The Water Queens (Keeper of the Water) (8 page)

“Anyone that information leads back to – my mother, your
uncles
, Celeste, my… my mother,” I whisper. “They’re all dead and we’ll be long gone. Besides, we mostly lived off the grid so there’s not much they can find out about us.”

“What do you plan on doing with a camera crew and your new friend once we reach Brazil?” John asks. “You going to let her tag along? Lead her to the water?”

“Even if we move the water source, it’ll never be safe if humankind finds out that the fountain of youth isn’t a myth,” Amelia says. “There are too many power-hungry people like Cassie to let us be.”

“We need to get to Brazil first before worrying about details,” I say. “If Cassie reaches the water before us, it won’t be
other
people we’ll have to worry about.”

The van finally enters a small hangar where a sleek jet is parked, the CNN logo plastered on the side. Ashley and the cameraman get out of the van without so much as glancing back at us. She’s still on her cell phone as she heads toward the plane. The cameraman opens the back of the van and only takes a few pieces of equipment.

“What are you going to do with the van?” I ask.

The cameraman starts to walk away so we jump out and follow him across the hangar.

“Someone from the local affiliate will pick it up eventually,” he says.

We catch up to Ashley just as she reaches the plane’s steps. She hangs up her phone and turns to us before we can climb on.

“Sorry,” she says. “Your time ran out.”

The cameraman follows her aboard and closes the door behind him. My shoulders sag but John breathes a sigh of relief beside me.

“Should we rush aboard, Mentor?” Amelia asks. “I could still take control of the plane and try flying us.”

My recruit doesn’t sound enthusiastic about her suggestion; I’m sure she’s offering purely out of obligation. I appreciate her loyalty but shake my head. The jet’s engines whir to life and it begins to drive out of the hangar. I’m worried that my only chance of stopping Cassie is taxiing away; I’m also not looking forward to airport security discovering our unauthorized access. Hopefully we’ll be able to avoid conflict but –

The plane suddenly stops just as it leaves the hangar. My heart leaps but I tell myself not to get too excited, that the pilot is probably just waiting for instructions about which runway to head toward. But it’s not long before the plane’s door opens and Ashley peeks her head out.

“I heard back from my assistant,” she calls out.

My heart lifts though the reporter remains stone-faced. She holds up her cell phone.

“And?” I call back.

“Take a look for yourself,” Ashley says.

Steps lower from the plane and she makes her way down, tossing the expensive phone toward us. I snag it out of the air. When I look at the phone’s screen, I see the still shot of Cassie from the security footage next to last year’s yearbook photo of her. Though this has opened a can of worms I’ll never be able to close, I still feel relieved.

“She’s just a high school girl?” Ashley asks.

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you,” I respond, trying to ignore John’s groan beside me.

“We’ll see about that,” the reporter says. “Let’s go.”

Amelia and I rush forward and after a few seconds, John follows. As we rush up the handful of steps to the jet, Ashley Lutz calls out to the pilot, informing him to change course to Brazil.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The flight to South America is officially the longest ten hours of my life. I’ve been through a lot during the last week, pushed to – and sometimes
beyond
– the limits physically and emotionally. But the way Ashley questions me relentlessly pushes me mentally as well. I have to lie to her the entire time and I have trouble keeping my story straight. She pushes me for more information about Cassie and I eventually have to figure out an excuse
why
she was so desperate to get to Brazil.

“She was looking for a lost city in the jungle,” I say. “The Lost City of Z. Her mother was an amateur archaeologist obsessed with the topic. Through her research, she eventually thought she discovered the location, which supposedly holds wealth of unimaginable proportions. Cassie never got along with her mother so she killed her, hoping to take for herself all the fame and wealth of finding the city.”
             

“What about the other girls with her?” Ashley asks. “What can you tell me about them?”

I shrug. “I’m not sure exactly where she met them,” I say, not a complete lie. “But Cassie was known to hang out with a rough crowd. There may be substance abuse issues with them. My father found out Cassie’s plans so she killed him, too. She faked her own kidnapping to lure the three of us – plus my… my mother – into the swamps. Once there, she and her clan ambushed us; my mother died in the process and Cassie thought she left us for dead, too.”

“Tell me more about the three of you,” Ashley says.

I feel John’s eyes bore a hole through me but there’s no need for him to warn me. I immediately shake my head.

“I want nothing to do with this story,” I tell her. “The three of us had nothing to do with the hijacking; we want to remain completely anonymous. Our lives could be in jeopardy if Cassie got wind of what I’m telling you. I’m not saying another thing about her until I have your word that you won’t mention us in your report.”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t gotten to this point in my career by burning my sources. If you want to remain anonymous, that’s what we’ll do,” Ashley says. “So as far as you know, Cassie’s attack on you and the theft of the plane is all about money?”

She seems skeptical and rightly so. Cassie may be obsessed with power but traveling to the Lost City of Z – a place all Amazons have seen – won’t help her attain the wealth she desires. The only riches at the incredible lost city are those of the historical or archaeological variety.

“I’d say it’s more about greed and power,” I say. “I’ve known Cassie a
long
time; she’s always been heartless, always stepped on those people she didn’t like or didn’t deem worthy. You can ask anyone we went to school with.”

I try to paint an evil picture of Cassie. The details may not be completely accurate but the sentiment is still true. But the reporter can tell something isn’t quite right about my story.

“If she thought she already killed everyone who knew about it, why hijack a plane?” Ashley asks. “Why hurt so many other innocent victims if she didn’t need to be in such a hurry?”

“I don’t know for sure. Maybe she thought a few of us
would
survive,” I say.

Ashley shakes her head, calling my bluff.

“It makes no sense to steal a plane and then crash it when so much wealth is waiting for her,” she says. “And do you honestly expect me to believe that a gang of teenage girls not only survived the crash but could then hike through hundreds of miles of jungle?”

The hike is no problem when they’re fueled with water that provides incredible powers,
I think to myself. Obviously the explanation is simple enough but I could never admit it; Amelia would have every right to attack me for giving away Amazon secrets if John didn't strike first. My brain hurts from trying to keep straight all the lies I’ve told. I realize the details of my story don’t exactly gel with everything that’s happened but I do my best to portray Cassie as an ego-maniac (which isn’t a stretch of the imagination) who thinks she’s indestructible.

Ashley knows there’s more to the story that I’m not telling her. But after hours of flying and constant questions, I’m finally saved when she gets a phone call important enough to interrupt our interview.

“It’s corporate,” she whispers before excusing herself. The plane’s interior isn’t huge so she can’t move far enough away to avoid us hearing her conversation, especially when she becomes loud and angry. “No! This is my scoop and I’ll be damned if you let anyone else report it before we land in Brazil…
I
was the one who learned the girl’s identity; there’s no way another station will learn about it in the next few hours… If I find out a single word of this has been leaked, I swear I will take my follow-up story to a different station… I’ve found out why the girl and her gang took the plane in the first place, where they were headed… I don’t care if I’m under contract or not,
nobody
will pass on the chance to get this information… That’s more like it…”

Ashley may have been overplaying her cards but I’m not going to tell that to her bosses. Once she apparently gets her way, she no longer speaks loud enough for us to hear. She stays on the phone nearly an hour, during which time I watch her scribble pages of notes into a notebook. Amelia, John and I stay quiet, as if speaking might give Ashley more information we don’t intend to give. When she finally hangs up, she rushes back to our section of the plane and I expect the questions to start again. But this time she’s the one bringing news to us.

Early reports from the crash site stated that no survivors were found within the wreckage. As bad as I feel for the misfortunate souls killed in the middle of an Amazonian feud, a part of me can’t help feeling hopeful that Cassie and her queens also perished, that they were too overconfident in their ability to survive such a terrible crash. Usually, the thought of my Keeper in trouble freezes me with painful tingling; now, I feel nothing. If Cassie
did
die – and if her death was caused by the result of her own hand – does that mean the water of life survived? That the next person to claim it will be the new Keeper? I turn in my seat to ask those questions but know Amelia and John won’t know the answers.

I feel a sudden hollowness inside. Losing both of my parents the last few days has left me heartbroken beyond words. But it’s not until now that I realize Celeste’s death may be the worst loss of all. My first and only Keeper would’ve undoubtedly known more about Mother Earth’s laws of transferring the special water. Amelia may be an Amazon – and I may have loyal recruits out there still – but I feel like they’ll
be looking to me for answers I just don’t know. Unfortunately, the next news from Ashley makes my questions moot.

“Rumors
have
been circulating from Peruvian villagers miles from the ocean. Many have claimed to see a band of pale-faced women running at incredible speeds through their small towns,” Ashley says. “But experts doubt those stories for two reasons. First, nobody could’ve possibly survived the crash. Second, the villages are so spread out that
nobody
could’ve traveled such distances on foot in that short a time.”

“The experts are wrong,” I tell her. “That
was
Cassie.”

Instead of asking me how I can be so certain, Ashley turns to the others, undoubtedly hoping for more than the vague answers I’ve given.

“Your friends are certainly quiet,” she says. “Do either of you have anything to add?”

She looks at John; I’m afraid he’s going to snap on her. Instead, he shrugs his shoulders. When he speaks, he does so in a different language. I recognize it as Spanish but I only took a foreign language until I was a sophomore. The vocabulary I remember is limited and he speaks too quickly for me to pick out any of the words. Besides, I have a feeling the words he uses aren’t the nice ones we learned in class. Still, he doesn’t try to mask his accent and for a brief moment, everything around me fades away – the plane, the trouble, the reporter. It’s just me and John, his words of love seducing me, filling me with fire that –

“What about you?” Ashley asks, snapping me out of my moment. I hope nobody notices my flushed cheeks. I’m glad she’s focused on Amelia and pays me no mind.

“What
about
me?” Amelia snaps.

“You look very familiar,” Ashley says, staring closely at my recruit. “It’s like I’ve seen you somewhere before but I can’t quite place it.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Amelia says.

I know what Ashley means. Had my memory not returned – had I not remembered my final recruit – Amelia still would’ve looked familiar to me, too. She has very recognizable bone structure, not to mention that her hair still looks like she cuts it in the dark with a dull knife.

The plane suddenly hits a pocket of turbulence. Until this moment, I’d forgotten how much I hate flying. I’m not the only one. I reach out to grab the arm of my seat but John gets to it first. He grabs hold of it so tightly that his knuckles turn white. When I turn to look at him, his eyes are squeezed so tightly shut that his face is scrunched up. Seeing him so terrified almost makes me forget my own fear. I put my hand atop his and he doesn’t push me away; this brief moment at least gives me hope that we aren’t doomed after all.

Ashley doesn’t appear excited by the turbulence but she’s not exactly scared either; it’s easy to see that air travel is nothing new for her. But the only one with a huge smile on her face is Amelia. Although she slowly shakes her head, she looks like she’s genuinely having fun within the turbulence. She almost looks disappointed when the shaking stops.

“Your pilot need better glasses?” she asks. “Could’ve avoided that shaking with a little bit of skill. But no matter the advances, I suppose plane rides will never go smoothly.”

Ashley’s eyes slowly roam over the three of us. She can do little more than shake her head.

“Who
are
the three of you?” she asks.

I imagine myself in her shoes, imagine looking at us. We must seem quite the odd bunch but she doesn’t know the half of it. Before she pushes us further, her phone rings again. She continues to coordinate her strategy for when we land.

“Hold on a second,” she says into the phone before putting her hand over it. “The three of you might want to get some rest before we land in a few hours.”

Ashley looks too busy for rest and Amelia is always too full of energy to sleep; her foot hasn’t stopped tapping since the moment we took our seats. Having just drank water shortly before we met the reporter, I could probably go days without sleep if needed. But there’s no telling when my next quiet moment will be. Besides, I’ll do anything to escape answering more of Ashley’s questions since I’m sure she’ll have plenty more once we land.

I excuse myself and head to the back of the plane, taking the last seat in the corner. I expect to be left alone so I’m surprised when John comes back and sits next to me. He still appears upset and doesn’t even look in my direction. I have no idea where our relationship stands now that we’ve taken so many shots at each other. But when John puts his head back and closes his eyes, he places his hand atop mine and gives it a gentle squeeze. I don’t know why this makes me feel infinitely better but it does. There’s probably so much we could both say to each other but those words aren’t needed right now.

I close my eyes to feign tiredness but it’s not long before the droning of the airplane engines fades away…