A Matter of Forever (14 page)

As the days go by, I start creating windows for all the rooms featuring various views. In my bedroom, it’s Rome. In the conference room, it’s the view of Karnach from outside of Guard HQ. In the living room, people can watch the waves from Kauai. In the kitchen, I pick what I think is a view of Paris. Eventually, people start requesting views for their private rooms and I am happy to oblige by giving them exactly what they want. A false sense that I’m actually doing something other than simply cowering in fear as I hide away from the worlds settles over me.

I call Cameron and Will every single day, even if for only five minutes, just to check in. I hate that I have to be vague with them, hate even more that I’m forced to lie at times. They, like so many others, think that Jonah, Kellan, and I got sent off on various missions at the same time, although I think Cameron has his suspicions that something is off with my story.

“You’d tell me if something were wrong, wouldn’t you?” he asked me just the night before. And I told him I would, even though Zthane has specifically requested we stay quiet about our location for at least the next week or so, so I feel like a horrible person deceiving yet another important person in my life.

If that wasn’t frustrating enough, Jonah was right when he said Kellan would not take away my pain, either. So after wracking my brain for another solution, I go instead to Karl and ask him to teach me how to fight.

He’s in the kitchen, making crepes. It amuses me how many of my friends are foodies and I manage to still ruin water when I attempt to boil pasta. “You mean, like hand-to-hand combat?”

I steal one of the broken crepes littering the counter next to the stove and shove it in my mouth. “Yesh.”

“I’m a Quake, Chloe, not a cage fighter.”

Rats. I guess—

“I have a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu,” Iolani says suddenly. She’s over at the refrigerator, pulling out a carton of grapefruit juice. She smiles winningly at Karl. “I am a Volcanic
and
a black belt. We ladies are quite badass, you know.”

Well now. This is quite convenient if I do say so myself. “Do you think you can show me some moves?”

“Let me check my schedule.” She pretends to pull a list out of her pocket. “Hmm ... mm-hm. Yep.” The imaginary list is stuffed back in her jeans. “I suppose I have a little free time I can slot you into. But only a little, mind you. I’m quite busy down here.”

I toss one of the broken crepes at her; she giggles and easily dodges it.

“Yes, you’re so busy,” Karl drawls. “It must be so exhausting, watching all of your soap operas one after another. What will you do if you miss an episode? Will Joe ever tell Jane that he screwed her daughter? Will Bob ever let Mary know he had quintuplets with the nurse that woke him up from brain surgery?” A sly grin curves across his lips. “Inquiring minds must know!”

“It’s Marcel who cheated on Felicia with her daughter.” Iolani sticks out her tongue. “And Rudolpho and Estelle with the quintuplet problem. But my, my, Karl Graystone. Don’t you know these storylines just as well as I do? How very scandalous of you.”

I burst into laughter. “She’s got you there.”

He sighs, but he’s chuckling, too. “Moira is obsessed. It’s like osmosis. Even Em is more interested in watching them than her cartoons. And now Lani here is watching them day and night with the volume turned way up ... it’s like I can’t escape.”

“I’ll tell you what, Graystone.” Iolani pulls a glass down from the cupboard and pours herself a drink. “How about you watch my eppies for me while I’m working with Chloe? That way, I can get all the deets from you and it will be like I haven’t missed a step.”

I crack up all over again at how he pretends to be so excited at this. “Can I? Really? We can debrief afterward!”

Iolani kisses her hand and pats her butt. “You know you want to know.”

“Whatever.” He turns to me. “Why the need to fight? You’re a Creator. I’m pretty sure you can best anyone without having to throw a punch.”

I hop up on the counter. “You’ve seen how the Elders tear me apart.”

Both eyebrows shoot up. “You want to physically fight Elders? Like ... with your hands?” He shakes his head. “Chloe, I’ve been with you in several of those fights. You don’t need to land a punch. You have your bow, not to mention all you need to do is touch one and it’s gone.”

I weigh my following words carefully. “I think learning to fight would be highly beneficial to my success against Enlilkian.”

He takes the pan off the fire and sets it to the side. And then he turns and looks at me, arms crossed. “You think learning how to fight will help you fight Enlilkian.”

I nod slowly.

“Um, I’m gonna have to agree with Karl here,” Iolani says. “I can’t see the point?”

Gods. Fine. “I want to learn how to fight, because I want to learn how to deal with pain. Okay?”

Great. Now they’re both looking at me like I’m speaking gibberish.

“Enlilkian has figured out that if I am in too much pain, my craft won’t work.”

They’re still looking at me like the words coming out of my mouth aren’t clear.

I sigh. “When people fight, there is often pain, correct?”

Seriously, now. Is what I’m saying really that hard to understand?

“I want us to fight. And I want you to punch me,” I say slowly, “and I want it to hurt so I can train myself to work through pain.”

Ah. Okay, now they’ve got it, because they both jerk back. And then Karl laughs. “Good one, Chloe. You had us going there for a minute.”

“I’m serious!”

“Yeah? Then take this seriously.” He takes a step closer. “We are not going to beat the crap out of you no matter what benefits you think it has.”

“Chloe, surely you realize how crazy this sounds,” Iolani says.

“You know what’s crazy? Me not being able to will one of those things out of existence because I am in so much pain I can’t even think of the words I need to do so. I keep going up against Enlilkian, only to have him keep kicking my ass.” I hop back off the counter. “This last time, everything I tried to do to him failed. Nothing I made could not be unmade by him. And then he beat the shit out of me so I had no chance of doing anything, anyway.” I resist the urge to scream out my frustration. “I need to take him out. I need to do it soon. I keep failing. There are people dying and I am the only one who can take him out, so ... I need somebody to help me figure out how to manage my pain. I’m asking you guys for that help.”

Uneasiness shines from Iolani’s dark eyes. “Why not ask Jonah? He’s an Emotional.”

“Jonah is not an option for this. Neither is Kellan.”

“Why are you not using the shields I taught you?”

I turn to find Kopano standing in the doorway. The Batswana Hider’s hands are stuffed in his pockets as he regards me with his nearly black eyes.

“You came to me over a year ago to learn how to make personal shields. I am no Emotional, but I believe it might be possible to construct a shield in your mind to block pain receptors. I cannot guarantee this, though. But it might be worth a try?”

Goose bumps race up and down my arms. Could the solution I’m looking for really be so simple?

Several hours later, I’m perilously close to shattering every last breakable object in the bunker.

Back when Kopano first taught me how to create personal shields, I had to work my butt off to get them right. It took extreme concentration and dedication to erect solid shields that would not fail me. And even then, it took further concentration to hold onto them so they would last. Nothing Hiders erect are permanent; most are required to go into a meditative state to hold onto what they build. Annar’s shields, for example, have to be fortified by a Creator as it becomes impractical for Hiders to spend every waking moment holding up their constructions.

But here I am, working on trying to create shields to block pain, and I am failing miserably. Every pinch I give myself is still felt.

“You will be black and blue if you keep that up,” Kopano says to me while we take a break.

Too late. Tiny discolorations bloom up and down my arms, but I have very little other choice. Neither Karl nor Iolani were willing to hit or slap me during my afternoon lesson and I sure as heck wasn’t about to ask Jonah or Kellan to do it. So here I am, pinching myself, hating myself for my weaknesses, and wishing with everything I have that I could already master this already.

Too much is at stake otherwise.

“It’s weird swimming so far down underground, isn’t it?” Iolani says one afternoon.

She’s right. It seems wrong, I guess, that we are swimming in a nicely heated pool while there are people at risk above us. But as nearly a full month has passed since I woke up down here, I’ve found it’s best to keep myself busy lest I go insane with my what-ifs. I miss my family. I wonder all the time how Cameron is, and what the Métis Council will do with the colonies now that they’ve finally decided to allow an Emotional to work on their people but suddenly have the only two Emotionals they’ve agreed to work with disappear on extended missions. I wonder how Will is doing with Becca. I wonder how Callie is doing, and if she is still crushing on Will. I wonder about Astrid, and if she misses her boys desperately. I wonder if my mother is okay out in the rainforest. I wonder if she knows about my dad.

Life has come to a standstill down here. I tell myself that I’m lucky that, if I must be kept in protective custody, at least I’m here with Jonah. But on the flip side, we are also stranded with his increasingly miserable brother who has withdrawn so far into himself that I’m lucky if I hear ten words a day out of him. He has no outlet right now, no way to deal with his pain, so his anger builds and snaps far too often.

It’s funny how you can miss someone desperately when they’re standing right in front of you.

To make matters worse, I still haven’t mastered Kopano’s shields, despite working with him every day. I don’t know if I ever will, or if it’s even possible. But I keep right on trying, even though I can’t get a clear answer from Zthane on when we get to leave this place.

I hope it’s soon. We’ve got work to do.

I answer Iolani’s question by telling her, “Yeah, it really is.”

She swims over to the mosaicked steps I’m sitting on, slicking her long, dark hair back so she resembles the epitome of a Hawaiian goddess. But just as she opens her mouth to say something else, her eyes go wide at whatever is behind me.

I turn and am positive mine go ever wider. So wide, in fact, that I worry this is a dream and bizarre things like my eyes actually popping out of their sockets may occur. Because standing several feet away is my father.

“Hello, little Creator,” he says in an accent that’s not native to his mouth.

I scramble out of the pool; Iolani is not far behind. Am I awake? Is this happening? I pinch my arm without even looking. Ouch—yes. This is real.

“Father is quite put out with you,” the thing in my father’s body tsk-tsks. “Actually, more like enraged since he can’t find you.”

I slip on the wet tile as I shift Iolani behind me. This isn’t Enlilkian. This is one of his ... children, maybe? I’ve already taken plenty of those out. Whoever this is, it could be, no pun intended, child’s play in comparison to their father. I just need to get a little closer.

I drop a cage right over my father’s body.

The Elder in my father curls his fingers around the bars, amusement flickering across a face I’m not used to seeing amusement on.

I close in on the cage, ready to will his ass straight to oblivion, when he adds, “Relax, little Creator. I’m not here to hurt you. Far from it, actually.”

Yeah, right.

But then I get a good look at my father’s body. Compared to the ones I saw a month back, it’s in remarkable condition. The skin is slightly puffy and grayish, but other than that, it doesn’t show the decay like the others’.

Imaginary fists strike me in the stomach.

“Text Jonah,” I whisper to Iolani.

The thing in my father sniffs the air. “Outside of your nausea right now,” eyes drift across my body, “and a series of oddly patterned bruising along your arms, you are the picture of wholesome health.”

“He’s coming.” I’ve never heard Iolani so unnerved before.

“My job will be all that much easier,” the Elder continues.

I’m wary, hanging just out of its reach. “What job?”

“I’m a ... what do you call us now? A Shaman, I believe. But what I truly am is Bios.” He grins, running his knuckles across my father’s bare chin. “Father was a little concerned he might have overreacted during your last meet and greet.” It shakes me to my core to see my father’s eyes roll. “Can’t permanently damage the womb of our new race, after all.”

“What?”

He ignores my outburst, simply scrutinizing me instead.

Iolani throws a flip flop at the cage, drawing his attention toward her. “How did you find this place?”

The thing called Bios leans forward, sniffing the air once more like a dog would. “How interesting. Magma and obsidian. Sulfur. Tell me, daughter of Vaesta, does your interior flame match that of your powers?”

“I am not daughter of whoever this Vaesta is,” Iolani snaps.

“Of course you are. Her essence wraps around you. My sister ...” My father’s eyes glaze over, like he’s in the midst of a pleasant reminiscence. “So fiery, that one.” He pushes off the bars and retreats to the middle of the cage. “But enough petty talk. We’ll have time enough later for that. For now, I am tasked with a message.”

This is all too surreal. It’s talking to us like we’re friends or something. Where are the insults? The threats?

“I’m sure you have your ways of stopping me,” Bios says, unbothered by my mounting anger and confusion. “Please know that if that is your wish, I won’t put up much of a fight. I’m your gift, after all. Just because the peon who once wore this skin is gone doesn’t mean this body isn’t yours to keep.”

This Elder, possessing my father’s dead body, is a
gift?

Jonah comes skidding into the room, followed by Kellan. I can hear Zthane and Karl’s voices down the hallway.