’d have t
o be an illusion inside of one. A
s crazy as that sounds.”

“When we get these boys back, we’ll figure her out,” Olivia said confidently.

I twirled the ring on my finger, noticing that even though I should have a thousand emotions coursing through me, I was calm enough to see clearly. Even though I recognized the seriousness of what was about to happen, I had no fear of it, of anything. “Dreaming what you’ve d
reamed  - do
you really think there’s going to be a tomorrow?” I asked, expecting my death with no emotion.

Olivia glanced at Willow. “She’s more balanced than she looks. When I first had that dream, I would’ve told you no, but now that you’re here...I’m going to say yes.”

I nodded and gave her a faint smile, telling her without words that I didn’t share her confidence. I then walked across the room to Draven. I didn’t know if this ring I was wearing was doing something to me
,
or if the adrenaline had just exhausted itself from my body, but I felt so
calm
. Aden glanced over me, noticing my fingers twirling the ring in place. His eyes questioned me, but I had no answers to give him, so I loo
ked away from his intense stare
laced in reasonable fear.

I
kept glancing into the hall at
Madison with Perodine and Jason.  I didn’t know what they were saying to her, but it was clear that Madison was growing more and more determined to end this as quickly as possible. Every time she stepped toward us, Perodine would either say something to halt her or reach for her arm.

Willow was standing with Draven and Aden. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, still trying to understand the calm I was feeling. As I reached Draven’s side, he put his arm around me and I leaned into him, feeling his magnetic energy; it was making me even
calmer
. He glanced down at me with alarm in his eyes.

“What?” I whispered.

He leaned into me and whispered. “You’re dim.”

Ok so Monroe rocks. No doubt there. Where was this ring before?
“Considering where we’re going, that might not be a bad thing,” I murmured, closing my hand around the ring. The thought crossed my mind to give it to Willow so she wouldn’t tempt Draven when she was alone with him, but I knew Monroe well enough to know that if she wanted Willow to have it, she would have ensured that she did.

Aden began to explain to Willow
how we were going to divide in The R
ealm, that Bianca had separated Landen and Drake. She was having a hard time understanding how Bianca was using memories of Drake and Landen to create illusions. She didn’t seem to care about the memories, but I knew from experience that she should; when she saw the illusion of them in her arms, it would be paralyzing to her. We also had to make sure we woke them up there, that they knew who they were, but that was a long, complicated story that I didn’t care to explain to Willow right then. I wanted to get this over with. Saving them now meant saving all of us; the stakes couldn’t be any higher.

Willow’s attention was immediately on me
. “How do any of you plan to declare an illusion of Drake to be false? You don’t know him. I’m the
only one that really knows him
.”

She asked me that because Aden had told her that when we
saw
Landen and Drake in The R
ealm, it might not be them, and when we declared it was an i
llusion it would send the memoires - energy back to their souls. Basically, it would
wake them up a little more. We all assumed there would be at least a few illusions we would have to face befor
e we figured out where their souls were trapped
.

It was obvious that Willow was afraid that we weren’t able to save Drake, at least not without her. She needed to learn to let go - divide and conquer. “We don’t know him,” I said, glancing to the doorway where Madison was, “but we know Bianca. I know her very well. If I call her out on who she is,
seeing
through the illusion, she won’t be able to hold that memory. Trust me.”

I knew that Madison would know who the real Drake was. Her sixth
-
sense of emotion
s was extremely powerful in The R
ealm, not to mention the auras of energy she could see. I also had a gut feeling that Madison’s dreams had led her to know Drake, more so than Willow thought.

“How many illusions of hers have you seen? How sure are you?” Willow asked.

“More than I care to have. Understand that the images she shows you of them in passion are the ones that are the furthest from
the truth. When you’re close. Really close. S
he’ll show thousands. Everywhere you look, you’ll see her arms around him, him begging her to hold him tighter.”

“No soul. N
o innocence,” Draven said quietly as he pulled me closer. I assumed that he must have told her about what we went through, how Bianca had fooled him once.

I let the conversation of the room fall silent in my mind. I was trying to see into Madison. She was blocking me, but from what I could gather from the intense look on Perodine’s face, they were trying to talk her out of going
into The R
ealm. 

As calm as I was, I had a gut feeling that told me that I was on the verge of losing her. I kept seeing that image she’d sketched of the lifeless girl on the floor. I
tried to tell myself that
had already happened, but I couldn't shake the feeling. Even though I was supposed to find Drake
in The
R
ealm, I was going to keep my eyes open for the healer, for Landen.

I heard Willow tell Olivia that she should go with us instead. They’d just told
Willow that if we die in The
R
ealm, you die for real, and
Willow was trying to prevent Olivia and Madison’s nightmare
from coming true; she didn’t want to be near anyone who looked like her. I wanted to agree, but Olivia refused to agree to that plea.

Draven pulled me against him tightly, then slowly let me go and went to Willow’s side. Aden came to mine. I glanced up at him. “Look who’s finally going to hunt with me,” I said slyly, trying to take the edge off his mood.

He elbowed me and smiled, revealing his dimples. “What’s that about?” he asked, nodding toward Madison. I shrugged my shoulders and let him see what I knew. I saw the concern in his eyes, but my attention was pulled away. Draven was trying to explain to Willow that she had to be careful
with her energy in that world. T
hat a little would go a long way.

“Remember how we talked about pulling energy? How I pulled from Charlie?” Draven asked her. Her eyes reflected a
yes. “In The R
ealm…that’s the pl
ace that I’m tempted the most. E
verything is heightened. When I think that I’ll just take a little, when she thinks she’ll just give a little – we’re already crossing a line. You’re going to want to give everything you have to wake them, and you can’t do that.”

“If that’s what they need, I will,” Willow promised.

Draven moved his head from side to side as he locked his jaw in fru
stration. “That will kill you. T
hat will kill them.”

“How am I going to know what they need? What I can give?” Willow asked.

“I can’t tell you that. You need to put aside your desire for instant gratification. There will be a delay, and in that delay you’ll want to give more, but you can’t, not until you kn
ow for sure that they need it. T
hat you have it to give more.”

Even though the calm I was feeling had imprisoned my emotions, my mind forced me to be afraid. I didn’t know if Draven could handle that, seeing her light in that place. I doubted Willow would know when to stop, and the last thing she’d be thinking about wa
s how she was tempting Draven. N
ot because she was cold, but because he hadn’t told her how addicting light was to him; none of us had.

As soon as I felt that emotion, Willow locked eyes with me. “We’re all coming home,” she promised. I nodded and turned the ring on my finger, and instantly calm came back to me. I was determined to wake them before Willow could, when Draven was far enough away from me that his hunger wouldn’t tempt him.

I focused on the man in the cloak. It looked like he was almost done setting up whatever he and Perodine needed to open a door for Willow. I caught a few glimpses of him, his memories, as I watched him. His name was Alamos. He was priest or something like that, and he was a
lmost always at Drake’s side...
but his history stretched all the way back to Willow’s first birth. He loved Perodine. I was sure of it.  What a complicated web all these people weave. If there were going to be a tomorrow for me, I was looking forward to figuring them all out. It didn't make sense that Willow had two people in her life that were millions of
years old and still needed us. W
hy could they not figure out how to see?

Draven and the others were explaining to Willow and Olivia how they could create a
ny weapon, do anything in The R
ealm, and how they must have a degree of urgency while we were in there
.